by Lis Wiehl
“Channel Four,” she said.
“That’s it! The crime reporter.” He pitched his voice like a TV anchor’s. “ ‘This is Cassidy Shaw, reporting live . . .’ ”
“That’s right.” She ducked her head in a show of modesty. “Thanks so much for watching.”
After giving her another starstruck smile, the waiter left. As Cassidy picked up her drink, Allison wondered if it would be comped. Probably. Cassidy had that effect on people. She also wondered if Channel Four had a policy against drinking during the middle of the day. Probably not. And even if it did, Cassidy wasn’t a stickler for the rules. You didn’t break the big stories without occasionally coloring outside the lines.
As a federal prosecutor, Allison would never drink during the workday. And no matter whether it was day, evening, or weekend, because she was an FBI agent, Nicole had to be fit and ready for duty at all times. She rarely drank more than a single glass of wine in the evening, and she carried her Glock to dinner, to the grocery store, and to her kid’s third-grade play.
The waiter forgotten, Cassidy leaned forward and put her hand over Allison’s. “So, are you feeling better?” Her nails were perfectly manicured, a contrast to Allison’s, which were short and bare.
A few weeks ago Allison had miscarried, joining the imaginary club of Mothers Without Children. Only there was no color-coded ribbon to wear, no walkathon or T-shirt. Nobody talked about it. It was the kind of secret that women whispered to each other—if they said anything at all.
Allison had told only a few people, including Nicole and Cassidy. They understood, or at least they tried to, even though they came to it from different places. Nicole had a nine-year-old daughter and had never been married. Cassidy had had a string of boyfriends, but never talked about wanting kids.
The pain, the mess, the inexplicable shame—all of it was behind Allison now. Everything except the emotional aftermath. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a mother. Maybe it wasn’t God’s plan for her to have a kid. She was thirty-three, and every day she saw women a dozen years younger or even, occasionally, a dozen years older pushing a stroller. It seemed like any other woman—any girl—could have a baby as easy as pulling a letter from the mailbox.
Allison held out her hand, palm down, and wiggled it back and forth. “Some days I’m fine. Other days I wake up and wonder why I should bother to get out of bed.”
“What happens then?” Nicole asked.
“Marshall brings me coffee, lets me talk about it, and doesn’t try to tell me it happened for a reason.”
Her husband believed, and most times Allison did, too, that they might not ever know why it happened. Just that it had, and that God could bring forth good out of bad, just as He had brought forth the flowers and the birds after what had seemed like an endless winter. On days like today, the deep sorrow lifted and Allison felt hope tugging on her sleeve. Now she offered up a silent prayer of thanks for her friends.
Fifteen years earlier, the three of them had graduated from Catlin Gabel, one of Portland’s elite private schools. They had barely known each other then, although they had known of each other. Nicole had stood out by virtue of being one of the fewer than a half dozen African American students. Cassidy had been on the cheerleading squad. And Allison had captained the debate team.
At their ten-year high school reunion, they realized they all had something in common: crime. Cassidy covered it, Nicole investigated it, and Allison prosecuted it. At the time, Nicole was working for the Denver FBI field office, but not long afterward she was transferred to Portland. At Allison’s suggestion the three women met for dinner, and a friendship began. They had half-jokingly christened themselves the Triple Threat Club in honor of the Triple Threat Chocolate Cake they had shared that day.
“Marshall’s a keeper.” Taking a sip of her drink, Nicole smiled her enigmatic, catlike smile.
Cassidy spoiled the effect by nudging her in the ribs. “You should know. How are things with Leif?”
But Nicole was not one to spill any details about her new relationship with a fellow special agent. Raising her eyebrows, she simply shrugged one shoulder and broadened her smile. Allison knew that might be all the answer they would ever get. Nic kept herself to herself.
The waiter set down their food, and the three women fell silent for a few minutes as they traded bites of crisp fish tacos, pork carnitas, and tingas made with spiced beef.
