The Stranger You Seek (10 page)

He was a big guy, six-four, wide shoulders, with a veiny round nose and the ruddy complexion of someone who’d spent some time either in the sun or at the bar. Trailing closely behind Chief Connor was Jeanne Bascom, APD’s official spokesperson. Bascom gave daily press briefings, handed out progress reports, worked damage control, and according to
Rauser, she was generally pummeled for her trouble. Bascom not only took a daily battering from the press, she was the person who took the calls from the families of victims and answered to the chief and the mayor for any public misstep. I could not imagine what attracted anyone to such a position.

The chief pushed open the door and nodded at the tangle of detectives in the room, let his gaze settle on me for a moment, and then said to Rauser, “Powwow, Lieutenant, before the press conference. You gotta stand there too. They like seeing us all lined up. It’s like target practice.” He nodded again to the room. “You’ve got about two minutes, Aaron.”

Rauser looked at his team. “Listen up. Street’s been working on a psychological sketch. Pay attention, please, listen, make notes, and then I want you back out there. Thomas,” he said to one of only two female detectives on the task force, “go back to Lei Koto’s neighborhood, talk to the neighbors again, and keep talking and walking around until something makes sense. There was a car watching that street or a motorcycle or a bike. Some neighbor, some kid, some nosy old lady saw him. Maybe they don’t even know it. Maybe they just need the right question to jog their memories. I want to know everyone who ever stepped in that neighborhood in the two weeks before this lady was killed. Stevens, make sure we got all the interviews Fulton County did when Elicia Richardson was killed. Track them all down. Neighbors, paperboys, service people, first responders, whatever. There was five years between Richardson and Koto, so you gotta track everyone down and talk to them again. Bevins, communicate with every jurisdiction in the Southeast, then branch out state by state. Maybe it hasn’t been five years. Maybe we got more vics out there. Maybe we got a crime scene somewhere that’s not so clean. Williams, Balaki, if you gotta go to every elevator in the city until you figure out where this freak is doing his hunting, do it, ’cause the only thing we know right now about David is that we don’t know shit. You get any sense at all of what building that bastard is writing about, I don’t care if it’s just a feeling, put in requests for the surveillance tapes. We got nothing to lose.”

He left us there and headed down the hall. From the War Room we could see Jeanne Bascom perched on one of the vinyl chairs in Rauser’s tiny office. Chief Connor was in Rauser’s desk chair.

“Poor Lieu,” Detective Andy Balaki said. He had a swampy southern drawl and a Braves cap. “That don’t look so good.”

I cleared my throat and addressed the room. “This person’s family, his friends, and possibly his coworkers would have experienced his tendency to be hypercritical, moody, perhaps even verbally abusive.” No one even bothered to look up. Everyone kept on doing what they were doing. I was an outsider, no matter what Rauser had told them. “Okay, listen,” I said, louder. “I want this sonofabitch off the streets just like you do.” A few heads turned. “I’m not going to get in your way. I don’t want to direct your investigation. I’m here to assist, not to interfere. I used to do what you do. My background is in law enforcement. I know how hard you work.” A few more detectives gave me their attention. “His crime scenes and his letters, they have a story to tell. He’s skillful, this guy, and careful about showing his temper. He doesn’t want to be observed losing it.”

“What about his personal life?” Detective Thomas wanted to know. She was in jeans and athletic shoes, an army green hoody. “Are we looking for somebody married, divorced, gay, straight?”

“Never been married,” I replied. “Intimate relationships are fraught with obstacles. They don’t last. He dates and is sexually active, but this is about appearances. He’s straight, but his orientation has nothing to do with victim selection.”

I had their attention now. One by one, the twelve detectives assigned to this task force came back to the table. Detective Brit Williams, well dressed and handsome with very dark skin, spoke up. “Koto and Richardson and both murders in Florida happened during the day. So we assume he works the night shift.”

“Well, he needs both daylight and evening hours for surveillance purposes, planning and fantasizing. So the most important consideration in his work is mobility and freedom. He could have a mobile profession like sales, construction, route driver, but I think it’s more likely he has these freedoms because he’s in upper management. He’s educated, and it’s very important to him how the world sees him. There’s also knowledge of evidence collection and forensics, obviously, since the scenes are spotless. How much knowledge? It’s hard to determine, but at the very least he will subscribe to trade journals in these areas. So the mailing lists for
these kinds of publications and the traffic at these websites could be helpful.”

Williams nodded and scribbled a note. Detective Andy Balaki frowned. “What about the blogs? I mean, he’s such a fucking bragger. These letters are all look how smart I am.”

“Yes!” I agreed. “That’s exactly what they’re about, and there’s a very good chance he’s blogging or at least making regular hits on websites devoted to him. My tech guy tells me there are dozens already. And now he has a name—Wishbone—so the websites will multiply. This is part of the thrill for him. He’ll want to know everything law enforcement is saying and everything the profilers are saying, so he’ll be extremely dedicated to the news. Check children’s organizations too. He may donate to them since he experienced abuse as a child. Those mailing lists up against the trade journals’ mailing lists might net you something.” I paused, looked at each face in the room. “The killings are becoming more frequent and the cooling-off periods shorter in duration. It’s not an unusual pattern in the active years of a serial, but it’s a dangerous one.”

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Your Online Adult Edge Fetish & Knife Play Community blogs > beyond the EDGE, a fantasy by BladeDriver blog title > Good Wine

The restaurant was small and famed for its chef, who had begun a kind of culinary revolution, the New Southern, no rules whatsoever. I knew the place. Getting a table was nearly impossible but he had done it. He bragged about this over dinner. He bragged about everything.

