Mortal Fear

“No. It’s understood by both parties that if a blind-draft account has insufficient funds for even a single payment, the company assumes the client no longer desires its services, and access is immediately terminated.”

“I don’t buy that,” says Mayeux’s partner. “I don’t believe any company would kiss off that kind of bread without making sure the client wanted to quit.”

How can I explain this to them? “Jan Krislov is the sole owner of EROS. And whether you believe it or not, she’s not in it for the money.”

“Oh, I believe it,” mutters Baxter.

“Then why does she charge so damn much for the service?” Mayeux’s partner asks doggedly.

A faint smile crosses Arthur Lenz’s patrician face. This alone draws all eyes to him. “The high fee functions as a crude screening system,” he says softly. “Correct, Mr. Cole?”

“What kind of screening system?” asks Mayeux’s partner.

Lenz answers for me. “By charging an exorbitant rate, Ms Krislov ensures that her online environment is accessible only to those who have attained a certain position in life.”

“Flawed system,” says Mayeux. “It assumes rich people aren’t assholes.”

“I said it was crude,” Lenz admits. “But I imagine it works fairly well.”

“It works perfectly,” I say, unable to keep the admiration out of my voice. “Because there are other constraints on membership.”

Curiosity flares in Lenz’s eyes. “Such as?”

“EROS is open to any woman who can pay the fee, but any man who wants to join has to submit a writing sample for evaluation.”

“Who evaluates the sample?”

“Jan Krislov.”

“What are the criteria?”

Unable to resist, I point at Mayeux’s partner. “He wouldn’t make the cut.”

Mayeux lays an arm across his partner’s chest and asks, “How many people belong to this thing?”

“Five thousand. Half of them male, half female. The numerical relation is strictly maintained.”

“Gays allowed?” Lenz asks.

“Encouraged. And contained within that ratio.”

Mayeux shakes his head. “You’re telling us this Krislov woman has personally evaluated twenty-five hundred writing samples from men writing about sex?”

“Personally approved twenty-five hundred samples. She’s evaluated a lot more than that. There’s a waiting list of twenty-eight hundred men at this moment.”

“So Jan Krislov sits up at night reading her own personal Penthouse letters,” Baxter says in a gloating voice. “I know some senators who’ll eat that up.”

“Probably beats watching Leno,” pipes up the local FBI agent. “For a woman, I mean,” he adds hastily.

Dr. Lenz leans forward in his chair. “I doubt these samples are as crude as you assume. Are they, Mr. Cole?”

“No. There are some gifted people on EROS.”

Mayeux’s partner snorts.

“To wit, Karin Wheat,” says Lenz.

“One more thing,” I add. “Not all the men on EROS are wealthy. Certain men have submitted writing samples that impressed Ms Krislov so much that she gives them access free of charge. Sort of a scholarship program. She says it improves the overall experience for the women.”

The secretary nods her head in a gesture I read as Right on, girl.

“I’d be very interested in studying some of these online exchanges,” Lenz says. “You have some in that briefcase?”

“Yes.”

Baxter asks, “Does anything stand out in your mind that these women had in common?”

I pause for a moment. “Most of them spent a lot of time in Level Two—my level. Their fantasies were fairly conventional, by which I mean they involved more romance than sex. They could get kinky, but they weren’t sickos. No torture or revolting bodily substances. The truth is, I don’t know anything about these women in real life. Only their fantasies.”

“Their fantasies may be the most important thing about them,” says Lenz.

“Maybe,” I allow, “but that’s not the sense I got. I’m not sure why. What did they have in common in real life?”

“None of your goddamn business,” snaps Mayeux’s partner.

“I see. Well, I guess that’s my position too.”

Dr. Lenz inclines his head toward Baxter, who says, “All the victims were under twenty-six years old except Karin Wheat, who was forty-seven. All were college educated, all Caucasian except one, who was Indian.”

“Native American?” asks Chief Tobin.

“Indian Indian,” says Mayeux’s partner, tapping a file on the table. “Dot on the fucking forehead.”

“I don’t recall an Indian name,” I say, almost to myself.

