Second rape: Four weeks later. Monday, April 4.
Third rape: Three weeks later. Monday, April 25.
Fourth rape: Two weeks later. Monday, May 9.
Annie looked at the calendar again. Four weeks, three weeks, two weeks. If he’d raped her again after that, would there have been an interval of only one week?
She looked at the calendar for Angela Ferrari.
Hit for the first time on April 11. Four weeks after that would have been May 9. Nothing on that date. Three weeks after May 9 was May 30. Yep, he’d hit her again on the thirtieth. And two weeks after that was — right on the nose! He’d raped her again on June 13.
Okay, hold it, Annie thought, take it easy.
Cecily Bainbridge: First rape on Saturday, May 7. Next rape four weeks later on Saturday, June 4. Blanca Diaz, right on schedule: First rape on March 15, next one four weeks later on April 12, the one after that — when he’d cut her — three weeks later on May 3. Mary Hollings... well, this was a tough one.
Raped for the first time on Friday, June 10, and then not again till Friday, September 16. Annie started counting off weeks on the calendar. Four weeks after June 10 was July 8. Three weeks after that was July 29. Two weeks after that was August 12. A week after that was August 19. Starting the cycle all over again, four weeks after August 19 was September 16, the exact date Mary Hollings had been raped for the second time. And three weeks after that was the seventh of October, the date of the most recent attack on her.
Janet Reilly: Raped on the thirteenth of September and then again exactly four weeks later, on October 11.
But if this was a pattern — four weeks, three weeks, two weeks — then how did it tie in with the seemingly patternless calendars for Vivienne Chabrun, Terry Cooper, and Patricia Ryan?
Vivienne Chabrun: First rape, March 31. Four weeks after that was April 28. No circle on her calendar for that date. But three weeks after the twenty-eighth was May 19, and he’d hit her on that date, and again two weeks after that, on June 2!
Okay. Okay now.
Terry Cooper: Hit for the first time on May 1, nothing four weeks later on May 29, but hit again three weeks after that on June 19!
Come on, Patricia, Annie thought, and looked at the last calendar.
Patricia Ryan: Raped on March 23. Four weeks after that was April 20, marked with another circle on the calendar. Three weeks after that was May 11... nothing. But hold it. She’d been raped again on May 25, only two weeks after the May 11 date.
Maybe it didn’t matter whether the intervals were exactly spaced so long as...
Was it possible?
Was he trying to make sure he got each of them at spaced intervals of a week, never mind how the intervals fell provided that he didn’t duplicate any week? If not, why rape each of them on different nights, the same night for each woman? Had the son of a bitch worked out a calendar for each of his victims? Hit them at specified intervals, so long as he didn’t duplicate the weeks one, two, three, four as indicated for any given woman? Skip a week, skip two weeks, six weeks, it didn’t matter. All he had to do was count off the weeks to make sure he picked up the cycle again.
But why?
What the hell kind of freak were they dealing with here?
Annie made up one last calendar, listing all the dates of the multiple rapes, and labeling it “Cumulative.”
The attacks had started in March, four that month, spaced eight days apart on successive nights of the week. Lois Carmody on March 7. Blanca Diaz on March 15. Patricia Ryan on March 23. Vivienne Chabrun on March 31.
In April, he’d hit Lois Carmody again on the fourth, added Angela Ferrari as a new victim on the eleventh, hit Blanca Diaz again on the twelfth, Patricia Ryan on the twentieth, and Lois Carmody yet another time on the twenty-fifth.
Two new victims in May, Terry Cooper and Cecily Bainbridge, for a total of seven hits that month.
Another frenzy of activity in June — five hits that month with Mary Hollings added as a new victim and Lois Carmody dropped from his calendar after a total of four consecutive hits spaced four weeks, three weeks, and two weeks apart.
Nothing in July or August.
Or at least nothing reported.
In September he’d hit Mary Hollings again, and had added Janet Reilly to his list.
In October — so far — just Mary and Janet.
Why nothing for July and August?
And would he soon pick up again on the victims he’d only raped two or three times? Was four his goal? Why four? Or had they not yet heard the last of Lois Carmody?
Too many questions, Annie thought.
Plus the big unanswered one.
Why these particular women?
Why?
In the October stillness of the squadroom, the windows open to a golden wash of late morning sunlight that seemed more fitting for August, the four detectives stood around Meyer’s desk, listening to the tape cassette. Ollie Weeks had heard it before, but he was listening intently nonetheless, as if trying to memorize the words. Meyer, Carella, and Hawes were hearing it for the first time, and separately trying to recall what the Deaf Man’s voice sounded like.
There were two people on the cassette.
Darcy Welles and the man they knew only as Corey McIntyre.
MCINTYRE: The red light means it’s on, the green light means it’s taping. So. You were about to say.
DARCY: Only that it was funny how your questions this afternoon started me thinking. I mean, who can remember how I first got interested in running? You know what my mother said?
MCINTYRE: Your mother?
DARCY: Yeah, when I called her. She said I...
MCINTYRE: You called her in Ohio?
“Sounds a little nervous there, don’t he?” Ollie said.
“Shhh,” Carella said.
DARCY: ...get interviewed by Sports USA?
MCINTYRE: Was she pleased?
“Nervous as hell, you ask me,” Ollie said. “Kid called her mother to tell her who she’s having dinner with...”
“You want us to listen to this, or you want to talk?” Hawes said.
“This is all bullshit, anyway,” Ollie said, “this part of it. She talks about her brother, she talks about how terrific running makes her feel... here, right here.”
DARCY: ...how good it makes me feel, do you know what I mean?
MCINTYRE: Yes.
“Guy knows how good it makes her feel,” Ollie said. “Knows all about running.”
“Will you please shut the hell up?” Meyer said.
“This is just shit where the waiter comes in with the drinks and asks them if they want to see menus... here’s what I mean, listen to this. The guy keeps agreeing how good running makes you feel, listen. It’s yes, yes, yes, all the way down the line.”
DARCY: ...snow is covering up all the garbage and all the petty little junk, and it’s leaving everything clean and white and pure. That’s how I feel when I’m running. As if it’s Christmas all year round. With everything white and soft and beautiful.
MCINTYRE: Yes, I know. Shall we look at the menus now? I’ll just turn this off for a minute.
“He turns it off here,” Ollie says, “and he don’t turn it on again till later. But most of the stuff is just Q and A about running, and once she calls him ‘Mr. McIntyre,’ who you say was in L.A. at the time, huh, Steve?”
“Yes,” Carella said.