Intimate Bondage

by John Flynn

  “We didn’t arrest Rutherford. He came in on his own,” Miller defended himself. “And we do have evidence, in the form of video recordings, which place him and the murder victim together at the murder scene.”

  “Do you have any idea what problems you’ve caused this department?” asked Aguilar. “I’ve spent most of the afternoon on the phone doing damage control with the DA’s office. Rutherford’s attorney has filed a complaint against you. Claimed you were harassing her client.”

  “There’s no way, sir.”

  “Well, that’s not what I heard,” said the Captain. “I heard you threatened him with physical violence. Just what kind of example were you trying to set for your fellow detectives? Haven’t you noticed that we don’t beat confessions out of suspects in back rooms anymore, detective?”

  “It didn’t happen that way.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No, sir,” Miller replied. “It just didn’t happen that way.”

  Aguilar turned to Lt. Roberts. “I want Frank Miller pulled from active duty. Today!”

  Lt. Roberts glanced around the room, and dressed down one or two cops with a stern look. “Captain, I think we should take this into my office,” he recommended.

  “Damn straight. I want this man’s shield immediately.”

  As Miller and the lieutenant started walking towards the office, Captain Aguilar paused to take a long look around the room, checking to see that each of his detectives were busy doing their work. Finally, his gaze came to rest on Kate. She flashed him a look of disdain, then returned to the crime scene photos and forensics reports that were spread out on her desk.

  The assistant chief of police turned away. He followed the other two men into the office, and closed the door behind him.

  “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, even though Miller heard her.

  “I’M LOOKING FOR Detective Katherine Dawson,” Kate heard someone say in the noisy Homicide Bureau.

  Kate looked up, startled. Professor John Monroe was the last person in the world she had expected to see.

  “She’s back there. At that far desk,” the officer replied.

  “Thank you.”

  Monroe walked the length of the Homicide Bureau, and came up to her desk. Without a word, they stared at each other for a long moment.

  “I see you’ve been promoted. Congratulations.”

  “Promoted?” she asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Monroe pointed to the handmade medal her fellow detectives had given her. “Your badge. It says ‘Tough Guy.’ Just where does that rank in terms of a captain or a lieutenant?”

  Kate’s face turned warm. All at once, she stripped the badge from her blouse, and stuffed it in her drawer. She then buried her head in the materials on her desk in an effort to hide her embarrassment.

  “What can I do for you, Professor Monroe?” she asked, raising her head, all businesslike. “As you can see, I’m a very busy woman.”

  “Actually, it’s more what I can do for you, detective,” he replied. “I spent some time this afternoon working up a complete profile of your killer. I think I have an idea how she’s coming up with her victims.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Monroe handed her the manila folder, and in turn, she placed it on top of the stack of similar folders in her “in” box. Kate flashed him a dismissive look, then returned to the photos and reports on her desk. Monroe remained patient, standing like a schoolboy in front of his favorite teacher’s desk. Finally, after a few minutes, curiosity got the better of her. She picked the report up, and glanced through the pages. Immediately, she felt stupid.

  “Your killer is using the Internet. Specifically, websites that cater to people into sadomasochism.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That’s what I would do,” Monroe responded, beaming with confidence. “Psychology 101: The way to predict a person’s behavior is to put yourself into his or her place. Ergo to catch a killer, you must think like a killer.”

  Kate looked deep into Monroe’s baby blue eyes. She thought that she could see right into his soul. “But why the Internet? Why not just pick someone up at a bar or a nightclub?”

  “Your killer is smart, creative and methodical,” he said, with a sense of pride. “Those murders were not random or impulsive acts of violence. They were planned right down to the last detail. The killer singled those men out from a list of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of individuals who fit a specific set of criteria. Like pigment on a canvas, she’s creating her masterpiece.”

  Kate listened to him talk, and felt that he could have just as easily been talking about himself. “Criteria? What criteria?”

  “Think about your victims. What do they all have in common?”

  “All three men were rich, white and successful. They were all divorced, lived alone, had no dependents and were in their late thirties or early forties . . .”

  “. . . and they were all involved in sadomasochism,” Monroe added. “I think if you were to check their phone records or credit card statements, you’ll find they each had an active profile on a BDSM website, like AlternativeLifestyle.com or LoveHurts.net or CollarMe.com.”

  “You’re right. They were all members of the same ‘dating’ site. Intimate bondage dot com.”

  Monroe did his best to hide the smirk on his face as he sat down on the edge of the detective’s desk. “I think you’ll find your killer is a member of the same dating site. My guess is that she—”

  “You keep saying ‘she.’ What makes you think the killer is a woman?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “These crimes were all perpetrated by a very disturbed woman who feels angry and resentful about her place in the world. She feels an overwhelming need to seize back the power she imagines a man has somehow taken from her, and she does so by cutting off his penis.”

  “The Electra Complex? This is the real world, Professor. Not some lecture that’s part of a Psych 101 course.”

