Sacred Evil (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

  “Jack’s back,” he said.

  And, in a way, the killer was proving that it was true.

  Life was all about perception.

  6

  Daisy Harding was a slender young woman with large brown eyes and short-cropped brown hair. She moved with tremendous grace, and Whitney wasn’t surprised to learn that she was a dancer. She had just gotten into the chorus of an off-Broadway play called The Girl Next Door, and she was quick to tell them that she’d been about to head back to her native Arkansas, since she’d been barely surviving.

  She was distressed but articulate as she spoke to them, telling them how she had met the victim, Jane Doe wet, now identified as Sarah Larson, when they had both auditioned for a show the year before. Sarah had been a dancer, a good one, but the city was filled with hopefuls from all over the country who were auditioning for Broadway shows.

  “I know that she did some extras work, and she got a job at a coffee shop,” Daisy said. “And then the coffee shop started cutting down on employees and hours, and everyone else was doing the same. She took a job at a place called Not Your Mama’s, and she thought she was going to be a dancer, but it turned out that it was a strip club. She actually started making some money, but she was miserable. And then…” Daisy paused, shaking her head. “Then she started taking drugs and drinking to cope. And then I think her drug habit got expensive, so she started working on the side.” Again, Daisy hesitated, wincing. “Hooking. The last time I saw her was about a month ago. She knew that I was upset for her, and she told me not to worry. She was going to get it together. She was going to go out and get more movie and television work as an extra, and she’d finally get out of what she was doing.” A large tear rolled down her cheek. Jude pushed a tissue box closer to her.

  So she, too, had been involved in the film world, Jude thought.

  “You were trying very hard to be a good friend, Miss Harding. I’m sure that you did everything that you could,” Jude told her.

  “No, no, I didn’t. If I had, she’d be alive,” Daisy said.

  Jude looked down for a minute. “That was a computer image we had in the paper, Miss Harding. But, now that you’ve given us a name, we can verify that she is your friend. She must have someone somewhere.”

  “No,” Daisy Harding said. “She told me that she’d been in a home with dozens of kids, all of them just waiting to be eighteen and get out. She’d spent a couple of years working different places to get to New York. And…she had the kind of friends you look at when you’re at an audition and hope they break an ankle so that you get the job. It’s competitive out there. I don’t mean that we—as a whole—are hateful or would really hurt anyone. It’s just there are so many people trying to get work.”

  “Of course,” Whitney said softly.

  “Miss Harding,” Jude promised, “we’ll find out what happened to your friend. I promise, I won’t stop until we do.”

  Daisy started to cry again softly. Whitney left her chair and walked around to the young woman. “You’re doing everything you can for her now, Daisy,” she said. “You’re helping us find out about her, and that will help us find out about her killer.”

  “Please, yes, oh, please, at the least, get some kind of justice for her! I had a home and a family, and now, I’ve been lucky here. We weren’t rich, but my parents would send me money when I couldn’t get a show, or when I couldn’t get any kind of job at all. Sarah…she had no one. No help. It’s not…it’s not fair.”

  Whitney saw Jude’s mouth tighten grimly; she could almost read his mind. No, life wasn’t fair. But what had happened to Sarah Larson went far beyond that sentiment, and he didn’t mean to let her die without catching her killer and bringing him to justice.

  “You think…” Daisy began, her voice hoarse, “you think that the same man killed that actress in the street, and that he…he’s killed this new woman, too?”

  “We don’t know, Miss Harding. We’re investigating every angle,” Jude said.

  Tears still bright in her eyes, Daisy finished telling them everything she could about Sarah Larson. When she left the station at last, Ellis Sayer threw some sheets on the table in the conference room where they’d been speaking with Miss Harding. “Limo drivers of interest, six of them,” Sayer said. “I sent Alex Lacey and two other men to go through the company. The time cards, mechanics and bosses match on most points, but these guys were the last on the job, if you want to speak with them.”

  Jude nodded. “They’re here?” he asked.

