Silent Victim

by C. E. Lawrence

  He told her the story of Ana’s visit, including her past as his patient—though he neglected to mention her attempt to seduce him years ago. Kathy didn’t seem to be the jealous type, but he had no desire to test that theory.

  Kathy listened, frowning. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I was thinking that might be her calling when we came in.”

  “Maybe it was a wrong number. Why don’t you see if they left a message?”

  Lee went over to the phone, but as he reached for it, it rang again. He picked it up immediately.

  “Hello?”

  “Lee, it’s Chuck.” “Hi, Chuck.”

  When she heard that, Kathy began waving vigorously from the couch.

  “Kathy says hi,” Lee said.

  “Yeah, thanks—uh, listen, have you got a minute?”

  His friend sounded disturbed, preoccupied—from the tightness in his voice, Lee could tell this call was all business.

  “Sure, go ahead,” he said.

  “Okay. We got a really strange situation here, and if you’re free, I’d like to have your input on it.” “Go ahead—shoot.”

  Chuck Morton proceeded to tell him about exactly the same case Butts had laid out before him over dinner, and Lee pretended to listen. Or rather, he pretended he had never heard any of this before, which was hard, since Butts had covered it quite thoroughly. Still, he managed to ask some leading questions, and thought he pulled it off pretty well. The last thing he wanted was to get Butts in trouble for spilling the beans about a case—even if it was to Lee, Butts could still catch hell for it, and even more since Kathy was there, too.

  Strictly speaking, case details were to be spoken of only with the officers directly involved, lest something should leak out that would compromise the investigation. Of course, things were leaked all the time, and Lee suspected there was a fair amount of pillow talk that went unreported. He couldn’t imagine a marriage of any substance without a few slips here and there. He thought of Chuck and Susan Morton in bed together. He had once shared a bed with her, and now … he forced the image out of his head.

  “Okay,” he said when Chuck had finished. “You’re right—it does sound intriguing.”

  “It’s damn perplexing, that’s what it is,” Chuck grumbled. “And that’s why we need you on board. If you have time, that is.”

  “Sure,” said Lee. “You clear it with brass, and I’ll be in your office Monday morning.”

  “Great,” said Chuck, sounding relieved. Lee could hear a woman’s voice in the background, and Chuck called to her, “Just a second, all right? Okay, I will.” Then, into the receiver, he said, “Susan sends her love.”

  “Thanks,” Lee said, feeling his throat tighten. Whatever

  Susan Morton was sending, it wasn’t her love. Her lust, perhaps—maybe her desire, her need, which was bottomless—but hardly her love.

  When it came to men, Susan Morton was a piranha—she ate them up. Junior year at Princeton she set her sights on Lee, after having chewed her way through most of the underclassmen on the rugby, soccer, and rowing teams (she favored those with brains and brawn, though not too much of either—she wouldn’t touch football players or physics majors). Blessed with a body that needed little improvement on what nature had given her (or so she claimed), straight blond hair (Lee always suspected it was bleached), and bewitching green eyes, she only had to wiggle her pert little hips or flutter her expensive false eyelashes to have men drooling like doddering idiots.

  Lee fell for her act for a while—then, after a particularly nasty fight over which restaurant they were going to (for her, the more expensive the better), he decided he’d had enough. Without even pausing to wipe the smudged lipstick off her pretty little mouth, she turned around and seduced his roommate and best friend, Chuck Morton. If she felt awkward about the situation, she didn’t show it. In fact, Lee thought it was the ultimate power play for her: he might reject her, but look!—she could have the very next man she set her sights on.

  And she had him, all right. She tugged on every heartstring poor Chuck had, and since Susan gave him the false impression that she had left Lee—and not the other way around—he could hardly point out her flaws to his friend, who might think it was just sour grapes.

  They dated all throughout junior year, and when Chuck left Princeton early to support his mother after his father’s sudden death, they were married within a few months. And now there they were, with two children and a house in the tony suburbs of Essex County, in north Jersey. And Lee saw the look of disbelief on his friend’s face when they were in public together—as if he still couldn’t quite understand how he ended up with such a beautiful woman.

  “Hey! What are you doing, standing there with that grim expression?”

  Kathy’s voice brought him out of his reverie. He set the remote receiver down on the phone charger. Susan sends her love. Yeah, right, as his niece would say. As if.

  “Didn’t Chuck just ask you to join the team?” Kathy said, now on her feet, plucking at his shirt sleeve.

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “So what’s with the long face, ya crazy mug?”

  They both liked black-and-white movies from the thirties and forties, and enjoyed imitating the way the characters spoke. It was one of those little private jokes that keep happy couples from being all alike.

  “Aw, cut it out, will ya, you crazy dame?” Lee responded, but his heart wasn’t in it. His stomach was beginning to churn, and it wasn’t just because of his close encounter with Susan Morton. He had a premonition that nothing good was about to happen.

  On impulse, he pulled the slip of paper from his pocket with Ana’s cell phone number on it and dialed. The call bounced immediately to voice mail. He frowned and tried a second time, with the same results. He folded the paper and put it carefully on top of the mantel. Of course, it could mean nothing—she could have turned off her phone. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something very bad was about to happen.

