by Blake Banner
I knew we weren’t moving till we sorted this out, so I said, “Humanity is made up of seven and a half billion unique individuals, Dehan. And however much I may want to say what you want to hear, that won’t change the fact that you cannot classify human beings according to type. You should know that better than anybody.”
I opened the car and got in, slamming the door behind me. Knowing what I meant by that would be a physical need for her, so she would have to get in to find out. Then at least we could drive and argue. She walked around the car and got in, frowning at me.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
I fired up the car and moved off.
“Come on!” I said, as though she was being slow. “You are a mass of contradictions! Everything you do, say, and feel is contradicted by something else you do, say, or feel. You are like Newton’s third law.”
She wanted to get mad but wasn’t sure what Newton’s third law was. “Is that the one about every action…?”
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
She was silent, nonplussed for a while. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be offended or not.”
“Of course not, Dehan. I would never say anything intended to offend you. I am just pointing out that you yourself are a profoundly contradictory person. If you can be full of contradictions, why not Hank? Maybe think less about what people should be, and more about what they actually are.”
She was silent for about five minutes, so I tossed her my phone and said, “Give Hank a call. Ask him to come in.” She looked a question at me, and I said, “There is a damn good chance he killed Lynda, don’t you think?”
She made the call, and he said he’d be there early afternoon.
EIGHT
We had time for a quick bite of lunch, and Hank arrived at two. He looked worried. We showed him into an interrogation room and sat him down. As we sat opposite, he asked, “What’s going on?”
Dehan surprised me by taking the lead.
“Just a few details we need clearing up, Hank.”
“What kind of details?”
She was pensive a moment, looking at the tabletop. “Well, for example, the fact that you were considering asking Lynda to marry you.”
He shrugged and frowned at us in turn. “So what? It was twelve years ago, and her dad advised me not to. He was probably right. She was so crazy right then, she would have dumped me on the spot. Who told you that, anyhow?”
I got in before Dehan could answer. “The thing is, Hank, it seems you were pretty close. Closer than you really gave us to understand. It was quite a surprise to me to discover that you were pretty tight with her dad. Her parents liked you.”
He nodded. “Yeah. They were cool. She didn’t deserve them.” He suddenly screwed up his face. He looked frustrated. “What’s your point? I liked her. I was pretty serious about her. She had nice folks. So what?”
“Okay, Hank, let me level with you. You tell me a story about how you are a badass Hell’s Angel, you got your bitch, you go to a rally and your bro comes on to your bitch, you fight like real guys. She ditches you and you ride off into the sunset. Plenty more bitches out there. Then I look into it and I find the substance of the story is true, but there are a few details that you left out. See, you are not such a badass, you don’t really think of her as your bitch, and your bro—well, you were actually thinking of leaving the Angels because you felt you had finally found that family you never had as a kid. Now, I have got to be honest…” I sat back in my chair and looked at Dehan. “My partner thinks you’re a scumbag who beats up on women. I don’t. The more I learn about you, the more I see you as a basically stand-up guy who was badly lost but had the balls to find his way.”
He gave me a look that told me I could stick my opinion of him where the sun don’t shine. “Gee, thanks, Officer Stone.”
I ignored him. Dehan stepped in. “Thing is, Hank, even if you are the stand-up guy my partner thinks you are, this new, gentler image of you has exactly the opposite effect from what it should have. Because it gives you one hell of a motive for killing her.”
His face and neck flushed red. He half stood and his chair fell back. “I have just about had enough!”
Dehan was on her feet. “Sit down!”
“I left Lynda at that goddamn rally with that motherfucking asshole, Zak!”
I got to my feet. He watched me walk behind him and pick up the chair. I said quietly, “Sit down, Hank.”
He sat. I sat and Dehan sat.
“Zak tells me he was only trying to help you realize that you can’t trust women,” I said.
“That’s bullshit.”
“You didn’t tell me he was into Crowley.”
