The Dead Room

by Robert Ellis

  Westbrook sat back in his chair. “And for cutting her open. Steam would have been venting from her body. Her internal organs would’ve felt hot to the touch. Don’t forget the sexual implications of the knife.”

  Teddy grimaced as the horror settled in. The sickness. The idea that the murders were a result of the killer’s twisted sexual fantasy.

  As Westbrook showed Nash the toxicology report and discussed the results, Teddy looked up at the photographs tacked to the wall—the girl’s faces watching them from the other side. They seemed so familiar, so innocent. He noted the time and began to feel anxious again. He turned back to the psychiatrist.

  “Tell us who we’re looking for,” he said. “Give us your best guess.”

  Westbrook lowered the toxicology report and folded his hands on the jury table. “You’re looking for a mad-dog killer,” the psychiatrist said. “A real motherfucker with delusions of grandeur. Someone whose paranoia is off the charts. Someone who suffers from hallucinations, not necessarily from the drugs he’s taking, but because of his illness and the way he was mistreated as a child. If you were ever to meet this individual, you’d know instantly that something was wrong. If you were ever to meet this individual, I’d make sure you knew how to handle a gun. You’re not looking for a human being, Teddy. He’s past that now. You’re looking for an animal.”

  This time it was Nash and Teddy who traded looks. Ominous and sobering looks. The situation appeared so grim, Teddy could taste it in his mouth.

  FORTY-TWO

  Eddie Trisco peeked through the curtain, wondering if it was safe to go outside. The sun had set an hour ago, yet the windows in the corner house remained dark. He checked the roofline and saw the satellite dish pointed toward him. He couldn’t tell if the strange device was working or not, but the man he’d seen making repairs this morning was long gone. So were the cars parked along the street. Maybe this was the break he’d been waiting for. Maybe they were between shifts.

  He turned away from the window, staring at Mrs. Yap’s body on the living room floor as he considered his options. He needed to get rid of her car. He could deal with her body later. Still, he didn’t want to leave Rosemary alone.

  He went downstairs and found her sleeping in the chair before the easel. He checked the clasps on the handcuffs and ankle irons—the chains running through the arms and legs of the chair. She’d been sleeping for most of the day. He didn’t want her to wake up like this. She might be hungry or need to use the bathroom.

  The decisions in an artist’s life could be so hard.

  He opened the bottom drawer in the cabinet, pulled a blanket out and draped it over her. Then he turned his back on her and marched upstairs.

  Although the lights were out, he could tell that Mrs. Yap had lost her feathers. She wasn’t a bird anymore. She wasn’t peppy. He stepped over the body and opened the closet by the front door. Pulling on a hooded ski jacket, he wrapped a scarf around his neck and grabbed his gloves. Then he picked up her purse and went through it in the darkness. This was her fault, he reminded himself. She’d stuck her nose in his business and almost ruined his life’s work. What did she expect?

  He found the keys to her new Mercedes and dropped the purse on the floor. Cracking the front door open, he checked the street. Christmas lights adorned most of the houses in the neighborhood. All except his and that house on the corner where the watchers lived.

  The coast looked clear.

  Eddie slipped out of the house, pulling the door shut and locking it with a key. But as he hurried toward Mrs. Yap’s Mercedes, he heard something in the air. A chopper in the black sky. Ignoring the arctic breeze, he bolted for the car with the key ready, then yanked open the door and jumped inside.

  It was them. He could see the searchlight panning over the houses on the next street. They were getting their bearings. They were working their way toward his house. He’d better hurry.

  He looked at the dashboard, getting a feel for the controls. The car started on the second try. Backing out the drive, he pulled down the street at an easy, I’m not the one you’re looking for pace. When he reached the stop sign, he ignored the corner house and waited for a Ford Explorer to pass. It was another woman on a cell phone. Eddie made a right, heading for the city and thinking all Explorers came equipped with women jabbering on cell phones. It was so ugly. So telling.

