The Sex Club

by L. J. Sellers

  She slammed her fist against the phone book. How dare they kill an innocent young woman! Kera paced the kitchen, swearing out loud at the bomber. Her heart pounded until the rage felt as if it would consume her.

  Tuesday, October 19, 5:27 p.m.

  Jackson could barely keep his attention on the video footage. He was starving and had been staring at the television screen for hours. Nothing on the tape had moved for twenty minutes.

  After spending the afternoon at the bomb scene, he and Rob Schakowski, another veteran detective he often partnered with, had come back to the department with a box load of videotapes from the clinic’s surveillance cameras. Armed with coffee and notepads, they had set up a VCR in the “kids” interview room with the overstuffed brown couches. First, they had watched the tape of Planned Parent­hood’s inner foyer, jotting down names and reactions as people came into the clinic and announced themselves. No one stood out as unusual. Now they were watching the tape from the camera mounted outside the front of the building, and after an hour of staring at landscaping, Jackson was restless and hungry.

  “We should send out for pizza,” Schak announced suddenly.

  Jackson paused the tape. “Can we do Chinese instead? I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”

  “Great. You find out you have high cholesterol, so now I get to eat vegetables instead of real food.”

  “Shut up about it, Schak. I never should have told you.” After separating from his wife—kicking her out, actually—Jackson hadn’t discussed anything personal with another adult for about six months. Then one day, he started telling Schak some of the things he used to share with Renee, when she was sober. Now he regretted it.

  “I’m just messing with you. Don’t be so sensitive.” Schakowski, with his crew-cut hair and barrel-shaped torso, would never be mistaken for the sensitive type.

  “Chinese or not?”

  “Fine. But no fucking broccoli.”

  Jackson went back to his desk where he had the number for the Grand China restaurant handy. As he reached for his phone, it rang on an internal line.

  The dispatcher sounded a little worked up. “Detective Jackson, a call just came in reporting a body in a dumpster behind the Regency Apartments. The 1700 block of Patterson Street.”

  Shit. That was his neighborhood. “Any other information?” he asked.

  “A young man named Trevor Michelson made the call. I asked him to wait by the dumpster and not let anyone near the body until you got there.”

  “Call the medical examiner and the DA’s office. Get McCray and Evans down there too. I’m on my way.”

  Tuesday, October 19, 6:05 p.m.

  Kera looked around for a project, something that would distract her and use up her negative energy. After the letter she’d received from Daniel two days ago, she knew just what would make her feel better.

  She made a quick trip to Safeway for large plastic bags and picked up a dozen empty produce boxes while she was at it.

  Determined to take charge of some part of her life, Kera hauled some of the empty boxes into the master bedroom and began to pack up Daniel’s stuff. To hell with him, she thought. Their marriage had been half dead before he left for Iraq, and she would never forgive him for abandoning her during her grief.

  Suit jackets, slacks, shoes, and drawers full of jogging clothes; Kera filled the three boxes quickly and went back to the living room for more. Tennis rackets, CDs, his family photos—she tucked all of it into the brown cardboard containers and sealed them with clear tape.

  She carried the first box out to the garage but found no place to set it down. The space was crammed with more of Daniel’s stuff: power tools, snow skis, water skis, model planes, woodworking machines—most of it unmarred by actual use. Her husband’s interests had shifted quickly.

  Kera grabbed her keys and backed her car out of the garage and into the driveway to make room for the boxes and bags she’d filled. If she didn’t hear from Daniel in the next two weeks, she’d hire a mover and put all his junk in storage. She refused to play the role of crap keeper, the one left behind to safeguard the stuff he no longer wanted but couldn’t let go.

  Back in the house, Kera looked down the hall toward Nathan’s room. She had to tackle it sooner or later. With a burst of courage, she grabbed some boxes, charged down the hall, and pushed open Nathan’s door. Then she froze. His scent—Old Spice deodorant mixed with sun-kissed skin and rubber basketball—lingered in the air. Kera’s chest tightened until she couldn’t breathe. She backed out and closed the door. Okay. Not yet. Not tonight, anyway.

