Body of Lies

by Deirdre Savoy

  He hadn’t given up, and eventually he’d come to realize she had sort of a crush on him. He’d been careful not to encourage that, but in the end what did it matter? He’d cost her both her father and her innocence. In retrospect, she would have been better off without him.

  He settled on the sofa in the living room sofa, intending to watch the tail end of the news on one of the cable channels servicing the Bronx. Almost immediately the male of the anchor duo affected a somber expression.

  “Recapping our top story, Walter Thorpe, the so-called Gentleman Rapist, is being sought by police in connection with the Amazon Killer case. Police have already spoken with this woman, forensic psychologist Alexandra Waters ...”

  Zach tuned out the minute an unflattering picture of Alex replaced Thorpe’s mug shot on the screen. Damn. Who the hell had leaked that information to the press? His first thought was McKay, who hadn’t bothered to hide his disgruntlement, both at being replaced and that Thorpe’s name hadn’t gone public already.

  Had he taken it on himself to disseminate the information and impugn Alex in the process? From the tenor of the report it sounded as if Alex was either collaborating with the police or hiding something from them, neither of which was true. Or had Craig changed his mind? Zach doubted it. They’d spent the day tracking down leads on Thorpe without any success. But as Zach saw it, desperation had yet to set in. But he suspected whoever let out the information was on the force. No one on the outside could have known about Alex’s involvement. One thing he knew for certain, Alex hadn’t spilled the beans herself.

  Someone’s head was going to roll tomorrow when he found out who it was, even if it was the new boss. There had been no reason to give Alex’s name to the press except to embarrass her or perhaps coerce further cooperation. Neither motive was acceptable to him.

  Damn whoever it was. He could imagine how Alex must feel seeing herself on the eleven o’clock news. She had to figure that he’d known about the story beforehand and neglected to warn her about it. He had enough to make up for without adding more shit to the pile.

  For now, he’d have to live with that. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want anything to do with him except as it pertained to his case. She wasn’t thrilled about that either, but she’d put up with him on those terms. She wouldn’t appreciate him doing what it was in his mind to do—go see her and explain. She probably wouldn’t even open the door to him. There was nothing more he could do tonight. He might as well go to bed.

  As he passed Stevie’s room on the way to his own, he thought he heard a girlish giggle. He couldn’t see any light coming from underneath the door, but that didn’t mean anything. He knocked on the door. “Go to sleep.”

  Silence.

  That didn’t fool him either. He waited a moment, listening, then heard Stevie say in a hushed voice, “It’s okay. I think he’s gone,” presumably to whoever was on the other end of her cell phone line.

  “Is this somebody’s idea of a sick fucking joke?” Captain Craig strode into the office space at the corner of the second floor that had been allotted to detectives working the case. They’d been accorded a small open area and a few desks, phones, computers, plus a small office and an interrogation room cum conference room.

  Zach looked up from his own paper and focused on Craig. Rumor had it that the captain’s ruddy complexion was owed to a bad case of rosacia or too many martini breakfasts depending on who you spoke to. Today the cause of the redness in his complexion was clear: anger.

  Craig slapped the newspaper down on the nearest desk, scanning the faces in the room. “If there’s anything anyone needs to tell me, I’ll be in the office. Oh, and somebody find me Walter Thorpe.”

  As the captain stalked away, several heads, including Zach’s, turned in McKay’s direction. He stared back with an expression that spoke more of indignation than of guilt. Despite McKay’s disgruntlement, Zach didn’t think he was responsible. He was too much of a company player, too ambitious to risk being censured for something like this. Beside that, the guy just didn’t have the balls.

  But too much of the information was accurate and known only to the police to have been anything but an inside job. But if not McKay, then who?

  Regardless of what McKay thought, Craig pulled the plug for a variety of reasons, all of which made sense to Zach: The foremost of which was that no one had yet determined what reaction seeing his name in the press would have on Thorpe. Would he revel in it or would it force him farther underground? Some of these guys craved publicity and would go to outrageous lengths to perpetuate it—including killing again.

  Smitty and one of the other guys trained by the FBI had come up with a profile. It contained the usual white male between thirty and forty, yadda, yadda, but any profile was flawed in that it could tell you who but not why. It could tell you, as this one did, that the subject was highly organized and rigidly ritualistic, but not what prompted the ritual. Nor could it explain the killer’s absence from the scene. From late June to the middle of November, there had been a killing roughly every twenty-eight days, then two months with nothing. Now he’d picked up again on a date consistent with his original timeline.

  Nor could it get inside this guy’s head. The profile was a tool more of the criminalist than the psychologist, and certainly not the province of psychic faith healers or whatever like you saw on TV. It was a tool, but Zach wondered if they would ever catch this guy if they didn’t know what made him tick.

  Zach looked over at Smitty, who was seated at the desk beside his.

  Smitty hung up from a call and grinned. “That was one Jack Meoff, who called to inform me that Thorpe was at that moment getting a blow job from my imaginary sister.” Smitty shook his head. “Damn kids.”

  “Want to get out of here?”

  “You got something?”

