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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
The Third Highway Series Part 06:
Closer
Chapter 1
Witch 1
Seattle, Washington
"OK, man, OK! If you want me to tell you all the options I'll tell you all the options! Don't go all buggy on me, dude, OK? " the young man behind the latte stand at SeaTac airport paused to toss his lank blondish hair back from his face and took a deep breath before beginning: "We got, like, espresso, cappuccino and latte: regular or skinny. Regular, Commuter Cup, Double Tall or Massive. Hazelnut, Amaretto, Orange-Mint, Raspberry, Mocha, Vanilla-Pecan, Peach Fuzz, Brandy Alexander, Kahlua--"
"'Kahlua'?" Jarod asked quizzically.
"Yeah, man, you know--that's that, like, coffee-flavored liquor--"
"'Coffee-flavored'? You mean you sell coffee-flavored coffee?"
The kid looked at the blackboard behind him and squinted at the list of flavors. "That's right, man--see: "Kahlua'." he explained, not seeing Jarod's point. "Of course, all the flavors can be, like, combined, too."
"So you could make me, let's see, a Massive Kahlua/Raspberry latte, regular?" Jarod asked, a bit excited by the possibility.
"Yeah--that's, like, one of my own personal favorites, dude."
Jarod had only been staying with Laura for a few weeks and was just in the beginning stages of an obsession with latte--although Laura tried to talk him out of it, saying that his caffeine buzz was driving her nuts. He didn't see that, really--although he had been up at four o'clock that morning and taken the kayak out into the strait, looking for the harbor seals that so often would swim along side. She'd been irritable about it when he got back--he'd awakened her by accident and she hated to be pulled out of a sound sleep. 'Not a morning person,' didn't even begin to cover it, with Laura.
"Have you ever thought you're just easily irritated?" he had asked her.
"Have you ever thought you're just a pain in the ass?" she'd answered, immediately. Which is why he'd ended up at the airport, anyway--he'd offered to go to get Laskowski and get out of Laura's way. He was a bit early for the incoming flight from Chicago and took his giant latte over to wait at the gate.
He picked the homicide cop out of the group flowing through the entrance tunnel immediately--cops just always looked like cops. He introduced himself and walked him out to the parking lot-- anticipating the cop's reaction to the car that was waiting for them there. The Ferrari tended to stop people in their tracks, he'd noticed. He'd been a bit startled by it, too, when Laura had opened up the garage next to her private dock on the mainland and tossed him the keys.
"I bought you some new wheels," she'd said, "the big Mercedes is kind of stodgy, don't you think? Besides, you need a new toy."
"You're not exactly going for a low profile, here, are you?" he replied, looking at the sleek, low-slung red car that seemed to be skulking in the shadowy garage, ready to pounce on something.
"Frankly it was just a kick to pay a half a million bucks for a car-- plus you're worth it, of course, and--well-- if I'm really on I can score that in one good weekend in A.C. or Vegas, one night in Monte Carlo--so I figure--spend it! Watch the clutch, though--it has a major attitude. Five hundred and nineteen horsepower's worth. It'll come right back and bite you in the butt if you let it."
Now Detective Dan Laskowski was clearly impressed as Jarod spun the Ferrari out of the parking garage and negotiated the maze of intersecting lanes leading to Interstate 15. The engine absolutely growled and the transmission whined shrilly as he slammed it through the gears to swing into the heavy traffic and hold the far left lane until he could grab a car pool lane. He caught one wide-eyed look from the cop--terror mixed with pure joy--and headed north toward the city and home. But just a few miles further, in one of the underpasses through downtown Seattle, as he slipped nearly sideways across two lanes to pass a city transit bus that was holding up the left lane, and then slid just as steeply back to grab the lane again, he first glimpsed a sneaker car tucked between a chevy van and a semi and then caught the familiar flash of blue lights and the scream of a siren. He knew he'd been doing at least ninety so he pulled the Ferrari over.
"Good morning, Mr. Banks," the Washington State Trooper greeted him through the open window. "How's Jenn doing this morning, sir?" he asked. "I notice you're back in the saddle again." He flipped open his citation pad happily and began writing Jarod multiple citations in parallel.
"Yes I am, and it feels great! She's much better--just like her old frisky self again. When she's in the mood, she sure is a sweet ride" Jarod answered
"Glad to hear it, sir," Hitaki said. "She just didn't seem like herself the other day. Cranky. Seemed to be cramping your style just a bit, if you'll forgive the observation. When you passed me that day you were only doing seventy. Hardly worth stopping you. Not like this morning, sir."
"Well, I tweaked the fuel economizer chip and she's purring along now--she just needed a little tender loving care, didn't you, girl?" Jarod said, patting the leather dashboard lovingly. "Officer Hitaki, this is Detective Laskowski of the Chicago P.D." The two men nodded to each other. "Officer Hitaki and I have gotten to be good friends. All because of Jenn," Jarod explained to Laskowski.
"An expensive friendship for you, I'm afraid". He handed Jarod the tickets. "But one hell of a car, sir," Hitaki said, looking it over covetously, "one hell of a car."
