The Assailant (3 page)

She heard movement. Out of the kitchen now . . .

He was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. Wearing pajama bottoms and a white undershirt. She almost laughed at him. She knew that he had forced himself not to get fully dressed. At least he had given her that much consideration. He was holding a cup of coffee.

Carol said, “What are you doing in here?”

George Hastings said, “Just came to say good morning.”

“You've probably finished reading the paper, haven't you?”

“Yep.”

“And you could've been here.”

“Doing what? Sleeping?”

“Holding your girlfriend. Keeping her warm. Making sweet jungle love to her.”

“While she's asleep?”

“You just can't sleep in, can you?”

“I would if I could.” He walked over to the bed and set his coffee cup on the nightstand. He sat on the bed and leaned down to kiss her.

“Wow,” she said. “Brushed your teeth and everything.” She pulled him down on top of her. They were pulling each other's clothing off when the cell phone rang. Once, twice, and then a third time.

Hastings said, “Shit. It's mine. Hold on.” He walked over to the chair where his pants were hanging and got the cell phone out of the pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Lieutenant? This is Sergeant Wister. We got a body down here by the river. Sorry if I called at a bad time, but you're the one listed on call.”

“That's all right. Tell me where you are.” He shook his head at Carol to tell her he was sorry.

•

Hastings's police unit was a brown 1987 Jaguar XJ6 with a powerful, rumbly Corvette engine. It had belonged to a drug dealer who was a car buff until it was seized by the police pursuant to the RICO act and given to the homicide squad.

Hastings loved the car. A few months ago, he had smashed it into another car to prevent an assailant from shooting him. The assailant had died of internal injuries. The Jaguar had been considered a total loss by the department's insurance company. They'd asserted that even with the Corvette engine, the car was not worth salvaging. But Hastings had taken it to the city's maintenance division and persuaded them to rebuild the front end. It would not have been easy to replace a car like this one.

Carol's apartment was in Clayton. Hastings picked up a coffee to go at the Starbucks on Wydown Boulevard, leaving the Jaguar running in front, its Police tag prominently displayed in the windshield. There was a time and a place to exploit the little benefits he had, and he didn't mind doing it. He set the coffee cup in its holder, picked up Interstate 64 at Hadley, and took it downtown.

It was a cold morning, gray and overcast. St. Louis weather in the fall.

Hastings had grown up in Nebraska. They hadn't discussed such things when he was a kid, but as a man he realized that his roots had been what people called lower middle-class, if that. Luck and athletic ability had gotten him a baseball scholarship to Saint Louis University. His hopes of a baseball career had
more or less petered out by the time he was twenty. But he had finished college and gotten a degree in something called communications. Within a year of graduating, he had enrolled in the police academy with the goal of becoming a detective. In that he succeeded, and he felt fortunate to have done so. He had been in St. Louis longer than Nebraska now. St. Louis was his home.

He pulled the Jaguar off the exit ramp near Busch Stadium and descended into the city. South of the Poplar Street Bridge and drawing toward abandoned buildings looming by the river. He slowed the car and the scene came into view. Emergency vehicles and police cars, their bright authoritative colors set off against the brown and gray background. Hastings parked the Jag and walked toward the yellow tape cordoning off the primary crime scene.

He signed the crime-scene sheet, indicating his time of arrival. Then he found the patrol sergeant in charge, whose name was Paul Wister.

Sergeant Wister said, “This way.”

They walked toward the river.

The Mississippi, as big as they say when you get up close to it. Big enough that you can hear it and smell it. It can intimidate you when you're next to it. Hastings remembered the flood of 1993, when the water got high enough to dislodge entire houses from the ground and send them downstream like bathtub toys. The river commanded respect.

They were in the shadow of the Poplar Street Bridge and the coal-black railroad bridge that was south of the interstate. They
got close to the shore and Hastings saw the medical examiner bent over the body of a girl.

Hastings walked closer, and Henry Donchin, the M.E., looked up and acknowledged him.

“Hey, Henry. What have you got?”

“It looks like a strangulation. There's a contusion to the face that may have knocked her unconscious before she was strangled.”

Hastings said to the sergeant, “Identification?”

“Yes. Her name is Reesa Woods. She has a driver's license and a student identification. University of Missouri, St. Louis.”

Hastings looked up at the bridges. Traffic rumbled over the interstate bridge, probably thousands of vehicles in the past few hours. Who would look down and see a dead girl? Who would be able to?

In the middle of the river, a set of massive barges was being pushed downstream.

Hastings said, “Who reported this?”

“A river-patrol boat. They saw her near the shore about a half hour after the sun came up. They figured she'd jumped off the Eads Bridge and washed up. They didn't know.”

The crime-scene photographer walked up. He exchanged greetings with the other officers and asked if he could start taking his pictures. Hastings said he could and stepped back. He looked around again. Empty, abandoned buildings, bridges passing over, maybe a mile south of the Arch. The killer had hidden the girl in plain sight. If she had screamed, had anyone heard?

Hastings said to the sergeant, “Have your patrol officers found any witnesses?”

“No, Lieutenant. There was a car here. We can see that.”

“Where?”

The sergeant pointed. “Probably there, we think.”

Hastings walked away from the body. He used his hands when he spoke, playing it out with the sergeant.

Hastings said, “Parked here, killed her in the car, if not already, and then threw her out. Or . . .”—and now Hastings was looking at the river—“or, he tried to take her to the river and throw her in. But got close and realized that would be harder than he thought.”

Because when you got close to the edge, the banks of the river sloped down. You could see that when you got close. You could slip on that slope and end up in the river yourself. Slide in and good luck getting back out when the current got hold of you.

But, Hastings thought, you're surmising. Maybe the killer had just pushed her out the door and taken off.

