Blood of Others (10 page)

Turgeon was
losing her patience with Sydowski
as they drove to American Eagle Federated Insurance, downtown on Montgomery.

“We’re in this together so you
better talk to me.”

Sydowski rubbed his face,
thinking. “I just have a bad feeling about this one. I can’t find the handle on
it.”

“It’s early yet.”

“I always get a sense of where to
go on a file. But not here. And to top it off, you want to bring Wyatt in
closer. I am trying to keep that disaster out of the way and you want to bring
him in.”

“Walt.”

“Christ, Linda.”

“Walt, I know you and every cop
in the department have a vendetta going with this guy. But push it aside.”

“Why?”

“Because we need him. He is the
best body we have to put on her computer.”

Sydowski said nothing.

“Walt, before I came to homicide
he helped me on a case. He got us a lock on some suspects who were operating
on-line. It took some time but he was good. He did stuff in the valley with
some of the early testing of the FBI’s Internet crime boys. Did you know that?”

Sydowski didn’t know.

“Walt, you’re an old bull. When
you started investigating murders, state-of-the-art technology was a
typewriter. It’s a new
millennium
and this case is
shaping up to be a backbreaker. We have to come at it hard from all sides.
Maybe her computer will be a dead end but what the hell else have you got right
now?”

Sydowski nodded to a car exiting
a parking space on Montgomery. “Maybe I’ll talk to Leo after we’re done here.”

The dark polished floors in the
lobby of American Eagle Federated Insurance gleamed against the stainless steel
desk where the receptionist sat. A silhouetted eagle, its wings outspread over
the company name, graced the wall behind her.

“Can I help you?”

Sydowski told her who they were.

“I’ll let Mr. Fairfield know
you’re here.”

She did not smile and Sydowski
could not decide if she was saddened by the murder of a company employee or
indifferent. They waited near the sectional couch. Standing, staring at the
landscape paintings, the palms in the floor planters. Turgeon was flipping through
a glossy travel magazine featuring Peru and treks through the Andes on the
cover when a tall man with distinguishing white hair, dressed in a well-cut
charcoal suit, greeted them.

“Tim Fairfield,” he shook
Sydowski’s hand warmly, then Turgeon’s, before escorting them back to the
elevator. Fairfield’s face was etched with tiny lines.

“Didn’t sleep much after your
call, Inspector.” The doors opened. Fairfield pushed the button for the tenth
floor.

“We’re the national headquarters,
five hundred offices nationwide. I have nine hundred people in my division. Two
hundred of them here. Iris was one of mine. I am ashamed to admit that I did
not know her at all.” Feeling the need to explain, he added. “I am on the road
quite a bit.”

“What can you tell us?” Turgeon
said.

“I’ve gone through her personnel
records. She was a fine employee. Six years with us. Perfect attendance. Never
took a sick day. No complaints. Very shy.”

“Anything on family?” Sydowski
said.

“Afraid not.”

The elevator doors opened on the
tenth floor and Fairfield led them down a long, wide corridor.

“I did more checking on her
policy. She had no other relatives. Her parents passed away when she was a
child. We’ll handle funeral arrangements, according to her wishes.”

“What are they?” Turgeon was making
notes.

“She had a plot down in Colman
and wished to be interred there. We’ll have a small service. We’re still making
arrangements.”

“At her age -- she thought about
a plot?” Turgeon shook her head.

“Many people who work for us do
think about it.”

“Any disturbing calls or behavior
in reaction to her death?” Sydowski said.

“Just the press, wanting to know
more about her. We’ve said we’re not commenting. I’ve instructed all employees
to refer press calls to me. I’m making a statement at a news conference this
afternoon.”

“We’d like to know in advance
what you intend to say,” Sydowski said.

“Of course.” Fairfield extended
his hand to a blue-carpeted ocean with scores of low-walled blue cubicles,
people wearing telephone headsets, working at computers that hummed with their
typing. “This is one of our major claims-processing areas. She worked on a far
corner of this floor.”

Fairfield led them to an empty
work station. It was no different than others. It was isolated by several
planters and a table with a printer, fax machine and trays layered with
documents. At the nearest cubicle Sydowski noticed a familiar-looking woman in
her thirties. She was wearing a red sweater and doing a poor job of trying not
to watch the detectives looking at Iris Wood’s desk.

