Strip Search (3 page)

“Then—why are you here? Why did you knock me out? Why did you rip off my shirt? Why me?”

“Why here? Because I had to catch you at your place of work, alone, after everyone else left the joint.” Tucker’s expression flattened, and then he added. “And why you? Because you are Keter.”

“Keter? I do not know this word Keter.”

“Doesn’t matter. I do.”

They both heard the abrupt ring of the oven timer. “Ah,” Tucker said. “The appetizer’s ready.”

He put on a pair of oven mitts, opened the door, and withdrew what at first appeared to be a long fireplace poker with a protective handle at one end. It was so hot smoke emanated from the end piece.

Amir took a closer look and realized that it was not a poker. It was a branding iron. At the far end of the metallic prong, glowing at him like a fiery monogram, was the letter
K.

Amir stepped away from the pulsating heat, cowering, begging for mercy. “Please,” he said. “Do not do this to me. Please!”

“Friend, this is just the beginnin’.” Tucker brought the iron nearer; though still inches away, Amir could feel it cooking his skin. “No! Please,
no
!”

Tucker pressed the brand into the man’s solar plexus.

Amir screamed. With a howl that might’ve been heard for miles—if anyone was awake within miles—he cried out as the searing metal burned into his flesh. His knees buckled, he lost all control of his body, he wet himself. The skin on his chest began to blister and water rushed from the surrounding tissues in an ineffectual effort to cool the piercing wound. He went into shock, looked as if he might have a stroke…which would make the rest of the plan far more complicated.

He untied Amir’s bonds—there was no risk that he was going anywhere on his own—and walked him over to the deep fat fryer, still burning at full boil, still bubbling with the super-heated oil that had flash-fried thousands of frozen potatoes that day. Tonight, the recipe would be somewhat different.

“No,” Amir said, crying, barely able to muster a whisper. “Please. No.”

“You are part of the Sefirot,” Tucker intoned. “The time for the termination of your predestined number has arrived.”

“Number,” Amir whispered, the aching in his chest still making it difficult to think, much less resist. “I tell you—I have done nothing wrong. This is…this is madness!”

“It ain’t madness that’s doomed you,” Tucker said, as he lowered the man’s face toward the bubbling cauldron. “It’s math.”

With a decisive thrust, careful to keep his gloved hands out of it, Tucker pushed Amir’s face into the churning pool of boiling oil.

Had he been able, the man would surely have screamed. But the intense three-hundred-fifty-degree heat melted his mouth, his lips, the skin on his face, even his tongue, long before any such response was possible.

I ACTUALLY STUCK my hand out of the shower and said, “would you hand me a towel, sugar bear? I can’t—” Before I stopped myself.

Even after all this time, my brain still blipped, and I expected David to be standing on the other side of the fogged-up shower door. “Idiot,” I said, slapping myself on the forehead for good measure. As if that minor blow might get my brain working right.

Mind you, I had made progress. I didn’t have conversations with him anymore. I didn’t see him at night during that twilight time just before you fall asleep. And I had fully and formally forgiven him for…well, whatever I thought he needed to be forgiven for. But some part of my brain, especially when I was deep in thought about something else, still instinctively expected David to be there. We had spent so much time together, so many happy times.

I’ve read that people who lose limbs in adulthood experience something called phantom pain—the arm or leg they no longer possess still seems to hurt. I guess I have a phantom husband.

And it still hurts.

BACK WHEN I WAS IN DETOX, I hated Dr. Coutant. Of course, I was forced to see him three times a day. If I had refused I would’ve never been discharged, not after what I’d done. So I went to his little closet at the clinic, always refusing the couch, and rambled on about whatever pleased him, blowing off questions whenever possible, deflecting them when I knew he was getting too close (“Okay, like now could we talk about my other parent for a while?”) and never never never letting him start in about David. If he wanted to call me a drunk, let him. If he wanted to harp on my dismissal from the detective squad, losing my house, losing custody of my niece, he had that right. But my husband was my business. It was insulting, really. After all, I’m a trained psychologist. Was I supposed to believe he could lord it over me just because he went to school a few more years and could prescribe drugs? I was an experienced, educated career woman. And yet, for the entire six days he had me in his clutches, he treated me like I was some barely potty-trained street junkie.

