Pretty Corpse

by Linda Berry

  “Mom, please. Don’t hurt him!”

  “Get up.”

  Larsen obeyed, his angry features etched in moonlight. He winced as he put pressure on his right foot.

  “Chris, are you okay?” Courtney called out.

  Lauren glanced over her shoulder, saw her daughter’s head and shoulders propped out the window. “Get back inside. We’re coming in.”

  “Mom, please! Put the gun down.”

  Lauren wanted to keep her pistol aimed at Chris, but she forced her hand down to her side.

  “I’m not coming in. I need to get home,” Chris said through clenched teeth.

  “Get in the house.” Lauren’s tone wiped the arrogance off his face. “You have some explaining to do.”

  Limping badly, Chris opened the gate, walked around the house and through the front door. Courtney met him in the living room, all tears, wrapped in her terrycloth bathrobe. “Jesus, Mom, you’ve hurt him!”

  “Shut up! Sit down!”

  Courtney’s eyes widened.

  Lauren could not recall ever using such a harsh tone with her.

  The two teens huddled on the couch, Chris with a fixed stare on the coffee table, Courtney fidgeting, timidly glancing from Lauren to Chris, beginning to grasp the trouble she was in.

  “Your parents need to be notified of your injury and the dangerous position you put yourself in tonight. Your little prank could have gotten you shot. I would’ve been completely justified in killing you.”

  Larsen did not acknowledge her.

  “What’s your home number?” Lauren picked up the phone and dialed as he reluctantly recited. Voicemail picked up after several rings. She left a brief message and her number. “Where’re your parents?”

  “Out.”

  “In that case, I’ll call an officer to take you to Mission Emergency.”

  “I can drive myself. My car’s across the street.”

  “You’re not driving until your ankle’s x-rayed. I intend to get accurate medical facts. I’m not about to be liable for some trumped-up lawsuit.”

  “If you’ve hurt my football career in any way, my dad’s going to be all over you.” He glared at her. “You don’t have a clue what he can do.”

  “How many people have you intimidated with that threat, Chris? Think you can screw up anytime you want? And your father will clean up your mess?”

  He smiled. “Dear old Dad, the artist. Bending the law so it’s always on my side. That’s real power.”

  “What are you saying, Chris?” Courtney asked, confusion clouding her face. “You’re not threatening my mom, are you?”

  He looked at her with contempt.

  “Chris, answer me.”

  “Stay out of this. You told me you’re sick of being controlled. You hate that your mom is a cop. Here’s your chance to take a stand.”

  “I would never do anything to hurt my mom.” Courtney’s face flushed a deep scarlet. Her voice trembled with anger. “You do anything to hurt her … and …”

  “And what?”

  “I’ll scream date rape.”

  Lauren’s mouth dropped open.

  Chris squirmed. He looked at Lauren. “I didn’t touch her!”

  “But you wanted to,” Courtney said.

  “You little bitch,” he hissed.

  Courtney’s expression passed from hurt to anger. “He tried to make me have sex with him tonight, Mom.”

  “You know you wanted it, too,” Chris said.

  “That’s not true. I didn’t want to.” Courtney directed her words at Lauren. “But when I said no, he started getting rough. I was scared. That’s when you came home.”

  Lauren had no doubt her daughter spoke the truth.

  Courtney’s green eyes blazed. “He turned eighteen two weeks ago. Doesn’t that constitute attempted statutory rape?”

  “Yes.” Proud of her daughter’s quick thinking, Lauren struggled to keep a smile from her lips.

  Sweat glistened on Chris’s face. His body went rigid. “Let’s not get carried away here. I’ll get my ankle x-rayed, and I’ll tell my dad the injury happened at practice. Deal?”

  “No deal,” Lauren said. “What you did tonight is going into a police report. This isn’t going to be another Karen Tulley.”

  “Karen Tulley?” Courtney asked.

  “Want to tell her, Chris, or should I?”

  His face paled and he averted his eyes, convincing Lauren that the accusation of date rape was warranted. His father must have quietly paid off the Tulley family, allowing the offense to go unpunished.

