The Hunters and the Hunted

Book 0: A Vic Varallo Mystery

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Four years ago Wayne Burgess killed his parents, and his plea of insanity lead to a verdict of not guilty. Now, after four years in a mental institution, he has been released and is obsessively determined to murder his wife and young daughter. Delia Riordan, the newest addition to the Glendale Police Department, is on the case. A little girl has been abducted - and she could provide the lead in the Burgess affair if only the police can see the connection in time. But will they? 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

Release date: July 28, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

Meg left the office early that Tuesday. Dr. Burton’s last appointment was at three o’clock; while he was giving that examination Mrs. Wrangell came in for her new
glasses. Both patients had left by ten minutes to four, and he came out to the waiting room looking tired and preoccupied and said, “May as well close up shop early.”

She drove up Pacific Avenue to pick up Tammy at the nursery school. Mrs. Dean’s private nursery school wasn’t cheap, but it was a very good one. Clarissa Young pried Tammy away from
a big picture book and said cheerfully, “Guess we’re in for the usual heat wave, this time in March. Why does anybody live in this climate?”

Meg said she often wondered. She needed a few things at the market, and stopped at the Lucky on Glenoaks on the way home. Tammy used to love riding in the market cart, but now she was four she
was too grown-up for that, and dawdled behind Meg along the aisles. Milk, cereal, frozen orange juice, a loaf of bread, ground round. There weren’t many people at the market. When Meg pulled
into the apartment driveway it was only a little after five, the sun low in the west but dusk still an hour away.

She shut the garage door, snapped the padlock, picked up the bag of groceries; they started around to the front door. On the sidewalk there Carol Sue Wiley was riding her tricycle. “Hi,
Carol Sue,” said Meg. “How was kindergarten today?”

Carol Sue scowled a little at her, a freckled sandy-haired little girl, and said definitely, “Yes. All right, I guess.”

Meg and Tammy walked up to the front door of the apartment. Tammy said in her funny grown-up way, “Carol Sue’s a funny girl, isn’t she?”

“Pretty funny,” said Meg, smiling. Just lately, for reasons known only to herself, Carol Sue had taken to answering every question with a Yes first, before elaborating.

She put the groceries down again to unlock the mailbox labeled BURGESS. A couple of catalogs, a couple of form letters, a letter from Linda—good—and a long
business envelope: POLLARD AND POLLARD; and her heart did something queer, missed a beat or got in an extra one, as she saw the Kansas City postmark.

Automatically she climbed the stairs, unlocked the door. Tammy made a beeline for her room, some book or toy in mind, and Meg put the groceries away. Hamburger patties for dinner, carrots and
peas, mashed potatoes; lettuce and tomatoes left, and enough apple pudding for Tammy. She switched on the air-conditioning unit in the living room, and turning, met the eyes of the photograph on
the end table by the couch, and a brief sharp pang of nostalgia struck her for the timeless frozen smile of the man in the photograph. Silly: life went by, you couldn’t have things or people
or feelings back again. And a lot of people hadn’t had as happy a childhood as she had had. It was a selfish kind of nostalgia, and irrational. The feeling that nothing could ever be wrong,
nothing bad could happen, if Daddy was still there.

She had loved and respected her mother, but she had been a shy and undemonstrative woman; all the warmth and loving had come from her father, and she looked away quickly from his steady,
reassuring smile, sat down on the couch, and ripped open the envelope postmarked Kansas City.

The signature was Oliver Pollard. She remembered him vividly, a tall thin man with scanty gray hair, a firm mouth, very blue eyes, a deep voice. She read the letter and did not believe
it.

. . . Will now submitted to probate and its terms to be implemented . . . question of child support will be transferred to Mr. Burgess . . . trust you will bear in mind
what I said to you at the time, that as the child grows older you may wish to petition for . . . Suggest that in such case you consult your own attorney to negotiate with Mr. Burgess.
He seems to harbor some extreme vindictive feeling toward you, by what he stated to me two years ago when, as you will remember, the terms of the will were first made known to him. It
is possible that he may contact you; I would urge you seriously to deal with him only through your attorney. If I may be of any help to you . . . and, faithfully yours.

