Undercurrents

by Ridley Pearson

  “The single apartment building is a good idea. I have to go along with the suggestion. We need to have a hell of a lot of things fall into place if we’re going to build a case against this guy. We can’t just expect them to happen. As Boldt pointed out,” he said as if Boldt wasn’t in the room, “it’s not like we’re putting the skirts in a hell of a lot of danger. This guy stakes them out; he delivers flowers; even if it went to the extreme, we’d have the jump on him, not the other way around. He’d be met at the door with a thirty-eight in his face.”

  Shoswitz sighed and rubbed his elbow out of nervous habit. “I don’t know.”

  With Shoswitz, that was as good as a confirmation. “I’d like to recommend Barbara Gaynes for the assignment, if we go this direction,” Boldt said. “I’ve been working with her, and she’s a good cop.”

  “I’ll have to run it by the captain,” Shoswitz pointed out. “I want this to be a team effort, as tight as a gnat’s ass. Right? No more Jergensens. No way we let him get to one of these women—and as far as Gaynes is concerned… this is strictly volunteer. You hear me, Lou? I want these girls to know the full extent of risk involved. This is no vice operation—”

  “These women are trained for rape investigations, Lieutenant,” Boldt pointed out. “They’re the logical choice.”

  “Volunteers. I want that made clear.” He switched to scratching his head. Boldt felt tempted to brush the man’s shoulders clean. “Set it up. Get it ready to go and wait for the word. I’ll take it upstairs.”

  “I’ll get LaMoia going on those lists.” Suddenly Boldt felt wide awake.

  36

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Shut the door,” she instructed.

  “I got your message,” he said formally.

  “Please,” Daphne added.

  Lou Boldt shut the door.

  “Thank you.”

  “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  “Yes, you do. Accepted.”

  “I have this habit of driving people away from me.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “I’d like to try again, if that’s all right.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think now is the time. We’ve got other things to discuss.”

  “Okay. May I?” he asked, motioning to the chair. He noted that she remained behind the security of her desk. She nodded, and he sat down.

  She said formally, “We have several things to go over.” Without pausing she continued, “First, I got your memo about the videos. I don’t mind telling you the thought of that gives me the willies. Some guy behind the counter picking out his kills. Good God. But it fits. That’s what you were asking me in the memo, and that’s my professional opinion. It’s a perfect fit, actually…. It tells us more about him. There may even be a specific video that precipitates his need to kill. I’d look into that if I were you—the names of the last porno videos rented. There may be something there. It may simply be that a woman rents what he considers to be a ‘sinful’ movie. There are all sorts of obvious implications here. But what it boils down to is that you have yourself his method of selection. The roses are symbolic, I think. They may mean something to him: his sweetheart, his bride…. To him it may all be connected to her death somehow.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  She paused, glaring at him. “I’m sure you’re right about taping the victim’s eyes open. He brings a film along with him. He restricts her—ties her facedown—and holds her head up by the hair, forcing her to watch. He brings her in and out of consciousness with the ligature around her neck.” She hesitated to clear her throat. “I called BSU in Quantico and ran it by the doctor we’ve been dealing with there. He suggested something to me that I hadn’t considered, and I think it’s worth passing along to you. That is, there’s a good chance he rapes them. I know. I know. We haven’t had any evidence of that. But we’ve been overlooking something… something none of us has considered until now, and that is the possibility that he uses a condom. I haven’t called the ME; that’s your business. But I would if I were you. The agent I spoke with pointed out that an ME only swabs for semen. They wouldn’t pick up a rape with condoms unless there was some bruising. And if he ties her down…”

  Boldt recalled the paramedics mentioning a strange but familiar medicinal smell. It wouldn’t be hard to check out. “To punish them?”

