Read Online Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) by T. Jefferson Parker - Free Book Online
Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
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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
“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
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