Night Mask Read online

  Tina had been found on a county road in some pretty rough country. The road was not often used, and the only reason for the traffic that night was because a group of fishermen had been returning from a weekend of fishing at a lake on the west side of the Los Padres National Forest.

  “She tumbled down the embankment here,” Leo said, pointing. “The dogs backtracked her for two miles. In that direction.” Again, he pointed. “Then the rain stopped them. The spot where they lost her scent is marked. Come on. Let’s go.”

  The cops both wore comfortable but tough clothing and good hiking boots. They each carried two canteens of water.

  They walked for about twenty minutes, and Lani said, “I’m lost, Leo.”

  He chuckled. “I showed you how to use a compass and how I shot our azimuth. We are not lost.”

  “Leo, I wouldn’t know an azimuth if it hit me in the mouth. I’m a city girl. I hate the great outdoors. There are bugs and crawly things out here. Snakes. And bears.”

  “Mountain lions, too.”

  She moved closer to him.

  “And coyotes and wolves.”

  “Awright already, Leo. Enough.”

  “And it’s in this area where that madman with the axe used to chop up kids who came out to park and smooch.”

  She sighed. “That tale is told in every state in the Union. Smooch, Leo? Smooch? God, you’re old, Leo. Old. What the hell are we looking for, anyway? She was naked, for Christ’s sake. Any bloodstains have been long washed away.”

  “I’m like that Supreme Court Justice when asked about pornography. He said, ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.’ I don’t know what we’re looking for, Lani. But I’ll know it when I see it. Keep walking.”

  “Yes, bwana. Right, sahib. Whatever you say.” She pointed. “Is that stake where the trail was lost?”

  “That’s it. Let’s take a breather.”

  “Thank you.” Lani sat down and drank about half a canteen of water.

  Leo pulled the canteen away from her mouth. “Go easy on that stuff, Lani. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “I’m thirsty!”

  “Lani, make the water last. Put a pebble in your mouth and suck on it. It’ll create saliva and make you feel better.”

  “A pebble? Wonderful. Eat a rock and feel better. Where’d you learn all this survival crap, Leo?”

  “Vietnam, Lani.”

  “What were you, a Green Beret?”

  “A green beret is a hat, Lani. No. I was a LRRP. That rhymes with burp. Stands for Long Range Recon Patrol. I was a Ranger.”

  “No kidding? I never knew that about you, Leo. You jump out of airplanes?”

  “Yes. And climbed mountains and skied and learned to scuba, and all sorts of other neat stuff that I’ve been trying for twenty years to forget.”

  “You must have been young.”

  “Seventeen when I went in, and eighteen when I became a Ranger. Two months later I was in Vietnam.”

  “In country?”

  Leo smiled. “Some people call it that.”

  “But you don’t?”

  Leo smiled and shook his head. “No. Lani, we’re going to work in a big circle. We’re going to stay within sight of each other and circle, an ever-widening circle.”

  “I saw John Wayne do this in a cowboys and Indians movie one time.”

  “Hush up. Are you rested?”

  Leo wasn’t going to talk about Vietnam. Now or ever, Lani realized. She nodded her head. “I’m rested.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They rested several times and finally broke for lunch, which consisted of smushed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tepid water from their canteens. They had discovered nothing. At three o’clock, they still had found nothing, and Leo was just about ready to call it a day and trudge on back to where they’d left the pickup.

  “Leo!” Lani called. “I found something. But I don’t know what it might mean.”

  The handprint had been spared from the elements by a small overhang, and by some type of small animal that had taken shelter under the overhang. Probably a rabbit judging by the color and texture of the fur Leo fingered. He looked around carefully and saw a small broken branch from some scrub brush.

  “She came from that direction and stumbled and fell here,” he said, opening his compass and taking a heading. He took out a map and marked their location. He stood for a moment, filled with indecision. He couldn’t send Lani back for the truck. She’d be lost as a goose in fifteen minutes. Taking a small camera from his pack, Leo took pictures of the scene and turned to his partner.

