Mortal Fear

by Greg Iles

  “Chief,” says Baxter, “despite our best efforts to familiarize city police departments with our VICAP program, we still have a pretty poor compliance rate. Not nearly enough officers take the time to fill out their violent offender profiles and send them in. This EROS connection is exactly the kind of thing that slips through the cracks. I wouldn’t be surprised if homicide detectives in one or more of the involved departments have just such a receipt in an evidence drawer somewhere, but have no idea that detectives in any other cities have the same thing.”

  “All our fault, as usual,” grumbles Mayeux’s partner.

  “Five of these six cases were sent in to VICAP,” says Mayeux, giving his partner covering fire. “But they weren’t linked. No EROS connection showed up. All had computers in their homes, but nothing related to EROS on their drives. Why not?”

  “Well,” I say, finally regaining sufficient composure to rejoin the conversation. “As long as the killer wasn’t rushed, he could erase the EROS software from the victims’ computers and take away any manuals they had. Although it would take a real wizard to wipe every trace from the hard disks. You might have one of your people look into that.”

  Baxter gives me a wry smile. “No traces so far.”

  “Karin Wheat paid EROS with her Visa card,” says Mayeux. “I checked as soon as you told me she was a member.”

  “She’ll be the only one that did,” I tell him.

  “How do you know that?” asks Dr. Lenz, his heavy-lidded eyes probing mine.

  “Because every other woman—victim, I mean—had set up her account on the blind-draft account system.”

  “What’s that?” asks the chief. “A direct bank draft?”

  “Yes, but not the kind you imagine. A lot of EROS subscribers—particularly women—are married, and don’t want their spouses to know they’re online with us. Some log on only from their workplace. Others from home, but only when their husbands are away. Ms. Krislov makes every effort to ensure that any woman who wants to connect with us has the ability to do so without stigma. To facilitate this, she came up with the ‘blind-draft’ policy. If a woman doesn’t want her husband to know she’s online—or vice versa—we advise the user to set up a checking account at a bank not used by the spouse—an out-of-town bank, if possible—and use a P.O. box as her address. We then arrange to draft this secret account directly for payment of the monthly fee.”

  “Son of a bitch,” says Mayeux’s partner.

  “Every one of the murdered women was on a secret account?” Mayeux asks.

  “Except Karin Wheat.”

  “But three of them weren’t married,” Mayeux points out. “Who were they hiding from? Boyfriends?”

  “Or girlfriends,” says Dr. Lenz.

  “What about phone bills?” asks Mayeux. “Wouldn’t connect-time show up on the phone bills of all the victims?”

  “It’s an eight hundred number, remember?”

  “Shit. So after they were killed, their secret accounts eventually dropped to zero?”

  “Eventually is exactly why I got suspicious. EROS isn’t like CompuServe or America Online, where you might lose interest but keep paying the nine ninety-five per month, thinking you’ll get back into it. We’re talking three to five hundred bucks a month. EROS users may be wealthy, but when they get bored they close those direct-draft accounts.”

  “And the murdered women didn’t,” says Mayeux.

  “Right. And two particular women—the third and fourth victims—were very active online. Then poof, one day they were gone. But their bank drafts kept coming in. That didn’t fit the pattern. I’m not saying it had never happened before—it had. That’s why I didn’t call the police immediately. But the longer the accounts stayed active without the women showing up online, the more uncomfortable I got. I started probing the accounting program to see how many blind-draft clients were paying regularly but not logging on to the system. There were about fifty, enough to make me think I might be paranoid. And enough for the company to decide not to investigate. But then I remembered that victims three and four had talked to this Strobekker guy a lot. So I started watching for him. Then I started printing out his exchanges. I also asked about him in private e-mail. That’s how I came up with the names of the first and second victims. And while I was doing that, he was setting up and killing five and six. He was also talking to at least twenty other women during this period as well.”

