The Assailant

by James Patrick Hunt

  “What about his record?”

  “Drugs. Driving under suspension. No record of sexual assault.”

  “That doesn’t clear him, though.”

  “No. That doesn’t clear him.”

  They saw Klosterman stand up and walk out of the room. Then he stepped into the room with them.

  “Well?” Hastings said.

  Klosterman said, “Rita Liu never met this guy, did she?”

  “She said she may have.”

  “Okay,” Klosterman said. “Well, he’s a shitbird, all right. He spent the first fifteen minutes talking about how much he hated you.” Meaning Hastings. “Sorry son of a bitch, fucking cop, that sort of thing.”

  Hastings nodded. He’d gotten used to it.

  Klosterman said, “Then he talked about the suspended driver’s license business. He said it’s his insurance company’s fault because they were supposed to notify the DMV or some shit. He says he’s not selling steroids. That those pills we found were prescribed by a doctor.”

  “What about Reesa Woods?” Hastings said.

  “He says he hasn’t seen her in months. He said he was working Friday and Saturday night.”

  “Did you tell him why you were asking his whereabouts?”

  “No.”

  “Does he know she’s dead?”

  “Yeah, he knows.” Klosterman frowned. “And I think he’s on to us, too. I mean, the guy’s a two-by-four, but he’s not that fucking stupid. At one point, he asked why two plainclothes detectives are taking so much interest in a guy who didn’t show up for traffic court.”

  Wulf said, “Get a formal search warrant. His apartment and his car too. Go to Judge Brand. He’ll authorize it.” Wulf did not ask Hastings how much he had searched before. Wulf knew what not to ask.

  “Okay,” Hastings said. “I’m going to call Murph and ask him to go back to McGill’s, see if MacPherson was there Friday and Saturday.”

  “Good,” Wulf said.

  Hastings turned to Klosterman and said, “You want to stay with him?”

  “Yeah,” Klosterman said. “He’s beginning to like me. I’m the nice one.”

  Good cop, bad cop. It was amazing how often it still worked. Even when the suspects were aware of it.

  •

  Hastings returned to Larry MacPherson’s apartment with four police officers, three of them in uniform and a detective on loan from the North station. They rapped on the door, saying the standard, “Search warrant, search warrant,” and they would have gone in on the third, but then a woman opened the door.

  Hastings said, “Jennifer?”

  A chubby girl with blond hair and bad skin. She said, “Yeah?”

  “My name is Lieutenant Hastings. We have a warrant to search the premises.”

  “Larry’s not here. Why don’t you come back when he’s here?” She seemed to know that it would involve Larry.

  Hastings said, “He’s been arrested.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Listen, it’s a bad time.” She started to close the door.

  But Hastings gently pushed it open. “I know,” he said, “but it has to be done.”

  The uniformed officers followed him into the apartment and began their search. The girl didn’t cry or shout. She just let her shoulders sag and stood in the middle of the room. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this. Police coming into her home without her permission. It was an injustice. An invasion.

  Hastings remained close to her. Eventually, she gave him her attention. “You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

  “Not planning to,” Hastings said.

  She looked around the apartment. Officers were opening drawers in her bedroom, looking through kitchen cabinets. Hasting could tell that she was wondering if they were going to take anything that belonged to her, if they would care if they broke any of her things.

  Hastings said, “Do you want to sit down?”

  “Yeah. But then they’ll probably make me move,” she said. “I mean, I don’t want to get in your way or anything.” Her tone was bitter.

  “We can go sit in the car.”

  “Yeah? What, so you can question me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I would like to talk to you. Maybe I can help you.”

  “Help me?” She eyed him, her expression tired and beaten. “What makes you think I need your help?”

  Hastings moved closer to her. He didn’t want the other officers to hear what he was saying. He got closer to the woman and said, “He abuses you, doesn’t he?”

  She didn’t answer him. She looked away and Hastings detected a nod of her chin. He’d seen it before. Sometimes the victim can’t help giving herself away. She’s hiding it from her friends, her family, people at work. It’s a lot of work, hiding abuse from people. Sometimes when a police officer just asks point-blank, it’s a relief to confess it.

  Hastings said, “Knocks you around some?”

  “Not always.”

  “No, not always,” Hastings said, recalling the enraged, bowed-up figure he’d punched in the throat. “Sometimes he’s nice, right? Probably after he’s been mean. Tells you he’s sorry. That he needs you. That he loves you. That he won’t ever do it again. Am I right?”

  “It’s none of your business. I can handle it.”

  “No, you can’t. You can get used to it, but you’re not ever going to handle it. Why don’t you come outside with me? We can have some privacy.”

  She walked out to the balcony with him. She lit a cigarette.

  Hastings said, “He’s in police custody. He can’t hurt you now.”

