by Glenn Cooper
"I've got a feeling he's the key." Will closed Swisher's file and pushed it away. "The first victim in a string has a special significance to the killer, something symbolic. You said we're seeing his wife today?"
She nodded.
"About time."
Case #2: Elizabeth Marie Kohler, thirty-seven-year-old manager at a Duane Reade drugstore in Queens. Shot to death in an apparent robbery, found by employees at the rear entrance when they got to work at 8:30 A.M. Police initially thought she'd been killed by an assailant who waited for her to arrive to steal narcotics. Something went wrong, he fired, she fell, he ran. The bullet was a. 38 caliber, one shot to the temple at close range. No surveillance video, no useful forensics. It took police a couple of days to find the postcard at her apartment and connect her with the others.
He looked up from her file and asked, "Okay, what's the connection between a Wall Street banker and a drugstore manager?"
"I don't know," Nancy said. "They were nearly the same age but their lives didn't have any obvious points of intersection. He never shopped at her drugstore. There's nothing."
"Where are we with her ex-husband, old boyfriends, coworkers?"
"We've got most of them identified and accounted for," she replied. "There's one high school boyfriend we can't find. His family moved out of state years ago. All her other exes-if they don't have an alibi for her murder, they've got one for the other murders. She's been divorced for five years. Her ex-husband was driving a bus for the Transit Authority the morning she was shot. She was an ordinary person. Her life wasn't complicated. She didn't have enemies."
"So, if it weren't for the postcard, this would have been an open and shut case of an armed robbery gone bad."
"That's what it looks like, on the surface," she agreed.
"Okay, action items," he said. "See if she had any high school or college yearbooks and have all the names entered into the database. Also, contact the landlord and get a list of all her present and former neighbors going back for five years. Throw them into the mix."
"Done. You want another coffee?" He did, badly.
Case #3: Consuela Pilar Lopez, thirty-two-year-old illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, living in Staten Island, working as an office cleaner in Manhattan. Found just after 3:00 A.M. by a group of teenagers in a wooded area near the shore in Arthur Von Briesen Park, less than a mile from her house on Fingerboard Road. She'd been raped and repeatedly stabbed in the chest, head, and neck. She had taken the ten o'clock ferry from Manhattan that night, confirmed by CCTV. Her usual routine would have been to take the bus south toward Fort Wadsworth, but no one could place her at the bus station at the St. George Ferry Terminal or on the number 51 bus that ran down Bay Street to Fingerboard.
The working hypothesis was that someone intercepted her at the terminal, offered her a ride, and took her to a dark corner of the island, where she met her end under the looming superstructure of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. There was no semen in or on her body-the killer apparently used a condom. There were gray fibers on her shirt, which appeared to have come from a sweatshirt type of fabric. At postmortem, her wounds were calibrated. The blade was four inches long, compatible with the one that killed David Swisher. Lopez lived in a two-family house with an extended group of siblings and cousins, some documented, some not. She was a religious lady who worshipped at St. Sylvester's, where stunned parishioners had packed the church for a memorial mass. According to family and friends, she had no boyfriend, and the autopsy suggested that even though she was in her thirties she had been a virgin. All attempts to connect her with the other victims proved fruitless.
Will had spent a disproportionate amount of time with this particular murder, studying the ferry and bus terminal, walking the crime scene, visiting her house and church. Sex crimes were his forte. It hadn't been his career aspiration-no one in his right mind wrote on his Quantico application: One day I hope to specialize in sex crimes. But his first big cases had serious sexual angles, and that's the way you got pigeon-holed in the Bureau. He did more than follow his nose, he burned hot with ambition and educated himself to expert grade. He studied the annals of sex crimes sedulously and became a walking encyclopedia of American serial perversion.
He'd seen this kind of killer before, and the offender profile came to him quickly. The perp was a stalker, a planner, a circumspect loner who was careful about not leaving his DNA behind. He'd be familiar with the neighborhood, which meant he either currently lived or used to live on Staten Island. He knew the waterfront park like the back of his hand and calculated exactly where he could do his business with the least chance of being happened upon. There was an excellent chance he was Hispanic because he made his victim feel comfortable enough to get into his car and they were told that Maria's English was limited. There was a reasonable chance she knew her killer at least by limited acquaintance.