He heaved a huge sigh and made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I don’t know. I figured you’d find out. You know? You’re coming at me from every fucking angle. You think Lynda is dead? When you came to my shop, you said I cut off her fucking arms and put them in Pete’s fucking lockup. Now you’re saying you think I killed her. What the fuck, man?”
He had tears in his eyes. I felt bad for him, but I ignored my feelings. “How much were you involved in the whole ritual magic thing?”
“Not.” He said it emphatically. “I got into the Angels for the bikes, and because it was the closest I ever had to a family. Zak was crazy about the whole Crowley thing. A lot of the bros were. They used to snort and have crazy rituals. They used to talk a lot of shit about going beyond the limits.” He gave a humorless laugh and shrugged. He glanced at Dehan. “Sorry, but a chick has three holes you can fuck. So how far past the limits are you gonna go? You gonna fuck her in the ear? Sorry, I got no time for that shit. Snort. Fuck. You don’t need to prance around in stupid robes and invoke the fuckin’ devil.”
Dehan asked him, “Is that all they did?”
“I don’t know.” He stared down at his hands between his legs. He looked unhappy. “It seems like yesterday sometimes. Lynda was a sweet kid. I really liked her. She was just a bit wild, but she didn’t mean no harm. I know what that is. Maybe I should have just picked her up and carried her away. I think of her involved in all that stuff and it kills me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He looked her in the eye. “I don’t know because I never went to one of his stupid rituals. But I heard they sacrificed chickens and drank their blood. I never believed it, but maybe it was true. Those guys were crazy enough to do it.”
I watched him a moment. “Could they have progressed to people?”
He blinked a few times. They were odd, soft blinks. A tear spilled from his eye, and when he spoke he sounded like he had a cold. “I sure hope not.”
“Were you aware of any girls going missing during that time?”
He wiped his nose and his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “I don’t know, Detective. I’m sorry. Most of the time we were drunk or stoned. Chicks came and went. All I can say is I wasn’t aware of that, but it is possible. If you’re asking me were Zak and his coven crazy enough to make a human sacrifice, I have to say yes. I think they were crazy enough. They did a lot of coke”— he made a gesture with his hand like he was showing me something on the table—“because they said it helped them to go beyond the limits. So if they went on a snort-fest and got into a crazy ritual, yeah. They could.”
“What day did you leave the rally?”
“It was Sunday late afternoon, early evening.”
Dehan said, “The Sabbath.”
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“I went home. Called a friend in L.A., told him I needed to get away from things.”
“An Angel?” Dehan asked.
He shook his head. “Told me to go over. So I did. Ended up staying a while, then went to Arizona, worked with a mechanic there for a bit, till I got her out of my system. Then came back and set up my business.”
“By bike, obviously.” He looked at me and frowned. “You left the rally, went home and then to L
.A., by bike.”
“Yeah, of course.” He stared at me a while, then at Dehan. “Do you even know she’s dead?”
I shook my head.
“This is all because of those damned arms?”
I nodded.
He pulled a face. “You’re on the wrong track. If Zak killed her, and I can’t see why he would, but if he did, he wouldn’t cut her arms off and put them in a fuckin’ lockup. Zak was all about sex and humiliation. All he ever wanted to do was get the biggest fuckin’ hard-on drugs could give him, and fuck and humiliate everybody around him. And he believed that Satan gave him the power to do that. Cutting off people’s arms…” He shook his head. “That wouldn’t do it for Zak.”
He put his hands on the table and stared at them for a moment.
“When I left, when I walked out of that tent and got on my bike, she was hugging him, holding him tight with both arms. He had his arm around her, holding a beer. And they were both laughing, like they thought I was having a jealous hissy fit and I’d be back in the morning.”
“What were your last words to them, Hank?”
