by G. K. Parks
“Is that related to this?” Jablonsky asked.
“No, that’s my other case.”
“So why are you here?” He stared at the dark circles beneath my eyes. “What happened after you called me?”
“I finished what I was doing and returned to the office.”
“You didn’t go home?”
“This isn’t twenty questions.”
“So you worked all night and now you’re here.”
“You told me it’d be good for me to work. I’m working. What more do you want from me?”
He bit his tongue, but from the look on his face, I knew this was far from over. “You were right. The other two killing sprees I found don’t appear to be connected to whatever’s going on here. The DNA profiles aren’t a match. The method of killing is different. BSU and the PD believe we’re looking at three separate killers.”
“Great, as if one psycho isn’t bad enough.”
“Since the other two sprees came to an abrupt end, BSU believes those killers have gone dormant. Nothing has surfaced to indicate either is back in play. They might have been caught committing another crime, killed, or satisfied their cravings for now.”
“Different coast. Different country. Not our problem,” I said.
“You mean to tell me there’s something in this world that isn’t your problem? That you don’t have to fix everything?”
“Screw you.” When I got in these funks, Jablonsky liked to push. His entire goal in life was to make me push back, usually to emphasize some kind of point. But I was too tired and aggravated to deal with it today. “That’s different. What happened to you and Coop—,” his name caught in my throat, “Lucca,” I swallowed, “that’s on me.”
“The hell it is. We were all FBI agents at the time. We were all involved in making that arrest. You got shot in the leg for fuck’s sake. He wanted to kill you too. The only reason you weren’t the first one he attacked was because he couldn’t find you.”
“It’s because he was infatuated with me. He said he was saving me for last.”
Jablonsky scoffed. “That wasn’t infatuation. That was obsession. He got off on the killing and the torture. What he did to the rest of us tortured you. And you’re still letting him win because you won’t let it go. You won’t deal with it.”
I slammed my palm against the desk. “Shut up.” Several sets of eyes turned to look at me. Violence in a police station was generally frowned upon. “I came here to help O’Connell on his case. He asked me to consult. We can discuss that, but that’s it.”
“What about last night?”
“You told me if I ever needed you, you’d be there. Are you going to take that away from me too?”
The compassion in his eyes nearly broke me. Mark always knew where my breaking point was, so he backed down and slid into O’Connell’s chair. “Ritch Summers was brought in this morning as a person of interest after a known member of Priapus named him as a contact person for the underground club. Officers are searching his apartment and office as we speak. Since he admitted to you and O’Connell that he recruited Landau and was in the room where Landau was killed, the police have enough to hold him on suspicion of murder. But without hard evidence, he’ll be released.”
“What about convincing Ritch to give up the Priapus member list or the NDAs?”
“The PD’s still working on it. The judge doesn’t want to release Summers’s files. That would be an egregious violation of attorney-client privilege.”
“What about narrowing the scope to only Priapus members? NDAs can’t be enforced to conceal illegal activities or prevent witnesses from reporting a murder.”
“You’re trying to reverse engineer this. I don’t think it’ll fly.”
“It should. It stands to reason someone who signed an NDA with the sex club witnessed Landau’s final moments. They must have seen the murderer. Hell, one of them probably is the murderer.”
“The police have to prove it, and before Landau’s murder, they never even heard about the underground sex club. Priapus isn’t a business. It doesn’t charge fees, so no tax forms. It’ll be hard to prove the club is doing anything wrong when we can’t prove it does anything at all.”
“What about the things Summers admitted last night?”
“The state isn’t going to pursue adultery charges.”
“It’s a class B misdemeanor. It’s in the penal code.”
“When’s the last time someone was arrested for adultery? You’d need evidence besides participant testimony, and even then, the prosecutor’s office wouldn’t pursue it. It’s another one of those antiquated laws that needs to be repealed. Guaranteed, it was unfairly applied with a sexist slant, like in the days of Hawthorne. Didn’t you learn anything from high school English class?”
“Do you have a better idea? I’m grasping at straws.”
“O’Connell’s hoping to convince Summers to cooperate. He’s an officer of the court. An arrest, along with morally and ethically questionable behavior, could result in losing his license to practice law.”
“Assuming anyone on the review board cares.” But it was worth a shot. “What else?”
“What else is there?” Jablonsky scrolled down the page. “O’Connell and Thompson haven’t questioned Summers yet. They want him to sweat first. Based on the TODs, it’s unlikely Summers was present for the other three murders, which makes it unlikely he’s our killer.”
But I saw the flicker in Jablonsky’s eye. “You’re starting to buy into my theory the killer is female.”
“Only one DNA sample was found at all four scenes. It’s XX. It has to be female.”
“I told you that. Do we know how she got inside Landau’s hotel room?”
“Did you watch the hotel security footage?”
“Yes, but it didn’t help.”
Jablonsky ran his fingers over O’Connell’s keyboard. “Landau checked in before the party got started. He had room service brought to his room. It came on one of those fancy carts with the tablecloth.”