  Lauren picked up the phone, dialed Valencia Station and requested a patrol car to pick up Larsen. As he listened, a look of fear crossed his face before he could hide it. His shoulders sagged, and he nervously rubbed his hands together. He was about to get his first taste of retaliation from a woman. Lauren didn’t have enough to lock him up, but police custody for an evening would take some of the swagger out of his attitude, and a filed police report would be compelling evidence if he got arrested for a sex offense in the future.

  With the boy’s obvious discomfort came the realization that he didn’t have the maturity to be The Strangler. Spoiled and arrogant, he had never learned to control his impulses or his need for immediate gratification. The Strangler, on the other hand, prolonged his payoff with highly ritualized behavior and weeks of careful planning.

  As for Courtney, she had put herself in a dangerous situation, and very possibly had been seconds away from being raped. Lauren would deal with her soon enough. Restriction to the house for the next few weeks, certainly. Courtney’s poor judgment had provided her with an excellent reason to keep her daughter close to home and under a watchful eye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BEING BACK ON THE JOB at lineup turned out to be a mixed blessing. Lauren’s first glimpse of a broad-shouldered man in uniform took her breath away. She momentarily expected Steve to rush in late and toss her a wink, or round the corner of the equipment room with their equipment in hand, saying, “Let’s go, Princess.” Her administrative leave, she realized, had allowed just enough time to recover from the blunt force of Steve’s death, but the hollow ache of grief persisted.

  Lauren had requested a SAM sector assignment for the evening. Fear of an emotional meltdown prompted her decision to work solo. After roll call, she signed out her equipment, found her designated patrol car, and drove on autopilot to The Roasted Beans for coffee. She remained in the car staring at the storefront. Memories of Steve crowded her senses. She pictured her partner inside joking with the staff, laughter still bright in his eyes as he rushed to the car carrying their coffees.

  Pressure built up behind her lids and she blinked back tears, grateful to be riding solo. She didn’t need another cop along as witness, nor was she ready to deal with the responsibility of protecting another officer’s life. She had failed Steve by missing some indicator of danger. As a result, he was dead. She wiped away her tears, drove six blocks to Bubby’s Donuts, got a black coffee, and promptly left.

  Lauren patrolled the city streets without incident. Dispatch kept up a steady stream of background noise but sent very little activity her way. Studying the passersby on the streets, Lauren looked for the renegade who didn’t fit in, but the only misfit she spotted was a bedraggled Mexican urinating against a tenement building in plain sight of pedestrians. Lauren pulled to the curb and yelled at him. He approached the car zipping up his pants, issuing a stream of Spanish. Steve would have been able to translate.

  “Speak English.”

  “Sorry. I must to go. I don’t again.” One hand clutched a paper bag. “Okay,” he said, showing her the booze bottle inside. “No open.”

  “Use a public restroom next time,” she said automatically, knowing there were none to be found for blocks.

  “Sí, sí.”

  The man ducked into an alley as her first call came in. Code 528. Fire on 26th. Four blocks away. Gunning the engine, she peeled out and was the first polic
e unit to arrive on the scene, minutes behind two fire trucks and a Medevac. She peered up at thick plumes of smoke billowing out of the windows of a four-story building. At least a dozen firemen were rushing around the perimeter, and a curious crowd of gawkers had emptied into the street from surrounding buildings. She knew this neighborhood of poorly maintained housing well. Firetraps.

  A fire captain approached her. “Everyone’s out except some nut on the fourth floor. Won’t open the door. We just sent in a chainsaw.”

  “Safe for me to go up?”

  “Make it fast.”

  She entered the building and took the stairs two at a time, making the fourth story in time to witness a last-ditch attempt at persuasion by three firemen. Tendrils of smoke were drifting along the corridor, forming an opaque haze above their heads.

  “Open the door!” a fireman yelled.

  “I can’t,” came a distant reply.

  “Sir, are you handicapped?” she shouted.

  “No.”

  “Then open the door!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Stand back. We’re coming in!”