“Excuse me. Mr. Fairfield?” She
approached them. “I’m Melanie Tate.” She was dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
“I’m Iris’s supervisor. Jan’s on her way in.”

Fairfield introduced Sydowski and
Turgeon, who were ready to interview her. They went across the claims-processing
area into an empty conference room with dark-paneled walls, a large polished
table, with nearly twenty cushioned high-backed chairs around it. Sydowski was
relieved to see a tray of fresh coffee waiting for them. Fairfield left them
alone with Tate. She sat, her eyes glistening in the quiet. After removing his
jacket and helping himself to a cup of coffee, Sydowski switched on a portable
tape recorder, tested it, opened his notebook, and began the interview.

“This is a nightmare,” Tate said,
“One day she is here working near me, then, my God. The papers, the news -- a
wedding gown -- who would do this?”

Sydowski and Turgeon took it slow
with Tate.

“We didn’t know her at all,
really. She was shy, mousy. She never went out for lunch or after work with us.
Much of the time you didn’t even know she was there. Do you know what
happened?”

Sydowski said they were working
on every possibility.

“It’s just so horrible and
frightening.” Tate studied her crumpled tissue. “Guess her new boyfriend is
taking it hard, huh?”

“Boyfriend?”
Sydowski
said.

“Yes, not long ago she told me
she had this new guy living with her. Jack.”

“She told you that.”

“Yes.”

“What’s Jack’s full name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You ever see her with him, or
meet him?”

“No.”

“You’re sure though?”

“Yes. She told me once, something
like, ‘I have to get home to be with Jack.’ Did you talk to him?”

“What else did she tell you about
him?”

“Nothing. I was surprised and
happy for her because it sounded like she finally had somebody, was coming out
of her shell, you know?”

Tate was concerned that Iris was
not getting the most out of her life.

“She just worked on her files,
researching the latest information, preparing new agents on death claims, how
to comfort our clients during times of tragedy, loss, and illness, and now
this. My God, how horribly ironic, how sad.”

After half an hour, Sydowski and
Turgeon passed Tate their cards.

Ten minutes later, Jan Jenkins
arrived, accompanied by her husband. The detectives requested he wait outside
as they interviewed. Jan was eight months pregnant and apologetic as she
positioned herself into a chair.

“I am so sorry, I can’t stop
crying. I just don’t know why this happened to such a gentle soul.” Jenkins was
in her twenties, upturned button nose, big eyes. Her chestnut hair was pulled
into a pony tail and had a satin-like sheen. She had worked with Iris for about
a year, after coming from Claims. And, as was often the case with many people
immediately after a homicide, Jenkins mixed her tenses.

“Iris is really a sweet shy
woman. Would not hurt a soul. I was always telling her that she would meet
somebody.”

“Did she have any boyfriends?”

“No. I don’t think she even had
any dates. She told me once she was so afraid to even approach guys, so
self-conscious because she didn’t know how to talk to them. Yet she wrote these
beautiful guides on how to talk to grieving people.”

“Didn’t she recently start living
with somebody, a man?”

Jenkins shook her head.

“Didn’t she live with Jack?”

“Jack’s her cat, if that’s what
you mean.”

Sydowski and Turgeon looked at
each other. Of course. They’d already met Jack.

Later, Turgeon went to
Fairfield’s twelfth-floor office to collect Iris Wood’s personnel records while
Sydowski went to her desk and sat in her chair.

It was a neat, well-kept work
area. A desk calendar highlighted deadlines, her upcoming vacation time. A
pleasant fragrance evocative of her apartment. The soaps and creams of her
bathroom. He slipped on his bifocals and studied the titles of reference books
on the right side, dictionary, thesaurus,
The Oxford Book of Death, Poems
from the Greek, Epitaphs, Requiems, Comfort for the Living, Love and Death
and
Solace for the Bereaved.

Sydowski pulled Iris Wood’s
snapshot from his pocket and looked into her face, then out at the sea of
tedium in which she swam alone each day, living a quiet life of desperation.

In a matter of hours, he knew
what she ate, what she wore, what she read, and that she was self-conscious
about her feet. Despite several years, no one in her office knew her. They
could not even distinguish between her cat and a boyfriend that never existed;
between a life lived, or a life that never was.

He stared at Iris Wood.