  Later, feeling emotionally exhausted, she sat down at her iMac and opened her e-mail account.

  She read a quick note from her sister in Bend and another message from a charity called Food for Lane County that she volunteered with on Saturdays. Then she spotted a file from a hotmail sender called blowgirl_jd. Kera almost deleted it. But curiosity got the better of her. It had been sent at 12:15 that day. She clicked it open.

  Kera

  Here’s a question for you. How do you say no to some kinds of sex? I mean, I like regular hooking up a lot. Even some nasty stuff. But not everything. I like to make “Mike” happy but sometimes he has strange…

  That was it. Not even a signature. As if the writer had accidentally sent the e-mail before she intended. Or maybe she had been interrupted. Kera intuitively knew it was Jessie. The message had been sent an hour after Kera gave Jessie Davenport her contact information.

  Kera hit reply, typed “jd” at the top of the screen, then hesitated. This was such a fine line. To keep the communication open, she had to accept Jessie’s sexuality on its own terms and try to help with her concern. Yet, given the opportunity, Kera would discourage any girl that age from starting a physical relationship. For her, it was not so much a question of morality but one of emotion and consequence. But Jessie was already in a relationship and obviously needed her help.

  Kera kept her response brief:

  This is a problem in many relationships. When your partner suggests something you don’t want to do, suggest (and start) something else instead. If he pressures you, say “no” and end the encounter. You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. And don’t forget to use birth control. —KK

  After sending the e-mail, Kera wondered for a moment about Jessie’s boyfriend. She thought that he might be older than Jessie, probably in high school. But the idea that he wanted “strange stuff” bothered Kera a bit. Most adolescent males were not very imaginative about sex. They didn’t have the patience. Or at least, that had been her experience as a teenager. But now some kids—in a misguided effort to stay virgins—engaged in oral and anal sex rather than vaginal. But they typically didn’t consider those activities strange. What did Jessie’s boyfriend want from her?

  Kera tried to put Jessie out of her mind. She would probably never hear from or see the girl again.

  Tuesday, October 19, 6:27 p.m.

  Jackson and Schakowski headed for their city-issued cars in the underground parking area and neither mentioned the missed dinner. The department, located in city hall, had outgrown its space years ago, but local taxpayers had turned down three requests for the money to build new headquarters. Yet that was the least of Eugene’s law enforcement financial troubles.

  “You said you were tired of investigating scumbag-on-scumbag homicides,” his partner commented as they reached the garage.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a promotion.”

  As Jackson pulled the Impala into traffic, the evening sun broke through the clouds and illuminated the thin sheen of rainwater scattered over the downtown area. The hodgepodge of old buildings had no theme, except that none were over four stories tall. Many were empty—thanks to a misguided city council decision two decades ago—and almost none contained the same business enterprise for more than a few years. The eight-block downtown core reinvented itself continuously, to the delight of some and disgust of others. Only the kids and tran
sients who hung out around the bus station stayed the same.

  Jackson headed south on Pearl Street and used speed dial to call his daughter, Katie. When she didn’t answer the house phone, he tried her cell phone number. She picked up after three rings, sounding impatient.

  “Hey kiddo. It’s Dad. Where are you? I thought we agreed that you would be home by six o’clock.”

  “I’m on my way. Emily’s mother is giving me a ride.”

  Hmm. Jackson liked Emily, but he had never met her mother. Still, he couldn’t deal with any of it right now. “I’m not going to make it for dinner. I just got called out on a homicide, and I’ll be working very late. Sorry, honey.” Jackson paused, but his daughter didn’t comment. “I’m going to call your Aunt Jan and have her pick you up. I want you to stay there overnight.”

  Katie let out an exasperated sigh. “So first you rag me for not being home, then you tell me I can’t stay home.”

