Slaughter (3 page)

J
ordan Kray sat in his apartment watching the news on his small flat-screen TV. Although he could easily afford a bigger set, he liked to watch the news small, so he could wrap his mind around it. Understand it. Learn how things work.

He sat in his stocking feet with his knees drawn up sideways. His living room was spacious, with a view of the tree-lined street where he'd moved a year ago, when a well-thought-out financial strategy had brought him a windfall. Moving the money from his victims' accounts to his own had been painful for them but a pleasure for him. He relived their agonies each time he turned the key in his front door.

There were two kinds of people in the world. He was a winner, and the other kind didn't matter. Once they were dead and disinterested, what was theirs became his. Cash, jewelry, valuable antiques . . . it all became negotiable and found its way into his portfolio of ETFs and mutual funds. The devil's own treasure chest for one of his disciples.

He'd stopped off at the kitchenware department of a store on Broadway and bought two identical automatic pop-up toasters—one to use in his kitchen, and one to disassemble so he thoroughly understood how the toasters worked. Did they raise the toasted slices of bread when they had become sufficiently toasted, or was the whole thing all about times? Like it took a certain amount of time to toast bread and that was that. Simple. No thermostat, nothing that Jordan couldn't understand.

But what about the timer? If there was one.

He glanced at the TV screen. People in Arab clothing were throwing rocks at each other, while those not involved in some kind of demonstration cowered and tried to stay safe. This was news?

He shifted his attention to the toaster and used a screwdriver to remove its chrome cover.

There were the heat baffles that were within fractions of an inch of the bread slices. They would probably glow red and stay that way until the bread was sufficiently browned.

But how does the toaster know?

On the TV screen, a battered pickup truck arrived on the scene. Men with what looked like Kalashnikov automatic rifles began jumping out of both sides of the truck's bed as it coasted down the street toward the rock throwers.

The killer glanced at the TV, then returned his attention to the toaster. It appeared that what he thought of as heat baffles were actually spring-loaded devices whose purpose was to isolate the toast so it was kept from touching the heating coils.

Not wanting to be fooled twice, the killer left the chrome body of the toaster off, and slipped the power cord into a wall socket. He put no bread in, but depressed the toaster's handle.

It took less than a minute for the coils to glow bright red.

The sound of gunfire erupted from the TV, and a woman's breathless voice began talking about “the army and the terrorists.”

There were several explosions. The pickup truck that had recently arrived at the scene was now upside down and burning. People were bent over and running, crossing the Arab street to escape gunfire.

The killer unplugged the toaster and let it cool. He had it now. He understood how it worked. How this brand of toaster worked, anyway. It was controlled by a timer rather than by a thermostat to register the temperature that would brown the bread without burning it.

Crowd sounds drifted in from the TV.

There was a soft
sproing!
sound and a spring about an inch long flew out of the toaster and landed on the table. The killer bent over and studied what he could see of the toaster's mechanism. There was no sign of where the spring had come from, but he wasn't worried. He could figure it out later. Or maybe the toaster didn't even need the spring in order to work.

He suspected that more expensive toasters had some kind of thermostat and were controlled by heat rather than time. This one was a cheapy, bought for research rather than jelly or jam. Time now to put it back together.

It didn't want to go back together. At least, not to its previous form. Not for the killer. The chrome cover wouldn't go on straight, and he seemed to have broken the Bakelite handle on the lever that depressed the bread.

He picked up a smaller screwdriver and used it to pry the toaster's cover. He needed only about an eighth of an inch. The sleek chrome body of the toaster still wouldn't quite fit. He pried with the smaller screwdriver.

Yeow!

The damned thing was still hot!

And there was that damned spring, rolling off the table.

He went to the sink and filled a glass with cold water, then sat on a kitchen counter stool and soaked his left hand.

He found himself facing the TV. Someone, a man or woman, was on fire and crawling away from the burning truck.

The truck exploded. The person crawling away was enveloped in flames.

The killer removed his hand from the glass and dried it on a dish towel. His burned fingers didn't look serious enough that he'd need ointment and a Band-Aid. He resumed reassembling the toaster.

A man in neatly pressed pajamas, sitting on the edge of a bed, came on the TV screen and began talking about the benefits of a new pill that helped people get to sleep and wasn't habit-forming. It also sometimes eliminated erectile dysfunction.

The killer remained zeroed in on toaster dysfunction. This time being more careful.

Until he heard a local newscaster's voice say Lois Graham's name.

He put down the toaster and sat watching the flat-screen TV. The newscaster, Tad something, was interviewing a detective the killer was familiar with, a man named Frank Quinn. It took the killer only a few seconds to recognize Quinn, but who could forget the imposing figure? He was a big man, too rugged to be a leading man, but with the kind of honest ugliness that attracted some women.

“We're searching now for whoever killed her,” Quinn was saying. No doubt talking about Lois Graham. “It appears that he panicked, probably scared away by someone or some animal. Unfortunately, no one reached her in time to save her.”

The killer almost laughed out loud; I guess not, with her insides all over the grass, and the rest of her taken apart like a puzzle.

He was proud of his work.

“There's nothing special about this killer,” Quinn was saying.

The killer smiled. You're lying!

“But we would like to warn people again about the park,” Quinn continued. “Sometimes such places are scenic and safe during daylight hours, but are much different after dark. Central Park is a great place, but don't go there unless you have to after sundown.”

“To Central Park?” Tad the newsman seemed incredulous.

“To any park. Cowardly killers like this are friendly with the night.”

Cowardly? The killer's hands balled into fists.

