The Stranger You Seek

17





No one else had ever answered Rauser’s phone when I called. Not ever. Her voice seemed vaguely familiar, but I was too dumbfounded to place it right away.

“Aaron, it’s for you,” she had called out.

Aaron? I heard the rustling of fabric, a receiver dropped and retrieved, muffled laughter. “Who calls you that?” I asked when he finally answered.

“A friend,” he said mysteriously. His voice had a gravelly sound I’d heard a million times, too much whiskey and too many cigarettes.

“You know what’s wrong with that, Rauser? You don’t have any friends,” I joked, but I felt like screaming at him, balling up my fists and pounding on his chest. Jesus, it felt like he was cheating on me. He hadn’t even told me he was seeing anyone.

“It’s Jo,” he whispered, and I recognized the locker-room tone. He was bragging, actually bragging to me about his conquest, and whispering so she wouldn’t hear.

Jo? Who the hell was Jo? Mystified, I ransacked my shaken memory until the connection was made. The blood-spatter analyst! That’s who calls him Aaron. Jo Phillips, the big tall Amazon f*cking bloodstain analyst! So that’s why they were so chummy that night at the scene. They probably had a history. Rauser cheerful and joking around at a murder scene. They were flirting, actually flirting, while David Brooks lay growing cold on a bloody bed. And I thought she was hitting on me. I’m an idiot. Then I remembered texting Rauser a couple of nights ago and not getting an answer. I collapsed onto the hotel couch. Over the phone line, I heard ice rattle in a glass. Rauser loved iced tea. He could drink gallons of it, sweet southern iced tea with mountains of sugar. I pictured him wandering into his backyard with the phone on his shoulder, sitting on the deck he’d built himself, with the sun on his back and a glass in his hand. He liked wearing wife-beaters, the cheap ones that come three in a package at Target. I didn’t want to think about her there with him.

I told him what Neil had discovered and that the courthouse might be the common ground, the place where the offender hunted for his victims, and where David Brooks and the others with lawsuits in Fulton might have met their killer.

“He’s probably getting transcripts from the file room. Do they keep a log of who checks out which files?”

“I’ll sure as hell find out,” Rauser said excitedly. “Maybe we got a courier. Couriers go there to pick up court records. And anyone with a case number, a date, and three bucks can get transcripts. Sweet Jesus, Keye, this is big. I owe you guys. Man oh man. I’ll get the security company that handles Fulton to get the tapes to us. Lot of cameras there. We’ll have a presence on duty there in ten minutes. Deputies covering the metal detectors will help. They know who goes in and out. Hang on, would ya? I gotta tell Jo bye.”

I felt the blood rushing to my head. My eyes might have bulged out a little. I heard muffled voices, laughter. Oh, please. Then, after leaving me on hold too long, the ungrateful ass returned to the phone and said, “Sorry, Jo had someplace to be.”

“New episode of Xena?” I asked without even trying to hide my resentment.

Mr. Sensitive laughed, and made hissing and yowling sounds, the kind that mean catfight to men everywhere.

I paced around my room after we hung up, obsessing about Jo and Rauser, about me delivering that kind of news to him, news that would redirect the entire investigation, and he had the nerve to put me on hold to say good-bye to her. I was livid, and I wasn’t even sure why. I had no right to be. I knew it, but knowing it did nothing to help. I ended up in the café downstairs eating two slices of lemon pound cake, which was better than sitting in the bar across the lobby drinking lemon vodka, and yet it was still something Dr. Shetty would have disapproved of, I was sure. I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d been saving Rauser for myself. He was my backup. It never occurred to me that someone might come along and threaten that. If I could have, I would have lifted my leg and peed on him right then and there. I ordered a third slice of cake.

I didn’t sleep well, and I wasn’t in the mood to cut deals with accountants this morning. For that matter, I wasn’t in the mood for anything. I felt upended and I had never been the kind to bury myself in work when something troubled me. I was far more likely to close the blinds, crawl into bed, and eat a bunch of Twinkies. I wasn’t drinking anymore, but in many ways, I still cycled through the behaviors I’d learned back then, isolating and self-indulgence being at the top of the list.

