by Paul Heald
Earl Ray Curtis had broken into a half-dozen women’s homes and tied them up with duct tape before donning a condom and raping them. An anonymous tip had led Stuart to Curtis’s car, where he found a roll of tape similar to that found on the victims and a used Trojan of the sort commonly advertised as being “ribbed for her pleasure.” The suspect’s evasive responses to the detective’s questions and his failure to establish an alibi for any of the nights when the crimes were committed left Stuart with no doubt that he had arrested the right man. Unfortunately, Curtis had worn a ski mask during the assaults, so no victim could identify him. The district attorney was unwilling to prosecute the case in the absence of more direct physical evidence of Curtis’s guilt. When the suspect was released without being charged, he had smiled at Stuart and taunted him, “You’ve got no chance, asshole.”
Two days later, the body of Melanie Smith was found bound with duct tape in her apartment. She had suffered an asthma attack during the assault and had suffocated. Ellen was assigned to perform the autopsy. Although there was ample evidence that the victim had been brutally raped, there was no semen in Smith’s vagina. The perpetrator had worn a condom. After telling his wife everything he knew about the case, Stuart had convinced her that Curtis was the perpetrator, but nothing he said could convince her to “find” semen inside the victim’s vagina. Stuart offered to supply his wife with a sample from the used condom he had found in Curtis’s vehicle. He even brought it to her, assuming that she would be willing to bend her professional ethics to prevent future assaults.
When she refused, he exploded. The contemptuousness of his response had damaged their relationship more profoundly than an affair ever could have. She was an utterly worthless, pencil-pushing bureaucrat, an irresponsible disgrace to her gender. He disappeared for a week, and when he returned, their life together was one extended recrimination. He refused counseling and after a month moved out again. Marriage to the moody detective had never been easy, but this was the last straw. She filed for divorce six months later.
Divorce, of course, seldom cleanly severs all contact. At least once a month, she would be assigned an autopsy and see that the detective in charge of the case was Stuart McCaffrey. She was polite, and when he was not correcting her spelling, so was he. She had to agree with the description of their relationship he had once offered to a colleague, “We’re civil to each other for the sake of the corpses.”
* * *
Stanley met Angela for lunch, got a brief report on the morning’s interviews and then dropped her off before driving directly to Eden Studio. What should have been a thirty minute trip took almost an hour and a half. With every rise in the highway, he expected to see signs of some horrific accident causing the delay, but all he ever encountered was the glint and glare of a sun-drenched serpent of vehicles stretching for miles before him. The longer the drive took, the longer the to-do list in his head grew. By the time he pulled into the Eden lot, he was desperate to get started. Miriam greeted him with a look of annoyance and led him to a small back room.
He gave her his most winning smile, which was received like bad news from an oncologist. “Could you make appointments for me with the heads of Boudoir Films, Chimera Productions, and Janus Studios? Evenings would be best, but any time will do as long as it’s soon.” She stared at him a moment before reaching down and writing herself a note. “Also, could you get me the number of Chance Geary, Jade Delilah’s agent?” She nodded her recognition of the name but displayed no other emotion. “I’ll call him myself.”
Stanley surveyed the room. It was drab but functional, possessing none of the amenities of the studio head’s office. A dead philodendron occupied most of the space on the top of a gray metal desk while a phone and fax machine sat on a battered credenza. The office was windowless, but offered a distracting view of at least two hundred DVD’s stacked on a bookcase across from the desk. He picked up one at random. Spicy Girls III featured Jade Delilah and four other multi-ethnic beauties dressed as the sexiest all girl pop group of all time. He grimaced at the thought of what had been done to her perfect face. While he was reading the fax number to the McCaffrey’s voice mail, the door opened.
“Here’s Geary’s number,” Miriam said as she pushed a pink message sheet across the desk. “And here’s a key for the office. It’s the master for all the rooms in the building. Mr. Johansson insisted that I give it to you.” She started to go, but he stopped her with a quick question.
“Were you here the night of the murder?”
The secretary seemed bemused. “I was invited to the banquet, of course, but I didn’t attend. I was home watching television with my son.” She crossed her arms and stared down at him. “As a general rule, I don’t socialize with anyone from work.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I don’t want to sound judgmental, but these aren’t the sort of people I want to spend my time with.” She sounded very judgmental despite the disclaimer. “I only work here because Mr. Johansson pays me more than I could make elsewhere. My son is in college and he needs help with his tuition.”
“So you’re not a big fan of Mr. Johansson’s movies?”
“Not hardly,” she frowned and moved toward the door, “nor the people who make them.”
“Do you think that Mr. Johansson is responsible for Jade’s death?”
“That’s an interesting way to put it.” She brushed a piece of lint from her jacket. “I have no idea whether he killed her or not, but I’m quite sure he’s responsible for her death.”
“How so?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Don’t you think that without the porn industry and Eden Studio, she’d still be alive?” She turned and started to leave the room. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think my phone’s ringing.”
