Without Mercy (2 page)

“Sure.”

They led him into the living room and then the small bedroom. There was barely space for the bed and dresser. A plaster statue of Christ on the cross was nailed to the pale blue wall above the bed. They stood at the window and looked down the alley.

It was a long way down, and Rackman realized it’d be difficult to see anything at night. It was hard to believe that dirty, deserted alley had been filled with cops and reporters looking at a murder victim named Cynthia Doyle a half-hour ago.

Rackman moved back from the window and turned to Sylvia Suarez and Reynaldo Pifla. “Thanks for the information. If you can think of anything important after I’m gone, call me at my office.” He reached to the inner breast pocket of his leather jacket and took out his card, which he handed to Reynaldo. “And thanks for the cup of coffee.”

Downstairs, Rackman threw his cigarette butt into the gutter and got into his unmarked Plymouth. He lay the girl’s shoulder bag on the seat beside him and started up the engine. The street was deserted, and a lone truck rumbled past the intersection at Tenth Avenue. The first glimmering of dawn was coming up over the East Side.

Rackman stopped at an all-night pizza joint on 9th Avenue near Twenty-Third Street and got a meatball hero, which he ate while driving downtown to Police Headquarters in the new red stone building behind City Hall.

He took the elevator down to the basement, where the medical examiner’s office was. Giving his name to the officer on duty, he was escorted back to a white room where a doctor was bending over the naked body of Cynthia Doyle. Her belly was as white as the belly of a dead fish, and her neck was cut from her right ear nearly to her left. The open flesh looked like corned beef. A puncture mark was under her left breast.

“Death was from massive hemorrhaging caused by a severed jugular vein and windpipe,” the medical examiner said. “Other injuries consist of bruises on the face that were caused about the same time as the injuries that caused death. If I had to guess, I’d say they were caused slightly before death.”

“Were the bruises heavy or light?”

“Heavy. Whoever hit her evidently was pretty strong. He cut her throat several times and went pretty deep each time.”

“Did he fuck her?”

“Somebody did about an hour before she was killed. She’d washed her vagina but there were still traces of semen. The tissues looked like she’d been having a lot of sexual activity. If she wasn’t a pro, she was a very bad girl.”

Rackman pointed to the mark under her left breast. “What’s that?”

“I can’t say for certain, but it occurred at around the time of death. I’d guess that the killer jabbed her with his knife.”

“Anything under her nails?”

“Just the usual dirt.”

“Where are her clothes?”

“At the front desk.”

Rackman handed him his card. “If anything comes up, give me a call.”

Rackman went to the front desk, signed for the girl’s belongings, sat in a wooden chair against the wall of the waiting room, and went through them. The jeans were Levis, her blouse came from Alexander’s, her underpants were made by Bonnie Dee, the expensive leather boots were from Bloomingdales, and her pea coat was marked Schott Bros. Co. In the pea coat were a pack of Virginia Slims and a throwaway cigarette lighter. The pockets of the jeans carried some marijuana in a plastic bag and a pack of Job Cutcorners rolling paper.

Rackman returned to his car and drove uptown to Roosevelt Hospital, where he parked in the lot next to the Emergency Room and went inside to the Records Room. He showed his shield and Cynthia Doyle’s blue ID card to the attendant on duty, and was led to a file cabinet, where the attendant took out a thick folder.

Rackman sat at an empty desk and went through the folder. He found a description of Cynthia Doyle that matched the way the victim looked, confirming her identity. The address given was 449 West Forty-Ninth Street, just like the blue card. Cynthia Doyle had been in various clinics at Roosevelt Hospital for influenza, an ear infection, eye infection, bladder infection, and pregnancy. It was noted that she’d taken care of the pregnancy at an abortion clinic. She’d told her doctor that she smoked marijuana and used to shoot speed.

Rackman returned the folder to the attendant, and drove to 449 West Forty-Ninth Street, between Eleventh Avenue and the defunct West Side Highway. It was a neighborhood of slum tenements and warehouses, next to railroad tracks that weren’t used anymore. The little valley where the railroad tracks ran was filled with garbage, old mattresses, beer cans, and wine bottles. Rackman double-parked in front of the building and pulled down the Official Police Investigation sign on the visor, then got out of the car and slung Cynthia Doyle’s bag over his shoulder.