"Wait a minute," Will said suddenly. "Here's something. Consuela's killer almost definitely had a car. We ought to be looking for the same dark blue sedan that crushed Myles Drake." He jotted: Blue Sedan. "What was the name of Consuela's priest again?"
She remembered his sad face and didn't need to check her notes. "Father Rochas."
"We need to make up a flyer of different models of dark blue sedans and have Father Rochas pass them out to his parishioners to see if anyone knows anyone with a blue car. Also cross-run the list of parishioners with the DMV to get a printout of registered vehicles. Pay particular attention to Hispanic males."
She nodded and made notes.
He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "I've got to hit the john. Then we've got to call that guy."
The forensic pathologists at HQ had pointed them toward Gerald Sofer, the country's leading expert in a truly bizarre affliction. It was a measure of their frustration in Clive Robertson's death that they had sought his consultation.
Will and Nancy had frantically administered CPR on Clive's pulseless body for six minutes until the paramedics arrived. The following morning they hovered over the M.E.'s shoulder as the coroner laid Clive's body open and started the search for a cause of death. Besides the crushed nasal bones there was no external trauma. His heavy brain, brimming so recently with music, was thin-sliced like a bread loaf. There were no signs of a stroke or hemorrhage. All his internal organs were normal for his age. His heart was slightly enlarged, the valves normal, the coronary arteries had a mild to moderate amount of atherosclerosis, especially the left anterior descending artery, which was seventy percent occluded. "I've probably got more blockage than this guy," the veteran M.E. rasped. There was no evidence of a heart attack, though Will was advised that a microscopic exam would be determinative. "So far, I don't have a diagnosis for you," the pathologist said, peeling off his gloves.
Will waited anxiously for the blood and tissue tests. He was hoping a poison or toxin would show up but was also interested in his HIV status since he'd done mouth-to-mouth on Clive's bloody face. Within days he had the results. The good news: Clive was HIV and hepatitis negative. The bad: Everything was negative. The man had no reason for being dead.
"Yes, I did have a chance to review Mr. Robertson's autopsy report," Dr. Sofer said. "It's typical of the syndrome."
Will leaned toward the speakerphone. "How's that?"
"Well, his heart wasn't all that bad, really. There were no critical coronary occlusions, no thrombosis, no histopatho-logical evidence of a myocardial infarction. This is perfectly consistent with the patients I've studied with stress-induced cardiomyopathy, also know as myocardial stunning syndrome."
Sudden emotional stress, fear, anger, grief, shock could cause sudden devastating heart failure, according to Sofer. Victims were people who were otherwise healthy, who experienced a sudden emotional jolt like the death of a loved one or a massive fright.
"Doctor, this is Special Agent Lipinski," Nancy said. "I read your paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. None of the patients with your syndrome died. What makes Mr. Robertson differen
t?"
"That's an excellent question," Sofer replied. "I believe the heart can be stunned into pump failure by a massive release of catecholamines, stress hormones like adrenaline that are secreted by the adrenal glands in response to a stress or a shock. This is a basic evolutionary survival tool, preparing the organism for fight or flight in the face of life-threatening danger. However, in some individuals the outpouring of these neurohormones is so profound that the heart can no longer pump efficiently. Cardiac output drops sharply and blood pressure falls. Unfortunately for Mr. Robertson, his pump failure combined with his moderate blockage in his left coronary artery probably led to poor perfusion of his left ventricle, which triggered a fatal arrhythmia, possibly ventricular fibrillation and sudden death. It's rare to die from myocardial stunning but it can occur. Now as I understand it, Mr. Robertson was under some acute stress prior to his death."
"He had a postcard from the Doomsday Killer," Will said.
"Well, then I'd say, to use layman's terms, your Mr. Robertson was literally scared to death."
"He didn't look scared," Will remarked.
"Looks can be deceiving," Sofer said.
