Текст книги "Blind Rage"

Автор книги: Terri Persons

Соавторы: Terri Persons
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Chapter 7

SIGHING, KLEIN TOSSED the dog-eared copy of Woman’s Day from two Thanksgivings ago onto the coffee table. She had enough turkey pointers to write her own cookbook. She checked her watch, looked at the wall clock hanging to the right of the receptionist’s window, and sighed again, this time loudly and with more feeling.

Taking the hint, the receptionist peeked over the counter and addressed the impatient patient. “I’m sorry about the delay. Wednesdays are always bad for some reason, and he had an emergency this morning.”

“I suppose my coming late didn’t help,” she said.

“Well … no,” he said hesitantly. “But I’m sure you had a good reason.”

He was trying to be nice. She’d screwed herself. “Enough rope,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” Leaning over, she picked through the other periodicals littering the table. The only magazines that were current were the ones about golf.

Bored, she glanced through the window framing the man. He had his head down now and was pecking at a computer. Dressed in a polo shirt with a subtle designer logo embroidered on the sleeve, he appeared to be the type who would read golf magazines cover to cover. He looked like a younger version of that famous golf pro. What was his name? Jack something. Her eyes went to the cover of one of the golf magazines. No help. Everything was about Tiger Woods. She missed the grandmotherly receptionist who used to greet her with a sympathetic smile and offers of hot tea with sugar. This guy offered bad black coffee. At least he tried. He had a nice smile. A golf pro smile. Bright white.

He glanced up from his typing and caught her staring at him. “You could reschedule, Kyra,” he offered.

She dropped her eyes and picked up a decorating magazine. “I wouldn’t get to see him for weeks, and I need to talk now. You know what I mean?”

The golf pro head bobbed up and down in affirmation. “I understand completely. It shouldn’t be that much longer. He just got your file and took it back with him.”

Her file. Her masterpiece. Her version of Enough Rope. It was cleverly titled Klein, Kyra A., and it started something like this:

Patient’s biological mother, diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder in early adulthood, committed suicide when the patient was ten years of age, leaving the juvenile in the care of her biological father … Father died of acute alcoholic hepatitis when the patient was twenty … Shortly afterward, the patient was diagnosed with depression, and was prescribed antidepressants.

That diagnosis turned out to be dead wrong and led to a really juicy plot twist in her opus.

On the patient’s twenty-first birthday, she was hospitalized after ingesting a full bottle of an over-the-counter pain reliever/sleep aid … During hospitalization, her mental status was reassessed and she was diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder.

She had to credit her current psychiatrist with that bull’s-eye. The chapters that followed were downright mundane, thank God.

Patient has one sibling, a married older brother employed as a software designer in Seattle … Brother is assisting the patient financially so she can complete her studies. He communicates with her sporadically via phone and e-mail … Patient is currently taking undergraduate courses at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities; she has not yet declared a field of study, but enjoys reading the American classics and writing poetry.

She was just another unemployed English major in the making, she thought as she flipped through the pages of an article giving tips on easy bathroom makeovers.

Patient is single and reports no steady “boyfriend,” but has engaged in unprotected sex with multiple partners since the onset of puberty … Sexual activity increases during her manic episodes, as does her reckless driving and her excessive clothing purchases.

She’d once blown an entire paycheck on a pair of Manolo Blahniks and defiantly worn the stilettos to one of her appointments. Her psychiatrist had trouble taking his eyes off those heels, and she didn’t blame him: black satin with crystal-studded ankle straps. Very expensive come-fuck-me shoes.

Patient works during the week as a part-time cashier at a grocery store near the Minneapolis campus and on weekends is employed selling hand lotion at kiosk located in the Mall of America … Has stated that she enjoys her jobs and has twice received raises in her hourly pay as a cashier.

Patient is seeing a therapist, but reports that she is unhappy with this particular health professional … On more than one occasion, she has referred to the therapist as “the bullshit artist.”

Patient states that the therapist “talks to hear himself talk” and “doesn’t listen to a damn thing anyone else has to say.” Patient has requested a list of recommended therapists/psychologists practicing in the university area.

