by Baxter Clare
As if reading her mind, Noah started speculating on the similarities so far between this call and Agoura’s. He was excited, but Frank was withdrawn and answered him with only a small dip of her head, hoping he’d have the good sense to leave her alone today.
They’d been through a lot of blood and a lot of beer together. Frank had been there at the hospital when his first child was born—she was Leslie’s godmother. When Tracey was on the warpath, Noah spent a lot of nights in Frank’s guest bed, and Frank had crashed on their couch a time or two. He knew why she put in the excruciating hours, pounded mercilessly on the weights, and why he poured her into a cab sometimes at the Alibi. He was also the closest Frank had to a friend. She knew that sooner or later he was going to ask her what was wrong.
He parked across from the school. As she fumbled for the door handle with her bandaged hand, Frank noticed his wondering glance. Ike and Bobby were already there, talking with a knot of uniformed police and onlookers. A gust of raw wind blew Frank’s jacket open, and she buttoned it with her good hand. She didn’t bother talking with the responding officers, letting Noah do it instead. She stood within earshot, dreading the telltale signs of another dump.
Frank peered under the white sheet covering the victim’s body. No clothes, no ID. The girl was heavily bruised, sprawled akimbo on the broken concrete. Frank looked around. There was nothing for them to work with, but she had already requested crime scene techs. She checked behind her, relieved at least that there were no news vans. She knelt on one knee and gently lifted the cover sheet away.
Under it, a young girl was fixed forever in the transition from child to woman. Bruises painted her soft skin with all the colors of an impending storm—deep purple mixed to black, dark gray tinged with yellow, magenta fused to sallow green. The girl’s hair spread out behind her, dull and knotted. Her eyes were half open and buried in dark pillows of flesh that puffed up from the twisted nose below. Clots of old blood clogged the nostrils.
Frank made a couple of notes on her pad, then continued her examination. The skin next to the girl’s nose was split deep enough to reveal her right cheekbone. Other than a rawness which could have come from a gag, the bottom of her face was remarkably untouched. Her lips were full and parted softly. Frank knelt closer and lifted the upper lip with her pen. Her right front tooth was chipped.
Discoloration in a line around her throat indicated strangulation, but when Frank searched under the eyelids she couldn’t see any signs of petechial hemorrhage. The left collarbone jutted abnormally under swollen, vividly hued skin. The welter of bruises continued almost unbroken to her knees, which were scraped as well. They had already scabbed, indicating the abrasions were made before she was dumped. Frank checked the exposed edges of the body for drag marks, but the bruising was too severe to reveal slight marks. Heavier scrapes might show up when the coroner’s people rolled the body. Chafing around her ankles and wrists suggested she’d been bound.
Frank chewed on the inside of her lip. She’d seen a lot of battery in sixteen years, but this was right at the top of the list. Agoura’s beatings had been severe, but if the perp who’d done this girl was the same guy, he was escalating his assaults to a new level.
Handley arrived, out of breath, coat flapping. His buttons would never again meet their respective holes on the far side of his protruding belly. He started his perusal of the body as Frank looked over at Noah. He was kneeling too, on the other side of the girl, and Frank heard him whisper something. He had lost his characteristic enthusiasm. When his eyes met Frank’s they were sad.
“This guy’s a fucking monster.”
Frank quietly sucked in a deep breath and nodded impassively. Much as she hated to, it was time to call Foubarelle. At least the press hadn’t gotten wind of it yet. That looked like the only break they were getting. When Jack rolled the dead girl, they saw unmistakable signs of anal assault and lots of dried blood. Frank’s ardor for the chase was suddenly dampened. Whoever had done this was loose, was good, and probably would do this again. What she’d read from her Quantico notes the other night indicated she could well have a serial perp on her hands.
