Jonathon King - A Killing Night

She hadn't known any of the women. She had heard some of the other bartenders gossiping, but hadn't given it much thought. Trading in rumor was all part of the business.

"So, you don't know if any of them was raped?" she asked, the question coming far too quickly.

"No. There weren't any reports made before they disappeared, no," I said.

The slightest tremor had set up in her chin. Scared? Disappointed? Heartbroken? I couldn't tell. She looked vulnerable for the first time, but I am not beyond taking advantage of vulnerable.

"Tell me about Kyle, Marci," I said, looking straight into her eyes.

"He's a cop," she said.

"I know."

"I've been dating him."

I let her eyes look past me again.

"You two have a drug thing going, him supplying, you selling to the customers over the bar?" I said.

"No," she said instantly. "Shit, no. Kyle doesn't do drugs. Neither do I. No."

But she was putting him somewhere.

"Then why are you so scared, Marci?" I said. She was shaking her head and despite her effort to stop it, moisture was coming into her eyes.

"You think Kyle did it, that he killed those girls?" she said.

I shook my own head.

"No one's sure of anything," I said. Marci had made the jump, suspecting Kyle, for some reason. And I did not peg her as a simple, paranoid woman.

"Why? Do you think he could have?"

I was watching her eyes to see if she was working back on days or nights or conversations with Morrison, putting him in a context that she had never before imagined.

"The guy we're talking about went out with these girls several times, knew where they lived and had some access to their apartments so he could cover up afterward," I said.

I knew I was leading her. But I didn't care. If my drug theory was out, I had to find something to get this Morrison guy off the list.

"Jesus," she said and her head dropped and she slowly shook it, letting strands of her hair swing loose. After a few seconds her chin came up and it was set, back teeth tightened down.

"Kyle," she said and nothing more.

"Do you think he's capable?"

"Goddamn right he's capable," she said, now letting the anger into her voice.

"Why? Did you see anything? Did he say anything that makes you believe that?"

She shook her head.

"Too smart," she said, again with the look over my shoulder, seeing him and all his motives and moves through a whole different looking glass. "He'd be way too smart for that."

I still didn't know for sure where she was coming from, but I did know there was something under the surface. Even if your boyfriend has jerked you around and done you wrong, you don't accept the accusation that he's a killer this easily.

"But he wasn't smart enough with you," I said, hoping it would come.

"No, he wasn't," she said, and the anger she was holding flashed into her eyes. "He raped me. And I let him."

Christ, I thought. As a cop, I had heard the accusation of rape fly from the mouths of a lot of women. The word still stung, just the thought of it, even when it had a ring of untruth. But this wasn't an accusation. It was an admission. Marci turned her face away from me. Some guy at the other end of the bar banged his glass on the wood. I looked down at him and the expression on my face made him return his attention to the bottom of his glass for further study.

Marci did not move, no sobs, not even a snuffle. The blonde ponytail, for Christ's sake, made her look like a college girl. I put my hand on her shoulder and she did not flinch, just rotated the stool back to me and her eyes were dry.

"So what do you need to know?" she said.

The rape had taken place two nights before. She had not gone to the hospital, so there was no rape kit. She had come home and scrubbed herself in the shower after throwing up in the gutter. She had slept with Morrison several times over the last couple of months and it wouldn't make any difference, she said. They'd call it consensual, she said: "And they'd be right. I let it happen."

I kept shaking my head no. She was turning on herself, giving him a way out. I needed the strong side of her.

"Don't go there, Marci. Husbands get convicted of raping their wives. Don't go there," I said. "You can file charges against him."

I tried to make my voice sound convincing, even while she kept shaking her head no, no, no.

"Where did this happen, Marci?" I said, still thinking evidence, evidence.

"Out in the Glades," she said. "Way out past the toll booth on the Alley."

"All right. Do you think you could find it again, this place out in the Glades?"

She shook her head, still facing the length of the bar away from me and the other men now began to take notice.

"There's no way I would recognize it. It was dark when he took me there. It's an unmarked turnoff."

"Had he taken you there before?" I asked. Every human has a pattern, does what he does in a way or in a place that he considers a comfort zone. The bars, the women running the show in those bars, the night as cover.

She nodded her head and turned away, picked up the empty shot glass but did not move to fill it.

"You'll never find it," she said.

I looked across at myself in the mirror. I knew I could take this all to Richards. God knows she'd be all over Morrison if she thought she could substantiate another officer raping a woman. She'd shot and killed the last one.

But I also knew the system, the PBA lawyers, the disparagement of the victim, the drawn out court process with filings and cross- filings. My own mother had taken a more direct route to justice and I'd praised her for it. If there were other victims, they too would be buried forever in the paperwork. If Morrison was our guy, it might be the best chance to come up with evidence to give those girls and their families some justice. If Morrison wasn't our guy, at least we'd have the chance to nail his ass.

I knew I was freelancing on this. I'd have to tell Richards in either case, but not yet.

"All right. Then there's another way," I said. "But it would involve some risk-to you."

She turned around and her eyes were dry and hard.

"Then I'm in."

I set up surveillance on Kim's across the street in the movie house parking lot. I could see the west side door to the bar and the two south exits of the shopping center. O'Shea had borrowed an unmarked Camaro from the security firm he worked for and was on the other side with a sight line to the front door of the bar and the east and north exits. Marci was inside, setting up her boyfriend.

As far as O'Shea knew, we were tagging Morrison and the girl with the chance of finding a drug connection. That's what I'd told him when I recruited him, but I wasn't dumb enough not to think he was stringing the pieces together. But I'd convinced myself that even if I was wrong, I wasn't giving him any outs. O'Shea would still be there, and the fact that he was willing to spend this much time with me was easing my doubts that he was the man Richards thought he was.

We had sketched out a plan that was simple and believable because the bulk of it was true. I'd learned a long time ago that the trick to getting confidential informants to lie well was to give them enough truth to sell it.

All I wanted Marci to do was to call Morrison, tell him that she had gotten a personal visit from the tall guy who'd been with the woman detective. When he asked her what I'd talked about, she needed to convince him she was too scared to tell him over the phone. That she needed to see him. I didn't need to instruct her to sound scared. She was tough, she was angry, but her fear was real. She did exactly as we had planned and Morrison told her he'd be by before the end of her shift. She called me. I called O'Shea.