At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  There were titters of laughter in the lecture hall. Verraday felt a pang of guilt over his not-particularly-subtle put-down of Koller but decided it was worth it. A bit of applied psychology and tough love was exactly what this kid needed.

  “Now, if we can move along, I’ve still got a lot of material to cover today. Mr. Koller, if you’d like to discuss this further, you’re welcome to come see me in my office during the scheduled time, between nine and ten AM Thursdays.”

  Koller looked pissed off, but settled in and didn’t ask any more questions for the rest of the lecture. Ninety minutes later, Verraday was happy to hear the rustling of backpacks and paper and the tearing of Velcro that indicated the end of today’s class.

  CHAPTER 17

  Verraday’s agitated mood began to return when he got home. He was still chafing from Maclean’s rejection of his help. But he decided that sharing the information about Destiny with Maclean was the right thing to do anyway, even if she was too damned bullheaded to do anything useful with it. He grabbed his cell and typed in the contact information along with a terse message: “In case you care, the other girl in the photo with Rachel is named Destiny. This is where you can reach her.” Then he hit send. That was it. He was done with Maclean and the investigation now. He had fulfilled his obligation, done as much as he could for the cause of justice.

  He resolved to get a head start on the midterm exam, on the off chance that he decided he wouldn’t feel completely foolish going to the steampunk convention that weekend with Penny. So he poured himself a glass of wine, turned on the gas fireplace, and sat down on the sofa with the coursework and his laptop, determined to write some new questions this year. He spent the next hour wading through various scholarly papers and writing, and, satisfied that he’d now come up with the beginnings of something that was not only fresh but also genuinely useful to his students, he put his work away and retired upstairs to the den to check his e-mail.

  Most of the messages were questions about the midterm. Predictably, there was one from Koller, continuing to argue the point about psychopaths being more intelligent than the average person and including a link to a dubious pop psychology website that reinforced his belief.

  Then there was an e-mail from Jensen, the mousy, nondescript girl.

  “Dear Professor Verraday, I have a question about the course material. I’m still not entirely clear on the difference between modus operandi and signature in serial killers. The material from the FBI suggests that a criminal usually has a ‘signature’ that identifies them. But couldn’t a repeat offender confuse investigators by intentionally changing their signature?”

  “That’s an interesting question,” Verraday replied, “To a logical mind, that seems like the obvious thing to do. But the short answer is, killers with a signature behavior do what they do because it’s what gratifies them. A strangler would feel cheated if he had to shoot someone. Interviews with convicted killers have confirmed this. It’s analogous to the way certain people always have coffee after dinner, while someone else might prefer tea, and a third person would choose brandy instead. They all eat dinner, but their rituals around it are different. And while they savor their own rituals, they would find each other’s rituals unsatisfying. I’m glad that you raised this issue, and I will bring it up in the next class.”

  When he closed her e-mail, he saw that three junk e-mails had popped up on his screen in the meantime. He was surprised. His spam filter usually caught them, but there were always exceptions. The first one had a subject line indicating that hot Russian MILFS were looking for relationships with him. The second one hinted at some especially repugnant form of kiddie porn. He promptly deleted both without looking at them.

  The third one was an announcement of a special photographic exhibition of Bettie Page at the MoMA in New York. It sounded interesting. So he clicked the mouse and opened the e-mail. He didn’t notice a date, but there was a vintage photo of Bettie Page, wearing a merry widow, brandishing a whip and her trademark grin. Bettie was campy but sexy. And more to the point, as a twelve-year-old, Verraday had stumbled across postcards of her in a used books and comics store in Pike Place Market. He’d had no idea at the time who Bettie Page was, but the effect on his hormone-flooded adolescent brain was as profound as if some alternate-universe fairy godmother in black had tapped him with her wand. Bettie and her provocative and highly distinctive lingerie had been imprinted on his erotic sensibilities then and there. And as his first sexual icon, she still held considerable sway. Not enough to make him fly to New York City just to see an exhibit of photos that he could probably find anywhere on the Internet, mind you, but he couldn’t resist at least checking the web page. He clicked on the link. A moment later, he was gazing at a montage of Bettie photos. In one, a corseted Bettie was being spanked by a woman in stockings and a bra. He’d seen that one dozens of times. Ditto on the next picture, in which Bettie was tied up and gagged. In another one, she was taking part in a clumsily staged catfight with a blonde woman. It was classic Bettie Page—erotic, racy yet somehow slightly goofy in spite of the taboo nature of the acts depicted. It was a great idea for a MoMA exhibit, thought Verraday, but the images were a bit well worn and predictable for a gallery whose collection included some of the most imaginative and sublime works of Frank Gehry, Chagall, and Van Gogh.

  Then down the side of the screen, he noticed a few thumbnails, photos of Bettie that he’d never seen before. They teased with shadow and light and were artistic, even highbrow, compared to the workmanlike creations of Bettie’s usual photographers, Irving Klaw and Bunny Yeager, which had become famous for their subject matter rather than the quality of their execution.

