A selfish stab of relief shot through her as she let out a pent-up breath.
“I think it starts at nine,” she said as she filled a plastic cup with ice water before kneeling beside his chair again. "I've got to head back to work, but I will see you in a couple days, all right?"
He nodded, and waved her off, already slipping away again. She was almost to the door when he called after her.
"Make sure you give your mother a kiss goodbye before you go."
Lucky kept her head low as she rushed down the hallway toward the exit, grateful, in spite of her exhaustion, that she didn’t have to go home. Throwing herself into her work would take her mind off that visit, which was exactly what she needed.
She hopped into the car and made her way back toward Central Park. After a quick pit stop at the Shake Shack to pick up burgers, fries and fountain sodas, she headed back over to the station.
She snatched up the bags and drinks, and bustled inside through the soupy heat into the stale, air-conditioned building. Still a definite improvement on Stonybrook.
She had managed to juggle everything all the way to her desk, and found ‘Los sitting at his across from her, gnawing on the end of a pencil.
Never a good sign.
“What’s up?” she asked, handing him a crumpled sack and one of the sweating soda cups.
He thanked her, taking his food with a distracted nod before tossing the pencil onto the desk.
“Sal Mancini ID’ed Mel’s body. Other than that? Nothing. Not a fucking thing,” ‘Los said, his tone clipped as he dug in to the white bag. “I did get a call from Deirdre Walsh, Xavier’s wife. She corroborated his story, right down to the movie, so unless they conspired to murder Mel together, or hired someone to do the job, his alibi holds. I’ve got the IT guys working through Mel’s finances but, other than that, we’re grinding to a halt again.”
“Anything on Frankie Lewis?”
“Yeah, I found him and got in touch. He’s going to come in tomorrow morning to talk to us. Eleven o’clock.” ‘Los leaned in and glanced around to make sure they were alone before continuing. “I did some light research on that other thing we discussed. Nothing so far, but I’m going to put Stevens on some calls tomorrow.” He stuffed the burger into his mouth and tore off a bite before standing. “You want ketchup?”
“No thanks.”
He made for the break room to dig through the drawer of random take-out condiment packets as she sat nibbling on her fries while she weeded through her emails.
A short, bullish guy with a close-cropped square-top charged past her a minute later, not looking up from the file he was flipping through as he spoke. "Hey, Luck, Satterfield is looking for you. Wants you and Figueroa in his office ASAP."
She swallowed the last of her fries and tugged at the hem of her wrinkled linen blazer. She'd hoped to get ten minutes to at least hit the locker room, put on some clothes that didn't smell like week-old olive loaf, and get her thoughts on paper before being summoned, but apparently she'd been dreaming too big.
"Sure thing, thanks, Renault."
He was already long gone, though, and she was talking to air.
‘Los came back, slowing by her desk as she blew out a heavy sigh.
“No good with George, huh?” Carlos kicked out his own chair and sat.
His face was all concern and she found herself wishing that she could lean on him for a nanosecond. She shoved the sensation away and peeled off her jacket, tossing it on the back of her chair.
"Not great. But that's life, right?" she asked, giving him a tight smile.
There was no time for a heart to heart, even if she had been inclined to have one, which she wasn’t. They had a crime to solve and the clock was ticking.
"Any ideas what we should tell Cap?"
‘Los considered that for a bit and then grinned. “That the glare from the fluorescent lights bouncing off his bald head is super distracting?”
She managed a tired laugh and ground the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Yeah, I almost think he shines it up on purpose just to keep us on our toes.” She sucked down a sip of icy cola and sighed. “Let’s go get it over with so we can get back to work.”
“Yup. And we can just tell him the truth if you don’t feel like tap-dancing.” His dark eyes went flat. “Crimes take time to solve, and if he thinks he can do a better job of it, by all means, he should.”
This edginess was a side of ‘Los she only saw when they’d been working non-stop for longer than they should have. She had to admit, she didn’t hate it. It made her feel better about her own impatience. Sometimes, he was too damned good, and it wreaked havoc on her conscience.
“Or, we finish our burgers and then go in with a positive attitude,” ‘Los added, ruining the moment. “Tell him that we have a bunch of irons in the fire and will have something more concrete in the morning once we get back the phone records and interview Frankie. What do you say, Luck…you up for just a little bit of soft-shoe for me? I’ll take the lead, you just gotta do a half-assed shuffle once in a while.”
She shoved herself to her feet and shrugged her jacket back on with a grumble. “Fine, but I draw the line at jazz hands, so don’t even ask.”
She scooped up her meager notes and followed him toward their boss’s office, humming a funeral dirge under her breath.
8
“Shut up. Shuddup, shuddup, shut the fuck up!”
Andy stood in his kitchen, pressing two fingers to his temples, as he tried to think over the noise in his brain.
Why wouldn’t it stop?
Worse than a broken record. More like the screech of a fork dragging against an empty plate, over and over again.
He weaved on his feet, feeling overheated and nauseous all at the same time.
This was not okay. Maybe he was getting sick from the lack of sleep and late nights. He needed to take better care of himself, that was all.
