Where Serpents Lie

Three

I was at my desk by six-thirty, third cup of coffee going, rereading the note of thanks from Donna Mason over at CNB. It was in my e-mail. I got rid of that one fast — I don’t like my fellows here aware of my doings with the media. It can be a perilous business and I like to keep it to myself.

I was waiting for the call from Special Agent Mike Strickley of the Investigative Support Unit in Quantico. I’d met him eight years ago at an FBI “road school” — training sessions for law enforcement that the then Behavioral Sciences Unit offered to local law enforcement. He’d told me to call them if I ever needed them. After the second girl, Courtney, I knew we had a serial offender and made the call. I sent him the photographs of both girls, their statements, videotapes of the release sites and the forensic evidence we’d culled. That was eight days ago, and Mike had faxed me yesterday morning to say he’d be ready today.

I was pondering another angle on how The Horridus was picking his victims. They were both fair-skinned, light-haired anglos. One with blond hair; one with red. They were ages five and six. They both lived with their single mothers except for occasional weekends with their fathers. They both had ground-floor bedrooms with windows not visible from the street. They both lived in Orange County, though he’d taken Pamela in Orange, which is central county, while for Courtney he’d gone south to San Clemente, near the San Diego County line. They were both abducted, held, then released wearing different clothes, with the aforementioned mesh robes and black velvet hoods. No signs of physical abuse other than light bruising on the upper extremities. No penetration, no bruising, no bleeding. No blood, skin or saliva left on them. No semen. They’d both been found with silver 3M duct tape cinched over their mouths. Acetate and wool/rayon blend fibers on the tape suggested that he carried it on his body somewhere, already stripped off, so as not to make any noise rasping it off the roll. He used a different shirt or jacket each time, a new or almost new one, to transfer as little evidence about himself as possible. He named himself for Courtney: written in felt pen on the inside of the tape over her mouth was the word, Horridus.

But I hadn’t found the link between the girls that he had found. Age. Race. Single-parent households. Ground-floor windows away from the street. How did he know? We had checked, rechecked and checked again for the connection between the girls, the common plane along which he was hunting them. Different cities. Different schools. Different day care. Different friends, parks, pools, shopping places. Different worlds and different lives. But somewhere their lives came together, and it was my job to find that place and be there the next time he hunted it.

Strickley called at six forty-five and apologized for the early hour. I told him I hadn’t been sleeping well anyway. We made small talk for about thirty seconds.

“I’ve looked over the material you sent me, and this is what I think. I’ll be faxing this out to you when we’re done, so you’ve got a hard copy, but I’m going to run it by you fast right now.”

“I’m ready.”

“Let me tell you something, Terry, you’ve got a genuine problem on your hands. He’s intelligent, cautious and he’s not going to stop until you take him out. This is a culmination for him, an arrival. He’s made the breakthrough, done it twice and he’s not turning back. It would be your call, but if you start putting on the pressure in some proactive way — which is what we usually recommend — we think he’ll graduate to a rape/kill scenario. Or he’ll leave and set up shop somewhere else. This is about control — control over the victims, you, us, everybody. My advice is not to publicize this profile. The more heat he feels, the tougher he’s going to get. But it’s your call out there, Terry.”

“All right.”