“Pinky Millstein,” says Baxter. “Maiden name Jathar. Married to a litigation attorney who traveled a lot. There was also an Indian hair found at one of the other crime scenes. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Well … one of Strobekker’s aliases is Shiva. That’s Indian, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Dr. Lenz says softly. “Shiva the Destroyer. What are his other aliases?”

“Prometheus. Hermes.”

The psychiatrist remains impassive. “What about the victims? Does anything come to mind that links their online code names?”

“Not that I could see.”

“What else stands out in your mind?” asks Baxter.

“Strobekker himself. No matter what alias he uses, his style is unmistakable.”

“How so?”

“He’s very literate, for one thing. Intuitive, as well. One minute he’s writing extemporaneous poetry, the next he cuts right to the bone with some insight into a woman’s character, almost as though he can answer whatever question is in her mind before she asks it. But the strangest thing is this: he must be the best damned typist in the world. Lightning fast, and he never makes a mistake.”

“Never?” Lenz asks, leaning forward.

“Not in the first eighty-five percent of contact.”

“What do you mean?”

“With the sixth victim, and with Karin Wheat, I realized that Strobekker began making typographic errors—just like anyone else—a few days before each woman dropped offline. When I went back and studied my printouts of the killer-victim exchanges, I saw that the typos began at about the eighty-five percent point in each relationship. Of course, I didn’t know anyone was being killed.”

“You sound like you’ve distilled this thing down to a science,” says Baxter.

“I work with numbers.”

“Running this sex thing?” asks Mayeux.

I chuckle bitterly. “No, I got into EROS for fun. You believe that? I earn my living trading futures.”

My audience stares as if I’ve announced that I am an alchemist.

“In a dink farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta?” asks one of the young FBI agents. “Who are your clients? Farmers hedging their crops?”

“I only have one client.”

“Who?” Mayeux asks suspiciously.

“Himself,” says Arthur Lenz.

Dr. Lenz is obviously the alchemist here. “That’s right. I only trade my own account.”

“You some kind of millionaire?” asks Mayeux’s partner. “A goddamn gentleman farmer or something?”

“Keep a civil tongue, Poché,” snaps the chief.

“I do all right.”

“What about the final fifteen percent of contact?” Lenz asks, plainly irritated by the squabbling.

“He makes mistakes. About as many as anyone else. And his typing gets slower. A lot slower.”

“Maybe he starts jacking off with one hand as he gets closer to the time of the hit,” suggests Poché.

The chief frowns but lets that pass.

Dr. Lenz strikes a pose of intense meditation as the door behind me opens swiftly. I turn and see a black woman in her twenties holding a computer printout in her hand. There is handwriting scrawled across it in blue ink.

“What is it, Kiesha?” asks the chief.

“We traced Strobekker, David M.”

A cumulative catching of breath in the conference room. “Rap sheet?” Mayeux asks tentatively.

“No.”

“Minnesota DMV?”

“No citations. Had one car—a Mercedes—but the plate expired last year.”

“So who is the guy?”

“An accountant for a glitzy firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

I realize that Kiesha is trying to communicate something to Chief Tobin through eye contact alone. Despite her telepathic urgency, she is unsuccessful.

“What is it, dear?” asks Arthur Lenz, as though he has known the woman since childhood.

“He’s dead,” she says, almost as if against her will. “David M. Strobekker was beaten to death in an alley in Minneapolis eleven months ago.”

A hot tingle races across my forearms.

“Holy shit,” says Mayeux. “What are we dealing with here?”

Daniel Baxter points a finger as thick as a Colt Python barrel at Kiesha. “Details?”

“Minneapolis homicide says it looked like a mugging gone bad. Strobekker was single, probably homosexual. He was slumming on a bad stretch of Hennepin Avenue. His skull was so pulped his boss couldn’t recognize his face.”

Dr. Lenz emits a small sound of what I can only interpret as pleasure.

“Positive ID?” asks Mayeux.

“Dental records and a thumbprint,” Kiesha replies. “His company kept thumbprint files; don’t ask me why. But it was Strobekker for sure.”

“Not for sure,” I say, surprised to hear my own voice.

“Why not?” Baxter asks sharply.

