“So we’re speculating that Eric somehow found a connection that led him to the rapist,” Stride said.
Maggie nodded. “We know that Eric asked Tony about the pathology of a rapist. He told Tony he was going to see someone the night he was killed. He talked to Tanjy two days earlier, and she wound up dead, too. He talked to Helen Danning over the weekend, and after Eric got killed, she left town.”
“I don’t understand how Helen Danning fits into the puzzle,” Stride said. “But we do know there’s a predator stalking women in the city, and this guy has latched on to the sex club. There’s a new alpha girl, Kathy Lassiter, who’s at risk starting tomorrow. If we can catch the rapist and connect the dots, then maybe we can connect him to the two murders, too.”
“Except Tanjy wasn’t in the sex club,” Maggie pointed out.
“Yes, but Mitchell Brandt was in the club, and he was Tanjy’s ex-boyfriend. Eric would have known that.”
“Mitch?” Maggie asked, surprised.
“You know him?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Maggie didn’t tell Stride that she remembered him from the sex club. Most of the men in the club were paunchy and short, and she figured that they popped Viagra before the party to get themselves ready. Mitch was different. She remembered a gleam in his eyes and a tiny smile and strong hands and a sensation as smooth as butter. She had the uncomfortable feeling that Stride was reading her mind.
“I’m not saying Mitch is involved,” Stride said, “but he connects Tanjy to the sex club.”
“Is there anything in his background?” Serena asked.
“Nothing of interest. I called the SEC to see whether there were any complaints about him from clients. They were less than helpful.”
“So what’s our next step?” Maggie asked.
“We watch the club,” Stride said. “Sonia offered to cancel the party tomorrow, but I think that’s the last thing we want. This is our chance to flush this guy. We keep the alpha girl under surveillance after the party and hope he moves fast.”
“Assuming this woman is willing to be used as bait,” Serena said.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“What about Abel?” Maggie asked. “We can’t mount a surveillance operation under the radar screen. He’s got to be in the loop.”
Stride nodded. “Yeah, it’s time to see if we can get Abel on our side.”
“There’s something else,” Serena said. “Don’t you think we need someone inside the club?”
There was silence in the room.
“Are you serious?” Stride asked.
“I am. We need to see how people react to the alpha girl. If Mitchell Brandt is the guy, I want to see how he behaves.”
Stride shook his head. “I can’t send a cop inside something like that.”
“It can’t be me,” Maggie said. “Not with what’s going on.”
“Okay then,” Serena said. “I’ll do it.”
“No way,” Stride said.
“Come on, Jonny. I won’t be in the room itself. You said there was a one-way mirror on one of the walls.”
Maggie frowned. “That’s true.”
“I still don’t like it,” Stride said.
“I’ll be alone behind the wall. There’s no risk.”
“No risk? We don’t know who this guy is or how he knows about the club. He could be anywhere.”
“Yes, but we have an advantage,” Serena said. “This guy doesn’t know we’re on to him. For once, we’re a step ahead.”
This guy doesn’t know we’re on to him.
Less than a mile away, he sat in the frosty solitude of the van. Listening.
Fog made the windows opaque. The shroud of darkness and the woods at the end of the Point made the van largely invisible. The wind gusted off the lake, and every few seconds, the vehicle shuddered on its tires, and the steel walls rattled. It reminded him of sitting in the rear of the patrol car while the hurricane roared closer. Back when he was a prisoner.
As he listened to them plan their stakeout around the club, he grinned at the thought of the trap they were laying. Tomorrow night, all the demons he had been hoarding would finally fly out. Tomorrow night, Serena would be the one walking into a trap.
THIRTY-FOUR
Stride sat in silence in his City Hall office early the next morning. The lights in the rest of the Detective Bureau were dark as he caught up on paperwork and drank coffee. When he heard a cough, he looked up to see Abel Teitscher in his doorway. The older detective wore a brown suit with his hands jammed in his pockets and dusty black shoes. His leathery face looked like an old map of the West, tracking rivers and roads.
“Your message said you wanted to see me,” he said.
“I did. Have a seat, Abel.”
Teitscher closed the door and sat down in the chair in front of Stride’s desk. His long legs jutted out like a stork’s. “You’ve been pissing in my pool.”
Stride didn’t bother to argue. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“I’m not covering for you, Lieutenant. If you lose your job over this, don’t blame me.”
“I won’t.”
Teitscher’s face burned. “You cut corners and no one ever calls you on it. If I ignored a conflict of interest the way you have, I’d be out on my ass.”
“Could be.”
Teitscher leaned across the desk. “What really ticks me off is that you don’t show me any respect.”
“That’s not what I’m about, Abel.”
“No? You undercut me, you sabotage me, you put the whole goddamn investigation in jeopardy. Would you do that to anyone else in the Bureau?”
“Look, Abel, it’s not you. It’s the case. Do you want to listen to what I have to say, or do you want to cut me a new one?”
Teitscher shrugged. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie. “Go ahead.”
