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Authors: C. E. Lawrence

BOOK: Silent Slaughter
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C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
B
rian O’Reilly was the only person Lee had ever met who seemed to get more focused the more he drank. He was already several rounds ahead of Lee, but his voice was sharp and clear, his hands steady.
“I can’t say for sure, but that voice sounds familiar,” the retired detective said after listening to the recording for a third time.
“Who does it sound like?” Lee said, trying to hide his eagerness. His host was clearly an “old school” cop—haunted by his failures, coping with them by drinking heavily while maintaining his brusque, Irish-machismo attitude.
“There was this other detective briefly assigned to the case,” O’Reilly said. “He was weird. He gave me the creeps, so I asked that he be transferred. I didn’t wanna work with him—come to think of it, no one in the squad house did.”
“What was his name?”
O’Reilly pursed his lips, rubbed his forehead and stared at the ceiling. Then he shook his head. “I’m tryin’ to remember. It wasn’t an Irish name, or Italian . . . it was a name I’d never heard before, I’m pretty sure. Let me think about it some more.”
“So you think the caller might be him?”
“He had a voice like that. Flat, you know—cold. Soulless, like there’s nobody he ever cared about or who ever cared about him.”
“Any idea what happened to him?”
“He left the force shortly after, I think. May have been some kind of fracas—I don’t remember. I had other things to think about.”
“Would he still be in the personnel files?”
“I don’t see why not. If it is him, it would explain how he knew about the red dress. That detail was never released to the public, and, far as I know, the press never got hold of it either.”
He swallowed the last of his whiskey, and all the sharpness seemed to leave his body. He looked old and tired, the skin on his face puckered and pasty in the pale afternoon light. “You know,” he said softly, “we must have interviewed a hundred people, but we never developed a decent suspect. Couldn’t even come up with enough evidence for a grand jury.”
“I know,” Lee said. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s like she just vanished—
whoosh.
Here one minute, gone the next. What is it those nutty Christians call it? The Rapture. It’s like that—like she was airlifted to heaven.”
The Rapture
.
Yeah, right
. Laura wasn’t dead—kidnapped, assaulted and killed by some psychopath—but had somehow zoomed straight up to heaven without suffering the pangs of death and dying. Trouble was, Lee didn’t believe in God, and he didn’t believe in miracles. He sometimes wished he could, especially when he saw the comfort people took from their beliefs, but it wasn’t an option for him.
“The file on your sister is still in Records, if you want to go through it,” O’Reilly said.
“Thanks—maybe I will.” He stood up. It was time to leave this sad man in his clean, well-appointed kitchen, with his bottle of Jameson for company. “Thanks,” he said again. “For the whiskey and the talk.”
“I didn’t do anything,” O’Reilly said. “But I’ll ask around and see if anyone else remembers that cop’s name.”
“Thanks.”
He emerged from O’Reilly’s into the chilly evening air, the sun sliding behind a line of cloud cover. A couple of kids raced by on bikes, legs pumping, hair flying in the wind. The girl had pale hair the color of winter wheat, and the boy had a forest of flame-colored curls. He watched them careen around the corner onto Katonah Avenue, laughing and shouting, just as he and Laura had so many years ago. But that was a different state, bordered by a different river, and it felt like another life by now.
He headed toward the subway, suspended in a strange mixture of hope and dread—hope that at last the mysterious caller would be identified, and dread that he might be. Lee wasn’t sure of his own reaction. He wasn’t at all certain that murder was out of the question. He didn’t trust anyone right now—least of all himself. He pulled up his collar and ducked into the subway, to be swallowed up by its vast system of tunnels like Orpheus descending into the underworld.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE
W
hen he emerged from the subway, there was a message on his cell phone from Lucille Geffers, chairman of the philosophy department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He knew there was a vacancy in the psychology department, and Lucille was on the search committee. After a meeting with Butts and Krieger, he took the train to the Upper West Side to meet with her.
Lucille Geffers lived in the Ansonia Hotel, an ornate Beaux Arts structure one block north of the intersection of Broadway and Amsterdam at Seventy-second Street. Lee loved the playful attention to detail in the elaborate stone carving, the wrought-iron balconies, the looming mansard roof, its copper coating green with age. The building was as fussy and overdecorated as a wedding cake, and he thought it was perfect.
