The Art of Violence

by S. J. Rozan

  “He leered. I have no obligations to men who leer. And he was lying to us, too. Cromley didn’t just come to tell him Sam got arrested. I think she told him about the earrings.”

  “He was definitely lying. I’m not so sure about the earrings, but I did get the feeling that whatever she wanted from him, she didn’t get it.”

  “Not her day. I’d like to say, though, that I’m getting tired of being the good cop. Can we switch it up a little?”

  “No one would buy it.”

  “You could practice. In the mirror.”

  “Even I wouldn’t buy it.” I took out the phone and made the next call.

  “Grimaldi.”

  “Smith.”

  “Booked, got a lawyer, headed downtown. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “I have something you want to see.”

  “What is it?”

  “Evidence. Though I’m not sure of what.”

  “Why do I want to see it? Never mind, you’re not gonna give up. I’m at the precinct. Can you be here soon?”

  “Sooner.”

  We took the subway, faster than a midday cab would have been. The 68th Street stop was a block from the 19th Precinct.

  “Nice building,” Lydia said as we approached.

  “Only on the outside. The inside is as crapped-up as any other cop house.”

  “Is that a metaphor for something?”

  “Life.”

  Upstairs in the squad room, Grimaldi was behind her desk. One other detective, a big, broad-shouldered, brown-skinned man whose nameplate read IGLESIAS sat at a desk across the room, two-finger typing at his computer. Everyone else was gone. Must’ve been a big day for crime on the Upper East Side.

  “Smith,” Grimaldi said. “And Ms. Chin. Good of you to come.”

  “Am I hearing sarcasm?”

  “Only about you. Ms. Chin I wanted to see.”

  “Lydia. I’d be glad to answer any questions,” Lydia said, “but I think you should see what we have first.”

  “Curiosity’s killing me.”

  I brought the rag-wrapped box out of my pocket. Grimaldi took it, used the rag to open the box, and burst out, “Shit! Oh, shit! Is this what I think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Are earrings the trophies here?”

  She shot me a look. “Okay, they are. Son of a bitch, where did you get these? Wait. Sit.” Grimaldi moved some papers, put the box on her desk, photographed it and the contents. “Where’s the other one?”

  “The other what?”

  “I have four vics, and you’re giving me three earrings.”

  “That’s what I found.”

  “In the box? In the rag?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Ellissa Cromley’s studio.”

  “Who?”

  “Next door to Sam’s. His friend.”

  “Oh, yeah, okay, her. Where’s she now?”

  “Still there, as far as I know.”

  “She give you this?”

  “No. It was hidden. I found it while she was out.”

  “She know you have it?”

  “Now, yes.”

  “Female serial killers killing women.” Grimaldi bit her lower lip. “Very, very rare.”

  “She says she stole it.”

  “You believe her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Long story?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then wait.” Grimaldi pulled open a drawer, took out two plastic evidence bags, scribbled on them, slipped the box into one and the rag into the other. “Stay here. Get yourselves some coffee. No phone calls. Or texts. I don’t want anyone knowing what the trophies are, get it? Unless you called the Post already?”

  I raised my hands. “No one.” Lydia shook her head.

  Grimaldi scooted out the door while Lydia sat down in the guest chair and I got myself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter. It was good; in my experience, cop coffee gets a bad rap. I pulled a chair over from an absent detective’s desk. Lydia and I didn’t speak until Grimaldi got back. Coming through the door, she said, “Gabi?”

  “No phone calls,” Iglesias said without looking up from his keyboard. “Or texts.”

  “You don’t trust us?” I asked.

  “Why would I? That stuff’s on its way to Jamaica”—Jamaica, Queens, home of the NYPD Crime Lab—“but if they’re not the trophies, I’ll eat my hat. Look.”

  She walked to the case board, on the wall behind her desk. “This is Pike. This is the one earring she had on this morning when we found her.”

