Pratt was moving slowly down the right side of the street traveling slower than the traffic flow. As always, he paid little attention to his driving. A single flower girl sold her wares at the corner of Seventh Avenue and McDowell. Pratt cruised passed her location five times in the next twenty minutes. Ross' heart beat quickened as he kept careful pace with the Ford. He knew from long experience that most likely nothing of import would happen as it rarely did when a tail was on a suspect but occasionally something did and it was for those times Ross maintained a sharp edge.
Ross was too close when Pratt suddenly wheeled in beside the flower girl. He had no choice but to continue as he was and cross Seventh Avenue where he was able to unobtrusively pull over and observe what was taking place through his rear view mirror.
The girl was about sixteen and was a bit heavier than most flower girls. If she were not careful she would easily turn to fat by her twenties. But for now, she possessed the startling figure of a full bodied woman, a rarity at her early age.
Ross adjusted his mirror and watched Pratt get out of his car and approach the girl. Ross had a reasonably good view of what occurred but an occasion truck would partially block his vision. The girl and Pratt talked briefly, Pratt glancing over her flowers but buying nothing. He spoke intently while the girl shook her head rapidly, side to side. Pratt persisted but the girl refused. Abruptly he got into his car and lurched off.
What the hell, Ross thought as he pulled into the street, quickly shooting across three lanes of traffic to resume his tail. Just what the hell was that all about?
Pratt drove quickly now as though traveling with a purpose lacking heretofore. He moved methodically, weaving occasionally from lane to lane. Ross called upon more of his skills to remain
at an effective distance. Unexpectedly, the car pulled into a convenience market.
Ross decided to take a look close up and parked so he could get out quickly and not be blocked by any new arrival. The officer exited his vehicle and went into the store behind his tail, taking a coke from the cooler and paying for it before Pratt had made his purchase. Ross conspired to find what Pratt was buying and made himself conceal his quick anticipation when he saw that Pratt was purchasing nylon cord. Shit, he thought going back to his car. He tossed the coke he didn't want into the back seat.
Pratt reentered the traffic and headed directly back the way he had come. Ross kept close watch and was now fully alert. The car pulled in beside the girl again. Ross stayed to the rear at a sewing machine repair shop parking lot. To his disgust a sign blocked his vision. He jumped out of the car and moved cautiously into sight of the street corner.
Pratt had the girl's arm and was pulling her as she struggled against him. Shit, it’s coming down, he thought. Abruptly the girl pulled free and lifted a pop bottle over her head, threatening Pratt. Pratt hesitated then got quickly into his idling car and drove off.
Ross found himself halfway to the corner without even realizing it. He had instinctively started forward when he had seen Pratt holding the girl's arm. Now he was torn between returning to his car and following Pratt or checking out the girl. He went to the girl.
"What happened?" he asked running up to her. The flower girl was rubbing her arm.
"Some creep grabbed me. Man he was weird, you know?" She looked at the cop speculatively. "Want to buy some flowers?"
Ross pulled his badge from his pocket and flashed it. "Why don't you tell me what happened."
"You saw it." The girl's eyes had glassed over and a wall, invisible but there never the less, had been raised around her.
Ross sighed inwardly. "Why don't you tell me about it anyway?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders and rubbed her arm unconsciously. "What's to tell? You saw it anyway. Why make me repeat it all? It's bad enough that it happened without some cop making me talk about it."
Patience fella, patience. "I'd like you to tell me about it."
"So alright. I was just standing here, selling flowers and this weird creep comes and goes, you know, like grabs at me. I just pulled my arm away and told him I'd belt him if he didn't take off. So he goes and you run up and start hassling me."
"Do you want to press charges?"
"What for? Creeps come up to me all the time." The girl was impatient to return to her selling.
"A man like that could hurt somebody else who wasn't as good at taking care of herself as you. If you pressed assault charges you could keep that from happening to someone else."
"What's it to me? The guy's just weird. He didn't hurt me. Look, I don't wanna talk anymore, O.K.? I got flowers to sell."
The girl walked off. Ross returned to his car disheartened. If only she'd press charges. We could get his probation revoked and bring an end to this whole mess. What the hell is it with kids anyway? He thought.
Ross had lost Pratt and so returned to the man's cottage to wait until Pratt returned or Killian arrived to take over. Damn, he thought. God damn it to hell.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEEN
Monday morning. August.
Killian pulled himself from his bed, went into the kitchenette, turned the burner to high and placed a pan of water on it to boil while he showered. After breakfast Killian stood before his sliding balcony door, a tense knot in his stomach. You’ve made your decisions, he thought. Now live with it.
Ross’ report the night before had disturbed him. It had been so close to ending. If only the girl had been willing to press charges it would be over. Granted, the assault had been minimal and even without a good attorney, Pratt might have received nothing more than a misdemeanor but that would be all it would take with his track record to get his felony probation revoked and the man sent to prison. Killian made a mental note to contact the flower girl himself the following day but from what Ross had said she wouldn't change her mind.
