by Oliver Stark
Harper took a step across the threshold. ‘Can we speak, please, Miss Nash? Lives might depend on it.’
‘I told you! Get the fuck out of my apartment!’ Erin screamed. ‘How fucking dare you!’ Her hand rose instinctively as Harper stepped towards her. She was cat-like, good at self-preservation and good at lashing out. She hit Tom hard across the face.
That was the second thing he wasn’t expecting. This wasn’t going well. As a cop, he didn’t ever want to meet the unexpected so he thought things through. He hadn’t thought any of this through. Not a single thing.
Tom’s reaction was automatic. Eleven years of police work dealing with dangerous criminals left no room for thought. He had her wrist in a tight grip and she was on the floor. The two bones in her forearm moved one over the other and then hit the point where there was no more give.
This was the point where movement translated into pain. In less than a half-second Erin Nash was on her knees, her right arm held firmly above her by Tom, her chest cavity heaving. It was a basic arrest technique, but she wasn’t under arrest and he had no right to be in her apartment.
Tom released her arm and stepped back. ‘You hit a cop, he’ll disarm you. Sorry, Miss Nash.’
She looked up at him and rubbed her wrist. ‘Get the fuck out of here! How the hell do I know who you are? You haven’t even shown me your shield.’
‘Who were you expecting, Erin? Your source? Look, there’s a killer out there and we need to know everything you got.’
‘Do you think I’d give up access to my exclusive stories because some thug came calling? Grow up, Detective. People got a right to know what you’re not telling them. It’s a big bad world out there, and we all gotta get by. This is my moment.’
‘This isn’t some game. Real women are getting killed. Your source knows something. If you stand in the way of this investigation, we’ll throw everything at you.’
‘Can I get my notebook, so that I can write down what you say when you’re intimidating, harassing and threatening me? It’s going to make a great sub-story. What was your name again?’
‘Fuck you,’ said Tom. ‘I just want a name. Who is it? Is it a cop? Someone from the coroner’s office? Some wife of one of the team? Give it up.’
‘I’ll tell you who it is, it’s my fairy godmother and she’s just sealed my reputation. What are you offering me? Moral satisfaction? Get real, Detective.’
Erin Nash was still not afraid. She had a reporter’s lack of fear and, deeper still, the sense of a story. It was even half forming in her mind. ‘Hero Cop Knocked Me to the Floor and Threatened Me.’
Tom had nowhere else to go. He saw the glint in her eye and knew this was a battle he couldn’t win. ‘If you get a change of heart, call me. My name is Tom Harper.’ He backed away from her.
‘What? Lost your balls?’ she called out.
‘You don’t mind that your story just kicked a house-sized hole in our investigation? We had a means to find out who was telling us the truth and who was lying. Now we got to spend double the time on every witness and confession. You’ve just given this killer a two-week lead.’
‘If a few hundred words can do that to your investigation, I’d question your approach. Sounds like it’s already full of holes.’
Tom knew there was nothing to say. She had out-thought him. Beaten him. But that last line was too much. He took a step towards her, his face intense with emotion. ‘You aren’t worth the trouble,’ he said. ‘You’ve fucked things up enough. But we’ll be back with a warrant and we’ll tear this place to pieces.’
‘You know that won’t work. What I reported is a matter of record, isn’t it? It’s in your reports. What you going to get a warrant for? Telling the truth?’
‘You need to think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.’
‘Nice little speech. Now get the hell out of here.’
Tom turned and walked out. He’d just have to hope there was some part of her that was still human, but he doubted it.
Chapter Nineteen
Yorkville
November 18, 8.48 p.m.
Jessica Pascal nodded and sipped slowly from her vodka and cranberry juice. Her eyes were calm but her heart was racing — she had just realized that the man sitting across from her was going to kill her.
From the outset, Jessica had known that there was something not quite right about her date, but she’d only just realized why. He was too good to be true. She felt caught in a way that she’d never experienced before and all she could do was watch him and hope. When would he realize that she knew? Did he know already? What if she got up to go to the bathroom and made a run for it?