  Zach shrugged, hoping Smitty would get his message.

  Smitty grinned again. “I think I’m beginning to like you.”

  Zach chuckled as both he and Smitty rose and put on their jackets. Outside, Zach breathed in the cool morning air. Overnight the temperature had risen substantially, promising spring wouldn’t be too far off. Neither he nor Smitty had been assigned a car, so they took his own.

  “So, where are we heading?” Smitty asked as Zach pulled away from the curb. “Sammy’s daughter’s office isn’t far from here.”

  Zach slid a glance toward Smitty. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, too.”

  “Is this a professional visit or is something else going on between you two?”

  “No.” That wasn’t a complete answer, but it seemed to mollify Smitty. Or at least he didn’t say anything for a few moments. True, he did want to see Alex. He wanted to make sure she was all right. But he had another reason as well. Despite what flimsy evidence they had to the contrary, he was beginning to believe her that Thorpe wasn’t involved.

  He’d spent the small hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep checking her out online. She’d worked on some pretty high-profile cases, almost always for the prosecution. He’d even heard of some of the cases, but the change in last names had thrown him. He’d assumed the Dr. Alex Waters in question was a man.

  She’d once been on the staff of Bellevue Hospital, an assistant professor of psychiatry specializing in forensic psychology. He wondered whether she’d given up that position or been forced to after the debacle with Thorpe. Either way, she had the chops to help him get inside this killer’s mind, whether it proved to be Thorpe or not.

  “She’s grown up to be a fine-looking woman,” Smitty said.

  Zach darted another glance at Smitty. His face bore a benign expression, as if he were just making conversation. Zach wasn’t that stupid. But he couldn’t argue with Smitty. Part of the reason he could dismiss her so easily as a former conquest when he saw her in the conference room was that he could have imagined himself with her. He could still imagine it, and had over the last couple of days. But at the moment, his libido didn’t e
nter the picture, not when he could barely get her to speak to him. Part of the reason he’d brought Smitty along was so that she would see this visit as an official one and not throw him out before he got a chance to speak with her.

  To Smitty he said, “What’s your point? You looking for a date?” That came out with a little more of an edge than Zach intended, but what the hell?

  “Not me. I leave those sweet young things alone. I’ve got a sweet old thing at home that would kill me dead.”

  Zach chuckled. “I’m just trying to do what McKay should have done in the first place. Figure out why she doesn’t think Thorpe is the guy.”

  “You believe her?”

  “Maybe.”

  Zach turned onto Tremont Avenue at the corner where Alex’s building sat. There was a crowd outside looking bored that he immediately recognized as reporters: three television news vans and at least twenty people. Damn. He could imagine how much Alex liked this. He drove past the vans to the entrance to the parking lot on the other side of the building and pulled into a spot near the entrance.

  In the short time it took him to park, the reporters had galvanized themselves and surrounded the car. Though they were in an unmarked car and neither his face nor Smitty’s had made the news, those savvy enough recognized the police when they saw them and peppered them with questions, mostly regarding what information Alex might be hiding from them. Zach ignored all of them, but his mood soured, knowing Alex must have gone through the same gauntlet herself that morning.

  The first time he’d come here, the office had been quiet but the small waiting room had been full. Now it was just quiet. The receptionist stood as they approached. She recognized the police when she saw them, too and apparently she wasn’t happy about it.

  He stepped up to the desk. “Is Dr. Waters in?”

  “She’s in, but I doubt she wants to see you.”

  He doubted that, too, not that that would stop him. He was about to ask her to let Alex know he was here when she walked into the reception area. She was looking down at a folder. She stopped abruptly when she looked up and saw him.

  A frown turned her lips down and her eyes narrowed. Her gaze went from him to Smitty beside him and back. “Unless you’re here to clear that pack of vultures off my front door, I have nothing to say.”

  He could understand her anger, but that didn’t change anything. “Has it been that bad all morning?”

  “No. Some of them gave up and went home.” She sighed and he could feel the exasperation in her. “Let’s make this quick.”

  She turned back toward her office. At the same time Smitty gestured toward the bathroom in the corner with his chin and rubbed his hands. Zach nodded. He hadn’t noticed Smitty had a cleanliness fetish before and doubted that was his motive now. He was deliberately giving him time alone with Alex. He didn’t know whether to appreciate the gesture or not.

  When they reached her office she turned to face him and motioned for him to enter first. “Where’s your friend?”

  He stepped inside her office but didn’t go far. “Bathroom.”

  She shrugged, walking around her to lean her backside against her desk with her arms folded. “What’s on the agenda today? Shredding my reputation or driving off my patients?”

  “Neither. I need your help with something.”

  “I already told you that there’s nothing I can tell you about Thorpe.”

  “Not him. Not exactly. I want your opinion on the profile we’ve developed. This is one sick bastard. I want to get inside his head.”

  “Then you believe me that it wasn’t Thorpe?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She gave him a hard assessing look. After a moment she extended her hand toward the folder he carried. “What did you bring me?”

