The Door to December Read online

  “Any ideas at all?”

  “Well, if this were an old Fu Manchu novel, I’d say we have a villain who’s invented a fiendish new weapon, a compressed-air machine that has more force than Arnold Schwarzenegger wielding a sledgehammer.”

  “Colorful theory. But not too damned likely.”

  “You ever read Sax Rohmer, those old Fu Manchu books? Hell, they were full of exotic weapons, far-out methods of murder.”

  “This is real life.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Real life isn’t a Fu Manchu novel.”

  Luther shrugged. “I’m not so sure. You been watching the news lately?”

  “I need something better than that, Luther. I need a whole lot of help with this one.”

  They stared at each other.

  Then, without a trace of humor this time, Luther said, “But that is what it looks like, Danny. Like they were beaten to death with a hammer of air.”

  chapter eighteen

  After Laura encouraged Melanie to come out from beneath the desk, she brought the girl up from the hypnotic state. Well, not up exactly: The child didn’t rise to full consciousness. Rather, she moved out of the hypnotic trance and more or less sideways, returning to the semicatatonic state in which she’d been since the police had found her.

  Laura had nurtured a small hope that termination of the hypnotic trance would snap the girl out of her catatonia as well. Briefly the child’s eyes did fix on Laura’s, and she put one hand against Laura’s cheek as if disbelieving her mother’s presence.

  “Stay with me, baby. Don’t slip away. Stay with me.”

  But the girl slipped away nevertheless. The moment of contact was poignant but brief, achingly brief.

  The therapy session had taken its toll on Melanie. Her face was slack with exhaustion, and her eyes were bloodshot. Laura put Melanie to bed for a nap, and the girl was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  When Laura went out to the living room, she discovered that Earl Benton had left his chair and had taken off his suit jacket. He had also drawn the revolver from his shoulder holster and was holding it in his right hand, down at his side, not as if he would use it that very minute, but as if he thought he might have a need for it soon. He was standing at a French window, staring outside, a worried look on his broad face.

  “Earl?” she said uncertainly.

  He glanced at her. “Where’s Melanie?”

  “Napping.”

  He returned his attention to the street in front of the house. “Better go sit with her.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe nothing. Half an hour ago, a telephone-company van pulled up across the street, parked there. Nobody got out.”

  She stepped beside him at the window.

  A gray-and-blue van with white-and-blue lettering was across from the house, slightly uphill, parked half in sunlight and half in the shade of a jacaranda. It looked like all the other phone company vans she had ever seen: nothing special about it, nothing sinister.

  “Why’s it look suspicious to you?” she asked.

  “Like I said, so far as I could see, nobody got out.”

  “Maybe the repairman’s just taking a nap on company time.”

  “Not likely. Phone company’s too well managed to let that sort of thing go on a lot. Besides, it just . . . smells. I get a feeling about it. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, and what it means to me is that we’re under surveillance.”

  “Surveillance? Who?”

  “Hard to say. But phone company vans . . . well, the feds often work that way.”

  “Federal agents?”

  “Yeah.”

  Astonished, she shifted her attention from the van to Earl’s profile. He didn’t seem to share her surprise. “You mean, like FBI?”

  “Maybe. Or the Treasury Department—Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Maybe even a security arm of the Defense Department. There’re all different kinds of feds.”

  “But why would federal agents have us under surveillance? We’re the victims—the potential victims, anyway—not criminals.”

  “I didn’t say it was for sure the feds. I just said they often work this way.”

  Staring at Earl while he stared at the van, Laura realized that he had changed. He was no longer the aw-shucks guy with a veneer of West L.A. polish. He looked harder, older than his twenty-six years, and his manner was more brisk and professional than before.

  Confused, Laura said, “Well, if it’s government men, we don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Don’t we?”

  “They aren’t the ones trying to kill Melanie.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  Startled, she said, “Well, of course they aren’t. It wasn’t the government that killed my husband and the other two.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked, his eyes still riveted on the telephone company van.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake—”

  “Your husband and one of the men killed with him . . . they used to work at UCLA.”

  “So?”

  “They received grants. For research.”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Some of those grants, maybe even most of them, came from the government, didn’t they?”

  Laura didn’t bother to reply, because Earl obviously knew the answer already.

  “Defense Department grants,” he said.

  She nodded. “And others.”

  He said, “The Defense Department would be interested in behavior modification. Mind control. The best way to deal with an enemy is to control his mind, make him your friend, without him ever realizing that he’s been manipulated. A real breakthrough in that field could put an end to war as we know it. But, hell, as far as that goes, pretty much any damn government agency would be interested in mind control.”

  “How do you know all this about Dylan’s work? I didn’t tell you all this.”

