The Face of Fear (15 page)

Hurrying to the elevator alcove, he fished in his pocket for the dead guard’s keys. They snagged on the lining. When he jerked them loose, they spun out of his hand and fell on the carpet with a sleighbell jingle.

He knelt and felt for them in the darkness. Then he remembered the pencil flashlight, but even with that he needed more than a minute to locate the keys.

As he got up, angry with himself, he wondered if Harris and the woman were waiting here for him. He put away the flashlight and snatched the pistol from his pocket. He stood quite still. He studied the darkness. If they were hiding there, they would have been silhouetted by the bright spot farther along at the alcove.

When he thought about it, he realized that they couldn’t have known on which floor he’d left the elevator. Furthermore, they couldn’t have gotten down here in time to surprise him.

The thirty-first floor was a different story. They might have time to set a trap for him up there. When the elevator doors slid open, they might be waiting for him
_;
he would be most vulnerable at that moment.

Then again,
he
was the one with the pistol. So what if they were waiting with makeshift weapons? They didn’t stand a chance of overpowering him.

At the elevator he put the key in the control board and activated the circuit.

He looked at his watch. 9:19.

If there were no more delays, he could kill Harris and still have twenty minutes or half an hour with the woman.

Whistling again, he pushed one of the buttons: 31.

27

The lab technician disconnected the garbage disposal, wrapped it in a heavy white plastic sheet, and carried it out of the apartment.

Preduski and Enderby were left alone in the kitchen.

In the foyer, a grandfather clock struck the quarter hour: two soft chimes, running five minutes late. In accompaniment, the wind fluted musically through the eaves just above the kitchen windows.

“If you find it hard to accept the idea of two psychopaths working so smoothly together,” Enderby said, “then consider the possibility that they aren’t psychopaths of any sort we’ve seen before.”

“Now you sound like Graham Harris.”

“I know.”

“The Butcher is mentally ill, Harris says. But you wouldn’t know it to look at him, Harris says. Either the symptoms of his mania don’t show, or he knows how to conceal them. He’d pass any psychiatric exam, Harris says.”

“I’m beginning to agree with him.”

“Except you say there are two Butchers.”

Enderby nodded.

Preduski sighed. He went to the nearest window and drew the outline of a knife in the thin gray-white film of moisture that coated the glass. “If you’re right, I can’t hold onto my theory. That he’s just your ordinary paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe a lone killer could be operating in a psychotic fugue. But not two of them simultaneously.”

“They’re not suffering any psychotic fugue,” Enderby agreed. “Both of these men know precisely what they’re doing. Neither of them suffers from amnesia.”

Turning from the window, from the drawing of the knife which had begun to streak as droplets of water slid down the pane, Preduski said, “Whether this is a new type of psychotic or not, the crime is familiar. Sex murders are—”

“These aren’t sex murders,” Enderby said.

Preduski cocked his head. “Come again?”

“These aren’t
sex
murders.”

“They only kill women.”

“Yes, but—”

“And they rape them first.”

“Yes. It’s murder with sex
associated.
But these aren’t sex murders.”

“I’m sorry. I’m lost. My fault. Not yours.”

“Sex isn’t the motivating force. Sex isn’t the whole or even the primary reason they have for attacking these women. The opportunity for rape is there. So they take it. Going to kill the women anyway. They aren’t adding to their legal risks by raping them first. Sex is secondary. They aren’t killing out of some psychosexual impulse.”

Shaking his head, Preduski said, “I don’t see how you can say that. You’ve never met them. What evidence do you have that their motives aren’t basically sexual?”

“Circumstantial,” Enderby said. “For instance, the way they mutilate the corpses.”

“What about it?”

“Have you studied the mutilations carefully?”

“I had no choice.”

“All right. Found any sign of anal mutilation?”

“No.”

“Mutilation of the genitalia?”

“No.”

“Mutilation of the breasts?”

“In some cases he’s cut open the abdomen and chest cavity.”

“Mutilation of the breasts alone?”

