by John Verdon
“There’s no need for me to do that.”
“I know. I know you’re willing to give it up. Which is exactly what makes it all right not to.”
“Say that again?”
She laughed, ignoring his question. “Where would they be without you?”
He shook his head. “I hope you’re joking.”
“Why?”
“The last thing on earth I need is for my arrogance to be reinforced.”
“The last thing on earth you need is a wife who thinks you should be someone else.”
After a while they ambled, hand in hand, back up through the pasture, nodded pleasantly to their bodyguard, and went into the house.
Madeleine made a small cherrywood fire in the big fieldstone fireplace, opening the window next to it to keep the room from getting too warm.
For the rest of the afternoon, they did something they rarely did: nothing at all. They lounged on the couch, letting themselves be lazily hypnotized by the fire. Later Madeleine thought out loud about possible planting changes in the garden for the following spring. Still later, perhaps to keep a flood of worries at bay, she read a chapter of Moby-Dick aloud to him—both pleased and perplexed by what she continued to refer to as “the most peculiar book I’ve ever read.”
She tended the fire. He showed her pictures of garden pavilions and screened gazebos in a book he’d picked up months earlier at Home Depot, and they talked about building one next summer, maybe by the pond. They dozed on and off, and the afternoon passed. They had an early supper of soup and salad while the sunset was still bright in the sky, illuminating the maples on the opposite hillside. They went to bed at dusk, made love with a kind of tenderness that grew quickly into a desperate urgency, slept for over ten hours, and awoke simultaneously at the first gray light of dawn.
Chapter 65
Message from the monster
Gurney had finished his scrambled eggs and toast and was about to take his plate to the sink. Madeleine looked up at him from her bowl of oatmeal and raisins and said, “I assume you’ve forgotten already where I’m going today.”
Over supper the night before, he’d persuaded her with some difficulty to spend the next couple of days with her sister in New Jersey—a prudent precaution, under the circumstances—while he wrapped up his commitment to the case. But now he wrinkled his face in concentration, making a show of bafflement. She laughed at his exaggerated expression. “Your undercover acting technique must have been a lot more persuasive than that. Or you were dealing with idiots.”
After she finished her oatmeal and had a second cup of coffee, she took a shower and got dressed. At eight-thirty she gave him a tight hug and a kiss, a worried look, then another kiss, and left for her sister’s suburban palace in Ridgewood.
When her car was well down the road, he got into his own car and followed her. Knowing the route she would take, he was able to stay far behind her, keeping her only occasionally in sight. His goal was not to follow her but to make sure no one else was following her.
After a few deserted miles, he was sure enough, and he returned home.
As he parked by the trooper’s car, they exchanged small, friendly salutes.
Before going into the house, he stood by the side door and looked around. He had for a moment a timeless feeling, the feeling of standing in a painting. As he entered the house, the feeling of peace was disturbed by his cell phone with the short ring that signaled the arrival of a text message—and utterly shattered by the message itself:
SORRY I MISSED YOU THE OTHER DAY. I’LL TRY AGAIN. HOPE YOU ENJOY THE DOLL.
Gurney felt an irrational impulse to charge into the woods, as though the message had been sent by someone who was at that moment lurking behind a tree trunk watching him—to shout obscenities at his invisible foe. Instead he read the message again. It included the originating number, unblocked, just like the previous messages, making it a virtual certainty that the cell phone was the untraceable prepaid variety.
It might be helpful to know the originating cell tower location, but that was a process with some sticky strings attached.
Since the intrusion of the doll into the house had been reported, it had the status of an open investigation. In that context an anonymous text message referring to the doll was a form of evidence that should be reported. However, a cell-records warrant with its ensuing data search would reveal that previous text messages had been sent to Gurney’s number from the same phone, and that he had replied to them. He felt trapped in a box of his own making, a box in which every solution would create a bigger problem.
He cursed himself for his ego-driven agreement to take on one more murder case no one else could solve; for his ego-driven willingness to let Sonya Reynolds back into his life; for his ego-driven blindness to the Jykynstyl deception; for his ego-driven desire to keep the consequences, and possible photographs, from Madeleine; for the absurd and dangerous bind in which he now found himself.
But cursing himself for his failings was getting him nowhere. He had to do something. But what?
The phone ringing on the kitchen sideboard answered the question for him.
It was Sheridan Kline, exuding his oiliest enthusiasm. “Dave! Glad you picked up. Get on your horse, my friend. We need you here pronto.”
“What’s happening?”
“What’s happening is that Darryl Becker of Palm Beach’s Finest found Ballston’s boat, just like you said he would. Guess what else he found.”
“I’m not a guesser.”
“Hah! Fact is, you made a damn good guess about that boat—and the possibility that the Palm Beach techs would find something on it. Well, they did. They found a tiny bloodstain … which generated a rush DNA profile … which triggered a CODIS near hit … which produced a change of heart on the part of Mr. Ballston. Or at least it produced a change in his legal strategy. He and his attorney are now in full-cooperation-to-avoid-lethal-injection mode.”
