45 'Tis the Season
On the Monday before Christmas Steve stood in the front yard of Oak Place and looked down at his shoes. Then he brushed them up the backs of his pants, ran his hand through his hair and straightened his tie, he checked his gift once more as the front door opened and Vicki Eaden, Rae and Jesse's housekeeper, looked out. "Lieutenant Sloan, I'm sorry, I guess I didn't hear the doorbell."
"No, it's ok, I, uh, I haven't rung it yet." He felt a little embarrassed, she was his partner for goodness sake, and here he was standing out in the yard like a sixteen-year-old on a first date, hell, he never even thought of her in that way, what was he doing?
"Are you going to come in, Lieutenant, or do you want me to go?" The young woman smiled and moved back over the threshold.
"No, I'll come in now. Thank you." Steve was impressed with the housekeeper, he hadn't really spoken to her before, although Jesse had mentioned her a couple of times. She seemed very levelheaded, and had read him easily. As he stood on the step she spoke once more.
"Mr and Mrs Travis are in the breakfast room, Sir." With another smile she retreated, leaving Steve to make his way in alone and when he turned from closing the door the hallway was deserted, Vicki, knowing that Steve would make his own way into the breakfast room, had returned to her duties in the kitchen.
As he got a little nearer to the door he heard a sound that made him stop in his tracks and listen. The sound was Jesse, his voice as animated as he had heard him for a long time, and Steve waited, realising that his friend was back from the long journey he had been on.
"… I just had to go back, y'know, go over the x-rays again, I mean, there had to be something there, something I was missing." The enthusiasm in Jesse's voice was contagious and Steve smiled, and as Rae replied he could hear that she was doing the same.
"What did you find? I'm guessing that you did find something."
"Well, yeah, I know he wasn't dying or anything, not even in terrible pain, but I just couldn't work out why a ten-year-old boy would get these cramps, and have a healthy appendix, no bowel problems, nothing to suggest anything that was out of the ordinary. I … I couldn't sleep, it was really bugging me."
"Jesse." Rae's voice cut into the one-sided conversation.
"Yeah?"
"What did you find?"
"Oh, he'd swallowed a zip fastener."
"He'd swallowed a what?" Rae's voice was now incredulous. "How do you swallow a zipper, and yes, I know, open your mouth and down it goes, I don't mean that. Why would you do that?"
"Apparently he throws peanuts up and catches and swallows them, y'know, sort of like this." There was a lull in the conversation, but Steve knew just what Jesse was doing.
"Ok, so you can do that with jelly beans, that still doesn't explain it."
"He wanted to see if he could swallow something a little more out of the ordinary."
"But a zipper, and how did you know it was that anyway?"
"Because when we held the x-ray up to the light box we could see 'Puma' written on it!"
There was laughter then, from both Jesse and Rae, although Rae's turned into coughing before she was through and he heard Jesse gently reassuring and helping her. Clearing his throat, Steve tapped on the door, hoping that no one would realise that he had been eavesdropping.
"Come in, Vicki." Jesse's voice was happy and carefree, and as Steve entered the room, he could see that he looked that way too. "Hey, Steve, oh my, is that the time?" Jesse checked his watch as he saw his friend, "Are you ok? Only I gotta run." Jesse waited while Rae nodded her head, there was still pain in her face, but she was breathing steadily and he was reassured. "Honey, I'll be home about eleven, Sally is gonna bring the girls over just after six. She'll give them tea; all they will need is a snack and a bedtime story and you know Vicki will do it all if you just ask."
Jesse kissed Rae on the cheek, and then he carefully pulled her close. "I love you. I'll see you later."
"I love you too, take care, say hi to Mark and Alex for me." Rae smiled; she kept Jesse's hand in her own for just a few seconds longer and then regretfully let go.
"See ya, Steve." Jesse clapped his friend on the shoulder as he passed him, and Steve watched as Rae didn't take her eyes off her husband until he was out of the room and the door was closed behind him.
"Hi, Rae, how are you?" Steve felt awkward again, the time they had spent apart making his mission so much harder than it should be. He turned the gift over in his hands and suddenly remembered that he was holding it. "These … these are for you."
"Ooh, pressies, thank you." Rae pulled the paper off and a smile split her face. "Chocolates, are you trying to get round me, Lieutenant?"
Steve turned away, the comment was too close to the truth for him to handle.
