By one that afternoon, the KCPD was at the firm with a truckload of warrants and Sergeant Paige and Detective Haglund at the head of the brigade with two prosecuting attorneys and, if rumor proves true, the President of the United States and the reanimated corpse of John Wayne. They tore Bill’s office apart. Then they hit the storage room. Boxes were removed. People were interviewed. Emergency meetings were held. Riots broke out. Senior attorneys had heart attacks. Somebody’s lunch was stolen. Judges were called, and orders were issued. I do not know how most of the KCPD managed to invade Markitt, Bronk, Simms and Kowalsky while at the same time they were horsewhipping me with questions. Maybe they called in reinforcements.
But at the end of the day, Bill Nestor was still missing.
*****
And at the end of the day, I had to admit that, though this was certainly the worst day I’d endured in years, it was still better than working for the psychotic sadist. I could comfort myself with that. I was surprised, when taken out of the police station by Gus in his department-issued car, that it was growing dark. It was after eight that night. Sometime during the afternoon, a nice young officer, the one who’d been with Gus when he’d first arrived at Bill’s apartment, delivered a sack lunch to me—ham and Swiss on white bread, an apple, a soda and a cupcake. But I was starving now. Gus took me through a Taco Bell drive-thru lane and bought a jumbo bag of tacos, and then he drove me home.
Outside my poor little house, a police car waited with two very large men inside.
“A car will be outside all night,” Gus explained. “These two will be here until ten, then go off duty and be replaced by two more. They’ll do perimeter checks. No one is going to come near your house. But one of them can stay inside with you, if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.” I had no real concern that Bill Nestor would come sneaking around my house.
Gus led me to my front door, but I shook my head—I still was missing my keys and had to go through the garage to get inside. In my kitchen, we sat on my newly painted apple green and orange chairs and ate tacos. I ate ravenously, Gus more reservedly, and we didn’t speak much. Aside from telling and retelling my story to him that day, we hadn’t spoken much at all. Not even in the car.
When he finished eating, Gus said, “I can’t stay. Got a lot to do tonight. But I wanted to make sure you got home safe and sound.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there anyone I can call to come and stay with you?”
“No, I don’t need anyone. I’m okay. Just tired and worried.”
“Think you can get some sleep? You look exhausted.”
“Eh, maybe I’ll watch some television.” Probably not. I didn’t think I could concentrate that much.
Gus made a move as if to stand but then didn’t. He asked, “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday that you knew about the women?”
That was a fair question. My answer sounded lame, in retrospect. I just had to shrug and say, “Bill’s my friend. I wanted to talk to him first. I want to think the best of him.”
Gus sighed and cleaned up his trash as he spoke, not exactly meeting my eyes.
I added, “He’s not a maniac, Gus. He’s not violent. When you catch up with him, be calm and reasonable. He’ll cooperate. He likes things neat and orderly. This running is just not going to agree with him. He may come to you eventually, if you don’t find him first, and…and just don’t hurt him.”
I saw Gus’s jaw tighten at that. Sure, I thought. He’s not a violent maniac. He’s a gentle maniac. So I tried to explain further, “He’s running because he is afraid of disorder, and very bad at coping with stress. Bill can see what the circumstantial evidence looks like as well as you and I can, and what’s worse, he’s got this obsessive-compulsive disorder that sometimes makes him believe his actions have these…I don’t know, these far-reaching effects.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That, just because he’s running, isn’t a confession.”
“We’re all aware of that.”
“Just please, stay aware of it.”
Standing now, Gus peered at me with puzzlement. “I could understand this kind of loyalty, if he were your father or husband or something. But he’s just your boss, Carol.”
“Yeah, but he’s a really good boss.”
“I have to go.” Gus turned to do that.
I figured things were already as awkward as they could be, so I had little to lose. I asked, “Why are you angry with me? Is it because I knew about suicide widows and didn’t say anything?”
“I’m not angry.” He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks and looked down at my wildly painted kitchen chairs. He rethought his words. “I guess I’m a little angry.”
“Because?”
“I’m a little angry that you went to his apartment without any thought of your own safety.”
“Bill wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Carol,” Gus said, turning a warning glare to me, “if I had a dollar for everyone I’ve heard say those words…I hear them before and I hear them after. I see a woman beaten within an inch of her life, and she says, ‘Oh, he didn’t mean to hurt me; he would never hurt me.’ You went to his apartment fully aware that he was afraid of something, and when people get afraid, they get unpredictable and desperate.”
“But you said yourself that the murderer was gentle, and so—”
“Good God, Carol! I said the murderer was gentle when I was trying to keep my girlfriend from crying over the deaths of nine women. There is no such thing as a gentle murder. It’s not just an oxymoron; it’s an offensive thing to say. I’m sorry I said it.”
“Am I really your girlfriend?”
“So help me, I’ll shake you until your teeth rattle…”
“Okay, fine, fine! So it wasn’t the best idea for me to go to Bill alone.”
He wasn’t finished with me yet. “No, it was not. And you knew about all this on Friday night, didn’t you? It wasn’t just last night, when I told you I’d been assigned to a case, but last week, too. And you’ve been suspicious of these deaths almost since we met, haven’t you?”
