Cutter (22 page)

Natalie was waiting for us outside the interrogation box.

‘Nothing?’ she asked.

I shook my head, waved goodnight to Doc, and steered my fiancee by the arm toward the elevators.

*

‘We’re losing credibility with my Captain, Red.’

‘I know. Manpower minus results. I’m sorry, Jimmy.’

‘Hell, it’s not your fault, Natalie. I’m just disappointed this wasn’t the guy. He sure fit the bill physically. Right age. Right look. Everything that the profile calls for.’

I was driving her home. We were working the same afternoon-to-midnight shift, so we’d be able to have dinner and spend the night together. My mother was still living at my house — which was an issue we’d have to address after I married the redhead.

‘These things are always very shaky when it comes to odds, Natalie. You know that.’ 

‘You don’t think we’re going to catch this man in the act, do you, Jimmy?’

‘No. We rarely ever do. Stakeouts work occasionally, but they’re really just action for the sake of action. You feel a little desperate, you want t
o
d
o
something, get out on the street. Somebody keeps killing people and you can’t stop him. You want to be active, get out there and make a play. These guys like The Farmer are control freaks. They hardly ever allow you to turn the tables on them. This guy might kill again, and he might do it right under our noses. He might chop somebody up on the Gold Coast or in the Loop. Or he might move to the burbs, the way he tried to with Stephanie Manske. He was telling us that he wasn’t committed to one area of the city. It’s the women who are linked. It’s their ages, their general appearances. Once we find out why he prefers his particular kind of victim, maybe then we can set him up ... No, little shots in the dark like tonight aren’t going to bring down the big dog, here. He’s too goddamned cute, Red.’

I pulled up to her curb. We were both tired. I figured we might skip dinner, sleep awhile, and then do what came naturally and next. I’d take her out for a fancy and early breakfast when morning hit.

There was a new fragrance in the air as we stepped outside the car. It was the scent of snow. We were due for our first snowfall. I thought I’d heard the forecast on the ride over to Natalie’s, but I’d still been a little preoccupied with my bride-to-be’s first encounter with the bad guys out on these streets. I’d have to resign myself, as the man said. I’d have to learn to live with the idea. She’d be encountering nothing but bad guys when she went to work, from here on out. 

Chapter Nineteen

Doc picked up the information from the County Sheriff’s Office. They’d received the word from a neighboring county, sixty miles to the west of the city, and the three of us, Jack included, were on our way toward the State University that was located in that area.

She was waiting for us in the teachers’ lounge. School was on break for the end of quarter, we had been informed when all this was set up by the young woman we were going to interview and by the local Sheriff’s Office.

She had a black eye and a bruise on her cheek. Another pretty woman, nearly thirty. She was almost a clone of The Farmer’s first two victims. Like Stephanie Manske, she had survived her encounter with him.

We sat down at a round table in the lounge. A dean was in the room to introduce us to Diane Swanson, an Assistant Professor of Geology here at the University.

‘You’re sure this is a comfortable place to talk?’ I asked as we sat. ‘We could go off campus if it’d be easier.’

‘No. I want to get back to work. I want to get back to normal ... He’s been in my dreams.’

She looked at me as she explained it to me.

‘He’
s
bee
n
i
n
m
y
dream
s
,’

‘And in mine, too,’ I confessed. ‘But I haven’t been where you were, Ms Swanson ... You want to tell us what happened?’

She explained how a blond man had been wearing a maintenance outfit, how he’d come in and out of the lab where she worked, but how she had paid almost no attention to him.

‘This is a very safe campus. It’s isolated from the town next to us, and we’re rather enclosed. We don’t have this sort of thing. You can walk the campus at night and no one ...’

Her voice trailed off.

‘There is no history of this sort of thing around here. I was never afraid to work late at night, alone, but now, of course, I am.’

‘Yes. I understand,’ Doc joined in. ‘But we need to get all the information we can so we can make sure this man won’t hurt you or anyone else in the future.’

‘Do you think he’d come back?’ she asked Jack.

‘No, Ms Swanson. I don’t think he’d come back here. He hasn’t hit the same location twice yet,’ Wendkos replied.

‘Ye
t?’
she asked me.

‘It’s extremely unlikely he’d return. The Sheriff’s told you he’s going to keep an eye on you, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, Lieutenant Parisi, but —’

‘He won’t come back,’ Doc reassured her. ‘He knows you’ll all be wary now, and he likes to take his victims by surprise ... Please, just tell us everything you can about him, physically.’

