The Scavenger's Daughter: A Tyler West Mystery

by Mike McIntyre

Creativity flourishes when it comes to cruelty.

  I studied the black and white photo of the Scavenger’s Daughter, the piece that Addison said had been detained by U.S. Customs. It was a crude device built to be carried from victim to victim. It looked like the four pieces of a fireplace tool set welded together and topped by an iron hoop.

  A description next to the picture was attributed to Matthias Tanner, a Jesuit historian from the seventeenth century:

  The Scavenger’s Daughter binds as in a ball, holding the body in a threefold manner, the lower legs being pressed to the thighs, the thighs into the belly and both are locked with two iron clamps…the body of the victim is almost broken by this compression…more cruel than the rack…the whole body is so bent that blood exudes from the tips of the hands and feet…the box of the chest being burst and a quantity of blood is expelled from the mouth and nostrils.

  The description read like Nina Tate’s autopsy report. Was the Scavenger’s Daughter the murder weapon?

  I may have uncovered a torture link between Nina Tate’s murder and the supposed accidental death of Mayor Stanton. But if there was a torture tie-in to Dr. Lindblatt’s death, I couldn’t see it. None of the devices in the exhibit could account for the alleged drowning.

  I scrolled to the end of the exhibit guide. A bibliography listed sources for further reading. The author noted as “indispensable” a 1966 book, Medieval Instruments of Torture, by William Lange, PhD.

  I headed for the Central Library on E Street to borrow the book.

  On the walk over, I called Jordan to see if she could meet me for lunch. I was elated when she agreed.

  We met at Dobson’s, a venerable downtown eatery near Horton Plaza, San Diego’s amusement park-styled open-air mall. The colorful shopping center stands on the edge of the historic Gaslamp Quarter, a sixteen-block swath of trendy restaurants, sidewalk cafes, boutiques and nightclubs housed in restored Victorian buildings.

  The clubby, wood-paneled restaurant was packed with power lunchers, so we sat at the long, wooden bar. We each ordered Dobson’s legendary mussel bisque, a sublime sherry-spiked concoction with a puff pastry crown. We also split an order of the cold-smoked Scottish salmon.

  This was the first time I’d seen Jordan since lunch at her house. She looked sensational, but it was hard to gauge her mood.

  As we waited for our food, I made small talk. Keep it light, I told myself. No pressure.

  “I just want to say one thing,” Jordan said, “then I’ll drop it.”

  The smile vanished from my face as Jordan shot me a stare that pierced my very soul.

  “You once said, forever,” she said in a hushed but firm voice. “Remember that, Ty? You told me, forever. Well, that was a short forever.”

  I suddenly knew how badly I had hurt Jordan all those years ago.

  I also knew that she had just forgiven me.

  I wanted to apologize again and again. I yearned to tell her that I truly wanted to be with her forever.

  But I said nothing. What could I say?

  It would only be words, and words had failed me with Jordan already.

  I couldn’t tell her, forever. I had to show her.

  If she would let me, I would show her forever—one day at a time.

  CHAPTER 31

  After lunch, I walked Jordan back to the D.A.’s office and continued to the main library.

  The computer catalog listed two copies of William Lange’s Medieval Instruments of Torture. Both were missing.

  I did a new computer search of the thirty-five branch libraries in the city. Six of the branches had copies of the book, but they also were listed as missing.

  A librarian told me I could place a hold on the book but said it would be a waste of time.

  “Once they’re lost, they’re almost never found,” she said. “They were probably stolen. Some titles are hard to keep in circulation.”

  “Because they’re collectibles?” I said.

  “That’s usually the reason. But some people are ashamed to check out a book, so they just take it. They’d rather risk setting off the alarm than being associated with certain subjects. That’s often the case with books on drug and alcohol dependency or sexual dysfunction, and I’m guessing that’s the case with this book on torture.”

  I tried the Borders Books on Sixth and G. A clerk with multiple tattoos and piercings entered the title on the computer. “Sounds like a fun read,” she said.

  She scrolled down the screen. “Here it is,” she said. “No, wait, sorry, it’s out of print. You might try Stedinger’s.”

  Stedinger’s Rare & Used Books was on Broadway, a few blocks away.

  “I’m looking for a copy of a book called Medieval Instruments of Torture,” I told the man at the front counter.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “That rare?”

  “Not in the strict sense,” he said. “There were more than forty-five thousand copies printed, but you hardly ever see one for sale anymore.”

  “Must be a good book,” I said.

  “A cult classic. It was written as a scholarly text, but the S&M crowd adopted it. They use it as an erotic how-to manual, from what I understand, though I have no firsthand knowledge. It was a popular title in the late-sixties in adult bookstores and sex shops, then it went out of print. I don’t know why the publisher never reissued it. The demand is there. You occasionally see a copy for auction on eBay, but it’s been years since one has come through here.”

  “I really need to get my hands on it,” I said.

  The clerk gave me a funny look.

  “Not for that,” I said. “I need it for some research I’m doing.”

  “You could try the author,” he said.