  Instead of answering her, Earl said, “Maybe your husband and Hoffritz were still working for the government.”

  “Hoffritz was a discredited—”

  “But if his research was important, if it was producing results, they wouldn’t care if he was discredited in the academic community. They’d still use him.”

  He glanced at her again, and there was a cynicism in his eyes, a weary-of-the-world expression on his face that made him appear utterly different from the way he’d looked earlier.

  She could no longer see the farm boy at all, and she wondered if that image of a simple man seeking polish and sophistication from a new life in L.A. had been an act. She was suddenly sure that Earl Benton, even as young as he was, had never been simple.

  And she was no longer sure that she should trust him.

  The situation had abruptly become so complex, the possibilities so multifarious, that she felt a bit dizzy. “A government conspiracy? But then why would they have killed Dylan and Hoffritz if Dylan was working for them?”

  Earl didn’t even hesitate. “Maybe they didn’t do the killing. In fact, it’s highly unlikely. But maybe your husband’s research was leading toward a major breakthrough with military applications, and maybe because of that, the other side had him wasted.”

  “Other side?”

  He was watching the street once more. “Foreign agents.”

  “The Soviet Union went kaput. Maybe you heard. It was in all the newspapers.”

  “The Russians are still there, and we’re a long way from being best buddies with them. Then there’s China. Iran and Iraq and Libya. There’s never a shortage of enemies in the world. Power-mad men are always with us.”

  “This is crazy,” she protested.

  “Why?”

  “Secret agents, spy stuff, international intrigue . . . Ordinary people don’t get mixed up in that stuff except in the movies.”

  “That’s just it. Your husband wasn’t ordinary people,” Earl said. “
Neither was Hoffritz.”

  She couldn’t look away from this man who was undergoing such a profound metamorphosis—aging, hardening—before her eyes. She repeated the question that he had not answered before. “All this speculation . . . you couldn’t have thought about any of it unless you knew my husband’s field, his personality, the kind of work he might be doing. How do you know all this about Dylan? I didn’t tell you any of it.”

  “Dan Haldane told me.”

  “The detective? When?”

  “When he called me. Just before noon.”

  “But I didn’t even hire your firm until after one o’clock.”

  “Dan said he’d give you our card, make sure you called us. He wanted us to understand all the possible ramifications of the case right from the start.”

  “But he never told me there might be FBI agents and, for God’s sake, Russians involved.”

  “He doesn’t know they’re involved, Doctor McCaffrey. He just realized there was the possibility that these murders had more than local significance. He didn’t go into it much with you, because he didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”

  “Christ.”

  The mad, seductive murmur of paranoia swelled in her mind again. She felt trapped in an elaborate web of conspiracies.

  “Better go look after Melanie,” Earl said.

  Outside, a Chevy sedan drove slowly along the street. The car stopped beside the phone-company van, then pulled forward and parked in front of it. Two men got out.

  “Ours,” Earl said.

  “Paladin agents?”

  “Yeah. I called the office a while ago, after I decided the van was a surveillance operation, asked them to send some guys to check it out’cause I didn’t want to go over there myself and leave you two alone.”

  The two men who got out of the Chevy went to opposite sides of the van.

  “Better go see about Melanie,” Earl repeated.

  “She’s okay.”

  “Then at least step back from the window.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m paid to take risks, and you aren’t. And I warned you at the start you’d have to do what I told you to do.”

  She retreated from the window, but she didn’t move completely away from it. She wanted to see what was happening at the phone company van.

  One of the Paladin agents was still at the driver’s door. The other man had gone around to the rear of the van.

  “If they’re federal agents, there won’t be any shooting,” she said. “Not even if they want Melanie.”

  “That’s right,” Earl agreed. “We’d have to give her up.”

  “No,” she said, alarmed.

  “Yes, I’m afraid we wouldn’t have a choice. They’re the law. But then at least we’d know who had her, and we could fight to get her back through the courts. But like I said, these guys might not be feds.”

  “And if they’re . . . someone else?” she asked, unable to bring herself to say “Russians.”

  “Then it might get nasty.”

  His large, strong hand curled tightly around the revolver.

  Laura looked past him, out the window, which was streaked and spotted from the previous night’s rain.

  The late-afternoon sunlight painted the street in shades of brass and copper.

  Squinting, she saw one of the rear doors swing open on the phone company van.

  chapter nineteen

  Dan left the pathology department but took only a few steps along the hall before a thought stopped him. He went back, opened the door, and leaned into the office as Luther looked up from the microscope again.

  “Thought you had to pee,” the pathologist said. “You’ve only been gone ten seconds.”

  “Peed right here in the hall,” Dan said.

