What Burns Within (8 page)

“
Cold Squad
?”

“It’s still in syndication.”

“When did this rape happen?” Lori asked.

“July eighth.”

She leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen against her nose. “This just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Does it ever?”

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth twisting. “What I mean is, there’s no escalation. We have virtually the same report each time. Karen Chalmers, June fourteenth. Exact same, except she was already in her bedroom undressing when he turned up. Stephanie Bonnis, July twenty-fifth. Only thing different there was that she was unpacking groceries in her kitchen, and the perp made her leave her three-month-old son in his car seat screaming while he raped her. She begged him not to kill her or hurt her son and he hit her on the head.”

“But he still didn’t say anything. He just hit her. That’s very controlled. He wasn’t rattled by a crying baby. That rape happened at what, ten pm, after she got back from an emergency run to the grocery store, she said. Not something planned or part of her regular schedule.”

Lori propped her elbows against her desk, resting her chin on her hands. “So even the noise, late at night, didn’t seem to worry him.”

“Funny that she’d just come in from the side door. The front door had a dead bolt on it and chain lock, and she didn’t see him.”

“He must have been inside.”

Craig leaned back in his chair. “If he waited in the house he must have been pretty sure she was coming home and that her husband wouldn’t be returning with her.”

“Or this guy really is just a cocky sonofabitch who’s gotten lucky so far.”

“What dates do we have again?”

Lori picked up her notebook. “June fourteenth, July twenty-fifth and August eighteenth. And now July eighth.”

“So it seemed like the third attack was closer to the second, until we got that call yesterday. The dates aren’t getting closer together.”

“Unless we’ve got women who haven’t reported yet. Knowing how reluctant rape victims are to come forward, it’s possible.”

“We need to do a nationwide search, see if there are any other open rape cases that fit the pattern,” Craig suggested. “It’s not like this guy has just popped up out of the blue. He’s meticulous, organized, confident. There’s essentially no escalation in his attacks, which is unusual. He must have raped before.”

“I agree.” She turned her eyes toward the report in her hands, twisting her chair slightly to her left as though the conversation was over.

Craig looked up. Daly was watching them from across the room. His gaze was blank, but Craig sensed he wasn’t too happy about Lori. For once he wished Daly would indulge him and give him a different partner.

Tain waited until Ashlyn hung up the phone. “Alex Wilson is on his way in.”

She leaned back in her chair, covered her face with her hands and groaned. “You’re kidding.”

“Why?”

“Carl Parks just called to say that we could come over and take his statement.”

Tain arched an eyebrow. “Without prompting?”

She raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Tain. I don’t really want to keep him waiting, with what he’s dealing with at home.”

“You go talk to Mr. Parks. I’ll talk to Alex Wilson.”

“You’re sure?” Ashlyn didn’t wait for an answer. She stood and pulled on her jacket.

“Try not to look so happy to get away from me.”

“It’s not you. It’s the station. I think the fresh air will do me good.”

“Any chance of you finding out if the building is clear for us to enter?”

Ashlyn had started walking toward the door. She turned, continuing to walk backward as she pointed at him. “I’ll try to stop by the station or call Quinlan about that on my way back. Call me on my cell if anything comes up.”

“Hey, get me lunch when you’re out.”

“You don’t have time to get over to Hooters?”

“Very funny, Ashlyn,” he called after her.

The CD player clicked, and Ashlyn felt the smile spread across her face when she heard “Fare Thee Well Love” start. There was something about the music that went beyond the typical fluff the radios churned out and rehashed every few hours. It wasn’t that she didn’t like popular music. It was just that sometimes she wanted to listen to something that did more than drown out the silence. There was emotion in this music. She connected with it.

Not that emotion was something she lacked these days, and when the line about the lonely girl came on she wondered what she was doing listening to songs about loss as she drove through the city, on her way to Port Coquitlam, mountain shadow giving way to farmland. She hit the CD changer. “Til I Am Myself Again” came on.

When she arrived at the Parks’ home it was clear it would be a long time before Carl Parks would be himself again. Ashlyn fought to keep her jaw from dropping, tried in vain to keep the shock from registering in her eyes.

The previous day he’d been covered in soot but otherwise strong, capable, in command except for the moment when he’d lost it, when he’d heard the girl was dead. Now, he had dark circles around his eyes that had nothing to do with residue from fighting a fire, no flush of exertion in his cheeks, the strong, confident bearing gone. Despite being elevated on the threshold of the house above her, he seemed a few inches shorter, a few inches thinner, pale. He clearly hadn’t slept.

