It’s a fifteen-mile drive up-valley from the college to Santa Rita, and Tony was on my mind the whole way. He wasn’t the first guy I’d had sex with—Daddy would have a fit if he knew I was seventeen when I lost my virginity—but Tony was my first real love. I didn’t have any doubts that he felt the same way about me. We were good together, in bed and in every other way. We liked the same things, we had the same opinions on politics and religion and gay rights and the environment, we made each other laugh, and we’d never had a serious argument much less a fight in the eight months we’d been together.
Daddy thought Tony was gearing up to ask me to marry him, but that wasn’t going to happen. Tony wasn’t keen on marriage. For that matter, neither was I. Not right now, anyway—not until I had my diploma and a job with a good CPA firm, maybe not until I’d had enough experience to establish my own business.
What Tony had asked me to do was to give up my apartment and move in with him. Or if not that, then move into a brand-new place together. Well, I was tempted. I’d said no, I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment, but the more I saw him and the more I missed him when we were apart, the more tempted I became. I was weakening and he knew it and kept bringing up the subject, usually after we’d just finished making love.
The problem was Daddy and his old-fashioned attitudes and expectations. If I did decide to take Tony up on his proposal, I dreaded telling Daddy. He could be stubborn and inflexible on certain subjects and “living in sin” was one of them. Funny in a way, because otherwise he was pretty liberal. Maybe it was because he’d had such a bad marriage to my mother—I hadn’t seen her since they split up when I was seven, didn’t even know if she was alive or dead—and he’d never come close to marrying again, hardly even dated. You’d think he was soured on the institution of marriage, but he wasn’t. He still considered it the right and proper way for couples, straight, gay, or lesbian, to cohabit. A bundle of contradictions, that was Daddy.
So he’d raise holy hell with me if I moved in with Tony “without benefit of clergy,” as he’d put it. I loved him a lot, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, but I loved Tony, too, and you have to do what you feel is best for you and your future. When the time came to tell Daddy, and probably it’d be sooner than later, I’d just have to bite the bullet and endure his wrath. Then when he cooled down, I’d find ways to get back into his good graces. He liked Tony, they got along pretty well, and more than anything he wanted me to be happy. He’d come around eventually.
It was nearly eleven when I got to my apartment building on Northridge. It’s a small place, eight units on two floors, and my apartment is just three rooms and a bath, but it was all I could afford right now. Daddy had grumbled about my moving out on my own, then raised my Clarion salary to help with the rent. Another of his contradictions. Tony’s place in the valley was larger and nicer—his folks had money and he had a part-time job—and it would be more comfortable, not to mention more pleasurable, living there with him.
I smiled to myself. You’re weakening, all right, Angela, I thought.
One thing you could say for this building was that it was well lit outside, so you didn’t have to worry walking from the parking slots along the side to the front door. I let myself in, climbed the stairs to the second floor. Mrs. Sullivan in 2B had her TV on late and loud, as usual, some silly sitcom rerun with a laugh track. It was a good thing her apartment was at the far end from mine, so the TV noise didn’t penetrate once I was inside. I keyed open my door, stepped through, closed the door behind me, and started to reach for the light switch.
Breathy sound. Movement, close by.
Somebody here, hiding in the dark!
A rush of disbelief and sudden panic made me swing around and fumble for the knob, get the door open, get away … too late. An arm caught me hard around the throat; a gloved hand slapped over my mouth and twisted my head around. A man’s body pressed into mine from behind, pushed me up tight against the wall. Something sharp jabbed my cheek, trailed a line of fire down over my neck.
“You scream or try to fight me, I’ll slit your fucking throat from ear to ear, you understand me, bitch!” Raspy voice, muffled, the words all run together.
No! No, no, no!
Confusion, raw terror, as he shoved me across the dark room, leathery fingers pinching my mouth shut, heavy breathing close to my ear like a dog panting. Where …? The couch. He threw me down hard on the couch, facedown, rough cushion fabric scraping across my chin and cheek. His heavy weight came down on top of me, a knee jammed into the middle of my back. I felt a cut of pain behind my ear … the knife again.
