by Oliver Stark
‘I don’t think your man did it. I think it’s one of our guys. You know what else? I went to see the crime scene and guess what I found?’
‘I don’t know, Tom.’
‘An 88 scratched into the concrete, about twenty yards from the body. This killer can’t help himself.’
‘Come on, Tom. An 88 that could have been scratched there by any lowlife. The perp was good for this.’
‘I don’t buy it. Esther Haeber goes walking late at night wearing gold jewelry in a part of Brooklyn that she should’ve avoided. Just like Capske. She’s carrying five hundred dollars that’s not taken from her purse. And yet, the story is, this killer follows her, then tries to rob her. She struggles. Maybe she screams. He gets scared and pulls out a gun.’
‘He panicked.’
‘Panicked? He left five hundred dollars on the body and before he shot her, he cut off each of her fingers, one by one. That’s not panic, Jack, that’s fucking pathological.’
‘I remember. He cut off her rings. They were worth something.’
‘Then he shoots her. The bullet goes right through her carotid artery, shatters her seventh cervical vertebra and lands in a beautiful brand new Porsche Carrera on the side of the street.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The owner was sick – that’s an eighty-thousand-dollar car,’ Jack Carney said.
‘Detective McCain didn’t find any leads to anyone else, but this guy fell into her lap.’
‘It was a homicide. Wasn’t my case.’
‘Why did they bring you in?’
‘Homicide wanted to see if there was evidence of hate crime. Someone heard some racial slurs about a half-hour before the murder. We looked into it. Impossible to get anywhere, and by the time we’d done the rounds, they had their man.’
‘Was there any racial motive?’
‘The killer was a racist, but he seemed to want money more than anything.’
‘How confident were you that the suspect was the killer?’
‘He had a history. They found her jewelry in his apartment. Still blood-smeared.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been through the case. Careless to keep that kind of thing.’
‘Damn right.’
‘But the crime scene left nothing. No prints, fibers, nothing. The bullet was in no shape to be analyzed. Seems incongruous.’
‘Mind that can cut someone like that isn’t thinking straight,’ said Carney.
‘Anything odd about the crime scene?’
‘I wasn’t at the crime scene, Tom, I was just advising. I was looking for evidence of hate crime.’
‘The killer who worked on David Capske wasn’t new to the game. He’s killed and hurt people before. I think Esther Haeber was one of his kills.’
‘Shit, you really think they jailed the wrong guy?’
‘I can’t be sure. But if you can remember any more detail, Jack . . .’
‘I’d need to revisit the case-files, try to jog my memory, see what I can come up with,’ said Carney.
‘I’d appreciate it.’
Jack nodded. ‘You’re either inspired or you got too many bumps to the head, Tom. Not sure which it is.’
‘Me neither. But Esther Haeber is supposed to have been mugged – yet the killer cuts off her fingers for some cheap jewelry and takes a fur coat, but he leaves her purse. I read the report, it doesn’t add up.’
‘He got spooked maybe. It happens.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s bugging me about this case. Simple as this – staging.’
‘What?’
‘This woman is staged to look like she’s been mugged but she hasn’t. But the cops look around, there’s no other motive so they’ve got nothing else to say. So they guess she struggled or he got scared and didn’t get to finish the job.’
‘She fought him, he reacted.’
‘I looked at the report. No scuff marks, nails unbroken, hair wasn’t even messed up. No sign of a struggle or fight. She must’ve been unconscious when he cut off her fingers. Else, there’d be more to see.’
Carney shrugged.
‘He had Capske out cold while he rolled him in wire. One more question. Did she have anything tattooed or written on her chest?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I just want the truth, Jack. The truth.’
‘You look long enough into the abyss, it starts to look back at you.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You seem wired. Keep things in perspective, Harper. You’re under a lot of pressure here and nothing’s breaking. Lukanov’s been found. Don’t go looking for the extravagant theory, when you’ve got your man in the can.’
‘I know, I know, I’ve had all those doubts myself, but I can’t stop thinking that there’s more to it.’ Harper pressed his hand on Carney’s shoulder, then headed out the door.
Chapter Forty-One
Midtown, Manhattan
March 9, 6.43 p.m.
They had not found her yet. The thought pleased him. She was still there, tied to the post and dragged by the currents. He had submerged Marisa in the East River in the dark night, sat by her side as the cold water stripped away her body heat. He had read much about these experiments, he had absorbed every detail, every statistic, but nothing compared to the cold reality. He had kept his stopwatch close to his eyes as her lips turned blue and her head shook above the water. She wanted to submerge herself, to drown, but he wouldn’t allow it. Death belonged to him, not her. How long would she last? Would she die first or ask for salvation?
Under forty-five minutes. It had surprised him. She hadn’t lasted as long as he had anticipated. Hypothermia was a curious death. Dying while fully clothed as the traffic roared by on FDR Drive. He could still remember the distinctive sound of her teeth chattering above the water.
It was his need, to take these people apart, to absorb their life as they died, to feel them slip away as he grew stronger. She managed only minutes before she was blue with cold. Then he fished her out, revived her on the wooden platform until she showed signs of life. Then he put her back in.
