by Baxter Clare
"Off the record, Lieutenant. I swear."
The tic of a smile Frank had given Sally earlier was a little wider this time and lasted a second longer. It almost reached her eyes.
"Promise?" Frank asked, and Sally agreed eagerly. The lieutenant lowered her head toward Sally and glanced around as she opened the car door. Then she bent closer to the perfectly coifed hair framing Sally Eisley's perfectly gorgeous little ear. Frank's lips moved against the starched blonde strands.
As Captains Foubarelle and Bedford stepped self-importantly from their car, Frank slipped into hers. Johnnie steered them quickly into the light traffic and Noah leaned over the seat.
"Hey. What'd you say to Sally?"
Frank was mulling over the peculiarities of the case and she answered laconically.
"Told her she'd stepped in dog shit."
Johnnie chuckled. Twice already, Frank had made his day.
2
The way he stormed into her office, Frank knew that if she had balls, Fubar would be busting them. Almost shouting, he demanded, "Why didn't you wait for us at the high school this morning?" Frank sighed and tipped her chair back, steepling two fingers against her lips. "What the hell was going on out there?" The captain wasn't a bad guy, just incompetent, and Franco resented incompetency. In her line of work it could get people killed. She'd admit he'd only been captain for six months, but she was sure if his learning curve was graphed it would show up as a horizontal line.
In a monotone Frank explained, "We'd been on that case for hours. Before that we were at another scene for three hours. The good citizens of L.A. pay us for an eight-hour day, John. We were already into the seventh hour of our day, with no paper generated on either case. We could have wasted more time standing around like idiots for the cameras, or we could have come back here to do some work."
Foubarelle opened his mouth to interrupt, but Frank dropped her chair and leaned toward him.
"If you want to pay my guys overtime, I'll have them jumping around in monkey suits for you, but until then, we've got murders to solve. We don't get that 74 percent clearance rate by dicking around with Tom Brokaw all day." Finished, Frank sat back.
The captain had read dozens of management books, replete with all the tricks about how to jockey oneself into a position of physical power, but even standing over Frank he felt smaller than her. Foubarelle hadn't come up through the ranks, and at times it cost him. In eleven short years he had jumped from patrol cop to patrol sergeant, served briefly as a vice detective before making vice lieutenant, then on to homicide captain. He was making strides in the political process but at the cost of respect among the people he supervised. They knew he fell asleep at night dreaming that chief was stenciled on his office door. But Foubarelle wasn't out to bust chops, he was merely being politically expedient. When his chain was yanked, he turned around to yank Frank's.
Now he took a softer tack with his contumacious lieutenant. She was right that he enjoyed supervising a homicide squad with such a large percentage of cleared cases, large at least for the Figueroa district. He knew Frank was responsible for that number and he knew it made him look very good.
"I'm sorry," he offered, turning up his hands in conciliation. "I know you've got a lot of work to do. Tell me about this girl."
Frank ignored the patronization, wondering just how much she could trust Foubarelle with. He had a tendency to leak valuable details, but then she realized they didn't have any valuable details. Yet.
"White girl, midteens. Noah may have ID'd her on an MP bulletin. I asked Crocetti to do her ASAP."
She paused for a moment knowing the captain's next step would be a call to the coroner. He never actually went to the morgue but he was the first to redball the old coroner when a hot case was pending. That was good for Frank; Foubarelle's phone calls usually got the autopsy done faster while keeping the heat off Frank and her squad.
"Valley girl coming to score a little coke in the 'hood?" he asked.
"I don't think so."
The girl didn't have any of the earmarks of a kick down. Frank explained how the victim had been brutally assaulted, how some of her bruises looked older than others. She told Foubarelle what the coroner's tech had told her, that the cause of death was possibly due to internal trauma. There were no obvious external causes. Usually someone in a jammed-up drug deal was capped or stabbed and just left for dead.
"But she was dumped?"
"Yeah. Nothing at the scene. I called SID in just in case—you might get a call about that." Frank shrugged again, then added, "I'm going to work this with Noah."
Foubarelle nodded, pleased.
