At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Professor Verraday?”

  “That’s me.”

  She held out her badge. “I’m Detective Constance Maclean, Seattle Police Department.”

  Verraday immediately bristled. This was worse than if she had been a flunkey from the dean’s office. Much worse.

  “If you’re here to try to talk me into dropping the lawsuit, you can forget it,” he said.

  “I’m not here to talk you out of anything, Professor.”

  “And if the Seattle Police Department thinks that they can send someone to my place of employment to hang around the halls in front of my students and try to intimidate me, I can assure you and your bosses that is not going to work.”

  “That is not my intention. I—”

  “Good,” snapped Verraday, cutting her off, “because I don’t appreciate being pepper-sprayed, then having some two-hundred-pound lunkhead throw me facedown onto a sidewalk, crack my ribs, and then wrongfully detain me.”

  Six months earlier, Verraday had been working on a research project about the psychology of crowd behavior. He had been legally video recording an Occupy Seattle demonstration when a riot cop by the name of Bosko had blindsided him. Bosko had tackled him from behind, knocking Verraday to the pavement, then handcuffing and arresting him. The refusal by the city or the police department to offer any sort of explanation or apology had prompted Verraday to file a suit to get their attention.

  Before she could speak, he continued indignantly. “Know what? Maybe I should just call my lawyer right now.” He reached into the lower right-hand pocket of his blazer for his cell phone. It wasn’t there. Then he checked his left pocket. It wasn’t there either, and he was annoyed to realize he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

  Flustered, he noticed that she seemed to be suppressing a smile.

  “Look,” she said, “I know about the Occupy thing, and I can see that you’re very upset about it. But I didn’t come to get you to drop any lawsuit.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I need your help.”

  “You need my help?” he asked incredulously. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  Maclean glanced out into the hall and noticed a few students lounging on benches nearby.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

  “My office. The department secretary will be just outside the door. But don’t worry—she won’t hear anything we say . . . unless I call for help, which she’ll be able to hear just fine.”

  CHAPTER 2

  His office was small and crowded, just the way Maclean imagined a professor’s office would be. It smelled like books. He gestured to a visitor’s chair facing his desk.

  “Have a seat.”

  He squeezed past the desk, brushing up against the books and papers that were bursting out of the shelves, and sat down in what she observed was an old-fashioned oak office chair with a padded leather seat and backrest. She also noticed that on the shelf next to him was a brass Buddha. Not a fat, smiling, happy Buddha, but rather one of the serious, spiritual-looking versions, a serene expression on his face, right hand raised to chest level with the thumb and index finger touching to form a circle. People who kept statues of the Buddha near to them, in her experience, fell into one of two categories: those who were so full of loving kindness that they just had to share it with everyone and those who needed to be reminded to exercise loving kindness instead of taking a swing at somebody. She was beginning to get a strong sense of which category Verraday fit into.

  He noticed her looking at the statue.

  “A gift from my sister. She thinks I need it.”

  “And do you?”

  Verraday smiled faintly. “Probably. So what can I help you with?”

  “Can we talk in confidence? Nothing I say can leave this room.”

  He hesitated. “Fine, but if anything comes up that’s related in any way to my case, then we have to stop immediately.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Maclean, leaning forward.

  “Two days ago, a young woman’s body was found in a cranberry bog down in Buckley.”

  “I heard about it on the news. A Jane Doe.”

  “We’ve ID’d her now. Her name is Rachel Friesen, and she lived in Seattle. We’re treating it as a homicide, and I’ve been assigned as lead investigator. She was beaten and strangled. The MO is extremely similar to another homicide that happened in Seattle six months ago. The Alana Carmichael case.”

  “I thought you had a suspect in custody for that?”

  “The department has a suspect in custody.”

  “But?”

  “But I don’t think he did it. The lead investigator on that case is a guy named Bob Fowler. I believe you’re familiar with him.”

