“Yes, thanks. I’ll try to get in touch with her,” Alex said. He wrote the number, frowning as Hogan read it off. It seemed familiar-then he remembered why. “I think this is the one that we found in his wallet.”

He was on his way back to his desk when a call came through saying that two bodies had been discovered in a warehouse in Palmdale-one of the victims appeared to be Farid Atvar, another name on the fugitives list. There were similarities to the scene in Del Aire.

“Check to see if the other victim matches a description for Julio Santos,” Alex said. “He was another of Bernardo Adrianos’s bodyguards-worked in a team with the man we found in Del Aire last night.”

Alex was talking to Hogan about whether or not he should drive out there himself or send another team when another call came in-two more semi-frozen bodies had been found-not far from Seminole Hot Springs.

“I thought it was weird before,” Enrique Marquez said. “This time, it’s downright freaky. One body belongs to Todd Vicker.”

“The arsonist. Killed seventy-three people when he set a nightclub on fire.”

“Yes, because his girlfriend was in there dancing with another man. Apparently our Exterminators didn’t think that was such a bad thing to do, because there’s hardly a scratch on him, if you look below his neck. The neck isn’t as pretty-he was garroted. The number two has been drawn on his chest-with a black felt-tip pen, from the looks of things. He’s really frozen stiff, as if he’s been in cold storage for a while.”

“And the other one?”

“Just fucking bizarre, Alex. Wait until you hear the difference. I’ll start with the easy part-not fully frozen. Mr. Defrost here is believed to be Jerry Knox, a.k.a. Gerald Majors and half a dozen other aliases.”

“Producer of snuff films with young boys,” Alex said.

“Yeah, well, first time I heard about this bastard I hoped his life was short, but it looks as if old Jerry here might have been wishing the same thing for himself at the end. He has a huge number five tattooed on his chest-tattooed, not just drawn on him. That had to take some time. They obviously tortured him-and it looks as if they took their time there, too.”

“Beyond what we’ve seen so far?”

“Oh yes. But let me finish, because there’s more. Or in his case, less. He’s missing his tackle. Totally cut off, and not with the body. So even if he comes back as a zombie, he won’t be raping any more little boys. And unless he was already dead when they shoved the critters up his nose and mouth, we may have L.A. County’s first death by grasshopper asphyxiation.”

“By what?”

“Grasshoppers. Little ones. I don’t want to guess how many. Got the forensic entomologist on his way. Should make a nice change for him from studying maggots, but better him than me.”

“Jesus. Make sure Shay Wilder sees the photos from this one,” Alex said. “Get a messenger to take them down to him today.”

“Wait-I’m not done. There’s something for you here.”

Alex felt the hair on his neck rise. “For me?”

“A videotape. Label on it says ‘Deliver Immediately to Detective Alex Brandon, L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau.’”

Alex found himself unsettled by the news that the killers had singled him out as the one to receive the tape. He tried to force himself to consider everything he had learned this morning in a dispassionate, logical way, but his thoughts kept returning to Shay Wilder’s warnings that the killers had a personal score to settle with him. After almost twenty years in law enforcement, he knew he had made some formidable enemies. But who would choose to come after him in this particular way?

Before he could leave for Seminole Hot Springs, he got a call from the firearms evidence lab, telling him that they had a match-the gun found in Frederick Whitfield IV’s hand had fired the bullets that killed the two victims in Del Aire.

“You don’t sound as happy about it as I thought you would,” Alex said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is easy about these cases. The pathologist wants you to give her a call. I’ll let her explain it.”

He called the pathologist.

“Don’t think we’re looking at a suicide here,” she said, “unless dead men can take their gloves off.”

“What do you mean?”

“The victim had a pair of black leather gloves in his pocket. The lab found GSR-gunshot residue-on one of them, but we didn’t find a thing on the hands. Since you say the firearms guys found a match with your Del Aire scene, I’d say Whitfield was the shooter there, then someone else used that same weapon to shoot him up on Mulholland. Sorry if I’ve ruined your day.”

“No, I’ve had doubts about that scene, so you’ve just confirmed some suspicions. What about the other one-Morgan Addison?”

“Another problem with the suicide theory there,” she said, “but not one that’s impossible to explain away. He had minute traces of GSR on the surfaces of both hands. Looked to me as if he might have been wringing his hands after he fired a weapon. If he had been the only victim, you might have been able to say he shot someone, did the hand-wringing, and then shot himself. So, it’s not as clear-cut there-except Addison wasn’t the shooter in Del Aire, so we don’t know if he was out at a shooting range doing target practice or involved in a crime.”

“We’ve got two victims in Palmdale this morning,” Alex said. “I have a feeling that when you examine them, some of these questions will be resolved.”

“There’s a real boom in corpses in this county lately.”

“Wait until you hear about what’s on its way from Seminole Hot Springs.”

“I’ve heard. With any luck, they’ll give me the Palmdale cases and let someone else work with the grasshopper man.”

He set the phone at his desk to forward calls to his cell phone, then stopped by Nelson’s office to give him an update. When he had finished, Nelson said, “My friend at USC tells me Hamilton grew up in Malibu. You did, too, right?”

“For the most part.”

“Did you know his family?”

“No, I can’t say that I remember anyone by that name, but he’s younger than I am, so we wouldn’t have been in school at the same time.”

Nelson looked at his notes. “He went to Sedgewick.”

Malibu, California

Thursday, May 22, 9:00 A.M.

After leaving his uncle Alex’s house, Chase rode in the limo with his father to a house in Beverly Hills, to pick up his mom. She had chosen to have breakfast with the friends his parents had traveled with in New York, waiting with them while his dad came to get him.

Chase had expected to be berated during the ride from Manhattan Beach to Beverly Hills, but nothing happened. That had puzzled him, especially since his dad had made sure the window between their seats and the driver stayed up.

In Beverly Hills, Chase watched his dad grow angrier and angrier while his mom kept talking to her friends, taking her sweet time. Chase had seen her do this kind of thing before, and he was certain that she knew how mad his dad was, and that she was enjoying watch him get more and more pissed off. His dad would never take his anger out on her, Chase knew, so he really hated it when she played this game, because he would pay the price.

When they finally got back in the limo, his dad was in an awful mood. Chase knew it was unlikely that his dad would hit him in front of her-although she knew that had happened a couple of times before, she pretended it hadn’t-so he waited for his dad to start yelling at him, something his dad felt free to do anytime, anywhere.

Somewhere along Sunset, his dad told him he was grounded for a month for running away. Chase didn’t bother arguing with him. Then his dad told this totally bogus version of what had happened at Uncle Alex’s house. He claimed that while Chase was getting in the limo, Uncle Alex had insulted her and then assaulted him. Chase watched his mom. She was smiling.