Miami, It's Murder (6 page)

The detective made a face toward the bedroom.

“Interesting,” the chief said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I don't know any other case of a subject involved in this sort of aberrant behavior also being involved in sex crimes against other individuals. But in this business there is always a first.”

“Maybe he swore off little girls and turned to this,” the detective said. “May have thought it safer.”

“Definitely wasn't—for him.” Duffy took his radio from his pocket and notified dispatch to send the body snatchers to remove the deceased.

I ventured into the kitchen to express my sympathies. The scratched countertops and aging appliances were a shade of avocado popular twenty years ago. The widow was staring into the depths of a coffee mug clutched in both hands. “Did you know he did this sort of thing?” I asked.

“I knew he liked the young ones,” she mumbled, “but I never knew about none of this.” Her weathered face looked hard.

“Were those your things he was … wearing?”

“Never saw those frillies before.” Her eyes darted around the room, then locked on mine. “I look like the type to wear that stuff?” She glanced down at her faded T-shirt and threadbare stretch pants.

“I wrote about his niece, Darlene … when she was killed.”

Her head jerked up, an indefinable flicker in her flat and hostile gray eyes. “That all happened a long time ago.”

“It's never been solved.”

She managed a half-hearted shrug.

“The police suspected your husband…”

“They weren't the only ones,” she said bleakly. “They weren't the only ones. I loved that little girl like she was my own, never had any children myself. My husband's family…” Her voice trailed off as she rubbed her upper arms with both hands as though a chill had come over her. “If you don't mind, I don't want to talk anymore.” Summoning up her tattered dignity, she pushed back her chair and carried her cup to the sink, chin up, shoulders square.

Under some circumstances, I would have tried to push further, but I was uninvited in her home and her husband lay dead in the next room. I walked toward the front door. The medical examiners' wagon had just arrived and the doctors were outside. The detective was in the bedroom finishing his paperwork, probably gloating that some men were weirder than he was.

As I left the house, I wondered if she might have killed him to avenge her niece. Given the family history, this was no marriage made in heaven. But how could she hang a man his size? No, I am too suspicious, I told myself, rolling down all the car windows in a futile attempt to cool the interior before driving off. That happens in this business, I thought. When your mother declares that the sun will rise tomorrow, you call the weather bureau first. Then you check out your mother.

“Terminal sex,” I told Lottie later in the photo lab, describing the hangman's noose, the mirror, the lace teddy, the silk scarf, and the open
Playboy
.

“Were the pages stuck together?” she asked eagerly.

“I didn't check,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “That never even
occurred
to me.”

She leaned back in her desk chair, rested one hand-tooled leather cowboy boot on her knee, reached inside, and scratched her ankle. “Hell-all-Friday,” she mused aloud, “how do these horny bad boys even think these things up? That's worse than the ones who like guns pointed at them while they're doing it.”

“You know about them!”

“Not from personal experience, a-course.” She winked and looked sly. “If I did, I sure wouldn't admit it.”

The story of Emerson Creech's demise was not reported in the newspaper. Many of the most fascinating never are. Since we had never identified Uncle Dirty as the prime suspect in the murder of his niece, his death was not deemed newsworthy by my bosses. I proposed a feature on autoerotic deaths. “Not in this newspaper, not ever,” said Fred Douglas, the city editor.

As I read Creech's routine obit published in agate type in the
DEATHS
column the next day, I wondered about the others listed last name first in precise alphabetical order, and if any of them had gone to meet their maker in such bizarre fashion.

I still needed to connect with Riley, the rape squad lieutenant who had been off duty by the time I departed the Creech house. This time I called first. The lieutenant was in, terse as usual, and reluctantly agreed to spare me a few minutes if I got there fast. When I arrived, everybody in the outer offices was focused diligently on work, none of that relaxed atmosphere or camaraderie that permeates most detective bureaus. The lieutenant, I thought, must be in one of those infamous bad moods. Again.

When I breezed by, saying I was expected, the secretary lifted her eyes with a warning look that said, Lots of luck.

Taking a deep breath, hoping not to catch one of Lt. Riley's notorious temper tantrums, I tapped first, then walked in. The lieutenant slammed down the phone and brusquely motioned me into a chair.

“What's on your mind, Montero?”

“The Downtown Rapist,” I said.

Pale eyes guarded beneath colorless lashes, she scrutinized me carefully. “Had any calls with information on him?”

“No.” I could see my window of opportunity close as she dismissed me as useless. “But I was hoping we might get some, if I did a story about him for the Sunday newspaper.”

“Nobody's stopping you,” she said, pointedly consulting her watch. Why is it, I wondered, that everywhere I go, people begin checking their watches and steering me toward the door? “You already made our investigation public, destroying whatever advantage we had in that respect.” The coldness in her eyes told me she was not the person to turn to for sympathy should I ever be raped.

“I need your help on the story.”

