Last Call

by Baxter Clare

  For each point she makes Frank pops a finger from her fist.

  “Your abduction—spontaneous as it may have been—was very well executed. It took nerve and finesse, not a combination usually found in your younger perps. The quality of the overall execution, from abduction through the assault to the dump, tells me this guy’s either been thinking about this for a long time or he’s done this before.

  “Now, you might ask, if he’s done this before, and he’s a local boy like you insist, why don’t we have similar cases popping up in the databases? Excellent question. To wit, I think he’s also very smart. Not book smart, mind you, but savvy. Shrewd. He knows enough to strike well away from home.

  “Which leads to an aside. I would expect him to be driving a high-mileage, dependable vehicle, something with a simple engine that he can make repairs on himself, because we know he’s good with his hands, and he probably doesn’t have a lot of money. He probably can’t hold on to a job for long because of his stellar personality. He’s anti-social and we can surmise he doesn’t react well to stressors. Even if he has kept the same job for a while he’s certainly not promotional material. But I digress.”

  Frank rattles the ice in her almost empty glass.

  “He hits away from home. And I think he takes whatever victims happen along. Witness you two. Trevor, hate to say it, buddy, but you were just an afterthought. It was your sister he wanted. I’ll bet he’s got a considerable porn collection and spends a lot of time with it. Tides him over from strike to strike. Lots of helpless female/dominant male crap. He gets off on imagining himself in control of situations, because in real life he’s not. Like I said, low-income, poor people skills, and because he’s smart, he probably knows he’s missing out, that everyone’s after him and that the world owes him.

  “Look at the way he raped you, Ladeenia. Like he was entitled to you. We haven’t found our boy because he’s cunning. He’s been around enough to know how the game is played, and he’s smart enough to play without getting caught. He’s learned a trick or two, and that comes with age.”

  Frank pauses long enough to pour Scotch over the vestigial ice cubes. The Pryce kids grin at her.

  “So. Older black male. Some sort of skilled laborer. He’s smart, so I think he needs to be challenged. He’ll do something that requires some degree of training or experience. He might even be very good at it, but again, his personality will get in the way of advancement.

  “How about his home life? Where does he live? Well, if he’s employed he’ll have a stable residence, but he can’t be too selective about his job so he might have to travel a ways to get to it and still live in an area that his income dictates. Again, the need for a stable, reliable vehicle. It’s probably well maintained, because we know he’s organized and good with his hands. An older model in good shape. Probably something American, easy to work on, cheap parts. Probably doesn’t trust foreign cars. Sorry. Again I digress.”

  She glances at her watch and drains the glass. Pours another inch from the bottle and prowls silently. Based on Ladeenia’s multiple rapes, the perp is sexually adequate, so he could well be living with a female. But he took the kids somewhere private, a place probably not far from either the dump or the abduction site. So, if he is living with a woman, she wasn’t home between 3:00 and 4:30 in the afternoon. Nor would she be expected to return as he had plenty of time with the children and kept their bodies presumably until he could dispose of them under cover of night.

  The trace evidence on Ladeenia suggested she was attacked in a kitchen or a place where food is served, maybe a dining room. If the perp expected someone home sooner or later wouldn’t he have sought more privacy?

  “We know he’s organized,” Frank says to the kids. “He apparently had you both well in control. No defense marks on you, Ladeenia. Your nail scrapes came up negative. Nice, quiet little girl. He could have taken you wherever he wanted. So why’d he rape you in such a public space, where anyone could walk in and see him? He took a huge risk abducting you but that’s really his only risk. Everything else he did was planned out. You two came to him somehow, didn’t you? Not that I’m blaming you or saying you did anything bad, but somehow you crossed his path and he took advantage of that. Two kids walking alone in the late afternoon on a drizzly dark day…

  “Maybe his stressor was a fight with the old lady, so he’s sitting in his doorway, or in his garage, home alone, just thinking and drinking. He sees you, Ladeenia, and bam! He’s gonna take what’s his. Shit.” It dawns on her. “I’ve been canvassing for a couple, and now we’re back to a lone perp.”

