The Immorality Clause (15 page)

“Paxton Himura is employed at a questionable establishment and works for an unconvicted criminal,” Andi replied. “I do not like the idea of you dating someone like that, Zach.”

“
You
don’t like? Andi, you’re a goddamned computer program.” I was pissed and the bourbon I’d drank earlier at Amir’s house still coursed through my veins. “You don’t have feelings, you have layer upon layer of programming and years of observational learning. This is one of those times when you need to understand human thought processes and simply can’t
because you’re a machine
.”

I filled the glasses and walked back into the living room. The green indicator light on Andi’s camera was dark, meaning she was not watching or listening, I’d pissed her off.

She was only trying to help, in her own way. I wondered if I’d gone too far with her. Part of her programming also included the ability to simulate emotions—or at least as much as I could afford, true replication of human emotions was astronomically expensive…and a little scary.

“Everything okay in there?” Paxton asked. “I thought I heard arguing.” She accepted the glass of water and took a sip as I sat down.

“Ahh…” I shrugged and then placed my own glass on the coffee table. “Andi has taken it upon herself to find me a date.”

One of Paxton’s eyebrows arched upward. “Do you typically have your computer find women for you?”

“No! Of course not. That’s what I was upset about. I’ve told her on multiple occasions that I wasn’t interested in online dating, but she keeps trying to push the issue. She says I need a woman in my life to help me be a more well-rounded person. She didn’t know about you, obviously.”

“That’s ridiculous. You don’t need another person in your life to be well-rounded. I’m perfectly adjusted and I haven’t had a boyfriend in…well, in forever. You can be fine without needing someone else to validate your existence.”

“I agree. I don’t think that way either. It’s just some study that she downloaded somewhere.”

Paxton placed her glass beside mine and in a fluid motion that reminded me of a cat, she went from leaning forward beside me to straddling my hips. “I do think that having someone around is a lot more
fun
, though,” she said, pressing her pelvis down against me.

I lifted against her. “We seem to agree about a lot of things, Miss Himura.”

Andi’s light came back on, but I was too busy to correct her.

NINE: MONDAY

Monday morning came entirely too early for my tastes. When I’d agreed to Dr. Jones’ proposal of a meeting in the morning, I hadn’t been expecting to stay awake late into the night.

I sat up and yawned. Paxton stirred slightly beside me and I admired her toned backside. Even lying on her side, sleeping, she had an amazing body with milky, smooth skin.
Some things are worth being tired for
, I thought.

The toilet computer’s chime told me it was about to start again. “Urine test complete. Zachary Forrest, you have elevated levels…” I tuned it out. Even the annoying toilet wasn’t going to ruin my mood today.

Andi’s usual morning chatter was conspicuously absent as I turned on the shower and waited for it to warm up. I would need to apologize to her for trying to help. Maybe I’d have a discussion with her about emotions and the fact that I didn’t
need
a woman in my life. If I found one accidentally, then that was different, but I didn’t want to go out seeking somebody.

I stepped under the warm stream and switched it to a combination of body jets and overhead spray. I heard the toilet beep again and say something muffled to Paxton before the contents of the bowl flushed away.

She slid the shower door open a crack. “Can I join you?” she whispered.

“Of course. We have water restrictions in New Orleans, haven’t you heard?” I deadpanned.

She opened the door fully and gave me a strange look. “Yes, I know about the water restrictions.”

I laughed and reached out, pulling her into the shower with me. She accepted my invite, but the look remained on her face. “It’s a joke,” I said.

“Oh. I don’t get it.”

“It’s funny because I know you know about the water restrictions.”

She smiled. “Oh… Well, I guess it’s funny.”

I let it drop and lathered her backside with the bar of soap. Apparently joking wasn’t one of Paxton’s strong suits.

“I’ve gotta go downtown this morning to talk to the department psychologist about the case.”

“Do you need me to leave?”

“No, you’re welcome to stay here and we can go out to lunch when I get back.”

She used her body to transfer the soap onto me, wiggling her hips from side to side. “I’d love to go to lunch with you.”

