Night Mask (10 page)

He cut his engine to hear better, and stood for a moment. He heard only the silence. He looked around and spotted Lani's shirt lying on the ground. “Oh, no!” he said. “Jesus Christ!”

He picked up the shirt. His thoughts were dark and very, very primitive.

“Lani!” he yelled. “Lani!”

No human sound greeted his words.

Leo had left his 9mm behind for this run, choosing instead to carry a .45 caliber autoloader. In his opinion (one shared by many others in the field of law-enforcement), the .45 caliber autoloader was the finest combat pistol ever developed. The big slug was a man-stopper that was unequaled in conventional calibers.

“Lani!” Leo shouted once more.

Nothing. Leo thumbed open the snap on his holster. Then he heard the faint sounds of cussing. The sound became clearer and Leo smiled. Lani was really letting the words fly.

“Lani!” he yelled.

“I'm right here!” she returned the yell.

He lifted the shirt. “What are you doing, Lani, sunbathing?”

“Hell, no!” she came into view, buckling her belt. “Why didn't you warn me, Leo?”

“Warn you about what?”

“Ants, goddamnit!”

Before Leo could answer, several dozen of the little insects chomped down on Leo's legs, and he started doing some fancy stepping of his own, slapping at himself and jumping around.

Lani stood and laughed at his antics. She had done virtually the same movements minutes before.

“Shit!” Leo hollered, and that doubled Lani over with laughter.

“The rain left a good-sized pool right down there,” Lani called, pointing. “You better hit the water, Leo. It's the only thing that'll get them off of you.”

As Leo passed Lani, he tossed her the shirt and gave her a dirty look as she laughed at him. “I'll move the truck away from those big ant mounds,” she said.

“You do that,” Leo spoke through gritted teeth, calling the words over his shoulder as he exited his pants.

Lani whistled at him.

“Very funny, Lani. Cute!”

* * *

Leo carried a well-stocked first aid kit, and they doctored themselves before moving out, both of them agreeing not to ever mention the ant attack to fellow officers back at the station.

They drove to the gravel/dirt road and stopped. “I don't believe Tina crossed this road,” Lani said. “Even in her confused state of mind, she would have stayed on the road, following it for help.”

“I agree. But I'll bet you the house where she was held is on this road. When she escaped, she exited the rear of the house and just ran, getting away the only thing on her mind. Left or right?”

“Turn right.”

They drove for over a mile before coming to the first home. They got out and knocked on the front door. An elderly man answered the knock, and after they identified themselves, he waved them inside.

“No,” he said, in response to the question. “There are only three more houses on this road 'fore it ends, and you got to turn either left or right. Left will take you nowhere. There is a stone house down to the right that was rented or bought by a young couple several years ago.”

“Late '91,” his wife added. “But we never see them. I think they live in the city and only come out here on the weekends. Maybe once a month. Sometimes less than that.”

The old couple did not know the name of the young couple and could not describe them. Neither one had ever gotten a good look at them. They only came out at night, they said. Never during the daylight hours.

When was the last time they'd noticed the young couple's car?

Two weeks back, they thought.

The cops drove up the road, turned right, and slowly drove past the stone house. The home sat well off the road and was surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence. The gate was closed and locked.

“Let's do this legal, Leo,” Lani said. “Right by the book.”

“I agree.” Leo reached for his radio mike, then hesitated.

“They'll never come back here,” Lani said. “We could stake this place out forever, and come up with nothing.”

He nodded and called in.

Two hours later, with about an hour of daylight left and armed with a search warrant, the cops used heavy bolt-cutters to snap the chain from the gate. Bill Bourne, from the La Barca city police, Sheriff Brownwood, members of the CHP, and a forensic crew waited as Leo and Lani walked up the sidewalk and hammered on the front door.

“You getting the same feeling I am?” Lani asked.

“Yeah. This place is deserted.” Leo reached for the handle on the screen door, and stopped just as his fingers touched the handle.

“What's the matter?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. A feeling. It's too easy. Something is wrong. Back off the porch and don't touch anything doing so. Bring me a rope or some heavy cord.”

“What the hell are you doing, Leo?” Brownie yelled from the gate.

“Staying alive,” Leo shouted. He very carefully tied one end of the cord on the pull-handle of the screen door, and then backed off the porch, trailing out the cord.

