The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “What’s with Cohen?” he asked.

  “Still feels like a dumb shit about Malkovsky, but he seems to be doing his job.”

  “How’s Daoud doing with Roselli?”

  The big man laughed.

  “Share the joke,” said Daniel.

  “Daoud spent the morning dressed as a beggar with palsy, whining for alms near the Fourth Station of the Cross. Did such a good job that an Arab policeman smacked the soles of his feet with his baton, screamed at him to stop defiling the holy places.”

  “How is he?”

  “Proud as hell, and sore. You should see him, Dani—all shaking and filthy. If anyone can pick up idle chatter, he can.”

  “Drop a shekel in his can for me,” said Daniel.

  “I already did. Talk to you later.”

  At two o’clock, Shmeltzer called in.

  “The Hebrew U. archaeology department and the nature people promise to get me their hike lists as soon as possible. I had breakfast with the lady. Our request to look for the Nasser whore is being taken under consideration.”

  “That the best they could do?”

  “There was cooperation floating between the lines—I got a breakfast date immediately, so they’re taking it seriously. My feeling is they’ll look for her if they can do it safely. Problem is the Amman operatives took a long time to plant—they’re not going to shut down the entire operation because of something like this.”

  “Stay in touch with it,” said Daniel. “If we need to push a little, let me know.”

  “I don’t think pushing will help,” said Shmeltzer. “Something else came up. I’m in Tel Aviv, at Beilison Hospital—the reason I didn’t call sooner. I got a call from one of the doctors I talked to a couple of weeks ago—eye surgeon named Krieger, had something to say about one of his colleagues, anesthesiologist named Drori. Remember the flap last year about the doc who refused to give gas to an Arab kid? A cross-eyed baby—they were wheeling him into the operating room and the mother started praising Allah for straightening her little lion’s eyes so he’d be able to throw stones at the Zionists. The doctor got pissed off, told her to screw herself, he hoped the kid went blind, then walked off the case. That was Drori.”

  “I remember. One of the leftist MKs wanted him brought up on charges.”

  “Right—Sardoffsky and his usual Marxist crap. Anyway, it blew over in two days—that was that. But according to this Krieger, Drori has a real thing for Arabs. Since the incident with the baby, he’s gotten even more militant, interrogates Arab patients before he agrees to work on them, has them recite this pledge that they support the state and think Yasser Arafat’s a perfidious dog. If anyone on the staff tries to talk to him about separating politics and medicine, he gets irrational—that’s Krieger’s term. It’s come close to blows. On top of that, he’s a loner, unmarried, antisocial. Krieger says several times when he’s been on night shift, he’s seen Drori leave the hospital, get into his car, and come back early in the morning wearing the same clothes, unshaven. Says it’s obvious the guy hasn’t slept, has been doing something else all night.”

  “Something like stalking and killing.”

  “That’s what Krieger thinks. At first he didn’t want to believe it, but the more he thought about it, the better Drori looked as our guy. He wasn’t too happy about telling me all this, of course. Felt like an informer. But civic duty and all that.”

  “Think this could be some issue between them?”

  “It’s possible, but Drori sounds strange enough to look into.”

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “His employment records show he immigrated two years ago from England—Scotland, actually. Original name was Denzer—Selwyn Denzer. Divorced his wife and left her and some kids there. Personnel notes say he’s got a very good reputation medically, but hard to live with.”

  “Has the lack of sleep affected his performance?”

  “Not yet, but they’re watching him for slip-ups. They’d love an excuse to get rid of him.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “In Petah Tikva.”

  “Not exactly local.”

  “No, but with the new highway he could be driving back and forth in ample time. Who knows, maybe our second kill spot’s out of town. A guy this fanatical could be into rituals, making some sort of symbolic statement.”

  “Any connection between him and Kagan?”

  “According to Krieger, Drori thinks Gvura’s too moderate.”

  “Okay,” said Daniel. “Find out what he was doing the nights of both murders.”

