Surrender, New York

by Caleb Carr

  “I’m fine,” the tech answered, getting to his feet again quickly and immediately resuming his story: “Anyway—you probably didn’t notice it because you didn’t examine the posterior surface of her skin. Or maybe because it’s obscured by the rather wide filigree tattoo she has at the small of her back—but it’s there.”

  Mike, glancing at me to say that the exercise was wholly perfunctory, moved around to Shelby’s back, took a look, and said, “Well. You’re right, Curtis, it’s there. A bruise.”

  “Very common, in forced hangings within confined spaces,” Curtis went on. “As I’m sure you know.”

  “Yep,” Mike agreed. “Hey, Trajan, come over here and take a look. I guess it probably was the tattoo that made me miss it…”

  Moving around the opposite side of the dead girl as Curtis extricated himself from the closet, I put my head near Mike’s, realizing that he wished to communicate something. At the same time, I followed his indication to observe a broad area of discoloration across the small of Shelby’s back, beneath a rather commonly designed tattoo of the variety that has come to be called, perhaps unkindly, a “tramp stamp,” or, just a bit more cleverly, a “California license plate.” The tattoo told me far more about the girl and her death than did the bruise, however, as I quickly told Mike:

  “But that’s no bruise,” I whispered, to his quick nod. “That’s—”

  “Shut the fuck up, will you?” he whispered back. “I know what it is. And Curtis may be a likable chump, but we both know who he works for, and there’s no reason to give them an edge, right?”

  Getting the point, I announced loudly, “Well, I don’t know how you missed that, Michael. And you’re right, Curtis, it pretty much confirms how the girl could have died in this closet.” Mike and I came back out to face the tech, who was ear-to-ear with pride at the thought of having bested us. “But I don’t understand,” I went on. “When we got here you told us that you had a problem with the scene, that something just didn’t seem right. Seems to me that, other than tying it up with firm evidence of just who the killer was, you’ve got what you need.”

  “Well—it’s other things,” Curtis said, his uncertainty returning. “For instance, I guess you’ve seen her clothes, and the drugs? I left them unbagged when Steve said you were coming, so you’d be sure to notice.”

  “Yeah,” Mike answered. “We’ve seen them.”

  “Well, then,” Curtis concluded, as if our reaction to those items should have been as immediate and conclusive as was our supposed realization of the “bruise” on Shelby’s back. “It says just one thing, doesn’t it? Especially when you put it in combination with the position of her body?”

  “What about the position of her body, exactly?” I asked; and this time it was my turn to glance at Mike and tell him silently to be ready for what he was about to hear from the tech.

  “Well, it’s really up your street more than mine, Dr. Jones,” Curtis explained, “but doesn’t her position very strongly resemble something? Say, a crucifixion?”

  I could just hear the sound of Mike’s hand moving up in a rush to smack his own forehead; but fortunately, he covered the move by letting his hand linger there, as if to indicate, not impatience with Curtis’ conclusion, but frustration that we hadn’t reached so “obvious” an observation on our own.

  “Which means,” I said quickly, not wanting to give Curtis any time to question my partner’s reaction, “that you suspect some sort of ritualistic killer?”

  “Ritualistic serial killer—I mean, it’s pretty plain, isn’t it?” Curtis asked.

  And there they were: those two little words that, for techs of Curtis’ generation—weaned as they had been on movie and television tales of such people—represented the Holy Grail of investigation. “Indeed,” I answered, as collegially as I could manage. “Although first you would need the ‘serial,’ wouldn’t you?”