  She snorted. “Yeah? For what? Driving without a license, right? He’ll be out in the morning. And you know who he’s gonna call to bail him out, don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Hastings said. “Maybe he’ll get thirty days in county.” He wanted to say that maybe he’d get a whole lot more. Say two consecutive life sentences for murder in the first degree. But he didn’t know that. “How long have you been with him?”

  She shrugged. “About two years.”

  “Did he always take steroids?”

  “No. That started a few months ago.”

  “Did it change him?”

  “. . . Yeah.”

  Hastings said, “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  She snorted again, as if she felt patronized by him.

  “It’s not. You feel ashamed, but it happens to a lot of women. In a way, men too.”

  “Men too, huh? God, I wish that were true.”

  “What I mean is, people tell themselves it’s not that bad. They just sort of condition themselves to it. They get used to it. What I’m saying is, you’re not a bad person.”

  “Gee, thanks, Officer.”

  “What I’m saying is, you don’t deserve this.”

  She shrugged again.

  Hastings said, “You thought about leaving?”

  “Sure. But where would I go? He’d just find me.”

  “He threaten to do that?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “He threaten to kill you?”

  “No.”

  “Ever?”

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “There was another girl living with you,” Hastings said. “Her name was Reesa. Do you remember her?”

  Jennifer was looking at him now. “Yeah. What about her?”

  Hastings thought then, She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that Reesa Woods is dead. Though she could be conning him.

  Hastings said, “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She lived with us for a while. Then she moved out.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. She moved on. Got her own place, I guess. Why?”

  “How did you know her?”

  “We worked together.”

  “Where?”

  “At—at Lady Godiva’s.”

  �
�A strip club?”

  “A dance club. What’s this about?”

  “I’ll get to that,” Hastings said. “Were you both dancers?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business, but, yeah.”

  “You still there?”

  “No. I quit. I’m working at Famous-Barr now. I sell clothes. Look,” she said. “Are you trying to get off or something, asking me about when I was a dancer?”

  “No.”

  “Why all these questions about Reesa?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “She died. Friday night.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “She was killed. Murdered.”

  “Oh, God.” She placed her hands on the railing of the balcony. She took a few breaths. Then she looked at him. “Larry? You think Larry did it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Hastings said. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re fucked. Larry wouldn’t murder anyone. And he had no interest in her.”

  “He wasn’t attracted to her?”

  “No.” She was offended by the suggestion.

  “He never made a play for her?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she would have told me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Maybe he liked her. Maybe he would have liked to fuck her. I don’t know. But nothing happened between them. I know that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I would’ve known. We were living in the same apartment together. If they had done it, I would’ve known. You can tell. A woman can always tell.”

  “But he wanted to, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You know.”

  “Okay, maybe he did. He’s not perfect, you know.”

  Right, Hastings thought. He said, “But she wasn’t interested, was she?”

  “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  “Did it make him angry?”

  “Yeah, maybe. But he didn’t—look, he didn’t do what you think he did.”

  “I haven’t said anything,” Hastings said.

  “I don’t want to talk to you no more. I don’t think I like you. You acted like you cared about me, cared about what he was doing to me. But all you care about is Reesa.”

  “Reesa’s dead, Jennifer.”

  “I know that,” she said. “Okay? I know that. What do you want?”

  “Tell me where he was Friday night.”

  “He was at work. He works at McGill’s.”

  “Saturday night.”

  “The same place. He’s a barback.”

  “When did he leave for work Friday?”

  “I don’t know. I was at work until six thirty. He was gone when I got home. Saturday, I worked until eight. He was gone when I got home that night too.”

  “When did he come home?”

  “Saturday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. I was asleep.”

  “Did he wake you?”

  He meant, wake her up to use her. Or hurt her.

  “No,” she said. “He didn’t wake me.”

  “What do you know about Reesa?”

  “We worked together. She quit, I stayed.”

  “Did you know . . . ?”

  “That she became a hooker? She never told me, but yeah, I figured it out. All of a sudden she had all this money. At first, I thought she’d fallen in with a coke dealer or something. Or maybe she was dealing herself. But I figured it out.”

  “Did you ever talk to her about it?”

  “You mean, tell her to stop? No. I didn’t care, really. It was her business.”

  “What did Larry think about it?”

  “I don’t think he knew. He’s not the brightest guy.”

  “He’s hit you before, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he ever put his hands around your neck?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “No. He never tried to choke me. He may have, you know, grabbed me by my throat once or twice. But—”

  “When did he do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks ago. Look, I told you, he wouldn’t do this. I know him. He ain’t like that. Seriously, do you think if I believed he killed those girls, I’d be telling you this? You think I’d want to protect him?”

