"That's too bad," Killian said.
"Yeah," the young cop shrugged.
"How about the footprints or physical evidence?"
Martinez's eyes grew leery and he replied too casually, "I sealed the area and never entered it. I wouldn't know."
"Don't tell me Graff tramped all over it?"
The young cop grinned. "Like a bull elephant. That guy doesn't listen to anyone."
"Yeah. I've noticed. Well thanks. You've been a help."
"It's nothing. Good luck," Martinez said as Killian rose to leave.
~
At seven-thirty, freshly scrubbed and dressed in clean clothes, Killian knocked on the door of Rachel Colson. His date opened the door for him, all five feet, eight inches, one hundred thirty-five pounds of her. She smiled as she greeted him. Not for the first time Killian noticed how fit she was, radiating good health and vitality.
They exchanged pleasantries then left for dinner. Rachel had dressed casually in sandals, light khaki shorts and an expensive T-shirt with the definition of tennis written across the front, difficult to read amid the pleasant swell.
The evening was one of those special times that only comes to certain couples early in a relationship, each discovery about the other new, exciting. They laughed at the same jokes in the same places. They had fun, common interests and widely different ones as well. Both knew when to talk and perhaps more importantly when to listen.
Electricity passed when Killian's hand brushed hers, not entirely by accident and when he took her in his arms to dance for the first time, she melted against his body, stirring a hot rush of emotion and desire he had long ago considered himself too jaded to ever experience again.
The time for talking passed. They held hands, drank white wine, smiled, listened to the music, watched the crowd and danced, Killian just once softly brushing his moist lips across the back of her fragrant cheek. All too soon it was time to leave.
She agreed to come to his apartment to share another bottle of white wine. They spoke in whispers, sipping the wine, watching the fish in his tank, the colorful skyline of the night city stretched before them.
Killian lowered his face to her's and thought he could hear the rapid flutter of her heart as he pulled her body to his and kissed her fully upon the lips, her soft warm tongue lightly exploring his. A few moments later they moved into the bedroom.
Later, standing naked on the balcony, taking in the early morning air, calm and more at peace than he had been in several years. It wasn’t just the sex, although that had better than any in memory. It's amazing what a woman like her can do, he reflected glancing back at her naked body stretched across the rumbled sheets.
Blackness descended with the setting moon, the first hint of dawn two hours away stirred the air. The city was quiet, probably for the only part of the day.
Killian had watched it happen to him the last four years, a certain hardening he didn't like. He had guarded against cynicism for so long he had been surprised to find it in him. He enjoyed his work, most aspects of his life. He knew he was a fortunate man to be as content as he was.
Yet he had been alone all his adult life and he feared that some crucial portion of life was passing him by unnoticed. Killian had spent too many days with too many pimps, hookers, perverts and assorted hoodlums, too much time with losers. After a while you can't even see normal life, he thought, all you see are the predators and misfits.
He thought of Lawrence Graff and shuddered involuntarily. It's too easy to end up like him, he thought. I've had too many casual women, too many years without private responsibilities. I've been alone too long, he thought. The juices are drying in me or turning sour. The changes are slow, barely detectable, he thought, but I can see them and despite my best efforts I'm changing and not for the better.
He moved quietly into the bedroom and lay beside his new lover, her clear skin aglow in the darkness. She moved slightly leaving a place of warmth for him where her body had been.
~
For the first time in memory the alarm woke him. Killian had to reach across Rachel to shut it off. Quietly, he showered and dressed. Just as he was about to leave it occurred to him that his companion might need to go as well and so he touched her shoulder lightly with a fingertip.
“Rachel,” he whispered on the bed's edge.
“Go away,” she moaned.
“It's seven-thirty. Do you need to get up?”
Rachel opened her eyes, squinting against the bright morning sun. “No, I work swing shift today. Can you come back at lunch and give me a ride home?”
“Sure. I'll see you at noon.”
“Bob,” she called as he reached the bedroom door. “It was a nice night.”
He looked back at her and smiled. “It sure was.”
Killian locked the door behind him as he left. Hard to believe she's a cop, he thought.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning Killian located technician Paul Davis in the basement of the police building at eight-twenty four. He did not know the man and introduced himself as he had to Officer Martinez.
"There's nothing to report," Davis said. The technician was a gawky, slender stork of a man wearing clothes for a man a full size larger. "The uniformed patrolman ran over the tracks. Not his fault. How was he to know? Graff fucked the whole area up, destroying any footprints, not that they'd have done much good anyway."
The tech, a civilian employee, lowered his head in thought. "We didn't find the weapon. Her hands had been bound but the killer had taken the bindings plus four stakes he'd pounded into the ground. There was nothing to help us determine what kind he used. Probably metal, tent stakes." Davis thought some more. "Oh yeah. The killer's type 'O' positive."
