“Working on that now,” Annie said. She liked Eileen’s question. She knew she was asking Eileen to put herself in a dangerous position. The man had already slashed one of the victims, left her face scarred. At the same time, that was the job. If Eileen didn’t like Special Forces, she should ask for transfer to something else. Annie didn’t know that Eileen was considering just that possibility, but not for any reason Annie might have understood.
“All over the city, or any special location?” Eileen asked.
“Anyplace, anytime.”
“I’m only one person,” Eileen said.
“There’ll be other decoys. But what I have in mind for you…”
“How many?”
“Six, if I can get them.”
“Counting me?”
“Yes.”
“Who are the others?”
“I’ve got their names here, you want to look them over,” Annie said, and handed her a typewritten sheet.
Eileen read it over carefully. She knew all of the women on the list. Most of them knew their jobs. One of them didn’t. She refrained from voicing this opinion; no sense bad-mouthing anybody.
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Look okay to you?”
“Sure.” She hesitated. “Connie needs a bit more experience,” she said tactfully. “You might want to save her for something less complicated. Good cop, but this guy’s got a knife, you said…”
“And he’s used it,” Annie said.
“Yeah, so save Connie for something a little less complicated.” Both women understood the euphemism. “Less complicated” meant “less dangerous.” Nobody wanted a lady cop slashed because she was incapable of handling something like this.
“What age groups?” Eileen asked. “The victims.”
“The three we know about for sure… let me look at this a minute.” Annie picked up another typewritten sheet. “One of them is forty-six. Another is twenty-eight. This last one — Mary Hollings, the one last Saturday night — is thirty-seven. He’s raped her three times already.”
“Same guy each time, huh? You’re positive about that?”
“According to the descriptions.”
“What do they say he looks like?”
“In his thirties, black hair and blue eyes…”
“White?”
“White. About six feet tall… well, it varies there. We’ve got him ranging from five-ten to six-two. About a hundred and eighty pounds, very muscular, very strong.”
“Any identifying marks? Scars? Tattoos?”
“None of the victims mentioned any.”
“Same guy each time,” Eileen said, as if trying to lend credibility to it by repeating it. “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Guy coming back to the same victim?”
“Very,” Annie said. “Which is why I thought…”
“With your rapists, usually…”
“I know.”
“They don’t care who they get, it’s got nothing to do with lust.”
“I know.”
“So the m.o. would seem to indicate he has favorites or something that doesn’t jibe with the psychology of it.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the plan? Cover these victims or cruise their neighborhoods?”
“We don’t think they’re random victims,” Annie said. “That’s why I’d like you to…”
“Then cruising’s out, right?”
Annie nodded. “This last one — Mary Hollings — is a redhead.”
“Oh,” Eileen said. “Okay, I get it.”
“About your size,” Annie said. “A little shorter. What are you, five-ten, five-eleven?”
“I wish,” Eileen said, and smiled. “Five-nine.”
“She’s five-seven.”
“Built like me?”
“Zoftig, I’d say.”
“Bovine, I’d say,” Eileen said, and smiled.
“Hardly,” Annie said, and returned the smile.
“So you want me to be Mary Hollings, is that it?”
“If you think you can pass.”
“You know the lady, I don’t,” Eileen said.
“It’s a reasonable likeness,” Annie said. “Up close, he’ll tip in a minute. But by that time, it should be too late.”
“Where does she live?” Eileen asked.
“1840 Laramie Crescent.”
“Up in the Eight-Seven?”
“Yes.”
“Does she work, this woman?” ‘Cause if she runs a computer terminal or something…”
“She’s divorced, living on alimony payments.”
“Lucky her,” Eileen said. “I’ll need her daily routine…”
“You can get that directly from her,” Annie said.
“Where do we hide her, meanwhile?”
“She’ll be leaving for California day after tomorrow. She has a sister out there.”
“Better give her a wig, case he’s watching the apartment when she leaves.”
“We will.”
“How about other tenants in the building? Won’t they know I’m not…?”
“We figured you could pass yourself off as the sister. I doubt he’ll be talking to any of the tenants.”
“Any security there?”
“No.”
“Elevator operator?”
“No.”
“So it’s just between me and them. The tenants, I mean.”
“And him,” Annie said.
“What about boyfriends and such? What about social clubs or other places where they know her?”
“She’ll be telling all her friends she’s going out of town. If anyone calls while you’re in the apartment, you’re the sister.”
“Suppose he calls?”
“He hasn’t yet, we don’t think he will. He’s not a heavy breather.”
“Different psychology,” Eileen said, nodding.
“We figure you can go wherever she was in the habit of going, we don’t think he’ll follow you inside. Go in, hang around, do your nails, whatever, then come out again. If he’s watching, he’ll pick up the trail again outside. It should work. I hope.”
“I never had one like this before.”
“Neither have I.”
“I’ll need a cross-checked breakdown,” Eileen said. “On Mary I Hollings and the other two victims.”
“We’re working that up now. We didn’t think there was a pattern until now. I mean…”
Eileen detected a crack in the hard-nosed veneer.
“It’s just…”
Again Annie hesitated.
“These other two… one’s out in Riverhead, the other’s in Calm’s Point, it’s a big city. I didn’t realize till Saturday, after I talked to Mary Hollings… I mean, it just didn’t register before then. That these were serial rapes. That he’s hitting the same women more than once. Came to me like a bolt out of the blue. Now that we know there’s a pattern, we’re cross-checking similarities on these three victims we’re sure were attacked by the same guy, see if we can’t come up with anything in their backgrounds that might have singled them out. It’s a place to start.”
“You using the computer?”
“Not only for the three,” Annie said, nodding. “We’re running a check on every rape reported since the beginning of the year. If there are other victims who were serially raped…”
“When do I get the printouts?” Eileen asked.
“As soon as I get them.”
“And when’s that?”
“I know it’s your ass out there,” Annie said softly.
Eileen said nothing.
“I know he has a knife,” Annie said.
Eileen still said nothing.