Carnage: Short Story (2 page)

New York, the present

Frank Quinn sat at his desk in the office of Q&A on West 79th Street. The arrangement of desks and chairs was parallel, much as in a squad room, a reflection of Quinn’s years as an NYPD homicide detective. The other detectives, also lately of the NYPD, felt right at home in such a setting. They were Quinn’s former partner in the department, Larry Fedderman, Quinn’s live-in lover, Pearl Kasner, and detectives Sal Vitali and Harold Mishkin. All were former NYPD detectives. Q&A’s brilliant computer nerd, Jerry Lido, had drunk his way out of the department years ago. Only Pearl’s daughter, Jodi, an attorney and sometimes Q&A employee, had no experience as a cop. She seemed not to see that as a disadvantage.

The old West Side building was cooled with two large air-conditioning units set in oversized barred windows. One of the units was running too hard and making a vibrant hum.

The street door made its distinctive swishing sound, and a very tall, muscular redheaded woman in jogging clothes came in. She wore no makeup to disguise her freckles, and her thick, short hair looked as if it had been trimmed with a hacksaw. This was Helen Iman, a profiler with the NYPD. She exuded a scent of sweat and soap, like an athlete fresh from the shower. Helen was the only profiler Quinn had faith in. Not because she seemed to have a special talent the others didn’t possess, but because of her record. Quinn couldn’t deny the success of some of her insights and reasoning.

In her left hand was a sheaf of envelopes and advertisements. She was wearing shorts, and the long muscles in her thighs and calves flexed as she walked across the room and dropped what she was carrying onto Quinn’s desk.

“Your mail,” she said. “I caught the postal carrier just as she was about to stuff it into your box. Told her I’d bring it in.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Harold Mishkin asked. He sounded serious. Maybe he was. With Harold, sometimes it was hard to know.

“Technically,” his partner Sal growled in his gravel-pan voice.

“You want me to go back to the lobby and jam all this into the box?” Helen asked.

Quinn ended the discussion by reaching out and dragging the mail across the desk to him, noting that his detectives were getting testy. Probably because of the heat wave that was torturing New York. He liked it when they were irritable. That was when they did their best work.

Quinn saw, in with the envelopes and fliers, something small and rectangular and wrapped in brown paper and tape. It was addressed to him personally in neat, black printed letters that would leave a handwriting analyst nothing but guesswork.

“I was wondering about that, too,” Helen said.

Quinn held the package up between thumb and forefinger. “Was this delivered with the rest of the mail?”

“Yeah. Renz got one just like it an hour ago.”

“That why he sent you here?”

“Yeah. He might want me in on this one.”

That piqued Quinn’s curiosity. Police Commissioner Harley Renz, Quinn’s longtime friend and enemy, sometimes hired Q&A to work in conjunction with the NYPD—with Quinn in charge of the case.

Helen the profiler was often part of the work for hire arrangement. Sometimes she was as good as a seer. Sometimes she
was
a seer.

Renz was more politician than cop, and always had in mind whatever higher office he might reach. In a few years, mayor might be a possibility. If Renz could find enough dirt to smear on whoever would dare to be his opponent.

It wasn’t impossible that Renz would be elected. He was probably the most popular police commissioner the city had ever known—because the voters didn’t really know him.

But did the voters really know anyone?

Renz was brilliant at accruing credit for other people’s achievements, and pinning blame on others for his mistakes.

Helen the profiler nodded toward the tightly wrapped package and said, “My guess is it contains the same thing that was in the commissioner’s package.”

Quinn didn’t like the tone of her voice. “Is it going to blow up or in other ways cause my fingers to fall off?”

Helen shrugged. “Might.”

The package was so thoroughly wrapped that there was more tape visible than paper. Quinn got a sharp letter opener from a desk drawer and broke into it neatly.

He found a small rectangular cardboard box. It was the kind of thing a bracelet might come in. He glanced at Helen, then carefully lifted the box’s lid.

Whatever was inside was wrapped in a cut-out square of folded newspaper. It was part of a three-days-old
Miami Herald,
featuring an editorial about the Federal deficit. It was too large.

Quinn slowly unfolded the paper, and stared at the object revealed. He tilted the paper so it dropped almost noiselessly onto the desktop.

“A plastic chess piece,” he said. “The queen.”

“Just like Renz’s.” Helen said.

“The most mobile and dangerous piece on the chess board,” Harold noted.

Sal stared at him. “I didn’t know you played chess,” Sal said.

“I watch it on TV,” Harold said.

“Well,” Helen said, “they televise soccer.”

There was another, smaller square of newspaper in the box, this one neatly creased. Quinn carefully unfolded it and smoothed it out.

It was part of the front page of the
Spindrift Bugle,
a weekly giveaway.

