Mortal Friends (18 page)

Amber Corey was considered to be the sixth known victim of the Beltway Basher. Like the others, she was a slim, dark-haired woman who had died as a result of ferocious blunt force trauma to the head and whose body was found partially clothed in the woods of a public park. And, like the others, she had a connection, however tenuous, to Bob Poll.

I
f it hadn’t been for Violet, I never could have gotten through the next couple of weeks. I think Amber’s murder caused me to have a mini nervous breakdown. I forgot how much she had annoyed me and only remembered her as a sweet young woman who was simply trying to do her job as best she could. It’s one thing to have a safe armchair read about a serial killer, and quite another to actually feel his breath on your neck. This monster had invaded my life. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might be next. If Violet and Gunner were right about this psychopath, Amber had been picked deliberately, not at random. And if the killer knew her, he knew me.

I told Violet I was terrified to be alone in my house, and she promptly invited me to move into her guest room.

“Until you feel safe,” she said.

“I’ll never feel safe again,” I told her.

Tee was home for the weekend when I arrived at the house. He was the spitting image of Grant—a sandy-haired, fine-featured boy with the same standoffish attitude of his father. He was very polite and respectful, but he generally kept to himself, playing endless video games and texting on the phone. He called me “Aunt Rev.”

I was dying to ask him what he thought of the split between his parents, and his opinion of his incumbent stepmother. But he was one of those kids who didn’t invite chummy chats with adults. He did, however, seem older than his fourteen years. I think he found his mother and me vaguely amusing. He liked to hear stories about our school days together. Sometimes I got the feeling he was watching
the two of us together as if he were watching characters in an old-fashioned play. Aloof as he was, Tee seemed much more sophisticated and savvy about life than we were at his age. Occasionally, flashes of Violet’s macabre humor popped out of his mouth. Like the night before he went back up to school, and we all had dinner together. We were talking about the murders when Tee turned to his mother and said pointedly, “Well, at least one person’s happy about them. Right, Mom?”

It was so true. The flurry of excitement kicked up by the case was about the only thing that could have taken her mind off Grant and Cynthia.

The media pounced on the story. I got my fifteen minutes in the sun all right—buried alive with honey on my head and a swarm of reporters buzzing around me night and day. I refused to talk to any of them, but I read every scrap they wrote about the case. It turned out that Amber Corey was a party girl with several boyfriends. Police suspected she’d been killed after a party she’d attended in Adams Morgan. One article suggested she’d worked at King Arthur’s. I knew Gunner would love that.

Violet was more interested in the way she died.

“She was raped with a foreign object that tore apart her insides, then smashed on the head. Or maybe he smashed her first, then he raped her. Anyway, it’s just like all the others,” Violet said. “It’s definitely the same guy.”

I have to say I found Violet’s interest in the physical details of the crime a little off-putting. There is such a thing as too much information. I just couldn’t stop thinking about poor Amber’s last moments. It made me ill, imagining what she’d gone through and the terror she must have felt.

“She must have known not to go into Rock Creek Park alone…. That big desolate tract of woods? She was dumb, but not that dumb. It just doesn’t make any sense,” I told Gunner.

“She was murdered somewhere else and dumped in the park,” Gunner confided.

That little fact hadn’t been in any of the papers. Neither had the fact that, like all the other girls, Amber had a link with Bob Poll. Given the way Bob had treated me, I was ready to admit I had no idea who he really was and finally take Gunner’s suspicions about him seri
ously. I told Violet that I was coming around to the idea that Bob Poll might actually be the killer.

With Tee gone, Violet and I had the house to ourselves. It was kind of like being back in school again, except there was no homework—if you don’t count having to watch forensic shows with the hostess. Bill Kurtis of
American Justice
and John Walsh of
America’s Most Wanted
were her heroes.
Law and Order
and
C.S.I.
were mandatory viewing.

“Did Grant approve of your preoccupation with crime?” I asked her one night after a marathon of cold case shows.