  “Exactly. He considers them dirty—filthy. The condom keeps him ‘pure,’ while he punishes them. And it fits with a lust murder. We’ve thought he might be impotent all along. This, because of the lack of rape evidence. I think we better reassess. BSU is feeding the videotape information into VICAP to see if we get a match with any other serial killings. I doubt we will. This video business is a new angle—was new even to the agent I spoke with.” She reached up toward her hair to finger-comb it, but thought better of it.

  “Hell of a thing to be original at.”

  “I want to remind you of something. I realize my timing may be less than perfect, but I want to stress again that this man is more than likely both schizophrenic and psychotic. He is a very sick man.”

  “Daphne…”

  “It’s important you remember who and what you’re dealing with. If we accept his profile, he’s probably been under psychiatric care before and was subsequently discharged. He’s probably been prescribed medicines that he not only can’t afford but can’t remember to take. Do we blame him for that?”

  “You expect me to feel sorry for this animal?” he asked. “I have to live with his victims, Daffy.”

  “He’s a human being, damn it! First and foremost he’s a human being. Not, I repeat, not, some animal. Why is it that you cops insist on seeing the mentally ill as animals?” She was half out of her chair, and her face was scarlet. She sat back down and made no attempt at an apology. She began to work with her hair then, her eyes glued to her desk. Boldt had trouble with the textbook side of Daphne Matthews.

  He waited for what felt like an eternity before saying softly, “He’s a murderer. He murders women. Okay?”

  “That’s unacceptable,” she told the desk.

  He did not reply immediately. He waited before asking, “What about my copycat? Have you had any time to work on that?”

  As if they had begun their discussion here, she said, “I’ve been working on that for you,” hoisting a large reference book.

  “And?”

  “Your copycat is altogether different from the Cross Killer. He’s more than likely a psychopath or sociopath, not psychotic. His childhood was a wreck. His behavior is amoral and asocial. He’s highly intelligent. He knows no shame, and has no remorse for what he does. His crimes are premeditated—deliberate. For this reason, psychopaths are frightening. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that he isn’t ill—of course he is—he is more than likely socially ill, and therefore more dangerous, more unpredictable, much more difficult to treat than the psychotic.”

  “And I’m supposed to differentiate between the two?”

  “Yes,” she told him, attempting tenderness in her voice. “You of all people, Lou. You’re a cop.”

  “Anything else?” he wondered. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “There’s one other thing, if you have a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  She rounded her desk, went over to the door, and pushed against it. She came over and knelt by him. She pulled him to her and hugged him. “Hold me,” she pleaded softly into his ear.

  He felt the warmth of her surround him. The comforting warmth. The sweet smell of her neck. The softness of her as she pressed against him. Her delicate hands stroking his back. Confusion built from the sour pit in his stomach. His arms began to tremble, his shoulders shake. He wanted tenderness. He was starved for it.

  She didn’t say anything. She pressed her face tenderly against his scratchy cheek and kissed him lightly.

  Their lips met eagerly, and they both laughed simultaneously.

  “What are we doing?” he asked.
r />   But she didn’t answer. She silenced him with another kiss.

  37

  He left her office, drained but on the comeback. The emotional release he had experienced, coupled with the excitement of their shared intimacy, rekindled his energy and enthusiasm. He left Kramer to establish a list of women volunteers—reminding himself to leave room for Bobbie Gaynes—and headed off to find Bobbie.

  Shoswitz caught up to him in the hallway. “For you,” he said, handing Boldt a folded piece of paper. “Thought you might like something to do. Better than waiting around.”

  Boldt knew from the feel of it what it was: the search warrant for Fuller’s apartment. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “No sweat.”

  ***

  Bobbie was parked in a Pay & Park, across the street from the Seagate Apartments, well hidden but with a good view of number 321—Fuller’s apartment. Boldt slid into the front seat and she said, “Nothing going. Dead as a doornail.”

  He explained the video connection in the Cross Killer case, and that the department was asking for Special Assaults volunteers to case the three Market Video stores that had been connected to the victims. He let her know there was room for her if she wanted the assignment. She jumped at the opportunity, eager to get out of a stakeout, and asked, “Why me?”