  He glanced out the window, digging into a bag of chocolate chip morsels. The chopper was behind him now, the sound of its rotors fading in the distance. There wasn’t time to make an airport run, he decided. Dumping the car in long-term parking would mean having to take the bus back to the airport, then a train into the city. He knew from experience that the process took hours.

  He yawned and smacked his lips as the chocolate chips melted in his mouth. He hadn’t slept for two days. The thought of sipping a delicious caffe latte crossed his mind. He wondered if the window table might be open at Benny’s Café Blue. Maybe he’d cruise by.

  FORTY-THREE

  Teddy met the messenger on the street outside Nash’s office, handed him a copy of the profile sealed in an envelope, and told the driver Barnett was in room 314 at Bryn Mawr Hospital. As he watched the messenger take off for the suburbs, Teddy got in his car and drove back into Center City.

  Although Nash had invited him to dinner with Dr. Westbrook at his club, Teddy declined. It had been a long day trying to plug the leak. All he wanted to do was check in at the office and head home. Maybe give Barnett a call and see how he was doing. Teddy had written a note to Barnett and placed it in the envelope with the profile, wishing him well and giving him the news Teddy had been hoping for. The FBI was in. By tomorrow morning, agents would be meeting with District Attorney Alan Andrews and ADA Carolyn Powell for a full review of the Holmes case. Teddy wondered how Powell would handle it. Whether she’d become defensive with the agents and take Andrews’s side, or consider the possibility that maybe she was seeing things wrong.

  He stepped off the elevator, opening the lobby door with a key. The lights were down. The receptionist was no longer there to give him a dirty look, nor was Larry Stokes. It looked as if most of the attorneys had gone home for the day as well. When he walked into his office, he found Jill at the computer studying for her bar exams.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” she said with a look.

  “Who?”

  The look didn’t go away. “The assistant district attorney,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Conference room three. She’s been here for an hour. She wouldn’t wait in the main conference room because the windows face the lobby.”

  Teddy rushed down the hall to the other side of the building. Powell was sitting in a chair with her back to the door. As he entered the room, she turned. He noticed the file on the table and looked at her face. The distance was gone.

  “What is it, Carolyn? What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve brought you a gift,” she said, sliding the file across the table. “You can’t keep it, but you can read it if you like and take notes.”

  Teddy opened the file. It was a copy of the missing persons report on Rosemary Gibb. He looked at her and sat down. When they met earlier in the day, he was in the heat of it and said a lot of things he didn’t mean to say or even think were true. His accusations had been outlandish and rude. Now she had come to him with Detective Ferarro’s file on Rosemary.

  “I’m sorry for the things I said to you,” he whispered.

  “Apology accepted,” she said. “But we still can’t find the leak, Teddy. It didn’t come from the roundhouse. You’re not gonna like hearing this, but I don’t think it came from Andrews either.”

  “Then why are you doing this?” he said, deciding to let it pass for now.

  “You’ve got Detective Ferarro worried, and he’s a smart man. The evidence is on our side, but I can’t take the chance that we’ve overlooked something. Ferarro went back to the gym. According to the report, that’s the last pl
ace anyone remembered seeing Rosemary Gibb.”

  “You just used the past tense. What’s changed?”

  “There’s a café across the street. Ferarro went back and interviewed the employees for a second time this afternoon. The manager thinks she came in that night, but isn’t sure.”

  Teddy thought it over. “How about a pick-me-up?” he said.

  She smiled. She hadn’t looked at him like this for days.

  “It’s just a few blocks from here off Walnut Street,” she said. “You can check the report out while we walk.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Teddy spotted the place on the other side of the street half a block down.

  Benny’s Café Blue occupied the first floor of an old brick building. An awning stretched across the front, but was rolled up for winter. He could imagine five or six tables lining the sidewalk in warmer weather, and wondered why he hadn’t frequented the café himself.

