The Assailant

by James Patrick Hunt

  “Oh, shit,” Escobar said. Like, Here we go.

  And Roland Gent said, “You know Mr. Jeffrey Coyle, don’t you? My lawyer? Because I’m nice, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll call him and see if he thinks it’s a good idea for us to sit down and talk to you. He says it is, I’ll do it. At his office. Not yours. Until then, Detective, I got nothing left to say to you.”

  •

  They left while Roland was dialing his lawyer’s number. He had had something of a victory over them and they knew it. To hang around and negotiate a meeting time with Jeffrey Coyle on Roland’s telephone would have cost them too much face, and they knew that, too.

  In the car, Escobar said, “Do you know Jeff Coyle?”

  “I know who he is, but I never had a case against him.”

  “I have. He cross-examined me on a drug case. He cut me up pretty good. Thing about him is, he’s a pretty nice guy. Doesn’t get mean when he questions you, but when he’s finished, he’s made you look like an idiot. Those are the worst ones.”

  “Will he agree to meet with us?”

  “He might. I’ve done it before with him,” Escobar said. “He’ll agree to an interview if he’s got a guy who he thinks is clean.”

  “Maybe,” Hastings said. “And maybe he just wants to point you down a different path. A wrong one.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But Coyle’s not stupid. He knows that can get you arrested by itself. You know, like Martha Stewart. Remember that case last year, with the school principal jacking off in the hall?”

  “Oh, yeah. Mayer?”

  “Yeah. Robert Mayer. A high-school principal.”

  “He wasn’t Coyle’s client, though.”

  “He was, actually. But not at first. Here’s what happened. The principal gets caught, and the school board, superintendent—they wanted to keep a lid on it, keep it out of the papers. I mean, they had him. They had three students, two or three school-staff people, six witnesses at least, and they were solid. All that, but they wanted to downplay it. So the DA and the school district went to Principal Mayer and said, Hey, just resign and disappear and don’t ever work in a school again, and we won’t file charges against you.”

  “They agree to that?”

  “We thought they did. But at that time Mayer was represented by an attorney named Garland Young, and he fucked it all up. Mayer resigns, and after that, Garland Young calls a press conference, invites all the local media, and they blast the district attorney, the school board, and the witnesses. They said it was a conspiracy, a frame-up, all sorts of nonsense. After that, the DA had no choice but to file charges. After that, someone must have gotten to Mayer and told him his lawyer was just hurting him. Or maybe someone who was paying the lawyer—someone other than Mayer—threatened to cut off the money. So Mayer fired Garland Young and hired Jeff Coyle.”

  “Coyle didn’t walk him, did he?”

  “No, he couldn’t get him acquitted. Too much damage done by then. But I think the guy only got about six months, which was about three years less than the DA wanted hung on him. Coyle’s smart. He knows when to use publicity, when not to.”

  “Does that mean he’ll cooperate with us?”

  “He won’t try to help us,” Escobar said. “But he’ll cooperate with us if he thinks it’ll help his client. There’s a difference.”

  “Right.”

  They arrived back at the Thunderbird, and before Hastings could open the door, Escobar turned to him and said, “You think I fucked up back there, suggesting to Roland we had his prints in the car?”

  “No. It was a bluff, and it didn’t work. Shows he’s not guilty. Or maybe it shows he’s overconfident and he’s lying. We’ll know more later.”

  SEVENTEEN

  By six o’clock that evening, Mickey Crawford had been cleared. There was no evidence that he had had any physical contact with Adele Sayers the night she was murdered. He had voluntarily submitted blood samples and had passed a series of polygraph examinations. The only stress he had shown was over the chance that his wife might learn that he had been with another woman.

  As for his whereabouts on the previous Friday night, his alibi witnesses had confirmed that he had been at work until five thirty and then had had dinner and watched television with another married couple. Both men remembered what high school football game they had seen. This they had done independently.

  Murph relayed this information to Hastings, and Hastings passed it on to the chief of detectives, Ronnie Wulf.

  Wulf, as expected, was disappointed.

  He said to Hastings, “Well, we’ve cleared two people now. And we’ve got no suspects.”

  “No, sir,” Hastings said.

  They were in Wulf’s office at the downtown headquarters. It was dark outside and there was little traffic on Market Avenue. Wulf was seated behind his desk. Hastings was standing.

  He said, “Murph should have his report completed tomorrow.”

  Wulf sighed. “In homicide, eight out of ten times, it’s someone the victim knows. Agreed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hell, George, you can sit down. This isn’t the military.”

  Hastings took a seat.

  Wulf said, “The question is, did this guy know them?”

  “I don’t know. I think he did.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re call girls. He seems to have picked them out. He seemed to have known where they were and followed them.”

  “What do you think of the pimp?”

  “Roland Gent? I don’t think he’s the guy.”

  “Why not? Intuition?”

  “Not so much intuition. Adele Sayers worked for him, but the first girl didn’t. There was nothing in the press about the first murder—there hasn’t been time for that yet—so he wouldn’t have copied it. But we’re not ruling him out. County’s working up a meeting with him and his attorney.”

