Murderess Chic

[Continued from previously]

Lane Dahlquist picked up men and killed them.

She wrote about her kills as if they were fiction,

in unpublished pulp fiction-style novels.

A Haunted Detective

     Ventura County Sheriff's Deputy Ray Vogler hadn't seen it all.

     But he'd seen quite a bit.

     "It would be a cliche to say I'd never seen anything like it. But, I'd never seen anything like it," Vogler said about the several decade old unsolved crime, sitting at a bar while chain smoking Lark cigarettes after pulling off the filters.

     Ray is no longer with the department, having left about five years after the murder of a young surfer who had been a friend of his nephew. There has also been the alleged killing of a witness.

     "Ray Vogler" is not the detective's real name, which has been changed for use in this article. For several reasons.

     "That case was controversial. Because I'd been on scene, and saw how this kid was left, it stuck with me. I wouldn't let it go. (And) the kid was a friend of the family. When the case wouldn't come together to satisfy the DA and brass, I wouldn't let go. It was personal," 'Vogler' says after his fourth filterless Lark in 30 minutes.

     Personal is where it shouldn't go for a cop. When Vogler wouldn't accept the case could not be brought, "I started to get treated like a bad character out of a TV movie. Started with the brass. (But) by the time I left I'd had it. Even the new kids had heard of me. I'd become the last thing you want on a PD. That crazy guy who's haunted by the case that got away."

     'Vogler's one condition in speaking for this piece, written in 2006 and published here for the first time, was to not use his actual name.

Her M.O. was to kill during sex. In this case

a surprise spiked surgery tool into the base

of the skull during intercourse. Her victim hadn't a chance.

A Haunting Case

     From the moment Vogler first saw the 23-year-old local Ventura surfer's body, he promised himself he'd solve the case.

     "I failed. Let him down. My nephew, was the kid's surf buddy. Sure, they smoked a bit of weed. Threw back a six-pack or two on the weekends. But he was a good kid (and) didn't deserve to die like that," Vogler says, ordering his second scotch and soda of the evening to go with his mutilated Larks. We sit on an outside patio, where smoking is still permitted at bars in California.

     "In this state (California) they'll let the rich, the connected, kill people like that kid. But a former detective can't smoke inside in a bar. That screwed up, or what?" the former detective says, letting out some of the bitterness remaining after all these years.

     Asked to describe the crime scene, and the subsequent information about the killing from forensics, Vogler orders another double scotch soda. Even though the one in front of him isn't finished.

     "Talk about your sick stuff. It was like a sacrifice. Some kind of ritual. But neat. Pretty. Wacko.

     "I knew a few guys who'd been at the Manson murders back when. (I) saw some of those photos. That was savage. But somehow this was worse. Crazy people on drugs going crazy is one thing. But sacrificing a kid nice, neat, thought out, like that's what he'd been born to be used for. Fries my brain. My soul, if you will."

     Vogler takes a moment's rest to rip the filter off another Lark before lighting it. Finish his scotch soda before starting on the double that awaits, in front of his heavy body, still solid for a man in his sixties.

     Asked about the specifics of what he saw, and the forensics info, he grimaces as if feeling pain from an old injury.

     Then he braces with a drink, and goes into it.

     "Okay. first there's this kid. Coulda been my nephew. laying there naked on the bed.

     "No sign of struggle. That was the first signal of something up. Relaxed. Eyes closed. Almost a smile on his face. Like he's at peace with whatever happened to him.

     "Blankets' pulled back. Dried something on the sheets around his, you know..."

Sheriff's Det. 'Ray Vogler', a man traumatized by

the murder of his nephew's surf pal. Killed during sex

with, he says, an attractive blonde surgeon twice the kid's age.

     Vogler, a hardened detective, used the term "you know" for a murder victim's sex organs. Vogler wasn't the kind of guy that would cringe at using stronger terms. Few detectives were. But he had been traumatized by this case.

     "Anyone who wasn't a virgin could see this kid had been fucking someone. There was dried blood that had come out from behind his head. He had a mess of tangled hair that was dried together in the spot where he'd been...where she had..."

     Vogler crushes out a Lark. Tears off the filter to another. Lights it and continues.

     "He'd been punctured in the back of the head with something. No sign of struggle. Anywhere. Pretty obvious what went on," Vogler said, pausing to get lost somewhere in his mind while splashing some scotch and soda down his throat.

     Vogler didn't follow up on what "obvious" meant. He figured it was...obvious. But I asked anyway.

     "Guess you had to be there to understand. Whoever he was with, which I came to believe...no, came to know, was Dahlquist. She had nailed him in the back of the head while they were doin' it. No struggle. No ruffle to the sheets. (He) never saw it coming.

     "She left him just like that. Those were the days before DNA. I think a year or so later was the first conviction using it. Our department wasn't set up with any kinda procedure (for it)," Vogler said.

     "DNA regarding?" I asked.

     Vogler looked at me like I wasn't following along. I was, but had to nail things down.

     "The dried liquids. You know, the kind during sex? It was all over his (genitals)...soaked and dried in the sheets. Today they'd have that analyzed and ready to convict. Back then I don't think our guys had even taken a class on that stuff (DNA) yet."

     Vogler sits, reflects for a second. Drinks. Considers another cigarette, but passes. Then speaks.

     "I'm not ripping our department. Hey, we were a small jurisdiction. That was before DNA was happening. Anyway, forensics did corroborate what I already knew. The dried liquid on and around the kid's body was from a broad. What'd they call it? 'Vaginal discharge.' (While) fucking him. Not the technical term in the report, which was, if I recall, 'intercourse'.

     "Basically, she spiked him while she fucked him. Guess that's getting double fucked, huh?"

The killer was older now. But still beautiful. And smart.

Perhaps too smart to have been discovered until

after her own death.

Another Victim

     If there's one thing about the case former Det. Ray Vogler can live with, it's that the Ventura County's crime lab was not cutting edge enough in 1986 to collect, handle and preserve DNA in the case. Really, just before DNA evidence came into it's own.