  “Lange?” I said. “He’s still alive?”

  “He’s a professor over at UCSD.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The University of California’s San Diego campus is nestled in a wooded area of La Jolla, perched atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

  I found Dr. William Lange in his office. His door was open.

  “I understand you’re an expert in torture,” I said.

  The professor glanced up from a desk cluttered with papers, academic journals and a manual typewriter. He adjusted the glasses on his nose and peered at me.

  “Students find my lectures tortuous,” he said, smiling, “but my field is Medieval European History.”

  “But you wrote Medieval Instruments of Torture,” I said.

  Lange stopped smiling. “I’m sorry,” he said, “you are…?”

  “Tyler West. I’m a reporter with—.” I nearly told him the Sun, before I remembered that I now worked for the Wire.

  “Right, you looked familiar,” he said, rising to shake my hand. He was a trim, fit man, about six-two, with a firm grip. “The museum gala?”

  “You were there?”

  “Naturally,” he said. “I’m on the board. The founders felt that my work in the field of medieval history added to the museum’s credibility.”

  As he sat back down, he motioned for me to sit in the chair across the desk from him.

  “So, you did write that torture book,” I said, resting my satchel on the floor next to the chair.

  “Regrettably, yes.”

  “Why the regrets?”

  “Medieval torture is a trivial topic, unworthy of serious scholarly examination,” he said. “I was a struggling lecturer when I wrote that book, and I needed to get published. You know the old academic saw, publish or perish.”

  “But there’s quite a demand for your book,” I said.

  “A continuing embarrassment. After I became tenured, I bought back the rights from the publisher and made sure the book would never be reprinted. A scholar doesn’t want to be remembered for such work. I dropped it from my curriculum vitae decades ago.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to interview you at the gala,” I said.

  “I was there only briefly. I left before the accident.
”

  “Accident?”

  “What’s this about?” Lange said.

  “I find it hard to believe that a man, however drunk, could accidentally enter the Iron Maiden and accidentally set off the knives and spikes that impale him.”

  “Then you don’t know the Iron Maiden,” he said. “She is a highly complex piece of machinery, highly lethal and highly temperamental. Her killing mechanism is on a hair trigger. The slightest pressure to either of the buttons that are her eyes will release the springs that set her in motion.”

  “Merrill Addison insists that he removed the triggering springs that afternoon,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s what he indicated in his report to the board of trustees, and I believe him emphatically. I accept his theory that some museum employee with good intentions happened upon the springs and replaced them. There is no other plausible explanation.”

  “And yet nobody has come forward to confirm it was an accident.”

  “Come now, Mr. West, does that really surprise you? After all, however innocently the deed was done, who would want to accept responsibility for the untimely death of the best mayor this city has ever known?”

  Now was not the time to quibble over James Stanton’s legacy.

  “Professor Lange, the mayor isn’t the only prominent San Diegan to die lately.”

  “Mr. West, I may sit in an ivory tower, but I do read the newspaper. You are referring to Ms. Tate and Dr. Lindblatt.”

  I nodded.

  “And you think their deaths are somehow related to the mayor’s?”

  “That’s what I came to ask you.”

  “But what connection could there possibly be?”

  “Medieval instruments of torture,” I said.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Do you know where the word torture comes from?” Professor Lange said. “It’s derived from distort. That’s what you are doing here. You are distorting the truth. You journalists claim we academics are divorced from reality. Clearly, it’s the other way around. I’ve never heard of anything so preposterous.”

  I pulled a file from my satchel.

  “Professor, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look at this document,” I said, setting the yellow folder on his desk.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve wasted enough of my afternoon with you,” he said.

  “Just indulge me for two more minutes,” I said, sliding the folder across the desk. “Please.”

  “What is it?” he said, looking down at the folder.

  “Nina Tate’s autopsy report.”

  “An autopsy report! I’m a doctor of philosophy, not a medical doctor. Do you even know the difference?”

  “Trust me, professor, if my hunch is correct, the contents of this report will make perfect sense to you.”

  He shook his head but opened the folder. “Only to help dispel this outrageous hypothesis of yours,” he said

  He scanned the first page. He stopped reading, threw up his hands and leaned back in his chair.

  “As Shakespeare said, it’s Greek to me.”

  “Please, Professor, keep reading.”

  He huffed, then resumed reading. Quickly at first, then more deliberately.

  He suddenly scooted his chair forward. He planted his elbows on either side of the folder and rested his head in his hands. He leaned over the report and continued to read.

  When he reached the end, he looked up.

  “My word,” he gasped.

  I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to prompt him in any way. I had to hear him say it.

  “The Scavenger’s Daughter,” he finally said. It was almost a whisper.

  He closed the folder and massaged his temples.

  “I noticed that the Scavenger’s Daughter was missing from its case the night of the gala,” he said. “I asked Merrill about it. He told me it had been detained by U.S. Customs.”

  “He told me the same thing,” I said.

  “You’ve checked with Customs?”

