by Frank Zafiro
2328 hours
Katie cruised through the parking lot, searching for the rape victim. The battery store was closed and there were no cars in front of it, so she rolled slowly through the lot. Her eyes scanned for dark figures in the poorly lit area. The short burst of rain had slackened to a slight, spitting mist, so she shut off her wiper blades.
She wondered briefly if this were a false report. That happened sometimes, especially if a certain crime gained any notoriety. She hadn’t seen any media coverage of Tower’s rapist cases yet, but she didn’t watch the news too often, either. When the Scarface robberies were going on, though, the media covered it extensively. Day shift patrol officers even caught an imposter before the real Scarface was captured.
Killed, you mean. Thomas Chisolm killed him.
Katie shrugged off that thought. Instead, she remembered the media feeding frenzy that had occurred during the Amy Dugger kidnapping last year. And when Kopriva’s mistake came to light-
There!
Katie slammed on her brakes. Off to her left, a woman huddled near the front wheel well of a Chevy Blazer. Katie turned her spotlight on the shivering figure. She was met with the woman’s frantic stare. Katie snapped off the light and reached for her mike.
“Adam-116, I have her over near The Onion restaurant.”
“Copy, near the Onion.”
Katie activated her flashers and stepped out of her patrol car. The woman stared in her direction. Katie thought she should smile, but then stopped herself. Instead, she let what she hoped was a warm, open expression fill her features as she stepped over toward the crouched woman.
“Police officer, ma’am,” she said in a soft voice. Even so, the terrified woman jumped at her words.
Memories echoed across the years inside Katie’s head.
Don’t be a goddamn tease.
“Easy,” Katie said, pushing the thoughts away. “I’m here to help.”
The woman began to sob.
You liked it. The male voice in Katie’s head was full of drunken confidence. Don’t forget that.
She crouched next to the victim. “Do you need a doctor?”
The woman didn’t answer.
“I know you’re hurt,” Katie said, “but do you need medics right now? I can call them for you.”
Still sobbing, the woman shook her head.
Ma, I have to tell you something.
“Okay,” Katie said. She reached out and touched the woman on the shoulder, causing her to start. “I’m here to help you. You’re going to be all right.”
Well, at least you weren’t a virgin.
Katie took a deep breath. She hated to push victims for information too quickly, but she knew that every moment was precious. The man who did this to her was moving further away every second.
“What’s your name?” she asked the woman.
“M-M-Maureen,” she sobbed.
Katie gave her shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Maureen, I want to help you. But I need to know how long ago this happened to you.”
2330 hours
Chisolm braked, slowing slightly before turning onto Division Street. Northgate was only a couple blocks away. He cast a quick glance into his rear-view mirror to see if his tail was still there. The twin headlights beamed back at him.
He ignored the following vehicle and pulled into the parking lot, looking for Katie. He spotted her flashing lights near The Onion Restaurant. Katie’s door and trunk lid stood open. She was nowhere to be seen.
Chisolm goosed the accelerator and cut through the lot quickly. As he approached Katie’s car, he spotted her kneeling next to a nearby vehicle. She wrapped a blanket around the shoulders of a huddled woman.
He stopped the car near hers and exited. Light drops of cold rain bit into his face, but he ignored them. As he approached, he saw that Katie was speaking in quiet tones with the victim. She glanced up at him briefly and nodded, so he held up and stood a cautious distance away. His experience with rape victims told him that every woman reacted differently. Some wanted the immediate comfort and safety of a man near them. Others wanted nothing to do with a man. He always tried to gauge the individual’s response as best he could, but it was an imperfect art.
After a few moments, Katie helped the woman to her feet and walked her toward the patrol car. Chisolm hustled ahead of them and removed Katie’s patrol bag and gear from the front seat of her cruiser. If there was one thing he knew, it was that it was a bad idea to put a woman who had just been sexually assaulted into the back seat of a patrol car. Prisoners went in the back seat. Bad guys. Not victims.
