The Last Blue Plate Special (8 page)

With her nose my dog nudged a yellow rubber ball toward my feet and smiled. I kicked it across the carpet with my foot and
watched her run into a wall chasing it. Brontë has never grasped the constraints involved in chasing balls indoors. So I took
the ball outdoors and threw it as far as I could fifteen times, making my Dobie’s day. While throwing, I pondered the gender
issue.

Social psychologists are supposed to be able to determine gender on the basis of very little data, but I didn’t feel comfortable
assigning sex to Sword. Not yet. Anybody intelligent enough to pull off the crimes suggested in the letter to the police and
the Bugs Bunny tape might be intelligent enough to be misleading as to his/her sex. Already there were confusing markers.
An “internal” kill method suggesting a female killer, and demands for attention suggesting a male.

Inside again, I looked at Rathbone’s fax of the Bugs Bunny tape text. More biblical-sounding language. “Abomination.” “Cast
her down and killed her.” There wasn’t time to run more linguistic analyses, and they wouldn’t have told me anything dad already
hadn’t. Sword was no stranger to violent and judgmental passages in the Bible and identified with them. Moreover, he or she
was troubled by women in positions of authority, but not women in traditional roles.

Sword’s choice of pseudonym was clearly phallic, which could be misleading. Research into the psychology of aliases and pseudonyms
suggests that people often choose names reflecting qualities they lack or dimensions of themselves they believe others do
not see. It is telling that the most common surname alias used by English-speaking prostitutes is “White.” Sword could be
a man conflicted about what a man is supposed to be, or a woman who sees herself as more like a man.

I documented my conclusions, arguing that Sword’s gender would have to remain open pending further information. “The subject
is most likely to be a white male between twenty-five and forty,” I wrote, “based on the pattern of killing or claiming credit
for killing female Caucasian victims who do not conform to typical profiles for victims of female killers. That is, the victims
are not children nor are they elderly or in any way disabled. However, the subject is intelligent and resourceful, perhaps
sufficiently so that s/he is able to mask gender. Subject’s need for attention from police and media, as suggested by the
letter and tape, also suggest that subject is male. On the other hand, the presumed method of killing (introducing substance
into body of victim) is typically female.

“My preliminary assessment is that the subject is either deliberately masking psychological features reflecting gender or
is deeply conflicted personally over gender issues. In either sex, look for overcompensating behaviors. In both look for extreme
and punitive religious beliefs. Suspect either is or has been associated with a religious context which stresses rigid sex
roles and violent punishment.”

I typed out another three pages of advice for the police, including warnings that victims were chosen from a population of
women in positions of authority. I mentioned that newspaper coverage of these public figures might be a trigger to further
attempts. Then I e-mailed my report to Roxie and called her at her office. It was precisely ten-thirty.

“Just e-mailed it,” I told her. “What have you come up with so far?”

“Oh, just the obvious. High IQ, poor early schooling or else a learning disorder. Sword speaks well, but can’t spell, may
have had some negative experiences as a child due to difficulties with reading and writing skills. Doubt that there was ever
a serious psychiatric disorder. This is psychological, not psychiatric. Rigidly controlled personality finally blows. God
knows what the trigger was, but the murders were extremely well planned, if indeed they were murders. We still don’t know
that, Blue, although it seems likely. There are too many noncoincidental factors.”

“What did you do about which sex this is?” I had to ask.

“Look for male, but don’t rule out promising female suspects. Tidy, clean-cut person who’s probably married or living with
a mate. Financially secure, drives a fairly new car, is regarded as quiet and personable by neighbors and friends. May have
a violent hobby of some kind.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that, too,” I said. “But how do you know about the
car
?”

“It’s in the Holmes typology on ‘organized’ serial killers. I just threw it in.”

“What did you do with the biblical language factor?”

“Same stuff your dad came up with, put in psychiatric terms.”

I sighed. “We really don’t have much, do we?”

“More than you think,” Roxie answered. “It’s just that there isn’t enough time to use it.”

