Chapter 26

Rachael was just about to knock on the front door for the third time when she heard the unmistakable sound of shuffling footsteps approach the door and then pause.

She stepped back so whoever was approaching could see her through the peephole. The sound of the lock disengaging came and then the door swung open, revealing a man who appeared to be in his late thirties with curly brown hair, rapidly thinning along the top. He peered at her curiously through thick glasses. He had an annoyed look on his face that suggested he had been interrupted at something. “Yes?"

“Excuse me, sir, but I wasn't given a last name and I was told I could find a man named Charley here?” Rachael asked, putting on the charm with a big smile.

The man appeared to flinch, his eyes moving up and down her body, sizing her up.

He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blue T-shirt with white tennis shoes. He was at least eighty pounds overweight, pear-shaped and corpulent. She could see what Mr.

Sanchez meant by how he described Charley as a fairy. Charley looked like the kind of bespectacled, physically unattractive shy geeks she knew in school; the kind of boys who were outsiders, not because they were mean or deserved to be friendless, but because something about them drew the bullies to pick on them, thus making them social misfits.

Through no fault of their own they had no friends, and others had seen them as simply weird or ignored them altogether. Charley reminded her of those boys in junior high and high school that she always felt sorry for.

And although it was very faint, there was something familiar about him that she couldn't place.

“Y-yes, I'm Charley,” he said, hesitantly. He was still blocking the doorway with his body, still eyeing her figure nervously, and it was hard to see in the darkened interior of the house. “What can I do for you?"

“I'm sorry to bother you,” Rachael said, putting on her best smile and trying to sound very much like a professional to put him at ease, “but I'm a private investigator.”

She quickly introduced herself, presenting her fake investigator credentials. “I've been hired by the family of Carmen Aguirre to investigate her disappearance and it's come to my attention that you knew her casually. Do you have time to talk to me?"

Charley opened his mouth as if to say no; his eyes had widened slightly in surprise at the sound of Carmen's name and she thought she detected a slight tightening up of his body posture, as if he had just weathered a shock. Rachael smiled reassuringly and Charley closed his mouth, glanced back into the house, then looked back out at Rachael.

He looked nervous. “I suppose I can. You're not a cop or anything, are you?"

“Nope. Just a private investigator.” She smiled and held up her hand, her first two fingers extended up. “Scout's honor."

Charley licked his lips and nodded. “Okay. That asshole at Top's where Carmen worked at called the cops on me when she disappeared. He thinks I had something to do with her disappearance and I don't."

“Okay. Why don't you tell me what you know, Mr..."

“Glowacz,” Charley said. “Charley Glowacz."

Rachael smiled. “Okay, Mr. Glowacz. Can I have a minute of your time then so I can ask you a few questions?"

Charley took another glance behind him, then turned back to Rachael, nodding.

He still looked a nervous but he opened the front door and stepped aside. “Sure. Come on in. We can talk in my room."

Rachael stepped inside the darkened house.

As Charley Glowacz led her through to the back of the house, Rachael paused and motioned toward the darkened living room. “Mr. Glowacz, we can talk here in the living room—"

“It's better if we talk back here,” Charley said, opening the door to his room at the beginning of the hallway. He turned toward her, smiling. “My mother's been sick and she's in the bathroom right now. She's been resting in the living room and we wouldn't have any privacy. Come on, I won't bite."

Rachael showed only slight hesitation; she gave a nervous smile and entered Charley's bedroom, purse slung over her shoulder. Charley closed the door behind him and deftly locked it with a push of his thumb.

His heart raced madly in his chest. His skin felt warm, flushed. She was here. In his room. With him.

From the moment he first saw her, Charley had been captivated by her. He had been fantasizing about her ever since he had first laid eyes on her, and now she was here in the house for the first time, speaking to him, looking at him. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman; her skin was a creamy mocha color—not too dark, not too light—and her eyes were big and deep brown. Her hair was black and thick. She was wearing a pair of black, loose fitting slacks, and a cream-colored blouse. Her body looked beautiful beneath the clothes, but what really captivated Charley about her was her face. It was simply angelic. Her lips were red and the way they turned up in a smile when she looked at him melted his heart. She was simply beautiful.

