Seven Ways to Die (30 page)

He nodded. “I agree. Tonight’s the night.”

“And it’s going to be a busy one.”

The fear in Patricia’s eyes turned to terror as she saw Hamilton lean down, twist a dial beneath the chair.

Then the ticking began.

39

Cody slept like a log. Charley nearly had to drag him from the bed in time for their routine rendezvous with Waldo at the diner.

While Charley continued working the lamb shank Waldo had generously provided, Cody opened the Melinda Cramer file, which was still on his desk from Monday. In the middle of breakfast he realized he was one hundred percent certain that he’d found the key to the Rubik’s cube that was TAZ’s current challenge. He called Vinnie and Si into the office, and told them to make five copies of the file—for them, and also Rizzo, Bergman, and Kate to comb through looking for similarities with Androg. “Get me a list of her effects, too,” he said. “Every stitch of clothes she could have worn that night, and everything except the furniture that was found in her apartment.”

An hour later the crew squeezed into his office to report their unanimous opinion that Melinda’s murder had Androg written all over it. The list of her effects would take longer to retrieve, but there was no doubt: She was found naked. Death by strangulation, but made to look like blunt trauma so that the coroner missed it entirely until Cody had demanded a reexamination.

Was Melinda Number One instead of Raymond, after all? That’s what they wanted him to believe. But he still had the same feeling he’d expressed to Amelie. If she was Number One, why had it taken Androg two years to strike again? Then why had he struck two more victims in so few days? Something didn’t quite add up, but Cody could sense, like the hunter he was, that they were at least approaching the right trail. Maybe it took Androg two years to plan this week’s killings, starting with choosing the victims and then making sure they were taken out, one by one, and executed like clockwork.

Two years. Twenty-four months.

Cody looked at the file again. Melinda died shortly after midnight, having returned from a Halloween rave.

Tonight was Halloween night.

Δ

As neat as a good plot.Or a well-written crime book.

But writers weren’t the real artists when it came to murder; they were just the critics, the aficionados.

Serial killers were the
maestros,
the true artists of the medium.
Cody was pretty certain who he was up against.

But he knew damn well he couldn’t reveal his suspicions without solid evidence. He’d be the laughingstock of NYPD if he confided who he thought Androg was. He would bide his time, awaiting his break, but now with the assistance of selective perception. He knew what he was looking for, and that would make it all the easier to find. He would do a little medical background check.

Around nine Wolfsheim reported that Song’s blood count was 97.2. “While you were dancing with the fat cats last night, I was working,” Wolfsheim couldn’t resist the barb.

That meant Song was dead less than six hours when they located her. “You won’t be surprised to hear that the odor Rizzo thought was cyanide and the brown powder found on her lips and in her mouth was an intentional misdirect. The powder was applied to Song’s lips after she was dead already—and it smelled like “burnt almonds” because it
was
burnt almonds.

Androg had gone to the trouble of bringing the misleading evidence along just for the sake of putting icing on the cake.

Plus, there was no trace of the Excedrin—which was
not
laced with anything—in her system. The partially empty bottle was another misdirect.

Cody was getting impatient with Wolfsheim’s overly deliberate rhetorical style. “I know you found something, Wolfie,” he interrupted. “Get to it, Goddamit. The son of a bitch is out there right now preparing the next victim for us.”

Wolfsheim grunted his acknowledgement. “When we started shaving her skull,” he said, “we found a single gunshot wound—entry on the back of her head.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Cody said. “She was shot?”

Wolfsheim nodded.

“What caliber?”

“I’d say .22 judging from the size of the entry wound. But it’s impossible to tell. There was no bullet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The damage to her brain made it clear the gunshot wound is what killed her—fired at point blank range, but through some kind of cloth—probably surgical gauze—which is why we found no trace of blood on her hair at first examination. Though we didn’t find the bullet, we found an ounce of water in her brain. The bullet was made of ice.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cody said. “Who else knows about this?”

“No one except Annie,” Wolfsheim said.

“Let’s keep it that way for a few minutes. We’ve got a leak somewhere and I need to plug it before we go back to normal procedure.”

