The Assailant (6 page)

It took about forty-five minutes, and when it was done, Davidson removed the clips and told Harris that it was all over and he would be back in a moment.

Hastings and Klosterman watched Burl Davidson leave the black-and-white screen and a couple of seconds later heard him knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Klosterman said, and Davidson walked in and sat in a chair across from them.

“Well, the results are conclusive,” Davidson said. “He's telling the truth.”

Hastings said, “If he's a sociopath, he could fool the machine.” He was thinking of the Green River serial killer in Seattle. He too had passed a polygraph. The police released him as a suspect and he went on to murder more prostitutes. Of course, the examination had been flawed in some respects.

Davidson said, “It's possible but not likely. In fact, it's very unlikely. He exhibits no traits of your typical sociopath. Do you suspect him?”

“No,” Hastings said. He hadn't, really, even before the examination. But he wanted to be thorough. He turned to Klosterman and said, “What do you think?”

“I think he's clean too.”

“What did you think
before
the exam?”

“I thought he was clean,” Klosterman said. “The hotel clerk says he didn't leave the hotel that evening. Their security cameras would have caught him. M.E. says the time of death was between seven and eight that evening. He didn't have transportation. If he killed her in his hotel room, he would have had to carry her almost a mile to dump her by the river. There's no way he could have transported her there. And even if he had a car hidden in the parking garage, at his age and in his condition . . . it's not possible. And his luggage has provided us no physical evidence that he strangled her. He's just a lonely old man. Her last client.”

“Or second to last,” Hastings said.

Davidson said, “I don't think he's a sociopath.” He wanted them to confirm his opinion.

“He's not,” Hastings said. “Thanks for coming down, Burl.”

“Anytime, George.”

Hastings went back into the investigation room and said to Geoffrey Harris, “You're free to go. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“Not at all. I presume I passed your test?” A little irritation in his voice.

Hastings said, “You did. Can we offer you a ride back to the airport?”

“No, thank you. If you could telephone a taxi for me.”

“Sure. Mr. Harris, did Ashley tell you where she was going? By chance, did she tell you that?”

“You mean to another appointment?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“No, Lieutenant. She was a professional, you see. The purpose is to delude an old man like myself into thinking she's happy to spend time with him. For her to speak of other ‘clients,' if you will, would dispel the charade. The sad thing is, we're grateful when they lie.”

Hastings smiled. “I suppose.”

Harris put his coat over his arm. “I hope you find your murderer, Lieutenant. She was a nice young lady. She didn't deserve this.”

“No, she didn't.”

Hastings noticed that Harris was suddenly uncomfortable. Not out of guilt but because he thought the American policeman might
be expecting a handshake. Hastings was not, and he opened the door.

Harris said, “If there's anything else you need, you know where to contact me.” Then he was gone.

In the hall, Klosterman said, “Well?”

Hastings looked at his watch. It was almost seven o'clock. “Oh, shit. Let me make a call real quick.”

Carol answered the phone.

“Hi,” Hastings said. “Where are you?”

“I'm at home. What's going on?”

“I'm still working that homicide. Ah, listen, I'm sorry, but we have to do one more thing before we go off shift.”

He heard her sigh.

“I'm sorry, Carol. We don't really have any suspects and—well, I'm sorry.”

“It's all right. When do you think you'll be done?”

“Maybe a couple of hours. I know we planned dinner, but—”

“Don't worry about it,” she said. “Call me when you finish. If it's not too late.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Klosterman said, “Told you not to get married.”

“I didn't marry her.”

“Oh. Well, I told you not to marry Eileen.”

“That's right,” Hastings said. “You did. What about your wife? Is she going to let you stay out?”

“Sure. You want to go talk to some more hookers?”

“I was thinking we should go to the girl's apartment. See if there's a fellow living there.”

“We haven't got a search warrant.” Klosterman looked at his watch. “We can call a judge, get a telephonic. But it's pretty late.”

“Judge Reif will give us one. He's usually up late.”

“I'll call him on the way.” Klosterman asked, “You think she was killed by someone she knew?”

“Sort of. If she's a high-class call girl, I don't think she would've been standing on a street corner pitching for a job. I don't think she would have gotten into a car with a stranger. And it's usually someone they know.”

It wasn't anything Klosterman didn't know. Most murdered women were done in by boyfriends and husbands, exes who didn't want to let go. He said, “Yeah, but this was a hooker, George. That widens the scope.”

“I know that,” Hastings said. “But let's check on what we know first.”

•

Reesa Woods's apartment was in the Soulard area. It was on the first floor, a short set of brick steps leading up to the door.

Hastings knocked on the door, calling out “hello” after three raps.

Klosterman looked into the front window. The lights were out. Klosterman said, “I don't see anyone. I'll go check the back.”

He did so while Hastings remained at the front door. The
apartment was one of many in a set of buildings in a row, so Klosterman had to walk all the way around the block and come back up the alley. Hastings looked into the windows. Soon he heard Klosterman's knocks on the back door. Hastings drifted down to the Jaguar parked at the curb. He knew there was no one home. He was getting cold.

Klosterman came back, holding up his arm. “Nothing,” he said. “We got the telephonic warrant.”

“Let's find the super. Get him to let us in.”

It took some time, but they found the night manager of the complex. She let them into the apartment. It was well furnished and clean, but there were few if any signs of warmth. Above her bed was a poster of Marilyn Monroe nude. The one she did for the first issue of
Playboy
. A couple of hardback books that didn't look like they'd been read. The bed was not made. An empty refrigerator, an unopened box of Pop-Tarts in the cupboard.

