Supervolcano: All Fall Down s-2 Page 6

  “You’ve got to remember, the hot spot under the supervolcano has been active a lot longer than it’s been under Yellowstone-under what used to be Yellowstone.” Kelly had loved the park, loved hiking in it, loved the geological formations without a match anywhere in the world. All gone now. The ecosystem would be tens-more likely hundreds-of thousands of years healing. “It started up under northeastern Oregon seventeen or eighteen million years ago. As the North American tectonic plate slid along on top of it, it erupted every so often across Idaho till it got to where it is now. The Snake River Valley follows the path of the eruptions pretty well.”

  A few of the kids looked impressed. Kelly knew damn well she was. A single geological feature active across so much time. . The hot spot that created the Hawaiian chain had been around even longer. So had the collision between India and Asia that pushed up the Himalayas. Not a whole lot of things like that.

  “There are a couple of museums in Nebraska full of beautifully preserved rhinoceros bones from eleven or twelve million years ago. The animals died around a water hole and got buried by the ash from one of the blasts when the hot spot was under Idaho.” Kelly’d known about Ashfall Historical Park for a long time. You heard of it when you studied the Yellowstone supervolcano. Funny, though, that Bryce Miller’d seen bones from that excavation when he was in Lincoln. Funny also that Kelly, as Colin’s new wife, should get to be friends with his daughter’s ex-live-in. Rocks weren’t the only things that laid down strata. So did relationships.

  It was ten till twelve. She let the class go, warning them they’d get another quiz Friday. They gave the predictable groans as they trooped out.

  She hoped she’d find an open gas station before she got home. If she didn’t, she’d have to see how the bus lines worked before she left tomorrow. She’d have to see how long getting here by bus took, too. L.A. buses sucked-a technical term. But you did what you had to do. . if you could do anything at all.

  There’d been a boom in apartment buildings in San Atanasio-hell, in the whole South Bay-in the 1970s. Colin Ferguson, who’d lived there a long time, remembered when they were still pretty new. The two-story courtyards with the pools and the rec rooms and the underground parking garages had had an almost Jetsons kind of cool.

  Well, platform soles and leisure suits weren’t what they had been when you could wear them without irony. Neither were those apartment buildings. They got old. They got shabby. They got run-down. Young people on the way up stopped living in them till they could afford to buy a house.

  Some of the folks who’d moved in a long time ago got old along with their apartments. Poorer people moved into other units. These days, the papers (when there were papers-the supervolcano’d almost finished the job the Net had started) always called San Atanasio a working-class community. That was the polite way to put it, anyhow.

  This particular building had a bronze plaque out front that said MARSEILLE GARDENS. The stucco was faded and cracked and chipped. It needed a new paint job. The newest paint on it was a patch where someone had halfheartedly covered up graffiti. That must have been a while ago; fresh spray squiggles writhed across the cover-up.

  The entrance and exit to the parking garage both reminded Colin of tank traps. There was a security door to get into the lobby and another one up the flight of stairs from the lobby to the courtyard.

  Colin sighed as he got out of the unmarked cop car that was a privilege of his rank. “Another gorgeous spot,” he said.

  “Oh, hell, yes, man.” Sergeant Gabe Sanchez scratched at his salt-and-pepper mustache. He kept it as bushy as regs allowed, and then a little more besides. Officious superiors got on his ass about it. Colin couldn’t have cared less. Gabe made a hell of a good cop. Next to that, what was some face fuzz? Jack diddly, that’s what.

  A black-and-white had got there ahead of them. The red, yellow, and blue lights in the roof bar flashed one after another. In the glassed-off lobby, a uniformed cop was talking to a tiny, gray-haired woman who broke off every once in a while to cover her face with her hands. Seeing Colin and Sanchez, the cop waved. Colin nodded back.

  Gabe Sanchez sighed. “Gotta do it,” he said.

  “I’ll go in. You take a minute,” Colin told him. Gabe sent back a grateful look. He lit a cigarette as Colin climbed the stairs to the lobby. San Atanasio was as aggressively smokefree as any other SoCal city. There would have been stereophonic hell to pay had the sergeant lit up inside the car. He smoked now in quick, fierce puffs. Colin knew he’d come along as soon as he got his fix.

