JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps

by phuc

  “I know,” Rachael said, slowly chewing her bread. “It's so sad."

  “Six months later another body was found,” Daryl continued. He finished his wine and set the glass down on the table. “This was found by some Girl Scouts who were scouring the area on a field trip. The remains were found about half a mile from where the first two victims were found."

  “My God, Girl Scouts found it?” Rachael was horrified; she had once been a Girl Scout, and the thought that a pack of them on an innocent afternoon of botany studies or some such could come across such a gruesome find was disturbing.

  Daryl nodded grimly. “Unfortunately, yes. Fortunately for them though, the victim was already reduced to bones, which was all they found. Almost the complete skeleton, which was lying in scattered pieces along a fifty-yard area, some partially buried. A group of detectives aided by park rangers spent the next two weeks sifting through the field to find evidence and clues. They never did recover the skull."

  “And it was the work of the same killer?” Rachael asked.

  “That seems to be the opinion of the coroner,” Daryl said. “According to the South Bend medical examiner's findings, all three victims had been decapitated with crude efficiency by somebody who had a knowledge of anatomy. Although it was hard to tell how the last victim had died, the first two victims were killed the same way. And this is the strange part about this whole case."

  “Which is...?"

  Daryl poured himself another glass of wine from the carafe. “The woman was strangled to death—lack of oxygen in the blood and brain cells pointed to that, as well as slight bruising on the remaining neck area and lower chin. The first victim found had been stabbed to death."

  Rachael saw the connection right away. “They didn't die as a result of decapitation as the victims here had."

  “Exactly!"

  “But the FBI still thinks they're connected?"

  “They have a reason to.” Daryl took a sip of wine. “Whenever a crime like a murder occurs that could possibly be a serial killing, the FBI puts the information down in the VICAP computer database. You know what the acronym VICAP stands for?"

  Rachael shook her head.

  “Violent Criminal Apprehension Program,” Daryl said. “It's a large database that police departments all over the country enter data into when they input information about violent crimes committed in their cities. This program matches up certain ordinarily undetected similarities between different crimes. They note every single characteristic about the murder: who the victim was, what kind of sociological background they came from, their age and gender, physical appearance, that sort of thing. They note how the victim was killed, what kind of weapon the killer used, whether the victim was raped or sexually mutilated before death or after, whether the victim was tortured, and if so, how and with what instruments ... if this is too much for you, please—"

  “No, no, it's okay,” Rachael said. She smiled, raising her glass of wine to her lips.

  “I'm fine. This is interesting.” And it was. Morbid maybe, but she could handle morbid.

  She'd handled it before hundreds of times during her tenure as a journalist. Daryl was just trying to be a gentleman.

  Daryl continued, slowly, as if unsure of whether to remain on such a grisly subject. “They note all this stuff, as well as other things that may seem minor. Like whether the victim was killed indoors or at the spot they were found. They note the spot the victim was discovered in. Many serial killers dump their victims in certain locations after killing them, and some stick to a definite pattern. So they note the patterns and enter all this in the VICAP's computers. And when another murder gets entered into the computer with some of the same characteristics as another, the program flags it. The Indiana murders were all flagged for several reasons. One, the beheading of all the victims. Two, the evidence that the same type of weapon was used in the decapitations.

  Three, the dumping site the victims were left in, and four, the class of victims the FBI characterized the victims as, being the lower strata—prostitutes and the homeless—two of which lived within the same general vicinity of each other. The unidentified victim was placed in that category as well, being that he was most likely homeless."

  “What makes the FBI think these murders are related to what we have going out here?"

  “Promise not to write about this in the paper?"

  “Cross my heart.” Rachael traced an X over her chest and leaned forward over the table, listening eagerly.

  Daryl held his fingers up, counting the reasons off. “The decapitations are one, as well as the social status of the victims. Those are the most obvious choices. The choice of murder weapon is another. The fact that the Indiana killer murdered his victims elsewhere and dumped them in a wooded area outside the city limits is another strong factor."

  “But our killer isn't doing that,” Rachael protested. “He's disposing them in burlap bags and placing them in alleys, and leaving them in gullies."

  “Which the South Bend killer would have done if South Bend was the same geographical size as Los Angeles,” Daryl said, sipping his wine. “Think about it. L.A.'s a big place. If our killer disposed his victims in a wooded area outside the city limits as the South Bend killer had, he would have to drive at least two hours to reach it."

  “Okay, I can buy that,” Rachael said. She finished her wine and reached for the carafe to pour herself a second glass. “But why the long gap between killings? Surely the FBI would have been able to find other killings between ‘85 and ‘94 if other murders had been committed that fit the same profile."

  “Correct,” Daryl said. “Only none have been found. There was a series of decapitation murders in Texas in the late eighties, but they don't fit the profile at all. The next time our killer makes another appearance with the same MO is the murder of Leroy Brown, the black victim killed in ‘89. The one after that was the victim from ‘94, the young woman from the East LA area, that seemed to be the beginning of his current spree here in Los Angeles."

