Dahmer’s Not Dead

by Edward Lee & Elizabeth Steffen

Kindle Edition

Necro Publications

2011

— | — | —

DAHMER’S NOT DEAD

© 1999 by Edward Lee & Elizabeth Steffen

Cover art © 1999 Erik Wilson

This digital edition June 2011 © Necro Publications

Cover, Book Design & Typesetting:

David G. Barnett

Fat Cat Graphic Design

http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

a Necro Publication

5139 Maxon Terrace • Sanford, FL 32771

http://www.necropublications.com

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

— | — | —

DEDICATION:

To Doris June and J-Fer.

Also, for Debra Miller, Patricia Bradley, Vette Myers and the rest of my federal and civilian friends who indulge me in my eccentricities and animal adventures. Thank you!

And for R.K.

— | — | —

PROLOGUE

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, JULY, 1991

“PV-Two-Zero-Seven, do you copy?”

“This is Two-Zero-Seven, I read you. Go ahead.”

“PV-Two-Zero-Seven, are you 10-8?”

“Roger.”

“Proceed to AB on North 25th Street, Building 1055, Unit 213 for possible Signal 22. Investigate and report.”

“Roger, but what’s the scoop?”

“Possible domestic complaint. Standby for complainant descript via case number filed by PV-Two-Zero-Eight… Tenant’s name is Dahmer, Jeffrey, 31 years old, white male…”

««—»»

“10-4,” Chase groaned. “Two-Zero-Seven 10-6 to North 25th Street. Out.”

What a pain in the ass, he thought, hanging up the mike. He stubbed out a Winston and honked the cruiser’s horn. Kick me too, why don’t ya? In moments Chase’s partner, Sergeant Dallas Gollimar, returned to the patrol car with two coffees and a bag of Burger King Double Whoppers with Cheese. “What!” Gollimar snapped.

“We just got a goddamn call,” Chase complained.

“You’re jivin’ me, right? It’s twenty minutes before shiftchange!”

Chase started the shining white Dodge Diplomat, an old car but ever reliable. He and Gollimar were good cops, as far as street cops went. You gave them shit, they’d give it right back to you, but you treat them decent, they’d do the same. They’d seen their share of the tough stuff on this victor beat, and never balked. They knew what they were doing, and they knew the job. Only thing they hated was punt calls twenty minutes before they were off shift.

“We just got a Signal 22,” Chase said. “Christ, I don’t even know what the hell that is.”

“Unknown Trouble,” Gollimar told him, getting in, slamming the door. “I haven’t heard that one in years. Usually they turn out to be domestics.”

“That’s what dispatch said.” Chase lit another Wintson. “You ready for this? Two-Oh-Eight just copped some kid running down the street screaming. The kid had his hands cuffed behind his back, had bruises on him.”

“Two-Oh-Eight? Who’s that? That’s Beer Gut and Karp, ain’t it?”

“Right.” Chase pulled out onto the hot bright street; the traffic was a bitch, but you got used to it. Daylight raged across the windshield. “So they pick this kid up, and the kid tells them some guy tried to kill him in his apartment, some guy named Dahmer, North 25th Street. And we gotta check it out.”

“Bullshit!” Gollimar exclaimed. “It’s twenty minutes before we go off! Those fuckin’ guys are always punting their shit to us. Let them take the call!”

“Can’t. It’s in our loke, Weiser’s orders. Beer Gut and Karp are writing up the in-pross paperwork right now; they had to take the kid to the hospital. The kid had bruises, like I said, and claimed he’d been drugged.”

“Drugged? Oh, man. This sounds like a crock of shit. Somebody always drop-kicks their garbage calls on us. I’ll give you ten to one, Beer gut and Karp are both slugging coffee and donuts and laughing it up right now, those fat sons of bitches.”

Chase shrugged, cruised past The Pier Three Annex, a restaurant he’d never be able to eat at. On 32.5 a year and city taxes going up fifteen percent? Stuckey’s was more like it. And Burger King. But— A job’s a job, he realized. Things could be worse.

“Hey, man?” he asked. “Where’s my Double Whopper with Cheese?”

««—»»

“A terrible, terrible smell, all the time now,” the old lady told them. Chase and Gollimar had met her on the landing, not the super but some old crone in a shaggy robe. “And the noise! You boys wouldn’t believe it.”

“What kind of noise, ma’am?” Gollimar asked.

“Like…power tools or something like that. A big saw.”

Power tools? Chase wondered. Okay, so the guy’s building something. The only thing that smelled was this call. They got them all the time like this. A lover’s spat. The girl gets pissed, runs out, talks shit about her hubby or boyfriend, then has a change of heart. They kiss and make up. All charges dropped. Only difference here was the complainant was a guy, which either meant he was gay or he had one tough girlfriend with the first name Jeffrey. But what else had the old lady said? Something about a smell? “I don’t smell anything,” Chase observed.

“Neither do—”

“Ho!” Chase jerked back and nearly yelled just as they’d taken another step.

There was a smell, all right. Faint but pungent. Disgusting. It brought Corporal Jack Chase’s memory back to childhood days, when he and a friend named Lee had been rummaging around behind the old, closed McCrory’s in Newark. They’d stuck their gallant young heads right into that open BMI dumpster and seen what were probably the remnants of a dead German Shepherd that must’ve been rotting in the sun for days. The stench made them both flinch back and throw up in tall weeds…

“What is that?” Gollimar griped.

“It ain’t good, I’ll tell ya that.”

“What’s this guy’s name again?”

Chase checked his notepad. “Dahmer, Jeffrey, white cauc., 31 years old. Works nightshifts as the Wokina Chocolate Factory on Toback Boulevard.”

Gollimar rapped bare knuckles hard on the to Room 213. The smell seemed to treble.

“Shit, the guy works nights,” Chase reminded. “He’s probably asleep.”

“Yeah, you’re right. He’s probably—”

The apartment door clicked open. A sullen face seemed to hang there, perplexed. Unshaven, kind of pallid, straight light-brown hair.

Crazy eyes, Chase noted at once.

“Yes?”

“Jeffrey Dahmer?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Sergeant Gollimar of the Milwaukee Police Department, and this here’s my partner, Corporal Chase. Mind if we come in and have a talk?”

Chase’s eyes seemed to snag on a visual tick, peering over his sergeant’s shoulder.

“Actually, I do mind, Officer. I work midnight shifts and I’m very tired—”

“Yes, sir, I understand that,” Gollimar responded in what cops called “report-speak,” a cordial, polite tone of voice even when you weren’t feeling cordial or polite. “But we’ve been asked to investigate a complaint filed by—”

Chase’s eyes suddenly bloomed like shocked flowers. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at when his instincts popped a hair-trigger in his mind. In a well-trained half-second move, he hit the thumb-snap on his holster, shucked his Colt Trooper Mark III, and bulled past Gollimar. He snapped the revolver into the tenant’s face, shouting, “Put your hands in the air right now, put your hands in the air!”

Gollimar recoiled. “What the hell are you do—”

“There’s something hanging in the closet and something really fucked up on the bed!” Chase shouted. “Check it out while I keep a bead on this guy!”

Sergeant Gollimar drew his own piece. “Hold him,” he said, moving cautiously into the foul, three-roomed apartment. The place was a dump, filthy, and the stench, now, was almost overpowering. What in God’s name… Then—

The closet. Jack said to check the closet…

Gollimar stared.

“It’s a—shit, man, it’s something from a gag shop,” he scoffed. They hung there absurdly. They couldn’t be real.

“The bed!” came Chase’s next bellow. “Look on the bed!”

Gollimar turned. Something wasn’t right. Suddenly his sweat was oozing and his mind fogged up. He looked down at the bed, which seemed covered with sheet plastic. Yes, he looked down and—

—stared.

These were no rubber party gags. They were real. They were severed limbs. And he knew now that the things he’d seen hanging in the closet—two severed hands wired together—were just as real. An arm on the bed looked as though the bicep had been filleted out of it. A glance higher in the closet showed him more darkened things sitting on the top shelf, but by then you could’ve put a gun to Gollimar’s head and he would not have moved forward for a closer inspection. Another glance, to the opposite corner of the bedroom, showed him a lidded 57-gallon industrial drum.

Drums, was all Gollimar thought.

“Holy shit, man!” Chase was yelling again. “There’s more stuff out here too! All over the place!”

This was no apartment, it was an interstice of hell. We’re in hell, Gollimar baldly thought. He did not know how to react. A psychic gag-reflex seemed to tremor in him while the little that was left of his professional instincts walked him out of the room.

“Keep your motherfucking hands in the air, you fucking son of a bitch, or so help me God, I’ll blow you clean into next year!” Chase was still bellowing from the other room.

Gollimar, shocked in only seconds, stumbled back amid the stench. Keep cool, keep cool. Don’t fall apart. “I gotta call for some back up. We got serious 64 material in there.”

“Tell me about it!” Chase cracked. “There’s a fucking head sitting in a box! Next to the refrigerator!”

There were, in fact, several more heads inside the refrigerator, a small 18.4-cubic foot Sears Kenmore. Gollimar, however, would never see those heads. His psyche would not allow him to pull open the door, nor would it allow him to look directly at the head in the box or even contemplate opening the Tappan chest freezer on the other side of the kitchen.

“I’m gonna kill you if you make one more move, you son of a bitch!” Chase yelled at the suspect.

Could a human spirit go numb? Gollimar floated more than walked deeper into the tiny, unkempt kitchen. He was about to pick up the phone and call District Six Dispatch when he noted the stove…

Something seemed to rumble there, a black, enameled pot. A lobster pot, he recognized. He and his wife had one; every Labor Day they went out back and cooked lobsters for their friends, a big party.

But this was no party.

Steam gently gusted from the pot’s lid. Gollimar would never have guessed in a thousand years that this same lobster pot would eventually be auctioned off nearly four years later for $2,500. It would be purchased by an aviation lawyer from Philadelphia. The refrigerator, on the other hand, would sell to a “private investor” from Reston,, Virginia, for 15.4. Many things in this self-same apartment, in fact, would sell for extraordinary sums solely due to the things which now occupied them.

Gollimar stared at the lobster pot. Then he lifted the lid with a pot-holder sporting a knit caricature of a Calico cat. Why he did this he would never know and always regret. He looked into the pot.

My God, he thought, but it was the palest and least sapient thought that had ever occurred to him in his life.

««—»»

“You all right?”

Gollimar, down on one knee, nodded with his forehead in his hand. The huge white van sat parked in the lot, a single light revolving. MILWAUKEE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER read the side panel. Evidence was here too now, along with at least a dozen District Six cops. When Chase had seen what was in that lobster pot, he’d nearly lost his Double Whopper with Cheese. Gollimar had not been so lucky.

Two paramedics marched out of the apartment entry, bearing a stretcher topped by a number of plastic bags. A photographer from Ident reeled out behind them, his face pale as cream. More evidence techs entered the building, in rubber haz-mat suits and Scott Air-Pack respirators.

Gollimar’s voice sounded parched, only half alive. He rubbed his face and shivered. “What kind of a world is this?” he asked himself more than his partner.

“A fucked up world,” Chase answered just a listlessly. Every time he lit a cigarette, he spat it out. Everything seemed to taste the way the inside of that apartment smelled. He would have dreams of that smell for the rest of his life. Gollimar would resign in a year and a half, haunted too by dreams. Veteran street cops always expected the worst. But this?

This was worse than the worst could ever, ever be.

“An evil world,” Chase completed his response. A glance to the right showed him his PV, Two-Zero-Seven; in the back seat sat the suspect, handcuffed and waist-chained. Chase, as if summoned, approached the unit, shouldered past the surrounding phalanx of uniforms.

The day blazed, the sun high in a perfect sky. Birds chirped and swirled in elegant circles overhead. It was a beautiful day. So how could something like this happen? How could it?

Chase leaned over the half-opened back window. “Hey,” he said.

The suspect looked up. The pale face remained calm, calm as the July sky.

“How could you do something like that?” Chase asked in a voice like crumbling rocks.

The suspect returned Chase’s glance. The eyes set in the head looked dead.

“Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,” Jeffrey Dahmer said. “Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell—”

Good God Almighty, Chase thought.

“—deep into the pit.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER ONE

COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION CENTER, PORTAGE, WISCONSIN

NOVEMBER 28, 1994, 7:50 A.M.

“Come on, J.D., get the lead out, huh? You too, Rosser.” Detention Officer Wells wished for a smoke, a cup of coffee. He needed to find Perkins to get yesterday’s scores, which he himself had missed due to a preposterous argument with his wife. He cowed Dahmer, Vander, and Rosser into the Block C recreational unit. The three ragtag inmates shuffled along with their mops and buckets, all dressed in dark-green prison coveralls. Vander was a white supremacist, Wells had heard, and belonged to some KKK-like club full of silly bonehead nazis. Killed his wife and said two black guys did it. Rosser, black himself, stood close to 6’3”, all muscle and bad news, playing a Ganser game according to the prison psych staff. Terrifying to look at, murder and madness on two legs. The sides of his head were shaved—since the new detent rule that allowed convicts to have their hair any way they wanted. “A violation of the basic human right to self-expression,” some ACLU lawyer had insisted. Fine. They could shave their heads and shellack them for all Wells cared. Rosser, yes, had the sides shaved, with a fat plop of hair sitting on top. A new DO several months ago had made the mistake of offering personal comment. “Get that black buck Jiffy Pop shit off your head, you asshole,” he’d told Rosser. The DO had been fired the same day for racial traducement, even though the DO himself had been black. But that was fine with Wells too. In the slam, he did not perceive race, or convicts and their identical human freight. They’re all in this together, so the last thing any of them need are DO’s in their shit simply because of their color. Rosser had shot a guy in the head four times during a hold up in 1990, wasn’t up for parole till 2042. His Ganser was a God theme, not uncommon.

But then there was Dahmer—“J.D.,” as he was called by most everyone on the block. His parole didn’t come up until 2927. Gee, Wells thought in jest. I wonder if he’ll make it? Kind of a quiet sad sack, which surprised every DO in this 676-man Rock Ramada. When a guy strangles and dismembers seventeen people, and eats some of them, you expect him to have a certain look, a certain aura. But Dahmer didn’t have any of that. He was a pud. He’d cranked on thirty pounds since coming here in February, 1992. Sat in Cell 648 most of the time, smoking cigarettes and listening to religious music. Weird thing was he’d asked for general pop, which sounded pretty stupid to Wells. Every black inmate in the joint wanted Dahmer’s ass, yet the guy gets his lawyer to plead with the director to give him main line habitation. Some schmuck last July tried to cut Dahmer’s throat during a church service but botched it because the blade fell off his shank. Still, though. Dahmer knew people were gunning for him yet he insisted on living in the general prison population. “I want to see the world,” he’d told Wells. This ain’t no world, you meat-head, Wells had thought. It’s a fucking county max full of killers, and half of ‘em want to kill YOU. Didn’t matter to this guy, though. It seemed almost like he was begging for it. So the director gave him tee-seg—therapeutic segregation—and let him be on the clean up crew for seventy-cents an hour. He was out four hours a day on detail, and he attended the service in the chapel every morning.

“Dahmer, hey, Dahmer,” Rosser taunted. “What human meat taste like?”

“Shut up, Rosser,” Wells ordered. Dahmer remained silent, shuffling along next to Vander. Vander’s bald head gleamed in the caged line lights. “Don’t listen to him, J.D.,” Vander said aside. “He’s an asshole.”

“Dahmer, hey, Dahmer—”

“Goddamn it, Rosser, I said shut up,” Wells repeated. “You don’t and I throw your big bad killin’ ass straight back into bev-seg where you can count the lines in the cinderblocks for twenty-three and a half hours a day.”

“Ain’t no cell on earth can hold the Son of God,” Rosser whispered. “You are the number of the beast, and that number is six-hundred, three score, and six.”

“Cut with the Ganser shit. You’re just making an asshole of yourself.”

“You callin’ the Son of God an asshole?”

Wells couldn’t help but laugh. He followed them up into the gymnasium, then pointed out their assignments. “Vandie, J.D., you two split between the weight room and the treadmill cove, and Rosser, you mop the latrine. Got it, guys?”

Dahmer and Vander nodded. But Rosser? No way. He’d always be running his yap about something. “Aw, man,” he complained. “You’re gonna make the Son of God mop the latrine, man?”

“That’s right.”

“But-but, I am the million-year-old Son of God!”

“Fine,” Wells said. “And you’re gonna get that latrine so clean that God Himself would happy to drop His poop in our bowls, so tell that to your Dad. I’ll be right outside but I got my eye on all of ya’s. Get the job done and no dicking around.”

The three inmates dispersed with their forlorn buckets and mops. Wells went back out on the main line, tapped out a cigarette.

No sign of Perk. Christ, I wonder how bad the Redskins lost yesterday. Wells had a fin on a tight spread, but Shuler was looking hot.

Early morning, the main line seemed oddly quiet, a Zombieville of shuffling men all dressed in the same muck-green prison utilities and all wearing the same drained faces. Wing sectors of four to six men each were being escorted to and from chow. Wells thought it was funny; this morning Dahmer had eaten only one hard-boiled egg—he ate the egg white only, leaving the solid yolk—and some cereal with no milk. Said he was on a diet, of all things. Who the hell do you need to look good for? Wells thought. The wall?

Wells drably smoked half his cigarette, then tamped it out in the red butt-can. Perkins must be on drive detail, escorting inmates to the county courthouse in downtown Portage.

About ten minutes later, at precisely 8:10 a.m., DO Wells turned to go back to his supervisory post, but he didn’t even have time to finish the turn before the lock-down alarm began to blare through the prison like an air raid siren, so loud that even the dense block walls seemed to throb outward with each blast. The prison was having a heart attack.

««—»»

The nightmare-face hovered so close she could smell it. Yet it didn’t smell real, it didn’t smell human. Like clay, it smelt, like damp, creeky earth. The face seemed gray in the dream, as though its features had been crudely gouged from a blank of—indeed—clay. A slit for a mouth, a slit for nose. Twin slits for eyes. But whose face was it?

Help me, help me! she squealed amid the REM-sleep turmoil. Get it away from me!

It was the insuccinct face of any cop’s fear, the face of the symbolic death that waited around every corner.

“Helen? Helen?”

The jostling felt earthquake-like. The walls of her dream vomited sound akin to echoic demolition. The hand, from another world, continued to nudge her.

“Helen?”

Her eyes slid open. Now, another face, just as obscure, hovered above her, just as pale and as inhumanly defeatured. Her mind seemed to slide with the unbidden opening of her eyes. Then the real world cleared as did the visage. Of course, it was Tom.

Immediately she caught herself rubbing the silver locket between her fingers. It was a big locket, big as a Bicentennial dollar, and deep. It had her father’s picture inside. Through a variation of necklaces, it had hung around Helen Closs’ neck for close to three decades, a present her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. “Welcome to teenagerhood!” he’s celebrated. He’d died the next day, a massive coronary at the realty office he owned.

“Honey, are you all right?” Tom asked.

Why shouldn’t I be all right? her first thought hastened. If I’m not all right, it’s only because you just woke me up.

“You’ve been sleeping since eight this morning.”

“I know,” came her graveled reply. “I worked a nighter last night.”

“Well, so did I but…”

Her shoulders jerked, as if to verify she was no longer asleep. “But what?”

“Well, I worked a nighter too, but, Christ, honey, it’s past seven now. I got up hours ago.”

And what did that mean? Her attitude, as always, honed to knife-sharpness fast as current through a copper wire. What’s he implying? “What?” she challenged. “I sleep till seven and that means I’m just a lazy, over-the-hill cow?”

Tom’s countenance gave up its expression of concern and immediately reverted to something terribly weary. But of course, she’d seen it many times before. “Aw, come on, Helen, get off that, will you? I’m not saying you’re lazy, I’m just a little worried. You never sleep so long. I was worried that maybe you’re sick.”

Helen’s gaze focused upward.

“You really are making this hard,” he said. Then he walked out of the bedroom.

She simpered were she lay. A conflux, then, of more realities. I slept for eleven hours? Jesus Christ, get a life, Helen! And she’d screwed it up again, hadn’t she? It seemed miraculous that Tom hadn’t written her out of his life months ago, considering her bitchiness. I snapped at him again, she realized, and all for what? Because he was worried about me. How many past relationships had provided the exact opposite? One rough spot after the next; after so many rough spots, they’d cut you loose. And why shouldn’t they? Who needs a bitchy headache like me?

Now the rest came back. She’d gotten off her shift at seven a.m., and come to Tom’s, to sleep with him. Staggered shifts didn’t make things easier, but the state medical examiner’s office had swing shifts too. Tom was number-one deputy at the M.E.’s; he’d pull nighters one week out of every three. They’d been “dating” for a year and a half, whatever “dating” meant.

It’s always the same. What was wrong with her? Pre-menopausal Anxiety. Or maybe I’m just a genetic bitch, she considered. Her hormones and mood swings weren’t Tom’s fault. “Menopause can be interpreted as the physical death of a woman’s femininity,” Dr. Sallee, the state police shrink, had told her. “But it’s important for you to realize that this is a misinterpretation, rooted in fear. It’s something women constantly fear only because of the basic tenets of fear itself.” Sallee’s face often appeared similar to the face in her recurring nightmare. “Yes, you will be menopausal soon, but menopause does not signify the death of your womanhood. All it signifies is a new stage of your femininity, a new stage of life. Not a negative at all, but a positive.”

At least he had a way with words. But it was hard for her to perceive Tom as anything but her last hope. She was 42—how much time could be left? Her first husband turned out to be such an asshole she was surprised she didn’t kill him. And the relationships which followed? One botch after the next. She knew that if she ever hoped to be married again, Tom was the one. But if she didn’t get a rein on her “pseudo-natal hostility,” as Dr. Sallee called it, she’d blow it with Tom too. And that would be the last straw.

She dragged herself out of Tom’s bed, scurried to the bathroom to gargle and fix her mussed, off-blond hair. Then she scurried just as hastily to the den. Tom sat behind his new Compaq computer, playing one of his CD-ROM games. He was so immersed that he didn’t take note of her entrance, and—

Who could blame him? Helen wondered. I wouldn’t notice a bitch like me either…

The X-Wing Fighter crashed, just short of knocking out the Demon Planet’s power duct, when she came up from behind and put her arms around him. Terrifying explosions resounded from tiny speakers. “Well, you just killed Captain Quark,” he said.

“You can bring him back to life in the next game,” she reminded him. “Besides, he’s not as good-looking as you are anyway.”

Tom chuckled distantly.

“I’m sorry,” she leaned over, whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch all the time. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You didn’t snap,” he said in a tone that actually meant, Yes, you did but I’m used to it now, so I forgive you. “I was just worried. I thought you might be sick. Are you all right?”

“Except for the case of Acute Bitchism, I’m fine.” She kissed the top off his head. “How about I treat us to Chinese? You can even bring Captain Quark back from the dead, and I’ll go pick it up.”

“Wow, a woman who pays for dinner and picks it up? Now that’s a woman!”

“Don’t forget the part about being good in bed.”

“Well, of course, but that goes without saying,” he admitted, jiggling his Mouse Systems joystick. “I could go for some Kung Pao, and those little shrimp things.”

“I believe the shrimp things are called Shrimp Toast,” she corrected.

“Yeah, right, but… What time’s your shift?”

She pressed her breasts against the high part of his back. The pressure seemed to send a gust of sensation to her loins. I’ll jump his bones good tonight, she avowed. I’ll make it up to him. “I’m off tonight,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” He looked around. “That’s great—”

And then her beeper went off. I’m also on call, she remembered. When you make captain for VCU, you’re on call for the rest of your life.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” he asked.

“I really don’t want to. Goddamn it, I fucking hate this shit.”

As usual, Tom recoiled a bit at her profanity. “You better call in.”

“I know.”

She padded to the kitchen, hesitantly picked up the phone, and called Central Commo. Waited. Listened.

“Goddamn it, I hate this shit!” she reiterated.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got a 64 in Farland.”

“The boonies. Is it bad?”

“If it weren’t bad, Dane County wouldn’t be calling me into their juris. Shit!”

“So…what’s the 64?”

“A—” she began and that’s where she left it. He didn’t need to know, and she didn’t want to repeat what Central Comm had just told her: the victim was an infant. “It’s just…bad, as usual.”

But that was Helen’s job: the bad ones, the ones too intensive or excruciating for the local departments to handle on their own.

She hurried to take a two-minute shower, hauled on her dress and her Burberry overcoat—a very nice coat that Tom had given her last Christmas. Then she was hustling out with her hair still wet.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” Tom asked. He stood ready at the door, surprising her. Then he kissed her on the mouth and embraced her in a tight, warm hug.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

“Hey, the Kung Pao can wait, and so can those shrimp things.”

“No, I mean about before.” And then his own words haunted her: You really are making this hard. She knew she was, she knew it all too well. Her entire adult life was proof.

He was so cute, so handsome. Short, dark hair; deep, penetrating eyes full of compassion and intellect. He had a rampant sense of humor too, unlike her former husband who was about as upbeat as Jean Paul Sartre. Tom could joke away the worst stress headache or post-shift blues.

Her own eyes opened on his softly smiling face, and she nearly melted. I don’t deserve him, she thought, but then she could hear Dr. Sallee berating her all the way from HQ.

“You’re going to rub that thing into non-existence,” he warned.

What? she wondered, then she realized: she was rubbing her locket again, pressing hard. Over the years she had indeed rubbed off quite a bit of the surface detail.

“You always rub that locket when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she countered.

“Well, when you’re stressed out, worried, whatever. Why?”

She didn’t answer directly because she couldn’t. But she guessed he was correct. The locket was her Linus blanket, her rabbit’s foot, she supposed. “It’s like a good luck charm, and I’m probably gonna need it tonight.”

“Still don’t want to tell me about that 64 in Farland?”

“No,” she asserted. But the words were still there, flotsam in a dark sea. A baby. Someone killed a baby… But people killed babies every day in this demented age. It’s my job to investigate murder, she scolded herself. She let go of the locket. So go do it and stop being such an insecure wuss.

“Go on, get out of here,” Tom said. “You can’t keep public service waiting. Do you have your gun?”

“Yes,” she groaned. Helen hated guns but she had little choice but to carry one. A tiny Beretta Jet-Fire, .25 ACP. She was so bad at the range she had to be waived every year to qualify.

“Good. And be careful, okay?”

“I will.” She could tell, as she always could, that here was a man who was genuinely concerned with her, and someone who genuinely loved her. Don’t screw it up again, Helen, she warned herself.

She kissed him again and left.

««—»»

Dane County didn’t have its own PD—they were uncharted, like a lot of Wisconsin’s counties. What they had instead was a small-time sheriff’s department. Helen’s response grid—Grid South Central—stretched from Beloit to the Petenwell Reservoir; this one, at least, wouldn’t be too bad of a drive in her unmarked. There’d been times when she’d had to take the pill-white Ford Taurus a hundred miles out of Madison merely to write up a prelim WSP Form 18-82—Initial Investigatory Report for Possible Critical Case Homicide—and then recommended as to whether or not the 64 warranted the intervention of the Wisconsin State Police Violent Crimes Unit. VCU was run by six regional field liaisons, all captains, one of whom was Helen Closs. Eighteen years with the state police, she’d started at Traffic and worked her way up. Three years ago, working with the Intelligence Unit, she’d orchestrated a state-wide sting operation that had brought the house down on a complex cocaine triad whose shooters had murdered half of their informant line as well as four state undercover cops. Result: promotion to captain, commendations from the governor and the director of the DEA, and a transfer to the coveted VCU. The unit let her work alone, make her own decisions, and left CES and Processing at her instant disposal. Thus far, of the seventeen critical homicides that had taken place in her grid, Helen had solved sixteen, the highest success percentile in the history of the department. In another year, she’d be up for deputy chief.

A grand career, in other words. Yet grand was the last thing she felt. Forty-two, she thought dryly, and premenopausal according to my blood tests. One bum marriage and half a dozen bum relationships. Was it age, or just the world? The world was a vampire whose lips and fangs sucked up a little bit more of her vitality as each year passed. A world of murderers and child molesters, of Fetal Cocaine Syndrome and gang rape and failure. She hadn’t truly seen the sun shine in twenty years.

Just darkness, and the ebon of the human mind.

A plethora of visibar lights erupted as Helen pulled up at her 20. State Technical Services looked like scarlet phantoms roving the darkness; Sirchie portable UV lamps glowed eerily purple. The techs wore red polyester utilities so that any accidental fiberfall wouldn’t be confused as crime-scene residue by the Hair & Fibers crew back at Evidence Section.

Cold air choked her when she got out of the Taurus’ capsule of heat. Her breath turned to dismal gaseous frost. A long county road—ravined and flawlessly straight—seemed to extend into infinity. A couple of Dane County Sheriff’s cars—old Ford Tempos—sat parked off the road in a vast cornfield that had been threshed to nubs a few months ago, their headlights aimed at the contact perimeter. Three state cars were here too; on any case that might qualify as a VCU candidate, Central Communications would dispatch the nearest state units, to help the local department secure the scene, and CES had been dispatched right after them, a powder-blue van which served as a mobile crime lab, and a couple of station wagons the same odd color. The uniforms, both county and state, seemed oblivious to the cold, unjacketed as they leaned against their cars.

“Captain Closs?” one voice rang out.

Helen showed her badge and ID to the corporal who approached her, a young guy from Highway Division.

“Is Beck here?” she asked, turning up her collar.

“Yes, ma’am.” He pointed to the lit ravine. “Down there. It’s…”

“What, Corporal?”

“It’s pretty bad, ma’am.”

Helen ignored the comment, glancing instead up toward the county cars. Several of the men were smoking. “Tell those idiots from Dane to put there cigarettes out and pocket the butts. Jesus Christ, this is a crime scene.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And if I see any state cops smoking here, I’ll write them up. I’ll make the Wicked Witch of the West look like Little Orphan Annie. Got it?”

The corporal nodded, his face whitened raw by the cold. Or perhaps it was really shock. After all, there was a dead infant somewhere on this perimeter.

Helen squinted again at the county responders: a mopey, ragtag bunch. “I mean, what is this? The Keystone Cops?”

“Those county SD guys? They don’t know what to do, that’s why they called in a VCU request when they found the body.”

The body, Helen finally remembered why she was here. The baby. “Who’s the trooper in charge? You?”

“No, ma’am.” The corporal stolidly pointed again toward the ravine. “Sergeant Farrell, right over there.”

Helen turned without further word. Farrell was down on one knee beside the CES van, his forehead in his hand.

She could see that he’d vomited. “Are you all right, Sergeant?”

Farrell looked up, blinked hard. “I—”

“Get up, straighten yourself out,” Helen ordered. There was no other demeanor she could maintain. If she didn’t keep up the bad-ass routine, these kids would never take her seriously.

“This is a real bad 64, Captain.”

“I know it’s a bad 64, Sergeant, I know it’s a baby, but we’re all out here to do a job. Were supposed to be in charge, and I can’t have my officers keeling over on the scene like a bunch of greenhorns straight out of cadet school. You’re a Wisconsin State Trooper, start acting like it. If you can’t do your job, say so, and I’ll have you relieved.”

Farrell, trim and large, rose to his feet. He gulped hard. His embarrassment was plain. “What should I do, ma’am?”

He probably has kids himself, she suspected. She knew the look. He’s probably got a little baby… “Just hold tight and keep the scene secure, that’s all I need you to do.”

The moon shone like a pallid face over the dead cornfield. Helen strode off the hardtop, then marched awkwardly into the ravine. She felt a bit silly; this was a rural murder site and here she was wearing Nine West pumps, a $400 Burberry topcoat, and a merle sheath dress from Carole Little. Don’t trip and fall in the ravine, she stupidly warned herself. Those county dopes would be laughing it up for a week.

Helen could never discern why, but she knew that Jan Beck, the TSD field chief, didn’t like her. She refused, for instance, to call Helen by her first name, which was perfectly appropriate for two female employees of the same pay grade. But then it occurred to her more clearly that nobody on the department liked her save for Olsher and the rest of the brass. Helen didn’t even care any more.

“Hi, Jan,” Helen said to the slim, crimson-garbed figure. Jan Beck’s silhouette seemed to disgorge itself from the lights. She had thick glasses and frizzy black hair like a witch’s.

“Captain Closs.”

“How’s it look?”

The phantom techs roved behind her, wielding their portable UVs. “White/male infant, about a year old. Full body contusions, looks like an impact death.”

“Beaten, you mean?”

“No, I don’t think so. Looks to me like the baby was thrown from a moving vehicle.”

Helen’s eyes indicated the latent techs. “Then what are they doing with the UVs?”

“Checking the skin before we move the body to the shop.”

“Any signs of violence?”

Beck frowned. “Aside from being thrown out of a moving vehicle?”

“No signs of battery, no signs of sexual abuse? Come on, Jan, you know what I mean.”

“I can’t really make a positive determination on that until I get the baby to the lab at St. John’s.”

Helen knew what Beck was driving at. But I have rules, and I’ve got to go by them. “Jan, there’s no way I can give this 64 a VCU status—”

“Oh, come on, Captain!” Beck snapped. “It’s a one-year-old baby, for Christ’s sake! Some Dane County redneck threw a naked baby from a moving vehicle!”

“I realize that,” Helen replied without any change in her tone. “But you know the rules. I can’t authorize VCU status unless it’s a repeat m.o. in multiple jurisdictions, a multiple homicide, sex related, or suspected of involving the murder of a police officer.” Helen bit her lower lip. “If I write this as a VCU priority, Olsher will have the paperwork torn up before he has his first morning coffee. We can’t carry everyone, Jan. Dane County has a department, they have people. They’re gonna have to investigate this themselves. I don’t like it any more than you do, and if I caught the guy that did this, I’d park my front tires on his head. But you know the rules.”

Beck avoided a deleterious facial affect, which she was very good at. “So what do I do? Can I at least transport the baby’s body to the state morgue?”

“No, Jan,” Helen ordered. “Pack up your stuff and your team. Dane County’s going to have to take the corpse to their own hospital and have it autopsied by their own medical examiner, and, I might add, at the expense of their own tax dollars.”

“Great. You’re the boss. So are you going to tell this to those Dane guys, or am I gonna have to do that too?”

“I’ll take care of that, Jan.” Helen’s face suddenly flushed with embarrassment and self-disgust. But she was only doing her job. Why couldn’t Beck understand that? Olsher would pull the plug on this first thing in the morning; arguing about it was a waste of time. “There’s nothing I can do, Jan. And you know that. So stop breaking my chops.”

Beck made the most minute of nods. “Christ, it’s just that sometimes I get so sick of it.” She glanced back at the techs hovering over the baby. “I can’t believe the things that people do.”

“Neither can I,” Helen feebly replied.

Beck managed a twisted smile. “Well, at least we got some payback today, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The Dahmer thing.”

Helen winced against a chilling waver of wind. “What? What about Dahmer? That son of a bitch is locked up for the next thousand years.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Jan Beck asked. “We all got the telex this morning.” She seemed to thrive on the cold, she seemed enlivened by it, or perhaps she was only enlivened by the news she’d heard.

“Jeffrey Dahmer,” she explained, “was murdered in prison today.” Another tiny twist of a smile. “He was bludgeoned to death by another inmate.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWO

“…bludgeoned to death by another inmate,” the radio squawked. “James Dipetro, director of the 676-man Columbus County Detention Center, where the infamous cannibalistic murderer was serving a 936-year sentence, told reporters that he fears the suspect, one Tredell W. Rosser, may now be regarded as a celebrity by the prison’s other minority inmates. ‘We fear,’ Dipetro said, ‘that Rosser will become a prison folk hero of sorts, and not just by Columbus inmates but by every Hispanic and African American convict in the country…’“

Helen, in pre-8 a.m. rush hour, switched the radio station. Dahmer, Dahmer, Dahmer, her thoughts complained. The news dominated every radio station she turned on, and morning tv hadn’t been any better. Jesus Christ, is that all anyone cares about? Dahmer? I’m absolutely SICK of hearing about him!

But if that were really the case, why was Helen driving to the state morgue to see the body?

««—»»

The man walks down the sun-lit street, in Madison, Wisconsin. Bright light but cold, like his heart. The chill air whips his face, yet he feels numbly warm. The city seems to swarm around him, not part of him, and he not part of it. But that’s how it always is. He ducks out; he doesn’t want to be on the street too long. He doesn’t want to be seen.

Some time later, he finds himself walking up a flight of stairs, each footfall slow and plodding and deliberate. He feels different now, like some odd toggle in his brain has been switched. Nevertheless, each step he takes upward takes him back…

««—»»

BATH, OHIO, MAY, 1971

The boy from Bath, Ohio.

What a dumb name for a town, he always thought. But right now he was thinking about things far more crucial.

Spring heat cooked his back. His sweat drenched his shortsleeve, plaid shirt as he ran, yes, ran in spite of the prickling heat—hoping to get home before his father did. He cut through yards, the long way, to get home from school every day. He couldn’t stand to be taunted by the other kids. Faggot, they called him. Pussy. In phys ed, the captains had been choosing up teams. Gil Valeda, who was probably the best athlete in the fifth grade, if not the best in all of Summerset Elementary, laughed when the boy had jerked his hand up, wanting to be, for once, on a winning team. “No way,” Valeda had said. “You’re a weakling, a little faggot.” The boy had been chosen by the other side, last pick. They’d lost the softball game 11 to nothing. His other teammates had blamed him, of course, for striking out three times, for dropping a ball in right field.

He pretended not to hear, and not to care.

But he really did care.

And one day, he knew, he would show them all…

««—»»

I’m free, he thought.

And he was hungry.

««—»»

“…bludgeoned to death with a broom handle,” another radio announcer was spewing in an automaton’s voice. “Authorities say that the murder occurred at approximately eight a.m. yesterday, when Dahmer was on a custodial detail in the gymnasium of the Columbus County Detention Center. Prison guards discovered a bloody broom handle nearby, and another inmate, reportedly a friend of Dahmer’s, was beaten also, and is now listed in critical condition at St. John the Divine Hospital in Madison. Officials say that Dahmer’s face was beaten so severely that—”

Helen changed radio stations yet again, trying to edge her way to the state employees lot. Tom had left a message on her answering machine. “Hi, Helen, it’s me. I won’t be getting off at seven this morning, I’ve been ordered to stay on. You’re never gonna believe this—Greene’s on vacation, so I’m the Acting Chief Medical Examiner while he’s gone. What I mean is I’m the one who’s going to autopsy Dahmer’s body! See ya tonight!”

Even Tom seemed to have the bug. What was the fascination? Perhaps it was Helen’s job that bored her on the topic; she saw death every day, and killers, to her, were all one in the same. They were the active statistics on a grim social spreadsheet, numbers that produced other numbers. She could think of it in no other terms: victims as well as perpetrators could never be humanized by the homicide investigator. Otherwise that homicide investigator would burn out in a year or two and wind up contemplating suicide every day. Last night’s 64 proved a case in point; if Helen thought of the decedent as a baby, a kid, a human child, etc., the freight of that humanity would wring her dry. It would wring anyone dry, she thought. To her, that baby could only be this: a homicide stat, a number on a very dark piece of paper.

It made her feel so cold, though, thinking about it at times like these. Maybe she was lying to herself; she’d done that a lot in her life. Acting one way but actually feeling another. How much longer could she pretend not to feel, if this were truly the case? She remembered the day Deputy Chief Olsher had barged into her office with a smile like a great, black pumpkin, and told her that Henry Longford had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. Longford had run a sophisticated point-network for the distribution of child pornography; Helen, working liaison with the Justice Department, had helped send Longford up to the Federal Max in Marion, fifteen years with no parole. “See, Helen?” Olsher reveled. “There really is a God. That sick piece of garbage’ll be dead before he’s even got five under his belt!” Helen’s initial reaction had been one of stoic nonchalance. She’d responded with something like: “Right now I’m too busy to even think about Longford.” Something like that, which sent Olsher away with the oddest expression. When she’d gotten home, however, she’d begun crying in fits, slowly but surely remembering the tiny, washed out faces in all those video masters, the nine-year-old thousand-yard stares. Eventually her sobs meshed with an hour-long paroxysm of manic laughter. It was strange what this job would do to people.

St. John the Divine Hospital was just south of Madison, and there, occupying half of its basement, was the Office of the Wisconsin State Medical Examiner along with the WSP Main Crime Lab. Tom’s workplace, and Beck’s. But Helen noted an immediate curiosity. Why bring Dahmer’s body here? she asked herself. Upon sentence, Dahmer had come into the correctional custody of the County of Columbus, whose own M.E. facilities were at South Columbus General just outside of Portage. Why call in the state M.E.?

Helen had to show her badge and ID three times just to get through the ER wing—she avoided the north entrance upon noticing an influx of news hawks and cameras—and three more times just to get downstairs. Why all the heat? There were cops everywhere: state troopers as well as a lot of Madison Metro PD. In the basement she first passed the lock-up wing, a little ICU prison for injured inmates and arrestees. PREPARE TO BE MAGNOMETERED UPON ADMITTANCE. LAW ENFORCEMENT EMPLOYEES CHECK WEAPONS IN WITH PROPERTY OFFICER HERE. Her high heels ticked across shiny tile; at the end of the corridor, another sign announced: WISCONSIN STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH, MADISON SUBSTATION. Then, a final plaque: MORGUE.

“Helen!” Tom greeted when she entered. She’d been ID’d a final time at the recept desk. “I would’ve thought you’d be home asleep.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted. Intermittent nightshifts played havoc with her metabolism, but it must for Tom too. Nevertheless, he looked cheery and alert in his disposable autopsy blues. Helen had tried to sleep upon her return from the Farland call, but the pallid nightmare-face had kept hounding her. Waxlike, exsanguinated. When the cool, claylike hands had dipped to touch her bare breasts, she’d bolted awake and gave up on any further attempts to sleep.

“I’d come over there and kiss you,” he joked, “but, as you can see, I’m sterile.”

“What difference does it make to cadavers?”

“State regs, hon. Pretty soon the cadavers’ll be suing us—and winning. You got my message, I take it.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Say, what’s with all the heat? It was like trying to get into the Pentagon.”

“Aw, you know. Something like this, press fodder? I’ve even got a trooper guarding the back entry. They’ve caught six people already trying to sneak in here.”

“For what?”

“To get a picture of the body. One guy tried to steal his inmate number off his prison coveralls, another guy said he wanted to steal one of his teeth.”

This was ridiculous. “Dahmer’s teeth?”

“Sure,” Tom said, pulling out a box of Johnson & Johnson Morgue Swipes. Kills E. Coli and Other Morgue-Related Bacteria on Contact! Kills Herpes, Hepatitis B and HIV! the blue and white box bragged. “I’m amazed by the level of detail that the press has got their hands on. Christ, Columbus County Detent leaks like a sieve. Most of Dahmer’s teeth were broken; this guy says he heard it on the radio, thought he’d zip in here real quick and cop one of the teeth. They charged him with trespassing on state property and ‘morbid malfeasance.’“

“Jesus,” Helen dismissed. “They ought to charge him with being an asshole too, but I don’t think that one’s in the state books.”

“Not yet, anyway, but we can always hope.”

So that explained the undue police presence, which miffed her right off the bat. These cops had better ways to serve the public interest than guarding a corpse. Right now, on Clay Street, crack was being sold. Right now in the stan district, heroin tar was being cut. Right now, somewhere, a woman was being raped.

In the prep room, Helen at once found herself hemmed in by dented file cabinets, bookshelves, and a lot of computer equipment. One CPU, she noted, was a UNISYS 1500 latent datalink, which had state and federal mainframe access to every felon fingerprint in the country. A small, glass scan-pallet would digitalize the latent and feed it into the system. Cost per unit: $650,000. Too bad it crashed regularly. An equally expensive mass photospectrometer ticked in the corner like a cooling car engine.

A chuckle, then: “Mix you a drink?” Tom was mixing a formalin/alcohol mixture in several big translucent squeeze bottles: cadaver preservative. Helen hated the smell of formalin; it was the only thing that gave her a headache worse than tequila.

“So how’d that 64 go last night?”

“Terrible. It was a baby,” she finally told him. “Beck was there, as usual, and she was all over me. There was no way in hell that I could’ve written up for VCU. I don’t understand it. Beck hates me.”

Tom was wincing immediately, which mystified Helen. But before she could even ask, a figure appeared from the dressing room, dressed in the same disposable morgue blues. It was Jan Beck.

“I don’t hate you, Captain,” she said. “I was just bent out of shape last night, and I apologize.”

Good job, Helen! She felt like a perfect ass, but the scenario infuriated her. What the hell is Beck doing here! she wanted to shout.

“Jan’s doing the assist,” Tom explained. “I think I told you on my message, Greene’s on vacation as of last Sunday, went to Bowie, Maryland, or some hole in the wall town like that. I’ll bet he’s crapping his blues right now.”

Helen’s face screwed up. “What, autopsying Jeffrey Dahmer is a big deal?”

“My dear, in the world of forensic pathology, receiving the opportunity to perform the post-mortem on a world-famous serial-killer is a career event.”

Beck laughed. Helen rolled her eyes.

“I’ll be ready to roll in a few minutes,” Tom said more to Beck. “I’ve gotta let the instruments cook a little longer in the ‘clave.” His eyes gestured the Magna brand 260-degree autoclave percolating in the corner like an industrial washer. Helen thought it absurd to have to sterilize instruments that would be used on dead people. Tom had said the machine cost the state over $4000. I could do the same job with a boiling pot of water, Helen thought.

“Come on,” Beck implied to Helen, and a wave of hand. “Let’s go look.”

“Go look at what?” Helen replied.

“You know. The body.”

“I didn’t come here to see the body,” she insisted.

“Oh, yeah, then why are you here? Let me guess. You came all the way to the state morgue to ask Tom what he wants for dinner tonight?”

A brief impulse flared. First of all, Helen didn’t like the way Beck had so easily referred to Tom by his first name; second, she liked least the fact that it was common knowledge she and Tom were dating, an unwritten no-no for state employees. But then the good Dr. Sallee’s remonstrations kicked in, as they usually did. You’re so insecure, you’re paranoid. You over-react to everything. You have to work on this, Helen. You must, or you’ll never be happy.

She knew he was right, but it still ticked her off. All right, I’ll work on it…

“Uh-oh,” Tom said. “Look, she’s rubbing her locket. That means we’ve pissed her off.”

Helen hadn’t even been aware of it, but now that he’d mentioned this, she couldn’t help but notice how desperately she’d been rubbing her father’s large, silver locket. She dropped it and smiled coyly. “Fuck you very much,” she said.

“That’s the spirit!”

Helen shrugged it off. At least she was making some headway with her problems. “Come on, Jan. Let’s go gawk at Jeffrey Dahmer’s body. And you can tell Mack the Knife there he can have me arrested for morbid malfeasance.”

««—»»

“Oh my God, this is disgusting!” Helen exclaimed.

“No, no,” Jan Beck whispered in something very much like awe. “It’s fascinating.”

Yet another state goon had ID’d them both at the entrance of ANTEROOM #4. DO NOT ENTER. AUTOPSY IN PROGRESS. Of course nothing, right this instant, was in progress save for Helen’s abhorrence. The body lay there so candidly it seemed surreal, like one of Tom’s CD-ROM games—a spooky veil like tulle which somehow enhanced details instead of detracting from them. The body was not covered, and it lay on a stainless steel morgue platform which came equipped with a removable drain-trap, gutters for “organic effluence,” and a motorized height adjustment. The corpse’s image was blatant, like a surprise shout in the dark.

Fluorescent lights hummed over their heads.

“Christ Almighty,” Helen uttered, at once fingering her locket again. “Look at his face.”

There really was no face, not even a facsimile of anything that could be called a human face. It looked more like a blue-black poultice, covered by a crust of red-black blood. The corpse lay stretched out straight, in stained, nearly tourmaline-green prison coveralls, pocketless via typical county prison inmate regulations. A white patch over the right breast read 177252, the county corrections index. Over the left breast read simply this:

DAHMER, J.

Helen felt something crawl up her skin when she read the nefarious name, something she could only describe as a hot chill.

“I wonder what the official C.O.D. was,” Beck queried.

“Probably not a heart attack,” Helen offered.

Beck’s tongue curiously traced her lower lip as she studied the corpse’s face. “Repeated blunt trauma,” she estimated. “But, Christ, it said on the radio he was beaten with a broom handle. I’ve seen enough head traumas to tell you, this was no broom handle.”

“And, Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,” a voice drifted up behind them. It was Tom, wielding, as usual, his off-key sense of humor. Off-key because this was a morgue. “Multiple cou-counter-cou strike impacts, to respond to your insightful observation. Evidence is plain due to the extent of irregular pupillary dilation. Two blunt trauma impactations against the cranial occipital bone and the inion process. Multiple fractures and abundant spalling of inner calculi also in acute evidence. How’s that for fancy talk?”

Beck frowned. “The occipital bone is in the back,” she pointed out. “And it would take a man of some strength to crack the inion process with a broom stick.”

“Then you need to see the assailant,” Tom replied. “A genteel young man by the name of Tredell Rosser. He’s six-three, probably two-percent body fat and weighs in at two-twenty-five. Prison beefcake. This guy’s been lifting weights six days a week for the last four years. He makes Hulk Hogan look like Richard Simmons.”

