Spree

by Michael Morley

  Glassy-eyed, she looked at him.

  This was big stuff.

  A breakthrough.

  His opening up, his first face-to-face declaration of love, flooded her with emotion. “Oh, my stupid, gorgeous giant of a man, I love you so much as well.”

  In the heat of the moment, all her professional caution and well-rehearsed predinner thinking went out the window. “I’m pregnant, Jake.”

  Tears hit her cheeks.

  “I’m going to have our baby.”

  11

  Time seemed to stand still.

  Angie’s news somehow robbed Jake of the power of speech.

  Worse still, in that truly pregnant pause, he already knew he was handling things badly.

  Before he’d even shifted uncomfortably at the table or asked the dumbass question, “Are you sure?” he knew he’d blown it.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  He decoded her three-word answer. “Yes” was said with sharpness and annoyance at being asked to give confirmation. “I’m sure” came out like a rebuke. Neither part of the sentence gave him the clues he was after. He had no choice but to ask another question: “How?”

  “How?” She frowned at him. “I think you know how.”

  “What I mean is, I thought you were on the pill?”

  “Yes, I was. I am. I even took one first thing this morning. Seems the dose of food poisoning I had when we were on holiday killed the effectiveness.”

  He resisted swearing, and instead managed, “Are you pleased?”

  Angie sat back in her chair and gripped the edge of the faultless table. “Am I pleased? What do you think, Jake?”

  He felt like he’d walked on a landmine and heard it click beneath his feet. Another wrong move would be fatal.

  “Come on,” she said impatiently. “I deserve a little more from you than questions. My life’s just been turned upside-frigging-down, and all you can do is interview me.”

  Suddenly he felt vulnerable. “Hey, don’t bark at me.”

  “Bark at you?” She flushed with anger. “Since when did I become a dog?”

  “I’m sorry.” He stretched a hand apologetically.

  She left him hanging. “Your turn to answer the questions, Jake. Tell me, how do you feel?”

  He was lost.

  Feel was such a complex word.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  His voice creaked with hopelessness and she felt guilty for being so savage with him. She’d mistaken his tenderness as an open door to his heart. It hadn’t been. It had just been a crack in his defensive wall. A tiny slit through which she glimpsed all that was lovely and warm about him. Now he was just as lost as she’d been earlier when Suzie Janner had told her the test results.

  Jake sensed she was softening and made a tentative step toward appeasement. “I just need some time to take it in, Ang. It’s all a bit of a shock.”

  “Good shock or bad shock?”

  He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Please—just give me some time to get my head around this.”

  “You’re diverting, Jake.” She couldn’t help herself. “Good shock or bad shock?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Which did you feel first?”

  Feel. There was that word again.

  “Bad. I felt bad shock first.”

  She tried not to be judgmental. At least, she tried not to show the judgment she’d come to.

  Angie took the lovely white napkin off her knee and placed it on the table. “Do you mind if we just go? I’ve kinda lost my appetite.”

  12

  Mar Vista, LA

  Eight hours later, Jake woke in a dead man sprawl, facedown and naked, both arms flopped lifelessly across the mattress.

  He reached out for Angie.

  Wanted to pull her close to him. Smell her hair. Feel her snuggle up against his hungry body. They’d make love. Sleepy sex. Slowly, to stretch their muscles. Then, when their bodies were flooded with blood and passion, they’d all but wreck the room with their desperation for each other.

  Only she wasn’t there.

  And neither was he.

  He wasn’t in her bed, like he had been for the past months.

  He was back at his own place.

  That’s how bad last night had gotten.

  Awkward dinner—or non-dinner, to be more precise—followed by a near silent drive back. Then Angie rounded it all off by saying, “Maybe you should go back to your place? Use the space to ‘get your head around this,’ as you so eloquently put it.”

  So he’d slept alone. With a little help from a bottle of Jack and the kind of cable movie that would send anyone to sleep.

  The clock on the nightstand said 07:30. He slapped the top before the alarm went off and reached for the TV remote.

  SpongeBob was taking his driving test. Charlie Sheen was young and squeaky clean. A woman on QVC was selling steam cleaners.

  He found a news channel and heard that Chandler had been charged with the murders of his wife and neighbor before being sent to County and put on suicide watch. The former soldier had refused the offer of an attorney and said he planned to represent himself.

  He turned the TV off and tried to grab another five minutes’ shut-eye.

  The baby.

  Boom, there it was, front of mind.

  He was barely awake and the elephant was back in the room, busting holes in his brain.

  Baby.

  Was it really a problem?

  He knew guys who were desperate to get their ladies in the family way. They’d trade their house and car to be a father.

  Dad. Pop. Pa.

  Small names with big impact.

  How do you feel?

  The words twisted like a knife in his gut.

  Jake pulled the quilt up over his head and tried to think of his favorite baseball game. Tried to remember the score. The team. The last man in.