  Rachael took a sip of her wine, her mind whirring with a thousand thoughts. “I've read that serial killers often start out slowly, sometimes retreating into their ... oh, what do you call it? ... their self-deluded world of fantasy for years after their first killing, reliving it over and over in their minds. Sometimes they try to battle with the urges that makes them kill, and it's only when these urges grow larger that they finally succumb to them again. When they finally get on a roll and the police catch on that they've dealing with a serial killer, he's already been killing longer than they've thought."

  “Exactly,” Daryl said, his eyes fixing on hers with a look that she thought was one of admiration. “Many times the authorities don't find out about the earlier murders until after the killer has been caught and he's confessed to them. And even with our latest techniques, we're still unsure of when a serial killer begins to murder people. The FBI estimates that there are at least two serial killers operating in every major city in this country today. Think about that; that's a lot of mayhem. A lot of bloodshed."

  Rachael sipped at her wine. It was a very scary thought. Frightening.

  “A perfect example of this is the Green River case in Seattle,” Daryl said, picking at another piece of bread. “I have a friend who worked for the Seattle PD when that case was all the rage. He told me that during the FBI's preliminary investigation into all murders that resembled those of the Green River killer, they came up with something like sixty-three unsolved murders between 1973 and 1982. These murders resembled the MO

  of the Green River killer. Sixty-three! The Green River killer case file officially begins with murder victims being killed in the summer of ‘82—at least that's when Seattle PD

  began making connections between all the murdered prostitutes showing up around the city. Think about that—if the FBI was correct in these findings, and if we assume that most serial killers begin killing well before the police even know they have one on their hands, this maniac c
ould have already been killing for almost a decade before anyone even caught wind of him."

  Rachael sipped at her wine, listening to Daryl. The implications of what he was saying scared her. “Assuming the Indiana murders are the work of the same killer,”

  Rachael proposed, “do you think it's possible that he's from that area?"

  Daryl sipped his wine, pondering the question. He was silent for a moment.

  Finally, he answered. “If we go on the theory that serial killers start close to home, yes, I believe he might be from the South Bend area. As to why the four year gap between those murders and the murder of Leroy Brown in ‘89, I don't know. But if you think about it, it still makes sense. Here you've got a killer who has maybe started killing people in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. He's horrified about what he's done, but he can't help it. He fantasizes about what he's done, which fuels his obsession. After the third murder, which would have been the prostitute, he stops for awhile in an attempt to control his urges. And he's successful at it for four years. He thinks he has it beat. He lives a normal life. In time, he moves out to Los Angeles. And sometime in the months before he moves out here and when he actually arrives, those long buried urges began surfacing again. He acts on them with the murder of Leroy Brown. How does he get Leroy? Who knows. We know Leroy Brown was a known drug dealer, as were several of the gang members and ex-gang members that have fallen under the Butcher's knife. Maybe our killer is a drug user. In either event, he kills Leroy Brown and is again shocked and horrified at what he's done. He tries to suppress those urges again, and this time manages to control them for the next five years. Then he kills the woman, the victim we've come to refer as The Lady of the Ocean. Maybe she was a prostitute or a runaway. Who knows? In either case the urges were probably coming on strong again, and he was trying to suppress them. He came upon this victim at the right time and acted on them."

  “Only this time he kept her,” Rachael said softly.

  “Right.” Daryl looked at her, his gaze intense. “He kept her for at least three months. This helped him relive the fantasy of the hunt again. It may have also helped to satiate the urge to go out and get another victim for awhile. Because no sooner than a few months after he dumps her, actually a year or so later, he acts on those urges again and kills Lorenzo Cardena. The urges are coming more frequently now and his loss of control is apparent. He can't control himself."

  Daryl was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with their salads. He looked away for a moment while the waiter set the salads down, and they placed napkins on their laps and prepared to eat. Rachael felt her heart pounding; Daryl was really into this guy's mind. It was a little scary, but it showed that he was really dedicated to apprehending this killer. It was both a scary and an admirable thing to do.

  They started eating their salads, which were delicious. Silence reigned for a minute while they ate until Rachael broke it. “So how do you think you're going to catch this guy?"

  Daryl didn't answer for a long time. For a moment she was afraid that their conversation on the Butcher case had been the wrong thing to talk about; he was less focused on her and their date and was more focused now on the topic at hand, which was his job. His eyes had that intense look one gets when concentrating on an extremely difficult task. Finally he looked up from his salad and shook his head. “Hard work and a lot of luck. A lot of luck."

  The rest of the evening went well. At first Rachael thought it was turning into a disaster. During the entire time they ate their salads, Daryl didn't speak. She silently cursed herself for using the Butcher case as a springboard to start conversation. She should have known that this was a big deal to him, and that his career depended on it.

  Daryl was silent and introspective as he ate, pausing momentarily to smile at her and trade pleasantries on how good the salad was. By the time they were finished, the main courses were being served and they found themselves making small talk over how fast it arrived. This led into another track of dialogue—favorite restaurants, followed shortly by hobbies and family life. They ate slowly, and Rachael was relieved to discover that this new train of conversation was drawing Daryl out of his shell more. Halfway through the meal, he was his old self again. She relaxed. No more asking about the case, she told herself. Besides, he may think you're just using him to get info on the case so you can write about it in the paper.