“Here he is: white male, late twenties to late thirties. The upper end puts him five years out of prime for this kind of pedophile, but the stalking and planning suggest maturity. Average height, slender. Physically presentable, maybe even attractive, this from the fact that he’s seen the girls and their mothers and not raised any red flags. And from the wool/rayon fibers and the acetate, which probably come from sport coats. He’s carrying the strips of duct tape inside. I’d guess a blazer because of the wool. The acetate is a common liner. I see a good chance he wears glasses. It’s just one of those feelings, but he’s bright and knows it and wouldn’t mind presenting himself in an academic or intellectual light. Glasses have a gentling effect. He might have a physical defect that he hides under clothes — possibly a skin condition like eczema or dramatic birthmarks, herpes, possibly a deformity. That’s one of the reasons he can’t attach to mature females — he’s sensitive about his appearance, but it’s something that doesn’t show in street clothes. That’s why he blinds them with the hoods he makes, though the primary reason is to hide his face. Two years of college, maybe more — science and humanities. He had some Latin in school, almost certainly Catholic, that’s where he first heard horridus. It’s Latin for rough, or bristling, and it’s used as a designator for animal species, specifically Moloch horridus, which is an Asian lizard, and Crotalus horridus, which is commonly known as the timber rattler. Look for him to be familiar with reptiles, maybe has a collection, or at least a library. Enjoys the outdoors. Has an extensive collection of pornography, mostly still photos, mostly young girls. He networks on the computer with others like him because he’s after validation and free porn. An actual conscience on this one, Terry — the Catholicism, the way he dresses them before he turns them loose, the way he blinds them, the fact he doesn’t kill them. He doesn’t feel good about himself except when it’s happening. Afterward, he spins down into a depressive phase. No military service. Lives alone. Never married. He’ll have had many relationships with women, none longer than a few months, no longer in touch with them. He’s around women a lot, but not closely — he’s an observer, not a mingler. He will have had homosexual experiences while young, possible abuse by a relative or friend, very possibly by a man involved with his mother. He’s white collar — clerical or retail. He might have artistic talent — visual, plastic arts — something he can make with his hands and see with his eyes. He makes the hoods and the gauze tunics, and they’re done skillfully. He makes good enough money to support himself, drive a late-model van, maybe even own a home, dress well, look successful. His home will be free standing — not a condo type of thing. Probably rather large, fenced and overgrown. Look for a separate guest house or maid’s quarters on the grounds. He’ll follow you in the media but he’s not likely to insinuate himself into the investigation. I doubt you’ve interviewed him yet. He’s taking their clothes as trophies and replacing them with clothes that belong to him — maybe literally, maybe symbolically. Hates his mother because she treated him like a girl, tried to make him behave like one, probably dressed him like one. Rarely saw his father. He’s had some precipitating stressor, something that pushed him over the edge. Death of a loved one. Something big.”

I was silent for a long moment. Most of what Mike said made sense to me. I’d drawn my own conclusions, made my own speculations, tried to imagine this man from the evidence he had left us, and from the evidence he had not. As usual, the experts at the Bureau had left a flatfoot like me in the dust. I liked the body defect and the description of his house. They gave me something physical to go on.

“Still there, Terry?”

“Thinking.”

“Let me say a few things. You have to understand that this guy is a bundle of powerful contradictions. It’s a classic escalating fantasy cycle he’s in. He has the morality he learned in childhood colliding with hatred of his mother, and of the man or men who abused him when he was small. He has this powerful drive to connect with women, hitting up against his vision of himself as freakish and unlovable. He has heterosexual desire mixed up with his fear of women, and homosexual urges he’s still trying to deny, feeding his self-loathing. That’s why he goes so young on the girls, Terry — they’re a way of punishing his mother for bringing him up in an effeminate way — it’s the most forbidden act he can imagine, the most rebellious. But underneath it he’s trying to make a statement of his heterosexual desires, though he’s terrified of women. So he picks women who aren’t women yet — he’s going to make the sexual connection without any adult, human interaction at all. His conquests are so small he can tape their mouths and carry them right out of their houses — the pure control he needs to feel, his way of making the world behave the way he wants it to. Right now he’s the culmination of probably twenty plus years of inner torment and outer placidity. He won’t have any priors. You won’t find him in the sex offenders’ registry. I made a VICAP run anyway, and it came up dry. But he’s made his change. He’s consolidated himself, finally, into a more singular personality. And because of that decision, that choice to move from imagination to action, he’s thrown himself into even greater stress.”

“But you say he consolidated. He’s become... whole.”

“It’s killing him. He hates himself even more now, and he’s going through radical changes in behavior. I’d guess heavy drinking, or maybe an antidepressant, or both. If he wasn’t nocturnal before, he is now. He’s probably growing or cutting hair, growing or cutting a beard, maybe dyeing one or both. A change in wardrobe. Sharp changes in personality, to anyone who might notice, but there’s a good chance that no one will, because he’s alone, absolutely alone in this now. He’ll have cut everyone off, except his anonymous, accepting peer group on the Web. Lurk the chat rooms — you might overhear something. Now this is a bit of a leap, but both my people came up with it — it’s possible he’ll have thought about selling the house. Clearing out. Change of scenery, change of behavior. Maybe he even listed it. If so, he’ll be anxiously waiting for a taker. And while he waits, he smolders. So look for the incidence between events to shorten. According to our models he’ll start raping, then killing. He won’t confess, and if you arrest him he’ll look for a way to kill himself. And of course, if there’s a way out of it for him, he’ll kill you to take it. Exercise extreme caution with this guy, Terry. He’s dangerous and he’s at the end of whatever tethers you can imagine — even his own. Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“And call me when you score. We can help with an interrogation strategy, or we can drink a long-distance toast.”

