Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “Hi, Morgan,” said Andie.

  “Hi,” she said weakly.

  “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  Morgan pushed her plate away. “It’s okay. We’re done.”

  “Done?” said Gus. “You’ve hardly eaten.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to eat, sweetheart.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t eat, you’ll get sick.”

  “Is Mommy sick?”

  Even she had noticed the eating disorder. Just one more indicator of just how oblivious Gus had been.

  “We’re not sure how Mommy feels. But Agent Henning is going to help us find out.”

  “That’s what you said yesterday.”

  Andie said, “We’re working very hard. It just takes time.”

  “How long?” Her voice had lost its defiant edge. It had even cracked.

  Gus scooted onto her chair beside her, put his arm around her, and stroked her head. “We’re going to keep looking as long as it takes.”

  They both looked at Andie, as if seeking a commitment. “That’s right,” she told them. “As long as it takes.”

  Some of the anxiety faded from Morgan’s expression. The little grown-up was more like a kid again, though her heart was clearly aching. “Dad, can I feed my goldfish now?”

  “Sure.”

  She gave Andie a little smile as she rose from the table, then scampered down the hall.

  “Don’t feed them too much,” he called out, but she didn’t answer. He glanced at Andie and said, “If those fish get any bigger, I’ll have the friends of Willy outside my door demanding I set them free.”

  Andie smiled. Gus checked his empty wineglass and said, “Like some cabernet?”

  “Can’t. I’m on duty. I’m actually not much of a week-night drinker anyway.”

  “Neither am I. Normally.”

  “I understand.”

  Gus excused himself and retreated to the kitchen for a refill. Alone at the table, she canvassed the opulent surroundings while contemplating how, without insulting him, she could confirm that Gus was good for the reward. The crystal chandelier was undoubtedly Steuben or Baccarat. On the wall opposite Andie was an antique mahogany-and-glass cabinet that displayed the Wheatley china. The pattern was distracting at first, as no two plates looked alike. Then Andie realized that each plate was a small piece of a larger picture, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was as though someone had cut twelve perfect circles from a huge painting, keeping the plates and discarding the rest. It was a spectacular effect, like something out of a museum. That alone could cover a good chunk of the reward.

  “Did you see my ad in this afternoon’s paper?” Gus asked as he returned to his chair.

  “Yes,” she said, startled. “I’m glad you brought that up.”

  “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “A quarter-million-dollar reward seems a little hefty, don’t you think?”

  “If it brings Beth back, I can afford it.”

  “I’m sure you can. But maybe a hundred thousand would have been enough.”

  “I’m not looking for the blue light special here. I’m trying to get my wife back.”

  “I know that. But an overly generous reward can make the bad guys see dollar signs.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s because you’re thinking like a victim. You need to think like a criminal—like a kidnapper. There’s been no ransom demand yet, but you could get one any day. Imagine him sitting out there somewhere trying to figure out how much to demand. There’s no science to this. Maybe to him a quarter million sounds like a good number. He thinks that’s a ton of money. Then he picks up today’s newspaper and sees you offering two-fifty as a reward to any Joe Blow off the street. Suddenly, his sights are much higher.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That’s why it’s so important that you never do anything like this again without calling me first.”

  It was a little harsher than she’d intended. Gus said, “You sound ticked off.”

  “I just want us to communicate better. I know it’s your personality to be proactive, but I’d like you to check with me before you do anything. Agreed?”

  Gus nodded, but she’d clearly put him on the defensive. “All right. I can agree to that. So long as the communication flows both ways.”

  “I’ve been keeping you informed.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Have you?”

  “Yes, as best I can.”

  “Then tell me what’s going on with Beth’s fingerprints.”

  “I told you. We found a match on the phone.”

  “Thank you, Joe Friday. Now can you get beyond the facts and tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “We think they’re hers.”

  “Come on,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Don’t be cute. Surely you must have developed some theories as to how they got there.”

  “Gus, some aspects of an investigation have to remain confidential.”

  “I promise, I don’t work for Newsweek.”

  “I’m serious. Some things I can’t share with anyone. Not even the victim’s family.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot. That’s the eleventh commandment, isn’t it? Or perhaps it’s an addendum to the Magna Carta. Or no—I remember now. It’s just administrative bullshit some law enforcement bureaucrat made up.”

  Andie nodded, unoffended by his wit. “Touché.”

  He sipped his wine, then turned more serious. “You must be able to understand my need to know.”

  “Of course I do.”

  His gaze tightened. It wasn’t a stare, or even a glare. It was just a long, hard look. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Up all night after you called. I kept thinking about those prints, wondering how the hell they got there. My first thought was that the worst had happened. Kept thinking he brought her there, forced her to dial, then killed her, too.”

  Andie couldn’t tell him much, but she couldn’t let him twist in the wind either. “We searched for any signs of a second victim at the site. Nothing, beyond Beth’s prints.”