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It began to drizzle again by the time Jarod had driven Laskowski north of Bellingham to Marietta and Laura's private dock, and the trip out to the island in the Boston Whaler was choppy and clearly uncomfortable for the cop from Chicago. Huddled under the canopy, Laskowski glared at the steely water of the strait. "I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Chicago," he said gloomily, turning a paler shade of green.
"In January?" Jarod laughed. "I've been there--I'll take fifty degrees and drizzle any day over nineteen and snow. That's why Laura sent you the ticket--she didn't want to face your Chicago weather."
"It's not the rain, it's all this ocean--I didn't know this would involve boats. I'm not big on boats. As far as the weather, well, I understand her point. She didn't have to send a first class ticket, though. Although it was nice--there was this one stewardess who had the tightest little ass--cutest damned thing you'd ever want to see. Took my mind off the flight, I'll tell you that.," Laskowski noticeably brightened at the memory. "So what are you in all this, Banks--colleague, husband, just good friends . . . ?"
"Very good friend," he answered. "How did you find out about Laura, anyway?"
"Grapevine," he responded.
"You found out from grapes?" Jarod asked, puzzled.
"You know, the grapevine: she did some work for some cop in New York that knows some other cop that talked to some guy my partner knows. She'd does this a lot, right?"
Jarod nodded, pulling the boat alongside the dock and expertly stepping out to tie off a line. "If Laura can't help, no one can."
He saw Laskowski's curiosity as they walked up the wooden steps to the rambling house with it's big decks and walls of glass. It was the first time he'd seen the island through someone else's eyes and he realized for the first time just how special it was--eleven private acres, the calm waters of the strait all around, the tall, dense stands of Douglas fir in the island's center, and the rocky shoreline with the cliffs behind, topped by contorted madrones and garry oaks. And of course the house itself, perched on the cliffs on the island's southwest-facing slope, with the guest house where Laura's security guy Paul and his wife lived beyond. He could feel Laskowski wondering just how much all this cost, and where it came from. Laura consulted with the police for free, of course--he sensed the other man's growing curiosity.
He watched Laskowski pause, suddenly, and his eyes register some special surprise--Jarod followed his gaze up to where Laura stood, leaning over a deck rail, waiting for them two landings up. Jarod had been away from her for a while and forgotten just how that felt--the buzz he got from seeing the covetous way other men looked at her, and the feeling of possession and dominance it gave him. This sort of primal male competitiveness that made him look at Laura with, he knew, the same dumbstruck expression on his face as Laskowski had at that moment. He wanted her, of course, instantly. She leaned further over the rail, giving the two men a great view of cleavage in her low cut sweater, her hair shining and smile dazzling, and called to them: "How about some latte, Detective Laskowski, to take off that Great Northwest chill? Believe me, if it weren't for caffeine no one would ever be awake in this climate."
He took a moment to answer--Jarod felt him catching his breath and trying to re-start the thinking/talking part of his brain while subduing the wanting/screwing part--and then said, "Sounds great."
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'You see why I'm here," Laskowski was saying, "we've never seen anything quite like this before. I mean, the M.E. is saying, on the one hand, that this is impossible, and on the other hand, here's the deal, this is just the way it is--go figure. Meanwhile we're trying to keep the damned press off this, and we're no closer to nailing this guy. We've got every warm body available working on this around the clock and we've got zip--no connection between the victims, no leads, no witnesses. Look, I don't know what it is you do, exactly-- some kind of trance or a seance or whatever--but I'll take just about anything right now. This is body number four and we're no closer than we were after the first one."
Laura sat across from him, bent over the medical reports she held in her hand and comparing them again, and again. She looked up at Laskowski and audibly sighed. "This is pretty wild. Unbelievable, really. Jarod, what have you got?" she twisted around to look at him-- he was across the room in front of a bank of computers.
"You should come see this," he said, "it's more than just 'pretty wild'"
They got up and crossed the room--the monitor in front of them showed an upright three-dimensional grid-map of a human body, rotating slowly around it's vertical axis. "I've taken the medical data and correlated it, taking into account the different heights and sizes of the four victims--showing the injuries from all four murders on one human model. Here's your first murder, " Jarod said. He hit a few keys and slender triangular red shapes began piecing the figure, one at a time, entering the chest., the abdomen, the throat. The little human shape continued to slowly turn around as the red triangles lodged themselves visibly inside it. "OK, here's murder number two," Jarod said, hitting another combination on the keyboard. This time the triangles were green, and they pieced the body in exactly the same order and configuration, so that in the end the body looked just the same. "And three," Jarod said--the procedure was repeated, this time with yellow triangles. "And this is four." The triangles were blue this time, but the end result was the same.
"You got a computer program that can do that?" Laskowski asked, impressed.
"Well, I do now," Jarod answered, "I just wrote it. You'll notice how the angles and depth of the penetration is exactly the same in each instance." He tapped something else in and just a cropped human torso appeared on the screen. "If we go to a closeup just of stab number six, for example--" he typed for a second and a red, a green, a yellow and a blue triangle entered the chest one by one just below the fourth rib as the torso spun in three dimensional transparency "-- you'll see it even more clearly. According to the autopsy reports you've given me, each victim suffered precisely the same stab wounds, in exactly the same locations, all to within one sixteenth of an inch tolerances."
Laskowski let out his breath in a slow whistle. "The computer--you can really see the pattern. We thought we were nuts--" he drifted out of the thought, clearly at a lose for words.
