by Oliver Stark
‘That’s great, Captain. Let’s hope it works, but I need you to make another call.’
‘Shit, Harper, what now?’
‘We got his stalking areas outlined and we want to put up a full surveillance operation on the two red dots on the map — Madison and LaGuardia.’
Lafayette stared across, trying to judge the seriousness of Harper’s suggestion, but Harper didn’t blink. ‘Jesus. Set it up, Harper. But set it up with the manpower you’ve got. I’m not asking for more men. We’ve got to have something to show before we call in another favour.’
‘That’s fine. We’ve got the capacity. I’ll go ahead.’
Harper left Lafayette’s office feeling good. He looked at his watch. Time was running short and putting together an operation like this would take at least twenty-four hours. He had a hell of a lot of work to do. He just hoped to God that something would interrupt the killer’s cycle in time.
Chapter Forty-Three
Marty Fox’s Office
November 23, 12.15 p.m.
Marty Fox was already late and the elevator seemed to be stuck on the sixteenth. He looked up, rolling his shoulders back as he felt the clammy sweat on his silk shirt. He shouldn’t have run. Rushing through the crowds in a cashmere overcoat really could crease a nice shirt. He was thinking about dollar signs on his credit card bill and how he was going to transfer a thousand bucks without his wife’s persistent questions. He’d park the car two streets away on his way home and tell her it was in for a service. The idea pleased him, and he suddenly looked happier. He had promised his wife that he would never have another affair, but it hadn’t quite worked yet. Some temptations were once-in-a-lifetime and Joanna Anderson was one of them.
He knew he had spent too much money on impressing Joanna Anderson with a first-date lunch. Over four hundred bucks for a piece of poultry with some salty sauce and no fries. Still, French cuisine impressed women; no wonder it was so expensive. Joanna was a rich man’s mistress and looked like it. Hell, he knew she was a totally economically unviable fuck. He could maybe afford getting one night out of her, but he’d have to make it a memorable one. After that, the till was closed and he knew a burger joint wouldn’t spring Joanna’s locks. She was about eight levels out of his league.
The elevator finally arrived and a family of four identical overweight individuals in velour tracksuits came out, all holding hands. Marty thought that family therapy should be deemed illegal as a matter of course. Nothing worse for a family than a psychologist. He was standing in the lift, his back to the shining fake gold interior, when he saw Nick Smith striding towards him. Marty felt uncomfortable. He’d taken Nick off his books and not even told him. He always preferred the coward’s way. Nick put out his hand to hold the door, and entered the lift. He looked at Marty but didn’t speak.
The doors shut and the lift started to climb. Finally, Marty couldn’t bear it any more. ‘Hey, Nick, I passed you to Dr Bartholomew because he’s trained in DID. It’s a specialist area and I’m worried I can’t help you. He’s a great doctor.’
Nick remained silent.
‘Are you going to see Dr B. now, Nick?’
Nick shook his head. ‘I’m coming to see you, Dr Fox. You’re my doctor.’
‘That’s not possible, Nick, I’ve transferred your file. I’ve spoken to Dr Bartholomew. It’s all set up.’
‘I’d prefer to stick with you, thanks,’ said Nick.
‘You don’t quite understand. I’m not willing to treat you. I can’t help.’
‘You are helping, Dr Fox. I rang your PA and got her to transfer me back over to you. I told her it was a mistake. She was happy to oblige.’
Marty was open-mouthed as the two men stood side by side, waiting for the lift door to open on Marty’s floor. Marty decided that small talk with a guy like Nick was pointless and might as well wait for the couch where at least he got paid for it. He looked down, and his eyes focused on Nick’s black leather shoes. They were covered in mud. He looked up to his hand. It was shaking.
In the office, Marty pulled off his coat and watched Nick prowl around the room. He was going to throttle his fucking PA as soon as he got a spare moment. He turned to his unwelcome client. ‘You want to take the weight off your feet there, Nick?’