    What Vogler says he can't live with is the system's failure given other evidence in the case.

    "We had a witness. We didn't protect him like we should. She got him. I'm sure of it. Once he was gone, that was it. Point. Game. Match. Lady walks."

---Res Cane

[-30-]

"Don't Worry Baby"

[Continued from previously]

Lane Dalquist wrote of a murderess in sunglasses who
picked up a young surfer to kill. It is believed the character
was actually herself.

A Strange Pleasure

     Lane Dalquist allegedly enjoyed killing men. During sexual intercourse.
     Aside from that idiosyncracy, she had a life as a respected surgeon. Was the charming wife of a Hollywood producer. And, Dalquist enjoyed writing.
     Writing about the murders she is alleged to have committed.

     An unpublished short story from the estate of Lane Dalquist was brought to light five years after her death in the mid-90s, It was part of the tapestry of evidence come to light after her death that turned faint suspicions among a very few while she lived, into quiet certainty for many in the aftermath of her contradictory life.

     It involves, as most of the stories Dalquist wrote, a heroine huntress looking for men. Most noticeable is that, while her main character is a serial killer, the character's murders, the way she conducts them, and the protagonist herself, are held in implicit approval.
     As a journalist and editor I had to admire the immaculate editing job Dalquist did on her own work, if not the source material for what is now believed to autobiographical.
     In exerpts from this untitled writing, we see romanticization of the murderess as she seeks a slight divergence in the victims she has heretofore been selecting.
     "Bret" was the perfect man for the purposes of her main character, Olympia, a mid-forty-something class act lady from the La Jolla area of California.
     From the manuscript:

     "Olympia only went by her full name in circles she normally ran. But slumming along surf bar row in Oceanside, on the prey for the right young man, she called herself 'Pia'
     The parking lot of the Hodaddy, a beer bar decorated with old surfing boards, did not offer hope finding what she was after this day. 'Pia' had up until recently, not chosen to play in her own backyard. She had also preferred the clean cut, middle-thirties businessman or playboy type for her needs. However, as she matured into the forties, she became more daring, playing closer to home, and, seeking a different caste of male.

The victim in Lane's story was picked up at a surf bar.
The victim in real life was picked up at a surf bar, picked up
by Lane herself, it is now believed.

     At 3:30 in the afternoon the only car in the parking lot of the Hodaddy was a dirty red Chevy pickup truck with an old surfing board, browned and beaten from ocean use. Pia could have moved on, but was thirsty. It was not likely the Hodaddy served the dry chardonnays she preferred, but even a light beer would do fine at this point.
     Additionally, something suggested the owner of the truck might be exactly what she was slumming for. The bar was empty except for a bartender watching the sports channel, an old, disheveled man who appeared too old to lift a beer mug, let alone solvent enough to pay for a drink, and the owner of the surfer truck.
     Pia would learn the young man's name was Bret, and that he surfed every day. With not a lot of prying she found he was willing to spend the evening with a good looking  woman barely old enough to be his mother.
     It was easy for Pia to imagine what a naked Bret would look like. All he was wearing in the bar was a pair of surfer trunks with odd colored fish prints on them, flip flops, loose shoulder-length golden locks, and a darling smile on his youngishly handsome face."


A Story Inspired by Murder

     The narrative reads no worse than any slightly mundane, noir romantic novel of the time. Except for the graphic and erotic sexual violence that comes later.
     Had the prose limited itself to romantic dry rot, it could have succeeded as published middling fare. The element of jagged eroticism and pungent, horridly sexual violence, would give the writing a depth perhaps beyond the author's own intent.
     Artists often create because they must exorcise demons, not because they are geniuses at knowing how to make something into a piece of worthy art.
     Lane Dalquist has been dead for some 15 years, and we will never know if she had the abilities to bring banal romantic writing to another level via Tarrantino and Scorcese-like violence. Or if a simple need for catharsis created what some call brilliant works, despite herself.
     We do know that Dalquist had demons to dispel.
     It is a convention of legal niceties that the term "alleged" is attached to the murders Lane Dalquist is thought to have committed. The narrative above, typical lady book romanticism, diverges as "Pia", Lane's assumedly autobiographical protagonist, moves on to sex with her pickup surfer. And then, beyond sex.
     More from the manuscript:

     "Pia knew how this evening would end, but getting their was almost half the fun.
     Pia told her surfer manboy that she had to worry about her anonymity, and would appreciate not to be seen leaving with him. Pia would depart first, drive to a local chain grocery market, park, and wait for Bret to pull into the lot. Then she would get into his truck and accompany him home, taking a cab later that night back. The young surfer with the darling smile was more than amenable.

The car in the story was a Chevy surf truck with a board

in the back. Above, the real car of the real victim. Lane

changed the brand, but not much else about the killing.

 

     Before leaving, Pia reached into his baggie surfer trunks, grabbed ahold of his masculinity, and squeezed in such a way as to bring an instant erection. "Fuck! You sure know the body lady," Bret inelegantly said. Pia smiled. She had reached under his scrotum, far enough back to also exert pressure on the prostate, as well as the testicles. She had enough sexual ability to accomplish the desired effect, but eight years of medical school and close to 20 as a practicing surgeon gave her more than enough knowedge to know where to touch a man to get almost any reaction, let alone make him stiff in an instant.
     "I want you to be sure you'll know what you're missing if you don't show at the parking lot for me," the beautiful Pia whispered.
     "Woa mam. Don't you worry. Get on over there because I can't wait to leave and pick you up." Pia did just that."