"Keep me posted on this, Frank. I want to know everything you know, when you know it, okay?"
"Sure."
Foubarelle turned to go, saying, "And I want to see the protocol as soon as you have it." He knew it was important to leave with the upper hand.
"What an asshole," Frank thought, watching him leave with his imaginary dignity intact. She picked up a stack of messages and sifted through them, crumpling some and tossing them in the trash. She pulled the phone toward her but then sat back, rhythmically tapping the small slips of paper into a tidy pile.
Frank visualized the dead girl sprawled naked on the concrete. She'd been mauled, from her neck down to her knees. Some of the bruises looked older than others, indicating she'd been beaten over a period of time, not just in a sudden pique of anger. Frank remembered that her face was relatively unscathed.
And why was she dumped in plain view on a sidewalk in front of a school? Vacant lots, weedy road shoulders, empty buildings— those were common dump areas. Ike and Diego were working a possible connection to the school, either the girl's or the killer's.
She traded the messages in her hand for the MP bulletin. It looked like the same girl. Melissa Agoura. Sixteen years old. From Culver City. She'd disappeared from Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area three days ago. The bruises could be consistent with those dates.
She'd been attractive, Frank thought, sailing the bulletin back onto her desk, then dialing the phone. Returning her calls and waiting for a correct ID was more productive right now than speculating.
Noah was bent over one of the two typewriters in the office that actually worked. Slipping into her jacket, Frank informed him, "Coroner called. Handley matched our girl to the bulletin. And Crotchety's ready to cut. Let's go." She slapped him on the back and started walking away.
"Aww, man, Leslie's got a game at 3:30. If I left now I could just make it," he pleaded.
"Come on. It's good for you. Builds character."
"I've got character," he argued, rising nonetheless. He grumbled all the way to the morgue, and she let him. Noah was off hours ago, adored his kids, and hated autopsies. She'd have watched the autopsy alone on a less sensitive case but she wanted him in on this one.
Awkward, skinny, all flapping hands and feet, Noah looked more like a scarecrow than a crack homicide detective. He was consistently the worst shot in the department and the best cop Frank had. What he lacked in physical presence he compensated for with instinct, intelligence, and compassion. He was rarely more than a step behind Frank and often one or two ahead. She'd felt a twinge of guilt reassigning this case to Noah, knowing it could be messy. It was already distracting Noah from the little family life he had, but selfishly, Frank was glad to be working with him. The least she could do was let him carp. Besides, that was another of Noah's specialties.
Noah grimaced when they entered the cool, tiled autopsy room and started breathing through his mouth. The girl's body was on a metal autopsy table. An assistant was measuring it. Frank didn't recognize the woman in scrubs standing next to Crocetti.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen—" he peered over his bifocals at Frank—" and I only use the term ladies because Dr. Lawless is present, let us begin."
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Crocetti didn't mind women in law enforcement. In fact, he rather liked it, but he expected them to act like
women. Frank was more like one of the guys, and this irritated the old man. He was cranky by nature, hence the nickname Crotchety, but he was getting crankier the closer he got to retirement.
As he swabbed the body, the coroner made introductions.
"Dr. Gail Lawless, Detective Noah Jantzen," Noah extended his hand, "and Lieutenant Franco." Frank nodded curtly, not even looking at the woman she was being introduced to. Crocetti continued. "Dr. Lawless is my hapless though far more attractive replacement."
The old man swung his head from one woman to the next and remarked curiously, "They certainly grow you girls tall these days. It must have been all that Wonder Bread."
Frank glanced at the new ME. She was indeed tall, but flat and thin, like Modigliani's blue woman. Frank thought Bobby Taylor— one of her detectives who'd minored in art—would have been pleased with the analogy. Dr. Lawless had smiled wryly at Crocetti's comment, and Noah was grinning goofily. He had a thing for tall women. Frank could tell he was already smitten.
"Any idea what made the bruises?" Frank asked, all cool business and efficiency.
Bending intently over the body, Crocetti responded, "Hasn't anyone ever told you, Lieutenant, that patience is a virtue?"