I thanked him again and hung up.

The fax came through ten minutes later, but Ishmael beat me to it. Ishmael is Jordan Ishmael, an administrative lieutenant who oversees all of the Crimes Against Persons units, including mine. He’s two years older than me, forty-two, handsome like a panther and smart. He has black hair and green eyes, and teaches a special class in hand-to-hand combat for the Sheriff Academy. He’s big in the way that professional baseball players are big — hands, head, legs.

Ishmael is a genuine power broker within the Sheriff-Coroner Division. His desire for the office of sheriff-coroner is no secret, and his rivals are few and meek. He helped me get hired on here when he was just a young deputy himself. He expected fealty, which I offered for a while, then got tired of giving. He has been a friend and champion of Melinda for as long as I’ve known her. For eight of those years he was her husband. He told me recently, in all seriousness, that if I ever tried to interfere with the welfare of his daughter, Penelope, he would break my neck with his bare hands. I’m slender and wiry and far from powerful, though I believe I could take him if I had to. Maybe that’s just my Irish showing. More to the point, I can’t stand him anymore, and he can’t stand me.

“Here’s your psychobabble,” he said, dropping the uncut fax transmission onto my desk.

“Nice of you to deliver. What do you think?”

“I just said. Babble.”

“Well, here’s for your time. Thanks.”

I held out a quarter by its edge and waited for Ishmael to react. He left.

If Ishmael wasn’t a lieutenant and I wasn’t good at busting the creeps who prey on children, the department might have transferred one of us off this floor a long time ago. A year ago to be exact, when I took up cohabitation with Ishmael’s ex-wife. The fact that we chose to live together rather than marry probably prevented Personnel from acting — our arrangement is off the record, though well known.

Melinda is relatively free of the continuing vibe, working one floor down, in Fraud and Computer Crime. Ishmael still fawns over her. I doubt his sincerity with her. Inside, I suspect, a part of him must hate her. So far as my proximity goes, Ishmael is actually hamstrung by his own ambition: to lobby for my transfer or removal would make him look even more feudal and conniving than he is. I’m the thorn he can’t pull out.

Something else is at work here, too. Namely, I’ve been talking with Sheriff-Coroner Jim Wade a lot about my future here at the department.

Jim is nearing retirement — another three years and he’ll step down and into his well-earned golden years. He’s arranging things like a dying man, setting his house in order for a smooth transition. Sheriff-Coroner is a nonpartisan office in Orange County, but it’s an elected one, so the deep internal machinery that produces a winning candidate has to engage early to be effective. One of the greatest powers of any sheriff is to actively choose his own successor. Jim hasn’t said anything of substance to me, so far. When we talk, it’s like golf course talk without the golf. But there is something in the air, and I feel it and it is coming from Jim and his office.

Not that I’d be a likely successor, but I’m still completely floored by the attention.

For one, I’m nonpolitical. I’m not ambitious — at least I wasn’t until Jim Wade began to murmur the quiet language of power into my ear.

Second, I’m not only not a family man, but I’m going through the uncommitted motions of family life with one of the department’s best detectives, the ex-wife of the department’s brightest lieutenant, and their daughter. I’m messy.

Third, I’m head of the division’s smallest and newest unit — Crimes Against Youth — that until recently was accorded neither respect nor recognition. Two years ago, we didn’t exist at all. At first there was an attitude toward us, an attitude of snickering jocularity and prurient suspicion. It’s the same one that gets aimed at a vice dick who’s been on the job too long. People start to wonder why he’s spending so much time with prostitutes, pimps, panderers and pornographers. Why doesn’t he transfer out? Up? Hit the desk a while? With good reason, maybe: more than a few of them fall to the temptations. I can understand how they do. And I feel compassion for them, but this may be a character flaw in myself, a blurring of the knowledge of good and evil, caused by the death of my son.

But thanks to all the good press I’ve generated for our little group, things have changed. The other sections and units have grudgingly come to admire, if not our work, then at least the way that the general public has come to know and respect us. I’m considered the media wizard, because I’ve vigorously lobbied the newspapers and electronic media, cultivated reporters and editors and producers, gotten them on our side, shown them what we do. And they’ve responded. CAY has been featured on the covers of Westways and Los Angeles magazines, and the California Law Enforcement Bulletin. (Of the actual CAY players, only Frances has been pictured because we do a lot of undercover stuff. Our media poster boy is actually Jordan Ishmael, who speaks as our supervising lieutenant but has no say in our day-to-day work.) We’ve gotten lots of positive airtime on the network and local news. Sixty Minutes has made some inquiring calls to me and Jim Wade. The Times and The Register and OC Weekly have all covered us favorably. We are proud of that coverage, and the department is proud of us. Other departments in the region have begun to create their versions of our little unit.