  “You okay?” Kathy said, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

  But even as he said it, he knew he didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In you go, nice and easy. That’s it, slide right in. Don’t be afraid—the water’s fine. Don’t struggle, now—there’s no point. The drugs should make you feel all nice and sleepy, so this shouldn’t hurt a bit. If you had been a better girl, there would have been no need for this, no need, but some women are just born bad. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is.

  Caleb stood and watched as she floated away, looking so peaceful, her limbs spreading out from her still form, her white-blond hair blooming like water lilies around her head. His father would be so pleased. He could still hear his father’s voice in his head, as if it were only yesterday.

  “Your mother was born bad—wicked and evil and bad. So this is what you do to bad women. Watch, boy—no, don’t turn away! And don’t cry. Only sissy boys cry. No son of mine will turn out to be a sissy boy, not if I can help it. That’s better—be a man, and take it like a man. Only women cry—don’t you ever forget that. And women are bad—nasty, evil creatures. They have this thing between their legs that makes them bad—this bleeding, gaping thing that will eat you up or bite off your manhood if you ‘re not careful.”

  This one had nice hair—so pale and thick, like a white halo around her head. Just like Ophelia, floating down the stream.

  Oh, yes, Ophelia killed herself out of love, my dear, didn’t she? Well, that was a bit of inspiration on my part, I must admit. A nice touch—I hope they like it when they find you. Of course, you won’t look so pretty when they find you, will you? Not pretty at all—you’ll be bloated like a watermelon, I should think, all white and ghastly and gruesome. Maybe some young policeman will even throw up when he sees you—some of them do, you know. I’ve seen them. That would be too bad, but you only have yourself to blame. I could have taugh
t you some manners, but it’s too late now, I’m afraid. Well, it’s getting colder out, so I’m going to have to leave you. Bon voyage—sweet dreams.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lee arrived at Chuck’s office in the Bronx Major Case Unit a little before nine on Monday morning, feeling tired and worried. Tired because Kathy had spent the weekend—they were still in the early stages of their romance, and didn’t want to waste time sleeping when they could be doing something together. For their first months together, that most often meant sex—Kathy had an unexpectedly voracious libido.

  And he was worried because he had tried all weekend to reach Ana on her cell phone, with no luck. He even called the Swan in Lambertville to see if she had shown up for work, but was told she had requested that weekend off. That made him feel a little better—maybe she and her boyfriend had gone on vacation and she had turned off her phone. But she hadn’t mentioned that when she came to see him, and under the circumstances, it seemed an odd omission.

  He walked through the station house, which was unusually quiet for a Monday morning. The young desk sergeant tried vainly to stifle a yawn as he waved Lee through to Chuck’s office, and the weary-looking policewoman talking to a thin young Latino man in purple rayon pants looked like she could use another night’s sleep. Lee knocked on the door to his friend’s office, and to his surprise, a woman’s voice answered. “Come in.”

  He paused a moment to register what he had just heard, then swung the door open cautiously. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he certainly didn’t expect what he saw. Instead of Chuck was a woman, perched next to his desk, one hip resting on the windowsill behind his scarred old captain’s chair.

  There are some women who, for whatever reason, make men feel inadequate. There are other women who, for perhaps more obvious reasons, make men want them. And then there are those rare women who do both.

  Elena Krieger was one of those women.

  She was extremely tall—Lee estimated at least six feet—with absurdly long legs, as though the painter’s brush had slipped when creating her, but he decided to keep going anyway. Her silky hair was a strawberry-blond color he associated with Swedish stewardesses and Hollywood starlets. Her body was pure Vegas: beside the long legs, she had the trim waist and solid round breasts of a showgirl. He didn’t see how they could be real: they looked too sculpted, too firm—and the lemon-yellow silk blouse she wore didn’t leave anything to the imagination. At the same time, there was something masculine about her body, the broad sweep of her shoulders, the big bones of her hands and feet. She gave off an impression of power and strength, so that her sexuality had an oddly androgynous appeal. He understood immediately how she got the nickname Valkyrie—she was the personification of a Wagnerian goddess.

  Her face couldn’t really be described as pretty. Everything was too big, too prominent: her mouth, her nose, her strong chin. And her eyes were rather small, light colored and deep set, so that they looked even smaller. Still, in the split second that Lee took in all these details, he also registered the fact that he couldn’t think of a single man he had ever known who would kick her out of bed. The part of him that was pure animal instinct, the part that wasn’t madly in love with Kathy, reacted to her as any other red-blooded heterosexual man would: he immediately imagined her naked, available, and interested.

  And in that moment he also knew something else about her: she was dangerous. He wasn’t sure who she was dangerous to—maybe herself, maybe the men she came in contact with, maybe other women—but there was no doubt she was dangerous.

  In the moment or two it took for all of these thoughts to race across the landscape of his brain, Elena Krieger took the three steps required to cover the width of Chuck’s small office and extended her hand.

  “Hello,” she said, with a light dusting of a German accent. “I’m Elena Krieger.”