The realization only made the gray day darker. When Foubarelle arrived, Frank didn’t mention anything about a serial perp. She listened to the SID techs scream at him for being called out on a case with no evidence. They hated Frank but she didn’t care; they were the evidence experts, not her. A lot of cops liked to hot-dog a scene, but Frank wasn’t about to lose a case because of an evidentiary oversight on her part. If there was nothing there, she wanted to hear it from SID.
On the other hand, she and her squad had the rare respect of the coroner’s personnel. Detectives were always pushing their vies to the front of the coroner’s to-do list, but Frank rarely allowed her cops to do that. The morgue had enough work to handle without every homicide detective in the LAPD trying to get their victims cut first. Frank saved her requests for true emergencies, like today. As Handley made an incision over the liver, ready to insert the thermometer that would help determine the time of death, Frank said quietly, “Jack, I know you’ve got at least a dozen bodies in line before this one, but it would really help if you could push this ahead.”
She tipped her head toward Foubarelle. “And it’ll save Crotchety from having to deal with him because I can guarantee that’s his next stop.”
Jack frowned, playing with the power he had on the street. He knew it ended with a sharp command from his boss once they got back to the morgue.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said pompously.
“I’d appreciate it.”
Frank turned to deal with Foubarelle just as the first news van showed up.
The next time his father took him into the office with a magazine tucked under his arm, the boy knew what to do. He responded to his father’s touch, feigned interest in the pictures, kept shoving his hand against himself like his father was doing, first as he was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen this time, his father ordered him breathlessly to get down and accompanied him quickly onto the bright green rug. He tried to pretend it was grass and that he was outside playing. Soon his mother would call him in for dinner and his father wouldn’t hurt him with anything more than a hearty slap on the shoulder.
After his father got off, he told the boy to leave. He walked painfully up the stairs and quietly closed his bedroom door behind him. Curling into a ball under the covers, he reasoned that at least this time it hadn’t taken very long. He slipped into a nap, comforted by a familiar image of himself straddling the stuffed bear he kept under his pillow.
7
Squad 93 spent the day canvassing the area. A janitor had found the body on the sidewalk in front of the school. Dispatch received his call at 0613 hours. It had been cold last night. Not a lot of people had been out, and parked cars obscured the body from the street. The victim was found on her back, but lividity indicated she’d been dead for at least ten hours. She’d been left on her stomach—whoever killed her hadn’t moved her until her blood had settled anteriorly. She had to have been dumped sometime before dawn, which also explained why she hadn’t been discovered earlier. Frank had SID print the cars on the school side of the street. Maybe their guy had bumped into one and steadied himself with a bare hand. She copied the license numbers and makes. Flanking the school were a shoe repair shop and a taqueria. Two vacant buildings, a styling salon, a mom-and-pop burger stand, a Frostee Freeze, and an Assembly of God church were across the street. They were all covered with sprawling gang tags. A boarded and crumbling building in a large, weedy lot looked like a shooting gallery, and Frank had uniforms bagging matchbooks and cigarette packs, torn soda cans, used hypos, potato chip bags—all the trash in there. She wanted everything printed. A pile of old clothes and rags looked like a makeshift bed. If somebody’d been in here last night she wanted to know who.
The church had had a service the day before but it had finished by 8:00 p.m. and there wasn’t another scheduled until noon
today. No one opened when they knocked, no lights were on. They talked to people at the food joints, which all closed at 11:00 or midnight. The salon was open 9:00-6:00, shoe repair 8:00-5:00. No one was around at the time they believed the body was dumped.
The detectives spent the morning showing Polaroids of the girl’s face to everyone at the school, but they didn’t get one good hit. She was pretty battered, though, so chances were they wouldn’t have gotten an ID anyway. Missing Persons records were no help this time. They broke for lunch around one o’clock, ordering gorditas and tacos at the taqueria next to the school. The school kids didn’t like all the heat around; they ate across the street at the burger place. Frank was feeling human again. She munched on fried pork between two soft corn tortillas, wondering why these girls were being dumped in front of schools. If it was the same guy, she reminded herself. So far they had nothing but speculation to go on. Frank glanced at her watch. She was waiting for Crocetti’s call. His prelim would tell them more about any similarities between this case and Agoura’s.
