by Blair Howard
“I’m sure they did,” Jacque said dryly. The sarcasm went right over Tim’s head.
“We need to know where she was that night, Tim. Between seven and midnight. Can you track her phone?”
“Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem. Do you want it right away?”
“In a bit. Before you do that, take a look at the Kalliste site. See if Padgett has a listing. If she does, it will throw a whole different light on things. You can do that now, please.”
He nodded, and began tapping away on his laptop. It didn’t take him long.
“Nope,” he said. “She’s not here.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad; good I suppose. It probably means she’s either not connected to it, unless she was one of Emily’s clients, which she might well have been, or she was killed for some other reason, and that makes me wonder if we’re looking for two killers.”
“Oh that’s a stretch,” Kate said. “Too much of a coincidence, and neither one of us believes in those. And what motive could someone have for killing a vet?”
“Well,” I replied. “One at least springs readily to mind. Jealousy. The BDSM community is a strange world. If she, Erika, had a steady girlfriend or boyfriend. and she began seeing someone else, Emily, for instance….”
“I don’t buy it,” Kate interrupted. “My experience with BDSM is that they have only one thing on their minds, and that’s finding a new way to get themselves off. And she was vet, for God’s sake. Come on, Harry. A vet! It makes no sense that a well-known professional woman would get mixed up in that world. That she was gay, maybe, okay, I’ll buy that, and that she might have been one of Emily’s clients, yes, I can buy that too. But….”
“Whether she was into it or not, it’s how she died. Someone did it to her, and I’m betting it was a woman. Remember the strap marks on Emily’s thighs? Those were not faked. The girl had spent hours in a sling.
“Now,” I said, and looked again at Tim. “You asked for twenty-four hours to analyze Emily’s phone records. What did you come up with?”
He riffled through the pile of paperwork and then handed me a thick sheaf of printed papers. There were hundreds of phone numbers on it. Some he’d highlighted in yellow and written names alongside. They were all female names. Some numbers were repeated many times, and those he hadn’t highlighted at all. But there were several more—I counted eleven—that were highlighted in green; there were no names attached to them.
I looked at him. He looked back, smiling, the overhead lights reflected in the lenses of his oversized glasses.
“Well?” I asked.
“Oh… yes. Sorry. The numbers highlighted in yellow are one-offs… well, no more than two or three calls to each, and they are all listings for young ladies located in just about every state in the union. I know. I called a few of them.
“Those not highlighted at all are family or friends. No big deal, except for the one highlighted in blue. That one is Erika Padgett’s number. As you can see, they called each other quite often. The last time on the afternoon of the evening when Emily left the Sorbonne with her.” He paused, looked around significantly, then continued.
“The numbers highlighted in green are different. As you can see, they were all called fairly regularly right up until she disappeared, which you would expect, right? But they’re all burner phones, disposable, and not a one is still in service. Who they belonged to, I have no idea, and they will help you not at all. They’re just something to think about, to muddy the waters.”
He was right.
“Is there nothing there we can use?” I asked.
“Sure. She was, and still is, on Kalliste. Her name there was Adrestia, right? So the numbers highlighted in yellow are obviously her… what—customers? Clients?”
It made sense. “You say you called some of them. What did you say to them?”
“I just told them I had a wrong number and apologized. They all sounded nice, the few that I called.”
I looked at Kate, eyebrows raised.
“You think we should call them?” she asked.
“Well, if they were indeed clients, maybe we could learn something.” I handed her the records.
She flipped through them. “Whew. There’s a hell of a lot of them. It will take at least a couple days to get through them all.” She sighed. “I’ll get someone at the office on it. Maybe we’ll get lucky. We’re looking for someone who might be willing to admit they make dates with lesbian hookers, and then talk to the police about it.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said.
“Good luck with that,” she murmured, then looked at me. I shook my head. She shrugged.
“All righty then. Let’s keep moving. Tim, what about Emily’s journal?”
“There are six really interesting pages at the back of the book,” he began. “The first four, as far as I can tell, contain nothing more than a list of… clients, I guess. Just initials and dates. There are sixty-three sets of initials. Each set has a number of dates in sequence, one after the other, spread out over a period of two years. Some have just a couple, some as many as eight or nine. There’s no way to know for sure what they mean, but I think it might be a list of her appointments. I haven’t done it yet, but we might be able to tie the dates to her phone records. If so, then we would have some specifics.”
“Kate?” I asked.
“Yes, I’ll handle it. I’ll need a copy, please, Tim.”
He nodded. “Sure thing. You can have mine. I have another.” He handed it to her.
“The last two pages, however,” he continued, “are different. They appear to contain a series of coded entries. At first glance, to the casual observer, what we have is very confusing. Here, take a look.”
He sorted through his pile again and finally pulled out several sheets of paper and handed one to each of us. On them were eight samples.