“He didn’t care. Grant didn’t notice all that much about me, you know. I remember once I asked him which of two dresses he liked best. I put one on. He looked at it. Then I went back into the dressing room, counted to sixty, and came out in the exact same dress. He looked at me, said, ‘The other one,’ and went back to his book. He wasn’t very interested in me, now that I think about it. I wonder if he really looks at her,” she said wistfully.

“It’s been my experience that what they do to one, they do to another,” I said.

I think Violet liked having me around, and I have to say it was rather wonderful to get up every morning and have someone to bitch about life with. Gunner knew I was living at Violet’s house, and one day he called and asked if he could come over and talk to me.

“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of that house,” he said.

“I thought you wanted to keep our relationship a secret,” I said.

“From the Park Police. But you can tell your pal Violet—on the way-off chance you haven’t already.” No fool, Gunner.

“I haven’t,” I protested weakly. He just let it drop.

Violet was thrilled she was going to get to meet the intriguing detective at last. I knew she’d always been a little envious of my relationship with Gunner. Though he’d already guessed I’d told her about him, I told her to play dumb when she met him.

“For God’s sakes, don’t let on how much you know,” I instructed her.

It was one thing for Gunner to suspect I’d told Violet everything, and another for her to confirm it.

“Fine. And how much does he know about
me
?” she asked.

She gathered from my hesitation that I’d told him everything. I half expected her to throw a fit. But she just laughed.

That afternoon, Gunner came over to Violet’s house, and I introduced them for the first time. They shook hands. Violet flashed him one of her queen-at-teatime smiles and said, “How do you do? So nice to meet you, Detective. Oh, love your diamond stud!” She pointed to his ear, as if it were an unexpected touch. I could tell she wasn’t fooling him, but Gunner was polite. He didn’t let on. He complimented her on her house, the décor of which was what I call “Old World Weary.” Rainy Bolton was the original decorator, and the whole place reflected her joyless, juiceless touch. Violet had hardly changed a stick of furniture in the fifteen years since she and Grant had been married, for fear of offending her formidable mother-in-law. It was Rainy’s view that serious people didn’t care all that much about clothes or decoration.

When Gunner admired the drab but important American eighteenth-century highboy in the hall and asked if she’d gotten it from my shop, Violet replied haughtily, “No, no, that’s a family heirloom.”

She meant Grant’s family, of course, because from what she’d told me, her own family was pretty short on heirlooms, if you don’t count lava lamps and avocado green kitchen appliances. She sounded slightly pretentious, which surprised me because she’d always feigned a certain disregard for the shabby grandeur surrounding her. But now that Grant had left her, she clung much more to the physical property of their marriage as evidence of her connection to the Bolton clan.

Gunner wanted to talk to me in private. Violet led us to the library, where we could be alone. Unfortunately, this was the room where the portrait of Grant’s maternal grandfather, Colonel Compton, hung above the mantelpiece like a big black cloud. The colonel’s eyes followed you around the room no matter where you stood, making you feel guilty about something.

The Ancient Maureener brought us tea and biscuits on a silver tray. I sat on the old leather couch. Gunner sat catty-corner to me on the fraying needlepoint wing chair. I poured us both a cup of tea.

“Any more news about Amber?” I asked him.

Gunner shook his head. “Listen, Reven, I need you to do something for me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“It involves answering some difficult questions.”

“What kinds of questions?”

“Questions about you and Mr. Poll.”

“Go ahead. Fire away.”

Gunner shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “How was the sex between you two?”

“I never kiss and tell, Gunner…” I paused, just to tease him a bit. “But if you must know, it was okay. Maybe the earth didn’t move, but it trembled occasionally,” I said coyly.

“Was he into bondage or anything unusual? Any kind of rough stuff?”

“The answer is no. And I know why you’re asking.”

“Why?”

“Because I know from Violet—our in-house serial killer buff—that when you guys have a suspect, you always want to know what kind of sex they’re into. You want to find out if it’s anything kinky that might be reflected in the crimes. Right?”

“Kinda.”

“Violet told me that when the police interviewed Ted Bundy’s live-in girlfriend, she revealed that Ted sometimes liked to tie her up and pretend to strangle her…. But that she didn’t think anything of it at the time.
Oy
.”