There was no buzzer system in the building; you just walked in and went to whatever door you wanted. If you were a thief, you broke down the door, took whatever wasn’t nailed down, and split. Rackman climbed the stairs to apartment 4-C, located in the rear. The stale hallways smelled of urine. He knocked on the door.

There was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. Opening the shoulder bag, he was fishing around for Cynthia Doyle’s keys when he heard light footsteps on the other side of the door. He knocked again.

“Who is it?” asked the voice of a black man.

Rackman held his shield before the peephole in the door. “Police—open up.”

There was a pause. “What you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“You got a warrant?”

“Yeah.”

“Just a second.”

The footsteps retreated from the door, and Rackman figured the man was either hiding something or putting on clothes. The footsteps returned and the door opened. A long-faced black man stood there, his head appearing lopsided because his afro was matted down on one side. He must have been in bed.

“Lemme see the warrant,” the black man said gruffly.

Rackman held up Cynthia Doyle’s bag.

“Where’d you get that?” asked the black man, reaching for it.

Rackman pulled it back. “When’s the last time you saw Cynthia Doyle?”

“What you wanna know for?”

“You live here with her?”

“You ain’t showed me no warrant yet.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you. Cynthia Doyle is dead.”

The black man blinked. “Huh?”

“Cynthia Doyle is dead.”

“Dead?”

“As a doornail.”

The black man forced a smile. “You’re shuckin’ me, man.”

“I wouldn’t shuck you about a thing like that.”

The smile evaporated. “She’s really dead?”

“Really.”

The black man’s face became contorted as the reality sank in. He breathed hard and looked scared. “How’d she die?”

“Somebody killed her.”

“Somebody killed her?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who killed her?”

“I don’t like to talk about things like this in doorways.”

The black man’s hands were trembling. He was bony and around thirty years old. “Come on in.”

Rackman followed him through a vestibule to a living room whose upholstered furniture was stained, torn, and sagging. The air smelled dirty. Rackman sat on the sofa and took out his pack of Luckies. “Want one?”

“No thanks,” replied the black man, sitting opposite him.

Rackman lit his cigarette. “What’s your name?”

“Lorenzo Freeman.”

“When’s the last time you saw Cynthia Doyle?”

“She went to work around seven-thirty. Where is she now?”

“In the morgue.”

“The morgue?”

“That’s where dead people go.”

Freeman closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and stared at the floor. A few minutes passed. Then he looked up and asked, “Who killed her?”

“I don’t know yet. I was hoping maybe you could give me a lead.”

“How’d she get killed?”

“You think you can handle it?”

“I can handle anything,” Freeman replied bravely, but the tremor in his voice said he was shaken badly.

“You sure?”

“Lay it on me.”

“Somebody cut her throat in an alley on Forty-Fifth Street between Ninth and Tenth.”

Freeman’s face collapsed and his eyes went white.

“And punched her out a few times.”

Freeman covered his face with his hands. Rackman sat quietly, puffing his Lucky and observing Freeman. He thought Freeman’s emotion was genuine, that Freeman had not murdered Cynthia Doyle, but he had to get the hard facts.

“Where were you at around four-thirty this morning?” Rackman asked.

“Right here.”

“Alone?”

“That’s right.”

“Can you prove that you were here alone?”

“How can I do that?”

“Did you talk to somebody in the building a little earlier, maybe? Somebody came by selling Girl Scout cookies or something?”

“I didn’t talk to nobody. I watched the tube until around two in the morning and fell asleep.” He looked squarely at Rackman. “You don’t think I did it, do you?”

“I can’t be sure that you didn’t.”

“She was my old lady, man.”

“A lot of guys kill their old ladies.”

“I wouldn’t kill her. She was okay.”

“What did she do for a living?”

Freeman looked away. “She worked in one of them massage parlor places.”

Rackman took out his notepad and pen. “Which one?”

“The Crown Club on West Forty-fifth Street.”

“She wasn’t going to leave you, was she?”

“What for?”

“I’m asking the questions.”

“Nah, she wasn’t going to leave me. We was in love, man.”

“I’m going to be investigating this case, Freeman. If I find you’ve been fighting with her and slapping her around, you’re going to the joint.”

