by John Verdon
Becker went rigid in his chair, his face expressionless. Gurney had seen that look too many times in his career. What followed it was usually unfortunate, occasionally career-ending. He hoped the camera and the presence of Stanford Mull, Esquire, would be effective deterrents.
Apparently they were. Becker slowly relaxed, looking around the room for a long minute, looking everywhere except at Ballston.
Gurney wondered what Ballston’s game was. Was he calculatedly trying to ignite a violent reaction in exchange for a legal advantage? Or was his laid-back condescension an effort to demonstrate his superiority as his life collapsed?
When Becker spoke, his voice was unnaturally casual. “So tell me about that screening room, Jordan.” He articulated the name in a way that sounded oddly insulting.
If Ballston heard it that way, he ignored it. “Small, comfortable, lovely carpet.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know. When I was picked up at Newark Airport, I was given a blindfold—one of those sleeping masks you see in old black-and-white movies. I was told by the driver to put it on and not take it off until I was informed that I was in the screening room.”
“And you didn’t cheat?”
“Karnala is not an organization that encourages cheating.”
Becker nodded, smiled. “Do you think they might consider what you’re telling us today a form of cheating?”
“I’m afraid they might,” said Ballston.
“So you look at these … videos and … you see something you like. What then?”
“You verbally accept the terms of the purchase, you replace your blindfold, and you are driven back to the airport. You arrange for a wire transfer of the purchase price to a bank-account number in the Cayman Islands, and a few days later the girl of your dreams rings your doorbell.”
“And then?”
“And then … whatever one wishes to happen … happens.”
“And the girl of your dreams ends up dead.”
Ballston smiled. “Of course.”
“Of course?”
“That’s what the transaction is all about. Didn’t you know that?”
“All about … killing them?”
“The girls Karnala provides are very bad girls. They’ve done terrible things. In their videos they describe in detail what they’ve done. Unbelievably terrible things.”
Becker moved back slightly in his chair. He was clearly in over his head. Even Stanford Mull’s poker face had assumed a certain rigidity. Their reactions seemed to energize Ballston. Life seemed to be flowing back into him. His eyes brightened.
“Terrible things that require terrible punishments.”
There was a kind of universal pause, maybe two or three seconds, in which it seemed that no one in the Palm Beach interrogation room or the BCI teleconferencing room was breathing.
Darryl Becker broke the spell with a practical question in a routine tone of voice. “Let’s be perfectly clear on this. You killed Melanie Strum?”
“That’s correct.”
“And Karnala had sent other girls to you?”
“Correct.”
“How many others?”
“Two prior to Melanie.”
“How much did you know about them?”
“About the boring details of their day-to-day existences, nothing. About their passions and their transgressions, everything.”
“Did you know where they came from?”
“No.”
“How Karnala recruited them?”
“No.”
“Did you ever try to find out?”
“That was specifically discouraged.”
Becker leaned back from the table and studied Ballston’s face.
As Gurney watched Becker on the screen, it looked to him as if the man was stalling, overwhelmed by his introduction to a level of sickness he hadn’t anticipated, trying to figure out where to go next with the interrogation.
Gurney turned to Rodriguez. The captain looked every bit as nonplussed as Darryl Becker by Ballston’s revelations and nonchalance.
“Sir?” At first Rodriguez seemed not to hear him. “Sir, I’d like to send a request down to Palm Beach.”
“What kind of request?”
“I want Becker to ask Ballston why he cut off Melanie’s head.”
The captain’s faced twitched in revulsion. “Obviously because he’s a sick, sadistic, murdering creep.”
“I think it could be useful to ask the question.”
Rodriguez looked pained. “What else could it be, other than part of his disgusting ritual?”
“Like cutting off Jillian’s head was part of Hector’s ritual?”
“What’s your point?”
Gurney’s tone hardened. “It’s a simple question, and it has to be asked. We’re running out of time.” He knew that Rodriguez’s horrendous difficulties with his crack-addict daughter were compromising the man’s ability to deal directly with a case so close to home, but that was not Gurney’s largest concern.
Rodriguez’s face reddened, an effect heightened by the contrast with his starched white collar and dyed black hair. After a moment he turned toward Wigg with an air of surrender. “Man has a question. ‘Why did Ballston cut off her head?’ Send it.”
Wigg’s fingers tapped rapidly on her keyboard.
On the teleconferencing monitor, Becker was pressing Ballston about where Karnala got the girls, and Ballston was reiterating his total lack of knowledge in that area.
Becker looked like he was considering yet another way to pursue this when his attention was drawn to his laptop, apparently to the question Wigg had just transmitted. He looked up at the camera and nodded before switching subjects.
“So, Jordan, tell me … why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Kill Melanie Strum in that particular way.”
“I’m afraid that’s a private matter.”
“Private, hell. The deal was we ask questions, you answer them.”
“Well …” Ballston’s bravado was fading. “I would say it was partly a matter of personal preference, and …” He looked for the first time in the interrogation mildly anxious. “I have to ask you something, Lieutenant. Are you referring to … the whole process … or simply the removal of the head?”