He poked and prodded for a moment, made a few comments to his colleague, then straightened, frowning sourly.
"It looks like this poor girl was mistaken for a bowling pin. There are so many bruises here it's hard to tell where one ends and another begins. You know," he said toward the body, "I have a granddaughter this age."
A shake of his head chased the thought away, and he gruffly asked for details about the case. Noah told him what they had so far.
"Well," the old man sighed, "let's see what we can find here."
Crocetti lowered his bald head over the table, enunciating carefully for the microphone.
"Victim appears to be a healthy teenage Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes, height—?"
"Sixty-four inches," Handley responded loudly. Crocetti repeated the height and when he asked for the weight Jack called out, "One hundred twenty-four pounds."
"You don't have to scream," complained the old man, then calmly continued.
"Victim has all her teeth, in good condition. No apparent scars, tattoos, or abnormalities. Right shoulder appears dislocated."
Crocetti measured a cut on the left side of her chin and noted the associated hematoma.
He carefully examined the rest of the bruises, asking Dr. Lawless for her opinion. She outlined specific ones with a gloved finger, noting, "The patterns appear more rounded than linear where the contusions don't overlap. The bruises are deep, but the absence of laceration suggests she was hit with something relatively flexible or soft. The varied discoloration suggests they were inflicted over time."
"Do they look like they could be older than three days?"
"It's possible, but these are certainly consistent with that time frame...don't you think?" she asked Crocetti.
He was beaming at his replacement. "I do indeed, my dear. Now tell me what else you see."
"Well, there are slight adhesive traces on her wrists and ankles, along with a mild abrasion, and the skin's a little paler there, suggesting she was bound with some sort of tape."
"Was she gagged?" Frank thought aloud.
Lawless bent closer to Agoura's face.
"Probably," pointing to faint traces of adhesive around Agoura's mouth.
"This looks consistent with the other adhesives, and we'll see what we get back from the mouth swabs."
"Well done," Crocetti said, snapping his gloves off. Except for Noah, everyone waited patiently while Crocetti wrote down notes. Although he taped the autopsy proceedings he still insisted on hard copy. Frank appreciated his lack of faith in technology, even though it slowed the whole process. She looked around at four other steel gurneys, each being autopsied by one of Crocetti's staff. She knew there were plenty more bodies waiting in the cooler and was pleased the old man had gotten to Agoura as soon as he had.
"Were any of those blows enough to kill her?" Noah asked.
"I can't say for sure until I see inside," answered the coroner without looking up. "From the bloat on her abdomen it feels like we'll find a significant trauma of some sort."
That told them nothing, and Noah continued his restless pacing, biting on a thumbnail. Pulling on new gloves, Crocetti turned and said, "All right, Jack. Let's scrape the nails, and Dr. Lawless, if you would care to comb her hair out I will proceed with the rape test."
The three whitecoats went efficiently about their tasks, wresting clues from the hidden holds of the victim's body. Frank watched Crocetti apply toluidine solution to the oral, anal, and vaginal areas, while Noah continued his pacing.
"I wonder if they've put Les in the game yet," he said to Frank. "We've been working on her dribble. I hope she keeps her head up like I showed her."
He turned around when Crocetti murmured, "There we go."
The toluidine had showed up on the anal cavity, staining the entire area dark blue as it reacted to the polysaccharides on the abraded skin tissue. Frank found that curious. Whoever had this girl had plenty of time to rape her, in any way he wanted, yet curiously he'd only sodomized her.
With the external exam over, Crocetti was ready to cut the big coroner's Y that would show them the inside of Melissa Agoura. The two doctors and two detectives peered into the body and no one there needed a medical degree to realize blood had pooled in places where it should never be.
Crocetti's replacement said, "Wow," and as the old coroner cut away the chest plate he noted into the mike, "Massive hemorrhage is apparent."
The old man could probably do this with his eyes shut and one arm tied behind his back, yet he cautiously and daintily cut the thoracic organs from their moorings, another meticulous attention to detail that drove the detectives batty. After examining the right lung he put it in a weighing pan and instructed Dr. Lawless to explain what she saw. She rearranged the organ and studied it for a moment, then pointed at a tear.