  Frank decides she’ll go back to the more cooperative people and ask questions based on the new profile.

  “Okay. Whatever. We’ll do what it takes. Back to your assault, Miss Ladeenia. The salient characteristic here? It wasn’t personalized. He didn’t cover your face, or blindfold you. Didn’t bind you or perpetrate any kind of sadism or mutilation. The assault was completely impersonal, like you were as insignificant as a blow-up doll. You filled this guy’s needs and then he dumped you like garbage. No anger, no remorse, just pure, narcissistic satisfaction. He was scratching an itch.”

  There was no indication the perp had a relationship with Ladeenia. He wouldn’t care for or pretend to care for others. He would be self-absorbed and self-obsessed. His relationships were probably unsatisfying for both partners and Frank couldn’t imagine them lasting long. If he’d been married it was probably for convenience. Maybe his women stayed because he had some money, a crib. He’d definitely cheat on them and he probably had a string of sexual contacts, most of them short-term because he probably had no motivation for a relationship other than sexual satisfaction. And more his own than his partner’s.

  Frank stops her relentless pacing long enough to make a few notes, then addresses the pictures.

  “Got a little sidetracked there. Back to his chitty. Ah, and here’s the crux of the thing. Get this. Assuming he takes good care of his ride, what better place for this guy to be—where he can see you two coming down the street and initiate contact with you—than in his driveway, or in his garage working on his car? It wasn’t actually raining between three and four, just blustery. So he could have been outside, sees you coming, lures you into his garage somehow and bam—you’re in the house. I like that.”

  She nurses the liquor, eyes closed, still for a moment. Not a family man, she thinks, so not a passenger vehicle. Sports cars take money and they’re temperamental. They’re flashy and compact. If this guy is a serious rapist, then he’s going to spend a lot of time cruising around in his vehicle. He’ll need space to spread out and feel comfortable. Nor would he appreciate a sports car’s high visibility. And if he is a skilled laborer, he might have his own tools and need space for hauling them.

  “Okay, boy and girl, here’s my final answer. The tried-and-true criminal vehicle of choice, your average van. Or,” Frank qualifies, “something roomy like a work truck with a shell. Maybe a used Blazer or Bronco. Something easy to fix. Plenty of space for parts, tools and the occasional unwitting victim. Not a conspicuous vehicle.”

  The alarm on Frank’s wrist goes off.

  “Nothing flashy or customized. Too expensive.”

  She tosses off the rest of the Black Label and jots a few notes.

  “Love to stay,” she says to the paper children, “but duty calls.”

  Chapter 20

  After a peaceful enough night together, Gail calls Frank at work. “Guess what I’ve got?”

  Frank almost says she hopes it’s not an STD, but knows Gail wouldn’t appreciate the crude humor. “The most beautiful legs in L.A.?”

  “Just LA?”

  “The planet,” Frank allows.

  “Tickets to La Traviata.”

  “Great. When?”

  “Tonight! I won them on the radio driving in to work. Can you believe it?”

  No, Frank thinks, she can’t.

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, but don’
t worry. It’s not opening night. You don’t have to get dressed up. Your work clothes will be fine.”

  That’s not what Frank’s worried about, but the excitement in Gail’s voice keeps her from admitting she’d rather cavity search a hope-to-the crackhead tonight than sit through two hours of Italian opera. Frank sighs without sound, asking where she should meet Gail and when.

  The doc picks her up close to 5:30, the mandatory ten minutes late. She bursts radiantly through Frank’s front door and for a shining second Frank loves her again. She warns herself not to be an asshole tonight.

  Holding Gail close to her, Frank praises, “The most beautiful woman on the planet.”

  Gail beams and kisses her, but Frank’s sincerity drains away like the tide around the pilings of the Santa Monica pier. She feels the suck of it leaving and tries to hold on, but she’s left with only air. Gail picks this of all times to tell Frank, “I love you.”

  Even as she tells herself to just repeat the words, Frank is nodding, “I know. We better get going.”

