Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [64]
Chuck walked into the room, his face grim.
“We’ve got trouble,” he said, sitting behind his desk. “Walker’s lodged a formal complaint against you,” he said to Lee.
Butts smacked the arm of his chair with his closed fist. “Bastard!”
“What does this mean for the investigation?” Lee asked.
Chuck picked up the glass paperweight from his desk and held it in both hands. “It’s hard to say. Internal Affairs will have to evaluate the complaint and decide what to do about it.”
“Can they take me off the case?” Lee asked.
Chuck put the paperweight down and put his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “They can do anything they want.”
Butts blinked, his homely face slack. “Anything?”
The relationship between Internal Affairs and the other members of the police force was like the relationship between a prison warden and the incarcerated: watchful, wary, and mutually distrustful. Visitors from IA were as welcome in precinct houses as an infestation of head lice in an elementary school classroom.
The phone on the desk rang, and Chuck answered it.
“Morton here.” He listened briefly and then he said, “Really? When? Where are they now? Okay, thanks.”
He hung up and exhaled. “Jane Doe Number Five has been identified. Her parents just called and ID’d her photograph from our Web site.”
Lee rose from his chair. “Who is she?”
“Name’s Pamela Stavros. She’s a runaway from New England. Parents are flying down from Maine today.”
“Okay,” Chuck said, “let’s go over what we have.” He read from aloud from an autopsy report on his desk. “Two of the autopsies indicated the presence of semen. One girl was on the pill, the other was found still wearing her diaphragm. The third girl used a condom. In each case there was sexual conduct shortly before her death, but no evidence of rape. In the case of Marie Kelleher and Annie O’Donnell, the boyfriends admit to having sex with the victims the night before they were found dead.”
Lee stood up, his face rigid. “He watches them.”
Chuck stared at him.
“You mean…?”
“He watches them have sex—but he can’t stand the feelings it stirs in him, so he has to kill them.”
“So since they’re the source of his arousal,” Nelson said, “they have to die?”
“But that’s not how he sees it. Somehow he manages to rationalize his acts.”
“Maybe he sees himself as their savior, rescuing them from the sin of carnality?” Florette suggested.
“Yes, yes. That would make perfect sense,” Lee agreed.
“Look, the mayor and the DA are both coming down hard on us,” Chuck said, “so we’re going to—”
“Round up the usual suspects?” Nelson suggested dryly.
“Bring in a few more known sex offenders for questioning,” Morton finished, ignoring him.
They had already completed interviews of half a dozen known sex offenders. Nelson disdained to be present at any of these interviews, which he deemed a waste of time and taxpayers’ money, but Detective Butts was keen on them.
“Go ahead,” Nelson said. “But it won’t do you any good.”
“Yeah?” Butts challenged. “And why’s that?”
“Because you won’t find him that way.”
Butts blew air out of his nostrils and rolled his eyes.
Chuck looked at Lee. “You agree?”
“I’m afraid so,” he replied. “He’ll have a history of abusing animals, maybe setting a few fires, but chances are he wasn’t caught.”
“I checked with VICAP again for crimes similar to this UNSUB,” Florette said, flicking an invisible speck from his immaculate shirt. He seemed to enjoy using anagrams whenever possible. VICAP stood for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and UNSUB was shorthand for Unknown Subject.
“VICAP could be useless for a guy like this,” Nelson responded. “Up until now, he could have been flying under the radar.”
“Oh, that’s just great!” Butts said, biting off the end of a cigar and spitting it in the trash can. He frowned, the pockmarks on his forehead merging. “You said this was a sex crime.”
“Like I said, this guy will probably have a history of cruelty to animals,” Lee said.