Stalked (24 page)

He wondered if the neighbors knew about the sex club. He didn’t think so. The people next door probably thought Sonia and Delmar hosted elegant dinner parties behind drawn curtains and would have been appalled to find out what was really going on. Appalled. Curious. Excited. Angry that they weren’t invited.

Sonia’s husband Delmar, the urologist, emerged from the front door, wearing a gray suit and a dressy wool coat. He was several inches shorter than Sonia and considerably wider. The wind mussed the comb-over across his bald pate. He patted his hair down and got behind the wheel of a new, black Mercedes sedan.

Penises paid well.

Delmar roared off down the hill. Stride stubbed out his cigarette, got out of his Bronco, and crossed to the median. The front door opened again, and Sonia came out. He felt a stir of nostalgia, seeing her. It took him back to a time when his body was young and hormone-filled, like a showroom car itching for the highway. In her forties, Sonia still carried an aura of sex. Her red hair blew like a tornado. She was tall and took quick, careful steps in her heels down the icy brick walkway. Her coat was open, and he saw a forest-green silk blouse and black skirt.

He crossed the rest of the street, and she melted, too, just a little, when she saw him. There was a softness in her face that came and went quickly. She realized he wasn’t smiling.

“Hello again,” she said.

“I need to talk to you, Sonia. Can we go inside?”

“I’m late. I need to open the shop. It’s mine now, you know.”

“This won’t wait.”

Sonia crossed her arms. “Maybe I watch too much television, but I don’t really have to talk to you at all, do I? I can just get in my car and go.”

“Sure. I’ll just talk to the newspapers instead.”

“About what?”

He leaned close to her and whispered. He smelled jasmine perfume. “Alpha girls.”

Sonia’s face, already pale, went bone-white. “All right.”

She led him back to the house. Inside, she took off her coat and showed him to the living room. He took a seat on a lemon-colored sofa, which was firm and didn’t give under his weight. The room was modern and expensive. An oil painting on the wall showed what looked to him like squiggles of red and blue paint. The coffee table was chrome and glass. He saw an abstract metal sculpture of a nude near the fireplace.

Sonia kicked off her heels and sat in an armchair across from him. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes. “It’s okay to smoke, if you’d like.” She lit one up and blew the smoke toward the ceiling fan.

“I’ve had my one for the morning.”

“What willpower.” She put a stocking-clad foot on the ottoman. Her leg was long and slender. “The club meets downstairs, if you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“So what, do you and Serena want to join? We’d love to have you.” She smiled.

“No, thanks.”

“It’s not a coven, for Christ’s sake. Nobody gets hurt.”

“I think a rapist is targeting your club.”

Her smile vanished. “That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not. You know what happened to Katrina, don’t you?”

“Yes, but what makes you think that had anything to do with the club?”

“Katrina was assaulted
one day
after the last party. Did you think that was just a coincidence?”

Sonia jabbed her cigarette at him. “I know every man who was there. It couldn’t have been any of them. So yes, I thought it was just a coincidence. Or even—”

“Even what?”

“I even thought Katrina might have made it up. You know, like Tanjy did. I thought she might be feeling guilty about what she did at the club. It happens.”

“It wasn’t just Katrina,” Stride told her. “Another alpha girl was assaulted.”

Sonia closed her eyes. “Son of a bitch,” she murmured. “Who?”

“I can’t say.”

“Are you sure she was in the club?”

“I’m sure.”

“Is this going to become public?”

“Very likely.”

“Shit, shit, shit.” She shook her head. “Do you have any idea what this is going to do to us?”

“Try thinking about the women who were brutalized, Sonia.”

“Yes, of course, I know. I just can’t believe this could involve the club. We are
very
careful about who gets in.”

“What about Tanjy? Was she an alpha girl?” Stride asked.

“No. I put out a couple feelers with her, but she wasn’t interested.”

“Tanjy had no connection at all to the club?”

“None. Are you telling me she really
was
raped? Look, that means there must be some other connection. Tanjy didn’t know a thing about the club.”