  She had somehow picked up on his vibes. She sat down. “I’ll wait right here, Leo. I saw the dust kicked up by a vehicle on that gravel road over there. I can find that. You go back and get the truck, and when you get over there, honk the horn or fire off a round. I can make it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She smiled. “Move, boy!”

  Leo walked as swiftly as he dared. But he knew not to push himself in this intense heat. He wasn’t all that worried about Lani. She could be tough as nails when she had to be, but she was out of her element. She was as good a street cop as anyone Leo had ever known. But this wasn’t the street. This was rattlesnake country.

  When Leo reached the truck, to save time he cut across country. While they had walked, Leo had mentally noted a way for the four-wheel-drive vehicle to make it back to where he had left Lani. The Ford pickup was high off the ground, and he’d taken it over much rougher terrain. When he was about halfway to where Lani waited, he blew a tire.

  He knew cussing would be a waste of breath, so he just sighed and got out and changed the tire.

  But when he reached the spot where he’d told Lani to wait, she was gone, and from all the churned-up earth, it looked like there had been one hell of a struggle.

  Chapter 12

  He cut his engine to hear better, and stood for a moment. He heard only the silence. He looked around and spotted Lani’s shirt lying on the ground. “Oh, no!” he said. “Jesus Christ!”

  He picked up the shirt. His thoughts were dark and very, very primitive.

  “Lani!” he yelled. “Lani!”

  No human sound greeted his words.

  Leo had left his 9mm behind for this run, choosing instead to carry a .45 caliber autoloader. In his opinion (one shared by many others in the field of law-enforcement), the .45 caliber autoloader was the finest combat pistol ever developed. The big slug was a man-stopper that was unequaled in conventional calibers.

  “Lani!” Leo shouted once more.

  Nothing. Leo thumbed open the snap on his holster. Then he heard the faint sounds of cussing. The sound became clearer and Leo smiled. Lani was really letting the words fly.

  “Lani!” he yelled.

  “I’m right here!” she returned the yell.

  He lifted the shirt. “What are you doing, Lani, sunbathing?”

  “Hell, no!” she came into view, buckling her belt. “Why didn’t you warn me, Leo?”

  “Warn you about what?”

  “Ants, goddamnit!”

  Before Leo could answer, several dozen of the little insects chomped down on Leo’s legs, and he started doing some fancy stepping of his own, slapping at himself and jumping around.

  Lani stood and laughed at his antics. She had done virtually the same movements minutes before.

  “Shit!” Leo hollered, and that doubled Lani over with laughter.

  “The rain left a good-sized pool right down there,” Lani called, pointing. “You better hit the water, Leo. It’s the only thing that’ll get them off of you.”

  As Leo passed Lani, he tossed her the shirt and gave her a dirty look as she laughed at him. “I’ll move the truck away from those big ant mounds,” she said.

  “You do that,” Leo spoke through gritted teeth, calling the words over his shoulder as he exited his pants.

  Lani whistled at him.

  “Very funny, Lani. Cute!”
/>   * * *

  Leo carried a well-stocked first aid kit, and they doctored themselves before moving out, both of them agreeing not to ever mention the ant attack to fellow officers back at the station.

  They drove to the gravel/dirt road and stopped. “I don’t believe Tina crossed this road,” Lani said. “Even in her confused state of mind, she would have stayed on the road, following it for help.”

  “I agree. But I’ll bet you the house where she was held is on this road. When she escaped, she exited the rear of the house and just ran, getting away the only thing on her mind. Left or right?”

  “Turn right.”

  They drove for over a mile before coming to the first home. They got out and knocked on the front door. An elderly man answered the knock, and after they identified themselves, he waved them inside.

  “No,” he said, in response to the question. “There are only three more houses on this road ’fore it ends, and you got to turn either left or right. Left will take you nowhere. There is a stone house down to the right that was rented or bought by a young couple several years ago.”