Fear thou not; for I am with
thee.

Iris Wood
is walking and talking with
another woman in a well-lit parking garage. Iris waves as they part, then uses
her keychain remote to unlock her car. She gets in, buckles up, turns the
ignition, backs out and drives off the SFSU campus safely.

“Run it again,” Sydowski said.

The grim-faced detectives,
gathered at the Hall of Justice for a case status meeting and brainstorming
session, had lost count of how many times Sydowski had rerun the university’s
security videotape.

It came from the cameras on level
three of lot twenty near North State Drive. The university police had done
superb work after the case broke. They had provided patrol logs, dispatch
calls, a list of the students enrolled in the night astronomy course, and tips
called in since the story became public.

On the night of the murder,
sixteen people had attended the class, most of them women. The SFPD ran
background on the students. No hits.

The videotape of Iris in the
moments before her death was a solid piece of the puzzle, Lieutenant Gonzales
said.

“Okay, Walt, so we’ve established
a concrete foundation for narrowing the time she was last seen alive. The
distance where we found her abandoned car is under a mile, which means she
encountered her killer, or killers, a short time after her class. What do the
campus cops have on recent unsolved sexual assaults, stalkings, and the like?”

“Nothing recent. Some burglaries
in the neighboring residential area. The district is checking.”

Gonzales planted an unlit cigar
between his teeth. “So he grabs her there, near the Grove, on Crestlake. How?
Through a ruse? Ted Bundy succeeded with that. Or, he drives up behind her?
Somehow gets her to pull over? Maybe he was in the class, or another class and
follows her, or disabled her car and followed her? How?”

An investigator from Crime Scene
said they had checked her car. It was mechanically sound with two -thirds of a
tank.

“So how then?” Gonzales pushed
the group because he was being pushed from high places. “Can somebody tell me
how he got her out of her car near Stern?” Gonzales was answered with silence,
then said, “There were no witnesses. It was an isolated little area. We had
fog. No tire marks. Crime Scene and the lab are still working on everything.”

Gonzales nodded to the TV monitor
frozen on the grainy image of Iris Wood entering her car.

“On the last night of her life,
she leaves her office, goes to her apartment, fixes herself a low-cal pasta
dinner, according to the autopsy. Drives to SFSU for her first astronomy
course, then leaves. How does she go from that” -- Gonzales points his cigar at
Iris Wood, alive on the videotape -- “to a mutilated corpse displayed in a
wedding gown in a shop at Union Square?”

“Maybe she was on her way to
visit a friend near Stern Grove,” one detective said.

“No friends have stepped
forward,” Sydowski said. “We’re still canvassing there with some help from the
district. Zip so far.”

“Maybe it was an affair, or some
sort of illicit meeting,” the detective said.

It was a good line, Sydowski
thought. “We’ll crosscheck the company policyholders and employee list with
residential addresses for the area, and those with her university class.”

They were checking parolees,
complaints, any strange cult or underground stuff, beating the bushes for any
rumors in the various sex trade communities.

Gonzales opened another file
folder. “Toxicology results show no traces of alcohol, controlled substance, or
medication, so no impairment. The Coroner’s confirmed she was not sexually
assaulted. No tearing, no semen, no blood, no transfer, no hairs. No DNA. But
he mutilates her.” He turned to Mike Boyd, the local coordinator for the FBI’s
Behavioral Science Unit. “Mike, what’s your read so far?”

“It’s early in the investigation.
But given what we know about the scene, the highly ritualistic nature, it’s
definitely organized. Very planned, ceremonial, almost requiem-like. You’ve got
to look at his victim selection, his likely use of a con to gain control.
Control fits with his organization and planning. The mutilation likely has
little to do with hampering her identification, because he left her car, her
fingerprints. The display magnifies his desire to have her found, have the
world know. He’s fulfilling a fantasy. His annihilation of her face is his way
of depersonalizing her. Could be he’s physically disfigured himself, or
suffering deep psychological wounding. He wants to amplify or signal his pain.
Obliterating her face could be linked to his ritualistic behavior, which
probably arises from a traumatic event involving women. Possibly this woman, or
this ‘type’ of woman. He’s likely done this before. Something inside him is
raging. Possible anger that he’s not been noticed. I agree with Inspector
Sydowski, he’ll likely do this again.”