Becker hesitated. The banal tone of the conversation seemed to be twisting his grip on reality. “For now … let’s say we’re mainly concerned about the removal.”
“I see. Well, the removal was, shall we say, a courtesy.”
“It was a what?”
“A courtesy. A gentlemen’s agreement.”
“An agreement … to do what?”
Ballston shook his head in despair, like the sophisticated tutor of a dull student. “I think I’ve explained the basic arrangement, and Karnala’s expertise in catering to the psychological dimension, their ability to provide a unique product. You did understand all that, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, I understood it fine.”
“They’re the ultimate source of the ultimate product.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“As a condition for an ongoing business relationship, they did have that one small stipulation.”
“The stipulation being that you cut off the victim’s head?”
“After the process. An addendum, if you will.”
“And the purpose of this ‘addendum’ was … what?”
“Who knows? We all have our preferences.”
“Preferences?”
“It was suggested that it was important to someone at Karnala.”
“Jesus. Did you ever ask them to explain that?”
“Oh, my, Lieutenant, you really don’t know the first thing about Karnala, do you?” Ballston’s weird serenity level was rising in direct proportion to Becker’s consternation.
Chapter 67
A mother’s love
At the conclusion of Jordan Ballston’s initial interrogation—the first of three that
had been scheduled so that questions raised by the first could be revisited, questions that had been omitted could be asked, and the full scope of Ballston’s dealings with Karnala could be probed and documented—the teleconferencing transmission was terminated.
When the monitor went blank, Blatt was the first to speak. “What an evil scumbag!”
Rodriguez took a spotless handkerchief from his pocket, removed his wire-rimmed glasses, and began polishing them distractedly. It was the first time Gurney had seen him with his glasses off. Without them his eyes looked smaller and weaker, the skin around them older.
Kline slid his chair back from the table. “Damn! Don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed an interrogation quite like that. What’d you think, Becca?”
Holdenfield arched her eyebrows. “Care to be more specific?”
“Do you buy that incredible story?”
“If you’re asking me do I think he was telling the truth as he sees it, the answer is yes.”
“Evil scumbag like that has no regard for the truth,” said Blatt.
Holdenfield smiled, addressed Blatt as she might a well-meaning child. “An accurate observation, Arlo. Telling the truth would not rank high among Mr. Ballston’s values. Unless he thought it would save his life.”
Blatt persevered. “I wouldn’t trust him to take out the garbage.”
“I’ll tell you what my reaction is,” announced Kline. He waited for all of them to give him their attention. “Assuming that his statements are accurate, Karnala may be one of the most depraved criminal enterprises ever uncovered. The Ballston piece of it, horrendous as it may be, is likely just the tip of an iceberg—an iceberg from hell.”
The harsh, single-syllable laugh that erupted from Hardwick was only partially concealed as a cough, but Kline’s dramatic momentum carried him on. “Karnala sounds like a large, disciplined, ruthless operation. The authorities in Florida have grabbed one small appendage: one customer. But we have the opportunity to expose and destroy the whole enterprise. Our success could make the difference between life and death for Lord only knows how many young women. Speaking of which, Rod, this might be a good time for a progress report on the calls to the graduates.”
The captain put his glasses on, then took them off again. It was as though the twists of the case and its personal echoes were challenging his ability to function. “Bill,” he said with some effort, “give us the data from the interviews.”
Anderson swallowed a chunk of doughnut and washed it down with a mouthful of coffee. “Of the hundred and fifty-two names on our list, calls have now been completed to or returned by at least one household member in a hundred and twelve cases.” He shuffled through the papers in his folder. “Of those hundred and twelve, we’ve broken out the responses into a number of categories. For example—”
Kline looked restless. “Can we cut to the chase here? Just the number of girls who are not locatable, especially if they had the car argument before leaving home?”
Anderson did some more shuffling, went through half a dozen sheets of paper half a dozen times. He finally announced that twenty-one girls’ whereabouts were unknown to their families, and seventeen of them had had the car argument—including those mentioned by Ashton and by Savannah Liston.
“So it seems that the pattern is holding up,” said Kline. He switched his attention to Hardwick. “Anything new on the Karnala connection?”
“Nothing new—just that the Skards definitely run it and Interpol thinks the Skards these days are mainly into sex slavery.”
Blatt looked interested. “How about being a little more explicit about this ‘sex slavery’ thing?”
Surprisingly, Rodriguez spoke up immediately, his voice full of anger. “I think we all know exactly what it is—the most revolting business on earth. The scum of the earth as sellers, the scum of the earth as buyers. Think about it, Arlo. You’ll know you have the right picture when it makes you want to vomit.” His intensity created an uneasy silence in the room.
Kline cleared his throat, his face screwed up in a kind of exaggerated disgust. “My own concept of sex trafficking involves Thai peasant girls being shipped to fat Arabs. Are we imagining something like that is happening with Mapleshade girls? I’m having a hard time seeing that. Can someone please enlighten me? Dave, you have any comment?”
