by John Lutz
“Anybody talk to Ike and the guy she was supposed to meet?”
“Uniforms got statements from both of them. The guy Connie was scheduled to meet owns a jewelry store on West Forty-fifth Street. She kept books for him. Ike’s story is essentially what I just told you.”
“Where’d you get her ID?”
“The purse over there on her dresser. And there are several identifying papers in and on her desk, in the living room. Also these.” He drew a plastic evidence bag from his coat’s side pocket and handed it to Quinn, who carefully examined its contents.
“Photographs of Bonnie Anderson,” Renz said. “His previous victim. They were on the floor near the bed, where they wouldn’t get blood on them.”
“He wants unimpeachable credit for the murder,” Nift said. “Can’t blame him for that.”
Quinn was glad Pearl wasn’t there to hear Nift. They would definitely get into it.
“Connie have a computer?” Quinn asked.
“Had one. Looks like the killer took it. There was a wireless mouse and a modem on the desk, but that’s all.”
“Smartphone?”
“Yeah. He took that, too. Call it and you get nothing useful.”
“Smart killer.”
“He sure as hell works clean,” Renz said. “Literally. He wore rubber or latex gloves, and it appears that after he was finished with Connie, he took a shower in the bathroom. There’s still blood there, and no doubt some in the drain. But probably it’s all the victim’s blood. Of course, he wasn’t careless enough to leave bloody fingerprints.” Renz gave a grim smile that seemed to include his double chin. “Maybe someday he will.”
Quinn doubted that. “What about the victim’s nails?” he asked Nift.
“Nothing much under them,” Nift said. “Nothing suggests a struggle before she was tied up and sliced open. My guess is we’ll find drugs in her.”
Quinn glanced again at the corpse. “God, I hope so.”
And they did find drugs. Traces of Ambien. There was white wine in her stomach, too. To help Constance Mason nap before her ordeal.
They were sitting around Q&A that evening—Quinn, Fedderman, Sal, and Harold—along with Helen Iman, the NYPD profiler. Quinn was the only one in his chair. The others were all simply standing, or perched on the edges of their desks. Helen the profiler, lanky and over six feet tall, with a choppy carrot-colored summer hairdo, was half sitting on Pearl’s unoccupied desk. She looked like a girls’ athletic director, in baggy shorts and a Knicks T-shirt, leaning back with her arms crossed. She wasn’t trying to figure a strategy for the second half, though; she was trying to get a handle on this killer, and share it.
On Quinn’s desk were copies of the Bonnie Anderson photographs that had been left next to Connie Mason’s corpse, along with current shots of Connie’s mutilated body, taken in her bedroom by the police photographer and printed out and disseminated immediately.
“I suppose we’re going to find photos of Connie Mason’s body next to the killer’s next victim,” Quinn said. He remembered what Nift had said about unimpeachable evidence. “He doesn’t want credit for the murders to go to anyone else.”
“Seems obvious he hates women,” Fedderman said, “the way he guts them like that.”
“But why the Statue of Liberty in the open wound,” Quinn asked, “if he’s going to the trouble of taking photographs?”
“The photos are his mementos,” Helen said. “The Lady Liberty statuettes are ours.”
“Being a serial killer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re un-American,” Harold said.
The others stared silently at him.
“So why does he open his victims up like that?” Sal asked.
“Maybe he wants to learn more about them,” Helen said. “Maybe what he’s doing is a metaphor for spilling all the secrets.”
“Looking inside them,” Harold said.
“Nobody—I mean, no man—really understands women,” Sal rasped. “But we don’t go around gutting them with a sharp knife. Most of us don’t.”
“We’re dealing with somebody who does,” Helen said. “And that’s about all we know about him.”
“If we know even that,” Fedderman said. “He might have an accomplice.”
“Not unless it’s his brother,” Harold said. “They might have the same background, hang ups, and compulsions. And they wouldn’t necessarily kill together. They might take turns.”