“What do you mean?”

I could hear her inhaling deeply and then whistling softly between her teeth.

“Sword will decompensate now, quickly, begin to fall apart. This person has probably kept a lid on very confused and violent
feelings for a long time. Then something triggered those feelings, something intolerable. Sword had to act out and had to
advertise the reasoning behind it. But our subject knows right from wrong and the conflict between that knowledge and the
need to justify some personal confusion through killing will produce intolerable stress. There may be additional deaths in
an attempt to reduce the stress, but they’ll only produce more. The subject may commit suicide as the only way to stop the
stress. That could happen at any time, and unless evidence is left behind, nobody will ever know that the subject has killed.
I don’t have a good feeling about this thing, Blue. It’s weird.”

We talked for a while, agreed to meet in town later for dinner, and then I’d watch Rox rehearse her country and western dance
team. Brontë and I would sleep at her place. The wages of our deep commitment to nonenmeshment.

The phone was ringing when I hung up. Rathbone.

“We need somebody at Emerald’s revival this afternoon,” he said. “Can you do it?”

“Sure, but what am I there for?” I answered.

“Just get a feel for the thing. See if this might be where our boy got his Sword of Heaven ideas.”

“How do you know it’s a boy?” I asked. “Neither Rox nor I are sure about that from the available data.”

“It’s always a boy,” Rathbone stated flatly. “Women just don’t do this kind of crime.”

Then I phoned to check on BB, who said the radical preacher had been called to a deathbed, so they’d had to cancel their plans
for the gospel concert. He’d be happy to go with me to Ruby Emerald’s revival, he said. He hadn’t been to one since the summers
he spent visiting relatives in Mississippi. We agreed to meet in the parking lot of a college stadium Ruby Emerald had leased
for her event.

I went into my bedroom to search for whatever you wear to a revival. With my cropped hair, in sandals, black knit dress, and
beige linen jacket, I looked too liberal. Roxie and I would pick me for a jury trying a death penalty case in a minute. The
addition of a straw bowler with a flowered scarf tied around the crown helped. Now I looked like a liberal who ties scarves
to hats. It would have to do.

I
had a few hours before meeting BB, so after I drove over the mountains and down into San Diego I went by Kate Van Der Elst’s
campaign headquarters to check in. Pieter Van Der Elst was overseeing four volunteers preparing a mailer as Kate talked on
a phone at the back of the room. I noticed that Pieter had moved a Formica-topped desk near the door of the storefront so
that anyone entering would immediately be seen by whoever was sitting there. At the moment, he was. And he seemed nervous.

“Just a small security precaution,” he said, gesturing to the desk with both hands. “I’ve been in contact with Detective Rathbone
and I know about the letter threatening Grossinger and Ross. He’s told me that you and Dr. Bouchie are working on some kind
of profile for the police. Blue,” he asked, lowering his voice, “do you think Kate is in any danger? If she is I want her
to drop out of the campaign immediately. I’m asking for your professional opinion. Is there really a killer stalking these
women, or just some sick person trying to make everybody think there is?”

I’d come to know both Kate and Pieter fairly well while working on her campaign for city council and liked them both. In addition
to his European manners, Pieter is a listener. He takes people seriously; he pays attention. I would do him the honor of returning
the courtesy.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “There is enough evidence at this point to justify concern.”

“Tell me more, Blue. What’s going on? We heard that Dixie Ross died of a cerebral hemorrhage as did Senator Grossinger, and
that a letter threatening these deaths was sent to the police weeks ago. How could someone commit murder without even being
present? Is there some kind of poison that does this? And
why
?”

He was wearing a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a silk tie I knew cost at least as much as the four new radial
tires on my truck. Yet he had a saintly aura that always makes me think of monks. It wasn’t just the tonsured look of his
prematurely white hair or those powder-blue eyes. It was a sense that it would never occur to Pieter Van Der Elst to hurt
anything, that he was incapable of deliberate harm. He could play St. Francis of Assisi without changing clothes and seem
completely in character. I wondered about the differences between Pieter and whatever called itself Sword of Heaven.