  “I know who he is,” said Verraday. “Some of the Somali refugees I worked with a few years ago said that he planted dope on them when he was on the drug squad, told them he’d get them deported if they didn’t give him information about criminals higher up the food chain. I saw his name in the papers after he was charged with corruption.”

  “That’s him,” responded Maclean. “There were four of them named in that case: Fowler, Garson, Babitch, and Perreira. Fowler was the ringleader. The charges against them were conspiracy, assault, extortion, and theft. These drug dealers claimed that Fowler and the other three entered their homes without warrants, beat them up even though they didn’t put up any resistance, and then stole their dope, jewelry, and cash. A week before trial, the key witness was found floating by Harbor Island with a couple of nasty exit wounds in the back of his head. Some of the surviving dealers suddenly retracted their statements. The trial went ahead without the key witness, and in the end, Fowler and most of the others were acquitted. Only the junior officer, Perreira, was convicted on a reduced charge and got forty-five days’ house arrest. Guess the jury was just glad to hear some drug dealers got slapped around.”

  “Right,” said Verraday, “even if the guys doing the slapping were getting freebie blow out of it and pocketing some cash and jewelry.”

  “After it was over, Fowler was transferred to homicide,” continued Maclean.

  Verraday frowned. “I guess they figured he couldn’t get into too much trouble dealing with people who were already dead.”

  “Unfortunately, I think they were wrong,” replied Maclean. “Fowler is building a case against the wrong guy in the Carmichael murder. I can’t tell if he actually thinks he’s got the right suspect in custody and doesn’t have the evidence to prove it yet or if he’s just too stubborn or afraid to admit that he screwed up.”

  “From what I’ve heard about Fowler,” replied Verraday, “he’s dumb enough and crooked enough for it to be either scenario. But how do I fit into all this?”

  “Professor, if I’m right about the similarities between the victims and the way in which they were murdered, that means we’re looking at a serial killer. I need your help profiling him if we’re going to have any chance of catching him before he kills again.”

  Verraday sat back for a moment.

  “Detective Maclean, I don’t like the idea of a serial killer wandering around the streets any more than you do. But I don’t see how I can work with the Seattle PD when I have an outstanding lawsuit against the department and one of its officers.”

  “You wouldn’t be working with me or the department in any official capacity,” replied Maclean. She paused. “In fact, it would be very important that they never even know you’re involved.”

  “Okay, this is getting weird.”

  “The department would never authorize it because of your lawsuit. They’re just as pissed at you as you are at them.”

  “Well, the difference is, I have a legitimate grievance. They don’t. I’m the injured party here, not them. They can go screw themselves.”

  “Listen, I understand your anger about the arrest . . . and I’m aware of what happ
ened with your mother and your sister. When you were a kid, I mean.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “It’s in your file.”

  A flicker of anger flashed across Verraday’s face, and Maclean worried that she was about to lose any chance she ever had with him.

  “Look, I don’t want to compromise your case,” she said quickly. “I will do everything humanly possible to make sure that doesn’t happen. But you have the sort of expertise we need.”

  “I’m not following, Detective Maclean. Surely the Seattle PD has its own experts on staff. Why enlist an academic with a grudge?”

  “That’s exactly the point. Since Fowler beat that rap, he’s a hero to a lot of the rank and file, especially the ones who think we’re letting bad guys walk by having to cross all those t’s and dot the i’s. And the ones who don’t love Fowler are scared of him now. They think he’s untouchable. So I don’t know who I can trust in the department on this one. Maybe nobody.”

  “If they find out that you’ve gone outside the system, they’ll crucify you.”

  “They won’t crucify me as long as I deliver the real killer. And an airtight case. That’s all they want. That’s all I want.”

  “I get that. My problem is that I don’t have any way of knowing that for sure.”

  “That’s true. Except for what your training and your gut tell you.”

  “Right now, Detective, my training and my gut are telling me that you seem like a decent person. But I’m wrestling an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in a phone booth. And from past experience, I know that gorilla will do whatever it takes to beat me to a pulp. So with all due respect, I’ll have to decline.”