It took three submersions until Marisa was nearly unconscious with the cold. He smiled as he shot her through the top of her head. Orders were orders.
The smoke twirled in his car; he stared out, excited by the experiments, the slow precision of his deaths, the fear that grew as the knowledge that there was no escape ripened in their minds. These inferiors wanted you to want something – sex, revenge, money, something tangible. They couldn’t conceive or cope with the glaring eye of impartial observation, or the brutal logic of the fanatic. They were not human to him, they needed to suffer as a means to his own survival and to the growth of knowledge.
He watched the people pass him on the street. Small-minded people living limited lives. They had no purpose. The next victim hadn’t arrived yet. She had been harassed by the bottom-feeders of Section 88. A series of minor attacks. She had informed the police. It was her only mistake to try to use the police. He was the force in power, not the NYPD. He didn’t like to be undermined. It was ironic that her attempt to find help was the reason she would die slowly and without pity.
What was startling to him was his own capacity for death. His appetite was growing and his hunger came back every day. He knew the police were closing in, too. He felt their proximity; he felt harried. Perhaps that’s what it was, an awareness that time for the project was short. He needed more to die.
She had children, two of them. They would be orphans soon. He would take her and continue his experiments. How much pain can someone stand? He himself had borne much. Much more than they had and he was still alive. But they were weak.
He could see Rebecca Glass laughing and joking as she walked along the street, swinging arms, singing a song with her two children. Recently divorced, after her husband’s affair was discovered. She seemed to be coping, but he suspected she cried at night and wondered if she would always be alone.
Crimes were crimes, tho
ugh, thought the killer, and no amount of forced happiness would protect her from the necessary – the arrest, interrogation, torture and execution. It was what was required and he would not fail in his duty.
He had to wait until she was alone, that was all. He had read about a new experiment for this victim. Then, when she had suffered all she could suffer, when he had wrung her out like a wet cloth and all that was left was a soulless carcass, then and only then would he allow her to die.
Chapter Forty-Two
Lower Manhattan
March 9, 6.58 p.m.
Harper stopped on his way to Ballistics. He parked his car and got out to look over the river. He put his binoculars up to his eyes and started to scan the bridge and the nearby rooftops. It was nesting time for the winged predators of the city. He looked out across the sky for peregrine falcons. The city was now home to over a dozen pairs. It’d taken years to reintroduce these raptors but they’d taken to the city well. Strange as it seemed, it was a home away from home for the birds – except these cliffs and mountaintops were made not of rock but of concrete, iron and steel.
As he watched, he could hear the chorus of dawn song against the sound of traffic already making its way into the city from Brooklyn and beyond. Harper moved slowly across the ramp and down towards the water.
After a couple of hours, he spotted a peregrine swoop across from a building on Dover Street to the vantage point on one of the Gothic pylons of the bridge. It might even have been nesting there on the makeshift cliff face.
Harper focused on the bird, its head making rapid movements left to right, its dark glossy eye alert, its body holding an imperious pose. The peregrine – known as The Wanderer.
There were no other birds in flight – the presence of the falcon had scared them all away. The falcon was the supreme predator. It could dive at speeds no other animal could reach – up to 240 m.p.h. had been clocked by a diving falcon. The impact of those claws at that speed, taking out a pigeon mid-flight, was something to behold.
Harper’s cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out quickly, thinking it might be Denise Levene. It wasn’t. He put the cell to his ear. ‘What is it?’
‘Man,’ said Eddie Kasper, ‘you really got to work on that phone etiquette.’
‘I’ve got a Ballistics report to pick up.’
‘I got something.’
‘What is it?’ Harper repeated.
‘You ask nicely and I might tell you.’
‘Sorry, I’m outta polite.’
‘You’re your own special category of impolite, Harps.’
Harper put his binoculars to his eyes as the falcon rustled its feathers, flexed its wing muscles and pushed off from the pylon. It was a magical sight, watching it climb higher and higher above the river.
‘You found us a new body?’
‘I didn’t say it’s a homicide,’ said Eddie.
‘I don’t get any other kind of calls, Eddie.’
The falcon rose higher with an effortless beat of its wings, its head scanning the air below, looking for prey.
‘I got wind of a homicide down in South Manhattan with some similarities to our case. I thought you might want to hustle your way in.’
‘What are the connections?’
‘Female. Single gunshot wound. Name’s Marisa Cohen.’
‘She’s Jewish?’
‘She’s called Cohen.’
‘It’s not Lukanov.’
‘Or it’s not only Lukanov,’ said Eddie.
Harper picked up the falcon riding a thermal, silent, with wings outstretched. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and his fingertips tingle. His case had jumped back to life.
‘This is escalating way too quickly. I’m at the Brooklyn Bridge,’ he said. ‘Get right over here, Eddie.’
Harper put his phone back in his jacket and looked up at the sky. The falcon was focused. It had seen its prey.
In Lower Manhattan, Eddie and Harper drove up to Downing Park where the body had been found. South Manhattan Homicide was already on the scene in numbers. Harper got out of the car and looked at Eddie.