  The fireman went to work with the chainsaw, cutting a panel from the door. They yanked it out into the hallway and a stream of garbage spewed through the opening like floodwater, scattering plastic soda bottles, milk cartons, and empty tin cans over their feet. The firemen and Lauren exchanged incredulous glances.

  “Remove the door,” she yelled. “Fast!”

  The door came off quickly, but already the smoke had thickened, and flames were scorching the wall at the end of the hallway. Eyes stinging, Lauren peered through the door. A good two feet of garbage filled the living room wall to wall. On a high chair in the middle, like a guru on a Himalayan peak, sat a naked, skinny white man calmly eating a bowl of cereal with a large silver spoon.

  “Come out,” she instructed. “Now!”

  “I don’t want to leave my stuff,” he whined.

  “Shit!” Lauren waded into the refuse like a swimmer fighting a tide, grabbed the man by the wrist, and half dragged him out the door. The firemen pulled them both into the hall. The heat had become intense. Flames licked the floorboards, rushing toward them. They felt their way along the wall, down the stairs through thickening black smoke. They spilled out into the street as tremendous balls of flame exploded out the fourth-floor windows. Remnants blew through the air like fireworks. Spectators gasped, turning faces upward to the illuminated sky as flames ravenously devoured the massive fuel supply stored in the man’s apartment.

  Lauren’s throat burned, her eyes watered, she could hardly catch her breath. Someone sat her down on the curb and placed an oxygen mask over her nose. After breathing deeply for several minutes, she tossed it aside.

  “What you just did was courageous.”

  She gazed up to see the stern expression of Sergeant Birenski.

  “It was also stupid,” he said. “It wasn’t your job to go into that firetrap after that asshole.”

  “I’m lighter than the men.” She got to her feet, coughing. “I had a better chance of not sinking into the trash.”

  “Keep that mask on, then get back to the station and clean up. You stink of smoke.”

  She put the mask back on, gladly.

  “You’ve had enough close calls lately. Do me a favor, Starkley. Next time, let someone else be the hero.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, Lauren’s shifts were a rhythm of long slow stretches abruptly interrupted by brutal events.

  Saturday, eleven p.m. Lauren rushed to a car accident on Market Street only to witness a teenage boy die behind the wheel of his sports car before being cut from the wreckage. The drunk driver who hit him in his pickup truck walked away with scrapes and bruises. While making out her report, Lauren did her best to crank down her emotional valve. Her new philosophy: just do the job, get the bad guy if possible, turn tragedies over to the detectives, and walk away.

  Monday, eight p.m. Report of a man wielding a machete, chasing a screaming woman down a street in Twin Peaks. Lauren screeched to the curb in front of a residence where the pair had last been sighted. Peanut Farrell, also riding solo, pulled up behind her. Both exited their cars in haste and approached an elderly woman who stood trembling on the lawn in her bathrobe.

  “They’re in my house!” The woman pointed to her opened front door. “They barged in while I was watching TV!”

  “Where are they in the house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anyone else in there?”

  “My cats!”

  Berettas drawn, Lauren and Peanut mounted the front stoop and stole glances into the foyer, where a light spattering of blood made a pathway down the hall. The two entered the narrow entryway with shoulders against the walls, elbows tucked tight against their sides, off hands supporting weapon hands. Blood droplets led them into the living room. Simultaneously, they curled around opposite sides of the doorway into the room, Lauren taking in everything in view on the right, Peanut doing likewise on the left.

  They advanced quickly, scanning the room thoroughly before entering the corridor at the back of the house. The trail of blood turned into a puddle on the hardwood floor outside the master bedroom and led across the room to the bathroom. The door was barely cracked open. Lauren’s heart pounded. Her palms felt sweaty, her finger light on the trigger. She and Peanut positioned themselves on each side of the frame. Sucking in a breath, Lauren kicked the door inward, slamming it hard against the wall. A woman was sprawled on the floor in a widening pool of blood, gaping wounds covering her body. A shrill wind blew in from an opened window. Bloody handprints pockmarked the wall and sill.

