Glass Houses (29 page)

“No, but I wouldn't start screaming about that. The DA isn't usually sitting around at crime scenes in the middle of the night.”

“I know, but this isn't just any crime scene. All right. I'll call Rob. I'll get Rob to call Cord Leehan.”

“That would be good.”

“You know what the problem is, having worked in a department before you become commissioner of police? You know way too much about all the personalities.”

“I'd think that would help.”

“I think that would lead to more reasons for committing homicide than I'd care to count. Sit tight, Rob's on his way. And he'll call Marty. And so will I if I have to. Are there signs that the circus is leaving town?”

“Not at the moment.”

“What are they doing out there? They've been there for hours.”

“Well, they've brought out seven body bags.”

“Shit,” Jackman said again. Then he said, just under his breath, in just enough of a whisper for Gregor to hear, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

“Why are you calling on the Virgin Mary?”

“I do it every time I swear,” Jackman said. “You just haven't noticed it before. Sister would not have been happy with references to excrement. Go, Gregor. Get things done on your side. I'll get things done on mine.”

There was nothing to get done on Gregor's side, so he closed the cell phone and put it back in his pocket. Then he started walking back across the street toward the police line. They could certainly keep him out; but if they did they'd hear about it from Jackman, and he had an idea that they knew it.

It took a little jostling and nudging to get to the officer on duty next to the break in the yellow tape. The crowd had not only grown in all these hours, it had also solidified. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, and not one of them felt like moving aside for anybody. He kept getting bounced back and forth along the line of people, going forward only rarely, as if he were in one of those mazes that came in Penny Press puzzle magazines. He got to the front just as four uniformed officers were hefting one of the body bags into the back of a van and presented himself to the officer waiting there. It was not the same one who had been there when he'd come through before.

The officer was young, and tired, and tense. He started to say something automatic to Gregor. Then he realized that he recognized the man he was talking to and stopped. “Oh,” he said, “it's Mr. Demarkian. You can come in.” He looked over his shoulder nervously and then looked back.

“I don't want to come in at the moment,” Gregor said. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

“Sure.” The young officer looked back over his shoulder again.

“What's your name?”

“Tom Celebrese.”

“Tom Celebrese. That's good. Did Marty Gayle tell you not to talk to me?”

“Uh,” Tom said. “I mean—”

“Never mind,” Gregor said. “You do realize that he can't tell you not to talk to me if John Jackman and Rob Benedetti say you should? Never mind again. It doesn't matter. Why don't you let me in, and I can find out what I want to find out for myself.”

“I've read all about the stuff you do,” Tom said, “in the papers. And guys talk about it at the precinct, you know. The stuff with Drew Harrington. It's really impressive. I mean it. But this isn't like that, is it?”

“Isn't like it how?”

“Well, this is a serial killing,” Tom said. “This is some nut, you know, with
sexual problems, something like that. Some guy who goes around killing innocent people just for the kick of killing them.”

“Is it?”

“Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it? We've had eleven killings, and now this, whatever this is. There was at least one whole body in there. I heard them talking. With a cord around its neck. That would make twelve.”

“Would it?”

“Is this one of those things, you know? Like the Socratic method? Because you're not making much sense. We do have a serial killer. The Plate Glass Killer. He's been around for a couple of years without anybody catching him.”

“It's what I used to do, you know,” Gregor said, “catch serial killers. When I was with the FBI. I was with a unit whose sole purpose was to coordinate interstate investigations of serial killers.”

“Yeah? Then why didn't they call you in on this one before? We could use the help. It's embarrassing when this guy keeps getting away with it.”

There was suddenly a lot of noise and commotion at the end of the block. Gregor looked up and saw a long black car making its way carefully down the street, moving forward inexorably, expecting the people to pull back.

“Who's that?” Tom Celebrese said.

“My guess is it's the district attorney,” Gregor said. “John Jackman said he would come in a limousine. Here, before they get here, let me tell you about serial killers. Serial killers work in a pattern. Once the pattern is set, they almost never deviate from it unless circumstances force them to.”

“So?”

“So if there's an old body with a cord around its neck in there, a skeleton, or something decaying, that's fine. That could have happened before the bodies started appearing in the alleys. Then the cellar got too full or burying the bodies there got too dangerous, so the killer had to move his operations. But there's been no problem with leaving the bodies in alleys. There are hundreds of alleys in Philadelphia. We can't patrol them all. So leaving the bodies in alleys is safe. The chances that he'd risk the far more dangerous prospect of burying a body here are virtually nil,
if
what we're dealing with is a serial killer.”

“I didn't mean new,” Tom said. “I mean, you know, intact. So that it looked like a body.”

“Still, if I were you, I'd hope you got that information wrong; because if you didn't, we really have a mess here. Ah, that
is
the district attorney coming. I'm going to go talk to him. And don't worry. I won't tell Marty Gayle you've been talking to me.”

“We've just been passing the time,” Tom said stiffly. “He can't blame me for that. I mean, what am I supposed to be, rude?”

You're supposed to be
older,
Gregor thought, but he didn't say it out loud.
Rob was out of the car and marching toward the police line like General Patton on a tear, the effect only mildly spoiled by the fact that the two assistants trailing him were both very petite women in very high heels.

Gregor shoved his hands in his pockets and went to meet Rob Benedetti.

I
t would have been
an understatement to say that Marty Gayle was not happy to see Rob Benedetti, but it would have been something on the order of a lie to say he was unhappy to see Cord Leehan. Marty came out to meet Benedetti. When he saw Cord walking up through the ranks of the police line, he took a couple of steps back and swore in what Gregor knew was Latin. Tibor swore like that sometimes, since he couldn't swear in Armenian on Cavanaugh Street without most of the women knowing what he meant. By then, Gregor was just inside the cordon, hanging back to let Rob do what he wanted to do about Marty. He was startled at the venom and disgust in Marty's face, as if Cord were a Nazi death camp guard just come to the surface in South Philadelphia. He looked long and hard at Cord Leehan, but he couldn't see it. The man was thin and tall and muscular, but beyond that he looked like a million other men of the same age. The only thing distinctive about him was the fact that he had red hair.