She gave us the same description that Stephanie Manske had provided. Except that Diane Swanson was positive this guy was a sandy-colored blond. The height and body size were identical to the previous rundown. She’d only caught a glimpse of him in the lab, and she’d seen nothing but the nametag on his gray work-shirt as she was knocked on her back by the fumes of the ether. She remembered only vaguely that she’d been sexually molested. 

The Sheriff found the condom wrapper on her naked body after two students who were passing by saw her lying by the school’s lagoon. They found no semen when she was examined at the hospital. There were also no fingerprints on her or on any of her garments. As usual, The Farmer left no calling cards that could help us trace him.

Diane Swanson seemed to be very strong. She displayed very self-confident body language, the way I saw it. She didn’t quiver or shiver or weep. At least, not in front of three policemen who were asking her some extremely uncomfortable questions.

‘Would you be willing to undergo hypnosis in order to try and remember some more physical detail about this man?’ I asked her.

‘Absolutely. Yes. I would.’

‘We’ll get a man down this afternoon, then. I’ll call him and ask him to make an appointment with you at a time that’ll be convenient, if that’s okay.’

‘It’s okay, Lieutenant ... I want this man out of my head. I want my life back.’

Now there was moisture in her eyes. Her cheeks began to color.

I reached out and covered her hand.

‘We’re going to get him. He’s not going to hurt you again. I promise you he won’t.’

She looked up at me and attempted to smile, but she couldn’t quite pull it off.

Then the tears began.

‘I’m not going to let him win. I’m not. I’m not.’

‘No, you’re not going to let him. You’re right.’

I repeated the information about the psychologist-hypnotist that the Department was sending her way this afternoon, and then she finally managed a smile.

‘Maybe he can help me stop smoking,’ she grinned.

‘You’re going to be all right,’ Doc told her as he shook her hand.

‘Best of luck to you, Ms Swanson,’ Jack added. 

She finally noticed the presence of our junior partner, and there was a slight blush on her cheeks.

We told her we had business with her County Sheriff. Then Jack asked me if we’d come back around and pick him up when we were through. I told him it was okay, and then I watched him approach the geology professor. It seemed he had more to say to her.

When I saw the young woman look up at Jack, I knew that the two of them had made a more than professional connection. And Jack had that strange ability to get through to people who’d been touched by evil. I saw him do it when he was with me during Doc’s sabbatical. He got involved with the survivors on scene. I’m not saying he was trying to hit on a woman who had been recently raped. I’m saying he was touched by her. We were supposed to be professional with the human beings we encountered. We were not supposed to get wrapped up in their problems. But I knew from my experience with Celia Dacy that it happened. I almost lost my career on that case, but if Celia came along again, who knew what I’d do? I’d have liked to warn Jack Wendkos to back off, but I didn’t feel as if I was the right man to do it. And Doc tried to keep his distance, too, but he’d got himself all unraveled by the murders of two black girls on the South Side a few years back, and he’d had to take a leave of absence for two months to put himself back together again. The shi
t
go
t
to you. The people and their faces got inside you. It was inevitable. That was why Homicide cops usually worked in the department for less than ten years. Doc and I had already lasted longer than a decade, and, as I said, we had already had our temporary breakdowns.

Jack walked down the hall with Diane Swanson. I heard her laugh briefly, and I was already hoping the two of them wouldn’t wind up the way Celia Dacy and I did.

* 

We talked to the County Sheriff briefly at his headquarters. He told us the same story the professor had. It was a safe college town. This kind of shit didn’t happen here.

‘Why the hell would they let those three out of jail?’ he asked when I showed him the jackets on my three suspects.

I was going to show Diane Swanson the photos of Repzac, Preggio and Karrios after the hypnotist tried to open up her memory.

‘I don’t know why we let predators loose,’ I told Sheriff Espinoza. ‘I wish I had an explanation.’

Doc shook the Sheriff’s hand and then we headed back toward the U to pick up Jack.

* 

‘You find anything out?’ I asked Wendkos on the drive back to the city.

‘Yeah. She’s beautiful and she didn’t deserve this shit,’ Jack said.

‘You becoming more than an investigator on this one, Jacky?’ Doc teased from the back seat of the Ford.

‘I told her I’d be happy to help her any way I can.’

‘You’re not the local gendarme, Jack,’ I tried to explain.

‘That’s why there’s no problem, right? We’re not directly involved with her case. It’s County, no?’

