One day. Not this one, though.
The door opened and Rhett popped his head in. “Molly? There's somebody here who wants to talk to you.”
Looking up, Molly caught the look on Rhett's face and thought maybe numb eyebrows weren't enough. “Who? And why?”
He just pushed the door open farther and motioned with his head.
Molly's visitor was small, thin, precise, and Vietnamese. A young man in neat khakis, pinstripe shirt, and tie, he had well-trimmed black hair, delicate facial bones, and eyes as restless as a cop's. He stood at Rhett's desk like a wading bird at the water, which Molly understood perfectly. After all, she'd caught sight of the tattoo when he'd reached up to brush at his hair. Five blue dots in a circle in the web between thumb and forefinger. An Asian gang member had broached the police station to see Molly.
She smiled a quiet greeting. “Can I help you?”
His attention zeroed in on her with chilled intensity. “You are Molly Burke,” he said with a nod, his accent faint. “I understand now your sudden taste for curry and ginger.”
Molly nodded. “You also know what I was trying to find out. Why don't you come back here where we can talk?”
Without even waiting for Rhett's invitation, she led the man back to the interrogation room so he could see the work she was wading through, and she sat him down.
“My name is Luc Trang,” he said when she followed suit. “I've come to you because my mother insisted. You were a nurse in my country?”
Again she nodded. “In 1971 at Pleiku.”
He nodded. “That's what my mother said. She spoke to you a few days ago. She likes your eyes. She has this thing about eyes ⦔
For a second, he looked almost callow, the face a mother might see. And then the vulnerability disappeared. Molly more than understood the need to protect pride. She never moved to acknowledge his distress.
“It's about the picture the police have been passing around in your neighborhood,” she said very quietly. “Your sister?”
His head came up, but Molly was ready with a soft smile.
“You look very much like her,” she said. “She was a beautiful young woman, Mr. Trang.”
“We don't usually let others do what we can,” he said, his eyes on Molly instead of Rhett, who had followed them in like a polite shadow. “But I think ⦔
He didn't even shrug. He just stopped. And Molly, who had experience not only with the Vietnamese but with grief, recognized the glint of it in his rigidly contained fury.
“We have some information on the man who killed your sisterâ” Molly began.
“Lilly,” he said starkly. “Her name is Lilly.”
Molly nodded. “We think the man who killed Lilly has been preying on others in the South Grand area. We know he's been seen at the Mean Bean. We know he's taken at least one other girl from the area. Do you know, or could we talk to your mother, about the people Lilly knew?”
“My mother wouldn't know. Lilly moved out last year. She's been going to school and working at one of the restaurants. The Little Saigon. My mother has seen reports on the news that this man is targeting prostitutes and runaways, and it hurts her to have people think of Lilly like that.”
Molly nodded. “How long has Lilly been missing?”
He shrugged. “Four months. She'd had a fight with our mother and we thought she'd gone to visit family elsewhere. By the time we realized she wasn't ⦔
Another small shrug. Another flash of rage.
Molly leaned forward, wanting to be the one to ask him everything and knowing she wasn't thorough enough. Knowing that her job was to get him to allow Rhett the access he needed. “Mr. Trang, I think you know
that what is happening is beyond a neighborhood's capability to control. The police have a team working just on this ⦠person. If you could tell us everything you know about Lilly and her friends. Where she went, who she sawâ”
“I know the routine, Miss Burke.”
Molly flushed and smiled. “You're right. I'm sorry. But you can also help us gain access to the neighborhood. That seems to be where he's preying, which puts girls in the Asian community at the highest risk. If you could work with Rhett here, maybe encourage the people to talk to the police, we might get a picture of what this guy looks like.”
“Now?”
Molly felt Rhett stir behind her and knew she was giving away too much. But then, Rhett's sister hadn't ended up a sketch on the ten o'clock news. “It's your neighborhood, Mr. Trang.”
He said nothing, but she saw his posture change a fraction.
“We think we have an idea who he is,” she said, “but we don't know what he looks like. We just know that he might very well go by the name of Kenny.”
She watched hard for a reaction, but she didn't get it.
“You've never heard of him.”
“No.”
“Did your sister date Caucasians? Did she have friends you might not have known about?”
A loaded question, since it was Luc's business to know everything that went on in his neighborhood. “She knew people. From school. From work. She never talked that much about them, because my mother didn't understand.”
“One of those people killed her, Mr. Trang,” Molly said, again fighting the urge to comfort him. “Will you help us?”
A taut pause. “What if we find him?”
“We'll have enough to convict him.”
The young man's eyes were like black ice. “And you think that's enough.”
“Enough isn't the question,” Molly said. “Getting him off the street before he can hurt another Lilly is.”
Luc challenged her a long moment in silence before the small sag in
his shoulders betrayed his decision. “I will tell you about Lilly. The police who are canvassing the neighborhood will have cooperation. As long as they don't play games.”
“This is too important.” Molly wanted to reach out to him. Even that small a gap was inexcusable to a nurse who'd spent thirty years delivering bad news like a toxic stork. She didn't, though. Luc was not a toucher. So she nodded to Rhett, who stood quietly by. “This is Detective Butler, Mr. Trang. Would you talk to him?”
“What about Baitshop?” Luc asked. “Is she here?”
Molly admitted surprise. “You know Baitshop?”
Luc brightened a little. “You kidding? She's a legend in my neighborhood. You'll be there, too?”
“There's something else we need Molly to do first, Mr. Trang,” Rhett said from where he was lounging in the corner of the room.
