Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “It’s never over. What does this tell you about the men? No ruptured eardrums in either case.”

  Andie visualized it. “He must have overtaken them in some other manner. Possibly held them at gunpoint, then handcuffed them, then strangled them. Maybe that proved too easy. The next time around, he needs more thrills, more of a challenge. So he uses the martial-arts stuff on the women.”

  “I’ll buy that. For now.” Victoria checked her watch. “Listen, overnight the whole file to me here at the hotel. We can talk more once I’ve read it.”

  “One last thing,” said Andie. “There’s an interesting de tail that may seem irrelevant at first blush, but I think it might be important in the big picture.”

  “What?”

  “Colleen Easterbrook’s employment. She was a hotel manager.”

  “So?”

  “It may help further support our bookend theory.”

  “Are you saying you somehow divined that Jane Doe was also a hotel manager?”

  “No. But consider this. I’ve had a few conversations with Gus Wheatley this week, the lawyer whose wife disappeared Sunday. Beth Wheatley is her name. A few years back Beth accused Gus of abuse. It got pretty ugly, but nothing came of it. And that’s not my point, anyway.”

  “What is your point?”

  “They separated for a few months. It’s the only time Beth worked outside the house during their entire marriage. She took a job downtown. Get this. She worked in a hotel booking conventions. You might call it an assistant hotel manager.”

  “So that gives her something in common with Colleen Easterbrook.”

  “More than something. Same age, hair, eye color. Easterbrook was divorced, but she used to be married to a lawyer. Not as prominent as Gus Wheatley, but still a lawyer. And both victims took jobs as hotel managers.”

  “Except you don’t know if Beth Wheatley is a victim.”

  “No. But she’s still missing. Vanished.”

  “Andie, I hope you aren’t groping for similarities just to bolster your bookend theory.”

  “To the contrary. It’s like Detective Kessler told me. A third female victim blows my bookend theory. Especially if it turns out that Jane Doe worked in hotel management. That would give us one pair, followed by three of a kind.”

  An eerie silence came over the line, as if they both had the same sudden insight. Victoria asked, “Do you think we could have missed the first murder in this series? A solo shot?”

  “Which would mean our killer is playing some kind of numbers game. The first strike is one victim. The second is two. The third is three.”

  “Each time he amplifies the experience, ratcheting things up. So that the fourth would be four, and on down the line, until we stop him.”

  “Which leaves one very intriguing question,” said Andie.

  “Yes, it does. And now you know the reason I do this godforsaken job. I have to know why.”

  Twenty-two

  By seven A.M. Gus was dressed and ready to leave the house. He had to go into the office to check the mail and reroute a few assignments before the weekend. The rest of the day was set aside for the latest brainstorm on finding Beth.

  He threw on his coat, grabbed his keys, and started down the hall. Carla was asleep in the guest room, the door shut. The door to Morgan’s room, however, was half-open. He stopped and peeked inside. She was an ill-defined mound on the mattress, asleep somewhere beneath a heap of blankets. He stood in the doorway, watching in silence.

  Yesterday, he had made several attempts to have that serious talk with her. The right moment never arrived—Morgan had made sure of it. She was surely in pain from the loose tooth she’d yanked out prematurely, but she was making more of it than she might have. She had spent the whole day in bed. Gus had visited her room a dozen times to talk. Light conversation was fine. Whenever he had tried to steer the conversation toward Beth, however, she suddenly needed sleep, another pillow, or a story read to her. It was frustrating, but he didn’t want to force it. After the horror of that newscast on Tuesday night, talking on any level was a positive.

  He checked his watch. He needed to get going, but his feet wouldn’t move. His gaze drifted across the room, a little girl’s dreamland. Tiny ballerinas danced in synchronized patterns on the walls, the curtains, and matching quilt. Minnie Mouse guarded the toy chest beneath the window. Barbie was parked in her pink convertible beside the bed. Gus had paid for all of it. He had selected none of it. It was all Beth’s doing. Morgan was all Beth’s doing.

