The Surreal Killer (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 2) Read online

  THE SURREAL KILLER

  By Jerold Last

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2012 © Jerold Last

  Cover photograph of Machu Picchu Copyright 2012 © Elaine Last

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1. Santiago, Chile, A Year Ago

  Chapter 2. Los Angeles, Our Search Begins

  Chapter 3. Should I or Shouldn't I?

  Chapter 4. Lima, Sunday

  Chapter 5. Santa Cruz de Bolivia, Two Years Ago

  Chapter 6. Lima, Monday

  Chapter 7. Get With the Program

  Chapter 8. Lima and Cuzco, Tuesday

  Chapter 9. Lima, The Present

  Chapter 10. Cuzco

  Chapter 11. Killing Suzanne, The Fantasy

  Chapter 12. Machu Picchu: The Breadcrumb Trail Leads Us to a Shopping List of New Suspects

  Chapter 13. The Thrill of the Hunt From a New Perspective

  Chapter 14. Iquique, Day 1

  Chapter 15. The Two Dreams

  Chapter 16. Iquique, Day 2

  Chapter 17. Those Psychology Classes Were Good Things to Study

  Chapter 18. Flying Over The Atacama Desert

  Chapter 19. Pheasant Hunting

  Chapter 20. The Surreal Killer

  Chapter 21. The Denouement and Tourism

  Map of places visited by Roger and Suzanne in South America

  Other Books by this Author

  A Free Sample from Roger and Suzanne's Previous Book, The Ambivalent Corpse

  Bonus geography: For each chapter where Suzanne and Roger travel to a new destination (Chapters 4, 10, 12, and 14), the name of the new location in the chapter heading is hyperlinked to the map in the front of the book. Click on the blue text and you will be back to the map on the next page to see where you actually are in South America. After you are completely oriented, come back to this Table of Contents and click on the chapter you hyperlinked from to return to where you were in the book.

  MAP OF PLACES VISITED BY ROGER AND SUZANNE IN SOUTH AMERICA

  1. Lima, Peru

  2. Cuzco, Peru

  3. Iquique, Chile

  4. San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

  5. Santiago, Chile

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  At some point even Roger runs out of original puns that are possibly worthy of sharing. Thanks to several sources on the internet for fresh material, including ladyeleanor (http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1472383).

  As always, my wife Elaine made lots of useful suggestions and constructive criticisms, and helped with editing several drafts of the manuscript. Elaine also shared memories of our time spent together in Lima, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, and San Pedro de Atacama and the surrounding Atacama Desert region. My son Matthew, who has a belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, helped me with details of how a fight using this martial art form might have gone and also helped with artwork on the cover. Some of the scientists Roger and Suzanne met in Peru are based loosely on real folks I met in Lima early in 2010 when I spent a week there teaching part of a course on algal toxins in drinking water to Peruvian public health authorities and other scientists and engineers interested in water quality issues. The street fair to honor the potato is an annual event in Lima, and my friends and I visited it and tasted several unusual varieties and colors of the vegetable.

  Another unusual source of characters and background was a very long day spent in the Santiago, Chile airport several years ago waiting for the next connecting flight to Mendoza, Argentina, just over the Andes Mountains, after barely missing our connection. Among the stranded passengers were a small group of bird hunters from Texas who told us about their sport, and another couple of gentlemen who worked for the American government who told us about the various observatories in the Chilean desert.

  The next time Roger and Suzanne get to visit the western side of the Andes they will have a chance to spend some time in Santiago, Valparaiso, Vina del Mar, the Chilean wine region, and the Aconcagua Valley where we have also spent some time working and playing, and is a very different place than Northern Chile. In the meantime, I also borrowed a few of my Iquique characters from my friends and colleagues in Santiago.

  Chapter 1. Santiag o, Chile, A Year Ago

  He always thought of this part as cutting the calf out of the herd. The problem: Pick up the woman somewhere, somehow without any witnesses to the event. The solution this time: he found her hitchhiking late at night on the deserted street in a poorly lit part of town. He stopped the rented car and offered her a ride. She looked at him, decided he was safe, jumped in the car, congratulated herself on her good luck, and asked if he was heading towards the next town.

  "Yes, I am. Where can I drop you off?"

  "Anywhere near the middle of town would be great."

  "You've got it."

  The car started off in the right direction.

  "Can I offer you a little brandy? It's cold out there," he said.

  "I'd love a sip or two."

  He removed a flask from his pocket and passed it over.

  "Thanks a lot," she replied, and took a long slow swallow. She returned the flask to the driver.

