by Blake Banner
The inspector listened carefully throughout and when she had finished he smiled broadly. “Excellent work, then we can consider, pending the lab results, that this case is closed.”
“It would certainly look that way, sir.”
He turned to me. “John, I know you had your doubts but I trust this has satisfied even your relentlessly incisive mind. And I have to say, all credit to you, John, you never let your own, personal feelings interfere with the investigation. You are a true example to us all, and I might say a superb role model for Carmen. Commendable work, both of you. I think you have earned a couple of days off, don’t you?”
I smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
We left and made our way down the stairs again. We collected our things and stepped out into the gathering evening. When we got to the car Dehan stopped and put her hand on my chest. There was a wash of amber light on her face from the street lamp above her.
“OK, John, let’s stop this before it gets out of hand. Tell me what the hell is going on in your mind. Don’t bullshit me and don’t fob me off. What the hell do you know that you are not telling me?”
I raised my eyebrows high. “John?”
“I warn you that I am getting mad. Don’t push me any further. Tell me or I am going to lose it.”
I nodded. “OK, let’s go and grab a meal somewhere and I will tell you what is on my mind. No need to get mad.”
“Emilio’s Pizza and we walk home. And quit bullshitting me!”
“Deal.”
SIXTEEN
We ordered steak and fries and a bottle of wine, and while he cooked them, we drank a couple of beers. We took a while, sipping and looking at each other, to find our way back across the bridges we were building in silence while we drank. Eventually I smiled at her and she smiled back. It was a nice smile, which she followed up with, “You know you are one obstinate son of a bitch, don’t you?”
I nodded. “My mother, God rest her soul, used to tell me the same thing, in those very same words.”
She lifted her thumb, not as a ‘thumbs up’ but as a ‘number one’, and said, “One: how did you know, quote ‘that something bad was going to happen’?” She lifted her index finger. “Two: how did you know there would be fingerprints on Angela’s bag and not on Noelia’s body, and that there would be semen?” She lifted her middle finger. “How did you know, or suspect, that something had happened to Jimmy Fillmore? And why is it significant that somebody took away the bottle after they had had a drink together?”
I pulled off half my beer and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. “Those ‘why’ questions will get you into trouble, Dehan. They are too vague. They don’t focus your mind.”
“Keep doing that. Keep bullshitting me. I swear you will sleep on the couch.”
“I’m not. And you’ll have to wrestle me for the bed and you know how that always ends up.”
“Quit stalling.”
“I had a hunch something bad was going to happen because, if Wayne wasn’t our killer, then our killer had to be out on the street, and still active. So it stood to reason that he might kill again at any time…”
She cut across me, shaking her head. “But at that time you believed that Wayne was the killer.”
I raised a finger. “It works that way too, if you think about it. And in any case, I believed he might be the killer because I was not happy with some of the details of his story.”
She frowned like she was getting a headache.
“What…?”
I ignored her and went on. “The fingerprints on the purse, Dehan, you really should be able to answer for yourself…”
She groaned softly, then raised a hand and said, “OK, OK, give me a second.” She thought and I waited. Finally she said, “He met her in a social environment, like a bar or something. They had arranged to meet to have a drink or whatever. In that kind of setting he could not be wearing gloves, so there was a good chance he handled her purse when he subdued her, bound her and gagged her. He wouldn’t have had time to put on gloves, but anyway he wouldn’t care because he planned to remove the purse anyway. But with Noelia, by the time he strangled and murdered her, he had already put on his gloves.”
I smiled and made a noncommittal face. “Sounds reasonable.”
“But how could you have known there would be semen?”
I stared at her for a long moment. “You really don’t see it?”
“No!”
“He always dumps them in the river.”
“And the river washes away the traces of semen and DNA.”
I half shrugged. “In the cold weather the bodies sink. By late April or May the water warms up. There are a lot of bacteria in the water and they very quickly corrupt any DNA such as semen that might be in the body.”
“But…”
I raised my eyebrows and began to nod slowly as she narrowed her eyes. Before she could say anything, a reporter on the TV spoke a name that made us turn toward the bar.
“…Wayne Harris was released from prison this afternoon having served only six months of a five year sentence for possession of cocaine. That in itself may not be very remarkable, but what is remarkable is the reason for his release. It seems that he has assisted the police in the capture of a serial killer who had been active in the Bronx area for at least two years – possibly much longer than that – while the police were completely oblivious to his murderous activity. It was not until Wayne Harris alerted them to his killings that they became aware. Since then, the police have uncovered a total of four murders committed by the man some are referring to as the Westchester Creek Strangler…”
Emilio brought over our steaks and set them in front of us. Then he poured our wine, nodding while he did it. He set down the bottle and gestured at me with the back of his hand while making his right leg do a little dance. “Eh,” he said, “You’re a cop, right?”
I nodded, “Yeah, so is my partner.”
