Cry Baby (15 page)

6.49 AM

‘Does anybody know what the hell is going on here?’ says Cesario.

A small group of detectives is gathered in Cesario’s office. Despite the Lieutenant’s sartorial splendor, he seems unduly ruffled. Doyle suspects he’s already had his ear chewed by the Chief of Detectives about curtailing this purported killing spree before it goes any further.

Eyes fall on Doyle. Which is only right seeing as how he caught the case, but still it’s pretty intense pressure.

‘We’ve got two possibly related DOAs, that we know of. There may be more.’

‘Wait,’ says Cesario. ‘Wait a minute.
Possibly
related? They’ve both got numbers carved in their foreheads, and you say
possibly
related?’

Okay, thinks Doyle, so we’re off to a great start here. I get two sentences out and already he’s picking holes.

‘What I mean is that they’re possibly the work of the same killer. We don’t know that yet.’

‘Anything to suggest it’s not the same perp?’

No, thinks Doyle. Nothing concrete. But that’s not how it works, and you know that as well as anyone in this room. We don’t go making unfounded assumptions. We work with what we have. Otherwise we’d close off paths that should remain open.

‘On the surface, there are similarities. The numbers on the heads – that’s the most obvious one. The vics were both killed with a knife. They were within a few blocks of each other…’

‘But?’

Doyle takes his time searching for the right choice of words, in an attempt to preempt another attack on his views. ‘It’s the method that’s bugging me. The attack on the homeless guy was short and sweet. Two stab wounds, to the gut and the chest – that’s it. This second vic, though – this was frenzied. A dozen knife wounds at least. One of them opened up his neck from ear to ear. It was a helluva lot messier than the first one.’

‘And that tells you what?’

‘I don’t know what it tells me. It brings up questions, though. Why not a fast kill like the last one? Why pick someone in a car instead of a guy who’s just walking the streets? And why the sexual element this time?’

Cesario furrows his brow. This is news to him. ‘The sexual element?’

‘Yeah. The driver had his pecker out when we found him.’

Cesario’s face registers his surprise. ‘You think this could have been a woman did this? A hooker, maybe?’

Doyle shrugs. ‘We can’t rule it out. I still don’t get the difference, though. Why wait for things to get that far? Why not just waste him as soon as he opens his window or the car door?’

From the back of the room, Schneider – the detective who usually partners LeBlanc and who has nothing but contempt for Doyle – pipes up: ‘Maybe he always drives around with his dick hanging out. I know I do.’

Jay Holden, a shaven-headed black detective with a vicious looking round scar above one ear, chips in: ‘Yeah, but you get away with it ’cause nobody ever notices.’

‘Hey,’ says Schneider, pointing to his crotch. ‘This thing is so visible I can make turning signals with it. And who are you to talk? Even the sparrows ain’t interested in your puny little worm.’

‘All right,’ says Cesario. ‘Can we quit this juvenile locker room showdown, please?’ He turns to Doyle again. ‘Anything from Forensics or the ME?’

‘Not yet. Plenty of prints in the car, but too early to say who they might belong to.’

Cesario looks around at the tired, grim-faced detectives. ‘What do we know about the victims?’

It’s LeBlanc who answers. ‘Not much on the homeless guy. He gets called Vern, but that’s about it. No full name, no address, and so far, nobody who really knew him. He was a loner. We’re hitting the shelters, the churches, all the usual places. The other guy’s name is Edwin Steppler. He worked as a kitchen salesman. He’s divorced, lives alone near Washington Square Park. We talked to his ex-wife. She didn’t seem too grief-stricken over his demise. Says she wouldn’t be surprised to learn he spent his nights cruising the streets for fun either.’

‘Anything else to connect the two DOAs?’

LeBlanc shakes his head. ‘Nothing. These two are chalk and cheese.’

Cesario blows air. ‘Okay, so now the big question. These vics are numbers two and three. So where’s number one?’

Silence in the squadroom. Nobody wants to answer that one. Doyle feels it’s left to him again.