“So what’s the latest on the Want Ad Killer?” Cassidy spoke around a mouthful of mango-and-cabbage salad. “Do you guys really think it’s Colton Foley?”
A man had been attacking women who advertised “erotic massages” in the alternative paper. He would lure them to a hotel, where he tied them up and robbed them. And sometimes more. Three women had ended up dead—two in Portland and one in Vancouver, Washington. But the alleged culprit had been a shock. Even the judge was a little surprised when Allison brought him an arrest warrant to sign. Colton Foley was a medical student at Oregon Health Sciences University.
“You’ve seen the hotel surveillance tapes,” Nicole said. “It’s clearly him.” Nicole was also on the Want Ad Killer task force; the FBI had been brought in since the murders had taken place in two states.
“Yeah, but he’s a medical student,” Cassidy protested. “Someone who is supposed to save lives, not take them.”
“We’ve been told he has gambling debts,” Allison said, although to her it didn’t seem like much of an answer.
Cassidy wrinkled her nose. “His friends are all coming forward and saying he’s the most wonderful human being.”
“Well, he might be—to them,” Nicole said. “Most people make a decision about someone within five seconds of meeting them. And then filter out any new information that contradicts it, only letting in stuff that supports it. Foley seems likely to be a sociopath or a psychopath. Basically, they mean the same thing. Lots of people love sociopaths, because they never get to see behind the mask.”
Cassidy’s perfectly arched eyebrows shot up. “What, are you saying Colton’s like Ted Bundy? But look at him! Why does somebody like that need to kill? Everyone says he’s smart, friendly, funny.” She slurped her martini. “And it’s more than just that first-five-seconds stuff. He’s got a beautiful fiancée and a career as a doctor ahead of him. He’s too successful to be nuts. Wouldn’t other people in his life realize he was crazy?”
“Sociopaths aren’t the kind of people you see hanging out on Burnside, talking to themselves,” Nicole said. “They aren’t out of touch with reality. Foley wasn’t suffering some compulsion he couldn’t fight against. If he were, he wouldn’t have worn gloves or used disposable cell phones. He wanted money, so he targeted people he thought wouldn’t go running to the police. It was his choice.”
“And just because someone kills somebody else doesn’t mean they’re crazy, at least by a legal definition,” Allison said, thinking about some of the cases she had prosecuted over the years. “Some people kill because they’re overcome by passion and have a weapon available. And some kill very deliberately.” Those were the ones she had trouble understanding.
Cassidy wrinkled her nose. “But really, wouldn’t anyone have to be crazy to kill or torture another person? Isn’t doing that by itself a kind of definition of insanity?”
Nicole snorted. “That’s the kind of thinking that overloads our mental health system with people who can’t be cured and don’t want to be. Some people are just plain evil. Period. Doctors can label them, society can make excuses for them, but in the end, they are just a waste of good oxygen. Don’t forget that Ted Bundy was a Boy Scout, president of his church youth group, and a good-looking law student.”
“But still, why kill someone?” Cassidy asked. “If this guy needed money, why not just rob them and leave it at that?”
“But sociopaths don’t see other people as people. Something’s wrong with their wiring,” Nicole said. “They don’t have any empathy, and they don’t feel fear. So they don’t feel guilty
when they kill. If anything, they feel powerful. This guy shot his victims and then robbed them. It’s quite possible that the last thing Kimberly Stratton felt was Foley yanking the engagement ring from her finger.”
“How could he be that cold?” Cassidy shivered. “It’s not human.”
Nicole shrugged a shoulder. “We all choose when—or if—to harden our hearts. Doctors can’t break down when they see some little kid come into the ER with his leg torn off from a car accident. They can’t freak out over some sweet old lady with a heart attack. So they laugh and make jokes and work as hard as they can. Soldiers, gang members, and terrorists—they all view certain groups as less than human, as objects. How do you think Hitler got the Germans to go along with what happened to the Jews? By telling people they were more like rats than people.”
“So are you saying,” Allison asked, “that’s there’s a little bit of sociopath in all of us?” Nicole’s view of humanity could be amazingly downbeat.