Quinn thought that Harold now and then showed rare insight. Usually nothing came of it, but occasionally Harold’s wild conjectures were accurate. Or at least provided new perspectives. He should leave his brain to science, Harold.
“It would be a first,” Fedderman said. “Alternating brother serial killers.” He hitched up his belt, but his pants dropped back down to where they’d been. “It’d take a lot of mutual trust.”
“Something we can’t rule out, though,” Sal said.
Helen shook her head and smiled at him. “Men and their mothers,” she said. “Talk about love-hate relationships.”
“Their fathers too,” Harold said.
“But they usually don’t go around killing men who remind them of their fathers,” Quinn pointed out. Or in pairs.
The street door opened and Pearl came in. She’d left her observation post across the street from Carlie Clark’s apartment after an NYPD radio car arrived. The police car was still parked outside the apartment, and would remain there until Sal arrived to take up the watch.
“Have I got time to stop someplace and get a carry-out coffee?” Sal asked Pearl.
“We’ve got foam cups with lids here,” Pearl said. “You can take one with you.”
Sal looked as if he wanted to say something, but he saw no percentage in criticizing coffee brewed by Pearl. He simply smiled at her and left to drive the unmarked over to Carlie’s apartment and set the radio car guys free to roam.
Pearl made her way down the row of desks toward her own, where Helen the profiler still lounged with her lanky six-foot-plus body. Lazily, Helen straightened up and moved aside, ceding Pearl her territory.
As Pearl passed Quinn’s desk, she glanced down at the photos from the Bonnie Anderson murder, lying next to current police shots from Connie Mason’s bedroom.
“So where are the babies?” she asked.
They all stared at her.
“What babies?” Quinn said.
“Both those women have been cut open as if for C-section births,” Pearl said.
“But neither one was pregnant,” Quinn said. “We know that. Don’t we?”
“We know it,” Fedderman said.
“I don’t care,” Pearl said. She pointed to the photographs. “C-sections. Performed by a madman, but C-sections nonetheless.”
She was tired and moved around her desk corner to sit in her padded chair.
Helen got out of her way.
20
Everyone from New York wanted to kill him.
The killer lay alone in his bed, his head propped on his wadded pillow so he could see the TV on the mass-produced antique dresser facing the foot of the bed. He watched the umpire simply stand with his fists on his hips, staring off toward left field. Threats seemed to fall flat even before they reached him.
The big-screen TV was tuned to a Mets game with the Houston Astros. A pop-fly ball that should have been caught had dropped between two Mets outfielders near the foul line, allowing an Astros player on third base to score a go-ahead run. Replays showed that the ball was clearly foul. The umpires, besieged by Mets players and the Mets manager, stood their ground and seemed to have minds focused elsewhere. The two players who had muffed the play stood off to the side as if they were lepers.
Nothing was going to change the umpires’ decision. They turned in unison and walked away from the apoplectic Mets. Every Mets fan in the ballpark moaned as if they’d been stabbed in the heart.
Smiling, the killer sipped his beer, feeling some of it dribble from the corners of his lips becaus
e of the awkward position of his head.
Baseball really is like life. Once the play is called, it stands.
Tell it to Connie Mason.
But he had more important things than a ball game to moan about, if he were predisposed to moan.
There was, as always, the gnawing suspicion that he might have overlooked something, left something of himself behind. A bloody footprint, perhaps.
Afterward, it was always blood that bothered him most. Blood science. The police were doing more things with blood all the time. Learning things. The slightest nick on his body could leave a usable sample of DNA.
Another sip of beer. His third bottle. He knew logically that he’d been careful enough. But still, it was so easy to ignore something important and incriminating, like DNA.
DNA evidence was like a two-edged sword in the hands of a fool. So unpredictable. In a world of risk and secrets, it made it difficult to move without getting something lopped off. Something you didn’t know was missing until it was too late.