  “Late ’91,” his wife added. “But we never see them. I think they live in the city and only come out here on the weekends. Maybe once a month. Sometimes less than that.”

  The old couple did not know the name of the young couple and could not describe them. Neither one had ever gotten a good look at them. They only came out at night, they said. Never during the daylight hours.

  When was the last time they’d noticed the young couple’s car?

  Two weeks back, they thought.

  The cops drove up the road, turned right, and slowly drove past the stone house. The home sat well off the road and was surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence. The gate was closed and locked.

  “Let’s do this legal, Leo,” Lani said. “Right by the book.”

  “I agree.” Leo reached for his radio mike, then hesitated.

  “They’ll never come back here,” Lani said. “We could stake this place out forever, and come up with nothing.”

  He nodded and called in.

  Two hours later, with about an hour of daylight left and armed with a search warrant, the cops used heavy bolt-cutters to snap the chain from the gate. Bill Bourne, from the La Barca city police, Sheriff Brownwood, members of the CHP, and a forensic crew waited as Leo and Lani walked up the sidewalk and hammered on the front door.

  “You getting the same feeling I am?” Lani asked.

  “Yeah. This place is deserted.” Leo reached for the handle on the screen door, and stopped just as his fingers touched the handle.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. A feeling. It’s too easy. Something is wrong. Back off the porch and don’t touch anything doing so. Bring me a rope or some heavy cord.”

  “What the hell are you doing, Leo?” Brownie yelled from the gate.

  “Staying alive,” Leo shouted. He very carefully tied one end of the cord on the pull-handle of the screen door, and then backed off the porch, trailing out the cord.

  “You smell a booby trap?” a CHP man asked.

  “Yeah. I think the whole damn house is wired to go. I did some tunnel-ratting in Vietnam. I learned to trust my instincts.”

  “Everybody get down!” Brownie yelled. “But back up first. Get behind your vehicles. Tie some more cord on that thing, Leo. Give yourself plenty of slack to move.”

  Everybody got behind their vehicles and crouched. “Ready?” Leo yelled.

  “Pull it,” Brownie said.

  Leo pulled and the screen door flew open. Nothing happened. “So much for your instincts,” a CHP man said, standing up.

  The house blew apart. The force of the blast knocked the California Highway Patrolman flat on his ass in the road. The roof was pushed twenty or so feet into the air; the stone walls mushroomed and disintegrated, hurling stones in all directions. The stones bounced off the cars and those crouched behind them.

  “Goddamn!” Brownie yelled, as a rock clunked him on the forehead, bringing blood.

  Lani and Leo scrambled under Leo’s truck and were safe from the falling debris. Shattered wood and busted stones and other building materials rained down for what seemed like several minutes. Actually it was only a few seconds. A huge cloud of dust completely enveloped the explosion area. When the cops again peeped out over the hoods of cars and trucks, the house was gone. Leveled to the ground.

  “Get floodlights and portable generators out here,” Brownie said, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding head. “Pull everybody in. No one is off. I want this area sealed so tight a mouse couldn’t get through. I don’t want anybody inside that chain-link fence until I say so. As to opening the records, I don’t care who you have to irritate, pull out of bars, or off of golf courses, or away from dinner tables. I want the names of the people who rented or bought this house. And I want it right now.”

  “Yes, sir,” a young deputy said. He stood looking at the sheriff.

  “Get it on the air, boy,” Brownie growled. “Move.”

  The young deputy went quick-stepping to his unit, grabbed up his mike, and got dispatch.

  “Must have been five hundred pounds of dynamite planted in that house,” the CHP man whose butt had recently hit the gravel said.

  * * *

  “Plastic,” the forensics man said, a few hours later. “C-4. These people don’t fool around. This was overkill all the way. One tenth of what they used would have been sufficient to do the job.”

  “The house was rented from a Mr. Ned Robbins over near Bakersfield,” a deputy said. “He never met the people he rented it to. Said they paid the rent a year at a time, and he never had the first complaint about them from anybody living along this road.”