  The tech’s eager nod openly stated what Mike and I had already concluded silently: that such a serial—although by no means such a serial killer, necessarily—already existed. “Think about it—the religious positioning of the body, combined with the tender care of her personal belongings? He rapes her, kills her, and then, out of what motivation you’d have to tell me, he treats her and her things with an almost worshipful emotion—wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said, disheartened less by Curtis’ fatal misreading of several key clues than by the fact that the tech had already formed his own solid analysis of what had happened to Shelby Capamagio. At this point, he was only interested in any ideas we might have that would help him pursue it and win the considerable prize of upstaging a man with the kind of inter-county power that Weaver possessed, thus elevating his stock—and perhaps his position—within the FIC. There was nothing unusual in all this. Curtis was simply embodying a problem that had plagued his profession from its beginnings:

  That problem, in a nutshell, was the second part of what had made the human link in the chain of forensic investigation so fatal to the field’s ascension to a true science. The first was the bullying, incompetent collection and observation of evidence that Dr. Weaver had already demonstrated; but there was also the careerist ambition that led to “tunnel vision,” the desire among investigators to see and hear only those facts and theories that will reinforce their initial impressions and suspicions, and thus satisfy their law enforcement superiors all the quicker. This tendency, of course, had been the original sin of most criminal investigators dating back to ancient Rome; but in our own time, tunnel vision had been layered with new euphemisms that criminologists had mined from the social sciences in order to put an intellectual face on a very ancient shortcoming. The habit had been reborn, in recent decades, under such impressive names as “bounded rationality,” “focused determinism,” and “satisficing” (a shotgun marriage of “satisfying” and “sufficing” that was precisely as dangerous as it is sounds), until finally it had adopted the name of that field to which impatient cognitive scientists of all subdivisions had devoted thousands of pages and dozens of volumes: “heuristics.” It was a deliberately arcane word used to describe “cognitive shortcuts”: the kind of shortcuts that might make one’s initial instincts, prejudices, and simple hunches appear the result of legitimate—or, occasionally, even profound—intellectual processes.

  And it was because of his occasional display of this second fault that the otherwise inoffensive and occasionally even perceptive Curtis Kolmback was not to be trusted with all the thoughts and theories that Mike and I had formed inside the trailer, some of which we had spoken of to each other, some of which were of a variety that we had, over the years, learned to read in each other’s faces without even acknowledging them aloud.

  “But here’s what’s so strange,” Curtis continued, moving closer and speaking quietly. “And when I said all this to Dr. Weaver, he was actually very encouraging.”

  “Then he agreed with your circumstantial findings?” Mike asked, trying very hard, now, to maintain the patience necessary to take what we were hearing seriously.

  “Yes,” Curtis said. “He agreed with everything I said, in fact. And when I mentioned the words ‘serial killer,’ he told me to pursue it, that it would be good for my career.”

  Suddenly my attention was brought very seriously to bear: “Those were his actual words to you?”

  “Word for word,” Curtis said with a nod. “Good for my career. Pretty unusual, for Weaver, to offer that kind of encouragement.”

  “Well, then congratulations, Curtis,” I said, giving him an indulgent clap on the shoulder. “And you’re right: Weaver doesn’t like to dish out the compliments.” With my grip on his shoulder, I pulled the younger man’s head closer to mine conspiratorially. “And for what it’s worth, I think your theory has a lot of merit, too.”

  “You do?” the tech answered, so eagerly that it was close to embarrassing.

  “Indeed, Curtis,” I said. “In fact, here’s what I’d like you
to do…” I took out one of my cards, and slipped it into the only open pocket I could find on his jumpsuit. “Keep us posted on your findings—not just on this case, but on future ones that look like they might have been the work of the same killer. Can I count on you to do that?”

  “Well…” The man wasn’t quite sold, just yet. “Just as long as it doesn’t get me in trouble. It’s hard enough to get anywhere, inside this unit—”

  “We wouldn’t mess with you like that, Curtis,” Mike threw in, evidently having caught on to my scheme. “Just let us know as much as you safely can, or need to—that’s all. Our involvement here’s strictly advisory, anyway—we might as well advise you, too. No harm in it.”

  “But for now,” I said, hoping to wrap things up before he had any more time to hesitate, “I think we’d better get going. I can hear Steve bellowing even louder outside, he must be wound up about something—”

  “Oh, shit!” Curtis said, quickly recalling the business that had sent him inside in the first place. “He is—for some reason, we got a lot of brass on the way to this one: the ADA, my boss, somebody from the BCI—” Meaning the State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, New York’s own version of the FBI.