  Yesterday had been a shitter.

  He wasn’t anywhere near ready to get up and face today.

  13

  FBI Field Office, LA

  Angie had worked most of the night.

  She’d gone over all the police files from the first rape to the last. Once she’d gained an oversight, she made columns of psychological notes about victim selection, crime scene geography and case linkage.

  What she hadn’t managed to finish she’d taken to the office with her, along with a full-fat cappuccino and the largest double choc muffin she could buy.

  Screw the calories.

  Angie was exhausted and her spirit so low she needed all the caffeine and carbohydrates she could get.

  While her computer warmed up she read the notes that Chips had left. The guy had clearly stayed late and done a lot of work. The sexual attacks were spread across four neighborhoods of LA—Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lynwood and Huntington Park. Chips had pulled all the crime stats and ranked the areas according to the number of murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, motor thefts and arsons. He’d compared them to each other, then to the average crime rate in California and the U.S. average.

  For the past three years all the areas had recorded higher than average annual crime. That came as no surprise to Angie, who had grown up just a few miles east of Lynwood.

  Inglewood had the dubious distinction of being top of Chips’s offender table, with twenty homicides a year and almost forty rapes. Huntington Park came bottom with four rapes and six homicides. There wasn’t much between Hawthorne and Lynwood.

  The one thing that caught the profiler’s eye was the fact that hate crimes across all four hoods were way lower than Californian and U.S. averages. She put this down to the high settlement of ethnic minorities in these poorer areas and the strength of black gangs. Not many white boys went into South Los Angeles shouting racist crap and spoiling for a fight. She was intrigued, though, because the serial offender she was hunting was undoubtedly full of hate for one particular minority—all the poor women attacked had b
een white and seniors. She made a note to herself to have the police prioritize a search for black-on-white sexual offenders.

  From the photographs and case notes Angie had studied most of the night before, she’d learned that all the victims had been kicked and punched after the sexual violations had been completed. They’d sustained multiple injuries to the back of the head, the side of the rib cage and back of the legs.

  The shape of the bruising had made it possible to work out the angle of attack and determine that the offender favored both his left hand and his left foot. Left-handers were a rare breed, amounting to less than 10 percent of society. It was an observation Angie suspected might prove crucial if the cops pulled in suspects.

  The attacks told her something else as well.

  The UNSUB was a coward.

  He didn’t even have the balls to go face-to-face with an elderly woman.

  Angie’s preliminary profile already had him marked down as young, sexually immature, not in any adult relationship, sulky, introverted and hypersensitive to criticism. He was also likely to be physically weak and consider himself inadequate.

  The attacks were gradually getting more violent. Angie took this as a sign of two things. Firstly, the UNSUB was starting to feel confident about spending time with his victim and as a result was less anxious about getting caught. Secondly, he needed to vent more rage in order to feel satiated.

  Both thoughts made her feel sick.

  Not just mentally sick. Physically revolted as well.

  She put her half-eaten muffin and coffee to one side. No way could she finish it. In fact, she had to take a second or two to stop herself from hurling.

  The baby.

  Could it really be making her feel ill?

  Morning sickness?

  “Jeez.” Angie dismissed the thought. At least tried to. Another hit of coffee to put it to the test.

  Thirty seconds later, she rushed to the bathroom.

  14

  Mar Vista, LA

  The morning news was full of the Corrie Chandler story.

  Jake caught soundbites on the TV as he dressed for work in plain black pants and a matching black shirt that he wore tieless with the sleeves rolled up.

  He drank tap water and slugged black coffee. There was nothing else in his apartment fit for consumption. A carton of milk had bloated ominously and a cooler of crisp vegetables was now a tray of toxic mush.

  He and Angie had hooked up three years back and for the past twelve months he’d barely used his place. She’d even suggested he get rid of it and shifted the other half of his meager closet to her apartment, but that had never happened. At first, the very thought of cohabiting had scared the living crapola out of him. Given that Angie wasn’t the kind of woman to ask twice, it never came up again.

  Baby.

  He caught himself picturing a child crawling on the floor in yellow pajamas. Chubby, dimpled hands. Head all bald and wobbly. A toothless grin.

  “Shit!”

  Jake shut the front door and went down the stairs two at a time.

  He didn’t want to be a father.

  Absolutely not.

  He’d grown up as an orphan. Hadn’t known his parents. Didn’t want to. He needed no one. Depended upon no one. Certainly didn’t want anyone depending upon him.

  Especially a baby.

  The rising sun was soft and mellow as he started his old car, a classic ’58 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer. It was the limited edition Swept Wing with a pimped V8 that would leave dirt on the hood and windshield of any boy racer’s Charger.

  The big old engine growled like a lion on testosterone shots. He roared from the curb but resisted turning on the radio.

  More than anything, Jake needed to think. Figure things out.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Angie had screwed up his life philosophy. Things now were so different to how they’d been when they’d first hooked up.