  As they crossed at the corner, Powell gave him a nudge and he turned. A young girl was walking away from her car parked in the alley beside the building. She had a gym bag slung over her shoulder, and was obviously heading for the club across the street. Teddy noted Powell’s eyes on the girl. Her grimace. As they passed, they looked down the alley. It was dark. Narrow. The perfect dead end.

  The café was slow. It was only seven-thirty, but they were between rush hours. The manager, Harris Carmichael, said their timing was good and offered them free cups of the house blend. He’d join them at a table when their drinks were ready.

  Teddy chose the table in the corner. As he sat down with Powell, he passed the file over. The missing persons report on Rosemary Gibb amounted to fifteen sheets of paper and even fewer leads. Ferarro had left out personal details when they met at his office yesterday, but nothing relevant to the case. The detective had been straight with Teddy and told him everything he knew.

  Teddy turned to the window and looked outside. He could see the gym across the street. The girl he’d just seen in the alley was entering the floor and mounting a stationary bike. It was a close-up view. The distance between them no more than twenty-five yards. He felt a chill as he watched the girl working out, but thought it might be from the walk over.

  The manager arrived with their coffees. As he set them down on the table, he gave Teddy a strange look and cocked his head.

  “Is something wrong?” Teddy asked.

  Carmichael paused. He wasn’t much older than Teddy and about the same size, though he had a paunch growing beneath his apron. He scratched his curly black hair.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Seeing you sitting here like this. I was making your drinks and watching you. I remember a guy sitting in the same seat. He’s been in here before. He orders a caffe latte and sits in this seat nursing it for as long as he can. Most people sit where she is when they’re alone so they can people watch. But not this guy. He always sits with his back to the room and stares out the window.”

  Teddy glanced outside, watching the girl ride her bicycle to nowhere. The chill hadn’t come from the cold air.

  “What about the night Rosemary came in?” Powell asked.

  “The trouble is she came in lots of nights,” Carmichael said. “That’s what I told the detective this afternoon. It’s hard to remember which night you’re talking about. They’re all pretty much the same around here.”

  “It would be the last one,” Teddy said. “The last night you saw her.”

  Carmichael sat down, his eyes flicking back and forth as he tried to remember. After a moment, something happened and his eyes shot straight ahead.

  “He was here that night,” he blurted out. “The last night I saw her, he was here. I remember now because he switched seats. I looked over and saw him staring out the window. When I looked back, he was facing the other way.”

  “What does he look like?” Powell asked.

  “About thirty,” Carmichael said. “Light brown hair, almost shoulder length. The kind that goes blond in the summer. I remember his hands. There was paint on them.”

  “House paint or bright colors?” Teddy asked.

  “Bright colors.”

  He’s a painter, Teddy thought to himself. They were on the right track.

  “What about his face?” Carolyn said. “Who’s he look like?”

  Carmichael thought it over and shook his head.

  “Tall or short?” she said.

  “Normal,” Carmichael said. “Thin, maybe even wiry like he’s in good shape. He’s got blue eyes, sort of piercing. He’s the nervous type. Kind of out of it and a little strange. But what I remember most about him are his teeth.”

  “What about them?” Teddy asked.

  “He’s got bad teeth. He doesn’t need braces. That’s not the problem. His teeth look like they’re rotting.”

  It clicked in Teddy’s head. The man was an artist and a drug user.

  “One more thing,” Carmichael said after a moment. “The last night I saw Rosemary. I think he followed her out the door.”

  It hung there. When someone walked out of the café, they turned to the entrance like they could see it. The man with bad teeth following Rosemary out the door.

  FORTY-FIVE

  They were sitting at his table. They were looking through the window at the gym, putting it together and talking about him.

  Two plus two equals four. Eddie’s the one who followed Rosemary out the door.

  He felt the chill of a cold hand grabbing him by the back of the neck. It was the proverbial cold hand. The one he felt when he knew he was in deep trouble.

