by Harlan Coben
Why would there be defensive knife wounds on her hands?
Carlson kept reading. He scanned through hair and eye color, and then, halfway down the second page, he found another shocker.
Elizabeth Beck had been branded postmortem.
Carlson reread that. He took out his notebook and scratched down the
word postmortem. That didn't add up. KillRoy had always branded his victims while they were alive. Much was made at trial about how he liked the smell of sizzling flesh, how he enjoyed the screams of his victims while he seared them.
First, the defensive wounds. Now this. Something wasn't meshing.
Carlson took off his glasses and closed his eyes. Mess, he thought to himself. Mess upset him. Logic holes were expected, yes, but these were turning into gaping wounds. On the one hand, the autopsy supported his original hypothesis that Elizabeth Beck's murder had been staged to look like the work of KillRoy But now, if that were true, the theory was coming unglued from the other side.
He tried to take it step by step. First, why would Beck be so eager to see this file? On the surface, the answer was now obvious. Anybody who scrutinized these results would realize that there was an excellent chance that KillRoy had not murdered Elizabeth Beck. It was not a given, however. Serial killers, despite what you might read, are not creatures of habit. KillRoy could have changed his M.O. or sought some diversity. Still, with what Carlson was reading here, there was enough to make one ponder.
But all of this just begged what had become the big question: Why hadn't anybody noticed these evidentiary inconsistencies back then?
Carlson sorted through possibilities. KillRoy had never been prosecuted for Elizabeth Beck's murder. The reasons were now pretty clear. Perhaps the investigators suspected the truth. Perhaps they realized that Elizabeth Beck didn't fit, but publicizing that fact would only aid KillRoy's defense. The problem with prosecuting a serial killer is that you cast a net so wide, something is bound to slither out. All the defense has to do is pick apart one case, find discrepancies with one murder, and bang, the other cases are tainted by association. So without a confession, you rarely try him for all the murders at once. You do it step by step. The investigators, realizing this, probably just wanted the murder of Elizabeth Beck to go away.
But there were big problems with that scenario too.
Elizabeth Beck's father and uncle ' two men in law enforcement ' had seen the body. They had in all likelihood seen this autopsy report. Wouldn't they have wondered about the inconsistencies? Would they have let her murderer go free just to secure a conviction on KillRoy? Carlson doubted it.
So where did that leave him?
He continued through the file and stumbled across yet another stunner. The car's air-conditioning was seriously chilling him now, reaching bone. Carlson slid down a window and pulled the key out of the ignition. The top of the sheet read: Toxicology Report. According to the tests, cocaine and heroin had been found in Elizabeth Beck's bloodstream; moreover, traces were found in the hair and tissues, indicating that her use was more than casual.
Did that fit?
He was thinking about it, when his cell phone rang. He picked it up. "Carlson."
"We got something," Stone said.
Carlson put down the file. "What?"
"Beck. He's booked on a flight to London out of JFK. It leaves in two hours."
"I'm on my way."
Tyrese put a hand on my shoulder as we walked. "Bitches," he said for the umpteenth time. "You can't trust them."
I didn't bother replying.
It surprised me at first that Tyrese would be able to track down Helio Gonzalez so quickly, but the street network was as developed as any other. Ask a trader at Morgan Stanley to locate a counterpart at Goldman Sachs and it would be done in minutes. Ask me to refer a patient to pretty much any other doctor in the state, and it takes one phone call. Why should street felons be different?
Helio was fresh off a four-year stint upstate for armed robbery. He looked it too. Sunglasses, a doo-rag on his head, white T-shirt under a flannel shirt that had only the top button buttoned so that it looked like a cape or bat wings. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing crude prison tattoos etched onto his forearm and the prison muscles coiling thereunder. There is an unmistakable look to prison muscles, a smooth, marble like quality as opposed to their puffier health club counterparts.
