Undercurrents

by Ridley Pearson

  “He kept them?”

  “If Daphne’s right, a psychopath would be proud of the crime.” Boldt went on, “So he uses a fake name, always chooses a different dry-cleaning establishment, and has the item of clothing cleaned.”

  “Fuller finds the clothes in a closet and pulls the receipts.”

  “He catches her and tries to kill her,” Boldt said.

  “But she gets away somehow.”

  “Or he lets her get away. He toys with her.”

  “And she makes it to the water.”

  “But her trachea is hemorrhaging; she’s drowning in her own blood, and she goes down.”

  “And now he’s fucked,” Shoswitz said. “The one that got away. So how does he know who she is?”

  “Exactly! She’s down and gone, and he’s left holding a busted windsurfer.” Boldt thought a moment.

  Shoswitz theorized, “He gets rid of the windsurfer. First things first. Buries it, burns it.”

  “Burns it. This guy likes to burn evidence.”

  “But who is she? How’s he figure out who she is?”

  “She’s windsurfing out on Vashon. Now for all we know, it didn’t go down like this and maybe he gets into his torture routine and learns whatever it is he needs to know. But if he didn’t…” He hesitated. “If he didn’t, then he looks over the windsurfer real well. It’s a rental, so it has some kind of identification. That store may mark hundred-dollar wetsuits with nail polish, but not a thousand-dollar board. So maybe he sees it was rented over in the city….

  “Wait a second. Even easier than that. She’s going to have launched at one of the beaches or public landings, in any case. She’ll park her car in one of the parking lots and put in from there. He’s got to figure she drove to wherever she launched. She’s not his next-door neighbor, for Christ’s sake; not if she’s caught snooping around his stuff. So he starts close and works his way out—same way we look for something. How many public accesses can there be on the east side of Vashon and Maury? A handful at best. Wouldn’t take long for him to check them all, if it came to that. He goes that night and looks for an abandoned car. And she probably would have chosen a place close by. Why make it tough on herself? And there’s a Mercury with California plates and a rented roof-rack sitting all alone when everybody else is gone.”

  “And guess where she’s left her keys,” added Shoswitz.

  “We didn’t find them on her. So either he got them off her before she went in, or they were in the car or hidden somewhere on it.”

  “He gets himself inside that car,” said Shoswitz, “and he may as well be inside her brain. A piece of junk mail with her address. The key to her apartment. Her purse? It’s all there. Shit.”

  “Piece of cake.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for certain. Right? I mean even if we catch him, we may never know for sure.”

  “She was one brave lady, if that’s the way it went down.”

  “Amen. Brave, or stupid, or both.”

  “I prefer brave,” Boldt said.

  “And rightly so.”

  “So how the hell do we find this bastard?”

  “Did he pick his victims at random? Follow them. Kill them? Is he a traffic cop that takes their names off of their driver’s licenses? One of my detectives wandering around out there?”

  “Something we worked on before,” Boldt recalled, “when we were talking about how he went about matching Norvak to Fuller. We thought he might have gone to the windsurfing areas and looked around for someone who looked like Fuller. Another thought…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Norvak belonged to The Body Shop. We know that. And everyone at the club knew that Norvak was a heavy-duty windsurfer.”

  “The club’s where he found Norvak? I’d buy that.”

  Boldt stepped out of the office and hollered, “LaMoia!” He tried again, and the exhausted detective came at a run. They spoke in whispers, and a few minutes later, alone again with Shoswitz, Boldt had a ream of photocopies stacked on his lap.

  He leafed through it.

  “What have you got?” Shoswitz asked.

  “Checking accounts and statements for Saviria, Jordan, Kniffen, and DeHavelin. John’s making some calls.”

  Shoswitz went back to his paperwork. Boldt reviewed the material. When LaMoia returned, both men looked up.

  “They weren’t all the same, but you were right, Sarge.”

  “Let’s have it,” Boldt said, putting down the stack.

  “Saviria belonged to Nutri-fit. She had been a member for years. Jordan belonged to the Sixth Street Gym. DeHavelin, Norvak, and Kniffen all belonged to The Body Shop. Most of Lange’s victims didn’t belong to health clubs, so we never saw a pattern. And these broads belonged to different clubs at that.”

  “Health clubs?” Shoswitz asked. “He spotted them at health clubs,” he stated. “At The Body Shop?”