They spent the next two hours going through the apartment and another half hour questioning the night manager. They didn't learn anything helpful.

They were both in lousy moods when they left.

Klosterman said, “I get the feeling she didn't spend much time there.”

“Me too,” Hastings said.

He called Carol from his car on the way home.

She answered the phone, “Yeah?”

“Hi. Uh, do you still want to go out for dinner?”

“Well, it's almost eight thirty. It would be nine before we sat down. I don't know . . .”

“Well, I could stop by someplace and pick something up.”

“Maybe we could have dinner tomorrow night.”

“I'd like to, but I'm picking Amy up tomorrow night,” Hastings said. “But the three of us could have dinner.”

“Well . . . let's see,” Carol said. He heard her sigh. And Hastings felt it then. A funk. She had spent the day alone and he had let her down. But a girl had been murdered, and it was better to chase leads when they were hot.

Hastings said, “Do you want to be alone?”

“No. I didn't say that. Just come over.”

“Do you want me to bring food?”

“No. Just come over.”

“Okay.”

Hastings clicked off the phone and his first thought was, Okay, but what am I going to eat?

A fine rain had begun. He turned on the windshield wipers.

Hastings drove to a Coney Island stand and ordered two hot dogs with mustard and onions and a Dr Pepper. His plan was to eat them in the car before he got to Carol's. He felt little guilt about this. It added about five minutes to his trip to her place, and his being hungry and cranky wasn't going to be good for either of them. He felt better after he ate.

Driving north on Skinker Boulevard, Hastings considered his relationship with Carol McGuire. He understood that she probably had justification to be irritated with him. He did not consider himself a workaholic, and he often got bored with people who had little to talk about outside of work. It led to even duller conversations about things like the Cardinals, but at least it was something else. In a sense, he and Carol McGuire were part of the same community. She was a criminal defense attorney who had cut her teeth in the public defender's office. They worked opposite sides, so to speak, but they knew a lot of the same people and the same cases. When they first met, it was under conditions that could arguably have been called hostile. She got a witness out of jail, whom Hastings wanted to question. Both of them thinking they needed to be adversarial to the other, but soon realizing their goals were not all that different.

Carol McGuire had been tentative with him at first. She recognized, as others had, that George Hastings could read people well enough, whether or not they were subjects in a criminal investigation, but that he may not have been the best person to read himself. In the first few weeks they started to see each other, Carol said they
should remain friends. A not-so-subtle way of telling him that he wasn't going to get her in bed too soon. That lasted about six weeks, and after the first few times they made love, she asked him whether he would take Eileen back if she asked.

He expressed surprise at this, if not indignation.

“Take her back? She's married.”

“I know. She left you for another man. But what if she gave that up, came back to you, and said, ‘Okay, I've changed. We'll do it your way. Take me back.' ”

“She's not going to do that.”

“But what if she did?”

“She won't.”

“But what if she did?”

“That's like asking, what if she grew wings? She's not going to do that.”

“She's not going to what?”

“She's not going to—change.”

Carol McGuire said, “Are you sure of that?”

“I think so,” Hastings said.

“I wish you were sure.”

“Come on. What is this?”

“George, can you admit some things?”

“Like what?”

“Like, you fell in love with a girl because she was pretty and charming and you hoped to turn her into what you wanted. A
good wife, a good mother. A PTA mom. You thought she would become those things because you picked her.”

“That I would be her Pygmalion.”

Carol smiled. “Okay, she said that, not me. But was she really that far off?”

“Wait, let me understand this: you're defending
her
?”

“No, not really. This isn't really about her. You know I'm not a fan of Eileen's. I'm just saying that I understand where she was coming from.”

“So she was right to leave me?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. No. I'm saying that you and her wanted different things. She knew it, but you didn't. Her husband is an idiot, but he's far better suited to her than you.”

“I don't know about—”

“George, he is. He is. This is part of the problem with you. Part of what makes you a good detective is this, for lack of a better word, arrogance you have. But it has its drawbacks too. You see Eileen with Ted and you wonder how she could go from you to him. Am I right?”

“No.” But she was. And he knew it.

Carol said, “See, it's who she is. Maybe it's always who she was. But you can't see that because you get in the way. You think because she was your wife, she had the same sort of character you have. Or you could get her there. What I'm saying is, you're only seeing it through your perspective.”

“So I'm the one that's delusional?”

“You were both delusional. Eileen probably always will be. But you, well . . . there's hope for you yet.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He had been rankled by this analysis. But in time he had grown to understand it. And as the months passed by, he had come to respect Carol in a way that he had probably never respected Eileen.

So the divorce was behind him and he had come to terms with it. But as he washed the hot dogs down with Dr Pepper, he thought now of what Claude Dwyer, his old patrol sergeant, had once told another middle-aged cop who recently got divorced. The freshly divorced cop bragged that he had another girlfriend, this one much younger and thinner than his ex, and she was moving in with him and, boy, was he getting the action
now.

Sergeant Dwyer said, “Yeah? You want some free advice?”

“What?”

“Get a vasectomy. And I mean now.”

The middle-aged cop gave Dwyer a puzzled frown, but a couple of the wiser cops laughed because they knew where the old sergeant was coming from. That is, that a man freshly divorced doesn't know his head from his ass. Particularly if he's middle-aged and a cowboy cop to boot. Dwyer knew that a man in that situation would not be himself for a couple of years and in that interval was likely to seek a quick emotional solution with another woman.
My new girlfriend's pregnant and we're going to
get married and, goddammit, this time everything's gonna be just great
. From one disaster to another.

Hastings smiled at the memory. He hadn't gotten a vasectomy. Carol used the pill. And they had never discussed children.