"How'd you get that? From the semen?" Killian asked.
"Yeah. Though it was on her skin up around her stomach, chest and face."
"You didn't get any from her vagina?" Davis shook his head. "Was the girl raped?"
"I don't know," Davis said. "Check the Medical Examiner's report."
Killian thanked the man and started to leave when Davis spoke. "You know, that guy didn't take her there for sex. I'd say he wanted to chop her up, that's how he gets off."
The office of the Chief Medical Examiner was located one and blocks from the police building the other side of the police parking lot. It was morning, the temperature in the mid-nineties and Killian had no reluctance in waking over.
Dr. Kruglick was performing an autopsy when Killian was told by the secretary to go back and see him. Stretched on a metal table was the fattest woman Killian had ever seen, living or dead.
"Be with you in a moment, Bob," the doctor called out. Killian decided to wait in the hall. He curled his nose at the permeating odor of decaying flesh.
In the normal course of events Killian would have had no reason to know the Medical Examiner but the previous year they had met on two occasions. Apparently the doctor remembered him. A known burglar, a junky, had died of a heroin overdose a few days after providing Killian with useful information. Killian had been suspicious of the circumstances and had talked to Dr. Kruglick. There had been no means for determining if the overdose had been self-induced accidently or intentionally by someone else out to commit murder. Death had followed quickly after the injection but that had not been significant except to indicate a very large or pure dosage. A puncture hole had shown a tear but all that meant was the needle had been pulled violently as it was going in or out. Unusual, but not enough to prove murder. Killian had poked around but had never been able to put anything together. He didn't believe in coincidence and still thought of the case from time to time.
Dr. Kruglick came out through the over-sized swinging doors pulling a plastic glove from his left hand, the other already dangling in his right. As they walked down the hall to the receiving dock office which contained a tall coffee dispenser Kruglick lit a cigarette and exchanged pleasantries.
"I wished at the time I could have helped you more
," he said smiling. "This business just isn't like the movies and books make it out to be. It's more of an art and less an exact science than I'd like to admit."
Killian nodded his head and declined a cup of coffee. “I dropped by to see if you'd let me have a copy of your report on the girl murdered in the desert last week."
Kruglick looked up from his cup. It was a cheap home-made job with 'Daddy' sprawled loudly across it. "We already sent that over a week ago."
"I know but I'm not working Homicide and I'm not assigned to the case. I can't get a copy through normal channels."
"Really? That seems like a silly regulation. Sure, you can have a copy. Just tell the secretary I said to give you one."
"I also would like to discuss the case with you if you have time."
"Alright. I'm finished with autopsies for today. Nothing left but wrapping up reports. It'll wait." Kruglick sat on a worn, cheap, vinyl covered couch with chipped but still bright shiny bar arms. Killian sat across the room.
"I don't want what's already in the report particularly. What I'd like is unofficial, what you didn't put in the report. I know you write those with one eye to court and don't put anything in you can't prove and that a lot of information you know or believe to be true never gets written down. That's what I'd like."
Kruglick turned thoughtful. "That's not always true. In many cases everything we know or suspect is in the report. That's because many times we know so little." The doctor smiled, sipped steamy black coffee. "But I'll tell you anything I can."
"Was she raped?" Killian began to get the doctor started.
"I'm pretty certain not though her genital area was so mutilated I can't rule it out. If she was he never climaxed, not unusual though in a rape. She was sexually assaulted, however. The perpetrator ...” He grinned. “I'm even taking like a policeman, aren't I? The perpetrator shoved a large stick up her vagina and rectum. He also severed both breasts. One had slightly visible teeth marks. They won't be of any help though. Too vague. But I suppose all that's in the report. Let's see, what else? Oh yes, we found semen on her skin."
"Like someone masturbated on her?" Killian asked.
"Yes, exactly. Also, her wrists and ankles showed abrasions consistent with her having been tied down."
Killian nodded his head. "They found holes near each extremity indicating stakes had been pounded into the ground."
"Did they? No one told me." The doctor shrugged. "What else? She was cut open with a single stroke of a sharp blade. I have photographs if you're interested." Killian shook his head. "I thought not. Anyway, he cut her open in a single stroke from her right shoulder to lower left abdomen. He peeled the skin and tissue back and then carefully cut out various parts of her internal organs; liver, spleen, intestines, stomach, gall bladder, lungs and heart. She died, I think, while he was doing that."
"You mean she was alive when he opened her up?"
"Yes." The doctor paused to drink.
"That's called vivisectomy isn't it?"
"Yes. That's what it's called and what he did, not very professionally. You can rule out a medical student, doctor and probably even most nurses, paramedics and corpsman. It was sloppy work." The doctor paused again to think. "There's something else. She had had an intact hymen which had been ruptured a day or two prior to the assault."
