by Harker Moore
“Could be. Which brings up another possibility.”
“That a doctor could be the killer.”
“You mean a psychiatrist?” She smiled. “I know we’re all supposed to be a little nuts, but no … I was thinking of a patient. It’s no secret that a dose of LSD can send a prepsychotic personality into full-blown psychosis. The patient screening was rigorous in the sixties when therapy with the drug was still allowed, but if there’s a doctor out there using it illegally and doesn’t quite know what he’s doing …”
“… He could have pushed a patient over the edge.”
“It’s just a theory, Jimmy.”
“What have I got but theories?”
“And even if it was true,” she went on, “it’s doubtful that anyone’s going to step forward and own up to creating this monster. It would be professional suicide for a doctor to admit to using the drug without governmental approval.”
“Who gets permission to use it?”
“Very few people,” she said. “I can make some discreet inquiries, see if anyone in this area has a grant to work with the drug.”
“Thanks,” he said. Then, “Dr. Linsky confirmed that Kerry was never gagged. No bruising around the mouth. No residue from adhesive.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yes. It’s taking a chance, even with the nearest house so far.”
“But I can understand why he’d take the risk, since I believe he has a need to interact with the victims.”
“You’re saying he wanted Kerry to be able to talk back.”
She nodded. “It may have been at least part of the reason for killing him out of the city. The isolation was a luxury. And it fits with the LSD. The drive to share the fantasy, to bring them into his world. He needs to have them understand what he’s doing.”
“I wish we understood it.” He looked at her. “You hear anything from Michael?”
“Me? No … I haven’t talked to him since Thanksgiving at your place. Why?”
“I called him a couple times today,” he said. “Left a message.”
“And he hasn’t called back. Is that unusual?”
“No.”
“I know,” she said, weighing the words, “that you think he’s an asset—”
“You haven’t seen him at his best,” he interrupted.
“That I believe.”
“Michael’s good, Willie.”
“And you’re not? It’s barely a month since the first murder. You know as well as I do that serial investigations take time.”
“Time’s what I haven’t got.”
There was proof enough in the increased sales of the Daily News and the Post that the city at large was following the gay-killer story. But the kind of mass hysteria that had surrounded Son of Sam had not so far developed in the general population, and this perceived indifference to “the open season on gays” was not to be silently tolerated.
Tonight’s gathering in Chelsea was the latest in the police outreach efforts that served a dual purpose. The man standing in the back of the room was well aware of both. The meetings were meant to give a more positive focus to the fear in the community and diffuse the anger building against the police. They were also a lure to trick the killer into exposing himself.
It had been simple enough, however, to avoid the surveillance van parked not far from the building’s entrance. There would be officers inside taking pictures of everyone who entered in hope of some obvious match with that pitiful composite drawing that had appeared in the city’s newspapers. Plenty of the men here wore jackets and baseball caps. But he was not one of them. A simple overcoat tonight. And hair unlacquered and combed.
He gazed around, trying to pick out the undercover cops in the hall, noting instead how the whole room glowed with the lesser lights of so many auras. So many of the Fallen in this small space, but none with the brilliance of a great one.
The newspapers were well represented, responding to the news of yet another murder. He recognized the Post reporter whose sensational speculations had made him smile. They were all so totally wrong in every basic assumption. The media … the police. It had been obvious, even before tonight, that the police had nothing. He was careful and had left no physical evidence. But it went beyond that. They had no way to apprehend him in their minds, much less in their reality—no template for what he was doing. They were hunting a serial killer. A man killing other men. How could they ever catch what they couldn’t understand? He could sense their frustration. Could almost feel sorry. Especially for James Sakura.
The lieutenant had not appeared to referee tonight. The meeting had begun with fiery speeches and complaints from the locals, then an unctuous spokesman from Public Information had given a reassuring talk with a warning about picking up strangers.
The good part had started with the questioning.
What exactly was being done to catch this monster? a community leader had asked. Mr. Public Information had responded with a numbing litany of procedure, leaving out, of course, the proactive tactics of this meeting.
Another firebrand from the audience, most likely a police plant from Anticrime, was speaking now, charging everyone to sign the petitions for action at the tables in the back of the room, petitions that would then be carried directly to the mayor.
More likely straight to Police Plaza. The man smiled. There was a moment’s hesitation, the impulse for audacity was strong. But in the end he did the smart thing. He left without signing his name.
“Enjoying the circus?” Faith Baldwin’s even voice cut toward Sakura through the deep shadow backstage. He’d spoken to her briefly in the past three weeks, but he hadn’t seen her since Westlake’s apartment. He turned from the proceedings in the hall to watch her walking toward him. Her ivory blouse glowed faintly in the stray luminescence from the stage lights, ghostly, till the rest of her appeared, destroying any illusion of disembodiment.
“You never know with these proactive things,” he said. “Procedure is procedure because it’s worked somewhere in the past.” He turned away again, focusing on the last few signers at the petition tables.
“I thought we had a new wrinkle till I got the scoop on the doctor’s secret life,” she spoke again.
“Who told you?”
