T. Parker: Summer Of Fear

This story, such a resonant marriage of the biblical a scientific, made great headlines, television fodder, even a "60 Minutes" segment. Wald's entry into the public eye was swift and certain. The state university tenured him a year later. Dan Winters was bumped up to the rank of captain, the youngest one in county history, and the first black. Clough got 150 years.

More interestingly, Wald was made head of the Sheriff’s Reserve Units, a position for which he would neither be paid nor deputized. He was given an office on the same floor as the newly sainted Dan Winters, and the two men crusaded to make the Reserve Units into potent allies of the professional deputies. (The public ate up this idea, too: more law enforcement for the same amount of money.) All of this reflected well on Jordan Clemens, a tough politician whose years as elected sheriff would obviously not last forever.

I watched these events from the uncomfortable position of junior investigator, uncomfortable because I could hardly wait to abandon the department ship in order to write and because my heart was still tender with the tramplings it had received from parting with Amber Mae Wilson. Moreover, I had met Wald on his late-day visits to the office of Dan Winters and had found him-against the sum of all my efforts-both intimidating and likable.

Physically, he was impressive, one of those tall and slender men whose muscles knotted effortlessly with the most casual movements. He was handsome and knew it, but he played off it in an apparently unselfconscious way that the television cameras loved. His face was wide and boyish, with laugh wrinkles parenthesizing a mouth that was quick to smile. His hair was a curly golden mop that he managed to keep rather longish but still trimmed, a perfect compromise between academic eccentricity and Sheriff's Department conservatism. He was rumored to hold a black belt in a particularly difficult Chinese-Philippine martial art and to be a collector of antique weapons. Most impressive of all was his mind, however, which was possessed of a nonchalant sharpness that left most people-myself included-eternally off balance. He could be outrageously charming and mortally offensive, all in the same sentence. One more quality about Wald struck me in those early years- namely, his willingness to offer confidences and to receive them in return. I had never met a man in whom the illusion of trustworthiness had been so deeply and convincingly cultivated. For that specific reason, I did not choose to trust him. So, when Amber Mae began asking me about this "handsome crime-buster type," I was unsurprised, if somewhat angered. I was still not fully adjusted to the idea of being a used person.

What sat most disagreeably upon my opinion of Erik Wald, though, was the simple fact that he had applied to the Sheriff’s Academy three times and been rejected each. This was common knowledge in the department and had even been written after in the first feature articles regarding Wald's unconventional help in identifying Cary Clough. Wald suffered from mitral-valve prolapse, a leaking heart valve brought on by fever in his infancy. I was pleased that Wald couldn't make the physical cut, though you certainly wouldn't have known it by looking at him. His powers of compensation were magnificent. More important, however, I was solidly resentful of the fact that he had risen to such prominence with the Sheriff's without ever making grade to join it. I saw him as some kind of immune diplomat, running stylish circles around myself and the other rank-and-file deputies. And I will confess, too, that the wit and clarity his dissertation language infuriated me. I envied him. I found ludicrous his intimations of securing, someday, a paid position as undersheriff to Dan Winters. His ego seemed to have no limit. I derived an arid comfort from realizing that his insight into character of Cary Clough came at least in part from kindred rumblings in his own thrice-rejected soul.

Four years later, when I was working on Journey Up River, Wald offered me some astonishing insight into the mind of the killer, who turned out to be a forty-one-year-old part-time butcher (really) named Art Crump. Crump was not yet a suspect at the time of my interviews with Erik. Upon Crump's arrest, most of the "insight" turned out to be misleading, useless, or wildly ass-backward. I used it in the book anyway, much to the embarrassment of Erik. Crump and I had a laugh at this up in Vacaville.

But I knew why Amber had been drawn to Erik Wald: Amber was always drawn to men who could inflict harm. And never since my first meeting of Wald did I doubt that his fury, if unleashed, might prove formidable.

So I called Amber's agent and said I was Erik Wald and asked whether he could tell me if Amber was on a shoot today.

He chuckled in the way that only busy, superior people can do.

"Just one moment," he said.

The next voice that come on was one of the last I expected.

"This is Erik Wald. Who the hell are you?"

I told him. Erik laughed, too. It was a low, even baritone that spoke of advantage. I let him laugh some more. I could hear Amber's agent-Reuben Saltz-in the background, joining in. When the hilarity had waned, I asked him whether Amber was on a shoot or not.

"Why?"

"It's about Grace."

I'm a good liar. Grace is Amber's daughter.

"Why not talk to Grace about Grace? She's a big girl now."

"I know that, Erik. Finding her is the hard part. I was hoping Amber could-

"Finding Amber isn't any easier. She was supposed to work today, a shampoo deal, but she never showed. Nobody knows where she is. With five grand an hour at stake, Reuben here is a quivering mass of anxiety and thwarted greed."

I tried to sound casual. "Maybe she stayed home sick."

"Reuben has called every hour since ten. I imagine you have, too, if you really needed her. Reuben is enterprising, though. He just got back from the Wilson manse in Laguna- nobody home."

The demons starting stirring in my blood again. "Maybe she was sleeping one off."

"Nobody home is what I said, Russ. Reuben, the concerned mentor, has a key."

It was one of those moments when the gravity inside your chest seems to multiply. My heart felt as if it were down next to the seat belt. I turned the air conditioner on high and aimed the stream into my eyes. What could possibly have happened? Didn't Reuben go upstairs?

"Well," I said, trying to steady the breath in my throat. "You know Amber."

"We know Amber," said Wald. "If I find her first, I'll tell her you were looking for her. Heh, heh."

"Heh, heh. I'll do the same."

Trying to sound satisfied, I changed the topic. "What’s your call on the Ellisons and that Mexican couple?"

"I believe the cops, for right now. Talk to Marty yet?'

"Sure."

"I did, too, last week. The captain doth protest too much. To me, it looks bad. Blunt-force trauma. Quite a ring to it. Bashers are furious, very bold, and poor personal groomers. They sometimes affect beards. They often see themselves as outdoorsmen, lovers of nature. They also have the problem of what to do with their blunt instruments-leave 'em or keep 'em? You know what intrigues me? His marks are all minorities. I sense the offspring some racist, archconservative, neofascist John Birch Society Orange Countians. So stay on it, Russ-maybe there's another book in it for you. Speaking of which, I saw Under Scorpio Crown for a buck ninety-eight yesterday. Hardcover."

The two-dollar shelf at Crown is a pillory. On the other hand, a book is a book and a lot of hard work goes into one and some are bound to do better than others.

"It wasn't that bad a book. I took some chances."

"So did Custer. I bought six anyway. Gifts, you know.

"Thanks, Erik. Still enjoying your appointment as Amber Mae's financial czar?"