Gregor moved closer to Tom Celebrese and asked. “So what is it? Is this Cord Leehan a crooked cop, or an informer, or what?”

“What?” Tom looked startled.

“That Marty Gayle should hate the sight of him.”

Tom blushed. “It's not that. It's nothing like that.”

“So what is it?”

Tom turned away and looked into the crowd. Gregor thought about pressing him, but decided not to. The crowd had been remarkably well behaved all this time, and most of them were probably asleep on their feet and no danger to anybody; but one or two would surely have been drinking while they watched the parade pass by, and one or two would have been doing something worse. The potential was always there for a bad situation.

It didn't help, Gregor thought, that most of the faces in this crowd were black, and most of the faces in the police lines were not. He'd thought the Philadelphia police had fixed that problem years ago.

He started to make his way back to where Rob Benedetti was just coming up to Marty Gayle. Cord Leehan was still a good twenty feet away, and he didn't seem to be moving very quickly. Gregor suddenly realized he hated this. If there was one thing they drilled into new recruits at Quantico, it was that personalities had no place in an investigation. Personalities meant inefficiency,
and confusion, and failure. Personalities meant a case about the investigators and not about the investigated. He had the feeling that anything around Marty Gayle was about Marty Gayle, and that was the worst news he'd had since he'd realized that Bennis had taken off for parts unknown.

Rob was unbuttoning his coat. It was what Rob did whenever he was about to deliver a lecture, unbutton his coat or button it. Gregor wondered what he did in the summer. Maybe he buttoned his suit jackets.

“For Christ's sake,” Rob said.

By then Gregor was right behind him. Marty Gayle was behaving as if Gregor didn't exist, and neither did anyone else within hearing distance.

“This is a crime scene,” Marty said, gesturing to what was going on behind him. “And you're not my boss.”

“No, I'm not your boss,” Rob said, “but John Jackman is, and he's going to be down here in a split second if I tell him you're not being reasonable. What's wrong with you? We've been over this and over this. Your own captain's talked to you. John's talked to you. The God-damned mayor has talked to you. You can't do this.”

“I can't refuse to talk to a civilian about an ongoing investigation?”

“If by civilian, you mean Mr. Demarkian here, then he's not a civilian in any meaningful sense of the term since he's been hired by the city and the police department as a consultant—”

“He
was
hired by that scuzzy little shit's ambulance chaser.”

“No,” Gregor said judiciously, “actually, I wasn't. I talked to the, uh, defense counsel in question, but that was mostly because he's a friend of mine.”

“He
is
on the payroll of this city, and he
is
a consultant to the police department on this case; and I wasn't talking about Demarkian and you know it,” Rob said. “You know exactly what this is about.”

“Detectives don't have to have partners,” Marty said. “I know they usually do, but they don't have to. Why don't we just leave it at that.”

“We can't leave it at that, Marty. There was a board of inquiry. You have a deal. Or had one, maybe, because I'm not sure it's going to last after tonight. You can't do this. You have to understand that. I think you do understand it. You can't do it. You have a deal; and if the deal falls apart, you have a suspension—and that suspension could last a very long time.”

“You try to fire me,” Marty said, “and I'll file suit for sexual harassment against the department and against
that.
” He pointed in Cord Leehan's direction.

Gregor looked from the finger to Cord Leehan himself, stopped a little ways off and showing no signs of coming any nearer. He'd met dozens of gay men in his life. They'd ranged from high camp to you'd-never-guess. Cord Leehan was definitely a you'd-never-guess. If anything, he looked like a country singer or a NASCAR race driver.

Rob Benedetti had now taken off his coat. Gregor had no idea what he thought he was going to do with it.

“Look,” Rob said, taking a deep and seemingly endless breath, “this is the deal. You don't have to like him. You don't have to approve of him. It really doesn't matter—”

“It mattered to that idiot psychologist they brought in,” Marty said. “Homophobic. It's an illness. I can be cured.”

“All right,” Rob said, “maybe that wasn't the best way to go. We got through that, right? You've got the right to think what you think and feel what you feel. But goddamn, Marty, it sure as hell looks like an illness you've got from where I'm sitting. It looks like you can't control yourself. It looks like you're behaving like an irrational loon—”

“Why? Because I'd prefer not to work with a man who isn't a man and who can't keep his business to himself?”

“When in the name of God have you ever known Cord not to keep his business to himself? I mean that. When?”

“Well, there was that thing last spring about going up to Massachusetts to marry his ‘partner.' What about his ‘partner,' Rob? Does he wear a dress?”

“You've met Cord's partner,” Rob said, “Jason Chisick. What are you talking about? He can't even talk about his family?”

“The man's not his family,” Marty said. “Has everybody gone crazy around here?”

“You talk about your family all the time,” Rob said patiently. “So does everybody else. There's nothing wrong with Cord doing it. And it's beside the point. Again, the point is that you had a deal, and the deal was you'd work with Cord for a year; and we're not three months down the line, and we're back to the same old crap. We really are. And don't tell me it isn't hurting the investigation because it is. You know it, and I know it. We've got eleven women dead—more if tonight is a Plate Glass find—and a man in custody that you didn't arrest and the city is having a fit and John is running for mayor and you can't do this. You really can't. If you go on trying, we're going to bounce your ass out of here, and that's going to be the end of it.”