At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(54)

The financial collapse of 2008 had hit Stockton hard. It became the largest city in US history to file for bankruptcy protection until Detroit eclipsed it five years later. It was a better place to leave than to be born.

“Everything about Cody North’s life is in contrast to Jason Griffin’s upbringing,” said Verraday. “No swashbuckling grandparent, nobody taking the time to teach a twelve-year-old to fly a plane and take over a family business.”

“A tale of two cities,” said Maclean. “Cody’s run-ins with the law began around the same time Jason was setting a world record for the youngest solo flight.”

“We always come back to that nature-versus-nurture argument,” replied Verraday. “It’s a conundrum that we can never settle because most of the time, it’s the people who provided the DNA who are doing the nurturing, or lack thereof. And professional ethics don’t allow us to go around splitting up twins just to see what would happen if one had all the breaks and the other one got the Manson clan as parents. But it’s something that as psychologists, we still don’t understand. I’m not sure if we ever will.”

“Right,” said Maclean. “What makes one kid get his name into the Guinness Book of World Records, while another kid gets no further than being written up in a police case book? Cody’s early arrests and convictions were for relatively minor things. A lot of it was that ‘acting out’ kind of stuff that you expect to see in unhappy kids: shoplifting, vandalism, trespassing, joyriding. Things began to get more serious in his later teens. He had arrests for breaking and entering, stripping cars, and narcotics.”

“I see that he killed a drug dealer. How old was he?”

“Nineteen. He claimed that he was attacked when a deal went bad. There were no witnesses. It was ruled justifiable homicide, so he walked.”

The pizza that Maclean had brought was delicious, and it occurred to Verraday that if the line of conversation hadn’t been so unpleasant, he would have very much enjoyed having her company here. And he would have liked for the two of them to share that bottle of Nero d’Avola.

Verraday looked more closely at the rap sheet. “He’s got a bunch of animal cruelty charges here. Three resulting in death. This concerns me more than the gang offenses. It’s classic serial killer escalation. Jeffrey Dahmer stuck a dog’s head on a stick and stripped animal carcasses before shifting his attention to boys. Edmund Kemper chopped the heads off cats before graduating to killing his mother and seven other women, and the Boston Strangler did his apprenticeship firing arrows at cats and dogs that he’d trapped in boxes.”

“I’m glad now that we didn’t opt for the Italian sausage,” said Maclean.

“You don’t know the half of it,” replied Verraday. “Now, these alleged sexual assaults on girls who were unlucky enough to be partying with Cody and his pals are also concerning.”

“He would have been convicted each of those times,” said Maclean, “except that the girls were high when it happened. He had his friends with him, who testified that it was just a house party gone wild. Plus he always wore a condom, so he never left any evidence behind. Their word against his.”

“There’s another killing here.”

“Yes. A prostitute. They were engaged in hypoxyphilia. She died while he was choking her.”

“How the hell did he beat that one?”

“The coroner ruled it was a heart attack brought about by cardiovascular disease that just happened to be triggered by the strangulation. The prostitute was a heavy cocaine user and had a weakened heart. Cody claimed it was just sex play. The defense looked into her background and found out that hypoxyphilia was one of her specialties. She charged a premium for catering to clients who had fantasies around strangling women.”

“And then he landed in San Quentin.”

“Killed another prostitute. He claimed that she stabbed him and robbed him and that it was self-defense. Said he hadn’t meant to kill her, just protect himself. He got a manslaughter conviction.”

“Well, it might not be a smoking gun, but it’s damned close,” said Verraday. “Psychologically speaking, I’d say Cody North is capable of making the leap to the level of violence that we saw in the Carmichael, Friesen, and Dale cases.”

“I’m going to bring him in for questioning,” said Maclean. “Now, before I go, you were going to tell me something about why you didn’t want meat on your pizza tonight.”

“You all finished? Sure you don’t want anything else?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Maclean replied.

“Then come on into the kitchen.”

*

Maclean stood by Verraday’s kitchen counter, examining the corpse of the rat, which he had laid on top of some plastic wrap. In the light, and with Maclean standing by, the rat seemed smaller and less ominous than when he had discovered it earlier that evening.

“So it was just lying on your front steps when you came home?” asked Maclean.

“Yes. I went to the gym and got something to eat, and when I got back, it was here.”

“And rigor mortis had already set in?”

“It was stiff as a brick.”

“That means it was killed earlier and dumped here. Did you find any blood anywhere on the steps or on the path?”