"Jarod, that's just not physically possible, is it?" Laura asked, stunned by the demonstration she had just seen.
"No. Even if the victims were immobilized or already dead at the time the wounds were inflicted, this is simply too precise a pattern to be duplicated four times. Possibly a laser, using the same methods used in radiation treatment could produce nearly as perfect a replication-- but only under controlled, laboratory conditions--and not with a five inch long knife blade. And these people were alive during the entire stabbing--none of these wounds would have been instantly fatal. They died as a result of the combined damage and resultant blood lose. I cannot imagine they would not have fought back, or twisted and turned to get away. There's nothing in the toxicology report to indicate they were drugged before being stabbed." He pushed back from the keyboard and looked at Laura. "I can create a simulation that will show us exactly how the killer and the victims were aligned while they were being attacked. I will be able to tell you in what order the stabs were dealt. But I'll tell you right now that I know they were standing, with the killer behind them. They were not, for example, tied up or in some way prevented from moving. That's the logistics of it. But HOW this could have been done to these people, how each one could have been killed with precisely the same wounds, delivered to their bodies within this close a tolerance, defies logic. "
There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Laskowski asked Laura: "You ever seen anything like this before?"
"Yes," she answered, slowly, "yes, I have."
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Laskowski had stayed for dinner, and Paul had dropped him off at the airport in time for his flight back to Chicago. He'd been clearly disappointed that Laura had not wanted to go into any details about why the pattern of the homicides seemed familiar, but she'd cooked a terrific meal and kept on pouring him more wine, and he'd gotten on the plane hoping that she'd call him soon with something more. Jarod giving him the program he had written to model the stab wounds clearly helped his mood, as well. She'd told Laskowski: "I need to consult a colleague first," and even though Jarod had tried again and again to talk about it, she'd remained distant and uncommunicative. She'd gone into the big bedroom and, oddly enough, lit a pink candle that stood in an old brass holder on her dresser. He asked her about that, too, thinking it strange, but she had brushed his questions off, saying only: "Look, let's start with this fresh in the morning, OK? I know you're on this caffeine high, but I'm not and I'm exhausted and I need to sleep."
"OK," he'd finally said, "if you don't want to talk about it that's fine. Just let's try something else." He'd come up behind her and grabbed her and said ,"Just stay absolutely still for a few minutes, OK? It's important that you don't move."
She'd laughed, thinking he was playing some lascivious game, but suddenly she felt him lunge his balled right fist down, stopping it just before it would have struck her in the chest. She gasped and tried to pull away but then suddenly froze as he made the same gesture again and again, quickly. Laura stood stock still, all the color draining out of her face, her eyes frozen wide--but instead of feeling terror she had this vision of peace and acceptance, of something warm and comforting and welcoming. He let her go, then, physically unharmed--his fist had never once actually touched her, but she fell right down on the bedroom floor when he did, hitting her head hard, collapsing in an untidy heap at his feet.
"Laura!" he exclaimed, kneeling down beside her, "what's wrong? I didn't actually hurt you, did? I didn't mean too--"
"What the hell was THAT, Jarod--oh, God--you were being him, weren't you, you were simulating the killer?" he saw anger replacing fear in her eyes and drew back a bit from her as she stood up and glared at him.
"Well, yes--but I just wanted to see how long the actual killings took, how it happened--the angles of the knife, the sequence of the blows--to have it work I needed you to be surprised, but I never thought---"
"Never do that again!" she said slowly, her voice absolutely steel cold. "I felt that like it was really happening to me, you son of a bitch--haven't I explained to you what I am, how I experience things? You of all people should know better."
"I'm sorry, Laura--I thought you'd understand--"
"No--you understand, Jarod--you understand damned fucking good--never do anything like that to me again, do you hear me?"
"I should have explained--"
"Don't start with me, Jarod--you were enjoying that and I know it. Just a little bit of hostility there, isn't there?"
He took a deep breath. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come back, Laura," he said. "You and I, together--maybe it's not such a good idea. I came back here trying to understand what happened between us. You told me you loved me--remember? Then you left me, and it wasn't just the surprise factor that hurt, I don't understand why you had to leave in the first place. I still don't. In fact, you've made no attempt at all to explain it, Laura--it's a question of trust." He paused, and the anger beneath the surface was clear in the look he gave her. "You seem to think we can just pick things up where they were, but I can't do that. You hurt me and I need to know why. If you love me, why run away? And if you don't love me, why would you ever say those words? You're always so quick with an answer, Laura, do you have some quick answers now?"
"You're asking me questions that I frankly don't believe HAVE answers, Jarod," she began, taking an involuntary step back from him and the anger in his eyes. "And if there are answers, I sure as hell don't have them. I mean, look at me, Jarod--take a good long look: I'm not married, I've never even considered that I could do that. I had a fucking operation so I can't have kids--that's got to tell you something right there. If you want answers about what love is, and if it can last--go find some married chick that's put in some real time and ask her for explanations."