“You smell a booby trap?” a CHP man asked.

“Yeah. I think the whole damn house is wired to go. I did some tunnel-ratting in Vietnam. I learned to trust my instincts.”

“Everybody get down!” Brownie yelled. “But back up first. Get behind your vehicles. Tie some more cord on that thing, Leo. Give yourself plenty of slack to move.”

Everybody got behind their vehicles and crouched. “Ready?” Leo yelled.

“Pull it,” Brownie said.

Leo pulled and the screen door flew open. Nothing happened. “So much for your instincts,” a CHP man said, standing up.

The house blew apart. The force of the blast knocked the California Highway Patrolman flat on his ass in the road. The roof was pushed twenty or so feet into the air; the stone walls mushroomed and disintegrated, hurling stones in all directions. The stones bounced off the cars and those crouched behind them.

“Goddamn!” Brownie yelled, as a rock clunked him on the forehead, bringing blood.

Lani and Leo scrambled under Leo's truck and were safe from the falling debris. Shattered wood and busted stones and other building materials rained down for what seemed like several minutes. Actually it was only a few seconds. A huge cloud of dust completely enveloped the explosion area. When the cops again peeped out over the hoods of cars and trucks, the house was gone. Leveled to the ground.

“Get floodlights and portable generators out here,” Brownie said, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding head. “Pull everybody in. No one is off. I want this area sealed so tight a mouse couldn't get through. I don't want anybody inside that chain-link fence until I say so. As to opening the records, I don't care who you have to irritate, pull out of bars, or off of golf courses, or away from dinner tables. I want the names of the people who rented or bought this house. And I want it right now.”

“Yes, sir,” a young deputy said. He stood looking at the sheriff.

“Get it on the air, boy,” Brownie growled. “Move.”

The young deputy went quick-stepping to his unit, grabbed up his mike, and got dispatch.

“Must have been five hundred pounds of dynamite planted in that house,” the CHP man whose butt had recently hit the gravel said.

* * *

“Plastic,” the forensics man said, a few hours later. “C-4. These people don't fool around. This was overkill all the way. One tenth of what they used would have been sufficient to do the job.”

“The house was rented from a Mr. Ned Robbins over near Bakersfield,” a deputy said. “He never met the people he rented it to. Said they paid the rent a year at a time, and he never had the first complaint about them from anybody living along this road.”

“Well, hell!” Lani blurted. “No one else
lives
along this road.”

“Did they tell him what they did for a living?” Leo asked.

“Said they were writers, and needed a place where they wouldn't be disturbed.”

“There just might be more than a modicum of truth to that,” a plainclothes CBI man said, walking up, holding up an evidence bag with several sheets of paper in it. “This is pretty dark stuff here.”

Lani took the clear bag and turned to the light so she could read it. She shuddered and shook her head. “They're chronicling all the actions of their victims. This is about a nun who was raped and sodomized. Like that one in Albuquerque.”

“I want every scrap of paper saved,” Brownie said, more to himself than to any of the officers. He knew that when his people were through, every stone, stick, and brick would have been carefully gone over, and anything pertinent to the case would be tagged and saved.

Brownie turned to Leo and Lani. “Go home and get some sleep. That's an order. I'll see you both out here in the morning. Now, beat it.”

* * *

The loss of the country house meant nothing to the Ripper. He and his Other had several homes rented throughout the county. He and his Other also owned several pieces of property, both in the city and county. And now those who followed the Ripper and his Other were gathering in California. It was going to be a very enjoyable time for the Ripper and his Other, and a very confusing time for the cops.

More than that—it was going to be
fun!

* * *

The California Bureau of Investigation, CBI, a part of the state's Justice Department, met Leo and Lani when they arrived back at the explosion site the next morning. For now, there were two agents of the CBI assigned to this case, Brenda Yee and Ted Murray. Both of them in their early thirties.

“You guys did some great legwork on this,” Brenda Yee complimented the county cops. Then she smiled. “How much of it can be used in a court of law?”

Leo chuckled softly. “Some of it.”

“Look,” Lani said. “It's the weekend. Why don't we all get together at my place this evening? Leo's wife and kids have gone up to Santa Cruz for a vacation. He's bouncing around alone in his house. We can have a few drinks, I'll do my impersonation of a chef, and we'll tell you guys just how we collected all this info.”