  When Colin walked into the lobby, the cop wearing navy blue said, “Lieutenant, this is Mrs. Nagumo-Kiyoko Nagumo. She’s the one who called 911. Her sister is in apartment, uh”-he glanced at the notes he’d been taking- “apartment 71.”

  “Thanks, Pete.” Colin turned to Mrs. Nagumo and showed his badge. “I’m Lieutenant Ferguson, Mrs. Nagumo. Your sister’s name is Eiko Ryan?” There were still some Japanese in San Atanasio. There’d been more before a lot of them headed south to Torrance and Palos Verdes as blacks and Mexicans moved in. Quite a few had intermarried with whites. Some of the resulting names were a lot more amusing than this one.

  Mrs. Nagumo said, “That’s right. We were supposed to have lunch today. I called her. She didn’t answer. I came over to see if she was okay. She’s lived here ten years now, since her husband passed away.”

  “I see.” Colin wondered how many times he’d heard stories like this. The Ryans had probably had a little tract house somewhere not far from here. After he died, even a little house might have seemed too big. Or the memories there might have hurt too much. But if Eiko Ryan wanted to stay independent, a place like this would have seemed pretty good. “What happened when you got here, ma’am?”

  By the way Pete shifted from foot to foot, he’d already asked her that. Well, tough. “I buzzed. She didn’t let me in. I rang for the manager. He knows me. He let me go in. I knocked on her door. Still nothing. I went back to the manager and asked him to open the apartment. I was afraid maybe she’d fallen or something.” She was of an age-and her sister would be, too-where a fall was liable to mean a broken hip.

  When she didn’t go on, Colin gently prodded her: “What happened then, Mrs. Nagumo? Oh-and when was the last time you did talk with your sister?”

  “It was last Friday. When we set up lunch. This is Wednesday, so-five days ago. Mr. Svanda, he complained, but he always complains. He did what I wanted him to do.” Chances were, most people did. Mrs. Nagumo couldn’t have been taller than four feet nine, but she had immense dignity. Her grief was all the more stark on account of it. “He opened the door. . and we found her. In the bedroom. I called 911 then.” A tear ran down her wrinkled cheek.

  “Did you or Mr., uh, Svanda touch anything inside the apartment?” Colin asked. He wondered why he bothered. If this was another South Bay Strangler case, the bastard never left prints. He’d been raping and murdering little old ladies all through this part of L.A. County for years now, and nobody’d laid a glove on him.

  “Nothing much, anyway,” Kiyoko Nagumo said. “We watch TV. We know about fingerprints-oh, yes.”

  “Okay.” Colin fought a sigh. Everybody watched TV-and everybody thought the cops always caught the bad guy right before the closing commercials. Real life, unfortunately, could be a lot messier and less conclusive. And real-life cops took the heat when it was.

  “I’ve got a pretty good statement from her, Lieutenant,” Pete said as Gabe Sanchez came up the stairs to join them. “If you want to have a look at the crime scene before the forensics guys and the coroner get here-”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Colin said resignedly. Mrs. Nagumo started crying again. Hearing about the coroner must have reminded her her sister was dead.

  The door up into the courtyard was open. People milled around there, the way they always did after something bad happened. A grizzled fellow limped up to Colin and Gabe. Like anyone with an ounce of sense, he knew cops when he saw them.

/>   “I’m Oscar Svanda,” he said. “My wife Glinda and me, we manage this building. I let Mrs. Ryan’s sister into her place, and then we seen the poor lady’s body.” He crossed himself. He looked green around the gills, and well he might. Civilians rarely saw things like that, and rarely knew how lucky they were not to.

  “Gabe, why don’t you take Mr. Svanda’s statement?” Colin said. “I do want to have a look at the apartment.”

  “Okay. I’ll catch up with you.” Gabe pulled a notebook from an inside pocket of his blue blazer. “You want to spell your last name for me so I make sure I have it right, Mr. Svanda. .?”