Molly looked up, surprised.
“Special Agent Kinstle needs you to go with her about another identification.”
So much for hope. This was getting to be a good news/bad news joke. The good news was that their pattern was tumbling into place at light speed. The bad news was they had to wade through a morass of grief and rage to get to it.
“One more thing, Miss Burke,” Luc said, a shadow of a smile touching his eyes. “My mother wanted me to tell you that she doesn't believe what they say about you on
Hard Copy.
”
Molly stiffened like a burglar hearing sirens. “What did they say about me on
Hard Copy
?”
Luc was actively grinning now. “Why, that you're killing the people who show up in your backyard.”
He was probably disappointed when she laughed in relief.
Â
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“So you didn't just come to share tea and hospital charts with me, huh?” Molly greeted Kathy when she finally made it out to find the agent by the bullpen coffeepot.
“Sure I did,” Kathy said. “I also knew you'd want to share the next victim with me.”
“Who?”
Kathy straightened and grabbed her coat. “The second skull. The homicide task force has already notified family. What I'd like to do is talk a bit more to the young woman in University City who did the ID.”
Molly frowned. “Another devotee of the Mean Bean?”
“Evidently not. That's why we're headed up there. So far, they can't find any connection with South Grand.”
Molly grabbed her coat and followed Kathy out the door.
Â
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The house was small, brick, and quaint, the kind of place indigenous to a college area. Bare wood floors and art show posters on the wall, overflowing bookcases and garage sale furniture. Incense coated the marijuana in the air, and half-burned candles cluttered the windows where two women had shared class schedules, love lives, and dreams.
Only one woman was present when Molly and Kathy showed up, a postgrad student named Petra, who studied at Washington University down the block. And she wasn't handling her friend's death well at all. Considering the fact that her friend hadn't even been reported missing yet, Molly wondered why.
“She always does this,” the girl wailed, thick, kinky black hair bouncing in time with her words. A stick of energy, the girl tapped and swayed and blinked like a semaphore when she spoke. “And Jesus make me a garbageman if I'm supposed to let her parents know. âOh no, Dr. and Dr. Pierson. Amanda's around here someplace. I can't imagine what's keeping her.' Like, maybe sex with some Nicaraguan poli-sci major, or a tequila run to Tijuana. Shit, fuck, fratmonkeys, what am I going to tell them? Sorry, we misplaced Amanda for a minute or two, and now she's some guy's TV dinner? Oh, yeah, that'll be fuckin' brilliant!”
Molly and Kathy had been there for ten minutes, and so far hadn't gotten more out than their identifications. As if she'd been waiting for that very thing to uncork her reaction, Petra Ojibma spewed outrage, astonishment, and annoyance at them like an out-of-control fire hose. And Molly and Kathy sat side by side on a brown corduroy couch and simply filtered out the bits they needed.
“Like I'm supposed to monitor all her flea-bitten, butt-brained friends
and lovers. Motherscrew, I'd have to have a gig of memory in my hard drive just for her black book!”
“Which means you might not have known whether she'd gone down to South Grand for anything,” Kathy ventured.
“South Grand? She hated South Grand.
Loathed
it. Called it pretentious, self-indulgent, self-abusers and losers with all the culture of yogurt. Art majors can be
such
assholes, ya know? She was doing her bit down on Washington and Grandel, supporting the cause, wallowing in all that bullshit meaning of life stew. No, Tijuana she'd goddrivel go to, but not fuckformed South Grand. Go fuckin' figure.”
All Molly could figure was that she'd had too much Stoly and Petra had had way too little lithium for this conversation.
“Did she mention anybody named Kenny?” Kathy asked.
“Kenny?” Now Petra was adding cigarette smoke to the mix, puffing as if punishing the cigarette. “Kenny? Sure. Maybe. I mean, she just loved to shove her conquests in my face like rotten grapefruit, didn't she? But they were usually named Serge. Mario.
Ill
ya. Kenny's so fuckin' tame, I figured she was just yankin' me. She said she might try him for a differenceâwhich meant, I guess, that he didn't bring a baseball bat to bed with him, ya know? Amanda couldn't get off without it, which I figure translates to dear old Mister Doctor playing house with his kid. You think?”
Molly didn't answer. “Did she ever describe Kenny to you?”
“Harmless. That's all she said about him.” Petra gave a snort like an overheated horse and shoved open the window to let in a little subzero air. “She'd last ten fuckin' minutes with harmless.”
“You didn't meet him?” Kathy asked.
“God, no ⦠God, God, no. Not for me, thanks. I like one guy at a time, ya know? I'm not into mercy missions. Besides, that way I stay out of hospitals.”
“She was in the hospital?”
A laugh, strident and tight. “Which time? I told you, she liked playing doctor. The real kind, where they had to stitch her up and try and convince her not to go back to that ⦠oh, let's see, what's the term? Oh, yeah, ânonproductive relationship.' Matter of fact, last time I saw her was when I drove her homeâ
again
âfrom the cracksnackin' hospital listening how this time was gonna be different because she thought she'd try this
nothin'
guy.”
“How long ago was that?” Molly asked.
“Oh, shit, who knows? A couple o' weeks? She's been gone about that long I think. I don't know for sure really. I have other things on my fuckin' plate, and like I said, she's done it before.”
They stayed another few minutes, but they didn't get much else. The cops had Amanda Pierson's address book, her class books, any scrap of paper they'd managed to vacuum from her room, and Petra had the Piersons to deal with.