  “Doesn’t the company try to contact people when their accounts drop to zero?” Mayeux asks. “In case it was just an oversight?”

  “No. It’s understood by both parties that if a blind-draft account has insufficient funds for even a single payment, the company assumes the client no longer desires its services, and access is immediately terminated.”

  “I don’t buy that,” says Mayeux’s partner. “I don’t believe any company would kiss off that kind of bread without making sure the client wanted to quit.”

  How can I explain this to them? “Jan Krislov is the sole owner of EROS. And whether you believe it or not, she’s not in it for the money.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” mutters Baxter.

  “Then why does she charge so damn much for the service?” Mayeux’s partner asks doggedly.

  A faint smile crosses Arthur Lenz’s patrician face. This alone draws all eyes to him. “The high fee functions as a crude screening system,” he says softly. “Correct, Mr. Cole?”

  “What kind of screening system?” asks Mayeux’s partner.

  Lenz answers for me. “By charging an exorbitant rate, Ms. Krislov ensures that her online environment is accessible only to those who have attained a certain position in life.”

  “Flawed system,” says Mayeux. “It assumes rich people aren’t assholes.”

  “I said it was crude,” Lenz admits. “But I imagine it works fairly well.”

  “It works perfectly,” I say, unable to keep the admiration out of my voice. “Because there are other constraints on membership.”

  Curiosity flares in Lenz’s eyes. “Such as?”

  “EROS is open to any woman who can pay the fee, but any man who wants to join has to submit a writing sample for evaluation.”

  “Who evaluates the sample?”

  “Jan Krislov.”

  “What are the criteria?”

  Unable to resist, I point at Mayeux’s partner. “He wouldn’t make the cut.”

  Mayeux lays an arm across his partner’s chest and asks, “How many people belong to this thing?”

  “Five thousand. Half of them male, half female. The numerical relation is strictly maintained.”

  “Gays allowed?” Lenz asks.

  “Encouraged. And contained within that ratio.”

  Mayeux shakes his head. “You’re telling us this Krislov woman has personally evaluated twenty-five hundred writing samples from men writing about sex?”

  “Personally approved twenty-five hundred samples. She’s evaluated a lot more than that. There’s a waiting list of twenty-eight hundred men at this moment.”

  “So Jan Krislov sits up at night reading her own personal Penthouse letters,” Baxter says in a gloating voice. “I know some senators who’ll eat that up.”

  “Probably beats watching Leno,” pipes up the local FBI agent. “For a woman, I mean,” he adds hastily.

  Dr. Lenz leans forward in his chair. “I doubt these samples are as crude as you assume. Are they, Mr. Cole?”

  “No. There are some gifted people on EROS.”

  Mayeux’s partner snorts.

  “To wit, Karin Wheat,” says Lenz.

  “One more thing,” I add. “Not all the men on EROS are wealthy. Certain men have submitted writing samples that impressed Ms. Krislov so much that she gives them access free of charge. Sort of a scholarship program. She says it improves the overall experience for the women.”

  The secretary nods her head in a gesture I read as, Right on, girl.

  “I’d be very interested in studying some of these on
line exchanges,” Lenz says. “You have some in that briefcase?”

  “Yes.”

  Baxter asks, “Does anything stand out in your mind that these women had in common?”

  I pause for a moment. “Most of them spent a lot of time in Level Two—my level. Their fantasies were fairly conventional, by which I mean they involved more romance than sex. They could get kinky, but they weren’t sickos. No torture or revolting bodily substances. The truth is, I don’t know anything about these women in real life. Only their fantasies.”

  “Their fantasies may be the most important thing about them,” says Lenz.

  “Maybe,” I allow, “but that’s not the sense I got. I’m not sure why. What did they have in common in real life?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” snaps Mayeux’s partner.

  “I see. Well, I guess that’s my position too.”

  Dr. Lenz inclines his head toward Baxter, who says, “All the victims were under twenty-six years old except Karin Wheat, who was forty-seven. All were college educated, all Caucasian except one, who was Indian.”

