The Traveller (5 page)

‘Best we can do,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s been distributed all over the city and all the campuses. It was on the television stations while you were at the funeral.’ ‘Response?’

‘The usual. Everybody thinks it looks exactly like their landlord, or the neighbor who happens to owe them money, or the guy that’s dating their daughter. But we’re checking them out slowly. Maybe we’ll get lucky.’ ‘What else?’

‘Well, each of the killings has some distinctive features, but when you get everything settled they are pretty much the same. The girls have all been picked up at a mixer or a bar or a student union or a campus movie. Picked up isn’t right. Followed out is more likely. No one has seen the guy actually snatch his victim …’

‘But

‘Well, no buts. We’re interviewing people. We’re doing background checks on all sorts of people — gardeners, students, hangers-on — trying to find some guy who has experience on all the campuses and is young and with-it enough to blend in.’

‘That could take a while.’ ‘We’ve got a dozen guys working on it.’ Detective Barren thought for an instant. She wasn’t exactly getting the runaround, but nor was she getting the entire picture. And she perceived a sense of confidence in Detective Perry that didn’t blend with a portrait of legwork, long hours, and frustration. She had the sensation of being humored. She also knew that she had to come up with the right question to open the right door. She thought for a moment. Then it struck her. ‘What about assaults?’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ Detective Perry said. ‘So what you’ve been saying is that you’ve got a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but no makeable case out of the homicides. What about an assault? If this guy has been at this for, how long? A year or more, I’d guess, then he has to have had a few near-misses. Screwed up. Been surprised nother student when he tried to snatch a victim. Something like that, huh? You tell me.’

‘Well,’ Perry replied, drawing the word out. ‘That’s an interesting idea …’

“Which I’m not the only person to think of.’ “Well …’ He hesitated. “Don’t bullshit me.’ “I don’t want to.’ ‘Then answer.’

He looked uncomfortable. He shuffled some papers. He looked around for help. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be that candid,’ he admitted. “I didn’t think so.’ ‘Can you back off? I mean …’

“Forget it,’ Detective Barren said. ‘I want to know.’ “Okay, but I’m not gonna get too specific.’

She nodded. ‘Twice.’

She nodded again.

‘Twice the creep screwed up. Last time was the night before your niece got it. We got a partial license plate and a make.’

‘Have you got a name?’ ‘Can’t tell you.’ Detective Barren stood up.

‘I’ll go to your boss. I’ll go to mine. I’ll go to the papers …’

He motioned her to sit back down. ‘We got a name. And he’s got a tail. And when we got enough for a warrant, we’ll let you know.’ ‘You sure?’

‘Nothing’s certain. Look, the papers have been all over this thing and a lot of details have been in the press. So we’re moving slowly, we want to make certain that we make this guy on a murder-one charge, not attempted assault. Hell, we want to make him on all five. That’s taking some time.’ ‘Do it right,’ she said. Detective Perry smiled, relieved. ‘That’s what I figured you’d say.’ She looked at him.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s what I hoped you’d say.’ He stood up. ‘I want this creep to understand boxes. The first box is the one I’m putting together for him. Everywhere he turns, I’m gonna have an answer. No way he can crawl out. The second box is gonna be a nine-by-eleven on the Raiford Riviera …’

Death row, thought Detective Barren. She nodded. ‘And you can guess what the last box will be.’ She felt a momentary rush of satisfaction. Detective Barren stood up. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You want to be in on it when it goes down?’ ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’ ‘All right. I’ll call.’ ‘I’ll be waiting.’

They shook hands and she walked out, for the first time in several days feeling hungry.

