Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  The light in the glass he held was red, not white, and it certainly wasn’t the moon. It was the message light on his answering machine, probably PJ checking to see that he made it home. If he didn’t respond, she might come around to his house, and he didn’t want that to happen. He didn’t want her to see the bottles lined up like obedient little soldiers on the counter.

  He sighed, put the glass down, and checked the machine. There were two messages. Punching the PLAY button, he was prepared for PJ’s voice—concerned, angry, or both. But the voice on the machine was neither. It was mechanical and flat, altered by a device made just for that purpose.

  “He didn’t die fast, you know,” said the voice. “You think about that, Detective Schultz. You think about him tied up helpless like that, and gasping for air. Then think about what I’m going to do next. Oh, and have a nice day.”

  There was a second message, and that one was from PJ, trying not to sound like she was checking up on him. He barely heard her words.

  Stunned, Schultz replayed the messages. The time stamp placed the first call two hours ago, when he was with PJ. He plucked the tape from the machine and slipped it into his pocket. Then he emptied the whiskey bottles down the drain.

  Suddenly there was too much to do to waste time on self-pity.

  Seven

  PJ GOT TO HEADQUARTERS early Tuesday morning to work on the computer simulation of Rick’s murder. Deep in thought in front of her monitor, she almost dropped her cup of coffee when her office door was flung open, startling her.

  “When’s the last time you saw Schultz?” Lieutenant Wall demanded.

  Whatever happened to small talk?

  PJ hesitated. She didn’t want to tell Wall that her last view of Schultz had been his backside as she shoved him into a taxi outside a bar.

  “I went over to his house last night,” she said. “We talked for a while.”

  Wall closed his eyes. She counted to ten mentally right along with him. Exactly at “ten” he opened them.

  “When and where, specifically, did you last see Detective Schultz? And the car he was assigned?”

  PJ tapped her pencil on the desk. “Want to tell me what this is about?”

  “You first.”

  PJ was cornered. “I went to his house a little after six. You suggested that someone spend the evening with him, so I volunteered myself.”

  What PJ didn’t say was that as a psychologist and a friend—a very close friend—she had thought that she might be able to help Schultz begin to deal with his grief. That was the logical explanation. There was also the feeling that she was drawn to him.

  “And?”

  “I stopped after work for sandwiches. We ate in his kitchen. Then we went out.”

  “Out?”

  “Can’t you speak more than one word at a time?” PJ said, irritated. “We went to a bar. Schultz had… a couple of drinks, I think. I had orange juice. About ten o’clock, we went home.”

  “What bar?”

  Progress. Two words. “Brandy’s, on South Broadway.”

  “I know the place. You were in the Pacer? Did you go into his house with him then?”

  This is getting downright personal.

  PJ clamped her lips around a remark that she would definitely regret later. She knew that feelings were running high after the murder of a member of a detective’s family, but the way things were going Wall’s next question would be one she definitely didn’t want to hear, or even think about.

  “We had driven there separately. We went home separately. What’s this all about, Lieutenant?” PJ fixed a look on her face that said, I showed you mine, now show me yours.

  Wall settled heavily into one of her chairs and propped his elbows on the desk across from her. “There was a hit-and-run this morning about seven,” he said. “A couple of blocks from Schultz’s house. Four-year-old girl, and she’s not expected to live. A couple of people saw it, and they say the car ran up on the curb, like the driver was going after the girl.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” PJ said. She was puzzled, but waiting to hear Wall out.

  “The car was described as a reddish-orange Pacer. Two witnesses on the street reported the license number. One got only a partial, the first three letters as MBF. The second witness reported MBF 181. That’s the vehicle signed out to Schultz.”

  PJ sat back in her chair, stunned into silence. Wall shook his head.

  “There’s more. The driver wasn’t seen clearly enough for a confident ID, one of the reasons being that he was wearing a hat. But the general description matches Schultz.”

  “Schultz doesn’t wear a hat. I’ve never seen him in a hat,” PJ said.

  “He has one that he only wears to funerals. You haven’t been around long enough to see him in it.”

  “Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.”

  “I know that. But I also know they can’t be completely ignored.”

  PJ closed her eyes. She tried to imagine a bitter Schultz depriving some other parent of a child. Wearing his funeral clothes and running a four year old over on the sidewalk out of spite, so others would feel the way he did.

  “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “Okay, he might have been a little inebriated and depressed when I last saw him. But he was on his way home, and he didn’t have alcohol at home. He had to leave his house last night to get drinks. I think if he’d had a bottle in the house, he would have parked himself at the kitchen table rather than have me tag along after him like a chaperone. You’re saying he deliberately went out this morning and ran down some child while he was sober?”

  Wall shrugged. “He could’ve gone out for booze after the two of you parted, and stocked up at home. I’ve known Schultz a lot longer than you have, and I can’t imagine him doing anything like that. But then he’s never seen his only son murdered and plumped up like a hot dog, either.”

  “Oh God, Howard, do you think he did it?”

  Wall shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope not, but things look bad. His car was found parked right in front of his house. It’s got a broken headlight and blood that’s the same type as the girl’s. Probably the DNA testing will confirm it.”