  “Why do we always overlook the simplest solution?”

  “It’s because not everything is as black and white as you make it out to be.”

  “Wrong. That’s the kind of response I would have expected from your partner, not you,” Monroe insisted, struggling to make eye contact with her. “Are you familiar with Occam’s razor?”

  “No, I prefer Lady Gillette myself,” she replied, without humor.

  “Occam’s razor states that, all things being equal, the simplest solution proposed as an explanation of phenomena is most likely the solution.”

  “So, what you’re telling me then is that it’s a ‘she,’ and not a ‘he,’ because of this guy Occam’s razor?”

  “Trust me. I’ve spent a lifetime studying this kind of neurotic behavior,” Monroe said with a smile. “Your killer needs to feel dominance over every situation and every subject for life to make sense to her. She is only truly alive when she is totally in control. And what better place to be totally in control than on a BDSM website where people go to surrender their control to others?”

  “So then,” Kate surmised, “she just logs onto the computer and cherry-picks her victims from those looking for someone to dominate them.”

  Monroe shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Remember what I taught you. The submissive is always the one with the power. If he does not feel a sense of security or parity with the killer, he’s never going to agree to meet her alone. She also has to create a profile that is so dazzling that she will stand out from all of the other dominants.”

  “Right. So that she appears to be the top dog,” she said, looking at him.

  “That’s correct. Her profile has to be the most attractive, the most enticing, maybe even the most dangerous of all the other profile
s.”

  Their eyes were locked now, as if they were trying to see into each other’s skulls. Monroe plied his magic, and used his soft, well-spoken tongue to conjure up images of the University of San Francisco. His outstanding powers of persuasion had Kate peering through an imaginary lens at the woman sitting down at a computer station. He next had her seeing the woman as she typed commands into the computer, each word or phrase corresponding with Monroe’s hypnotic voice.

  “. . . continue imagining as she types her screen name. Let’s call her Mistress Raven. No, no, wait. Mistress Rose sounds better. I like the metaphor: beautiful with thorns.”

  In a dream-like state, Kate watched her type the name “Crystal Rose”.

  “Once she’s established her screen name, she writes a brief personal profile. Something like ‘Passionate Mistress with Fire Seeks Submissive Male for 24/7 Power Exchange. Experience with Bondage, Handcuffs, Master-Slave, Whips and Role-playing essential,’” said Monroe in a soft voice.

  The two of them continued to watch the imaginary movie as Crystal Rose paused to consider her words. She used the backspace key to delete her words, then typed brand new words over them.

  “How about, ‘Perverse and Intense Dominant Sadist Seeks Whipping Boy’?” Kate suggested.

  Monroe was now leaning over Kate’s desk as the two stared blankly out into space together.

  “Okay, but a little obvious,” he replied, his voice still hypnotic. “Your killer is subtle, clever. She’ll be very concise with her words. She’ll use two or three instead of ten or twelve. She doesn’t want to give too much away. She says only as much as she needs to say. She wants to seem enticing, not desperate.”

  “Okay, so now she’s got a profile. What’s next?”

  “Well, she’ll want to conduct a profile search for willing submissives.”

  In their fantasy, they were back in the library at the University of San Francisco, watching as Crystal Rose sifted through some of the profiles. One by one, they appeared and were replaced by the next.

  “She’ll probably start by eliminating those that don’t fit her criteria. Guys that are married. Guys that still live at home with their parents. Guys that are too young or too old. She’ll use some kind of filter to narrow the field down to those handful of men that she wants to . . .”

  “. . . kill.”

  “Meet.”

  Together, they continued to watch as Crystal Rose looked through a couple of dozen profiles until she settled upon just one.

  Monroe was now pacing the room. Kate leaned forward in her chair, her arms resting on the desk. Her gaze was unfocused as daydreamed.

  “She’ll exchange several emails with the guy in order to build up a false sense of security and trust between them,” he explained.

  “Seems like a lot of trouble,” Kate said, still hypnotized.

  “Not trouble. Method,” he corrected her. “Remember that she’s methodical, not impulsive. She needs to stay in control, and that’s why she takes her time planning out each stage of the murder. This is like a ritual to her, and she gains more and more power with each stage in the ritual.”

  Once again, they peered through the lens of make-believe, watching Crystal Rose as she approached a private room, at a private club, escorted by two large bouncers in leather attire. Monroe conjured up each image, and whispered the words into her ear so that she could see what he was imagining.

  “After they’ve built up a level of comfort between them—and that could take a lot of emails—they agree to a face-to-face meeting in a public place.”

  “A public place? Like a bar?” she asked.

  “Could be, but my guess is that they meet at the Black Rose or some other club that caters to alternate lifestyles.”

  “The Black Rose?”

  “Well, that’s the largest club in the city.”

