There was a pause before he spoke.
“Well, long time. How are you?”
“I’d like to see you … and the girls.”
Another long pause, and then Mike coughed.
“Yeah, I understand that, and it’s fine by me. When do you want to come?”
Lorraine’s hands were shaking. She couldn’t answer. Mike asked if she was still there. “Maybe this weekend?” he said.
“You mean tomorrow?” Lorraine could hardly get her breath.
“Or Sunday, that’d be better.” He suggested twelve-thirty. They could have lunch, maybe walk on the beach together.
There was another pause. Then Lorraine said, “Twelve-thirty Sunday, then,” and hung up before he could say anything else. She stared at his address. Her mouth was dry. She mentally repeated every word they had said to each other. They had not spoken for so long.
She sat cupping a mug of coffee in her hands. She had finally done it. Slowly she calmed herself down. She’d be able to cope, she’d coped so far, and she was looking good. More important, she was sober.
Bill Rooney sat opposite his chief, Michael Berillo, leaning forward, which made his squat backside spread even more. Berillo was thumbing through the thick dossier of the case to date. Even flicking through documents he seemed to flex his muscles. He stood over six feet four inches in his socks, his muscular frame slightly top-heavy as his legs were relatively short. His broad shoulders slanted from his thick hairy neck. Rooney often wondered what it would be like to be that huge. Berillo could not walk past a mirror without glancing at himself. Rooney had also noticed that Berillo had recently changed his hairstyle, combing his black hair forward—and he’d had a quiet smile when he’d seen Berillo caught in the wind, raising his hand quickly to keep his hair in place, a man going bald and hating it.
Berillo came to the end of the thick dossier and flicked it closed, clenching and unclenching his fingers in and out of a fist.
“Nothin’. We haven’t got a single witness—”
“But there was a witness, Bill.”
Rooney nodded. “Yeah, but that was Helen Murphy. We figure he must have tracked her down again after the attack, right? And made sure the second time.”
“But before she died, this phone call …”
Rooney nodded. “That’s what we’ve been going on—all we’ve had—and it was a pretty good description.”
“What about the bite?”
“By now it’ll have healed, or scabbed over, I dunno.”
Chief Michael Berillo did one of his glowers. No matter what hour of the day or night, he always had a dark five o’clock shadow. As he leaned back in his chair, his expansive chest almost burst the buttons on his sweat-stained shirt. “Any of this Helen Murphy’s associates give you anything?”
“Nope. She was a real old dog, though, hard to believe anyone’d pick her up, let alone screw her, and most of the people we talked to don’t have a lot to say about her. Nothin’ complimentary—she was trouble with a capital T. She also moved around. We can’t trace her husband—he’s a trucker, nobody seems to know where he is—and she’s got three kids in foster care.”
“Irish?”
“What?”
The chief yawned. “I said, was she Irish? With a name like Murphy …”
“No, that’s her husband and he’s from Detroit. We talked to a woman she roomed with, and she said nobody had seen the husband for at least six or seven months. But we got him circulated so as soon as he’s traced we’ll question him.”
The two men remained silent, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
“Six.”
Rooney nodded. “Yeah. Six—seven if we attach Norman Hastings. We’ve interviewed everyone he worked with, everyone he knew. He’s got—or had—a real nice wife and two kids, nobody seems to have anything against him. He was a well-liked, ordinary guy, played poker with a few pals, went to ball games, good steady worker, and—”
The chief banged his elbows on the desk. “No connection to any of these women. Did he pick up hookers?”
Rooney shook his head. “If he did, his wife didn’t know it, and none of his friends did either. Unless they’re lying.”
The chief started to thumb through the massive dossier again—it represented the hours and hours of interviews and statements, the lists of officers assigned to the investigation. “Okay, we’ll open it up further. Let’s see if any other states have anything on record. Reason is, to keep this on the boil I’m going to need more. We got a hell of a lot of men with their thumbs up their asses, and we’ll have to open it up to the press.”