  “Typical homicide detective.”

  “Listen, Luther, you’re a libertarian?”

  “Well, yeah, but there’s all kinds of libertarians. You’ve got your libertarian conservatives, your libertarian anarchists, and your basic orthodox libertarians. You’ve got libertarians who believe that we should—”

  “Luther, look at me, and you’ll see the definition of ‘boredom.’”

  “Then why’d you ask—”

  “I just wanted to know if you’d ever heard of a libertarian group called Freedom Now.”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “It’s a political-action committee.”

  “Means nothing to me.”

  “You’re pretty active in libertarian circles, aren’t you? You would have heard of Freedom Now if they were really a bunch of movers and shakers, wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Ernest Andrew Cooper.”

  “One of the three stiffs from Studio City,” Luther said.

  “Yeah. Ever hear of him before this?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s supposed to be a big wheel in libertarian circles.”

  “Where?”

  “Here in L.A.”

  “Well, he’s not. Never heard of him before this.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why’re you acting like a homicide dick with me?”

  “I am a homicide dick.”

  “You’re a dick, that’s for sure,” Luther said, grinning. “All the people you work with say so. Some of ’em use different words, but they all mean ‘dick.’”

  “Dick, dick, dick . . . are you fixated on that word or something? What’s wrong with you, Luther? Are you lonely, maybe need a new boyfriend?”

  The pathologist laughed. He had a hearty laugh and a smile that made you want to smile back at him. Dan couldn’t figure why such a good-natured, vital, optimistic, energetic man as Luther Williams had chosen to spend his working life with corpses.

  Dr. Irmatrude Gelkenshettle, chairperson of the Department of Psychology at UCLA, had a corner office with lots of windows and a view of the campus. Now, at 4:45 in the afternoon, the short winter day was already fading, casting a muddy orange light like that of a fire settling into embers. Outside, the shadows were growing longer by the minute, and students were hurrying in deference to the evening chill, which was creeping in ahead of the darkness.

  Dan sat in a Danish-modern chair, while Dr. Gelkenshettle went around the desk to a spring-backed chair behind it.

  She was a short, stocky woman in her fifties. Her iron-gray hair was chopped without any sense of style, and although she had never been beautiful, her face was appealing and kind. She wore blue slacks and a man’s white shirt, with pocket flaps and epaulets; the sleeves were rolled up, and she even wore a man’s watch, a plain but dependable Timex on an expansion band. She radiated competence, efficiency, and intelligence.

  Though Dan had just met her, he felt that he knew her well, for his own Aunt Kay—his adoptive mother’s sister, a career military officer in the WACs—was just like this woman. Dr. Gelkenshettle obviously chose her clothes for comfort, durability, and value. She didn’t scorn those who were concerned about being in fashion; it had simply never occurred to her that fashion might be a consideration when it was time to replenish her wardrobe. Just like Aunt Kay. He even knew why she wore a man’s watch. Aunt Kay had one too, because the face was larger than that on a woman’s watch, and the numerals were easier to read.

  At first he had been taken aback by her. She hadn’t been his idea of the head of a major university’s psychology department. But then he had noticed that on one full shelf of the bookcase behind her desk were more than twenty volumes that bore her name on their spines.

  “Doctor Gelkenshettle—”

  She held up a hand, interrupting him. “The name’s impossible. The only people who call me Doctor Gelkenshettle are students, those colleagues whom I loathe, my auto mechanic—because you’ve got to keep those guys at a distance or they’ll charge you a year’s salary for a tune-up—and strangers. We’re strangers, or the next thing to it, but we’
re also professionals, so let’s drop the formalities. Call me Marge.”

  “Is that your middle name?”

  “Unfortunately, no. But Irmatrude’s as bad as Gelkenshettle, and my middle name’s Heidi. Do I look like a Heidi to you?”

  He smiled. “I guess not.”

  “You’re damned right I don’t. My parents were sweet, and they loved me, but they had a blind spot about names.”

  “My name’s Dan.”

  “Much better. Simple. Sensible. Anyone can say Dan. Now, you wanted to talk about Dylan McCaffrey and Willy Hoffritz. It’s hard to believe they’re dead.”

  “Wouldn’t be so hard if you’d seen the bodies. Tell me about Dylan first. What did you think of him?”

  “I wasn’t head of the department when Dylan McCaffrey was here. I only moved into the top job a little more than four years ago.”

  “But you were teaching here then, doing your own research. You were on the faculty with him.”

  “Yes. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him well enough to know I didn’t want to know him any better.”

  “I understand he was very dedicated to his work. His wife—she’s a psychiatrist—called him a severe obsessive-compulsive.”

  “He was a nut,” Marge said.