Lithium has proven an effective maintenance treatment, although patient has complained about the “flat feeling” it causes.

That flat feeling seemed to be intensifying with every second she spent in that cell-like waiting room. Dropping “Breezy Bathrooms for Less” on the table, she looked at the clock again and double-checked its accuracy against her watch. Yup. Already noon. If she didn’t get in soon, she was going to be late for her next class. She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her chin in her palms.

She wasn’t a new patient, nor was she very different from the hundreds of other cases this doctor had handled over the years, she suspected. She was just another nut job. He hated when she called herself that. Nut job. She told him it helped to laugh.

He didn’t have a sense of humor, this doctor. He’d drum an eraser head on his desk while he reviewed the highlights of her masterpiece. He had high cheekbones and a prominent jawline, and when he read something that piqued his interest or disturbed his sensibilities, both facial features tensed almost indiscernibly. She could always tell when he got to the dirty parts of her little book: his face reddened. She loved it when that happened. At least she could tell he was human.

The blond head levitated from behind the counter and the receptionist cracked open the door leading to the bowels of the office. “The doctor will see you now.”

“Great,” said Klein, Kyra A. She got up with her purse and her books and followed the receptionist down the hall to the doctor’s exam room. She scrutinized his bottom half as they went. Jack Something had a nice butt for a guy who sat at a computer all day. Why was she not surprised that he was wearing boring khaki slacks and geeky brown walking shoes?

“Miss Klein,” he announced, pushing the door open for her.

“Thank you,” she said, offering the receptionist a smile.

“You’re quite welcome,” he said, smiling back. He looked over at the man behind the desk. “Do you need anything, Doctor?”

“I’m good, Charles,” the man said without looking up from his paperwork.

“Would you like some coffee, Miss Klein?” Charles asked her.

“No, thanks. I’m not a coffee drinker,” she said.

Charles nodded and left. Klein stared at the closed door, feeling guilty about not accepting the damn drink.

The doctor looked up and nodded toward a chair parked across from his desk. “Please have a seat.”

She headed to the leather couch planted against the wall. She tossed her purse and her books onto it and dropped down next to them. “I’m breaking in a new pair of boots, and my feet are killing me.”

“Please make yourself comfortable,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing up.

“I will.” She started unzipping the knee-high boots, which were pulled over skintight jeans.

He pulled down on the sleeves of his blazer—his idea of making himself comfortable—and took the patient chair over to the couch. Sitting down across from her with his right ankle propped across his left knee, he opened the file up on his legs. He scrutinized her clothing—a fur vest over a cashmere sweater—and shot a look at her boots and Coach purse. “Did you go on another spending spree?” he asked in that judgmental tone of his. That assistant principal’s voice.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not off my meds. My brother sent me a pile of money for my birthday.”

“Happy birthday.”

“It was last month, but thanks.”

“How are you doing, Miss Klein?”

Now she was bent over her boots, pulling them off. “I’m as fat as a cow.”

“Weight gain is a common side effect with lithium. So are tremors, diarrhea, nausea …”

“We discussed switching meds.” She dropped her boots on the floor with a thud. “What about that?”

“Valproic acid has side effects as well.”

“Such as?”

“Tremors, diarrhea, nausea, weight gain, hair loss.”

“Dandy. I can be fat and bald. Let me think about it.”

“How are you doing otherwise?”

“What do you think?”

He glanced down at her file. “Well, I can tell you that your blood tests—”

“Can we talk?” she asked.

Pulling his eyes off the file, he looked at her. “What’s the problem?”

“This is hard for me.” She folded her arms in front of her, crossed one leg over the other, and nervously jiggled her elevated stocking foot. “I don’t know how to put this exactly.”

“Let’s hear it, Miss Klein.”

“Kyra. The last time I was here, and the time before that, I asked you to call me—”

“Kyra. Yes. I remember now. What’s wrong, Kyra?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “This isn’t working out for me.”

