by John Lutz
“I’m real,” said the voice on the line. The camera moved in on Minnie, a tight shot of her somber face. With a high-definition TV, you could see her pores. “And you know I’m real.” There was nothing distinctive about the voice. No way to fix the caller geographically.
“How do I know that?” Minnie asked. But the chill that ran up her spine for no apparent reason was how she knew.
“Freedom to kill.”
The camera stayed tight. “I don’t understand.”
“The police do.”
“You seem to be availing yourself of such a presumed freedom, but I don’t see how you’ve offered any sort of proof that you really are the—”
“It’s something I wrote in blood on a mirror. The police didn’t inform media parasites like you because they wanted the knowledge used to determine the genuineness of confessions to the Lady Liberty murders. A test.”
“I didn’t know that,” Minnie said.
“Of course not. Only the police and the killer know it. Well, now we’ll have to include you and all your loyal viewers. Gosh, that sure might make the police’s job more difficult.”
Minnie was signaling frantically to her director. Hal nodded and pointed. He was already on the phone to the police.
“So what prompted you to call the show?” Minnie asked. “Was it only to make the police’s secret information public?”
“Not at all. I called because I want to get my story out. The part of it I want people to know, anyway.”
“What about the other part?”
“Well, everyone has a private life they want to stay that way.”
“So why choose me as your means of communication?”
“You have a lot of viewers. And you’re tough. The police can’t muffle you and put out some kind of story that saves their reputation. Quinn and his detectives. Really, they haven’t kept up.”
Minnie figured time was running out. This character was too smart to stay on the line long enough for his call to be traced. Better get to the point. “Okay. Now another question: why did you kill those women?”
“They had the devil in them.”
“Many of us do.”
“Actually, I wanted your viewers to know their city isn’t safe. I do as I please. Go where I please. Kill as I please.”
“Is it true that killers like you are really slaying their mothers over and over?” Keep this sicko on the line, even if it means insulting his mother.
“My mother was one of the kindest, gentlest women I have ever known.”
“Well, you’d say that.”
“And I’d tell you why, but it’s time for me to leave.”
“You say was. Is your mother dead?”
“How could she be, if I’m killing her over and over.”
“Who says you are?”
“Much of the media. Like you. Didn’t you just say that?”
“I don’t think so. I simply asked a question.”
“I think,” the killer said, with a soft laugh deep in his throat, “that you are trying to keep me on the line, talking as long as possible.”
“Not true! Believe me!”
“Check and see if your pants are on fire.”
Minnie actually found herself glancing down. “Freedom to kill,” the caller said. And was gone with the connection.
Freedom to kill?
Minnie had to make sure he was no longer there. “You never gave me your name,” she said inanely.
Her reply was silence.
“Your first victims were in alphabetical order,” Minnie said. “Is there a reason for that? Is there an A the police don’t know about? Should women whose names start with E be worried?”
Again, silence.
The director signaled for a commercial, then did a countdown from five. A spot for an underarm deodorant came on, a woman standing on a mountain peak with her arms spread wide. Eagles circled her.
“The police said it was true about the ‘Freedom to Kill’ line,” Hal said. “Our caller was the real killer.” He hugged himself as if he were cold. And he might have been, despite his unseasonable powder-blue sweater.
The director signaled that there was a phone call for Minnie.
She picked up, shooting a glance at the monitor. The deodorized woman was hang-gliding now, soaring with the eagles.
“This is Police Commissioner Harley Renz. You off the air?”
“We’re in a commercial break, Commissioner. Will be for another minute and twenty seconds.”
“Was that guy for real?”
“You tell me,” Minnie said.
“He knew about the ‘Freedom to Kill’ message, so we gotta assume he’s the killer.”
“You gonna be able to trace the call?” Minnie, still trolling for news.
“We already did. It came from somewhere in Times Square, and the phone’s one of those cheap toss-aways. It’s no doubt broken apart and dropped down a storm sewer, or some other place where we can never find it. Not that it would do much good if we did.”
“There might be fingerprints.”
“Not with this guy. He’s too careful to leave prints.”
“Can I quote you?”
“Can I prevent it?”
Minnie had to smile. “Well, no. It’s news. But I assure you the story is about the killer, not you.”
Renz wasn’t sure he liked that, but he hadn’t figured out yet how to use this latest development to promote himself.
“I’d love to talk to him some more,” Minnie said. “I’m sure I could get him to open up.”
“If he does call,” Renz said, “we want to be in on it from the get-go. And I want any contact of any kind between you and the killer to be taped. Or digitalized. Or whatever the hell it is you do. Then I want it to find its way to my desk, and fast.”
“Of course. We want the same thing. For the killer to be stopped. And for credit to go to the proper people. My show seems to be the way the killer has chosen to talk to his fans.”
“His what?”
“His public, I meant to say. The public. I’m sure you know what I mean, Commissioner. We have to face the fact that this case has captured public imagination. We here at Minnie Miner ASAP are a news organization. What we want out of this is a wider viewership so we can better inform people. Ratings. And of course for the killer to be caught.”
