Night Tides (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
HEY EMERGED INTO
the kitchen. Dishes were stacked neatly in the drain, and magnets held magazine photos of tattooed women to the refrigerator. Korbus paused to close and lock the basement door.

Rachel looked around for a phone or computer, but if he had either, they weren’t in this room. She saw no sign that anyone else shared the home. The windows were all covered with heavy blinds, so there was no chance a neighbor might spot her. If there
were
any neighbors, that is; they could be in one of Wisconsin’s thousands of isolated farmhouses. The door that looked like it might lead outside was dead-bolted and chained.

Korbus led her down a short hall and into what at first she took to be a bathroom. It certainly
had
been once, but he’d knocked out the wall between it and a small bedroom, making a single space with a sink, counter, and toilet. The walls were painted bright white and reflected the fluorescent lighting so that, after the basement, Rachel was almost blinded. Where there had been a bathtub was now a table that slanted at a forty-five-degree angle from the floor, made of rough-edged wood and stained with what could have been either ink or blood. The renovation work appeared to be recent, hurried, and rather sloppy. That made it no less effective, though.

He closed the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. There were no windows. She could hear nothing except her own heart and Korbus’s labored breathing.

At last he turned to face her. His expression was weary and pale. “I’ll cut your hands loose,” he said, “and you can go to the bathroom, if you need to.” He looked evenly at her until she nodded. Truthfully, her bladder was killing her. “But if you try anything funny, you’ll be pissing your panties from now on. Understand?”

Again she nodded. What else could she do?

“Turn around, then.”

First he removed the collar. Then she felt the knife slip between her wrists and cut the tape. It yanked painfully on her arm hair as she separated her hands. Then he slipped the leash off over her head. She crossed her arms over her breasts, expecting him to grab her at any moment.

Instead, he turned on the tap and faced the door. “I’m not watching. I’m not one of those golden-shower guys. Do your business.”

This was her chance, she thought. He had his back to her, and she was free. But she was also weak, sore, and naked. And he still had that knife.

She slid down her panties and sat on the toilet. The running water masked the sound, at least. As she urinated, she carefully pulled the tape from her mouth, wincing at the numb area it left. She worked her lips and jaw back to life.

She finished, pulled the panties back up, and said raggedly, “Mr. Korbus?”

He did not turn around. “Flush, please.”

She pulled the handle. In the quiet, apparently soundproofed room, the noise was like the Death Star exploding. When it faded, he turned to her and said, “You can climb onto the table, or we can fight about it.” He held up a thick baton with a gleaming metal tip. “One jolt of this gets a cow into the slaughterhouse chute, so it’s a good motivator.”

She swallowed hard, connecting the prod with his threat in the basement, and wrapped her arms tight around her torso. “This isn’t going to work. You know people will look for me.”

He nodded toward the floor. “People are looking for them too. Cops, friends, parents.” He smiled, a cold yet somehow pathetic expression. “They won’t look here.”

Although she hated it, she let her tears flow, hoping she would seem more sympathetic. She hunched down, making herself as small and pathetic as possible. “Why are you doing this to me?” she said in her best little-girl’s voice. “I never hurt you. I never did
anything
to you.”

He smiled again and shook his head. “You don’t remember either, do you? Just like the rest. I’d hoped that since you weren’t some airheaded college girl, you might be different.”

“I
am,”
she said, ashamed at the whining tone she used. “Really, I am. Please believe me.”

He sighed, both bored and annoyed. He gestured with the prod and said, “Get up on there or I’ll use this. I mean it.”

Still sniffling, she stepped up to the table. She laid her back against it, arms still crossed over her chest. The wood was rough and cold against her shoulders. There was a lip at the bottom for her feet and two straps to secure her ankles.

“I’m going to buckle your feet,” he said. “You try to kick me, or hit me, or anything, then you get zapped.” She stayed very still as he secured her ankles with Velcro straps bolted to the wood. She struggled to keep her thighs together.

He stood with a groan. One of his knees popped loudly. He put the cattle prod aside and said, “Put your arms down. If you cooperate, I’ll shackle them at your side, which isn’t that uncomfortable. Give me a hard time, and I’ll tie them behind your back again. And,” he added, leaning close as he’d done in the basement, “I know how to pierce pretty much every body part. Some of them hurt more than others.”

