by Harker Moore
Zoe Kahn smoothed her tight French twist, draping her black cashmere coat over the back of the seat. She sat near the front of the auditorium, a gray room, that had the effect of making everyone feel trapped in the blankness of a television screen. She’d arrived early at One Police Plaza when talk of a hastily thrown together press conference was still in the rumor stage. Crossing her legs, she resettled her purse on the floor. A green knit dress ignited the gold in her hazel eyes and contrasted with her bright red lips, only recently collagen enhanced for the second time. Zoe took considerable time with her appearance. Nature had been generous, but she wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
The press conference was going to be well attended. Extra folding chairs were being brought in. Everyone was hungry for the latest on the murders now that the count was up to three. She turned and spotted Ralph Gunner, from Left Hand, a gay-activist rag. She blew him a quick kiss.
The hall quieted as Phil Doss came up to the podium. Doss was the typical media-relations flunky who didn’t have a straight answer for anything. He droned on for a few minutes, then introduced the chief of detectives. Zoe didn’t especially like Lincoln McCauley, but she admired his grit. Men with far greater gifts had failed in the system. Long hours in a gym had squeezed the chief into the confines of a dark designer suit, but his beefy face seemed to explode from the starched collar of his shirt. He remained a relic, a throwback to the decades when the Irish had predominated in the hierarchies of the New York City Police.
The chief read a tersely prepared statement, his voice holding an edge that was more than bureaucratic irritation. He warned against the press corrupting what he called “the purity of the investigation.” Then flatly refusing questions, he passed the mike to James Sakura.
Center stage, she knew, was not a place the gold-shield detective relished. Yet he appeared cool, in control, almost indifferent. That could spell trouble. A cop without passion could mean a cop who didn’t care. Zoe knew that wasn’t true, yet perception was everything. He was talking about setting up meetings so that the public could communicate more directly with the police. This was more than assuaging gays; the investigation was going proactive, she realized. Cast out the net and see what you drag in.
But for her, playing the gay trump card was wearing thin. She knew if the story was really going to get hot, heterosexuals had to feel threatened. Thanks to her sources, she had gotten a tip on the Westlake murder almost as soon as it was called in. The head start meant an exclusive with the model’s mother. But everybody was fishing in the same pond now. Maybe she needed to go proactive herself. Bait the killer, draw him out, like Breslin had done with Berkowitz.
Unfortunately, Sakura wasn’t giving her much that was new. She glanced over her shoulder. Gunner was standing, breaking protocol, asking Sakura if the victims had been straight, might not the killer already have been apprehended. The atmosphere iced over. Sakura seemed to stiffen, but neither his tone nor his words betrayed any weakness.
“The race, gender, creed, or sexual orientation of any victim has never impeded the aggressive actions with which the officers of the NYPD pursue an investigation,” he said.
In those few moments when he’d spoken, some unplayed script, some ill-defined undercurrent, seemed to lend a great importance to everything. McCauley stepped back, away from the podium, absorbed by the grayness of the room. Perhaps the rumblings she’d heard about the Palace Guard wanting to replace Sakura with an officer of higher rank were true. The bureaucrats were capable of almost any idiocy. But Lieutenant James Sakura was the best the department had.
Gray clouds hung in the sky like drapery. The traffic was never really light, but for a gloomy Thursday afternoon, it moved along smoothly enough. And after the rigors of this morning’s press conference and a sandwich snatched while going over the latest reports on his desk, Sakura did not entirely regret this time away from his office. He would not regret it at all if this afternoon’s interview panned out.
Last night on the local TV newscasts, a police hot-line number had been run beneath updates of the serial-killer story, reaping the mixed blessing of so much public attention. Shortly after the program a call had come in, a man insisting he had information he would only give Sakura. The screener had made the judgment to transfer the call.