  “He lawyered up on you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Say you don’t get anything else out of him, do we have enough for an arrest?”

  “No. The techs don’t have any physical evidence that he was in Adele Sayers’s car. Or with her, for that matter.”

  “Okay,” Wulf said. “Well, I’ve been in touch with the chief. He wants to meet with us tomorrow morning at eight thirty. I don’t know the details, but I suspect he’s going to want to put together a task force along with county on this. It’ll mean putting more detectives from metro on it, hopefully another half dozen or so, along with whatever county comes up with.”

  Hastings wanted to know who would be in charge of it, but he decided to keep quiet for the moment. He sensed—and feared—that he would be losing control of the investigation.

  EIGHTEEN

  Ted answered the doorbell. He was wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He had put on weight since marrying Hastings’s ex-wife. He gave Hastings a nervous hello and invited him into the house.

  Ted Samster was the man Eileen had left Hastings for. A lawyer whom she was working for before becoming his lover. Hastings had suspected the affair for a while and eventually caught Eileen in a lie that he didn’t have the strength to overlook. She had told him that she was in love with Ted and was planning to end the marriage because of it.

  That had been a couple of years ago. Eileen was now Ted’s wife, and Hastings had never confronted Ted about it. Never threatened him or punched him for making him a cuckold. Indeed, Hastings had never even really wanted to harm the man. Hastings believed that Eileen had wanted out of the marriage with him, regardless of whether or not there was a Ted Samster willing to marry her. If it hadn’t been Ted, it would have been someone else.

  Hastings believed that he was past being angry at Eileen. She had told him that he would be better off without her, and in time he’d come to believe that she was right. And after that, he did believe it too. So, he was past being angry at her for leaving him. But he could still get mighty irritated with her over things that related to their daughter.r />
  Amy Hastings was not George’s daughter by birth. Eileen had had her out of wedlock about five years before she met him. Hastings fell in love with Eileen and soon found that he wanted to be not only her husband but the father of her child. The formal adoption was made approximately one month after they married. In spite of all the difficulty in their marriage and the pain of the divorce, he considered himself fortunate to have gotten a daughter.

  Hastings’s father had been a fairly nasty piece of work. Not so much physically abusive or violent but a coward and a bully and an altogether small man. Perhaps because of this, Hastings had believed that he should avoid being a father himself. But Eileen and her daughter had made him change his mind. And, like most of life’s most important decisions, it was made rather quickly.

  Eileen had agreed to joint custody of Amy in the divorce. Whether she had done this out of kindness to him or consideration for Amy or for her own selfish motives was never really clear. Hastings decided that he didn’t really want to know. What he did know was that Eileen had had the power to take Amy away from him altogether and had not exercised it. Whatever else could be said about her, she hadn’t done that. It had made the adjustment easier.

  Ted Samster was a big man, bigger than Hastings. But Ted was afraid of him and Hastings knew it. Hastings knew that he could say something to Ted to put him at ease. Something like, Hey, forget it, man. Water under the bridge. But some small part of him liked to see Ted uncomfortable. Even now.

  Ted said over his shoulder, “Amy? Your dad’s here to pick you up.”

  They heard her say that she was coming.

  Ted said to Hastings, “You want some coffee or something?”

  “No, thanks. How are you, Ted?”

  “Oh, busy. Busy as usual. Eileen’s at the store. She should be back in a half hour, if you want to see her.”

  “No, that’s okay. Sorry about being late.”

  “No problem, man. No problem.”

  Amy came out to the foyer with her bag. She was thirteen now, a serious and mature girl at her age. She said goodbye to her stepfather and walked out to the Jaguar with Hastings.

  In the car, Hastings said, “Sorry I was late.”

  “That’s okay. Do we have time to stop for dinner at Regazzi’s?”

  “If you want,” Hastings said. “I mean, if you’re caught up on your homework.”

  “I’m caught up,” she said. “I’d like some pasta.”

  “All right.”

  •

  At the restaurant, Hastings ordered a small dish of fettuccine and a beer for himself, and Amy had ravioli and a Coke. He ate about half of his dish and waited for Amy to finish hers. His stomach had become sensitive over the years and he was no longer able to enjoy the things he had when he was younger. Acidic foods and drinks had been eliminated from his diet as he went from thirty to forty. No wine, apples, lemonade, bananas, tomatoes, pizza, cheeseburgers . . . it got to where he could enjoy such things only vicariously. His doctor had told him that he did not have an ulcer, just a weak digestive system. Another gift of middle age.

  Still, he was grateful that he could still enjoy the occasional cigarette, a couple of fingers of whiskey. And he still liked to cook.

  Hastings didn’t finish his beer. He asked the waitress to bring him back a cup of coffee with cream.

  Amy told him about her weekend, made a couple of mildly derisive comments about Ted. She talked about school and eventually asked him what he thought about her taking an SAT-preparation course.

  Hastings said, “For college?”

  “Yes,” Amy said. “You took the test, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, when I was about seventeen. You’re thirteen.”

  “So. It’ll help me get ready.”

