The Assailant (26 page)

“Sounds like you like the work.”

“I do. The people are great.”

“Did you go straight from high school to college?”

“No. After high school, I joined the army. I was in four years.”

“Did you like that?”

“Not really. Lot of dirtbags in the army. Sorry.”

“That's okay.”

“I mean, some of them are good people, serving their country. But some are just dirtbags.”

“How so?”

“Well, I had one sergeant tell me he could get me transferred to West Germany if I'd be his girlfriend. And he was
married
.”

“That's not nice.”

“No, it wasn't. And he was black, too.”

“Oh,” Hastings said.

“Sorry. That must have sounded terrible. I'm not prejudiced. I mean, I try not to be.”

“Of course,” Hastings said. “So you got out after four years.”

“Yeah. I'd had enough.”

“When did you meet Raymond?”

“About a year after I got out.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I was at a club with some girlfriends and he started talking to
us and . . . I don't know, we just started talking. He seemed nice. He didn't drink. He wasn't loud. He didn't, you know, come on too strong.”

“He was a gentleman.”

“Yeah. I was used to bozos getting drunk and saying, ‘Yo, Cheryl. Take your top off.' And he wasn't like that. And he didn't, you know, push things.”

“You mean he didn't try to rush you into bed?”

“Not at all. He wasn't pushy like that.”

“That's good.”

“He was nice. Always polite. Always asked me how my day was. Attentive, thoughtful. You know.”

“Sure.” Hastings paused. “Old-fashioned, you mean?”

“Yeah. That's what he was. Old-fashioned.”

Hastings wondered if she had been raped while she was in the army. Or if she had been otherwise abused. He said, “Did you both want to wait until you were married?”

He bit his lip after, fearing that she would say he was getting too personal.

But she said, “Well, I don't think I did. But he wanted to. Like you said, he was old-school.”

“Okay. So you did wait?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you're divorced now, but I presume you were happy at first.”

“Yeah. I thought so. I quit school and started working fulltime
at the bank. And he was in medical school. He studied a lot. Usually, at night, he'd go to the library to study. So sometimes I wouldn't see him until late.”

“How late?”

“Sometimes pretty late. Midnight, maybe even later. Usually I'd be asleep when he got home.”

“Oh.”

“Well, it was okay. I mean, I knew his schoolwork was important to him.”

“Did you and he socialize with the other medical students?”

“A little. Not much, though. I felt out of place.”

“Why?”

“Oh . . . I don't know. They'd all been to college, even the wives of the other students. And, well, I just felt uncomfortable.”

Hastings said, “Well, I'm sure Raymond wouldn't have married you if he thought you were dumb.”

“No, I don't think so. I just felt out of place. And I guess I was hurt.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn't make much of an effort to help me fit in with them. To help me feel better about it. Like what you said. About not marrying me if he thought I was dumb. He never said anything like that to me.”

“Perhaps he was preoccupied with his studies.”

“Maybe. But he could have been nicer.”

“Made you feel more appreciated?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“But he must have liked you if he married you.”

“That's what I thought. At first. But after a while, I started to wonder why he
did
marry me.”

“Why's that?”

“Because—well, I don't know.”

Hastings said, “You can tell me.”

“Well, he never would say much to me. I mean, after we were married. Before, a lot. But not really after we were married. Even when he was home. He'd come home and I'd cook dinner for him, and we'd sit at the table together and he . . . he just wouldn't talk to me. Just sit there in silence. It was like I wasn't there. Once, I was trying to talk to him and he said, ‘Excuse me, I'm eating my breakfast now.' Eventually, I started to ask him if I'd done something to make him mad. He'd just look at me and shake his head. And that was
it
. It gets in the air, something like that. It hangs over you.”

“What?”

“You know. Bad feelings. Anger.”

“I'm sorry.”

She went on as if she had not heard him. “You know what made it worse?” she said. “What made it worse was when we were at some sort of party or someplace in public, he
would
talk to me. You know, the way a husband speaks to a wife he cares about. He'd do it in public but not in our home. Now what was that about?”

Hastings thought, He was performing. Playing a role. Hastings said, “I don't know.”

“I mean, you hear stories about guys getting married so their wives can put them through medical school. But . . .”

“Do you think that's what he did?”

“I don't know. It's not like he got any money out of me. But after all that, I never knew why he married me.”

“Did he abuse you?”

“Abuse me—you mean like hit me?”

“Yeah.”

“No. He never did anything like that. He wasn't physical.”

“Were you intimate?”

A pause. Then she said, “You mean like in bed?”

“Yeah.”

Hastings readied himself to tell her that everything she said would be held in confidence. An old trick. But before he could say anything, she answered him. The human need to unload can be powerful.

She said, “No. Not very much. He was weird that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't think—I don't think he liked it very much. He had trouble . . . sometimes he couldn't . . .”

“Couldn't get an erection?”

“Yeah. I mean, I'm no supermodel, but I've got a good body. It'd never been a problem before. I mean, with me and other guys.”

“I understand.”

“Sometimes I think he did the weird things to cover that up.”

“What do you mean ‘weird things'?”

“Oh . . . it's kind of embarrassing.”

“It's just us here.”

“Well . . . one time he put on this Oriental mask. He was naked except for this mask. I guess he thought I'd like it. But I didn't. I didn't like it at all.”

“Did it frighten you?”

“Yeah. A lot. So I told him to stop it. To take it off. And he got really mad. He said I was provincial or something.”

Hastings said, “Prosaic? Did he call you that?”