"I did, actually, but I think she was more confused than I am--"
"Well, OK, I could be cynical here and ask if she was wearing any clothes when you had this heart to heart with her. But I'm willing to bet she was trying her best to find those answers, too--which was probably why she was with you. Relationships are hard, it's the toughest shit you'll ever have to deal with--it makes some of the stuff you do look easy, Jarod." She looked away for a moment, trying hard to find her way, fighting her natural inclination to answer with some cynical insult. "Look, I should have thought, you know: 'I've been through this before--breakups and makeups--but Jarod hasn't': maybe I should have understood that you'd take it so hard . . . "
"This is what you mean when you say I'm like a ten year old, right: you don't want to take responsibility for my responses and feelings, do you? It's just another reason I should leave--"
"I don't want you to leave," she said slowly. "I'm, like, really bad at these scenes, Jarod, but I want you to stay, and to be around at least sometimes." She stopped and shook her head, then continued, "You know, all of this is just tremendously complicated by who and what we are."
"I know, you think we're both freaks of nature. I guess what I just did--the simulation--I guess the fact that I can do that doesn't help anything. I'm sorry, I should never have done that."
"No, Jarod--it's OK, when it comes right down to it I guess it had to be done if we're going to figure this out. That was it, wasn't it: that's how it happened?" she asked, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Yes, that's how it happened," he answered, "that's how those four people died."
"Then I understand," she said, "I understand what I couldn't before. I was paralyzed--literally paralyzed. I couldn't have fought against you, even if you'd actually had a knife in your hands. There was something--" she paused, searching for the right word, "--something primitive and powerful--not like fear, not like pain, quite the opposite. . . "
"This was a mistake, Laura--the simulation--"
"Jarod," she said, interrupting him, "would you make love to me--well, like I was Nia, I guess--would you do that now?"
He looked at her, not understanding, quite lost again.
She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips, kissing his palm, closing his fingers around the kiss, looking into his eyes. "I know you don't believe this, but I want gentleness and sweetness and warmth from you--you do that with her, right? Show me how. Because I'm scared, Jarod--I have to do something frightening and I want to feel you love me like that just once."
He reached for her, taking her face in his hands gently and pulling her mouth to his, feeling her lips part softly beneath his, her arms fall gently around his neck, her eyelids flutter against his skin. He stroked her soft hair and fell lightly back on the bed with her, wrapping himself around her, feeling some totally unexpected and new softness and gentleness just flowing out of her, amazed by it, aroused by it, astonished by it. She kissed him back and clung to him--he reached under her sweater to caress her breasts and even that familiar sensation was different, softer, just different; and he seemed lost, suddenly, in something of infinite kindness. Everything was different--about her and about himself, as well: the way he felt, the way he moved, the way his body responded. Even when he entered her--which for the first time in all their time together he did gently and lovingly--she moved with him instead of against him--a part of him, somehow, not the demanding and relentless 'other' that he knew as Laura.
He remembered Nia, of course, who had taught him that desire and tenderness could coexist, but he felt the wonder and awe of that which he desired but could never truly possess--the female, the mystery, that which completed him--to be only in Laura, only in the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin and sound of her sighs and the taste of her breath and kisses. He felt his body melded into hers, beyond just the union of flesh to flesh, and lost all thought and consciousness in his climax, and hers, and the peace that followed: her breathing, her heartbeat. That he had even considered the possibility of leaving her, only a short time before, seemed suddenly laughable. He wanted to just keep on holding her forever, getting more and more lost inside this thing that suddenly was so real and strong, a new thing that was neither of them separately but the two of them joined. Until at some point he looked down at her, pushing the hair out of her face, and knew he had no words for what he felt, but saw the same awareness in her eyes, and in her touch as she stroked the side of his face lightly, smiling up at him.
"Where did that come from, Laura?" he asked, finally, in utter amazement, "where have you been hiding THAT?"
"Love," she answered, "love: there are so many mysteries inside us."
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Laura woke up to Jarod nuzzling the back of her neck and opened her eyes slightly, warily--the room was still completely dark. "What time is it?" she asked.
"It's morning, Laura--the sun will be up in just a few minutes and I thought we could get started--"
"You're living in a caffeine and sugar induced time warp, Jarod. What time is it?" she repeated.
"Five thirty," he answered, bracing himself for her anger.
"You know, until I met you I didn't know there WAS a five thirty in the morning! OK, OK--but I need coffee."
"I made latte for you," he announced, and a huge mug materialized in front of her.
"You don't make latte, Jarod, you make jet fuel with a head." But she sat up and accepted the mug of steaming liquid, which she half expected to eat right through the heavy china. She tried a few sips and started more or less at the beginning: "OK, I didn't want to get into it with Laskowski because it would have sounded crazy, but I recognized the pattern from another case--one of the first I ever worked on, in Philly in 1989. There were four victims, and all had what appeared to be exactly the same stab wounds--just like this. If you check my files you'll get the autopsy reports and the photos. The thing is: the guy was caught in the act of killing the final victim, and shot in the leg by a cop at the scene. He got death--the last I heard he was in the Federal pen at Angola, Louisiana on death row. His name was Radtke, Gordon Radtke. I guess we need to find out when-- and how--the son of a bitch got out."
"That's easy, " Jarod answered, "those won't be difficult records for me to access. Get dressed, get some breakfast--I'll let you know. One thing though, Laura: lives could depend on Laskowski knowing this. Why didn't you at least let me do this search last night?"
"I think you may understand that pretty soon," she answered.