Denver was sunny and sixty-five degrees when I left my hotel and climbed into a rented Jeep Liberty. It was Saturday, a day when the chances were better of finding the man who had ripped off my client at home.

And I got lost. Somehow my brain never seemed to register direction like the rest of the world. I had real trouble with maps. This, combined with the natural tendency to wander, resulted in me doing quite a bit of unintended sightseeing whenever I traveled. Today was no exception. A half-hour drive had turned into three times that, and I was distracted, my mind anywhere but on the case I was working and the agreement I needed to make for my client this morning. I’d been obsessing about Rauser and Amazon Jo and I didn’t want to be this far from the War Room. It would be an exciting time in the investigation and it pulled at me. Was I drawn to this investigation because I really deeply cared? Or was it tugging at me because it filled the gaps in me, because it was another thing an obsessive mind and a bend toward addiction needed to grab on to?

By the time I turned the rented Jeep into Roy Echeverria’s driveway, I wasn’t in a good place. I did not give a damn about some sleazy little accountant who got caught with his fingers in the corporate cookie jar, no matter how fat and succulent those cookies were. This man had used the money he took from my client to buy himself a new identity and put a sizable down payment on a home in the Westridge section of Highlands Ranch, twelve miles south of Denver, a sprawling master-planned community with golf courses, open space, and the eighty-five-hundred-acre Wildcat Mountain Reserve. Not bad for a junior-level accountant.

Echeverria was on his knees spreading wood chips around the shrubbery under his front windows. He was wearing gardening gloves and blue jeans and rubber-soled gardening shoes without heels, half loafer, half sandal. He was olive-skinned with large dark eyes and black hair and couldn’t have been more than thirty. Attractive enough in a dark, brooding way and thinner than he’d been in the file copy of the photo on his employee badge.

“Mr. Echeverria,” I said as I approached. “My name is Keye Street. I’d like to talk with you about some property in your possession belonging to your former employer.”

He rose slowly to full height, slipped the gardening gloves off and let them fall to the ground, dusted his hands off on his jeans.

“You are mistaken,” he said calmly and with an even smile. His accent was thick. I knew from his file that he’d come from Basque country in Spain. “My name—”

I held up the copy of his employee badge. “Your name is Echeverria. Can we just cut the crap? Do you want to talk here or should we go inside?”

“You cut the crap!” he yelled to my utter astonishment, and very aggressively stepped toward me, shoved me hard with both hands, and shrieked “No!!!” the way they teach you to scream it in self-defense classes. I went down on my backside in his front yard and he took off. The heelless gardening shoes slapped the ground like flip-flops and Echeverria had to raise his knees very high to keep from tripping over them. He looked like some kind of demented waterfowl, a seabird gone berserk.

Me, I’m little, but I’m fast. Two lawns down, I caught up enough to make a dive for his ankles. He tried to kick free and lost a shoe. I held on until he hit the ground chest-first with a grunt. The air rushed out of him and I climbed onto his back, tried to hold him down, reached around for my cuffs while he flopped around like a fish in a rowboat. He shook me off and got himself turned over. I wrapped my arms around his head and we rolled several times until he bit my shoulder so hard I yelped and had to let go. Then he ran toward the golf course and hijacked one of the carts. He gave me the finger as he disappeared over the green.

“Shit!” I climbed to my feet and brushed myself off.

Standing on a porch a few yards away, I noticed a woman with two young children staring at me, slack-jawed. The children crowded up close to her legs when I took a step forward, as if I might cook them and eat them.

“We’re family, Roy and me,” I offered by way of explanation, and smiled. “It’s just a thing we do.”

All three of them kept staring.

I moved the Jeep out of sight a block away, then returned to Roy Echeverria’s house. The door was unlocked. He obviously had not expected to wrestle a girl and run off in a golf cart. I searched the upstairs bathroom for a first-aid kit, then, armed with peroxide, I stretched out the collar of my shirt and inspected the bite on my shoulder.

