The Color of Fear Read online

  Psychotropic drugs. I knew because at one time or other they’d both been prescribed for my half brother Darcy. They were used to treat aggressive and antisocial behavior, depression, and certain forms of psychosis. Rolle had been off his meds for quite a while.

  I went out onto the gallery, looked along it at the closed door at its far end. When I tried the knob, it wouldn’t budge. I inserted the key I’d found. The lock clicked, the door swung inward.

  There was something very wrong in this room. The windows were open in spite of the rain. Their curtains billowed out, their windmill borders dripping. The sink in the attached bathroom also dripped, but old fixtures often did. The stall shower curtain—more windmills—fluttered, but only at one end, as if the other was being held down with a heavy weight. My scalp rippled unpleasantly as I pulled the curtain away.

  Crumpled in the far corner was the motionless figure of a man.

  I stepped closer, bent down. The man’s eyes were wide open, staring at nothing but the dullness of death. His lean, middle-aged face was covered with blood-caked cuts and bruises, and blood spotted the front of his shirt. He’d been beaten to death.

  I didn’t have to wonder why. He was Hispanic, might possibly have had Indian blood judging from his cheekbones and the jut of his nose.

  Now Rolle and his racist gang had crossed the line into murder.

  There was no identification in the victim’s jeans or shirt; I steeled myself long enough to check the pockets. Who was he? Not a homeless person—his clothing was old but clean, his hands calloused but free of dirt, and his fingernails trimmed. A person they’d kidnapped somewhere and brought here to torture?

  Whoever he was, he hadn’t been dead long, probably less than two days. There was no odor yet, just the scent of rain. Rolle’s troops hadn’t bothered to bury the body, but were they crazy enough to just leave it here to decay? I didn’t think so. Wherever they’d gone, they intended to come back and dispose of it.

  I closed the curtain and left the room without touching anything else. What I needed to do now was get out of this house and off Bellefleur as quickly as I could. Once I was back on the Hoffman property, I’d call the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and report what I’d found. I’d have to admit committing a felony trespass, but given the circumstances, I doubted I’d be charged for it. And then I’d notify Mick and Sergeant Anders, if I could get hold of her.

  That was the plan, but things didn’t work out that way.

  I retraced my route to the gallery, and was halfway down the stairs when I heard the gates clang and saw lights flash beyond the rain-streaked foyer windows. Headlights, two sets of them.

  Shit! Rolle and his band were back.

  I could hear the cars now as they roared up in front and stopped. The only thing I could do was run back upstairs and away from the head of the stairs. I stood tensed in the shadows along the wall. If they came up here, I’d have to find a place to hide quickly, in one of the unused rooms.

  Car doors slammed. Loud voices punctuated by laughter sounded before and after they trooped inside. There must have been half a dozen of them, all talking at once. I recognized one of the voices: Dean Abbot.

  Another one said, “Okay, now we celebrate.”

  “What about the spic?”

  “No hurry. We’ll take him out later and bury him someplace.”

  Somebody else said, “Jerz, you shouldn’t’ve offed him. He was only looking for a gardening job.”

  “Shut up about that. So I lost my cool, so what? One less spic in the world.”

  “Suppose somebody knows he was gonna come here?”

  “How? We got rid of his truck, didn’t we?”

  “Why didn’t you just leave him in it? Or stuff him in one of the outbuildings?”

  “Oh, quit your whining and let’s crack those brewskis and do some coke. It’s party time.”

  Party time! My God, partying with a battered corpse upstairs in the bathroom. What kind of people were we harboring in our society, so full of hate, so lacking in empathy, so soulless? I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live in their skins.

  Heavy footsteps as they trooped out of the foyer. Heading for the kitchen, I thought. There hadn’t been any beer in the refrigerator, so they must’ve brought it with them.

