A Killer Like Me (28 page)

Murphy sat up. Despite his spinning head, despite Marcy Edwards, despite everything, this accusation was making him mad. It couldn’t go unchallenged. “I didn’t tell Kirsten Sparks or anyone else about the killer’s connection to the fire. Call her and ask her yourself.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“We have a rule here, Murphy. Cops don’t talk to the press without prior approval. Period.”

Murphy kept his mouth shut. There was nothing he could say that would convince Donovan he was telling the truth.

The captain leaned over his desk. “Get this straight. I want you out of my division, out of this bureau, and off the goddamn job, but I can’t do any of that right now because we have a psycho running loose in this city who just committed the biggest mass murder in history. Then he played Al-Qaeda and chopped off a woman’s head on fucking TV. Then he snatched the mayor’s daughter. All that in just two days. The public and the press want answers, and you’re the head of the task force we created to catch this sick fuck. And to top it all off, we’re about to have another fucking Katrina.”

Donovan jumped to his feet and jabbed a finger at his office door. “Now, I want you to walk out there, stand in front of those reporters, and deliver some kind of statement that doesn’t make us look like Barney fucking Fife is leading the Keystone fucking Cops.”

Murphy stood and walked out.

Behind him, Donovan shouted, “It’s going to be carried live, so don’t fuck it up.”

The makeshift press-briefing room was set up in the police academy’s main classroom. On the way there, Murphy stopped in the squad room. He found Gaudet at his desk.

“Captain chew your ass?” Gaudet asked.

Murphy nodded.

“Where the hell were you?”

“I spent yesterday afternoon at the clerk’s office trying to find links between the victims,” Murphy said. “Then I went to the Records Division. Then I went home. I needed a break, so I turned off my radio and my phone. You disappear all the time and nobody says shit. Why is it such a big fucking deal when I do it?”

Gaudet threw up his hands. “I was just asking.”

Murphy glanced in the direction of the waiting reporters. “What do we know about the mayor’s daughter?”

Gaudet shrugged. “Two guys from the day watch are at her apartment right now. They said the door was locked and there was no sign of forced entry. She was at some kind of awards banquet last night. Friends said they dropped her off at her apartment a little after midnight. There’s no indication she ever made it inside.”

“Are we sure it’s her in the video?”

“The mayor confirmed it.”

“What’s he saying?”

“The chief talked to him. Word came down through Donovan that the mayor spoke to his daughter yesterday morning and congratulated her on the upcoming awards ceremony. That was the last time he talked to her.”

Murphy walked toward the squad-room door.

Behind him, Gaudet said, “Good luck, partner.”

“Thanks,” Murphy mumbled over his shoulder.

“Whatever you do, don’t mention the other murder.”

The other murder?

Murphy spun around. “What murder?”

“Donovan didn’t tell you?”

Murphy shook his head. He felt the blood drain from his face.

“Jesus, you have been out of the loop.”

“What murder?” Murphy said again.

“Last night, before he kidnapped the mayor’s daughter—I guess it had to be before—he strangled a woman on Wingate.”

The floor dropped from beneath Murphy’s feet. It took him several seconds just to find his voice. “Who’s working it?”

“Nobody yet,” Gaudet said. “Donovan has been trying to get a team over there, but with the mayor’s daughter . . . so far it’s just been the district day watch over there. I guess after your press conference, it’s gonna be you and me.”

“Who found her?”

“Neighbor went over a couple hours ago to borrow something—sugar, eggs, some shit like that—and found the back door pried open. She goes in and sees the woman dead in the bathroom.”

Murphy turned around and stumbled toward the briefing room.

The press conference was scheduled to begin at 10:30. At 10:29, Murphy stood outside the classroom. The buzz of dozens of anxious voices seeped through the metal door. He felt nauseous. After a couple of deep breaths, he pulled open the door and stepped inside.

The glare from the television cameras nearly blinded him. There were at least fifty reporters packed inside the room—TV talking heads, print journalists, photographers, camera operators—all now looking at him. A few of the faces he recognized as local press. The rest had to be from out-of-town newspapers and TV stations, and the networks.