We sat on a stoop somewhere in Queens. I couldn't tell you where exactly. A Latin rhythm tah-tah-tahhed, the beat driving into my chest. Dark-haired women sauntered by in too-clingy spaghetti-strap tops. Tyrese nodded at me. I turned to Helio. He had a smirk on his face. I took in the whole package and one word kept popping into my brain: scum. Unreachable, unfeeling scum. You looked at him, and you knew that he would continue to leave serious destruction in his wake. The question was how much. I realized that this view was not charitable. I realized, too, that based on surfaces, the very same could be said for Tyrese. That didn't matter. Elizabeth may have believed in the redemption for the street-hardened or morally anesthetized. I was still working on it.
"Several years ago, you were arrested for the murder of Brandon Scope," I began. "I know you were released, and I don't want to cause you any trouble. But I need to know the truth."
Helio took off his sunglasses. He flicked a glance at Tyrese. "You bring me a cop?"
"I'm not a cop," I said. "I'm Elizabeth Beck's husband."
I wanted a reaction. I didn't get one.
"She's the woman who gave you the alibi."
"I know who she is."
"Was she with you that night?"
Helio took his time. "Yeah," he said slowly, smiling at me with yellow teeth. "She was with me all night."
"You're lying," I said.
Helio looked back over at Tyrese. "What is this, man?"
"I need to know the truth," I said.
"You think I killed that Scope guy?"
"I know you didn't."
That surprised him.
"What the hell is going on here?" he said.
"I need you to confirm something for me."
Helio waited.
"Were you with my wife that night, yes or no?"
"What you want me to say, man?"
"The truth."
"And if the truth is she was with me all night?"
"It's not the truth," I said.
"What makes you so sure?"
Tyrese joined in. "Tell the man what he wants to know."
Helio took his time again. "It's like she said. I did her, all right? Sorry, man, but that's what happened. We were doing it all night."
I looked at Tyrese. "Leave us alone a second, okay?"
Tyrese nodded. He got up and walked to his car. He leaned against the side door, arms folded, Brutus by his side. I turned my gaze back to Helio.
"Where did you first meet my wife?"
"At the center."
"She tried to help you?"
He shrugged, but he wouldn't look at me.
"Did you know Brandon Scope?"
A flicker of what might have been fear crossed his face. "I'm going, man."
"It's just you and me, Helio. You can frisk me for a wire."
"You want me to give up my alibi?"
"Yeah."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because someone is killing everyone connected with what happened to Brandon Scope. Last night, my wife's friend was murdered in her studio. They grabbed me today, but Tyrese intervened. They also want to kill my wife."
"I thought she was dead already."
"It's a long story, Helio. But it's all coming back. If I don't find out what really happened, we're all going to end up dead."
I didn't know if this was true or hyperbole. I didn't much care either.
"Where were you that night?" I pressed.
"With her."
"I can prove you weren't," I said.
"What?"
"My wife was in Atlantic City. I have her old charge records. I c
an prove it. I can blow your alibi right out of the water, Helio. And I'll do it. I know you didn't kill Brandon Scope. But so help me, I'll let them execute you for it if you don't tell me the truth."
A bluff. A great big bluff. But I could see that I'd drawn blood.
"Tell me the truth, and you stay free," I said.
"I didn't kill that dude, I swear it, man."
"I know that," I said again.
He thought about it. "I don't know why she did it, all right?"
I nodded, trying to keep him talking.
"I robbed a house out in Fort Lee that night. So I had no alibi. I thought I was going down for it. She saved my ass."
"Did you ask her why?"
He shook his head. "I just went along. My lawyer told me what she said. I backed her up. Next thing I knew, I was out."
"Did you ever see my wife again?"
"No." He looked up at me. "How come you so sure your wife wasn't doing me?"
"I know my wife."
He smiled. "You think she'd never cheat?"
I didn't reply.
Helio stood up. "Tell Tyrese he owes me one."
He chuckled, turned, walked away.