He was near the back when I walked in late, and he was wearing Brioni, well-tailored gabardine in navy, a quarter inch of pale blue shirt cuff showing and not a millimeter more. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him.

He checked his watch before he spotted me. He looked annoyed. There were two full water goblets on the table and bread and butter. He wanted to make sure everything was right. That’s the kind of guy he was. I knew other things about him too. He owed two hundred and forty thou on his home, had a couple kids, liked good wine, played golf, cheated regularly on his wife, hit the gym five days a week, owned a German shepherd, and liked to brag about being made partner in some shitty law firm. I do my homework. It’s part of the fun.

He lit up when he saw me, stood to shake my hand, gave me his most dazzling
smile, and searched my face. He wanted a signal. I gave him my eyes, but only for a second, just enough to make him believe I’d revealed something vital about my intentions, then a quick downward glance, a flush of color. It’s not hard to do, that look, even though my ears were ringing and it felt like a hundred degrees in the restaurant. I let my eyes fall to his beltline and linger there a moment too long. The wolf smiled. He thought he was going to get lucky. I liked that idea too. After all, that’s really why we were there. Just like it’s why you’re here now reading my fantasies. You want the fucking and the cutting too. Just like he did.

He smoothed his tie as we sat, motioned for the waiter, nothing flashy, a tiny movement. The wine was ordered without bothering to consult me. He was working the staff, working me, managing all of us.
Mr. Up-and-Coming. So in control
.

We chatted our way through dinner, both of us lying about who we were and what we wanted. We knew we were lying and we liked that too. There was no pressure to lift the mask. Neither of us really gave a damn what was underneath. And then the wine began to do its job, our eyes and minds were wandering, our knees touching under the table. He grinned at me. I was a sure thing, he was thinking. And why not? We’d already been half naked behind his pool house while his wife entertained guests a few yards away.

He put his hand on the table and scarcely touched my little finger with his, very discreet, but it shot through me like a laser. The blood was pumping to all the right places.

“Want to go somewhere?” he asked.

Oh yeah, somewhere in your mouth, somewhere in your pants
.

“I’ll meet you outside,” I said, and left him with the check. His eyes burned into my shoulder blades as I walked out. I felt it. I felt his desire and his need.

Control
that
, David, you little creep.

I
fell into a sweaty, disturbed sleep that night. I had gone directly from the blowout at Southern Sweets to the War Room and hadn’t eaten again. White Trash wanted to sleep on my legs. I felt trapped. I think I remember seeing her flying off the bed once. One of my feet might have
been responsible for this, that and a hot flash. Christ, is it time for hot flashes already? Forty wasn’t far away but that seemed young. I wondered if my biological mother had had them, if she’d transitioned early and easily or if she’d knifed the father I’d never known during a hot flash and wound up in jail. It was really the only time I thought about them, when I had some question about our medical history. I wasn’t emotionally devastated by the fact that they’d given me up. They did it because they were incapable of caring for a child. I mean, with the prostitution and stripping and drugs and all, they were really busy. I guess I was a little pissed I’d grown up on cheese grits and gravy instead of the soy protein that might have helped me glide through hormonal shifts, but generally I had been incredibly blessed by their handing over their child. It might have been their one totally unselfish act in life.

I made coffee and poured honey and sliced nectarine into a container of Greek yogurt. I called Rauser while I dressed for an appointment. Still no leads on David, he told me, sounding grim and tired.

I wedged the Impala into a garage adjacent to SunTrust Plaza at 303 Peachtree and walked to the light at the corner of Baker Street and Peachtree Center Avenue. Crossing Peachtree Center without the light was just a little more excitement than I wanted. Hell, I’d grown up in the South, had a mighty bout with alcohol, and married an actor. Why tempt fate further?

I passed empty tables and chairs at sidewalk cafés and glanced through windows at packed bar stools. In the spring and fall, the street was lined with full tables and chatter, martinis and iced coffee and espresso. Not today. No one wanted to sit in the heat and humidity and the code-red smog alerts in business suits on a workday. And no one wanted to become the target of a serial killer whose selection process seemed so terrifyingly random.

I walked through the revolving doors at 303 Peachtree, grateful for the cold air-conditioning. Atlanta has some extraordinary office towers, with lobbies and elevators of mahogany and Italian marble and crystal, hand-woven rugs and stunning original art. SunTrust Plaza was one of them, and was famous for its occupants too—mostly big-money law firms and investment bankers. Because its fifty-three floors of gleaming blue glass and a center poking through tiers of jagged lower floors happen to sit on an elevated piece of real estate between Peachtree Street
and Peachtree Center Avenue, it plays a very significant role in the city’s skyline.

I stepped into one of the mirrored elevators, inserted the key card that would allow me to access floors 48 through 53, all of which belonged to the law firm of Guzman, Smith, Aldridge & Haze, my biggest client and the people who essentially bought the groceries and paid the mortgage every month. I checked my reflection. Not bad—Ralph Lauren in banker blue, professional, with a crisp white shirt. It probably wouldn’t get me a date, but it said that I care, that I am serious about my work, and that I’m not interested in competing with my clients. The shoes, however, probably said more
to
me than
about
me. Right now they were saying,
Hey, you up there. You’re going to have to skip some things this month
. Okay, so I spend a little too extravagantly on shoes now and then, but I know people who spend thousands each month on cocaine, so comparatively speaking, it really isn’t that big a deal.

I was buzzed through a set of glass doors and pointed toward the partners’ offices. I had an appointment with Margaret Haze, who was one of the hottest criminal defense attorneys in the country right now.

Haze’s assistant, Diane, saw me and smiled. She was blonde, a little Peter Pan–ish, and wearing a gray suit I thought I’d seen in Macy’s front window. Diane had the body for off-the-rack clothes. No problem. She was adorable.