Hulndsdgjhw - NDIzNTU1OTMzNg==
Vkhlodzlofra - NDIzNTU1OTE2Mw==
Ukrqgdehqqhww - NDIzNTU1MjE3Ng==
Plfkhoohvfrww - NDIzNTU1Nzc3Mw==
Mhvvlfd - NDIzNTU1MTkyNA==
Odfbpfploodq - NDIzNTU1ODQ0MQ==
Dxwxpqohdi - NDIzNTU1MTEwMw==
Pduldqqhvlggrqv - NDIzNTU1Mzk4Mg==
“There are more, of course. Thirty-seven in all. I just listed these eight to give you an idea. They are also much more interesting than the rest, although I’m still working on them.”
No one was listening by then, though. They were still staring at the baffling series of upper- and lowercase letters.
“To you guys,” he said, puffing himself up, “they make no sense. To me, however….”
He caught the look I was giving him.
“They’re simple enough,” he said quickly. “The first string on each line is a simple Caesar or shifted-alphabet code. It took only a few minutes to figure them out. The second string I’m also quite familiar with. Each is phone number encoded using Base 64.”
“And you decoded them, right?” I asked impatiently. Slow down, Harry. Give the geek his five minutes of fame.
“Of course.”
“Damn it, Tim. Tell us.”
“She must have encoding software on her computer,” he said. “The catch is, all of the phones are burners, disposable, untraceable. The names are easy, just a Caesar code. With a little time you probably could have worked it out yourself. The alphabet is shifted by a factor of only three. In other words, a becomes d, b becomes e, and so on. It couldn’t be any simpler. If she didn’t use an encoder, she could easily have done it by hand. Anyone can. All you do is write the alphabet on two strips of paper. Line them up so the top strip’s a matches the bottom strip’s d—or another letter of your choosing—and then you can encode, or decode. Okay, okay. I don’t know any other way to say it. It’s what I do.”
I sighed, shook my head, and then nodded for him to continue.
“It’s a little different for the phone numbers. The codes were generated by Base 64 softwar
e on her computer.” He looked at me, then held up his hands. “Okay. I’m done.”
I looked at the list he’d given me.
The first name was Erika Padgett, 423-555-9336.
It was followed by Sheila Wilcox, Rhonda Bennett, Michelle Scott, and… Jessica, all complete with phone numbers. Now that is interesting. Why would Jessica have a burner? Hmmm.
I looked at Jacque. “Do you have your Jennifer phone with you?”
She dove into the bag she used to transport her entire life from one place to another and, after a little digging, came up with the phone and waved it at me. “Who would you like me to call this time?”
I handed her the list. “Try Erika Padgett first, and put it on speaker.”
She did. It rang four times. “The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”
I nodded. I wasn’t surprised. “Okay, let’s give Jessica a try.”
She tapped in the number; the phone at the other end began to ring. After the fourth ring: “The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”
Now that… is a puzzle.
I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven thirty; time to go.
“That’s it, folks. We need to get out of here. It’s time to go see Bob. Heather, Ronnie, Tim, you know what to do. Amanda, Kate—let’s go. Everyone, we’ll meet back here this afternoon.”
Chapter 21
We ate lunch at the Public House on Warehouse Row. It was a pretty day. None of us were very hungry after the ordeal at the hospital, but we also hadn’t eaten anything at all that day, and the coffee—I think I’d had six cups by then—was beginning to fry my brain. Finally, after some ten minutes playing with the menu, all three of us settled for clam chowder and a house salad and… more coffee. No, I had the coffee. The ladies both had iced tea.
“I need to go back to Channel 7,” Amanda said as we left the restaurant. “I need to talk to my producer. And, Harry, I’m not happy about this thing with Heather.” She looked at Kate, then at me. “I’m just not comfortable with it. Hell, I don’t even know her. Well, hardly.”
“Okay,” I said. “So tell me. When are you planning to go back to Belle Edmondson?” I saw Kate smile out of the corner of my eye.
“Who said I was going back up there?”
“You think I don’t know you after all this time?” I shook my head. “Well I do, and here’s how I think it’s going to go. You’ve decided to look into Rösche and his private army—”
She looked away.
“Aha. I knew it. I know just how you think, and it ain’t going to happen, Amanda. That son of a bitch is too much for you, even with Heather along. You can continue with your story about the college, but you leave Rösche to me and Kate.”
By now we were outside the restaurant and standing in front of my car. Amanda’s face was white.
“Just who the hell do you think you are, Harry Starke, to tell me how to do my job. I’ll do exactly as I please, and no one, not even you, will tell me different.”
I’d stepped over the line, and I knew it. I looked at Kate. She shrugged, turned, and walked away. I waited until she was out of earshot.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “That was unforgivable, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
I thought she was going to burst into tears, but she didn’t. She just nodded and said, “It’s okay. I know what you meant, and why, and I appreciate it. I really do.” She stood on tiptoe and touched her lips to mine. “Now, please take me to my car.”
“I will, but will you promise me you won’t go digging into Rösche’s affairs?”
She sighed, shook her head, looked me in the eye, and nodded.
“Say it,” I said.
“Okay…. I promise.”
“And you’ll work with Heather?”
“Oh for God’s sake, Harry. Yes, I’ll work with Heather.”
I couldn’t help it. I was so relieved, I grabbed her and gave her a bear hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Either get a room, you two, or let’s get back to work.” Kate gave us both a weird look as she opened the car door and got inside.
