Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella

by Barbara Seranella

  "Then he told me to remove my clothes," Robin said.

  "His exact words?" St. John prompted.

  "'Take it off, honey. Take it all off.' " Robin paused and took a deep breath. "When I hesitated, he pressed something against me that burned and tingled. He said he could adjust the level, that I'd stay conscious through the pain. I took everything off. The tape was still around my eyes. Every time I tried to cover myself with my hands, he'd put something cold and metallic to my chest and start to count to three. I never let him get past 'two.' I was so scared that I could only whimper as I felt the ropes tighten against my ankles and wrists."

  Robin pulled at her fingers and looked to her right. Her face grew taut. Munch noticed a rash of red bumps on her face that extended down to her throat. Probably a result of malnutrition. She told them how she'd heard a click and a whir. It took her a second to identify the familiar sound of a camera shutter opening and closing. Film forwarding.

  "'Please don't hurt me,' I begged. I didn't even recognize my own voice. He said everything would go smoothly if I did what I was told."

  Munch had listened to many women purge themselves, clean addicts that she sponsored. She'd heard stories of incest, child neglect, even one case of bestiality She herself was no stranger to the cruelty people were capable of. None of it compared to what Robin told them next.

  "Then I felt something being taped to my skin. Later I realized that they were wires." She lifted her pant leg and showed them the rows of red shiny scars.

  "I heard a chair scrape across the floor and stop beside me. He was breathing hard. I could smell his sweat." Robin paused, bit her lip. When she continued her voice was much higher. "I heard a sound that I couldn't identify. I thought he was grinding coffee beans, only there was a little ringing noise going on as well—I had the impression of something spinning. The jolt came so suddenly, like a slide hammer pulling through my body. I heard something in my shoulder pop when I tried to pull away "

  "He shocked you with electricity?" St. John asked; his voice was lower than usual. Munch saw him work his mouth as if it were dry.

  Robin nodded. "After the first time, he only did it when I disobeyed him." She scratched at the side of her face until it grew red and raw. Munch wanted to grab her hand to stop her.

  "He raped me for hours. Vaginally, orally everywhere. The whole time he kept asking me if I loved him—if I could grow to love him. Did I feel the magic?" She paused and cleared her throat. "I told him yes. I would have told him anything. Afterward he had me take a shower. He even brushed my hair and gave me a nightgown to put on. He said because I had been such a good sport about helping him act out his fantasy he was going to take me back to my car."

  Tears rolled down Robin's face before she made her final admission. "I actually thanked him. Up to that point I was thinking I was going to die. I didn't want to die."

  Munch moved to sit next to her. "And you didn't. You made it. You're safe."

  "Safe?" Robin asked. "I can't even remember what that felt like."

  "You said something about him calling you?" Munch prompted gently

  Robin stood and walked across the room to her kitchen. Without another word, she pushed the play button on her answering machine.

  There was a beep and then the odd, mechanical voice said, "I miss you." It paused. "Are you thinking of me, too? The first time is always awkward. I'm so glad we're past that."

  The machine beeped again.

  "We need to talk this out," he said. The longer he talked, the easier he was to understand. "Please don't ignore me. We have unfinished business, you and I."

  Munch felt the breath leave her body. "That's him," she told St. John.

  "Your guy?" he asked.

  Munch nodded.

  He held up a hand as if to put her on hold and then turned back to Robin. "What did you do when you got back to your car?"

  "I drove to the hospital. They called the police."

  "When did the calls start?" St. John asked.

  "As soon as I got home from the hospital. The police have already tried to trace them. They weren't able to. Apparently the guy is using a mobile phone, and they have no way to trace it. Something about needing to know the origin of the call and then they can triangulate the signals. Well, shit. If we knew the origin of the call we wouldn't need to trace it, would we?"

  Munch smiled. Her thoughts exactly. People could be so stupid. "I thought you changed your number," she said.

  "l did. Somehow he got the new one." She picked up an envelope from the coffee table and handed it to St. John.

  "What's this?" he asked.

  "My discharge papers from the hospital and a copy of the police report."

  St. John put the envelope in his breast pocket and asked Robin, "Do you have somewhere you can go? Somewhere else you can stay? Family? Friends? Preferably out of state"

  Robin turned her dull eyes on him. "Won't he find me wherever I go?"

  "No," the detective said firmly "He's mortal. He can be stopped."

  Chapter 12

  Minutes later, Munch and St. John were back in the Buick. Munch waited patiently while St. John looked over the paperwork Robin had given him. When he finished reading, he rolled down his window and spat.

  "Son of a bitch," he said. He lit one of his thin cigars.

  "What?"

  "I've never seen such bullshit."

  "You mean the rape?"

  "No, the fucking investigation. We've got no vacuuming of the car's interior for trace fibers. After four hours, eighty percent of fiber evidence is lost. As far as I can tell, nobody went back to where she was released and looked for other tire tracks or conducted any interviews." St. John fixed her with a look that demonstrated the intensity of his anger. Even though it wasn't directed at her, his expression made her cringe and pray to God she'd never be on the receiving end of his displeasure. "We've got no fiber scraping from the nightgown he left her in. In fact, the nightgown wasn't even taken into evidence."

