by phuc
LIKE TO DO MY STORY?
Spence looked like an irked statue behind the desk. To his right a computer screen blinked SYSTEM DOWN in pretty amber. "Do you know a man named Stephen W. Calabrice?" Spence asked.
"No," Kathleen said. "Is he the victim?"
"That's right. Hot shot trademark attorney. Upper , upper class bar hound. This guy's bar tabs were more than most people make in a year."
"He's dead?"
"What? Did you think he was recovering? Take two aspirin and call me in the morning? Is that what you thought?"
Asshole, Kathleen thought. "May I smoke here?" she asked.
"No," Spence said. "You live at " He glanced down at some nondescript sheet. "At 3660 Leiber Street, number 307?"
"Yep."
"Nice place?"
Was there some purpose hidden behind the tangents of Spence's questions and comments? Or was he just a nut? "It's all right, I guess," Kathleen said. "It seems to be one of the safer apartment complexes."
Spence tilted his head. "Insinuating?"
"Pardon me?"
"You're insinuating that other apartment complexes aren't safe because of police negligence?"
"I was making an objective comment."
"Oh. Yes. Of course." Spence pushed back in his seat. Yes, he was very muscular; Kathleen sensed the great girth of his upper chest, his shoulders, and she could easily picture a bodybuilder's physique out of the tailored, quality clothes. All ripples and hard lines, and zero body fat. "Did you know that Stephen W. Calabrice," Spence went on, "had been tortured for an extended period?"
"How could I know that?"
"His body was found three days ago in an underground parking garage near the corner of M
Street and l9th. He lived in Georgetown. He was murdered in an unknown location. We believe he was picked up in a bar called Jonah and the Whale, taken to the killer's home, tortured, murdered, then dumped. The killer stole his car, a brown Audi Quattro."
Kathleen remembered a joke, which often rang true. What's the difference between a porcupine and an Audi?
A porcupine has pricks on the outside.
"Do you have any acquaintances in the medical field?"
"No," Kathleen said.
Spence cleared his throat. "We believe that a high quality cutting tool was used to, uh...you know. A scissor like implement with one flat blade and one serrated blade. There were drugs in his bloodstream, not street drugs, but pharmaceutical drugs, skillfully administered."
"You think the killer's a doctor?"
"Maybe," Spence answered. His eyes stared. "Do you?"
All right, Kathleen thought. "You think that I know her?"
"Her?"
"The killer?"
Spence put his elbow on the desk. "Why did you say her?"
"I...well..." Kathleen looked at her feet. "You think the killer's a man?"
"I want to know why you think the killer's a woman."
"I presumed..." Presumed what? she wondered. "You just said he was picked up in a bar."
"Maybe Calabrice was gay. Did you consider that possibility? Gays go to bars too, don't they?"
Spence was treating her like an idiot child. Kathleen wished she had a drink to spill on him. Then she thought: Drinks.
"But Jonah and the Whale isn't a gay bar. It's a straight singles club."
"Ah, so you hang out there."
Jesus Christ! "No," she said. "I don't hang out there."
"But you've obviously been there. How else would you know that it's a singles bar?"
"All right, I've been there a few times."
"To pick up men?"
"To have a drink."
"You drink a lot? Writers drink a lot, don't they?"
"That's a stereotype "
"Is it? Is it really? I just read an article in Regardie's or somewhere about occupational dispositions of clinical alcoholism. Guess which occupation hosts the highest percentage of alcohol abusers?"
"Police Lieutenants?" Kathleen joked.
Spence didn't react. "Writers. Creative people in general but writers in particular. Faulkner, Hemingway, Poe, Thomas, Fitzgerald "
"All men."
"Sure. But also all writers. It was an interesting article. There's even a suggestion that the genetic propensity toward alcoholism is the actual root of one's propensity toward writing, not the other way around. Most people who become writers were born later in the mother's life, after 30. It's amazing the commonalities in genetics and behavior of those who were born after their mothers were 30. Like night and day."
"Well," Kathleen said, "I just read an article in Discover or somewhere about the subconscious motivations of men who gravitate toward police work. It all revolves around the gun, a phallic symbol, which actually reflects deeply rooted sexual inadequacies."
"What does that have to do with your being here?" Spence asked.
"Nothing," Kathleen said.
"I see. In other words you're discreetly implying that my observations about the genetic predispositions of alcoholism have nothing to do with your being here either."
"That's exactly what I'm implying, Lieutenant."
"And that I made those observations, in truth, to discreetly harass you."
"Yes," Kathleen said.