     As far as "Bret" is concerned, the final scene is at his beach house, where Pia prepares to do what she always seems to do. And, allegedly what Lane did in real life:


     "Young Bret was naked on his own bed, and more splendid looking undressed than Pia had imagined. For herself, Pia had removed her designer jeans and white silk blouse, leaving her only in stiletto heels, a black bra, and the sunglasses she had not removed since picking up her surfer at the bar.
     Bret's nine inch masculinity was straight up, his eyes yearning for this woman who had arrived into his life from nowhere. Pia had convinced the surfer to be a bit kinky, and she'd tied his naked, ocean-honed body to the posts on his bed so he could not escape the delights he expected.
     She had doubled the pillow over and put it under his golden wild hair so she could ravage and savage his mouth with her tongue and lips as she fucked him into delirium. And then, as she did what else she had planned.
     Pia slipped out of her heels, mounted the bed, and then mounted Bret. Sliding down onto his erect flesh, slowly, letting it seep into her own body, until they both ached to be one. Only Pia truly knew how to render that conclusion. To bring them to unity. And she would soon do so.
     Bret had not seen, nor needed to see, Pia's instrument. As a surgeon she had her pick of paraphernalia. Her favorite of current days was spike shaped. She had fashioned a comfortable handle for what was normally an operating room instrument. It now sat poised next to the pillow on which Bret's sweet head lay. Unseen by him.
     As her ritual began, Pia and her male's mouth became one, tongue's wrapping around each other like wrestling or mating snakes. His yearning flesh filling her deeply with each up-down motion she made, bringing them both slowly to rhythmic pulsations of ecstasy. His moans urged on her own soft, sweet 'oh's, and 'aaaahs'. But, what she would do next to her darling, was anything but sweet. But necessary. Oh, so necessary, for him to be her's forever.

The victim in Lane's story was a handsome young surf kid.
The real victim, murdered during sexual intercourse was, not
surprisingly, a handsome young surf kid.

Murder During Orgasm


     She waited for Bret to build to a crescendo. Pia was a sexually skilled woman who could time her own eruption to her partner's. However, there was a third element to the evening's pleasures. Pia's nipples hardened as she thought of it, and brought her spike to rest behind her surfer's head. Ready for entry, much as he had penetrated her with his own tool. Pia always smiled at the irony.
     Sweet Bret built to the moment he thought he wanted, and which she wanted more than anything, and Pia built with him. Excited beyond imagination at what was about to happen, as it had happened many times before for her with other men.
     She lowered herself again, slowly with all deliberation, and thought, "Yes, this must be the moment." She was correct. As her body's opening swallowed Bret's flesh for the last time, to the base of his pelvis, she heard his utterance of orgasm. And felt it.
     "Aghhhhhhhhhh..." he cried in total pleasure. Pia felt his ejaculation like a liquid shotgun blast into her loins. Then, she let go of herself, her moan mingling with his cry of pleasure. Then, and only then, she proceeded.
     Into him, with expert skill of 20 years as one of the world's best surgeons, her instrument penetrated deep into the base of the young, beautiful surfer's skull. So quickly, and perfectly, that he normally would not feel it. But, during his orgasm, even had Pia's skill been off, he would have been unaware.
     Still, her trajectory was true as always. His body twitched with the pleasure of sexual release into the beautiful woman atop him, but as she too shook with satisfaction and her own release, he was already a dead man, though still breathing and conscious.
     In a few precious moments the internal bleeding in his brain would overtake him. And, still as the pleasure swarmed over him, Bret would feel himself mysteriously losing consciousness. Wondering why? Not hurting, but nevertheless falling into a deep, forever sleep with only pleasure vibrating through his superb body. Pia, had made sure his death would be sublime for him, as well as for her. She thought, "How exquisite to feel your lover die as he reaches the greatest joy of his life. With you. What greater favor can you do a man than give him the death all men dream about? To slip away in sheer delight while united in the flesh with a beautiful woman whose love is so strong it must consume you?"
     Pia watched as the pleasure lingered, but a look of questioning crept into Bret's pretty eyes. That look of questioning, like that of a small boy seeking his mother's reassurance when something feels not quite right. Her wet mouth gently kissed those eyes, and then she pulled her sunglasses off, for the first time, letting him see her own piercing, lovely eyes, eating him, drinking him in, much as her own flesh had swallowed his manhood whole.

Lane painted the protagonist in her story as some

sort of idyllic love priestess who sacrificed the young

surfer during the pinnacle of sexual intercourse.

Story details matched the actual murder.

     Bret could not speak now. 'They' never could. Once penetrated, they would just die. And quickly. She had only moments to reassure him. To love him, and let him die happy and cared for.
     "Don`t worry baby, everything will work out all right. Don`t worry baby."
     And he didn't, worry. Bret died softly with a smile on his lips, and with thankful eyes. Never knowing she had killed him, or really what had happened to his young life.
     While his eyes frosted over, glazed in the expression of gratitude to her, Pia kissed his forhead gently, lovingly. Then, she turned cold. Ready to leave this dead but still warm piece of flesh that was of no more use to her. She lifted up from him, his still hard and warm cock pulling easily out of her wet insides, dropping unceremoniously onto his now dead thighs.
     Pia was a Goddess. She had taken the spirit of the surfer manboy and made it her own forever in that one moment of savage lovemaking. In the future she would masturbate, thinking of how he would always be hers in that moment. Like she had masturbated over the others she had taken. Concerning his now dead flesh, she had no use for it and would leave it to be found by others who could never understand the true nature of the love she and the boy had enjoyed.
     While Pia dressed, she smiled at the double entendre. Proud of it. A little joke she would enjoy the rest of her life.
     Normally, as she reassured her males, she would tell them, "Don't worry, it's going to be okay." But Bret was a surfer and she had modified her words to him.
     After all, how appropriate to kill a surfer during lovemaking and whisper words from "Don't Worry Baby." The Beach Boys."

Did She Do It? One Detective Says Yes

     What is one to think of the writing? It's self-absorption. Self-importance. Presumptions of grandeur and a right to kill for pleasure?

The actual murder was committed by Lane Dalquist, according
to the belief of the Ventura County Sheriff's detective who
investigated the case those years ago. Though, the case was never proven.