  “Native American?” asks Chief Tobin.

  “Indian Indian,” says Mayeux’s partner, tapping a file on the table. “Dot on the fucking forehead.”

  “I don’t recall an Indian name,” I say, almost to myself.

  “Pinky Millstein,” says Baxter. “Maiden name Jathar. Married to a litigation attorney who traveled a lot. There was also an Indian hair found at one of the other crime scenes. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Well . . . one of Strobekker’s aliases is Shiva. That’s Indian, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” Dr. Lenz says softly. “Shiva the Destroyer. What are his other aliases?”

  “Prometheus. Hermes.”

  The psychiatrist remains impassive. “What about the victims? Does anything come to mind that links their online code names?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “What else stands out in your mind?” asks Baxter.

  “Strobekker himself. No matter what alias he uses, his style is unmistakable.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s very literate, for one thing. Intuitive, as well. One minute he’s writing extemporaneous poetry, the next he cuts right to the bone with some insight into a woman’s character, almost as though he can answer whatever question is in her mind before she asks it. But the strangest thing is this: he must be the best damned typist in the world. Lightning fast, and he never makes a mistake.”

  “Never?” Lenz asks, leaning forward.

  “Not in the first eighty-five percent of contact.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With the sixth victim, and with Karin Wheat, I realized that Strobekker began making typographic errors—just like anyone else—a few days before each woman dropped off-line. When I went back and studied my printouts of the killer-victim exchanges, I saw that the typos began at about the eighty-five percent point in each relationship. Of course, I didn’t know anyone was being killed.”

  “You sound like you’ve distilled this thing down to a science,” says Baxter.

  “I work with numbers.”

  “Running this sex thing?” asks Mayeux.

  I chuckle bitterly. “No, I got into EROS for fun. You believe that? I earn my living trading futures.”

  My audience stares as if I’ve announced that I am an alchemist.

  “In a dink farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta?” asks one of the young FBI agents. “Who are your clients? Farmers hedging their crops?”

  “I only have one client.”

  “Who?” Mayeux asks suspiciously.

  “Himself,” says Arthur Lenz.

  Dr. Lenz is obviously the alchemist here. “That’s right. I only trade my own account.”

  “You some kind of millionaire?” asks Mayeux’s partner. “A goddamn gentleman farmer or something?”

  “Keep a civil tongue, Poché,” snaps the chief.

  “I do all right.”

  “What about the final fifteen percent of contact?” Lenz asks, plainly irritated by the squabbling.

  “He makes mistakes. About as many as anyone else. And his typing gets slower. A lot slower.”

  “Maybe he starts jacking off with one hand as he gets closer to the time of the hit,” suggests Poché.

  The chief frowns but lets that pass.

  Dr. Lenz strikes a pose of intense meditation as the door behind me opens swiftly. I turn and see a black woman in her twenties holding a computer printout in her hand. There is handwriting scrawled across it in blue ink.

  “What is it, Kiesha?” asks the chief.

  “We traced Strobekker, David M.”

  A cumulative catching of breath in the conference room. “Rap sheet?” Mayeux asks tentatively.

  “No.”

  “Minnesota DMV?”

  “No citations. Had one car—a Mercedes—but the plate expired last year.”

  “So who is the guy?”

  “An accountant for a glitzy firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

  I realize that Kiesha is trying to communicate something to Chief Tobin through eye contact alone. Despite her telepathic urgency, she is unsuccessful.

  “What is it, dear?” asks Arthur Lenz, as though he has known the woman since childhood.

  “He’s dead,” she says, almost as if against her will. “David M. Strobekker was beaten to death in an alley in Minneapolis eleven months ago.”

  A hot tingle races across my forearms.

  “Holy shit,” says Mayeux. “What are we dealing with here?”

  Daniel Baxter points a finger as thick as a Colt Python barrel at Kiesha. “Details?”

