Foubarelle finally caught up to Frank in her office the next day. She was knocking back a bottle of water and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, characteristically unfeminine, characteristically Frank.
"I understand we have an ID on the girl at Carver."
Frank confirmed that, and Foubarelle complained that he always had to hear his information secondhand.
"We got with the mother at the morgue kind of late last night. I wanted to wait until she'd ID'd her but I didn't want to disturb you."
Foubarelle hated being bothered once he'd left the office. He didn't press the issue.
"So what have we got?"
Frank filled him in. When she was finished, he said, "Any word on the autopsy yet?"
"Crocetti's going to cut her. Hopefully first thing this morning."
"He said it looked similar to that girl we found at Crenshaw."
Frank almost snapped, Great. Now Crocetti's a detective, but she checked her temper. When she didn't respond, Foubarelle said impatiently, "Well? What do you think?"
Frank was debating how to tell him the truth without getting him too excited. She didn't want this case, or Agoura's, walking out the door to Robbery-Homicide. If Foubarelle was nervous about it he'd send it up in a blink. Both cases had drawn media attention, but fortunately the public didn't seem to notice. If Frank could keep a lid on them, she'd be alright. RHD only wanted high publicity, politically sensitive cases, and Foubarelle only wanted to ditch the ones he thought might make him look bad.
"I think it's possible."
"Shit." Foubarelle wiped his hand over his eyes. "Level with me, Frank. How big is this?"
Frank shrugged. Even Foubarelle had to see the deep-shit potential here. Despite her own qualms she assured him, "We can handle it."
"That doesn't tell me anything."
"Are you going to toss it to RHD?"
"If we're in over our heads, yes. If you think we can handle it, no."
Foubarelle crossed his arms and waited for her answer. He was putting the decision in Frank's hands. She really had to admire his spinelessness.
"It could be an impressive coup," she countered, throwing the ball back into his court.
"How confident are you?"
"We don't even know if this is the same perp yet. Assuming it is, he's got to slip sooner or later. All we need is some time."
"Give me an estimate."
"I can't," Frank sighed, "you know that. But we've got more on him than anyone else does."
"Oh really? Like what?"
Simply, with no trace of pretension, Frank said, "Me."
He became a fearsome football player. Even the kids on his own team were afraid of him. He didn't respect pain or fear and couldn't understand it in others. The coach frequently had to take him aside and point out that they just wanted players temporarily stopped, not maimed for life. He tried to control himself, but it felt so good to let go on the field. It was the only place he ever felt safe. He was in control out there: just him and the ball and bodies to block and slam into and hurt. He loved hurting the other players, and in a contact sport—if he was careful—he could get away with it. Yet, as satisfying as it was to see a kid writhing on the field with a torn kneecap or snapped ankle, there was still something missing.
8
Homicide victims are frequently killed by someone they know, so Frank and Noah wasted no time interviewing Randy Wyche. He had plausible excuses at the garage for the days around both Agoura's and his stepdaughter's disappearances, but because the police couldn't pinpoint the exact time of either girl's abduction, his alibi wasn't infallible. What they could more closely approximate was the time each girl died, and for those times, all Wyche had was his wife's backing. He readily admitted to not much caring for his stepdaughter, though he resented the fact that he was in any way a suspect in her death.
"We have to pursue all avenues," Frank explained patiently. "It's not uncommon for stepparents, especially in the heat of an argument, to kill their stepchildren. We see it a lot. It happens. Usually no one means for it to, but things just get out of hand..."
Frank trailed off and Noah asked, "Did you and Jennifer ever fight?"
"We had arguments, yeah, but nothing like this."
"Did you ever hit her?"
Wyche's head drooped toward the chipped linoleum, and Frank had to prod the answer.
"A couple times. She was so fresh, thought she knew everything."
"A teenager," Noah lied, "I've got one at home."
"Then you know how they are?" Wyche insisted.
"'Fraid so," he agreed, siding with the man. "Curfew's a big thing in our house. What about you? What did you and your stepdaughter argue over?"
"Everything. But the worst was when she'd just take off. It worried Dee sick. We got into a big fight about that one time. She called me a lazy fucker, said I couldn't tell her what to do, so I hauled off and smacked her. That shut her up."
"Where'd you hit her?"
"I slapped her face.”
"What did she do after that?"
"I don't know. Ran up to her room crying, I guess. Her mother went after her."
"What did you do?" Frank pressed.
"Went out into the garage, I guess."
"What do you do in the garage?"
"I got a '56 Jeep I'm fixing up."
"How long you been working on it?"
"'Bout two or three years now. I don't get as much time out there as I'd like, especially with the weather we've been having lately."
Frank made a note to have Johnnie look at the car, to see if it had been worked on lately. She also wanted to check out the garage at Wyche's job. Whoever had killed Agoura, and now Peterson, had worked them over in a secluded place where they wouldn't be disturbed. Maybe one of the garages offered a spot like that.
"You said you'd hit her a couple of times," Frank said. "What were the other occasions?"
"Shit, I don't know, let me think. I know we had a big fight when she got arrested for shoplifting. We grounded her and she had a fit about that. Started mouthing off again."
"Where'd you hit her that time?"
"I don't know. It all happens so fast, you know. I didn't mean to hit her, but I got a temper you know, and I'm not just gonna take crap from some kid."
"How do you think you hit her?"
"I probably slapped her. I never like punched her out or anything. Not like the guy that did that to her," he said, indicating the photos arrayed before him.
"How do you know it was a man who did that to her?" Frank jumped on him.
"Why would a woman do it? I mean, whoever did this had to be pretty strong."
"You're pretty strong aren't you?"
"Yeah, but so are a lot of guys."
"Yeah, but a lot of guys don't have a bratty stepdaughter hanging around the house insulting them all day."
"Well, you're right, she could be a pain, but you don't kill someone for that."
"Isn't it true that you wished she'd go live with her father?"
"Yeah. I would've liked that a lot, but Dee would've hated it. It's her kid. She loved her."
"But you didn't."
"No," he shrugged, "I didn't."
"Man," Noah sighed, shaking his head, "it's hard enough having your own kids copping an attitude with you, but it must be really hard with a stepkid."
"It wasn't always so bad. We usually just ignored each other. Sometimes I'd even forget she was around."
Noah grinned sheepishly. Turning conspiratorially away from Frank he asked quietly, "Randy, you know I look at my girls and I think, man, they are lookers, but you know they're my daughters, but Jennifer, man, she was a pretty girl and she wasn't really your daughter. You know what I'm saying?"
Wyche shared the grin.
"Yeah, I hear you."