American Devil th&dl-1

by Oliver Stark

  ‘Hey, this is your thing, that’s cool. I ain’t judgemental. I like a man with quirks. I can do quirks. I myself like to pee with my eyes closed just to see if I can keep to the bowl. It’s a challenge thing. And come the power cut, I’m the ladies’ best friend. Precision is my thing. So you know, I get this whole quirk thing.’

  ‘It’s not a quirk.’

  ‘It is a quirk, Tom. You’re sitting in someone else’s living room with a bunch of other folk saying nothing and speaking to Mr Invisible. That’s a mighty big quirk. Might be the biggest of them all.’

  Tom smiled at his buddy. ‘It’s good to see you, Eddie.’

  ‘That’s better, man. Now give me some chest hair.’ Eddie wrapped his arms round Harper and pressed his body in tight. ‘God, I’ve missed you, man.’

  Harper pushed him away. ‘Enough.’

  ‘I’m an emotional man, Harps, I don’t have to hide it. I love you, brother. Look at you. Can I say something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look like shit. Don’t you eat? Sleep? Wash? Fuck, man, you can’t short cut the basics.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘You been here a few times since, you know, since she walked out. I look out for you, watch your back. I was worried.’

  ‘Following me?’

  ‘Not so much following. I see it as guarding and protecting. You need a guardian angel, Harps.’

  ‘If you’re my angel, then I’m in real trouble, so how about you shut up and let me sort this out with the man upstairs.’

  ‘Don’t be asking for a replacement, Harps. I’ll sit nice and tight here, quiet as you like.’

  They paused. Eddie looked all around him. The silence lasted four seconds. ‘Harps, there ain’t no hot chicks in here. You should go gospel. I’m telling you, I nearly went evangelical myself when I saw what they got stashed in them Harlem churches. Harlem Gold. I’m telling you!’

  Harper laughed. ‘Enough, Eddie. They can hear you.’

  ‘Come and talk to me outside or else I will not shut my mouth and I make that pledge in the eyes of Mr Invisible.’

  Harper was getting several looks from other people in the cathedral. He stood up and took Eddie outside. Out on the sidewalk, Eddie breathed a huge sigh. ‘Good God, Tom, that was hard for me, being so quiet.’

  ‘You weren’t.’

  ‘Yeah, but even the notion that I might be expected to be silent freaked me out. That’s why I could never get school either. I’ve got to talk to know what’s what.’

  The two men looked at each other a moment, taking in the separation of the past few months. Eddie’s tone lowered. ‘You know my feelings, Tom. I’m sorry about Lisa.’

  ‘Thanks. I mean it.’

  ‘No problem. I tried to talk to her. She wouldn’t see me.’

  ‘It helped to know you tried.’

  ‘Her loss.’

  ‘I’m moving on, you know. Lafayette tell you?’

  ‘Yeah, but he also tells me you looked over the scene at Ward’s Island. And I know Tom Harper… that’s not going to leave you alone. I bet it’s sitting in your fat head just driving you mad.’

  ‘That’s just about right. These are bad kills. Did Lafayette put you on Blue Team?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Is it as loose as it looks?’

  ‘Yeah, it is, and you were right about the Ward’s Island girl. Another rich girl who won’t get a chance to spend her inheritance. Her name’s Grace Frazer. She was knocked to the floor next to her car in the city, then somehow dragged off the street and taken to Ward’s. You were right about the camera too. They found tripod marks in the grass above the rocks.’

  Harper suddenly clocked a look in Kasper’s eye. ‘Aw shit, Eddie. Lafayette sent you, didn’t he?’

  ‘No, Tom, it’s worse than that.’ Eddie’s face was stone cold.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just got called in. They found another body down in a parking lot right in the heart of the city.’

  ‘Another body already?’

  ‘I wanted to see if you’d ride with me. We need you, Harps. We really need you.’

  ‘Two corpses in two days,’ said Harper. He glanced back to the cathedral. Life, death and the afterlife all in a moment. ‘Lafayette wants me to see a shrink.’