“Maybe there is. When we choose.” Nicole spread her hands. “The real question is, why not kill someone? Most of us have something inside us that will tell us to stop, that is, if we don’t override it with drugs or alcohol or prejudice. But a sociopath can do anything he wants because there’s nothing inside him telling him to stop. To a sociopath, a human life has as much value as a wadded-up Kleenex.”
“Maybe something happens to make them like that.” Cassidy took the last sip of her drink. “Didn’t Ted Bundy come from a messed up family, like his sister was really his mother, and his father was supposed to be his grandfather or something? Maybe Foley’s family’s not as apple-pie as they seem.”
Nicole pointed at Cassidy with her fork. “You’re acting like sociopaths don’t have any choice about how they act. But they know enough about right and wrong to know they should hide their behavior. They’re not like a schizophrenic who really believes he’s hearing voices.”
“Well, the only voice I want Colton to hear is mine,” Cassidy said. “I’m trying to get a jailhouse interview with him. Something like that could get our ratings up—which we really need. People don’t watch television for the news anymore. They go online if they need to know what’s up. They only turn on their TV if they want visuals or some color. But an interview might bring them back to the set.”
“At least until it shows up on YouTube,” Allison said, causing Cassidy to make a face.
Nicole looked thoughtful. “Foley just might agree to it. That kind of person craves attention. Try to get him to brag—it might help Allison build her case. It’s clear that Foley thinks he smarter than any three people put together. People like him like to run their mouths.”
Cassidy tucked a strand of her blonde bob behind her ear. “Just as long as it still makes for great TV.”
They were all looking at the same guy, Allison realized, but seeing him through different lenses.
“No matter what, be careful. And don’t believe everything he tells you.” Nicole took her last bite. “A guy like that will only let you see the surface. Maybe the only people who really know what he’s like are the women he’s killed. Remember the parable about the scorpion that asks a frog to carry it across the river, then stings it halfway across?”
Allison hadn’t thought of that story in years. Along the way it had gotten mixed up in her mind with the riddle about a man with a rowboat who needed to transport a fox, a chicken, and a bag of corn. Now she suddenly remembered how the first story had ended.
“And the frog says, ‘Why did you do that?’ And the scorpion answers, ‘You knew what I was when I climbed on your back.’”
Nicole nodded. “Exactly. A scorpion is a scorpion. It can’t help it. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t kill it if you get a chance.”
CHAPTER 4
Portland Fitness Center
Looking good, ladies,” Elizabeth chanted, her unfocused eyes not seeing the women in the boot camp class at all. In a few hours Ian would be in for his workout, and she would make sure to run into him.
“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty! Great job!” She clapped her hands. “Time for fire hydrants. And they look like this.” She got down on her hands and knees and lifted one leg like a dog, then jumped back to her feet in a single motion.
The women in the class regarded her enviously. So many of them were fat or old or clumsy. At least compared to her. It was one of the reasons Elizabeth enjoyed this class so much.
Calling out the count, she walked around the class. She bent down and lifted one woman’s leg until the angle seemed impossible for the human body. “This is where you need to keep your leg.” Inside, she smiled at the tears that now sparkled in the woman’s eyes.
She looked at the clock, as so many of the women in the class did. Just a little over five hours until she would see Ian.
Ian McCloud was Elizabeth’s boyfriend. Even if he didn’t use the word yet. But for the past two months they had been seeing each other nearly every weekend. And Elizabeth didn’t plan for things to end there. Boyfriend was good, but husband would be better.
Ian, Elizabeth believed, was her destiny. She deserved nothing but the best, and that’s what Ian was. Not only was Ian drop-dead gorgeous—he had even been the prom king in high school, twenty years earlier—but he was also one of the city’s top defense lawyers. The only fly in the ointment was his moneygrubbing ex-wife, Sara.
Thousands of dollars of alimony he paid her every month, just because she had waitressed to put Ian through law school. Now he billed nearly $900,000 a year, but his ex-wife and kid were like a drain, constantly sucking it away.