When she returned to her own office, two days later, after a hot, dirty day doing an inventory of car parts uncovered at a chop shop in the warehouse district, she found two memos on her desk. The first was from her own commander, listing a disposition of evidence gathered at the site where Susan’s body had been recovered. The second was an autopsy memo from the medical examiner’s officer. She read them carefully.

to: Det. Mercedes Barren from: Lt. Ted March

merce: That was a bite mark. But it was too ragged to make a distinct mold and is therefore not of high evidentiary value. Saliva breakdown from swab of the area shows normal enzyme values, but trace alcohol rendered it difficult if not impossible to come up with blood type. Guy must have had a drink or two. Booze always screws things up. Even just a beer or two. Anyway, I’ve sent the entire sample back over to the lab again and told them to try again. The two prophylactics recovered at the scene contained different sperm samples. Both had deteriorated considerably. Still, one was Type A/Positive, the other O/Positive. Further breakdowns are underway. No workable prints on anything so far, but they’re going to try that laser evaluator on the soda cans. I’ll let you know. Pretty much a total wash so far. Sorry. But we’re going to keep trying.

to: Detective Mercedes Barren from: Assistant ME Arthur Vaughn

detective: Cause of death of deceased white female, age eighteen, identified positive as Susan Lewis of Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, is massive trauma to the right rear portion of the occipital bone coupled with asphyxiation due to strangulation by nylon ligature around neck. (See autopsy protocol for precise cause.) Genital swabs negative. Acid phosphase test negative.

Detective: she was unconscious from the head blow when she was assaulted. She probably never regained consciousness when be strangled her. Sex act was premortem, however. But there were no signs of ejaculation. This could have been due to prophylactic device.

I’m terribly sorry about all of this. The autopsy protocol should

answer any questions you have, but if it doesn’t don’t hesitate to call.

Detective Barren put the two reports in her pocketbook. She glanced at the autopsy protocol, with its schematic diagram and pages of verbatim description of her niece’s body, transcribed from the medical examiner’s tape recorder. Height. Weight. Brain: 1220 grams. Heart: 230 grams. Well-developed, post-adolescent female American. No abnormalities noted. Life reduced to so many facts and figures. No way to measure youth, enthusiasm, and future. Detective Barren felt queasy and was thankful that the medical examiner in his compulsive thoroughness had neglected to send the autopsy slides.

On her way home from the office that night, Detective Barren stopped at a small bookstore. The clerk was a beady-eyed man who rubbed his hands together frequently, punctuating his voice with body motion. Detective Barren thought him a perfect reincarnation of Uriah Heep.

‘Something to escape in? A novel, I suppose, an adventure, or a gothic horror story. A romance, or a mystery. What shall it be?’

‘Real escape,’ said Detective Barren, ‘is substituting one reality for another.’

The clerk thought for a moment.

‘You’re a nonfiction type, huh?’

‘No. Maybe. I just don’t feel romantic. But I want something distracting.’

She left with two books. A history of the British campaign in the Falkland Islands and a new translation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia. There was a gourmet shop down the street, and she indulged herself in a pasta salad and a bottle of what the counterman assured her was an excellent Californian Chardonnay. She would eat well, she thought, read a bit. There was a football game on the television that night which she could watch until she fell sleep. This was a secret passion. She smiled to herself; she hid her enthusiasm from her co-workers. They were threatened enough by her female competence. If she tried to usurp their game as well… So

she enjoyed in private. Buying single game tickets, sitting in the Orange Bowl end zone, or staying home and plopping down in front of her television by herself, her concession to her own gender represented perhaps by the glass of white wine in a cut-glass long-stemmed goblet rather than the can of light beer. But, she thought, she did dress for the occasion. If the Dolphins were playing, she would break out her aqua and orange tee-shirt and watch sweaty-palmed as any man. She recognized a level of foolishness in her behavior, but thought it harmed no one and she was comfortable with it. She thought of Susan, coming over one Sunday a year earlier and watching in almost open-mouthed amazement as Detective Barren, swearing frequently, unable to sit still, stalked around the living room of her apartment in obvious agony, relieved only by la forty-nine-yard field goal by the Dolphins’ kicker in the waning seconds of the game. Detective Barren smiled at the memory.

“If only they knew …’ Susan had said.

‘Shh. Secrecy,’ her aunt replied. ‘Tell no one.’

:Oh, Aunt Merce,’ Susan had said finally, ‘why is it I never know what to make of you?’ And then they’d embraced. ‘But why football? Why sports?’ the niece persisted.

‘Because we all need victories in our lives,’ Detective Barren replied.