  My first thought was to tiptoe down the stairs, get out through the front door. But the dry-rotted steps creaked and the kitchen wasn’t far away. If they heard me, they’d all come in a rush. I couldn’t hope to hold them at bay with my .38, or shoot them all if they attacked me. And some of them might be armed too. The smart thing was to stay concealed until the law could be gotten out here.

  I went down the hall, away from the kitchen, into one of the empty rooms, leaving the door slightly ajar. Then I took out my cell with the intention of calling Mick, having him contact the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

  But my luck was really running bad tonight. The signal was weak, and all I got when I tapped out his number was static. I tried again, over by the window. Same thing.

  Now I had no choice but to wait for the bunch of them to leave or else find a safe means of escape.

  But meanwhile there might be something more proactive to do, rather than simply hide. I left the room, walked softly back along the gallery to another that I calculated was above the kitchen. Inside, I located the heat register. It was open, probably had been frozen that way for years. There’d be one in the kitchen too, and from long experience with old houses, I knew that open registers acted as intercoms.

  When I knelt down and put my ear close to this one, I could hear their loud voices. They were almost as distinct as if the gang had been in the room with me.

  Unfamiliar voice: “Man, you guys sure lucked into a good thing when you jumped that old Indian. Who’d’ve thought he was the father of that bitch Sharon McCone.”

  “Wasn’t luck.” Jerzy’s voice. “I knew who he was and I’d been following him for two days.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to hurt the bitch where she lives. She sent a buddy of mine to San Quentin a few years ago. Ever since then I been reading about her and that Ripinsky and all the other lives they’ve ruined. Was time to take action. Too bad you weren’t with us that night, Rolle.”

  “I wish I had been. But beating up Indians and spics is minor league, like all those protest rallies. Now we’re headed for the big time.”

  “I’m not so sure a full-scale race war’s a good idea, at least not right away. Look what happened to Charlie Manson and his big plans.”

  “Manson was an idiot. All that shit about his people living in some hole in the ground until all the niggers and spics had done each other in and then crawling out and taking over the world—that was just plain crazy.”

  “Right. You ask me, all he wanted was to get laid and have his girls do murders for him.”

  “Point is, you have to have long-range planning and plenty of money. Then you can recruit an army, gather enough ordnance to start things rolling.”

  “We’ll have plenty of cash pretty soon if the McCone bitch forks over the three mil.”

  “She will. What choice does she have? Dean saw to that.”

  “Yeah, he did. Even if he did get caught hiding in a broom closet.”

  Laughter.

  “But what if they call in the feds in spite of the warning? The government’s computer people can reverse the lockdown.”

  “Not right away. It’d take time, right, Dean?”

  “The way I set it up, it will.”

  “So if they don’t pay the three mil by six o’clock tomorrow night, we carry out our threat. Off one of their employees. The spic girl, the one whose car we blew up, or the Jap or the fag office manager. They’ll pay up then, damn quick.”

  I clamped my teeth so tightly together pain shot through my jaw. The sick, cold-blooded bastards! Standing around sucking down beer and snorting coke, and calmly talking about murdering Julia or Derek or Ted if the
y didn’t get their goddamn three million dollars.

  “A killing means even stronger heat from the feds.” Dean Abbot.

  “So what, as long as we collect?”

  “McCone already knows who I am, figures I’m the one hacked her home security system.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Dean. If they ever do make the connection with us, we’ll be forted up in some new digs by then. And before we go, I’m gonna burn this place to the ground. I hate it that much.”

  Where did they plan to go? Some desert hidey-hole like the Manson Family had in Death Valley? I hoped one of them would say or drop a hint, but none did. They went on to discuss the kind of ordnance they’d need to accumulate, then clinked bottles in a toast—

  “Here’s to the revolution!”

  “And white power!”

  11:35 p.m.

  The luminous dial of my watch told me it was almost tomorrow. I unfastened it and put it in my pocket. Just as I did that, the gang began trooping out of the kitchen without saying where they were headed. Coming upstairs to fetch the dead gardener for burial?