She was anxious for the ID on the vie, too. Handley had rolled her fingers, promising to have Frank paged as soon as the prints were run. She was wadding up the paper her tacos came in when her pager went off. She nudged her jacket aside with an elbow and glanced at the number. It was the coroner’s office. She returned the call.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Handley bragged, “I’ve got a name for your girl.”
“Tell me.”
“Jennifer Peterson. DOB: 1/5/82.” Handley paused.
Frank asked, “Address?”
Handley gave it to her. She thanked him tersely and hung up. She called the operator and referenced the phone number. When Frank tried it, all she got was the answering machine. She identified herself and told the machine she had some information about Jennifer Peterson that she needed to discuss with her parents. No one picked up.
Frank grabbed Noah. “Let’s go for a drive.”
She filled him in as they drove west on Manchester Boulevard to Sepulveda. The address took them to a tired house in Culver City bordered by frayed banana trees and overgrown bougainvillea. It looked tropical despite the spitting sky and sixty-degree weather. When their knock went unanswered, they split up to talk to the neighbors. Two houses down, the harassed mother of three preschoolers told Noah that Jennifer Peterson babysat for her. Her mother’s name wasn’t Peterson, it was Wyche, Delia Wyche, and she was a nurse at Brotman Memorial. She wasn’t sure where the husband worked, but he was home a lot. Jennifer called him the grease monkey and didn’t care much for him.
Noah thanked the woman, then flagged Frank back to the car. At Brotman, a meticulously dressed man in personnel confirmed there was a Delia Wyche, R.N., on staff. Frank asked him to page Wyche’s supervisor, and he balked that it wasn’t his job. Noah grinned as Frank leaned within inches of the fey young man and asked, “Have you ever had a nine-millimeter revolver shoved up your ass?”
Maybe because he saw Noah grinning, maybe because he was suicidal, maybe because he was more ballsy than smart, he swallowed hard and retorted, “No, but I think I’d like it.”
That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Before the clerk could even flinch Frank had his perfect Windsor knot clenched in her bad hand and twisted tight under his Adam’s apple. Noah’s smile had faded, and suddenly the clerk didn’t feel so brave.
He tried to squeak “police brutality,” but Frank tightened her grip, her blazing eyes still only inches from his. Blood started oozing through her bandage.
“Okay, funny boy. Are you going to call Mrs. Wyche’s supervisor or do I charge you with refusing to cooperate with a peace officer and obstructing justice?”
He weakly shook his head.
“You going to help me?”
He nodded.
“Good boy.”
Frank let go and the man wheeled his chair farther from Frank’s grasp. Noah pulled a quarter out of his pocket and tossed it into the clerk’s lap.
“That’s for later. After you call Mrs. Wyche’s supervisor you can call LAPD and register a formal complaint about her. But you’ll have to be patient. There’s a lot of people in line ahead of you.”
Frank turned her back and glanced at the fresh blood on her gauzed hand. Noah’s gaze followed, and he asked what she’d done.
“Cut it,” she said flatly and stepped out into the hallway. When Noah followed, he said softly, “You shouldn’t have roughed him up like that.”
Frank’s head jerked toward Noah. Her eyes were bottomless blue chasms that a man could fall into and never be heard from again.
“Don’t even start with me.”
He flashed his palms in a peaceful gesture.
“Alright. I’m just saying if something’s bugging you—”
“Nothing’s bugging me.”
“Alright. Okay.”
Frank had unconsciously turned to face her partner in a fighter’s stance, and Noah bowed his head, backing off. The LAPD’s reputation for unnecessary aggression was well-founded, but Frank’s presence was usually intimidating enough to get what she wanted out of a wit or a suspect. She rarely engaged someone physically, especially just a cluck-headed desk boy, and she was embarrassed that she’d lost her temper.
