by Harker Moore
She found a familiar bench and sat down. The breeze from the lake played in her hair. She could feel the water before her as a calmness in the green of the landscape. She took off her gloves and patted the shepherd sitting on guard at her feet.
“He can no longer hurt us,” she spoke to the dog, dismissing her own small and irrational fear that somehow he would find them here. But unthinking, her hand had gone to her belly where the child had once been growing. Two water children now. Despite her daily prayers, the pain of her second, and wholly unnecessary, miscarriage was with her daily.
She bent down and touched the grass, finding leaves blown from the surrounding trees. She picked one up, still green in the early days of fall. But in the edges she sensed a hint of brown curling against her fingers, the promise of orange and burning yellow to come. She had returned to autumn, to the point on the path where her steps had faltered.
Not a circle, but a spiral. A different park. A different woman. She let the leaf fall.
She could not go back; she must not try. Her life was in this moment. And it was good to be home. It was good to be home with Jimmy. Tears came. She let them fall like the leaf. Even in this moment of peace she knew she was not healed. That no matter what her mind and her heart might believe, her body would betray her.
The other night after Kenjin and Willie had left, she had wanted more than anything to make love with Jimmy. But when the time came and he took her into his arms, her body had reacted on its own, shaking so violently that Jimmy had known she was not ready. She had felt like a stranger in her skin. She feared she was a stranger to her husband.
In this moment she hated the monster who had stolen her peace. In this moment she felt rage. Taiko shifted and whined, sensing her emotion. She reached down and once more patted his coat. “I must acknowledge these things,” she said aloud to him. “The Buddha does not teach us not to feel.”
To be human was to suffer. She had attached herself to an image of happiness that one man had destroyed. Her body had been violated and defiled. She had lost a child. But in the truth of things she owned nothing, not even herself. Loss was an illusion that she clung to. She was an imperfect vessel. Detachment would take time. And this too must be part of her acceptance.
Cold air fell as hard as a hammer as the October sun set early. The windows had frosted over with the punch of a December evening, making the borough’s streets seem indistinct and softer than they were. Heat belched from radiators, and the neon ghost on the sign appeared to have slipped into the outside world through the iron grates with the steam. The spook’s arms flicked back and forth in a herky-jerky rhythm, while above its ballooning head the name of the neighborhood bar burned brightly: Hokus Pokus.
“For chrissakes, watch the coat.”
“Hey, Manny, ain’t you got no respect for Johnny Rozelli’s coat?” It was Lyle DeSilva who bellowed the protocol, as his partner slid into the booth beside him.
“This is cashmere, you shitheads.” Rozelli reached over and rearranged his topcoat over the back of the neighboring chair.
“Cashmere . . . don’t that come from a goat?” Manny Bertolli wasn’t about to let it rest.
“I ain’t answering that.” Rozelli picked up his beer and drank straight from the bottle.
The two detectives laughed. It had become a ritual, both of them attacking his clothes. The sudden change in weather had brought out the Armani he’d purchased at Barneys at the end of the season last year. He figured they would have gone after his new tie next, if DeSilva hadn’t spotted her coming in through the door and punched Bertolli. That caused him to turn, and because she had on her radar she made straight for them.
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t ‘Ms. Fox News’ herself,” DeSilva said under his breath.
“Television show or no, Zoe Kahn’s still the best-lookin’ broad around,” Bertolli mumbled.
“I think we better give the two lovebirds some privacy.”
Rozelli cringed. He had only himself to blame, letting it slip to these two apes about what had happened last year.
DeSilva stood, grabbing his glass, just as she reached their booth.
“Don’t you gentlemen leave on my account.” She favored the two detectives with a big smile.
“Hello, Ms. Kahn. Love your show.” Bertolli was preening as he rose.
“Why, thank you, Detective.” Another big smile, just for Manny.
“Later, Johnny . . . Ms. Kahn.” DeSilva edged his partner toward the bar.
