Gone, but not forgotten

Chapter Twenty-one

When Betsy Tannenbaum was a very little girl, she would not go to sleep until her mother showed her that there were no monsters in her closet or her bed. The stage passed quickly. Betsy stopped believing in monsters.

Then she met Martin Darius. What made Darius so terrifying was his dissimilarity to the slavering, fanged deformities that lurked in the shadows in her room. Give one hundred people the autopsy photographs and not one of them would believe that the elegantly-dressed gentleman standing in the doorway to Betsy's office was capable of cutting off Wendy Reiser's nipples or using a cattle prod to torture Victoria Miller. Even knowing what she knew, Betsy had to force herself to make the connection. But Betsy did know, and the shining winter sun could not keep her from feeling as frightened as the very little girl who used to listen for monsters in the dark.

"sit down Mr. Darius," Betsy said.

"We're back to Mr. Darius, are we? This must be serious."

Betsy did not smile. Darius looked at her quizzically, but took a seat without making any more remarks.

"I'm resigning as your attorney."

"I thought we agreed that you'd only do that if you believed I was guilty of murdering Farrar, Reiser and Miller."

"I firmly believe you killed them. I know everything about Hunter's Point."

"What's everything?"

"I spent the weekend in Washington, D.C., talking to Senator Colby."

Darius nodded appreciatively. "I'm impressed. You unraveled the whole Hunter's Point affair in no time at all."

"I don't give a damn for your flattery, Darius. You lied to me from day one. There are some lawyers who don't care whom they represent as long as the fee is large enough. I'm not one of them. Have your new attorney call me so I can get rid of your file. I don't want anything in my office that reminds me of you."

"My, aren't we self-righteous. You're sure you know everything, aren't you?"

"I know enough to distrust anything you tell me."

"I'm a little disappointed, Tannenbaum. You worked your way through this puzzle part of the way, then shut down that brilliant mind of yours just as you came to the part that needs solving."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about having faith in your client. I'm talking about not walking away from someone who desperately needs your help. I am not guilty of killing Reiser, Farrar and Miller. If you don't prove I'm innocent, the real killer is going to walk away, just the way I did in Hunter's Point."

"You admit you're guilty of those atrocities in Hunter's Point?"

Darius shrugged. "How can I deny it, now that you've talked to Colby?"

"How could you do it? Animals don't treat other animals like that."

Darius looked amused. "Do I fascinate you, Tannenbaum?"

"No, Mr. Darius, you disgust me."

"Then why ask me about Hunter's Point?"

"I want to know why you thought you had the right to walk into someone else's life and turn the rest of their days on Earth into Hell. I want to understand how you could destroy the lives of those poor women so casually."

Darius stopped smiling. "There was nothing casual about what I did."

"What I can't understand is how a mind like yours or Speck's or Bundy's works. What could possibly make you feel so badly about yourself that you can only keep going by dehumanizing women?"

"Don't compare me to Bundy or Speck. They were pathetic failures.

Thoroughly inadequate personalities.

I'm neither insane nor inadequate. I was a successful attorney in Hunter's Point and a successful businessman here."

"Then why did you do it?"

Darius hesitated. He seemed to be in a debate with himself "Am I still covered by the attorney-client privilege?" Betsy nodded.

"Anything between us is confidential. Betsy nodded again. "Because I'd like to tell you.

You have a superior mind and a female viewpoint. Your reactions would be informative."

Betsy knew she should throw Darius out of her office and her life, but her fascination with him paralyzed her intellect. When she remained silent, Darius settled back in his chair.

"I was conducting an experiment, Tannenbaum. I wanted to know what it felt like to be God. I don't remember the exact moment the idea for the experiment germinated. I do remember a trip Sandy and I took to Barbados. Lying on the beach, I thought about how perfect my life was.

There was my job, which provided me with more money than I ever dreamed of, and there was Sandy, still sexy as all get-out, even after bearing my lovely Melody. My Sandy, so willing to please, so mindless. I'd married her for her body and never checked the hood until it was too late."

Darius shook his head wistfully.

"Perfect is boring, Tannenbaum. Sex with the same woman, day after day, no matter bow beautiful and skilled she is, is boring. I've always had an active fantasy life and I wondered what it would be like if the fantasy world was real. Would my life be different?

I decided to find out what would happen if I brought my fantasy world to life,

"it took me months to find the perfect location. I couldn't trust workmen, so I built the stalls myself, Then I selected the women. I chose only worthless women.

Women who lived off their husbands like parasites. Beautiful, spoiled women who used their looks to entice a man into marriage, then drained him of his wealth and selfrespect. These women were born again in my little dungeon. Their stall became their world and I became the moon, wind and rain."

Betsy remembered Colby's description of the women he had seen. Their hollow eyes, the protruding ribs. She remembered the vacant stares on the faces of the dead women in the photographs.

"I admit I was cruel to them, but I had to dehumanize them so they could be molded in the image I chose.

When I appeared, I wore a mask and I made them wear leather masks with no eye holes. Once a week I doled out rations scientifically calculated to keep them on the brink of starvation. I limited the hours they could sleep.