  Maclean pursed her lips, considering what to say. She drew in a breath and was about to speak, then changed her mind. After a long moment, she simply said, “I understand. Thanks anyway.” Maclean stood up, taking a manila envelope from her briefcase and slipping an eight-by-ten glossy onto Verraday’s desk.

  “Just FYI, this is Rachel Friesen. Or it was.”

  Verraday looked at the police photographer’s head-and-shoulders photo of Rachel Friesen, taken while she was still floating in the bog. Her eyes stared up lifelessly into his. They were red, the capillaries exploded from what he knew, even from a quick glance, had been strangulation executed with savage force. Fragments of leaves and tiny dirt clots clung to her skin. He noted that there was still a hint of baby fat on her high cheekbones. She was barely out of her teens, he guessed. He examined the dark-brown ligature marks on her neck where the killer had choked her. He also noticed that a corner of her upper left incisor was missing and that what appeared to be a rosary had been shoved into her mouth. If the incisor had been chipped by the force of the necklace being slammed into her teeth, thought Verraday, it had to have been done by someone in a frenzy.

  He said nothing.

  Maclean set her business card down beside the photograph. “If you change your mind, this is where you can reach me.”

  * * *

  After she had gone, Verraday did an online search for Maclean. He found a picture of her and two of her colleagues in full dress uniform at a Seattle Police Foundation ceremony, receiving something called the Impact Award. He read the official blurb, which stated that it was given out to recognize “a team or unit that, through their collaborative and innovative working style, has had a significant impact on a crime or crime-related problem.”

  The award had been bestowed on them for their efforts in crisis intervention—official-speak for talking suicidal people down off bridges and ledges. The article also mentioned that Maclean volunteered her time to work with youth at risk as well as with an organization called IslandWood, which was dedicated to connecting urban dwellers with the natural environment.

  He looked more closely at Maclean’s business card and noticed now that she had an “MSW” after her name for a master’s degree in social work. So she’s a saint, he thought. Snatching the suicidal from the jaws of death and taking underprivileged children off the streets and on canoe trips, keeping them safe from both pimps and grizzlies while exploring the forests and streams so they would love nature and not want to strip-mine it, clear-cut it, or turn it into condos when they grew up. What the hell is she doing working as a cop?

  Verraday felt guilty about declining the case for a moment, but a saint could get you in just as much trouble as a sinner could. Maybe more. And cops had never been anything but trouble for him.

  He took a last glance at the photo that Maclean had left on his desk, then turned it upside down and slid it back into the manila envelope. Sorry, Rachel Friesen, he thought. If you knew me, knew my story, you’d understand.

  CHAPTER 3

  That night, Verraday had The Dream. He hated having The Dream. It was a recurring dream that he’d been having in various iterations ever since he was a kid, ever since the accident. He hadn’t had it in almost a year now, had told himself that maybe he was over it. But now here it was again.

  In it, he gradually came out of a fog, regaining consciousness in dim light, his movement restricted as though someone was holding him down. Then he became aware that he was strapped into the back seat of his family’s sedan. It was night. The interior of the car was dark except for headlights from a second vehicle shining across the beige headliner above him. He could smell gasoline vapors wafting up from wet asphalt and became aware that he was in the middle of an intersection.

  Then an acrid chemical smell began to overpower all the others: coolant from a smashed radiator leaking onto a hot engine block and evaporating off it in white stinking plumes. But there was an even more disturbing smell. Something metallic, coppery. Blood, he realized. He could see it splattered on the upholstery, the twisted roof pillars, and the shattered windshield in front of his mother, who was slumped forward in her seat. Barely able to mouth the words, he called to her, but she didn’t answer. Behind his mother, on the bench seat to the left of Verraday, his sister Penny lay motionless, moaning, her legs contorted at sickeningly impossible angles under the front seat, forced backward halfway over her.