“Sounds great,” Ted said. “Brenda?”

“Hey, it's fine with me.”

* * *

Brenda whistled softly and cocked her head to one side. “You guys were right when you said ‘some of it' could be used in court. Breaking and entering, trespassing, impersonation ... to name a few minor points. But what the hey? None of those little items ever have to be brought out.”

“We hope,” Ted said. “So you've put the Longwood twins out of this picture?”

“Tina said it was a man and a woman. She was adamant on that. The house that blew up is where she was held. We established that today. The house was rented to a man and woman. That pretty much puts the twins out of the picture. At least as primary suspects.”

“The people who attacked you back at the closed-down private school?” Brenda asked.

Leo and Lani shrugged their shoulders. “No idea,” Leo replied.

“But the both of you believe this might be the work of a cult. A cult that somehow revolves around the Longwood twins, Jim and Jack?” Ted asked.

“I think it's certainly something that has to be taken into consideration.”

“I agree,” Brenda said. “I think we're talking about a serial killer, or killers, with a string of bodies behind them that's going to set a world's record. I agree with your figure of over five hundred victims coast to coast. The FBI's got nearly every agent working on this string of terrorist bombings around the country, so we can't expect much help from them. There are only three hundred of us, statewide, and we're stretched pretty thin ourselves.”

“Hancock County and La Barca city cops are up to their necks in robberies, murders, rapes, car-jackings, gangs, domestic crap, and all the other normal day-today work that takes up so much of a cop's time,” Leo said. “So it's up to the four of us. How long can you people stay here?”

“Our marching orders were to stay until it's over,” Ted said.

Lani stood up. “Well, we've got a green salad, spaghetti, Leo's famous—or infamous—meat sauce, garlic bread, and a pretty good bottle of California red. Let's eat.”

Leo reached over and stilled the ringing of the phone. “Oh, shit!” he said, and that stopped everybody's movement to the dining area. “Okay, Sheriff. We're on the way.”

“I gather dinner is delayed,” Brenda said.

Leo stood up. “Yeah. Now it gets real ugly. A girl is missing. She vanished this afternoon. Mother says she's been acting trancelike for several days.”

“Like the way that citizen said Dick and Tammy were behaving?” Lani asked.

“Yeah.”

“How old is the girl?” Brenda asked.

“Ten,” Leo said grimly.

The girl, Theresa Lopeno, was found four days later. Her body had been dumped at the southernmost part of the county. Using tactical frequencies that the press, so far, had not discovered, the cops gathered at the scene. It was the ugliest rape and mutilation any of the four cops had ever seen.

Brenda Yee excused herself, walked off into the bushes, and barfed.

“Nothing like seeing it up close, is there?” Ted asked, a strain to his words.

“Especially when it's a child,” Lani said. She stood with the others, waiting until the lab people finished.

The child had been sexually assaulted, tortured, and then her face had been cut away. The silent wish was that the last at least had been done after she had died, and not before.

“Parents been notified?” Leo asked, squatting down where the body had been. What was left of Theresa was now on the way to the ME's lab.

“Brownie's going himself,” a uniform said.

“Tire impressions?” Brenda asked, walking up.

The uniform shook his head. “This is a favorite turning-around place. Must be fifty different sets here.”

Leo stood up. “This is the most frustrating damn case I have ever worked on.”

Back at the office, Leo had just sat down at his desk when his phone rang.

“Cal Denning, Leo. Look, some of my memory is returning. I'm calling from a pay phone, because I'm afraid to use the phones at the station. Can you meet me at my place this evening?”

“Sure. You think our people work at the station?”

“Maybe. I'm not sure. But what I've found is intriguing. See you about five?”

“We'll be there.”

* * *

“I don't hear anything,” Ted bitched.

The four of them were standing in Cal's home workshop. Cal had made dubs of the commercials and a few songs with hidden messages behind them before he'd been conked on the head. The memory had returned to him only that day.

Cal slowed the tape down further. “Now listen.”

They all heard it that time. Tammy Larson.

“Jesus!” Lani said. “Subliminal suggestion.”

“What?” Leo looked at her.

“I looked it up,” Cal said. “What it means is this: repetition that is inserted into a particular person's subconscious without that person knowing it. It's below the threshold of consciousness.”

