Act of Betrayal (8 page)

Wall shrugged. “He could’ve gone out for booze after the two of you parted, and stocked up at home. I’ve known Schultz a lot longer than you have, and I can’t imagine him doing anything like that. But then he’s never seen his only son murdered and plumped up like a hot dog, either.”

“Oh God, Howard, do you think he did it?”

Wall shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope not, but things look bad. His car was found parked right in front of his house. It’s got a broken headlight and blood that’s the same type as the girl’s. Probably the DNA testing will confirm it.”

“Did he lend his car to someone? What does he say about it?”

“I’d sure like to hear his side of things, if I could just find him.”

PJ realized that he was hinting that Schultz was at her place. “I haven’t seen him or heard from him since I put him in the cab last night,” she said. She said it with enough conviction so that Wall was evidently satisfied, at least for the moment. He rose and walked toward the office door.

“Wait, I’ve got an idea,” PJ said. “He phoned his ex-wife yesterday. I know he felt bad because he wasn’t there to tell her in person. Maybe he’s at her home in Chicago.”

“Yeah, we’ve thought of that. No one answers there, and the Chicago PD says nobody’s home. They’re looking for Julia and her boyfriend. God Almighty, PJ, it looks like they might be hiding him. I didn’t think I’d ever be saying anything like this, but he’s wanted for questioning for vehicular assault. If that little girl dies, it’s manslaughter, at least.”

N
EWS TRICKLED IN TO
PJ in her office, brought by Dave, Anita, and Howard Wall, concerning the murder of Schultz’s son, the status of the little girl, and Schultz’s disappearance. She felt as though she were a spider sitting at the center of a great web of information gatherers. Every knock on her office door was a twitch on one of the strands of the web, bringing the spider to full alert.

Rick Schultz’s toxicology results, the first few quick tests, showed a .08 blood alcohol content, right at the state’s legal limit. He had stopped off for a few drinks between his release from prison and his fatal encounter in the nearly vacant apartment. Police officers were trying to trace his steps, visiting bars and liquor stores, displaying Rick’s picture. It was possible that he had hooked up with someone and gone with that person, so that the death was opportunistic and not planned.

Remotely possible,
PJ thought.
About one chance in a zillion.

The notes that he had received in prison from Ginger seemed to indicate a plan that had been in place for months. A cellmate claimed that Rick had started getting the notes about five months ago, only a month into his short sentence. That was also about the time that Ginger Miller, whoever she really was, rented the apartment on Lake. The notes came every couple of weeks and Rick was secretive about their contents. He only bragged that he had a girlfriend on the outside and she was hot for him.

In the middle of the morning, Anita made her way to PJ’s office with something PJ had been waiting for: copies of the two notes found on Rick’s body. He had folded them into tight strips and put them into his back pocket. The HazMat team had removed them from Rick’s contaminated clothing and bagged them for analysis. Because of their sheltered position inside his pocket, they had not been exposed to the acid condensation.

“All those lines are crease marks,” Anita said as she handed the copies to PJ. “The originals had been folded and refolded so many times it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen apart. ’Course, one was practically glued together. When the lab techs soaked it to spread it open, they probably could have filled a sperm bank.”

“Geez, Anita, don’t mention that to Schultz.”

Anita sniffed. “I know when to keep my mouth shut. Besides, he’s a big boy. I don’t think Schultz’d be shocked to find out that his twenty-six-year-old son got his rocks off occasionally.”

PJ bent over the note. There was no date or return address on it.

Ricky,

It’s almost time now. I’m lying here naked thinking about what I’m going to do to you. The first thing is take your clothes off so I can get a good look at what you’ve been saving up for me. I figure we’ll take a shower together and I’ll wash that prison stink off you. I want you to soap me up real slow. I hope you’re getting hard just thinking about running your hands all over my body, but wait until you get out, Ricky. Don’t you go sticking that cock of yours any place that isn’t my hot slit, baby. You come straight to Mama.

Love and kisses you-know-where,

Ginger

“That’s it?” PJ said. She was disappointed that the note didn’t offer more to go on.