“What isn’t working out?” He glanced down at the folder. “If you really want to switch medications, I’m sure we can find a more agreeable—”

“I want to find me. I want to talk about me.”

“This is about you.”

“It’s the same thing every time I come in here. I get fifteen minutes with you. Twenty tops. You ask me how I’m doing, but you don’t really listen to me. Half the time you’re not even looking at me.” She pointed to the folder. “Your face is buried in that crap.”

“I apologize if you feel I’ve been—”

“You write me a new refill. I disappear for another month or two. I come back. Same thing. ‘How’re you doing? Your lab work looks good.’ We never talk, and I need to talk. Really talk.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Psychiatrists hated when patients expected them to act like therapists. She could have predicted his response.

“You have someone for that aspect of your—”

“He’s a royal dick.” She raked the top of her spiky head with her fingers and waited for him to do his pencil drum.

Instead, he surprised her with a grin. “Well, yes, you’ve made your dissatisfaction known. We can provide a list of other capable—”

“I am so sick of getting shuffled around, shopping for doctors.” She curled her legs up on his couch, sat back, and sighed. “I wish you could do it all.”

He checked his watch. “Tell you what.”

“My fifteen minutes can’t be up already. You kept me waiting forever.”

“I apologize for that,” he said, drumming the pencil on her folder. “If you can come back later this afternoon …”

“I have class.”

“What about the end of the business day? You can be my last patient. We can take a little longer.”

“Will my insurance pay for two visits in one day?”

“I’ll make it a freebie,” he said.

She fingered her purse strap. “By the time we get through, it’ll be dark out.”

“I can give you a ride home, or Charles. Someone around here will be going your way.”

“That sounds good.” She pulled her legs down from the couch and put on her boots, suddenly energized by his offer. She was more than a file tab to him.

The door popped open, but this time it wasn’t Charles. Another male head poked into the room. “You’ll never guess who called me just now, out of the blue.”

“It’ll have to wait.” The doctor closed her file and got up off the chair. “I’m busy with a patient.”

The man in the doorway looked at Klein. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t see you there.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m on my way out.” Klein sat up, stared at the man in the doorway, and looked back at her doctor. “This has got to be a relative of yours. You could pass for twins.”

“He’s my younger brother,” her doctor said shortly. He went back to his desk and sat down.

“I wish my brother lived in town.” Klein got up from the couch, plucked her purse off the cushions, and hiked the strap over her shoulder. She gathered her books in her arms and started for the door. “It’s nice that you get to see each other.”

The two men locked eyes, and the brother in the doorway laughed dryly. “Sometimes it’s nice, Miss—”

She held out her hand and he took it. “Klein,” she said.

He released her hand and opened the door wider so she could go through. “Have a good day, Miss Klein.”

“Kyra,” she said, smiling up at him as she stepped over the threshold. “Call me Kyra. I’ve been trying to get your brother to remember that.”

He put his hand over his heart. “Kyra. I shall not forget.”

Charles brushed past Klein and the brother.

“I’m sorry, Chaz,” said the brother. “Didn’t hear you coming.”

Charles handed the doctor a file. “If you’re finished with Miss Klein, we’ve got two other patients waiting.”

Klein leaned back into the room and addressed the man behind the desk. “Almost forgot. What time exactly?”

He checked his wristwatch. “Is six o’clock too late?”

“Six o’clock is perfect.” Charles gave her a curious look as he stood at the doctor’s elbow with a file. She didn’t want the golf pro to get the wrong idea about this after-hours session. She added: “Not too much later, though. I have a date tonight.”

“Six sharp.”

“See you at six.” She gave a smile to the brother and the golf pro, turned back around, and went down the hall.

THE YOUNGER BROTHER turned to watch her go, a crooked smile lifting the right side of his mouth. “Kyra Klein,” he repeated under his breath.

As he exited the doctor’s office, Charles navigated around the grinning man and arched his eyebrows.

“What?” snapped the brother.

“I didn’t say a word,” Charles said.

“You were thinking it.”

“How long have we known each other?” the receptionist asked over his shoulder, and headed back to the waiting room.