  “Because you’re good. Because you want to be the first woman cop assigned to Homicide. It won’t happen overnight. We both know that. But you stand as good a chance as anyone else. You’re a good cop, Bobbie. You think like a cop and you’re willing to work and to learn, two keys to becoming a good homicide investigator. It’s a long road in this division—but this is the ultimate in being a cop. Believe me. For all its rough moments, this is it.”

  “I know,” she said. “I love it.”

  Chen Wo was tall and lanky with hunched shoulders and thinning hair. He looked to be in his fifties. When asked by Boldt, Wo mentioned that Fuller’s car had not been parked in its slip for over three weeks. Fuller had sublet the apartment through a client of Lyn Lymann Property Management, and as a result, neither Lymann nor Wo had anything more current than what Bobbie had turned up at the rental shop—a California driver’s license. Wo had met her once, two months before. He had not run into her since. He admitted them to Fuller’s apartment without even looking at the warrant, asking them to check in with him before leaving, which they agreed to do.

  Boldt removed two pairs of disposable surgical gloves from his coat pocket and handed a pair to Gaynes. They both put them on. “You should start carrying these,” he said.

  The door swung open. It was a plain, stark apartment, smelling of rug cleaner and disinfectant.

  “What’s your first impression, Detective?” Boldt asked before they were barely inside.

  “It’s new. It feels new and not lived in. Almost temporary.”

  Boldt shut the door and switched on the light. “Go on.” He followed her.

  “No photographs. No personal memorabilia.” The living room was sterile and looked like a section of a furniture showcase. The kitchen clean, cupboards bare except for breakfast cereal, instant coffee, and Equal. The refrigerator held a quart of sour milk, two Dannon yogurts, and withered celery. “She eats out,” Bobbie said, Boldt following behind. “She’s single.”

  Her bedroom was equally bare, reminding Boldt of a motel. The bathroom sink was messy. The shower needed cleaning. “She’s not domestic,” Gaynes observed. “Strange that the desktop should be so clean.” She checked the drawers. The top center drawer was bare. The two others were cluttered and brimming with paper. “Why the empty drawer?”

  “That’s good,” Boldt told her. “I agree. Trash basket is empty, too.”

  Gaynes leafed through the top left drawer. There were two boxes, each brimming with receipts, one filled with those from credit cards, the other with what appeared to be cash receipts. A folder had careful accounting of dozens of entries—two columns, cash and credit card.

  “She keeps good books,” Bobbie noted.

  “Agreed.”

  “So?”

  “So, who keeps these kinds of books?” he wondered.

  She checked the contents of the file folder. “Telephone accounting, too. Thorough.”

  “So?”

  Bobbie Gaynes thought for a moment and then said, “An expense account. This goes beyond home accounting… she’s kept track of every cent she’s spent. She’s on an expense account.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So she’s working for someone.” She beamed. “And that may tell us something.”

  “Or she was,” reminded Boldt.

  Seeing the Mobil Oil credit-card bills gave Boldt an idea. They went through the bills carefully, noting each date.

  Bobbie said, “So she filled up at the same gas station once she reached Seattle—”

  “Just around the corner,” Boldt added, noting the address.

  “And she filled up about once—sometimes twice—a week. Last billing date is over a month ago. There are still clothes in her closet, so she hasn’t moved. But she may be away visiting. We can’t say for certain she’s Jane Doe until we cross-check these signatures against the windsurfing supply rental agreement.”

  “She’s Jane Doe.” Boldt said defiantly. “And according to these”—he pointed to the bills—“she stayed in Denver and Tucson, prior to here, but only for a week or so in each place. These stations in between show us the route she used to move between the cities, and they tell us that she relied on this card for, what looks like, all her gas. If we take that a step further, then if she’s still alive, she’s still using the card.” He read a number from the bill, picked up the phone carefully, and dialed. Bobbie Gaynes roamed the room for ten minutes while Boldt spoke on the phone inquiring about current charges.