  “I like to keep you on your toes.”

  “Nice.”

  “I’ll call Jan now, and I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” Jackson turned right on Patterson. “I love you.”

  “Same.” Katie hung up. Jackson pushed aside the guilt. He didn’t work late that often. And it wasn’t his fault that Katie’s mother refused to get sober.

  A white Explorer on his right suddenly cut him off. Jackson leaned on the horn. Idiot.

  In a few blocks, Jackson passed the familiar laundromat and health food store he jogged by on occasion. Then eased his car through a narrow parking lot in front of the Regency Apartments, a two-story building with a dull-white paint job and terra cotta doors. He counted eight units on the street side, four on each level. Massive oak trees stood on each end of the complex as if guarding it—or holding it up. Built in the forties, as were most of the homes in the neighborhood, the apartment building looked dingy, even though the landscaping was neatly tended.

  As Jackson drove into the back parking area, the setting sun cast an eerie pink light over the scene. Hesitant shadows peeked out between the cars. A tall, scrawny teenage boy shivered next to a gray dumpster at the rear of the lot. Dressed in knee-length shorts and a T-shirt, he rubbed his arms against the chill. Jackson figured his body heat was escaping through his buzz-cut scalp.

  As he pulled up near the boy, Jackson appraised the layout. A half-sized basketball court separated the back lot of this apartment complex from the back lot of the apartments on the next street over. An alley lined with chain-link fences and overgrown weeds stretched behind the open area of the court. Quick mental math told Jackson they would have fewer than thirty doors to knock on to cover both apartment buildings, plus a few single-family homes on the next block. Not a worst-case scenario. Unless they had to canvass the whole neighborhood between here and the schools—one of which Katie attended.

  The sky’s pink glow faded and the shadows grew. He cursed the outdoor crime scene and loss of daylight. Schakowski pulled in behind him and left his car partially blocking the exit. Reflexively, Jackson felt for his Sig Sauer, then grabbed a black gym bag from the back seat floor. It contained, among other things, two cameras, extra film, a flashlight, crime scene tape, paper booties, an assortment of brown paper bags, and a box of latex gloves.

  He and his partner hesitated. There was no rushing to save a body. And once the image was burned into the brain, it never faded.

  “I’ll take photos,” Schak offered.

  “Use film.”

  Jackson preferred the convenience of a digital camera, but the district attorney’s office had instructed law enforcement officials not to use them for evidence collection in violent crimes. They feared that a defense lawyer would claim a digital image had been altered.

  The open dumpster called to them, the scent of rotting produce permeating the crisp fall air. Jackson found himself wishing for a fresh corpse, one that had not been dead long enough to stiffen and stink. Jackson also wished for the body to be male. Most men who were murdered asked for it some way: a drug deal gone bad, an earlier act of violence, an infidelity with another man’s wife or girlfriend. But women were almost always innocent victims.

  Jackson dug out a pair of latex gloves, pulled them on, and motioned the shivering young man to step away. The air stood still, silencing the rattle of the tree leaves. A sense of dread washed over him as he stepped up to the looming black hole. At six-two, Jackson was tall enough to look down into the container.

  A lumpy black plastic trash bag lay on top of several crates loaded with brown heads of lettuce. The bag’s contents spilled out the opening, revealing the ghastly secret it had tried to hide. Jackson’s empty stomach heaved. He held his breath and pushed the girl’s hair away from her face.

  It was a face he knew well.

  Chapter 4

  Tuesday, October 19, 6:47 p.m.

  Jessie Davenport and Jackson’s daughter had been inseparable through most of the sixth and seventh grades. Jessie had spent countless hours in his home, although she had not spoken more than twenty words to him in those two years. The girls were a study in contrast: Jessie, tall for her age, blond and lean, a model in the making, while Katie was short, a little plump, with wavy brown hair and freckles. But they had laughed at the same jokes, hated the same teachers, and loved the same boy bands.