"Did Colby mention the clocks and the videotape machines'? Did you wonder what they were for? It was my crowning touch. I had a wife and child and a job, so I could only be with my subjects for short periods each week, but I wanted total control, omniscience, even when I was gone. So I rigged the videotapes to run when I wasn't there and I gave the women commands to perform. They had to watch the clock. Every hour, at set times, they would bow to the camera and perform dog tricks, rolling over, squatting, masturbating. Whatever I commanded. I reviewed the tapes and I punished deviations firmly."

Darius had an enraptured look on his face. His eyes were fixed on a scene no sane person could imagine.

Betsy felt she would shatter if she moved.

"I changed them from demanding cows to obedient puppies. They were mine completely. I bathed them.

They ate like dogs from a doggy bowl. They were forbidden to speak unless I told them to, and the only time I let them was to beg me for punishment and thank me for pain. In the end they would do anything to escape the pain. They pleaded to drink my urine and kissed my foot when I let them."

Darius's face was so tight Betsy thought his skin might rip. A wave of nausea made her stomach roll.

"Some of the women resisted, but they soon learned what it was like to be with a god. Others that there can be no negotiation and must be obeyed immediately. Cross, for instance. She was no challenge at all. A perfect cow. As docile and unimaginative as a lump of clay. That's why I chose her for my sacrifice."

Before Darius started speaking, Betsy assumed there was nothing he could say that she would not be able to handle, but she did not want to hear any more.

"Did your experiment bring you peace?" Betsy asked to stop Darius from talking about the women. Her breathing was ragged and she felt light-headed. Darius snapped out of his trance.

"The experiment brought me the most exquisite pleasure, Tannenbaum. The moments I shared with those women were the finest moments in my life.

But Sandy found the note and it had to end. There was too much danger of being caught. Then I was caught, and then I was free, and that freedom was exhilarating."

"When was the next time you repeated the experiment, Martin?" Betsy asked coldly.

"Never. I wanted to, but I learn from experience. I had one lucky break and I was not going to risk life in prison or the death penalty."

Betsy stared at Darius with contempt.

"I want you out of my office. I don't ever want to see you again."

"You can't quit, Tannenbaum. I need you."

"Hire Oscar Montoya or Matthew Reynolds."

"Oscar Montoya and Matthew Reynolds are good lawyers, but they aren't women. I'm banking that no jury will believe that an ardent feminist would represent a man who treated a woman the way the murderer treated Reiser, Farrar and Miller. In a close case, you're my edge."

"Then you just lost your edge, Darius. You're the most vile person I've ever known. I don't ever want to see you again, let alone defend you."

"You're reneging on our deal. I told you, I did not murder Farrar, Reiser or Vicky Miller. Someone is framing me. If I'm convicted, this case will be closed and you'll be responsible for the killer's next victim and the one after that."

"Do you think I'll believe anything you say after what you just told me, after all your lies?"

"Listen, Tannenbaum," Darius said, leaning across the desk and pinning Betsy with an intense stare, "I did not kill those women. I'm being set up by someone and I'm pretty certain I know who she is."

"She?"

"Only Nancy Gordon knows enough about this case to frame me. Vicky, Reiser, those women would never have suspected her. She's female. She'd flash her badge.

They'd let her in easy. That's why there were no signs of a struggle at the crime scenes. They probably went with her willingly and didn't know what was happening until it was too late."

"No woman would do what was done to those women."

"Don't be naive. She's been obsessed with me since Hunter's Point. She's probably insane."

Betsy remembered what she had learned about Nancy Gordon. The woman had tried to murder Darius in Hunter's Point. She had dedicated her life to finding him. But, to frame him like this? From what she knew, it was more likely that Gordon would have walked up to Darius and shot him.

"I don't buy it."

"You know Vicky- left the Hacienda Motel at two-thirty. I was with Russell Miller and several other people at the advertising agency until almost five."

"Who can alibi you after you left the ad agency?"

"Unfortunately, no one."

"I'm not going to do it. You stand for everything in life I find repulsive. Even if you didn't kill the women in Portland, you did commit those inhuman crimes in Hunter's Point."

"And you are going to be responsible for murdering the next victim in Portland. Think about it, Tannenbaum.

There's no case against me now. That means another woman will have to die to supply the evidence the State can use to convict me."

That evening Kathy snuggled close to Betsy, her attention riveted on a cartoon special. Betsy kissed the top of her daughter's head and wondered how this peaceful scene could coexist with a reality where women, curled up in the dark, waited for a torturer to bring them unbearable pain? How could she meet with a man like Martin Darius at work and watch Disney with her daughter at home without losing her sanity? How could Peter Lake spend the morning as the horror god of a warped fantasy and the evening playing with his own little girl?

Betsy wished there was only one reality: the one where she and Rick sat watching Disney with Kathy squirreled between them. The one she thought was reality before Rick walked out on her and she met Martin Darius.

Betsy had — always been able to separate herself from her work. Before Darius, her criminal clients were more pathetic than frightening. She represented shoplifters, drunk drivers, petty thieves and scared juveniles. She was still friendly with the two women she had saved from homicide charges. Even when she brought her work home with her, she saw it as something that was only temporarily in her house. Darius was in Betsy's soul. He had changed her. She no longer believed she was safe.

And much worse, she knew Kathy was not safe either.