The Assailant (4 page)

“No. I can, though.”

“Sorry, man, I'm kind of stuck with these things for a while. Tell you what, I'll find someone at the soccer game to give Mary-Beth a ride home. Take me about an hour, hour and a half?”

“I appreciate it, Joe.”

•

Klosterman arrived an hour and forty minutes later. Detective Howard Rhodes was there by that time. He was the first one Hastings could reach.

Rhodes, in his early thirties, was the only black detective on Hastings's team. He was married to a nurse who worked at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, but they didn't have any children so Hastings didn't feel that bad about asking him to come down to the river.

There was no “neighborhood” to canvass. Reesa Woods's body was bounded by the river, two abandoned buildings, and an empty street. They walked around and searched the buildings and
found a couple of vagrants who said they hadn't seen or heard anything. No one had seen any vehicles.

This went on for a couple of hours, and when it was done, the detectives gathered near the county van that took Reesa Woods's body away.

The van's engine idled, smoke coming out its exhaust. The doors to the van closed, and when the body was no longer visible, Hastings realized that he hadn't eaten anything all day. He was standing with the patrol sergeant, Klosterman, and Rhodes. There was something of a contrast between them: the detectives in civilian garb, looking like civilians, the patrol sergeant, Wister, in uniform, his blue jacket and belt with holster and extra ammunition clips visible. Homicide detectives could be elitists, but Hastings gave no sign to the patrol sergeant that he wanted him gone.

Hastings said to Rhodes, “You used to work vice, didn't you?”

Howard Rhodes said that he did.

Hastings said, “You familiar with Tia's Flower Shop?”

“No,” Rhodes said. “Not that name. But the way that business works, they change their names about every six months. Though it's usually the same people working them. I'd say the victim was a high-class, high-dollar model. She looks young, clean. Let me make a call here.”

They stood in the cold afternoon as Howard Rhodes pulled out his cell phone. The patrol sergeant told them to let him know if they needed him for anything else and then excused himself.

Rhodes was talking now, having reached an old friend at vice, and then they heard snatches of conversation, Rhodes saying, “Yeah . . . I'm not surprised. . . . Yeah, well, you deserve it, man . . .” and the other detectives knew that they were discussing a promotion that was up for grabs.

Rhodes shut the phone off and came back to them. “Tia's Flower Shop is one of four outfits owned by Bobbie Cafaza. You know her?”

“Never met her,” Hastings said. “But I've heard of her. A madam, right?”

“Right.”

“You got a number for her?”

“Yeah,” Rhodes said. “Do you want to talk to her?”

“Yeah.”

Rhodes dialed a number and then handed his phone to Hastings. Hastings took a breath as the phone rang, remembering that the best thing to do when informing someone of a death was just to do it, not to think too much before. The ringing stopped and he heard a woman say, “This is Bobbie.”

“Ms. Cafaza? This is Lieutenant Hastings with the St. Louis Police Department. I'm afraid I have bad news.”

A pause. Then the businesslike voice coming back. “Is it one of my employees?”

“Yes. Reesa Woods. She's dead, ma'am. I'm sorry.”

“Oh, God. Oh . . . God. What happened?”

“She was murdered. And I need to speak to you about it.”

Hastings cracked the window on the driver's side and the sound of the engine filled the car as it accelerated up the ramp onto Interstate 64. Cool air flushed into the cabin and helped clear some of the mustiness out. As the car settled on a speed between sixty and sixty-five, Hastings put the window up.

Saturday and he and Klosterman were at work. Hastings was hoping to catch the second half of the Nebraska–Texas game on television today, but that looked like it wasn't going to happen. He was quiet for a moment, thinking about what was still ordered in his life.