“But the procumbent skull process?” Beck continued. “That mess wasn’t caused by any broom stick.”

“In my professional estimation, which of course is lauded as undisputable medical fact throughout the world’s community of pathology, the rest of the job was caused by a cinderblock wall.” Tom traipsed forward, snapping on pre-doubled pairs of Becton-Dickinson neoprene examination gloves. “And a concrete floor.”

Then Helen remembered more bits from the incessant radio coverage. Considerable amounts of blood reportedly were found on the floor and wall where Dahmer’s body was discovered. “Rosser took Dahmer down with the broom handle,” Helen ventured. “Then finished the job by—”

“By ramming his big mug into the wall and floor, with all his God-given might. Keep in mind, Rosser routinely bench presses three hundred and fifty pounds. And the rec superintendent at the prison claims that the guy is no longer allowed to practice on the heavy bag because he frequently breaks it open.”

“He just grabbed Dahmer’s ears and went to town,” Beck morbidly added.

“But we mustn’t misjudge,” Tom said. “Maybe he was just trying to knock a little sense into Jeff.” Then Beck: “Or maybe he was actually using Dahmer’s head to try and break out of prison.” He and Beck cackled, then, like witches.

Helen felt waylaid. “There’s a dead body in the room,” she complained. “How can you tell jokes in front of a corpse?”

“Because they don’t groan when you tell a clunker. Sorry, Jeff,” Tom apologized. “We get a little carried away here sometimes.”

“But, honestly,” Beck added to the fest, “we’re really very nice people once you get to know us.”

You’re both whacks, Helen thought. Only then did she turn to fully view Tom, in his “butcher’s blues,” as those in his field called them. He wore the morgue’s ghastly fluorescent light like a pallor; he could’ve passed for a corpse himself, here in such company. But his sense of humor, she realized, came as necessity. Jovial in a locker full of death, day after day. Sure, Helen knew the routine—her own job wasn’t dissimilar, only in that she got to see the corpses before he did, and she didn’t have to autopsy them. But she had to wonder, now in this strangest of rooms, amid the cloying fetor of formalin and cold blood: How does he keep it together? Here was a man who cut up dead people for a living, who autopsied children and weighed wet, extricated livers the way women weighed potatoes in the grocery store. He’s seen more guts than a fish market dumpster, Helen thought. How can he stand doing this every day?

The answer, of course, was reflective. He did it the same way Helen did her own job every day. He did it simply because it was his occupational responsibility. And by now, she suspected, looking at human innards was no more repulsive to him than the mechanic at the Exxon when he looked into an open hood.

Ranks of storage shelves behind him sat heavy with big smoke-colored glass bottles: JORE’S, ZENKER’S SOLUTION, PHENOL, FORMALIN 20-PERCENT. A tin tray marked AMYLOID/FAT NECROSIS PREP held several bottles of iodine and copper sulphate. A large sink and heat-sealing iron hung on the same wall.

“It’s an incredible head trauma,” Beck went on, refocusing back to the business at hand.

Tom added: “I’ve seen a lot of them, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this bad. Not from blunt trauma, probably not even from a car wreck.”

Helen, to herself, agreed; she’d seen her share herself. But, of course, she saw corpus delectus much differently from a medical examiner or a forensic tech. Helen didn’t need to look close—that was Beck’s job. Helen realized she’d probably never seen a dead human body in such stunning detail.

But key words replayed, something snagging in her subconscious. They’re right, she realized. This is an extraordinary head trauma. The damage is so severe that—

“Wait a minute,” she said. “The investigator in me can’t resist this question. The face is unrecognizable.”

“Indeed,” Tom quipped.

“So how do you really know this is Dahmer?”

“Many reasons, my dear. For one, that’s his name and ident number on his coveralls.”

“Big deal,” Helen countered. “It wouldn’t be hard to put Dahmer’s clothes on someone else’s body.”

“No, but it would be a tad more difficult to put Dahmer’s teeth in someone’s else’s mouth, wouldn’t it?” Tom, then, held up an evidence bag full of teeth. The bag rattled like a baby toy. “The cavity and filling schemes on these teeth matched Dahmer’s prison dental records.”

“But the teeth were broken out of his mouth during the beating,” Helen argued. “It’s not inconceivable that a third party could’ve put Dahmer’s teeth in the mouth of another corpse.”

“After breaking the teeth out of that other corpse before transport,” Beck suggested. “And beating him to death similarly.”

“Sure,” Helen replied. “Why not?”

Tom laughed. “Women are so suspicious!”

“Hey, I’m paid to be suspicious,” Helen said. “I’m a state homicide investigator.”

“Have no fear, ladies. The body before you was also positively ID’d as Jeffrey Dahmer, not once, not twice, but three times, by his fingerprints. We’re pretty thorough around here.”

“Oh, well,” Beck chuckled. “It was fun while it lasted.”

“The state regs border on ridiculous, Helen,” Tom offered next, lining scalpels neatly on a shiny tray. “I even had to do a sex-chromatin test on this bastard—”

“You’re kidding?” Beck cut in.

“I wish I was kidding, and after having had the rather immodest opportunity of seeing Mr. Dahmer’s penis with my own eyes, I think I can safely say that the decedent is of the male gender. Or perhaps Helen suspects that a third party attached Dahmer’s penis to someone else’s body.”

Helen made a face like someone sucking a lemon wedge. “Jesus, Tom, you’re so gross.”

“Hey, I’m paid to be gross,” he cited. “I’m a medical examiner.” Whereupon both Beck and Tom laughed out loud.

Helen was appalled. Morgue humor was not something she was cut out for. But more questions itched at her. “One thing I don’t get. Why was he even brought here? How come the state’s doing the autopsy? Dahmer died in Columbus County, so shouldn’t the Columbus County M.E. be doing it?”

“More regs, hon.” Tom flicked on the overhead spots. “Our revered Wisconsin State Annotated Code cites, and I quote, ‘Any decedent currently in the correctional custody off any county of the Commonwealth of Wisconsin who may be deemed a public figure, notorious, or whose identity may be offensive to the public sensibility, shall become the immediate custody of the Office of the Wisconsin State Medical Examiner.’“

It didn’t make sense to Helen. “Why?”

“To avoid a botched post-mortem,” Beck answered.

Helen frowned. I was asking him, not you.

“The state doesn’t trust its own counties,” Tom elaborated, “and with fairly good reason. There’s less security at the county facilities, and there’s no expertise. Columbus is a perfect example. It’s the boondocks, and Portage is a boondocks town that just happens to have a county prison sitting in the middle of it. The Columbus County Coroner is also the county clerk, the recorder of deeds, the justice of the peace, assistant to the county executive, and he owns a used car dealership to boot. His name might as well be Uncle Jed, and the state doesn’t want Uncle Jed doing the post work on a ‘notorious figure.’ Christ, those hayseeds’d be selling Dahmer’s shoes, his hair and his clothes. They’d be snapping pictures of the corpse and selling them to the tabloids… By the way, where’s my camera?”

More levity, more jokes. It was getting on Helen’s nerves. Now that the examination lights were on, the morgue platform offered every detail of its occupant. Helen averted her eyes. “Who pronounced him dead, by the way?”

“About half the people in the U.S. Midwest. I was last, as a matter of fact, felt like I was standing in line with a ticket at Baskin-Robbins. First person to pronounce this sucker was the prison duty physician. Then the transport captain who took him to South Columbus General. Then the ER chief pronounced him dead as well as the hospital director. Then they transport the body here, and the whole thing happens again. Everybody wants to be able to say that they pronounced Jeffrey Dahmer dead, like they’re gonna get some prize or something. Me? All I get to do is cut the sucker up.”

“I heard MIT wants his brain,” Beck said, “for some cross-referenced histological study of sociopaths.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tom repeated his well-honed chuckle and then, at the pinnacle of bad taste, actually placed his hand on Dahmer’s forehead. “I guarantee you, there isn’t much of a brain left in this noggin. After a blunt trauma job like that?” Tom winked at Helen, cut a sly grin. “When I open this can, honey, there ain’t gonna be nothin’ inside except cranberry sauce.”

That was it for Helen. “Pardon me, folks, but I have to go throw up now. See you later.”

Tom was hooting it up. “Jan, go see if the turkey’s done, will you please? I love turkey with cranberry sauce.”

At once, all the blood in Helen’s face seemed to drain as she stumbled toward the exit.

“Don’t leave yet, honey! You’ll miss the fun. Wait!”

Helen, against all better judgment, turned to take a final glance over her shoulder.

Tom was holding a Stryker orbital saw in one hand, patting Dahmer’s head with the other. He revved the saw several times, begetting a sound like a monstrous dentist’s drill. “Headcheese for dinner tonight?”

Helen stumbled out, nearly fainting.

— | — | —

CHAPTER THREE

“This is EMT 1-5-4, transit orders logged and copied. We are 10-6 to posted call.”

“Roger, 1-5-4.”

Goodwin hung up the mike, readdressed the wheel. Cooper rode in the passenger seat, fingering the county map. “Shit, man,” he said. “We’re headed into No-Man’s Land. This whole call smells like a jacking.”

Goodwin tried to allay his partner, as the ambulance’s red-and-whites popped down the street ahead of them. “You heard the watch commander’s spiel. ‘Be wary of 911 calls with little or no detail or substance.’ I listened to the tape myself, Coop, right after we left the lounge. It was some male cauc. claiming his father suffered from WPW Syndrome, and he ran out of Quinidex Extentabs, 300 mgs. The guy knew what he was talking about. You think some ghetto dope jacker is gonna have the know-how to make up a call with that much clinical detail? Christ, something like only one person out of every half a million have WPW Syndrome.”

Cooper rubbed an eye; he was tired. “Can’t argue with ya there. Guess you called this one right. Yeah, sure, I can see it. Some ambulance jacker studying the PDR to research phony distress calls about fuckin’ WPW Syndrome.”

Pipe down, Goodwin thought. He turned left onto Utah Street. Sure, this was Precinct Five, a tough block, and God knew enough EMT trucks had been ambushed for pharmaceutical dope on phony 911 calls. Christ, you’d think these guys would wise up after so long, Goodwin thought. Ambulance jacking was getting to be old hat these days. All CDS was kept in safes; some of the crews were even packing guns without a license. “You could go to jail for that,” Goodwin had suggested to some guy in P6 who liked to keep a Colt .32 in his pocket. “Yeah,” the guy’d said back. “But I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.” Goodwin figured the guy had a point.

“1500-Block, right?” Cooper repeated the call data.

“Yeah.”

“Well…we’re here.”

Goodwin idled the Ford F-150 Custom down the block, the GT Qualifier Dunlop radials crunching over broken glass. The red and whites continued to pop silently against old brick and dark windows. Boarded up rowhouses stared at them; Goodwin felt watched.

“I don’t see any—”

“That row there,” Cooper pointed. “The only one with the lights on.”

“Yeah. Come on.”

Goodwin took the keys with him; even though this looked perfectly legit, he wasn’t stupid. He’d been stupid once, in Falks County, and look what happened. I almost did time, he remembered. They got out, trotted up to the row, and knocked.

They knocked again.

“This has to be it,” Cooper commented. “Every other unit on the street is boarded up.”

Goodwin peered in the window, paused. “Jesus Christ, so is this one. Look.”

Pried off planks lay at the window footing. Inside, a single lit lamp sat on the floor—a battery-powered lamp. The rest of the interior lay in shambles.

“Somebody put that lamp in there to draw us off,” Cooper said.

But Goodwin already smelled the rat. “We been set up. Get ready to run.”

They edged back to the truck, their eyes peeled for anything, a shadow, a face, the tracest movement. But—

Nothing.

“Looks like we’re all right.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They got back in, slammed the doors shut and locked them. But just before Goodwin would restart County Unit EMT 154, Cooper jerked back, shot a glance behind him.

“Hey, you mother—”

That was all Cooper got out of him mouth before—

pop!

It was the oddest sound, not even as loud as someone popping a plastic baggie. Nevertheless, Coop fell back into the footwell, his feet flying upward as a thin stream of blood sailed across Goodwin’s shocked face. A gurgling followed—Goodwin had heard it many times—a sucking chest wound, Coop’s lungs bubbling foamy blood through the hole. Then, again—

pop!

The gurgling abated. So did EMT Cooper’s death throes.

The whole scene seemed like a freeze-frame. It was over in less than the second it took to occur. Only then did Goodwin turn.

“God…damn…”

The figure in the back cabin stood perfectly still. A leather jacket, a dark-blue ski mask. White rimmed eyes seemed calm as they gazed.

The figure held a long low-caliber semi-automatic pistol in his left hand. Affixed to the barrel’s tip was, of all things, an empty twenty-ounce soda bottle full of gray smoke.

Then the figure’s gloved right hand gestured the DieBold med safe.

“Open it,” he said very coolly.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Goodwin replied. He fumbled for his ring, then fumbled for the key to the safe, not even realizing that he’d urinated in his county pants.

««—»»

“Helen, look at this,” Deputy Chief Larrel Olsher called out from his office. “It’s unbelievable.”

Helen had just been crossing the hall. She stuck her head in. “How did you know I was in the hall? You couldn’t possibly have seen me.”

“Your high heels, they’re the dead giveaway. Come in here and take a look at this.”

Helen, rather reluctantly, eased in. She liked Olsher, she just didn’t like going into his office, for all the smoke. Cigar smoke, the worse kind. Her clothes and hair would reek of it after just one minute in her immediate supervisor’s office. Helen could hardly talk, though; she’d smoked cigarettes until just last year, when she’d first met Tom. He’d invited her to the state morgue, offered to show her around, and when she asked if she could smoke, Tom said nothing but instead pointed across the room. “Look in that white bucket there. The one on the end, third shelf.” Helen’s fingers touched the plastic lid, but didn’t move. “Go on,” Tom said. “Open the bucket. Look inside.” Helen raised the lid and looked in. Settled in the bottom of the bucket were two blob-shaped objects which resembled giant moldering leeches. They were brown-black and glistening, flecked minutely with white. Tom smiled grimly. “You know what those are, Helen? They’re metastacized human lungs. Small-cell lung cancer is what I’m talking here. Look at them.” “I’m… looking,” Helen complained. Tom went on: “That’s what your lungs will look like one day if you don’t quit smoking.” He washed his hands in the sink, thumping a pink-filled soap dispenser like an inverted service bell. His lab coat bore a craggy reddish stain the shape of West Virginia. “A small-cell metastatic mass? It’s the worst. Lung cancer’s like rotting to death, slowly, from the inside out.” Helen had quit that very instant, and hadn’t even been tempted to light up since then.

But more smoke haunted her now. Deputy Police Chief Larrel Olsher’s face looked as rigid as a black marble bust of Attila the Hun as he brutally crushed out his current cigar stub. He was black and ugly and bad. Some called him “the Shadow,” for his 6’2”, 270-pound frame tended to darken any hallway he chose to traverse. Olsher had risen to his status the hard way, by kicking ass and taking names and putting a lot of perps up for life. Beneath the veneer, though, was an unselfish man who cared about people. He and Helen had climbed up the hierarchal ladder together, had been friends for years. In fact, Olsher may have been one of Helen’s only true friends on the department.

Maybe he’s got a case for me, she hoped. All everyone was talking about, still, was Dahmer, and after having seen the body, she hoped she never heard the man’s name again.

“Look at this picture of Dahmer,” he said. “It’s unbelievable that they could print that in a newspaper.”

Helen frowned at her own bad luck, took up the sheet of newsprint. FIRST OFFICIAL PHOTO OF DAHMER’S BODY the headline raved. Christ, he’s only been dead two days, she realized, but then she frowned more deeply when she noted the source: The Weekly World News.

“This isn’t a newspaper, Larrel, it’s a tabloid.”

“Yeah, well—so?” Olsher replied a bit defensively. “The picture’s all that matters. Christ, Dahmer’s body is custody of the state, and there he is lying flat out on our morgue slab. And it’s your lovey-dovey doing the autopsy, ain’t it? How’d a picture like that get out of St. John’s Hospital?”

Then the image registered, and Helen couldn’t help but laugh. “For one thing, Larrel, this picture wasn’t taken in St. John’s. Second, it’s not Dahmer.”

“Sure, it’s Dahmer.” Olsher crudely pointed to the paper. “That’s his face, right there. Everyone knows what Dahmer looks like.”

Olsher’s naivete absolutely astounded her. Here was a man who’d been shot twice, and had probably come face to face with every conceivable kind of crackpot, killer, car-jacker, junkie, and street freak. But…this? Helen laughed again, she couldn’t help it. The photograph was ridiculous. A grain-ridden black & white: a shirtless body lying prone and Dahmer’s placid face attached. Black graphic wedges covered the top of Dahmer’s skull, with white letters. CENSORED!

“Larrel, you’re kidding me, right? You believe this is for real?”

Olsher diddled with a big cigar, lines pinched up in his dark face. “What’s not to believe? That’s him. Right there, in that picture.”

Helen issued yet another laugh.

“And what’s so goddamn funny?”

She shimmied to retrieve her composure. “Come on,, Larrel. It’s obvious. They took a picture of some guy lying on his back with his shirt off and cropped Dahmer’s head on it. That’s not Dahmer. That’s not even St. John’s autopsy room.”

Olsher’s big hand took back the clip. His brow furrowed, staring at it. “How do you know?

“Because I just came from St. John’s. I saw the state of Dahmer’s body, and that’s not it. And that room isn’t anything close to the morgue at St. John’s. It looks like somebody’s kitchen…and probably is.”

“You saw it, huh? You saw Dahmer’s body?”

“Yes! The face wasn’t recognizable at all, it was beaten to pulp.”

Olsher made a smirk, then stuffed the tabloid clipping into his desk. “Oh,” he said. “Well. I didn’t really believe it, either.”

Yeah, right. She could tell he was embarrassed, so she changed the subject, gave him a break. “So what’s on the hopper today?”

“For VCU? Nothing.” Olsher lit an El Producto. Gobs of smoke obscured his face, which Helen was grateful for. “You can go Christmas shopping today for all I care. Just thank God the state of Wisconsin’s not like California.”

“Thank God for Tommy Thompsen.”

Olsher shrugged hugely. “Same difference.”

“Talk to you later, Larrel.” Helen got up, prepared to leave.

“What? I forget to use my Right Guard today?”

“Let me just put it this way, Larrel. Have another cigar.”

“Oh, so you’re saying my cigars stink?”

“Later.”

Unbelievable is right, she thought, her high heels ticking down the hall. At least Olsher’s foolishness served to distract her. When she’d left the state morgue, she turned very briefly at the end of the exit hall. She’d seen Tom, coming back to the recept cove. He was talking to a nursing assistant, a petite blonde, and he’d been smiling. Flirting, was more the way Helen saw it, but then she tried to catch herself. Dr. Sallee’s wisdoms never failed to haunt her. “Tom is a healthy, functional adult. He’s allowed to converse with other women, he’s allowed to be friends with other women. Your insecurity in this matter is just more proof of your spiraling paranoia, Helen.” Spiraling, she thought obtusely. Shit. Could she help it that she didn’t care to see her lover yacking enthusiastically with younger, more attractive women? Was that really paranoia?

Now her mood was ruined, at once. It happened that fast these days, it always did. Blank-faced uniforms passed this way and that; the main hall down from reception was a cacophony she’d long grown used to. She didn’t hear it any more. Shiny beige tile and drab white walls led her toward her own office.

Two cops swapped jokes from the Intelligence squad room right next door.

“Hey, what did Dahmer say when Tredell Rosser tried to take his broom?”

“What?”

“Over my dead body.”

“Hey, what did Jeffrey Dahmer say to Lorena Bobbit?”

“What?”

“Are you going to eat that?”

Helen’s ticking heels stopped. Her furor rose—she had to take it out on someone, didn’t she? She ducked her head in.

“Next man I hear telling Dahmer jokes gets transferred to Warehouse Division in the morning.”

Two shocked faces glanced up, blanched white when they saw who it was.

“Dahmer murdered seventeen people, he perpetuated a lot of tragedy,” Helen reminded them. “There’s nothing funny about it, is there?”

“No, ma’am,” one of the uniforms answered.

“Start acting like cops instead of high school punks,” Helen advised the both of them, then left.

The instant she sat down at her own desk in her own office, she mused, No more Dahmer. Please. I’ve had enough. Then she picked up a statewide telex laying in her IN box.

00210-OP

FLAG: FYI

001//112994

29 NOV 94, 1440 HRS.

DE: WISCONSIN BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

TO: WSP VIOLENT CRIMES UNIT

STATUS: FYI, ALL RELEVANT PERSONNEL

READ:

ON MONDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 94, AT 0811, WISCONSIN SERIAL KILLER JEFFREY DAHMER WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD BY THE MEDICAL UNIT AT COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION CENTER IN PORTAGE. C.O.D.: MASSIVE

FRONTAL CRANIAL CONTUSIONS. A SUSPECT, INMATE TREDELL ROSSER, SERVING A 90-PLUS-YEAR SENTENCE FOR 1ST DEGREE MURDER, IS BEING HELD AS THE PRIMARY SUSPECT. ROSSER IS SUSPECTED BY STATE PSYCHIATRIC AUTHORITIES OF MAINTAINING A GANSER SYNDROME WITH RELIGIOUS CONNOTATIONS.

ADVISE: N/A

00-33-00

Of course, she hadn’t seen it until now due to her working night shifts for the week. It had been sitting here the whole time. She recalled the image, though: Dahmer’s actual body on the tilt-lift autopsy platform, bruised facial tissue and a clotlike mask of dried blood. It was even more disgusting than the drained-pale face of her nightmare.

Helen threw the fax into the waste can. The last thing she needed right now was another reminder of Jeffrey Dahmer. It was, in fact, the last thing she’d ever need.

««—»»

“—mbus County correctional authorities, along with Sheriff Tritt J. Tuckton of the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department, aren’t entirely ruling out the possibility of a recently rumored multi-person conspiracy in regard to the brutal Monday morning murder of convicted serial-killer Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Helen stared flabbergasted at the radio as she parked the Taurus. Dahmer, Dahmer, Dahmer…

“Dahmer’s body is scheduled to be cremated on Thursday—”

click.

It just never ends, does it?

Helen let herself into Tom’s with the key he’d given her a year ago; they’d exchanged keys, “for convenience’s sake,” but Helen had to admit it was more for her own convenience. Lately she felt so tired. Her own apartment was in the Madison outskirts, closer to Monona, while Tom owned a nice condo in the south side just down from McGinnis Circle. A much closer drive, in other words, for Helen. And the way she felt just now, she couldn’t have driven to her own place in a million years.

Her frequent fatigue was just one of many of her self-formed jinxes—the fates reminding her she was getting old, and they seemed to remind her with a fury. To hell with the fates, she thought. To hell with getting old. The assertion, however, didn’t help her feel any better.

She expected, as always, to hear the familiar sounds of Tom’s computer video games squawking when she entered. Pseudopod, Doom II, Dark Seed, and his newest, Sniper Joe vs. the Alien Bikini Snatchers—he had them all. But the condo lay quiet now. She knew he was home because she’d seen his Bonneville in the lot; he typically got home off work before she did.

“Tom?”

No answer, yet she could see him standing there, within the open sliding door which led to the balcony. Cold air blundered into the apartment.

“Tom?”

“Oh, I’m out here. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Helen dropped her purse and briefcase, kept her Burberry coat on as she went to him. His tone of voice seemed undistinguished, leeched, somehow, of the verve she’d come to know quite well.

“Dr. Sallee called,” Tom went on, still gazing into the sky.

“Dr. Sal—…, oh, damn. I missed—”

“He said you missed your appointment this afternoon.”

She had indeed. “I completely forgot,” she admitted, but said no more. Helen always felt hard-pressed to down-play her weekly appointment with Sallee, who’d been counseling her now for several years. She felt inhibited to admit that she was seeing a psychiatrist. This Tom easily sensed, and rarely asked about it. Goddamn nightshifts, she blamed. The rare but damnable alternate shifts stole all the form from her week, and made it all the more difficult to keep her schedule set in her mind. It was no big deal at any rate. Since Sallee had taken her off Prozac in favor of hormonal therapy, she honestly did feel better more of the time now. But…

What was wrong with Tom? Here on the balcony he seemed to wear a caul of sullenness, which was completely unlike him.

“Is something wrong, Tom?”

“No, no,” he nearly stammered. “I’m just…looking at the sky, thinking.”

The black sky seemed to shine, winking in a cloudless sea of stars. An egg moon hovered low on the horizon. “Thinking about what?” she asked, and put her arms around him.

“Dahmer,” he said.

Helen’s wince strained against her face. “Why bother thinking about that schmuck?”

Tom didn’t turn but instead remained rigid where he stood. “I don’t know. It’s just…weird.”

“What’s weird, honey?”

Silence. Staring. The stars flickered. “Even the gods have a sense of irony, don’t they? It’s weird, what I did today, I mean. I mean, that guy cut up over a dozen people, and today I cut him up. Christ, I weighed the guy’s liver; it weighed 1501 grams. I cultured some of his brain cells and sent them to NIH. I held his heart in my hand. It just seems so weird.”

“You mean because it was Dahmer.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s it.”

Even Tom, she supposed, a happy go luck and a morgue jokester, had his doldrums. But Helen could fathom where he was coming from. In this job victims were statistics—-they could never be anything else. But when they had names? When they had faces you’d seen in the papers? It changed the whole mix.

Helen tightened her embrace.

“Come inside.”

“Yeah, good idea. It’s cold.”

“Let me warm you up.”

««—»»

God… Oh, shit…

Tom made love to her in a keen ferocity, or at least that’s how it began. Generally, their lovemaking was on the lazy side, low-key and laid back, which was what Helen liked. Slow, slothy stress-relief after a long day.

But tonight…

No trimmings, no precursory glass of wine nor touchy foreplay and cuddles. Helen herself had to admit an odd spark. Perhaps it was diversionary. Perhaps seeing the body of a serial killer lying on a morgue slab posted some crude, inner-conscious primacy. At first she felt put off, even shocked, at the immediacy by which Tom commenced: tugging at her clothes as they stumbled out of the living room, one hand venturing unabashed up the back of her skirt to molest her buttocks, the other pawing her breasts. They never even made it to the bedroom. The floor would have to do. Tom, Jesus! she thought as he hauled her down. Pinning her down with his weight, he unbuttoned her blouse, nearly popping off the buttons. Then he quickly shucked her breasts out of the 38C brassiere, kneading them quite urgently. All the while, in spite of her initial silent objections, Helen felt her sexual fuse ignite. Soon, she was perspiring, breathing hard. Her heart thudded for more, and then he gave her more, pushing up her dress. He pushed her legs up, pulled off her shoes and sent them clunking back into the living room. Rough fingers tickled her belly, plucked at the delicate elastic band, then peeled off her pantyhose. Speechless, Helen watched the hose sail away into surreal darkness like some gossamer bird. “Slow down, slow down,” she whispered, but Tom didn’t hear her, nor, by then, did she even want him to. Her panties, then, were hauled down and left to dangle off an ankle. God… Oh, shit… Suddenly she felt like a woman in a pornographic film, half-stripped and hauled down to be spread open and humped. The fantasy titillated her. Coarse breath resounded in the dim light. A belt buckle clinked, a zipper rasped. Then her knees were pushed back nearly into her face. She didn’t have time to touch his penis or even see it; she was simply folded in half and entered. The minor discomfort of the position, and the floor beneath her, retreated after only the first few thrusts. He’s so hard, she thought. Then the thrusts stepped up, deepened. Helen’s breath expelled through pressed lips, her eyes seeing only through slits now: Tom’s pent-up, determined face, his still shirted chest hovering over her.

He moaned once, then uttered, “God, I love you, Helen…” but the sensation of being so deliciously skewered forestalled any reciprocal reply. Her breasts, large to begin with, felt twice their normal size, filling up with tingling heat. Her sex flooded onto the floor. “Harder,” she caught herself imploring, “Do it harder.”

Tom obliged.

Sweat dripped off his face onto her bosom. No, this wasn’t lovemaking… He’s fucking my brains out! came the crudest thought, and again she considered her earlier surmise. Sometimes the pressure of their jobs—which could often be grim at the very least—built up like steam in a cooker. Now, it was being released. Their intercourse chased away the images: Dahmer’s bruise-swollen face, the crustlike mask of blood, the stiff body, as well as every other ghastly thing she’d ever seen. Only now did she fully realize that this was what she needed. It was what they both needed.

His hips pummeled her. His erection felt larger than she ever noted, and it was kindling her right now to the point of something close to mania. Helen had never been particularly orgasmic—once in a blue moon was about all—but that never bothered her. In the best of moods, the feeling was enough, along with knowing that her body could give Tom pleasure. Now, though, an abrupt climax seized her. It felt like something belting out of her. She moaned so loudly she feared the neighbors would hear. The pleasure bloated her face, knocked more breath out of her. Christ Almighty—

Then another climax tremored and burst.

And then…

“Oh, honey,” she murmured. Her hands ran up and down his sides, feeling flexing muscles through his shirt. The intent thrusts, however, began to slow, while the look on his face crumbled. What…happened? She knew he hadn’t climaxed yet—she would’ve felt it. Then that undeniable male fullness seemed to abate, shrinking right in the midst of her feminine flesh.

“Honey, what—”

“Aw, damn it,” he spat. He looked flustered, even pained. His penis seemed to retract like something being expeditiously reeled in. Don’t stop! she wanted to shriek. But next he was mumbling, getting off of her.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Tom, what’s wr—”

“It’s not you. Christ. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.” Then he was getting up, shuffling to the bedroom.

Helen was waylaid. She lay there, like an astonished idiot herself, with her skirt jacked up and her panties still hanging off one foot. Her emotions clacked together like the steel balls on a desk curio. Confusion, embarrassment, then hostility. Just get up and leave me lying here on the floor, you asshole. She felt infuriated and used, until she counted to ten as Dr. Sallee had taught her, and thought about it. In actuality, how could she feel used? It was an illegitimate response. I came like a freight train, she reminded herself. Twice. Yet he hadn’t come at all. If anything, I used him… “You think too much of yourself,” Dr. Sallee had told her at a long-past session shortly after her divorce. “We all do. But keep in mind that a relationship involves a drastic set of human dynamics. It involves two people, not one. Anger, hostility, rage? These are useless emotions, and selfish ones when you let them come into you without sufficient reflection. Think about the other person too.”

The other person.

Tom.

She sat up, sluggishly pulled her panties back on. Christ, he lost his erection. Think how embarrassed he must feel.

Dr. Sallee was right. Consider other people’s feelings for a change. Tom had problems too, Tom was subject to the same kind of stress as Helen, yet how often did he go out of his way to coddle her own plethora of bad moods and bitchy outbursts? Too many times, she realized. And after what he’d had to do today? Autopsying Jeffrey Dahmer?

Who in their right mind wouldn’t be bent out of shape over something like that?

She buttoned herself back up, then went the bedroom. Tom was lying on top of the covers, eyes closed, a hand on his forehead. He sensed her entrance.

“Sorry,” he repeated. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she nonchalantly replied.

“I mean, that’s never happened to me before.”

Helen sat down next to him, stroked his chest. “Tom, it’s just something that happens sometimes. No big deal.” How else could she console him? “You don’t have to be a stud every night,” she joked.

“Some stud,” he sputtered. “Somebody get me some Geritol.”

“Stop it, will you?” She leaned over and gave him a peck. “You make me feel guilty.”

“Guilty?” One eye opened. “Why?”

“You made me come twice,” she said slyly.

“Oh, yeah?” That seemed to perk him up. “Well, at least I did something right tonight.”

She kissed him once more and left. It was easy to tell when men wanted to be left alone, and this was definitely one of those times. He’ll be back to his usual jokester self soon enough, she felt sure.

What to do now? She moped around the kitchen, then realized she wasn’t hungry. And it was too early to go to bed. In the den she contemplated turning on Tom’s computer and trying one of his CD-ROM games, but discarded the idea. At work, she putzed around with computers all day, and hated the blasted things. Why putz with them now? Instead, she idly picked up that day’s edition of the Madison daily, the Tribune, then groaned when she caught an article on the front page: DAHMER’S DEATH SAVES STATE TAXPAYERS $1,000,000.

Taxpayers may wish to thank Tredell W. Rosser, the alleged murderer of Jeffrey Dahmer, for reducing the fiscal corrections deficit by $1,000,000. “That’s how much money the state of Wisconsin would have to fork over to keep America’s most notorious mass murderer alive in order to reach the age of 74, the statistical average lifespan of state convicts sentenced to life imprisonment,” said Dr. William Beierschmitt, a University of Maryland sociology professor. “The ticket comes to about 26.5 grand per year—”

Then— Oh for crying out loud! Helen thought.

Yet another front pager read: PRISON OFFICIALS DESPERATE TO THWART DAHMER “CONSPIRACY” THEORY.

PORTAGE— Bizarre rumors leaking out of the Columbus County Detention Center continue to proliferate as prison director James Dipetro and his staff struggle to quell them. Multiple sources, who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, have told the Tribune that the November 28 bludgeoning murder of Jeffrey Dahmer may have been the work of more than one man, and not just other inmates. So far only a lone inmate, Tredell W. Rosser, convicted of murder in 1990, is being regarded as the assailant, but our sources claim that even detention officers may have taken part in deliberately arranging Dahmer’s janitorial detail in the prison’s gymnasium lavatory, and that they were paid to do so by Milwaukee drug lords who had put a “contract” out on Dahmer’s life. “Merely vicious rumors perpetuated by disgruntled employees,” stated Dipetro. “Rosser has already confessed.” Sheriff Tritt Tuckton of the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department, however, isn’t as convinced. “Sure, Rosser confessed to murdering Dahmer, but he also confessed to the Linberg Kidnapping and the assassination of Pope Felix VI. How much credibility are you going to give a man like that? He’s crazy.” “The only one crazy in this mess is Tuckton,” countered Dipetro. “He’s just a small-time county bumpkin who wants to be in the lime light, so that’s why he’s ordering this ridiculous investigation—”

Helen skipped the rest. Even the legitimate papers, these days, were sounding like the tabloids. Anonymous “sources.” Conspiracies. Contracts.

Ludicrous, she thought.

Out of desperation, then, she turned on Tom’s Trinitron with the remote, then went back to the kitchen. A drink would be nice now, but Tom rarely kept any liquor in the condo. She settled, instead, for a beer—IC Light, whatever that was—and then went back to the den. A dark, monotone shape warbled out of the color-tinged darkness, fluttering shadows on the wall. Helen turned, began to sit down on the couch, then winced when she saw what was on the screen. You gotta be kidding me! It was Dahmer.

One of those tabloid shows. A stiff-haired brunet announcer with too much lipstick tried to appear professional as she recited, “…during P.M. Edition’s landmark interview with this crazed, cannibalistic killer last July.” Dahmer hardly looked crazed or cannibalistic. His drab face—thinner than more recent photos—barely moved as he responded to an interview question.

“…which is why I asked the warden for general pop,” he said in slate-green correctional coveralls.

“General pop?”

“The general inmate population,” Dahmer defined. “It’s too lonely in the segregation wings.”

“But, Jeff,” the interviewess said with a phony concerned look, leaning over as though she really cared. All any of them really cared about were their paychecks and being seen on tv. “Aren’t you afraid that other inmates will try to do you harm?”

“I hope they will,” Dahmer said on the badly produced video. “I deserve to die for my sins. It’s a sin for someone like me to go on living.”

“You actually feel that way?”

“Thinking back on what I did,” Dahmer reflected, “is sometimes too much to bear. I feel strongly that I’d be better off dead.”

“You’re going to be here for the rest of your life, Jeff. Is there any comfort at all? Anything you can still enjoy or feel fulfilled by?”

“The Bible,” replied the killer.

“I understand you were recently baptized.”

Dahmer nodded dully. “Yes, on May 10th, in the prison whirlpool by my friend Father Alexander.”

“I also understand you’re a lay reader now in the prison chapel.”

“Yes, I read the Word of God every morning. I consider it a privilege that God allows me to do this.”

“Do you have a favorite reading, Jeff?”

“Yes, I do. It’s from Revelations. ‘Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. During that time, these men will seek death, but they will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.’“ Dahmer’s face remained chillingly expressionless. “‘Yes, I am coming soon, and bringing recompense with me, to requite everyone according to his deeds.’“

Dahmer’s deadpan voice flattened further, to an utterance barely human.

“And this one too, my favorite of all,” he said. “It’s from The Book of Isaiah. ‘Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven… Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell, deep into the pit.’”

Helen took a sip of beer, shook her head, and switched channels.

— | — | —

CHAPTER FOUR

He steps out of the shower, pauses. He stands and listens. The silence seems loud as a cacophony. It reminds him of something—

The silence.

—that he hates.

The silence drips. He listens and thinks back—

««—»»

The boy from Bath, Ohio, is hiding. He hides a lot.

It’s a nice house, in a nice neighborhood. His mother is always nice but he doesn’t see her much since the divorce.

There are dead animals in the yard. Little pieces of them, all in the little places he has buried them.

For some reason, the little animals help him feel something he’s never felt before:

Power.

Stray kittens and small stray dogs mostly, and sometimes he’d read ads in the back of the paper. There’s a section for PETS, people who are moving so they have pets to give away. Gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters. The boy picks them up, promises to take good care of the animals, and then he kills them. But he likes the dogs and cats the best, because he can see their eyes better.

It’s the look in their eyes just before they die, the tiniest glimmer: fear.

They fear him, and their fear gives him power.

But right now he is hiding because he knows his father has just gotten home.

And the boy from Bath, Ohio, knows that he will have the same look of fear in his eyes—just like the animals—when his father eventually comes into the room.

It is the boy’s fear that gives his father power.

So the boy remains, hiding behind his bed, and listening to the awful silence until he hears—

click

—the door click open.

“I’m back,” his father says.

««—»»

—and listens and thinks back and listens.

Enough, he thinks.

Weakling.

He fears the past, and he knows that his own fear makes him weak. Like—what was his name, back in eighth grade? Gil Valeda, the jock. “No way. You’re a weakling—”

And his father: “Don’t be such a weakling! Be a man!”

No, it can only be the fear of others.

The fear in their eyes.

The power it gives him.

Sometimes he even tells them what he’s going to do to them. It makes their eyes beautiful with fear…

He cranks off the shower’s annoying drip, dries off, then walks out into the quiet room. He dresses slowly, glancing around at the small room’s insignificance. A cheap lamp and a cheap dresser. A Magic Finger’s Massage box on the head board. But the word resurrection comes to mind when he spies the Gideon’s Bible on the writing table.

She took the fruit thereof and did eat it, he thinks.

He puts the hot plate in his leather bag, a few utensils, his Flair pen and one of his knives.

Thick, musty curtains part at the brush of his hand. Beyond the high window, the city teems in flecks of light and winter dark. Feel the fear, comes the plush, rich thought. It’s as though he is speaking to the world beyond the smudged window glass.

He pauses only for a moment to glance at the blood-sodden bed. Then he leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

“I’m back,” he says aloud.

— | — | —

CHAPTER FIVE

There was a roaring fire, and Helen struggled maniacally with the water hose. She had to put the fire out. But when she turned on the hose, nothing happened. No water issued forth. The fire raged. Next thing she knew, she was running.

Helen fled frantic down some nameless, stygian corridor. Someone—or some proverbial thing—was chasing her. Down one passage after another, she ran, breathless, steeped in terror. It’s the dream, she thought. It’s just the dream. But this knowledge did not allay her at all. Another, darker voice seemed to gutter: What if you’re wrong? What if this isn’t a dream? Pocked stone passed on either side; medieval torches sputtered oily yellow light.

What if this is real?

In another moment, she realized she was naked. A Freudian rape dream, perhaps. Symbolic birth-trauma or some such. Or perhaps the dream was a symbol of her impending menopause: the robust fruit of womanhood withering away to a grayed husk, her sexual self trapped in a labyrinth of cold stone walls and dead ends. There was no way out.

Laved in sweat, her bare breasts heaving, Helen turned at the final dead end. The shadow of her pursuer seemed to flow forward through the dungeon dark. A familiar figure indeed. Naked as she was but bereft of human feature.

The pallid face, eroded, bleached of any definition. The lidless, empty eyes and the soulless stare.

Its white-clay hands reached forward, to pluck at her raw breasts and pad stickily at her face. Eventually, a chalk-white finger poked into her mouth. She tried to scream, couldn’t, then bit down. The finger came off behind her teeth and began to wriggle on her tongue.

The dust-pale shadow chuckled…

It wasn’t the non-stop horror of the dream that woke her up. It was, of all things, a steady beeping sound. The dream-world and the real world merged then, like lovers hesitant to kiss until one tongue-tip touched the other. Helen’s eyes sprang open, and she jerked bolt upright like a b-movie cliche. A quick jostling to her left startled her nearly to the point of shrieking out loud. The beeping persisted as yet another shadow moved off. But, no, it wasn’t the putty-white specter of the dream. It was Tom.

The beeping pulsed on, then, in another instant, abated.

A beeper, Helen thought. Was it hers? She turned, winced in sweat damp sheets, then groggily checked her Motorola pager. No messages. Tom, she realized then. Of course. It was Tom’s hospital pager that went off.

Helen lay back, sighed. She tried to push the now actively recurrent nightmare from her head. At least, Tom’s pager had wakened her. If it hadn’t, she’d still be dreaming.

Her surroundings, at first, eluded her. Whaaaa… Most nights she slept at Tom’s; hence, she didn’t recognize her own bedroom now. Of course—he’d come to her apartment last night after work. She thought back, tried to remember more.

Tom hadn’t made love to her last night, had he? No, she felt certain. It had been the night before, at his place, when he’d made love to her on the floor and then faltered. Last night, he’d merely crawled into bed, kissed her, and rolled over. Even some rather forward—and uncharacteristic—inducements via her hands and mouth hadn’t roused his interest. “Aw, honey, I’m just not into it tonight, okay?” he said with his back to her. “Tough day, you know? Christ, I had to histologize three brains today, and ship a pineal gland to Berkeley.”

The latter comment had nipped her own interest. She’d shrugged and gone to sleep. So why, now, did she still feel this revenant of sexual arousal? Her fingers touched herself, for proof. They came away wet. Jeeze, she thought.

The dream?

But how could that be? There was certainly nothing erotic about her recurrent nightmare.

I’ll have to ask Dr. Sallee, she supposed, though she hated to think what his answer might be.

“Sure.” A muffled whisper. “Yeah.”

Tom’s voice. He’d gone to the kitchen to answer his page. But—

“Yeah? Maybe I ought to come over there right now and do the job right.”

Helen’s face turned rigid. The old demon returned—it never failed. The demon of jealousy and suspect. A mindless imp of caressing irrationality and jumping to conclusions. It was her “anomaly,” Dr. Sallee had told her. Acting before she would let herself think. Making judgments before surveying the facts. But in such times, her sense of reason stayed in bed.

“I’ll light you up real good,” she heard.

She pulled on her robe and walked very quietly into the front of the kitchen. Tom’s pager lay there, and she didn’t hesitate to pick it up. The message screen read 224-9855. Tom hung up and turned.

“Helen. You’re up,” he said.

Don’t let him lie to you, her not so better half ordered. He’ll probably say it was work calling. Don’t let him lie to you. Don’t let another man make a sucker out of you, goddamn it!

“Who was that?” she asked.

“It was work,” he said nonchalantly, and walked in his shorts to the Mr. Coffee.

“Bullshit.”

Tom turned, frowning. “What?”

“It wasn’t work calling, Tom. Who was it?”

Tom’s eyes rolled in their sockets. “Aw, come on, Helen. Give it a rest, huh? I just got up.”

“You’re lying to me. Who was it?”

Tom leaned against the wall, arms crossed in exasperation. “It was Joycelyn.”

Helen gaped. “Who?”

“Joycelyn, the new pathology intern. She just got a shipment of formalin concentrate at the morgue and she didn’t know if it needed to be refrigerated or not. So she paged me for instructions.”

“‘I’ll light you up real good’?” Helen quoted. “I heard what you said, Tom. You weren’t talking about any goddamn formalin.”

Tom’s expression drooped. “Helen, you were tossing and turning all night, you were having nightmares. Whatever is was you think you heard me say, it wasn’t real. It was from the dream.”

“Bullshit,” she repeated. “You’re sleeping with someone else.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Helen, please don’t start this crap again—”

Helen’s hand raised, as if to emphasize an immediate point. “So you’re trying to tell me it was the hospital that paged you just now?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit,” she said yet again. It was becoming an important word in her index of lexicon. “The hospital prefix is 266, the prefix on your pager is 224.”

The span of time with which Tom paused at this statement was impossible to calculate. But any pause, even a fraction of a second, was all this aspect of Helen Closs’ psyche needed to be convinced.

“Just get out,” she said

“Helen, it was the annex—”

“Bullshit, bullshit!”

“—where the supply contractor drops off their deliveries!”

Her face, in an instant, turned red. “Get out of my apartment! You’re a lying son of a bitch!”

Tom brushed by her, snatched up his pager, and went to the bedroom. Snippets of self-muttering could be heard: “—you’re absolutely ridiculous—” “—can’t hack this anymore—” “—don’t need the headache—”

Helen tremored from her stance in the kitchen. “If I give you a headache, then take a goddamn aspirin and get the hell out!”

“Don’t worry, I’m going,” his voice griped back from the bedroom.

“No wonder you never want to fuck me!” she bellowed. “You’re too busy fucking some other woman!”

The apartment door slammed so hard the walls shook.

Helen remained where she stood for a full ten minutes. The more she tried to let herself cool down, the hotter she felt. Like meat on a turning spit. Like a sucker goose cooking. Paralyzed—that’s how she felt. Her fists clenched and her teeth grinding. Her temples throbbing till she thought her head might burst.

««—»»

“I— I need to talk.”

“All right.” Dr. Sallee’s voice sounded taut and nasally over the phone. Helen could never put the man’s face to that voice. “You missed your appointment, by the way. Did you get my message?”

“Yes, I did. I’m—I’m sorry I missed it. I was working nighters and when I work nighters I sometimes lose track of—”

“Fine, I understand. But what seems to be the problem now, Helen?”

Tom, the name surfaced. An obtuse thought, strangely alien and surreal. The name sounded the same way something odd and unfamiliar might taste on her tongue.

“Is it Tom?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “I think he’s cheating on me.”

“Helen, you’ve always suspected that every man you’ve ever been involved with has been cheating on you. It’s becoming a paranoic compulsion.”

I know. But this is different. It was always different, though, wasn’t it?

“I caught him this time. Well, I mean, I think I did. The phone number on the pager, the city prefix, the—”

“Helen, I’m not following you, you’re talking too fast. I’m with a patient right now, but I want you to come and see me tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes, yes,” she blurted.

“The usual time, okay?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t forget.”

“I— I won’t.”

She hung up. She felt absurd, standing there with tears dried on her cheeks, her head pounding. I’m out of control, she suspected.

She dialed the info number at the hospital, a 266 prefix. “My name is Helen Closs, I’m a Captain with the Wisconsin State Police.”

“Yes, ma’am? How can I help you?”

“Are there any 224 phone prefixes for the hospital?”

The question seemed to take the receptionist aback. “No ma’am. All hospital prefixes are 266.”

“Including the annex?”

“The…what?”

“The annex,” Helen repeated. Her temples throbbed.

Time ticked as the question was weighed. “I’m sorry, Captain Closs. There’s no annex on my directory index.”

Helen hung up again. All she could see in her mind were the most lewd images: Tom with another woman, Tom making love to another woman…

««—»»

Work was her only salvation, the only thing to turn her mind away from her calamities, or so she thought. She walked into HQ in a daze, a shroud of fuzz draped about her head. It was probably a mistake coming here—she hadn’t had a real case in weeks. She wasn’t even scheduled to work today. But she needed…something…to put her in a safer mode.

She prowled the lower level, passed Fleet Maintenance, the property vault, Requisitions. Halfway down the main hall toward the locker rooms, she heard:

“Yeah, man, fucking two-pack shaker.”

“No, no, man, it’s Tu Pac Shah-kur.”

Excitedly: “And they shot the son of a bitch five times, and he didn’t die!”

The name, in a moment, rang a bell to Helen. Some famous rap star had been shot by muggers in New York a few nights ago. It was the first bit of news that seemed to ebb the Dahmer tide in the press. Helen only half-listened as two unseen cops continued their rant.

“The piece of shit. Shoots those two off-duty cops in Atlanta, and got charges dropped, for Christ’s sake. Goddamn judges. Bet the judge was black.”

“You can count on that. What kinda muggers they got in New York anyway? Shoot a guy five times and he walks out of the hospital the next day.”

“Yeah, but I read one of the bullets hit his cock.”

“Good. It’s too bad they didn’t kill that bald-headed, ball-cap-wearin’, white-woman-rapin’, cop-shootin’ piece of shit street nig—”

Helen snapped, stuck her head in the locker room where these two cops were trading their banter. She remembered the two cops the other day, telling Dahmer jokes, but this was worse. It was all she needed to forget about Tom. Anything would do, and here it was. “Hey,” she said, “keep talking if you want to spend the rest of your career working the motor pool.” Helen glowered. “What were you going to say, Officer. Nigger? Is that the word you were going to use?”