  “Well, hell!” Lani blurted. “No one else lives along this road.”

  “Did they tell him what they did for a living?” Leo asked.

  “Said they were writers, and needed a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “There just might be more than a modicum of truth to that,” a plainclothes CBI man said, walking up, holding up an evidence bag with several sheets of paper in it. “This is pretty dark stuff here.”

  Lani took the clear bag and turned to the light so she could read it. She shuddered and shook her head. “They’re chronicling all the actions of their victims. This is about a nun who was raped and sodomized. Like that one in Albuquerque.”

  “I want every scrap of paper saved,” Brownie said, more to himself than to any of the officers. He knew that when his people were through, every stone, stick, and brick would have been carefully gone over, and anything pertinent to the case would be tagged and saved.

  Brownie turned to Leo and Lani. “Go home and get some sleep. That’s an order. I’ll see you both out here in the morning. Now, beat it.”

  * * *

  The loss of the country house meant nothing to the Ripper. He and his Other had several homes rented throughout the county. He and his Other also owned several pieces of property, both in the city and county. And now those who followed the Ripper and his Other were gathering in California. It was going to be a very enjoyable time for the Ripper and his Other, and a very confusing time for the cops.

  More than that—it was going to be fun!

  * * *

  The California Bureau of Investigation, CBI, a part of the state’s Justice Department, met Leo and Lani when they arrived back at the explosion site the next morning. For now, there were two agents of the CBI assigned to this case, Brenda Yee and Ted Murray. Both of them in their early thirties.

  “You guys did some great legwork on this,” Brenda Yee complimented the county cops. Then she smiled. “How much of it can be used in a court of law?”

  Leo chuckled softly. “Some of it.”

  “Look,” Lani said. “It’s the weekend. Why don’t we all get together at my place this evening? Leo’s wife and kids have gone up to Santa Cruz for a vacation. He’s bouncing
around alone in his house. We can have a few drinks, I’ll do my impersonation of a chef, and we’ll tell you guys just how we collected all this info.”

  “Sounds great,” Ted said. “Brenda?”

  “Hey, it’s fine with me.”

  * * *

  Brenda whistled softly and cocked her head to one side. “You guys were right when you said ‘some of it’ could be used in court. Breaking and entering, trespassing, impersonation ... to name a few minor points. But what the hey? None of those little items ever have to be brought out.”

  “We hope,” Ted said. “So you’ve put the Longwood twins out of this picture?”

  “Tina said it was a man and a woman. She was adamant on that. The house that blew up is where she was held. We established that today. The house was rented to a man and woman. That pretty much puts the twins out of the picture. At least as primary suspects.”

  “The people who attacked you back at the closed-down private school?” Brenda asked.

  Leo and Lani shrugged their shoulders. “No idea,” Leo replied.

  “But the both of you believe this might be the work of a cult. A cult that somehow revolves around the Longwood twins, Jim and Jack?” Ted asked.

  “I think it’s certainly something that has to be taken into consideration.”

  “I agree,” Brenda said. “I think we’re talking about a serial killer, or killers, with a string of bodies behind them that’s going to set a world’s record. I agree with your figure of over five hundred victims coast to coast. The FBI’s got nearly every agent working on this string of terrorist bombings around the country, so we can’t expect much help from them. There are only three hundred of us, statewide, and we’re stretched pretty thin ourselves.”

  “Hancock County and La Barca city cops are up to their necks in robberies, murders, rapes, car-jackings, gangs, domestic crap, and all the other normal day-today work that takes up so much of a cop’s time,” Leo said. “So it’s up to the four of us. How long can you people stay here?”

  “Our marching orders were to stay until it’s over,” Ted said.

  Lani stood up. “Well, we’ve got a green salad, spaghetti, Leo’s famous—or infamous—meat sauce, garlic bread, and a pretty good bottle of California red. Let’s eat.”