C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SIX
“ S
orry I’m late—I couldn’t find a damn cab!”
Lee looked up to see Gemma’s shiny, flushed face. It was as if all the stale air in the room had been pushed aside the moment she entered the Lexington Avenue restaurant. He felt the rush of blood to his own cheeks as she sat down opposite him. She wore a powder blue angora sweater, a little black skirt wrapped tightly around her trim hips. A shiver of pleasure ran up his spine at the sight of her.
“Are you all right?” she said, peering at him. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just a little cold in here.”
She looked around the spotless restaurant. “Uh-oh—Mommy and Daddy will be starting a lawsuit to make sure their precious children don’t catch cold and hurt their chances of getting into Barnard.”
“You live around here, right?”
“Farther uptown—Yorkville, which isn’t quite so chichi.”
Lee looked around. “I was beginning to wonder if the smell of money was going to my head. I mean,” he said, lowering his voice, “these girls are loaded, right?”
“Oh, please!” She pointed to a tiny chocolate brown backpack hanging on a chair behind a pretty brunette. The girl’s head was lowered as she gossiped with her friends, her shiny hair hiding her face. “You see that chic little leather backpack? What she paid for it could cover my monthly rent and utilities, even with the Con Ed rate hike.”
“That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure.”
Gemma smiled and unfolded her napkin. “Men never know the price of luxury items or shoes. Quick, what would a hammer cost in a hardware store?”
“You could get a decent one for about ten dollars. Anything less wouldn’t be worth buying.”
“See what I mean? You know the price of hammers but not Versace backpacks.”
“I didn’t even know who Versace was until he was killed.”
Gemma laughed—a low, throaty chortle. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not exactly a fashion maven.”
“I wouldn’t know the difference between Gucci and Kmart. I don’t know what the purpose of all this high fashion stuff is.”
“What’s the ‘purpose’ of a geranium? It doesn’t seek a higher goal or a justification for its existence. It simply
is
.”
“But geraniums were made by Nature.”
“And people make Gucci bags. We’re part of Nature.”
Lee shook his head. “I’m amazed by how some people spend their time and money.”
“Well, I’m going to spend my time and money having the biggest burger on the menu,” she said. “What are you having, Big Guy?”
“
Big
Guy?”
“I was thinking you need a nickname.”
“Why?”
“Doesn’t everyone need a nickname?”
“It seems wrong for me—too bulky.”
“Okay, how about Thin Man? I could call you that.”
“I’m not
that
thin, am I?”
“You’re pretty skinny. I’ll bet everyone in your family is.”
“Yeah, my mother always was—still is, actually.”
“And your father?”
Lee pretended to study the menu, his eyes burning into the entrées section.
“Not much to say, really. He was there for a while, and then he wasn’t. Oldest story in the book—here one day, gone the next.”
“But everyone’s story is different.”
“Maybe. I just don’t have anything to add.”
When he thought about his father, he felt a cold, hard lump in the center of his soul, protected by many years of scar tissue. He had no desire to go in and dig around, opening old wounds, afraid it might unleash a tidal wave of rage so powerful, it would drown him and anyone close to him.
“Thanks for coming to the funeral,” she said. “Who was that man you were talking to?”
“I was hoping you might know,” he said, and he told her the whole thing.
When he finished, she said, “Wow. Did he seem like a kook to you?”
“Not at all. But he did seem really frightened. I was hoping he might have contacted you.”
“I don’t think so. But there are a few messages on Brian’s voice mail I haven’t listened to yet. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m afraid I won’t hear anything that helps solve his death—and equally afraid I will. Does that sound completely mental?”
He winced.
Mental
was what some of the beat cops called Lee behind his back. Word of his struggle with depression had gotten around pretty fast, and some members of the force were less than sympathetic about working with him.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t sound mental—it sounds human.”
She put a hand on his. Electricity shot up his arm at her touch.