“Sonofabitch.” The bite was ugly, already turning a nice rich purple around the broken skin, and it hurt. The peroxide’s sting brought tears to my eyes. “That’s it,” I grumbled, and headed for the bedroom, where, after a few minutes of searching, I found a 9mm and ammunition in a shoebox in the closet. I loaded the gun and headed downstairs.

There was a canister with coffee on the kitchen counter, so I made a pot and waited. The guy was wearing one shoe and driving a stolen golf cart. I didn’t think he’d stay away long, and I was right. It took only an hour for the front door to open very slowly. I heard him walking lightly through the house, heard closet doors opening, shower curtains jerked back. Then his big eyes peered round the corner at me sitting at his kitchen table. They dropped briefly to the gun, then to the coffee cup, the coffeemaker, and back to me.

I rested my hand on the 9mm. “Have a seat, Mr. Echeverria.”

He cursed softly, slumped into the kitchen shoeless, and plopped down at the table. “Nothing ever works out for me.”

“Oh, great, a whiner,” I said. “Could the day get any better?”

He would tell me later that he had tried to buy himself a normal life when he bought his house and his new name. But nothing had been normal since he fled. He was frightened all the time, always looking over his shoulder. He believed they might kill him one day for what he’d done.

The tapes were in a safety deposit box. First thing Monday morning, he promised, he’d make a withdrawal, sign my agreement, swap me the tapes for the five-hundred-thousand-dollar cashier’s check I offered him. I invited myself for the weekend just in case he changed his mind. He objected weakly at first but soon settled into the idea when he realized I wasn’t leaving.

By Monday morning, I understood what he’d done and exactly how he’d justified doing it. I understood everything in excruciating detail. His entire life! I knew his sister’s name and that he’d had chicken pox at thirteen. I knew the birth date of his second girlfriend and his grades in high school. I knew the names of every cat he ever owned and their litter box habits. The sonofabitch was never quiet. I thought about killing him myself.

“The tapes will tell you,” he said for the thirtieth time over coffee in the breakfast nook that the money stolen from my client had paid for, “how they feel about anyone with different skin color or, God forbid, an accent. They told jokes in those meetings. Racial jokes. But it wasn’t just the jokes—it was what was happening at policy level to discriminate.” He stared at me. “They would laugh at you too. They would refuse to promote you or pay you an honest wage just because you are not white.”

In my face he’d seen the heritage that I myself knew nothing about. He was hoping to tap into some hidden rage inside me. He was out of luck. There wasn’t any rage. I was numb by then to him and to the sound of his voice. If he’d said he planned on whacking off in a giant vat of peanut butter, I would have nodded and said, “That’s nice.”

I didn’t listen to the tapes once I had them in my hands. I didn’t want to know. My job wasn’t about saving the world from a*sholes. I just wanted to bill out the two thousand bucks I had coming and walk away from Ray Echeverria without a lump in my throat. I stuffed the tapes inside my suitcase, locked it, and carried them onto the plane with me. I’d done my job. I was comfortable with that.

By dusk on Monday evening, I was watching the sun sink behind the western slopes through the smudged window of a 767 about to take off for Atlanta. I was tired from sleeping with one eye open on a couch at Echeverria’s house, and it wasn’t long after the plane shot into Colorado’s wide, flat sky that I drifted off to sleep.

I dreamt I was in a little diner, the kind that serves salad on thick white plates with cherry tomatoes and little packages of saltines. Sitting at the lunch counter next to my plate was a pistol on a paper napkin and a martini glass with a wishbone inside. In my dream, I understood the wishbone was significant, that it had been left as a warning, and I felt suddenly afraid.

I woke to a flight attendant asking if I wanted dinner. Her name was Barbra, according to a brass plate pinned to her navy blue blazer, and Barbra had gone a little heavy on the lipstick. Big, scary red lips are not what you want to see when your heart’s already doing a hundred and fifty.

“Decaf,” I answered, and flipped open my laptop. Dr. Shetty had a blast dissecting dreams. She’d spent days on the last one. I’d been riding a Twinkie into a brick wall. I decided to shoot her an email. It would make her day.

