Kiss of Death (6 page)

“So you get on well with the Taylors?”

“Real well. Mrs. Taylor is, was, like a mom to me. It's been hard not seeing them for the past few months.” He takes a chair, puts it beside the counter and stands on it. Reaching into the very top cupboard he withdraws a packet of Oreos and a small plate.

“Your hiding spot?” I give him a smile.

“Uh-huh. Mom would eat them in one sitting if she knew they were here.”

“Really?” Todd's mum is less than ten pounds overweight.

“Don't let her fool you. She binges for a few days, then hardly eats for days on end.” He shakes his head. “It's crazy.”

Sloan moves around, unable to get comfy in the chair. “Was last night the first time you've seen Sherry since you broke up?”

He gives a little snort. “Hardly. Sherry and I split up four months ago, but we've still been seeing each other.”

“Sexually?” Sloan's tone is harsh.

Todd winces. “I love Sherry, Detective. And I always will.”

“Was the feeling mutual?” Sloan's voice is softer now.

He sighs. “Not exactly.” He rinses the cups and pulls a plunger down from a high cupboard before leaning on the sink. His shoulders rise and fall in a labored breath. “She was obsessed with that professor of hers.”

“Professor?” Sloan's voice is casual, but I know her curiosity is truly piqued—as is mine.

“Yes. She had a crush on him. It's why she broke it off with me.” He places three scoops of coffee into the plunger and fills it with boiling water. “She said if we were meant to be together she wouldn't have feelings for any other guy.”

“Do you know his name?”

Todd turns around. “Carrington. He's her acting professor.” He stares at his shoes. “I guess she could be with him.”

No, she's not with Carrington…she's in the morgue.

So far I'm only getting a good vibe off Todd and I'm finding it hard not to tell him that Sherry's dead.

Sloan, on the other hand, doesn't seem bothered. “Tell us about last night. What time did you see her?”

“Late. About midnight.”

“Did you have a fight?” I ask.

“No.” He slowly pushes the plunger down. “But she was…different.” He looks up again. “She called me around midnight and she was upset.”

“Go on.”

“We arranged to meet in Santa Monica.” He pours out three cups of coffee and places them on the kitchen table before opening the fridge and peering inside. “Dammit.” Closing the fridge he looks around, his eyes finally resting on a carton of milk on the counter. He shakes his head. “How many times do I have to tell her to put the milk away?” He picks it up from the counter and smells it before looking up at us. “I'm sorry, but it is fine.” He puts the milk on the table.

I get the distinct impression that this mother-son relationship doesn't have a mother in it. I often wonder how women like Todd's mum get their babies past the first two years of life. Then again, sometimes they don't.

“Whereabouts did you meet in Santa Monica?” I ask, curious as to how close they were to Temescal Gateway Park.

“There's a little spot we used to go, right where the oceanfront walk starts.”

I look at Sloan, hoping she'll know the area.

She nods for both my benefit and Todd's. “I know it. Not too far from Temescal Gateway Park.”

That places Todd and our victim right near the crime scene. Could I be wrong about him?

Todd doesn't pick up on the reference. If he's seen today's news he'd know a woman's body was found in the park this morning, but so far the reports haven't carried her name.

“Go on.” I give him a generic prompt rather than asking a question that would lead us down a specific path.

“She wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I comforted
her, held her and told her I loved her. And then about ten minutes later she was all hot and heavy.” He looks down and stares into his coffee cup. “I knew she wasn't herself and I did try to stop things a few times to make sure she was okay. But she was insistent. Voracious even. I'd never seen her like that.”

“Do you know where she'd been earlier in the night?”

“At some Goth club. Researching an acting piece for class.”

“Really?” I keep my voice casual, even though the link between the victim and the Goth culture is big news. It could place her right in After Dark with vampires.

He smiles. “She was all decked out in the gear. I didn't even recognize her at first…but she was in her car, so I knew it must have been Sherry. I wondered if that was why she was so…you know. The outfit sure was sexy.”

“What else did she say?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Not much. We were busy.”

“Did she behave differently during sex? Besides being more assertive?”

“Not really—um, what do you mean?” His face reddens slightly.