The page fluttered in her hand, and she laid it down suddenly. Tammy came in clutching her big stuffed cat and said, “You goin’ to fix dinner, Mama? I’m hungry.”

“In a minute,” said Meg. They’d let him out? Four years, and they’d let him out? And all the money— But of course the jury had made it not guilty by reason of
insanity, so there was no legal reason he couldn’t inherit all the money. And he was out. Free.

“Mama—”

“Just a minute,” she said numbly. She had to think about this, and she couldn’t think; it was too sudden and unexpected. And then she looked at Tammy standing
there—four-year-old Tammy, uncannily like Meg’s own pictures at that age, dark hair and eyes, fair skin, square little chin—Tammy in her crumpled blue cotton dress, one sock
falling down, her braids untidy and one ribbon untied—and she thought, Dear God, no. No. Oh, no.

“Mama, we goin’ to have dinner pretty soon?”

“Yes,” said Meg. She got up and went into her bedroom, afraid and reluctant, after the other letter.

She hadn’t wanted to keep it; it was an ugly thing; but she had realized she should keep it. In case. Just in case, She’d never looked at it again, but it was there in the bottom of
her mother’s jewel case under her parents’ marriage certificate and the copy of the will she had made four years ago. The letter that started, “Goddamn you.” She
had wondered how he had got it mailed: didn’t letters from such a place have to be censored? Another patient being released, perhaps. It didn’t matter.

She held it unopened, but she remembered what was in it, and she began to feel frightened.

He was out. Free. Anywhere. Here?

Tammy. Goddamn you, all your fault—you had to have the kid—

The police, Meg thought. The police? What could they do? What would they do? She didn’t know anything about the police. She’d grown up in this town, the reason she’d come back
here four years ago—though by then there wasn’t really anyone here for her—but about the Glendale police she knew nothing.

“Mama!”

“Yes,” said Meg. “Yes, I’m coming.”

At the moment the Glendale police had more than enough business on the agenda, and were feeling a little harried. Even the men riding the squad cars, who didn’t come in
for the sea of paperwork like the boys in the front office, were feeling that the heat wave was insult added to injury. There was a child rapist somewhere in town, and the burglary rate was
soaring, and there had already been six heist jobs since Sunday.

The traffic shift had changed at four o’clock. Patrolman Stoner, cruising out on West Glenoaks, had just tagged the driver of an old Ford van who’d been doing seventy in a
residential zone. The driver was Donald Biggs, nineteen, the usual long-haired teenager; his license seemed to be in order and there was no want on the vehicle, so Stoner gave him the ticket, told
him he’d have to appear in court, and let him go. As he climbed back into the squad, the radio was talking about a high-speed pursuit heading for Burbank; somebody had spotted that guy there
was an A.P.B. on, and he was running. Stoner just hoped the squad cars wouldn’t get squashed in all the homecoming traffic; of all the damned times to be chasing somebody— On the other
hand, if whoever was doing the chasing should collar him, the front-office boys would have to do some overtime.

On the whole, Stoner decided he’d just as soon be riding a squad handing out tickets as be expected to use his brain as a detective.

In the detective office at headquarters, it was getting along for end of shift. There are a lot of crimes and people police officers don’t like, and a child rapist comes at the head of the
list. In the last month—on top of everything else that had happened—three little girls had been raped and beaten, the youngest only six, and they had gone round and round on it and got
nowhere. O’Connor and Katz had been out on the latest one all day and just come back with a handful of nothing; they had a very tentative description which wasn’t going to lead them
anywhere.

“Goddamn it, all up in the air!” said O’Connor, flinging himself into his protesting desk chair. He had torn his jacket off as he came into air conditioning, and the .357
Magnum bulged in its shoulder holster; at this hour of the day he needed a shave, his jaw blue, and he shoved fingers through his curly black hair, casting a bitter glance at the two detectives
who’d been sitting in air conditioning all afternoon doing the paperwork.

“Not a smell of a lead,” said Katz tiredly. “Except that it’s the same joker on all three, which we knew anyway.” The M.O. told them that. Brenda Quigley was the
latest victim, and she was still too scared and hurt to tell them much. This joker wasn’t using any finesse; he hadn’t attempted to coax the kids into a car, just snatched them off the
street by force—each little girl walking home from school alone, and on residential blocks, with no witnesses turning up at all.