He had to have her.

She had to help him ... ?

“Have a seat,” Charley said, motioning to the sofa. “Can I get you anything to drink?"

“No, I'm fine.” Rachael sat down on the couch and Charley sat on the opposite end, his undivided attention turned to her.

Charley's skin was tingling as he sat down beside her. Another rush went through him as she smiled at him. Those deep, dark eyes locked on his. She's attracted to me, Charley thought, looking away toward the entertainment center. Nobody's ever looked at me like that before.

“So what do you want to ask me?” Charley asked, turning back to her and trying to keep his excitement down.

“Just a few things.” Rachael extracted a pen and pad of paper from her purse. She leaned forward from her spot on the couch, looking at him as she talked. “I got your name and address from Mr. Sanchez, the owner of Tops. He...” She tried to look sympathetic.

“...didn't have very nice things to say about you, Mr. Glowacz."

“Yeah, I bet,” Charley said. “That bastard's been giving me the evil eye ever since Carmen disappeared."

“Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with Carmen Aguirre?"

Charley took a breath, wondering where to start first. He didn't want to tell her the truth; that would make him sound really pathetic. He decided to embellish a little of the truth. “I didn't know her all that well,” he started. “I just knew her from Top's. I go in there every other day for lunch, and we started talking right away. She's a very nice girl."

“That's what I've been told,” Rachael said, smiling at him.

“Yeah, well she was. And that's really all I knew about her. I'd go in and order lunch, we'd make small talk, that sort of thing. I really didn't know her that well at all."

“Mr. Sanchez said that a few weeks before she disappeared that you asked her out,” Rachael said, writing something down in her note pad. She looked up at Charley.

“Can you tell me a little about that?"

Charley felt himself turning red at the mention of the incident. “I guess I did,” he managed, smiling stupidly. Think! Explain that to her. Give her something more satisfactory than I guess I did, you idiot! “It was nothing, really,” he said, stammering over his words. “It's just that ... I ... I ... well, we were talking about movies and...” he cast his eyes down at the floor, feeling nervous. “...just got so into talking about the kinds of....

well, the kind of.... of movies we liked that I ... I ... asked her if she wanted to someday go to the movies together.” He looked back up at her, as if seeking approval from a parent.

“That's really all it was."

Rachael was nodding, writing down some more notes. He watched her write in her notepad, noting her pursed lips lightly touched with lipstick. How he would love to kiss those lips, feel them kissing him all over his body. His breath rose as the image centered on his mind. He shifted his weight on the couch.

When she looked back at him she looked different. She smiled at him again, but it seemed false. It wasn't the same as before. “So you never went out with her then?"

“No,” Charley heard himself answering. His voice sounded like it was coming from another dimension. “I never asked her again."

“How did you feel after that?” Rachael asked, and now he felt his limbs tighten because she was really looking at him differently now. Her gaze was scrutinizing.

“How do you think I felt?” he heard himself answer. “I was crushed."

Rachael's smile dimmed. She looked at him funny. “Are you okay, Mr. Glowacz?"

“I'm fine.” Charley smiled. His heart was beating so hard in his chest that it felt like it was going to burst out of it. “I'm really a nice guy."

Now Rachael frowned. “I didn't say that you weren't a nice guy, Mr. Glowacz.

What made you feel I would think otherwise?"

He was nervous and he could feel his throat tighten up. His hands were shaking as he scooted closer to her on the couch. He tried to act casual, tried to make it seem like he was just being normal and friendly. He laid his hand on her knee; he felt her flinch at his touch. “Listen,” he began, “there's nothing to be afraid of."

Rachael's demeanor did an about-face. She moved off the couch, eyes on him, expression changed from one of friendliness to one of revulsion and fear. “Please, Mr.

Glowacz—"

Charley was up in an instant, moving toward her. “It's okay, you don't have to be afraid—” He put his hands on her shoulders. She threw her arm up, knocking his hand off her shoulder. Her eyes were wide with fright, nostrils flared like that of a wild animal.

