by Gary Braver
Pendergast nodded. “It’s a nice classic club where you can order a wine and watch exotic dance artists.”
Exotic dance artists. He spoke of the Mermaid Lounge as if it were Cirque du Soleil. “How often would you say you patronize the Mermaid?”
“Not that often.”
“Once a week? Once a month?”
“Maybe two or three times a month. I’m not exactly a regular.”
“And when would you say was the last time you were there?”
“I don’t know exactly. A few weeks ago.”
Yes! Steve thought. “Well, we checked the club records. As you know there’s a lot of credit card fraud going around.” Steve laid the printouts on top of the photos. “Is this your signature?”
Pendergast had not expected that. “Yes, that’s my signature.”
“Uh-huh. Well, if you take a look the last entry for your Visa card shows that you were there on Thursday, May thirty-first, the last night she performed and two nights before she was killed.”
Alarm filled Pendergast’s eyes. “Well, I guess maybe I was.”
“Would you say that was the last time you saw her?”
“Yes. I left a few minutes after her show.”
“Were you alone?”
“Yes.”
“No buddies with you or a female companion?”
“No.”
“Can you tell us how well you knew her?”
“Not well at all. Just casual chitchat at the club. She was very friendly and talked to everybody.”
“Of course. I hear she took questions from the stage, and she was pretty funny.”
“Yes, she was very entertaining.”
While they spoke, Pendergast’s computer monitor automatically switched onto an image of an old painting of a woodland setting with a woman with wild and flaming red hair on a white horse and a knight walking beside her, holding her hand. A ripple passed through the image, assimilating motion. Another passed through Steve’s chest. “Nice screen saver. What’s the image?”
“Oh, it’s called La Belle Dame sans Merci, by Walter Crane, a nineteenth-century British painter.”
“‘Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci; Hath thee in thrall!”’”
“Wow, you know Keats. I’m impressed.”
“I minored in English.” Steve glanced back down at the photo of Terry Farina, her hair aflame and one leg wrapped around the pole. In a flash, he saw Dana.
“Did you ever see her after-hours, you know, go out for a drink or dinner?” Neil asked.
“I think the dancers aren’t allowed to socialize with patrons.”
“Yeah, sure, but you know what I mean. You see a babe who’s available, and no club rules are going to get in the way, right?”
“Well, actually, I think they can get fired if word gets back. I had no romantic relationship with her.”
Neil persisted. “But did you ever have contact with her outside of the club?”
Pendergast shot Steve a look. He probably suspected that they had talked to the other dancers. In a fit of blinking he said, “Look, I want to be perfectly honest with you gentlemen. I’m not going to lie. We went out to dinner once.”
Steve looked at the computer monitor, wondering how fast they could move to get a court warrant for the cyber guys to check the hard drive. Jesus, this is looking good. “Have you ever been to her home?”
“Her home?” Pendergast’s voice hit a nail. “I’m not even sure where she lived.”
Steve studied his face but could detect no betraying micro-expressions. “Jamaica Plain.”
“Oh, yeah.” Pendergast dropped his face to his watch.
“It’s a standard question, but I’m wondering if you can tell us where you were last Saturday between five P.M. and midnight.”
“Saturday? I was home.”
“Any way to verify that?”
“Are you saying I’m a suspect?” His features were stricken with fear.
Oh, yeah, Steve thought. “No, just a person of interest.”
“I have no way to verify it. I didn’t see or talk to anyone. But I’m telling you I was home wrapping up work before my trip.”
“About what time did you go to bed?”
“I don’t know, a little after nine I guess.” He checked his watch again. “I really have to go.”
Steve could have continued for hours, but they had no legal justification for watching Pendergast squirm. He nodded at Neil. “Well, I think that’s it for now. We’ll probably like to talk to you again. Thank you for your time. You said you’re taking a trip?”
“Yes, next week I’m going to a conference in Wales, then I’ll spend some time traveling.”
“How long?” Neil asked.
“A month.”
Neil nodded. “I’m wondering if we could have a DNA sample from you. It’s a standard request of all witnesses.”
That put Pendergast on guard. A refusal would make him appear all the more suspicious. He agreed, and Neil produced a swab and baggie and asked him to scrape the inside of his mouth. Then he slipped the bag into his briefcase and moved to the window. “Nice view.”
“It used to be until they put up that eyesore of a building. Once we could see the Boston skyline.”
Neil picked up a pair of field glasses from a shelf of books and focused out the window.
“There used to be beautiful marshes out there.”
“Oh, wow! It really pulls it in.”
Pendergast watched Neil. “They’re great for bird-watching.” He checked his watch. “I really have to go.”
“So do we,” Neil said, then he swung the glasses toward the building across the street. “What’s the building?”
“A student dorm.”
“Men’s dorm? Women’s dorm?”
“It’s coed.”
Neil turned the glasses toward the windows of the building. “They never had coed dorms when I went to school. Hell, I would have killed for that.”
26
“Bird-watching, my ass.”
Neil turned onto 93 South toward Boston. The interview with Pendergast had elevated him from his funk of the last few days.
