by Edward Lee
It was Tom.
Hundreds of pictures were taken in the interim; one F.B.I. tech even pried open the cadaver’s broken mouth with a pair of special retractors, to take macro photos.
For the entire procedure, however, Helen couldn’t take her eyes off the corpse’s face, which looked the same as the first time she’d seen it in the morgue: A horror-show mask encrusted with blood that had turned almost completely black.
««—»»
Helen, as all of them, seemed to measure time in their exposure to freezing cold air. Eventually the back of the commo van divided open, and the F.B.I. boss emerged with a trail of tractor-feed computer paper. A cluster of heavily jacketed humans crushed toward the rear of the van. “Give me some room, will you? Stand clear. All right, people, my name is Steve Eules. I’m the Special Agent in Charge of the Madison Field Office, F.B.I. We have a positive ID on the decedent—a digital match in triplicate. The decedent, by the way, is not—and I repeat—he is not Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Helen felt buried in a grave herself. One just as cold, just as deep.
“Goddamn it, Helen,” she heard Olsher grumble.
Special Agent Eules continued, his face as emotionless as a carving on a stone escarpment. “The satellite uplink to Washington fed us back the ID of the corpse, through a Wisconsin State Occupational prefix.” Eules peered at the flowing trail of computer paper. “Columbus County Physical Plant Department, Columbus County Department of Corrections—”
“Shit!” Dipetro audibly remarked.
Eules continued without pause: “White male, age: 35 years old. Name: Kussler, Glen, middle initial A.”
Dipetro yelled from his crowd: “What the fuck!” as the rest of the crowd filed back to their cars. More than a few glares were shot toward Helen, like lances, but she didn’t see them. All she could think was this:
I interviewed Kussler two days ago!
— | — | —
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Helen’s senses seemed to merge like the ingredients in a stew pot. She didn’t know what to think. She no longer felt warm in excitement, nor did she feel cold in the December air. She simply felt numb.
“Agent Eules?”
The trim man turned from the back of the federal van. “Yeah—oh, you’re Closs, right? The VCU chief for Wisconsin State?”
“Yes.” Helen told him straight out, “What’s the probability of a mistake in the ID match?”
“Zero,” he said. “Pure and simple. The stiff in that hole isn’t Dahmer, it’s some county detent janitor or something, named Kussler.”
Helen’s voice hitched. “I need your advice—”
“Well, all right, I’ll give it to you, and no offense. But I can tell you, if it was my people running this invest, they’d be doing a better job than you.”
Helen didn’t even react to the slight. He’s probably right. “What I meant is, I interviewed Glen Kussler two days ago, at his apartment.”
“Oh, yeah? Two days ago? Well, he must’ve been pretty cold when you interviewed him. And how the hell did you get him out of that grave, ’cos that’s where he’s been for the last three weeks.”
“The guy I interviewed didn’t even have the same color hair as the corpse, different body frame, different morphology, even different eye color.”
Eules didn’t seem confused at all. “Then it looks like you got a great lead.”
“How so?” Helen asked.
“You interviewed a guy who said he was Kussler. Obviously he wasn’t Kussler, he was just someone claiming to be. A guy trying to dupe you by using Kussler’s name. Find that guy…and you’ll not only find the guy who broke Dahmer out of prison, but you’ll also find Dahmer himself.”
Helen slowly nodded.
“Hey, and that remark I made about you screwing up? That wasn’t personal.”
“Dahmer’s been alive the whole time, but I’ve refused to believe it. I am screwing up.”
“My point is we all do sometimes. Don’t sweat it,” Eules said, shutting down the power consoles. “Need anything from my office—give me a call.”
“Thank you, Agent Eules.”
“And good luck.” He cracked the tiniest smile. “It sounds like a primo mystery.”
««—»»
Helen didn’t even bother reporting back to Olsher. His opinion was plain and so was his demeanor. Instead, she input Kussler’s name and county code prefix into the state Macro Analysis Computer—a rove-tag, it was called. Anything with Kussler’s ID on it would be flagged and copied by the system.
It was a longshot; Helen expected nothing of the search. Instead, the task-command fed her back a name in all of thirty seconds.