The nattily dressed doorman informed him Lucille’s apartment was on the third floor, so instead of taking the elevator, Lee walked up the ornate winding staircase, the marble steps worn concave from decades of opera singers and musicians treading upon them. He knew about a few of the more famous tenants, like Arturo Toscanini and Enrico Caruso.
He found Lucille listening to a late Beethoven quartet, the one with the Grand Fugue in the first movement. Her Irish setter, Rex, was by her side, wagging his feathery tail gently.
“Come in, please,” Lucille said. She wore a blue cable-knit turtleneck, jeans and moccasins. The look suited her. So did the apartment. It had the quiet, understated charm of someone who had grown up amid privilege, education and taste. A built-in bookshelf occupied one entire wall of the spacious foyer, the carpets were old and expensive, and the French Impressionist paintings didn’t look like prints.
“Thanks for dropping by on such short notice.”
“No problem. Hi, Rex,” he said, stroking the dog’s silky fur. Rex responded by shoving his cold nose into Lee’s crotch.
“Rex, stop it!” she said, tugging on his collar.
“Nice place you have here.”
“Thanks. My father was an opera singer—sang in the Met chorus for years—and I managed to get on the lease before he died. Oh, I don’t like the way that came out,” she said, wincing. “It sounds kind of cold.”
“Don’t worry—I knew what you meant.”
In New York, real estate was everything. A rent-controlled apartment in a good neighborhood was the equivalent of winning the lottery—people would lie, cheat and steal (and in some cases, murder) for one. Otherwise you were subject to the steadily mounting cost of housing. In Manhattan, rents only went in one direction: up.
“So you grew up in this building?” Lee asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Is it true Caruso lived here?”
“Yep. They say he chose it because of the thick walls. I was just making tea. Would you like some?”
“Sure, thanks.”
She poured them each a mug of strong black tea and showed him to the living room. Rex padded after them, his toenails clicking softly on the hardwood floor. They sat for a moment sipping their tea while listening to the majestic opening of Beethoven’s Grand Fugue.
“God,” Lucille said. “Can you imagine being able to write something like that?”
“Must be amazing, being a conduit for something that glorious.”
“A ‘conduit’? What do you mean?”
“When I hear something this profound, it feels like Beethoven is tapping into something universal. If I were religious, I’d say it’s a piece of the Divine.”
Lucille stroked Rex’s head, running her hand over the silky fur. The dog looked up at her adoringly. “So you think Beethoven was ‘channeling’ his greatest music?”
“Well, if you put it like that, it sounds silly. I’m not expressing it well.”
“Okay,” Lucille said. “I’ll admit, I didn’t just ask you here for tea. I have an ulterior motive.”
Perhaps in response to the surprised look on his face, she added quickly, “Not
that
—it’s professional. I mean, you’re a good-looking man, but you’re not my type. Not enough X chromosomes.”
“Oh,” he said, and then, “
Oh.
”
“I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this, though I suppose it’s no secret that I’m a Friend of Ellen.”
“Got it.”
“I don’t know if the kids at John Jay spend any time talking about their moldy old professors,” she went on, “but I’m pretty sure most of them have me figured out. Which actually leads me to what I wanted to talk to you about.”
She sat across from him on the divan and put her mug on the coffee table. “As you may know, there’s an opening at the school in the psychology department.”
“Right.”
“Tom Mariella was going to ask you himself, but his father died suddenly, so he asked me to feel you out on it.”
His father died suddenly.
Lee didn’t even know if his own father was alive or dead. There were too many open chapters in his family, too many unresolved chords.
“Ask me what?” he said.
“If you’d like to be an adjunct lecturer at the school. It would mean giving a couple of talks each semester—you could pick the topics yourself, more or less, as long as Tom agrees with them.” She saw his hesitation and said, “Maybe the timing isn’t good right now.”