When Miriam left, he leaned back in his chair and promised himself to ask about the arguments she had heard between Don and Jade, but in the meantime, he stared at the slip of pink paper in his hand. What was the best way to confront a man deemed too dangerous to be allowed to enter Eden Studio the night of the party? Nonetheless, he needed to know whether Chance Geary had a credible alibi, which reminded him that he needed to review the video logs. He dialed Miriam’s extension, but it was busy.
He clicked the receiver, dialed the number that Miriam had given him, and got a voice mailbox instructing him to leave his name and number. After explaining vaguely that he was involved in the murder investigation, Stanley left his Eden number and his cell number and stated that he needed to talk as soon as possible. After a second try at Miriam’s line, he walked down the hall to see her in person. By the time he got to her desk, she was off the phone.
“You’ve got an appointment this evening with Brian Mulkahey at Boudoir at eight, and tomorrow afternoon with Stan Matteson at Janus at three. I’m still trying to get a hold of Milton Barkley at Chimera.” She handed him the two message slips.
He mentioned the video monitor of the lobby entrance and asked about the recordings. Looking around the room, he noticed a small camera suspended from the ceiling.
“The cops took the recordings the morning after the banquet.”
“Did you make copies first?”
She looked at him like he was crazy and shook her head. He went back to the office and realized that he would not have time to pick up Angela and also make his interview with Mulkahey. As he called and told his wife take a cab back to the hotel, the fax machine started humming and printing out the forensic reports. He said a quick goodbye and eagerly began to read the hard evidence that had been collected from the victim and the crime scene.
The Medical Examiner’s report printed first. Stanley did not need a medical degree to understand the severity of the injuries to Jade Delilah’s face and head. A note attached to the front of the report stated that the photos of the victim would be sent to him by mail. The written description was nauseating enough; he was in no hurry to see any pictures.
The report’s final section contained the finding
s relevant to the circumstances surrounding of Jade’s death. In an ideal world, Stanley would have ordered an independent analysis of whether the killer really had been a left-handed person of indeterminate height, but Don’s funds were severely limited and the report appeared quite professional. If her head was repeatedly bashed as she lay on the floor, it was likely that the impression made by the initial blow would have been totally obscured. Stanley was struck by the violence of the attack. It spoke of rage, uncontrollable anger directed at a hated enemy. He had a difficult time attributing such savagery to the man he thought he knew.
The toxicology results were less interesting. Given his knowledge of Chance Geary’s drug dealing activities, Stanley was not surprised to learn that a trace of methamphetamine had been found, but the mention of a short blond hair snagged on the victim’s ring caught his eye. Even if the killer had not left this evidence, it would be something to shake Detective McCaffrey’s smug demeanor. He wondered if the police would try to identify the source of the stray hair.
He ignored the problem hair for a moment and picked up the forensic report. Jade had been found lying on her left side, with her back against the coffee table separating her and the sofa on which Don had been found. Given the blood pooled on the carpet, the report concluded that the body had not been moved after it fell to the floor. Several blood and tissue fragments had been discovered on the wall behind the sofa, indicating that the initial blow had been struck on the right side of her head with a ferocious follow through. More blood and tissue were located within a radius of carpet close to the victim’s head, scattered by the downward blows. Blood traces were also found on the coffee table. There were a couple on the top of the couch several feet farther away, but none on the couch cushions.
He processed the implications of the splatter pattern. Could Don have been lying passed out on top of the sofa cushions, thus shielding them from blood spatters? He flipped to the section of the report analyzing the suspect’s clothes and discovered that two tissue fragments had been found on the front of Don’s shirt along with blood stains on his shirt sleeve. This evidence was consistent with Don having been laid out unconscious on the sofa, oblivious to the bludgeoning as it occurred. It also supported the police’s conclusion that he had himself wielded the weapon and got splashed with blood in the process. Still, the lack of blood on the sofa cushions was something. It did point away from the McCaffrey’s assumption. Oddly, Don would be better off if the attack had been even gorier, with the police finding a blood-soaked couch except for the outline of Don’s body.
The report also noted that hair and fiber evidence had been collected from every area in the room. It detailed what had been found and where, but drew no conclusions as to relevance. Detective McCaffrey had already announced the report’s most damning evidence. The only fingerprints on the murder weapon, lying directly beneath his hand and in between the sofa and the coffee table, were Don’s. Either he did it, or he was framed. That much was clear. But as much as Stanley wanted to believe that his friend was innocent, he had trouble imagining some other killer who at one instant was utterly consumed by rage, but in the very next was calm and collected enough to wipe the fraternity paddle clean and wrap Don’s hand around it.
He looked at his watch. He had just enough time to call the detective before he left to interview Brian Mulkahey.
“Detective McCaffrey,” Stanley offered in a respectful tone. “Thanks for sending over the reports so promptly. They’re extremely helpful.”
“Yeah? I expedited them. I figured the sooner you got them, the sooner you could convince your friend to plead.”
