All The Pretty Girls Ch. 04

Mitch held onto her and kissed her, forcing every scintilla of pleasure out of the moment.

When they had both descended from the pinnacle of their climaxes Mitch lay on top of the woman panting; his cock still inside her. The woman lay back with her legs open wide, her head on the pillows, smiling up at him.

"That was good. I usually don't come but that was amazing. You have a great cock," the woman had a vacuous grin that Mitch didn't like.

His reached out and found his jacket; his fingers went searching in the pockets.

"Yes that was good. Different," Mitch smiled down at her.

She patted his back like he was a dog. He hated it.

"I said I wasn't going to hurt you," Mitch stroked her cheek.

The woman smiled up at him and nodded.

"I lied," Mitch slipped the nylons over her head so fast that she hardly knew what was happening.

He wound them around her neck and pulled them as tight as he could. When the lights went out in her eyes he ejaculated inside her again.

That was much better.

*****

Penelope had just completed her morning run around City Park when the bike messenger approached her. He skidded to a stop beside her.

"Are you Penelope Bishop?" the young man asked.

"That's me," Penelope was half bent over with her hands on her knees catching her breath.

"You've been served," the messenger slapped the thick envelope into her hands and cycled away.

"Fucking asshole," Penelope slammed the envelope down on her desk in the Task Force office.

Steve Edwards and Alice Leasingham looked up at her but said nothing. They knew better than to talk to Penelope when she was in one of her moods. She would either tell them what was pissing her off or she wouldn't.

"Bradley fucking Wilson is suing me for divorce on the grounds of adultery and uncommon grounds based on alcohol abuse and professional misconduct," Penelope seethed.

Penelope was still dressed in her running clothes: black tights, pink spandex sports top and running shoes. Her suit was still in the car. She had intended to shower and change at work. She was getting back into her old routine, getting her life back in order.

"You wanna take the day? Get yourself together? Talk to a lawyer?" Steve asked.

"No! Yes! Fuck it! Yes I'll take the day thanks Steve," she snatched up the letter and left the office.

Jaylene Foster had finished her classes and was walking towards the gates of Balwyn College amid a crowd of students when she saw Penelope Bishop parked on the side of the road. Penelope was leaning on her car. She was wearing a bright short-sleeved dress with a floral pattern, tan hose and low heels. Her makeup was lighter than usual and she had let out her blonde hair.

When she saw Jaylene a beatific smile spread on her face.

Jaylene approached her cautiously. She was surprised to see Penelope waiting for her outside of the college. Did she have news about the case? She certainly wasn't dressed for work.

Jaylene was surprised when Penelope reached out and took her hand and leaned in and kissed her cheek. She was wearing a flowery perfume and smelled delightful.

"Is everything ok?" Jaylene asked.

Penelope had not let go of Jaylene's hand and their fingers were entwined like young lovers.

"Everything is fine. I have a picnic in the car. Wanna come?" Penelope gently squeezed Jaylene's fingers.

"Penelope. Everyone can see us. People know who you are," Jaylene whispered.

"Fuck everyone," Penelope leaned in and kissed Jaylene full on the mouth.

A small group of college students applauded and whistled.

"You go girl!" a young woman called out cheerfully.

Penelope and Jaylene found a sunny spot in a grove of Box Elders and spread out a blanket on the grass. From their hilltop position Penelope could see the fountain where she had twice met Melissa Doyle but Melissa wasn't in Penelope's thoughts.

Jaylene helped Penelope unpack the picnic basket they had carried from the car.

"I haven't been on a picnic since I was a little boy. I imagined I was actually a little girl. A princess on a hill looking down at my castle," Jaylene blushed as she told Penelope her story.

"At least one pleasant memory form your childhood then?" Penelope smiled.

"Yeah. That was before I told my parents that I was a girl trapped in a boy's body," Jaylene frowned.

"Sorry," Penelope gave her a wan smile.

"What for? It's not your fault," Jaylene squeezed Penelope's hand.

"This is weird. I've never had anybody meet me after school and take me on a date," Jaylene blushed.

"Now I feel like a paedophile," Penelope laughed.

"The age difference isn't that much," Jaylene said.

"Ten years," Penelope sighed.

"Now I feel stupid," Penelope bowed her head.