“No, it’s not that.” He couldn’t tell her that the news about Tom’s father had sent him spinning into a wild series of conjectures about his own father, long ago departed—though not necessarily from this world. He looked at Lucille, sitting across from him, perched on the edge of the sofa, the ever-faithful Rex pressing his body against her shins. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course—take all the time you need. I’ll tell Tom we talked about it, and when he gets back into town, he may give you a call.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your interest.”
“Good. And now,” she said, rising from the couch, “if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot date with a stripper.
Kidding
,” she said in response to his surprised expression. “Not about the date but the stripper part. God, you’re an easy mark.” She laughed. “Oh, one more thing, before I forget. We just had a cancellation for our guest-lecturer series. Very well-respected FBI profiler—you probably know of him—was going to come, but there’s an illness in his family. So rather than cancel, we’d like to plug someone in. Can you do it?”
“What was he going to talk about?”
“Wait a second—I have the schedule right here,” she said, studying a pamphlet on her desk. “ ‘The sadistic sexual offender.’ ”
“When is it?”
“Thursday morning. Are you free?”
“I could do it. Is it open to the public?”
“Yes.”
“Then I should warn you, there’s a very good chance that the UNSUB in the Alleyway Strangler case will attend.”
“We can have some undercover officers in the audience.”
“Not a bad idea, though I doubt if he’ll announce himself. And you can’t really arrest someone for attending a lecture. Still, it can’t hurt.”
“What are the chances he’ll come, do you think?”
“I’d say they’re pretty good.”
She shivered. “It’s a creepy feeling, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“To think you’ll be in the same room with a murderer, and that he’ll know who you are, but you won’t know him.”
“Yeah. Real creepy.”
But even then he was thinking,
What if I do recognize him? What do I do?
He didn’t say it out loud, because as yet the question had no answer.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO
D
etective Leonard Butts liked his life in Nutley, New Jersey. He liked his plump little wife, Muriel, their son, Joey, and their cozy little house just down the road from the headquarters of the drug manufacturing giant Hoffmann-La Roche. People in Nutley called it The House That Valium Built. The drug’s inventor, Leo Sternbach, was a tenacious researcher who had persevered against the directives of his bosses, creating one of the most profitable drugs in the world, earning the Swiss company billions of dollars. Butts liked to use the story as proof of Jewish ingenuity. Butts was only half Jewish on his father’s side, but he identified strongly with his Polish/Jewish ancestry.
He drove down Kingsland Street, past the company’s vast research and manufacturing plant, its smokestacks belching out God only knew what toxic by-products, and turned right onto Terrace Avenue. He wasn’t that crazy about living near Roche, but the houses close to the plant were cheaper—theirs had been a real bargain when they bought it. It was the last one on the left before the road dead-ended into Princeton Street—a nice, leafy corner lot with a decent-sized lawn. He and Muriel had agreed they didn’t want anything too roomy—he wasn’t big on property upkeep, preferring to spend his weekends barbequing with friends or attending his son’s baseball and soccer games. Neither he nor Muriel were sporty types, so it had been a surprise when they produced a natural athlete like Joey. Butts was proud of his son but rarely talked about him, for fear of becoming one of those boring parents obsessed with their children’s accomplishments.
As he entered the house through the kitchen door, he heard the
Jeopardy!
theme song coming from the den. He hung up his coat and tiptoed downstairs to the renovated basement that served as their TV room and den, where he found Muriel stretched out in the black leatherette recliner, watching the show.
He and Joey had strict instructions not to disturb her during this daily ritual. They were not to speak to her, make comments or, worst of all, give answers to the questions. Muriel alone was allowed to play along, muttering responses under her breath—often long before Alex Trebek had finished giving the clue, and usually correctly.
Butts sat quietly on the sofa until the first commercial break. His wife picked up the remote, muted the television and smiled at him.
“Hello, Buttons.” It was a nickname she had used since their second week of dating, when he had picked her up wearing a jacket missing two buttons.
“Hi,” he said, getting up to give her a kiss.
“How was your day? Catch any murderers?”
