In My Dark Dreams

by JF Freedman

She was overjoyed. So now we are practicing for the birth of my child—I as the mother, she as the coach, supporter, family member by proxy.

  This is the first time she’s come to my place; I usually go to hers. She arrives driving a Jaguar XKR coupe; she’s a rakish woman, age be damned. She breezes in like a cyclone from the Wizard of Oz, says nothing, but lifts her eyebrows in alarm. Picking up the phone, she makes a call, and an hour later, as we’re finishing our session, a cleaning crew arrives on my doorstep. Two efficient Dominican ladies, laden with mops, vacuums, bottles of cleansers. Amanda takes me out to dinner, and two hours later, when we return to my humble abode, sated and blissed out from our meal, my house is spotless, glistening with the luster of hand-scrubbing. You could eat off the floors, the place is so pristine.

  I don’t bother making a pretense of offering to pay; Amanda would be insulted. She has taken on the role of surrogate grandmother-to-be with a vengeance. A happy extreme, but formidable, like everything she gets involved with.

  “Thank you,” I say to Amanda as she gathers her purse and birthing mat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Of course I didn’t,” she chirps. “I like a clean environment. Especially for you, who must be careful not to get sick.”

  I walk her outside. The air is fragrant with night-blooming jasmine. “See you tomorrow,” she tells me, as she remotes her car open. Pausing before getting in, she says, “Your partner did very well.”

  We have avoided talking about the trial. Our bond now is my pregnancy, not Roberto Salazar. “Yes,” I answer. “Joe’s good.”

  “I won’t be there every day. I don’t want to be a disruption. The white woman’s burden,” she spews, wrinkling her nose in distaste. She is repeating an implied obscenity that one of the right-wing talk-show radio bullies spat out that was picked up and commented on by some of the jaded courtroom reporters when Amanda took her seat next to Salazar’s wife this morning. “But I do want to be strong for them.” She purses her lips seriously. “No one seems willing to be anymore.”

  “Don’t pay attention to that crap,” I tell her. “Come whenever you want. I’ll make sure you get in.”

  She kisses me good-bye on the cheek. “Go to sleep,” she orders. “You have to be alert. For two important reasons.”

  She gets in her car and drives off. I galumph up the three stairs to my porch, go inside, and make myself a pot of herb tea. I need to go over the material that will be coming up in the next couple of days.

  Today was pretty fireworks and sparklers—eye dazzlers. Tomorrow we start slugging it out in the trenches.

  Fine rhetoric captures the mind, but 99 percent of trial results come down to proof, and they have proof on their side. The victim’s underwear. Salazar’s proximity to not one but at least two of the killings. His lack of an iron-tight alibi for any of the nights the killings occurred. And the prosecution’s key eyewitness, the woman who will swear on her sainted mother’s body that she saw the last victim and Salazar together on the very night the poor woman was murdered.

  Of all the unanswered questions, that one, even more than the underwear, is my personal bugaboo: what was he doing out on the streets of West L.A., far from home, at that ungodly hour of the night? The night he was caught with the stolen television sets I can buy, but this? He has no excuse. He maintains he was in his house, but his wife can’t back him up, which is very worrisome. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s some kind of real-life Jekyll and Hyde, a good, pious man who is transformed during the time of the full moon into a monster. That’s a scenario out of Robert Louis Stevenson—pure fiction; yet I can’t think of any other interpretation that would explain it.

  That is, of course, if he is guilty. The state is paying Joe, me, and the rest of our team to defend him as if he were innocent until proven guilty. We will do that, but I believe we have to think outside the box if we are going to come up with a defense for Salazar that will hold water.

  I advance my beyond-the-pale hypothesis to Joe the next morning, when we reconnoiter in his office before it’s time to take the elevator down to the pit that is called a courtroom.