“I know that the evidence against Maggie is strong. You’ve done a good job pulling it together, and no one is ever going to thank you for it. That’s the way it goes. What I’m telling you, as a detective and a colleague, is that there’s another plausible motive for Eric’s murder that has nothing to do with Maggie.” He saw Abel about to object, and he raised his hand to stop him. “I’m not telling you to believe it. I’m telling you to keep an open mind.”
“You sound like a defense lawyer,” Teitscher said.
“Just hear me out.”
Teitscher waved his hand and let him continue. Stride told him the whole story, laying out everything he had found. He didn’t hold anything back. Maggie’s rape. The sex club and the alpha girls. Helen Danning. He took the facts and told him what he now suspected, that somehow the series of rapes in the city had led directly to the murders of Tanjy and Eric.
When he was done, he saw Abel struggling to reconcile the facts with what he had already found. “A sex club?” Abel asked.
“That’s right.”
“You actually confirmed this? You’ve got proof?”
“I have names, dates, release forms, everything. It’s an A-list of Duluth high society.”
Teitscher bared his yellowing incisors. “What’s the old expression? The rich are different? Yeah, isn’t that a joke. All that money, and this is the kind of sleaze they go in for.”
“I feel the same way, but that doesn’t really change anything,” Stride said.
“So why are you telling me all this now? Why not wait until you crack the case and make me look like a fool?”
“I need your help.”
Teitscher frowned. “It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“The next meeting of the sex club is tonight,” Stride explained. “I want your help pulling together a surveillance team. We need to watch who comes and goes, and we need to keep a twenty-four-hour team on the new alpha girl, Kathy Lassiter. If we handle this right, she might just lead us to the rapist. I’m asking you to take charge of the surveillance operation personally.”
“What are you going to d
o?”
“I have to talk to this Lassiter woman and convince her to let us risk her life to catch this guy.”
Teitscher scratched his chin. “You haven’t convinced me about Maggie yet.”
“I understand.”
“But I’d be a lousy cop to ignore this, and I’m a damn good cop whatever the hell you think.”
“I know you are.”
Teitscher stood up. “Okay, I’ll get the wheels rolling on the surveillance.”
“Thanks, Abel. I think we should keep the details about the sex club and the rapist between you and me for now.”
“You going political on me?”
“No, I don’t want to tip our hand. The more people who know about this, the easier it is to have a leak.”
“All right, fair enough.”
Stride watched Teitscher leave. He was glad to have a truce in the war between them and to have his own role in the investigation out in the open. That was the only thing he felt good about. Otherwise, he was filled with anxiety about what lay ahead, as if he were tangled in the sheet of his parachute as the ground streaked closer. He almost wished that Kathy Lassiter would pull the plug, which would cancel the party and thwart Serena’s determination to go inside the walls. He was concerned for the safety of both of them.
He was surprised when his phone rang. It was still early. The caller ID was from a 312 area code. Chicago.
“Stride.”
“You’re an early riser, Lieutenant. I like that.”
“Who is this?” Stride asked.
“My name is Philip Proutz. I’m with the Securities and Exchange Commission at our Midwest office in Chicago. I work on compliance investigations.”
“I see.” Stride was on guard, and Proutz sensed it.
“If you’d like to confirm who I am, you can look up our office number on the Web and call me back through the main switchboard.”
“No offense, Mr. Proutz, but I think I will do that.”
They were reconnected two minutes later.
“All right, what can I do for you, Mr. Proutz?” Stride asked.
“You contacted our office yesterday, Lieutenant, making inquiries about a broker in Duluth named Mitchell Brandt. I’d be interested in knowing the reason for your request.”
“I’m not really in a position to discuss that right now,” Stride told him.
“You do realize that if this is in conjunction with Mr. Brandt’s securities activities, then the jurisdiction is federal. It’s our baby.”
Stride hesitated. “It has nothing to do with that.”
“Ah.” Proutz sounded surprised. “What about a company called Infloron Medical?”
“I’ve never heard of it. Now you’re making me curious, Mr. Proutz.”
“I understand. I thought we could save each other time, you see, if we were working the same case from different ends. Infloron Medical is a public company in the Twin Cities that produces a drug called Zerax that promotes tissue regeneration in burn victims. The drug was recently approved by the FDA.”
“You lost me,” Stride said.
“Infloron’s stock more than doubled after FDA approval of Zerax last summer. We’re looking into some large stock purchases shortly before the FDA ruling was announced. We think Mitchell Brandt may have made substantial trades based on insider information.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Serena stood at the windows looking out from Tony’s office to the birch forest behind his house. She saw more dotted lines of deer tracks in the snow. They were everywhere, leaving trails for her to follow.
“This is a beautiful spot, Tony,” she murmured without looking behind her.
Tony was in his leather chair by the sofa, sipping coffee and waiting as she paced. He didn’t push her to talk. He was wearing a brown suit, shined brown shoes, and a brown tie.
“I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice,” she added.
“You said it was important.”