  Five minutes later the long-acting drug in the brandy had worked its magic and she was completely helpless. Wide awake, but totally unable to move or speak. She stared at the driver with terrified eyes. The driver steered the car onto a dirt road and drove about half a mile into the woods. After stopping the car, he came around to the passenger side, and pulled her out onto the ground. She noted that there was grass and dirt in the clearing. He pawed her body for a few moments, but didn't seem interested in undressing or sexually assaulting her beyond the unwanted touching. Out came his syringe, and with a few well-coordinated movements he injected a few mL of fluid directly into her jugular vein. The powerful drug did its work and she was now completely paralyzed.

  He opened the trunk of the car. Out came a disposable paper coverall and disposable latex rubber gloves, which he donned. Out came a large machete and a protective plastic face shield, which he also put on. He returned to his terrified victim, dragged her about 150 feet from the car, and proceeded to systematically whack away at arms and legs with the machete for several minutes after she had completely bled out. The mutilation of the corpse continued for what seemed to be a long time after she was clearly dead. Finally he dropped the machete, picked up a small stick from the ground nearby, and dipped the end of the stick in one of the many pools of blood around the body. Very carefully, using the blood as ink, he wrote the words "no mas" on the ground near the body. At that point he made a low, throaty growl that might have meant that he was finally satisfied with the result, and the machete overkill came to an end.

  The bloodstained and splattered paper coveralls, latex gloves, and face shield came off and were thrown on top of the dismembered body. So was the machete. Careful examination revealed that there was no apparent blood visible anywhere on him or his clothing after the disposables were taken off. Back to the trunk of the car from which he removed a large plastic container of gasoline that he poured over the body and the disposables. One flick of a match and everything went up in flames, which burned long and hot. When nothing remained but charred flesh, teeth, bones, and ashes he returned to the car and went on to his destination, satisfied that any forensic evidence had been destroyed in the fire. Nothing remained that could link him to the dead young woman, who was a perfect stranger. He smiled a genuine smile of satisfaction.

  Chapter 2. Los Angeles, Our Search Be gins

  We met our friend the Par
aguayan policeman Eduardo Gomez for dinner at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant with a cute name, “Fit To Be Thai’d”. Like most trendy LA restaurants it's overpriced, but the food is very good and the celebrity watching is worth the premium prices. The last time we saw Eduardo was the previous spring. He’s a very, very large man. At about 6'2" and 275 pounds of muscle and bone, he's about the same height I am but makes me look small, which I'm not, by comparison. He has a trimmed beard, no mustache, dark hair, a dark complexion, and piercing dark eyes. He's about 45, which makes him a good bit older than Suzanne and me, but we both think of him as a friend and a contemporary. He hugged both of us with the traditional South American abrazo, fondly suggesting that we order dinner before we got down to business.

  I'm Roger Bowman, a private detective living and working in Los Angeles. Suzanne, my wife, is also Professor Foster, a biochemist on the faculty of UCLA’s Medical School.

  Eduardo is much more than a lieutenant in the police force in Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay. He's also a high-ranking field officer in the Paraguayan National Police, the local equivalent of our FBI. Finally, he's a spy for Israeli Intelligence, the Mossad, in South America. After a shaky start we all three became good friends while we worked together last spring on solving a murder in Montevideo, Uruguay. I suspect that he has a crush on Suzanne that he keeps well concealed. Eduardo looked both of us over quite thoroughly.

  Suzanne looked beautiful, as she always does. At 5’8” tall she is half a head shorter than either Eduardo or me, but with her lean and athletic body she looks taller than she actually is. She has a Scandinavian face with long blond hair, which she usually wears in a ponytail. Her look is casual, with minimal make-up. She is still a bit on the right side of 30 years old and looks more like one of her students than like a professor. Tonight she wore a blue dress that showed off her hair and tanned skin quite flatteringly. I looked like I always do, about 6’2”, 190 pounds, 35 years old, blue eyes, and in excellent shape.

  "Suzanne, I think this is the first time I've ever seen you wearing a dress. You look lovely. Is this in my honor?"

  "No, not really, but feel free to think about it that way if you wish," she replied flirtatiously. "Most of my usual clothes are too tight these days. I'm a whole lot more comfortable wearing loose dresses. As you know from the invitation we sent you seven months ago, I'm now Mrs. Roger Bowman. We very much appreciated the gift you sent even if you couldn't be here in person. Roger and I are expecting our first baby in about six months."

  "Well, congratulations!" he replied. "That's great news."

  We first met Eduardo Gomez in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay where he arranged a small test of our self-defense skills when three of his policemen seemingly attacked us on a dark street. To be more correct, they tried to attack us. Suzanne and I both have considerable training and skill in martial arts. All three of the bogus muggers ended up on the ground in some pain before they were able to touch either of us. From that inauspicious beginning a solid collaboration and a strong friendship evolved as we worked together. We hadn’t seen Eduardo since we'd become involved with The Ambivalent Corpse in Uruguay, but we remained in touch after we returned to California. Eduardo recently e-mailed us to say he'd be in town and wanted to meet for dinner to discuss a current case.