     It is too absurd, too pathetic and psychotic to take seriously. Unless it is a brilliant attempt to portray insight into the literary character of a deluded killer. But in retrospect now, it appears to be uncontrollable self-revelation rather than brilliance.
     While Lane Dalquist was alive, and not suspected of actually doing these deeds, her writing was in fact seen as brilliant, if, however, too suggestive to be published as the work of a renowned surgeon.
     A beautiful female surgeon writing about a beautiful female surgeon who is a killer.
     Both the screenwriter who rewrote her prose into the erotic sexual murder scene in the film 'Lassiter', and Nina, the publishing editor who thought the work too close to home to publish, were impressed. Had they known what the work was based on, they most likely would have been shocked.

     One man, however, was not blinded by the lights of Lane's so-called brilliance. By her reputation as one of the world's finest surgeons. The gorgeous wife of a Hollywood producer. The paradigm of an accomplished woman.
   
     "I never could prove a damn thing. And sometimes I wasn't sure myself. But when it came down to it, I couldn't shake the feeling. She did it."
     Ventura County Sheriff's Det. Ray Vogler, who had an ID on a car matching that of Lane Dalquist's in the surf bar's parking lot, and an hour later, in the grocery store parking lot, getting out of her Mercedes and into the surfer, and murder victim's, truck.
     However, the body of a surfer was found in Ventura, not Oceanside. In his Ventura bungalow a week after his murder.
     The surf bar was the Surf Vu in Ventura. The truck not a Chevy, as in Lane's piece, but a red Ford Bronco.
     Dalquist's written story took place in Oceanside, almost 200 miles down the coast. Aside from that discrepancy, a different name for the surf bar, different model truck, and different victim's and murderer's names, there were no differences between the murder Det. Ray Vogler was investigating, and the one Lane had "created" for her story.
     "The one witness in that case...it was circumstantial...he saw the broad with the guy (victim). (He saw them together) in the right spots (to corroborate Dalquist as the perpetrator). But...(he was) a local beach bum. Woulda been an uphill battle to get the DA to run with this," Vogler recalls, some 20 years after the fact.
     "But what really killed the case, if you pardon the expression, was (when) our witness turned up dead," several weeks after talking to police, Vogler said.
   
     "Can't prove anything. But I know, in my gut, she killed the surf kid. And, what's more, (I believe) she got the witness too."

---Reston Cane

[To be continued]

The Unkindest Cut of all...

[Second in a series about the surgeon, writer, and wife of a Hollywood producer, whose unpublished murder mysteries were allegedly predicated on real life killings she was believed, but never proven, to have committed. Based on interviews, court records, police records, archives and journalistic research that have only partially been made public. All names, and some locations, have been changed for legal reasons.]

She wrote of women who murdered men during
the act of lovemaking. Who killed men for sexual pleasure.
Was she writing about herself?

Book Deal

     Lane Dalquist knew how to use a blade.
     She was about to prove she knew how to use an IBM Selectric.
     Nina, a senior editor at one of the three largest publishing houses in the 1970s, had just read a draft of "Cut to the Kill."
     It was a sexy, murderous and gritty manuscript by Dalquist.
     Between Nina's recollections of the meeting years later, and Lane Dalquist's uncovered diary entries about their talk, a good record of the publishing discussion on the manuscript can be put together.
     "Not at all what I'd expected from you, Lane," Nina recalled telling Dalquist after she had read the manuscript.
     Dalquist, who had approached Nina through a friend, wasn't sure what to make of the comment.
     "Did you think it would be dreck? Or do you think it's dreck?" Dalquist's diary entries stated was her initial response.
     Nina, a scion of the publishing industry with a keen sense of what is good, and what sells in any market, had problems with the unpublished novel. But quality of writing wasn't one of them.
     The editor, attractive in the dry, intellectual way good looking women in the publishing industry often were, thought it was anything but "dreck."
     "Dreck. What a laugh. This is better than most of what we publish in the murder genre."
     "Than, you were surprised I could come up with something of that...caliber?" Lane responded.
     "I see I have to choose my words carefully with you Lane. What I meant was...your work is...it's so real. It's frightening.
     "Good fiction doesn't have to be so believable, so plausible, so real, to be successful. But yours is. Normally, that would be frosting on the cake," Nina said. She let the implication of something askew sink in.
     "'Normally'," Lane repeated, picking up on the implied issue. "So it's not a positive? Am I sensing a problem?"
     Nina remembers cracking what she called a Kate Hepburn smile, pulling the glasses down on her aquiline nose, and looked Lane in the eye.
     "Lane. If you were only a writer, there would be no problem. If that's the word one wishes to use.
     "The fact is, you are a surgeon. Rare not only in that you're renowned, but you're also a woman in that still glass-celing-ed profession."
     Lane probably saw it coming.
     "So I'm a good...okay, excellent, surgeon who happens to be a woman. Does that mean I can't also write?"
     "Let's not play dumb, Lane. If anything, you are not lacking in acumen. You are a top surgeon, writing about a female surgeon who enjoys killing men when she's not saving people on the operating table. Hell, you could have made the protagonist a man, and we could have gotten away with it. But it's an attractive woman. People reading this are going to wonder if this isn't you?
     "If they realize you aren't out on Saturday nights picking up guys to slice, like a Jean the Ripper, they'll wonder if you wish you were."

Dalquist wanted her murderous femme fatale stories
published. Were they too realistic? Too believable, for a woman
like her to dare write?

