JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps

by phuc

  He knew that he was slipping back into a quagmire of self-defeat. It was a familiar pattern whenever he became romantically involved with a woman; he began thinking about his life with Shirley and he would start missing her something incredible. Then inevitably, his mind would start tracking on the current relationship he was in: suppose she is taken from me the way Shirley was? Suppose I fall wholly and completely in love with this woman and she leaves me, or betrays me somehow? Suppose I get hurt again? It was these fears of being hurt which was what made him retreat from the intimacy in the relationships until they eventually burned themselves out. He thought he had the problem fixed from the therapy he endured and the lessons learned from his marriage to Diana, but apparently that wasn't the case.

  He had started feeling them again with Rachael. Almost two months ago.

  He had finally told Rachael about what had happened with Shirley because she sensed there was something he was hanging onto. And she had come up with a suggestion: why don't they cool off from each other for a few weeks? Not cut each other off completely, just stop seeing each other for awhile. The suggestion came as a total surprise to Daryl, and he immediately thought that Rachael was ending their relationship.

  She had assured him that she wasn't, but it took him a while before he realized that not all was lost. He had reluctantly agreed, and the more he thought about it, the better he felt.

  He needed to get his shit together. He loved Rachael very much and he had to deal with the problems that continued to drag him down. He had to get help. Somehow.

  For the first week of the separation he was a nervous wreak. All he could think about was Rachael. Paranoid thoughts crept into his brain: she was seeing another man, she hated him, she was planning on leaving him. But the thing that blew those theories out of the water was her efforts at staying in touch with him. She called him every other day just to say hello. And a week into their self-imposed separation she had sent him a bouquet of flowers and a card. The card was in her handwriting. It read I miss you and think of you every day. That simple sentence made his heart swell, and he knew that he had really found love again. He wasn't going to let anything destroy it.

  He was more confident now that maybe their little separation was helping their relationship after all. In the last week he wasn't as stressed out as he had been.

  Daryl smiled. Things were looking bright indeed.

  “Detective Garcia?"

  The sound of his name being called snapped him back to the present and the case at hand. He turned toward the sound of the voice. It was FBI Agent Bernie Haskins, one of the Butcher Task Force members. He had been back at the FBI Headquarters in Virginia for the past week and had been due back in Los Angeles sometime that week.

  Guess today was that day.

  “Haskins, how's it hanging?” Daryl asked, straightening up in his chair.

  “Not bad.” Haskins found an empty chair, pulled it out and sat down, facing the back of the chair, arms over the top of it. He looked at Daryl wearily. “Heard you found another one today."

  “Yeah,” Daryl said, motioning to the stack of paperwork on his desk. “Steve is helping me with this paperwork. I swear, the thing that gets to me the most about this goddamn thing is the paperwork involved."

  “It's an annoying part of the job,” Haskins said, sighing. “So what's the scoop? All I heard was that it's pretty much the same ol’ same ‘ol. That the guy was pretty much found scattered in pieces along a drainage ditch."

  “Well it's not that cut and dried,” Daryl said. He gave him a brief re-cap of his day, Haskins nodding along at all the appropriate parts. “As of now no word has come in if the rest of him has been found."

  Haskins whistled. “Damn. Any I.D. on the body yet?"

  “None. But he looks like a gang member. His chest and torso sport gang tattoos."

  Haskins nodded. “Yep, he's really following his pattern. We pretty much thought he'd strike again after the body of that woman was found last week."

  Daryl's mind flashed back to last week. On the warm Sunday morning of July 6, a fourteen-year-old boy walking to his grandmother's house in Echo Park stumbled over a skull in the middle of a well worn path in the field. The boy had run to his grandmother's house and told her of his find. The woman phoned the police. When officers arrived they found the skull exactly where the boy said it was. Approximately twenty yards from the skull, partially hidden in some bushes, was the rotting remains of a burlap bag and the skeletal remains of a woman inside it. Pages from the Los Angeles Times dated June 5, 1996 and the LA XPress were wrapped around portions of the corpse (rotted flesh still clung to some of the body parts, causing more than a few officers to lose their lunch when they found her). Fragments of a black leather mini-skirt and black fishnet stockings were found twenty feet away, along with tangled strands of black hair.

