The Immorality Clause

by Brian Parker

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice, Dr. Jones.”

  “It’s not a problem. Please, have a seat,” the doctor said, indicating the chair across from her desk.

  “Phew! I thought you meant over on the couch.” I pointed toward the sofa where officers were supposed to sit when she talked with them as patients.

  She frowned at my joke. I wasn’t doing very well at eliciting a laugh from women this morning. “No. I don’t need you to sit over there—unless you’d like to schedule an appointment to talk about something.”

  “Ah, no. I was trying to be funny and it looks like I failed.”

  “It wasn’t that funny of a joke, Detective.” Doctor Jones and I had spent a lot of time together over the years as I went through all the anger management courses from the department; some of them the standard courses given to all officers, but most because of one event or another that I’d been a part of. Our relationship was rocky, at best.

  I pulled out my notebook and sat down. “So,” she began, “the case files you sent over are interesting. I want you to remember that I’m not a criminal psychologist, so this is all just my personal opinion about the case and I only agreed to do it because I know you.”

  I nodded and waved my hand. “I understand, Doc. C.Y.A. and all that.”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m not specially trained in criminal profiling like someone whom the FBI would be able to bring into the case.”

  “The mayor is adamant that the feds aren’t involved. He wants to keep it local.”

  “Right. So, my opinion is that I agree with your assessment that it’s the same person.”

  “Okay, good. I was starting to think I was losing my edge.”

  “No, you’re as sharp as ever, Zach,” she replied, finally smiling. “The timing is the clincher in my mind; it’s too precise to be coincidental—but, I do know that it’s not a matter of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,” she said, referring to my earlier suggestion. “When a person has OCPD, it’s all about doing a set pattern of actions without any rhyme or reason, such as turning the stove on and off six times in a row, every day at a certain time. It’s a ritualistic behavior that often doesn’t even make sense to the person doing them; they just know they have to do it.”

  She paused to let me digest the information and then continued, “I think the killer is trying to outsmart us. He’s dropping these easily recognizable clues on purpose to make himself look incompetent—”

  “I don’t think the killer is incompetent,” I countered. “He or she has murdered at least four people without leaving a shred of evidence behind. No DNA, no fingerprints—no motive. I’m stumped beyond knowing that we’ve got less than a week to stop the next one.”

  She inclined her head. “You’re right. I misspoke. What I meant to say is the killer may be trying to appear that he has OCPD to distract the police with the pattern he’s established while he’s actually doing something entirely different.”

  “Hmm…” I thought about it for a second as the gears in my head turned sluggishly. It made sense that the killer could be trying to draw resources away from another event. To be honest, I’d already planned to have as many cops as possible in all of the Easytown sex clubs next Saturday night. “I’ll have to cross reference past activities in the city to see if an event coincided with any of the murders or if there’s something scheduled on one of future dates that he could be trying to distract the police department from.”

  “Good idea. While my belief that he’s trying to distract us is my primary hypothesis on the timing, there could a multitude of reasons for the killer’s schedule; the anniversary of an event, a religious or ritualistic holiday that we don’t know about. Perhaps the dates are ones that the killer has chosen because they will eventually uncover a pattern that would otherwise go undetected until the series is complete.”

  She flipped through the files, stopping before she came to the crime scene photos. “As to the killer’s personality, there’s very little to go on, as you know. But, my guess would be that he falls into two categories. One,” she held up a finger as she talked, “he has antisocial personality disorder—a lot of killers fall into this category. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says this disorder is characterized by a pattern of disregard and violation of the rights of others, sometimes including a lack of conscience—or at least a diminished one. People with ASPD tend to have a history of crime, legal problems, and impulsive or aggressive behavior. This guy may already have a record.”

  “Well, if he does, he’s gotten better at what he’s doing,” I mumbled.

  “Given the way these murders are happening, the other probable profile is a narcissistic personality disorder. He believes that he’s smarter than the police, so he’ll do whatever he damn well pleases. From my research, serial killers who suffer from this disorder like to play cat and mouse games with the cops—think Son of Sam.”

  “That’s not good,” I muttered. The Son of Sam killer terrorized old New York City in the last century and was still a case study at the academy today. He left letters to the police at the crime scenes, taunting them and promising more crimes in the future.

  “No, it’s not,” she agreed. “I re-read the DSM and I don’t think this guy is going to fall into any of the other personality disorder types—if he’s even got a disorder. He could just be an asshole.”

  I chuckled at her attempt at humor. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility that the killer is a woman,” I said and then took a swig from the bottle of water I’d brought with me.

  “You’re right, Detective. Lord knows there’ve been enough women murderers here in New Orleans, but female serial killers—if that’s what this is—are rare by comparison to their male counterparts. Women who kill often do so for one of three reasons: passion, money or power; the most common being the proverbial crime of passion.