“Hi, Rozelli.”
He looked up finally. “Slummin’ tonight, Zoe?”
She gave the place a once-over. “I rather like it here. It’s got character.” She slid into the seat opposite him, where DeSilva and Bertolli had been. “I don’t imagine you mind if I sit.”
“I got a choice?”
“You always have a choice, Johnny.” This time her smile was only for him. “You can ask me to get the hell out of here. You’ve done it before.”
He could feel himself getting steamed. “I had my reasons.”
“I’m sorry things had to end the way they did, Johnny.”
“Don’t apologize. I was nothing but a dumb cop. You were doing your job.”
Why was he sitting here talking to her? There were a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t. But he ignored every one of them, and forced himself to relax and go along for the ride. He could handle Zoe Kahn. Besides, she wouldn’t have the balls to pump him for info now. Suddenly he laughed. Of course she had the balls.
“What’s so funny?” She was slipping off her coat.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You going to order me a drink, or do I have to get up and get one for myself?”
He stared at her. Bertolli was right: She was still the best-looking piece of ass around. “What do you want, Zoe?”
She smiled, her lips red and wet against her teeth. “A drink, for starters.”
There was the taking of the flesh before and after. Right-brain enjoyed the before—the skin warm, the pluck of resilient tissue between thumb and forefinger, the river of blood, still contained, a lively cadence against the inside of his thighs. And the lub-dubbing of the heart’s chambers as he rose and fell, driving himself into the sweet package. Though he would have preferred her squirming and kicking instead of limp and inert, Left-brain warned that consciousness was an unwarranted risk. So he’d pumped her, aware of her half-lidded eyes, still sucking on life, but only moments away from after.
After. Postmortem. That’s how Left-brain preferred it. The body cooling, the blood settling in purple pools, marbling the white flesh. The heart stilled. Life gone from the eyes. Left-brain would ride her until she’d begun to set, until rigor was free to recast her. Then, quitting, he’d stare until a fresh excitement grew, whetted by the body’s unyielding. He would have to relieve himself again, working his cock with one hand, locking the other into her rigid fingers, raised above the hard right angle of her arm.
The bag from the cleaners marked the boundary between before and after. Both Right-brain and Left-brain enjoyed putting the plastic over the face, observing the fish-mouth form and re-form. Once or twice, awareness would bubble to the surface, and fear cut into the plastic like a knife.
Left-brain was meticulous about the order to be followed, cleansing the body after Right-brain removed any jewelry. This time there were a plastic bracelet, a belly bar, and a thin hoop from one eyebrow. And a childish plastic ring that had flickered till the battery went dead.
Left-brain had secured a forensic pathology text, had read that the upward range of rigor mortis was eighty-four hours. Yet never before had it lasted as long as with this one. She’d had to remain in the cooler over the weekend, until Left-brain could stand it no longer and broke the rigor.
Dead weight. He laughed now, truly appreciating the old expression, as the body was settled onto the Visqueen, the layers twisted and sealed tight with tape in preparation for the van and the dark of night that wai
ted.
CHAPTER
7
Cigar smoke was thick in the room as Sakura entered Lincoln McCauley’s office. A good indication that the chief of detectives was a less-than-happy man. The perceived success of last year’s serial investigation had done nothing to lessen their mutual dislike, and the unavoidable tensions of this new case were never going to make these meetings pleasant for either of them.
“What’s this I hear about another missing girl?” The chief’s words were out even before Sakura sat down.
“Disappeared from a warehouse party on Friday night,” Sakura said. “Her parents didn’t realize she was missing till yesterday. She’s only sixteen and it wasn’t a dance club—she could still turn up alive.”
“But I take it that except for a couple years and the location of that noise they call music, she fits the victim profile.”
“Pretty much,” Sakura admitted. “Missing Persons faxed over a photo and a copy of the file late yesterday. She’s the same physical type.”
