Sacred Evil (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

  It was Norton, from headquarters.

  “Assistant chief wants to see you, pronto,” Norton told him.

  “I’m at the scene,” Jude told him.

  “I know. I told him that you’d been dispatched by orders of the lieutenant. But he says that you’ve had time to do what you can do there, and that he wants to see you about a task force.”

  “No other murders today, huh?” Jude asked dryly.

  “Not like this. Film is already rolling. The news is shooting through all five boroughs, the country and the world like the spew from a geyser. Jack’s back. That’s what they’re saying. Anyway, he wants you in here, now.”

  The twenty-first-century media was amazing, Jude thought. He barely knew anything about the crime, but rumor was running rampant, and he understood that One Police Plaza wanted this solved as quickly as humanly possible.

  Two other murder investigations were open on his slate; this seemed to be the one that mattered. Naturally. The other two had also been stabbed, but one had died on the way to the hospital and one had been dragged out of the river. This had been public and sensationalist. The victim was a spectacle on Broadway. They were both his cases because he worked specifically for the chief of police; he and Monty had been “detective specialists” for years, which meant they could cover all of New York City as needed.

  He wished that they hadn’t been his cases; he’d gotten nowhere with them. The other two women had died quietly, apparently without friends to miss them. They hadn’t been discovered in such a bold and gruesome state, with all the world watching.

  Except that he wondered if the deputy chief was thinking along the same lines that were now plaguing him. He wasn’t a Ripperologist, as Fullbright considered himself, but he did know about the case a fair amount since he’d spent the month of August in Britain last year for an experimental exchange police procedural program. The program had included a study of the Ripper files, with one of Britain’s top historians discussing police work now and then. Jude had looked at the archives available. Five victims were accepted as the Ripper’s, but the London case files had started with the deaths of two women who had been killed before what was now deemed by experts to be Ripper murders.

  They had the girl from the river, and the girl who had survived her attack long enough to make it to the hospital. Neither had carried ID; neither had been reported missing. All efforts to identify the two had been to no avail. Both had come from New York or to New York…and met sad ends.

  And now…

  Virginia Rockford.

  “I’m still at the scene, working it,” Jude said.

  “Crime scene folks are there. And they’re good at what they do. That’s what the assistant chief said. Get in here.”

  Jude clicked his phone closed. Great. He’d find himself besieged by the reporters stationed at “the shack” on the second floor of headquarters before he could reach the deputy chief’s office.

  He wished he hadn’t been called. He wished any other cop in the city had come on for this case.

  But they hadn’t; he had been on duty, and he had been specifically ordered down here.

  He thanked Dorothy Hannigan and left her his card, and started out, wishing that he could look for Captain Tyler himself. But he told Smith to get more men on finding the homeless man; and he gave the officer the task of connecting with the producer for the movie being shot down the street and getting him a list of anyone involved in the production. He wanted the beat cops to keep a presence on the street and their eyes open.

  There had probably been a number of young women involved in the shoot the day before; the cops could start with them. He stressed the importance of their notes, and Smith looked at him, hesitant. “Crosby, you know I’m a beat cop, right? Not the boss down here.”

  “Smith, I think you’ll be fine,” he said.

  He headed down Broadway. It was far easier to walk around Lower Manhattan right now than to get his car.

  He managed to reach the deputy chief’s office without being waylaid. The offices were huge, and he was just lucky that the elevator he was in didn’t stop on the second floor where he might have been detained by an avid reporter.

  He stood in front of the desk, but Nathaniel Green, “D-Chiefy,” as the men called him affectionately behind his back, wasn’t a browbeater. He wasn’t a political appointee, either. He’d earned his place, moving up the ranks.

  Green indicated the chair in front of his desk and Jude sat.

  “Are you taking me off this new case?” Jude asked him.

  Green smiled grimly. “Sorry, no. But I’m giving you a team, a task force. Who do you want?”

  Jude was quiet for a minute. He wanted to work with Monty, his partner of the last five years. But Monty was still in the hospital, and the last thing he needed, still clinging to life and praying to walk again, was a sensationalist murder case on his mind.

  “Ellis Sayer and his group.”

  “You’ve got them. You have priority access to whoever you want in the Technical Assistance Response Unit. And I’m bringing in the feds.”

  “The feds? As far as I know, the killer didn’t kidnap the women and cross state lines.” Jude was truly puzzled; he wanted to believe that when it was important, law enforcement agencies did know how to cooperate. But they could also be possessive and territorial. The NYPD usually wanted to solve their own cases. They didn’t mind help from other agencies, but they wanted control.

  Green grimaced dryly. “You just said women. I believe we’re thinking along the same lines.”

  “That we have a killer trying to emulate one from the late 1880s? That’s a stretch.”

  “We have a killer who left a woman slashed to shreds on Broadway. The other women in those two earlier cases—both seemed to have come from nowhere. They were murdered, and they’re still trying to hold on down at the morgue to see if the bodies will be claimed.” He hesitated. “Look, Jude, this is my call. The second that body was found, the media went crazy, and, before the public puts the puzzle pieces together, I want to be on it—a step ahead. Think about the way our Jane Does were ripped up.”