“Who the hell are you?” the first cop didn’t balk. He was fat, bending over to tie his black shoes.

But already his partner was paling. “Vince, shut up. She’s a fucking VCU captain—er, pardon my language, ma’am.”

“You’re right, Sergeant, I’m a fucking VCU captain, and I get really pissed when I hear cops acting like moron racists and making us all look like a bunch of fucking police-state supremacist assholes. I want a written apology on my desk tomorrow morning, from both of you. Otherwise you’re both out of here faster than shit through a city pigeon, and go ahead and see how far you get fighting it. And see what kind of duty assignments you get when I make deputy chief next year. I’ll have your asses staking out the public latrines in Brook Park from now until the day you retire.”

Silence fell like a guillotine. Helen walked out. She didn’t know Tu Pac Shaker from a six-pack of Bud, and she didn’t care. Racial slurs out of the mouths of cops were a pet peeve, and stepping on said cops’ tails gave her a distant satisfaction.

Back up on the first floor, she meandered past reception and the DC wing. I’ll have an office here someday, she recited to herself. It went without saying that she’d make deputy chief within a year or two. But the realization, now, left her unimpressed. I don’t care anymore, came the next realization.

“Hi, Helen.”

She turned the corner into the automat, spotted Olsher’s bulk form retrieving a cup of coffee from the Macke machine.

“Good morning,” she dryly replied.

“Say, aren’t you off today?”

Helen sighed. “Yeah. But I got some paperwork to do so I figured I come in.”

“That’s what I call dedication,” Olsher joked. “You couldn’t get me in here on a day off if you had a riot gun to my head. Say, how’s Tom?”

The cursory question nicked her like a scalpel. What could she say? Tom? Oh, he’s just fine. This morning I caught him on the phone with his girlfriend. Instead, she lied. “He’s fine.”

“Tell him I said hi, will ya?”

“Sure.”

Olsher paused, wincing as he sipped the gruel that passed for coffee here. “Say, you feeling any vibes today?”

Vibes. Police jargon. The odd notion that something bad was going to break. But something bad already had broken today, hadn’t it? “No,” she said nebulously, “not really.”

Olsher’s face twitched momentarily. “I don’t know, I just got a funny feeling. We haven’t even had a shooting for two weeks. I don’t like it.”

“Maybe it’s just that the world’s getting better.”

Olsher blurted a laugh. “You think so?”

“Not for a second.”

“Thank God. You were starting to sound like an optimist.”

“There’s no such thing in a police department, is there?”

“That’s my girl,” Olsher laughed. “Later.”

Olsher left. Helen got herself a cup of coffee, took one sip, then dropped it in the wastecan. Someone had left a copy of that morning’s Tribune on the microwave table. DAHMER’S BODY TO BE CREMATED THIS WEEK, a headline read. LEGAL DISPUTE OVER ASHES. Helen plunked the paper into the wastecan too, right after the coffee.

Back in her office, her desk lay clean. There was no paperwork. Boredom and stifled rage made her feel like a fat sandbag plopped in the chair. What am I doing here? she wondered. Get a life, Helen. You catch your asshole boyfriend cheating on you, and you act like it’s the end of the world. She dreaded going to Dr. Sallee’s tomorrow; she already knew what he would say. He’ll make me feel like a fool, which is probably what I am…

The office became a compressed pit in minutes. Printer clatter, ringing phones, and voices from the main hall sounded a world away. Why had she come to work today? To distract herself? That’s what she’d originally thought, but it was folly and she knew it. It didn’t matter where she fled to—her office, her apartment, the zoo—her blow-up with Tom would cook in her head like stew wherever she went.

Vibes, she thought next. Olsher was right; cops got fidgety when too many days passed without incident. But Helen didn’t believe in vibes, she only acknowledged why one might.

Then the phone rang.

“Captain Closs?”

“Yes?”

“This is Central Commo. Thank God you’re in your office. We’ve been paging you for an hour.”

“I—” Helen faltered, reached into her purse. Her pager wasn’t there. Goddamn it! “I—I’m sorry,” she bumbled. “I forgot to bring it.”

The female dispatcher made no comment. A captain forgetting her pager could be likened to a beat cop forgetting his service revolver.

All at once, though, Helen felt the invisible hairs all over her body suddenly rise, and she remembered again what Olsher had said in the automat.

Vibes.

“Captain Closs, we have a positive Signal 64…”

««—»»

The bright sunlight and clean, brisk air didn’t mesh with murder sites. Nor did Christmas decor. Streetlights, store signs, shop windows were all emblazoned with tinsel, ornaments, and spray-can frost. Helen drove the Taurus through the last trickle of rush hour, to P Street Circle. Central Commo had directed her to a side-street motel called The White Horse Inn. A call to P Street and vicinity was rare; the gay section of town had always existed close to crime-free—hence, Helen knew nothing about it because she never needed to come here.

The odd off-blue van was the first thing to greet her when she pulled up. STATE POLICE TECHNICAL SERVICES DIVISION. Beck’s here. She always beats me to the scene. An additional crime truck from the city sat parked, its crew smirking within. Obviously Beck had ordered them off once she’d assessed the 64. Two Metro cop cars closed off the north end of the street, uniforms rerouting traffic. Those guys should be securing the scene, Helen simmered. She couldn’t help but notice state cops, not Metro, cordoning off the motel entrance. Beck better have a good excuse, Helen avowed. State authorities could only order off local law enforcement if there was clear evidence of a Violent Crimes Inquest, and Beck had a tendency to over-interpret the criteria. I’m going to kick her butt if this doesn’t wash. But then she retraced the thought, as Dr. Sallee had taught her. Why are you feeling hostile toward Beck? Answer: Because Beck and Tom are friends, and because of that, you think you’re going to go in there and take it out on her. She counted to ten, took several deep breaths, then let the hostility go. It’s not Beck’s fault that Tom’s cheating on me.

Refurbished rowhouses lay inset along the street like an arrangement of tight gravestones. Helen ID’d herself to a stone-faced state uniform guarding the entry. WHITE HORSE INN a wooden scroll sign read. Then: VACANCY. You can say that again, Helen thought. She stalked up quiet, carpeted stairs. From outside, the place looked like a typical city fleabag motel, but inside she found nice decor, a quaint, Colonial feel. A lot of antiques, dark paneling, ornately framed portraits of Madison County governors from the 1800s. Another uniform let her into the unit.

The room was cozy, uncluttered. A suite, with a sitting room. Flashes popped beyond the connecting entry. A tech was fuming doorknobs, squinting over a Sirchie portable UV. He said nothing as Helen proceeded into the bedroom.

“Hello, Captain.”

“Jan.” Helen hitched at a momentary shiver. Beck stood as if in wait, dressed in her typical red utilities, acetate gloves, and elastic booties. She was even wearing a hairnet, as were the other techs in the room.

“You’re not going to make me suit up, are you?”

“No, not necessary. We’re pretty much finished in here.”

In here. Helen felt it at once—the room had “the feel.” Any bad 64 had it, the mystic backwash of atmosphere projected into the investigator’s perceptions. Its tightness rose in Helen’s gut; she felt more static on her skin, even beneath the heavy Burberry coat. Yes, she knew even before she saw it. The feel was all over the place.

“White male, 28,”” Beck announced. “Stewart Arlinger.”

“He had his ID on him?” Helen asked.

“Yep, and he signed in at the front desk.”

Helen paused for a quick scan. Another tech in red overalls was shooting the bedroom with a modified Nikon F. The flash snapped like lightning and left ghosts in Helen’s eyes. New blood swam in the air, and a strange kitchen-like redolence. Death in here, the feel itched in Helen’s head. Come on in, take a look around.

Helen stepped fully into the room, looked down and blinked. “Aw, Christ,” she croaked.

She felt nailed to the wall. The blood shouted at her, bellowed into her face. It was everywhere. Helen blinked fiercely with each pop off the tech’s flash, and the image seemed to lurch closer. This was more than murder, it was a fete. She needed only to see it for a moment—the sprawled, naked body on the bed—to know that the crime warranted a VCU hold. She dare not even look directly at the corpse—the corners of her vision were more than sufficient. Another blink, then, and another image: a long, ugly groove across the abdomen. Things glimmered in the groove. Chunks seemed to have been scalloped out of one arm…

Helen swallowed hard. “Any prints?”

“Plenty, for all the good they’ll do.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a gay motel. There are two different guys in this room every night. We’ve got some hair and fiber on the contact perimeter, though. But no prints in the blood.”

Great, Helen complained.

“We’ll know more once we get him into the shop.”

“What about…semen?”

“Don’t know yet, Captain. There was no robbery motive, though, I can tell you that.”

“Wallet left? Money?”

Yep. Couple hundred in cash, credit cards, some butyl nitrate caps, plus a nice watch.”

“What time did he check in?”

“Three-fifteen or so, according to the log. And at least you’ll have some things to run down. The desk clerk knew the guy, didn’t see the perp come in with him, but he did tell us that Arlinger worked bar at a tavern called P Street Station, just down from the Circle.”

Helen nodded. Legwork was how most homicides were solved, and there’d be plenty of legwork here. She struggled to keep her eyes averted as more preliminary questions ticked. “The clerk saw Arlinger come in but not the perp. So they didn’t come in together. Why?”

“Maybe the meeting was prearranged and Arlinger got here first.”

“Okay. But then how did the perp get in without the clerk seeing him?”

Beck’s shoulder rose as if the question were of little importance. “Side door maybe. Maybe he waited till the clerk got up to go to the bathroom. Could be any number of ways. I would imagine gays are just like straights when it comes to motel romance. The perp probably asked Arlinger to let him in through the back door at a certain time, didn’t want the clerk to see him because maybe he knew the clerk, or knew that the clerk knew friends of his, a steady lover perhaps.”

Helen nodded again. She felt dizzy and sick. In her mind all she could imagine was what went on in here last night. Red hands reaching out, cutting.

“The victims isn’t bound, isn’t gagged.”

“Bindings and a gag could’ve been removed after the fact, but I see what you’re driving at, Captain,” Beck acknowledged. The woman seemed antsy, though, where as she generally walked through these things cool as a cucumber. “How is it that Arlinger just lay there while the perp was cutting on him? How come nobody heard any screams?”

“Right. What do you think?”

“I can’t hazard a guess until I get him into the shop, like I said. If Arlinger had been previously bound and gagged, I’ll be able to discern all that with microscopic examination of the ankles and wrists, the lipline, the cheeks.”

Helen found herself not only averting her eyes but breathing as shallowly as possible, as if to reduce her intake of the overall fetors of murder. “All right, Jan. I’ll write this up for a VCU request. Get back to me once you’ve done the workup.”

“Don’t go yet,” Beck stopped her. “You haven’t seen the kicker.” It was now that the chief evidence technician’s hyperactivity explained itself. It was some kind of morbid, professional excitement. There was still something she wanted Helen to see, and she’d been saving it.

“The kicker?”

“Over here. And you’ll have to put these on before you pick it up.”

Beck handed Helen a pair of Shur-Touch latex gloves. They snapped annoyingly as Helen pulled them on. “Pick what up?”

“The note.”

Helen felt stifled, even excited herself. The killer left a note?

“Here. Be careful with it. I’m sure there aren’t any prints on it, but I’ll have to check anyway,” Beck instructed. Now she was holding a 9x12 clear plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag, Helen could plainly see a sheet of white paper with blue writing on it. “Hold it by the corner of the bag, don’t touch the body of the letter itself. You could smear a latent striation.”

Helen did as instructed, piqued. A remnant of the killer left for her to hold, to look at. Communication from another world…

She awkwardly held the letter to the light. A standard 8- 1/2x11 sheet of plain white paper. Blue words tacked lines across the note, handwritten.

Helen’s eyes felt prized open.

To Whom It May Concern:

Behold my resurrection. In my baptism, I am reborn.

Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the Stars… Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell, deep into the pit.

And one more thing.

I’m back.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Dahmer

— | — | —

CHAPTER SIX

“You’ve gotta be shitting me!”

Olsher’s face looked like a straining, pulsing dark fruit. Helen stood. The years had mellowed Larrel Olsher; Helen knew him to be far more laid back now, easy-going and insouciant, lower-strung pending his well-deserved retirement. Now, though, she feared she was watching her boss about to have a coronary.

whack!

Olsher slapped the newspaper. It was the evening edition of the Tribune, an early copy sent by courier.

“Larrel, what’re you yelling about?”

“This!”

Helen read the headline.

CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT DAHMER MAY HAVE ESCAPED.

Madison— Evidence procured by the Wisconsin State Police Violent Crimes Unit suggests that Jeffrey Dahmer, reported murdered by another inmate in prison over a week ago, may indeed still be alive. And on the loose. One Stewart K. Arlinger, a P Street bartender, was found murdered—mutilated—in a nearby motel. A hand-written note left by the killer was signed: Jeffrey Dahmer.

“This is garbage, Chief,” Helen assured. “I was at the scene. There are no verifiable fingerprints. It’s a copycat.”

“I know that, but what about them?” He tapped the newspaper in her hand. “Read more.”

The note is currently being analyzed by state police handwriting experts, to discern if it indeed was written by the infamous Dahmer.

“Chief, what are you getting all bent out of shape about? I’m telling you, it’s a copycat. There’s nothing in this perp’s m.o. that is even remotely similar to Dahmer’s. Didn’t the papers call you for a statement?”

“Of course they did. I gave them a twenty-minute spiel about how this was a copycat. And look what they published!”

The Tribune, of course, immediately contacted Deputy Chief Larrel Olsher of the state’s Violent Crime’s Unit, a special investigatory arm designed to probe particularly brutal state homicides. Olsher had this to say: “All the evidence suggests that this is a copycat slaying.”

“How do you like that shit?” Olsher’s voice pounded. “I talk to them for twenty-fucking-minutes, and all they publish is that! Ten fucking words!”

Olsher, at last, sat back down. “The PC’s going to be so pissed he’s gonna be shaking shit out his pant leg! I need you to fix this, Helen.”

`”Fix…what?”

“Fix this clusterfuck, that’s what! You’re the best investigator on this pissant, under-funded department. So go out and investigate. I want those TSD reports on my desk ASAP. I want forensic proof that this isn’t Dahmer, and I want it now. And before you do that, I want you to go to the papers and give those assholes the gist. They won’t listen to me, maybe they’ll listen to you.”

“All right, Larrel, don’t worry.”

Olsher took a moment to stare at her, the oddest of looks. “Tell me something, first. Do you think—do you think that… this really could be Dahmer?”

“No,” she categorically stated. “It’s not Dahmer’s modus at all, nothing like it. Dahmer was a recluse. He never publicized his crimes, and he would never—in a million years—leave a note for the police.”

“Tell them that!” Olsher barked, and sipped coffee as if to save his life. “Go to the fucking Tribune and tell them that! Right now! Then start checking out the works!”

“You got it.” That was all she said before she left the deputy chief’s office. Calming down Olsher in a bad mood, she’d long-since learned, was akin to calming down a pit bull.

All she could hope for was this: that Jan Beck and her Technical Services Division would put a lid on this fast.

««—»»

“My name is Helen Closs”—she flashed her badge—”and I’m with the Wisconsin State Police Violent Crimes Unit. I’d like to speak to the executive editor of the Tribune.”

Helen would’ve expected a gum-chewing blonde, but instead it was a fat guy with glasses who tended the reception desk of the Clark Avenue newspaper.

“Mr. Tait’s in conference, ma’am,” the guy informed her without even looking up. He was reading a book called Palace Corbie. “Would you like to make an appointment for tomorrow? Or you can wait here if you like, for maybe two hours.”

Helen took off her topcoat. “If I have to wait for more than two minutes, I’ll close your newspaper down.”

The book slowly lowered. “Pardon me?”

“I just carded three Vietnamese men working your loading dock. They were unable to verify their United States citizenship. They didn’t have green cards and they carried no legal form of identification. Plus you have pallets of newspapers blocking the west access of loading dock, which obstruct city services in general and fire-fighting equipment in particular. I can close you down with a court order pending a citation hearing. It would take no more than forty minutes to get the paperwork served.”

The fat guy was on the phone in a heartbeat, and another heartbeat later he was smiling cordially and telling her, “Mr. Tait will be happy to see you now. Third door on the left.”

Helen took the central hall, passing coves of computer stations and journalists tapping keyboards. The obstruction to city services was weak, and even though the Vietnamese men were obviously illegal, it would take something more like two days to serve the papers with immigration violations. But white lies weren’t really lies.

“Ah, Captain Klause,” the paper’s exec editor greeted in her in his office.

“Closs,” she corrected.

“Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

“Turn on a tape recorder and print everything I say in tomorrow morning’s edition.” Helen sat down, poker-faced.

Tait had a nicely trimmed beard and hair pulled back in a ponytail. “I’m always happy to accommodate the police,” Tait said. “Coffee?”

“No thank you. Just turn on your recorder or get a pencil and a piece of paper while I dictate to you.”

“My handwriting’s atrocious.” Tait turned on a small Sony tape recorder extracted from a desk drawer. “Shoot.”

“Speculations published regarding the possibility of Jeffrey Dahmer still being alive are premature, unfocused, and irresponsibly directed. The P Street murder of Stewart K. Arlinger at the White Horse Inn was a single incident and certainly perpetuated by what we call a derivative-stage killer, not Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer is dead. I saw his dead body in the state police morgue facility on November 29, 1994. His body was positively ID’d. And as far as the note left at the P Street crime scene, it’s a fake. The Wisconsin State Police Violent Crimes Unit has successfully dealt with far more grievous homicides in the past, and we will deal with this one in a manner that is thorough, expeditious, and final. Now, turn off the tape recorder.”

Tait did so, an approving look on his face.

“Print that, verbatim, in tomorrow morning’s edition, on the front page, Mr. Tait, and include an official retraction of the tabloid-like tripe you published today.”

“Hmmm. Interesting. The police can order a newspaper what to print.”

“No, but the police can close down any enterprise which perpetuates federal violations of the United States Code regarding the employment of immigrants.” Helen got up, began to put on her coat. “Have a good day, Mr. Tait.”

“How do you know those guys on the dock don’t have work visas?” Tait asked.

“Because if they did, you would have told me that by now, Mr. Tait.”

“Good point. But don’t the people have a right to be informed of even extreme possibilities when a murder has been committed?”

“They have a right to be informed of the truth based on a professional analysis of evidence,” Helen said. “They don’t have the right to be frightened by irresponsible journalism fabricating news in order to sell more papers than the competition.”

“I hear you, Captain Klause—”

“Closs.”

“—and I’ll publish your statement as instructed.” Tait leaned back in a chair that must’ve cost a thousand dollars. He lit a Marlboro. “But let me make a statement of my own, to you. Fair enough?”

Helen turned at the door.

“You better be right,” Tait said, and winked.

««—»»

CRIMINAL EVIDENCE SECTION.

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Helen’s heels snicked past doors with queer plastic signs: Toolmarks, SEM, Electrophoresis, Spectrometry. This was the wing opposite the state morgue in the basement of St. John the Divine hospital, the Technical Services Division. A skein of politics propelled here: the state deficit, however phantom due to a balanced-budget amendment, exceeded millions; under the current governor, true, it was going down fast, but the problem still existed. Hence, the state leased the hospital’s basement for one dollar per year, in exchange for corporate tax breaks. Politicians wheeled and dealed just like district attorneys and pawn shops. It was all the same in a way.

The hallways down here seemed labyrinthine, and reminded Helen of the primeval CD-ROM games that Tom played. Whenever she came down here, she felt a thousand feet beneath the earth. This was Jan Beck’s domain.

In an quad-room that looked something similar to a high-school biology lab, a plaque read DIAGNOSTICS. Jan Beck sat amid bulky machines that hummed in ranks and regurgitated rolls of tractor-fed paper. She wore a white cotton apron like a butcher’s.

“It’s a felt-tip pen with standard blue ink that manufacturers refer to as Blue-Dark 4b,” the TSD honcho said. “But that’s just a service standard. Different variations of the same hue are used with different application systems.”

“Application systems?” Helen questioned. She was tired now, frazzled and emptied. All she could think about, in the back of her mind, was Tom. “A pen’s a pen, Jan,” she tried to focus.

Beck sat beside a clunky looking machine. “Not really. Today you’ve got ballpoints, hardpoints, drypoints. You’ve got a plethora of adhesion inks for another plethora: Micro-balls, liquid pumps, fine-points, medium points, etc. In other words, the service standard for—as the example is here—Blue-Dark 4b is chemically dissimilar for each manufacturer.”

“What you’re saying,” Helen guessed without a whole lot of interest, “is that Blue-Dark 4b in a Scripto pen is identifiably different from Blue-Dark 4b in a Bic pen?”

“Exactly. Each company fine-tunes the service-standard ink formulas for their own application systems.”

“Their own pens, you mean.”

“Exactly,” the pale, kink-haired woman repeated.

“So the trick, first, is to analyze the ink on the letter and identify the manufacturer of the pen, which will probably take forever.”

“It took me about ninety minutes, Captain,” Beck surprised her. “With a liquid chromatograph, a Canon digitizer, and a computer search of the printed mole-index. Your P-Street killer wrote the note with the most popular, the most reliable, and the most common felt-tip pen in the world. A Flair.”

“You found all that out in ninety minutes?”

“Sure. Sometimes it takes longer if the uplinks are busy, but it’s usually a breeze. It still doesn’t give us much, though.”

“At least it’s something,” Helen remarked.

“Well, I should have a lot more for you soon.”

“What I need more than anything, Jan, is some kind of graphological proof that the handwriting wasn’t really Dahmer’s. Then I can put a hard lid on the press.”

“I’m working on it.” Beck leaned back on a machine which sported a face of dials, jumping meters, and a hatch for a belly, a BV Model 154 peptide analyzer made by a company called Dissel Industries in Erlangen, Germany. It identified trace organic food substances in the digestive system by measuring peptidal enzyme deviations, and it cost the state over $100,000. If a decedent ate a Big Mac on Thursday night, Jan Beck would know that by early Friday morning. “That part might take another—”

“Jan,” Helen implored, “I need it in a day, no more.”

“—another eight hours,” Beck continued without pause. “I have a trace plate cooking right now.”

“A trace plate?”

“A high-grain photograph of the letter, which I snapped immediately. Then, to sniff out fingerprints, I put the physical body of the note through an Anthra-Hydrin fume.”

“What’s that?” Helen made the mistake of asking.

“In the old days we had two major critical fingerprint-detection substances: Anthracene and Neohydrin. Then a third came along called Cyanoacrylate, which will detect latent ridge patterns left on ideal surfaces by someone who’s even wearing rubber surgical gloves.”

“You’re kidding? Rubber gloves?”

“Sure. Sebaceous secretions of certain incipient amino acids will molecularly penetrate rubber surgical gloves, which happen to be the misconceived glove of choice for serial killers and burglars. Somebody should tell these assholes to wear jersey gloves, or driving gloves. Anyway, when I first got into the business, I worked for a county department on the east coast, and I had a fifteen-year-old homicide where the suspected perp was placed off the crime scene by an unreliable witness. The county attorney’s office was bugging the hell out of me to look back into it, so I used Cyanoacrylate on the target perimeter and found this guy’s prints all over the place. And it washed in court; the asshole got sent up to Jessup for forty years for a crime he committed over a decade earlier.”

“Thank God there’s no statute of limitations for murder.”

“Well, there shouldn’t be for any major crime, but there’s nothing any of us can do about that, is there?” Beck proposed, and twisted off the top of a bottle of Peach Snapple. “But back to what I was saying. A company called CRP recently used a thermal-fusion technique to combine the three latent ident substances I was telling you about, all three in one is what I’m telling you. It’s great. A low-therm fume application with this stuff, Anthra-Hydrin, will sap an image off of any solid surface, even if the surface was touched by surgical gloves, and the readout will be admissible even without a digitalization. The whole process takes about eighteen hours.”

“Fine,” Helen said, pushing back a headache. “But what about the graphology? The analysis that will prove the letter wasn’t written by Dahmer? You said it only takes eight hours. When will you be able to give me something I can give the papers?”

“I don’t even know what the press is talking about. Where do they get this shit? The peripheries of the P-Street m.o. are so different from Dahmer’s, it’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what I told them.”

“And I gotta tell you, we found two cooking utensils in the motel room.”

“Cooking ut—”

“A paring knife and an aluminum spatula, and, yes, they each contained traces of human muscle tissue.”

Helen thought back. “There was a cooking odor in the room, but no kitchen appliances.”

Beck shrugged. “So the perp brought in a hotplate or a Hibachi or something? Big deal.”

Big deal? “Jan, are you telling me that the perp ate pieces of the victim?”

“It’s impossible to say for sure since I don’t have the perp’s stomach contents to read. But, under the circumstances, I’d say that it’s a very good possibility. Part of Arlinger’s left bicep was cut out of his arm. Dahmer did the same thing to one of his victims. But it’s just more copycat stuff.”

Helen considered this, then agreed. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

“So there’s nothing to worry about with the press, is there?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Helen stalled. Her mind kept flicking back to Tom. Stop it! You’ve got a job to do! Forget about Tom! “So you were saying. How long before you can give me positive proof that the note wasn’t written by Dahmer?”

Beck’s dark eyes mused back in a quick mathematical surmise. “Well, the trace plate’s cooking now for, I guess, five hours. A trace plate is a computer enhanced photographic negative—real size—of the original letter. Once I get the plate out of the processor, I’ll put it in there.” Beck pointed to another anonymous machine on the other side of the narrow room. “That’s an A/N spectrophotometer. The A stands for assay. Want to guess what the N stands for?”

Helen’s eyes squinted down on a yellow-and-scarlet label stuck to the machine’s baseplate. WARNING, THIS DEVICE CONTAINS RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES. STAND CLEAR.

“You’re kidding me? You’ve got a nuclear reactor sitting in here?”

“Not precisely,” Beck replied with a smile. “A beryllium shroud covers the active pit, so you’re not going to melt. The pit, a pellet of plutonium 235, activates any amino-acid residuum on the note. Then I’ll take the note and compare it to samples of Dahmer’s handwriting that Columbus County Detent has already couriered over. I’ll feed the works into a comparison computer index which files, in duplicate, line-quality, letter formation, letter- and word-spacing—in microns, mind you—clockwise, counter-clockwise, straight-line, and curvature motion, terminal strokes, and relative position, the entire graphological ball of wax. We don’t do it the old way anymore. A felt-tip pen won’t leave any measurable impactations—we don’t need any of that in this day and age. My computer analysis of the P-Street letter will give you what you need. And I can hand it to you in—” Beck looked a her watch. “Say, three and a half hours from now.”

Helen, however weary from all the forensic word salad, was impressed.

“That would be great, Jan. Thanks for hustling.”

“That’s my job.” Beck sipped more Snapple. “How’s Tom, by the way?”

The question wiped the slate of Helen’s mind clean. And without even a perfunctory thought, she blurted an answer:

“We broke up.”

The remark weighed Beck’s face down like a high g-force. “You—you’re kidding.”

“I mean, I think we broke up,” more bad water spilled out of Helen’s mouth.

Beck’s voice softened, and she leaned forward as if she were in a college dorm asking her roommate a sensitive question. “Why?” she asked.

I caught him cheating on m— Helen’s thoughts began. Gritting her teeth forced it back, to wordlessness.

But then a tear formed in her eye and she got up and turned very quickly. Her self-esteem, whatever remained of it, could not allow the chief of the technical services division see her cry.

“It just wasn’t working out,” she said and left.

««—»»

Two voices.

Two men in the dark.

“I feel so—”

“Shut up. Stop being such a pussy.”

Silence, for a moment.

“You’re gonna make me sick of you.”

“Please.” A gasp, a sob. “I can’t help how I feel. I would do anything for you.”

One shadow shape turned to the other.

“I know. And you already have.” A lean to the side. A kiss on the cheek and a crude caress. “And I thank you for that.”

Sobbing, in response.

“And you’ll do more from me, won’t you?”

A heated rustle beneath damp covers. An arm shot around the other’s shoulder. “Yes, oh yes! Anything!”

“Good.”

The one shadow stood up, wended through silken dark, through blackness like a sweet song. Metal clicked. Then the shadow returned.

In his hands dangled another shadow: handcuffs.

“You love me, don’t you?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Do you really?”

“Christ—yes!”

“It’s an easy thing to say. But are you willing to prove it?”

A whisper more fierce than the hardest shout:

“YES!”

“Good, that’s good.” Then more silence, and then: “Turn over and put your hands behind your back.” The ratcheted cusp of the handcuffs clicked open. “Just like last night and the night before that and the week before that and the month before that.” The cuffs snapped closed. “Just like every night from now on,” said the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio.

— | — | —

CHAPTER SEVEN

Helen didn’t leave her office.

Perhaps she should have.

She wanted to wait, for the verification of what she already knew. But why? To feel safe? And going home would only force her to face things she didn’t want to face. Easier to just sit here and act like I’m doing something, she supposed.

Headquarters quieted down after the 4 p.m. shift-change, the roar descending to a clatter. Cigar fumes left no doubt that Olsher hadn’t left either. What would he do when the state passed new legislation banning smoking in all workplaces? Probably retire. She’d passed his office a few times and seen him in there, fidgeting. He’s waiting too, she knew. Waiting for Beck…

The kings and queens waiting for the messenger.

Helen leaned back at he desk, tried to relax. But every time she closed her eyes she seemed to see her life strewn about before her like stray pieces of something. Not a puzzle, nothing like that at all. Something, once whole, broken to bits.

Was it more than just Tom? She still didn’t know how to deal with that. Turning forty had sounded some inner knell. No more second chances. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone but, lately, that’s all she saw: a wizened crone in the same apartment, cutting out coupons to stretch her retirement pay, watching soap operas depicting people with the kind of life she’d never had.

Distraction, pre-occupation, or full-fledged forgetfulness—she wasn’t sure. She seemed to be forgetting so much now. Damn it, damn it! she swore at herself when she realized she’d missed her appointment with Dr. Sallee again. It was too late to call him now. He must think I’m the biggest ditz on earth.

All I do is dwell on my problems, and when people like Sallee try to help me, what so I do? I forget to show up.

Muffled yelling broke the constant cycle of self-criticism. It seemed to erupt down the hall, a exploding barrel. It was Olsher.

The sick feeling had already begun to build in her stomach. She blanked her thoughts. When she entered her deputy chief’s malodorous office, she was not surprised to find Jan Beck standing there, with bright yellow folders under her arm. Evidence Section always used yellow folders…

“This is so fucked up!” Olsher was rolling again. His dark face seemed pinkened somehow. “We’re gonna get buried! The goddamn press is gonna make us look like idiots!”

Beck looked crestfallen.

“We are in a world of shit,” Olsher muttered.

“Larrel, Jan,” Helen began. “What’s—”

“Tell her!” Olsher barked.

Impossible, Helen was thinking before even being told. It’s impossible…

Beck didn’t need to consult her pretty folders. “I just finished the graphological analysis of the letter found at the White Horse Inn—”

—absolutely impossible.

“—and I’m afraid there’s no mistake. Computers don’t lie. We have a positive match. The letter was written by Jeffrey Dahmer.”

««—»»

Beck had gone on to explain her findings. “Even the best forgery in the world won’t beat the computer.”

“Ink-shading, hand pressure?” Helen asked. That was about all she remembered from the quick graphology courses she’d had in the academy.

“Shading and pressure aren’t even in the mix here,” Beck said, “because the note was written in felt tip. A ballpoint or a pencil would be different—they’re far more pressure-sensitive. But with felt tip, due to the more fluid nature of the ink, shading and indentation is far less readable, often immeasurable. That’s old world graphology anyway; comparison computers are much easier and much more accurate simply in their ability to anatomize the actual architecture of the writing and produce a percentage-point value of the likelihood of a forgery.”

Helen didn’t want to ask. “What was that percentage value here?”

“Zero-point-zero,” Beck said. “There are too many variables for mistake. Even if words were traced and transferred, the computer would pick up the inconsistencies in line quality and pen position. We call it tremor hesitation, and the P-Street letter doesn’t have it. Direction, relative position, terminal points and strokes, loop terminus—it’s all here.”

Helen just stared. “Jan, you and I both saw Dahmer’s body the day after he was murdered. This is impossible. I don’t mean to doubt your expertise, but we’re going to have to have a second opinion on this.”

“I know,” Beck agreed. “That’s why I’ve already fed-exed a duplicate evidence file to the FBI and to McCrone in Chicago.”

“How long will that take?”

“For the Bureau? Could be two days, could be two months. It depends on what kind of priority status they give the case.”

“Fat chance they’ll move on it,” Olsher offered. “Not with our luck.”

“McCrone’s a private contractor we use a lot, and they’ll be fast.”

“What about a negative DNA match?”

“There was no evidence of semen in Arlinger’s body, but we can still run a DNA test on the hairs.”

Hairs. Yes, Helen remembered Beck’s initial report. Some hair and fiber evidence had been found on or near Arlinger. “So you get a DNA test on the hair and can prove it’s not Dahmer?”

“Right, or I should say the hair-root cell. Several pubic and head hairs were on the contact perimeter.”

“But what do you have to compare it to?”

“Dahmer’s genetic profile. Any convicted felon in the state is indexed with a DNA profile upon conviction,” Beck said enlightened them. “I sent some of the hair-root cells to Cellmark Labs in Maryland; they do the best PCRs and RFLPs in the country.”

“How long?”

“A week or two.”

“And in the meantime,” Olsher interrupted, “we get broiled alive by the press if they find out the handwriting was positive match.”

And they will find out, Helen felt assured. All police departments had their inevitable leaks. She’d already talked to the papers, but that was before Beck’s graphological match. “Damage control is our first priority. The press is going to get a hold of this, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“How about we lie?”

Helen struggled not to roll her eyes.

“That’s the worst thing we can do, Larrel. We have to stand fast on our insistence—based on the conflicting m.o., that Jeffrey Dahmer is not alive.”

“Then who wrote the note?” Olsher asked.

“Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“She’s right, Chief,” Beck said.

Olsher scowled at both of them. “Did I miss something here, or am I just stupid?” “Dahmer wrote the note before he was murdered,” Helen attested. “This whole thing is some kind of a hoax.”

“A pen pal or something like that, someone on the outside,” Beck added the obvious.

“Right, or someone on the inside,” Helen went on. “One of the guards maybe, or an inmate recently released, and that should be easy to run down.”

Olsher’s lips puckered as if he’d just sipped pure sour mix. “You’re saying that Dahmer was in cahoots with someone before he was killed?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “There’s no other possibility. Exactly why, I’m not sure yet.”

Olsher scoffed, waved a pessimistic hand. “The press will never buy that.”

Helen, for the first time in quite a while, felt calmly at ease. All at once her work was cut out for her, wasn’t it? Here was what she needed, something to push the debris of her life out of the way. It was a lot of debris, true, but purpose could be a very compelling force.

And she never felt more confident when she said, “They’ll have to buy it, Larrel. Because I’m going to prove it.”

“How?” Olsher challenged.

“By doing what you’re paying me to do. By investigating.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I’m sorry I missed my appointment again,” she said at the door. A school girl apologizing to the home-room teacher for being late. “And I’m sorry to be disturbing you at home. But I really need to talk to you.”

“Come in,” Dr. Sallee replied. His eyes thinned, then he smiled minutely. Dr. Sallee was a leaning, balding man who seemed constantly buoyant in some subdued way, despite an equally constant physical awkwardness Helen could never decipher. He had a nice Colonial brick house in the East End full of bookshelves and portraits. Dark, cluttered. In the den hung a picture of Sigmund Freud, while over the mantle was a large portrait of Elvis Presley. At work, Sallee routinely dressed in fine slacks, shirt, and tie, covered by a cliched white labcoat. Now, though, off duty so to speak, he dressed simply in jeans and t-shirt. Dr. Sallee was the chief of the state police mental hygiene unit as well as the chief psychiatric consultant for the H. Andrew Lynch Evaluation Center, where all convicted state incarcerees were evaluated; whether they would officially be deemed criminals or mental patients was decided by this man. He showed her into a similarly dark and cluttered study and sat behind a teak desk identical to the one he had at his office. Helen sat down in an armchair opposite.

“And I can also tell,” he continued, “that your problems with Tom are not what you want to talk to me about.”

Helen felt flummoxed. “How did you know? What, you can tell just by looking at me?”

“Of course. It’s all kinesthetics, Helen. The way you walked to the door with a harried spring in your step. The very open way you’re sitting across from me right this moment. You generally sit with your knees together and your hands in your lap, a position of introversion and personal insecurity.” Sallee’s gaze drifted upward, in contemplation. “No, I’d say you’re here to talk to me about something completely irrelative to your personal life. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Helen admitted.

“Something work related?”

“Yes.”

Heaps of books threatened to overrun the desk top. Sallee had to nearly look over them to address her. “Let me take a guess. The Dahmer business that was in the papers today?”

For a third time, then, she said “Yes” to this uncanny man.

“Your contention, I presume, is that Dahmer is dead, and that someone else is pulling a copycat.”

“Exactly,” Helen said. “And I might need you to back me up with the press.”

“You doubt your own professional credibility?”

“I’m just a flatfoot, Dr. Sallee, but you’re a clinical psychiatrist, and the press is a different animal altogether.” Helen felt surprisingly collected, something she’d never felt before in the midst of Sallee. “We’ve got DNA tests going on some hair evidence found at the Arlinger murder site, and when they come back negative we’ll be off the hook. But that could take weeks.”

“And in the meantime, you’re worried that the newspapers will cause an undue level of fear by slanting their articles to suggest that Dahmer’s still alive?”

Helen nodded. “So that’s why I need your help. I’ll need to keep reiterating our conviction that Dahmer’s modus is completely different from the perp at P Street, despite minor similarities.”

“Minor similarities that the press will enforce as major. Some trace suggestions of cannibalism, cooking utensils. And an unbound victim who showed no signs of struggle. These are elements that any killer would be well aware of just by reading the papers two years ago. This is all easily conveyed, but the hard part is conveying it convincingly.”

“And that’s exactly why I need to know more details…about Dahmer.”

“Well, then I suppose I’m the man for the job, Helen.” Sometimes Sallee smiled in a way so subtle it was hard to even interpret as a smile. “But, I warn you—psychiatrists are only right ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“I’ll take the odds. You actually interviewed Dahmer, didn’t you? A long time ago?”

“Um-hmm. I was his first official clinical interviewer, to be precise. I evaluated him in 92, gave him his initial battery of TATs, Meyers-Kastles, and MMPIs. The most significant thing you can tell the press is that Dahmer’s psychiatric profile was existential—an existential costive, we call them—reclusive, complaisant, and completely lacking psychopathic and pathological behavior patterns. He never lied, either; pathological criminals always lie.”

Helen scribbled notes, then looked up leerily. “What about the, you know, the sexual element?”

“Let me elaborate more specifically. Dahmer was an existential stage-costive with an obsessive-thematic erotomanic impulse. He was subject only to an unsystematized longing-delusion—in other words he was not delusional in typical ways. Despite the mode of violence, he was actually very affectionate toward his victims. He loved his victims, which explains his attempt to lobotomize them.”

Helen’s expression twisted. “Lobotomize—”

“Oh, yes. On several occasions, Dahmer drugged his victims to unconsciousness and then drilled holes in their skulls, after which he inserted various types of needles into their brains—”

Helen paled.

“—and he did this, not to be brutal, but to try to damage their motor capabilities. He even claimed that one such victim survived for a short time after regaining consciousness. To put it more colloquially, he wanted ‘love-zombies.’ He wanted lovers who wouldn’t leave him. I recall him elucidating something to the affect: ‘I loved them all, and I wanted them to stay with me. When they died, I kept parts of them, so that parts of them would be with me always.’“

“In other words, that’s why he kept the skulls, and the body parts in the freezer?”

“Yes, and that explains the cannibalism too. When a victim died, he’d eat a part of that victim, ‘so that part of him would be inside of me,’ he said.”

Helen tapped her pen on her pad. “Why didn’t you commit him?”

“No responsible psychiatric evaluator would’ve. Our guidelines for incarceration versus institutionalization are very specific.” Sallee quickly slipped a paper-covered manual— State of Wisconsin Parameters for Penal Admission: A Psychiatrist’s Guide—and, without opening it, quoted: “‘The clinician in charge of psychiatric evaluation must never admit a subject to state mental-hygiene custody unless said subject demonstrates verifiable symptoms of psychopathy or hallucinosis.’ What that means is that Dahmer needed to display a clear separation from reality, the ‘Right from Wrong’ tenet. Which he didn’t. I also did the evaluation on Tredell Rosser, Dahmer’s alleged murderer, and a completely different story. The press is charging that Rosser should never have been put in prison in the first place, because he’s completely insane. But they’re completely wrong. He’s a pure-bred Ganser.”

Helen knew the term. Ganser Syndrome was common among prison inmates: faking a psychiatric disorder in hopes of receiving a transfer to a mental hospital. “Rosser was trying to push some sort of religious fixation, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, and he’s quite good at it,” Sallee affirmed. “But not good enough for me. He continues to claim that he’s a thousand years old, and the Son of God, a very well-formed forgery of a systematized grandiose pietistic delusion. I could tell he was lying the minute he stepped into my office, but he’s convincing enough for laymen and even some of the prison officials. Eventually I got the court’s permission to narco-analyze him. He’s perfectly sane, read about Ganser techniques in some book by one of those underground publishers.”

“Then why did he kill Dahmer?”

“For popular status on the mainline. Several of Dahmer’s victims were African-American. Rosser knew that he’d become a hero inside by killing Dahmer and Vander, the latter being affiliated with white supremacist groups. And all this hoopla about as possible conspiracy, that Rosser was aided by detention employees—it’s pure nonsense. He’s the lone perpetrator. By killing Dahmer and, at the same time maintaining his Ganser, he knows he’ll be relocated to a mental hospital.”

Helen surveyed her notes, chewed her lip as she thought. “Now, can you give me some kind of potential profile on the P-Street killer? Is there enough you can draw from based on the crime scene?”

Sallee began to seem bored, fingering a big, blue Stelazine paperweight. A flier top the desk clutter read: What Every Doctor Should Know About Extrapyramidity. “That’s relatively easy. Whoever committed the Arlinger murder looks like a clear-cut X,Y,Y Syndrome. The underpinnings were spiteful, even mocking, totally unlike Dahmer in his day. Dahmer would never leave a body for the police to find; that’s why he disposed of many of the parts in separate parcels, dissolved them in drums of corrosives, etc. His very first victim, in fact, a hitchhiker he murdered when he was eighteen, was disposed of similarly; he buried the separate pieces in the woods behind his house. His entire life from pre-adolescence to adulthood is a prime example of unwavering costive existentialism. Burying pieces of things he was fond of in places he was in proximity to. Dahmer was raised in Bath, Ohio, claimed that his father gave him a chemistry set for his birthday. He’d solicit people in the papers who were trying to give away pets, and he’d take them, kill them, and then dissolve the carcasses down to their skeletons with high-acid and base compounds he’d concoct with the chemistry set. It was his secret, he never told anyone, then or now. Psychiatric labels are very specific; subjects tend to remain very solidly in their categories once they’ve reached instinctive phases. There’s little individuality, in other words. Gacy, Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas all came from totally different backgrounds, were subject to totally different formative upbringings, and executed equally different m.o.s—yet they all had nearly identical IQs—rather high, by the way—and remained subject to the same pathological symptomology. More recent examples are Rene Aulton and Susan Smith—maternal filicists. Mothers who kill their own children all display nearly identical behavior patterns despite totally dissimilar reactive and reflective designs.” Sallee paused for a consideration. “Is this all going over your head?”

“Well, yeah,” Helen admitted, looking down at the technical gobbledegook on her notepad.

“Psychotic killers as well as borderline sociopaths tend to display irrevocable pattern behavior. My point is, to put it more simply: Dahmer never strayed from his demential purview; what he did in Milwaukee in 1991 was merely an emblematic amplification of the same things he was doing as a boy in Bath, Ohio. Any forensic psychiatrist in the country will tell you the same thing. Despite the outward similarities on P Street, the perpetrator clearly displays a different profile. He’s nothing even close to Dahmer; instead, he offers a different mental state: semi-delusional, aggressive, hyper-violent. By leaving the body and the note for the police to find, he’s challenging the authorities, something Dahmer would never have done. Only a full-stage episodic break could account for someone like Dahmer committing the crime at P Street. Your perpetrator merely copied the most simplified aspects of Dahmer’s atrocities, while ignoring the actual psychological imprint.”

“One of the first things I’m going to do is run a computer break-down of recently released mental patients and convicts,” Helen said.

“And you should, but don’t be disappointed if you come up with nothing,” Sallee countered. “Arlinger’s murderer is quite crafty—the note, for instance, and his avoidance of being seen entering the motel. If he committed crimes like this in the past, he probably hasn’t been caught.”

“So where do I start?”

“Obsessional contact is usually how this kind of killer is launched into an active crime-phase.”

Helen didn’t get it. “Obsessional contact?”

“The letter left at the P Street Motel was undoubtedly written by Dahmer some time before his death. But Dahmer was in lockup, so we can safely assume that the P-Street killer was in contact with Dahmer during his incarceration. Look for a ‘Killer Groupie,’ someone drawn to Dahmer via his publicity. It’s either someone he was corresponding with, or someone in close contact in the prison.”

Helen complimented herself on having already essentially discerned that. “At least that’s an easy lead.”

“Of course. I’m sure the prison keeps a log of all correspondence leaving the facility, for legal reasons.”

Helen’s hand began to cramp, she was writing so fast. But at the end of the manic scribbling, she felt satisfied that she had what she needed. “This is great, Dr. Sallee. This’ll help me lot.”

“And as for our good friends with the newspapers, feel free to quote me. You can even direct them to me personally if you like.”

“Thanks.” Helen felt winded after the influx of information. She put away her pad and began to get up. “I guess that’s it then.”

“Oh, no it’s not, Helen,” the psychiatrist contradicted. “You still have some other things to tell me, don’t you?”

Helen knew full well what he was driving at. Immediately, and without conscious forethought, she began rubbing her locket between her fingers. Just as immediately, her previous job-related zeal collapsed.

And all of her fear swooped down on her.

“You’re an ostrich, Helen.”

“A—what?”

Sallee looked at her. “You bury your head in the sand. Right now the sand is your job. But eventually, you’re going to have to take your head out of it, aren’t you?”

She knew exactly what he meant. She was avoiding her problems, not facing them. Eventually she’d be right back to Square One, right back in the jaws of all her inadequacies: her mood swings, her pre-menopausal fears, her complete lack of personal security…

“You’ve got a lot to be proud of, don’t you?” Sallee suggested.

Her response was bitter as turpentine. “Like what?”

“You’re among the most decorated officers in the history of Wisconsin law enforcement. Your arrest-versus-conviction rate is phenomenal. And you’re the only female on the force who’s ever been up for deputy chief. Aren’t those accomplishments you can be proud of?”

“Not really,” she mumbled in admission. “I’ve never felt very driven. I think it’s been mostly luck.”

“That’s foolishness, and you know it. You refuse to give yourself any credit at all merely because you’ve never had what you perceive of as a successful relationship with a man. That’s irrational and wholly illogical.”

He’d said it all a thousand times, but it never really mattered. It was impossible for her to feel any other way.’

“Still having nightmares?”

She gulped and nodded. “The pale figure chasing me.”

“Any other dreams?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Any sexual implications?”

The question didn’t even embarrass her any more. “No, I— Oh, wait I did have a different dream, just before—” But the memory stopped her from continuing, lopped off the rest of the recollection like a knife through a carrot on a butcher block.

Sallee’s tone never changed. “Just before what?”

Her fingers rubbed frantically against the locket. “Just before I woke up and heard Tom talking on the phone…to another woman.”

The doctor nodded as if unimpressed. “Tell me the dream.”

“There was a—a fire or something. I was rushing to put it out.”

“Were you naked?”

Helen popped brow. “Yes.”

“And you weren’t particularly afraid or the fire, were you?”

“No, no I wasn’t. But how did you—”

“Go on.”

Flustered, she tried to remember. The water hose… “The fire was burning, so I ran to get a hose to put it out, but when I turned it on, no water came out.”

“And the fire continued to burn,” Sallee said rather than asked.

“That’s right.”

“But I must say, Helen. That’s a very sexual dream.”

Her eyes squinted up. “How so?”

“Look at the symbology and then look at yourself. Your greatest fear is that menopause will kill your sexuality, and hence make you less attractive to men. The fire in the dream represents your sexual self—a woman still quite sexually capable, a sexual yearning that needs to be quenched. Fires are quenched by water, correct? But you couldn’t get the water to come out of those hose… Correct?”

Suspiciously, she nodded.

“And let me guess,” Sallee went on, “sometime previously you’d had sex with Tom. You were excited, even orgasmic. Am I on track?”

Now she actually blushed. “More than you realize.”

Sallee held a finger up, in further postulation. “But Tom himself, he experienced some sudden sexual dysfunction.”

He lost his erection, she shamedly remembered. He couldn’t come. But Sallee’s “guesses” began to mildly infuriate her. It was as though he was picking her brain against her will. “How can you possibly know that?”