  The room was so peaceful, deceptively so. He wondered what was going on inside her head, deep beneath the covers. He could only guess. One thing, however, rang clear in the silence. He had something to tell her. Something that couldn’t wait.

  Gently, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped closer. A three-foot teddy bear was in the rocking chair beside the bed. Gus removed it and lowered himself quietly onto the quilted cushion. He whispered softly, almost mouthing her name. “Morgan.”

  She didn’t stir.

  He drew a deep breath. It didn’t matter that she was asleep. He had to get it off his chest. His eyes closed, then opened. He spoke in a low, hoarse whisper.

  “I came to see you last night,” he said, a lump in his throat, “but you were already asleep.”

  The ball beneath the blankets was perfectly still, save for her breathing. He continued, “Your books were scattered on the floor, so I picked them up and put them on the shelf. That’s when I noticed the little marks on the inside of the closet door. Little lines, all about a half inch apart. The first one was about two feet off the ground, the next one a little higher, up and up and up. Each one had a date beside it. Your mother’s handwriting.

  “I just stood there and stared. It shocked me. Seeing how you had grown, all the time that had passed. It was literally the writing on the wall. Your mother had been there for you every inch of the way. The first step, the first word, the first day of school. All the big days in your little life, and the not so big days. Day in and day out, your mommy was there.”

  He glanced toward the closet, his gaze unfocused. “And all I could think was…where the heck was I? I missed it. I’ve missed all of it.”

  His eyes welled, the voice cracked. “And when I woke up this morning, I felt even worse. I realized that Monday was the first time I’d ever picked you up from school. Yesterday with your bloody tooth was the first weekday morning we’ve ever spent together, just the two of us. I don’t understand how that happened, how time gets away. I just wish it didn’t take your mother’s disappearance to make your father wake up.”

  He laid his hand on the covers gently, so as not to wake her. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t count when you’re sleeping. But I truly am sorry. And I couldn’t wait to tell you that.”

  He was motionless in the rocking chair. It was hard to say where the rush of emotion was coming from. But it was coming, unstoppable. It was as if the whole horrendous week were racing to a head. The fears about Beth. The rejection from Morgan. The sparring with Carla and snakes at the law firm. He was a smart guy. He could handle the law firm. Only with things that really mattered was he utterly powerless.

  Slowly, he noticed movement beneath the covers. He didn’t want to wake her, but he felt the urge to give her a hug. He waited for her to come around, but the movement stopped.

  “Morgan?” he said softly.

  He heard a click that sounded mechanical, followed by muffled music. He gently tugged the blanket, peeling away the top layer, exposing the back of Morgan’s head. A black wire was tangled in her hair. It ran to her ear. She was wearing headphones, listening to music. She had turned it up so loud even Gus could hear it three feet away.

  The sight crushed him. She had been awake throughout. She had heard everything. He waited a few moments, hoping her eyes would open. They didn’t. The garbled music just kept coming from the headphones. Without uttering a word, her response was loud and clear.


  She had nothing to say to him.

  Slowly, sadly, he rose from the rocking chair and walked out the door.

  Andie left the Federal Building around three-thirty, her first opportunity for a lunch break. Victoria hadn’t asked for one, but Andie was preparing a summary of the common behavioral indicators exhibited in all four murders. She wasn’t so presumptuous as to take a stab at the actual criminal profile, though she was quietly hoping that Victoria might suggest it.

  Isaac Underwood caught her on her way out the door. Seems the lunch schedule for the assistant special agent in charge was also on a three-hour delay. He hustled down the granite steps till his gait was even with hers.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Actually, I was headed over to the market. Good deals toward the end of the day.”

  “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “I was going to take the bus.”

  “Not a good place to talk business. Come on, the walk will do you good.”

  As they covered the long five blocks up First Avenue to Pike Place Market, Andie filled him in on the latest developments, including the rendezvous with Martha Goldstein. A light north breeze was in their face, but gloves, overcoats and a very brisk pace kept off the chill.

