Open Season Read online

  I came to a dead stop in the middle of the corridor. “Is this what’s on your mind?” I pointed at the lead item: the sexual assault on one Wendy Stiller.

  “Is she on it?”

  I smiled at his downcast expression. “Afraid so, Frank.”

  “Shit. Let’s go to my office.” He led the way, ushered me in, and closed the door. “You may have a bit of a problem.”

  “Why?”

  “Kunkle was on call last night, so Capullo brought him in on this.”

  “And?”

  “Kunkle quote-unquote headed the Harris investigation. He got a citation, a letter of commendation and a bonus from the town manager. Considering his personality, he’s not going to be thrilled with this jury thing. He’s going to think you’re out to get him.”

  “I’m not the one going after the jury.”

  “I know that, for Christ’s sake. But you’re going to want to talk to this girl, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you going to tell Kunkle? And don’t give me what you gave DeFlorio yesterday. He pestered the hell out of me trying to find out why I supposedly told you to interview Wodinsky.”

  “Wodiska.”

  “Whatever. Give me a break this time, will you?”

  “Jesus, Frank, even a paranoid like Kunkle ought—”

  He held up both hands to stop me. “You know that. I know that. I’m the den mother here, all right? I’m trying to keep everybody happy. Just tiptoe a little. Kunkle’s screwier than ever right now—home problems—and I don’t want to hear him complaining that you’ve got doubts about his handling of the Harris case.”

  I gave up. “Okay. Mum’s the word.”

  “Thank you. Now I’ve arranged for you to have first crack at her this morning, but Kunkle won’t be far behind.”

  “I thought he had his little chat last night.”

  “She had to be sedated. He didn’t get much out of her—nothing really, so get in and get out, and keep me up to date. She’s at Memorial Hospital, room three-twelve.”

  · · ·

  Memorial was a typical small-city hospital. A little threadbare, a few patches, not staffed by the best or the brightest, but it made up in heart what it lacked in glitzy technology. Ellen had died there, admittedly a long time ago, but if caring alone could have cured cancer, she would have pulled through.

  I found Wendy Stiller sitting in a green plastic chair by the window in a four-bed room. She was the only occupant. She was dressed in a long pink terry robe and had her feet tucked under her. Her blond hair hung in a tangled mess about her shoulders. Her face was pale and hollow-looking. It occurred to me that this was the third victimized woman I’d approached in just twenty-four hours. I wondered if that meant anything.

  “Hi.”

  She smiled wanly. “Hello.”

  “Do you feel well enough to talk a little?” I avoided introductions. The less she knew of me, the less she’d tell Kunkle when he Joe Fridayed her later.

  She nodded. “I guess so.” Her voice was light and dreamy.

  I sat down on the bed near her chair. She was quite pretty, in her late twenties, not slim in a high fashion sense but not fat either—the kind of woman they choose to advertise laundry soap. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  She turned away to look out the window at the snow-covered trees. She didn’t answer for a few seconds. When she did, the softness of her voice was almost lost to the building’s own gentle murmurs.

  “There was a man inside my apartment when I got home last night.”

  “What time was that?”

  The answers came slowly, as if each one had to be gingerly coaxed to shore. “About midnight. I’d been out on a date. The door was locked. I don’t know how he got in.”

  “Did your date come in with you?”

  “No.”

  “What did you do after saying good night?”

  “I went straight to the bedroom.

  “And he grabbed you?”

  She nodded, just perceptibly.

  “He was hiding?”

  “Behind the door.”

  She hunched her shoulders a bit and paused. I didn’t interrupt.

  This wasn’t the first conversation I’d had like this, and I knew it might take time, Kunkle or no Kunkle. She took a deep breath. “He told me to get down on my knees and then he covered my mouth with some tape. I could see him in the mirror on the bathroom door. He was all in black—pants, shirt, ski mask, everything.”

  Again she stopped, sighed, and shifted in her chair. The last long sentence seemed to have tired her. “What happened then?” I tried to make my whisper match hers.

  “He told me to get in the shower… Tied my hands to the shower head…”

  A half minute passed.

  “Did he turn on the water?”

  “He asked me if the temperature was all right.”

  “Did he touch you other than to tie you up?”

  “No… He turned the water off and looked at me… Then he took my clothes off.” Again she stopped. I could hear the traffic outside. In the window’s reflection, I saw the glistening of tears on her translucent cheek.

  “Would you like to take a break?”

  She shook her head, but she didn’t speak again for a full minute. When she did, she faltered but kept on, a runner committed to finishing. “He took my clothes off and rubbed soap all over me. He left it on.”

  Another pause, another deep breath. “Then he played with my nipple. With his finger. That’s how I knew who he was.”

  That took me by surprise. “You knew him?”

  “Yes. His name is Manny Rodriguez.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We served on a jury together once. He had a tattoo on the back of his hand. An American eagle.”

  “What did he do then?”

  For the first time, she turned and looked at me, her face grief-stricken and baffled, the tears now dripping off her chin. “Nothing. He left. Why did he do that?”

  I patted her shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ll try to find out. Did you get along with him when you were on the jury together?”

