“Look at the two victims today,” she said. “He didn’t beat or mutilate the male, even though he was all wrapped up like a Christmas present from Sadistic Santa. The killer just slit his throat, quickly and relatively painlessly.”
“Lady Cassandra got all his attention,” Hanson agreed. “But we know he’s not just into women, because he killed Roger Banks.”
“Exactly.”
“Serials usually go for strangers,” Griggs argued. “Not a hit list of people who pissed them off.”
“So maybe he’s not your typical serial,” Hanson said. “But it sure looks like he’s got a definite shopping list, and the guy on the cross wasn’t on it.”
The guy on the cross—Randall Heeler—had been identified by his wallet, found in the bathroom along with his clothes. It seemed Randall had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Have you checked your e-mail, Gee?” Hanson asked.
“What e-mail?”
Hanson filled Griggs in on Mr. Oreo.
“Don’t get excited,” Gina said. “I got one of those delivery errors. No such e-mail account.”
“Shit,” Griggs groaned.
“He’s probably heard about Robyn’s murder by now—”
“Assuming he’s not the perp,” Griggs said.
“Either way, he’s freaked. First thing he would have done is delete all his e-mail accounts, his profiles. He probably scrubbed his whole computer, if he’s smart.”
“Is he smart?” Hanson asked.
“Not particularly.” Gina shrugged.
“Then we get a court order to get at the e-mail accounts of everybody who belongs to that online group—”
“No.” Gina shook her head. “It’s a gross invasion of privacy—”
“What the fuck?” Griggs exploded. “Are you kidding me?”
“Look, getting a court order would take days that we don’t have,” Gina said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said the shit was gonna hit the fan. I don’t know what will happen as soon as word gets around about Cassandra.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see what Paul did. I doubt anybody has put two and two together yet with Roger Banks and Robyn Macy. Right now, they’re just two random victims. But Cassandra? Even people who don’t know her, know who she is. She’s completely out of the closet.”
“You saying the entire community is gonna start dumping their computers ’cause they think the killer is after them?” Hanson asked.
“They won’t be worried about a killer targeting them,” Gina said. “They’re terrified of being found out as perverts. They will scatter in a million directions and we may never find them.”
“So what the hell do we do?” Griggs wanted to know.
“I’ll work on the computer angle,” Gina said. “Listen to the chatter, e-mail a few people—”
“Well, tomorrow morning we go talk to Cassandra Lee’s husband,” Hanson said. He watched her face for a reaction, hating himself.
“Her ex, you mean.” Gina stood up and began gathering dishes. “Good luck with that.”
“I gotta take a piss,” Griggs announced. “Where’s the john?”
“Down the hall, first door on the right,” Hanson said.
Griggs flashed a grin at him—
that’s right, you know your way around here, don’t you?
—before hiking up his pants and walking away.
Hanson stood up and moved to the sink, trying to see the face she kept carefully angled away.
“I thought you’d like to go with us.”
“You and Griggs are big boys,” she said, scraping plates into the sink. “You don’t need me along for the ride.”
“He may tell you things he wouldn’t tell us.”
“I doubt it,” she said, still not looking at him.
“Are you still seeing him?”
“Fuck you,” Gina said tiredly, shoving a plate into the dishwasher.
“We’ll pick you up at nine,” Hanson said, and walked out of the room.
Hanson didn’t sleep much that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about Gina.
There had been plenty of women in his life. He had even been married once, right out of the academy, but it only lasted three years. Anna, like so many women, decided she didn’t like being a cop’s wife. He didn’t blame her.
His connection with Gina had gone much deeper because she was his partner as well as his lover; that was two counts of intimacy rolled up into one convenient package. With Gina, there were no broken dates or missed dinners because of a case, no complaints that he didn’t spend enough time with her.
He’d been dating a woman on and off for a couple of months when he’d started the affair with Gina. When he’d told her he thought it would be better if they didn’t see each other anymore, she had guessed the truth immediately.
