Hangman

by Stephan Talty

  For the split second after she’d seen those pale fingers, and Riesen moaning like he’d been speared in the gut—oh, that sound, couldn’t it go away just for a minute—she thought, It’s not her hand. That clever bastard cut off some other girl’s hand and put the ring on it, just to be playful. Sandy is still alive.

  Hangman was capable of that.

  But the hand, when Abbie examined it, had clearly been severed postmortem, the cut mark showed no fresh blood at all, just a clean line of desiccated flesh. The finger around the ring was swollen, and the skin underneath was discolored and slightly indented from long use. The ring had been on Sandy’s finger for years. It was her. The lab would confirm it, she was sure. One of the techs had asked Riesen. And he’d nodded. That was after he’d vomited over the edge of the parapet, splashing the gravel below with the acid in his stomach. Which was, in itself, another kind of confirmation.

  Hangman had just turned Riesen inside out like a gutted deer. He must be pleased. Was he listening to Riesen moan up there on top of the tower?

  She feared Hangman now, the way you did an animal sniffing outside your tent. She’d become one of the people who’d seen his work up close.

  Forget capturing him to learn about Hangman’s brain. Forget studying his methodology. She’d be just fine with killing him.

  *

  Her phone, buzzing in her bag. Abbie glowered at the yellow line disappearing under the Saab, then finally picked it up. The screen read “Perelli.”

  “We had him,” he said simply.

  Abbie closed her eyes briefly. “How’s Raymond?”

  “Stable condition. Only thing permanently damaged is his reputation.”

  Abbie frowned. “Chief, I missed Hangman, too.”

  “But you didn’t get knocked out by him, did you? Raymond got close.”

  She had nothing to say to that.

  “Listen. We’re doing a status meeting at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Everyone who’s done anything on the case since the fucking beginning of time is going to be in that room, except for the guys running the search teams. I want you there.”

  54

  The next morning, Hangman drove through the back alley parallel to Delaware, hearing water drip, the remains of a storm that had just blown through. The alley was narrow, and the old Cadillac barely made it through, the twin side mirrors only a couple of inches from the yellow brick of the buildings on the left and the raggedy chain link fence on the right. But he knew from long experience that the car would fit.

  The building was up on the left another two blocks. As he passed a vacant lot on his left, the perspective allowed him to glance up and see the domed concrete roof. It had been a Masonic lodge back in the days when powerful men lived in the North. Powerful men still lived in the North, but the city itself was no longer powerful.

  He told himself that an ordinary man, an ordinary killer, would be going to his mother’s grave at this time, with his latest quarry locked up and ready to be taken. Even among killers, there were clichés, but he didn’t avoid the grave because it was a cliché. No, it was just that his particular formula didn’t have death on both sides of the equals sign. He was going to kill the girl, but he didn’t want to remember his mother in death as he did so. No, he wanted to remember what they stole from her, and him. Life. And this was where his mother had felt most alive.

  He pulled up to the lodge, the broad span of the Cadillac’s hood nearly touching the brick on the left. If he pulled all the way up, there’d be no room to open the door. So he stopped short and, low-slung in the car’s plush, old leather seats, he studied the windows of the two-story frame houses over the fences and small backyards to his right. No one there. He could risk it. Two minutes for his tradition.

  He came here every time before the kill. Except for Martha Stoltz. No time then.

  Hangman got out, his wide lapels pulled up over his chin. If the coat had been patent leather, licorice black or caramel-colored, it would have gone with the Cadillac, he supposed. The whiff of pimp-wear. But it was wool, a little outrageous but not enough to cause stares. Better to be a little outrageous than to be seen attempting to blend in. That wouldn’t do. And besides, this alleyway was always deserted. Business had fled to the suburbs, leaving the half-empty city for him to hunt in.

  He touched the brick corner, the color of pale mustard. He ran his hand along the brick and smiled. He’d been inside only once. His mother had taken him to a dance here. It must have been 1973 or ’74, when he was seven or eight. She’d dressed up in her green “mermaid” dress, all sleek spangles that mimicked the skin of a she-fish, and taken him along, awkward, dressed in plaid Sears Husky polyester slacks and a white shirt. He wore the vintage jacket in remembrance—’70s fashion.