“Tall, thin . . . pretty. They’re all beautiful girls. Our killer’s an aesthete,” McCauley spoke with sarcasm. Then, “Have we developed anything?”
“Still no physical evidence,” Sakura said. “His comfort zone appears to be citywide. And dumping them like he does gives us no connection to even a neighborhood, with the exception of the alley where Siebrig’s body was found. But that was probably just a good location he stumbled upon.”
“No witness to that dumping?”
“A three-block radius around that restaurant has been canvassed,” Sakura said. “Best thing we could come up with is a man who sleeps above a store that backs on the alley. He’s not sure, but he thinks he remembers seeing the reflection from headlights sometime that night.”
McCauley grunted. His beefy face was blotched. “Nothing else?” He reached for the cigar that lay smoldering in its special crystal ashtray.
“We’re working the profile,” Sakura said.
“With Dr. French?”
McCauley’s tone was oblique. The question was leading somewhere. “Dr. French is consulting on an unofficial basis,” he answered.
“Are you aware of the interview she did last week with that Kahn woman?”
He kept his features even. McCauley had no reason yet to come at him directly, but it didn’t mean the chief couldn’t enjoy finding something to complain about. “Dr. French was blindsided,” he said. “That interview was scheduled before the investigation began.”
McCauley ignored the explanation. “I don’t care how great an expert she is—you rein her in. The tabloids will crucify us, and the rest of the pack won’t be far behind. No more fucking media unless we control it.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean a press conference.”
“Not yet.” McCauley blew out smoke. “But Public Relations is printing ‘cover our ass’ warnings to be posted in the clubs. And starting tomorrow, we’re going to be running a tip number on all the local newscasts with pictures of those girls. Somebody may have seen this sick fuck with one of them.”
“A good idea,” Sakura conceded. “We’re looking at rapists who’ve been released, especially any with a history of drugging their victims. Might be somebody has escalated the violence.”
McCauley nodded. The cigar rolled till it caught in his teeth. “You got enough men detailed?”
“For now. I don’t want things to get so big we miss something obvious.”
“Fine. But we’re calling it a task force.”
“The task force will be working later this week with New Jersey.” He worked to suppress any hint of irony. “We’ll be searching the dump sites there.”
“They still dumping in Jersey?”
“No,” Sakura said, “but we don’t know how far back these murders go. There could be more New York girls in those landfills.”
McCauley’s face showed what he thought of that. “Keep me informed, Sakura.”
. . . and he gazes down from the magic mountain and winks at Selkie Girl. With the strobes making rainbows on her arms. The music shooting up her brain. Dance, dance, dance. The Vibe at high tide. Sweat running down her back, between her legs. Like a silky worm. No time but now. And the Shaman winks at Selkie Girl.
“Who is the Shaman?” Talbot looked up from the diary of Sarah Laraby, one of the two girls they’d found in the Pennsylvania landfill.
“I think he’s a deejay.” Candace Bennet’s face was worn out from crying. “I know it’s been a while, but I didn’t want to believe it would turn out like this. Sarah going from being missing to dead.” She glanced from one detective to the other. “You talked to Sarah’s parents?”
“Yesterday.” Rozelli took the journal from his partner’s hand and read the last entry. “Is that his real name?”
“Whose name?” Candace was somewhere else.
“The deejay.”
She shook her head. “Rave deejays are like high priests or something. They control the Vibe.”
“‘Vibe’?”
The roommate smiled for the first time and suddenly she was pretty. “It’s the feeling ravers get. It’s kind of a group thing. The music is like a drug.”
“Did Sarah use drugs?”
“Some ravers use drugs. Mostly Ecstasy. But I don’t think Sarah did. She said she only needed the music to get high.”
“So what about this Shaman guy?” Rozelli asked.
“I don’t know anything else about him. Never saw him.”
“You didn’t go out with Sarah?” Talbot took out his notebook.