It was getting gloomy. The two detectives squinted into the bright lights of the crime scene. Another body meant that Lukanov wasn’t the killer or that there was more than one.
Harper walked across. The crime scene was next to the park, in the courtyard of a haulage company working right on the river. Up above, they could see traffic all the way along FDR to the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond.
‘This road never gets quiet, not even at four a.m.,’ said Harper.
‘What’s your point?’
‘The point is, if this is the killer, it’s something I didn’t consider from the first kill. He might get excited by the idea of getting caught, so he commits crimes close to where people can see. Esther and David were both murdered in public places. He might like the risk. I think he might get off on it.’
‘I don’t know what you got in that head; all I see is the world’s dullest haulage lot.’
Harper walked over to the entrance to the haulage park. He signed them both in on the crime-scene log and wandered to the edge of the platform. There weren’t any boats tied to it. Maybe they didn’t use this place any more. The water was sparkling in the dark. Ink black and flecked with gold.
Harper found Detective Johnny Selinas walking the perimeter, kicking up dust as he shuffled his feet across the ground. Harper shook his hand. Selinas was a veteran. Twenty years in Manhattan South, in which time he’d expanded from 150 lbs to 300 lbs.
‘What you doing here, Harper? Don’t you get a nosebleed if you come this far south?’
‘I try to avoid it, but I think we’ve got something for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We’re investigating the David Capske murder uptown. Gunshot to the head, Jewish victim. Thought I’d check out any similarities. Let you know what we have.’
Selinas led Harper over to the body. ‘I don’t know what this is, Harper. Her name is Marisa Cohen, if her purse is hers. She’s been in the river a day maybe. Can’t tell much about the COD. Maybe she drowned, maybe she was strangled and thrown in. Who knows, but she’s also got a gunshot wound right on the crown of the head.’
Harper looked down over the edge of the wooden platform into the water. Her body was hanging about a meter and a half below the platform. Both hands were tethered to the upright wooden stanchion. The wrists were bruised and the flesh torn, the wounds black against her white skin.
‘What else have you got?’ he asked.
‘Nothing yet. It’s early days.’
‘She married?’
‘Yeah. But separated. He’s with someone new, they were together.’
‘You have suspicions?’
‘Wife found bound and drowned, and the husband off with his new mistress? Who knows?’
Harper got down flat and peered at her head wound. It was difficult to tell through the matted hair, but it was a neat little hole. Close range.
‘When do they think they can get her out?’
‘Two boats are on their way. Coroner’s also coming. Couple of hours.’
‘The Capske killer liked to look down on his victim,’ said Harper. ‘Shot him through the forehead from above.’
‘What else you got for me?’ Selinas said.
‘Look for dirt under her fingernails. If it’s boot polish then we might have a match.’
‘What’s your theory?’ Selinas wanted to know.
Harper looked at her hands. It looked like she had the same black dirt under her nails. ‘Someone likes to torture his victims. He likes to draw it out. He goes through some ritual with boot polish. We guess he makes them kneel and clean his boots. There’s writing too. Our guy had the word Loyalty written on a card that was left on his chest, and some unreadable scratches that looked like a homemade tattoo. Put it all together and you’ve got some sociopath with a lot of hatred in his blood. It might be linked to a series of neo-Nazi assaults. Check if she r
eported any hate crimes.’
‘Marisa Cohen fits most of your killer’s MO,’ said Selinas.
‘Look at her hands,’ said Harper. ‘She’s been tethered. I don’t think it’s to prevent the body floating away. I don’t think he cares about the body once it’s dead. As if it’s meaningless then, like a piece of garbage.’
‘Then why tie her there?’
‘She’s hanging there, isn’t she, with her head just out of the water. He didn’t want her to drown. In fact, he’s tried to prevent it. She’s tried to struggle. Why?’
‘To get away?’
‘Look at the rope marks. She’s tried to pull downwards. That would take her closer to the water.’
‘What for? To escape?’
‘No, I think it was because she wanted to die. She wanted to drown. Because he was keeping her alive for as long as he could.’
‘Sick bastard. Why?’ said Selinas.
‘Because that’s his thing. That’s what excites this maniac.’
The two men let the thought dwell in their minds for a moment.
‘When did you get to the body?’ asked Eddie.
‘We had a team here yesterday afternoon in the area but we didn’t find her until this afternoon.’
‘Why were you searching? Someone call it in?’
‘She called a friend just before she disappeared. The friend missed the call, but she listened to the voicemail and then called the cops. We got another call from some building by the park. They heard screaming.’
‘So what, patrol searched the area?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then he wanted us to find her. He’s getting even more fearless,’ said Harper. ‘He’s taking risks. He might have taken her out by the park and transported her here. Pretty risky.’
Harper let the thought take him. Marisa was different. She hadn’t been staged to look like something else. Not this time. Maybe the killer was feeling the urge and losing his control. Maybe he was feeling the pressure mounting.
‘I hope you find a slug in her body somewhere.’
‘No doubt,’ said Selinas.
‘Listen, get it to Ballistics, tell them to give me a call.’