Snowfall

by Sharon Sala

  “Yes, sir. We’re trying.”

  Sal Amato left the old man in the back of the store and wished he could leave his guilt there with him.

  “This shouldn’t have happened,” he muttered.

  “None of it should have,” Paulie said. “But it’s not our fault they died.”

  “No, but it becomes our fault when he keeps killing and we don’t stop him.”

  “Maybe the tape will give us our first break.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sal said. “God knows we need one.”

  “Here come Neil and Kowalski,” Paulie said, pointing toward the street.

  “Good. Lieutenant said to utilize all our help in stopping this psycho. They can check out the neighborhood.”

  “Heard you got another one?” J.R. said as he and Trudy met up with Amato and Hahn.

  “Yeah, we think so,” Sal said.

  “Think? Is this one different?” Trudy Kowalski asked.

  “She was cut up like the other two victims, but Booker doesn’t think she was raped.”

  Trudy shrugged. “So the bastard wasn’t in the mood. Half the time, neither is my old man.”

  They grinned. It was common knowledge that Trudy’s husband, Mick, was too fond of his liquor.

  “So, you two here to gawk or help?” Sal asked.

  “Name it,” J.R. said.

  “Check the adjacent buildings. See if anyone saw or heard anything suspicious around midnight.”

  “That’s the time of death?”

  “Maybe,” Sal said. “Just see what you can come up with.”

  “Will do,” Neil said, and then pointed to the video Sal was holding. “What do you have there?”

  Sal grinned. “They had one functioning security camera,” he said. “Maybe we got lucky.”

  J.R. stared at the video and then back up at Sal.

  “That would be a nice change, wouldn’t it? The woman ran out of luck last night, but maybe this is your lucky day.”

  Sal grimaced. “One can only hope. See you back at headquarters.”

  Neil and Kowalksi nodded as they walked off, spoke a few moments to each other and then split up to canvass the neighborhood.

  “He’s not so bad,” Paulie said as they started toward their car.

  “Who?” Sal asked.

  “Neil.”

  “Oh hell, I never said he was bad. I just don’t like his hair.”

  Paulie grinned. “And the fact that you have none? Good thing I’m only five foot four or I’d be on your shit list, too.”

  Sal grinned back. “Naw. You’re too ugly to be jealous of.”

  Paulie laughed as he got in the car.

  Moments later they were on their way back to headquarters, anxious to view the tape. Traffic was heavy, delaying their return. They arrived to find headquarters in an uproar. The power had failed just long enough for all the computers to go down. Booking had come to a standstill, and two panel trucks from the power company were parked out in front of the building.

  “I wonder what the hell’s going on here?” Sal said as he parked and got out.

  “Who knows,” Paulie said, then waved down another detective who was just getting into his car. “Hey, Murphy, what’s going on?”

  “Power went out,” he said. “It’s back on now, but it’s a mess in there. The computers got screwed, and about half a dozen perps in booking tried to escape when the lights went out.”

  “I thought we had a backup generator to prevent this kind of thing from happening?”

  The detective grinned. “Yeah, well, you and the lieutenant thought the same thing. He’s pissed all to hell, and someone’s ass is gonna be grass for this. If you’re going in to see him, you’d better be wearing a smile. He is not a happy man.”

  Sal looked at Paulie and patted the video in his pocket.

  “Maybe we got something to put the smile back on his face.”

  “And maybe we don’t,” Paulie said. “Wait’ll we see what we got before we start crowing.”

  “Yeah. Good idea.”

  They hurried inside, anxious to get out of the cold. True to Murphy’s word, headquarters was in chaos. Between the repairmen and the regular day-to-day traffic between criminals, cops and victims, it was a mess.

  Outside the lieutenant’s office, they paused; then, at Amato’s nod, Paulie knocked.

  “What?”

  The bellow came from within. They rolled their eyes at each other and then walked in.

  “Lieutenant, we just came from the crime scene. The M.E.’s office is pretty sure the victim down at that market was slashed by the same person who killed the Dorian woman and the Polanski woman.”

  Del Franconi’s morning had been too hectic for him to spare time on manners. “What the hell does ‘pretty sure’ mean?”

  “They don’t think this victim had been raped.”

  Franconi slapped the flat of his hand on his desk as he got out of his chair.

  “I don’t want guesses, damn it. I want answers. If the M.E.’s right, this is the killer’s third victim. That means serial killer, and we all know what kind of crap that’s going to bring. Copycats. Goddamn it, I hate copycat killers. And I hate all the sickos who come out of the woodwork afterward so they can confess to someone else’s crimes because they haven’t got the guts to confess, even to themselves, as to the guilt of their own lives!” Franconi yelled. Then, bracing his hands on the top of his desk, he leaned forward, his voice just below a shout. “I’m going to have to go to the papers on this, and I don’t have a goddamned thing to tell them except that women are dying on our watch and we don’t know why.”

  Amato pulled the video out of his coat pocket and handed it across the desk to his lieutenant.

  “Maybe this will help,” he said.

  “What is that?” Franconi asked.

  “The security tape from the market where the last victim was found.”