I take us down the Goth and vampire path. “You know, anything kinky? Like a desire to drink blood?”

“No!” His coffee cup connects heavily with the table and he scrunches his face up. “It was just research. She wasn't into that scene.”

“So,” Sloan says, “you had sex, then what?”

“She said she was tired and wanted to go home. I tried to find out what had upset her, but she said she was fine.”

“And do you think she was?” Todd and Sherry were together for a long time. Hopefully he knew his girlfriend well enough to know if she was hiding her true feelings.

“I'm not sure, to be honest. She seemed okay, but Sherry's an exceptional actress.”

“So what time did she head off?”

“About one.”

We've filled in part of Sherry's timeline for last night at least from midnight to 1:00 a.m.—assuming Todd is telling us the truth. And we've probably found the source of the semen from the postmortem rape kit.

“Did you use a condom, Todd?” I ask.

“No.” He looks down. “Stupid, I know. But neither of us had one and Sherry assured me the timing was safe…you know, in terms of her cycle.” He looks up again. “Hang on, what's with the question about condoms?”

I take a deep breath. I give Sloan a quick glance and once I have a little nod from her I start. “I'm afraid we've got some bad news, Todd.”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

I lean toward him. “We found Sherry, but she's dead. Murdered.”

“What?”
He stands up, sending his chair flying backward. “No, you've got it wrong! She can't be dead.”

I stand up, too, and rest my hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry, but it is Sherry.”

He's silent for a bit. “Do her parents know?”

“Yes. We informed them a couple of hours ago.”

He blows out a breath and runs his hand through his hair. “I can't…I can't believe it. I was with her like twelve hours ago.” He paces.

Sloan and I are both silent and the silence gives Todd enough time to get up to speed. He stops pacing abruptly.

“Oh my God…you think—” he swallows hard “—you think
I
had something to do with this? That's why you didn't tell me straight away.”

Sloan looks up. “So far you were the last person to see her.”

“But I didn't kill her! I
loved
Sherry.”

Unfortunately in our line of work, love is often the reason people kill, not the reason they don't. As a behavioral analyst my cases tend to be more complex—serial killers, serial rapists, cold cases—but Sloan would be lapping up the circumstantial and physical evidence. After all, if Sherry's got Todd's DNA in her and he admits to seeing her at 1:00 a.m., right near Temescal Gateway Park…

Sloan stands up. “We'd like to take a DNA sample for comparison. It's just a swab inside your cheek.”

“Just because I had sex with her doesn't mean I killed her.”

“Of course not, Mr. Fischer. And your cooperation with the DNA certainly indicates you've got nothing to hide.”

He nods slowly. “Okay.”

Sloan turns to me. “I've got a kit in the car. I'll be back in a sec.” She walks out, quickly, perhaps worried Todd will change his mind.

“You'll do the DNA now?”

“Yes, Todd. Like Detective Sloan said, it's just a little swab from the inside of your cheek. It's quick and painless.”

He nods. After a minute or so he says, “What time was Sherry killed?”

“We're not sure yet.”

Sloan enters, paper and evidence bag in one hand and a small plastic vial in the other. She puts the paper on the table in front of Todd. “Have a read through that, Mr. Fischer, and then sign at the bottom.”

Sloan and I both take a seat. I purposely avert my gaze from Todd, and Sloan follows suit. Keep it nice and relaxed in case he suddenly gets jumpy. But our fears are unfounded—he quickly reads the form and signs it.

Sloan unscrews the vial. “Open wide please, Mr. Fischer.”

Todd does as instructed and Sloan uses the cotton-bud end to scrape the inside of his cheek, before slipping it back inside the container, sealing it and placing it in the evidence bag.

“That's it.” She gives him a quick smile.

He looks at Sloan, then me. “Now what?”

“We'll take this to the lab for comparison with the evidence we found on Sherry's body and we'll be in touch.”

“I still can't believe she's…dead.” He takes a deep breath and his body tenses with grief. “You will find whoever did this, won't you?”

“We hope so, yes.” Sloan knows better than to make guarantees or to tell him that he's still one of our prime suspects. Agreeing to give his DNA and admitting he saw Sherry last night don't make him innocent.

“So, as far as you knew, she was heading home at 1:00 a.m.?” I confirm.