“It’s a terribly common dream, Helen,” Sallee replied and nearly chuckled. “No water came out of the hose, symbolic of Tom’s inability to complete the act. It’s a dream of clear paranoia: Tom gave you pleasure but experienced none himself, so, paranoically, you blame yourself, you feel you failed in being able to satisfy him as he satisfied you, so know you’ve developed this ideation that he’s cheating on you, that’s he’s seeking some other woman.”

Helen threw her hands up. There was no use. “But that’s where you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure he is seeing another woman.”

“Pretty sure? Not totally?”

“Well—” She faltered. “Not totally, but—’

Sallee cut her off yet again. “And even if he is, Helen, there’s no relevant reason for you to blame yourself for every incompatibility, is there?”

“No, but…that’s just how I feel, I guess,” she admitted, now fighting to hold back tears. “I can’t help it.”

“Of course you can. You can by acknowledging yourself before others, Helen. That’s the root of all your problems. You judge yourself by over-reacting to the people close to you, which, in turn, creates an erroneous judgment. We’ll continue to work on it, okay?”

Her eyes remained on the floor as she nodded.

“And another thing I think you should do is go and talk to Tom. You just said yourself that you don’t know for sure that he’s seeing another woman. More than likely, you’ve jumped to conclusions, like you frequently do.”

“I know,” she peeped.

“So go and find out, go talk to him. You’ll regret it if you don’t, and you may very well be surprised if you do. Are you going to do that?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And I want you to come and see me again, okay?”

“Yes, I will.”

“All right, then. Try to feel good about yourself, because you’re a good person and you should feel good. And quit rubbing that damn locket.”

Now, at least, she was able to spare a smile.

“I’ll see you soon, Helen, and good luck with the case.”

“Thank you,” she said and got up. Her mind swam, she knew he was right. I am a good person, goddamn it! Why can’t I get that into my thick head?

She stopped at the door to gaze over her notes one last time, a police instinct. A final check to see if she was forgetting anything. And one of the last lines snagged her.

“There was one thing you mentioned,” she said. “Something about a break. Let’s just say for one minute that Dahmer is alive and that he did get out of prison and murder Alringer on P Street. What could account for the change in his behavioral profile?”

“Oh, yes, but that’s a very rare and obscure syndrome,” Sallee told her. “We call it a conative-episodic break. Its the only clinical phenomena that could account for an existential costive like Dahmer to enter into an X,Y,Y-like mental state.”

Helen highlighted that part in her notes. “But what are the actual chances of that?”

Sallee belittled the possibility with a brief snort. “The chances of that happening, Helen, are literally one in a million.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER NINE

“Is that real scripture you’re quoting, Mr. Rosser,” Helen asked, “or are you just making it up?”

“What’choo think?”

“I think it’s genuine scripture that you’ve memorized in order to fake a religious delusion.”

“‘Mercy and truth shall be met together.’ ‘God’s truth shall be my shield and buckler.’ ‘Thou trusteth in the staff of this broken reed.’”

Helen peered at the man. She tried to avoid looking at him too closely, but found she couldn’t resist it, like trying to resist running your tongue over a chipped molar.

“What do you do here all day, Mr. Rosser?”

“Read in my cell, watch TV. The bulls they lets me watch TV in the day room a couple hours a day.” The convict’s grin shined bright as the tungsten light. “Wearin’ these, a’course.” Then he clicked up on his cuffs, which were linked to a heavy-duty Peerless waistchain.

Tredell Rosser, County Correctional Ident # 255391, presented a shocking visual contrast. He sat, shackled and waistchained, in a stark-white precaution cell, a white floor and white ceiling, four white walls. A white blanket atop a white-sheeted cot, and a white porcelain sink and toilet to the right. White fluorescent light glared down.

Rosser himself, sitting on his cot, was dressed appropriately: baggy white in-patient pants and a sleeveless white t-shirt. The obsidian darkness of his skin made him, at first, appear disembodied—two black arms and a black face hovering in this cold, white scape.

Three psych orderlies and the security guard—all very big men—had led her down the central hall of the wing; Helen felt like a quarterback behind a flying wedge. A quick glance into a wire-glass med station showed several female nurses bickering back and forth. Several patients in blue robes and sponge slippers stared dully at television in the day room; two more patients played ping pong with the dexterity of zombies. A sign hung at the end of the hall: PREVENTION OF ELOPEMENT IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS. Then:

A security plaque warned, CLASS III PRECAUTION, DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT ESCORT, beneath which was mounted a tiny slide sign with Magic Markered letters:

ROSSER, T.

Helen’s energy hadn’t waned even by 9 p.m. She’d driven straight from Dr. Sallee’s to St. John the Divine’s Hospital. Might as well make good use of my time, she reasoned. She wasn’t the least bit tired, despite having had almost no sleep last night. Tredell Rosser had been court-ordered to the psych wing at the hospital the day of Dahmer’s death. The state’s Special Prosecutor’s Office had fought like dogs to prevent this, but to no avail. Since then Rosser had repeatedly waived all rights to counsel and had confessed to the bludgeoning murder of Jeffrey Dahmer no less than four times. Helen wanted to have a talk with him, feel out his mental state, trip him up if possible.

The psych wing—2D West—had a jail unit for violent offenders pending evaluation and “precaution transfers”: inmates suspected of being suicidal. Rosser himself had been admitted for re-evaluation. If Sallee was right—in his conviction that Rosser was actually a Ganser faking delusions—then hopefully the psych unit staff would determine this and send him straight back to Columbus County Detent. But if he beat the wrap, he would serve the rest of his sentence in a state mental facility. Either way, though, Rosser won. Back to prison and he’d be a cellblock hero.

The man was terrifying to look at. He was nearly as tall sitting down as Helen was standing up. A perfect model of prison fitness: fists the size of ham hocks, batlike forearms, pecs, shoulders and back that could’ve qualified him for a body-building contest. Helen saw little sense in the penal policy which allowed inmates to turn themselves into musclemen. This made them all the more dangerous not only on the cellblock but when they got out. Thick veins atop biceps the size of apples flicked like earthworms when he leaned forward.

“I’se am the million-year-old Son’a God,” he informed her. An eerie, fluttering aspect seemed trapped behind the homey, street-bred voice; each word seemed to slip down Helen’s back.

“If you’re the Son of God, then why don’t you break out of those chains?”

“Sames reason Jesus didn’t take hisseff down off dah cross at Calvary. Not cool, ya know.”

“Hmm, interesting.” Helen kept her face blank, looking at him. Even when she closed her eyes for a moment, an afterimage of his crisply dark face lingered behind her lids. “But why should I believe you’re the Son of God?”

“Ain’t gotta no ways,” Rosser replied. “‘Thou wouldst not listen ta dah voice’a their father.’ ‘They’se are a perverse generation, them children in whom there is no faith.’“

This was unique, even invigorating—Bible scripture being quoted in street dialect. Helen vaguely remembered the latter quote from an old theology class, from Deuteronomy. She tried to bait him. “That was from Psalms, wasn’t it?”

“Doots-ter-onomy,” he said.

Helen nodded. So much for that. “Jeffrey Dahmer was into religion, wasn’t he? I mean, after he’d been at the prison for a while?”

Beautiful white teeth gleamed through the smile. “Jeffreys Dahmer were a mymidon’a the Devil. That why I killed him. Gods tole me that ‘Ye are holy whosoever vanquish evil.’“

“But aren’t you evil too, Mr. Rosser?” Helen piqued. “You murdered a Conservation Corp worker in cold blood, shot him in the head.”

“Shee-it. That weren’t me. That were the machination’a the Devil. I’se been persecuted by the state, just like Jesus were persecuted by Rome and the Jews. I’se am the million-year-old Son’a God, ma’am. I’se walked the field of blood. I’se trod the plains of Troy and Knossos and Nineveh.”

“Oh, really? And Nineveh was the capital of what ancient country, Mr. Rosser?”

“A holy land. God, He say he’d destroy Nineveh for its sin, but then He change his mind ’cos they got their act straight.”

The answer to Helen’s question was Assyria, though she had to commend Rosser for his knowledge of Biblical history. God, according to the Bible, had indeed condemned the city of Nineveh, but retracted His promise of destruction once the population sought faith. The most famous contradiction in Bible prophesy.

“All right,” she went on, “you killed Jeffrey Dahmer because he was in league with the Devil—”

“He were a myrmidon.”

Helen didn’t exactly know what the word meant, but she didn’t say it. “Fine,” she said instead. “Then why did you attack Vander too? Was he also a…myrmidon of the Devil.”

“No, he were but a vassal.”

“Word is, Mr. Rosser, you killed Dahmer because his victims were mostly black. You did it for popular status on the cellblock. And the same goes for Vander. He’s in intensive care, by the way, really bad shape. You tried to kill him too, because he was a Nazi, and he murdered his wife but told the police it was a black man.”

“‘Lying lips are an abomination’a the Lord.’“ He paused to look at her more closely, his fervent eyes the color of burnt nuts. “Whys are you here?”

“I wanted to meet you, Mr. Rosser. You’re an interesting man, I must say. But there’s a rumor I wanted to ask you about. They say that you may have been assisted, that certain detention officers arranged for you to be in the prison rec unit with Dahmer and Vander, and they looked the other way so you could do the job. Can you verify that, Mr. Rosser? You have nothing to lose in telling me. It would help me to know this.”

Rosser’s blaring white smile never waned. “‘Thou shalt not…bear, false witness…against thy neighbor.’ I’se did it, juss me. No ones else.”

“All right, Mr. Rosser, I believe you. But I also believe you’re what we call a Ganser. You’re faking delusions to try to get transferred into a mental hospital.”

“Believe what you like,” Rosser said. “‘Thou shalt not put any other God aboves me.’“ The smile beamed; Rosser’s head inclined. “Earliers, you ax me why don’t I break these chains if I’se really the Son’a God.”

“Yes,” Helen acknowledged.

“Watch.”

Rosser stood up. The small psych cell seemed to shrink in his rising; Helen felt like a dwarf before this 6’3” killing machine. Rosser’s stout arms snapped upward, strained the cuffs connected to the waistchain. Suddenly he was sweating, the skin of his well-developed arms and shoulders like veneered black marble. His biceps shimmied…

Don’t wet yourself, Helen. It doesn’t matter how strong he is. That’s tempered steel. He can’t possibly break it—

snap!

His cuffed hands broke the waistchain link. Then, after another few moments of more exertion—

snap!

The link joining the cuffs broke too.

Helen stared at him. She’d had to turn over her service weapon before coming onto the unit. All she had to defend herself with was…her purse.

Rosser smiled. “These hands”—he raised them up—”coulds kill you, right now.”

Then he sat back down.

It was all Helen could do not to call out for the orderlies. Hold your ground, hold your ground. “Well, Mr. Rosser, in that case, thank you for not killing me. It’s been nice talking to you.”

“Haves a good day.”

Helen, stiff-backed and suppressing her terror, left the psych cell. Somehow, she knew she could feel Rosser’s arcane, bright smile following her out. “Just for your info,” she said to the orderlies, “that walking meat-rack in there just broke out of his cuffs.” The orderlies’ faces blanched, and they rushed in. Helen let herself be escorted off the wing by the security super.

“They do that sometimes,” he said. “Brains all messed up, gives them incredible strength. You know, like the old wive’s tale of the skinny woman lifting a car up off her husband.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that guy’s brain.”

The guard shrugged. “That’s what a lot of the docs say, say he’s faking it.”

“He is, and he’s doing a good job. I’ll bet anything he winds up in a cushy state psych ward.”

The guard took Helen back off the wing, to the recept desk, then took her Beretta .25 out of the locker and gave it back to her.

“I hear Vander’s in ICU,” she said. “How do I get there? I need to talk to him too.”

The guard’s brows popped. “Good luck talking to him. Didn’t you hear? Vander died today. Hematoma.”

Shit, Helen thought.

««—»»

She remembered Sallee’s words, as she was leaving the hospital for the frigid parking lot. I’m an ostrich… She’d deliberately left via the basement, where the morgue was.

Where Tom was.

I’ve got to try to fix things up, she thought.

She stood in front of the door. She paid no mind to the security guard at the sign-in desk.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Uh, uh, no,” she said.

One last glance through the chicken-wire glass showed her Tom milling about inside.

Helen lost her nerve and left the building.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TEN

Helen spent the next day interviewing one correctional staff face after another, until the faces all seemed to blur together. Of Dahmer, they all related similar if not identical versions of his makeup. Introverted, docile, full of remorse. And completely ingenuous.

“Was he suicidal?” Helen asked the prison’s psychologist, an unenlivened if not dull woman named Bernice Willet.

“Not actively,” the demure, dark-skinned woman replied. A mane of coal-black hair draped her shoulders over a nougat cashmere sweater. “He did have an active death wish, though.”

“To what degree of detail?”

There was a hint of an accent Helen couldn’t place. “He believed that he deserved to die for his crimes.”

So did the rest of the world, Helen thought.

“But guilt reversions such as this are quite common,” Willet continued, “among incarcerated serial-killers. The uncommon thing about Jeffrey was the absolute certainly with which he believed he was going to die.”

“You’re saying he predicted his own death?”

“In a sense, yes. Jeffrey was well aware that quite a few inmates wanted to kill him. This was well-known throughout the center’s inmate population, that someone, eventually, was going to get to him. This is the only aspect of Jeffrey that can be likened to a suicidal tendency. It was a passive one. He knew he was a marked man, yet he went out of his way to qualify for a domiciliary transfer from protective custody to the general prison block.”

This was interesting. He knew someone was going to get him eventually, Helen paused to think. Could he have…

“How vengeful was he?”

“Vengeful? Jeffrey?” The psychologist nearly smiled. “He wasn’t vengeful or aggressive at all. If anything, he was close to narcoleptic.”

Helen tried to focus. What was she thinking? “How smart was he, then, how creative?”

“That’s two completely different questions, Captain. Jeffrey had a higher than average IQ, but he scored very poorly on all the creative assembly batteries. The TAT, the Weschler Revised Adult Intuition Scale, the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test—Jeffrey scored shockingly low on them all.”

“Maybe he did it on purpose,” Helen considered.

“No, no, what you don’t understand is that these tests can’t be faked. Even if an inmate wrote down deliberately contradictory answers, the score scales would pick that up at once.” Willet took a moment to assess Helen’s questions. “Why do you ask, though?”

“I want to know if Dahmer was possibly devious enough to fake his docility.”

“No,” Willet responded. “Ask anyone who knew him. But that’s a strange suspicion, I must say. Why would Jeffrey wish to fake something like that?”

I wonder, Helen thought.

««—»»

“…so I’d like to know what you think about that, Father,” Helen was asking her next interviewee, Father Thomas Alexander, the prison chaplain. This was the man who’d performed the famous “baptism” of Dahmer, in the prison’s whirlpool. “The word is you were Dahmer’s only real friend and confidant.”

“Well that’s true,” the religious man answered. “I was his confessor.” Alexander seemed slightly stiffened behind his industrial gray desk, as though he had a back problem. Salt and pepper hair, a lean face that seemed weathered more by sarcasm than by age. Helen couldn’t quite say why, but there was something about the man that caused an immediate dislike.

“I need to know about Dahmer’s visitors and correspondents,” Helen was next asking. A bumper sticker adhered to the front of the desk read CHRIST ROCKS! And another: THE POWER OF JESUS IS INFINITE. Helen noticed this at the same instant a power fluctuation briefly dimmed the office lights. Too bad Jesus doesn’t run Madison Gas & Electric.

“Power flux,” Alexander observed. “For some reason we get them all the time, anywhere on the prison’s east sector. And in response to your questions, Jeffrey was a Level Five inmate. It’s a federal categorization scale, only goes up to Seven, Seven being the most critical, One being the least. The average inmate is a One.”

“So as a Five,” Helen speculated, “Dahmer was deemed significantly more dangerous than most inmates?”

“Yes and no,” the priest answered. But that fuddled Helen. Was he a priest? Or a reverend, or a minister? She wasn’t sure. But he went on, “Dangerous isn’t a word I would use to describe Jeffrey, in spite of the crimes he committed.”

Helen made an assenting nod. “Ms. Willet just got done telling me he was introverted, even docile.”

“Exactly. But he got the Level Five tag due to the nature of his crimes. It’s based on committed acts, not personality makeup, a bad rap for Jeffrey actually.”

Helen had a hard time commiserating. Poor Jeffrey. The big, bad government slaps him with a sensitive prison status.

“But getting back to what you were asking,” Alexander said, “as a Level Five inmate, Jeffrey was allowed no outside visitors other than direct blood relatives unless otherwise authorized by the Director’s office. His mother was the only one who ever came to see him, and the only exceptions I’m aware of were a few news interviewers.”

“Which the Director authorized?”

“Yes, but this was very rare. Two, three times. The only reason Dipetro allowed it, I suspect, was because he knew Jeffrey would speak positively of the center.”

Dipetro. The prison’s warden. A mover and shaker who liked to play hardball was what Helen had heard, and who was bucking to run the state’s department of public safety come the next election. “All right,” she said, “so Dahmer had no visitors other than his mother. What about correspondents?”

“That’s where the criteria is even more unjust,” Alexander told her, “based on the Level Five tag. Jeffrey was not allowed to send or receive mail. Period.”

Helen squinted. “Why?”

The minister shrugged, made a denigrating turn of his mouth. “I haven’t a clue. It’s unconstitutional if you ask me.”

“So is murdering and cannibalizing seventeen people,” Helen couldn’t resist saying.

“For one thing, you’ve been listening to too much right-wing press. Jeffrey didn’t cannibalize all of his victims,” Alexander defended.

“All right. But even if he only cannibalized one of them, why are you so quick to defend him?”

“Because the defenseless need defenders.”

“Defenseless?” Helen wanted to laugh. “He premeditatedly drugged and murdered innocent young men to pursue a sexual dementia.”

A frown drew deep lines into Alexander’s face. “On the outside, true, Jeffrey fell sway to the relegations of evil. But God forgave him of all that. And it’s inexcusable for persons such as yourself to maintain this right-wing, Pat Buchanan, lynch mob mentality.”

Now it was all obvious; the boil had been popped. “I maintain no such thing,” Helen responded, “I’m merely—”

“You’re merely acting like everyone else. No pity at all for the pitiable. It wasn’t Jeffrey’s fault that he became what he became. It was society’s. It was our fault.”

Helen didn’t buy that at all, but she saw little point in debating it. The reverend’s liberal sentiments could not be assailed. “We’re getting off track, Father. I didn’t come here to argue with you.” Then she remembered her own track.

Mail. Correspondence… Letters.

“I need to know why Dahmer wasn’t allowed to send and receive mail.”

““Ask Oc-Ther,” he said, “after, of course, you relieve yourself from my office. The door’s right over there.”

Helen rose from her seat, secured her purse. “You’re petulant and obnoxious, Father Alexander. But have a good day anyway.”

««—»»

“Groupies,” Wayne Edwards answered her question with the single word.

“Groupies?” Helen stretched the word. But Sallee had made a similar mention now that she thought of it.

Edwards was the Center’s Chief of Occupational Therapy, an attractive man with long dark hair and a beard, and a darker voice. He wore an open flannel shirt with a black t-shirt beneath. Oddly, behind him, hung a Doctorate in Economics. He smoked Marlboros, which caused a rare pang in Helen’s memory. Christ, that cigarette looks good, she thought. But what did he mean about groupies?

“Could you be more specific, please?”

Edwards tapped an ash in a stone tray. “There are a lot of whacks out there, Ms. Closs. Screwed up, obsessive, even pathological. They’re searching for some kind of identity but they’re too maladjusted to find it. It’s the same as rock stars, movie stars, writers, professional athletes—they all have groupies.”

“I still don’t get the significance of—”

“Serial killers have groupies too, lots of them. Pen pals, obsessive fans, like that. We call it ‘remote obsessional codependency,’ and it’s quite a bit more apparent than you would think. Those guidelines from the Bureau of Prisons recommend that any inmate labeled Five or above be barred from all out-of-house correspondence. That’s the only reason Dahmer got the tag: because he was so famous. Here at Columbus County Detent, we follow those guidelines, which I think is a good idea. A lot of prisons don’t. They don’t have to unless they’re a federal prison institution. Jolliette’s a great example, and so is Jessup and Fredricksburg and Lorton, and dozen’s of other local detention centers. They don’t like the federal government telling them what to do, so they’ll ignore any BOP recs. Gacy and Speck, for example, both Level Five convicts at Jolliette, were allowed to correspond with anyone they wanted to. Any letter mailed to them were delivered to them. And any letters outgoing were processed. Big mistake. A lot of these centers believe that the BOP mail restrictions are an infringement of a convict’s rights.”

Helen tried to figure. “In other words, the regs are a good idea because they prevent an inmate from influencing, and possibly inciting, these ‘killer groupies’ on the outside?”

“Well, sure, that’s part of the reason,” Edwards agreed. “Remote obsessional codependents are mentally unstable to begin with. A lot of these nuts will regard a particular killer as something like a god. But another reason is simple good taste. It doesn’t make a prison system look good when a killer’s letters wind up on the street. Look at what happened with Gacy. Now that he’s dead, his letters have a street value of over a hundred dollars each to collectors. Bundy’s letters go for three or four, and Manson… Anything with his signature on it can cop up to a thousand dollars. Can you imagine what a letter signed by Jeffrey Dahmer would be worth to some groupie or collector?”

“Now I get your point,” Helen admitted. It was something she hadn’t even considered.

“So that’s why Dipetro was smart to bar Dahmer from ingoing and outgoing mail. The whole thing’s just a bad move that makes everybody look bad. This center’s received literally tens of thousands of letters addressed to Dahmer. He was never allowed to see a single one.”

Helen agreed with the notion, but it was her bad luck, too. “That pops my balloon real fast,” she said, eyeing Edwards’ pack of Marlboro Box.

“Would you like one?” he offered.

“I’d love one but I can’t. I quit a year ago.”

“Good for you. And what do you mean it popped your balloon?”

“I’m sure you read about the ‘Dahmer’ letter found on P Street the other night.”

“Sure. And I think I just read today that handwriting experts verified it as Dahmer’s writing.”

“That’s right. But I don’t believe for a minute that Dahmer committed the murder. It’s a copycat, and the letter was written well before the murder.”

“Ah, I see,” Edwards said. “And you want to know how Dahmer’s handwriting got out of the prison. Well, I can tell you, we’ve already been all over that.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It had to have been written before he came here, either before he was caught, or during the short time he was in Milwaukee County pending trial.”

Helen had already tried to give that speculation some credence. “I don’t think so. The nature of the letter was religious.”

“But Dahmer had some minor religious fixations before he was even caught.”

“Right,” Helen agreed. “And the major biblical quote in the P Street letter was something Milwaukee PD overheard him say on the day he was arrested. All that was in the papers, sure. But whoever leaked the contents of the letter to the press didn’t quote it entirely. The letter also made a brief reference to Dahmer’s ‘baptism.’“

“Holy shit!” Edward exclaimed. “You’re kidding me? Dahmer wasn’t baptized until last May.”

Helen rubbed her chin in disgruntlement. “Right, and that can only mean that the letter was written sometime after last May, and how can this be, since Dahmer hasn’t been allowed to send any letters since the day he got here?”

Edwards leaned back in his gray, upholstered chair. He eyed her with something akin to amused sorrow. “Looks like you’ve got a hell of a problem on your hands, Captain.”

Helen sighed. “Tell me about it.”

««—»»

James J. Dipetro ran the slam; he’d been the Director of the Columbus County Detention Center for ten years, and for ten years there hadn’t been so much as a single escape. An action guy who didn’t fool around. They sent him in here to do a job, and now that he’d done it, he was up for a high-level post in the local government. Helen could imagine his outrage at the multitude of accusations suddenly leveled against himself and his facility. Right now this guy’s got about as much chance of making Director of Public Safety, Helen thought, as I’ve got of making the Olympic Figure Skating Team.

“You want what?” Dipetro asked. Hyper-tensive, Type-A all the way. A big beefy man with a trimmed beard and light-brown hair thinned by worry and stress. And a derisive glare sharp as an icepick.

“Access to your maintenance logs and personnel rosters,” Helen repeated. She’d gotten nowhere in the Records and Admin offices. “I want to cross-reference them, see which employees had any kind of regular contact with Dahmer.”

“What the hell for?”

“To verify a conspiracy theory.”

“That’s all I need,” Dipetro griped. “As if the goddamn press isn’t bad enough telling everyone that Dahmer’s still alive. Now I got the state cops wanting to tell them it was one of my people who helped get him out.”

This guy was going to be a tough case. “That’s what I’m trying to disprove, Mr. Dipetro. I don’t believe that Dahmer’s alive anymore than you do. But this entire furor in the press revolves around the letter left at the crime scene. Your upper staff have assured me that Dahmer was barred from maintaining outside correspondence because of his federal status rating—”

“That’s right,” Dipetro hastened to agree. “That asshole hasn’t sent or received a single letter since the day we locked him down.”

“—therefore it must’ve been someone working inside the prison who was forwarding mail for him. This whole schmear in the papers revolves around the P Street letter; that’s how they’re able to maintain the assertion that Dahmer escaped. If I can prove that one of your employees was smuggling out correspondence for him, then the lid gets slammed shut on the press and you’re off the hot seat.”

“Oh, well—”

“And furthermore, if I’m lucky, it’ll probably lead me to the real killer, who’s probably some kind of psycho groupie, a guy who paid one of your employees to exchange correspondence under the table.”

Dipetro’s pit-bull demeanor changed quick when he realized that Helen was on his side. “Right. Great. So tell me exactly what you want.”

Helen gave him a card with the state police data-processing batch/search-code on it. “Tell the people in your records office to transfer all prison maintenance logs and duty rosters to my computer. Then I can run a cross-check.”

“You got it, but…” Dipetro grumbled through a pause. “I can tell you right now, all the DOs on transport and escort duty have a revolving schedule. Same in any prison, for obvious security reasons. And as for the rest, contractors and maintenance personnel are never allowed in the cells unless the inmate is on detail somewhere else in the center.”

Helen felt certain she was on the right track. “Fine, Mr. Dipetro. But let’s just do this my way, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” he mumbled and picked up the phone. “Right now I’d sell my soul to get these newspaper assholes off my back.”

««—»»

Two hours later, back in her own office, Helen had a name.

— | — | —

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Merrimac, just off Route 12. About halfway between Madison and the Correctional Center in Portage, and only a twenty-minute drive for Helen. A decent middle-class suburb, with blocks of apartment complexes on the outskirts. And the building in question, in some odd way, reminded Helen of Dahmer’s building on North 25th Street in Milwaukee.

“Mr. Kussler?”

A timid face showed in the door’s chained gap. “Uh, yes?”

Helen held her ID up. “Helen Closs, State Police. May I have a word with you, please?”

Back at HQ, even Helen’s marginal data-processing skills had gotten her what she wanted. It had only actually taken a few minutes for Dipetro’s Records technicians to copy the logs and rosters to the State Police Macro Analysis Computer. From there, Helen had input a simple search and retrieve command identifying Dahmer, Jeffrey as the proximity subject. There had to be a human common denominator in there somewhere, some person during the course of prison duties who came in regular contact with Dahmer or Dahmer’s cell. Helen would’ve guessed it was a detention officer, but she was wrong. What the computer handed her instead was this:

M:/>RETRIEVE/COMMAND FILE RELAY FROM WSP MAC FILE AUX:

KUSSLER, GLEN, A.

DOB: 30 JULY 60

FILE ADDRESS: 2900 SHIPMASTER, UNIT 4, MERRIMAC, WI

OCC STAT: PHYSICAL PLANT DEPARTMENT, COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION CENTER.

OCC SPEC: ELECTRICIAN

EVAL RATING: GOOD STANDING

Helen didn’t need to print out the whole file; this was all she wanted. A quick call to Portage informed her that Mr. Glen A. Kussler, a civilian employee, was off today.

So she went to his home.

“What, what’s this all about?” Kussler let her into the apartment. Nice place for low rent, clean and well decorated, with plush carpet on the floor and stark art-decoish furniture. The place even smelled nice—Carpet deodorizer, Helen guessed. Like the brand she used.

“I need to ask you about your service log at the prison,” she said.

He looked dismayed in response. Glen Kussler brought a meek if not insecure air with him: thin, gangly, over-reactive gray eyes and a twitching mouth. Thinning hair the color of mature straw sat very fine on his head. He wore heather-blue running sweats but obviously hadn’t been running.

“My service log?” he questioned.

“That’s right, Mr. Kussler.” Why waste time? She laid it on the line. “I need to know why you ‘serviced’ Cell 648 roughly twice a month for the last year and a half.”

Kussler peered at her. “648? Six Block. Isn’t that—”

“Jeffrey Dahmer’s cell,” she told him. “According to your service orders filed with the Physical Plant supervisor, you worked on Dahmer’s cell nearly twice a month since shortly after his incarceration. The average repair or service call per cell is only once every three or four months. Why did you need to service Cell 648 so many more times than normal servicing?”

“To change the running bulb. Each cell is equipped with what we call a running bulb that’s controlled by the central block command console. It’s turned on in the morning at 6:30 and turned off every night at ten. By the DO. The inmates themselves have no control over it.”

“You’re telling me that you changed a light bulb in Dahmer’s cell twice a month but only changed them in the other cells every three or four months?”

“Yes, Miss Gloss. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“It’s Closs, not Gloss.” Helen felt slightly taken aback by a sudden inkling of arrogance in Kussler’s tone. “Why? For what reason would Cell 648 be that unique? Why would Dahmer’s running bulb burn out so many more times faster than the running bulbs in a typical cell?”

She watched the man’s face closely, for a giveaway tic, a wavering of eye movement, any gesture of negative-impulse response. Sallee had taught her this and it worked.

But not today.

“Did you check the circuit blueprints?”

“Well, no,” Helen admitted.

“You should have, then you’d know the answer to your own question, Miss—”

“Closs. Captain Helen Closs,” she repeated.

Kussler’s eyes drifted up. “Oh, yes. I read your name in the newspaper today, didn’t I?”

He probably had. She hadn’t even checked for herself yet, but she suspected the venerable Editor Tait had lambasted her after the graphology reports had come in. “Perhaps,” she ducked out of it. “But what’s that about blueprints?”

“The architectural schematics. You’re an investigator, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then certainly, since your undue questions involve electrical maintenance at the center, you would’ve thought to investigate the prison’s blueprints with regard electrical layout.”

This guy turned into an prick real fast, Helen thoughts snapped. He was, very indirectly, putting her down and doing a solid job. It was obvious. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Kussler, I didn’t think to do that at all because I can surmise no reason.”

“Ah, well. Surmise this then, Miss Gloss—”

You dick, Helen thought.

“It should come as no surprise, even to a novice, that the longevity of, say, lightbulbs are dependent upon such things as resistance, ohms, and variables that exist between the industrial transfer of low- and high-tension current. If you’d made obvious inquiry, and first inspected the prison’s architectural blueprints, you would have easily noted that Cell 648 is the last cell on the east tier. You would have also noted that the prison was constructed to run by ten electrical phases and that the east tier runs precisely parallel to phase seven which happens to service the center’s administrative wings. An anomaly in construction, by happenstance, placed the last cell on the east tier—Cell 648—on the same domestic power line that runs the seventh electrical phase.”

“How could I have possibly known that, Mr Kussler?”

“Simple, Miss Gloss. By investigating. You are, as you’ve stated, an investigator.”

Helen found it difficult not to unload on his sarcasm. This guy’s worse than Tait at the Tribune, she thought.

“—and likewise,” Kussler continued, “you would then not find it necessary to harass county employees.”

“I apologize, Mr. Kussler,” Helen steeled herself to say. “You feel that I’m harassing you by asking a few questions?”

The lines around Kussler’s eyes slackened. “Perhaps harassment is too harsh a term. Indispose—is that a more accurate term? Or inconvenience?”

Helen took a breath, counted to ten very quickly. “I apologize for the inconvenience then, Mr. Kussler. But would you be so kind, in lieu of my obvious investigative ineptitude—”

—to tell me what the FUCK you’re talking about, you snide, pompous ass!—

“—to explain to me exactly what you mean?”

“I’d be delighted.” Kussler sat down on a stark polycarbonate-framed couch that Helen would sooner kill herself than have in her own apartment. “It’s like this. By an accident of construction, Cell 648 is the only cell in the prison that is fed by an electrical phase-line run outside of the cellblock phases. Phases One through Six serve those cellblocks. Phases Seven through Ten feed the rest of the prison, the administrative wings. Jeffrey Dahmer’s cell, in other words, though it should’ve been connected to Phase Six was actually connected to Phase Seven, and Phase Seven suffers an anomaly of its own. A dreadful incidence of high-tension power fluctuations.”

Helen opened her mouth to object, then closed it a moment. Father Alexander, the equally snide prison chaplain, had mentioned much of the same. A lot of power fluxes, she remembered.

“So,” Kussler continued, “that is the reason the running bulb burned out twice a month in Cell 648, where as the running bulbs in typical cells only burned out two or three times a year.”

“Then how come there aren’t an equally high number of service calls to the admin wing, Mr. Kussler?” Helen was happy with herself for thinking of.

“Because the running bulbs in the cells,” Kussler answered just as quickly, “are incandescent, while all the administrative fixtures are fluorescent tubes, which typically last twenty to thirty times longer.”

This guy is making a fool out of me, and there’s nothing I can do about it, Helen realized. But her questions, she had to admit, were satisfiably answered.

Helen rebuttoned her overcoat. “I guess that’s about it then. Thank you for your time, Mr.—” Helen’s worse judgment couldn’t resist—”Mr. Kuntler.”

Kussler’s face turned up, incised. “I’m sorry, but what was that?”

“I said thank you for your time, Mr. Kussler.”

Kussler nodded, eyes thinned. “That’s what I thought you said.”

Helen turned for the door. “And have a good day—”

—you DICK!

Helen went back out to her Taurus, but she scarcely had time to start the ignition before her pager went off.

The number on the tiny screen she knew at a glance.

It was Jan Beck. And the suffix after the number struck her with even more alarm:

URGENT.

««—»»

“That’s something though, ain’t it? I mean, Christ—Dahmer.”

“You can say that again. And did you read the Tribune? Some high-brass state cop walked in there yesterday and swore they had proof it was a hoax, guaranteed that the letter was phony. Then a couple hours later their crime-lab people are saying it’s Dahmer’s handwriting.”

Bar chatter. Barkeep and lone patron at the rail. The man, the only other customer in the place, sat at a back cocktail table, in the dark.

The man liked the dark.

Friends, the place was called. Low-key hangout. Just a clean, simple bar, not an action joint like the places on the other side of the block where you could pick up some trade in less time than it took to order a beer. He sipped a bottle of Holsten and listened to the two up front continue their dull banter.

If they only knew…

He looked at them from his place. They were nearly stereotypes: the rail guy in tight jeans, a candyass black leather jacket, short dark hair and mustache. The keep was fat and meek, wire-rim circular spectacles and a short blond ponytail.

“Lemme have a Windex,” the rail guy asked.

“Windex, sure. A little of the old Blue C., a little of the old Stoli, and—damn, where’s that sour mix?” The keep stooped, hunting in the small reach-ins behind the bar. “Come on, sour mix, where are ya? I know you’re hiding in here somewhere—”

The man’s eyes went out of focus, wide and blank like diminutive moons in the barlight—

—and the words turned echoic, sounds struggling under water—

—the words—

—digging deep, deep, deeper until he was drowning in them—

««—»»

“I know you’re hiding in here somewhere.”

He’s back, he’s home, thinks the boy from Bath, Ohio. He thinks this in a way that’s terrifying yet somehow complacent.

Because he’s used to it.

The closet, the kitchen cabinets, under the bed—it doesn’t matter. Dad thinks it’s a game. Once he even hid in the attic, during the summer. He’d passed out it was so hot up there. But when he’d wakened, he’d been in Dad’s bedr—

He stifled the thought, shut it right down.

Today he’s under the bed again, only this time the bed in the guest room. Maybe he won’t think to come in here, the boy prays…

But that was one thing about prayers. They were never answered.

Silence. Stillness. Shadows of legs lay long across the guest room carpet. And next—

The entire bed rises. His father glares down.

“There you are,” he says.

««—»»

“There you go,” the keep said, sliding the translucent-blue Windex shooter to his patron.

“Thanks,” said the rail guy.

The keep glanced across the dark room. “Hey, friend. You ready for another Holsten?”

“Yes. Please.”

What next? he thought.

The way he felt, so full and brimming—he knew he had to do something soon.

“There you go.” The keep put the beer down on the table. “Care for anything to eat? We’ve got a great special today. Chicken Tenders in Mustard Sorrel Sauce.”

“Hmm. That sounds wonderful.” The offer sounded tempting. A good sorrel sauce would make any meat come alive.

Any meat.

“Thanks,” the man said, “but to tell you the truth, I’m not that hungry now. I think maybe I’ll try to whip that up myself later, when I have more of an appetite.”

««—»»

“Take a look.”

Jan Beck handed Helen a short, tractor-fed sheet of multi-colored graphical printing paper. What was printed on it might as well have been Druidic glyphs.

3 - [-3 - (-succinate-2) - 4 -(chloro- N -(2-chloroethyl)- C_5H_11C_12. -(4-sulph—HN_2)-0

“What’s this?” Helen asked. “It looks like something kicked out by the SEM. Some drug?”

“It’s a mole-chain, a chemical designation,” Jan Beck replied. “The last leg of my tox screen of Arlinger. And, no, it’s not from an SEM. Christ, scanning-electron microscopes are thirty years old. The only people who use SEMs these days are flunky novelists who don’t do their research. We haven’t used ours in years. This is from an AFM—that’s Atomic Force Microscope. They’re state of the art and brand new.” Beck rested a hand on a respectably sized machine to her right, with a face plate that read: TopoMetrix. “It’s ten times faster and ten times smaller than an SEM.”

“And ten times more expensive, I suppose?”

“Well, no, actually it’s only about twice as expensive. You’re looking at about four hundred grand here. But if you want fast results, like we do, we pay.”

We? Helen wondered. Yeah, that’s right—the taxpayers. “So why did you page me? What’s this all about?”

“That mole chain came from the tox screen I was just telling you about,” Beck went on.

“A chemical analysis of Arlinger’s blood?”

Beck gave a nod. “It’s a paralytic agent by the trade name of succinicholine sulphate. This guy ingested a massive dose shortly before death.”

“You’re telling me that this stuff is what killed him?”

“No, no, when I say massive dose I don’t mean massive enough to kill him. Point-zero-three would be enough to kill, not much but from what I can tell, it was orally administered, probably put him under in about twenty minutes. My read tells me it was a dose of approximately 0.01 mgs per deciliter.”

A…paralytic agent? “In other words, Arlinger was paralyzed before he was murdered?”

“That’s a fact.”

Helen couldn’t help but acknowledge the impact of this. “But Dahmer did the same thing too, didn’t he? Back in 90?”

“Yes and no. He frequently drugged his victims, but not with anything like this.”

“Barbiturates,” Helen said, remembering.

“Right, street barbiturates to be exact. Quaaludes, Valium, and other benzodaizepam off-shoots. He bought them from pushers on the street, in the Milwaukee dope districts.”

The last thing Helen needed was another m.o. similarity, and with this, she didn’t see much of a difference. “Valium or Quaaludes or this stuff? What’s the difference?”

“That’s where you lucked out. The dissimilarity is just too apparent. Succinicholine sulphate isn’t something you buy from a pusher on the street; it has absolutely no use as a recreational narcotic.”

“Then—” Helen wondered. “Where did the P Street killer get this…succinicholine sulphate?”

“Only two places possible: a drug manufacturer or a—”

“A hospital?”

“Right,” Beck assented. “SS doesn’t produce any kind of a high, it merely paralyzes the skeletal musculature. And that would explain why Arlinger’s body showed no signs of struggle. He couldn’t struggle, not with a cardiovascular system full of this stuff. What it all boils down to, Captain, is that your man knocked his victim out, just like Dahmer did, but with the least likely and the least accessible substance. The only place you’ll find a lot of SS are in ambulances and ERs. They use the stuff for sudden seizure traumas.”

But Helen, based on what she’d just been told, was already contemplating the worst implication. “Paralyzes the skeletal musculature… You mean—”

“What I mean, Captain, is that Arlinger couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even flinch. But one thing he could do was feel. It’s the ultimate torture. Arlinger felt everything while the killer was cutting on him.”

Helen blanched.

Everything, she thought. Everything…

“And there was nothing he could do about it,” Beck finished, “except lie there and take it till he died.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWELVE

Olsher did a double-take passing her office, then, squinting, stuck his big head in. “Jesus, Helen, it’s going on midnight. I saw you in here this morning at—what?—eight?”

“Seven,” Helen corrected, glancing up from her desk. And I’m not even on the clock.

“You ought to go home, get some rest.”

“So should you,” she suggested. “You’ve been working just as long as I have.”

“Can’t sleep,” the deputy chief grumbled.

“Fifty cups of coffee a day, it’s no wonder.” She noticed a tabloid under his arm, The Star. GOVERNMENT ADMITS: DAHMER WAS PART ALIEN! Helen just shook her head.

“Hey, coffee’s the only thing that makes me happy. And how can I sleep when I gotta worry about what the press is going to say about us tomorrow? Tait really slapped it to you in the Tribune.”

“I heard. But I got more important things to worry about than the worst newspaper in the city.” Then she explained Jan Beck’s tox screen of the blood of Stewart K. Arlinger, and the dose of succinicholine sulphate.

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Olsher perked up. “Nothing like the run of the mill street tranks Dahmer used.”

“That’s not how the papers’ll see it,” Helen posited. “They’ll only see what they want to see. Even though this is a completely dissimilar drug, they’ll play it as another similarity simply because Arlinger was drugged before his murder. And that damn letter is still killing us.”

“So what are you working on now?”

“Trying to get a line on where this succinicholine came from. You can’t buy it on the street—it has no street value. According to Beck, the only places are emergency rooms and ambulances, and the manufacturer, of course, but that’s in Newark, New Jersey, and pharmaceutical manufacturers all have security like Fort Knox.”

“But still, it’s got to be some sort of theft.”

“Sure.”

Olsher, obviously weary but trying not to show it, leaned against the office doorway. “So where do you go from there?”

“All clinical pharmaceuticals have a federal control number, and whenever they’re stolen or found missing in inventory, it has to be reported to NCIC and also FDA. And the only way hospitals can make a report like that in the first place is through the state police MAC. So that’s what I’m doing now.” Helen’s hand bid her computer CRT. “Unfortunately, at this hour, only half the terminals are on line. It’ll take me some time, in other words.”

“Well, just make sure you don’t drop dead from sleep deprivation. If you start to burn out, go home. It can wait till tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

Distant footsteps could be heard behind Olsher, from the hallway. The deputy chief took a quick glance, then whispered, “Looks like you got a visitor.”

“What?” A visitor? At this hour? “Who is it, Larrel? Is it Beck?” Helen liked Beck, even though it was hard. Beck didn’t resent Helen’s rank, she merely was suspicious of anyone with rank. Which was normal and very human. Helen had been the same way when she first joined. However—

“It’s Tom,” Olsher piped to her. “See ya later.”

The name jolted her.

Tom.

Oh, no. What am I going to— This was a surprise she didn’t need. There was no time to prepare, no time to think out what she wanted to say, no time—

“Hi, Helen.”

Speechless. Locked in mental rigor. What am I going to say to him? What should I do? Yet here he was, standing right in her office. She’d been thinking about him off and on for the last several days, knowing she would have to confront him eventually but— Burying my head in the sand, as usual, she admitted. She missed him, she wanted to talk to him and try to work things out, but how could she? After that phony story about the hospital annex, an annex that didn’t exist?

Helen felt stifled. “Hi.”

“So, how have you been?”

“All right. Well, busy I should say.”

“I guess so, with all this P Street stuff wreaking havoc in the papers. I’ve had five FOIA requests already, for ID verification on Dahmer’s body. Even got a double-check order from the people running the Bureau’s Optical Latent Mainframe. It’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” was all Helen could say. She tried not to look at him but had to. Dressed as usual, in decent gray slacks, a white Christian Dior shirt, and a labcoat. The image kicked her back to any similar night in he past: they’d both be getting off late, he’d come pick her up, and they’d go back to his place and fall asleep in each other’s arms. It was comforting, it was nice. But…

Not tonight, she guessed.

Eventually he broke, shifted his stance. “Well, I’m not any good with small talk and neither are you. I guess the real reason I came was to, you know, find out what’s going on…with us, I mean.”

“I—” She couldn’t take her eyes off him. “I don’t know.”

Tom shrugged, looked awkwardly around the office as he spoke. “You have this paranoid idea that I’m seeing some other woman, but I’m not. It’s your imagination.”

Helen bit back a more perfunctory response. First of all, she was sick of being called paranoid, even though she knew she was. And how could he even say such a thing straight to her face. “Tom, look, I called the hospital to see if the annex number was the same one on your pager. And you know what they told me? They told me that there is no annex at the hospital.”

Tom shrugged again. “Of course there isn’t an annex at the hospital. The annex isn’t on the hospital premise, it’s downtown on Bilker Street.”

Helen’s eyes widened.

“It’s a supply repository, Helen, a warehouse. The hospital rents space there for inventory storage. Every hospital in the county rents space there. That’s where we keep our overstock, and certain deliveries are taken there if there’s no room at St. John’s. And that’s also the reason there was a different prefix on my pager. I would’ve explained it all if you’d have given me the chance.”

Helen continued to sit there with her eyes propped open, as if glaring at her own haste and, yes, her own paranoia. Her fingernail ticked against the desk, right next to the phone book.

“Go ahead and check if you don’t believe me.”

She couldn’t do that—that would be too much. And, now, it was plain to see just by looking at him that he was telling the truth.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“And to get back to my point. I don’t think we should trash our whole relationship because of something like this.”

Helen nodded in embarrassed agreement. In no time, she was rubbing her locket.

“So why don’t we, like, get together sometime soon and talk about things. Not right now—I need a little space right now and I’m sure you do too. But soon. I mean, if you want to.”

“I do want to,” she peeped.

“Okay, then. We’ll get together soon, okay?”

“Yes.”

“Take care—” He smiled. “And quit rubbing that locket.”

She smiled back, flushed, and watched him leave, sat there and listened to his footsteps disappear down the vacant hall.

How many more ways can you be an asshole, Helen? she asked herself. How many more ways can you screw up?

She tried to resist the impulse but couldn’t quite do it, and this made her feel even worse. Even now, the number she’d seen on Tom’s pager reminded burned in her head—224-9855—and in her reverse directory, she looked it up.

No surprise, either. 224-9855, BILKER MEDICAL SUPPLY ANNEX, 959 Bilker Street, N.W.

He was telling the truth.

Yeah, screw up a little more why don’t you, Helen? Chase every man out of your life forever. Paranoid bitch.

She wanted to get up just then, run after him, apologize and plead with him. I love him, she realized. I’ve got to tell him.

At the same time, though, her printer began to percolate, paper feeding automatically as her search request was finally answered.

M:\> MAC SEARCH SYSTEM REQUEST

FR: CLOSS, H. WSP VCU, CRED #/ID 455

DE: PROXIMAL THEFT REPORT/FED CONTROL #51995/ SUCCINICHOLINE /SCHILLER INC>/LOT #42239SV/EXP. 3-97/LICENSED UNDER U.S. PATENT #4,315,926

CASE NUMBER TH 1514 MADISON PD

M_INIT ALLOCATE SPEC MEMORY

STATE SIGNAL CODE 84CV/ COUNTY EMT VEHICLE #154 REPORTS THEFT OF CONTROLLED PHARMACEUTICALS ON 1500 BLOCK, UTAH STREET, MADISON.

Utah Street, Helen paused to muse. A ghetto block. It was more than that, though. The 1500 block, part of Madison’s Precinct Five, was the worse crime district in the city.

PARAMEDIC COOPER, C., REPORTED DEAD ON ARRIVAL TO ST. JOHN THE DIVINE’S HOSPITAL VIA MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS TO THE ABDOMEN AFTER LONE ARMED ATTACKER ENTERED VEHICLE #154. DRIVER GOODWIN, D., SUFFERED HAIRLINE CRANIAL FRACTURE AND CONCUSSION AND NOW LISTED ON COMP LEAVE IN GOOD CONDITION. PHARMACEUTICAL VAULT REPORTED RANSACKED.

M:\>FIND [……………GO TO NEXT]

AMONG FDA CONTROL SUBSTANCES REPORTED STOLEN:

SEARCH OBJECT:

CARTON, ONE, TWELVE (12) .4 MG INTRAMUSCULAR VIALS OF PARALYTIC AGENT SUCCINICHOLINE SULPHATE (SOLUTION) [SEE LOT # ABOVE FOR MNFR REC.]

END OF SEARCH SYSTEM REQUEST

How do you like that? Helen thought, creaking back in her chair. An ambulance jacking. It happened all the time these days. Drug addicts would frequently make phony 911 calls to some remote, dark alley, overpower the paramedics, and steal any drugs that the vehicle might be carrying.

And this perp stole a carton of succinicholine sulphate?