  Boldt snapped his finger. It was right there dancing at the edges of his mind—the connection. He couldn’t pull it to the surface. A man’s voice, right there. It shot across his mind but he couldn’t hold it there. A man’s voice saying something. But who? Who had said it? Where? A man’s voice…

  “Lou?”

  “The club…”

  Shoswitz let him think.

  “Something about the club.” A long silence. “Group rates!” Boldt barked out. “Mike Sharff. Group rates.”

  “What?”

  “The Body Shop sent out flyers a few months back. Don’t you remember? They were offering group rates—five people or more. I ran into Mike Sharff at the club the night I was there. You know, Dixie’s assistant. Short, stocky guy. He told me about the group rates. Said a number of our people worked out there too. If the copycat discovered Norvak and DeHavelin at the health club, and he’s a member of this department, then he’s more than likely in our group plan out there. We check their group-rate records and cross-reference them with the addresses where Fuller got her tickets.”

  “Or on Vashon.”

  “Or both.”

  “What is it, Lou? You look horrible.”

  Boldt didn’t say a word. But in his mind was the all-too-clear image of Daphne coming through the door to The Body Shop. And right behind her was John Kramer.

  55

  A study of the computer printout from The Body Shop revealed that twenty-two employees of the police department belonged to the group program. Of these twenty-two, seventeen were women, leaving five men whom Boldt and Shoswitz considered as possibilities for the copycat. Two of the five were patrolmen, and had no way of knowing the details of the Cross Killer investigation. Two others were in Narco, and were unlikely to have had access to the information, though they couldn’t be ruled out completely. At the top of the list was John Kramer.

  “I simply refuse to believe it,” Shoswitz said. “Not John.”

  Boldt was staring at his copy of the printout. He had circled Kramer’s name several times. There he lay, trapped by the ever-tightening orbits of ink. He looked out through Shoswitz’s door. The back of Kramer’s red head was visible thirty feet away. He was talking intensely to LaMoia. “Do we question him?”

  “Shit.” The lieutenant looked across at Boldt. “No way, Lou. You didn’t hear this from me, but he’s not smart enough to put this thing together.”

  “And he doesn’t live anywhere near where Fuller was ticketed—if that relates to this. One way to find out.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Let’s check with Jimmie down in the caves. If they haven’t checked Kramer’s print yet, we should do so now.”

  “Right.” Shoswitz lifted the phone.

  “Hold it! Forget it. Can’t be Kramer. The guy we’re after is new in town—Fuller followed him here.”

  Shoswitz closed his eyes, “Hallelujah,” he gasped. He set the phone back down.

  Boldt leaned forward. “It’s not one of us, Phil. A cop couldn’t switch a dental record.” He hesitated and then said, “I know
who it is.”

  56

  The three men, Boldt, Shoswitz, and Kramer, were behind the locked door of interrogation room A. Shoswitz had key-locked the small room that allowed viewing through the two-way mirror, as well as listening in. He meant to keep this private.

  “So?” the lieutenant asked.

  “It’s James Royce,” Boldt told them, “Dixie’s autopsy assistant. It’s my fault,” he continued. “I had plenty of chances to see the connection. Mike Sharff, the other assistant, was at the club the first time I went. He told me about the group accounts—that a number of people from his office had joined. I knew Norvak was a member of The Body Shop—I should have thought it was connected. Being in the ME’s department, Royce could alter evidence, plant evidence, cover his tracks however he saw fit. That’s why the dental records matched Norvak’s. That’s what made me realize it. The autopsy assistant cleans the bodies and does the initial tests. Royce simply substituted a different X-ray of Fuller’s mouth into Norvak’s dental files and then let Dixie confirm. Dixie admits it wouldn’t be hard to do.”

  He continued, “One of Fuller’s parking tickets was issued on North Seventy-seventh Street. Royce lives in the same block of North Seventy-seventh. She had him under surveillance. It fits.”

  “You talked to Dixon about this?” Kramer asked incredulously.

  Boldt nodded. “Dixie’s had a terrible time with turnover in his department. Royce has been with him since mid-May—only days after the press picked up on the similarities between the Holmgren kill and the Reddick kill. We need a thumbprint in order to verify,” Boldt pointed out. “I told Royce Bobbie was heading up the Jane Doe investigation. Two days later he asked her out on a date, no doubt worried about the apparent loose ends he’d left behind. He was trying to keep tabs on the investigation. It seems so obvious in hindsight. I didn’t pick up on it at the time.”

