The Assailant (20 page)

Escobar said, “There was no bracelet found on her. And we seem to have confirmation that she was wearing one yesterday at work.”

Hastings said, “So Springheel Jim was probably the killer.”

“Looks that way.”

Klosterman said, “She worked at a real estate office?”

“Yeah.”

“No part-time . . .”

“No,” Escobar said. “She wasn't a call girl. I guess she could pass for one. She's pretty.”

Hastings said, “She's a prize.”

“Pardon?”

“A prize,” Hastings said. “He's picking out attractive women. To him, maybe they're all whores.”

“Killing them because he likes them?” Klosterman said. “Because he's attracted to them?”

“You could call it an attraction, but when I say prize, I mean, you know, the way a hunter gets points. A ten-point buck, that
sort of thing.” He said to Escobar, “Have we got any sort of footprints?”

Escobar sighed. “I don't know, George. We've had about twenty officers walking all over the place.”

“Well, that's fucking great.”

“It happens.”

“I know it happens. It doesn't mean it's okay.”

After a moment, Escobar said, “She had an appointment yesterday in the Central West End. She was showing a house on Pershing Place to a couple that are moving here from New York. They told our officer that they left her between six and seven
P.M
. And as far as we know, that's the last time anyone saw her.”

“What time does she usually get home?”

“Her husband said it varies. Sometimes it's late. She usually calls him, though.”

“Was the Pershing Place house her last scheduled showing?”

“Yes.”

“So he abducted her there.” Hastings turned to Klosterman and said, “Pershing Place off Euclid? That's a bunch of row houses, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Million-dollar ones. But . . . it would have been dark. You want to check it out?”

“Yeah,” Hastings said. He turned to Escobar and said, “The vehicle's still there?”

“Should be.”

“I'll have my techs get on it. Will you fax me a copy of the husband's statement as soon as you can?”

“Sure.”

Klosterman said, “I'll see if I can get the keys from the husband.”

•

Klosterman called the crime scene unit from the car. The techs weren't there yet when he and Hastings got to the Central West End. The street was tree lined and they could see the gray-stone townhouse with the For Sale sign in front, the Range Rover in front of that.

Klosterman touched the keys in his pocket, and Hastings remembered the way the old man had handed them to him without saying a word, Klosterman saying, thank you, sir, but not telling him he was sorry because he'd probably heard it too much for it to mean anything now.

Hastings parked the Jaguar across the road, and they got out and pulled on their latex gloves. They approached the Range Rover. Klosterman pressed the locking device on the keys and heard the car lock.

Up close, Klosterman said, “I just locked it.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, it was unlocked. She left it unlocked.”

“Or he did.”

They opened the front door and did a cursory search for bloodstains. They didn't find any. Her work materials were on the front seat. Sales sheets, listings, contracts with the company's
banner across the top. A briefcase on top of them to hold them in place. They didn't look like they'd been pushed around.

Hastings said, “There doesn't seem to be any sign of struggle up here.”

“Or in the back,” Klosterman said. Though he had only glanced back there. He would leave the thorough examination to the techs.

Hastings said, “Did he grab her before she got in the car?” Klosterman shook his head. “No. Her stuff is in the vehicle. She must have gotten in first. He could have been waiting for her in the back, like he did with Adele Sayers. But there's no sign of a struggle.”

“She got in and then she got out.” Hastings looked at Klosterman and said, “Hand me the keys, will you?”

Hastings put the key in the ignition and turned. Nothing. He tried again and there was still nothing, so he leaned forward and pulled the release lever for the hood. He got out of the vehicle and took a look at the engine and the battery and saw what he thought he might see.

“Shit,” Hastings said. “He disconnected the battery. Waited for her to try to start the car and then came along—”

“And probably offered to help,” Klosterman said.

“Knocked her on the head and then took her away.”

“In a neighborhood like this,” Klosterman said, looking down the street at the wealthy homes and the well-kept trees and high-dollar cars, “maybe he found a way to blend in. Put her at ease.”

“Maybe.”

Yeah, maybe. For this was a sadist and a psychopath they were dealing with. The psychopath likes to deceive, likes to trick. He likes being clever.

And Hastings couldn't help wondering what Marla Hilsheimer thought in her last few moments.
Goddamn car . . . oh, good, here's someone who might help . . . looks harmless enough
. . . Seeing a man, not a monster. Seeing what she wanted to see and not what he was. Seeing what
he
wanted her to see.

And what do you hope for now? Hastings thought. They had nothing. They knew it and he probably knew it too. What do you hope for? That he just gets tired and stops? That he decides to give humanity a break and stay in for a few nights? That he retires? That the merciless somehow finds mercy? What do you hope for?

Hastings remembered the time he had taken Amy to the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History and they had seen the man-eating lions of Tsavo. Stuffed and mounted there since 1924, they seemed unimpressive. Though male, neither of them had the shaggy, virile mane that you see on the MGM roaring lion. They were four feet at the shoulder and weighed about five hundred pounds apiece, but they still looked a little scrawny.

Yet, between the two of them, they had killed 135 railroad workers in Uganda in just a few months, and that was the conservative estimate. They worked mainly at night, unafraid and undeterred by campfires or thorn
bomas
. Every night for three
weeks straight, they stalked, they killed, and they remained at large. At one point, fifty shots were fired into the darkness at the sound of a roar, but they made no purchase. It was at this time that the natives, and not a few Englishmen, began to think that they were dealing not just with a couple of man-eating lions but with demons. Colonel Patterson himself, the supervising engineer, later wrote that he saw a pair of eyes glowing at him in the dark. People later remarked that this would not have been physically possible, as there was no outside light to reflect the glow. But Patterson was there among the heat and the darkness and the sound of a man screaming as he was dragged off into the bush.