  “Albany’s interested?” I said, the fact reinforcing every idea I had been forming in the last few minutes. “Well, well…” I looked to Mike: the interest of such luminaries had enormous implications concerning not only the cause and importance of Shelby Capamagio’s death, but a larger chain of events into which that death likely fit, and my partner and I now knew as much—although Curtis evidently did not. “We’d better make ourselves scarce indeed, then, Michael,” I continued, in a quiet, even tone; then I offered the tech a hand, which he shook gratefully. “Thank you for the time, Curtis,” I said, as we all started for the trailer door. “And I’m sorry we couldn’t offer any theories to augment your own—but that fact should at least give you some satisfaction, right?”

  “It does, believe me,” Curtis said; and he was about to further express his relief when he turned to find me lagging a couple of steps behind. “Aren’t you coming, Dr. Jones?”

  “Hmm?” I noised. “Oh, yeah, don’t worry, Curtis—I’ll be right along…”

  “Don’t worry about him, Curtis,” Mike said, putting his free arm around the tech’s shoulder. “Likes to get a last look at the scene, without anybody around. You know—his ‘Sorcerer of Death’ bullshit.”

  Curtis laughed along with Mike, glad to be let in on the jibe, as I glanced around that room, Shelby’s room, one last time, burning every detail into my brain and then finally re-approaching her body.

  “Well, young Shelby,” I said, reaching up to carefully close her eyes, which was the least I could do morally, but the most I could do legally, to offer her some measure of dignity. “We will find out what happened here. You have my word on that…”

  Once I’d joined the others outside, the impatiently waiting Spinetti herded Mike and me quickly to Pete’s cruiser, and the deputy just as speedily opened both the front and back doors on the vehicle’s passenger side; but neither Mike nor I was about to climb in until we’d straightened a few things out:

  “Steve,” I said, my voice now dead serious, “I understand your desire to get us out of here before your various superiors arrive. Particularly if they are being accompanied by any members of the media.”

  “You’re good and goddamn right I want you out of here,” Spinetti answered, his own voice all business. “So will you please get in and let Pete drive you back to Shiloh—”

  “We will return, Sheriff, and very willingly,” I countered. “But I think that if you genuinely desire our advice regarding this girl’s death, then you at least owe it to us to be candid about what’s going on.”

  Spinetti eyed me carefully. “I don’t think I’m hearing you quite right, Dr. Jones—you’re saying Pete and I haven’t been straight with you?”

  I held up a quick hand, wanting to avoid useless arguments. “You’ve been as straight as you’ve believed you can be—but you’ve also revealed more than you know. Despite your seeming ambivalence when we arrived, you plainly wanted and continue to want our advice as to whether or not you should align your own opinions with those of Weaver and Kolmback. And if our answer is that you should not, you will want detailed ammunition to use against both of those men, in what I suspect will rapidly become a high-level debate with the assistant district attorney and the BCI. Fine. But in return for all this, you might at least share with us the full story concerning not only this case, but whatever similar case or cases preceded it, and why there should be so much official concern about them.” Then I turned to the deputy. “Pete, when we arrived, you spoke of not wanting to get ‘this one’ wrong—and when I remarked on the statement, you deliberately ignored me.”

  Steve removed his own Stetson and slapped it against his thigh in frustration. “Goddamn it, Pete, I told you—”

  “Don’t blame your deputy, Steve,” I said. “It was the only mistake he made, and it was a small one. Yours was worse.”

  “Mine?” Spinetti asked, his eyes going wide.

  “Yours,” I answered. “If you had wanted to keep certain things secret, you had no business sending Kolmback in to retrieve us on his own, just now. Past experience should have told you he would let something serious slip, as he did, simply by telling us that an entire wave of senior officials are heading to this scene. Those types wouldn’t take much interest in the murder of a teenage meth head, unless it was part of a pattern—you know it, and we know it.”

