Warning Signs (Alexis Parker Book 19)

by G. K. Parks

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Landau is dead.” O’Connell looked up from his notepad. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Dead?” Summers appeared shocked. I just didn’t know if that was due to the news or because we’d connected the two men. “I don’t know. A few days ago.”

  “What is the nature of your relationship?” O’Connell asked.

  Summers bit his lip. “I told you. Victor designed this building.”

  “According to building records, construction finished on this office building eighteen months ago,” I said.

  “So?” Summers did his best to keep his cool. He had that arrogant mentality that came from too many years of practicing law, but he wasn’t used to dealing with law enforcement. He went head to head with other attorneys and administrative agencies, like the IRS. He didn’t deal with local law enforcement, but he tried to apply the same principles in order to make the problem go away. “We could have been discussing plans to expand.”

  “Sure.” O’Connell shrugged. “Don’t you want to know what killed him?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with me.” Summers’s gaze shifted to the door. “You can show yourselves out.”

  O’Connell stood. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Summers. Just one quick question before we go. Do the senior partners know about your involvement with Priapus?”

  Summers blanched.

  “It’d be a shame if that information got out,” I said, “but then again, it’s just a matter of time. Landau was killed because of his involvement with the sex club. And murder trumps NDAs.” I put the law book down that I’d been examining. “I’m sure you’re well aware of that.”

  O’Connell and I made it to the door before Summers shouted, “Wait. Let’s not be hasty. How did Victor die?”

  “The same way at least three other people have died in the last few months. They were poisoned during or soon after partaking in group sex.”

  “Jesus.” Summers ran a hand down his face and put his reading glasses back on. “Tell me it wasn’t that night.”

  “What night?” I asked.

  Summers spun his wedding band on his finger. I noted the tell, as did O’Connell. “Sunday.”

  “What time did you last see him?”

  “I should call my attorney,” Summers said.

  “You’re well within your rights to do so,” O’Connell said. “But at the moment, you aren’t under arrest. Do you think it’s necessary to get more people involved, given the sensitive nature of this situation?”

  Summers eyed the detective. “It was around eleven.”

  “Where did you meet?” I asked.

  Summers blinked a few times, determined to take control of the situation. He inhaled and stood up. “What’s it going to take to make this go away? I can’t have the senior partners find out about this. The firm won’t tolerate this kind of embarrassment.”

  O’Connell pretended to consider Summers’s proposal for a few moments. “Did you kill Victor Landau?”

  “No, sir. He was still alive when I left.”

  “What time was that?” O’Connell asked.

  “Around eleven. It could have been 10:30. I’m not sure. I wasn’t alone. I have an alibi.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  He spun his ring a few more times. “Buffy.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  Summers stared at a spot on the floor. “No.”

  “Last name,” O’Connell said.

  “I don’t know. Buffy isn’t her real name. That’s just what she told me to call her. We hooked up around lunchtime for a one-on-one session before joining the group. Priapus is based on anonymous sex. They allow for single hookups, threesomes, whatever, in addition to group activities.”

  “But you knew Victor,” O’Connell said.

  “Yeah, we became acquainted when the firm hired him to build our new offices.”

  “Did you invite him to join Priapus?” I asked. According to Martin’s story, membership was by invitation only.

  “Victor was attractive and smart. He fit in perfectly, and he liked to play. He didn’t have anyone steady, and we needed to add some more singles, especially ones who didn’t have hang-ups about being with men and women.”

  “Was Victor Landau bisexual?” O’Connell asked.

  Summers made a buzzing sound almost like a bee. “He didn’t have intercourse with men if that’s what you mean, but he didn’t mind sharing or participating with other men either. He was open to all sorts of possibilities. That’s why he made an ideal candidate and why he’d been so popular at so many events.”

  “Someone in the room with you that night killed Victor Landau.” O’Connell clicked his pen a few times. “I need to know who was there.”

  “I don’t know. What part of anonymous don’t you understand?”

  “Had you ever encountered any of them before?” I asked.

  “Just Victor.”

  “How many people were in the room?” O’Connell asked.

  But the attorney didn’t want to fan the flames. Whatever we didn’t already know for certain, he didn’t want to tell us.

  “We have DNA samples from three men and three women,” I said, causing O’Connell to tense beside me. He didn’t like it when I gave up valuable information to potential suspects, but this was the only way to get Summers to open up. “Is our count wrong?”

  “No, that’s correct. Buffy and I were the last to arrive and the first to leave.”

  “So when you got there, two couples were already there?” O’Connell asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Two women, a man, and Victor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one else arrived or left afterward?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Not even room service?”

  “No.”

  “What about the maid bringing extra towels?”

  “We didn’t need extra towels.”

  “What about clean sheets?” I asked, earning a glare from the attorney.

  “We need names,” O’Connell said.

  “Aside from Victor, I don’t know. The only reason I know him is because I invited him.”

  “Is that why you were invited to his private party?” I asked.

  Summers went back to staring at the floor. “We have similar tastes. We like to party together. I’ve never encountered any of the others before that night or since.”