  “Male serial killers, however, often involve sex in some way during their ritual—which is why I believe this is killer is a male. The choice of clubs offering prostitutes may be a combination of convenience that we haven’t figured out yet, and the need to inflict sexual humiliation upon the victims. While the acts themselves don’t seem to be demeaning, getting murdered in an establishment like that may be enough to satisfy the desire for humiliation in the killer’s mind.” She nudged around a few of the photos. “The victims’ deaths certainly satisfy one of the other traits of male serial killers, which is sadistic sexual violence.”

  “Alright, so you think there’s a high probability that the killer is male, who is either a brilliant egomaniac or the standard thug who lurks in dark alleys. Based on what we’ve got, this could be anyone in Easytown. I was hoping you’d be able to narrow it down a little for me.”

  “I told you that it isn’t my area of expertise, Detective. You want a better profile, go to the FBI.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I replied, properly rebuked. “I do have one more wrinkle to throw into this. It happened Saturday night after I spoke to you.”

  Her eyes lit up. “What’s that?”

  “Someone tried to kill me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I had my AI assistant check into the background of a witness, simple public records search and my computer mainframe was attacked repeatedly. She—my computer—was able to defend against those attacks, but when I had the program disconnect from the network for safety, the hacker overrode my Jeep’s navigation system and took me out to the middle of nowhere in Iberia Parish, then dumped me into the Pontchartrain off the old Causeway. If I hadn’t had my gun to shoot out the windows, I’d be on the bottom of the lake.”

  “Do you think the witness had anything to do with it?” she asked.

  Images of Paxton’s lithe, naked body sliding along mine flashed through my mind. Our eagerness to explore one another had burned quite a few memorable pictures into my brain. “She’s not a suspect. We’ve got six witnesses who were in the waiti
ng area the entire time and twenty who got locked down in the establishment’s rooms, all of whom say they never saw the manager—the woman whose records I checked—leave the receptionist desk until she discovered the body.”

  “Did anything like it happen when you searched the records of the other three witnesses who discovered bodies?”

  “No. The only damning thing I found on any of them was a minor drug possession charge.”

  “Maybe you should do a little deeper digging into this woman’s past,” the doctor replied skeptically. “I’m not saying she has anything to do with it, but it seems odd that the attack occurred when you delved into her records and it certainly begs the question of why her information was flagged and the others weren’t.”

  “I think the person who hacked my car and the killer are the same person.”

  “I would assume that too. You know… Hold on.”

  She stood quickly and retrieved a large, honest-to-goodness, printed book from a shelf. I read the title on the spine before she set it flat on her desk and began to flip through the pages. It was the DSM she’d been referencing.

  I tried to remain quiet while she researched and looked around the office that I’d been in twenty times in half as many years. The décor hadn’t changed much, maybe a newer chair and couch, but everything else remained the same, even down to the potted philodendron in the corner.

  “Here it is,” she said, jabbing her finger at the text. “I thought I remembered seeing that. A lot of hackers also have antisocial personality disorder. If the killer is a computer hacker, then that may be the beginning of your profile of the guy.”

  “Good point,” I said, making a short annotation on my notebook page.

  I circled the word ‘hacker’ and set my pen down. “I wonder if he’s hacking the droids.”

  “The sex robots?” Doctor Jones asked. “I thought the security systems for those things were supposed to be as solid as what the department uses on the police drones.”

  “It’s supposed to be. They deal with a lot of personal information, so their programs are supposed to be tightly controlled…” I worked through the implications of a hacker taking over sex bots in my head. It would make sense that they could be present for the event without leaving fingerprints, but we’d had our tech guys go over the droids’ video and memory feeds frame by frame and byte by byte. The droids weren’t involved.

  “So, did you find out what you wanted to about the witness?” she asked, stirring me from my thoughts.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “Before the part about the hacker came up, you were telling me that you were investigating her records. Anything out of the ordinary come up?”

  “She earns a lot of money to keep a lot of people happy,” I replied tersely.

  The fact that I was uncomfortable with her question about Paxton told me what I already knew. I’d danced too close to a gray area of the department’s policies concerning witnesses—hell, I’d done more than dance; I’d ripped out the pages and wallowed across them. I’d allowed myself to rationalize that while, yes, it was currently an active case, it could be active for years given the lack of evidence. I was one hundred percent positive that Paxton had nothing to do with the murder, but my behavior with her was inexcusable.

  Doctor Jones closed the book and then the open folder underneath. “Well, there have been several cases where killers went after the police officers investigating their crimes, so it’s not unheard of. I’d dig into the main witnesses at the other locations to see if the same thing happens, maybe the killer is monitoring all of them and you only triggered the response by digging deeper. I’d be interested to hear the results.”

  “Hmm… You’ve given me some things to think about,” I remarked, looking at my notebook, which only had a few notes. She’d given me a good idea about checking the calendar for overlapping events and the part about the average hacker’s disorder, but I hadn’t gotten as much as I’d hoped to from her. The idea that the hacker was controlling the droids was interesting, but in reality it was a distraction since the department had already proven they weren’t involved. More questions, zero answers.