Chapter 34
No luggage. An e-ticket so she could check in by machine rather than with a person. She waited in a neighboring terminal, keeping her eye on the departure screen, waiting for the On Time next to her flight to evolve into Boarding.
She sat in a chair of molded plastic and looked out onto the tarmac. A TV blared CNN. "Next up Headline Sports." She made her mind blank. Five years ago, she had spent time in a small village outside Goa, India. Though a true hellhole, the village had something of a buzz about it because of the one-hundred year-old yogi who lived there. She had spent time with the yogi. He had tried to teach her meditation techniques, pranayama breathing, mind cleansing. But none of it ever really stuck. There were moments when she could sink away into blackness. More often, though, wherever she sank, Beck was there.
She wondered about her next move. There was no choice really. This was about preservation. Preservation meant fleeing. She had made a mess and now she was running away again, leaving others to clean it up. But what other option was there? They were onto her. She had been careful as hell, but they had still been watching. Eight years later.
A toddler scrambled toward the plate-glass window, his palms hitting it with a happy splat. His harried father chased him down and scooped him up with a giggle. She watched and her mind scrambled to the obvious what-could-have-beens. An old couple sat to her right, chatting amiably about nothing. As teenagers, she and Beck would watch Mr. and Mrs. Steinberg stroll up Downing Place arm in arm, every night without fail, long after their children had grown and fled the nest. That would be their lives, Beck had promised. Mrs. Steinberg died when she was eighty-two. Mr. Steinberg, who had been in amazingly robust health, followed four months later. They say that happens a lot with the elderly, that ' to paraphrase Springsteen ' two hearts become one. When one dies, the other follows. Was that how it was with her and David? They had not been together sixty-one years like the Steinbergs, but when you think about it in relative terms, when you consider that you barely have any memories of your life before age five, when you figure that she and Beck had been inseparable since they were seven, that they could barely unearth any memory that didn't include the other, when you think of the time spent together not just in terms of years but in life percentages, they had more vested in each other than even the Steinbergs.
She turned and checked the screen. Next to British Airways Flight 174, the word Boarding started to flash.
Her flight was being called.
* * *
Carlson and Stone, along with their local buddies Dimonte and Krinsky, stood with the British Airways reservation manager.
"He's a no-show," the reservation manager, a blue-and-white uniformed woman with a kerchief, a beautiful accent, and a name tag reading Emily told them.
Dimonte cursed. Krinsky shrugged. This was not unexpected. Beck had been successfully eluding a manhunt all day. It was a long shot that he would be dumb enough to try to board a flight using his real name.
"Dead end," Dimonte said.
Carlson, who still had the autopsy file clutched against his hip, asked Emily, "Who is your most computer-literate employee?"
"That would be me," she said with a competent smile.
"Please bring up the reservation," Carlson said.
Emily did as he requested.
"Can you tell me when he booked the flight?"
"Three days ago."
Dimonte leapt on that one. "Beck planned to run. Son of a bitch."
Carlson shook his head. "No."
"How do you figure?"
"We've been assuming that he killed Rebecca Schayes to shut her up," Carlson explained. "But if you're going to leave the country, why bother? Why take the risk of waiting three days and trying to get away with another murder?"
Stone shook his head. "You're over thinking this one, Nick."
"We're missing something," Carlson insisted. "Why did he all of a sudden decide to run in the first place?"
"Because we were onto him."
"We weren't onto him three days ago."
"Maybe he knew it was a matter of time."
Carlson frowned some more.
Dimonte turned to Krinsky. "This is a waste of time. Let's get the hell out of here." He looked at Carlson. "We'll leave a couple of uniforms around just in case."
Carlson nodded, only half listening. When they left, he asked Emily, "Was he traveling with anyone?"
Emily hit some keys. "It was a solo booking."
"How did he book it? In person? On the phone? Did he go through a travel agency?"