Mixed in with the early prejudice against us was something even uglier to me: people secretly believed that kid crime was small time. That, somehow, real cops fight real crime and real crime is crime that matters. Kid porn, so what? Child abuse, so what? Prostitution of minors, hey, it’s rare. I have a response to that, but it’s long and I might get worked up. I might think of guys like Chet, or The Horridus. The Irish in me again. But that prejudice is changing, thanks to CAY and the number of creeps we’ve collared, and the media smile we’ve gotten. I’ve already proposed a CAY budget twice as big as last year’s. If I’m reading the signals from Sheriff Wade correctly, it might even get approved.

Last, I’m not even sober, really. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I stopped waking up in places and not knowing how I got there. It wasn’t until then that I could go a day without consuming almost a fifth of tequila, plus a few beers (four, max). That was my life before I found a way to love this world after Matthew. But who knows — it might happen again, tonight.

So what gives? I don’t know and I don’t ask. But I do know that Jim Wade and the people closest to him are looking at me warmly, a warmth subtle and invigorating as the sunshine between storms. And I know this too: not one ray of it is lost on Ishmael.

The morning briefing began as usual: Sheriff Wade, Undersheriffs Woolton and Vega, Captain Burns, Lieutenant Ishmael, the three section leaders and five unit heads.

We commence at eight sharp. Jim Wade presides from the head of a long, cup-stained, wood-veneer table, but he usually lets Vega handle the group. The coffee machine is always going. There are narrow vertical windows in this conference room, and they look out over the parking lot and downtown Santa Ana, the county seat Except on clear winter days, there isn’t much to see. But the mood is usually brisk and optimistic. The purpose of the brief is to get everyone up to speed on the breaking cases, so that each section knows what its neighbor is up to. That, and to float ideas or beefs that can’t wait until the weekly meeting of section heads.

Four of the twelve others came over to shake my hand and offer good words on the Chet bust. Most of them had seen the CNB report and had to mention the comic way that exterminator Louis and dapper Johnny had stood there yapping to each other on camera behind Donna Mason, not realizing they were on.

“You’re gonna have to get those guys some media grooming, if you’re going to put them on the air so often,” said Burns, one of Sheriff Wade’s insiders.

“Least they weren’t drooling on Donna Mason,” said Undersheriff Vega.

“Probably dry by then,” said Undersheriff Woolton.

“Naughton takes care of media drool off-screen,” said Ishmael. “With Mason, anyway.”

“Just part of the job,” I said.

“You’re a hard worker,” he said.

“And look what I get for it,” I said, turning my blue-black, bandaged cheek toward him.

“You see Van Exel bump that ref last night?” said Rafter, head of Melinda’s unit.

“They’ll cook him for that,” said Woolton.

“Ten-hut,” said Vega. “Ish, why don’t you start us off with the CAP news.”

“You got it,” said Ishmael. “Congrats to Terry’s unit for the bust up in Orange. They’ll arraign Sharpe and the mommy later this morning over in court three, and I’ve got Reynolds asking for no bail on either. The Sharpes got Kleo Debelius for counsel — they’d obviously been saving up their money — and he’ll knock it down to half a mil or so. Higher the bail the better — we’re figuring the happy couple as a flight risk and hopefully Honorable Ogden will see it our way. Reynolds and I listened to the tapes last night, the ones we got out of Sharpe’s house, and they’re golden. Between Terry’s testimony and the tapes, Reynolds hopes to throw a large net — child abuse, child endangerment, sexual exploitation, pimping and pandering, enticement of minor, keeping or admitting to a house of prostitution — there’s plenty of sentence enhancements for under the age of fourteen, so they’ll heave the whole book at the Sharpes. We figure Debelius will plea down everything he can, but Reynolds says we’ll hold tight. Honorable would probably like to get some mileage out of this one — just like we would — he’s on the election block next year. Next, we just got the FBI profile of The Horridus, so—”

“—Excuse me, Jordan,” I said, “but what about the girl? Is Reynolds talking charges in juvenile court, or testimony?”