“You think she pulled a Lucy Ricardo?”
Jablonsky laughed. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“So what’s your point?”
“The cart was rolled into the room. O’Connell questioned the hotel staff. Room service didn’t recall seeing anyone inside the room with Landau. Sure, she could have been hiding in the bathroom, but it looks like he was still alone at that time. Summers and his date arrived ninety minutes later. So she had to have shown up somewhere during that window.”
“The other couple showed up first.”
“They didn’t have a third with them.”
“What did CSU find on the balcony?” I asked.
“Dirt, dust, and a few footprints. However, it’s inconclusive.”
“Dammit. What about fingerprints?”
“Three different sets on the balcony door handle. They’re too badly smudged to be used in a comparison. However, the prints found on the wine glass match prints found on the exterior railing.”
“So she could have gained entry from outside.” I just wasn’t sure how likely that was since they were a few floors up.
“Or she stepped out to get some air.” Jablonsky stared at the data. “Is Summers positive she was there when he arrived and remained after he left?”
“Yes. He said the event was for three couples. Six people. He and Buffy were two. The cowboy and his date made four. Landau hosted, so that leaves one woman. We don’t know if her DNA’s the one we found at the other three crime scenes, but since she went to great lengths to get in and out of the room without being detected, it makes the most sense that she’s our killer.”
“Are you sure Summers’s date isn’t the woman you’re looking for? He could have made up the rest to cover for her.”
“Buffy?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Summers had a thing for Landau. He would have noticed if his date didn’t participate in their group tryst. What is that? A ménage à cinq?”
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br /> “Glad to see your foreign language skills aren’t suffering.” Jablonsky clicked the mouse once he found the footage, and we watched it play on fast-forward. “Landau checked in alone. An hour later, couple number one shows up. Thirty minutes later, couple number two arrives.”
“That’s Summers and his date.” I searched the top of O’Connell’s desk for any intel on Buffy. “Has she been identified?”
“Not yet,” Jablonsky said.
O’Connell returned and placed a cup of coffee on the desk beside me. “The judge is reluctant to give us access to Summers’s phone. However, since Summers voluntarily showed us the app last night and told us its purpose, the paperwork’s processing on accessing it.” O’Connell leaned over Jablonsky’s shoulder to watch the footage again.
“Talk about splitting hairs.” I inhaled the scent of the burnt sludge the precinct brewed. It didn’t matter if it was mud mixed with battery acid; I’d still drink it.
“I’ll take whatever I can get,” O’Connell said.
Thompson snorted as he came around the desk and took a seat in his chair. “Have you told your wife that?”
O’Connell glanced at him. “She knows.”
Thompson snickered. “You’re whipped, dude.”
“That’s the key to a happy marriage.”
Jablonsky pointed to Thompson. “You should listen to your partner. He knows what he’s talking about.”
“Are there wedding bells in the air, Thompson?” The last I heard, he and Detective Sparrow had been taking some time apart. O’Connell didn’t think they’d last, but I’d been so consumed these last few months, I might have missed something important.
“Hell no.” Thompson eyed me. “I’ll take the plunge just as soon as you do, Parker.”
“Careful,” Jablonsky warned, “Alex has an engagement ring. On occasion, she even wears it.”
“Yeah, but not on her finger,” Thompson said, “so it doesn’t count.”
“I don’t know,” O’Connell added. “I’ve seen two rings on that chain.” He’d also been on enough double dates with Martin and me to know we had a private commitment ceremony, even if it wasn’t legally binding like a marriage. “You should be careful before you jump to any conclusions about this one.” O’Connell nudged me. “She might surprise you.”
No one told me it was pick on Parker day, but I didn’t feel like fighting. I stared at Jablonsky, waiting to see if he would add more fuel to the fire or get us back on track. Luckily, he read my expression.
Meeting my eyes, he nodded. “Back to the matter at hand, we still don’t know how the unknown woman got inside the room.”
“What about after the fact?” Thompson said. “How’d she get out undetected?”
“Summers puts her in the room before Landau was killed,” O’Connell said, “and said she was still there when he left.”
“He could be lying,” Thompson said.
I studied the photos taken of the hotel suite and the balcony. “Since she didn’t enter through the front door, this is the only way she could have gotten inside. Jablonsky said you checked for prints. Did you find any on the balcony door?”
“Inside, not outside,” O’Connell said.
“She could have wiped them.”
“Landau’s suite was on the fourth floor. How did she get up there? And wouldn’t the door have been locked?” Thompson asked.
“I don’t know.” I examined the photos again. “The balconies connect from room to room with just the railing separating them. She could have climbed over. That might explain the prints on the rail.”
“Let’s get a list of guests who stayed on that floor. Parker might be on to something.” O’Connell picked up the phone and made the request before phoning the techs and asking them to rewatch the hotel’s security footage for the entire weekend and compare it to the mockups the sketch artist had made based on the descriptions Summers had given us.
