“Sure, if she’s got half the moves you do,” Roxie answered.
“More,” he said. “Annie was a professional dancer when she was young, before her first marriage. Ballet. She’s gonna love this! Let me give her a call, get her down here.”
As he loped off toward Auntie’s pay phone Rox looked at me over her tea and rattled her beads. The sound was questioning.
“So tell me what happened today,” she said.
“You annihilate my equilibrium,” I answered calmly. “And now you want to sit here and talk to a cop about serial killers. Is it just me, or is there something odd about this picture?”
“There’s a lot odd about this picture, which is why it’s interesting. What happened?”
“The preacher’s boyfriend shot her because he loves her,” I said.
“One way of handling it,” Rox said thoughtfully as Rathbone returned and straddled a chair.
“Annie’s on her way, can’t wait to check this out,” he said happily. Then to me, “This is what I meant, Blue. Annie ’n’ me. She taught me never to pass up a chance, especially a chance for fun. World’s full of mean people who put fun last, that’s what she says. And you know, it’s true.”
I was beginning to think of Wes Rathbone as a New Age guru behind a badge. It was confusing.
“You wanted to talk about this case?” Roxie suggested. Down-to-business look.
“Both Jerry Russell Jones, the shooter in today’s incident at the revival, and the victim, Ruby Emerald, have been patients at the Rainer Clinic, which specializes in cosmetic surgery,” Rathbone replied happily, as if we were still talking about fun. “Emerald was the subject of one of Sword of Heaven’s communications, an audiotape in which Sword took credit for Emerald’s death even though in fact she did not die. Nor, by the way, is she dead now. Jones shot her in the left shoulder, smashed a bone. She’ll be fine. And Jones claims not to know anything about the Sword communications.”
“Wait a minute,” Roxie said. “This Jones has just attempted murder in front of more than ten thousand people, right? This does not say ‘reliable witness’ to me. This says emotional lability, inflated sense of own importance, irrational need for attention, and to greater or lesser extents a break with consensual reality. Who here doesn’t know that if you shoot an unarmed person in the presence of witnesses you’re in deep okra? Get real, Wes. Just because Jones says he’s not Sword doesn’t mean he’s not Sword.”
Rathbone’s easygoing smile did not diminish. “For the moment let’s assume Jones shot Emerald because she was dumping him, just like he said. Let’s assume he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, just an old guy who fell head-over-heels for a younger woman, left his wife of thirty-five years for her, followed her all over the country, and then she told him he was history.”
I was curious. “How old is Jones?” I asked.
“Seventy-four.”
“You’re kidding! I would have figured early sixties, tops.”
”Hey, he wanted to look good for his lady. Worked out, ate right, even had his face done. Hell, I might just do it myself one of these days. Why not?”
“Only vampires don’t age,” Rox said cryptically. “So where is this going?”
Rathbone leaned into the table and looked at me. “Blue has a notion that Kate Van Der Elst may also have had cosmetic surgery,” he went on. “We don’t know that yet, but for the moment let’s consider the possibility. We do know that a threat was left at her campaign headquarters last night. Suppose Van Der Elst had a face-lift at this Rainer Clinic. Same place Jones and Emerald did. What have we got?”
“Three people who can’t stop smiling?” Roxie offered.
“We have the first connection between two threats,” I told her. “A common denominator.”
“And you want me to do what?” she asked Rathbone. “Provide a typical psychiatric profile for serial killer cosmetic surgeons? Come on.”
There are times when hard science and social science clash. This was one of them.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. Then I walked toward the ladies’ room and detoured to the pay phone as soon as I was out of sight. After finding thirty-five cents I dialed the Van Der Elsts’ home number and heard Pieter’s voice answer. I’d correctly assumed they’d be at home on Sunday night, and I didn’t mince words.
“It’s Blue McCarron,” I began. “I need to know if Kate has had any contact with a surgeon named Jennings Rainer.”
His sharp intake of breath was a dead giveaway. “Why?” he said.