  Later, Frank tells herself, in the bedroom’s concealing darkness she’ll tell Gail she loves her. Maybe then she’ll feel the words. If she doesn’t, maybe the night will hide her lie. They chat amiably during the return to downtown. Frank studies Gail’s animated profile. She knows without reserve that Gail is playful, fun, sexy, bright—dozens of good adjectives—hence Frank’s frustration at feeling nothing in kind but a low-level aversion.

  The talk turns to their respective days. Frank returns the dutiful questions. When Gail asks if she got a chance to work on the Pryce case, Frank hesitates. It’s a touchy subject.

  “You still don’t have any suspects?”

  “Well, I didn’t when I thought I was looking for a couple, but now that I’m back to a single perp again … I don’t know. Probably not. There’s a handful Noah kept looking at, but I haven’t talked to them yet. They’re not ringing any bells for me. One of them pimps really young girls.” Ignoring Gail’s shudder, Frank continues, “His grandmother lives on the same block where the bodies were found and she was gone all afternoon. The house was empty and the grandson had a key. Came and went as he pleased. He’s got weak alibis for the time period, but there’s no hard evidence against him. Ladeenia’s personal effects—”

  “Ladeenia?”

  “Yeah. She’s the girl. Her—”

  “Since when are you on a first-name basis with your victims?”

  Frank checks a sigh. “Is there a point to this line of questioning?”

  “You don’t usually refer to your victims by their first names. It sounds so personal.”

  Not willing to follow where she thinks Gail is going, Frank slogs on, “So all the physical evidence got lost somewhere at SID.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Lost evidence is not uncommon in a bureaucracy the size of the LAPD, but Gail’s sarcasm still rankles. Frank jabs back, “There’s no DNA to match to these guys because the sperm was too degraded by the time the coroner got around to autopsying her. Second guy’s down in Calipatria, violent sexual predator. Same for him. Weak alibi, no evidence, tight story. The best of the three raped a thirteen-year-old at knifepoint but was apparently up north when the kid—” Frank catches herself. “When the case went down. There’s a handful of guys in the area with priors, but they’ve never developed into viable suspects.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re working a—how old is this case?”

  “Six years.”

  “Okay. You’re working a six-year-old case, with no physical evidence, no suspects and no witnesses. And you expect to clear this how?”

  “Through dint of my superior investigative acumen.”

  Gail shoots an eyebrow up. “Wow. I think you’ve been hanging around me too long.”

  “Maybe so, Shakespeare.”

  Frank used to call Gail that when they first started dating, when Gail hid her nervousness behind big words and formal speech. Now the name softens her and Gail asks, “So what do you drink happened to all your evidence?”

  “No clue.”

  Frank explains that the blanket the kids were found under, their clothing and the tape on their bodies all were collected by the coroner investigator, as they should have been. Detectives don’t usually handle the transfer of evidence from the coroner’s office to the SID facility but in this case Noah had signed out the physical evidence and personally delivered it to William Kastanaphoulas at Piper Tech. Because of SID’s backlog and the Pryce case’s low priority, it took four months, with constant nagging on Noah’s part, for Kastanaphoulas to analyze the material.

  When Noah finally got the message from SID that the evidence had been processed he’d raced to Ramirez Street, only to be told that Kastanaphoulas had gone to Oklahoma for two weeks. Noah talked to the Trace Evidence supervisor who authorized another criminalist to sign out Noah’s package. Noah waited while she went to get it, only to be horrified when she couldn’t find the evidence. She found copies of the lab reports and turned those over to him, but the blanket, clothing and tape weren’t anywhere. Noah had looked with her. They checked every log and record. They talked to each person associated with the case. They searched Kastanaphoulas’s work area. But the evidence had vanished.

  Frank had managed to calm Noah by reasoning that at least he had the lab reports to work with and that Kastanaphoulas would probably be able to lay his hands on the material as soon as he got back from Oklahoma. Noah had consoled himself with the slim laboratory findings, fruitlessly tracking trace fibers back to the Pryce home. The fibers he couldn’t track were so common as to be useless.