“By the by,” Renz said. “You did mention credit going to the proper people?”
“Of course. Such as yourself. And that entails exchanges of information. Facts.”
Renz was silent.
“Do we have a quid pro quo?” Minnie asked.
“We do. Only because I don’t have much choice.” They both knew that wasn’t true, but people on both ends of an agreement should be allowed their delusions.
“Fine,” Minnie said. “I look forward to talking and sharing with my new friends.”
“With friends like her—” Minnie heard Renz say, as he was lowering the phone and breaking their connection.
Probably by now, Minnie thought, the killer had shattered his disposable cell phone into as many fragments as possible.
The commercial break was over. Minnie thought she’d mull over her recent conversation with Renz and decide when, how and if she’d use it. There was no reason quid pro quo couldn’t simply be quid.
Minnie was back live.
“Wow! Wasn’t that something? Inside the mind of a serial killer. And we have good reason to believe that won’t be the last time the killer calls.
“Something special for you now, folks. We have a guest who believes serial killers can and do affect the stock market. He’s going to tell us how to take advantage of that phenomenon and, just as importantly, how and when to get off the gravy train.”
The gravy train, the killer thought. Where do you board that one?
32
“So who’s this Jesse Trummel?” Jody asked Carlie, as they had breakfasts of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee in a diner on Amsterdam. Someone i
n the kitchen had screwed up and burned some bacon, or maybe they’d done it as a ploy to increase customer appetites. If so, some genius had then put onions on the grill.
Carlie swallowed a bite of toast. “I assume you got his name from the Q&A case file.”
“Yeah. Quinn asked me about him. I know he’s a draftsman at Bold Designs. But I mean who is he?”
“A bit of a nerd, but not a bad guy.”
“Does he have the hots for you?”
“I’d have to say yes,” Carlie said. “For a while, he had it in his mind he was going to be my silent and secret protector.”
“Maybe jump out of the shadows and beat up your attacker, then you two could go from there directly to bed.”
Carlie smiled. “Something like that.”
Jody nibbled on a charred twist of bacon and studied her. “You like this guy?”
“I don’t hate him. But like I said, he’s sort of nerdy.”
“Nerdy can be sexy.”
“So the nerds would have us believe.” Carlie sipped coffee and checked the time on her smartphone. She’d have to get out of here in about ten minutes if she was going to be at work on time.
“Did you ever do anything to encourage him?” Jody asked.
Carlie sputtered and coughed, dribbling coffee but catching most of it with her wadded paper napkin. “Not a chance!”
“I think his photos make him look like a reasonably handsome guy.”
“Jesse? I don’t think so.”
Jody was grinning.
Carlie shrugged. “It’s an office crush, that’s all. You must’ve had that kind of experience. You see a guy as a friend, but he sees everything you do together as the beginning of a love affair right out of Casablanca.”
“My guys are more like out of Night of the Living Dead,” Jody said.
Carlie checked the time again on her phone, which she’d left lying on the table next to her water glass. “Whatever Jesse Trummel does, or however he feels, I’m gonna do this assignment for Bold Designs, then probably head back to California. The nutcases there are more at street level and not stacked up in tall buildings. I like it better that way.”
And Jody’s place in the family will be secured.
They had that same thought simultaneously, but neither woman voiced it.
“Does Trummel pretty much keep the same hours you do?” Jody asked.
“Yeah. It’s a nine-to-five job, occasionally with overtime.”
Jody thumbed through the notes she’d brought with her. She squinted rather than put on her reading glasses.
“I’ve already got his home address,” she said.
“Jesse’s?”
“Jesse’s. While the rest of Q&A is keeping tabs on you, I’m going to make myself useful by watching him.”
“Why?”
“To make sure he’s not still watching you.”
“I don’t think it’s a problem. He’s been warned.”
“So has the Lady Liberty Killer,” Jody said. “He gets warned every day.”
Four hours later, Fedderman approached Quinn, who was seated at his desk battling paperwork.
Quinn sensed Feds’s looming, unkempt presence and looked up. “Something?”
“I was keeping a loose tail on Carlie,” Fedderman said, “and found myself also tailing Jody.”
Quinn sighed, laid flat the paper he’d been about to read, and sat back in his chair. “Why does it have to get so complicated?”
“People,” Fedderman said. “They’re the problem.”
“Jody knows the plan, and knows we’ve got Carlie covered. So why is she following her?”
“She isn’t following Carlie. She’s following Jesse Trummel.”
“That kid who works at Bold Designs?”
“Yep. She followed him from Bold Designs to a Peruvian restaurant, where he ate alone. From there he walked south, into the Village. Went to a sex shop.”
Quinn was interested. “What kind of sex?”
“All kinds, really. He seemed particularly interested in leather bondage equipment.”
“For males or females?”
Fedderman rubbed his chin. “That’s kinda hard to say.”
“So what’d he buy?”
“Nothing. Just browsed for about fifteen minutes, then left. Went straight back to work.”