The killer nursed his beer until a Mets player hit an easy pop fly that was caught behind second base, and the game was over. Another Mets loss. There would be post-game analysis, but the bartender knew his customers wouldn’t be interested in that. To them, a loss was a loss was a loss.
Three sips of beer and a string of commercials later, it was time for the local news. He separated his feet some more on the bed so he could see all of the screen between them. A world gone mad, bracketed by his bare feet.
Vibrant colors danced over the screen, music blared, and a banner proclaimed BREAKING NEWS. A beautiful African American newscaster appeared on the screen. The killer knew she was Minnie Miner, who had her own quasi-news show, ASAP. The show was more journalistic hijinks than factual, though it usually got things reasonably right. The killer was a fan.
Minnie Miner looked solemn as she spoke:
“Another Manhattan woman was murdered last night. Twenty-six-year-old Constance Mason, a consulting accountant, was slain in her apartment in the same manner as last week’s victim, Bonnie Anderson. Police aren’t saying much, but ASAP has learned from unidentified sources that both women’s abdomens were sliced open to reveal their entrails, some of which were removed. And in the body cavities of each was placed a cheap plastic statuette of the Statue of Liberty.” Minnie looked angry. “That isn’t what Lady Liberty was made for, folks. To be a cheap prop in a killer’s tawdry tandem homicides.” Morgue photos of the victims appeared behind Minnie. “As you folks can see, the victims certainly might, in the killer’s diseased mind, be the same type. There is at least a superficial resemblance.”
Minnie tilted her head to the side, touched her chin, obviously acting curious.
“What makes these serial killers of women tick? Why do certain women, looking a certain way or doing certain things, trigger their insane impulses? Dr. Joseph West-comber, clinical psychiatrist and former New Jersey assistant prosecutor, has some ideas on the subject, and will appear on Truth Report tonight to reveal some startling facts about such predators—and their prey.”
Minnie folded her hands. Sighed.
“There you have it—two beautiful New York women, both with so much to live for, both apparently victims of the same vicious killer. The Lady Liberty Killer, who leaves, propped in the gruesome wounds of his victims, plastic statuettes of the iconic female symbol of freedom, and of truth—two things we here at ASAP take very seriously. Unfortunately, we might not have seen or heard the last about this insane slayer of women. Yes, the Lady Liberty Killer is still at large, and still extremely dangerous.
“Sadly, history tells us this killer will strike again soon. If there are any new developments on this story, you can be assured that ASAP will be all over it. Sharing the news with you, ASAP!
“Now! Ever wonder what’s really in those off-brand frozen dinners . . . ?”
The killer pressed his head back farther into his pillow, looking up at the ceiling and away from the TV. The Lady Liberty Killer. He thought about that, and decided he liked it. The words had a . . . well, a legendary feel to them.
Quinn had assigned himself the top apartments in Constance Mason’s building, Fedderman the bottom units. They had canvassed the building for hours, expecting little, obtaining nothing. The building was a prewar structure with thick floors and ceilings, and even some interior brick walls. Almost soundproof. It was only through the ductwork, added decades after original construction to provide central air-conditioning, that sometimes secrets were unknowingly shared with neighbors.
Fedderman was still mildly confused after interviewing an aged tenant with hearing issues. He and the good-humored but less than communicative man had shouted back and forth and read lips, all to the conclusion that the hard-of-hearing tenant had seen or heard nothing the night of Constance Mason’s murder. The tenant had watched TV with closed captions until around nine thirty and then fallen asleep.
Fedderman clasped one of his earlobes between thumb and forefinger and shook it in a circular motion, trying to clear his mind. He checked his notepad for the name and unit number of his next interviewee.
He had drawn the apartment of Adelaide Appleton, which was directly beneath Connie Mason’s unit.
Fedderman scanned the copy of the cursory statement Appleton had given an NYPD detective the night of the murder.
Something interesting here.
