Frank Zafiro - Beneath a Weeping Sky

Crawford was still eyeing him, so he forced his jaw to relax and answered. “Nothing there, either. She’s married, has a couple of kids and stays at home with them.”

“No guy on the side?”

Tower turned up his palms. “How am I supposed to know that?”

“You ask her, that’s how,” Crawford snapped back. “Maybe she had a boyfriend or some Good Time Charlie on the side. If she dumped him, he might have decided to get some revenge on her.”

Tower ground his teeth. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“Have you got something better to run down?”

He glanced down at the case file. “Uh, actually, yeah.”

“What?”

Tower snatched up O’Sullivan’s FI. “A couple of patrol cops caught a guy slinking around last night in the same neighborhood as the rape. I figured I’d interview him.”

Crawford regarded him for a moment, then nodded. “That sounds promising. Do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Crawford pointed at him. “But then check into that other angle. And anything else that comes up, too, no matter how small.”

Tower nodded that he understood. Crawford turned on his heels and headed back to his office in the Major Crimes division.

Georgina glanced up at Tower and raised her eyebrows a bit. Tower shrugged, as if to say, “What a jerk, huh?”

It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to investigate a rape. He’d been in the Sex Crimes Unit for six years. In that time, he’d handled all kinds of rapes and molestation cases. Why was Crawford so intense about this one?

But Tower knew why. Most rapes were committed by someone known to the victim. The bulk of the case involved proving what happened and whether there was consent, not discovering the suspect. True stranger-to-stranger rapes were rare.

And, Tower figured, that type of rape was a little unsettling. Some unknown man out in the community committed a violent sexual assault and no one knew who he was. That’s why Crawford was so keen on Tower’s progress on the case.

Still, Tower groused, does he have to be such a hard ass about it?

He picked up the telephone and called over to jail. He had to schedule an interview with Victor Preissing.

1109 hours

The prostitutes were thick on East Sprague even though it was the middle of the day. He’d noticed that the prostitute population went in cycles. During the summer, it was like high tide. The whores flooded the streets, some of them from out of town and not bad looking. They wore revealing clothing, sauntering up and down the sidewalk just like the movies. Winter was more like low tide. The hotter-looking ones moved on, leaving behind the fat ones wrapped in long winter coats and the crack heads who didn’t know enough to wear coats.

Aside from that, though, there were mini-cycles in which they went from thick to thin to thick again. He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that the cycles were a direct result of police enforcement action. When undercover cops busted the hookers, they tended to move on for a while or take it indoors. When they did stings on the johns, business slowed to a trickle, so they moved on.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew how things worked.

She was attractive, he thought, as he watched her walk slowly along the sidewalk. Her blond hair was teased up in a mid-eighties poof and a black one piece skirt hugged her too-thin body. Probably one of the crack addicts, he reasoned. Which meant she worked for cheap. Still, he thought she was attractive, for a fucking whore.

He glided up next to her in his respectable four-door compact. She glanced over at him, glanced around, then approached the car.

“Hi, baby,” she said.

“Hello.”

“You lookin’ for a date?”

He nodded. He doubted she was an under-cover police officer, but he was not taking any chances. He would make her say everything just to be sure.

The prostitute got into his car and directed him where to drive. He drove silently, mostly in circles as she watched to see if they were being followed. He noticed she was unable to sit still, another characteristic of crack addicts. He was almost certain she wasn’t a police officer now.

She directed him to a dead-end street. He parked next to an abandoned house. As he put the car into park, he felt her hand snake out and squeeze his crotch. He became erect immediately. She grinned at that and removed her hand.

“So what are you looking for?” she asked, leaning back against the door.

“A good time,” he said.

She frowned slightly. He could tell she was still trying to decide if he was a police officer or not.

“A very good time,” he added.

She chewed on her lip, remaining cautious, but he could see the desperation in her eyes. He waited.

Finally she said, “So you want head or straight sex or what?”

“Straight would be good,” he told her and waited.

She paused again, chewing her lip. The pause was not as long as the first one when she said, “Fifty.”

“Okay,” he said. He slid his seat back. She reached out and began to unbuckle his belt with one hand. She held out her other hand. He put two twenties and a ten in her hand and watched her slip it into her bra.

With both hands free, she slipped his pants down around his knees in a matter of seconds. She reached into her purse and removed a condom.

“Can’t be too careful,” she explained with a wink. She tore open the wrapper and slid the condom expertly onto him.

“I agree,” he said. To his disgust, he realized his left leg was twitching uncontrollably. That’d happened to him the first time he was with a woman, too. He cursed his weakness.

This is just a dirty little whore , he told himself. Nothing to be nervous about. It’s not like you haven’t had a whore before. My father fucked one every time the ship docked in the Philippines. So what’s the problem? Get tough.

She climbed on top of him, being careful not to bump the horn on the steering wheel. Guiding him into her, she settled onto his lap.

“How’s that feel?” she asked him.

He avoided her gaze, running his hands up her arms to her shoulders, where he grabbed hard and pulled her into him. She grunted in pain.

“Hey, watch it-”

“Shut up,” he growled and began thrusting hard. “Just shut up, you dirty little whore.”

“Easy on my goddamn arms,” she complained.

He released her arms and grabbed her around the throat with both hands, squeezing hard.

“Do you like this, you little bitch?” he asked her as her face flooded red. Her hands flew to her throat and she tried to pry his fingers loose.

He continued to thrust into her, watching panic enter her eyes. “Yeah, you like it, don’t you? Oh, I am going to lay the whammo on you, my sweet little bitch.”

He closed his eyes as he came, arching his hips up and forcing the small of her back into the bottom of the steering wheel. Her fingers pulled weakly at his hands as his orgasm caused him to squeeze harder. He finally relaxed his grip as he collapsed back onto the seat.

He sat still for a moment, surprised both at how fast he’d climaxed and how quickly his choking had affected her. He released his grip on her throat. She breathed raggedly and in gasps, her hands massaging her throat.

“Stupid little whore,” he muttered. He opened the car door. With his hips and right arm, pushed her from his lap, out the door and onto the ground. He grabbed her small purse from his passenger seat and hurled it at her. She sat blinking stupidly at him as the purse bounced off her forehead and fell onto her lap.

“You’re lucky,” he told her. “I let you live because you’re beautiful.”

Women are vain, he thought as he pulled up his pants. Compliment them and nothing else matters.