  ‘Sounds like you need to, speaking to invisible people and forgetting to wash. You’re just like those Ward’s Island psychos I’ve been interviewing all day.’ He paused and looked at Harper. ‘Come on, Tom, let’s do what you do best.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘End horror stories.’

  Chapter Eight

  Upper East Side Crime Scene

  November 16, 6.45 p.m.

  Tom Harper and Eddie Kasper drove in silence from the cathedral into the wealth and privilege of the Upper East Side. Harper looked up at the darkening sky between the towering buildings. His greatest memory was lying beside Lisa on the side of a razor-edged ridge with a view of the stars, watching the flocks of migrating raptors in the dark. Some things were still magical in the world; it was just getting harder and harder to find them.

  The rain clouds had gathered by the time they turned on to East 82nd Street. The two detectives felt the strain of the news as the car lurched through the pull and push of rush hour traffic. Finding a third dead girl so soon was highly unusual, even with the worst of killers. Harper wasn’t sure what they were dealing with. He felt his own ignorance and chastised himself for not taking up Lafayette’s offer the day before. Up ahead, they saw the familiar parade of police cars beating out a frenzy of red and blue lights.

  As Eddie pulled up to the kerb, Harper took a quick look at his cell phone. No messages — there never were any more. He closed his eyes momentarily. Life must go on.

  They jumped out on to the street. It was a buzz of activity at the scene and the first officers had managed to close off both ends of East 82nd. The Crime Scene Unit had secured the area with blue screens and put up six strong floodlights that filled the air with an unreal glow and caused steam to rise from the damp sidewalk.

  Harper and Kasper found the entrance to the car park and hurried down to the underground lot. Their footsteps echoed against the bare concrete walls and they could hear the low murmurings of the cops from two levels below.

  Just beyond the entrance, Harper’s eyes scanned left and right, up and down. He noticed that the parking lot had limited exit points, maximum exposure, valet parking and cameras at every corner, making it a very visible and difficult spot to escape from. This killer wasn’t afraid to choose a high-risk location. Except with crimes of passion and anger, which could happen wherever those emotions exploded, such openness was highly unusual.

  ‘If this is the same killer he’s changing quickly,’ he said to Kasper as they moved down through the dark underground lot. ‘This is a far cry from the lonely waters of Ward’s Island.’

  ‘Well, we’re about to find out.’ Eddie pointed towards the rest of Blue Team gathered around a metal railing at the far end of Level 2.

  Nate Williamson and Detective Mark Garcia were standing apart from the others, talking closely. Williamson was big and strong, but his hair had mostly left him; Mark Garcia was handsome and well dressed, and smelt of cologne. Together they looked like a veteran cop with a pimp informer. Harper walked across. He and Williamson had some history. Harper was given the lead on the Romario case after Williamson had got nowhere with it.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Harper asked. ‘What’s the situation down here?’

  ‘Fuck me, what’s brought you back from the dead?’ said Williamson. ‘Jarvis dropped his charge or what?’

  Harper shrugged. ‘Don’t know about that. I’ve just been asked to take a look. See if I can help out.’

  ‘Well, we need all the help we can get,’ said Williamson, and put out his hand.

  Harper took it and shook. ‘You’re not pissed with me?’

  ‘I’m three weeks off retirement. Let sl
eeping dogs lie is what I say. How about it?’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Nate, but you know they won’t let you retire in the middle of a case.’

  ‘That’s the only reason I’m happy to see your ugly face, Harper. I’m hoping you can get me a quick arrest and a ticket for the Bahamas.’

  Kasper had a look of surprise on his face. ‘Hey, this isn’t a love-in. What’s the story here, Garcia?’

  Mark Garcia leaned over a steel railing and pointed. ‘There’s a body in the arch at the far end. White girl, early twenties. Similar to the girl on Ward’s Island, but this one’s worse. A whole lot worse.’

  ‘What kind of injuries?’ Harper asked.

  Williamson jumped in. ‘It’s like this. Victim’s unidentified at present. She’s been stripped, probably raped and cut like the others. It’s our very own Jack the Ripper.’

