Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  “How did we get this?” Jessica asked.

  “Courier,” Buchanan said.

  “Courier?” Jessica asked. “Is our doer changing his MO on us?”

  “Not sure. But there was a partial rental sticker on it.”

  “Do we know where it was from?”

  “Not yet,” Buchanan said. “Most of the label was scraped off. But some of the bar code remained intact. The digital imaging lab is looking at it.”

  “Which courier service brought it?”

  “Small company on Market called Blazing Wheels. Bike messengers.”

  “Do we know who sent it?”

  Buchanan shook his head. “According to the kid who delivered it, he met with a guy at the Starbucks on Fourth and South. The guy paid cash.”

  “Don’t you have to fill out a form?”

  “All false. Name, address, phone. Dead ends.”

  “Can the messenger describe the guy?”

  “He’s with a sketch artist now.”

  Buchanan held up the tape.

  “This is a wanted man, people,” he said. Everyone knew what he meant. Until this psychopath was shut down, you ate standing up, and you didn’t even think about sleeping. “Find this son of a bitch.”

  39

  THE LITTLE GIRL in the living room was barely tall enough to see over the coffee table. On television, the cartoon figures bounced and gamboled and zoomed, their manic movement a loud and colorful display. The little girl giggled.

  Faith Chandler tried to focus. She was so tired.

  In that space between memories, the bullet train of years, the little girl became twelve, about to enter junior high school. She stood tall and straight, the last moment before the boredom and utter misery of adolescence took over her mind; the furious hormones, her body. Still her little girl. Ribbons and smiles.

  Faith knew she had to do something, but she could not think. She had made a phone call before she left for Center City. Now she was back. She was supposed to call again. But who? What had she meant to say?

  There were three full bottles on the table, a full tumbler in front of her. Too much. Not enough. Never enough.

  God, grant me the serenity …

  There is no serenity.

  She looked to her left once more, into the living room. The little girl was gone. The little girl was a dead woman now, cold in some gray marble room downtown.

  Faith lifted the glass to her lips. She spilled some whiskey on her lap. She tried again. She swallowed. The fires of sorrow and guilt and regret flared within her.

  “Stephie,” she said.

  She lifted the glass again. This time he helped her bring it to her lips. In a little while he would help her drink straight from the bottle.

  40

  AS JESSICA WALKED up Broad Street, she considered the nature of these crimes. She knew that, generally speaking, serial killers go to great lengths—or at least some lengths—to conceal their deeds. They find out-of-the-way dump sites, remote burial grounds. But the Actor was putting his victims on display in the most public and private of arenas: people’s living rooms.

  They all knew that the case had just become much bigger. The grip of passion needed to do what was done on the Psycho tape had become something else. Something cold. Something infinitely more calculating.

  As much as Jessica wanted to call Kevin, to update him and get his take, she was ordered—ordered in no uncertain terms—to keep him out of the loop for the time being. He was on limited duty and the city was currently fighting two multimillion-dollar civil suits regarding officers who, even though cleared by doctors to return to work, had come back too soon. One had swallowed his barrel. The other had been gunned down in a drug raid when he could not run. There were enough detectives available, and Jessica was told to work with the team on duty.

  She thought about the look on the young woman’s face in the Fatal Attraction video, the change from anger to fear to paralyzing horror. She thought about the gun rising into the frame.

  For some reason, she thought mostly about the T-shirt dress. She hadn’t seen one of them in years. She’d had a few when she was a teenager, of course, as did all of her friends. They were all the rage when she was starting junior high. She thought about the way it made her look shapely in those gangly scarecrow years, the way it gave her hips, something she was willing to give back now.

  But mostly she thought about the blood blossoming on the front of the woman’s dress. There was something unholy about that stigmata of bright red, the way it spread on the wet white fabric.

  As Jessica neared city hall she noticed something that unnerved her even further, something that cloistered her hopes for any sort of rapid solution to this horror.

  It was a hot summer day in Philly.

  Almost all the women wore white.

  JESSICA BROWSED THE racks of mystery fiction, thumbing through some of the new releases. She hadn’t read a good crime novel in a while although, ever since she joined the Homicide Unit, she hadn’t had much tolerance for crime as entertainment.

  She was in the huge, multilevel Borders on South Broad Street, right near city hall. She had decided to walk instead of eating lunch today. Any day now, Uncle Vittorio would close a deal for her to be on ESPN2, which would mean she would have a bout set up, which would mean she’d have to go into training—no more cheesesteaks, no more scones, no more tiramisu. She hadn’t run in nearly five days, and she was pretty pissed at herself about that. If for no other reason, running was a great way to relieve the stress of the job.

  For all cops, the specter of weight gain loomed large, due to the hours, the pressure, the ease of living a fast-food life. Not to mention the booze. For women cops, it was worse. She had known many fellow female officers who had entered the force a size four and left a twelve or fourteen. It was one of the reasons she had gotten into boxing in the first place. The steel mesh of discipline.

  Of course, as soon as these thoughts crossed her mind, she caught the aroma of warm pastries wafting down the escalator from the café on the second floor. Time to go.