"Steve, what is it, what's wrong?" Rae was concerned now, she had been joking, but she knew that Steve hadn't taken it that way. She had been home for almost a week, and had suffered over the past two days because of the exertions of Amanda and Ron's wedding; she was still cross with herself that she hadn't been able to attend, and had spent most of the previous forty-eight hours in bed, only venturing down stairs a little over an hour earlier. Now though, she carefully sat up on the sofa where she had been lying, and placed her feet on the floor. "Come and sit down, here, where I can see you."
"No, Rae, I can't."
"I guess I'll have to stand up then." She shuffled closer to the edge of the sofa, the movements, as she knew they would, causing her to gasp a little.
"Ok, ok, but that's blackmail you know." He couldn't help but smile, she had beaten him, and he knew it. Carefully, so as not to hurt her, Steve sat a little way away from Rae on the sofa and then looked at his hands.
"We've always been able to talk to each other. Maybe sometimes we didn't want to, but I have known that I could come to you no matter what. You don't feel that right now, do you?" Her voice was soft, and a little raspy as she spoke, and Rae looked at her partner, his face was lined with worry, and for a moment she watched the way he was playing with his fingers, weaving them into the crease in his pants, and then letting the material fall again.
"I just don't know what to say." Still he didn't look at her, and Rae realised that he hadn't made eye contact with her since he'd entered the room.
"About what? The case is closed, if Melina Edwards ever recovers she'll face trial, if she doesn't then the entire thing will be filed away and the Chief's secret is safe."
Melina Edwards had come through her surgery without any problems, but when she had been taken off the ventilator she had suffered a stroke and sunk into a coma. The medical staff in Santa Barbara were doubtful she would ever regain consciousness.
"So, unless I screwed up someplace I don't know about, 'good job, Partner', would be nice, then we can move on." She tried a smile, but it wasn't returned.
"No, I can't say that, because it wasn't a good job, things didn't add up, I let you …" he trailed off, knowing what he had done was one thing, admitting it to Rae was another altogether.
"You let me do what? I don't recall doing anything that I didn't want to do. Or are you feeling guilty that I was the one who went with Melina into the kitchen. If so, don't be, I was the logical choice. Soften her up a bit, find out what Callum had been doing, at least that was how I thought it would go."
This time it was Rae who stopped talking. She wasn't sure what had happened, not exactly. She had seen the gun, that was her last certain memory. Rae was pretty sure on her facts up to that moment, but she didn't remember anything else for over a week afterwards.
"I knew that something was wrong, I didn't know what, but I just knew. Trust your instincts, that's basic training. So what do I do? I send you off with the one person in the room that I don't trust. She very nearly killed you, if I hadn't been able to speak with Dad she would have done. I don't know what I would do if I thought I'd been responsible for your death. This is bad enough." He went to stand, to move away from her, but Rae caught his sleeve and refused to let go.
"You've been avoiding me, haven't you?" The words were soft and, although it was a question, they both knew the answer.
"How could I face you? I ought to be hung out to dry for what I did to you." This time he did get to his feet, but sat down again instantly when he saw Rae begin to struggle to join him.
"Do you think that I don't have instincts? That I just work by the book the entire time?"
"No! You don't have a book."
"Ha ha! I didn't like her, Melina I mean, I knew that something was a bit off too, but I didn't feel threatened by her, and it wasn't until I got into the kitchen and she … well, you know what she did, it wasn't until then that I realised how much danger I was in."
"Rae, I have no idea what happened. The records were written up, your statement included, and they've been sealed. John Masters is a very powerful man, he wants this kept quiet, and it will be, nothing will ever be mentioned again, by anyone."
"I didn't know, I'm sorry, I just figured you knew. You must have made a statement too. He said that I could make another one when I was better, I guess I won't be doing that."
"No, I doubt it. Rae, what did you see?"
There was a pause as Rae tried, not too successfully, to take a deep breath. "Do you remember the video?" Rae turned slightly in her seat, she wanted to look at her partner as she spoke, but more than that, she wanted him to look at her.
"What video? Oh, you mean the security tape, from the building. Yeah, I remember that. You talked about it enough."
"True." The neck cracking had freaked her out, she hated watching it, couldn't understand how anyone could do it, and then she had seen it, right there in front of her. "She did it."
"Yes, I know that. But what made you suspect her?"
"No, nit! She cracked her neck. We were in the kitchen, she did that awful thing with her body and I just knew." Rae couldn't prevent the shudder that ran through her; the memories were too fresh, too painful.
"But we thought it was a man … Wait, she wore her hair short, real short, I never considered that."
