Chapter 19

Tuesday, November 18, 1997 – Los Angeles

It was late afternoon when Angela Kim passed Enos on her way to the break room. She asked several times if he wanted some coffee, but he was so deep in thought he apparently didn't hear her. She looked over at Thompson with a sigh. Shaking his head, he motioned for her to forget it and move on. Then, he kept one eye on Strate and the other on De Pina. She wasn't giving any indication she had noticed…didn't mean she hadn't.

For the last fourteen days, and in sharp contrast to the chaotic week before that, Enos had been quiet, docile even. He stayed at his desk, without asking to be taken off light-duty, performing whatever task was put before him, no matter how trifling. He was religiously obedient to the doctor's orders, saying he would just be glad when he was cleared to get his badge back. Then he and Thompson would meet in the evening after their shifts piecing together what happened to Kate after being abducted.

It was apparent Enos had recovered physically. He'd undergone his psych evaluation yesterday to determine if he was emotionally and psychologically ready to go back to work with a badge and a gun, and he was waiting for the results.

Thompson noticed Inez watching Strate as though he was a bomb; tick, tick, ticking away until the moment of that one last tick before the explosion. He and Strate had been working at Kay's since the day Daisy Duke left. Thompson wasn't sure if Strate was sleeping there as well but suspected as much. He had pegged De Pina as a scrappy fighter, hanging in there until the last, not giving up, but she seemed to be keeping her distance. Maybe he was wrong about her emotional investment in Strate.

When nothing went boom, Thompson returned his attention to his report while Enos used extreme prejudice to erase the life out of something he had written on the piece of scrap paper in front of him.

When Mollaret had been the procurer of Kate's upper crust clients, he'd been known as Etienne Baptiste Hebert, the name and identity under which Inez and Enos had tried to serve the warrant in late April 1988.

The warrant issued initially for Hebert was based on Kate's eyewitness statements and evidence gathered at the time. He'd been her pimp, her controller, and eventually the object of her campaign to do whatever it took to stop him from his side activity, using and abusing children in the dark world of the pornography trade. It was only later, when his rooms and office were searched, that the extent of his criminal activity was evidenced.

Faced with charges of child molestation in California in 1988, Hebert evaded the warrant for his arrest and fled to Canada. Conviction on felony charges of child pornography and sexual abuse of a minor, also federal crimes, would have landed him in a state prison housing murderers and other bottom feeders with one mutual hatred. Prison can be a living hell for pedophiles. Other inmates, many of whom had children on the outside, saw it as a badge of honor to return the abuse. For those without children or on the ladder's lower rungs, killing or beating senseless child molesters meant moving up the prison hierarchy.

When Hebert was arrested for drug trafficking in Quebec under the alias Baptiste Arceneau, no extradition applications were filed. He wasn't recognized as the subject of an outstanding warrant in California, U.S.A., nor were his fingerprints cross-referenced in any shared database. Few existed in 1989, and those were not computerized or shared in a way conducive to connecting the dots. Hebert had done jail time, though not for the most heinous offense.

Now that it was strongly suspected Kate had been carried over state lines on commercial transport, LAPD was working with the FBI to build a profile on Mollaret, aka Hebert, aka Arceneau. Having sprung fully grown under the Hebert name from a small town on the Mississippi coast, he had moved his way toward New Orleans in 1981. And obviously preferred French Acadian or Cajun monikers.

Under the alias Arceneau, Hebert had been released from the Quebec prison five months ago. The LAPD File picked back up at his arrival in Los Angeles, where Hebert had become Mollaret at the end of July. Enos was able to fill in some of the blanks for the profile about motive and Hebert's connection to Kate Broussard. It had been personal against Kate, and for good measure, against him. A textbook case of drug-fueled paranoia and payback.

Hebert and Kate already had a history before she arrived in California. He'd been the manager of a shabby-chic, trendy restaurant in the Faubourg Marigny district of New Orleans where Kate was a waitress in 1983. After establishing a sexual relationship with Katie, as she was known then, Hebert lured her to LA to promise a better life and more money in Hollywood.