Butts smiled indulgently. It wasn’t that his wife took his work lightly—she was supportive and proud of what he did. But Muriel had a sly way about her, an offhand manner of dismissing important things like life-threatening diseases or disasters. He supposed some people might find it annoying, but he found it comforting. It defused his anxiety about the importance of succeeding in his job and gave him space to breathe and relax a little. It was easy to get eaten up by the job. He had seen it happen to other guys on the force, but what was the point of doing this kind of work if you were going to let it destroy your life? He had decided a long time ago that that was a price he wasn’t willing to pay. Some might call him callous, but he didn’t care. He liked to joke that he might be part Jewish, but he was no masochist.
He kicked off his shoes and lay back on the couch. “I’ll tell you all about my day when your show is over. How’s it going?”
“I’m rooting for the librarian. She’s good with literature and history, but she has a weakness in geography.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Not bad. I cleaned up in Odds ’N’ Ends but was stumped in Pop Tunes of the Nineties.”
“I don’t know why you don’t audition for that show.”
She waved aside his comment dismissively. “I’d never make it.”
“You’re better than most of the contestants.”
“Here in my living room, sure. But I’d wilt under the pressure.”
“That’s a load of bull. I don’t see you wilting under nothing.”
She laughed. “Always the supportive husband, Buttons, aren’t you? Oh, the show’s coming back on,” she said. Picking up the remote, she pointed it at the TV just as Alex Trebek came back on-screen, smiling from ear to ear of his big Canadian head.
“And now it’s time for Double Jeopardy,” he said, without losing that superior smile of his. Butts despised Alex Trebek.
Double Jeopardy.
Butts thought that just about described his life right now. Each time another day went by without apprehending the man they sought, another girl was in jeopardy.
He looked at his wife. She was no beauty, but he loved her bright, intelligent eyes, upturned nose and rosy cheeks. Like him, she was short and pudgy, but she had a
way
about her, always had. It stirred something inside him and grabbed his heart the same way looking at the oak tree in the corner of the garden in the early-morning light did. His attraction to her went deeper than sex. Over the years they had grown together like two vines intertwined; the only way to separate them would be to cut away parts of them. He loved his son, but he couldn’t imagine life without Muriel.
One of the categories on Double Jeopardy was Mathematics. The librarian went right for it, starting with the first clue.
“This American physicist and mathematician, known for his diagrams, received the Nobel Prize in 1965 along with two others for his work in quantum electrodynamics,” said Alex.
“Who was Richard Feynman?” Muriel barked. She was right—and she proceeded to get every answer in the column right, along with the librarian, who ran through the entire category, putting herself squarely in the lead.
“Good,” Muriel said when the next station break came. “I think my librarian friend might pull it off after all.” She muted the show again and turned to her husband. “So how did it go today?” They had long ago fallen into the habit of talking about trivial things as though they mattered and important things as though they didn’t.
“No real leads. This guy is smart, and he doesn’t leave clues behind, unless he wants us to find them.”
It was against policy to talk about an ongoing investigation with anyone outside the force, even family members, but everyone he knew had broken that rule at one time or another. He avoided talking about things in front of Joey, but it was hard to leave your work behind each day. Everyone in the NYPD knew that, and no one talked about it. It was understood.
“That’s too bad,” she said.
“Where’s Joey?”
“Soccer practice. He’ll be back in time for dinner.”
Then the show came back on, and she returned to watching it.
Butts got up and wandered into the kitchen. He reached for the icebox door and saw the note dangling from a refrigerator magnet in the form of a carrot.
ASK YOURSELF: DO I REALLY
NEED
THIS
RIGHT NOW?
OR IS IT JUST HABIT??
REMEMBER, HABITS
CAN
BE BROKEN!!
REPLACE BAD HABITS WITH HEALTHY
ONES!!!
He let go of the door handle and turned away. Muriel was trying to reform him and lose some weight herself in the process.
Healthy habits . . .
The man he was chasing had already formed some very nasty habits indeed, which would be much harder to break than overeating. No amount of notes on refrigerator doors would change his actions at this point; they would only become more ingrained over time.
He picked up an apple from a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table and took a bite. It wasn’t the same as a doughnut, but he chewed dutifully and swallowed, determined to control his own impulses. Somehow, he felt that might bring him one step closer to catching a man whose impulses had already spun dangerously out of control.

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