She directed the owl to circle the vehicle at a height of a sixty feet.
Then she sent it out ahead of the car and brought it even lower, to
about twenty feet, before guiding it around again to approach the
curious motorist head-on.
From an altitude of only twenty feet, the vision of the hawk was more
than acute enough to see the driver and the passenger in the front seat.
There was a woman Violet had never seen before-but the driver was
familiar. A moment later she realized that he was the man who had
appeared with Frank in the back yard, at twilight that very same day!
Frank had killed their precious Samantha, for which Frank must die, and
now here was a man who knew Frank,might lead them to Frank, and on the
bed around Violet,other cats stirred and made low growling sounds as her
passion for vengeance was transmitted to them. A tailless Manx a a
black mongrel leaped from the bed, raced through the open bedroom door,
down the steps, into the kitchen, out the door, around the house, and
into the street. The car was moving away, gaining speed, heading
downhill, and Violet wanted to pursue it not only by air but on foot, to
ensure that she would not lose track of it.
CANDY ARRIVED in the reception lounge at Dakota & Dakota Cool
cross-drafts circulated from the broken window in the next room and two
open doors in this one, setting up oppose currents. The faint sounds
announcing his arrival had evidently been masked by the bursts of static
and harsh voices coming from the portable police radios that the cops
had clipped to their belts. One policeman stood in the entrance Julie
and Bobby’s private office, and the other was at the door to the
sixth-floor corridor. Each of them was talking someone out of sight,
and both had their backs turned Candy, which Candy knew was a sign that
God was still looking out for him.
Though he was angered by this obstacle to his search the Dakotas, he got
out of there at once, materializing in bedroom, nearly a hundred and
fifty miles to the north. He needed time to think if there was some way
that he could pick up their trail again, a place where they had been
tonight-besides their office and their house-at which he could seek more
visions of them.
WHEN they backtracked to the Union 76 station, the longhaired,
mustachioed man who had given them directions to Pacific Hill Road was
able to tell them how to find the street on which Fogarty lived. He
even knew the man.
“Nice old guy. Stops by here for gas now and then.” :,Is he a medical
doctor?”
Bobby asked.
‘Used to be. Been retired quite a while.” Shortly after ten o’clock,
Bobby parked at the curb in front of Lawrence Fogarty’s house. It was a
quaint Spanish two story with the style of French windows that had been
featured in the study to which Bobby and Frank had twice traveled, and
lights were on throughout the first floor. The glass in the many panes
was beveled, at least on the front of the house, and the lamplight
inside was warmly refracted by those cut edges. When Bobby and Julie
got out of the car, he smelled woodsmoke, and saw a homey white curl
rising from a chimney into the still, cool, humid pre-storm air. In the
odd and vaguely purple, crepuscular glow of a nearby street lamp, a few
pink flowers were visible on the azaleas, but the bushes were not as
laden with early blooms as those farther south in Orange County. An
ancient tree with a multiple trunk and enormous branches loomed over
more than half the house, so it seemed like a wonderfully cozy and
sheltered haven in some Spanish version of a Hobbity fantasy world.
As they followed the front walkway, something dashed between two low
Malibu lights, crossed their path, and startled Julie. It stopped on
the lawn after passing them, and studied them with radiant green eyes.
“Just a cat,” Bobby said.
Usually he liked cats, but when he saw this one, he shivered.