She shrugged, a movement in the periphery of his vision. “Were you trying to hide that bit of information from the D.A.’s office?”
“That’s not why I asked.” He turned to look at her.
She shrugged again. “The lowdown on Kerry was everywhere…. You find anything interesting in his apartment?”
He gave up. He knew why the truth about Kerry’s sexuality had so quickly disseminated through the system and the press. The leak was official … beneficial to the department.
“Jimmy …?” she prodded. “Any leads?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She came closer. “You’ve done well these last five years.”
That scent she wore insinuated. Pictures flipped through his head. A snapshot gallery of the two of them in bed … the things they’d done.
“It was interesting, hearing you’d come back from Japan married.”
“I’m sorry.”
She laughed. That perfect laugh, completely genuine. “A little late, Jimmy. But I got the point.”
He forced himself to remain looking at her. A hunger, unwanted, ran inside his nerves, jumping the void between neurons.
“Ha-na-e.” Her lips moved, carefully forming the syllables. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’ve heard she’s as pretty as her name.”
He owed her this moment of torture.
“Lieutenant …?” Talbot had appeared. “Oh, excuse me, Ms. Baldwin—”
“What is it, Detective?” he cut in.
“It’s just that we’re wrapping things up and Doss thought you might say a word to Mr. Felton.”
He knew he looked blank.
“Mr. Felton’s group sponsored this meeting,” Talbot explained. “Public relat
ions, Lieutenant.”
The lesser, it seemed, of two evils.
“Tell them I’m coming,” he said.
The tiny bar near Zoe’s old neighborhood was perfect for clandestine meetings. She settled comfortably in the padded high-backed booth with its faded maroon and gray vinyl. The place, as always, was populated with a few grizzled and slack-cheeked men, too ornery to be home asleep, too old to give her any real grief. Only the occasional territorial stare, as if her appearances here were a disturbance, an unwelcome reminder of things long in the past.
She was halfway through her first drink when Johnny showed up. He came back from the bar with a bottle of beer and a refill of her cocktail.
“You look tired,” she said.
“Interviews.” He slid in across from her. “Feels like I did a million of them today.”
“In Forest Hills?”
“Everywhere.” He took a hit on the beer. “Sakura wanted to start right away, tracking down the clinic staff. I think I might actually be glad they’re stiffing us on patient lists.”
It was obvious from his attitude what the net result of the interviews had been. “Kind of interesting,” she said, “that the doc was murdered here in Queens.”
“Yeah, but his clinic’s in Manhattan.”
She waited, sensing there was more.
“The Kerry job was a break-in.” He took a swig of the beer.
She sipped her own drink. Johnny had just confirmed the rumor that was circulating in the media. “Copycat?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “Trust me,” he said, “this was the same guy.”
She knew what that meant. There were distinctive details at the crime scenes known only to the police and the killer—details that little Zoe would kill for. But Johnny Rozelli wasn’t dumb. She could not make a frontal approach. At least not verbally.
She smiled to herself, remembering how embarrassed she’d been when at the age of eleven her breasts had seemed to blossom overnight. She had slumped around for months, her mother and grandmother wearing themselves out with admonishments to stand up straight. She had hated the stares and the giggles of the boys at school, until the day it somehow dawned on her that the stares held awe and the nervous laughter was a mask for something else. Her breasts held power. She had used them like a weapon ever since.
She had reached across the table to stroke Johnny’s hand. Now she sat up, molding her back to the worn and cracked vinyl. At the withdrawal of her fingers, Johnny looked up from his drink.
She took an impressive breath. “I thought we had another break in the killer’s pattern,” she said. “Kerry didn’t read gay. But the guys at Public Information set us straight.”
Johnny grunted disapproval. “Sakura didn’t like that. Hell of a way for the wife and kids to find out what the old man’s been up to.”
She shrugged. “Good story outing the doc. But better if we’d had some suspense, a few days to play the angle that he’d started offing straights.”
“Bite your tongue, Zoe. We’ve got enough trouble as it is.”
She smiled, reaching again for his hand. “Poor Johnny.” She let the words hang. Then, “Sure wish I had something hot for tomorrow.”
He pulled free of her grasp. “I’ve told you too much already. Want to cost me my job?”
“Course not, baby.” She filled her eyes with concern. “You know you haven’t given me anything really hard.”
“I don’t know, Zoe.” He leaned back, unaware of her double entendre, shooting his cuffs through the sleeves of his gray Armani. It was a habit he had. She watched him realign his cuff links.
“Just one thing,” she pressed. “How’d you cop so quickly to the fact that Kerry wasn’t exactly Joe Citizen?”
He picked up his beer and finished it. “His nurse tipped us on an apartment that the doc was keeping in the city,” he said finally. “A place to shack up with his boys.” He slid up from the booth. “You ready for another one?” He pointed to her drink.
“No, I’m fine…. Any line on who the doc was boffing?”
He smiled, sizing her up, and shook his head appreciatively. “You’re a piece of work, Zoe.”
“You too, baby.” She smiled back. The headline he’d just handed her was all she’d get tonight. At least in the way of a story.