‘I don’t feel good,’ said Nick.
He didn’t look good, either. His face was pale, his body was shaking more obviously and Marty could see panic in his eyes.
‘Calm yourself down, Nick. It’s a panic attack. It’s not real. Let me get you a glass of water. Just sit down.’
But Nick wasn’t listening. He was shaking and shivering more violently now. His eyes were staring ahead, fixed on some point in the distance. Marty went across and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sit, my friend.’
Nick cried out as the pain in his head increased. Marty sprang back, frightened, and looked around his office as if there might be someone there to help. Nick started to crouch down, wailing, his head swaying. Marty wanted to run out of there. This guy was seriously strange.
Nick continued to shake for a few more seconds, more and more violently. His eyes closed and he squeezed his fists hard against his temples until, after a minute, the shaking subsided and his body went still. Marty walked over and sat next to him on the floor. He felt for his pulse. It was still high and erratic. ‘What just happened?’
The patient opened his eyes and stared at Marty. His stare was cold and intense. ‘He tries to stop me, Doctor. He tries all the time. I know what he wants. He wants me to leave the girls alone.’
‘What are you talking about, Nick? What girls?’
He turned his head sideways and his eyes rested on Marty’s. ‘They used to call it demonic possession, Doctor.’
Marty got up from the floor and moved back. ‘You seem all right now, Nick. Speak to me. You went into a fit. Are you okay? Is this how the DID comes on? Should I call emergency?’
He smiled. ‘ My name is Legion, for we are many. Isn’t that how the old book goes?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure it is. Listen, I’d like to be able to help you, Nick, but I’m not sure I can. You got to explain to me what just happened.’ Marty Fox was at his desk. He wanted to be close to the phone in case anything else erupted. He imagined living with this man, this poor broken specimen, torn apart by his own demons. He imagined what the man’s wife must be going through. He suddenly thought of his own wife and felt a pang of guilt.
‘Can I have another drink of water?’
Fox moved across to the water cooler. ‘Sure, sure. So what just happened? Can you go through it?’
Suddenly, Nick pulled his legs close together and rested his forehead on his knees. ‘I don’t know if I can tell you.’
Marty Fox handed him a glass of ice-cold mineral water. Nick sipped slowly and stared up at him.
‘Sure you can tell me, why not? Come on, Nick, that was some weird shit.’
‘I think I hurt people,’ he said.
Marty sat down, feeling the power of his patient’s gaze. ‘How do you know?’
‘I was trying to explain it to you in the last session. It’s not my fault, I can’t control it. I wake up sometimes and I find blood on my hands. I can’t say any more.’
‘I won’t tell anyone else, you know. Physician-patient privilege, Nick. I can’t tell anyone. We’ve got a confidentiality and liability clause.’ Marty was trying to figure out if Nick was just deluded or whether something serious had happened. It was difficult to tell.
‘I’m afraid, you know that? I’m afraid of what I’m going to do. I’m afraid of what I’ve done.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That girl I told you about. You remember her?’
‘Yes, I do.’
There was an awkward silence. Nick started to push his cuticles back. ‘The girl in the dell,’ he said, ‘the one I loved, Chloe.’
‘Yes?’
‘Her name was Chloe Mestella. She was found dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes. A week after I saw her in the dell.’
‘What was it? Automobile accident?’
‘No, Marty, she was cut to pieces in her own bed.’
Marty’s face went pale.
‘Someone got into her house after dark and raped her and killed her.’
Marty was trying to work out what was going on. His arm twitched. He put it on his desk to steady himself.
‘Her heart was missing. It was a gruesome thing to happen to a young girl.’
‘I don’t know the case-’
‘When someone dies, Doctor,’ Nick went on, putting his arms tight around his own waist, ‘you truly miss them. You truly miss them. It’s like nothing else, the way you miss them.’
‘It’s okay. You’re safe here,’ said Marty. The beeper on his desk went off and Nick looked up automatically.