Closer
Chapter 1
Witch 1
Seattle, Washington
"OK, man, OK! If you want me to tell you all the options I'll tell you all the options! Don't go all buggy on me, dude, OK? " the young man behind the latte stand at SeaTac airport paused to toss his lank blondish hair back from his face and took a deep breath before beginning: "We got, like, espresso, cappuccino and latte: regular or skinny. Regular, Commuter Cup, Double Tall or Massive. Hazelnut, Amaretto, Orange-Mint, Raspberry, Mocha, Vanilla-Pecan, Peach Fuzz, Brandy Alexander, Kahlua--"
"'Kahlua'?" Jarod asked quizzically.
"Yeah, man, you know--that's that, like, coffee-flavored liquor--"
"'Coffee-flavored'? You mean you sell coffee-flavored coffee?"
The kid looked at the blackboard behind him and squinted at the list of flavors. "That's right, man--see: "Kahlua'." he explained, not seeing Jarod's point. "Of course, all the flavors can be, like, combined, too."
"So you could make me, let's see, a Massive Kahlua/Raspberry latte, regular?" Jarod asked, a bit excited by the possibility.
"Yeah--that's, like, one of my own personal favorites, dude."
Jarod had only been staying with Laura for a few weeks and was just in the beginning stages of an obsession with latte--although Laura tried to talk him out of it, saying that his caffeine buzz was driving her nuts. He didn't see that, really--although he had been up at four o'clock that morning and taken the kayak out into the strait, looking for the harbor seals that so often would swim along side. She'd been irritable about it when he got back--he'd awakened her by accident and she hated to be pulled out of a sound sleep. 'Not a morning person,' didn't even begin to cover it, with Laura.
"Have you ever thought you're just easily irritated?" he had asked her.
"Have you ever thought you're just a pain in the ass?" she'd answered, immediately. Which is why he'd ended up at the airport, anyway--he'd offered to go to get Laskowski and get out of Laura's way. He was a bit early for the incoming flight from Chicago and took his giant latte over to wait at the gate.
He picked the homicide cop out of the group flowing through the entrance tunnel immediately--cops just always looked like cops. He introduced himself and walked him out to the parking lot-- anticipating the cop's reaction to the car that was waiting for them there. The Ferrari tended to stop people in their tracks, he'd noticed. He'd been a bit startled by it, too, when Laura had opened up the garage next to her private dock on the mainland and tossed him the keys.
"I bought you some new wheels," she'd said, "the big Mercedes is kind of stodgy, don't you think? Besides, you need a new toy."
"You're not exactly going for a low profile, here, are you?" he replied, looking at the sleek, low-slung red car that seemed to be skulking in the shadowy garage, ready to pounce on something.
"Frankly it was just a kick to pay a half a million bucks for a car-- plus you're worth it, of course, and--well-- if I'm really on I can score that in one good weekend in A.C. or Vegas, one night in Monte Carlo--so I figure--spend it! Watch the clutch, though--it has a major attitude. Five hundred and nineteen horsepower's worth. It'll come right back and bite you in the butt if you let it."
Now Detective Dan Laskowski was clearly impressed as Jarod spun the Ferrari out of the parking garage and negotiated the maze of intersecting lanes leading to Interstate 15. The engine absolutely growled and the transmission whined shrilly as he slammed it through the gears to swing into the heavy traffic and hold the far left lane until he could grab a car pool lane. He caught one wide-eyed look from the cop--terror mixed with pure joy--and headed north toward the city and home. But just a few miles further, in one of the underpasses through downtown Seattle, as he slipped nearly sideways across two lanes to pass a city transit bus that was holding up the left lane, and then slid just as steeply back to grab the lane again, he first glimpsed a sneaker car tucked between a chevy van and a semi and then caught the familiar flash of blue lights and the scream of a siren. He knew he'd been doing at least ninety so he pulled the Ferrari over.
"Good morning, Mr. Banks," the Washington State Trooper greeted him through the open window. "How's Jenn doing this morning, sir?" he asked. "I notice you're back in the saddle again." He flipped open his citation pad happily and began writing Jarod multiple citations in parallel.
"Yes I am, and it feels great! She's much better--just like her old frisky self again. When she's in the mood, she sure is a sweet ride" Jarod answered
"Glad to hear it, sir," Hitaki said. "She just didn't seem like herself the other day. Cranky. Seemed to be cramping your style just a bit, if you'll forgive the observation. When you passed me that day you were only doing seventy. Hardly worth stopping you. Not like this morning, sir."
"Well, I tweaked the fuel economizer chip and she's purring along now--she just needed a little tender loving care, didn't you, girl?" Jarod said, patting the leather dashboard lovingly. "Officer Hitaki, this is Detective Laskowski of the Chicago P.D." The two men nodded to each other. "Officer Hitaki and I have gotten to be good friends. All because of Jenn," Jarod explained to Laskowski.
"An expensive friendship for you, I'm afraid". He handed Jarod the tickets. "But one hell of a car, sir," Hitaki said, looking it over covetously, "one hell of a car."
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It began to drizzle again by the time Jarod had driven Laskowski north of Bellingham to Marietta and Laura's private dock, and the trip out to the island in the Boston Whaler was choppy and clearly uncomfortable for the cop from Chicago. Huddled under the canopy, Laskowski glared at the steely water of the strait. "I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Chicago," he said gloomily, turning a paler shade of green.