  "Where is it now?"

  "The hospital lost it according to Owen's narrative. Shit," he said, stabbing the offending paperwork with his forefinger. "No mention of the duct tape over her eyes during the assault. What the fuck was Owen thinking?"

  "What's the significance of the duct tape?"

  "Everything is significant at this point."

  She watched his jaw work as he gnashed on the white plastic mouthpiece on the tip of his cigarillo.

  "This isn't the first time, is it?" she asked.

  He looked at her a long moment before answering. "No, there have been others. Robin was luckier than some."

  "Define lucky. "

  He grunted a laugh.

  "How did this guy know to call me?" she asked. "Robin didn't tell anyone I was going to help her."

  "What about you? Who did you tell?"

  "Wait a minute," Munch said, seeing a telephone repair truck.

  "Pull this guy over. "

  "For what?"

  Munch turned the window crank, but by the time she got her window down the truck had passed. "Turn around. Don't you have a siren in this thing?"

  He pulled to the side of the road and asked, "What are you thinking?"

  "The phone guy will know where the junction box for the building is. It could save us some time. Maybe our mystery caller has her phone bugged. Easiest way to do it is at the junction box, but they keep them padlocked."

  "How do you know that?" he asked.

  "You can see the lock."

  "No, I mean about tapping into the line."

  "That's not really the point right now, is it?" The truth was that Lou was a Vietnam vet. He had served in the army the same years as Mace St. John. The detective knew that. What he might not remember was that Lou's MOS—army talk for Military Occupational Speciality—was communications. This came in handy at the gas station. Especially when anyone who might be saying anything of interest used the pay phone around the corner. The phone block was conveniently located
in the back room of the station. This same junction block had the pay phones on it in addition to the Texaco phone lines. Lou clipped on with a telephone repairman's handset when the need arose. She knew it was illegal as hell and saw no reason to burden St. John with this information.

  "Okay," he said, raising a hand in mock surrender. "I don't care. But we can't do it that way. I'll call my connection at the phone company and have them send a truck out to make sure her line is secure."

  "What else do you want me to do?" She felt curiously elated. She loved the irony of being on this side of a police investigation. Besides, it was exciting. Where was it written that she couldn't enjoy herself while helping someone? St. John studied her for a moment. When he spoke, there was a warning edge to his voice. "Are you sure you want to get mixed up any deeper in this thing?"

  "There's something else, isn't there? Something you're not telling me."

  "When Diane Bergman's body was dumped, she was also dressed in a nightgown. We also found evidence of electrical torture."

  "So you think it's the same guy?"

  "l can't rule that out."

  "So why kill one and not the other?"

  "Who knows? You can't put your own logic on these guys. They're wired different." He stopped speaking. From the look in his eyes, she knew he had left her. Had gone somewhere with his thoughts and his secret knowledge where she couldn't follow. She waited while he pulled his notebook out and wrote something down. She pushed her head back into the headrest and glanced at the words he had written: Duct tape to keep eyes from popping out?

  She didn't speak again until they had pulled back into traffic. "If this has to do with what happened to Diane, then I'm more sure than ever I want to help. Where do we start?"

  "We look for whatever else Owen missed. That's where we fucking start."

  When Munch got back to work, she went straight to her toolbox and grabbed her notebook. St. John stayed in his car to use his radio. She rejoined him as he was signing off.

  "What you got?" he asked.

  "Every day I write down the make and model of the cars I work on." She showed him the columns of license plate numbers, the customers' names, the service performed, and the amount charged. She turned back to the day in September that Robin had been raped, then checked the day before that. There it was. Robin Davies, Toyota Celica, Tune-up.

  Then she pointed to the Peg-Board over the service desk where they hung the work orders and the keys. "Robin's bill would have been hanging there all day with her keys on the hook as well. The work orders have all the customers' information on them, including addresses and phone numbers."

  "So anyone who works here would have access," St. John said.

  "Any customer as well," she said.

  She looked back at her ledger and saw that the day Robin had her car serviced was also the day Fahoosy had his tires replaced. Could he have been the one? Copied down her phone number when no one was watching? Or did Munch just have it in for the guy? Like people who watch the FBI's Most Wanted list and see how closely their troublesome neighbor resembles an ax murderer from Detroit.

  "C'mon," she told St. John. "I want to check something out."

  She took him into the office.

  Lou was watching the financial channel on his little television.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "I need to look through the old bills." She knelt down and sifted through the box that held the last few months' work orders. She went through them until she found the September invoices. St. John waited until she located copies of Fahoosy's and Robin's work orders. She handed them over saying, "Check this out."

  Fahoosy also lived at Barrington Plaza Gardens. St. John copied down the phone number and address. When he was finished, Munch took the invoices back. She started to return them to the box and then stopped.

