by Baxter Clare
Frank believed in procedure but had learned to entertain other options when necessary. The chances she wouldn’t take in her personal life she took through her work. She was physically unafraid, at ease with leadership, and willing to sacrifice personal comforts. Her patience and determination lent themselves well to police work, but one of her strongest assets as a detective was her curiosity. If a case wasn’t closed, Frank wasn’t happy. She needed to know who’d done it and why. Frank had spent her life fixing problems and couldn’t relax until they were solved. The hide-and-go-seek for clues, the hunt and chase for the perps—this was as close as Frank came to being playful—and profiling particularly intrigued her.
It was a stretch to look beyond the physical evidence. That’s what cops were trained to rely on. But an eleven-month fellowship at Quantico had showed her how to use the available physical evidence to gather intangible psychological clues. Part craft, part science, profiling was particularly helpful in tracking down repeat, violent offenders. Scientifically, profiling utilized behavioral clues the perp left at the crime scene, clues that indicated a perp’s unique behavior patterns. For instance, a sloppy, disorganized crime scene could often be traced to a sloppy and disorganized offender, suggesting possible physical and behavioral distinctions about the perp.
And because people were capable of infinite permutations, the parameters for one sloppy perpetrator would not exactly match the profile of another. Being able to assemble the clues and predict the most likely set of behaviors for a given offender was part of the craft. Its inherent ambiguity made profiling an imprecise tool, but one that could be used with excellent results to narrow a list of possible suspects, hence narrowing the scope of the investigation and concentrating resources where they had the best chance for success.
Frank had no suspects in the Agoura case. Just plenty of victims. She needed to learn as much as possible about them before being able to fathom their perp. Frank laid out their pictures in the chronological order of the crimes. The most immediate distinction was the racial heterogeneity—three Hispanics, eight Caucasians, one Black. Serial perps usually targeted a specific race and stuck to it. This guy didn’t seem to care. That he was hitting outside strict racial lines said something in itself.
The girls were all pleasant and average-looking. There was nothing exceptional about any of them, and that very blandness was suggestive. Maybe the perp didn’t want anyone too extreme, too threatening. This would indicate he had a narrow range of life experiences and would be put off with unfamiliarities.
The assaults were not personal. None of the living victims knew their attacker, and apart from his direct assaults he had not engaged them in any other manner. She kept searching the display of photos, pausing to read each girl’s pedigree. Nothing stood out as connected. She couldn’t pin a common association, activity, or person to all twelve girls. None of their bios matched. They were from low to middle incomes, and though two-thirds of them had been accosted in a park, the other third were assaulted near high schools or in urban settings. Some were in junior high, some in high school, some in elementary, one was a runaway.
Frank sighed and stretched. She got up to change the music, absently trading the jazz for Faure’s Requiem. She turned up the volume, bowing her head as she listened to the first stanza.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis thundered though the small space, and Frank thought, grant them eternal rest and let perpetual light shine on them, indeed. She lost herself in the grandeur of the introduction, and when it ended, she opened her eyes. The girls stared up at her.
Cassandra Nichols smiled doe-eyed and gap-toothed. Claudia Menendez smiled too, contrasting sharply with Frank’s memory of her heartbreak and puzzlement. Even the ones he’d left alive he’d managed to kill somehow.
Alright, buddy. Let’s go one on one. You and me.
Frank was finally ready to get into his head, but first things first. Frank pulled out a VICAP form and started filling in the offender information section.
“Always start where you are,” she muttered out loud. Joe Girardi had told her that her first day in Homicide. Answering the questions on the FBI form, she ended up with a long list of the perp’s data. Armed with that, Clay’s tape, and her own limited knowledge, she played with the information and the options it suggested, starting with a physical description of their perp. He was a big man with brown hair. None of the girls could remember anything remarkable about his body or the feel of it against them, so he probably wasn’t too skinny or too fat. If he didn’t have a good image of himself, he probably wasn’t concerned with keeping up his physical appearance. The Troupe witness had said maybe he was slightly overweight.