“He probably sits in the dark up there and watches the coeds undress.”
“So,” said Steve, “you think he had something going on with her?”
“What do you think? The guy’s a cocksman plain and simple. A stack of student sex complaints plus a lewd and lash with a seventeen-year-old. The bastard can’t keep it in his pants is all. Plus he’s got a dozen behavioral indicators.”
Steve decided to play dumb. “Like what?”
“Like what? The guy’s a fucking mess of tics and blinks. He’s lying about his relationship with her. Plus you saw his office. It’s superorganized. The damn books on the shelves are arranged alphabetically.”
“So he’s neat.”
“Not neat. Obsessive. And obsessive people are psychopathic, disorganized people are psychotic. He’s the kind who plans, who’s careful, and cleans up after himself.”
“Except we’ve got nothing hard connecting him to her apartment.”
Obsessive. Kinda getting close to home, pal.
“Not yet. But he’s got a history of sexual offenses, which is a good start in my book.”
Steve nodded. “Asking a student out is not a sexual offense.”
“He got a year’s suspension, so somebody thinks so.”
“But schools are uptight about sexual harassment. Word gets out some professor’s screwing his students and parents think twice about sending their kids. Plus consensual sex among adults isn’t against the law.”
“Then what about the Clark thing and the lewd and lash at UNH?”
“Yeah, but a big leap to murder one.”
“It’s a good start. Besides, one of his own students called him a pervert.”
“Except someone might see a guy who likes attractive women and who wants them to like him. Plus he�
�s got no record of violence. Terry Farina was killed in a moment of rage, not horniness.”
Neil turned his face toward him, his black glasses filling his face. “The guy’s a slimeball who’s lied to us point-blank. We don’t know the kind of violence he’s capable of or what makes his dick tick. He could be another Ted Bundy is all.”
Steve could feel the heat of conviction radiating from Neil. But his own confidence was rapidly fading. “He didn’t lie. He just didn’t fess up until he was aware we had something on him.”
“You’re splitting hairs. If he had nothing to hide, why was he so nervous?”
“Maybe because two homicide cops show up asking about a murdered stripper.”
Neil looked over at him again. “What’s your problem, man? He stinks of guilt.”
What’s my problem? So do I.
“I don’t want to hang the guy because you don’t like him.”
“Yeah, I don’t like him, but every instinct in me says he’s our man. And if we don’t arrest him, he’ll be gone to England and wherever.”
“Which is why we put in an application for his computers.”
Neil nodded and tapped some text message notes into his PDA. “You ask me, he’s just another fucking low-life with a bunch of college degrees.”
“There you go, mincing words again.”
Neil let slip a smile as he continued text messaging notes for the computer warrant. “Remember I’ve got a sixteen-year-old daughter.”
“We won’t tell him.”
They drove in silence for a while as Steve stared out the window. In the distance the Boston skyline against the low gray clouds revealed a profile of glass slabs, needles, cubistic spires, a tower surmounted by a skeletalized dome, and redbrick town houses stacked up against Beacon Hill. Architecturally it was postmodern schizophrenia, but a cityscape he loved.
“So, what’s happening with you and Dana?”
“Nothing’s happening.”
“What about getting back together?”
“She wants to live alone for a while.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Me, too.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I think I need a makeover.”
It means she’s gearing up to meet other men.
“It means she wants to live alone.”
“That’s too bad. She’s a nice woman.”
Steve had introduced him to Dana shortly before their separation. They took Neil out to eat when he was partnered with Steve. “Yup.”
“When I first met you guys I was envious. You had yourself a nice beautiful woman,” Neil said. “I thought you guys had the jackpot marriage.”
“So did I.”
27
“You’re not going to believe this,” said Sergeant Vaughn, “but he wiped clean the hard drive of his home PC. No files, no links, no surfing history, no cookies, no e-mails—nothing. He downloaded some software and did a clean sweep.”
“What’s his explanation?” Steve asked.
“Said that he was donating it to a local school.”
“Yeah, right,” Hogan said.
“But,” Neil said, “his office machine is loaded.” Neil’s face looked like a polished McIntosh.
It was around eight that night, and a unit meeting had been called because the warrant request for Pendergast’s computers had come through. With the cooperation of campus security, the office machine had been confiscated and turned over to the lab. Dacey and two patrols had showed up at Pendergast’s home to collect his only personal computer. He did not contest the seizure. Later that afternoon and evening, Neil and Sergeant Vaughn reviewed what the cyber lab discovered on the hard drives and were tag teaming on their report.
“He regularly trolled the Internet for porn sites, strip clubs, and escort services,” Neil read from his notes. “Eye Candy Pleasures, Exotic Temptations, Love Express, and a lot of others specializing in finding sexual partners. He also visited sites that featured underage girls, which we can use to hold him.”
On the projection screen Neil had set up a PowerPoint display of site names and blogs from Pendergast’s home computer. The list sent a wave of relief through Steve. It didn’t fill Steve’s fifteen-hour blackout hole, but Pendergast was looking dirtier by the minute.
