Michael Prescott: Next Victim

Then Arnold was gone, and Howard was alone by the side of his car. He adjusted his hat, licked his fingers so he’d have some traction if he had to draw his gun, and hoped he had made the right decision. In the distance that damn song kept playing. "Wipe Out"-he hoped it wasn’t an omen.

Two minutes later he saw Trilling, Thompson, and Donnigan approach the motel door, hugging the wall. Their revolvers were out, sunlight glinting off the barrels. Thompson and Donnigan looked wary. Trilling seemed to be enjoying himself. He was a hot dog, that one. Get himself killed someday.

Howard waited until the three were in position by the window. Then he switched on the megaphone.

"Mrs. Beckett? We can wait all afternoon if you like, but I don’t see how that’ll accomplish much. You and your boy must be getting hungry. How about you open up and we get you both some breakfast?"

Only music from the room. Trilling glanced at Howard, who tried a second time to elicit a response.

"Even if you’re not hungry, ma’am, I’ll bet your boy is. They got a good restaurant here at HoJo’s. What do you say I have them fry up some eggs and nice crispy bacon?"

Still nothing but the song.

"Mrs. Beckett?"

Sunlight reflected off the megaphone onto Howard’s face. The heat and glare were something awful.

"Come on, Mrs. Beckett, I’m making a very reasonable offer, don’t you think?" He tried a little joke. "It’s not every day you get a free breakfast."

All she had to do was curse him out, tell him to go to hell, say anything that would allow the three deputies to establish her position before they climbed through the window. But she wasn’t talking.

Howard figured he’d give it one more try. If it didn’t work, he’d call off the forced entry and go back to his original plan, and if Lucy Pigeon made it a circus, so be it.

"I know what you’re going through, Mrs. Beckett. I know how hard it can be." He thought this approach just might reach her. "Nothing’s fair in this world, but-"

A sound cut him off. A faraway sound, not loud but easily recognizable. To an unpracticed ear it might have been the snap of a clothesline on a windy day or the smack of a screen door slapping shut, but Howard knew it was a gunshot, and it had come from room 24.

"Mrs. Beckett-"

A second crack of sound.

The drapes in the open window rustled in a breath of wind.

Trilling was looking at him. Howard shouted, "Go in!" and broke into a run, covering yards of hot macadam, while the deputies arrayed around the parking lot scrambled to follow.

By the time he reached the window, Trilling and the other two were already inside. The drapes had been thrust apart, and even before climbing into the room, Howard could see the sprawled shape of a woman’s body on the carpet, a dark pool like an oil stain spreading around her head.

She was finished. Over the years Howard had seen enough of death to know it at a glance.

But there had been two shots, damn it.

"Where the hell’s the boy?" Howard yelled over the blare from a portable phonograph as he swung both legs over the window frame.

"In here."

Trilling’s voice. Low and shaky.

Howard muscled Thompson and Donnigan out of his way and entered the bathroom. Deputy Trilling stood over the tub. Howard moved closer and saw soapy water sloshing against the porcelain sides, water dyed pink with slow spirals of blood.

The boy lay faceup in the bath, nude, a toy submarine floating near him.

"God damn," Howard said.

"Like I told you." Trilling barely whispered the words. "Just out of plain spite."

Howard marshaled his professionalism. "Get the boy out of there. Check for a pulse. Try mouth-to-mouth and chest compression."

It was hopeless, but procedures had to be followed. Howard left Trilling with his arms in the bloody water and returned to the main room. Donnigan was nearest the phone.

"Call for an ambulance," Howard ordered.

Donnigan blinked. "Is the boy…?"

"Just do it."

He looked at the record player, resting near the window. One of the deputies, scrambling in, must have jostled the machine and scratched the disk. The stylus was stuck in one groove, repeating the same sound over and over-someone’s giggly falsetto saying, "Wipe out…!"

His radio crackled with Deputy Arnold’s voice. "Sheriff?"

"Wipe out…!"

Howard thumbed the transmit button. "I copy, over."

"He’s here, sir. Mr. Beckett is here."

"Wipe out…!"

"Turn off that fucking thing," Howard said to the nearest deputy.

A screech as the stylus was yanked across the platter.

"Sheriff?" Arnold again. "You read me?"

"I read you, Deputy."

"What should I tell him, sir? What do I tell Mr. Beckett about his wife and boy?"

Mason Howard stared out the window and wished he knew the answer to that.

She was running hard down an alley with her Sig Sauer 9mm in her hand, her shout echoing off the high brick walls.

"Stop, FBI!"

The suspect did not stop or even turn to look at her. His shoes slapped the asphalt. He was pulling away, blending into the nocturnal shadows. Soon he would be only another shadow himself.

She put on some speed. There was no point in shouting again. She would only waste her breath.

Yards ahead the alley opened on a street streaming with traffic. She saw the suspect as a silhouette, his figure limned by rushing headlights.

If he reached the street and made a dash through the traffic, he would lose her.

But she wouldn’t let that happen.

With a rush of adrenaline she lengthened her strides, closing the gap until finally she reached out with her left hand and grabbed his shirt collar.

She gave it a hard yank and jerked him off balance like a dog surprised by a sudden tug on its chain-and like a dog, he snarled as he whipped around, and she saw a flash of teeth.

Not teeth. Steel.

A knife.

The blade drove at her. She spun clear and almost fired at him, but she was afraid that a shot at point-blank range would kill him, and she didn’t want him dead.

Instead she chopped his wrist with the side of her hand, splaying his fingers. The knife fell, and before he could retrieve it, she’d taken a step back and fixed him in the pistol’s sights.

"Don’t move, you are under arrest."

She still thought he might try something, and she was ready to try for a nonlethal shot, in violation of her academy training, in which the advisability of always taking the kill shot had been emphasized.

But he surprised her by raising his hands in submission. Then she heard footsteps behind her, approaching at a run. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the suspect, and especially the suspect’s hands, the two danger points, so without looking back she called out, "Who’s coming?"

"LAPD," a male voice answered.

Must be the uniformed cop she’d seen on Melrose. It didn’t escape her notice that it was a patrol officer, not the two special agents sharing surveillance duty with her in the van, who’d come to her aid.

"I’m FBI," she said, still watching the suspect. He remained in silhouette. A lanky figure, medium tall, with close-cropped hair and wiry arms. She could not judge his age or ethnicity. If he was a white male around forty years old, she would be very happy.

The patrolman trotted up beside her and gave his name-Payton.

"Tess McCallum," she said.

"What the hell happened? I saw you jump out of a parked minivan and take off after this guy."

"He was already running. That’s why I chased him."

"Come again?"

"He was about to go into Aspen." Aspen was a club on Melrose Avenue, near the entrance to the alley. "Then he caught sight of you and turned away. As soon as you weren’t looking, he broke into a run."