‘I’m so sorry about this.’
‘You already said.’
‘Well, I am.’
‘Listen, I know the girl didn’t mean it. Besides, it’s part of the job.’
Laura crouched in front of Melanie and examined the redness on the child’s left cheek. It marked the spot where she had punched herself in the midst of her frenzy. It would develop into a bruise, given time. At the open neck of her blouse, scratches showed on her throat and chest, where she had clawed herself. Her lip was still puffy and sore-looking, where she’d bitten it this afternoon at the end of their hypnotic-therapy session.
Dry-mouthed with fear and worry Laura said to Earl, ‘How can we possibly protect her? It’s not just some faceless enemy out there that wants to get at her. It’s not just government agents or Russian spies. She wants to hurt herself too. How can we protect her from herself?’
‘Somebody’s got to stay with her, watch her every minute.’
Laura put a hand under her daughter’s chin, turned her head so their eyes met. ‘This is too much, baby. Mommy can try to deal with the bad men out there who want to get their hands on you. And Mommy can try to deal with your condition, help you come out of this. But now … this is just too much. Why do you want to hurt yourself, baby? Why?’
Melanie stirred, as if she desperately wanted to answer but as if someone were restraining her. Her stricken mouth twisted, worked, but soundlessly. She shuddered, shook her head, groaned softly.
Laura’s heart literally ached as she watched her pale and slender daughter struggle unsuccessfully to cast off the shackles of autism.
20
Ned Rink, the ex-cop and former agent for the FBI, who had been found dead in his car in the hospital parking lot earlier in the day, owned a small, tidy, desert-style ranch house on the edge of Van Nuys. Dan drove there straight from his meeting with Marge Gelkenshettle. It was a low house with a flat roof that was covered with white stones, set in the middle of a particularly flat part of the San Fernando Valley, on a flat street of other low, flat houses. The shrubbery — with typical southern California, chlorophyllic exuberance — was the only thing that relieved the harsh geometry of the house and the monotonous tract around it, both of which clearly dated from the late 1950s.
The house was dark. The streetlight in front of the place had a dirty globe and didn’t illuminate much. Blank black windows and patches of pale-yellow stucco walls could be glimpsed between the shadowy forms of neatly shaped plum-thorn bushes, five-foot-high hibiscus, miniature orange trees, full-size date palms, and sections of a lantana hedge.
Cars were parked along one side of the narrow street. Even though the unmarked police sedan was nestled in darkness, midway between two streetlights, under an immense overhanging laurel, Dan spotted it at once. One man sat in the nondescript Ford, behind the wheel, slumped down, watching the Rink house, barely visible.
Dan drove past the house, circled the block, returned, and parked half a block behind the department sedan. He got out of his car and walked to the Ford. The driver’s window was half open. Dan peered inside.
The plainclothes cop on the surveillance detail was an East Valley Division detective, and Dan knew him. His name was George Padrakis, and he looked like that singer from the ’50s and ’60s, Perry Como.
Padrakis rolled the half-open window all the way down and said, ‘Are you here to relieve me, or what?’ He sounded like Perry Como too: His voice was soft, mellow, and sleepy. He consulted his wristwatch. ‘Nope, I still have a couple hours to go. It’s too early to relieve me.’
‘I’m just here to have a look inside,’ Dan said.
Head twisted sideways to stare up at Dan, Padrakis said, ‘This your case, huh?’
‘It’s my case.’
‘Wexlersh and Manuello already tossed the place earlier.’
Wexlersh and Manuello were Ross Mondale’s right-hand men in the East Valley Division, two career-conscious detectives who had hitched their wagons to his train and were willing to do anything for him, including bend the law now and then. They were toadies, and Dan couldn’t stand them.