Dean Koontz - The Door To December

Detectives Wexlersh and Manuello were among the cops and SID technicians in the shop, and they spotted Dan as soon as he entered. They headed toward him, wading through the debris. Their icy smiles were identical, with no humor in either of them. They were a couple of land sharks, as cold-blooded and predatory as any real sharks in any sea.

Wexlersh was short with pale-gray eyes and a waxy white face that seemed out of place in California even in winter. He said, 'What happened to your head?'

'Walked into a low tree branch,' Dan said.

'Looks more like you were beating up some poor innocent suspect, violating his civil rights, and the poor innocent suspect was foolish enough to resist.'

'Is that how you handle suspects in the East Valley Division?'

'Or maybe it was a hooker who wouldn't come across with a free sample just 'cause you flashed your badge at her,' Wexlersh said, grinning broadly.

'You shouldn't try to be amusing, Dan told him. 'You have about as much wit as a toilet seat.'

Wexlersh continued to smile, but his gray eyes were mean. 'Haldane, what kind of maniac you think we have on our hands here?'

Manuello, in spite of his name, was not Hispanic in appearance, but tall and blond and square-featured, with a Kirk Douglas dimple in the center of his chin. He said, 'Yeah, Haldane, share with us the wisdom of your experience.

And Wexlersh said, 'Yeah. You're the lieutenant. We're just lowly detectives, first-grade.'

'Yes, please, we await your observations and your profound insights into this most heinous crime,' Manuello said mockingly. 'We are breathless with anticipation.'

Although Dan was a superior officer, they could get away with this sort of petty insubordination because they were from the East Valley Division, not Central, where Dan usually worked, and most of all because they were Ross Mondale's pets and knew the captain would protect them.

Dan said, 'You know, you two made the wrong career decision. I'm sure you'd be much happier breaking the law than enforcing it.'

'But really, now, Lieutenant,' said Wexlersh, 'you must have some theories by this time. What sort of maniac would go around beating people into piles of strawberry preserves?'

'For that matter,' Manuello said, 'what sort of maniac was this particular victim?'

'Joseph Scaldone?' Dan said. 'He ran this place, right? What do you mean he was a maniac?'

'Well,' Wexlersh said, 'he sure to God wasn't your ordinary businessman.'

'Don't think they'd have wanted him in the Chamber of Commerce,' Manuello said.

'Or the Better Business Bureau,' Wexlersh said.

'A definite lunatic,' Manuello said.

'What are you two babbling about?' Dan asked.

Manuello said, 'Don't you think it'd take a lunatic to run a shop'—and he reached into a coat pocket, withdrew a small bottle the same size and shape as those that olives often came in—'a shop selling stuff like this.'

At first the bottle did, indeed, appear to contain small olives, but then Dan realized they were eyeballs. Not human eyes. Smaller than that. And strange. Some had yellow irises, some green, some orange, some red, but although they differed in color, they all had approximately the same shape: They were not round irises, as in human and most animal eyes, but oblong, elliptical, supremely wicked.

'Snake eyes,' Manuello said, showing him the label.

'And how about this?' Wexlersh said, taking a bottle from his jacket pocket.

This one was filled with a grayish powder. The neatly typed label read BAT GUANO.

'Bat shit,' Wexlersh said.

'Powdered bat shit,' Manuello said, 'snake eyes, tongues of salamanders, necklaces of garlic, vials of bull blood, magic charms, hexes, and all sorts of other weird crap. What kind of people come in here and buy this stuff, Lieutenant?'

'Witches,' Wexlersh said before Dan could speak.

'People who think they're witches,' Manuello said.

'Warlocks,' Wexlersh said.

'People who think they're warlocks.'

'Weird people,' Wexlersh said.

'Maniacs,' Manuello said.

'But this place, it accepts Visa and MasterCard,' said Wexlersh. 'With, of course, acceptable ID.'

Manuello said, 'Yeah, these days, warlocks and maniacs have MasterCard. Isn't that amazing?'

'They pay off their bat-shit and snake-eye bills in twelve easy installments,' Wexlersh said.

'Where's the victim?' Dan asked.

Wexlersh jerked a thumb toward the rear of the shop. 'He's back there, auditioning for a major role in a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'

'Hope you guys at Central have strong stomachs,' Manuello said as Dan headed toward the back of the store.

'Don't barf in here,' Wexlersh said.

'Yeah, no judge is going to allow evidence into court if some cop barfed on it,' Manuello said.

Dan ignored them. If he felt like barfing, he'd be sure to do it on Wexlersh and Manuello.

He stepped over a heap of mangled books that were saturated with spilled jasmine oil, and he moved toward the assistant medical examiner who was crouched over a shapeless crimson thing that was the last of Joseph Scaldone.

* * *

Working on the theory that the calico cat might have detected a stealthy sound too soft to be detected by human hearing and might have been frightened by the presence of an intruder in another part of the house, Earl Benton went from room to room, checking windows and doors. He searched in closets and behind the larger pieces of furniture. But the house was secure.

He found Pepper in the living room, no longer frightened but wary. The cat was lying on top of the television. She allowed herself to be petted, and she began to purr.

'What got into you, puss?' he asked.

After being petted awhile, she stretched one leg over the side of the TV and pointed at the controls with one paw. She gave him a look that seemed to inquire if he would be so kind as to switch on the heater-with-pictures-and-voices, so her chosen perch would warm up a bit.

Leaving the TV off, he returned to the kitchen. Melanie was still sitting at the table, as animated as a carrot.

Laura was at the counter where Earl had left her, still holding a knife. She didn't seem to have been working on dinner while he'd been gone. She'd just been waiting, knife in hand, in case someone else returned in Earl's place.

She was obviously relieved when she saw him, and she put the knife down. 'Well?'

'Nothing.'

The refrigerator door suddenly came open of its own volition. The jars, bottles, and other items on the glass shelves began to wobble and rattle. As though touched by invisible hands, several cupboard doors flew open.

Laura gasped.

Instinctively, Earl reached for the gun in his holster, but he had no one to shoot at. He stopped with his hand on the butt of the weapon, feeling slightly foolish and more than a little perplexed.

Dishes jiggled and clattered on the shelves. A calendar, hanging on the wall by the back door, fell to the floor with a sound like frantic wings.

After ten or fifteen seconds, which seemed like an hour, the dishes stopped rattling, and the cupboard doors stopped swinging on their hinges, and the contents of the refrigerator grew still.

'Earthquake,' Earl said.

'Was it?' Laura McCaffrey said doubtfully.

He knew what she meant. It had been similar to the effects of a moderate earthquake yet… somehow different. An odd pressure change had seemed to condense the air, and the sudden chill had been too harsh to be attributed entirely to the open refrigerator door. In fact, when the trembling stopped, the air warmed up in an instant, even though the refrigerator door was still open.

But if not a quake, what had it been? Not a sonic boom. That wouldn't explain the chill or the pressure in the air. Not a ghost. He didn't believe in ghosts. And where the hell had such a thought come from, anyway? He'd run Poltergeist on his VCR a couple nights ago. Maybe that was it. But he was not so impressionable that one good scary movie would make him reach for a supernatural explanation here, now, when a considerably less exotic answer was so evident.