  “Am I your second in command for nothing?” Ellis asked him dryly. Whitney liked Ellis Sayer; he always looked a bit down, sad and weary, but he seemed steady. So far, he’d followed through like a bulldog on the tasks he was given.

  “Get Lacey in here with me,” Jude said. “That way he’ll catch any contradictions.”

  He looked at Whitney. “I’d like to stay for this,” she said.

  When Ellis walked out, she noted that Jude seemed anxious. “You want to get to the strip club, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, rubbing his temples. “But Sayer has the drivers here. I know Lacey does a thorough job of questioning, but…we’ll keep the pressure on. There’s a lot I want to get to during the day. Melody Tatum’s boss, pimp or whatever. The strip club—it’s going to be damn hard to stay hot on a single trail when victims are popping up all over. But one thing I’ve learned is that people don’t like coming in. They feel that if we’re questioning them, we think they’re guilty, not just looking for information. The drivers are here…we’ll speak with them now.”

  Jude spoke to the drivers one by one, asking them first, in a friendly fashion, if they minded being recorded. Baskin, Lumis and Finn had been told to take whoever Angus Avery told them to take anywhere Avery said they were to go. Baskin had wound up running errands for Avery himself—buying tobacco, a special mineral water and picking up his glasses, which he had left in his apartment. Lumis had run with the costume designer to a fabric shop, picked up special makeup for Sherry Blanco at a Fifth Avenue shop. Finn had spent most of the day sitting in his car; at four he had made a run, collecting costumed extras from a theatrical agency. All three had returned their cars and clocked out by six. A man named Joe Hutchins had been assigned to Sherry Blanco; he returned her to her maisonette on Park Avenue at four-thirty, and returned his car. Sam Eagan had driven Bobby Walden; Walden had left the set at seven, and the car had been turned in right after. Eric Len had driven Angus Avery, and he verified that he had taken the director to speak at the dinner, and then brought him home and returned his car. Nothing that any man said contradicted what any other said. All cars had been returned before nine-thirty the night of Virginia Rockford’s murder.

  When the interviews were over, Whitney asked Jude, “We’re heading to Not Your Mama’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before following up on Melody Tatum?”

  He nodded. “I’m trying to ascertain if we are seeing a pattern,” he told her. He shook his head. “Ellis Sayer will make sure that no one leaves the city—and that Harold Patterson is available when I’m ready to drop in on him,” he added dryly. He actually offered her a grim and weary smile. “Let’s go.”

  It seemed that today was going to go just a little bit differently; Jude actually waited for her to grab her shoulder bag before heading out with his long strides.

  As they walked down to the car, he was on the phone with Hannah, having her draw up the address of the establishment. It was in the Bowery, on the edge of the old Five Points area. It wasn’t just a strip club; it was one of the seediest joints Jude had ever seen. The interior was dark and filled with curved back booths covered in some kind of black velvet that reeked, most probably there since the early seventies. When he and Whitney entered, blinking to adjust their eyes to the darkness, it looked as if rats scurried away. Giant rats; the clientele who had been in the club who, in all likelihood, had pockets full of drugs. There was one woman dancing; she had the look of someone
very young—and far too slim to be an exotic dancer.

  Cocaine. Cocaine took that kind of toll on the body, he thought.

  A woman walked forward; either a waitress or a manager. She was the opposite of the woman dancing—tall and buxom, over forty and if he had to pick a single word to describe her, he would probably think, blowsy.

  She seemed to have radar for cops and was well on the way to absolute belligerence as she approached them.

  “You’ve just ruined our business for the day,” the woman complained. “Our permits are in order. What do you want?” She looked from Jude to Whitney as she spoke, and she was obviously sizing Whitney up as a new morsel to put on the menu.

  “I wish I could ruin your business for eternity,” Jude said, keeping his tone even. “Are you the owner? Owner or manager, I’m thinking, because it doesn’t look as if you’re on the drugs you get your girls taking—free, at first, I imagine. Then you get them hooked and they’re yours until they’re all used up.”