‘Most likely scenario is that we just haven’t found the body yet. It could turn up in the next five minutes or it might not show up for weeks. Just because they’re killed in order doesn’t mean we have to find them in order. The alternative is that we’ve already found the first victim.’

All eyes on Doyle again, most of them puzzled. Cesario gives the question a voice. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘A number one is just a vertical slash. It could easily be mistaken for any head wound, especially if there are other cuts on the body. What I’m saying is that maybe we’ve already had a DOA fitting that description and we just didn’t assume it was numbered.’

Cesario nods slowly. It’s a good thought, and Cesario knows it. See, thinks Doyle, I’m not just a pretty face. Which, by the way, I’ve proved to you before, Lieutenant.

‘All right. Check the files, especially the autopsy reports. See if any precinct caught a DOA with a head wound that could be interpreted as a number one.’

He pauses for a moment. ‘Now the even bigger question. How do we stop this whacko before there’s a number four?’

Doyle goes to answer, but LeBlanc lets him off the hook. ‘We put out an APB on this. Everyone is looking for this perp. Stop and frisk is the order of the day. Short of alerting the public to be more vigilant, there’s not much else we can do.’

Cesario shakes his head. ‘The last thing we want is to cause panic out there. But if this continues we’re gonna have to release it to the press.’ He points a warning finger at his detectives. ‘What I don’t want to leak out is this numbering thing. The media already know about the marks left on the homeless guy, but I want to keep it at that. Don’t go spreading stories about some kind of body counting system. There’s a difference between alerting people and scaring them out of their wits. Shit, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it.’ He raises his hand as if to run it through his hair, then seems to think better of mussing it up. ‘All right, get out there and catch this maniac, before someone feels it necessary to wake up the mayor.’

As he leaves, Doyle ponders the task of finding the killer. He’s got the uneasy feeling that all the detective work in the world might not be of much help here. If they get anywhere with this case, it’ll probably be through sheer chance or coincidence rather than brilliant sleuthing.

But unless Lady Luck gets off her lazy ass and helps them out soon, somebody else is going to die.

7.45 AM

‘I’m not asking you to get ready for a freaking catwalk,
Erin. Just choose a damn coat!’

She’s in the bedroom, taking out clothes from her closet, examining them, and putting them back again.

‘It’s not easy,’ she snaps. ‘It’s not like guys’ clothes. Most of my coats don’t have inside pockets.’ She takes down a blue padded jacket. Unzips it and looks inside. Bingo.

‘This’ll have to do,’ she says.

‘Finally! Okay, now go over to the mirror and swap the brooch over. You’ll have to make a hole in the jacket to thread the wire through, and that means—’

‘You want me to make a hole in my jacket?’

‘Yes, Erin. A hole. It’s not the worst thing you’ve made a hole in recently, so quit bitching. Attach the brooch in exactly the same way as it was on your other coat. You’ll have to unplug the wire from the box again to thread it through, and that means I’ll lose the picture and sound, so I’m giving you exactly five seconds to reconnect. You understand, Erin? Five seconds. One second over and you’re gonna hear little Georgia scream till her lungs explode.’

‘Yes. I understand.’

She goes to the bedroom mirror. She is dressed in a tight gray sweater and black pants, the brooch pinned over her left breast and the transmitter box bulging in her pocket. Getting dressed was an experience. He insisted on having her in full view the whole time. She had to prop the brooch up against a table lamp. She kept the bathrobe on while she dressed her lower half, then kept her back to the camera while she slipped off the robe and put on her brassiere and sweater. Throughout, she made no attempt to be sexy about it. She was far too shaken by what had occurred during her earlier scheme to be making devious plans for the future.