“And it works, too,” Brenda said. “I took some courses on it. One of the courses involved half the class going to a movie with only the standard advertising for soft drinks and popcorn and candy, and the other half being subjected to split-second advertising on the screen, coming so fast your conscious mind doesn't register it. But the eye picks it up and sends it to your subconscious. Gang, when the intermission came, it was a stampede; and we bought out the concession stand.”

“Subtle brain-washing,” Leo said.

“You could call it that, sure.”

“Where was this commercial made, Cal?” Lani asked.

“Well, the original tape was made in San Francisco, for a local car dealership. But with the sophisticated equipment we have now—eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty-four tracks and up—inserting whatever you want behind words and music is easy. Anybody with a third-class engineer's license could do it. But it would take some time.”

“Mr. Denning,” Ted said. “Considering the fact that you've been attacked, and this,” he pointed to the tape, “is probably the reason for it—your life is in danger. I'll okay a gun permit for you, if you want to carry one.”

Leo laughed. “He's been carrying one as long as I've known him.”

“Did your department issue him a concealed weapons permit?” Brenda asked.

“Hell, no!” Leo told her. “Law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, if they so desire. As a matter of fact, I encourage them to do so.”

“That's against the law, Leo,” Ted said, a disapproving look on his face.

“It isn't against my law,” Leo replied, his tone suggesting to all that the subject was closed. “Goddamn street gangs and thugs and punks stealing and raping and assaulting and killing with damn near impunity.”

“I'll get you a permit, so you can be legal,” Brenda verbally stepped in.

Cal shrugged his total indifference to whether he was legal or not. That is an attitude that many Californians have adopted over the past few years.

“Needless to say, but it bears repeating, you keep your mouth shut about this, Cal,” Leo told him. “And you start being extra careful.”

“Don't you worry about that. I'll have my own security system in place by this time tomorrow.” He grinned, and it took years off his age. “I was a spook in the military. Worked with some real bright CIA boys.”

“If it's dangerous to anyone entering your place of residence,” Ted said, “it's probably illegal.”

“Ted,” Brenda said, an exasperated look on her face. “Did you know that your fly is open, and your dick is hanging out?”

Ted's mouth dropped open, he grabbed at himself, and the room rocked in laughter.

* * *

The two Hancock County deputies and the two members of the CBI met with Sheriff Brownwood, and then began exhaustive background checking on every employee of KSIN TV and radio. Dick Hale was finally and forever taken off the list of suspects, because he could prove without a doubt where he was when the Lopeno child was taken. But Stacy Ryan could not, and was reluctant to talk with the cops. They zeroed in on Tally-Ho.

But their investigation of the program director and disc jockey did not last long. Sheriff Brownwood called it off abruptly.

“What the hell, Sheriff?” Leo demanded.

“She was with Carla Upton,” Brownie said. “Mrs. Upton called me a few hours ago. Not only that, but a couple of other women were there as well. Ladies whose names we all know quite well. They would prefer that their husbands not know of their, ah, outside interests.”

“Doesn't anyone enjoy a plain ol' man/woman relationship anymore?” Leo bitched.

Lani laughed at the expression on her partner's face.

“Well, I sure as hell do!” Brownie quickly stated.

Lani held up a hand. “Sheriff, I believe the altered tapes can only play a part in luring the victims,” she said. “Physical contact has to be made first. Whoever it is doing this, has to know the victims, has to know what songs they like, what commercials make them laugh. I've spoken with Dick Hale, and he's agreed to allow us to secretly tape record every incoming phone call to KSIN. The CBI has agreed to send in technicians to do just that. Now we need a judge's approval.”

“I can get that,” Brownie said.

The door to Brownie's office was pushed open, and a uniform stuck her head in. “Sheriff, we've got another one missing. The call just came in.”

“Son of a bitch!” Brownie cursed.

“Lady out in the county says she sent her daughter to the supermarket hours ago. The car's just been found in the parking lot of the supermarket. No sign of the girl. And, Sheriff? The family lives about three miles from the house that blew up.”

* * *

The girl's mother had been sedated and put to bed. The father was holding up, but just barely.

“No,” he said, responding to Leo's question. “Ginny never listened to KSIN. And my wife and I don't either. We have a satellite system—you saw the dish outside—and don't watch much local TV. What's this about KSIN?”

“Just a hunch that didn't work out,” Brenda said quickly. “We're playing all the angles, Mr. Atkins.”