  “I talked to Mr. Phillips most—he was nice.”

  “And you never saw Rodriguez after the trial?”

  “Once. He works at a glass shop on Canal. I saw him there.”

  “Had he offered you a deal or something?”

  “I didn’t even know he worked there. We just talked.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “I don’t know; a year maybe.”

  “And the conversation was okay?”

  “We didn’t have much to say.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, and I got up and handed her a box of Kleenex from the bedside table.

  “Are you going to be all right, Miss Stiller?” She blew her nose and nodded. “There’ll be a policeman who will come to visit you soon, and he’ll probably ask you many of the same questions I just have. His name is Willy Kunkle.”

  “I met him last night, but they gave me something that made me too sleepy.” Her voice was stronger.

  “Well, he’ll be back. Is that all right?”

  “Yes. I feel better now. Thank you.”

  I rose and headed for the door. “There is one last thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “We are going to pick up Manny Rodriguez, but until we get his side of the story, none of us is absolutely positive he was the man who assaulted you.”

  “It was his tattoo.”

  She said this in the same flat voice. I returned to her and crouched by her chair. “I realize that, but it may not have been his hand. I know that sounds crazy, but just lately we’ve had a couple of things like this, where someone pretends to be someone else. All I’m saying is that Rodriguez may be innocent.”

  She looked confused. “All right.”

  “The reason I bring it up is that the newspaper is always hot to follow up a story like this one. They’ll try to find out and inter
view you. So if you mention Rodriguez’s name and he turns out to be innocent, he’ll have a tough time with it. You will, too, of course. We’ll do our damnedest to keep what happened to you private, but secrets are hard to keep unless everyone cooperates.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

  I sent a nurse in to check on her and called Murphy from a pay phone. I told him Wendy Stiller’s story. “I know Willy’s got his problems, but there’s no way I’m going to sit around waiting for him to waltz in and do what I’ve just done before rounding up Rodriguez. The guy might have one foot on the bus right now, if he’s still in town.”

  Murphy spared me the problem. “I called Kunkle and told him that she’d asked to make a statement and you were hanging around with nothing to do. He didn’t like it, but he swallowed it. I’ll send him to pick up Rodriguez and you file a report to back me up. Once we’ve got the guy downstairs, I’ll make sure you get a crack at him.”

  “Tell Kunkle to be quiet about it, okay? I think I got Stiller to clam up with the news boys. The less they get, the better.”

  “Amen.”

  I hung up. A friend of mine—a former cop—once told me I’d get a lot more money and a lot less grief if I went into the security business as he had done. I’d answered I could live without the corporate politics. He’d laughed.

  Rodriguez hadn’t left town. Kunkle found him at work, contentedly etching frost curlicues on a custom mirror. On first mention of Wendy Stiller’s name, he didn’t even know who she was. He’d been reminded dramatically by the time I got to see him in one of the basement holding cells.

  That part of the building isn’t designed to boost morale anyway. The cells line one wall of a low-ceilinged beige room lit with bare bulbs and spotlights. They’re fancy kennels, really, with one steel fold-away cot and a porcelain toilet per cell. Surveillance cameras are mounted on the opposite wall.

  Rodriguez was our only tenant. He was sitting on the cot with his hands between his knees when I walked in. He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw me. “You’ve got to get me out of here. This is a mistake. I haven’t done anything.” His voice was high-pitched and tinged with hysteria.

  “Relax. It feels worse than it is.”

  “But I’m in jail.” He grabbed the bars and shook them to demonstrate his point.

  “Not for long. Sit down and calm yourself. Come on. Sit.”

  He sat reluctantly. He was about thirty years old, good-looking, with a full head of dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was wearing denim work clothes, also neat and clean.

  “Good. Now hold out your hands, palms down.”

  He looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles, but he did it. There was a wicked triple scratch running across the center of the eagle tattoo on his right hand. It looked infected and painful.

  “How did you get the scratch?”

  He looked at it as if for the first time, thrown further off balance. His words came out more slowly now. “My cat. I threw him out of the house a couple of days ago and he clawed me. We don’t like each other—he belongs to my kids.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll send someone down to look at it.” I turned to go.

  He leaped to his feet, revved up again. “Wait. Don’t leave me. I don’t want a Band-Aid. I want to get out of here. I don’t belong here. I’m innocent. I didn’t rape anybody.”

  “The police report says you got a call last night that sent you on a wild goose chase. Is that right?”

  “Yes, I swear. I had some tools stolen a few days ago. The man on the phone said he’d found them; that his brother had stolen them, and that he felt bad about it and wanted to return them. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

  I paused at the bottom of the steps. “Mr. Rodriguez, I’m sure it is true. We picked you up on the available evidence, that’s all. I’ve just got to make a couple of calls to clear this up, and I’m pretty sure we can get you out within the hour. By the way, what color are your eyes?”

  “Brown. What about a police record?”

  “No record. We’ll clear it up with your boss, too. If it all works out, the only thing you’ll have to worry about is keeping your mouth shut. If you go to the press, or talk to them if they come to you, you’re the one who’s going to get the bad publicity. Fair or not, that’s how it works. Ask any celebrity.”

