"Why there?"
"Elementary, Watson. He might plan on hitting the parks again, but two things might thwart that ambition. One is fear and the other is circumstance. He's got to know he can't keep going there and getting away with it. Some perps become so good at what they're doing that they start to mock the police, but I think our boy's a long way from that kind of self-assurance. That's why he branched out to the high schools for the last rapes."
Noah protested with his mouth full. "But Agoura and Peterson were from the parks."
"Exactly. Let's assume Jane Doe and Nichols were accidental, chance moments of opportunity. If he's scared to deliberately go out and grab a girl, he's going to do it where he's most comfortable, which I agree is the park areas. But he's hit them twice now, so between all the previous assaults and now the two murders, he's got to know both parks are hot for him. He's sick, not stupid."
Frank put her chopsticks down and wiped her mouth. "Point two, again assuming Doe and Nichols were just opportunities he couldn't pass up, he had to have been in their vicinity to catch them, someplace centrally located around the parks. We know he takes advantage of circumstance, so let's put one—Kennedy—in his path. If we do the parks instead, how do we know which one to pick? I think we've got a better chance of running into him on the street."
"Alright. I can see that. How do you want to play it?" Noah asked.
"Make Kennedy a homeless girl, a runaway. Put her out on the streets."
"Oh, that's nice duty in the middle of winter."
The idea amused Frank but she didn't show it.
"Well, this guy has a pretty consistent time frame. All the assaults have been on weekdays, in broad daylight. So we dump her predawn and pick her up after dark. Six a.m. to six p.m. Could be worse."
Frank finished her tea and asked Noah what he thought.
"Glad it's her and not me," he grinned.
Later that afternoon, Noah slowly chauffeured Frank, Kennedy, and two officers from the Special Investigation Section, around downtown Culver City. Cruising the neighborhood where Cassandra Nichols and the Jane Doe had been found, they searched for an optimal stakeout area.
Lieutenant Hobbs was a bull of a man and looked like the poster boy for the LAPD's swat team. In an incongruously high-pitched voice, he said, "Here we go," pointing to a corner off Sepulveda. Kennedy had to perch on the edge of the seat to see around Marquez, the other SIS officer.
On the southwest corner, facing onto the boulevard, was a squat, concrete building with three store windows. An electronics shop fronted Sepulveda and Venice, and next to it were an auto parts store and a barbershop. An alley ran down the barbershop side, and where the building ended, a six-foot chain-link fence closed the alley off behind the shops. The alley dead-ended against a two-story building. A long drugstore dominated the other side. It was a cul-de-sac accessible only from the opening on Sepulveda. A laundromat on the far side of the boulevard offered an unobstructed view down the alley. They drove around the block to see what the alley dead-ended against. It was a lighting fixture store and a sign-making shop.
"Whaddaya think?" Kennedy asked, firing off a round of bubblegum.
"Looks good," Hobbs said, and Marquez nodded.
"Go around again, No. Let me and Hobbs off at the corner. Marquez and Kennedy, see how it looks from the laundromat. We'll meet you at the Shell down the street."
The two lieutenants carefully moved past plastic garbage dumpsters pressed against weeds and shrubs that were taking over the alley. They checked for holes in the fence and unexpected doors or windows. Frank searched the ground for drug paraphernalia, not wanting to set Kennedy up in a shooting gallery. There was no access from the roofs, except for jumping straight down, and the vegetation would afford a homeless person adequate cover.
"Looks good," Hobbs repeated, hands braced on his slim hips.
Frank nodded reluctantly as they left the alley, their long steps evenly matched as they walked down the street.
"I want to wire her. If we lose her visually I still want to be in contact. I know it's a little extreme, but our perp's extreme. We don't know who he is, where he'll be coming from. I just want this as covered as possible."
"You got it."
Frank listened as Hobbs described how he'd fit her for sound.
"Good?" Noah asked when they were all back in the car.
Their alley was situated almost dead-even between the Nichols and the Jane Doe sites. They had their decoy, they had their surveillance team. Now all they needed was their perp.
"Green light," Frank answered. Kennedy started whistling "Back in the Saddle Again." The slight narrowing behind Frank's Ray Bans was the only hint of her irritation.
Hobbs was pleased. Technical surveillance was his baby. The smaller the chips, the thinner the wires, the happier he was. Kennedy stood before him, decked up and tricked out like a terrorist package, but no one could tell by looking at her or patting her down. They tested the wire until Hobbs was satisfied, then they reviewed their game plan for the dozenth time.
Weather, the brass, placement, the wire—all of that was going through Frank's mind as she watched Hobbs delicately unhooking Kennedy. She and Noah were chattering like Heckle and Jeckle, Hobbs and the techs were joking around, but Frank stood apart, nibbling at the scarred tips of her sunglasses.
She was nervous about this op, didn't like how many elements were out of her control, but after hours of guesswork, hunches, and plotting the odds, they were finally ready to roll. No matter how much she tried, Frank couldn't come up with a better plan. At this point, with so little to go on, and knowing that the perp would be out hunting soon if he wasn't already, the gig with Kennedy was their best bet. Frank had marginal confidence in the young detective, questioned the odds of encountering their guy this way, and second-guessed her own profiling skills. She was extremely uneasy pouring this much resource into an operation based almost entirely on conjecture, but unless another body turned up offering more clues, it was their only choice.
Compounding her frustration was the increasing attention from the media and RHD. They'd been sniffing around the case, and Foubarelle was about ready to drop it in RHD's lap. The only good thing about the attention was that no one wanted to look like the bad guy. All the agencies were cooperating, and manpower was being thrown at them like lifelines to a drowning man.
Frank sighed, feeling the pull of the muscles in her neck and shoulders. She wanted to knead them but thought better of it in front of Hobbs and his crew. Just as she discarded the notion, an obscure memory leapt from a dark corner: the end of the day, sitting on the couch, talking with Mag, Mag's strong fingers digging into her neck, easing all of Frank's knots.
Frank forced her mind to become a blank screen. Returning to the management of a homicide investigation, she asked brusquely, "We ready to roll here?"
Kennedy bellowed, "'Roll o-o-n, Big Mama,'" cracking up Marquez and Noah, who thought she walked on water. Feeling like she was in charge of a kindergarten class, Frank stood icily apart from the merriment.
He was deeply into one of his fantasies, playing it out behind his locked door, when he heard the shot. His mother started to scream as he tore his helmet off. She was still screaming by the time he got downstairs. He took one look and couldn't move. His father was sitting on the couch, half his face chewed off by shotgun spray. The son remained fixed to the carpet, as if he'd sunk roots. His mother just went on screaming. Eventually a neighbor came over and let himself in after his pounding went unanswered.
The neighbor quickly backed out the same way he'd come, gagging on his words. The police came and took the body away, and the boy's mother retreated upstairs to her bed. The boy tied the sofa to the top of the car and dumped it in a trashy alley. His mother was still in bed when he returned home. He eventually asked if she was going to make dinner. There was no answer, so he fixed a bologna sandwich and ate it in front of the TV, where the couch used to be. Spots of blood had soaked into the carpet. He thought about trying to clean them up but dismissed the idea as too late, though he did wipe the wall behind the couch with some water and a sponge. He didn't want the living room to start smelling.