  On the morning of Kastanaphoulas’s return, Noah had cornered the criminalist before he could pour his first cup of coffee. Kastanaphoulas explained that he’d packaged the material and left Noah the message to pick it up. That was a week before he’d left town. He remembered being surprised, and a little pissed, that for all his hurry Noah still hadn’t collected the evidence by the time he’d left for Oklahoma. Because the evidence was labeled with Noah’s name and the Figueroa address, Kastanaphoulas’s best guess was that the evidence had been mistakenly delivered to the station. Noah had ransacked Figueroa’s Property Room and then gone on a tear through the Property Division’s warehouse, but all for naught. The evidence never materialized.

  “How frustrating.”

  “Whatever.” Frank shrugs. “It happens. It was more frustrating for Noah than me. It drove him hard. I wish I’d have helped him with it before he—” And again Frank cuts herself off. “I never had the time,” she says out the window.

  “And now it’s a one-woman crusade.”

  Frank slings the doc a glance. “I don’t know that I’d say that.”

  Gail doesn’t comment, asking only where Frank wants to eat.

  “Ladies’ choice,” Frank answers. Her thoughts flee to the Pryce case. While Gail chats about her mother, Frank tries to figure when she can finagle interviews of Noah’s suspects into her schedule.

  Chapter 21

  “World owes me a living,” Frank says to her glass. Her ass may be planted on her couch but her head isn’t. Idly going over the Pryce photographs, hoping a clue might kick loose, she’s drifted into the perp’s head. She imagines him different places just before he sees the kids.

  It’s Ladeenia he sees first. Something about her pulls at him. Her smallness and vulnerability. He feels strong just watching her. The boy walks beside his sister. The children approach him, unsuspecting. This feeds his ego. An idea pops into his head and he looks around the neighborhood. No one sits outside; it’s too cold. Shades are pulled and windows are rain-spotted. The kids come closer, still not alarmed, and he hides his excitement. Their thin voices are muted by the damp air. He focuses on the girl. He likes to watch her walk. She’s so little. So fine. The boy has almost disappeared from his vision. He watches them approach and his idea blossoms like a flower from hell.

  The unnamable longing that’s never as
far from him as his shadow evaporates in a rush of excitement. His brain is on fire, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. The children don’t sense it. They’re closer now. Closer. Here. Looking at him. Maybe they know him, maybe they’ve seen him before. None of that matters now. Nothing matters. Just getting her into the house, that’s all that matters. Quiet. No fuss. Oh, please just come with me. Yes, and they do.

  Frank’s voice is spidery. “How do I do it? Come see my puppy? Come in? Hurry, rain’s coming. Want a cookie, a cupcake? Would you like to meet my little girl? She’s sick, she inside. Come on in.”

  And then they’re in, and he locks the door and the adrenaline’s shooting through him like he’s doing eightballs. He wants to get the boy out of the way. He’s a distraction. All he can think about is the girl. He’s got her. He’s in control and his cock leaps like a rabbit. It gets harder as he holds the boy so he can’t scream. In a quiet voice he warns her not to scream either or he’ll hurt the boy. He’s smart. He knows the girl’s older than the boy and responsible for him. She won’t want to get a whipping, so she watches silently as he gropes in a drawer and binds the boy in tape.

  Now he’s so hard he can’t stand it. He thinks he’s gonna rupture if he doesn’t get inside her so he takes her right there. Right against the table. Doesn’t realize he’s imbedding food grains into her bared bottom and the backs of her hands and he’s barely in her before he comes and comes and comes. The climax leaves him spent, and while he gets his breath back he contemplates his find. No way he’s turning her loose. Uh-uh. Not yet. He breathes heavily. He doesn’t talk to either child, except for an occasional command. He eyes the girl crumpled under the table. She cries with muted sobs, too terrified to make noise. The boy’s eyes bulge over his taped mouth. He doesn’t know what’s going on.

  Frank’s left hand pats for the fifth on the floor. Her fingers can’t find it. Annoyed, she pins the folder on her chest with her right hand and rolls onto her shoulder to retrieve the bottle. She pours at an awkward angle and drops of Scotch spill onto the carpet. She frowns more at the waste than the mess, even though she’s taken to bringing Mr. Walker home by the case. She fluffs the booze into the carpet pile and settles back.