  Oh, but those were good times. His mother’s pale face, framed by the curls darker than the darkest black, and a vivid slash of lipstick.

  The dance had been fun. A black DJ with a modified fro, cheap drinks set out on a plywood table. She said she’d brought him because he always seemed so quiet, so withdrawn. “Let’s have some fun, just the two of us.” But he knew that they were too poor to afford a baby-sitter, and she didn’t trust him to the neighbors. And he would have thrown a fit if she’d tried to leave him with anyone. He didn’t want to be with anyone but her.

  So the dance at an old Masonic temple fallen on hard times. A mixed crowd, black, white, students from Buff State. The music had been good. “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” “Crocodile Rock.”

  He whispered the words to the latter song as he ran his hands along the brick. There was a back stairway, three steps up with a metal rail, painted brown once, now the metal shining through here and there. This is where they’d come out. He climbed up slowly.

  He’d danced one song with her. “Love Train.” People had laughed and a couple had clapped. The kid’s got some moves. Not really. He’d felt awkward and soon retired to the wooden chairs set up along the wall and sipped his fruit punch while his mother danced with men.

  Hangman danced a step as he went up the stairs. He laughed. He thought of Katrina and a shiver went through him. The one before her, Martha Stoltz, he’d been far too impatient with. He’d put her up in the tree in a burst of exuberance, just wanting to feel what it was like again to see one of them dance on the end of a rope. But Katrina he was doing right. Taking his time. Observing the ritual.

  Were the girls vengeance for what had been taken from him? Or had the killings slowly transformed into something else? The simple joy of taking a young girl’s life?

  “No,” he said, and it came out as a gasp. He’d been through this before. It could be both things; one didn’t necessarily cancel out the other. What did it matter if he enjoyed getting back at the vultures for what they’d done to his mother? It didn’t invalidate the act. It didn’t mean …

  He wrenched his thoughts away from it.

  Hangman went to the door. It was steel, painted dark brown like the railing, set flush into the brick. There was a small rectangular window with old security glass in it, the kind with triangles of wire set into the glass. He brought his eyes down and stared into the interior.

  Milky gloom. No light. But his eyes were remembering; he didn’t want to see what it looked like now.

  What if …

  Hangman gritted his teeth. He took a deep breath. He thought he’d gotten beyond this. The girl was waiting. The North was panicked. Everything was just as it should be.

  Then his mother’s voice, deep and fragile in his ears. What if you’re doing this not for me, only for yourself?

  Hangman stared through the little pane of glass.

  I’m doing it for both of us, he thought.

  He stood there a long time, looking.

  55

  The conference room was big and airy. It was where they swore in the rookies after they’d graduated from the academy, and where they gave out commendations for cops who’d dove into the Niagara River to rescue fishermen or boaters who’d toppled into the w
ater. But there was no media here today. Reporters had bayed at the cops as they’d entered the building, shouting “Katrina” and “latest” and “dead”—those words jumbled into a hoarse cry as she ducked into the entrance.

  An enormous map was pinned to the wall behind the podium, a pointer next to it, like Abbie remembered from high school geography lessons. The room hadn’t been fitted out with AV equipment and there was no computer in sight.

  At the lectern, Perelli looked shrunken in his white shirt and abstract pattern tie, all reds and blacks. He looked out over the crowd. “Let’s begin with yesterday.”

  No pep talk, no introductions. Perelli was sick that the madman was still at large and his attitude toward the cops spread out before him verged on the reproachful. We haven’t caught him yet, so let’s dispense with the niceties.

  The men and women in the room leaned forward, their faces lined with exhaustion.