"Me either. You know, when we were walking off to get the coffees, there was something, I didn't have any idea what it was, but there was something about her that worried me. I know what it was now. I recognised her walk. I'd only seen our killer from the back, and there she was, just in front of me, but it didn't register, maybe if it had…" Rae ran her hand through her hair; suddenly it was getting hard, hard to talk about and even harder to remember what had happened.
"But how did she know that you'd recognised her? Cracking her neck must have been something she did all the time, however nasty we might have thought it, why did she shoot you?"
"Because … because I … I cried out. I couldn't help it, I accused her, and she had a gun … she …" Rae's breath had begun to get short, she was scared, she didn't want to relive her memories any more but she couldn't stop them and as she gasped for air she saw Steve move closer to her. "She … she pointed it at me … I knew … I knew I would die … you saved me … Jesse told m … e." She had run out of air, there was nothing more she could say or do and she collapsed against him.
"Steady, shhh, it's ok. Relax; we don't have to talk about it any more." He held her close and she laid her head against his chest. Their relationship was back on firm ground again. He hadn't lost her, and even though he still knew that he could have acted differently he also knew that he wasn't to blame, not totally, for her injury.
The room was silent for a long time, neither of them needing to say anything, but they did need to feel the physical presence of each other. Finally Rae pulled away; there was one more thing she had to say. "Steve … I never blamed you … not ever … I didn't know you were hurting so badly, I'm sorry."
"I know, and I'm sorry that I didn't come see you sooner. We made mistakes this time around and they were nearly fatal. We won't make them again … Rae, I have to go." Steve had caught the time on his watch as his arm had been around her, and he realised that his shift started in a little over an hour.
"I'm glad you came in the end, and if we don't learn from our mistakes then we don't deserve to do this job. Say hi to everyone for me, please."
"Of course. I guess you don't know when you'll be back?"
The very suggestion made her blood run cold, and she shook her head. "No, I have no idea. But when I do, you'll be the first to know."
"Ok. Now you get some rest, if you lie down I'll cover you over." Rae did as she was told, and then Steve pulled the comforter up over her shoulders. He leant down and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Sleep well, I'll see myself out."
"I will. Take care, be careful."
"I always am." He quietly left the room, taking one last look at her as he did so, and then he went to find Vicki to tell her that he was leaving. He checked the breakfast room once more after that and Rae was already fast asleep.
ooo
The wrapping paper was strewn all over the dining table; presents were stacked up on chairs and the sofa behind where Rae and Vicki were sitting. The CD player was providing Christmas music and the two women had been taking the chance to get to know each other a little better as they worked. Vicki was also showing Rae some of the signs that she had been teaching Anneya in the three weeks that she had been working with her new charge.
"Some of the signs are obvious aren't they? We would use them anyway." Rae had understood a few of the things that her daughter was saying with her hands, and had been amazed at how quickly she seemed to be picking them up.
"Yes, 'hi' is a wave, just a little one, and drink you make sort of a 'c' shape with your hand and tilt it back and forth." Vicki smiled as she spoke, watching her new boss make the signs herself.
"What's this one?" Rae ran the index finger of her left hand down her throat. "Anneya did that this morning, but I didn't know what it meant." The screaming had started as she and Jesse had been waking up. They had been unable to give their daughter what she had wanted, and Jesse had rocked her for a minute before handing over a bottle of water that was on the nightstand by the little girl's crib.
"Thirsty. She picked that one up quicker than I thought she would." Vicki had decided to sign all the time while Anneya was around, showing her what she was doing or saying at the same time. "Although I think she uses it to mean she wants a drink, rather than that she is actually thirsty."
"Oh, we got it right, but it was a pure guess. We need to learn the words with her, don't we?"
"Yes, that would be the best. Doctor Travis went to the Footsteps in the Sand centre, while you were in the hospital, and he picked up a few things."
"They're starting a new semester of lessons in the New Year; we have signed up for that. With you here teaching her, and us learning as well, I'm hoping that we can make life a little easier for her.
"Could you pass me another present?" Rae made a counter clockwise circle with her right hand flat over her heart, "That's 'please', right?"
"Very good." Vicki watched as Rae then touched her lips with the fingertips of both flat hands and then moved them until the palms were facing upwards and she slightly bowed her head. "Thank you, too." Vicki made the sign for thirsty again and saw Rae nod her head. "Tea?"
"That would be lovely, thank you. If you call me when it's done I'll come and get it, for the exercise."