He turned to Dehan. “Yeah, you’re a cop too. This guy. He killed however many young women. Now, they gonna use my money to keep him in jail. Why’d they get rid of the chair? Answer me that!”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Emilio. But this guy ain’t going nowhere on your dollar. He’s dead. Listen to the rest of the news item.”
He nodded, watching me. “Oh, he’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Death is too good for him, but I’m glad. Enjoy your meal.”
The TV was saying, “…in a bizarre twist to this tale, detectives found Fillmore dead in his apartment this afternoon, having apparently shot himself in the head…”
Emilio called over, “Hey, yeah, you was right! Nice.”
I gave him the thumbs up and turned back to Dehan.
She cut into her steak. Her expression was serious. “How did you know?”
“That he was dead?”
“Yeah.”
I chewed for a while, then sipped the wine. Eventually I said, “I didn’t.” She scowled at me. “I didn’t know, Dehan. He didn’t go into work. He didn’t call. From what I had heard from Teddy, he was reliable, so that was odd. And…” I sighed deep and shrugged. “Don’t get mad, but in my reasoning, one of the possibilities was that Jimmy was being framed, and if he was, the real killer had to eliminate him before we caught him.”
She put her head in her hands. “But, Stone, you said at the beginning that you knew something was going to happen because…”
“It gets confusing for me too, sometimes, Dehan. But the big difference between me and most other investigators is that, instead of making up my mind at the beginning, I keep all the options open, and then make up my mind when I have actual proof.”
“Do you know how smug you sound when you say that?”
“Yes.”
“Well this time, Mister Smug Ass, you were wrong, and I was right. Jimmy Fillmore was guilty.”
“And Wayne Harris is a free man.”
She gave her head a little tilt to the side. “A fair
price, I think.”
“Perhaps.”
“Come on, Stone!” She laughed. “Admit this once that you were wrong. Have you ever been wrong? Ever? Just once?”
“No.”
“Never? Seriously?”
“Never. How can you be wrong if you never make up your mind until you have proof? But before we move on from this subject, let me leave you with a thought. What was missing from Angela’s purse?” She frowned, shook her head. I said, “Lipstick.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “That’s it. You are so sleeping on the couch tonight.”
“You’ll have to wrestle me for the bed.”
“It’s on, boy.” She pointed at me. “You are going down!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Something to look forward to.”
Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped and she started to laugh.
We finished our meal, and the wine, laughing. Emilio had some goat’s cheese he claimed he’d had brought in in the Italian ambassador’s diplomatic bag—a statement he accompanied with an elaborate wink. The Italian ambassador, he said, was his cousin Tony, and laughed raucously. The cheese was good, but the wine was gone before the cheese was, so I had a Bushmills and Dehan had a brandy, and somehow it was eleven by the time we stepped out and started strolling home, arm in arm and still laughing.
We’d walked maybe a hundred yards. We were almost at the corner of Haight Avenue when my phone rang. We looked at each other and sighed. I didn’t recognize the number. I answered, “Yeah, Stone, who is this?”
“Good evening, Detective Stone Cold. How are you feeling? Are you feeling triumphant tonight?”
“What do you want, Wayne? It’s eleven l’clock at night.”
“I’m aware of the time, John. I am just here celebrating and I wanted to thank you for your help in securing my freedom.”
“No thanks required. Please don’t call this number again.”
“Well, now, Detective Stone, here’s the thing. I think that you and I need to talk.”
“We’ve done our talking, Wayne. We’re done here.”
“Not so fast, Detective Stone Cold, not so fast. See, there are some details that we have not covered, and you are going to want to cover them, I promise you.”
I glanced at Dehan and puffed my cheeks. “Yeah? Then come into the station tomorrow morning. We’ll talk there.”
He laughed out loud. “Oh man! Like a big shot executive, contact my office! Dude! You cannot treat me like that. I need your respect, man.”
“Goodbye, Wayne.”
“Tonight.”
“What?”
Dehan was watching me through narrowed eyes. I spread my hands at her and shook my head. I said into the phone, “You want to meet tonight? Get real, Wayne!”
His voice changed. “No. It’s time you got real, Detective Stone. You’ve known from the start that there was more to this than met the eye. Well, my friend, you were right. You get yourself down to Randall and Zerega and I’ll be waiting for you. You’re gonna want to hear what I have to tell you. And Stone? Come alone, pal. If I see your cute partner with you, or I smell bacon on the air, I am out of there. Comprende?”
The line went dead. I stared at Dehan for a moment. “Come on, I’m driving you home. I have to go to Zerega Avenue.”
I took her arm and started to walk back toward the car, outside Emilio’s. She said, “I’m coming with you. You are not going alone.”
“A, if he sees you he’ll bolt. B, I am not letting you within a mile of that man.”
“What does he want?”
“He says he wants to tell me what the case was all about.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
We had got to the car and I opened the door. “You and your open questions, Dehan. One day they will get you into trouble. I’m serious. Get in.”
We got in and slammed the doors. I fired up the engine and took off toward Haight Avenue again. I said, “It means that Wayne never knew we had Rosario and Sonia. Tonight he was watching the news and he found out.”