He looked at me like the question surprised him. “I told her she was a fucking bitch and she didn’t deserve the family she had. And I told him he was no bro of mine, I never wanted to see his lying fuckin’ face again, and I would never forgive either of them for what they done to me.” He was quiet for a moment, remembering, then added, “Some of the bros around the fire were laughing, but most of them was pretty serious.”
“How serious is that, when a woman comes between two bros?”
“It’s pretty serious.”
We were quiet for a few moments. I glanced at Dehan. She said, “I’m done.”
I said, “Thanks, Hank. You’ve been helpful. We’ll be in touch…” I left the words hanging.
He stood and left without saying anything.
I drummed the table with my fingers and absently studied Dehan’s face, waiting for her to speak.
Eventually, she said, “It’s just stories. There is no way of checking if any of this is true. How do we know he left on his bike? How do we know he didn’t take a truck with a couple of bikes loaded on it? How do we know he didn’t leave with Lynda?”
“His story fits with Zak’s.”
She looked at me. “You like Zak?”
“If Lynda is dead, there is a better chance Zak killed her than Hank. I think we can be sure she stayed with Zak Sunday to Monday. I reckon Zak’s jealousy over Hank was greater than Hank’s jealousy over Lynda. Hank lost a girlfriend. Zak lost a potential disciple. He is a narcissist and a woman hater. I’m going to ask the Feds to send over a profiler and discuss Zak, Lynda, and the arms. We could be looking at two completely separate crimes here.”
“We could, but it would be one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t it.”
We spent the afternoon wading through reports from all over the U.S.A. between 2003 and 2006 involving missing girls who fit what we imagined was the killer’s victim profile, plus cases of dismembered bodies. It made grim reading, but nothing raised a red flag. I phoned Bernie at the bureau and asked him to arrange for a profiler to come see us.
By six, I was beat and told Dehan I was going home. She said, “My car is at your place. I’ll come with you.”
We drove in silence through the darkness. Artificial light, mainly amber with washes of red and green, leaned in through the windshield and painted her face with lurid colors. The rain had stopped, but occasional spits gathered on the glass like broken, liquid gems. The wipers gave a desultory squeak and a thud, and then rested again.
It seemed like a long drive through the November night, but eventually I parked behind her car, killed the engine, and pulled the handbrake. She didn’t move for a bit, then gave me a sad smile. I gently punched her shoulder.
“Shakes you up, a case like this, huh?” She nodded, watching me, waiting. I smiled. “You want to order in? I’ll teach you how to play backgammon.”
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Detective Stone.”
“I don’t. I think of you more as an unwitting victim.”
She sighed to cover her smile. “Okaaay, Stone, if it will make you feel better, I’ll keep you company for a while. We can order in if you don’t feel like cooking.”
I climbed the stairs with her just behind me and unlocked the door. I pushed in and switched on the light. There was a note on my mat, with my name printed on it, Detective John Stone. I bent and picked it up. Dehan was at my shoulder. I opened it. It said:
“Well, it took you long enough…”
NINE
I slipped it into an evidence bag and sealed it. Then I put it in my pocket and pulled my piece. Dehan stepped in with her weapon drawn, and I closed and locked the door. If the writer of the note was still here, they weren’t leaving. I pointed to Dehan to cover the stairs, and I checked the kitchen. It was clear.
I went on to the stairs, and Dehan covered me from behind. We made the landing. There were four dark doors confronting us. I signed Dehan to cover three of them and moved into the fourth. It was the small guest room. There was nobody there.
Dehan moved up to cover two of the remaining three, and I burst into the second spare room. It was a double and bigger, with two single beds. I checked between them and under them, and in the closets. It was clear.
The bathroom was clear too, and that only left my bedroom and the en suite bathroom. I burst in with Dehan behind me. The room was still and silent. Everything was as I had left it that morning. Except that I knew I had turned the bathroom light off, and now I could see light reflected on the closet door.
I looked at Dehan. I could see in her eyes that she had seen it too. She covered me again, and I stepped in. There was nobody there or in the shower. But there was another message.