At seven-fifty he walked into the police department, turning for the basement rather than for the second floor where his office was located. He found the technician he was looking for.
“Hello, Alex.”
Alex Reed looked up from the counter and smiled vaguely. “Hello, Bob. I thought only technicians came to work this early on a Monday.”
“I’ve got something and I need it yesterday.”
The technician’s brow raised a moment. “What have you got?"
Killian removed the envelope from his pocket and handed it over. "I think it’s blood. Would you check it for me and then match what you find with that Jane Doe we found in the desert three weeks ago."
"O.K. I can confirm if it’s human and give you a blood type match but not more than that without some time. After a week or so I can match enzymes if I’ve got enough sample. There’s a new technique that will make a specific match to an individual but its years away from general use."
"Call me at my desk. And Alex, please, not one word to anyone about this."
Killian went upstairs to his desk. He placed a call to Worthington and was not surprised to learn that the probation officer was out. He left a call back message then sat alone composing his thoughts.
At nine-thirty six Reed called to inform him that the sample was human blood and a general match with the Jane Doe's. Killian had to talk with Bustamante this day whether he wanted to or not. He sat, deciding now, how much to tell him.
~
Worthington met with Killian at ten-forty eight that morning, two scheduled probationers sat waiting to see him in the reception area while he took the detective ahead of their scheduled appointments. "So what can I do for you today?" he asked benignly.
"Do you have anything to revoke Pratt for?" Killian asked coming straight to the point.
Worthington thought a moment before answering. "I suppose if I looked hard enough. The terms of probation are drawn up so that no one, not even a law abiding citizen can live by them. Take drinking for example. Standard term eight prohibits any drinking at all. But if I tried to take any one but an alcoholic in for it I'd get laughed out of court. That term's th
ere for P.R., not to be taken literally. There are others like that.
"Would you have enough to make it stick?"
"No, not really. Let's say I got Pratt for drinking a beer. That's one. Then let's say I file for moving
without my permission. Technically he needed permission to move out of his parent’s house. That's two. Then let's say I go back over all my appointments with him for the last three months and document that he’s been late or missed one or two of them. That’s three. Then let’s say I allege he is unemployed and that makes four. Sounds pretty good.
"I take it to a judge for signature. Probably he laughs at me. Maybe he's a right winger and takes all of the terms literally and signs it. You pick up Tim. All hell breaks loose. That smooth lawyer Burgoyne lands on me with all four feet. We end up in court. When all is said and done he makes it look like I've
got it in for the boy and the case gets dismissed.
"So my answer is sure, I can get a warrant on him. I can on everybody on my caseload but I couldn't justify it if my supervisor wanted to know why and the case would never get Tim revoked and in prison. So what's going on? All I did was ask you to check him out."
Killian found he was perspiring slightly. It was as he feared before coming here. Worthington could do him no good. "Well, thanks anyway. There's nothing I can talk about right now." Killian got up to go.
"Hold it!" Worthington said. "You can't just come over here on some emergency and then up and leave. I gave you the name. I'm that man's probation officer. Now, damn it, tell me what's going on."
Killian was startled by the outburst. "I really can't say anything right now because I can't prove anything."
"So who's talking about proof? The guy's on probation anyway. The rules of evidence are different for probation violation and I bet I know them a hell of a lot better than you do. So tell me what you know. I can keep quiet. I'll tell you what, if anything, I can do for you."
Killian sat in absolute silence for a full minute. Phones rang in neighboring offices, people called out to each other, saccharine music filled the air and Killian heard none of it. "Not here," he said abruptly. "Outside."
Worthington was not surprised at the request. At least once a week somebody wanted to talk to him in confidence away from his office. The flimsy green walls, six feet high, gave no privacy at all.
The two men went out the rear, second floor exit and stood on top of the back fire stairs as Worthington ignored all of his pages. Slowly Killian ran down everything he knew from the beginning, omitting just two things; the unlawful entry and Reed's partial confirmation earlier.
"What do you make of it all?" Worthington asked.
"I'm convinced that Pratt killed her. The circumstantial evidence is too strong."
"That checks with something I suspected before calling you," Worthington replied thinking of his conversation three weeks before with Pratt’s psychiatrist. He would have mentioned it but he had promised to say nothing. Still Worthington thought Killian seemed just too certain. "Is there something you know you aren't telling me?" the probation officer asked.
Killian considered it but the risk was too great. "Yeah, but nothing I can talk about."
"Alright." Worthington was accustomed to evasive cops. "But it makes you certain Tim did this?" Killian nodded his head. "So how are you going to prove that he killed this flower girl?"