When they were done, Will hung up and drank the last of his fifth cup of coffee. "Clear as fucking mud," he muttered. "The killer bets he's going to kill the guy by scaring him to death? Gimme a break!" He threw his arms into the air, exasperated. "Okay, let's keep going. He kills three people on May twenty-second and he takes a breather over the weekend. May twenty-fifth our unsub's busy again."
Case #4: Myles Drake, twenty-four-year-old bicycle courier from Queens, working the financial district at 7:00 A.M. when an office worker on Broadway, the only eyewitness, is looking out her window and notices him on the sidewalk of John Street slinging his backpack and mounting his bicycle just as a dark blue sedan jumps the curb, plows into him and keeps on going. She's too high up to see the license plate or credibly identify the make and model. Drake succumbs instantly from a crushed liver and spleen. The car, which unquestionably sustained some front-end damage, remains unlocated, despite extensive canvassing of body shops in the tristate area. Myles lived with his older brother and was, by all accounts, a straight-arrow. Clean record, testimonials to his work ethic, etc. No known connections to any other victims either directly or indirectly, though no one could say for sure that he'd never been to Kohler's Duane Reade on Queens Boulevard.
"Nothing to link him with drugs?" Will asked.
"Nothing, but I remember a case when I was in law school of bike couriers supplying cocaine to stockbrokers on the side."
"Not a bad thought-our drug theme." He wrote: Test backpack for narcotics residue.
Case #5: Milos Ivan Covic, eighty-two-year-old man from Park Slope, Brooklyn, middle of the afternoon, plunges out of his ninth floor apartment and makes an ungodly mess on Prospect Park West, near Grand Army Plaza. His bedroom window is wide open, apartment locked, no signs of a break-in or robbery. However, several framed black-and-white photos of a young Covic with others, family presumably, are found shattered on the floor by the window. There is no suicide note. The man, a Croatian immigrant who had worked for fifty years as a cobbler, had no living relatives and was so reclusive there was no one who could attest to his mental state. The apartment was covered in only one set of fingerprints: his.
Will leafed through the stack of vintage photographs. "And there's no ID on any of these people?"
"None," Nancy replied. "His neighbors were all interviewed, we put out feelers among the Croatian-American community, but nobody knew him. I don't know where to go. Any ideas?"
He pointed his palms toward the heavens. "I got nothing on this one."
Case #6: Marco Antonio Napolitano, eighteen-year-old, recent high school graduate. Lived with his parents and sister in Little Italy. His mother found the postcard in his room and the coffin image sent her into hysterics. His family looked for him unsuccessfully all day. Police found his body later in the evening in the boiler room of their tenement with a needle in his arm and heroin works and tourniquet beside him. Autopsy showed an overdose but the family and his closest friends insisted he wasn't a user, which was borne out by the absence of needle tracks on his body. The kid had a couple of juvies, shoplifting, that sort of thing, but this wasn't a major bad guy. The syringe had two different DNAs, his and an unidentified male's, suggesting someone else had shot up with him using the same works. There were also two sets of fingerprints on the syringe and the spoon, his and another's, which they ran through IAFIS and came up empty, ruling out about fifty million people in the database.
"Okay," Will said. "This one's got possible linkers."
Nancy saw them too, perked up and said, "Yeah, how about this? The killer's an addict who murders Elizabeth, trying to knock off her Duane Reade for narcotics. He's got a gripe against Marco and overloads a syringe, and a score to settle with Myles, who's his supplier."
"What about David?"
"He's more like a mugging for cash, which also fits with an addict."
Will shook his head with an exasperated smile. "Pretty damned soft," he said, writing: Possibly an Addict??? "Okay, home stretch. Our man takes a two-week break then starts up again on June eleventh. Why the pause? Is he tired? Busy with something else in his life? Out of town? Back in Vegas?"
Rhetorical questions. She studied Will's face as his mind churned.
"We've run down all the eastbound moving violations issued on major routes between Vegas and New York during the intervals between the postmarked dates on the cards and the dates of the murders and we've got nothing of interest, correct?"
"Correct," she replied.
"And we've got passenger manifests for all direct and connecting flights between Vegas and metropolitan New York for the relevant dates, correct?"
"Correct."
"And what have we learned from that?"
