RCC03 - Beneath a Weeping Sky (20 page)

Chisolm left the bar and waited across the street. He sipped whiskey until Ramirez staggered out of the bar, looking for him. Then they walked away and never looked back.

But now I spend all my time looking back,
Chisolm thought.
Just seeing all of the ghosts of those I’ve failed.

He drained the beer, but made no move to get another. Instead, he stared into his own eyes in the reflection of the black TV screen. He didn’t like what he saw, but he knew what he’d see if he looked away.

NINE

Friday, April 19th

Day Shift

1456 hours

Tower stood near the corner of the small conference room, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He’d watched people slowly trickle into the meeting, guessing at their identities as soon as they came through the door.

The prosecutor was easy to pick out. Patrick Hinote had the confident stride of a veteran attorney and a firm handshake. Of course, the nice suit and the briefcase provided a couple of slam-dunk clues. Tower didn’t award himself any points for figuring that one out.

Next to arrive were a pair of women. The first was a slender woman with a shock of coppery hair drawn back in a ponytail. She looked about thirty to Tower. Accompanying her was a younger, heavy-set woman wearing a pair of round, thin-framed glasses. Her black hair was cut in a tight bob.

Advocates,
Tower guessed.

Patrick Hinote introduced them. “Detective Tower, this is Julie Avery and Kami Preston.”

Tower held out his hand. The dark haired woman reached out first. “Kami Preston,” she said, her tone terse and business-like. Tower shook her hand. Her grip was firm but not overbearing.

Patrick put his briefcase on the conference table. “Kami is assistant counsel on this case.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tower said.

Great. Rookie lawyer.

He moved on to Julie Avery. She gave him a pleasant smile as she took his hand. He expected her grip to be much softer, but she surprised him with an even firmer grip than Kami’s.

“I’m on the Prosecutor’s Crisis Team,” she told him.

“Oh?” Tower nodded. He’d been right about at least one of them, then. She was a rape advocate. “That’s great.”

Julie’s smile broadened. “You don’t sound too convinced, detective.”

She’s direct,
Tower thought. He cleared his throat nervously. “No? Sorry, I’m just a little distracted by this case.”

The truth was he’d worked around advocates before on other cases. For the most part, they were helpful, both to the victim and for his investigation. He’d heard horror stories about situations where an advocate interfered with an investigation or tried to play junior attorney, but he’d personally never seen it. Most of the time, they offered an ear and a resource to the victim, which made that victim a better witness in the criminal case.

Still, they weren’t going to have any victims at this meeting, or as part of the task force. So why did the prosecutor bring along an advocate?

Tower sipped his coffee and retreated toward the corner of the room. The foursome stood around awkwardly for several minutes until Lieutenant Crawford and Captain Reott arrived. Renee entered the room only a few moments later. Introductions were made all around and the meeting began.

“Let me get straight to the point,” Captain Reott said. “The police department is forming a small task force to deal with this so-called ‘Rainy Day Rapist.’ We want to get the Prosecutor’s Office on board right early on to make sure that when we get the guy, he’s stays got.”

“I appreciate that, Captain,” Patrick said. “We’ll help in any way we can.”

Reott nodded his understanding. “I’m sure you will. Right now, what we’re thinking is this. If Tower needs any search warrants or arrest warrants, you’ll assist him so that there’s no chance of it getting shot down later on by some judge. Also, if there are any more assaults, I’d like you to respond to the scene to offer any advice or assistance.”

“We can do that,” Patrick said. “I’d like to get copies of all the incident reports to review.”

“I’ll ship them to you,” Tower said.

“Thanks. In the meantime, could you give us a brief synopsis of where things are at?”

Tower glanced at Crawford, took a deep breath and sighed. “The truth is, we’re nowhere.”

“Detective, I realize you may have a difficult case, but—”

“I’m not exaggerating,” Tower interrupted. “We have very little in the way of witness testimony and no physical evidence that points to a particular suspect. Even if the guy came in and confessed, I don’t know if we could convict him off the evidence we’ve been able to collect.”

“Do you have any DNA?”

Tower shook his head.