She lowered her arms. He’d already seen her, after all. He fastened her right wrist, then walked around the table for the left one. When she felt the strap pull tight, she was suddenly claustrophobic, and her heart began to thunder. “Please, don’t do this, whatever it is. Let me go,” she said, breathless. “Please, this isn’t right, you can’t do this—”

“Calm down,” he said firmly, the way he might snap at a panicky child. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“What about Ling Hu?” she almost shouted. She frantically pulled at the bonds on her wrists, rattling the table.
Don’t freak out!
her rational mind cried, but it couldn’t be heard over the terror. “You killed
her!”

He grabbed her jaw firmly and slammed her head back against the table. She froze. He leaned so close that she could smell his minty, vaguely antiseptic breath.

“Let me tell you a little story about Ling Hu,” he said. “I saw her in a convenience store down on Willie Street. I remembered this amazing design I did for her, something that would be a real work of art. She didn’t want it, though, she just wanted a tramp stamp like all the other girls. So, anyway, I complimented her tattoo, thinking she might remember me, thinking she might even thank me for it. You know what she said? ‘Fuck you, creep.’”

He released Rachel’s jaw. “So I grabbed the stuck-up little bitch off the street, brought her back here, and decided to give her that tat whether she wanted it or not. I won’t be around in six months; my work deserves better than that.”

“Are you sick?” Rachel asked quietly. “I mean… ill?”

He ignored her and instead turned to his worktable. “So I looked back through my shop’s old records. There were eleven of you bitches who turned down designs I’d worked really hard on. And five of you were still in town. I decided that if God hated me so much He had to destroy both my career
and
my life, then I’d make damn sure I left my mark anyway.”

He paused and chuckled to himself. “I mean, hell: I grabbed Ling Hu right off the street and no one saw me. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.”

“So what will you do to us … afterward?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really give a fuck. I suppose I thought at first I’d just let you go. By the time any of you got to the police, I’d be dead, and I figure at least one of you will decide to leave my art alone. But now…”

He stopped and tapped his fingertips on the table. “I did
not
kill that Chinese girl. She had asthma or something that I didn’t know about, and the sleeping pills I was giving her must’ve aggravated it. I actually feel a little bad about that, and that’s
why you’re
wide awake.”

“Do you feel bad enough to let me go?” she whispered.

He sighed and shook his head. “When life takes all your options away, you go with what’s left, whether you like it or not.” He put a strap across her throat, then stepped to a cloth-covered workbench and examined a row of small metal tips. He pulled surgical gloves from a box dispenser and expertly put them on. “I won’t kid you, this is going to hurt. Maybe a lot; my hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. But the less you fight, the faster it will go.”

The reality washed over her like a cold wave. Her body, her skin, was about to be
defiled
. Soon he would use her, not sexually perhaps but still as an object with no more importance than a sheet of poster board. And she could do nothing to stop him. “Please, don’t,” she whispered.

He turned to her, a tattoo gun in his hand. “My advice …” And here his smile turned frightening. “My advice is to simply lie back and enjoy it.”

R
ACHEL LAY LIMP
and whimpering on the table. Her throat was raw from screaming, and her muscles exhausted from straining against the straps holding her. The insistent pain became the only thing that penetrated her haze-lathered mind.

She realized with sudden clarity that both the buzzing sound and the burning sensation had stopped. She opened her watery eyes and croaked, “Are you done?”

Korbus swabbed his work with antiseptic. “For now,” he said, and wiped sweat from his own face. “I can’t work too long at one time.”

She began to tremble uncontrollably, and her skin felt cold and clammy. Was she going into shock? What he’d done to her certainly qualified as an injury.

After she was clean, Korbus took a picture of his handiwork. He’s taken one at the start too, the first time in her life that Rachel had been photographed naked. Then he’d uploaded the photo to his laptop and printed out the first of the stencils.

She’d seen these stencils before. She recalled sitting in Korbus’s tattoo parlor with Helena, half drunk and giggling as he showed her the same design he was now imposing on her. She’d asked for a simple silhouette of the Hudson Park effigy mound, but instead he presented her with an elaborate image of a forest scene that would fill the space between her sternum and pubic bone with half-nude natives dancing along her ribs. There was no way she was getting
that
done—not least because being topless for the tattoo guy was just trashy—so despite his best efforts to persuade her, she got only the one design. She’d always liked the result and never once thought about his insane idea again.

