The Girls He Adored elp-1

by Jonathan Nasaw

  “There's some clothes in there.” He climbed up into the driver's seat and uncuffed Irene. “They look like they might fit you, but you need to change even if they don't. There's also a wig for you- Mrs. Bill must have lost her hair before she died.”

  A dead woman's wig-Irene could feel her scalp contracting involuntarily. “Do I have to?”

  “You have to do everything I tell you. That's how this works.”

  As the van bumped down the long steep driveway, Irene crawled into the back and went through the contents of the cardboard box. Food: peanut butter, jelly, bologna, white bread, apple juice. Clothes: cranberry-colored polyester slacks; polyester blouse, mauve, with plastic toggle buttons. Mrs. Bill must have been quite a pistol in her day.

  Irene sat on the ribbed steel floor of the van and pulled the blouse and slacks on over her tank top and shorts, then removed the wig from the box. It was Bozo red. She clenched her jaws, fought against an urge to vomit, tasted bile as she slipped the wig on and tucked her hair under it all around.

  “Irene?”

  “Yes, Max?”

  “There's a carton of Camels in that box somewhere. Bring me a pack, would you?”

  His tone was casual, conversational. Irene mirrored it. “Lucky for you he smokes your brand. I hope you left him a pack.”

  Silence. A long silence. Irene realized she might have overstepped her bounds, been too flip. Squatting in the back of the van, she felt a sudden wave of dizziness, and realized she was holding her breath.

  “No, no, I didn't,” Max said eventually; to Irene's relief, he sounded more amused than upset. “It wasn't necessary-I happen to know that the old man just quit smoking.”

  34

  Pender left the bedroom shortly after Harriet Weldon, the FBI criminalist, pulled down the sheet that covered the women to their waists, to reveal one last ghastly surprise Casey had left behind for the investigators. Below the waist both women had been hacked so savagely as to be all but unrecognizable-too many stab wounds to count had reduced their private parts to a pulp of blood and splintered bone.

  Shortly after sunset, when the bodies, along with most of the FBI agents (including an extremely agitated Thomas Pastor, who had refused to speak with, or even look at, Pender), had departed, leaving the crime scene to the MoCo Sheriff's Department, Weldon found Pender in the backyard.

  “I have something I want to show you,” she said, leading him into the darkened bedroom, closing the door behind them, and plugging in the portable black light laser. “Quite a love machine, your Casey.”

  “God- damn,” said Pender. Ghostly white stains glowed like distant stars on the bed, on the carpet, on the cushion of the vanity chair, on several of the items of lingerie strewn about the floor, and even on one of the walls. “Hard to believe all that came from one man.”

  For each of the stars almost certainly represented an ejaculation-seminal fluid glows white under ultraviolet light. Later an acid phosphatase test would verify the presence of semen, but under the circumstances, the investigators could already be reasonably certain of the origin of the stains.

  “We won't know for sure whether it's all from Casey until the DNA comes back,” said Weldon, a short, pleasantly homely woman whose dark-framed spectacles, lumpy nose, and bushy eyebrows made her look as if she were wearing a Groucho mask. “But everything else points to one perp, so unless one of the victims had a boyfriend who'd visited her after the sheets were washed, I'd wager my per diem on it. Tell you what, though-I've never seen anything like it.”

  Pender agreed. “Generally speaking, most serial killers commit rape not because they love sex, but because they hate women. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, if they can get it up at all.”

  “I wouldn't say this one was all that fond of women, either.” Weldon switched on the room lights, knelt to unplug the black light.

  Pender took one last glance around the room as they left. Chalk marks, measurements, crime scene tape, fingerprint powder-he found himself almost nostalgic for those first heady moments when he'd been alone in the house. “I don't suppose you've come up with anything that'll tell us where he came from or where he's taking Dr. Cogan?”

  “Dream on.”

  “How about the Chevy he was captured in?” They walked back down the hall to the kitchen, where Casey had apparently fixed himself several meals, which he'd eaten in the living room, probably while watching television. He'd also slept on the couch.