She tried to retreat, but her back hit the wall. He was on her in an instant, trying to talk to her, tell her there was nothing to be afraid of and she began fighting him. He leaned his body weight against her and as she began to scream he clamped a hand over her mouth.

He locked his left hand on her throat and squeezed and this time she went ballistic. Pain exploded in his crotch as her knee met his balls, and the force of the blow collapsed him to the floor; but because his grip was on her throat he took her down with a loud thud.

Stars danced in his vision, and white-hot bolts of pain stabbed through his groin. It was the worst pain he had ever felt. For a moment he felt paralyzed.

He tried to move, the pain immobilizing him. Through the blurriness of his vision, he could dimly make out Rachael lying on the floor on her side, coughing hard, her hands at her throat. He closed his eyes and willed the pain away and it seemed to work. He moved his leg and a bolt of pain stabbed up through his belly. Through the din of his agony he could make out Rachael gagging, coughing, trying to speak, her voice guttural and deep. His vision cleared and now he could see that she was struggling to her knees.

He rolled over on his stomach and another bolt of pain stabbed through his gut, but this one was easier to fight off. He focused his mind past it and struggled to his knees.

When they came together again it was with a locking struggle as each one fought to gain the upper hand. Charley had the heel of us hand pressed up against her throat.

Christ, she's strong, he thought. Jesus, she's—

He drove his fist into her solar plexus and felt her hold on him crumple a little bit, and then time became a blur as they fought an almost silent dance of survival His hands shook as he took her out of the freezer, piece by piece. He laid her out gently on the floor until she was all there, and then he started rooting around in the workroom for that old patchwork quilt he had picked up the other day. He would bundle her up in that; it would keep her nice and cozy.

Trembling with anticipation, he picked up Carmen's torso and cradled it lovingly to his chest. He closed his eyes tightly, taking deep breaths that threatened to spill out into sobs. He held it in. He couldn't cry now. There was no room for crying. He had to be strong and face these next few steps like a man. He had to get through this if he ever wanted to attempt to try to get help. But first he had to deal with Carmen and the young man that he had gotten around Christmas—what was his name? Miguel something kept coming to his mind. Another young gang member. This one a drug dealer as well as a pimp, but also a man who had a more sophisticated sense of criminal sensibilities. Miguel Something had been one of the higher ups in the Eighteenth Street gang, a young man in his mid-twenties who called the shots to the younger street thugs who routinely shot each other up on L.A.'s streets. Miguel Something had been befriended quite easily. After all, Latino gang members, even from warring gangs, all had one thing in common.

Once he had gotten control of his emotions, he held Carmen's torso out from his body, admiring his handiwork. Unlike the others, he'd kept her torso more or less intact; he had only separated the limbs and head from her body. The portions he hadn't sampled he had kept in the freezer for future use and she had kept quite fresh, unlike Miguel who just seemed to rot no matter what he did to retard decomposition. He ran his left hand along Carmen's frozen, hard body, his thumb tracing around one full breast. He brought the torso up to his face and kissed each breast, pausing to suckle the cold, frozen meat of the nipples, before he set the torso down on the patchwork quilt. He held the tears in as he rapidly worked, wrapping the torso quickly and expertly in the patchwork quilt. The urge to fuck her one last time came and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. If he fucked her one last time he would keep her, and he couldn't keep her anymore so he continued wrapping her up in the quilt. When he was finished the patchwork quilt covered Carmen completely. Now for the rest of her.

He turned his attention to the arms and legs, which he had left on the floor. Taking a large piece of butcher's paper, which he had gotten from the house, he put a limb in each section of paper and wrapped it up expertly, fastening it with rubber bands that he got from a coffee can on the workbench. He wrapped each limb this way, and when he was done he placed them in a makeshift cardboard box he had constructed from two smaller boxes, the small box fitting into the larger one to create one awkward container.

He put the limbs inside the box and pushed the two together, closing their contents up. He picked up the now one awkward box and shook the contents. Carmen's arms and legs jumbled around inside.

Picking up the patchwork quilt, he carried it outside to the truck and put it in the front seat.