  “We’ll need that thumbprint,” Shoswitz agreed. “The print will tie him to both Norvak’s house and Fuller’s car.”

  Kramer complained, “But we don’t even have enough to get a warrant to get us into his place—as if that would help us any with a guy this careful. The prints may place him at Norvak’s, maybe in both those cars, but where’s the foul play? I’ll tell you where—the foul play is in our heads.”

  It was a rare moment of truth for Judge Kramer’s son, and Boldt acknowledged it. “Fair enough. So we need more than circumstantial evidence.”

  “And we’ll never get it, right?” Shoswitz said, disappointed. “A guy like this.”

  “He’s thorough, if that’s what you mean,” Boldt added.

  “That’s what I mean,” Kramer said. “He’s thought everything through. Covered himself well.”

  Boldt reminded them of Denver and Tucson. “He’s had practice.” Recalling his talk with Daphne he said, “His game is perfection. Perfect duplication.”

  “What we need is a confession,” Kramer said.

  “Good luck,” snapped Shoswitz.

  “There you go,” suggested Boldt.

  Both men looked at him curiously.

  “He’s a copycat. Literally. His game is perfect duplication. He sees how the bodies come in, he makes sure his victims are identical. That’s the thrill for him.”

  “So?” Kramer wondered.

  “With both Norvak and Fuller he had no one to copy. He made simple mistakes. Fingerprints, burning the clothing; he didn’t understand the tidal currents.”

  “What are you driving at?” Shoswitz wondered.

  “If we talk to Daphne, if we get briefed on his kind of personality, maybe I could go in on a wire and trip him up. Maybe we could get that confession after all. It’s worked on schizoids before, using the third person and getting the suspect into a ‘what if’ situation. They can be made to stumble. It’s a possibility.”

  “Those were trained professionals, guys from Behavioral Science, not city cops,” Kramer reminded. “Besides, since when do we use wires? Narco doesn’t even use them anymore.”

  “Daphne could do it,” Shoswitz stated enthusiastically, ignoring Kramer. “I like it. Let’s run it by her.”

  Boldt objected. “No way. She’s not a cop. She’s had no cop training. She’s a psychologist. One of us should do it, and I’ve dealt with Royce. If I approach Royce—say about the tape on the mouth, something like that—he won’t suspect it in the least. It should be me.”

  Kramer gave Boldt an angry look. “Is that the real reason?” he asked. “Or do you just want the limelight again. Your big chance to erase the Jergensen thing, is that it?”

  “John!” Shoswitz reprimanded.

  Boldt was tempted to slug the man. He was sick of Kramer’s griping, of his jealousy and his ineffectiveness. He felt the warmth flood his face and he clamped his jaw down hard to keep himself from saying anything stupid.

  “She’s the professional,” Shoswitz reminded. “Let’s run it by Daphne and see what she thinks. That’s what she’s here for, right: thinking?”

  Lou Boldt wanted to object but knew it would fall on deaf ears. He knew what her answer would be, before asking. The thought of it turned his gut.

  57

  She sat demurely behind her desk, confident and excited. Her chestnut hair was styled in loose curls today. Her eyes sparkled. Shoswitz and Boldt sat facing her. She wore a tailored, navy-blue blazer, and a white, pleated blouse, sparkling gold earrings swinging from her lobes like fragile icicles. “It’s a wonderful idea,” she said, looking at Boldt and thanking him with her eyes, thinking, no doubt, this suggestion stemmed from their earlier talk where she had expressed an interest in getting to a psychopath prior to arrest. She was positively radiant.

  Boldt felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. This was wrong and he knew it, but he was helpless to do anything about it.

  She asked, “How certain are you?”

  “We only have circumstantial evidence,” Boldt told her, disappointed.

  Shoswitz interjected, “Nothing strong enough to put him away. He’s been very careful. We may be able to link him to several crime scenes, certainly to The Body Shop, but that doesn’t prove he murdered anyone—and for someone in the Medical Examiner’s office, it isn’t unusual to be around a crime scene. The defense would have a heyday with that, I’m afraid.”