“Thanks for being so supportive.”
After they ordered, Gemma leaned down to fish something out of her bag. He could smell her shampoo, something fruity and tart, like lemons.
“Here’s a copy of the suicide note,” she said, handing him a sheet of paper. “And here’s a copy of an e-mail he wrote to me a few days before his death.”
“I’ll give it to our forensic linguist and see what she says.”
“Thanks.”
“What will you do if it’s not a suicide?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It could be pretty dangerous trying to find out what really happened. I hate to say it, but not all the bad guys are outside the police force.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s what our mystery man seems to think.”
“Well, corruption is nothing new under the sun. What’s interesting is that we have a sense of fairness and justice at all.”
“You know, no matter how close I get to the center of all this stuff—studying these psychopaths, trying to get inside their heads—there’s always something elusive about it, a central mystery that’s always just beyond my grasp. It’s like an itch I can’t ever scratch—a goal that’s always receding.”
He looked at the pretty waitress stepping over a knapsack on the floor. She looked annoyed, her pert mouth pinched, her eyes narrowed in exasperation. Something about her face reminded him of Susan Morton.
Hell hath no fury . . .
“Do you think if you ever got to the heart of things and really understood one of these guys completely, you might lose interest?” Gemma asked. “The Loch Ness syndrome?”
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we ever found out exactly what is living in that lake?”
“I see what you mean,” he said. “It would be kind of a letdown, in a way.”
“Sometimes it’s the elusiveness of a goal that makes it so seductive.”
“So maybe we’re happier in a constant state of longing?” he said.
“Once you have something, it loses its appeal.”
“Well,
some
of its appeal.”
She smiled, a wry twisting of the corners of her mouth. Their conversation had become a form of foreplay, a delicate dance in which they tested the level of each other’s desire.
“There are so many mysteries in life,” she said. “Like why we’re attracted to some people instead of others.”
Just then their food arrived, and life’s grand questions had to wait for a couple of rare hamburgers dripping with caramelized onions.
Just as he was about to take a bite, Lee’s cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID—it was Kathy. Guilt twisted in his stomach; his first impulse was to ignore it, but he turned to Gemma.
“Will you excuse me a moment?”
“Sure.”
He slipped out into the street and flipped open the phone.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said, her voice hesitant and insecure. “I—I just don’t like where we left off last time, and I was wondering if we could meet again. I know you’re busy, but I—”
He looked back into the restaurant, where Gemma sat, studying some papers. He felt the pull of her, even from there.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”
He snapped his phone closed and went back inside.
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SEVEN
E
dmund’s lips curled in a smile as he stared at the Asian woman across from him in the diner. She bent over her menu, trying to ignore him, her smooth black hair sliding over her face, following the delicate angle of her neck.
He leaned back in the booth and picked up his own menu. He was patient—sooner or later she would have to look up again. He was an ugly man addicted to beautiful women. The irony wasn’t lost on him; he understood how he must appear to them, and yet he also saw the fascination in their eyes, as they caved before his charisma and charm.
The Asian woman’s hair was shiny and black, sleek as a seal. He continued to stare, knowing it made her uncomfortable but not caring. In fact, he liked it—her discomfort was part of the foreplay, a little dance he did with his victims. And even if he wasn’t going to take her, he thought, he would still enjoy the dance.
He thought about where he would leave her. An alley, of course—but which one? He had discovered a few new ones in his late-night rambles around the city, some really nice ones, with tidy little dwellings on either side.
Mews
, they called the nice ones. The not-so-nice ones they just called alleys. The shed where his father had locked him up—where he had dragged him on that terrible night—hadn’t been so nice. It had smelled of motor oil and hay and rusty pitchforks. He had lain on the dusty floor of the shed for a long time, his cheek throbbing, his tears stinging the burned flesh. He’d wanted so much for his mother to come, scoop him into her arms and tell him everything was going to be all right. But his mother never came—she was already gone, leaving him and his sister alone with his father. He hated her cowardice, just as he hated his father’s violence.