Now it was Miguel Something's turn. The wet smell of decay and rotting flesh rose up to him and he breathed it in, reveling in the smell. He had lost himself in Miguel for awhile, but now it was time to get rid of him, too. He wrapped what was left of Miguel's arms and legs in pieces of newspaper. Then he turned his attention to what remained of his still intact vertebrae, pelvis and ribcage. He had gotten some good mileage out of Miguel.

The only thing that had disappointed him was when Miguel ran out of edible parts. He had been rather tasty.

He put Miguel in the car then checked his watch. There was an empty field five blocks from here. It would take less than two minutes to drive over, dump Carmen and Miguel, and drive back. He considered leaving them in the freezer, but he really had to get rid of them. For one, he couldn't be caught red-handed. And two, dumping them would go along with his plans; it would only serve to confuse the police even more.

He went back inside the house and checked on things real quick. Satisfied, he darted back out, got into the van, started it up and backed it down the driveway.

The drive to the dump spot took less than a minute.

The field was situated at the end of a lonely cul-de-sac, nestled in the valley right behind Dodger Stadium. The other side of the lot sat on a fairly busy intersection, but the back end of it rested against a lower class residential street. A quiet street. Nobody had seen him pull up and nobody would see him drive out. At one-thirty a.m., the area was dead quiet. He put the truck in park, rolled down the window, and began throwing Carmen and Miguel out the window as far as he could. Their various body parts landed well within the field, and that satisfied him just fine. The way people were so oblivious to things, that might go overlooked for quite some time.

When he finished he pulled away from the curb and drove away slowly. He couldn't attract unwanted attention.

It had been a hellish night. The urge to do another one had been so strong with him that he had succumbed to it earlier. But it was his decision to end it all tonight, which had prompted him to make some important decisions; he knew they would be investigating Carmen's disappearance more thoroughly very soon, and Miguel was starting to smell really rank. Besides, that old bitch would start getting suspicious with Miguel's stench seeping through the walls.

He had almost been derailed when that Rachael Pearce bitch starting nosing around. And look where that led to? He'd had to take extreme measures, but he did take care of the problem. He had even gotten rid of that old bitch, too; mother surely wouldn't be bugging him anymore.

He turned the radio on and turned it to a classic rock station. The Cars were singing about how they needed Candy-O. He hummed along as he drove home, pushing everything he had been worrying about out of his mind, knowing that he had gotten over the worst of it.

Besides, he had other matters to attend at home.

He smiled as he drew closer to home, the plan falling into place.

It was going to work just perfectly.

From now on, things were going to work out just fine.

Two a.m.

Daryl Garcia was worried.

He was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee. He had brewed a pot forty minutes ago to counter-affect the remaining fifth of bourbon he had killed. All the lights in the house were on, blazing bright in the stark white of the living room. Petey was sitting at Daryl's feet, looking up every once in a while with that sad-eyed look dogs sometimes get. Daryl wasn't paying attention to him. Today had been a tough day. He and Steve had been called in to participate in a raid in East Los Angeles on some gang members and he was still wearing the Level II Kevlar bullet-proof vest under his shirt. In fact, he'd only arrived home from the raid two hours ago. His eyes were red and his back hurt.

And he was worried sick because Rachael wasn't home yet.

He had tried calling her a hundred times on her cell phone but she never answered. He had just tried again fifteen minutes ago but all he got was the endless ringing. With rising dread he'd hung up the phone and sat at the kitchen table, staring out into the living room, wondering where the hell she was and coming up with all kinds of ways to verbally kick her ass when she walked in the door for worrying him so much.

She would have called me if she were going to be late, he thought. She would have called me if there had been a change of plans. If she decided to head by the office, if she had run into an accident, she would have found a way to call me. If she had been in an accident somebody would have called me—she keeps our phone numbers with her at all times and all one had to do would be to use the cell phone to alert me. But try as he might come up with different scenarios to explain why none of these things had happened, a small part of Daryl told him that something more ominous had taken place. That the reason he hadn't heard from Rachael yet was because she was—

No! Don't think that, don't even think that—

Fifteen minutes after getting her last phone call he had gotten a call from Bernie Haskins. Daryl had told Bernie what Rachael had just relayed to him—he could tell the agent this because Agent Haskins was the only investigator on the team that actually believed that Rachael helping out in the investigation through her research for the book was a good thing. Everybody else gave that sentiment lip service but they didn't mean it.