Hastings said, “Her identification was on her?”

“Yes.”

“Anything taken from her? Jewelry, money?”

“No.”

The crime-scene van was pulling up now. The technicians climbing out and walking over to the sign-in sheet. Middle-aged guys with stomachs and pasty faces who looked like they worked for county government, which they did. The crime-scene-unit guys always complained about not getting enough funding for their
work, and they had a point. Their van was a Chevy panel truck painted black and white like any other police vehicle; they weren't getting a shiny new Humvee anytime soon.

Hastings returned to the M.E. and said, “Are there any indications of rape?”

Henry Donchin said, “It's only been cursory, George. But . . . so far, no. Just death by strangulation.”

Hastings was looking at the girl again. Pretty, young . . . dressed professionally. Classy, yet not really looking like a student.

Hastings said to the patrol sergeant, “Is this girl a prostitute?”

The sergeant said, “We checked her wallet for ID. But her purse is, well, we haven't looked through that yet.”

“Where is it?”

“Over here.”

Hastings pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and tugged them over his hands. The handbag was an imitation Gucci. The real one would have cost about four hundred dollars; this one might have been worth about thirty. When he found a packet of condoms and tubes of jellies and lubricants, he thought his instinct correct. Then he found the card that said
TIA'S FLOWER SHOP
.

Hastings called his supervisor Captain Karen Brady to tell her that he wanted a couple of detectives to assist him. It was Saturday and it would mean overtime. Karen had told him last month that she wanted him to get clearance from her before authorizing overtime. Hastings thought this request was unreasonable, as neither he nor his people had ever abused it, but past experience had taught him that Karen needed to be satisfied on the little things. That way, she wouldn't question him about the bigger things.

His professional relationship with Karen was something that had to be handled delicately. Karen had never been more than an average detective. She was not dumb, but she was not particularly smart either. She was inoffensive and unimaginative and she had the administrative knack for not making enemies. The sort that appears to be everyone's friend, but at the end of the day isn't really anyone's.

But, to Karen's credit, some part of her recognized her own mediocrity. She was aware that her lieutenant would protect her to the degree that she would defer to him. Yet she could not openly acknowledge this deference. This was why every couple of months she found it necessary to assert her authority. Her latest attempt to do this was on the subject of overtime.

Now she said, “What's up?”

Hastings said, “We've got a young girl's body out here by the river.”

“Dead?”

The homicide detective paused. “Er, yes.”

“Who is she?”

Hastings knew that Karen was smart enough not to ask if the deceased was black or white. Not directly, anyway. But she wanted to know.

“Young white female,” Hastings said. “About twenty-two years of age.”

“Hmmm. Any witnesses?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Suspects?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you ordered a canvass?”

“Well, we have patrol officers doing that now. But I'd feel better with a couple of experienced homicide investigators doing it. At least assisting with it.”

“Right, right. Well . . . is it something you
need
detectives for?”

“Yes, I believe so. It's a strangulation, Karen. There are no signs of robbery or sexual assault. Not yet, anyway.” Hastings paused. “She's a college student.”

“Oh?”

Hastings kept quiet.

Karen Brady said, “How long do you think it'll be?”

“No idea.” Hastings said. “Maybe through the afternoon.” Which probably wasn't true. But he wanted the authorization.

“Okay, George. You got it.”

“Thanks, Karen. I'll let you know how it goes.”

They said goodbye, then George dialed the cell number of his sergeant, Joe Klosterman.

Three rings and then Joe's voice, a tone lower than a bark.

“Speak with me,” Klosterman said.

“What are you doing?” Hastings said.

“I am driving a Honda Odyssey minivan to a soccer game.”

Hastings said, “Someone cut your nuts off?”

“Filial duties, homey. My daughter's playing this morning.”

“At Forest Park?”

“Yeah. It's the six-year-old league. Run up and down the field, a beehive on the ball, and then someone kicks the ball ten yards wide of the goal posts and they do it all over again.”

“Your son play last night?”

Joe Klosterman's son was a running back for the DeSmet High School football team. There were few prouder fathers than Joe Klosterman, five children and most of them in one sporting activity or another.

Unlike Hastings, Joe Klosterman was a man who looked like a cop and little else. He came from a long line of policemen. For Klosterman, life was a set of duties and dedication. To his family, his church, and the department.

Klosterman said, “Yeah, they played CBC. It was on television last night. Did you watch it?”

“Of course not,” Hastings said. “Anne with you?”

“No. She's covering another game. Sally's in the eight-year-old league. Why, what's up?”

“I'm at the river, standing under the Poplar Street Bridge. We got a dead twenty-two-year-old girl. Karen's given me authorization to bring you guys into it.”

“You don't have a suspect?”

“No. No witnesses either. Joe, it's a strangulation. A joy killing. She wasn't robbed.”

“Oh. Do you have an ID?”

“Yeah. Reesa Nicole Woods. She had a student identification on her. UMSL. But we found items in her purse that indicate she was working for an escort service.”

“Which one?”

“Tia's Flower Shop. You know it?”

“Not off the top of my head. You say she
wasn't
molested?”

“I don't think so. The M.E. says there are traces of spermicide, that she probably had intercourse within a few hours of her death but that it was consensual. There's a contusion to her face, like she'd been punched in the nose. That, and bruises around her neck.”

Klosterman was aware of his children in the van. He lowered his voice and said, “Hands?”

“No. There are fibers. The killer may have used a scarf or a towel. Listen, Joe, I didn't tell Karen that she was a prostitute.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I thought if I had, she wouldn't have authorized overtime. I told her the girl was a college student. Which is technically true.”

Klosterman said, “Ah, I don't blame you.”

“So if you can kind of keep that in mind . . .”

“Right. Well, have you called Howard or Murph yet?”