“Back up a second,” said Gurney. “The CODIS near hit—whose name popped up?”
“Worked the same way it worked with Melanie Strum—a first-degree family relationship, in this case a convicted child molester by the name of Wayne Dawker. Same last name as a Mapleshade girl, Kim Dawker, who went missing three months before Melanie. Turns out Wayne is Kim’s older brother. Ballston’s lawyers might be good enough to wiggle around one dead girl on his hands, but not two.”
“How’d they get the CODIS response so fast?”
“The phrase ‘serial murder conspiracy’ could be a motivator. Or maybe somebody in Palm Beach just happens to have the right phone number.” Kline sounded envious.
“Either way is fine with me,” said Gurney. “What’s next?”
“This afternoon Becker will be conducting a formal interrogation of Ballston, which Ballston has agreed to. We’ve been invited to participate through a computer-conferencing process. We witness the interrogation on a computer monitor and transmit any questions we want asked. I’ve insisted you be included.”
“What’s my role?”
“Submit the right question at the right time? Figure out how forthcoming he’s being? You’re the one who knows this creep best. Hey—speaking of creeps—I heard you had a little unauthorized-entry incident at your house.”
“You could call it that. Kind of unnerving at first, but … I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Looks like someone doesn’t want you on the case—you figure that’s what it is?”
“I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Well, we can talk about it when you get here.”
“Right.” In fact, Gurney had no desire whatever to talk about it. As long as he could remember, he’d recoiled from the discussion of anything remotely connected to his own vulnerability. It was the same dysfunctional form of damage control that was keeping him from being less than forthcoming with Madeleine about his Rohypnol fears.
The police academy’s computer-video equipment had been update
d more recently than BCI’s, so it was in the academy’s teleconferencing center that everyone gathered shortly before two that afternoon. The “center” was a conference room whose main feature was a flat-screen monitor mounted on the front wall. A semicircular table with a dozen chairs faced the screen. The attendees were all familiar to Gurney. Some, like Rebecca Holdenfield, he was happier to see than others.
He was relieved to note that they all seemed absorbed in their anticipation of what was about to occur—too absorbed to start asking about the doll and its implications.
Sergeant Robin Wigg was sitting at a small separate table in a corner of the room with two open laptops, a cell phone, and a keyboard with which she seemed to be controlling the monitor on the wall. As she tapped at the keys, the screen displayed a series of digital artifacts and numerical codes, then sprang to high-definition life—and quickly became the focus of everyone’s attention.
It showed a standard interrogation room with concrete-block walls. In the center of the room was a gray metal table. On one side of it sat Detective Darryl Becker. Facing him on the other side were two men. One looked like he’d stepped out of a GQ article on America’s best-dressed attorneys. The other was Jordan Ballston, in whom a devastating transformation had taken place. He looked sweaty and rumpled. His body sagged, his mouth was slightly open, and his hollow gaze was fixed on the table.
Becker turned crisply to the camera. “We’re about ready to get started. Hope we’re loud and clear at the remote location. Please confirm that.” He stared at the screen of a laptop facing him on the table.
Gurney heard Wigg tapping on her keyboard.
A few moments later, Becker smiled at his screen and gave a happy thumbs-up sign.
Rodriguez, who’d been conferring in whispers with Kline, stepped to the front of the room. “Listen up, people. We’re here to witness an interrogation, to which we’ve been invited to contribute. As the result of the discovery of new evidence on his property—”
“Bloodstains on his boat, found as the result of Gurney’s nudging,” interrupted Kline. He loved to stir the pot, keep the animosities boiling.
Rodriguez blinked and continued. “As a result of this evidence, the defendant has changed his story. In an effort to escape the certainty of the Florida death penalty, he’s offering not only to confess to the Melanie Strum murder but to provide details regarding a larger criminal conspiracy—a conspiracy that may relate to the apparent disappearances of other Mapleshade graduates. You should note that the defendant is making this statement to save his life and may be motivated to say more than he actually knows about this so-called conspiracy.”
As if to discount the captain’s caution, Hardwick called across the room to Gurney, who was seated at the opposite end of the half-moon table. “Congratulations, Sherlock! You ought to consider a career in law enforcement. We need brains like yours.”
A voice from the monitor on the wall redirected everyone’s attention.
Chapter 66
The monstrous truth, according to Ballston
“It’s now 2:03 P.M., September twentieth. This is Detective Lieutenant Darryl Becker of the Palm Beach Police Department. With me in Interrogation Room Number One are Jordan Ballston and his attorney Stanford Mull. This interrogation is being recorded.” Becker looked from the camera to Ballston. “Are you Jordan Ballston of South Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach?”
Ballston answered without raising his eyes from the table. “Yes, I am.”
“Have you agreed after consultation with your attorney to make a complete and truthful statement regarding the murder of Melanie Strum?”
Stanford Mull put his hand on Ballston’s forearm. “Jordan, I must—”
“Yes, I have,” said Ballston.
Becker went on. “Do you agree to answer fully and truthfully all questions put to you in regard to this matter?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Please describe in detail how you came into contact with Melanie Strum and everything that occurred thereafter, including how and why you killed her.”
