Bleeding Out

'This must be very frustrating for you, not having any answers or resolution. I promise we'll keep you advised one way or another.'

Mr. Menendez was grateful, and so were the detectives once they were in their car and on the highway.

'Jesus, that was fun,' Noah said bitterly.

'Want me to drive?' Frank offered.

'No!' he snapped. Pointing through the windshield to an economy tire store decorated with tinsel and Christmas greetings, he ranted, 'Look at all this shit! Can you believe it? It's not even Thanksgiving yet and everybody's got their fucking Christmas stuff up already. Jesus! Whatever happened to the pilgrims and turkeys and fall leaves?'

Frank started to return her beeper calls but thought better of it. Noah was letting off steam, and she decided to humor him even though all she wanted right now was to go home, box for an hour, slam a six-pack, and slip into a torpor.

'Well, let's see. First off, this is L.A. There aren't any fall leaves and it's been a long time since I saw pilgrims around here. More importantly, though, there's no money in Thanksgiving. Even Halloween's a bigger moneymaker than Thanksgiving.'

'That's my whole goddamn point!' Noah banged on the steering wheel. 'Fucking prick. I swear to you, Frank, if anybody ever so much as touches a hair on one of my daughters I'm gonna kill him.'

Frank nodded solemnly. 'I'll help you.'

They drove in silence for a while, both processing the interview with Claudia Menendez. Neither would come right out and say it had been hard to watch her, and harder for Noah to ask the questions. There was a code of silence about seeing pain or feeling it. Pain was part of being a cop and it was expected to be borne stoically and without complaint. This was the LAPD—whiners were not allowed.

Frank sighed quietly, then punched a number into the cell phone. She cut a glance at Noah, who seemed somewhere else.

She poked him in the arm.

'Five bucks says you can't eat two Big Macs and a large fries.'

'Five bucks says how can you be that dumb and still be a lieutenant?'

Frank introduced herself to Heidi Troupe's mother on the cell phone. She reluctantly agreed to let them come over after dinner. The second number was busy. Noah picked up on his Christmas tirade again. Just before they reached Alissa Aguilar's apartment Frank redialed and received permission for another interview.

'Two more after this,' she said to Noah, handing him the phone. Want to call Tracey?'

'Goddamn this job,' he bitched, entering his number.

The halls of the building where Alissa Aguilar lived were filled with the smells of dinner, making Frank salivate and Noah whine some more.

'Man, I can't wait to get to those Big Macs.'

Frank smiled to herself. If Noah was hungry, he was alright.

'Maybe if you're nice, Mrs. Aguilar'll give you a bowl of menudo.'

'Hey, I'm so freakin' hungry I could even eat that brain shit at this point. Let's get this over with quick, huh?'

But the interview with Alissa Aguilar didn't go smoothly. Mr. Aguilar paced around the living room, frequently interrupting the questioning, or answering for Alissa so that Noah had to get her back on track and have her answer in her own words. The interview took longer than it should have, with both Alissa and Mrs. Aguilar ending up in tears and Mr. Aguilar bellowing at the detectives. They let him. They'd heard what they wanted.

Alissa's story mirrored Claudia's, except she'd struggled when he caught her and ceased as the towel grew tighter around her windpipe. She clearly remembered the man pulling her pants up after he'd raped her and thinking that was really crazy. And no, he hadn't touched her anywhere else, which she thought was kind of crazy, too, 'cause she knew guys liked 'girls' other parts.' More importantly, and this was a bonus neither detective expected, her perp hadn't said anything to her except, 'Shut up or I'll kill you.'

'Are you sure that's what he said?'

'Do you think my daughter's lyin' to you?'

'Mr. Aguilar,' Frank explained, 'we have to know if he said something like that or exactly that.'

She looked at Alissa.

'No. It was exactly that. I was so scared 'cause I thought he would, too.'

The detectives thanked Mr. Aguilar, and Frank handed him a card, asking him to call if they had any questions or if Alissa remembered something else. Mr. Aguilar ripped the card into tiny pieces and threw them in Frank's face.

They drove on to the next interview, but at least this time they both had Mr. Aguilar to use as a whipping boy.

He was tall and strong and fast. He was an outstanding tight end. His father wanted him to get a scholarship, but his grades were mediocre at best. So he just got better and better at football, hoping that would be enough to get him into a good college. He never thought beyond playing football. It was all he knew.

Now as the defense took the field he pulled his helmet off and rested on one knee apart from the other players. The cheerleaders caught his eye, and he watched them jumping up and down inside their little outfits, trying not to think about that now, trying to watch the opposing team, to concentrate on the game. There'd be plenty of time for the other later, when he was home tonight, alone in his bed. He felt himself stirring and frowned, forcing himself to focus on the other team's receivers. Waiting.

12

Foubarelle was fifteen minutes late for his meeting with Frank. When he finally showed, he kept his lieutenant waiting with a phone call. Frank glanced at several small but carefully hung pictures of fleshy, billowy nudes. She'd been to a party at Foubarelle's house, where his penchant for nudes was unmistakable. His walls were lined with reproductions of Renoirs and Botticellis, all showing carefully posed women in various stages of disarray.

She studied one of the pictures from her chair, wondering how it differed from a pin-up. Frank was pretty sure that if someone of a lesser rank had these tacked above their desk, they would be considered sexual harassment; in a captain's office, it was art.

At last Foubarelle hung up and smiled broadly.

'How are we doing, Frank?'

She felt like she was in a dentist's chair. Slapping a progress report on his big, clean desk, she announced, 'We've connected the Agoura perp to what looks like at least nine rapes and two other murders, besides Peterson.'

Foubarelle had been about to pick up the report, but now he froze, as if the fat folder on his desk had suddenly turned into a rattlesnake. Frank artfully concealed her amusement.

'What did you say?'

'I think our boy's got a whole string of assaults behind him.'

'In our jurisdiction?'

Frank shook her head. 'A rape at Crenshaw, but the rest are in Culver City.'

Foubarelle sagged with relief, then he jerked up again. Like a fucking puppet, Frank thought.

'Is this on the streets yet?'

Again she shook her head, and again her boss was obviously relieved.

'What are you doing?'

'There are gaps in the case reports. If this is the same guy, we're dealing with a major offender. And he's crafty. I want to do some profiling on him, use what I learned at Quantico. I submitted a Request for Information to VICAP and I want to talk with Richard Clay, the shrink at Behavioral Sciences, get his input.'

Frank paused, waiting for objections, but there were none.

'We're going to have to reinterview everyone. That's going to take a lot of time. Plus I'd like to recanvass the area where the original incidents took place, see if we can't come up with something new, find someone that wasn't hit before. We're going to need additional manpower if you want us to move on this with anything resembling speed. There was a witness to the third rape. He's coming in this morning to do a composite. I think we