"In January?" Jarod laughed. "I've been there--I'll take fifty degrees and drizzle any day over nineteen and snow. That's why Laura sent you the ticket--she didn't want to face your Chicago weather."
"It's not the rain, it's all this ocean--I didn't know this would involve boats. I'm not big on boats. As far as the weather, well, I understand her point. She didn't have to send a first class ticket, though. Although it was nice--there was this one stewardess who had the tightest little ass--cutest damned thing you'd ever want to see. Took my mind off the flight, I'll tell you that.," Laskowski noticeably brightened at the memory. "So what are you in all this, Banks--colleague, husband, just good friends . . . ?"
"Very good friend," he answered. "How did you find out about Laura, anyway?"
"Grapevine," he responded.
"You found out from grapes?" Jarod asked, puzzled.
"You know, the grapevine: she did some work for some cop in New York that knows some other cop that talked to some guy my partner knows. She'd does this a lot, right?"
Jarod nodded, pulling the boat alongside the dock and expertly stepping out to tie off a line. "If Laura can't help, no one can."
He saw Laskowski's curiosity as they walked up the wooden steps to the rambling house with it's big decks and walls of glass. It was the first time he'd seen the island through someone else's eyes and he realized for the first time just how special it was--eleven private acres, the calm waters of the strait all around, the tall, dense stands of Douglas fir in the island's center, and the rocky shoreline with the cliffs behind, topped by contorted madrones and garry oaks. And of course the house itself, perched on the cliffs on the island's southwest-facing slope, with the guest house where Laura's security guy Paul and his wife lived beyond. He could feel Laskowski wondering just how much all this cost, and where it came from. Laura consulted with the police for free, of course--he sensed the other man's growing curiosity.
He watched Laskowski pause, suddenly, and his eyes register some special surprise--Jarod followed his gaze up to where Laura stood, leaning over a deck rail, waiting for them two landings up. Jarod had been away from her for a while and forgotten just how that felt--the buzz he got from seeing the covetous way other men looked at her, and the feeling of possession and dominance it gave him. This sort of primal male competitiveness that made him look at Laura with, he knew, the same dumbstruck expression on his face as Laskowski had at that moment. He wanted her, of course, instantly. She leaned further over the rail, giving the two men a great view of cleavage in her low cut sweater, her hair shining and smile dazzling, and called to them: "How about some latte, Detective Laskowski, to take off that Great Northwest chill? Believe me, if it weren't for caffeine no one would ever be awake in this climate."
He took a moment to answer--Jarod felt him catching his breath and trying to re-start the thinking/talking part of his brain while subduing the wanting/screwing part--and then said, "Sounds great."
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'You see why I'm here," Laskowski was saying, "we've never seen anything quite like this before. I mean, the M.E. is saying, on the one hand, that this is impossible, and on the other hand, here's the deal, this is just the way it is--go figure. Meanwhile we're trying to keep the damned press off this, and we're no closer to nailing this guy. We've got every warm body available working on this around the clock and we've got zip--no connection between the victims, no leads, no witnesses. Look, I don't know what it is you do, exactly-- some kind of trance or a seance or whatever--but I'll take just about anything right now. This is body number four and we're no closer than we were after the first one."
Laura sat across from him, bent over the medical reports she held in her hand and comparing them again, and again. She looked up at Laskowski and audibly sighed. "This is pretty wild. Unbelievable, really. Jarod, what have you got?" she twisted around to look at him-- he was across the room in front of a bank of computers.
"You should come see this," he said, "it's more than just 'pretty wild'"
They got up and crossed the room--the monitor in front of them showed an upright three-dimensional grid-map of a human body, rotating slowly around it's vertical axis. "I've taken the medical data and correlated it, taking into account the different heights and sizes of the four victims--showing the injuries from all four murders on one human model. Here's your first murder, " Jarod said. He hit a few keys and slender triangular red shapes began piecing the figure, one at a time, entering the chest., the abdomen, the throat. The little human shape continued to slowly turn around as the red triangles lodged themselves visibly inside it. "OK, here's murder number two," Jarod said, hitting another combination on the keyboard. This time the triangles were green, and they pieced the body in exactly the same order and configuration, so that in the end the body looked just the same. "And three," Jarod said--the procedure was repeated, this time with yellow triangles. "And this is four." The triangles were blue this time, but the end result was the same.
"You got a computer program that can do that?" Laskowski asked, impressed.
"Well, I do now," Jarod answered, "I just wrote it. You'll notice how the angles and depth of the penetration is exactly the same in each instance." He tapped something else in and just a cropped human torso appeared on the screen. "If we go to a closeup just of stab number six, for example--" he typed for a second and a red, a green, a yellow and a blue triangle entered the chest one by one just below the fourth rib as the torso spun in three dimensional transparency "-- you'll see it even more clearly. According to the autopsy reports you've given me, each victim suffered precisely the same stab wounds, in exactly the same locations, all to within one sixteenth of an inch tolerances."
Laskowski let out his breath in a slow whistle. "The computer--you can really see the pattern. We thought we were nuts--" he drifted out of the thought, clearly at a lose for words.