Mull looked agonized. “For Godsake, Jordan—”
Ballston looked up for the first time. “Enough, Stan, enough! I’ve made my decision. You’re not here to get in my way. I just want you to be fully aware of everything I say.”
Mull shook his head.
Ballston seemed relieved by his attorney’s silence. He looked up at the camera. “How large an audience do I have?”
Becker looked disgusted. “Does it matter?”
“The damnedest things end up on YouTube.”
“This won’t.”
“Too bad.” Ballston smiled horribly. “Where should I begin?”
“At the beginning.”
“You mean when I saw my uncle fucking my mother when I was six years old?”
Becker hesitated. “Why don’t you start by telling us how you met Melanie Strum?”
Ballston leaned back in his chair, addressing his answer in an almost dreamy tone to a point somewhere high on the wall behind Becker. “I acquired Melanie through the special Karnala process. The process involves a branching journey through a sequence of portals. Now, each of these portals—”
“Hold on. You need to describe this in plain English. What the hell is a portal?”
Gurney wanted to tell Becker to relax, let the man speak, ask the questions later. But telling Becker what to do at this point could derail him completely.
“I’m talking about website links and passages. Internet sites offering choices of other sites, chat rooms leading to other chat rooms, always in the direction of exploring narrower and more intense interests, and finally leading to a direct one-on-one e-mail or text-message correspondence between customer and provider.” In light of the underlying subject matter, Ballston’s professorial tone struck Gurney as surreal.
“You mean you tell them what kind of girl you want and they deliver her?”
“No, no, nothing as abrupt or crude as that. As I said, the Karnala process is special. The price is high, but the methodology is elegant. Once the direct correspondence has proven satisfactory on both sides—”
“Satisfactory? In what way?”
“In the way of credibility. The people at Karnala become convinced of the seriousness of the customer’s intentions, and the customer becomes convinced of Karnala’s legitimacy.”
“Legitimacy?”
“What? Oh, I see your problem. I mean legitimacy in the sense of being who you claim to be and not, for example, the agent of some pathetic sting operation.”
Gurney was fascinated by the dynamics of the interrogation. Ballston, who was implicating himself in a capital crime for which he was bargaining to receive a less-than-capital sentence, seemed to be drawing a sense of control from his own calm narrative. Becker, nominally in charge, was the rattled one.
“Okay,” said Becker, “assuming that everyone ends up satisfied with everyone else’s legitimacy, what then?”
“Then,” said Ballston, pausing dramatically and looking Becker in the eye for the first time, “the elegant touch: the Karnala ads in the Sunday Times.”
“Say that again?”
“Karnala Fashion. Featuring the highest clothing prices on the planet: one-of-a-kind outfits, custom-designed for you, at a hundred thousand dollars and up. Lovely ads. Lovely girls. Girls wearing nothing but a couple of diaphanous scarves. Very stimulating.”
“What’s the relevance of these ads?”
“Think about it.”
Ballston’s creepy gentility was getting to Becker. “Shit, Ballston, I don’t have time for games.”
Ballston sighed. “I’d have thought it was obvious, Lieutenant. The ads aren’t for the clothes. They’re for the girls.”
“You’re telling me the girls in the ads are for sale?”
“Correct.”
Becker blinked, looked incredulous. “For a hundred thousand dollars?”
“And up.”
“So then what? You s
end off a check for a hundred grand, and they FedEx you the world’s highest-priced hooker?”
“Hardly, Lieutenant. You don’t order a Rolls-Royce from a magazine ad.”
“So you … what? Visit the Karnala showroom?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. The showroom is actually a screening room. Each of the currently available girls, including the girl featured in the advertisement, introduces herself in her own intimate video.”
“You talking about individual porno movies?”
“Something much better than that. Karnala operates at the most sophisticated end of the business. These girls and their video presentations are remarkably intelligent, wonderfully subtle, and carefully preselected to meet the customer’s emotional needs.” The tip of Ballston’s tongue ran idly across his upper lip. Becker looked like he might explode out of his chair. “I think what you’re failing to grasp, Lieutenant, is that these are girls with very interesting sexual histories, girls with intense sexual appetites of their own. These are not hookers, Lieutenant, these are very special girls.”
“That’s what makes them worth a hundred grand?”
Ballston sighed indulgently. “And up.”
Becker nodded blankly. The man appeared to Gurney to be lost. “A hundred grand … for nymphomania … sophistication …?”
Ballston smiled softly. “For being exactly what one wants. For being the glove that fits the hand.”
“Tell me more.”
“There are some very good wines available for fifty dollars a bottle, wines that achieve ninety percent of perfection. A far smaller number, available for five hundred dollars a bottle, achieve ninety-nine percent of perfection. But for that final one percent of absolute perfection—for that you’ll pay five thousand dollars a bottle. Some people can’t tell the difference. Some can.”
“Damn! Here’s ordinary little me, thinking that a pricey hooker is just a pricey hooker.”
“For you, Lieutenant, I’m sure that’s the ultimate truth.”