“Pieter, don’t play games with me. This morning you wanted Kate to withdraw from the race because you were so afraid for her. You wanted to hire a bodyguard. A threat to her life was pushed under the door of her campaign headquarters. And now you’re being coy about a face-lift? What’s the matter with you?”
“I’d better get Kate,” was all he said.
“Level with me,” I told her as soon as she picked up the phone. “Ruby Emerald was targeted by the same person who named Dixie and Mary Harriet as victims before they died. Emerald had surgery at the Rainer Clinic three weeks ago. Did you?”
“Yes,” Kate Van Der Elst said, her voice tremulous. “So did Dixie and Mary Harriet. Mary Harriet had gone to this place first, years ago. She told Dixie about it when she went back recently for an eye tuck, then Dixie and I talked it over for a long time and decided to do it together, have this … procedure done before the campaign crunch. It was a couple of weeks ago.”
I felt a little dizzy, leaning against the wall by Auntie’s pay phone. Also a little sick. Medical contexts—hospitals, ambulances, dentists’ offices, even veterinary clinics—must engender trust. In these places we allow strangers a license unthinkable anywhere else in our lives. Medical personnel make mistakes, but rarely does any medical practitioner deliberately inflict harm. It just doesn’t happen. And when it does, the perpetrator invariably reveals a darkness in the human soul best left unseen.
“Oh, Kate, why didn’t you tell me this morning when I asked about places the three of you had been?”
“It isn’t something you talk about, Blue. It’s embarrassing, some people would even say shameful, to care so much about superficial appearance that you’ll let someone cut your face off your skull and then sew it back on. But I was going to tell you if this … this creature sending all these threats wasn’t found. Pieter and I talked it over. I was going to phone you Monday, tomorrow. But Blue, tell me …”
“What, Kate?”
“This Ruby Emerald, is she all right?”
I didn’t want to confuse the issue by discussing Emerald’s drama involving an aging lover and a gun.
“She’s going to be fine,” I hedged. “I’ll want to talk with you tomorrow, and so will the police. We still know very little, but you’ve been helpful. Thank you.”
Roxie and Rathbone were dancing when I got back to the table, where Brontë was wagging her stub of a tail and smiling at people as they returned from the bar with bowls of popcorn. My dog’s priorities are clear.
And so were Kate Van Der Elst’s, I thought. Southern California isn’t the Hollywood hypeland everyone thinks it is. But neither are its cultural leanings characterized by stoic acceptance. Of anything. If there is a cultural mantra here, it’s “Why hasn’t that been fixed?”
Floods, earthquakes, fires, and mudslides regularly disrupt landscapes which within a year are rebuilt, replanted, and redefined. The Southern California mind accepts the inevitability of disaster and death with a complacency almost Zen in its tone. The companion to such acceptance, however, is a fondness for beauty while we’re still around to enjoy it. Freeway medians are planted with pink and white oleander. Streets are swept, houses painted, art purchased. An unattractive receptacle wheeled to the curb on trash day is a blight and must be replaced. The same goes for unattractive bags under the eyes or those drooping folds of skin at the neck. Why not have it all fixed? And who would vote for somebody who didn’t?
“Ka
te Van Der Elst, Dixie Ross, and Mary Harriet Grossinger all had cosmetic surgery at the Rainer Clinic,” I said when Roxie and Wes Rathbone returned from the dance floor. “I just talked to Kate.”
“Hmm,” he replied. “I did check out the Rainer Clinic Web site after what you told me at the station earlier. There are two surgeons—Jennings Rainer and Megan Rainer. From the photos on the Web site, I’d guess father and daughter. Pretty amazing all the stuff they can do.”
A slight flush had crept up his neck and into his sandy hair at that last remark. Roxie grinned in a manner I can only describe as diabolical and said, “Yep, laser phalloplasty’s the latest rage. Any good pictures on that Web site?”
Wes Rathbone’s craggy cheeks were now bright pink. He looked like an aging English schoolboy.