Now, though, it was
all
she could think about. The smell of ink and antiseptic, the odor of microscopic bits of skin and blood burning, made her almost pass out. But merciful unconsciousness eluded her. She felt the blood trickle in tiny rivulets down her skin and the cool bite of alcohol as he wiped it away.

She had no sense of time in the windowless, clockless room. At one point Korbus was gone for what seemed like several minutes. She fought with all her strength to break free, straining arms and legs against the table and straps. She screamed for help. She did not look at what he had done to her.

When he returned, he settled back into work without even a word. Finally he sat back, face sweaty above his surgical mask, and said, “That’s the biggest part. We’ll start on your boobs tomorrow.”

She glared at him, trying to channel her fear and shame into rage. He did not look away. Instead, he said, “I stayed up all night working on this design. Inspiration, you know. No sense of time, didn’t stop to eat or sleep. My mojo was working. And then you laughed at it. I expect that from these other spoiled bitches, but you, you’re a grown woman. You’re supposed to have…”

He waved his hand in the air as he sought the word. “Manners.”

Despite her anger, Rachel blushed anew, because he was right; she and Helena, half drunk and giddy,
had
laughed at it, with Korbus right there. He’d laughed, too, at the time, as if their scorn were no big deal. But that was no justification for this.

Still playing helpless, she choked down her fury and said meekly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Korbus.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. His tone was not bitter or angry, just resigned. “Doesn’t matter a damn now.”

“I didn’t mean it, Mr. Korbus,” she said. And it was true, she hadn’t intended to hurt anyone’s feelings.

He laughed, cold and mirthless, like the sharp bark of a coyote standing over fresh roadkill. “You asked me before if I was ill. I’m close to my expiration date, for sure.” He ran a finger along the fresh line and flicked the tip of one breast for emphasis. “But I haven’t spoiled yet.”

He rummaged on the table, then held up a long plastic tie, the kind used to bind the other victims. “I’m going to tie your hands again. You’ve been reasonably good, so I’ll tie them in front this time. Then I’ll give you some water before I take you back to the basement. I imagine you’re thirsty.”

She nodded. Her thoughts, though, were on escape. With her arms tied in front she might struggle, but not while her ankles remained strapped to the table. And he kept the cattle prod within reach. He’d perfected his little procedure, all right.

In moments he’d released her arms and bound her wrists, tight enough that she worried about the circulation. Then he held out a bottle of water. She took it in her hands and drank gratefully. Between drafts she asked, “What about food?”

He slapped her behind. “Crackers when I feel like it. This isn’t a hotel.”

She drained the bottle, and he took it away. When he tore off a fresh piece of duct tape, she said, “Do you have to? I won’t scream, I promise.”

He smiled sarcastically. “Right. Stockholm syndrome in record time, eh? Sorry.” He pressed the tape to her face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

E
THAN SAT ACROSS
from Marty’s desk. It was as disorganized and cluttered as his room had been when were kids. And just like then, Marty knew exactly where everything was.

Ethan had a Band-Aid on his jawline and a gauze bandage on his hand; neither injury needed stitches. However, he was certain he’d have to replace all his trousers; they would no longer fit, now that Marty had effectively and thoroughly chewed his ass off.

“The
only
reason you’re not in jail right now is that you were the one bleeding, and Caleb had enough pot in that basement to make what he was doing a felony,” Marty told him in the car coming back to town. “Not to mention that he confessed to vandalizing Rachel’s diner. He’ll make a deal to drop charges against you if we lower the charges against him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Gee, could it be because I’m a cop?” Marty almost shouted.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan mumbled.

“I think everybody knows that by now. Christ on a stick, Ethan, don’t you think Caleb was one of the first people we talked to? He had a solid alibi. If there had been any holes in it, any doubt at all, we’d have hauled him in for questioning, or at least had someone watching him.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said.

“Yeah, no shit.” Marty sighed, tapping his hands on the steering wheel as they waited for a light to change. “You’re coming back to the station with me, so I can keep an eye on you. I’ll bring you back to get your truck later. And I don’t want to hear a god
damned
word out of you, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Ethan agreed. He looked down at his knees, unable to meet his brother’s gaze.

“I know you’re worried, man. I don’t blame you. But this isn’t like war. Or maybe it is, I don’t know, but the rules are different. You’ll have to trust us, trust
me
. Can you do that?”

“If I have to, I have to,” Ethan said flatly. “How’d you find me?”

“Helena called me. And you better thank your sorry white ass that she did, because if any other cop in the
world
had found you, you’d be in jail right beside Caleb.”