"Jarod, that's just not physically possible, is it?" Laura asked, stunned by the demonstration she had just seen.
"No. Even if the victims were immobilized or already dead at the time the wounds were inflicted, this is simply too precise a pattern to be duplicated four times. Possibly a laser, using the same methods used in radiation treatment could produce nearly as perfect a replication-- but only under controlled, laboratory conditions--and not with a five inch long knife blade. And these people were alive during the entire stabbing--none of these wounds would have been instantly fatal. They died as a result of the combined damage and resultant blood lose. I cannot imagine they would not have fought back, or twisted and turned to get away. There's nothing in the toxicology report to indicate they were drugged before being stabbed." He pushed back from the keyboard and looked at Laura. "I can create a simulation that will show us exactly how the killer and the victims were aligned while they were being attacked. I will be able to tell you in what order the stabs were dealt. But I'll tell you right now that I know they were standing, with the killer behind them. They were not, for example, tied up or in some way prevented from moving. That's the logistics of it. But HOW this could have been done to these people, how each one could have been killed with precisely the same wounds, delivered to their bodies within this close a tolerance, defies logic. "
There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Laskowski asked Laura: "You ever seen anything like this before?"
"Yes," she answered, slowly, "yes, I have."
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Laskowski had stayed for dinner, and Paul had dropped him off at the airport in time for his flight back to Chicago. He'd been clearly disappointed that Laura had not wanted to go into any details about why the pattern of the homicides seemed familiar, but she'd cooked a terrific meal and kept on pouring him more wine, and he'd gotten on the plane hoping that she'd call him soon with something more. Jarod giving him the program he had written to model the stab wounds clearly helped his mood, as well. She'd told Laskowski: "I need to consult a colleague first," and even though Jarod had tried again and again to talk about it, she'd remained distant and uncommunicative. She'd gone into the big bedroom and, oddly enough, lit a pink candle that stood in an old brass holder on her dresser. He asked her about that, too, thinking it strange, but she had brushed his questions off, saying only: "Look, let's start with this fresh in the morning, OK? I know you're on this caffeine high, but I'm not and I'm exhausted and I need to sleep."
"OK," he'd finally said, "if you don't want to talk about it that's fine. Just let's try something else." He'd come up behind her and grabbed her and said ,"Just stay absolutely still for a few minutes, OK? It's important that you don't move."
She'd laughed, thinking he was playing some lascivious game, but suddenly she felt him lunge his balled right fist down, stopping it just before it would have struck her in the chest. She gasped and tried to pull away but then suddenly froze as he made the same gesture again and again, quickly. Laura stood stock still, all the color draining out of her face, her eyes frozen wide--but instead of feeling terror she had this vision of peace and acceptance, of something warm and comforting and welcoming. He let her go, then, physically unharmed--his fist had never once actually touched her, but she fell right down on the bedroom floor when he did, hitting her head hard, collapsing in an untidy heap at his feet.
"Laura!" he exclaimed, kneeling down beside her, "what's wrong? I didn't actually hurt you, did? I didn't mean too--"
"What the hell was THAT, Jarod--oh, God--you were being him, weren't you, you were simulating the killer?" he saw anger replacing fear in her eyes and drew back a bit from her as she stood up and glared at him.
"Well, yes--but I just wanted to see how long the actual killings took, how it happened--the angles of the knife, the sequence of the blows--to have it work I needed you to be surprised, but I never thought---"
"Never do that again!" she said slowly, her voice absolutely steel cold. "I felt that like it was really happening to me, you son of a bitch--haven't I explained to you what I am, how I experience things? You of all people should know better."
"I'm sorry, Laura--I thought you'd understand--"
"No--you understand, Jarod--you understand damned fucking good--never do anything like that to me again, do you hear me?"
"I should have explained--"
"Don't start with me, Jarod--you were enjoying that and I know it. Just a little bit of hostility there, isn't there?"
He took a deep breath. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come back, Laura," he said. "You and I, together--maybe it's not such a good idea. I came back here trying to understand what happened between us. You told me you loved me--remember? Then you left me, and it wasn't just the surprise factor that hurt, I don't understand why you had to leave in the first place. I still don't. In fact, you've made no attempt at all to explain it, Laura--it's a question of trust." He paused, and the anger beneath the surface was clear in the look he gave her. "You seem to think we can just pick things up where they were, but I can't do that. You hurt me and I need to know why. If you love me, why run away? And if you don't love me, why would you ever say those words? You're always so quick with an answer, Laura, do you have some quick answers now?"
"You're asking me questions that I frankly don't believe HAVE answers, Jarod," she began, taking an involuntary step back from him and the anger in his eyes. "And if there are answers, I sure as hell don't have them. I mean, look at me, Jarod--take a good long look: I'm not married, I've never even considered that I could do that. I had a fucking operation so I can't have kids--that's got to tell you something right there. If you want answers about what love is, and if it can last--go find some married chick that's put in some real time and ask her for explanations."