He had mixed what looked like blood with soap in the soap dish and used it to write on my mirror.
YOU’D HAVE DONE BETTER TO LEAVE ME SLEEPING.
The Crime Scene team turned up within twenty minutes and did a thorough sweep of the house. It didn’t take them long. By half past nine, they had established that he had picked the lock, which I logged as one of his skills, he had gone directly upstairs, written on my mirror, come down, left the note carefully on the mat, and left. Careful observation had shown traces of a muddy shoe print under where the note had been. It was not my shoe or Dehan’s, and there was no trace of shoe prints anywhere else in the house, ergo he slipped plastic covers over his wet shoes and left the note when he left.
Frank, the team leader, paused at the door as they were leaving. “We’ll get a good DNA sample from the blood. The only question you have then is, is it his blood? You going to be okay? You want me to send a car from the precinct?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to scare him off. Let him grow confident.”
“Your call.”
He went down the stairs. There was a volley of car doors in the wet night, and they pulled away. I watched their red taillights disappear and turned to Dehan, who was standing behind me with her arms crossed, shivering slightly.
“You want me to drive you home?”
She shook her head. “You going to kick me out without feeding me? What kind of man are you? After all I’ve done for you.”
I closed the door. “I need more than takeout.”
I went to the kitchen, found a bottle of Turnbull Cabernet Sauvignon, 2013. I’d heard it was exceptional, so I opened it and poured two glasses. She watched me do it and said, “You’re supposed to let it breathe.”
I raised my glass to her, and she chinked hers against mine.
“Let us be grateful, Carmen, that we are still breathing. It can breathe while we drink.”
She laughed suddenly. It was startling. “You’re a riot, Stone. You’re cool. Let me see what you’ve got.” She opened my fridge and started rummaging in my cupboards. “Let’s have spaghetti. You like spaghetti? I’ll make spaghetti.”
She made spaghetti and
we finished the bottle. It was better after it had breathed.
Dehan had the spare room. I put the dead bolt on the back door and wedged a chair under the front door. I more or less slept, but if I slept seven hours, I woke up seven times imagining I’d heard something. It was probably wind and rain. But seven times I got up to check, and to look in on Dehan to make sure she was okay.
As soon as I saw the sky turning gray, I was able to fall asleep properly. But I caught an hour and a half at most, because at half eight, Dehan was cooking bacon and making coffee again. I groaned and dragged myself to the shower.
As I sat, she put a plate of fried eggs, bacon, and toast in front of me, with a large cup of black coffee.
“Lots of protein this morning, Sensei. How many times did you get up last night? I counted seven.”
“Seven.”
“The bureau called.”
I frowned at her.
“Your phone was on the table. It rang. The screen said Bernie. I answered. It was the bureau.”
“What they want?”
“They’re sending over Dr. Fenninger at eleven to talk to us and review what we have.”
“Good. Thanks, Dehan.”
She sat opposite and smiled. “God. I feel like your mother.”
Special Agent Anja Fenninger was neat, petite, and aggressively efficient in a way that only neat, petite women can be. She arrived bang on eleven with blonde hair and a luminous smile and said that she believed that if you were in time you would always be on time. Or it may have been the other way around. Either way, she was both. I looked for signs of rain on her neat blue jacket and her blonde hair. There weren’t any, and there was no mud on her shoes either. Neat, petite people can do that, effortlessly.
We found a conference room and sat around the table.
“What makes you think you’re dealing with a serial killer?”
I outlined the investigation so far and highlighted the point about the arms. “It’s hard to get around. If the killer was trying to dispose of the body and get rid of the evidence of the killing, then A, why didn’t he do with the arms what he had successfully done with the rest of the body? And B, what prompted him to leave the arms in a place where he must be sure they would be found before long? Add to this the fact that that particular unit seems to have been chosen over the others, and it looks as though we may be dealing with an organized serial killer.”