At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  He was thrilled for her. And by then he’d fallen so hard that he’d given her a key to his apartment. And it excited him every time he heard that key in the door and a small bundle of immense talent and energy burst in like a force of nature and bounded into his arms.

  Then one day, he’d come home and found her lying in bed. Not seductively but listlessly. She was distant and said she was just having an off day. He tried to talk to her, but she told him she just needed to sleep. But she didn’t sleep—just lay there until the evening, smoking cigarettes, a habit she said she had kicked for the sake of her voice. He knew this was more than just a down day. But when he tried to discuss it, she made a sarcastic remark about him being a half-baked headshrinker and to leave her alone. When he came to bed that night and tried to embrace her, she had pushed his hands away.

  The next morning she told him she had quit the band. They weren’t good enough, she said, and she didn’t want to undermine her reputation by having record company execs see her in a band that wasn’t up to snuff. He knew there was nothing wrong with the other musicians in her group and that she had bailed because of her own insecurities. He had tried to say as much as gently as he could, and just like Rachel Friesen, she had become furious. Nikki had stormed out of his apartment, cursing him so loudly that his neighbors opened their doors to see what the commotion was.

  He was awakened by the sound of her key in the lock around four AM that night. She slipped quietly into the bedroom and, in the dark, stripped down to her panties and slid in under the sheets next to him.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered in his ear.

  He resisted at first. She hadn’t apologized, and she reeked of bourbon and cigarettes. Then she pressed her pelvis against his leg.

  “Touch me. Please.”

  He had reached down tentatively and caressed her thigh. She slipped his fingers under her panties. She was wet, but not the way he expected. It was semen. Not his.

  “What the fuck?” he had exclaimed, throwing back the sheets as he recoiled from her.

  She snorted with amusement, then began laughing maniacally. “You’re such an asshole. You think you know what people are thinking with all your psychology crap. But you know fuck all about anything.”

  He’d had a sudden urge to backhand her, to wipe that crazed smirk off her face. And Nikki knew it.

  “Go ahead. Hit me, you piece of shit. I know you want to. You act so superior, so in control, but you’re just a fuckup like everybody else. So go ahead, big fucking mind reader, hit me.”

  Instead, suppressing the violent impulses that he knew she was trying to provoke, he grabbed his pillow and headed for the sofa.

  On the way out, he looked over his shoulder and said as calmly as he could, “I want you out of here first thing in the morning.”

  “Fine,” she had replied, smirking. “It’ll be a pleasure. Asshole.”

  He had awakened the next morning feeling exhausted and morally hungover. Nikki on the other hand was already up and dressed, manically energetic despite having slept for four hours at most.

  “Give me the key,” he had said.

  “Gladly,” she had responded, flinging it at his feet.

  He held the door open and gestured to the hall. “Now get the fuck out of my place and don’t ever, ever call me again.”

  “You can count on it,” she said, giving him a mocking version of the Cheshire-cat grin that he had once loved.

  She rolled her hips as she strode out, to torture him, to remind him exactly what he would be missing from this day on.

  * * *

  Verraday was embarrassed to think he’d ever been as needy as Kyle Davis, and when Maclean finally broke the silence, he was relieved to be extracted from his angst-ridden reverie.

  “So? What did you think of Kyle Davis?” she asked.

  “He’s not your serial killer,” replied Verraday. “He doesn’t have any of the markers. I’m not hearing much anger from Kyle toward her. Just sadness and frustration with himself. He was head over heels for her, even when she was horribly abusive to him. And did you notice that he didn’t have the Assassin Girls page bookmarked? He had to type in the search.”

  “Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment: let’s suppose that the Carmichael and Friesen cases aren’t connected. Couldn’t Kyle still be an angry, jilted boyfriend who became homicidal? You know, an ‘If I can’t have her, nobody can’ kind of guy?”

  “No. He doesn’t exhibit any jealousy. But he did present a lot of dependency, and if he killed Rachel, he wouldn’t ever get to see her again. A guy that dependent would never be able to throw away the object of his fixation.”

  “And what about her? What’s your take?”

  “My best guess is that she suffered from some kind of mental illness precipitated by stress. That coupled with some other personality traits could have gotten her into trouble. Sounds like she had a narcissistic streak. Also exhibitionism, anxiety, and a tendency toward risk-taking behavior. She was emotionally needy.”

  “As needy as Kyle?”

  “Yes, although their neediness manifested itself in different ways. That’s why their relationship was so intense. ‘At first.’ Notice how many times Kyle said ‘at first’? Everything was amazing ‘at first,’ and then it suddenly fizzled.”

  “Well, maybe it fizzled because there was something he did, something about him that she didn’t like.”

  “Correct. What she didn’t like about him was that he was an ordinary human being. Rachel’s diminishing interest in Kyle wasn’t cognitive. It was biochemical.”

  “In plain English, meaning what?”

