Helen’s voice hitched. “I need your advice—”
“Well, all right, I’ll give it to you, and no offense. But I can tell you, if it was my people running this invest, they’d be doing a better job than you.”
Helen didn’t even react to the slight. He’s probably right. “What I meant is, I interviewed Glen Kussler two days ago, at his apartment.”
“Oh, yeah? Two days ago? Well, he must’ve been pretty cold when you interviewed him. And how the hell did you get him out of that grave, ’cos that’s where he’s been for the last three weeks.”
“The guy I interviewed didn’t even have the same color hair as the corpse, different body frame, different morphology, even different eye color.”
Eules didn’t seem confused at all. “Then it looks like you got a great lead.”
“How so?” Helen asked.
“You interviewed a guy who said he was Kussler. Obviously he wasn’t Kussler, he was just someone claiming to be. A guy trying to dupe you by using Kussler’s name. Find that guy…and you’ll not only find the guy who broke Dahmer out of prison, but you’ll also find Dahmer himself.”
Helen slowly nodded.
“Hey, and that remark I made about you screwing up? That wasn’t personal.”
“Dahmer’s been alive the whole time, but I’ve refused to believe it. I am screwing up.”
“My point is we all do sometimes. Don’t sweat it,” Eules said, shutting down the power consoles. “Need anything from my office—give me a call.”
“Thank you, Agent Eules.”
“And good luck.” He cracked the tiniest smile. “It sounds like a primo mystery.”
««—»»
Helen didn’t even bother reporting back to Olsher. His opinion was plain and so was his demeanor. Instead, she input Kussler’s name and county code prefix into the state Macro Analysis Computer—a rove-tag, it was called. Anything with Kussler’s ID on it would be flagged and copied by the system.
It was a longshot; Helen expected nothing of the search. Instead, the task-command fed her back a name in all of thirty seconds.
««—»»
The tech in Central Programming explained with the same animation she would expect from any computer whizz. Like a cyborg. Like goddamn Data on Star Trek, she regarded.
“You requested a priority systems flag with Kussler as the search word. It snapped up right away,” he said. A nerd, a proverbial caricature complete with pens in the breast pocket of his white shirt, but— Thank God for him, Helen thought. He continued, “Last week, Madison Metro PD’s Prostitution and Obscenity Unit busted a male call-service off the Circle, near the 10-20s of the first two murders. This service had a full client database in their computer index, sitting right there on their phone operator’s desk. POU input it into the state’s mainframe. It’s that simple.”
“That simple?” Helen protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The teckie frowned as though Helen had the brain of a parakeet. “It’s a trick list, Captain. A record of escort pickups. You got the guy’s name—the computer fed it to you.”
“You mean…” Helen pinched her chin. “Kussler was a steady client of the escort service that got busted?”
“That’s right. And he requested the same escort guy each time. What, you want me to give it to you on a napkin?”
Helen ignored the insult. “Thanks,” she said, and whisked out.
««—»»
“Matthew North?” Helen stated, showing her badge. “My name is Captain Closs, and I have a warrant for your arrest.”
A shabby apartment on Stalls Street. North looked flabbergasted in response to her information. “I’m not Matthew North. He’s my roommate, and he’s on a trip.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. North. I have three different bust photos of you.” Her first announcement, of course, was teensy lie. She didn’t really have a warrant, but she needed to gain his attention.
“Fuck,” the young man muttered. “Well, come on in. I’ll get dressed, and you can take me downtown. You goddamn Metro cops, I already been busted two days ago, and bailed myself. What, your guys invent some new charges?”
“Let’s not be hasty, Mr. North. Let’s talk.”
North was so handsome Helen nearly felt her jaw drop. Tight, stone-washed blue jeans, and nothing else. An upper torso that would make the guy on the Soloflex commercial feel shortchanged. He seemed very candid, even very nice in lieu of the threat she’d just dropped on him.
He led her into a small, comfortable living room, with an atypically large television—something like a 40-inch screen.
“Nice tv,” she commented.
“I like to watch my gigs, you know, with friends. We get a good laugh out of it.”
“Your gigs?”
“My video work,” he admitted. He turned, looked at her with wide, bright sloe-eyes and a male-model’s face. “I guess that’s what you’re busting me for now, huh? Your guys already hit me with solicitation charges.”
“You didn’t look at my badge very closely, Mr. North. I’m with the state police, not Madison Metro. I’m a captain with the Violent Crime’s Unit.”
North, at once, seemed outraged. “This is such a bunch of corrupt fascist police bullshit! Violent Crimes? Look, ask any pross. Half the tricks we get are nuts. If some john on my list told you I got violent with him—it’s crap.”
“That’s not what this is about at all, Mr. North. No crimes of violence have been cited against you. I just want to talk, maybe even make a deal.”
“Oh, yeah?” This information perked North up at once. “Okay, you wanna talk, let’s talk. You want a drink or something? I got green tea, Coke, diet Sprite, and hard stuff if ya want.”
“I’ll take a diet Sprite, Mr. North. Lots of ice if you have it on hand. And thank you.”
North disappeared into the kitchen. A reflex told her to put her hand on her gun in case he tried to book, or came back with a weapon, yet her senses were acute enough to know that was unnecessary. This guy wasn’t going to run—he wanted to talk a deal, and Helen hoped she could offer him one.
She felt an uncharacteristic urge to peer at his nude chest when he returned, simply because she’d never seen such a nice physique in real life. Tv, movies—sure. But not for real. You should be on magazines, or soaps, she felt inclined to tell him. She took the drink. “But, first, Mr. North, I’m curious about your previous comment, something about your gigs?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said and sat down on an opposing couch. Clipped bangs waved over his eyes. “And there’s nothing illegal about it. I got a model release and an STD test for each gig.”
“But I still don’t know what you mean by gigs.”
“My films,” he said. “My x-rated vids.”
Vids, she thought. Videos. “So you’re a movie star, is that it, Mr. North?”
“I’m not ashamed. Most people who watch x-rated’s? They’re shut-ins, crippled, can’t meet people because they’re too shy, too inhibited. I got no problem with that.”
Helen considered this. “Neither do I. I could care less. But…well, it’s none of my business but—”
“You want to know how much I make in vids?” He chuckled. “That’s what everyone asks. It’s not as much as you might think. I’m what they call a second-top name, that’s one rung down from the stars like Jake Wrangler, Dick Black, Todd Swann—those guys. I cop a c-note and a half per scene.”
Helen’s brow creased; she couldn’t help it. “That sounds like pretty good money, Mr. North.”