Undercurrents

by Ridley Pearson

“Because he’s involved too. He’s making it the way he wants it, which only makes it more complicated. You’re at cross-purposes. I’m not suggesting your job is easy, Lou, or that there’s a simple solution to this case, only that the way you approach it—the way you feel about it—is left up to you. You can carry Jergensen’s death with you, or you can let it go. It’s up to you to make that decision.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  After the climb they rounded a corner to the left and walked down Third. The avenue was in disrepair because of a mass-transit construction project that had been going on for years now. Downtown was quiet. “Yes,” Boldt finally said, “maybe it is.”

  She looped her arm through his and asked, “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head and squeezed her arm in his grip. “The hardest thing about this case has been the knowledge that he’s still out there. It gets in under your skin and festers. Solving a single homicide is one thing—it’s hard enough. Preventing another death is something else entirely. We’re not really trained for that. Each time we discover another victim I feel as if I failed. I’ve never really felt anything quite like it. I keep thinking I should be the one he gets. It’s me who’s failed, not the women he kills. I wish he’d come after me.”

  She shivered. “Don’t say that, Lou. What a grisly thought.”

  “How am I supposed to cope with that sense of failure, Doctor?”

  “Is it your fault he’s still out there?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “For one thing it isn’t your case alone. That’s a misconception. There must be twenty or thirty people on this case, statewide. And I happen to believe that if there was enough evidence, you would have caught him already. None of us likes to relinquish control to another. One of the great human drives is to remain in control—to dominate a situation. Is it failure that’s eating away at you, or lack of control? Could it be that what’s really bothering you is that it’s his game, not yours?”

  He stopped at the door to The Brass Grill and looked over at her. He grinned, ever so slightly. “I knew you were the right person to call,” he said.

  “I’m glad you did,” she admitted.

  “No more business?” he asked, yanking open the door.

  “From here on out we’re just two people out for the evening.”

  Classical music came from inside. Huge windows overlooked the harbor dotted with the lights of ferries, freighters, and tankers. He teased, “I’m not sure I remember how to be a ‘people.’ It’s been a long, long time.”

  “Oh, I think you do,” she said. “And what you don’t remember, I’ll teach you.” She pursed her lips and cocked her head at him, suppressing a grin.

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It can be.”

  The glass doors swung shut. Lou Boldt glanced over his shoulder at his reflected image. For a brief moment, he saw himself not through his own eyes, but through hers.

  She tugged on his arm, “We’re inside,” she said. “There’s no escape now.”

  “No,” he said, turning to face her, “I don’t suppose there is.”

  “Two?” the headwaiter asked.

  Lou Boldt nodded.

  15

  For the next three days Boldt thought about that evening with Daphne. He wondered if his urge to ask her home had been stimulated by his warming affection for her, or by some subconscious desire to punish Elizabeth for her affair and her wearing down of their marriage. He wondered if his failure to do so had been out of consideration for Daphne, or had stemmed from fear of his own sexual inadequacy, a condition that had plagued him for the past several months. He couldn’t picture himself unable to get it up with a woman like Daphne lying naked beside him, but he couldn’t be sure either, and the embarrassment of such a failure loomed ever-present in his mind. I’d curl up and die, he thought.

  Once again he felt stymied by the investigation, despite the fact that he was armed with a wealth of new information: (a) Cheryl Croy’s cooking class had been taught by a woman and attended by all women, ruling it out as a place the killer had spotted his victims; (b) Croy’s television’s remote-control device had yielded only her prints, and no others; (c) the dates on the milk products in Croy’s refrigerator indicated she had shopped either on that Friday or Saturday, no shopping receipt had been found to confirm this; (d) the paper match found in the carport behind Croy’s house bore a partial thumbprint—possibly the killer’s; (e) the partial palm print, lifted from the fence behind Croy’s house; (f) photographs of the sneaker prints and tire tracks from the van spotted in the neighboring carport. I.D. estimated that the man wearing the sneakers weighed in at between 128 and 134 pounds, far less than the weight indicated by the Rockport shoe print found in the mud at Kate DeHavelin’s death scene. The carport shoe prints were from a pair of size-eight sneakers sold at K mart. The Rockports were size nine and a half, meaning evidence at the DeHavelin site had been either “negated” by an unknown stranger, or her murder was the work of a copycat. Boldt was becoming increasingly convinced he had two killers on his hands. He had yet to share that theory with anyone but Daphne or Dixon. Without further proof of a copycat, the conflicting evidence would make building a court case against a suspect more difficult: Boldt would have to move very slowly now or find himself with inconsistent evidence that might defeat his efforts once he reached the courtroom.