"I did, actually, but I think she was more confused than I am--"
"Well, OK, I could be cynical here and ask if she was wearing any clothes when you had this heart to heart with her. But I'm willing to bet she was trying her best to find those answers, too--which was probably why she was with you. Relationships are hard, it's the toughest shit you'll ever have to deal with--it makes some of the stuff you do look easy, Jarod." She looked away for a moment, trying hard to find her way, fighting her natural inclination to answer with some cynical insult. "Look, I should have thought, you know: 'I've been through this before--breakups and makeups--but Jarod hasn't': maybe I should have understood that you'd take it so hard . . . "
"This is what you mean when you say I'm like a ten year old, right: you don't want to take responsibility for my responses and feelings, do you? It's just another reason I should leave--"
"I don't want you to leave," she said slowly. "I'm, like, really bad at these scenes, Jarod, but I want you to stay, and to be around at least sometimes." She stopped and shook her head, then continued, "You know, all of this is just tremendously complicated by who and what we are."
"I know, you think we're both freaks of nature. I guess what I just did--the simulation--I guess the fact that I can do that doesn't help anything. I'm sorry, I should never have done that."
"No, Jarod--it's OK, when it comes right down to it I guess it had to be done if we're going to figure this out. That was it, wasn't it: that's how it happened?" she asked, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Yes, that's how it happened," he answered, "that's how those four people died."
"Then I understand," she said, "I understand what I couldn't before. I was paralyzed--literally paralyzed. I couldn't have fought against you, even if you'd actually had a knife in your hands. There was something--" she paused, searching for the right word, "--something primitive and powerful--not like fear, not like pain, quite the opposite. . . "
"This was a mistake, Laura--the simulation--"
"Jarod," she said, interrupting him, "would you make love to me--well, like I was Nia, I guess--would you do that now?"
He looked at her, not understanding, quite lost again.
She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips, kissing his palm, closing his fingers around the kiss, looking into his eyes. "I know you don't believe this, but I want gentleness and sweetness and warmth from you--you do that with her, right? Show me how. Because I'm scared, Jarod--I have to do something frightening and I want to feel you love me like that just once."
He reached for her, taking her face in his hands gently and pulling her mouth to his, feeling her lips part softly beneath his, her arms fall gently around his neck, her eyelids flutter against his skin. He stroked her soft hair and fell lightly back on the bed with her, wrapping himself around her, feeling some totally unexpected and new softness and gentleness just flowing out of her, amazed by it, aroused by it, astonished by it. She kissed him back and clung to him--he reached under her sweater to caress her breasts and even that familiar sensation was different, softer, just different; and he seemed lost, suddenly, in something of infinite kindness. Everything was different--about her and about himself, as well: the way he felt, the way he moved, the way his body responded. Even when he entered her--which for the first time in all their time together he did gently and lovingly--she moved with him instead of against him--a part of him, somehow, not the demanding and relentless 'other' that he knew as Laura.
He remembered Nia, of course, who had taught him that desire and tenderness could coexist, but he felt the wonder and awe of that which he desired but could never truly possess--the female, the mystery, that which completed him--to be only in Laura, only in the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin and sound of her sighs and the taste of her breath and kisses. He felt his body melded into hers, beyond just the union of flesh to flesh, and lost all thought and consciousness in his climax, and hers, and the peace that followed: her breathing, her heartbeat. That he had even considered the possibility of leaving her, only a short time before, seemed suddenly laughable. He wanted to just keep on holding her forever, getting more and more lost inside this thing that suddenly was so real and strong, a new thing that was neither of them separately but the two of them joined. Until at some point he looked down at her, pushing the hair out of her face, and knew he had no words for what he felt, but saw the same awareness in her eyes, and in her touch as she stroked the side of his face lightly, smiling up at him.
"Where did that come from, Laura?" he asked, finally, in utter amazement, "where have you been hiding THAT?"
"Love," she answered, "love: there are so many mysteries inside us."
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Laura woke up to Jarod nuzzling the back of her neck and opened her eyes slightly, warily--the room was still completely dark. "What time is it?" she asked.
"It's morning, Laura--the sun will be up in just a few minutes and I thought we could get started--"
"You're living in a caffeine and sugar induced time warp, Jarod. What time is it?" she repeated.
"Five thirty," he answered, bracing himself for her anger.
"You know, until I met you I didn't know there WAS a five thirty in the morning! OK, OK--but I need coffee."
"I made latte for you," he announced, and a huge mug materialized in front of her.
"You don't make latte, Jarod, you make jet fuel with a head." But she sat up and accepted the mug of steaming liquid, which she half expected to eat right through the heavy china. She tried a few sips and started more or less at the beginning: "OK, I didn't want to get into it with Laskowski because it would have sounded crazy, but I recognized the pattern from another case--one of the first I ever worked on, in Philly in 1989. There were four victims, and all had what appeared to be exactly the same stab wounds--just like this. If you check my files you'll get the autopsy reports and the photos. The thing is: the guy was caught in the act of killing the final victim, and shot in the leg by a cop at the scene. He got death--the last I heard he was in the Federal pen at Angola, Louisiana on death row. His name was Radtke, Gordon Radtke. I guess we need to find out when-- and how--the son of a bitch got out."
"That's easy, " Jarod answered, "those won't be difficult records for me to access. Get dressed, get some breakfast--I'll let you know. One thing though, Laura: lives could depend on Laskowski knowing this. Why didn't you at least let me do this search last night?"
"I think you may understand that pretty soon," she answered.