  “For those of you who’ve been out in the field, Hangman has been in contact with the father of Sandy Riesen. Hangman offered to give Mr. Riesen back a memento from his daughter for $50,000. The meet was arranged for 8 p.m. last night at the Stone Tower in Allegany State Park. We were able to introduce only two cops to the immediate scene, due to the danger of alerting Hangman to our presence. But we thought we had a chance at catching him.” He looked for Kearney, his eyes darting beneath his brow. When he found her, he frowned sourly and went back to his notes. “As you know, that didn’t happen. Detective Raymond was attacked and struck with a heavy object. A branch with his blood was found thirty yards from the attack scene. Apparently, Hangman was able to spot our team ahead of time. Sandy Riesen’s amputated hand was found on top of the Stone Tower, apparently left by the killer. Unmarked bills brought by Frank Riesen were taken. Any questions so far?”

  “How’s Raymond?” someone called.

  “Recovering,” Perelli said.

  He’s pissed, Abbie thought. Well, the hell with him.

  “Did the techs get anything from …?”

  “Sandy Riesen’s hand? No. There was grit under the fingernails but nothing else. The DNA check will take a couple of days.”

  A sheriff raised his hand. “Time of death?” he drawled out.

  “Can only be guessed at,” Perelli barked. “The aging of the … dead matter can depend on where it was buried and how the environment accelerated or decelerated the decomposition. But it appears that it’s consistent with her dying shortly after she was kidnapped.”

  Abbie raised her hand and was met by Perelli’s stern glare.

  “Kearney,” he said.

  Abbie leaned forward.

  “What kind of dirt was underneath the fingernails?”

  Perelli blinked twice. “What do you mean what kind of dirt?”

  “Did we get an analysis of the type of dirt that was found and compare them with local …” For a moment, the word escaped her. “With local samples? Different areas might have different kinds of soil. I’d imagine that ground closer to the lake is different than ground near the mountain. If we found out where she was buried, that might—”

  Perelli did not attempt to hide his disdain. “We’re not trying to solve a crime, Kearney. It really doesn’t matter where Hangman buried Sandy Riesen. He’s somewhere in North Buffalo.”

  “We think.”

  Perelli’s eyes closed to slits. “To go and collect soil samples from all over Buffalo and then to compare them to the dirt from the corpse would take weeks. We don’t have weeks, or days. And the Buffalo Police Department doesn’t maintain a library of soil samples.”

  Abbie hesitated. It would be better to discuss this in private, but Perelli had chosen the forum. “The FBI has a mineralogy unit at Quantico. We used them in Miami.”

  She saw his neck muscles bulge.

  “Fine. Go,” he ordered, and she was off.

  56

  The Medical Examiner’s Office was northwest of the city’s downtown, near the university’s medical school, and Abbie made it there in her Saab in fifteen minutes, calling ahead to let the ME know she was coming. She pulled up in front of the low-slung brick building, hidden behind a boxwood hedge, and hurried up the walk. She rang the bell and, after a minute or two, a pretty middle-aged black woman in a pristine lab coat came to the door. “Detective Kearney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. I’m back here.”

  The woman held the door for Abbie, then strode purposefully ahead, the wings of her lab coat flapping back to reveal a gray-green patterned dress and fashionable black leather heels. Abbie followed. The receptionist nodded and they made a quick left turn toward a pair of steel-faced elevators. The woman, Dr. Braintree, Abbie noticed from her nametag, hit the button and then turned and smiled.

  Abbie reached to take her jacket off—the building was stuffy—and Dr. Braintree shook her head.

  “You might want to keep that on. We keep the examination room at a steady 62.”

  Abbie nodded, shrugging back into the jacket. The doors pinged open and they stepped in.

  “You spoke to my assistant,” Braintree said, eyeing her. “You wanted to know about the soil under Sandy Riesen’s fingernails?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Compare them to the FBI’s forensic geology database?”

  Abbie nodded.

  “We can do a basic comparison online now,” Braintree said. “If you want something more definitive—” The doors opened and a rush of cold air swept into the car as they stepped out and began walking down a hallway tiled in aqua green.

  “—we’ll have to send them to Quantico.”

  “I know,” Abbie said, struggling to keep up with Braintree. “I’ve dealt with them before. All I want now is to see if there’s something distinctive about the samples under the girl’s fingernails. A quick hit.”