“Also interesting,” Neil continued, “he visited sites specializing in naked women with red hair.”
“Why’s that interesting?” asked Dacey.
“Seems to be his fetish. He actively blogged strip clubs in southern New England and reported where you could find real redheads. His blog name was Pale Prince.”
“Pale Prince?” Dacey said.
“It’s from a poem by John Keats,” Steve said. “He’s published scholarly articles on him.”
“You might be the only cop in existence who knows that,” Reardon said.
“There’s a claim to fame.”
The blogs were arranged from oldest to most recent, which was dated a few weeks ago. It was the confessional of a man who loved redheads with “porcelain” skin:
I’m searching for that perfect club where you can order a nice wine, kick back, and watch exotic dance artists get down to the buff to the accompaniment of a jazz ensemble.
The Happy Banana, in spite of its name, is kind of a classy club where the girls are fetching but not all Barbie clones. There’s a fair range of body types and skin tones. Many of the dancers have breast augmentations.
My criteria are simple: long legs, tight buns, and medium size breasts—no implants please. I’m turned off by augmentations. I also hate tattoos and piercings. I love natural redheads, if you know what I mean. The flaming thatch drives me WILD.
Give me the scullery maid with hair ablaze.
Neil highlighted a block of sentences with the cursor. “This one here was posted about a month ago.”
I FOUND HER: Xena Lee at the Mermaid Lounge. Long legs, bottom like peach halves, thin waist, gorgeous features, and flaming Julianne Moore hair. And if you can get your eyes off her body, she’s got a face to kill for.
What she does with a pair of stockings will make your eyeballs smoke.
Neil left the blogs on the screen. “I think these speak for themselves.”
The room was silent as the team stared at the screen. Yes, Steve thought as the words seeped into the core of his brain.
“And if you want a second smoking gun…,” Neil continued. On the screen appeared a list of various Web sites Pendergast had visited. “Four of these are extreme sex sites that discuss autoerotic asphyxia.”
“Nice going,” Dacey said. “The dots are connecting.”
“Yeah,” Neil said, “and it spells premeditation.”
Heads nodded. “Except why would he take the chance to download all this stuff on his office computer?” Dacey asked.
“Even though the school technically owns it, the contents are the intellectual property of the user. He’s protected by privacy expectations.”
“I can only imagine what was on his home PC,” Dacey said.
“Any theory on his motive?” Steve asked.
“Yeah,” Neil said. “He’s fucking obsessed.”
Steve nodded. “Except a prosecutor would say that obsession is not a motive nor a probable cause, especially without a history of violence.”
Neil glared at him, his face swelling red. “Give me a break, man.”
“I’m trying to.” You have no idea how much, Steve thought. “A prosecutor looks at this and sees Pendergast profiling as a guy who likes sexy redheads, not one who wants to kill them.”
“Maybe because he never got caught.”
“So what do you think his motive was?” Reardon asked Neil.
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t like how she turns him on.”
“The guy’s a strip-club junkie. Must be a hundred women who turn him on.”
“But she’s special, he confessed that on his blog. And they were friends. So he goes over with the in
tention of killing her because maybe she went too far with him, made him feel bad about himself. Maybe she rejected him another time. Maybe he’s impotent and she knew and made fun of him. Whatever, he has a fit and kills her with the same stocking that makes his eyeballs smoke. And being a sex freak, he knows about autoerotica and puts together the scene, wipes the place clean, and heads home.”
Reardon nodded and turned to Steve. “What do you think?”
I think it’s him or me. “I think Neil’s right about the guy’s obsession. But as much as I like to believe he’s it, I’m not sure we have enough to pull him in.”
“Well, I am,” Neil said.
Breaking the deadlock, Kevin Hogan said, “Speaking of redheads, we found an unopened bottle of L’Oreal Sunset Blaze number seventy-seven in her bathroom. Maybe she used it, or maybe she had it done professionally. But the M.E. says she’s not a natural.”
“So much for ‘the flaming thatch,’” Dacey said.
That got a snicker. “According to Mickey DeLuca who manages the Mermaid, she began to color her hair red about a month ago.”
“So what’s your take on where we should aim?” Reardon asked Steve.
“The Mermaid clientele. Some strip-joint groupies don’t have both oars in the water. Get a psycho who thinks the naked lady is dancing just for him, he becomes obsessed and begins stalking her. We look for guys with records of violence against women.”
“We’ve got him,” Neil said.
“Right,” Steve said, “but we also look elsewhere.”
“Then tell me what I’m missing here.”
What you’re missing, partner, is some hard evidence to flatten that friggin’ pea I’m riding. “What we’re missing is evidence that he’s a killer. All we have so far is a guy looking for some fantasy woman, preferably with red hair. It’s what he does instead of pursuing healthy relationships. The guy’s a Mister Lonely Heart in search of a mate he’ll never find, not a victim.”
“You been watching Dr. Phil or something?” Reardon asked.
“Sounds more like Dr. Ruth,” said Dacey. “I’m no expert profiler, but I have to agree with the lieutenant. He strikes me as a user who goes to women for sex.”
