by phuc
At least that's what Steve's source had told him.
They were halfway finished with their meal when Rachael started telling Daryl about her updates on the book. “I think I have interest from a publisher,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I submitted an outline and the first three chapters and got an enthusiastic response from a literary agency one of my colleagues at the paper turned me onto.” Daryl nodded, following along as he ate his fries. He knew that the colleague in question, Michael Frey, who covered the metro section and the police blotter, also moonlighted as a writer of crime novels. “Anyway, the agency called me this morning and they really like it. The guy I spoke to, who happens to be Mike's agent, told me that he's ninety percent sure he can sell this to one of the big houses on a proposal. Isn't that great!"
“Wonderful,” Daryl said. He sipped at his iced tea. “Suppose when it comes time for you to deliver your book we haven't caught him yet?"
“I've thought about that,” Rachel said, and now she looked at him coyly, as if she was about to reveal a secret she was too shy to admit she was harboring. “And that's why I want to talk to you about this first. I want to ... well, I want to put in more information.
More detailed stuff than what other writers and myself have written in the papers. I ...
want to include stuff from the case files.” She stopped, biting her lower lip, her eyes big, wide, and scared, like a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching pickup truck. “I want to include information on all the suspects, everybody that you and Steve and the other detectives arrested in connection with this case. I want to include information on the victims and their families and friends. I want to include information on the neighborhoods they live in. I want to put in as much as I can without jeopardizing your case because—"
Daryl held up his hand. “You're asking for quite a lot."
Rachael stopped, looking flustered, as if regretting she had brought up the subject.
“I know. It's a lot to ask for, but I think it might help. Especially if we can include the psychological profiles and I can include stuff on the Indiana murders. I mean, somebody that we don't even know, somebody who you might not even think of questioning could read it and maybe ... I don't know ... influence them, or make them think of somebody they know who might fit the profile.” She paused again, looking at him as if she was dreading his response. “You hate it don't you?"
“I don't hate it,” Daryl said. He drank the rest of his iced tea and set it on the table.
Actually, he really liked the idea. He just didn't know how his superiors and the guys at headquarters would take it. “I just want you to proceed with this carefully."
Rachael's face lit up with child-like glee. “Oh, I will, Daryl! You can count on me for that. I don't want to get you in trouble at work or anything. You know that."
“I know,” Daryl said and he reached for the bill, which the waiter had delivered a few minutes before. He scanned it quickly, then immediately withdrew his wallet to pay it. “I can only do so much to help you on my end. I'm afraid you'll have to rely on the Freedom of Information Act to get most of your information.” He pulled out two twenties and set them inside the leather billfold in which the waiter had placed their check. He looked at Rachael and smiled. “But off the record I'll provide you with all the information you'll ever need."
Rachael's smile was so wide it threatened to break her head in half and spill the top half over her shoulders. She leaned over the table quickly and gave him a hearty smack on the mouth. Smiling, Daryl stood up from the booth. He leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. “If we weren't in a public place I'd take you right here."
“Oh, baby!” Rachael whispered in a seductive coo. She smiled at him as she slid out of the booth. “How about if I take a rain check on that?"
“Sure thing."
“Like tonight?"
“You got it."
She kissed his cheek, winked, and headed toward the lobby of the restaurant, Daryl following behind her. He felt good. For the first time in months things were going great for both the case and for Rachael's career as a journalist. This book sounded like it was really shaping up. Maybe it was just the thing they needed to boost interest in the case from the public. The Los Angeles public eagerly devoured anything broadcast or printed on the case, but if Daryl and a handful of the other FBI agents were correct in their assumption that the killer started in South Bend, maybe somebody who lived back there would read the book and it would jar their memory in remembering a classmate, a neighbor, perhaps a friend or relative. It was worth a shot. As good as Peter Manuel looked as a suspect, in all reality they probably wouldn't be able to pin anything on him.
Daryl hoped they could, though. Although he didn't have a gut feeling about Peter, his instinct told him that a break in the case was coming soon. The publicity of the latest murder had been at the top of the local news for the past three days and it had reached the AP wire as well. Dan Rather had even reported on it on the Nightly News and it was also reported on CNN's World Watch. Publicity in the Eastside Butcher case was starting to snowball like crazy. If it kept up, the tabloid magazines would soon pick up on the story— People, Newsweek, The Star. And when that happened they would be in Jeffrey Dahmer territory, or the Unabomber turf.
Daryl and Rachael walked out of the Hamburger Hamlet hand in hand, their conversation light, their footsteps a joyous bounce. As Daryl walked Rachael to her car in the parking lot, he thought about the suspect sitting in an interrogation room at Parker Center, and the publicity the latest murder was getting. He surely hoped that Peter Manuel was the killer, and they found the right evidence to pin it on him. God, he hoped that was the case.
But in his heart, he felt that Peter Manuel wasn't their man.
