Some Degree of Murder (22 page)

Gina shrugged. “I was afraid if he left I’d never know where he’d end up.”

“What did he do after he left the drug house?”

“He went down to Sprague again and cruised the streets, talking to some of the prostitutes.”

I pushed myself up on to my elbows. “Did he find anything?”

“A couple of the girls came up to him and chatted, but none of them got into his van. He only did that for a bit, then headed home. I waited there for an hour when all of the lights when out. That’s when I came here.”

“What address?”

“2814 East Asbury.”

I need your car.”

She handed me the keys without an argument, but gave me a disapproving look.

“What?”

Gina pointed at the keys. “Don’t wreck it.”

I found 2814 East Asbury using the directions Gina gave me. It was shortly after three in the morning and the white van was gone. The motorcycle was parked in the driveway.

I sat in the darkness of the neighborhood for an hour before finally giving up and heading back to the hotel.

I sat at my desk, feeling as helpless as I’d ever felt, tapping my pen and looking at the clock every few seconds. I glanced from the clock to the phone, willing it to ring. The Front Desk call
ed whenever someone arrived for an appointment. I resisted the urge to wait for him out there. I had to keep things looking low-key.

Rowdy’s rap sheet was spread out in front of me on the desk. Taken in a vacuum, it wasn’t very impressive. But when I factored in what I thought he did to Fawn and Serena, things began to fall into place. He was a foster kid, which meant he got bounced around from house to house. You want to convince a kid no one loves him? Turn him into a human pinball at an early age and bounce him around the State’s foster program.

I glanced at the clock. About four seconds had passed.

According to his juvenile record, Rowdy’s first arrest was at eight. He set the neighbor
’s mailbox on fire. Not particularly imaginative, but I suppose every young pyro thinks it is. Less than a year later, he was arrested for animal cruelty. The report said he tortured a kitten at a foster home. The foster parents kept the kitten and got rid of him.

In Washington State, a child is presumed incapable of committing a crime under the age of twelve. The burden rests with the State to show that the child knew the difference between right and wrong and consciously did something he knew to be wrong. In both of these early arrests, the officer would have had to meet that standard and apparently, he did.

There was another animal cruelty pop when he was fifteen. He chopped off a dog’s leg with an axe and watched as the poor thing howled and ran in circles until it bled to death.

After that came the standard mess of petty thefts, minor assaults and a couple of burglaries. He only had one sexual assault entry, a rape that was investigated but not charged. It ended being a case of he said/she said. As I read the report, I could see where the evidence didn’t stack up and it was a case of 6-5 or pick ‘em.

I looked up. The clock had moved ahead marginally. I glanced at my watch, as if it would tell a different tale. It didn’t. And my phone sat mute.

His last arrest was for possession of marijuana seven months ago. Even though it was only a misdemeanor, he did almost six months on that conviction, a result of his time for the drug arrest and serving some time that had been deferred on an earlier suspended sentence. He got out earlier this year, in March.

Fawn was killed in early April. And then Serena, two weeks later.

I shuffled through my paperwork, looking for the reports
Renee had printed off for me. I found them underneath Lindsay’s notes on his fruitless search for Virgil Kelley. Laying the rape reports next to each other, I took out my pen and began making a timeline. The murder of Serena Gonzalez was the first thing I jotted down, along with the date. Then I worked backwards. Two weeks prior to that, Fawn Taylor. Seventeen days before that, Rowdy was released from jail.

I checked the dates on the rape reports regarding Beverly Stubbs and Eva Patterson. Beverly Stubbs was raped five weeks before Rowdy went to jail for his marijuana arrest. Seven weeks before that, Eva Patterson was raped.
In both cases, the suspect choked them during the act. Neither girl had ever seen the guy before and neither one gave a great description. Reading what little they could describe, it fit Rowdy. And about twenty thousand other guys in River City. But Beverly Stubbs remembered seeing a tattoo peeking out from his sleeve when the suspect was choking her. The letter ‘C’ on his right arm.

BSC. Brotherhood of the Southern Cross. Rowdy had those three letters tattooed on his right forearm.

Eva Patterson refused the rape kit, but Beverly Stubbs was examined at the hospital. I read the results briefly. There wasn’t any forensic evidence found, only signs of sexual trauma.

Rowdy had learned. He used a condom.

I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock.

I knew in my gut that Rowdy was my guy. He raped Eva Patterson, then Beverly Stubbs. He liked it. Then he got popped for marijuana possession and spent six months at the County Jail, brooding. As soon as he got out, he started looking for his next girl. He found Fawn. Did he mean to kill her? I wasn’t sure, but I imagined that he got closer each time and for him, the third time was the charm. He killed Fawn. And he liked it. He liked it so much, he killed Serena Gonzalez two weeks later.

Eleven—oh—two.

I didn’t have anything on Rowdy that would hold up in court. Even if I arrested him now, he’d get out at first appearance on insufficient probable cause.

I had to get his DNA and hope the FBI lab was worth a damn on those hairs Cameron sent them.

Even that wouldn’t be enough. I needed a confession. I needed a search warrant for his house, where I hoped to God he still had some mementos from Fawn and Serena.

Eleven—oh—seven.

I rubbed my chin, trying hard to harness my impatience and frustration.
I knew this goddamn guy was bad and I couldn’t do anything about it, except sit there and wait for him to show up.

By eleven-forty-five, I was about to give up.

Billings approached my desk. Without a word, he dropped a note in front of me and walked away.

Found the PO Box in Sacramento. Mail Box Stop on Piñero Drive. Rented in the name of Dave Semenko. Paid three years in advance. None of the employees has seen your guy. Go fuck yourself.

