‘Somebody did,’ he says. ‘And then a door slammed. Sounded like your door. And then there was your voice. Like you were crying again – no, not just crying. Like you were begging. Was that you, Erin?’
Was that you, Erin? He says it with such softness in his voice, such charity. Can I help you? Do you need me? Her lip wants to quiver and her chest wants to heave and she wants to let it all out. Pour out all the hurt and the sorrow inside her. Let him see what a devastated human being this is in front of him.
But she doesn’t. She holds her false smile in front of her and says, ‘You know what? I heard a bang too. In the hallway. It woke me up and I yelled something. That must have been what you heard. Sometimes I don’t know what the hell’s going on in this building. You think it was Grace again?’
‘Grace?’
‘Miss Frodely. From downstairs. You know what she’s like with her Alzheimer’s. Always wandering around the building at night, knocking on doors and stuff.’
Wiseman sighs and shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t think it was Miss Frodely. And it didn’t sound to me like you were yelling at someone to keep quiet. It sounded like you were upset. Maybe even a little… afraid.’
Oh, God, you are such a wise man, Mr Wiseman. A little too perspicacious, if that’s the word I’m looking for here. Why can’t you just be like everybody else – insular and not at all interested in the affairs of your neighbors? Why do you have to be so nice to me? So nice that you make me want to cry?
‘Afraid? Really? Is that how it sounded to you? No, not at all. It’s just that… Well, to tell you the truth, I’m having a tough time of it lately. Clark – he’s my ex-husband, the one I was telling you about? – he’s been saying things to me. Hurtful things. About how he thinks I’m a bad mother, and that maybe it would be better if he had custody of Georgia.’
‘Oh,’ says Wiseman. ‘That must be tough on you. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Yeah, it’s tough. It’s driving me crazy, if you must know. My emotions are all over the place, I’m not sleeping right… The slightest thing makes me cry and go nuts.’
Wiseman nods like the sage old owl he is. ‘You want my advice, you should see a doctor. They can give you pills for things like that. These days, they have a pill for every problem under the sun.’
Except for this one, Mr W. Oh, if only there was a pill for my problem here. One little pill to wipe away these horrors. What a miracle cure that would be.
‘I’ll do that,’ she says. ‘Thank you. Talking to you has made me feel a lot better.’
‘Any time,’ he says, but continues to study her.
She knows what he’s thinking. He’s thinking that this woman isn’t just mildly distressed; she’s off her rocker. She’s lost it. Her behavior puts Miss Frodely in the shade. Here she is, running up and down the hallway, pressing buzzers, waking people up, slamming doors, yelling and crying, going out at weird times of the night. Two tablets with a glass of water won’t help her. This sorry sight should be in a mental institution.
Well, let him think that. Better that than he should suspect the truth. A few minutes ago, yes, she would have told him everything. But not now. That bridge has been well and truly burned down. He can’t help me now. Nobody can.
She says, ‘I think… I think I’ll go make myself some tea. Can’t see myself getting back to sleep now.’ She dredges up another weak smile – see, everything’s hunky-dory.
It should be a conversation closer if ever there was one, but Wiseman is still on a scent. ‘What about your friends? Do they know about what’s going on in your life?’
‘Uhm, well, I don’t really have any—’ She stops dead, suddenly aware that she’s landed herself in a trap of her own making. ‘Oh, you mean, the people I went out to meet in the night?’ She emits a laugh that even she thinks is thin and unconvincing. ‘Oh no, I couldn’t drop my petty little problems on them. Besides, they’re all so successful and happy. I wouldn’t want them to know my own life is so crappy compared with theirs, you know what I mean?’
She’s not sure if that was a save or not, but suddenly it doesn’t seem to matter, because Wiseman doesn’t appear to be listening. His gaze has dropped from her face to her chest area. For a brief and embarrassing moment she wonders whether her robe has come open and flashed the old guy. But then she realizes it’s worse than that.
The brooch. He can see the brooch. Who the hell pins a brooch to a bathrobe? Moreover, what kind of brooch has a thin black wire trailing from it – a wire which then disappears into a pocket?