“The other note’s just like it,” Anita said. “Just the basics. I guess that’s what a guy who’s been in prison for a few months wants to hear.”

PJ considered. “Besides the obvious imagery, there is something here that I’m sure Rick picked up on whether he realized it or not. A feeling that he’s really special, that this woman is waiting just for him.”

“There’s a little bit of a threat there, too, don’t you think?” Anita said. “Maybe he enjoyed being told what to do. Dominated.”

PJ thought back to her simulation, in which Rick didn’t object when he was tied into the chair. She quickly scanned the copy of the other note Anita had brought, but there was no overt reference to bondage.

“Were any other notes recovered?” PJ said. “I’d like to know if Rick expected to be tied up when he entered the apartment. Was he being intentionally submissive, and that’s the way Ginger got control of the situation? I’ve been wondering how she managed to overpower him.”

PJ thought back to the Bonnie and Clyde of her simulation. She had assumed that there were two people waiting in the apartment for Rick, one of them the enticing female who wrote the letters and the other, most likely a strong man, as backup in case the enticement didn’t work. Perhaps two perpetrators weren’t necessary if it was known to the killer that Rick would go along willingly with a bondage scenario.

“Do we even know for sure whether or not Rick knew Ginger before he went into prison?” PJ asked. “If they didn’t know each other, why would she suddenly start writing to him?”

Anita shrugged. “We’ve been through Rick’s apartment, and spoken to a couple of buddies of his. He had an off and on roommate, off when Schultz ran him out, I think. Anyway, the roommate kept the apartment, and stored Rick’s stuff since he was expected back in just a few months. No mention of Ginger, no photos or notes in the apartment. As far as his friends know, he wasn’t seeing anybody right before the arrest, although there was a girl named Kathee Kollins about six months prior to that. Two k’s, two e’s. As for why Ginger started writing to him in prison, women do crazy things like that. I read it in Ann Landers.”

“I’d like to talk to Ms. Kollins. Anybody know her whereabouts?”

“Dave’s looking her up. Although I’d like to be the one there with you when you ask her if she likes to tie up her guys.”

“Maybe it’ll be obvious, and I won’t have to ask.”

Anita’s brows knit. “Obvious? Like she answers the door in leathers, with a whip in each hand?”

“That’s not quite the same thing. You’re thinking of sadism. There’s usually a bondage component to sadism, but bondage can be used without inflicting any pain. It can be all about power.”

“You sound like you know entirely too much about this kinky stuff,” Anita said. “Is this the shrink talking or the practitioner?”

“The psychologist, of course. Back in Newton, Iowa, where I grew up, everybody thought S&M meant spaghetti and meatballs.”

Anita laughed. “Good one, Doc. Too bad Schultz isn’t around to appreciate it.”

Anita drifted out, leaving PJ with her thoughts. PJ reread the notes, finding that they didn’t reveal much about Ginger from a psychological viewpoint. She had the sense that the writer was older than Rick, but that was just a hunch. The words seemed too blunt and confident for a person the same age as Rick, and there was that reference to Mama. That could be just a phrase in common use or there could be something to it, that the woman was old enough to be his mother.

On the other hand, the cutesy signoff indicated a younger woman, maybe even a teenager. Ginger was shaping up to be quite a puzzle.

Lieutenant Wall stopped in at about twelve-thirty and uncharacteristically asked PJ to lunch. She accepted, and found herself sitting across from her boss in a Subway a few blocks from Headquarters. It wasn’t the best place for conversation because of the noise level of the lunch crowd, but at least their words didn’t travel beyond their own tiny table.

She told him about her first simulation effort, which she had been working on refining all morning, in between news bulletins on the two cases. He nodded approval, but seemed distracted.

“I have a couple of items of bad news,” he said, brandishing a potato chip in her direction as if he were scolding a child. She hadn’t gotten over the feeling that he was somehow holding her accountable for Schultz’s actions. Schultz was, after all, a member of her team, and she had been the last one to see him. She couldn’t escape her own recriminations, thinking that she should have stayed the night at Schultz’s, sleeping on his couch. Looking back on it, she thought she had been looking for the easy way out. Had she been too eager to get home to Thomas, to fall into her own bed and put the horrible events of the day out of her thoughts, at least for a few hours? She’d called Schultz on the phone when she got home, but gotten only his answering machine. She had planned to call back in a few minutes, giving the taxi a little longer to deliver him, but her pillow had beckoned and she’d never gotten around to it. Things could have been radically different if she’d just stayed with him. For one thing, he wouldn’t be missing.

