BLUE MERCY

by ILLONA HAUS

  “You son of a bitch!” But the words caught in her throat.

  Surely Finn had to hear their struggle from downstairs.

  And then Kay felt her empty gun hand. With a panicked glance behind her she saw the semiautomatic nestled in the shag rug. A sliver of light from the street snuck under the roller blind and gleamed dully against the gun’s black slide, the grip inches from her outreached hand.

  Kay braced her heels and thrashed beneath him, trying to buck him off, trying to reach her gun. His knee dug deeper into her gut, and in the struggle she thought she felt his hand on her throat.

  Only this time … this time she’d die before she lost her gun.

  One more buck and a sharp twist, and her fingers closed around the gun’s grip. But he went for the nine too. His hand skimmed down her arm. In the thin shaft of light she saw the tapered fingers, the skin smooth and polished, the knuckles bulbous.

  Not this time.

  His nails clawed at her flesh, and when she didn’t give up the piece, his fist came down hard. It smashed against the delicate underside of her wrist, bruising bone and muscle. A second strike, and pain flared up her arm. Kay cried out. Finn had to hear them.

  She could barely feel her fingers on her gun. And the next time he struck, she dragged her arm away. He cursed when his fist met the floor.

  But her hand was almost useless now. Barely able to grip the piece, she couldn’t be sure she’d be able to draw the five-pound pressure of the trigger.

  And finally there was Finn. From downstairs he called her name. Then she heard him on the stairs.

  Keep your gun, Delaney. Don’t let the fucker get your gun.

  She felt dizzy, her awareness sliding into a slow spin. Her assailant twisted away from her, and Kay tried to yell. To warn Finn. But her lungs were empty. Her fingers slid uselessly over the slick surface of her attacker’s dark bomber jacket.

  She heard Finn start up the stairs and felt the churning of air as her assailant plunged through the door. Kay brought her gun up, trying to balance it in her good hand, but he was gone.

  There was the sound of a scuffle, of Finn swearing, and finally of running.

  “Go!” Her yell was a rasp in her throat. “I’m all right.”

  Then she heard Finn crash down the stairs. More banging on the first floor, and Kay heard the slap of the back door … once. Then again.

  It felt like whole minutes before she managed to draw a full breath. Wiping at her lip, she spat out blood and searched the floor for her Maglite. She balanced the heavy flashlight in the crook of her arm and shifted the Glock to her left hand as she staggered down the stairs.

  Her ankle felt weak and her head throbbed. She limped through the house. Through the kitchen, to the back. And when Kay kicked at the screen door, she welcomed the fresh night air.

  To her right, the sound of running. A steel garbage can exploding across concrete. Then silence. And finally Finn swearing again somewhere in the dark.

  He was holstering his Glock when he came back up the alley. “Son of a bitch just turned into the fucking invisible man.”

  Kay holstered her own gun and leaned heavily against the railing.

  “You okay?” Finn asked, coming up the steps.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?” He grabbed her flashlight and turned it on her. The beam caught the spatter of blood bright against her hand. “Is that yours or his?”

  “That’s mine. But this is his.” And when Kay held up her fist, a half dozen dark blond hairs shimmered in the beam of light.

  65

  ROACH WONDERED IF SHE WAS DEAD.

  When he’d returned to the motel on Pulaski a half hour ago, he’d still been shaking. He’d barely escaped tonight, busting past the cop on the stairs, then tearing down the back alley with him on his heels. He knew he was home free when he ducked into a side alley and ran up Beason to where he’d parked. But he was still shaking twenty minutes later as he’d cruised up The Block, looking for dope.

  He looked at her again. The spider hadn’t moved from the center of her web. In the diluted light of the motel room, he watched her. Even when a dozy fly snared itself in the strands and the web pulsed and vibrated, the spider hung motionless.

  He’d been so close tonight.

  Delaney right in his hands. If she’d been alone, she would have been his.

  Now he wanted her all the more. He couldn’t remember when something had mattered so much to him, couldn’t remember a time before the lust and the drive, the plan and its fulfillment. It was as if he’d never known anything else.

  He should leave though. Bernard was right. It wasn’t safe.

  Roach fingered the Spyderco, sending the knife into a slow spin. Letting it decide.

  Five revolutions and it stopped, the blade pointing at him.

  It was time.

  He eyed the new vials of ketamine he’d scored tonight, looked up at the motionless spider, then fished out a fresh syringe from the side pocket of his laptop case. Tossing the wrapper to the floor, he pierced the vial’s rubber stopper with the needle and drew back the plunger. The clear liquid flowed into the barrel. Fifty milligrams. Sixty. Seventy. May as well do it right.

  He set the empty vial back on the nightstand, held the syringe up, and flicked the bubbles from the shaft. He hated needles. Still, he didn’t flinch when he drove it into the muscle of his thigh and waited for that rush to oblivion.

  66

  ELIMINATING LEADS. That’s what Vicki wanted. Last night it had been Bates. And this morning, Scott Arsenault.

  Kay scanned the disarray left in the wake of yet another search team. This one had invaded Scott’s condo.

