Edward Lee - Dahmer's Not Dead

Olsher gnawed on his cigar, perplexed, turning to Helen. “Any evidence to suggest Dahmer was skilled with computers?”

A memory floated, and a word. Computers. “No, Larrel,” she said. “Not Dahmer. But one of the first things North told me was that Campbell was a computer fanatic.”

“Here we go with Campbell again.”

Beck interjected. “Chief, face it. There is a Campbell, and he is directly involved. He helped Dahmer get out of prison, and right now he’s helping Dahmer continue his murder spree. Everything in this case points to an active conspirator. Campbell’s used his craft and ingenuity to do everything so far, and it’s obvious he’s the one who arranged this call and made it untraceable.”

Thank you, Jan, Helen thought.

“So why would Dahmer call Helen?”

Beck made a frown. “Helen’s name is in the newspaper almost every day. They’ve broadcasted the fact that Helen’s running the investigation.”

Olsher chewed on these considerations along with the cigar.

“Look, I never said I didn’t believe your theory about a conspirator. I just wasn’t too hip on this Campbell guy, considering the source.”

Now it was Helen’s turn to frown, but she said nothing.

Beck went on, “And it’s starting to seem to me that maybe Campbell’s not the only conspirator.”

“Why?” Olsher grunted.

“Because there’s no Campbell at St. John’s Hospital,” Helen said, “and there can be no doubt that St. John’s is the location where Kussler’s dead body was switched with Dahmer.”

“She’s right, Chief,” Beck plodded on. “Someone with hospital access has to be in on it too. Not only to take Dahmer out and leave Kussler’s body in his place after the ident process, but also because of Rosser.”

“Rosser died in the same hospital,” Helen pointed out.

“And I just got finished determining the cause of death.” Beck waved a dot-matrix printout from a tox-screen analysis. “Helen ordered me to do a blood run the minute we knew Rosser was dead. He was killed with a massive oral dose of succinicholine sulphate—the same drug being used to paralyze the victims.”

Helen smiled to herself, while Olsher stared. “Good work, both of you,” he admitted. “Keep it up and keep me posted.” Then he left but from the lab entry waved Helen out into the hall.

“What is it, Larrel?” Helen asked.

“This bit about a second person, a second conspirator with hospital access?”

“It makes a lot of sense, Chief. Look, you didn’t buy the part about Campbell and now you’re admitting he exists. The same goes for a second collaborator, someone specifically tied to St. John’s.”

Olsher rubbed his face. “I know, and that’s what bugs me. You know who fits the bill, don’t you?”

Helen swallowed before she could answer. “Tom. I know. I’ve given that a lot of thought. He did the autopsy, he was the duty pathologist for Dahmer’s post, and he’d have access to the psych wing med unit. Rosser was on a lithium compound to treat his hyper-activity. Someone could easily have slipped into the nurses’ station and spiked Rosser’s lithium with succincholine.”

“Shit,” Olsher said, impressed. “You have thought about this.”

Helen felt less than resplendent revealing the rest. “He’s also had…affairs with men.”

Olsher gaped at her. “Are you shitting—”

“No, I’m not, and one more thing. He’s big into computers.”

By now Olsher had nearly chewed the cigar to wet shreds. “Yeah. Keep an eye on him, Helen. And I mean a close eye.”

««—»»

Everything was coming out to dry now. Beck had no problem accepting the credibility of Rosser’s lithium dose being poisoned with succinicholine. The precaution ward, true, had a nurses’ station behind the locked ward door and a 24-hour security guard, but the drug prescriptions for every patient on the unit were prepared at the main nurses’ station at the floor entrance. It wouldn’t have been difficult for a hospital employee to get in there quick, locate Rosser’s med cup, switch the real lithium capsule with a spiked one, and get out. It would only take a matter of seconds, Helen realized.

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.