"I think you're wonderful," Jaylene scooted closer, on her knees.

She lifted Penelope's face and kissed her softly.

"I think you're wonderful too. I used to tease Silvia about being a U-Haul lesbian and here I am behaving just like one," Penelope blushed.

"Oh you are sweet. Now let's eat I'm starving," Jaylene giggled.

They ate sandwiches and drank iced tea and Penelope told Jaylene the parts of her life story that she had omitted the last time they were together, concluding with being served divorce papers that very morning.

"What are you going to do?" Jaylene asked.

They were both lying on the blanket looking up at the big blue sky which was slowly darkening.

"I'm not going to contest it. He want's half of everything and that's fair; he brought most of the stuff to the marriage anyway. I'll sell the house and still have enough for an apartment when I give him his half," Penelope sighed.

"It's really over?" Jaylene asked.

"It was over before it was over. We both knew it. My misstep with Melissa Doyle wasn't the cause of our breakup it was a symptom," Penelope turned to face Jaylene.

"I feel a little intrusive; like I'm peeking behind the curtain into someone else's house," Jaylene confessed.

"I want you to know everything about me. I know everything about you," Penelope said sagely.

"Why?" Jaylene inched closer.

"Because I feel something for you and I think you feel something for me. We didn't just fuck the other night. We made love. We shared intimate secrets," Penelope replied.

They kissed. Softly at first and then it became passionate. Jaylene was wearing tight jeans and a letterman's jacket over a t-shirt. She hadn't tucked and Penelope could feel her becoming tumescent.

"Do you want to come back to my place?" Penelope whispered.

Jaylene nodded.

They lay in Penelope's big bed exhausted by their lovemaking; their clothes left a trail from the front door to the foot of the bed.

Penelope was lying on her side propped on one elbow; her finger lazily circled the areola of Jaylene's right breast.

"Is it too early in our relationship to say that I love you?" Penelope breathed.

Jaylene froze. She didn't reply.

The silence in the room was unnerving. Penelope could hear her own heartbeat.

"I have to go to work," Jaylene pushed herself to the edge of the bed and sat up.

"Don't," Penelope reached out and stroked Jaylene's bare back.

"I have to," Jaylene whispered.

"You don't have to. Stay here," Penelope's voice was hushed.

Jaylene turned and leaned down and kissed Penelope on the forehead.

Penelope watched her pick up her clothes and get dressed. Jaylene left the room without looking back. When Penelope heard the front door close she began to cry.

*****

Penelope's phone rang and she snatched it off the nightstand.

"Holliday's over. We've caught another one. It's an old Texaco out on Route 190; I'll text you the coordinates," Steve's voice came through the phone.

Penelope ate a banana in the car on her way to the scene. That was breakfast. She hadn't slept well last night because she had been woken by the sound of Ellery Gamble's motorbike revving incessantly in her driveway at the change of shift. She'd come to the door carrying her service weapon and they had a huge fight which ended with Ellery calling her a drunken tranny skank, telling her he wanted nothing to with her, which suited Penelope entirely.

The boy was immature and selfish. She hadn't had a drink for over a week but he hadn't noticed and he didn't mind that she was skank when he was bending her over a car out in the Longhorn's parking lot. She was glad it was finally over.

Penelope was more concerned about her budding relationship with Jaylene Foster. Had she gone too far telling Jaylene that she loved her? She needed to clear her mind and get her head in the game.

The scene at the Texaco station was chaotic. There were police vehicles of all descriptions parked on the concrete apron, their rooftop light bars flickered lazily. The whole abandoned service station was roped off with police tape and uniformed officers were patrolling the perimeter because somehow the news services had found out. News trucks with satellite dishes were parked just off the entrance ramp. Stylishly dressed female reporters with short skirts, big hair and blowjob lips and handsome male reporters with fake tans and white teeth were taking into microphones using the old gas station as a backdrop.

One of the reporters recognised Penelope and made a beeline for her with his cameraman and sound guy running beside him. Penelope made it under the chequered tape just in time as the reporter began to yell questions at her. The questions were indistinct but she did hear the words serial killer and she bristled. She saw that Gary Rasmussen's service vehicle was parked amongst the melee and she knew that was not good.

