But she’d still have to prove it, and that wouldn’t be easy. Tom may have assisted, but Campbell was still the key. She’d ordered CES to dust Kussler’s apartment for prints—Kussler and Campbell were lovers—at least before Campbell was loving enough to kill him—so it stood to reason Campbell’s prints would be there too.
More dumb luck, though, when Beck brought in the results. Prints other than Kussler’s were indeed found all over the apartment, but none of those prints were on file.
“You gotta figure, Captain, if Campbell’s smart enough to beat a phone-trace with a home-made software program, he’s definitely smart enough to know his prints aren’t on file,”
Beck commiserated.
Helen could only agree.
“And, check this out,” Beck told her, opening a magazine. “Have you seen this? It came out a few days ago.”
“I don’t read magazines, Jan. I don’t have time to read a fortune cookie.”
The glossy cover shined up. Madisonian Magazine, a slick local-interest publication more prone to city-wide rumors and gossip than any real local interest. All big cities had them. Beck opened it toward the center, passed it to Helen.
“Goddamn it.” Helen was getting to hate this. Here was a long article not as much about the Dahmer Case as about her. A fluff piece. Her academy graduation picture side by side with a snapshot of her leaving the Arlinger murder scene. Local girl makes good, she thought. What a bunch of tripe. The not-very-skilled writer, in genuine fluff style, went on to cite Helen’s education, proficiency ratings, even her age. What about my dress size, you schmuck! Why don’t you tell the readers what brand of tampons I use! She only scanned a few lines: “—a hallmark to modern womanhood, the highest success rate of any investigator on the State Police. Captain Closs, in fact, will be the first woman in the department’s history to make the rank of deputy chief.”
Helen rose a subtle brow. Don’t be so sure.
“Turn the page,” Beck said.
“Oh, no!”
“—but even the ever-busy investigator has time for a relationship. Who’s the handsome mystery man seen here with Closs after a date?”
Helen gaped, aghast, at another snapshot. It was her and Tom, smiling and holding hands as they left Mader’s, downtown’s best German restaurant.
“—our sources here at the Madisonian have identified him as Tom Drake, 38, the state’s Deputy Medical Examiner. Wedding bells on the horizon? We’ll never tell!”
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Helen griped. “And— How on earth did they get that picture?”
“You know these tabloid mags,” Beck informed. “They send their photographers out to hide in the bushes. That guy probably staked you and Tom out, followed you to the restaurant, and then waited for you to come out.”
Helen threw the magazine in the trash, infuriated, as Beck answered the phone. I ought to go down there and sue them! Helen thought. They have no right to print anything about my personal life! And that picture!
But Helen’s ire lost all its steam once Beck hung up and turned to her. The gray-voiced news was becoming commonplace.
“We’ve got another one,” Beck said.
««—»»
The northside of the Circle, the outermost skirts of what was known as the gay district. Efficiency apartment, cramped but neat, reported to the police by a Fed-Ex man delivering a package—a mail order poplin jacket from the Home Shopping Club. He’d knocked on the door, which was ajar, and saw the body lying in the window light on the bed.
Drug evidence was apparent: a gram of cocaine, a bag of pot, some cotton-covered thumb-caps of amyl nitrate.
“Paone,” Beck ID’d. “First name Norman. ID was simple. Twenty-nine years old, a street hustler on the Circle.”
“How do you know?” Helen asked, trying not to stare at the naked corpse. In spite of death, and in spite of winter, the body was tanned. Tanning salon, Helen guessed. Check out all the salons in town.
“We just ran the guy’s name through Mobile Search. Rap sheet longer than one of Olsher’s cigars. Non-distro drug possession, check kiting, multiple busts for solicitation.”
A prostitute, Helen thought.
“Did a year and a half in Mad County Detent.”
“Nothing at Columbus County?”
“No. It was a three-year hitch. Early probation after fourteen months. Same old, same old.”
“Any…” Helen glanced around. A tv, a VCR. North was in adult videos. “Any x-rated tapes on the premise?”
“Nope, at least none that we could find as of yet. We’re still doing the prelim sweep. Why?”
Helen felt too preoccupied to answer. Paone was a male prostitute. So is North…
“Case parities?” Helen reeled off.
“Identical m.o. I’ll do a tox workup, and Tom’ll do the post, but I can tell you right now it’s Dahmer.”
Helen’s nostrils tweaked. “Is that—”
“Cooking smells, Captain? Yes. Used utensils left in the sink. Nice of Jeff to leave them in the sink, huh? Like who’s going to clean them? Paone? The maid?”
Helen’s expression remained fixed.
Red-suited techs crawled on hands and knees, as Helen had seen so many times: vacuuming for hair and fibers, photographing schemes, dusting and fuming and UVing for latent fingerprints. Waste of time, Helen thought. It’s always the same.
“Evidence of makeshift lobotomization,” Beck said, “just like Dumplin. Evidence of deep-cut striations with a sharp, edged implement. Collops of lean-muscle mass removed from the biceps and thighs, probably the parts that were…”
Beck didn’t finish; she didn’t need to. The parts that were cooked, eaten, Helen finished in thought.
“Fresh prints on the utensils and the note.” Beck spoke as an existentialist now, immune to the effects of human tragedy. Just like Helen. “I got a latent classifier here who’s run the point-scale—they’re Dahmer’s. Dahmer was here, Captain, and he was here in grand style.”
“I need a crew of shoes out here to canvass,” Helen muttered more to herself. “Talk to the neighbors and all that. It must be Campbell at the very least picking Dahmer up afterwards.”
“Yeah. I agree. But ten-to-one nobody saw anything, just like the first two. Dahmer may not be smart, but Campbell is. Anyway, Captain, let me show you the note.” Helen followed the red-overalled woman to a cheap, put-it-together-yourself credenza. The note, as before, had already been sealed in lab evidence bag. But Helen could easily read the familiar, blue-felt penned handwriting.
Captain Closs,
He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
“More Bible stuff,” Beck said. “Well have to get the college on it.”
“No we won’t,” Helen said, remembering her own theology classes. “It’s from Proverbs, a reference to adultery…and prostitution.”
Beck’s mouth turned down as if impressed. “There’s more.”
A whore is a deep ditch.