The Delilah Complex (9 page)

“Nicky, I think you’ve been brave to come here. And very forthcoming. I also think you’re smart and intuitive. So if you want to work on this—with or without your wife—I’d be happy to help you.”

As he stood, he became the calm, successful man who had walked into my office almost an hour earlier. His armor was back on. He’d lost the scared look he’d had only minutes before.

“You’ll love Daphne,” he said. “She’s the most creative person I’ve ever met.”

N
oah Jordain poured chicken broth into a saucepan, added two tablespoons of oil and a cup of uncooked rice. While he waited for the mixture to come to a boil, he poured himself an inch of Maker’s Mark and took a sip.

Carrying the glass, he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he put a CD in the expensive Bose stereo system. Jordain lived in a much nicer place than most NYPD detectives could afford, but he had a sideline: he played and wrote jazz, and some of it was good enough that he’d been able to buy his Greenwich Village loft and some original arts and crafts furniture with his ASCAP royalties.

Back in the kitchen, he checked the stove and covered the boiling rice.

Cooking was therapeutic for Noah, as it had been for his father, who’d been one of the toughest cops in the New Orleans police department. Jambalaya had been his specialty, and whenever Noah made it he thought of his dad. André Jordain had been a well-respected policeman and a thirty-year vet when someone set him up.

He and his partner, Pat Nagley, had busted a cocaine
ring. It looked like an easy collar until the defense presented evidence that André and Pat had been on the take, accepting payoffs from the dealer for five years and finally turning him in when he refused to increase the payoffs.

Noah and his family knew the accusation was bogus. Yes, his father had been a flirt; yes, he had too much to drink sometimes and had let his temper get the better of him. But a bad cop? No way.
Someone
had been on the dealer’s payroll, but it hadn’t been André Jordain. And Noah had vowed that one day he’d clear his father’s name. That’s what had brought him to New York four years earlier. He’d heard the dealer was tied to someone high up in the NYPD.

After another gulp of bourbon, Noah lifted the lid, smelled the fragrant stock and spices, and stirred the mixture. Then he went to work on the rest of the ingredients, putting andouille sausages in a frying pan and turning up the heat.

He sliced bright red and green peppers and a bunch of scallions, chopped some tomatoes, then removed the sausages. While they drained on paper towels, Noah threw cut-up chicken into the pan, stirred it and finally added the vegetables.

Jordain breathed in the smells and felt the first kick of homesickness when his phone rang, the sound clashing with the smooth Dizzy Gillespie jazz CD. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore the phone. That was the one thing Noah resented about being a cop.

It was Perez.

“Noah, I just got a call from Betsy Young at the
Times
—” He didn’t have to finish.

“Number 2?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know who it is?”

“They are saying no.”

“And we’ve had, what, a hundred, two hundred missing-persons reports in the past few days?”

“At least.”

“What was in the package?”

“Same as last time—three photos and another clump of hair.”

“We’re not going down there. Ask a uniformed cop to go get Young and the evidence and meet us at the station house.”

“No prob.”

“And call Butler. Have her waiting for Betsy and get the photos to the lab ASAP.”

“Want me to pick you up?” Perez asked.

Jordain looked at his watch. It was eight. “Did you eat yet?”

“No.”

“You hungry?”

“What are you cooking?”

“Jambalaya.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Good. Come on over. We can eat in ten minutes and then go meet the press. It’s always better sparring on a full stomach.”

“She is going to hate that we made her wait.”

“We are not making her wait. Have Butler talk to her.”

“It’s going to screw up her deadline—” Perez stopped midsentence. “Right, that’s what you want, to keep the story from running tomorrow.”

Jordain hung up and sighed. The first story, announcing the murder to New York and the rest of the world, had been an embarrassment to him and the rest of the department.
For the paper to have gotten it first was unacceptable. And to make it worse, they still didn’t know a single damn thing about what had happened to Maur. But now for there to be a second man? And for the
Times
to know again before they did?

He eyed the Maker’s Mark lovingly but didn’t pick up the glass again. He was officially back on duty.

Usually the SVU is not the last to know. Whoever was behind these murders wanted a
Times
reporter to get the story before the police.

Why was that?

They finished up their second helpings of the food— without the beers they wanted because work was waiting—in fifteen minutes. Long enough to make the reporter cool her heels.

They’d wolfed down the spicy rice mixture as if it might be their last meal. At least, their last good meal. And well it might be. There was no telling how much information they were going to get tonight. They might not come up for air for a day or two.

“If there are two of these killings…” Jordain said as he and Perez walked out into the damp night air, climbed into Perez’s car and headed uptown to the station house.