An interesting find but it was useless to her without the date. Quickly she punched in the cited Madison PD case number, waited, stared at the screen at moment later.

FIND: MADISON PD CASE # TH 1514, PREC 5

CITED: SIGNAL 84CV/THEFT OF PROPERTY FROM REGISTERED COUNTY EMERGENCY VEHICLE

The date blinked back at her.

2304 HRS/11-29-94

“November 29th,” she whispered to herself.

Just one night after Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered.

— | — | —

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Circles.

Squares.

Triangles.

Planes.

Me, he thinks in the dark.

««—»»

The heat swooshes on. The curtains move. White moonlight winks in the vaguely moving gap.

It is in this gap that he sees it all, his destiny.

Me, me…

From the nightmare, he hears a voice—

A man’s gotta grab life by the balls, his father said once afterward. Moonlight looked like ice in the window panes.

Real men take what they want.

His father’s face smiles through a scarlet grin.

The little boy’s hand quivers.

It’s take or be taken. One day you’ll understand.

««—»»

Back to the present—the world full of his fodder. He gets up, strays to the window—

One day you’ll be a taker. That’s why I’m doing this…

—then looks back with shimmering eyes at the dead man he’d been lying in bed with.

««—»»

Helen glanced at her office clock. Five minutes, she thought. He better not be late. She passed the time by reading one of the tabloids Olsher had inadvertently left. GOD TOLD ME TO DO IT, the top headline read. WHY I KILLED DAHMER, by Tredell Rosser. She flipped to the story, unable to believe that Rosser would’ve been granted an interview with any newspaper much less a tabloid. But when she read the “article,” she plainly saw that he hadn’t. Sources close to the Star have revealed— Helen didn’t bother reading further. Sources close, my ass, she thought. They just made it up, fabricated the whole thing. True, no one with a brain believed anything printed in a supermarket tabloid, but she just couldn’t understand how writers, however corrupt, could be allowed to fabricate “news.” Whatever happened to fraud? Whatever happened to libel? When the Founding Fathers had instituted the premise of free speech in the Constitution, Helen doubted that they meant it was okay for journalists to invent stories and cite anonymous “close sources” as verification.

It wasn’t even worth thinking about. A few minutes later, a man entered, and he didn’t look happy.

“Mr. Goodwin,” Helen greeted from her desk. “Thanks for coming. Please have a seat.”

Daniel Goodwin seemed to scowl in response to the greeting. “I sure don’t understand why I have to be dragged down here,” he said, seating himself. Nondescript in appearance, medium build, early 30s, but Helen could see the chip on his shoulder. Daniel D. Goodwin had been employed by the Madison County Rescue Squad for two years. He was also the lone survivor of the November 29th robbery of EMT Unit #154.

“You weren’t dragged down here, Mr. Goodwin,” Helen pointed out. “You were merely asked to avail yourself for some questions.”

“Avail myself, huh? I already talked to the Narcotics Unit. My partner gets killed, I get a concussion and hairline fracture, and they treat me like I’m the bad guy.”

“And why might that be?”

Goodwin’s face creased to a frown. “Because of the bum rap I got at Falks County FD, which I’m sure you know all about.”

Indeed she did, and a curious consideration, but Helen wasn’t quite sure what she thought about it yet. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Goodwin, and I’m sorry about your partner. I’d just like you to reiterate some points for me. You say you were assaulted by a lone gunman on the night of November 29th, at a few minutes after eleven?”

“That’s right, 2304, like it says in the report. I was cracked on the head.”

“With what?”

“The butt of his gun.”

“And this was after you opened the unit’s med safe.”

“Yeah. I don’t feel too good about it, but when somebody points a gun in your face and tells you to do something, you do it, especially after the same guy just shot one of your friends.”

“I’m sure I would’ve done the same thing, Mr. Goodwin,” Helen suggested. “Nobody expects you to risk your life protecting county pharmaceuticals. Ambulance jacking is rampant these days. Sixteen incidents already this year, and that’s just the southern district. But tell me a little more about your attacker.”

“It’s all in the report. The guy shot Cooper twice before I could even blink; he was waiting for us inside the truck when we came back from the address. The guy was smart. The average jacking’s always near an alley, never in the middle of a street; he put a lamp inside a closed rowhouse, made it look occupied. So the whole thing looked legit when we responded. But when we got back to the unit, the guy’s already in back waiting for us with the gun.”

Helen scanned the initial report filed by Madison Metro PD. “And the assailant had a pistol with a sound-suppression device?”

“A street silencer,” Goodwin elucidated. “A plastic soda bottle hose-clamped to the barrel; it’s big with dopers and street gangs. They used to use the big two-liter bottles until the soda companies came up with the bright idea of making twenty-ounce ones.”

“You seem to know a lot about it, Mr. Goodwin.”

“I’m an EMT. I see stuff like this all the time. A dozen times a year probably I transport some doper or junkie full of holes, and there’s always one of these bottles lying around near the scene.”

Helen nodded. Sometimes the ingenuity of the street was impressive. “It says here your assailant was tall, thin, wearing a leather jacket, gloves, and a ski mask, white caucasian.”

“Right. I know he was white because the eyeholes were big. And he sounded white on the 911 tape.”

“And after you opened the safe, he rendered you unconscious. And when you woke up, the first thing you did was examine the safe?”

“No, the first thing I did was radio for help. I was seeing stars. But I did manage to glance in the safe, and that was the strange part.”

Helen focused. “Strange because the typical products a jacker would go for were still there?”

“That’s right. We don’t carry much any more since jacking’s become popular. A little Dilaudid and a little Atropine—there’s nothing else in that safe a jacker could get high off of or sell.”

“But this jacker didn’t touch any of that. Am I correct, Mr. Goodwin?”

“All the Dilaudid and all the Atropine was still there. The only thing this guy took was a box of i.v.—”

“Succinicholine sulphate.”

Goodwin affirmed the fact with a nod. Helen paused, trying to read him. He seemed on the level, but—

So do a lot of people, she reminded herself. “Okay, Mr. Goodwin, now tell me about Falks County.”

Goodwin’s eyes thinned, and suddenly a vein was bulging on his temple. “Jesus Christ, I knew this was coming. Look, the county attorney’s office dropped charges. You want to know why? Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, they dropped charges for lack of enough evidence deemed sufficient for prosecution,” Helen made the minor correction.

“You people kill me,” Goodwin accosted. “Look, sure, I screwed up that night in Falks; I left the keys in the truck because there was a kid lying in the middle of the road with blood all over him, and it was a strapped call.”

“A strapped call?”

“We got the call when I was the only guy in the station, so that’s why I had no partner that night.”

Helen nodded again. “But, according to the Falks County investigator, your partner was in the station—

“He was in the can taking a dump, lady. What, I’m supposed to wait for him to finish wiping his ass when there’s a transport call for a kid bleeding in the street?”

“—and suggests that you deliberately left the station without him, because responding without him would have removed a second witness from the scene. Mr. Goodwin, the county investigator always believed that you arranged the whole incident on purpose in order to allow an unknown associate to commandeer your Falks County EMT van and then steal all the controlled pharmaceuticals in that med safe.”

There. That’s what she wanted to say, to gauge his reaction. And his reaction came as no surprise:

“That’s a bunch of fuckin’ bullshit! Do you know how much Dilaudid the average EMT truck carries? Ten tabs! Maybe worth five hundred bucks to a dealer on the street. And Atropine, it’s a cheap five-dollar high. Yeah, sure, lady, I’m gonna jeopardize my fuckin’ career to split a couple hundred bucks for the penny-ante dope in an EMT truck? Jesus Christ!”

Helen’s purpose was now served. Get him hot. Get him riled. Get him in a defensive emotional mode, because when that happened, people generally lost their sense of better judgment and would—

Slip up.

Helen put Goodwin’s Falks County report away. “Let me be almost as profane as you, Mr. Goodwin. I don’t give a shit about any allegations you may have faced while serving as a paramedic for the Falks County Rescue Squad.”

Goodwin’s entire face seemed to open like a flower. “Then why the fuck am I here?”

“I’ll tell you that, just calm down, all right? I can’t tell you the details, Mr. Goodwin. I only want your professional opinion on succinicholine sulphate. It was stolen from your vehicle on the 29th of November, and it was stolen from your vehicle during the Falks County incident over two years ago.”

“Of course it was!” Goodwin railed. “I already told you, the whole thing was a set-up. I took the call alone because my partner was in the can taking a shit! I arrived at the loke and there was a kid lying in the street with blood all over him! I fucked up and left the keys in the truck because I was rushing to help the kid! The kid gets up and runs away—it’s catsup he’s got all over him. Then I go back to the truck, but some player’s already in it driving away! The succinicholine sulphate wasn’t in the Falks County safe because nothing else was either! They took everything, like they usually do. An ambulance jacker isn’t gonna take time picking through each and every pharmaceutical! He takes everything at once and sorts it out later, because he knows in two minutes every cop car in town is gonna be looking for him!”

“Calm down, Mr. Goodwin. Please. Just calm down.” Helen gave him some air, let him sit a minute. “The only reason I had my men bring you down here is to answer one question.”

“Okay,” Goodwin responded hotly. “What’s the goddamn fuckin’ question?”

“Why would anyone specifically want to steal the drug known as succinicholine sulphate?”

Goodwin rubbed his face in his hands, seemed to try to wring out his stress. “Succinicholine sulphate is only good for one thing. It’s a paralytic agent. We use it in emergencies to stop convulsions and Grand Mal seizures. The only thing it’s good for is paralyzing people.”

“But why would someone want to paralyze someone else?”

Goodwin jumped to his feet, his fists clenched. Then his entire face jumped forward when he shouted, “How the fuck would I know, goddamn it!”

««—»»

How the fuck would I know? Helen thought long after the paramedic had left.

But I do know, don’t I?

You paralyze someone to render them defenseless. To leave them in a state where you can do anything you want, however depraved, however pathological.

She believed Goodwin had gotten a bad rap on Falks County FD; it was easy enough to discern. It was also easy enough to discern that the following likelihood existed: the masked ambulance jacker and the Jeffrey Dahmer copycat were the self-same man.

Christ, she thought. I wish Congress would ban ski masks.

««—»»

The man kissed the man. A cold kiss, a disaffectionate one, but a kiss nonetheless. The man didn’t know what to feel.

Only this man was—

««—»»

“Tom, I—”

Helen couldn’t finish. Too much, too soon. Was it a dream? What am I…seeing? she asked herself. The cold air chafed her face when she lowered down the window to look harder…

She hadn’t really been able to identify the impulse. It had been a long day which stretched into a long night; all the while the encouraging conversation she’d had earlier with Tom had sparked her. Something, at least, to feel good about.

She knew he needed time—he’d said that, and she respected it. But—

She’d decided to…drive by.

For what precise reason, she couldn’t name. It seemed like something that teen lovers might do when they were on the rocks. I’ll just drive by his condo, see if his lights are on, see if his car’s there… And now—

She’d never felt more confused in her life.

Helen had driven by, yes, figured that whatever the impulse was, it was harmless. I love him, she reminded herself in an utmost resoluteness. So I’m driving by.

Mistake.

She wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing at first. Two figures at the condo entry, two—Men, she saw. Then—

Jesus, that looks like Tom, doesn’t it?

She squinted through the cold glass, still trying to discern. And when she lowered the Taurus’ passenger window, she knew what she was seeing beyond a doubt.

Tom was kissing another man on the landing.

The car stopped. Helen stared.

“Aw, no,” Tom said.

“Tom, I—”

His eyes peered down. “Jesus, Helen, you should’ve called first.”

“Yeah, I guess I should’ve! I wouldn’t want to cause a difficult situation for you! I wouldn’t want to screw up any of your action!”

Tom’s suitor, a frazzled-looking younger man in jeans, long brown hair, and an old pea-coat, extricated himself from the situation as quickly as possible. His sneakered footsteps faded off in the parking lot darkness, leaving Helen and Tom to gape at each other.

“Come on in,” Tom said. “I guess we better talk.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You’re…gay,” she stupidly mouthed.

“No, Helen. I’m bisexual. I have some gay tendencies, yes, but bisexual is what I am.”

Her mind swarmed with winter clouds. She’d parked in the fire lane, had come in upon his invitation, though she wasn’t sure why. He’s gay, she kept thinking. He’s gay, he’s gay—why didn’t he ever tell me?

He couldn’t look her in the eye right now. Some CD-ROM game was on his computer, playing through a demo—monsters prowling medieval corridors—and he used this distraction to go and turn it off.

Finally, Helen spoke up, if only to create a break which would relieve her from merely standing there in her overcoat feeling idiotic. “Bisexual, gay—what’s the difference?”

“Well, there is a difference, Helen. It’s not easy to explain but there’s still a difference. Christ, this is the 90s. I mean, don’t go Rush Limbaugh on me.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Tom! I’m not a homophobe! But I think I have damn good reason for being disillusioned when I see my lover kissing another man on the steps of his condo!”

The rant hushed the room.

“I don’t know what to say,” he told her.

“And what about precautions, Tom? You’re the one who just told me this is the 90s. You ever hear of AIDS? For the last year and a half, whenever you and I have slept together, you never once used a condom.”

“But I did at first, didn’t I? Until you were comfortable not using them. I’m a state employee, Helen, just like you. I get an AIDS test every six months to maintain my health insurance. And whenever I’m with another man…”

“What?” she spat back.

“I’ve always used condoms,” he sheepishly replied.

“Great. Give yourself the gold star. But tell me this, Tom. For the time we’ve been together, just how many other men have there been?”

More hushed silence cramped the room. Tom looked at the carpet. “I won’t lie to you. There’ve been, well, a bunch. Nothing serious. Just…flings.”

“A bunch, huh? Well tell me something, how many is a bunch?”

He faltered like a car with a bad carb. “A dozen, I guess, er, probably less than that, more like, I don’t know, nine or ten.”

The roof of Helen’s consciousness caved in then—she simply couldn’t picture it, she simply couldn’t understand. He’s been with a dozen men for the whole time he was with me?

But as if he’d read her thought, he scrambled to explain. “No, you’re right, I didn’t tell you and I should’ve—”

“You’re goddamn right, you should’ve.”

“—and the reason I didn’t was, well, because, you are too important to me—”

“That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life,” she replied.

“—and I didn’t know how you’d feel. I needed to get things out of my system before I took the plunge.”

She shook her head, wincing, incomprehensible. “What plunge?”

“Marrying you.”

“I—” she came right back, but that was all. Marrying. You. She felt lost now. Test the water before you jump to conclusions. Christ, this was hard. Marriage was what she wanted more than anything—at least a marriage to the right man. For so long, she’d believed he was it. But now?

She…just…didn’t think…she could…believe him.

“I can’t handle this,” she murmured more to herself. “This is too weird, this is too—shit, I don’t know what.”

She turned and left, blew out of the condo and into the stairwell. Tom rushed after her.

“Don’t run away!” he bellowed.

“Shut up! Leave me alone!”

Her high heels scampered down the steps.

“I won’t do it again, I promise!”

She kept going down, and he kept following. The cold air of the parking lot exploded into her face. She trotted for the Taurus like someone fleeing demons.

Tom stopped at the condo entry. “I’ll marry you!” he shouted.

Helen paused as she meant to open the car door.

“I’ll marry you, right now. We’ll go someplace right now, some justice of the piece, some lawyer—anywhere.”

Her hand shook holding the key.

“I love you, Helen,” he professed. “I don’t ever want to be with anyone else in the world, man or woman, except you.”

Helen felt as though she’d just stared into the eyes of the Medusa, and was turned to a pillar of salt.

“I’ll never touch anyone else in the world,” Tom promised, “except you.”

Tears turned to frost on her cheeks when she got into her state car, started the engine, and drove away. She wasn’t out of the parking lot a full two minutes when her pager began to beep.

««—»»

“Dumplin, Alan, 36 years old,” Jan Beck rattled off at the bottom of the stairwell of the Reed Circle loft. The stairwell rose narrowly into close darkness; Helen smelled dust and new paint as she followed the CES chief up.

Another one. In the Madison gay district. Beck looked like a pop scrub nurse in her red polys, showercap, elastic booties, and vinyl gloves. “No one saw or heard anything,” Beck added.

“That figures.” Helen was losing her breath mounting the close steps. I quit smoking a year ago but I’m still huffing and puffing, she thought. She felt short-changed, and the scene, less than thirty minutes ago at Tom’s, only supplemented that particular notion. “Please tell me there’s not another note.”

“There’s another note,” Beck said. “And it looks like we’ve got the pen this time.”

“A Flair?”

“Yep. And my UV guy thinks he’s got a solid tented arch on the note.”

UV guy, Helen thought. Most latent techs used battery-powered ultraviolet lamps to scan crime scenes for initial prints. The killer screwed up, came the bald thought. A tented arch was one of the most common types of fingerprint partials, and the easiest to make an ID from.

Beck waited on the landing for Helen to catch her breath. “In other words, this case may be solved now, or at the very least we’ll be able to prove the killer isn’t Dahmer. By mistakenly leaving a fingerprint on the note? That’s direct evidence that will contradict the graphological analysis of Dahmer’s handwriting.” Beck paused to peer at Helen. “I would think you’d be elated by this news, Captain.”

“I am,” Helen replied in something like numbness. She was still thinking about Tom. “But whenever there’s good news, there’s always bad news too.”

“No exception here. The bad news is you’re going to have to go in and look at the body. Hair and Fibers is finished, so I won’t make you dress up.”

“Thank you, Jan.” Helen could feel relieved, at least, about one thing. She hated having to don those ridiculous bright-red polyester overalls and booties.

Two state uniforms parted to make way at the door. Inside was a spacious, airy loft with veneered, old wood floors, throw rugs, and tasteful spartanish furniture. Several red-dressed technicians, a typical sight for Helen, went about their business, oblivious to the world. An immediate chill surrounded her: the windows were open. Helen wondered if the killer had left it open on purpose, to thwart a forensic effort to determine an accurate time-of-death margin by calculating an approximate drop in body temperature against the average temperature of the room. Her mind ticked.

An opened, roll-top desk sat in one corner, but in the corner opposite rested a king-sized waterbed.

The portly, naked body seemed to float there atop churning sheets. Helen paused for an unbidden glance.

Her stomach hitched.

“He tended bar at a place just down the block,” Beck said.

“A trade bar?”

“No, no. Place called Friends. Happy hour sort of place, big lunch crowd from the bizz district, and a lot of after-work meetings. Not a pickup joint at all is the word.”

“Any current lovers or…relationships?” she asked the question through something like a heart palpitation. Lovers, relationships… Men.

Then: Tom.

At that precise moment, Helen felt as though she didn’t understand anything at all.

“That’s your legwork, Captain,” Beck reminded her. “The first responders from Metro, along with some of our uniforms, did a quick canvass but that’s about it. Word is Dumplin was a nice guy. Landlord says he was quiet, courteous, and always paid the rent on time.”

The corpse seemed unreal, like a finely realistic wax imitation. But what wax museum would display this? A dark-blonde ponytail, a chubby face, stubbled, just starting to settle. Helen couldn’t allow herself a direct glance at the groin: just a shriveled shape that seemed tiny. But something about the forehead, some odd and ugly mark, nicked at her vision.

A clot of blood? A small-caliber bullet hole?

“I guess an exact T.O.D. is out of the question.”

Beck shrugged. “Yeah, the bastard left the window open, and it’s been below freezing all week. But the guy was at work two nights ago, so we know that at least. And the lividity is plain, so that ties up another twenty-four hours of slack.”

Helen, then, noted the purplish hue of the corpse’s underside, the tell-tale tint of settled blood. “I need an hour, Jan, not a day.”

“I should be able to give you, say, a three-hour margin by a potassium-point analysis of the ocular fluids.”

The eyes, Helen thought. These forensic people were like butchers; no waste—they’d use anything they could. Anything on the body, even the humor of the eyes, could be drained, put into some obscure machine, and analyzed.

But that anomaly on the forehead kept…nicking at her. Helen stuttered through the next question.

“Was he shot? Is that a bullethole in his head?”

Even Beck’s tone turned grim with the response. “I need to look at it closer, but it seems to be what we call a clockwise ‘torque’ penetration.”

Helen shot a perplexed look. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It appears that the perpetrator…drilled a hole…through the decedent’s foreskull. More copycat stuff.”

Yes. Sallee had reminded Helen of that. Jeffrey Dahmer, in his symbolic quest to keep lovers from leaving him, had crudely lobotomized several of his victims—

By drilling holes in their heads and inserting pins and nails into the frontal lobe, hoping to disable them without killing them.

“You’re saying the killer used a power drill on the victim? That would’ve made a lot of noise, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure, but Dumplin’s the only tenant on this floor. A good diamond bit would probably penetrate the cranial wall in less than a two or three seconds. Or maybe he used a manual drill, or some other tool.”

“So it’s also your conclusion that Dumplin was drugged unconscious beforehand,” Helen asked if only for the record.

“Had to have been.” Beck scratched an itch at the line of her showercap. Her beige-gloved finger looked mannequin-like. “I’ll run a mole screen for succinicholine sulphate once I get him for workup.”

As if at a chill, Helen turned abruptly. “I can’t look at him anymore. Let me see the note.”

Helen felt palsied following Beck from the bed to the roll-top desk. A marionette on block feet.

“I haven’t got it in an e-bag yet,” Beck warned, “so don’t touch it, don’t get close enough to breathe on it, don’t even lean over it. We don’t want any dandruff or anything on it.”

“I don’t have dandruff,” Helen complained.

“I know, but in case you do. A fiber of your hair could fall on it, even invisible debris from your hairspray.” Beck glanced over her shoulder. “Lee, bring the Sirchie over here for the Captain.”

But Helen’s eyes were already rooted to the neat, plain white sheet of unlined paper. Blue felt-tip ink briefly spelled out:

Dear Friends:

Fear is power.

I bring my power unto you.

Until next time,

Jeff

“Short and sweet,” Helen observed.

“Um-hmm. And there’s the pen, or at least we think that’s the pen used to write the note.” Beck’s queerly gloved finger pointed to a small evidence bag containing one blue Flair pen.

“Maybe there’re prints on the pen too,” Helen surmised.

“Maybe, maybe not. The cap’s smooth, and it’ll take a good latent but the pen’s body is grooved, so all we’d be able to pick up would be chloride residuum, sweat, and maybe some alphas from the sebaceous oils.”

Suddenly a buzzing wavered behind them; one of the latent technicians stepped up, waving the eerie blue-white light from the element of his portable ultraviolet lamp. He held it over the note.

The white paper turned fluorescent purple, as did the white fabric of Helen’s blouse.

“See it?” Beck said.

Helen squinted to the point of headache, and…saw it. A slightly darker purple against the luminous paper. It looked like a triangle, with concentric triangles within. “It doesn’t look like much, does it?” Beck speculated.

“No.” No, it didn’t. It looked so tiny, so minuscule; in fact, she found it nearly impossible to believe that this irreducible piece of a fingerprint could prove the killer wasn’t Jeffrey Dahmer. But it could also prove who the real killer was, provided said killer’s prints were on file.

“But under our helium-osmium laser, that little smudge will light up like the Fourth of July,” Beck went on. “We’ll be able to get an absolutely pristine photograph of it. Then I’ll do a Neohydrin-Acetone trace on it for a back up. After that, it may only be a matter of hours before we have what we need.”

The tech retreated, back to his business. Helen looked around. These people were automatons: death was their turf. Helen could easily note a sparkle of excitement in Beck’s eye. Nobody seemed to care in the least that there was a dead man in the room, a man who had suffered a death that beggared description.

Rest in peace, Helen thought, casting a final sideglance to the corpse.

Then, to Beck: “Move on this fingerprint stuff faster than you’ve ever moved in your life.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Who knew? He mustn’t be afraid.

What would his father say?

He leans back to relax, closes his eyes. He feels slaked. He feels powerful. In the peculiar darkness behind his eyelids, he sees himself—

—digging up the bones of the little animals in his back yard in Bath, Ohio. Little toothpicks, they reminded him of. So fragile.

He’d melt the little bodies in the corrosives he’d mixed from his chemistry set. His father had given him the set. Then he’d bury the bones where they’d be protected. He could dig them up any time, couldn’t he? He could look at them whenever he wanted.

But he always knew that, one day, the bones would get bigger…

««—»»

He’s been asleep. When he wakens, the darkness is nearly the same as the color behind his closed eyes. Anguloid shapes hover: like diamonds, like pyramids, and—yes—like tented arches…

Eventually they dissolve as the moonlight brightens, brushing the rods in his eyes.

He sniffs the light-diced air and smells death.

««—»»

“It’s positive,” Beck said. “Across the board.”

Helen and Olsher sat there like two defendants who’d just been sentenced to death by the judge. Olsher didn’t even bother commencing one of his typical emotional outbursts. What good would that do? Helen just sat there.

Beck looked wrung out in her labcoat as she continued. “Everything. The second letter was written by Dahmer. Cellmark Labs came back with the DNA analysis, and the hairs on Arlinger’s body were Dahmer’s. And now this fingerprint. The optical interface gave us a 100-percent-probability match. Even the pore scheme’s between the ridges were clear enough to run. Jeffrey Dahmer put that letter on the desk.”

“Three strikes and we’re out,” Olsher said.

But Helen didn’t say anything. She couldn’t fathom what to say.

“So we were all wrong,” Beck pointed out. “In a big way.”

“And to make matters worse,” Olsher informed, “Dahmer sent a letter to the Tribune too. They’re running it tomorrow.”

Finally, Helen spoke. “Did you screen Dumplin’s blood?”

“Um-hmm.” Beck sat down exhausted in one of Olsher’s chairs. “Positive for succinicholine sulphate, point-zero-zero-nine mgs per deciliter. A sixteen-percent lower unit-per-deciliter dose, but Dumplin weighed more than Arlinger. Want to guess how much more?”

“Sixteen percent,” Helen said rather than asked.

“That’s right. So it’s a good possibility that it was an identical administration. Those point-four vials that were ripped off from the paramedic truck? An oral dose, slipped in a beer or something—point-zero-zero-nine mgs is a damn good approximation for a guy of Dumplin’s body weight.”

“I just can’t see Dahmer pulling an ambulance heist,” came Olsher’s flustered offer.

“I can’t see him doing a lot of this stuff,” Beck added. “But we’ve got no choice now but to accept the fact that he did.”

“Yeah,” Olsher said.

Helen looked at them both, squinting.

Olsher unwrapped a cigar. “What’s your problem?”

I love it when he’s in a good mood. But Helen couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “Am I having auditory hallucinations, or am I to assume that the both of you are asserting that Jeffrey Dahmer is still alive and committing murders?”

“Are you dense?” Olsher objected. “You’ve seen the evidence. A positive DNA read, two positive graphology reports, and now a positive fingerprint. It’s Dahmer, Helen. None of us can deny that now.”

Helen wanted to throw her arms up and scream. “All that stuff, Chief, even the fingerprint, can easily be attributed to a copycat.”

“How?” Beck challenged.

“A close associate. Like we’ve talked about? Somebody in league with Dahmer before he was killed at the Center. One of these ‘groupie’ people.”

Beck and Olsher simultaneously glanced at each other. And frowned.

“Come on, Jan,” Helen insisted. “You saw the body. We both did.”

“We saw a body, Captain,” Beck retorted. “We saw a body beaten into unrecognizability. We saw a body with a mouthful of broken teeth that could easily have been Dahmer’s teeth in a substitute corpse. Take off those blinders for a minute and think.”

Helen didn’t like that, and she wasn’t buying any of this. At least not yet. “Christ, I’ve got plenty of leads—”

“You’ve got squat, girl,” Olsher told her. “What, some dope paramedic, and a prison electrician? That and a buck fifty’ll get you a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven.”

“We agree, Captain,” Beck stepped in, “that Dahmer couldn’t have gotten out of the prison without help. But it’s pretty fruitless at this point to deny that he did escape, isn’t it?”

Helen faltered, stared at them, blinked.

“So quit putzing around,” Olsher added a final point, puffing the atrocious cigar. “And start doing your job.”

««—»»

Start doing my job, huh? Helen simmered walking out of the office, and she simmered further on the road. They think I’m crazy…

What came next wouldn’t be easy. Verifying the fingerprints of the corpse, and that could only be done via the man who had performed the post-mortem on the body that was allegedly Jeffrey Dahmer’s.

Tom.

St. John the Divine’s Hospital seemed to lay in static glitter when she pulled up and parked—a lit, quiet fortress. This late, there was little activity: an ambulance here, a crash cart there. But it was mostly empty hallways and nodding security guards that greeted her entrance.

The basement felt frigid, sterile. She knew he was here because she’d seen his car in the state lot.

Tom looked up from the autoclave when she pushed through the chicken-wire doors.

“Uh…hi,” he said.

“Hello, Tom.” She tempered herself, tried to push it all away: the deceit, the other…men. “This isn’t a social call.”

“The Dahmer thing, then, right?”

“Yes.” Her heels ticked around the anteroom. Thank God the autopsy platform lay empty tonight. “I’ve got serious heat on my tail, Tom. Everyone’s saying Dahmer’s still alive.”

Helen quickly noticed the evening Tribune lying by the wash sinks. MORE NOTES, MORE DNA EVIDENCE, AND NOW—FINGERPRINTS! read the squashed headline. DAHMER IS STILL ALIVE!

“He’s dead,” Tom clarified. “As in, like, a doornail. I weighed the guy’s liver, for God’s sake. I took his heart out and scaled the calculi lining his aorta. He’s dead. The prints off his dead hand matched Dahmer’s. The teeth in his dead mouth matched Dahmer’s.”

“That’s just one thing I wanted to ask you about.” Helen had to stop and take a breath every so often. It wasn’t easy being businesslike with a man she used to be in love with, a man she’d planned to marry.

A man, she thought, who cheated on me with…other men.

No. It wasn’t easy at all.

“The teeth. Why couldn’t Dahmer’s teeth have been placed in the mouth of someone else? Some dead person of the same approximate height and weight, same hair color, etc.?”

Tom nearly reeled back and laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? That’s Alfred Fucking Hitchcock, Helen.”

She stared him down. It wasn’t like him to use profanity, nor was it like him to so quickly dismiss her speculations.

“What, Dahmer knocked his own teeth out and put them in another corpse? Come on. And let’s forget about the teeth just for one minute, okay? The corpse was fingerprinted, Helen, and the fingerprints matched Dahmer’s card from the detention center and Milwaukee PD when he was first arrested, and his Army prints.”

“Fine,” Helen replied. “But maybe he had an accomplice. And maybe that accomplice had not only the technical skills but also access to such things as, say, fingerprint records.”

Tom stared at her, incredulous.

Helen continued. Her last comment proved the hardest, but it was something that had bothered for the last hour or so, since leaving Olsher’s office.

No, this was no longer a man she loved.

This was business.

“An accomplice,” she said, “who would not only have access to hospital records but someone who would also have access to controlled pharmaceuticals, such as succinicholine sulphate.” Helen closed her eyes for a moment. “Such a person, wouldn’t you say, would have to be a higher-ranking employee of a hospital, wouldn’t he? And maybe someone who works at night, when shifts are staffed by fewer personnel.”

Tom gaped at her. “What are you saying?”

“Do you know anyone, Tom? Anyone who fits that criteria?”

««—»»

But he had a point. Just what was she saying?

Helen pulled the Taurus in and parked in the side lot. The tacky neon sign glowed: THE BADGE.

She’d only heard about the place, had never been here. Why on earth would a woman, much less a state police captain, want to go to a cop bar?

She wanted a drink. She needed a drink, in fact. And she didn’t want to go home. Going home would only remind her of too many things. Especially Tom.

Inside was smoky, dark. A room full of men, all obviously cops just off the three-to-eleven. People like me, Helen surmised. They don’t go home because there’s nothing to go home to.

A few heads turned, eyed her, then turned away. Helen pulled up a seat at the bar as blue-note jazz eddied softly from the juke. She ordered a glass of house wine from a keep who was obviously off-duty tin. A Smith Model 25 was strapped to his belt just below his barkeep vest. But what was Helen thinking?

Tom, she thought.

Tom.

Did she really suspect him?

He did the post, she reminded herself. And he has easy access to succincholine sulphate. He had unrestricted access to the body, for the whole time. But…

Big deal, she finally realized. Even if some way did exist to jink the fingerprint confirmation at the hospital, the body’s prints were also verified at the prison and the hospital in Portage.

She sipped her wine and shook her head. I must be way off track. How could Tom possibly have arranged the business with the letters left at the crime scenes, and a genuine fingerprint on the Dumplin letter? You’re grabbing at straws, Helen, she told herself now. Just what was she proposing? That Tom was some kind of killer groupie, in league with Dahmer while he was alive? And, above all, why? What motive would he have?

She could almost hear Dr. Sallee berating her. Dahmer was gay, and you’ve just discovered that Tom, too, has gay compulsions. You’re so disoriented, Helen, that you’re trying to blame him. You’re letting your sense of professional judgment take you off on the most absurd tangents.

Yeah, she thought. Yeah, I guess you’re right. The whole thing was absurd.

A copy of the Sunday supplement lay on the empty stool next to her. Dahmer’s grainy face seemed to give her the eye. IS THIS MAN STILL ALIVE? read the header. Helen smirked, didn’t even pick it up.

“Excuse me. You’re Helen Closs, aren’t you?”

Her gaze rose off the bartop, to meet the equal gaze of a man. Average height and build, short chestnut hair and mustache—decent-looking save for an atrocious rust-brown suit. The guy had cop written all over him.

“How do you know my name?” she asked without much interest.

“Your picture was in the Tribune, something about you hammering down on that scandal-monger Tait. Good for you, I say. These news guys, Christ, they’re all out for a buck.” The guy paused to swig mug of his draft. “I’m Nick, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

Helen shook his hand, felt sweat and anguish. “So what department are you with…Nick?”

“Madison Metro, Narcotics,” he seemed to be proud of. “I’m a captain too, sixteen years. I hear you’re gonna make DC next year.”

“Maybe,” she said. “If I don’t quit first.”

Nick laughed. “I hear ya. But with all that time in, why hack down your pension?”

Helen nodded glumly.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I already have a dr—” But then she stalled, noticed her empty glass. Where the hell did all that wine go? she asked herself. She wanted another one but she wasn’t comfortable not paying for it. “Let me buy you one.”

“Hey, thanks. Bud draft.”

A Bud man, she thought despondently, and ordered another round. “Metro Narcs, huh? Crack chaser.”

“Yeah, but let me tell ya,” Nick posited. “This heroin tar is really on the rise. It’s the rich kids doing it; it’s in vogue ’cos you don’t use a needle, none of that AIDS taboo. They call it ‘H-Smoke’ and ‘Boy.’ You never read about it ’cos nobody thinks it’s hot. But this shit is tipping kids over faster than crack.”

Helen couldn’t imagine anything duller than talking shop with another cop. “I’d appreciate it,” she said, “if you wouldn’t cuss.”

“Oh, sorry—shit—I mean, wow—sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Nick.” Helen sipped her freshened wine, then abstractly noticed a thin white line on his left ring finger. A tan line.

“Divorced?” she asked. Immediately, though, she regretted it. What am I doing? Don’t lead this guy on! It wasn’t that she didn’t like him—there was no reason not to at this point. But his presence…aggravated her. She’d come here to sit by herself and think. And now, here she was asking personal questions.

“How did you— Oh, the tan line.” Nick laughed. “That’s what I call an investigator. Yeah, divorced, as in recently. I think it mentioned in the paper that you’re not married. Do yourself a favor—keep it that way. Matrimony and The Job don’t mix. Quickest way to screw up two people’s lives? Be a cop and get married.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Great, I’ve created a monster, a mouth monster, Helen realized when it became clear that Nick wasn’t going to be quiet and leave her alone. “What it didn’t say in the papers is that I’m divorced too.”

“Oh, yeah? A heel, huh? A real rubberneck?”

“Schmuck, I think, is a more accurate way to describe my former husband.”

“Hey, woe, I hear ya. When I went back to my place to get my stuff, my wife—can you believe it?—she leaned out the window and fired a bowl of hot chowder down on me. I wanted to jump back in my pickup and pop wheelies in the yard, the fuckin’ bitch… Aw, hey, sorry. Been a cop too long, ya know?”

Helen sighed.

“And, Jesus, all this Dahmer stuff. It’s almost like those rubbernecks in the press are happy about it, it gives them something to write about. Dahmer this, Dahmer that. Don’t go out, lock your doors. Big Bad Jeffrey Dahmer’s still alive.”

Helen squinted, looked up. “Do you believe that?”

Nick shrugged at the question. His beer left white foam on his upper lip. “Hell, I don’t know, but you’d think someone’d be all over the guy who did the autopsy. I mean, what a clusterfuck…pardon my language. I can’t help it, I—”

“I know, Nick. You’ve been a cop too long.” But her thoughts backtracked. The guy who did the autopsy… Tom again.

“And this stuff about the fingerprints. I mean, Christ, how could so many people screw up so many times in a row? It said in the paper that Dahmer’s prints were verified half a dozen times or something like that. It’s not like someone on the outside could’ve switched the print cards—classification and ID is all done through computers now.”

Helen’s thoughts backtracked some more. Someone on the outside…

“Rocket scientists, all of them. Bunch’a rubbernecks.” Nick laughed sarcastically. “With all this fuss, you’d think someone would be smart enough to get an exhumation order. Settle it once and for all. Just dig the asshole up and find out if it’s him or not. Ooops, there I go again. Sorry.”

“Can’t dig him up, Nick,” Helen reminded. “All state incarcerees who die in custody are cremated.”

Nick plopped down his empty mug, gestured the keep for another. “You know, for a gal who’s in the papers so much, you sure don’t read them very often, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

Nick leaned over the bar. “Hey, chief. Gimme that Tribune there, will ya? Slide it over here.”

Nick handed her the paper. It was true, Helen hadn’t had time to pay much attention. Three front-page articles on Dahmer, and one on Bosnia. STATE VIOLENT CRIMES UNIT CONTINUES TO DENY DAHMER’S ESCAPE, read one headline. And here was a small picture of Helen. What a terrible picture, she thought. I should sue them for defamation of character. Another header read: ENTIRE COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION STAFF UNDER INVESTIGATION. Nick’s finger pointed to a third. “There ya go.”

Helen’s eyes fixed down. CIRCUIT COURT BLOCKS “DAHMER’S” CREMATION.

“Two family members fighting over custody of the ashes,” Nick said. “Can you believe it?”

Helen half-tuned out Nick’s voice in order to read. She loved the way they’d put Dahmer’s name in quotes. But it was true. “You know, Nick. In the 90s I can believe it. But… All right, family members are suing each other over ownership of the ashes. But what’s that got to do with a county circuit judge blocking the cremation?”

“Keep reading.”

Unbelievable. To add to the ashes mess, a third party was suing the department of corrections, to see to it that there would be no ashes at all. And that third party was Father Thomas Alexander, the detention center’s chaplain. “As Jeffrey Dahmer’s only true friend,” Alexander stated to reporters, “I have an ethical responsibility to him, even in death. I was Jeffrey’s guide to faith, his spiritual guardian, and as an Epiphanist Protestant, I do not believe in the rite of cremation. I am, in fact, offended by it, as is God. Cremation was originally instituted by pagans in the Middle Ages as a protest to the chief tenets of Christianity: the glory of resurrection. Jeffrey would not want to be cremated, and he can’t speak for himself now, so I will. And I’ll tell you this, any county judiciary decision that conflicts with my wishes will be immediately appealed to the appellate courts, the state’s supreme court, and even the U.S. Supreme Court if need be.” Alexander’s hot air had sufficed to urge a judge to delay the cremation via “internment for the interim.” The body was buried yesterday at an unspecified cemetery.

So there it was, right in her face. And the solution was obvious. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before? “Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Nick,” she blurted, got up, and rushed out.

««—»»

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

Helen didn’t quite know what to say. It was close to one a.m. now, yet she hadn’t thought twice about waking Olsher at his home. And here he stood now, on the front porch of his Chapel Forge rancher, in a robe and slippers as the winter air froze his breath.

“What the big deal, Larrel?”

“The big deal?” Olsher’s sleep-hooded eyes drilled into her gaze. “Do you know how hard it is to get an exhumation order? Do you know how much it costs? Do you have any idea of the heat we’ll have to take even in asking for one?”

“Then we’ll just have to take the heat,” Helen retorted.

Olsher winced as if stricken with sudden heartburn. “The press will kill us, Helen.”

“Larrel, we’re cops, remember? We have a job to do regardless of the press. We’re going to have to forget about the damn press for one minute and start making moves before the killer strikes again.”

“You still don’t think Dahmer is alive, do you?”

“No, Chief, I don’t. I think he’s dead and buried, and I think the murders are being carried out by an intricate copycat. An exhumation order will prove it.”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then the papers will make us look like idiots, but they’re doing that right now anyway. And here’s another reason we need that body exhumed, Larrel. Let’s just say I’m wrong—which you already believe. If it’s not Dahmer in that grave, then we need to know who is. IDing the substitute body can get us a line on whoever helped Dahmer break out, which could lead us do Dahmer himself.”

Olsher blinked in the cold. “Well—hmm. You’re right, I never thought of that… You’re the investigator, how come you didn’t think of that?”

Helen laughed humorlessly. “I just did, Larrel. So get me that exhumation.”

“All right.” Olsher paused as though his mind was running in neutral. “No guarantees, but I’ll make the calls in the morning, see what they say. It’s the DA’s office who has to talk the jive to the judge, and the DA owes me a few favors.”

“Thanks, Larrel.”

Olsher turned in his foyer as he was closing the door. He was shivering obliviously. “You better be right, Helen. ’cos if you’re not, those people downtown will never put you up for deputy chief.”

Helen thought about that and shrugged back at him. “I don’t care,” she said, and remembered Nick’s eloquent jive. “Those people downtown are just a bunch of… rubbernecks.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It typically took days or even weeks for a police department to get a writ of exhumation. A plea of equity needed to be filed along with a petition of injunction to an officer of the court of general jurisdiction, in this case the Circuit Court of Madison County. Evidently, though, whatever favor it was that the district attorney’s office owed Olsher must’ve been a big one. Helen got a grumpy call from her boss at 6:30 the very next morning.

“Winter-Damon Cemetery,” he said. “The north end. Be there in an hour.”

The news woke her up at once. “That’s great, Larrel! Wow. You really burned some midnight oil.”

“Tell me about it.”

She showered and dressed hurriedly, her hair still wet when she dashed to the car. Now, at least, she could prove her point. When the body they pulled out of that grave proved to be Dahmer’s, she could focus her skills on the real elements of the case: a conspirator, or perhaps even several. Someone on the outside corresponding with Dahmer, secreting notes, planning all this as a good chess player anticipates his tactics ten moves in advance…

It was four degrees, according to the radio, with wind-chill, but Helen’s excitation kept her warm when she parked. She should’ve guessed it would be the old Winter-Damon graveyard just outside of Madison. The state owned part of it, to bury John and Jane Does, mental and nursing home patients with no next of kin, etc. A fleet of vehicles awaited, more than she’d expect for something like this. Beck was here with her work-up van, six state cruisers, two EMT trucks, a transport van from Columbus County Detent, a jade-green Pontiac Grand Am with federal plates. A sound of chugging combustion ruptured the chill air: an Ingersoll-Rand trencher/power shovel canting its blade—like a huge chainsaw—deep into the earth.

An array of scowling faces in winter hoods fired glances when Helen approached. Disdain, she thought. Everyone knows I’m the one who pushed for this. No one spoke to her as she shouldered through to get to Olsher. “It’s almost zero, Helen,” he told her. “You ain’t exactly the most popular gal in town right now.”

“I don’t care. This is great. I can’t believe how fast you got this. But—” She glanced down at the plots, marked only by small inset stones bearing an ID number. The trencher crew had already dug down to the top of the cement grave liner, but now they were cutting out what looked to be a recess at the head of the liner. “Why the extra hole?” she asked.

“Workspace,” Olsher answered. “The judge said yes, but only for purposes of identification on site, in extremis. We can do anything we want—take prints, tissue samples, hair, photographs—but it’s gotta be here. In other words, we can’t take the body back to the lab. When we’re done, we seal it up and leave.”

This sounded acceptable to Helen. “I saw a car with fed tags.”

“F.B.I. The SAC from the Madison FO brought two techs with him.”

And—” Helen squinted past the throng, at a blank white van sprung with several high-tech looking antennae and a small satellite dish. “What’s that?”

“It’s a commo-relay van, on loan from Justice. Go ask Beck for the details.”

“Sure, Larrel.” Helen faltered a moment. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

Helen shirked away. Oh, well. Beck stood at the head of the digging; by now the trencher’s shovel had emptied the workspace. “Have a surgical mask,” Beck said, and handed one to Helen. “Me, I gotta wear that.” At her feet lay Scott Air-Pack with mask and umbilicus. “The body was embalmed but we still can’t take any chances on bacterial flux or a gas bolus.”

“But won’t the body be frozen?”

“Nope. It’s temperature will be below thirty-two, sure, but blood incipients—mainly the embalming solution—will prevent any freezing action of the flesh.”

“Larrel told me to ask you about that commo van.”

“This is a one shot deal,” Beck replied, removing wool mittens and replacing them with vinyl evidence gloves, “so we want to make the most of it. We’re doing three sets of prints—the county’s doing one, I’m doing one, and the Bureau’s doing the backup. See that dish on the van? It’s an uplink to a KV-11 geostatic satellite that’s owned by the Justice Department. Inside we got a UNISYS plate-scanner and digital-analog converter. We’ll be able to ID the body right here in the field.”

The technology seemed hard to believe. “How?” Helen queried, rubbing her bare hands.

“The processor will digitalize all three sets of prints, then feed the digitalization through the satellite to Justice’s Optical Ident Mainframe in Washington. We should have positive ID in less than five minutes.”

“Cool,” Helen said more to herself. Through the throng, she spotted Dipetro and an entourage of goons from the prison. He gave her a curt nod.

“All right, people, make way,” the F.B.I. man announced loudly, his breath gusting. He was dashingly handsome, of Oriental dissent—Hawaiian, Helen guessed. “Make way for the techs. Anyone closer than ten meters from the hole’s gotta wear a 15-micron surgical mask.”

“That’s my cue,” Beck said. Helen ineptly assisted the TSD chief in hoisting the air tank onto her back. Several others did the same. One masked man—a cemetery employee, Helen noted—jumped into the hole and quickly, amid an awful racket, cranked off the top of the grave liner with a gasoline-powered joint spreader, revealing a plain, veneered coffin lid. Then—

“Stand clear!” the Bureau’s Special Agent in Charge yelled. “Watch for gas!”

Another quick rev of the spreader forced open the coffin lid. And then…

Perfect silence.

Helen’s breath filtered through the blue surgical mask, turning white. With more than a little distaste, they all looked down into the opened coffin, and at the rigored, embalmed, and very pallid cadaver within.

««—»»

I don’t know how she does it, Helen thought, her gaze wide over the top rim of her mask. Jan Beck didn’t bat an eye climbing down into that hole. One of the field techs from the Bureau joined her and patiently raised first the cadaver’s right hand, then left, as Beck, just as patiently, inserted a hypodermic needle under each fingertip and injected several cc’s of glycerin, this to distend the pad of each finger and reverse any shrinkage due to desiccation. Then the dead hands were cleaned with isopropanol, sprayed with a clear, oil-based conductant, and printed on shiny mylar scan cards, which Beck had told her about just the other day. The oil-impressions against the mylar replicated the ridge patterns of the fingerprints much more accurately than ink and paper. The Bureau tech took the first set, then Beck, then someone from the prison. After which all three sets of cards were taken to the commo van.

In the meantime another state employee, also wearing an air pack and mask, got into the hole and began taking hair samples. Then he took several rather unpleasant tissue samples—much like coring for a soil sample—by inserting large gauge needles into the chest cavity, the abdomen, and the left thigh. When the employee climbed out of the hole, he paused a moment to glance at Helen, his eyes glaring at her through the plastic faceshield.

It was Tom.

Hundreds of pictures were taken in the interim; one F.B.I. tech even pried open the cadaver’s broken mouth with a pair of special retractors, to take macro photos.

For the entire procedure, however, Helen couldn’t take her eyes off the corpse’s face, which looked the same as the first time she’d seen it in the morgue: A horror-show mask encrusted with blood that had turned almost completely black.

««—»»

Helen, as all of them, seemed to measure time in their exposure to freezing cold air. Eventually the back of the commo van divided open, and the F.B.I. boss emerged with a trail of tractor-feed computer paper. A cluster of heavily jacketed humans crushed toward the rear of the van. “Give me some room, will you? Stand clear. All right, people, my name is Steve Eules. I’m the Special Agent in Charge of the Madison Field Office, F.B.I. We have a positive ID on the decedent—a digital match in triplicate. The decedent, by the way, is not—and I repeat—he is not Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Helen felt buried in a grave herself. One just as cold, just as deep.

“Goddamn it, Helen,” she heard Olsher grumble.

Special Agent Eules continued, his face as emotionless as a carving on a stone escarpment. “The satellite uplink to Washington fed us back the ID of the corpse, through a Wisconsin State Occupational prefix.” Eules peered at the flowing trail of computer paper. “Columbus County Physical Plant Department, Columbus County Department of Corrections—”

“Shit!” Dipetro audibly remarked.