  “The Celebrity? Zip so far. Same with his suitcase, same with the bankroll. I'll go over everything in the lab for trace evidence, but until then, he's a blank.”

  “Figures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the theories we came up with early on is that Casey is a chameleon. Which squares with Dr. Cogan's DID diagnosis. When he goes out hunting for one of his strawberry blonds, he more or less effaces his identity-becomes whatever they want him to be in order to get them to fall in love with him-not just in love, but willing to run away with him, leave home, hubby, momma, whatever.”

  “The consummate seducer. But how does that”-they were in the backyard; Weldon glanced toward the window of the bedroom they'd just left-“that mess fit in?”

  “Revenge. Deputy Jervis was the arresting officer. I think up until she pulled him over, he thought of himself as not just superior to everybody else, but practically immortal. He had to punish her for bringing fear into his life, for bringing him down to our level.”

  “But the other woman? And all that sex?”

  “I think that was just opportunistic.”

  “He sure made the most of it-his opportunity, I mean.”

  “I'm guessing he always does.” Pender handed her his card. “I need a favor-call me if any trace evidence turns up. Call me first- even if somebody tells you not to.”

  “I heard you were in the shit,” said Weldon. “I didn't know how deep.”

  “In the shit, but still on the case.”

  “Wellll…” She took the card. “I guess I owe you one. That was the freshest crime scene I was ever called in on.” Then, glancing down at the card: “The mobile number?”

  “The sky pager-it vibrates.” As Pender patted the pager in his inside pocket, it went off, startling him. “Speak of the devil.” He made a wiggling motion with his thick fingers-a W. C. Fields/Oliver Hardy disconcerted flutter-then used his cell phone to return the call from the backyard.

  “Pender… Thanks-I'm on my way.” He pressed the kill switch and folded up the phone.

  “Can somebody tell me how to get to Pacific Grove?” he called to the sheriff's deputies standing by the back door.

  “Yeah,” said one of them, a black man. “First of all, be rich and white.”

  “That's Carmel,” said another.

  “Naah,” replied the first deputy. “Carmel, you gotta be born there.”

  35

  From the Point Sur Lighthouse to Highway 156 at Castroville, the self-proclaimed Artichoke Capital of the World, from 156 to 101 at Prunedale, then north on 101 past Gilroy, the self-proclaimed Garlic Capital, Irene managed to maintain a facade of relative calm. She rode shotgun, chain-smoking Camels, feeding peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the driver, and lighting his cigarettes for him. But the closer they drew to San Jose, the more agitated she grew, until she found herself trembling involuntarily like a victim of hypothermia.

  Max couldn't help but notice. His custom, when an abductee needed to be calmed, was to dispatch Ish to handle the situation. He waited until he had a relatively clear road ahead of him and to both sides to make the switch. Momentarily driverless, the van veered to the left before Ish grabbed the wheel and corrected the line.

  “What's the problem, Irene?” he asked quietly.

  Irene, her trembling head buried in her hands, missed the switch entirely; nor was she in any condition to pick up on the subtle differences in voice and manner between the two alters. On the mistaken assumption that she was still dealing with Max, she decided to
volunteer some personal information in the hope that it might help him see her as a person, not an object or a victim.

  “We're getting near my hometown,” she said, gaining control over her voice with some difficulty.

  “San Jose?”

  “Born and raised.”

  “Any family still live here?”

  “My older brother. My younger brother lives up in Campbell. They're both firemen, like our dad.”

  “Parents still living?”

  “My mom died five years ago. My dad remarried. He lives up in Sebastopol with his second wife-she's a year younger than I am.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “I was very happy for him-I just wish he lived closer.”

  “You miss your mother?”

  “Very much.”

  “Close family?”

  “I suppose. We fought a lot, my brothers and I, but I always knew they'd be there for me. They're big bruisers, both of them- nobody messed with me in high school, I can tell you that.”

