by J. D. Robb
He inclined his head, acknowledging the point. “No. They were, in most cases, purely incidental to the goal.”
“There’s the difference. Doesn’t paint the thief white, but murder often roots in punishment. I think it does here. Someone controlled him, punished him. A female, and now he’s showing her who’s boss. That’s why he left her naked. She probably wasn’t naked when he raped her. Tore her clothes—fibers still on her indicate—but he wouldn’t have bothered to strip her down. He bothered after because it added humiliation.”
She paused, considered. “He didn’t mutilate the female part of her, which expresses another kind of rage and control. It wasn’t sexual, but it was personal. He strangles, not with his hands—and odds are he could have snapped her neck like a twig—but he uses the ribbon. So it means something to him. The red cord is also personal. He takes her eyes, carefully, so he can blind her. Naked and blind, more humiliation. But he takes them so he can have that part of her. Does she watch him? I think, somehow, he wants her to watch him. Because he’s in charge now.”
“Endlessly fascinating,” he replied.
“What?”
“Watching you work.” He came around the desk, lifted her chin, kissed her lightly. “And there’s nothing nonsensitive about it. I’ll just put together a meal before we settle in.”
“That’d be good.”
While he went into the kitchen off her office, she set up a second murder board. To this one she added pictures of Marjorie Kates and Breen Merriweather.
She was standing, studying them, when Roarke came back in. He set a plate on her desk. “They’re yours now, too.”
“Yeah. I’m afraid they are.”
“Attractive women. Comfortably attractive rather than stunning. It’ll be the hair, won’t it? It’s the hair that’s the greatest similarity.”
“Build’s close, too. Average build. Caucasian women around thirty with a nice average build and long light brown hair. That’s a big pool for him to fish in.”
“Not so big when you add in the other factors.”
“No, that shrinks it. They have to poke around craft shops, and they have to be out, alone, sometime at night. He works them at night. Still gives him plenty to choose from.”
She stepped back. “I’d better get to it before he picks another one.”
When she went to her desk, she was delighted to see he’d brought out a burger and fries—even though there were a few little broccoli trees alongside them. She could ditch the broccoli—how would he know? But then she’d feel guilty. Since she was more ambivalent toward broccoli than guilt, she ate it first, to get it out of the way, while she started a search for retail shops that specialized in large men.
More than she’d expected, Eve noted as she poured coffee from the pot Roarke had set beside her plate. Upscale—well, think about it, she reminded herself—where else did the Arena Ball players, the basketball dudes, and tall or porky rich guys drop their fashion bucks?
There were midline and discount and, she discovered, design and tailoring services offered by a couple of the major department stores and a number of boutiques.
Didn’t exactly narrow the field.
When she altered the search to shoes, it bounced a few out, and tossed a few new sources in.
He could buy primarily or even exclusively online, she thought as she bit into her burger. A lot of people did. But wouldn’t he—a man who worked hard to build his body, who was proud of the results—want to select his clothes in real life? Check himself out in the mirror, have some fawning clerk tell him how good he looked?
A lot of projection, she admitted, out of a scarcity of solid facts.
But when she did a geographic run, she found a shop called The Colossal Man was two crosstown blocks from Total Crafts.
“Isn’t that interesting?” She nabbed a fry. “Computer, list any gyms currently in this case file located within a six-block parameter of Total Crafts.”
WORKING . . .
She ate another fry.
HEALTH AND FITNESS FACILITIES IN THAT SECTOR INCLUDE JIM’S GYM AND BODYBUILDERS.
“Display map on wall screen, applicable sector. Highlight locations of retail shops and gyms.”
She rose, the burger in one hand, to walk closer to the wall screen. Sometimes, she thought, you saw a pattern because you wanted to, and sometimes it was just there.
He’d walked those streets, she was sure of it. Walked from gym to shop to shop. Because he lived or worked, or both, in that sector. This was his neighborhood. People saw him there, knew him there.
And so would she.
She walked into Roarke’s office, where he sat at his desk enjoying what looked like seafood pasta while he worked. His laser fax was humming, and his comp signaled an incoming.
“You’ve got stuff coming in.”
“Project reports I’m expecting,” he said without looking up. “They can wait. I don’t have anything for you yet.”
“Put that on hold a minute, come take a look at this.”
He brought his coffee with him, went with her into her office.
Eve gestured to the wall screen. “What do you see?”
“A sector of the West Village. And a pattern.”
“So do I. I want to start with residences in this sector. Before you say anything, no, I can’t even guess how many there must be. It’s a long shot, a really long shot, but . . .”
“He may live there. So you start with residential, get owner and tenant lists, eliminate families, couples, single women, and fine-tune it down to men who live alone.”
“You should’ve been a cop.”
He shifted his gaze from the screen to her face. “Don’t I have enough horror in my head with potential midwifery without you heaping more in there?”
“Sorry. It’ll take a lot of time. He may live a block outside my parameter. Hell, he may live five blocks out and work inside it. Or work one block out. Or he could just do his shopping and bodybuilding there and live in fricking New Jersey.”
“But you go with the percentages, and the percentages say here.”