Shit.
She moves back behind the door. He won’t know what it is, she tells herself. He’s old. He’ll think it’s some new kind of music player or something.
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I should go. Thanks again for your concern. It’s really good of you.’
She doesn’t wait for him to complain or ask another question. She just shuts the door, then leans against it and breathes a sigh of relief.
‘I told you before. You should whack the old guy. He’s nothing but trouble.’
Sure, she thinks. Kill Samuel. Then she’d have to kill his son too before he raised the alarm over his missing father. And then why not kill Miss Frodely too? Throw in the building super and she’d have her six-pack. Just an hour or so’s work and she’d have her baby in her arms again.
Right. Because the cops would never figure that one out, would they? Wouldn’t dream of questioning her if everybody else in her building got wasted.
She figures that keeping out of the way of the cops is going to be hard enough as it is, without bringing them right to her door.
She wonders what trail of clues they’re following right at this minute.
6.49 AM
‘Does anybody know what the hell is going on here?’ says Cesario.
A small group of detectives is gathered in Cesario’s office. Despite the Lieutenant’s sartorial splendor, he seems unduly ruffled. Doyle suspects he’s already had his ear chewed by the Chief of Detectives about curtailing this purported killing spree before it goes any further.
Eyes fall on Doyle. Which is only right seeing as how he caught the case, but still it’s pretty intense pressure.
‘We’ve got two possibly related DOAs, that we know of. There may be more.’
‘Wait,’ says Cesario. ‘Wait a minute. Possibly related? They’ve both got numbers carved in their foreheads, and you say possibly related?’
Okay, thinks Doyle, so we’re off to a great start here. I get two sentences out and already he’s picking holes.
‘What I mean is that they’re possibly the work of the same killer. We don’t know that yet.’
‘Anything to suggest it’s not the same perp?’
No, thinks Doyle. Nothing concrete. But that’s not how it works, and you know that as well as anyone in this room. We don’t go making unfounded assumptions. We work with what we have. Otherwise we’d close off paths that should remain open.
‘On the surface, there are similarities. The numbers on the heads – that’s the most obvious one. The vics were both killed with a knife. They were within a few blocks of each other…’
‘But?’
Doyle takes his time searching for the right choice of words, in an attempt to preempt another attack on his views. ‘It’s the method that’s bugging me. The attack on the homeless guy was short and sweet. Two stab wounds, to the gut and the chest – that’s it. This second vic, though – this was frenzied. A dozen knife wounds at least. One of them opened up his neck from ear to ear. It was a helluva lot messier than the first one.’
‘And that tells you what?’
‘I don’t know what it tells me. It brings up questions, though. Why not a fast kill like the last one? Why pick someone in a car instead of a guy who’s just walking the streets? And why the sexual element this time?’
Cesario furrows his brow. This is news to him. ‘The sexual element?’
‘Yeah. The driver had his pecker out when we fo
und him.’
Cesario’s face registers his surprise. ‘You think this could have been a woman did this? A hooker, maybe?’
Doyle shrugs. ‘We can’t rule it out. I still don’t get the difference, though. Why wait for things to get that far? Why not just waste him as soon as he opens his window or the car door?’
From the back of the room, Schneider – the detective who usually partners LeBlanc and who has nothing but contempt for Doyle – pipes up: ‘Maybe he always drives around with his dick hanging out. I know I do.’
Jay Holden, a shaven-headed black detective with a vicious looking round scar above one ear, chips in: ‘Yeah, but you get away with it ’cause nobody ever notices.’
‘Hey,’ says Schneider, pointing to his crotch. ‘This thing is so visible I can make turning signals with it. And who are you to talk? Even the sparrows ain’t interested in your puny little worm.’
‘All right,’ says Cesario. ‘Can we quit this juvenile locker room showdown, please?’ He turns to Doyle again. ‘Anything from Forensics or the ME?’
‘Not yet. Plenty of prints in the car, but too early to say who they might belong to.’
