P is for Peril

Chapter 15

An accident scene at night is as bleak and gaudy as a carnival. It was now fully dark, close to eight P.M. The coroner's car, the mobile crime lab, and a Ford sedan were parked on the berm, along with two patrol cars with red-and-blue bar lights flashing, radios squawking insistently between spurts of static. Two uniformed officers stood together talking while the police dispatcher, like a barker, issued a monotonous, nonstop account of crimes and misdemeanors in progress: complaints about noise, a call reporting a domestic disturbance in another part of town, a prowler, a drunk urinating on a public street. Santa Teresa is a town of eighty-five thousand with more crimes against property than crimes against persons.

Five minutes after I'd spotted the submerged Mercedes, I'd scrambled up the hill and down the other side to the road. I'd crossed and climbed Fiona's stairs two at a time, not pausing for breath until I reached the top. I pounded on her front door and rang the bell simultaneously, willing her to respond. I'd been reluctant to leave the scene unattended, but I had to notify the cops. I rang the bell again. Having observed Fiona's house from Lloyd's loft across the lake, it didn't take much to persuade me she was still out somewhere. I trotted around the side of the house to the rear where the driveway entered the property from the roadway above. There were no cars on her parking pad and all three of her garage doors were down and locked.

Fiona's nearest neighbor was just across the road. I knew knocking on doors at random would be a pain in the ass. Though it wasn't late, it was dark out. Everyone had heard stories about intruders using a ruse to gain entrance to the victim's house. What choice did I have, short of hopping in my car and driving until I found a public phone? I rang the bell, talking to myself the whole time: Come on, come on, be here, help me out here. I peered through the glass side panels, which afforded me an abbreviated view of the foyer. I could see someone moving around in the kitchen, probably preparing supper. She appeared in the hall and approached the front door. I waved, trying to look like a law-abiding citizen instead of a cunning and devious crazed killer. She was middle-aged, in a sweater and slacks, with an apron tied around her waist. If she was apprehensive at the sudden summons, she gave no indication. She turned on the porch light and studied me with caution.

I spoke loudly, hoping she could hear me through the glass. "I'm a friend of Fiona's. She's out and I need to use your phone."

I saw her eyes stray toward Fiona's house while she assimilated the request. She made sure the burglar chain was secure, and then she opened the door a crack. I don't remember now how I explained the situation, but I must have been persuasive because she let me in without argument and showed me to the phone.

Seven minutes later, the first black-and-white patrol car had come careening up the road.

Nearly two hours had passed and neighbors from many of the surrounding houses had straggled out to the road. They stood in clusters under the meager shelter of their umbrellas, conversing in subdued and fragmentary bursts while the rain pattered on. Word had apparently spread that the doctor's car had been found. Under ordinary circumstances, they probably didn't have much occasion to meet. None of the houses up here was built close together and with many residents holding day jobs, my guess was their paths seldom crossed. A rag-tag crew, they looked like they'd pulled on their coats and their rain boots in haste. They waited with patience, their vigil ritualistic, a community of the concerned conferring at this unprecedented gathering. A temporary fence of plastic pylons and tape prevented their approach. Not that there was much to see from where they stood. Looking toward the city, the roadway itself was cloaked in darkness, no streetlights within range. In the opposite direction, the asphalt petered out. Beyond the last cul-de-sac, there were only black and looming foothills, raw land knit together with sage and chaparral.

I sat in my car, feeling tense with the cold. At intervals, I fired up the engine so I could keep the heater running and the windshield wipers on, though the steady thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk nearly put me to sleep. To my right, the hill rose at a thirty-degree angle for a hundred yards or so before it crested and curved down to the lake. From the water's edge, the floodlights glowed eerily, silhouetting the few scrub trees stretched out along the crest. At intervals, the light was broken by shadows as the police went about their business. I'd spoken briefly with Odessa when he'd first reached the scene. He'd asked me to stay and said they were putting a diver in the water to check the car's interior before they hauled it out of the lake. He'd set off up the long slope and I settled in for the wait.