“No comment on the Thai-Arab observation, but I do have two questions. First, do we believe that Flores is connected to the Skards? And if so, what does that suggest? I mean, since the Skard operation is a family affair, is it possible that Flores—”
“Might be a Skard himself?” Kline slapped his hand on the table. “Damn, why not?”
Blatt scratched his head in an unconscious parody of confusion. “What are you saying? That Hector Flores is actually one of those boys whose mother was screwing all the coke dealers?”
“Wow!” said Kline. “That would give the whole affair a new center of gravity.”
“More like two centers of gravity,” said Gurney.
“Two?”
“Money and sexual pathology. I mean, if this were simply a financial venture, why the weird Edward Vallory stuff?”
“Hmm. Good question. Becca?”
She looked at Gurney. “Are you suggesting there’s a contradiction?”
“Not a contradiction, just a question about which is the dog and which is the tail.”
Her interest seemed to increase. “And your conclusion?”
He shrugged. “I’ve learned never to underestimate the power of pathology.”
Her lips moved in a slight smile of agreement. “The Interpol background summary I was given indicated Giotto Skard had three sons: Tiziano, Raffaello, Leonardo. If Hector Flores is one of them, the question is, which one?”
Kline stared at her. “You have an opinion about that?”
“It’s more of a guess than a professional opinion, but if we assign a high value to sexual pathology as a motive in the case, then I’d probably lean toward Leonardo.”
“Why?”
“He’s the one the mother took with her when Giotto finally kicked her out. He’s the one who was with her the longest.”
“You saying that could turn you into a homicidal maniac?” asked Blatt. “Being close to your mother?”
Holdenfield shrugged. “That depends on who your mother is. Being close to a normal female parent is very different from being the object of prolonged abuse by a sociopathic drug addict and sexual predator like Tirana Zog.”
“I get that,” interjected Kline. “But how would the crazy effects of that kind of upbringing—the lunacy, rage, instability—how would that fit into what appears to be a highly organized criminal enterprise?”
Holdenfield smiled. “Insanity is not always an obstacle to the achievement of one’s goals. Joseph Stalin isn’t the only paranoid schizophrenic who made his way to the top. Sometimes there’s a malignant synergy between pathology and the pursuit of practical objectives. Especially in brutal enterprises like the sex trade.”
Blatt looked intrigued. “So you’re saying nutcases make the best gangsters?”
“Not always. But let’s assume for a moment that your Hector Flores is really Leonardo Skard. And that being raised by a psychotic, promiscuous, incestuous mother made him more than a little bit crazy. Let’s also assume that the Skard organization, through Karnala, is as involved in high-end prostitution and sex slavery as BCI’s contacts at Interpol claim and as Jordan Ballston’s confession confirms.”
“Lot of assumptions,” said Anderson, trying to extract another doughnut crumb from the fibers of his napkin.
“Good assumptions, in my opinion,” said Kline.
“And if those assumptions are true,” said Gurney, “then Leonardo seems to have found himself the perfect job.”
“What perfect job?” asked Blatt.
“A job that neatly combines the family business with his personal hatred of women.”
Kline’s initial expression of puzzlement gave way to
amazement. “The job of a recruiter!”
“Exactly,” said Gurney. “Suppose Skard—aka Flores—came to Mapleshade specifically to identify and recruit young women who might be persuaded to satisfy the sexual needs of wealthy men. Of course, he’d describe the arrangement in a way that would appeal to their own needs and fantasies. They’d never know, until it was too late, that they were being delivered into the hands of sexual sadists who intended to kill them—men like Jordan Ballston.”
Blatt’s eyes widened. “That is some extremely sick shit.”
“Profit and pathology, hand in hand,” said Gurney. “I knew more than one hit man who thought of himself as a businessman who just happened to be in a business most people didn’t have the stomach for. Like embalming. He talked about it as though it were primarily a source of income and only secondarily about killing people. Of course, the truth is the opposite. Killing is about killing. It’s about an icy kind of hatred—which the hit man converts into a business. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing here.”
Anderson crumpled his napkin into a ball. “We’re getting kind of theoretical, aren’t we?”
“I think Dave is right on point,” said Holdenfield. “Pathology and practicality. Leonardo Skard, in the guise of Hector Flores, may be making his living by arranging for the torture and beheading of women who remind him of his mother.”
Rodriguez rose slowly from his chair. “I think this might be a good time to take a break here. Okay? Ten minutes. Restrooms. Coffee. Et cetera.”
“Just one final point,” said Holdenfield. “With all the talk about Jillian Perry being killed on her wedding day, has it occurred to anyone that it was also Mother’s Day?”
Chapter 68
Buena Vista Trail
Kline, Rodriguez, Anderson, Blatt, Hardwick, and Wigg left the room. Gurney was about to follow when he saw Holdenfield, still in her chair, removing a set of photocopies from her briefcase—photocopies of several Karnala ads. She spread them out in front of her. He walked around to her side of the table and gazed down at them. They had a different impact on him now—presenting a harsher image of disorder and deception—since Ballston had revealed their purpose.