««—»»
The tech in Central Programming explained with the same animation she would expect from any computer whizz. Like a cyborg. Like goddamn Data on Star Trek, she regarded.
“You requested a priority systems flag with Kussler as the search word. It snapped up right away,” he said. A nerd, a proverbial caricature complete with pens in the breast pocket of his white shirt, but— Thank God for him, Helen thought. He continued, “Last week, Madison Metro PD’s Prostitution and Obscenity Unit busted a male call-service off the Circle, near the 10-20s of the first two murders. This service had a full client database in their computer index, sitting right there on their phone operator’s desk. POU input it into the state’s mainframe. It’s that simple.”
“That simple?” Helen protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The teckie frowned as though Helen had the brain of a parakeet. “It’s a trick list, Captain. A record of escort pickups. You got the guy’s name—the computer fed it to you.”
“You mean…” Helen pinched her chin. “Kussler was a steady client of the escort service that got busted?”
“That’s right. And he requested the same escort guy each time. What, you want me to give it to you on a napkin?”
Helen ignored the insult. “Thanks,” she said, and whisked out.
««—»»
“Matthew North?” Helen stated, showing her badge. “My name is Captain Closs, and I have a warrant for your arrest.”
A shabby apartment on Stalls Street. North looked flabbergasted in response to her information. “I’m not Matthew North. He’s my roommate, and he’s on a trip.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. North. I have three different bust photos of you.” Her first announcement, of course, was teensy lie. She didn’t really have a warrant, but she needed to gain his attention.
“Fuck,” the young man muttered. “Well, come on in. I’ll get dressed, and you can take me downtown. You goddamn Metro cops, I already been busted two days ago, and bailed myself. What, your guys invent some new charges?”
“Let’s not be hasty, Mr. North. Let’s talk.”
North was so handsome Helen nearly felt her jaw drop. Tight, stone-washed blue jeans, and nothing else. An upper torso that would make the guy on the Soloflex commercial feel shortchanged. He seemed very candid, even very nice in lieu of the threat she’d just dropped on him.
He led her into a small, comfortable living room, with an atypically large television—something like a 40-inch screen.
“Nice tv,” she commented.
“I like to watch my gigs, you know, with friends. We get a good laugh out of it.”
“Your gigs?”
“My video work,” he admitted. He turned, looked at her with wide, bright sloe-eyes and a male-model’s face. “I guess that’s what you’re busting me for now, huh? Your guys already hit me with solicitation charges.”
“You didn’t look at my badge very closely, Mr. North. I’m with the state police, not Madison Metro. I’m a captain with the Violent Crime’s Unit.”
North, at once, seemed outraged. “This is such a bunch of corrupt fascist police bullshit! Violent Crimes? Look, ask any pross. Half the tricks we get are nuts. If some john on my list told you I got violent with him—it’s crap.”
; “That’s not what this is about at all, Mr. North. No crimes of violence have been cited against you. I just want to talk, maybe even make a deal.”
“Oh, yeah?” This information perked North up at once. “Okay, you wanna talk, let’s talk. You want a drink or something? I got green tea, Coke, diet Sprite, and hard stuff if ya want.”
“I’ll take a diet Sprite, Mr. North. Lots of ice if you have it on hand. And thank you.”
North disappeared into the kitchen. A reflex told her to put her hand on her gun in case he tried to book, or came back with a weapon, yet her senses were acute enough to know that was unnecessary. This guy wasn’t going to run—he wanted to talk a deal, and Helen hoped she could offer him one.
She felt an uncharacteristic urge to peer at his nude chest when he returned, simply because she’d never seen such a nice physique in real life. Tv, movies—sure. But not for real. You should be on magazines, or soaps, she felt inclined to tell him. She took the drink. “But, first, Mr. North, I’m curious about your previous comment, something about your gigs?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said and sat down on an opposing couch. Clipped bangs waved over his eyes. “And there’s nothing illegal about it. I got a model release and an STD test for each gig.”
“But I still don’t know what you mean by gigs.”
“My films,” he said. “My x-rated vids.”