“Yes. That's what she said, and she drove off in that direction.”

“And she never mentioned what she was upset about?”

“No.”

We thank Todd Fischer for his time, give him our cards and leave, picking our way over the piles of old papers and magazines that cover the floor between kitchen and front door.

“Sorry about the mess,” Todd says at the door. “I've given up trying to keep it even half-decent looking.”

“That's fine, Todd.” I hold my hand out. “Thanks for your help.”

He shakes my hand and Sloan's before closing the door.

In the car, Sloan buckles up. “So we've got an ex-
boyfriend who admits to having sex with her only a couple of miles from the crime scene. It's not looking good for Todd Fischer.”

“I don't know.” I start the car. “My gut instinct says he's innocent.”

“Maybe. But it sounds like there was a new man on the scene and maybe Fischer was jealous…and angry.”

“What about the bite marks? They clearly point to someone from the vampire community. And now we've got confirmation that Sherry had some contact with that world. Even if it was just for research.”

Sloan raises her finger. “But Todd knew. He seems like a smart kid to me. Smart enough to make it look like a vampire attack.”

Sunday, 4:30 p.m.

O
nce I've dropped Sloan, it's on to the Federal Building and my desk. In the end we decided the professor had to wait. Sloan needs to start logging her requests and getting the DNA sample moving and I want to find out more about Anton Ward and vampires. Besides, I'd like to interview Carrington at UCLA. It'll be interesting to see how he responds to a police and FBI visit in the middle of a class.

At my desk I open the file and turn over the first few crime-scene photographs. Rosen printed them out on regular paper, but the digital images are high resolution. The next document in the file is on Sherry Taylor, starting with the missing persons report. According to the report, she'd told her parents she was going out with Desiree Jones last night—but Desiree was with her family and had no idea she was Sherry's cover. I bet that shocked Mrs. Taylor. And despite this, she still seemed so confident that she knew her daughter's associates and comings and goings. You'd think her faith would be starting to crumble a little bit. So where was Sherry from 9:00 p.m. to midnight last night? At the Goth nightclub like Todd
Fischer said? Or was there some other mystery date? These are questions we need to answer, but first things first…the file.

I read through the three-page missing persons report filled out by Officer Saporo from the LAPD. Even though she'd really only been missing for a few hours when the parents reported it, Saporo still did it by the book. He wasn't too worried about a twenty-year-old still being out at eight on a Sunday morning, but there's no legal requirement to wait twenty-four hours or any other specified time in California. Saporo classified Sherry's disappearance as Missing/Lost rather than as a runaway, parental abduction, stranger abduction or disaster victim. While it's possible she was abducted by a stranger, there was no evidence to suggest that. According to the form, Sherry Taylor was last seen by her parents leaving the house at nine last night. She was wearing tight Guess jeans with an eveningwear-style, short-sleeved top—black with lots of beading—and a leather jacket. The clothing doesn't help us much, given Sherry was found naked, although it does tell us she wasn't dressed for a Goth nightclub…at least not when she left her parents' house. So she either changed after she left, or Todd lied.

The next section of the form relates to any companions the missing person was with, but in the case of Sherry she left the house alone and we don't know who she may have seen after that—except for Todd. Information covering Sherry's car has been completed in the next spot, including the fact that her Toyota Celica hasn't been found. I give Sloan a call to confirm.

“Sloan, it's Anderson. Don't suppose Sherry's car was at our crime scene?”

“No. It doesn't look like she drove herself to Temescal Gateway Park. Unless someone else drove the car away.”

“And her cell phone wasn't found?”

“No,” Sloan confirms. “According to the parents, they were ringing her cell every ten minutes or so, from about seven this morning. It was going straight to voice mail.”

“Does it have a GPS unit?”

“No.” She pauses. “I do have some news.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Our footprint experts have finished on-scene and identified three different sets of footprints that could be part of a circle around the body. Two are only partials, but one is more complete.”

“Go on.”

“They'll run them against shoe databases, but we've got a women's size eight and what looks like a men's eleven and a men's eleven or twelve.”

“It's a start.” Although the shoe sizes are all very common. Hopefully something more specific will come from the imprints themselves.