  Boldt felt increasingly frustrated. Absolutely nothing new had been uncovered in the last three days. He had tried to make an appointment with Justin Levitt to go over his statement again, in hopes something new might be jogged loose from the boy’s memory as often happened with material witnesses. But the boy’s parents had insisted the boy be allowed a few days to “become a boy again,” and Boldt had not argued the point. He could not prove any kind of pressing need for another interview.

  The clock continued to tick. Boldt had no way of knowing exactly when or where the next killing would take place. Any moment the phone would ring and another victim would be added to the list.

  He drummed his pencil impatiently against his desk, studying the list LaMoia had prepared that catalogued the hundreds of items sold at the various stores where the victims shopped on the day prior to their deaths. He placed check marks by items appearing on two or more lists. There was a connection between these women somewhere. Somehow the killer had come across each of them. Was it something they had gone shopping for? Someplace they had eaten? A gas station? A repairman? A delivery man? A peeper? He looked forward to seeing LaMoia’s list covering the four days prior to the victims’ deaths.

  A uniformed woman rounded his office baffle and glanced at her clipboard. Her face was freckled and sunburned. She told him, “Lou, an unidentified female Caucasian has washed ashore at Alki Point. Doctor Dixon is waiting for you. He thinks you ought to have a look at it. Something to do with your present case. He didn’t say what.” Boldt snatched his coat from the back of the chair. “Who’s on it?”

  “Browning and Bobbie Gaynes. Bobbie’s been moved up from Special Assaults.”

  “Dammit! Pull Browning and put him back with LaMoia. I want him to stay on canvassing. Make that clear to him, would you?”

  “But who’ll—”

  “I’ll take this for the time being, and figure out what to do with it later,” he said, rushing past the woman.

  ***

  It was a gloomy day, and the shoreline of Alki Point was randomly consumed by shifting patches of thick fog blown in off the water. The fog swirled in like ambling gray tumbleweed, blanketing the large gathering of police personnel. Boldt tugged up his coat collar and crossed the stone beach to where the body lay.

  Or what was left of it.

  “Gaynes?” he called out, expecting one of the men to turn around, surprised when a pretty blonde about twenty-five approached. But then he recalled Shoswitz saying that they were pulling in temps from Special Assaults, the rape division, and the on-duty officer had said
Gaynes was from SA.

  “Lou Boldt,” he said by way of introduction.

  In this light, she had olive skin and moist lips. “Yes, I know. We met last year at one of the Christmas things.”

  He nodded, but didn’t remember. Too many faces at those Christmas things. Too many faces and too much booze. He never said anything much at those affairs; he ate a couple of reindeer cookies and sneaked out early. “I pulled Browning from the case. For now, I’m going to handle it with you.”

  “You?” she said stunned, but recovered quickly enough to add, “Yes, sir.”

  “You can skip the sir shit, Bobbie. Your name is Bobbie, isn’t it?”

  “Barbara, actually. Everyone calls me Bobbie.”

  “I’m Lou.”

  “Fine. Why you? You’re on the task force, aren’t you?”

  Boldt liked her immediately: casual and sure of herself, yet cloaked in femininity. “I’ve taken a special interest in the case. What have we got?”

  “It’s ugly,” she said. They were standing a good thirty feet away. Even at this distance the stench was nauseating. Gaynes said, “The sea life’s done away with the flesh on her hands and feet, as well as most of her face. Hair’s gone. She’s a mess.”

  Boldt walked over to take a look. He pulled out his handkerchief and pressed it to his face. He’d seen colorless, decomposed bodies before. Ugly was being polite. The sea had its own way with cadavers.

  Doctor Dixon was examining Jane Doe. Her hands and feet were white shiny bone. Her swimsuit was caked with mud. “What have we got, Dixie?” Boldt asked.