  Four crime scene photos, head shots of dead women, marched across the top of the whiteboard, with body shots and close-ups of wounds in rows below, and colored-marker lists, notes, and questions under that. In the photo Grimaldi tapped, the earring in Kimberly Pike’s right ear was a match for one of the three in the box.

  Grimaldi gazed at the board, then turned and dropped into her chair. “This better be good. If you’ve had those and you’ve been holding out—And where the hell’s the other one?”

  “I don’t know where it is,” I said. “That’s what I found. And we haven’t been holding out, though it would’ve helped if we’d known what the trophies were from the beginning.”

  “Helped what, besides me being busted back to beat cop?”

  “I found those about an hour ago. If we’d been sure, we’d have called right away.”

  “That may be crap, but I’ll make you a deal—I won’t worry about it right now. Where exactly did you ‘find’ them? And what have you been doing in that hour that was more important than calling me?”

  “How about we add to the deal you tell us what the physical evidence is you arrested Sam on?”

  “How about you tell me what I asked or I will worry about you holding out on me?”

  “When you put it that way.” I told Grimaldi the whole story: Cromley hiding from us something we were sure she’d been showing to Konecki; the two of them having a deal that Konecki called off when I told them about Sam’s arrest; me stealing the box when Cromley went to talk to Oakhurst; Cromley claiming she’d taken the box from Sam’s studio; and Oakhurst denying knowing anything about anything.

  “Your mama,” Grimaldi said when I was through. “So, forgetting you just admitted to a felony, you’re saying your wacko had the trophies?”

  “Unless Cromley’s lying, and she’s not very good at that, they were in his studio.” I didn’t point out Cromley had committed the same felony; that didn’t make me less guilty. “But that doesn’t mean Sam knew about it. Cromley says she heard someone leave the studio in the morning, and then she went in and found the box. In the morning Sam was with me. And,” I pointed out, “you.”

  “And he came squawking into the hallway when he saw his drawer was open, yeah, you said. He may be a better liar than she is. Or he may have stuck them in that drawer in, you know, a fugue state, and forgotten all about it.”

  “That would be easier to buy if one of those earrings weren’t from last night.”

  “Why?” Grimaldi leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers. “You don’t think he had time? Why couldn’t he have come up to the Whitney while you were sleeping, killed Kimberly Pike, put the trophy in the box and brought it to the studio, and then vamoosed back to Brooklyn?”

  “That’s a lot of careful thinking for a drunken guy in a fugue state.”

  Lydia said, “And the killer stuffed Kimberly Pike in the truck. Another step, more careful thinking.”

  “You, too?” Grimaldi said.

  “Also, how did he find her?” Lydia went on. “I know you think he might have gone back to the Whitney for some crazy-man reason, and then run into her coming out of a bar or something, Detective. But what about the people she’d been with? Or even if she was by herself, a bar isn’t empty just because you’re drinking alone. It would’ve been hours after the end of the demonstration before Sam got back to the Whitney. Someone would’ve seen her. Or Sam. Or them t
ogether. Has anyone?”

  “So far, no,” Grimaldi admitted. “We can’t put either of them in the area after the demonstration broke up. We’re still canvassing the neighborhood. His, too, in Brooklyn, to see if anyone saw him running around in the middle of the night.”

  “You won’t find anyone,” I said. “He didn’t leave.”

  “You hope.”

  She was right, but I ignored that. “If no one saw Pike later, she must have been killed during or right after the demonstration, when Sam was on the run and then with us. Unless you’re thinking she hid out by herself somewhere for hours waiting for a secret rendezvous with Sam that they’d already set up?”

  “Still possible,” Grimaldi said, and then, “but yeah, I don’t buy it, either.” She turned to the board again, then back to us. “And you never saw that fourth earring?”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “All right. Why don’t—ah, shit.”

  Lydia and I twisted toward the squad room door to see what had brought Grimaldi to her feet.

  Ike Cavanaugh.

  I stood, too, as did Lydia beside me.

  “What the hell, Ike? You have some special radar for when Smith’s around?” Grimaldi said.

