In that time, many of my questions were answered. Number one was the identity of the flayed corpse I’d mistaken for Circe Whistler. The murdered woman was Lethe, Circe’s sister. The network had dug up some footage of her-home video shot at some club in San Francisco, along with a music video she’d made with some abysmal goth band (she was the nun in fishnet stockings). Apart from a pair of blue eyes and several hauntingly familiar tattoos, she didn’t look much like Circe.
Who was said to be in seclusion in San Francisco. This factoid was seemingly verified by a clip of an old Victorian in the Haight. A limo pulled up, and a woman in a black crushed velvet cape got out. The cape had a hood, and the woman was wearing sunglasses, and she had enough bodyguards to handle a visiting head of state.
Circe’s doppelganger disappeared into the old house. A scab-colored door slammed closed behind her. Flash to a nightclub in the Mission District called the Make-Out Room, where a reporter was interviewing one of the owners. Sure he knew Circe Whistler. He knew her well. She’d spent the previous night at his place. They’d heard about Lethe’s murder over breakfast, while listening to the radio in a neighborhood cafe.
I remembered Circe’s comment about her father’s use of doubles back in the sixties. I wondered what the going rate was for a doppelganger these days, especially one that would have to spend a good amount of time under a tattoo artist’s needle.
Whatever the rate, it probably wasn’t as lucrative as the check Circe’s scriptwriter was pulling down. I figured she had to have one of those, too, because the scenario for Circe’s power play was brilliant. Not only had she found a way to eliminate her father and her sister, she was also creating sympathy for her church in the bargain.
She had fashioned a bogeyman-faceless, unseen, scary to anyone with a brain. The suspected killer was a member of the Christian right. Several media outlets had received communiques from a man who claimed responsibility for the executions of Diabolos Whistler and his youngest daughter. He proclaimed his membership in a group called Jehovah’s Hammer, and he said he wouldn’t stop killing until Circe Whistler and her followers were dead in the ground.
This revelation was followed by a background piece featuring old footage of a debate between Circe and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition. That was yesterday’s news, so I started channel surfing. The story was everywhere. CNBC was deep into wall-to-wall coverage, concentrating on the murder-mystery game. The tabloid shows were getting up-close-and-personal, fighting over Lethe Whistler’s ex-lovers-several aspiring musicians, a writer of paperback horror novels, and a cross-dressing basketball player who had dated her during a brief stint with the Golden State Warriors. PBS was there, too, taking the high road. A bunch of talking heads were kicking around the New Hedonism on The News Hour.
That was a little much, so I switched over to Larry King.
He was interviewing an expert on serial murderers.
A man with a terminally pinched expression.
Right off, I recognized my old buddy Clifford Rakes. His voice was calm and considered. Anyone who hadn’t heard him whining to his editor about waterbeds and dust-jacket photos might have been convinced that Clifford possessed a shred of intelligence.
“To deconstruct a killer’s behavior, we must see things through his eyes,” Rakes began. “The how’s of a case like this are obvious-the killer has left ample evidence at each murder. It’s the why’s we need to concentrate on. Perspective is the key to motivation, and motivation is the key to capture.”
I laughed. If Clifford wanted motivation, he could have looked at my bank account. I should have switched channels, but for some reason I wanted to hear him out.
He launched into his profile. I tried to rein in my anger as Rakes pontificated on my probable childhood propensity for bed-wetting, animal mutilation, and arson. My chest tightened when he talked about the sexual implications of a male killer who uses a knife… and takes trophies, namely a male victim’s head.
I held my breath as Rakes made passing references to Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez. But then he zeroed in for the kill, the infobite he’d obviously been saving for last. “Our killer is a religious avenger, a prophet who sets himself above others. He’s part of a cult himself-Jehovah’s Hammer-perhaps even its leader. Who knows how many innocents have fallen under his sway. He believes more will come to him as a result of the Whistler slayings. In the history of serial murder, I can think of only one killer who bears the weight of comparison.”
Blood pounded in my head.
Rakes pursed his lips and continued: “The madman I’m speaking of also headed a cult and saw himself as a prophet. He was responsible for the destruction of a great many lives.”
I aimed the remote at Rakes’s head, wishing it were a gun.
“His name was Charles Manson.”
I pressed a button. The screen went helter-skelter. And Clifford Rakes was gone.
I threw the television against a wall, grabbed Whistler’s head, and left Spider Ripley’s bedroom.
I’d learned all I could from the one-eyed box. After all, network anchors don’t believe in ghosts. They weren’t about to run a bio piece on a dead little girl who lived by a bridge. They weren’t going to tell me who she was, or what had happened to her, or if it was likely that I’d ever see her again.
But I knew someone who might be able to give me that information, if I could get to her. There were a few things I needed if I was going to manage that.
I found a stack of bills in a little office downstairs. I filed through the envelopes until I found one from the phone company. Just as I’d hoped, Spider Ripley had a cell phone.
I picked up the phone on the desk and punched in the number.
An electronic chirping sounded in an adjoining room.
I was in luck. In a minute I found the cell phone. I needed a few other things, and I found them, too. I stashed the stuff in a bag and walked to the Toyota.
Then I drove back to Spider’s pyramid. There was one other thing I needed, but I didn’t want to be spotted carrying it down the road.
Diabolos Whistler’s head.
Diabolos was waiting for me. Still sneering, still in on the joke.
Some people claimed that Diabolos Whistler was the real power behind Charles Manson. The rumors had drifted around for years. That Whistler had fingered Sharon Tate for murder. That he’d funneled money to Manson, and pulled his strings, and made him do the things he did through supernatural means.
There was one other rumor worth noting. It went like this-when Whistler was reborn as Satan, demons would unlock the prison gates, and Charles Manson and his followers would reap their unholy rewards at Whistler’s side.
Thinking about it gave me a chill.
Not because I believed it.
But because others did.
Because their belief gave them hope.
4
The rain settled into a steady rhythm, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I returned to the vacant lot, wrapped the iron box in a plastic drop cloth I’d taken from Spider Ripley’s pyramid, and stashed Diabolos Whistler’s head beneath an umbrella of lush ferns.
The head would be dry for the time being. Not that it mattered. As far as I could tell, Whistler’s all-too-mortal remains were already rotting. It didn’t look like the old boy was going to make a comeback anytime soon, no matter what Spider Ripley or Charles Manson believed. As for me, I didn’t care what kind of shape the head was in. Maggots could nest in Whistler’s mouth, and the head would still be a valuable tool.
I climbed into the truck. Silver needles of rain beat against the windshield, washing away bugs splattered from Los Cabos to Tijuana, San Diego to Bakersfield, Fiddler to Cliffside. I notched the wipers from low to high and the dead things were taken by the storm as I drove toward Hangman’s Point Drive.