His daughter, Amy, age twelve, was with Eileen, his ex-wife, and Eileen's husband in West County. Hastings was scheduled to pick her up tomorrow evening at six. He hadn't done any shopping, so maybe they could go out to dinner. Someplace on the Hill. That would be okay, but then he was supposed to take Carol out to dinner tonight. Dinner out two nights in a row, no, three, because they had eaten in the Central West End last night before the party, and his salary could take only so much . . . Shit. Perhaps he could persuade Carol to come over to his house and he could cook for her. He was a pretty good cook, but Carol would probably want to get out of the house, and there was that
fine line between being the romantic who cooks his girlfriend dinner and being a cheap piece of shit.

Klosterman said, “Eileen have Amy for the weekend?”

“Yeah,” Hastings said.

Hastings realized that he was preoccupied. Joe Klosterman and his family were fond of Amy, particularly Joe's wife, Anne. The Klostermans had invited them for dinner last Christmas after Eileen had changed her plans at the last minute and taken off for Jamaica. Amy was a tough kid, used to her mother letting her down, but being stood up on the holidays had to have hurt. At the Klostermans', Anne had spent more time with Amy than she needed to, and Hastings could see that Anne was one of those women who recognize hunger in children, who recognize a need for maternal affection and warmth. Hastings wondered if Klosterman knew how lucky he was. Probably he did.

Klosterman said, “I worked prostitution a few years ago on South Grand, before the Vietnamese moved in and the neighborhood started cleaning up. You know Melanie Chapman?”

Hastings said, “Used to be Melanie Wise?”

“Yeah, and she married Bob Chapman. Married her own sergeant, but that's another story. Anyway, I worked the detail with her. She was in her twenties then and a looker. Back then. She'd hang out on Grand near the Gravois intersection and solicit the johns. This one guy pulls over to proposition her, he's in a fucking mail truck.”

“U.S. mail?”

“Yes. Wearing the uniform and everything.”

“On duty.”

“Yeah. He walks into the hotel room, and Keith Nichols and I are sitting there waiting for him. We put the cuffs on him, and he starts crying and he says now he's going to lose his job. I kind of felt sorry for him. Just some loser. Then I didn't feel so bad when we went to his pretrial and the guy brings his wife and she's wearing a shirt that, get this, has the Ten Commandments written on it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah; it was kind of pathetic. But you saw that sort of shit all the time. Guy'd show up to court with his wife, show the judge that his wife was standing behind him all the way. They don't understand that that just makes the judge more pissed at them. But I gotta admit, that Ten Commandments shirt was something I hadn't expected.”

“Didn't give him jail time, did he?”

“Oh, no. Six months' probation, the usual. The guy did lose his job, though.”

Hastings shook his head and said, “I don't see the point.”

Klosterman knew what he meant by that. Arresting men and women for engaging in the world's oldest profession. Treating what was essentially a public health problem as a criminal problem.

Klosterman shrugged. “Well, you know how it works. The neighbors see the girls on the street, trafficking, they don't like it. They call their local alderman and the alderman leans on the department to clean it up. So we go down there, make some arrests,
and move it someplace else. And come on, George, if it was in your neighborhood, you'd do the same thing.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Bobbie Cafaza's offices were in a redbrick building on Vandeventer Avenue. Red-and-black Laclede Cabs shuttled out of the headquarters down the street.

Klosterman pressed a buzzer at the glass door at the foot of the stairwell, and when he heard a voice say “Yeah?” he said, “Police,” as he looked up into a security camera.

The door buzzed open, and they walked up the stairs to the second story. They walked in and saw a carpeted room with a modest couch and table with magazines on them. Some sort of waiting room. Hastings doubted that any activity occurred here. He looked into the next room, where a woman of about forty-five was talking with four ladies wearing dresses and skirts, their ages varying from early twenties to midthirties. They listened as the woman gave them directions to a hardware convention in Brentwood and told them what to do and what not to do. They heard the woman say near the end, “. . . and for Christ's sake, don't act like whores.” Which Hastings thought was kind of funny. One of the girls said okay, twice, and they moved out into the front room and down the stairs, talking among themselves.

Then the fortyish woman was in the room with them, giving them an appraisal.

Klosterman said, “Let me guess, the circus is in town?”

“Clowns pay better than cops,” she said. “They've got better manners too.”