“You’re fucking your partner, aren’t you?” She hadn’t shouted or cried, just looked at him with something like pity and annoyance. “How convenient.”
“I’m not—”
“Hey, I’m not mad,” she had continued. “It might actually work for you. Fucking Gina is almost like fucking yourself, isn’t it? She
understands
you. Understands the
job
. ’Cause it’s always about the damned job, isn’t it?”
Hanson had to admit she was right. Cops, he thought, were just different from most people. Cops were the good guys, the criminals were the bad guys, and everybody else was just a civilian.
Cops could talk to civilians—lovers, friends, family—about what they did, but the civilians didn’t really get it. There were plenty of other reasons for not taking the job home; no one wanted to carry the unimaginable cruelties people practiced on each other home to the dinner table. You didn’t want that stuff crawling into bed with you at night while you watched Letterman. Cops, he thought, ended up with a crappy little fence around a big part of their lives.
Now he realized that Gina had another crappy little fence inside that crappy little fence, and until now, he’d only half understood what was on the other side of it. She’d invited him in, but he couldn’t live there. He just couldn’t.
He’d been miserable when the affair ended, miserable the first few weeks of seeing her leave at the end of their shift, not knowing where she might be going, or who she might be seeing. The idea of never touching her again, never waking up beside her again, made him feel as if his heart was caught in a vise.
He’d thought about seeing a shrink, except that no cop wanted that kind of thing on his record. He had gotten through it, somehow, perhaps because of the daily proximity that made it so painful in the first few months. She was still his partner, and he still had a part of her.
But when she was gone completely, he had drunk a little too much, fucked around a little too much, and thought about eating his gun once or twice.
Which made him almost as crazy as her.
Chapter 19
The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral.
—A
RISTIPPUS OF
C
YRENE
“Y
ou’re telling me that Roger Banks was some kind of
pervert
?” Milton Daubs sat behind his desk with his fingers steepled and a seriously pissed-off expression on his face.
“No, sir,” Gina said. “We’re telling you that Roger Banks and the other three victims were all engaged in an alternative lifestyle. If you consider those people perverts, that’s clearly your own judgment call.”
“I wasn’t speaking to
you,
Ms. Larsen,” Daubs said. “
You
shouldn’t be
here
at all.”
“We need her,” Hanson said.
“Didn’t you get enough free publicity
last
time around?” Daubs asked, staring at Gina. “Do you want to drag this department through the
mud
one more time?
“Do you realize,” Daubs said, turning his gaze to Hanson, “what the press will do if they find out she’s involved with this case?”
“She has connections in that community—”
“Community?”
Daubs barked scornfully. “I don’t want her anywhere
near
this case, do you understand me?
“If I see
you
in this building again,” he said, pointing a finger at Gina, “I will have you
arrested
.”
“You can’t do that!” Hanson insisted.
“Aw, come on, Chief!” Even Griggs sounded outraged.
“I
can,
and will!” Daubs shouted.
“Sir, I believe I can help—”
“Leave
now
. Or do I have to get someone to
escort
you out?”
Gina stared at the chief, then left the room without a backward glance.
Hanson shoved his fists into his pockets to keep from jumping over the desk and hitting Daubs. Not just for his stupidity, but for the way he had looked at her.
“Two more victims yesterday! Do you
realize
that the ASPCA is
screaming
about those darned
dogs
?”
Hanson stole a sideways glance at his partner, who looked just as confused.
“They found out we’re going to put them
down
,” Daubs said. “And they are
pissed
.”
“Shit, Chief,” Griggs said. “They ate two people—”
“Shut up.” Daubs pointed his stubby sausage finger at Griggs. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you. I’m talking to your
partner
.”
Hanson felt his stomach constrict. Considering that the case now had a great big land mine in the middle of it—Daubs’s connection to Lady Cassandra—it was probably a good idea that Griggs kept his mouth shut. But now he had to tap dance along the high wire all alone.
“You could always turn them over to a local shelter,” Hanson said. “Ask them if they can find people willing to adopt an animal that ate its last owner.”