“Don’t get carried away. Two of your alpha girls were assaulted. That’s not a coincidence.” He added, “Tell me how this all works, Sonia. How you get your members. How often people meet. What happens.”

Sonia put her cigarette in a turquoise clamshell ashtray. “I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this.”

“Every woman in the club may be in danger, Sonia. Including you.”

“Even so, it might be better if I talked to a lawyer first.”

“Go ahead, but then it all comes out,” Stride said. “Do you want me to get a subpoena? Do you really want all this in a filing with the court? We’re just getting started with the information I need.”

Sonia leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. Her neck was slim, like a swan’s. “Just between us?” she asked.

“For now.”

“All right,” she said with obvious reluctance. “We have about twenty members. Mostly couples, but some singles, too. No one gets in without a personal invitation from me and Delmar. Referrals only. We do background checks on everyone before letting them in.”

“Have you ever had to ask anyone to leave? Someone who behaved inappropriately?”

She nodded. “Once we had a couple who declined to wear condoms when having sex with each other at the club. I’m very, very strict about that. We didn’t invite them back. Another time we had a man who slapped an alpha girl. Two of the men escorted him out immediately.”

“What was his name?”

“Wilson Brunt. I don’t think you’ll find that he was involved, though. He was transferred out of state at least six months ago. He’s in Oregon now.”

Stride wrote his name down. “How long has the club been going on?”

“About a year. It was my idea.”

“Big surprise.”

“Oh, come on, Jonathan, don’t you get bored sometimes?” Sonia waved her hand around at the living room, as if she despised her suburban surroundings. “We’re in our forties. Old age is knocking on the door. You think this red hair doesn’t come out of a bottle now? You think Delmar’s equipment just springs to life when I take off my clothes? Tick tick tick, that’s the fucking mortality clock staring us both in the face. You can go buy a convertible to deal with your midlife crisis. I wanted something else.”

Stride ignored her. “How often do you meet?”

“Usually about once a month. Sometimes more.”

“Does any money change hands?”

“No!”

“What about drugs or illegal substances?”

“Absolutely not. No way.” Her eyes danced nervously, and he figured she was lying.

“Tell me about the alpha girls.”

Sonia shrugged. “I was the first. I took on six men and three women in one night. That’s still the record.”

“Good for you,” he said flatly. Their eyes met. Sonia knew what he thought and didn’t care.

“When we started, the only alpha girls were wives of members,” she continued, “but a few times, we’ve had women who were interested in being alpha girls for the night.”

“How do they find out about it?”

“Through members. We’re all very discreet. We only approach a woman if we have reason to believe she’s liberated sexually, and even then, we take it slow. We don’t share any details about the club itself until the woman expresses interest. An outside alpha girl never knows the names of members. It’s all anonymous.”

“You mean the masks?”

Sonia frowned. “You know about that?”

Stride didn’t say anything.

“Yes, we wear masks. It’s partly to protect identities, but frankly, we’ve heard from the women that they like it. There’s an extra kick, an extra thrill, when they don’t see the faces.”

“What actually happens?”

“Why not join us and see?” Sonia asked.

“Don’t be cute.”

“I’m not. You’re always welcome. I asked Maggie if you might be interested, but she said you’d sooner trim your nose hair with a razor blade.” She realized what she had done and said, “Shit. I never use names. It’s just that she—”

“Never mind. I know all about it.”

“Oh my God, did something happen to Maggie?”

Stride’s face was stone.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” Sonia said. “I can’t believe this. She didn’t come back after she was the alpha girl, and I just thought she was freaked-out by the experience.”

“You brought it up. Tell me about Maggie and Eric.”

Sonia shook her head. “This is just fucking terrible.” She reclaimed her cigarette, and it wobbled between her fingers. “Eric was involved from the beginning. The first outside alpha girl was an athlete from the Czech Republic who was in town about her Olympic equipment.”

“Was Maggie involved from the beginning, too?”

He realized he was holding his breath, not wanting to hear the answer.

“No, she was only here twice. The first time, she and Eric were behind the wall.”

“What does that mean?”