Michael Darius knew he was dreaming, the way some people know they are dreaming. Knew that he was lying cold and sweating in his bed. But he let the awareness slip, surrendering to the immediacy of what was happening behind the thin flesh of his eyelids.
Jimmy Sakura was running in the darkness behind him. Darius could hear his partner’s labored breathing, the soles of his shoes slapping the filthy concrete. Sakura had called out his name once, and each separate letter had seemed to make its own distinct sound. So that Da-ri-us became something drawn out and vaguely foreign.
He’d turned back then, but Sakura was lost. Eclipsed by the night, denser now in this side street, away from city lights. The smell of rotting garbage was thick in his nostrils, and the image of a white one-eyed cat pulling something long and stringy out a dark cavity registered in his brain.
He stopped. Caught his breath. Gazed upward to the net of fire escapes crisscrossing the failing buildings. Beneath the high blank bubble of reflected urban neon, the craze of metal stairways descended like Escher drawings into the alley. He lowered his sight, scanning a patchwork of doors and broken windows that opened on his left into an abandoned warehouse. He had lost track of the halo of acid green light, bobbing ahead of him, moving with the same jaunty rhythm as Hudson’s surefooted gait.
He had just decided that maybe Hudson was hiding somewhere in the warehouse, when he caught sight of him again, stepping out of the darker shadows with a Here I am confidence. He was dressed in black leather, his head seeming to float on his shoulders, disembodied, the intense light from it pulsating like a large animal’s heart. For a split second he thought he could glimpse Hudson’s teeth through the brilliance, giving him a cocky, welcoming smile.
The dream, which never changed, was always both more and less than the reality. The imagined smile, a point of departure, when the dream became clearer than what had actually happened—Hudson’s empty hand coming out from inside his dark jacket, fingers exploding like Roman candles.
What would always remain infinitely certain, then and after, was Jimmy Sakura’s scream as he’d lifted and fired his gun.
He sat up straight in bed and reached for his cigarettes. Avoiding Sakura’s phone calls was avoiding the obvious. He’d have to go see him tomorrow.
CHAPTER
11
A full complement of the city’s newspapers littered Sakura’s desk, all with screaming headlines about the latest victim in the gay serial murders. He sat forward in his chair, remembering this morning’s confrontation with the chief of detectives over the leaking of Kerry’s homosexuality to the press.
You’re damn right I let Phil Doss give it to them. At least McCauley had had the good grace to appear uncomfortable. The gay-rights people are already halfway up my ass. You think I want to make room for the rest of the population?
Sakura hadn’t bothered to answer. He had made his point. A Pyrrhic victory for Lylah Kerry and her children.
In the wake of his silence, McCauley had gone on offense, insisting that Public Information had said nothing to the media about Kerry’s apartment. So how had the Post so quickly come up with the love nest story? Better plug your own leak, Sakura.
He squeezed his lids shut in a weak attempt to zap out the pain growing behind his eyes. The pressure inside his head filtered through his defenses and he reached for his cup of tea. It was no longer hot, but he took a lukewarm sip anyway and fished in the drawer for some aspirin. The last resort. He hated pills.
Outside the glass-fronted office he could see the change of shifts in Major Case. He looked down at his desk and picked up the petition lists that had been gathered at Sunday’s community meeting. Columns of sign
atures snaked down legal-size sheets—small, scratchy scrawls barely legible alternated with big, bold styles that were more print than cursive. He rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the killer’s signature might be inscribed in the clutter of penmanship on at least one of these lists. Most serials liked to insinuate themselves into the investigation. It was another way to embroider upon their fantasies.
He let his head roll back onto his shoulders. The case was going nowhere. And if he despised his own ineffectiveness, it was in great part due to the reservoir of tragedy that murder left in its wake. William Kerry’s death had added a widow and two young children to the growing list of living victims. It was becoming a killing field.
Frustration, anger, and guilt were a lethal mix, and it was eating him alive. He slammed his fist down on his desk. The edition of the Post featuring a photo of Kerry’s love nest sailed to the floor.
Darius appeared at his door.
“Tea?” he offered as Michael came in. “I could use a fresh cup myself.”
“No … thanks.” Darius pulled a chair in front of the desk and sat staring at nothing. “I can’t do this, Jimmy. I have commitments for several projects.”
“The carpentry work?”
“It’s what I do.” Darius looked at him. “Besides, you don’t need me.”
He didn’t bother to rebut the point of Michael’s work. They both knew it was an excuse.
“There’s just no reason,” Darius went on. “You’ve got a serial offing gays. I’ve got no special insight. You’re the one with the training.”
Michael was never petty. The Quantico jab stung, but was an indication of something deeper. It meant that the case disturbed him.
Darius stood. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.”
“It’s okay.”
For a moment Darius seemed frozen in place, but then he was gone.
He tried not to feel disappointed. It had probably been wrong to involve his former partner in this case. He was, as Michael had said, the one with the training. The problem was that they kept running into blank walls. They had nothing really, except for Willie’s profile. And now, with Kerry’s murder, the killer had expanded his comfort zone, branching out from the city to the boroughs.