  Hastings sighed. Not for the first time, he was struck by the competitiveness of the contemporary teenager. Worrying at age thirteen about getting into an Ivy League school. His childhood had not been a happy one, but he believed that people of his generation had had it a lot easier than Amy’s. Parents of that time had been blessedly unenlightened and far less competitive and materialistic.

  He said, “I’m not comfortable with that. I’ve told you before, you spend way too much time worrying about your future. You’re a very smart girl, and you’ll do fine.”

  “But my friends are doing it.”

  “Your friends are too uptight.”

  “They say their parents want them to.”

  “Their parents are too uptight, too. Look, you don’t have your daddy’s dumb genes. So you’re going to be fine.”

  “I don’t think you’re dumb. I just don’t want to get behind.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Amy. You kids all worry so much. You get straight As and then you get upset because someone else got an A-plus. When I was your age, I didn’t think I’d even go to college. I just wanted to get out of Nebraska. And I felt lucky to do that. Maybe one day you’ll go to Harvard or Yale. Maybe not. But if you don’t, who cares?”

  “I care. And I’m not thinking about Harvard. But maybe Northwestern . . . Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie; I’m not laughing at you. I’m not. But talking about exclusive colleges at thirteen . . .”

  “Would you rather I talk about sex or drugs?”

  “Oh shi—No. I just wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself. You remember the Phillips kid? She had to go to the hospital after she got so thin?”

  “I know.”

  “Now, I’m no psychologist, but I’m telling you that all this pressure to succeed can lead to that.”

  “Daddy, I’m not anorexic. I’m not mental either. I just don’t want to end up like Mom.”

  “You’re not going to end up like that,” he said and immediately regretted it. He added, “And don’t be so hard on your mother. She did the best she could.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  She was right about that. But he was not above maintaining a few hypocrisies to get through life. “I do.” He paused, took a sip of his coffee. Then he said, “Did you discuss this with her?”

  “No.”

  Good, he thought. If she had, Eileen probably would have signed her up for two courses. He said, “Amy, I’ll think about it. Okay? If I’m persuaded that it’s something that’s actually helpful as opposed to something that’s fashionable, I’ll pay for the course. We’ll talk about it next week. Deal?”

  “Okay, deal.”

  “Good,” he said. “You want to split a dessert?”

  “Sure.”

  NINETEEN

  There were about twenty police officers in the station briefing room. Some of them stood at the back of the room because there weren’t enough chairs. At the front, behind the podium stood Chief Mark Grassino. Behind him were the St. Louis County sheriff, his deputy, Deputy Chief Fenton Murray, and Chief of Detectives Ronnie Wulf.

  Hastings sat in the third row with Klosterman, Rhodes, and Murphy. Karen Brady sat behind them. Escobar sat with the county detectives on the other side of the room.

  Chief Grassino confirmed that there was now a county/metro joint task force assigned to the Woods and Sayers murders. He said that the task force would be led by Ronnie Wulf coordinating with Detective Captain Paul Combrink of the county police. He gestured to each of them and they stood and nodded to the officers. The chief then gave the podium to Wulf.

  Wulf summarized the status of the case. He pointed out Hastings and let the police officers know that he had been in charge of the case up till this point. The purpose was to signify that Hastings was his second. Hastings felt some gratitude for it, though time would tell if Wulf was merely tossing him a bone.

  Wulf said, “George informed me this morning that Roland Gent’s attorney has agreed to an interview at county headquarters. The interview will be conducted by Detective Efrain Escobar of the St. Louis County Police as well as Lieutenant Hastings. This is a lead and it will be followed, but I don’t want the people in this room to put a lot
of stock in it. There are other leads that need to be followed. You are ordered to share any and all information and leads with each other. Any officer found to be hoarding leads or relevant information will be disciplined very harshly. Captain Combrink and I are in complete agreement on this. Our goal is to catch a monster who seems to have a taste for killing women. And I will tell you that I personally have very little patience for glory boys.

  “One more thing: as most of you are already aware, we have let it be known that, at this point, we do not want media assistance. We do not yet have a profile of this killer, but we believe that he—presuming it’s a he—is something of a glory seeker himself. It could be that he’s seeking headlines. Fame. We do not want to encourage or reward that.”

  Klosterman raised his hand.

  “Yes, Joe.”

  “Chief, I just want a clarification on the media thing. Are you suggesting that you may change your mind later on?”

  Wulf said, “If it becomes apparent that there’s more to be gained than lost by using the media, perhaps we’ll change tactics. I’ll let you know if I think we’ve reached that point. Again, profiling may be premature at this stage. I’m more interested in pursuing plain old leads. We’re looking for evidence, not a certain personality type. Now, having said that, there are a few basic psychological things you should at least be aware of. These are of course traits that often appear in this sort of killer. One: a display of some sort of mental disorder. Two: evidence that they researched or targeted the victim. Three: evidence that they’ve communicated inappropriately with a person, a woman in particular. Four: they’ve identified with a stalker or an assassin. Often, an assassin will study the work of another assassin. One he wants to imitate and maybe improve upon. Lastly, these guys often have what’s called an ‘exaggerated idea of self.’ They’re grandiose, narcissistic.”

  A county detective said, “That could be said of half the people here.” It got a few laughs, though not one from Ronnie Wulf.