“Shit! You know what a circus there’ll be once there’s a whiff of a serial killer on the loose.”
“You’ve had it all to yourself, Bill, and you’ve drawn a blank. We got a fucking maniac out there and I can’t hold this back any longer. We’ll get in a psychological profiler.”
Rooney snorted, and the chief brought his huge fist down hard on the desk. “Get all the help you can, Bill, and get it fast. You and your team have to get some results soon; I can’t let you sit on this—and you know it. Bring in Helen Murphy’s husband. So far he looks like the only possible suspect and you need one.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You dumb? I’ll have to bring in more than a fucking profiler. Don’t you understand? I’m under pressure. That last kid might have been a hooker, but she was only seventeen years old. And Norman Hastings was, as you’ve laid out thick and clear, an upright citizen. You think his family don’t want a result? It’s not just old whores. One dead bitch like the one you dug up from your pal Sparks can be put on ice. Hastings can’t. A pretty blue-eyed angel called Holly can’t. You with me? And she was found on our turf—they’ll start sniffing around if we don’t watch out.”
Rooney felt the rug being pulled out from under his feet. If they wanted a profiler then he’d get one. If they wanted Clint Eastwood they could have him, too. Anything, so long as they didn’t give him the sidestep just before he was due to retire. “I hear you loud and clear, Chief.”
“Good—and Bill, any other bright ideas you get, run them by me first. You started the ball rolling, now it’s out of control.”
Rooney got out fast.
Unfortunately, Bean was in his office sitting in his chair. It was a bad omen and Rooney yelled at him to get off his butt. “Find one of those profilers—and by tonight. And don’t say one word. Then I want every man on this fiasco in the main incident room in one hour. We want Helen Murphy’s fuckin’ husband found and brought in.”
Bean coughed. “There’s another one.”
“What?” Rooney’s face flushed a deep puce.
“I said there’s another one come in, from a Brian Johns, Santa Monica, details on your desk.”
Rooney reached over and picked up the fax sheet. Prostitute murdered 1992, found inside the trunk of a Cadillac, face and skull beaten. Mona Skinner, age forty. Possible murder weapon: a blunt instrument, some kind of hammer.
Bean shut the door as Rooney thudded into his chair. It creaked ominously, the springs taking the strain of his 250 pounds. Mona Skinner had been an ugly, square-faced woman with long, frizzy, bleached-blond hair and a mouth turned down in a thin scowl. Her mean, aggressive eyes stared back at Rooney with a “fuck you” expression. She had been charged with soliciting more than fourteen times over a period of fifteen years. She had also served four years for assault and battery, and receiving stolen property.
Rooney leaned back and swiveled around. He was angry with himself for opening the can: the worms were wriggling out all over him. He ran a check to see if there were any links between Mona Skinner and the others. He got lucky: Mona Skinner and Helen Murphy had both served time together at the same women’s prison and had once lived in the same motel. Rooney stepped up the order to find Helen Murphy’s husband, who had now become his main suspect—for real.
Rosie ate the spaghetti, waded through the garlic bread, and, f
illed to bursting, heaved herself onto the sofa. Switching on the TV, she paused briefly to watch the news, then flicked the channels to find a game show. Lorraine chewed her vegetables and rice slowly. She was eating for energy now and keeping off fats. “They still haven’t found the guy that bumped off that local fella. You know what always amazes me?”
Lorraine continued eating slowly, sipping her water, and when she finally finished, began to clear the table. “No. What?”
“Well, you know when they put all these ads out for people to come forward if they saw anythin’? That murder happened weeks ago. How do they expect anybody to remember? I wouldn’t be able to remember if I saw a guy in a metallic blue car this morning, forget a few weeks ago.”
“You’d be surprised,” Lorraine said, wiping around the sink. “I was working on a case once, and we were up shits creek without a paddle, and then this boy was hypnotized and he gave not only the car’s license plate but about four or five others parked in the same street as well. It’s amazing what the subconscious mind retains.”
