Shut Your Eyes Tight

Becker nodded, smiled. “Do you think they might consider what you’re telling us today a form of cheating?”

“I’m afraid they might,” said Ballston.

“So you look at these… videos and… you see something you like. What then?”

“You verbally accept the terms of the purchase, you replace your blindfold, and you are driven back to the airport. You arrange for a wire transfer of the purchase price to a bank-account number in the Cayman Islands, and a few days later the girl of your dreams rings your doorbell.”

“And then?”

“And then… whatever one wishes to happen… happens.”

“And the girl of your dreams ends up dead.”

Ballston smiled. “Of course.”

“Of course?”

“That’s what the transaction is all about. Didn’t you know that?”

“All about… killing them?”

“The girls Karnala provides are very bad girls. They’ve done terrible things. In their videos they describe in detail what they’ve done. Unbelievably terrible things.”

Becker moved back slightly in his chair. He was clearly in over his head. Even Stanford Mull’s poker face had assumed a certain rigidity. Their reactions seemed to energize Ballston. Life seemed to be flowing back into him. His eyes brightened.

“Terrible things that require terrible punishments.”

There was a kind of universal pause, maybe two or three seconds, in which it seemed that no one in the Palm Beach interrogation room or the BCI teleconferencing room was breathing.

Darryl Becker broke the spell with a practical question in a routine tone of voice. “Let’s be perfectly clear on this. You killed Melanie Strum?”

“That’s correct.”

“And Karnala had sent other girls to you?”

“Correct.”

“How many others?”

“Two prior to Melanie.”

“How much did you know about them?”

“About the boring details of their day-to-day existences, nothing. About their passions and their transgressions, everything.”

“Did you know where they came from?”

“No.”

“How Karnala recruited them?”

“No.”

“Did you ever try to find out?”

“That was specifically discouraged.”

Becker leaned back from the table and studied Ballston’s face.

As Gurney watched Becker on the screen, it looked to him as if the man was stalling, overwhelmed by his introduction to a level of sickness he hadn’t anticipated, trying to figure out where to go next with the interrogation.

Gurney turned to Rodriguez. The captain looked every bit as nonplussed as Darryl Becker by Ballston’s revelations and nonchalance.

“Sir?” At first Rodriguez seemed not to hear him. “Sir, I’d like to send a request down to Palm Beach.”

“What kind of request?”

“I want Becker to ask Ballston why he cut off Melanie’s head.”

The captain’s faced twitched in revulsion. “Obviously because he’s a sick, sadistic, murdering creep.”

“I think it could be useful to ask the question.”

Rodriguez looked pained. “What else could it be, other than part of his disgusting ritual?”

“Like cutting off Jillian’s head was part of Hector’s ritual?”

“What’s your point?”

Gurney’s tone hardened. “It’s a simple question, and it has to be asked. We’re running out of time.” He knew that Rodriguez’s horrendous difficulties with his crack-addict daughter were compromising the man’s ability to deal directly with a case so close to home, but that was not Gurney’s largest concern.

Rodriguez’s face reddened, an effect heightened by the contrast with his starched white collar and dyed black hair. After a moment he turned toward Wigg with an air of surrender. “Man has a question. ‘Why did Ballston cut off her head?’ Send it.”

Wigg’s fingers tapped rapidly on her keyboard.

On the teleconferencing monitor, Becker was pressing Ballston about where Karnala got the girls, and Ballston was reiterating his total lack of knowledge in that area.

Becker looked like he was considering yet another way to pursue this when his attention was drawn to his laptop, apparently to the question Wigg had just transmitted. He looked up at the camera and nodded before switching subjects.

“So, Jordan, tell me… why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill Melanie Strum in that particular way.”

“I’m afraid that’s a private matter.”

“Private, hell. The deal was we ask questions, you answer them.”

“Well…” Ballston’s bravado was fading. “I would say it was partly a matter of personal preference, and…” He looked for the first time in the interrogation mildly anxious. “I have to ask you something, Lieutenant. Are you referring to… the whole process… or simply the removal of the head?”

Becker hesitated. The banal tone of the conversation seemed to be twisting his grip on reality. “For now… let’s say we’re mainly concerned about the removal.”

“I see. Well, the removal was, shall we say, a courtesy.”

“It was a what?”

“A courtesy. A gentlemen’s agreement.”

“An agreement… to do what?”

Ballston shook his head in despair, like the sophisticated tutor of a dull student. “I think I’ve explained the basic arrangement, and Karnala’s expertise in catering to the psychological dimension, their ability to provide a unique product. You did understand all that, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah, I understood it fine.”

“They’re the ultimate source of the ultimate product.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“As a condition for an ongoing business relationship, they did have that one small stipulation.”

“The stipulation being that you cut off the victim’s head?”

“After the process. An addendum, if you will.”

“And the purpose of this ‘addendum’ was… what?”

“Who knows? We all have our preferences.”

“Preferences?”

“It was suggested that it was important to someone at Karnala.”

“Jesus. Did you ever ask them to explain that?”

“Oh, my, Lieutenant, you really don’t know the first thing about Karnala, do you?” Ballston’s weird serenity level was rising in direct proportion to Becker’s consternation.

Chapter 67