“Don’t say it,” Perez begged.

But Jordain had to say it. He had to give weight to it and make the words real. “If there have been two of these killings, there might be three. The last thing we need is another multiple on our hands. We’re still reeling from the last one.”

“Maybe this is just a copycat of last week’s murder.”

“Maybe you are dreaming,” Jordain sighed.

“I
don’t want you to open another envelope, if you’re sent one, until one of us can get there,” Jordain told Betsy Young.

It was 8:45 p.m. The two detectives sat opposite Young and Officer Butler in an interior room of the station house—a drab room with a beat-up table and eight chairs that varied in condition from old but still comfortable to very old and almost unbearable. There were no windows, and the once-white walls were stained and yellowed like the teeth of a person who had smoked too much for too long.

Foam cups of coffee and cans of diet soda rested on the floor beside their chairs. The evidence Young had brought with her was spread out on the table’s surface.

“Waiting for you guys to show up might compromise my story,” Young said, eyeing Jordain aggressively. It took him by surprise. She was challenging him, and not only in a professional context. The sexually predatory gleam repelled him.

Ignoring his personal reaction, he leaned closer to her, matching his body language to hers, even forcing his lips into
a smile for the first time that night. “But when you open these envelopes and look at this material first, it compromises our investigation.”

Betsy didn’t respond. Instead, she stared down at the three glossy eight-by-ten photographs in the middle of the scarred wooden tabletop. Jordain had reviewed them a dozen times, but he did so again. Betsy had identified the man as Timothy Wheaton, and it hadn’t taken much work to confirm that she was correct; his wife had supplied them with photos of him when she’d made the missing-persons report.

Wheaton was in his early- to mid-thirties. Short but well built. His eyes were closed. Slight bruising decorated his wrists and ankles. He was as still as the stone angel that stood over Jordain’s father’s grave.

This man had been laid out exactly as Philip Maur had been, and the angles in both sets of photographs were identical.

Three shots. One of the man’s feet, each with the number 2 drawn on the sole in red ink. A second focusing obscenely on the man’s penis. And a third showing his whole body.

Alongside the photographs, there was something else on the table: an innocent plastic bag. Inside was only one thing: a lock of sandy blond hair about an inch and a half long.

Betsy leaned back just a fraction in her chair, moving away from Noah. “Well, I suppose there’s a deal we could make. Let me follow you around while you investigate the case. Put me in your fucking hip pocket. Let me hear and see everything that happens. Just me. No other reporters.”

Jordain’s first thought was to say no outright. The idea of spending his days with this pushy woman annoyed him.

“Will you fax us your articles the night before they run? Just as a heads-up. No editorial input.”

Negotiating, Betsy nodded.

“Okay,” Jordain said.

Perez did not make a move, but Jordain saw his partner’s eyebrows arch ever so slightly. Meanwhile, Betsy’s eyes gleamed. Her lust for the story chilled Jordain. The way she imitated the worst traits in a man made him pity her. Why did she force her toughness? Didn’t she know how much more powerful women were than men, even if they were wearing pink sweater sets? He was surprised that in the midst of this complicated and disturbing meeting, with the upsetting photographs in front of him, he had stopped to think about any of this.

“One more thing,” she said. “My job is to break the news. That’s harder and harder to do with twenty-four-hour cable news shows reporting all day and all night. I need assurances that if I let you in the newsroom to work on this case as it breaks, you will not issue statements to other members of the press once you walk out the door.”

As much as Jordain hated to admit it, he understood her problem, but he wasn’t used to bargaining with a newspaper. Then again, he’d never come across this particular situation before.

Out of the thousands of missing people, two men had turned up dead within days of each other, in exactly the same way. There was absolutely no evidence of where they had been or what had happened to them. Damn. Damn. Damn. The case was cold from the get-go. They didn’t have anything to go on. Not a single lead. Two men. Dead. He went over it again. Why photographs? Why hair clippings? Why these two men? What was the connection? Who were they to their assailant? And why was the only communication
from the killer being sent directly to Betsy Young at the
New York Times
instead of to the NYPD?

“How did you figure out the names of these men?” Perez asked Betsy.

Jordain knew what his partner was thinking. Was the reporter holding something else back? A letter? E-mail? Nothing had come with the photos and the hair that would have identified the victims.

“We’d run a story on Philip Maur when he was reported missing. He had a big job. I saw it. I remembered his face.” She shrugged.

Jordain didn’t like the way she’d said it. A little too glib. He filed it away.

“And how did you know who Timothy Wheaton was?” Perez asked.

“Same thing. He’s the son of a very well-known author. When the missing-persons report was filed, we saw it.”