"Nothing yet. We've got several thousand names that we're rerunning every few days against all the names in our victims' databases. So far, no hits."
"And we've done state and federal criminal background checks on all the passengers?"
"Will, you've asked me that a dozen times!"
He wasn't going to apologize. "Because it's important! And get me a printout of all the passengers with Hispanic surnames." He pointed toward a stack of files on the floor near the window. "Pass me that one. This is where I came in."
Case #7: Ida Gabriela Santiago, seventy-eight-year-old killed by an intruder in her bedroom with a. 22 caliber bullet through her ear. As Will suspected, she hadn't been raped, and aside from the victim and her immediate family, there were no unaccounted fingerprints anywhere. Her purse had indeed been stolen and remained unrecovered. A footprint from the earth below her kitchen window showed a size twelve distinctive waffle pattern that matched a popular basketball sneaker, Reebok DMX 10. Given the depth of the print and the moisture content of the soil, the lab techs estimated the suspect weighed about 170, roughly the same weight as the Park Avenue suspect. They had searched for connections, especially with the Lopez case, but there were no recognizable intersects between the lives of the two Hispanic women.
That left Case #8: Lucius Jefferson Robertson, the man who was literally scared to death. There wasn't much more to say about him, was there? "That's it, I'm fried," Will announced. "Why don't you sum it up, partner?"
Nancy earnestly flipped through her fresh notes and glanced at his Key Observations. "I guess I'd have to say that our suspect is a five-ten, 170-pound Hispanic male who's a drug addict and a sex offender, who drives a blue car, has a knife, a. 22 caliber and a. 38 caliber gun, shuttles back and forth to Las Vegas either by car or air, and prefers to kill people on weekdays so he can kick back on weekends."
"One heck of a profile," Will said, finally cracking a smile. "Okay, so bring it all home. How does he pick his victims and what's with the fucking postcards?"
"Don't swear!" she said, playfully swatting her notebook in his direction. "Maybe the victims are connecte
d and maybe they're not. Each crime is different. It's almost like they're deliberately random. Maybe he chooses the victims randomly too. He sends postcards to let us know the crimes are connected and that he's the one who decides if someone's going to die. He reads about the Doomsday Killer in the papers, watches the wall-to-wall cable coverage, it's a real power trip for him. He's very clever and very twisted. That's our man."
She waited for his approbation, but instead he stuck a pin in her balloon.
"Well, you're a real hotshot, Special Agent Lipinski, aren't you?" He stood up and marveled how fine it was to have a clear head and a stomach that could take food. "There's only one thing wrong with your synthesis," he said. "I don't believe a word of it. The only archcriminal I know who's capable of all this evil brilliance is Lex Luthor, and last time I checked, he was in a comic book. Take a break for lunch. Come get me for the press conference."
He shooed her away with a wink and studied her as she retreated. She's definitely looking better, he thought.
As the case dragged into the summer, the Doomsday press updates had been stretched to weekly. Originally there were daily briefings, but that level of newsworthiness was not sustainable. Yet, the story had legs, strong legs, and was proving to be a bigger ratings draw than O.J., Jon Benet, and Anna Nicole put together. Every night on cable the case was dissected down to a molecular level by talking heads and a legion of ex-FBI and law enforcement officers, lawyers, and pundits who weighed in breathlessly with their pet theories. Of late, a common theme was emerging: The FBI was not making progress, ergo the FBI was inept.
The news conference was in the New York Hilton ballroom. By the time Will and Nancy took their positions near a service entrance, the room was three-quarters full with press and photographers and the bigwigs were settling in up on the dais. On signal, the TV lights switched on and the live feed went out.
The mayor, a natty and imperturbable man, took the podium. "We are six weeks into this investigation," he began. "On a positive note, there have been no new victims in ten days. While there have been no arrests at this time, law enforcement professionals from New York City, New York State, and federal agencies have been working diligently, and I believe productively, in running down multiple leads and theories. However, we cannot deny that there have been eight related murders in this city, and our citizens will not feel entirely safe until the perpetrator is caught and brought to justice. Benjamin Wright, Assistant in Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, will take your questions."