  I went upstairs and knocked on Murphy’s door. I was sorry to see Kunkle sitting in his guest chair. “I’ll talk to you later, Frank.”

  Kunkle got up before I could leave. “Did you see Rodriguez?” As usual, he was abrupt and hostile—a man on perpetual simmer.

  “Yeah. I just talked to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Maxine told me about the scratch on his hand.”

  “What about it?”

  “Wendy Stiller didn’t mention it.”

  “So?”

  “So I thought I might ask her if she’d seen it.”

  Kunkle gave me a hard stare. I decided I’d better not leave it there. I asked Murphy if I could use his phone. He pushed it across his desk to me, and I dialed the hospital and asked for Stiller’s room.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Miss Stiller. This is the man who spoke to you this morning about the attack.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “When you saw that tattoo, was there a scratch running across it? maybe a Band-Aid or some makeup or something?”

  “No, it looked like it did at the trial.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Thank you. One last thing: do you remember the man’s eye color?”

  “They were blue—pale blue.” The answer was immediate. I didn’t question how she could be so positive.

  I thanked her again and hung up. “We’ve got the wrong man. The scratch wasn’t on the attacker’s hand, and his eyes were blue.”

  Kunkle snorted and looked at the ceiling. “Jesus, that’s pretty slim. I mean, the man lathered her up and flicked her tit. You think she’s going to take time out to catalogue his eye color and the odd scratch here or there? Give me a break.”

  I felt my face flush with anger. He brought back the image of every self-confident, stupid bully I’d ever known in grade school—the guys who made ignorance a martial art. The fact that he was actually a pretty smart guy who was drowning in his own troubles made no difference; he’d been on this kick for too long.

  I spoke directly to Frank. “That scratch is a mess. It’s infected and a couple of days old. No way either she could have missed it or he could have gotten it between midnight and now. Show her Rodriguez’s hand, and his eyes. She’ll tell you he’s not the man.”

  Frank nodded and I turned to leave. Kunkle grabbed my arm. “Pretty sure of yourself.”

  I shook him off. “I’m also right.”

  I walked into my own office and slammed the door. Stan Katz was sitting on the edge of my desk. “Get out, Stan; you’re trespassing.”

  “Testy, testy.”

  I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved him toward the door. Kunkle’s style was catching. Stan opened the door and paused. “I just wanted to get your side before I started writing.”

  “My side of what?”

  “The events of last night, and the night before.”

  “What about them?”

  He gave me a smile custom-made for a fist. I buried my hands in my pockets. “You ought to know. You’ve been involved with all of them, according to the scuttlebutt. What’s going on?”

  That cooled me down a notch. He was fishing. “Investigations are going on, like they always are. This is a police department, Stan. We bust people. And Woll was just a screwup.”

  “Why are you the hot man, all of a sudden? You’re popping up all over. I heard DeFlorio pulled the Woll case, but you’ve been poking around in it. I also heard Kunkle was pissed off that you were treading on his turf.”


  I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him—gently—out into the hall. “We always get into each other’s hair; it’s standard. Besides, I’m their lieutenant; I’m supposed to keep an eye on ’em, you know that. Your problem is you don’t have enough to keep you busy. That happens when things are slack. Don’t take it out on me, okay? Go see a movie.” I closed the door in his face.

  I had just sat down when Murphy stepped in. He leaned against the wall and smiled. “Well, well, Mr. Diplomacy.”

  “Lay off, Frank. Kunkle’s a jerk. If he’s got problems, you can change his diapers.”

  “I won’t have to. He just told me I might as well hand the Stiller case over to you since you stole it anyway. I must say, you two aren’t very friendly.”

  “I’m tired of trying.”

  “By the way, I sent a unit over to fetch Stiller. We probably ought to dot the i’s and so forth before we kick Rodriguez loose.”

  “Fine. I just threw Katz out, by the way. He’s sniffing the air like a hyperactive pointer. You better make sure any paperwork he’s liable to see doesn’t have any names on it and that all this shit is on a need-to-know basis, or he’s going to start making the same connections I have.”

  Frank sat down and shut the door with his foot. “Which are what so far?”

  “Rodriguez makes it the fifth jury member in two days. Whoever’s doing this really did his homework. He stole Phillips’s dog, Rodgriguez’s tools, spent days terrorizing Reitz, and cased both Wodiska’s and presumably Stiller’s daily habits. He’s been working on this for a long time.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “The number-one question. I still think it’s the Harris case.”

  Frank sighed.

  “It’s the common thread. Of course, maybe it’s the moon or the alignment of the planets, or maybe the entire jury took LSD time capsules and simultaneously flipped out three years later.”

  “I’d take that over reopening Harris.”

  “I don’t think we’ve got a choice. Even you have to admit a similarity in all these cases, and the likelihood that they were all orchestrated by the same man. Besides that, none of these set-ups was built to last—they were to get our attention, not to sidetrack us. Whatever it is Ski Mask wants, he obviously thinks it involves Harris.”