“So far the victim profile is women in positions of authority, positions formerly reserved for men,” I told him. “These may
be selected from coverage in the newspaper.”

“Kate’s in the paper all the time,” Pieter said, his eyes scanning the street beyond a plate glass window. “The election is
only a few weeks away. Of course the papers are covering all the candidates. And more than a fourth of them are women!”

“There’s no way to tell if the killer regards the city council as a bastion of male power being taken over by women,” I told
him. “There’s no way to predict much of anything yet, except, Pieter …” I made a fist and stared at my knuckles before finishing
what I’d started to say.

“Yes?”

“It isn’t over. There’s very likely to be another … incident.”

Color was rising in his pale cheeks.

“Another death, you mean. Blue, how can this be happening? I’m going to ask Kate to withdraw from the race. Dixie Ross died
on her way to Kate’s fundraiser, and both of them knew Mary Harriet Grossinger. There are too many connections. It’s not worth
the risk.”

Kate had terminated her phone call and now stood behind her husband.

“Hello, Blue,” she said, a thoughtful smile emphasizing the attractive contours of her face. “I suppose Pieter has told you
he wants me to withdraw from the race two weeks before election day?”

I never know what to do with declarative statements pronounced as questions, so I merely smiled at a point just behind her
head. Kate went on to answer the next question, which nobody had asked.

“It’s out of the question, of course,” she said. “And I love your outfit, Blue. Where did you find that hat?”

Real question.

“At a thrift store in Palm Springs. I’m going to a revival. Undercover, sort of.”

It was clear that neither Kate nor Pieter had ever met a person who went to revivals. Or else they’d never met anyone who
bought hats at thrift stores. Both faces went blank for the same fraction of a second, and then both said, “Really!” in unison.
I assumed it was the revival thing that had brought them up short and decided to tell them what Rathbone apparently hadn’t.

“A revivalist named Ruby Emerald was taken to a hospital with symptoms which might be the result of high blood pressure last
night,” I began. “Shortly after the news of her illness was aired on television, an audiotape was delivered to the local CBS
affiliate. On the tape was a mechanically altered voice claiming to be the Sword of Heaven and claiming to have killed Emerald
because she was an ‘abomination,’ although in fact she didn’t die. I’m going to her revival this afternoon to get a sense
of whether she may have any connection to Sword.”

“But the taped message claimed that this person had killed Emerald,” Pieter said, his voice thin.

“Yes. Obviously Sword thought Emerald was a fatality, but she wasn’t. Her doctor won’t tell the police what the diagnosis
was and doesn’t have to. All we know is that Emerald experienced some kind of cardiovascular event that may have been nothing
more than anxiety. Sword may have nothing to do with Emerald’s illness but just be grabbing for publicity. In the case of
Dixie and Mary Harriet, however, the fact that the threatening letter was mailed to the police a week before Mary Harriet’s
and two weeks before Dixie’s death is too compelling to lay at the feet of coincidence. Right now that’s really all we know.”

“It’s enough for me,” Pieter said, grasping the hand Kate had laid over his shoulder. “Please, Kate. You can run for another
office next year when this monster has been apprehended.”

I watched as Kate Van Der Elst stretched her neck and rubbed at the skin behind both ears as if something had clamped to her
skull. She continued to stretch and turn her head as she answered.

“I’ve spent fifteen years managing our homes, hostessing parties and business events,” she said evenly. “I’ve enjoyed it,
Pieter. We’ve had a wonderful life. But I’ve never had anything of my own, never felt that I was important in the world as
myself, only as your wife. Please don’t ask me again to give this up. I can’t.”

“But Kate, it’s only a city council seat,” he continued, going squarely in the wrong direction.

I wasn’t surprised when she repeated the word “only” with quiet anger and then walked away.

“You blew it,” I told Pieter, who was again staring out the window.

“Blue,” he said, not looking at me, “do you own a gun?”

“What?”