  Traffic, both cars and pedestrians, got heavier as they neared the historic market. It was nothing like a sunny summer afternoon, however, when the chance of winning the state lottery was better than finding a parking spot. Pike Place was the nation’s oldest continuously operating farmers market, and with as many as forty thousand visitors daily it was to many the heart and soul of Seattle. The two-and-half-block stretch was prime for people watching, or it was just as fun to explore the many old buildings that had been strung together over the years by ramps, alleys and stairways. The city council had forbade singing by market vendors since 1947, but that didn’t dampen the loud and continuous hawking of everything from Guatemalan cigars and Turkish pastries to African violets and Pacific Northwest salmon. No chain stores or franchises were allowed, which made it a true bazaar, not another mall.

  Andie headed toward the main arcade, a semi-open area facing the street. About half of the fresh-produce stalls were there, side by side with the gleaming rows of fresh crab and halibut in angled, iced beds. The crowds weren’t peak, but there was still a steady stream of shoppers. A magician performed tricks beneath the big market clock. A guitarist on the corner sang an old Jimmy Buffett tune. A fishmonger hurried by with a very recently deceased eel draped over each shoulder. Andie’s eye was on the live Maine lobsters at the bottom of the big glass tank, but Isaac was still talking business.

  “How are you and my old buddies at Seattle P.D. getting along?”

  “Good, I think.” She stopped at Arcade No. 8 to check out the homegrown Asian vegetables, one of the sure signs that spring was coming to Seattle. “You hear differently?”

  “I had lunch with Detective Kessler yesterday. Tells me you learned a valuable lesson with that leak to the newspapers about the bookend theory.”

  “Yeah. Never again do I tell him anything that isn’t fit to print.”

  “Actually, he thought you two had reached an understanding. If there’s something you don’t want in the papers, you’ll tell him up-front in no uncertain terms. No more assumptions about what’s confidential and what isn’t. You remember what I used to tell you about assumptions, don’t you? The minute you start making assumptions—”

  “You make an ass out of U and umption.” She smiled. “I remember.”

  “Good.”

  “I just wish Kessler hadn’t put quite so much umption into making an ass out of me. Especially the very day Victoria Santos comes into town. I have an uneasy, bad feeling about that guy.”

  “That’s funny. He thinks highly of you.”

  “Really?”

  “He was impressed the way you came up with that bookend theory so quickly, even if it does turn out to be wrong.”

  “He never let me know he was impressed.”

  “He never would. Dick’s kind of a pain. Even a bit of a whiner. But overall he’s a damn fine detective. And if you’re good he respects you. Even if he doesn’t show it.”

  Andie bought some speckled Chinese eggplant and stalks of lemongrass, then wandered farther down the arcade, toward a stall filled with fresh and dried flowers. Isaac had stopped next door for a bag of pistachios. Her phone rang. She stepped behind a tall stack of wicker baskets and answered. It was Kessler. Speaking of the devil.

  “You asked me to call as soon as we got anything on Jane Doe. Well, we got an ID.”

  Andie pressed a finger to her free ear to block out the market noise. “Who is she?”

  “Name’s Paula Jablinski. Just moved here from Wisconsin three weeks ago. She didn’t even have a job yet. No friends or family in the area, which explains why nobody filed a missing-persons report on her. Her mother in Milwaukee notified us today. Said her daughter hadn’t returned her phone calls in over a week. From the description and dental records she faxed, looks like a fairly positive ID.”

  “Smart choice of victim,” said Andie. “No connections to the area, nobody misses her.”

  “Ideal victim. Especially if you’re looking for a match for Colleen Easterbrook.”

  “Colleen didn’t just move here.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Get this. Paula Jablinski used to work for a Holiday Inn in Milwaukee. She was looking for work in Seattle in hotel management. Just like Colleen Easterbrook.”

  “Just like Beth Wheatley,” said Andie.

