Chapter 3

As he drove home after the chewing out by Lieutenant Ivory and the invitation from Doc Protius, Kettering made up his mind he would do something about straightening out his homelife. He would sit down with Mavis tonight and talk as long as she wanted to. And he would listen. He promised himself he would listen. By the time he parked the Camaro and crossed the lawn, he was feeling pretty righteous.

Mavis was coming out of the bedroom as Kettering entered the house. She wore a pair of tight floral print pants and a black turtle-neck. A loose white sweater jacket was thrown over her shoulders. She looked about twenty-five years old. And she looked happy.

Her body was still good, Kettering saw. But why wouldn't it be? She was only thirty-eight and took good care of herself. There was just the one pregnancy - Trevor. That had been a rough time for Mavis, and they had agreed then to hold the family at three.

Mavis was wearing her hair soft and loose tonight, the way Kettering used to like it. She had not worn it that way for a long time. Her eyes were bright, alive. He could remember when her eyes shone like that whenever she looked at him. Now he only saw it when she was going out. Alone. Kettering really wanted to say something nice to her, but he couldn't get it past his throat.

What came out was, "Going somewhere?"

"This is my class night. There's a casserole for you in the fridge. The bowl with the plastic wrap covering it. All you have to do is pop it in the microwave."

"What class is that?" he asked.

Mavis exhaled sharply. "My arts class with Gabrielle Wister. Same night every week. I've been going for almost two months."

"I don't remember you telling me."

"Maybe if you listened once in a while ..."

"What do you need with an art class?"

"Arts. Plural. I used to make jewelry when we were first married. Remember that? I was pretty good at it. A lot of my friends asked why I didn't sell the stuff. I thought maybe I'd brush up my talent and give it a try now."

"I still don't see what you need the class for."

She faced him, her jaw set. "Because I have to do something, Brian. There isn't enough here in the house to keep me busy for half the day. You don't need me. Trevor's gone most of the time. I need something that's mine. Just mine."

Right then what he should have said was: I do need you, Mavis. I need you so bad I ache for you. I need you to listen to the ugly stories of all the ugly things I see every day, the rotten things I have to do. I need you to tell me it's okay. I'm okay. I need you to be the girl I married again.

That's what he should have said. But he could no more get those words out than he could right now take into his arms the woman his wife had become.

"So where is Trevor, anyway? I hardly see him since school let out."

"He's got a job for the summer, working nights."

"A job? Our Trevor?"

"That's what I said. A job."

"I didn't know that. How come nobody mentions these things to me?"

"Brian, you may not know it, but you're not that accessible to us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He saw her expression. "Never mind, what's this job he's got?"

Mavis shrugged. "It's nights at some club on Creighton Street. A place where the kids go."

"What kind of club?"

"I don't know. Rock music, dancing. Strictly for the younger crowd. It's called The Hole or The Pit ... something like that."

"What's Trevor doing there?"

"You'll have to ask him. I would think you'd be pleased that he's earning some money."

He massaged his brow and headed for the kitchen. "The money's not important. The kid's been acting weird lately. I don't like it."

"You're still mad about his haircut."

"That's just one thing."

Kettering walked out to the kitchen and poured himself a bourbon on the rocks. He raised his voice so Mavis could hear him in the other room.

"His grades have been really crappy this last year. He's going to have to go to junior college to bring them up enough to get into UCLA, or even Valley State."

He walked back out to the living room. Mavis was edging toward the door, looking eager to be away.

She said, "His grades weren't that bad."

"He can do better. And he hasn't been hanging out with his old friends lately. Who's he spending his time with?"

"I know he's down at the club a lot," Mavis said.

"I hardly ever see him. And when he is home, he sits in his room and plays that garbage music on his stereo. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was doing dope."

"Dope? Trevor? You think he'd touch the stuff with a cop for a father?"

"Let me tell you, strange things can happen to policemen's kids." In a softer voice he added, "Preacher's kids too."

"Trevor's all right. It's just the usual teenage rebellion thing."

"Yeah, well, something's happening to him. Something I don't like."

"So talk to him," she said. "You're the father."

"Yeah." He looked down into the glass, clinked the ice cubes against the sides.

Mavis was at the door now with her hand on the knob. "I'm going to be late," she said. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Matter of fact, you've been acting kind of funny too."

"Brian, I've got to go."

"Go then." It came out harsher than he had intended.

She opened the door.

He said, "Maybe I'll have a look in his room."

"You mean search his things?"

"Since he won't volunteer any information, it's one way to find out what's going on with him."

"You wouldn't do that to a criminal without a search warrant."

"That's different. Criminals are protected by the courts. Civil rights stop at my front door."

"You talk like a real Nazi sometimes, you know that?"

"I'm a cop."

Mavis started an angry reply, cut it off. "Speaking of our front door, you'd better have a look at it. We seem to have a graffiti artist in the neighborhood."

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't see it when you came in?"

"It was dark and I wasn't paying attention."

"Take a look." She opened the door and pulled it wide so he could see the outer face in the light.