“Lie still, don’t move, don’t make a sound, I’ll kill you if you do.”
He jerked his hand away from my mouth. Threw my coat up over my head. Yanked my skirt up. Clawed at my panties, ripped them off. Leathery fingers stroked and pinched my bare buttocks, the raspy voice whispering, “Nice ass, sweet ass, all mine now, baby, all mine, all mine.”
The fingers stopped stroking and pinching.
Zipper sound.
No!
I moved a little then, I couldn’t help it. He hit me with his fist, the pain strangling a cry in my throat. Another blow made my ears ring. Worms of blood crawled on my skin.
“I told you to lie still, keep quiet!” The knife jabbed me again. “Cut your throat from ear to ear, you hear me, ear to ear.”
Rubbery sliding sound. Condom. Putting on a condom.
More panting, then an excited giggling as he spread my butt cheeks apart. “Now you get what you got coming, you stuck-up bitch, now you get it good!”
I bit into the cushion, cringing, holding my breath, waiting for the terrible new pain when he forced himself inside and began raping me. And all I could think was Please don’t kill me.
Please please please don’t kill me!
PART THREE
FRIDAY, APRIL 22
ROBERT ORTIZ
Sofia and I were making love when the call came from night sergeant Sam Mitchum. Such grim irony. A gentle act of love interrupted by word of another savage act of hate.
I switched on the bedside lamp, swung naked from bed while I continued to listen and speak briefly to Mitchum.
“What is it?” Sofia asked when I ended the conversation. “What’s happened?”
“Another woman was attacked tonight.” Anger burned hot in me again; I had to make an effort to keep my voice even. “Ted Lowenstein’s daughter, in her apartment.”
“Madre de Dios!” She made the sign of the cross. “That poor girl. Is she badly hurt?”
“She’s alive and was able to make a nine-one-one call.”
“Roberto … the same evil one?”
I shook my head without answering. What could I say? It was too soon, the initial information too sparse.
Sofia watched me finish hurriedly dressing, saying nothing more. But we knew each other so well—the same thoughts were in her mind as in mine. I had been so certain, with Martin Torrey dead, that there would be no more assaults. Now this, a fifth that seemed to follow the same general MO as the others. It sickened as well as infuriated me to think that I could have been so wrong. That the serial might still be at large. That women remained in jeopardy and Angela Lowenstein might not be the last victim.
Her father had been informed, as had Chief Kells and Captain Judkins, and calls had gone out to the other IU officers. As with the previous victims, she would be taken to the hospital ER for examination and treatment. Susan Sinclair was on her way to Santa Rita General. Al Bennett, Joe Bloom, and Karl Simms would meet me at the crime scene.
With the aid of siren and red light, I reached the Northridge Street address in less than twenty minutes. An EMT unit, an ambulance, and two black-and-whites were there, all with their flashers staining the night. The patrolmen had already put up CRIME SCENE signs. Al Bennett, who lived not far from Northridge, had already arrived as well and must be inside with the EMTs, since neither he nor any of them were in sight. As l
ate as it was, after midnight, a crowd had gathered and was being controlled by three of the uniforms; a fourth officer, Leo Malatesta, stood in conversation with a cluster of men and women in bathrobes I assumed were neighbors.
I wedged my cruiser in next to Al’s, called to Malatesta as I headed toward the open front door of the building, “Which apartment?”
“Three B, second floor,” he called back. “EMTs just took a gurney up.”
Inside, I hurried up the stairs. Al was in the hallway outside 3B. The entryway was blocked by the gurney and the EMTs, who were tending to the victim. I could see that her head, face, and neck were battered and bloody, her mouth twisted into a frozen grimace, her eyes open and staring.
