Grimoire Diabolique

by Edward Lee

  “It’s the most remote possibility but also the worst as far as apprehension is concerned.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s remote because sociopaths rarely engage in mutilation crimes. But they’re infinitely harder to apprehend because sociopaths, as a rule, aren’t insane; therefore they’re less likely to make a mistake that could lead to arrest. Sociopaths are skilled liars. They’ve had their whole lives to practice. Their amorality isn’t a result of mental defectivity. They know what’s right and what’s wrong, but they choose wrong because it suits them.”

  They choose wrong, I thought. But Desmond had said this profile was the least likely. “If you had to make a choice yourself,” I asked him, “which of the three would you put your money on?”

  Desmond tsk’d, smiled a thin smile. “Abnormal psychiatry isn’t an objective checklist. Profile indexes exist only through the documentation of known information. So it stands to reason that there’s quite a bit out there that we don’t know yet. It would be of little value for me to make a guess. All I can say is it’s probably one of the three. But you should also consider a sexual detail that should also be obvious.”

  Dumb again. Dumb me. “And that would be?”

  “The absence of evidence of rape. No semen in any orifice, no evidence of sexual penetration. Considering any of my three profiles, the possibility should properly be addressed that the killer is at the very least unable to achieve erection in the presence of a woman, or he may be sexually incompetent altogether.”

  “This is a lot of data you’ve given me, sir, and I’m grateful,” I said, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. The insights he’d given me would make for a great, comprehensive series of articles on the killer. “I really appreciate your time.”

  “My pleasure, young man.”

  I grabbed my stuff to leave, but then he held up a finger to stop me.

  “One last point, though,” he said. “In the cases of Profiles #1 and #2, there’s a considerable formative likelihood that the killer’s mother was either a prostitute, a drug addict, or both.”

  “That’ll help my article too. Maybe if the killer reads it, it’ll scare him into making a mistake, or stopping.”

  Desmond creaked back in his padded chair. I’m not sure if he was smiling or not, just nodding with his eyes thinned and his lips pressed together. “Perhaps it will,” he said so softly it sounded like a flutter.

  “Thank you,” I said. But then something caught me—two things, actually, both at the same time. Behind Desmond’s head, the late-afternoon sun burned, an inferno. And then my eyes flicked down to the doctor’s desk blotter.

  It was one of those calendar blotters, each top sheet a different month. The Tuesday and Thursday boxes for all four weeks had this written in them:

  J.J. - 1:30 P.M.

  J.J., I thought.

  Captain Jay Jameson.

  ««—»»

  That’s when I knew Jameson was it. It hit me in the head like someone dropping a flowerpot from a high window. There were still a few holes, sure. But it was one of those things where you just knew. It was a presage. It was something psychic.

  I just knew.

  I knew I had to go see him. I knew I had to get him out. But before I could even make a plan, Jameson walks right into my cubicle the next day.

  “There he is. The lib journalist.”

  I glanced up from my copy, stared at him.

  “Hey, I’m just joking,” he said. “Lighten up, you’ll live longer.”

  “You come here to bust me for my descrambler.”

  “What’s a descrambler?” he said. “And tax evasion? Never heard of it.”

  “Why are you here, Captain? You want to square up with me? Those four Old English tallboys cost me $3.50 a pop. Us lib journalists don’t make much.”

  “Good,” he said. He rubbed his hands together. He grinned through that weird lined, tanned face, the shock of blond-gray hair hanging over one eye. “Let me make it up to ya. Dinner at my place. You ever had broiled langoustes with scallop mousse? My wife makes it better than any restaurant in the city. Come on.”

  This was a great opportunity but… “I’ve got a deadline. I’m a crime writer, remember? I’ll be here at least two more hours writing up the robbery at the Ballard Safeway. My boss won’t let me out of here till it’s done.”

  Jameson jerked a gaze into the outer office. “That’s your boss there, right? The fat guy in suspenders with the mole on his neck bigger than a bottlecap? I already talked to him. Safeway can wait. You’re off early today, boy.”