It was a week since Amanda and Ron's wedding and the day that Rae had incurred Alex's wrath. He had apologised to her for shouting and reducing her to tears, but Rae knew that she had deserved the telling off, and from then on she had been very carefully following her exercise regime but making sure that she wasn't overdoing it.
She had returned to the hospital for a check up the day after Steve's visit, and had been told in no uncertain terms that any more silly or dangerous escapades and Alex would refer her to a rehab centre rather than the loving care of her family and friends. While she had been at Community General Rae had made an appointment to see Lauren after the holidays. She hadn't planned to, but she had been plagued by bad dreams and knew that talking things through with her therapist would help get rid of them. Rae had then spent a couple of days on the Internet ordering Christmas presents for everyone. They were now awaiting wrapping, and so, to keep eager, excited children at bay, Jesse had dropped the girls at Sally's on his way to work.
Anneya had begun staying at home with Vicki when her parents were working. She still went to her first carer for one day a week because both Rae and Jesse knew how much she loved Sally and there had been so much change in her short life that they wanted to keep at least some continuity if they could. Sally had been very understanding of the reasons for the change, but delighted to still be able to see the little girl on a regular basis.
Eliana had been a tree in the Christmas play at her nursery. She had come on, resplendent in a brown material trunk, with a set of cardboard branches behind her head covered in green leaves, and beamed at the audience. She had then welcomed everyone to their Christmas celebrations before taking her place with the rest of the 'forest' on the right hand side of the stage. Once again Jesse had been in charge of the video camera, but this time Rae had been there to see her daughter's first public performance.
Rae had been amused to see that the nursery schools in America made the same Christmas decorations as British ones. On the table just in front of her was a toilet roll middle covered in cotton balls which was a snowman and another, which had a piece of red paper around it and a hat on, that one was Santa. There was also a calendar ready for the New Year, three cards, one for daddy and one for mommy, as well as one to Uncle Steve and Aunty Jo. All had finger paint patterns on them interspersed with the seasonal cotton balls.
Stockings had been bought on a shopping trip that Jesse had taken with his children. They now hung on four hooks over the fire place in the breakfast room, and Rae had seen Eliana touch hers every time she passed it, but leave it just where it was. Upstairs in one of the bedroom closets were two large bags of toys, already wrapped, for Santa to deliver, and Rae had a feeling that they would all be up very early on Christmas morning to see if there had been a visitor during the night.
Rae's present for Jesse was in Steve's garage. She was very aware of how much her husband had changed his life to accommodate her place in it. She was also aware that he needed to return to some of his old hobbies. To that end the gift, covered in shiny gold paper with red ribbons around it, was a dark orange surfboard, there was a large stethoscope across the top end and 'Surf Doctor' down the middle. A new wet suit was also wrapped in the same paper hidden under the bed in one of the spare rooms of Oak Place.
"Tea's ready." Rae heard Vicki call out and with a sigh, which hurt a lot more than she would like, Rae carefully got to her feet and began to make her way out to the kitchen, planning nothing more strenuous than the short walk and some gift wrapping to finish a restful and relaxing morning.
ooo
It had been a very busy week. As she sat back in her chair and let her thoughts wander just a little Cheryl tried to relax her body, if not her mind. There was a report on the desk in front of her which she had written out four times before she felt happy with it, although happy wasn't really the right word. It had been adequate. The day in question had started out so well, dipped a little in the middle and then picked up again, although it had just caused more headaches in the end. For a moment she smiled as she remembered back.
It had been the Monday after Amanda and Ron's wedding. She and Martin had attended the reception, and enjoyed themselves very much. Martin had been sad not to see Rae there; he had worried about her a great deal while she was in the hospital and had spent some time sitting quietly at her bedside once she had been moved back to Community General. Jesse and Cheryl had arranged with Martin that he could spend the day with Rae on the Monday, Jesse wasn't working until the evening, and so the three of them could have some time together.
Cheryl had dropped Martin off just after nine, been introduced to the new housekeeper and then, as she pulled up in front of Steve and Jo's house, her radio had alerted her to a possible location for their red rose killer.
She had called Steve and then they had both driven off in his car to a small hairdressing business in Venice.
The owner, a man named Thomas Rhymes, had been standing nervously in the doorway to a salon called TR's.
"I'll bet it took him a long time to think that name up!" Cheryl's words were accompanied by a sardonic smile and Steve chuckled in response.
"You know, you could set up a radio shop, call it CB's."
"Oh funny, Sloan, real funny." She shut the door to Steve's car a little firmer than usual, and laughed as she saw him glare at her. "It's a car, it'll cope!"