She leaned back in her chair, wearing an amused expression. Her dark-blond hair was almost straight, shoulder length, with a slight natural wave. Her leathery skin reflected too much time spent in the sun.

Women cops must be tough and ambitious to achieve promotion. She was both. Even to the extent of using only her first two initials, K.C. Kathleen Constance Riley was a perfectly good name, which I had once used in print when she shot the right kneecap off a deranged gunman who was determinedly battering her wounded partner. The story made her look professional, even heroic. Yet her anger at me was wild enough to make my own kneecaps tingle. She had warned me never, ever, to use her full name in a story again.

Women have made more progress in police work than in any other formerly exclusive male profession. They stand shoulder to shoulder with men in uniform—and, like Francie, share space on the memorial plaque in the lobby.

K.C. Riley had fought for rank and respect and won both. I appreciated the obstacles she had overcome but was fed up with her Dirty Harry imitation. Acting
muy macho
doesn't prove you are as good as a man.

“My help?” She exuded sarcasm, sucking in her cheeks and pursing her lips. “My help? After you've turned this investigation into a three-ring circus, putting the mayor, the chief, and all of us on the hot seat?”

I refrained from announcing that I was just doing my job. I love saying that to cops, because that is what they always claim while doing unpleasant things to you. But this was not the moment.

“You have a limited number of detectives, lieutenant. If half a million people learn more about the rapist on Sunday, we have a good chance of coming up with something.”

“Yeah.” She leaned forward, eyes pitiless. “Dozens of crank callers, spiteful women turning in ex-husbands and boyfriends, and hundreds of false leads for my overburdened detectives to check out. This investigation is already like a string tied to an elephant. The more we follow it, the bigger it looks.”

“But the right lead might be among them. We both want the same thing, lieutenant.”

“No, we don't,” she said heatedly. “I want to catch me a rapist; you want to sell newspapers and make a name for yourself.”

“This story won't affect the paper's circulation or my job, one way or the other. Nobody reads bylines. Don't forget, lieutenant, I'm a woman too. I love Miami. I was born here. The people I care about live here. I want justice in this city as much as you do.” I paused. “Maybe even more.”

Her head jerked up at that.

I'd heard the lieutenant had bought a house in Hollywood, just north of the county line. Cops used to move up to Broward when housing costs, property taxes, and the crime rate were all lower. That's no longer true, but Dade cops still tend to settle on the far side of the county line. Beats me; maybe they like to distance themselves from their work.

“I live in Dade County,” I said. “A whole lot of police officers go home to Broward. They don't even live here.” I was pushing the envelope now and knew it.

Her tongue touched her upper lip as she sat studying me, probably wondering how, or if, I knew where she lived. I had landed a low blow, I knew. Why, I asked myself, did this woman and I always butt heads when we should be on the same side? I took a deep breath and made my move. “I understand you have a composite drawing of the rapist and a psychological profile. I'd like to use them in my story.”

“Who told you we had them?” Suspicion edged her voice, but I sensed less hostility.

“I guessed,” I lied, protecting my source. “It's only logical that you would have them by now.”

“Then guess the rest. If I cut that information loose, it would compromise the integrity of our investigation. Everybody would know, including the bad guy. He'd change his habits, his appearance, he might move—”

“Even if he tries, he can't change who and what he is. He's been hitting every two weeks.” I lowered my voice. “How many more women will you let this happen to, to preserve the integrity of your investigation?” Leaning forward, I met her steely gaze. “Is it more important to stop him or to hope for an arrest, someday, on your terms?”

She tossed her head back and stared at me, chewing her upper lip and fiddling with a metal paperweight in the shape of a hand grenade.

I flipped open my notebook, took out my pen, and looked up expectantly.

She sighed, placing both hands on the desk blotter in front of her. She considered her fingernails, short and unpolished, without adornment. “We believe he's Cuban,” she said. “He may have served time in prison there.” Her expression remained unchanged as she removed a file from the squat metal cabinet behind her chair and opened it. The face in a composite drawing stared up at her.

She slid it across the desk. High cheekbones, cleanshaven, wavy hair, prominent nose, eyes close together.

“Lean and muscular build, a skinny little son of a bitch, but he's strong. Mid to late thirties, five-eight or five-nine, approximately a hundred and sixty-five pounds, nice even teeth, hairless chest. Probably started stealing panties from clotheslines or laundry rooms and worked his way up. Probably has a record for minor sex crimes, like wienie waving. He's still escalating. He didn't hurt anybody more than he had to, at the beginning. Now he's deliberately frightening his victims more. He's pricking them with the knife. Their fear and humiliation excites him. He's becoming more dangerous. He could be working up to murder.”

She paused, as though lost in thought. “All but one has happened before four in the afternoon. He may be fitting this in with his own schedule. He could be a maintenance man who starts somewhere at four and likes to go to work happy.

“The first was only an attempt, because he couldn't get an erection. Now he makes the victims perform oral sex so he can. Then he does it from the back, seems to have trouble having sex from the front. Can't maintain his erection.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked, scribbling furiously.