“It’d go quicker if you gave me a hand with the runs.”
Nodding, he continued to study the screen. “Your place or mine?”
When Eve crawled into bed just after one in the morning, she knew she was on the scent. And hoped, could only hope, he waited long enough for her to track him down.
“Two months between Kates, Breen, and Maplewood. If he sticks with that schedule, I’ll have him before he kills another one.”
“Shut it down, Lieutenant.” Roarke drew her in so her head settled against his shoulder. She rarely had the dreams when he kept her close. “Shut it down, and sleep.”
“I’m close. I know I’m close,” she murmured and drifted off.
He was waiting for her. She would come. She always walked this way. Briskly, her head down, her steps nearly soundless in her gel-soled shoes. She’d have put them on after her shift, after she’d taken off the whore shoes she wore to serve the men who leered at her over their drinks.
Whatever she wore, she remained a whore.
She’d walk by, head down, and the streetlights would shine on her hair. It would look almost gold. Almost.
People would think: That’s a pretty woman, a nice, quiet pretty woman, going about her business. But they didn’t know. He knew what was inside the shell. Bitter, black, and dark.
He could feel it rising in him now as he anticipated her. Rage and pleasure, fear and joy. You’ll look at me now, you bitch.
And we’ll see how you like it, see how you like it.
Thought she was so pretty. Liked to parade and pose in front of the mirror without her clothes. Or parade and pose for the men she let touch her.
Won’t look so pretty when I’m done.
He slipped a hand into his pocket, felt the long length of ribbon.
Red was her favorite. She liked to wear red.
He saw her, as he once had. Screaming,
screaming, naked but for the red ribbon she’d worn around her throat. Red as his blood when she’d beaten him. Beaten him until he’d passed out.
Only to wake in the black. In the dark, in the locked room.
She’d be the one to wake in the black now. Blind in hell.
There she was . . . there she was now, walking along in her brisk way, head down.
His heart thundered in his chest as she came closer.
She turned, as she always did, through the iron gates and into the pretty park.
For an instant, just one trip of that heart, her head came up. And there was fear and shock and confusion in her eyes when he leaped out of the shadows.
She opened her mouth to scream, and his fist broke her jaw.
Her eyes rolled back to white, to blind, as he dragged her away from the lights.
He had to slap her several times to bring her around. She had to be awake for it, awake and aware.
He kept his voice down—he was no fool—but he said what he needed to say as he used his fists on her.
How do you like it now, bitch? Who’s the boss now, whore?
And there was both shame and unspeakable delight in ramming his body into hers. She didn’t fight, only lay limp, and that was a disappointment.
She’d struggled before, and sometimes she’d begged. That was better.
Still, when he pulled the cord around her neck, when he yanked it tight and saw her eyes bulge, the pleasure was so keen he thought he, too, might die of it.
Her heels drummed, soft little thumps on the grass. Her body convulsed, and brought his—at last, at last—to completion.
“Go to hell.” He panted it out while he stripped off her clothes. “Go to hell now, where you belong.”
He stuffed her clothes in the bag he’d brought with him, then hooked the strap crossways over his massive chest.
He picked her up as if she weighed nothing. And he reveled in his strength, in the power it gave him.
He carried her to the bench he’d selected, so lovely under the big, shady tree, so close to the dignified fountain. There he laid her out, carefully bringing her hands together, tucking them up between her breasts.
“There now. There now, Mother, don’t you look nice? Would you like to see?”
He was grinning, a mad grin that all but burst through the thick layers of sealant he wore. “Why don’t I help you with that?”
So saying, he took the scalpel from his pocket and set to work.
Chapter 10
When her bedside ’link signaled, Eve rolled toward the sound, said: Shit, crap, damn it, when she fumbled in the dark.
“Lights on, ten percent,” Roarke called out.
Eve dragged a hand through her hair, shook her head to clear sleep. “Block video,” she ordered. “Dallas.”
“He’s killing her. He’s killing her.”
The voice was so thin and breathy, Eve needed the readout to identify. “Celina. Pull yourself together. Pull it together and give me a clear report.”
“I saw . . . I saw like the other. Oh, God. It’s too late. It’s already too late.”
“Where?” She leaped out of bed, tossed her voice toward the ’link as she raced for clothes. “Central Park? Is he in the park?”
“Yes. No. A park. Smaller. Gated. Buildings. Memorial Park!”
“Where are you?”
“I—I’m at home. I’m in bed. I can’t stand what’s in my head.”
“Stay there. Understand me. Stay where you are.”
“Yes. I—”
“End transmission,” Eve snapped, and cut off Celina’s wild weeping.
“Will you call it in?” Roarke asked.
“I’ll check it out myself first. I should say we’ll check it out,” she amended as he was up and dressing as she was.
“Celina?”
“She’ll have to deal.” Eve strapped on her weapon. “We all have to deal with the stuff in our heads. Let’s move.”
She let him drive. It might have irked that he handled a vehicle—any vehicle—with more skill than she, but it wasn’t the time to quibble about it.
It wasn’t the time, she admitted, to quibble about psychics either. She yanked out her communicator and requested a patrol to report to Memorial Park to check out a possible assault.