As he put Katie’s patrol bag into the trunk for her, Chisolm looked up to see the blue truck park a short distance away. The driver focused a camera on Chisolm. Chisolm stared back at him, seething.
Who the hell was this guy? A reporter? If he was a stalker, he sure wasn’t very good at it.
Chisolm closed the trunk and started walking toward the truck. The driver hurriedly put the camera aside, gave an almost playful wave and drove away, chirping his tires in the process. Chisolm tried to read the front plate of the truck, but it was too late.
Back at the car, Katie asked, “What was up with that?”
Chisolm shrugged. “Some lookie-lou.” He motioned with his head toward the front seat of her car. “More importantly, what’s up with that?”
Katie sighed. “She was raped. It sounds a little bit like the other one that the El-Tee mentioned at roll call.”
“The one over at the park?”
Katie nodded. “Yeah. The suspect did a blitz attack while she was out for a walk, not jogging. But still…”
“Hooker?”
Katie frowned. “I don’t think so. They don’t usually work this far north. Plus, she’s dressed in workout clothes. I think she’s just a citizen out for a walk.”
Chisolm nodded. “Okay. Who’s working the other rape case?”
“Detective Tower, I think.”
“I’d have radio give him a page, in case he wants to come out. You never know.”
“Right,” Katie agreed.
Chisolm glanced toward the front seat and shook his head sadly. “Terrible crime, rape.” Visions of his two tours in Vietnam pushed their way forward. He remembered the pleading eyes of a young Vietnamese girl, barely fifteen. Saw her accusing eyes. He clenched his jaw as the images blasted into his mind’s eye.
Mai. Her name was Mai.
“A guy who rapes should be castrated,” Katie said. “Simple as that.”
“Ouch.”
Katie grinned, but the expression had a grim undertone to it. “Hey, I never claimed to be Mother Teresa.”
“Not with that attitude.” Chisolm forced his own smile, but unbidden, the face of Mai flashed behind his eyes.
A North Vietnamese uniform on top of her, tearing at her clothing.
Then, later, an American uniform.
Her unforgiving eyes.
A sense of shame washed over him. He looked away from the woman in the front seat.
“I’ll take her to the hospital,” Katie said.
Chisolm nodded, hoping that his memories weren’t showing on his face. “Good. That’s good.”
SIX
Wednesday, April 17
DAY SHIFT
0818 hours
Detective Tower tapped his pen slowly on the case report as he read it. The steady rhythm helped the flow of his reading. He imagined it bothered anyone around him, but he couldn’t help it. When he read, he tapped. If someone called him on it, he made an effort to stop. Otherwise…tap, tap, tap.
The report belonged to Officer Katie MacLeod. Tower knew her only in passing and mostly by reputation. By all accounts, she was a solid troop. He pretty much ignored the bits of gossip about her sex life or orientation. When it came to the River City PD, the rumor mill never stopped. He was relatively certain that it was even worse for the women of RCPD than for the guys, at least on average. As a result, he tried not to get drawn into th
e gossip. The secretary in his unit, Georgina, was the queen of department gossip, but Tower wasn’t kidding himself. He knew patrol cops and detectives that were three times as bad.
Tower forced himself back to Katie’s report. It was well-written, describing her encounter with the victim, Maureen Hite. He wished he could have come out to investigate the rape himself, but he never received the call. The battery in his pager died and he’d stayed the night at Stephanie’s house, so calls to his house had gone unanswered.
According to the report, Maureen Hite had been out walking along a path through Friendship Park. Tower was familiar with the park. Mostly open field, the park was lightly wooded along the west side.
Tower read from Katie’s report, his pen tapping a steady rhythm.
The victim stated that she was northbound along the path when she heard a shuffling noise behind her. Before she could react, she was struck on the head. She thinks that it was with a fist or possibly an open hand but she was not sure. The blow stunned her. The suspect pulled her into the treed area near the sidewalk. He covered her face with some sort of towel or rag. He ordered the victim not to look at him or he would “lay the whammo on” her. He also called her several derogatory names such as “little whore” and “bitch.”