“Once or twice. But I wasn’t into the rave scene.”
“And she was?” Rozelli was looking over at a photograph.
“It was her new religion. . . . That’s a picture of us taken a few months back.”
Talbot glanced at the photo, thinking what terrible things death did to a body. “Tell us about Sarah, Candace.”
“She was a different person when she went to rave clubs.” She walked over and took the picture from the chest. “Sarah was so pretty. Tall and thin. She could eat whatever she wanted and never gain a pound. And the blond hair was natural. She could have been a model.” She set the photo back down. “But once she started going to raves . . .”
“What happened, Candace?” Talbot pressed the narrative forward.
“You know she used a different name when she went to those kind of clubs. Called herself Selkie Girl.”
“We read that in the diary,” said Talbot.
“I don’t know where she got this stuff. I just found that diary. She had it hidden.” She shook her head; her limp hair needed washing. “Like I told the cops before, Sarah and Selkie were two different people.”
“How was she different?”
“Sarah had this incredible skin. Hardly wore any makeup. But when she went out . . .”
“What did she look like?”
“See-through blouses with black bras. Short skirts. Eyeliner to here. Red lipstick. Face powdered white. Kinda creepy, but still pretty. She even had a thing about her panties.” She pulled open a drawer. “Ordinarily she wore cotton hi-cuts. But when she raved, she wore stuff like this.” She pulled out a dark green thong, waved it in the air before throwing it back inside the chest.
“Who did she go out with?” Rozelli asked.
“Some people she’d gotten tight with. Met them at a club. They’re the ones who introduced her to the rave scene.”
“Know their names?”
“Lisa somebody. Craig. Tony.”
“No last names?”
She shook her head.
“Know where we might locate them?”
“I think Lisa’s number is in the diary.”
Rozelli paged through the book. “Did Sarah have a boyfriend?” He looked up.
“No . . . Though she could have. A ton of guys wanted to take Sarah out.”
“She didn’t date?”
“Rarely.”
“Did she ever talk about anyone special?” ask
ed Talbot. “Someone from work or someone she’d met when she went out?”
“Raving isn’t about sex. I mean people do hook up, but it’s more about being together as a group.” She shrugged. “No, she never mentioned anyone.”
“You know, Candace, we might have to go through Sarah’s things again.” Talbot flipped a page in his notepad.
She nodded. “I’m moving out this weekend. I can’t stay here now.” She stopped. Fought back tears.
Talbot waited for a moment, then asked, “Do you have any idea where we might find this deejay?”
The question revived her. “You don’t think . . . ?”
“We have to check everybody out, Candace,” Rozelli assured her.
“You’ll find him where Sarah did. At a rave club.”
“And just where might we find a rave, Candace?” asked Talbot.
This time she laughed. “You gonna have to look way cooler, Detective.”
Jamal struggled inside his New York Jets starter jacket as he dribbled, his body leaning in, cutting off his brother. Pivot. Drive. Up. And in. Whoosh! Two points.
“You walked, Jamal,” Cyrus screamed. “You nothin’ but a cheater.”
He laughed. “Come on, li’l bro, you too slow.” He was blowing on his fingers. The slap of the basketball stung his hands in the chilly late afternoon. He hated the cold. It went right to his bones. Turned his blood to ice. What was worse, he couldn’t move in this bulky jacket. He unzipped the starter, tossing it onto the ground.
“Mama gonna beat yo’ ass, Jamal, if she sees your jacket in the dirt.”
“It ain’t in the dirt, Cy, it’s on the concrete. And stop stalling.” He angled in the ball toward his younger brother, then like lightning cut across Cyrus’s lane, stealing the basketball. Dribbling for the makeshift goal, he caught a glimpse of his raggedy-assed sneakers. What he wouldn’t give for a new pair of shoes. Shit, no use even thinking about it till he did something about his grades. School barely started, and he was already trying to dig himself out of a hole.