Retribution (26 page)

He shook himself, tired, and urged Sultry to finish so they could all go to bed for the night.

* * *

In the hills, along a darkened curve, a car sat just off the road, its occupant low in the seat, watching the occasional headlights as the beams began to approach, drew near, swept over him, then passed on. A feral uneasiness pulsed in his veins as he watched, debating, weighing, judging. A silent sentry, he seemed to attract no notice, which was as he desired. He sat, and watched, and felt his blood running through him, knowing the spurt of it, the wash of it over his hands, the faint coppery tang to its warmth. He wondered if the lights caught his eyes, if he would reflect it. That was the least of his thoughts. He sat and watched and wondered.

Who to kill and who to let have safe passage.

Hubie Valenzuela woke at the insistent sound of a beeper. It buzzed and vibrated like an angry insect, dancing along the nightstand. He reached out and thumped it once or twice before it woke up his wife. He grabbed it up as he pried his eyes open and tried to focus on the dim light of the beeper window. He held it close; that made the numbers even fuzzier to read. Mumbling, he fumbled out of bed and went to the bathroom, closed the door, and snapped on the light.

His wife said faintly after him, "Get your glasses." The blankets made a soft whispering noise as she pulled them over her and resettled in their bed.

Valenzuela sat on the toilet lid. He rubbed his eyes. Not only did it seem impossible to read decently any more, but his eyes got crustier and crustier. Getting older was hell. And he did not feel any happier when somebody told him it was better than the alternative.

Stubbornly, he refused to reach for the drugstore-bought reading glasses and peered at his beeper.

He found a cigar, unwrapped it, and began to chew. He wanted to smoke it. Christ, George Burns lived to be a hundred smoking cigars. But Della hated the smell. So he chewed. At this rate, he doubted if he would make it to half of George Burns' age.

He squinted at the beeper message again. It was his code to contact the station. He could have guessed that. The portable was in the bathroom, where it always was. He picked it up and dialed.

"Valenzuela. What is it?"

"Looks like a homicide during a home invasion robbery or maybe it was a follower."

"You need me?" They shouldn't, but they had beeped him for some reason.

"Homicide thought you might want to come in and look at it." A pause. Then, "You need to see it."

"Give me the address and twenty minutes." Valenzuela found the scratch pad he kept on the sink, next to the portable phone, and the pencil, and scribbled down the location. Portable phone, toothpaste, and his wife's skin cream, the essentials of their bathroom, second only to toilet paper. Sleepily he flipped up the toilet lid and sat back down, wondering why he needed to see the crime scene.

* * *

It was nearly forty minutes later, not twenty, for the address was in a tony section of the area, almost out of his jurisdiction, the ranch house back in the canyons, purple shadows almost hiding it from the road. The garage door was up, nice looking luxury car parked inside, already surrounded by the chicken-shit yellow tape cordoning off the area. Hubie mouthed his cigar. Coroner was here, detectives' cars, and two patrol cars.

He parked across the street on the cul-de-sac. The fact that the house had probably been entered through the garage door made it a logical follow-home robbery situation. He flashed his shield as he ducked under the tape, but the kid minding it hardly looked at him. Hubie was not sure if that was because he had a reputation… or because he could not be missed because of his physical description. He plowed across the front lawn and in through the front door, because the garage was teeming with evidence collectors.

Just inside, he could smell it. The coppery tang of blood, unmistakable, already beginning to turn bad, like rank meat. Body decomposition was a lot stronger, but Valenzuela could smell the more subtle qualities of spilled blood. He thought maybe it was because he did not smoke— better nose. A lot of rookie cops he'd been around had never been able to smell the difference between fresh blood and older blood. Of course, in the dry air of this part of the state, blood cured quicker.

He worked on the cigar a little, running his lips and tongue around it. The air was thick with the scent. A box of disposable foot shields rested on the sofa-back table in the foyer. As he heard voices and followed them, after putting booties on his shoes, the aroma grew heavier and heavier. When he entered the bedroom, he could see why.