     Dalquist must have taken an extra breath before answering. Nina was a friend of a friend who was doing Lane a favor. Lane didn't wish to cause problems for that friend. Or blow the connection.
     "Nina, do you think I've a secret desire is to hang out at sports bars on weekends, pick up men to screw, then stick knives into them? I'm flattered, but..."
     Nina remembers cutting Dalquist off.
     "Not in the least. You forget, I'm an editor. I know writers. The psychotica I've seen come out of people's heads on their IBM Selectrics long ago ceased shocking my Radcliffe sensibilities. I understand the creative process. At least to the extent I know that writing about something doesn't mean you want to do it. Most of the time anyway"
     "Then?"
     "This is a business Lane. You, whether you're aware of it or not, are also in a business. Colleagues, prospective patients, reading this, or know that you have written it...well, you would see problems in your own field.
     "But in publishing, critics would be the first to snipe. Talentless dipsos wishing they knew how to write something other than a grocery list. They'll tear you apart. If we were Playboy, the controversy would be perfect. But, we're a bit more stately than that. Stodgy, if it makes you feel better," Nina said she took pains to explain.
     "Controversy sells," Lane protested.
     "Sure. If you're Mandy Rice Davies. Or a notorious starlet. But if you're a respected member of society, publishing this type of book would be like throwing your career, your life, in a garbage disposal to sell a novel. It's unseemly. We won't participate in that kind of publishing. And neither should you."
     "I like writing murder mysteries," Lane said, with enough obstinance her own diary makes a note of it.
     "Make it a...a National League baseball coach who kills opposition players. Or ex wives. But not this Lane. It doesn't work. Not for us. And not really for you."
     "What about a surgeon who kills book publishers for not printing her books," Lane said with barely enough humor to avoid offend, Nina chuckled remembering.
     "Cute Lane. Look, I love your writing. It's amazing. But, given who you are, this subject matter just won't fly. Unless you get a pulp publisher interested, you'll find I'm not alone. Everyone will tell you this."

Hollywood Party

     About 10 months after the meet with Nina, Dalquist and her husband were at Perino's.
     Rob, an executive producer, had the cache of a lovely wife who, even in her early 40s, trumped the most beautiful Hollywood trophy wives.
     She not only looked ravishing, but could walk, talk, and trade wit with the most droll Hollywood types. Their marriage was even considered intact. A rarity by Hollywood standards.
     And, basically, it was. Rob, a rakishly handsome salt and pepper-haired player in the town, would dally, but with only the most discretion.
     Aware that his wife "probably strayed once in a blue moon" as well, Rob for the most part thought Lane's extra curricular activities were limited to traveling to different cities for medical conferences. And to get away to write her steamy, unpublished, slasher novels. Which he had never actually read.
     His lack of interest in reading her endeavors didn't prevent him from trying to help her. He had introduced Lane to one industry friend, who knew Nina at the publishing house. Nina who, unfortunately, turned down  Lane's first work.
     But Rob truly loved his stunning, intelligent wife, and was taking another shot at helping her this evening.
     "Stu, you've met my wife, Lane."
     "Right. In passing at the benefit last summer, no?"
     Lane nodded and extended her hand.

In 1981 Lane's sexy, murderous female protagonist was 10 years
ahead of her time. 10 years before 'Basic Instinct', for instance, would be made.

     "Blows my mind I didn't mention it, but, Lane here's been writing for awhile. Novels. A cut above the crap we crank out. But I'm sure something might be scriptable. Nice and bloody. Lotsa sex. Maybe she'll let you see a page or two," Rob promoted. All the while, never having read a word of her stuff himself.
     "Leave her to me," Stu grinned as Rob excused himself to make the rounds.

     Years later Stu would recall candidly, "I thought, okay, he's leaving me with his wife. Cool. She's gorgeous. But a writer? Every jackhole in Lalaland is a writer. I'll humor her while copping a few looks down her dress."
     After a few minutes, though, he was more interested in reading her manuscript than grabbing a look.
     "In Hollywood you decide everything in five seconds. Actors are a dime a dozen. A CD (casting director) can make a decision in seconds without having to waste their day. Same with everyone in the biz.
     "I was expecting Lane to be a slightly more intelligent than bimbo-grade chat. After all, I'd spoken with her before. She knew her own name, so she wasn't your typical idiot. I asked her what she had cookin' on the page. After two sentences I thought, 'Shit, Rob married a few floors above himself with this doll.'
     "It had an edge. Best, she wasn't trying to sell herself. She'd been turned down by Random House because her stuff was too good. Sure, I hear that crap all the time. But, you know, you can tell when someone's jacking you."
     The seasoned scriptwriter had Lane get a copy of what she'd been working on lately over to him the next day, and said he was more than impressed.
     "It was...hate to say it, too good. If I could crank out crap like that I'd never have to do TV again. This was major league.
     "Of course, what can you do with a natural like that? No one's gonna produce a newbie. Someone who hasn't paid dues. And this was a hobby for Rob's wife. But I wanted to see something come of it."
     Stewart said he hoped to get her piece into any project. Just to get her some cred, if nothing else. So she'd be a step up with her next script. If she wanted to go that route.
     "I found a chapter that could be inserted into something being shot around town. Her writing was like a screenplay already. Visual. Nice dialogue. I could format it and shoot it to someone, and bang. She'd have a resume."

A mediocre film, 'Lassiter', was in production at the time.
It was a strange flick to put one of Lane's 'woman snuffs man'
erotic scenes into. But, that's exactly what would happen.

     Asked what the piece was about, the veteran scriptwriter turned red.
     "Ya know, I could tell you without blushing if it had been badly written. But, it was like, you were there. That made it believable. Like I was in the room watching. So...get my drift?"
      What else could make a veteran Hollywood scriptwriter blush? Stewart went into what had been in Lane's chapter.
     "It was, and this freaked me out, about this hot forties-something chic surgeon, who picks up on this guy at the Century Plaza bar. Takes him up the coast to some motel past Malibu. Screws his livin' brains out. Way she wrote it, I was in the room. Fuck. You can't make up stuff like that. I thought, Rob, you are one lucky s.o.b. ."
     But that alone wasn't what embarrassed the journeyman writer.
     "After she does him, they rest. Get their strength back, and have another go. This time, it's 'Basic Instinct.' But this is 10 years before that flick ever came out. She was ahead of the curve by a decade. And, believe me, this was better."
     The second time around in the Malibu bungalow, the reader is made aware the woman has stuck a spike-shaped surgical instrument into the bottom of the mattress where, during sex, she can easily grab it. Stewart tells what's next...