Spence nodded. His face never changed. It seemed to sit there on his skull. Frozen. Blank. "Then you've misinterpreted me completely," he went on. "I raised the topic, not to harass you, or to suggest that you're an alcoholic, but to open an avenue of conjecture that's relative to almost every sexually motivated homicide."
Kathleen didn't know what he was talking about. "Okay, so what you really want to know is do I drink a lot?"
"Yes," Spence said.
"No," Kathleen answered.
When Spence set his chin in the crook of his thumb and index finger, his upper arm bulged to the extent of nearly bursting his shirt. "Do you have any close female friends who hang out in singles bars, or who are alcoholics?"
"No," Kathleen said.
"Is that your natural hair color? Brown?"
Kathleen gawped at the query. "What?"
"Or do you have any close female friends with red hair?"
"Yes to the first ridiculous question, no to the second."
"The reason I ask " Now Spence moved his chin from one propped up hand to the other. " is that our technical services crew found several red hairs on the body. Hairfall is quite common in sexually motivated crimes."
"She's a redhead, in other words," Kathleen observed.
"Who?"
Kathleen rolled her eyes. "The killer."
"There you go again. Your absolute certainty that the killer is a woman."
Should I leave? Kathleen asked herself. Is there any reason why I should put up with this? "It's not an absolute certainty. I told you, it's a presumption, and a pretty logical one, I think."
Spence nodded again, blankly. "Sure. Oh, and we discerned days ago that Calabrice wasn't gay.
I'm just curious as to the basis of your...presumption. But it occurs to me now " He paused, and tapped himself on the head. " that it's a pretty stupid curiosity on my part. Of course you presume the killer's a woman. You're a militant feminist."
"I'm not a militant fem "
"This looks pretty militant to me." Spence withdrew the May issue of '90s Woman from his desk, and read off some of the table of contents. "The Man Trap: Don't Walk Into It; What He Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him; When He's Lying To You: The Giveaway Signs; Exploitation In The Workplace: How To Survive In A Man's World."
"They're legitimate articles about some very important topics in our society," Kathleen told him.
"Ah, and here we go. ‘Verdict.'" Spence looked up. "In four out of five segments in your column, you recommend that a relationship be terminated in, I must say, some highly specialized terms. ‘Thumbs down.' ‘Give him the ax.' ‘Don't punish yourself, his baggage isn't your problem.'" Spence smiled very faintly. "I like this one best of all. â�
��˜Dump him.'"
Pea brain, Kathleen thought. "It's a process, Lieutenant, of applying a combination of style and colloquialism that readers can relate to, in response to their relationship problems."
"Oh, is that what it is? Style and colloquialism, yes." Spence put the magazine down. "I just don't understand your refusal to admit that you're a militant feminist."
Kathleen tensed up as she leaned forward. "Listen to me. I'm not a militant feminist God, that term went out a decade ago. I'm a magazine writer. I'm a sociologist. And that's all."
"Ah. I see. A sociologist. I'm sorry." Spence kept his voice dead flat, to steepen the obvious sarcasm. "And these terms, these terms here ‘Thumbs down, Give him the ax, Dump him'
these are accepted sociological designations?"
"You're an asshole, Lieutenant," Kathleen said.
"I resent that. But I also realize that your opinion of me is irrelevant. Are you left handed?"
"Wha " Suddenly Kathleen was squinting. Clouds had moved off, leaving the sun glaring in her eyes. "Would you please close the blinds."
"Sorry, they don't work, I'm afraid," Spence said. "Are you left handed?"
Now she couldn't see him at all, just an erect smear before the window. She tried to shield her eyes. "Yes," she eventually answered. "Why?"
"The killer's left handed too. Our hand writing analyst could tell by the note."
"But the note was typed, not hand written."
"We call it strike impactation. The graphology section has special microscopes that measure the depth, in microns, of any planar impactation. The typewriter, by the way, is a Smith Corona Coronet. And we know the killer's left handed because the letters on the left hand side of the keyboard made deeper impactations. Of course, we already had a good idea that the killer was left handed for two other reasons. One, the angle of the...cut."
Only now did the imagery commence, the scarlet fact driving into Kathleen's psyche like a nail driven into new wood: Just exactly what someone had done to someone else...
"What's the second reason?"
"Most sex killers are left handed."
Kathleen could not fathom what he suspected. He can't possibly be that stupid, that rude, she thought. No. No way.
"Let me ask you something," Kathleen said. "What makes you think the killer's a man?"
Spence looked fuddled at her. "We don't. We're quite certain that the killer's a woman. The hairs found on the body fusiformally matched a typical female scale count."
