Sugar & Spice (13 page)

“Yes, but I didn't print them out,” I said.

Kelly continued reading. “So the killer was in Malibu, huh? And he raped and killed three women?”

“Apparently,” I said. “Skip down to the coroner's conclusion.”

Kelly shuffled the papers and began reading the final statements. She looked at me and frowned. “So there are two killers?”

“Either that, or the killer is ambidextrous.”

“What are the chances ofthat, Phoenix?”

“Probably none. We've got two killers,” I said. “But, did you notice that the killer's MO doesn't exactly fit all of ours.”

“What do you mean?”

“In Malibu, the walls were splattered with blood from the body parts being thrown against the walls.”

“So?”

“So Sarah Lawford's body parts weren't thrown against the wall. Neither were Warden Perkins' nor his wife's. Yet, Taylor Hoffman's body parts were.”

“What are you saying, Phoenix?”

“I'm not saying anything. I'm simply articulating the facts as we know them. The killer in Malibu was pissed at his victims and Taylor Hoffman. Drugs were found in Heather Connelly's system. Who knows what we're going to find in Hoffman's system? Those two murders are very similar. Both homes had an abundance of sex toys. Dildos, vaginal lubricants, flavored condoms, et cetera. If the coroner finds cocaine in Hoffman's system, I have to believe that Hoffman and Connelly were connected to Perkins and Blake. The troubling thing is, none of this makes any sense. Hoffman and Connelly were already well-off.

“Yeah, Phoenix. Why even get involved in the drug trade? Assuming they are.”

“Greed. People never have enough. They always want more. You oughta see the Connelly mansion, Kelly. It's absolutely gorgeous. Probably has every imaginable amenity. She had a thirteen-car garage full of expensive automobiles. Her friends were rich, too. They found a friggin' Lamborghini Diablo that belonged to Sandra Rhodes at LAX.”

“You know what they say.” Kelly laughed. “The rich get richer. Now you know why.”

The line was out the door and it was a blistering day already. The D.C. heat was already at eighty degrees with ninety-percent humidity. I wasn't about to wait in line to see the manager. We clipped our credentials to our belt buckles and walked into the lobby. It was hotter in there than it was outside. The customers were taking off garments and fanning themselves. I could hear the customers grumbling as we walked past everybody and entered the inner lobby. They wanted to know why we didn't get in line like everybody else. I saw five postal clerks behind the counter waiting on customers. One of the clerks was catching hell from a fiery lady of about fifty years.

“What the hell do you mean, you don't have any thirty-seven-cent stamps?” the lady asked.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, but…”

“You damn right, you're sorry!” the lady shouted. “Let me ask you something. If you went to McDonald's for lunch, stood in a long line, got to the counter and asked for a cheeseburger, and the employee tells you they're out of hamburger meat, what would you say?”

I tried not to laugh. But the biddy had a point. It was ridiculous for the post office to ran out of stamps.

“Well, Ma'am, I don't have anything to do with the stamps. That's the manager's job.”

“And where the fuck is he?” The lady continued her tirade. “He's never
here when you try to register a complaint, He's not here when you call this dump.”

“Ma'am, you can fill out a customer complaint card and register your complaint in writing,” the clerk said, almost pleading.

“I just don't understand how the hell you can run out of stamps when they're your bread and butter.”

The clerk just looked at her without saying a word. The rage in her eyes was on the verge of erupting. I could tell the woman wanted to give the customer a serious tongue-lashing of her own, but there was nothing she could do. She had to take it and try to be pleasant.

“That'll be fifty-nine dollars and forty-five cents, Ma'am,” the clerk said.

The lady opened her purse to get the money. “I've forgotten my money,” she said. “You do accept American Express, I presume?”

“Yes. We accept all major credit cards.”

The lady handed the clerk the card and she slid it through the credit card machine. Apparently, nothing happened. She slid it through five more times.

“Ma'am, this card isn't registering for some reason. Do you have another card?”

“JESUS CHRIST!” the woman yelled and wiped sweat from her forehead. “First you don't have stamps. Now your fucking machine won't work.” She handed the clerk another card. “If that one doesn't work, I'll just write a check. And don't you dare tell me you don't accept checks. I'll fucking lose my mind!”

The clerk slid the card through the machine and looked at the woman. “I guess the system's down, Ma'am.”

“YOU GUESS! Forget it. Give me the packages back. I'll go to the post office on Virginia Avenue. I bet their air conditioning is working. And I bet they have stamps.”

“Ma'am I can't give you back all of your mail. Your express mail just left on a dispatch. You have to pay for this before you leave.”

“Let me get this straight. You don't have stamps. Your credit card machine doesn't work, but you can get a dispatch out on time?” The woman shook her head, then wrote out a check and stormed out in a huff.

I showed my credentials and said, “FBI. I'm Special Agent Perry and this is Agent McPherson. I need to see someone about a post office box.” I could see the fear in the clerk's eyes, which is typical when we introduce ourselves. It's kind of like being in traffic. When you see a police car, the first thing you do is check your speed. You want to make sure you're not speeding.

The clerk put up a closed sign and told us to meet her at the door in the outer lobby where the post office boxes were located. I'm sure she was glad to get away from customers for a while. A few seconds passed and the clerk let us in. Her nameplate read: Geraldine. No last name.

“Hi, Geraldine,” I said. “We need to look through your computer to run a trace on the users of Box 12666.”

“Sure, but we don't have computer systems for PC) boxes.”

Kelly and I looked at each other. I was starting to understand how the angry woman who had just left felt. These people were still writing things down, which meant we would have to rely on them to be able to find what we're looking for. From what I'd seen so far, if they didn't have stamps, they probably didn't have a good system for post box rentals.

“Well, how do you keep track of who uses your boxes?” Kelly asked.

“We use form 1091 A. We write their names and addresses on cards like these.” She handed me one.

“Who's renting Box 12666?” I asked.

“Let me see,” Geraldine said and began sifting through the cards. “This
might take a few minutes. They're separated by the due date. We rent them six months or a year at a time.”

“We just need a name and an address, if you have it,” I said politely. “Then we'll be out of your hair.”

“Ah, here it is,” she said. “Dwight Rappaport. 656 Kingsbridge Drive in Alexandria.”

“Do you have a phone number?” Kelly asked.

“No. We don't require that sort of information,” she said. “What's this all about? Is this about those rash of murders we've been hearing about?”

“That's classified,” I said, politely. Geraldine looked disappointed. “Who had the box before Mr. Rappaport?”

“There's no way of knowing that. We don't keep the records on file. Once you give the box up and another renter takes it over, we throw away the information on the previous renter.”

“How long has Mr. Rappaport had this box?” Kelly asked.

“All that information is on the card. I'll make a copy for you.”

“Thanks. You've been a big help.”

Dwight Rappaport could be the killer, I thought. On the other hand, he may not be. According to the copy of the 1091A form that Geraldine gave us, the PO box was being used for business. He'd had the box for seven years. Rappaport Specialties was the name he used. I wondered how much revenue he was pulling in, so I called the library on my cell and had the librarian do a little research while we drove to Alexandria.

According to the librarian, there wasn't much information on Rappaport Specialties. The Directorate of Corporate Affiliations states that Rappaport Specialties had been a viable business for seven years. Annual revenues exceeded one and a half-million dollars. The business had no employees, which told me he probably had an Internet business and worked out of his home. If so, he might be there when we arrived.

If he wasn't the killer, he still would have to explain why he ordered the bullwhips. And if he sold them, he would at least have records—maybe even addresses. The case was finally starting to break. This was going to be good. I could feel it.

I parked the Mustang in front of Rappaport's house. His home looked like it could be on the cover of a magazine. In fact, all the homes on his block could have. If Rappaport was the killer, I wondered how much of a shock it would be for his neighbors.

When we got out of the car, we could hear the faint sound of classical
music coming from inside his house. As we approached the front door, the music became louder and louder. I recognized the tune. It was Hans Zimmer's “Vide Cor Meurm” from the
Hannibal
soundtrack.

I rang the doorbell and waited. I rang again. I knocked. I beat on the door. Finally, I tried opening the door, but it was locked. We walked around the house, looking through windows for any sign of life. From what I could tell, the house was well-furnished and decorated, but I didn't see anyone.

We continued further along the side of the house. A curtain was partially open and we saw a man sitting in a chair completely naked, watching a videotape of a woman in bondage. He was masturbating with his left hand while holding a .45-caliber pistol to his head with his right hand. The hammer was cocked and ready to fire. He could blow his brains out at any moment.

Kelly and I had disgusted looks on our faces as we watched the man play a foolish game of Russian Roulette as he pleasured himself. Through the mirror that hung on the wall above the television, we could see that he was on the verge of climaxing. His face contorted more and more as his back and forth motion increased. His mouth and eyes opened as his seed spurted.

Just then, at that critical moment, as his scions splashed against the television screen, he saw us watching him. Out of pure fright, he jerked and the gun went off. Gray matter rocketed across the room and stained the wall crimson.

I was completely flabbergasted. My mouth was open. My eyes bulged. Kelly, too. I could see our image in the mirror. The morbid part about seeing the man blow his brains out was that I was thinking, if he was Dwight Rappaport, he was probably our best chance at wrapping the case up.

I kicked in the back door and we blew into the house like a hurricane, weapons drawn. For all we knew, there could be others in the house. Who knew, maybe a sexual orgy was going on. Detective Thompson had drawn that conclusion in Malibu. And if there were others, they could be the killers. We found the room where the fresh stiff was, but finished clearing the house. “Vide Cor Meum” was still blasting throughout the house. It stopped playing for a second or two, then began again.

After securing the house, we went back to the room where our suspect was still sitting in a fixed position, looking like someone had scared him, still holding the gun. Kelly went to a quieter room and called headquarters. I looked at the fresh cadaver. His pubic hair had been shaved and his penis was abnormally large. The man was still hard. This was one for the annals.

I stood in front of the man, trying not to step in any of the semen that still oozed from his phallus. His hand had locked onto his genitals. With the music as loud as it was, I couldn't hear what was going on in the video, so I looked for the stereo. It was across the room. I noticed a Sansui remote on the desk next to a handwritten note I presumed was written by the dead man, explaining why he had killed himself in this fashion.

After putting on a pair of surgical gloves, I picked up the remote and silenced the house from the cacophony coming from the other side of the room. Immediately I heard the sound of flesh being whipped. I turned around and looked at what was happening in the video. A woman was
hanging upside-down in anti-gravity boots while she was being beaten. Unlike the women in Malibu and the women in D.C, the woman in the video wasn't bleeding.

Moments later the tape ran out and no one had gotten killed. I hit the eject button. The video was titled
Sugar & Spice.
It was a strange title, but I didn't think much of it. I put the video back in. We had hit the jackpot. No matter who this guy was, the fact that he was watching the video in the house of the guy we were looking for had convinced me that this was our guy. And if this man wasn't Dwight Rappaport, maybe Rappaport was the other man.

For some reason, I noticed that the woman's genitals in the video were shaved, too. Why? Was this some sort of mimicking ritual? I looked at the note again. I reached for it.

To whom it may concern:

If you have this letter, l am dead. I wrote it to let you know that I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was attempting to heighten my sexual pleasure by adding an element of danger that would certainly lead to my death if the gun went off, which it apparently has. Why real bullets, you ask? Because without an actual threat, without the real chance of the gun going off, I would not receive any fulfillment. Believe me; I tried using blanks on more than one occasion.