“Yeah, we’ve got sorta good news,” said Conklin as he sat up straight in the chair.
“Any kind of news is good news on this case.”
“We got the DNA back on Caddy Girl’s rape kit.”
“Excellent. What do we know?”
“We got a cold hit, Lou,” Conklin said.
My rising hopes crashed.
A cold hit is a little bit of not much to go on. In this case, there was a matching DNA profile in the database—but the donor’s ID was unknown.
Conklin spread the computer printout on my desk, spun it so it faced me. Then he took me through it, slowly, patiently, the way I took my bosses through detail they were too thick to get.
“This sample came from the sexual assault kit of a white female who was killed in LA two years ago,” Conklin said. “She was in her early twenties—raped, strangled, and found in a field a few days after she was dumped there. No ID on the victim, and she was never identified. LAPD thinks she was a transient.”
“What was she wearing?” I asked him.
“No designer clothes. A polyester top pulled up to her neck. It’s no wonder we didn’t get a hit before,” Conklin said. “Completely different MO than the Car Girls. This victim wasn’t dressed up or posed in a car, but for sure, the same guy who had sex with this victim two years ago had sex with Caddy Girl.”
“Maybe the LA vic was our perp’s first kill,” Jacobi added. “And he’s been polishing up his act ever since.”
“Or maybe he’s got a partner now,” I said, trying on another theory. “Maybe this new cat has a lot more imagination.”
Chapter 47
LEO HARRIS WAS LOCKING UP the register in his Smoke and Joke shop when the bell jingled over the front door.
“I’m done for the night,” the black man said without turning around. “Register’s closed. Come back in the morning. Thank you.”
He heard footsteps shuffling toward the counter anyway, baggy pants whiffing around the customer’s ankles.
“I said, we’re closed.”
“I need some smokes,” the voice said, soft and slurry, a young man’s voice asking, “You got Camels?”
“Try the Searchlight Market,” Mr. Harris said. “You can see it from the door. Right on the corner of Hyde.”
The sixty-six-year-old man closed the cash drawer, turned his blank eyes toward the customer, seeing just his outline, waiting for the kid to leave his shop.
“Put the money on the counter, old man,” the voice said. “Back up to the wall. Keep your hands up and maybe I won’t hurt you.”
Harris was aware of every sound now—the deep breathing of the boy, the buzzing of the neon sign in the window, the dull clang of the trolley at the intersection of Union and Hyde.
He said, “Okay, okay. We don’t have a problem. Let me open the register. I got a hundred bucks under the drawer. Hell, take a carton of cigarettes and just get —”
“Get your hand away from that button!” the boy yelled.
“I’m just opening the register.”
Harris pressed the silent alarm under the counter and at the same time heard the jangle of Midnight’s collar as she ran downstairs from his apartment, starting her nightly patrol of the store.
Harris thought, Oh, no, even as he heard the police dog’s growl. Then the click of the gun, the kid’s scared shout: “Fucking get away from me, dog.”
There was an explosion, a gunshot; then Leo Harris called out, “Midnight!” Then came another deafening explosion that seemed to rock the small room.
Harris clutched at his chest. He fell, grabbing at the toiletries and cigarette cartons, hearing the sound of the punk busting out the door, the door slamming, the tinkling bell. . . .