“I, uh, I can come back if this isn’t a good time.”

He half shrugged. “It’s fine.”

She followed him into the living room, sitting on the couch across from him. He looked around the room, at the ceiling, the corners and the points between the bookshelves. Finally, he looked at her, his mouth slightly open, his eyes pinched. “What do you need?”

“You told us that you found Isabella’s body on the fourth floor, in a room in the back right corner. Is that correct?”

He nodded.

“You said she was lying on a table under the window.”

Carl nodded again.

“Do you remember what kind of table it was?”

“What kind?” He blinked.

“A dining table, a child’s play table, a school desk. Color, length, anything?”

He stared at her blankly for another moment, then shook his head. “What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Carl, I know this isn’t a good time,” Ashlyn said, “but this is very important to the family out there that has to plan a funeral now for their daughter.”

His shoulders sagged. “She’s pregnant, you know. She can’t even take some of the medications, in case…in case…”

He held his face in his hands for a moment, his elbows propped precariously on his knees, his legs quivering visibly. In the loose, white dress shirt and khaki pants he looked like a solid gust of wind could blow him right out of the lower mainland and over the Rocky Mountains.

Then the trembling stopped, and he looked up. “It was a gray folding table.”

“Like the kind you buy at Costco?”

He blinked, rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Was there a blanket on it? Anything at all?”

Carl paused with his hand over his mouth, his elbows still digging into his kneecaps. “No. But there was something funny on the wall.”

“Funny, how? What was it?”

He shook his head, holding up one open hand. “I don’t know. Funny, odd. I barely saw it, with all the smoke, and it looked like it was some sort of graffiti, drawn in black charcoal. It seemed familiar, but I’m not sure what it was. I just wasn’t paying that much attention, you know?”

She nodded. “It’s okay. You’re doing great.” Ashlyn waited a moment before continuing. “Last night you said there was thick, black smoke pouring out the window when you went into the room, that you almost didn’t see Isabella.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you remember if the window had been opened or if it was broken?”

“Like I said yesterday, I’m sure our guys didn’t break it.”

“I just mean generally. Had it been left open, or was it broken?”

“You think she tried, she might have tried to get out?”

Ashlyn shook her head, forcing herself not to look away as he stared directly at her. All that grief and shock, the wild eyes…She hadn’t even seen that much raw emotion at the Bertini house the night before. “No. She…she didn’t die there, Carl. Isabella was already gone when he put her on that table.”

“What’s wrong with this world, that there are all these sick bastards out there, running around hurting people?” Carl slammed his fist down on the coffee table.

Ashlyn felt herself wince at the sound of the blow, although she’d seen it coming. “I wish I had answers for you.”

“I don’t want your fucking answers. I want to kill—”

Carl froze. He’d looked like he was about to jump up, knock the coffee table over, smash everything in the room he could get his hands on until those words came out of his mouth. The fury in his eyes gave way to a look of fear. The hard line of his mouth had dissolved, and his eyes had the glassy look of being filled with tears.

She didn’t know what to say to him. So much grief, so much understandable anger, nothing that would make it all better.

Ashlyn flipped her notebook shut. “If you think of anything else, you call me.” She fished a card from her pocket and stood. Carl’s interlocking fingers were behind his head now, his body rocking back and forth. To him, she was already gone.

She walked into the hallway. There was a telephone stand by the entrance, and she set her card down and then took a second look.

Another police officer’s card was sitting on the edge, partially tucked under the phone. Not surprising, considering the fact that Mrs. Parks had been raped. But Ashlyn had eventually been able to ask around and put a name to the constable who’d taken Carl from the scene the day before, and it wasn’t Lori Price’s card she was looking at now.

Ashlyn sucked in a breath and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind her.

Tain took a sip of his water and glanced at the clock.

Alex Wilson had been waiting on the other side of the one-way window for almost thirty minutes. He hadn’t broken out in a cold sweat as the minutes ticked by, and he hadn’t started pacing the limited floor space in the small room.

He hadn’t done a bloody thing except just sit there.

It was a new one on Tain. People slept. People paced. People drummed their fingers against the table and scrutinized every inch of the bland room. Some used cell phones they’d had hidden in their pockets. Others doodled. The odd pervert who had clearly never seen a cop drama on television took the time to jerk off, but nobody just sat and stared straight ahead blankly without protesting at their time being wasted in a police station.

Tain entered the room in a hurry, sprinted to the table, dropped notepaper and his water down and hastily turned back to shut the door.