Then the red-haired woman he’d noticed the other day walked past and yelled about the computer bag lying on the floor of the loading dock, citing a safety hazard. She tried to soften the comment when she realized the bag was his, but she had already made a poor impression.
“Sorry,” the redhead apologized. “When you work around messy men all day, you tend to jump the gun on little things. I forgot you were even back here. So quiet I didn’t even notice you.”
She stepped around the desk and stood just a little too close to Ott as she added, “It’ll be nice to be able to talk to everyone over the computer. The drivers prefer radios and the office people like cell phones. You seem to be the answer to all of our problems.” She gave him a big smile.
Ott nodded but didn’t hold eye contact for very long. But he watched her as she walked away. She had something, some way about her, that was alluring without being wildly attractive. Maybe it was experience? Whatever it was, the image of her smiling face stuck in his head.
A shout caught his attention. Two men were standing on the loading dock arguing about how to load tires into a long truck that couldn’t make the turn to back up to the dock.
Ott stood and stretched, then walked over to where the tires were stacked and looked at the pedestrian walkway down to the street, where the truck was stopped. As much as he liked to remain invisible, sometimes it was irresistible to show off what he could do.
He turned to the loading dock manager and said, “I’ve got an idea.”
The burly manager turned and said, “Anything’s gotta be better than taking the tires by hand one at a time.”
Daniel grabbed two tires and walked down the pedestrian ramp to the street. He had the driver back up a few feet, then open the side door to his truck. He set both of the tires down, one on the ground and the other propped on top of it and leaning against the truck.
When he hurried back up the ramp, the entire loading dock crew watched with anticipation. Ott thought he had it right. But what if his idea failed? He would feel like an idiot.
The loading dock crew watched silently as he ran back and grabbed two more tires. He looked up at the group staring at him. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll help you load the tires by hand.”
He released one of the tires and watched it roll in a straight line down the ramp. By the time it hit the tire lying on the ground, it was really moving. It bounced up and off the tire that was upright against the side of the truck. It landed exactly where it needed to.
The entire loading dock erupted in applause. The manager moved his massive body toward Ott and said, “How in the hell did you figure that out?”
Ott smiled. “Simple physics. It dictates everything in our lives. I just know how to use it to my advantage.”
Chapter 34
When I got back to my office, Dr. Jill St. Pierre, the forensic scientist, was sitting at my desk, reading my copy of Men’s Health. As I walked through the squad bay, her dark eyes rose from the pages of the magazine. The fact that she didn’t smile when she saw me told me her new information wasn’t good.
Since St. Pierre was sitting in my leather office chair, I took the hard wooden chair next to my desk. I purposely didn’t say anything as I prepared for the bad news. Whatever it might be.
She said, “I heard you had to make a trip to One Police Plaza. I decided it was better to wait here in case they were sending you back to clean out your desk.” Her sly smile made me laugh.
“Technically, I didn’t have to make the trip. Only Harry Grissom did. I met him down there for support.”
“Anything change on the investigation?”
I shook my head. “We have to keep the mayor’s office better informed.”
“Isn’t that the same rule they give every time?”
“Seems like it.” I glanced around to make sure no one was close by. “C’mon, Jill, you didn’t come all the way up here to chat with me about my morning. Whatcha got?”
She started slowly. “I have a preliminary profile of the second blood sample from the Elaine Anastas scene.”
“Could you match it to anything?”
“Yes.”
I sat up straight and almost clapped. “You think it’s the killer’s blood?”
“Nope,” she said, dashing my hopes. “But there is a connection. The second sample? It matches a homicide victim killed in Atlanta eight months ago. Hollis tipped us off to the connection and we’ve been working with Atlanta PD.”
I was baffled by what she’d just revealed. Finally I said, “How is that possible?”
St. Pierre shrugged. “I provide the scientific data. Detectives usually do the interpretation.” She handed me a manila envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Atlanta PD gave us all the reports from the case. They are scanning photographs to email us. They even offered to send a detective up here. And just like here, they think this homicide could be related to several others in the Atlanta area. Apparently these cases have been bugging them for the last eight months.”
I leaned back in the chair, thinking about what she’d just told me. When I looked up, the forensic scientist was glancing over one of the reports from Atlanta.
“What do you think this means?” I asked her.
“That’s your area, not mine,” St. Pierre said. “But I’d theorize that if your killer is getting cute like this, it’s probably a sign he’s bored. He has to make things more interesting. And that could be extremely dangerous.”
Chapter 35
It was late afternoon by the time John Macy, the mayor’s aide, showed up again at Manhattan North. He wore a Brooks Brothers charcoal suit, a red power tie, and an extraordinarily smug expression.
Macy said, “I told you the mayor needs to be informed.”
I wanted to reply, And I told you I was busy trying to catch a killer. I hope you haven’t endangered someone else’s life by distracting me. But in deference to Harry Grissom, I just smiled and nodded. I had promised Harry that I wouldn’t make any waves.