Chapter 23
Charley was seated at a corner booth of Top's Burgers, finishing the remnants of his bacon-cheeseburger and fries. The Los Angeles Times was spread out on the table and he had already read the same article five times. He was seated facing the entrance of the fast food outlet and every time the door opened to admit a patron he would glance up with his eyes, face still down as if reading the paper. His nerves were getting twitchy, more so than usual. It had been this way since two weeks ago when the papers reported that they had arrested what looked to be a suspect in the Eastside Butcher case.
Charley ate the last french fry on his tray and took a sip of coke. He had less than a quarter of coke left, and he sipped it down to the ice. He turned the paper back to the front page and scanned through the article again that had captured his attention and made his blood rush.
SUSPECT HELD IN EASTSIDE BUTCHER KILLINGS, screamed the headline. In smaller fourteen point type was another headline: Police confirm the latest discovery of the remaining pieces of latest victim. The basic report was that two days ago, the remaining pieces of Amanda Young were found in a sewer off Main Street and Broadway. She was neatly packed into two burlap bags, cut into eleven pieces. The only parts of her still missing were both hands and her head. The paper reported that the anatomical evidence showed that Amanda was killed by the Butcher and that this put the victim count at around sixteen.
What concerned him was the news about the capture of a possible suspect.
On the day the rest of Amanda Young surfaced, police announced the arrest of Peter Manuel on parole violation and stated to reporters that he was being considered a serious suspect in the Butcher slayings. The news was vague, but an LAPD spokesperson stated that Peter Manuel knew all but four of the victims, sans the Indiana victims of over a decade ago—they were still trying to establish if Peter Manuel had ties in the Midwest—and that several knives had been found at his house, one of them bearing bloodstains which were currently undergoing lab tests. He had a record for second degree murder, for which he had already served time, and a dozen other arrests, mainly assaults, armed robbery, breaking and entering, and other violations. In short, he seemed to fit the profile. Charley read through
the article again, his heart racing, his nerves on edge.
Charley glanced at the counter, paying scant attention to the hustle and bustle in the kitchen and the cashiers taking orders. His stomach fluttered. It had been, what, five months since he'd seen Carmen Aguirre here? It had taken three months for him just to muster up the nerve and set foot in Top's Burgers again after what happened at his house, after the fuss mother had caused. He was sure she would never have anything to do with him again, so he had stayed away. He had come back about a month ago to have lunch, take that first step into getting back into the normal swing of things, and Carmen hadn't been there. In the last two weeks since he had been coming to Top's again he came to the conclusion that she was never coming back. She had left.
Or had she?
That's what made Charley nervous, knowing what he knew. He remembered the confrontation at his mother's house the night he had picked Carmen up at the bus stop, remembered how she had stormed out of the house. Then he remembered vaguely chasing after her and catching up to her, finally persuading her to come back inside through the side door, bypassing the living room and heading straight to his living quarters so she could dry off. Carmen had come back reluctantly, and after he had given her a towel to dry off, he told her he could either take her home or call for a cab. She didn't want either.
She would walk home. Not wanting to make an issue of it—he had remained strangely calm—he had let her go. She left then, leaving Charley in a black fury at the situation.
The next thing he remembered was being aware of an intense orgasm. When he regained control of his senses he saw that it was fully dark outside. Sometime between the time Carmen left and he came to, he had stripped naked and had put in an extreme S&M video. It had been a pretty violent one, one he had gotten at an underground flea market specializing in extreme fetish videos. He had shaken his head, shaking the fogginess off, and noticed that he had come all over the carpet. He had gotten up and turned the video off with the remote control. Then he had gone to the bathroom to clean himself off and clean the mess off the floor. It was at this time that he noticed that three hours had gone by.
It was then when he realized that things were going swiftly from bad to worse.
Charley closed his newspaper and folded it up. His lunch hour was almost over and he rose from his table, picking up his tray. He carried it over to the garbage can, tossed the trash inside, and placed the tray on a shelf near the counter. Folding the newspaper up further, he tucked it inside his jacket and made his way outside, brushing past a tall, attractive, copper skinned woman with black hair who had just stepped up to the counter to order. He glanced back at the woman as he pushed through the door, his eyes lingering on her shapely ass clad in a pair of black tights, and up her curvy body. She kept her back to him, looking up at the menu as he left the restaurant. Goddamn but she was a looker. And she looked a little familiar, too.
With the woman's image imprinted in his mind, Charley stepped outside and headed back up Main Street toward work.
Back in Top's Burger's, Rachael Pearce watched Charley walk up Main Street and frowned.
Chapter 24
August 7, 1998
After two weeks of mild eighty-five degree weather, Los Angeles was sliding into its yearly late summer heat wave. The last four days had seen the temperature steadily climb; it was one hundred and two degrees today. As Rachael Pearce exited her car in the parking lot of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she was struck by how still the air was, like the calm before the storm. Strange, she thought, as she closed the driver's side door of her tan Acura. She had spent a summer in Kansas when she was an undergraduate, working on the staff of the Wichita Tribune, and she remembered that when the weather got like this—oppressively hot and stifling, the air still—it only meant one thing. A storm was coming.
Rachael looked up at the sky and tried to look north toward the San Gabriel Mountains. The mountains were obscured by thick smog. Likewise, the sky was heavily laden with smog. It was so thick she could barely tell that the sky was blue.