A couple of moments passed while
everyone digested Boyd’s preliminary take and the potential magnitude of the
case. Detectives handling the bridal shop aspects told Gonzales that so far
they had not found any link between Iris Wood and Forever & Ever, nor any
association with the Carruthers woman whose wedding dress she was wearing at
the time of her murder.

“Fine,” Gonzales said, “so how
did he manage to gain entry to the shop? Did any security cameras from
businesses in the area record anything?”

That was Ben Wyatt’s assignment.
Eyes went around the table. No Wyatt. Missing a status meeting was a dangerous
thing. Sydowski clenched his teeth, glaring at Gonzales, who deflected
Sydowski’s heat.

“I’ll catch up with Inspector
Wyatt later,” Gonzales said. “Walt, how did you do at her apartment?”

“Crime Scene said it was clean.
Her computer could be significant. “Seems she spent a lot of time with on-line
singles, chat rooms.”

Karen Noletto, an FBI agent
assisting on the case, noted that on-line dating had led to some tragic cases
of cyber-stalking.

“Sure.” Sydowski nodded. “I’d
like some
expert
help on it to get into her stuff, see who she’s been
communicating with. The FBI is on top of this sort of thing.”

“But you’ve got an expert on the
case already.”

“Who?” Sydowski said.

“Wyatt’s the guy for that,”
Noletto said.

“And do you see him here? That
guy can’t even make the damn meetings. If you think for one second that I would
trust him --”

Gonzales raised his hand. “Step
back, Walter. I know Wyatt’s got experience.”

“He did a lot of work with our
Computer Intrusion Squad in Hayward,” Noletto said. “And IE stuff at Palo Alto,
some early trial work with Carnivore.”

“That computer surveillance
thing?”

“Yes,” Noletto said. “Did a lot
of research on his own time. We assumed he was put on the case as your computer
crimes person.”

“We’ll take your recommendation
under advisement,” Gonzales said, then began making assignments on the case.

The meeting was nearly over when
Wyatt arrived.

“Case status meetings are a
priority, Inspector,” Gonzales said.

“I was checking something.
Sorry.”

“How did our guy gain entry
without triggering the alarm?”

“I think it was from outside the
system.”

Sydowski shook his head. “We know
most guys can bypass a system at the keypad. How exactly did our guy do it? If
we knew, it might be a lead.”

“Some kind of intrusion from
outside. I still need more time to work on it. And I’d like to look at her
computer, so we can determine the last sites she visited, the last people she
communicated with.”

“I’d like the FBI to look at her
computer, Wyatt,” Sydowski said. “I want you to check the cameras from the
businesses nearby.”

Gonzales stepped in. “We’ll talk
about this later. We’re wrapped up until next time.”

As the meeting broke up, the secretary
from the homicide detail called from the door for Turgeon.

“Linda, a Penny Dumay here for
you.”

She was sitting in a chair in the
reception area of the squad room, an attractive well-dressed twenty-something,
twisting the straps of her purse, when Turgeon and Sydowski greeted her.

“Walt, Penny was the last person
to see Iris. She’s the one waving to her in the campus parking lot.”

“Thanks for coming down, Penny,”
Sydowski said.

They moved to an interview room.

“You left town the morning after
your class?” Turgeon said.

“Yes. I’m a flight attendant.
Dallas to Miami and back. I hurried down here as soon as I got your message on
my machine; then I connected it with the news reports. It’s so terrible. We
walked to our cars together just the other night.”

“Yes, we’re going to get your
statement. But off the top, can you remember anything that stands out from the
people in the class or the parking lot?”

“There’s one thing, I thought
about this on the way down, after I’d read the news reports, because I didn’t
see any mention of it.”

“What’s that?”

“When she drove off, a dark car
drove off.”

“Routine parking lot movement,
maybe?”

“Not really. This car was parked
in the shadows, at the edge of the lot.”

“Wouldn’t have showed up on our
tape, Walt,” Turgeon said.

“Remember a plate, or markings,
color, anything, Penny?” Sydowski said.

“Nothing like that. It was dark.”

“Big car? Small?”

“Not small. Midsize maybe.”

“What about occupants?”

“One. Yes, only one. A man. He
was looking in our direction, like he was waiting. I’m certain he was waiting.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I heard him start his motor when
Iris started hers. Then he followed her.”