  “Will do.”

  After Shmeltzer hung up, Daniel phoned Bonn for the tenth time and asked for the Interpol man. A secretary assured him that Mr. Friedman had indeed received the Pakad’s messages, would be returning them shortly. All attempts to push the issue were met with cool secretarial indifference.

  He collected his maps and his files, left the office, and drove to the Laromme Hotel. The lobby was thick with people, tourists queued up at the desk, checking in and settling their accounts, an army of clerks attending to their needs.

  The courtesy phones were all in use. Daniel searched for the manager, spotted him standing near one of the mobile luggage racks berating a bellman. When the bellman had departed, Daniel walked over and said, “Please ring Mr. and Mrs. Brooker, Yigal. I’m not sure of the room number.”

  The manager’s eyebrows rose. “Is there something I should know about them?”

  “They’re friends of mine.”

  “Oh. In that case, no need to call. She went out this morning at ten, met a blond woman—good looker—near the taxi stand. He’s out by the pool.”

  “Impressive, Yigal. Want to join my staff?”

  The manager shrugged. “They’re easy to spot.”

  Daniel walked to the pool area—lots of bikinis and laughter, the clink of glasses. The water in the pool was turquoise dappled with navy. The only ones swimming were children and one old man doing a slow breast stroke.

  Gene was asleep on a chaise longue, next to an umbrellaed table, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other resting at his side. On the decking near his fingertips were a bottle of Heineken and a half-full glass of beer. He wore green-and-white striped trunks. His legs were speckled with gray fuzz; his belly asserted itself above the waistline in a sleek, ebony billow.

  Like a seal, thought Daniel. A bull seal, basking on a rock.

  He settled in a deck chair. A waitress approached and took his order for a Coke with lime. When she returned with the drink, he sipped slowly, watching Gene sleep, and was halfway through the ice when the black man began to stir.

  The arm lifted, peeling away audibly from the tar-colored face. Gene’s eyes closed tighter, then opened and focused on Daniel.

  “Hey,” he said, sitting up and extending his hand.

  Daniel shook it. “You look at peace with the world, Lieutenant Brooker.”

  Gene smiled, stretched, and pulled a towel down from the table. “Working on my tan.” He wiped his brow, ran the towel over his face. “Lu’s at the museum, some lecture on biblical archaeology—matter of fact, I think Laura’s with her. What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to the FBI, Gene. I’d like your help.”

  That brought the black man to his feet.

  “My, my,” he said. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  They drove the two blocks to Daniel’s apartment. Laura had left a note saying Shoshi was staying late at school to work on a science project; the boys were at friends’; she and Luanne would be back by five, five-thirty the latest.

  Gene sat down at the dining room table and stroked Dayan as Daniel brought out files, maps, pencils, and a stack of paper. He uncoiled the phone wire, put the phone down next to Gene, and sat down. Taking a sheet from the stack, he began writing, jotting a column of numbers parallel with the left-hand margin, placing notations next to each number. When he was through, he handed the list to Gene, who put on a pair of ha
lf-glasses and read.

  “The program’s fairly new—called VICAP,” Gene said. “Stands for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—the Feds love acronyms.”

  “They also love paperwork, which is why I’m bothering you. They usually delay us for weeks.”

  “If that’s an apology, I’m ignoring it.” Gene read for a while longer. “Not much to work with, Danny. Your basic generic sex killer mutilation—neck, breasts, privates. I’ve seen plenty of it over the years.”

  “There was a difference between the victims,” said Daniel. “The genitals were cut up on One, removed from Number Two.”

  “Yeah, I see—that could work for us or against us, depending on how they’ve programmed the computer. If all they’ve got in there is wound pattern, we’ll lose, because we’re giving them two sets of data, reducing the chances of finding something in common with ours. On the other hand, if they’ve put in sequences—and I don’t know that they have—and come up with another chop-the-first, steal-the-second pattern, we’ll get a tighter match, something a little thought-provoking.”

