by Blake Banner
His jaw actually dropped, and his eyes bulged. “You are fabricating evidence!”
“It’s not that easy, Peter. Your lawyer will explain that to you.”
The lawyer was staring at the evidence bags on the table. He looked annoyed. “Don’t say anything else, Peter.” He looked at me. “I need some time to talk to my client.”
I collected up the evidence and closed the folder. I spoke to the lawyer for the first time. “I want to know about the arms in the lockup twelve years ago. I want to know about the skull in Oacoma and the torso at Miramar. I want to know about the trips to San Diego and L.A. I want to know how many girls he has killed and where their bodies are. You better start getting him adjusted to the fact that the game is over.” I looked at Peter. “Tick tock, Peter.”
I went downstairs and stood in the doorway, looking at the interminable silver needles of rain falling listless into the puddles on the road, making ripples that went nowhere. The cars in the lot shone wet, but their windshields looked black and blind.
What was I not seeing? What was I missing?
My cell rang. It was the lab.
“Stone? It’s Penny from the lab.”
“Hey, Penny. What have you got?”
“The skull you sent in?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you’d like to know. We managed to extract enough material for a DNA match with the arms.”
“That’s great. Is it the same girl?”
“Yes, it was the same girl.”
“Thanks, Penny.”
I hung up and stood staring at the burnished copper ripples on the road. Somewhere in San Diego, a mother and a father still didn’t know that their daughter was dead. I climbed the stairs, dialing the San Diego PD. I spoke to a Lieutenant Scott. I told him about the arms and about the skull, and that we had reason to believe that the victim was originally from San Diego. I said if he wanted, I could email him the details of the skull in case they had dental records they could match it with.
He thanked me, but he didn’t seem awfully interested.
TWENTY-THREE
I went back to the interrogation room. Peter looked even more drawn and pale. His lawyer looked even more unhappy than he had before. He drew breath to speak, but Peter said, “You are making a mistake!”
His lawyer looked irritated. “My client is adamant that this evidence is false.”
“So somebody is framing you, Peter?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yeah. You! You’ve had this case hanging there, unsolved, for twelve years because you are too damned incompetent to crack it, and now you want to close it so you think, oh, we’ll pin it on the guy who found the arms in the first place!”
I looked at his lawyer. “You should explain to your client just how difficult that would be.”
He ignored my suggestion and asked me, “Have you any more questions, Detective?”
“Yeah. Tell me about the house on Jackson Avenue.”
Petere closed his eyes and sank back in his chair. His lawyer was looking at him like he wanted to shoot him. “What is this now, Peter?”
Peter covered his face with his hands. “God! You people!”
“You had better explain. Did you take Dehan there?”
“No! For God’s sake, Detective!” He stuck his arm out, like he was pointing at the house on Jackson Avenue. “It’s a… a place where I go to relax. You’ve seen my wife, Detective. She is a very good, dutiful wife, but she isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, is she?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I can tell you, she is not! A man needs…” He stared at me, furious that I was forcing him to lose his dignity. “A man has certain needs! I use that house to satisfy those needs.”
“Needs like killing and dismembering young women?”
“For God’s sake! No!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “This is madness!” He sat forward. “Even you must be aware that there are a lot of prostitutes in that part of the Bronx. They provide me with a level of sexual satisfaction that my wife cannot.”
“Did you pick up prostitutes in San Diego and L.A.?”
“Once or twice.”
“Did you kill them?”
“No!”
“Have you ever been to Oacoma?”
“I have passed through…”
“Twelve years ago?”
“Almost certainly, more than once—why?”
His lawyer had given up and was just staring at his hands. I drummed the table with my fingers.
“Say I wanted to go with a really hot whore, could you recommend one?”
The lawyer raised his face to stare at me. Peter looked astonished. He hesitated. His lawyer turned to look at him. “Well, yes, a couple. But they’re not cheap.”
“How much?”
“The really good ones you’re talking about two hundred or two hundred and fifty an hour.”
I smiled. “And how long would you keep going, Peter?”
His face turned serious. “Well, we’ve had sessions of a couple of hours on occasion.”
“Couple of hours, huh? Five hundred bucks. And what do you get for that? What will they do for you?”
“A bit of bondage, domination…”
“You or them?”
“Depends what mood I’m in. Both.”
“I want their names.”
He heaved another sigh and wrote down a couple of names with phone numbers. I folded the paper and put it in my wallet. Then I took out my cell and took a photograph of him.
I was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then I leaned forward across the table.
“Peter, I don’t know if you fully appreciate how much trouble you are in. There is very compelling evidence tying you to Detective Dehan’s abduction and attempted murder. And that, in turn, ties you to the murder of a young girl in San Diego who disappeared during one of your trips out there. Her head turns up in Oacoma, where you passed through, and her arms turn up in your lockup.”
