Strip search sp-2

by William Bernhardt

  Well, I could sit around feeling sorry for myself, or I could make damn sure the man in the interrogation room paid the price for what he had done. Which meant I had to understand what he had done and why he'd done it.

  I made my way downstairs to the interrogation chamber. I hadn't been invited. But when had I ever let that stop me?

  I don't go in for "turf wars." As far as I'm concerned, that's something that was invented by people who learned about police work from old episodes of Baretta. If someone else wants to do my work, fine, just don't screw it up. So there was nothing stereotypical about my major mad-on when I found out Granger was the lead interrogator working over the killer. I just knew he'd screw it up.

  "Why would you turn him over to that nincompoop instead of me?" I asked the chief, trying not to sound strident. I really hate being strident. It's so predictable. "I'm the one who caught him."

  "And about got yourself killed in the process," O'Bannon grunted. "Last I heard, you were in the hospital getting your ribs bandaged."

  "Last I heard, the doctors were doing some serious work on him, too. So what? Let me in there."

  O'Bannon shook his head. "You're too close."

  "Why? Because he tried to turn me into a slab of ground round?"

  "Because Amelia was your friend."

  "Amelia was everybody here's friend."

  "Not like that."

  "Look, I'm a professional. I can separate-"

  "And as far as I'm concerned," O'Bannon said, cutting me off, "you should be under suspension for disobeying my direct orders."

  "What?"

  "I told you to leave Darcy out of it. More than once."

  "You said I could use him for the math stuff. That's all I was doing."

  "Don't kid a kidder. The only reason he wasn't down in the crime lab getting the shit beat out of him is that his shoulders are too broad to fit through that damn little window."

  "If it hadn't been for Darcy, I wouldn't have been able to figure out that Amelia was the next target." Amelia. My God, I almost choked when I said the word. Amelia had died, damn it. Died. Because I didn't get there in time. "And I wouldn't have caught the killer."

  "Nonetheless, you disobeyed a direct order. I don't want Darcy to have anything to do with this mess."

  "W-W-W-Wellll…m-maybe I do."

  We both whirled around to find Darcy standing in the doorway. How long had he been listening?

  O'Bannon's shoulders sagged wearily. "Darcy, this is a private conference. You should wait outside."

  "Are you talking about me?"

  "Well…"

  "T-T-Then I will stay."

  O'Bannon took a step forward. "Darcy…we're working on a case."

  "T-T-Then I sh-should stay. I am also working on this case."

  "You shouldn't be. Susan was out of line."

  "Susan did not do anything. I worked on this case because I wanted to work on this case. I got into a crime scene using your badge."

  I've seen O'Bannon go through a wide variety of emotions in my time, but this was the first time I'd ever seen him do "stunned." "What?"

  "I-I-I-I want to do police work. I am good at it."

  "Darcy, we all have things we want to do. Hell, I wanted to be a pro baseball player. What I didn't have was the ability."

  "I can do police stuff."

  "Darcy, you have to be realistic about your…disability."

  "I-I-I do not have a d-d-d-disability! I can do this. I saw stuff that none of you saw!"

  O'Bannon sighed. "Darcy…go home. We'll talk about this later."

  "No!" I'd never heard Darcy raise his voice in my entire life-I wasn't sure he was capable of it. Until then. He turned on his heel and stomped away.

  "You see what you've done?" O'Bannon bellowed at me. "This is your fault."

  "Is it? I'm on his side. I think he'd make a hell of a cop."

  "How could he be a cop when he can't even carry on a normal conversation, huh? Answer me that?"

  "Who cares about conversation? Any idiot can do that. Granger can do that. But I don't know anyone who can do the things Darcy can do."

  O'Bannon pressed his hand against his forehead. "Would you please just…drop this?"

  "Fine. But I want in on the interrogation."

  "It's Granger's."

  "Uh-huh. And in three days, has he managed to get a damn thing out of the man?"