  Boldt explained, “He more than likely chose his victims from health clubs. Following the discovery of another Cross Killer victim, Royce would set up his next kill.

  “We assume he spotted someone suitable at the health club,” he added. “There’s any number of ways it could go down from here: he could introduce himself using an alias; he could get himself invited over when he’s out in the parking lot; but that’s not how I see it. Too much could go wrong. His name could get mentioned; he could be seen leaving with her. I tend to think it was something much more subtle. Macho. He gives her the eye a few times from across the workout room. This is a good-looking guy, let’s not forget. He eye-flirts with a few of the women and one of them bites. He keeps working on her until he knows he’s hooked her—all without speaking a word. He intentionally avoids meeting her—they never meet. But he has her in his sights. He puts her under surveillance. And one night he walks up to her door and knocks. She answers the door. It’s him. To her, it’s him. He cracks a smile. ‘Hi,’ he says. She returns the smile and opens the door.

  “No telling from here,” he added. “Each time it’s probably a little bit different. Sometimes he may step right in and kill them. Or maybe he goes out back for a little barbecue, like he apparently did with Norvak.”

  “Jesus, Lou. Where the fuck did you get that?”

  Daphne nodded vigorously. “That fits, as far as I’m concerned: charm them to death. I like it.”

  “Like it?” Shoswitz said.

  “He’s a public employee. We’ve got a card on him. I.D. is comparing his prints against the partials. We won’t move until we have print confirmation,” Shoswitz added. “They’re only partials, Daphne. Tha
t’s our problem.”

  “I think I can help,” she said, sitting back in her chair, hooking her fingers into her curls and combing them through. “It’s a good idea, Lou. If I can get him talking he may give us what we want. It should simply be a matter of challenging him in the right way, putting his ego on the defensive.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Boldt contended. “It could go bad.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Shoswitz reminded. “We’ll do it during business hours so the ME’s is busy and there are plenty of people around. We’ll put Lou in conference with Doc Dixon so he’ll be close at hand. We’ll have additional backup outside.”

  “I’m game. You don’t have to sell me,” she asserted.

  “Any problems?” Shoswitz asked.

  Boldt was about to speak up, but he caught the look in Daphne’s eyes and fell silent.

  ***

  I.D. matched Royce’s thumbprint, linking him circumstantially to both Norvak and Fuller.

  Daphne shut her office door and locked it. Lou Boldt recalled the last time she had done that. It seemed a long time ago now. She turned around and asked him to unbutton her blouse.

  “One of the women from Special Assaults should be doing this,” he said uncomfortably, placing the RF transmitter down, fingers working the buttons on her back.

  “Nonsense. You’re perfectly capable,” she told him. She pulled off the blouse and turned to face him. Her breasts were cupped in a delicate, sheer bra, her dark nipples held in the very center of airy lace flowers. “Fix me up,” she said.

  “Daffy,” he began in a dramatic voice that she quickly understood.

  “Don’t. Please, don’t. I’m very much aware of what follows next, Lou. My God, do I know what follows next. ‘It was just one of those moments. One of those wonderful moments.’ I know all about wonderful moments. Believe me. I’ve heard this kind of thing before. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “It was wonderful, Daffy. I mean truly wonderful. But—”

  “Lou! Enough. It was one night. One moment. It was a good time. I’m grown-up. I can handle it. Married men. Jeez.” He looked up from his taping the small wire to her skin. He ran it up along her rib cage to just beneath her armpit and then followed the seam on the underside of the bra. She reached up to help him clip the microphone to the fabric, for it required pulling the bra away from her breast, and Lou Boldt was clearly uneasy with the task. He let her do it, standing back. “You’re a married man… the kind who is always a married man. Once and for all, forever. I knew that as well. Believe me. People are my business, right? I’m the pro, right? Listen, it was good for me. Really good. Wonderful, in fact. I hope it was all right for you.” He glanced up at her and he wanted to take her into his arms. But he resisted. He sensed she would have welcomed it. She finished clipping the miniature microphone to the center of her bra and he spun her around to run the wire along the top seam of her skirt and tape the tiny transmitter into the small of her back. While she was faced away from him she continued, “I’ve had my eye on you for a long time. And I got my chance, and I know you well enough to know it was a first and last chance. I know people, right? You bet I do. And you know something? I don’t regret a single second. Not a single second.”