His lawyer butted in. “That is purely circumstantial.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it is tied so tight to the abduction and attempted murder that any jury is going to buy the whole lot as a package, and you know it.” I turned back to Peter. “Now, so far your only defense is that the cops are trying to frame you so they can get shot at a cold case. And that is not going to wash. So you need to be doing some real, serious thinking, Peter, either about a credible defense, or about a full, frank confession.” I stood. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
I drove to the hospital. My head was aching, and the squeak and thud of the windshield wipers was like a cruel and unusual torture involving a fork, a chalkboard, and a troll with a hammer. I left the car in the parking lot and ran through the rain to the shelter of the entrance. I rode the elevator, wiping rainwater from my hair with my hands.
There was a cop sitting outside her door. I asked him if anybody had been to see her. He shook his head. “Not a soul, Detective.”
I wondered briefly about her parents, her family.
Dehan was awake when I went in. She still looked pale and pasty, but at least she didn’t look dead anymore. She gave me a feeble smile, and I sat down.
“I still don’t remember anything.”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
I shrugged. “I’m going to pick up a couple of hookers, and I thought I’d drop in and let you know.”
She gave her head a small shake. “I don’t want any. I’m trying to give them up.”
“Anyone you want me to call? Anything you want me to bring over?”
She blinked a slow blink. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow.”
“Let’s play that one by ear.”
I stayed a while till her eyes closed, and then I stepped out. I shut the door and stood thinking. The cop looked up at me. “Don’t let anybody in to see her except her doctor and the nurses. And whoever goes in, go in with them. I don’t want
her left alone with anyone—I don’t care if it’s the second coming of Mother Theresa. Got it?”
“You got it, Detective.”
Back in my car, I called Peter’s hookers, Zeta and Cherry Tipple. I told them I was a friend of Pete’s and I wanted to meet them at the usual place on Jackson Avenue.
“How much is this party going to cost me?” I asked Cherry.
“Seein’ as you’s a friend of Pete’s, we can give you a special price, honey.”
“How special is special?”
“Two hundred an hour, fo’ each of us luscious ladies.”
I laughed. “You better be worth it.”
“You won’t have no complaints ’bout us, mistah.”
“You come prepared. I’m into the same shit as Pete.”
“No problem, big boy. See you in an hour.”
I arrived early. The captain had arranged for the lock to be fixed. I dumped my coat on the dining table and stood looking at the room. It was hard to imagine how anybody could get aroused in a soulless, desolate place like that. I sat down by his DVD collection and worked my way through them. They were mostly bondage and domination. Not so much sinister as sad.
Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang, and I went to let them in. Zeta was a tall, peroxide blonde making a brave, if misguided, attempt to look ten years younger than she was. What she was was forty and extensively renovated, with some of her original features, but not many. Cherry Tipple was buxom and dark. Her features were all original and plentiful, and once upon a time she’d had a pretty face, but life and people had turned it sour.
They pretended to admire me. I winked at them and told them to go ahead into the living room. I locked the door and followed them.
“Sit down.” I gestured to the chairs, and as they sat I placed four hundred bucks on the coffee table. “This will take less than an hour.”
Cherry said, “Already I’m not liking this.”
I dropped onto the sofa and showed her the key. “The door is locked, Cherry. I’m a cop. And I need to ask you a couple of questions about Pete.”
They looked at each other. Zeta said, “Pete? Who’s Pete?”
“Pete may be a man who abducts hookers, kills them, and dismembers them, and then distributes bits of them all over the country.” I pointed at the black window, speckled with dreary, orange raindrops. “Right now, as far as the world out there is concerned, I am just a John and you girls are showing me a good time. I’m happy for it to stay that way. But I need you to do me this favor. Do it, and you walk out of here with four hundred bucks, and maybe you help put a son of a bitch away who preys on ladies like yourselves.”
They looked like I might have got through to them. I showed them the picture of Pete. “This your man?” They nodded. “What’s his taste? What does he like?”
They looked at each other and giggled. Zeta said, “I put a collar ’round his neck and lead him around the room on all fours, while Cherry smacks his ass with a ping-pong bat.”
I frowned. “That’s it?”
Cherry shrugged. “A few variations sometimes, but that’s basically it. Sometimes I ride his ass!”
They screamed with laughter.
“And that takes two hours?”
They both sighed. “You’d be amazed.”
“Does he ever try to hurt you?”
“You kidding?” It was Cherry again. “I’d taser the motherfocker and stamp on his balls! No, he likes to be dominated. That’s it. It don’t go beyond that. And when we’s finished, every time we have to listen to the fockin’ little lecture about how we could be doing something so much better with our lives. One of these days, I swear! I am going to say to him, ‘Yo! Motherfocker! How much money you make in the last hour? Coz I made two hundred bucks leading a stupid asshole around the floor on his hands and knees while he got his sorry ass whipped!’”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair for a while. Finally, I said, “The money is all yours, ladies. You have a profitable evening.” Cherry smiled as she picked up the cash.