Alice Leasingham came out of the ramshackle diner and helped Penelope with her Tyvek overboots and handed her a pair of latex gloves. She followed Alice's lead stepping on the crime scene tiles.

"We are pretty certain that it's him but this one is different," Alice said over her shoulder.

"Different how?" Penelope asked.

"I don't want to contaminate your thought processes so I'll let you evaluate the scene and make up your own mind," she said.

Penelope took in the carnage in the diner: the wrecked furniture, the detritus of young people and the homeless looking for a place to party or a place to crash. The stained and faded ancient advertising posters on the wall and the obligatory pornographic graffiti. Crime scene lights had been rigged, their brilliant LEDs lighting up the tableaux like an island in a sea of crud.

The usual suspects were in attendance: Bob Tanner and his CSI techs and Brendan Scott the medical examiner. Steve Edwards was having an animated conversation with Gary Rasmussen, the Chief of Detectives, off to one side.

Penelope managed to push her way through the CSI techs and stood at the base of the mattress and surveyed the scene. A young woman lay on the mattress. She had been displayed in a similar fashion to April Summers and Loretta Dubbin. Her hair was teased, her makeup heavy, her micro-miniskirt was rucked up around her waist displaying her purple satin panties and black stockings; her legs were lewdly spread wide. She was wearing fuck-me heels and a faux fur coat lay on the floor beside the mattress.

The woman's underwear and stockings were stained with what Penelope assumed was dried semen. It had also spattered on her skirt and on her satin blouse. The woman's countenance just screamed hooker.

There was a pair of pantyhose embedded in the flesh of the woman's neck.

Penelope was ashamed that she thought that the woman resembled Jaylene Foster when she was dressed for the street.

"Do you think it's him?" Bob Tanner had sidled up to her.

"Looks like the same MO. Definitely the same signatures," Penelope postulated.

"Look carefully," Bob said.

Penelope carefully scanned the scene and then she drew in a deep breath when she realised what Bob was alluding to.

"She's a genetic female," Penelope got down on her knees and edged closer to the corpse.

"Can I confirm that?" she looked up at Bob.

"Go ahead," he handed her a stainless steel extendible pointer.

Penelope used the tip of the pointer to move the crotch of victim's panties aside so she could see the woman did indeed have vulva. Penelope could see a gobbet of semen caught in the woman's labia.

She eased the panties back into place and got to her feet, handing the pointer back to Bob.

"I still think it's him. Same signatures, similar MO. Maybe he's morphing, serial killers sometimes change their MO or maybe it was a case of mistaken identity? Maybe when he picked her up he thought she was trans?" Penelope opined.

"What do you think?" Steve Edwards came over standing uncomfortably close to Penelope on the crime scene mats.

"I was just saying to Bob, I still think it's our guy. Does she have any identification?" Penelope asked.

"None that we can find. I've been here since the crime scene unit arrived and we are in agreement that the signatures are identical to the other victims. Looks like consensual sex took place on the mattress then she was strangled and the perp spent some time with her sexually abusing her post mortem. The pantyhose around her neck look the same as the others. She screams hooker," Steve summed up the crime scene nicely.

"Besides the obvious difference that this woman is genetically female, there are ligature marks on her wrists and ankles indicating that she had been bound, most likely while she was being transported. Another significant change to his MO," Steve added.

Steve pointed to the cut cable tie beside the mattress.

"We found two more outside. Probably used to bind her legs, this one would have likely been used on her wrists," he pointed to the cable tie with the toe of his shoe.

"We found a vehicle round back which we believe the perp used to bring her here. We ran the plates. It was stolen eight days ago from outside a house in Forest Gardens," Steve referred to the tablet he was holding.

Just then one of the crime scene techs hurriedly made his way over to Bob Tanner looking excited. Steve, Penelope and Gary huddled next to him so they could hear what he had to say.

"It's him! It's the same perp from the Summers and Dubbin crime scenes," the tech said excitedly.

"I ran the prints we took from the lock and chain on the door and from the Toyota and they're a match. We'll have to wait a while for the DNA but it's him," the tech's excitement waned when he realised the importance of what he'd just said.

The CSI crime scene van was a wonder of technology. It was basically a mobile lab with a high speed satellite data feed. But with all this technology at their fingertips they were no closer to finding the killer.

Gary moved away from the scene and found a quiet corner in the diner to make calls. When he came back he looked sombre.