Adelaide had heard something the night of Connie’s death, though not necessarily anything of importance. Still, it couldn’t be ignored, because she had heard it during the time the police estimated Connie was being tortured and murdered.
When Appleton came to the door after the third knock, she let Fedderman into the modest but comfortable-looking apartment. He showed her the account of her conversation with the detective concerning the night of the murder.
“That looks more or less right,” she said, handing the wrinkled paper back to Fedderman.
“This wasn’t an actual conversation that you heard?” Fedderman asked.
He watched Appleton’s round, lined face as she struggled to make herself understood. She was a roundish woman, as her name suggested, thick-waisted and with a large bust. In her mid-forties, she was attractive in a sweet and gentle manner. She wore dark bangs and seemed to peek out from beneath them like an animal peering out from where it had found refuge.
She seemed nonplussed as to why Fedderman had to hear her statement after he’d read the account of the original statement she’d given to that other detective.
“It’s as the other policeman wrote,” she said patiently, smiling at Fedderman as if he were a slow student. “I heard only one voice. That would, I believe, make a conversation impossible.”
“A man’s voice?”
“I think so.”
“And you heard it through that vent?” Fedderman motioned with his head toward a vent set low in the wall near a red leather recliner. Anyone reclined far back in the chair would have an ear very near to the vent.
“Did the speaker sound old or young?”
Adelaide sighed. That was okay, Fedderman thought. Let them get bored and itchy, and sometimes all of a sudden they remember something.
“In the middle,” she said. “Maybe forty—though to tell you the truth I think it’s a silly question. It’s often impossible to guess someone’s age by listening to their voice.”
“It is a stupid question,” Fedderman agreed. He kept a poker face. Conversational jujitsu.
“Yet you asked it.”
“Your answer might not have been at all stupid and imprecise. You might have said he sounded sixty-seven years of age.”
“That would be worse.”
Fedderman smiled. “Yeah. Then I’d figure you were fibbing.”
Adelaide thought about that. “Okay, I suppose you’re right. And a woman who is my New York neighbor—which is to say, we hardly knew each other—has been horribly tortured and murdered. I suppose any question is allowed.”
“And any answer is allowed to be questioned,” Fedderman said.
“Isn’t that reassuring?”
A rhetorical question, Fedderman decided. “You say you happened to hear voices through the vent—while sitting in that chair?” He pointed toward the red recliner.
Adelaide nodded. “I sit in that chair when I watch television. Sometimes I fall asleep there and wake up in the wee hours. Life isn’t a cabaret for me.”
“Is that what happened the night of Constance Mason’s death?”
“No, I had dozed off watching this reality show about a group of people trapped on an island.”
“Like Manhattan?”
“Very much so, except for the bridges and tunnels.” She smiled sweetly. “Are you pulling my chain, Detective Fedderman? Hoping maybe gears will mesh and some pearl of knowledge will come rolling out and drop into your hand like a gum ball?”
“More like I’m trying to push your buttons, hoping I’ll find the right one.”
“Does that sort of thing work often?”
“Not really. But it’s part of the job, to be a smart-ass with some people so they’ll get emotional and reply in a way they wouldn’t if they were calm.”
Adelaide gave him her sweetest smile. “Are you married, Detective Fedderman?”
“Yes. And now you’re trying to press my buttons.” He touched the tip of his pencil to his tongue, then pretended to jot something in his notebook. “What you heard through the vent,” he said, “were probably the last words spoken by a woman nearing her death.”
Adelaide tilted back her head and surveyed the ceiling, rolling her eyes slightly as if seeing images up there, showing Fedderman that she was thinking. Then she abruptly shifted her bountiful body forward. Fedderman thought she might shout Eureka!
“I think you might have pressed one of those buttons,” she said.
He leaned toward her. “How so?”
“It wasn’t a woman’s voice I heard—I’m positive now. It was a man’s. And I realize now what he was saying.”
Fedderman waited, encouraged. “So what did he say?”