  “Not guilty by reason of split personality. Or maybe he’s a werewolf,” he chortles, licking the powdered sugar residue of his morning cruller from his fingertips. “Anyway, it’s too late for that now; our own shrink says he’s a hundred percent sane. We’d be undercutting our case if we dared bring that up, which we won’t,” he tells me in no uncertain terms. “The werewolf strikes. That would be a first in California jurisprudence. And the last,” he adds, washing down the last bite of pure cholesterol with a swig of the motor oil that passes for coffee in our dayroom. “We would not only face disbarment, we would become legendary laughing-stocks.” He crumples his napkin and drops it into the wastebasket. “We don’t have to resort to witchcraft,” he says. “Not for another week, at least.”

  Deputy Chief of Police Clarence Dupree is the prosecution’s first witness. He is here to give an overview of the Full Moon Killings, from first to last, pointing out the similarities in the killing method, and the particular article of clothing that was taken from each victim. Dupree, a tall, ropy-muscled medium-complexioned African American with graying hair, who bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Morgan Freeman, is wearing his dress uniform, with all the buttons and bows on his breast.

  One of Loomis’s deputies, Arthur Wong, a man of Asian ancestry (Chinese), leads Dupree through his paces. In a city that has been racially polarized for generations, and is becoming even more so, that’s a nice touch, one minority in friendly rapport with another. Arthur is a pretty cool guy. I’ve clashed with him before, and afterward there were no hard feelings on either side. He takes his work seriously, but himself much less, which earns him kudos in my book.

  The details of the strangulations elicit barely a ripple among the jurors. In a city where newspapers and televisions take lurid pleasure in breathlessly screaming at their audience about eight-year-olds shot on their front porches by marauding gangs, this kind of murder is almost humdrum. I watch the seven men and five women as Dupree details how each victim was identically killed, and their reactions are muted.

  When the subject of the women’s missing underpants is introduced, however, the emotional temperature in the room abruptly rises. Sex is in the air now. Murder coupled with sex, a blast of searing heat from a pornographic oven. Although the secret of the stolen panties was leaked months ago, shortly after Salazar’s arrest, this is the first time it has officially seen the light of day.

  Amazingly to me, some of the jurors look truly shocked, as if they had not heard of this before. Sitting inches away, without looking at him, I can sense Salazar going rigid. He has read the jurors’ reactions, and it isn’t good for him. It’s one thing to kill people, but to add a kinky and weird sexual component to their murders is much worse. Sex is still our crazy uncle in the locked room, even though there is more porn in the world now than ever, thanks to the Internet.

  “In every one of these murders, that was the constant, the missing underpants?” Wong asks Dupree.

  “That and the method of killing, yes,” Dupree answers with easy assurance. He has done this hundreds of times, he is as comfortable here as he is at his breakfast table.

  “Which lead to the conclusion—?”

  “That one individual committed the murders.”

  “Because only a chosen few knew about this quirk, fetish, sickness, however you want to describe it.”

  I’m on my feet faster than Joe, which, considering my bulk, is no small thing. “Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness, and using prejudicial and unwarranted descriptions.”

  “Withdrawn,” Arthur declares fast, before I can be sustained. “Let me rephrase. How did the police come to the conclusion that this was the doing of one man?”

  “Person,” Dupree corrects him. They rehearsed that exchange, I’m sure. Makes Dupree look objective, the cop who only wants the facts, ma’am. “Because of the uniqueness o
f the circumstances,” he says, basically repackaging the question Wong had supposedly withdrawn.

  I’m not going to split hairs. That evidence is incontrovertible, we’re not going to fight its existence.

  “When did the police department link these crimes?” Arthur asks.

  How, when, why, where. The basics.

  “When the second victim was found. Same method of killing, same removal of the article of clothing.”

  “That’s when you were sure?”

  “No,” Dupree demurs. “We were pretty certain, but we don’t like to make snap judgments. Two that were similar was strong evidence for us, but it wasn’t until the third victim that we were convinced there was a serial killer out there.”