Swinging her purse, which contained her notebook and a mini-cassette recorder, over her right shoulder, she headed toward the church's offices at the rear of the chapel.
The smog was so bad it was a wonder that she hadn't developed some form of lung cancer by now. She had been breathing the stuff for the past thirty-four years, save for four years spent away at college. When the smog levels were high everybody she knew that was from the midwest or the east coast could barely breathe. Rachael barely noticed it.
She found the church offices easily enough, and went through the double glass doors. Sighing in relief at escaping from the heat outside—the inside lobby of the church office was cooled by the central air conditioner—Rachael managed a smile and approached a middle-aged secretary who was seated behind a large, executive style desk typing into a computer. The secretary smiled up at her. “How can I help you?"
“I have an appointment with Father Glowacz,” Rachael said, holding out her hand.
“I'm Rachael Pearce, from the Times. "
“Yes. Father Glowacz is expecting you.” The woman rose from behind the desk and motioned for Rachael to follow her. “This way please."
Rachael followed the older woman down a corridor that ran lengthwise along the building. Halfway down she stopped at a door on the right and knocked twice before opening the door a crack. “Father Glowacz?” She asked, leaning forward to speak through the crack in the door. “Miss Pearce from the Times is here to see you."
“Oh. Um, tell her to come on in."
Smiling at Rachael, the secretary pushed the door open and stepped aside. “Go right in, Miss Pearce."
Rachael went inside the small office as the secretary closed the door behind her and a tall, wiry man rose from behind a desk to greet her. The man certainly didn't look like a priest; he was a good few inches taller than she, rather well built, with large hands that had a firm grip when she shook hands with him. His face was youthful, his blue eyes dancing with glee, like those of a young boy. His brown hair was rapidly fading from the top of his head and was cut short along the back and sides. He wore wire-rimmed glasses.
In a way, he resembled a bulkier version of the actor Anthony Edwards on the television show E. R. His wide, affable grin put her immediately at ease. “Please, have a seat,” he said, motioning to the chair set in front of his desk. His eyes locked on her briefly, as if studying her. “Can I get you something to drink?"
“No, I'm fine."
“Good."
Father John Glowacz wasn't dressed like a parish priest today; he was wearing a tan colored t-shirt with a computer logo over the breast pocket, a pair of faded blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. He noticed her puzzlement and laughed. “It's not customary for priests to wear their clerical collars twenty-four hours a day. When we do administrative work, some of us like to dress casually."
“I know that,” Rachael said, trying to remember her days as a catechism student back when she'd been a practicing Catholic. “I guess I just assumed that if we were meeting in your office at the church that you would be, you know, dressed for work."
“Presiding as a parish priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe is only one small part of my job,” Father Glowacz said, seating himself behind his desk. His eyes appraised her again and he appeared to relax a little. He moved the paperwork he had been working on to a small pile beside his desk blotter and placed his hands on his desk, smiling at her.
“Today is the only day I have to catch up on correspondence and other church miscellany, so I come in dressed casually. It surprises the regulars, too. Especially the little old ladies who come to church every day to pray the rosary. It practically gives them a heart attack, which is why I try not to set foot in the church when I come dressed this way."
Rachael laughed and John Glowacz laughed with her. He had a hearty, merry laugh. She immediately liked him. “Well, I guess maybe I should get started on what I came to talk to you about."
&
nbsp; “You said something on the phone about a book?” Father Glowacz cocked a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Yes.” Rachael took out her notebook and mini-cassette recorder. She held the recorder up. “Do you mind?"
“Go right ahead.” Father Glowacz waved his approval.
Rachael pressed the PLAY button.
“I guess the first thing I want to go over is to reiterate what is already common knowledge,” Rachael said, flipping through her notes. “Forgive me for being so curt, Father, but I know you're on a time-limit to see me today."
“That's quite all right. Whatever I can do to help you, just ask."
Rachael started by going over the murder series and verifying which victims had been actual Our Lady of Guadalupe church members. All told, four of the victims had either attended Our Lady of Guadalupe in the past, or were active church-goers at the time of their murders. Of those four, two of them came from Danny Hernandez's Bible Study. Danny Hernandez had a passing acquaintance with at least six of the victims, knowing two or three of them personally. “Didn't you find that a little strange, Father?”
Rachael asked, breaking off from her verification.
“To tell you the truth, no,” Father Glowacz said. “Danny used to deal with a lot of gang members from many different gangs, and it wasn't uncommon for many of these young men to be shot or killed in gang shootings, or get arrested for some viscous crime."
Rachael nodded. She supposed that made sense. She continued. Danny Hernandez had been a gang counselor for ten years and the parish had been shocked at the news of his arrest three months ago. “Danny has officially bowed out of the youth gang outreach program,” Father Glowacz said, a glum look on his face. “It's really tragic. I can understand why the police might have thought of him as a suspect, but the suspicion that was placed on him has made him a changed man. He entered a substance abuse program a month ago to help himself through the problems he's been facing."