“Do
you
think that’s
funny,
Hanson?”
“No, sir, I don’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But it’s lucky that so far the lead on the morning news is about the dogs, and not about a dead man chained to a cross.”
“I don’t want a word of this—this—
deviant
rubbish getting out. I will not
stand
for Roger’s reputation to be
smeared
by this.”
Hanson counted to five before he spoke.
“We had a lot of people in and out of the crime scene yesterday—”
“That’s
why
you need to close this case
quickly
! This Lee woman was
obviously
a prostitute
and
a pervert—Did
Larsen
know this woman?”
“Yes, she did. I believe you did, too.”
Daubs went completely still.
“What the hell do you mean by
that
?”
Hanson didn’t enjoy the look on his face half as much as he’d thought he would. There was fear, yes, but something else. Something that made Hanson wonder if he’d played this card too soon.
“She used to run a private club. The Lair. You closed it down in a vice sweep three years ago.”
Daubs swallowed so hard that his Adam’s apple bobbed visibly.
“Yes, that’s
right
. And if her
record
comes out in the media, we can be sure to
remind
them of that. But let’s hope that’s not
necessary.
”
“Yes, sir,” Hanson said.
“So what
have
you got?”
Bastard!
Hanson thought it was just like the chief to tie their hands and then chew their asses.
“We’ve got trace from the new scene. But between the garbage and the decomp and the dogs, we may have nothing at all.”
“I heard it was a
terrible
mess.” Daubs’s nostrils pinched and he made a face. “They said the smell was unbelievable.”
Hanson wondered who “they” were. Daubs had informants all over the department.
“It was like those apartments when some old guy drops dead,” Griggs piped up. “You know, they have to break down the door and there’s all these piles of newspapers and garbage—”
Daubs looked at him. Griggs shut up.
“You’ve got nothing else? Nothing at
all
?”
“This guy is either smart or lucky,” Hanson said. “He’s not leaving us a lot of clues.”
“The boyfriend from the motel? Still no ID on him?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Just find one of these
perverts
who knew Lady Cassandra and arrest them. What more evidence do you need besides that they’re a deviant?”
“Are you serious?” Hanson was so stunned he dropped his careful deference.
“You want us just to arrest someone because they’re into this S&M stuff?” Griggs asked just as suddenly.
Daubs glared. “What
difference
does it make? They’re guilty of
something
. I want an
arrest
and I want it
fast
.”
In the hallway, Hanson leaned close as they walked to the elevator.
“Did you notice, he didn’t refer to her as Cassandra Lee?” he asked.
“He called her
Lady Cassandra,
” Griggs finished for him. “I noticed.”
Gina was waiting for them at the car.
“So?” she said.
“Get in,” Hanson said.
“Are you driving me home?”
“No.” Hanson felt Griggs’s eyes and turned to him. “You got a problem with that?”
“Me?” Griggs shook his head, getting into the passenger seat. “Naw, boss-man. I’m not even allowed to talk, remember?”
“I shouldn’t have gone to the crime scene,” Gina said. “I’m sorry.”
“We needed you at the crime scene. I’ll deal with Daubs. Don’t worry about it.”
“You could just as easily talk to Quinn without me,” she said.
Gina crossed her arms over her chest. When Hanson looked at her in the rearview, she met his eyes for a moment and then looked out the window.
“Yesterday you were fightin’ to take over the whole damned case,” Griggs said impatiently. “Today, you don’t wanna go. You on the rag, or what?”
“You don’t need me to find Cassandra’s ex-husband,” Gina said tersely.
“He knows you, Gee,” Hanson said. He didn’t want to question his own motives, this perverse desire to see Gina in the same room with another old lover. “It will throw him off guard, maybe get him to open up.”
“Maybe she just don’t want to go see an old flame,” Griggs said. “Eh, Gee? You still carrying a torch for this Quinn Lee?”
Gina said nothing. Not even a
fuck you.
