American Devil

by Oliver Stark

  ‘Just give me the time frame.’

  Harper had asked them one question. What was the average length of time a kidnap victim stayed alive when the kidnapper was a known and lethal serial killer?

  ‘Okay,’ said one of the agents, ‘we’ve got three point four days. But listen, that isn’t an entirely accurate figure. I mean, eighty-four per cent of victims are dead within twenty-four hours, ninety-five per cent dead within forty-eight hours. If they survive forty-eight hours, then the story is a little different. It can go to weeks. You know. Some of these guys keep them for months.’

  Denise had been missing for just over twenty-four hours. That gave him another day, tops. Tom felt hope try to scramble and leave, but he wouldn’t let it. He knew that Sebastian wanted games. Denise was his kind of girl, but was the game more important? He wanted someone to suffer. He wanted to punish Harper. He wouldn’t kill her until he had seen Harper suffer. Harper felt that strongly. He would have a game plan in mind. He’d keep her alive, but what for?

  The Feds had taken the lead on the task force since the kidnapping, but the NYPD were still heavily involved in the case. Tom thanked them and put the phone down. He picked up the silver shield and looked at it. It was what he stood for - once. He put it in his jacket pocket and then picked up the Glock.

  It felt good in his hand. He held it up, looked down the barrel out of his window to the windows opposite. He felt no twinge, only the need to find and face Sebastian. He lowered his gun and took the clip from his desk and pushed it in. It clicked. He holstered his pistol. He wanted to fight. More than anything else, he wanted a fair shot at this guy.

  At 11.40 p.m. he took a call from a very disappointed Eddie, who had been looking through the old yearbooks of Meadow Trail High School, from Chloe’s year and upwards. He had found nothing at all. Not a single photograph that looked like Sebastian. Not a single name that triggered off his thinking. It drained him and he was on his way back to New York empty-handed.

  In the investigation room, Tom and the team were going through the calls. The search for Denise Levene was in danger of getting lost under a sea of good intentions. Her kidnap had captured everyone’s attention nationwide, but in New York the feeling was tangible. They knew an innocent, beautiful woman was somewhere on the small outcrop of rock called Manhattan and they knew that a deranged sexual predator was with her. They were getting hundreds of tip-offs each hour.

  Elaine Fittas crossed to Harper in the investigation room and put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘She’ll be all right, Harper. She’s tough.’

  ‘She doesn’t look that tough,’ Harper replied, staring at her photograph.

  ‘She’s a woman. She’s made of strong stuff. You’ll get him. Keep the faith.’

  Harper looked up at her. ‘Thanks, Elaine. You know what? Maurice Macy still doesn’t make sense to me. Why would he kill these girls if he just liked to pet them? And you know what else doesn’t make sense? Lucy James didn’t just die, she was killed - asphyxiated with a plastic bag. It’s Sebastian’s style. You think they could’ve been working together? If so, why would Sebastian kill Mo’s girls?’

  Elaine looked up. ‘Maybe he loved him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I mean, maybe Sebastian killed the girls because he wanted to protect Maurice.’

  Harper nodded. Just then, Sergeant Dan Webster appeared at the door. ‘Harper,’ he called. His voice couldn’t disguise his anxiety.

  ‘What is it?’ said Harper. He stared at Dan Webster’s face and felt the fear arrive in thick noxious waves. There was a silence around the room. Then the voice came back. ‘There’s a body in the basement of your building, Tom. Female. Blond hair. Wearing Denise’s suit.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Four

  East Harlem

  December 3, 11.55 p.m.

  The rush through the traffic with fear gripping his throat was something Tom would always remember. The happy energetic college students, out late and drunk, and the romantic couples in units, all living in their little bubbles away from the horror that everyone fears, seemed a world away from what he was experiencing.

  Harper arrived at his apartment block out of breath. He had jumped the car two blocks away because of some red lights and just run. His limbs needed to do something. His mind had reached its own red line.