Sonia hesitated. “One wall of the temple is all mirrors. There’s a small bedroom behind the middle section where someone can watch. Eric wanted Maggie to see what the club was like.”

“So no one knew they were there?”

“Just me. Afterward, Eric persuaded Maggie to be the alpha girl at the next meeting.”

“I’d love to know how he did that,” Stride said, half to himself.

“Maybe she saw it as payback for all of Eric’s affairs. He had to stand there and watch.”

“Skip the details, what happened afterward?”

“I did her, too, you know.”

“I said,
skip the details
,” he snapped. His voice was loud.

Sonia looked pleased to have riled him. “Maggie didn’t come to the next party, but Eric did. Katrina was the alpha girl. That was the last time for Eric. He told me later he was giving it up for Maggie’s sake.”

“When is the next party?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
, Stride thought. They didn’t have much time, but they also had a new chance to lure the rapist out of his cave.

“Who’s the alpha girl?”

Sonia hesitated again, and Stride said, “Just tell me, and skip the bullshit, Sonia. I have plenty of probable cause for a warrant.”

“Her name is Kathy Lassiter. She’s a partner with a Twin Cities law firm. She has a house on the North Shore. She’s been to several parties before, but not as the alpha girl.”

“Have you ever heard of a woman named Helen Danning? Was she in the club, or was she an alpha girl?”

“No, I’ve never heard of her.”

“All right, let’s talk about how this information is getting out. How could someone find out that a woman was an alpha girl in the club?”

“I don’t see how they could,” Sonia protested. “All the alpha girls not only sign a form releasing us from legal liability, they also sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No way. We don’t want people having an attack of the guilts and suing us, and we don’t want loose lips spreading this around all over the city. Members sign similar documents, too, when they join. Plus a code of conduct.”

“Good luck litigating those contracts.”

Sonia smiled. “Well, I don’t think we’d take anyone to court, but signing the docs makes people realize how serious we are about confidentiality and responsible behavior.”

Stride tried not to laugh at the irony. “Even so, everyone who’s there on a given night knows who the alpha girl is.”

“Not necessarily. We don’t give people a name if the alpha girl is an outsider. They’d have to know her or recognize her from outside the club.”

“Or follow her.”

“I suppose so.”

“Do you keep records of members and who attends individual parties?”

Sonia nodded. “Absolutely. I keep that on our home computer upstairs. We don’t want any legal hassles over the club, so we’re fanatical about records, contracts, nondisclosure agreements, background checks, etcetera. We keep all that stuff. No one has ever challenged us, but we’re ready if they do.”

“How secure is your computer? Do you have a wireless network?”

“Are you kidding? Not a chance.”

“How about an Internet connection?”

“Well, yes, but it’s totally secure. I had Byte Patrol install the most sophisticated firewall available. It’s about as hacker-proof as you can get. Believe me, no one got the information out of our computer.”

“That leaves the members,” Stride said.

Sonia frowned. “I told you, we vet them.”

“I’m going to need names.”

“Oh, shit, there’s got to be another way.”

“No, we have to interview them all.”

“Look, you said two alpha girls were assaulted,” Sonia argued. “We don’t have the same members at every party. Different people come, depending on their schedules. I can get you the names of men who were at both parties with those women, and that should narrow it down.”

Stride nodded. “I’ll start there, but give me the whole list. All the members, and all the participants at every party. Include the alpha girls, too. I’ll need to talk to all of them, because I need to find out if anyone else was assaulted.” When Sonia hesitated, he added, “I’m not kidding. I’ll go to court, and I’ll splash this all over the papers if I have to.”

Sonia got out of the chair. “It’ll take me a few minutes,” she said in a pinched voice.

“I’ve got time.”

Ten minutes later, Sonia came back with a sheaf of papers in her hand.

“This is everything. Look, I’m begging you, be discreet. Delmar will kill me if this gets out.”

“No promises, Sonia.”

He found the lists for the two parties where Maggie and Katrina were alpha girls, and it took him only a few seconds to compare the names to see who had been at both events. Other than Sonia’s husband, Delmar, there were only four men who were present both times.