“Jody take all this in?”
“Yeah. She didn’t spot me. I kept an eye on her, though. Soon as Jesse left, Jody went into the shop and asked the clerk if he’d bought anything. A few minutes later she scrammed out of there and caught up with Trummel walking up Broadway. Timed it just right, and didn’t do anything that’d draw attention to herself. She’s pretty good, for somebody who’s never been trained to tail.”
“A born huntress,” Quinn said.
Fedderman said, “Well, yeah.” Maybe thinking of Pearl and the genetic pool. “Sal and Harold took over the watch on Carlie when I took off after Jody and Trummel. They’re still on it.”
“Good. This sicko has to be feeling the pressure.”
“According to Helen, anyway.”
“Helen knows pressure.”
But Fedderman wondered if she did. There weren’t too many cases of profilers being shot or stabbed in the course of an investigation.
“I been thinking,” Fedderman said. “Well, Penny’s been thinking, actually. She came up with an idea.”
Fedderman’s wife, Penny. Quinn thought that was just what this case needed, another wily female.
“So what’s Penny’s idea?” he asked.
Fedderman smiled, knowing what Quinn must be thinking. Leave the detection to the pros. If the normal tension between a cop and his or her spouse became too much of a burden, then the people involved had to learn to deal with their problems, or walk away from the relationship.
But Fedderman didn’t spout nonsense, and he didn’t launch into a long explanation of why his wife wanted him to go into some other business. One that didn’t involve guns and knives and the people who used them.
“We know why Carlie is the particular victim the killer wants,” Fedderman said. “She belongs to you, and in the killer’s mind, he and you are engaged in a deadly chess game for the championship of the universe.”
“More or less,” Quinn said.
“Penny thinks that maybe Helen should ask to be a guest on ASAP again. Minnie Miner would probably salivate at the chance to do another lopsided interview with her. Helen could twist the knife in the wound. That’s if we really want to yank this guy’s chain.”
“Which we do,” Quinn said, not at all minding the dueling metaphors.
Quinn thought it was a pretty good idea. He was wondering about the way to get the most out of it. Timing would be important.
“Tell Penny thanks,” Quinn said.
“Something else,” Fedderman said.
“Always, Feds.”
“I went back to that sex shop and talked to the clerk. When Jody was in there earlier, she bought a dog collar that was displayed with the S and M merchandise. Big black leather one, with spikes. She got a dog?”
“Cat,” Quinn said.
“Oh.”
Quinn thought, Good Lord!
33
Helen said, “Quinn sent me.”
She was in the Minnie Miner ASAP studio reception room with a wooden table and chairs on one side, and matching green armchairs and a walnut coffee table on the other. The air was cool but didn’t smell good, as if there were crossed electric wires sizzling somewhere. There were People magazines on the coffee table. On the walls were framed photographs of Minnie Miner smiling and interviewing famous guests on her show, or smiling and bracing herself against a stiff wind that had blown years ago, when she did the weather for one of the major networks. Or smiling and standing in front of fires or crime scenes or damage from earthquakes or tornadoes, when she was doing local news in the Midwest. Or simply smiling.
Minnie seemed pleased, but slightly suspicious.
; “Why Quinn sent me,” Helen said, “is he wants to make sure you understand a few things before I go on with you again, or before the killer calls you again. He thought I might be the best person to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“To the degree that it’s possible, I understand serial killers.”
“You’re awfully tall. You sure you never played basketball?”
“I’d remember,” Helen said. She was sprawled lanky and lean in one of the armchairs, smiling.
“I often ask people off-the-cuff questions like that,” Minnie said. “It surprises them. You never know what’s going to pop out.”
“Well, you’ve found out I can’t make free throws.”
“So what don’t I understand about serial killers?” Minnie asked.
“What the rest of us don’t understand. Why they kill.”
“I thought we’d settled that last time you were here. Their mothers mistreated them, right? So they’re killing substitute mothers over and over.”
“Often that’s the reason, and it seems to be with this killer. But at this point we can’t be sure. I’ve done this kind of thing before,” Helen said. “When he calls again, sort of let the killer determine where the conversation goes. He’ll forget that he needs to be cautious. He’ll make a slip. That one slip could mean the end of him.”
“Why don’t they simply kill their actual mothers?”
“Sometimes they do. Sometimes the actual mother reaches such iconic proportions that they’re afraid to try to kill her. She’s achieved, in their minds, immortality.”
“Or she’s already dead.”
“That, too,” Helen said. “You’ve done your research like a good journalist, but the knowledge we have isn’t always precise. The Lady Liberty statuettes, the manner in which those women were killed, do point to a maternal fixation. Why that is, we won’t know until we catch the killer. Or maybe we’ll never know. At a certain point, they often choose the violent way out. Suicide seems to them a logical conclusion, the completion of a dramatic arc.”
“As if they’re in a play.”
“They are in a play,” Helen said, “and now you’re in it, too.”
“You’re saying I’m in danger?”
“Oh, yes. The thing about this play is, he’s the director.”