Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “Mr. Wheatley,” she said softly. “I’d like to get some information from you about your wife. Not the height, weight and hair-color things. Some personal things.”

  “How personal?”

  “Nothing embarrassing. If I get too nosy, you don’t have to answer. Let’s start general. Does your wife work outside the home?”

  “No.”

  “What is her daily routine like?”

  Gus shrugged awkwardly. “I guess it depends on the day.”

  “Let’s take them one at a time. Monday.”

  “She takes our daughter to school in the morning.”

  “What else?”

  “She picks her up.”

  She smiled, trying to put him at ease. “Quite a gap there. How does she fill her day?”

  “On Mondays, you mean?”

  “Let’s not get hung up on specific days here. I want to make this easy for you. Pick any day of the week you like. Just tell me what kinds of things she does with her time.”

  “I checked with the credit card companies to piece together this last weekend, just to see where she’d charged things. But I can’t say as a general matter I know every little thing she does on a typical day.”

  “Well, does your wife belong to any kind of clubs or organizations?”

  “I think she’s in…something. No, that was before Morgan was born.”

  Andie glanced at Kessler, then back at Gus. “How about lunches? Does she have a favorite restaurant?”

  “I’d imagine she does.” He paused, as if drawing a blank. “But I can’t say she ever mentioned it. Maybe if I went back to the credit card statement I could figure it out.”

  “What about food shopping? Where does she go to buy groceries?”

  Gus said nothing.

  “Does she belong to a gym?”

  “Yes,” he said emphatically, pleased to have hit one.

  “Which one?”

  His enthusiasm faded. “I’ll have to check.”

  Andie hesitated before asking the next question. The silence seemed to make him uncomfortable. Kessler leaned forward, arching an eyebrow. “Mr. Wheatley, are you and your wife happily married?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You seem to know very little about the woman who sleeps beside you.”

  “Is that what this inquisition is all about? You still think this has something to do with a marital quarrel?”

  Kessler gave an assessing look. “I’m not ruling anything out.”

  “Well, you’d better rule it out. Or you’re going to piss away valuable time.”

  “Please,” said Andie, “don’t get angry.”

  “I have every right to be angry. So what if I don’t know every little detail about my wife’s daily routine? That doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to her.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” she said.

  “Then why are you putting me through this?”

  Andie started to say something, then stopped. It was premature to tell him his wife might be a bookend homicide, and this inquiry was going nowhere. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wheatley. It’s late, and you’ve been through an awful lot for one night. Go home to your daughter. I’m sure she needs all the support you can give her.”

  “And then some,” he said, seemingly overwhelmed.

  Kessler pressed on, as if Gus’s lousy answers had suddenly fueled his interest. “Mr. Wheatley, is there someone else who could answer these questions for us?”

  “Probably my sister, Carla. She was Beth’s best friend before we got married. My biggest enemy after we got married.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. I’m exaggerating. Let’s just say Carla’s always been a lot closer to Beth than she ever was to me.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “My daughter, of course. But she’s only six. I’d rather keep her out of this.”

  Andie said, “We’ll handle her appropriately when and if the time comes.”

  “Your wife’s mother and father live anywhere nearby?” asked Kessler.

  “They’re both deceased.”

  “You have a housekeeper?”

  “We have a woman who comes in twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. She just does her work and leaves.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Uh, jeez. Ramona something. I don’t know her last name.”

  “What about a nanny?”

  “We had one till recently. Michelle Burgette.”

  “What happened?”

  “Beth let her go when Morgan started first grade. Didn’t need a live-in anymore.”

  “You know where she is now?”

  “No idea.”

  Kessler raised an eyebrow. “She raises your kid for six years, then that’s it? Cold turkey, no contact?”

  “Look, I don’t know. Maybe they’ve talked on the phone. For all I know, she’s even come by to visit. Beth would have taken care of all that.”

  Kessler jotted down a note to himself. “You mind if I talk to any of these people, Mr. Wheatley?”

  “Why would I mind?”

  “You tell me,” he said, eyes narrowing. He was clearly trying to intimidate.

  Gus rose, speaking with controlled anger. “I don’t really like the way I’m being interrogated here.”

  “I don’t really like the answers I’m getting.”

  Andie stepped between them. “Ohhh-kay, boys. Let’s call it a night.”

  Gus glared, then looked away. He shook Andie’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, looking only at her. “You’ve been nice. Please call me as soon as you hear anything.”

  “We will,” she said, seeing him out. As the door shut behind him, she faced Kessler and said, “Are you always so confrontational?”

  “Only when the subject is evasive.”

  “I didn’t think he was being evasive.”

  “I see it all the time. These smartass attorneys who think the only safe thing to tell a cop is either ‘I don’t know’ or ‘He went that-a-way.’ You can’t get a straight answer out of a guy like that.”

  “He wasn’t playing games. Didn’t you see the embarrassment in his eyes? The pain in his expression?”

  “Give me a break. I’m not the world’s greatest husband. I bet I even work longer hours than he does. But even I know where my wife buys groceries.”

