"When they finally got her to talk, seems a man had grabbed her from behind and choked her with his arm around her neck. Then he'd pulled her shorts down, rubbed something wet on her with his hand, and penetrated her. She tried to scream even though she could barely breathe, and from the way she described how everything was looking gray she was close to passing out. Then he dropped her and she got her breath back. She looked behind her but no one was there and she ran to find her brother.
Caucasian, had rolled up his sleeve and said, 'Like my skin?' To which she replied, 'Yes, but not so much hair.'"
Frank continued reading excerpts from each report.
"The second case was about six weeks later, January 22nd, again at the park. This girl was older—thirteen, Hispanic again. A man, a tall man, abducted her on her way to the restroom, choking her with a towel. He dragged her into the surrounding shrubs, pressed her down onto her stomach, fell onto her, and masturbated against her fully clothed. He did that for a while, then eventually lifted himself off and she could breathe better. Then he proceeded to rape her exactly as the first girl had been raped, with the exception that he kept banging his head into her shoulder blades. This time the girl went straight to the ER and somebody was thinking. They did fingernail scrapes and semen swabs, and CCPD determined the assailant was a white male, A-type blood. Collected pubic hairs were light brown."
Noah interrupted, "Okay, so far we've got two prepubescent Hispanic girls who've gotten raped in Culver City. Before Markie graduates from high school, is this going to somehow be connected to two white girls murdered in South Central or am I missing something?"
"Hold on. It gets better. March 25th, a white, twelve-year-old brunette is attacked at Kenneth Hahn. Same MO, on her way out of the restroom, but this case had a witness. A man entering the men's side noticed a tall, slightly overweight man, maybe late twenties, early thirties, peering into the women's restroom. He assumed the guy was waiting for his wife or girlfriend. The wit said this guy was big, broad-shouldered. He was wearing jeans and a dark T-shirt. Straight brown hair. No facial hair or obvious tattoos. No glasses.
"Three weeks later, on Texaco property just southeast of the CC park, a fourteen-year-old white female was smoking dope and drinking tequila with her friends. The girl became nauseous and went into the bushes to vomit. She crawled out later—bruised, scratched, sodomized.
"May 12th, fifteen-year-old white female, sunbathing with her sister and two friends at Kenneth Hahn. The girl was sent back to the car for sunscreen. She was grabbed at the edge of the parking lot, raped. Her left shoulder was dislocated. Not even two weeks later, another girl, fourteen, brunette, was raped outside of Kenneth Hahn, again on oil property, followed by two more in June. But get this, the June girls are fifteen and sixteen, Hispanic and white, a blonde, respectively, but the Hispanic girl is assaulted near Crenshaw High and the white girl's done near Culver City High. Same MO on all of them. A towel was pulled over their heads and twisted under their throats. Their assailant was big, strong. All were forced into the surrounding shrubbery and subdued by strangulation.
"Here's the kicker. During these last four attacks, the perp repeatedly rammed each girl with his head and shoulders while he was raping them. The second girl was lucky and passed out from the force of a blow to her diaphragm, the third girl suffered a concussion, and the fourth girl had two broken ribs."
Frank paused.
"Gotta be the same guy, No. Where he attacks them, how he attacks them...it's pretty consistent throughout all these cases."
Noah interrupted. "How do you make the jump from these last rapes to murder?"
"Look at his style. He's evolving through each attack, becoming more and more aggressive. We can expect that as he gets more practice and more confidence. The earlier victims were mauled and handled pretty roughly, but as he learned he could get away with that much, he graduated to battery. This battery is as clear as a calling card. It's his signature, and even though his MO might vary according to circumstance, this battering's going to remain consistent."
"If it's so consistent, why wasn't he more aggressive earlier?"
"Probably not enough time. If he'd never done this before, he was probably nervous, didn't know how much he could get away with. By the time he gets to the fifth girl he's got things worked out. He's experienced, more secure, knows what he's doing and how much time he's got."
Noah could hear the excitement in Frank's voice, but skepticism forced him to play devil's advocate.
"Isn't it a broad jump from raping girls in parks to kidnapping and killing them?"
"Remember we haven't had a reported rape in that area since...," she quickly scanned her notes, "...June. And Agoura showed up in late October. Maybe he's gone underground for some reason. Maybe he got arrested for something else. I'm going to run a query on arrests for that time frame, see what we get."
"Well, it's something," Noah conceded. "Are you gonna talk to these girls?"
"Going to have to. The witness, too."
"That oughta be fun."
"I know, but something might shake loose."
The line was silent until Noah finally sighed, "I hate this guy."
There was a long silence between them, then he said, "Why don't you rent a video and go home. Get some rest."
He heard the long intake of breath, then the lie on the other end.
"Yeah. Maybe I'll do that."
His father liked hanging out at Gil's Pub. It was a sports bar, with a wide-screen TV and two smaller sets perched over either end of the bar. It wasn't uncommon for him to bring his son to the bar and brag to the other patrons about what a great football player he was while the boy ducked his red face down to his Coke. What was uncommon was the night he got really drunk just before the boy's fourteenth birthday and paid a woman at the end of the bar for a little action in the hotel a few blocks away.
She was drunk and willing enough. A little kinky, she thought, but hell, the boy was big enough and he was pretty cute. Everything was amiable until the father slammed her down on the bed and ripped her skirt up over her ass. She tried to protest, but he yanked her head back by a handful of hair and told her to keep her mouth shut unless she wanted to get hurt worse.
The boy watched his father, curious about this shift in power. His body was starting to harden into a man's, and though the father hadn't done that to him for a while, he was still wary. But now it was almost as if he were being treated as an equal. When the father finished, he growled, "Get on," and the boy did. The woman tried to talk to him, but he jerked her head back like his father had and told her to shut up. The boy didn't want to hear her, see her, smell her. He just wanted to hurt her. And he did. His father leered approvingly. The boy had never been happier.
9
She lay still for a moment, grateful she couldn't remember any dreams. In the soft cradle between sleep and wakefulness, Frank was peaceful. Before anything could ruin that she jumped out of bed, pulling on baggy sweats and a T-shirt so old she could read through it. She interchanged Sticky Fingers and Abbey Road on the CD player, and rocked and sweated and pumped cool steel for two hours. After that she filled the Mr. Coffee with water and French roast and left it dripping while she showered. Frozen croissants baked in the oven as she spread an arrest printout on the dining room table. The Stones and the Beatles had been replaced by Delibes' Lakme, and wedges of apple and Brie waited on a glazed ceramic plate for the croissants.