  She stood and handed the files back to me. “I know that it wasn’t a lot, Detective. I want to help, but with the evidence that you’ve been able to find so far, I’m not sure how much more I can offer or if a profiler would even be of any use yet.”

  “No, your recommendation to cross-reference the calendar is extremely helpful, thank you.”

  “Any time,” she replied as she came around the desk and indicated the door. “I hope you catch this guy soon. The city council is up in arms about the potential loss of revenue if business in your district declines due to this case.”

  “I’m working on it as best I can,” I grunted. “See ya next time, Doc.”

  It all comes down to money—well, sex and money, I amended my thoughts when I remembered Councilman Jefferson sitting in the locked room with his two pleasure droids, waiting to be released after he gave his statement. I wondered how many of our fine city councilmen and women visited the Easytown clubs on a regular basis.

  In the back of my mind, I also wondered how long it was until my own illicit behavior with Paxton was discovered.

  I noticed that the sun had broken through the cloud cover overhead as I exited the headquarters building. I smiled as the warmth hit my face and thought about taking a walk with Paxton after lunch. We could go for a stroll through one of the parks by the Pharaoh and then head back to my place for the afternoon until I had to go in to work tonight.

  Those types of thoughts were totally out of character for me. I didn’t understand why I’d become infatuated with Paxton. Yes, she was beautiful, smart, sexy and willing, but I didn’t normally have thoughts about taking a walk. What is wrong with me? I asked as I shook my head, grinning like a schoolboy.

  My mood was shattered as ten reporters assailed me on the building’s steps. They thrust their cameras in my face and began shouting questions from all directions.

  “Detective Forrest! Detective, there are rumors that the Easytown neighborhood has become the haunt of a new serial killer. Is that correct?”

  “What? I— No, the latest murders in Easytown are under investigation.”

  “Are they related?” another voice yelled out.

  “It’s unknown at this time.” I tried to push my way past them as the BMW pulled up to the curb.

  “Is it true that there are five unsolved murders in Easytown, all closely related?”

  “Four… Dammit, let me by.” I hadn’t meant to give them any information and I’d accidentally verified their story.

  “Detective, is it safe for people to go to Easytown?”

  “It’s as safe as it always has been,” I replied. I felt myself getting angry and mentally forced myself to calm down.

  “Is the department recommending residents avoid any of the establishments in the district?”

  “No. These are isolated incidents. Excuse me. My car is waiting and I don’t need to get a ticket.”

  They finally parted to let me through and I jogged down the steps to the car, practically diving through the open door into the darkened interior.

  Before I’d even adjusted my ass on the leather, the car’s phone rang. It was a blocked number, so I punched the button. “Hello?”

  “Forrest, what the fuck are you doing talking to reporters?”

  Shit. “I didn’t, Chief. They ambushed me outside the headquarters.”

  “I saw the interview. You better believe the mayor and the FBI will too.”

  “I—”

  “Dammit. Nothing we can do about it now,” Chief Brubaker growled. “They were gonna find out soon anyways.”

  “They—”

  “Don’t talk to any more reporters. You understand?”

  “Yes, si—”

  “What the fuck are you doing down at headquarters?”

  “I came…” I paused, waiting for him to cut me off
again. When he didn’t, I restarted. “I came down here to talk to the shrink.”

  “The shrink? Are you losing it on me, Forrest?”

  “No, sir. I wanted to get her opinion on the sex club case.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “That she isn’t a criminal psychologist, but she believes that the murders are linked. We ran through a couple of interesting scenarios.” I was hungry, so I tapped the address for the Pharaoh into the nav system as I talked. “The killer may be purposefully misleading us with the timing of the murders. We expect the next event to happen this Saturday, so we were going to blanket Easytown with as many cops as possible.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good plan,” the chief replied.

  The car’s console beeped, indicating a received message. I tapped it. It was from Paxton; I’d have to read it after my conversation with Chief Brubaker was over.

  “What if that’s what the killer wants us to do? Maybe he’s trying to distract us from some other event that will happen Saturday—or two Sundays from now—because we’re fixated on this pattern and will try to preempt another murder.”

  “You’re giving this guy a lot of credit.”

  “He’s killed four people in the middle of crowded clubs without a single witness or a shred of evidence,” I stated in rebuttal.

  “Shit, you’re right. I’ll have people begin working on the calendar aspect. When are you coming in?”

  “I need to grab lunch and then I’ll be down at the office, Chief.”

  “Fine. I’ll get Cruz to cover the night shift tonight.”

  “There’s no reason to, sir. I’m good to go as long as I’m just on call instead of sitting in the office.”

  “Authorized,” he replied. “Guess this blows your cover about dying in the Pontchartrain, huh, Forrest?”

  “Dammit. I hadn’t gotten time to think about that yet,” I admitted.

  “Well, keep an eye out and watch your back. I’ll see you soon.”