Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [52]
I badged him. He gave me the lookover and I wondered if rumors of our affair had reached the distant outposts. Or maybe he was just curious to see a female Fed with long frizzy hair wearing a beat-up vintage denim jacket embroidered with peace signs.
“Nope. Haven’t. Have you?”
General shaking of heads.
“I think he’s mainly doing morning shifts, am I right?”
Shrugs.
“We’re working a case together. The Santa Monica kidnapping?”
Empty stares. I decided to go home.
“Tried his mobile?”
I nodded. “He was looking for a transient named Willie John Black.”
“We know Willie,” said someone else. “The guy with the bike. Usually he’s up behind Second Street. In the alley, half a block north of Wilshire.”
I felt hopeful again. “Appreciate it very much.”
“I’ll pass it on to Detective Berringer that you were here. Got a card?”
There was nothing and nobody in the alley where the cop had told me to look. A Dumpster. Evidence of a nest—trampled cloth and flattened cardboard boxes. A man’s shirt on a wire hanger hooked to the chain-link. If this was Willie’s place, he’d taken his contraption and gone somewhere else.
A shy, stealthy figure appeared, a young Hispanic busboy dumping a bag of trash. There were no residences here, just the hind sides of office buildings and a deserted parking lot. A black-running stream issued from who knew where.
I thought about foul play.
There could be plenty.
I paused, alone, in the middle of the dark alley. Out on the street, a bus was idling. A string of European tourists ambled past.
The space inside my ears was full of pounding.
Thirteen.
By the following morning we had a prime suspect, Richard (Ray) Brennan. The name had come in the night before, in a fax sent by the Tempe, Arizona, Police Department.
The fax was already posted on Rapid Start when I got to the office, sometime before 7 a.m. As Galloway would say, where else did I have to go? Normally I check personal e-mail first thing—open the curtains, crack the sliding doors, let in the marine layer, look at the boats, grab some OJ and sit down at the glass dining table and plug in—but you can access Rapid Start only from the computers at the Bureau, and stress was waking me up early, anyway. Just before dawn there would be that jolt, as if dropped on the bed from a great distance, the rapid heartbeat and the racing thoughts. The circles under my eyes had gone from puffy to charred black.
We had taken the pile of sex offenders from Arizona, isolated those who were former military, and asked local police to search their files again, using our prompts. It only took one keyword—“sadistic”—to identify Ray Brennan.
FD-823 (Rev. 8-26-97)
RAPID START
INFORMATION CONTROL
Case ID: 446-702-9977 The Santa Monica Kidnapping
Control Number: 5201 Priority: Immediate
Classification: Sensitive Source: Tempe, Ariz., Police Dept.
Event time: 2:05 AM
Method of contact: FAX
Prepared by: Conrad, Angela Component/Agency: Tech clerk, FBI
Transcript attached.
* * *
Subject: Unknown offender/serial rapist, The Santa Monica Kidnapping
From: Sgt. D. Mader
To: Special Agent Rick Harding, Supervisor, FBILA
In response to your request to cross-reference arrests of sex offenders in the Tempe, Arizona, area going back five years, I found a couple that fit your profile, which I am faxing to you, Richard (Ray?) Brennan in particular. I personally remember this case because it was out of the ordinary. Officer Kip Ward arrested Mr. Brennan four years ago on suspicion of sadistic cruelty to farm animals after finding evidence of duck feathers and crossbows in his residence where he resided with wife and five-year-old daughter at the time. Basically, the suspect wounded three ducks in a lake in a condominium complex with a high-powered crossbow. Brennan is a former marine, which also fits your profile. He was arrested five times for assault with intent to commit rape, but the cases never went anywhere. The DA declined prosecution for lack of sufficient evidence. I ask you,