She shook her head as I accelerated toward our house. “So? Stop talking in riddles, Stone!”
I skidded to a halt outside our front door and climbed out. I had my piece in my hand. “I haven’t got time now, Dehan.”
She pulled her weapon and I opened the door. I flipped on the light and we checked every room. There was nobody there. I ran down the stairs to the living room and at the front door I held her by her shoulders. “Listen, expect a call from me in about half an hour. Don’t talk, just listen and record the call. If necessary, call for backup. I’ll be where Angela was murdered.”
“Jesus, Stone…”
“The answer to your questions is lipstick!”
I ran down the steps, climbed back in the Jag, did a ‘U’ and accelerated south, toward Zerega and the Westchester Creek.
Sinatra called New York the city that never sleeps. That may be true of Manhattan, but the vast residential and industrial areas in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and the rest—after sundown, they become empty, dark places, with shadows that are only made deeper by the lifeless street lamps that bathe the blacktop and the sidewalks in dead orange and amber. You don’t see anybody in those desolate streets, except the occasional lost soul: lost not because they don’t know the way home, but because they have no home to find their way to.
I drove fast through these spiritual wastelands, and eventually passed under the multiple bridges of the Bruckner and Cross Bronx expressways, like huge portals into the underworld. There I joined the path of the Westchester Creek that ran black and cold beside me on the left, and soon came to Randall Avenue on my right.
All the parking spaces, packed full during the day, were empty now. But up ahead, on the left, I saw the dark silhouette of a BMW. I slowed and pulled in a couple of spaces away, just past the gate where we had recently gained access to the river. I killed the engine, dialed Dehan’s number, put the phone back in my pocket and climbed out. Ten yards away, in a pool of sickly light from a streetlamp, I saw a figure climb out of the BMW and close the door. He lit up a cigarette and by the flame of his lighter I saw it was Wayne.
He took a deep drag and put his lighter away, then walked toward me, blowing smoke. His footsteps were loud in the stillness of the night. Finally he stood in front of me, massive, menacing and smiling. “Hello, Detective Stone Cold. This is the first time I have seen you when you haven’t had my future in your hands. It feels good.”
“What do you want, Wayne?”
He laughed. “That question again. It’s what my therapist kept asking me inside: ‘What do you want, Wayne?’” He shrugged and chuckled. “It’s a stupid question. What you want changes from one moment to the next, don’t it, Stone? Half an hour ago you wanted to cuddle up in bed with your cute lady. Now, just thirty minutes later, you want to find out what I know. And in another thirty minutes, who knows what you’ll want then?”
“I’m getting bored. Have you got something for me or not?”
“Oh, I have got something for you, Stone, for sure.” He shook his head. “Ask not what a man wants, John, ask always what a man intends. What he wants may change from one moment to the next, but if he is a man, what he intends will remain constant.”
“All right, Wayne, what do you intend?”
“I thought I had made that clear, John.”
“Cut to the chase. You’ve got thirty seconds. Then I am getting in my car and I am going home. Your bullshit bores me, Wayne. Get to the point.”
He stared at me for a long moment and his eyes were dangerous. There was a hunger in them, and a suppressed rage. “Thirty seconds? Is that all you give me? Thirty seconds and counting. What are we down to now? Twenty? Fifteen?”
I sighed, pulled my keys from my pocket and turned toward my car.
He spoke from behind me: “Always with the ultimatums. Or should that be ultimata?” I opened the door and went to climb in. He said, “I want—I intend—to tell
you the truth.”
SEVENTEEN
I paused, looking at him across the roof of my car. I spoke with more anger than I had intended. “Is this going to be fifteen hours of B movie bad guy bullshit? Or do you intend to get to the point before breakfast? Because I am telling you I am not interested in being a captive audience of the Wayne Harris Show. You are not amusing and you are not interesting. So unless you have something to tell me, Wayne, you can go to hell!”
He studied the tip of his cigarette. “I think you will be interested in what I have to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
He smiled and pointed down toward the river. “Down there.”
“Are you kidding? You want to go down to the river?”
He nodded. “I need to show you something.”
I pulled my 1911, pointed it at him and cocked the hammer. “OK, show me something.”
His face went tight. “You pulled a gun on me? Man, you are so uptight.”
“Lean on the car.” He put the butt in his mouth and leaned on the car. I patted him down. He was clean. “OK, walk. Show me.”
He pushed himself off the car and moved toward the gate in the fence. We went through and he began to stumble and slide down the track toward the river. A waxing moon in its first quarter was rising, ghostly and orange over Brooklyn, but offered no light on the path, which was dense with shadows.
Finally he broke out onto the flatter ground and ran a couple of steps. I followed after him and he stopped and turned to face me. He looked at my weapon and shook his head. “Put your gun away, Detective. I don’t know what to do to make you trust me, man.”
I looked around, listening. “Telling the truth might be a start,” I said. “Sit down.”