“Both. They’ll plead her, then slap her wrist and let her help send Mommy and Daddy up the river.”

“We’ve got some say in that, you know.”

Ishmael nodded impatiently. “Well, say it then, Naughton.”

“I don’t think we should prosecute her: Her parents made her what she was. She’s only ten, for Chrissakes.”

“Noble sentiment,” said Ishmael, “and I’m sure it would sound real good on CNB, but Reynolds needs some leverage. We can’t let her go, then expect her to sink her parents.”

“She’s not going anywhere but the hall, Jordan. That’s enough motivation for her to cooperate, I’d say. You been there lately?”

“She’s a prostitute,” said Ishmael, “juvenile or not.”

“Ish has a point,” said Woolton.

“She’s also a kid,” I said.

“Amen,” said Rafter. “Ought to be out playing girls’ hoops, but she’s cooped up turning tricks for her dad. Give her a break.”

“Well,” said Sheriff Wade, “is she a cooperative kid or not?”

“I’ll know this afternoon,” I said.

“Table it until then,” he said. “Ishmael, ask for a continuance over at Juvenile while we sort this out. See how the girl’s going to act. Terry, see me after the interview. Okay. Onward to the wholesome world of The Horridus. Naughton, what do we have?”

I passed out copies of the profile. It was a stripped-down version, without Mike Strickley’s opening or closing remarks. The room was quiet, with an occasional sigh or “mmm.”

“How do they come up with this stuff?” asked Burns. He’s old school, but he’s tough and optimistic.

“It’s easy for them,” said Ishmael. “They just think like creeps.”

Sheriff Wade stared down at his page and shook his head. “Naughton? What do we do with all this? How can we use it?”

“There’s two basic ways to go, sir,” I said. “We can wait, be as ready as we can for number three, and hope to get to her quick. Our physical evidence has been thin, but the sooner we get to the girl the better chance we’ve got. He’ll leave us something, sooner or later.”

“Later doesn’t sit too well with me,” he said.

“Which leads us to option two,” I said. “We can try something proactive — draw him out, force his hand.”

“Something like what?” said Wade.

“We could edit the profile and release it to the media,” I said. “They’d give it good play and he’d feel the pressure.”

“The media hound barks again,” said Ishmael.

I looked at him sharply. “We could blow up his handwriting sample, Horridus, and put it on billboards, see if anyone recognizes it. It’s only one word, but it’s fairly distinctive. The Bureau did that once — and it worked.”

Ishmael groaned. “Advertise for him?”

“That’s exactly right,” I said. “Or, we can keep the profile to ourselves, just like we have on some of the evidence, and set up something to attract him — I’m just brainstorming now — but, you know... get one of the papers to do a piece on fashions for little girls, use five or six models he might like and mention the agency that handles them. Set up a phone number of our own inside the agency, run a trap and trace on the calls that come in. No, this is better, we get the papers to do a story on an audition for young girls to star in a commercial, do modeling for clothes... something like that. There’s a chance he’d show up.”

“And if he gets to one of those models, or somebody’s girl, we all end up as security guards,” said Ishmael.

But Wade seemed interested. “Go on.”

“Come on, guys,” I said, looking around the table. “Any fool can dance alone.”

Woolton was next: “Set up a reptile show.”

Vega: “They got those already. Kind of a swap meet. My kid goes.”

Burns: “It says he likes reptiles, maybe. We know he likes little girls. So we set up a reptile show for little girls.”

All: Laughter.

“Or advertise a kiddies’ hour at the show,” I said. “Where they get to handle some animals. Use a picture of a girl holding a lizard, to promote it. Right there we’ve provided him with two temptations. We’d lay in heavy, look for someone who fits the description.”

“Kick butt and take names,” said Burns.

“He’d change his appearance,” said Ishmael.

“Likely,” I said. “Plus our description is pretty thin to start with. She saw him at night, a hundred feet away, getting into the van.”

“We’ll shake down all the guys wearing Groucho glasses,” said Woolton.

Ishmael: “And if he finds his next girl there, then what? What if he tracks down the girl with the lizard? That’s the trouble with this public stuff — if it backfires it backfires big.”

“Noted,” I said. “The smaller we keep it, the better we can control it.”

“How about a tryout for a girls’ basketball league?” asked Rafter, obsessed as always with the game.

The room went quiet, then.

“Naw,” Rafter said. “Like Ish said, too many ways to go wrong.”

