Chapter 20

It was just as I was beginning to think about lunch when the phone rang. It rang a couple of times so I knew Marla had left – if she'd just gone to lunch she'd have let me know – and I grabbed it.

"This is Sergeant Sauceda," a female voice said. "Sergeant Delgado said you wanted to talk to me about the threat case?" She seemed to assume I'd know which threat case she meant – a valid assumption, given that there was only one such case I'd talked to Rudy about.

"Yeah. Dr. Bernard asked me to look into it. She figures I can give my whole time to it."

"But I've got about a foot of paperwork on my desk. I've been working that case when I can, but I've got a lot of other things to take care of too."

"Yeah, I know how it is," I said. "I used to be a cop. But I think this one deserves a lot of your attention."

"Why?" She didn't seem thrilled to get my advice.

"'Cause, Sergeant, this guy's gonna wind up killin' somebody if we don't find him first."

"So you say."

I tried to figure out how to get her attention. Right now it seemed like she was talking to me only because Rudy had asked her to. He's only a sergeant and shows no signs of ever going higher – or wanting to – but he's such a good cop that he's wound up having a lot of influence here and there in the department. Not being good at diplomacy I had no ideas, so I just barged ahead. "Yeah, I say. But I been working in crime since 1986. I was a cop, an investigator part of that time, and I've been a PI now for 20 years or so. I know my stuff."

"Well, I know my stuff too. And I'm not ready to drop everything else to look for someone who's probably just another nut job who gets his jollies threatening abortionists."

I could see her point. I myself had dismissed all but one of the people who were threatening the clinic, because I knew that every controversial issue brings nuts out of the woodwork. Most anti-abortion people are perfectly normal, with real lives, who simply believe that abortion is the murder of innocent human beings. But there are a few who think, for whatever reason, that they need to do more than protest, more than just provide alternatives to abortion. They write letters, they tag abortion mills, they make phone calls – and very occasionally they kill people. And the number of dangerous people opposed to abortion is so small that it's hard to get excited about just another batch of threats.

But I knew better. I'd read these letters and I'd listened to these tapes, and I had no doubt whatsoever that this guy was going to keep going until he left blood on the walls. There are psychopaths out there – people who have no conscience, who are almost totally without emotion, who genuinely think they're the only actual human beings in the world, who will do whatever they believe will help them and not care that anyone else gets hurt. Most such people never lay a finger on another human being, but when one turns to killing, you get people like Jack the Ripper and Adolf Hitler. And any excuse will do. No one knows what excuse Jack gave himself, but Hitler excused his murderous rampage by saying the Jews were behind Germany's humiliation after World War I. To a psychopath everything is everyone else's fault, and while it was a bit odd, I could imagine a psychopath finding in abortion an excuse for violence.

All that flitted through my mind in the space of a few seconds, and then I said to the voice on the phone, "Well, I'm not going to argue with you. I've got cause here on my desk to be very afraid, and you do too if you'll just look at it. But I can't make you look, and I'm not going to try." And I hung up. Probably someone else could have done better, but I know my limitations. I was on my own, unless Sergeant Sauceda decided to give things a closer look. And I couldn't count on that.

I got up from my chair and picked up my jacket – my heavy wool-lined jean jacket – in order to go out for lunch. And just then I heard the outer door close – I never hear it open. I turned and walked, jacket in hand, to the door. I opened it to see a guy standing by Marla's desk writing on a clipboard. He looked up at me. "You Darvin Carpenter?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Got a package here for you." As he spoke I saw it on Marla's desk, a fat padded envelope.

"Cool, I've been waiting for it. Where do I sign?" I turned and tossed my jacket toward the client chairs that sit in front of my desk. I didn't see it land, but from the sound I guessed I'd hit the floor.

The messenger handed me the clipboard and showed me where to sign. It's a good thing people who need you to sign something show you, because very few forms make it obvious. I signed, my usual scrawl, and handed the clipboard back. He picked up the package and gave it to me, and headed out.

I now had a dilemma. I wanted to get to work, but I also wanted to eat. I was pretty well starving, and though I love pizza I wasn't in a mood to call for one. I'd eaten at Fuddrucker's across the freeway over the weekend, and though I love their burgers I wasn't in a mood to go there again so soon either. And nothing is convenient to my office, which meant that no matter where I went I wouldn't be back to work real quick.

I had to decide, so I did. I walked back into my office, tossed the package on the desk, picked my jacket off the floor where it had indeed landed, and put it on. As close as anything to my office is the Blake's that sits on Montgomery at Carlisle, across the road from the apartments I was living in when I met Cecelia. So I headed downstairs and drove that way.