The Last Blue Plate Special (12 page)

“Kate Van Der Elst, Dixie Ross, and Mary Harriet Grossinger all had cosmetic surgery at the Rainer Clinic,” I said when Roxie
and Wes Rathbone returned from the dance floor. “I just talked to Kate.”

“Hmm,” he replied. “I did check out the Rainer Clinic Web site after what you told me at the station earlier. There are two
surgeons—Jennings Rainer and Megan Rainer. From the photos on the Web site, I’d guess father and daughter. Pretty amazing
all the stuff they can do.”

A slight flush had crept up his neck and into his sandy hair at that last remark. Roxie grinned in a manner I can only describe
as diabolical and said, “Yep, laser phalloplasty’s the latest rage. Any good pictures on that Web site?”

Wes Rathbone’s craggy cheeks were now bright pink. He looked like an aging English schoolboy.

“Phalloplasty?” I said. “Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”

At some point in my life I had learned that the correct term for a nose job is “rhinoplasty” because “rhino” is a Greek prefix
meaning “nose.” “Phallos” is also Greek, the end later Latinized to “us,” and means the symbolic erect penis carried in ancient
Greek festivals honoring the god Dionysos. “Phalloplasty” would have to mean a penis job.

“Penile enhancement,” Rox said. “Longer, thicker, straighter. It’s a gold mine, a total cash cow. Half the dermatologists
I know are taking out loans to go back to med school, get a degree in cosmetic surgery just so they can do dick enhancements.
I’ve thought of it myself. It’s such a moneymaker I could retire after two years.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Rathbone said. “Showed the Web site to a couple guys, they couldn’t believe it.”

“Hey, it’s one of the biggest markets for cadaver skin around,” Roxie said cheerfully. “So. what else did you get on this
clinic?”

“An address in La Jolla,” Rathbone answered after swallowing several times. “Tomorrow we’ll have everything—an employee roster,
bios on everybody who works there. Not enough evidence to bring Jennings in for questioning, or I would’ve done it. All we
really have are threats.”

“And two dead women,” Roxie pointed out. “A third woman hospitalized for symptoms which may reflect a condition similar to
the one that killed the first two. And a fourth woman in seemingly good health who has also received a death threat. Two dead,
two alive, all threatened, and all patients at the Rainer Clinic. Seems like enough for a few questions.”

“Not yet,” Rathbone insisted. “Not until we have some guidelines for the investigation. That’s where you come in. Dr. Bouchie,
what are we dealing with here?”

“Could be coincidence, probably isn’t. Could be somebody connected to the clinic, somebody with access to medical files on
these women. Somebody aware of a preexisting condition in each of them that might be fatal, although that’s an impossible
stretch. This person wants the promised fifteen minutes of fame and goes after it by making dramatic public threats against
high-profile women who are for some reason likely to die of natural causes anyway. Weird, but scarcely murder.”

Rathbone stretched his legs and said, “Is that what you think is going on?”

Rox sat up straight, looking serious. “No, it’s not what’s going on, so I’m going to tell you what to look for.
If
there’s a serial killer operating out of the Rainer Clinic, this is going to be one for the books. The Holmes typology breaks
serial killers into ‘organized’ and ‘disorganized,’ which is rather obvious but makes a useful starting point. This person
falls in the ‘organized’ category, holds down a professional job, is bright, educated, reads newspapers, has an adequate social
life. In other words, there will be no flashing neon signs saying ‘perp.’

“Your cops may be intimidated by the context at the clinic, the aura of wealth which is likely to surround it. They may also
be snowed by the clinic staff, who will wear the same aura. The poor do not have cosmetic surgery, and the rich are most comfortable
in medical surroundings which suggest that their doctors are also rich. The surface behaviors there are very likely to mask
any pathology present in one of the employees. Have your detectives interview the Rainer employees someplace else, preferably
places where the suspects feel out of place and uncomfortable.