Serena nodded. She figured if she actually waited here long enough, she would see the deer picking their way through the trees. It had happened before. She had seen deer, possum, rabbits, and even a fox once. The rust-colored animal with its bushy tail was much smaller than she expected.
She turned and went back to the sofa and sat down. She played with her hair. Tony was silent.
“What would happen if you wore something other than brown?” Serena asked.
“My head would explode.”
Serena laughed. “Maggie jokes about it, you know.”
“She’s kidded me about it for ten years.”
“Is it supposed to soothe your patients?”
“My patients?” Tony said. “No, it’s supposed to soothe me. Brown is my armor. That’s a trade secret, by the way, so don’t tell anyone.”
“Not even Maggie?”
“Especially not Maggie.”
Serena drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa.
“I have to do something tonight that I’m not comfortable with,” she said finally.
“Okay.”
“I could use some advice on how to handle it.”
“Okay.”
He never led her. Sometimes it infuriated her, because she wanted him to give her a direction and not feel like the burden to say where they were going was always on her shoulders. That was stupid, of course. It was her therapy session.
“Let’s talk about something else first,” she said. “It’s about Eric.”
Tony waited. When he drank coffee, the black mug covered the lower half of his face, and all she saw were his hound dog eyes.
“Did he mention seeing a woman named Helen Danning?”
“No.”
“Have you ever treated a woman named Helen Danning?”
“No.”
“Well, that was easy,” she said. “I’m stalling, have you noticed?”
Tony didn’t reply.
“Aren’t you supposed to pull this stuff out of me?” she asked him.
“With what? Truth serum?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Serena sighed. “Okay, I’m going to tell you about something that you may or may not already know about from other patients. I realize you wouldn’t admit it even if you did. There’s a sex club in town. A place where singles and couples go to have sex with each other and with women who act as ‘volunteers.’”
“Okay.”
“I have to watch the club tonight because of an investigation. I’m not a participant, just an observer.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Nervous,” Serena admitted. “Much more so than I’ve told anyone. I’m afraid I could lose it. If I see a man climbing on top of a stranger, I’m afraid I’m going to have flashbacks of Blue Dog on top of me.”
“Are you having them now?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Have you lost it yet?”
“No. I’m dealing with it.”
“Then why do you think you’re going to lose it tonight?”
“This is so much more explicit. It’s not like a mental image I can push away. These people are going to be right in front of me.”
“That makes sense,” Tony said. “You’re a fifteen-year-old girl. You don’t have any power or choice in what’s going to happen to you. You’re totally helpless. Right?”
Serena rolled her eyes. “No.”
“You’re not fifteen? You actually have some control over your life?”
“You’re a real shit, Tony.”
“I gather people go to this club because they consider it an erotic outlet. Do you consider it erotic?”
“Not particularly, but I’m curious.”
“So?”
“So I feel a little guilty about that.”
“What makes you more uncomfortable? Your nervousness or your guilt?”
“I don’t know. It’s about the same.”
Tony nodded. “I’m going to give you a pill that will completely remove all of your feelings and emotion
s about this.”
She looked at him. “What kind of pill?”
“It doesn’t really matter. What kind would you like? An aspirin? A chewable vitamin?”
“Funny.”
Tony shrugged. “From what you’ve described, you’re feeling exactly what I would expect you to feel about something like this. I can’t help you not to feel anything. The only issue is how you deal with those feelings and whether you control them, or they control you. I realize that when you were fifteen you weren’t in a position to control them. Fortunately—”
“I’m not fifteen anymore,” she concluded.
Tony spread his hands.
“I know what you’re saying,” Serena said. “It’s just not easy.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Back in the bad days, I used to escape. There was a place in my head I called the nothingness room. I’d go there and not feel a thing. That was how I dealt with it.”
“But?”
“But after a while, I couldn’t get out. I was stuck there. I felt like I was spending my whole life in that empty room. It wasn’t until I met Jonny that I was able to climb out, and now what scares me more than anything is the idea of going back there.”
Tony leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “You can run from who you are, Serena, but sooner or later, you’re going to come face-to-face with the past again. That’s when you’ll be able to decide if it’s really behind you.”
Stride drove along the North Shore highway that hugged the lake between Duluth and Two Harbors. It was a gorgeous day, with a blue sky arching overhead like a cathedral dome. He’d forgotten what the sun looked like and couldn’t remember when he last had to put on his sunglasses as he drove. The light cast a wide, sparkling swath over the water. It was quiet, with little traffic on the road. Except for the freezing temperature, it looked like summer outside, but at this time of year, it got even colder when the sun came out.
He found Kathy Lassiter’s home about ten miles north of the city. It was several decades old, but large and solidly built, with windows on both levels looking out on the lake. The home was neatly painted in a dusty blue that shimmered in the sunlight. She had a multiacre lot, thick with trees except for a large square of white snow surrounding the house. He parked in the dirt driveway behind her Audi. Before he could go to the front door, he saw it open and a woman came outside, dressed in a maroon-and-silver fleece tracksuit with her brown hair tied in a ponytail. She wore fluorescent running shoes.
Stalked Page 21