  The other uniformed officer from the black-and-white stood at the door to apartment 71. She looked a trifle green herself. “Your first Strangler case, Heather?” Colin asked, understanding that all too well.

  She managed a nod. “’Fraid so, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, welcome to the club. Now you see why we hate the son of a gun so much,” Colin said grimly. Heather nodded again, this time with more conviction.

  He walked inside. The furniture was that furnished-apartment blend of tacky and functional. The Naugahyde covering on the dinette chairs had orange flowers; the couch and chair were upholstered in industrial-strength fabric with a really horrible red, white, and black plaid. But everything was scrupulously clean and neat.

  A faint but unmistakable odor led him into the bedroom. Eiko Ryan had been there two or three days, all right. Her long flannel nightgown was hiked up to her waist. Alive, she might have been an inch or two taller than her sister-which would have done her a hell of a lot of good trying to fight off the bastard who’d killed her.

  Colin clasped his hands behind his back to make sure he didn’t touch anything. It wouldn’t matter, but he did it anyway. Habit was strong in him, and got stronger as he got older.

  He heard some kind of commotion outside. He feared he knew what kind, too. Sure as hell, Heather called, “The reporters are here, Lieutenant.”

  “Oh, joy,” Colin said, and went out to meet the press.

  IV

  Louise Ferguson felt as if she’d gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson, and he’d thrown nothing but body punches the whole time. They called it labor for a reason. She’d found that out when she’d had her first three kids. But she’d been in her early twenties then. Now she was old enough to be a granny. She felt every year of it, too, and about twenty more besides.

  She lay on the bed, flicking the TV remote. Her roommate wasn’t there-they were running some kind of test on her. She was a Korean gal who didn’t speak a whole lot of English. When she was there, she kept stealing glances at Louise, as if to say What the hell were you doing? But the answer to that was only too obvious, wasn’t it?

  James Henry Ferguson-seven pounds, nine ounces; twenty-one and a half inches-wasn’t there, either. They’d asked if she wanted him with her 24/7 or if he should stay in the nursery when she wasn’t feeding him. She’d had Rob with her all the time. Despite her own exhaustion, she’d started at his every twitch and sneeze and wiggle. And she’d learned her lesson. Vanessa and Marshall had stayed in the nursery. James Henry could damn well do the same thing.

  Here was the local news. Living with Colin for so many years had given her a jaundiced view of it: blow-dried male robots and beauty-contest third runner-ups struggling to read from teleprompters. The newsies didn’t seem a whole lot smarter once she’d walked out on Colin, either.

  But the headline behind this toothy blonde in a clinging red sweater was SOUTH BAY STRANGLER STRIKES AGAIN! Louise decided not to change the channel again. Colin had started chasing the Strangler while they were still married. He still hadn’t caught him. Neither had any of the other South Bay police departments.

  “Found dead in her San Atanasio apartment was Eiko Ryan, age seventy-nine,” the newswoman said. “DNA analysis has not been completed, but the M.O. seems consistent with the notorious South Bay Strangler. Our Jerry Michaelson was on the scene.”

  Their Jerry Michaelson thrust a mike in Colin Ferguson’s face. “What can you say about this latest Strangler atrocity, Lieutenant?” he asked excitedly.

  “I don’t want to say much of anything till the lab team and the coroner do their job,” Colin answered.

  “But it is a Strangler case, isn’t it?” Michaelson persisted.

  “Right now it looks like one. And that’s about as much as I can tell you,” Colin said.

  Their Jerry Michaelson wasn’t about to let him off so easily. “When will you catch this monster who’s been terrorizing South Bay senior women for so long?”

  “Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like better.” Colin’s impatience was starting to show. He’d always had a short fuse with reporters. “If you’ve got any good ideas, I’d love to hear ’em.”

  Michaelson started to splutter. The news cut back to the studio. The blonde in the tight sweater deplored the cops’ failure to apprehend anybody. She had a little trouble with apprehend, but managed almost well enough.

  Then a Filipina nurse walked in, and Louise stopped worrying about the news. “How you feeling?” the young woman asked.

  “Run over by a truck,” Louise answered honestly.

