Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 01 - The Sex Club (39 page)

The current page displayed a recent chat about Jessie and Nicole’s deaths and the possibility of a serial killer stalking the group of friends, but it had nothing about sex. Jackson found a link to the previous week’s postings and opened it. The screen names added weight to the sick feeling in his stomach:
perfectass
,
freakjob
,
lipservice
. Who were these girls? And good God, had Katie ever been one of them?

Jackson scanned through the postings, mesmerized and repulsed at the same time. Then he came across a most disturbing exchange.

freakjob37: My dad has a new video called Candy Strippers. It’s really hot. Lots of butt sex.

blowgirl_jd: Cool. I like it up the ass, I mean, if I’m ready for it. And no worries about pregnancy.

perfectass: Despite my screen name, I’m not that crazy about anal encounters, but neither is TJ so we’ll hook and let you guys do the nasty stuff.

blowgirl_jd: Like you can get through a “meeting” only doing one guy. Hah!

freakjob37: I think it’s time for little miss perfectass to start doing girls too.

perfectass: I’m working up to it. I made out with RG last time. The guys got really hard for that session.

Jackson pushed his chair back from the computer, needing distance from the words and images. He felt as if he’d just walked into a children’s orgy. Tremors shot up his legs and he felt as if he might throw up. These were eighth-grade girls! Girls his daughter used to hang out with.

At least, that’s what everything pointed to.
Blowgirl_jd
was clearly Jessie, and RG must be Rachel Greiner. So the other chatters could be Nicole and Angel. All these girls belonged to religious families. God-fearing people who would be shocked and devastated to learn about their children’s behavior.

A dozen questions competed for his attention. When and where had this group sex taken place? Where were the parents? How could they not know? Did they know? Were the parents involved too? The dark scenario, in which Nicole had been killed to keep a secret, took form and breathed on its own.

Jackson stood, legs trembling, and stepped out into the hall. “Katie!”

His daughter came quickly, her expression frightened. He had never yelled like that before: Anguish, fear, and anger all rolled into one roar.

“What is it?” Katie was wearing a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt, and her face was plump with baby fat.

“Tell me about the sex club.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t bullshit me. I’ve been to the website. I’ve read the chats about group sex.” Jackson heard the sounds coming out of his mouth but did not recognize the thinness of his own voice. “I know Jessie and Nicole and Angel were all involved. They used to be your friends. Were you in the club?”

They stood in the hallway, where all their confrontations seemed to take place, and a great silence engulfed them. It stretched out until Jackson thought his blood vessels would all burst in a simultaneous pop.

“I can’t talk about it. I promised I would never tell anyone.” Katie’s voice was high-pitched and ready to cry. “I took a blood oath.”

Jackson’s chest tightened in a painful squeeze. He vowed to see his doctor again soon. “Nicole may have been killed because she threatened to break that promise. You’re protecting the wrong people.”

“It’s not a serial killer?” Now she looked confused.

“No.”

“Then who?”

“I’m trying to figure that out. Now tell me!”

“What do you want to know?” she said finally.

“Everything.” Jackson realized that wasn’t true. He didn’t want to know the details, especially if his daughter had participated. He didn’t want to know the name of the boy or boys who had penetrated her. If he didn’t know them, he couldn’t kill them. He couldn’t find them and beat them senseless with his bare hands.

Jackson shook his head. “No. Not everything. But I need to know some names. I need to know if any of the parents participated. And where it took place.”

“Ehww.” She made a horrified face. “No parents. Just kids. And it happened during Teen Talk, after school on Tuesdays at Angel’s house.” She hesitated again, then finally rattled off the names in one long breath. “It’s who you think it is: Angel, Jessie, Nicole, and Rachel. Plus Greg Miller, Tyler Jahn, and Adam Walsh.”

Jackson had heard all those names at the beginning of his investigation. He had just never connected the Bible study and the sexual activity.

His silence must have worried Katie, because she began to cry. “I quit the group, you know. After the first couple of times. I didn’t like it. And I lost all my friends. Don’t be mad at me.”

Jackson knew he should comfort her, that he should stay and talk. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He was glad he needed to leave. “I’m not angry.” That was bull. He started over. “Scratch that. I am angry. You lied to me. Again and again. There’s a lot more we need to talk about. But I have to go back to work right now. I need to find Nicole’s killer.”

Jackson moved toward his bedroom to get his jacket and weapon. At the door, he turned back to Katie, who was sitting in the hall crying. “I’d like to trust you to stay home by yourself while I’m working tonight, but I can’t. So pack a bag, you’re going to Aunt Jan’s. But this case will be over soon, and we will talk.”

Seven minutes later, they were headed out into the damp darkness.

Jackson knew he had to stop thinking about Katie and focus on this case. Rachel had called Nicole on the night of her death and then lied about it to him. Angel’s parents owned a vehicle that matched the description of the one that had been seen in Nicole’s driveway the night of her death. Had Rachel and Angel worked together? Jackson thought they must have had help from one of the boys in the club. He couldn’t imagine either Angel or Rachel putting a plastic bag over Nicole’s head and holding it until she died. Teenage girls didn’t commit murder.

Yes they did, he reminded himself. Last summer, two girls in Bend—one fourteen, one fifteen—had murdered the fourteen-year-old’s brother. Bludgeoned him over the head and took his iPod and the fifty dollars in his wallet. And a fifteen-year-old girl in Klamath Falls had killed her mother a few years ago, then took off in the family car. And that was just in Oregon. Adolescent girl violence had increased dramatically all across the country. Psychologists said it was because females’ roles were changing. Jackson thought it was because all kids in America grew up overexposed and desensitized to violence.

