A Killer's Essence

by Dave Zeltserman

  My cell phone rang. Hennison used that as an excuse to get back to making his lists. I waited until he was out of sight before answering my phone and hearing Bambi on the other end. She wanted to know why I didn’t wake her the other night.

  “I know you came home,” she told me. “I saw that you cleaned up in the kitchen. Thanks for that by the way.”

  “I thought you needed the sleep,” I said.

  “You could’ve woken me,” she said, and from her tone I could picture her exaggerating her pout. “I stayed up until two last night waiting for you. I guess I dozed off. Where were you?”

  “At Pinstripes watching the game. I hung around afterward. I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t feel like going home to an empty apartment. I got back sometime after three thirty.”

  “Oh, okay.” She hesitated, then “Stan, why’d you have your cell phone off?”

  “Phillips had been calling me to give me shit. I didn’t feel like taking any more of his calls last night.”

  “Really?” A bit of a chill entered her voice. I knew that she wanted to say something about how I had no problem turning off my cell phone last night but had to keep it on during our big night out last Wednesday. She held it back though and instead asked me how my night was.

  “The Yankees won big,” I said, as if that answered what she was asking. “Look, I’ve got a call I need to make. We’ll talk later.”

  “Don’t you want to know where I was the last two nights?”

  “That’s your business.”

  “I was with my friend Angela.” Her normally tough bluster was gone. I heard her exhale a lungful of air, then add, “I was just so mad at you for leaving me alone in that hotel. I know, I know, you couldn’t do anything about it, but I needed a chance to cool off. Maybe I was trying to get you to miss me a little also. But I wasn’t sleeping with anyone if that’s what you were thinking. You can call Angela and ask her if you’d like. And I’m sorry about that crack I made about that desk clerk.”

  I hated hearing that vulnerability in her voice. The suggestion to call her friend was childish—as was the idea that her friend wouldn’t just repeat whatever Bambi wanted her to. Still, my gut feeling was that Bambi was telling me the truth. I decided if she wasn’t it didn’t really matter.

  “I’m sorry too,” I said.

  “Will you be home later?”

  “By seven o’clock. I promise.” I hesitated for a moment, then added, “You went through a lot trouble. Packing up those boxes and carting them out, only to bring them all back two days later.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “I guess I was trying to get your attention. I’ll see you at seven.”

  She hung up. I sat for a moment, losing my train of thought. The little sleep I’d had over the last three days left me with both a headache and this fuzziness in my brain. I got up and poured myself a cup of the mud that we have masquerading as coffee at the precinct. After several sips of that, I called the number Jill Chandler had left. She answered on the first ring and insisted she’d been up since six going over reports on both murders, so there was no chance that I had woken her. Her apartment was on East Houston, only ten minutes away. We arranged to meet at my desk in a half hour.

  Jill Chandler showed up on time, carrying a bag from Katz’s Deli. She looked softer than she had the other day. Instead of pulling her hair back tightly she had let it down, and instead of the dark blue suit and sensible shoes that marked her as FBI, she wore a thick white cotton sweater, jeans, and tennis sneakers. Maybe it was also the way the late morning light hit her, or maybe it was the sleep-deprived fuzziness clouding up my head, but I didn’t see any of the harsh angles to her that I thought I’d seen the other day. When she took two bagels with cream cheese and lox out of the Katz’s Deli bag and handed me one, I began to think I might like her. Any lingering doubt was removed when she also took out two black coffees. Thick slices of Bermuda onion and tomato had been wrapped separately, and I added them to my sandwich and took a healthy bite of it. It had been a while since I’d visited Katz’s. We ate in silence, with Jill Chandler putting her sandwich down first.

  “That was quite an exit you made yesterday,” she said after wiping a small smudge of cream cheese from the side of her mouth, an amused smile twisting her lips. “I don’t think your boss was too happy about it.”

  “He wasn’t,” I agreed.

  “I’m guessing from the brevity of your comments at yesterday’s meeting that you had somewhere else you badly needed to be.”

  From the way she looked at me I could tell she was curious to know my story. For some reason I didn’t want her to think of me as someone who would let down on the job, but I also didn’t want to get into my divorce, my relationship with my kids, or how damn impotent I ended up being the other night, so I just shrugged and told her that, yeah, I had someplace else I needed to be. I knew that she wanted to probe the subject further—probably her years of profiling had left her hating open questions—but she left it alone.

  “I’d like to hear your thoughts on these murders,” she said. “You’ve been the closest to them, at least Gail Laurent’s, and I’d like to know what you think we’re dealing with.”

  “Pretty much what I said yesterday. Our guy’s having fun. He’s cutting off fingers and blowing off his victims’ faces partly as a signature to us, and partly because he’s enjoying what he’s doing. And there are more than just those two bodies.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, her lips pursed.

  “I’m guessing you’ve seen the videotape of our witness stumbling onto Gail Laurent’s murder?”

  She nodded. “It was shown after you left.”