  “Not even Buffy?” O’Connell asked.

  “No.” Summers dropped back into his chair. “Priapus is run by an app that one of the members designed. It’s not like the other hookup apps. It has a posting feature, so if someone wants to host an event, he or she lists their preferences and plans for the evening, and the first however many who want to join can do so. Once the slots fill up, the event is deleted. There’s also a private message feature if you want to have a repeat hookup or invite a special someone, but you’d have to know his or her handle. No real names or photos are listed anywhere. Partners use that a lot so they can play together.”

  “Can I see the app?” O’Connell asked.

  Reluctantly, Summers took out his cell phone and handed it to O’Connell. “As you can see, it’s anonymous. No one uses their real names. No personal information is ever entered or stored. The location tracking is turned off. It’s untraceable.”

  “I doubt that,” I mumbled.

  “Is there any way to view profiles?” O’Connell asked.

  “No. The profile is a handle and nothing else. No photos. No real names. Nothing that could lead to embarrassment or discovery. Even if you get a court order, you won’t find anything that will conclusively link to a person.”

  “What about IP addresses or phone numbers?” I asked.

  “It’s self-sustaining and routed through an internet site and various servers. Everything gets bounced. It’s the only truly secure piece of software I’ve ever seen.” Summers was in awe, but I didn’t have near
ly as much faith in the technology as he did. Then again, he probably hadn’t seen CIA or NSA black sites firsthand either.

  “How did you know you and Buffy would be an ideal match?” O’Connell asked, handing me the phone to study more carefully. “For all you know, she could have been a dog.”

  “Attractiveness is a requirement for membership.”

  “Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.” I scanned the various functions for something useful.

  “Think of this as ordering off a menu. You might not know what the dish will look like, but you still know what you’re getting.” As Summers said that, he licked his lips, making the words sound even slimier.

  I fought to contain my cringe. O’Connell asked a few more questions, but it did nothing but lead us in a circle.

  “Describe everyone who attended Victor’s party,” O’Connell finally said.

  After taking copious notes, he sighed. This outing might not have gotten us any closer to identifying the killer, but we now had descriptions of everyone in the room. We just needed to get a roster of everyone from Priapus. Except nothing about Priapus was centralized. As far as I could determine, no one person knew everyone else in the club. The descriptions Summers provided were general enough that they wouldn’t be easy to pin to an individual. Frankly, I wasn’t even sure he bothered to look a single person in the eye or study a face, but that might have been intentional.

  “What about the NDAs?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Ritch,” I gave him a look, like I might be a member, “I know how this works. My boyfriend got invited to join by a rando from his past. She said everything was confidential. People had to sign NDAs when they joined. You’re a lawyer. Are you in charge of the paperwork?”

  “You’d know the answer to that if he’d joined.” Summers looked me up and down. “It’s a pity. You would have made a fine addition. Doesn’t he like to play?”

  “He doesn’t like to share.” I locked eyes with the lawyer. “But we got your name easy enough. I’m guessing you’re in charge of the paperwork and protecting people’s privacy.”

  “Like I said, I don’t discuss my clients or business. That’s privileged.” Ritch had access to everyone’s signed documents, or so I imagined. He probably couldn’t link the legal names back to faces or the aliases used when signing in to the app or at events, but he possessed the member list. He had to. Why else would Cross have given me Ritch’s name?

  “We need to see your records,” O’Connell said.

  “You can’t prove I have anything. And even if I do, you’d still have to convince a judge to grant you access. Good luck with that.”

  Fifteen

  “That smug son of a bitch.” O’Connell gripped the steering wheel to stop himself from slamming his fist against it. “Doesn’t he realize he was inches away from a serial killer?”

  “Maybe he’s into that. It gives new meaning to the term lady killer.”

  O’Connell ignored me and called for a surveillance unit to sit on Ritch Summers. Once they arrived, O’Connell put the car in gear. “Do you think he’s involved? He could be Priapus’s recruiter, poster boy, or CEO.”

  “I’m not sure about recruitment, since it is invite only. As for poster boy, Priapus is a secret society. As a rule, they don’t have poster boys.” I considered O’Connell’s final suggestion. “And as far as we know, Priapus doesn’t charge fees, so that rules out CEO.”

  “Fees would make this easier. We’d be able to trace them and ID the members.”

  “They wouldn’t want that. There’d be paperwork and tax forms, and we’d know precisely who’s involved.”

  “God forbid.” O’Connell sighed.

  “They only target wealthy professionals.”

  “No shit.”

  “It could be a barter system. Summers provides legal advice in exchange for his admission.”

  “Was Landau invited to join because he could design their playrooms?” O’Connell asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “So what you’re saying is Summers was recruited because he has a firm grasp of the law and could keep everything legal, airtight, and below the radar?”

  “Pretty much, or they wanted him for nothing more than his firm grasp.”

  “Anyway,” O’Connell resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “that might explain it. You said other Cross Security clients are members, possibly city officials and judges. Priapus could have members everywhere.”

  I chuckled. “As we observed from the crime scene.”

