The 5th Horseman

Chapter 25

I DROVE MY EXPLORER home in the dark, feeling female, not female cop. I had to see the world through Caddy Girl’s eyes if I wanted to understand what had happened to her. But it was horrific to imagine being that vulnerable to the will of violent men. Two of them, two animals.

I grabbed my Nextel out of its clip on my belt and called Jacobi before more time passed. He answered on the first ring, and I filled him in on what Claire had told me.

“So I’m guessing she found herself in a room with a couple of guys who had sex on their mind,” I said, braking for a light at the next street corner. “They got pushy — and Caddy Girl resists, rebuffs them. So one of the guys puts roofies into her Chardonnay.”

“Yeah,” Jacobi agreed. “Now she’s so stoned she can’t move. Maybe she even blacks out. They take her clothes off, spray her with perfume, take turns having sex on her.”

“Maybe they’re afraid she might remember the assault,” I said, my thoughts neatly in sync with those of my former partner. “They’re not totally stupid. Maybe they’re very smart, actually. They want to kill her without leaving a lot of evidence. One guy burks her; the other makes sure she’s dead by suffocating her with a plastic bag. A nice clean kill.”

“Yup, sounds right, Boxer. Maybe after she’s dead, they reload and do her again,” Jacobi said. “Figure a little necrophilia never hurt anyone. Then what? They dress her in five thousand bucks’ worth of clothes and take her for a ride? Drop her off in Guttman’s Seville?”

“That’s the craziest part of it all,” I said. “I don’t get it about the clothes. The clothes thing throws everything off for me.”

“Claire didn’t have the results on the DNA?”

“Not yet. You know, if Caddy Girl was the mayor’s wife, we’d know something by now. But since nobody’s even reported her missing . . .”

“Good-looking girl like that,” said Jacobi. I could hear a tinge of sadness in his voice. Some small revelation of loneliness. “Someone should be missing her.”