“Phalloplasty?” I said. “Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”
At some point in my life I had learned that the correct term for a nose job is “rhinoplasty” because “rhino” is a Greek prefix meaning “nose.” “Phallos” is also Greek, the end later Latinized to “us,” and means the symbolic erect penis carried in ancient Greek festivals honoring the god Dionysos. “Phalloplasty” would have to mean a penis job.
“Penile enhancement,” Rox said. “Longer, thicker, straighter. It’s a gold mine, a total cash cow. Half the dermatologists I know are taking out loans to go back to med school, get a degree in cosmetic surgery just so they can do dick enhancements. I’ve thought of it myself. It’s such a moneymaker I could retire after two years.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” Rathbone said. “Showed the Web site to a couple guys, they couldn’t believe it.”
“Hey, it’s one of the biggest markets for cadaver skin around,” Roxie said cheerfully. “So. what else did you get on this clinic?”
“An address in La Jolla,” Rathbone answered after swallowing several times. “Tomorrow we’ll have everything—an employee roster, bios on everybody who works there. Not enough evidence to bring Jennings in for questioning, or I would’ve done it. All we really have are threats.”
“And two dead women,” Roxie pointed out. “A third woman hospitalized for symptoms which may reflect a condition similar to the one that killed the first two. And a fourth woman in seemingly good health who has also received a death threat. Two dead, two alive, all threatened, and all patients at the Rainer Clinic. Seems like enough for a few questions.”
“Not yet,” Rathbone insisted. “Not until we have some guidelines for the investigation. That’s where you come in. Dr. Bouchie, what are we dealing with here?”
“Could be coincidence, probably isn’t. Could be somebody connected to the clinic, somebody with access to medical files on these women. Somebody aware of a preexisting condition in each of them that might be fatal, although that’s an impossible stretch. This person wants the promised fifteen minutes of fame and goes after it by making dramatic public threats against high-profile women who are for some reason likely to die of natural causes anyway. Weird, but scarcely murder.”
Rathbone stretched his legs and said, “Is that what you think is going on?”
Rox sat up straight, looking serious. “No, it’s not what’s going on, so I’m going to tell you what to look for. If there’s a serial killer operating out of the Rainer Clinic, this is going to be one for the books. The Holmes typology breaks serial killers into ‘organized’ and ‘disorganized,’ which is rather obvious but makes a useful starting point. This person falls in the ‘organized’ category, holds down a professional job, is bright, educated, reads newspapers, has an adequate social life. In other words, there will be no flashing neon signs saying ‘perp.’
“Your cops may be intimidated by the context at the clinic, the aura of wealth which is likely to surround it. They may also be snowed by the clinic staff, who will wear the same aura. The poor do not have cosmetic surgery, and the rich are most comfortable in medical surroundings which suggest that their doctors are also rich. The surface behaviors there are very likely to mask any pathology present in one of the employees. Have your detectives interview the Rainer employees someplace else, preferably places where the suspects feel out of place and uncomfortable.
“And there’s no point in pretending the investigation is about something else. This person wants attention and will be excited by it. But tactically, the best way to elicit a revealing response is to go into elaborate detail about something only the perp knows is wrong. Refer to ‘Heavenly Sword’ instead of ‘Sword of Heaven’ repeatedly, for example. The author of that phrase may slip and correct it, and bingo, you’ve got a suspect.
“My guess is your suspect maintains enormous control and has for a long time. Probably feels a sense of pride in that. He or she thinks, ‘You idiots don’t have any idea of the terrible things I would have done if I didn’t have such self-control.’ The thing to do is attack that by constant references to weakness, impulsivity, childishness. Have your detectives say things like, ‘Whoever did this is pathetic. Whoever it is, he or she is like a baby. An out-of-control brat.’ At another time have somebody show cloying pity, which this person will hate. You get the picture?”
“Perp’s a control freak. Insult him. Right?”
“Remember, ‘he’ may be a ‘she,’” Roxie warned.
“Nah,” Rathbone argued as a stocky woman in jeans and an embroidered pink denim shirt approached. Her blonde hair was short, curly, and shot through with gray, and she had the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. Also the most beautiful smile.
