JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps (19 page)

The first thing that came to John Glowacz's mind was
the Eastside Butcher strikes
again
, but he batted that thought down.
Maybe there was more to the relationship than
they're letting me know
, he thought.
Maybe they had a fight and Chrissy simply left him.

But then if she had, they would have tracked her down by now or at least assured
themselves that she was okay, otherwise they wouldn't be here. Because if she left, she
would have most likely have gone to her house first, maybe packed some things. Maybe
her parents or a relative saw her leave and knew why, or a friend. And naturally Rick
would have tried contacting her at her house when she failed to turn up, and if she left
town her family and friends would have told him. But they didn't tell him because they
don't know where she went. And that's why they look so scared.

Take a deep breath and be calm
, he told himself.
They came to you because
they're seeking guidance and they're scared. Don't show them that you're afraid that the
worst might have happened to Chrissy.

“First things first,” he said, quietly. “Are you absolutely sure she's missing? Have you checked with her family to see if she's maybe skipped town or something?"

Rick answered immediately. “I checked with them, Father. She didn't come home and they're worried, too. They've already called the police."

That was going to be John's next question. “Have the police spoken to you yet?"

Rick hung his head in shame. “I been trying to stay away from the police."

“Why?"

Danny answered for him. “Rick's afraid the police will think he had something to do with it. He was arrested a few weeks ago for selling drugs, and he has a record for other things, most notably assault with a deadly weapon."

Rick glanced at Danny. John recognized the look: Rick was still unwilling to let go of his secrets and let people help him. He wanted to keep it all to himself, deal with it on his own terms. He was a brave young man, but very foolish.

John Glowacz directed his next question at Rick. “So, you're afraid the police will think you might have had something to do with Chrissy's disappearance, correct?"

Rick nodded fearfully.

“All they will want to do is question you, Rick,” Father John Glowacz said. “You wouldn't be a suspect in anything because in standard police protocol, there wouldn't be a case yet. How old was Chrissy?"

“Sixteen."

“Sixteen.” John rubbed his jaw, thinking. “How long has she been gone?"

Rick thought about it. “Since early Friday night."

“Today's Sunday, so she's been gone a little under forty hours,” John said. “If she were an adult the police wouldn't do anything until forty-eight hours had elapsed, but because she's a minor they'll make more of an effort to look for her. The first thing they are going to think is that she's a runaway, Rick. Because that is the number one reason why kids disappear suddenly: they run away from home. Do you understand that?"

Rick nodded. He was shaking.

“They would have no reason to suspect you in having anything to do with her disappearance if you tell them the exact truth,” John Glowacz went on. “Because if you tell them everything and are honest with them, they won't see any reason to try to put anything on you. Heck, they wouldn't have anything to put on you if you lay all your cards on the table with them.” He turned to Danny. “Do the police know if Chrissy was a prostitute?"

Danny nodded. “Yeah."

“Okay.” John turned back to Rick. “Do you know what particular area Chrissy was working in?"

Rick was silent for a moment, his shaking calmed down somewhat. When he answered it was in a quiet, shaky voice that told John that he was still scared. Not so much for him, but for Chrissy. “She wasn't working the streets,” he said. “I hooked her up with a ... place I know of. An ... escort service I guess you'd call it."

“Okay."

“...it ... ah, shit man, if I tell the cops about that, they'll bust my friend Maria. She doesn't deserve to be dragged into this shit."

“No, she doesn't,” John said. “But if you want to help Chrissy, I think you have to tell them about Maria and this escort service. Chrissy's life may depend on it."

Rick closed his mouth and leaned forward in the chair. John let him think about it, then turned to Danny. The gang counselor met his gaze. It was obvious that Danny had a bad feeling about this, and John's stomach sunk to the bottom of his abdomen. Danny had a good sixth sense about things and if Danny felt bad about this, most likely it was. He had had that feeling about that friend of his who attended his bible study, that young gang member who had been killed by the Butcher; that prediction had turned out to be true.