  Their faces lit by the overhead fluorescent tubes, Tom Harper and Eddie Kasper stepped across to the large brick arch. The body was at the base of three steep steps that led to an old metal service door. Harper ran his hand over the worn curved tread on the top step and then looked down at the body.

  It didn’t matter how often you’d stared at the aftermath of violence, it always took your breath away. The victim’s pale corpse was lying flat on the wet concrete, half under the arch, the skin of her abdomen and chest peeled back on either side of her torso as if she was on display in some sidewalk anatomy class that had been suddenly abandoned.

  Harper took his time looking at the corpse. It was hard to see a human being turned into this mess, but he tried to see through it, to notice what was logical about the death scene and what stood out. At this scene, a lot stood out.

  Eddie moved across to Tom, who crouched by the body and stared at the woman’s bloodied face. Her eyes were intact this time but it was the same killer. Harper saw that right away.

  ‘What’s your take, boss?’ said Eddie.

  ‘No idea yet. Poor girl. She went through a helluva lot of fear and pain. That’s all I got. Give me a moment, Eddie.’

  They looked down at the naked body again. It remained horribly still. The harsh fluorescent lights of the underground garage lent the corpse a greenish glow. The only movement was a couple of insects buzzing around her chest. Harper thought it looked like the killer had opened up her torso for a reason. Another trophy. Not only that, but he wanted everyone to see what he’d taken. Harper looked up at his partner. ‘The girl’s heart is missing,’ he said.

  Eddie walked away. It was too much to think about. Alone, Harper sat on the bottom step and looked at the corpse. So what happened to you? Her hands were so caked in blood that he couldn’t tell if she’d put up a fight or not. Did you come down here of your own free will? What did he do? Threaten you with his knife to keep quiet and go along with his plans? Did he make you undress — promise to let you go? Or did he sap you and drag you here while you were out cold? Did you know this bastard?

  Harper looked carefully at the marks on the floor. The ground in the arch was wet from a leak that seemed to come from a crack in the concrete above. There was a layer of black carbon from traffic fumes which scuffed up easily and left light marks. Harper looked at the pattern of marks at the bottom of the steps. Two long straight lines extended about forty centimetres from the bottom of the step. Heel marks as the killer had dragged his victim across the ground holding her upper body. That meant he’d probably sapped her. Harper saw another set of marks. Three oblong shapes scratched around as if looking for the right spot. The tripod, no doubt. Whoever it was, he had filmed or photographed these gruesome final scenes.

  Harper continued to think it through. He hit you and dragged you to the arch. Then he turned you. The heel marks twist and then stop. He laid you flat out here, half in view. Why? Why leave your body visible? Wasn’t that dangerous? Why not pull you all under the arch? Was that because he wanted to see what he was doing? Needs the buzz of seeing your face as he hurt you?

  Harper looked carefully for any other scuff marks. There were none. He looked at the shallow puddles of blood that had pooled across the concrete. He peered into the darkness of the arch with a flashlight. More blood was thick across the back wall and a few drips hung above him. Harper was no blood-pattern expert, but the arterial spray was unmistakable. The killer would’ve left the scene covered in her blood. There were flecks of blood-covered paint under her fingernails and scratch marks at the base of the wall. He raped you and mutilated you out here in the light while you were semi-conscious, then pulled you inside.

  Harper leaned across to the wall. The scratch marks were all in the same place. How did he keep your arms from moving? He’d held her down, somehow. Harper imagined the scene, letting the images pass through his mind as a mass of sudden, bloody fragments. He had his knees on your arms as he cut you, didn’t he? He sat there, muffling your screams and watching you real close.

  It was nearly an hour before Harper finally emerged to allow the Crime Scene Unit to get the body bagged and out to the lab. He was just leaving when he spotted something else. It was easy to miss, written faintly in yellow chalk with part of the lettering removed by the dripping from the ledge above. He couldn’t read it as it was, so he called the photographer down to get some good shots. Then he went back to the team.

  ‘So what does the clairvoyant say?’ said Williamson with a sneer that showed off his gums.

  ‘She was tortured to death down there while shoppers were returning to their cars.’ Harper looked at Williamson hard. ‘It’s unbelievable.’