  She was angry, of course.

  “I am the owner, Myra Holiday. What is it that you want—Officer?”

  “Detective, Ms. Holiday. Detective Crosby. And this is Agent Tremont, FBI. Congratulations. You’re a suspect in a murder investigation.”

  That at last brought a real reaction from her. “Murder? No way in hell could we be associated with a murder investigation.”

  Whitney arched a brow and lifted the newspaper with the picture of Sarah Larson.

  “Sarah quit. She had some big-time offer, and she was quitting. She told me that she’d gotten a real chance. You’re in the wrong place—you ask the other girls—she left here about two weeks ago, full of herself. She said that she couldn’t tell us what was going on, but that we’d be seeing her soon enough, and that we’d all be pea green with envy.”

  Whitney was angry, he saw, looking at the woman with fury and loathing. “You saw the paper—you saw the paper and you knew exactly who the woman in the picture was—but you had no intention of helping the police!” she said indignantly.

  “Hey, I don’t want any trouble. And you say she’s dead? Well, she was always after something, always after somebody with money. And she was willing to go anywhere with anyone. She was gone from here, I swear it! You can ask any of the girls. They’ll tell you that what I’m saying is true.”

  “She was willing to go after anyone with money after you turned her into a junkie,” Jude said, his voice soft.

  “I didn’t kill anybody!” the woman protested.

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure you’ve managed to kill a lot of women throughout the years, Ms. Holiday,” Jude said. “I’ll need a list of your regulars.”

  The woman started to laugh. “My regulars? I don’t have a list of any regulars. What, do you think customers sign in or something? I don’t have any lists. And I didn’t call the police because Sarah Larson was just trouble. A little bitch. I haven’t seen her—I’m telling you that she was out of here weeks ago, and no one has heard from her since.”

  “I’m going to suggest, Ms. Holiday, that you get something together for me, because we are in the middle of a major murder investigation—and I’m going to have a team out here to rip the place up looking for evidence. Some of them are really good friends with some of the vice and fraud guys, and…”

  His voice trailed; the woman was suddenly white, and not because he had threatened her with a vice squad. She was horrified.

  “You—you think that Sarah’s murder had something to do with…the women who were butchered. You think that she was a victim of the Ripper?”

  Jude shook his head with disgust. “She was murdered and dumped in the river, Ms. Holiday, and you couldn’t even bother to identify her for the police. We don’t know if her murder was associated with the other murder. We do know that she’s dead, throat slashed, and that you’re going to cooperate in any way humanly possible. I have a team coming in to speak with your girls, and to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb, and if you make me have to waste the time to get a warrant, I’ll make sure that I take so much of your time, you’ll be ready for retirement when I’m done.”

  “Whatever you want, whatever you want,” Myra told him.

  Whitney brushed by her and headed for the skinny woman dancing on the stage.

  “Hey!” Whitney called. The skinny woman didn’t notice her at first. She was just swinging around the pole, eyes lackadaisical, moving only vaguely to the music.

  “Hey!” Whitney called again.

  The girl blinked, noticing her. She smiled curiously. “Hey, sugar. You don’t look like the kind of woman who likes women, but, hey, you are a pretty thing and I promise I can make you real happy.”

  “I need to speak with you,” Whitney told her, flashing her badge.

  The woman froze, and looked backstage as if she wanted to run. Whitney quickly hopped on stage and showed her the picture of Sarah Larson. “Was she your friend?” Whitney asked.

  Again, the girl looked longingly backstage, dying to flee.

  “Look at me—talk to me,” Whitney said firmly.

  The young woman’s shoulders slumped. “That’s Sarah,” she said softly. “She was my friend. She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “I need to know who she was seeing,” Whitney told her.

  The skimpily clad girl winced, shaking her head. “She wasn’t seeing anyone. She said if you closed your eyes and dreamed, it didn’t matter that they were smelly creeps. She wouldn’t have seen anyone here, I mean, not beyond work. She told us all that we had to be strong and keep dreaming, even when…she was going to be a star. She was a real dancer.”