“You think it’s inside TAZ?” Wolfsheim asked, surprise in his voice.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Cody replied. “That’d be enough for me to hand in my badge.” His thoughts went to the Chief’s office, and that didn’t make him happy either.

As if by response, the black phone on Cody’s desk rang. When he glanced at the caller i.d., he nodded for Wolfsheim to stay.

“I found Number Three,” Stinelli said.

“What?”

“On a hunch, I called Philadelphia P.D. this morning early and asked about the details of Steamroller Jackson’s death. The investigating officer just called me back. Jackson was found in an alley, slumped against a wall—naked.”

“Sitting down?” Cody asked.

“Yes,” Stinelli answered.

“Cause of death?” Cody asked, punching Stinelli onto speakerphone so Wolfsheim could hear.

“They wrote it off to a heart attack induced by drugs and alcohol overdose,” the Chief answered. “The poor guy had been homeless for two years, and was a familiar face to the cops on the beat. I asked them to do an autopsy. They still have him in the morgue, waiting for a distant family member to claim him.”

“I want to be there,” Cody said.

“Me too,” said Wolfsheim.

“I’m pulling up outside right now,” Stinelli said. “Bring your coffee… In spill-proof mugs, please.”

Δ

Cody and Wolfsheim both liked their coffee scalding hot, so neither dared a sip until they were onto the Turnpike. When Wolfsheim grumbled about the city’s potholes, that seemed especially treacherous on the West Side, Stinelli cut him short. “What would you rather have, smooth streets or extra cops?” he asked.

Nothing to argue about there.

When the Chief asked about the case, Cody asked him to close the courtesy window.

Stinelli’s eyebrows went up, but he pushed the button.

“Can’t be too careful,” Cody said. “That bastard Hamilton has inside information, and I don’t think he’s getting it from our side.”

“For chrissakes,” Stinelli said, “Berno’s been with me for fifteen years.”

Cody chose not to reply. “Jackson very well could be Androg’s work,” he said instead. “But why Philadelphia—and what’s the connection?”

“The connection,” Stinelli said, “is that the guy used to be a pal of mine.”

“Just like Uncle Tony was Bergman’s pal, and Dr. Wiley was Kate’s?” Wolfsheim said.

Whose pal was Raymond Handley?
Cody wondered. “Go ahead, Wolfie, give the Chief your thoughts.”

Wolfsheim summed the case up: “All we know about these crimes is what we don’t know. No DNA, no hairs, no prints, no blood, not even a definitive footprint. No direct connection between the victims, no particular geographical area or social status. We got everything from a rich stockbroker to a restaurant owner to an E.R. doctor, and maybe to a bum in an alley.”

“We know the killer is doing a tour de force of murder methods each time,” Cody said, “using one way but perversely disguising it as one or more other m.o.’s.”

Wolfsheim nodded. “We also know that most serial killers have two characteristics in common: they want us to know the killings are their work; and they subconsciously want to get caught. That’s why they usually leave a totem or trophy.”

“But this isn’t business as usual,” Cody said. “I don’t think this killer is that simple. If he’s like other serial killers, he will develop a ritual to preserve his success—but he hasn’t developed it yet. If Androg wants to get apprehended and brought to justice, it’s gonna be in no way we’ve seen before. There’s some kind of elaborate and unique game going on, and unless we figure out the rules soon it’ll only get worse. If Jackson turns out to be one of them, we’ve got four in four days.”

Stinelli looked at his Blackberry’s calendar as though trying to read its secrets. “It’s gonna be a media meltdown when they get wind of this.”

“Hamilton already got wind.”

“How?” Stinelli asked.

“I don’t know,” Cody answered. “It’s just a hunch. A very strong hunch.”
There’s
one
way he could know that had nothing to do with leaks,
he was thinking.

Wolfsheim continued. “He’s not exactly leaving trophies, but this perp clearly wants us to know these killings are his handy work. All the victims were found in a seated position. All three of them were naked—including Jackson.”

“Causes of death?” Stinelli asked.

“Asphyxiation, stabbing/slashing/puncture wounds, and gunshot.”

“Which leaves drugs/alcohol/poison,” Cody added.

“Right,” Wolfsheim interrupted. “And, if you go by the book, blunt trauma and electrical-thermal. And don’t forget: All the murders take place right after midnight.”