  “This morning. They have no record of keeping anything that was shipped to the museum. Addison lied to both of us.”

  “And you think he’s the killer?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, recalling that the museum director was talking with me when the mayor’s body was discovered. “But he’s hiding something.”

  I picked up the folder.

  “You’re sharing this theory with the police, I presume,” Lange said.

  “After I share it with my readers,” I said. “The public has a right to know there’s a serial killer out there. Are you willing to go on the record that the Scavenger’s Daughter was the murder weapon in the Nina Tate case?”

  He gazed out his office window at the ocean. He was the reluctant torture expert. He could disavow his book but not his knowledge. I wouldn’t let him. He was the authority I needed.

  “Professor.”

  He continued to stare out the window.

  “It’s your duty to speak out,” I said.

  He swiveled in his chair. “Yes, of course, you’re absolutely right. You may quote me. Ms. Tate was compressed to death by the Scavenger’s Daughter.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Lange said. “Before you write your story, I’d like you to speak to someone else. Get a second opinion, as it were. His name is Robert Graywalls.”

  I shrugged.

  “He’s a former graduate student—the best I’ve had in thirty-five years of teaching. He possesses an absolutely first-rate mind.”

  “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “He’s an authority on medieval instruments of torture,” Lange said. “It’s more of an obsession with him, really. He has a rather healthy collection of these devices.”

  I pulled my notebook back out of my satchel.

  “Robert wrote his doctoral dissertation on torture in the Middle Ages,” he said. “I refused to approve it. As I said, it’s a frivolous area of study. Rather than turn to an alternate dissertation topic, he chose to drop from the graduate program. A shame. He could have made a brilliant historian. But if you need an expert on torture, he’s your man.”

  “Robert Graywalls,” I said, jotting the name in my notebook.

  “I’m surprised Merrill didn’t mention him to you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I recommended Robert for a position at the museum,” he said. “He designed the torture exhibit.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Before I left UCSD, I checked my e-mail in my car.

  Rudy had alerted me to a last-minute press conference at police headquarters. There was no time to make it, so I watched the video stream on my phone.

  HomeMart heiress Tiffany Samples had been kidnapped last Friday. Officials had withheld the news, pending a ransom demand. They had yet to be contacted.

  Police had no clues and were now enlisting the public’s help. They released a photo of the abduction, taken by a security camera at La Jolla Village Square.

  It was little to go on.

  The grainy photo depicted an unmarked white panel van. Samples’ body obscured the kidnapper’s face. He appeared to be pulling her into the back of the van. His arms—covered in long sleeves—were wrapped around Samples’ chest. Her armpits hid his hands. Almost. I spotted an unusually large ring. But the detail, even the skin tone of the finger, was veiled by shadows. The legs of Samples and her abductor blocked the van’s license plate.

  A ransom call was unlikely. My guess was that Tiffany Samples was already dead, dispatched by some medieval instrument of torture.

  I recalled how Dr. Aaron Lindblatt had ogled the voluptuous heiress at the museum gala. No doubt, another admirer had his eye on her that night as well.

  I was sitting on one of the biggest stories of my career: a serial killer was stalking San Diego’s most famous citizens and torturing them to death.

  CHAPTER 35

  I found Addison in the parking lot of the Museum of Medieval Hist
ory. It was getting dark. His back was to me as he unlocked the door of his car.

  “Why haven’t you told anyone about Graywalls?” I said.

  The museum director froze.

  He turned and, seeing me, slumped against his car.

  “I was only protecting the museum’s reputation,” he said.

  “By shielding a murderer?”

  Addison cocked his head. “Robert isn’t a murderer. He’s an art thief.”

  “The Scavenger’s Daughter?”

  Addison nodded. His hands shook. “He loaned it to us from his own collection. But I discovered it was stolen from a German museum. I did some checking and learned that Robert had studied in Germany last winter on a Fulbright Fellowship.”

  The overhead lights in the parking lot came on.

  “When I confronted him about it,” Addison continued, “he grabbed it from its case and fled.”

  “Only to return and kill the mayor,” I said.

  We heard footsteps cross the parking lot.

  “No, that was an accident,” he whispered. “I’m certain of it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “When we were installing the exhibit, I would often find Robert with the Iron Maiden,” he said. “He was captivated by it. I had disarmed the Maiden upon her arrival from Europe, as per our insurer’s orders. But on several occasions, Robert had replaced her triggering springs so he could see her work. The museum was closed, so I didn’t mind. Let him indulge his obsession. Whatever keeps him focused on creating a popular exhibit.”

  Headlights swept across the parking lot. Addison paused until the car drove away.

  “Robert always returned the springs to the storage area in the basement,” he said. “But at the end of each day, I double-checked the Maiden, just to be safe. On the day of the gala, I went to make sure the triggering device was disengaged. But when I saw Robert standing near the Maiden, I confronted him about the Scavenger’s Daughter. I had seen the catalog of stolen art only that morning. I was so startled by Robert’s reaction that I forgot to check the Maiden. I didn’t think of it until the mayor was killed.”