Actually, I
still
hated Coutant. But these days, it wasn’t because I didn’t think he knew what he was talking about. It was because I knew he did.

“How long has it been?” This was always his first question. I made a point of calculating my answer before I arrived.

“Five months, two days, and about fourteen minutes.”

He seemed genuinely pleased. “That’s very impressive.”

“Hardly a lifetime.”

“For an alcoholic? It’s several lifetimes. I know people who’ve been under considerably less stress than you who haven’t made it half as long. Still…” His pencil slowed, and he made sure I was looking at him. “If you think the struggle is over…it isn’t.”

“I know that.”

Coutant was a short, round man with a full beard and round-rimmed glasses, but now that I was seeing him in his private office, he didn’t wear the white coat. His office was tastefully decorated in soothing colors, mostly beige. Like he borrowed his interior decorator from Banana Republic. “Can you still remember what that last drink tasted like?”

“Well, that last drink was laced with a hypnogogic drug that led to me getting kidnapped.”

He batted his eraser on his legal pad. “Okay, the last drink you enjoyed.”

I thought for a moment. A long moment. “Actually, no.”

“That’s a good sign. It tells me you were well past the point of drinking for pleasure. You were drinking to relieve stress, to deal with your demons. Neither of which booze accomplishes. If you can remind yourself of that, if you can remember that it isn’t actually fun for you and never will be again, it’ll be a little easier to keep off the sauce.”

I saluted him. “Message received and understood.”

“The problem is—the demons may still be there. Have you been depressed lately?”

I hesitated. “I am a little…lonely. I miss having Rachel at home. And I miss…” I didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“Unfortunately, depression and anxiety are not uncommon in your profession, Susan. Much less to someone who’s been through everything you’ve been through.”

“Don’t you have some kind of magic pill you can prescribe? Prozac, or whatever’s trendy these days.”

“I could, but I’m not going to.”

“You prefer to let me suffer.”

“I think we both know that you have an addictive personality, Susan. I can’t in good conscience recommend anything to you that might create a dependency. Hell, if I could, I’d restrict you from drinking coffee.”

“You are a cruel bastard.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” He smiled. “I’d still be happier if you were in an AA group.”

“I’m not the talky-feely type.”

“Nonetheless, AA has the highest recovery rate of any program—”

“You’re assuming I need a program.”

He rubbed the rim of his glasses. “Susan, when will you get it through your head that you do not have to do everything on your own? There’s nothing shameful about getting help. You have many friends who love you. Amelia, Rachel, Darcy, Chief O’Bannon.” He paused. “Me. Let us help. Talk to people who’ve been through what you’re going through. Even if you don’t join an AA group, I could find you a sponsor—”

“Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Susan, but I can’t help but think this…insistence on doing everything yourself is another indication of your self-destructive behavior. The same instinct culminated in you beating some poor frat boy to a pulp in—”

“That’s not fair!” I shot back. “I was out of my head. I thought he was a drug kingpin.” I took a deep breath. “Besides, he had the sorriest pickup lines you’ve ever heard in your life.”

In an apparent act of resignation, Coutant changed the subject. “How’s Darcy?”

“Doing great. He’s made enormous progress these past months. I’ve done a lot of reading on autism and worked with him and given him useful things to do and I think it’s making a real difference. He was invaluable to me on an investigation yesterday.”

“How long have you two been seeing each other now?”

I stared at him through furrowed eyebrows. “I assume that was an unintentionally suggestive phraseology. I took care of him for five weeks. While his father was recovering from a gunshot wound.”

“And even thereafter dropped by to visit almost every day.”

“His father was weak and barely ambulatory. And besides, we like each other. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. Why are you so defensive?”

“I don’t like what you seem to be implying. Darcy is a kid.”

“He’s nine years younger than you.”