"Kate was only sixteen and a half years old," Enos told Agent Carlsen. It was still hard for him to say without a hitch in his voice. Adding insult to injury, the statute of limitations for Statutory Rape was ten years and had run out nearly four years ago.

It was more difficult for him to recount to Carlsen how Kate's life had spiraled out of control after she met Hebert. He and Kate had not discussed it again after she'd confessed to him what her real occupation was and how she'd come to be a highly paid, highly demanded prostitute. The only change in his attitude toward her was his belief she was the strongest person he had ever known.

Her strength kept Enos believing she was alive and because the blood found in her apartment, although as yet unidentified, wasn't hers.

He'd read the files and transcripts a hundred times, trying to find one more needle, one more straw. Next up was the coroner's report on Mollaret.

Death by sudden asphyxiation. Toxicology reported enough crack cocaine in his system to have disoriented him. When he opened the office door, the acrid smoke and carbon monoxide overwhelmed his respiratory system, likely killing him within seconds. Within thirty seconds, his body was hit with an explosive backdraft. Either way, the son of a bitch was dead. With its devastating effects on long-term users, his addiction to crack was probably what fueled the maniacal way he had first stalked, then abducted Kate.

Enos and Thompson had pieced together Mollaret's increasingly irrational obsession to take revenge. She had dared to defy him, had made him run, had made him lose everything he'd so painstakingly built. Apparently, his only impediment was Enos Strate, the lowly Georgia hillbilly probie cop who had helped Kate take him down.

During his explanation to Agent Carlsen, Enos had been careful not to refer to Kate's sister, Mignon. He hoped it would not come up. If it did, he would have to lie to a federal law enforcement officer and say he knew nothing about a sister. It was the one promise to Kate he could keep, and on his father's grave, he would keep it. There was only one other person who both needed to know the secret and to whom he would entrust such knowledge.

Enos could barely force himself to read the transcripts of Squiggy's interrogations, of which there were several, without wanting to pay him a personal visit. They had only been able to hold the little maggot for forty-eight hours. With Mollaret dead, Squiggy had no problem going back on the street. Once released, he had disappeared into the ether. It mattered little now how Hebert had managed the abduction. It was merely a part of the record. What mattered now was what he had done with her afterward.

Together, Enos and Thompson had figured that part out. At least they had a good lead. Kate was alive and somewhere in Western Asia or Eastern Europe, no longer under LAPD's purview and something he would share with the FBI and Interpol.

When Captain Mallory returned from his afternoon meeting at 4:10 pm, he closed the blinds and called Inez into his office.

"So, what's the verdict?" she queried, settling herself in the chair across from him.

"The psychologist cleared Strate for active duty. Gun, badge, everything." Mallory sat behind his desk and unlocked the bottom drawer, from which he drew two service weapons and a Detective's badge.

Turning his attention back to De Pina, he said, "You look," he hesitated, "I was going to say surprised. More like disappointed. Something you want to share, Inez?"

"No, sir."

"You're sure."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't look sure. Do you think Strate somehow hornswoggled the shrink?"

"No, sir. It's not that."

"Then out with it. He's probably out there on pins and needles. No reason to make him wait longer than necessary to get him back to work. We're light one good detective on the street."

Inez fidgeted with her fingernail, then got up and walked to the door. "I'll tell him you want to see him."

Mallory, who didn't miss much of what happened in his division, didn't stop her or call her back, but he knew something was up and had the feeling he probably wasn't going to like it.

Just before five, leaving a disappointed, albeit resigned, Captain Mallory in his office, service weapons and badge still on the desk in front of him, Inez followed E into the elevator. They both maintained a silent, professional distance until the doors opened, and they made the distance to where his truck was parked.

She had been silent too long. The boom Thompson was looking for had been building all day. Inez was determined not to let another minute go by without trying to talk E out of what he had done. It wasn't too late. All he had to do was go back into Mallory's office and pick up his badge.

Before she could beg him to un-quit, he pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear, "I have to do this. You know that."

All she could manage was to nod her head into his shoulder and hold him until she was able to let him go.