“Problem is these prints were found amongst a lot of others. Given how much that clearing was used, any defense attorney's going to smash them in court.”

I grimace. If Sloan's repeating the forensic expert's words “could be part of a circle,” she's right—that's not good enough for court. “Okay, thanks.”

I hang up and move back to the form and the details of the complainant—in this case Mr. and Mrs. Taylor—and then on to the more detailed information about Sherry. Again, nothing particularly stands out. The last two sections are for forensics data, but they're blank, as you'd expect when the report had just been logged. Soon enough they would have added credit card checks and phone records and then, if suitably concerned that foul play was
a factor, they would have assigned a computer technician to start the laborious process of looking for clues on Sherry's laptop. But for a twenty-year-old, that may have been weeks away.

Next in the file Sloan pulled together for Rosen and the Bureau is all the information on the trespass charge and the preliminary information they dug up on Anton Ward, once they made the link between the two trespassers, After Dark and Ward. The file contains a printout of Ward's driver's license, as well as an article
LA Weekly
did on him and After Dark a few months back. It's a feature article with a large photo of Ward and on the other side of the page is the After Dark logo. It's a pentagram enclosed in a circle with the word
After
written above it and
Dark
below it.

According to the article, Anton Ward was born Brett Simons in Virginia. He was educated at Stanford, but inherited his parents' substantial fortune when they were both killed in a car accident when he was eighteen. Ward is thirty-two, single, with no children. A large photo for the article shows me he's extremely good-looking, with raven-black hair that drapes across his dark blue eyes and pale skin. Could be hair dye, contacts and makeup.
Or maybe the
LA Weekly
Photoshopped the file. Who knows?

I ring up Mercedes Diaz from the Bureau's Cyber Crime Division. Mercedes is my workout partner and a good friend. “Hey, Mercedes.”

“Hi, Soph. What's up?”

“Sorry to bug you on a Sunday, but do you mind running a background check for me?”

“Sure thing. Hold on a sec while I fire up my laptop.”

“You mean it's
not
on?”

She laughs. “Hey, I'm not that bad.”

In my experience, most computer techs are addicted—in and out of work. Unlike the chef who never cooks at home, computer analysts seem to spend countless hours on their computers.

“Okay. What do you want?”

“Give me everything you've got on Anton Ward. According to an
LA Weekly
article he was born Brett Simons in Virginia but you better check that, too.”

“Police, travel, education, investments, newspapers?”

“All of it.”

“Okay.” She's already typing speedily on her keyboard. “I'll e-mail you everything I find. Give me about thirty minutes, an hour tops.”

“Man, you guys are fast.”

“It's not us…it's the computers.”

In reality it's both. The computers may store the information, but techs can get in, and out, quickly.

“What you working on anyway?” she asks.

“Murder case. Temescal Gateway Park.”

“Sounds like you're having a good weekend.”

I smile. “You could say that.”

“Keep an eye on your BlackBerry.”

“Will do.”

I hang up and decide to start by researching the different clubs before moving on to Ward and After Dark. I soon find a Web site that lists Goth clubs around the world and do a quick check for L.A. On Thursday nights it's Perversion in Hollywood, Fridays is Ruin, Saturdays is Bar Sinister and Sundays is Malediction Society. If Todd Fischer is telling us the truth Sherry must have come directly from Bar Sinister. I ring the club and leave a message, asking for a return call as soon as possible.

Both Malediction Society and Ruin are run out of the same place on Wilshire—the Monte Cristo. Looks like I'll be heading down there tonight—if I decide to go through with it. The clubs don't seem to have dedicated Web sites, but they're all on MySpace and Facebook. Malediction Society's page features an advertisement-style layout, with posters of upcoming events and DJs that play at the club. The other clubs use a similar approach.