  "Thanks to you, 'the man' is barely out of the hospital himself."

  "But has Granger gotten anything?"

  O'Bannon shook his head. I could tell he didn't want to give in, but he didn't have the strength to argue with me anymore. Somehow, the confrontation with Darcy had drained him in a way that I'd never managed to do. "Come on."

  They had Tucker in the largest and most high-tech interrogation room; everything he did or said was being recorded on both audio-and videotape. We could stand behind the mirror and watch everything without Tucker knowing. Although after so many years of cop shows, you had to wonder if every suspect didn't assume there was someone watching behind what appeared to be a mirror.

  The gods were with me. We arrived at just the right moment to catch Granger in full bellow. "That was how you got your jollies, wasn't it? Killing innocent people? You couldn't make it with a real girl. Maybe you don't even like girls!"

  I felt it was safe to assume Granger was playing the bad cop. Despite his wild gesticulation, his endless ranting and raving, Tucker sat motionless, staring upward, not saying a word, not betraying the least emotion.

  "That's why you had to kill all those people, isn't it? Kill them and cut them into pieces. Was that the only way you could get it up? I bet it was. Because you couldn't face up to the fact that you like boys more than you like girls. Because you're just a goddamned flaming faggot!"

  Just watching this pathetic display made my stomach hurt. Fortunately, the sour expression on O'Bannon's face suggested that he wasn't enjoying it any more than I was. "Please," I said simply. "I beg you."

  "Give him another minute."

  "For what? That idiot couldn't get Edward the Confessor to confess."

  "He won't talk to you, either."

  "You don't know that."

  "Susan-you cut off the man's fingers!"

  "Well, the surgeons sewed them back on, didn't they?"

  "They tried. We don't know if it's going to take or not."

  "He slung me halfway across the room three times. He might be feeling remorse."

  "Yeah. His history does indicate that he's a sensitive soul."

  "C'mon. I can't do any worse than Granger."

  "All right," he said, blowing air through his teeth. "But I'm not pulling Granger out."

  "I can deal with that."

  I turned the doorknob and stepped inside. Granger was still ranting. "Maybe your mommy liked to make you wear little dresses, is that what it was? And maybe you liked it. Maybe you still like it. Maybe I should go get a dress for you right now, huh?" He leaned into Tucker's face. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  I tapped Granger on the shoulder. "Take five, boss man."

  He straightened. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

  "O'Bannon sent me in. Thought you could use a break."

  "Are you kidding?" Now he was ranting at me. "I was just starting to get somewhere."

  "No, you weren't."

  "You presumptuous-You think just because you're a shrink you're the only person on earth who can ask a question?"

  "Obviously not. You've been asking questions for three days. You just aren't asking the right ones."

  Tucker watched us as he might a tennis match, head moving left, then right, never changing expression, never saying a word.

  "I know what I'm doing. Get the hell out of here."

  "No."

  "That's an order, Pulaski. Leave!"

  "You don't get to give me orders anymore, remember? And you don't know anything about the man you're interrogating."

  "I know he hates sex." He t
urned back to Tucker. "That's why you hate porn and people who like porn, isn't it? Because those are all things you can't do. That's a world you'll never know because you're such a flaming faggot!"

  "How old were you when he came to town?" I asked quietly.

  Both men looked at me, neither sure to whom I was speaking.

  "I'm guessing fourteen, maybe fifteen. Am I right, Granger?"

  He stared at me with a total lack of comprehension. "I don't know what you're babbling about."

  "The new boy. The one you liked."

  "What?"

  "You were young, confused. You didn't know the way the world worked. You just knew that you…liked this new boy. You thought he was pretty."

  "What the hell? Who do you think you're interrogating?"

  "You had strange feelings you didn't understand. You wanted so much to tell him about it. But you couldn't."

  "You're…so nuts-"

  That's when I glimpsed it. "No. You did tell him. You did tell him and it went badly. What happened? Did he laugh at you? Did he call you a flaming faggot? Is that why the phrase is so burned into your brain?"