What did he want from her? She had liked him anyway. If it was about sex, why force it? She’d made it clear that she liked him, hadn’t she? She hadn’t ever felt that before. Never.
The ice in her glass had long ago melted. Jessica was now scared deep inside — a white fear that shut out everything else. She felt it somewhere so primal that she didn’t even recognize what it was at first.
He was talking and talking, though. His ideas getting crazier and crazier.
Jessica listened and nodded attentively. Her hands clasped the cold glass. It was hard to concentrate on exactly what he was saying.
The man in the black suit and white shirt had been charming and funny too. She had had the best time. There was no way, otherwise, that she’d have invited him up to her apartment. And anyway, he’d been reluctant, hadn’t he? She’d had to ask him if he wanted to come in for a cup of coffee. That’s how you did it, right? Didn’t mean she was promising anything. She just wanted his company a little longer. Life should be happy, right? We should trust people, right?
‘Right!’ he’d said, flashing a knowing look.
They’d gone in. He locked the apartment door. Yes, she’d thought that was odd. He turned and locked all three locks — the double cylinder deadbolt, the vertical deadbolt and the sliding bolt.
‘It’s a rough neighbourhood,’ he said.
Was she just feeling too distracted to notice? She’d made the vodka cranberries, lowered the lights, put Philip Glass on the stereo and for good measure even put on the ambi-light- which glowed in various seductive shades and gradually moved across the spectrum.
He was now bathed in green. She was definitely scared.
When did it hit her? He didn’t make a move on her at all. He could’ve sat next to her on the long red sofa her parents had bought her as a leaving home present, but he chose the black fake-leather armchair. Maybe he was just trying not to be presumptuous. He’s shy, she thought. I like that. Just like me.
She was drinking and they were chatting about… what was it? Art. That was it. He looked at her print of Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus — a painting she just absolutely loved — and was telling her about the artist. She knew next to nothing about the artist. She just loved the erotically charged nude lying seductive and self-assured in a mystical landscape.
‘He was an enigma,’ her date had said. ‘His name was Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco. Only six works are fully attributed to him.’
She had flip-flopped at that one. Speaking Italian! A sudden shudder of electric pulses had shot up and down her spine. ‘What you say his name is again?’
He’d smiled. He was dark-eyed with dark eyebrows and dark hair streaked with grey. Glamorous looks, great smile and confident. He looked at her directly. ‘Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco.’
Yeah, that was it all right! That hit the spot. Now ravish me, she was thinking. She couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was the vodka. She was thinking: Castelfranco me right up against the wall. It must’ve been the vodka speaking. Something was getting her giddy.
But he didn’t move. He continued to stare at her. She laughed, but he just stared. Suddenly it was disconcerting.
‘You can stop looking now,’ she said. ‘I’m a shy girl at heart. You might not believe it, but I am.’
‘Why? Does it make you feel
uncomfortable being looked at?’
She looked back at him in silence. Her knees pressed together.
That was it, wasn’t it? Where it changed? He had changed. The Prince Charming had somehow evaporated in that stubborn, intense stare. She could see his eyes. But his eyes weren’t full of lust. They were quite cold. He was observing her second by second as her simple open-eyed horniness slowly faded to incomprehension and then, as he still wouldn’t avert his gaze, to fear.
That’s what he wanted all along. He wanted to see fear in her eyes, not lust.
‘Weren’t you making sheep’s eyes at me, Jessica? Didn’t you flash that smile at the church? Didn’t you invite me up here? What were you anticipating? A nice Baptist girl like yourself. Girls like you look like butter wouldn’t melt, but then here we are — and all on a first date. You know what that makes you?’
She shook her head.
‘A whore, Jessica.’
The killer felt a twinge. They were locked in her apartment. It was many hours before dawn and there were things he wanted to do that she would not consent to.