  Dixon glanced over his shoulder, a paper mask covering his lower face. “I’ve been waiting for you. Our sea friends seem to have been busy.” Dixon poked what remained of the face with his gloved hand. Boldt looked away. Dixon was far too casual around rotten flesh. What a job.

  “Cause of death?”

  “Can’t say for certain, Lou. Don’t mean to make your job any tougher than it already is, but look here. This is why I thought you better come down.”

  Boldt bent down by Dixon, holding the handkerchief firmly in place. The pathologist pinched the soft, spongy tissue of the woman’s throat. “Too much flesh gone to be absolutely certain, but look at the way the fish life fed on this neck.” He indicated a line around the woman’s throat. “Bruises fill with blood. The skin decomposes and the blood in the bruises seeps through the epidermal layer. Sea life is attracted to these areas first.”

  Boldt tried to maintain his professional attitude but felt on the edge of vomiting. How many similar bodies had he seen? Why did they still bother him? “What’s your guess, Doc?” he asked, his voice muffled by the handkerchief.

  Dixon pinched the gray-white cartilage of the trachea. “What this damage tells us, Lou, is that consistent pressure was applied from behind.”

  “Strangled?”

  Dixon looked up at him. “Won’t know for sure until I get her on the table. I think this one’s worth your bother, Lou, or I wouldn’t have called you.”

  “It’s not much, Dixie.”

  Dixon said firmly, “What are the chances a boating accident would do this good a job of strangling her? This is my line of business, and I’ll tell you there’s no chance at all. Someone did this to her. Now listen, there may not be a cross on her chest; she may not look like a pincushion, like the rest of them, but how many young female strangulations do we get in a year? How many with this particular look to it? See the area back here?” He pointed. “This guy had her choked down hard, Lou. Same trademark as I’ve seen on some others recently, if you follow me. I know you. You like doing things right. Well, you had better take a good long look at this one then. How good a job is a transfer from SA going to do?”

  So that’s what it was about. “You don’t like her,” Boldt said, raising his head and looking over at Bobbie Gaynes.

  “She’s green,” Dixon said. “She asked a bunch of stupid questions.”

  “I’ll talk to her. And I’ll pay extra attention, Dixie. Promise.”

  “You asked me to notify you if any of my guests showed similarities to your case. This woman qualifies.” He pointed at the bloated cadaver.

  “That I did.”

  Bobbie approached, pulled on Boldt’s arm, and drew him away. She half-whispered, “Did you notice that her wetsuit is a rental?”

  Boldt cocked his head. “What makes you think so?”

  “I’m not positive. But that red nail polish along the collar. What else would that be for?”

  Boldt didn’t buy it, and he told her so. “Could be any number of things,” he said. He had to weigh her comments with a degree of reservation. She was a young detective, probably in her first year in plainclothes, and she would try to impress him. Women rarely got a chance at a homicide case. She would want to make the most of it. “Okay,” he said, “so what if it is?” If she was going to be gung-ho then he intended to test her at every chance. In all likelihood, he would have to turn much of the investigative work on this one over to her. For a brief moment he regretted having reassigned Browning so hastily, but he would not change things now.

  “It may tell us something about her. Maybe help us identify her.”

  Boldt looked at Bobbie’s moist face. She had a small slender nose, soft blue eyes, and rosy cheeks flushed from the chill. She showed a slight gap between her two front teeth, reminding him of Lauren Hutton. Pretty without being pretentious. “We take things kind of slow in Homicide. Slow and methodical. Step by step—”

  “Lou?” Dixon called out.

  Boldt walked back over to the man, returning the handkerchief to his face.

  Dixon said, “Here’s something for a curious mind like yours.” He pulled back the thin wetsuit. “I unzipped this thing to get some preliminary photos. These water cadavers tend to fall apart on you, like chicken left too long in the broth. Best to get photos while they’re still intact. Take a look.” He had unzipped the wetsuit to her crotch. He opened it further. Two wrinkled, waterlogged, ink-stained pieces of pink paper were stuck to the woman’s swimsuit just above her pubis.

  “What the hell?” Boldt asked.

  “I’ll be as careful as possible with them. It’s best if we lift them as a unit. The lab can freeze-dry them, remove the moisture, and then separate them later. Best chance of retaining anything written on them,” Dixon said.