She paused, toying again with the paperweight. “I don't know how much of this you can put in the newspaper. He probably does it from the rear because he won't see the victim as a person if he's not looking at her face. When he tries from the front, nothing.”

“He's got problems.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What about lab work on him?”

“He's a secretor.”

Eighty percent of us secrete our blood type into our body fluids, our tears, sweat, mucus, semen, vaginal secretions, and saliva. Sometimes a suspect can be typed off a cigarette butt. The best legal proof of sex between two people is a used condom with the man's semen inside and the woman's vaginal secretions on the outside. “Good, what type is he?”

“O positive, the universal donor.” She smiled sardonically. “You wouldn't want to get too close to this guy.”

I put on my curious face, not wanting to let on that Harry had told me. “Does he have AIDS?”

“Nope, gonorrhea, the bad one, penicillin resistant.”

“Think he knows it?”

She shrugged. “Do me a favor. If you do mention that, don't be specific. Just say that he has something wrong with him. That he's diseased and dysfunctional. Maybe he'll see a doctor or go to a clinic and we can get a line on him.”

“Does he ever wear condoms?”

She shook her head. “These guys are smarter than they used to be, they know all about the serology work, but we still don't see condoms much with serial-type rapists. We
are
seeing them more with gang bangs.” She looked quizzical.

“Maybe it's all the safe sex warnings they get in the public schools now.” I was thinking out loud. “Be nice if they warned them against committing rape too. So you've got DNA?”

“It's being run.” Her pale eyes brightened at the prospect. “Eventually, every sex offender will have to provide blood for a Florida bank of DNA prints. We'll have them on file, like fingerprints.”

“Will it be national? So if we get some serial rapist from Seattle you can identify him?”

“You've got it. The FBI developed the software that runs the program, and it's being shared with police crime labs.”

“Can't be soon enough,” I said.

“Just pray we get the funding.”

“How has this guy been able to stalk women in these buildings without being seen by anyone else?”

“We're still trying to figure that one out, checking personnel records, cabbies who work the area.” She ran her hand through her straw-colored hair. “We did a grid run of other crimes in the vicinity, in case he was exposing himself or pulling robberies before he turned to rape.”

“Hear anything from informants?”

“Rape is not the kind of crime guys brag about in bars,” she said, her voice sharp. “Usually if you get information from somebody, it's not because they were told, it's because they noticed something.”

“Think he's married?”

She sighed. “Some of these guys are. They have a wife, kids, a sex life—the marriage may not be the best but the spouse doesn't notice anything.”

“What does he wear?”

“T-shirt and blue jeans, nothing distinctive, except—” She caught herself and stopped. Apparently she had decided to hold something back.

“What?”

She shook her head. “At last, Britt, something my detectives haven't already whispered in your ear.”

The woman is good, I thought, and wondered how far she would have gone in the department had she been a man. “Excuse me?” I said, in what I hoped was a tone of bewildered innocence.

The lieutenant smiled, showing her teeth. There was no humor in it. If I worked for her I would not want her to smile like that at me. I tried to guess what curious fact she might be withholding.

“Anything printed on his T-shirts?”

“Like his name and the firm he works for? We wish. We had one like that once. Wore a shirt with his name sewn over the pocket. The name of the plumbing company he worked for on the back.” She smiled bitterly. “A brain the size of a ball bearing and a penis to match.”

“Does he bring anything with him besides the knife?”

“A couple of victims saw something like a duffel bag before he blindfolded them. He may carry the knife in that.”

“What does he use to tie them up and blindfold them with?”

“Duct tape.”

“Have you been able to get prints off it?”

Her eyes dropped again to her own hands. “The man wears latex surgical gloves, the ones with talcum inside to make them more comfortable, easier to slip on and off.”

Somehow that detail chilled me more than all the rest. A rapist cold and calculating enough to don rubber gloves before touching his victims, like a dentist or a brain surgeon.

“Where do you think he gets them?”

She shrugged. “He could buy or steal them from any one of a thousand places.”

“Does he say anything unusual or have any distinctive body odor? Remember the one who smelled like the fast food restaurant where he worked?”

“Like greasy French fries, onions, and hamburgers?” She nodded. “No odor on this guy—and he says the usual. ‘Don't scream, I will kill you. Keep quiet. Open your legs. Oh, baby, oh,' the usual shit.”

We exchanged a wary handshake. My cautious little dance with the lieutenant had worked—this time.

“By the way, how's Dan Flood doing?”

I must have looked startled.

“Saw you with him at the memorial ceremony.”

“He's okay, under the circumstances. I know he misses the job.”

“Tough, he was a good man. But when you can't hack it physically anymore, it's time to turn in the badge before you endanger yourself or somebody else.” Her words echoed the department line. “Don't screw us on this one, Britt. It's too important,” she said in parting. “Make sure you put our number in there. We'll set up a hot line, manned by a detective. Recorded, of course.”