  “Sounds idyllic,” said Ish wistfully.

  For the first time, it occurred to Irene that she could be in the presence of one of the multiple's other alters. Less guarded than Max, perhaps this personality would be more forthcoming as well. “Tell me about your family. Any siblings?”

  The response, worthy of a trained psychologist-“We're not here to talk about my family, Irene”-was Irene's first indication that she might be dealing with an internal self helper. She decided to take a chance-ISHs were rarely if ever violent-and see if she couldn't establish some sort of rapport with him. It seemed to her, as her head began to clear, that regaining the therapist's role might provide her with her best chance of surviving. In any event, it seemed preferable to being a victim in waiting.

  Irene glanced out the window. They were driving through the heart of Silicon Valley-she could remember when this area was all prune orchards. Now it was all money.

  “Am I still talking with Max?” she asked, in as conversational a tone as she could muster.

  “No,” said Ish, responding almost automatically, as a professional courtesy.

  Encouraged, Irene tried one more question. “So what's your name?”

  It was very nearly the last question she ever asked.

  36

  No one escaped the clutches of Klopfman hospitality. After a real cluster-fuck of an interagency meeting at the Pacific Grove police headquarters with representatives from the PG cops, the state police and CHP, the California DOJ, the Monterey County sheriff's department, the U.S. Marshals, and of course Agent Pastor of the FBI (he did his best to ignore Pender's presence), at which jurisdictional matters were discussed, voices were raised, and fingers were pointed, Pender showed up at Sam and Barbara's doorstep around eleven o'clock to try to wangle an interview.

  Barbara had already taken two Valium and gone to bed, but upon learning that Pender had spent the last two nights in the hospital, Sam Klopfman had insisted that he stay in their guest bedroom.

  Rather than driving all the way back to the Travel Inn in Salinas, then returning the next morning, Pender, exhausted and in pain, accepted. Under the assumption that he wouldn't be operating any heavy equipment for the next six hours, he took two more Vicodin tablets-not excessive for a man his size, he felt, despite the dosage recommendation on the label-and was asleep within minutes. Some time later he awoke in the dark, his mind frighteningly and deliciously blank. Someone was tapping at the door-but what door, what room?

  It all came back to him when he switched on the bedside light, saw the cow-themed lamp, bedspread, statuettes, paintings, and knickknacks of the Klopfman guest room. Then he heard the tapping again.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened; a round, double-chinned, dark-eyed, darkhaired woman appeared in the doorway. “Agent Pender?”

  “Dr. Klopfman?”

  “May I come in?”

  “Please.”

  Barbara closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the room, wearing a too-tall man's bathrobe that trailed the floor, over a comfy-cozy thick cotton nightgown. “I couldn't sleep-Sam told me you were here and wanted to talk to me as soon as possible.”

  “The sooner the better,” said Pender doubtfully, sitting up, pulling the covers to his waist. He was feeling warm, toasty, affectionate, and muzzy. As he glanced at the clock on the wall, noting with some amusement that the little cow was at one and the big cow at six, he remembered about the pain pills. One-thirty in the morning, stoned on Vicodin.

  Fortunately, Dr. Klopfman was under the influence of her own medication and either didn't notice or didn't care. Before long they were calling each other Ed and Barbara, and flirting harmlessly as she told him her story.

  Pender had never conducted an interview half stoned, sitting up in bed in his underwear, but it didn't seem to affect his prowess. Barbara found the big man's presence comforting. He prompted her gently, elicited details she didn't know she remembered, and even held her hand at the scariest parts.

  When she had finished, Pender asked her if she thought there was any possibility that Casey was faking DID.

  “I doubt it,” Barbara replied without hesitation. “He could fool me easily enough, but when it comes to dissociative disorders, Irene's the very best there is-it'd be hard to fool her. She ran a full battery of tests, did a clinical interview-she even put him under for a regression.”