‘I want to know if you can stop it,’ said Nick. ‘Is it possible?’
‘What?’
‘That I killed her? That I killed Chloe?’
‘No, Nick, that’s just the guilt. You feel responsible. It doesn’t mean you did it.’
‘I can’t take much more.’
‘I can’t stop the delusions, Nick, but maybe I can help to find their source. We have to find out what you’re feeling so guilty about.’
‘I think he’s after someone else,’ Nick said. ‘I want to stop him before he hurts her.’
‘Who is he? What’s he after?’
‘I don’t know. But on my phone there’re photographs. Lots of photographs. She’s blonde. I don’t know who she is.’ Nick pulled out his phone and pressed a couple of buttons. He held up a picture of a beautiful, rich-looking girl outside a shop.
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ said Marty. ‘It’s just a photograph. ’
‘Why did he take it?’
‘I don’t know, Nick. I don’t know.’
Nick stood up. ‘I’ll tell you why. I’ll damn well tell you why. She looks like Chloe, that’s why. She’s looks the spitting image of Chloe.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Madison Avenue
November 23, 12.42 p.m.
Since 3 p.m. the previous day, Harper had been busting everyone’s gut trying to get the operation up and running. There were many upscale stores on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, but the victims had made purchases at only four of the stores. They were all big, fancy names — shops where a handbag would set you back near enough a thousand dollars.
Harper made contact with the department chief of the Technical Assistance Response Unit. They needed the best support for a covert operation of this size and TARU had the capabilities. It was a difficult set-up. First, they didn’t know who they were looking for, and second they didn’t know if the killer would show up. Pattern killers worked in heat cycles. The American Devil had killed five women in quick succession, but he might have been stalking them for weeks or even longer. No one knew his range or the duration of his stalking.
There were two composite images of the killer. Both agreed that he was in his thirties or early forties and had a good smile and grey hair. The killer might be disguised, but the one thing in their favour was that he was a man and not many men visited Prada, Versace, Christian Louboutin or Jimmy Choo.
Harper set up seven teams with three mobile units sited between the stores around Madison Avenue and Park Avenue. Each team consisted of a female undercover cop and a support officer. Harper put Mark Garcia in charge of the other stakeout. Garcia set up three teams around Arrivals at LaGuardia and headed the operation at the airport. TARU’s mobile trucks could beam any video images right back to HQ.
In the precinct, there was plenty of interest in spending time pretending to shop on Madison Avenue, but Harper didn’t want a bunch of low-salaried cops scaring the killer away, so he brought in some advisers. They worked with the cops on the kind of look they needed and the kind of attitude that would help them not to stand out.
Up in the main investigation room, at eleven o’clock the previous evening, Harper had stood looking at his teams. Seven cops looking severely out of place in designer outfits and heels. He was pleased. The advisers had done a great job. Kasper stood at the side and nodded his cynical approval.
The operation was ready to get going at 12.30 p.m., and Harper and Kasper drove to where a white van was parked in the heart of the Upper East Side. Inside, Ali Maakam, the technical supervisor, nodded a hello and showed them the control centre. There was a bank of nine screens. Ali flicked a row of switches on the console and the monitors flickered into life.
‘As requested, Detective Harper, we’ve got seven mobile CCTV units covering the streets. At the moment, they’re focusing on the store entrances. Each unit can be contacted here. Just press the button and let them know what you want. They can trace individuals, zoom, or move location.’
‘That’s great, Ali, thanks.’
‘Well, I hope you find something. This is a bad one. We all want to see him taken down.’
Ali took his seat at the far end of the truck and took out a newspaper. Harper and Kasper looked at him. ‘It’s all about waiting, guys. This could be a long haul.’
A quiet rap on the door preceded the entrance of Captain Lafayette. He huffed his bulk up into the van. ‘You move quickly, Harper. I just hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘We’re watching, that’s all. If he comes we’ll see him, if he doesn’t, we won’t.’