  “Did he lend his car to someone? What does he say about it?”

  “I’d sure like to hear his side of things, if I could just find him.”

  PJ realized that he was hinting that Schultz was at her place. “I haven’t seen him or heard from him since I put him in the cab last night,” she said. She said it with enough conviction so that Wall was evidently satisfied, at least for the moment. He rose and walked toward the office door.

  “Wait, I’ve got an idea,” PJ said. “He phoned his ex-wife yesterday. I know he felt bad because he wasn’t there to tell her in person. Maybe he’s at her home in Chicago.”

  “Yeah, we’ve thought of that. No one answers there, and the Chicago PD says nobody’s home. They’re looking for Julia and her boyfriend. God Almighty, PJ, it looks like they might be hiding him. I didn’t think I’d ever be saying anything like this, but he’s wanted for questioning for vehicular assault. If that little girl dies, it’s manslaughter, at least.”

  Eight

  NEWS TRICKLED IN TO PJ in her office, brought by Dave, Anita, and Howard Wall, concerning the murder of Schultz’s son, the status of the little girl, and Schultz’s disappearance. She felt as though she were a spider sitting at the center of a great web of information gatherers. Every knock on her office door was a twitch on one of the strands of the web, bringing the spider to full alert.

  Rick Schultz’s toxicology results, the first few quick tests, showed a .08 blood alcohol content, right at the state’s legal limit. He had stopped off for a few drinks between his release from prison and his fatal encounter in the nearly vacant apartment. Police officers were trying to trace his steps, visiting bars and liquor stores, displaying Rick’s picture. It was possible that he had hooked up with someone and gone with that person, so that th
e death was opportunistic and not planned.

  Remotely possible, PJ thought. About one chance in a zillion.

  The notes that he had received in prison from Ginger seemed to indicate a plan that had been in place for months. A cellmate claimed that Rick had started getting the notes about five months ago, only a month into his short sentence. That was also about the time that Ginger Miller, whoever she really was, rented the apartment on Lake. The notes came every couple of weeks and Rick was secretive about their contents. He only bragged that he had a girlfriend on the outside and she was hot for him.

  In the middle of the morning, Anita made her way to PJ’s office with something PJ had been waiting for: copies of the two notes found on Rick’s body. He had folded them into tight strips and put them into his back pocket. The HazMat team had removed them from Rick’s contaminated clothing and bagged them for analysis. Because of their sheltered position inside his pocket, they had not been exposed to the acid condensation.

  “All those lines are crease marks,” Anita said as she handed the copies to PJ. “The originals had been folded and refolded so many times it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen apart. ’Course, one was practically glued together. When the lab techs soaked it to spread it open, they probably could have filled a sperm bank.”

  “Geez, Anita, don’t mention that to Schultz.”

  Anita sniffed. “I know when to keep my mouth shut. Besides, he’s a big boy. I don’t think Schultz’d be shocked to find out that his twenty-six-year-old son got his rocks off occasionally.”

  PJ bent over the note. There was no date or return address on it.

  Ricky,

  It’s almost time now. I’m lying here naked thinking about what I’m going to do to you. The first thing is take your clothes off so I can get a good look at what you’ve been saving up for me. I figure we’ll take a shower together and I’ll wash that prison stink off you. I want you to soap me up real slow. I hope you’re getting hard just thinking about running your hands all over my body, but wait until you get out, Ricky. Don’t you go sticking that cock of yours any place that isn’t my hot slit, baby. You come straight to Mama.

  Love and kisses you-know-where,

  Ginger

  “That’s it?” PJ said. She was disappointed that the note didn’t offer more to go on.

  “The other note’s just like it,” Anita said. “Just the basics. I guess that’s what a guy who’s been in prison for a few months wants to hear.”

  PJ considered. “Besides the obvious imagery, there is something here that I’m sure Rick picked up on whether he realized it or not. A feeling that he’s really special, that this woman is waiting just for him.”

  “There’s a little bit of a threat there, too, don’t you think?” Anita said. “Maybe he enjoyed being told what to do. Dominated.”

  PJ thought back to her simulation, in which Rick didn’t object when he was tied into the chair. She quickly scanned the copy of the other note Anita had brought, but there was no overt reference to bondage.

  “Were any other notes recovered?” PJ said. “I’d like to know if Rick expected to be tied up when he entered the apartment. Was he being intentionally submissive, and that’s the way Ginger got control of the situation? I’ve been wondering how she managed to overpower him.”

  PJ thought back to the Bonnie and Clyde of her simulation. She had assumed that there were two people waiting in the apartment for Rick, one of them the enticing female who wrote the letters and the other, most likely a strong man, as backup in case the enticement didn’t work. Perhaps two perpetrators weren’t necessary if it was known to the killer that Rick would go along willingly with a bondage scenario.

  “Do we even know for sure whether or not Rick knew Ginger before he went into prison?” PJ asked. “If they didn’t know each other, why would she suddenly start writing to him?”