John hoped to God this one wouldn't be.

“I want to help Chrissy,” Rick said, sitting up straight in his chair, regaining his composure. “I ... I have to tell them everything."

“That's my man,” Danny said, patting the youth on the back.

“I'm just so scared, man,” Rick said, the hint of tears in his voice. “I called Maria when Chrissy didn't come back, and she told me Chrissy had left around nine for two outcalls. The last one was around eleven, which meant she should have been home by one at the latest. But when she didn't come back by three, I got worried. It took me until ten o'clock Saturday morning to track Maria down, and when I talked to her she didn't know where Chrissy was. I called Chrissy's house and her brother and sister hadn't seen her. I drove around trying to find her. I checked with her folks a few times, and the last time I drove by yesterday afternoon the police were already there. I called from a pay phone and her brother said the police were looking to question me and I got scared. By then I knew that Sanchez would be looking for me to get his money, so I took off."

“Sanchez?” John looked at Danny in puzzlement for clarification.

“He's the guy Rick was supposed to pay back,” Danny said. “Chrissy was working to pay back the debt for Rick."

“He said if I didn't paid him by Saturday morning he'd kill me,” Rick said, his voice rising hysterically. “And he will, too. If he finds me."

“He ain't going to find you, homey,” Danny said, putting an arm around the younger man's shoulders.

“I still think you should go to the police, Rick,” John Glowacz said. “At this point they are on the assumption that Chrissy is a runaway. They don't know anything about her activities Friday night, most likely. If they knew this, that would narrow their search. If they are able to talk to this Maria, she may be able to provide some clues as to some of the ... er, customers she may have seen.” He didn't want to proceed too much farther down that train of thought. He didn't want to scare Rick. “If on the off chance they
did
place blame on you, if you tell them this it would take that suspicion off."

Rick nodded, as if he was seeing the light. “You're right, Father Glowacz."

But I pray that I'm not,
John Glowacz thought. Nevertheless, he picked up the phone on his desk and handed the receiver to Rick, who took it wordlessly. He glanced at Danny briefly, who nodded. Rick looked calm, more in control of himself. “If you want we can go to the police together. The three of us. We'll do anything we can do to help, Rick."

“I'd like that,” Rick said. He motioned to the phone on the desk. “Go ahead. Call them."

Trading one last glance with Danny, John Glowacz consulted the yellow pages on his desk for the phone number of the Los Angeles Police Department, then dialed the number.

Chapter 11

Late February in Newport Beach is often cold and windy and today was no exception. Detective Daryl Garcia stood about fifteen feet from where the ocean swelled onto the sandy beach. Detective Steve Howe stood beside him, both men dressed in long, black trenchcoats, holding umbrellas over their heads to shield themselves from the light drizzle. An hour before it had been pouring rain and the weather forecast called for this particular rainfall to be the last for at least a week. Hopefully it will begin to clear soon.

Dredging in sandy soil looking for corpses wasn't Daryl's idea of a fun time.

The beach had been roped off and about a dozen people stood behind the yellow crime scene tape watching the detectives work. Daryl and Steve were the only two from LAPD Homicide on the scene. When Daryl took a peek under the plastic tarp that covered the body and saw what they were dealing with, he hightailed it back to the car and called the Butcher Task force members. That had been fifteen minutes ago. It would be another forty minutes or so before the first of them started arriving.

They had been called to the scene by Newport Beach P.D., who had been alerted to report to the Butcher Task force any murder they came across that involved decapitation or dismemberment. All police departments from San Diego to Santa Barbara had been asked to notify the Butcher Task force if they came across such a crime, and since December Daryl and Steve had been called out to no fewer than half a dozen such crimes. In all cases the murders were the result of lover's triangles or drug deals gone bad in which the killers, in their fury, hacked the victim apart with an axe or cut them up with a knife. Gruesome, but it happened. It was the nature of the human beast.