  Gene read further. “Maybe the washing will pan out, but even that’s not that weird—good way to get rid of evidence. Most of these turkeys like to fool with the body, manipulate it, have sex with it. We had a case back in L.A. in ’49, the Black Dahlia, pretty famous. She was scrubbed and drained just like your two. They never found the guy who did it. How far back do you want them to go?”

  “As far as they can.”

  “If I remember correctly, the file bottoms out at ten-year-old unsolveds. Most of the stuff is pretty recent. There seems to be more and more of it each year—world’s getting sweeter.”

  He scanned the list again, put it down. “All right, let’s get to it. Let’s see, the time difference from here to L.A. is ten hours, which would make it seven hours from here to Virginia—just after eight A.M. Okay, McGuire should be there by now. Set me up.”

  Daniel dialed the international code, got a recorded message that all overseas cables were in use. He phoned the local operator, after several minutes of debate, obtained an international line. Gene took the receiver, dialed Virginia, and waited.

  “No ring yet.”

  “Sometimes it takes a while.”

  The black man nodded, tapped the phone with his finger. “McGuire’s a very nice guy—cooperative for a Fed. He’s in Disputed Documents at the FBI Academy in Quantico, used to be in the L.A. office. We worked together on a forgery case that turned into— All right, it’s ringing.”

  A moment later he was talking to his contact, speaking in a low, level voice:

  “Hello, Sam? This is Gene Brooker. I’m calling from the Middle East . . . Yup, you heard right. Doing some international consulting . . . Yeah, I’ll tell you about it when I get back. Anyway, I need access to VICAP—Serial Killer Data Bank in particular. Got some homicides with a possible international connection, want to run the wound patterns and modus, see if anything you guys have matches up. . . . No, nothing iffy politically . . . not at all—you’ve got my word on it, Scout’s honor. Just trying to catch a bad guy with a possible wide radius of operations . . . Yes, I know it’s still in development. Any profiles worked out? . . . Okay, I’ll take what I can get. So who do I speak to? . . . You will? Terrific. I owe you. Got a pen? These are the parameters . . .”

  When he was through discussing the list with McGuire, he gave his room number at the Laromme for callback, covered the mouthpiece, and said, “Want to use your office for a backup number?”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, “and here.” He wrote down both numbers and Gene gave them to the FBI man.

  Thanking McGuire again, Gene hung up and said, “All set. Couple of days, maybe longer. They’re not set up for profiling yet. Just basic statistics and collation.”

  “Thank you, Gene.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They went over the case again, Gene offering empathy and suggestions, but nothing Daniel hadn’t thought of. One part of Daniel regretted the lack of new ideas. The other felt good that an outsider had little to offer.

  At three-thirty his stomach rumbled and he realized he’d skipped breakfast and lunch. “Hungry?” he asked Gene.

  “I could eat.”

  He got up to fix cheese sandwiches and brew coffee when the phone rang: an operator from Headquarters informing him that a Mr. Friedman from Bonn was on the phone and threatening to hang up if they didn’t find Pakad Sharavi within thirty seconds.

  “Put me through,” he said.

  “You should tell us when you leave the office,” said the operator, and connected him to Bonn.

  “Sharavi.”

  “Sharavi, this is Friedman. I hear you’ve got problems.” The Interpol man’s voice was hoarse. He talked loud and fast, like someone shouting farewells from a moving train.

  “We could use some help.”

  “That’s for sure. Had a hell of a time reaching you—no one over there seems to know what they’re doing.”

  Two months in Germany and the man considered himself an ubermensch. Daniel let the slur pass, told him what he wanted, ending with detailed descriptions of the wounds.

  “Ugly,” said Friedman. “Do you want Greece too?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to take some time.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  “Bear in mind that there’s a time lag with the computer—some of our so-called current data’s over a year old. Anything really recent’s going to require personal calls.”

  “I’m aware of that. Four weeks is our cutoff. I’d appreciate the calls.”