  Monroe’s hypnotic words transported them across the city to the Black Rose where Crystal Rose had just entered a private room. An overweight man in his forties, naked except for a leather G-string, knelt on the floor, bowing his head in submission. She sat down in the chair opposite him, and raised her black leather boot to his lips. Without a word from her, he took her boot in hand, and kissed it.

  Suddenly, Kate had seen enough. She broke the spell. She stood up and leaned across the desk, with her arms extended.

  “This was all very interesting,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Sorta like a how-to-do-it guide for the criminally insane. But it doesn’t put me any closer to catching my killer.”

  “Actually, it does,” he replied, looking exhausted and very nearly spent. “When I figured out how she was selecting and screening her victims, I decided to create a profile myself. Several, actually, that fit the criteria she’s probably using.”

  “No, I forbid it. This is my homicide investigation. Not amateur detective night on The Streets of San Francisco.”

  Monroe chuckled. “I don’t see how you can stop me. I’m a private citizen. I have a right to do what I want.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  “I could arrest you for interfering with an ongoing police investigation,” she threatened him. “Put you in protective custody.”

  “But you won’t. If you do, you’ll never catch your killer.”

  All of a sudden, the door to the lieutenant’s office crashed open and slammed shut with a loud bang. Kate looked up, and saw Miller storming out of the Homicide Bureau in a huff.

  “Frank!” she called to her partner.

  Miller acted like he had not heard her, and kept walking. Kate chased after him, nearly catching him in the hall. He was moving very fast.

  “Frank, are you okay?”

  Miller stopped walking, but he did not turn around. He took a deep breath, and let it out through clenched teeth. He couldn’t be angry with Kate. She was the only person on the SFPD who really gave a damn about him. “They suspended me,” he said, over his shoulder. “Can you believe that? After forty years on the force, they fuckin’ pulled my badge.”

  “But they can’t do that,” she protested. “I saw the whole thing. They can’t fire you without a proper hearing.”

  “Kate, they can do whatever they want. This guy’s got connections all the way up to City Hall.”

  Dawson was red-faced and fighting mad. “We’ll fight ’em, Frank! You and me will fight ’em together.”

  Miller’s shoulders slumped as fatigue and despair washed over him like a tidal wave. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘You can’t fight City Hall’?” he asked, lowering his head in shame. He started walking again, down the corridor. “I’m goin’ out and gettin’ shit-faced drunk.”

  “Frank! Frank, wait up!” she cried, her words echoing in the empty corridor as she chased after her partner.

  Dawson caught up with Miller as he stormed out of the building and into the police parking lot. What did she think? That he was going to go home and do something stupid like clean his fully-loaded service revolver with the safety off?

  “Frank! Frank, wait up!” she called again. By the time Dawson got to him, he had backed his sedan out of a parking spot, and was ready to put it into drive. She leaned in the window. “What the hell is going down, man? Where do you get off walking away from me, and not saying a word about what’s going down with you?”

  Miller frowned. “Look, don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I just need some down time.”

  “Like hell you do,” she pressed. “This is me that you’re talking to. Not some other asshole who doesn’t give a fuck about you.”

  For a moment, Frank was silent, wrestling with his inner fears and demons. How could she possibly know what he was going through when he wasn’t certain himself? He had spent forty years of his life on the force,
keeping his nose clean, taking orders from white cops half his age and who didn’t know as much as he did. How could Miller tell her what it was like to be black and to have everything you’ve ever done studied and questioned and second-guessed? With precious little acceptance. The years of racism, regardless of how subtle they’d been in recent years, still gnawed at something deep within his soul.

  “Dawson,” he said, at last, “I can’t expect you to understand what I’m feeling. I’ve had to deal with this bullshit for almost forty years, and I’ve never liked it. I never understood why my word as a black police inspector was always somehow worth less than that of the criminals we arrested.”

  “It’s almost quitting time,” she replied. “Give me a minute to get my stuff, and I’ll buy you that first drink.”

  “Naw, I don’t think so. I just wanna get out of here and go think.”

  “Promise me something, Frank?”

  With his foot on the brake, Miller put the car in drive, and half-turned towards his partner. “What’s that?”

  “Let’s be careful out there.”

  Miller smiled and said, “Now what fun is in that?” He pushed his foot on the car’s accelerator, and sped away.

  NEWS OF THE blowup between the assistant chief of police and Inspector Frank Miller spread through police headquarters like wildfire. In a matter of minutes, policemen in the Bureaus for Sexual Assault and Robbery and the Special Investigation Section had all heard. Like anyone else, cops liked to gossip; they especially liked to tell stories about the feuds that developed between cops in opposing divisions. But their favorite kind of gossip involved “righteous” cops who had clashed with higher-ups like Captain Aguilar.

  Most cops disliked the guys in Internal Affairs and the ones who kissed ass in the chief’s office because they made life unbearable for everyone else. So, when a good cop was reamed out by one of them for doing his job, he was considered a hero to the rank and file. Someone like Frank Miller with his forty years of experience and solid reputation was considered a god.