Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation Read Online Free PDF Page B

Can you
honestly say that more than one in four million deserves paradise?”
         “I’ve
never doubted the Devil’s reach, Mr. Endicott. I just don’t happen to think
that God assigns quotas for salvation.” He tapped his fingers on the table.
“But that’s beside the point.”
         “Yes,”
said Endicott. “If I were looking for a man of my own kind, I wouldn’t be in
Hollywood. I’m looking for someone who understands . . . the other side.”
         “Right,”
said Raszer. “Let’s talk about your daughter. How long has she been missing?”
         “As the
police in Azusa have it, she was last seen on this earth on February first of
last year. But she was lost to me long before that.”
         “We’ll
talk about that,” said Raszer. “But let’s get some basics first. Azusa—that’s a
fair distance. Is that where you—and Katy—live as well?”
         “Yes.
For nineteen of her twenty years. Our lives revolve around the Kingdom Hall.
Hollywood is a fifty-minute bus ride away. Not so very far, but then, in three
decades I’ve not had cause to descend to this . . . gutter. Not until now.”
         “Well,
at least we’ve had rain to wash the garbage away,” said Raszer, neither
expecting nor getting a smile. “Tell me about the physical circumstances of
Katy’s disappearance. Were there others involved—a boyfriend, girlfriend? Did
she pack a bag, leave a note? Is foul play suspected? Tell me what the police
know.”
         At that
prompting, Silas Endicott remembered to remove his hat, perhaps moved to
courtesy by the gravity of what he was about to relate. He set it before him on
the table, maintaining a tight grip on the brim. Raszer read the gesture as
playing for time, and possibly also as that of a man who feared his daughter
was dead.
         “She was
up in San Gabriel Canyon,” he began, his head lowered. “On a fire road. An
abandoned dance hall from one of those resorts they built back in the 1920s.”
         “Up
there past the Morris Dam, right? On the way to Crystal Lake.”
         “On the
east fork of the river,” Endicott said. “Closed down years ago because of the
mudslides, but the kids . . . that never stops them. They were having—what do
they call it when they dance all night, like pagans? All those drugs, all that
depravity.”
         “A
rave,” said Raszer. “At least, they did in the ’90s.” Uneasiness fell over him
like a toxic dew. “I remember this story,” he said. “I was on a case, not
paying much attention to the news, but I remember. Kids were hurt. How did Katy
fit in?”
         Raszer
was suddenly aware of a tremor, like that immediately preceding an earthquake.
Instinctively, he glanced up at the overhead lamp to see if it was shaking,
then to Brigit, whose toes were visible just inside the hallway, and finally to
Monica, whose eyes directed him back to the table and to Silas Endicott’s
hands. The source of vibration was in the old man’s breast, transferred through
his arms to the solid oak.
         “She’d
fallen in with a bad crowd, Mr. Raszer, but why, and by whom, she was taken is
not clear.” Endicott’s voice thickened with a mixture of grief, shame, and
rage. “The boy who witnessed it was high on pills, and whatever he saw must
have . . . ” Endicott released his grip on the brim of his hat and folded his
hands in a moment’s silent prayer. After that, he spoke with odd, third-person
detachment.
         “Katy
left the dance hall with four boys. It was cold up there—the altitude is about thirty-six
hundred feet—but she didn’t have a coat on.” He stared blankly, right past
Raszer’s left shoulder. “One of the boys was the witness. The other three were
animals. They tempted her, plied her with liquor. Lured her up the road to an
old Dodge convertible. Told her they had pills in the trunk. Then they . . .
they—”
         Monica
cleared her throat.