Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

safe?"
    "Excuse me, but I'd better go help."
    "I wouldn't advise that—"
    Julia hung up before the dispatcher could finish his "ma'am."
    Julia ran outside, her hand cramped from gripping the bat. Even Mark McGwire had to rest the lumber on his shoulder once in a while, steroid-stoked or not. But Julia couldn't rest yet. She wasn't going to let the bat go until the police arrived. And maybe not even then, because Snead might be on duty.
    "You doing okay?" Julia asked Walt.
    He shook his head "no," but said, "I've been whooping punks like this since I was six."
    Then he jerked his head, urging her to help. His brown hair was damp with sweat and a nasty bruise welled up under one red and watery eye.
    "If he moves again, brain him with the bat," Walter said.
    "Bat?" the man grunted against the ground. "You're crazy ."
    "Hey, I ain't the one that was sniffing a woman's underwear," Walter said.
    The teddy. This was the Creep. The one who had left the footprint, who had sneaked into her house, who had reprogrammed her clock. She fought a brief urge to tap his skull with the Louisville Slugger.
    A siren wailed in the distance, coming up the valley and echoing off the slopes. The Creep gave another half-hearted struggle upon hearing the sound. Then he lay quietly again, his arm forced at a painful angle.
    "Thank you," Julia said to Walter. "No telling what he would have done . . . "
    "The thing that burns me the most is that people like this got no respect," he answered, giving another upward yank to the young man’s arm.
    “I was– owww –just here for the ring.” The flashlight showed the reddened face of a college-aged man, and Julia recognized him from the apartment building down the road.
    The guy’s face clenched in pain, and Walter eased off the pressure a little. “What ring?”
    “Some dude hired me to get it,” he answered. “Called me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, mailed me a money order.”
    Julia raised the bat. “And the underwear?”
    “Christ, lady, it was a gag,” he said. “The dude said to screw with her head.”
    Walter was ratcheting up the pressure again when the guy moaned and said, “No more till I get a lawyer.”
    Blue lights flashed across the trees as the patrol car roared up in front of the house. Julia ran to them, waving the flashlight, letting the bat drag on the ground. Two policemen bounced out of the car, one drawing his sidearm.
    "Don't shoot," Julia said. "They're around back."
    "Drop the weapon and step away," ordered the cop with the gun.
    "It's only a souvenir bat," Julia said. "It's got an Ozzie Smith replica signature on it."
    “Drop it.”
    She complied. Satisfied, the cop with the gun went past her while the other crept to the corner of the house. Julia didn't know what she was supposed to do. The cop hadn't ordered her to freeze or anything. She stood for a moment, watching the bar lights bounce off the nearby apartment building. Some of the college students had come out and were standing on the porch, talking and drinking beer.
    Julia followed the policemen around back. The cop with the gun now had it pointed at Walter. The other cop knelt by the man on the ground, fumbling with a pair of handcuffs and shining a large-beamed flashlight.
    "This guy was breaking into her house," Walter said. "I saw him peeping at her through the window."
    "Get off him and slowly back away, sir," ordered the cop. "Keep your hands where I can see them."
    Walter's eyes narrowed in anger, but he obeyed.
    The second cop helped the other man to his feet. The man rubbed his elbow, glowering at Walter with a “You just wait” look.
    "What's your side of it?" the cop asked the injured man.
    "I didn't break in," he replied. "I was just cutting through the yard to walk through the woods when this freak jumped me."
    "Oh, yeah?" said Walter. "What's that in your back pocket, then?"
    The cop shined his flashlight at the man, turned him around, pulled the frilly black teddy from the man's pocket. The cop held it up, letting it dangle between his thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated. The college guy looked sheepish.
    "Is that yours, ma'am?" asked the cop with the gun. He had relaxed his stance and was now pointing his gun at the ground near Walter's feet.
    Julia nodded. "Yeah. I just noticed it missing a few minutes ago. Someone had broken into my house."
    "Anything else missing?"
    "Not that I know of, but he said something about looking for a ring."
    "Do you know this man?"