  Franconi snatched it from Amato. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he said, and abruptly strode across the room to his television set.

  Amato and Hahn watched, metaphorically crossing their fingers, as Franconi turned on his television and VCR, then inserted the tape.

  “Pull up a chair and let’s see what we’ve got,” Franconi ordered.

  They stared at the blank screen, all but holding their breaths as the lieutenant pressed Play. All three of them leaned forward, their elbows on their knees, their gazes fixed.

  An hour and a half later, they were still watching when Neil and Kowalski knocked on the door and then entered.

  “Is that the tape from the market?” Neil asked.

  “Yeah, come in and shut the door,” Franconi said. J.R. and Trudy entered.

  “Anything we can use?” Trudy asked.

  “Not so far,” Sal said, then pointed to the bottom of the screen. “But it’s almost closing time. See…11:45 p.m.”

  Neil took a seat on the corner of the lieutenant’s desk while his partner took the only other chair.

  “M.E. said the incident happened sometime around midnight or soon after, right?” he asked.

  “Right,” Sal said. “See, she’s starting to lock up. She took the money out of the till and bagged it. Now she disappears out of camera range.”

  “Was any money missing?” Kowalski asked.

  Sal shook his head. “No. It was in the safe when her father came to open up this morning.”

  “Look,” Paulie said. “She’s wiping off the glass on the meat counter. The door is closed there, but didn’t her father say someone left it open?”

  Sal frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. He did say that. But it’s closed. And see…she’s walking away.” His frown deepened. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Now she’s getting her coat and gloves. She’s putting a wallet into her coat pocket and…what’s she doing there, can you tell? Oh…she’s going for the phone.”

  Again Paulie filled in the blanks. “Her old man said she called him right before she left,
remember? That must be what she’s doing now.”

  Sal pointed. “Now she’s going toward the front door. Can’t see her face, just the back of her head. They need to reposition that damned camera toward the door instead of the cash register.”

  “Not necessarily,” Franconi said. “If you want to catch a thief, you catch him in the act, and that’s usually where the money is kept, which would be the cash register.”

  “I know,” Sal muttered. “But it’s not going to help our case if we can’t see the door.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Franconi said.

  They watched as she turned out the main lights, leaving only the strategically placed night-lights burning. Moments later, there was nothing to see but aisles and canned goods and the quick glare from the lights of a passing car.

  Suddenly the woman reappeared, her mouth open in a scream they couldn’t hear. Trudy gasped as a man’s hand suddenly appeared on camera, grabbing and pulling her by the back of the coat collar. Her face was in full view as he yanked her around. Then she started to hit him, flailing her arms and fists.

  “Jesus,” she muttered. “She must have been scared out of her wits.”

  “Look,” Paulie said. “There he is. There he is!”

  They all stared, praying that the man in the picture would turn around.

  “Turn around, you sick bastard,” Sal muttered. “Come on…turn your sorry self around.”

  But he didn’t. All they could see was the back of his head and then his shoulders. Nothing unusual about him. Nothing that would separate him from the millions of men who lived in the city.

  They saw the blow that he struck. Saw the woman they knew to be Angela Dubai fall lifelessly to the floor, then witnessed him dragging her around the corner between aisles and out of view of the camera.

  “No,” Sal said. “That can’t be it!”

  They watched in horror, knowing what must be happening on the other side of the aisle of canned goods.

  A minute passed, then a second and a third. Just when they thought it was over, he passed between the camera and an aisle.

  “We still can’t see his face,” Sal moaned. “Son of a bitch, we still can’t see his face.”

  “Wait!” Trudy cried. “Back up the tape. He’s carrying something.”

  Franconi hit Rewind and then Play again. They watched as the man reappeared.

  “There.” She pointed.

  The lieutenant hit Pause.

  They stared.

  Paulie jumped to his feet, startling them all.

  “The meat counter,” he said. “It was him. The son-of-a-bitch got himself something to eat. That’s a loaf of bread in one hand, and see that little bit of white under his arm? I’ll lay odds he wrapped himself up some meat.”

  The lieutenant hit Play.

  “You’re right, Hahn, and look, in the other hand. Isn’t that a six-pack?”

  Neil stood up from the desk, his expression blank and fixed.

  “He killed her and got something to eat…or did he go to get something to eat and then kill her as an afterthought?”

  They all looked at him as if he’d gone mad.

  “What are you getting at?” Lieutenant Franconi asked.

  “Sal said she wasn’t raped, right?”

  Amato nodded. “We don’t think she was.”

  “So…that makes this one a little different, doesn’t it?” Neil said.

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, just think,” Neil said. “Why would he do it differently? All the other times it’s been about power and control. He’s the strong one, so he kills. And there’s got to be something about the victims that he hates, so he rapes as a final act of disrespect.”

  Franconi was on his feet. “Keep talking,” he said.

  Neil rubbed his chin with the ball of his thumb as he thought through his theory.

  “So…this time he doesn’t rape her. Why? Maybe his initial intent was food. Maybe the idea to kill was secondary. Who knows? We don’t know what sets him off. We don’t know why he’s doing it, only that it’s happening. But he took the food. We saw that. That makes it different. And the other two were in isolated places, right? This was in public. In a place of business. Granted, it was closing time, but it was still in plain sight, and there are lights. I don’t think he planned on this. I think it just happened.”

