Shiver

37

Wendy gazed out the restaurant window at the daisy chains of spangles bobbing on the waters of the bay. Proud sloops and ketches, their white sails gleaming in the afternoon sun, glided behind shimmering curtains of sea gulls. Far in the distance, the misty humps of the Channel Islands broke the blue line of the horizon.

Santa Barbara, she thought in dreamy contentment. It really is beautiful.

Then, turning from the window to face the man seated across the table, she asked the question that had been nibbling at the corners of her mind all day.

“Sebastian, how did you know I’d always wanted to come here?”

Delgado didn’t answer at once. With the meticulous care that seemed typical of him, he cut another piece of his swordfish steak, chewed it slowly, and washed it down with a sip of Dos Equis. Only then did he speak.

“When the Scientific Investigation Division searched Rood’s apartment, they found an audiocassette-a homemade recording hidden in a stack of ordinary pop-music tapes. The recording he made when he ambushed you for the first time.”

Slowly her hand rose to the tender white line on her throat that still marked the garrote’s kiss. She remembered the voice of the Gryphon in her ear, demanding that she reveal her reasons for living. Her first response had been that she wanted to see Santa Barbara.

“Oh,” she whispered. “I see.”

She wished she hadn’t asked. Less than two weeks had passed since the nightmare in the trailer, and the memories were still as sharp as glass. Although she’d returned to work, her concentration was poor. She ate little and found it difficult to read or even to watch television. She had trouble sleeping and often woke in the night to find herself slick with sweat, shivering all over.

The funerals hadn’t helped, of course. There were four of them in the week after her rescue. Jennifer, Jeffrey, Sanchez, and Porter were returned to the earth as she watched.

Her phone rang incessantly with demands for interviews and offers of book deals, all of which she’d turned down. She and Delgado had become celebrities; even in Santa Barbara, ninety miles from L.A., they’d caught curious stares from shoppers and passersby.

But the worst legacy of her experience was her fear of the man sharing the table with her. She knew that Sebastian Delgado would not hurt her, that he was the opposite of Franklin Rood in every respect; yet she was irrationally afraid of his touch, of his body, of any reminder of the humiliation she’d suffered at Rood’s hands. But Delgado was gentle and patient, and he seemed to understand. He was giving her time.

Today she hadn’t thought of Rood at all until now. Everything had been perfect: the scenic drive up the coast-the hours spent exploring the quaint shopping plazas in Santa Barbara’s downtown-the stroll through the Presidio Gardens- the climb to the top of the courthouse’s clock tower, which offered a panoramic view of the city, a checkerboard of red tile roofs extending to the Santa Ynez Mountains, the palm-lined beaches, and the glittering bay.

It was nearly three o’clock when they drove down State Street to Stearns Wharf and found a restaurant. Wendy hadn’t even noticed she was hungry. She was too excited for hunger- excited, yet at the same time relaxed. She supposed that was what happiness felt like.

And now, in the middle of lunch, she’d had to raise the subject of the Gryphon and risk spoiling it all.

Delgado was watching her with his gray compassionate eyes. “I had to hear that tape, Wendy,” he said softly. “Believe me, I didn’t want to. I’ve heard more than enough recordings like it. But I had no choice.”

“Of course.” She managed a shrug. With effort she dug her fork into the shrimp salad before her. The fork, she noticed, was trembling. “I understand. It’s evidence.” A new thought struck her. “Will they have to play the tape at the trial?”

“Yes. If there is a trial. Perhaps he’ll plead guilty and save us the trouble.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No.”

“The hearing is tomorrow morning, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “At ten-thirty.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to be there.”

“You won’t be in the same room with him again until you give your testimony.”

“I hope they put him away for life.”

“I’m sure they will.”

She nodded. She could change the subject now. Part of her wanted to. But another part wanted to keep talking about Franklin Rood, as if conversation could exorcise the fears within her.

Franklin Rood, she thought with a touch of disbelief. She still couldn’t get used to that name. So ordinary, so meaningless. Not the right name at all. To her, the killer would always be the Gryphon.