"Mr. Rhymes?" Cheryl watched as Steve decided to ignore her comment and get on with the matter at hand. "Lieutenant Steve Sloan, LAPD, this is my partner, Detective Cheryl Banks."
"Steve, I'm glad to see you." Mr. Rhymes was instantly on first name terms, a reaction that Cheryl had been sure Steve wouldn't like. "Like I said on the phone, this guy, this Dominic Little, well, I know him."
"Do you think we could talk inside rather than here on the sidewalk?" Steve indicated with his hand and the man backed into his shop.
"Sure, Steve, sorry, I'm just a little nervous, that's all, just a little nervous."
Once they had settled themselves on three of the chairs in the waiting area, and Cheryl had resisted the temptation to pick up a magazine and flick absentmindedly through it, Steve took his notebook out of his pocket and they both looked at the man a little more closely.
Thomas Rhymes was about forty, maybe forty-five years old. His hair was thinning on top and was cut very close to the scalp. He was wearing brown cord trousers and a cream coloured smock-type top with a roll neck and TR embroidered on the right breast pocket, which contained four combs and three large hairgrips clipped to the front of it.
He also had three rings on one hand and two on the other. As he sat there, looking nervously around the room, his fingers fiddled and twisted the one on his right thumb.
"Mr. Rhymes," Steve began to speak and the man jumped in his seat. "I understand that you contacted the North Hollywood precinct this morning in response to the flyer we sent out about a hairdresser called Dominic Little."
"Yes, that's right, I don't open on Mondays, I come and do my paperwork. This morning I got your letter, I called a few friends who have salons, they said they had them too, different locations across LA, so I knew it was serious. What's he done, Steve?"
"We just need to speak with him in connection with a case we're investigating at the moment." Mr. Rhymes' eyes were wide, his breathing was a little erratic, and as she spoke Cheryl had a feeling that panic wasn't far beneath the not so calm exterior.
"Oh, I see, only it said homicide, that's killing someone isn't it, homicide?"
"Yes, Sir, that's what homicide is, but like I said, we just need speak to with him, hopefully to eliminate him from our enquiries." Cheryl smiled inwardly at the lie; if they eliminated him they would have zip! She had pushed the thought away, got to her feet and began to look casually around the room.
"How long have you known Mr. Little?" Her voice was relaxed, but Cheryl knew that if he told her that the man had just arrived from out of town two weeks ago then he wasn't the guy they were looking for.
"About a year, maybe eighteen months, you know how time rushes by. He answered an advertisement I put in the local paper, he was polite, quite good looking, I knew that the grandmas would love him, and that the college students and bored housewives would adore him. I was right."
"And you didn't have any concerns about him? Was he reliable, ever let you down, not come in when he said he would, that sort of thing?"
"No, Ma'am, no, not at all. I have five people working for me, he was the best. In fact he even went to a competition in San Francisco for me a little while back, at real short notice, when one of my other stylists let me down at the last minute."
For a moment Cheryl hadn't said anything, but she felt her heart rate increase, and wanted to hold her breath as Steve asked the obvious question. "When was that, Mr Rhymes?"
"When? Um, you know I have no idea. But I have it written down, it'll be over there." Thomas moved towards what was obviously the reception desk and then picked up a black leather diary. "I write everything in here, appointments, holidays, sick days, it's my lifesaver. If I ever lost it I think I would have to close the salon.
"Ah, it was just about a week before Thanksgiving, he did quite well too, got to the quarter finals before he was eliminated, which, as he hadn't had any time to prepare, was pretty good I thought."
"So, if you don't open on Mondays do you have an address where we can contact Mr. Little?" Steve had watched her take down the details from the diary in front of her. She knew that lifesaver or not, it may well become evidence.
"Oh, he doesn't work here any longer."
"What?" Steve spat out the word and Cheryl looked up sharply from her note taking.
"No, Steve, I thought you knew that. He never came back after the competition in San Fran, didn't even pick up his last pay check."
"Mr. Rhymes, do you have an address for him?" The calmness in Steve's voice was camouflaging the anger Cheryl knew he felt, and she also knew that he was holding his frustrations in by the smallest of margins.
"How did it go?" Cheryl watched as Steve walked back across the squad room and sat at his desk. He had been called into Newman's office over thirty minutes earlier, and now he looked a little shell-shocked.
"Um, fine." Steve picked up a pencil, then looked at it as if he had no idea how it got into his hand.
