“She went jogging in that area every weeknight, according to her sister-in and out of the park.”
“Well, she could’ve changed her routine for some reason without telling the sister.”
“Could have, yeah.”
“But you don’t think so. What’s the rest of it?”
“She was already dead when he raped her,” Tamara said.
“Jesus.”
“Violent sexual assault, vaginal tearing but almost no blood. Blood on her face, though-busted nose, skin torn by something sharp-edged like a ring. She might’ve been unconscious when she was strangled.”
“Small mercy if she was.”
“Finger marks on her throat indicate a man with big hands, strong. Her windpipe was crushed. But she put up a fight first. Marked him. Skin and blood under all the fingernails on her right hand.”
“No DNA match yet, obviously.”
“No.”
“So he’s either a first-time offender or a repeater who’s never been caught. They find semen or did he use a condom?”
“Semen. But that’s not all. Tear tracks on her breasts and belly.”
“ Tear tracks?”
“He put his head down on her and cried afterward. Cried for a long time-large sections of her skin smeared with dried tears.”
The line hummed in her ear for a time before Bill said, “Sudden remorse doesn’t fit the profile of a violent predator.”
“Neither does this: he put her clothes back on before he dumped her.”
“All her clothes?”
“Everything, including panties and bra. Dressed her real neat, the report says. Laid her on her back on a grass patch inside those bushes, folded her hands across her chest.” Tamara paused to lick moisture over dry lips. Reading and then repeating the words in the reports had built a dry, hot, impotent fury in her. “Sick motherfucker,” she said.
“Psychotic. You see that kind of thing in serial profiles.”
“Doesn’t sound like a serial to me.”
“You don’t believe she was a random victim?”
“No condom, those tear tracks, putting her clothes back on, taking her back near where she lived, laying her out. Obsessive love-hate shit. Somebody who wanted her, nobody else.”
“Stalker?”
“Kind she knew about or the kind she didn’t.”
“SFPD figure it that way?”
“No mention in the reports. Inspectors interviewed her boyfriend, some other friends, neighbors, the people she worked with. If there was anything along the stalker lines, they missed it.”
“Or didn’t ask the right questions.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t see Troxell as the perp. No indication he ever knew Erin Dumont, and his wife couldn’t help but notice if he’d been marked. But it’s possible he’s linked in another way.”
“What way?”
“Witness,” Bill said. “Either to the abduction or to the dumping of the body. His friend Casement told me Troxell saw something that disturbed him pretty badly, and the timing is right. All Troxell would say about it was that he wished to God he’d gone straight home that night.”
“If he did see something, why didn’t he go to the cops?”
“The usual reason-didn’t want to get involved. Maybe he didn’t see enough to be sure of what was happening, didn’t get a license plate number, couldn’t describe the man or the car. Rationalized it that way.”
“So he reads about it in the papers next day, feels guilty, and starts sending flowers and pays for Erin Dumont’s headstone.”
“It could also be the basis for his obsession with victims of violent crimes, funerals, all the rest of it. Makes sense psychologically.”
Tamara said, “Suppose he did see something that’d lead the cops to the perp? Suppose he’s been keeping it to himself all this time?”
“Everything about him says he’s a responsible citizen, but if he is holding back, then he’s a lot more damaged than we suspected.”
“So what do we do?”
“Just what we’ve been doing. We can’t alert the police without some kind of proof of his involvement. Where’s Jake now?”
“On his way back from seeing Ralph Linden.”
“And?”
“Troxell’s the one renting the granny unit. Jake can get in if we want him to go ahead. Linden offered him a spare key.”
“Offered being the operative word?”
“That’s what Jake said.”
“Does he have the key yet?”
“No. Shouldn’t take more than a phone call.”
Bill chewed on that for a time before he said, “There may not to be anything to find. Then again there may be more in that unit than we’re bargaining for. It’s a risk either way.”
“Only one way to find out. Won’t be the first time a law got broke in a good cause.” Like last spring, when she’d got herself into the mess in San Leandro and Bill and Jake had had to commit a B amp; E on the way to helping her out of it. But she didn’t say anything about that. Didn’t want to think about it. Those twenty-four hours still gave her nightmares.
“Bent, not broke. There’s a subtle distinction.”
“Uh-huh. Tell him to go ahead?”
“As far as setting it up with Linden for the key. Before we go any further than that, let’s see what Troxell does tonight.”
“You want Jake to keep up the surveillance?”
“No, I’ll take it. That’ll leave him free to do the bending if it works out that way. Meanwhile he can follow up on the stalker angle-talk to Erin Dumont’s sister, boyfriend, friends, the people she worked with.”
Tamara sat quiet for a time before she called Runyon. Her throat felt clogged up, as if she’d swallowed a bone. Images conjured up by the reports moved dark and ugly across the screen of her mind; she’d never laid eyes on Erin Dumont alive or dead, didn’t even know what the woman looked like, yet she could almost feel her terror and pain that last night of her life. Always been against the death penalty in principle, but whenever she came up against one of these inhuman scumbags, all her liberal attitudes went slipping and sliding away. This rape-homicide case, even though there was no personal connection, was having the same effect on her as the near-lethal encounters with the lunatic gunman last Christmas, the kid-abductor this past spring. Stalkers, rapists, child molesters, all the sadistic predators who preyed on women-they were the criminals she hated most. Lethal injection wasn’t enough for them. Every first-time offender convicted of a violent sexual crime ought to have his genitals whacked off; then there wouldn’t be any repeat offenders. If they used their dicks as weapons, they didn’t deserve to keep them. Why wasn’t that the goddamn law anyway? Because men made the laws. Cruel and unusual punishment, they said, the same self-righteous, pious bastard politicians who wanted to repeal the abortion laws and let women start dying again in agony and shame in back-alley rooms. What the hell was that if not cruel and unusual punishment?
Real easy, she thought bitterly, to understand why some women hated men, all men. Be real easy right now for her to count herself among that sisterhood.