“When he opens the chest—”

“I mean has he ever cut off a woman’s nipples, or perhaps her entire breasts, as Jack the Ripper did?”

A look of loathing came over his face. “No.”

“Has he ever mutilated the mouth of a victim?”

“The mouth?”

“Has he ever cut off the lips?”

“No. Never.”

“Has he ever cut out a tongue?”

“God, no! Andy, do we have to go on like this? It’s morbid. And I don’t see where it’s leading.”

“If they were manical sex killers with a desire to cut their victims,” Enderby said, “they’d have disfigured one of those areas.”

“Anus, breasts, genitalia or mouth?”

“Unquestionably. At least one of them. Probably all of them. But they didn’t. So the mutilation is an afterthought. Not a sexual compulsion. Window dressing.”

Preduski closed his eyes, pressed his fingertips to them, as if he were trying to suppress unpleasant images.“Window dressing? I’m afraid I don’t understand.

“To impress us.”

“The police?”

“Yes. And the newspapers.”

Preduski went to the window where he had drawn the knife. He wiped away the film of moisture and stared at the snow sheeting through the glow around the street lamp. “Why would he want to impress us?”

“I don’t know. Whatever the reason, whatever the need behind his desire to impress—that is the true motivation.”

“If we knew what it was, we might be able to see a pattern in the killings. We might be able to anticipate him.”

Suddenly excited, Enderby said, “Wait a minute. Another case. Two killers. Working together. Chicago. Nineteen twenty-four. Two young men were the murders. Both sons of millionaires. In their late teens.”

“Leopold and Loeb.”

“You know the case?”

“Slightly.”

“They killed a boy, Bobby Franks. Fourteen years old. Son of another rich man. They had nothing against him. None of the usual reasons. No classic motive. Newspapers said it was for kicks. For thrills. Very bloody murder. But they killed Franks for other reasons. For more than kicks. For a philosophical ideal.”

Turning away from the window, Preduski said, “I’m sorry. I must have missed something. I’m not making sense of this.
What
philosophical ideal?”

“They thought they were special. Supermen. The first of a new race. Leopold idolized Nietzsche.”

Frowning, Preduski said, “One of the quotes in there on the bedroom wall is probably from Nietzsche’s work, the other from Blake. There was a quote from Nietzsche written in blood on Edna Mowry’s wall last night.”

“Leopold and Loeb. Incredible pair. They thought that committing the perfect crime was proof that they were supermen. Getting away with murder. They thought that was
proof
of superior intelligence, superior cunning.”

“Weren’t they homosexuals?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t make Bobby Franks the victim of a sex killing. They didn’t molest him. Never had any intention of molesting him. They weren’t motivated by lust. Not at all. It was, as Loeb called it,‘an intellectual exercise.’”

In spite of his excitement, Enderby noticed that his shirt cuffs were not showing beyond the sleeves of his suit jacket. He pulled them out, one at a time, until the proper half inch was revealed. Although he had worked for some time in the blood-splashed bedroom and then in the messy kitchen, he didn’t have a stain on him.

His back to the window, leaning against the sill, conscious of his own scuffed shoes and wrinkled trousers, Preduski said, “I’m having trouble understanding. You’ll have to be patient with me. You know how I am. Dense sometimes. But if these two boys, Leopold and Loeb, thought that murder was an intellectual exercise, then they were crazy. Weren’t they? Were they mad?”

“In a way. Mad with their own power. Both real and imagined power.”

“Would they have appeared to be mad?”

“Not at all.”

“How is that possible?”

“Remember, Leopold graduated from college when he was just seventeen. He had an IQ of two hundred or nearly so. He was a genius. So was Loeb. They were bright enough to keep their Nietzschean fantasies to themselves, to hide their grandiose self-images.”

“What if they’d taken psychiatric tests?”

“Psychiatric tests weren’t very well developed in nineteen twenty-four.”

“But if there had been tests back then as sophisticated as those we have today, would Leopold and Loeb have passed them?”

“Probably with flying colors.”

“Have there been others like Leopold and Loeb since nineteen twenty-four?” Preduski asked.

