Anatomy (4 page)

The detective bit her lower lip, then nodded. He loaded the
account and found her just the right chat room. Her fingers pulled back,
though, when she realized it was a female-female environment.

“I…I can’t.”

“Oh,” Kent cooed. “You can.”

With a deep breath, Nicole put her fingers back on the
keyboard and typed. “Hi.”

Okay, maybe she couldn’t. At least not without some
coaching.

“Remember,” Kent whispered. “We are seducing. We create a
presence then allow them to come to us. We need to be the dominant.”

Nicole nodded. “Yeah, right. Sorry.”

As the seconds stretched out, Kent could feel her tense. Her
fear that she had ruined the moment was palpable. There was no place for fear
in a seduction.

“Which one do you think will respond?” Kent asked, trying to
keep her mind off the blank screen in the private chat window.

The detective’s gaze scanned over the list of participants.
There were over twenty five, yet, to his eyes, there was only one.

“
Ready2Party
?” she guessed.

That was not the one.

“Too many options,” Kent explained. “She’ll have plenty of
girls hitting on her. We need someone a bit more complicated than that.”

Nicole shook her head. “They all seem pretty much the same.”

This detective had so much to learn. So many layers to peel
back.

Kent pointed to a name. “
Chastity4U
.”

He watched as her eyes squinted, reading the name. Kent
didn’t have to ask, he knew she was trying to figure out why he had picked that
one.

“She calls herself Chastity, yet is in a sex chat room,”
Nicole stated, sounding a bit unsure of herself. Off his nod, she continued.
“So she is already lying.”

Kent didn’t have to affirm her theory, since Chastity IM’ed
Nicole. The detective looked over to him and grinned. He had called it yet
again. What could he say? He was on a roll.

As Nicole responded to Chastity, Kent leaned in. Too intent
on the screen, the detective did not move away. He breathed in her kiwi shampoo
as he watched the pounding of her carotid just beneath the skin. Nicole was an
odd mixture of sweet and sweat. Tender and tenacious. Kent hadn’t expected to
find that combination in this Mid-Western town.

The bell on the door jingled as another after-work client
walked in. Who did these people think they were fooling? No one came to an
internet café unless they wanted to hide something. The FBI might as well just
put out a blanket search warrant on all café computers. It was well known that
over fifty percent of the business conducted here was illegal in nature. The
other half? Well, they might as well just hand the transcripts of their
sessions over to their spouses along with a guide to quick divorce.

A ding brought Chastity’s response.

Kent leaned in even further—this was about to get
interesting.

* * *

Nicole fidgeted in her chair. She read, then reread
Chastity’s IM. “So what do you like?”

She had watched Harbinger navigate exactly this question
half a dozen times, yet Nicole couldn’t think of a single response. “What
should I answer?” Kent was at her shoulder. Somehow his knee was brushing
against hers. When had he moved so close? She angled away a bit. “Well?”

“Tell her the truth,” the profiler said.

“I’m straight,” Nicole clarified. She didn’t have any
problem with not being straight, it just wasn’t how she was wired.

“Tell her a fantasy, then,” Kent stated. “Those are actually
more truthful than we like to admit.”

Nicole leaned back from the keyboard. “I thought we were
creating a false persona. Acting out what
they
want to hear.”

“Ah,” the profiler said, leaning back as well. “But you
won’t be convincing unless your seduction comes from a real place. Somewhere
inside, you know exactly what both you and she want.”

It didn’t seem possible, yet Nicole’s fingers did know
exactly what she wanted to type. “Role-playing.”

“I’m intrigued,” Chastity wrote back. “Who? Where?”

There were some pretty obvious choices. Going for the
Marquis-type seduction or the standard two chicks in a hot tub, but Nicole
didn’t want to be obvious.

“Clothes shopping,” Nicole wrote. “Two friends, same booth.
I’m straight. You aren’t.”

Chastity seemed to take the bait whole. “I help you with
your dress’s belt, smoothing the fabric over your hips.”

“Helping adjust my neckline,” Nicole prompted.

“My hand accidently brushes against your breast.”

“I don’t pull away.”

