A Study in Crimson

by Chris Orcutt

  When the bell dinged for my floor, Sally was still bear-hugging me with all four limbs. Staggering off the elevator with her on me, I passed a pair of businessmen. One of them gave me a discreet thumbs-up and a guy nod (jaw set, eyebrows clenched). I walked like Frankenstein’s monster down to the hall to my room, swiped my room key and entered.

  At the foot of my bed, I took hold of Sally by the waist and pushed her off me. There was so much suction in her lips that, when I uncoupled her, they made a loud pop in the room, like a plunger being pulled off a tile floor. I held her at arm’s length. Her soft brown eyes were dilated, her breathing rapid and shallow. I sat her on the bed. Unfortunately Sally mistook my action as her cue to throw off her jacket and start unbuckling my pants.

  “No, Sally.” I grabbed her wrists. “That’s not the surprise. Look…I want you to take off your blouse—only your blouse—and lie face-down on the bed with your eyes closed. Okay?”

  She nodded and complied. Grabbing one of my neckties, I sat on the bed and tied it over her eyeglasses. Except for a pink satin bra, her shoulders, back and neck were bare. Her skin was remarkably smooth and creamy. She wagged her feet and murmured into the covers.

  “What’s my surprise?” she said.

  “Hush,” I said, removing my coat. “And no peeking.”

  Quickly, I went into the bathroom and got a hand towel, then pulled the bolt cutters out from under the bed. Threading the hand towel through Sally’s collar so the towel protected her neck. I carefully clamped the bolt cutter jaws down on the metal collar.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Never mind. Just don’t move, Sally.”

  In the end, I was disappointed by how easily the bolt cutters severed the collar; they sliced through it like it was electrical solder. When the teeth clamped together, I put the bolt cutters aside and prised the collar apart.

  “Okay,” I said, “sit up slowly.”

  As she did, I pulled the collar off her neck and tossed it on the rug. With the blindfold still covering her eyes, Sally patted her throat. I led her to the edge of the bed so she faced the mirror, and removed the blindfold.

  “Wow…I have my neck back.” She stroked it with her fingertips, craned her head side to side and smiled at herself in the mirror. Then her gaze shifted to me. Her eyes were wet. “Thank you, Dakota.”

  “You’re welcome, Sally.”

  I pecked her on the nape of her neck and gave her shoulders what I thought was a gentle, avuncular squeeze, but Sally interpreted my gesture differently. Spinning around, her big teeth bared in a lustful snarl, she shoved me onto my back. In the cat-eye glasses, the brimming pink bra, and that perpetually pouting lower lip, she was terribly sexy, so when she clambered on top of me and kissed me, grinding her slippery mouth and chest into me, I couldn’t blame myself for surrendering, at least initially, to her advances. However, when she reached behind herself to unlatch her bra, I stopped her.

  “Enough, Sally. There’s no need for that. Come here.”

  I pulled her down to me and cradled her in my arms. She began to cry. The crying turned into weeping, which rapidly turned into sobbing—loud, wracking, convulsing sobbing. For the third time on this case, I found myself faced with a person in misery.

  I can’t describe how uncomfortable and helpless her sobbing made me feel. Although I wanted to tell her to stop, I knew this was the best way for her to get the poison out, so I let her sob into my shirt. Stroking her hair and kissing her cheek from time to time, I reassured her that everything was going to be okay.

  In Sally’s case her misery was so pronounced, it was as if she were releasing a lifetime of sadness and confusion: about her sexuality, her relationship with her father, her academic life, everything.

  From the moment I’d met her, I sensed she was a troubled young lady; however until now I hadn’t realized just how troubled she was—damaged, possibly. Given the amount of psychological and possibly sexual abuse Malone had likely inflicted on her, Sally, in my opinion, needed to be checked into a good psychiatric hospital for a while. At the very least, the girl was extremely fragile and needed counseling. My job now was to keep her intact and bring her home safely to her parents.

  * * *

  Once Sally had pulled herself together, I drove her over to Malone’s apartment. Malone never went home during the day, Sally said, so it was safe. She’d left some clothes there that she wanted back, and I wanted to secure those test tubes and any other evidence I could find.

  When we got inside, the apartment was empty. Nothing but bare floors and walls, and dust outlines where the furniture had been. On the way out of the building, while Sally kept lookout I used my ASP baton to jimmy his mailbox, but that, too, was empty.

  From the North End, we drove over to Volvap Hall in Cambridge to get some paperwork Sally had left there, only to discover that the observation booth and Malone’s office had been cleaned out as well. There was nothing to even hint that Malone had been there.

  “This is really weird,” Sally said. “Why would he just leave like this? Without telling me or anybody?”

  “Because his ‘research’ is just a front, Sally,” I said. “And when Malone and his thugs figured out I was on to them, they hightailed it out of town.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  As we walked back to the car, I noticed it had turned very cold. After days of mild Indian summer, autumn was settling in. The cold air had a tangy crispness to it that portended possible snow tonight. When we got in the car, I started the engine and ran the heater.

  “Sally,” I said, “I want you to call Megan and Jade and have them meet us at the hotel right away. I need to talk to them.”