  “Is that so?” she said, toying with him. “Where?”

  His mouth opened, but the words stumbled out. “The grocery store.”

  “Nice try, Detective.”

  “No, give me a second. I know this.”

  She checked her watch, waiting. “Tell you what. E-mail me. I really have to get home. Got a long day tomorrow.” She started for the door.

  “Safeway!”

  Andie stopped. “What?”

  “That’s where my wife buys the groceries.”

  She smiled thinly. “That’s very impressive, Dick. But to truly be a better man than Gus Wheatley, you have to put your knowledge to use.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now that you know where the store is, why don’t you go buy the groceries?” She gave a friendly wink, then headed out the door.

  The disguise was simple but effective. A brown wig and mustache. Eyeglasses with a tortoiseshell frame. Tinted contact lenses turned his blue eyes brown. A bulky winter coat with padding underneath made him look a good thirty pounds heavier, well over his normal one-eighty-five. The leather gloves were completely inconspicuous. By 11:00 P.M. the temperature had dropped below freezing, and a cold wind was blowing off the Sound. Only a fool wouldn’t bundle up.

  The Quicksilver Copy Center was open twenty-four hours a day. It was located next to a pizza place in a strip mall. Any time of day you could find half a dozen bleary-eyed souls standing at the Xerox machines, and tonight was no exception. As an all-purpose business center it also offered everything from mail boxes and conference rooms to fax machines and computers by-the-hour. I
t was the computers that interested him—specifically, anonymous Internet access that could never be traced back to him.

  The bell on the door tinkled as he entered, but no one looked up. He approached the counter and stopped. The clerk, a college-aged woman, was on the telephone. He made no faces, showed no sign of impatience. He simply waited. He would do nothing to make his visit memorable to her or anyone else.

  Finally, the clerk said good night to her boyfriend and hung up the phone.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I need a computer.” He offered a twenty-dollar bill, his gloves still on.

  She took the money, made change from the register. “Pod number three is open. Thank you for using Quicksilver.”

  He scooped the change from the countertop and walked away. Each computer was separated by shoulder-high office dividers, one customer per cubicle. That was all the privacy he needed.

  He sat at the terminal and removed his leather gloves. As an animal skin, leather could leave behind distinctive patterns not unlike fingerprints. He wore flesh-tone rubber gloves beneath the leather, no prints of any kind. His fingers danced across the keyboard as he logged onto the Internet.

  He went to the mail center, from which he could send e-mail. He typed in the address, which he had memorized. He did not identify the sender; it would read only “Quicksilver Copy Center.” There was space to type a message, but that too he left blank.

  He pulled a diskette from his coat pocket and loaded into the b: drive. He uploaded it to the computer and attached it as a file to his blank message. The file contained everything he needed to communicate. It had no words on it. Only pictures. Pictures he had taken.

  A picture was worth a thousand screams.

  He smirked to himself as he hit the SEND button, firing off his bloody missive.

  Seven

  Gus was home by ten o’clock. He paid the baby-sitter, sent her off in a taxi, and checked on Morgan. She was asleep in her room, which was a relief. He wasn’t prepared to answer any more questions about Mommy.

  He hadn’t slept much in the last two days, but he wasn’t sleepy. He went to the kitchen to fix a sandwich. Sliced ham and baby Swiss were in the refrigerator. He rolled it like a hotdog and stuffed it into a baguette, slathering on some Dijon mustard. Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the label on the package, just to see where Beth had bought it. Boar’s Head was all it said. Could have come from anywhere. He still didn’t know where she shopped.

  He pulled up a stool and sat at the counter, alone with his thoughts. Detective Kessler had definitely ticked him off, but maybe he was right. Beth’s disappearance didn’t automatically add up to foul play. Ego had him jumping to conclusions. It was perversely self-centered, but what man didn’t think his wife was more likely to be abducted than to find a worthy replacement? Perhaps he had put too much stock into the fact that she’d left without her car, her clothes, even her purse and credit cards. For all he knew, she’d been stockpiling cash for months. She could have bought a whole new wardrobe, rented a red convertible, and driven to Acapulco. Adios, Gus.

  The question was, would she come back? Of course she would. She was just making him squirm. This was payback time for all those times he had left her alone with absolutely no idea when he’d be back. Funny, but he could map the decline of his marriage through all those business trips. As a first-year associate he used to schedule his meetings on a Friday or a Monday so Beth could fly out with him, and they’d spend the weekend in places like Malibu or Monterey. That stopped when Beth tired of hopping on airplanes just to watch her husband work by the swimming pool. Then he started traveling alone, but he would call home every night before bed. That was nice for a while, but it too faded. The more senior he got, the more business he crammed into each trip. Client dinners could last hours. It got to the point that he’d go away for days and be lucky to squeeze in a call from the airport to let her know he was on his way home. Even that became unworkable. Somewhere along the way he just gave up and left it to his secretary to leave a message telling her where he was. He was comfortable with that. It was his secretary, after all, who had picked out the gifts for birthdays and anniversaries, who sent Beth flowers whenever he had to cancel their plans. Beth got a lot of flowers.