Sakura had spoken to the man, a bartender who claimed he’d seen Geoffrey Westlake on the night he’d been murdered. He hadn’t liked the man’s tone, which impressed him as both overeager and evasive. He’d refused to give more details on the phone. But Sakura had long ago learned not to make snap judgments about a possible witness, especially based on a single telephone conversation. He had agreed to a meeting this afternoon, and a subsequent check of the cab company records confirmed that a fare picked up Halloween night at Westlake’s building had been dropped off at the bar.
Crossing Columbus Avenue, Sakura turned off on Sixty-seventh and pulled the unmarked department car onto the curb. Taking the vehicle identification plate from behind the visor, he tossed it on the dash. He got out and walked the half block to Marlowe’s, a popular neighborhood pub that catered to soap opera actors and newspeople from the nearby ABC building. This time of afternoon the lunch crowd had cleared and the place was fairly empty.
Sakura took a seat at the bar. “I’m looking for Jack Trehan.” He flashed his badge.
“You got him, Lieutenant Sakura.” The bartender had an over-groomed look that made it hard to place his age. “Fix you something?” He smiled with capped teeth, indicating the bottles behind him.
Sakura shook his head. “You said you had something that could help us.”
“About Geoffrey … yeah.” Trehan waited.
“You knew Mr. Westlake?”
Now the bartender shrugged. “We weren’t close. But he came in here a lot. And sometimes, when it wasn’t too busy, we’d talk.”
“What about?”
“Acting mostly. I’m an actor.” The smile stretched wider.
“You do commercials too?”
The bartender made a noise. “Commercials are a bitch to get.”
“But Geoffrey got commercials?”
Trehan nodded, leaning in, his elbows on the bar, an insider imparting information. “A while back,” he said, “year or two after he started modeling, Geoffrey lands this pilot that gets picked up as a series. Good part, second banana to Byron Shelton, the comic who’s supposed to be the next Drew Carey.”
“But …?” Sakura picked up the cue.
“But the sitcom never made it to the air. Shelton got arrested for exposing himself to little girls in the park. Too bad for Geoff’s big break. Still, he and the show’s producer got pretty chummy.” The smile became a smirk. “He’s the one who started Geoffrey in commercials.”
“Was it generally known that Mr. Westlake was gay?”
“Depends on what you mean. He wasn’t out of the closet, but people in the business pretty much knew.”
“You said this morning that Mr. Westlake was here on Tuesday night. Was he with anyone?”
Trehan frowned, faking concentration. “It was slower than I expected that night, being Halloween and all, but the weather was so crappy. Some of Geoffrey’s friends came in, but that was later. After he’d left.”
“And he left alone?”
The bartender was smiling again, the tension of the scene having played to his direction. He pointed to the far side of the bar. “Geoffrey was sitting there,” he said. “It was dark, and I was busy filling orders for the tables. But I saw this guy sit down next to him.”
It was obvious where this was going, and Sakura allowed himself to hope. “Did you know this man?” he asked.
“No.” At least Trehan didn’t string it out. “I finished with the drinks and figured I’d take his order. Only he’s gone already. And so’s Geoffrey.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Yeah.” The flatness of the answer betrayed him. “I’d say he was tall and thin, but he had on a big outdoor
jacket that made it hard to tell. I thought the coat looked too big for him.”
“Hair?” Sakura asked.
“Difficult to say.” Trehan shook his head. “Remember, it was pretty dark in here. And he was wearing a Yankees cap … and dark glasses. I couldn’t see his eyes.”
Certainly an anticlimax. “One of my people will call and set up an appointment with a sketch artist.” Sakura took refuge in habit.
“Sketch artist, huh?” The bartender seemed pleased with the notion.
“Also, I’ll want a list of those friends of Westlake’s you mentioned. And anyone who was here that night who might have gotten a better look at this guy.”
“Sure,” Trehan said, but his tone was dismissive. “Like I said, Lieutenant, he wasn’t around long enough to even order a drink. You think he was the killer?”