  “What’s your guess?” Boldt asked him.

  “Some sort of receipt,” Dixon offered.

  “Same here,” the detective agreed.

  “A little weird to go swimming with some receipts stuffed down your suit, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’d buy that.” Boldt couldn’t stand being by the cadaver another minute. He left Dixon to deal with the receipts, and went over by Bobbie.

  Boldt led her away from the commotion, toward the stairs that led up to the parking lot. He said quietly, but sternly, “Between you and me, Detective, this case may be related to the Cross Killings. That’s all you have to know right now. If I hear it from anyone else, I’ll know you leaked it, and your ass will be in a sling. You follow me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just thought you should know, so you understand its importance. Okay?” he said, regretting his condescending tone. Why did he always treat every rookie detective like every other sergeant did? What gave sergeants the right to be so hard on them? He answered his own question: it’s how they treated us, that’s why.

  “So what’s our next step?”

  She looked over as two men struggled awkwardly with the heavy black bag containing the corpse. “Missing persons, I’d say. Once we have her vitals, we go through all the water accidents and look for a match.”

  “And what’s this case at the moment?”

  “Death by suspicious causes.”

  “That wetsuit may help us keep this case open after the body is identified, but don’t count on it. Same with those receipts Dixie found, although they look in pretty poor condition. If you’re at all norma
l, you’re eager to be involved with an active homicide case.” She nodded her agreement. “And that’s good. That’s what I need. I’m plenty busy without this case. You’ll handle most of it. But don’t let your enthusiasm show too much, okay? We move slowly in Homicide. We can’t afford to lose suspects in court because of sloppy police work. I have to trust you to do a good job. First off, we try and find out who she is. Wetsuits and whatever else come later. Okay? We move carefully. I’d like some progress by this afternoon.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “We both stay in business that way, okay?”

  “’Cuse me.”

  They turned around. James Royce, Doctor Dixon’s autopsy assistant whom Boldt had briefly met at the ME’s office, was laden with equipment, and the two detectives were blocking the stairs that led up from the beach. He stared a little too long at Bobbie Gaynes and she blushed. Boldt introduced her to him as “the cop in charge of the case.” Royce smiled and moved on.

  Bobbie followed him with her eyes.

  “Get going on those missing-person files. I’ll ride over to the ME’s with Dixon and wait for his initial report.”

  She hurried off toward the parked car, caught up to Royce, and chatted briefly. He loaded the gear into the station wagon marked KING COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER.

  “Hey,” Boldt called out, “get going.”

  “My car’s blocked,” she said, pointing. “Or would you prefer I walk?”

  Royce stayed out of it.

  Spunk, Boldt thought. He was impressed.

  16

  Lou Boldt waited in Doctor Dixon’s office. The big man returned with two coffees and handed one to the detective. Dixon dragged a folding chair from a table across the room over to where Lou Boldt was seated. Here was a man who shunned the pretense of holding court from a chair behind a desk. Before Dixon could sit down, an assistant knocked and poked his head through the door.

  “The mother of that one from the hotel is on six-five: Mrs. Malthaner, calling from Fresno. She wants to know what’s going on.”

  Dixon nodded and the assistant closed the door. “Excuse me a minute,” he said to Boldt and moved over to a sideboard where he picked up the phone and depressed a button. He spent five minutes explaining politely to the woman that her son had been found dead in a hotel room, and that the cause of death was an enlarged heart that had simply quit working, that his body was being held in order to complete the prerequisite tox-scans for alcohol and drugs, and that yes, it was an unusual condition for someone forty-one years of age but not unheard of, and that her son was sixty pounds overweight and the heart disease could have been caused by any number of things, and that they would know more by the end of the day. He hung up, removed his glasses, and rubbed fatigue from his eyes. To Boldt he said, “Found a guy dead in a hotel room. Couple thousand miles from home. No sign of violence. He had an ugly heart—twice the size of yours or mine. It killed him. I have a feeling he was into both booze and drugs. His liver didn’t look good, and neither did his nasal passages. So we run the tests and this afternoon I speak with that woman again and tell her that her son abused himself chemically, and in the end it cost him his life.”