‘It’s Zen policing, Captain,’ said Eddie. ‘Harper ’s got this new world philosophy and we’re gonna really try to pick up any negative karma.’
‘Does he never get tired?’ said Lafayette to Harper.
‘Not yet, he hasn’t.’
‘We should get us some orange robes, Captain. Imagine the NYPD patrolling like that, offering blessing and talking youngsters out of crime. You think City Hall would go for it?’
‘You know, Kasper, the problem is, I think they might.’
Harper laughed, then looked up at Lafayette. ‘No kills yesterday? Looks like the extra patrols worked.’
‘Sure, they worked on the Upper East Side.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning, we took a lot of men out of East Harlem. We found a body this morning. Some poor hooker by the look of her. You plug one hole and another opens up somewhere else.’
‘No one told me.’
‘This isn’t one of yours.’
‘How was she killed?’
‘We only just got the call. She was found in a dumpster.’
‘I should take a look. Maybe he got put off the Upper East Side by the extra cops and headed north.’
‘You just sit tight down here. If there’s anything to report, you’ll know about it.’ Lafayette patted Harper’s shoulder, said his goodbyes and headed back to the precinct.
‘What do you think, Eddie?’ said Harper, staring at the feeds from the CCTV.
‘About the homicide? Not his style, dumping a hooker.’
‘Just the right day, that’s what’s bugging me. No kills on the Upper East Side. Maybe he couldn’t get to his target. Maybe he wandered uptown feeling hungry.’
‘It’s possible. Anything’s possible.’
‘I don’t know.’ Harper took out his cell phone and called Denise Levene. ‘Guess who?’
‘I should be on your payroll, Harper,’ said Denise.
‘Listen, last night there was a kill up in East Harlem.’
‘He’s struck again?’
‘We don’t think so. I just heard about it, but it looks like a prostitute was murdered. Look, Denise, is there any way a guy like this could change victim type?’
‘Difficult to say. We don’t know this guy’s capabilities. He killed Williamson. He might have killed before. I can’t say. Tell me more about it.’
‘Got nothing more. Just a body in a dumpster.’
‘It’s your call, Harper. I can’t be certain.’
‘I want to take a look,’ said Harper. ‘Can y
ou get up to Madison?’
‘Sure. I’ll be thirty minutes.’
Harper hung up and turned to Eddie. ‘I’m going to shoot up to the crime scene. You hold the fort here.’
‘No problem. Watching TV is my specialist area.’
Tom waited outside the van. The sidewalks bustled with shoppers jostling for space in their thick coats. It was almost impossible for the Blue Team to keep an eye on everyone and Harper hoped the stakeout wasn’t going to be an expensive waste of time.
Denise Levene pulled up twenty-five minutes after the call. She’d been working up a profile of the killer and was keen to share it with Harper. As a starting point, she had reduced the profile to seven characteristics. She could’ve given more detail but Harper had insisted that the only words he could share with the team had to be as hard as facts.
Harper was getting bustled around the crowds of rich shoppers as he headed for her car. Blue Team was just up and running at LaGuardia and Madison and the cops weren’t yet feeling the cold. But they would soon, after working all through Thanksgiving and spending hour after hour standing on the street in the ice staring at Christmas presents they couldn’t afford.
They transferred to Harper’s Buick and drove back up through the forgotten streets of Harlem. Harper was going over the case in his mind and feeling the adrenalin kick of anticipation.
‘You said you know a thing or two about this killer. Why don’t you take me through it,’ he said.
‘Okay, but I can do without the cynicism. This is my first attempt.’
‘I know you’re a rookie, that’s why I trust you. You don’t know what it feels like to be wrong yet.’
‘Well, that’s a vote of confidence I could do without.’
‘Hey, look,’ said Harper, ‘I’ve not been suspended once since I started your treatment.’
‘Yeah, and don’t think I haven’t noticed that we’re doing a lot of case work and nothing on you.’