Jessica was just realizing that she didn’t know him at all. He’d come on to her at the Baptist church, smiled, made her laugh out loud.
As she stared, still holding her glass, he put a hand to his inside pocket. He took out a brown leather case. He opened the popper and pulled out a small old-fashioned switchblade with a black handle and a small curved blade. He opened it and looked at her.
‘There was a double murder back in the sixties in an apartment just like this one. Two college girls. Don’t know what happened exactly. I mean, the autopsy showed what had happened — the killer had stabbed one of the girls sixty-three times. Can you imagine that? Sixty-three times. And they weren’t rapid, violent stabs. No, siree, these were slow and considered. He pushed the knife in real carefully. They think he was watching her face as he did it. You know, like he was interested to see what happened? You know what they call people like that, Jessica?’
Jessica’s voice trembled. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘They call them sadists because they enjoy other people’s pain. Sadist. Do you know where the word sadist comes from, Jessica?’
She shook her head. Her knuckles were white on her glass. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She knew she mustn’t cry, but she kept sniffing and the glass was now trembling.
‘From a French gentleman called the Marquis de Sade who enjoyed inflicting pain on his lovers and anyone else for that matter. But the young man who was operating that night wasn’t just an over-enthusiastic lover, Jessica — he was something else entirely. Sixty-three times. In and out, that’s one hundred and twenty-six individual movements. In and out.’
Jessica was praying now. She was hoping her prayers could somehow help her as they had always done before. Help me, Lord Jesus.
‘Seriously. Is that sick or what?’ The killer breathed deeply. ‘Do you think, Jessica, that he was enjoying the sensation? Why do you think he stopped? Do you think he got excited watching the knife go in and out?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you scared, Jessica?’
‘Yes, I’m scared.’
‘What do you say, Jessica? Would you like to go to bed with me now or have you changed your mind?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘I think that’s a wise choice. I don’t think you’d like it at all.’
The man stood up and walked over to her; he flicked open the top button of her blouse. A small silver crucifix caught the light.
‘Do you believe in God, Jessica?’
She nodded.
‘Do you think he’d come and save one of his own if she needed his help?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How about we test him out? Or do you think it’s wrong to tempt him?’
‘Please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I’ve done,’ she said, the tears now falling.
The man moved to the door. ‘Be careful who you invite into your home, Jessica.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will be.’
‘You know what might save you?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe God. Let’s see, shall we?’
The man turned and unbolted the three bolts on the door. Then he opened it and stood there.
‘Today’s special number is sixty-three. You think you can count to sixty-three? Count to sixty-three before you move and you can go free. God has sixty-three seconds to save you. And you just need sixty-three seconds of faith. Do you have that much faith?’
Jessica nodded and the killer smiled. He didn’t really think she’d get past five or six, but he wanted to give her a chance. Everyone deserved a chance — even God.
He walked out, leaving the door slightly ajar. Jessica sat and suddenly started to shake uncontrollably. She counted as she stared at the door.
‘One, two, three, four…’
But she kept imagining that the door would fly open and he’d return.
‘Five…’
She felt so vulnerable.
‘Six.’
So scared, so terribly scared. It was too much. She was terrified. Suddenly, she ran at the door and closed it with the full force of her body. Her trembling hand reached for the dead bolt.
But she wasn’t quite quick enough. Or strong enough.
The door burst open and Jessica fell to the floor, her wet, terrified eyes staring up. He was back. Not the bright, witty guy she’d met at church, but a sinister figure weaving the curled edge of the knife in the air.
‘They call me the American Devil, Jessica. Do you want to know why? I want you to call out my name. I want to hear you say it.’
Jessica did as she was told, but the words trembled on her lips.
‘You only had to do what I told you and you’d live. Faith is hard, isn’t it? It was that simple, but you couldn’t resist, could you?’
He took her by an ankle and pulled her towards the centre of the room.
‘Shall we start counting again, Jessica?’ he said. ‘Let’s see what we can get to. But this time, each number comes with a price.’ He put the point of the blade against the sole of her foot.