  Their relationship had started as fun. Great sex. Fabulous company. A nonjudgmental equal who’d understood him from day one.

  They’d connected from the start, probably because he’d felt she was just as messed up as he was. Her baggage of a broken home, an abusive father and an alcoholic mother matched his crappy orphanages, useless social workers and thousands of other kids who wanted to fight him every day just because he was different.

  They were a good fit.

  Their first year together had been a fierce personal tussle. Headily competitive. Black run skiing, base jumping, free diving. And fucking. Fucking like the world was going to finish before they did.

  Year two was when it went weird.

  He felt unbalanced when she wasn’t with him. Like he’d lost a limb in combat and was still reaching for something that should always be there.

  She phoned him less and he called her more.

  They would tell each other things. Stuff neither of them had told anyone else. They’d lay down their vulnerabilities like they were playing cards. He’d talk about the people he’d killed in battle and how he sometimes saw them in his dreams and woke sweating. She’d talk about her father, what he’d done to her, and how her mother had looked the other way.

  It got so they didn’t need the dating glue of places to go or things to do. Just being together was enough.

  Then year three rolled up under their feet.

  Just like year two but even weirder.

  Nicely weirder.

  He’d relaxed. Felt attached. Protective as well as passionate.

  She’d started holding his hand, putting her head on his shoulder, linking arms.

  And it was okay.

  Even in public, it was okay.

  And now…

  Now he’d been exiled. For the first time during their time together.

  And it was crap.

  Worse than crap. It was unbearable.

  Jake was done with thinking. He’d fix things when he got to work. He’d go see Angie and tell her exactly how he felt.

  15

  FBI Field Office, LA

  SERIAL RAPE. OFFENDER PROFILE. PRELIMINARY DRAFT.

  Male.

  15–35.

  Single.

  Immature.

  Introverted.

  Volatile.

  Possibly has explosive personality disorder.

  Left-handed.

  Not currently in a relationship.

  Poorly educated.

  Maybe has learning difficulties—dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, etc.

  Unemployed.

  Likely to have been dismissed from manual jobs because he has trouble accepting authority.

  Possible record as a juvenile offender (most likely petty theft or fencing).

  May have small circle of male friends, not a gang member.

  Could still live with parent(s) or friends. Doesn’t own accommodation of his own.

  Does not own a vehicle.

  Lives within a ten-mile radius of first victim.

  May have been a victim of hate crime or wrongly accused of hate crime.

  …

  Angie Holmes stood back from the large evidence board and reviewed her preliminary profile.

  Some of the assumptions were obvious. Others weren’t. They all came from a mix of statistical, psychological and geographical profiling techniques that had been perfected by the FBI over almost half a century of behavioral science practices.

  Inevitably, she’d have to explain her reasoning to the cops. They always wanted to know the thinking behind the thinking. She’d explain that studies of sex offenders showed they mostly struck in areas that they knew. First offenses generally took place in these comfort zones, areas where they believed they could get away with their crime and then quickly return to the cover of their homes. The more offenses they committed, the farther away from their abode they tended to commit them. She’d add that the cowardice of the attacks suggested someone without physical stature or sexual experience, so she’d set the age range at 15–35. If the cops pushed
her on this, she’d consider narrowing it to 15–25. Left-handed kids in poor areas tended to struggle in school. On top of that, sexual violence on the level in this case looked like a clear articulation of anger. She’d explain how offenders who physically articulated anger were usually compensating for their inability to do so through oral or written means.

  Then there were the poverty and education issues. Contributing factor one: uneducated kids who struggled to express themselves usually drifted into minimum-wage jobs and the “supervision” of poor-quality managers all too ready to sack them at the first sign of trouble. Contributing factor two: out-of-work youngsters with little education, zero income and no strong parental role models would almost inevitably turn to crime. At first, it might just be stealing food or fencing stolen goods, but once caught, their offending would escalate.

  Angie knew the cops wouldn’t need to be told that not every juvenile offender got caught, so there was also a good chance the UNSUB they were hunting had been smart and lucky enough to have stayed out of the system.

  What puzzled her most of all, though, was his choice of victims—female and old. Add to that the extreme violence and mutilation of their genitalia and you had the reason why Angie still hadn’t filled in the twentieth point of her profile.

  His race.

  She was uncertain whether he was black or white. And given the race cauldron that had bubbled up post-Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, she knew she had to be certain.

  Chips arrived while she was still making up her mind. “Breakfast’s here!”

  Angie turned around from the evidence board and saw he was carrying coffee and muffins. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I should have rung you—I came in early and brought my own.”

  “No worries.” He hid his disappointment and placed a cardboard cup marked COLOMBIAN ROAST on her desk. “Just in case you crave more caffeine.”

  She smiled and then felt sick again.

  Chips put the disposable tray and muffin bag on his desk and nodded to the board. “Were the notes I left any good?”