Lauren Hutton plays a Nazi killing a British spy as she made
love to him in 'Lassiter'. Virtually, exactly, out of Dalquist's
unpublished chapter. Was it written from Lane's
own real experience?

     "The kinky thing is, she is hot for the guy. Not just sex. Ya think she's gonna hit this guy with, 'Let's run away together.' But, nahhh.
     "Instead, she reaches down, pulls this thing out of the side, or under, the mattress, and as she's screwin' him from here to eternity, she pulls his head up to her breast. He starts kissing her. She's, like, on the road to nirvana. I'm not talkin' about a Hope and Crosby picture.
     "What does she do? She puts this spike behind his head, and as she's fucking him good, she sticks it into the base of his skull. She's a surgeon, so she knows what she's doing. He's not aware he's been nailed while he's nailing her. But he knows something just happened.
     "The guy looks at her like, 'What was that?' She looks back, into his eyes...I can't describe how she wrote it. Like she's in love with the guy. And she's in love with killing him. The whole thing gets tender. Weird. Super kinky.
     "She caresses him. Lowers his head back down on the pillow while he's dying. They're both lookin' into each other's eyes, and, as he's kicking the bucket, she has her orgasm. He's still barely alive while she's comin', and she kisses the poor schmuck between the eyes as she has her final chills and thrills. And as she's done with the big O, he finally dies. She whispers somethin' sweet to him. And it's all over."
     "What do you do with something like that. After I took a cold shower, I thought of a few projects around town that could use a 'she kills him' scene. Detective. Psycho thriller. Horror.
     "You'll never believe who had a slot for it?"
     Stewart said a Tom Selleck project for the big screen was in production, with Lauren Hutton as a sadistic Nazi spy. "Not a bad flick. Nothing you'd pay to see. And no one did. But, if you watch it, there's one scene in there (that) leaves the rest of it behind."
     Stewart said it was the scene he rewrote from Dalquist, and messengered over to the production office.
     "I didn't know too much about the flick. I just got Lane's pages into script form and to 'em so they could have their boys do something with it that worked. Apparently, it inspired the best couple of minutes of the entire thing."

The theory had arisen that Lane Dalquist had done
the murders she so convincingly wrote about. Men killed
during intercourse with her. For her bizarre, erotic pleasure.

     In the movie, Stewart says, Nazi spy Lauren Hutton is in bed with a British spy. Doing it. With almost no dialogue, the rest of the scene plays out like what Stewart said he'd read from Lane's chapter.

     "I kept my rewrite tight. And whoever shot the piece, probably second unit, took the ball and ran with it. The rest of the movie plays like Magnum P.I. takes a trip to World War II. Hokey.
     "But this piece. Maybe less than a minute, it's hot. Might get you an 'X' rating even today. Plays like a snuff film. Lauren Hutton in her peak offing a guy as she fucks him? As she comes?
     "Whatever Rob's wife wrote, I just passed it on, and it was hot enough they left it alone, and put it into that movie. Don't ask me how she came up with it. (I) still get the chills thinkin' about the first time I read it."

     Asked about later theories that Lane Dalquist had written autobiographical accounts for that chapter, and other novels which were uncovered years later, after her suicide at 55, Stewart defers.
     "I'm a Hollywood writer. I wouldn't know reality if it bit me in the ass. And I still have a lot of friends in this town. The answer to your question, from me anyways, is, that lady sure could write. That's all I'm gonna say."

---Reston Cane

[to be continued...]

The Surgeon's Daughter

[From court records, journalist records, published and unpublished, unreleased police records, and other published material. Names and locales have been changed per legal requirements.--Reston Cane]


The Surgeon's Daughter

Lane Dalquist was the strikingly attractive daughter of a respected Swedish surgeon and his operating room nurse wife.

The parents had met while saving lives at St. Erik's hospital in Stockholm, at times under highly stressful conditions.

Lane's tall, good looks were not attributes appreciated at university in the United States, where she pursued her medical career. A career not as a nurse, but as a surgeon.

In the U.S. of the early 1960s, the idea that women were equals in the medical field, particularly surgery, was not widely held. Especially for women, such as Lane Dalquist, who looked like Debra Kerr or Grace Kelly.

However, Dalquist had several attributes swinging the odds back in her favor. A searing intellect. And a just as searing drive to succeed, which she received from her father.
Additionally, support from her parents, who had moved to the U.S. when Lane was four, was strong.

Chicago

On a late 60s summery night in Chicago, Rod Allen was out for a drink after a long day trading. Rod was a 34-year-old financial specialist born and raised in the windy city, who worked hard trading stocks for his clients in a mid-range financial institution.

Nice looking, smart, friends and associates chided him for working too hard and playing too little. That work ethic resulted in not only his being single, but without a girlfriend and dateless since joining the firm almost a year earlier.

Rod Allen ended up in his local pub for a drink,
and to watch the Cubs lose another. Instead, he
would meet 'her'

Rod cut a nice figure as he walked into one of his regular sports bar haunts late after work that summer evening.

Smartly dressed even as his tie hung disheveled after a long day on the exchange, he took a quick look around the bar before sitting down. He chose a chair not too close, but not too far, from a good-looking blonde nursing an umbrella drink, and watching the Mets trounce the Cubs on the tv over the bar.

"A Schlitz on tap and keep the tab open Sully," the bartender later recalled Allen saying.
In between staring at the dismal game on the oversized tv, and slurps of Schlitz, Rod snuck glances at the woman down the bar. She had on attractive, if conservative, expensive clothes.

No wedding ring. And very nice legs. They were crossed, forcing the below-the-knee skirt to expose her legs up to the mid-thigh. Rod was a leg man.

The woman returned a few looks that were not unfriendly. Rod eventually made direct eye contact, and called down the bar.