  “Obviously, sir, since I arrived at the scene of last night’s crime, I’ve given it some thought. But I’ve also been trying to give the first two victims my full attention. No one seems to miss them—as you said. They appear to be lost creatures. Maybe prostitutes,” Jude said. “And maybe the three murders are all connected—at this point, we just don’t know. If you say we should bring in the feds, fine. I’m not sure I see where federal jurisdiction is warranted yet.”

  “What we’re bringing in is a special federal unit. We’re not handing over jurisdiction. They’ll work with you—you work with them,” Green said.

  “Sure. Though again, I’m still not seeing a federal connection. And we have FBI offices in the city. Why is a special unit coming in?”

  Green looked at him with a certain degree of exasperation. “Jude, this is coming straight from the top brass. The mayor’s office. We can’t have tourists terrified of coming to New York City. We’ve done a good job in the past few years. Giuliani cleaned up a lot of the theater district and visitors can actually catch cabs that take them where they want to go. We don’t need a return to the seventies—or back to the days of Five Points, when a walk near where our own building stands meant tripping over the bodies of the starved, diseased—or murdered. We have to work hard and fast. The media is already having a field day with this one. If a special unit can help, I’m all for it.”

  Jude winced inwardly. Special unit? He wasn’t sure what that meant. But it was fine. He was pretty damn sure that they weren’t going to find anything to point them straight to the killer. New York City cops were good; they had learned to deal with just about everything the world could throw them. But they were also faced with a population that was staggering. Finding leads was going to be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

  “Well, hell, yes, I’m glad for anything t
hat can help,” Jude said.

  “You want not just this murder solved, but the other two as well. I know you, Crosby. You’ve been beating the pavement and harassing Tech Support every day for help on the two victims you pulled in the last couple of weeks.”

  “We don’t know that these killings are connected in any way.”

  “Stabbings with sharp knives or utensils, same place on the bodies, each attack growing more violent…”

  Jude looked down, not wanting Green to see that he was irritated about being called off the street at the prime moment to make discoveries.

  “We do have good cops. Our forensics people are cops, too, Jude. They won’t let you down. You know you aren’t going to find clues on the street…you know this is a serious situation being created by an extremely organized killer. This is going to take time, manpower and all the behavioral profiling help we can get.”

  “I can be a team player, and you know it.”

  “That’s why you’re in charge, Jude. Have you seen the news already?” Green asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” He looked at Green across the desk. “Yes, the media is giving the bastard just what he wants. Notoriety.”

  “That’s true. Now, as to the team… This unit was established by a man we worked with down here years ago. Adam Harrison. Similar crimes. Attacks on historical properties, and a perp who was in love with Edgar Allan Poe and started killing people like the victims in Poe stories. Anyway, it’s a different thing to go after a man like this, and the head of this team is an agent who worked the behavioral sciences aspect of crimes for years. One of the team is already in transit—the others will be here tomorrow. I’m setting them up with an apartment in Blair House. You’ll actually meet…” He paused for a minute, looking at a memo on his desk. “You’ll meet Miss Whitney Tremont at Blair House at two, get her settled in and then head for the autopsy.”

  “I’m taking her to autopsy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought Blair House was closed for renovations.”

  Green nodded. “It is—the preservationists won’t let the place be torn down, and it’s not due for construction crews to begin work for another few weeks. I want the team in the area. I’ll set up a meeting for you tomorrow with the team and the team head, Special Agent Jackson Crow.”

  Jude stood. It was decided, and he knew it. So much for his social life. Wait—he didn’t really have a social life. Since he and Jill had parted last spring, he’d enjoyed three one-night stands and a two-week dating whirl. Actually, he’d had three one-night stands—enjoyed two.

  “All right. I want Hannah Mills in Tech.”

  “She’s yours.”

  Jude nodded again. “And I have priority at autopsy—now, and if this does go further?”

  “I just called Fullbright. He’ll be your man, and he will be ready to meet with you at three this afternoon—the autopsy is already scheduled.”

  Jude nodded again. “I’m going back to the scene until then. I’ll meet your Miss Tremont at two, and we’ll be at autopsy together at three. And don’t give me that resigned look. I’ll call Ellis and get his team moving, too.”

  “You’re the best I’ve got, Jude. And I’m giving you priority all the way,” Green told him.

  Jude wasn’t sure he was the best that the deputy chief had. Hell, he’d just watched his partner get shot in a situation that should have never ended as it had.

  But this was what he did; he’d known all his life that, like his father and grandfather—and great-grandfather before that—he’d wanted to be a cop. He’d been lucky; he’d gone to college and gotten degrees in criminology and psychology, something his father and grandfather hadn’t been able to acquire. But they’d both been good cops. The kind who put the bad guys away.

  This was one bad guy they were going after and they all knew it.

  “I’ll do my absolute best, sir,” Jude said.

  “I know you will.”