"You can see where it's been punctured at the bottom here. The tissue is ripped, not cut, and the puncture doesn't extend more than," she quickly grabbed a ruler, "four centimeters."
"What made it?" Noah asked, but Crocetti shook his head at him. He didn't want to commit to that yet, and Noah returned to his frustrated pacing. Chin in hand, Frank continued her impassive observation. When he was satisfied the young woman on the table hadn't been asphyxiated, Crocetti turned his attention to the abdominal cavity. He poked and prodded, then straightened, arching the stiffness out of his back.
"What do you see, doctor?"
Dr. Lawless quietly poked and prodded too, finally saying, "There's considerable trauma to numerous organs, any of which could have been the cause of death."
Pointing with a scalpel tip she traced the path of the injuries, starting with the grossly ruptured rectum. Perforations in the bladder and intestine followed the trajectory of perforations in the liver, stomach, and pancreas.
"Good," Crocetti commented when she was done, then continued excising and measuring organs. Further inspection showed that the bruising continued well below the skin, involving numerous bones and organs as well. She'd been hit pretty hard, but the lack of lacerations suggested she may have had some type of padding between herself and the assailant's weapon. The doctors couldn't say what sort of weapon that might be.
With a flourish, as if he were asking her to dance, Crocetti asked his replacement if she'd like to finish the autopsy.
"Sure," she said easily, and proceeded to excise the neck organs. Without flinching, Frank could watch the torso being slit and eviscerated, or see the skull-saw spray hot bone before the brain was lifted out with a last, small gasp, but cutting into the neck still made Frank glance down at her feet. When Dr. Lawless moved onto the head area, Frank resumed her observation. Other than a mild concussion, the doctors found no further injury to Melissa Agoura.
"Jack, please finish."
Handley proceeded to replace the various body parts while the old man gave the detectives his back to write further notes. Noah rolled his eyes at Frank and tapped his watch. Arms folded patiently, Frank nodded. Finally the coroner gave them his full attention.
"Well, detectives, I think you pretty much have your answer. In my opinion this girl died of massive internal hemorrhage induced by multiple organ rupture, seemingly initiated by a pointed, long-handled instrument. The shape of the perforations seems consistent with the use of an irregularly-sided instrument, such as," he held up a small specimen bottle, "a tree branch. I believe the lab analysis will conclude that these fragments, found around various perforations, are wood. Dr. Lawless?"
"I'd say that's it in a nutshell."
"Oh, one more thing," Crocetti added playfully. "According to the path of insertion, the fellow you're looking for will probably be left-handed."
"Aww, man." Noah flapped his arms and shuffled in a tight circle. He complained to Frank, "For this I'm missing my kid's ball game?"
He'd really enjoyed the first few games. He was barely able to keep the football helmet above his eyes but he'd had fun anyway. His dad seemed to enjoy it, too, and he'd been struck with wonder: for the first time in his six years he was having fun with his father. It was an unusual feeling, but a good one, and the boy wanted it to always be like that.
Sometimes his father would yell when he dropped the ball or tripped over his own feet. Once, the Pop Warner coach had gently interceded, explaining to the angry man that six-year olds weren't very coordinated, that that would come with time.
"It better," his father had menaced.
By the next year, he made it clear that he thought the boy's coordination should have arrived. Shoves and smacks replaced the verbal threats. The other parents would look away. The coach refused to have the boy on his team if the father continued hitting him. So his father stopped. In public.
3
Franco spent most of her days and many of her nights in Figueroa, LAPD's roughest district. The 'hood had started as a peaceful community in which mainly black sharecroppers strived for their piece of the American Dream. As industry waned over the ensuing decades, crime and the inevitably profitable drug markets became the 'hood's economic mainstay. With more crackheads and gangbangers in Figueroa than any other division in the LAPD, the American Dream had twisted cruelly into a nightmare. Now the population was largely Hispanic, with blacks accounting for slightly less than 20 percent of the residents. Asians, many of them Korean, rounded out the demographics.
