Justice (8 page)

“No, I don’t. But I owe him something, Chris.”

He shot me a chilly look. I ignored it and glanced up at the inky sky. “Should I call you when I get home?”

“Let me call you,” he said.

I paused. “Will you? This isn’t a game with you?”

“Good God, no, Terry! This
isn’t
a game! This is the most honest I’ve ever been in my entire life!”

“What about your uncle?”

“Good old Joey.” He raised his brow. “I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll call you around one.”

“Swear?”

He crossed himself. “Swear.”

I got home at twelve-forty-five and waited.

At four-thirty in the morning, my resolve weakened. I picked up the phone and called him. The line connected after the third ring. He mumbled a sleepy hello. I couldn’t find my voice.

He muttered an obscenity under his breath, but into the phone he calmly stated, “Terry, don’t hang up. Let me explain—”

I slammed down the receiver, then took it off the hook. At sunrise, I went to sleep.

Stepping across the door’s threshold
,
Decker caught the photographer’s flash. Swell. Just when he needed his eyesight for detail, he’d be seeing a dancing moon for the next few minutes. Officer Russ Miller was trying to get his attention. Taking his notepad from his jacket, Decker detached the pen from the cover and clicked the nub at the end, bringing up the ballpoint.

“Backtrack for me, Russ.”

Someone shouted, “Anyone in fucking
charge
here?”

Decker looked up. Benny, the lab man, was irritated, sweat dripping from his forehead. Swaddled in his white lab coat, he swiped at his face with his arm, making sure not to contaminate his latex-covered hands. He caught Decker’s eye.

“Sergeant, I can’t do a goddamn thing with all these feet and hands flying in the air.”

“I just walked through the door, Ben. Let me get my bearings, okay?”

“It’s in your best interest to clear the bodies out.” Benny paused. “The live ones.”

The flash went off again. Decker shielded his eyes. Sticky moisture was coating his armpits. He took off his jacket and draped it over his shoulder. Then he did a head count. Ten officers—way too many people crammed into the double-occupancy hotel room.

Aloud he said, “Everybody freeze for a second. Who was first on the scene?”

“Crock and me,” Miller said.

“Then you two stay here.” Decker started pointing. “Howard and Black, you two canvass rooms on floors one and two. Wilson and Packard, this floor and the one upstairs. Be polite and be careful. Also, do a little crowd control. There’s a group of looky-loos that’s a potential fire hazard. Officers Bailey, Nelson, Gomez, and Estrella, back in the field. Go.”

As the room emptied, clearing the area around the bed, the victim came into Decker’s view. He started making notes—not much more than first impressions but sometimes they were valuable.

Nude, white female—late teens/early twenties
.

He stopped.

Cindy’s age. And the bastard was still at large
.

No, don’t even think about it, Deck. Because once personal crap starts interfering with work, you’re a goner.

He shook away his daughter’s image and went back to the victim. Her head was slumped to the side, her hands had been bound to the headboard by a bow tie and a stocking, her feet were untethered but crossed at the ankles. No visible gunshot or stab wounds, but fresh, deep bruises colored her neck. No distinct ligature marks: She’d probably been strangled by someone’s hands. Decker took in the silky ashen face, the silvery gray skin, the full but cyanotic lips. A pretty girl—a Picasso painting in his blue period. Her eyes were closed. Made it easier to digest the horror.

She was so damn
young
!

His eyes traveled to her hands dangling in the constraints. Graceful hands with long, tapered fingers. He wondered if she had ever played an instrument—piano or maybe violin. The nails were bright red as were the fingertips. Lividity. Blood pools to the low spots.

“I got
room
!” Benny, the lab man, stretched. “You
want me to bag the hands and feet first, Sergeant? Or do you want to wait until the coroner cuts her down?”

“Do the bagging first,” Decker said. “Don’t want to lose any nail scrapings. Coroner will work around you. Lynne, you almost done?”

The police photographer looked up. “Just a few more snapshots and I’m out of here.”

Decker returned his attention to the lone pair of uniforms still in the room. Russ Miller was tall with broad features. His partner, Billy Crock, was a recent southern transplant who’d joined the force a week before the earthquake. His apartment building was now a vacant lot. Everything he owned had been buried under rubble. Crock had shrugged it off. Decker figured this was a guy with a future.

His eyes went back to his notepad. “Shoot, Russ.”

Miller cleared his throat. “Call came through dispatch at eight-oh-eight; Crock and I arrived on the scene at eight-twelve. First one we talked to was Dave Forrester, the front-desk clerk. He directed us to the room, and to Adela Alvera, the maid who found the body. She discovered it around eight this morning, doing routine cleaning.”