  “What are you talk—”

  Jameson lit a cigarette, then tapped an ash on my floor. “Your boss has sixteen parking tickets he thought his brother in the public safety building buried. I showed him the print-out from the city police mainframe.”

  That’ll do it. I looked through the door at my boss, and all he did was frown and flick his wrist.

  “All right,” I said. “I guess Safeway can wait.”

  ««—»»

  “Honey? This is my good friend Matt Hauge,” Jameson introduced. “This is my wife, Jeanna.”

  I cringed when he said good friend, but I also knew I had to play along now. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jameson,” I said and shook her hand. She looked about mid-forties but well tended. Bright blond hair, good figure, probably a knockout in her younger days. What’s a good-looking woman like this doing with a busted racist drunk like Jameson? I wondered. They didn’t fit together at all. They both looked out of place standing there together. A shining figurine and a rubber dog turd.

  He’d driven me from the paper to his Belltown condominium. Nice place, clean, well appointed, which didn’t look right either. It was easier to picture Jameson living in an unkempt dump with smoke-stained walls, dirty dishes in the sink, and cigarette burns in a carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in years.

  “Hi,” she said with kind of a wan smile. “Jay hasn’t stopped talking about you.”

  “Oh, really?” I replied.

  “Oh, God, since your article in the Times came out, he’s been like a kid at Christmas.”

  So that’s what this was all about. The red carpet treatment. Jameson’s ego and pride wouldn’t let him say it, so he let his wife do it. This was his way of thanking me for giving him a good shake in print. Or maybe it’s just his way of continuing the bribe, I considered.

  “From what I can see, Mrs. Jameson, your husband’s doing a top-notch job in investigating this case,” I told her. “The other writers in this city have chosen not to acknowledge this—and that’s wrong. I’m not doing your husband any favors here; I’m just writing it the way I see it.”

  “Well,” she went on, “we’re really grateful to you.”

  “No need to be, ma’am. Because if your husband drops the ball now…I’m going to write about that too.” Then I shot Jameson a cocked grin.

  “I don’t drop the ball,” Jameson told me and immediately lit a cigarette. “Don’t believe me? Check my performance ratings.”

  “I already have,” I said. “And you’re right.” Then I glanced over at the TV in the corner. “Say, is that a descrambler you’ve got there?”

  “Funny guy. I like a lib journalist with a sense of humor,” he said, slapping me hard on the back and showing me into the dining room. Warm, exotic aromas swam around the room. “What would you like to drink?” Jameson’s wife asked.

  “A Coke would be fine.”

  Another hard slap to the back. It was getting old. “Come on, have a drink,” Jameson insisted. “You’re off duty.”

  “Maybe later,” I said, half lost of breath.

  “Dinner’ll be right up,” Jeanne said, then disappeared into the aromatic kitchen.

  Jameson and I sat down at the table simultaneously. I knew I had him pegged, but I also knew I still needed more. This was the big league. He was a decorated city detective, I was just a reporter.

  “Look, man,” he said. “
I ain’t too good at, you know—expressing gratitude? But your article really helped me out. Not just me but my whole squad. So…thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “Like I just got done telling your wife, your step on your dick, I’m gonna write about that too.”

  “I hear ya—”

  “And it’s not just one article, you know. I’m writing a series of related articles about the killer,” I informed him.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. This isn’t just some fly-by-night crime piece. It’s a comprehensive serial-killer story. People want to know, so I’m gonna tell them.” It was time to play the card. “I’ve already talked to Dr. Desmond, and he gave me a lot of clinical info on the case. It’ll be a highly informative series.”

  Jameson’s jaw dropped so hard I thought his lower lip would slap the dining room table. “You-you-you’ve talked to Dr. Desmond?”

  “Yeah, sure. I saw his name on those profile write-ups you gave me. My next article is going to detail his first profile: the killers who’s cutting off his victim’s hands out of a symbolic and hallucinatory act of revenge. Then I’ll write another about the second profile: the homicidal fantasist whose taking the hands to facilitate what he never got as a child. The nurturing touch of the mother.” I paused for a moment, just to gauge his reaction.