  The remains had turned out to be that of an African American woman named Rosie Williams who had disappeared a year earlier around July 19. She had been a call girl who advertised in the LA X-Press. A check with the advertising department of the paper discovered that Rosie had been a client for over a year. At the time of her disappearance, investigators attempting to trace her whereabouts had gone through her normal client list and interviewed them about a dozen times, also going through the list of friends and acquaintances and fellow call girls. Every lead had turned into a dead end.

  Her friends and relatives hinted that she might have skipped town; at the time of her disappearance, she had been the subject of harassment from several johns who were stalking her and she had spoken about dropping out of sight for awhile and relocating.

  But even if she had done that she would have let her close family and friends know where she had gone. After awhile they had begun to suspect foul play on the part of these intimidating johns, but a thorough investigation of her client list exonerated all the men she had done business with. Attempts to trace her the night she was last seen went nowhere. A neighbor recalled seeing her leave her apartment around 9:30 on the evening of July 17, dressed in a tight black mini-skirt and black fishnet stockings, black high heel pumps and a white halter top, hair and make-up done up for business. The neighbor knew what Rosie did for a living and figured she was simply on her way out to earn some money. Nobody saw where she went.

  Nobody saw her come back.

  Cause of death was uncertain, but it had been determined that Rosie had been neatly dismembered. Traces of lime were also detected that might have hastened the corpse's deterioration. The bones of the legs and arms were missing, but the rest were present except for a single rib. None of Rosie Williams’ other remains were found.

  When the remains were initially identified, the hierarchies of the LAPD refused to include Rosie Williams in the murder cycle. Daryl and Bernie Haskins demurred and insisted she be included in the murder cycle. Rosie Williams had no ties to street gangs, which differed from the MO thus far, but the rest of the evidence was overwhelmingly that she had been a victim of the Butcher. Plus, Rosie Williams’ remains were disposed of in a vacant lot in Echo Park, within the same twenty block radius of the other murders and discovery sites.

  “Remember when Rosie Williams was found how some of your pals here thought she wasn't part of the series?” Bernie Haskins continued, an inflection of contempt in his voice at his mention of the LAPD. “You and I were smarter than that. We knew this guy had killed her. And remember our talk that night at dinner?"

  “Right,” Daryl was nodding now. They had gone out to eat at a Chili's Bar and Grill and had talked all night about the recent discovery. “You thought that our man had hung on to Rosie for as long as he could and that disposing her signaled that he was tiring of her and getting ready for another. In essence, he was going through the cycle again, reaching the low point of his psychosis and gearing up for the high point."

  “Right.” That night they had talked about the “cooling off” periods exhibited by serial killers when they were calm and in control after a kill
, using the high from the murder and the memories preserved from it to live it over and over, sometimes helped by something personal they had taken from the victim. In this case, the actual victim. They had also talked about the “upswing,” when the killer started warming up for the next kill, getting antsy, anxious to begin anew. It was much like a junkie yearning for his next fix.

  “I told you, ‘you watch,'” Bernie said, jabbing a finger at Daryl behind the desk.

  “'He just dumped this one and he's obviously had her for a while. Maybe he wanted a little variety with this one, found her in the LA XPress, called her up and she came over.

  Women like her are easy prey for predators like our guy. So he kills her. Jacks off to her dismembered corpse, gets his jollies off, whatever. Something about her appeals to him very strongly and he decides to keep this one to relive the fantasy over and over again.

  Why, I have no fucking idea. Maybe she gives head just as good dead as she did when she was alive. And then a few months later he kills Charley Ramirez. Only he doesn't hang onto him for no more than a day or two. He does that with all the men he's killed with the exception of that first one—what's his name?"