  “The intensity of the sort of love he describes is common in people with insecure attachment issues. Check into his background, and you’ll find a father who was distant or not present at all and a mother who was inconsistent in providing for her children’s emotional needs. Someone unpredictable, who blew hot and cold without warning, so he never felt certain of her love. He would have to be insecure to fall that hard for somebody he hardly knows. Rachel was beautiful, intuitive, and passionate. So with that combination, for a while, they both felt like they’d found what they’d always been looking for, a ‘soul mate.’ No more insecure attachment for him, and for her, the high of being totally adored by another human being. But it couldn’t continue at that level of intensity.”

  “Why not?”

  “Chemistry. When we fall in love, our nerve cells release dopamine, a neurochemical transmitter. It makes people feel so good that they want to believe that person really is the love of their life, because they don’t want it to ever stop, any more than a crackhead can let go of a rock and a pipe.”

  “That sounds awfully clinical.”

  “It is. But that’s nature. Touching and orgasms release oxytocin—that’s why it’s called the love hormone. If you inject oxytocin into a vole, it will fall in love with whatever other vole it’s looking at.”

  “But a vole doesn’t have the power to think rationally like a human.”

  “You think Kyle Davis and Rachel Friesen were thinking rationally when they were living in their little bubble together?”

  “Point taken, but if Rachel Friesen and Kyle Davis were so head over heels in love, full of oxytocin and neurotransmitters, why did she suddenly get tired of him but he didn’t get tired of her?”

  “Rachel had anxiety issues combined with an underlying narcissistic nature. The positive interaction—adulation from the kids and from Kyle—made her feel good and kept her anxiety at bay ‘at first.’ But like all chemical addictions, over time you need to increase the dose to get the same effect. Rachel had a strong sex drive. All that lovemaking would stimulate those neurotransmitters that kept her anxiety under control. And for Kyle, having a beautiful girlfriend with a powerful sexual appetite like Rachel would have been enough to keep him in oxytocin for months. He was over the moon.”

  “But he wasn’t enough for her?”

  “Exactly. He couldn�
�t be. No matter how hard he tried. Rachel’s brain chemistry gave her a compelling need for novelty and stimulation to counteract her anxiety and depression.”

  “So Rachel’s body stopped releasing oxytocin sooner than Kyle’s did because she needed a new thrill?”

  “That’s right. In the end it came down to circumstance and biochemistry. Ironically, Kyle’s endorphin level would have peaked just around the time Rachel’s had already dropped off. Since Rachel Friesen had a much greater need for novelty than Kyle Davis did, then in order for her to continue to feel the endorphin high at the same level that he did after the first few months, she needed new experiences.”

  “Like going out and flirting with strangers? Or putting her photos up on Assassin Girls?”

  “Exactly. But his endorphin would have dropped eventually too. If she’d walked out of his life after two years of working part time in toy stores and bitching about her parents and her student loans, he probably would have been glad to see her go.”

  “Oxytocin and endorphins aside, don’t you think that sometimes people just know they’re right for each other? I mean, my father proposed to my mother when they’d only known each other two months.”

  “And you’re going to tell me that they just had their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary?”

  “Actually, no. My dad died when I was eleven.”

  Verraday squirmed inwardly, annoyed at himself now for his flippant remark.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling awkward and inept. “How did it happen?”

  “He was a firefighter. He went out to a call at a warehouse on a three-alarm blaze. Place belonged to a company that wanted to knock it down and turn it into condos. But it was zoned historical, so they couldn’t—that is, until it conveniently got torched. My father and two other firefighters were trapped when a floor collapsed. The fire inspectors thought it was arson, but the city quashed their investigation because the developers were major contributors to the mayor’s campaign. They collected five million dollars in insurance and were able to build their condos after all.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Well, I guess you know what it feels like.”

  “That I do,” he replied, “It’s toxic.”

  Maclean nodded. “And the worst thing is,” she said, “that’s when you suddenly discover that your life and the lives of the people you love are just this one tiny, tiny corner of the universe. And even though this terrible injustice has been committed, the world moves on.”

  Verraday glanced across at Maclean. She never took her gaze off the road, but he saw vulnerability in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if they had a slight sheen to them now or if he was imagining it. He felt impolite and invasive gazing at her, so he turned and stared out the window into the night, the storefronts and apartments and people flashing past them like incomplete fragments of a zoetrope sequence that would never be shown again.

  “This Assassin Girls site,” he said at last. “It seems like it’s tailor-made for predators to find victims. You ever hear of it before?”

  “It’s been around for a couple of years now,” said Maclean. “Mostly it’s girls looking for attention. But some of them try to work it too. The site pays them sixty dollars per set of nude selfies. They can post up to four sets a month.”

  “Two hundred and forty dollars a month to post nude pictures of yourself on the Internet? Are you kidding me? That’s what, less than three grand a year for giving the world unlimited access to nude photos of yourself. I wonder how much the owners of the site make.”

  “Probably millions. Welcome to the digital economy.”

  “Welcome to the race to the bottom.”

  “Some girls in the sex trade use it like advertising too, to make contacts. They figure they can charge more money and get a better sort of clientele if they build a public image and a fan base.”

  “Well, my money says that that ‘fan base’ is exactly where Rachel met her killer. Rachel needed a new high, and she was looking for a bad boy.”

