But the call they all liked best, the nine-three decided after a late afternoon round of pitchers, was the old Mexican guy who pointed to his stocky neighbor next door, insisting he was the one. "I know he don't look like the description," he assured them, "but I seen him change. He don't know I know, but I can see it," he confided. He explained to Gough and Nookey how the neighbor could shift shapes, that he could become anybody or any animal he wanted to be. The old man said he'd seen him turn into a bat, a black dog, even a beautiful woman one time. After the interview, Nookey spent the day howling like a werewolf and Gough eagerly counted his remaining days on the force.
After several weeks of back-to-back interviews, the nine-three had followed up on some solid leads, even arresting two felons with outstanding warrants, but none of them had led to their perp. Frank spoke with the lead detectives on the Culver City cases, questioning their methodology and generally pissing them off. She didn't understand how they had missed the connection between the assaults at the parks and the dump at Culver City High.
To their credit, they had seen the connection. But it still hadn't given them anything new to go on, other than they were looking for their man in a wider area, making their search even more difficult. They justified not putting up posters because they didn't have the personnel to handle the additional work it would entail.
Returning from CCPD, Noah drove and Frank checked out the deteriorating scenery. Storefronts were gaudy with tinsel and canned snow. Someone, maybe a wishful kid, had chalked a crude Christmas tree on a crumbling block wall. A banger had scrawled his placa through it, but a rival had rubbed him out, spraying his name and affiliation over the original message. The city impressively whitewashed graffiti as it occurred, but in South Central they'd conceded the battle.
The afternoon was cool, somewhere in the fifties Frank guessed, but she still had her window down. Once a cop always a cop, hyper-alert for the anomaly in the scenery, the thing that didn't belong.
"Tracey wants you to come over for Thanksgiving dinner. You'd better come, 'cause you know she'll kick my butt if you say no."
"How's she doing?" Frank asked, by way of side-stepping the invitation.
"She's good. I think she's mellowing with age. She's cranked about all the hours I'm putting in lately, but at least I'm not sleeping on the couch or banging on your door at 2:00 a.m."
Both detectives grinned.
"And the kids," he continued, "when was the last time you saw them?"
"Labor Day?"
"You're kidding. Man, that's way too long. You gotta come over. I'm telling her you'll be there. One o'clock."
"Hmm. I'll call and find out the time myself. Last time you invited me it was three. I thought she was going to kill me until I told her you said five, and then you were almost the dead man."
"Three, five, whatever."
"I'll call."
They drove in silence for a while before Noah said, "Hey, Frank?"
She glanced at him.
"What do you think about setting up a decoy and trolling for him?"
Frank shifted in her seat, chewing slightly at the inside of her lip.
"Crossed my mind."
"And?"
"Too many drawbacks, not enough potential."
"Yeah, but there's a lot of drawbacks to being dead, too. I mean, how many bodies we gotta go through before we can catch this guy?"
"Where would you start?"
"The area where we found Nichols. We know that's his 'hood—"
"We think that's his 'hood."
Frank consistently reminded her detectives when they were speculating. The worst thing they could do was get locked into an idea. If it was wrong, they'd lost valuable time on a fool's errand, and the more committed they were to an idea, the harder it was to see other options. Noah continued impatiently.
"We know he's got a thing for schools, right? Am I safe in saying that? He's dumped two bodies at high schools, he's raped at and around two high schools. I think we should set up a decoy, maybe a homeless girl like the Jane Doe he did. Plant her around Nichols' walk to school."
"It's not in our jurisdiction."
"I know—we'd have to get cooperation from Culver City or cut them in on it."
Frank shook her head.
"No way. We're already brass heavy and soldier light," Frank said, in reference to the endless memos, meetings, and conferences that had been generated by involving Culver City in the investigation.
"Besides," she added, "it's just too big an area. We have no way of knowing if he'd see us."
"Well, what are our options right now, Frank? Sit around and wait for another Cassandra Nichols to turn up with a tree branch stuck up her ass?"
Noah tossed his boss a challenging look.
"If you're right, we've got a fistful of rapes, four dead girls, and not one solid lead to follow."
"I know what we have."
"Everything's petering out. The captains are all over us to close it so they can have their cops back, none of the cops want to be here, the chief's on Fubar's ass. I guess the only good thing is that it just isn't big enough for RHD yet. But at this rate that'll only be a matter of time. So what do we have to lose except the case and more girls?"
Continuing her perpetual street scan, Frank answered sarcastically, "Oh yeah. Fubar'll love it when I request additional manpower for a stake-out. And where exactly do we find a fifteen-year-old undercover cop?"
"I've been thinking about that. I got some ideas," Noah answered enthusiastically.
Frank was silently stroking her ring finger where she used to wear a thin gold band. She hadn't worn the ring for years but she still reached for it when she was mulling something over. Noah pressed his tiny advantage.
"I think I might have the perfect girl...woman," he corrected. "She's in Narcs at Parker Center. I met her a few weeks ago. I don't know how old she is, but I was really surprised when she told me she was a detective. She looks very young. Whaddaya say I talk to her, see if she'd work?"
Frank rubbed thoughtfully at the empty spot on her finger. It was a long shot, but at this point it might be their only one. She nodded, not breaking her stare out the window.
"You talk to your narc and I'll feel the Fubbie out. He won't want to share this anymore than I do, and I doubt CC will either."
"Atta girl, Frank, atta girl," Noah congratulated, punching his boss lightly on the shoulder.
"Are we any closer to finding out who he is?"
Foubarelle was hoping Frank wanted to see him because she had big news.
"Not really. Based on the way he's hit these girls and the way he's dumped them I feel pretty confident narrowing him down to a section of Culver City, but so far we haven't generated anything specific on this guy's ID."
"So technically this is Culver City's problem, but because Agoura and Peterson were dumped in our jurisdiction we're stuck with it."
Foubarelle grimaced, and Frank suspected he was weighing the merits of hanging on to this case or trying to dump it into the lap of the Culver City police. Foubarelle was a political weasel. If he thought this case was going to make his office look bad, he'd hand it over in a heartbeat. On the other hand, solving four homicides and nine rapes in one swoop would be an impressive coup. She figured this was a good time to hit him with their latest plan.