“What else did they find out about the… about Rood, when they searched his place?” she asked.

“Not too much. He videotaped all the TV reports about the murders, and he kept a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings. His neighbors described him as quiet and polite. That’s what they always say.”

“So you haven’t learned anything new?”

Delgado took another sip of the dark foamy beer. “On the contrary. I’ve learned a great deal, but not from the things in his apartment.”

“Tell me,” she said quietly.

“Are you sure you want to hear it?”

She smiled. “No. But tell me anyway.”

“All right.”

It was Delgado’s turn to gaze out the window. She watched his face in profile, his sharp features outlined in the shifting sun reflected off the water.

“Franklin Rood grew up in Idaho, in a small town near Twin Falls. He was not a product of poverty; as the only child of comfortably middle-class parents, he was raised in a nice home in a quiet, safe neighborhood. The Idaho authorities have located his parents, some of his teachers, and various other people who knew him through the years. From their statements, we’ve been able to piece together his past. He has no prior arrests, you know, no criminal record at all. But that doesn’t mean he stayed out of trouble.

“He was physically weak throughout his childhood. At least Franklin himself seemed to believe that the problem was physical; no doctor ever found anything wrong with him other than a generalized malaise. His supposed infirmity made him the target of abuse from the other kids. He was bullied a lot. I don’t have the impression that his parents or teachers understood what he was going through, or that they offered him much support. It must have been rough for the kid, I’ll admit that. But no matter how difficult his childhood was, there was no excuse for the way he chose to strike back at the world around him.

“The first time Franklin killed anything, so far as anyone knows, was when he was nine years old. He took the family dog into the woods and tortured the animal till it died. His parents went looking for the dog and found its remains, horribly cut up. They had no idea their own son was responsible; only years later, in hindsight, did they realize the truth.

“Other pets disappeared from the neighborhood and were never found. It seems that Franklin was butchering animals on a regular basis. For a while the neighborhood was in a panic; people thought there was a maniac on the loose. And they were right; but they never suspected that the maniac in question was still in grade school, or that the first pet he’d killed was his own.

“At age eleven. Franklin invented a new game. He stole a can of gasoline from the garage and a book of matches from his father’s bureau, then set fire to a neighbor’s house.”

“Jesus.” Wendy gulped ice water from a frosted glass.

“The house sustained only minor damage, so a few days later Franklin tried again. That time he was caught in the act. His parents took him to a psychiatrist, but the boy was hostile and uncooperative, and therapy accomplished nothing. He didn’t want to be helped. He saw nothing wrong in what he’d done. He’d felt like burning down somebody’s house, and his feeling, his desire, was all that mattered. His only regret was that he’d failed.

“For a couple of years after that, he managed to avoid further trouble. His parents persuaded themselves that he’d overcome whatever impulses had plagued him. He had no friends, but he was a model student, earning excellent grades. In his spare time he read a great deal. Reading, it seems safe to say, provided him with a temporary escape from a world he found intolerable, a world he wanted only to wound and shock and, if possible, destroy.

“Then, when Franklin was in the tenth grade, his parents discovered a secret cache of women’s underwear in his bedroom closet. They knew he must have stolen the stuff, probably by breaking into houses around town. When they confronted him with the evidence, he denied everything and became violent. They didn’t pursue the matter. They were afraid of him. Afraid of what he might do.”

“What did he want with the clothes?” Wendy asked.

“I think they were, in a sense, totems. Precursors of the so-called trophies or souvenirs he collected later-the ones in his trailer.

“After his high-school graduation, he continued living with his parents. He made no attempt to start college or find a job. He remained in that house, holed up in the room he’d grown up in, till he was twenty-two. That was when they finally threw him out.”

“They got tired of supporting him, I suppose.”

“There was more to it than that.” Delgado hesitated. “Franklin’s father was cleaning out the attic one day when he discovered a collection of specimen jars containing pieces of dead animals. Dogs, cats, squirrels, other things. Franklin had no job, but it seemed he did have a hobby. A hobby he’d pursued in secret since he was nine years old.