“And there’s no point in pretending the investigation is about something else. This person
wants
attention and will be excited by it. But tactically, the best way to elicit a revealing response is to go into elaborate
detail about something only the perp knows is
wrong.
Refer to ‘Heavenly Sword’ instead of ‘Sword of Heaven’ repeatedly, for example. The author of that phrase may slip and correct
it, and bingo, you’ve got a suspect.

“My guess is your suspect maintains enormous control and has for a long time. Probably feels a sense of pride in that. He
or she thinks, ‘You idiots don’t have any idea of the terrible things I would have done if I didn’t have such self-control.’
The thing to do is attack that by constant references to weakness, impulsivity, childishness. Have your detectives say things
like, ‘Whoever did this is pathetic. Whoever it is, he or she is like a baby. An out-of-control brat.’ At another time have
somebody show cloying pity, which this person will hate. You get the picture?”

“Perp’s a control freak. Insult him. Right?”

“Remember, ‘he’ may be a ‘she,’” Roxie warned.

“Nah,” Rathbone argued as a stocky woman in jeans and an embroidered pink denim shirt approached. Her blonde hair was short,
curly, and shot through with gray, and she had the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. Also the most beautiful smile.

“Here I am!” she said to all of us, and I realized this was Annie. Wes Rathbone’s Annie, who had shown him the light. I could
see it myself. She glowed.

It turned out to be a great evening. Before the place got crowded Rox taught Wes and Annie some variations on the two-step
and a line dance called Whiskey River. Then BB and the radical preacher, whose name was Matt, showed up and we all went across
the street to a Greek restaurant, leaving Brontë outside on a patio where she could see us and I could slip her bits of moussaka
through the sliding glass door.

But in the back of my mind something nagged. Something about dancing and eating dinner as if nothing were wrong. When something
was
wrong. Something hidden in a fold of our own reality, our city. Something unseen except for its anger displayed in untraceable
letters. I stabbed the last piece of cooling
saganaki
with my fork and wondered where the Sword of Heaven was at that moment. Not relaxing over dinner and conversation somewhere,
I thought. Probably crouched in an attic hideaway, snipping at newspapers with surgical scissors that reflected the light
of a naked bulb above. It was a movie image, and a first false step in a game of cat and mouse I didn’t yet know I was playing.
Although I would know. Soon. I would know in less than twelve hours that the mouse was me.

O
n Monday morning I woke up just as a yellow-gray dawn began its urban seep through Roxie’s blinds. I’m used to dramatic desert
light, its sharp shadows and sudden illuminations. City light seems tepid by comparison. But this light had my attention.
It had me awake. Only me, however.

Curling against Roxie, I nuzzled her ear and allowed my fingers a tentative slide down her arm.

“Mmmp,” she said pleasantly.

There was no change in the rhythm of her breathing. No response. She was still asleep and clearly planned to stay that way.
Brontë was draped across a rumpled silk patchwork coverlet at the foot of the bed, creating a sort of Chinese-style panorama
which would have been called “Black Dog” during the South Sung Dynasty. I amused myself by mentally writing pretentious museum-pamphlet
text about Taoist representations of the Doberman as an allegory for inner harmony. It was fun even though Dobies weren’t
bred until the nineteenth century in Germany, which would have made them
really
scarce in tenth century China. Then I got up.

I padded into Roxie’s den and turned on her computer. There was nothing else to do that wouldn’t wake everybody up. Coffee
would have to wait. On the Internet I punched in the password (“dober1,” what else?) which allows me to pick up my e-mail
from anywhere. I was expecting dad’s usual morning letter, which was there, but so was something else. A strange address in
the boldface menu of new mail. Monday’s date. Sent less than an hour before I turned on Roxie’s computer. “[email protected],”
it read. God’s word? Or God sword? Bluebay was a local server used by all the Net cafés and public computers all over town.
“Godsword” could have sent this message from anywhere and there would be no way to trace it. My hand was cold as I clicked
on the address and watched. On the screen emerged two lines of text and a signature.

“Blue is no womens name and you will be sorry you have don this when van der else dye sun,” it said. It was signed, “The Sword
of Heaven.”

“Roxie! “ I yelled, abandoning all sympathy for those who slept. “Look at this!”

