Killer Heat (22 page)

Mercer was on top of Jimmy Dylan, slamming his body across a
desk and pinning him in place while Mike and Frankie checked on
Kiernan. I could see that a gash had been opened on the back of
his head, and I called down to the patrol sergeant to send someone
upstairs with paper towels and Band-Aids

Get Jimmy out of here, Mercer,“ Mike said. ”Make sure they know
not to let him back in."

Now the father was trying to apologize to Kiernan.

Mike was having none of it. “I treat your son with kid gloves,
Dylan. Don't put him in cuffs, don't stick him in the holding pen
behind bars, feed him, and make him comfortable. I hear one
question from the judge about whether the hole in his head is a
result of police brutality, you'll all be sorry we've ever
met.”

“Save it for later, Mr. Dylan,” Frankie said. “I'm a witness,
Chapman. Let it go.”

“If I were you, Mr. D.,” Mike said, “I'd be calling that legal
hotline so you can give me someone to talk to on your behalf.
1-800-SHYSTER. That's one of your rights, too, pal. Spend as much
money as you'd like for the tackiest lawyer you can find. Be sure
and tell him you took a whack at your own flesh and blood.”

Mercer steered Dylan out the door, while Frankie Shea made an
effort at cleaning up his client's head wound and getting him to
his feet.

When Mercer came back upstairs, he told me that two of the cops
were standing by to drive me home.

“What about you?”

“Mike's got the collar to deal with. And I'll sleep here on one
of the cots. I've got to cover that muster on Governors Island in a
few hours. It's Sunday, remember?”

“I feel awful that you have to work today. There's nothing I'm
up to doing except going to sleep.”

“Rest up, Alex. The papers will be full of stories about the
murders. This may be the only day off you'll have for a while. The
pressure will really be on to solve this.”

He walked me downstairs to the front desk, where one of the
officers was waiting for me. I got in the backseat of the car and
leaned my head against the window, telling the driver where I
lived. The night with Luc had been so full of tender exchanges that
it was hard to absorb the brutal events of the last few hours.

It was after six thirty in the morning, and although the sky was
lightening, there was still a gray mist falling across the city. We
followed Broadway downtown under the elevated tracks from 133rd
Street and turned east on Ninety-sixth Street, crossing through
Central Park.

At the entrance to my apartment, Vinny opened the car door for
me and I thanked the cops for the ride.

“Don't you get a night off this weekend?”

“Nah. Covering for Oscar. He's got a cold. How about you, Ms.
Cooper? You almost beat the newspaper delivery.”

“The papers go upstairs yet?”

“Yeah. Yours is in front of your door. I got a Post, if
you want to see it,” Vinny said, heading for his marble-topped
stand in the middle of the lobby. “Here I thought you were out
having a good time the other night, and instead you're chasing a
serial killer.”

He handed the paper to me-a thick Sunday edition, full of extra
ads and inserts. The large graphic was a map, with red arrows
pointing to the locations at which each of the three bodies had
been found.

I didn't know whether Commissioner Scully had come up with a
compelling name for his task force, but the tabloids were starting
a frenzy about the mysterious military connection of this sexual
sadist : SEARCH FOR SERIAL KILLER: SON OF UNCLE SAM?

Ifell asleep the minute I got into bed. I
didn't awaken until three thirty in the afternoon, when Luc called
from his home in Mougins, anxious to know why he hadn't been able
to reach me the night before.

Now I regretted telling him so little about the case when we
were together on Friday evening. I'd never imagined the
developments would be so dramatic in the short time since we said
good-bye in front of the Plaza Athénée. He renewed his
offer for me to come to visit him at the end of the investigation,
and I accepted, feeling an easing of the tension that had gripped
me all weekend.

I showered and dressed and spent the last hours of the
afternoon doing ordinary chores, routine things that would ground
me after the intensity of the previous day. I rinsed out some
lingerie in the bathroom sink, paid a stack of bills that had
mounted on my desk, toasted an English muffin to snack on, and
called my parents to let them know I was fine.

At six o'clock, Mercer called. He had finished the day at
Governors Island, watching the reenactment rehearsal of the Civil
War muster.

“All quiet on the military buff front.”

“Many people show up?”

“More than seven hundred.”

“I had no idea they'd draw that size. Any way to keep track of
them?”

“This time, everyone had to sign in and show ID getting on the
ferries to come over. There was a bit of a stampede getting folks
off between four and five, but it looks like all the sightseers
signed out.”

“You hear anything from Mike?”

“I'm stopping by the squad now, on my way home. Peterson's
setting up a daily briefing meeting, starting tonight at seven. I
can stop for you on my way uptown.”

“I'd like to be there.” The door might not be open to me long. I
worked well with the lieutenant and his team, but once the other
borough commanders and trooper supervisors stepped into bigger
roles during the coming weeks, I was likely to be shut out of daily
police meetings. It was commonplace for many prosecutors in other
offices to be a step behind the investigators, but Battaglia
counted on our senior staff to partner with the NYPD as closely as
possible.