  All he did was look at me real funny.

  “Yeah, he gave me all kinds of insights for my series,” I added. “It could get national notice.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Jameson said. Was he faltering? Did I throw him a hard slider? “Desmond’s an odd cookie, and talk about ego? Shit. He can barely walk into a room ’cos his head’s so big. But he does know his shit. That guy can slap a profile faster than the president can whip it out.”

  “I wouldn’t put it in quite those terms, Captain,” I said, “but Dr. Desmond does seem to be a qualified expert.”

  Jeanne brought out the drinks, then smiled bashfully, and said, “It’ll be just another minute.”

  I nodded as she scurried back to the kitchen. “So what are we having?” I asked Jameson. “Linguini and something?”

  “Langoustes. Petite lobster tails from Britain. Flash-broiled in garlic and lime butter and topped with scallop mousse.” Jameson half drained a can of Rainier Ice. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “I’m starving. Missed lunch.”

  “Oh, yeah. Bet’cha hate it when you have to put in ten hours.”

  “Ten? Are you kidding me. Ten’s an easy day.”

  Each time Jameson dragged on his cigarette, I watched a third of it burn down; then he’d light another. “Look, I’m sorry about all that shit I said a few days ago. I didn’t mean it—it wasn’t me. I was just having a bad day, you know?” He grinned. “Even racist police-state cops have bad days.”

  “Thank God I never pulled up my sleeve. Then you would’ve seen my Maryland Mansion tattoo.”

  “Oh, you’ve got one too?” Jameson exploded laughter, a bit too loudly.

  Dinner was served, and I have to admit, I’ve probably never had a better seafood meal in my life. The scallop mousse melted in my mouth, and those langouste things tasted better than any lobster I’ve ever had. During the meal, we tried to talk openly, but Jameson—the more he drank—dominated the conversation with cop talk. After a while, I could see that his wife was getting uncomfortable, even embarrassed, and after a little more time, she just gave up. I felt sorry for her.

  “So we’re all standing around the morgue slab with the M.E.!” Jameson bellowed after his fifth beer, “and the corpse cracks a fart! I kid you not!”

  Yeah, I felt really sorry for her.

  “So then Dignazio says, ‘Damn, he must get his chili dogs at Schultze’s ’cos that fart smells just like mine!’”

  The poor women just wilted where she sat.

  “This was a fantastic meal, Mrs. Jameson. Thanks very much,” I said. “But I guess I better get going now.”

  “Bullshit!” Jameson said. Then he put his arm around me and shook me, all the while looking at his wife. “Honey,” he said. “I gotta take this boy out for a nightcap, all right? I gotta teach this man to drink!”

  “No, really—” I started.

  “Come on, don’t be a candyass!”

  “Just be careful,” Mrs. Jameson said.

  I’m no big drinker but I still had a few things to snuff out. Bar-hopping with Jameson would provide the perfect opportunity.

  We got up to leave. That’s when I noticed two of framed pictures along the fireplace mantle; there were just a few.

  I put my glasses on an looked.

  A wedding picture of a much younger Jameson and his wife. Some snapshots of old people: relatives, I presumed. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and the like. A freeze-frame of a beautiful cheerleader wagging pom-poms and doing a split-it was obviously Jameson’s wife back in high school days. Then—

  A framed picture of a dark-haired adult with his arm around a cock-eyed kid with a bad haircut.

  Jameson, I thought. The kid’s Jameson…

  “No kid yet, I see,” I said and took my glasses off. I suspected this might be dangerous ground but I had to go for it.

  “No,” Mrs. Jameson peeped.

  “Not yet,” Jameson piped in. “We’re still waiting for the right time.”

  Man, you’re fifty and she’s gotta be forty-five, I thought. Better not wait much longer.

  Jameson jangled his keys. “Come on, lib. Let’s go have some fun.”