  "Spare me the pop psychology crap."

  "He probably told the whole school. That's why you had to move to Vegas, isn't it? But moving wasn't enough. You never forgot that boy. Even after you signed up for the toughest, most manly profession you could imagine. You never forgot that boy."

  "Pulaski, you are full of shit!"

  "Until you met David."

  He stopped and stared, gaping at me.

  "My husband. Your partner. Small wonder you've never forgiven me for his death. You loved him."

  "You don't know what you're talking about!"

  "Just keep telling yourself that. We both know better."

  He looked as if he were about to pounce. "You-This is-I'm reporting this to O'Bannon!"

  "Cool. I'll interrogate the suspect."

  Granger flew out of the room in a palpable rage, his face red and sweaty.

  I smiled at Tucker. "I thought he'd never leave." I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him at the small table. We stared at each other for a good long time. I wasn't sure how to begin and didn't see any urgency to find out. He'd been sitting there for hours without speaking. I could take a minute to plan my approach.

  As it turned out, it didn't take as long as I thought it might. Maybe five excruciating minutes passed before Tucker spoke. "You're a smart lady."

  Far be it from me to disagree. "Is that good?"

  He shrugged.

  "Do you like smart ladies?"

  He looked me straight in the eyes. "Yeah." He shifted his weight. I realized he was so short his feet didn't touch the ground when he sat back in his chair. "Sorry I hurt ya."

  "Are you?"

  Still looking at me. "Yeah."

  I nodded. "I'm sorry about the fingers."

  Another shrug. Another dead silence. I figured this time it was my turn.

  "Why did you hate your father?"

  "I never said I did."

  "You didn't have to."

  He looked down at his lap. "I don't wanna talk about him."

  But, by implication, he did wanna talk about something. I just had to figure out what it was. "How many times have you wished you were dead?" I asked.

  No response. Tiny twitch under his left eye. I was close, but not quite there.

  I grabbed his left wrist and pulled it across the table. "How many times have you tried to kill yourself?"

  He pulled his arm back before I could get a good look. "None. What about you? That's a pretty good scar on your left wrist."

  Damn me and my monkey arms. They never make the sleeves long enough. "Skiing accident."

  "Right."

  "It's none of your business."

  "Yeah? Why is it you get to ask me all these questions if I can't even ask you one?"

  "Because I haven't murdered anybody."

  Good answer-if I wanted him to clam up. Because that's what happened. And I was stuck trying to reboot the conversation one more time.

  "Is it your body you despise? Or your brain?"

  No answer. He wasn't biting.

  "I know you're not gay."

  "That's swell."

  "But I don't understand why you killed all those people. I don't get the pattern. The mutilations. What's it all about?"

  To my very great surprise, he answered. "The Kabbalah."

  "The what?"

  "It's a Jewish mystical…thing. Real old."

  I squinted. He took his instructions from an ancient religious text? He could barely explain to me what it was. "Are you good at math, Tucker?"

  "Pitiful."

  "Algebra?"

  "Never saw the point."

  If he was lying, he was the best damn liar I'd encountered in my entire life. Plus, I'd seen his school records, up to the tenth grade, when he dropped out. They didn't indicate any great proficiency at math. Or anything else. For reasons I couldn't even explain yet, I felt a cold chill grip the base of my spine. "Then why leave all those equations behind?"

  "Because I was supposed to."

  "The Kabbalah told you to do this?"

  "No."

  "You wanted me to catch you? So the killings would stop?"

  "No." And then he laughed. It was short and unenthusiastic, but it was still the most harrowing thing I'd heard come out of his mouth yet. What was going on here? Five minutes with a creep and I should be able to zero in on him. But the magic wasn't working.

  "As you might've heard, Granger thinks you enjoyed killing all those people. Did you?"

  "No," he said succinctly-and I believed him.

  "Then-why?"

  "The Kabbalah."

