Valley of Lights

TEN

After a call at Sky Harbor Station to get into civilian dress – which, since I now had nowhere formal to go, consisted of jeans and one of my old Marine Corps shirts – I headed all the way down Seventh Avenue to the South Mountains and the Rod amp; Gun Club's firing range. It was a long, dry and dusty drive, and I saw little traffic apart from a couple of pickup trucks that came swimming up out of the heat haze, one after another, at one place where the road dipped. When I got there I had the range to myself, and I spent half an hour putting more than three dozen rounds through the Detective Special to work on my aim and to work off some of my anger. But somehow it didn't help – for every paper target that I destroyed, another one came up fresh and clean in its place.

I'd been uncomfortable in the short time that I'd spent in the station. I'd felt a little like a plague carrier; everybody had a word of sympathy or understanding, behind which they were holding back and hoping that the taint of irrational behavior wouldn't spread. After the range, with my wrist sore and my ears ringing in spite of the mufflers, I set out for home. It was now about an hour since I'd parted from Woods on the headquarters steps.

The first thing that I saw when I got in through the door was a folded note that had been pushed through and which was caught between the door itself and the inner mesh screen. I picked it up and opened it out, and saw the words IRA terrorists as I recognised Mrs Moynahan's careful and eccentric handwriting. The IRA terrorists, as far as I'd been able to understand, were a team of Mormons who'd been visiting door-to-door a month ago. I filed the note in my Moynahan Dossier – aka the trash – and switched on the radio to catch the lunchtime news and the Chief's conference.

The coverage was by the girl from KTAR. I'd seen her at crime scenes a few times; she had sexy green eyes and a good reporting style, and I'd never been able to understand why she hadn't been snapped up for television until Loretta had pointed out to me that TV news organisations preferred their women to be either bimbos or ballbreakers, with no allowance for the reasonable middle ground between. What emerged from the conference was an official theory that the killer had packed his bags and run, end of story. I thought that it was a little early to expect the media people to swallow that one, and apparently so did they; the Chief got a hard time out of it, but came through as if he'd been greased.

Unlike the Chief I knew that he was going to do it again, either as Woods or as somebody else. Even though I believed that the mutilation took place to satisfy a perverted want rather than an actual need – hence the throwing-up afterwards – I was sure of a repeat performance because I'd made the mistake of asking him to move on. Nobody tells me what to do, he'd said; and now he was going to prove it.

I heard Georgie getting home then, and I leaned back in my chair so that I could look out of the window without being seen; she was alone, opening the door with a key that was on the end of a long piece of string attached somewhere about her person. When she'd disappeared inside the door banged a couple of times, and I saw her briefly pass the window opposite on her way towards the kitchen. I knew that she'd only walked from the bus to the house, a matter of fifty yards or so, but still the thought of her alone and unprotected made me go cold. I wondered about suggesting to Loretta that she should take a few more days off and we'd go up to Sedona or somewhere, all three of us leaving the city with its prowling beast so that some other mother's child could be taken. But even as I thought of it, I knew that it was a sneaky way out which would solve nothing; and sooner or later we'd have to come back, and when we came back he could still be waiting.

That was when I heard Loretta's jeep, and I quickly got to my feet. I saw her bounce out of the Renegade and up the wooden steps into her own house; I got a vague echo of her calling through to check on Georgie, and of Georgie's reply, and then Loretta was out again and crossing over towards my porch.

She came in. She was flushed and all lit up, like someone slightly intoxicated by a taste of success. I said, 'How'd you get on?'

'I saw you talking to him on the steps,' she said as she went over towards my table. I followed her, and pulled out the chair opposite. 'I'm glad you did that, or I wouldn't ever have recognised him. The picture you showed me didn't even come close.'

'That's thanks to Lightnin' Leslie. He couldn't draw a crowd if his sketchpad was on fire. Were you spotted?'

'No way. Want a rundown on the details?'

'I'm all ears.'

We sat head-to-head across the baize, and Loretta took out one of those small jotting pads that fold into a little pocket-sized wallet. I'd never thought of them as being useful for much other than shopping lists or very short memory-joggers, but I could see that she'd fitted about a dozen numbered points in tiny writing on the first page. She held it squarely before her in both hands. She was enjoying this.

'When he left you,' she said, 'he went down to the corner and stood there for two, three minutes. He was just watching the traffic, like he couldn't quite decide which way he wanted to go.'

I thought of him the previous evening when he'd walked out in another form, stopping at an intersection and scenting the night as if he could read all of its patterns in the air. I said, 'When did you make the notes?'

'Afterwards, while it was all still fresh. Don't worry, Alex, I didn't give myself away. After he'd been standing around for a while he walked east a couple of blocks and bought a newspaper. He took it into a coffee shop and sat reading about himself for twenty minutes. Every now and again he'd take a really good, hard look out of the window. I think he was watching for you.'

'Did you go into the shop?'

'I didn't want to get that close. I pretended I was waiting at the bus stop across the street.'

'Neat.'

'Yeah, but wait until you hear the next part. I look over and he's coming out of the shop and heading straight towards me. I thought he was going to say something, but he'd seen that the bus was on its way and he was more interested in that.'

'Did he get on?'

'He did, but I didn't. I kind of checked my watch and made like I wanted some other destination. I didn't want to be on there with him and then have to get off at some stop miles from anywhere. He'd know I was following him if that happened. So what I did was, I ran back to where I'd left the jeep and then I picked up the bus again about a mile and a half down the road. He stayed on until right out into Tempe. I think he was just staring out of the window until he saw the kind of place he was looking for, because he got off and went straight across into this dingy-looking hotel. I got a note of the name and address, just like you wanted.'

She slid one of the detached pages across to me. No rings these days, I noticed. The hotel name wasn't one that I recognised; but then, Tempe's outside of my area.

I said, 'You did well. Pick a prize.'

'I'm not finished yet,' she said, and out came a second slip. 'Here's his room number.'

'How did you get that?'

'I went in and charmed the desk clerk.'

I felt then like somebody must feel who walks into a strange graveyard and sees his own name on a headstone. This was exactly what I hadn't wanted to happen, and I'd tried to tell Loretta so without actually having to explain to her why I needed to know where Woods was going to base himself next. Apart from the immediate physical danger that I'd barely been able to hint at, there was the chance that he'd take a scare and move on again after only a few hours. The secret of his survival lay in his ability to break a trail with total success; this slim continuity was my only chance of keeping a track of him.

I said, 'I wish you hadn't done that.'

'There's no harm, Alex,' Loretta insisted. 'I was careful.'

How could I tell her that careful wasn't enough? I said, 'He'd already seen you at the bus stop. What if he saw you again?'

'He didn't.'

'He might have seen you from the window of his room, and you wouldn't even know it. Or else the clerk could say that someone's been asking after him and the whole thing's blown.'

'Now, come on, Alex,' she said, closing the notebook with ominous firmness and laying it flat with her hand on top of it, 'you asked me for help, and I did you a damn good job.'

I had, and she had, and if there was any blame around in this then it was mine and mine alone. 'I know, I'm grateful,' I began, but she was already on her feet.

'Well,' she said, 'you could try showing it,' and then she stormed out.