Bone Thief (4 page)

The rushing sound of the subway car was melodic. Colm waited on the platform for the A train to come to a stop, savoring its panting from fatigue and rust. His medical bag sat at his side. He was eager to meet his new date.

A girl was pacing the platform, forlorn, disheartened. Had she just broken it off with some lover? he wondered. He could comfort her were it not for his date. Maybe some other time.

The girl entered the subway car just before he did. The doors scraped closed. Colm positioned himself in front of the girl, watching as her fluted fingers entwined around the subway car's stainless-steel pole. Under a fluorescent bulb he stared at her, this wingless cherub. Her face would have inspired Raphael. Her body was pure ether, tinged with sensuality. In the gash between two buttons of a linen vest he could detect the incline of a breast. The garment concealed her secret, the aroma of untouched flesh. Was she aware of her carnality?

The girl looked sixteen, perhaps a year or two older. The weight of a knapsack strapped to her shoulders caused her torso to arch and her breasts to jut forward. Her hair was brassy blond. Cut short. She wore no makeup, no jewelry. Her eyes were stratospheric blue.

He imagined her skeletal frame under her external beauty. She would rival any one of his treasures.

She got off the train at the Beach Seventy-fifth Street station. His urge was to follow, but his legs refused his mind's order. There was another girl waiting for him. He stayed on board. He'd let this one go. In a matter of seconds the train arrived at his stop.

“Beach Sixty-seventh Street,” the loudspeaker crackled, and the doors opened.

He descended the stairs, palming the rickety railing. A gang of high-school teens stampeded up the staircase, nearly knocking him down. His fingers longed for a serrated blade.

The sun greeted him at street level. He smiled at the sight of so many abandoned bungalows and headed for the boardwalk, thrilled that his date had picked such a remote section of the city for their rendezvous.

He climbed sun-soaked wooden steps. The boardwalk was empty. He was sure she had said Beach Sixty-seventh Street. Had he been stood up? He scanned the beach. A handful of sun worshippers dotted the narrow strand. By the ocean's edge, a young woman was dabbling her toes in the waning tide. Sunshine streamed through her gossamer dress. Could that be his date? It was hard to tell from a distance.

He removed his shoes and socks and strolled toward her. A thought lingered on the rim of his consciousness. All the ingredients were present for a truly romantic encounter. He thought of the girl on the train. Wouldn't it have been satisfying if he could teach his heart to crave the tenderness of a woman? The notion disoriented him, but in a few seconds his resolve returned.

He caught up with the girl at the shoreline.

“Hello, Monique,” he said.

“Hello.”

“Or should I call you Ariel?”

“Ariel? Why would you call me Ariel?”

“Because you look just like the Little Mermaid,” he grinned.

The sun had climbed above the horizon and was hidden behind lead-colored clouds. The turbulent tide, its waves brown with sludge and darkened seashells, crashed onto the shore, delivering polluted brine. Though morning had broken, there were no gulls on the beach.

In the company of her Labrador, a jogger ran the boardwalk, oblivious to the brooding ocean and its contaminated waves. Yet the absence of gulls unnerved her. They had also been her running companions, welcoming her morning endeavor. But not today.

Without warning, the Labrador broke from its leash and dashed toward the boardwalk's staircase, then bolted down onto the beach and under the boards. The jogger brought two fingers to her mouth and let loose a high-pitched whistle. The dog did not respond. The jogger raced down the steps in pursuit of her dog. Just under the boards she found the gulls. They were screeching boldly, flying in her face, and splattering what appeared to be blood in every direction. The sound of the gull's fluttering wings and frantic squawking was as deafening as it was terrifying. The jogger was paralyzed with fear. Again, she brought two fingers to her mouth but couldn't manage a whistle.

“Brandy!” she hollered. “Brandy, please!” she cried.

The dog reappeared in the midst of the blood-soaked birds. The jogger fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around the Labrador. That's when she spotted it. Clenched firmly in the dog's white canines was a trove her pet had looted from the gulls.

“Drop it, girl. Drop it,” she commanded.