He felt like a lamb at a slaughterhouse.

Reporters started firing questions as soon as Murphy reached the lectern. He ignored them. As he waited for the crowd to quiet down, he stared at the dozen microphones that had been taped to the top and sides of the lectern.

The buzz stopped. Murphy cleared his throat. He felt beads of sweat on his forehead. “My name is Detective Sean Murphy. I’m the head of the serial-killer task force. The events of the last few hours have been pretty shocking. We are still . . .”

He looked out at the throng of reporters and wiped a hand across his face. “Look, as many of you already know, I’m not a press guy. I’m a detective, so I’ll just be straight. Based on the video we’ve all seen this morning, it appears the mayor’s daughter has been kidnapped, most likely by a person we believe is a serial killer. We’re analyzing the video right now for clues, and we’re trying to determine where Kiesha Guidry was last seen and by whom. As of right now we’re not—”

“Is she alive?” a reporter shouted.

“We have no evidence to suggest Kiesha Guidry has been killed.” Murphy was sure the serial killer was watching the press conference, so he wanted to use Kiesha’s name as often as he could to pound the idea into the killer’s head that she was a living, breathing human being, whom others cared a great deal about. He didn’t think his pop-psychology bullshit would have any effect, but it was all he could think of.

“Have you heard from the killer?” a WWL-TV reporter said.

“No,” Murphy said.

The floodgates opened and nearly every reporter started shouting questions. Murphy realized he had lost control of the press conference.

He raised his hands to try to restore order. “Listen, there are a lot of things I can’t discuss, but what I can tell you is—”

“Has the FBI offered any help?” a woman’s voice asked from behind the row of the TV lights.

Murphy raised a hand to block the glare, but he still couldn’t see Kirsten. “Yes, they have offered assistance,” he said.

The room got quiet.

“Is the department going to accept?” Kirsten said.

“We will certainly . . . entertain any offers of assistance.” Murphy knew it was a lame answer. Kirsten’s presence had thrown him off. Plus, he just didn’t like the FBI. The bureau had come after him twice for bogus brutality complaints filed by the mothers of dope dealers he had arrested. Both times he had been cleared, but the complaints stayed on his record.

Another reporter said, “Are you saying you don’t have the resources you need to investigate the serial-killer case?”

Murphy had to get his focus back. “We have plenty of resources, but we can always use more.”

“Are you willing to negotiate with the serial killer for the return of Kiesha Guidry?” asked a blonde-haired female reporter who had network written all over her.

Murphy took a deep breath. “We don’t negotiate with killers. We catch—”

“But isn’t a plea bargain a negotiation?” another reporter shouted.

“We’re the police,” Murphy said. “We arrest criminals. What you’re talking about—plea bargaining—is a function of the DA’s office.”

“What about the
Times-Picayune
story linking the serial killer to the Red Door fire?” someone asked.

Murphy shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What about it?”

“Was the story accurate?” the same reporter asked.

Murphy glanced toward the door. Donovan was standing there. “I don’t know where that came from,” Murphy said. “You’ll have to ask the
Times-Picayune
where it got its information.”

“Are you saying the fire was not the work of the serial killer?” the reporter pressed.

“That’s a separate investigation and I’m not going to talk about it.”

“The
Picayune
reported that the letters
L-O-G
, as in Lamb of God, were found at the fire scene,” a reporter shouted. “Is that true?”

Murphy felt his blood starting to boil. “Look,” he snapped, “I’m not responsible for what’s in the
Times-Picayune
. And I’m not going to answer questions about the Red Door fire. That is a
separate
investigation. I’m here to answer questions about the kidnapping of Kiesha Guidry.”

“Do you have any independent confirmation,” a TV reporter asked, “other than the video, that the mayor’s daughter has been kidnapped?”

Murphy was glad for a question he could answer. “The mayor has confirmed that the woman in the video is his daughter and that she is missing.”

“Is there any chance the video is a hoax?” said a young male reporter sitting to Murphy’s left.

The question drew a general sigh of derision from the rest of the room, but Murphy fielded it anyway. “We’re pretty sure it’s authentic.”