  I got to my feet, went to stand tensed and listening by the door with my fingers tight around the handle of the 38. No sounds came from the stairs, or anywhere else I could make out. Minutes passed in silence. They were still somewhere in the house; I would have heard them if they’d left. But where?

  Easing the door open, I stepped out onto the gallery and over to the head of the stairs. Then I could hear rap music and their muted, drunken voices and hoots of laughter, coming from the other end of the house. Still partying. In a room where more coke had been stashed, probably.

  I couldn’t stand to stay here any longer. It was icy cold in the house—probably no central heating, and Rolle and the rest so fueled by alcohol and drugs that they didn’t need it—and my joints had begun to ache. With the racists clustered at a distance, I might never have a better chance to sneak out than right now.

  Slowly I started down the stairs, pausing on each riser to listen. The creaking and groaning of the old wood that came with each step seemed loud in my ears, but either the sounds of my exit didn’t carry or the thugs were making too much noise to hear them. Their whooping celebration continued unabated.

  I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, tiptoed across the foyer to the front door. I held my breath as I turned the knob, but Rolle hadn’t bothered to lock it. I eased it open, slipped through, closed it quietly behind me. And then I was out into the chill, wet night.

  Rain was falling again, driven by gusts of wind. The night had grown colder. The storm front would bring more heavy downpours before too much longer. I had to get out of here before that happened. But navigating the grounds in the dark would be far more difficult than coming in had been. I didn’t dare use my flashlight until I was well out of sight of the house.

  Light coming through blurred windows at the house’s far end helped guide me past the parked cars and across the muddy, rain-puddled driveway. Ahead, the darkness was thickly clotted. I couldn’t even make out the outlines of the massive fountain.

  I dodged through dripping vegetation and around the wishing well. The gazebo was wrapped in shadow, but the faint putrid smell remained in spite of the rain, warning me away. Another victim of Jerzy’s savagery? No. Judging from what I’d overheard, the Hispanic gardener had been the first. Probably what was in the gazebo was just a small animal that had crawled inside the gazebo and died there.

  I groped my way toward the fountain and the copse of bay laurel trees beyond. As I neared the fountain, I pivoted to look behind me at the house. A vine or something snagged my foot, sent me sprawling headlong into a trough of mud. Something that turned out to be a fallen tree limb stopped my forward slide—with a sharp blow to my forehead that jarred the .38 out of my hand.

  I pushed up on hands and knees, shaking my head to clear it, and fumbled around until I found the gun. Extricating myself from the mud was a struggle. It clung like Gorilla Glue.

  Jesus, it was as if this place were trying to claim me! People had described the Wellands, the supposedly haunted estate on the nearby road, in those terms. At the time I’d heard the rumors, I assumed that those spreading them were aficionados of such films as House on Haunted Hill, but now I could feel the grasping pull of Bellefleur. A place without ghosts, but made evil by the man who now owned it and his followers.

  I managed to stand up, then to wipe as much ooze as I could off the .38 before stuffing it into my jacket pocket. The rain and wind had slackened again, a lull before the main force of the storm hit. I looked toward the house. All that was visible of it from here was parts of the darkened second floor and roof. I could use the flashlight now if I kept the beam shielded with my hand—

  What was that?

  Sounds behind me, faint but unmistakable—somebody moving over the muddy ground in my direction.

  Sounds of pursuit that the rain had kept me from hearing before.

  I strained to see through the darkness. Couldn’t pinpoint the exact source of the sounds, but could tell that they were coming closer. Dammit, I must have been seen leaving the house or crossing the driveway.

  But it didn’t sound like more than one man out there. One of them must have left the others for some reason, maybe to go out to the cars for something. Whichever of the bastards, he was too drunk or too sure of himself to have raised an alarm—thank God for that. And that he didn’t have a flashlight with him. But did he have a weapon?