  One was a photo of her torso, breasts shapely and full, restrained within a 1950s-style black bullet bra. Her midriff was bare. The photo was cropped so that it stopped just below her navel. Uncharacteristically, Bettie’s face was absent from the picture. Only her chin entered the top of the frame. The second photo was exquisitely shot. It featured Bettie in silhouette, posed like a burlesque version of Picasso’s Blue Nude, backlit by a soft light, her face obscured by shadow but revealing just enough that Verraday could make out a hint of a seductive smile. Verraday clicked on the next thumbprint. It was a close-up of Bettie’s legs wrapped in sheer black stockings, her thighs angled artfully inward in a way that encouraged the viewer’s eye to follow the line of the black garters up her skin. Then it toyed with the viewer by stopping the barest fraction of an inch short of where the lines of her inner thighs would have converged. Verraday clicked on this thumbnail too so that it went full screen. It was beautifully shot. He admired not only the erotic quality of the photo but the aesthetic way in which it had been lit and framed, carefully designed to arouse the viewer and suggest unseen destinations withheld from the eye, but not from the imagination. Verraday couldn’t recall ever having come across this photo of Bettie before. His heart was beating fast, so that when his cell phone beside him unexpectedly rang, he started, something he almost never did.

  It was late now. He hoped it wasn’t a student. He had been explicit about not being called at night, but to his annoyance, the university directory had published cell numbers for the professors, so it was always a possibility. The display read “Private Caller.”

  He waited a couple of rings so that he wouldn’t sound breathless from the surprise.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “It’s Maclean. Sorry to call so late. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Just answering student e-mails,” Verraday lied. “What’s up?”

  Maclean’s voice was tense. “Can you meet me in about twenty minutes?”

  “I guess so. At the café?”

  “No. I’m off duty, and I could use a drink. I’ll give you the address.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Bellingham was Maclean’s suggestion. Verraday had never been there before, but the pub had a warm, low-key ambience that immediately made him feel relaxed and at home. The bar
was stained walnut. It stretched half the length of the room and matched the wainscoting as well as the booths on the opposite wall. Frosted-glass pendant lamps hung from the ceiling above the aisle, bathing the room in soft, indirect light. The music was turned up loud enough to ensure that they couldn’t be overheard, but not so much that they’d have to raise their voices above a normal conversational level.

  As usual, Maclean was already there. Verraday was grateful to see that she’d taken up a position in one of two wingback chairs by the fireplace, in an alcove that would give them some privacy. She wore a close-fitting gray sweater, a denim skirt hemmed just above her knees, and black boots. Her hair was down. It was longer than he’d imagined it to be. He experienced a pang of regret. He was sorry that their trust in each other had hit such a big bump. He didn’t want to be angry with her. He liked this woman, didn’t want to feel estranged from her. But regardless, as he greeted her and sat down in the wingchair, he couldn’t help feeling some distance between them, on his own side if not from hers.

  The waiter, a bearded young man with an affable manner and an easy smile, came by. Maclean ordered a vodka and soda. Verraday asked for a recommendation on a dark ale and chose what the waiter suggested, a local brew from the Willamette Valley. After the waiter left, Verraday sank back into his comfortable wingback chair. He loved the light and warmth from the fireplace and, under other circumstances, could have dozed off. But the situation he found himself in was far from conducive to sleep.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  Maclean checked to make sure that no one had come within earshot, then leaned forward in her wingback chair.

  “There’s been another murder.”

  Verraday felt a leaden anticipation in his chest. “Who is it?”

  Maclean pursed her lips. “The girl from the screengrab. Destiny. The one you sent me the message about.”

  “Oh fuck.”

  “A construction worker found her body this afternoon in a vacant lot behind a demolition site.”

  “How was she killed?”

  “The MO is the same as with Alana Carmichael and Rachel Friesen. Heavy beating with a leather belt, then strangulation, first with hand pressure, then with a garrote. Not a single defensive wound anywhere.”

  Verraday felt a crushing sense of failure. “I tried to warn her. I texted her twice. First last night, then again this morning. She finally responded with a message telling me to fuck off.”

  “I don’t think you—or anyone—could have saved her. According to the coroner, she’d been dead for about twenty-four hours.”

  Maclean saw the dejection on Verraday’s face. “There’s nothing you could have done,” she said decisively. “It was probably the killer who texted you, trying to buy himself some time.”

  Verraday felt revolted to realize he had unwittingly been trading text messages with a murderer. A murderer who could now potentially identify him from his phone number.

  “I can’t believe I got sucked in,” said Verraday.

  “James, you had no way of knowing. He fooled all of us. So far. But we will get him. I can find out where the text originated by having Destiny’s phone signal triangulated, but my guess is that it won’t be from the kill site or the dump site.”

  “No,” agreed Verraday. “This guy’s much too clever to do that. Wouldn’t surprise me if he purposely sent it from near her home address, if he knew it.”

  “We haven’t found her purse, phone, or any ID for that matter,” said Maclean. “He probably knew where she lived from her driver’s license.”

  “How did you know who she was?”

  “The screenshots you sent over.”