  “Lorenzo Cardenia,” Daryl said.

  “Right,” Bernie Haskins said. “He kept the body of the Lady of the Ocean for three months, and she was most likely the first kill that he felt very comfortable with.

  Then he kills Lorenzo and keeps him for a few weeks. Shortly before he dumps Lorenzo, he bags Louis Hernandez. He dumps Louis and Lorenzo at the same time. Why he didn't keep Louis around longer, I don't know. Louis was a good looking kid."

  Daryl nodded. Louis’ mug shots had showed an incredibly handsome Latino, one that certainly would cause many female hearts to swoon.

  “Then in January he kills Gloria Aldrette,” Bernie continued. “And while he didn't keep her for as long as the Lady of the Ocean, he dismembered her in the exact same manner. Then he kills Javier Perez and dumps him a day later, then he kills that other still-unidentified man that was found in the San Gabriel Mountains. Then there is the remains of Phillip Parker, who was found decapitated in that boxcar in Riverside in June of last year. All the men up to this time, I might add, have only been decapitated, not dismembered. Two of them were further emasculated."

  “Then he kills Rosie,” Daryl said, his mind tracking down the murder series.

  “Right,” Bernie said, emphasizing the point by slapping his hand against the back of the chair lightly. “He kills Rosie Williams and instead of dumping her a day later like he's done since Gloria Aldrette, he keeps her. Then he gets a taste for male flesh and kills Charley Ramirez. But the point is this: around February he starts growing a little tired of her, starts to yearn for something more familiar. Up till now, all his victims have been local Hispanics, with the exception of our still-unidentified San Gabriel man who was most likely Caucasian, and Rosie, and quite possibly the black victim from ‘89. Anyway, he plucks this Chrissy girl off the street. That's a little more to his taste. It satiates him enough so that he's able to relive that fantasy with Rosie, who is probably by now a bag of bones and putrefying flesh."

  Daryl made a face. Picturing how it was for this guy was only too revolting.

  “He's been slowing down because he's had Rosie to help him re-live the fantasy for awhile. But now she's gone, no use to him anymore. He dumps her remains, and begins working on planning his next. He hasn't had a man in nine months, at least as far as we can tell. So he kills this guy a few nights ago."

  Daryl was nodding to Bernie's analysis and now he had a thing to add himself.

  “And because he hasn't had a man in almost nine months, and hasn't made a kill in almost five months, he's excited. The lust is too strong for him. He can't control himself, he is immersed in the lust of his perversity."

  Bernie was nodding, getting into it. “Yeah."

  “He's so into this sick, twisted fantasy of his that it boils over,” Daryl said, regarding Bernie, waiting for the reaction. “And this time he gives in to the impulse.

  After decapitating this victim, he not only disembowels him and removes all his internal organs, but he cuts through the victim's rib cage with one single, decisive stroke and rips out the victim's heart with his bare hands."

  Bernie's mouth dropped open, his eyes wide with shock. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, the color draining from his face. “Are you fucking serious?"

  Daryl nodded. His features were grim. “I'm not joking. He gutted that man before he bisected the torso. I took a look inside both bags when I got there, and my initial thought was one of puzzlement—they really struck me as odd. I didn't give it much thought for the first few hours, since we were trying to find the rest of the victim and whatever clues we could find. But then as I drove over to the coroner's office behind the rescue unit that was transporting the remains and walked in with the ME as he carried both pieces in a basket it started to hit me. The coroner took both pieces of the torso out of the bags and gave them to Steve for us to deliver to the lab for analysis, but first he gave both pieces a quick look-over. And that's when we noticed it. The Butcher had gutted him, slit him open from about here,” he motioned to just slightly above his groin,

  “to about here,” and he traced his fingers up his stomach and chest ending at the breastbone. “Dr. Ulrich was just beside himself. This was the third Torso victim he had personally worked on, but he had read enough of the previous six from his predecessor that he was probably expecting the same old same old.” In November 1996, Dr. Samuel Ulrich had been elected to the office of Los Angeles County Coroner, defeating Dr.