It was Jeff Forbes’s day off. Detective John Poor was still out somewhere on the latest heist. There had been another burglary last night; that looked very much like the same burglars who
had pulled a little rash of jobs in the northwest area of town in the last few months: very smooth jobs, very pro. Varallo had been out this morning on that one, with their still-new female
detective Delia Riordan. They hadn’t heard anything from the lab men yet, of course. The householders had come in to make a list of what was missing; the initial report had got written.

“I might get something more out of Brenda,” suggested Delia now.

“You can try,” said O’Connor. From resenting the novelty of the female detective, he’d come to accept her as a good girl and a competent one; of course, she’d spent
five years as an LAPD policewoman.

Varallo grinned at him. “Somebody has to do the paperwork, Charles. I’ll do some legwork tomorrow and you can stay in air conditioning.”

O’Connor growled, lighting a cigarette. Katz just sat back and shut his eyes. They had, of course, all the heists still to think about, witnesses to the latest one still to make
statements, look at mug shots; there were the burglaries; one unidentified body in the morgue, victim of a hit-run last Saturday; and doubtless new business would be coming up, especially in a heat
wave.

Delia shoved her chair back. “Well, I suppose we can call it a day. And an unproductive one it’s been.”

Varallo stubbed out his cigarette and stretched, watching her idly as she rummaged in her handbag for keys. They had all been rather intrigued at the notion of the female detective, when
she’d got the job last November. At first glance a plain jane, their Delia; but look at her twice, there was nothing wrong with her: a medium-sized girl in her mid-twenties, roundish face,
good complexion, small straight nose, blue eyes, a rather large mouth, brown hair in a plain short cut. Dress her up, she’d be a good-looking girl; but she was no nonsense, all for the job.
The colorless nail polish, not much make-up, always the plain dark dresses, pantsuits. And she was good at the job too; what you could call a dedicated cop.

He stood up, reluctant to leave the air conditioning, yawning. If anybody was a dedicated cop, he reflected, it had to be Vic Varallo: twelve years on the force upstate, resigning as captain,
and joining this force to ride a squad awhile before making rank again. And when the sergeant’s rank had opened up, Katz had the seniority; well, Katz was a good man.

Delia had gone out. “Are you staying here all night?” he asked O’Connor and Katz. Before either one said anything, the phone buzzed on O’Connor’s desk and he picked
it up.

“O’Connor . . . Oh, for God’s sake. Oh, hell. All right, all right.”

“Now what?” asked Katz.

“That Edelman—the one fingered for the drugstore heist on Saturday. The A.P.B.’s turned him up. Tracy spotted the car, and he tried to run. Ended up ramming another squad out
on Hollywood Way. Gordon was in it, and he’s on his way to the hospital with a broken leg. The squad’s totaled, and Tracy’s fetching Edelman in.”

“We’re having company for dinner,” said Katz plaintively. “I promised my wife—”

“All right, Joe,” said Varallo. “I’ll back up the boss.”

O’Connor was already on the phone again, telling Katharine about it. Resignedly Varallo called Laura. Both the girls had been married to cops awhile; they knew these things came up. He
wandered down to the men’s room, and washing his hands surveyed himself idly in the mirror; at least, being blond, he didn’t show the need of a shave. He passed a smoothing hand over
his tawny crest of hair as O’Connor came in. “You ever wonder why we took on the thankless job, Charles?”

“Because we’re too damn stupid to know better,” said O’Connor crossly.

“All I will say,” said Oliver Pollard, “is that I don’t like it. Not at all.”

“And that’s an understatement,” said his nephew. “I still can’t believe they let him loose. The damn fool head doctors— It’s bad enough that he gets the
money. But this—do you really think he’s crazy enough for a thing like that?”

“I never thought he was crazy at all,” said Pollard, “if you mean that in the legal sense. It was the logical defense Morgan could go for, with Wayne having been committed
before. You didn’t hear him two years ago when he first learned the terms of the will, the threats he made against her and the child.”

Stan Pollard rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I’ve never laid eyes on him, no.” He’d only joined the firm when he passed the bar two years ago. “But a thing like
that—to hold an irrational grudge that long, and you say he’s not insane?”