Bernie Haskins meant it. Bernie found the information interesting. “Highland Park, huh?

You know, she might be on to something there."

“I think she might be,” Daryl had agreed.

The signal on Bernie's cellular phone began to grow weak. Bernie told him he'd call him when he got home, and rang off.

Bernie called three and a half hours later.

“You're not going to believe this,” he'd said, sounding excited. “But I really think Rachael is on something."

“What?” Daryl had thought it had been Rachael calling, and that had been the beginning of his worry. Nevertheless, he listened to what Bernie had to say.

“I thought about what you told me, so I thought I would swing by the area our last victim was last seen,” Bernie said. “I headed out to Highland Park, did some poking around and guess what I found out?"

“What for Christsakes?” Bernie's excitement was getting on his nerves.

“Charley Glowacz,” Bernie said, letting the last name trill out of his tongue.

“Why's that name sound familiar?"

“Glowacz...” Daryl said, letting the name trip off his tongue. Where the hell was Rachael? “Fuck if I know."

“Charley Glowacz is Father John Glowacz's older brother,” Bernie said, a grin in his voice. “I had to do some real poking around to get a last name, but luckily one of the strip club owners I talked to knew Charley's last name. He and his mother both attend services at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Charley occasionally volunteers for church activities like coaching weekend basketball games with the youth groups at the church. It's a wonder he wasn't questioned, but I can see why he wasn't. While he attends Our Lady of Guadalupe, his input at volunteering is sporadic. He's a very invisible parishioner at that parish."

Daryl was stunned. He couldn't focus on his thoughts. He was still worried about Rachael and getting more worried as the minutes ticked. The news that Charley was Father Glowacz's younger brother was a revelation.

“Like I said, I had a hunch,” Bernie continued. “So I went down to Highland Avenue, near Broadway and Fifty-fourth Street and I canvassed the strip area. I went into some of the bars there, the topless places, the X-rated video joints, and talked to as many of the proprietors and patrons that frequent the place that I could. I described Charley to them and asked if they had ever seen him around, and all of them unanimously said that he's a regular in the area. One of the people I questioned, a guy that runs Ken's Adult Video and Books Emporium, says that Charley comes in every other day. He looks through the magazines, buys a couple, then spends about twenty dollars or so in the coin operated video booths."

Daryl shrugged. “Nothing wrong to frequent an adult bookstore, Bernie."

“True. Only everybody I talked to that claimed they had seen Charley also told me they had funny feelings about him. That he was a weird character. The bouncers at the topless bars all said that they keep a close eye on him when he comes in; they say that he gives the girls the creeps."

Daryl was quiet for a moment. “Does anybody recall if they saw him around March 26 when Amanda Young was last seen in the area?"

“Absolutely,” Bernie said with bated breath. “Everybody I talked to at Ken's video, the guys that run it, the bouncers at the strip club across the street, even some of the hookers that work the area, all agreed that they saw Charley in the area earlier that evening.” He paused. “I think this is a fantastic lead, Daryl. All we need now is probable cause, an address where we can trace him to begin surveillance."

It was then that Daryl told Bernie that Rachael was following up on that now and that he was expecting her back any minute. He told him that as soon as he heard something he would call Bernie back. “I'll be home all night. Whatever time it is, I don't care if it's three in the morning, call me.” Daryl promised he would and hung up.

That had been two hours ago.

He picked up the phone again and dialed Rachael's cell phone number.

It rang fourteen times, fifteen, sixteen ... ?

After thirty rings he hung up.

The knot of tension in his stomach tightened. Something was very wrong.