In the moments before Rox’s den was filled with other presences, human and canine, I watched myself make a fist at the computer
monitor.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with, you ignorant shit!” I whispered, every synapse thrumming in an adrenaline bath. I
do not respond well to threats, and while I’ll deny it, I’m territorial. Most women are. Like most women, I’m territorial
about things I care about. And something had just violated a boundary, the borders of a space around Roxie Bouchie. Something
had come into her home, even though it was meant for my home. Something ill-intentioned and murderous. I was disturbed by
an awareness that if it came too close to Roxie or even Brontë, I might want to kill it.

“Blue, you’re hyperventilating,” she said at the door to her den. “What is it?”

“Look.”

Rox had wrapped the silk patchwork coverlet around her shoulders and looked like a Gustav Klimt painting. She grimaced.

“Oh God, there goes breakfast. Blue, this is impossible. How could Sword know you were working on the case? Or get your e-mail
address?”

“I don’t know.”

Something else about the message had captured my attention. Buttons. Little circles used in creating Web pages, you can download
them free from hundreds of Web sites featuring buttons, bars, and background screen designs called wallpaper. Bars and buttons
are just designators for where you click a mouse to go somewhere else in the Web page or to links to other sites. There must
be thousands available in every color and texture, some of which look like actual buttons. The message before me had two buttons,
one preceding each line. I clicked on them and nothing happened. They didn’t go anywhere, but were merely decorative. They
were also unusual.

Roxie has a real nine-to-five job as staff psychiatrist at a local state prison, after which she also maintains a private
practice from an office she shares with another psychiatrist who’s only there during the day. As a result, she hasn’t spent
the hours I have cruising around the Internet for no particular reason. I was sure she wouldn’t grasp the significance of
the buttons.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“These buttons.”

“I’ve never seen them in e-mails,” she said, catching something I’d missed.

There are no buttons in e-mail programs. To get them there would require work—a customized message. Sword was no novice with
computers.

“Good point,” I said, “but look at them closely. See?”

“They’re plates. Little blue and white plates.”

And they were. They were, in fact, photographs of ordinary dinner plates in a pattern called blue willow. The skill necessary
to scan, tint, and size a photo and then file it to an e-mail program as a button was impressive. But why bother? Hours of
work for what? So a threatening letter riddled with misspellings would look good? There was something peculiar about that,
I thought, something ominous.

I made color duplicates of the letter on Roxie’s printer, then forwarded it to Wes Rathbone’s e-mail address at police headquarters
with a note explaining exactly when I’d received it and how. Then I took Brontë out while Rox made coffee. When I got back
we looked at the letter.

“Well, the concern over gender issues is consistent,” Rox began. “It may even be escalating. Your name was apparently confusing.
‘Blue’ as a name is not a gender marker. Could be a male or a female. Not knowing seems to have caused some anxiety. I’m leaning
toward male here, Blue. I think Sword is a man.”

I inhaled the steam from my coffee as Brontë noisily crunched kibble from a bowl on Roxie’s kitchen floor. I thought about
the use of blue willow plates as buttons on a computer screen. Buttons that went nowhere but were just there.

“Because women don’t typically experience anxiety over gender, right?” I asked.

“You rarely see pathological conditions in women related to it,” Rox said, yawning. “Sure, there are a few female-to-male
transsexuals, and women who simply prefer for any number of reasons to dress in men’s clothing or even live as men. These
women may be conflicted about gender, but not pathologically so. They know what they are. Menstruation is an inescapable reminder.

“But this is different,” she went on. “Sword is made so anxious by gender ambiguity that it feels life-threatening. Unless
a balance is restored, unless all references to gender fit into rigid categories, some kind of meltdown will occur. That’s
probably how it feels. Sword is nearly out of control with anxiety over this, trying to maintain equilibrium by single-handedly
restoring the balance, the rigid gender categories. It would seem that this involves threatening or even killing women who
have strayed beyond those categories. What I don’t understand is how Sword knew you were working on the case.”

I heard the thump of Roxie’s newspaper hitting the door of her condo. Then lesser thumps as more papers hit subsequent doors.