“I can look,” the brother said defensively.

“Listen to Charles,” the doctor yelled from the other side of the doorway, his head down while he flipped through another patient chart. “Leave her alone.”

The brother shoved his hands into his pants pockets and groused, “I’m always being misjudged.”

Chapter 8

MENTAL ILLNESS. EATING disorders. alcohol and drug addictions. Childhood rapes. Physically abusive boyfriends. Emotionally abusive parents.

Armed with a pen and a legal pad, Bernadette spent Wednesday in the cellar continuing the chore she’d started the night before at her kitchen table: immersing herself in the tumultuous lives of seven troubled women. As she plowed through the files taking more notes, the victims’ stories started blending together, becoming indistinguishable from one another. It was as if she’d spent too long in a massive art gallery: her head hurt, her eyes felt dry, and everything looked the same.

“I gotta get organized,” she muttered to herself, and pulled a pad of Post-its out of her desk drawer.

Going back over her notes, she transferred key points to the Post-its. Each victim got her own set of yellow squares listing name, age, date and place of death, college and field of study, emotional and health problems, and family issues.

When Bernadette was through with her transcription, she went over to the bare white wall on one side of her office door and started slapping yellow squares up on the Sheetrock. Each victim got a to-tem pole of notes, starting with her name and working down to the personal stuff at the base of the column. It wasn’t an organizational method sanctioned by the bureau, but it had always worked well for her.

Like a student fretting over a blackboard math problem, she stepped back and studied the squares, first taking in each victim’s story as she read from top to bottom, and then working across to compare each girl. Did they all share the same major? No, some hadn’t even declared one. Did they go to the same clinic? No, some had never been treated.

“This is depressing,” she said as she stood in front of the wall.

Creed peeked at her from behind his computer screen. “What are you doing?”

“Organizing my notes. Waiting for them to speak.”

“So what do the Post-its say to you?” he asked.

She blinked. “They don’t literally talk to me. You know that, right?”

He hesitated, then said unconvincingly, “Yeah. I know that.”

“This time they don’t tell me shit about shit,” she said, more to herself than to Creed. She sat back down at her desk and picked up a single slip of paper, a photocopy of something the first victim had penned:

Dear Mr. Underwood: I hate you. I can’t stand seeing your ugly face anymore. When you put on that stupid grin, it reminds me of the way you smiled while you were doing those sick things to me. All the crap you put me through, and I was just a little kid! Tell my mom thanks for looking the other way and doing nothing to help me. I’m leaving for good. When you drop dead, I’ll come back to take a dump on your grave.

Corrine

Bernadette found no evidence in the file that Corrine had ever pursued charges against the man. The girl had probably doubted that anyone would take her seriously, especially with her history of emotional problems. In addition to being treated for depression at the time of her death, she’d been hospitalized twice for anorexia nervosa. A slew of different doctors and clinics.

Police had labeled the letter a suicide note, but Bernadette thought it read more like a goodbye letter fired off by an angry runaway.

She repeated the words out loud: “‘When you drop dead, I’ll come back to take a dump on your grave.’”

Across the room, Creed stopped his typing. “What’re you reading?”

“A suicide note, supposedly.”

“Sounds more like something one Mafioso would say to another.”

“It was found resting under a bottle on the Washington Avenue Bridge after the body of the first victim was fished out of the river.”

“What was the gal’s name?”

“Corrine Underwood. No … wait …” She flipped to the front of the file. “Correction. Corrine Randolph. She hated her stepfather and never accepted his last name.”

“His future burial spot was the one threatened with desecration?”

“Yeah. He’d sexually abused her as a child.”

“Poor Corrine Randolph.”

Bernadette got up from her desk and went back to the yellow notes. Seven vertical stripes representing seven unhappy women. She ticked them off by order of death. “Then in May we had poor Monica Taratino. June was poor Alice Bergerman. July, poor Judith Powers-Nelson over in Wisconsin. August, poor Laurel McArthur in Wisconsin again. Back to the Twin Cities in September with poor Heidi DeForeste.”