  “And unfortunately for her, she found one.”

  “So can we find out who contacted her through the site?”

  “Yes, but Assassin Girls is based in the Netherlands. That means we need to go through Interpol. The National Central Bureau in DC will make the request to the Dutch police for us. It’ll happen, but it will take a while.”

  “Meanwhile our killer could be out and killing again.”

  “That’s why we have to find another way to get to him. Time is one thing we don’t have.”

  “I’m curious. What was the Seattle PD doing in the time between when Kyle Davis filed the report and when Rachel’s body was found?”

  “Nothing. I checked into it. When I was trying to ID the Jane Doe and pulled Rachel Friesen’s file, it was the first time it had been opened since the day he reported her missing.”

  Verraday shook his head, disgusted.

  “Listen,” said Maclean, “it’s not that simple. Rachel dumped Kyle. Usually when a jilted partner reports someone missing, that person doesn’t want to be found, at least not by their ex. Particularly in the case of a girlfriend reported missing. The police department doesn’t want to be helping an abusive boyfriend stalk his ex. There are twenty thousand missing persons cases in Washington State at any given moment. Do you have any idea of the kind of manpower you’d need to track them all down?”

  Verraday frowned. How in hell do twenty thousand people just go missing, even in a place the size of Washington State?

  “What about Alana Carmichael?” he asked. “What do you know about her? I mean, besides what’s in the official report?”

  “I dug around in the social services file. Her parents divorced when she was seven. Father moved to California, and she lived with her mother after that. Mom had a series of boyfriends, finally married one who sexually assaulted Alana when she was twelve. That was the first time she ran away from home. After the fifth time, the authorities finally clued in to what was going on. They were going to place her with her father, but by that time, Dad was in a halfway house and a methadone program, so instead Alana was made a ward of the state and went through a series of foster homes. Alana left as soon as she was old enough, never finished high school, and ended up working as a stripper, doing some webcam stuff on the side.”

  “Totally different background than Rachel Friesen, but the same outcome,” Verraday wearily mused.

  Maclean pulled the Interceptor up to the curb in front of Verraday’s small two-story clapboard house.

  “I’ll get Rachel’s bank and cell records tomorrow and see what turns up,” said Maclean. “Meanwhile, if you can look over the case files for her and Alana Carmichael, and the rap sheet for Fowler’s suspect, Peter Cray, I’d be grateful. They were a little tricky for me to get; I had to sneak the originals for the Carmichael case out and get them copied on the sly, so as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you don’t have them, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  Verraday caught a glimpse of something in Maclean’s expression.

  “What?” he asked.

  Maclean was hesitant for a moment, then spoke.

  “How can a family give up on their own flesh and blood like the Friesens did? I see it all the time, but I just can’t wrap my head around that.”

  “You ever date anyone who was bipolar?” asked Verraday.

  There was a long moment of silence between them. Then Maclean handed Verraday two manila envelopes. “These are the case files. There’s some pretty unsettling stuff in there. I’ll be up for a couple of hours. Call me if you want.”

  He climbed out of the vehicle and closed the door behind him. She lowered the passenger window.

  “Seriously. Call me if you need to.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be okay,” said Verraday. “Good night.”

  She pulled away from the curb, and he watched her until the thrum of the Interceptor’s engine faded away and the vehicle rounded the corner and disappeared from view.r />
  Then his attention was drawn to the sound of a creaking hinge. He turned toward his gate and noticed that it was open, swinging slightly in the light breeze. He knew he’d closed it before he went out. That was something he was particular about. He looked both ways down his street and saw that all the other front gates were latched. That pissed him off. An open gate was a form of semiotics that singled one’s home out, made it stand out from the others, leaving a subliminal message to possible intruders that this dwelling and its occupants were less carefully guarded than those of his more security-conscious neighbors. Ordinary people might not notice such seemingly minor details, but people with deviant psyches were hyperaware of them. Psychopaths he had interviewed in prisons told him they could pick a suitable victim out of a crowd just by the way he or she walked.

  Verraday latched the gate firmly behind him and made his way up the path, spotting a bundle of flyers on his doorstep—immediately beneath the “No Flyers” sign. He picked them up, inwardly cursing the delivery person who had not only disregarded his explicit request but then left his gate open and made him a mark.

  Most of the flyers were the usual junk mail standards: vinyl siding installers, window cleaners, chimney rebuilders, and carpet cleaners. One caught his eye however. It was for a burlesque and rockabilly show at a club downtown, near Pike Place Market, featuring a troupe of performers called Sinner Saint. He’d heard about them. There was something clever and arch about their presentation. Their retro outfits were sexy but artistic and left something to the imagination. Their attitude was campy and tongue in cheek, and the dancers gave themselves witty names like Evilyn Sin Claire. He threw all the flyers into the recycle bin—except the one from Sinner Saint, which he slipped inside his briefcase. It looked like a fun night out. And as his sister Penny regularly reminded him, fun was something he didn’t have enough of in his life, a fact he considered as he put his key in the front door lock, not looking forward to the task that awaited him.