“Nine.”
“I’ll get over well before then and we’ll put our heads together. You want, I can stay at the house while you’re gone. Just 9 feed me and water me and tell Rover not to make demands.”
“Rover’s a hero as far as I’m concerned-he’s the one who heard the intruder.”
“Yeah, but there was no follow-throiigh, Alex. Instead of eating the sucker, he just stood around and watched. What you’ve got is a four-legged bureaucrat.”
“That’s cold,” I said. “Didn’t you ever watch Lassie?”
“Screw that, my thing was Godzilla. There’s a useful pet.”
By three, no one had returned my calls and I felt like a cartoon man on a desert island. I did paperwork and looked out the window a lot. At threethirty, the dog and I hazarded a walk around the Glen, and when I arrived back home, there were no signs of intrusion.
Shortly after four, Milo arrived, looking hurried and bothered. When the dog came up to him, he paid no mind.
He held an audiocassette in one hand, his vinyl attache case DIAU 1-UVE i in the other. Instead of making his usual beeline to the kitchen, he went into the living room and loosened his tie. Putting the case on the coffee table, he handed me the tape.
“The original’s in my file. This is your copy.”
Seeing it brought back the screams and the chants. That child. ..
.
I put it in my desk and we went down to the pond, where I showed him the footprints.
He kneeled and inspected for a long time. Stood, frowning. “You’re right, these are useless. Looks to me like someone took the time to mess them up.”
He checked around the pond area some more, taking his time, getting his pants dirty. “Nope, nothing here worth a damn. Sorry.”
That same troubled tone in his voice that I’d heard over the phone. He was holding back something, but I knew it was useless to probe.
Back in the living room, I said, “Something to drink7” “Later.” He opened the vinyl case and took out a brown plastic box.
Removing a videocassette from it, he bounced it against one thigh.
The tape was unmarked, but the box was printed with the call letters of a local TV station. Rubber-stamped diagonally across the label was the legend PROPERTY LAPD: EVIDENCE RM. and a serial number.
“Dorsey Hewitt’s last stand,” he said. “Definitely not for prime time, but there’s something I want you to check out-if your stomach can take it.”
“I’ll cope.”
We went into the library. Before inserting the cartridge into the VCR, he peered into the machine’s load slot.
“When’s the last time you lubricated this?”
“Never,” I said. “I hardly use it except to record sessions when the court wants visuals.”
He sighed, slid the cartridge in, picked up the remote control, pressed PI.AY, and stood back, watching the monitor with his hands folded across his waist. The dog jumped up on a big leather chair, settled, and regarded him.
The screen went from black to bright blue and a hiss filtered through the speakers.
A half minute more of blue, then the TV station logo flashed over a digital date, two months old.
Another few moments of video stutter were followed by a long shot of an attractive, one-story brick building, with a central arch leading to a courtyard and wood-grilled windows. Tile roof, brown door to the right of the arch.
Close up on a sign: LOS ANGELES COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER, WESTSIDE.
Swing back to a long shot: two small, dark-garbed figures crouched on opposite sides of the arch-toylike: G.I. Joe figurines holding rifles.
A side shot revealed police barriers fencing the street.
No sound other than static, but the dog’s ears had perked and pitched forward.
Milo raised the volume, and a soup of incomprehensible background speech could be heard above the white noise.
Nothing for a few seconds, then one of the dark figures moved, still squatting, and repositioned itself to the left of the door. Another figure came from around a corner and lowered itself to a deep crouch, both hands on its weapon.
A close-up inflated the new arrival, turning dark cloth into navy blue, revealing the bulk of protective vesting, white letters spelling Out LAPD across a broad back. Combat boots. Blue ski mask revealing only eyes, I thought of Munich terrorists and knew something bad was going to happen.