  The fact that the original reason she had flirted with him was to gain inside information and help on the Butcher case didn't bother her. That was then, this is now.

  Now I'm really interested in him as a person, as a man who I am interested in seeing on a social level. I am not going to let our professional lives mix with our personal ones. I will not use our relationship to advance my career as a journalist.

  For the next hour Rachael learned a lot about Daryl that she rather liked; he had graduated Magna Cum Laude from Long Beach State as a Psychology Major. He had an avid interest in history, particularly the Civil War and the Western Expansion. He loved the films of Sam Peckinpah, and had a soft spot for the old Gunsmoke Television show.

  He was three years older than she was, having graduated from high school in 1979. He had been a fan of the rock band Styx in high school. Now he liked to listen to jazz fusion and classical music mostly, but he still loved classic rock and roll. He had a pit bull named Petey that he had rescued from a breeder who was planning on training the animal for dog fights—Rachael was especially touched by Petey's story. He loved to read biographies, history, or mystery novels. Blame that on the sleuth in him.

  Rachael matched each bit of personal data with some of her own; she touched on her achievements at the Times; she made a brief mention of her first marriage to Bernie Jackson, skimming over the details. Daryl nodded, and something in his eyes told her that perhaps he had once gone through a similar experience. She told him she had a strong interest in films, mostly the arty kind that showed at art houses, but she did enjoy the latest blockbusters. She liked to read as well, mostly biographies of actors and actresses, but she enjoyed an occasional suspense novel or two. She claimed to be a fitness buff, confessed to her martial arts training. She also admitted her vice of listening to heavy metal while working out—Daryl got a good laugh out of that one—but the music she most enjoyed nowadays were the singer-songwriter musicians like Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow and John Mellencamp. When she had the time, she loved to cook. She had a pet, although it was a rather unconventional one: she was the proud owner of Nanka, a six foot ball python.

  Daryl grinned at her over his half-eaten dish of pasta. “Somehow I can picture that,” he said. “Beautiful woman and snake. Very striking image."

  Rachael felt herself blushing. “Thanks. I like Nanka because she's the only animal I've had as a pet that hasn't been selective-bred for the past two thousand years for the sole purpose of sucking up to us humans."

  Daryl laughed. Rachael joined him, surprised at the spontaneity of her remark.

  “Where did you grow up?” Daryl asked.

  “In the south bay section,” Rachael said, picking up a piece of bread. “What about you?"

  “Torrance,” Daryl said, grinning. “Small world, huh?"

  “Yeah, really."

  “What high school did you go to?"

  “What high school did you go to?"

  Daryl regarded her, grinning as he dug into his food. “North High School."

  Rachael smiled. “You're right. It is a small world. But then again, you are three years older than me."

  At that, Daryl tried to pump her for more information on her childhood. Rachael's comments were to the point and sparse. “I pretty much had an unremarkable childhood. I grew up there, hung out at Del Amo mall and Manhattan Beach when I was a kid, all the usual things. I left home after I graduated from high school to go to college and I really haven't been back since. When I moved back to LA, I settled first near South Pasadena, then I moved to Studio City. Been there ever since."

  The rest of the even
ing went by quickly. After dinner, they paid their bill (Daryl had insisted on paying but Rachael refused, saying it was on her—she owed him one, remember?) and wandered down to San Fernando Road where they walked slowly up and down both sides of the busy thoroughfare, talking earnestly, window-shopping, pausing now and then to stray into some of the local shops. San Fernando Road in Burbank, south of the mall, was the latest hot spot for those seeking entertainment, especially on weekends when movie goers attended the Mann's multi-plex, and restaurants along the street had an overflowing capacity of patrons. Record and bookstores lined the boulevard along with art galleries, coffee shops, nightclubs, bars, tattoo parlors, and clothing stores.

  It was a nice middle-class crowd, less trendy than Melrose or Sunset Boulevard, and definitely more relaxing.

  They spent the better part of an hour wandering the ten blocks of San Fernando Road, eventually heading to the other side of the mall where the Superstores were; Barnes and Noble Bookstore, Ikea, Virgin Record Store. They spent thirty minutes at Virgin Records, browsing.

  It was almost ten o'clock when they pulled up in front of Daryl's home. Daryl noted this with a laugh. “My, look at the hour! So late!"

  Rachael grinned. “I never thought the day would come when ten o'clock feels late."

  “You tired?"

  “Not in the least."

  “You in the mood for some coffee?"

  “Of course."

  “Good.” He led her to the house, which she liked quite a bit. The entryway opened to a modest living room, furnished with earthy sofas and chairs. The walls were cream colored, decorated with framed pieces of artwork and photos. The furniture was all neatly arranged and clean. Rachael set her purse down on the black sofa as Daryl went into the kitchen and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Cappuccino okay?"

  “I love cappuccino."

  “Great."

  Rachael noted movement on the patio, and approached the den. A large pit bull was on the back porch looking at her through the glass door, his entire hindquarters swishing back and forth in happiness. The dog whined. Rachael turned to the kitchen.