The Servants of Twilight (6 page)
At last he turned away from the window and looked at her. His tousled hair hung down in his eyes, which were possessed by a haunted look, a bleak expression so stark for a six-year-old that it made Christine’s heart beat faster. Bright tears glistened on his cheeks.
She quickly went to him and took his hand. It was cold.
“Sweetheart, what is it? Tell me.”
He wiped at his reddened eyes with his free hand. His nose was runny, and he blotted it on his sleeve.
He was so
pale
.
pale
.
Whatever was wrong, it wasn’t simply a standard complaint, no ordinary childhood trauma. She sensed that much and her mouth went dry with fear.
He tried to speak, couldn’t get out even one word, pointed to the kitchen door, took a deep shuddery breath, began to shake, and finally said, “The p-p-porch.”
“What about the porch?”
He wasn’t able to tell her.
Frowning, she went to the door, hesitated, opened it. She gasped, rocked by the sight that awaited her.
Brandy. His furry, golden body lay at the edge of the porch, near the steps. But his head was immediately in front of the door, at her feet. The dog had been decapitated.
5
Christine and Joey
sat on the beige sofa in the living room. The boy was no longer crying, but he still looked stunned.
sat on the beige sofa in the living room. The boy was no longer crying, but he still looked stunned.
The policeman filling out the report, Officer Wilford, sat on one of the Queen Anne armchairs. He was tall and husky, with rough features, bushy eyebrows, an air of rugged self-sufficiency: the kind of man who probably felt at home only outdoors and especially in the woods and mountains, hunting and fishing. He perched on the very edge of the chair and held his notebook on his knees, an amusingly prim posture for a man his size; apparently he was concerned about rumpling or soiling the furniture.
“But who let the dog out?” he inquired, after having asked every other question he could think of.
“Nobody,” Christine said. “He let himself out. There’s a pet portal in the bottom of the kitchen door.”
“I saw it,” Wilford said. “Not big enough for a dog that size.”
“I know. It was here when we bought the house. Brandy hardly ever used it, but if he wanted out badly enough, and if there wasn’t anyone around to let him out, he could put his head down, wriggle on his belly, and squeeze through that little door. I kept meaning to have it closed up because I was afraid he might get stuck. If only I
had
closed it up, he might still be alive.”
had
closed it up, he might still be alive.”
“The witch got him,” Joey said softly.
Christine put an arm around her son.
Wilford said, “So you think maybe they used meat or dog biscuits to lure him outside?”
“No,” said Joey adamantly, answering for his mother, clearly offended by the suggestion that a gluttonous impulse had led to the dog’s death. “Brandy went out there to protect me. He knew the old witch was still hanging around, and he went to get her, but what happened was . . . she got him first.”
Christine was aware that Wilford’s suggestion was probably the correct explanation, but she also knew that Joey would find it easier to accept Brandy’s death if he could believe that his dog had died in a noble cause. She said, “He was a very brave dog, very brave, and we’re proud of him.”
Wilford nodded. “Yes, I’m sure you’ve got every reason to be proud. It’s a darned shame. A golden retriever’s such a handsome breed. Such a gentle face and sweet disposition.”
“The witch got him,” Joey repeated, as if numbed by that terrible realization.
“Maybe not,” Wilford said. “Maybe it wasn’t the old woman.”
Christine frowned at him. “Well, of course it was.”
“I understand how upsetting the incident was at South Coast Plaza yesterday,” Wilford said. “I understand how you’d be inclined to link the old woman to this thing with the dog. But there’s no solid proof, no real reason to think they
are
linked. It might be a mistake to assume they are.”
are
linked. It might be a mistake to assume they are.”
“But the old woman was at Joey’s window last night,” Christine said exasperatedly. “I told you that. I told the officers who were here last night, too. Doesn’t anyone listen? She was at Joey’s window, looking in at him, and Brandy was barking at her.”
“But she was gone when you got there,” Wilford said.
“Yes,” Christine said. “But—”
Smiling down at Joey, Wilford said, “Son, are you absolutely, positively sure it was the old lady there at your window?”
Joey nodded vigorously. “Yeah. The witch.”
“Because, see, when you looked up and noticed someone at the window, it would have been perfectly natural for you to figure it was the old woman. After all, she’d already given you one bad scare earlier in the day, so she was on your mind. Then, when you switched the light on and got a glimpse of who it was there at the window, maybe you had the old woman’s face so firmly fixed in your mind that you would’ve seen her no matter who it
really
was.”
really
was.”
Joey blinked, unable to follow the policeman’s reasoning. He just stubbornly repeated himself: “It was her. The witch.”
To Christine, Officer Wilford said, “I’d be inclined to think the prowler was the one who later killed the dog—but that it wasn’t the old woman who was the prowler. You see, most always, when a dog’s been poisoned—and it happens more often than you think—it’s not the work of some total stranger. It’s someone within a block of the house where the dog lived. A neighbor. What I figure is, some neighbor was prowling around, looking for the dog, not looking for your little boy at all, when Joey saw them at the window. Later they found the dog and did what they’d come to do.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Christine said. “We’ve got good neighbors here. None of them would kill our dog.”
“Happens all the time,” Wilford said.
“Not in
this
neighborhood.”
this
neighborhood.”
“Any neighborhood,” Wilford insisted. “Barking dogs, day after day, night after night . . . they drive some people a little nuts.”
“Brandy hardly ever barked.”
“Well, now, ‘hardly ever’ to you might seem like ‘all the time’ to one of your neighbors.”
“Besides, Brandy wasn’t poisoned. It was a hell of a lot more violent than that. You saw. Crazy-violent. Not something any neighbor would do.”
“You’d be surprised what neighbors will do,” Wilford said. “Sometimes they even kill each other. Not unusual at all. It’s a strange world we’re living in.”
“You’re wrong,” she said hotly. “It was the old woman. The dog and the face at the window—they were both connected with that old woman.”
He sighed. “You may be right.”
“I
am
right.”
am
right.”
“I was only suggesting that we keep our minds open,” he said.
“Good idea,” she said pointedly.
He closed his notebook. “Well, I guess I’ve got all the details I need.”
Christine got up as the officer rose from his chair. She said, “What now?”
“We’ll file a report, of course, including your statement, and we’ll give you an open case number.”
“What’s an open case number?”
“If anything else should happen, if this old woman should show up again, you give the case number when you call us, and the officers answering your call will know the story before they get here; they’ll know what to look for on the way, so if maybe the woman leaves before they arrive, they’ll spot her in passing and be able to stop her.”
“Why didn’t they give us a case number after what happened last night?”
“Oh, they wouldn’t open a file just for one report of a prowler,” Wilford explained. “Last night, you see, no crime had been committed—at least so far as we could tell. No evidence of any sort of crime. But this is . . . a little worse.”
“A
little
worse?” she said, remembering Brandy’s severed head, the dead glassy eyes gazing up at her.
little
worse?” she said, remembering Brandy’s severed head, the dead glassy eyes gazing up at her.
“An unfortunate choice of words,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, compared to a lot of other things we see on this job, a dead dog isn’t so—”
“Okay, okay,” Christine said, increasingly unable to conceal her anger and impatience. “You’ll call us and give us an open case number. But what else are you going to do?”
Wilford looked uncomfortable. He rolled his broad shoulders and scratched at his thick neck. “The description you’ve given us is the only thing we’ve got to go on, and that’s not much. We’ll run it through the computer and try to work backward to a name. The machine’ll spit out the name of anyone who’s been in trouble with us before and who fits at least seven of the ten major points of standard physical comparison. Then we’ll pull mug shots of whatever other photos we have in the files. Maybe the computer’ll give us several names, and we’ll have photos of more than one old woman. Then we’ll bring all the pictures over here for you to study. As soon as you tell us we’ve found her . . . well, then we can go have a talk with her and find out what this is all about. You see, it really isn’t hopeless, Mrs. Scavello.”
“What if she hasn’t been in trouble with you before and you don’t
have
a file on her?”
have
a file on her?”
Moving to the front door, Wilford said, “We have datasharing arrangements with every police agency in Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and Los Angeles Counties. We can reach their computers through our own. Instant access. Datalink, they call it. If she’s in any of their files, we’ll find her just as quickly as if she were in our own.”
“Yeah, sure, but what if she’s never been in trouble anywhere ?” Christine asked anxiously.
Opening the front door, Wilford said, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll probably turn up something. We almost always do.”
“That’s not good enough,” she said, and she would have said it even if she had believed him, which she didn’t. They wouldn’t turn up anything.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Scavello, but it’s the best we can do.”
“Shit.”
He scowled. “I understand your frustration, and I want to assure you we won’t file this away and forget about it. But we can’t work miracles.”
“Shit.”
His scowl deepened. His bushy eyebrows drew together in a single thick bar. “Lady, it’s none of my business, but I don’t think you should use words like that in front of your little boy.”
She stared at him, astonished. Astonishment turned to anger. “Yeah? And what’re you—a born-again Christian?”
“In fact, I am, yes. And I believe it’s extremely important for us to set good examples for our young ones, so they’ll grow up in God’s image. We’ve got to—”
“I don’t
believe
this,” Christine said. “You’re telling me that I’m setting a bad example because I used a four-letter word, a harmless word—”
believe
this,” Christine said. “You’re telling me that I’m setting a bad example because I used a four-letter word, a harmless word—”
“Words aren’t harmless. The devil beguiles and persuades with words. Words are the—”
“What about the example
you’re
setting for my son? Huh? By your every act, you’re teaching him that the police really can’t protect anyone, that they really can’t help anyone, that they can’t do much more than come around afterward and pick up the pieces.”
you’re
setting for my son? Huh? By your every act, you’re teaching him that the police really can’t protect anyone, that they really can’t help anyone, that they can’t do much more than come around afterward and pick up the pieces.”
“I wish you didn’t see it that way,” Wilford said.
“How the hell else am I supposed to see it?”
He sighed. “We’ll call you with the case number.” Then he turned away from the door, away from her and Joey, and moved stiffly down the walkway.
After a moment, she hurried in his wake, caught up with him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Please.”
He stopped, turned to her. His face was hard, his eyes cold.
She said, “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just distraught. I don’t know what to think. All of a sudden I don’t know where to turn.”
“I understand,” he said, as he had said a couple of times before, but there was no understanding in his granite face.
Glancing back to make sure Joey was still in the doorway, still too far away to hear, she said, “I’m sorry I flew off the handle at you. And I guess you’re right about watching my language around Joey. Most of the time I do watch it, believe me, but today I’m not thinking straight. That crazy woman told me that my little boy had to die. That’s what she said.
He’s got to die
, she said. And now the dog’s dead, poor old fur-face.
God
, I liked that mutt a lot. He’s dead and gone, and Joey saw a face at the window in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden the world’s turned upside-down, and I’m scared, really scared, because I think somehow that crazy woman followed us, and I think she’s going to do it, or at least
try
to do it, try to kill my little boy. I don’t know why. There can’t
be
a reason. Not a reason that makes any sense. But that doesn’t make any difference, does it? Not these days. These days, the newspapers are full of stories about punks and child molesters and lunatics of all kinds who don’t
need
a reason to do what they do.”
He’s got to die
, she said. And now the dog’s dead, poor old fur-face.
God
, I liked that mutt a lot. He’s dead and gone, and Joey saw a face at the window in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden the world’s turned upside-down, and I’m scared, really scared, because I think somehow that crazy woman followed us, and I think she’s going to do it, or at least
try
to do it, try to kill my little boy. I don’t know why. There can’t
be
a reason. Not a reason that makes any sense. But that doesn’t make any difference, does it? Not these days. These days, the newspapers are full of stories about punks and child molesters and lunatics of all kinds who don’t
need
a reason to do what they do.”
Wilford said, “Mrs. Scavello, please, you’ve got to keep control of yourself. You’re being melodramatic. I won’t say hysterical, but definitely melodramatic. It’s not as bad as you’re making out. We’ll get to work on this, just like I told you. Meanwhile, you put your trust in God, and you’ll be all right, you and your boy.”
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