Hastings said, “I presume you're Ms. Cafaza.”

“Yes,” she said.

She looked her age. There were lines in her face and it was apparent that she'd never had surgery to fix it. But her figure was good and she had a stylish carriage. Like a middle-aged Russian dance instructor. Tough and worn, but attractive too.

Hastings identified himself, showing his shield, and introduced Klosterman.

Then she said, “I feel—I feel a little guilty.”

Hastings said, “Why's that?”

“Because I haven't told the others yet. I'm hoping you're wrong.”

“About what?”

“I'm hoping that the girl you found isn't Reesa.”

“Well,” Hastings said, “it is. I'm sorry.”

The madam sighed and looked down at the floor for a few moments. She put her hands on her face and then raised her head.

“Christ,” she said.

Yeah, Hastings thought. Christ indeed. An attractive pimp standing before them. A young girl caught up in prostitution and her life being choked out of her before she turned twenty-three.

Hastings said, “How long has she worked here?”

“About a year. Can we sit down?”

“Sure.”

Hastings and Klosterman took seats on the sofa. The windows were behind her. Through the blinds, they saw traffic on the interstate.

Bobbie Cafaza said, “Would you like some coffee?”

“I'd like some,” Klosterman said.

Hastings declined. He would like some coffee, but he wasn't going to ask this woman for a thing.

She came back with a thick yellow mug for Klosterman and set it on the coffee table for him. Hastings noticed that her hands were small and delicate.

Hastings said, “Was she working last night?”

Bobbie Cafaza said, “Yes. She was scheduled to meet a client at about four.”

“Where?”

“Downtown.”

“What name did she use when she worked?”

Bobbie Cafaza smiled. The detective knew something about the business. “Ashley,” she said.

Hastings said, “Explain to me how she worked.”

“She works for me,” Bobbie said. “The clients call here and I make the arrangements. She's not supposed to—she's prohibited from working independently.”

“Who was she with at six?”

Bobbie Cafaza hesitated.

Hastings sighed, like he was disappointed. He said, “Ms. Cafaza, I understand what business you're in. You don't call it
prostitution and I'm okay with that. But if you don't cooperate with us, we'll have to shut you down. You know that.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, ma'am. I'm not a vice officer. I try to solve homicides. If I can do that without ruining your business, that'll be beneficial to both of us.”

Bobbie Cafaza said, “Really? Are you aware of the . . . extent of my clientele?”

“Let me guess,” Klosterman said. “It includes the chief of police, the mayor, and some of the most powerful, respected men in the city.”

Bobbie said. “Go ahead and joke. But you're not far off.”

Hastings said, “Well, we'll just have to take our chances. Ms. Cafaza, do you care about what happened to Reesa Woods?”

“Of course I care. She was a good girl. You think I just traffic in people. Women's bodies. But I'm satisfying a need.”

“So are drug dealers,” Hastings said.

“A human need,” she said. “It's natural to want a woman. You know that as well as I do.”

Hastings said, “Oh, I really don't want to mince words with you. I can leave and come back with a RICO order and freeze this business up by Monday. You're a smart woman and you'll just open up another outfit in six months, but then you'll have lost six months' profit. So how about it, huh? Tell us who she was with Friday night.”

Bobbie Cafaza shrugged. Hastings was leaning on her, but he was showing her respect too, in a way.

She said, “Okay. I'll give you his name and number. I can even tell you where they went. But he's an old man. And I really don't think he killed her.”

Klosterman said, “But she had other clients, though. Right?”

“Oh, yes.”

Hastings said, “You said she worked for you for about a year. What was her average, say, per week?”

“Between five and eight. It just depended.”

“Five and eight tricks a week?” Klosterman said.

“We don't use that term.”

“What do you call them?”

“Encounters.” She shrugged. “Meetings.”

“Meetings.” Klosterman wrote it down in his notebook.

Hastings said, “What about Reesa? What sort of girl was she?”

“She liked nice things. She was professional.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”