  They stopped speaking for a moment as the waiter returned with the drinks. Verraday noticed that like the waitress at the Trabant, this waiter seemed to be aware that his arrival at their table caused a lull in the conversation. But unlike the young woman at the Trabant, their waiter just gave them a friendly, confident smile and told them to enjoy their drinks. Then he returned to the bar to polish the pint glasses with a cloth, humming contentedly. Why did some people react so differently to identical stimuli, wondered Verraday? How much was nature and how much was nurture? It was the eternal question that vexed psychologists. It certainly vexed him.

  He took a sip of his dark ale. It was deep and rich, with just enough bitterness from the hops to balance the sweetness of the malt. He savored it and felt himself relaxing slightly. Maclean took a healthy sip of her vodka and soda.

  “Are you willing to come back to the case?” she asked.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” responded Verraday. He was still smarting though. “But are you going to trust me from now on?”

  Maclean took another sip of her drink before replying.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she said, shifting slightly in the wingback chair.

  Verraday was surprised by how uncomfortable Maclean suddenly looked. It was the first time he’d seen anything other than self-assurance in her manner. He hadn’t intended to rake her over the coals for being wrong about Whitney. It wouldn’t serve either of them, so he moved the conversation back to the case.

  “Was there any escalation in the level of violence?”

  Maclean nodded her head slowly. “Yes.”

  She toyed with the ice in her glass for a moment before looking up.

  “This son of a bitch really went to town on her. She’s got marks on her back that might be burns. Take a look.”

  Maclean took a folder out of her briefcase and handed it across to Verraday. He slipped the eight-by-ten crime scene photo out and held it so that the fireplace light allowed him to get a better view of it.

  “Christ almighty.”

  Verraday had seen a lot in the course of his work, but the pairs of dotted burn marks down the spine and up the inner thighs of the girl known only as “Destiny” were new to him. It was a level of sadism he’d only read about from political death squads or inquisitional torturers. The pain must have been prolonged and excruciating.

  “I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Maclean. “We’re waiting for forensics, but I’m guessing it was done with a cattle prod.”

  “What about Whitney? What did you find out?” asked Verraday.

  “You were right about him. At least it looks like it so far. He claims he only hired Alana Carmichael and Rachel Friesen as booth bunnies for The Victorian Closet at fetish nights where he was promoting the store.”

  “Strange that neither one of them appear in any of his Facebook albums.”

  “He says he was afraid it would be bad for his business if it got out that two of his models had been murdered. So he deleted every image of them from the store’s site and his personal page before the press could get hold of them. I’m still having forensics check out his shop and backroom, but he’s got an airtight alibi on this latest murder: he was in a holding cell down at the station when it happened.”

  “Do you have any idea who Destiny really is?”

  “Not yet. There are no recent missing persons reports that match. That cell phone you texted was prepaid and unregistered. Whoever Destiny really is, she was probably afraid of being stalked. For good reason. So she made sure her phone was untraceable. As for the body, our killer didn’t miss a beat there either. The coroner says the corpse had been washed with great care. No trace of anything on it, not even soap residue.”

  “So what’s our next move?”

  “We caught one break. That escort service site you found her on is based in Seattle. I’ll pay a visit to their office tomorrow morning. You want to come along?”

  “Yeah.”

  Verraday still had more than half a pint of ale left in his glass, and Maclean had slowed down on her vodka and soda too. He began to wonder why she had asked him out for a drink instead of just giving him the information when she had called him. She gazed down contemplatively, then turned to look directly at him.

  “Listen, there’s something else.�
�

  “Yes?”

  “That cop that you say ran the red light and hit your family’s car when you were a kid.”

  “Robson, yeah.”

  “I overheard two of the old timers talking today. Uniform cops from the traffic division. He’s dead.”

  Verraday felt like he’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. “Dead? How?”

  “The story is that he had an accident cleaning his revolver.”

  Verraday sat stunned for a moment. He barely knew where to start.

  “What else do you know about him?” Verraday asked.

  “He retired from the Seattle PD eight years ago. Lived alone in a four-season cottage not far from Everett.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “A week ago. I looked into it a little for you. They did a blood test on Robson. He had a blood alcohol level of point-one-one. That’s well over the line for legally impaired. You probably won’t find that surprising.”

  Verraday nodded agreement.

  “Apparently he had Ativan in his system too,” said Maclean.

  “That part does surprise me,” said Verraday. “Robson never struck me as the type who’d suffer from anxiety disorders. More the kind of person who would cause them.”

  “Robson’s doctor never prescribed Ativan to him, but obviously anyone who drinks that heavily is doing a lot of self-medicating.”

  Verraday had a momentary flash of self-consciousness, wondering what Maclean would think if she’d had any idea of his own daily alcohol intake. And he’d only recently tossed out his stock of Ativan after his pharmacist, a soft-spoken young woman from Hong Kong, warned him in her mild and diplomatic way that many doctors were unaware that the drug was highly addictive and that if he had anxiety issues, there were safer ways of dealing with it.

  “He probably bought his Ativan online without a prescription,” Maclean continued. “In any case, the coroner in Everett has ruled it an accidental death. End of story. But I thought you’d want to know.”