‘One,’ he said, loud and firm as the point of the knife pressed into her flesh.
She closed her eyes and wished for an angel.
None arrived.
Chapter Twenty
East Harlem
November 19, 5.58 A.M.
Either someone was putting something in his coffee or Harper woke up feeling better after his first two sessions with Denise. In truth, he had unloaded almost nothing of his feelings about Lisa, but it was enough just to hear Denise put them in some kind of order. He liked her hard edge and her lack of sentimentality. Maybe that was exactly what he needed.
From his drab apartment he looked out on the new day. The morning was grey all the way across the city and a light rain was falling. Harper was up before first light and at 6 a.m. headed out to Central Park with his binoculars. He needed to spend a simple hour in the park. It was the walking that did it: somehow it released his mind and got him thinking. The American Devil was interacting with his victims, and had been for years. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, he started to kill. There was nothing similar on the Federal database. Why did a man start to kill? What was it about Mary-Jane that triggered this terrible spree?
Harper walked along the wet street and ran the thought over and over in his mind. Maybe he hadn’t intended to kill her? The killer was in her room, wasn’t he? Maybe he was there before Mary-Jane. Yeah, he thought, it just might be. He’d have to look at the case information, see if his idea had any weight. He looked up. Even early in the morning, the poor of Harlem seemed to leak out of the pores of the city. Harper stopped in a doorway and looked down on a woman in her fifties, lying on her side underneath a hard sheet of cardboard. She was wearing a pair of old tennis shoes without socks and her legs were swollen and glowing with a bluish tinge. Harper knelt down
beside her and put his hand on her forehead. There was still heat under the skin. She wasn’t dead, just right next door. Harper stood up and walked on. Then he stopped and turned back. He walked across and put a couple of twenties into the woman’s hand. It was a cold day: the weather had turned again.
Eddie Kasper was walking up the block and caught sight of Harper leaning over the homeless woman. He shook his head and shouted up the street, ‘Why don’t you leave the poor woman to sleep? If you want a date, Tom, I can sort you out.’
Harper looked up. Kasper being up at 6 a.m. wasn’t a good sign. ‘What’s up?’
Eddie Kasper was shaking his head. ‘Are you looking to be sainted or have you lost your sub-prime mortgage and are sorting out alternative accommodation with the homeless doorway rentals?’
‘I’m just connecting, like my psychoanalyst tells me to.’
‘She does, does she?’
‘This is a type A behaviour, for which I get a reward. Type A is the kind of behaviour I’m supposed to do more of, so I’m doing more of it. And you know what, crazy as Dr Levene is, she’s right. It makes me feel a whole lot happier.’
‘Are you thinking of fucking her, is that it?’
‘Your mind is a sewer, Eddie. There are other motivations in life.’
‘So you’re just being good for goodness’ sake?’
‘Goodness is its own reward,’ said Harper.
‘I fucking hate those kinds of rewards.’
‘Cut to the chase, Eddie. What’s happened? What the hell got you out of bed at dawn?’
Eddie shook his head, ‘Sorry, man, they found another body. A girl in Yorkville.’
Harper felt his stomach clench. ‘Damn this bastard. He’s like a machine.’
The two of them walked in silence from the darkness of the doorway into the flurry of New York City. The rain started to fall harder, causing the few people who were out to rush about, covering their heads with any objects to hand. Harper stared at the ground as he walked alongside Kasper, his chin down in his collar.
Eddie’s car was round the corner, so they walked through the rain getting soaked to the sound of tyres ripping up surface water. Harper noticed the changing colour of the asphalt under the rain and the dawn light — it was almost purple. He thought of the water on the rocks at Ward’s Island. He remembered the wet ground by the corpse in the parking lot. Did this killer like water? The waves must’ve kept coming up over Grace Frazer’s body. One more piece of the illogical that would make some kind of sick sense in the killer’s mind.