“A few weeks after his parents cut him loose, their house mysteriously caught fire. Fortunately the flames were put out before any great harm was done. Arson was suspected, and everyone knew who was responsible, but there was no proof. Anyway, Franklin’s parents couldn’t stomach the thought of taking their own son to court. But for months afterward, they lived in fear of further retaliation. They were lucky; Franklin didn’t bother them again. In fact, they heard nothing more about him until the news of his arrest in Los Angeles.

“The rest of the story is less clear, but the Idaho authorities have found a few people who remember a young man named Franklin Rood.

“Deprived of his parents’ financial support. Rood took a variety of odd jobs, drifting from town to town, traversing the state of Idaho several times. Exactly what he was up to during that period may never be known. There are several murders or mysterious disappearances he may very well have had something to do with. He pasted clippings about them in his scrapbook, but he’s admitted to nothing. I’ve attempted to interview him twice, and three other detectives have tried as well. He just sits and stares.”

Wendy remembered those dull flat eyes, shark’s eyes. She shivered. To dispel the image, she asked, “When did he move to L.A.?”

“A little more than two years ago, when he turned thirty.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps for the same reason so many people go to Hollywood: to become a star. L.A. is a media town, where any killer with a gimmick and a catchy name is guaranteed nationwide coverage. Clearly Rood craved publicity. He loved the news reports, the headlines, the panic his murder spree inspired. And L.A. is a big city, easy to get lost in. He may have felt he had less chance of being caught there than in a small town.

“Before he left Idaho, he appears to have come into some money-enough to permit the purchase of that storage trailer and the parcel of desert land. Our best guess as to the source of his sudden windfall is a rash of burglaries in the Pocatello area that occurred around that time. Rood, you remember, had experience in breaking and entering from his teenage years.

“With money in his pocket, he bought the Ford Falcon, drove to Los Angeles, and took an apartment on the Westside. He got a job at Crane’s with the help of some false references that were never checked. Not long afterward he started making his clay sculptures. Then he became the Gryphon.”

“In a strange way,” Wendy said softly, “I can almost sympathize with him. I didn’t have the greatest childhood either. And for a long time I thought I could never change, never grow, and I hated myself for that. I guess I hated the world too. Of course,” she added, “I didn’t take out my problems on other people.”

Delgado nodded. “That’s the difference. Nobody’s blaming Rood for whatever private pain he suffered, only for the pain he caused. But we must blame him for that. We must not shrink from passing moral judgments. Not in a case like this. If we do, we only encourage more mayhem, more rampant violence, more Franklin Roods.”

“And there will be more like him,” Wendy whispered. “Many more. Won’t there?”

Delgado sighed. “Yes. I’m afraid there will.”

The two of them lingered in the restaurant over coffee and dessert. When they left at five-fifteen, the sun was sinking low in the sky. They strolled along West Beach to the yacht harbor and stood looking at the rows of pleasure craft tinted orange in the surreal light of late afternoon. The wind teased Wendy’s hair and cast it streaming behind her, long and loose and unclipped, the way she always wore it now.

They said nothing for a long time. At last Wendy broke the silence.

“With the hearing tomorrow and so much else to do, I’m surprised you can take the time to”-to be with me, she was thinking-“to get away like this.”

Delgado smiled, as if he’d heard the words she hadn’t spoken.

“A couple of years ago,” he said in a faraway voice, “there was a woman in my life. Her name was Karen. She loved me, but I never made time for her. My work always came first. And so I lost her.” He looked at Wendy and smiled. “I’ve decided not to make the same mistake twice.”

She felt the heat of blood in her cheeks and knew she was blushing. She wanted to turn her head, avoid his eyes, but she couldn’t. His gaze held her.

Slowly, tentatively, he reached out and drew her close. An image flashed in her mind-Rood’s face-and she almost pulled away, but then Delgado’s lips were pressed lightly against hers, and the memory of Rood receded like a bad dream.

She let him kiss her. She felt no fear. She felt nothing but a sudden buoyant lightness, the wordless sense that she could float free of the earth like a helium balloon and fly and fly and fly.

And then she knew that she was healing, and that everything really would be all right.