He opened the freezer door and bent until his head was buffeted by the cold air. It felt good. The best he'd felt since—
He cut that thought off with a snip and mentally counted the Midtown blocks again in his mind until his heartbeat slowed some. The panic edging in had been getting worse since he'd gone off his medication, but he hadn't suffered a full-on attack yet, which was saying something.
Five more days, and none of it would matter. He could go back on his meds or maybe even just smoke weed all day. Then, maybe he could forget those frantic, unholy screams—
"God damn it!” he snarled, yanking his head out of the freezer and slamming the door so hard that Rachel’s stupid alphabet magnets scattered all over the floor.
He stared at them, tempted to replace the message that had previously spelled out a couple items for her grocery shopping list with, "Eat a dick you fat whore", but knowing that would only bend the mounting tension between them to the breaking point.
He picked up the magnets one by one and stuck them on the fridge again in rows of eight, no particular order, despite remembering what had been on her list.
No one "needed" Nutella, or Double Stuf Oreos, least of all, Rachel.
He spared a quick glance at his watch and wondered if he should try to get to bed early and prepare for tomorrow’s activities. He was going to need to be on point. This victim was more high profile than the others, and the starting point was a very public place. If this headache turned the corner into a migraine, he was going to find himself in a very bad spot.
He could already feel the claws of it starting to dig in deeper, squeezing his brain like a pimple that wasn't ready to pop.
He shuffled from the room and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him and locking it. After taking a second to toe off his shoes, he climbed into his twin bed without bothering to strip off his street clothes. He yanked the blinds down and thumbed his phone to silent, and then closed his eyes.
It was a bad move. The second he did, the screams started again, followed by disjointed images that made his stom
ach heave in protest.
How was it that he'd been able to kill and butcher that pawn shop guy without even a twinge of conscience, but killing that fucking animal earlier tonight was sending him into a near panic?
When he'd first seen old Rusty, he'd felt nothing. No affinity for him, no sympathy or affection. But when he'd slid the needle in, all hell had broken loose. His eyes went wild, rolling with fear until only the whites were visible, and suddenly, Andy felt like he and the beast were tied somehow in the most elemental of ways.
He'd been there before, seen those who felt they were superior to him come at him with a syringe. Could still feel the rage as the drugs coursed through him, rendering him helpless. By the time the creature finally dropped to the ground, Andy had been stunned to find hot tears burning a path down his own cheeks.
Thinking about it made the headache tighten its hold, burrowing deeper into his skull and squeeze-squeeze-squeezing.
His eyes popped open and he sat up, scrubbing a trembling hand over his face. This wasn't going to work. He was going to have to do something to ease the tension or this one bump in the road could grind years of work into dust.
He pushed out the images torturing his mind and called on the one sure to distract him.
Ella.
Thick, brown hair in its ever-present ponytail. Her sharp, gray eyes flicking back and forth, taking in the details around her. That low, clipped voice with just a little rasp in it. Not like a pack a day smoker. More like a jazz singer from the forties, singing songs about love and feeling blue.
He sucked in a shuddering breath and let his eyes drift closed again.
Ella, the dutiful daughter and sister.
The brilliant cop.
He wondered what she was doing right now.
Was she obsessing over his human sculpture, trying to analyze every facet of it? Hoping to “profile” him like one of those fool, pseudo-doctors on the ID channel?
Or maybe she hadn’t even found it yet. His little clue…an invitation to the game. If that was the case, then she and her oaf of a partner might still be grilling the grieving widow, totally unaware of the shitstorm that was blowing in.
He liked the idea of that. Figueroa running around like a big, dumb Labrador, barking up all the wrong trees. But Ella needed to figure it out soon or the game would be no fun. Who wanted to play alone, after all?
Andy shifted on his lumpy mattress to get more comfortable as he conjured up the image of her face again.
His fondest wish was that, by the end of all this, she'd see. She'd understand why he had to do all this. Maybe she'd even admire his loyalty. After all, she had a family member she’d given up her whole life for, same as him.
The headache faded to a dull ache and he focused on his breathing. Long, slow breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth, in sets of eight. The perfect number.
It was all good.
Everything was going according to plan. So, he hadn't accounted for his surprisingly visceral response to last night's gambit. He’d still managed to get the job done without mishap. A testament to his self-discipline and commitment. Tomorrow would be back to normal. He'd handle this next one with the same cool-headed competence he'd had when he’d killed Mel, and this would just be a memory.
“Tick-tock, Ella,” he whispered into the darkness. “I’m waiting…”
9
"Definitely a hacksaw,” Bisby grumbled as he led them into the cool, sterile room.
He hadn’t been excited to see them when Lucky and ‘Los invaded his lair first thing that morning, but he hadn’t sent them packing, either. He’d even agreed to share his initial findings if they promised to leave him alone for the rest of the day.
She’d call that a win.
Now, he stood hunched over the gleaming metal table as he pointed to the jagged cuts in the flesh with one gloved finger.
‘Los leaned in to get a closer look but Lucky stayed where she was, doing her best to ignore the noxious smell of chemicals and death.