“Opened the door and wham.” Crock slammed his fist into his palm. “First thing the lady did was throw up. Then she called the front desk. Forrester called nine-one-one.”

Decker scribbled notes as he looked around the room. Typical cheap hotel room—a queen bed, a TV equipped with pay-per-view channels resting in a particle board dresser stained to look like wood, a small writing table and chair, two flimsy nightstands and a house phone that charged an arm and a leg for a local call. There was a menu on one of the nightstands. The place had a coffee shop downstairs. Evidently it provided room service.

Decker rolled his tongue in his mouth. “Does the victim have a name yet?”

Crock said, “No personal belongings found in the
room. So it looks like we got a robbery/murder.”

“What about registration cards at the front desk?”

“No cards, nothing on computer,” Crock answered. “Forrester doesn’t understand how that coulda happened.”

Decker wrote:
No reg card or computer entry. Clerk took bribe? Why? Victim young girl—Affair? Prostitute
? “Did Forrester work the desk last night?”

Crock shook his head. “No, that would be Henry Trupp. We’ve called him, Sarge. Guy isn’t home or isn’t answering.”

“Either of you pull the cards for the rooms adjacent to this one?”

“Sure did,” Crock said. “A Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the left. Mr. and Mrs. Jones on the right.”

“Terrific,” Decker said. “I’ll call Vice. Find out if this place is a hooker palace.”

He gave the room another sweep with his eyes. Something pink and shiny lay crumpled in the corner. He walked over, gloved his hand, and picked it up. A sequined party dress. He thought a moment.

First Saturday night in June
.

Prom night
.

Man, did that kick in a few buried memories. Especially since Saturday had ceased to be a day in his vocabulary. Saturday had turned into
Shabbos
. On his pad, Decker wrote down the names of the three local high schools—West Valley, North Valley, and Central West.

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” He raised his eyes. “I think we had some after-prom festivities here last night. Kids getting a head start on being sleazy adults. Something went awry. They all probably panicked and fled.”

“I’ll second that theory,” the lab man said. “Lookie what I found under the covers.” With a pair of pincers, Benny held a condom aloft, then slipped it into an evidence bag. “Guess she believed in safe sex.”

Decker regarded the body. “Up to a point.”

Crock drawled, “A lot different from my prom night back home.”

“Mine, too,” Decker said.

Not that he’d been a paragon of virtue. After the party, he and his buddies had taken their dates to an isolated park for a night of petting and binging bar vodka. Afterward, he had thought he’d been doing just
fine
! Then he had turned on the motor of his dad’s truck, smiled at his girl, and proceeded to heave his guts inside the cab. His date had joined him for the barfathon. Lyle Decker’s punishment had been simple but effective. Decker remembered all too well scrubbing tuck and roll with a toothbrush, cleaning scraps of detritus stuck in God-awful places.

He checked his watch. Eight-fifty-two. “Anyone check Missing Persons to see if a parent has called, wondering where the hell his or her daughter might be?”

Crock said, “I’ll call Devonshire.”

“Call Foothill, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood as well. And while you’re on the horn, Billy, find out the names of the principals
and
the girls’ vice principals of the three major high schools out here.”

“West Valley, Central West, and…”

“North Valley. Call them all up, tell them police need to meet them at their respective schools within the next hour, maybe two hours tops.” Decker turned to Miller. “You go back to the maid. Get her story again, along with her name, address, and phone number. And search her purse. She may have vomited initially, but after the shock wore off, she may have lifted something from the room.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, go down to the clerk and have him check the phone records. Maybe someone made calls from this room.”

“Got it,” Miller said. Then he and Crock left.

Decker ran his hand through thick, carrot-colored hair, stroked his chin and felt grizzle. Wakened from a rare
morning of sleep, he hadn’t had a chance to shave. He had said a shortened version of his morning prayers, then rushed off to work, throwing a kiss to Rina and the boys. Hannah was still sleeping.

Little Hannah. At that age, they were easy because your eyes never let them out of your sight. Not so with the big one. Please God, just keep Cindy
safe
!

Again he studied the victim. The poor kid hadn’t had a chance to grow up. Decker felt low, wished Marge was here. But he was glad his partner finally had taken some time off. He hoped the Maui sun was being kind to her, hoped her new friend Roger was being kind as well.

The police photographer closed her camera case. “I’m all done, Sergeant. Meat wagon’s outside. You want me to call in the boys for you?”