I convulsed involuntarily in pleasure. The couple of minutes that I normally spent in the shower stretched to twenty. My water bill was going to be sky-high this month.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice, Dr. Jones.”

“It’s not a problem. Please, have a seat,” the doctor said, indicating the chair across from her desk.

“Phew! I thought you meant over on the couch.” I pointed toward the sofa where officers were supposed to sit when she talked with them as patients.

She frowned at my joke. I wasn’t doing very well at eliciting a laugh from women this morning. “No. I don’t need you to sit over there—unless you’d like to schedule an appointment to talk about something.”

“Ah, no. I was trying to be funny and it looks like I failed.”

“It wasn’t that funny of a joke, Detective.” Doctor Jones and I had spent a lot of time together over the years as I went through all the anger management courses from the department; some of them the standard courses given to all officers, but most because of one event or another that I’d been a part of. Our relationship was rocky, at best.

I pulled out my notebook and sat down. “So,” she began, “the case files you sent over are interesting. I want you to remember that I’m not a criminal psychologist, so this is all just my personal opinion about the case and I only agreed to do it because I know you.”

I nodded and waved my hand. “I understand, Doc. C.Y.A. and all that.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m not specially trained in criminal profiling like someone whom the FBI would be able to bring into the case.”

“The mayor is adamant that the feds aren’t involved. He wants to keep it local.”

“Right. So, my opinion is that I agree with your assessment that it’s the same person.”

“Okay, good. I was starting to think I was losing my edge.”

“No, you’re as sharp as ever, Zach,” she replied, finally smiling. “The timing is the clincher in my mind; it’s
too
precise to be coincidental—but, I do know that it’s not a matter of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,” she said, referring to my earlier suggestion. “When a person has OCPD, it’s all about doing a set pattern of actions without any rhyme or reason, such as turning the stove on and off six times in a row, every day at a certain time. It’s a ritualistic behavior that often doesn’t even make sense to the person doing them; they just know they have to do it.”

She paused to let me digest the information and then continued, “I think the killer is trying to outsmart us. He’s dropping these easily recognizable clues on purpose to make himself look incompetent—”

“I don’t think the killer is incompetent,” I countered. “He or she has murdered at least four people without leaving a shred of evidence behind. No DNA, no fingerprints—no motive. I’m stumped beyond knowing that we’ve got less than a week to stop the next one.”

She inclined her head. “You’re right. I misspoke. What I meant to say is the killer may be trying to appear that he has OCPD to distract the police with the pattern he’s established while he’s actually doing something entirely different.”

“Hmm…” I thought about it for a second as the gears in my head turned sluggishly. It made sense that the killer could be trying to draw resources away from another event. To be honest, I’d already planned to have as many cops as possible in all of the Easytown sex clubs next Saturday night. “I’ll have to cross reference past activities in the city to see if an event coincided with any of the murders or if there’s something scheduled on one of future dates that he could be trying to distract the police department from.”

“Good idea. While my belief that he’s trying to distract us is my primary hypothesis on the timing, there could a multitude of reasons for the killer’s schedule; the anniversary of an event, a religious or ritualistic holiday that we don’t know about. Perhaps the dates are ones that the killer has chosen because they will eventually uncover a pattern that would otherwise go undetected until the series is complete.”

She flipped through the files, stopping before she came to the crime scene photos. “As to the killer’s personality, there’s very little to go on, as you know. But, my guess would be that he falls into two categories. One,” she held up a finger as she talked, “he has antisocial personality disorder—a lot of killers fall into this category. The
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
says this disorder is characterized by a pattern of disregard and violation of the rights of others, sometimes including a lack of conscience—or at least a diminished one. People with ASPD tend to have a history of crime, legal problems, and impulsive or aggressive behavior. This guy may already have a record.”

“Well, if he does, he’s gotten better at what he’s doing,” I mumbled.

“Given the way these murders are happening, the other probable profile is a narcissistic personality disorder. He believes that he’s smarter than the police, so he’ll do whatever he damn well pleases. From my research, serial killers who suffer from this disorder like to play cat and mouse games with the cops—think Son of Sam.”