  “And she left here, to go somewhere else?” Whitney asked.

  The girl nodded, slowly at first, then strenuously. “She said she was going to go off and be a star.”

  “Where? With and for whom?” Whitney persisted.

  “She wouldn’t tell us. She said that she’d been promised a role.”

  “As a dancer?”

  The girl nodded, looking past her at Myra.

  “Think, please, it’s very important,” Whitney persisted gently.

  “I swear, that’s all that she would say,” the skinny woman said.

  “What’s your name?” Whitney asked.

  “Candy.”

  “What’s your real name?” Jude said, coming forward.

  “Debbie. Debbie Mortensen,” the girl said.

  Whitney started to hand her a card; she realized that the girl had nowhere to put it, except in the string of the ridiculous studded thong she was wearing. Jude drew out his own card and joined it to Whitney’s, then stuck both cards in the band of the thong. “The police need your help. Anything you can think of might be important. Other officers will be around questioning everyone here—talk to them, or call us.”

  He turned and strode out. Whitney followed him. He dialed Sayer and told him to get officers down to the place to question everyone involved. He called Hannah and told her to get on the business records.

  “You don’t believe Myra or Debbie?” Whitney asked.

  He sighed. “No, I do believe them. And one of those girls will notice if someone was in here who was a bit above the usual clientele.”

  As they stood there, Debbie Mortensen, now wrapped in a red, faux-silk housecoat, came rushing out into the street.

  “I thought of something!” she told them. In the garish light of day, her age was visible. Debbie Mortensen wasn’t a girl. She had to be at least thirty-five. And, like Myra, she was scared. Her face was white and pinched.

  “Thank you,” Whitney said gravely.

  “Talk, please,” Jude told her.

  “There was a guy that she was into, not long before she left,” Debbie said. “He—he was weird. He looked like he came off a movie set. I mean, he was wearing some kind of weird hat and a cloak. Like…like…”

  “Jack the Ripper?” Whitney offered.

  Debbie’s eyes widened and she nodded. “I never really saw his face bec
ause he kept the hat low and he sat in one of the back booths all the time. Sarah was kind of amused by him. She gave him a—a lap dance. Then it seemed that they were talking. I noticed her close to him in the back booth. In fact, when he left, she did a leap off the pole and went running after him. I remember, because when she came back in, I teased her about it. She said that he’d disappeared—it was like he went out to the street and vanished into thin air. But she wasn’t worried—she was going to see him again.”

  “Did she say that he was going to make her rich and famous?” Jude asked.

  Debbie shook her head. “But it wasn’t long after that Sarah left, and when she left, she did say that we’d all see her soon—we’d see her rich and famous. She disappeared. She disappeared, just like he did, I guess.” Debbie hugged her arms around her chest and started to shiver. “I mean, for real, just the way that he did. I’d forgotten to give her back a necklace. I rushed into the street, and she was gone. Just as if she’d vanished into thin air.” She backed away from them suddenly, her mouth gaping. “He was Jack the Ripper!” she said, hysteria rising in her voice. “Oh, my God, we’re all in danger here. I don’t know what to do. I have to pay rent…I have to eat.”

  You have a cocaine habit, Jude thought. Yes, that has to be fed.

  “There are shelters,” he told her. “If you come to the station, we can help you get your feet back on the ground. There are programs to help women in your situation. You can clean up.”

  Debbie Mortensen stared at him as if he was crazy.

  She shook her head. “That’s what I know!” she said, and she turned and raced back into the club.

  On the sidewalk, Whitney looked at Jude. “It seems that the victims are all practicing prostitution in one way or another,” she said.

  He looked at her and sighed. “She was going to make them all pea green with envy,” he said.

  Whitney nodded. “The movies,” she said quietly. “We’re back to the movie that was being made downtown—gaslight era. The site where the House of Spiritualism once stood.”