  He had been dismissed. He headed straight to Tech Support, where he discovered that Green had put through a call to Hannah Mills. Hannah was excited; she’d never actually spoken directly to Green before.

  She was a whiz with computers, and if a piece of information was available anywhere, Hannah could find it. At one time in history, she would have been called a spinster. She was a slender woman with bottle-thick wire glasses, brown hair worn in a bun each day and a mind that could work as quickly as a computer.

  “I’m making printouts for you, they’ll be popping out as we speak,” she told Jude.

  “She was with the movie crew?” Jude asked.

  “She was portraying prostitute Mary Green. She was an extra, I believe, but she had a fair amount of screen time. Maybe even a line or two. Anyway, I have a list for you. The producer, the director, the name of the off-duty officer patrolling…a liaison with the movie and television unit. I think it’s all here. And when you want more, you call me, day or night!” She stood up in her little cubicle and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Jude! Thank you for asking for me.”

  “Thank you for being a good tech. I do have something for you. I want you to find out all you can about a Captain Tyler, a Vietnam vet.”

  “Oh, that Tyler. I thought you meant one of the thousand others on the island of Manhattan.”

  “Very funny. This one would have been in and out of local veterans’ hospitals.”

  “On it,” she assured him.

  “And one more—I want everything you can find about a government group put together by a man named Adam Harrison. Team head is Jackson Crow.”

  “The name is familiar. I’ll get right on it.”

  Jude returned to lower Broadway, opting to walk back to the scene. On a television screen, through an appliance-shop window, he could see that Deputy Chief Green himself was speaking to the media. He urged citizens to calm down and be vigilant.

  He put a in call to Ellis and let him know that he and his group were to join Jude and the feds. Before he had reached the scene of the crime again, he had everyone in motion; they would start with initial interviews of everyone on the movie set. He looked at the list Hannah had given him; he could get one of the feds to make sure that this list and the list that Smith was able to garner matched. Like it or not, he was working with the feds. Might as well make use of them.

  With careful steps, he walked from the set to where the body had been found, reimagining the victim’s probable search for a cab, and how the killer had come upon her. All the while he searched for Captain Tyler as well. But though he made new acquaintances with several of the homeless people on the streets, he didn’t find Tyler.

  He felt a growing sense of anger.

  Someone out there was either amusing himself at the expense of the police, or sincerely thought himself the reincarnation of a legendary killer.

  The victim probably hadn’t had time to scream. New York had been teeming with life just blocks away—the population was huge.

  Just as it had been in the crowded tenements of Whitechapel and the East End of London.

  The killer had probably surprised her; choked her to unconsciousness before slitting her throat.

  His phone rang. It was Hannah.

  “What’s up? What have you got?”

  “Info, but not on the victim—on your team,” Hannah told him.

  There was a strange excitement in her voice.

  “They’re a special team, all right. They’ve barely been around a year, but they’ve already solved a number of really bizarre cases. Jude—they’re a paranormal team. They don’t just investigate, they appear to talk to ghosts. They’re highly respected for what they’ve done, but they’re also a bit on the outside, even of the FBI itself. Only the head guy, that Jackson Crow, has been a special agent for a long time. But he’s supposed to be one of the best behavioral guys out there. They sound good, really good. But weird, too. You must have heard something about this group. They solved a creepy murder in New Orleans that had to do with all kinds of
political corruption.”

  “I might have heard something,” he said. He winced. Leave it him to wind up with the “special” team. Which reminded him…

  “Thanks, Hannah. I have to meet one of the agents now, and it’s good to be forewarned.”

  He hung up. On to meet his spiritualist or medium or whatever. He’d been told he had to work with the team; he would. He’d be polite. He’d spend the days and nights reminding himself that all help was needed at the moment.

  The days and nights ahead suddenly seemed extremely long.

  Be polite. Collect the “special” agent. And then on to autopsy.

  2

  Blair House.

  It stood behind a wall and next to an area where a massive construction project seemed to be under way—except that the construction crews didn’t appear to be out. The house was barely a block away from Wall Street, and another block from Broadway, within easy distance of St. Paul’s, Trinity and the World Trade Center site.

  Blair House itself was as out of sync with the current pulse of the city as the churches with their early American graveyards.

  As far as the financial concerns of humanity went, it only made sense to tear down the old to make way for the new.

  But, Whitney Tremont had been glad to hear, Blair House was not going to be torn down. It was slated for a great deal of renovation; federal money was coming in to tend to a federal project—it was said that among the many places George Washington slept, Blair House was one of his favorites.

  A low brick wall obscured much of the facade, while wrought-iron detail, tangled with ivy, rose from the wall. She could see the house from the sidewalk only because the driver who had picked her up from the airport had provided her with keys, and she had opened the gate while awaiting her NYPD liaison, Detective Jude Crosby.

  The brick path to the house was overgrown, as was the house’s yard area. To the left, there was a charming pagoda overrun with ivy and flowering plants and to the right, a fountain that no longer trickled water was in a similar state.