  Spinetti needed to consider that statement for a moment; and concession came in the form of his putting his hat back on and nodding in resignation. “Yeah. I suppose.” Glancing about, he returned his gaze to me with some little contrition. “But like Pete says, neither one of us would have kept anything back from you guys, if we didn’t need to. I hope you know that.”

  “And I do, Steve. All the same, I do think you might tell us the full story of what’s happening here, now that we’re apparently playing parts in it. Neither Mike nor I are in any position, much less inclined, to provide you with insights that may come back to bite us on the ass, if the arguments over this and any related crime scenes make scapegoating necessary.” I paused, allowing all heads to cool a bit. “We had quite enough of that sort of thing down in”—and I emphasized my next words just as the sheriff was wont to do—“New York City…”

  Slowly nodding a bit, Spinetti finally murmured, “Okay—okay, Doc. But neither of you heard any of it from either Pete or me—fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” I said with a nod of my own.

  “And I’m gonna let my deputy tell the rest of it to you on your drive back,” the sheriff continued. “I don’t imagine you got much desire to be here when the hotshots arrive—and I still haven’t quite figured how I’m gonna explain what you were doing here in the first place. But you can help me with that.”

  “Can we?” I said, stepping into Pete’s cruiser while Mike took his place in the back seat. Pete raced around to get into the driver’s seat, and in a few seconds the vehicle’s V-8 roared to life. Pressing the button to roll down my window, I looked out at Spinetti. “And what form might that help take?”

  “Just give me the short version—Pete can take down the details. That way, they’ll be so busy arguing with me, maybe they won’t care about you being here.” The sheriff leaned down and looked by turns at Mike and then me. “So tell me: Weaver and Kolmback—they’re full of shit, right?”

  I studied Spinetti’s gleaming eyes and growing smile, and realized just how serious the political and turf battle that had plainly begun some time ago must have been, and how much more heated it was about to get. I knew all the players, some better than others; but of all the lot, these two, the sheriff and his deputy, were the only ones I actually respected. In Pete Steinbrecher I had discerned only the faintest traces of political ambition, over the years; while Steve Spinetti had long ago satisfied
his ego by being repeatedly elected county sheriff. The rest of them, in contrast, represented a stew of men and women whose eyes were forever on the next rung of the political ladder, and who were therefore willing and able to select, bend, and pervert evidence in criminal cases—even murders—to suit their purposes. In short, if I was going to give weapons to anyone, it would be the pair on either side of me, who at least had the virtue of being men who comprised the front line not only of criminal investigation, but of criminal confrontation, pursuit, and capture.

  And so I nodded back at Spinetti, although the lingering image of Shelby Capamagio’s searching, dead gaze prevented me from returning his smile; and after a few seconds I said simply, “Well, Steve: Weaver says it’s a cut and dried murder of a runaway teen. Then Kolmback says that there’s a serial killer loose, which we do not believe; but instead of slapping Curtis down, Weaver—privately—encourages him. Says it’ll be good for his career. In short, in the opinion of Doctor Li and myself, both Weaver and Kolmback are, in fact, full of shit. The girl did not die here, and she didn’t die in the manner either of them say.”

  Spinetti nodded once, and his smile spread. “Holy shit,” he said. “If even that much is true…” Then he slapped the roof of the cruiser twice and Pete put it into reverse, slowly rolling back toward Daybreak Lane with the sheriff walking along beside, looking from me to Mike and seeking out some last words of reassurance. “Just give me one solid fact, though, fellas—something to show them that there’s more to it than saying Weaver and Kolmback are wrong, so’s I don’t have to worry about getting my ass shot off.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Mike called, leaning forward—for prisoners were of course prevented from rolling down their own windows. “Tell Nancy Grimes”—who was the head of the FIC, and Curtis Kolmback’s boss—“to take a look at the girl’s back. She’ll either get it, and back you, or miss it, and then you can act like you’ve got something to hold over them.”