  Albert Howison by a narrow margin.

  “He actually disemboweled him?” Bernie asked. His face had a hollow, shocked look. He looked the way people look when something weird happens, like witnessing a dog speak French or an infant recite Shakespeare.

  “Dr. Ulrich is ninety-nine percent sure,” Daryl said. “He didn't have time right then to do a complete autopsy. But he did a preliminary check and found that he had been pretty thoroughly gutted. Stomach, intestines, gall bladder, spleen, all that shit."

  “And the heart?” Bernie asked.

  “Ripped right out. Dr. Ulrich said that judging from the wounds, it looks like the Butcher disemboweled him from the bottom up.” Again, Daryl traced his finger from his groin to slightly below his sternum. “After he cleared his insides out he stabbed him in the chest and cut downward.” He made as if he was stabbing himself, his fist tracing from his breastbone down to his sternum. “He cut right through the ribs and the breastbone and just reached in and ripped the heart out. He was pretty precise, too."

  “Like he knew what the hell he was doing."

  Daryl nodded. “Yeah."

  They were silent for a moment, both of them staring at each other. Daryl knew what Bernie was thinking. This act of mutilation was a departure from the norm for the Butcher. Up until now he had shown restraint in mad mutilations of this type, preferring instead to be neat and articulate in his carving of his victims. Disemboweling suggested that their killer was slipping further over the edge of insanity. A sexual sadist who disemboweled his victim was a very sick individual indeed.

  Bernie finally broke the silence. “Has Peter Murphy or the Chief had anything to say yet?"

  “Nothing yet,” Daryl said. “I imagine both are making statements to the press tonight. I was waiting for you to get back into town to see how you wanted to handle it."

  “We need to have a meeting,” Bernie said. He stood up and put the chair back behind the desk in front of Daryl's where he had found it. “All Butcher Task Force members. We need to regroup and brainstorm on how we're going to handle this one. Has all this information been entered into the computers?"

  “It's being done now."

  “Good. I'll call the FBI tomorrow and speak with Rexer. He might have some insights."

  “Bernie?"

  “Yes?"

  “It's going to get worse."

  “Chri
st, Daryl, don't say that. We'll get him. The psychologists back in Virginia are going to have a field day with this new information. It should take only a day or two for them to get a handle on where his mind is at now and it might give us something new to go on."

  “No, I don't mean the case itself,” Daryl said. “I mean the way the killings are affecting the community."

  Bernie paused. “Is there trouble?"

  The pit of unease that had settled in his stomach earlier that afternoon now blossomed. “Some. The local news stations had stories about this latest killing all over the airwaves within an hour of the discovery of the body. We hadn't even ID'd it yet as a Butcher killing, and the news stations were already broadcasting that the latest Butcher victim had been found and that it looked like another gang member. As you can imagine, these remains were found in gang territory—Tortilla Flats, this time—and the response was predictable. As of now there is a tactical alert in all of Los Angeles County and officers in riot gear have been dispatched to the East Los Angeles area."

  “Jesus!"

  “There've been a few skirmishes,” Daryl said. “Nothing major. A few people have been arrested for disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, that sort of thing. The officers are mainly in there to calm down the public and keep people from getting out of hand."

  “I see what you mean though,” Bernie said, stroking his chin in thought. “It could get worse. Dammit, we need to catch this guy."

  “I know,” Daryl said. He felt the need to catch the Butcher grow stronger. It felt like a personal vendetta now. He felt that he had a responsibility to catch the Butcher. It weighed on him heavily, more so than a few days ago when he was just starting to put everything regarding his relationship with Rachael into perspective. It especially weighed on him more since his talk with Dickinson. As of today, Dickinson had told him that the DA was investigating whether they should press charges against Daryl and Steve.