"If you're collecting umbrellas, I'd be happy to get you another one of whatever you're drinking. I'm a collector myself," he joked, successfully.

He couldn't keep his eyes off her legs. They
would turn out to be deadly legs.

"Maybe I don't collect umbrellas. Maybe I collect men," she said with a dry, but beckoning edge.

Rod was bright, and liked the wit. And the edge. He didn't find too many powerful women in the corporate world who, despite their intelligence, could joke about themselves.

"A dangerous woman," he smiled. "I like it."

The woman was seated in the mid part of the bar, where the light was lower. If anything, she did not make an effort to have her face seen. One patron that night recalled, "she seemed to me to want to check others out, but didn't like the visa versa."

Apparently she wanted to be seen by Allen, and the two ended up in a dark booth together, not paying attention to the beating the Cubs were taking.

They were pegged as leaving the bar in the ninth inning. That struck the bartender as a change of pace for Allen, a semi-regular at the pub.

"The guy was such a regular Joe. Which around these parts means, die hard Cubbie. He got lucky that night, but still. I'd never seen him leave before the final nail was in his Cubs coffin," the barman recalled.

A tall, attractive, well-dressed blonde was apparently, and understandably, of more interest to Allen than a perpetually losing home team. Even one he loved.

He left with the woman, arm about her waist, walking her to her car.

Seclusion

If Rod Allen thought he won the lottery by walking a lovely, intelligent woman to her car, he was in for a bigger surprise.

"If your car is close by, why don't we find a secluded spot to enjoy the harbor. I'm a tourista. You're the hometown boy," his new friend suggested.

Rod and his new lady friend took off in his Camaro
to find a secluded spot on North Lake Shore Drive.

They walked across to Rod's '67 Camaro, and took the romantic drive of his life. Literally.

Whatever the 34-year-old, good-looking and lonely bachelor thought was a romantic secluded spot, didn't meet the criteria of his lady friend.

Rod was happy to please, and kept driving until finding what she preferred.

It was the definition of secluded. "Hope we can get her started when it's time to go. Might take a couple of days for someone to find us here," he quipped with an hint of friendly sarcasm. Rather than take offense, the remark pleased his friendly passenger. It was perfect for the tryst she had planned.

Romance

"So, I never asked what you do," Rod awkwardly small-talked as they looked out over the Chicago Harbor.

For all his handsome looks, savvy trading on the exchange, and easy rapport in social situations, he was not as confident, or at ease, regarding romance.

Allen would have no problem this evening, thought. At least not in being desired by his date.

She chose the place along the Chicago Harbor where
they would be alone. Truly, dangerously, alone.

"You don't have to make small talk," she reassured.

She moved close and took his chiseled jaw in the long, slender fingers of her hands. Her fingers were so long and beautiful Allen thought they were those of a concert pianist. Or surgeon.

Rod was soon in the heaviest make-out session in a car since high school. He wasn't complaining.

Wet kisses were accompanied by her guiding his hand between her long, well-formed thighs. Where Rod expected panties, there were none.

"Does that bother you?," she smiled warmly, as he did a double take.

"No...uh, no. I just thought tonight was going to be beers and Cubs. This is a very nice left turn."

She continued the hot kisses. He continued returning them.

And the woman didn't force his diffident hand up past her thighs, but let him proceed at his own speed. To where she wanted him to touch her.

Penetrating Experience

Allen's jacket was off. Removed by the blonde as she ravenously kissed him.

The stock trader would not need to push his conversational skills any further this evening. It was all going his way.

He had joked about her being a dangerous woman.
Rod Allen had no idea, as she kissed him, how dangerous.

A welcome break from the romantically solitary life he had been used to since his last girlfriend. Four years earlier.

This blonde, despite her passion, was something of a mystery. She wasn't from Chicago. Other than that, and that she dressed well, expensively, and was beautiful, he knew nothing about her.

Would he see her again? How far would they go tonight?

As these questions bounced around his head, Rod felt something. Some sort of sensation, below his chest.

It seemed to be inside him. Maybe not. Maybe she was just grabbing him. Giving him a massage with her long fingers. While she raped him with her mouth.

It didn't hurt. But it was some sort of undefined sensation. He opened his eyes from the kissing, and saw her staring into them. Her own eyes seemed to dance. To be looking into his soul.

She pulled back, millimeters from his mouth. And breathed in his breath. Looked deep, searchingly into his eyes.

His own eyes questioned what he was feeling. There was no real pain. But, nevertheless. It was curious.

"Relax. Everything's going to be okay. I'll take care of you," she said calmly.

Sex for her involved more than just physical intimacy.

Strange. She was reassuring him. How did she know he needed reassurance? What was happening?

Or, what was she doing?

Rod was about to ask what she meant by, 'relax'. But then, all of a sudden, he felt very relaxed.

Even faint.

He tried to look down, but she caught his mouth in hers with a wet kiss, and stopped him.

When she was done with that, she held his jaw with her left hand. Her right was somewhere else. She still prevented him from looking down.

"It's okay. I'm here with you," she cooed.

The woman could see he was weakened. Under her control. Completely now.

She removed her hand from his jaw, and he immediately looked down.

Rod Allen was incredulous. Shocked at what he saw.

He saw red. And lots of it.

Literally. Red. Below his sternum. Somewhere down there. He didn't know, or see exactly where.

Blood had been let loose as if a dam were opened.

The entire front section of his shirt below the chest, his expensive white Arrow shirt, now looked like half an American flag that had been badly printed. Red and white.

Out of the mess he could see her beautiful hand holding something. Her long fingers wrapped around something black. A handle of some sort?

Allen soon found out.

Quickly, and expertly, she pulled whatever it was out, and then smoothly, and with specificity, put it back into him.

He was woozy. But he could make it out.

It was a knife.

He had a knife in him. And Allen had just seen her pull it out, and place it back into his body.