I frowned. Dave Semenko. That was a bogus name. Semenko was a hockey player.
He was the guy who protected Wayne Gretzky. They called him Cement-Head. Virgil Kelley had a sense of humor, even if he was supposedly dead.

The phone on my desk rang.

I snatched it on the first ring. “Tower.”

“John, it’s
Renee.”

“Oh.”

“Well, a happy hello to you, too.”

“
Renee, I’ve got a guy coming in for an interview. I think he’s a no show.”

“Well, then, prepare to be happy.”

“Why?”

“I went back another six months on your rapist profile. Found six more rapes.”

“And?”

”
And
one is unsolved and the suspect fits the behavior profile. Best of all, the victim was still living in River City as of three weeks ago. She was the victim of a hit and run downtown.”

“Think she’ll talk to me?”

“I pulled the report. Detective Billings worked the case and she looked at several montages during the investigation before it was suspended as unsolved.”

I allowed myself a brief smile.

“Well, I have just the picture I want her to see.”

I picked up the report from Renee and read it. It sounded just like the other two. While I read the report, Renee put together a photomontage containing Rowdy’s photo.

“You want him as number two?” she asked.

The montages contained six photos, arranged in two rows of three. Position number two was in the center of the top row. A lot of detectives put their suspect in that position to encourage the victim in making that choice. A few defense attorneys had wised up to that fact and challenged the identification in court as being unduly suggestive.

“Make him number four,” I said.

After finishing the montage, I returned to my desk with the report and montage in hand. I checked my message light, but it wasn’t flashing.

I grabbed Rowdy’s rap sheet along with the rape report filed by Marla Pratt over fifteen months ago and headed out.

“Is this about the guy who hit my car downtown?” Marla Pratt asked me, standing in her doorway.
She wore jean cut-offs and a Sturgis T-shirt with no bra and gazed at me with her mouse-like features.

“No. I’m here about the assault.”

“Last year?”

I nodded.

Her lips tightened. “You mind if I grab something to drink?”

“
Go ahead.”

She gestured for me to enter and I stepped into her small apartment. It was cluttered but not dirty. A large Harley Davidson wall hanging adorned the living room wall.

“You hang out with bikers much?” I asked as she opened the fridge and leaned inside.

“No. Fucking assholes.” She reappeared holding a can of Keystone Light and proffered one my direction.

“No, thanks,” I said. “On duty.”

She shrugged and closed the fridge, popped open the can of beer as she walked toward me. “You can sit down,” she said and took a healthy slug from the can.

I sat on the chair next to the couch. “Why do you call them assholes?”

“
Fucking
assholes,” she corrected me. “And it’s because they are.”

“Was it a biker that assaulted you?”

“I think so. Maybe. Why are you here now,” she asked, “after all this time?”

“There
have been some developments in your case.”

“Developments?”

I nodded but didn’t elaborate. “I read in the report that you were new to River City when this happened.”

“I came up from Reno. I used to work at a paper plant there and some of the guys rode Harleys on the weekends. We made a bunch of runs over the years. Even went to Sturgis twice.”

“They weren’t bikers?”

“
No. Just guys on bikes.” She took another drink and smiled humorlessly. “I mean, they weren’t like those yuppie jerk-offs you seen cruising around on Harleys now. These were blue-collar guys. A little rough, maybe, but we never hung out with any fuckin’ outlaws.”

“What brought you up here?”

“A job. There’s a paper mill out in the Valley.”

She took another hard drink from the can and went to the fridge to retrieve another.

I pulled out the montage and lay it face down on the coffee table. Marla sauntered back into the room, sipping from the beer can. She pointed. “What’s that?”

“This is a photo montage, Marla. I think you may have looked at some before?”

“Yeah. My attacker was never in there.”

“This is the same process as before. I’ll show you the montage and if you recognize anyone, tell me who and where you recognize them from. All right?”

She nodded.

“Remember, hair styles and facial hair can change appearances, too, okay?”

Another nod.

I turned over the montage.

Her eyes scanned the paper for two seconds. Then her finger stabbed at a photo. “That one right there. Number Four. That’s the motherfucker who raped me.”

The clubhouse door swung open on the third knock. It was the same guy who answered the door last time I was there. He must be the door man.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Rowdy.”

“You got a search warrant?”

“
Send him out here. He said something to me yesterday that might help out with Sammy G.’s case.”

“He knows something about Sammy G. getting killed?”

I nodded.

“No wonder he was acting funny after you left. Sumbitch was holding out.”

“Can you send him out?”

“He’s not here. Took off a little while after he talked to you yesterday.”

I clenched my jaw and fought to keep myself under control. I handed Door Man one of my business cards. “If Rowdy shows up or you hear where he is, you call me.”

“Why do you care who killed Sammy G., anyway?”

“It’s my job to care.”

Rowdy’s only other address of record was his mother’s house in Hillyard. I took Market north until I reached Asbury and turned west. She lived on the 2800 block. I parked off about half a block and crept up to the house.

The house was dark red brick. The lawn was an off yellow with intermittent patches of pale green and dirt. A motorcycle sat in the front yard near the curb with a For Sale sign taped to the handlebars.

I knocked on the door and listened. As the door swung open, I could hear the unmistakable sounds of a soap opera. The woman who opened the door had a cigarette dangling from her lip and she bore what looked like a permanent squint.

“What do you want?”

I showed her my badge. “Yeah, so?”

“I need to talk to your son.”

“Why are you guys always picking on my Cody?”

“Is he home?”

She stared at me. “No. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

“Is that his bike?” I pointed to the Harley in the front yard.

“Yeah,” she said.

“How long has it been for sale?”

“Since yesterday afternoon when he dropped it off.”

“If he doesn’t have his bike, what is he driving?”

Her squint deepened into a scowl. “His van. Why’re you asking all these questions?”