  “Which triggers a number of other not so pleasant possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “He brought her there to terrorize her. He let her call home, dial up her daughter’s line and punch out their secret message. Just when she thinks maybe he’ll set her free, he shows her the other victim hanging in the tree, his way of telling her how she’ll end up if her husband doesn’t meet his demands.”

  “What demands?” she asked, alarmed. “You didn’t say anything about any demands.”

  “Relax. There are none yet. But like you said, a ransom note could arrive any day.”

  “That’s true.”

  He finished his wine, a long sip. “So, for a guy whose stomach is tied in knots, I’ve come up with some pretty good theories. Don’t you think?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “You got any better ones?”

  Andie didn’t have to answer, but she suddenly felt as though he had a right to know. Suffering was its own right of passage. “None better,” she replied. “Just different.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s a remote possibility, but we can’t rule it out.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It’s something we feel we have to consider, in light of your wife’s history.”

  “History?”

  “The bulimia, the shoplifting, the postpartum depression, the false accusations of spousal abuse against you. Her general psychological instability.”

  “I don’t see how any of that explains how her fingerprints ended up on a pay phone in Oregon.”

  She hesitated. It was Lundquist’s theory, one she didn’t fully embrace. It pained her to repeat it. “It raises the possibility that she was there willingly.”

  “What the hell are you saying?
She’s an accomplice?”

  “Remote possibility. But yes.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “It might explain why she’s alive. Assuming she’s alive.”

  “My wife is no killer.”

  “It could explain why there’s no ransom demand.”

  “Are you seriously considering this?”

  “It is a theory.”

  “It’s a terrible theory,” he said sharply.

  “I sincerely hope you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right.” His face was flushed, both from the wine and adrenaline. He said nothing for a minute or two, staring blankly at his empty glass. Finally, he spoke again, though he sounded a hint less sure of himself. “That just can’t be.”

  Thirty-three

  On Wednesday Andie decided to start at the very beginning: victim number one.

  Fears that Gus’s wife was a victim had shifted their focus toward the Beth Wheatley look-alikes, victims three, four and five. But if she was an accomplice, maybe the answer lay with the men—the first two victims.

  Early that morning she arrived at 151 Chatham Lane, home of the late Patrick Sullivan. He had been the first of two brown-eyed fifty-one-year-old, Ford pickup truck–driving, divorced men to have been handcuffed in his living room, strangled on the couch, and stabbed exactly eleven times. A far cry from the three women found hanging in trees. If it wasn’t for the same triple braided three-quarter-inch yellow nylon rope, police would never have made the connection.

  Andie spent more than an hour at Sullivan’s house, taking notes, some on paper and some mental. Detective Kessler acted as tour guide. He had been over the house thoroughly and repeatedly as part of his homicide investigation.

  Around nine o’clock they finished and headed to the vacant home of Victor Millner, victim number two. The house was near the Sammamish River in north-central King County, an area popular with hot air balloonists who could be seen peacefully drifting overhead on most any summer day or clear autumn evening. Winters were another story. The day had started gray and stayed that way, showing occasional signs of movement from dull to threatening. No breeze to speak of. A light mist was floating more than falling, not near enough to warrant an umbrella. The slow and steady saturation had turned everything darker. The asphalt blacker. The canvas awning greener. Her mood gloomier.

  Andie stood at the end of the sidewalk for the broad view. It was a relatively new single-family home, one more box in a building craze that had tripled the Redmond-area population in the last two decades. Structurally, it looked like many of the new frame houses in the same development. The most striking thing, however, was how strongly it resembled the first victim’s house, miles away in a different part of town, a totally different neighborhood. The similarities weren’t in the architecture or general design. They were in the details. The green awning that extended from the garage. The wooden flower boxes on the windowsills. The hanging plants and latticework around the front porch. Andie had read the police reports that had noted the curious similarities, but words could leave the reader with the impression that it was mere coincidence. She had seen the photographs, too, but they hadn’t captured the feeling. A personal visit left no room for doubt. The killer had very specific criteria.

  He profiled his victims.

  “You just gonna stand in the rain?” said Kessler.

  She started, her concentration broken. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You want to go in?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  She followed him up the sidewalk and climbed the three stairs on the front porch—the same number as the last house. Kessler pulled aside the crime tape and reached for his key. At that moment Andie focused on one of the major differences between the two crime scenes.

  “No forced entry,” she said, thinking aloud.

  “It’s noted in the first officer’s report,” he said. “That shouldn’t be news to you.”

  “It’s not. My perspective is just changing a little.”

  “How so?”

  “One of the things Victoria Santos tried to reconcile was the fact that at Sullivan’s house the lock had been picked and the door broken open. Here, there was no sign of forcible entry. Yet the crime scene looks exactly the same.”

  “It’s probably like Santos said. He forced his way inside the first time, talked his way in the second. Both guys ended up handcuffed. It’s the same ritual once you get the victim under control.”