The obedient dog let go of the trophy. The jogger suddenly recognized what it was the dog was carrying. It was a freshly torn human breast, its nipple adorned with a tiny ring of glittering gold. The jogger screamed. Grabbing hold of the dog's collar, she pulled her pet out from under the boards and let loose another scream. But both screams were lost to the clamor of the hysterical gulls.

As he glanced at himself in the Impala's rearview mirror, Driscoll realized he needed a shave. He unlatched the glove compartment, picked up the Braun cordless razor, and prayed the batteries weren't dead. They were.

He tossed the razor back in the glove box and proceeded to the boardwalk at Beach Sixty-seventh Street in Rockaway where, he feared, victim number two had been found. As he crossed the Marine Parkway Bridge, thoughts tumbled inside his head. It was the same MO as the McCabe woman, and the victim's head, hands, and feet were missing. That particular aspect of the first crime had been held back from the news media, so it ruled out a copycat killing. These two atrocities were the work of one man. New York had a serial killer on the loose. Driscoll was certain of it. And he knew it was his job to find him before he struck again.

Arriving at the boardwalk, he got out of the Chevy and walked briskly toward the wooden staircase that led to the beach. He made his way toward the area cordoned off by yellow-and-black crime-scene tape. A small crowd of onlookers had clustered around the site.

“What have we got?” Driscoll asked Medical Examiner Larry Pearsol.

“Your boy thinks he's an artist. He filleted this one and nailed her remains to the underside of the boardwalk.” Pearsol pointed to the hollow where two uniformed officers from the 100
^th
Precinct stood sentry. “It took a small battalion of policemen in riot gear to roust the goddamn gulls out from under there. They were feeding on the rotting corpse.”

“Time of death?”

“I'll know more when I get her up on the slab. I'm guessing she's been under there for at least seventy-two hours.”

Driscoll glared at the flock of gulls that had perched themselves on the sand some twenty feet away.

“Oh! And Lieutenant, there's a slight twist to this one. Crime Scene says she was killed here.”

“They finished processing the site?”

“That they are. Here comes Hobbs now.”

Driscoll took a ninety-degree turn and was greeted by Walter Hobbs, the Commanding Officer of the Crime Scene Investigating Unit.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.”

“Talk to me, Walt. Tell me you found something.”

“Well, we know he killed her here. That much is for sure. The blood tells us that. The sand is saturated with it, there's blood spatter everywhere, and there's no trail of it in or out. He boned her. Just like the woman in the park. Even left the driver's license. Monique Beauford. She was nineteen. Your boy's got a knack for carving, John, and just like the first victim, he took the head, hands, and feet. What he does with them is anybody's guess. He left us with what remains of the torso and the upper and lower extremities. A good portion of the body was pecked away by the gulls.

“He used three-inch flooring nails to fasten her to the boards. Nothing particularly uncommon about the nails. You can get them at any Home Depot. Judging from the indentures surrounding each nail, we figure he used a ball-peen hammer or something close to it. Blowfly maggots feeding off the flesh mean she's been in there for at least three days. Any tracks your guy left, he was quick to cover. Sand is terrible for footprint casting anyway. We found what may be trace evidence. Some fibers. Cotton, I'd guess. Probably clothing. Let's hope we catch a break and they lead us somewhere. The lab boys will tell us if he left any of his DNA on her. We found no trace of semen.

“Now blood. That's a whole other ball game. With all that slicin' and dicin' he may have nicked himself in the process. We'll be looking for any blood that wasn't the victim's. We'll also run her blood through toxicology. She was probably drugged like the McCabe woman. It's not likely she walked under the boardwalk willingly. It's hard to tell if she put up a fight, considering the condition of the body. Larry'll search for any defensive wounds during the autopsy. I sure would like to know what he's doing with the head, hands, and feet.”

“You and me both.”

“Like I said, we'll know more after the autopsy. I'll contact you with the toxicology results and with anything else the evidence points us toward. We're gonna keep the wooden planking intact until we get her back to the lab. Who knows? Maybe he slipped up, and we'll find a print on one of the boards or on one of the nails.” Hobbs turned his back on Driscoll and began to walk away. Stopping in midstride, he turned and faced the Lieutenant. “Oh, yeah. There's one other thing. Your vic was fond of jewelry.”

“How so?”

“You'll see.”