  "This might be something," she said, taking out the next work order in the stack. "We put these in here in the order they were paid." She showed him an invoice with Diane Bergman's name on it. It was dated the day before Fahoosy's and Robin's invoices. "This is the last work I did on her car. I replaced her brakes. See, those are my initials in the corner." She scanned down the right-hand column. "She also had the car washed. That's the twelve-fifty charge under miscellaneous. She must have picked up her car a day after the work was completed."

  "Or at least paid for it the next day right?" St. John said. She nodded, appreciating the way his head worked. He kept his mind clear of assumptions and crawled to his conclusions.

  "Who worked on Robin's car last?"

  "Me. She wanted only me to touch her car. Said she didn't trust the other guys."

  "Feel like taking a little ride?" he asked.

  "Sure. How little?"

  "I've got a meeting with a woman at the DOJ."

  "The what?"

  "Department of Justice. Actually she's with the California Bureau of Investigation, sex crimes unit."

  "How long will it take?"

  "She's just over on Federal. Not more than an hour. "

  "Lou?"

  "Might as well," he said, sighing loudly "It's only money right?"

  She knew he had to act like his balls were being busted. The truth was he was probably a little relieved to have one less restless mechanic on his hands. Slow days brought out jealousy and backbiting. Especially with Stefano, who stomped around the shop when Munch had jobs lined up with her own customers. Like it was her fault she had developed a loyal following.

  St. John took her over to Westwood, to the offices of the California Bureau of Investigation, sex crimes unit. Once they were alone in the car he said, "We can't overlook the fact that three out of four victims and potential victims of this guy are connected to your station. You got any bad feelings about any of your coworkers?"

  "Oh, you know how it is," she said, suddenly uncomfortable about fingering anybody specific. It was one thing to complain to a friend. Another feeling entirely when that friend was a cop.

  "Tell me anyway" he said.

  "Lou named me as manager when he isn't there. That didn't sit well with some of the guys."

  "Give me an example."

  "Okay. There's this one guy Stefano. He's from Yugoslavia or somewhere. Anyhow, he thinks he's really something. Lou hired him two months ago because he said he knew how to fix cruise controls and automatic transmissions. Come to find out, Stefano talks a good show but lacks a little in execution. Last month he worked on this guy's cruise control. Big Lincoln Town Car. Next day the guy comes in and says that it still doesn't work right. Stefano sticks out his chest and tells the customer that he doesn't know how to operate his own car. The customer says, 'I might not be a mechanical genius, but I know when I step on the brake that the cruise control should shut off.' I heard that and told Lou to give the guy his money back. Stefano's been shooting daggers at me ever since."

  "You got a last name for this guy?"

  "Barnevik." She tried to think. Did her caller have a slight accent? The electronic modification might be his way of disguising it.

  "Write it down for me. Who else? What about your limo drivers?"

  "I can give you a list of ex-drivers, but honestly I don't see any of them having the ambition to stalk me."

  "Just humor me. Have you fired anyone recently?"

  "I fire a driver at least once a month, butl don't make a big deal out of it. I just take them off the insurance policy and let 'em figure it out for themselves that I'm not calling anymore."

  "Who else?"

  "I've got a list of people I don't call anymore."

  "Anybody who would dislike you enough to want to hurt you?"

  Munch rubbed her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. It was a horrible thing to have to consider. "You mean like someone who seems sort of off?"

  "You never know," he said.

  And with that comforting thought, they arrived at their destination.

  * * *

  While waiting for their appointment, Munch picked
through the brochures on the credenza. The first pamphlet listed myths about rape that needed to be dispelled. "First and foremost," it read, "you have to know and understand that it is not your fault—you didn't ask for it in any way—you did not provoke the incident by the way you act, dress, or carry yourself."

  Not now I don't, Munch thought.

  She turned to a second brochure about something called Rape Trauma Syndrome. The physical symptoms were loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, nightmares, difficulty functioning at normal everyday tasks, not wanting to leave the safety of your home alone. Everything cataloged fit with what Robin was experiencing.

  There was also a list of emotional reactions broken into two categories: those expressed and those suppressed. Expressed emotions were feelings of fear, anger, and anxiety. A person suppressing emotions might display a calm, composed outward appearance but was probably not doing as well as someone who could express feelings outwardly.

  Munch stuffed the brochures into her bag when the door to the anteroom opened.

  They were greeted by a woman who identified herself as Special Agent Hogan. Emily Hogan. She had blond hair, which curled to her shoulders, and was wearing a tailored skirt suit and heels. Munch was surprised. She realized she had been expecting a bitter, angry man-hating woman like the ones who led those incest-survivor workshops at the women's center. Certainly not someone who wore makeup and feminine gold jewelry at her ears and throat.

  "How can I help you?" Agent Hogan asked.

  St. John introduced himself and explained that they were looking for a rapist.

  "You've come to the right place," Hogan said with a smile.

  "Let's go into my office."

  When they were settled in matching upholstered chairs that faced the agent's desk, Emily Hogan said, "First, let's classify your assailant."

  "Not my assailant," Munch said quickly wondering why it made a difference to her that this woman know that immediately. Agent Hogan didn't blink. "I was referring to your case."