  Hastings had no doubt that she would, love could be a sickness, but he said, “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, if I thought he had done that, I’d want him in jail for my own sake. Wouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? My God, do you think I’m some sort of monster too?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was a three-story gray-stone town-house on Pershing Place, off Euclid Avenue in the Central West End. Walking distance to the Chase Park Plaza and Forest Park. The real estate market had faltered in the past few months, but Marla still believed she would get the asking price, which was a million seven. Her latest showing was at seven thirty in the evening, a bond salesman and his wife, transplanted from New York to St. Louis so he could manage the sales department at Edward Jones. The husband was younger than Marla expected, maybe less than thirty-five. Rich, though. Very rich. The bonuses they paid on Wall Street alone could pay for this house. Marla was friendly to the man, but not too friendly. She could see that the wife was intimidated by her and she didn’t want to alienate her. You don’t sell the wife, you don’t sell the house.

  Marla was older than the wife. Forty-two, but she still had the model’s figure and she knew it too. The bond dealer’s wife was frumpy and getting heavy, and her hair was cut like a boy’s. Marla liked to be looked at and she caught the husband ogling her at least twice, but she hoped the bond dealer wasn’t getting any ideas that would spoil the sale.

  She was wearing a Donna Karan outfit. Tan skirt and jacket over a dark brown silk blouse. Her chest was nicely tanned.

  The short-haired wife was sighing and hmmming and saying, “I don’t know . . .” but Marla was an experienced Realtor and she knew that the lady liked the house. And she was right to like it. It was reasonably priced and was in one of the higher-prestige neighborhoods in the city.

  Marla said, “In Manhattan, you would have to pay about three million for something like this.”

  “More like five,” the wife said, not making eye contact with Marla when she corrected her. “And you’d be in Manhattan.”

  Marla smiled over the comment. Bitch, she thought. Probably pushed her husband to get out of New York so they could live in a better place to raise their children. But she wasn’t going to let these Midwest yokels forget that she was from New York. No sir. They’ve got the money, Marla thought. They have the money.

  The husband looked past his wife’s shoulder and gave Marla an apologetic smile. Marla smiled back at him. A moment of conspiracy. But Marla cringed on the inside. The husband was not exactly ugly. Not hideous, just sort of doughy and unappealing. Probably one of those types who hadn’t been with a girl till his twenties, but then got rich and somehow believed he was entitled to beautiful women. Now he was all but winking at her. Hey, it’s the wife, heh-heh. What are you going to do? Heh-heh. He was a prospective buyer, not a prospective lover. Men like this never seemed to figure out the distinction.

  The wife looked at the husband, not catching him leering. The wife gave him a tired “let’s go” look and they began moving toward the foyer.

  At the front door, the husband said, “We’ll be in touch. You know we like it. I just have to talk to her, that’s all.”

  “I understand,” Marla said. “I do have to show it to another couple tomorrow. No pressure, though.”

  “Of course not,” he said. He hesitated, then extended his hand. Marla shook it, conscious of the man’s wife getting into the Lexus on the street. The wife
wasn’t looking up at them. She seemed preoccupied with getting home or to a restaurant where she could rag on someone there.

  The husband held Marla’s hand a tad longer than necessary. Then he released it and walked down the stairs. “I’ll call you,” he said.

  “Okay,” Marla said, her sales voice doing the talking.

  She went back into the house and made sure all the lights were turned off and the doors were locked.

  Then she called her office and told her assistant that Anderson, the customer, would likely make an offer tomorrow and that he was to be forwarded to her immediately. She told the assistant this even though Anderson had her cell number. He might call for a social reason as well. But the goal was to get him to sign on the line that was dotted. After that, if he persisted in this delusion that there was some sort of romantic connection between them, she would graciously but promptly disabuse him of it.

  She clicked off the cell phone and climbed into her Range Rover. For Sale signs were in the back. She put the key in the ignition and turned.

  Nothing.

  She tried again.

  Nothing.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. Sixty-thousand-dollar SUV and it wouldn’t start. “Unbelievable,” she said. “Un-fucking-believable.” Her language was coarser when customers weren’t around.

  She was still trying when a man walked up on the sidewalk. He was wearing a Burberry raincoat and an Irishman’s flat hat. He slowed his walk, hesitated, and then walked over to the driver’s window.

  Marla opened it.

  “You need a jump?” the man said.

  “I don’t know. It just won’t start. It’s never done this before.”

  The man smiled. He seemed sympathetic. Marla noticed that he was well dressed. He said, “I’m not a mechanic, but I think it’s probably your battery.” The man pointed to a late-model Mercedes and said, “That’s my car there. I’ve got jumper cables.” He paused then said, “If you want to try that.”

  “Okay,” Marla said.

  She watched the man walk back to the Mercedes and pull it forward so that it was parallel to the Range Rover. Marla stepped out of her vehicle as the trunk of the Mercedes flipped up. She was standing next to him as they looked into the empty trunk.