Al drew me aside, his dark face drawn tight. “Bastard really did a job on her. Sodomized, cut, beaten, same as the other four.”
“Was she able to say anything about the perp?”
“Masked, wore gloves, had a knife. Waiting inside when she got home. That’s all we could get out of her.”
“Wait here. I’ll be back after they bring her out.”
I went downstairs again to talk to Malatesta. None of the neighbors he’d spoken to had anything to tell. There had been no screams or other loud noises from the victim’s apartment, the perp had not been seen leaving the premises. The first anyone had known of the assault was when the response units began arriving with flashers and sirens.
Murmurs and stirrings came from the onlookers—the EMTs had appeared with the gurney. Angela Lowenstein lay prone under a blanket, her head turned in my direction, the one visible eye still staring glassily. A few of the watchers strained forward for a better look, their faces tinged a hellish red by the flasher lights.
“Damn ghouls,” Malatesta muttered.
The EMTs made quick work of loading the gurney into the ambulance. Just as it pulled away, siren wailing, Karl Simms drove up. I supplied a brief rundown of the situation, then sent him and Malatesta to hunt up any neighbors not already interviewed.
No sooner had this been done than Joe Bloom arrived. He hauled his evidence bag out of the backseat, saw me, and hurried over.
“Bad,” he said on the way upstairs. “As bad as it gets. Ted Lowenstein’s daughter, for God’s sake. Does he know yet?”
“Yes.”
“Poor guy. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”
I thought of Valentina and Daniela. So young, so vulnerable. Dios los protege contra daño. A similar prayer by Ted Lowenstein for the safety of his daughter had gone unanswered. I knew exactly what he must be feeling, the anguish and the sadness, the impotent rage.
Al Bennett was still in the hallway standing guard. “Watch out for the blood on the carpet there,” he said, pointing, as he led the way inside the apartment.
The assault had taken place in the living room, on a couch along the right-hand wall. The couch and an end table had been pulled askew; one plaid cushion was tilted down onto the carpet. Streaks and spatters of blood stained it, the other cushions, and one padded arm. The blood on the carpet formed a spotted trail leading to where a maroon leather handbag lay overturned near the door, its contents strewn about. A larger amount of blood had collected at that point.
“Perp must’ve knocked the purse out of her hand when he grabbed her,” Al said. “Then after he was finished with her, she crawled off the couch and over here to get her cell phone. She was lying there with it in her hand when the EMTs came.”
“How did he get inside?” I asked.
“That’s the question. Far as I could tell, he didn’t break in.”
I checked the lock on the front door. Confirmed. A dead bolt that bore no marks of forcible entry. From there I stepped carefully around the blood trail and went to look in the other rooms. The three windows—one each in the living room, bedroom, and bathroom—were all locked, their latches likewise free of force marks.
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed in any of those rooms or in the kitchenette. A small teakwood jewelry box sat on the bedroom dresser; I nudged it open with a knuckle. It contained earrings, bracelets, pendants on thin silver chains. None of the items appeared to be particularly valuable, but most would be worth enough to tempt anyone intent on theft.
I returned to the living room. Joe was taking digital evidence pictures, both video and close-up stills. He had put on surgical gloves and I asked him to check through the wallet that had been dumped out of the purse. Twenty-six dollars in cash, Visa card, Discover card, driver’s license, several photographs in a glassine folder.
“The perp didn’t steal anything,” I said. “Or go into any of the other rooms, from the look of them.”
“Only one thing on his sick mind,” Joe said, “same as the other times.”
Al said, “I’ve been thinking. He could’ve used a skeleton key to get in. The door lock’s old, not all that secure.”
Skeleton keys are not that easy to come by. Still, it was a possibility and I said as much.
“Here’s another,” he said. “Maybe she forgot to lock the door the last time she went out.”
“Not likely. No intelligent woman living alone would make that kind of mistake.”
“Well, she sure as hell didn’t invite him in.”