“Come on,” Griggs whined, turning to look at Gina over the seat. “What’s the story? He into foot worship, spankings, all that sissy shit? Did you shove household objects up his Hershey highway?”
Gina let loose a bark of laughter.
“You’re such an asshole, Griggs!” She shook her head. “What makes you assume Quinn is a submissive?”
“What? His wife was a dominatrix, you’re a dominatrix—what else would he be?”
“I happen to be a switch, Griggs.” Hanson caught the sly little gleam in her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I go both ways.”
“You know what a submissive is?” Hanson asked Griggs, surprised.
“Of course, I do,” Griggs said, annoyed. “I look at porn as much as the next guy.”
“Probably more,” Hanson said sourly.
“Hey, maybe Griggs here is a closet pervert,” Gina said.
“I like looking at half-naked women in leather! Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
Gina giggled, then stopped, then lost it again.
“What? You think I’m just some vanilla schmuck who only does it with the lights out?” Griggs growled. “I ain’t no prude, you know. I can rock your world any day of the week, honeybuns.”
“Stop,” Gina gasped, leaning back against the seat, one hand to her stomach. “Oh, please, stop, before you make me pee in my panties.”
“What the hell is wrong with her?” Griggs demanded, looking at Hanson.
“I think it was hearing you use ‘vanilla’ in the proper context,” Hanson replied.
“Fuck you both,” Griggs said.
“Sorry,” Gina said, wiping her eyes. “I just forget how mainstream kink is these days. But for the record, Quinn is not a submissive. He’s not even a switch.”
“So he’s a dominant.” Hanson shrugged, eyes in the rearview again. “He was
your
dominant.”
“Not just my dominant,” Gina said quietly, retreating again. “He was my master.”
“You mean, like sex slave and all that?” Griggs grinned. “Shit, this just gets better all the time.”
Suddenly it occurred to Hanson that the mystery sadist who’d sent her to the emergency room and Quinn Lee were the same person.
And he didn’t like that at all.
The sign out front read:
LEE’S CAMERAS
and underneath, in gold script:
QUINN LEE STUDIOS
.
“This guy?” Griggs whispered. “You’re shitting me.”
Quinn Lee was not what Hanson had imagined, either. He was about five-ten, and almost effeminately slender. More than anything, he looked like an aging hippie, with bald head, jet-black goatee, single gold earring, and John Lennon glasses. He wore fashionably faded jeans, a well-starched blue Oxford shirt, and a thick pewter chain around his neck.
But Hanson only had to watch him for a couple of minutes to know he was definitely a predator. Quinn was standing in front of the counter, leaning very close to a pretty young woman with a camera in her hands.
“Now, you can scroll to look at the photos you’ve taken,” he was saying, dropping an arm easily around her shoulders to press a button. “And just delete the shots you don’t want to keep.”
His arm did not withdraw. The hand landed on the girl’s shoulder, and she made no move to shrug it off.
“I don’t know.” She sighed, her eyes giving Quinn a coy sidelong glance. “My boyfriend says digital is just a fad. He says real photographers still use film.”
“No offense, but your boyfriend is an idiot.” Quinn Lee smiled, bringing his face within inches of hers. “Especially for letting a lady as lovely as you go shopping all alone.”
The girl dimpled up at him, then ducked her head as if both embarrassed and flattered.
Hanson had the distinct feeling that Quinn had been aware of their eyes on him from the moment they’d walked into the shop, and wondered if part of this little flirtation was for their benefit. Quinn looked up as they approached, and his eyes widened as teeth appeared in his close-cropped beard.
Looking full into Quinn’s direct gaze, Hanson had an uncomfortable glimpse into the man’s charisma. The power of that gaze—direct, uncompromising, with a trace of amusement—was unmistakable, as if the man was seeing deeper than the skin.
“Lisa, my dear, I’m going to get Maggie over here to show you a couple of other models.” He motioned to the clerk behind the counter. “But I will be back. I promise.”
He gave the girl’s shoulder a squeeze, and she dimpled up at him again.
Hanson already hated the smug little bastard.