Colleen McCullough - Naked Cruelty

“Will he escalate to murder?” Helen asked, not having heard the first part of their conference.

“All multiple rapists of this kind eventually move up to murder, Helen. Asphyxiation is a give-away. That’s why, as you women probe the earlier victims deeper and deeper, I want you to be on the lookout for anything suggesting asphyxiation. In a way, Miss Trainee, that never gives your victim any idea what you’re doing. We don’t want anyone feeding ideas, okay?”

The blue eyes were blazing, but Helen MacIntosh had learned more than merely police procedure: not a muscle moved in her face as she thought: how dared they treat her like a teenybopper! “Madam Trainee!” “Miss Trainee!” They were baiting her, but they wouldn’t succeed in getting a rise. “Okay,” she said aloud.

“The nakedness says the Dodo’s ego is so big he’s sure he can deal with the unexpected, like a room-mate coming home. His rape technique says he’s never going to be a metal or a fire man, cutting, mutilating, even burning with a cigarette. He punches, pokes and pinches, but most of all he kicks. The assaults are erotic, in that they’re directed at breasts, buttocks, belly, pubes. In an odd way, his actions are immature. According to Maggie, he sustained rigid erections for long periods, yet he can’t climax. According to his lights, he has principles.”

“You’re describing an almost supernaturally cool, calm and collected man,” Nick said uneasily.

“Not supernatural, but certainly highly instinctual. Has any victim reported seeing a weapon, Delia?” Carmine asked.

“Not so far.”

“He must have brought a weapon with him and kept it close at hand,” Carmine said.

Ask your questions, Helen, said their trainee to herself. If they make you seem ignorant, that’s because you are ignorant. But you’re here to learn, and sometimes they don’t see the most basic questions of all-too much water under the cop bridge. “Why should so many sex murderers strangle?” she asked, eyes wide and curious. “I mean, asphyxiation is just one form of it.”

Carmine looked pleased. “As against death by mutilation?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know that anyone honestly knows, but the general feeling is that strangulation-hands, a garotte, a scarf-offers the killer about as leisurely a look at dying as he’ll ever get. It can take minutes, depending, and especially if he’s gotten his technique with a cord down so pat that he can drag his victim to the brink of death a dozen times before the coup de grâce . It also means no blood, and a good proportion of sex killers dislike blood as a component of murder. It’s messy and unpredictable unless you’re extremely well prepared to handle the mess. One errant drop can convict if the blood type’s rare and the killer shouldn’t have been there.” Carmine’s large, square, beautiful hands gestured. “One thing I can tell you, Helen. The Dodo isn’t into blood. What turns him on is a woman’s suffering.”

Though they were sitting in a room without windows, it felt as if the sun had gone in; Helen shivered. Suffering . Such a terrible word. It occurred to her that in her twenty-four years of life, she had never truly witnessed suffering any closer than a television screen or news magazine.

“How can the Dodo do meticulous research on a bunch as varied as our victims?” Helen asked. “Shirley is an archivist, Mercedes is a dress designer, Leonie is a mathematician, Esther is a lecturer in business, Marilyn is an archaeologist in dinosaur research, Natalie buys women’s wear for a chain of department stores, and Maggie is a bird physiologist. Where’s the common thread, apart from the fact that they all live in Carew?”

“I doubt there is a common thread,” said Nick; this is one case, he thought, where the women should be driving. “I do think we have to assume that the Dodo lives in Carew, and that under the black hood is a face well known to Carew residents. A face not only known, but trusted, maybe admired. He could be a Gentleman Walker. He could be that movie star guy you go out with, Helen.”

She guffawed. “Kurt? Hardly likely, Watson! He’s a contender for the Nobel Prize in physics.”

“Yes, but do you see what I mean? Whoever the Dodo is, he leads a double life. I’d be willing to bet that he’s invited to Mark Sugarman’s parties-and those parties are something all the Dodo’s victims have in common.”

Delia squawked. “Nick! You stole my thunder.”

“Did I? Gee, Deels, I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Carmine. “The fact is, you both noticed the parties. Sounds like you said a little more than hello and goodbye to the other five victims, Delia.”

Her face went pink enough to clash with her orange ascot. “Um-well, yes. They were dying to talk, especially because the public nature of Maggie’s rape told them they weren’t in much danger anymore. They’re very intelligent women.”

“You don’t give credence to the idea that the face under the hood might be disfigured?” Carmine asked.

Helen answered. “No. He has no hare lip, cleft palate or butterfly naevus, Captain. Nick was way off with his crack about my boyfriend, but I do know why he picked him. Kurt von Fahlendorf is a gorgeous looking guy who just happens to be a physics genius. There are three of them hang out together-Kurt, Mason Novak, and Mark Sugarman. They’re friends with an old guy, Dave Feinman, and a couple of younger guys-Bill Mitski and Greg Pendleton. But I can assure you, sir, that none of them is harboring Mr. Hyde underneath Dr. Jekyll.”

“We’ll try to take your word for it-after we’ve investigated them,” Carmine said gravely. “How many more Gentleman Walkers do you know, Helen?”

“Are they all Gentleman Walkers?” she asked ingenuously. “I know them from Mark’s parties.”

“Yes, they’re all Walkers. There are one hundred-forty-six altogether.”

“Do they have a uniform?”

“Apparently not.” Carmine lifted his eyes to Helen’s. “Is Mr. von Fahlendorf a neighbor?”

“Professor von Fahlendorf. No, he doesn’t live in Talisman Towers. He lives around the corner in Curzon Close-the prettiest house in Carew.”

“He’s very pretty,” said Nick, lip curling.

“He’s very clever,” she riposted. “He’s a professor in the hardest form of physics-particles.”

“Whoopee.”

“Behave yourself, Nick,” Carmine said with sufficient reproof in his voice to make Delia glance at him in surprise. “Is your professor a West German national, Helen?”

“Yes, on a green card. He works on sub-atomic particles in the Chubb bunker. Very highly thought of by Dean Gulrajani and a few other luminaries, though his nose is a little out of joint since Jane Trefusis joined the lab. It’s really that he’s not very fond of America, but it’s where the work is, and that’s actually what Kurt is all about-sub-atomic particles.”

“What’s he got against America?” Nick asked aggressively. “Funny, how none of these people have a good thing to say about us, yet they’re happy to take our money and our jobs.”

“I agree with you, Nick. It’s mostly envy,” Carmine said in calm tones. “They see their own cultures buried under American films, television and popular fiction. That must be hard, but their own people are in the forefront of promoting global American culture-the kids and the local moguls in particular.”

“East Germany, or West?” Nick pressed.

“Well, it would hardly be East. Oh, you mean originally? Yes, the von Fahlendorfs were Prussian junkers, somewhere fairly close to the Polish border. His father skipped from East Germany in 1945. Now they’re very wealthy.”

“Including Professor von Fahlendorf?” Carmine asked.