“Here I am!” she said to all of us, and I realized this was Annie. Wes Rathbone’s Annie, who had shown him the light. I could see it myself. She glowed.
It turned out to be a great evening. Before the place got crowded Rox taught Wes and Annie some variations on the two-step and a line dance called Whiskey River. Then BB and the radical preacher, whose name was Matt, showed up and we all went across the street to a Greek restaurant, leaving Brontë outside on a patio where she could see us and I could slip her bits of moussaka through the sliding glass door.
But in the back of my mind something nagged. Something about dancing and eating dinner as if nothing were wrong. When something was wrong. Something hidden in a fold of our own reality, our city. Something unseen except for its anger displayed in untraceable letters. I stabbed the last piece of cooling saganakiwith my fork and wondered where the Sword of Heaven was at that moment. Not relaxing over dinner and conversation somewhere, I thought. Probably crouched in an attic hideaway, snipping at newspapers with surgical scissors that reflected the light of a naked bulb above. It was a movie image, and a first false step in a game of cat and mouse I didn’t yet know I was playing. Although I would know. Soon. I would know in less than twelve hours that the mouse was me.
9
Blue Plates
On Monday morning I woke up just as a yellow-gray dawn began its urban seep through Roxie’s blinds. I’m used to dramatic desert light, its sharp shadows and sudden illuminations. City light seems tepid by comparison. But this light had my attention. It had me awake. Only me, however.
Curling against Roxie, I nuzzled her ear and allowed my fingers a tentative slide down her arm.
“Mmmp,” she said pleasantly.
There was no change in the rhythm of her breathing. No response. She was still asleep and clearly planned to stay that way. Brontë was draped across a rumpled silk patchwork coverlet at the foot of the bed, creating a sort of Chinese-style panorama which would have been called “Black Dog” during the South Sung Dynasty. I amused myself by mentally writing pretentious museum-pamphlet text about Taoist representations of the Doberman as an allegory for inner harmony. It was fun even though Dobies weren’t bred until the nineteenth century in Germany, which would have made them really scarce in tenth century China. Then I got up.
I padded into Roxie’s den and turned on her computer. There was nothing else to do that wouldn’t wake everybody up. Coffee would have to wait. On the Internet I punched i
n the password (“dober1,” what else?) which allows me to pick up my e-mail from anywhere. I was expecting dad’s usual morning letter, which was there, but so was something else. A strange address in the boldface menu of new mail. Monday’s date. Sent less than an hour before I turned on Roxie’s computer. “[email protected],” it read. God’s word? Or God sword? Bluebay was a local server used by all the Net cafés and public computers all over town. “Godsword” could have sent this message from anywhere and there would be no way to trace it. My hand was cold as I clicked on the address and watched. On the screen emerged two lines of text and a signature.
“Blue is no womens name and you will be sorry you have don this when van der else dye sun,” it said. It was signed, “The Sword of Heaven.”
“Roxie! “ I yelled, abandoning all sympathy for those who slept. “Look at this!”
In the moments before Rox’s den was filled with other presences, human and canine, I watched myself make a fist at the computer monitor.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with, you ignorant shit!” I whispered, every synapse thrumming in an adrenaline bath. I do not respond well to threats, and while I’ll deny it, I’m territorial. Most women are. Like most women, I’m territorial about things I care about. And something had just violated a boundary, the borders of a space around Roxie Bouchie. Something had come into her home, even though it was meant for my home. Something ill-intentioned and murderous. I was disturbed by an awareness that if it came too close to Roxie or even Brontë, I might want to kill it.
“Blue, you’re hyperventilating,” she said at the door to her den. “What is it?”
“Look.”
Rox had wrapped the silk patchwork coverlet around her shoulders and looked like a Gustav Klimt painting. She grimaced.
“Oh God, there goes breakfast. Blue, this is impossible. How could Sword know you were working on the case? Or get your e-mail address?”
“I don’t know.”
The Last Blue Plate Special Page 9