  Braintree pushed through a pair of swinging doors and two minutes later they were in the examination room: modern, white-tiled, smelling of formaldehyde and a strong disinfectant that burned the lining of Abbie’s nostrils. There were four stainless steel examination tables lined up in a row at the center. On top of the second one was a white cloth that looked like a dinner napkin. Braintree went to the table and swept the cloth off, laid it next to the metal tray underneath.

  Sandy’s hand was shrunken and gray under the bright fluorescent light. The fingernail on the ring finger had been removed, and the flesh under it was dry and fissured, like old wax.

  “The dirt was found underneath the nail of the fourth finger,” Braintree said. “I believe the hand had been cleaned before …” Braintree looked up, at a loss for words.

  “Before the exchange,” Abbie said, nodding. “Go on.”

  “But these grains were further down, between the nail itself and the nail bed, almost halfway to what we call the matrix, which is here.”

  Braintree pointed to the base of the nail, near the cuticle.

  “Even a thorough scrubbing might have missed them.”

  Abbie looked at the hand. At the base, where it had been separated from the arm just below the wrist, a yellowing bone sat at the center of the darkened skin.

  “This was done recently?” Abbie said, pointing.

  “Yes,” Braintree said. “The amputation was done with a very sharp knife, most likely. No saw or anything with serrated teeth.”

  “Have you looked at the soil samples?” Abbie asked.

  “No. I can do that right now, if you like.”

  “Please.”

  Braintree covered the hand and Abbie found herself staring at the white square as Braintree walked toward the rear wall.

  “Detective?”

  Abbie stepped forward and lifted the cloth. She bent down and studied the hand, moving left. The nails were done in a pale green color, almost a pistachio. Abbie reached out and touched the nail on the index finger. It was cool to the touch, glossy.

  “Nail polish survives pretty well, doesn’t it?” she said when Braintree returned.

 
“Yes. It’s similar to the paint on a car. Resins and polymers, basically. Tough stuff.” Braintree smiled wanly and brought her French-manicured hand up. “If we’re ever murdered and our bodies are found years later, at least our nails will still look hot.”

  Abbie smiled. She and Braintree were both well dressed, their shoes expensive and their nails done. She looked at her own, painted just three days ago in Big Apple Red. “Morgue humor, Doctor?”

  Braintree shrugged. “We take it where we can find it.”

  Abbie’s brow creased. “Were you here when Sandy was killed?” she said. “In Buffalo, I mean.”

  The smile disappeared from Braintree’s face, and was replaced with a look of mild shock. “If you’re saying I’m being insensitive—”

  Abbie reached up a hand and waved it. “Nothing like that. I’m just trying to … It probably doesn’t matter.” Abbie rubbed her forehead. “Can I have the fingernail you removed?”

  Braintree pursed her lips. “Really?”

  Abbie looked at her. “Is that a problem?”

  “No. It’s just … I thought only killers kept mementos.”

  “It’s just a hunch. I’d like to have it.”

  Braintree went to a drawer and pulled it open. Out came a small Ziploc bag with a pistachio-painted nail inside.

  “Thanks,” Abbie said.

  “Should we continue?”

  Braintree went to the long steel counter that lined the near wall and flicked a power button on a large microscope bulging with buttons and knobs. She leaned over the eyepiece. Her black Dell laptop was open on the counter next to the scope, and Abbie saw she was logged on to the FBI secure forensics website.

  “I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to tell you,” Braintree said. “I did a course in soil forensics in postgrad, but that was about ten years ago. We don’t get much call for it here.”

  Abbie nodded.

  Braintree reached up and turned a small dial on the base of the microscope. “God, I hope it’s not granite. There are literally thousands of kinds of granite and we’ll be here all day trying to find the right variety. What that will tell you”—Braintree glanced up at Abbie—“I have no idea.” She pushed a glass rectangle onto the lighted pad at the base of the microscope and hovered over the eyepiece. “Let me start with low power, see what kind of sucker we got here.”