“We'd like a list of all Ginny's friends,” Lani said. “We want to know who she dates, where she hangs out in town, everything you can think of that might help us.”

“She's dead, isn't she?” the father said numbly.

“We don't know that, Mr. Atkins,” Ted said.

“Ginny wasn't the type to get in a car with someone she didn't know,” the father said, after taking a long sigh. “You'll discover that when you talk with her friends. And she's brown-belt karate. She's tough. A boy she used to date tried to get too familiar with her last year. She broke his arm.”

“I remember that,” Leo said. “Try to keep your spirits up, Mr. Atkins.” He looked down at the eight by ten picture of Ginny Atkins. Hang in there, kid, he thought.

* * *

The girl dangled about six inches off the floor, hanging by her wrists at the end of a rope. She was naked except for the hood over her head. The rape had been brutal, painful, and degrading. After the man had taken her, the woman had strapped on some sort of rubber penis and used her like an animal. She knew it was a woman, because Ginny could feel her breasts against her naked back. The more Ginny had screamed, the more the woman became aroused. Ginny finally endured the assault in silence.

Then the two of them had beaten her with whips. They had left only moments ago, saying they would be back in a few hours. Then the fun would really start. They told her to hang in there. They both thought that was really, really funny.

Just before they left, one of them had given her a shot of something. She'd heard all about what had happened to Tina Gamble, and figured the shot had been to knock her out. She didn't know how much time she had before the drug took effect, but she was determined to use every minute of it.

Ginny was agile and strong, and fear and anger made her even stronger. She began working her legs, swaying back and forth, gaining a few more inches with each effort, working like a trapeze artist. She finally was able to touch her toes against the overhead, and on the fifth try, hooked her ankles around a pipe of some sort. That released the tension on the rope around her wrists. Working calmly considering what she had just gone through, and the predicament she was in, Ginny got one hand loose and then the other. She dropped to the floor and jerked the hood from her head.

“Oh, my God!” she whispered, looking around her.

* * *

All dispatchers had standing orders about what to do if any of the Ripper's victims managed to escape and were picked up by units from the city or county: stay off the radio, and keep the press the hell away for as long as possible.

A sheriff's department unit spotted Ginny frantically waving for help and whisked her to a hospital. There, the deputy called in by phone.

Working very quickly and very furtively, the homes immediately surrounding the suspect house were cleared of residents, and city and county sharpshooters were stationed on all sides of the house. Ginny was being questioned by female cops even as she was being treated, over the strong objections of the doctors.

“It's a copycat,” Leo said, crouching behind the shrubs on the north side of the home where Ginny had been raped and beaten. “Got to be.”

“I agree,” Lani said. “But, Jesus! Who would have ever suspected these two?”

The two people Ginny had very adamantly named—between some pretty fancy cuss words—were a very successful high school football coach and a French teacher. Both from the same school.

Leo grunted and Lani smiled at him. She knew that Leo was not a football fan. He couldn't even tell you who won last year's Super Bowl or where it was held. “Weirdos in every profession, Lani. And here they are.”

The car pulled into the drive, and the man and woman got out. Leo, Lani, Brenda, and Ted all rose from behind the bushes, cocked pistols held in a two-handed shooting grip pointed at the couple.

“Sheriff's department!” Lani said. “Just freeze right there. Both of you!”

For a moment, it looked as though the couple was going to obey the orders. Then the coach screamed an obscenity at the cops and jerked out a pistol.

Four slugs hit the man. Two .357's, one 9mm, and one .45 caliber ... Hydra-Shok
. The coach was flung backward by the impact and was dead before he hit the ground. The woman began screaming and jumping up and down.

Lani was across the drive and tackled the woman, sitting on her while Brenda cuffed her. The French teacher was doing some rather heated cussing, in English.

“Get off me, you goddamn, murdering pig bitch!” she yelled at Lani.

Lani resisted an impulse to hammer the woman's face in with her pistol. She read the woman her rights, and not too gently jerked her to her feet and shoved her at a couple of uniforms.

“Police brutality!” the French teacher screamed. “I'll sue you.”

Lani smiled at the woman. Leo knew that smile and grabbed his partner by the arm. “Let's check out the house, Lani.”

The French teacher had switched to French and was really calling Lani some choice names, as she was stuffed into the backseat of a unit.