  Lee wanted to say Of course you are, but instead he said, “Pleased to meet you,” shaking her hand, which was firm, cool and strong, like a solid piece of oak, or cedar.

  “And you are the famous Lee Campbell.”

  Lee laughed and felt his face go red.

  “Well, if I’m famous, I’m the last to hear about it.”

  “Oh, but of course you are—everybody knows about you. What happened to your sister was terrible,” she repeated, shaking her head so that her silky bangs swung back and forth like windshield wipers over her wide forehead.

  Lee tried to avoid looking at her—frankly, it was distracting. He turned toward the door, which he had deliberately left open.

  “Where’s Chuck?” he said, pretending to search for him in the hall outside.

  “He’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “That must have been so hard going through what you went through, the nervous breakdown and all. Are you sure you’re well enough to work now?”

  Stunned by this remark, he turned to look at her. His sister Laura’s disappearance five years ago was the reason he turned from private practice as a psychologist to become a criminal profiler. And his recent nervous breakdown, though not a secret, was a private matter. It wasn’t the kind of thing he talked about; clearly Elena Krieger had done some homework.

  Her words were loaded with subtext—he just wasn’t sure what it was. She certainly wasn’t expressing concern for him. She didn’t even know him, and from what he had heard about her, Elena Krieger cared about one thing: Elena Krieger. So there was definitely something else going on—was it a flirtation? Or perhaps she was trying to win him over with this appearance of sympathy, to get him on her side against Chuck. Or perhaps it was something even more subtle and sinister. Maybe she was trying to take him back to those awful days, to force him to relive them, thereby shaking his confidence.

  He was pretty sure word had gotten around about his struggle with depression—which was definitely regarded as a weakness in the macho world of the NYPD. Any kind of mental health problem carried more of a stigma than say, having cancer, or any other physical illness. Most cops belittled psychiatry of any kind, so Lee’s position as the force’s only criminal profiler was tenuous to begin with. His own personal struggle with depression made it even more so.

  He looked Elena Krieger up and down before answering. He wanted her to know that he was in control of the situation, not her.

  “I’m fine now,” he said calmly. “But thanks for asking.”

  Her plucked eyebrows arched upward as if she did not believe him, but at that moment Chuck Morton entered the room. He looked back and forth between Lee and Elena, then stated the obvious.

  “I see you two have met.”

  “Ya-a-h,” Elena Krieger replied, stretching the word out sensuously, like a cat sunning itself. But she was more lupine than feline, Lee thought—like a big redheaded wolf.

  “Good,” Chuck said briskly. “Let’s get started, then.”

  Lee was startled. He’d had no idea that Elena Krieger was part of this investigation. He couldn’t say that in front of her, so he just said, “Isn’t Detective Butts the primary—”

  Chuck cut him off. “Yes, he is, but Detective Krieger has recently been assigned to this station house, so she’ll be working the case, too. Her specialty is forensic linguistics.”

  Lee thought two detectives was already one too many, but he said nothing. He could see from Chuck’s discomfort that his friend didn’t want her here any more than he did. It was clear she was here because of some bureaucratic game of musical chairs that neither of them had any control over.

  “Where is Detective Butts, by the way?” Krieger asked. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

  “He should, and he is,” said a voice behind them, and they all turned to see Detective Leonard Butts standing in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee and a bag of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

  “Glad you could make it after all,” Chuck said. “Have a seat.”

  “Yeah,” Butts said. “I told the wife that she’d just have to go to her uncle’s funeral without me, and that I’d catch up w
ith her at the reception. She didn’t like it, but what can you do? Work is work. If you ask me, Monday morning’s an odd time for a funeral anyways.” He slurped happily at his coffee, took a big bite of a cream-filled doughnut, and leaned back in the chair with a satisfied sigh. “Man, these things are good.”

  “Have you met Detective Butts?” Chuck asked.

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Krieger replied. Lee couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

  “This is Detective Elena Krieger,” Chuck said to Butts.

  “Elena Krieger?” Butts said. “The Elena Krieger?”

  She flushed from the base of her elegant neck to her cheeks, though Lee wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or anger.

  “Well, if there are others with my name in the police farce, I am unaware of it.” Her mispronunciation of “force” took Lee by surprise, and he had to stifle an impulse to laugh.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” Butts said, shaking her hand vigorously before settling down to renew his attack on the bag of doughnuts. He seemed impervious to her charms—he was clearly more interested in the doughnuts. He munched away happily, hardly looking at her as Chuck went over the details of the case.

  “Okay,” said Chuck, taking out crime-scene photos and handing them around. “Now, the reason that there’s some urgency on this is that if these two deaths are connected, then we may have a serial offender on our hands—one that’s very difficult to catch. So far we haven’t been able to find any links between these two men, other than they’re both obviously phony suicides.”

  “Yeah,” Butts agreed. “We talked to the families of both vics, and we get the same thing. No history of depression or mental illness. The floater is Nathan Ziegler, and he just got hired by Roosevelt Hospital as an anesthesiologist. Bathtub guy, Chris Malette, was doing just fine financially—he was divorced but very amicable with his ex.”