“Let her go? Dick, that’s just plainly stupid. I’ve worked this hard to get her. Besides, she’s already stuffed in my trunk. Do you know how much work it would be to open it, untie her, help her out and then what? Apologize? How awkward. No, no, no. She’s mine.”
“I will fucking kill you.”
“You’ll never get your hands on me, Dick.”
“The crime scene. You’ve left DNA there.”
Silence at that.
“You’re not too clever when you spit on people.” No comment to that one. “I’ve already got the sample in the lab.”
A long huff. “All right, Dick. I’m going to hang up. Good luck sifting through the ashes at Petticoat’s, then.”
“What?”
“Ta-ta.” Click. Silence.
Who ends a phone call with ta-ta? Really?
I turn the corner at ninety miles an hour and stop. Hit the steering wheel with a fist and hear the mounting bolts shake with the impact.
Inferno. The whole second floor of Petticoat’s building, burning with a rage I feel as I realize I can do nothing. This guy has won.
30
Officers on scene. Hose draggers. The blaze was pretty good; he meant to cover his tracks well.
One charred male body inside, I told them it was probably Petticoat. The arson dick arrives and we talk. Introduced himself as Detective Greene. No idea who he is. He’s efficient and brusque the way school principals from the ’50s were; straight answers, no fluff, stares me down from over the rim of his eyeglasses and I think he might spank me if I zig when I should zag.
“I’ll need a statement,” Greene says.
“Sure.”
I tell him about the DNA I have being tested, give him the old SAPD case number for the Petticoat rape. Tell him about the break-in, the print, the spit. All being tested.
“Hopefully this will ID the guy.”
“Yeah.”
Then of course, there’s the secretary. I describe her the best I can when I saw her half-undressed and getting ready to take it, which mostly comes down to average sized boobs but they were nice. I’m sure Clevenger will put that out on an APB.
PD canvasses the area to get a description of the rapist, his car, which direction he headed in, anything. One officer comes back and said two teenage girls having a late lunch down the street saw a green car tearing ass away from here. Then the fire burst through the windows and they stopped paying attention to anything else.
Greene orders them to trace Petticoat’s phone but as I’m walking around I see one smashed, lying in a puddle twenty feet from the front door of the building. I’m sure that’s it. Tell the cops to ask anyone if they saw what car was parked there last. Was it green? There are two cars parked next to the space so I wait for those owners to come along so I can ask them but they never show. They might be at work. They might not want to go get their car and drive through the crowd of blue. I tell Greene and he tasks a uniform to run the plates, wait there.
I assume the secretary is already dead. I have to hope that. The rapist is taking her from crime scene number one to crime scene number two. Crime scene number two always has a body count. And since this guy has no respect for women anyways and he has already killed at crime scene number one, that girl’s life, if not over already, will be miserable and agonizing until she is mercifully detached from this world. But I swear, if the rapist ruins her and then lets her live, I’ll peel him apart over the course of a few weeks. I’ll make him eat himself to stay alive. Hannibal Lecter will turn away from what I’ll do because it will be too upsetting.
The sun begins to hide from us as the fire quiets down to embers and weak smoke. To the west, our best source of light starts to snuggle into the opposite side of the earth and
damn it for doing so. Everywhere in the metro green cars being driven by a single white male are getting pulled over and rubber glove inspected. I’d love to be in on that just for the chance of pulling over the right guy. I’d never report it; I’d just release the secretary and keep the driver. Work my magic.
Finally I look at Greene and say I’ve got some place to be. I walk off, dial Clevenger.
He answers with, “Hey, man, that you near the arson?”
I laugh just enough to release the day’s tensions. “Of course. That’s my rapist’s handiwork. Sewing up loose ends and cutting new ones.”
“What happened?”