The profiler put his hand on the keyboard. “Okay, we don’t
want to give away too much of the milk before she buys the cow.” Nicole jerked
her fingers back, startled at his intrusion. She hadn’t realized just how
intent she had been on the screen. Harbinger continued. “Let’s make the date
and peace out.”

As Nicole complied, out of the corner of her eye she watched
the profiler. Was he a little flustered? Was he really averting his eyes from
the screen? Or was he just too busy taking notes?

Wait. That pad and pen looked familiar.

“That’s Ruben’s set!” she said, snatching the items from
Harbinger.

The profiler didn’t even try to hide the fact he had stolen
them from her partner. “The leather is so supple, and the pen? Glides across
the paper.”

“I gave him that for Christmas,” Nicole exclaimed,
retracting the pen’s tip and tucking it inside the small leather holder.

“Really?” the profiler stated his eyebrow arching. “Your
first Christmas together and you get him a pad and pen set? How
practical
.”

Feeling the tips of her ears burning, Nicole was even more
horrified to find that the profiler had transcribed everything she’d said to
Chastity into Ruben’s notepad. Nicole ripped the page out, crumpling it, then
shoving it deep in her pocket.

“What?” Harbinger asked. “I was just trying to give him some
pointers.”

Before she could retort, the clerk called out from behind
the counter, “I’m going to need another twenty if you want another hour.”

That couldn’t be. Nicole looked down at her watch. It had
been nearly an hour. Ruben must be going ballistic by now, wondering why she
wasn’t in the interrogation with him. She looked down to her phone to find two
missed calls and four texts from her partner. How had she missed them?

“That’s it, I’ve got to get back.”

“I’ll drive,” the profiler said as he stood up.

It wasn’t until then that Nicole realized that she did need
a ride. Ruben had taken the car, and by now all the patrol cars would be gone.
She didn’t have time to argue. The sooner she got back to the station, the
better.

Harbinger led them out of the internet café and to a dark
brown SUV. He unlocked the door with a click of the remote. Nicole climbed in,
getting seated and snapping her seat belt closed. To her surprise, the profiler
turned on the ignition and pulled out into traffic without any hesitation. She
half expected him to stall or tell her they had a stop to make.

Certainly he wasn’t giving her a ride out of the goodness of
his heart. She’d only known him for a few hours, but that just didn’t seem to
be how he operated. But they were making a beeline for the precinct, so she
couldn’t complain. Well, maybe she could complain. The interior of the car
smell like…cigar. Didn’t the rental car company clean it out between drivers?
Harbinger didn’t strike her as the type to smoke, especially not cigars.

Then she noticed the parking permit swinging gently from the
rearview mirror. A permit for the morgue’s parking lot.

“This is Dr. McGregor’s SUV!”

“I figured at some point we would need a set of wheels,” the
profiler calmly explained.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Nicole knew that panicking wasn’t going to help keep away
the wrath that would rain down upon her from the Medical Examiner, but her
panic was well warranted.

“We’ve got to return it.
Now
,” Nicole emphasized.

“All in due time,” Harbinger answered, leaning his elbow
against the open window frame.

“No,” Nicole snapped. “You don’t understand.”

But the profiler smiled. “Oh, but I think I do.” Then he
winked.

What had she gotten herself into?

Ruben checked the clock. Again. Nicole was never late. His
partner had a metronome in her head. If a waiter said the entrée would be out
in five minutes, Nicole would not have to look at her watch to advise him if he
were a moment overdue. Ruben even questioned why she even wore a watch in the
first place.

“Yes, detective,” the lawyer who sat across from him said.
“We’ve all got other things we would like to be doing.”

No doubt they did. Ruben returned his focus to the suspect
sitting across from him. At first glance, you wouldn’t take him for a serial
killer. The anatomy professor looked like, well, an anatomy professor. He had
the air of a professional nerd. Black-rimmed glasses and all.

However, if he were so innocent, why was he always so cagey
during his interrogations? Ruben had flagged him months ago, after the initial
round of interviews. The man never answered a question directly. And his lawyer
was no help.