"I'm not," Killian replied. "That's why I came here. I don't believe I can prove he killed her, not without a break. But I wanted to see if there was any other way to put him away."
Worthington said, "Yeah. I can see that. What are you going to do now?"
"I'm not certain. I've got a plan but I don't want to use it if I can help it. For now I go to the department with what I've told you and see what the brains can come up with."
"Alright. But if what you say is true, then based on what your friend saw yesterday, it won't be long before he goes after another girl."
"You don't have to remind me. I know."
~
Jared reached under his bed and removed his boxes, the boxes he had so painstakingly saved over the years. Periodically he removed the objects of his fetish, deriving the most pleasure from the final pair, the ones he had cut from the girl's body. He had first begun his collection over seven years before and on occasion had spread the entire contents out around him fondling, sniffing each of them in turn. Over the years they lost their erotic stimulus to him but the most recent panties were still capable of raising an erection.
The day he acquired the thirteenth one to round out a box was a special one for Jared. He would slowly and with great pleasure slice thirteen holes into the box often reaching orgasm at the conclusion as he imagined the knife cutting the bodies that most of the panties had once adorned.
This day, twenty three days since the abduction and death of Tracy Fremont, he carefully placed a pair of panties, newly stolen from a neighbor’s clothes line into a fresh box but as he did so he thought of the dancers last night and of the flower girl the day before, the one who had fought him. He wondered what kind of panties she wore and how they would be fresh and smell good not like this recently laundered pair.
~
Killian tried but he could think of no way around it. He had to go to Bustamante with what he had. Not all of it of course, not any of the illegal part but the rest of it or nothing official would come of his efforts. He had considered telling only what he needed to explain how he had come to identify the girl. But to do that he would have to hold something back and he knew from long experience that the more he held back the more likely it was that something which he hadn't told the sergeant would rear its ugly head later. If that happened than everything he had said would become suspect and place Killian in an impossible situation.
In the final analysis he had decided to tell nearly all because he hoped to pursued Bustamante to his way of thinking and if he did, then just maybe the full resources of the department could be thrown into the case and with that many people working it, something, just something surely would turn up.
With some trepidation he approached Bustamante shortly after lunch. "Hello, Steve. Got a minute?"
"Sure. Come on in. How have you been, Bob?" As always Bustamante was trim and fit though a trifle diminutive in size. He had been the minimum weight and height for admittance when accepted by the police department.
After the familiar bantering Killian got down to business. He ran by most of his events ever since receiving the name of Jared Pratt from Worthington. He told Bustamante of Graff’ refusal to accept the name. He told the sergeant how he went to the Medical Examiner and talked to Martinez to learn the facts of the case. How he checked the guy's priors and ran down Bud and later went to Missing Persons for the flyer from St. Louis then of the confirmation Friday by Kruglick providing the department with the girl's I.D. He told Bustamante of his fears and for this reason he had brought in Ross to help tail Pratt to assure that he committed nothing else like this until such time as Killian could get the facts to the department. Killian then recounted what had taken place the day before when Pratt had unsuccessfully tried to abduct another flower girl.
Bustamante whistled softly. "Jesus, it sure sounds like you've got the right guy. Nice work, Bob. Very nice indeed. Jesus, that Graff is a jerk. If I could I'd get him tossed out of the department on his ass. I wonder how many other details he's overlooked on this case because he's already got his mind made up that it can't be solved. You ought to be in Homicide, Bob. You're wasting your talents in Property. Looks like we ought to get going with the tail and nab him when he makes another try. What do you think?"
Killian drew a deep breath then took the plunge. "I don't think so, Steve. I think the situations such that we can't do that. For one thing somebody will tip our tail if we bring regular detectives into this. With the kind of parents he's got, rich and protective, and the lawyer they always hire to get their precious child off, they'll put heat on and the next thing you know we'll have t
o call off the tail and once we do that, we're back to square one, waiting for the asshole to cut up some other girl."
"I'm not sure I share your pessimism but assuming you're right, what do you suggest we do?" Carefully, Killian laid out his plan. "It'll never work, Bob. For one thing to do something like that I'd have to get approval, probably from the Chief and there is no way he'd approve it. And if we did do it, it would only be as a last resort when all else failed. Bob, I'm surprised at you. You act like you know this guy did it. All you've done so far is convince me he’s probably guilty. To do something like you propose we'd have to know he was guilty and we don't." Bustamante paused. "Do we?"
Killian looked the man in the eye. "No, we don't."
"I'm glad to hear that, Bob. For a moment you had me thinking. Well anyway, you've done great work if a little unorthodox. You've got a promotion coming for this and I intend to see that you get it. Now just kick back and don't go wild-west on us. We need to take this to the lieutenant and then to the captain. We'll get the tail slapped on and when he tries again, we'll be there, if he is the one. What you've turned so far certainly justifies an all-out effort for a while."
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