Next I move on to Ward and After Dark. My Google search comes up with a few articles on the group and the man himself, but nothing much that's not already in the fledgling file. Next, I log into my minimalist profile page on Facebook and do a search for Anton Ward. Sure enough, I find a few Anton Wards and soon pinpoint the group leader. The profile image on Facebook has him dressed in tailored pants and a skintight plum sweater, leaning on a grand piano. The image is more conservative than I'd imagined—like he's trying to show off his wealth and hide any more Gothic tendencies. It's also a very small picture—I can't access his full details unless I send him a friend request that he accepts. And, for the moment, I want to fly under the radar. If I decide it's worthwhile, I may set up a fake Facebook profile to see if I can get additional info. Next I search on his group's name, After Dark. I discover that Ward's set up a Facebook page, which I can view without having to join. I read the main blurb:

After Dark is a group of enlightened individuals who have embraced their real calling in this world—vampirism. Based in L.A., the group is headed by the self-made Anton Ward, who saw the need to band together with his fellow vampires and give them somewhere safe to meet. After Dark meets once a week and provides a mentoring program for all its members. The organization also helps people cross over into their new lives as vampires and matches vampires with willing donors. At the moment, our exclusive group is physically based and we purposely keep numbers low. However we will shortly be launching an online group so that After Dark can have a national and global presence. For more information, e-mail [email protected].

I have a quick look through thumbnail pictures of the page's fans and the other basic information that Ward has posted on the page. He hasn't included a lot of details about the group or its members; rather, he's covered the basics and requested that people e-mail him with their interest in the forthcoming virtual group. It's not exactly an empire, but it could feed his ego, if not his wallet.

Next I search MySpace. With no need to “friend” him first, I find Ward's profile page quite quickly and this time have instant access to his vital statistics—at least those he self-reported. Then there's also a longer “about me” section, a link to his blog and some more pictures. I flick through these images and find some that better fit my mental image of the man, including one in which he's wearing contacts that make his eyes glow eerily.

He's got two hundred and twenty friends on MySpace, including quite a few of the Goth-inspired clubs. Overall, the theme for women is definitely corsets, dark hair, pale faces and red lips.

I could spend hours clicking the friend links and reading about Ward's online network, but I've got too much to get through before hooking up with Sloan again. Plus I've got enough initial info on him for now. While I'll reserve final judgment until I meet Ward and his group members, at this stage I see two possibilities for Anton Ward. One, he's a conman, someone who saw an opportunity to surround himself with devoted members who pander to his ego. Or two, he believes whatever teachings he may pass on to his members, believes he's a vampire. Guess I'll find out which soon.

Either way, until I discover more about Anton Ward and his group, it'll be difficult to classify them. On the surface they seem to fit some definitions of a new religious movements—they're a small, non-mainstream group that revolves around a single leader. NRMs are often associated with extremist behavior and their lifestyle is usually seen as unconventional in some way, and Ward and his group tick that box. Vampirism is extremist behavior, even in today's society where it's got a chic factor. But are they a cult? Does Anton Ward have complete control over his followers? The group didn't come onto the law-enforcement radar until Riley and Davidson were arrested—no hint of illicit or illegal activities, no missing person reports filed by family members, and so on. And even if they are an NRM, it doesn't mean they're violent or capable of murder. Many NRMs function with no incident. It's just that the ones that go spectacularly and tragically wrong get lots of media attention.

The question is, then, if After Dark is a cult, is it a destructive one?

A destructive cult tends to have one charismatic leader, uses deception in recruiting, uses thought-reform methods to effectively brainwash its members, is isolated from the rest of society, distinguishes between their kind and the rest of the world and strictly controls members' daily
routines. But from what I know so far, this group isn't isolated, geographically at least. Riley and Davidson live in WestHo and Ward lives in Los Feliz. And having not met Riley or Davidson, it's difficult for me to decide if they're the “type” to be attracted to a new religious movement. From a psychological perspective, cults can give people a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose—two things people are striving for these days. Likewise, an NRM can guide people in their behavior—tell them what's right and wrong—and some individuals would rather feel guided, controlled even, than alone. But if After Dark is a destructive cult, its members could be convinced that killing a woman in a ritualistic way is okay, even required. Members don't usually question their leader's instructions. Charles Manson and his “family” are a classic example. In 1969 Manson convinced four of his members to kill Sharon Tate and four of her friends. These cult members followed their leader's directions without question, despite the fact that Tate was five months pregnant. They believed Manson represented the Second Coming and was infallible; and he convinced them that the act of killing another human being was simply releasing them from their physical bodies. Murder was not a heinous crime in their minds.