"Steve?" Cheryl moved across towards her partner, concerned that he didn't seem to be functioning properly.
"I'm sorry, let's get back to what we were doing, I'll tell you about it later."
"You mean you didn't talk about Dominic Little?"
"Nope, not at all." Steve smiled, "Let me look through this and then we'll re-group, ok?"
"Yeah, sure." Cheryl watched him for a few more seconds, and then satisfied that he was at least back on the same planet as her she went back to her own desk.
Steve picked up the three sheets of closely typewritten notes and cast his mind back to the beginning of the week.
The last known address of Dominic Little had been a small, fastidiously tidy ranch style home, with a tiny yard in front full of pots of different sizes and textures, spreading a riot of colour across the paved area, which had been bordered with a neat white picket fence.
"You know, if I was going around cutting up the female population of California, I don't think I would live in a place like this." Cheryl's words had mirrored his own thoughts, and he shook his head.
"No, I guess not, but where would you live?"
There was silence for a moment as he thought through what he had just said, he was stereotyping their killer, and he tried never to do that.
"I guess we wait for reinforcements from Pacific." Cheryl picked up the small pair of binoculars from where she had placed them on the seat next to her. So far there had been no movement inside the house, but there was a red car on the drive, and the house had an air of being lived in. "There, window to the right of the door, someone's in there."
She had passed the field glasses over and Steve had squinted through them. "You need to visit the optometrist." He twisted the dials a little and then began to use them again. "It's a man, the hair looks darkish, but he's inside, it's difficult to tell." He threw them back on the seat, "Hell, it's all we've got, when the black and whites get here, I'm going in."
"I wonder why they don't have any Christmas stuff up."
"You know, I hadn't even noticed that." Steve looked at the house again, it was obsessively tidy and he thought about the bodies they had found. The impression of rage had been given, but everyone had been killed and mutilated in a ritualistic way, organised, obsessively so, and he wondered whether maybe he was wrong, and their type of killer would live in this type of home.
A regulation blue crown Victoria car pulled up along side Steve's vehicle and the window slid gracefully down. "Hi," an ID was held up and Cheryl smiled at the handsome black man sitting almost next to her. "I'm Detective Reece Windsor. You're after your Red Rose Killer, aren't you?"
"Yep, do you know who lives here?" Steve looked around Cheryl, who seemed to be frozen staring at the man in the next car along.
"I checked, like you asked, it's owned by a rental company, answering service only right now. I guess people don't move into new places this close to the holidays."
"No, you could be right." He had watched as two black and whites pulled into position in the road just a little way to the right of the property. "Ok, we go in. Cheryl, you're with me, Windsor, you said it was Windsor, right?"
"Yeah, but it's Reece. Where's Rae?"
"You know her?" Steve smiled at the mention of his partner.
"I worked the suicide of the second victim's mom, Mrs Morrison, with her."
"She's on medical leave right now, this is Detective Cheryl Banks."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Detective." Reece had smiled what his current partner had later described as a killer of a smile and Cheryl had seemed to jerk back to life.
"Cheryl, and hi."
"Ok, Reece, I want you and one other round the back, you ready?" Both detectives had nodded and Steve picked up the radio mike in his car, he flicked it onto the pre-arranged frequency. "This is Lieutenant Sloan, I want you to secure the perimeter, we will take it nice and slow, but this guy is dangerous, extremely so. We don't think he's armed, at least not with a gun, but extreme caution at all times. Let's go."
"Wanna coffee?" the voice broke into his thoughts and he nodded his head.
"Thanks." The mug appeared on his desk immediately and he picked it up to take a drink. "I guess we're back to square one, huh?"
"I would think so. Did you tell Rae yet?" Cheryl perched herself on the side of the desk. The official report was sitting there and she picked it up, scanned it until she got to the part she was looking for and then began to read silently to herself.
'There were three officers from Pacific Community, Maddison, Palmer and Jones, deployed to the front of the building, Detective Windsor and Officer Groves went to the rear.
This writer and partner, Detective Banks, stood, one either side of the main entranceway, and the appropriate warning of 'Police, Open Up' was called. There was no reply and after announcing our presence for a second time, this writer kicked in the front door.
Cheryl put the piece of paper back down; she didn't need to read it to remember the shocked expression on the face of the elderly gentleman, slowly making his way down the hallway towards the door. The two detectives, both with guns now pointing at him stopped him in his tracks, and Steve had moved further into the house and scanned the room to the right of him. There had been a white haired lady and a younger man with light brown hair sitting in there, both of whom had backed into their seats as they saw what was going on.