“Well … say Strobekker is the killer. Say he decided to fake his own death so that he’d never be suspected in later crimes. He takes a thumbprint from a wino, puts that in his own personnel file, then kills the wino and pulps his face.”

“What about the dental records?” asks Baxter.

I shrug. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“You watch too many movies.”

“I must see the body immediately,” Lenz says to Baxter, his eyes still on me.

“Jeff, call the Minneapolis field office,” orders Baxter. “We want a judge who’ll give us an exhumation order ASAP. Then call the airport and book the first flight up there.”

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“A pineal gland, among other things,” says Lenz, watching me closely. “Ever heard of it?”

I shake my head while I memorize the term. My knowledge of anatomy is limited, but my wife’s is encyclopedic.

“The two women who died in California were linked because a pathologist from San Francisco happened to mention an unsolved homicide case to a colleague at a convention. A woman had been murdered by strangulation, then had both eyes removed and wooden stakes driven through the sockets. When the pathologist sectioned the brain, he found that the points of both stakes terminated in the third ventricle of the brain—a little too perfectly for him. Stranger still, he found that part of the pineal gland was missing, which the stakes would not account for. The colleague who heard this—a pathologist from Los Angeles—had an unsolved homicide that was completely different in almost every respect. A woman had been beaten to death with a claw hammer, probably by someone she knew. Her brain sustained horrific damage. But this did not explain why much of her pineal gland was gone. This chance conversation ultimately linked the crimes. Then the police promptly charged down the wrong track and decided they were dealing with cult murders.”

Lenz’s tone of voice when he says “police” earns him few friends in this room. He points his index finger at me.

“You tied those two victims to four others, through EROS. All four of those women also died from severe head wounds, or sustained postmortem head trauma. Pistol shot, shotgun blast, lethal fall. One was decapitated, as was Karin Wheat. We’re exhuming the first three and conducting repeat autopsies on the heads. If the condition of the brains permits it, I strongly suspect we will find that these women are missing all or part of their pineal glands.”

The psychiatrist is staring at me as though he expects me to start filling in gaps for him.

“What the hell does the pineal gland do?” I ask.

As Lenz and Baxter stare silently at me, my survival instinct tells me it’s time to test the bars on this cage. “Look,” I say, directing my words to Chief Tobin, “I think you guys have definitely stepped out of my area of expertise. Can I go home now?”

“Not just yet,” Tobin says. “Do people ever use their real names on this sex network?”

I try to suppress the feeling that I’m going to be spending the night in a New Orleans hotel, if not jail. “Almost never. The code names are what allow them the freedom to say and be whatever they wish. They might exchange phone numbers to facilitate an f2f meeting, but—”

“What’s f2f?” asks the chief.

“Face-to-face.”

“Oh. So did the victims give him their numbers?”

“Not in the conversations I’ve printed out.”

“So how do you think he’s learning their names?”

“I think he’s somehow gained access to our accounting files. There’s a master client list in the company’s administrative computer, with account numbers, addresses, everything. That’s where I got Strobekker’s name.”

“Who has access to that list?” asks Baxter.

“Myself, Miles Turner, Jan Krislov. Maybe a few techs. That’s it. The computer handles the billing automatically. It’s a pretty sophisticated system.”

“Who is Miles Turner?” asks Lenz.

“He’s the primary sysop. We grew up together in Mississippi, but he lives in New York now. He’s the one who got me into this job.”

“So you think the killer is hacking into the accounting database,” says Baxter.

“I don’t know. Miles tells me it’s impossible, that the list is protected like nuclear launch codes, but as far as I can see it’s the only way the killer could get the names. He must have seen that master list at least once. Maybe printed it out.”

“Not the only way,” interrupts Mayeux’s partner. “You or this Miles character could have given the list to someone. Or sold it to them.”

I’m on the verge of telling this guy to fuck himself when Baxter asks, “Who does security for EROS?”

“Miles,” I reply, still watching Mayeux’s scowling partner.

“This Miles Turner is highly proficient with computers?” asks Baxter.

“‘Highly’ doesn’t come close.”

“He has a degree?”

“MIT.”

“Serious program,” says one of the younger FBI agents.

“Graduate degree?” Baxter presses.

“Degrees, plural. I don’t know the exact names, but his specialty is computational physics.”