Spindrift was one of many small beach resort towns along the coast highway. It boasted the usual resort amenities: souvenir shops, a public beach with showers, a food hutch, a place that rented bicycles and scuba equipment, a booth that sold parasol rides . . .

It was the kind of place where fun should happen. Not murder.

The killer sat back in the rental Chevy and watched the little ocean-side town north of Nickleton glide past. The usual beach houses, motels, and too-cute restaurants. The franchises dotting the beach road on the landward side. More expensive eateries and shops on the beach side. The sun worshipers on their multicolored beach towels dotted the sandy slope to the Atlantic Ocean. The waves were lapping quietly at the shore this calm day.

Slowing near a boat-rental and souvenir shop, the killer parked the Chevy in the shade of some cypress trees at roadside. He climbed out and stood by the hood and barely audible ticking engine, watching the surf foam on the sand. Lined up on grassless, hardened ground in the shade were some wooden picnic benches. No one was sitting on any of them.

He reached back into the car and got his Acer laptop, carried it to one of the benches, and sat down not far from a tattered white towel someone had forgotten or discarded. It was stained with what looked like lipstick.

The killer thought briefly again about Spindrift and Taylor Reminger. Remembering. Smiling his secret smile. It was a fine world if you were a taker. Not so fine for Taylor and the others. Givers.

He opened the laptop and adjusted its position so the sun wasn’t shining directly on the screen.

He wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t get online. That was okay. When he left here, he’d check into a motel that featured online service. Then he’d take another look, do another quick read-through on a young woman named Patricia Maria Angelina (called simply Pat by her zany Facebook friends).

One of those friends was the killer.

He wasn’t one of the crowd Pat ran with in the real or virtual world, but he’d learned a lot about her via Facebook. That she was nineteen, five foot four, a natural blonde (he’d see about that), and liked heavy metal music. She was planning to enroll in college at Northwestern University in Chicago as soon as she had enough money saved. Unable to get along with her mother and father, she’d moved out and was living with her roommate, Jessica, in a small apartment near the beach. The killer had seen the address in the background in one of her Facebook photos, a shot of her standing next to a small shaggy dog. The dog must belong to someone else. The killer knew Patricia didn’t own a dog, but had a battle-scarred black-and-gray tomcat named Snuffy, which she loved very much. She was the type who could love almost anything or anyone without reservation. A trusting soul with a luminous smile.

He liked her on Facebook.

Without reservation.

New York

Quinn smoothed out the newspaper page from the package the mail had brought. It was wrinkled but readable.

According to the
Spindrift Bugle,
the murder of young Taylor Reminger was a once-in-a century event. Spindrift was one of many resort towns in Florida, places where spring breakers occasionally lost their lives in one way or another. Booze, drugs, sex, youth, and an ocean were a lethal combination. But even those kinds of deaths hadn’t occurred in the town in over twenty years.

Taylor was Taylor “Tey” Hope Reminger, from Long Island, a student who’d expected to start college in New Orleans later in the year. Her photo was one of a reasonably attractive girl making the most of her looks in what appeared to be a high school graduation photo. Quinn noted that she was twenty-two, so she’d put off college for a while.

The thing about her that interested Quinn was the manner of her death. She’d apparently been tortured with shallow, skillful cuts by a sharp blade, where it would hurt the most. Not only hurt, but humiliate. Nipples had been removed, along with an earlobe, found lying alongside Tey’s head with a cheap souvenir shell earring still attached. Her clitoris had been cut off. Then there were what seemed to be cigarette burns in strategic spots meant to be most agonizing.

The ME’s opinion was that most of the injuries had been inflicted ante mortem. While she was still alive. Even the cuts on her forehead, where the letters
D.O.A
. had been carved. Some of that blood had been wiped away after her heart had stopped pumping and her breathing ceased, so the letters were more legible. Those who looked closely noticed that her hands were misshapen.

Quinn gave the small-town newspaper page out to the others to read. Everyone was quiet as the news item was passed around.

“Looks like he was trying to get information out of her,” Fedderman said, when the page had made the rounds and been returned to Quinn. “Or he’s just a sadistic bastard.”

“She displayed some bravery,” Helen said. “Her torturer didn’t get whatever it was he wanted, even after he broke her fingers one after the other. D.O.A. is thorough.”

“The same might be said of his copycat,” Quinn said.

Helen didn’t seem surprised by the notion. It had passed through everyone’s mind. Killers like D.O.A. often inspired copycat murderers. To some of the twisted, he was a hero.

Quinn knew that was what worried Renz. That and a sixth sense that hinted at what was about to happen in his city. New York was everybody’s big league, even when the sport was murder.

It took a major leaguer to play this game. Quinn.

“Renz figured you had experience with this kind of killer,” Helen said.