Eules continued without pause: “White male, age: 35 years old. Name: Kussler, Glen, middle initial A.”

Dipetro yelled from his crowd: “What the fuck!” as the rest of the crowd filed back to their cars. More than a few glares were shot toward Helen, like lances, but she didn’t see them. All she could think was this:

I interviewed Kussler two days ago!

— | — | —

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Helen’s senses seemed to merge like the ingredients in a stew pot. She didn’t know what to think. She no longer felt warm in excitement, nor did she feel cold in the December air. She simply felt numb.

“Agent Eules?”

The trim man turned from the back of the federal van. “Yeah—oh, you’re Closs, right? The VCU chief for Wisconsin State?”

“Yes.” Helen told him straight out, “What’s the probability of a mistake in the ID match?”

“Zero,” he said. “Pure and simple. The stiff in that hole isn’t Dahmer, it’s some county detent janitor or something, named Kussler.”

Helen’s voice hitched. “I need your advice—”

“Well, all right, I’ll give it to you, and no offense. But I can tell you, if it was my people running this invest, they’d be doing a better job than you.”

Helen didn’t even react to the slight. He’s probably right. “What I meant is, I interviewed Glen Kussler two days ago, at his apartment.”

“Oh, yeah? Two days ago? Well, he must’ve been pretty cold when you interviewed him. And how the hell did you get him out of that grave, ’cos that’s where he’s been for the last three weeks.”

“The guy I interviewed didn’t even have the same color hair as the corpse, different body frame, different morphology, even different eye color.”

Eules didn’t seem confused at all. “Then it looks like you got a great lead.”

“How so?” Helen asked.

“You interviewed a guy who said he was Kussler. Obviously he wasn’t Kussler, he was just someone claiming to be. A guy trying to dupe you by using Kussler’s name. Find that guy…and you’ll not only find the guy who broke Dahmer out of prison, but you’ll also find Dahmer himself.”

Helen slowly nodded.

“Hey, and that remark I made about you screwing up? That wasn’t personal.”

“Dahmer’s been alive the whole time, but I’ve refused to believe it. I am screwing up.”

“My point is we all do sometimes. Don’t sweat it,” Eules said, shutting down the power consoles. “Need anything from my office—give me a call.”

“Thank you, Agent Eules.”

“And good luck.” He cracked the tiniest smile. “It sounds like a primo mystery.”

««—»»

Helen didn’t even bother reporting back to Olsher. His opinion was plain and so was his demeanor. Instead, she input Kussler’s name and county code prefix into the state Macro Analysis Computer—a rove-tag, it was called. Anything with Kussler’s ID on it would be flagged and copied by the system.

It was a longshot; Helen expected nothing of the search. Instead, the task-command fed her back a name in all of thirty seconds.

««—»»

The tech in Central Programming explained with the same animation she would expect from any computer whizz. Like a cyborg. Like goddamn Data on Star Trek, she regarded.

“You requested a priority systems flag with Kussler as the search word. It snapped up right away,” he said. A nerd, a proverbial caricature complete with pens in the breast pocket of his white shirt, but— Thank God for him, Helen thought. He continued, “Last week, Madison Metro PD’s Prostitution and Obscenity Unit busted a male call-service off the Circle, near the 10-20s of the first two murders. This service had a full client database in their computer index, sitting right there on their phone operator’s desk. POU input it into the state’s mainframe. It’s that simple.”

“That simple?” Helen protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The teckie frowned as though Helen had the brain of a parakeet. “It’s a trick list, Captain. A record of escort pickups. You got the guy’s name—the computer fed it to you.”

“You mean…” Helen pinched her chin. “Kussler was a steady client of the escort service that got busted?”

“That’s right. And he requested the same escort guy each time. What, you want me to give it to you on a napkin?”

Helen ignored the insult. “Thanks,” she said, and whisked out.

««—»»

“Matthew North?” Helen stated, showing her badge. “My name is Captain Closs, and I have a warrant for your arrest.”

A shabby apartment on Stalls Street. North looked flabbergasted in response to her information. “I’m not Matthew North. He’s my roommate, and he’s on a trip.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. North. I have three different bust photos of you.” Her first announcement, of course, was teensy lie. She didn’t really have a warrant, but she needed to gain his attention.

“Fuck,” the young man muttered. “Well, come on in. I’ll get dressed, and you can take me downtown. You goddamn Metro cops, I already been busted two days ago, and bailed myself. What, your guys invent some new charges?”

“Let’s not be hasty, Mr. North. Let’s talk.”

North was so handsome Helen nearly felt her jaw drop. Tight, stone-washed blue jeans, and nothing else. An upper torso that would make the guy on the Soloflex commercial feel shortchanged. He seemed very candid, even very nice in lieu of the threat she’d just dropped on him.

He led her into a small, comfortable living room, with an atypically large television—something like a 40-inch screen.

“Nice tv,” she commented.

“I like to watch my gigs, you know, with friends. We get a good laugh out of it.”

“Your gigs?”

“My video work,” he admitted. He turned, looked at her with wide, bright sloe-eyes and a male-model’s face. “I guess that’s what you’re busting me for now, huh? Your guys already hit me with solicitation charges.”

“You didn’t look at my badge very closely, Mr. North. I’m with the state police, not Madison Metro. I’m a captain with the Violent Crime’s Unit.”

North, at once, seemed outraged. “This is such a bunch of corrupt fascist police bullshit! Violent Crimes? Look, ask any pross. Half the tricks we get are nuts. If some john on my list told you I got violent with him—it’s crap.”

“That’s not what this is about at all, Mr. North. No crimes of violence have been cited against you. I just want to talk, maybe even make a deal.”

“Oh, yeah?” This information perked North up at once. “Okay, you wanna talk, let’s talk. You want a drink or something? I got green tea, Coke, diet Sprite, and hard stuff if ya want.”

“I’ll take a diet Sprite, Mr. North. Lots of ice if you have it on hand. And thank you.”

North disappeared into the kitchen. A reflex told her to put her hand on her gun in case he tried to book, or came back with a weapon, yet her senses were acute enough to know that was unnecessary. This guy wasn’t going to run—he wanted to talk a deal, and Helen hoped she could offer him one.

She felt an uncharacteristic urge to peer at his nude chest when he returned, simply because she’d never seen such a nice physique in real life. Tv, movies—sure. But not for real. You should be on magazines, or soaps, she felt inclined to tell him. She took the drink. “But, first, Mr. North, I’m curious about your previous comment, something about your gigs?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said and sat down on an opposing couch. Clipped bangs waved over his eyes. “And there’s nothing illegal about it. I got a model release and an STD test for each gig.”

“But I still don’t know what you mean by gigs.”

“My films,” he said. “My x-rated vids.”

Vids, she thought. Videos. “So you’re a movie star, is that it, Mr. North?”

“I’m not ashamed. Most people who watch x-rated’s? They’re shut-ins, crippled, can’t meet people because they’re too shy, too inhibited. I got no problem with that.”

Helen considered this. “Neither do I. I could care less. But…well, it’s none of my business but—”

“You want to know how much I make in vids?” He chuckled. “That’s what everyone asks. It’s not as much as you might think. I’m what they call a second-top name, that’s one rung down from the stars like Jake Wrangler, Dick Black, Todd Swann—those guys. I cop a c-note and a half per scene.”

Helen’s brow creased; she couldn’t help it. “That sounds like pretty good money, Mr. North.”

He laxed back against the couch, held up his hands. “Not when you only work ten scenes a year. You want me to plug in one of my vids? I got a gay x-rated award for All Hands On Dick.”

Helen fought hard not to laugh at the title. “I’ll pass, thank you, Mr. North.” She had to regain her composure. “Let me give it to you fast. I ran what we call a free-rove search in the state’s criminal index computer, connected to a name pulled up by the Madison bust. Glen Kussler. Your name came up right alongside his. He was a steady client of yours.”

“All right, I’m not gonna lie.” North’s impressive pectorals flexed when he raised his hands again. “You got it all in your records—Christ, I can’t believe the service would be so stupid to keep client records in a goddamn computer.”

“Well, they were that stupid, Mr. North,” Helen authenticated. “So tell me more.”

“You want to know about Glen Kussler—I’ll tell you. He was a steady bi-month trick, and, yeah, he wanted top service. In case you don’t know what that means—I was the top. He was the bottom. He gets into a little S&M and B/D. I’d tie him up, rough him around a little, call him names—that’s what the guy wanted, and that’s what he paid for, and I can’t believe Glen would level charges against me.”

“He didn’t, Mr. North,” Helen said. “He’s dead.”

North’s eyes locked with hers—genuine despair. “Was he—”

“Yes, Mr. North, he was murdered. I can’t tell you all the potential details revolving around the case, but I can tell you that. He was murdered quite brutally. You’ll probably see it in the papers tomorrow.”

“Fuck!” North crudely exclaimed. “Jesus! I mean, sure, Glen was a little bit of a flake, but he never did anything bad to anyone. That really sucks someone killed him. I knew the guy well, I can’t see him going to another top.”

“You think it was another prostitute who did this?” Helen took a cheap stab at baiting him.

“How do I know? I don’t know anything about it. All I know is he was a decent guy, and a steady trick.”

“How much did you charge him to ‘rough him around a little’?”

“Standard service fee, a hundred and fifty bucks, and he’d always lay a fifty-buck tip on me.”

“And this was twice a month, you say?”

“Yeah, about that. Er, what I mean is when he was on the rocks with his lover, which was pretty regular.”

Helen slipped out a 5x7 print copy of Glen Kussler’s county records photo—definitely not the same man she’d interviewed at Kussler’s apartment. “Is this Glen Kussler?”

North only needed a one-second glance. “Yeah, sure. That’s Glen. And like I said, he was a decent trick. He was an electrician for the county prison.”

“And what were you saying a moment ago, something about him having a lover?”

“Yeah, Glen Kussler had a lover, off and on, a guy he referred to as Cam.”

“Cam?”

“That’s right. You ask me, this Cam guy was jerking Glen around, playing the mind games—you know. I mean, shit—you’re probably straight, but I’m sure guys have played mind games with you, haven’t they?”

Helen forestalled on an answer, thinking, Yeah I guess you could say that. “But if Kussler had a steady lover, why did he—well—need to hire you?”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain. This guy, this guy Cam. He was always breaking up with Glen, jerking him around. This guy was a top, all right, but he took advantage. Jerked Glen around like you wouldn’t believe, at least that’s what Glen told me. What I mean is, he’d break up with Glen just for kicks, toy with him a while, then take him back. It was during those break ups that Glen hired me.”

Cam, Helen thought. “Describe Cam, Mr. North.”

“Well, I only saw him once. He was coming around to Glen’s place right after I did a trick. I mean, I can’t even be sure it was Cam, it was just some guy coming around, but Glen didn’t have any other lovers that he ever mentioned.”

“This person you saw. What did he look like?”

“Well, I’ll tell you that, Captain. But, well, didn’t you say something earlier about a deal?”

Helen’s lips set. But why shouldn’t she expect it? Nothing’s free. “Cooperate with me, Mr. North, and I will request that the district attorney’s office drop any and all currently pending charges against you. I can’t guarantee you they’ll drop charges, but I can tell you they’ve never denied me in the past.”

“This guy I saw,” North propelled without pause, “he was about 5’-10”, one-seventy. Slim frame.”

“Hair color, Mr. North?”

“Sandy blond.”

Sandy blond, Helen remembered. Same as the guy I talked to, who claimed to be Kussler. North was being cool, but she still had to pressure him some more. “That’s good, Mr. North. But not good enough. I need more if you want to skate. I need to know more about this person Cam. Anything you might know, anything Kussler may have told you about him.”

“Aw, shit, Captain! There ain’t much more! I mean—shit—let me think.” North leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes, thinking. “Oh, yeah—aside from rough sex, Glen told me the guy was into computers.”

“Computers?”

“Yeah, he had a big fancy computer, according to Glen. Me, I don’t own one, don’t like ‘em. But Glen told me Cam was like all big into these new computer and CD-ROM games.”

Helen’s thoughts stilled for a moment.

“He dug a lot of these underground games, obscene ones you can’t buy in the stores—Glen told me about them. Really violent games—torture, murder, stuff like that.”

Tom plays a lot of— But, no, that was absurd. Some of his games were a bit violent, but nothing like what North was referring to. Get back on track, Helen.

“And also a lot of really hardcore videos,” North continued, “the illegal, unlicensed stuff you gotta buy through mail drops and shit. Bondage, corporal punishment, ‘wet’ S&M.”

“‘Wet’ S&M?” Helen felt vaguely inept. “I know what S&M is, of course, but…”

“‘Wet’ means it’s the real McCoy. Pins, needles, barbed whips—if it’s wet, they draw blood.”

The slightest image shimmied Helen’s stomach.

“Glen told me Cam even had a real snuff film—”

Another, harder shimmy.

“So you get the gist,” North was saying. “This guy Cam—real sick pup material.”

“A genuine sadist.”

“Genuine and then some. Abused the living hell out of Glen.”

Helen’s eyes narrowed in the contemplation. “So why was Glen Kussler in love with this man, if he was so abusive?”

“That’s how it works sometimes,” North explained matter-of-factly. “Guys like Glen—introverted, shy, non-assertive—they frequently fall for abusive guys. Tricks like Glen are a dime a dozen; I hear the stories all the time. Being abused and exploited by lovers is a focal point in their lives; it’s the only thing that reinforces their self-worth. Why do so many battered wives return to their abusive husbands?”

At once, Helen saw the inference. It was the same thing.

“So what about that deal?”

Helen never liked to play the heavy. Talk about exploitation. She still needed to make him sweat a bit, just to be certain he was coming clean. “Not enough, Mr. North. My name is Closs, not Claus. I still need more.”

North’s big, manicured hand slapped his jean-covered thighs. “I knew this was a crock! Come on, Captain! I am a bad guy? What, just ’cos I turn tricks?”

“Prostitution’s against the law, Mr. North.”

“So is letting your dog poop on the sidewalk. So is driving one mile over the speed limit. You ever done that, Captain?” North wiped genuine sweat off his brow. “Christ, my lawyer’s telling me I could go to the joint for a year. You know what’ll happen to a guy like me in the Madison slam? Christ, those bulls’ll be on me like Rock Hudson on a fucking boy scout! And for what? Because I have sex for money with consenting adults. Because I provide a service to guys who are mostly lonely, maladjusted, or dumped by their lovers. Yeah, some big crime. Matt North, the big bad criminal. You got rapists getting off on plea bargains, drug dealers walking on PBJ, S&L con men ripping off billions and posting bail with the same money, but you’re gonna put me in the can ’cos I turn a few tricks to pay the bills.”

An effective appeal, and Helen, for the most part, agreed. But still she held her ground. “I need more on Cam.”

“There isn’t any more! I’ve told you everything Glen told me. Christ, I’ve told you what the guy’s into, what he looks like, I’ve even told you his name.”

“What, Cam? That’s probably a nickname.”

North’s mouth opened, paused. “Oh, you’re right, I didn’t mention it. It’s Campbell.”

Cam. Campbell, she thought. But did he make it up in desperation? Helen didn’t think so. His eye-movements weren’t right for lying, and neither were his kinestethics. “Campbell, fine. But that’s a very common last name. I need Campbell’s first name too.”

North’s face tensed up, cords beneath veins straining in his neck. “Christ, lady, I don’t know his first name! If I did, I’d tell you! Jesus Christ, I don’t want to go to the joint!”

Helen nodded. There was no practical reason to pressure him further. She placed one of her cards on the coffee table and stood up. “You’ve been very cooperative, Mr. North. If you can think of anything else, please call me. In the meantime, I’ll talk to the district attorney and ask him to drop the charges against you.”

North looked up like a child looking at an angel. “For real?”

“Sure. But you better keep your nose clean from this point on because if you get busted again, you will go to jail, and there’ll be nothing I can do to help you.” Helen seriously doubted that Matthew North would desist from his occupation, but she felt it only appropriate to make the warning.

“Gee—I mean, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. North. I’ll see myself out.” Helen left the apartment, and went back out onto the street. Campbell. I got a name, at least. There were probably tens of thousands of Campbells in the state of Wisconsin, but it was something. Plus, she knew what Campbell looked like; North’s description verified that she’d met Campbell herself, using Kussler’s name. From here she could run rap checks, prison and metal hospital release checks, any number of things. This ten-minute interview with North had given her more solid investigatory data than everything she’d accrued since Dahmer’s staged death at the prison.

At least I’ve got something to work with now.

Helen was about to unlock the Taurus when padded footfalls resounded behind her, and a voice: “Hey, Captain, wait a minute.”

North huffed right up to her, his breath misting. Shirtless and barefoot, he remained impervious to the biting cold. “There’s one more thing I just remembered.”

“I’m listening, Mr. North.”

“That bit Glen told me about Campbell being into rough videos and violent computer games?”

“Yes?”

“Well, now that I think of it, Glen mentioned something else too, something pretty weird. It’s not all that surprising, though, since, like I said, Campbell was—”

“Sick pup material.”

“Right. Well, Campbell had this other really nutty pet peeve. He was into killers.”

“Into killers?”

“Yeah, Glen mentioned it to me once, said it really whacked him out. Campbell had a hobby, he kept a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings and stuff. Articles about famous killers, you know, serial murderers, Bundy, Gacy, guys like that, but—”

Helen’s head tilted like a bird’s. She stared in complete bedazzlement at what North was saying, and what she strangely sensed he was about to say.

“—but,” North rambled on, “he was especially obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Helen felt on wires when she strode into Olsher’s office to explain. Dahmer was alive—she had no choice but to believe that now—but she now knew something else. Campbell was the mystery man behind Dahmer’s escape.

A note on the door read, Back in five minutes. Helen waited, flipping through a copy of the Enquirer, incredulous at the headline. DAHMER IS A VOODOO ZOMBIE! How could Olsher read this crap? The article ensued: Our reporters have solved the mystery, and you read it here first! Jeffrey Dahmer is a voodoo zombie, and has risen from his grave by means of an ancient spell! “Yes, we did it, we brought Dahmer back,” admits Chez Diablique, a world-famous voodoo mojo from the Haitian-based Pabla Cult. His wife, the renowned mambo priestess agrees: “Jeffrey’s spirit contacted us from beyond the grave, and asked for our help. So we began casting voudun resurrection spells…”

Helen put the tabloid in the trash.

Eventually, Olsher returned, with a steaming cup of coffee. Helen didn’t dawdle; she jumped right in and explained her point of view.

“Campbell, huh?” Olsher questioned. “And you got this from —what?—some male whore?”

“Chief, the guy’s sweating a jail sentence, he was coming clean,” she insisted. “Campbell was the exploitative lover of Glen Kussler, the guy whose body we found in Dahmer’s grave. Campbell had an obsession with serial killers, Dahmer in particular. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Olsher’s upper lip turned up in a pinch. “What’s obvious?”

“Jesus Christ, Chief! We’ve got a name and a description of the man who is in collusion with Dahmer! Campbell’s a Dahmer groupie, and that’s why he pursued a relationship with Kussler.”

“I don’t get it.”

Helen gnashed her teeth. “Kussler worked for the prison; Kussler specifically serviced Dahmer’s cell. Isn’t it obvious that Campbell was using Kussler to secretly slip mail back and forth between Dahmer and Campbell?”

Olsher shrugged, began unwrapping an El Producto. “Not really.”

Helen wanted to bang her head on Olsher’s desk. “It all fits, Chief. Campbell’s the missing piece.”

Olsher splayed his hands, wincing. “Campb— Helen, who the fuck is this Campbell? Some name a male whore gave you? Bring Campbell in and we’ll grill him, but you can’t do that because you don’t have him.”

“No, I don’t, but at least I got his last name and his description. For crying out loud, haven’t you been listening to me? I met Campbell myself!”

“You met Campbell? I thought you met Kussler?”

Helen pulled in a long, exasperated breath. “I met Campbell at Kussler’s apartment, but I didn’t know he wasn’t Kussler at the time. It was Campbell, but he told me he was Kussler.”

“Oh, he told you he was Kussler, is that it?”

Helen glared at him.

Olsher went on, wetting the cigar end. “So how do you know it wasn’t really Kussler?”

Helen exploded, “Because Kussler’s been in a fucking hole in the ground for the last three weeks!”

Olsher didn’t flinch at the outburst. “Oh, so you’re saying that Campbell sprung Dahmer from the prison, then murdered Kussler and put his body in Dahmer’s place?”

“Yes!”

Olsher leaned back calmly. “I don’t think it flies.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Larrel—there’s no other answer.”

“You want to go with it, fine.”

“And since I know what Campbell looks like, I’m going to get the artist in ident to do a composite, and run it in the paper.”

“I still think you’re grabbing for sh—”

“Okay, Larrel, whatever you say.” She’d had enough of this. “Let me get to it. Oh, and I need your permission to put a DF on North.”

“Who’s North?”

Helen clenched her fists, closed her eyes. “The prostitute who told me about Campbell.”

“And Campbell’s the guy who said he was Kussler but he wasn’t really Kussler, he was just saying he was Kussler, because he’d already killed Kussler and somehow got him buried in place of Dahmer?”

“Stop screwing with me, Chief.”

Olsher spared the smallest hint of a smile. “Who’s screwing with you? And why do you want a DF on this guy North?”

“To track his whereabouts on the board. Then the computer inputs any locations and stores them in a database. Any repeated lokes North travels to will come up on the cross reff. North is probably going to continue turning tricks. I want to know who any of his other steady johns are so I can question them. They might’ve known Kussler too, or people who did, and from that I might be able to get more on Campbell.”

But by then Olsher was barely listening. “Sure, a DF request—go do it. Have Supply and Central Commo call me for the authorization.”

Helen left when Olsher lit the odiferous cigar. His head must be harder than the wall. She stalked downstairs to the armorer in the Property and Supply Depot, who quickly verified the request with Olsher over the phone. A DF transponder (the DF for direction-finder) was a piece of surveillance hardware not new to larger and more modern police departments; they were tiny tracking devices generally planted on cars without the owner’s knowledge. The device emitted an exclusive frequency processed by a set of radio triangulators, and pinpointed the target vehicle’s location at any time on the DF board at Central Communications. Helen had already run North’s name through MVA and found out what he drove: a gold 87 Dodge Colt, two-door. A surveillance warrant wasn’t necessary—at least not in this state—because tracking a person’s public whereabouts was not deemed an invasion of privacy.

Hawberk was the armorer/property officer’s name, according to his tag, a beat street cop waiting out his pension papers. He had a complexion like a sponge. “A DF transponder, huh? They run on nickel-cads. They’ll pipe a freq transmission for ten to fourteen days before you have to replace it,” he told her nearly incomprehensibly. “But cold weather like we’re having now? I’d change the battery once a week during the job.”

“Okay, just let me have it.”

“Which series? We have two.” This was probably making Hawberk’s day; he reached under the counter and produced a pair of small hinged boxes like he was a jeweler showing her watches. One unit was the size of a dime, the other a nickel. “This big one here,” his stubby finger pointed to the latter. “It’s a two-way unit, has a distress signal. We use them mostly for guys working undercover who can’t wear a wire, you carry it around in your pocket with your change. The DF board’ll be tracking you the whole time, but if you run into trouble”—he picked it up and offered a mock demonstration—”you press down real hard on this little grid on the side, and it sends out a distress beacon. The board reads the distress code, and since they already know exactly where you are, they can dispatch a response team immediately.”

“But I’m not going to be carrying this,” she pointed out, already overwhelmed. “I want to track a car.”

“Oh, well why didn’t you say so? You don’t need the two-way unit, you need the one-way.” Now Hawberk picked up the dime-sized transponder. “The batteries in these are tiny, so bring it in to me whenever you need a change.”

“What’s the best place to plant it?” she asked. “Under the hubcap?”

“No, no,” he objected. “What if the person you’re tracking gets a flat tire? He’ll go to change it and find the damn thing. Best place is up under the bumper, but a lotta these new cars? They have plastic bumpers so it won’t work—the attachment base is magnetic.”

Helen rolled her eyes wearily. All this tech stuff—she was sick of it. Just give me the damn thing and tell me where to stick it! I don’t need a technical dissertation!

“Up under the bumper if it’s a steel bumper,” he went on. “Or some secure location in the undercarriage. Just make sure it sticks. You don’t want this baby dropping off onto Rowe Boulevard the first time he hits a pothole.”

“Fine, great. The undercarriage. Make sure the magnet sticks.”

Hawberk closed the box, then filled out an inventory release. “Take this to Central Commo, and they’ll activate the tracking frequency with the DF board. It’s sixteen-point-six-five megahertz, very reliable.

“Yes, yes, thank you.” Helen grabbed the box and form, turned hastily to leave.

“Any place in Greater Madison your suspect goes to, they’ll read it on the DF board, and feed the grids into the computer.”

Helen pulled away. “Right, yes, I understand that.”

“Then all you have to do is call up the grids, which will already be converted to city plat numbers.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“Use the city grid map to match the plats, and you got the exact locations of everywhere in town your suspect parks his car.”

“Fine. Have a good day.”

“And don’t forget to change the battery every week,” Hawberk reminded over her. “This kind of cold weather drains them—”

Helen glided out; her mind stuffed to overflowing with details. Next she activated the frequency with Central Communications, gave the transponder along with North’s address and MVA specs to a plainclothes in Intelligence Branch, and sent him out to plant the device on North’s 87 Dodge Colt.

What a pain in the butt, she thought, only now, for the first time all day, taking a few minutes to sit down and have a cup of coffee. Computers, DF transponders, city plats and grid conversions? One day, she suspected, the world would be so cluttered with technology, specs, and frequencies that everyone would go completely insane.

The DF would help a lot, though. More grist for Helen’s investigative mill. North, now that his escort service had been closed down, would very likely solicit a new one, and finding out where that new service was would give Helen a brand-new client base to check out. Clients who may have known Kussler, and any other prostitutes Kussler may have solicited, all whom, in turn, might know more about Campbell. Additionally, since Kussler regularly solicited North, he may have recommended North to friends.

But Helen’s coffee didn’t even have time to get cool before she was up and out. It took two hours with the police artist and IdentiKit technician to get a good digital composite on what she remembered of Campbell’s face. Another hour at the Police Commissioner’s Office to process a press-release request for the composite to be published in the papers. And yet another hour at the assistant district attorney’s office getting North’s active charges dropped in place of probation before judgment. And after all that, the day was almost done. But she still had one more thing to do, didn’t she?

She had an appointment, with Dr. Sallee.

««—»»

“I’m sorry, Helen. I remember telling you psychiatrists were only right ninety-nine percent of the time. Well, here’s the one percent. I called it wrong.”

“So did I,” Helen said. Only now, in Sallee’s office, did she feel wound down from all the rigors of the day. The office was tranquil, blissfully sedate. Sallee’s voice gave her solace.

“I was convinced, as you, that Dahmer was genuinely dead, and that the perpetrator was a copycat,” he said. “But at least, in your discoveries today, you have a positive link to the accomplice. A name, a face, all in one day? That’s fast work.”

“Not fast enough. It’s only a last name, and a sketched composite face. Not a whole lot in the thick of things.”

“There you go again, as always, Helen. Downplaying your skills, self-effacing the efforts of your own ingenuity.”

Helen audibly moaned.

“Any more dreams?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Resolved anything with Tom?”

The name made her feel distant from herself, as though she were looking at herself in a tiny window very far away. “No.”

Sallee seemed to sense that she didn’t want to talk about herself today, she wanted to talk about—

“Campbell, then,” he said. “And it’s typical. Everything North told you about Campbell fits the basic profile of the accomplice, even before we knew his name. If I were you, I’d keep a close eye on North.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” she explained. “I have a direction-finder on his car. Central Commo will follow and copy any places in the city grid that North drives to.”

“Good thinking. A log of North’s associates will give you more names of persons who may have been acquainted with Kussler, and perhaps even Campbell himself.”

Helen nodded sluggishly. Suddenly she felt exhausted. God, I wish I could just go to sleep right here in his office.

“And just as I was telling you several days ago, the so-called ‘killer-groupie’ phenomenon—obsessive-reference disorder,” Sallee said. “It’s precisely what you predicted.”

“You predicted it, Dr. Sallee. I simply followed up on it.”

Obsessive-reference disorder, she thought. Great. If it’s not technical gobbledegook, it’s clinical gobbledegook.

“—very very common for certain sexual extroverts to become fascinated with and obsessed by serial killers. They regard them as heroes, they even admire their deeds. And a good many of them are X,Y,Y-Syndrome candidates, as I’ve previously mentioned. What North disclosed, I mean—not only Campbell’s obsession with Dahmer, but his other sundry interests: sadistic sex, explicitly brutal videos, snuff films—”

“He also said Campbell played excessively violent computer games, not the popular games, but the underground ones.”

Sallee nodded. “I remember the Senate hearings. There’s an entire subculture of people who patronize these games. They order them through the mail, and over the Internet by use of privileged down-loading codes. There’s a flurry of such games—depicting rape, torture, murder and mutilation from the player’s perspective. It’s a sick world, Helen, but I don’t have to tell you that.”

Yeah…

“And just more verification as to Campbell’s psycho-sexual, obsessive profile,” Sallee continued.

“But still, it’s Dahmer who’s doing the killing, and I need you to refresh my memory. Whatever that rare syndrome is that could make Dahmer change.”

Sallee fiddled with piles of papers on his desk as he spoke, a fuss-budget. “Yes. A conative-episodic break. I wouldn’t have counted on something like that at all—it’s just so rare. But it’s equally obvious. With Campbell’s assistance, Dahmer is indeed committing new murders, via a new modus, and that new modus can only be explained by an episodic break, or something similar.”

“But what kind of things could cause such a mental break?”

“Chiefly?” Sallee said. “A memory flashback. Sometimes flashbacks are triggered by sudden hormonal imbalances, a readily accessible cause for a personality reversal in someone like Dahmer, someone with an introverted psychological mein. Another incidental that’s interesting is the statistical age-group. Psychopaths and sociopaths who experience this sort of episodic break are almost always in the same age margin: thirty to forty. Dahmer is now thirty-four. And the actual clinical incident is statistically identical too, due to a natural increase in certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Certain mentally unstable persons, due to irregularities in brain chemistry, experience an increase in specific neurotransmitters, whereas a healthy person would experience a decrease due to aging, in particular a neurotransmitter called L-dopamine. This upsurge can effect a sudden memory improvement, often digging up memories previously buried via childhood trauma. One more thing: inadvertent memory flashbacks are sometimes caused by sudden dietary changes, the same kind of change one might experience going from a lifetime of learned eating habits to a pre-designated prison diet. I suppose it’s possible, too, that one of the prison psychiatrists attempted a ‘flooding,’ ‘memory-regression,’ or ‘desensitization’ technique as part of Dahmer’s therapy, and a memory flashback occurred through one of those means. But those are really the only documented instances of a triggering of a conative-episodic break. Some…catalyst… that causes the subject to remember previously buried traumatic experiences from childhood…”

««—»»

—and suddenly he remembers it all. It had been years, hadn’t it, and he’d never remembered his father, and what his father had done to him. Only very recently—a year ago?—when the show he’d seen it on Geraldo, about adults experiencing a resurface of childhood memories, and it had thrown him into that awful trance—

««—»»

“Upon the initial catalytic recollection,” Sallee told her, “the subject often describes a situation triggering a formal memory—a memory buried since childhood—and then experiences a sort of retrogressive trance—”

««—»»

—that brought it all up like pus in a boil. Everything his father had done to him as an innocent, terrified child, and everything he’d said afterward. Like “Fear is power, son. Real men take life by the balls. They take what they need, and they become powerful in the fear they hold over others. When you’re older, you’ll understand. You’ll thank me for this. You’ll see that I’m doing this for you…because you’re the same way…”

««—»»

Helen didn’t remember a whole lot of her abnormal psych from college. “A retrogressive trance?”

“Or a simple trance state, like lucid dreaming, inverse somnambulism, things like that. Something triggers the subject to remember, in the space of a day or even an hour, a virtual lifetime of buried traumatic memories from the formative and preadolescent years. Almost always, Helen, these memories involve sexual abuse perpetrated by a close family member—such as the mother or father—”

««—»»

“Father,” he thought when it all came back. “My own father…

««—»»

“According to the journals, at least,” Sallee drew on, “these are typical catalysts for a previously psychopathic or sociopathic subject who has experienced a conative-episodic effect. And, yes, Dahmer, based on what he told me when I interviewed him upon incarceration—as well as what I’ve read about him since then—is a good or even excellent candidate. In other words, as rare as the syndrome may be, Jeffrey Dahmer’s basic psychiatric profile provides a sound breeding ground, so to speak, for a patient who’s undergone this form of episodic break. And another thing you might find compelling. Many subjects report a history of military service—the service being, at least subconsciously, reckoned as a means of escape from the foundry of the childhood trauma. And such subjects statistically are removed from service early, for any number of reasons—”

««—»»

And the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio, remembers now how desperately he wanted to leave, to get away from it all, and how, at age eighteen, he went to the Army recruiter—

««—»»

“—that may be deemed psychoactively pertinent. Dahmer, after all, had joined the Army, and was soon separated from service to due alcoholism—”

««—»»

—but that didn’t last long, either, did it? The Army hadn’t worked out at all—

««—»»

“Dahmer, of course, claimed that his drinking wasn’t excessive at all, claims that the charges were trumped up by his company commander because he’d told a few other enlisted men that he was gay,” Sallee said.

This was all news to Helen. She’d never researched Dahmer’s bio history that well, just the modus stuff.

««—»»

—but none of that really mattered now, did it? No, he thinks.

“Dahmer told me that his childhood was normal,” Sallee continued, when he was growing up in Bath, Ohio. Of course, this was over two years ago, well before the episodic break he’s obviously experienced since then. Yet he admitted that he did indeed kill small animals—sometimes he would even dissolve the flesh off their bones with corrosives he’d concoct from the chemistry set his father gave him for his birthday. This boy was melting the flesh off dogs and birds and hamsters yet he referred to his childhood as ‘normal.’ He was oblivious. He said he did it because he loved the animals.” Sallee tossed his shoulders. “Beyond that, you tell me. We only have clinical criteria to go by, but every subject, in some way, is possessed of patented differences.”

Helen let the slew of words sink in. “But subjects like this, like Dahmer, or like anyone else with the background. Once they experience the flood of back memories, once they remember all the bad things that happened to them—is it common for them to go on killing sprees?”

Sallee sat poised, the thin blond hair gleaming on his balding pate. “Not only is it common, it’s nearly exclusive. As the old saying goes, opposites attract. People who suffer a conative-episodic break go from one opposite to the next—in personality, I mean. They’ve always been killers, yes. Dahmer killed animals as a child, a hitchhiker when he was eighteen, and seventeen other people before his apprehension. But its the perception of murder that changes. Introversion to aggression. Symbolic murder to murder based in a sense of retribution and revenge. A passive personality form which quickly changes over to an aggressive one. What we’re talking about here is a complete metamorphosis of character, and there is no doubt now that Jeffrey Dahmer experienced this metamorphosis quite recently, and used that new aggression, based on his resurfaced memories, to devise an intricate means to escape his incarceration and continue his murderous acts on a shining, new plane.” Sallee looked at her. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s only compulsion right now is to resurrect the power he once knew. And kill.”

««—»»

“Kill,” he thinks now.

In fact, that’s all he ever thinks about now.

Kill.

««—»»

Helen, in spite of her fatigue, tried to compute all of this at once. It wasn’t hard. “I think I understand it all now, Dr. Sallee. But let me ask you one thing. You mentioned that the episodic break is founded on some aspect of abuse from childhood, some—ideation? Is that the right word?—founded in the symbol of fear equaling power. Dahmer’s crime-scene letters have said the same thing. ‘Feel the fear.’“

“Yes. Exactly. So what’s your question?”

“I’m wondering about the absolute base-structure of this ‘fear.’ I mean, the locality. Dahmer’s heyday was in the city of Milwaukee—that’s where he thrived on his fear. But now he’s killing people in Madison. To retrieve this sense of power, I’d think he’d return to Milwaukee, his virtual hunting-ground of fear. Why the change of locales?”

“That’s simple,” Sallee said. “Dahmer’s already done Milwaukee. Now he wants someplace new. A new locale, new fuel for his power. New meat.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The darkness damped the room to perfect silence. Her lover slipped beside her into bed.

Helen gasped, in passion.

His hand gently molded the contours of her breasts, then slid lower. It touched her with such precision—the hand seemed to know her. A blurred face lowered, lips touched her lips and kissed. The room’s warm dark hid her lover’s face like a veil.

What’s…happening? Helen lamely thought. A tightness spired at her loins like an over-wound spring—any moment it might snap. The hand continued gingerly to investigate her.

“Darling,” Tom whispered.

Helen lay in a momentary shock. A cloud passed the window, letting winter moonlight fall into the room, beaming on Tom’s face.

Tom…

Short of breath, Helen moaned. Tom had come back to her… She pulled him naked atop her. Her nipples swelled so thoroughly they ached; she felt the veins beat in her breasts. She sensed an earthy purgation, a primal flux of feelings that demanded to be loosed.

But had she ever felt so overjoyed? She looked up into Tom’s face, saw his unmistakable smile and the familiar love in his eyes. The clean sweat of passion made his flesh shine, his big bright eyes gazing right back into hers.

“I love you, Helen.”

“I-I…love you too.”

There. Is wasn’t so hard to say, was it? She knew she loved him, it was just that she’d said it so infrequently, it seemed uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry things got so messed up between us,” he whispered.

“Me too.”

“We’ll work them out.”

“Yes. I want to.”

And she did, she did. In spite of all the things that had happened, and all the things she didn’t understand—she wanted to work things out. She needed to.

The feel of his weight on her, and its immediacy, parched her voice. She opened her legs, pulled him tighter.

“Make love to me,” she pleaded.

“Mm-hmm.”

Helen winced. The voice was different now, and then came the impact: the stench, so familiar from being in Tom’s lab—

Formalin. Disinfectant. Embalming fluid.

Helen screamed.

The face was plain in the moonlight, despite its broken-toothed smile and crushed facial bones.

It was no longer Tom who lay atop her. It was Jeffrey Dahmer.

The paralysis of nightmare locked her down on the bed. She squeezed her eyes shut, so not to have to look at this abomination, but dead fingertips plucked them back open.

“Look, look. See?” the morgue-cold corpse said.

The corpse-face was gone, its ravagement smoothing over, its bruises and contusions dissolving like white sand pouring, until it had blended completely into the face she’d seen so many times in the nightmares of her of past. A blank white face smooth as a featureless mask. Then the knife-slit mouth leaned down to kiss her, the vaguest tip of a grub-white tongue slipping between the lips…

Helen awoke thrashing, shrieking soundlessly. The winter moon remained in her window, the room remained warm and dark as the dream. Was it really over?

She nearly fell out of bed reaching for the lamp, then nearly knocked the lamp over turning it on.

And there she lay in the sweat of her own horror, her nightgown glued to her skin as she waited for her heart to beat down.

She didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

««—»»

“I buy it,” Jan Beck said the next morning in the lab. Helen had just explained her theory: that Campbell was, without a doubt, the man who arranged Dahmer’s escape. “Can’t see why Olsher doesn’t, but you got to admit, he’ll never win any awards for speculative thinking. He’s brass. Brass can’t think past their noses.”

I’m brass too, Jan, Helen thought in response but said nothing. A tabloid lay on the counter; DAHMER WAS WRITING A COOKBOOK! the header boasted. Helen felt a quick twinge. “It’s still got plenty of missing pieces, though, and the only way I’m going to find them is to—”

“Find Campbell, sure,” Beck agreed. “No easy task either. You running his name?”

“I just started. It’s going to take a while. There are over 30,000 people in the state of Wisconsin named Campbell. I’m cross-reffing with prison and mental hospital releases going back three years, plus a general search on anyone named Campbell with a rap sheet for any sexually related crime. I haven’t got my hopes up, though. Sallee says guys this smart, and with this profile, probably haven’t been caught.”

Beck removed a bottle of Snapple from the lab fridge. “You run the name against hospital records, especially this hospital?”

“That’s the first thing I did—here and Columbus County General, where Dahmer’s so-called body was first taken. It came up zilch. There are two Campbells working here, and one there. None fit the mold.”

“At least you’ve got things cooking. You got a DF on North, and that will probably give you more leads down the road, you’ve got Central Programming running Campbell’s name. And while all that’s going on—”

“I have too fill in the holes,” Helen muttered, staring absently around the lab. She felt like she hadn’t slept at all, which was essentially true. The nightmare had bitten her deep. I’m turning into on of those proverbial obsessed cops. No life outside of the job. The case takes over everything, even your dreams. “I think that’s the main reason Olsher’s not taking me seriously. My theory doesn’t explain how Dahmer was positively ID’d via fingerprints. Repeatedly, his prints matched. One, after the beating at the prison, two, on arrival at Columbus County General for the first official pronouncement of death, and, three, after transport here. Three times those fingerprints matched, but then we dig up the body, and it’s Kussler.”

Beck shrugged as she tended a peripheral printer connected to a spectrographic point-processor. “Those prints matched because the guy being transported was Dahmer. He was switched with Kussler’s body after he arrived here. I don’t see any other explanation.”

Helen blinked at the hypothesis. It just sounded too far-fetched. “But the same body ID’d as Dahmer was pronounced dead repeatedly, Jan. The prison physician, the chief of ER at Columbus County General, and several more doctors here.”

“And Tom too,” Beck reminded off the top of her head.

Yeah, Tom too. The name soured her mood at once.

Beck drew on, “In other words, you don’t understand how Dahmer could’ve been pronounced dead when he was really alive? That’s the easy part.”

Helen peered at Beck. “How is faking death easy?”

“You’re forgetting one of this case’s most unique constituents, Captain. Succinicholine sulphate.”

“A deadly poison.”

“A deadly poison is certain doses, yes. But the doses Dahmer used on Arlinger and Dumplin weren’t high enough to be fatal. I’ve already explained that in my tox reports. Those two guys died as a result of torture and extreme physical trauma. It wasn’t the succinicholine that killed them. All that did was paralyze them.”

Helen listened hard, strained her perceptions. “I don’t think I’m following you.”

Beck looked exasperated. “Captain, that’s the key word here—paralysis. Dahmer’s paralyzing his victims with a neurological agent. It stands to reason that Dahmer used the same neurological agent on himself, to feign his death after the beating at the prison.”

“Would that…work?”

“With succinicholine sulphate? Of course it would work. The right dose would lower Dahmer’s respiratory rate and pulse sufficiently enough to fool a standard check for vital signs.”

Helen hadn’t thought of that. “Wow,” she muttered. “You’re right, it does make sense. But that would mean someone would’ve had to procure the succinicholine previously—”

“Sure, Campbell,” Beck suggested. “He had to have been the one who ripped it off from that ambulance jacking.”

“But the jacking was more than twelve hours after the beating?”

“So? By then the plan was already in motion; Campbell was stocking up on it for the murders he knew he and Dahmer would soon be committing. He probably already had stolen a sample previously. Jackings are commonplace. This was obviously something they were planning for months, or even since Dahmer’s initial incarceration in 92.”

Helen nodded to herself. “And it had to have been Kussler who snuck the succinicholine into the prison, on Campbell’s orders. Campbell was using Kussler the whole time, exploiting the love affair with him in order to manipulate him through his job at the prison.”

“A job which gave him direct access to Dahmer. Trading notes back and forth so Campbell and Dahmer could maintain correspondence, and planning the whole scheme from start to finish. It was more than likely Kussler himself who injected Dahmer with the succinicholine directly after the beating. A phony clinical death solid enough to fool any stethoscope.”

Now Helen’s senses seemed prickling. “And according to the roster at the prison, Kussler was on duty that same morning. But…” Here was a snag. “Was it Kussler who beat up on Dahmer’s face, or Rosser, the guy who’s been charged?”

“It had to have been Rosser, Captain. At least that’s my guess. Because the beating verifiably took place in the rec unit, and the only guys in the rec unit at the time were Dahmer, Vander, and Rosser.”

“So Rosser must have been on it too, right?”

“Had to have been,” Beck agreed. “Rosser agreed to beat Dahmer bad about the face. A short time later, Kussler gets into the infirmary and injects Dahmer with the succinicholine, or maybe Rosser did the injection himself. The prison physician pronounces him dead ’cos he’s got no vital signs. And the prints match every time they ran them because, up until the time he arrived here, it was Dahmer they were transporting.”

“And Rosser beats Vander up too, to make it look like a psychotic break. And nobody’s the wiser.”

“Sure, it’s just a theory at this point,” Beck said, now fiddling with comparison microscope, “but I don’t see any other possible explanation that could account for Dahmer’s survival. And that’s one thing we know for sure now. Dahmer’s still alive, and he’s out there, right now, killing again.”

««—»»

Beck’s summation helped Helen see it all now, but why bother running it by Olsher? Waste of time, she thought. Not until I get more evidence or manage to find Campbell.

Campbell, she thought. Your picture’s going to be in the paper today. Try hiding from that, asshole.

Next duty on the agenda, of course, was to reinterview Tredell Rosser, who was upstairs right now in the precaution ward. But when she was crossing the lobby, she stopped in at the newsstand to pick up today’s Tribune. And—

“Goddamn!” she complained loud enough for everyone in the lobby to hear. She tore through the paper, examining every page for the composite and announcement, and—

It’s not here!

Nowhere in the paper was there any sign of Campbell’s artist composite or the corresponding announcement she’d written revealing his last name.

Helen was on the pay phone at once, to Olsher.

“Damn it, Larrel! Why wasn’t my—”

“Save your breath,” Olsher told her over the line. “You want to know why the Tribune didn’t run you sketch and blurb, well I’ll tell you. The Commissioner’s Office said no way. Shit, Helen, the PC himself howled about it.”

“Why?” Helen griped.

“Because it’s a liability. Think, girl. You don’t have enough evidence on Campbell—whoever the hell he is, if he even exists at all—to add up to squat. You go running a guy’s likeness in the paper, along with his name, saying he’s wanted for questioning by the state police violent crimes unit? You know what he does then, Helen? He sues the department for fifty million and wins. It’s defamation of character. It’s an assault on his rights.”

“Aw, Chief, give me a break!”

Olsher’s voiced turned rigid. “I gave you a break this morning when I convinced the PC to keep you on the case, Helen. He wants you off. He thinks you’ve turned into a loose gun.”

Helen squinted her incredulity. “You’re kid—”

“I’m not kidding at all, Helen. You’ve shitnamed yourself bad. That exhumation only stirred the press up more, and now this. I told the PC you’re still the best investigator we got, so he agreed to keep you on. But any more bonehead moves like this, and I can’t cover for you anymore.”

Olsher hung up even before Helen could complain further. What’s the point! she thought, walking for the elevator, a headache kicking at the inside of her skull. If it had been such a bonehead move, why had Olsher suggested she attempt authorization? Are all the men in the world thick-headed morons, or is it me?

So now she was on the PC’s hit-list. Great. Olsher was right about one thing, though: she could kiss her promotion goodbye.

I could care less, she told herself.

This news about the paper wasn’t good; however, the news once she got upstairs was worse.

Helen obstinately flashed her badge to the charge at the reception desk for the psych wing.

“I need to talk to Tredell Rosser,” she said, more distracted by her headache than anything else.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the guard informed her.

“Sorry?”

“This morning during med call, Rosser was found dead in his cell.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Hey, man.”

He turns.

The sly smile fades a bit. The beautiful deep-blue eyes open slightly in curiosity. “We met, man?

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Funny. You look sort’a familiar.”

The man smiles. That is, the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio.

««—»»

The Dock. He wants something off a ways from the Circle. Too much heat there lately… Thanks to me, he thinks. Another harmless bar, like Friends. The hard-hitters all went to the trade joints. But he doesn’t want that.

“Another?” he asks.

Music flutters. Some old Carly Simon tune. The barlight only embellishes the guy’s beautiful face. Cuts it down to bare, visible parts.

Maybe I’ll do that later, he thinks.

“Look, man, I appreciate the drinks and burger and all, but you know the score. I ain’t on the street ’cos I like fresh air.”

“Sure, I know. I just…like you.”

“Great. But what’s the score? We going or what?”

He nods. “Yes, yes, I’m interested,” he says a bit peevishly. But that’s not like him, is it? Not now. Not after his awakening. “I have…someone at my place.”

“A lover, huh?”

“Yes,” he says. But that’s not a lie, is it? “Can we go to your place? I…I don’t want to use a motel. I’ll even pay extra.”

“Don’t sweat it. I cop what every guy on the street cops—fifty bucks for head, a hundred for an hour. Two for all night.”

From his wallet, then, he slips out four fifty-dollar bills, then slowly slides them across the bar.

“Straight up,” the guy says. He’s handsome: chiseled, poised but kind of tough, tight clothes, and all the right moves. “Yeah, man. This is solid. Let’s go.” Another smile, sexy and sly. “I’ll do you right. Count on it.”