Plainclothes detective Ramon Ramirez approached Driscoll. He had a haggard look about him, and walked with a limp. He was the 100
^th
Precinct's homicide detective who caught the squeal when it was called in earlier in the day.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” said Ramirez, who had met Driscoll only once. “I guess I'll be handing this one over to you.”

“You catch the call?”

“Six-thirty-five in the
A.M
. A woman called 911 from a cell phone. The emergency operator got a no-hit on the number she was calling from. The caller remained anonymous, as well. She reported finding part of a dead body under the boardwalk at Beach Sixty-seventh Street and hung up. That was it. Part of a dead body. Nothing more. The precinct dispatched a patrol car and me. When I got here, a cluster of crazed gulls were ripping apart what looked like a woman's tit. I swear to God. A woman's tit! When I approached them, one of the suckers flew off with it. Well, what was left of it. By that time, it was the size of a tennis ball. A tennis ball with a nipple. The strangest thing you've ever seen. The rest of the gulls, dozens of them, were shrieking and flying wildly in and out from under the boardwalk. I called Emergency Services. They dispatched a team of officers to clear out the birds.” He gazed over Driscoll's shoulder at the gulls. “Tough motherfuckers, those birds. Anyway, I went under the boardwalk. You can stand a little hunched over for eight feet or so, but after that you need to crouch down. I'm tellin' ya, you've got one hell of a dead body under there. I called in Forensics right away. Larry Pearsol and company were here in fifteen minutes. And now you're here.”

“And now I'm here,” said Driscoll as he eyed the desolate surroundings.

“I'll tell ya Lieutenant, I don't envy your job. I know this is victim number two. That means the heat's gonna be on real quick.”

“You've got that right. You know, I think it's time for me to take that walk under the boards. It looks like everyone's been there but me.”

Driscoll headed for the cavernous hollow directly below the boardwalk, where he was greeted by two uniformed officers. “Sir, you may want to use these,” one of them said, offering Driscoll a jar of Vick's VapoRub and a flashlight.

Driscoll applied a dab of the ointment under each nostril and slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, then crept his way under the wooden expanse. Despite the Vick's, the stench of rancid flesh made him gag. He decided to inhale through his mouth.

Ten feet in, he found what the birds were feasting on. The mutilated remains of a human body had been nailed to the boardwalk's planking. Muscles oozed greenish brine, hosting feeding maggots. Flesh glistened, effervescent under the flashlight's beam. Something metallic caught Driscoll's eye. A gold ring. It pierced the center of a piece of hanging flesh. That must have been her hand, he thought. But that can't be. The killer absconded with the hands.

“Son of a bitch,” Driscoll groaned. It was her clitoris, pierced by a gold ring. Why did the killer leave it there, exposing it the way he did? Was it by accident? An act of negligence committed by a distracted murderer? Or, was there a message in his not removing the ring? A message between the unknown suspect and the investigator? With a gloved hand, Driscoll discreetly fingered the ring. Was the killer a body artist, a flesh piercer that had once punctured the tender membranes of this girl's privates and inserted this metal loop? Chemical analysis would reveal the alloys that composed it. The killer had to know the police would find the ornament's manufacturer. And so the flesh artist, possibly the killer, would be found as well. Was he taunting the police? Was this a game?

Driscoll picked up the New York State driver's license that was lying in the sand just below the remains. Monique Beauford. Age nineteen.
This killer may be an exhibitionist
, he thought. He leaves his handiwork behind as though it were a work of art, and uses the driver's license to identify his kill. The McCabe woman was found in a public park, and now this victim is discovered at a public beach. Was there a message in that?

Driscoll looked into the face of the picture displayed on the driver's license. A young, brassy blonde returned his stare. “He may have slipped, you know. Unwittingly, he may have slipped,” he said. There was now a thread of commonality to these murders, not only in how the two women were butchered, but in where the killer chose to leave them: in public recreational sites, knowing they would be found.

Driscoll removed a plastic evidence pouch from his breast pocket and placed Monique's driver's license in it. He then examined the nails the killer used, and prayed the wounds were postmortem.

“I'll catch this son of a bitch. That I promise,” he vowed as he turned his back on the victim and headed back to the beach.