“Not that I know of. Not in a pure sense, anyway.

The Manson family killed for murky political and religious reasons. They thought Manson was Christ. Thought killing the rich would help the downtrodden. Unmitigated crazies, in my book. Think of some other killers, especially mass murderers. Charles Starkweather. Richard Speck. Albert DeSalvo. All of them were psychotic. All of them were driven by psychoses that had grown and festered in them, that had slowly corrupted them since childhood. In Leopold and Loeb, there were apparently no serious childhood traumas that could have led to psychotic behavior. No black seed to bear fruit later.”

“So if the Butcher is two men,” Preduski said forlornly, “we’ve got a new Leopold and Loeb. Killing to prove their superiority.”

Enderby began to pace. “Maybe. But then again, maybe it’s more than that. Something more complex than that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But I feel it’s not
exactly
a Leopold and Loeb sort of thing.” He went to the table and stared at the remains of the meal that had never been eaten. “Have you called Harris?”

Preduski said, “No.”

“You should. He’s been trying to get an image of the killer. Hasn’t had any luck. Maybe that’s because he’s focusing on a single image, trying to envision just one face. Tell him there are
two
killers. Maybe that’ll break it open for him. Maybe he’ll finally get a handle on the case.”

“We don’t
know
there are two. That’s just a theory.”

“Tell him anyway,” Enderby said. “What harm can it do?”

“I should tell him tonight. I really should. But I just can’t,” Preduski said. “He’s gotten behind in his work because of this case. That’s my fault. I’m always calling him, talking to him, pressuring him about it. He’s working late, trying to get caught up. I don’t want to disturb him.”

In the foyer by the front door, the grandfather clock chimed the half hour, five minutes late again.

Preduski glanced at his wristwatch and said, “It’ll soon be ten o’clock. I’ve got to be going.”

“Going? There’s work to do here.”

“I’m not on duty yet.”

“Graveyard?”

“Yeah.”

“I never knew you to hesitate about a bit of overtime.”

“Well, I just got out of bed. I was cooking spaghetti when Headquarters called me about this. Never got a chance to eat any of it. I’m starving.”

Enderby shook his head. “As long as I’ve known you, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you eat a square meal. You’re always grabbing sandwiches so you don’t have to stop working to eat. And at home you’re cooking spaghetti. You need a wife, Ira.”

“A wife?”

“Other men have them.”

“But me? Are you kidding?”

“Be good for you.”

“Andy, look at me.”

“I’m looking.”

“Look closer.”

“So?”

“You must be blind.”

“What should I see?”

“What woman in her right mind would marry me?”

“Don’t give me your usual crap, Ira,” Enderby said with a smile. “I know that under all of that self-deprecating chatter, you’ve got a healthy and proper respect for yourself.”

“You’re the psychiatrist.”

“That’s right. I’m not a suspect or a witness
_;
you can’t charm me with that blather.”

Preduski grinned.

“I’ll bet there have been more than a few women who’ve fallen for that calculated little-boy look of yours.”

“A few,” Preduski admitted uncomfortably. “But never the right woman.”

“Who said anything about the right one? Most men are happy to settle for half-right.”

“Not me.” Preduski looked at his watch again. “I really have to be going. I’ll come back around midnight. Martin probably won’t even have finished questioning the other tenants by then. It’s a big building.”

Dr. Enderby sighed as if the troubles of the world were on his shoulders alone. “We’ll be here too. Dusting the furniture for prints, vacuuming the carpets for hairs and threads, finding nothing, but working hard. The same old circus.”

28

Graham’s foot slipped off the rung.

Although he was still holding tightly with both hands, he panicked. He struck out at the ladder with his feet, scrabbling wildly, as if the ladder were alive, as if he had to kick it into submission before he could regain his foothold on it.

“Graham, what’s wrong?” Connie asked from her position on the ladder above him. “Graham?”

Her voice sobered him. He stopped kicking. He hung by his hands until he was breathing almost normally, until the vivid memories of Everest had faded.