««—»»

Helen needed to kill time. Well, she didn’t need to—she wanted to. It was essential she talk to Tom—about Rosser’s death—but talking to Tom wasn’t something she felt too comfortable doing right now. Have some guts, Helen, she told herself. But she drove around rather aimlessly. Waiting. Stalling.

No guts were forthcoming.

She even switched on her radio as an excuse, but the hourly news highlights only offered one pulpy report about Dahmer after the next. “—entire city locked in a reign of terror.” “—when will he strike next, and where?” “—in a fruitless search for associates who helped Dahmer escape incarceration.”

“I saw him,” some whack reported on a call-in show. “I saw Dahmer! It was up near Dudley Circle. He had a beard and dyed his hair, but I just know it was him!”

“Call in your Dahmer-sightings now!” the talk-show host implored.

Idiots. Helen switched the radio off, but at the same instant, she heard over her scanner:

“Federal Signal 12. This is a Federal response request. All available city, county, and state units in proximity to Perry Point Apartments, east grid, Madison, please respond. We could use your help to secure the scene.”

At least here was an excuse to put off seeing Tom. Helen didn’t know what a Federal Signal 12 was, but Perry Point Apartments? That was Madison, the northeast fringe. And it was just around the corner.

She parked by a wave of throbbing visibars, which turned the winter twilight into a stroboscopic blue-red world. First thing she saw was a Green van with the stenciled side panel T.A. TIRES. That much I do know, she thought. T.A. Tires was a phony acronym—for T.A.T.—the F.B.I.’s Tacticle Assault Team.

We must have a hostage situation here, she realized.

She flashed her badge and ID three times, trying to get through the phalanx of armed cops from multiple departments. Then a voice called out: “Captain Closs!”

Helen jerked around to see Special Agent Eules, the Bureau’s M.F.O. SAC Chief, trotting toward an opposing apartment building. “Come on!”

Helen trotted right alongside, impressed that she hadn’t yet lost her breath. Without realizing it, she had her Beretta .25 drawn. Eules huffed right beside her.

“Barricade situation?” she asked.

“Yep. It’s some guy our BR Squad had tagged for a month—bank jobs. He knocked over a First Federal this afternoon, and we been on his ass since. He ditched his getaway on Forest Avenue, jumped the fence and came here. Grabbed the first female he saw and dragged her up to her apartment. I got a cherry-picker in the unit facing him.”

Cherry-picker, she thought. More federal parlance, but Helen knew what a “cherry-picker” was. A sniper.

“What’s he packing?” she asked, trying to sound on Eules’s level.

“Right now, just a knife. He was toting a Glock when he took down the bank, but he emptied the clip at our guys when we surrounded him here.”

Aw, no, Helen fretted. She was no gun expert, but she knew full well that a Glock was an rather notorious, part-composite semi-auto pistol. With a big clip. Like fifteen or sixteen rounds. She dreaded the next question, as any cop would. “Did you…did you lose any men?”

“Naw, naw,” Eules casually replied. “All our people wear Kevlar jackets, Threat-Level III, with titanium rifle plates. He hit a few of my guys but they got right back up and dusted themselves off.”

Thank God.

Their footfalls pattered the steps. Three floors up, Helen followed Eules as he barged into a unit. “Behind you, guys,” he announced. “It’s Eules. Don’t pop no caps.”

Two men in suits greeted him with curt nods. Some relay equipment had been plugged into the apartment’s phone.

“You got that running yet?” Eules asked, pointing to one of the components.

“It’s up and running, sir,” one suit said.

The other suit: “We already called him. He says he’ll talk to you.”

“Good.” Eules smiled imperceptibly. “Put us on intercom—not now, but on my mark.”

“Yes, sir.”

In the apartment’s darkness, Eules led Helen on to the front family room plate-glass window. The glass had been intricately removed via a diamond cutter and suction frame, so not to risk shattering. Frigid winter air gusted in, and before the window’s opening stood a man in dark-blue utilities—FBI in pale gold letters stamped across his back—and a reversed blue ball cap.

“Talk to me, Sandie?” Eules asked. “What’s the target’s status?”

“Nervous,” the sniper replied without taking his eye out of his rifle site. It was a long, black rifle, black grips, black stock, black barrel—a Beretta M82—fit with an array of sitting equipment at the rear of the muzzle. A high power scope and laser site, Helen guessed. The sniper continued, “Jerky, sweating, lot of nervous ticks. He’s high.”

“Still got the knife?”

“Yeah. He’s standing in front of the window like he’s got brass balls, got the knife to the female’s throat. He knows we’re spotting him.”

“Fuck him,” Eules said. “You say he’s nervous. Is he flashing the knife any? Moving it around?”

“Yeah. Every time he tries to ring us on the phone, he waves the knife around.”

“Good. That’s your firing mark.” Then Eules passed Helen a pair of Zeiss binoculars. In the infinity-shaped border, she saw the guy, strutting his stuff before the window, with a pallid-faced woman standing before him. Her cheeks were washed with tears. He held a large sheath knife to her throat, and every so often pulled it away to wave it at them. A neon-red laser dot hovered at his shoulder.

“You’re going to shoot this guy?” Helen queried.

“No. We’re going to play pattycakes with him. We’re gonna take him out for pizza and go for rides at the amusement park.”

“What I mean, Agent Eules, is isn’t it imprudent to lay fire on this guy considering his position. He’s got a knife. Even if you fire when he’s got the knife off her throat, the inertia from the round might knock him back.”

“Can’t happen,” Eules asserted, peering into his own set of binoculars. “Autonomic impossibility. My guy’s firing a custom-loaded .50 round, no deflection through the glass. We’re talking two-thousand feet per second, with a foot-pounds measure that would knock the Jolly Green Giant on his ass. We going for a head shot. Once he gets hit with that round, his brain synapses release a flood of stage histamines which instantly causes his entire nervous system to distend. He’ll drop the knife and be dead before he hits the ground.”

“Okay, fine,” Helen objected. “But how can you be absolutely sure?”

“Justice Department clinical statistics. They’re never wrong.”

“All right,” she went on. “But what about this? What if your sniper misses?”

Eules offered her a disapproving glance. “My men never miss.”

Helen shrugged, still watching the scene in her binoculars.

“What’s the problem, Captain?” Eules asked.

“No problem. I’ve never done a barricade situation before. I’m just wondering if some other scenario should be considered. Do you really have to kill this guy to terminate the situation?”

Eules lowered his binoculars. “I’d appreciate your input. You got a better solution?”

Helen watched further, watched the guy strut, laughing, pressing the knife to the crying woman’s throat. His other hand, then, came around her front, mauled her breasts and molested her pubis.

“Kill him,” Helen said.

“Dial me up,” Eules instructed the suit. “It’s time Uncle Eules had a talk with Mr. Scumbag. Put me on intercom.”

A rudely loud ringing was heard. Helen watched the perpetrator turn, then pick up the phone in the woman’s apartment.

“Yeah?” she heard over the intercom.

Eules, also a trained hostage negotiator, talked aloud, peering into his field glasses. “My name is Special Agent Eules; I’m with the F.B.I. Let’s talk a deal.”

“No deals, fuckface. I want safe passage out of here, or I cut this dizzy bitch’s head off and throw it at ya. I want a fuckin’ armored car here in twenty minutes, to take me to Canada.”

“That’s a long haul, man,” Eules said over the open line.

“I don’t give a shit. You do it or I start cutting.”

“Listen, pal. All you did was knock over a bunch of banks. You never hurt anyone. I’ll get you off easy if you drop your shit.”

“I hit some of your pigs, so don’t bullshit me!”

“They were wearing vests, man. You didn’t even muss their hair. We take you down our way, you’ll get twenty years max, parole in six or seven probably.”

“Open your ears, jackass! I ain’t going to the fucking can!”

“You drop the shank,” Eules continued, “let the woman go, and walk out of there with your hands up, and I guarantee you you won’t be shot. I’ll drop the assaulting-federal-officers charges, and I’ll even guarantee you don’t do more than five years. Keep your act clean, and you’ll be out in three on GB. You can do five years standing on your head.”

Helen watched. The perp seemed to consider this, and Helen was impressed by Eules’s resolve. At least he was giving it a shot.

Eules waved a finger, a flag for one of the suits to cut off the intercom. Then Eules told the sniper, “Watch for your mark. Tell me when you’ve got a good laser bead. It’s gotta be a head shot.”

The sniper stood still as a granite statue. Helen watched at the same time, and noticed the tiny red laser dot high right on the perp’s chest. It began to raise.

“Fuck you!” the perp bellowed back. “You’re bullshitting and you know it. I’m gonna cut this bitch’s head off if you don’t—”

“Got it,” the sniper said.

“Take your target.”

Wham!

It was like no gunshot she’d ever heard, more akin to a large door slamming. Nevertheless, the sonic distraction did not take Helen’s eyes away from the binoculars.

“Target down,” the sniper calmly replied.

But it had been something slower than a dream. Helen watched the whole thing. She saw the perp standing there waving the knife as he bellowed his objections into the phone. She saw the laser dot staying high on his forehead. Then came the report.

The perp’s hand opened before he fell backward, just as Eules had cited. The woman ran away. The perp fell to the ground faster than a demolitioned building.

“All units,” Eules barked into a Motorola radio. “Target is down. Enter the perimeter at will and clear the room. Watch for cross-fire.”

Out of nowhere, then, probably fifty cops rushed the building in the throbbing light. At the same time, unseen F.B.I. rappellers dropped off the side of the building and flew feet first into the apartment’s front room.

Eules watched intently until he heard a radio break: “Team Leader to Gunpost One. Perimeter secure. The target is dead. The hostage is okay.”

Eules set down his mike and popped a stick of gum in his mouth. He winked at Helen. “All in a day’s work, huh?”

Helen gulped. “I’m impressed.”

««—»»

“It’s good to see you,” Tom said.

Helen faltered hard. What could she think of him now? The hostage thing had been only a postponement of what she knew she must do. Go to him. Talk to him. Feel him out, she realized.

Tom frowned, snapping on surgical gloves over the corpse.

“Can you give me a C.O.D.?”

“What?” he objected. “Right now? Of course not. You ever hear of a post-mortem? I’ve got to do one of those first. Give me four hours.”

The body of Tredell W. Rosser, Columbus County Detent #255391, looked asleep on the guttered, tilt-lift morgue platform. Even in death, his skin shined dark as oiled obsidian.

“This guy was only a kid—twenty-five years old,” Tom said. “Can you believe it?”

Helen said nothing. She averted her eyes not only from the flawless corpse but from Tom too. Still, after all her ponderings, she had yet to decide what she thought of Tom.

He checked a cache of autopsy scalpels in the autoclave. “You know, there’s all kind of great rumors about this guy. They say he was a Ganser, faking religious delusions.”

“He probably was,” Helen’s words grated. “According to an array of psychiatrists, Rosser was indeed faking his delusion in order to bid for a transfer to the state hospital.”

“You believe that?” Tom’s face inclined from the ‘clave, an expression if absurdity.

“Yes, Tom, I do.”

“So I guess that means you believe the rest of it, huh?’

“The rest of what?”

Another coked brow. “The rest of the rumors.”

“I don’t care about rumors, Tom,” Helen lied. She had to get on with it, and get out of here. “All I care about is the verified cause of death. Is Beck on duty now?”

“This late? No, she’s on call.”

“Then call her down here to do the tox screen.”

Tom gaped at her. “Helen, I can do the tox screen. In fact, I’m more qualified than her to do a tox screen or any other clinical test on a dead body.”

Of course he’d say that, because it was true. But how much about him isn’t true. “I’d—I’d just like Beck to do the tox screen, if you don’t mind.”

Tom leveled a gaze. “I do mind, Helen. You’re not making sense. Is there some particular reason you don’t want me to do it?”

Yes! she thought. But there was no way she could say it. I don’t trust you! “Could you just…appease me here, Tom? Please?”

“Fine. It’s only midnight. Jan only works sixteen hours a day; I’m sure she won’t have any problem with me dragging her tail down here to do a tox screen.”

“Just…please. I’d appreciate it.”

Tom shrugged in lackadaise. “Sure, Helen. Whatever floats your boat.”

“Thank you.” An impulse urged her to turn and leave, but something hitched at her. “So, what about those rumors?’

Tom chuckled. “You just got done telling me you don’t care about rumors.”

“All right, I lied. I’d like to hear the rumors about Rosser.”

Tom snapped on the overhead, began to draw the y-section on Rosser’s muscular chest with a white paint pen. “It’s the prison grapevine, I guess. They’re saying Rosser was really friends with Dahmer, that he beat the crap out of Dahmer’s face at Dahmer’s request, as part of the escape scam. And they’re saying someone on the outside was in league with Dahmer too—some guy you’re calling Campbell. That it was some multiplayer conspiracy to get Dahmer out of prison alive so he could go on committing murders. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?”

Helen’s joints locked in place for a moment. She didn’t offer any answer, electing instead to turn and leave. But before she made her full exit from the morgue, she refaced Tom. “What’s so ridiculous about it, Tom? We know Dahmer’s alive. How did he get out? A ‘multiplayer conspiracy’ is the only answer.”

“Yeah, well—”

“And it’s quite ingenious, don’t you think? That Dahmer orchestrated a friendship with Rosser, and only maintained the premise that they were enemies? And Campbell, the outside conspirator, manipulating Kussler to keep him in contact with Dahmer? I don’t think there’s anything ridiculous about any of it. I think it holds water, Tom. In fact, I even think that maybe Campbell isn’t the only conspirator.”

Tom stared at her over the slab controls.

Helen went on, “Or maybe, just maybe, Campbell is an alias.”

“An alias?”

“Yeah. For someone else.”

And it was at that precise moment that Helen turned and left.

««—»»

“So what is that thing, anyway? Some kind of good luck charm?”

Hendrix playing rare blues eddied from the jukebox. “A red house over yonder…” What had brought her here, not to mention twice in the same week? The Badge, the cop bar. Right now it was half-full of the kind of people she least wanted to be around. Cops. And here was Nick, the Metro PD narc, divorced and lost and left with nowhere else to go to find companionship, to find anything remnant at all of something that might be called a life.

And here I am sitting right next to him.

“What was that?” she asked. “A good luck charm?”

Nick swigged his mug of Bud, and coarsely pointed at her bosom. “That silver locket around your neck. You’ve been rubbing it since you walked in here.”

Damn. He sounded worse than Dr. Sallee. And, yes, now that she thought of it, she’d been pressing it between her thumb and index finger, probably, for hours. “Yeah, Nick. It’s a good luck charm, and, believe me, right now I need all the luck I can get.”

“Tough case, huh? The Dahmer thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let me tell ya, I’ve had my share of bad cases, and…” Nick’s snide cop voice faded, bringing Helen back to her thoughts.

The whole scene with Tom back at the state morgue: what could’ve been more rigid and uncomfortable? The screw-up with the composite, and Olsher’s sudden lack of support only made it worse. And now I’m sitting in a boring-as-hell cop bar, next to a boring-as-hell cop named Nick, and I’m getting plastered. Talk about someone without a life.

“…and then those kooky rumors.”

Helen perked up. “What rumors?”

“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting, you’re the gal whose name is in the papers every day but she doesn’t bother to read ‘em.”

“I hate newspapers, Nick.”

“Hey, I hear ya. Bunch’a liberal rubberneck schmucks who don’t know real life. Let ‘em get mugged once or twice, let ‘em get car-jacked by a crackhead at a traffic light. Let ‘em find out it’s their own sons and daughters getting addicted to rock by playground pushers. Then maybe they’ll sing a different tune. You know. When it happens to them.”

Helen didn’t care in the least with Nick’s sociological views. “The rumors, Nick. What’s that about the rumors?”

“Oh, yeah, guess I got off track, ya know. The evening Tribune says that guy Rosser died in his cell, you know, the guy—”

“The guy accused of killing Dahmer.”

“Yeah, but since it’s obvious now to anyone with half a brain that Dahmer’s still alive, the rumor mill is talking up this shit about Rosser being in on it. That Rosser did the face job on Dahmer because Dahmer asked him to, just to get Dahmer into the infirmary.”

“Let me ask you something, Nick. Do you think that’s preposterous or far-flung?”

“Me? Hell, how do I know? I mean, if I wanted to bust out of a secure detent like Columbus County, probably the only way is through the infirmary. Get real sick or something, and they transport you to the hospital. Then you escape because security’s not as tight. But, Christ, they’re saying Dahmer had no vital signs when they checked him at the prison infirmary, so how can that be?”

Because the part about the succinicholine sulphate wasn’t in the papers, that’s how, Nick. “But I mean the ‘conspiracy’ angle. Forget about anything else.”

“Well, shit, Helen—pardon my French—I ain’t exactly a Harvard grad, but Dahmer must’ve had help to get out. And it had to be several guys helping him, not just one.”

Helen looked into her beer. Even Nick buys it. So why doesn’t Olsher? Why doesn’t the Police Commissioner?

All of a sudden, her head seemed to roll. Christ, I’m drunk. Her fingers ached from squeezing the locket, and her mouth tasted like a malt factory.

“You’re empty,” Nick pointed to her glass. “Hey, chief, the lady needs another mug’a suds.”

“No, no, Nick—thanks for the offer, but—”

“What’s’a’matter?”

Helen shrugged. “I gotta go home. I’m drunk.”

“Ah, well lemme tell ya something. I’m not drunk—serious, I only had three beers, and you had five or six just since you walked in.”

Helen felt groggy, wobbly. “What are you saying, Nick?”

“Best to let me drive you home. I mean, that wouldn’t look to good in the papers for a state police VCU captain to get pinched on a DWI, would it?”

No, no it wouldn’t.

“So, hey. Can I drive ya home, Helen?”

Her brain, suddenly, was reeling, and she thought she might throw up. “Yes, Nick,” she said. “I’d appreciate it.”

««—»»

Why shouldn’t women be imprudent? Men were imprudent every day. Men slept around whenever they felt like it, marriages notwithstanding. I’m just letting some beat narc drive me home, she thought. It’s not like I’m going to sleep with him.

Nick, evidently, had some other plans. While he was driving her home in his unmarked Metro car, his right hand had somehow found it’s way to her knee.

And Helen didn’t even care.

She was not the least bit attracted to Nick—not that he was unattractive. He just wasn’t her type. He was pure-bread career cop, and that was no prize as far as she was concerned. She rubbed her locket further when she deliberated, Maybe a distraction is what I need. Some guy I’m never gonna see again? Who cares? Men don’t care. Why should women? Why is it that men can have indiscriminant sex and that’s cool, that’s macho, that’s just men being men, but when a woman does it, she’s a slut? It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

I don’t even give a damn any more, she thought.

When Nick’s hand had progressed to the point of the middle of her thigh, she pushed it back. “Let’s take things a little easier, huh, Nick?”

“Aw, sorry. I mean, I thought that maybe, you know maybe—”

What she said next astounded her. “You want to go to bed with me, Nick? All right.”

“Yeah?” he replied, his voice rung with enthusiasm.

“But one thing I don’t really need is a gynecological exam in the front seat of your unmarked. So cool down a little, will you?”

“Sure, yeah, sure…”

But even Nick, a stereotypical cop, when he parked in front of her apartment—even he had the rare decency to offer, “Hey, down to the wire huh? Well, look, Helen, I gotta tell you, I really think you’re a beautiful woman, and—well, you know—you turn me on, and I’d think it’d be great if we went up to your joint and, you know, had a good roll in the hay. But, you know, I just wanna make sure it’s all cool. I mean, you said you were drunk, and I’d hate for anything to happen, and then in the morning you hate my guts ’cos you think I took advantage of you. I don’t want you thinkin’ I’m just some rubberneck cockhound—er, pardon my French.”

Helen looked at him cock-eyed. “You know something, Nick? You may not be the best mannered guy I’ve ever met, but that’s pretty thoughtful.”

“Hey, can I help it I’m good-looking and thoughtful?”

Helen let out a long breath. “Come on, Nick. Let’s go upstairs.”

««—»»

It was some facsimile of anticipation that made her pulse race, she felt weak. I am weak, she thought, facing him in the dark murk of her own apartment now. Weak or stupid. She’d avoided involvements with cops for her entire career because she’d seen the stuff so many times. Cops made the worst one-night stands, and that’s exactly what this was. And they blabbed their bed adventures to every other tin in the squad room the next morning. Cops had sex the same way they lived: on the edge, tense, animal-like. Maybe that’s all this was—some primal flush, some need in her psyche that almost never popped up. At least he works for another department, she thought.

“How about some lights?” he said.

How about some diversity? she replied with her thoughts. Instead of turning on any lights, she lit some candles which threw their shapes onto the walls like flittering ghosts. Next thing she knew, they were embracing…

Talk about breaking the ice.

“I want you,” Nick said. Helen nearly laughed at the corniness of it. It all just felt so dumb. Light stubble whisked against her face when he kissed her. She could taste cigarettes and beer. She responded to the kisses only half-aware, the other half still trying to reckon this. This isn’t working, it first occurred to her, but then his hands began to change her mind. Intent and rather rough hands squeezing her body with hesitation. Any other time it would’ve been too fast for her, but maybe she simply didn’t care. He took off her skirt and blouse akin to a greedy kid opening a present. When his hands slipped up her belly to her bra’d breasts, an eruption of glitter seemed to fill her head.

“Christ, you’re beautiful…”

Helen didn’t know how to respond to the comment. Was he saying it merely for the sake of formality? Maybe he means it. Maybe he really thinks I’m beautiful. But—

What now?

She sought some other diversion because, well, she felt awkward just standing here in the middle of her dark living room being gropily kissed by a man she barely knew.

I know—

A few moments later cool water rained down on them; they were in the shower, their clothes, garment by garment, leading a trail to the bathroom. It was still dark, though, which she liked. Only a single candle lit the bathroom as they continued to embrace. The water at least partially sobered her up, refining her senses. She couldn’t really see his body; Nick was just a wet shape in there with her, an attendant shadow.

Neither of them spoke; all she could perceive was the detailed hiss of the water and the sensation of his hands sudsing her body, beguiling her. This was a shocking luxury, standing there in the small torrent and being so intimately investigated. Then he pulled her head back by her hair, licked her ear. Helen felt her body betray her. The contrast of cool water and warm lather made her nipples stand up, right away, and now his hands were smoothing suds over her breasts. The slow, radiating pleasure infuriated her in a way. He turned her, pressed her breasts together, and offered them to the water.

She felt the trail of suds course down her legs. More and more, Helen felt thinly wired, like a rosined bowstring fit to snap. Nick’s hands slid down her hips. An exciting impulse brought her up on her tiptoes. The hands continued to inch lower, toward her…

««—»»

Afterward, she felt delightfully worn out. She lay in bed as if dropped there. The sheets were damp; they hadn’t even bothered drying off after the shower. Nick’s attentions had surprised her, a see-saw of divided sensuality: gentle and affectionate one moment, primitive and rough the next. Everything he’d done had burned her fuse down a little further until the detonation had occurred. Quite a detonation indeed. Yes, her climax had felt like a bomb going off. And now—

He stood at the bedside, in the dark. After all that had ensued, she’d never really seen his body. Just glimpses in candlelight, and vague outlines.

The sound of clothes being put on now, the clink of a belt buckle.

He’s leaving, she realized, and that was good. She didn’t feel used at all—if anything, she’d used him. But for him to stay the night with her, to sleep with her…

That would’ve felt too strange.

“Can I see you again?” he asked, the first words he’d spoken since he’d told her she was beautiful.

Her thoughts snagged. “No, I-I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said too quickly.

“Another guy, huh?”

Her mouth opened, closed. Not anymore, she thought. But it would hurt his feelings to say so. He’d actually been very considerate, he’d even had condoms. Instead she lied, “Yeah, something like that. I’m sorry, Nick. It’s nothing personal. I mean, it was… It was a good time. I just feel kind of weird about all this.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Don’t be mad.”

“Naw. Don’t worry about it,” he said as easily as he said anything. “But I’ll call you some time, you know, down the road, in case you change your mind. I won’t bust out into tears like some rubberneck if you tell me to bug off.”

Helen had to laugh. “Goodnight, Nick. I really did have a good time.”

“Yeah, me too.” Then his form leaned over in the dimming candlelight, kissed her a final time, and he was gone.

««—»»

Later, she gazed out the window. Madison seemed dead at four a.m., and that was roughly how she felt. Her previous tipsiness, and the revitalization from the shower and love-making, was now corroding to a state of hangover. She couldn’t imagine what Dr. Sallee would say about this; she doubted she’d even tell him. You need help, she scorned herself. Picking up a cop in bar? Then going to bed with him? The guy was a perfect stranger. And— Christ! My car’s still at the bar! She’d have to take a cab to pick it up in the morning. And with her luck it would be up on cinderblocks, stripped. And all for what? A quick roll in the hay, to use Nick’s sophisticated locution.

Well, at least he had condoms, she thought in some cheap consolation.

She rubbed her locket in the open V of her robe, still peering out her window into frigid night. Was it guilt? Did she feel guilty about going to bed with a man she just met? Helen didn’t think so, though she felt certain Dr. Sallee would disagree. He’d probably say something like: A retrograde anxiety complex, Helen. At the core of your subconscious, via a lifetime of preconceived ideals and learned experience, you feel overwhelmed with guilt. Even though your relationship with Tom is over, you feel dirty, deceitful. You feel as though you’ve cheated on him.

To hell with Tom. Cheating on him? What a joke. He cheated on me a dozen times—with men. Why should I feel guilty?

The answer, actually, was simple. She felt guilty because this was not like her by any means. Picking up men in bars? Anonymous, even emotionless sex? It wasn’t Helen’s style. If anything, she’d done it for distraction, and maybe even—in some symbolic way—to feel that she could still be attractive and desirable to men, almost as if she needed to prove something to herself. Worst part was, though, now that she’d gone and done it, she didn’t even care. She’d responded, she’d even climaxed, and she didn’t care…

The bed still smelled like his cologne when she heaped the covers over herself. I’m never drinking again, came a dim thought behind the headache. I’m so stupid! It would be morning soon—technically it already was—and she’d have to drag herself up and into work. To reface vague evidence and Olsher’s sudden lack of confidence. And Dahmer.

He’s out there, right now. And Campbell’s probably with him, helping him, staking out locations for him, driving him, maybe even picking up the new victims for him. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Most people knew what Dahmer looked like—especially now with his picture in every paper and tabloid. Unless Dahmer had disguised himself, he couldn’t walk the street.

More support for her conviction that Campbell was the operative. The obsessee assistant, the apprentice who’d manufactured Dahmer’s “death,” orchestrated Dahmer’s escape, provided Dahmer with refuge, transportation, and the tools of his trade of murder.

Dahmer, she thought, pining for sleep. But there was no safety even in sleep, was there? Dahmer ruled her life by day, and now he even marauded her sleep.

She turned angrily in bed, and noticed only then the blinking red light on her answering machine. She didn’t even want to play it, didn’t care who had left the message.

Tom? she wondered half-awake. Again, to hell with him. And why would he call anyway? Or—

Damn it. Probably Beck. Maybe she’s got the tox screen done on Rosser’s blood…

It was every effort to reach out and press the CALLS button:

“You’ve reached Helen Closs,” she heard her own dry, spiritless voice. “I can’t come to the phone right now, so please leave your name and number after the beep.”

BEEP

Silence.

Then:

A man’s voice. Atonal. Emotionless. A voice…she’d heard before, but never in person.

A voice she’d heard on tv tabloid shows and the news.

“It’s me,” the voice introduced itself.

Helen’s eyes slowly opened, listened further—

“It’s Jeff.”

—and further.

“Pleasant dreams.”

The line severed with a click, and Helen’s heart seemed to come to sluggish, thudding halt.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“We got a ten-scale, one-hundred-percent match,” announced the tech, all spit and polish in his TSD monkey suit. A Gaines Systems Model 6-P Series Voice-Stress Comparator switched off. “It’s Dahmer’s voice.”

It was just past six a.m. now, Helen, Beck, and Olsher stood moodily in the Criminal Evidence Section’s cramped EA lab—the EA for Electronic Analysis.

Olsher chewed an unlit cigar. “Shit. Why should we even be surprised?”

“Right, Chief,” Beck agreed, “but the surprising part is how he beat the line-trace.”

Helen felt like she’d just been dumped out of a cement mixer: her hair messed, her clothes crumpled, her eyes sandy with lack of sleep. She hadn’t had time to even shower before hustling the cassette cartridge from her answering machine down to CES. And, no, it was no surprise that the voice on the tape matched Dahmer’s voice-print specs equalized out of his last tv interview. But beating the line-trace was a surprise. The days of telephone traces taking minutes were long over. It was all automatic now, every phone relay in the country fed through an array of traceable microprocessors, and each and every connection stored. It had only taken a Bell-Atlantic systems technician a matter of seconds identify the source of the call. And the source was this according to their relay computer: No source found. Source cell and service point not identified.

“I always thought it was impossible to beat a line-trace in this day and age,” Helen grumbled.

“Not impossible,” the tech corrected, shutting down his unit. “But damn near.”

“How could it be done?” Helen asked.

“It could be done with an encrypted mobile phone,” the tech postulated, “but that’s not likely in this case. We’re talking military-grade scramblers, stuff the Defense Department uses, and the C.I.A. This call here?” He tapped on the box. “Had to have been an on-line call fed through a particular S/C program.”

Helen didn’t want to hear anymore technical stuff. “S/C program?”

“A computer program with a shift-conversion utility,” the tech explained to no further comprehension.

“We’re all dummies here, partner,” Olsher said. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a software program—probably made from scratch—that acts as a single-channel frequency shift-converter. Now, a call like that could be placed through any run-of-the-mill 9.6 baud telephone modem—something you can buy in any computer store. But the program itself? You can’t buy them anywhere; they’re banned by FCC, so that’s why I’m telling you the program was made from scratch, and by someone with serious computer expertise. A teckie, an expert hacker.”

Olsher gnawed on his cigar, perplexed, turning to Helen. “Any evidence to suggest Dahmer was skilled with computers?”

A memory floated, and a word. Computers. “No, Larrel,” she said. “Not Dahmer. But one of the first things North told me was that Campbell was a computer fanatic.”

“Here we go with Campbell again.”

Beck interjected. “Chief, face it. There is a Campbell, and he is directly involved. He helped Dahmer get out of prison, and right now he’s helping Dahmer continue his murder spree. Everything in this case points to an active conspirator. Campbell’s used his craft and ingenuity to do everything so far, and it’s obvious he’s the one who arranged this call and made it untraceable.”

Thank you, Jan, Helen thought.

“So why would Dahmer call Helen?”

Beck made a frown. “Helen’s name is in the newspaper almost every day. They’ve broadcasted the fact that Helen’s running the investigation.”

Olsher chewed on these considerations along with the cigar.

“Look, I never said I didn’t believe your theory about a conspirator. I just wasn’t too hip on this Campbell guy, considering the source.”

Now it was Helen’s turn to frown, but she said nothing.

Beck went on, “And it’s starting to seem to me that maybe Campbell’s not the only conspirator.”

“Why?” Olsher grunted.

“Because there’s no Campbell at St. John’s Hospital,” Helen said, “and there can be no doubt that St. John’s is the location where Kussler’s dead body was switched with Dahmer.”

“She’s right, Chief,” Beck plodded on. “Someone with hospital access has to be in on it too. Not only to take Dahmer out and leave Kussler’s body in his place after the ident process, but also because of Rosser.”

“Rosser died in the same hospital,” Helen pointed out.

“And I just got finished determining the cause of death.” Beck waved a dot-matrix printout from a tox-screen analysis. “Helen ordered me to do a blood run the minute we knew Rosser was dead. He was killed with a massive oral dose of succinicholine sulphate—the same drug being used to paralyze the victims.”

Helen smiled to herself, while Olsher stared. “Good work, both of you,” he admitted. “Keep it up and keep me posted.” Then he left but from the lab entry waved Helen out into the hall.

“What is it, Larrel?” Helen asked.

“This bit about a second person, a second conspirator with hospital access?”

“It makes a lot of sense, Chief. Look, you didn’t buy the part about Campbell and now you’re admitting he exists. The same goes for a second collaborator, someone specifically tied to St. John’s.”

Olsher rubbed his face. “I know, and that’s what bugs me. You know who fits the bill, don’t you?”

Helen swallowed before she could answer. “Tom. I know. I’ve given that a lot of thought. He did the autopsy, he was the duty pathologist for Dahmer’s post, and he’d have access to the psych wing med unit. Rosser was on a lithium compound to treat his hyper-activity. Someone could easily have slipped into the nurses’ station and spiked Rosser’s lithium with succincholine.”

“Shit,” Olsher said, impressed. “You have thought about this.”

Helen felt less than resplendent revealing the rest. “He’s also had…affairs with men.”

Olsher gaped at her. “Are you shitting—”

“No, I’m not, and one more thing. He’s big into computers.”

By now Olsher had nearly chewed the cigar to wet shreds. “Yeah. Keep an eye on him, Helen. And I mean a close eye.”

««—»»

Everything was coming out to dry now. Beck had no problem accepting the credibility of Rosser’s lithium dose being poisoned with succinicholine. The precaution ward, true, had a nurses’ station behind the locked ward door and a 24-hour security guard, but the drug prescriptions for every patient on the unit were prepared at the main nurses’ station at the floor entrance. It wouldn’t have been difficult for a hospital employee to get in there quick, locate Rosser’s med cup, switch the real lithium capsule with a spiked one, and get out. It would only take a matter of seconds, Helen realized.

But she’d still have to prove it, and that wouldn’t be easy. Tom may have assisted, but Campbell was still the key. She’d ordered CES to dust Kussler’s apartment for prints—Kussler and Campbell were lovers—at least before Campbell was loving enough to kill him—so it stood to reason Campbell’s prints would be there too.

More dumb luck, though, when Beck brought in the results. Prints other than Kussler’s were indeed found all over the apartment, but none of those prints were on file.

“You gotta figure, Captain, if Campbell’s smart enough to beat a phone-trace with a home-made software program, he’s definitely smart enough to know his prints aren’t on file,”

Beck commiserated.

Helen could only agree.

“And, check this out,” Beck told her, opening a magazine. “Have you seen this? It came out a few days ago.”

“I don’t read magazines, Jan. I don’t have time to read a fortune cookie.”

The glossy cover shined up. Madisonian Magazine, a slick local-interest publication more prone to city-wide rumors and gossip than any real local interest. All big cities had them. Beck opened it toward the center, passed it to Helen.

“Goddamn it.” Helen was getting to hate this. Here was a long article not as much about the Dahmer Case as about her. A fluff piece. Her academy graduation picture side by side with a snapshot of her leaving the Arlinger murder scene. Local girl makes good, she thought. What a bunch of tripe. The not-very-skilled writer, in genuine fluff style, went on to cite Helen’s education, proficiency ratings, even her age. What about my dress size, you schmuck! Why don’t you tell the readers what brand of tampons I use! She only scanned a few lines: “—a hallmark to modern womanhood, the highest success rate of any investigator on the State Police. Captain Closs, in fact, will be the first woman in the department’s history to make the rank of deputy chief.”

Helen rose a subtle brow. Don’t be so sure.

“Turn the page,” Beck said.

“Oh, no!”

“—but even the ever-busy investigator has time for a relationship. Who’s the handsome mystery man seen here with Closs after a date?”

Helen gaped, aghast, at another snapshot. It was her and Tom, smiling and holding hands as they left Mader’s, downtown’s best German restaurant.

“—our sources here at the Madisonian have identified him as Tom Drake, 38, the state’s Deputy Medical Examiner. Wedding bells on the horizon? We’ll never tell!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Helen griped. “And— How on earth did they get that picture?”

“You know these tabloid mags,” Beck informed. “They send their photographers out to hide in the bushes. That guy probably staked you and Tom out, followed you to the restaurant, and then waited for you to come out.”

Helen threw the magazine in the trash, infuriated, as Beck answered the phone. I ought to go down there and sue them! Helen thought. They have no right to print anything about my personal life! And that picture!

But Helen’s ire lost all its steam once Beck hung up and turned to her. The gray-voiced news was becoming commonplace.

“We’ve got another one,” Beck said.

««—»»

The northside of the Circle, the outermost skirts of what was known as the gay district. Efficiency apartment, cramped but neat, reported to the police by a Fed-Ex man delivering a package—a mail order poplin jacket from the Home Shopping Club. He’d knocked on the door, which was ajar, and saw the body lying in the window light on the bed.

Drug evidence was apparent: a gram of cocaine, a bag of pot, some cotton-covered thumb-caps of amyl nitrate.

“Paone,” Beck ID’d. “First name Norman. ID was simple. Twenty-nine years old, a street hustler on the Circle.”

“How do you know?” Helen asked, trying not to stare at the naked corpse. In spite of death, and in spite of winter, the body was tanned. Tanning salon, Helen guessed. Check out all the salons in town.

“We just ran the guy’s name through Mobile Search. Rap sheet longer than one of Olsher’s cigars. Non-distro drug possession, check kiting, multiple busts for solicitation.”

A prostitute, Helen thought.

“Did a year and a half in Mad County Detent.”

“Nothing at Columbus County?”

“No. It was a three-year hitch. Early probation after fourteen months. Same old, same old.”

“Any…” Helen glanced around. A tv, a VCR. North was in adult videos. “Any x-rated tapes on the premise?”

“Nope, at least none that we could find as of yet. We’re still doing the prelim sweep. Why?”

Helen felt too preoccupied to answer. Paone was a male prostitute. So is North…

“Case parities?” Helen reeled off.

“Identical m.o. I’ll do a tox workup, and Tom’ll do the post, but I can tell you right now it’s Dahmer.”

Helen’s nostrils tweaked. “Is that—”

“Cooking smells, Captain? Yes. Used utensils left in the sink. Nice of Jeff to leave them in the sink, huh? Like who’s going to clean them? Paone? The maid?”

Helen’s expression remained fixed.

Red-suited techs crawled on hands and knees, as Helen had seen so many times: vacuuming for hair and fibers, photographing schemes, dusting and fuming and UVing for latent fingerprints. Waste of time, Helen thought. It’s always the same.

“Evidence of makeshift lobotomization,” Beck said, “just like Dumplin. Evidence of deep-cut striations with a sharp, edged implement. Collops of lean-muscle mass removed from the biceps and thighs, probably the parts that were…”

Beck didn’t finish; she didn’t need to. The parts that were cooked, eaten, Helen finished in thought.

“Fresh prints on the utensils and the note.” Beck spoke as an existentialist now, immune to the effects of human tragedy. Just like Helen. “I got a latent classifier here who’s run the point-scale—they’re Dahmer’s. Dahmer was here, Captain, and he was here in grand style.”

“I need a crew of shoes out here to canvass,” Helen muttered more to herself. “Talk to the neighbors and all that. It must be Campbell at the very least picking Dahmer up afterwards.”

“Yeah. I agree. But ten-to-one nobody saw anything, just like the first two. Dahmer may not be smart, but Campbell is. Anyway, Captain, let me show you the note.” Helen followed the red-overalled woman to a cheap, put-it-together-yourself credenza. The note, as before, had already been sealed in lab evidence bag. But Helen could easily read the familiar, blue-felt penned handwriting.

Captain Closs,

He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

“More Bible stuff,” Beck said. “Well have to get the college on it.”

“No we won’t,” Helen said, remembering her own theology classes. “It’s from Proverbs, a reference to adultery…and prostitution.”

Beck’s mouth turned down as if impressed. “There’s more.”

A whore is a deep ditch.

Helen remembered that bit of scripture too. “Proverbs again.”

And lastly:

Remember the Great Bear of the north.

“Don’t tell me,” Beck challenged. “You know that one too?”

“It’s a reference to Revelations—or I should say The Revelation of…St. John the Divine.”

“That’s uncanny. The same name of the hospital.”

“Yeah. But I don’t get the rest. Bible scholars have always referred to ‘The Great Bear of the north’ as a reference to Russia.”

Beck’s eyes drew wide with Helen’s. “Or maybe Dahmer isn’t referring to Russia at all—”

“North,” Helen whispered to herself. “The Great Bear of the north.”

“As in—”

“Matthew North.”

««—»»

So they were playing with her now—Dahmer and Campbell. Having a good laugh at her desperate plight.

Sons of bitches, Helen thought.

Matthew North was a prostitute, and so was Paone, the decedent. Both being in the trade of male prostitution, maybe they new each other. And the Bible reference—The Great Bear of the north—only completed the suspicion.

They’re dropping clues so easy it’s almost insulting, she reckoned behind the wheel of her Taurus.

It was night now—early evening. Winter bled the days quickly, like a vampire.

At a traffic light, she dialed Central Commo. “This is Helen Closs, Captain, Violent Crimes Unit. Get me the shift dispatcher.”

“Captain Closs. I’m Sergeant McGinnis, Central Commo Watch Captain tonight.”

“Sergeant, several days ago I—”

“Activated a one-way DF transponder, yes ma’am. We’ve been all over it here like stink on—- Like white on rice.”

“I need to know—”

Again, McGinnis interrupted. “Your search orders, ma’am, were for notification via a repeated-point-grid.”

“Gimme a break, Sergeant!”

“What I mean, Captain, is your orders indicated a notification call only if the subject’s vehicle traveled to the same location twice.”

Helen’s spirit’s lowered. “So I guess that hasn’t happened, huh?”

“No, ma’am, it hasn’t. If it had, we would’ve contacted you ASAP, as per your orders. We follow orders here at Central Commo.”

“I’m sure you do, Sergeant.” Suddenly she wanted a cigarette, an impulse dead for over a year. And a drink wouldn’t be bad now either. I’ll be a bar hound like Nick.

“Is there anything I can do for you, ma’am? I’ve got six duty personnel sitting here right now, and a couple million dollars’ worth of transmission equipment. We’re ready to roll on your command. Any previous grid-points you want, I’ll feed them to you right down to the sub-plats, the addresses—shit, Captain, with my DF board I can tell you which lane the guy’s in. I’ll tell you which side of the street he parks on, I’ll tell you when he changes lanes. If he stops at Dunkin’ Donuts to buy a French Twist, I’ll be able to tell you that, ’cos the guy’s on my board, and my board never makes mistakes.”

Helen almost laughed at the man’s sense of duty. “I appreciate your endeavors, Sergeant, but I need to talk to the owner of the subject vehicle right now. I have his address, I guess I’ll just drive there and see if he’s in.”

“But that’s what I mean, Captain,” McGinnis sounded off. “The owner of the subject vehicle is not at the logged address-plat. He’s on the road right now. He’s moving.”

“He’s in his car now, you mean?”

“Yes, ma’am. I sitting here watching the blip move as we speak.”

“Can you…” Helen paused. She wasn’t sure of the DF crew’s capabilities. She’d never had to use it very thoroughly before. “I’m on the road now, too, Sergeant. Is it possible for you to point me in the right direction of the DF subject’s vehicle?”

McGinnis laughed over the line. “Captain Closs, if you’ve got a lead foot, I can drive you right up his back bumper.”

“Okay, Sergeant. Do that. Right now I’m on DeMonter Boulevard. Where’s he?”

“Rowe Boulevard, heading—”

Shit! “I’m half a block from the Rowe turnoff. Which way do I turn?”

“North, ma’am.”

North, she thought. It was an evening of amalgams. The Great Bear of the north. North on Rowe Boulevard. All the while, chasing down a man named North.

“I’m there, Sergeant, heading north.” It was difficult to drive with the car phone crimped under her chin. “What’s he doing now?”

“Heading north, still north, ma’am. Just follow my lead and I’ll have you pulling up right behind him.”

Seconds ticked by. She thought she might’ve lost the connection. “Sergeant, you still there?”

“I’m still here, ma’am, and… He’s turning. He’s turning left on…””

“On what, Sergeant!”

“He just turned left on Chambers, ma’am. Take a left on Chambers. And…keep your eyes open for his vehicle, because he just parked.”

“Good job, Sergeant. Thank you for your expertise. I can take it from here,” she said, turning left on Chambers herself.

“Call me back if you need a pinpoint, a plat-grid. I’ll probably be able to give you the exact address.”

“Thank you,” she said, her chin crimping the phone to the point of ludicrousness. “I know his make and model. I’ll be able to see it on the street.”

Helen hung up, a kink in her neck. Chambers Road. Wait a minute, she thought. Chambers Road intersected Taylor Avenue, and Taylor Avenue was where—

That’s where…Tom lives.

It was too coincidental, wasn’t it? There was no way. Nevertheless, she sped down Chambers until she saw North’s Gold Dodge Colt. Parked precisely at the corner.

The corner of Taylor.

I do not believe this!

Helen pulled up and parked directly behind the Colt. Then she got out and walked to the corner. A hundred feet away was the entrance to Tom’s condo building.

No, no, no, she thought in grueling slowness as her heels ticked down the sidewalk. Just last week she’d seen Tom kissing a male lover on the steps of the entrance. And now—

Helen stopped stock-still.

A scene repeated in part. There he was, Tom, standing at the entrance, with Matthew North.

Helen viewed the entrance as if through gauze. No, Tom and North weren’t kissing. They were conversing, Tom with his hands in his pockets, North standing with a hip cocked, listening.

“Hey!” she shouted. Her frozen breath gusted outward.

Tom turned, a flabbergasted look on his face. North’s face, however, looked like the face of a kid caught shop-lifting.

Tom: “Helen, what are you—”

North stalked off. Under his breath, he muttered “Shit.”

“Shit is right, buddy!” Helen close to screeched. “And that’s what you’ll be in a world of if you don’t stop right there!”

North had tracked halfway across the front lot before he frowned, stopped, and turned. “What?” he asked, splaying his hands.

“What?” Helen was incredulous. “I just got the DA to drop charges on you, and this is how you repay me?”

North jerked his head, shot back a lock of dark hair. “Look, lady, I gotta eat, ya know? It’s a tough world, and, yeah, I got found another service to work for. But it’s just until I can get a legit job, I swear.”

Helen wanted to grab his jacket collar and shake him. “I could care less what you do for money, but you tell me this, Mr. North. What’s a male prostitute doing at the home of the Deputy Medical Examiner for the State of Wisconsin?”

“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” North claimed, not too convincingly. “It was a bum call or something, or a wrong address.”

“Bullshit!” Helen simmered as she glared at him. Arresting him would be weak in court—she couldn’t swear under oath that she’d heard a proposition—and she didn’t have time to take him to Headquarters. Grilling Tom was more important.

“Listen to me,” she asserted, pointing into his face. “You’re going straight back to your apartment, and later on I’m coming by and we’re going to have a long talk. And you better be there, Mr. North, because if you’re not I’m going to have a statewide dragnet out on you, and you think I’m bluffing… Try me!”

“I’ll be there, I’ll be there,” North sluffed, then slouched for his car.

Helen’s fists clenched till her fingernails were nearly cutting her palms. She trod back toward the apartment steps, where Tom stared at her.

“Helen, what in God’s name—”

“You got a lot of gall, Tom,” she spat. “Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re in?”

“What? That guy? I never saw him before in my life. We were just…chatting.”

“Then why don’t you tell me what you were chatting about?”

Tom brushed his hair back. “Jeeze, this does look bad doesn’t it? All right, look, the guy rang my buzzer, so I answered the door. Said he was from some ‘service.’ I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, and, honestly, Helen, I’ve never seen him before.”

“Honestly?” Helen huffed. “That’s great coming from a guy who lied to me, who cheated on me for over a year!”

Tom glanced down at the pavement. “We’ve already been through all that, Helen. And like I said, that guy—”

“Why are you sweating, Tom?” she cut in. “It’s cold out here, but you’re sweating. Is there something you’re nervous about?”

Tom hesitated, scratched his nose. “I’m on duty tonight; I just got out of the shower, and my hair’s still wet.”

“Uh-huh. Bad job lying, Tom. You better tell me everything right now, otherwise it’ll be a lot worst later.”

Tom shook his head. “Helen, this is getting out of—”

“Jesus Christ!” She couldn’t believe his stupidity, either that or his stubbornness. “Don’t you know that you’re under investigation for conspiracy and accessory to murder, and maybe a hell of a lot more!”

Tom’s facial reaction shrunk. “This is uncalled for, Helen, and you know it. This is a disgrace. Like a lot of prejudiced people, you can’t handle the fact that I’m bisexual. You’re just like Limbaugh and Gingrich and all these other radicals who want too dissolve the constitutional rights of people who are different. I’m under investigation for accessory murder? Why? Because I’ve had gay affairs? This is the end of the line, Helen.” Tom turned briskly, walked for the front door. “If you harass me one more time, I’m going to sue you.”

The apartment’s entry door, then, slammed so hard in her face that the glass panes popped out and shattered.

««—»»

So you’re going to sue me, huh?

Well, maybe he would. But Helen thought it only fitting that she give him more fuel for the cause.

She knew she was washed up. With all this publicity, and the case going to hell in a handbasket? Even her own boss had no more faith in her. I’ll never make deputy chief, she realized, unless I solve this case. She stared hard at the inside of her windshield. And even if I do, I don’t give a damn.

For a woman whose ideals were more soundly rooted in ethics than anyone she knew, she figured it was time for a little of the reverse. Tom, she thought. If you think I’ve violated your constitutional rights, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

She had to know, she had to know for sure, and there was no legal way to do what she knew she needed to do.