  Then the building came in sight and it terrified him. He had been so quick to try to get there and now he wanted to hold back. An ambulance, two squad cars. Yellow crime scene tape across the entrance to his building.

  Two cops stood at the entrance to the basement, lips compressed as they tried to brush off the awkwardness. Harper was lost inside his own head, preparing himself internally for what he might have to face. He walked past them and went down the steps into the basement and on into the laundry room.

  Another cop was standing at the door, waiting for Crime Scene to seal the scene. Just three uniformed cops and a waiting ambulance.

  Tom nodded at the cop and looked down to the floor. Dan Webster had told him all they knew. The body of a blonde woman had been found in Harper’s basement.

  The upper body was wrapped in a white, heavily blood-stained sheet. Only the hair, the legs and Denise’s skirt were visible.

  Harper shuddered. ‘Anyone taken a look?’ he asked.

  The cop shook his head. ‘Just waiting for the Medical Examiner and Crime Scene. We can’t touch it.’

  Tom needed to see beneath the white bloody shroud. He looked round the room. There was no blood anywhere else. So the killer had killed her somewhere else and then transported her to his basement. No easy thing to do - carry a bleeding corpse through the streets of New York. Harper looked down and saw the tracks of two wheels in the blood. Suitcase wheels. Sebastian.

  ‘I need to take a look,’ said Tom.

  ‘No can do,’ said the officer. ‘Got to keep it as we found it.’

  ‘I need to take a look,’ Harper repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry, but you got to hold off,’ said the officer.

  Harper moved towards the corpse. The officer was a big guy and he wasn’t smart either. He took a step forward.

  ‘No can do, Detective,’ he said and put his big arm out. Harper stood and looked at him. He could take him down and risk being thrown out of the NYPD, or he could wait.

  Lafayette walked in and saw the two men squaring up to each other.

  ‘Tom. ME’s arrived, CSU are here. It won’t be long’

  Harper moved away from the officer, crossed to the side of the room and waited, his eyes firmly fixed on the white sheet, his heart beating so fast that he was feeling high. He looked at the whitewashed wall, where something was written. A single word.

  Abaddon.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ he said.

  He watched for forty-five minutes as the Crime Scene detectives tagged and photographed and swept the scene, not knowing whether Denise was alive or dead. Not knowing what to feel. Limbo. His life was just in limbo all over again.

  He watched as the Medical Examiner slowly moved in on the body and it was time.

  Tom’s throat closed tightly as two assistants in white overalls each took an edge of the sheet and pulled it to one side.

  The sheet was so wet with blood it stuck to the corpse’s face and chest. It made a low ripping sound as the material was lifted from the sticky wet flesh.

  They all looked down. Lafayette stood behind Harper, his arm on his shoulder, squeezing hard.

  ‘Is it her?’ he asked.

  ‘Sick fucking bastard,’ Harper whispered.

  Lafayette looked down at the body. The beautiful blond hair formed a halo around her head. Her body was dressed and covered in blood.

  But the face had been completely removed.

  Chapter One Hundred and Five

  Mace Crindle Plant

  December 4, 1.12 a.m.

  The silence was more horrifying than anything else in the
dungeon. Denise knew he was coming back and the hardness of the thick brick walls was hurting her fists as she beat against them, trying to find an escape.

  Poor, poor girl. She thought it over and over again. Poor, poor girl. Please protect her from Sebastian.

  She hadn’t prayed since she was fourteen years old but for hours Denise continued to pray and hope. She then lay on her side and wept for the girl whose life was in danger. And wept, a little, for herself.

  It had gotten very cold all of a sudden. She had no food and her stomach and bones ached. She was in a state of half-sleep when she heard the noise of the metal bolt.

  She sat upright. ‘Tell me she’s all right! Please.’

  She heard footsteps coming towards the door of her prison. She saw him at the bars. The light above him clicked on and bathed him in shadow. He sat down on a small stool he had carried with him.

  The silence was so tense she was sweating even in the cold of the cell.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Denise asked. ‘Is the girl all right?’