“Wouldn’t Landau have questioned his date’s odd entry into the room?” Jablonsky asked.
“It’s a secret sex club. She might have said she wanted to take extra precautions to keep her identity a secret,” I suggested. “For all we know, she could be a politician or something.”
“Great, now we’re looking for a high-profile serial killer. This just gets better and better,” Thompson mumbled.
“That could be how the scopolamine fits into this,” O’Connell said. “Her strange entry might have required a little bit of forgetful compliance.”
“How’d she get it in his system?” I asked. “It wasn’t in his nasal passages.”
“The autopsy revealed trace amounts in his stomach contents, so it was ingested. Maybe she knocked on the door, said she locked herself out of the room, slipped it into his drink, and stayed for the festivities,” O’Connell said. “Maybe it was supposed to be a party of five, not six. That would explain why he didn’t object when she didn’t have sex with him.”
“With four other people actively involved, I’m not sure he’d even notice,” Jablonsky said.
“I thought you didn’t find scopolamine in any of the wine glasses.” No matter how I thought about it, the facts just didn’t make much sense.
“It wasn’t, but if she came from another room, she could have dosed one of the mini liquor bottles and offered it to him as thanks for allowing her into his room,” O’Connell said. “Or she brought drinks or snacks with her which were already dosed.”
“And took the empty bottle with her when she left?” Jablonsky looked skeptical.
O’Connell shrugged. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I would if I could make heads or tails out of this.” Jablonsky slid the folder toward O’Connell. “The evidence might be right here, but with this mess, who knows.”
Thompson pushed away from his desk. “Give me the case numbers, Nick.”
O’Connell rattled them off while Thompson scribbled them down on a notepad. “What are you going to do?”
“Find out why we haven’t made more progress.” Thompson tore off the sheet of paper. “I’ll be back in a sec.” He pointed at me. “Don’t steal my chair.”
Nineteen
“We found Madam X’s DNA at the other scenes but not on any of the other victims or on any discarded rubbers. She might have gotten sloppy this time, or this is the first time anyone struck her fancy. As far as we can tell, this is the first sex party where she actually had sex, just not with the vic.” Thompson dissected the file on his desk. “The DNA evidence places her at every scene. She was there when all four murders were committed. Her DNA’s always been found on the rim of a wine glass. Nowhere else, except on that one used condom.”
“And we don’t have an ID for her sex partner.” I read the details. His DNA wasn’t in the system either. But unlike Madam X, the evidence didn’t place him at the other three crime scenes.
“Madam X? That’s what we’re calling her now?” O’Connell asked.
Thompson shrugged. “That’s what forensics named her.”
“What kind of wine is it?” I asked.
Thompson looked up. “Does it matter?”
“At this point, everything does,” Jablonsky said.
Thompson ran his finger along the file as he read. “Different wines. Always white. No rhyme or reason for them, I don’t think. Chardonnay, Reisling, Pinot, and Spumante.” Thompson handed me the room service charges from Landau’s room. He’d ordered the Spumante, along with a few other bottles of wine and spirits. That’s what room service had delivered. “Maybe she thought the alcohol content would eradicate the DNA evidence.”
“Or she drank to get up the nerve to inject these men with poison,” O’Connell said.
“She’s like a black widow.” I tried to think of a motive, but I didn’t know enough about the victims or the killer.
“Wouldn’t that require her to be married to them?” Thompson asked.
“No,” O’Connell said, “but it would require her to have sex with them, and
nothing indicates that ever happened.”
“At least not at the crime scenes,” I said, “but they might have had a history. Are we looking into that?”
“We’re searching for any commonality we can find among the victims,” Thompson said. “So far, we have nothing.”
“Except Priapus,” I said.
“Assuming that pans out. The first scene makes me think it might not,” O’Connell said.
“So we got nothing,” Thompson muttered.
“Not nothing. Our killer’s a white wine drinker who likes to use plant-based poisons. Let’s start canvassing the suburbs and bring in every bored housewife with a garden.” Jablonsky’s phone buzzed, and he checked his message. “I have to get going. Think you can manage without me?”
“It’s not like you were that helpful, anyway,” Thompson teased, earning himself a searing look. “Lighten up. I’m just kidding.”
Jablonsky gave me a look. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yep.”
“Call if you’re not.” He picked up his coat and nodded to the detectives. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Watch your back out there,” O’Connell said.
“I’ll do my best.” Jablonsky headed for the double doors, stopping momentarily to talk to Lt. Moretti. The lieutenant followed him out of the bullpen and down the stairs. They’d been friends for a long time, but something told me the conversation wasn’t about Jablonsky’s recovery or O’Connell’s case. Then again, I might have been paranoid. Not everything was about me. But when Moretti returned and asked to have a word in private, I was pretty sure that conversation had been about me.
“If I’m not out in ten minutes, one of you better interrupt with an urgent matter,” I whispered to O’Connell and Thompson.
