"Thanks," Dave replied. He didn't look unhappy to be in the circle of Serena's perfume. "I hate wearing the monkey suit, but they insist."
"Come on, you know women can't resist a man in a tuxedo," she told him, smiling.
His cheeks turned pink. "Yeah?"
"Oh, definitely." She asked Dave if he remembered Eric from the previous weekend, and he nodded vigorously.
"That dude? Absolutely. He looked like he should be captain of a Viking ship, know what I mean? Like he just stepped off a fjord."
"You talked to him?"
"Yeah, he peppered me with questions for ten minutes. It was a little awkward, because I needed to work, you know?"
"I'm sorry to be doing the same thing."
"Oh, hey, you I don't mind."
"What did Eric want to know?"
Dave had long brown hair, and he pushed it back behind his ears with both hands. "He was talking about this blog he had found on the Web. He was trying to track down the woman who wrote it."
"A blog?
"Yeah, I guess it was one of those MySpace things, like 'Lady in Red' or 'Dark Lady' or 'Lady in Waiting.' It was lady something."
"Did you know who the blogger was?"
"Nope. The Viking dude, he said it was probably a woman in her late thirties, but we've got lots of women like that here. So he started talking to them one by one."
"Did he say why he was looking for her?"
"No, he didn't. After he talked to a couple of the women, people started getting a little freaked-out. You know, like he might be a stalker or something. Security went to him and told him to lay off or they were going to kick him out."
"Did that stop him?"
Dave shook his head. "Not really. I saw him at intermission, and he was still talking up the women ushers. To tell you the truth, most of them didn't mind. I mean, he's a good-looking guy, you know? There was just one woman who got hot and bothered about it."
"Who was that?"
"Her name's Helen."
"Is she here tonight?"
"I haven't seen her for a while. You'd have to talk to the admin guys about her schedule. The thing is, she couldn't have been too upset, because when I left the theater that night, I saw her talking to the Viking guy in the park across the street."
"You saw Helen and Eric together?"
Dave nodded.
"You're a doll," Serena said.
Dave blushed again, and Serena retraced her steps to find the security guard hovering near the theater door. She asked him about Helen and discovered that the usher's full name was Helen Danning, single, late thirties, quiet.
"When is she next scheduled to work?" Serena asked.
The guard shook his head. "She's not."
"Why?"
"She quit last week. Called on Thursday and said she was moving out of town. No warning, no explanations, nothing."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"We don't even know where to send her last paycheck."
Serena frowned. "Do you know where she lived?"
"I think she had an apartment in Lowertown. Near the farmer's market. She told me it was nice to walk across the street on Saturday morning and get fresh tomatoes."
"And you're sure it was Thursday she called to give notice?" she asked.
"Yeah, I remember. They needed to find someone to take her place for the weekend shows."
Serena thanked him again. She checked her watch as she left the theater. It was getting late, and she still had to make the long drive back to Duluth that night. Even so, she needed to make a detour to Lowertown. She didn't like the chain of events. On Saturday, Eric was seen talking in the park with Helen Danning.
On Wednesday, Eric was murdered.
On Thursday, Helen fled the city.
28
When Katrina Kuli answered the door, Stride remembered that she had covered the bruises on her face with makeup and shrugged off the cut on her neck when he had first met her at the Java Jelly coffee shop. He wished he had put the truth together sooner. She held the door open and waited stiffly while he walked into her apartment.
"I'm glad you called me back," he said.
Katrina closed the door and locked it. "I'm not filing a police report. I don't want this to become public."
She gestured at a yellow futon by the living-room windows, and he sat down. She made sure the blinds were closed and then lowered herself gingerly into an upholstered chair across from him. He saw her wince as she breathed.
"Are you still in a lot of pain?"
She shrugged. "A couple of cracked ribs. They don't do anything for that these days. Just grin and bear it."
"What about other injuries?"
"Bumps, cuts, bruises. I'm healing."
"I just want to make sure you're being treated."
"I am."
"What about a counselor?"
"I've got some names," Katrina said. "I haven't called anyone yet. I figured I'd be hysterical, you know, but I don't really feel anything. It's weird."
"It happens like that sometimes. I've talked to a lot of women who have been through this, Katrina. Some become very emotional, some go numb. It's normal. Just don't deal with this alone. Call one of those names, okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
Katrina was wearing a loose-fitting flannel shirt and gray sweats. Her round face was blank, and her hair lay in clumps on her forehead. Every few seconds, she fingered the cut on her neck tenderly, as if it might have gone away since she last touched it. Her hands trembled, and the barbed wire tattoo quivered.
"When did it happen?" Stride asked.
"Last month."
"Here?"
She nodded.
"How did he get in?"
"He came up a back stairway."
"I'd like to have a forensics team go over the apartment for trace evidence."
"There's no DNA. I cleaned up."
"There could still be hair, fingerprints, residue."
"Look, he wore gloves and a stocking cap. Trust me, he didn't leave anything behind. I'd just like to move on."
"Do you have any idea who it was?"
"No, and I don't want to know."
Stride leaned forward and balanced his arms on his knees. "Why don't you want to report this?"
"Are you kidding? If a pretzel stick like Tanjy got raped all over again in the media, imagine what they'd do to a girl like me. I know exactly what kind of jokes people would tell. 'They're not sure if they can charge him with rape. Is having sex with a farm animal a crime?' "
"No one would say that."
"Sure they would."
"Did you tell anyone after it happened?"
She nodded. "I told Sonia at the dress shop."
"Not Maggie?"
"Especially not Maggie."
"Why? You said the two of you were friends."
"She and I haven't talked in a while," Katrina said. "Plus, she's a cop."
Stride thought about what Tony Wells had said. This perpetrator picks women who are sexually vulnerable. "There's something else, isn't there?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, this guy doesn't choose his victims by accident. He picks women who have something to hide."
"There are other victims?" Katrina asked.
"Yes, and they learned their lesson from Tanjy, just like you did. Don't report this if you want to keep your secret."
Katrina shoved herself out of her chair. She peeked through the blinds into the darkness and then turned back and folded her arms. She studied Stride. "If I tell you, the whole world will know."
"Not necessarily, but I can't promise you anything."
Katrina's lip bulged out in defiance. "What I do in my private life is my own damn business."
"I understand."
"You're right," she said finally. "I didn't report the assault, because there were some things about me that would have come out. Embarrassing things."
Stride waited.
"I was an alpha girl," Katrina continued.
"What's that?"
She hesitated and sat down on the other end of the futon sofa. "I'm not sure I should say anything. If you don't know what it is, it means you don't know about the club. I could cause problems for a lot of people."