Daryl and Steve took one look at the lump of flesh beneath the tarp Newport Beach P.D. had covered the body up with and knew that this was the work of the Butcher.

Daryl could only think back to the first body in the Butcher murder series, the still unidentified Lady of the Ocean who was found a mere half mile from this very spot, and wondered if this maniac had struck again.

Now as they stood in the gloom of the drizzly afternoon Daryl motioned for Steve to follow him up the beach. They walked away from the circle of police officers and detectives and stopped. The look on Steve's face told Daryl that he was certain this was the Butcher's latest victim. “He's done it again,” Daryl said.

As in the case of the first murder back in ‘94, this latest victim had been found by a homeowner, a record company executive who owned a beachfront house almost directly across from where the body now rested. The homeowner had gone out to jog along the beach before it rained again when he noticed something strange that the tide appeared to have washed ashore. Thinking it to be the body of a large animal, or perhaps a beached porpoise, the man had trotted onto the beach to investigate, then had run back to his house to call the police.

The object turned out to be the lower portion of a female torso, minus both legs.

The torso was bisected at the mid-section, the legs at the hips. Looking at the remains, Daryl couldn't help but think that despite the fact that the skin was bleached white from being immersed in the cold water, this unnamed victim was probably from the East Los Angeles area as well. In fact, his mind was already rushing to conclusions:
she was
young, probably Hispanic, was either involved in a gang or hung out with gang members,
and she was recently reported missing
. He was going on this assumption due to the fact that he had asked the East Los Angeles division to keep him updated on any missing persons from the area, and a few days ago they had informed him that a teenage prostitute, with ties to a motorcycle gang, was reported missing by her boyfriend and the girl's parents. The missing girl in question had a small tattoo of a butterfly on her left buttock; the corpse under the tarp bore a similar tattoo.

“I'd lay odds that this is our missing girl,” Daryl said, jerking his thumb back at the scene.

“I was just going to say the same thing,” Steve said.

“When the task force gets here we'll split into four teams,” Daryl said. “The first two will explore north of this area up to the Huntington Beach Pier. The next two will explore south down to Laguna Beach, maybe San Clemente. We'll coordinate with the Orange County Sheriff to have them drag the canal that feeds into this beach. Also contact the Coast Guard and have them conduct a search from San Pedro to say, oh, San Diego."

“That far south?” Steve asked.

Daryl shrugged, looking out at the rolling waves. “Why not? If he dumped the remains in the canal that runs off into the Long Beach Harbor, the remains could have drifted down that far in the last few days. We'll know more how long she's been in the water after the coroner looks at her, but I'd be willing to bet she's our missing girl, and if she is, she hasn't been in the water that long."

“What about the press?” Steve was looking back toward the strand where a news van had parked.

“The FBI will know how to deal with them,” Daryl said.

Steve opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it. Daryl noticed it but paid no heed. He knew what Steve was going to say. For the last two months the two detectives had been at odds with each other over Rachael Pearce. While Steve wouldn't come right out and spit it out, he gave Daryl the impression that the other detectives, especially those on the Butcher task force, didn't approve of Daryl's relationship with the reporter. While nobody had actually voiced their disapproval, it was said through body language, tone of voice, and the vibes floating around. Plus, Daryl knew from experience what the other detectives felt about the relationship. Journalists were at times both a panacea and a cancer to the police. Many times they could be helpful in assisting in investigations; in keeping the public informed, and in showing them what the department did to solve cases like this to help foster a better understanding of public safety to the general public. They were a good forum for getting information out to the public. On the other hand, when it came to delicate cases they could hinder it, sometimes with disastrous results. One only had to look at the O.J. Simpson case to see how the media could destroy a case before it ever got to court. Because the Butcher case was a sensitive case for the department, it was imperative that the only information the press received was that released by LAPD's Media Relations. The minute Daryl Garcia made the mistake of casually mentioning to Steve Howe one morning before work that he was dating a new woman in his life and that her name was Rachael Pearce, he had cast himself in a new light in the eyes of his peers.