For years that hate had nowhere to go. It lived inside him, a burning furnace in his soul, until it twisted into a shape unlike that of other, normal human beings. Then, finally, he found a place for it, an expression of his darkness that was his alone.
He smiled at the waitress as she approached his table. He was hungry.
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-EIGHT
“
Y
ou really think this creep’s gonna turn up?” asked Butts the next day as they approached the Tenth Avenue campus of John Jay College.
“I think it’s likely,” Lee replied. “This is the kind of offender who likes to insert himself into every phase of the investigation.”
Lee was about to give his lecture at John Jay, and Butts was attending it to see if the Alleyway Strangler showed up.
“Why not just hold a press conference and see if he comes to that?” the detective said as they ascended the broad staircase to the entrance.
“We can do that too, but I think there’s a good chance he’ll come to my lecture.”
“So if you take a drink of water and tap the bottle twice on the lectern, that’s my signal.”
“Right,” Lee said, showing his ID to the young woman at the security desk.
“But how do you indicate which guy it is?” Butts asked, fumbling for his badge.
“By looking at him.”
“Okay,” Butts said, flashing the girl his detective shield. “There’s not a lot we can do unless he makes trouble.”
They made their way through the turnstile and started up the stairs to the second floor.
“Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a look at his face, assuming he shows up?” said Lee.
“Yeah—frustrating, though. If it is him, I’ll wanna slap his ass in jail.”
“Well, you can’t do that, but you can get a good look at him.”
Butts grunted and trudged up the steps behind him.
Half an hour later, Lee looked out over the audience in the lecture hall. He hadn’t expected quite such a large turnout. The room was crowded with future cops, criminologists, psychologists and even a few firemen. Maybe Lucille Geffers was right when she told him that he had acquired some cachet around campus. He cleared his throat and began.
“As most of you are probably aware, the majority of homicides are situational, and in most cases the victim knows his or her killer. And yet there seems to be a public fascination with criminals who fall outside the normal spectrum of murderers. Among these are the repeat offenders we now refer to as serial killers.
“The term ‘serial killer’ has been thrown around a lot lately in the media. Appealing to our more sensationalist appetites, journalists like to splash these stories across the front page. After all, it sells papers. Some people claim statistics show there’s been an increase in the number of serial offenders operating at any given time in this country.
“They may be right, though a more likely explanation is that methods of detection and record keeping have improved. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not a recent phenomenon. There are well-recorded examples of serial offenders going back to the Middle Ages. I would guess they have always been with us, even when they managed to escape detection.”
A thin young woman in the front row shifted in her seat and bit her lip.
“Nonetheless, there is cause for concern. As law enforcement becomes more sophisticated, so do the criminals. We have to use every means at our disposal to make sure they don’t gain the edge. One of those means is what has come to be known as criminal profiling—working up a psychological fingerprint of the offender. Just as the so-called ‘hard sciences’ of forensics have advanced, so has our understanding of criminal psychology.
“Ideas about these criminals have evolved since the early groundbreakers at the FBI first began collecting and examining data in the 1970s. Some terms are still with us—like
organized
and
disorganized
, for example. But we now have a more nuanced idea of how these offenders operate—what drives them, what we can expect if they continue and, most important, how to stop them.”
A few people in the audience leaned forward in anticipation; others scribbled energetically in notebooks. Still others typed into their laptops, netbooks or tablets. In the back row, Butts pulled out a stick of licorice and began chewing on it.
“Robert Keppel and Richard Walter have come up with four classifications of murderers,” Lee continued. “Today I want to talk about the most dangerous of all, the sadistic sexual offender.”