“That’s quite a roll call.”

She stepped in front of the last column. “I don’t have a full file on her yet, but let’s not leave out poor Shelby Hammond. Miss October.”

“The girl killed over the weekend, in the bathtub.”

“The biggest oddball, really, because of where she drowned. Otherwise we’ve got seven women with similar, but not identical, profiles. All college students at one of two universities. All female. All messed up emotionally.”

“All dead by drowning,” said Creed.

She walked back and forth in front of the wall. “The two big connections are the colleges and their problems.”

“So the killer is a college prof who’s good at picking out fragile students.”

“Except we’re dealing with two different universities and students who run the gamut in terms of majors and years in school,” she said. “Undergrads. Grad students. I rounded up their class schedules and haven’t found any intersections. At no point were two of these girls in the same classroom at the same time. Nor did any of them share an instructor.”

“A medical professional who treated them. A doctor. A therapist. A pharmacist. Hospital orderly even. They were all treated in some way, shape, or form, right?”

“Wrong.” She ran her eyes over the columns as she paced. “Some of them, their files indicate their parents wanted them to get help for their head or health problems, and they refused, or just never got around to it.”

“The ones who did have contact with a medical professional, was it the same clinic or hospital or whatever? Did the same doctor treat two different girls?”

“Not all the girls who got help had a doctor’s name or clinic in their file. We’ll have to get family members to cough up some medical info, if they even have it.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” he asked.

“Some of these ladies were not on good terms with their folks,” she said.

“Of the ones that did mention a specific health provider …”

“None named the same shrink or clinic. I would have picked up on that immediately.” She stopped pacing and turned to look at her office mate. “What if it’s simply someone who favors troubled chicks, chicks who need to be saved, and he’s got a talent for picking them out of a crowd? He talks to a lot of different people. Listens.”

“A priest?” Creed offered.

“We’ve got a mix of religions and at least one atheist. Plus college kids aren’t the biggest churchgoers. I think that theory goes out the window.”

“A bartender?”

She smiled. “I like how you’re thinking, partner, but not all of them were into the club scene. Plus, he’d have to be a traveling bartender. Remember we’re dealing with drownings in two states.”

“Whoever he is, he prefers troubled women. Why?”

“How about because they’re easy to seduce or trick or overpower? Some of them had eating disorders. A lot easier to toss a skinny woman overboard than a chubby chick.”

“Since we’re on the subject of chubby, come over here and take a look at what I’ve come up with.” He checked his computer’s clock. “You missed lunch, I see, and that’s a good thing.”

“Forget about lunch,” she said, eyeing the office wall clock. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

“I’d wait until after the show,” he said, and tapped some keys. “This is not what I’d call good dinner theater.”

She stood behind him and gawked at what was playing on his screen. A plump blond woman was on her knees on a cement floor, her hands tied behind her back, while a power spray alternated between pummeling her breasts and her face. “Nasty,” said Bernadette.

“Revolting,” contributed Creed.

“Do people really get off on this stuff?” she asked.

“Apparently so,” he said as he called up yet another porn video.

A color image filled the computer screen. At first the only thing pictured was an outdoor hot tub with steam rising from the surface of the water. In the background were scraggly palm trees.

“Another fine art-house film from California,” Creed commented.

A curvaceous brunette wrapped in a towel walked onto the wooden deck surrounding the tub, her back to the camera. She dropped the towel and stepped naked into the water. Turning around, she faced the camera. The cameraman closed in for a tighter shot, eliminating the background and showing the woman lowering herself into the water up to her breasts.

“Those aren’t real, you know,” said Bernadette.

“How do you know?”

“They’re as round and overinflated as a couple of party balloons,” she said. “If you took a pin, you could probably pop them.”

A nude man stepped into the tub with the woman. He had a big gut and was hairy everywhere except for the top of his head.

“Now that’s disgusting,” said Creed.

Bernadette said, “The male leads all look like that, don’t they?”

“How should I know?”