  The nurse’s eyes widened. She laughed. “Oh, I bet you do,” she said. “Having a baby not easy for anybody, harder when you get a little older.” That was a polite way to put it. The nurse grabbed a gadget on a pole, stuck Louise’s finger in a clip, and wrapped a cuff around her arm. The cuff inflated painfully tight, then relaxed. The nurse wrote in the chart.

  “Well?” Louise always wanted to know what was what.

  “Blood pressure good. Blood oxygen normal.” The nurse stuck something in Louise’s ear, then wrote again. “Temperature normal, too. You okay.” Except you’re crazy. She didn’t come out with it, but it was written all over her face.

  “Oh, boy.” Louise fought a yawn. Then she didn’t fight it any more. She’d earned the right to be worn out, by God! And she knew she’d better sleep while she had any chance at all. The baby sure wouldn’t let her once she got home. She wanted a shower, too; she was all over greasy sweat. But she lacked the energy right now. Tomorrow would do.

  “Epesiotomy hurt?” the nurse asked.

  “It’s starting to,” Louise admitted. They’d given her a local down there while they sewed her up. It was wearing off now. One more delight of childbirth she’d managed to forget. If women remembered all the lovely details, they would never have more than one kid, and the human race would have vanished a long time ago.

  “Father come see baby?” the nurse inquired.

  “I doubt it.” Louise’s voice was colder than supervolcano winter in Greenland. If Teo had wanted anything to do with his oops of an offspring. . If he’d wanted anything to do with the kid, a lot of things now would be different. But he damn well hadn’t, and they damn well weren’t. “I don’t expect any visitors.”

  “No?” The Filipina girl’s eyebrows rose. “Too bad. You have pretty baby.”

  Those things were relative. Newborn babies weren’t the cute, laughing things they became in a few months. James Henry was very pink, he had next to no hair, and he looked like a Conehead because he’d got kind of squashed coming out. That he would look that way, at least, Louise had recalled.

  Shaking her head, the nurse went away. The news was doing the weather report. It would be chilly and rainy. It was either chilly and rainy or just plain chilly most of the time. And L.A. had it way better than most of the country.

  Dinner came. It was unexciting hospital food, a redundancy if ever there was one. Louise didn’t care. In the classic phrase, she could have eaten a horse and chased the driver.

  An attendant wheeled in the Korean lady in the other bed. She’d just got her tray when her husband showed up. They pulled the curtain and chattered in their own language, with occasional English words thrown in. It reminded Louise of Mr. Nobashi talking to Hiroshima, though neither side of this couple was in the habit of yelling, “Oh
, Jesus Christ!”

  Then Colin walked in.

  Louise knew she looked like hell. She felt like hell, too. And she wasn’t only sore and beat. All her hormones were working on emergency overdrive. It wasn’t the ideal moment for a visit from an ex-husband, in other words.

  “Come to gloat, did you?” she snapped.

  His face never showed much. That was a useful attribute for a cop, but it had always irked her. His mouth did tighten a little; she’d managed to piss him off. “Well, I can always leave if you want me to,” he said. “I heard you’d had the baby, and I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m trampled, that’s how,” Louise replied.

  “I remember,” he said. “But you’re okay, and the kid is, too?” He waited for her to nod, then did the same himself. “Good. That’s the only thing that really matters.”

  “Does Kelly know you’re here?” Louise asked, a touch of acid in her voice.

  “Uh-huh.” Colin nodded again. “She gets that I wasn’t rolled up in bubble wrap before we ran into each other. There’s still stuff in my life from days gone by.”

  “Like the Strangler,” Louise said.

  His mouth didn’t just tighten this time. It twisted. “Yeah. Like him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Louise said. The rational part of her, what there was of it right this minute, knew she’d hit too hard. He’d done more for her after she got knocked up by the other man than an ex had to, more than most exes would have. The checks he’d sent really had helped her out.

  “One of these days, I will catch him. I’ll see they stick a needle in his arm, too,” Colin said.

  “I hope you do.” Louise meant that.

  “Marshall says maybe he’ll come tomorrow.” Colin shifted gears. “He was working on something now, typing away pretty fast.”