Which was why Elizabeth had hired Joey. To teach Sara a lesson.
She finished putting the class through its paces, leaving them red-faced and gasping.
As she left the room, she ran into frumpy Georgia, who worked at the front desk. Georgia was twenty years older than Elizabeth. She wore big blue plastic earrings, and even though she worked at a health club, she was forty pounds overweight. Elizabeth thought she was pathetic.
She flashed Georgia a smile. Georgia was the one who put together the schedules.
Georgia immediately brightened. “Oh, my goodness, don’t you look cute today.”
Elizabeth was wearing a turquoise-and-black tank top and black low-rise pants from Nike—an outfit that showed off her taut belly.
“Why, thank you, Georgia,” she said with another big smile. “I can always count on you to brighten my day.”
Georgia pressed a bulging manila envelope into her hand. “I’m glad I ran into you. You’re one of the last people who needs to see this. It’s to buy a baby gift for Bethany.” A staff list for the gym was stapled to the outside of the envelope. Most of the names had already been crossed off. “We’re all chipping in for a stroller.”
“Oh, how sweet,” cooed Elizabeth. Which one was Bethany again? The one with the ankles like a Russian peasant’s? Why would any woman allow herself to be used like an incubator, to lose her shape, to have some parasite growing inside her?
Elizabeth took the envelope with her into the women’s locker room, opened her locker, and sat down on one of the benches. She took her wallet from her purse. Then she pulled the white envelope and card from inside the manila envelope. The card was covered with signatures, but she wrote, Congrats! XO! Elizabeth across the photo of the baby on the inside.
She riffled her thumb over the stack of bills. A lot of singles, but some bigger bills too. She plucked out a twenty, a ten, and two fives and transferred them to her wallet.
A noise behind her made Elizabeth start. It was the housekeeper with her plastic cart of cleaning products. Her brow was furrowed and her gaze was fastened on Elizabeth’s wallet.
“Just making change,” Elizabeth said brightly.
She was already deciding how to get the cleaning lady in trouble. Maybe she could start dirtying up areas the woman had already cleaned, and then point them out to the manager. With a show of reluctance, of course. It shouldn’t be too hard to
get her fired. She was pretty sure the woman didn’t even speak English.
CHAPTER 5
Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse
The group of forty-nine fifth-graders stood openmouthed in the huge open atrium, staring at the three-story waterfall that fell silently between two long panes of glass.
“Welcome to the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse,” Allison said as the kids gawked at the marble, limestone, and granite walls carved with quotations ranging from Mark Twain to Maya Angelou.
She gave these tours a few times a year. Fifth grade was a good age—old enough to understand, but not so old they tried to impress each other by acting out. She let herself think for a minute of the baby that had been growing inside her—the baby she had lost. Would it have looked like the girl with the long brown hair, or the boy with the wide blue eyes? Then she caught sight of a girl wearing a shiny metal brace on one leg. The left side of her face was markedly smaller, and white elastic bands held a small clear plastic plug in the hollow of her throat.
Allison brought herself back to her talk. “During your visit you’ll see judges, jurors, lawyers, and other people involved in court cases. I’m a federal prosecutor, which means it’s my job to prove to a jury that a person committed a crime and needs to be punished. To help you understand what I do, let me tell you about a case that really happened in Chicago a few years ago.
“Two middle school boys were on their way home from the doctor. But they got off their city bus at the wrong stop. They didn’t recognize the area they were in, but they thought, ‘No big deal, we’ll just ask someone for directions and head on home.’” As she spoke, Allison made eye contact with each of the students.
“But before they could ask directions, some neighborhood boys started to tease them and told the lost boys that they weren’t wanted in that part of town. Then they left, and the lost boys thought things were okay. But the neighborhood boys came back—with a baseball bat.” Allison saw a few mouths drop. “Before the lost boys could run away, the neighborhood boys beat them up. Just because they didn’t want the lost boys in their neighborhood.”