I nodded, chastised.
“But didn’t feel it was anything you needed to tell me about.”
“I haven’t handled this very well,” I admitted. With my hands folded in my lap and my head bowed so that I looked up at him through my eyelashes, I’m sure I appeared to be the penitent. The truth is, I was very tired and strung out, and being scolded like this was making me pretty horny. It was like last week, when he came over and rousted me and did a full body search. His roughness was a turn-on then, and he’d only been pretending. This time it was in earnest—and rooted, I thought, in concern for my well-being. I felt so wriggly inside I could barely sit still.
With self-deprecation Gus announced, “So this great case that I thought I’d discovered all by myself turns out to just be suggestions fed to me by the secretary of my main suspect.”
“No!” Now I stood, too. I didn’t like him underestimating himself. “I asked you a couple of questions, that’s all, and you figured out all the rest by yourself.”
“God, I feel like Doug used to get when I’d let him win chess games. It pissed the kid off. It pisses me off.”
“You’re not just a little angry. You’re really mad at me.” The idea of this gave me pleasure, though, because you have to care about something to get good and mad.
“And another thing,” said Gus, stepping back from me once he noticed how close I was, “is that this can’t happen anymore.”
“This?”
He looked at the empty space between us, seeing the embrace we would have shared if he hadn’t started backing away. “This. Our thing we’ve been doing. Now we have a big fat conflict of interests, and I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Really?” I asked in dismay. “Somebody actually told you to break it off?”
Gus’s face went firm and unemotional. “No one had to say it, Carol. It’s just common sens
e.”
I sagged unhappily away from him. I hadn’t reached far enough into his affections to warrant anything more than this brush-off, I guessed. I wasn’t some femme fatale beauty who could inspire men to throw it all away. I was just a brash secretary, when all was said and done. Gus Haglund had too much riding on this—his job, his reputation, his responsibilities to his son—to risk anything stupid for my sake. What else could I have expected? We’d almost done the relationship thing backwards; we’d jumped into a physical tangle way too soon and not taken time to actually get to know each other or form any sort of solid emotional bond.
There was no point in being a baby about it. I couldn’t help but sigh, but I tried to add an oh-well laugh at the end of it and say, “Guess I should have seen that coming.”
I put on my brave smile for him. But Gus wasn’t smiling back. He glowered until my brave smile faltered, and then he closed the distance between us in two strides and jerked me into his arms.
Gus had already gotten me worked up by being grouchy and concerned; what I hadn’t realized was that he was worked up, too. I was a shadow of myself, worn out with worry, disappointment, and confusion, so I clung to my big police detective like he could put the strength back into me by force of will, and he seemed to know it instinctively. He kissed me so hard I felt welded to him. He kissed me a long time. His lips were salty from nacho chips, and the salt stung delectably.
“Come on, quick,” I said, pulling him unsteadily toward my bedroom. I added the “quick” because I did not want to give him time to change his mind. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. Gus was as eager as I was, frustrated in a way I had not known from him before. Oh my God, was this good-bye sex? I refused to believe it wholly—and yet some part of me had already given itself over to the idea that I had devour him like a glutton because I might not get another chance.
For the first time in our brief history, we made it to the bed on the first try. We left the light off for the sense of solitude the darkness gave us, a shield from the knowledge of my protectors waiting outside. His big hands undressed me by sense of touch alone. It was like being in a hazy dream with a trusted seducer. For once all the messy bedclothes seemed like luxury instead of clutter as we became tangled in them. I twisted a wandering bedsheet around my wrist and then twisted it around his so Gus was tied to me and I could pull his hand wherever I wanted it to go. I pulled it to my face and welcomed his weight onto me, welcomed being held down to earth by him as he came at me with a carefully measured, gratifying violence. All wrapped up in his tree tree-trunk shoulders and thighs, I was no more than a little slip of fever, with my teeth in his neck, my feet locked at the small of his back.
We didn’t say a word until we were finished with each other, and though that only took about eight minutes, according to my bedroom clock, they were an extremely good eight minutes. Poor Gus, I was always rushing him, but when I was with him, I simply could not wait. I urged him to go faster and harder so I could fall headlong into the eruption. Gus made love like he flashed that wicked smile—he was all sweetie-pie cuteness until I had him in a corner, and then bam, he was all grizzly-bear teeth and claws.
Now he said we had to stop this? The thought was almost as distressing as the idea of sending my beloved boss to prison. My amateur detective playacting had possibly cost me both Bill and Gus, and I had yet to see what it had gained me except for some interesting stories to tell at work.
But I felt too sated and sleepy to be completely maudlin. In the wake of our plundering, I felt as if I might need a bulldozer to dig me out of the bundle of my bedsheets and our various articles of shed clothing.
“My legs are shaking,” muttered Gus.
“You did, in fact, shake me until my teeth rattled.” I felt him smile. “It does add a little spice when there’s a couple of great big cops waiting outside, and they’re perfectly aware that you’ve had plenty of time to tuck me in with my tacos. Not that we needed much more spice.”