“There’s something you all should know,” I said. “The Bureau thinks he’ll work faster now. They also think he’ll start to rape and kill them if we apply pressure and don’t get him. They’re almost always for proaction, but not for The Horridus.”

Sheriff Wade looked at me. “So he’s going to speed up if we wait, and he’s going to start killing if we move?”

“Great” said Vega.

“The hell does that leave us?” asked Burns.

“It leaves us with quaint methods, such as old-fashioned police work,” said Ishmael.

I nodded and the room went quiet again. “He’s right. The first thing I want to do is get my people on the real estate angle. If we figure he’s sold his home, or is trying to, we’ve got a place to start. The detached maid’s quarters or guest house is important. It narrows things down considerably. All the offerings are centralized in the multiple listings guide that the realtors use.”

“MLS. There you go,” said Wade. “Okay.”

“Where the hell you going to start?” said Woolton.

“Santa Ana,” I said. “It’s between Orange and San Clemente, where he took the girls.”

“Biggest city in the county,” said Vega.

“Should we start with the smallest because it’s easier to cover?” I snapped.

Vega held up his hands. “Just thinking out loud, Terry.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “This guy’s just pissin’ me off.”

“You and everybody else,” said Woolton.

“Look,” said Ishmael, turning to the sheriff. “Painful as it is to have Naughton agree with me, I vote to stay basic on this scum. No need to get novelistic right now. If we try something proactive and it flops, we’re setting him off. Let him think we’re asleep. Work him like we work anybody else, except maybe harder.”

“I don’t like the idea of him speeding up,” said Burns.

“Who could?” said Woolton.

“Terry?” Wade asked. “This is your baby.”

“Painful as it is to agree with Ishmael agreeing with me, I do.”

Wade studied me. He said, “You’ve got that bad look on your face, Naughton. Agreeing with Ishmael can’t be that awful.”

There were the requisite chuckles a leader always gets.

“I wish I knew where he was right now,” I said. “What he was doing. Who he is.”

“Ishmael? He’s right here,” said Burns. “Sitting on his ass.”

I gave Burns a look that has been described to me as icy, ferocious, drop dead, freezing, withering. Take your pick, To me, it feels like all of them at the same time.

“Terry’s getting his panties in a bunch again,” someone noted.

“I’m worried about this shitbag.”

“Amen,” said Rafter.

“What else?” asked Jim Wade.

I filled them in briefly on another high-profile CAY case, that of a dead baby found last week in a storage room file cabinet. The office was out in Buena Park. Nobody knew who the infant was or how she got there. One of the secretaries smelled something and found her. We’re working the staff and the cleaning crew and the security company and the vendors and the temp help. A lot of people had keys and could have come in late at night. When something like this happens, the person you’re looking for first is the mother. She’ll be young, broke, unstable, using drugs and under pressure from a husband or boyfriend. Intolerable as it sounds, that kind of thing happens all the time. Two months ago it was a three-year-old boy who wandered away from home. His parents were distraught. It took us three weeks to find him, and when we did he was at the bottom of a water-district pit less than a half a mile from his house. He’d been dead a week. The parents confessed to dropping him in there because he cried a lot and they couldn’t afford to feed him right. That’s the kind of stuff we do, day in and day out.

When I was finished with the CAY rundown, Ishmael covered the department’s other big CAP (Crimes Against Persons) cases: the former county secretary shot dead in her home by an UNSUB with a crossbow; a postal worker gone nuts and killing three; a young man accused of killing his family then putting them all in a car he then set on fire; rumors of another gang war down in the Santa Ana barrio, less than a mile from where we were sitting.

My mind wandered. It’s hard to give serious consideration to cases outside your own, which is one of the reasons we meet like this. I did wonder what kind of cold sonofabitch could shoot a woman in the heart with a crossbow at close range. And I wondered where our man was now, our Horridus, from the Latin horridus meaning rough or bristling. As I thought about what he looked like and where he worked and what he saw when he looked in a mirror, the discussion of other crimes swept past my brain: more rumors of blame for the county bankruptcy of ’94; political crap going down again in one of our state assembly districts; mobile Asian gangs running strong in central county; white supremacists in Newport Beach; two old women raped in a nursing home in Yorba Linda.

But no matter how I tried to listen, all I could really focus on was The Horridus, how little we knew about him and how sure I was that his escalating fantasy was becoming an escalating nightmare for the rest of us.

Who are you?

Where?