Several times over the next few days Detective Barren

fought off the urge to telephone the county homicide detectives. As she went about her own business, processing other

crimes, working evidence, she envisioned what was

happening. She saw the tail working the killer, silently

mirroring his movements while other detectives ran down

his whereabouts, started showing his picture to witnesses,

patting together all the minor pieces of a criminal case.

Some ten days after Susan’s murder, Detective Barren

was on the witness stand in a murder case; from the locations that shell casings had been discovered inside the house where a drug dealer and his girlfriend had been murdered, Detective Barren had reconstructed the entire crime. Her testimony was important, not crucial; consequently her cross-examination by the contract killer’s high-priced attorney was more of a badgering than a blistering. She knew that she could not be shaken on facts; she was working hard, however, not to let the attorney so confuse the jury that the impact of what she had to say was lost. She heard the attorney drone another question. ‘So, because the shell casings were located here, you concluded that the killer stood where?’

‘If you will refer to the diagram, marked into evidence as state’s exhibit twelve, counsel, you will see that casings were discovered some twenty-four inches from the doorway to the bedroom. A Browning Nine-Millimeter ejects casings at a constant rate. Consequently, it is possible with a degree of scientific certainty to say precisely where the shooter was standing.’

‘They couldn’t roll?’

‘The rug in that portion of the room is a two-inch shag carpet, counsel.’

Did you measure it?’ ‘Yes.”

The attorney turned toward his notes. Detective Barren fixed her eyes on the defendant. He was a wiry, small Colombian immigrant, uneducated save in methods and modes of death. He would be convicted, she thought, and within thirty seconds another would get off the next Avianca flight to take his place. Killers were the Kleenex of the drug industry; they were used a few times and then discarded unceremoniously.

Her eyes drifted up past the defendant, and she saw Lieutenant Burns enter the back of the courtroom. For a moment she connected him with the killer on trial. Then she saw him surreptitiously give her a thumbs-up sign. Her imagination leaped. She watched the lieutenant stride down the center aisle

of the courtroom and bend over the barrier to whisper a few words into a bored-looking prosecutor’s ear. He sat up straight, swiveled, and then rose to his feet.

Detective Barren looked at the lieutenant, who smiled at her, but only a small smile, just the slightest upturning at the corners of the mouth.

‘Your honor,’ the young prosecutor said, ‘may we come to side-bar?’

‘Is it important?’ asked the judge.

‘I believe so,’ replied the prosecutor.

The defense attorney, the court stenographer, and the prosecutor all walked around to the judge’s side, where the jury could not hear them. There was a moment of conversation, then the three returned to their seats. The judge turned to the jury.

‘We’re going to take a brief recess now, then the state will continue with another witness.’ He looked at Detective Barren. ‘Detective, apparently your services are needed elsewhere. You are subject to recall, so please remember that you are under oath at all times.’

Detective Barren nodded. She swallowed.

The judge frowned. ‘Detective, the stenographer cannot record a nod of the head.’

‘Yes, your honor. Under oath. I understand.’

Detective Barren and the lieutenant hurried from the

courtroom. As they passed through a sally port entrance

and then through a metal detector, the lieutenant said,

“They whacked the fucker about ninety minutes ago. He’s

at county homicide being questioned. They’re doing his

house and car now. Search warrant got issued this morning.

Hell, you probably passed it on the way into court. We

tried to reach you, but you were on the stand. So I decided

to come get you myself.’

Detective Barren nodded.

The two hurried outside. It was Florida fall, a subtle lessening of the oppressive heat of summer. A mild breeze caused the flags outside the courthouse to buffet about.

‘Why’d they move on him?’ she asked.

“The tail watched the creep buy two pairs of women’s

pantyhose last night at an all-night drugstore. He stashed them in a locker at the University of Miami, along with a ball-peen hammer.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A weirdo and a foreigner. He’s some sort of Arab. Kind of a professional student, from what I’ve heard. Took courses all over the place. Registered with a bunch of different names, too. We’ll know more soon.’ The lieutenant paused at the door of an unmarked cruiser. ‘You want to watch the questioning or the search of his place?’

She thought for a moment.

‘Let’s swing by his house, then go over to county.’