We were wasting time and energy in idle conjecture. I sent Al down to see how Karl was making out, then did what I could to assist Joe, who was now taking blood samples from the couch and carpet.
“Chances are it’ll all turn out to be hers,” he said. “Too much to hope for that she managed to spill some of his.”
When he finished that task, he began hunting for trace evidence. After a time he said, “Got something here that didn’t turn up at any of the other crime scenes. Pubic hair.” He showed it to me before putting it into a glassine envelope with his tweezers. “Could be from her, could be from him. If it’s his, a DNA match will nail him but good, once he’s ID’d and apprehended.” Joe added gloomily, “If he ever is.”
TED LOWENSTEIN
I had been at the hospital for nearly three hours before I was told the extent of Angela’s injuries and they let me see her. Until then all anybody would say was that she was being evaluated, tested, and treated, and that her condition was stable.
Evaluated. Tested. Treated.
Dear sweet Jesus.
I spent most of the time pacing the waiting room. I couldn’t sit still for more than a minute or two. When I was first told I might have a long wait, I went outside and called Chief Kells. He had nothing to tell me yet. I asked him to do what he could to keep the out-of-town media wolves away from Angela and from me; he said he would try. Then I woke up Tyler James at home, told him tersely what had happened, informed him he would be in charge of operations for the next few days, and made the same request of him as I had of Chief Kells. When Tyler began expressing the usual sympathies, I broke the connection. I couldn’t stand to listen to pointless, if well-meant, empathy. I would have to endure enough of it in the coming days, from all sorts of people, some of it genuine and some, from the likes of Mayor Delahunt and his cronies, insincere pro forma bullshit.
I paced and waited and watched the time crawl, making a conscious effort all the while not to think about what Angela had endured. Whenever I let the black imaginings slip through, fury would well up and I would have to fight off the urge to smash something. I am not a violent man, but if the inhuman piece of garbage who’d harmed Angela had been within my grasp, I would not have been able to control myself—I would have hurt him worse than he’d hurt her, I might even have tried to kill him.
After a while a kind of mental numbness set in, dulling the pain, holding the fury at bay. Now and then I checked my cell for voice mail messages. There were none. The rapist had apparently gotten away free again. Caution: monster at large.
Finally, finally, a doctor came in and put an end to the waiting. I knew him slightly; his name was Ferguson. Not an ER physician, one of the senior staff physicians—a middle-aged, gray-haired man with a thin mouth that look
ed as if it seldom smiled.
“Your daughter’s condition remains stable, Mr. Lowenstein. She is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”
“‘Doing as well as can be expected.’ What does that mean, exactly?”
“Her injuries are not life threatening.”
“What injuries, exactly? How serious?”
“Are you sure you want the specifics?”
“Yes. Everything. In layman’s terms.”
“Very well. She is suffering from shock, of course—that is to be expected in cases of severe trauma. There is considerable rectal tearing, and contusions and lacerations to the head and neck. Fortunately, none of the blows responsible resulted in either a fracture or a hematoma. Four relatively shallow cuts of various dimensions on the neck and upper back, two more on the right buttock, none requiring stitches.”
The fury had returned as he spoke, a surge of it that set my temples to pounding. “The rectal damage … it’s not permanent?”
“I wouldn’t think so, no. Surgery is not indicated at this time.”
“At this time. Meaning it may still be necessary?”
“Only if there are unexpected complications.”
Unexpected complications. Staph infection, an ever-present danger in hospitals these days. God knew what else he meant.
“Where is she? I want to see her.”
“ICU, a private room. She’s under sedation. You won’t be able to speak to her for several hours—”
“I want to see my daughter now,” I said sharply this time.
“I’ll allow it, but only briefly.” He paused. “Before I summon a nurse, there’s something else you should know. Your daughter was coherent enough when she was brought in to refuse a forensic medical examination.”
“Refused it? Why?”
“She didn’t give a reason. Nor is she required to. Refusal is her prerogative by law.”
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