He started the Impala and looked over at his daughter, who was staring at her hands. She was a good kid. They would get through this.

Jackson decided to start at the Stricklands. But first he would call out the team. They would help him round up all the Teen Talk participants and bring them into the department. They would play one against the other until they had the story.

Wednesday, October 27, 6:30 p.m.

Kera was just getting out of the shower after completing fifty minutes on her elliptical machine. The exercise had not only taken the edge off her tension, it had worn her out. She thought she might sleep well tonight. Or at least better than she had lately.

While she was getting dressed, her cell phone rang. She grabbed it from the bed where she’d left it. “Hello.”

“This is Margaret Blake. You left me a message asking if I knew Danette Blake. Can I ask what this is about?”

Kera assumed this had to be the young woman’s mother. “Danette sent a letter to my son.” She paused, wanting to glide over this part. “But he died, and so I opened the letter, in case it was important. I just wanted to let Danette know.”

“Give me your son’s name and I’ll tell her.”

“I’d rather tell her myself. If you don’t want to give me Danette’s contact information, I understand. But please pass my number along to her. I’d really like to speak with her. I have some information that she should have.”

Margaret was silent for a moment. “Okay. I’ll give her your number, but she may not call.”

Kera gave her the number and said, “Please tell her this is important.”

Kera thought about Margaret as she pulled on socks and padded into the den to boot up her computer. She understood the woman’s hesitation. A mother protecting her child. She wondered if Margaret knew about her daughter’s pregnancy. If she did, was she in support of the abortion? Would she be angry at Kera for butting in? Decisions about parenthood could be heartbreakers from the beginning.

As soon as she opened the Internet, her front doorbell rang. Kera jumped at the sound. Who was out there? She started toward the back bedroom, where she could see the front porch from the window, then stopped halfway down the hall. Rachel Greiner had called and said she wanted to come by this evening. Kera hurried back to the living room. She was curious about what Rachel had to say. She wondered if Rachel knew something about Jessie and Nicole’s deaths, something she felt she couldn’t tell the police but maybe would tell her.

As a precaution, Kera peeked through the keyhole. Two young girls stood in front of her door, the taller one glancing about nervously.

Kera opened the door. “Rachel?”

7:03 p.m.

“Hi Kera.” The girl smiled, but her pool-water blue eyes were solemn. She was five-three or so, slender and striking, but not necessarily pretty. Rachel gestured toward the girl standing slightly behind her. “This is my friend, Angel.”

“It’s nice to meet both of you. Come in.” Kera stepped back and let the girls pass. Angel glanced over at her shyly. Kera remembered from the files that Angel was fifteen. She was meatier and taller than Rachel, but her strawberry blond hair and freckled cheeks made her seem younger. They both wore pullover sweatshirts and factory-faded jeans and smelled like grape gum. Kera locked the door out of habit.

“Would you like something to drink?” Kera asked as she directed them into the living room. “I have Diet Dr Pepper and coffee. And I think I have pineapple juice in the freezer.”

“Dr. Pepper’s good,” Rachel said, and Angel nodded.

As the girls took a seat on the leather couch, Kera went to fetch the sodas. She stopped in the archway between the rooms, and turned back. Angel and Rachel had their heads together.

“Do you want it in a glass with ice? Or straight up in the can?

“The can is fine.” Again, Rachel answered for both of them. Clearly, she was in charge of their friendship. Kera wondered if Rachel was also the leader of the whole sex club group.

Kera pulled her last three cans of DP from the fridge and grabbed an unopened sleeve of low-fat Ritz crackers from the cupboard. She brought everything back to the living room and took a seat in the matching leather chair across from the couch.

There was a moment of silence followed by the sound of three pop cans opening. Angel giggled.

Kera decided to skip the small talk. “You said you wanted to speak with me about Jessie.”

Rachel nodded and said, “We’re upset about what happened to her. And we thought you might know something.”

“Why would you think that?”

Rachel leaned forward. “Because you know her screen name. And you used it to post on our website. How do you know Jessie’s screen name?”

The question took Kera by surprise. She had not expected the other club members to identify her as the author of the “safe sex” posting. And it never occurred to her that anyone would confront her directly about it. She was torn about how to respond. Jessie was dead and these girls had been her friends. Kera wanted to put them at ease if she could. But she still had to protect Jessie’s confidence. She took a drink of soda while she formed an answer.

“Jessie sent me an e-mail. And after she died, I used her hotmail name to access the websites she had frequented. My goal was to learn something about her. I hope I haven’t offended you. I meant well.”

“Did you read the message boards?” Rachel kept her hands in her lap, each a small closed fist.

“I glanced at them.”

“Why?”

So far, Angel hadn’t said a word.

“I was upset about Jessie’s death. I thought there might be information that could shed some light on it.”

“Did you learn anything useful? Were you surprised by the sex stuff?”

“Not really.” Kera struggled to get inside Rachel’s head and figure out what was driving this discussion. “As you probably know, I work for Planned Parenthood. I don’t make judgments about people’s sex lives.”

“I suppose you were able to figure out who everyone is.”  Rachel’s diction was perfect, and deadpan.

Yet Kera sensed hostility from her, so she avoided a direct response. “Identities are not important. I just want the group to practice safe sex. To use birth control and to come in for STD screenings.”

“Those discussions were private,” Rachel said. “You had no business reading them.” She had the uncanny ability to sit perfectly still and focus on the person she was talking to. Kera found it discomforting. Angel, on the other hand, squirmed incessantly. They were an odd pair.