I drove back to my offices, where Amanda had parked her car.
“What are you doing this evening?” I asked her.
“Dinner with you, I hope. Can we go to the club?”
“Dinner is good, but the club? No. Jacque has a date, remember? And I need to be there. It will be too late when I get done. How about something quick and easy when I get home?”
“You are talking about food, right?” she asked with a sly smile.
“Get outta here. I’ll call you later.” And she left.
Kate and I walked into the outer office from the parking lot, and were met with what felt like a sea of anxious faces. I told them how Bob was, what little I knew, and then looked longingly at the Keurig….
Nah, better not.
“Tim, my office, now.”
He followed us in, laptop cradled in the crook of his arm.
“So, were you able to find out where Padgett was?” I asked as we took our seats.
“She left her home at 6:37,” he said, tapping at the keyboard. “From there, she went to the Integra Hills complex in Ooltewah. That’s where Victoria Mason-Jones lives, as you know. Padgett was there all evening. She left at eleven thirty and arrived home just before midnight.”
I looked at Kate. She shrugged.
“Okay, Tim. That’s all for now. Good work. Thanks.”
He closed the door behind him. I sat back in my chair and stared up at the chandelier. Kate said nothing.
“So Padgett was screwing Jones and Emily…” I mused. “Hmmm, I wonder.” I leaned forward and fired up my laptop. “Give me two seconds,” I told Kate. “I want to take another look at something,”
I opened up the Kalliste website and, starting with the first model, I began to browse. I had an idea of what I was looking for, and it didn’t take me long to find something. They were all there, unrecognizable unless you knew what you were looking for: Lacy was Calliope, Autumn was Nemesis, Marianne was Persephone, and then there was Cassandra and one I hadn’t expected, Hera.
“Oh yeah. Jackpot,” I said it so quietly I almost whispered. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
“What?”
I opened my desk drawer and grabbed the key ring.
“Here. Take a look at this.” I tossed it to her.
“Okay….” She looked up at me.
“It’s Jessica’s key to Emily’s room.”
“I know that. So?”
“Take a look at the fob,” I said.
“Why?”
“Just take a look.”
“Oh…. But who is it?”
“Look at the metal disc. Familiar? It should be. You’ve seen one like it before. In fact, you’ve seen several, on the Kalliste website. The little gold discs that you click on to get to the videos. It’s a twin to one of them.
“The model—this particular one—calls herself Cassandra. Cassandra is another of those damned Greek goddesses. I looked her up. She was the daughter of King Priam and a princess of Troy. Cassandra, so legend has it, had dark brown curly hair and brown eyes and was both beautiful and clever. That remind you of anyone?”
She shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”
“Okay. C’mere. Take a look.”
She got up from her seat and came around the desk, leaned over my shoulder, and looked.
“She looks… familiar, but….”
“It’s the hair. It’s a wig, I think, and the clothing. Here,” I said, shoving the mouse toward her.
She clicked through the half-dozen images of the model and then, finally, she clicked on the gold disc. The image on the screen dissolved. Cassandra was the quintessential Greek goddess. She was wearing a thigh-length white toga. It was trimmed in gold. She was stunning. She was also Jessica Henderson.
Kate looked up at me. “No way.”
“Oh yes way. How I missed it before, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the hair. It’s much longer here, and she has bangs that almost cover her eyes. But the voice gives it away.”
“Oh my God. Do you think….”
“That she killed Emily? Dunno. I knew there was something that first time we interviewed her. I thought maybe she was in love with Emily. This, I wasn’t expecting. Now. Hit the ‘Home’ button and find Hera.”
“Hera? Who the hell is she?”
“You’ll see. Go on. Click it. That one there.”
She was standing facing the camera, wearing a gold mid-thigh-length toga. Her feet were apart, in line with her shoulders. Her arms hung down and outward, placing her hands about twelve inches away from her hips. In her right hand, she held a short-sword; in her left, a dagger.
It took Kate a minute to recognize the queen of the gods, but when she did, she exploded.
“No friggin’ way. Are kidding me? Get outta here!” Her eyes were wide, her mouth open wide, and she was shaking her head. “Victoria friggin’ Mason-Jones?”
“Ain’t that a hoot? Queen of the gods, no less. I love it.”
“Well screw me stupid,” Kate whispered. “She has so much to lose. Why would she risk exposing herself on a dating website? Not even a dating website—an escort website.”
“Several reasons, needs being the most obvious. Money? I doubt it. But let’s suppose she runs, or even owns the site. She’d be in control, safe. At least she’d think so.”
“Could she be being coerced, do you think?”
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. My choice would be needs. The type of women that hire these girls have needs quite different from those of a man, and they’re usually much more understanding, more sympathetic in their attitudes toward the girls. Jones strikes me as a dominant personality. She also struck me as highly sexual.”
“Oh yeah. You’d know all about that.”
“Oh, come on. And don’t look at me like that. Yes, I’ve been around, and I know a cougar when I see one. It’s obvious that she’s just that, but with… special needs.”