"I've been told to address the media outside. I'll do the talking but I want Bishop standing beside me," Gary was addressing Steve.

"I know that you're running lead on this but the victims are women and I want them to see that a policewoman is working the case. Also Bishop is well known to them from the Sleeping Beauty and Lipstick Killer cases. I want people to know we have our best working on this," Gary explained.

Steve nodded. It made sense.

"When they find out that all the victims were prostitutes and that two of them were transgender women a lot of sympathy for the victims will dissipate. If the crimes weren't so juicy the press wouldn't be so excited," Penelope stated the bleeding obvious.

"You know how this works Penelope. Stick to the usual tag lines and stay away from the specifics," Gary motioned for Penelope to follow him outside to meet the vultures.

Later that day in the Task Force office Steve and Alice were updating their crime wall with the specifics of their latest victim while Penelope worked on the computer trying to get a photo-match for their latest victim.

"I think I've found her," Penelope called out and Steve and Alice went over and looked over her shoulder at the screen.

"Pauline Sanders. Age 32. Originally from Denton Texas. She has raps for solicitation in Fort Worth and Dallas and has been cautioned here for soliciting outside of the Bridge Street free zone," Penelope pointed to the screen.

"I'll run her prints to confirm; they will be on file because she's been pinched," Alice went over to her work station.

"Steve! Check this out," Penelope had run the name Pauline Sanders through the Balwyn Police database and scored a hit on a lost property report.

"They found her purse in Bolen Alley just off Bridge Street," Penelope said pushing back her chair.

Steve followed Penelope down to the lost property section. Personal items handed in by the public were catalogued and efforts made to contact the owner if there was any form of ID or registration associated with the item. Unclaimed items eventually went into storage and were periodically auctioned if not claimed within a certain time period.

Penelope explained the situation to the Sergeant in charge, a veteran female officer who was close to retirement and happy to have an office job. She'd had her uniform tailored to fit her slim frame and was pushing the boundaries with her makeup and heels. She and Penelope had been drinking buddies at The Longhorn back when Penelope was running wild.

At Penelope's request the Sergeant handled the purse with latex gloves and put it in an evidence bag and had it entered into the system as evidence. Penelope then followed the proper chain of custody procedure and signed the evidence out along with the lost and found data sheet.

Back in the office Penelope carefully emptied the contents out of the purse onto a pristine white sheet of blotting paper, handling everything with gloves. She catalogued and photographed the contents: Pauline Sanders' drivers licence, a packet of Marlboro Menthol Lights, a disposable lighter, a packet of condoms, a tube of lubricant and a single unmarked house key.

She handed the purse to Alice to take away to be dusted for fingerprints and processed for DNA. She ran the driver's licence through the system and came up with a current address for Pauline Sanders in Balwyn. It wasn't far from where Jaylene Foster lived.

"What's the bet that that house key opens the door to Pauline Sanders' apartment?" Penelope picked up the unmarked key.

"Well it sure looked like a hooker's purse. All the tools of the trade but nothing of value, just her ID which she is legally required to carry," Steve commented.

"She'd keep her house key unmarked in case her purse got snatched or stolen," Penelope agreed.

"I'll get onto Denton PD and get them to standby to make a call on the next of kin once Brendan Scott makes the formal identification. Then let's go check out Bolen Alley where the purse was found and then Pauline's apartment. Looks like you and I have another date on Bridge Street interviewing hookers," Steve said.

Penelope nodded and picked up her handbag. They drove to Bolen Alley which connected to Bridge Street and parked where the lost and found report said the purse had been found, in the gutter next to a recycled clothing outlet.

The Alley was cruddy, half the premises along it were for let and the other half were typical for the district: second hand shops, pawnbrokers, bail bonds and payday loans.

There was nothing there to help them. They showed Pauline Sanders picture to a few of the proprietors near where the purse was found but no one knew her.

Steve bought up Google Maps and entered in the address they had for Pauline Sanders. He showed the screen to Penelope.

"If she was working Bridge Street and she lives here, she would have used this alley as a shortcut to get to work," Steve traced the route on the screen.

Penelope nodded and then she froze.

"Fuck! Get me to Balwyn College, now!" Penelope made a dash for the car pulling out her phone as she got in.