Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Purple Pig was on the north end of the Towne Square, and the valet out front was doing serious business when we walked up. Inside, the bar was three deep and the dining room was loud. The whole county was apparently here.
The back room was smaller and private, the kind of space Cole could talk a restaurant into giving up because he had that southern charm that opened doors and made deals. He didn’t have Jack’s temperament or diplomacy, which was why he was happy being a detective.
Two long tables had been pushed together and Cole was already at the head of the table when I walked in, his back toward the wall so he could see all the exits.
Jack was a couple of minutes behind me. He’d made a call to Matt Brown on our way over and was still outside making arrangements to meet Matt Brown before he went on his shift at midnight.
I wasn’t planning to tell Jack, but I was exhausted, and the idea of eating dinner and then getting home well after midnight wasn’t on my list of favorite things at the moment.
I could have curled up in the corner of the Purple Pig and happily gone to sleep.
But it was good to see Cole and Lily, and I was happy to see he looked good.
Certainly much better than he had when he’d been hanging on to life by a thread after he’d been shot.
He had a Dos Equis in front of him, and his Stetson was pushed back on his head.
He was in his Wranglers and boots and a white button-down, and he looked great except for the way he was favoring his right shoulder, which was almost imperceptible unless you knew what you were looking for. I knew what I was looking for.
Lily sat next to him wearing a black tank and her dark hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She had a full glass of red wine in front of her and looked relieved to see us. I hugged Cole carefully.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Any stiffness?” I asked.
“Just a little. I’m ready to get back to work. I heard y’all caught a good one.”
“You could say that,” I told him. “It sucks when a victim turns out to be the bad guy.”
“Ahh,” Cole said. “Perks of the job.”
Jack came in, looked at me, and said, “We’re all set,” and then he sat next to Cole so his back was also facing the wall. I took the chair next to him and tried not to look too disappointed that things had worked out with meeting Matt Brown.
The server passed out menus and drinks were ordered, only water for me, because I’d had enough caffeine for the day. Bread baskets were put down the center of the table, and the server told us the kitchen was backed up, but he’d get complimentary appetizers in for us.
Plank and Wachowski came in and took the far end of the table.
I’d never actually seen Plank and Wachowski in street clothes like a normal couple.
It was weird. I wasn’t even sure what Wachowski’s first name was.
I knew she was eight years older than Plank, though honestly, she didn’t look it.
She had a sleek tail of copper-red hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose, and she was wearing an Orioles T-shirt and a pair of frayed denim shorts.
She’d done some undercover work at the high schools when she’d been on the drug task force, and she barely looked out of college.
The waiter carded her and Plank, which made me chuckle.
Daniels and Derby settled across from us, and then Doug dropped into the middle chair.
He’d brought Margot in with him, but the laptop was still closed and sitting in front of him.
Doug had put Oscar in the little room behind Jack’s office with fresh water and a leftover sausage kolache he’d swiped from the breakroom.
Oscar had seemed happy with the arrangement.
“So what’s the deal with your dead guy?” Cole asked. “I heard he’d been roofying his clients. Hard to get Rohypnol these days.”
“Good to see the gossip still flows like wine, even when you’re out on leave,” Jack said.
“I’ve got my informants on the inside,” he said, grinning.
Jack filled him in on the case and everything we’d discovered so far. “Plank and Wachowski have confirmed six women from the black book,” Jack said.
“That number is fourteen now,” Wachowski said. “We’ve got a few more interviews to conduct in the morning, but their stories are consistent. Three of the ones we’ve interviewed don’t have an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“But their stories are similar,” Plank said. “They all started with group classes and then were invited to the private sessions.”
I thought about Zoe Brown and the pre-workout smoothies. “And they were all given the smoothies?”
“Yeah,” Plank said. “But it varies. Some of the women weren’t given the pre-workout smoothie. Some weren’t given the post-workout smoothie. Some were given both. But all of them had at least one.”
“It would have depended on the woman,” I said. “Zoe Brown wasn’t interested in Wade sexually. So the pre-workout smoothie, from her description at least, would’ve had the sildenafil and the trial meds from Mexico to get her in the mood.”
