‘What’s going on, Eric?’
His voice came back to her. ‘Look, a fake LAPD uniform was found with the perp we’ve pulled in out here. It made us think of what happened to you because this guy might have used the uniform to get the vic into his car.’
‘Shit.’
‘But our guy doesn’t match your description so it’s either a coincidence or there’s another guy out there doing the same thing. And listen, Steelie, we caught a Thirty-two One case out here. I can’t give you any details but we want you all to have a head’s up.’
Steelie hung up but sat trying to recall the cop – she’d convinced herself it had been a cop – who’d stopped her, when Carol’s voice came through the desk telephone to say that she had Ben Alston holding on Line 1 for either Steelie or Jayne. Line 1’s blinking red light went solid before Steelie could get to her desk, so she trotted up to Jayne’s office.
Jayne was clearly being told a string of facts because she was only murmuring ‘I understand,’ or ‘OK.’ Steelie read Jayne’s notes from upside down.
Call fr MI in Maricopa. Kate ID’d. COD broken neck. No sexual assault. Liaise tomorrow—
Then Jayne said, ‘All right. Did the medical investigator tell you which medical examiner you’d be dealing with? Bodell? You’d be fine with her, she has a very comfortable manner . . . No – of course, if you would like us to liaise, we will . . . All right, Ben, thank you, that’s very generous. We’ll hear from you shortly then.’ She stood as she finished the call and Carol came into the room.
Carol asked, ‘Has something happened? I could hear it in his voice when I answered the phone.’
Jayne shook her head in consternation. ‘He’s completely worked up. Kate’s been found dead but even though he’s been told she died quickly and wasn’t assaulted, he can’t understand why he got a phone call from a medical investigator at the ME’s Office in Phoenix. The police told the Alstons in ’ninety-nine that there were no signs of a struggle in or around her car when it was found on the Hollywood Freeway, so they’re trying to figure out why she would have willingly gotten out of her car and gone with someone to Arizona.’
Steelie raked her hair back from her forehead. ‘I think I know why.’ She thought for a second then let her bangs flip back. ‘OK, I just had a call from Eric, asking me about my tail light stop last Thursday. He said they’ve picked up a suspect in Arizona who’s a civilian with a fake LAPD uniform. And he also said that they’ve come across one of our cases out there. There’s a chance it could be Kate Alston and the uniform is related.’
Jayne sat back on the edge of her desk. ‘Well, the Alstons are hell-bent on finding out what happened. They’re flying to Phoenix in the morning and I agreed for us to liaise when they go to the ME’s Office. They’re picking up our flights too.’
Steelie said, ‘Well, if Scott and Eric’s case does involve Kate, then someone may be able to tell her parents what happened.’
Jayne looked at Carol. ‘You’re the expert on this.’
Carol spoke without hesitation. ‘The family needs to know. Give them the hard stuff and they will handle it.’
‘But the detail about the uniform will be sub judice, so . . . we can’t tell them but we can urge Scott and Eric to divulge it, to help the Alstons deal with this.’ She looked at Steelie. ‘Call Scott. Tell him we don’t need confirmation on whose body they’ve found but if it’s Kate and if the suspect has actually stated that he used a uniform to get her out of her car, then they should give the parents as much consideration as they can. This has to come from them.’
‘You got it,’ Steelie replied, going back to her office.
As soon as Scott and Eric issued the All Points Bulletin for Wayne Spicer’s car, they went down to the holding cells of the Phoenix Police Department.
When they identified themselves to the duty sergeant, he buzzed them into the small room beyond his station. The room had four cells coming off it like satellites and they could see Wayne through the bars of his cell to their left. He was stroking the yellow-painted wall in the direction he believed the morgue lay, with Katie’s body within.
The agents had already agreed to take a tender approach with Wayne, going down his Memory Lane while trying to get him to separate fantasy from reality. Scott set a tape to record and re-cautioned Wayne, then Eric began with an admiring comment on the verisimilitude of the police uniform found in Wayne’s closet. Wayne took the bait and was off, his words like a current of water rushing along a country brook.
He said he had come up with the idea of getting a false police uniform after several people mistook his car, a black Crown Victoria, for a police cruiser and had pulled over to let him overtake when traffic was badly backed up on the busy Los Angeles freeways. After his parents moved to Arizona, Wayne had stayed in LA and bought the patrolman’s uniform from a costume shop. When he wore it, some people waved at him; people who would normally never give him the time of day.
Then he purchased a swirling red light that he rigged up into his car’s electrical system with wire and a control switch, using rudimentary electronics skills he’d gained while working at Radio Shack. But he had never used the red light, or even tried to stop and talk to anyone, until he saw the brown Datsun ahead of him on the 101 Freeway early in December 1999, its hazard lights flashing a distress signal.
He was wearing the police uniform that evening. He had the false badge on the seat next to him. At the last minute, he had decided to pull over and see if someone would actually talk to him. He didn’t care if it was a man or a woman, as long as it wasn’t more than one person. He had thought that more than one person could be dangerous because ‘you never know what sort of people there are out there.’ He had pulled on to the shoulder, cutting off other cars whose drivers he saw glare at him through his rearview mirror, their faces softening when he turned on the swirling red light.
The young woman in the Datsun was beautiful. She smiled and rolled down her window. She barely glanced at his badge and so he had put it in his pocket. He’d asked her, ‘What’s the problem, ma’am?’ just like he’d seen police do on television. She had explained that the car had broken down and she had been hoping a tow truck or a police officer would come along because she didn’t have a car phone or a cell phone. She didn’t give him the pitying expression he was used to seeing at his job or when he tried to talk to people waiting in line at the supermarket.
He had wanted to talk with her more. He asked her to ‘step into’ his vehicle, on the passenger side, so that she’d be safe from the traffic hurtling past. But once she was inside, she looked uncertain. He forgot the ‘cop routine’ and she began to look panicked. She had tried to get out of his car but the door handle on the passenger side had been broken since he bought it. She didn’t know that so she had started screaming and kicking her legs and trying to get the attention of passing cars. He wanted to let her out. When he leaned across her, it was only to roll down the window so he could open the door from the outside handle. But she didn’t know that either. She tried to climb past him, into the backseat.
She had managed to put her thumbs into his eyes and, well, he couldn’t see then, could he? He had fallen against her and the weight of his body had pulled them both down on to the front bench seat, his feet slipping on the loose floor mats and her small body half under him. He couldn’t get any purchase with his hands so had wrenched his elbow up and it connected with some part of her. She was instantly still and quiet.
He didn’t even know what had happened to her. He had tapped her cheek; her head lolled loosely. He tried to make her speak; she wouldn’t talk anymore. The police badge was digging into his thigh and he pushed himself up off the girl. He turned off the red swirling light. Looking at her, he knew he couldn’t leave her there on the freeway by herself. He opened her handbag and found her driver’s license. Next to the photo it said her name was Katherine. He looked over at her, the dark hair, her smooth skin. He knew she was a Katie. A car honked as it passed, its headlights catching his peripheral vision. She would be his Katie, but they would have to leave California. ‘She’s been the only one. She’ll always be the only one.’