His hair would be unkempt. He’d only cut it when it started to draw attention, but then he wouldn’t cut it too short. He’d just have the barber trim him, keep him from feeling conspicuous. Their witness had described a man in jeans and a T-shirt. In Los Angeles that was standard attire. Frank bet his clothes had small holes or stains. Again, nothing too noticeable, just ordinary enough for a man who didn’t care much about his image.
Frank looked at the notes she’d made while talking with Clay. All the assaults had happened between mid-morning and early evening. All of them were on weekdays. This made Frank feel that the perp worked evenings and weekends, most likely as an unskilled laborer. That would fit with his workboots, and explain his wearing blue jeans in the summer heat. He would be unassuming enough to keep a job, would probably never make waves, but he would most likely never be promoted. She figured he did what he had to to get by but didn’t have the incentive to further himself. He probably worked alone, or with minimal contact with other people.
Frank continued in this vein, rearranging facts and figures into the logical behavior pattern critical to good profiling. She used her ability to slip into the perp’s head, to see what he looked at, hear what he heard, feel what he touched, taste what he licked, loathe what he loathed, love what he loved. Ultimately, Frank needed to know how it felt for him to rape, batter, and finally kill a young girl. If she knew why he was doing this, maybe she could stop him.
“Yeah,” Frank answered to a knock on the door.
Kennedy opened up. “I’m gonna go get something to eat. Wanna join me?”
Frank had glanced up from her work but looked back down as she replied, “No thanks.” End of conversation.
“You sure?”
“Very.”
“Want me to bring you somethin’ back?” Kennedy pressed.
Frank patiently sat back in her chair, giving Kennedy her full attention. Slowly and evenly, as if dealing with a simpleton, she replied, “No.”
With concentrated detachment Frank noted that Kennedy’s eyes were brown. They caught the cold fluorescent light and warmed it. A warning flickered in Frank’s gut. And in her brain. The flicker became cognition: Maggie’s eyes had looked like that.
Frank blinked like a lizard.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Detective?”
“Well…I’ve got a couple questions that maybe you could help me with.”
Kennedy took an uninvited seat on the couch. Frank was sorry she’d asked.
“You seem to have an angle on this guy we’re lookin’ for—”
“Which is all speculative,” Frank warned.
“Right, but still you’ve thought a lot about this. So I’m going through the books, and I’m trying to figure out what’s the hook for him? What’s gonna make me stand out from any other chick out there?”
Frank considered the question. She started to reach up and stroke her chin but stopped, almost as if she were being interrogated. She refused to give Kennedy even that much.
“A lot of things,” Frank shrugged.
Kennedy was unrelenting.
“Like what?”
She leaned forward eagerly. Frank noticed she’d lost the accent.
“Could be any number of things.” Frank outlined her sketchy vic
timology, stressing his apparent preference for passive, vulnerable victims.
“So basically, I should be a rag doll,” Kennedy concluded.
Frank nodded. “Be innocent. Be vulnerable. Make yourself as visible as possible.”
“Kind of contradictory, isn’t it?”
“Do you feel like you can’t handle it?”
“Not at all. I just want to make sure I do it right.”
Frank’s stare was the narc’s only reply, so she asked, “Sure you don’t want lunch?”
“Positive.”
At the door she turned and asked, “What’s that music?”
“It’s a requiem. Faure’s.”
“Hmm. I don’t reckon I know what a requiem for A’s is, but it shore is perty. I like it.”
“I’m so very glad,” Frank answered coldly.
He was yelling again. He’d lost his job, his pension, everything. And it was the boy’s fault. What were they supposed to do now that there was no scholarship? Who was going to take care of things? The old man was crying. The boy stood with his ear pressed to the door.
His mother was crying too.
And a new, nameless fear gripped the boy.