Now it was late afternoon, and nothing had changed. There were no leads, no tips, no clues. The evening news would carry the story, but neither man held out hope for a break based on that. Being on TV hadn’t helped the others—especially Ling Hu.

Marty dug under a pile of loose printouts for a folder. “You know, I think this is the most frustrating case I’ve ever worked on,” he said. “Five girls, one dead that we know of, and all taken from the middle of town, without a single substantial clue except their abandoned clothes. No one saw anything, no one heard anything, and none of the victims seem to have anything in common. I tell you, the hardest thing to track down is a truly random criminal.”

“Did you check
The Lady of the Lakes?”
Ethan asked.

He nodded. “Nothing. Not even a mention of this. I sure wish I knew how they got their information and why they know all about some things and nothing at all about others.”

Ethan looked at the picture of Marty and his longtime partner, Chuck, in sweaters before a cozy fireplace. They seemed happy to simply be in each other’s presence, similar to the childhood picture of Rachel and her sister. “Do you think she’s dead?”

“Honestly, Ethan, I don’t know. Ling Hu died of an asthma attack, according to the preliminary report, so she wasn’t murdered. She also wasn’t sexually assaulted, even though we found her nude.”

“But she could’ve died before the kidnapper got around to either of those things.”

Marty nodded. His computer chimed to announce an e-mail, and for a long moment the only sound was his typing a response. Across the room, the phone rang at another desk, and a gruff, unsympathetic voice answered it. Finally Marty said, “I hate that I brought you into this, you know. Sending you to the diner like I did. I just thought you and she…” He ended with a shrug.

“We did,” Ethan said. “That’s the worst thing about it. She was great. Funny, sexy, smart…” He ran his hand through his hair. “Like Julie, except without the bitterness and paranoia.”

“It’s not paranoia if people
are
talking behind your back,” Julie said.

Ethan spun around in his chair. Marty stood and said formally, “Ms. Schutes, what a surprise. Normally the desk sergeant calls up to announce visitors.”

Julie was immaculate in a summer blouse and skirt, her bag over her shoulder. Her blond hair was pulled severely back, and she wore black-frame glasses. Her face twisted for a moment as her personal reaction battled her professional detachment. The latter won. She kept her gaze resolutely on Marty and said, “Actually, I wasn’t here to see you, Detective Walker. I thought I’d stop by to say hello on my way out of the building. But since I
am
here, I’d like to ask you some questions about the latest disappearance.”

“And I’d like to answer them, but I can’t.”

“No comment, then?”

He sat again. “No comment. Except to tell everyone, especially women, to use extra caution.”

“Is this latest disappearance connected to the others?”

“He said no comment, Julie,” Ethan snapped without looking at her.

Julie started to bark a reply, then noticed his bandages. “What happened to you?”

“I cut myself shaving,” Ethan said through clenched teeth.

She moved to the side of his chair. “I hear you reported her missing too. The anguished lover waiting desperately for news is always good for a few paragraphs of filler. Care to comment?”

Ethan stood and glared down at Julie. For a moment he seemed about to strike out, if not physically then with a verbal tirade. A couple of other officers at nearby desks stood as well, ready to intercede at the signal from Marty.

But Ethan clamped it down. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to visit the men’s room.”

He pushed past her, shoving the chair aside to avoid physical contact.

J
ULIE WATCHED
him depart, then turned back to Marty. The cocky chill was replaced by real emotion as she said, “You could’ve told me he was involved. I had to find it out from the P.R. officer. And then here he is, big as life.”

Marty sighed. “There’s not enough hours in the day for everything I could’ve done, Julie.”

“So he
does
know the last victim?”

Marty nodded. “She disappeared after a date with him. Their first date.”

Julie turned again and looked down the row of desks to make sure Ethan was truly gone. She tapped her fingers on the chair back and said finally, “Doesn’t that make him a suspect, then?”

“No,” he said sternly. “And this is all off the record, Julie. Seriously.”

“I don’t blame you. This whole thing doesn’t make the police look very good.”

“You mean it doesn’t make
me
look very good. Are you going to hang me out to dry in your article?”

She tried not to smile, but it still crept out. “You’re a shit, you know that?”

E
THAN WANDERED
numbly through the police station. A few officers squinted at his visitor’s badge as he passed, but for the most part they left him alone. He’d visited Marty before, and word of his contretemps with Caleb Johnstone evidently hadn’t reached the rank and file.