  “About what?”

  “About Malone and the fact that they’re in danger,” I said. “But don’t tell them anything on the phone. Just act like it’s a social visit.”

  “Okay.” She took out her cell phone. “I’ll call them now.”

  Because the girls weren’t of legal drinking age, we couldn’t talk in the hotel bar, so when they showed up at the Charles, the four of us went into the restaurant and ordered nachos, mozzarella sticks, French fries and milkshakes. Megan and Jade had never met each other before, but in minutes they were getting on famously. I called the “meeting” to order by dinging my water glass with my fork.

  “Listen, girls,” I said, “the reason I wanted you here is because I believe you’re all in serious danger. Please listen carefully to me, and hold any questions until after I’m finished.”

  I gave Megan and Jade an abridged, five-minute version of the explanation I’d given Sally the day before, mentioning that I was a former FBI agent, that I’d been hired by Sally’s father and the FBI Director, that Malone was the prime suspect in the abductions of fourteen college girls from other campuses, and that he had recently disappeared.

  When I finished, Megan and Jade looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Then I showed them the photo of the “shopping list” of girls. When they read crossed-out item numbers two and eight (“Asian girl with long hair [very black hair]” and “female athlete, hardbody type; blonde or Latina”) quizzical expressions came over their faces.

  “Why are they crossed out?” Jade asked.

  “I think it’s because he found girls who fit the bill—you, Jade; and you, Megan.” I drank some of my vanilla milkshake. “I have another question. Do you girls know what your blood type is?”

  “Of course,” Megan said. “Mine’s A-B negative.”

  “So’s mine,” Jade said, looking at Megan. “What a coincidence.”

  “You should find this really interesting then,” I said. “The fourteen other girls who have been abducted? Guess what their blood type is?” I nodded grimly. “A-B negative.”

  She and Megan stared at each other. After a moment, Megan slowly turned to Sally and glared at her.

 
; “Damn you, Sally—I always knew he was a creep.” She shook her head, sighed, and stuffed a giant clump of nachos in her mouth. She swallowed and dusted her hands. “How do we know we can trust you, Dakota? Let’s see some ID.”

  “Of course.” I pulled out my Massachusetts State PI license, and my SOCXFBI (Society of Ex-FBI Agents) membership card.

  “All right.” Megan nodded at my credentials. “What do we do?”

  “The most important thing right now is getting you girls safe,” I said. “I think you and Jade should stay with Sally tonight here in the hotel. Think of it as a sleepover. Then, when I take Sally home tomorrow, I’ll ask her father to contact the Harvard police. I want people watching the three of you for the next couple months.”

  “Why so long?” Jade dipped a mozzarella stick in tomato sauce. “You said Malone took off.”

  “Because,” Sally said, “apparently the girls were all abducted like a month or two after he left.”

  “Correct,” I said. “Megan, where do you live?”

  “Concord. Why?”

  “Concord, Mass?” I said.

  “No, Concord, Alabama,” Megan said, waving another clump of nachos. “Of course Massachusetts. Duh.”

  “What about you, Jade?”

  “San Francisco,” she said.

  “How about this?” I said. “What if Sally and I drove you both to Megan’s house tomorrow morning to stay for a few days? Would you be able to go?”

  “That depends,” Megan said. “I have Crew practice at six. Could we leave, like, at nine?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Jade said. “My parents won’t want me missing so many classes.”

  “Listen, girls…this isn’t a game. We’re talking about your lives and your freedom. Take the days off from school. If you’re concerned about your courses, contact your professors, tell them you have a family emergency and ask someone to take notes for you.”

  When all three girls looked at each other at the same time, I realized how Pollyannaish my suggestion was.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I forgot this is Harvard, where if you come to class without a pencil, no one will loan you one.”

  “Dakota went to MIT,” Sally said.

  “But dated several Harvard girls, so I know the deal,” I said. “Anyway, do whatever you have to do to skip your classes for a few days. We’ll meet here in the lobby at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, okay?”

  They all nodded.

  “Great,” I said. “Sally, let’s you and I take Megan and Jade back to their dorms so they can pack their bags, and then I’ll bring the three of you back here. You girls can order room service, anything you want.”

  “Maybe you’d buy us some booze, Dakota?” Megan wagged her eyebrows at me. “Hm?”

  “No.” I patted her hand where it rested on the table, then winked broadly at all three of them. “And don’t even think that because there’s a minibar in your room with a variety of alcoholic beverages, that the three of you can imbibe and have a pillow fight in your underwear. Understood?”

  The three of them squealed and bounced in their chairs. A waiter across the room spun around at the commotion. Shaking his head, he withdrew into the kitchen.

  “One last thing.” I picked up a French fry and pointed with it. “If you girls do decide to have that pillow fight…I’m the referee.”

  26

  Fate or Destiny Decides

  One hectic hour later, after rounding up the girls’ things and installing the three of them in Sally’s room, I called Svetlana at Cabot House and asked her to come over and join me downstairs at the hotel bar. As far as I was concerned, the case was over and I needed a drink. Or five.