  He started shivering. He looked up the street at the gym, then turned to the storefront directly before him and pretended to window-shop. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a Milky Way bar and tore open the wrapper. As he popped the candy into his mouth, he read the words Fun Size printed on the front and back of the wrapper. This usually triggered a smile, but not tonight.

  Eddie pulled the scarf over his mouth and stepped closer to the window, peering at them in the café from the corner of his eye. He could see them drinking coffee and going over it again with the manager—the guy who always gave him funny looks when he ordered his usual caffe latte, the guy who liked to flirt with Rosemary. Eddie had seen the woman with blond hair in the newspapers. She was a prosecutor working the Darlene Lewis murder case. He didn’t recognize the man seated across from her, but he seemed young and eager and too intense. Eddie had never liked people who were eager. Mrs. Yap had been eager, and look where it got her.

  Two young women and a man passed him on the sidewalk. They were wearing expensive clothing, walking arm in arm and giggling at him. Obviously, they had stopped off for drinks after work and were popped. Snarling at them as they vanished around the corner, Eddie turned back to the café.

  The manager was saying something, and the other guy was writing it down. They were getting up, moving to the door, the manager waving at them. As the door opened, Eddie heard the manager say, “If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know. If he comes in again, I’ll call the cops.”

  The man started up the street with the blonde. They were getting away and they had something.

  His eyes moved back to the café. The manager was behind the counter, flirting with a female employee as he wiped the counter with a towel.

  Eddie turned away and started up the sidewalk, deciding he’d follow the two of them until he could figure out what he was supposed to do. He dug his heels into the pavement, hurrying his step until he was right behind them. He liked the woman’s hair and face. As he eyed her figure beneath her coat, he realized that he liked that, too. But the man was another story. He had a cell phone to his ear, ignoring the woman and jabbering into his phone on a public street.

  They stopped at the corner, waiting for the traffic to pass. Eddie was with them, part of the crowd and playing it casual. Close enough to smell the rich scent of her skin. The man closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket, glancing back at the café and
then right at Eddie. Their eyes met. Eddie looked away, adjusting the scarf over his mouth. When the traffic cleared, the man turned back to the blonde and they crossed the street.

  Strike three, Eddie thought, keeping close like a shadow and imagining himself a ghost.

  “It was Jill,” he overheard the man saying to the woman. “Andrews called and says he wants a meeting first thing in the morning. It sounds like something’s up.”

  The woman shrugged as if she didn’t know anything about it. But Eddie knew who Andrews was. The district attorney had gotten more coverage in the papers than she had.

  He kept his eyes on them as he followed three feet back. There was something about the guy he didn’t trust. Something about him he didn’t like. A certain darkness in his eyes. A strong chin and prominent cheekbones. It was the look of someone who had taken a hit in life and was ready for the next one. The look of someone who might turn on him, reprimand him, tell him that he was no good.

  Eddie couldn’t keep his eyes off him. The more he looked at the man, the more frightened he became. The more he hated him.

  They were walking down Seventeenth Street. Then without warning, the man swung a door open and followed the blonde into the ground floor at One Liberty Place. The first two floors of the building were something like a high-end mall. Eddie followed them in, slowing down his pace and thinking they might be getting something to eat. When he saw them pass through the doors into the building lobby and walk toward the elevators, he realized he was wrong. The man didn’t work for the district attorney. He wasn’t a cop or even an art critic with an eye in the center of his forehead.

  Eddie watched them through the glass, turning away as they stepped into the elevator. He heard the doors close and entered the lobby. The elevator was rising up into the towers above. He could see the numbers over the doors clicking by one after the next. When the elevator stopped on the seventeenth floor, he crossed the lobby and checked the building directory. The sixteenth and seventeenth floors were occupied by Barnett & Stokes. He knew the law firm. He’d read about them in the papers, too. The man he’d just seen was a defense attorney representing that stupid mailman, Oscar Holmes. So why was he on such good terms with one of the prosecutors?