… And then I saw it. Something dropped in my mailbox just like the wishbone in the glass in my dream. I felt my throat tighten. The woman at my elbow wanted to know if I was all right. “Yes, yes. I’m fine,” I told her.

The style of the letter was unmistakable. The rhythm of it instantly told me its author was the same person who had been writing Rauser and torturing and killing.

And now in life as in my dreams, I felt danger draw very near. The letter was addressed to Rauser. My name appeared on the copy line.

Dearest Lieutenant,



You’re wondering why David was different, aren’t you? What I did with him, where I did it, how I left him. All different. And William LaBrecque. He was different too. Have you even begun to figure out how? Here’s what they had in common. Both were the kind of scourge that needs eradicating. Admittedly for very different reasons, but both a blight nonetheless. Really, you must be haunted by all this. What have the analysts told you? That MO changes, that motive changes, that we learn and evolve, that humans are multi-determined?



Your analysts know nothing about me and neither do you.



I’ve learned a few things, however. Let’s begin with your new consultant. I gave her LaBrecque. Did you know that? And what a thrill that must have been for the profiler to walk into. She was all alone out there on that land, in that cabin. I could have so easily come back for her. Ah, I have your attention now. What surprises you most? That I knew she was there or that I know about her FBI past? I saw you arriving together to find poor David. Why would a private detective show up at a death scene? I wondered. Now that was something to investigate. Does your task force feel the sexual tension between you? Does your chief or the mayor? I do. Do you get hot when she deconstructs my scenes for you? Do you talk about me in bed? Business and pleasure, Lieutenant. Really, you should know better.



You think I made mistakes with David, don’t you? Taking him to a public place and using him that way. Yet you found nothing in that hotel room. Don’t despair, Lieutenant. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. I am in no database. My DNA can do only one thing for you: give you some reference for the next one.



By the way, this Wishbone thing, the name, it’s absurd, don’t you think? Isn’t it so like the media to take something out of context without telling the whole story? What will they leap at next? W.



I leaned back and took a shaky breath. The woman in the seat next to me seemed to have disappeared, and it crossed my mind that as my anxiety and tension had increased, so had my body odor. I tried to do one of those quick under-the-arm sniffs without being too obvious. Perhaps she had gone in search of an open seat elsewhere. One could hope.

I looked back at the words on my laptop screen, the words of a psychopath. He’d made fun of the name given by the media, but he’d adopted the W as a signature. He was embracing this new identity.

What did the email mean? The point, I assumed, was to deliver two threats. First, a promise of more killing. My DNA can do only one thing for you: give you some reference for the next one. Second, a slightly more cryptic threat about something else. What will they leap at next? Was this about Rauser? Or Rauser and me?

I clicked on Properties and hit the Details tab on the email program in an attempt to trace it. The email had gone to Rauser’s address and my address; no other addresses visible. I looked at the return path, one of those free email addresses, temporary, of course, but I knew every effort would be exhausted to trace it. It was gutsy using the Internet. Neil and cyber detectives like him would be able to find the source, the computer where the email originated. Wishbone must be getting bored.

I thought about that night at the Brooks scene when I’d turned to the growing crowd outside the scene tape and felt the killer’s presence there. The air had a wild feel that evening. Something rank and restless had been stirring out there. I was certain APD had been over the video of the crowds at all the scenes, run background checks and comparisons. Maybe a second look was a good idea. I thought about pulling in to the dirt drive in the rain at the LaBrecque scene. I searched my memory. There were cars on the main road, but I hadn’t suspected I was walking into a murder scene. All I was going to do was pick up a bail jumper, a wife beater. I’d been looking only for his blue pickup truck. Why LaBrecque? How did he fit in? How did the killer know I was coming for him?

I gave her LaBrecque. Did you know that? And what a thrill that must have been for the profiler to walk into. She was all alone out there on that land, in that cabin. I could have so easily come back for her.