Oddly, he had felt next to nothing. Was it an illusion? Had she dropped acid into his drink at the bar? How could she have just stabbed him twice, and he barely felt it?

No pain. Only a mild sensation. And now he felt like he was fainting.

He was fainting.

The Evening Ends

Rod understood now. Not fully. Not why.

But, he understood that she actually had stabbed him. He was sure he was now dying.

After it was over, she walked away from the Camaro,
into the night. Found a hotel, where she called for a cab,
and got a ride back to her car. She would never see Rod Allen again.

He didn't have time to even ask her what was going on.

Why she did it.

He was now so faint from the loss of blood, he could only look into her beautiful eyes. They were wild. Manic.

Allen hadn't realized it, but the sensation, of the stabbing, had occurred just as his hand had gone into her.

Between her legs. Into her wetness. Her sexual organs.

His mind, his life, was going. But he realized she stuck her knife into him, at the moment he was, with her encouragement, putting his fingers into her.

As their eyes looked deep into each other, he saw her begin to shudder. He hadn't hurt her. He hadn't raped her. Done anything against her will. Why was she...

Then he knew.

She was having a climax. An orgasm.

His fingers still in her. He, too weak to remove them.

She was climaxing as she was killing him. Indeed, it appeared she was climaxing as a result of killing him.

As this all patched together in his mind, Rod saw her fully realizing her orgasm.

In an abrupt motion, and as she pulled her knife from him, which would accelerate the inner bleeding ending Rod's life, she covered his open mouth with hers.

Thrust her tongue deep. Their tongues wrestled.

Rod yielded, for lack of energy, to her powerful, hungry motions. She sucked his tongue into her mouth. As if it were a penis she wanted deep in her.

Now he could feel himself dying. Painlessly. Losing consciousness.

Whatever she had done, she had done it well. Expertly. As well as a surgeon might have.

Finally, he felt the end. Her mouth pressed deep, wet against his own. His fingers in her. Feeling her lovely wetness.

Then, for him, blackness. Nothing.

She had killed him. It had been a murder.

And, an act of sex. Even love. Perhaps.



[first of a series from, 'The Surgeon's Daughter']
  

Woman ties man up for sex...and to drink his blood

[Note: The following is a true story, reprinted from it's recent run on Phoenix's Eastvalleytribune.com---Reston Cane]

(reprinted courtesy Phoenix's Eastvalleytribune.com)

Tempe police arrested a woman Tuesday night on suspicion that she tied up a man during sex, then stabbed him repeatedly with a knife and told him she likes to drink blood.

Tiffany Sutton, 23, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault at 11:55 p.m., Sept. 15, (2009) in the 1000 block of South Lola Lane, where she and the victim were living, police said.
The man told police he had consented to being tied up but became scared when the woman attacked him with a knife. He eventually freed himself and ran away, but Sutton chased him with a pickax, police said.
The man was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital, where he was treated for injuries.
Police were unsure if the pair were friends, but Sgt. Mike Horn said the man and woman were not in a relationship.
Both admitted to authorities that they had consumed alcohol and drugs prior to the attack, Horn said.
The man called his friend, who found him passed out and then called police. Sutton initially acted like she was the victim, Horn said.
Sutton later told police the entire encounter was consensual.

Woman charged with raping, burning man

Starting off our blog with a very recent event, reprinted below straight from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's website, post-gazette.com. No murder here, thankfully, but it sets the tone for the true stories that will follow...---Reston Cane

Thursday, September 03, 2009

The Associated Press

Police say a Washington County woman raped a man and burned him with a curling iron to get him to comply.

Police say the 22-year-old man knows his alleged attacker, 23-year-old Samantha Harvey, of Washington, Pa.

Ms. Harvey was on her probation on theft and threat charges for stealing money from her grandmother in 2006.

Police charged Ms. Harvey Tuesday after investigating the man's claim that she forced him to have sex at his home on Aug. 20. The man told police Ms. Harvey clipped the hot curling iron to his ear and burned his genitals with it.

Ms. Harvey is also charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, terroristic threats and reckless endangerment.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

'Murderella'...True? Frighteningly so

     The first time I'd heard the term 'femme fatale' was as a freshman high schooler, over a campfire during an overnight surf outing in North Santa Barbara County.
     I thought the older guys were trying to scare this gremmie with tales of deadly women who enjoyed killing, basically men.
     Like most growing up in our male-centric culture, I didn't buy this as anything more than hype. That women could be, not just so lethal, but revel in it.

Is it a myth that men have a monopoly on enjoying murder?

     I grew up. Surf only occasionally now. Became a journalist, reporter, editor, news photographer. And I found out many things.
     Most of it, would never go in the mainstream newspapers I worked for. It was more suited for a Quentin Tarantino or Roman Polanski movie. But, it was true.
     From that day on the beach so long ago, a seed of fascination with the 'lethal' woman, or 'femme fatales', had taken root.

Fiona Volpe, fictional lusty assassin in the Bond film

'Thunderball'. Is her character's lust for killing more 

real than society admits?

     I found out the deadly women were not just figments. Or aberration. They were, perhaps, as secretly prevalent in society as the more obtuse and salient male serial killers.
     Cleverer. More low key. Below the radar. Unless you were one of 'her' victims.
     My spare time over the years became consumed with these true stories. First and second-hand accounts, that some day would go in a book, I thought.

The 'femme fatale': A woman enjoying or yielding

to the perverse pleasure of killing another?

     In the age of the web, maybe this is that 'book'. My stories, investigations. Written adhering to journalistic rules. But with subject matter geared to a horror film. Erotic horror film. Horror nevertheless.
     Stories too culture-shocking to appear in the small town papers I worked on for 20-years. They appear here. Now.
     All that is here, will be true. Horrible. Frightening. Dangerous. Erotic. Shocking.
     But real, I'm sorry to say.

Archetypal femme fatale, Salome, kissing the severed head

of John the Baptist, whom she requested be beheaded