  When he hung up the phone, she said, “All her dresses are synthetic. No iron. She travels light. No toothbrush in her medicine cabinet, no deodorant or toothpaste. I don’t see a suitcase. It looks like she took a trip. But she left her eyeliner.”

  “So she left in a hurry.”

  “Or someone did her packing for her. I wouldn’t leave my eyeliner, I’ll tell you that.”

  “There have been no gas charges in the last three weeks on her account, though it sometimes takes several weeks for charges to be fully processed. It doesn’t give us a definite, but it gives us a possibility.”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to be hunting for cars again,” Bobbie worried.

  “Unless you volunteer for the video stakeout.”

  “I’ll volunteer. You know I’ll volunteer. But it doesn’t mean they’ll pick me. There are others in Special Assaults who would love a shot at Homicide. The only reason I got this assignment was because everyone believed it was going to be gofer work.”

  “Live and learn,” Boldt said.

  “Indeed.”

  “We’ll place her car on the stolen sheet, check citations, alert repair shops and parking garages. I’ll notify State Police in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, and Nevada, and contact Canadian Immigration. We’ll find her car.

  “I keep all my current stuff in my top drawer. How about you?” he added.

  Bobbie took the hint. “Someone cleared her drawer out. And they packed for her. I’ll call I.D. and have them dust for latents.”

  He nodded. “We’ll try and get into her bank accounts and search deposits. That may trace backward to an employer, which may tell us more about her. Someone has to know what she was doing here.”

  “Windsurfing?”

  “Yes, I think we’ve already met Judith Fuller,” Boldt stated bluntly. “I think Dixie’s got her on ice down at the ME’s.”

  38

  Three Special Assaults detectives were selected from a list of nine volunteers for the stakeout teams. It was agreed that the women would sign up for membership at the three Market Videos within the BSU boundary. Bobbie Gaynes was assigned the Market Video on Forty-sixth Street. They would give the same address, b
ut using different apartment numbers. The three apartment rentals had been arranged through Special Operations earlier in the afternoon.

  The minute Gaynes returned from her first visit to the store, she headed directly to Boldt’s office. Boldt and Kramer ushered her into interrogation room A, the same room in which Boldt had heard Elizabeth’s voice for the last time. The door clicked shut and Boldt smelled the bitter afterglow of sweat and cigarette smoke he found so distasteful. Gaynes wore black pleated pants and a white pleated blouse and looked like anything but a detective.

  “So?” Kramer asked as they all sat down.

  She looked over at Lou Boldt. “The clerk was a woman.”

  “Terrific,” Kramer complained.

  “And we ran into an unforeseen snag.”

  “What’s that?” asked Boldt.

  “She didn’t ask me for my address, she took it off my driver’s license. I wasn’t able to give her the apartment address you wanted.”

  “Damn,” Boldt snarled. “That’s no good. Stop the others. We’ll have to issue them new driver’s licenses,” he told Kramer.

  “I’ll get on it.” Kramer left the room.

  “He’s not so bad,” Bobbie said to Boldt.

  “He’s like a chest cold that way: at first he’s just a tickle at the back of the throat. He becomes a pain later on. Tell me about the store.”

  “It’s huge, and very busy. They must have close to a thousand videos. Everything you can imagine.”

  “Did you rent anything?”

  “Sure.”

  “But not porno, I hope. Not the first time.”

  “I know how to follow orders, Sergeant. I rented The Thirty-Nine Steps. Alfred Hitchcock. The only problem is, I don’t own a VCR. I think I’m the last person not to own one.”

  “We’ll get you one. That’s no problem. Do you think you can get your address changed on the membership?”

  “I’m sure it’s possible to do, but the woman insisted I show her a state driver’s license and a major credit card. If I change it, it may arouse suspicion—I almost corrected it while I was there—but the thing is, it may cause someone to remember the address, and the fact that the same address will be used at the other stores by the other girls made me cautious.”