Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

Grantley was starting to amuse me.

I went back outside and stood on the dead grass. I walked around the back of the guest unit. The lot was a big one, with a grapestake fence running along each side and all but vanishing in a thick berry patch. Over the berries I could see the back fence erect in the shade. The neighbor’s trees rose up around the property, deepening the sense of permanent dusk. Against the left fence sat an old lawn mower, a bike with flat tires and a barbecue. On the right side, garden tools hung by nails. Beyond the tools was a hutch built off the ground. It was made of wire mesh and two-bys, the kind of thing you could raise chickens in, or rabbits. The ground, up to the tangled patch of berries, was tan and dry and littered with broken, overripe walnuts. And there were more of the black mounds like I’d found in the corner of the cage. More fur, more bones, a pair of curved, side-by-side incisor teeth that either came from a big rat or a small rabbit. I could see that still more of the stuff had been thrown into the berry bushes. A shovel lying against the fence by the patch suggested how it got there. The smell was all around me in the spring warmth — old, rodentine, dank. I stood on my toes to see over the berries, but they were high and thick, and all I could make out was the back fence. I squeezed past the thorny patch by climbing along the bottom support beam of the fence. The area behind the berries was damp and cool. Weeds. Big piles of the black-furry-bony stuff, like they were built up over time. The smell. There were flies and meat bees everywhere, lazy and sated. Against the back fence the shit was knee high. I picked my way through the grim obstacles and climbed up on the support beam again, to see over. It was the back end of another lot, covered with leaves and a junked car up on cinder blocks.

I was looking down to find a clear place for my foot when I saw the pale thing protruding — just slightly — from the heap of dung against the fence. I jumped onto a decent spot. With my pen in hand, I leaned over the pile and touched what appeared to be a white plate. It was hard, locked solid in the dung. I scraped around it, and the black mulch came off easily, but the white thing didn’t pop out, it just got bigger. Finally, I hooked an opening and lifted. There was a muffled crack and the thing got lighter. It dangled there before me, unbalanced, rocking on my pen. More or less round. Bigger than a softball, smaller than a soccer ball. The bigger, rounded end canted down and to my left, the smaller one settled upward and to the right. My pen was through the upper of two large holes. I lowered my head to see clearly around my hand and the extended pen. There were fragments of blackened material still attached in places, but basically, it was stripped clean. The teeth were still there, except for the front two. I studied it, a child’s death head with a gap-toothed grin. I lowered it to the top of the pile, adjusted it for balance, then moved away and knelt down.

The body freezes at a time like this, but the spirit soars because it wants to get away. He was all around me. His ground, his air, his smell, his shade. I’d never been this close to the essence of him — not even in Brittany Elder’s bedroom — and I wasn’t prepared for it. He wasn’t like anything. I had nothing to compare him to. But I could feel all the power of his need, and all the secret, cunning efficiency of his will.

He wasn’t escalating. He’d already been where he was going. At least once. Right here.

Grantley had moved half a continent away, and found The Horridus waiting.

An hour later, I was pretty sure I had the Grantley son’s first name: Gene. The neighbors weren’t positive. And they were even less sure of his last name because Wanda had married “a bunch.” Some said Webb, or Webster, one of those. Some said Vonn. Some said Grantley. Most said they had no idea. But none of the surnames matched my lists from Bright Tomorrows or Dawn Christie; none had listed homes with detached units for sale in Orange County; none of them connected with any names we’d come up with in the Horridus investigation so far.

But the Hopkin neighbors agreed in their assessment of him: late twenties, maybe early thirties; long hair and beard, but neatly trimmed; a well-groomed fella; very quiet; didn’t seem to have a steady job; kept to himself. Ever notice how neighbors always say the same thing about these shitbaskets? They said his mother, Wanda, was small, tense and unfriendly. The young man had a van. Wanda had an older model Lincoln Town Car and the neighbors had often seen her peering under the curve of the steering wheel as she made her occasional low-speed runs through town.

One of them said the sketch from Steven Wicks’s memory was “kinda like him, all right.” The one from Brittany Elder “ain’t him.”

I found a pay phone outside a liquor store and called Johnny. Just his message tape. I tried Louis — same thing. But I got Frances at her desk.

“Frances, this is Terry.”

Her catch of breath reminded me of all the hideous suspicion now clinging to my own name, in my own department.

“I need you to listen to me for a minute—”

“—I—”

“ Goddamnit Frances, listen to me! ”

I told her to track the names Gene Vonn, Webb, Webster and Grantley through all our sources — county and state criminal files, DMV, TRW, the assessor’s office, tax rolls, voters’ lists, even the phone books if she had to. Triple-check it against the treasurer’s property tax rolls and the realtors’ multiple listings. I wanted his ass covered and I wanted it covered now.

“This guy killed a girl in Texas,” I said. “And I’m betting my badge he’s our man.”

There was a moment of hesitation as the ludicrousness of my statement hit us both.

“You know what I mean, Frances.”

She was silent for a moment. “You’re not where you’re supposed to be.”

“I couldn’t watch soaps all day, Frances. Look... go ahead and think what you have to think. Believe what you have to believe. But also know that those pictures were doctored, and I didn’t do what they show. You can hate me or fear me or loathe me, Frances, but I want you to know the truth. Don’t hate me so much we can’t work together when I get back in there where I belong. We’re still going to need you on the team. I guess I’m sounding, at this point, fairly ridiculous, aren’t I?”

“You went to Wichita Falls.”

“I shouldn’t say, Frances. You don’t need to know that. But you do need to know that this Gene creep abducted a six-year-old girl and killed her. Amanda’s first sketch, with the beard and glasses, got positive reviews from the neighbors. I think he’s our guy. Go find him, will you? Arrest The Horridus, will you?”

She was silent for a moment. “Johnny finished the multiple listings yesterday. None of them worked out. There wasn’t a Gene on it, either.”

“Then get on the women.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes, Terry. There’s no Webb, Vonn or Grantley on the list, I can tell you that right now.”

“What about Webster?”

“ No ”

I thought of Gene’s older “trashy” sisters.

“What if he’s living in a house owned by—”

“—Terry? Terry? You are not my boss right now. And, just for the record, I want you to know how absolutely disgusted I am by what I saw. Disgusted, betrayed. And basically really goddamned pissed off at you.”

“Fine. Now, what’s the latest on Stefanic, he’s the park ranger who—”

“— Goddamn you, Naughton, get a lawyer! ” she whispered, and hung up.

I tried Louis and Johnny again, but they were still gone. I left Johnny the names Gene Vonn, Webb, Webster and Grantley. I left them for Louis, too.