Tower shook his head, reading forward.
The suspect removed the victim’s sweat pants and underwear. He then sexually assaulted her vaginally from behind. During the act, he struck her several times on the back of the head, leaving her further stunned. She was not sure if he ejaculated or not. When he was finished, he told her that he knew who she was and that he would kill her if she reported the rape to police.
When the victim realized that the suspect had left the scene, she stood and began walking again. Due to her dazed state, she didn’t think to knock on one of the doors in the neighborhood. It wasn’t until she reached the parking lot five blocks away that she found a pay phone to call 911.
I transported the victim to the hospital. On the way, we drove to the park where the assault occurred. She was able to point out the approximate area where she was attacked. Officer Chisolm searched the area for any evidence. See his report for further.
The victim was unable to describe the suspect, other than to say he “sounded white.”
Tower sighed. This had to be the same guy. The M.O. was too similar and the phrase about “the whammo” was too unique. So he had been right about the guy. Whoever he was, he wasn’t finished.
Tower cursed. Most of the rapes he investigated involved suspects that were somehow known to the victim. Even if the connection was tenuous, there was usually something that linked the two. Dating, working together, even just a one-time social connection. The point was, a rape was usually not a whodunit. Usually, his biggest obstacles were proving that sexual intercourse occurred and that it involved forcible compulsion. In other words, most of the time it was a DidHedunit. More directly, it typically ended up being, from an investigative standpoint, a case CanIProveHedunit.
Stranger rapes were much rarer.
That presented a number of problems for him as the investigator. For one, he didn’t even have a suspect.
Sure you do, John. About forty thousand of them.
Plus, if this guy really was a serial, he might get better and better with his technique as he went along, making each successive case even harder to solve. Tower had to figure out how to catch the guy before he attacked another victim.
But how?
He shook his head. He could definitely use someone to bounce some ideas off of.
Tower looked around the unit. A pair of empty desks sat behind him. He had no idea where the detectives that sat in those desks might be and didn’t much care. Prather and Carlisle were thick as thieves. Neither one of them spoke to him much and that suited him just fine. Both specialized in child molestation cases, anyway.
The third empty desk belonged to Ted Billings. Sex Crimes was a demotion from Major Crimes for him. Crawford had busted him back before Tower even came to the unit. The way Billings worked, Tower could see why. As detectives went, Billings made an excellent paper weight. It was pretty obvious to Tower that Billings was R.O.D. — Retired On Duty.
So who did that leave?
No one in his unit.
Tower reached into his desk drawer and removed the Patricia Reno file. Then he scooped up the newest file on Maureen Hite and took both with him as he made his way to the Major Crimes unit. Once there, he found Detective Ray Browning sitting at his desk, reviewing a file of his own.
“Ray?”
Browning, a black man with compact features, looked up from his file. His warm, brown eyes regarded Tower calmly. “John. What’s up?”
Tower motioned toward the file on Browning’s desk. “You deep into that?”
Browning shook his head. “No, just some housekeeping. It’s already gone to the prosecutor. I’m going on vacation after tomorrow, so I wanted to get all the little odds and ends tidied up. Why?”
Tower held out his two files. “I’m looking for suggestions. I want to catch this prick.”
Ray smiled graciously. “You want to run it for me?”
Tower shook his head. He knew Browning preferred to read the reports himself rather than hear a synopsis. He held out the files and Browning accepted them. Tower settled into the empty desk across from him. Browning opened the files and read carefully, stroking his graying goatee as he scanned the pages.
Tower tapped his pen and waited.
Browning glanced up. “You’re not going to sit there and tap the entire time, are you?”
Tower stopped. “Sorry.”
Browning smiled at him. “Get yourself some coffee, John.”