"Then why " Kathleen stopped to think, to contain her now bristling anger. More quietly she said,
"Then how come you've been all over me for my presumption that the killer's a woman?"
"I was merely assessing the motive of the presumption." Spence opened his hands flat on the desk. They were big hands, sturdy. "Most of what I do," he said, "revolves around the simple recognition of inter personal similarities in homicides. There's always something, you know?"
"No, I don't know."
"What kind of word processor do you use?"
"I don't use one. I use a typewriter."
Spence's brow did a trick over the blank face. "I thought all writers used word processors or computers."
"Some do, some don't." In her eyes, Spence's own computer screen continued to blink in amber: SYSTEM DOWN. "I don't," she said. "I use a typewriter. And, no, it's not a Smith Corona, it's a Xerox MemoryWriter."
"Hmm. Another... Let me think of the right word." Spence seemed to drift off behind the stone facade, a big hard finger tapping the blotter. "Parity," he said.
"What?"
"Another interesting parity. You know. The killer's a woman, you're a woman. The killer's left handed, you're left handed. The killer uses a typewriter, you use a typewriter "
"This is the most ridicu "
"The killer was abused as a child, you were abused as a child," Spence finished.
Kathleen's shock seemed to turn her to a pillar of salt.
Spence stared at her. "As far as the killer goes, I'm only making a, to use your word, a presumption based on known typical psycho social statistics. It's a very reliable denominator, that most sex killers were abused as children."
"What about me?" Kathleen's voice croaked.
"I ran your name in the records computer."
"Bullshit. Your computer's down."
"We have more than one computer here."
No, she thought. Somehow, he knew. "You guessed, didn't you?"
For the second time, Spence smiled, but this was a sheepish smile, like that of a child caught doing something forbidden. "All right," he admitted, "you're right. I guessed. Or I should say I deduced." He pointed behind him, to his psych degree. "After all, I'm trained as a psychologist."
"If you were trained as a psychologist, why are you a cop?"
"I felt phony. I wanted to act, rather than counsel."
Another cut. It was Spence's way of saying that she, as a trained sociologist writing for a woman's magazine, was phony. Just what the hell are you driving at? It was all building up: the policeman's unfounded dislike for her, his insults, his prejudgment, and the preposterous implications...
Kathleen's fists clenched in her lap.
"What kind of car do you drive?" Spence asked next.
Kathleen couldn't resist. "An Audi Quattro, a brown one. I just got it three days ago."
"Funny. But there's nothing funny about any of this, is there?"
"You tell me. You seem to be getting a kick out of it."
"I've never been more serious," Spence said. "Do you think Calabrice is laughing? Now, what kind of car do you drive?"
"Why didn't you just look in your computer?"
"The computer's down." The screen continued to blink: SYSTEM DOWN. "As you have already observed."
"I drive a 1997 Ford Thunderbird."
"Black, probably. Right?"
Kathleen grit her teeth. "Yes."
"And didn't you tell me, shortly after you came in, that you actually didn't make a living as a writer?"
"Your memory is without equal."
"'97 Ford T Bird. That's an expensive car, isn't it? Twenty thousand dollars, 25?"
"I don't know how much it cost. It was a gift."
"From who?"
"From my father. He helps me out financially sometimes."
Spence remained expressionless as a stone bust of Caesar. "Is your father the one who abused you as a child?"
Kathleen sucked a deep breath. "No."
Spence looked disappointed. "Then who was?"
Her nails dug into her thigh, through her dress. Don't...let him...do this to you.
"It's none of your business."
"Technically, none of these questions are my business, so why have you answered so many of them?"
"Because you're a police officer, or facsimile thereof. I've always been taught to cooperate with the police."
"So you've been involved in police matters in the past?"
"Yes."
"Would you elaborate?"
"It's none of your business!"
Spence did not react to Kathleen's holler. He looked at her a moment, then said very quietly,
"Don't get hostile. Don't get...militant. I'm only asking objective questions."
"No you're not," Kathleen countered. She felt sweat trickling at her sides, at her armpits. "There's nothing objective about any of this. You've been absolutely intolerable. I came in here because I was asked to; I'm trying to be of some assistance to you. And in return, you've interrogated me.
You're practically accusing me of cutting off a man's penis and mailing it to myself."
"Now we're way off base," Spence said.
"And you can bet your ass that I'm going to send a letter of complaint to the commissioner."
"Chief," Spence said.
"What?"
"We don't have a commissioner, we have a chief. Address your letter to The Office of the Chief of Police, Metropolitan Police Headquarters, 300 Indiana
Avenue, Northwest, 20010."
"You haven't liked me since the instant I walked into this grubby little office of yours. Why?"