  That again. "This Jewish thingie said you had to kill people in the NDHS database?"

  He didn't answer, but he didn't argue, either.

  "Are you even Jewish? You don't look it."

  "Hell, no."

  "Then-" No, stop. Think of a better approach. "So you killed those people…because it gave you one more thing to despise about yourself."

  "I told you-"

  "Don't give me this Kabbalah crap. That's an excuse, not a reason. You did it because you hate yourself. You're counting on the state to put you out of your misery."

  "No."

  "I can help you, Tucker. I can even help you like yourself."

  "I doubt that."

  "Look, if I can make myself like myself, I can do the same for you." A supposition based on a false premise, but never mind that. "But only if you let me." I paused. "Tell me why you killed these people."

  "I didn't want to do it."

  "I know. But you did. Why?"

  "I told you already."

  "You told me nothing!"

  Tucker smiled, and then, to my horror, he began to sing, softly, as if I weren't even in the room, as if it were his way of blocking me out. "Round and round the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel; The monkey thought twas all in fun-"

  "Tucker-"

  "Pop! Goes the weasel."

  I almost jumped out of my chair when he shouted the "Pop!" He was really starting to creep me out. "Listen to me, Tucker. You killed five people. Five. You chose them in a weird way. You did sick things to their bodies. You hauled their corpses to distant locations. You only killed on prime number days and you chose your victims according to a formula I'm not sure you even understand. I don't believe you got all this out of some musty Hebrew text! So why the hell did you do it?"

  He stared at me for the longest time. Finally, he must've decided it didn't matter. What could I do about it? "Because she told me to."

  I felt as if he'd socked me in the gut, except somehow, this hurt worse than the numerous times when he did just that. "She? Who's she?"

  "I won't tell you. I'll never tell you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it isn't finished yet."

  My hands were shaking. I wished to God I could tell myself he was lying, that he wa
s trying to absolve himself by inventing a co-conspirator. But in my heart, I knew better. It was all starting to make sense, all the contradictions, all the inconsistencies…"What isn't finished?"

  "The plan. The deconstruction of the Sefirot."

  "And what the hell is that?"

  He wouldn't say.

  "Does it involve more killing?"

  "Yeah."

  "But-But-how can she kill more people when her ace thug is in lockup?"

  "I dunno. She'll find a way."

  "I'd like to know what that way is."

  "You won't have to wonder long."

  I leaned across the table. "Why? Why do you say that?"

  He smiled, as if perfectly at ease, content with himself and his role in the universe. "Twenty-nine is a prime number."

  Esther finished packing her bags, drove downtown, abandoned her car, then walked to the dingy motel room she had carefully reserved under an assumed name. She had no illusions about what was going to happen next.

  It was only a matter of time before Tucker was caught. She'd known that from the first. If anything, he'd lasted longer than she'd expected. She'd known this time would come, so she'd prepared accordingly-made sure she could leave on a moment's notice. Not that he was likely to rat her out. The doofus was far too head over heels in love, or perhaps lust, for that. But you can never be too careful. So she'd arranged a false ID well in advance and bought another car under a fake name. From now on she would operate under enough of a disguise that no one could identify or recognize her.

  Had she been wrong to drag Tucker into her personal quest? What had to be done had to be done. She was pregnant-very pregnant, now, and her strength was failing. She couldn't go on pretending she wasn't ill. Every day she felt a little weaker. She needed to conserve her energy. So it was only logical to…outsource as much of the ceremonial proceedings as possible. Tucker was important. But if she had to finish-so be it. She'd manage.

  Poor sweet moronic Tucker. Statistically speaking, there was a perfect match somewhere in the world for everyone on earth. Except maybe Tucker. It was almost endearing-in a pathetic sort of way-how he had clamped on to her and held tight and forced himself to do anything she said, anything she wanted. Just to keep the sex coming? Not really. Just so she would stroke his hair and tell him he'd been a good boy. That was all he wanted. A lover, yes, but a parent most of all.