Vids, she thought. Videos. “So you’re a movie star, is that it, Mr. North?”
“I’m not ashamed. Most people who watch x-rated’s? They’re shut-ins, crippled, can’t meet people because they’re too shy, too inhibited. I got no problem with that.”
Helen considered this. “Neither do I. I could care less. But…well, it’s none of my business but—”
“You want to know how much I make in vids?” He chuckled. “That’s what everyone asks. It’s not as much as you might think. I’m what they call a second-top name, that’s one rung down from the stars like Jake Wrangler, Dick Black, Todd Swann—those guys. I cop a c-note and a half per scene.”
Helen’s brow creased; she couldn’t help it. “That sounds like pretty good money, Mr. North.”
He laxed back against the couch, held up his hands. “Not when you only work ten scenes a year. You want me to plug in one of my vids? I got a gay x-rated award for All Hands On Dick.”
Helen fought hard not to laugh at the title. “I’ll pass, thank you, Mr. North.” She had to regain her composure. “Let me give it to you fast. I ran what we call a free-rove search in the state’s criminal index computer, connected to a name pulled up by the Madison bust. Glen Kussler. Your name came up right alongside his. He was a steady client of yours.”
“All right, I’m not gonna lie.” North’s impressive pectorals flexed when he raised his hands again. “You got it all in your records—Christ, I can’t believe the service would be so stupid to keep client records in a goddamn computer.”
“Well, they were that stupid, Mr. North,” Helen authenticated. “So tell me more.”
“You want to know about Glen Kussler—I’ll tell you. He was a steady bi-month trick, and, yeah, he wanted top service. In case you don’t know what that means—I was the top. He was the bottom. He gets into a little S&M and B/D. I’d tie him up, rough him around a little, call him names—that’s what the guy wanted, and that’s what he paid for, and I can’t believe Glen would level charges against me.”
“He didn’t, Mr. North,” Helen said. “He’s dead.”
North’s eyes locked with hers—genuine despair. “Was he—”
“Yes, Mr. North, he was murdered. I can’t tell you all the potential details revolving around the case, but I can tell you that. He was murdered quite brutally. You’ll probably see it in the papers tomorrow.”
“Fuck!” North crudely exclaimed. “Jesus! I mean, sure, Glen was a little bit of a flake, but he never did anything bad to anyone. That really sucks someone killed him. I knew the guy well, I can’t see him going to another top.”
“You think it was another prostitute who did this?” Helen took a cheap stab at baiting him.
“How do I know? I don’t know anything about it. All I know is he was a decent guy, and a steady trick.”
“How much did you charge him to ‘rough him around a little’?”
“Standard service fee, a hundred and fifty bucks, and he’d always lay a fifty-buck tip on me.”
“And this was twice a month, you say?”
“Yeah, about that. Er, what I mean is when he was on the rocks with his lover, which was pretty regular.”
Helen slipped out a 5x7 print copy of Glen Kussler’s county records photo—definitely not the same man she’d interviewed at Kussler’s apartment. “Is this Glen Kussler?”
North only needed a one-second glance. “Yeah, sure. That’s Glen. And like I said, he was a decent trick. He was an electrician for the county prison.”
“And what were you saying a moment ago, something about him having a lover?”
“Yeah, Glen Kussler had a lover, off and on, a guy he referred to as Cam.”
“Cam?”
“That’s right. You ask me, this Cam guy was jerking Glen around, playing the mind games—you know. I mean, shit—you’re probably straight, but I’m sure guys have played mind games with you, haven’t they?”
Helen forestalled on an answer, thinking, Yeah I guess you could say that. “But if Kussler had a steady lover, why did he—well—need to hire you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain. This guy, this guy Cam. He was always breaking up with Glen, jerking him around. This guy was a top, all right, but he took advantage. Jerked Glen around like you wouldn’t believe, at least that’s what Glen told me. What I mean is, he’d break up with Glen just for kicks, toy with him a while, then take him back. It was during those break ups that Glen hired me.”
Cam, Helen thought. “Describe Cam, Mr. North.”