  As Peanut bent over the body, Lauren raced to the dining room, yanked open a sliding glass door, and darted into the backyard where a man in a white shirt and dark pants was lobbing effortlessly over the back fence. She reached it in time to watch him sail over a neighboring fence. A silent curse screamed inside her head. No chance of catching him on foot. She broadcast his description over the radio. Dispatch put out a full neighborhood alert. Within minutes dozens of cops would be streaming through the area. Returning to the house, she spied the machete on the ground below the bathroom window, slick with blood. The wail of sirens grew louder as she reached the bathroom.

  “Too little, too late.” Farrell stood up stripping off a pair of vinyl gloves, her eyes flashing with anger.

  Lauren took in the lifeless form on the floor. Slaughtered. Only the beautiful face of the middle-eastern woman was untouched by violence. Her eyes stared up at Lauren in a wondrous gaze. No death grimace. Those masks of agony never left Lauren’s memory. She and Peanut left the house and stood on the sidewalk. Lauren sucked in several deep breaths, fighting the bile rising in her throat. It had already been a long night, and it was only half over.

  “Go back to your patrol, Peanut. I’ll wait for the detectives.”

  Peanut looked relieved. “I owe you one.” She saluted and scrambled into her car, drove away.

  Lauren looked forward to turning the case over to homicide. The less she knew about the dead woman and her attacker, the better.

  ***

  The strobe of the police car pulsed scarlet on Valona’s face as he stood on the sidewalk talking to Sergeant Birenski. Most of the units had gone, responding to other calls. Lauren had remained at the scene for over an hour, first waiting for them to show, then walking them through the crime scene, but now she needed to resume her patrol.

  Despite the cold, she leaned against her patrol car, trying to look busy writing her report. Finally, Josie Keach exited the house with the ME, following the gurney carrying the bagged body to the van. Spotting Lauren, Keach joined her. The detective looked haggard, her blond hair listless, her clothes as rumpled as her partner’s.

  “Looks like you’ve had a long day,” Lauren said dryly.

  “Hitting thirteen hours. We caught this one just before changing shifts.” She sighed wearily. �
�We still have to go back and file the report.”

  Lauren avoided asking about the case but Keach volunteered information. “They picked up the suspect six blocks from here, cowering in a neighbor’s tool shed. Jealous husband. She’d just filed for divorce.”

  “Typical. If he can’t have her, no one can.” Lauren shuddered. “Well, at least it’s a quick solve.”

  “Hallelujah.” Keach’s shrewd gaze assessed Lauren. “You’re not out here freezing your ass for nothing. What’s up?”

  “Anything new on Steve’s case?”

  “No new leads. We’re still watching Lafferty and Tenney. They must think they’re up for model citizen of the year award. Haven’t so much as spit in public.” She scowled. “The Strangler’s been quiet. Two and a half weeks since his last attack. Could be, we scared him out of our district.”

  “Maybe,” Lauren said, doubtful. “So we’re in a holding pattern? Just waiting?”

  “That’s about it.” Keach looked ready to offer another apology or sympathetic remark, but Lauren brushed her off, muttering goodbye and getting into her car. She drove on autopilot, deep in thought, trying hard not to give in to feelings of defeat. Where did she go from here? Steve’s case had hit a dead end, and every day it was getting colder. Forensics had found nothing useful, the detectives had found nothing, and she had found nothing. Now Keach was telling her Homicide had no choice but to wait until The Strangler struck again, hoping he’d make a mistake they could cash in on. But his next victim might pay a high price for that mistake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE HOUSE WAS DARK when Lauren got home at six thirty a.m. She was beat, and thankful to have the next three days off. Sofie and Courtney would be rising soon, and Lauren didn’t relish sitting across the table from her daughter’s evil eye. The tension between them had tightened like corded steel. Courtney had shown remorse for colluding with Chris Larsen, and now claimed to fully understand the consequences of her actions. In addition to being driven to school every day in a police car like a “common criminal,” she didn’t appreciate being under “house arrest” for two weeks. Lauren sympathized, but she reasoned that keeping her daughter safe while The Strangler prowled the streets more than justified the punishment.