Macy didn’t help with my plan. He said, “I can’t believe I had to go through that much trouble just to get a detective with the NYPD to fill me in on a case. I’m busy too. You have any idea how many people work in the mayor’s office?”
I said, “About half of them.”
Macy gave me a disgusted look but didn’t say anything. Then he shook his head and started marching toward Harry Grissom’s office.
Brett Hollis stepped up next to me. “You just had to say something, huh.”
“Did you hear how he set me up? If this were a criminal case, that would’ve been considered entrapment.”
Hollis and a couple of nearby detectives started to laugh.
Harry trudged out of his office and gave me and Hollis a curt hand signal. We followed him and Macy to the conference room Hollis had turned into his tip-line headquarters.
At a nod from Harry, Hollis explained the operation to Macy. “We’re getting three to five thousand leads a day over the tip line. Eighty percent of them can be discounted immediately.”
“It seems a little arrogant to discount so many leads so quickly,” Macy interrupted.
“Think of it this way, Mr. Macy,” Hollis said. “How many calls a week does the mayor’s office get about problems?”
The sharply dressed man shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe five hundred?”
“And each of those calls is equally important?”
Macy pursed his lips. “I take your point, Detective Hollis.”
Hollis continued with his explanation. “About half the calls to the tip line are either encouragement—like someone saying, ‘You guys are doing a great job’—or insults. A lot of those are really nasty. Let’s say that leaves us with two thousand concerned citizens offering what they think is relevant information. More than half of those tips are something along the lines of ‘The guy who lives next door to me is creepy.’ Of the thousand or so tips remaining, about ten percent are new information. Bu
t that’s still a hundred leads a day for someone to follow up on, with either a direct interview or a phone call. So far, not one lead has been useful. But we still are doing everything we can.”
“Does this include leads on all the open homicides? Including the one on Staten Island?”
I stepped in on that one. “We have our doubts about whether the Staten Island murder is connected.”
Macy looked outraged. “How can that be? It’s clearly the same killer.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is that assessment based on, Mr. Macy? You don’t have any experience in homicide, even if you were a cop for, as you put it, about five minutes. If we homicide detectives don’t use our experience and instincts, nothing would ever get done. We’d waste our time following leads that clearly mean nothing. But we appreciate you coming from the mayor’s office and telling us which homicides are related and which aren’t.”
Macy scowled at me for a few seconds, then looked at Harry Grissom. “Is this what you call controlling your people, Lieutenant? When we met with the chief of detectives, you assured him I’d get full cooperation. I don’t think insulting me should be considered cooperation.”
Harry glanced at me, then at Macy. I knew the look on his face. He was choosing his words carefully. Finally, he straightened his tie and said, in the steady, calm voice of an FM radio host, “We’re trying to cooperate, Mr. Macy. You’re not making it very easy.”
“Task Force Halo is supposed to be a joint task force. Maybe you can tell me why the FBI is not involved in the case,” Macy countered.
I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t about to touch this, especially given the evidence we’d been pursuing that indicated the murders might be tied to similar crimes in Atlanta and San Francisco, and that we continued to work through media and police sources—not federal channels. Which reminded me once again that Emily had yet to come through with the information she’d offered to track down.
Harry said, “That’s an issue we’ll discuss. We’ll make a decision based on our discussions. We will apprise you of the decision once we’ve made it.” Then he turned and walked back to his office.
I tried to hide my smile.
Damn, my boss was good at handling assholes.
Macy looked at me and said, “You don’t seem to understand I speak to the mayor.”
I said, “And the coroner speaks for the dead. The difference is, I listen to the coroner.”
The moment I landed my zinger, John Macy stormed back into Grissom’s office.
I’d launched a grenade. This meeting could have gone better.
Chapter 36
I sat at my desk like a kid in middle-school detention. I tried not to focus on Harry Grissom’s closed office door, but it was tough to concentrate on anything else.
I could only imagine what the mayor’s aide, John Macy, was ranting about inside my lieutenant’s office. I assumed that by now he had called someone at One Police Plaza and told them how I was acting like a bratty child. I didn’t have much defense for that charge.
I was kicking myself for failing to reel in the worst of my smart-ass tendencies. If one of my kids behaved like this, I’d definitely punish them for it. I didn’t deserve anything less.
I noticed some members of the squad had found reasons to be elsewhere. Except for me and Brett Hollis, the office looked like a ghost town.
To help fill the time and ease my anxiety, I turned to Hollis and asked, “What are you working on?”
Hollis barely looked up. “My application to take your spot on the squad permanently.”
I sat in silence for a moment until a smile crept across the young detective’s face. He really was getting the hang of surviving as a cop: laugh at everything. I said, “Funny. Although it’s probably not a bad idea.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
“You don’t think I’ll get transferred to some precinct in the Bronx?”
“Nope. Because Lieutenant Grissom already told me I could have your spot.”
