A rumbling in Frank's gut broke her concentration. Reluctantly, she put the photo away. She massaged her face for a moment, reorienting herself to the world beyond three-ring binders. She stuffed the last one into her briefcase and walked downstairs, out to the parking garage. Traffic on Figueroa was stop-and-go, and Frank let the chill air blow the cobwebs out of her brain.
It was warm and lively at the Alibi as she walked around the tables, dipping her head in rough greetings. Frank raised a hand, caught Deirdre's eye, and settled into one of the small booths. Deirdre delivered drinks to a nearby table, asking Frank over her shoulder, "Stout?"
"Double Dewar's, no ice."
Frank waited until the drink came before she opened the remaining murder book. She was beat, but she was almost through the daunting pile. Besides, under the tiredness she had to admit to curiosity. Sipping her drink, she held up a crime scene photograph, not wanting to lay it out for public display.
This girl was white, blonde/blue, a Jane Doe, fifteen to seventeen years old, and the picture made Frank put her drink down. The vie was lying on her side, eyes open to a concrete sidewalk. She was dressed in tattered blue jeans, a T-shirt, open wool shirt, worn Doc Marten-style shoes. The top of her pants was pulled down around her thighs and soaked with blood. A stick projected from between the cheeks of her ass. The lack of blood at the scene indicated she'd probably been dumped there.
Frank stared at the bloodied girl, the bruised face. She didn't bother with the rest of the photographs but quickly read the autopsy protocol. Cause of death, massive internal hemorrhage. Manner, rupture of internal organs by tree branch inserted through anus. The investigative reports confirmed the Doe had been dumped.
Cursing silently, Frank drained the Scotch. Black electricity was zinging through her. What if the rapes had never stopped? What if they'd turned into homicides instead?
Frantically, she pulled notes out of her briefcase and followed the progression of assaults. The first one on her list was in December, and they occurred on a regular basis after that—January, March, April, May, June—then the rapes ended. But Nichols was killed in August, this girl in September, Agoura in October, and Peterson just weeks ago. Like clockwork. The son of a bitch had never stopped, just progressed. She reviewed the assaults, fully aware of their escalating brutality. As his skills had increased, so had his satisfaction threshold. It made sense. With each subsequent attack the perp had raised his bar a little higher. Murder would be a logical, inevitable benchmark. Meaning there would be more and their horror would increase. And he was almost due.
"Need a refill?"
Frank jerked her head up at Deirdre.
"Geez, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"Yeah, maybe I have. How about another double. And something to go, uh, a BLT."
"Toasted?"
"What?"
"Do you want your bread toasted or not?"
Frank was so preoccupied she had trouble understanding the simple question.
"Yeah. Sure."
Frank felt in way over her head for the second time that night. When the sandwich came she jogged out of the Alibi and drove back to the brightly lit station. Taking the steps to the second floor three at a time, she once again pulled her Quantico books, the BLT slowly congealing in its styrofoam box.
After that night at Gil's, it was common for them to cruise the red light strips. The father would drive, they'd both look. When he found a hooker he liked, usually a young girl, the father would make her get in the car. The hookers hated that, but they were usually hungry enough to go for it. If one refused, they'd find another, then park in a secluded lot. The first couple of times the father had gone first, taking the girl in the ass. Then he'd jerked off while he watched his son with her. Soon he stopped fucking the whores and just got off on watching. The rougher his son was, the more he liked it. If the girl complained too much, the boy tightened his shirt around her throat until she shut up. Then he'd bang into her as hard as he wanted. It felt like flying.
10
When Noah walked into the squad room next morning, Frank was waiting impatiently for him at the coffee pot, eating last night's french fries and sandwich. Her hair was slicked back, dripping occasionally against her burgundy turtleneck, and Noah greeted, "Dudess. Another all-nighter?"
Frank tilted her head toward the office. Noah followed in the wake of her coffee steam.
"Close the door."
"Oh, a good one."
She indicated a city map she'd pinned to the wall above the couch.
"Red pins are rapes, green pins are homicides. I finally got to those murder books yesterday. Here. Take a look at this, too."
She handed him a copy of the report she'd made of the pertinent rape and murder cases.
"Wow."
"No shit."
"So you think he never went underground, just switched to murder."
"Yeah."
"But if it's the same perp, how do you explain this sudden switch from rape to sticks up the ass? Isn't that kinda drastic? I mean we didn't see anything like that with the assaults."
Frank shook her head excitedly, water falling off in fat drops. Her color was high and she was animated, not her regular laconic self.
"Easy. Let's start at the beginning. Look at the ages of these girls. Let's say he's never committed a rape before December, or at least not one he's planned out and thought about. He's out there trolling and wants someone easy. So he picks a little girl. The first one, Aguilar, was only ten. How hard can it be to handle a ten-year old? We know he's a big man. It would be easy to overpower her.
And a little girl's not threatening, you know? She's not street smart, she's not tough, she's an easy mark.
"So Aguilar goes down easy, and he does another little girl in January. That'd be Menendez. She's thirteen, right?"
Noah nodded at the paper in his hand.
"Okay, so she's easy too, and he's getting the hang of this thing. It's simple. He's feeling confident, feeling good. In March he does an eleven-year old. Then in April he graduates to a fourteen-year old, Troupe. That goes down easy too. He's a master now. For the rest of these rapes he stays consistent with fourteen to sixteen-year olds."
"But this Nichols girl is only twelve."
"You're right. But look where she lives...," Frank pointed to an area near a cluster of red pins, "...and where she's found."
She tapped a green pin just above the red ones, saying, "Two blocks from Baldwin Hills Elementary."
Frank pawed through an assortment of notes.
"Look at how he's alternating here," she said, indicating the red pins. "Girls one, two, and four are done at or around Culver City Park. Girls three, five, and six, at or around Kenneth Hahn. With six under his belt he must be feeling pretty confident, and he's smart, too. He must know he can't keep doing this in the same spots and not get caught. So on number seven he goes out of his territory and over to Crenshaw. Number eight is still about as equidistant as seven, but it's west, over at CC High. Do you see?"
Frank swirled her finger above the clustered pins.
"This is his home base. This is where he feels most comfortable. If he's never raped before, and we have no indication he has, he's not going to do it in an unfamiliar place. I'll lay even money he spends a lot of time at these parks, and that they're close to where he lives. This is his 'hood," Frank stressed.
"By the time he does Nichols, he has a long and successful string of rapes behind him. He's got to be feeling pretty good, pretty confident. So let's say he accidentally sees Nichols, he's got a perfect opportunity to take her, and he does. See, he's never taken anybody before, so he must feel very safe here. He's familiar with this 'hood and its rhythms."