He opened the door to the fenced parking lot and went outside. A half dozen white police cruisers waited for their patrolmen to return, some with their engines idling. The metallic squawk of the dispatcher rang through open windows.

He went to the chain-link fence and stood with his fingers threaded through it, his forehead against the metal. It was warm from the sun. Just beyond the fence, past the narrow bike path and gently sloping bank, stretched Lake Monona, southernmost of the city’s lakes.

The afternoon sun made the highlights on the lake sparkle. A Jet Ski bounced across the wake of a fishing boat, and in the distance he saw a small sailing craft making for one of the big houses on the far shore. Bicyclists and joggers passed within arm’s reach, but none paid him a second glance. No doubt they assumed he was a cop, and no one wanted to make eye contact.

He turned toward a distinctive
whirrrr-snik
sound. An elderly man sat at the water’s edge, casting his rod and reel into the lake. He let the lure settle, then wound it in with slow, methodical movements. When it emerged from the water empty, he didn’t seem disappointed and immediately threw it back again, repeating the process.

“Are they biting this time of day?” Ethan asked.

The man turned. He had dark eyebrows and unruly white hair. His face was lined and suntanned. “You talking to me, Officer? I got my fishing license right here.”

“No, I’m not a cop.”

“If you’re a prisoner, then that’s a terrible bit of escaping.”

Ethan laughed. “No, I’m just here visiting.”

“I had a friend whose son was just visiting, for five to ten.”

“My brother’s a cop.”

“Oh. Well, no, the fish aren’t biting.” The lure came up out of the water again, fish-free. “The spirits aren’t with me today.”

Ethan perked up at the use of the word. “Spirits?”

“The spirits in the lake. If they aren’t with you, you could toss dynamite in there and not have a single fish float to the surface.”

“I didn’t know there were spirits in the lake.”

“Where’d you grow up?”

“Monroe.”

“Do you fish?”

Ethan nodded.

“And you never heard about the lake spirits?”

“Not until recently.”

The old man shifted so he could look at Ethan directly. “You know about the animal mounds in the area? The people who built them did it to honor the spirits in the lakes. If you want to do any good fishing here, you better bring along something to honor them too. They decide they don’t like you, you might never get back in their favor.”

“What sort of things do they like?”

“I bring ’em beer.” He nodded at the cooler beside him. “The first drink is always for the lake.”

Just as Ethan was about to point out that his offerings seemed to do little good, the man’s rod bent sharply and he jumped to his feet. Within moments he’d landed a walleye that looked to weigh well over five pounds.

Ethan was about to congratulate the man, when Julie said behind him, “Isn’t watching someone fish the only thing lamer than actual fishing?”

He turned. She stood with her arms crossed, the light wind tousling loose strands of her hair. A pair of uniformed cops stood by their car and grinned as they appraised her. If she knew, she didn’t seem to care.

“I’m not your story, Julie,” Ethan said. “Go away.”

“I’d say a local builder and Iraq war vet who gets in a fistfight with another veteran over a dope deal gone bad would make a hell of a story,” she said blithely.

“You wouldn’t
dare
. You know that’s not true.”

She smiled in smug triumph. “But all the facts fit.”

“What do you want?”

She looked down and shook her head. The maliciousness left her face. “I’m sorry, Ethan, that was … thoughtless. Just when I think I’m over things, they come back stronger than ever. I didn’t expect to see you down here, and to find out you’ve moved on… it stings a little.”

“Well, I’m going home, so you’ll have the place all to yourself.”

As he walked past, she touched his arm. He stopped. She said, “I do miss you, you know.”

He did not look at her.

“I still say we could’ve made it work,” she continued.

He whirled toward her angrily. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“What? No, I didn’t mean… Look, I’m sorry for that too.”

He saw the genuine regret in her eyes, and after a long moment he nodded. “Everybody’s sorry for something.”

Her blue eyes fixed on him with all of her fierce, intelligent intensity. “Are you?”

Ethan recalled his grandfather’s admonition:
Never apologize; it’s a sign of weakness
. He’d believed that for most of his life. Now he knew it wasn’t true. But he didn’t want Julie to know he knew. So he turned and walked back into the building.

“That’s what I thought,” she called after him.

Inside the building, he found a secluded hallway corner and dialed his brother’s cell phone. When he got voice mail, as he hoped he would, he left Marty a message saying he was going home. But he had other plans for the evening.