  “Are you done making jokes?”

  “No, but I’ll do my best to stop.” I stared out the window. “They aren’t a cult. Membership is voluntary and recreational. The club is catering to desires which these individuals would be less likely to pursue given their public personas and business reputations.”

  “So instead of finding a family values politician in a public restroom with another man, the two make arrangements for clandestine meetups, where everyone involved has something to lose.”

  “Mutually assured destruction is a great way to keep a secret. That or murder.”

  O’Connell turned to look at me. “You think Landau tried to blackmail the killer?”

  “I don’t know. We have yet to come up with a motive, but serial killers rarely need incentive to kill. They have their own reasons. But since everyone is determined to keep their activities secret, no one’s willing to come forward, even if they were around when Landau died.”

  “Poisoning isn’t bloody or brutal. In the second victim’s case, it probably looked like a seizure. In Landau’s case, a heart attack. Someone could have picked up the hotel phone and called 9-1-1.”

  “We’d have their voice on a recording. That’s too risky,” I said. “Like Cross said, reputations are on the line. They stand to lose everything.”

  O’Connell ran a hand over his mouth. “They could have called down to the desk, reported a problem, and left. Hell, they could have asked for towels and let housekeeping deal with it.”

  “People panic. Self-preservation kicks in. Fight or flight. Unless,” I swallowed, unhappy with the thought but unable to shake it, “killing someone is why they went to the hotel in the first place.”

  “Like a snuff film?”

  “Something along those lines, only less bloody.”

  “Do you think Landau was suicidal?” O’Connell asked, surprising me with the question. “He could have wanted to kill himself and figured he’d go out with a bang. We have no way of knowing what he listed on the event profile. According to Summers, those automatically delete.”

  “You need a warrant for the app.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” O’Connell pulled to a stop outside my office building. “Do you think the woman’s DNA we’ve found at every scene could belong to a nurse? Maybe this is something like physician-assisted suicide.”

  “That’s a stretch.” But I didn’t have any better ideas. “Have you gotten Landau’s medical records yet?”

  “The coroner did a full autopsy. He didn’t find anything wrong.”

  “So no tumors or terminal maladies?”

  “None.”

  “Try to get access to Landau’s mental health records. This still reads like a serial killer to me, but you’re the detective. Maybe this is some depraved suicide-sex thing.”

  “Or a murder-sex thing.” O’Connell ran a hand down his face. He was halfway through a double shift with no end in sight. “Summers must know what happened in that room. He admitted to having similar proclivities to the victim. He could be next, or he could be the killer.”

  “He’s not the killer, unless you go with Jablonsky’s theory.”

  “Or every person who entered that hotel room played a part in murdering Victor Landau.” O’Connell glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Don’t forget about the scopolamine.”

  “Shit, that’s right. Did CSU identify the source?”

  “It wasn’t in any of the g
lasses or bottles. At the moment, we’re assuming it was injected, along with the poison, but without the syringe, we have no way of knowing.”

  “That’s not helpful.” The more I learned about this case, the less I liked it.

  “Don’t worry. I’m getting a court order for Summers’s DNA. He said he was there. So let’s prove it. The more painful we make this for him, the more likely he’ll be to cooperate.”

  “Even if he doesn’t, placing him in the room will support your request to open his records.”

  “I’m going to get those NDAs if it’s the last thing I do. Any idea how Cross got Ritch’s name? Is he a client?”

  “Nope.”

  “Attorney?”

  “Cross uses Almeada’s firm for everything. The Priapus app looks like the kind of thing Cross Security would evaluate or develop, but there’s no record of any interaction with Ritch Summers in the Cross Security database. Ritch isn’t one of ours. Obviously, we share clients since we’re assuming Ritch has NDAs for everyone involved with Priapus. Someone might have mentioned him to Cross or had their attorney look over the contracts before signing with our firm.”

  “And their attorney was Ritch, so your boss kept that in mind for a rainy day?”

  “Or blackmail.”

  O’Connell glanced at me again. “I don’t want to know the kinds of things you people do.”

  “I don’t do anything.”

  “Uh-huh.” But the detective didn’t sound particularly convinced. “I’ll question Martin’s friend again. If she’ll verify the attorney’s name, specifically her attorney’s name regarding this matter, I’ll have Summers inside an interrogation room by morning.”

  “Good idea.”

  O’Connell handed me his notebook where he’d written down the descriptions of Victor Landau’s sex partners. “Read those again and let me know if you have any idea who they might be.”

  After rereading the descriptions, I stared out the windshield. “I’m going with an updated, X-rated version of the Village People.”

  “Parker.”

  “No, listen to this.” I read from the page. “Male, tall, athletic, wore a cowboy hat the entire time. Eye color unknown. Height unknown. Weight, likely average. So we’re looking for a cowboy.” I read the description of one of the women. “Brunette, D-cups, and a mole on her left ass cheek.” I glanced at O’Connell. “I don’t know about you, but when I meet with clients, they’re usually wearing pants or skirts, something to cover up their ass cheeks.”