  “So, you think Jablinski and Easterbrook are a lone pair of bookends? Or are we just missing another cold one named Wheatley?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not a gambler,” he said. “But my money’s on the trifecta.”

  “Hate to say it,” she said as she stared blankly at a bundle of crumbling dried flowers. “But I’m afraid mine is, too.”

  Twenty-three

  He was dressed entirely in black, a sleek silhouette in the early evening darkness. The rear basement window was the obvious point of entry. There was no alarm, no dog. The light burning in the kitchen was the same light she routinely left on whenever she left the house, a beacon of welcome for any would-be intruder. He covered the window with duct tape, then tapped it quietly, shattering the pane. The glass peeled away with the tape. He unlocked the window and entered in seconds.

  She was out for drinks after work, then probably dinner and a movie. He knew her routine, knew her circle of friends, knew she lived alone. Last night’s stakeout had been only one of many. He had a pretty good idea when she would return home. It was just a matter of waiting, anticipating—preparing.

  Without a sound he slid into the basement. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he climbed the stairs. He had a pick with him, but the door was unlocked. It opened with a squeak. He peered inside. The oven light from the kitchen spilled into the hallway, dim but sufficient to guide him through the house. He moved quickly past the master bedroom, disturbing nothing. He went straight to the guest bedroom, again touching nothing. He slid the closet door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him. She wasn’t likely to check there. She’d come home and go to bed in the master, completely unaware of what was waiting for her in the next room.

  His heart was pounding. Anticipation always fueled excitement. The risk heightened the thrill, a winner-take-all scenario. If someone had seen him enter, if she could somehow sense his presence, he was trapped, literally backed into a corner. But if he had gone undetected—and he knew he had—the night was completely his.

  Silently, he laid his leather bag at his feet. It contained everything he needed, his tools. He lowered himself to the closet floor and sat motionless. He noticed the clothes hanging overhead, could even smell them. This close to a kill, his senses were always heightened. Slivers of light seeped through the louvered closet door, painting stripes on his torso. From behind the closet door he peered throu
gh the slats and checked out the room. A streetlight outside the house gave the room a faint yellow cast. The bed was in the corner. The door was directly across. He’d left it open, as he had found it, so he could see into the hall.

  He looked away. It could be hours before her return. He would have to stay alert. Usually, adrenaline kept him focused. Tonight, however, his mind wanted to wander. He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them, fighting off the distraction. No use. The setting was the problem. Hiding inside the closet. The clothes hanging overhead. The narrow slats of light beaming through the louvered closet doors. The darkness, the silence—it was beginning to play tricks. He closed his eyes to escape from the reminders, but there was no stopping the mental journey. He was going back in time, many years, to his childhood. He could see himself at home in his father’s study—the one room in the house his father had declared off limits. He did his work there, reviewing confidential files and materials from the Torture Victims’ Institute. It was only natural for a ten-year-old to be drawn to a room he was forbidden to enter. And it was only natural to run and hide in the closet at the sound of his father’s footsteps approaching in the hallway…

  The door opened. He peered through the louvered slats and watched his father enter, praying he wouldn’t check the closet. He didn’t. He went straight for the window and pulled the blinds shut. The room darkened. The closet turned even darker. He could barely see out. His heart raced at the sound of footsteps again, his father crossing the room. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the closet door to open, but it didn’t. He heard a dresser drawer slide open, then close. He opened his eyes. His father had something in his hand. A videocassette, which he inserted into the VCR. The television switched on. The room brightened with its flickering glow. His father sank into his chair, his back to the closet. He and his father were faced in the same direction, watching the same videotape.

  The screen was pure snow at first, then a woman appeared. She was sitting on a chair, facing the camera. She wasn’t too old, probably in her thirties. She had short dark hair and skin that looked tanned. She looked nervous. She licked her lips a lot; her hand was clenched into a fist. She wasn’t beautiful but pretty. Prettier than his mother, anyway. Finally she spoke.