  "I have a case back home that has me stumped. I think we may need your unique talents to make any further progress on it. Take a quick look at this summary case file and let's talk about it over dinner. I'm sorry about the pictures you'll see over dinner, but you guys are pretty tough as I recall."

  The file contained a summary of nine murders, all apparently completely unrelated except for their modus operandi, the M.O., which was strikingly similar. The murders looked like the work of a serial killer. There were two things that particularly stood out. There were no apparent links between any of the victims, who did not know one another as far as the police could determine. And the murders occurred in three separate groups in three different countries: Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. At this point it was clear, at least according to the official paperwork, that the police didn't have a clue.

  The crime scenes themselves looked very much the same. The charred remains of each of the corpses hid much of the blood and gore, but each scene still looked like horrendous overkill. In fact, as Suzanne pointed out, the images were almost surreal.

  Suzanne studied the photos before she commented, “So we have a serial killer who creates surreal crime scenes. We should probably call him ‘The Surreal Killer’ if he doesn’t already have a name.”

  She continued speaking directly to Eduardo, "OK, what's not in the file that brings you all the way up to El Norte to recruit us back to South America? And are we talking to you in your job as an Asuncion detective, a Paraguayan secret police officer, or an Israeli Intelligence Agent?"

  "The police agencies from all three countries that have each hosted three of these killings asked me to organize a multinational task force to try to co-ordinate the investigations in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. They wanted a neutral party to lead the task force because of the official extremely bad relations currently between Chile and the other two countries. Someone probably also looked at a map and figured out that Paraguay may be the killer's next stop. I think that means I'm here as a Paraguayan secret police officer, but I'd prefer we called it the Paraguayan equivalent of the FBI. As to what's not in the file that brings me here, that's the agenda for the rest of tonight's dinner discussion."

  The food came out. Eduardo continued telling his story while we ate.

  "We've had nine killings thus far, three each in the three countries I've mentioned. We've identified seven of the victims so far from their dental work. None of the victims was from the same place and nothing suggests they knew each other. They were from different socioeconomic classes and different ethnicity. The ages ranged from 18 to 39. Some were tall and some were short. Some were fat and some were thin. Some were pretty and some weren't."

  "Is there any kind of signature at these killings, Eduardo?" I asked. "There usually is with serial killers."

  "Good call, Roger. The killer leaves a signature using the victim's blood. He writes 'no mas' by the body."

  "Do you have any idea what that is supposed to mean?"

  "No. The signature probably means what it says, 'no more' in English. We haven't any idea of 'no more what' or 'no more who' is meant. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the killings except the same M.O. for each. Everything else points to a totally random selection of victims and absolutely no common denominators. The police in all three countries are completely stuck. When they came to me we got lucky. I was able to convince the powers that be to give me a minute or two of time on a supercomputer at a secret location in Israel. Everything written in every newspaper from each of the three countries for a period of three weeks before and after each murder got put into the computer, which was asked to look for any news event that occurred more than a random number of times when the dates of the nine murders were compared. We got several hits on three, four, five, and even six such coincidences, but the most promising clue came up nine out of nine times.

  "And that's where you guys come in. There was a meeting of a small regional group of biochemists who study indigenous plants from tropical South America as potential sources of pharmaceuticals going on in the right countries at the right time to put the meeting attendees at or near ground zero for the killings.

  "That's the good news. Now let me share the bad news with you. The scientific society refuses to cooperate with us, so we don't know who attended the meetings. The parent society is a very large group, and we know it was a much smaller subgroup at the meetings we're interested in, but we don't know who was or wasn't there as part of this subgroup. We've run routine background checks on everyone in the larger scientific society. Nobody seems to have killed anyone before, at least on record, but the older files going back to the days of the military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s are not very rel
iable in any of the three countries. Some records are missing, some have been altered, and some may even be fictitious. It seems to be a tight knit group that hates cops, just like most academics in South America. We can't convince any individual to tell us anything we want to know and we don't have any authority to try to scare the truth out of them.

  "What we'd like you to do, Suzanne, is to attend the next meeting, which is scheduled for three weeks from now in Lima, Peru, to see if you and Roger can find some scientists who'll talk to you about the things we want to know over dinner and drinks. I can arrange for you to be invited to the meeting as a special guest of the Paraguayan branch of the society. Your ongoing collaboration with our botanist at the university in Asuncion and your publication record establishes your legitimacy in the group. You can talk to anybody there with your cover story that you're trying to establish additional collaborations. It doesn't matter if their science is mediocre or less than that, and most of them fall into that category. You just want access to DNA from the plants they study or that they can help you to obtain."

  Suzanne mulled this over for a while, apparently lost in thought.