18
Frank knocked on Tracey and Noah’s door on Thanksgiving Day, wondering whose truck was in the driveway. Her blood chilled when she noticed the surf logos and parking sticker. Tracey threw the door open, overflowing her flowery one-piece and screaming. She wrapped her arms around Frank’s neck, mindless of the wine and flowers she was smashing between them, then yanked Frank inside, yelling, “Goddamnit, you old hama-zama, where the hell have you been all my life?”
Frank had to laugh.
“Well? Where you been?”
She threw a couple of punches at Frank who raised her offerings, pleading, “I come in peace.”
“Yeah, well, you come that way but I’m not gonna let it stay that way,” she said, taking the flowers, then sweetly asked, “For me?”
“Nope. For No. We got a thing going, didn’t he tell you?”
“I should be so lucky,” Tracey heaved her eyes dramatically. “If it would get him out of my pants for a while, he’s all yours.”
“You guys bad-mouthing me already?” Noah wandered into the living room in his bathing suit, holding a plate of grilled sausages. He held it toward Frank while Tracey moved like a warship into the kitchen.
“What’s your poison tonight, babe? I’ve got margaritas in the blender.”
“Sounds good,” Frank called after her, snagging a piece of meat. She looked flatly at Noah, chewing.
“Tell me whose truck’s in your driveway.”
Noah grinned, “Hey, you’re the lieutenant. You tell me.”
“You didn’t tell me she was going to be here.”
“Ah, relax, Frank, it was a last-minute thing. Don’t get all nutted up about it. Come on, let’s get you oiled so you don’t squeak so loud.”
She followed him into the kitchen, dreading hearing Kennedy’s drawl, but there it was, screeching through the sliding glass door of the backyard. Frank lingered with Tracey, who slammed a frosty, salt-rimmed glass into her hand and raised her own.
“Skoal, sister.”
“Skoal, Trace.”
They swallowed, and Tracey’s eyes admired Frank up and down.
“You are hard like a rock,” she said, squeezing Frank’s arm. “Ouch.”
“And you’re as soft as one of those clouds the angels sit on. I can see you’ve been taking your gorgeous pills every day.”
Tracey flopped a hand against Frank’s chest and said, “Oh, stop teasing. I’m a fat old cow and you know it.”
“You’re gorgeous, Trace. Noah’s the luckiest man in L.A.”
“And don’t think I ever let him forget it,” his wife laughed boisterously. “Come on, come say hi to the calves.”
Reluctantly, Frank let Tracey lead her out of the kitchen. Kennedy was in the pool playing Marco Polo with the kids.
“Leslie!” Tracey bellowed, and they all stopped. “Come say hello to Frank!”
Leslie waved happily and hopped out of the pool, all long legs and innocence. She reminded Frank of Cassie Nichols and she felt a quick, hot pang of sympathy for Cassie’s father. Leslie gave her a big hug, shocking Frank with her frigid skin and dripping suit.
“What did you bring me?” she asked brightly.
“Les,” Noah warned.
“How do you know I brought you anything?” Frank frowned.
“‘Cause you always do.”
“What if I forgot?”
Leslie turned on her heel, tilted her head in the air, and said with an imperious flourish of her hand, “Then you’ll have to leave.”
“She got that from her mother,” Noah commented, basting the turkey on the barbecue, and Tracey snapped a towel at him. Frank sighed and stood up, resigned to her banishment.
“No! Don’t go,” Leslie squealed, wrapping her dripping blue arms around Frank’s legs.
“What’s in your pockets?” she asked curiously as Frank shrugged unknowingly.
She pulled her wallet out and handed it to Leslie.
“Not that.”
She pointed silently at Frank’s front pocket and Frank hauled out her keys. Leslie shook her head. Then Frank pulled out a new Hot Wheels truck and Leslie shook her head again. Frank reached in and found a package of animal stickers. Leslie examined them, but Frank said, “I brought those for Jamie. I don’t have anything for you.”
“What’s that?” Leslie poked at something hard in Frank’s back pocket.
“Oh that,” Frank said dismissively. “That’s nothing.”