  “Then you know that our guy tried to shoot Lynch and the only reason he didn’t was he was out of bullets. So far seven rounds have been accounted for. Our guy’s carrying a .40 caliber, which is going to hold either ten or fifteen rounds, and double that if he’s got two magazines. Odds are he was fully loaded before he went out hunting last Wednesday. So what happened to the rounds we haven’t accounted for yet?”

  “Zachary Lynch didn’t fit the profile of the other two victims,” she said, confidently. “They were both well-off, and dressed in a way to indicate that. Mr. Lynch, to put it politely, looked like he could’ve been living out on the streets. More likely, our killer was only trying to scare him away.”

  “I don’t think so. Our perp would’ve thought that Lynch would be able to identify him.”

  “Not if he was in disguise. He could’ve even been waiting for a witness to come along.”

  Jill Chandler was looking pleased with herself over that idea. I didn’t buy it. That our guy would be waiting for a witness or disguising himself smelled wrong to me. If I could trust Lynch and his claims that he saw objects normally, just not people, then he would’ve noticed if our killer had been wearing a mask. No, it was just dumb blind luck on both their parts: Lynch, that he wasn’t shot, and our killer, that Lynch couldn’t identify him.

  I picked up what was left of my sandwich and chewed it slowly, all the while Jill Chandler smiling to let me know how very pleased she was with herself. When I was done I asked her why she really wanted to meet me because I knew it wasn’t to get my “thoughts” on the killer. From the way she blushed, it occurred to me that her agenda might’ve been of a more personal nature, or at least partially so. She lowered her eyes for a moment and nodded.

  “Very good,” she said. “You caught me.”

  “Yeah, well, I might not have a degree in psychiatry or be a trained profiler, but you learn something after fifteen years on the job. So what do you really want?”

  “I asked Mr. Lynch yesterday about hypnosis and he was strongly against the idea. I could try scaring him by threatening a court order, but from his reaction I doubt that would work, and I also doubt we’d be able to find a judge who would support us. You’ve already established a relationship with him. I’d like you to talk to him for us.”

  “It won’t do any
good,” I said. “There’s nothing I could say to him that would change his mind. He doesn’t want anyone else knowing what he sees.”

  She smiled at that. “Why would he be so private about his hallucinations?”

  I scratched my jaw as I thought about it. “He doesn’t believe they’re hallucinations. I’m not sure what he thinks they are, but whatever it is he’s not sharing.”

  Her smile dulled enough to show she didn’t believe that. “You will talk to him for us?” she asked.

  I told her I would, for all the good I thought it would do. It was getting about time for me to head out for Gail Laurent’s funeral, and I asked Jill if she had anything else she’d like to discuss. There was a slight hitch to her mouth as she told me there wasn’t, at least not at that moment. It was clear there was something else on her mind, but she was going to keep it to herself. I thanked her for the bagel and watched as she gathered up her stuff and left.

  Chapter 13

  Once again Zachary Lynch flinched when he accidentally caught a glimpse of me, and once again he made sure to keep his eyes averted afterward. Anyone else, I would’ve been offended, but by now I was used to it.

  The suit he wore was several sizes too big, and he looked so damn uncomfortable in it. His tie was also knotted improperly—kind of the way you’d tie a shoelace—and although I could tell he hated doing so, he stood still so I could tie him a Windsor knot. While we drove I tried making small talk, asking him if he caught any of the Yankees-Sox series. He seemed distracted and was mostly just squirming in his seat. He said something under his breath about not having any interest in sports, and that he watched little TV.

  “I’m sorry that FBI agent bothered you,” I said.

  “There’s nothing in my subconscious that hypnosis could unlock,” he said under his breath, his discomfort palpable. “I’m not subjecting myself to it.”

  “I know. I talked with Dr. Brennan. I believe him, I believe you. Still, it would get them off your back. The FBI can be damned persistent. It might be worth just doing it. After all, what harm could it do?”

  Lynch’s expression turned wooden as he stared straight ahead. “No,” he insisted. “Under no circumstances.”

  My lack of sleep must’ve left me more slow-witted than I had imagined, because it hit me then why Lynch was being so antsy and it wasn’t because of the FBI descending upon him like I had first assumed. I’m sure that was part of it, but there was something else eating at him, and I couldn’t help smiling as I realized what it was. Lynch seemed to sense this. He glanced in my direction but hurriedly looked away, his skin color paling to an even unhealthier shade.

  I said, “I promised to tell you about your friend from Strombolli’s.”

  “Lisa,” he whispered softly.

  “She was worried about you Wednesday when you didn’t show up. You like her, don’t you?”

  It was barely noticeable, but I caught him nodding.

  “I think the feeling’s mutual,” I said. “She hinted as much. You should ask her out.”

  A bare trace of a smile cracked his face, and then just as quickly it was gone.

  “That would be hilarious,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Asking her on a date with me being the way I am.”

  I could tell he was mulling it over, though. I couldn’t help myself and I asked him what he saw when he looked at her. He didn’t answer me, not directly anyway, but that crack of a smile came back, and this time it lasted for several seconds.