  “What’s your lead to Europe?”

  “Possible ID of a foreign suspect.”

  “What do you mean by ‘possible’?”

  “The source said American but that could mean European.”

  “The source stupid or just being cagey?”

  “Unavailable, whereabouts unknown. The ID’s secondhand.”

  “Sounds weak to me,” said Friedman.

  “If I had the case solved, I wouldn’t be calling you.”

  “No need to get sensitive. I’ll get you what you want. All I’m telling you is that it sounds weak. Anything else I should know about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Because if there is, I need to have it up front. They’re not pleased with us—think all their terrorist problems are our fault. Being able to give them something would help grease the skillet.”

  “Whenever we get something, you’re always the first to know,” said Daniel. He gave the Interpol man his home number and hung up. As he put the phone in its cradle, he saw Gene smile knowingly from across the table.

  “Friendly chat,” said the black man.

  “New man,” said Daniel. “We don’t owe each other anything, yet.”

  He went into the kitchen, finished setting up the coffee-pot, and started laying slices of yellow cheese on rye bread.

  Gene followed him in, said, “Changing of the guard’s always wonderful. I spent six years building up a relationship with one captain, got a new one and had to start proving myself from scratch.”

  “I know all about that,” said Daniel, opening the refrigerator. “Do you like mustard?”

  CHAPTER

  49

  No one was talking to Wilbur, but he could live with that. No problem.

  A Butcher story a week had kept New York happy. The pieces had a terrific pickup rate, both in the States and worldwide. So terrific, he’d managed to cadge a byline on the last three.

  The key was to be creative, work with what you had. On something like this, facts were less important than flavor.

  And no shortage of flavor on this one: ancient city, Thousand Nights’ ambience, ethnic tensions, a fiend with a knife.

  Terrific visuals—he’d started thinking about a screenplay.

  There was always the political angle too. Arabs getting killed—the implications were obvious.

  He approached it from the
human-interest perspective first, went to Silwan, and knocked on the door of the first one’s family, hoping for a victim piece.

  When they wouldn’t let him in, he got hold of a sociology professor from Bir Zeit University: Columbia-educated little snot named El Said, in love with himself and a real publicity hound, which made him more than eager to offer quotable quotes about the political roots of violent crime in a racist society.

  When that had been milked, it was time to backtrack, round out the historical perspective. He spent hours at the Jerusalem Post archives—unimpressive place on the north side of town, near a sooty industrial stretch. You entered through the back of the building, had to walk between the newspaper delivery trucks, through some kind of loading dock. Nearby was a slaughterhouse or chicken processing plant; as he entered the archive, he heard the birds squawking, smelled the stench of burnt feathers.

  Inside wasn’t any better: rows of sagging floor-to-ceiling bookcases, scarred tables, cracked linoleum floors, not a computer in sight. And the librarian was a stooped, shuffling old character with wet eyes and an unhealthy complexion.

  Central-casting Dickens, decided Wilbur, half-expecting the geezer to creak when he walked.

  But the geezer was competent, knew where everything was. He took Wilbur’s money and was back with the file before the correspondent finished counting the change.

  Deciding to give the political thing a rest, he did a sex-murder search, hoping to shatter some myths. The local press kept repeating what Steve Rappaport had told him that first afternoon at Fink’s: Psycho homicides were virtually unknown in Israel. But that could have been just another bit of self-congratulation on the part of the Chosen People. He wasn’t ready to accept it at face value.

  He scoured clippings and reports, pulled Rappaport’s file and those of a couple of other reporters who’d covered the crime beat, went back to ’48 and found that it checked out: The violent crime rate was low and had remained relatively constant over the thirty-seven-year life of the state. The homicides they did have were mostly family blowups, manslaughters, and second degrees; serials and bizarre snuffs were virtually unheard-of. And from what he could tell, it didn’t seem due to cover-ups or underreporting. Since ’48, the press had been free.