Swimsuit Page 9

  Under other circumstances, I could’ve been part of that pack, but right then I was behind Eddie Keola, scrambling up the rocky slope to where media setups dotted the upper ledge. Local TV correspondents fed the breaking news to the cameras as the small, twisted body was transferred by stretcher into the coroner’s van. Doors slammed and the van sped away.

  “Her name was Rosa Castro,” Keola told me as we got into the Jeep. “She was twelve. Did you see those ligatures? Arms and legs tied back like that.”

  I said, “Yeah. I saw.”

  I’d seen and written about violence for nearly half my life, but this little girl’s murder put such ugly pictures into my mind that I felt physically sick. I swallowed my bile and yanked the car door closed.

  Keola started up the engine, headed north, saying, “See, this is why I didn’t want to call the McDanielses. And if it had been Kim —”

  His sentence was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He patted his jacket pocket, put his phone to his ear, said, “Keola,” then “Levon, Levon. It’s not Kim. Yes. I saw the body. I’m sure. It’s not your daughter.” Eddie mouthed to me, “They’re watching the news on TV.”

  He told the McDanielses we would stop by their hotel, and minutes later we pulled up to the main entrance to the Wailea Princess.

  Barb and Levon were under the breezeway, zephyrs riffling their hair and their new Hawaiian garb. They were holding each other’s white-knuckled hands, their faces pale with fatigue.

  We walked with them into the lobby. Keola explained, without going into the unspeakable details.

  Barbara asked if there could be a connection between Rosa’s death and Kim’s disappearance, her way of seeking assurances that no one could give her. But I tried to do it anyway. I said that pattern killers had preferences, and it would be rare for one of them to target both a child and a woman. Rare, but not unheard of, I neglected to add.

  I wasn’t just telling Barbara what she wanted to hear, I was also comforting myself. At that time, I didn’t know that Rosa Castro’s killer had a wide-ranging and boundless appetite for torture and murder.

  And it never entered my mind that I’d already met and talked with him.

  Chapter 43

  HORST TASTED the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, bought at Sotheby’s for $24,000 per bottle in 2001. He told Jan to hold out his glass. It was a joke. Jan was hundreds of miles away, but their webcam connection almost made it seem as if they were in the same room.

  The occasion of this meeting: Henri Benoit had written to Horst saying to expect a download at nine p.m., and Horst had invited Jan, his friend of many years, to preview the newest video before sending it out to the rest of the Alliance.

  A ping sounded from Horst’s computer, and he walked to his desk, told his friend he was downloading now, and then forwarded the e-mail to Jan in his office in Amsterdam.

  The images appeared simultaneously on their screens.

  The background was a moonlit beach. A pretty girl was lying faceup on a large towel. She was nude, slim-hipped, small-breasted, and her short hair was finger-combed in a boyish fashion. The black-and-white images of form and shadow gave the film a moody quality, as though it had been shot in the 1940s.

  “Beautiful composition,” said Jan. “The man has an eye.”

  When Henri entered the frame, his face was digitally pixilated to a blur, and his voice had been electronically altered. Henri talked to the girl, his voice playful, calling her a monkey and sometimes saying her name.

  Horst commented to Jan, “Interesting, yes? The girl isn’t the least bit afraid. She doesn’t even appear to be drugged.”

  Julia was smiling up at Henri, reaching out her arms, opening her legs to him. He stepped out of his shorts, his cock large and erect, and the girl covered her mouth as she stared up at him, saying, Oh my God, Charlie.

  Henri told her she was greedy, but they could hear the teasing and the laughter in his voice. They watched him kneel between her thighs, lift her buttocks, and lower his face until the girl squirmed, grinding her hips, digging her toes into the sand, crying out, “Please, I can’t stand it, Charlie.”

  Jan said to Horst, “I think Henri is making her fall in love. Maybe he is falling in love, too? Wouldn’t that be something to watch.”

  “Oh, you think Henri can feel love?”

  As the two men watched, Henri stroked, teased, plunged himself into the girl’s body, telling her how beautiful she was and to give herself to him until her cries became sobs.