“Look for a male, between six four and six eight, muscular build. Approximately two-seventy. If found, detain only. Consider said individual armed and dangerous.”
Eve leaned forward, as if to give them more velocity as they streaked toward southern Manhattan. “She could be seeing something that’s going to happen, not that has. It could be—what do you call it?”
“Precognition.”
“Yeah.” But there was a heaviness in her belly that told her otherwise. “I’m close. Goddamn it, I know I’m on the right track.”
“If he’s killed tonight, he didn’t wait two months.”
“Maybe he never has.”
They chose the west entrance, off Memorial Place, and pulled up behind the black-and-white snugged to the curb.
“How many ways in and out of this?” Eve asked. “Three, four?”
“About that, at a guess. I don’t know for sure. It’s only about a block square, I think. One of the smaller and more tasteful of the original WTC memorials.”
She crossed the sidewalk and, drawing her weapon, moved through the stone archway that led into the green.
There were benches, a small pond. Big trees, plots of flowers, and a large bronze statue depicting firefighters raising a flag.
She moved past it, and heard the retching.
Swiveling toward the sound, she walked quickly south and saw the uniform on his hands and knees, puking into a bed of red and white flowers.
“Officer—” But she saw the bench a few feet away, and what was on it. “Deal with him,” she told Roarke and walked to the second uniform who was holding his communicator.
She had her badge up. “Dallas.”
“Officer Queeks, Lieutenant. Found her just a minute ago. I was about to call it in. We didn’t see anyone. Just her. To ascertain death, I checked her pulse. She’s still warm.”
“I want this scene secured.” She glanced back. “Is he going to do us any good?”
“He’ll be okay, Lieutenant. Rookie,” he added with a small, pained smile. “We’ve all been there.”
“Get him on his feet, Queeks. Secure the scene and do a sweep of this park. Carefully. This isn’t where he killed her. There’ll be another site. I’ll call it in.”
She drew out her communicator. “Dispatch, this is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Homicide, single victim, female. Location Memorial Park, southwest sector. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia, and crime scene.”
“Acknowledged, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Dispatch out.”
“You’ll want this,” Roarke said from behind her, and offered her a field kit.
“Yeah. I need you to stay back.” She sealed up, hooked on a recorder.
He watched her approach the victim, begin to record the scene visually and verbally.
It was fascinating to watch her work, he thought again. And sometimes it was unspeakably sad.
There was pity in her eyes, and there was anger. She wouldn’t know it showed, and he doubted anyone but himself could see it. But it was there, inside her as she put a madman’s latest work on record.
She’d study the dead, he thought, and the details. She’d miss nothing. But it wouldn’t only be murder she’d see. She’d see the human. That made all the difference.
A little more slender than the others, Eve thought. Not as curvy. More delicate, and maybe just a bit younger. But still in the ballpark. Long, light brown hair—a little bit of a wave, but nearly straight. Had probably been pretty, too, though you wouldn’t know it now. Not now that her face was ruined.
The beating she’d sustained was more severe than Maplewood’s. He was enjoying that part more, she
thought. He was less able to control himself.
Punish her. What she stood for.
Destroy her. What she stood for.
Whoever this woman was, it hadn’t been her he’d killed. Whose face had he seen when he’d tightened the cord around her neck? Whose eyes had stared back at him?
When the position of the body, the visual injuries, were on record, she drew the hands apart to run prints.
“Lieutenant!” Queeks called from her right. “I think we’ve got your kill site.”
“Secure it. Block it off, Queeks. I don’t want anyone walking around on my scene.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Victim is identified through fingerprints as Lily Napier, age twenty-eight. Listed address is 293 Vesey Street, apartment 5C.”
You were pretty, Lily, Eve thought, as she studied the ID picture on her screen. Soft, slight. A little shy.
“Employed O’Hara’s Bar and Grill, Albany Street. Walking home from work, weren’t you, Lily? It’s not very far. Saves the transpo fare, and it’s a warm night. It’s your neighborhood. You’d walk through the park, and then you’d be home.”
She fit on goggles, examined the hands, the nails. Death hadn’t yet leeched all the heat from her body.
“Looks like dirt, some grass. We can hope for fibers or skin. Broken wrist, looks like a broken jaw. Multiple contusions and abrasions on face, torso, shoulders. Did a number on you, Lily. Appearance of sexual assault. Some evidence of vaginal bleeding. Contusions, abrasions on thighs and genital area. Removing some fibers into evidence.”
She worked meticulously, plucking tiny fibers from the body, never flinching as she took them from the genital area.
She sealed them tagged them, logged them.
And if part of her system revolted, much as the rookie’s had, if part of her wanted to scream at the visions of rape, she refused them and continued on.
Still wearing the goggles, she leaned down into the dead face and studied the bloody holes where the eyes had been.
“Smooth, clean cuts, similar to those inflicted on Elisa Maplewood.”
“Dallas.”
“Peabody.” She didn’t look around, and thought only briefly that she had missed, for some reason, the telltale clomp of Peabody’s uniform shoes. “We’ve got the kill site just south. First on scene is Queeks. Verified that scene’s secured.”