Probably it began badly when she was the one who made the overture for a date. Men were supposed to do that. Yes, he should have tumbled when she proposed they go out together. He’d have to be more careful in the future.
Well, the main thing was to put tonight behind him. He had more important things to take care of. More important things to plan. He was inordinately proud of what he was doing. The instrument of God’s justice. Of that he could be justly proud. Forget tonight. Plan the present and the future.
19
Mangiapane talked too much—much too much. But he was a good cop. And, in time, he would make a first-rate homicide detective.
He had an inquisitive mind. That was good. And he seemed to catch on to homicide work instinctively. The whole thing was in solving the puzzle. And he liked the mysteries as opposed to the platters.
Some guys just wanted the closed folder. Some guys and gals—Alonzo Tully corrected himself. He mustn’t overlook the women in the division. Some of them were damn good. Especially when they advanced in grade. A female sergeant or lieutenant generally was ten times as good as the equivalent man. And, as Mangiapane had pointed out not ten minutes ago, women, even women cops, smelled good.
God, surveillance was dull.
He had no one to blame but himself; it had been his idea. As a matter of fact, quite a few other cops were, at this very moment, blaming him for their being staked out in uncomfortable cars on a dreary Sunday afternoon in late January when they could have been installed in front of a nice TV set, armed with snacks and beer, watching the Pro Bowl. The last of football for this season.
But dammit, Tully didn’t care. This was part of being a cop: 98 percent going up blind alleys, only once in a while guessing right or getting an unexpected break. And that’s what this afternoon was—a guess. Only time would show whether or not it was an inspired guess.
The first of the prostitute mutilation murders had taken place two weeks ago on a late Sunday afternoon. The second, one week ago on a late Sunday afternoon. Both murders had occurred in threadbare sections of the city, sections notorious for a thriving prostitution business. But sections where, due largely to the poverty of the area, there was little likelihood of finding either high-class or high-priced women. Both victims had been, for prostitutes, comparatively elderly. And both were white.
Even with the beefed-up squad Koznicki had given him, this week’s investigation had turned up nothing new or helpful. There had been the usual parade of confessors—people under some weird compulsion to confess to any well-publicized crime. But each had to be checked out, even if only in a cursory manner.
Then, as a result of publicizing that composite likeness of the perp, a whole bunch of people had turned in their friends, relatives, and enemies—anyone who bore the slightest resemblance to the drawing. Those too had to be checked out. Someplace in that pile there could have been a lucky break. But there wasn’t.
Adelle and Ruby had looked through police mug shots of killers, with special emphasis on those connected in any way with prostitutes. Nothing. Then, in a move Tully considered unique in the annals of the Detroit Police Department, the women were given the Archdiocese of Detroit Pictorial Directory to study.
That they identified no one in either collection did not surprise Tully.
Relatively few victims or witnesses correctly identify a perpetrator from mug shots. The photos, posed and dour, are frequently misleading and rarely up-to-date. Often the victim’s memory plays tricks. And there is always the very real possibility that the individual’s photo simply isn’t there. Maybe it was the perpetrator’s first crime. Maybe he had never been caught and booked. Or maybe the victim or witness was inadvertently shown the wrong book.
The priests’ Pictorial Directory was another matter. It was Tully’s first venture into what, in effect, were the clerical mug shots of the Archdiocese of Detroit. He had access to the most recent edition, which, having been issued in 1983, was not all that current. There were, by Tully’s count, 958 priests working in the six-county archdiocese. The directory contained 763 photos. Which left 195 priests unrepresented pictorially.
A quick call to Father Koesler apprised Tully that cooperation with the directory people was not mandatory and some priests declined to have their pictures included. Tully thought this a hell of a way to run either a railroad or a diocese. But there was nothing he could do about it. Whether or not a priest was indeed the murderer, there was a fair chance his picture would not be in the directory. If it were up to criminals whether or not to have their photos in the mug book, obviously they would opt out.
So here it was, the end of the second week of the investigation. The first week had been virtually wasted under Tully’s hypothesis that the first killing had been an act of retaliation against one of his prime snitches. That initial supposition had collapsed when the second victim turned out to have no connection with him.
Which brought him to today. And he knew that, realistically, Koznicki could no longer provide the luxury of a supplemented force. This, for all practical purposes, was his last chance for a big push. If he failed today—and he had to admit he well might—he would be pretty much on his own. And the possibility of solving this puzzle would diminish in direct relationship to the number of detectives working on it.
Thus, over Friday and Saturday, he and his task force had meticulously studied Detroit’s many red-light districts, evaluating the neighborhoods as well as the type of prostitute to be found in each. They’d had to neglect some areas that were only marginally qualified in order to locate the sort of prostitute this perp seemed to be looking for.
Eventually, they settled on eight hooker areas, the number they had agreed on at the outset that they would be physically able to police with the number of officers and cars at their disposal.
God, surveillance was dull!
Mangiapane was driving and talking . . . driving slowly and talking fast. Tully tried to recall the beginning of the story Mangiapane was telling. If Tully could remember how it had started, he might conceivably make sense out of what Mangiapane was now saying.
Oh, yes; now he remembered. Mangiapane had gone to lunch in Greektown, where he’d bumped into Wolford and Hughes, two officers assigned to the Thirteenth Precinct. Over lunch, they talked shop, as usual. Mangiapane, with a multitude of his characteristic asides and digressions, was recounting a story the two detectives had told him.
“So,” Mangiapane was saying, “they’re figuring to get off their shift early, when this call comes in from this convent, the Home Visitors of Mary—great bunch of gals, do a lot of real great work—anyway, this nun calls the precinct and gets Hughes. She says there’s a guy over there whose car has been swiped, and would the police send somebody over to help him.
“Well, Hughes figures this will be a great way to end the day a little early: Him and Wolford can run over to Arden Park, get the info and scoot on home.
“So they get there and there’s this little guy—balding, glasses, third-rate moustache, paunchy, and very, very nervous. Somebody, he says, took his car. So the guys talk to him and one question leads to another. They ask how come he parked on this street. There ain’t no businesses, all residential. Of course, there’s always the chance he went into the Cathedral rectory . . . you know, Zoo, Blessed Sacrament Cathedral is just a block away, between Belmont and Boston on Woodward.”