  No sense in trying to outrun or outmaneuver him in this swampy darkness. I couldn’t let him catch me, but neither did I want to ambush and shoot him unless it was absolutely necessary; the sound of even one shot was liable to alert the others. Hide, then, at least temporarily. If he gave up the chase and went back to the house, it might give me just enough time to get to the stone boundary wall and over it to my car.

  The nearest place of concealment was the fountain, its massive hulk looming off to my right. There must be plenty of places to hide among the three ornate tiers—among the large fish with their vicious-looking teeth, the grinning gargoyles, or even the capering angels.

  I made my way to its near side, trying to be as quiet as I could, and crouched in the shadows to listen. My fingers around the handle of the .38 were numb from the cold, but that wouldn’t keep me from using it if I could. If it would fire after being immersed in water and mud.

  Now I could no longer hear the sounds of pursuit. Had he stopped too? Yes, but not for long. Then I heard him again—close, so close I had a glimpse of his dark shape. He must have heard me in spite of my caution, he must know where I was headed.

  I had just enough time to climb over the fountain’s wall, flatten myself against the side of its puddled basin, before he came stumbling up not a dozen feet away.

  “You can’t get away from me, bitch,” he called, the words slurred by all the beer he’d drunk, and harsh with the arrogance that had sent him chasing after me alone. “Come on outta there.”

  Jerzy Capp.

  The deadliest of the bunch, with blood already on his hands.

  “You hear me? I know you’re in there.”

  Had he seen me slither inside? Or he was he just guessing?

  “Make me come in there after you, you’ll regret it. I’ll beat the living shit out of you.”

  He must not be armed. If he were, he’d have said so instead of making the beating threat.

  Misdirection.

  There were pebbles on the basin floor, I could feel them underfoot. I reached down, gathered up a handful, and flung them toward the copse of bay laurel.

  Capp’s shadowy shape whirled toward the trees. I used the opportunity to boost myself up between two of the nasty-looking fish. One of their sharp marble teeth opened a gash in my cheek.

  But Capp hadn’t been fooled, damn him. He turned back toward the fountain, barking a harsh laugh.

  “All right, you asked for it. I’m coming in.”

  I waited, perfectly still, not even wipin
g off the blood that was trickling down my neck. His head appeared over the lip of the basin, then he clambered over and I heard him drop down and start groping around near the center column.

  He said in a nasty drunken singsong, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  I’d been holding my breath, but I couldn’t hold it indefinitely. I tried to exhale and then inhale without making a sound, but his hearing must have been acute. He let loose an animallike growl and started pawing the column right below me.

  I couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Stay back,” I snapped. “I’ve got a gun.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m warning you, Jerzy—”

  “Oh, so you know who I am, huh?”

  “I’ll shoot if you come any closer.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  He lunged upward, caught hold of my leg, and tried to drag me down toward him. I clung tightly to one of the stone fish with my left arm, trying and failing to kick free.

  He fumbled for a grip on my other leg. I could have shot him then, or tried to, but I was still afraid of the noise carrying to the house. Even high, Rolle and the rest would know a gunshot when they heard one. Instead I reversed the .38 and smashed the butt against the hand clutching at my ankle.

  He yowled in pain and let go. I pulled both legs up and back, then pistoned them toward where I thought his head was. Lucky aim in the darkness: the heels of my boots caught him smack in the middle of his forehead.

  The impact knocked him backward onto the floor of the bowl. His grunting cry of pain was cut off by a loud cracking sound. The back of his head slamming into the concrete?

  I stayed where I was between the two marble fish, holding the .38 as steady as I could, but there were no more sounds from Capp. No reaction from the house at all.

  The pain in my cheek throbbed, and a new, stabbing one radiated from my ribs. I breathed shallowly for a bit until it eased some, then exchanged the gun for the flashlight in my coat pocket. I switched it on, aimed the thin beam downward.