  The Web designer sat in one of his fine leather chairs, but he didn’t do so willingly. His hands were white around the armrests, and there was panic behind his eyes as he watched the team toss his home.

  Vicki had had the warrant ready to go by the time she and Finn rolled into the office at nine.

  They’d had a late night. The Mobile Crime Lab had arrived on Gettings Street after Finn’s failed pursuit of Kay’s assailant. Working with the portable halogens, the technicians had dusted the bathroom, the window ledge, and the back door on the slim chance that he’d left a print.

  It was midnight before Finn steered them homeward, where he’d raided the icebox for a bag of frozen peas and iced Kay’s wrist. And later, when she’d finally found sleep in Finn’s arms, she’d been haunted by the shadowed images of the man she’d almost had in her hands … twice now.

  Finn had pointed out that they had no real proof the man in Eales’s house was connected to the murders, and that they shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It could have been some punk spotting the open window and hoping for some quick loot, or a junkie or crackerjack looking for a stash.

  Now, sitting in Scott’s posh condo, favoring her tender wrist, Kay wished she’d been able to see her attacker. Finn too hadn’t gotten any real look at him. The only vivid detail she remembered was his hand reaching for her gun.

  From Arsenault’s kitchen, there was the sound of shattering glass. Scott flew to his feet.

  Finn caught the movement, and Kay saw his smile before he zeroed in on the bookshelves, shoving texts aside, pulling others out. The muscles along Arsenault’s jaw went mad as the books started to fall.

  “Come on, Scott.” Kay took him by the arm and led him through the foyer, out into the corridor. “Listen to me. If you say anything in there, you’ll only make it worse.”

  “How can it be worse?”

  Through the open door came the clatter of something hitting the floor.

  “Calm down.”

  But Arsenault looked ready to explode. “What the hell do you want from me? I already told your partner where I was Saturday night.”

  “Let’s go through it again.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. I called Patricia around ten thirty from home. I left a message. Waited twenty minutes. When she didn’t call me back, I met up with
some friends at Cosmo. We stayed until last call.”

  “You didn’t phone her again?”

  “Yes. I tried from the bar around eleven. I didn’t bother leaving another message. But I’m sure you’re subpoenaing her phone records, so you’ll see my cell number there.”

  Inside, something else fell.

  “Good Christ. Just tell me what you’re looking for and I can help.” His voice had risen in pitch.

  “They’re almost done.” Kay felt sorry for him. The team had been working for an hour now, and as she’d suspected, nothing connected Arsenault with any of the dead women or even Eales.

  “Don’t you think if I knew something, I’d give it to you? Look at what they’re doing to my place.” He gestured through the doorway, and Kay turned him away.

  “Then give me something, Scott. Help me out.”

  “How?”

  “Get inside this guy’s head. I know you can. What’s he doing?”

  Arsenault stared at her for a moment, those GQ looks tight, his expression uncensored.

  “These murders are getting closer to home, Scott. Why Patricia? What did she know? What was her association with this guy?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do you think he’s targeting Eales?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You do, Scott. I know you do. All those books in there, the websites you design, you know how these guys think. Where they live in their heads. Help me out.”

  He appeared to consider. Then: “Look into Bernard’s past.”

  “We have.”

  “Look harder. Killers aren’t born overnight, Kay. All this started years ago.”

  67

  “THERE HAVE TO BE OTHER VICTIMS,” Kay said. “Ones we don’t know about. Bodies that haven’t been found.”

  The afternoon sun slanted across Constance O’Donnell’s therapy room and touched the photos Kay had spread across the coffee table. There’d been plenty to do back at the office: prepping the boardroom, typing reports. But Kay refused to miss her appointment. She needed Constance. Today more than ever.

  From the moment she sat down, the case was the only subject on Kay’s agenda. She spent the next forty minutes filling Constance in on Patricia Hagen’s death, the Keystone house, and the slaughter of Jason Beckman. When the photos came out, Constance again warned Kay that whatever investigative directions she took, based on discussions in the therapy room, had to be taken carefully.

  “It’s been fifteen months since the first three murders,” Kay said. “If there aren’t more victims, what’s he been doing all this time? And why start up again now?”

  “It could be something simple, like maybe he was out of town.”

  “No. We would have gotten a hit on VICAP.”

  “Maybe he hid the bodies.”

  “But that doesn’t fit his MO.”

  “He could have been institutionalized or incarcerated. Or”—Constance worried her pen between her fingers— “maybe he was in remission.”

  “You make it sound like it’s a disease he’s got.”

  “In a way, it is. Often the urges these men experience aren’t controllable. He may have been able to curb those urges for the past year through counseling or medication. There are drugs to suppress those.”

  The same ones Constance had tried to push on Kay a year ago. As soon as she’d heard “Prozac,” Kay had threatened to walk out.

  “But why go on medication in the first place? He got away with three murders.”

  “He might have sought professional help for depression, anxiety, or OCD. Without intending to, he may have suppressed his deviance with drugs. Or maybe something scared him. Maybe he almost got caught, so he decided he needed to control his urges. Then, if he went off his medication, the inhibitor would be gone and the fantasy would be open to grow again.”