“We sent the smoothies we found in his fridge to the lab,” Daniels said.
“Prelim report says you’re right, though they have no way of knowing what the trial drug is.
That will have to come from the lab in Mexico, though they were able to break down certain components.
The lab said best guess is a powerful aphrodisiac, but it was combined with an unknown substance that has similar chemical structure to methamphetamines.
He said it would’ve been highly addictive. ”
“Which is why Zoe said she couldn’t stop thinking about it,” I said. “Why she went back for more even though she didn’t want to cheat on her husband.”
“Exactly,” Daniels said. “The other smoothie was positive for Rohypnol.”
Cole whistled. “That’s a dangerous combination.”
Jack nodded. “Then he took pictures of them in various sexual acts and blackmailed them. He’s collected a little over half a million dollars in the last two years. It’s a cycle of lust, shame, and addiction.”
“No one reported him?” Lily asked.
“No,” Plank said. “The consensus among all the women, even the ones who didn’t want to start an affair with him, was that it was somehow consensual because they were overcome with desire.
None of them had a memory of them telling him no, even though there were a couple who said they had no desire to cheat on their spouse and still can’t believe they did it.
So they kept going. And the ones who quit or pushed back received blackmail photographs.
That started a whole new cycle. They were threatened with them being uploaded online, sent to their workplaces, to their spouses.
He’d done their homework on them. He knew what buttons to push. ”
“All good predators do,” Jack said.
“You didn’t find any of the drugs in his system?” Lily asked me.
“Not the ones he was giving his victims,” I said.
“But he had his own concoction of steroids, testosterone, and Viagra. It was the only way he was able to fulfill a sexual addiction of that magnitude. His narcissism knew for his plan to work his victims would have to blame themselves or take full responsibility. He’s just the nice guy everyone wants. ”
“What a creep,” Lily said, shuddering.
“Was the blackmail consistent?” Jack asked.
“Different amounts,” Wachowski said. “Again, you could tell he’d done research on the victims. First amounts were always the lowest. Anywhere from a thousand to five thousand usually.
Then they went up incrementally. Whatever was in those photographs was graphic enough that they gladly paid.
They were weird interviews. Some of the women were so broken up about his death we could barely understand them.
A couple of them asked if they could get his smoothie recipe.
And others were like zombies, just staring at us as if they couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. It was weird.”
“Some were still paying?” I asked.
“Yes,” Wachowski said.
“Send us those names,” Jack said. “They need to go at the top of our list. Did any of the ones still paying have no alibi?”
“Just one,” Plank said. “A Tasha Crider.”
“Did any of them know about each other?” I asked.
“Not one,” Plank said. “He kept them completely isolated. Different days, different times. Two of the women we talked to today have been members at the studio at the same time, have taken the same group classes, sat next to each other. No idea.” He looked at Jack. “He was meticulous about it.”
The food came and the table split into smaller conversations.
“You know what doesn’t make sense to me,” Cole said. “Is the flag.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “The violence of the initial blows, the knife in the groin. That’s a crime of passion. But the flag is ceremonial. Someone took the time to set him up, pose him, and place the flag.”
“It’s like its own memorial,” I said, thinking about what it could mean.
It was after ten thirty when we left the Purple Pig and walked back to the sheriff’s office.
The party was still going behind us—the bars were full and the whole block was lit up for the holiday weekend crowd.
Jack had patrol units posted at each corner with lights flashing to keep people in check.
It felt strange to be walking away from all of it toward something quiet and dark.
“It’s at least a thirty-minute drive to VantageCore,” Jack said.
“Don’t remind me,” I said, stifling a yawn.
“I can take you home first,” he said. “I keep forgetting that you need more rest, and you’ve pushed hard this week.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I want to go with you.”
He unlocked the Tahoe and I got in and pulled the door shut. Jack pulled away from the Towne Square and toward Newcastle and I leaned my head back and watched the county go dark out the window. It’s the last thing I remembered.