  Serial killer. Two of the scariest words in the English language. I look at Joe—should I object? A tiny head shake no. Don’t fight battles you can’t win. We cannot win this one. The same person killed four women under the same circumstances. That’s the definition of a serial killer.

  The remainder of Dupree’s testimony is standard issue, no surprises. By the time Wong is finished it’s close to lunchtime, so Judge Suzuki calls it. Our side will get a fresh start after lunch.

  The bailiffs lead Salazar away. Humanely, they let him hug his wife briefly before escorting him out. That’s a nice gesture, not often given.

  Joe and I wait until the courtroom has been cleared. “Do you mind if I take him?” Joe asks, meaning Dupree’s cross-examination. We have agreed that we will split the work. Since he delivered our opening remarks, it could be my turn at bat.

  “No,” I answer. Dupree is tangential to us. An older man questioning a contemporary his age is more appropriate than my doing it. “Not much to do.”

  “I agree. Move ’em on, head ’em out, Rawhide,” Joe sings, dating himself. “But I have a few wrinkles.”

  “How’s it going, Chief?” Joe asks Dupree.

  Dupree smiles. He does have that Morgan Freeman smirk down cold. Probably practices in front of the mirror while he’s shaving. “Goin’ good. And that’s assistant chief. Don’t want to rile up my boss.”

  “One person,” Joe says. He waits, but Dupree doesn’t respond. Joe amplifies: “One person did all the killings.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of the MO. The method and the object that was taken from each of them.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “No chance of its being a coincidence?”

  Dupree parries easily. “Maybe one in a million. Or less.”

  “But not the method,” Joe pursues. “Strangulation is not that uncommon, is it, Chief? Excuse me, Assistant Chief.”

  “No,” Dupree agrees with equanimity. He’s not going to let Joe get his goat. “Strangulation isn’t the most common method for killing someone, but it happens with some regularity. Usually when it’s a crime of real passion.” Joe has given him an opening, and he takes it. “When the killer and victim know each other, because you have to be very close to each other. Not like a gun shot, or even a knifing.”

  Joe isn’t fazed by Dupree’s expertise, nor by his bringing the supposed connection between victims and killer into play. We are going to use that ourselves, down the road. “So if that was all you had, Mr. Salazar would not have been arrested.”

  “Probably not,” Dupree admits. “But we had more than that.”

  “Okay,” Joe says. “You stated that one person did all the killings,” he says again.

  “You’ve asked me that question already,” Dupree points out. “My answer is the same: yes.”

  “These strangulation marks on their necks. Were they all the same?”

  “I can’t answer that. You would have to ask the medical examiner.”

  Which Joe or I will, but he isn’t going to announce it in advance. Instead, he asks, “So it’s possible there may have been more than one killer. Two or more men, working in concert.”

  Dupree seems a bit flustered by that question. He takes a moment before answering. “I suppose so. But the pattern doesn’t indicate that.”

  “What pattern is that, Chief?”

  Dupree doesn’t bother to correct Joe about his title. “The pattern that is developed in thousands of homicides over dozens of years,” he answers in his best Joe Friday voice. “Serial killers usually don’t work in teams.”

  “You mean like Bianchi and Buono did? The Hillside Stranglers? Right here in Los Angeles?”

  Dupree holds his ground. “They were the exception to the rule.”

  As does Joe. “They worked together.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  A wedge. Small, but every inch counts.

  Now Joe says, “These purloined women’s underpants. The undergarments that were taken from each of the victims. Were they taken before the victims were killed, or while they were still alive?”

  That question really does throw Dupree. He gives it some thought. “After, I presume.”

  “Why would you presume that?” Joe pounces. “If the victims knew their assailant, as the District Attorney stated in his opening remarks, isn’t it just as likely that the victims could have engaged in sexual relations with their killers before they were killed? And if they did, isn’t it logical they would have removed their underpants? That’s usually how it’s done, isn’t it?”

  From somewhere behind me in the gallery there comes a nervous snicker, followed by a cough to cover it. Suzuki frowns in the offender’s direction, but doesn’t rap for silence, so as not to bring more attention to the disruption.