On the ride uptown, Mercer told me about his day. He described
the dozens of men, young and old, who dressed in antique military
garb, armed with weapons from the Civil War period, and staged mock
battles all over the historic grounds of the island.

“Any structure to it?” I asked.

“It's run by an arts foundation, so they know who the players
are and what they're up to. But it's very chaotic, and no one has a
clue about the spectators. They're just people who see ads in the
paper or read about it online.”

“And the costumes?”

“Everybody brings their own. Not my idea of a hobby, but it
clearly drives a lot of these buffs. They were skirmishing
everywhere, with bugle brigades and drum corps.”

“No women?”

“Plenty of them. I'm not sure if General Hooker's followers were
onboard, but there were some ladies in uniform and others doing
quilting bees, handing out rations,” Mercer said, shaking his head
at the odd experience. “Just glad that nobody went AWOL.”

The homicide squad room was a much busier place than when I had
left it twelve hours earlier. There had been two murders in
northern Manhattan during the night. A man who had slit his wife's
throat with a machete because, he told the cops, she had burned his
chicken wings was sleeping like a baby on the narrow wooden bench
in the cell. Another guy, who had shot a rival drug dealer, was
handcuffed to the handle of a desk drawer over against the window,
fidgeting jumpily as though his last hit of crack cocaine was still
coursing through his body.

Peterson waved us into his office when he saw Mercer and me.
Mike was there, along with two of the best detectives from the
Special Victims Unit, Ned Tacchi and Alan Vandomir, who had been
added to the task force because of their expertise on serial
rapists.

We greeted one another and took seats in the cramped room.

Mercer handed a sheaf of papers to Peterson. “Maybe you can have
some copies made. You got a junior man on this, let him go through
and do record checks on some of the names. It's the list of people
who came over on the water taxis and ferries this morning.”

Peterson laid the pile to the side of his desk and checked his
watch. “I'll get somebody on it tomorrow, so long as nothing of
interest happened today. Could you tell if the feds were paying any
attention to a search of Governors Island? They say anything?”

“The feds were on to it big time. Must have had fifty
guys-excuse me, Alex-men and women. They started as a grid up at
the highest point, Fort Jay, at daybreak. Then they spread out and
claimed to be searching every building. Had all they could do to
keep the civil warriors from storming each of the structures they
opened up. There was still a crew of them there when I left.”

“Talk about the blind leading the blind-and the inept. If the
feds found anything useful, they'd have to wait till a memo went up
to the attorney general and back before they could get clearance to
show it to us. They should have let us stay,” Mike said. “And, Loo,
Dickie Draper should be here any minute.”

“Did you get any rest?” I asked him.

“Yup. I delivered Kiernan to Central Booking and went home for
the afternoon. You miss me?”

“I just want to make sure you don't lose your edge. It's those
constant jabs in my back that keep my spine so straight. Anything
new?”

“Nope. Unless you count the phone calls. The tip line is ringing
off the hook.”

“Nothing useful?”

The cigarette dangled from Peterson's lips as he looked at a
list on top of his in-box. “Fifty-three calls and three
confessions. One from a guy in San Francisco who says he time
travels to kill women. So far, the fruitcakes are in the lead.”

Every one of these would be followed up in some fashion. It was
rare that any of them proved to be of help, but the risk of
ignoring them was too great for the department to take.

“I got a long shot for you, Loo,” Mercer said.

“Throw it on the table.”

“Tomorrow morning is the sentencing for Floyd Warren, the
coldcase conviction that Alex got last week.”

“Yeah, I saw the clips on that.”

“I'm just thinking out loud-Alex, don't jump all over me, okay?
Maybe we ask the judge to put that off a few days, so I can talk to
Warren. Maybe make a deal to take some time off the top, if he
cooperates.”

“Now what do you possibly hope to get from Floyd Warren?”

“It's just coming to me. Hear me out. All that talk yesterday
about serial killers? They really are rare-compared to the guys Ned
and Alan and I lock up every month. Here you got a serial rapist
responsible for more than fifty crimes.”

“Exactly. He should never see daylight again.”

“But he never escalated to murder, did he?” Mercer continued.
“He had that opportunity, over and over again. Vulnerable women,
alone in their homes or cars-some of them, like Kerry Hastings, who
struggled with him. He was armed with a weapon every single time.
And yet he never killed one of them. No evidence was ever found to
connect him to a homicide.”

“Way to go,” Mike said. “Ask him why. Work it from this end,
Alex. What's the piece that's missing? What are we looking for in
our guy that separates the thousands of violent sex offenders from
the ones that move on to rape, and to torture, and then to murder
their victims.”

“Why not let me go forward with the sentence? Talk to him an
hour later,” I said. “You know you won't get anything from him.
He's so hard-boiled.”

