PCP, Ken thought. Only some asshole stoned on PCP would be violent enough to do
something like this.
Bordeaux Ridge was silent.
Nothing moved except the shadows, which seemed to grow longer by the second.
“Some angel-dust junkie did this,” Ken said, putting his fears about PCP into
words.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Teel said. “You want to look any farther?”
“Not just the two of us, by God. Let’s radio for assistance.”
They began to retrace their steps, warily keeping a watch on all sides as they
moved, and they did not go far before they heard the noises. A crash. A clatter
of metal. Glass breaking.
Ken had no doubt whatsoever where the sounds came from. The racket originated
inside the closest of the three houses that were nearing completion and that
would serve as sales models.
With no suspect in sight and no clue as to where to begin looking for one, they
would have been justified in returning to the patrol car and calling for
assistance. But now that they’d heard the disturbance in the model home, their
training and instinct required them to act more boldly. They moved toward the
back of the house.
A plyboard skin had been nailed over the studs, so the walls were not open to
the elements, and chicken wire had been fixed to the tar-papered boards, and
half the place was stuccoed. In fact, the stucco looked damp, as if the job had
been started only today. Most of the windows were installed; only a few cutouts
were still covered with tattered sheets of opaque plastic.
Another crash, louder than the first, was followed by the sound of more glass
shattering inside.
Ken Dimes tried the sliding glass door that connected the rear yard and the
family room. It was not locked.
From outside, Tee! studied the family room through the glass. Although some
light still entered the house by way of undraped doors and windows, shadows
ruled the interior. They could see that the family room was deserted, so Tee!
eased through the half-open door with his flashlight in one hand and his Smith &
Wesson clutched firmly in the other.
“You go around front,” Tee! whispered, “so the bastard doesn’t get out that
way.”
Bending down to stay below window level, Ken hurried around the corner, along
the side of the house, around to the front, and every step of the way he
half-expected someone to jump on him from the roof or leap out through one of
the unfinished windows.
The interior had been Sheetrocked, the ceilings textured. The family room opened
into a breakfast area adjoining the kitchen, all of it one large flowing space
without partitions. Oak cabinets had been installed in the kitchen, but the tile
floor had not yet been put down.
The air had the lime odor of drywaller’s mud, with an underlying scent of wood
stain.
Standing in the breakfast area, Tee! listened for more sounds of destruction,
movement.
Nothing.
If this was like most California tract homes, he would find the dining room to
the left, beyond the kitchen, then the living room, the entrance foyer, and a
den. If he went into the hallway that led out of the breakfast area, he would
probably find a laundry room, the downstairs bath, a coat closet, then the
foyer. He could see no advantage of one route over another, so he went into the
hall and checked the laundry first.
The dark room had no windows. The door was standing half-open, and the
flashlight showed only yellow cabinets and the spaces where the washer and dryer
would be placed. However, Teel wanted to look at the section behind the door,
where he figured there was a sink and work area. He pushed the door all the way
open and went in fast, swinging the flashlight and the gun in that direction. He
found the stainless-steel sink and built-in table that he expected, but no
killer.
He was more on edge that he had been in years. He could not keep the Image of
the dead man from flickering repeatedly through his mind: those empty eye
sockets.
Not just on edge, he thought. Face it, you’re scared shitless.