  Nate Williamson felt it too. ‘No ligature this time. She didn’t survive the surgery, is my guess.’

  Harper nodded his head. ‘Yeah, I agree. He hit an artery and it will have killed her more quickly, thank God. But listen, the arch down there is large enough to conceal the body, if he’d wanted to. But he hasn’t, so there’s something important to him in how he’s left her, half in and half out. Visible.’

  ‘He might’ve been interrupted,’ said Williamson.

  ‘Yeah. Or he wanted the body found. I think maybe he wanted it found just like it was — posed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean it looks like he’s been particular in how he’s left her and how he’s opened her up.’

  ‘Particular, as in flat on her back? How else is he going to leave her?’

  ‘Particular, as in…’ Harper took another look over the edge of the railings. He could see her head in a circle of blood and the flaps of skin stretched out beside her. ‘He’s showing us something. The missing heart. I don’t know yet. Give me time. What’s the Medical Examiner say?’

  ‘He thinks he’s used something like a filleting knife and some kind of bone shears — not the kind of thing you carry around in your pocket. Definitely premeditated.’

  ‘Any witnesses? Anyone hear anything?’

  ‘We’ve got near thirty officers from Nineteenth and Twenty-fifth going round the blocks, but nothing yet.’

  ‘How do you read it, Harps?’ Eddie said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘It’s not spontaneous. It was planned. He humiliates and likes hurting. He’s posed the body. It looks to me that he’s got the whole thing figured out — where he kills, how he kills, how he escapes. He’s been dreaming this a long time. My take on the victim is that she’s just like the others. She’s rich.’

  ‘And how can you tell that?’ Williamson asked.

  ‘She’s got a half-carat diamond in each ear, she’s had a nose job, her hands and feet are unused to work, and she looks like she spent most of her life in a gym.’

  An hour later the scene was a buzz of police activity. NYPD’s Crime Scene Unit was fast, thorough and precise. Staffed, unlike some CSUs, with police detectives — they knew the importance of speed.

  The next twelve hours were crucial. If they got a quick lead, they might be able to run this killer down before he got to dispose of his bloody clothes and put his trophies away. Williamson reckoned that he had a car and
would put her clothes in the trunk and then maybe leave them until the heat calmed down — but that was a long shot.

  Harper stayed at the scene and sat on the low wall at the edge of the lot. He pulled out his sketch pad. A sleek dark greckle stared across the page from a couple of days earlier at the Ramble. He turned over and drew the crime scene with a few quick lines. The dead woman appeared on the page in front of him. Thoughts of Lisa flittered into his mind but he stopped himself. The imagination could be a cruel thing. He focused on the sketch. Without the shock-red blood and bruising, she looked serene — she was positioned with her arms across her pudenda like a Renaissance nude, the butterfly wings either side of her, strange and otherworldly.

  What was he doing, this maniac killer? The posing was important. Harper knew that much. It was an act of communication. He was saying something. As yet, Harper didn’t speak the killer’s language. But something was happening. This was the second kill in two days. His rate was escalating dramatically. Why? Was it some kind of kill frenzy? Time would tell.

  ‘Hey, Harper!’ a voice at the far end of the parking lot called out. Harper looked up and saw the tall, thin figure of Eddie Kasper, dressed in his low-slung pants and bubble jacket, his hair braided tight to his scalp.

  ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘It’s just like old times, ain’t it?’

  Chapter Nine

  The Station House

  November 16, 9.14 p.m.

  Harper had a quick decision to make if he was going to make a difference to the case. He drove straight from the parking lot back to the precinct, the mass of information from the crime scene turning in his mind. He needed to know the deal.

  Captain Lafayette was not in his office. He was down in the gym, sweating out his frustrations. He’d been working round the clock on the case, trying to get the breakthrough from Blue Team while keeping the executives from breathing down everyone’s necks, but nothing was biting.

  He’d left a message for Harper to go down to the gym if he turned up. Tom Harper was the one hope he had of turning down the heat, and talking to Kasper had been his last-ditch effort to pull him into the case.