“Yeah. That was the word. I'd never heard it before. He was always using these big words, you know, showing off. He never called me stupid. I mean, he didn't use the word
stupid
. But he was all the time letting me know I was. And I didn't
know
. I don't know anything. I'm not smart. I don't know what to say at parties when his friends are bringing up books and movies I never heard of. I told them I liked
Gone with the Wind
once and they all looked at me like I was retarded.”

“Him too?”

“Yeah. Him too.”

“Who filed for divorce?”

“I did. But I think he would have if I hadn't.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn't like me. He not only didn't love me, he didn't even like me. Why would you marry someone you don't even like?”

“I don't know.” Hastings said, “Did you ever ask him?”

“I did, but he wouldn't give me an answer.”

“You said he never abused you.”

“Yes.”

“Was that the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Were you ever scared of him?”

There was silence. And Hastings was afraid he'd lost her. “Ms. Jensen?”

“Once,” she said. “I had this squirt gun and I squirted water on his face. Just, you know, horsing around, trying to have a little fun. And he got so mad. He ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed into my face, ‘
Don't you ever do that again!
' I'd never seen him like that. I don't think I've ever seen anyone like that. I didn't know what I thought he would do then.” Her voice broke. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

“Okay. Ms. Jensen, if—”

But she had clicked off the phone.

Klosterman said, “You're not going to get a search warrant based on that.”

Hastings looked around the room and let his eyes rest on Murph. “What do you think?”

“I think Joe's right,” Murph said. “Judge Foley might have authorized one for you. But she's on the appellate bench now.”

“What about Judge Rief?”

“No way. We don't have cause.”

They needed a search warrant to search Raymond Sheffield's house, to see what was on his personal computer, traces of a note from Springheel Jim. To see if he had earrings and bracelets and other little trophies of his night work. A search warrant properly and timely executed on the man's premises could sometimes make the case by itself. Presuming he was their guy.

Rhodes said, “Do you think he's the guy, George?”

“Yeah, I think he is. There's the mud on the tires. And Rita Liu seems to think so. And the conversation with the ex-wife.”

“That's not much,” Klosterman said. “He said the word
prosaic
to her. It's not much, George. And the hooker? What, she had a bad feeling about him?”

“Intuition, she says. Or she just got scared when she saw him.”

“Did he look scary to you?”

“No,” Hastings said. “He seemed pretty average. But, shit, none of it means anything. We can't eliminate him as a suspect because I think he looks normal, and we can't arrest him because she thinks he's a killer and his ex-wife said he used big words and wouldn't make love to her.”

“What about the call girl? Does she really
know
anything?” Klosterman said.

“She knows she saw him in Reesa's proximity before she was murdered. She saw him again, with me, and got scared. Why? I don't know.”

Murph said, “Some of these call girls, they're kinda nutty. I remember this one I hauled in once, she thought my patrol car was haunted. Said that somebody died in it.”

“Somebody probably did,” Klosterman said.

Rhodes said, “Say you do go to a judge and ask for a warrant; won't he ask if you're putting the cart before the horse? I mean, we haven't even interviewed the guy.”

“No, we haven't.”

After a moment, Murph said, “You worried he'll lawyer up on you?”

“A little,” Hastings said. “Also, if we interview him, he's likely to go back to his home and clean it up. Presuming he's the guy, he's operating on the notion that we're not going to find him. He believes he's pretty smart. Remember his letter. He says he's something we
cannot comprehend. Because we're too dim. Too parochial. And in a sense, he's right. We
are
pedestrians. We can't comprehend him. We're constrained by sanity and conventionality.”

“Or humanity,” Rhodes said.

“But maybe that can help us, George,” Murph said.

“What do you mean?”

“Being smarter than you, maybe he won't need a lawyer. Won't want one. As far as he's concerned, he can handle you on his own.” Murph smiled. “What are you, after all, but an idiot cop?”

Hastings looked to Klosterman.

And Klosterman said, “Good point.”

“Okay,” Hastings said. “But if I talk to him, he'll know we're onto him, and he'll go clean his house, and then we'll lose evidence against him. We don't have any direct witnesses.”

“We got Dr. Zoller and Rita Liu,” Murphy said.

“That's not direct,” Hastings said. “Neither one saw him commit a crime.”

“So what then?” Klosterman said.

Hastings said, “If I don't talk to him, I don't have enough probable cause to get a search warrant. If I do talk to him, he'll clean up his house, and then a search of it won't help me get a case against him.”

Murph said, “We can smother him. Twenty-four-hour surveillance. Do it for two, three days, see what he does?”

Hastings said, “I don't know if the chief would authorize it.”

“Why?” Murph said.

“Because it's not his idea,” Klosterman said.

“All right,” Hastings said, “that's enough of that.” The mild insubordination was quelled, and Hastings said, “The bottom line is, we don't have enough now. I'm going to have to talk to him.”

“Where?” Murph said.

“His house.”

“An ambush interview?” Klosterman said.

“Yeah. I'll go alone in my car. You guys follow in a separate vehicle. I'll be wired. I want the interview taped, but I also want to be able to call out for help in case I see him go for the kitchen knives.”

It was a joke, he guessed. But he was scared too. Maybe it was because of the mud he'd found on the tires of the Mercedes. Or maybe it was the discussion with the ex-wife. The mention of the Oriental mask . . . Or maybe Rita Liu's intuition was spilling over to him.

You're running, he thought. Running from the pain this silly little bitch has inflicted on you.

His shift had ended and Helen Krans had been approaching him. To say what, he didn't know. That she wanted to explain Tassett's request to him? To explain that she meant no offense to him? To say maybe they could have a cup of coffee together? Not outside the workplace, of course, but inside, where it would be safe and professional and no one would think much of it.