Cesario looks around at the tired, grim-faced detectives. ‘What do we know about the victims?’
It’s LeBlanc who answers. ‘Not much on the homeless guy. He gets called Vern, but that’s about it. No full name, no address, and so far, nobody who really knew him. He was a loner. We’re hitting the shelters, the churches, all the usual places. The other guy’s name is Edwin Steppler. He worked as a kitchen salesman. He’s divorced, lives alone near Washington Square Park. We talked to his ex-wife. She didn’t seem too grief-stricken over his demise. Says she wouldn’t be surprised to learn he spent his nights cruising the streets for fun either.’
‘Anything else to connect the two DOAs?’
LeBlanc shakes his head. ‘Nothing. These two are chalk and cheese.’
Cesario blows air. ‘Okay, so now the big question. These vics are numbers two and three. So where’s number one?’
Silence in the squadroom. Nobody wants to answer that one. Doyle feels it’s left to him again.
‘Most likely scenario is that we just haven’t found the body yet. It could turn up in the next five minutes or it might not show up for weeks. Just because they’re killed in order doesn’t mean we have to find them in order. The alternative is that we’ve already found the first victim.’
All eyes on Doyle again, most of them puzzled. Cesario gives the question a voice. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘A number one is just a vertical slash. It could easily be mistaken for any head wound, especially if there are other cuts on the body. What I’m saying is that maybe we’ve already had a DOA fitting that description and we just didn’t assume it was numbered.’
Cesario nods slowly. It’s a good thought, and Cesario knows it. See, thinks Doyle, I’m not just a pretty face. Which, by the way, I’ve proved to you before, Lieutenant.
‘All right. Check the files, especially the autopsy reports. See if any precinct caught a DOA with a head wound that could be interpreted as a number one.’
He pauses for a moment. ‘Now the even bigger question. How do we stop this whacko before there’s a number four?’
Doyle goes to answer, but LeBlanc lets him off the hook. ‘We put out an APB on this. Everyone is looking for this perp. Stop and frisk is the order of the day. Short of alerting the public to be more vigilant, there’s not much else we can do.’
Cesario shakes his head. ‘The last thing we want is to cause panic out there. But if this continues we’re gonna have to release it to the press.’ He points a warning finger at his detectives. ‘What I don’t want to leak out is this numbering thing. The media already know about the marks left on the homeless guy, but I want to keep it at that. Don’t go spreading stories about some kind of body counting system. There’s a difference between alerting people and scaring them out of their wits. Shit, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it.’ He raises his hand as if to run it through his hair, then seems to think better of mussing it up. ‘All right, get out there and catch this maniac, before someone feels it necessary to wake up the mayor.’
As he leaves, Doyle ponders the task of finding the killer. He’s got the uneasy feeling that all the detective work in the world might not be of much help here. If they get anywhere with this case, it’ll probably be through sheer chance or coincidence rather than brilliant sleuthing.
But unless Lady Luck gets off her lazy ass and helps them out soon, somebody else is going to die.
7.45 AM
‘I’m not asking you to get ready for a freaking catwalk, Erin. Just choose a damn coat!’
She’s in the bedroom, taking out clothes from her closet, examining them, and putting them back again.
‘It’s not easy,’ she snaps. ‘It’s not like guys’ clothes. Most of my coats don’t have inside pockets.’ She takes down a blue padded jacket. Unzips it and looks inside. Bingo.
‘This’ll have to do,’ she says.
‘Finally! Okay, now go over to the mirror and swap the brooch over. You’ll have to make a hole in the jacket to thread the wire through, and that means—’
‘You want me to make a hole in my jacket?’
‘Yes, Erin. A hole. It’s not the worst thing you’ve made a hole in recently, so quit bitching. Attach the brooch in exactly the same way as it was on your other coat. You’ll have to unplug the wire from the box again to thread it through, and that means I’ll lose the picture and sound, so I’m giving you exactly five seconds to reconnect. You understand, Erin? Five seconds. One second over and you’re gonna hear little Georgia scream till her lungs explode.’
