“Afraid of reprisals?”
“Not really.”
“Don’t ignore your fear, Edmund. That’s weakness. White and his friend Stensland behaved with despicable disregard for departmental bylaws, and they’re both obvious thugs. Are you prepared for your interview?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll be brutal.”
“I know, Father.”
“They’ll stress your inability to keep order and the fact that you let those officers steal your keys.”
Ed flushed. “It was getting chaotic, and fighting those men would have created more chaos.”
“Don’t raise your voice and don’t justify yourseW. Not with me, not with the I.A. men. It makes you appear–”
A breaking voice. “Don’t say ‘weak,’ Father. Don’t draw any sort of parallel with Thomas. And don’t assume that I can’t handle this situation.”
Preston picked up the phone. “I know you’re capable of holding your own. But are you capable of seizing Bill Parker’s gratitude before he displays it?”
“Father, you told me once that Thomas was your heir as a natural and I was your heir as an opportunist. What does that tell you?”
Preston smiled, dialed a number. “Bill? Hello, it’s Preston Exley . . . Yes, fine, thank you . . . No, I wouldn’t have called your personal line for that . . . No, Bill, it’s about my son Edmund. He was on duty at Central Station Christmas Eve, and I think he has valuable information for you . . . Yes, tonight? Certainly, he’ll be there . . . Yes, and my regards to Helen . . . Yes, goodbye, Bill.”
Ed felt his heart slamming. Preston said, “Meet Chief Parker at the Pacific Dining Car tonight at eight. He’ll arrange for a private room where you can talk.”
“Which one of the depositions do I show him?”
Preston handed the paperwork back. “Opportunities like this don’t come very often. I had the Atherton case, you had a little taste with Guadalcanal. Read the family scrapbook and _remember those precedents_.”
“Yes, but which deposition?”
“You figure it out. And have a good meal at the Dining Car. The supper invitation is a good sign, and Bill doesn’t like finicky eaters.”
o o o
Ed drove to his apartment, read, remembered. The scrapbook held clippings arranged in chronological order; what the newspapers didn’t tell him he’d burned into his memory.
1934–the Atherton case.
Children: Mexican, Negro, Oriental–three male, two female–are found dismembered, the trunks of their bodies discovered in L.A. area storm drains. The arms and legs have been severed; the internal organs removed. The press dubs the killer “Dr. Frankenstein.” Inspector Preston Exley heads the investigation.
He deems the Frankenstein tag appropriate: tennis racket strings were found at all five crime scenes, the third victim had darning-needle holes in his armpits. Exley concludes that the fiend is recreating children with stitching and a knife; he begins hauling in deviates, cranks, loony bin parolees. He wonders what the killer will do for a face–and learns a week later.
Wee Willie Wennerholm, child star in Raymond Dieterling’s stable, is kidnapped from a studio tutorial school. The following day his body is found on the Glendale railroad tracks– decapitated.
Then a break: administrators from the Glenhaven State Mental Hospital call the LAPD–Loren Atherton, a child molester with a vampire fixation, was paroled to Los Angeles two months before–and has not yet reported to his parole officer.
Exley locates Atherton on skid row: he has a job washing bottles at a blood bank. Surveillance reveals that he steals blood, mixes it with cheap wine and drinks it. Exley’s men arrest Atherton at a downtown theater–masturbating during a horror movie. Exley raids his hotel room, finds a set of keys–the keys to an abandoned storage garage. He goes there–and finds Hell.
A prototype child packed in dry ice: male Negro arms, male Mexican legs, a male Chinese torso with spliced-in female genitalia and Wee Willie Wennerhoim’s head. Wings cut from birds stitched to the child’s back. Accoutrements rest nearby: horror movie reels, gutted tennis rackets, diagrams for creating hybrid children. Photographs of children in various stages of dismemberment, a closet/darkroom filled with developing supplies.
Hell.
Atherton confesses to the killings; he is tried, convicted, hanged at San Quentin. Preston Exley keeps copies of the death photos; he shows them to his policemen sons–so that they will know the brutality of crimes that require absolute justice.