“Nobody’s gonna tell you that unless they’s lying. I never hit her since we was in Cincinnati, and that was over two years ago.”

“Was she having problems with anybody?”

“Not that I know of.”

“If she was having problems with somebody, would she tell you?”

“Sure she’d tell me. We was very close, man.”

“Come on Freeman, she must be having trouble with somebody. Those girls are always having trouble with somebody.”

“There wasn’t nothing big.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Freeman reflected for a few moments. “Well, she told me she’s been hassling with one of the girls she works with, name of Carmella. And there’s Luke the Duke. He tried to game her, but my baby, she don’t like to work the streets. She likes to stay indoors where it’s dry and warm.”

Luke the Duke was a well-known Times Square pimp, and it was believed that he’d had a few women killed, although there was never enough evidence to charge him. “I’ll check them both out,” Rackman said, making notes.

Freeman looked out the dirty windows at the tenement roofs. “I can’t believe my baby ain’t never coming back,” he said in a spacey way.

Rackman obtained the address of Cynthia Doyle’s family in Cincinnati, gave Freeman his card, and left.

Down on the street, he slid behind the wheel of his Plymouth and looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock in the morning and he’d been on duty since six the previous evening. He was exhausted; his head felt like it was caving in. It was time to finish up and go home.

Driving up Eleventh Avenue, which was rumbling with early morning trucks and cars, he wondered sleepily about Cynthia Doyle and who had killed her. The motive wasn’t robbery, and her boyfriend probably didn’t do it unless she was planning to leave him for somebody else. Rackman would have to check that out. He’d also have to talk to Luke the Duke and the people Cynthia Doyle worked with at the massage parlor. Somebody killed her, and somewhere in the city there was a trail of evidence that led to the murderer. Rackman had to find that trail out of the millions of other trails that crisscrossed the city.

He parked the Plymouth in front of the Midtown North building on West Fifty-fourth Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. It was a grim old fortress made of gray stone blocks fifty years ago, and he walked into the main reception area, where a bunch of uniformed cops were hanging out around the sergeant’s desk. He climbed the stairs to the Detective Division, a small room jammed with desks and stinking of cigar smoke. Sitting at his desk, he lit another Lucky and typed his report of the Cynthia Doyle murder, using his forefingers and the hunt and peck method, indicating what he’d found out so far. He dropped the report on Inspector Jenkins’ desk (Jenkins wasn’t in yet), checked Cynthia Doyle’s bag and clothes into the Property Room, and went home before somebody found something else for him to do.

He lived around the corner on West Fifty-fifth Street in an old brick apartment building that had been constructed as a comfortable middle-class residence in 1917, and was still in fairly good shape, although the elevator broke down about once a month, and several times each winter there’d been no heat or hot water. Close to the Broadway theater district, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, it had become a haven for has-been actresses, would-be dancers, aging producers of forgotten flops, directors with holes in their shoes, various musicians, a few unsuccessful writers, and a number of low echelon office workers.

Rackman unlocked the front door and entered the tiny lobby. He went to the mailroom, opened his box, and took out bills from Con Edison and Master Charge. Returning to the lobby, he waited for the shaky old elevator, and then rode it to the eighth floor, the top floor of the building. His apartment was at the corner in the back. Unlocking his door, he stepped into night again, because of thick drapes over the windows. Turning on a few lights, he hung his leather jacket in the closet and peeled off his black turtleneck sweater, which he threw onto a chair that had become the receptacle for so much assorted clothing it looked like a display in a thrift shop.

The living room had a sofa, coffee table, and two matching chairs. He’d bought the stuff at a sale that Macy’s had had at the time his second wife had thrown him out. The furniture wasn’t very good, but Rackman had learned that women usually wind up with a man’s furniture, so it didn’t pay to invest very much in it.

On the wall above the color television set, which he seldom had time to watch, was an eleven by fourteen framed photograph of his twelve-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who lived with her mother, the first Mrs. Rackman and her latest husband, in the Forest Hills section of Queens. Rackman felt guilty whenever he looked at the photograph, because he seldom had time to see the child. Somehow he had to get out there this weekend. Almost six weeks had elapsed since the last visit.