“So Mr. Poll never did anything that made you…uncomfortable?”

“Not really. It was missionary madness all the way.” Gunner looked thoughtful. “
What?
You’re thinking something. What is it?” I asked him.

“Well, I maybe just figured out why he likes to go to strip clubs.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that your Preacher Poll is a little more adventuresome with other types of ladies.”

“What do you mean?”

“He likes it rough with strippers. He’s been known to rope and brand.”

“Not
literally
?”

“Oh, he’s a regular cowboy, our boy Bob is. But he’s discriminating. He only picks gals who won’t talk.”

“Well, one of them obviously talked to you.”

“Yeah…. I guess I’m just a persuasive kinda guy.”

As I was thinking back on the sex I’d had with Bob, Gunner said, “So you never felt like you were in any danger.”

I shook my head in grim amusement. “No. In fact, I felt safe with him—idiot that I am.” Then I suddenly remembered something Bob had said. “But wait! I remember I did once ask him what thrilled him, and he said, ‘Danger.’ I remember that now.”

Gunner cocked his head to one side. “He say what kind of danger?”

“I asked him that, actually. And he said something like anything that caused his gut to contract. But I have to be honest with you. I never felt threatened by him.”

Gunner crossed his arms in front of him. “Try a little experiment with me?”

“What
now
?”

“Lie down on the couch, close your eyes, and say whatever comes into your head about Mr. Poll.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m serious.”

“You really ought to be a shrink, you know that?”

I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes, like he said. I started venting about Bob and how he’d humiliated me. This didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere, so Gunner suggested I be more specific.

“Forget how you feel about him now, and describe a typical date you had with him—from beginning to end. Where you went, what you talked about, who you saw, what you wore, what he wore, what you ate, drank, where you ended up. Say whatever comes into your head, no matter how dumb or insignificant it seems.”

I’d had some experience with free association on an analyst’s couch. I rambled on about the time Bob took me to the Folger. I chose that night because we’d had such a great evening, and I wanted to show Gunner that I wasn’t a complete and total masochist. The man really had made an effort to sweep me off my feet. I didn’t just
imagine
the whole damn thing.

I described how Maxwell came to pick me up at my house, as usual, and how we drove downtown to pick up Bob at his office, as usual. I told him about the whole evening—the program of writers at the theater, who was there, what the dinner was like, who we both sat next to, what I was wearing, the man who talked about bookbind
ing, how Bob held my hand as we strolled through the library, Cynthia’s million-dollar pledge, the fact that I’d been worried about him sitting next to Cynthia, and how relieved I was that he didn’t seem to like her. In reliving it, I began to feel this terrible sadness welling up inside me. I’d been so happy then. And I was so miserable now.

“It was freezing on the way home,” I went on. “So Bob put the green mink blanket across our legs, and—”

“
Stop
,” Gunner said. He said it quietly, but urgently. “Repeat what you just said.”

“I said it was freezing on the way home, and Bob put the green mink blanket across our legs.”

“What green mink blanket?”

“The one he kept in the car for cold weather.”

“Describe it.”

“It’s this gorgeous blanket from Pianissimo. Like a throw, you know? It’s dark green mink and cashmere. He had it custom-dyed to match the Rolls.”

Gunner was silent. I snaked my head around and looked at him. He was staring hard into space, his eyes burning with intensity, like he was about to ignite.

“
What?
”

“You say he kept this blanket in the car?”

“Yes.” I sat up.

“All the time?”

“Yes…well, probably just in the winter for the cold weather. It was very cozy. Why?”

“How many times did you see it?”

“I don’t know. It was always in the car. Oh, one time it was in the trunk, and Maxwell got it out for us.”

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the green mink blanket had something to do with the case. I hadn’t been watching all those forensic shows with Violet for nothing. I knew that forensics were pretty much the only way to go these days.

“They found a green hair on Amber, didn’t they? I’m right, aren’t I? Did they find green hairs on Amber?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. I knew it was another detail that had been kept from the public.