Pollard shook his head. “Only the complete egotist—with a miserly streak too, queerly enough. Ask the head doctors why, and they’d give you the doubletalk. The only thing that
matters a damn to him, or ever has, is Wayne Burgess and what he wants right now.” He took off his glasses and began cleaning them slowly with his handkerchief. “I couldn’t say
too much in my letter to her.”

“Of course not, you old fox. Put anything libelous in writing, it might be grounds to try to break that will.”

“I don’t think she realizes how he feels toward her.”

“After all this time? That was two years ago—did he say anything about her when you saw him last week?”

Pollard put his glasses on. “Oh, no. Trying to put out the charm. But I’m not just one of the executors—I was Howard Burgess’ oldest friend. He’d talked to me about
Wayne for years. That one I know.” He sighed. “I think. He can be erratic, but he can also hang onto an idea like death. Don’t forget, by all we know, the money was the
motive—and he blamed the girl then, and he blames her now for the will.”

“I think I know what’s in your mind,” said Stan. “Do some checking up on him?”

“I would—er—feel happier if I knew where he was,” said Pollard. “Maybe he’s just where he said he was going. And maybe not.”

“Yes, I see,” said Stan. “Well, it’s about a three-hundred-and-fifty-mile drive—I could probably make it by tomorrow afternoon. Just have a look around? He
doesn’t know me, of course.”

Pollard was silent for a moment, looking out the office window. Then he said, “It’s a lot farther than that to California.”

“The way your mind works— And if he’s not there, there are a hell of a lot of places in between. If I’m going, I’d better be on my way.”

Delia had been having trouble with the old Mercedes. It had belonged to her father, and was getting on for twenty years old; still a good car, as a Mercedes would be up to the
bitter end, but it needed a lube job, probably a new battery, and some radiator work. She had an appointment at the garage tomorrow, her day off, and if it had to stay in longer than a day
they’d just have to give her a loaner.

But for once it started with no trouble, and she got to Glendale headquarters a little early. The big lobby downstairs was gratefully cool—the heat was building up already. She turned to
the spiral stairs, and Sergeant Duff at the desk called her name.

“I think you’d better talk to this young lady, Miss Riordan.” Delia went over to the long counter. Duff, big and broad and fortyish, was looking rather perplexed. “This
is one of our detectives, ma’am. Miss Riordan.”

“Oh,” said the girl. “Oh, thank you.” She looked oddly relieved, facing Delia. “I didn’t know there were women detectives. But it’ll be easier
to—well, explain it to you. I don’t know what you could do about it, but I—but I have to ask. To tell you.”

“Certainly,” said Delia easily. With everything else on hand—she was due to see Brenda Quigley this morning, and there was a follow-up report to write on Sunday’s
burglary, and hopefully they’d get a lab report in today—but in this job it was always one thing after another. She looked the girl over quickly, unobtrusively. A pretty girl,
twenty-five or so. Medium height, slim, dark-brown hair and brown eyes, a square determined little chin. She wore a plain blue sleeveless dress, carried a matching jacket over one arm, and a bone
handbag: no stockings, low-heeled bone sandals. She didn’t look like a flighty or stupid female. And she was frightened about something; Delia could almost smell that.

“Suppose you come upstairs and sit down and tell me what’s the trouble.” She led the way, the girl following in silence. In the big detective office, with the efficient strip
lighting, she gave the girl a chair beside her desk and offered her a cigarette.

“I don’t smoke very often,” but she took it, bent to Delia’s lighter. She looked around the big empty room with faint curiosity. The night watch, both bachelors, had as
usual left their desks in a mess, with overflowing ashtrays. Nobody else was in yet, and the room was just a big office waiting for its staff: covered typewriters, empty wastebaskets, flat desks.
“I—hardly know where to start, to tell you. There’s so much. My little girl—Tammy—oh, I’m frightened for myself too, but Tammy—she’s only
four.”

“Frightened about what? Just start at the beginning and tell me.”

The girl took a deep breath. “My husband—my ex-husband. I’m afraid he’s going to try to kill us.” She opened her handbag and took out some papers, but just sat
holding them. “I had the letter yesterday—from the lawyer, Mr. Pollard. They’ve let Wayne out. I didn’t believe it, I don’t see how they could, after only f. . .