Kami Preston scrawled furiously on the yellow legal pad in front of her.

“Any injuries the attacker may have sustained in the commission of the offense?” Patrick asked.

“His last victim, a schoolteacher, blasted him with a small canister of pepper spray,” Tower explained. “But within a few hours, all evidence of that was probably gone. One trip through the washing machine cleans the clothes. A few hours and lots of water takes care of the spray effects on the bad guy’s eyes and face. So if he lives alone, and he probably does—”

“Why do you say that?” Julie asked him.

Tower glanced at her. “He’s a rapist.”

“That means he lives alone?”

“I just think it would be hard to—”

“I wonder, detective, if you are falling into the trap of stereotyping your suspect.”

Kami Preston paused in her feverish writing and looked up. Tower felt her eyes and those of everyone else in the room boring into him.

“Excuse me?” He asked, stalling for time. “Stereotyping?”

“Yes,” Julie answered immediately. “It’s a common mistake. There are a lot of myths surrounding rape. It wouldn’t be good to…”

Jesus, she’s a pit bull,
Tower thought.
And she’s all over my ass.

“…immediately assume that a certain myth or stereotype holds true. In fact, it may even hamper your ability to discover…”

Tower held up his hand, interrupting her. “The thing about stereotypes, Ms. Avery, is that while they might make some people of a particular political persuasion uncomfortable, they became stereotypes for a reason.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And what, pray tell, is that reason?”

“Because they are usually true.”

“That’s a rather ignorant view of the world, don’t you think?”

“No,” Tower said. “It’s a rather realistic one.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Captain Reott said. “Let’s remember we’re on the same team here.”

“Just a friendly discussion, Captain,” Tower said icily.

Reott shot Tower a warning glare before continuing. “I think what Detective Tower was getting at was that if the suspect lives alone, there won’t be any witnesses to him coming home covered in pepper spray. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

Kami Preston renewed her frantic note taking.

Tower shrugged. “Sure, that’s part of it.”

“What’s the rest, then?” Julie asked.

Tower glanced at Renee, then back at the advocate. “Well, it’s just a theory, but I think it’s clear that this guy is pretty angry at women. Probably too angry to be in any sort of relationship right now.”

“Whose theory is this?” Patrick asked. “Has the FBI profiled this guy or something?”

That’s just what we need,
Tower thought.
The Feebs.

“No,” he told the prosecutor. “But—”

“I have,” Renee said.

All eyes turned to Renee, including Tower’s. He regarded the analyst with mild surprise.

“Go on,” Patrick said.

Renee cleared her throat. “I’ve reviewed all of the witness statements, as well as Detective Tower’s investigation of the crime scene. The medical evidence, too. Based on all of that, I think we have someone with obvious anger issues toward women. I believe he is acting out his anger at one or possibly two women by attacking another, unrelated woman. It’s called psychological transference.”

The assembled group digested her words. Tower allowed himself a little smile. Despite the fact that he’d been a jerk to Renee, the analyst was sticking up for him. He glanced over at Julie. The copper-haired woman was nodding her head slightly in agreement.

“Indulge me for a moment,” Patrick said, “but why wouldn’t he just strike out at the person he’s angry at?”

“Could be any number of reasons,” Renee answered. “She could be unavailable, located far away. If it is a mother or grandmother he’s angry at, she could even be dead. But more likely, he is too intimidated by that person to strike directly. If it is a maternal figure, she’d have had control over him for most of his adult life. That grip may still be too strong, even now. So instead, he lashes out at other women. In doing so, he symbolically lashes out at her.”

“You think it’s a mother figure?” Julie asked her.

Renee turned to the advocate. “I believe that is the most likely candidate, yes. Even though it
is
a bit of a stereotype.”

Julie’s eyes widened slightly at the comment. Then she pressed her lips together and gave Renee a small nod.
Touché
, she seemed to say.

Tower watched on, amazed.

“Of course,” Renee continued, “as we see that the violence in his surrogate assaults is escalating, that gives me concern that he may be girding himself for a strike at the true object of his anger.”

Patrick nodded. “Meaning he’s working up the guts to go after Mommy Dearest.”