The guide at the museum said, “Don't let the appearance fool you. They didn't have manes, but these were tremendous animals. They were in great condition.” There was admiration in the guide's voice then. Even Amy noticed it, and Hastings felt some comfort at her recoil.

When they left the museum, she asked if the lions
were
demons.

And Hastings had said, “Of course not, sweetie. They're just animals that formed a taste for people. A lion's not capable of being good or evil.”

“But why did it take so long to kill them?” She wasn't sympathetic to the lions. Perhaps they weren't pretty to her. They were a hard, dark force of nature.

Hastings said, “That was over a hundred years ago. They didn't have the technology we have now. Infrared lights, that sort of
thing. As far as seeing eyes glowing in the night, well, fear and darkness and heat can mess up your perspective.”

Hastings wondered about that conversation now. Wondered if he'd been wrong. They had technicians and infrared lights and task forces now. And yet they had nothing. There were still eyes glowing in the darkness. Seeing, stalking, and planning.

There were three car wrecks that night. Four people were brought in by ambulance, two by their own vehicles. The two that drove themselves weren't particularly injured but were seeking documentation to strengthen a lawsuit. The ER staff was used to such things. Three of the people brought by ambulance had legitimate injuries, one of them requiring sutures to the forehead and one with a dislocated shoulder.

Helen Krans attended the dislocated shoulder. A young man of about twenty-five, shot up with morphine so that he wouldn't feel too much pain, but his arm was still out of the socket. Helen and a nurse wrapped a sheet around his torso and then another nurse held the sheet tight on one side as Helen tugged on his arm on the other side. It took three good tugs—the guy crying out groggily during this—but the arm went back in on the third try and everyone seemed to feel better.

Helen went on break after that. She took the stairs down to the back entrance of the hospital, passed a couple of paramedics by an ambulance, and lit a cigarette.

She was not the only doctor on staff who smoked. Her habit during college and medical school had been roughly half a pack a day. But it had been increasing lately and she was aware of it.
She knew it was related to stress and work, and she told herself that she would cut it down when her residency was finished.

Helen Krans was aware that her life consisted mainly of work. She had no husband and no children. She was having an affair with Harry Tassett, but she didn't think of him as a boyfriend. Nor did she think of him as a “friend with benefits,” because she thought that sort of phrase was vulgar and insulting to all parties involved. He was her lover, for the time being, and nothing more. She enjoyed Harry's company. He was fun in bed and he could be funny, and he was not the sort to get heavy. As she saw it, they were serving out some sort of term in life—residency—and helping each other through the loneliness that comes with it.

She was aware that some people thought she was aloof, perhaps even mercenary. This didn't bother her though. For she knew herself, and she did not believe that she was cold or unfeeling. And she had never had much patience for professional women who went “girly” over men. Professionalism meant a great deal to her. It was more important to her than a man.

She was one of three children born to well-intentioned parents. Her father had been a flight officer in the navy, and he too had put a great deal of stock in professionalism. He was a good egg, but he spent little time trying to tell his children to be generous or moral or upright. Rather, he stressed to his two sons and daughter the importance of being good
at
something. In his way, he was something of a feminist. He did not presume that his daughter should strive to be merely a good wife and good mother.

When Helen told him that she wanted to be a doctor, he encouraged her in a way that could not be called patronizing. He supported her decision just as much as he would have had she been one of his sons. He did not create for her a different standard.

Helen in turn always worked hard. She graduated at the top of her class in college and got accepted into medical school. Being attractive, she was often approached for dates. Those she liked, she would go out with. Usually, the relationships would last for only a couple of months because the men would compete with her on one level or another. Or, upon finding that she was a little smarter or more competent than perhaps they were, they would move on to someone else.

She was a secure person and did not try to intimidate the men in her life. At least, she didn't think she did. She did not try to one-up people in general. But as she went further in her ambitions, she learned that men liked to feel needed by a woman. And she was not especially good at accommodating this. She didn't care to try to be, either. To start with, she knew it would have been contrary to her nature. Also, she knew that her father would recoil if he ever saw her “dumbing” herself for a man. He would not tolerate that.

She saw her parents infrequently. They lived in Norfolk now, and she didn't get much time off. Her relationship with her father was one of mutual respect and fondness, but it was not one given to long heart-to-heart talks. Her mother was starting to ask questions about marriage and family. Helen would say, invariably, that she was working too hard to think about such things now.

Which was true. She
was
working too hard to think about it now. Perhaps marriage and a family would come later. But when it did, the timing would be of her choosing.

Her cigarette was coming to its end now. She was aware of someone approaching her. Harry.

“Hey.” He drew up next to her. He was wearing his sheepskin jacket, which he looked good in. He said, “Well, I tried.”

“You tried what?”

“I tried to get Raymond to switch shifts with you. So we could go to Chicago.”

Helen frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted you to come with me. You said you wanted to go.”

“I said I'd go if I could. I didn't want you asking him to switch shifts.”

“It's no big deal.”

“If I'd wanted that, I would've asked him.”

“I was just trying to help. Sorry.” He was pouting now. Jesus.

“Harry, I know you meant well. But it makes me look weak, you doing that.”

“How?”

“It just does.” She sighed. “What did he say?”

“You know, he got pissed. Like I'd offended him just by asking.”

“He said no?”

“Yeah, he said no.”

“Well, I don't blame him.”

“Why not?”

“He's full-time staff, Harry. He's not on the same level as us. You belittled him by asking that.”

“Jesus, I didn't think it was that big a deal.” Harry Tassett put his hands in his jacket pockets. “Is he sweet on you or something?”