“If he’s so damned smart,” asks Mayeux’s partner, “how did Strobekker break through his security?”

It’s clear that everyone detests this little rat as much as I do, but his question is a good one. “I don’t know. And he refuses to believe anyone has.”

“How many techs are there?” asks Baxter.

“Four, five. I’m not positive they have access to the master list, but I think if they wanted to see it, they could figure a way. They’re good. Miles handpicked every one.”

The two younger FBI agents are murmuring between themselves. From the lips of the one with whippet eyes I catch, “… nail that fuck with a phone trace … subcontract some NSA geeks … next log-on … no time—” before Baxter silences them with a glare.

“Mr. Cole,” he says gently, “if you don’t mind, we’d like you to draw us a floor plan of the EROS offices before you go.”

This startles me. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“Never?”

“They’re obsessively private about the place. Why do you need that anyway?”

No one answers.

“You’re not gearing up for some kind of Waco thing, are you? This is nothing like that. There’s a reason for all the secrecy. We have very famous clients.”

“Relax,” Baxter says. “We’re not the ATF.”

“You’re all initials to me, Mr. Baxter.”

“We can arrest your ass right now!” yells Mayeux’s partner, finally losing control. “I don’t know why the hell we haven’t already!”

“Go ahead!” I shout back, my anger boiling over. “You want to arrest me for linking these homicides for you? The Press might be real interested to hear a story like that. In fact, my wife knows one of the TV news anchors here from her school days. Maybe I should give her a call.”

“Let’s everybody just calm down,” Chief Tobin booms. With his department under fire from all quarters for corruption, the last thing he needs is more press scrutiny.

“Now can I go home?” I ask again.

The chief looks hard at Baxter, who in turn looks to Lenz. Lenz finally gives a reserved nod. Baxter reaches into his inside jacket pocket and passes me a card. “This is the number of our headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. I want you to check in once a day for the next few days. Obviously we’ll need to speak with you again. Possibly at some length.”

Mayeux’s partner looks like he just swallowed a cigarette butt with his coffee, but Chief Tobin’s hard gaze keeps him muzzled.

“I’d like to study your EROS printouts on the plane,” says Lenz. “You are going to leave them with me?”

I open my case, lift out the thick stack of pages, and drop it at the center of the table. “They’re all yours. But when Jan Krislov lands on me with both feet and a dozen lawyers, I’m going to expect some payback from you guys.”

“Leave Krislov to us,” says Baxter.

Measuring Daniel Baxter against my mental image of EROS’s cold-blooded CEO, I stifle a retort and turn to go. One foot is outside the doorway when Lenz says, “Mr. Cole?”

I turn back, expecting some Columbo trick just as I taste freedom. Lenz smiles oddly. “What instrument do you play?”

The question throws me off balance. Is this some bullshit Barbara Walters question? What kind of tree would I like to be? But of course it’s not. I do play an instrument, and somehow Lenz knows that. “Guitar,” I answer blankly.

The psychiatrist nods, a trace of disappointment in his eyes. “Do you sing?”

“Some people think so. I never did.”

The rest of the group looks from me to Lenz, then back again, trying to understand this odd coda to our meeting. My bewilderment holds me in place until the psychiatrist says, “Calluses, Mr. Cole. You have well-developed calluses on the fingertips of your left hand.”

The hand closes involuntarily. I squint at Lenz, imprinting his face in my memory, then turn and step into the hall.

On my way out of the station, I pass a knot of middle-aged men in sweat-stained suits. They are obviously waiting for something. Their angry voices mark them as anything but Southerners, and before I am out of earshot I realize they are waiting for me.

I quicken my steps.

Once outside, I reflect on Dr. Lenz’s little performance. He’s an observant man. But is he smart? A smart man would simply have noted the calluses and bade me farewell. Unless he felt that quickly discovering what instrument I play was important. But even then, a smart man would have remained silent after I answered his question, leaving me mystified by his deductive skills. Yet Arthur Lenz insisted on doing a Sherlock Holmes impression for his captive audience of Lestrades. Why?