“He looks more.”

Coutant held up his hands. “Look, I’m not trying to suggest that you initiate a physical relationship, especially given his neurological difficulties. But I am wondering if you’re using him as…well, as a sort of shield.”

I pursed my lips. “You know, Doc, I guess that M.D. did make you smarter than me, because I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Then let me be blunt. Your husband died over a year ago. Right or wrong, many people blamed you for his death. You used alcohol to defend yourself. The first time you attempted another relationship with a man, that FBI agent—well, we both know how that turned out. But now that’s ancient history, too. You should be seeing someone. It would be healthy for you. And if it isn’t going to be Darcy—”

“It can’t be Darcy.”

“Then you need to stop spending all your time with him and find someone else.”

“You think it’s that easy?”

“Las Vegas is a big city.”

“Which makes it harder, not easier. Where am I going to find someone decent to go out with? And I warn you, if you say, ‘An AA meeting,’ I’ll slug you.”

Coutant smiled. “In my personal opinion, it’s all a matter of attitude. If you’re scared of trying again, then you’ll hide behind your work or your friends or whatever else is available. But if you really want to find someone—you will.”

“Where’d you get that pearl of wisdom? Dr. Phil?”

“What does it matter? Whether you care to admit it or not, pushing everyone away is just another example of self-destructive behavior.” He leaned forward. “Susan, you’re a smart, healthy adult female. You need a smart, healthy adult male.”

“And get trapped in a relationship? With the mess I am right now? Sounds pretty risky to me.”

“It is a risk. Of course it’s a risk. So what?” Coutant checked his watch, then laid down his pen and paper. Apparently the fifty-minute hour had come to an end. “Susan, how is it you’ve managed to live in Vegas your entire life but you’ve never learned how to gamble?”

DESPITE HIS YEARS of experience and training, despite the steady succession of suicides and homicides that had inevitably hardened his stomach, if not his heart, despite his almost obsessive concern with self-image and making a good impression on his superiors and inferiors, the moment Lt. Barry Granger stepped behind the counter at the fast-food restaurant to which he had been summoned and took a look at what lay beyond, he fell to his knees and began uncontrolled retching.

It didn’t make him forget what he had seen. A deep fat fryer with blood splattered all around it. Severed flesh simmering in the oil.

“Still think we don’t need to bring her in on this one?” Chief Robert O’Bannon asked, hovering over his convulsive chief homicide detective. He was using a cane to keep himself on his feet.

Granger took long slow controlled breaths. “What…happened?”

O’Bannon paused reflectively before answering. “I’m not sure there’s a word for what happened here.” He glanced over his shoulder and shouted at one of the crime scene techs working the site. “Hey, Crenshaw! Is there a word for dissolving someone’s face in an industrial-strength deep fat fryer?”

The tech looked up, grimaced, then returned to his work.

“There’s just no precedent for…death by melting. Unless you count
The Wizard of Oz.
” Steadying himself with the cane, O’Bannon reached down and slowly pulled his detective to his feet.

“I’m—I’m sorry, sir,” Granger said feebly, wiping his mouth. He had sandy hair and, normally, a sun-baked ruddy complexion. At the moment, his face was ashen white. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t feel bad, Barry. I’ve been a cop for over thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. You should’ve seen the poor chump teenager who came in this morning to open—and found this mess of blood and melted flesh where the french fries are supposed to be.”

“Where’s…the rest of the body?”

“We don’t know. Apparently, melting off the guy’s face wasn’t good enough for this killer. He wanted to take the body home with him as a souvenir.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“Agreed. Which is why we need to bring in Susan.”

Despite the aching in his stomach, Granger managed to mount a protest. “We don’t need her. Give me and my boys a few days—”

“Granger, we have a bona fide psychopath on our hands.”

“Brutality alone doesn’t prove craziness, Chief, not in this day and age. It’s still possible there was some rational explanation.”

“You’re in denial, Granger. It’s a psycho. We need a profile. We need Susan.”

“You know I have issues about working with her.”