“What is it?” Leslie insisted.
“You don’t want that. It’s nothing.”
“Let me see!” Leslie jumped up and down, hugging her goose-bumps.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. But you won’t like it.”
“I don’t care. Let me see!” Her eyes were glowing with expectation and her brother and sister had joined her. Frank dipped into her pocket and slowly took out a bottle of purple nail polish. As Leslie grabbed for it, Noah whined, “Jesus, Frank. You tryin’ to make my daughter look like a hooker?”
Frank grinned defenselessly, but Leslie was already sitting and drying her toenails off. Kennedy joined them, wrapping herself up in a towel.
She drawled, “Hey, Lieutenant,” and the rare joviality evaporated off Frank like spit off a red iron. She took a large swallow of her drink and nodded curtly. Mark and Jamie had cursorily examined their toys and begged Kennedy to play Marco Polo some more. To Frank’s relief, she agreed. And why wouldn’t she, Frank thought acerbically, she’s just a kid herself.
Tracey slapped Frank’s thigh.
“Remember that psych tech at work who had a crush on me?”
Frank nodded, and Tracey launched into an animated account about how he’d pinned her against the wall a few days ago and tried to kiss her. Tracey took the bouquet of wildflowers he’d offered, then gave him a dislocated shoulder and testicles the size of oranges.
“And they say the cops are rough.” Frank shook her head.
“Let me tell you,” No said earnestly, “don’t be puttin’ the moves on Trace when she doesn’t want ‘em, man. Uh-uh. You’ll be lucky to wind up dead.”
“Oh, hush. Don’t listen to him, Frank. Let me get you another drink.”
She sailed off. It pleased both Frank and Noah to watch her walk. Noah grinned, and Frank spread her hands.
“I’m telling you, you make her a widow and I’m stepping in.”
“She’d have you in a heartbeat, and you’d be begging for mercy.”
They shared a smile as Tracey returned with a pitcher and another raunchy tech story. By the time Noah declared the turkey done, Mark and Jamie’s teeth were chattering, and Kennedy was shivering uncontrollably. Leslie’s nails gleamed like ripe grapes, and neither Frank, Noah, nor Tracey felt any pain.
Sitti
ng beside her at the table, passing potatoes and green beans, Frank was almost civil to Kennedy. Dinner meandered through a couple bottles of wine and endless stories. Before the adults ate dessert, Tracey and Noah put their nodding kids into bed. When they left the room, Frank started clearing the table. Kennedy helped her, trying to make conversation but getting no encouragement.
Finally, after Frank handed her a rinsed plate for the dishwasher, she stated, “Lieutenant, I get the feelin’ you just about despise me. Is that at all accurate?”
“I don’t think I care enough about you to despise you,” Frank said coolly.
Kennedy grinned into the dishwasher. “So I take it it’s nothin’ personal, and that you always act like you’re chewin’ on glass?”
Frank stopped rinsing and focused intently on Kennedy. “Detective,” she said quietly, “you can take that anyway you like. However that is, I really couldn’t care.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kennedy drawled.
The women barely spoke to each for the rest of the evening, but their eyes met often. Kennedy’s were sparkling and relentless, while Frank’s appeared glacially indifferent.
Frank and Noah were eating lunch in a Chinese restaurant, working on the details of their undercover plan. Frank had spread a map on the table showing where their boy had struck. Around a bite of lo mein, she asked, “Where’s he going to hit next?”
Noah frowned at the map as if it were deliberately withholding the answer from him.
“I think he’ll hit somewhere around the parks again.”
Frank nodded, but said, “Okay, why?”, wanting to hear his reasoning.
“Well, look. You’ve said he’s comfortable in this area, confident. He spread out for the rapes, but abduction’s still a new thing for him, so he’s still working on his confidence in that area. If he’s insecure, he’d want to be in as familiar an environment as possible.”
Noah poured green tea into their little cups, asking, “What say you, Sherlock?”