  ‘I think you’ll be pleased with Nick. I think he managed to save one of them.’ It was Sebastian’s voice. ‘I should think you will be famous for your techniques, Dr Levene.’

  ‘Well done, Nick! Well done! I’m amazed. Delighted. She’s okay? Well done.’

  ‘It was your doing.’

  ‘The band?’

  ‘My wrist hurts there was so much twanging. Nick must’ve been twanging like a lunatic. There’s a red mark all the way round.’

  ‘Tell me, please. Tell me.’

  ‘I wanted to possess her. Of course I did. She was perfect. Unique. Quite self-assured. I wanted just to grab her and take her, but Nick didn’t let me. He kept me inside. I couldn’t gain control.’

  ‘Jesus! She’s alive . . . Thank you.’

  ‘You know, Doctor, I am quite easy to upset. I seem to have a high degree of vulnerability, which is bizarre when you think I could kill these people without a second thought.’

  ‘That’s what the killing is for - to hide the vulnerability, to lock it away . . . to disguise it with the most potent thing there is, the power of life and death.’

  ‘I like killing. Like it like nothing else. It’s better than cocaine. It’s like cocaine but with all your faculties absolutely intact. It’s not false. It’s a perfect expression of human emotion. Killing, raping, ripping.’

  She heard the band twang three times behind the door. Why was he twanging? She didn’t understand.

  ‘It feels good to twang. It keeps Nick away, too. Did it not occur to you that it might? Ha! I drove her home, Dr Levene. In my car. I was alone with her in my car. The opportunity was there, but I let her go. I felt so good, letting her go. I felt what virtue must feel like. It was quite a new sensation.’

  ‘Keep going. Keep working on the strategies. You can heal yourself. You must. You can.’

  ‘You have amazing faith, Doctor. I wonder what that feels like too. Denise, I have felt lost my entire life. Will it ever end?’ He slapped the elastic against his wrist again.

  ‘Why are you twanging? Is Nick there?’

  ‘He wants to be here. Oh, one more thing,’ he said as he stood up. ‘You will be pleased to know, Denise, that when I dropped her at her home and drove away, I felt proud of myself on your behalf, as if you were my mother or my father. It was a nice feeling.’

  ‘I’m pleased. You did well.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. There was something in his voice.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she said sharply.

  ‘Oh, you know, Denise. You deny yourself something. You walk away. You feel satisfied, but then the urge just comes back stronger. Much, much stronger. You know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He took something out of his pocket and held it a moment. ‘I have something for you.’

  He threw something through the bars. It splattered on the floor. She shivered at the cold red slime.

  ‘It’s Kimberly’s heart, Denise. She was a lovely, gentle girl. I have no complaints.’

  Denise threw herself back against the wall and let out an agonized scream.

  ‘We worked on the first phase, Doctor, and that worked very well, but we did nothing on the second phase. I drove off, but I still wanted her. I needed to see her suffer. I had no strategies. None whatsoever. You left me quite unprepared.’

  Denise was lying on her side, in pain. She started to cry as the monster stared at her through the bars.

  ‘When you do that, Dr Levene, that crying thing . . . what is it like? What does it feel like?’

  Chapter One Hundred and Six

  East Harlem

  December 4, 1.30 a.m.

  Harper didn’t wait around to watch the body being bagged, humped on to a gurney and rolled over bumpy ground to the waiting ambulance. He didn’t have the heart for anything. He wanted the world to swallow him up and make it all disappear. But he couldn’t say any of it. He snarled at Lafayette, walked away from his building and felt the nausea rising in his belly. He’d never be able to go in there again.

  The killer had destroyed his home. Had Sebastian meant to do that? Why did Sebastian want to hurt him so badly?

  The face of the corpse had been completely removed. How, they could only half imagine. All that was left was a thin layer of bloody flesh over the bone, and the dark holes of the eye sockets, nose and mouth.