Tom had said he had duty tonight. All she had to do was wait.

And it wasn’t a long one. Less than an hour after their blowup out front, Tom trudged down the steps and out the entrance door. Stomped to his car. Drove off.

Helen stared at dark bushes and nightscape for ten more minutes, then she got out.

She still had her keys—her key to the front door and her key to Tom’s apartment.

She could get fired for what she was about to do, and she knew it. She could be criminally charged and prosecuted. Unlawful entry. Burglary. A search without a warrant.

To hell with it, she thought.

She walked in and up the stairs like she owned the place, opened Tom’s apartment door without a pause. Cool darkness greeted her. She closed the door behind her and locked the deadbolt.

She didn’t even bother putting on gloves when she commenced. First she checked the bedroom, the dressers, the nightstand, then the bathroom, the little den. Was she really looking for more evidence of men in his life? Why should I care now? she asked herself. All I’m looking for is evidence. My former personal life doesn’t mean anything here anymore.

Then she checked the kitchen, the dining room, every cabinet and closet.

Nothing.

And then she checked—

Her stare froze when she gingerly rooted through the metal drawers of his computer desk. Buried beneath file folders was a video tape—Room for Two, it was titled. The glossy cover bragged: Starring Jeff Starker, Miles, Long, and Matt North!And there he was, grinning in a sailors outfit right there on the cover. Matthew North.

But was this enough?

She didn’t really know, but it didn’t really matter, because next she checked the storage box for his computer floppy disks. At the very back, hidden under a stack of angled 3M disks, was this.

A vial. A tiny glass vial

She held the vial up to the light to read its label.

SCHILLER INC. U.S. PATENT #4,315,926/EXP. 3/97

0.4 MGS, IM OR ORAL, KEEP AWAY FROM HEAT AND DIRECT SUNLIGHT

CAUTION: HIGHLY TOXIC

SUCCINICHOLINE SULPHATE

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Helen drove in a daze, to the nearest QWIK-STOP. On the news rack, three different pictures of Dahmer’s face peered at her from three different tabloids. Mindless, Helen didn’t even bother reading the headlines. Instead, she bought a pack of Virginia Slims Menthol, lit one, and inhaled deep. The coughing fit which followed she almost welcomed. Three or four more inhalations and it was as though she’d never quit.

She sat in the car, in gritty sodium light, and let her mind try to assimilate.

Olsher was right. She was right. But what probable cause did she have to garner a search warrant to find what she already knew was there?

None, she realized.

She lit another cigarette, contemplated walking two storefronts down to the liquor store and buying a half-pint of Dewar’s or Johnny Black, something with some bite.

Forget it, she told herself. You have to be sober tonight. You can’t interview North with booze on your breath.

She’d just have to think, she’d just have to come up with something that might wash with the magistrate. She’d wiped the vial off with tissues; hence her own fingerprints wouldn’t be on it, but then neither would Tom’s now. He could say she’d planted it…

Go to North’s, she instructed herself. Talk to North, wring him out for what’s going on, then think of some way to get a warrant later.

It was all she could do. She didn’t even feel like herself right now—she felt like someone else, some stranger trying to come to grips with a truth she didn’t want to believe. Busting Tom would lead her to Campbell, and Campbell would lead her to Dahmer.

North first. One step at a time. North is sweating jailtime. He’ll sing like a canary. He’ll sell out his own mother to keep from going to prison…

Two cigarettes later, she parked in front of North’s apartment, behind the gold Dodge Colt. Down the street, taillights diminished. A car turned the corner at the stop light—a white Ford Crown Victoria.

Her thoughts squeezed out like putty from a caulker. Tom drives a white Crown Vic…

She tapped out the hospital’s number on her car phone. “Pathology Unit please,” she asked. A few second’s wait, then she asked, “I’d like to speak to Mr. Tom Drake.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” an adolescent-voiced receptionist told her. “He hasn’t reported for duty yet. In fact…he’s over an hour late.”

Helen rang off. Impulse urged her to draw her Beretta. Her high-heeled feet jacked her up the apartment steps two at a time. North’s door was locked, but she didn’t even bother to knock on it. She turned her face away, squinting, and fired one round at a downward angle against the doorknob, like they’d taught her in tac class.

The door bumped open.

Helen didn’t even have to go in and turn on the lights to see what she already suspected.

Matthew North’s body lay in the tiny foyer, in the dark. A dark pool—almost black—formed a corona about his head. Even the tiny hole was obvious in the ill light: a small caliber bullet hole high right on the forehead. An empty, twenty-ounce plastic soda bottle lay against the baseboard, half collapsed from a sudden influx of heat, and cloudy-gray with gunsmoke.

««—»»

“Since when do you smoke cigarettes?” Olsher asked.

“Since tonight,” she replied on his front porch.

“You want a cigar? They’re better anyway.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Olsher glared at her. This was the second time in her career she’d wakened him at his home. He stood, rigid with annoyance, in his robe and slippers.

“I’m in trouble,” she said.

“Come on in.”

She followed him to the living room: plush, cozy.

“You’ve been pretty disappointed with me lately, haven’t you?” she asked once she sat down on the couch.

“Yeah,” he said. “You want to know why? Because you’re flushing your career down the toilet.”

“Well, consider this the final flush,” she said and dragged deep on her cigarette. “Tonight I unlawfully entered Tom Drake’s apartment—”

“What! How? With lock picks?”

“No, Chief. I still had his apartment keys from when we—when we were involved. And I found a vial of succinicholine sulphate.”

“What!” Olsher’s bellow may have actually rocked the paintings on the wall.

“That’s not all. I went to North’s apartment right afterward. I found North dead inside, shot in the head with a makeshift silencer. But just before I went in, I saw Tom’s car leaving the scene.”

“Goddamn it, Helen! We can’t do shit on that. Anything in Tom’s apartment is inadmissible now! Even if we do an n/a/a on his hand and prove he fired the gun, it’s still inadmissible!”

“I know that,” Helen said, looking down at the nice, beige carpet. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to let you know.” She rummaged clumsily in her purse. “Here’s my badge and gun. I’ll turn myself into the DA’s office in the morning, take my chances.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“Come on, Larrel, I broke the law and I’m a cop. I walked all over people’s rights. It’s the only ethical thing to do.”

“Fuck ethics!” Olsher profaned. “Is Dahmer ethical when he kills people?”

“That’s beside the point, I guess.”

“You’ll keep your mouth shut about this, about everything you’ve done and seen tonight. We’ll work it out.” Olsher sat down, wearily rubbed his tired face. “Did you report North’s murder yet?”

“No, I was just about to do—”

“Well, don’t. They’ll find him eventually. Just…” Olsher’s gaze rose. He looked disgusted. “Just keep your mouth shut and get out of here. I’ll do anything I can to cover for your dumb ass.”

“That’s not necessary, Chief. This is my mess. I won’t drag you down too.”

“Just get out!” Olsher bellowed.

Helen stood up. There was a tear in her eye. Olsher had always overseen her, taught her everything he knew. And this was how she repaid him. “I’m sorry, Larrel.”

“Get out!”

Helen left the house, got back into her car, and drove off.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Helen, first, stopped by the hospital, walked directly into the morgue to see if Tom was there. But the security guard stopped her. “You can go in and look around all you want, Captain. But Dr. Drake’s not here. He was scheduled to come on duty at eleven o’clock, but he never showed. Reception tells me it’s the first time he’s ever been late.”

Her fingers ached from nervously rubbing her locket. “He won’t be showing up at all,” Helen mouthed under her breath.

“What’s that, ma’am? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Have a good night,” she told him and exited. He’s left, she realized. He knows we’re onto him, and he’s left. He’s probably crossing the state line right now, either that or Campbell and Dahmer are hiding him out.

What could she do?

Put out an APB? Eventually the DA would want to know her probable cause. She could sluff it, keep her fingers crossed, but it probably wouldn’t wash. She’d probably break right on the stand, like some old Perry Mason episode. I may not be a whole lot of good things, but I’m not a liar, and I’m not going to commit perjury. I can’t.

Chances were, even if the worst fell on her head, she’d get off with a dishonorable dismissal, a big fine, and PJB waived for community service. They wouldn’t put a state captain with going on two decades of exemplary service in jail.

At least probably not.

But since they knew she was onto them, she logically reasoned, they would also be onto her. She needed to protect herself, but she wasn’t sure how.

Wait…

An hour later she was driving home.

««—»»

The apartment seemed quiet as a crypt, and as dark. Helen lit another cigarette and walked down the hall, shedding her Burberry overcoat to leave it lie on the floor. Then she flicked on the lamp in the living room.

Damn.

Nothing. The dark looked back at her. A titter of nervousness touched her, like a skeleton fingertip etching almost imperceptibly down the nape of her neck. But this happened all the time, especially in the winter—power surges would trip the breakers. The end of her cigarette glowed red—a rat’s eye—as she glided to the kitchen cove, fumbled to light a candle, then reached to open the fuse box. Just as she would snap open the metal cover, the phone rang.

She looked at the clock. One a.m.

Then she looked at the phone.

Looked back at the clock.

On the third ring, she picked it up.

“Hello?”

An empty pause. The sound of someone swallowing, then:

“Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven… Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell, deep into the pit.,” Jeffrey Dahmer said.

The darkness seemed to shrink. The tendons of Helen’s knuckles stood out as she gripped the phone, and now that skeleton fingertip began to tickle her.

“Mr. Dahmer, listen to me,” she said, but her throat grated out the words. It wasn’t easy. She was talking to a serial killer, perhaps the most notorious in American history. “Turn yourself in to the state police. I give you my word you won’t be harmed. We’re going to get you eventually, so let’s do this the easy way. We know all about Campbell and Tom Drake. It’s only a matter of time before we take you down. You’re ill, Mr. Dahmer, more so now than ever before. You’ve recently suffered a psychiatric disorder known as a conative-episodic break, and you’re letting Campbell manipulate you with it… Mr. Dahmer, are you listening to me?”

Dahmer paused again. Did he chuckle? “Look behind you,” he said.

Helen dropped the phone, turned—

—and saw Campbell’s face grinning over an uplit flashlight. “Nice to see you again, Captain Closs.”

She began to scream but the effort was severed when the hot hand slapped across her mouth. The flashlight arched, cracked her in the temple.

Half her consciousness drained away as she collapsed.

Movement above her in the dark. A rustle.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Jeff wants to do that himself.”

Campbell then, a nimble shadow given flesh, straddled her, pinned her down, and jammed a hypodermic needle right into her neck.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Helen never fully lost consciousness. The blow to the head wore off, yet afterwards she lay completely unable to move. Of course. Succinicholine sulphate did not cause unconsciousness—it caused paralysis, and that’s exactly how she lay in the back of Campbell’s van. Conscious, hyper-alert…and totally paralyzed.

Back at the apartment, he’d thrown her over his shoulder, carried her out the back through the laundry rooms. A van sat waiting.

She could feel the tires humming beneath her, she could hear the motor drone. The only part of her body she could move was her eyes, and if she strained them to the left hard enough, she could see Campbell in the driver’s seat. He drove carefully, checking his mirrors, evenly accelerating and decelerating, using his signal at every turn.

He never looked back at her as he spoke.

“I know you can hear me. You just can’t move or talk. When I found out about North’s escort service being raided I figured it was only a matter of time before you caught up to him. I knew all about his little jaunts with Kussler during our frequent breakups, and it figures the jabbering little worm would tell North all about me. But I guess it all worked out better anyway. It helps make Jeffrey’s return all the more powerful, and that’s what this is all about, Captain Closs. Power.”

Power, Helen managed to think. She remembered what Dr. Sallee had said. Fear equals power.

“And he’s waiting for us right now, Jeffrey is, back at the house. So is Tom.”

Tom, she thought. The evil son-of-a-bitch.

“Won’t it be glorious when they find your body?”

««—»»

“Home again.”

The van decelerated, went over a bump, then seemed to move up an incline. A driveway, she guessed, and then the speculation was verified when Campbell clicked a button, and she heard a garage door rising. The van pulled into a lit garage, stopped.

Thunk

The driver’s door shut, then the windowless rear doors were pulled open.

“Do come in,” Campbell offered. “We simply love having guests over.”

Then he hoisted her up, flung her over his shoulder, and carried her into the house.

Helen felt like a feedbag as she was lugged up short steps, through a utility room, a dark kitchen, then—

Her breath was punched from her lungs as she was dropped onto the floor of another night-dark room.

She nearly vomited, she was so sick with fear.

A light flicked on. Barely audible footfalls could be heard crossing the carpet. Helen lay face down, a dropped doll, and part of her hoped she would remain that way until she died. She didn’t want to be turned over. She didn’t want to see.

“Upsy-daisy.” Hands slipped roughly into her armpits, jerked her upward. Her shoes fell off as her heels dragged; then she was dropped in a chair.

“Open your eyes.”

Helen didn’t want to. She knew what she would see… “I can’t,” she lied.

“Succinicholine doesn’t effect levator and optical muscle groups. Now, open your eyes, or I’ll cut your eyelids off with pinking shears.”

Helen gulped, opened her eyes, and looked at him in the light. He looked the same since she’d last seen him—the day he’d been masquerading as Kussler.

Fine, sandy-blond hair; a tight, wired physique like a feather-weight boxer. The lean face reminded her of something lupine. Bright gray eyes narrowed in calculation—behind their brightness, though, she could see the madness, just as calculative. Aglow, like gray gems from hell.

If I could only move, she thought.

“So what now? Is that what you’re thinking?” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Should I rape you? That would be easy, wouldn’t it? What could you do?”

As Helen’s head lolled, all she could do was point her eyes up and see his face…

“Throw you back onto the floor? Tear your clothes off? But, no, we’re not interested in women—you know that by now.” Now the mouth twitched into something of a frown, a persnickety criticism. “What power could be gained in that? Women’s lives are so pale, and so predictable. Such frail beings, you are. No spark, no vitality at all.”

You motherf—

“This is a world of men, and you’ve let yourselves be our servitors since we were apes. Why waste our power on such petty things like women?”

Helen knew she was a hair’s width away from death, but even in her fear, she longed to retort. I’ll show you frail, I’ll show you petty, you psychopthic asshole. You and your buddy Dahmer. I’d take both of you down with my bare hands if I wasn’t paralyzed.

And her adrenalin just then, surging with her hatred, made her feel white hot. She could do it—she knew she could. Grab this wiry monster by the throat and squeeze until his neck cracked…

If, came the irrevocable reminder, I wasn’t paralyzed.

“But it wouldn’t be gentlemenly not to give you your due, would it?” he mocked. “How rude of me!”

He moved out of her field of vision, leaving her to stare at a flank of computer equipment: several CPUs, several big monitors. Of course. North had told her he was a computer fanatic, and the commo tech had verified it. Only someone with quintessential programming skills could’ve prevented the phone calls from being traced.

A sharp pain stung her neck—so sudden and harsh she wanted to scream. But no scream found its way to her paralyzed lips.

Campbell stepped back into view. “I case you’re wondering, I just injected you with half a cc of Trexaril, a half dose. It blocks all sulfer-based cholinergic agents. You’ll be able to talk in a few minutes. You’ll even be able to move a little.”

Move, she thought. Something in her mind froze. Move a little.

But would it be enough?

“Jeff?” he called out. “We’re back, and I’ve got her. Start getting ready, okay?” Then Campbell sat a his work desk, revolved around on the chair to face her. “North, obviously, told you my name, but I guess there are quite a few Campbells in the Wisconsin phone book, hmm? Even if you’d located me from my job, my employer has a phony address in my records file, and I’m sure you also know that my fingerprints aren’t on file, either. No doubt you dusted Kussler’s apartment.”

Helen’s throat tightened through a wallow. Then…she was able to nod. The injection was working—already she could tip her head around and minutely move her fingers and toes.

And when she tried to talk:

“Where do you work?” she slurred. “At the hospital?”

“Of course.”

Her mouth felt like wet clay as she struggled to continue speaking. “We record-checked everyone at every hospital in the state…and none of the Campbells match the prints you left at Kussler’s apartment.”

“Of course they didn’t,” Campbell informed her. “All state and county hospital employees are fingerprinted upon employment.”

“Then how could you possibly beat it?”

“Because, unlike Kussler, I work for a private contractor. Custodial services—a drab job, I know—but one that gave me access to the hospital without an ID on file.”

How simple, yet effective. Most hospitals did contract out for janitorial and maintenance services—to private sector contractors. Therefore a name-check would come up negative because Campbell wasn’t a hospital employee, he was a sub-contractor employee who worked for the hospital.

“Which,” he went on, “and as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, gave me access to most of the premise. Janitor’s have key access, to any wing on the maintenance roster. Nightshifts, less staff, less security, less patient/treatment traffic. And, yes, it was rather easy getting into the main nurses’ station to switch Rosser’s meds with a fatal dose of succinicholine. Getting Jeff out of the morgue before the autopsy and putting Kussler’s body in his place—well, that was a bit more difficult.”

Just then Helen’s ear felt pricked. She heard a sound, a tiny clatter, coming from another room.

Dahmer, she thought. She leaned up in the chair. “You killed your own lover. You used him as a body to make the switch.”

Campbell chuckled, a silhouette before his lit monitors. “I used him for quite a bit more than that, Captain. The perfect dupe, the perfect patsy. Kussler’s love was like a woman’s. He was weak, manipulable. He was absolutely pathetic.”

Helen staid a more proper response. Her fingers were moving almost freely now, and her forearms twitched too, when she tried to move them. If she could only have full use of her hands… “But you had help,” she contested. “There was no way you could’ve gotten Dahmer out of the hospital and left Kussler’s body in his place at the morgue on your own. It was Tom, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, Tom was very helpful indeed,” Campbell replied. “A deputy medical examiner, he was the highest ranking staff member on duty most nights.”

Helen wasn’t absolutely sure she caught his meaning. Much more important, she knew, was regaining the use of her hands without letting him realize it. If I could use my hands, she realized, then I could…

“You used Tom too, didn’t you?” she suggested, “just like you used Kussler. For your own end. Once you didn’t need Tom anymore, you killed him, didn’t you?”

Campbell’s voice leveled in its tenor. “As I’ve said, it’s all about power, Captain Closs. I use people—yes—to suit my own needs. And I make no apologies for it.”

Her eyes struggled to reckon him, to see the machine behind the madness…

“But it’s time now, isn’t it?” Campbell’s silhouetted form stood up before the flanks of monitors and CPU chasses. “It’s time you met Jeff.”

Campbell disappeared, a spirit in a dark breeze. Helen used his absence to test her muscle response. Her fingers turned into claws and her teeth ground as she strained to move her forearms. They moved, perhaps, two inches before they fell back down.

Shit…

She took fast, deep breaths, to raise her heart-rate and cycle more of her blood through her metabolism, worked the Trexaril faster through her system. But as she did so—

My…God…

Her eyes wandered, strayed to the kitchen, then stopped and stared. A plastic drum, like the big industrial drums Dahmer had used to dissolve flesh off bones with mercuric and sulphuric acid, sat beside the entry next to the counter. A black lidded pot simmered gently on the range. Helen could’ve sworn she smelled the aroma of something like pork chops. Then—

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Hanging on a pegged towel rack was—

Jesus Christ!

—something she at first took to be a tan chamois or dish towel. But a closer squint showed her what it realy was:

A large, irregular cutting of human skin, complete with abundant chest hair, and tiny shrunken nipples.

click

A door-latch opened. Helen jerked her gaze to the right. A dark doorway now stood before her, and in that doorway, two figures took slow, deliberate steps. “Come on,” Campbell’s voice insisted. “You can do it. She wants to see you…”

Helen’s eyes felt pried open by surgical stitches as she stared. Campbell attentively assisted his slow-stepping companion.

“That’s it, that’s it,” he said. “One step at a time.”

It’s him, she thought. It’s really him… I’m about to meet Jeffrey Dahmer…

Campbell aided his companion toward the long work desk, then sat him down in the silhouette shadows cast by the monitors. Helen’s eye peered forward, unblinking, as the shadow seemed to stare back at her. She could feel its black gaze on her face, she could sense the vision on her.

Campbell moved toward a lamp. “Captain Helen Closs, I’d like you to meet—”

The light snapped on.

Helen’s eyes bulged at the sight of the person sitting in the chair.

“—Tom Drake,” Campbell finished. “Tom, say hello to Captain Closs.”

In the light now, Tom’s face tremored, his eyes bulging at hers. His hands were bound in front of him by the wrists, a gag tied through his teeth.

“Tom’s a dupe just like most people,” Campbell announced. “Naturally you’d suspect him of complicity since it’s well know amongst my clan that he sometimes prefers the company of a man. The magazine article about your fetid relationship only tipped me off to what I already had heard. And he was the perfect pawn to draw you off of me.”

Tom’s face strained toward her, tears in his eyes, terrified as he sat helpless in the chair.

Campbell continued, “I planted the succincholine in Tom’s apartment, which I knew you’d eventually find. Never trust a bisexual man, hmm? And it was me who made the phony call to North’s new escort service and sent North to Tom’s address. Why? Because I knew you’d have surveillance cops watching his every move.”

“Not surveillance cops,” Helen corrected. “I planted an electronic device on North’s car, that could monitor his movements through our communications office.”

“Such technology!” Campbell exclaimed. “Big Brother just keeps getting bigger.” Campbell came away from the desk, approached her, and leaned over into her face. “But do you want to know about technology, Captain Closs? I can tell you all about it. Do you want to know about the dental match? Do you want to know about the DNA match in the hair, the handwriting match on the letters, and the fingerprints? Do you, Captain Closs? Are you ready to confess to me that I am your intellectual superior? Are you ready to admit to me that I had you, and everyone else, fooled all along?”

“No,” Helen grated. “Your plan was brilliant, I’ll admit that, and I’ll even admit that, toward the end, I actually went with the flow and believed that Jeffrey Dahmer was still alive. But he isn’t, is he?”

“Don’t be so sure, Captain,” Campbell went on in his coy tone. “Are you sure about that? Are you certain?”

He darted away, back to the room off to the right. Then a squealing sound was heard, like casters or something. In another moment, though, Campbell came back out, pushing before him a wheeled office chair.

Sitting in the chair was, his eyes opened and staring at her, was Jeffrey Dahmer.

A very dead Jeffrey Dahmer.

He looked like a raddled ghost at first, streaked white. But it didn’t take Helen long to understand that he’d been regularly dusted with ground limestone to cut back on the stench of autolysis and rot. His face was but a mask—a crushed mask—the red blood so oxydized that it had turned black as charcoal.

Helen tried again to gauge the use of her hands and arms, but—not much better than before. The succinicholine was wearing off, but Campbell had mentioned that it was a “half dose” of Trexaril that he’d administered as an antedote. Would much physical mobility would she regain, with a “half dose?”

The pieces were all here now—she only had to calculate the obscure ones. And she had to bide for time, to let more of the antidote work through her system before Campbell decided to kill her. And he was right. It would be glorious for him, when they found the body of the Captain of the State Police Violent Crimes Unit tortured and dead with Jeffrey Dahmer’s DNA, handwriting, voiceprints, and fingerprints all over the scene.

Kill time, she thought. Her arms struggled to flex. Kill time before he kills you.

“Dahmer really was murdered by Tredell Rosser, in the prison rec unit, on November 28th, wasn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes,” Campbell said.

“And you had been corresponding with him for some time before that, hadn’t you? That’s the only reason you pursued a relationship with Kussler. Kussler had access to Dahmer’s cell, and you used that access to maintain correspondence with Dahmer when he was alive, didn’t you?”

“Very astute, Captain,” Campbell admitted. “Yes.”

Helen remembered everything Dr. Sallee had told her about such people. Killer groupies. Obssesive-reference disorders. “Kussler would take your letters, leave them in Dahmer’s cell when he was on work detail, and take his letters to you out.”

“Yes.”

“But we never found any trace of your letters to him.”

“I wrote them on toilet paper,” Campbell informed. “Where they could be read very quickly and then effectively flushed.”

“So you planned all of this well beforehand.”

Campbell laxed back in his chair, thinking. “I did, yes, but not Jeffrey. Jeffrey would write to me frequently, citing his conviction that it was only a matter of time before some inmate in the prison murdered him. He was well aware of the number of enemies he’s accrued. The rest was me, my planning, my calculation.”

“You’re a very smart man,” Helen said.

Campbell’s own gaze bore down on her. “I’m a thousand times smarter than you, or any of the other government lackies on your three-ring-circus police department. If you’re so smart, how did I manage to arrange Jeffrey’s phone call to you? A phone call, mind you, that rendered a positive voiceprint?”

“Anyone with the right equipment could’ve done that,” Helen talked right back to him. “Dahmer was interviewed several times on tv. All you had to do was videotape the interviews, and then sound edit the words out to construct sentences which you later played over my phone. The second call I received, when you were already in my apartment waiting for me, was easily done with a call converter and automatic telephone dialer preset with a nominal dial delay. You were waiting for me in my apartment. You were watching out the window. When you saw me park my car in my lot, you called your own number, connected to the converter and auto-dialer, punched in an activation code, and hung up.”

Campbell nodded, not quite as enthusiastically as before. “Good thinking. That’s—well—that’s exactly what I did.”

“And the DNA verification tested in the hairfall? That was easy too. You already had Dahmer’s dead body. You merely left a few of his hairs at each crime scene. The dental match was a cinch—it was still Dahmer’s body on the slab when it was ID’d, before the switch. And the fingerprints? That was no big deal either, for the same reason. Before Dahmer’s print ridges rotted, you applied them to the Flair pen and all of the pieces of paper you used to produce the letters. You probably have a whole stack of blank sheets of paper here, with Dahmer’s fingerprints on them. And spatulas and knives and Flair pens too. You probably applied your own body sweat to Dahmer’s dead fingertips to make the impressions, because sweat doesn’t leave DNA.”

Campbell’s mouth twitched a bit. “A commendable speculation, Captain. And, again, you’re right. The amino acids left by fingerprint ridge patterns can last for years. I used Dahmer’s dead hands to leave prints on over a hundred pieces of blank paper, as well as kitchen utensils, to leave at future crime scenes.”

“So when that thing sitting in the chair rots down to a skeleton, you’ll still have latent evidence that he’s still alive and killing people.”

“Yes,” Campbell assented. “Right.” He paused, looked around in the dark. By now, though, Tom, bound and gagged in his own chair, had passed out. “You’re right about all of that, Captain, but any articulate person could make such speculations. The real instance of genius was the evidence that started it all. The handwriting evidence. Those letters left at the crime scenes were too specific to have been written by Jeffrey before his death. So how do you explain that? How do you explain the letters?”

“I’m not sure exactly how you pulled it off,” Helen said. “But it’s easy to guess how you did it in general.”

“Oh? And how is that?”

“You’re a computer expert. North told me that last week, and so did my tech at headquarters. I mean, Christ, you made a modem-based computer program from scratch that sideswiped all of Bell-Atlantic’s trace processors. Someone with that kind of skill could probably also find a way to duplicate Dahmer’s handwriting on a computer and then generate exact letters on a high-tech printer.”

“Again,” Campbell admitted. “I’m impressed.” The lit monitors behind him glowed like eerie static. A variety of printers sat to their side. “My secret correspondence with Dahmer provided me with an infinite inventory of his handwriting. I used a grid scanner, scanned each and every word into my CPU. It wasn’t easy, and it proved very time-consuming—quite different from traditional flatbed scanning. But eventually I had thousands of words, all written by Dahmer, that I could rearrange to say what I wanted, and then print.”

“Tell me this, though,” Helen asked, as much to bide time as to satisfy her curiosity. “As far as I know, even the most sophisticated computer printers use dry ink cartridges. Even if you used a color printer, our forensics people would’ve known after a single test that the notes were computer generated. How did you manage to print the letters in Flair ink?”

Campbell’s mouth twitched into another smile, and patted one of the printers, a large, clumsy looking one, plaqued with the name TEKMARK. “The very first printers capable of graphical output weren’t laser printers at all. It was a combination of printing technologies that were eventually developed in the systems of today—thermal firing heads and bubble-jet ink transference. They existed in the 70s, before personal computers even existed, and they were very expensive. But instead of dry ink, they used liquid ink that was sublimated before being transferred to the firing heads. I prepared a wash solution, using blue Flair pen filaments, and that’s what I use to fill the printer drum when I print out a letter from ‘Jeff.’“

Helen couldn’t help but acknowledge the man’s technological prowess. His plan was brilliant, and it had succeeded every step of the way. Realizing that, however, wouldn’t solve her more immediate problems, like trying to find a way to escape.

She thought again, If I could only move. But, hard as she tried, her hands only rose, perhaps, to the level of her bosom. And her legs? Her legs still felt as dead as logs.

She needed more time.

“You’re an industrious man,” she commented, “and a very smart one.”

Campbell winced, stiffening in his seat. “Don’t patronize me, goddamn it!”

“I’m not. How can I be patronizing you? Your plan worked right down to the last letter. You fooled my entire technical services division—my fingerprint experts, my programming specialists, all my hand-writing analysts and voiceprint technicians. You have an entire city—or I should say, an entire country—believing that Jeffrey Dahmer is still alive and maintaining his murder spree. And, to top it all off, you’ve got me. Your nemesis, your opponent. For the last month, I’ve devoted my entire life to finding you. And what do I get for my efforts? The rare opportunity to sit half-paralyzed in a chair and look a mass-murderer in the eye. We battled. You won. I lost.”

Campbell lost the rigid poise, relaxing. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right. And it’s complimentary for you to admit that.”

“You’re going to kill me, right?”

“Of course,” he replied without pause. “I have to. I have no choice. But even if I did, I’d still do it. Because, as you’ve just pointed out, I am a mass-murderer.”

How true.

“Excuse me,” Campbell politely stated. “In all this frenzy, I’ve worked up an appetite.”

He disappeared behind her, and she could hear him opening the refrigerator. She kept her eyes well out of range of Dahmer’s partially rotten corpse, took several deep breaths, shut her eyes, and pushed. Not her body but her brain. She pushed every dram of energy and volition against the fading paralysis…and raised her arms.

“Would you like some?” Campbell offered when he returned. He reseated himself by his computers, holding a sandwich.

“I…think…I’ll pass.”

Campbell took a bite, munching. “But it’s all relative, isn’t it? Meat is meat. British expeditions to New Guinea over a hundred years ago reported that human flesh, when cooked properly, tasted nearly identical to pork. They called it ‘long-pig,’ in fact, for that same reason. Really, Captain. You mustn’t be so close-minded.” He mockingly held the sandwich out. “Sure you won’t join me?”

“No,” she said. “Thank you.”

“And what is that you’re doing now? What’s that around your neck that you’re rubbing? A pendant?”

“It’s a silver locket.” Helen, in Campbell’s absence, had raised her hands to the locket. It was the most she could manage. “Some people bite their nails? I have this bad habit of rubbing my locket when I get nervous, and I guess I have pretty good reason to be nervous now, don’t I?”

Campbell blurted a laugh. “I should say so! Did Tom give it to you?”

“No. My father.” She couldn’t help the reaction: her fingers rubbed the locket so hard she thought she might wear off the finish. But still, she needed more time to let the antidote work its way through her system.

“Do you…hate me?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Campbell answered. “You’re nothing like the others at all. I actually admire you. I admire your character. I admire your ability to accept defeat.” Campbell took another bite of the abyssal sandwich. “And I promise you, Captain Closs, I won’t make a spectacle of you, nor will I torture you. I will be merciful…and quick.”

“‘Blessed are the merciful,’“ she quoted scripture, “‘for the merciful shall be shown mercy.’“

“Amusing, but I’m afraid I was never quite the Bible scholar Jeffrey became. I loved him, yes, but in spite of my love, I could never bring myself to believe in a god such as yours.”

Kill time! Now her legs were regaining some feeling. Keep him talking! “But how can you love someone you’ve never met?”

“That’s what you don’t understand,” Campbell offered next. “Jeffrey and I did meet. I’ve known him since the first grade. We grew up in the same town—”

“Bath, Ohio,” Helen remembered.

“And I suppose I’ve loved him ever since. I remember when his father gave him the chemistry set—my father gave me one too, when I told him about it—and Jeffrey and I learned how to make our own corrosives. It was Jeffrey’s idea. All the little animals. Jeffrey loved them—so much in fact that that’s what impelled him. He killed them, of course, but he didn’t want to lose them. So we’d bury the bones in his backyard. Eventually I was the one who began to get the animals for him. Then…” Campbell seemed to sift into a daze. “Time went on. We got older, and my love for him grew stronger, but Jeffrey didn’t have the same kind of conception of love, I guess. I wanted to be part of his life, I wanted us to kill together, but he never understood that. Eventually his home life became so nebulous that he joined the Army; I tried to join right along with him, but the recruiters rejected me after the first battery of psychological tests. And since I was never officially recruited, my induction fingerprints were never taken.”

Now Helen began to see the pieces fit. They were starting to form into the intricate human jigsaw that made this man named Campbell.

“So where does Tom fit into all of this?” she asked, and took another glance at his bound form in the other chair.

“How does he fit in?” Campbell replied. “By default, I’m afraid. I’m an opportunist, Captain. When I found out you were involved with him, I used that to my advantage, because I also new, through acquaintances in the life, that Tom was quite bisexual, which I guess you weren’t aware of until recently.”

“No,” Helen admitted. “I wasn’t.”

“I knew you were close, but I couldn’t let you get too close. I needed to throw you off track a little, and Tom was the perfect scapegoat. Bisexual, a high-ranking hospital staffer as well as a pathologist. And with access to and knowledge of succinicholine. You fell for that too, didn’t you?”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Helen admitted.

“And as I’ve already said, I was the one who made the call to North’s new escort service, told them to send North to Tom’s address, knowing you’d find out via your surveillance, and then planting the succinicholine in his floppy disk files. Later tonight, I abducted him at the hospital when he was coming on duty, drove his car to North’s apartment, killed North, and then it was all set. Getting into your own apartment was doubly easy because Tom still had your keys.”

More pieces, then, fitting together exactly. But… How much time? Helen wondered in the most suppressed anguish. Her fingers nervously rubbed the locket. How much more time to I have?

Then she remembered more of what Sallee had told her. Campbell’s obsessive-reference disorder, and his X,Y,Y-Syndrome traits. Subjects are frequently male, and sexually abused by their father, or father figures… There was no evidence that Dahmer had ever been abused by his father, nothing incriminating about Dahmer’s father at all. But what about Campbell’s father?

“Tell me about your father,” she dared to ask.

Campbell stared at her, then, for so long she thought she’d lapsed into a dream. She could use a dream right now, couldn’t she? A nice dream, of pretty places and good people. A dream of a world where there were no killers…

Campbell’s voice sounded corroded now—rock sluiced by acid. “My father,” he said and paused again. “I—I suppose I owe it all to him.”

“In what way?”

“My father taught me, through his own methods, what life is really all about. He used to tell me that we all have to make our little marks on the world, and if we don’t, there’s no point to our lives. He’d tell me this almost every day.”

“Yes?” Helen goaded him.

“Yes,” Campbell answered. “Every day before he raped me.”

Helen gazed at him, tried to wonder what his life was like. But that was no real excuse. Abuse only sired more abuse—but that was no consolation to the victims. She felt sorry for him in the plight of what him must have experienced. But—

She still hated him, still wanted to kill him.

“It’s all about power,” Campbell explained. “Some people are users, some people are the used. Kussler loved me, and I used that to exploit him, to keep me in touch with Dahmer through his job at the prison. Kussler was weak; to maintain my power over him, I’d break up with him every few months, to keep him in a state of longing, and then I’d take him back.”

Just as so many battered wives return to abusive husbands, Helen thought. North had made the same point the first time she’d talked to him.

“I knew Kussler—he was a common mind. A patsy. Just like you.”

Helen closed her eyes.

“It’s all about power,” Campbell repeated, “and what greater power can there be than this? When the hunted destroys the hunter?”

Campbell’s silhouette stood up, took something unseen off the work desk. He appeared as a messiah just then, a knowing figure with hands outstretched in wisdom and truth—

Except in one hand he held a knife.

And next, he said, “Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell, deep into the pit.”

Helen prayed to a god she didn’t even think she believed in.

“I won’t break my promise,” Campbell said. “I will be merciful and quick.”

Helen thought, I’m going to die now, but then she opened her eyes. And she saw—

She saw something—

—something she’d been waiting for.

“Let me say one last thing,” she bid. “You’re very smart, the letters, the phone calls and fingerprints, and especially the way you anticipated my surveillance of North.”

“You’ve already told me that. Please don’t beg for your life. It will soil my opinion of you.”

“But what you’re not considering is the fact that I anticipated something too.”

Campbell paused. The knife glinted. “What?”

“The state psychiatrist told me that serial-killers crave power rooted in fear, and the greatest display of that power eventually arrives when the killer seeks to kill those who’re after him, like what you just said: the hunter destroyed by the hunted. So it was logical for me to assume that you might try this.”

Campbell squinted at her.

“So I took a precaution,” she continued. “And when you were getting your…sandwich…I regained enough use of my arms to activate that precaution.”

Campbell peered. “What?”

Helen opened the locket on her chest. The picture of her father was long gone; instead it was replaced by something else.

A nickel shaped metal disk, with a gridded button on it.

“This is a direction-finding transponder,” she told him, “identical to the one I used on North’s car. Except this one has a distress frequency which relays back to state police headquarters. I was able to activate the distress switch when you went to the kitchen.”

“You’re…lying,” he murmured.

“Right now there are probably fifty tactical police officers surrounding this house,” Helen said.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“The last desperate trick of the animal in the trap,” he replied.

“Really, shithead? Turn around and look down. Turn around and look at your chest.”

Campbell hesitated, then turned. The gesture offered his chest to the window. And when he looked down at the front of his shirt, he saw—

“What are—”

—bright red illuminated dots.

“Those red dots on your chest,” Helen continued, “are emission points from laser sites. Right this second a half a dozen snipers have you in their crosshairs.”

Campbell’s gaze froze down. The red dots on his chest moved minutely.

“If you try to close those curtains, or if you make even the slightest threatening move toward me,” Helen promised, “those snipers will kill you in place. You won’t even have time to blink before you’re dead.”

Campbell’s neck remained locked down, his eyes glued to the neon-like dots.

“Don’t believe me?” Helen challenged. “Then make a move.”

Campbell didn’t move.

“Those guys out there can hit an apple from half a mile away,” she enlightened him. “How hard do you think it’s going to be for them to hit you from fifty yards?”

««—»»

Special Agent Eules had gotten the distress call from Wisconsin State PD’s Communication outfit less then twenty minutes ago. They’d scrambled fast from the Madison F.O., sirens and lights off, and arrived at the plat-grid along with about half the uniformed cops in Madison County. In less than two more minutes, Eules had posted snipers from four separate firing lanes in the opposing woods, and three Extraction Teams waiting for an “enter and clear” order. It was almost too easy.

He focused his binoculars a digit more, then asked his own man, “Talk to me, Sandie.”

Sandie was actually a Gulf War-era Seal sniper named Sanders (he’d cut his teeth in 1989, in Panama, killing 22 enemy soldiers in one night at the central airport), and he remained crouched and motionless as he sighted his target. He looked carved out of the darkness, aiming a McMillan M88, anodized black to repel shine, and fitted with an LSI low-amp laser and Bosch & Lomb T-Reticle scope. The McMillan loaded .50 hardball, to punch through windows without deflection and ensure ballistic penetration. It would penetrates brick walls and engine blocks, too.

“Target’s not moving at all, sir. He’s just standing there looking at my dot.”

“Can you take him without hitting Closs?”

“She’s out of the picture. I can drop this guy so easy I’d feel guilty cashing my pay check.”

Eules chewed his lip, then he cued his Motorola mike. “All Gunposts. Report target acquisition status, in order, now.”

“Post Number Two,” the first response crackled. “Target acquired. Give me the word.”

“Post Number Three. This guy’s just standing there. Give me the word.”

“Post Number Four. Sir, which shirt button do you want me to put a round through?”

That about said it all.

Eules paused, looked at the forest, his thumb ready to come back down on the radio cue.

Shit, he thought.

“All posts. Hold your fire. Do not fire unless the target makes an aggressive move with the knife.”

««—»»

“Drop the knife,” Helen said. “Drop it, then raise your hands very slowly and stand up straight. Keep facing the window. Don’t make any sudden movements.”

He turned very, very slowly, and looked at her. “I…”

“Don’t be stupid!” Helen yelled. “Those guys out there invented the term ‘trigger-happy.’ Surrender.”

Now Campbell’s eyes roved intermittently about the room, from Dahmer’s body to Tom to Helen, then back to Dahmer’s body.

“Give it up,” Helen implored. As for Campbell’s health, she wasn’t especially concerned either way, nor was she terribly worried about crossfire or a stray bullet trajectory that might accidentally hit her. The snipers were good—she knew that—former military hot shots, cool as cucumbers, and field trained to the extent that they could take targets at will. But Campbell was close, about six feet away, and the knife ever-present in his hand.

If he lunged for her, would they really get him before he got to her?

««—»»

Eules keyed his mike again. “Extraction Teams, status report, in order, now.”

“Team Leader, Team One, posted and ready.”

“Team Two, posted and ready, sir.”

“Team Three, posted and ready to roll.”

“Hold your marks,” Eules calmly ordered. “Enter on my command only. Once you get the extraction order, watch for crossfire. Team One secures the room. Two and Three secure the house. Remember your ops orders. Cover and concealment.”

“Roger. TL out.”

Sanders, the lead sniper, still hadn’t moved a muscle as he sighted down his target. “Shit, sir, he’s still just standing there—he knows we’re all over him. This guy’s not gonna give himself up. Let me take him.”

“Hold your mark,” Eules ordered him, eyeing the guy again through his field binoculars. “We’re cops, not meat-grinders. We just aired a guy out the other day.”

“Hey, sir?”

“What?”

Sander’s hesitated. “Adjust your angle a few degrees left. I just caught it. There’s someone else in the room.”

“That’s Drake,” Eules already knew, “a state pathologist.”

“No, no, not the guy tied up in the chair,” Sanders corrected. “I see him. I mean harder left, like ten o’clock. There’s another guy sitting right at the edge of the shadow by the kitchen front.”

Eules stepped once to the left, zoomed his Zeiss 7x50 binocs. He squinted at the image, not quite believing what he was seeing at first. He’s right. It looks like a—

“Christ, sir, it’s a body.”

Eules strained his vision through the bright infinity-shaped field. His mouth opened in some silent disgust. He’s right. The whack’s got a corpse sitting in there with him.

««—»»

Now Campbell was staring at the face of Jeffrey Dahmer’s corpse.

“Doing time in a state psych wing is better than being dead,” Helen suggested.

Campbell’s gaze slowly turned back to her, the mad gray eyes now pinpointed in disdain. Tears glittered at their corners.

His voice, now, sounded like rubbing sandpaper. “You ruined everything. I was the legacy, I was the power—through him. And now? I’m supposed to go off to some psych wing for the rest of my life?” His face seemed to set then, into a mask of something less than human. “Better that my life end here.”

“Don’t. Think. Get a grip on—”

“And yours too, bitch.”

It was nothing so trite as slow-motion. Campbell seemed to move through some other plane of existence when he broke from his stance and dove toward her across the empty air between them.

Helen heard nothing, not even her own scream, as she watched the monster float forward, the knife glinting. She tried to jerk out of the way but still could barely move; the effort proved but a feeble hitch that didn’t even raise the legs of the chair.

Glitter rained down in the silence, the windows imploding. Suddenly an array of strange dark things cavorted quickly and robotically about the room, black-booted feet crunching over shattered window glass. Helen’s heart felt like a dead lump in her chest.

“Team One, clear.”

When her sentience returned, three tactical cops in blackish utilities stood around her with black handguns drawn. They stood with their backs to her, and on their backs she saw gold capital letters: FBI.

A voice called out from somewhere unseen. “Team Two, clear!”

And another: “Team Three, clear!”

“This is Team Leader to Gunpost One. The target perimeter is secure.”

A mammoth figure turned, terrifying in ballistic glasses and a flak vest thick as a couch cushion. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

Helen didn’t really hear him. She didn’t really hear anything just yet. Instead, she blinked, and asked imbecilically, “Do you have a cigarette?”

“We don’t smoke, ma’am. Are you all right?”

She gusted a sigh. “Well, I’m paralyzed,” she said. “But to tell you the truth, I’ve never felt better.”

Only then did her thoughts return to Campbell, and so did her gaze. He lay face down a yard away, dead before he’d even hit the floor.

EPILOGUE

“Congratulations, Deputy Chief,” Olsher said after the ceremony at the State House. It was two days before Christmas. A big sugary cake shaped like a police badge graced the banquet table, gold icing with chocolate script spelling DC CLOSS. It was all so hokey she loved it.

On the night in question, she’d been rushed to St. John’s. The Trexaril Campbell had injected into her would’ve eventually neutralized all of the succinicholine sulphate, but they’d put her on a dialysis machine anyway, to slough it all off in less than half an hour.

“You know,” Olsher continued to gloat, “the only reason I was giving you a hard time is because I wanted to keep you on your toes.”

“I know, Larrel,” she said. “Thank you.”

“But now you’re the same rank as me so I guess I can’t give you any more gruff.”

“Actually you can, Larrel. You have more time-in-grade so you’re still my boss.”

Olsher finished a last bite of cake, then disgustingly fired up a huge cigar. “You know, you’re right.”

After her official promotion, Governor Thompsen and the Police Commissioner had given her a framed commendation and the Wisconsin State Medal of Valor. The only thing about the entire affair she couldn’t stand—aside from Olsher’s cigar—was the fact that she’d had to wear her dress-blue police uniform, which made her feel like some kind of silly law enforcement doll.

Later, they’d moved the party to Olsher’s house, which Dr. Sallee and Jan Beck had struck up with congratulatory signs and multi-colored streamers like a kid’s birthday. All the liquor and beer had been personally paid for and delivered by Prison Director James Dipetro. “It’s the least I can do,” he’d told her, “to thank you for taking my career out of the toilet.”

“Well, my career was pretty deep too.”

“You know, I taught her everything she knows,” Olsher tipsily boasted. “I’m like a father to her! Except…a little darker.”

“My father didn’t smoke cigars, either, Larrel,” she said.

Eules and his men drank liberally, but then so did most everyone else. “Thank you for saving my life,” she bumbled to them.

“Hey, are my guys good or what?” Eules immodestly replied. “Cherry-pickers, all of them.”

Then one of the snipers said, “This is the real reason we do this stuff. There’s always a free kegger afterward.”

Helen drifted around in a happy daze. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Congratulations.”

It was Tom.

“Thanks, Tom.” She didn’t know how to feel about him now, but that didn’t surprise her. “Sorry I—”

“You really did think I was involved, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes. Sorry.”

“No big deal. But…were you really going to arrest me that night?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

He smiled then, looked around as if distracted. “Well, you saved my life. Thank you. If you hadn’t been perceptive enough to put a DF on yourself…”

We’d both be dead, she realized.

“Look, I know I’ve made things rough for you, but I still meant what I said,” Tom stared. “I think we should talk about getting back togeth—”

She cut him off. She had nothing against him now. Why should she? It simply wasn’t meant to happen. “Let’s be friends, okay, Tom? That’s the best thing to do.”

He sipped his drink, unscorned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

A moment later, Olsher bulled in, bearing a large, flat parcel in gift wrap. “You’re immortal now, Helen. What could be a greater honor than this?”

“What…is it?” Helen tore off the wrapping paper and nearly shrieked. It was the front page of a newspaper, matted and framed. TOUGH AS NAILS GAL COP SOLVES “DAHMER” CASE! the headline read, along with an absolutely atrocious picture of her. But it wasn’t the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even the Tribune.

It was the National Enquirer.

“My favorite journalistic forum. You’re all heart, Larrel. I’ll hang this in my living room where everyone can see it.”

The room filled with laughter. She glided around, greeting the revelers much like a bride at a reception. All this is for me? she thought. No one had ever really thrown a party for her. Then she bumped into someone getting a plate of hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen. It was Nick.

He gave her a congratulatory peck on the cheek. “Great work, hon! You’re famous!”

“Just what I always wanted. But the pay raise is all I care about, just like any cop.”

Nick chuckled, arranging rolls of cold cuts, pigs in blankets, and toothpicked chunks of cheese. “Say, how about I take you out later for a night on the town, continue the celebration?”

Helen faltered. “Gee, Nick. I don’t know.”

“Aw, come on. I’m not a rubberneck, you know that. And besides, you only make deputy chief once. If that’s not cause for celebration, what is?”

Helen looked at him. He’s really not my type at all. Profane, arrogant, and so…just so…coppish. But then—

She shrugged, gave it some more thought, and smiled.

I’ve still got my whole life ahead of me. Why shouldn’t I play the field like everyone else?

“Come on, Helen. Whadaya say?”

“Sure, Nick,” she consented. “Why not?”

— | — | —

About the Authors:

Elizabeth Steffen lives in the desert Southwest, where she works for a federal law-enforcement agency. Her hobbies are sunbathing, dead movie stars, and showing off her fingerprinting talents.

Ex-police officer and Army grunt, Edward Lee is the author of over thirty novels and a variety of short stories, comic scripts, and novellas. He lives in Florida.