Silent Victim (28 page)

“Her name is Carolyn Benton, and she is—
was
—sixteen years old.”

Chuck Morton tossed a folder of crime-scene photos onto the desk and glowered at the other three men in the room. He looked angry and exhausted and fed up. But then, they all were, Lee thought, looking at his friend. Morton was fishing around in his desk drawer for some thumbtacks to put the photos up on the bulletin board with all the other pictures of the victims, their poor dead bodies mute testimony to the impotence and helplessness everyone in the room felt. While most people were home having dinner, here they were, stuck in the cramped office once again.

Things could hardly be worse, in Lee’s view. A serial killer was still at large, he and Kathy weren’t speaking, and Krieger was missing. Poor brave, foolish Krieger—while he couldn’t say he liked her, exactly, he had come to respect her as a formidable presence. He suspected she had more integrity than she was given credit for.

And now this. He looked at the pictures of Carolyn Benton spread out on the desk. The photo of her dead body bore little resemblance to the one of her with her family, all lined up in front of a grand marble fireplace. They wore expensive-looking matching Christmas sweaters—thick, creamy Irish wool with red and green trim. Her father wore a cheery Santa hat with a big red tassel. Her mother was petite and athletic-looking, with the kind of midwinter tan that didn’t come from a tanning salon, but from a Caribbean cruise—probably on their own private yacht. Her brother was clean-cut and handsome and, Lee guessed, a couple of years older than Carolyn, probably a freshman at Yale or Duke or some other school where money and pedigree mattered as much as grade point average.

Lee held up the family Christmas photo. “Where did you get this one?”

Chuck ran a hand over his stiff blond crew cut and looked down at his shoes. “The family brought it with them when they ID’d the body this morning. Said they wanted us to know what she really looked like.”

Lee could understand why. In the crime-scene photo, Carolyn lay on the banks of the East River, where she had been found floating a few hours ago. Her eyes had been removed, and this time the note had been found not attached to her body, but in her mouth—as with the others, neatly wrapped in a Ziploc bag.

Sergeant Ruggles studied the picture and looked nervously at his boss. After Krieger’s disappearance he begged to join the task force officially, and Chuck had relented, removing him from desk duty for the duration of the investigation.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Morton said, his pale face reddening. “The family has already released the same picture to the media. They’re even talking about giving interviews—the victim’s ‘bereaved loved ones’ and all that.”

“Do they really think that’s going to help catch this guy?” Butts said with disgust. “Or are they just publicity hogs?”

“Who knows?” Chuck answered. “But if we can’t keep control of what the media does and doesn’t know we’re in even deeper than before.”

“That’s all we need,” Butts grumbled. “A game of tug-of-war with the media.”

Lee had his own personal struggle to wage, and had no desire to inflict it upon anyone else. He could feel the familiar claw of depression tugging at him, trying to pull him downward into its evil embrace. He was determined to keep it at bay at least until the investigation was over. The possibility of that being anytime soon felt very remote right now.

“What about this note?” he asked.

Chuck handed him the printout copy, with the familiar block-letter handwriting.

“Okay,” Chuck said to him, “Let’s go over what we know about him already, and if there’s anything you can add, this is the time.”

Lee felt a sense of accusation behind his words, but just nodded.

“You know,” Butts remarked, “the water may be part of his signature, but it sure as hell helps eliminate evidence.”

“Yeah,” Chuck agreed. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Lee summoned his dwindling wits, grabbed a Magic Marker, and wrote on the easel next to the bulletin board.

Butts scratched his ear. “Okay, I get the gender, but how do you figure the age?”

“The crimes are too sophisticated for a teenager, so he’s at least in his twenties. The fantasy is well developed and elaborate, so he thought about this for a long time before his first kill. Therefore, he could be as old as his early thirties.”

Ruggles frowned. “Excuse me, sir, but why couldn’t he be older?”

“It’s not impossible, especially if he was in jail for unrelated crimes for a period of time—but my guess is that’s not the case. He’s clever and he’s careful. I’m not saying he hasn’t broken the law before—I just don’t think he’s been caught yet.”

“Why do you think he’s white?” Butts asked.

“Two reasons. For one thing, most serial offenders are. But more importantly, all of the victims are white. He kills cross-gender, but it’s unlikely that he would also kill cross-racially. If he were black, or even Hispanic, we would expect some of the victims to be as well.”

Chuck grunted and folded his arms. “All right—continue.”

Lee turned back to the board and wrote:

“I think I catch your drift, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Ruggles offered. “Yes, Ruggles?” Chuck said.

“Well, it’s the killings, sir—they’re all spread out, which indicates that he is quite, uh, able to get around, you know. And I expect that his job could give him such mobility, as well as familiarity with the Upper East Side and the Bronx. Is that what you meant, sir?” he asked Lee.

“You have the makings of a first-class profiler, Sergeant,” he replied, and Ruggles’s rather prominent ears turned scarlet.

“Okay, okay,” Butts grumbled irritably. “So he gets around. What else?” Lee turned and wrote:

“We know about the gender issues,” Chuck said, “but just how literate do you think he is?”

“That’s a good question. Krieger said the notes indicated he was trying to make an impression. He might be an over-achiever trying to impress us with how intellectual he is. There was that reference to
Hamlet
in the note found on Ana, but it was clumsily done.”

Butts shook his head. “Good God. It’s not enough that he’s leadin’ us on by the nose—now he wants us to admire his learning on top of it?”

“We’re his audience,” Lee pointed out. “We’ve probably given him more attention in the past few weeks than he’s had in his whole life.”

“I see, sir—that makes sense to me,” Ruggles said.

Butts glared at him. “So basically he’s enjoying all this?” the detective said with disgust.

“On one level, absolutely. But people who know him will notice his behavior changing—maybe he’s losing weight, or becoming forgetful. He might be short of temper or preoccupied, or acting odd in other ways.”

He turned and wrote on the board in capital letters, underlining the words twice.

“You said that before,” Chuck commented. “That he had some kind of trauma around water early in life. Any ideas what that could be?”

“Someone close to him might have drowned, sir,” Ruggles offered.

“We already thought of that,” Butts said in a bored voice. Lee turned and wrote.

“What about the eyes?” said Butts.

“I think it’s related. I think his trauma with water also involved being observed, maybe by women.”

“The first victim whose eyes he removed was male, sir,” Ruggles suggested.

“Good point,” Lee said. “So probably it isn’t gender specific, but could just be his signature evolving.” Underneath the last entry he wrote: