Chapter 28

Clark's apartment was in Westwood, six blocks from the music building. Halfway there, Anna said, urgently, 'We've got no time for this, no time.'

'We should have made time,' Harper said. They were halfway to Clark's apartment complex. 'And what else can we do? I mean, we could still call Wyatt, and have the cops do it.'

'No.'

Anna fell back in her seat, looked out the window: If the cops got close to Clark, they'd tear him apart. Because Clark was oddhe was a composer of classical music, probably the least likely job in America. And he actually made money at it. And he had attitudes that had driven even his friends crazy: arrogant, conceited, charming, angry.

Not violent. Not that she'd ever seen. When he got angry, he got sullen, a cool, withdrawing anger, not a hot, plate-throwing tantrum. He'd never tear her house up.

On the other hand, her house wasn't really torn up. Just the broken window. And the guy had to break a window, if he wanted to get in the house. The destruction wasn't wanton.

Except for the pot. What had he done with that pot?

Anna shook her head, pushed her glasses back up her nose: she was losing it. She was five minutes from a confrontation she dreaded as much as anything she could think of, and she was worried about a flowerpot.

'Jake.' She grabbed his arm. 'Jake: we gotta go back to my place. Now.'

Exasperated. 'Anna, we're two minutes away.'

'Jake, forget it, we gotta go back.'

'Why?'

'Something happened to my flowerpot.'

The pot had been there earlier in the day. She didn't remember seeing it, but she would have missed it. It was simply part of the landscape.

Harper trailed Anna through the house, past the crime-scene cops. Wyatt was on the telephone, said something, then put a hand over the receiver: 'Find him?'

'Yeah. It's not him,' Anna said. 'Anything here?'

Wyatt shook his head and returned to the phone.

At the back door, Anna flipped on the porch light, and went out to look at the spot where the pot had been. 'It's too big to carry anyplace,' she said. 'It probably weighs fifty pounds.'

'I can't see anything,' Harper said, scuffing around in the grass.

'I'll get a flashlight,' Anna said. She went inside, got a flashlight out of a kitchen drawer and went back out.

The depression where the pot had stood was a clear ring of raw dirt in the grass going down to the canal. And two feet toward the canal, a lump of dirt that had probably been inside the pot.

Anna pointed the light over the sea wall, into the murky canal water. The stuff looked like it might have come out of a radiator, a funny green, with gray depths to it. But down there in the water, was. something. Something that bobbed up and down, up and down. Something with a round end. A head?

She stepped back, shivered, turned and went up on the porch: 'Hey, you guys,' she yelled. 'You better come out here.'

She thought of Pam in the water, anchored by the pot; swallowed. Please don't let it be. Please.

One of the crime-scene cops came to the door. 'What?'

Anna pointed the light into the water. 'There's something that shouldn't be here. we can't tell what it is.'

The cop walked out on the porch, followed by a second one, and then Wyatt, jostling past them.

Anna said, 'Somebody moved a big flowerpot, and maybe put it over the side. I.'

Wyatt looked into the water: 'Oh, Christ,' he said, softly.

The first cop looked down into the water, then dropped face down onto the seawall, reached into the water. Couldn't quite touch whatever it is.

'I'll have to get in,' he said. 'I'll wreck my suit.'

'Put in for it,' Wyatt said.

'Fuck it.' The cop peeled off his jacket, shirt and pants, put his shoes back on, and slipped over the side in his underwear. 'Cold,' he said.

Then he reached down into the murk, and just as quickly pulled his hand back.

'What is it?' Anna said. She could barely breathe.

'Not a body,' he said. 'I don't know.'

Wyatt exhaled, glanced at Anna. Below, the cop reached carefully through the water again, then said, 'Plastic,' and lifted.

The thing came out of the water, and Anna said, 'Kayak. We were looking at the end of a kayak.'

Harper: 'A goddamned kayak. That's how he got in and out.'

Wyatt: 'Shit. He's not from here.'

'But somebody must have seen him putting it in, up by.'

And Anna looked at Harper and said, 'Steve Judge.'

'What?'

She grabbed him by the shirt, both hands, her face six inches from his: 'Remember, out at the ranch? The woman, what's her name? Daly? She said Steve Judge was up in Oregon running rivers.'

'But he was in Oregon,' Harper said.

'What's this?' Wyatt asked.

Anna took a minute to explain, and Wyatt said, 'Gotta check it.'

'He lives in Pasadena,' Anna said. 'We've got an address.'

She found an address in her book, pulled the page and handed it to Wyatt.

'Long shot,' Wyatt muttered, as he hurried back into the house.

Another car arrived out front, and as they moved back inside, Anna called information, got the number for the Full Heart Ranch, dialed it. No answer. Dialed again. Still nothing.

'If Steve's the guy, we oughta go out to the ranch,' Anna told Harper.

'Let the cops do it,' Harper said. 'And it's really a long shot.'

'What, send a deputy who doesn't know what's going on? He'd get lost out there, at night. The cops can surround his house in Pasadena, no problem, but if Steve's the guy, and he's up at the ranch, he'd see them coming a million miles away,' Anna said. 'We know the road. We can go out there and park by the gate and walk in.'

'Anna, that's crazy.'

'Well, what're we gonna do?' she shouted at him. 'He's got Pam. He's gonna kill her. We can't just hang around here with two hundred cops. He's not gonna be here, whoever he is.'

Harper looked at her, and the cops working in the house, and all the lights and cars, and said, 'I'll need a gun. We can stop at my place. It's on the way.'

They took the San Diego over the hill, moving fast. Anna said, 'The name of the ranch in Oregon. Was it Cut River Canyon?'

'Don't remember. That sounds good.'

Anna punched in the information number for Oregon, got an operator: 'I don't show a Cut River Canyon, but I show a Cut Canyon.'

'That's it.' Anna muttered the number to herself as she redialed. The phone rang eight times, Anna muttering, 'C'mon, c'mon,' and on the ninth ring, was answered by an irritated woman, who snapped: 'Hello?'

'Yes. My name is Anna Batory, from Los Angeles. I talked to someone at the Cut Canyon Ranch who connected me to a man named Steven Judge. Are you the woman who connected me?'

'Yes. Do you know what time it is? Steven isn't here.'

Anna interrupted: 'Ma'am, somebody in Los Angeles has murdered at least three people in the last week and now has kidnapped a woman. And this is somehow tied to me. The police say he is stalking me. Mr Judge's name has come up a couple of times in the course of the investigation, but if he was really up at Cut Canyon when I called, then he can't have anything to do with it.'

There was a long hesitation, and then the woman asked, 'Are you with the police?'

'I can have the office in charge of the L. A. County serial-murder task force call you in five minutes, if you have something to say,' Anna said.

Another pause. 'And this isn't a joke. We didn't receive anything like this information. before.'

'You mean from Mr Judge?'

'Yes, from Steve. The stalking, I mean, he suggested it might be somewhat the other way around, that's why we.'

'Ma'am, I'm going to have Lieutenant Wyatt from the Santa Monica police departmenthe's the head of the task force for this series of crimesI'm going to have him call you in the next five minutes. Please tell him everything you know.'