He was not smiling, but I knew he was glowing inwardly behind that handsome Polish face.

‘You’re smitten, poor boy,’ Doc rejoined.

‘She’s a rape victim, Doc. Think I’ll start out by being her friend, and then maybe she’ll let me know if it’s okay to continue on in other directions ... I really liked her. Christ, did you see how tough she is?’

What was there to tell him? Like I said, I was no one to talk about getting mixed up in people’s lives. And Doc appeared too tired to continue ragging Jack about the interest he had shown in our latest survivor. Gibron pulled his Irish tweed hat down over his eyes and went to sleep. We still had a long way to travel to get back home.

* 

I did some research on the families of Preggio, Repzac and Karrios. I found nothing on Karrios, although he’d given us the line about how he was the son of a Greek immigrant
.
Lik
e
th
e
gu
y
wh
o
ra
n
agains
t
Bus
h
, I think it was. Anyway, I came up empty on my first try with him.

Preggio’s parents were both dead, I found out as I researched the number two suspect. Repzac’s parents resided in the city, so I called the family home to set up an interview with them. When I called, I was surprised to hear that they wanted to talk to me voluntarily. Doc and I got in the car and headed toward the northwest side. Jack was headed back to the U this afternoon. Apparently it was on, with Diane the geology professor. The official reason he was traveling was to ‘reinforce’ our first talk with the teacher. But all three of us knew that Jack was full of shit and Jack was in love. ‘Smitten’, like Doc said.

* 

Caroline Repzac opened the door for us. They lived in the middle apartment of a three-flat, here near Wrigleyville.

We walked in and sat in the living room. Mrs Repzac explained that the old man wasn’t at home. He worked twelve-hour shifts.

‘We’re still devastated by what happened to Dawson. I still cannot believe that he would be capable of harming any young girl. But I know he’s been straight ever since ... Would you like some coffee?’

‘You don’t have to apologize for him, Mrs Repzac. We’re not here about his previous problems,’ I told her. ‘We’re here to talk to you.’

‘Talk to me? About what?’ 

‘About your relationship with your son,’ I explained.

‘What is this? I don’t understand.’

‘We want to know if you had any particular difficulty with Dawson, say when he was young or when he was a teenager,’ Doc said.

‘Are you men psychiatrists or cops?’

‘We’re policemen,’ I told her. ‘But we need to know some things about several suspects in a murder case.’

‘Murder? Dawson wouldn’t
—
Murde
r
?’

‘We’re not telling you he killed anyone, ma’am. We’d just like to know about his background, and you’re the expert,’ Doc explained.

‘He ... he had a typical teenager’s life. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He had no history of ... of molestation, if that’s what you mean.’

There was fear in her eyes. I knew she had something she didn’t want to tell me.

‘Are there other siblings?’ I asked.

That one lit her up.

‘I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore unless I have a lawyer here. I remember how they told me not to say anything to you guys unless I had legal —’

‘It’s all right, Mrs Repzac. We didn’t come here to bully you or upset you. But it’d be helpful if you just told us more about Dawson,’ I urged.

‘No. That’s it. You got no warrant and I’m through talking. You have to leave now.’

I looked over at Doc, but he knew the show was over.

We walked toward the front door. I turned to Caroline Repzac one more time.

‘Two women have been brutally murdered. One man has been mutilated also. If you have something we need to know, you’d better call me. Here’s my card.’

I placed my card on her coffee table, and then we were out of her door.

* 

‘She’s got something she wants to tell us,’ Doc confirmed.

‘It has to do with the rest of the clan ... Looks like I need to do some more research.’

We got into the car and Doc pulled us away from the curb.

Maybe he had something traumatic with a brother or a sister. Maybe it had to do with Caroline herself.

Thirty-year-old women. If i
t
wer
e
Caroline, that would put whatever it was back about twenty or twenty-five years. I’d have said she was in her early or middle fifties. If it was a sister ... A sister made the math harder to figure. So I’d have to get into the computers and the paperwork again.

It was as if Caroline Repzac had been glad we were there, at first. And then something had changed her mind and the door was slammed in our faces. Cold. Slammed shut.

Something had happened to Dawson. Something had happened to one of those sons of bitches. Or to some son of a bitch we hadn’t even spotted yet. But the notion resonated in me like truth itself. I just knew I was not going off wrong on this one. It was always the age of the female, the general physical makeup. Those two tiny threads held the whole fabric of this case together.