“Renz wants to stay as far away from it as he can,” Pearl said. “If this guy keeps killing and brings his act to this city, copycat killer or not, the media will have a feeding frenzy.”

“Let’s say the commissioner prefers to lead from behind on this one,” Helen said.

Harold said, “That way you don’t get shot in the back.”

“We’ve been in this position before,” Quinn said. “Renz has read it right. The killer and I are playing some kind of game, and he’s ahead.”

“Or he’s dead,” Fedderman said. “Went someplace where he wouldn’t be found and blew his brains out. Guilt can do that to people.”

“Not likely,” Sal said. “But possible.”

“Even dead serial killers inspire followers,” Pearl said.

“Especially dead ones,” Helen said. “Though I agree with Feds. It’s been awhile. It might very well be that D.O.A. is dead.”

“If he is, we can only hope the bastard suffered,” Jodi said.

She’s very much like Pearl, Quinn thought.

She’s very much like Quinn, Pearl thought.

“Copycat killer or the real thing,” Helen said, “it’s not going to make much difference to the public, or to the media wolves. You and a killer are in the same game.”

Quinn wished they’d stop calling it a game.

But he knew they were right. And what it would mean to lose.

Patricia Angelina, D.O.A. thought, looked a lot like Tey Reminger. The only real difference was that Pat was now a redhead and Tey a blonde. But in a certain light Pat could have passed for a blonde.

Which was why he’d selected her. That, and she had simply struck him as the right victim. There was about some women a secret yearning for what Pat was going to receive. His gift to her. He could read that in a woman, and was seldom wrong.

He had first seen her in a souvenir shop across the street from the public beach. She was wearing a white terrycloth sun shawl, open at the front so that it provided glimpses of cleavage and a tan, taut body. Her rubber sandals made a flopping sound on the shop’s plank floor as she moved toward a display of conch shells that had been made into phones. She was aware of the killer watching her; he was sure of that. He casually moved to the opposite side of the conch-phone display.

She made it a point not to look at him, but pretended keen interest in the phones.

“Cute,” he said.

“I wonder what the previous occupant would have thought,” she said, holding up a gray-and-brown-colored shell phone.

“I wasn’t talking about the phones,” he said.

She met his direct approach with a smile, and he knew he was in.

“Are you serious about these phones?” he asked.

“Sure. Someone might call while I’m surfing.”

He feigned interest. “You surf?”

“No.”

“You jest.”

“Yes. Anyway, it’s illegal to surf and text.” She gave him a sideways glance, showing him she was amused by him, by herself. She was enjoying this.

“Illegal bother you?” he asked.

“When sharks are around.” She smiled. “You thinking of stealing a conch phone?”

“No. I’m a dolphin.”

“I kissed a dolphin once.”

“What happened?”

“It kissed me back.”

“Smart fish. I thought I might buy you one.”

“A dolphin?”

“A conch phone.”

“Why?”

“So you’d feel obligated to have lunch with me.”

The smile stayed, and something happened in her eyes. Something decisive. “Pretty expensive lunch,” she said.

“You’re well worth it.”

“My husband thinks so,” she said. Toying with him. He knew she was unmarried. Knew in fact that she’d recently broken off a relationship with a dorky-looking guy named Art who fancied himself a sculptor. Facebook research again. They laid their hearts out there, and then were surprised that you knew so much about them. Intimate details.

“I’ll talk to your husband,” he said. “He’ll understand.”

She gave him a long and appraising look. “You know I’m not married.”

No dummy, Pat.

“Yep. I’ve been watching you. And I don’t see a ring.”

“I think I recall you from Facebook.”

“
That’s
why you look familiar!” He looked ashamed. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know much about you.”

“What if I did have a husband?”

He shrugged. “I would never poach.”

Her gaze held him for a few seconds. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“A man with scruples.”

He grinned. “More like one who doesn’t want to get shot.”

She was still weighing her options, contemplating what might be a fateful first step.

“We’ll skip the phone,” she said, laying the conch phone she was holding back where it had sat on display. She smiled. “I’ll take the lunch.”

They left the souvenir shop and set off down the beach toward a restaurant called Knobby’s that had outside dining. As they walked, her sandals flung rooster tails of sand.

“I’m Corey Sanders,” he said, as if taking a cue.

“Your Web name?”

He laughed. “Real name.”
In a way.

“Patricia Angelina,” she said.

“Beautiful name. Like poetry.”

“Just plain Pat.”

“Just plain beautiful. You know what else I like about you?”

“Couldn’t guess,” she said, tossing her hair and grinning. Her teeth were perfect and gleamed unnaturally, as if she’d recently treated them with whitener.

“You’re not the sort woman who demands that she pay for lunch.”

She threw her head back and laughed from deep in her throat. “Women like that,” she said, “they always expect something in return.”

“Sometimes,” the killer said, “they get it.”