  I was sitting at a lounge table, watching one of my (and my grandfather’s) favorite Rockford Files episodes—the one with sassy, brassy-haired Shelley Fabares, who hires Jim Rockford to find buried loot from an old bank robbery—when Svetlana walked in.

  Two listless businessmen perked up in their barstools and not so discreetly craned their necks for a better look at her. If she noticed them leering, she didn’t show it; instead she glanced at my beer and said to the bartender, “A Pinot Grigio, please.” Sitting down at my table, she crossed her legs and skeptically regarded the ceiling-mounted TV.

  “What is this?”

  “The Rockford Files,” I said. “He’s a TV PI.”

  “Ah. And what is it you enjoy about the show?”

  “Rockford’s wit. The con games he uses to get information. The beautiful women that hire him.” I jutted my chin. “Like Shelley Fabares here.”

  The waiter brought over an absurdly full wineglass. He smiled at her as he set it down.

  “Thank you.” Turning to me, Svetlana said, “ ‘Beautiful women’—I can see why you would like such a program.”

  “But it’s stuff like this, too.” I pointed at the TV. “Watch.”

  On the program, Jim and the woman were in his Pontiac Firebird, evading another car that was chasing them. Turning a corner next to an auto lot, Jim spies a tractor-trailer car-carrier with its loading ramp down. He drives the Firebird onto the upper deck of the car-carrier, and the pursuing car races past them, none the wiser.

  “Is that slick or what?” I said. “I want to do that someday when I’m being followed.”

  “The presence of the tractor-trailer seems a convenient coincidence, but”—she sipped some of the wine—“it is mildly amusing.” She pointed at my beer glass. “I thought you vowed never again to drink while on a case.”

  “The case is over,” I said. “Sally, Megan and Jade are safe in Sally’s room upstairs.”

  “Who are Megan and Jade?” she asked.

  I explained that I believed they were two of the girls crossed-off on Malone’s list.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “I’ll drive them to Megan’s house in Concord, take Sally home to her parents in Connecticut, and that’s that.”

  Out of nowhere, Svetlana clapped her wineglass down on the table so hard, I thought it would shatter.

  “But what about all those abducted young women, Dakota? Who is looking out for them?”

  “Hey, calm down, Svetlana,” I said. “The FBI. At least that’s what the Director told me this morning. I explained everything that’s happened, but all I got for my trouble was an epic chewing-out.”

  Putting down my beer, I looked her level in the eyes and told her about the Director’s humiliating lecture.

  “Svetlana,” I said, finishing my monologue, “I did what Mr. Standish and the Director hired me to do, which was to get Sally away from Malone. We’re just going to have to trust that the Bureau will continue to investigate the girls’ abductions.”

  Faintly shaking her head, Svetlana stared at me with her wineglass poised halfway to her mouth. Her hand holding the glass trembled slightly. For a moment she looked like she was going to throw the wine in my face.

  “There is something I do not understand,” she finally said. “You no longer work for the FBI, correct?”

  “Correct,” I said.

  “And why did you leave the FBI?”

  “Many reasons,” I said. “The reports, the bureaucracy, the politics. Having to do everything ‘by the book.’ ”

  “ ‘By the book,’ ” she said. “Interesting. However…if you abandon this case, will you not be doing exactly that—going ‘by the book’?”

  Svetlana was beginning to get on my nerves with her Socratic questioning. I literally had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from lashing out at her. Once I’d calmed down with a few deep breaths, I was able to respond in a more measured tone.

  “Svetlana, everything you’re saying is right,” I said, “but here’s the thing. The Director said if I pursue Malone further, he’ll have me charged with obstruction of justice. I can’t afford to be indicted f
or a crime while I’m trying to get a private investigations firm off the ground. As far as I’m concerned, that’s checkmate.”

  Svetlana sipped her wine and swirled the glass.

  “I find it interesting that you would use a chess analogy,” she said, “because I too am seeing your situation in terms of chess. Many of my greatest victories on the chessboard came because I snatched them from the jaws of defeat. The positions were entirely unfavorable for me—I was outmatched in material, tempi, or space—but what I did have was a willingness to make bold moves, to sacrifice material, and to commit to a line of play.”

  She tossed her hair over her jacket collar, put down her wineglass and leaned across the table toward me.

  “Dakota, we have only known each other for a few days, but I sense you have it in you to become a great detective. However, in order to do that, you are going to have to overcome your training, the ‘official’ way of doing things. You will have to step out of the shadow of the FBI and take risks. Not all of your future cases will be as simple as seducing a confused, insecure college girl away from a psychopath. You will surely face much more formidable opponents in the future.

  “I know you run a risk going against the FBI Director,” she continued, “but…‘no risk, no reward.’ And if you solve this case—a case that seems to involve international human trafficking—think of it. In one fell swoop, you would be rescuing who knows how many young women from something worse than death, and you would solidly establish your investigations firm. And if you solve the case, if you break such a ring, the FBI will not be arresting or indicting you; they will be rushing to claim you as one of their own and to take the credit.”

  I nodded to myself considering what she’d said. I drained my beer and waved to the barman for a refill.