‘Yes. I understand.’
She goes to the bedroom mirror. She is dressed in a tight gray sweater and black pants, the brooch pinned over her left breast and the transmitter box bulging in her pocket. Getting dressed was an experience. He insisted on having her in full view the whole time. She had to prop the brooch up against a table lamp. She kept the bathrobe on while she dressed her lower half, then kept her back to the camera while she slipped off the robe and put on her brassiere and sweater. Throughout, she made no attempt to be sexy about it. She was far too shaken by what had occurred during her earlier scheme to be making devious plans for the future.
She opens a drawer in her dresser and takes out a pair of nail scissors. She puts their sharp point to the shiny cloth of her coat and begins to twist it as she drives it through to the other side. Wouldn’t it be great, she thinks, if this was his throat? Turning and pushing sharp scissors into his jugular. Wouldn’t that be so satisfying, so much fun? Or, even better, his eyeballs. Yes. His eyeballs. I could do that. I could happily blind him. It would be such a fitting penalty for all the staring at me he’s been doing. And then on to his other soft fleshy areas. Oh, yes.
‘All right, Erin. Now the wire. Five seconds, remember?’
Yeah, I remember, jerk-off. I remember everything you said and did. It’ll stay in my brain long after I’ve killed you.
She unplugs the wire from its box, pushes it quickly through the hole in her coat, whispers ‘I am so going to enjoy watching you die’ to the disconnected brooch, then reattaches the cable.
‘Good girl. Now get the coat on, and we’re ready to roll.’
She drops the box into the inside pocket and pins the brooch in place. Then she slips the coat on and stares at herself in the mirror.
Back to normal again. Clean, tidy, dressed. Not caked in clotting blood. Who would guess what horrors she committed during the night? Who would guess that she’s about to do it all again?
‘The knife, Erin. Go get the knife.’
Reluctantly, she tears herself away from her mirror-image, then goes through to the bathroom. The knife is on the edge of the basin. She picks it up by her fingertips. She’s not convinced it’s completely clean. Look there – isn’t that a spot of crimson?
‘Erin? What’s the proble
m?’
She looks up. Sees herself again, in the bathroom mirror this time. Only now she has a knife in her hands. It takes away the normality she had achieved. From Jekyll to Hyde in the time it takes to pick up a knife.
‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I can’t go through that again.’
‘Erin, we went over this. I told you—’
‘No. It’s not just the killing. It’s the blood. It got everywhere last time. I was covered in it. I was lucky nobody saw me. But now it’s busy out there. I can’t walk around with blood all over me. I won’t get five yards.’
‘Then don’t make such a mess of it next time. Hell, you practically sawed that guy’s head off. Do it like you did with the wino. A simple stab through the heart – that’s all it takes.’
‘There’ll still be blood.’
‘Yes, in all probability, there will still be some blood loss. For fuck’s sake, Erin, what do you want me to say? Unless you can perfect the art of knife throwing in the next five minutes, you’re out of options.’
She continues to stare at herself. Her image keeps getting replaced by an earlier one. When she was drenched in blood. When it was clinging to her, clawing at her.
‘I… I need another weapon.’
‘What? What kind of weapon? Oh, yeah, I forgot. There’s that rocket launcher you keep in your underwear drawer. Get real, Erin.’
‘Stop making fun of me. I’m serious. I need a different way of doing this.’
A pause. A sigh. Then: ‘Okay. What about your hammer?’
She thinks about this. Wonders why he said ‘your hammer.’ Not a hammer. Not go out and buy a hammer. How does he know she has a hammer? She doesn’t have many tools, but a hammer she does possess. Mr Wiseman lent it to her when she told him she needed to fix a loose floorboard.
A hammer? Yes, maybe. Maybe that would be okay. Surely there would be a lot less blood that way.
‘All right,’ she says. She walks through to the kitchen area. Opens the cabinet beneath the sink. There it is, sitting innocently on top of a box of soap powder. Just waiting to be called on to do something useful. Like knocking in nails. Or caving in skulls.
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