  Anita shrugged. “We’ve been through Rick’s apartment, and spoken to a couple of buddies of his. He had an off and on roommate, off when Schultz ran him out, I think. Anyway, the roommate kept the apartment, and stored Rick’s stuff since he was expected back in just a few months. No mention of Ginger, no photos or notes in the apartment. As far as his friends know, he wasn’t seeing anybody right before the arrest, although there was a girl named Kathee Kollins about six months prior to that. Two k’s, two e’s. As for why Ginger started writing to him in prison, women do crazy things like that. I read it in Ann Landers.”

  “I’d like to talk to Ms. Kollins. Anybody know her whereabouts?”

  “Dave’s looking her up. Although I’d like to be the one there with you when you ask her if she likes to tie up her guys.”

  “Maybe it’ll be obvious, and I won’t have to ask.”

  Anita’s brows knit. “Obvious? Like she answers the door in leathers, with a whip in each hand?”

  “That’s not quite the same thing. You’re thinking of sadism. There’s usually a bondage component to sadism, but bondage can be used without inflicting any pain. It can be all about power.”

  “You sound like you know entirely too much about this kinky stuff,” Anita said. “Is this the shrink talking or the practitioner?”

  “The psychologist, of course. Back in Newton, Iowa, where I grew up, everybody thought S&M meant spaghetti and meatballs.”

  Anita laughed. “Good one, Doc. Too bad Schultz isn’t around to appreciate it.”

  Anita drifted out, leaving PJ with her thoughts. PJ reread the notes, finding that they didn’t reveal much about Ginger from a psychological viewpoint. She had the sense that the writer was older than Rick, but that was just a hunch. The words seemed too blunt and confident for a person the same age as Rick, and there was that reference to Mama. That could be just a phrase in common use or there could be something to it, that the woman was old enough to be his mother.

  On the other hand, the cutesy signoff indicated a younger woman, maybe even a teenager. Ginger was shaping up to be quite a puzzle.

  Lieutenant Wall stopped in at about twelve-thirty and uncharacteristically asked PJ to lunch. She accepted, and found herself sitting across from her boss in a Subway a few blocks from Headquarters. It wasn’t the best place for conversation because of the noise level of the lunch crowd, but at least their words didn’t travel beyond their own tiny table.

  She told him about her first simulation effort, which she had been working on refining all morning, in between news bulletins on the two cases. He nodded approval, but seemed distracted.

  “I have a couple of items of bad news,” he said, brandishing a potato chip in her direction as if he were scolding a child. She hadn’t gotten over the feeling that he was somehow holding her accountable for Schultz’s actions. Schultz was, after all, a member of her team, and she had been the last one to see him. She couldn’t escape her own recriminations, thinking that she should have stayed the night at Schultz’s, sleeping on his couch. Looking back on it, she thought she had been looking for the easy way out. Had she been too eager to get home to Thomas, to fall into her own bed and put the horrible events of the day out of her thoughts, at least for a few hours? She’d called Schultz on the phone when she got home, but gotten only his answering machine. She had planned to call back in a few minutes, giving the taxi a little longer to deliver him, but her pillow had beckoned and she’d never gotten around to it. Things could have been radically different if she’d just stayed with him. For one thing, he wouldn’t be missing.

  Wall kept his eyes on the table. It was uncharacteristic of him, and she braced herself for bad news.

  “Caroline Bussman died at eleven forty-two this morning. We’re not just looking for a hit-and-run driver now. We’re looking for a murderer.”

  “You said manslaughter earlier.”

  “I said manslaughter at least. With witnesses claiming that it was deliberate, the prosecutor will go for murder.”

  PJ closed her eyes and let the anger she had felt when she first heard about the girl bubble to the surface. The
Bussmans’ lives were forever changed when an orange Pacer veered onto the sidewalk and struck their daughter. Justice seemed a hollow concept when measured against the taking of a young girl’s life and a lifetime of agony and guilt for her parents. Yet justice was all the St. Louis Police Department had to offer, and even that might mean the painful stripping away of the defenses of one of their own.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” PJ said. “Her family must be devastated.”

  Pain showed in Wall’s face, and in the eyes he turned up to meet her own. She knew he had four children, including a little girl Caroline’s age. He was taking the death of the four year old hard.

  “She never regained consciousness,” he said, his voice barely carrying across the small table. “They never got to say good-bye.”

  PJ nibbled at her sandwich in silence. Her appetite was gone, but the mechanics of moving the food up to her mouth and chewing it gave her something to concentrate on while both of them regained their objectivity.

  A noisy slurp alerted her that Wall was ready to continue the conversation. “Next item. Schultz didn’t take the taxi home,” he said. “We found the driver and he says he let Schultz out after you left. Apparently our man Leo drove home in his own car. If he even went home.”

  PJ narrowed her eyes. “That rat,” she said. “He certainly fooled me. And I paid that driver twenty-five dollars, too.” She felt her cheeks flush. She, the experienced psychologist, had been blatantly fooled. She had been too close to events to see what Schultz was planning.

  “He was humoring me, and I fell for the whole thing,” she said. “He was just looking for a way to ditch me and go off and do whatever it is he really wanted to do.”