  “I guess they could have taken them off before they were murdered,” Dupree concedes. “I can’t answer that question. You would have to ask the medical examiner about that, too.”

  Dupree does know that all the victims exhibited signs of having had sex shortly before they were killed. He also knows that rape wasn’t likely, but he isn’t going to stick his neck out any farther than he has to. He has already ventured into waters deeper than he expected.

  “So there could have been more than one assailant,” Joe concludes, “and if there was sexual activity, it could have been consensual, so it’s possible the victims gave their underpants to whomever they had sex with that night. Yes or no?”

  “Theoretically, I guess,” Dupree answers. He’s going to hold firm as best he can. “In the real world, I would say no.”

  Joe executes a slow 360-degree turn, like a tourist taking in the wonder of the Sistine Chapel for the first time. “Is this not the real world?” he asks with mock naiveté, when he is facing Dupree again. “I do believe it is.” With a sharpness in his voice heretofore not revealed, he says, “And in the real world, everything I have said is possible.”

  Loomis is on his feet, as much to protect his witness from further derision as to make a legal point. “Objection, Your Honor. Speculation without basis.”

  “Sustained,” Suzuki responds. “Strike that last remark,” he instructs the court stenographer.

  Joe doesn’t argue; he’s accomplished his goals. “No further questions of this witness, Your Honor.”

  Steven Walker is the criminologist from the county coroner’s office who performed the forensic investigation in the field for the first Full Moon Killing, before anyone realized this was going to be an epidemic. Now it’s the prosecution’s intent to show that it was. That won’t be hard, everyone knows it was. Whom to pin it on—that’s why we’re here.

  Loomis does the honors. Now that Joe has showcased his excellent interrogating credentials, Loomis has to match him or risk having his thunder stolen. Juries lock in quickly on whose side has the upper hand; you don’t want to be playing catch-up with their affection. That’s the real reason O.J. won—Johnnie Cochran kicked the prosecution’s ass each and every day of that trial.

  Walker, who joined the coroner’s office after putting in twenty-five years in the army (he lost a leg in the first Gulf War), knows his stuff. I’ve been in trials with him before; he’s a straight shooter who plays by the rules.
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br />   “You determined the victim had been murdered, is that correct?” Loomis asks.

  “Yes,” Walker answers. He has his notes with him in a binder to make sure he gets his facts straight. They are in his lap, ready to be referred to if necessary.

  “Please explain how you arrived at that conclusion.”

  Walker doesn’t need his notes for this answer. “She was strangled. There were visible marks on her throat that clearly showed she had been choked. Her neck was black from ruptured blood vessels. Later, when our office did an autopsy, they found out her windpipe had been crushed.”

  “Were there any indications she fought her assailant, such as skin scrapings under her fingernails, or something similar?”

  “No. I would assume she tried to stop him, but we didn’t find that.”

  “You said him. Why did you come to the conclusion the killing was done by a man?”

  “Experience. Most strangulations are done by men. It takes strength to overpower someone and then choke them to death. Most women don’t have that strength. Although a woman who worked out, lifted weights, could have,” he modifies. “There was another reason I thought it was a man,” he adds.

  “What was that?”

  “The choke marks on her neck indicated her killer had fairly large hands. Again, you can find women who have big hands, but not many. You put the different things together, you come to a reasonable conclusion.”

  “And were you able to determine the time of death?”

  Walker checks his notes. “Between two o’clock and four o’clock in the morning.”

  “Explain to the court, if you will, how an experienced criminologist such as yourself arrives at these findings.”

  Walker shifts in his chair and looks at the jurors, who are listening carefully. Some are taking notes. “The body temperature of the victim is a good indicator,” he says. “The manner in which the blood has settled in the body is another one. In the lab we have more sophisticated tests we run, but an experienced field inspector usually gets the time of death pretty close, particularly if the body is found within a short time after the killing takes place.”