"I'd appreciate that." I gave her Milo's name. Just as I put the phone down, it rang. Milo was nowhere in sight so I took the call. "Detective Sturgis's desk."

A familiar voice said, "I'd like to leave a message for Detective Sturgis."

"Heidi? It's Dr. Delaware."

"Oh… hi-listen, I'm sorry I couldn't get anything out of Peake today."

"Don't worry about it."

"It didn't help my credibility with Swig, either. After you were gone he called me into his office and made me go over the whole thing again: what Peake said, when he said it, was I sure I heard right."

"Sorry for the hassle."

"It would've sure been nice to be able to prove it… Anyway, I just wanted to call to let Detective Sturgis know I've decided to leave Starkweather in a couple of weeks, but if there's anything else he needs, he can call me."

"Thanks, Heidi. I'll tell him."

"So," she said, "you actually work there? Right at the police station?"

"No. I just happen to be here today."

"Sounds interesting. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying with Peake, maybe something will come up."

"Don't put yourself in any jeopardy."

"What, from Ardis? You saw his condition. Not exactly dangerous. Not that I let my guard down-do you think Claire did?"

"Don't know," I said.

"I keep thinking about her. What happened to her. It seems so strange that anything could touch her."

"What do you mean?"

"She seemed like one of those people-caught up in their own worlds. Like she was happy being alone. Didn't need anyone else."

Chapter 15

I called home before leaving the station. Robin was out, and all that awaited me was paperwork-final reports on custody cases that had already been decided. I told my own voice on the message machine that I'd be back by five.

Talking to myself.

Put a cell phone in a psychotic's hand and he could fake normalcy.

The encounter with Ardis Peake had stayed with me.

Monster.

Hard to connect that mute, emaciated husk with someone capable of destroying an entire family.

What better endorsement for Mr. Swig's highly structured system?

What turns a human being into that?

I'd given Milo the short-version lecture and he'd been gracious enough not to complain. But I had no real answers; no one did.

I wondered what questions had led Claire to Starkweather. And Peake. She'd gravitated to him shortly after taking the job. Why, of all the madmen, had he been the one whose pathology had drawn her in?

The other thing that troubled me was Peake's assault on the eyes of the little Ardullo girl. Had I been too hasty minimizing his gibbering at Heidi?

Or perhaps it was simple: Claire had learned about the eyes and discussed it with him. Had it elicited something in him- guilt, excitement, a horrible nostalgia?

Bad eyes in a box. Was the box a coffin? Peake's imagery of the dead child. Reliving the crime and feeding off the memory, the way lust killers did?

It all hinged on learning more about Claire, and so far her ghost had avoided capture.

No entanglements, no known associates. Not much impact on her world.

Ardis Peake, on the other hand, had been a star in his day.

I drove to Westwood and used the computers at the U's research library to look up the Ardullo massacre. The murders had been covered nationally for one week. The periodicals index offered half a page of citations, and I went looking for microfiche.

Most of the articles were nearly identically worded, lifted intact from wire service reports. An arrest headshot showed a young Peake, stick-faced, hollow-cheeked, sporting a full head of long, stringy, dark hair.

Wild-eyed, startled, a cornered animal. The Edvard Munch screamer on jet fuel.

A large bruise spread beneath his left eye. The left side of his face swelled. Rough arrest? If so, it hadn't been reported.

The facts were as I remembered them. Multiple stab wounds, crushing skull fractures, extensive mutilation, cannibalism. The articles filled in names and places.

Scott and Theresa Ardullo, thirty-three and twenty-nine, respectively. Married six years, both UC Davis agricultural grads. He, "the scion of a prosperous farming family," had developed an interest in winegrowing but concentrated on peaches and walnuts.

Brittany, five years old.

Justin, eight months.

Next came the happier-times family photo: Scott hand in hand with a restless-looking little girl who resembled her mother, Theresa holding the baby. Pacifier in Justin's mouth, fat cheeks ballooning around the nipple. Ferns wheel in the background, some kind of fair.

Scott Ardullo had been muscular, blond, crew-cut, grinning with the full pleasure of one who believes himself blessed.

His wife, slender, somewhat plain, with long dark hair held in place by a white band, seemed less certain about happy endings.

I couldn't bear another look at the children's faces.

No picture of Noreen Peake, just an account of the way she'd been found, sitting at the kitchen table. My imagination added the smell of apples, cinnamon, flour.

A ranch superintendent named Teodoro Alarcon had found Noreen's body, then discovered the rest of it. He'd been placed under sedation.

No quote from him.

Treadway's sheriff, Jacob Haas, said: "I served in Korea and this was worse than anything I ever saw overseas. Scott and Terri took those people in out of the goodness of their hearts and this is how they get repaid. It's beyond belief."

Anonymous townspeople cited Peake's strange habits- he mumbled to himself, didn't bathe, cruised alleys, pawed through garbage cans, ate trash. Everyone had known of his fondness for sniffing propellants. No one had thought him dangerous.

One other attributed quote:

" 'Everyone always knew he was weird, but not that weird,' said a local youth, Derrick Crimmins. 'He didn't hang out with anyone. No one wanted to hang with him because he smelled bad and he was just too weird, maybe into Satan or something.' "

No other mention of satanic rituals, and I wondered if there'd been any follow-up. Probably not, with Peake out of circulation.

Treadway was labeled a "quiet farming and ranching community."

" 'The worst things we usually have,' said Sheriff Haas, 'are bar fights, once in a while some equipment theft. Nothing like this, never anything like this.' "

And that was it.

No coverage of the Ardullos' funeral, or Noreen Peake's.

I kept spooling, found a three-line paragraph in the L.A.

Times two months later reporting Peake's commitment to Starkweather.

Using "Treadway" as a keyword pulled up nothing since the murders.

Quiet town. Extinct town.

How did an entire community die?

Had Peake somehow killed it, too?

Milo called in a message while I was out on my morning run:

"Mr. and Mrs. Argent, the Flight Inn on Century Boulevard, Room 129, one P.M."

I did some paperwork, set out at twelve-thirty, taking Sepulveda toward the airport. Century's a wide, sad strip that cuts through southern L.A. Turn east off the freeway and you might end up in some gang gully, carjacked or worse. West takes you to LAX, past the bleak functionalism of airport hotels, cargo depots, private parking lots, topless joints.

The Flight Inn sat next to a Speedy Express maintenance yard. Too large to be a motel, it hadn't passed through hotel puberty. Three stories of white-painted block, yellow gutters, cowgirl-riding-an-airplane logo, inconspicuous entry off to the right topped by a pink neon VACANCY sign. The bi-level self-park wrapped itself around the main building. No security in the lot that I could see. I left the Seville in a ground-floor space and walked to the front as a 747 roared overhead.