“Possibly,” Renee said. “Either way, there’s no denying that his violence is escalating.”

“It would appear so,” the lawyer agreed. He turned back to Tower. “Do you agree with her assessment, detective?”

“Yes,” Tower answered immediately.

“So what I’m hearing is that we have no substantive witnesses for a rapist that is leaving virtually no physical evidence of any prosecutorial value and who is becoming progressively more violent. In fact, what I’m actually hearing is that this may become a homicide case before it is over.” Patrick sighed. “Wonderful. So what are we going to do?”

“That is what this task force is going to address,” Captain Reott said. He pointed at Tower. “Detective Tower remains lead investigator, with you and your staff to assist him. Lieutenant Crawford will head up the task force. Lieutenant?”

Crawford began speaking without preamble. “The task force will consist of two parts.” He held up one finger. “The first part will be a pair of my Major Crimes detectives who will be available for any investigative follow-up that Tower needs done.”

“Such as?”

“Canvassing for witnesses, monitoring and screening the tip line, things like that. Shoe leather and grunt work. They get anything hot, they’ll bring it to me and Tower.”

Patrick nodded and motioned for Crawford to continue.

The lieutenant held up a second finger. “The second part will be a decoy detail. We’ll run a decoy officer around the city in a variety of locations that Renee here believes would be likely targets for the rapist. The decoy will be dressed as a jogger. There’ll be a two-officer cover team assigned to her at all times. Our hope is that the scumbag decides to go after our decoy. If he does, we take him down.”

Patrick considered the plan. He traced a stick figure on the top of the notepaper, the only writing he’d done during the meeting so far. Next to him, Kami Preston’s pen skipped across the yellow page in front of her.

“Let’s say you catch the offender,” he said. “From what you’ve already told me, you have no evidence to link him to these other attacks, correct?”

“That’s right,” Crawford said. “But if we bag him on an attempted rape, we might be able to get a search warrant for his car and his house. There may be evidence from the other rapes in one of those two places.”

“That’s a fishing expedition, Lieutenant,” Patrick said. “You know that no judge will sign a search warrant for that. The warrant has to be to look for evidence related to that specific arrest.”

“I’m not asking you to put in the search warrant that you’re looking for evidence of the other rapes. But if you can get into the guy’s house, and while searching for evidence of the most recent assault, the detective comes across evidence of the other assaults, well that’s just lucky.”

“That’s pretextual.”

“It’s good police work,” Crawford said.

“Maybe so,” Patrick replied, “but it would be attacked in court and likely suppressed as evidence. Avoiding that sort of thing is, I believe, why my office was brought on board at this early juncture, correct?”

Crawford ignored his question. “Even if you don’t get enough for a search warrant, we’ll have the guy on an attempted rape. That’s a solid charge.”

“I agree,” Patrick said. “But how will we know it is the right guy?”

“The rapes stop,” Crawford told him. “Or maybe he confesses.”

“Both would be nice,” said Patrick.

“The most important thing is to stop this guy, one way or another,” Captain Reott said. “Before another woman gets hurt.”

“I agree,” Julie said quietly.

“Me, too,” Tower added.

There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Patrick asked in a soft voice, “What do you think the odds are of this tactic drawing out the rapist?”

“Not very good,” Crawford admitted. “But a hell of a lot better than doing nothing at all.”

Graveyard Shift

2108 hours

Lieutenant Robert Saylor put aside the “hot board” full of briefing memos after he read the final one aloud to the assembled graveyard patrol officers. Just in case he wasn’t finished, though, Officer Katie MacLeod kept her pocket notebook in front of her.

“Last item,” the lieutenant said. “As most of you already know, the Rainy Day Rapist struck again yesterday. That makes his third victim. This one was a fifty-six year old school teacher.”

Angry muttering erupted and rumbled through the roll call room.

Saylor raised his hand for quiet. “In response to this, a task force is being formed to focus on this case until he’s caught. Investigations is heading it up, with Detective Tower still in the lead. However, Patrol will assist. I’ve been asked for four volunteers. One will be a female decoy, three will rotate as part of a two-officer cover team.”