  Franconi looked at J.R. and then nodded. “You might be on to something,” he said. “You been here…what…a little over a year? Who knows. We just might make a good detective out of you yet.”

  Neil looked pleased with the lieutenant’s praise but refrained from comment. He knew the score. If he wanted respect, he would have to earn it.

  “So where do we go from here?” Sal asked.

  “Treat this like the others,” Franconi answered. “I want all of you on this. Work up an extensive background check on the Dubai woman. There’s got to be a connection between the three victims that we’re just not seeing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sal said. “I don’t want to have to see another woman carved up like that, or have to tell another parent that their daughter has been butchered like a piece of fresh meat.”

  “Amato is the primary on this case,” Franconi said. “You report to him. He reports to me.”

  The other detectives nodded, and then, together, they filed out of the lieutenant’s office.

  “Where do you want us?” Neil asked as they paused by Amato’s desk.

  “Angela Dubai. Find out everything you can about her, from where she takes her laundry to who she’s been seeing. Was she married? Engaged? You know the drill. Paulie and I are going to go back over the files on the other two women. See if there’s something we missed.”

  J.R. looked at his partner. “We’ll cover more territory if we split up. You talk to her father. See if she has a best friend. Most likely the best friend will know more about any lovers than Daddy will.”

  “What are you going to do?” Trudy asked. J.R. glanced at Sal. “They’re Catholic. So for starters, I thought I’d talk to her priest. I know he won’t tell us anything specific, but maybe I can find out if she dumped a big load on him in the confessional.”

  “Good thinking,” Sal said. “While you’re at it, check out her finances. It’s a long shot, but it’s an angle we haven’t covered.”

  Trudy frowned. “You mean, you think this is some loan shark’s way of collecting on bad debts?”

  Sal shrugged. “It’s doubtful, but we’ve got to rule everything out, right? Like the lieutenant said, we’ve got to cover all the bases.”

  They split up—Neil and Kowalksi heading out on their separate investigations, while Amato and Hahn retreated to their desks to start making calls and shuffling paper. The sooner they corroborated their earlier facts, the closer they would be to finding their killer.

  Twelve

  It was fifteen minutes after four in the afternoon when Caitlin’s phone began to ring. Deep into the scene she was writing, she didn’t bother to answer, knowing the answering machine would pick it up. But she’d forgotten about Mac being in the apartment and that she’d had Kenny leak the story about the letters. Her thoughts were fixed upon the female protagonist in her book. Now how, she wondered, would a woman no taller than five foot two be able to—

  “Caitlin!”

  The roar startled her, causing her to lose her train of thought. Sighing, she hit the Save key on her computer, got up from the desk and stomped out of her office, intent on reminding Connor McKee that when a writer was deep in the throes of creation, she was not to be disturbed. About halfway down the hall, it dawned on her that her outfit was such that she wouldn’t be taken as seriously as she would have liked. Her dark hair was in a frazzled topknot, and her sweats didn’t match. The top was gray, the bottoms were orange, and the ears on her brown puppy house shoes—a Christmas gift from Aaron last year—were flopping as she walked.

  “You shouted?” she drawled as she entered the living room.

&
nbsp; Mac’s face was pale, his eyes blazing.

  “Do you know who that was on the phone?”

  Memory returned in a flash. Uh-oh…the story was out. She shook her head and hoped he couldn’t see past the lie.

  “It was a reporter from the Times.”

  “I get interviewed every time a book comes out, although they usually go through Kenny. What seems to be the problem?”

  Mac tossed the portable phone onto the sofa and cursed beneath his breath.

  “Problem? I’d call it more than a problem, Caitlin. The reporter wanted to talk to you about the letters you’ve been receiving and to verify the fact that you’d been hospitalized because of an attack from an irate fan.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Mac glared. “Is that all you have to say?”

  She shrugged. “They were bound to find out sooner or later.”

  “Why? I wasn’t going to tell. Aaron damn sure won’t talk. There’s no one left but—”

  Suddenly his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Caitlin bit her lower lip and tugged on the tail of her sweatshirt.

  “What did you tell him?” she asked.

  “That you were unavailable for comment at the moment.”

  “Thank you. I guess that’s best for now.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, eventually I’ll have to respond to—”

  “No…eventually you won’t.”

  “But—”

  Mac took her by both arms, resisting the urge to shake her. “Caitlin!”

  “You’re hurting me,” she muttered.

  “No, I’m not, and you know it. Look at me.”

  She lifted her chin and tried not to look guilty as she met his gaze.

  “Just so you know…I resent your attitude,” she said.

  He cursed beneath his breath. “And just so you know, I don’t believe you’re as innocent as you’re pretending.”

  “I don’t play games,” she said.

  His voice softened as he pulled her to him, wrapping her close within his embrace.

  “That’s good, Caitie, because this isn’t a game, it’s serious business.”

  She snuggled close, feeling guilty that the source of his concern had come at her own hands and hoped that she’d done the right thing.