  She reached her hands around his neck, and Henri took her in his arms and kissed her closed eyes, her cheeks and mouth. Then his hand became large in front of the camera, almost blocking the image of the girl, and reappeared again, holding a hunting knife. He placed the blade beside the girl on the towel.

  Horst was leaning forward, watching the screen intently, thinking, Yes, first the ceremony, now the ultimate sacrifice, when Henri turned his digitally obscured face to the camera and said, “Is everybody happy?”

  The girl answered, yes, she was completely happy, and then the picture went black.

  “What is this?” Jan asked, jerked out of what was almost a trance state. Horst reversed the video, reviewed the last moments, and he realized it was over. At least for them.

  “Jan,” he said, “our boy is teasing us, too. Making us wait for the finished product. Smart. Very smart.”

  Jan sighed. “What a life he is having at our expense.”

  “Shall we make a wager? Just between you and me?”

  “On what?”

  “How long before Henri gets caught?”

  Chapter 44

  IT WAS ALMOST FOUR IN THE MORNING, and I hadn’t slept, my mind still burning with the images of Rosa Castro’s tortured body, thinking of what had been done to her before her life ended under a rock in the sea.

  I thought about her parents and the McDanielses and that these good people were suffering a kind of hell that Hieronymus Bosch couldn’t have imagined, not on his most inspired day or night. I wanted to call Amanda but didn’t. I was afraid I might slip and tell her what I was thinking: Thank God we don’t have kids.

  I swung my legs over the bed, turned on the lights. I got a can of POG out of the fridge, a passion fruit, orange, and guava drink, and then I booted up my laptop.

  My mailbox had filled with spam since I’d checked it last, and CNN had sent me a news alert on Rosa Castro. I scanned the story quickly, finding that Kim was mentioned in the last paragraph.

  I quickly typed Kim’s name into the search box to see if CNN had dragged any new tidbits into their net. They had not.

  I opened a can of Pringles, ate just one, made coffee with the complimentary drip coffeemaker, then pecked away at the Internet some more.

  I found Doug Cahill videos on YouTube: frat house clips and locker-room antics, and a video of Kim sitting in the stands at a football game, clapping and stomping. The camera went back and forth between her and shots of Cahill playing against the New York Giants, nearly decapitating Eli Manning.

  I tried to imagine Cahill killing Kim, and I couldn’t rule out that a guy who could slam into three hundred pounders was a guy who could get physical with a resistant girl and accidentally, or on purpose, break her neck.

  But, in my heart, I believed that Cahill’s tears were real, that he loved Kim, and, logically, if he had killed her he had the means to get lost anywhere in the world by now.

  So I sent my browser out to search for the name the female tipster had whispered in my ear, the suspected arms trader, Nils — middle name, Ostertag — Bjorn. The search returned the same leads I’d gotten the day before, but this time I opened the articles that were written in Swedish.

  Using an online dictionary, I translated the Swedish words for “munitions” and “body armor,” and then I found another photo of Bjorn dated three years earlier.

  It was a candid shot of the man with the regular, almost forgettable, features getting out of a Ferrari in Geneva. He was we
aring a handsome chalk-striped suit under a well-cut topcoat, carrying a Gucci briefcase. Bjorn looked different in this photo from the way he looked at the industrialist’s black-tie dinner, because Bjorn’s hair was now blond. White blond.

  I clicked on the last of the articles about Nils Ostertag Bjorn, and another photo filled my screen, this one of a man in a military uniform. He looked about twenty or so, had wide-spaced eyes and a boxy chin. But he looked nothing like the other photos of Nils Bjorn I’d seen.

  I read the text beneath the photo and made out the Swedish words for “Persian Gulf” and “enemy fire,” and then it hit me.

  I was reading an obituary.

  Nils Ostertag Bjorn had been dead for fifteen years.

  I went to the shower, let the hot water beat down on my head as I tried to fit the pieces together. Was this simply a case of two men with the same unusual name? Or had someone using a dead man’s identity checked into the Wailea Princess?