That was interesting. “Anything else?" Killian asked.
"Not that I can recall. The rest's in the report. She was a very healthy young girl."
Killian thanked the doctor and returned to his office pausing only to pick up the report from the Medical Examiner's secretary. He thought for a few minutes then ran a routine check to see if there had been any rapes reported by girls fitting the victim's description the three days prior to her death. He also asked for all incidents of rape reported by someone who witnessed or heard the crime, even if the victim failed to come forward. It would take several days to obtain a reply.
He remembered that he had not as yet read the old police reports concerning Jared Pratt. It would take at least two hours to do a proper job of it and glancing at his watch he decided there wasn't enough time. He laid them out to go home with him.
Just then Sergeant Gary Hatfield walked up to him. "What's wrong Bob? No interesting cases to stir your imagination?"
"What?" Killian asked.
"I said, you've got some routine cases and you've cleared none of them. I thought maybe they were too boring."
"Sarcasm, Gary. Sarcasm will be the death of you yet. I'll have something for you today."
The sergeant grinned mischievously as he walked off. Reluctantly, Killian pulled his assigned cases out and began making phone calls.
~
Rachel was up, cleaning his apartment in one of his long-sleeved shirts when he arrived. She smiled brightly as he entered carrying a bag of cheeseburgers.
“Is that food?” she said eyes expectant.
“Hello to you too,” he said.
“Oh, hi. Is that food?” she repeated.
“Yes, but I'm keeping it until you relent.”
“Relent? Who's holding out? I'm starving though.” She rushed up and greeted him warmly with a torrid, lingering kiss. “That's not for last night. It's to get the food,” she said grabbing the sack and running to the bedroom.
Killian pursued her onto the disheveled covers.
“East buster. Eat. Keep up your strength,” she urged biting into a cheeseburger.
The two ate hurriedly, then Rachel lay back on the pillows, sighing contently. “Thanks. I needed that.” She started unbuttoning her shirt. “How come you're still dressed?” she asked.
~
It was eight that evening before he finally sat at the kitchen table, the apartment silent and read the Pratt's police reports. He had taken Rachel home at one-thirty in time for her shift which began at four. He had made his sergeant happy by closing out two reports and making headway in one other. Now he turned to Worthington's request.
Like all good detectives he had the compulsion to know and uncover the truth. Once he started on something he found it virtually impossible to let it go. He had long since discovered patience and so he could successfully work many different cases at once, juggling each in turn as circumstances dictated until he had uncovered all he could.
It was partly curiosity that kept him looking into Pratt but primarily he did it because Worthington had asked that the guy be checked out and Graff refused. There was no point in examining Pratt without being familiar with the girl's death hence his backdoor approach to learning about it. Since reading the Medical Examiner's report that afternoon and discovering nothing important he was satisfied that he knew as much about her death as anyone did at that time, except the murderer.
He placed the five departmental reports before him, stacking them in chronological sequence. A formal D.R. was not always prepared in every case that was brought to police attention and so Killian also had copies of field interrogation cards for two incidents. He placed them in proper order as well. Slowly he read everything before him. After forty-five minutes he took a bottle of grape juice from the refrigerator and began his second reading, this time recording notes on the yellow legal pad beside him.
A three by five F. I. card showed that Jared Pratt, age thirteen, had first come to the attention of the police department seven years before on a Disturbing the Peace complaint by a widow who lived across the alley from his residence. She complained that the boy was “mean” to cats and dogs and the poor animals made a “fearful rocket” in the alley. The officer had talked to the boy's mother who said her son never played in the alley and that the complainant must have Jared confused with someone else. The officer had marked the case “unfounded” meaning there was no supporting evidence and had written across the bottom “JM (juvenile male) teasing cats”.
The first formal D.R. was the following year. He had been arrested peeking into a neighbor’s bedroom window at night. Both parents had appeared with the boy at Juvenile Probation a
nd the case was closed as “adjusted”, meaning the parents promised to make certain Jared behaved himself.
The second F. I. card was two years later when Jared was sixteen. A flower girl selling from a street corner had complained that a young teenager was “bothering” her and had been for several days. He hung around, never talking, just watching. The police had warned him to stay away and written the card which had been duly filed.
One year later Jared committed his first known serious crime. One morning had strolled into a Presbyterian minister's receiving office occupied by the minister's thirty-four year old secretary, brandished a knife and forced the hysterical woman to the carpet. He had ripped her blouse off, cut the bra with his knife and pawed her breasts harshly enough to bruise them, biting one severely. All the while he pulled up her skirt and then pushed a finger into her. Abruptly he fled without raping the woman. The entire incident had lasted two to three minutes.
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