Mercer leaned forward and put his hand on my knee. “Alex,
there's nothing to lose. Suppose he's got a nugget to give us? Even
the smallest hint of a reason? That's more than we have right now.
I'm not talking about letting him walk. The real deal is that the
man's going to be in jail for the rest of his life. Change the
numbers a bit, shave off a few months, give him the illusion of a
bargain.”

I shook my head from side to side. “You think I'm going to
suggest that to Kerry, after all she's been through for thirty-five
years?”

“I'll deal with Kerry. I bet she'll understand it better than
you do.”

I looked from Ned to Alan, who spoke for both of them. “Give it
a crack. The old guy was a pro. Mercer's right.”

“If it's what you all think we should do, then I'm certainly not
going to be stubborn.”

“Bottle that for me, will you, guys?” Mike said. “I've known
mules that were easier to coax than Coop.”

“I'm picking up Kerry at her hotel in the morning, bringing her
down by taxi,” I said to Mercer. “Will you meet us at my office?
Talk to her?”

The door opened as Mercer told me that he would. Dickie Draper
entered sideways and tried to wedge himself behind Mercer's
chair.

“Sorry I'm late, Loo. Got the beep while I was at the movies.
Wasn't a breeze in the house, so I took the wife. Air-conditioning
and Sharon Stone. Hard to beat.”

“Hope you took a pass on the buttered popcorn,” Mike said.

“Figured you'd have this all cleaned up by now, Chapman.” Draper
wiped the sweat off his jowls with his handkerchief.

“We've made a little progress, Dickie,” Peterson said. “Tell him
about your night at Ruffle Bar.”

“Ruffle Bar? You should have called me. Now you're back in my
territory.”

Mike scratched his head. “You knew about it?”

“Sure.”

“You didn't say anything? You didn't make the connection?”

“What connection?”

“Kiernan Dylan. Jimmy Dylan. Ruffle Bar. To your case, Dickie,”
Mike said, snapping his fingers in the fat detective's face. “Elise
Huff.”

“Jimmy Dylan? The barkeep? The Brazen Head?” Dickie said,
referring to the information he'd been given in the meeting at One
Police Plaza yesterday. “What's the clue I'm missing?”

There were puzzled expressions all around the room.

“Tell him what you did, Mike,” Peterson said again.

“So, late last night we get a call from the First. Mercer, Coop,
and I headed to the bar around midnight.”

Draper laughed and interrupted Mike's narrative. “Somebody
pulling your leg? It's been deserted for years.”

“It's actually only been there a few months.” Mike's annoyance
was growing. He ran his fingers through his hair and frowned at
Dickie. “Are we talking about the same thing?”

Dickie held out both hands, palms up, and slowly repeated the
words, exaggerating the pronunciation. “Did you hear me good,
Chapman? You said Ruffle Bar, am I right?”

“Yeah.”

“You're asking me why I didn't tell you anything that I knew,
and I'm just as stumped about why you didn't call me. You thinking
someone was trying to get Huff's body to Ruffle Bar?” Dickie
laughed again.

“She never got there.”

“Well, of course she never got there. But thanks a lot if you
can prove any link to the case. Sorry, Loo, but maybe I should have
stayed for the second feature. You call me in for this?”

The lieutenant took over. “Jimmy Dylan's joint is uptown. Now
he's opened one for his kid downtown. And to put this right in your
territory, the Dylans own a house in Breezy Point. Dylan's son
Kiernan- turns out he knew the Huff girl.”

“She was trying to hook up with him the night she went missing,”
Mike said.

Draper paused for a moment. “I know Breezy Point real good. I'm
thinking-”

“Let's get a sample of sand from the beach at Breezy,” Peterson
said. “Compare it to the sample you got from the blanket Huff was
wrapped in. There must be a geologist at the Museum of Natural
History who'll do that.”

“The feebs have guys at Quantico who can analyze it-all the
mineral deposits and stuff. They're good at that, Loo.”

“Screw the feebs, Dickie. We'll get it done right in New
York.”

“I'm thinking what kind of screwball we got here,” Draper said.
“After all, maybe if he used a boat to get to Bannerman Island with
that cadet's body-I mean, maybe he really was trying to take Elise
Huff to Ruffle Bar. Maybe he's got a fishing boat on the water he
was planning to use to get there. It's dead in the middle, between
Breezy Point and where her body was found.”

“What's in the middle?” Mike asked.

“Who's on first, Chapman?” Draper said, holding his forefinger
in the air and moving it back and forth in front of his eyes. “Am I
thinking too fast for you? I'm talking about Ruffle Bar.”

“Dickie, it's in Manhattan. We were there last night.”

“Then you oughta take a look out from Brooklyn with me, to
Jamaica Bay.”

“What have you got to show us?”

"Ruffle Bar, Chapman. You can see it from the bridge that
connects the Belt Parkway over to Breezy Point. It's an abandoned
island, not far from where Elise Huff got dumped.