  If so, had he abducted and possibly murdered Kim McDaniels?

  Chapter 45

  HENRI BENOIT WOKE UP between soft, white layers of bedding in an elegant four-poster bed in his room at the Island Breezes Hotel on Lanai.

  Julia was snoring gently under his arm, her face warm against his chest. Late morning sunlight filtered through the filmy curtains, the whole wide Pacific only fifty yards away.

  This girl. This setting. This inimitable light. It was a cinematographer’s dream.

  He brushed Julia’s hair away from her eyes with his fingers. The sweet girl was under the spell of the kava kava, plus the generous lacing of Valium he’d put in her cup. She’d slept deeply, but now it was time to wake her for her close-up.

  Henri shook Julia’s arm gently, said, “Wakey, wakey, monkey face.”

  Julia cracked open her eyes, said, “Charlie? What? Is it time for my flight?”

  “Not yet. Want another ten minutes?”

  She nodded, then dropped off against his shoulder.

  Henri eased out of bed and got busy, turning on lamps, replacing the media card in his video camera with a new one, setting the camera on the dresser, blocking out the scene. Satisfied, he removed the silk tassel tiebacks from the curtains, letting the heavy drapery fall closed.

  Julia mumbled a complaint as he turned her onto her stomach. He said, “It’s okay. It’s just Charlie,” as he tied her legs to the posts at the foot of the bed, making a clove hitch knot with the cords, and then he tied her arms to the headboard using an exotic Japanese chain knot that photographed beautifully.

  Julia threw a sigh as she slipped into another dream.

  Henri went to his duffel bag, sorted through the contents, put on the clear plastic mask and blue latex gloves, unsheathed the hunting knife.

  Masked and gloved but otherwise naked, Henri placed the knife on the nightstand, then knelt behind Julia and stroked her back before lifting her hips and entering her from behind. She moaned in her sleep, never waking, as he pumped into her, his pleasure overtaking reason, and told her that he loved her.

  Afterward, he collapsed beside her, his arm across the small of her back until his breathing slowed. Then he straddled the sleeping girl, twirled her short hair around the fingers of his left hand, and lifted her head a few inches off the pillow.

  “Ow,” Julia said, opening her eyes. “You hurt me, Charlie.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

  He waited a moment before drawing the blade lightly across the back of Julia’s neck, leaving a thin red line.

  Julia only flinched, but with Henri’s second cut, her eyelids flew open wide. She twisted her head, her eyes growing huge as she took in the mask, the knife, the blood. She sucked in her breath, shouted, “Charlie! What are you doing?”

  Henri’s mood shattered. He’d been filled with love for this girl, and now she was defying him, wrecking his shot, ruining everything.

  “For God’s sake, Julia. Show a little class.”

  Julia screamed, bucked violently against the restraints, her body having more range of motion than Henri expected. Her elbow collided with his hand, and as the knife danced away from him, Julia filled her lungs and let loose a long, undulating, horror-movie screech.

  She’d left Henri no choice. It wasn’t graceful, but it was ultimately the best means to the end. He closed his hands around Julia’s throat and shook her. Julia gagged and thrashed against the ropes as he squeezed off her air, controlled every last second of her life. He released, then squeezed her neck again — and again — and then finally she was still. Because she was dead.

  Henri was panting as he got off the bed and crossed the floor to the camera.

  He leaned toward the lens, put his hands on his knees, said with a grin, “Better than I planned. Julia went off script and ended our time together with a real flourish. I just love her. Is everybody happy?”

  Chapter 46

  HENRI WAS STEPPING OUT of the shower when he heard a knock at the door. Had someone heard Julia screaming? A voice called out, “Housekeeping.”

  “Go away!” he shouted. “Do not disturb. Read the sign, huh?”

  Henri tightened the sash of his robe, walked to the glass doors at the far end of the room, opened them, and stepped out onto the balcony.