Crime scenes like this were why the word blood-bath had been invented. His jaw dropped, the corner of his mouth just barely keeping a grip on his cigar. "Holy Mary Mother of Jesus."

One of three, suited investigators turned to him, face obscured by dust mask, body lumpy and unrecognizable inside the protection garment, intended to keep the blood and crime scene from being contaminated— or from infecting the investigator.

"Stay where you are, Hubie. Believe it or not, we're trying to find a spatter pattern."

He stopped in the doorway. His stomach made a noise, and he was unsure if it was one of revolt or hunger. Blood splashed everywhere. It ran down the walls of the bedroom in rivers. It pooled wetly in two or three spots on what had once been a plush, ivory carpet. It dropped sluggishly from the ceiling. The mattress held the body, which looked marble-white, drained of all fluid, and drowned in it.

"How much blood can one person hold?" escaped his mouth, appalled.

"About five liters, female. About six, six and a half, male." The investigator shifted. "And I think we're looking at about all of it."

A second investigator turned, holding a flower vase in one hand, and he recognized Melanie Ramsey behind the protective suiting, her dark, luxuriant hair bound up by the tissue cap. "Looks like he collected it in here. Then… splashed it everywhere."

"God damn Jack the Ripper. Don't you dare let the media in here." Valenzuela swallowed. "We'll have a circus."

"They'll find out no matter what we do," Ramsey said grudgingly. "They always do."

"Anybody look at the body yet?"

"Throat's been cut, no sexual mutilation that we could see, the M.E. will have to tell us if she was raped first… or during… or whatever." Ramsey turned away, and continued her slow, careful sweep of the crime scene.

From what he could see where he stood, more than the throat had been cut. The nude body was crisscrossed with slashes, all of which had been bleeding, which meant they had been pre-mortem. Yet, from what he observed, there had been no great struggle. Nothing overturned, the bedding not twisted or pulled at, her clothing in a pile kicked to one side, but nothing seemed ripped or torn. He hummed to himself around the cigar butt. The victim had been sliced again and again, but did not fight to protect herself. Why?

He blinked as another flash went off on the still camera recording the scene.

There were footprints here and there. Hubie looked down. None crossed the threshold, either in or out.

The murderer had to have been covered in blood.

"Which begs the question… do we have blood traces anywhere else?"

"If we do, it's minute. We'll know more later."

Valenzuela nodded morosely. The whole house seemed to be carpeted in this ivory plush rug.

Had he been deliberate enough to stop, remove his shoes, and tiptoe out? The neighborhood was remote, deep in the canyons, the woman alone. But how would the killer know no one might be close behind? How would he be sure a husband or lover would not interrupt him? Or did he even care, so caught up in the act, that all caution had been thrown, like her blood, to the wind?

Obviously the victim had not been given a chance to scream, if she had even thought to, silent as well as passive, perhaps not even aware her life was at stake. So the neighbors were not a factor. Yet one of them had seen the open garage door and called the police. And from the smell of the blood, they had come not long after the time of death. So, if he thought he had time, that he would not be found, he was wrong. But he had acted as if he had all the time in the world. A cool murderer, yet not— one who danced in the blood he spilled.

Or had he been prepared to cause this kind of bloodshed? Had he brought coverings for himself, head to toe, followed her in, subdued or drugged her, suited himself, then slaughtered her. Stepped out of his coverings, and left.

Hubie realized why he'd been called in, and sighed. Someone very nasty was out there killing and enjoying it, and very liable to do it again.

Sated, Valdor pulled his car to the curb and parked it, and sat back. He inhaled a deep breath of satisfaction before reaching for his binoculars to scan the street below; the night lowered around him, fragrant with hibiscus and night-blooming jasmine, and even ginger. He could see little in the bungalow. The lights had all been on all night until he had grown too bleary-eyed to watch, as if light itself could be a sentinel, fending him off.