  “I came to see you,” Cavanaugh grunted. He seemed to shove a path through the room although there was no one in his way. He thumbed at me. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I asked them to come in,” Grimaldi said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Smith’s partner.”

  “They give you anything? Or they’re just trying to get Tabor sprung?”

  “What are you doing here, Ike?”

  “I heard you picked up Tabor. I came to say congrats.”

  “Thanks. Now, good-bye.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. This time there’s evidence and he’s not walking.”

  “If the evidence is good, he’s not. If it’s crap—”

  “If it’s crap, find more.”

  “If there’s more, I’ll find it.”

  “Only if you look for it. Instead of sitting here on your big fat intuition having a tea party with Tabor’s friends.”

  Grimaldi looked at him. “Ike, how do you know there’s evidence?”

  “It’s on the grapevine. You picked him up this afternoon.”

  “That’s on the grapevine, sure. But the grapevine doesn’t usually give a shit about details. What’s to say I didn’t just get convinced by him the hundredth time he tried to turn himself in?”

  “You? Not goddamn likely.”

  “I swear to God, Ike, if I find you’ve been sticking your nose in my case, or second-guessing me, or—”

  “Oh, don’t get your thong in a twist. Everybody needs a little help sometimes.”

  “Get out.”

  “Listen, missy—”

  “I’ve had enough of you, Ike.”

  “Ooh, I’m scared.”

  “Detective Cavanaugh?” That came from across the room, where Iglesias had stood up at his desk. “Ike? We haven’t met, but I’m Detective Sergeant Gabino Iglesias, and I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d get the hell out of this squad room right now.”

  Cavanaugh looked at him, then threw a smirk at Grimaldi. “See? Good to have help, right?”

  “I’m helping you, Cavanaugh.” Iglesias came around his desk. “And myself, because I don’t want to have to do the paperwork once Grimaldi here throws you out the goddamn window. Now, beat it.”

  Cavanaugh’s already ruddy face flushed. “Fuck you all,” he snarled, and pushed his way back through nobody, out of the room.

  27

  Grimaldi stood staring at the door while Cavanaugh’s steps slapped down the hall. Then she turned. “Thanks, Gabi.”

  “No problem. Everybody needs a little help sometimes.”

  “On second thought, fuck you.”

  The big detective got himself a cup of coffee and returned to his desk. Grimaldi sat again and looked at Lydia. “Okay, Ms. Chin. Tell me about Pike. You spoke to her earlier yesterday, right? Did you see her at the demo?”

  Lydia and I each took the chairs we’d vacated. “Yes, and yes,” she said. “I spoke to her at the bar Annika Hausman was last seen at. She couldn’t identify Sam’s photo, but later around the back of the Whitney, she was screaming, ‘It’s him, it’s him.’ ”

  “So she did recognize him there?”

  “I don’t know if she recognized him. Anyone at the demonstration probably would’ve known what Sam looked like. She might have been just alerting the other protestors that Sam was around back.”

  “What else did she tell you when you spoke to her?”

  “Nothing. She thought she remembered a dark-haired white guy hitting on some of the women in the bar, and he might have hit on Annika, but he might not have, or that might have been a different night.”

  “Fantastic. Did she see who Hausman left the bar with?”

  “No, Kimberly left first.”

  “Anything else? Anything anyone said, maybe the bartender, another customer?”

  “No. The bartender wasn’t sure about the photo, either.”

  “Yeah,” Grimaldi said, “that’s pretty much what we got. This is her, by the way. Hausman.” She pointed to the photo next to Kimberly Pike’s at the top of the board. A blonde with a tousled cut and no earring in her right ear. Like Kimberly Pike’s, Annika Hausman’s pale eyes were open, staring at nothing. “Just so you know.”

  Again, Grimaldi took a moment, gazing at the photo. Then she turned back, leaned her forearms on her desk. “Okay. Now. Why did you think it was any of your business what was going on between Cromley and Konecki? So much your business that you burgled Cromley’s studio?”