  “That explanation makes sense if you’re trying to understand why a work-alone killer would change his entry m.o.”

  “You got something else in mind?”

  “Just testing my supervisor’s accomplice theory.”

  Kessler shook his head, smirking. “Look, I’m the last guy to cross a potential suspect off the list willy-nilly. But Beth Wheatley is no serial killer’s sidekick.”

  “That’s the same reaction I had. At first. But we have to look at the evidence. One scenario suggests that whatever con or ruse the killer used to gain access the second time didn’t work with the first victim. He had to force his way in.”

  “Maybe the first victim was more careful than the second, more savvy.”

  “Possibly,” said Andie.

  “Or maybe practice makes perfect. He had a little more polish on his ruse the second time. He was more persuasive with victim number two.”

  “Or maybe he had help the second time.”

  He nodded slowly, seeming to pick up her drift. “Like an attractive thirty-five-year-old woman. Someone who could knock on the front door, say her car broke down, and ask to use the phone. A fifty-one-year-old man would be more willing to open the door for an attractive woman in distress.”

  “For that matter, so would another woman.”

  Again, he read her mind. “As in the next three victims, all female.”

  They exchanged a long look, as if each were waiting for the other to say it was ridiculous. Neither one did.

  Kessler raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “So, where does that leave us?”

  Andie watched as he turned the key and opened the door. It was like unsealing a tomb. Dark and silent. The residual odor of death wafted from the living room.

  “Confused,” she said as she stepped inside.

  Gus didn’t leave the house all day. The prospect of a phone call kept him there. Beth. Her kidnapper. Someone responding to his ad.

  The ad had run again in this morning’s Post-Intelligencer, identical to yesterday afternoon’s ad in the Times. A smaller version would run again tomorrow in Seattle and in the Portland Oregoner. After all, Beth’s fingerprints had been found on an Oregon pay phone. Agent Henning had told him to run everything by her, but she had also told him the FBI considered his wife a possible accomplice. That had changed the whole ball game in Gus’s eyes, heightening the need for self-help. To that end, he borrowed one of the computer experts from his law firm to help load pictures and information about Beth in all the right places on the World Wide Web, along with the offer of the reward. He even purchased an ad from America Online and other major Internet services. For the next twenty-four hours his would be one of a half dozen advertisement icons that popped on the screen when subscribers logged on. People wouldn’t have to read the actual ad unless they clicked on the icon and opened it, so he had to be creative. “Win $250,000!” was what he came up with. It was a little slick perhaps, but the idea was to get people to click and read. “Have you seen this person?” wasn’t exactly catchy.

  Less than an hour of his day had actually felt wasted. That was how long it took to return phone messages from the office. It was something he had to do, so in that sense it was productive. But when he had finished, it hardly felt like an accomplishment. He had voluntarily reassigned his case load to other partners so that he could focus on finding Beth. That left little in the way of legal responsibilities. And last week’s bloodless coup had shifted all his managerial responsibilities to Martha Goldstein. For the first time in h
is life he wasn’t the point man at the office.

  It was liberating in a sense, knowing how easily he could divest himself of responsibility and chuck it all, if he wanted. No one would be hurt, not the firm or his clients. On the other hand, such freedom didn’t exactly stroke his sense of self-worth. It reminded him of the so-called Preston & Coolidge revolt some years ago. Gus had ruffled a few feathers by deciding to run for managing partner at the relatively young age of thirty-eight. He challenged his own mentor, a senior partner with twenty years more experience. Eleven other senior partners threatened to resign if Gus were elected. Gus ran. And he won. The old guard made good on their threat. They left in a huff to open a competing firm right across the street. They did everything they could to hurt what was left of Preston & Coolidge. They reviled Gus in the newspapers. They made job offers to the firm’s top young associates. They tried to lure away clients. Their actions created chaos and panic throughout the firm. For about two days. Then the reporters moved on to stories more newsworthy. The lawyers went back to practicing law. The clients stayed put. It took about a week for the buzz around the watercooler to switch from “Do you think we’re going to make it?” to “Do you think those crazy old fools are going to land on their feet?” In a month it was as though the infamous “Geriatric Dozen” had never worked at the firm, their influence as remote as the very dead Mssrs. Preston and Coolidge who had founded the firm a hundred years earlier. That was the beauty of the institution. No one was indispensable.

  Not even Gus.

  “We’re back,” Carla announced as she entered the house. She was carrying a bag of groceries in each arm. Morgan was behind her, toting a smaller bag. Gus met them in the kitchen.

  “Hi, Morgan.”

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Can Daddy have a hello kiss?”

  “I’m pretty dirty right now. I have to wash up before dinner.” She hurried from the room before Gus could think of something to say. He looked helplessly at Carla.

  “Is it my imagination, or am I actually losing ground with her?”