“Well,” he ventured, “given the evidence you’ve collected, I don’t understand why you’d think that. The hair alone points strongly away from Mr. Johansson, as do the lack of blood spatters on the sofa cushions. Wouldn’t you expect more blood to have fallen on the couch if he hadn’t been lying there during the assault?” There was something in McCaffrey’s smug tone of voice that made him want to slap the cop down whenever he had the chance.
“Uh, huh, and I’d also expect a lot of blood on his shirt if he were just motionless on the couch during the murder.” McCaffrey laughed. “Wait ‘til you get the photos. You can see how the spray pretty much peters out by the time it gets to the sofa. Nice try though.”
“What about the hair,” he exclaimed, “how do you explain that?”
“I don’t have to. She probably picked it up in the party room somewhere. With one hundred fifty gussied up porn stars eating dinner, there’s gonna be a lot of stray hair floating around.”
Frustrated by McCaffrey’s unshakeable assumption of Don’s guilt, Stanley’s first impulse was to argue. But he forced himself to breathe and imagine the cop was his older brother, a born bully and stubborn as a stump. In that conflict, strategy had usually defeated bluster. He recognized his first missteps with the detective but did not back down. “Given your assumption about the hair, I’m sure you won’t mind checking it against everyone at the party.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you gathered hair samples from everyone at the party to see whose hair it is?”
McCaffrey paused for a moment and measured his answer. “No, that would be a waste of departmental resources.”
“Looking for the killer . . . a waste of resources? That won’t play too well with the jury. A suspicious hair is found clutched in the hand of the victim and the police don’t even bother to follow up? Even when they have a list of everyone at the party?” He envisioned himself making the closing argument at trial. “Detective, that might fly in Minnesota, but we’re in Southern California, land of O.J. and Michael Jackson.”
Silence on the other end of the line and then a quiet growl, “I’ll think about it.”
“You should do more than think about it—”
“—I said that I’d think about it. Now, if you don’t have any more ridiculous requests, I’ve got a pile of paperwork to finish. Good evening, Professor.”
Stanley cradled the phone in his hand with the dawning realization that he had won his first small victory. He tried to remember a moment in his academic career that felt as good. Having an article accepted by a journal was a good feeling, but the review and resubmission process took so long that the final approval years after writing always felt anti-climactic. Getting the rare brilliant paper from a student was a good feeling too, but he suspected that the quality was probably due to the student’s talent and hard work rather than his teaching. Whatever they were, academic joys were esoteric joys. It was more exciting to meet someone in combat and, at least for a moment, prevail.
XV.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Angela lay on her back frowning at the hotel room television. “Next up, new developments in the Delilah case,” the anchor promised for the third time before cutting to a commercial. The murder had put her life in limbo and now the television news was stringing her along too. She should have been tapping on the laptop, putting a humorous face on everything she had seen in LA, but murder was a new topic for her and its impact was too personal for her funny bone to feel tickled. As a picture of Jade finally appeared on the screen, the phone rang and she picked up the receiver in frustration. “What!”
“Hey Angela, it’s Max. Could I talk to Stan?”
“He’s not here right now.” A picture of Don Johansson flashed next to the talking head of the reporter. She tried to turn up the volume but accidently switched the channel to ESPN. “Can I take a message?” She asked as she fumbled with the television remote.
“Just have him call me as soon as he gets back. We have a little emergency here, and I gotta get a hold of him.” She did not like the urgency she heard in Max’s voice. He was usually cool and casual.
“What’s going on, Max?”
He paused a moment. “I don’t know if you saw Stanley’s picture on CNN the other night, but a top administrator at the university did, and now I’m getting questions about what he’s doing in
Los Angeles. I’ve done my best to explain to the Dean and to the President that he’s engaged in legitimate sociological research, but all they see is sex.” He sighed and she could hear him take a drink. “And to make things worse, the news report says that he’s helping with the murder defense of his old college buddy. This is big news here, Angela. Sex sells, even in the Midwest, and everyone wants to hear about the porn star bludgeoned to death by her porn director in the middle of a big LA porn party.”
“God, I told him not to do this.” She leaned her head back against the wall and rubbed her temple. “He’s just showing his loyalty to an old friend. Is that so bad?” Her husband was a brilliant guy, but sometimes he needed a handler. “How much trouble is he in?”
“I spent all afternoon talking to the administration, and I think I’ve got something worked out. If he comes back now and drops what he’s doing, there won’t be any negative repercussions, apart from losing the funding for the porn part of his research. The university is mostly concerned about bad publicity. They don’t want to see the institution linked to sex, murder, and gore every night on the news. If he comes back now, they’ll be willing to forget about it.” It was clear from the tone of his voice that Max was sympathetic to the administration’s position.
“But what about his book?” She asked in a sudden panic. Stan could not possibly finish in time if he had to start the last section from scratch once again. No book plus no tenure equaled no family. It was a simple equation that started a sickening churning in her stomach.