“You sure you don’t want something, sugar? You’re all paid up.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Be safe.”
I let them out and watched them scuttle away into the shiny, wet darkness. I stood staring at my car. The windows looked real black. I thought of the unknown girl, the skull and the arms. I thought of her parents again. For them, until they were tracked down and informed of her death, she would be both dead and alive. Why did that thought keep haunting me? The thought that somehow it wasn’t real until you knew.
And suddenly I thought I knew.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was still dark. The only sound was the wet, desultory tap of raindrops on the windowsill and on the leaves of the trees outside. I turned my head and looked at the clock. The luminous green numbers seemed to be carved out of the blackness.
5:45.
The door bell made me jump physically. It jarred my senses, stopped, and then jangled them again. I slipped out of bed, grabbed my piece, and ran silently down the stairs. I could see a silhouette through the frosted glass panel, backlit by the amber streetlight.
I moved to the side of the door, reached over, turned the handle, and yanked it open. Then thrust my automatic through the gap.
Into Dehan’s face.
She grinned.
“Morning, Stone.”
“What the hell… do you know what time it is? Why are you not…?”
She stepped in, closed the door, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Thank you.” She moved toward the kitchen talking over her shoulder. “I slept like a babe. I woke up at half four and started getting flashes. I remember bits and pieces. I thought you’d want to know.”
“At five forty-five in the morning?”
She was opening the coffee pot and glanced at the clock on the fridge. “It’s five to six. Man up, Detective. Have a shower, you’ll feel better.”
I showered and dressed and came down to the now familiar bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee. I sat.
“You know, normally, I have a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.”
“My grandmother would not approve.” She put the plate in front of me. “One of my uncles said to her one day, ‘Mammy, I’m gonna die!’ She said, ‘You’ll die, but foist you’ll eat!’”
I laughed. “Your paternal grandmother, I assume.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So—” I stuffed bacon in my mouth and spoke around it. “—tell me whachou wemembah.”
She looked disapproving and raised an eyebrow at me. “I got a call while I was in the observation room.”
“Can you remember who from?”
“It was a woman.”
I froze. Then smiled.
She went on. “She said she had vital information regarding the case of the two arms. She said she was right outside. She didn’t want to come in because her life would be in danger if anybody saw her. She wanted me to go down to the deli on the corner.
“I got about halfway there. You know there’s an exit from the parking lot on the left. A van came out and pulled up. It was dark. The driver beckoned me. Next thing I felt a brick wall hit my head, and that’s all I remember.”
“Do you remember waking up at any point?”
She nodded. “Twice. The first time I was on a mattress in the back of a van. I was cuffed to a rail. There was a night-light burning, and there was a camera mounted on a bracket near the ceiling, watching me. About five minutes after that, the light went out. I heard the side door open, felt a sharp jab, and I went out.
“The second time I woke up and I was bound hand and foot. I couldn’t see anything, and I was lying on a concrete floor. I knew that couldn’t be good. Shortly after that, I heard the hiss of gas, started to feel ill, and passed out.”
I had finished mopping up the egg with the toast and was sitting back, sipping coffee, watching her in the dim light of the dawn.
&n
bsp; I told her about Zak and about David, and about finding her pendant at Peter’s place, and his prints on the duct tape. She listened carefully and thought about it. “So the woman is his wife.” I didn’t say anything, and she shrugged. “Obedient to the last, huh?”
I nodded. “That she is.”
“Did you get a confession?”
“He swears he is being framed by the cops just so we can clear up an old case. His lawyer knows he’s going down, but he won’t accept it.”
She was pensive for a bit. “It would be good to get a confession.” She shrugged. “We have no idea how many girls he killed. How many moms and dads are there out there, wondering…? It would be good to give them closure.”
Closure.
The word sat there staring at me. “Not closure.”
“Not closure?”
“No. Aperture. I’ll tell you what we need. We need to open the box.”
“What are you talking about, Stone?”
I stood and started collecting up the plates and the cups.
“I keep getting this nagging feeling.” I carried them to the sink, then turned and rested my ass against the side to look at her. “This guy, he may be an asshole and he may have a below-average IQ, but he has a genius for making everything seem like something it’s not. His whole thing seems to be, so long as you don’t know the answer—the truth—everything is possible. It is time to open the box.”
“What box? And how are you going to open it?”
“I need a couple of hours’ research on the computer, and then a little help from my friends.”
We got to the station house at eight and went straight down to the cells. Peter was awake. He had a breakfast tray in front of him, but he hadn’t touched it. He looked drawn and pale. He watched us with sullen eyes as we stepped in.
“What do you want now? To gloat?”
“Detective Dehan has started to remember.”
He laughed a sour, twisted laugh and said, “Oh, I get it, now the evidence against me will be incontrovertible. Not only have you got manufactured fingerprints, now you have the eyewitness account of the victim!”
“Come on, Peter. We’re going to talk to your wife.”