The nurse supervisor arrived, and Noah explained without detail about Delia Wyche’s daughter. The supervisor went back down the hall to retrieve her employee as Frank asked the clerk for Mrs. Wyche’s next of kin. She was promptly, silently handed a slip of paper with a name and number on it. The clerk eyed Frank warily, making sure he was well away from her reach. It occurred to her to apologize to the little bastard, but she didn’t.
Frank glanced at the clock on the wall, wondering where the hell Wyche was. Noah’d been done with his shift hours ago. Frank felt a flicker of remorse for her behavior, but that reminded her of the dream and she quickly focused on the square yellow paper in her hand. She joined Noah, who was still waiting in the hallway. He was leaning against the wall, chewing on a nail. His suit was wrinkled and a tad short at the ankles and wrists.
“Anybody have a game today?”
“Naw. Just practice.”
“You should call Tracey.”
“She won’t be home ‘til later. I’ll call after we do Wyche.”
“You don’t have to go the morgue. I’ll take care of it.”
Noah absently flapped one of his boney hands.
“It ain’t no thing. Besides,” he tried to joke, “the last thing I wanna do is leave you alone with a bereaved parent.” Frank didn’t smile. They were both relieved when the supervisor led Delia Wyche down the hallway. She took them to an office where they could talk, but before Frank had finished the introductions, Mrs. Wyche interrupted with the practiced snort of the chronically bitter.
“What’s Jennie done now?”
Frank herded the heavy-hipped woman into a seat, explaining that they had a few questions. She wasn’t avoiding telling the woman about her daughter, but it would be easier to get answers from her before she was too upset.
“Mrs. Wyche, is Jennifer Peterson your daughter?”
“‘Fraid so. What did she do?” the woman repeated suspiciously.
Frank ignored her, asking when she’d last seen Jennifer.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said offhandedly. “Maybe three, four days ago. Let’s see, it must have been Sunday because she didn’t come home for dinner. I remember because I went to a lot of trouble to make something she and Randy both like—Randy’s my husband. He’s not Jennie’s father. I made pork chops. I try to make something they both like or else one of them bitches all through dinner and ruins everyone else’s appetite. They never seem—”
Noah interrupted her.
“So you haven’t seen Jennifer for three days?”
“That’s right.”
“And you weren’t concerned about that?”
“Detective, you’ve got to understand, Jennie pulls stunts like this all the time. At first I was concerned,
but when they started happening on a regular basis I just quit worrying. She always comes home sooner or later.”
Not this time, Frank thought, and asked what it was that started happening on a regular basis.
Delia Wyche gathered her patience with a large sigh and explained, “When she started running off. The first time was three years ago, right after I remarried. She and Randy don’t get along so good—she ran away to show me how unhappy she was. She did it a couple of times after that. I was worried in the beginning, but she’s always just at a friend’s house. I finally figured, let her knock herself out. I don’t have time to chase her all over.”
“Mrs. Wyche, can you tell us exactly when you last saw your daughter?”
“Well, yeah I can, but what’s this all about? What sort of detectives are you anyway?”
Frank again ignored the questions and drilled the woman with a pitiless gaze.
“Mrs. Wyche, what was your daughter doing the last time you saw her?”
Mrs. Wyche wiggled uncomfortably in her chair. When she answered, her voice was tinged with a whine.
“The last time I saw her was in the kitchen. I was doing the dishes—God forbid she or Randy should do them—and she came in to make herself a sandwich. She’d just gotten up, and she had her backpack with her. I asked her where she thought she was going, and she said to the park. Then I—”
“Which park?”
“The one off Jefferson, by all the oil derricks. It gives me the—”
“Do you mean the Culver City Park? With the ball fields?”
“I guess. It’s the one off Duquesne, right off Jefferson,” she said impatiently.
“Alright, then what?”
“I asked her about her homework, which she’d been putting off all weekend, and she asked what did I think she had in her pack? Then when I asked why she had to go to the park to study, she started bitching about the noise Randy was making in the garage.”