Δ

The forensics exam began minutes after the New Yorkers arrived at Philadelphia Police Headquarters on Franklin Square.

Jackson’s body had been moved from the cooler an hour earlier so that it would reach room temperature before the procedure.

Lou was surprised at his own reaction to the sight of his old high school classmate’s rigid face. A wave of sorrow washed over him, followed by anger at a life wasted and snuffed out.
Why was it,
he thought,
that some people get it together and others don’t? Is the shape of your life really under your control, or is it all the luck of the draw?
Certainly Steamroller had little control over his death. Some heartless prick had selected him as a pawn in his own sick game.

Wolfsheim saw the detective’s nostrils flare. “Ammonia,” he nodded at Cody. “Probably maggots in there somewhere.”

The Philly coroner was named Sam Liu, an Asian so diminutive he had to stand on a stool to operate. As Sam made the Y-cut and the abdomen fell open, the smell of ammonia intensified. And, sure enough, they discovered unhatched maggot eggs in the abdominal cavity.

“What does that tell us?” Cody asked.

“You know as well as I do,” Wolfsheim said.

“I like to hear you tell it.”

“Dead bodies attract flies within minutes. The females swarm around open wounds and lay hundreds of eggs which hatch twelve-fifteen hours later.”

“So Jackson was found before they hatched,” Stinelli said.

“And before they could destroy the evidence,” Cody added.

“Maggots can consume a full grown pig in days,” Liu said, apropos of nothing.

The three New Yorkers looked at him, but he continued his examination without further commentary.

“I think we can safely conclude,” Wolfsheim said, “that time of death was shortly after midnight Saturday morning.”

One of Liu’s intern-assistants ran the eggs through a blender, and returned to report that she’d found traces of cocaine in the sample.

Liu nodded. “Happy maggots. That’s consistent with our first conclusions.”

“Something else,” the assistant said. “We identified a residue of liquid in the Chivas Regal bottle found near the body. It was loaded with coke. That’s how it was introduced,” she said.

“At least he died a happy death,” Stinelli commented sorrowfully.

Δ

Liu continued the autopsy, meticulously examining every inch of the flabby corpse that had once borne the nickname “Steamroller.”

“Take a look at this,” he finally said.

At first the visitors couldn’t see what the Philly coroner was pointing to. But it came into focus as he explained.

“Residual pressure point,” Liu indicated with his finger, “precisely adjacent to the heart.”

Now they saw it clearly: the trace of a grid mark on the pressure bruise.

Wolfsheim admitted he was baffled.

“Wait a moment,” Liu asked them. He removed his plastic gloves, excused himself, climbed down from his bench, and left the operating room.

A few minutes later Liu returned, a Taser gun in hand.

The New Yorkers watched as Liu held the gun up to the corpse, demonstrating how its grid-like contact surface could have left the mark sealed by death on Jackson’s body.

Δ

An hour later, Liu concluded his examination of the heart muscle, confirming that “the victim’s heart arrested, probably following constant arrhythmia that it could no longer compensate for due to the strain already put on his system by the alcohol and drugs.”

The Taser had finished him off.

“No doubt about,” Cody said. “It’s our guy.”

Wolfsheim concurred. “And this is yet another m.o.—thermal/electrical. The guy’s working the neighborhood.”

As he saw his visitors to the exit, another of Liu’s assistants handed him a plastic bag. Liu nodded, and gave it to Stinelli.

“What is it?” Lou asked.

“One of the items found on the victim’s body,” the coroner explained. “The minute I walked in I realized who it was.”

Looking perplexed, Stinelli held the plastic flush to the newsprint contained in the bag. Cody and Wolfsheim saw the Chief physically react as he recognized what it was. In a well-weathered newspaper clipping, it was a faded photo of Stinelli with his arm around Jackson. Jackson’s face was a mass of cuts and scratches, but his grin showed through it all.

Stinelli regained his composure. “This was taken outside his locker room, when Valerie and I attended our last prize fight.”

“Who knows about this photo?” Cody asked Liu.

“No one but us chickens,” the coroner replied. “And the cops who found the body.”