Rosie switched channels again. “I wouldn’t have that done, you know why? Because it means they always got you in their power.”
Lorraine sat down beside her, her mind miles away. She thought again about the wallet, the man who had attacked her. She was vaguely surprised that he hadn’t been traced yet. She closed her eyes, conjuring up a mental picture of him, the way he had picked her up at the curb, how he had wanted her to give him a blow job in a public place. She saw him as clearly as if it had been yesterday. She remembered his hands: long, thin tapering fingers. Had he worn a ring? She concentrated hard, no, she was sure he had no ring, but then she saw his cuff, his jacket sleeve, and the cuff links. She leaned forward, frowning in concentration, and then shook her head. It was no concern of hers, she had enough to think about, and besides, the farther removed she was from it the better.
The following morning Lorraine went off to the gallery, pausing on the way to buy a newspaper. The headlines shrieked in big bold letters: POLICE HUNT SERIAL KILLER. Sitting in the gallery, she read the entire article, then folded the paper. It seemed almost comical that Captain Bill Rooney should be heading the investigation. From her own past experience with press releases, they had trouble on their hands. She could tell they were covering up, the old phrases they all used to churn out about “making headway,” “confident of an arrest.” But the biggest giveaway was the police request for any member of the public having further information to make contact. It meant they had zilch.
The buzzer sounded and a flushed, excited Art rushed in, carrying a small gym bag ready for his workout next door. “I think, my dear, I just made a killing. Last night I had a friend over who knows a big dealer out of New York. He saw the new stuff and went ape-shit! He’s back tonight and he’s not just interested in one or two but the whole show!”
Lorraine was genuinely pleased, since it also meant more money for her. Art had promised that as soon as business picked up she would get a raise. He danced around, checked the mail, and then said he would be next door if anyone wanted him.
She took another look at the canvases hanging on the walls, still not impressed with the daubs of color and squiggles that Art’s new discovery had supplied.
Later, Nula dropped by. She posed in the doorway and did a slow turn on her high-stacked platform shoes. Today’s wig was blond and she wore large diamante sunglasses. “Hi, babe, how you doing?” she put her arms around Lorraine. “You know, I think you’re looking even better. As soon as your hair grows a little more, ask Didi to style it—she’s an artist. She can color, too—she does all my wigs and styles them, and she does Holly’s—” She froze, and covered her mouth. “Oh, God, I forgot.”
“There’s a big article in the paper this morning, and a photograph.”
Nula looked at it and turned away, her deep voice dropping down another octave. “She was much more beautiful than that, a real stunner. You know, the cops have been out every night. Here and Sunset, terrible for business, but they figure this maniac only does whores, so everybody’s pretty tense. First time they came around, hardly any of us were out, but you know, business is business. And I doubt if he’d come to our end of the street—we just have our usuals and a few that have been tipped off.”
She suddenly gave a deep-throated chuckle. “Besides, trannies can take care of themselves. When I was … well, before, you know, I could do a side sweep karate kick that’d knock your teeth out. Don’t do it now, well, you can’t, not with a tight skirt.”
Lorraine smoothed her skirt. “All the same, you two should look out for yourselves. Take down the licenses of the Johns you’re unsure about—or better yet, don’t go with them.”
Nula cocked her head to one side. “That’s just what the cops told us.”
Lorraine smiled. “Well, make sure you do it.”
Nula opened her tapestry bag and took out a small package. “Give this to Art for me, would you? It’s just some more postcards, and our rent. See you soon.”
Lorraine put the package in the desk drawer and was just about to shut it, when she noticed a thick wad of notes secured with only a rubber band. She looked to the door, then back to the open drawer. She took the money out and flicked through it. There was at least two or three thousand dollars. She held it a moment, tapping it in her hand, then replaced it.
About an hour later Art returned, pink from his workout, his bald head gleaming. He dropped his gym bag and fractionally adjusted a canvas.
“You mind if I say something?”
He turned, and smiled. “Oh, my, you sound so stern, why should I?”