She clicked the keys again. "It wasn't through a travel agency. That much I can tell you because we'd have a marking to pay a commission. The reservation was made directly with British Airways."
No help there, "How did he pay?"
"Credit card."
"May I have the number, please?"
She gave it to him. He passed it over to Stone. Stone shook his head. "Not one of his cards. At least, not one we know about."
"Check it out," Carlson said.
Stone's cell phone was already in his hand. He nodded and pressed the keypad.
Carlson rubbed his chin. "You said he booked his flight three days ago."
"That's correct."
"Do you know what time he booked it?"
"Actually yes. The computer stamps it in. Six-fourteen in the P.M."
Carlson nodded. "Okay, great. Can you tell me if anyone else booked at around the same time?"
Emily thought about it. "I've never tried that," she said. "Hold on a moment, let me see something." She typed. She waited. She typed some more. She waited. "The computer won't sort by booking date."
"But the information is in there?"
"Yes. Wait, hold up." Her fingers started clacking again. "I can paste the information onto a spreadsheet. We can put fifty bookings per screen. It will make it faster."
The first group of fifty had a married couple who booked the same day but hours earlier. Useless. The second group had none. In the third group, however, they hit bingo.
"Lisa Sherman," Emily pronounced. "Her flight was booked the same day, eight minutes later."
It didn't mean anything on its own, of course, but Carlson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
"Oh, this is interesting," Emily added.
"What?"
"Her seat assignment."
"What about it?"
"She was scheduled to sit next to David Beck. Row sixteen, seats E and F."
He felt the jolt. "Has she checked in?"
More typing. The screen cleared. Another came up. "As a matter of fact, she has. She's probably boarding as we speak."
She adjusted her purse strap and stood. Her step was brisk, her head high. She still had the glasses and the wig and implants. So did the photogra
ph of Lisa Sherman in her passport.
She was four gates away when she heard a snippet of the CNN report. She stopped short. A man wheeling an industrial-size piece of carry-on ran into her. He made a rude hand gesture as though she'd cut him off on a freeway. She ignored him and kept her eyes on the screen.
The anchorwoman was doing the report. In the right-hand corner of the screen was a photograph of her old friend Rebecca Schayes side by side with an image of... of Beck.
She hurried closer to the screen. Under the images in a blood red font were the words Death in the Darkroom.
"...David Beck, suspected in the slaying. But is that the only crime they believe he's committed? CNN's Jack Turner has more."
The anchorwoman disappeared. In her place, two men with NYPD windbreakers rolled out a black body bag on a stretcher. She recognized the building at once and almost gasped. Eight years. Eight years had passed, but Rebecca still had her studio in the same location.
A man's voice, presumably Jack Turner's, began his report: "It's a twisted tale, this murder of one of New York's hottest fashion photographers. Rebecca Schayes was found dead in her darkroom, shot twice in the head at close range." They flashed a photograph of Rebecca smiling brightly. "The suspect is her longtime friend, Dr. David Beck, an uptown pediatrician." Now Beck's image, no smile, lit up the screen. She almost fell over.
"Dr. Beck narrowly escaped arrest earlier today after assaulting a police officer. He is still at large and assumed armed and dangerous. If you have any information on his whereabouts..." A phone number appeared in yellow. Jack Turner read out the number before continuing.
"But what has given this story an added twist are the leaks coming out of Manhattan's Federal Building. Presumably, Dr. Beck has been linked to the murder of two men whose bodies were recently unearthed in Pennsylvania, not far from where Dr. Beck's family has a summer residence. And the biggest shocker of all: Dr. David Beck is also a suspect in the eight-year-old slaying of his wife, Elizabeth."
A photograph of a woman she barely recognized popped up. She suddenly felt naked, cornered. Her image vanished as they went back to the anchorwoman, who said, "Jack, wasn't it believed that Elizabeth Beck was the victim of serial killer Elroy KillRoy Kellerton?"