  She had to meet up with Terry Cahill in a few minutes. They were going to canvass the coffee shops and lunch counters near Stephanie Chandler’s office building. Pending identification of the Actor’s second victim, it was all they had going.

  Near the checkout counters on the main floor of the bookstore she saw a tall, freestanding rack of books labeled LOCAL INTEREST. Displayed were a number of volumes about Philadelphia, mostly small-press editions covering the city’s history, attractions, colorful citizens. There was one title that jumped out at her:

  Gods of Mayhem: A History of Murder in Cinema.

  The book was about crime film and its various motifs and themes, from black comedies like Fargo to classic noir movies such as Double Indemnity to bizarre fare like Man Bites Dog.

  Aside from the title, what caught Jessica’s eye was the short blurb about the author. A man named Nigel Butler, PhD, professor of film studies at Drexel University.

  By the time she reached the door she was on her cell phone.

  FOUNDED IN 1891, Drexel University was located on Chestnut Street in West Philadelphia. Among its eight colleges and three schools was the highly respected College of Media Arts and Design, which also included a screenwriting program.

  According to the brief biography on the back of the book, Nigel Butler was forty-two, but he looked much younger in person. The man in the author photo had a salt-and-pepper beard. The man in the black suede blazer in front of her was clean-shaven, and that seemed to take a decade off his appearance.

  They met in his small, book-filled office. The walls were lined with well-framed movie posters from the 1930s and ’40s, mostly noir: Criss Cross, Phantom Lady, This Gun for Hire. There were also a number of eight-by-ten head shots of Nigel Butler as Tevye, Willy Loman, King Lear, Ricky Roma.

  Jessica introduced herself and Terry Cahill. She took the lead in the questioning.

  “This is about
the video killer case, isn’t it?” Butler asked.

  They had kept most of the details of the Psycho killing from the press, but a story had run in the Inquirer that the police were investigating a bizarre homicide that someone had filmed.

  “Yes, sir,” Jessica said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, but I want your assurance that I can count on your discretion.”

  “Absolutely,” Butler said.

  “I’d appreciate it, Mr. Butler.”

  “Actually, it’s Dr. Butler, but please call me Nigel.”

  Jessica gave him a basic background on the case, including the discovery of the second tape, leaving out the more gruesome details, as well as anything that might compromise the investigation. Butler listened the whole time, his face impassive. When she was finished, he asked: “What can I do to help?”

  “Well, we’re trying to get a handle on why he is doing this, and where this might be going.”

  “Of course.”

  Jessica had been wrestling with a notion since she had first seen the Psycho tape. She decided to just ask. “Is someone making snuff movies here?”

  Butler smiled, sighed, shook his head.

  “Did I say something funny?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Butler said. “It’s just that, of all the urban legends, the legend of the snuff movie is probably the most stubborn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they don’t exist. Or at least, I’ve never seen one. Nor has any of my colleagues.”

  “Are you saying that this is something you would watch if given the opportunity?” Jessica asked, hoping her tone wasn’t as judgmental as she felt.

  Butler seemed to think about this for a few moments before answering. He sat on the edge of the desk. “I’ve written four books on film, Detective. I’ve been a film buff my whole life, ever since my mother dropped me off at the movies in 1974 to see Benji.”

  Jessica was appropriately surprised. “You’re saying that Benji started a lifelong scholarly interest in film?”

  Butler laughed. “Well, I saw Chinatown instead. I’ve never been the same.” He pulled a pipe out of a rack on the desk, started the pipe smoker’s ritual: cleaning, filling, tamping. He filled it, got a coal going. The aroma was sweet. “I was an alternative-press film critic for years, seeing five to ten movies a week, from the sublime artistry of Jacques Tati, to the indescribable banality of Pauly Shore. I own sixteen-millimeter prints of thirteen of what I consider to be the best fifty films ever made, and I’m nearing the purchase of number fourteen—Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend, in case you were wondering. I’m a big fan of French New Wave and a hopeless Francophile.” Butler puffed his pipe, continued. “I once sat through all fifteen hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz, and the director’s cut of JFK, which just seemed like fifteen hours. I have a daughter studying acting. If you were to ask me if there was a short film I would not watch, based on its subject matter, just for the experience, I would have to say no.”

  “Regardless of the subject matter,” Jessica said, glancing at the photo on Butler’s desk. In it, Butler stood at the foot of a stage with a smiling teenaged girl.

  “Regardless of the subject matter,” Butler echoed. “To me, and if I may speak for my colleagues, it is not necessarily about the subject of the film or the style or motif or theme, it is basically about the committing of light to celluloid. The fact that it was done and it remains. I don’t think too many film scholars would call John Waters’ Pink Flamingos art, but it remains an important artifact.”

  Jessica tried to absorb this. She wasn’t sure she was ready to accept the possibilities of such a philosophy. “So you’re saying there’s no such thing as a snuff film.”

  “No,” he said. “But every so often a mainstream Hollywood film will come along, stoking the fire, and the legend is reborn.”

  “Which Hollywood films are you talking about?”