“Unless he moves on,” Quinn continued, “we'll catch him. Killers like this are doomed to be apprehended. Experience has taught us that they're not overly bright.”

You're lying!

“So entangled in their compulsion that they're not capable of logical reasoning.”

You're lying!

“There's nothing much in them but evil.”

Lying! If God doesn't want me to do this, why is He letting me? Why is He urging me? Why is He my accomplice?

The camera moved to the handsome newscaster, who absently lifted a hand and smoothed back his hair. “So except for the victim and her family—and our hearts go out to them—would you say there is nothing special about this murder?”

Tell him about the gutting, the disassembly of her parts!

“No,” Quinn said, “it's just another squalid homicide, probably done on impulse by a maniac.”

Lying! Lying!

Tad the newsman shook his head. “So sad . . .”

Lying!

Quinn was back on camera, looking straight into the lens. “It's a kind of sickness that can overcome even the best of us.”

“So this kind of killer is a mental case, silently screaming for help?”

“Usually.”

Lie on.

Quinn imagined the killer someplace comfortable, with his feet propped up, watching television.

You'll be sorry.

T
he trees blocked their view. Or the dusk was dark enough that there were reflections in the windows and the glass had turned to mirrors. Windows of the buildings across the street from the park, overlooking the crime scene, didn't yield much help. None of the potential witnesses happened to be looking outside at the time of the murder.

That was their story, anyway.

Fedderman, Sal, and Harold knocked on doors much of the day and were dismayed by how no one would claim to have seen Lois Graham's murder. All three detectives knew that some of them might be withholding evidence. They didn't want to get involved; it might somehow taint them, lead to some crime they'd committed without knowing, suck them into the system and rightly or wrongly list their names forever

These days more than ever, people didn't want their names on a list. Any kind of list.

After lunch, Sal and Harold continued canvassing the neighborhood, while Quinn and Fedderman made a second examination of the victim's apartment. They looked again at a stack of blank paper near the printer. Wouldn't it be nice if her laptop or pad turned up, full of information that could identify her killer?

They poked and peered but found nothing of use in the apartment. It was fashionably but not lavishly furnished.
Eclectic
would describe it.

“One thing,” Quinn said. “Wasn't there a carpet in the bedroom?”

Fedderman cupped his chin in his hand and thought. “Yes,” he said with certainty. “Not very large, though. More like a throw rug.”

They tried to think what else had been here but was now gone. They couldn't identify anything for sure. It was possible some dishes or glasses were missing from a kitchen cabinet.

“Weren't there three chairs instead of two at the kitchen table?” Fedderman asked, pointing to the small drop-leaf table and two wooden chairs that looked as if they'd spent years in classrooms.

“Could have been,” Quinn said.

“I remember now because the missing chair didn't look like the others. It was a little larger and had some guy's name carved in it.”

“Our killer?” Quinn asked, knowing it wouldn't be so.

“If his name is Hinkley,” Fedderman said.

 

 

They continued their search. Like last time, they found no evidence that the victim had been under duress, or was being stalked, during the time leading up to her murder. Her purse, found near her body, had held the usual items found in women's purses—wadded tissue, a comb, lipstick, an oversized key ring holding a plastic four-leaf clover that if squeezed became a tiny flashlight, a pair of very dark made-in-Taiwan sunglasses, some old theater and movie ticket stubs. There was a wallet containing two twenty-dollar bills and the usual charge, debit, and ID cards. No driver's license (no surprise, in New York City). A plasticized card proclaimed her membership in a gym. (They all belong to gyms, Quinn thought.) Her keys were missing. The supposition was that after killing Lois, the murderer let himself into her apartment and stole her computer. Obviously, he was afraid something on it might lead to him.

Maybe, Quinn thought, he'd also stolen a throw rug and a wooden chair.

A phone call to a local antique dealer shed some light. The dealer said on the phone he'd have to see the rug in order to give an estimate of its worth. The missing wooden chair, he said, after hearing Quinn's description, if genuine and in good condition, might be worth several thousand dollars.

So the killer had taken the victim's computer and then come back later to move what was valuable and more noticeable. Quinn assumed the killer would have dressed like some sort of workman and simply walked out of the building and to his car or truck with the chair and rolled rug.

But what amazed and angered the detectives was the strong possibility that he had returned and taken away what was valuable in the apartment while they were eating lunch.

 

 

After work at Coaxly and Simms, writing ad copy, Rose Darling entered her apartment, closed the door behind her, and fastened all her locks. Since finding that girl the way she was in Central Park, Rose hadn't felt safe. She read everything she could find on the murder. Watched the news.

How could something have happened so close to her? She had passed right by where and when that poor woman was murdered. The fear had pushed her into a run.

She recalled the curious sense of dread she'd felt while jogging there. Some part of her mind must have realized something. Her anxiety had been so real!

She decided she wasn't going to run this evening in the unrelenting heat. And certainly not in the park. She wasn't sure when she'd feel comfortable again while jogging. The thing to do, she decided, was wait until the sicko killer was caught. And killed. (She hoped.) Then she could run again, but on the sidewalks, where people were walking. Then she realized that might be unwise, being the fastest one and drawing everyone's stares.

Everyone's.

She cranked up the air-conditioning, sat down on the sofa, and, using one foot, then the other, worked off her high heels. She could recall her father's cautioning voice from her youth: Don't stick your neck out. Don't make it easier for the bastards.

Never had she believed more in her father's simple wisdom.

She let herself sink back into fatherly philosophy and the welcoming embrace of the sofa cushions.