Wall kept his eyes on the table. It was uncharacteristic of him, and she braced herself for bad news.

“Caroline Bussman died at eleven forty-two this morning. We’re not just looking for a hit-and-run driver now. We’re looking for a murderer.”

“You said manslaughter earlier.”

“I said manslaughter at least. With witnesses claiming that it was deliberate, the prosecutor will go for murder.”

PJ closed her eyes and let the anger she had felt when she first heard about the girl bubble to the surface. The Bussmans’ lives were forever changed when an orange Pacer veered onto the sidewalk and struck their daughter. Justice seemed a hollow concept when measured against the taking of a young girl’s life and a lifetime of agony and guilt for her parents. Yet justice was all the St. Louis Police Department had to offer, and even that might mean the painful stripping away of the defenses of one of their own.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” PJ said. “Her family must be devastated.”

Pain showed in Wall’s face, and in the eyes he turned up to meet her own. She knew he had four children, including a little girl Caroline’s age. He was taking the death of the four year old hard.

“She never regained consciousness,” he said, his voice barely carrying across the small table. “They never got to say good-bye.”

PJ nibbled at her sandwich in silence. Her appetite was gone, but the mechanics of moving the food up to her mouth and chewing it gave her something to concentrate on while both of them regained their objectivity.

A noisy slurp alerted her that Wall was ready to continue the conversation. “Next item. Schultz didn’t take the taxi home,” he said. “We found the driver and he says he let Schultz out after you left. Apparently our man Leo drove home in his own car. If he even went home.”

PJ narrowed her eyes. “That rat,” she said. “He certainly fooled me. And I paid that driver twenty-five dollars, too.” She felt her cheeks flush. She, the experienced psychologist, had been blatantly fooled. She had been too close to events to see what Schultz was planning.

“He was humoring me, and I fell for the whole thing,” she said. “He was just looking for a way to ditch me and go off and do whatever it is he really wanted to do.”

She thought again about the way the evening had gone, about pushing away his hands that had persistently taken liberties, and wondered if that had been an act, too. Burning with indignation, she pushed her feelings down like a jack-in-the-box being pressed back into its brightly painted box, and snapped the lid closed on them. The crank immediately started turning and the music was playing, though, and sooner or later those emotions were going to be right back in her face.

When they were nearly finished with lunch, PJ excused herself to visit the rest room. She had just seated herself in the cramped stall when her cell phone rang. Fumbling with her purse, she removed the phone and answered the call.

“Gray. CHIP,” she said automatically, responding as if she were in her office.

“My, aren’t we formal?” Schultz said. “I happen to know you’re not at Headquarters.”

PJ’s head swiveled around, shocked to hear his voice, and even more shocked to think that he was watching her and knew where she was at that exact moment.

“Schultz,” she hissed. She was hunched over on the toilet with the phone pressed to her ear so that his voice couldn’t be overheard even in the ladies’ room, ignoring the fact that she was perfectly alone. “Where the hell are you? What’s the idea of fooling me with that taxi?” She lowered her voice until she was almost growling into the phone. “And if you ever put your filthy hands on me again, drunk or not, I’ll slice off your balls and fry them for breakfast, you, you faker!”

“That’s my girl,” he said. “I knew you’d be happy to hear from me.”

She was mute with a fury that overrode any consideration of Schultz’s situation or recent events. She pressed her lips together and glared at the back of the stall door. Her gaze should have melted a hole through it in moments, but evidently the door was hardier than most.

“Where are you?” she demanded in a whisper, when the wave of anger had crested.

“In the train station in Chicago,” Schultz said. “Didn’t Julia tell you? I told her to call.”

So he had gone to visit Julia, after all. “How did you know I wasn’t in my office? Do you have somebody watching me right now?”