  The beauty of the grounds spread out before him like the Garden of Eden. Birds chirped their little hearts out in the trees, pineapples grew in the flower beds, children ran along the walks to the pool as hotel staff set up lounge chairs. Beyond the pool, the ocean was bright blue, the sun beat down on another perfect Hawaiian day.

  There were no sirens. No men in black. No trouble on the horizon for him.

  All was well.

  Henri palmed his cell phone, called for the helicopter, then went to the bed and pulled the comforter over Julia’s body. He wiped down the room, every knob and surface, and turned on the TV as he dressed in his Charlie Rollins gear. Rosa Castro’s face grinned at him from the TV screen, a sweet little girl, and then there was the continuing story of Kim McDaniels. No news, but the search went on.

  Where was Kim? Where, oh, where could she be?

  Henri packed his gear, checked the room for anything he might have overlooked, and when he was satisfied he put on Charlie’s wraparound sunglasses and ball cap, swung his large duffel onto his shoulder, and left the room.

  He passed the housekeeper’s cart on his way to the elevator, said to the stout brown woman vacuuming, “I’m in Four-twelve.”

  “I can clean now?” she asked.

  “No, no. A few more hours, please.”

  He apologized for the inconvenience, said, “I’ve left something for you in the room.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Henri winked at her, took the stairs down to the marvelous velvet jewel box of a lobby with birds flying through one side and out the other.

  He settled his bill at the desk, then asked a groundskeeper for a lift out to the helipad. He was already thinking ahead as the hotel’s oversize golf cart ran smoothly alongside the green, the wind picking up now, blowing clouds out to the sea.

  He tipped the driver and, holding down his cap, ran toward the chopper.

  After buckling in, he raised his hand to say hello to the pilot. He pulled on headphones and, as the chopper lifted, he snapped off shots of the island with his Sony, what any tourist would do. But it was all for show. Henri was well beyond the magnificence of Lanai.

  When the helicopter touched down in Maui, he made an important call.

  “Mr. McDaniels? You don’t know me. My name is Peter Fisher,” he said, brushing his speech with a bit of Aussie. “I have something to tell you about Kim. I also have her watch — a Rolex.”

  Chapter 47

  THE KAMEHAMEHA HOSTEL on Oahu had been built in the early 1900s, and it looked to Levon like it had been a boardinghouse, with small bungalows surrounding the main building. The beach was right across the highway. Out on the horizon, surfers crouched above their boards, skimming the waves, waiting for the Big One.


  Levon and Barbara stepped over backpackers in the dark lobby, which smelled musty, like mildew with a touch of marijuana.

  The man behind the desk looked like he’d washed up on the beach a hundred years ago. He had bloodshot eyes, hair in a white braid even longer than Barb’s, and a stained “Bullish on America” T-shirt with a name patch: “Gus.”

  Levon told Gus that he and Barb had a reservation for one night, and Gus told Levon that he’d need to be paid in full before he handed over the keys, those were the rules.

  Levon gave the man ninety bucks in cash.

  “No refunds, checkout at noon, no exceptions.”

  “We’re looking for a guest named Peter Fisher,” Levon said. “He has an accent. Australian or South African maybe. ‘ Pee-ta Fish-a.’ You have his room number?”

  The clerk flipped pages of the guest book, saying, “Not everyone signs in. If they come in a gang, I only need the one signature of whoever’s paying. I don’t see any Peter Fleisher.”

  “Fisher.”

  “Either way, I don’t see him. Most people eat in our dining room at dinner. Six dollars, three courses. Ask around later, and you might find your man.”

  Gus looked hard at Levon, said, “I know you. You’re the parents of that model got killed over on Maui.”

  Levon felt his blood pressure rocket, wondered if today was the day he would be cut down by a fatal myocardial infarction. “Where’d you hear that?” he snapped.

  “Whad’ya mean? It’s on TV. In the newspapers.”

  “She’s not dead,” Levon said.

  He took the keys. With Barb behind him, they climbed to the third floor, opened the door to an appalling room: two small beds, mattress springs poking at grimy sheets. The shower stall was black with mold, there were years of crud in the blinds, and the scatter rug looked damp to the touch.