He had not dared to creep close to examine the house, or what Charlie was doing, knowing only that she had been there alone. Had she been closeting herself against fear? He enjoyed the thought for a moment. She deserved to feel the icy streak that arrowed through him. She was spoiled, sheltered from the cold, hard world. He had been that way once, and now had no haven. Perhaps if she understood what he faced, she would relent. Perhaps what he planned would no longer be necessary.

It was more likely Quentin had told her to leave the place ablaze with electricity. There was no mercy in Quentin's hard eyes. Charlie had learned that from her stepfather. He'd seen the same scorn in her face when she'd told the bank how much to cut his check for. No quarter given, especially not to an inferior foe. Valdor frowned, sweeping the binoculars along the view site.

Tonight nothing could be seen.

There was a certain, quiet satisfaction in being totally alive when all the rest of the world slept, every nerve in his body functioning, pulsing, learning, sending. It was part of the allure of gambling, being alive, the intensity of the moment. Part of the allure of several things.

Valdor thought of the woman again, and smiled. She had not been cheap, but she had been eager, not quick, but enthusiastic, and lingering, teasing him to unleash heights he had never suspected of himself. The overall event had been truly unforgettable and satisfying. Too bad he could never return to her.

He put up his binoculars. The sutures at his wrist itched slightly, giving him another feeling of smugness. The dog was gone. Despite all Quentin's plans and protests, Charlie had stubbornly remained independent of all but the dog. And without him… Valdor had Charlie at his mercy whenever he wanted.

The sensations he had been swimming in slowly began to dull. The drum of his heart slowed, the pace of his breathing evened. The faint smell of his sweat on his body cooled. He would return to his hotel and sleep as well, drugged and sluggish like the rest of the world.

When he rose, he would lay his plans, and then execute them. He would have his money and his vengeance, too, and be safe from retaliation.

The palms of his hands itched. But he had no table waiting for him, no dice, no cards.

Soon though. Very soon.

Valdor started his car up and left the unaware neighborhood.

* * *

Charlie woke to a dull throbbing and winced a little, as the morning light streamed brutally in through her bedroom window, and knew it was late, that she had slept in. The throbbing in her head grew louder, and Jagger let out a bark, from somewhere else in the house. His nails scrabbled on the floor as he came dashing back into the bedroom.

The pounding in her temple kept time with the insistent beat on the front door. She yelled out, "Coming!" with only faint hopes they would hear and stop banging. It had better not be that officious weasel from the county again.

She eased out of bed, her body slightly sore in places she was not used to, and she blushed a little as she realized why. She had slept in a T-shirt and panties, so she grabbed a pair of jeans and tugged them on, first one leg and then the other, hopping down the hall. Jagger ran around her in a circle, not in harness, obviously feeling his oats, and flashed his teeth in a lopsided doggish grin. The rules went with the harness, no harness, no rules. He ran back and tagged her, excited. That eased Charlie somewhat. He must know who was at the door.

He beat her to the door, of course, but she had the advantage of being the only one of the two of them who could open it. He jostled her in eagerness and she felt the same, for it must be, could only be, John.

Heart racing, she threw the door open.

He stood there, hand still up in the air, his flesh red from knocking, a tentative look of worry on his face. It changed, evolved, as their eyes met, and he grinned.

"It's late."

"I slept in." Jagger wound between her ankles, nearly dumping her unceremoniously on the ground. She nudged him aside.

Ruby laughed. "Nice welcome."

"Really." She kneed him aside even more to let John inside. As he came in, however, the grin faded from his face.

"I tried to call earlier. You still have the voice mail on."

She reached for his hand and then saw he was carrying a leash. Puzzled, Charlie shut the door. "What is it?"

"The county called early this morning to verify that I had Jagger. I'm going to have to take him, Charlie, and kennel him, at least for the time being."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. If I don't take him, someone else will. At least you know he'll be with me, warm, well-fed, he knows me."

"Oh, John." Charlie sagged against the wall. "How long?"