“Did you report on it?”

She shook her head. “Me, personally? No.”

“The paper?”

“Yes, but not as prominently as Maur.”

“Except you recognized him?”

“Not right away. I pulled up all the stories we’d done on missing people in the past few weeks, taking a guess I’d find something.”

“And you did,” Perez said.

“I did.” Her words were clipped.

Perez looked over at his partner—indicating he was finished with his questions. Jordain only had one left.

“Betsy, do we have a deal?”

“You’ll give me total exclusivity?”

“I won’t give out any statements to the press until you’ve run your story.”

“Except to me.”

“Except to you when appropriate,” he corrected.

“I don’t like that last part,” Betsy said. “Deal’s off.”

Jordain had consulted with the department’s legal counsel on the way to the station. The
New York Times
didn’t have to agree to any of the department’s requests. The mail was being sent to Betsy Young, not to the police, and while there were court orders the NYPD could obtain to intercept Betsy Young’s mail, the lawyers felt it would be better if Jordain could get the paper to cooperate. “The
Times
,” the lawyer had said, “is the newspaper of record for the city, the state and, in fact, many feel, the whole nation. It would be better if we didn’t have to go up against the Gray Lady. That would make the news in itself, and the killer might just stop sending mail completely.” It was not what Jordain had wanted to hear. But he knew he had to deal with it. Or deal around it.

Jordain stood. Perez was only seconds behind him. “We’ve done what we can to work with you. If you won’t agree to what I’ve asked, you’ll push me into getting a court order to intercept your mail.”

Betsy pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number and said only two words: “No deal.”

She listened, then she handed the phone to Jordain. “My boss would like to talk to you.”

Jordain took the phone.

“Good evening, Mr. Hastings. We seem to be having a problem here. Ms. Young can’t wrap her head around the fact that we have a killer loose and we need you to cooperate with us on our investigation. I really would prefer that to getting a court order demanding that you do so.”

“There is every chance you could get such an order, Detective. And every chance it would be denied you. Ms.
Young is asking for something well within your rights to grant her. Exclusivity in exchange for us opening our doors to you.”

“There are lives at stake here and you’re bargaining?” Jordain said, finally unable to keep the anger out of his voice.

“I’m running a newspaper and trying to be accommodating.”

Jordain spoke into the phone but looked right at Betsy. “No. You are asking for more than anyone would agree to. Here it is, Hastings. Once more. Last time. We’ll have an officer there to go through the mail in the morning. Anything suspicious he finds, he will make two calls. One to me or Detective Perez, the second to Ms. Young. And she’ll wait until we show up before opening the mail. And I want you to agree to hold off running the story until we tell you it’s okay.”

“How much time?” Hastings asked.

“I can’t tell you that. I won’t know until I know what we need to do.”

“If you take too much time we could lose our exclusive.”

“Not likely. If anyone else gets a lead they will have to call my office to confirm, and we won’t do that until after we’ve given you a heads-up.”

“I don’t like that,” Hastings said.

“And I’m not surprised, but this isn’t just news, it’s murder. And it’s complicated. And we don’t have anything to go on except what you are getting.”

“The thing that bothers me with this nice-nice cooperation between us and the
Times
,” Perez said to Jordain after Young had left, “is that the killer is getting exactly what
he wants and what is going to feed him. He’s sending those photographs to the
Times
instead of us because he wants to be in the paper. And we’re allowing that to happen.”

“We’re not allowing that to happen. The Constitution of the United States allows that to happen.”

Perez nodded. They had both been policemen long enough to know that their jobs were not always made easy by the civil liberties in place in the country. “There’s nothing we can complain about—no one to complain to. We have to work within the law.”

“Except in situations where there is no law,” Jordain said.

Perez heard the smile in his partner’s voice. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think there is any law that says we have to remember to call Betsy Young and fill her in on everything we get. There is no law that we have to report to the reporters. And there is no law that says we have to rush to give the
Times
the okay to run the next story. Or, God forbid, the story after that.”

“They won’t like that,” Perez said.

“I can live with being disliked.”

“They can retaliate.”

“They can, but they won’t. The NYPD has a relationship with the paper. I don’t trust Young, but Hastings won’t risk losing our cooperation on every story he’s got, especially when he knows in his gut that what he’s agreed to is the right thing to do.”

“So one day when we remember to, we’ll call Young and tell her our plans and invite her to come along on a raid and keep her sitting in a car on an empty street corner after the moon’s gone down but before the sun’s come up.”

“Right. And in the meantime, let’s get the lab working on this hair sample and these photographs. And pray that there is some information here that Young hasn’t compromised.”