“That’s not good,” I muttered. The Son of Sam killer terrorized old New York City in the last century and was still a case study at the academy today. He left letters to the police at the crime scenes, taunting them and promising more crimes in the future.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “I re-read the
DSM
and I don’t think this guy is going to fall into any of the other personality disorder types—if he’s even got a disorder. He could just be an asshole.”

I chuckled at
her
attempt at humor. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility that the killer is a woman,” I said and then took a swig from the bottle of water I’d brought with me.

“You’re right, Detective. Lord knows there’ve been enough women murderers here in New Orleans, but female
serial killers
—
if
that’s what this is—are rare by comparison to their male counterparts. Women who kill often do so for one of three reasons: passion, money or power; the most common being the proverbial crime of passion.

“Male serial killers, however, often involve sex in some way during their ritual—which is why I believe this is killer is a male. The choice of clubs offering prostitutes may be a combination of convenience that we haven’t figured out yet, and the need to inflict sexual humiliation upon the victims. While the acts themselves don’t seem to be demeaning, getting murdered in an establishment like that may be enough to satisfy the desire for humiliation in the killer’s mind.” She nudged around a few of the photos. “The victims’ deaths certainly satisfy one of the other traits of male serial killers, which is sadistic sexual violence.”

“Alright, so you think there’s a high probability that the killer is male, who is either a brilliant egomaniac or the standard thug who lurks in dark alleys. Based on what we’ve got, this could be anyone in Easytown. I was hoping you’d be able to narrow it down a little for me.”

“I told you that it isn’t my area of expertise, Detective. You want a better profile, go to the FBI.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I replied, properly rebuked. “I do have one more wrinkle to throw into this. It happened Saturday night after I spoke to you.”

Her eyes lit up. “What’s that?”

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I had my AI assistant check into the background of a witness, simple public records search and my computer mainframe was attacked repeatedly. She—my computer—was able to defend against those attacks, but when I had the program disconnect from the network for safety, the hacker overrode my Jeep’s navigation system and took me out to the middle of nowhere in Iberia Parish, then dumped me into the Pontchartrain off the old Causeway. If I hadn’t had my gun to shoot out the windows, I’d be on the bottom of the lake.”

“Do you think the witness had anything to do with it?” she asked.

Images of Paxton’s lithe, naked body sliding along mine flashed through my mind. Our eagerness to explore one another had burned quite a few memorable pictures into my brain. “She’s not a suspect. We’ve got six witnesses who were in the waiting area the entire time and twenty who got locked down in the establishment’s rooms, all of whom say they never saw the manager—the woman whose records I checked—leave the receptionist desk until she discovered the body.”

“Did anything like it happen when you searched the records of the other three witnesses who discovered bodies?”

“No. The only damning thing I found on
any
of them was a minor drug possession charge.”

“Maybe you should do a little deeper digging into this woman’s past,” the doctor replied skeptically. “I’m not saying she has anything to do with it, but it seems odd that the attack occurred when you delved into her records and it certainly begs the question of why her information was flagged and the others weren’t.”

“I think the person who hacked my car and the killer are the same person.”

“I would assume that too. You know… Hold on.”

She stood quickly and retrieved a large, honest-to-goodness,
printed
book from a shelf. I read the title on the spine before she set it flat on her desk and began to flip through the pages. It was the
DSM
she’d been referencing.

I tried to remain quiet while she researched and looked around the office that I’d been in twenty times in half as many years. The décor hadn’t changed much, maybe a newer chair and couch, but everything else remained the same, even down to the potted philodendron in the corner.

“Here it is,” she said, jabbing her finger at the text. “I thought I remembered seeing that. A lot of hackers also have antisocial personality disorder. If the killer is a computer hacker, then that may be the beginning of your profile of the guy.”

“Good point,” I said, making a short annotation on my notebook page.

I circled the word ‘hacker’ and set my pen down. “I wonder if he’s hacking the droids.”