His worst fears erupted into life when his father put the car in park and quietly told him, "Get up to your room." With a certainty that made his sphincter spasm, he recognized the flat expression reflected in the rearview mirror. Not only had the boy's terror come to life, it had grown and taken wing and was flopping about in the evening's growing shadows.
At the front door he cast his mother a soundless plea. She deftly fielded her son's glance and shot back one of her own. It too was sickeningly familiar, silently reproaching. You've disappointed your father and now we'll both have to pay.
The boy used the banister to drag himself upstairs. The terror flapped all around him. He heard his mother ask with a practiced tone carefully blended of equal parts concern and empathy, "When would you like dinner, dear?"
In a gritty voice, his father answered, "When I'm through with the boy."
Perched heavily on the boy's thin shoulders, the terror settled into its nest.
5
On October 19th, when Melissa Agoura failed to meet her friends at Kenneth Hahn, they called her house to find out where she was. By 9:00 p.m., three hours after dark, Mrs. Agoura called the police. LAPD was swamped with missing person complaints. A perfunctory investigation was conducted two days later, but the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl in L.A. didn't generate much investigative work.
Two weeks into the case, Noah and Frank interviewed and reinterviewed people in and around the vicinity of the park. Joggers, picnickers, old men and kids fishing in the small ponds— none recognized Agoura or recalled anything odd around the time she disappeared.
Heading back to the station late one afternoon, Noah sighed, "You know what gets me more than anything?"
Frank felt the question was rhetorical and just glanced at her partner.
"Not the stupidity, not the senselessness, not the blood or gray matter, I mean that's just biology and death, they're inevitable. What gets me is the goddamned apathy. How many people have we shown her picture to?"
Frank shrugged.
"And how many have cared?"
"This is L.A., No. People see dead faces every day."
"I don't care if it's Buchenwald! This is their neighborhood, one of their own. She died in their own backyard and no one gives a shit. No one wants to get involved."
With half an ear Frank listened to Noah's tirade. Of all the cops she'd worked with, and after fourteen years on the force, Noah was still the most passionate. Peace officers, especially in a huge metropolis, had to develop some kind of emotional armor against the daily traumas they dealt with. Noah's armor was forged of dark humor and constant complaints that belied an unyielding optimism. Tirades were his way of blowing off steam. After seeing the worst people could do to each other, he still believed in and expected the best. He'd explained once that it was the only way he could continue to do his job and raise three kids. He had to keep believing, but it was an effort in the face of what he dealt with every day. When it got too much, he blew.
On the other hand, Frank was always prepared for the worst. Noah was frustrated they weren't getting anywhere on the case; Frank accepted it easily and just kept chipping away. They'd talked to three of Agoura's girlfriends again, the ones she was really tight with. One of the girls had been a little hinky, and when Frank pressed her she'd burst into tears. Seems she had a wicked crush on the boyfriend and had been trying to lure him from Melissa. But that was all she was guilty of. The girls basically reiterated what the family and boyfriend said.
They interviewed casual acquaintances, classmates, an ex-boyfriend. Same story. Agoura hadn't been in any trouble, she had her steady friends, steady boyfriend. They engaged in the usual teenage mischief and highjinks—nothing serious enough to get her killed. Agoura was a square peg who'd somehow ended up in a round hole. Most murders were not accidental, but Agoura's victimology was all wrong. She apparently had no connection to anyone from the area or that school. She wasn't dealing or using, she wasn't hooking, she wasn't a banger. As far as Frank and Noah could tell, she had no reason to be in the 'hood.
Back at the station, Noah dropped all his paperwork on his desk and headed home. Frank lingered in her office, scanning Crocetti's terse protocol again. Time of death was roughly 7:00 p.m. the night before she was found. The rape test located three light brown nonvictim pubic hairs. He confirmed there was no evidence of oral or vaginal rape, only anal. The multiple contusions and hematomas were seemingly made by a large, rounded instrument. Crocetti wouldn't commit to a specific weapon. The nature of her wounds was consistent with the time frame of her absence. Her right shoulder had been dislocated before she was killed. There was no evidence of postmortem injury.
The forensic tests had finally come back, and Frank studied them one more time. The fragments of wood that Crocetti had plucked from the ripped tissues was elderberry, Sambucus glauca. Frank's knowledge of botany didn't extend beyond long-stemmed roses, and she'd asked the lab tech if elderberry was common in the area.
"Commoner than crabs in a whorehouse," he'd responded. "It grows wild all over the place."
There were isolated fibers found on Agoura: red nylon combed from her hair; white nylon and an additional red one pulled out of several lacerations. Cotton fibers corresponded to the last outfit she was seen in. Four blue nylon fibers appeared to be from vehicle carpeting, and a handful of green/gold carpet fibers were also found on the body. The adhesive from her wrists turned out to be a common 3M brand of packing tape. Nail scrapings revealed nothing, and her tox test was clean. It wasn't much to go on.
Frank sighed, closing the binder. She didn't need it open anyway; she had already memorized the sparse information within. She shut her eyes for a moment and indulged her fatigue. She should be home sitting on her Soloflex, not here. But it was quiet in the squad room after hours, and Frank loved the silence. She'd never admit it, but there was no place in the world she felt as safe. She doodled on a yellow legal pad and her thoughts rode in the wake of the pen.
Another puzzle was that Agoura had evidently been held against her will and tortured for three days. Death on Frank's turf was usually sudden—drive-bys, stabbings, ODs. Kidnappings and torture weren't unheard of, but they were usually highly personalized. That Agoura's face was basically unmarked and her sexual organs were free of mutilation suggested that Agoura might have been a stranger to the perp. The anal assault seemed to be the focus of his anger. That was a curiously gender-neutral area of assault, adding to the impersonality of the attack. It also suggested that he may have done time.
On one side of the paper Frank wrote Average or Above Average Intelligence. Whoever had done this to Agoura certainly was reasonably smart. Not only had he abducted her with no witnesses, but he'd managed to keep her and batter her for three days without anyone seeming to know about it. Then he'd dumped the body on a city sidewalk and still hadn't been seen.
Frank leaned out of her chair and pulled a dusty notebook off the shelf on the wall. A few years ago she'd participated in a criminal profiling fellowship with the FBI. Part of the work included analyzing the behavior patterns and personalities of serial criminals.
Frank scrutinized her Quantico notes and, just for kicks, started profiling Agoura's perp. Hunched over her desk well into the night, her doodling evolved into an intricate list.
Friday evening at the Alibi was packed. Nancy Kreiger had given up clearing the empties from squad nine-three's table. Except for Jill, who'd gone home exhausted, and Bobby, who was on call and nursing a Coke, the squad was pounding back Buds and Murphy's Irish stouts. The talk had gone from shop to football. Nookey was collecting money for the weekend games.