A tall, thin man in the back row leaned back in his seat and licked his lips. His body language displayed arrogance, contempt and, above all, pleasure. Everyone else in the audience looked interested and apprehensive—and the waifish girl in the front row actually looked frightened. Lee took a drink of water and tapped the bottle on the lectern. Butts’s head immediately shot up, his body instantly alert. Once he had the detective’s attention, Lee glanced at the tall man in the back row. Butts followed his gaze, nodded, then went back to his licorice.
The whole thing took only a few seconds, but in that brief moment Butts knew who their suspect was, and the thin man knew equally well that he had been fingered. His sly smile let them know that it didn’t bother him a bit. He settled back in his seat, locking his hands behind his head in an insolent gesture.
That was when Lee knew he was either very arrogant or very, very smart. Either way, it was bad news. Taking a drink from his water bottle, he continued.
“The term Keppel and Walters use for this offender is an ‘anger-excitation’ murderer. There are several reasons this type is the most dangerous of all. They tend to plan their crimes carefully and are classic ‘organized’ offenders. They often have a knowledge of forensics and are better at eluding capture. They blend in with society, often having good jobs, a stable marriage, and may even have children. They may even be active and well respected in their community. A prime example would be Dennis Rader, the so-called BTK killer, who had a wife, children and a stable job and was active in the local Lutheran church.”
The man in the back row took out a notebook and began to write in it. Butts, too, noticed this—Lee could see he was keeping an eye on the guy. To do any more at this point would be a mistake. The last thing they wanted to do was cause him to leave, especially if he was their mark. He cleared his throat and went on.
“Because these killers are psychopaths or sociopaths and feel no empathy, they are masterful at compartmentalizing. They often live two completely separate lives.”
The man in the back row tilted his head to one side and licked his lips. Several seats down from him, Butts shifted in his chair and chewed more vigorously on his licorice stick.
A young Asian man in the third row raised his hand.
“What do you mean, they feel no empathy?”
“They seem to lack the ability to experience any fellow feeling for other people. Research indicates this may be physiological—hardwired in their brain.”
The young man frowned. “Why are they like this?”
“No one really knows. Genetic factors may play a part, but continued and severe childhood abuse is often present.”
The man in the back row frowned and crossed his legs.
“Whatever the cause,” Lee continued, “they lack that essential aspect of being human the rest of us have, so they learn to fake it to blend in. What most people would think of as their ‘normal’ life is for them just a set of surface behaviors, allowing them to engage in their ‘real’ life, acting out fantasies they have had for years, usually since childhood.”
Lee glanced at his notes, though he didn’t need them.
“These fantasies are violent, sexual and sadistic. While other sexually motivated killers are seeking power, revenge or even reassurance, the payoff for the anger-excitation offender is
the suffering of his victim.
That is the element he finds most exciting, and another reason he is so dangerous.”
The young woman in the front row squirmed, and several audience members winced, chewed on their pencils or frowned. The man in the back row leaned forward, fingertips pressed together, his expression calm but interested.
“This type of killer can be highly intelligent, charming and charismatic. Ted Bundy is a classic example. This makes it easier for him to find high-risk victims, who may also be intelligent, educated and attractive. However, this offender has a weakness: he enjoys attention. One of the ways Dennis Rader was finally caught was that he couldn’t resist communicating with the police.”
A hand shot up in the front row. It was the nervous blond girl.
“Yes?” Lee said.
“Do you believe that’s how you’ll catch the Alleyway Strangler?”
He paused before replying; it was important to choose his words carefully.
“I believe that the killer you are referring to will make a mistake as a result of his arrogance and ego, yes.”
A serious-looking young black man with a buzz cut raised his hand.
“Has the Alley Strangler been in touch with you?”
“I’m sorry, but there are certain details that haven’t been released to the public at this time.”
“What can you say about him?”
“We’re pursuing all possible leads.”
“Do you think you’ll catch him?” the man in the back row asked in a thin, dry voice that crackled like dead leaves.
“Oh, yes,” Lee said. “In the end, we’ll get him.”