  “I wish to hell I'd been a fly on the wall for that.”

  “You could always listen to the tape,” said Barbara.

  Pender appeared startled. “She taped her sessions?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I'll be.” Upon learning that Dr. Cogan had been abducted, the FBI had broken into her office, but there was no sign of the notes she'd promised to type up for them. Case Agent Pastor had confiscated her PC and was having an FBI computer security expert sent down from San Jose to break her password, but it would take at least another day. Once again, Pender was one jump ahead of the investigative curve.

  “Where would she keep the tapes?” he asked Barbara.

  “Her office, I suppose. I know where she keeps the spare key-I could take you over first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning, hell,” said Pender, starting to throw back the covers, then remembering that he was in his underwear. “Didn't anybody ever tell you, the FBI never sleeps?”

  “I sleep,” replied Barbara.

  “Irene won't,” said Pender-that clinched the deal.

  37

  In order to help the system protect itself, Max, with Ish's help, had years earlier put in place what might be termed an emergency response reflex. If any alter but Max was ever asked his or her name, a switch would be executed instantaneously; only Max would be allowed to respond to such a question.

  Unfortunately, Max had never anticipated a contingency in which the question was asked while another alter was driving a car at high speed along a fairly crowded highway. Though the driver's eyes were off the road for only a few seconds, the van veered sharply to the left again-apparently old Bill didn't believe in spending a lot of money on alignments. Then Max, seizing control, overcompensated, jerking the wheel to the right; the van lurched so sharply that it rocked briefly on two wheels.

  Irene screamed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the van was back in the center lane, horns were blaring, and her captor had drawn the snub-nosed revolver from his waist for the first time since he'd pulled it on the old man.

  “Irene, Irene, Irene, what have I ever done to make you treat me with such disrespect?”

  The voice was a husky whisper, the accent Italian or Spanish. A second wave of fear, colder, deeper, and somehow even more threatening than the pure physical terror of the near wreck, all but swamped Irene's reason. Was this the homicidal alter she had dreaded meeting? With her adrenaline pumping and a brassy taste in the back of her throat, Irene struggled for control over her runaway emotions. She knew her survival depended on
her mind, on her training. He's mentally ill, she told herself, and you're a psychiatrist. Use it, for God's sake: work it.

  And when she had mastered her terror, or at least subdued it temporarily, the answer came to her-this wasn't an alter at all, but another of his impressions. “The Godfather, right?” she asked shakily.

  Max nodded, and slipped the gun back into the waistband of the jeans. “I'd better explain before we end up running off the fucking road. Irene, when I first showed up on the scene, Ulysses Christopher Maxwell Jr. was an unholy mess. Chaos-absolute chaos. Alters popping up randomly at all the wrong moments, rarely communicating with each other. You said Lyssy told you about the first time he was molested. Hell, he doesn't even know about the first time-the abuse had been going on for years by then. And frankly, what happened that night was a walk in the park compared to the earlier abuse-by the time he was five, he'd split off half a dozen alters to deal with it.

  “And Ulysses, the so-called host, was a joke-Useless, I call him. Completely powerless-he didn't even know he was part of a multiple. This system was heading straight for the funny farm, Irene- if it even survived long enough.

  “Enter Max. I restored order, established communications, laid down a few simple rules of conduct, one of which is that I'm the only alter allowed to answer questions about our identity. So from now on, no more asking for names, no more peeping around until we're in a more or less formal therapeutic setting.”

  Therapeutic setting, thought Irene. So she'd been right when she told Barbara that what he wanted was help. But her relief at having been right on that score was tempered by a troubling thought: he'd told her his name. Which meant he had no intention of ever letting her go.

  She could feel that cold wave of terror threatening to swamp her again. Of course he had no intention of letting her go-she told herself that on some level she'd known that all along. But it still didn't equal a death sentence. Escape, rescue-those were very real possibilities. As long as she managed to remain alive. By using her mind. Her training. Work it, she reminded herself. Listen.