  He heard a door open. Through the tendrils of evaporating antifreeze, he saw the silhouette of someone getting out of the other car and approaching their vehicle. It was a tall, beefy man in a patrolman’s uniform. As he approached and leaned in, the headlights of the man’s car illuminated him just enough on one side that Verraday could see his watery blue eyes and the gin blossoms on his meaty cheeks. The man seemed uncertain, confused, like he didn’t quite know what to do. There was no one else around. The intersection was deserted. This man, Verraday desperately realized, might be their only lifeline. Struggling to make his mouth move, Verraday tried to form the word “help,” but was only able to emit a feeble croak. The man came around to Verraday’s side of the car. Verraday tried to shout. His tongue felt thick and paralyzed, like it was glued to his palate.

  He was barely able to whisper a muted, “Help us, please!”

  The man didn’t answer. Had he even heard his plea? The stranger scanned the scene inside the sedan, taking it all in. Then he backed away from the car. The last thing Verraday saw was the jowly man in uniform turning on his heels and walking away into the night.

  * * *

  Verraday awoke with a start, embarrassed to realize he had actually been bellowing the words “help me” aloud into the darkness of his bedroom. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and his heart pounded like a jackhammer, so hard he could feel it in his ears. He tried to get up but realized he had rolled over onto his left arm in his sleep, cutting off the circulation. He reached over with his right hand and began massaging it, coaxing the feeling back into it. He turned his head and saw from his alarm clock that it was just before three thirty in the morning. There’s a reason the secret police come to arrest people at this time, thought Verraday. Your body, your spirit, it’s all at its lowest ebb.

  While he waited to regain the feeling in his arm, he took several deep breaths to the count of fiv
e, the way his older sister Penny had taught him. Finally his arm recovered, the numbness replaced by an uncomfortable prickling sensation. His heart had slowed down and the pounding in his ears had subsided to a manageable roar. He threw back the covers, put his feet on the floor, and turned on the bedside lamp.

  He realized now that the booze he had smelled in his dream was from a glass of brandy that he’d poured for himself and left unfinished before he’d fallen asleep.

  He didn’t know what it was about him that made him crave alcohol in the evening. He had absolutely zero interest in drinking during the daytime. It was at night, when he was tired, that the urge crept in. He picked up the glass, walked to the bathroom and poured the dregs down the sink. He rinsed the glass twice before filling it with water. He took a deep sip, then another. He set the glass down on the counter and walked down the hall to his den.

  Carefully, he picked his way through the shadows until he reached his desk, bent over, and switched on the small halogen lamp that sat atop it. He found Maclean’s card where he had left it the previous evening, sliding it into the narrow beam of light so he could make out her office phone number. He lifted the phone receiver off its cradle and keyed it in. He had a moment of apprehension, wondering what he would say if she were still there and answered—how strange it would seem getting a call from him at three thirty in the morning. He was relieved when, after four rings, her voice mail picked up. At the prompt, he said simply, “Detective Maclean, this is James Verraday. I’ve been thinking it over. If you’d still like my help, I’m in.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Verraday shivered involuntarily. It wasn’t the sight of Rachel Friesen’s body on the stainless steel table in front of him, though that was disturbing enough. It was the fact that the morgue in the King County Medical Examiner’s Office was kept at precisely 36 degrees Fahrenheit, not giving him the chance to shake off the chill of the cool, damp, fog that had rolled in from Puget Sound that morning. As a forensic psychologist, Verraday was more accustomed to coming face to face with murderers than with their victims, and it hadn’t occurred to him to wear an extra layer of clothing to keep the relentless iciness of the morgue out of his bones. Verraday appreciated that if Maclean had noticed him shiver, she hadn’t commented on it. He also appreciated that if she had noticed the electronic time stamp on the message he’d left on her office voice mail, she hadn’t let on either. Nobody ever left messages at that time of night unless they were a shift worker or someone being visited by demons. And Verraday wasn’t a shift worker.