  Nothing from which they could identify her until they ran all the necessary tests. The agony was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning. I want you to feel pain, Tom Harper.

  Harper took himself away to the East River and sat down to think. There was a riot of painful emotion going on in his head and he could hardly cut out the noise. He was at breaking point but he knew better than to give in to the chaos. He had to do the one thing he knew would keep him together. He had to go to work.

  The East River was like black ink, tilting with bright streaks of moonlight. The odd picturesque boat chugged by and anyone might presume that the man sitting at the edge was just enjoying the scene.

  In his head, the discipline was at work. Harper had a ferocious capacity for work and now was the time to draw upon it. Ignore the thump and throb of emotion, ignore his self-pity. Ignore everything except the forces of reason.

  Only reason would catch the killer. Harper took a piece of chalk from his pocket and on the paving stones in front of him he started from day one. He wrote the names of the killer’s victims:

  Chloe Mestella

  Mary-Jane Samuelson

  Grace Frazer

  Amy Lloyd-Gardner

  Jessica Pascal

  Elizabeth Seale

  Nate Williamson

  Lottie Bixley

  Kitty Hunyardi

  Rose Stanhope

  Senator Stanhope

  Lucy James

  Denise?

  He took out his notebook and went through the notes he took of each scene. The poetry sprang from the page: Every angel is terrifying; Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels.

  Then he wrote: Abaddon. He looked at his list. What was this telling him? Sebastian had killed the Upper East Side girls. Had he also killed Lucy James and Lottie Bixley? Why did Sebastian want Tom to feel pain now? Why? What was the connection? The marks on the pavement were barely visible in the dark but Harper just kept staring. He wanted to know what connected these victims and he wanted to know why the killer was punishing him. A half-thought appeared in his mind. It caught his attention and then waited for him to consider the implications.

  His mind had starting going there already, but with it all down in front of him it became crystal clear. It was about Mo, wasn’t it? It had to be. He had gone for Denise because Tom had gone for Mo. Sebastian had loved Mo. He was seeking revenge. What for and why didn’t matter, it just meant that the link was real.

  But if he was punishing Harper, he was also playing games. He played a game with Elizabeth Seale. He’d said it was ‘sealed with a kiss’. Maybe Abad
don meant something? Maybe Abaddon meant something about Mo.

  Detective Harper spoke the word slowly. ‘Abaddon.’ Abaddon. He recalled something from earlier in the investigation. What was it? The phone call after they released the fake profile. Sebastian had said something about Abaddon, but then he’d said something else. What was it?

  Harper flicked through his notebook. He found the transcript of the phone call. There it was. That’s what he said. ‘I’m the American Devil. I’m Abaddon - that’s where I am. I’m a pure breed devil and I was raised in hell.’

  Harper had looked up the word Abaddon - it was a name for the angel of destruction and he’d thought no more about it. Now he looked down more intently at the word.

  I’m Abaddon, that’s where I am . . .

  It was a curious phrase. Tom had taken Abaddon to be a person, an incarnation of the devil.

  The cogs in Harper’s mind turned and clicked. A gear shifted.

  He’d gone to Maurice’s room. Harper recalled it in slow motion, trying to picture it in his mind. Yes, he was sure. There was a photograph. Two boys. Obviously connected, maybe even family. The sign was obscured. Just the letter A was visible.

  Abaddon, that’s where I am . . .

  What did it mean? And now, again, he’d written it near the corpse of a woman whose identity he dared not think about. As a reminder, maybe? As a clue?

  Abaddon, the name of the angel of destruction. Was that all it meant? What was Sebastian trying to tell him? Then it came all at once. Elaine’s voice. Elaine Fittas. Just before he heard the news about the body in his basement. What did she say?

  ‘Maybe he loved him.’

  Abaddon wasn’t a name, was it? It was a place. It was the place where he and Mo started all this. They knew each other all right. They knew each other damn well!

  Suddenly, the only sound on the vast dock was the heavy slap of Harper’s running footfalls.

  Chapter One Hundred and Seven