  I turned to his wife. “Mrs. Jameson. Thanks very much for the excellent meal. You could get a job at any restaurant in town; you’d blow all of those master chefs out of the water.”

  The woman blushed. “Thank you. Come by again soon.”

  “Later, babe,” Jameson bid and yanked me out of there. He guffawed all the way down the stairs to the parking garage.

  “So where you wanna go?” he asked. “A strip joint?”

  “And all this time I thought you were gonna take me to hear bald lesbians read poetry,” I joked.

  “Aw, fuck that shit,” he answered, beer fumes wafting out of his mouth. “Let’s see some meat.”

  “Pardon me if I’m misinformed, Captain, but there really aren’t any strip joints in Seattle. The girls all gotta wear bikinis via county code, and the only thing you can drink there is orange juice or sodas.”

  Another loud guffaw. “Pal, you don’t know the strip joint I know!”

  I’m sure I don’t, I thought. When we’d just stepped into the elevator into the parking garage, I slapped my breast pocket. “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s wrong? You just shit your pants?”

  “I left my glasses in your condo,” I admitted.

  “Well go on back up and get them and I’ll get the car.” He elbowed me. “And no funny business with the wife…or I’ll have ta kill you.”

  He burst more laughter as I jogged back up the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Mrs. Jameson when she answered my knock. “I left my glasses here.”

  “Oh, come in,” she said. I could smell from her breath that she’d already had a stiff one since we’d left. “Were would they be?”

  “The table, or maybe the mantle when I was looking at the pictures,” I said.

  I scanned the table—nothing.

  “Here they are,” she said, picking them up off the mantle.

  “Thanks.”

  “I apologize for the way Jay gets sometimes,” the words stumbled from her mouth. “He has a little to much to drink, and…well, you know.”

  You ain’t kidding I know, I thought.

  “But you should also know that your article really pumped him up,” she went on. “I haven’t seen him happy in years, but your article really made him happy. He’s worked hard for so long. It’s wonderful to see someone give him recognition in the press.”

  I shrugged. “He’s doing a good job on the case. That’s why I wrote the piece.”

  “Well, anyway, thank
you,” she said.

  The look she gave me then? Christ. She brought her arms together in front, pressed her breasts together. Her nipples stuck through her blouse like golf cleats. Fuck, I thought. Is she offering herself to me…for the article?

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” I changed the subject. “What’s this picture here?” I pointed to the man with his arm around the boy. “Is that your husband, the child?”

  “Yes that’s him with his father,” she told me. “Jay was seven. His father was killed a few weeks after that picture was taken.”

  “Oh…I’m sorry.” My eyes scanned the photos. “Where’s his mother?”

  “Jay never knew his mother,” she said. “She ran out the day he was born.”

  ««—»»

  The facilitation of the mother’s nurturing touch, I thought as Jameson squealed his Grand Am out of the parking garage. Everything I’d observed so far backed up everything Desmond had told me…

  “So how’d you like the grub? Better than the cafeteria at the Times?”

  “It was fantastic. Your wife is one dynamite cook.”

  “Yeah, she’s a good kid,” he said. “She’s hung with me through thick and thin, and believe me, there’s been a lot of thin. Too bad I can’t do more for her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He steered down Third Avenue. “It didn’t help when you brought up kids. Last couple of years, it’s been like playing pool with a piece of string.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “But that’s my problem, not yours,” he perked up. “Let’s go have some fun!”

  We rode a ways. The streetlights shimmered as the warm air roved down the avenue. We stopped at a red light at third and Marion, and several homeless people approached the car.

  “Shine your windshield for a buck, mister,” a decrepit man said.

  “Get the fuck away from the car!” Jameson yelled. “I just had it washed!”

  “Hey, mister, relax. We was just askin’.”

  A woman in rotten clothes approached the other side of the car. Toothless. Staggering.

  “Tell that junkie bum bitch to get away from my car!” Jameson yelled.

  Then he yanked his gun out of his shoulder holster.