The doctor was showing off. I don’t know why, but this is somehow important. I cannot escape the feeling that the entire low-key meeting was a carefully orchestrated interrogation designed to look and feel like anything but that. Baxter and Lenz playing good cop while the NOPD played the heavy. Or maybe it’s more complicated than that. But if they really suspect me, why not arrest me and give me the third degree? Or throw me to the out-of-state wolves who were waiting for me?

One thing is certain. The FBI controlled that meeting. I am free because they want me free. Why do they want that? Could the FBI—like Chief Tobin—be afraid of the media? It’s possible. After seven murders—eight including Strobekker—the Bureau’s elite serial killer unit has managed to link exactly none of the crimes. Wrongly accusing the good citizen who connected the murders for them might make their precious Unit an object of ridicule on Nightline, not to mention Hard Copy, which is already feeding on the case.

I have only intuition to go on, but the voiceless voice in my head has rarely failed me. As I pull the inevitable parking ticket off the windshield of my Explorer and drop the crumpled ball into the gutter, that voice is saying one thing loud and clear: You have more problems today than you had yesterday.

SIX

One of my office telephones is ringing when I turn the key in the front door of the farmhouse. Thinking it’s Drewe, I race to catch it.

“Hello, snitch.”

This is not Drewe. The voice in the earpiece is at once strange and familiar. It belongs to Miles Turner.

“You’ve really shaken things up, haven’t you?” he says.

“What have you heard?” I ask, shocked at the sauna-level heat that has accumulated inside the house during the day.

“Jan is very upset with you.”

“I figured. Did the FBI call her?”

I hear a faint tsk. “Did they phone her? No, Harper. That would be much too easy for the Federal Bureau of Incompetence. They showed up at the door of our offices with a search warrant.”

“What? At EROS? When?”

“Two hours ago. Special agents from the New York office.”

“What did they see?”

“Not much. Jan locked the master client list in the file room the minute Reception buzzed her and said the FBI was in the building. She refused to give them a key, and that room is like a vault. Actually, it is a vault. It reminds me of your grandfather’s bomb shelter—Eisenhower chic. It’s got a time lock. Seventy-two hours before that monster opens. I guess the FBI could blow it open or cut it with a blowtorch, but they haven’t tried. They just posted two men outside it. They didn’t even confiscate our servers. Jan thinks the raid was pure intimidation.”

“I don’t think so, Miles. All six of those women I told you about were murdered this year. Karin Wheat makes seven. And David Strobekker, the man I thought was the killer, makes eight.”

“So says the FBI.”

“Come on, man. Wake up and smell the fucking coffee! I overheard one guy whispering about phone traces, bringing in the NSA, George Orwell stuff.”

“As a matter of fact, Jan is about to give the FBI permission to set up tracing equipment right here in the office.”

This stops me. “But you just said she hid the master client list from them.”

“She did. But Jan’s no fool. She knows she’s walking a fine legal line. There is apparently some question of a duty to warn. Warn the subscribers, I mean. She feels that by cooperating with the FBI in tracing Strobekker—or whoever he is—she demonstrates that she’s not obstructing the FBI merely for the sake of doing it.”

“At least somebody up there is thinking straight. How long do they think it will take to trace Strobekker if he does log on again?”

“If he’s stupid, no time at all. Personally, I don’t believe they have a chance in hell.”

“You sound glad about it, damn it!”

Miles laughs softly. “I haven’t heard you this excited in a while. Did Karin’s death affect you so deeply?”

I swallow. “You knew her?”

“Of course. We exchanged quite a few messages during the wee hours. Karin was one of the pillars of Level Three. A thoroughly interesting woman.”

I think quickly. “I … I know that. But—”

“But you never saw any of my aliases in exchanges with her, right? That’s what you’re thinking?”

“Yes.”

“I have many names, Harper. Even you don’t know them all.” He pauses. “You don’t always tell women you’re a sysop, do you? That you know who they really are? That would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it? It’s amazing how the perceived anonymity of a code name lets them open up, isn’t it? Especially the actresses. There’s nothing quite like boffing a three-million-dollar thespian online while she thinks you think she’s someone else, is there? You can play them like your guitar then, can’t you?”

I say nothing.

“And how is Drewe Welby, M.D. taking all of this? Did she finally break the camel’s back and send you running to the FBI?”