From the top of the door all the way to the bottom, in a crude but powerful smear of dark red, was the hunch-shouldered figure from his dreams. And from his childhood. The talons at the end of the long arms seemed to twitch as Kettering stared.

Doomstalker.

No spray can had done this, and no brush. It was like a great red splatter that had somehow fallen in this sinister shape. But Kettering knew it was no accident. Anyway, how it got there was not as important as why.

Iced bourbon spilled out over his hand. Kettering looked down, surprised to see that the hand was shaking. He swallowed the rest of the drink quickly and set the glass on a table inside the door.

"When did this happen?" he demanded.

"I don't know. Sometime today."

"You didn't see anybody outside? Hear anything?"

"Nothing unusual."

"Damn it, you must have noticed something. You were here all day."

Mavis flared at him. "Of course I was here all day. I'm here all day every day. And every night. I don't have a job to escape to."

"Don't get excited. I just asked if you saw who did this to our door."

"I don't make a note of every odd noise and every stranger who walks down the sidewalk. If that's what you want, why don't you hire a detective?"

She left him standing beside the open door and marched stiffly across the lawn to her little car. She got in, slammed the door with unnecessary force, raced the motor, and sped off into the night.

Kettering watched until the taillights of the Honda disappeared around the corner. He looked again at the ominous crimson shape and swore through clenched teeth. Leaving the door open, he headed for the kitchen.

An hour later, after he had scrubbed the wooden panel with detergent, solvent, and bleach, the shadow of the Doomstalker remained. He would have to sand down the door and repaint it. Or buy a new door. The headache was pounding at his temples. He knew. Somehow, he just knew that even if he erased the hellish image from the door, the Doomstalker would never go away.

It was coming for him.

With an effort Kettering fought down the terrors of childhood and the ugly half-remembered scenes that were stirred up by the angry red image. He tried to kid himself into believing it was merely juvenile graffiti. He directed his anger at the disintegration of his neighborhood and all the other neighborhoods that had once been nice places to live. He raged inwardly at the bleeding-heart judges who kept letting juvenile criminals out "to the custody of their parents." What a laugh. If the little scum-suckers actually had parents, they didn't give a shit what their kids did. A no-win situation if ever there was one.

It was no use. Kettering knew this was not the work of some punk with a spray can. No use pretending that it was.

He closed the door and rolled the dead bolt home. Tomorrow he would work some more on cleaning off the panel. He retreated to his refuge, the creaky old recliner.

With the remote-control unit he punched on the television and cycled through the channels. There were reruns of sitcoms that weren't funny the first time around. There was yet another show about a cool black cop and a comical white cop. A TV movie with Ed Asner taking on society's problems. Alan Thicke was hosting some trivial awards show. Something British and boring on PBS. News ...

Wait a minute. A familiar face looked back at him from the newscast. The girl reporter with the cropped red hair stood out in front of the stucco apartment building where the hostage thing had gone down that day. She was holding a sponge-ball hand mike. The sun was bright in her eyes, making her squint slightly. Kettering mentally gave the woman points for not switching the shot around so she could look better on camera.

"Today in this unpretentious apartment in West Valley, a potentially dangerous situation was defused by the courageous work of a Valley policeman. Sergeant Brian Kettering entered an apartment alone where a suspect was holding a woman hostage at knife point. Because of the sergeant's swift response, the suspect was captured and the woman freed with minor injuries. Too often efficient police work like this is overlooked in the media's haste to find fault with our law-enforcement people. This is Charity Moline, Hotline News, returning you to the Channel Six studios in Hollywood."

The buttery-voiced anchorman came on and Kettering punched the screen to darkness. He checked his watch. Quarter to nine. Charity Moline's report was taped this afternoon. She probably would not be at the television studio at this hour.

He walked out to where his coat hung over the back of a dining room chair. The business card was in the pocket where he'd dropped it and forgotten about it. No, he admitted, he hadn't forgotten about it at all.

The card bore two telephone numbers. One was the Channel 6 number in Hollywood, the other had a North Hollywood prefix. Not that far from West Valley. Kettering punched out the digits and listened to the burr of the phone ringing on the other end.

"Hello?" She had a good voice. Just a touch husky, without the breathiness affected by so many women.

"Charity Moline?"

"Well, hello, Sergeant."

"You've got a good ear."

"It's part of my business."

"I saw your report on Channel Six just now."

"Oh?" She wasn't helping him any.

"Well, hell, I guess what I called for was to say thanks."

"I just told the folks what happened."

"And I'm sorry if I was abrupt with you today."

"You're entitled."

A long five seconds ticked past.

"I was wondering, well, would you like to have a drink someplace?"

"You mean tonight?"

"Yeah. Tonight."

"Sure."

"You know the Rose and Dragon on Ventura?"

"I know it."

"Half an hour?"

"See you there."

When he hung up the phone, Kettering was sweating. After eighteen years of marriage he had just made his first real date with another woman. Sure, there had been an occasional groupie from the local cop's hangout, but this was different. What did he have in mind?

No time to think about that now. Kettering hurried to the bathroom to grab a quick shave.