The furry fat man stood behind the woman, planted his hands on her shoulders, and dunked her straight down into the water. At first the only activity under the water was the woman’s long hair floating over her head. Then she threw her hands up and waved them frantically, breaking the surface with her splashes.

“Not yet, baby,” the man croaked to the woman struggling under his grip. He pushed harder and forced her down deeper.

“This is scary,” said Bernadette.

Fat Man finally released the woman, and she popped up gasping for air, only to have the man dunk her again.

The video stopped abruptly.

“What happened?” asked Bernadette.

“That was a clip to tease you,” said Creed. “You want more, you have to pay.”

“I’ll pass.”

Creed punched on another clip. “This one is for the Houdini fans.”

The video showed a nude woman bound in rope and hanging upside down above a tall, clear tank filled with water. Slowly, she was lowered into the tank. After showing a full body shot while the woman fought against the bonds, the camera closed in on her face to highlight the air bubbles escaping from her nostrils. Finally, she was lifted out of the tank, dripping and coughing and gasping for air.

“That’s about all I can stomach for the day,” said Creed, exiting the site.

Bernadette took her hand down from his chair. “How did you find this?”

“I went to a couple of general porn sites and clicked on specific fetishes.”

“That would be—what … water sports?”

He laughed dryly and swiveled his chair around to face her. “No, I tried that phrase and discovered an entirely different fetish. Water sports has to do with—”

She raised her palm. “Is it relevant to what we’re investigating?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I don’t want to know.”

He tipped his head back toward his computer screen. “These videos were listed under the heading of ‘water bondage.’ In addition to watching people trying to drown each other …”

“Do women also dunk men?”

“I’ve seen no evidence of that. Men do it to women, or females do it to each other while men watch.”

“Lovely.”

“In addition to that sick stuff, you can also view women wrestling in swimming pools. Women with their hands tied behind their backs and their faces held down in buckets of water. Women strapped into these medieval-looking torture chairs and repeatedly dunked backward into big tanks.”

“Did you find any local links to this sort of thing? Clubs around town? Web sites we can trace to someone in the Twin Cities?”

“Not yet,” he said. “That will require a little more digging. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a break before I go another round with this smut.”

She wheeled over a chair and sat down across from him. “Am I right about this, Ruben? Are these drownings about sex?”

“Sex and violence. Violent sex.”

“What if I’m wrong? What if these were—I don’t know, something else? Robbery attempts gone sour or … I don’t know.” She looked at the yellow wall. “Maybe some of them were suicides. These women were screwed up.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You’re on the right track, Bernadette. After watching those disturbing videos, I’m certain we’re after someone who gets sexual satisfaction by drowning women.”

“Watching the videos is one thing, but taking it all the way and really drowning someone … I don’t get it. I don’t get how someone would get his rocks off by doing something like that.”

“Could be it started out as a game.”

“A game?”

“Playacting. Fake drownings, like in the videos. To really get off, he graduated to the real deal.”

“I guess that works. It’s just that this water fetish thing is so—I don’t know … I’ve never heard of it before.”

Creed nodded at the computer screen. “This might be new, but horrifically violent sex offenders are not. Some of them blame the porn.”

“Ted Bundy.”

“Yup. Maybe we need to talk to some shrinks,” said Creed. “Develop a profile of the sort of gentleman who would get his jollies by drowning women.”

“Sounds like something for the folks in BSU,” she said, referring to the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico.

“We don’t need those big shots,” Creed snapped. “We can do it ourselves, Bernadette.”

She smiled, pleased that they were finally on a first-name basis. “Touché. Did someone try for a spot in BSU and get turned down?”

“I never bothered applying; I figured I wasn’t … different enough.”

“You’re different enough now.” She checked her wristwatch.

“Waiting for a call?”

“Garcia.” She wanted that scarf off him, and it looked like she wasn’t going to get it until Thursday.

“He didn’t show last night?”

“No. He got tied up, and he’s running around today.” She went back to the wall of yellow scraps. “There’s got to be someone we missed. Someone they all trusted.”

Creed looked at his screen again. “Someone who was into some really sick stuff.”