It hadn't taken very long to discover that the house was no longer lived in by their suspect, and that Mr and Mrs Clarke and their son Frank had no idea who had been in the house before them.
Steve and Cheryl had explained a little of their reasons for shattering the peace, and had received hesitant permission to search the attic and basement of the property.
The attic had produced nothing of interest, apart from a half completed wasps nest, which had been dealt with by an extermination company, and a box of old photos that didn't appear to belong to Dominic Little, and definitely didn't belong to the current residents. The basement had been another story altogether.
The floor was cement, but it had broken up in places and the dirt from underneath showed through. It smelled musty, and stuffy, but not as if there were any bodies in it. The wall furthest from the entrance had boxes stacked up along it, and they had carefully begun to look through them. Slid down behind the middle one had been a folded piece of paper, it was that paper which had caused both Steve and Cheryl to work almost the entire week since they had found it.
The piece of paper had been a map of Los Angeles, or at least a part of it. It covered the area from Malibu to Venice Beach and there had been six crosses on it. If that hadn't been enough there had also been two fingerprints clear enough to get a match. Finally, they were on their way.
ooo
Jesse sat at the dining table, a pile of folders next to him, putting details into a programme on his laptop. He had been silent for a long time, and so he looked up to see Rae sitting the other end concentrating totally on the piece of paper she held in her hand.
Steve had called by earlier in the evening and left a lot of paperwork for her to go through, although the newspapers had been screaming all week about what he and Cheryl had found.
The house in Venice had been turned into a three-ringed circus, with reporters and news crews interviewing the occupants and speculating about what else had been discovered in the basement. That was until the news broke that a map found there had revealed the locations of six new bodies, or what remained of them.
None of the victims had been identified yet, but Jesse knew that Steve and Cheryl had been fielding calls ever since the discoveries from the distraught relatives of young women who were missing and who fitted the description of the girls killed so far, he also knew that they had both found it very upsetting.
The fingerprints had finally given them a definite suspect. Dominic Little had been turned into Nicholas Large, thirty-two years old, born in Los Angeles, and although he had been raised in California he had travelled quite a lot. He was single and he had a record, just as Ron had said he would. He had been jailed when he was twenty-two for harassing a young woman attacking her and trying to chop at her hair, which had been long and blonde, with a pair of hairdressing scissors as she sat on the seat in front of him on the subway.
Nicholas Large, according to his social security number, was an employee of a company called Aztec Tours and Excursions. A visit to their offices had given Steve and Cheryl the depressing information that Mr. Large had left with a tour party a month earlier and had been due back in Los Angeles two days after Christmas. Unfortunately, they had also told the two disappointed cops that he had disappeared three days earlier in Estes Park, Colorado.
They knew who he was, they knew what he'd done, and when Thomas Rhymes had finally made up his mind about his artists impression, and the copy of his rap sheet arrived, they would know what he looked like, but they still had no idea where he was, he could be anywhere. It still wasn't enough, but it was way more than they'd had at the beginning of the week.
All of this Jesse had heard as Steve had talked the case through quietly with Mark, Rae and himself. Vicki had taken the girls over to Sally's for a Christmas party, and Jo and Daniel were wrapping gifts so the four friends had been able to enjoy each other's company uninterrupted for a while.
Bringing himself back to the present with a sigh Jesse looked at the next folder in his pile. All it needed was a few notes to close the case and it could be filed, so he began to concentrate on the patient, wanting to be totally accurate when he started to write.
"Are you busy, Jess?"
"No, not especially, why?"
"Would you go through this with me?" Rae looked up, she seemed quiet to him, a little pale, but he knew that she had enjoyed her morning wrapping gifts and had slept for a long while after lunch, and so he tried to content himself with that.
"You're sure?" He wanted to race to the other end of the table, but he contained himself, took a deep breath and walked towards her. "I don't have to help."
"I know, but I would like you to. Maybe it's because I'm still not well, but I'm having trouble getting my mind around it all, if I give you the information we could make up a database and then work from that."
"Ok, I can do that." He pulled Rae's laptop towards him and smiled as he saw the desktop picture, he looked up at himself from the screen, a plate of ribs in front of him and the unmistakable view of Barbeque Bob's interior behind. He remembered Rae taking the picture one night a long time ago, she had planned to send it to her mother, but she had liked it so much that she had kept it for herself and sent another one instead.
"Ok, what do we have?" Jesse began putting in headings which he would use if the case was his, name, age, whether they'd had sex, place found, if anything had differed from the MO, and any relevant personal information, then he waited.