Tower nodded. “Good idea.” He rose and left the bullpen, making his way past Glenda, the Major Crimes secretary. The smell of good coffee wafted toward him. He grabbed a Styrofoam cup and poured some.
“That’s a quarter,” Glenda told him, her tone mock-scolding.
Tower fished a dollar out of his pocket and stuffed it into the jar near the coffee pot. “It’s worth it. The coffee over in Sex Crimes sucks.”
Glenda shrugged. “What can I say? This is Major Crimes. The varsity team.”
Tower smiled. “Don’t be humble or anything.”
“Humility is an affectation that I don’t have time for,” Glenda said, a smile playing on her lips. “It tends to get in the way of accomplishing anything great.”
“And greatness courses through the veins of every member of the Major Crimes unit,” Tower said.
Glenda narrowed her eyes. “Drink your coffee, serf.”
Tower turned his empty palm up. “You got me. I have no response for that.”
Glenda raised her eyebrows in mock haughtiness. “I thought not.”
Tower chuckled and sipped his coffee.
“Tower!” Lieutenant Crawford bellowed from his office.
Tower suppressed a sigh. “Yeah?”
“Don’t ‘yeah’ me,” Crawford barked. “Stop flirting with my secretary and come in here!”
Tower tipped Glenda a wink and made his way into the Lieutenant’s office. He stood in front of Crawford’s desk, ignoring the open chair.
Crawford eyed him for a moment, then lifted a clipboard. “I’ve got a stranger-to-stranger rape on my report list.”
“I know. I’ve already got the file.”
Crawford glanced down at the clipboard. “Maureen Hite?”
Tower nodded.
“Is it a good rape?”
Tower cringed at the question. He knew that a percentage of rape reports that came through were false. Most of the time, alcohol and the wrong partner were involved. It was a reality he’d come to understand as a sex crimes investigator — sometimes women lied about rape. Of course, at the same time, they often didn’t report it at all. He’d investigated a number of false claims, so he knew they happened. Still, Crawford’s word choice bothered him. He wasn’t a screaming liberal about the issue, but-
“Tower? I asked you a question.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it is. It’s a good rape.”
Crawford reached for his cigar box. “Anything like the last one?”
“A lot like it, actually.”
“Did you get called out on it?” Crawford lifted a thick cigar from the box and slipped it between his lips.
Tower had a passing thought about Freud and suppressed a grin.
Crawford’s brow furrowed in a scowl. “Something funny, Tower?”
“No, sir.”
“Then answer my question. Did you get called out?”
“No. My pager battery died on me.”
Crawford fixed him with a dark stare. “Your pager died?” he repeated.
Tower nodded.
“Pretty rookie mistake, Tower.”
Tower didn’t reply.
“You know where we keep the batteries, right?”
“I do.”
“And you can install them?”
Tower clenched his jaw. “Of course I can.”
Crawford removed the unlit cigar and waved out toward the bullpen. “Because I can have one of these guys tutor you on that battery thing, if you need it.”
Tower sighed. “It just went dead. Okay?”
Crawford grunted. He slid the cigar back into the corner of his mouth, gripping it with his teeth. “So your pager died. Did your phone die, too?”
Tower shook his head. “I wasn’t at home last night.”
Crawford raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Do I need to start calling you Giovanni Junior now?”
Tower ignored the jibe. “I don’t know that there’s much I could’ve done last night, anyway,” he told Crawford. “MacLeod did a great interview and a great report. Chisolm and Westboard searched the crime scene and didn’t find anything. They took photos anyway.”
“Those are patrol officers,” Crawford said, “not detectives.”
Tower shrugged. “It was good police work.”
Crawford grunted again. “So where are you at with this case, then? If the police work was so good.”
“I think this guy might be a serial.”
“And?”
“And I’m trying to figure out how to work it. None of the lab work is back or will be anytime soon. The victims didn’t get a look at the guy. I’ve got no witnesses. I’m looking for an angle to play. Maybe Renee in Crime Analysis-”