Levinson closed his briefcase. “If we are done, my client
would like to go home to his wife, who, I might remind you, has already given
him an alibi for last night.”

Ruben had hoped to wait for Nicole before really getting
into the meat of the interrogation. Her presence seemed to fluster the
professor. However, he couldn’t wait any longer.

Slowly, he opened the folder with the latest crime scene
photographs. “Look familiar?”

As always, the professor shoved his glasses up the bridge of
his nose and studied the dissected bodies. His eyes coursed over the organs as
his lips moved without sound. Carefully, he lined the pictures up. The head at
the top. The chest area next, then the abdomen. Finally, the pelvis and legs.

“I would have used more sharp dissection than blunt. It
creates a better distinction between the muscle groups.”

Ruben had to constrict his throat as bile threatened. “She
was alive when this was done to her.”

The professor looked up, frowning. “And for that I am sorry,
but I had nothing to do with it.”

“Do you know how most people react when they see something
like this?” Ruben asked, then answered his own question. “They are horrified.
Revolted.”

Munz went to answer, but his lawyer laid a hand on his arm
and spoke instead. “Unless the legal code has changed since we’ve been in here,
being an outlier is not a crime.”

Ruben knew he was losing this round. Soon, very soon, Munz’s
lawyer was going to insist that they either charge his client or let him go.
Ruben could, of course, reveal that fact that they had surveillance on Munz
which could break his wife’s alibi. But Ruben wanted to hold that back. Let
Munz and his lawyer believe that they had nothing on the professor. All the
better when they finally caught Munz in the act.

“So, as I said, I think this interview is—”

The lawyer’s words were cut off as Nicole rushing in. She
mouthed “sorry” as she closed the door. Ruben noted that Munz sat straighter in
his chair, his shoulders back like an English schoolboy.

“Detective Usher,” the lawyer said with a nod. If Ruben
wasn’t mistaken, the guy actually thought he had a chance with Nicole. Like
she’d ever go out with a defense attorney.

“Mr. Levinson,” Nicole answered as she sat down.

“Fashionably late?” the lawyer asked. “Or did you find some
exculpatory evidence for my client?”

When she didn’t answer, Ruben looked to her. Nicole wouldn’t
meet his eyes, but she did push his notepad and pen toward him. Weird. He
didn’t think he’d given them to her.

Levinson’s eyes darted between them. “Something I should be
aware of?”

“No,” Ruben stated. “But I would like to know your client’s
exact movements last night.”

The lawyer sighed. “You do tape these interviews, correct?
And since you already have him explaining that he was home all night with his
wife about three times, I think you can just make a loop of it and we’ll never
have to come in again.”

“How about one more time,” Ruben suggested. If he could just
trip Munz up, he wouldn’t have to reveal the surveillance.

“As much as I would love”—Levinson emphasized the “love” as
he nodded to Nicole—“to continue this conversation, my client pays me by the
hour, and it would simply be highway robbery to go over it all again.” There
wasn’t much Ruben could do as the lawyer rose, urging his client up. “So I
think we are going to call it a night.”

* * *

Nicole watched as the two pushed their chairs back, getting
ready to leave. She should have been here. But, really, would it have made much
of a difference? Ruben was so certain that the killer was Munz, but after
Harbinger’s demonstration, she wasn’t so sure. Her partner had no theory on how
Munz would have met and seduced all of the victims. And the professor had
always seemed so…obvious.

Yes, in common crimes it usually
was
the most obvious
suspect. A wife turns up dead, you look to the husband. A child? You look to
the parents.

But this crime was anything but common. So an
anatomy
professor
being The Anatomy Professor seemed so out of character for the
killer who went to such great length to cover his tracks.

The more time they spent on Munz, the less time they spent
on finding the real killer. They needed to rule him in or out, like right
now
.

“Just tell us, professor,” Nicole said before she realized
she was going to speak. “Tell us the truth so we can move on.”

Everyone turned to her. Ruben’s eyes questioning what the
hell she was doing. Nicole’s gaze sought the two-way mirror, picturing the
profiler standing behind it, watching her, judging her, urging her to get this
over with.