“There’s a lot of money in the drawer, Art, and it’s not locked or anything. Anyone could just walk in and take it.”
Art danced over and banged open the drawer. “I meant to deposit it this morning but I forgot and I didn’t want to leave it in the health club.”
Lorraine watched as he tossed the money into his gym bag.
“Right, I have to go. Will you lock up, leave the keys next door with Hector?” Then, pursing his lips, he delved into his pocket, dragged out his wallet, and started counting out ten-dollar bills. “Whoops … I’m a tad short. Can I give you the rest on Monday, darling?”
Lorraine flushed. “I need it all today, Art. I have to go somewhere this weekend.” She couldn’t help but flick a look at the gym bag.
“That belongs to a friend.”
She shrugged. “Monday will have to do.”
“Okay.” Art smiled. “Is that your paper? Have you finished with it?”
She passed it to him. He glanced at it and then held up Holly’s photograph. “I didn’t know her but she was a friend of Nula and Didi’s. You know the car was found not far from here—did you know that?”
He strode out without waiting for an answer, and the door slammed behind him. Remembering Nula’s package, she hurried after him, only to see him driving away in a cab. She felt pissed off: she needed her money to buy a little something for the girls. She put the package away, then opened the drawer again, took it out and looked at it. Nula had said that her rent was in it; maybe she could just take out what she was owed and leave a note.
Lorraine eased open the package, pulling the Scotch tape away, making sure she didn’t rip the paper. As well as some postcards wrapped in a sheet of paper, there was a brown manila envelope. She crossed to the card table that held an electric kettle, and turned it on to steam open the flap. Inside was a big pile of bills. She was surprised by the amount—unless they were behind with their rent. She counted out sixty dollars for herself, and was about to replace the rest and reseal the envelope when she wondered if the postcards were meant for the gallery, so she opened the paper.
Lorraine sat down. She felt sick. It wasn’t that she hadn’t come across pornographic material when she worked Vice, but each of these was especially revolting because they featured Nula and Didi. Maybe if she’d been more together she would have realized when she visited that th
ey used their apartment for photographic work—there were certainly enough props. She sighed, looking intently at each disgusting picture, sad that Nula and Didi could subject themselves to such degrading acts, displaying their genitals, their heavy breasts. They were featured together, just the two of them, on the first few cards, and then they were joined by various animals and masked figures, and on four cards a pretty sweet-faced blond girl appeared, her face childlike but her breasts overlarge and her curved body taut and firm. Her eyes unfocused, she looked, at first, as if she’d been drugged, but then Lorraine recognized her. It was Holly. No wonder Didi and Nula had been so upset. They knew her because both had screwed her. If the cards had been just of Nula and Didi, even with Holly, Lorraine would have been less upset, but the rest showed obviously underage boys committing homosexual acts.
Lorraine lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She was no innocent—in fact, it was more than likely she herself had taken part in some perverted session in the past to make a buck. She paced the gallery and kept on returning to the postcards, picking them up and putting them down. She was uncertain what, if anything, to do. Her first thought was to send them to the police, let them deal with it, especially since they featured Holly. She asked herself if the girl’s murder could be connected to the pictures. She doubted it—it could just be coincidence. But one thing was for sure: Holly was no innocent and already on the game, so she would have been fully aware of what she was doing. Then Lorraine looked again. Had Holly been drugged? If so, had she been forced into the pornographic session against her will, or agreed to do it because she was drugged?
“It’s none of my business,” she said aloud. She was angry with herself for opening the package. It changed everything. If she sent the contents to the police, they would question Nula and Didi. They might come to the gallery, too. Art was involved, so she would also be questioned—by Bill Rooney. So much for feeling safe and secure. The thought of having Rooney barging into her fragile existence made her feel weak. She was caught, trapped first by stealing the wallet from the man who had attacked her, and then because, as it turned out, it wasn’t his wallet after all but Norman Hastings’s. She even remembered the dead man’s name, could picture his face on his driver’s license.
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