  We drove in silence after that. He was more relaxed, though, most of his uneasiness from before gone. After we crossed into Jersey I asked him about his life before the convenience store robbery in Harlem when he was a medical student at Columbia. He told me how being a doctor was all he wanted growing up but the way he was left after being shot made it impossible to continue at school. Since he couldn’t be around people anymore, at least most people, he taught himself computer programming and was able to get short-term assignments where he wouldn’t have to leave his apartment. The only time he ventured outside was during his weekly excursions to Strombolli’s. Telling me all that exhausted him, but also seemed to be a good release for him. I had the idea that this was the longest personal conversation he’d had with someone in person since that night in Harlem six years ago.

  The funeral service was being held at the grave site, and I arrived there twenty minutes before the service was scheduled to start. Around forty chairs had been set up for the bereaved. Lynch and I left the car and walked until we reached a spot far enough to the side of the chairs that we’d be able to see people clearly but still remain mostly unobtrusive. Rachel Laurent sat stoically in the front row flanked by an older man in his sixties who I assumed was her uncle and a young woman her age who was probably a close friend. A few other people were scattered about, some the victim’s age, some Rachel’s. Rachel sensed I was standing there and turned to look at me before facing front again. Zachary Lynch’s eyes held steady on her, his features relaxed.

  “She’s drowning,” he said under his breath, a soft sigh escaping from him.

  “What?”

  He looked startled for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected me to hear him. “In her sorrow,” he explained. “She’s drowning in it.”

  I wanted to ask him how the fuck he could see something like that when everything was supposed to be clouded by hallucinations, but I bit my tongue. More people arrived as we waited for the service to start. Lynch sucked in his breath as he looked at each newcomer. He flinched at the sight of a few of them, though most generated little reaction. With all he shook his head in a short, jerky motion to indicate they weren’t the killer.

  The service started on time, and more people showed up as it went on. About two thirds of the seats ended up being taken. Rachel almost made it through with her stoic front intact, but near the end she lost it and wept uncontrollably. Some moisture showed in Lynch’s eyes as he watched her, and he clenched his teeth to keep a stiff upper lip himself. I stood as I always did at these funerals: impassive, business-like, but wanting more than ever to catch the piece of human waste responsible.

  After the service ended and people began to disperse, I signaled Lynch to walk with me so it looked as though we were attending one of the other grave sites.

  “If our guy shows up over there, you’ll be able to see him, right?”

  “Yes, I think so, but I don’t understand,” Lynch said. “The funeral is over. Why are we still here?”

  “Sometimes these psychos like to show up afterward. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

  We stood fifty yards from Gail Laurent’s grave, hidden mostly from sight by an elm tree. I watched as the workers filled in the grave. No stragglers came by. Once the workers were done and gone, the cemetery was empty. We moved a few times over the course of an hour, but nobody showed up other than a man in his fifties walking an overstuffed English bulldog. Lynch shook his head as the man passed us, just as he had earlier with everyone else. I checked my watch. It wasn’t worth spending any more time there. Our killer wasn’t showing up. I told Lynch we would be heading back. As we drove out of the cemetery I asked him if he had eaten anything yet that day.

  “Not since breakfast.”

  “Let’s get you something then.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, his eyes squinting badly against the late afternoon sun. “This took a lot out of me. Please, I’d like to just go home.”

  I gave him a quick look and figured the real issue was he wasn’t up to being around any more people. At the first fast food drive-thru place we came to, I pulled in and asked him what he wanted. He admitted he wouldn’t mind having a cheeseburger and fries. I ordered him two of both, as well as a chocolate shake, and the same for myself. While he nibbled on a French fry he told me this was the first time he’d had any fast food since the incident six years ago.

  “I used to live on this stuff when I was at Columbia,” he told me, his lips twisting crookedly into what must’ve been a sh
eepish smile. “You’d think us med students would know better.”

  “There are some fast food joints closer to your apartment than Strombolli’s. Why not go to one of those for a change of pace?”

  He shuddered at the idea of it. “Too many people in them,” he said. “Besides, going to Strombolli’s once a week is about all the excitement I can take.”

  His crooked off-balance smile flashed for a moment to indicate that it was a joke. We ate in silence, and after we were done and I was driving us back to New York, he fell into a deep sleep. He was breathing so shallowly that I studied him for a moment to convince myself that he really was just sleeping and hadn’t passed out or dropped dead on me. Once I convinced myself of that, I turned on WCBS and listened to some of the pregame talk for the upcoming Yankees game. The general consensus was that Boston was toast and this was going to be a four-game sweep. It sure seemed that way with El Duque taking the mound. I couldn’t think of a single time when the Red Sox had been able to beat him. El Duque always seemed to have their number and find ways to keep them off balance.

  When I arrived back at Lynch’s apartment building, he was still out of it, his head bent so that his chin rested against his chest. I shook him gently at first, then a little more roughly until his eyes fluttered open. He was disoriented and clearly had no recollection of where he was, and as he pulled himself forward and turned to face me, he shuddered and his skin blanched a sickly white. For a moment I thought he was going to scream. He didn’t scream, though. Instead, he blinked wildly and jerked his head away, rubbing a hand across his mouth. His eyes locked onto the front entranceway of his apartment building. I had a strong impulse to grab his head and force him to look at me until he was willing to tell me what it was he saw.