  “Well, 8MM for one,” Nigel said. “And then there was that silly exploitation film Snuff from the midseventies. I think the main difference between the concept of a snuff film and what you’re describing to me is that what you’re describing to me could hardly be classified as erotic.”

  Jessica was incredulous. “And a snuff movie is?”

  “Well, according to legend—or at least in the simulated brand of snuff film that has actually been produced and released—there are certain adult-film conventions.”

  “For instance.”

  “For instance, there is usually a teenaged girl or boy and a character that dominates them. There is generally a rough sexual element, a good deal of hard S and M. What you’re talking about seems to be a different pathology altogether.”

  “Meaning?”

  Butler smiled again. “I teach film studies, not abnormal psych.”

  “Can you glean anything from the choice of films?” Jessica asked.

  “Well, Psycho would seem an obvious choice. Too obvious, in my opinion. Every time there is a top one hundred horror film list compiled, it always places near the top, if not the top. I believe it shows a lack of imagination on this … madman’s part.”

  “And what about Fatal Attraction?”

  “An interesting leap. The films are twenty-seven years apart. One is considered horror, the other is a rather mainstream thriller.”

  “What would you choose?”

  “You mean, if I were advising him?”

  “Yes.”

  Butler sat on the edge of the desk. Academics loved academic exercise. “Great question,” he said. “Off the top of my head I would say, if you really wanted to get creative about all this—staying in the horror genre, although Psycho is forever misrepresented as a horror film when it is not—to go with something by Dario Argento or Lucio Fulci. Maybe Herschell Gordon Lewis or even early George Romero.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “The first two were pioneers of seventies Italian splatter cinema,” Terry Cahill said. “The latter two were their American counterparts. George Romero is most noted for his zombie series: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, et cetera.”

  Everybody seems to know about this stuff but me, Jessica thought. Now would be a good time brush up on this subject.

  “If you want to talk pre-Tarantino crime cinema, I would go with Peckinpah,” Butler added. “But all of this is moot.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be an obvious progression insofar as style or motif at work here. I would say that the person you are looking for is not particularly cerebral about horror or crime cinema.”

  “Any idea what his next choice might be?”

  “You want me to extrapolate the mind-set of a killer?”

  “Let’s call it an academic exercise.”

  Nigel Butler smiled. Touché. “I should think he might choose something recent. Something released in the past fifteen years. Something that someone might actually rent.”

  Jessica made a few final notes. “Again, I would appreciate you keeping this all to yourself for the time being.” She handed him a card. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  “D’accord,” Nigel Butler replied. As they walked to the door, he added: “I don’t mean to be forward, but has anyone ever told you that you look like a movie star?”

  Here we go, Jessica thought. Was he coming on to her? In the middle of all this? She shot a glance at Cahill. He was clearly fighting a smile. “Excuse me?”

  “Ava Gardner,” Butler said. “A young Ava Gardner. Maybe around the time of East Side, West Side.”

  “Uh, no,” Jessica said, brushing the bangs from her forehead. Was she primping? Stop it. “But thanks for the compliment. We’ll be in touch.”

  Ava Gardner, she thought, walking to the elevators. Please.

  ON THE WAY back to the Roundhouse, they swung by Adam Kaslov’s apartment. Jessica rang the buzzer and knocked. No answer. She called his two places of employm
ent. No one had seen him in the past thirty-six hours. These facts, added to the others, were probably enough to get a warrant. They couldn’t use his juvenile record, but maybe they wouldn’t need it. She dropped Cahill off at the Barnes & Noble on Rittenhouse Square. He said he wanted further peruse books on crime cinema, buying whatever he thought might be relevant. Nice to have Uncle Sam’s credit card, Jessica thought.

  When Jessica returned to the Roundhouse, she wrote up a request for a search warrant and faxed it to the DA’s office. She didn’t expect much, but it never hurt to ask. As to phone messages, there was only one. It was from Faith Chandler. It was marked URGENT.

  Jessica dialed the number, got the woman’s answering machine. She tried a second time, this time leaving a message, including her cell phone number.

  She hung up the phone, wondering.

  Urgent.

  41

  I WALK THE bustling street, blocking the next scene, body-to-body in this sea of cold strangers. Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. Extras greet me. Some smile, some look away. Most will never remember me. When the final draft is written, there will be reaction shots, and throwaway dialogue:

  He was there?

  I was there that day!

  I think I saw him!

  CUT TO:

  A coffee shop, one of the cookie-cutter chains on Walnut Street, just around the corner from Rittenhouse Square. Coffee-cult figures hover over alternative weeklies.

  “What can I get for ya?”

  She is no more than nineteen, with fair skin, a thin intriguing face, frizzy hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  “Tall latte,” I say. Ben Johnson in The Last Picture Show. “And I’ll have one of them there biscottis.” Them there? I almost laugh. I don’t, of course. I’ve never broken character and I’m not going to start now. “I’m new to this city,” I add. “I haven’t seen a friendly face in weeks.”

  She makes my coffee, bags the biscotti, caps my cup, taps the touch screen. “Where are you from?”