“I don’t know,” Sakura said, refusing the man satisfaction. But the truth was, that in his gut, he did. Just as he was certain that any composite based on the bartender’s vague description would be virtually worthless. The killer had exposed himself, but he’d been reasonably careful. And lucky. Beginner’s luck. He wondered how long it would hold.
Gil Avery never imagined anyone would want to photograph his birthmark. But this nutso did. Seemed to get off on it too.
“How’s this?” Gil asked from his position on the cool white sheets. He’d twisted his torso so that his hip became the dominant feature in a landscape of flesh.
The photographer nodded from his spot at the foot of the bed.
Wasn’t much for talk. In fact, Gil could count the number of words he’d spoken since he’d picked him up. Click.
“Yes,” he finally said in a breathless voice. “Yes, yes, yes.”
A litany of yeses. Click. Click. Click. A run of spiky clicks like teeth chattering. The whir of the roll like a toy train. Gil went with it. Let the photographer’s momentum pull him along. It was a weird kind of power just lying back, posing like some god. Knowing some guy wanted to take pictures of you. Make memories. It was as close to immortality as the young model was likely to get, and the pleasure of it leaked to every cell. Slowly Gil found himself getting hard, and the freak hadn’t even touched him.
Today’s overcast had not broken, and dead night air clung to the window like paper wrapping. Sakura tried to be grateful for the new fluorescent tube that shone uncompromisingly upon the growing stacks of DD-5’s on his desk. A major problem in this kind of investigation was the sheer amount of data it gathered, and the task force was generating a blizzard of reports. Critical connections could be missed because no one person possessed all the facts. For as long as it was possible, Sakura was determined to know everything.
Computerizing things helped, and Walt Talbot was good at that. The detective was in the process of setting up a program that would help identify potential suspects. Of course, the trick was to keep up with the paperwork. Organizing, categorizing, feeding the information into the proper files.
He smiled, thinking of Talbot. The detective’s cool had been thoroughly shaken Tuesday by Philippe Lambert’s sin of omission. Obviously, the members of the ballet company had long ago disregarded the birth gender of Andrea, alias André Wilitz, and felt no compunction to inform the uninitiated. At first Andrea might have seemed a dream suspect—an impotent homosexual transvestite with a decidedly artistic bent who had had an ongoing feud with Luis Carrera at the time of his death. But there were several factors that disqualified Wilitz as the killer. In addition to an alibi that checked out, the wardrobe mistress was nearing sixty and an amputee.
Lambert’s alibi had also cleared him of Carrera’s murder, and by implication of those of the other two victims. He had indeed been in the theater for the Thursday-night performance and had returned immediately after to his apartment with two of his roommates.
As for the Westlake murder, some fairly clear prints, other than the victim’s own, had been found in the model’s bedroom. The prints, though, were undoubtedly female and belonged, most likely, to the maid who’d been in to clean. The partials from the bathroom were more tantalizing, but as he’d expected, had too few points of identification to be of any use.
The crime lab was working on identifying the adhesive left on the victims’ skins and would prepare a brand list of the corresponding duct tapes. But trying to trace the point of purchase would be a long shot. And they could forget the potassium chloride. It was a common compound, which the killer could have picked up virtually anywhere.
Spectrographic analysis of the substance on the walls had indicated that it was ash from incense burned at the scene. The same for the symbols on the chests. The next step was trying to pinpoint the brand, though knowing whether it was commercially or liturgically distributed was less important than understanding why incense had been used at all. Why not something as simple as a marker? Because incense fit with angels?
According to the crime lab, the white wings were swan wings from a genus that was plentiful along the East Coast. They had not been preserved in any chemical way, but had perhaps been frozen. Unless the killer was keeping a pen of the birds to be used as they were needed, which seemed unlikely in the city.
A tap at his open door caught his attention. Adelia Johnson poked in her head. One of his unit regulars, she’d come to him from Sex Crimes, where she’d worked a fair number of cases involving repeat rapists. A serial rapist, as someone once remarked, was a serial killer who hadn’t yet worked up the guts. To a large extent, this was true, which meant that, like her partner, Kelly, Detective Johnson was one of very few task force members with actual experience dealing in serial crime.