Decker nodded. “Snap me a couple of Polaroids of the face, Lynne. We don’t have a name. I’ll need them for ID.”

“Certainly.” Lynne took out a camera and aimed. “Pretty thing, wasn’t she? Natural good looks, but not a natural blonde.”

Decker looked at the body, at a dark bush of pubic hair. He wrote:
Condom in sheet. Sex. Good pubic comb
.

Lynne handed him four photographs. “Is this enough?”

“Great. Thanks, Lynne.”

“Tell the boys to come in?”

“Please.”

She gave a wave and left. Again, Decker studied the surroundings. The room was on the third floor, the window barred, the escape lever untouched. Whoever did this walked in and out the door. He tore out a clean sheet of paper, dividing the space into four sections. Later he’d add the furniture.

Benny took out a fingerprint kit. “I can’t dust until the stiff’s out of here. Powder’ll screw up the autopsy. Where’s the men from the coroner’s office?”

“Lynne went to get them.” Decker frowned and went over to the bed. “I can’t stand it. I’m going to take her down.”

He gloved up, then slowly undid the knots on the bow tie and stocking that bound the victim’s wrists to the headboard. Her arms remained extended, as stiff as a cardboard cutout. He lowered the T-shaped girl to the bed, then dropped the bow tie into one plastic bag, set the stocking in another. He examined the neck.

A voice behind him said, “Rather large bruises. I’d say our perpetrator had large hands.”

Decker looked up. ME office had sent Jay Craine. He was a thin, good-looking man in his mid-thirties. Heavy with the affectations but a good coroner. Today, his face looked exceptionally drawn. His nose was Rudolph red.

Decker asked, “Allergies or a cold?”

Craine sneezed, then slipped on a mask. “A tad of both, I’m afraid. Oh my. Terrible. Was she tied to the headboard?”

“Yeah.” Decker made room for Craine to work. “I couldn’t look at her anymore like that. I took her down.”

“Obviously rigor has started.” Craine leaned over and started examining the body. “She’s not ice-cold. I’ll take a rectal temperature as soon as I’ve checked out her anus for sexual penetration.”

He attempted to flex her arms, then bent her legs at the knee.

“Rigor’s not totally set. Lividity’s evident.” He looked at Decker. “Perhaps we’re working within a range of three to eight hours. When was the body discovered?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“So that’s more or less between the hours of twelve and eight. Rigor is somewhat advanced although physical exertion prior to death can speed it up.” Craine opened his leather bag, took out a swab kit. He snorted, coughed, sneezed, then began his examination. “Semen in her vagina.”

Decker paused. “Are you sure? Ben found a condom in the bed sheets.”

“And another in the garbage can,” Ben broke in. “Someone was having a good time.”

Decker regarded the rigor-laden girl. “And someone wasn’t. Why would she have semen in her vagina if her partner was using a condom?”

“Perhaps he ran out and they got careless,” Craine postulated. “Or she had more than one partner.”

“What about her anus?”

Craine examined her rectum with watery eyes. “Appears clean from a visual.” He took several swabs and sealed them in vials. He sneezed ferociously. “But one cannot tell…” Another sneeze. “Until one puts it under a microscope.”

Craine continued on. “First impression, Sergeant…” A pause, then a sneeze. “The girl might be pregnant…thickening of the vaginal tissue, vascularization. Either pregnant or it’s her period. But I don’t see any menstrual blood.”

Decker ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, then wrote down the word—
pregnant
. “How far along?”

“Early. I’ll tell you more specifics when I get her on the table.”

“Now there’s a switch,” Benny said. “Someone was using a condom even though the girl had been knocked up. The power of the virus.”

“But she had semen in her,” Decker said. “Maybe Doctor C. is right. We’re working with more than one man.”

“We’ll know for certain once the tests come in.” Craine stood, then sneezed so hard he rocked on his feet.

Decker said, “You sure you should be working, Doctor?”

“On the contrary, it’s the best time to work,” Craine sniffed. “The nasal mucosa is so inflamed, it virtually blocks out all odious olfactory sensations. I can’t smell
a thing. Shall I remove her so Ben can dust thoroughly?”

“Great idea,” Ben said.

Decker said, “Take care of yourself, Doc.”

“Oh, yes, indeed. Rhinoviruses are persistent little creatures. Bed rest is essential.”

As soon as Craine left, Officers Crock and Miller walked back into the room. Crock said, “Got hold of the principal at Central West Valley and West Valley. They’ll call the girls’ veeps and meet you down at the schools whenever you come. I haven’t hooked up with anyone from North Valley yet. Also, no frantic parents have called any of the station houses.”