  A noise from down the hall caught his attention. He was suddenly alert, listening. He heard it again, more clearly this time.

  “Mommy.” It was coming from Morgan’s room.

  His pulse quickened. Was she back?

  “Mommmmeeee.” The cry was desperate.

  Now what do I do? He slid off the stool and started down the hall. The calls grew louder, separated by brief, pathetic pauses. “Mom. Mommy!”

  Gus drew a deep breath and opened the door. A crack of light from the hallway cut across the bedroom. Morgan was sitting up against the headboard. She was wearing pink Minnie Mouse pajamas. It was amazing how skinny and fragile a kid could look in those clingy cotton pajamas. He went and sat at the edge of the bed.

  “It’s okay. Daddy’s here.”

  Her voice quaked. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “She’s not here, sweetheart.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s…” Gus had no clue, but he had sense enough not to scare her. “Mommy had something she had to take care of.”

  “When is she coming back?”

  “Soon. I think. It should be soon.”

  “Can we call her?”

  “No. Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see.”

  She was plainly skeptical. In the dim shadow of a Winnie the Pooh night light, Gus felt grilled. Just ten seconds of punishing silence had given him a whole new insight into the shrewdness of an only child who spent more time around adults than other children. Six years of training from a no-nonsense nanny who’d seen every trick in the book hadn’t hurt either.

  Morgan asked, “Where did she go?”

  “That’s her secret. She didn’t say.”

  “Why didn’t she take me with her?”

  His throat tightened. “It’s just something she had to do by herself, sweetheart. That’s all. Sometimes parents have to do things by themselves.”

  She didn’t look satisfied. Gus moved closer, urging her toward the pillow. “Let’s go back to sleep now.”

  She leaned back obediently. Gus sensed the stiffness in her body, the unresolved fears. He stroked her forehead gently. “Just close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  Her eyes closed, but the lids quivered. He wondered what she was thinking. She sure asked smart questions. She could probably handle a witness better than half the so-called trial lawyers at his law firm. One question in particular stuck in his brain. The one Morgan had struggled to ask. The one Gus had found most difficult to answer.

  If Beth had just decided to leave him—if she’d really wanted to get his attention—why didn’t she take Morgan with her?

  He remained at her side and watched her fall asleep, searching for an answer that didn’t seem to be there.

  Andie went straight home from the morgue, thinking. Gus hadn’t really given them sufficient details to test her “bookend” homicide theory. Still, she didn’t buy Kessler’s idea that Gus was being intentionally evasive. For whatever reason, he and his wife had simply become strangers while living under the same roof.

  Somehow, that seemed almost as sad as her disappearance.

  Andie was in bed by eleven-thirty, but the night would be a restless one. She was definitely nervous about meeting Victoria Santos at the airport. She set two alarms just to make sure she didn’t oversleep. Assuming she ever fell asleep. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. The bed felt different these days. Although Rick had never officially moved in, they’d spent nearly every night together for several months before the wedding. It didn’t matter that she owned one of those expensive coil mattresses on which you could drop a bowling ball and not disturb your mate. When you’re used to sleeping with some
one, you know when you’re alone.

  By midnight her thoughts had turned from Rick to Gus, then to Gus’s wife. It was certainly possible that something horrible had happened to her. But she couldn’t dismiss another possibility. She knew the pain of almost marrying a man who didn’t truly love her. She could only imagine what a woman might do after a wasted decade of living with her mistake. Sure, Andie had experienced more than her share of lonely Saturday nights. But nothing was worse than feeling alone when you weren’t.

  The alarm buzzed but she woke unrested, unable to distinguish her dreams from the things she had lain awake worrying about. She was dressed and ready to go by the time Tuesday’s early edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer landed on the doorstep. She stepped right over it on her way out the door, but the blazing headline practically reached out and tripped her: SERIAL KILLER LEAVES THIRD VICTIM. Beneath it in smaller typeset: May Be Killing in Pairs.

  Andie tore open the paper and devoured the lead article. She finished with a two-word summary of her own, uttered aloud. “Oh, shit.”

  Victoria Santos was scheduled to arrive at Sea-Tac airport in thirty-five minutes, so she jumped in the car and then dialed Isaac Underwood at home on her cellular phone. She knew he was an early riser, probably staring at the paper and choking on his corn flakes right about now.

  “Isaac, hey it’s Andie. Seen this morning’s P-I yet?”

  “Just did. Not one of your better moves, Andie.”

  “Isaac, I swear. I don’t know how it hit the papers. All that stuff about bookends—I just came up with that last night. I haven’t told anyone but Kessler. I would never leak without prior approval from a supervisor.”

  “I believe you. The problem is, it looks like you did an end run on an ISU profiler. That isn’t going to sit well with Victoria Santos. Yesterday she had a clean slate. Now you’ve got her boxed inside a theory she may think is silly.”

  “What should I do?”

  “First, don’t freak. Second, check the mirror every now and then. If you find your face turning blue, remind yourself: breathe.”