“We’re ordering pizza….” She let the words hang. A question. Her white smile blazed.
“No, Delia … thanks.”
The detective’s head disappeared. He listened to her footsteps moving back down the hall. A light tread for such a substantial woman.
Sakura slid open the bottom drawer of his desk. He had not yet reached the point of succumbing to junk food. He removed his tea things, swiveling the chair toward the console behind him, where a kettle of water stood on a small hot plate. He switched it on, heating the water to be poured into the small porcelain pot, anticipating the scent of tea.
The phone rang. His direct line. He lifted the receiver. “Yes.”
“Lieutenant Sakura.” Dr. Linsky’s voice.
“You have the results on Westlake?”
“Yes, I do. His electrolyte levels show the same pattern as the others.”
“Consistent with his being given potassium chloride.”
“That is precisely the way to put it.” Linsky sounded approving. “It is consistent.”
It was as definitive a statement as Sakura could expect. “What about LSD?” he asked.
“There was also LSD in Mr. Westlake’s system.”
Three victims out of three. Surely beyond coincidence. “What would be the effect of an injection of LSD,” he asked, “in contrast to ingesting it?”
“The effects would be the same,” Linsky answered, “especially with the large dose that these three apparently received. The difference is the speed with which the effects would begin. With injection, it’s nearly instantaneous.”
“Mental distortions? Disorientation?”
“It all depends. The effects are highly variable. Experience with the drug generally allows the user to function in a manner approximating normality.”
“But if you don’t understand what’s happening …”
“Paranoia usually results. But in any case the effects are variable. Even an experienced user can get a very nasty effect … feel he’s losing his mind.”
“What about the physical effects?”
“LSD is neutral to systems other than the brain. And interestingly, once the receptors in the brain have all been engaged, taking more of the drug has no effect. One can’t actually overdose.”
“But there are deaths with LSD.”
“The result of impurities,
some substance the drug was cut with. Significant impurities would have shown up in the blood work, but there was none of that here. Which leads me to suppose that the killer may be manufacturing the drug himself. It’s a relatively simple process.”
Sakura was silent. The question remained why the victims were being injected with LSD at all. Apparently, like the bizarre ritual of the incense and the wings, and the death by cardiac arrest, the psychoactive drug also served some aspect of the killer’s fantasy. But there was nothing to be gained by raising this point with Linsky.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he said, “I appreciate your getting back to me so quickly.”
“I am not as fond of late hours as you are,” the M.E. responded, “but I told you I didn’t like mysteries.” He paused for a moment. “Just remember to keep in mind, Lieutenant, the caseload under which the coroner’s office labors in this city. It will take me some time to compile the official reports.”
“Of course.” Sakura smiled. This was vintage Linsky. The autopsy results were public documents. The M.E. was assuring him that he would withhold filing on Carrera and the others as long as possible to keep the forensic details from the press.
Sakura hung up the phone. The water for his tea was boiling. He would have a cup and work awhile longer. He had read his last report for tonight, but there was one more thing he wanted to do before leaving. He poured the water into the porcelain pot and reached across the desk for the folder of crime scene photos.
Alone in her Quantico office, Dr. Wilhelmina French sat entombed at her desk six stories beneath the Virginia earth. Still under sea level was her private joke, a reference to the geography of her native New Orleans, where only a complex system of levees kept the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain from creating a second Venice. Willie was a true native of the Crescent City, a descendant of the town’s original French and Spanish settlers. She was blessed or cursed, depending on the vagrancy of the weather, with thick black hair that charmingly curled or frizzed. Her magnolia skin was flawless. Tim, her sometime lover, called her only half playfully a goddess. Most times she, too, felt that energy that prompted him to say it. Other times, like tonight, she was filled instead with an edginess that was close to desperation, the sudden coldness of a life crowded not only with professional accomplishments but also with what ifs and might have beens.