Gus’s head lay on my chest, dropping his heavy dark blonde curls in a tickling halo all over my breasts, and I felt the vibrations of his words through my body. He sighed, “Why can’t you be difficult about anything?”
I stroked his hair for a moment, not understanding. “I thought I was a total screw-up.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “Put your life in danger; put my investigation on the fritz. True enough. I meant, why can’t you be difficult about something that would let me walk out on you? It would help if you’d ever be demanding or suspicious or selfish or vain. Instead of being so easy.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle again, and it made his hair shift and tickle me more. “Are you saying I’m slutty?”
Gus growled low in his throat and bit me lightly on the stomach.
“Because I’m only slutty for you,” I reminded him.
“I have to go,” he said, making no move to do so.
“I know. I believed you the first time you said it.”
“Quit giggling. It’s not funny.” But I had him starting, too. When your head is on a woman’s naked chest, she can tell if you’re laughing. Still he insisted, “I’m not the kind of guy who does this, you know, grabs a little action and leaves the lady alone afterward.”
“If only I were a lady.” Amusing as I thought I was, I saw that my teasing was keeping him pinned. He was afraid of hurting my feelings, because he’d announced that we shouldn’t be dating (the polite code word for what we were really doing) about a minute before he grabbed me in my kitchen, and as a kind-hearted man he did not want me to think myself used. So I got serious and said, “God I’m so tired. I’m glad you have to go, because I won’t be very good company.”
For a few seconds in the gloom he was silent, motionless. Then he eased himself off me, planting a kiss on my forehead as he went in darkness. He said, “You’re doing it again.”
*****
Falling asleep that night, I remembered something. Rather, I had never actually forgotten it, but I relived the experience in my pre-dream twilight.
I’d been working for Bill nearly a year when I mixed up two documents and filed the wrong one, irretrievably, through the Federal Court’s electronic filing system on the night of the deadline on an important case, when we were working for a client that was not in the mood to hear bad news. It was a brain-dead oversight on my part, so big and bad a mistake that it did not occur to me that such a stupid thing even could happen. I never checked for it, because it was so unlikely. Bam, just like that, it was done, and it was irrevocably wrong.
Had I been working for the psychotic sadist at the time, I might not have survived. The psychotic sadist inflicted his injuries with words, not physical weapons, but I imagine he would have lacerated me with shouts and sarcasm until my soul bled out.
The next morning, when Bill and I discovered what I had done, what Bill said was, “Oh my.”
I was horrified. Nothing, not even the deadliest of sarcasm, hurts me as much as letting someone down. What a bone-headed idiot I was. What an irresponsible ditz. I said, eyes closed, “Oh my God, what a stupid thing to do. I’m so sorry. Tell me how I can fix it. Or if I need to clear out my desk.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Bill said, “I’ll call the judge and tell him there was a simple mistake. These things happen sometimes.”
I couldn’t open my eyes yet, from fear and embarrassment.
Bill actually gave a snuffling little laugh, and he patted my shoulder. “Now stop that. Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever mixed things up? Once I spent fifteen minutes arguing the wrong case in front of a judge.”
I peeked out at him, cringing.
“Absolute truth. Anyway, fetch a phone number for the clerk’s office, and we’ll set this straight.”
That was all he said about it. It did get fixed, though we had to file an extra pleading to do it.
It has always been difficult to describe to others what I felt when he was so gracious about my big boner. Gratitude and humility,
and undying devotion. I would have thrown myself in front of a bus for him that day. Don’t laugh at my melodramatics. When you have to work for a man almost fifty hours a week, it certainly helps to consider him a decent human being.
Recalling this, in the folds of my blankets as I drifted away to sleep, I understood that I did not believe Bill Nestor was guilty. Maybe that was bone-headed, too, but I was prepared to be loyal to him. It was the only thing that felt right.
Chapter Fifteen
I went to work on Wednesday because I wanted to help. I thought perhaps if I was there, I could show people where things were or help explain the situation better to anyone who wanted to know. I was every bit as upset about these bizarre developments as anyone there—even more upset, I was willing to wager—and was happy to do my part to make this problem clearer, if not better.
Since I was still without my car, the protectors outside my house drove me to the office.
When I worked for the psychotic sadist, his office was in a downtown building that housed several other law firms. The one that shared our floor specialized in criminal law, meaning that some of their clientele lacked social skills. One such client phoned them one day, displeased with the way his case was being handled, and threatened to come in there and kill them all. You might correctly surmise that the building was shut down. There were so many detectives, police and security guards there that the whole place looked like a scene from a dystopian nightmare. No one, not even the work-obsessed psychotic sadist, minded the extra measures, because once finished with the target firm, the disgruntled client might think he had nothing to lose and come down the hall to our firm to continue the murder spree. That whole situation resolved. the disgruntled client was picked up near his home and his parole was, not surprisingly, revoked. Judges aren’t forgiving about death threats, no sir. One thing I remember clearly about the incident was that, throughout the day, there was an atmosphere of such tension and suspicion that it made us almost unable to work. The feeling was due to the dark-browed figures lurking around every corner, whispering to each other in their radios and peering at everyone and everything, as if it were an object of potential danger.
My Boss is a Serial Killer Page 19