  Then abruptly last spring, the overnighters and marathon phone calls had come to an end. Jackson still didn’t know what had happened. Katie refused to talk about it. He groaned inwardly at the thought of telling his daughter that Jessie was dead.

  Schakowski stepped up and looked into the dark canister. “Ah. Jesus. Poor girl.” He began to snap pictures. The angle of her head, the stillness of her chest, the lack of color in her cheeks—every detail said she was dead—but Jackson felt for a pulse anyway. Had her skin started to cool? Through the latex, he couldn’t be sure. His arms ached to pull Jessie out of the plastic and the dumpster. It was a revolting place for any human being to end up, and he hated that her parents would have to think of her like this. If it had been Katie…he could think of no words to describe such despair.

  Jackson wanted a closer look at everything right now, her clothes, her wounds—which he could not see—the bag she had been stuffed into. Every detail mattered.

  Every moment mattered.

  He stepped back from the dumpster and spoke to the teenage boy for the first time. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He located his cell phone and used speed dial to call the county medical examiner’s cellular line.

  The ME answered on the second ring. “Gunderson here.” Radio and traffic noise muted his voice.

  “It’s Jackson. You’re on the way?”

  “Yep.”

  “I want to take her out of the dumpster.”

  “Don’t. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “I need to see her wounds before I talk to the kid who found her.”

  “Leave her. I’ll be right there.”

  They both hung up. Jackson turned back to the young man, who seemed to be on the verge of tears.

  “Name?”

  “Trevor Michelson.”

  “You live around here?”

  “About five blocks away. I come here to shoot hoops.”

  “Where’s your ball?”

  “My friends took off with it after the homeless guy started shouting.”

  The kid was visibly shaking. Was he upset or just cold?

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He rode up to the dumpster on a bike. After a couple minutes, he started yelling at us to come over. My friends thought it was pretty funny, but then they had to take off. I decided to go see what he was yelling about. I wish I hadn’t. I feel kinda sick.”

  “What did the guy look like?”

  The kid shrugged and his teeth chattered. “Like an old homeless guy. Dirty jeans. Dark blue jacket that looked like it came from the Mission. Bad teeth. Shoulder length dirty brown hair.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “He said he could
n’t deal with cops. Something about a warrant.”

  Jackson jotted down the transient’s full description. A patrol officer might know who he was and why he had an arrest warrant. Jackson hoped he would be able to read his notes later. The sun was completely gone now and the dull yellow from the pole light in the parking lot didn’t illuminate much.

  “Do you know the girl?”

  Trevor shook his head.

  “Let me see your hands.”

  The kid held them out. Jackson used his flashlight for a decent look. Trevor had long narrow fingers with the swollen knuckles of someone who liked to pop them.

  “Over.”

  The kid’s left palm had a slight bloody scrape.

  “Explain that.”

  “I fell on the court.” He lifted his leg to display a matching scrape on his shin. “Can I go now? I’m freezing and I haven’t eaten all day.”

  Jackson’s gut feeling was that he was telling the truth. But until he could corroborate the kid’s story, he was a suspect. He jotted down Trevor’s phone number and address as well as the names of his friends who had been there earlier.

  Headlights came around the corner of the building, and Gunderson pulled up in the body van.

  Jackson turned to the kid. “You can go, but I want you available for further questioning tomorrow. That means you and your friends don’t go anywhere except to school. Are you a student at Spencer High?”

  “Yeah. We have an away game in Salem tomorrow.” The idea of missing a basketball game seemed to cause him physical pain.

  “We’ll try to talk to you again in the morning.”

  Jackson turned toward the medical examiner’s van, and the kid hurried off into the darkness.

  The ME’s bald forehead glistened in the lamplight, and his ponytail was held back with a beaded black band. In his mid-fifties, Gunderson had been on the job for seventeen years, and Jackson had witnessed his many hairstyles over the years. The white lab coat over a black turtleneck and black slacks never changed though.