The White Angel Murder

51

Stanton, Jessica, Chin Ho, Harlow and Tommy sat around the conference room table and each looked at the composite drawing. It had already been uploaded into the VICAP database and a search was running to match facial features with mugshots. Sherman had not been transported from the local jail this morning on Harlow’s orders.

“It’s fucking him,” Harlow said. “No doubt about it. Jon?”

“There’s definitely a resemblance, but, I don’t know. He doesn’t meet the profile. He’s successful, comes from a good family, is highly educated. I think the person we’re looking for is a loser, heavy drinker, going from job to job … but there is rage in him. I can see it whenever I talk to him. I just don’t know.”

Ho interrupted, “We pulled his rap. There was nothing on there but just to be sure, we did a check for expungements too. He has a forcible sodomy on a child charge from eight years back. The case was dismissed from lack of evidence and he got the charging documents expunged and sealed.”

“Jessica, what’s your take?”

“He’s a slime ball. The first time he met me he asked me out and when I said no he asked if there was any amount of money he could pay me to have anal sex. He offered me fifty thousand dollars.”

“Wow,” Tommy said, “for fifty grand he could have anal sex with me.”

There was an awkward, subdued, laugh, more a relief from tension than a response to humor.

“Well,” Harlow said, “unless we got something better we’re following up on this. There’ll be two teams on him but I don’t want any of you involved in the actual take-down.”

“Chief,” Ho said, “maybe we should surveil him first? We’ve got enough for an arrest warrant but not enough for a jury. We need more.”

“You don’t think he’ll crack?”

“No.”

Harlow pointed to Stanton. “I once saw him break open the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. Three hundred pound Hell’s Angel that raped and killed his girlfriend’s sister by smashing her head in with a rock. Refused to talk, even to tell us his name. Jon came in to the interrogation room and put the rock on the table and just leaned back in the chair and waited. He waited for seventeen hours, and didn’t say a thing. The guy broke down and started talking, he couldn’t take anymore.”

“I’d still like to tag him for awhile.”

“There’s no guarantee, Mike,” Stanton said. “He’s clever. He might not talk.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. I want him picked up. He’s got money and friends. If he gets a whiff that we’re on to him he might be in Guatemala by the time we get our act together. I’ll email Judge Hilder and get the arrest warrant and warrant for his house. You guys get ready to make him talk. Anything else? No? All right, let’s make it happen.”

As everyone filed out, Stanton picked up the composite drawing. Add about twenty pounds with a bigger forehead and there wasn’t a doubt: it was Hunter Royal.