"There's minimal tearing damage to the surrounding tissue for the majority of these cuts, so the teeth were small and close together. I've got Marsha at the hardware store now, picking up one with a coarse blade and a few with finer blades and a higher number of teeth per inch to see if I can get something close to a match."
Lucky surveyed the two men before her. They couldn't have looked more different. From the side, Ed had the posture of a carrion feeder. Sloped shoulders, neck craned, head set low and jutting forward, like the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock. His round belly sat on the table as if he was using it for a resting place.
‘Los stood beside him, tall and broad-shouldered. He was more dad-body fit than shredded gym fanatic, but he looked like a high-level athlete in comparison to Ed.
The one thing they had in common, though?
Good hands. Capable hands.
She eyed them now as Ed gestured steadily to a second set of cuts on the victim's neck. Long and elegant, they looked like the fingers of a pianist. She wondered idly why he'd never become a surgeon, but knew that asking him would only earn her a harrumph. And now, with the shakes progressing, it was probably for the best he hadn’t followed that career path. Live patients were much more particular about the way they were carved up than the dead ones. Lucky suspected he’d have already been forced to resign if he’d been working on the former.
“See that there, in particular?” Bisby said, gesturing again.
"Yep. I see it," ‘Los said as he leaned back, making space for Lucky to get in closer.
She sucked in a breath through her mouth but that didn't stop the smell of decomposing flesh from assailing her nostrils.
"He was alive when the initial cutting started. You can see a wide tear here, where he likely attempted to struggle." He ran his finger the length of the vic's wrist, where a jagged flap of skin hung over bone.
"Then here," Bisby pointed to a straight cut at the shoulder, "he was either much more tightly restrained or he'd stopped responding." He looked up and met Lucky’s gaze through his black-rimmed glasses. "My guess is the latter. I see no evidence that he was tied up or chained.”
"Did the tox screen come back yet?" Carlos asked.
The M.E. stepped back and tugged off his gloves with a snap.
"Nothing popped there. A cocktail of old fogey drugs, everything from Crestor to Viagra, but no indication of anything that was likely used in the commission of the crime. We did some swabs and found the presence of urine on his foot. Likely pissed himself,” he said, his tone matter of fact. “Fear will do that. Combined with the high levels of troponin in his blood, I'm inclined to believe actual cause of death was a heart attack, although I'd feel better about putting that in print if I had the damned organ."
He shot a sidelong glance at the collection of parts before covering them.
“Poor bastard would’ve been better off if the heart had called it quits a little sooner. Probably a rough few minutes."
Lucky couldn't let herself think about that right now.
"We've ID'ed him and found the original crime scene. Mel Walsh. He had a store across the street from Radio City Music Hall. Copious amounts of blood in his office. The lab will likely have some results tomorrow."
"And the rest of him?" Ed said, jerking his wobbly chin toward the table.
"Wasn't there," ‘Los said with a grim shake of his head.
A fact that had been eating at them both since the day before. They’d sent a cadaver dog and handler to the city’s dump and nothing found, so far. Had their perp really carted two hundred pounds of literal dead weight around Manhattan? Or had he made more than one trip? Were they set to find a second, gruesome sculpture somewhere, or was this the end of it?
She was still gnawing on that bone when Bisby moved to the corner of the room where he had a notepad and a recorder sitting on a high stool.
"Time of death window is pretty wide, at this point, and until or unless we get more of him, we're goin
g to be hamstrung on that front. My best guess is somewhere between nine PM and one AM. The temperature of the original crime scene in comparison to the temp on the sidewalk slides that scale one way or another.”
After the reaming she and ‘Los had gotten from Satterfield the night before, she knew that non-answer wasn’t likely to fly. She’d tried to follow Carlos’s lead, tap-dancing her ass off, but it had gone exactly like she’d imagined it would. With their boss scowling a lot, hollering even more, and complaining about the pressure he was under while she and ‘Los reassured him they were leaving no stone unturned.
She’d paused on the way out, taking a flyer by mentioning the whole serial killer hunch, but had been shut down instantly.
“Jesus Christ, Strickland, don’t even start with that shit,” he’d snapped, his cheeks going ruddy. “The press is already having a field day with this. The last thing we need to do is chum the water. Not another word about it. Capiché?”
She capichéd, all right. He was of the “don’t borrow trouble” camp, and until they had something concrete to show him, he wasn’t going to budge.
So she and ‘Los, once again, agreed to work that angle on the down-low. In the interim, they’d gone ahead and packed their official schedules with everything from interviews to phone calls with anyone and everyone who might have some insight into Mel’s murder. Then, they’d both gone home well after midnight, too exhausted to see straight.
Fortunately, her sister Abby had been working late so Lucky had been able to fall onto her bed and sleep for five straight hours. She’d woken up refreshed, ready to tackle this case again and full of grim hope that this morning’s visit with Bisby would jog something loose, but so far?
The pickings were slim.
They needed some more body parts, and fast.
“You can have this,” Bisby rumbled as he handed her a bag with the watch inside it, and then tapped a notebook with his pen.
She signed for the evidence and took the bag.
"What about the platform and all?"
Lucky Break (Lucky Strickland) Page 6