  He gave her the folder. It contained the profile, photos from each crime scene, a couple of the autopsy reports, and assorted notes. She took the file, sat on the edge of the sofa, and spread out the information on the low glass coffee table in front of her. “Does McKay know you’re showing this to me?” she asked without looking at him.

  “McKay isn’t in charge anymore.” He hadn’t cleared it with the new boss either, but since she didn’t ask he didn’t tell.

  “You’re right. This is one sick puppy. He abducts these girls, beats them, cuts off their breast, rapes them, and then strangles them. Is that the order of things?”

  “It appears to be. Then he dumps them along the same stretch on the service road to the New England Thruway.”

  She nodded abstractedly, her attention still on the file. “There’s a legal pad on my desk. Would you hand it to me.”

  He found it and gave it to her, then came around the other side of the sofa to sit next to her. Automatically she moved over a little, either to make room for him or to avoid him. Either way, the subtle scent of a floral perfume reached him.

  Since she wasn’t paying him any attention, he leaned back, resting an arm along the back of the sofa, watching her. She leaned forward to write something he couldn’t see on the pad. In that position, her skirt had hiked up, displaying her long legs to midthigh. She’d always had an abundance of jet-black hair, even in her ponytail days. She brushed the mass of it back over her shoulder as if it were a bother. In that instant, he would have liked nothing more than to tame it for her with his own hands.

  To distract himself, he asked, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  She glanced back at him over her shoulder, one hand holding down her hair so that she could see him. She said nothing, but her expression suggested he had to be out of his mind to attempt it.

  “Where did the Waters come from?”

  Her brow furrowed. “What waters?”

  “Your last name.”

  “Oh.” She turned back to what she was doing. “My married name.”

  Since he could see from there that she didn’t wear a ring, he asked, “What happened?”

  “The usual nonsense. I wanted a child; he was one.”

  That sounded like a pat answer, the one she reserved for nosy people butting in. He didn’t believe her, but he couldn’t get into that now, as Smitty chose that moment to make an appearance.

  He sat in one of the seats opposite the sofa. “Any progress?”

  Alex sat back and looked at Smitty. “I don’t know about progress, but I do have several questions.”

  “Fire away,” Smitty said.

  She picked up her pad and surveyed it. “First, was it definitively established that these girls were prostitutes from the area?”

  “I don’t know,” Zach answered honestly. He knew a couple of the girls were spotted in the area by witnesses. And when you found a woman with both PID, an inflammation of the cervix caused by multiple sex partners, as well as track marks or drugs in her system, the first thought was pro. “Does that make a difference?”

  She shrugged. “I find it interesting that two of his victims were white. That strikes me as interesting, considering that the neighborhood is predominantly black. Even the hookers I’ve seen over there have all been black. So where did the white girls come from?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. The assumption that the girls had been local prostitutes predated his involvement in the case. He’d simply taken it as a given. “What else?”

  “Assuming for a moment the facts are right, you’ve got one bold killer on your hands. He hunts the same place he dumps. Even if the local police are only halfway competent they’ve got to figure they’ll increase patrols in the area, making it harder to both troll and to dump. That’s part of his game. He probably thinks he’s very clever to outwit you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Think about it. You find a middle fingerprint under the seat. From what I’ve read, you didn’t find a single print in any of the cars except those belonging to the owners. He didn’t wipe the cars down, so that meant he must have been wearing gloves. What are the odds he took them off to adjust the seat? H
e was sending the police a giant fuck you.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. He glanced at Smitty, who gazed back at him with a look that said Didn’t I tell you she was something? He didn’t need Smitty to remind him of that.

  She brushed her hair over her shoulder. “This last murder is different in other ways, as well. If you look at the other girls’ body type, they’re all well endowed. This last girl is much thinner. Has her autopsy been done yet?”

  “This afternoon. Why?”

  “I’m betting the killer knew she wasn’t a pro.”

  “Why?”

  She dug through the stack of photos until she found the one she wanted, a picture of the girl’s car. She passed it to Smitty “Was this her father’s car?”

  “Her mother’s.”

  “How many hookers do you know who drive around with MD plates?”

  Smitty handed him the photo. He’d noticed the plates before, but since it had been assumed the killer had mistaken her for a hooker, the car hadn’t come into it. But if Thorpe or whoever had followed her from the gas station, he would have known. As he understood it, the gas station attendant that night, an eighteen-year-old boy, hadn’t identified Thorpe as being in the station that night. Zach didn’t know if he’d been asked about seeing the station wagon.

  One thing he did know was that there’d been far more assumption than police work so far in this investigation.

  Zack asked the next logical question. “So if she knew she wasn’t a hooker, why did he pick her up?”

  “This guy’s a joker. What fun is there playing a game if you’re the only one who knows you’re playing? The police weren’t paying him any attention so he decided to up the ante. Even if she was merely a doctor’s daughter, her death was sure to draw more attention than a hooker’s.”

  Zach sighed. Well, he had the answer to his question of whether the killer would shun the limelight or enjoy it. If Alex was right, he’d sought it out. That brought Alex to another question: Now that the killer had their attention, what did he plan to do with it?