  That one was obviously for me. “Sam’s the connection between them. Otherwise they detest each other. They had some deal that Konecki called off when she heard you’d arrested Sam. Any friend of Sam’s would be interested.”

  “Any friend. That wacko is lucky he has one.”

  “Two,” said Lydia with a smile.

  “Four, if you count Cromley and Oakhurst,” I put in.

  “Should I?” Grimaldi asked.

  “Jury’s out.”

  “Yeah, well, good for him. Never saw a son of a bitch so happy to be arrested. He just kept saying, ‘I knew I did it, I knew I did it.’ But you think he gave me one useful fact? Where they met, anything?” She shook her head. “Unless he’s the second coming of Vinny the Chin, I still don’t like him for it. Which means I still think there’s a maniac out there killing girls.”

  “I agree.”

  “Yay. So, now that I picked up Tabor, my captain’s all over my ass to close the case. Based on what we have, it’s an easy damn case to close, and I have a couple other open ones. But I’m not feeling it. I look around at the evidence, and it don’t add up to him. This is what Cavanaugh hates about me, you want to know. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the way it works, you ID a suspect, you go find your evidence, you bring them in, you lean on them, they give it up. Sometimes they fight you for it, sometimes they’re proud of it, but the guy you ID’d, that’s the guy. That’s what you learn at the academy, that’s what you learn when they partner you up with old-school guys like Ike. I can do that, by the way. When it’s right.

  “But at the same time, I also work the other way. From the evidence out, you know? And what we have here, it don’t spell Tabor to me. Plus, I lean on him, he just looks unhappy, like he’s worried he’s disappointing me.”

  “He probably is. Or worried you’ll let him go.”

  “Not up to me anymore, he’s been booked. Unless I can bag someone else. Which I want to do, because I want the real maniac. But my captain, and Ike, and his captain, and a hell of a lot of people would be very happy with your wacko for this. So before my captain takes my ass off this case and calls it closed, which I’m telling you he’s about to do, what I need from you is everything. Anything you h
ave. You want him out. I want the real killer. So we’re on the same page.”

  Grimaldi stopped and waited expectantly.

  “You sound like you think we’re hiding something,” I said.

  “You had the earrings,” she pointed out.

  “And we gave them to you.”

  Before this skirmish could turn into open hostilities, Lydia, who’d been staring at the crime scene photos, said, “The earrings.”

  “Yeah?” Grimaldi looked at her, then also turned to the board.

  “Two things. One, where is the other earring? The one that’s missing is from the first victim, am I right?”

  “Yes. And I’m with you. Why the hell is it not in the box?”

  “The killer could have lost it,” I offered. Both women looked at me with a mixture of skepticism and pity I had to admit wasn’t totally unfamiliar to me coming from women.

  “Seriously?” Grimaldi said. “You kill someone, take a trophy, and then you lose it? You really think so?”

  “Maybe that’s why he got the box. So he wouldn’t lose any more.”

  Grimaldi looked at Lydia. Lydia rolled her eyes. So much for me.

  “Also,” said Lydia, “Kimberly Pike’s earring.”

  “What about it?”

  “The other three the killer took were from the right ear. From Kimberly, he took the left.”

  Grimaldi jumped up, examined the board. “Shit! You’re right. How did I miss that?” She turned to me. “You, though, you’re going to tell me it means nothing? Like the missing first earring?”

  “No. I’m going to ask if the knives were the same in all four killings.”

  “And that is a damn good question. Why should I answer it?”

  “No reason. We can call Sam’s lawyer. She’ll tell us.”

  “Yeah, fine. Preliminary forensics says yes, but no. Similar, but the first three, the blades were longer. Those might have all been the same knife, or three identical ones. Possibly some kind of folding knife. Last night’s was similar, but smaller.”

  “A pocketknife? They come in different sizes.”

  “Something like that. So, I’ll read your mind. You’re thinking the first three were one killer, and Pike was someone else. Especially since the earring is from the wrong ear.”