He sat at the kitchen table in a dilemma, undecided at what to do. Part of him wanted to leave the house and look for her himself, start in Highland Park and drive around, hoping to find her somewhere. He could leave a note at the house in case she came home explaining where he went. He couldn't just sit here; he was edgy, his nerves demanding that he get up and do something. But the problem with that was that he had nowhere to go. It was two in the morning; Tops was closed, and most likely everything else. Without a lead to go by to find Charley Glowacz, he was at a dead end. He could go to headquarters and try typing Charley's name in the computers to see if a record popped up, but—

That's it! He rose from the table and headed for the living room for his shoes and socks. Petey rose to his feet and followed Daryl into the living room, whimpering. Daryl donned his socks and shoes quickly, his mind on overdrive. He would check the computers for a criminal record, and if Charley was in the computer he would head to the Glowacz residence. He didn't give a rat fuck if he woke the man and his mommy up or not. He was worried about Rachael, dammit, and he didn't give a fuck about department protocol now. If Glowacz's address wasn't in the computer system, he would try tapping into the DMV computer database. He didn't know if any of the department's computer gurus were in this late, but it was worth a try. Petey stayed at his side the whole time, still making those whining noises. Daryl paused and patted the dog. “Everything's going to be okay, boy,” he said. “I'll be right back.” Checking to make sure he had his wallet and keys, he scrawled a quite note for Rachael, left it on the kitchen table, retrieved his department issued Glock and shield, and let himself out of the house.

He entered the garage, his mind on one thing and one thing only. He was just reaching for the garage door opener when he heard a voice call out from the darkness in front of him. “Hey motherfucker, remember me?"

Everything happened so fast that he didn't have time to track it. He was able to make out a dim shadow popping out from behind the car fifteen feet in front of him and while it was hard in the darkness to make out discernable features for some reason he knew that it was Rudy Montego, the gang member he and Steve had busted almost two years ago for that cowardly attack in Echo Park. He heard the gunshot, then he felt the slug pound into his chest, knocking him back against the wall. He heard and felt two more shots plug into his abdomen and the last thing he remembered before the world went black was a sharp yell that abruptly cut off.

The next time Charley was aware of anything he was sitting on the floor in the first bedroom of his living quarters, rocking back and forth and cradling something in his lap.

His vision slowly came to focus and the first thing he saw was that his entertainment center was in shambles. Books and video-cassettes had been thrown to the floor. He felt something hard, round, and wet in his lap—the thing he was holding—and looked down at it.

Mother's head gazed up at him.

Charley screamed. He screamed and wailed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes to try to shut the ugly scene out of his mind. But when he opened his eyes again the image remained. Covered in blood, sitting on the floor in his room, cradling his mother's severed head in his lap.

A muffled noise caught his attention and he turned to the right. The bathroom door was closed and something pounded on the door from the other side. A trail of blood led to the closed bathroom door and Charley noticed with growing horror that a large, bloodstained butcher knife lay on the floor. The muffled thumping sounds came from the closed bathroom door again, followed by a scream. “No, nonononononoooo!"

Rachael Pearce.

“Stay away from me! Stay the fuck away from me!"

Charley didn't remember chasing Rachael into the bathroom. He didn't remember killing mother. He didn't remember trying to kill Rachael, either, but he must have as evident from the trail of blood that led to the now locked bathroom door where she had barred herself. But he must have. All he remembered was his fight with Rachael in his bedroom, then the flash of the knife and then his mind went blank. The next thing he remembered was sitting on the floor with mother's head in his lap.

Charley started crying. It was worse then he thought. He had been bottling up the hateful feelings toward mother for a long time now, and he seriously thought he had solved the problem tonight. He was going to take Rachael, take some of his stuff, and get the hell out of here. He had decided that the minute Rachael sat down on his sofa. She was the answer to his problems. If he could only have her she would help him. He had no intention of harming her; he just wanted to take her, take them both away from the pressures of the city, from the world. She would be his completely.

But something must have happened to set him off.

Charley closed his eyes, trying to remember what happened.

He and Rachael struggling.

The flash of the blade as it entered flesh....

Oh my God!

Realization set in. It rocked Charley hard. He gasped, broke into a sob.

His mind went blank.

He rocked back and forth, sitting cross-legged on the floor, cradling mother's head in his lap.

His eyes were fixed straight ahead. They saw nothing.

He rocked back and forth.

Back and forth ... ?

...back and forth ... ?

...back and ... ?