She opens a drawer in her dresser and takes out a pair of nail scissors. She puts their sharp point to the shiny cloth of her coat and begins to twist it as she drives it through to the other side. Wouldn’t it be great, she thinks, if this was his throat? Turning and pushing sharp scissors into his jugular. Wouldn’t that be so satisfying, so much fun? Or, even better, his eyeballs. Yes. His eyeballs. I could do that. I could happily blind him. It would be such a fitting penalty for all the staring at me he’s been doing. And then on to his other soft fleshy areas. Oh, yes.

‘All right, Erin. Now the wire. Five seconds, remember?’

Yeah, I remember, jerk-off. I remember everything you said and did. It’ll stay in my brain long after I’ve killed you.

She unplugs the wire from its box, pushes it quickly through the hole in her coat, whispers ‘I am so going to enjoy watching you die’ to the disconnected brooch, then reattaches the cable.

‘Good girl. Now get the coat on, and we’re ready to roll.’

She drops the box into the inside pocket and pins the brooch in place. Then she slips the coat on and stares at herself in the mirror.

Back to normal again. Clean, tidy, dressed. Not caked in clotting blood. Who would guess what horrors she committed during the night? Who would guess that she’s about to do it all again?

‘The knife, Erin. Go get the knife.’

Reluctantly, she tears herself away from her mirror-image, then goes through to the bathroom. The knife is on the edge of the basin. She picks it up by her fingertips. She’s not convinced it’s completely clean. Look there – isn’t that a spot of crimson?

‘Erin? What’s the problem?’

She looks up. Sees herself again, in the bathroom mirror this time. Only now she has a knife in her hands. It takes away the normality she had achieved. From Jekyll to Hyde in the time it takes to pick up a knife.

‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I can’t go through that again.’

‘
Erin, we went over this. I told you—’

‘No. It’s not just the killing. It’s the blood. It got everywhere last time. I was covered in it. I was lucky nobody saw me. But now it’s busy out there. I can’t walk around with blood all over me. I won’t get five yards.’

‘Then don’t make such a mess of it next time. Hell, you practically sawed that guy’s head off. Do it like you did with the wino. A simple stab through the heart – that’s all it takes.’

‘There’ll still be blood.’

‘Yes, in all probability, there will still be some blood loss. For fuck’s sake, Erin, what do you want me to say? Unless you can perfect the art of knife throwing in the next five minutes, you’re out of options.’

She continues to stare at herself. Her image keeps getting replaced by an earlier one. When she was drenched in blood. When it was clinging to her, clawing at her.

‘I… I need another weapon.’

‘What? What kind of weapon? Oh, yeah, I forgot. There’s that rocket launcher you keep in your underwear drawer. Get real,
Erin.’

‘Stop making fun of me. I’m serious. I need a different way of doing this.’

A pause. A sigh. Then:
‘Okay. What about your hammer?’

She thinks about this. Wonders why he said ‘
your
hammer.’ Not
a
hammer. Not go out and buy a hammer. How does he know she has a hammer? She doesn’t have many tools, but a hammer she does possess. Mr Wiseman lent it to her when she told him she needed to fix a loose floorboard.

A hammer? Yes, maybe. Maybe that would be okay. Surely there would be a lot less blood that way.

‘All right,’ she says. She walks through to the kitchen area. Opens the cabinet beneath the sink. There it is, sitting innocently on top of a box of soap powder. Just waiting to be called on to do something useful. Like knocking in nails. Or caving in skulls.

She puts down the knife on the counter, then bends to pick up the hammer. She hefts it in her hand. It’s heavy. Those two vicious-looking claws sweeping back from the solid head as if it has been streamlined for maximum momentum. In the wrong hands – and her hands couldn’t be more wrong – it could do some serious damage.

‘Happy now? Sure you don’t need to go to Central Park to pick up a few boulders?’

‘It… It won’t fit in my pocket.’

‘Then take a fucking purse! Jeez, do I have to do all your thinking for you? Put it in your purse along with your tissues and your lipstick and all the other crap you women carry everywhere you go.’

She closes the cabinet. Turns to head back to the bedroom.

‘Oh, and Erin… Take the knife along too. You’re still gonna need it. For what comes later, you know?’