Is it true that you “gave” me LaBrecque? Or did you simply get ahold of the police reports and decide to make this boast? A little more drama just for fun? Trying to rattle the profiler? What is it about me on this case that bothers you so much? And why didn’t you come back for me that day?

I used the decaf Barbra with the big red lips brought me to swallow a couple of Advil. My shoulder still ached from Roy Echeverria sinking his teeth into me, and my head was pounding. The dream, the letter, the case, this killer—it all fascinated and repelled me, like wiggling my toes around in a shark pool, which was, of course, the attraction and the terror of this kind of work.

You’re wondering why David was different, aren’t you?

Yes. Tell me. Why was Brooks different? He’s another key to your past, isn’t he?

The killer had referred to him in the letter by his first name only. Again, something that indicated familiarity, even affection. Was it real or symbolic?

And William LaBrecque. He was different too. Have you even begun to figure out how?

No, goddamnit, I haven’t even begun to figure it out, but I’d known the moment I’d seen LaBrecque in that cabin that it was you who’d been there before me. I saw your marks all over him. Why do you turn them over? Rauser had asked me this once. I still didn’t know the answer.

I got out my notebook and made another list of the victims in order of their murders, then drew columns for date, location—living room, kitchen, hotel, cabin—cause of death, time of death, number of ante-mortem and postmortem wounds, and approximate survival time after the first assault according to the autopsy. A check mark identified those victims with a connection to civil law. A star next to Brooks’s name reminded me there was sexual contact.

I drew an arrow from the first name, Anne Chambers, to the last, William LaBrecque. Both had been treated to an extraordinary amount of rage, both beaten savagely with a heavy tool, both died from blunt-force trauma. Did these two people have some personal connection to the killer? To each other? I tried to remember the details of Anne Chambers’s file. I’d been over the police file, the autopsy and crime scene reports and photographs, reviewed the physical evidence. It had been determined that the primary crime scene and the disposal site were one and the same, which was typical for this offender. Anne’s murder took place in her dorm room and it was a particularly brutal killing. There were deep ligature marks around her neck and wrists, and she was so badly beaten with the fat end of a lamp that the bones in her face and skull were crushed. I thought about LaBrecque’s face, about the bloody rolling pin. Only at these two scenes was the weapon recovered. After each victim was beaten badly enough to be half conscious and manageable, they were restrained so the killer could begin what we now know is a ritual—the stabbing and biting to the sexual areas of the body. But even that was different with Anne Chambers, the first victim. With Anne, the brutality went beyond the lower back, buttocks, inner thighs. Anne had been penetrated with the knife. Her *oris and nipples had been removed. The medical examiner counted over a hundred stab wounds—inconceivable rage and lust, a frenzy like we have not seen in four of the more recent organized scenes, as if, in this first killing, there was some connection in life, some extraordinary hatred and anger. I needed to compare the lab reports on LaBrecque to see if the humiliation theme ran as deep with him.

David Brooks had known a different killer from Anne Chambers. His killer had ended his life quickly and from behind, silently, and then covered his body to protect his dignity. There was no physical evidence to indicate any sadistic behavior. Sadism is about victim suffering, about getting off sexually on the victim’s terror and pain. By definition, sadistic behavior cannot include postmortem activity because the victim is no longer conscious, cannot suffer, cannot beg or cry out to their tormentor. All the bites and stabbings to the sexual areas on Brooks had been postmortem. David Brooks couldn’t have felt the pain of them. So they were about something else, something sexual and ritualistic, something the killer craves.

Anne Chambers suffered more, was kept alive longer and sexually mutilated. LaBrecque was so badly beaten I hardly recognized the mush that had been his face. Brooks suffered less. He was the only one of the three to share a link to civil law, yet they all had one thing in common: Wishbone’s signature staging, stabbing, and biting to the same areas of the body. What did it mean?

I leaned back and closed my eyes. I had to speak to Rauser. I wondered if he’d read his copy of the third Wishbone letter yet and what he thought about it. I prayed it wasn’t already on the way to the newspapers. Dread swelled up, then turned to sandpaper in my throat.