"We had Mary Sue, she was the first victim, or at least we thought she was; now she could be number seven in LA." Rae shook her head, thirteen victims in Los Angeles. For a minute Rae stopped thinking, if she concentrated too much on how many times this monster had killed she was liable to lose her hold on the realities of the case and wander into a world of self-doubt where she was unable to solve this, or any other murder.
"Rae? Honey, are you ok?" Jesse reached out and rested his hand on her arm, something he wouldn't have been able to do even recently and felt her jump at his touch.
"I'm sorry, where were we?"
"Mary Sue, but we can leave this, do it in the morning." Jesse looked at her again, she didn't seem tired now he was closer to her, but she did seem sad.
"No, I at least want to get it started tonight. Ok, Mary Sue, we don't have much on her, she was a tourist, here on holiday, I guess I could call her mother in Australia, but I don't think that her life there had any bearing on her death here." Again Rae stopped talking, but this time she started again after a few seconds. "It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. We are here to protect and serve; well, we sure didn't do that for her, or any of the other girls he's killed." Rae ran her hand through her hair, but pulled back, suddenly seeing the bald or shorn heads of the victims in her mind.
"No, you didn't, but you can't protect against the lunatic, or the depraved, and this guy is definitely one if not both of those things." Jesse tried a smile; he knew what it did to him when he lost a patient, so he could understand her feelings.
"Jenna Palmerton was the second victim, she was twenty-one, and found not far from the station, on Burbank Boulevard. We thought she was the first one killed for a long while." Rae carried on talking, if she let her mind think of other things she would never get back to this.
"Ok, she'd had sex before she died, and had what became the general MO, yes?"
"That's right. She was the one we referred back to, to see if he'd changed anything." Rae watched as Jesse tapped a few keys and then turned to look at her, his eyes bright, his face full of love for her, and she leant over and kissed him on the cheek before carrying on with their macabre job. "Right, next is Samantha Morrison, she was found in Palisades Park, she was nineteen years old, and her death devastated her mother so much that she hanged herself. This case just keeps getting better and better."
"Ok, from what I remember she was the first one who had a red rose, what did Jenna have?" Jesse decided to ignore Rae's last comment and moved the cursor back up into one of the boxes which related to the second victim and waited."
"She had a stamp on her hand; it was of a red rose and came from a club called Reds. We went there, he was there when we were, and we had no idea." Rae seemed to grow a little distant, and Jesse knew she was back in the club herself, looking around mentally to try and see the guy who was tormenting her.
"Rae, you have got to stop beating yourself up over this. You will get him, it may take time, but you, or some other police force, will get him."
"And how many more victims are there gonna be before that happens? Maybe he'll still be doing this in seventeen years, and Anneya will be ripe and ready for him." She turned away, tears in her eyes, and the intensity of her breathing causing her pain.
"Rae, that's it, no more, not tonight, you're letting your feelings get way out of hand, I'll make you a nice drink and you can have an early night. It's what," he checked his watch, "ten minutes after nine. The girls will be back in about a half hour, I can get them ready for bed, and Vicki will be here, but no more of this, not tonight."
Rae hung her head, she knew that Jesse was right, she was letting herself get far too involved in the sentimentality of the case, and if she continued to do that she would be no good to anyone, she felt something else, something she couldn't explain and so she said what she would expect herself to say as she tried to work it out. "But the party is tomorrow, and I have to get this done. Jesse, I'm sorry, let me finish, then I'll go to bed."
There were tears in her eyes, her hands were held in tight fists, and as she looked at her husband the feeling became clear, she had felt relief, relief that the whole case could be hidden away until morning, that she could forget it, go to sleep and not have to concern herself with it. The explanation of how she felt shocked her, she didn't think she had ever before wanted to distance herself from her job in that way, and for a moment she didn't know what to do or say.
"Rae, Honey, what is it?" Jesse was concerned, he had watched her wrestle with herself, seen her face change as she obviously processed various thoughts, but now she just looked scared, scared and unsure.
"I don't know, I don't know what to say, what to do, what do I do, Jess?" Rae reached out, grasping his arms, one in each hand, holding on to him as if he was about to disappear forever if she let go.
"You let me write a note for Vicki, then you let me take you to bed, and sit with you until you are asleep, ok?"
She nodded, no words were forthcoming as she let go of him, and watched as Jesse began to scribble some words on a piece of paper, and then she let herself be led slowly towards the stairs.