  “Minneapolis homicide says it looked like a mugging gone bad. Strobekker was single, probably homosexual. He was slumming on a bad stretch of Hennepin Avenue. His skull was so pulped his boss couldn’t recognize his face.”

  Dr. Lenz emits a small sound of what I can only interpret as pleasure.

  “Positive ID?” asks Mayeux.

  “Dental records and a thumbprint,” Kiesha replies. “His company kept thumbprint files; don’t ask me why. But it was Strobekker for sure.”

  “Not for sure,” I say, surprised to hear my own voice.

  “Why not?” Baxter asks sharply.

  “Well . . . say Strobekker is the killer. Say he decided to fake his own death so that he’d never be suspected in later crimes. He takes a thumbprint from a wino, puts that in his own personnel file, then kills the wino and pulps his face.”

  “What about the dental records?” asks Baxter.

  I shrug. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “You watch too many movies.”

  “I must see the body immediately,” Lenz says to Baxter, his eyes still on me.

  “Jeff, call the Minneapolis field office,” orders Baxter. “We want a judge who’ll give us an exhumation order ASAP. Then call the airport and book the first flight up there.”

  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

  “A pineal gland, among other things,” says Lenz, watching me closely. “Ever heard of it?”

  I shake my head while I memorize the term. My knowledge of anatomy is limited, but my wife’s is encyclopedic.

  “The two women who died in California were linked because a pathologist from San Fransisco happened to mention an unsolved homicide case to a colleague at a convention. A woman had been murdered by strangulation, then had both eyes removed and wooden stakes driven through the sockets. When the pathologist sectioned the brain, he found that the points of both stakes terminated in the third ventricle of the brain—a little too perfectly for him. Stranger still, he found that part of the pineal gland was missing, which the stakes would not account for. The colleague who heard this—a pathologist from Los Angeles—had an unsolved homicide that was completely different in almost every respect. A woman had been beaten to death with a claw hammer, probably by someone she knew. Her brain sustained horrific damage. But this di
d not explain why much of her pineal gland was gone. This chance conversation ultimately linked the crimes. Then the police promptly charged down the wrong track and decided they were dealing with cult murders.”

  Lenz’s tone of voice when he says “police” earns him few friends in this room. He points his index finger at me.

  “You tied those two victims to four others, through EROS. All four of those women also died from severe head wounds, or sustained postmortem head trauma. Pistol shot, shotgun blast, lethal fall. One was decapitated, as was Karin Wheat. We’re exhuming the first three and conducting repeat autopsies on the heads. If the condition of the brains permits it, I strongly suspect we will find that these women are missing all or part of their pineal glands.”

  The psychiatrist is staring at me as though he expects me to start filling in gaps for him.

  “What the hell does the pineal gland do?” I ask.

  As Lenz and Baxter stare silently at me, my survival instinct tells me it’s time to test the bars on this cage. “Look,” I say, directing my words to Chief Tobin, “I think you guys have definitely stepped out of my area of expertise. Can I go home now?”

  “Not just yet,” Tobin says. “Do people ever use their real names on this sex network?”

  I try to suppress the feeling that I’m going to be spending the night in a New Orleans hotel, if not jail. “Almost never. The code names are what allow them the freedom to say and be whatever they wish. They might exchange phone numbers to facilitate an f2f meeting, but—”

  “What’s f2f?” asks the chief.

  “Face-to-face.”

  “Oh. So did the victims give him their numbers?”

  “Not in the conversations I’ve printed out.”

  “So how do you think he’s learning their names?”

  “I think he’s somehow gained access to our accounting files. There’s a master client list in the company’s administrative computer, with account numbers, addresses, everything. That’s where I got Strobekker’s name.”

  “Who has access to that list?” asks Baxter.

  “Myself, Miles Turner, Jan Krislov. Maybe a few techs. That’s it. The computer handles the billing automatically. It’s a pretty sophisticated system.”