  “And why go off the meds?” Kay asked.

  “Usually with these kinds of killers there’s an inciting incident. A triggering factor. Something that pushes them over the edge, begins the cycle again. It could be any number of events: loss of a job, loss of a spouse, birth, death. It could have even been the murder of your witness. You already said you suspected there was more of a motive behind her murder. If you’re right, and her death served a purpose, killing her could have started up his fantasies again.”

  Constance reached for her mug. The coffee had to be cold, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “And what do you make of his killing so close to home?” Kay asked. “Patricia Hagen knew him.”

  “She might have simply been an easy target. She came to him.”

  Kay wanted a smoke. She needed the nicotine to fill her lungs and spark answers in her brain. “Who the hell is this guy?” The question was rhetorical, but Constance answered anyway.

  “Organized offenders tend to be of average to above average intelligence, and socially competent. You’re looking at someone who’s probably, at the least, a skilled worker. He owns a car, maybe even his own house. And in spite of how it looks, he’s sexually competent, has probably had girlfriends. You already know he’s familiar with police procedures and forensics because of his diligence in obliterating evidence.”

  Killers aren’t born overnight, Scott had told her. All this started years ago.

  “So how does someone get to be like this?” Kay asked.

  Constance’s face was hard lines now, not the usual soft, muted planes Kay had grown accustomed to. “Profiles start with generalizations. With killers like this you’re usually looking at a troubled childhood, often one involving sexual predators and abuse. Having suffered those traumas, the child craves control. You’ve heard the stereotypes: bed-wetting, animal abuse, setting fires. And then there’s the early preoccupation with death, from which the fantasy develops. Once they cross the line and begin acting on the fantasy, the control and power it awards them gradually convinces them that violence and killing are natural. Combine that with their damaged childhood, and they feel their violence and cruelty is justified.”

  Kay let out a breath. Where was this supposed to take her?

  Constance must have sensed her frustration. “If you look at the initial trauma,” she explained, “you can often understand the fantasy, or vice versa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s in his childhood that the serial killer typically acquires the scars he will later inflict on his victims. And it’s this trauma that is often reenacted in the adult fantasy.”

  The silence of the room swelled for a time. Kay sank back into the supple cushions of the couch. “So he’s not psychotic, right?”

  “No. He’s psychopathic. A psychotic can’t maintain this level of control. Like a psychopath, your killer is amoral and asocial. He craves immediate satisfaction. His personality is characterized by irresponsibility, a lack of remorse, and impulsive or perverse behavior. And he feels no guilt for anything he’s done. The psychopath is like an infant, absorbed in himself and sating his needs. In fact, more likely he feels entitled to whatever he takes since he believes he lives in an unjust world. His fantasy is his escape from that world, a place where he can express his emotions and his control over others.”

  “So that’s why he uses the ketamine. For control?” Kay asked, needing something concrete to grab on to.

  Constance nodded.

  “Do you know much about the stuff?”

  “Only that it’s used more as a tripping medium than a date-rape drug,” Constance explained. “With the right dose, users like it for its NDE properties.”

  “NDE?”

  “Near-death experience. Ketamine mimics the conditions which precipitate an NDE—low oxygen, low blood flow and blood sugars, temporal-lobe epilepsy. All of these release a flood of glutamate, which overactivates certain receptors in the brain, leading the user to an altered state of consciousness.”

  “And people do this for fun?”

  “There are worse things out there, Kay. With ketamine, a user can cre
ate the typical features of a classic NDE: the sense of timelessness, analgesia, clarity of thought, and feelings of calm. They may also undergo out-of-body experiences and hallucinations of anything from landscapes to people in their lives—alive or dead.”

  “Sounds like a real trip.”

  “For many it is. NDEs are classified on a five-stage continuum: feelings of peace, a sense of detachment from the body, then entering into a ‘tunnel experience,’ moving to a bright light, and finally entering that light. This final stage is called the K-hole, when the user feels completely free from themselves and their life.

  “Some relive aspects of their lives, reevaluate things they’ve done, and simply let go of it all. That’s when the body is virtually paralyzed while the sense of self feels removed from the body. And when a user comes out of the trip, they’ll usually refer to it as an alien birth or rebirth.”

  “So you think his victims might have been conscious?”

  Constance nodded. “It’s quite possible. If they were, they’d be aware of their bodies even though they don’t feel connected.”

  Kay shuddered at the image that had already started to take hold the other night. “I think he wants them conscious,” she told Constance. “I think he wants them to witness their own deaths.”

  “If that’s the case, then I’d say you’re dealing with someone who’s been fascinated with death for most of his life.”

  When the session timer went off, Kay flinched, then gathered the photos into her briefcase.

  “I know a lot of this doesn’t immediately help you,” Constance said, “but the more you can figure out why this guy does what he does, and where he truly comes from, the better chance you’re going to have of catching him. I promise you. Serial murderers aren’t born; they’re created,” Constance said, echoing Scott’s words. “This killer has a past. People know him.”

  And then Kay knew where she had to go next.

  68