“Well, I only saw him once. He was coming around to Glen’s place right after I did a trick. I mean, I can’t even be sure it was Cam, it was just some guy coming around, but Glen didn’t have any other lovers that he ever mentioned.”
“This person you saw. What did he look like?”
“Well, I’ll tell you that, Captain. But, well, didn’t you say something earlier about a deal?”
Helen’s lips set. But why shouldn’t she expect it? Nothing’s free. “Cooperate with me, Mr. North, and I will request that the district attorney’s office drop any and all currently pending charges against you. I can’t guarantee you they’ll drop charges, but I can tell you they’ve never denied me in the past.”
“This guy I saw,” North propelled without pause, “he was about 5’-10”, one-seventy. Slim frame.”
“Hair color, Mr. North?”
“Sandy blond.”
Sandy blond, Helen remembered. Same as the guy I talked to, who claimed to be Kussler. North was being cool, but she still had to pressure him some more. “That’s good, Mr. North. But not good enough. I need more if you want to skate. I need to know more about this person Cam. Anything you might know, anything Kussler may have told you about him.”
“Aw, shit, Captain! There ain’t much more! I mean—shit—let me think.” North leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes, thinking. “Oh, yeah—aside from rough sex, Glen told me the guy was into computers.”
“Computers?”
“Yeah, he had a big fancy computer, according to Glen. Me, I don’t own one, don’t like ‘em. But Glen told me Cam was like all big into these new computer and CD-ROM games.”
Helen’s thoughts stilled for a moment.
“He dug a lot of these underground games, obscene ones you can’t buy in the stores—Glen told me about them. Really violent games—torture, murder, stuff like that.”
Tom plays a lot of— But, no, that was absurd. Some of his games were a bit violent, but nothing like what North was referring to. Get back on track, Helen.
“And also a lot of really hard
core videos,” North continued, “the illegal, unlicensed stuff you gotta buy through mail drops and shit. Bondage, corporal punishment, ‘wet’ S&M.”
“‘Wet’ S&M?” Helen felt vaguely inept. “I know what S&M is, of course, but…”
“‘Wet’ means it’s the real McCoy. Pins, needles, barbed whips—if it’s wet, they draw blood.”
The slightest image shimmied Helen’s stomach.
“Glen told me Cam even had a real snuff film—”
Another, harder shimmy.
“So you get the gist,” North was saying. “This guy Cam—real sick pup material.”
“A genuine sadist.”
“Genuine and then some. Abused the living hell out of Glen.”
Helen’s eyes narrowed in the contemplation. “So why was Glen Kussler in love with this man, if he was so abusive?”
“That’s how it works sometimes,” North explained matter-of-factly. “Guys like Glen—introverted, shy, non-assertive—they frequently fall for abusive guys. Tricks like Glen are a dime a dozen; I hear the stories all the time. Being abused and exploited by lovers is a focal point in their lives; it’s the only thing that reinforces their self-worth. Why do so many battered wives return to their abusive husbands?”
At once, Helen saw the inference. It was the same thing.
“So what about that deal?”
Helen never liked to play the heavy. Talk about exploitation. She still needed to make him sweat a bit, just to be certain he was coming clean. “Not enough, Mr. North. My name is Closs, not Claus. I still need more.”
North’s big, manicured hand slapped his jean-covered thighs. “I knew this was a crock! Come on, Captain! I am a bad guy? What, just ’cos I turn tricks?”
“Prostitution’s against the law, Mr. North.”
“So is letting your dog poop on the sidewalk. So is driving one mile over the speed limit. You ever done that, Captain?” North wiped genuine sweat off his brow. “Christ, my lawyer’s telling me I could go to the joint for a year. You know what’ll happen to a guy like me in the Madison slam? Christ, those bulls’ll be on me like Rock Hudson on a fucking boy scout! And for what? Because I have sex for money with consenting adults. Because I provide a service to guys who are mostly lonely, maladjusted, or dumped by their lovers. Yeah, some big crime. Matt North, the big bad criminal. You got rapists getting off on plea bargains, drug dealers walking on PBJ, S&L con men ripping off billions and posting bail with the same money, but you’re gonna put me in the can ’cos I turn a few tricks to pay the bills.”