That made me laugh out loud. “Seriously, are you working on anything I can help with? I wouldn’t mind being distracted about now.”
“I’m doing more research on serial killers. There’s gotta be something in all the information and evidence gathered from the multiple crime scenes and calls to the tip line that fits some sort of pattern.”
“Isn’t that what the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico is for?”
“From everything I’ve heard, the FBI doesn’t always play fair. We could give them all the information we have and never hear back from them. Or we could give them all our information and then they swoop in and take over the case. I wouldn’t care if it meant they caught the killer. But if you haven’t noticed, their track record is mediocre at best.”
“You’re learning,” I said to my young partner. And I meant it.
I asked Hollis about his research on serial killers. Whether it was official or unofficial, his knowledge of the subject might come in handy.
Hollis lit up at the opportunity to share his research, now that he knew I was truly interested.
“Okay,” he began, “so first I was looking at debunking a bunch of stuff. Like, you know how everyone assumes most serial killers are Caucasian?”
I nodded, remembering how Dr. Jill St. Pierre had said just that to me in our earlier conversation.
“Well, the truth is that as more information becomes available, it turns out that the serial killer population mirrors the diverse racial makeup of the US population as a whole. In fact, there’s a black guy in his late seventies named Samuel Little who could be the country’s most prolific serial killer.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask—how many people do they think he’s killed?”
“He’s confessed to nearly a hundred murders, but they don’t have enough credible details to charge him with all of them. Even so, he’s still being charged with murders going back to the eighties and nineties. He is very specific in his obsession. He strangled his victims and selected them according to the shape of their neck. He also worked in gritty neighborhoods in multiple states and picked on homeless women and prostitutes, folks he believed would not be missed. Something about his theory must’ve held water, because it took decades to corral this asshole.”
Hollis looked over at me. “It’s hard to get a good sense of how many people are actually murdered by serial killers. As I’m sure you know, there are so many unsolved homicides across the country—plus deaths misattributed to overdose, accident, or undetermined causes—that no one can really say whether a serial killer is responsible for them or not.”
“I don’t think that’s our issue here,” I said dryly. “In our particular case, we have no reason not to believe our suspect is white and male. The forensics team says that based on the application of force, the suspect is probably about five foot ten and fairly strong. And we know he mutilates his victims, stabs their left eyes. I think he likes the feeling of power and control that comes from creating bloody, wild crime scenes. But I also think his technique hinges on how much time he has at each scene. How do you see it?”
Hollis said, “I agree with your assumptions about the time needed to create such nasty crime scenes. I think he’s smart. Really smart. And clearly he travels. Probably for work, which would make him a white-collar professional. That combination is what makes him so hard to catch.”
I was impressed by the young detective’s curiosity. It was the sign of a good cop. “Those are some good theories. I’m proud of you.” It was part joke and part serious. Regardless, I noticed it made my junior partner beam. I made a mental note to be a little more generous with the praise.
Then Harry’s door opened. I was so deep into my own paranoia about the future of my NYPD career that I tried to figure out if the door had opened in an angry way or a professional way. I listened to the tone of the two men’s voices as they exchanged good-byes. Not pleasant.
Macy had only a menacing glance for me as he fumed
back across the squad bay floor, this time heading for the exit.
As Harry watched him leave, he ran a hand over his face, looked at me, and shook his head.
I had stepped over the line and I knew it. I also knew I needed to apologize. First to Harry, then, as much as it bugged me, to John Macy.
At the moment, though, I couldn’t get a clear read on Harry. Not that it’s ever easy. I slid out of my seat and started walking toward him. When I was still twenty feet away, I said, “Harry, I’m sorry. I let him get under my skin.”
Harry let out a sigh. That was almost always a really bad sign that he was about to say something no one wanted to hear. I waited for the words Go home or, worse, You’re off the case. I just hoped none of this problem I had created would bleed over onto Hollis. He didn’t deserve to be punished for my stupidity.
I said, “What happened? What did Macy demand?”
“At first I tried to reason with the turd. Then he tried to reason with me.” Harry chuckled. “Like that ever works.” He looked at me in silence for a moment. “Macy came up here to see the operations of our task force, and all he saw was a junior detective pounding the books and a lead detective acting like a child. Basically, he doesn’t think you’re the right man for this case.”
Harry looked at me. He said in a calm and quiet voice, “Get out of here. Go find some perspective. Go talk to your kids, to your beautiful fiancée, or even to your grandfather. Figure out what’s more important to you: stopping a killer or annoying a minor city official.”
“Should I come back tomorrow?” I wasn’t being dramatic. I was dead serious.
“Yes. Unless I call you tonight and tell you not to bother. Which is a possibility.” He stared at the door that Macy had raced out of. Then Harry said, “There’s something about that guy I don’t like. He acts a little like my first wife. He seems pleasant enough until you look a little closer.” Harry looked back at me. “You remember when my wife ran off with our mechanic?”
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