For nearly thirty minutes the reporters peppered Murphy with questions. Some were insightful, some were stupid, but they kept his mind off Marcy Edwards.

He heard a cell phone ring. A few seconds later he saw Kirsten slip out the door, her phone pressed to her ear.

Murphy announced he would answer one more question. He picked a female television reporter sitting in the front row. “Has the FBI come up with a profile of the serial killer?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Murphy said. “I don’t have much faith in profiles.”

“Why is that?” the reporter asked.

“I’ve never heard of a detective catching a killer based on a profile.” Murphy glanced at his watch then held up his hands. “That’s all the questions I have time for.”

The sound of discontent echoed through the classroom.

Murphy turned away from the lectern.

“When are you going to hold another briefing?” someone shouted.

“I’ll let you know,” Murphy said over his shoulder on his way out the door.

Sunday, August 5, 11:50
AM

As soon as Kirsten Sparks got back to the
Times-Picayune
’s offices on Howard Avenue, she walked straight to Gene Michaels’s cubicle. The city editor was hunched over, staring at a sheet of paper on his desk, his reading glasses resting on the end of his nose.

“How did it come in?” Kirsten asked.

Michaels swiveled in his chair and looked up at her over the top of his glasses. “Through the mail slot.”

“When?”

“The sports editor found it in the drop box an hour ago.”

“Any postage?”

Michaels shook his head.

“That means the killer hand-delivered it,” Kirsten said.

“Or somebody did it for him.”

“We have a camera at the door.”

“Milton is downstairs with security right now going over the video.”

Kirsten pointed to the letter Michaels had told her about when he called her away from Murphy’s press briefing. “What’s it say?”

He handed it to her. “That’s a copy.”

She read the latest letter from the Lamb of God Killer.

When she finished, she looked at Michaels. “It’s obvious it’s not a crank. The writer uses the same
k
’s for hard
c
’s and the same double-consonant pattern as the first letter.”

“I agree.”

“What about the two murders in the French Quarter he mentions?”

“Go down to the library and pull every French Quarter homicide story for the last two years,” Michaels said. “Concentrate on unsolved cases—”

“I can do that from my desk.”

Michaels shook his head. “The archive server is down. The IT department said they would fix it tomorrow, but with this storm . . . who knows? Pam can access the backup system.”

Kirsten shrugged. She didn’t like the cramped world of the basement library, but she put the thought out of her head. She had to focus on the story, the biggest of her career. “This letter is news, Gene. If we’re still calling ourselves a newspaper, we need to run it.”

“Redfield is meeting with Darlene and the legal department right now.”

“What about NOPD?”

“That’s one of the things they’re discussing.”

“We haven’t notified them yet?” Kirsten said.

The city editor shook his head.

“They’re going to want to test the letter and the envelope for DNA, fingerprints, fibers, whatever is possible to get from paper,” Kirsten said.

“You know what I know, and that’s that the big chiefs are talking about it. I’m just a little chief.”

“Can you imagine how the mayor is going to feel when he reads this?” Kirsten said.

Michaels nodded. “I know.”

Everyone in the city, and since Katrina, nearly everyone in the country, knew about the mayor’s habit of making asinine off-the-cuff remarks. Several times his comments had gotten him into trouble. But this time, it looked like Mayor Ray Guidry’s mocking comments were going to get his daughter killed.

Kirsten scanned the letter again. “It seems like he’s laughing about the cipher, like he either knows we can’t crack it or . . .”

“Or it doesn’t mean anything,” Michaels said.

“What do you think?”

Michaels shrugged. “Phil Grady on the people desk was a communications specialist in the navy. He knows something about codes. He took a look at it, but I don’t think he got anywhere.”

“The cops sent it to the FBI,” Kirsten said, “but it takes months to get anything back from them. And that’s only if it’s a real code.”

Michaels’s phone rang. He picked it up and listened for about thirty seconds. Then he said, “Okay,” and hung up.

He turned to Kirsten. “That was Redfield. We’re going to run the letter tomorrow.”