The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  ′Yes . . . yes, of course,′ Irving said, and took a sideways step toward the exit as if to pre-empt Costello.

  ′You have assumed I′m available, yet I′m not. I′m sure whatever you have to discuss with me is very important, Detective Irving, but I have an appointment. I cannot speak with you now, you understand.′ Costello glanced at his watch. ′I must go.′

  ′Okay, yes . . . I understand, Mr Costello. Perhaps I could speak with you after your appointment. Perhaps I could come to your house?′

  Costello smiled. ′No,′ he said, and said it with such firm finality that Irving was left momentarily speechless.

  ′You want to speak with me about the draft article,′ Costello said matter-of-factly.

  Irving nodded. ′Yes,′ he said. ′The article about—′

  ′We both know which article, Detective Irving, but not now.′ He glanced at his watch again. ′Now I really have to go. I′m sorry.′

  Before Irving had a chance to formulate a reply, Costello had stepped by him and disappeared through the door.

  Irving glanced up at Emma Scott. She was engaged in conversation with a middle-aged woman. He looked toward the street, and in a moment of sheer impulsiveness decided to follow John Costello.

  Costello, a fast walker, turned right, away from the building and headed up Ninth toward St Michael′s. Here he turned left along West 33rd, and Irving - hanging back as best he could without losing sight of the man - followed him to Eleventh, where Costello turned right toward the Javits Center, but before he reached it he turned right again onto 37th, paused for a moment to look into his attaché case, and then hurried up the steps of a building and through the door.

  By the time Irving caught up, there was no sign of his quarry. He looked at the building. A short flight of stone steps, an ornate miniature streetlamp on each side of the wide doorway, and painted in discreet letters on the glass fanlight above, the words Winterbourne Hotel.

  Irving hesitated, wondered whether he should just turn around and head back to the precinct. He glanced at his watch: it was twenty past five. He crossed over to the other side of the street and looked up at the hotel′s facade. There were lights in several windows - three floors in all, two windows to each floor. Assuming that there were also rooms to the back of the building, there would be twelve rooms in all. The Winterbourne Hotel. Irving had never heard of it, but then there was no reason why he should have.

  It was close to six by the time he decided to go in there. In his mind he′d considered many scenarios. He had no idea where Costello lived. Always the assumption that people owned houses or rented apartments, but no, some people lived in hotels. People went to hotels for dinner, for sexual encounters, for private rendezvous that they felt could not be conducted at home. People visited other people who were staying in hotels . . .

  Irving could not presume to know what Costello was doing in the hotel. He either went in there and asked, or he went away.

  He chose the former.

  The man behind the desk was elderly, late sixties, perhaps, or early seventies. He smiled warmly when Irving approached, his face creased like a paper bag.

  ′You′re the detective,′ the old man said.

  Irving stopped suddenly, started laughing - an awkward, nervous reaction.

  ′Mr Costello left a message for you.′

  ′A message?′

  The old man smiled again, produced a folded slip of paper.

  Irving took it, opened it up, and saw printed in a fastidiously neat script, Carnegie′s Delicatessen, 7th Avenue at 55th Street. 8.00 pm.

  Irving′s eyes widened. He experienced a strange sensation, as if something was crawling up his spine toward the back of his neck. He shuddered visibly, turned away from the desk, hesitated, turned back.

  ′Sir?′ the old man said.

  ′Mr Costello left this for me?′ Irving asked, still finding it hard to believe, let alone understand.

  ′Yes sir, Mr Costello.′

  ′Tell me, does he live here?′

  ′Oh no, sir, he doesn′t live here, just comes here for the meetings. They all do. Second Monday of every month. Have for as long as I can remember.′

  ′Meetings?′ Irving asked. ′What meetings?′

  The old man shook his head. ′I′m sorry, sir, I′m not permitted to tell you.′

  Irving shook his head, incredulous. He felt as if he′d walked into some funhouse reflection of real life. ′You′re not allowed to tell me?′

  ′No, sir.′

  ′What . . . it′s like Alcoholics Anonymous or something?′

  ′Or something. Yes, I s′pose you could say it was something.′

  ′I′m sorry, I don′t understand. Mr Costello comes here for a meeting on the second Monday of every month, and you′re not permitted to tell me what those meetings are.′

  ′That′s right, sir.′

  ′And other people come too?′

  ′I cannot say.′

  ′But you said it was a meeting, right? You can′t have a meeting by yourself, can you?′

  ′I suppose not, sir, no.′

  ′So other people must come to these meetings.′

  ′I can′t say.′

  ′This is ludicrous,′ Irving said. ′What′s your name?′

  ′I′m Gerald, sir.′

  ′Gerald . . . Gerald what?′

  ′Gerald Ford.′

  Irving nodded, and then he stopped. ′Gerald Ford. Like President Gerald Ford, right?′

  The old man smiled with such sincerity Irving was taken aback. ′Exactly right, sir, like President Gerald Ford.′

  ′You′re kidding me.′

  ′Not at all, sir. That′s my name.′

  ′And you own this hotel?′

  ′No, sir, I don′t own this hotel. I just work here.′

  ′And how long do these meetings go on for?′

  Ford shook his head.

  ′You can′t tell me, right?′

  ′That′s right, sir.′

  ′This is crazy . . . this is just utterly crazy.′

  Ford nodded, smiled again. ′I s′pose it is, sir.′

  Irving looked back at the piece of paper, the address of the restaurant he frequented almost daily, and wondered if any aspect of what he was dealing with was a true coincidence, or . . .

  ′Okay,′ he said. ′Okay . . . tell Mr Costello I got his message and I will meet him at eight.′

  ′Very good, sir.′

  Irving took a step toward the front door, paused, looked back at the old man behind the desk, and then made his way out and down the steps to the street.

  For a moment he was uncertain of what to do, and then he decided to walk back to his office through the Garment District. He could have taken the subway, but he wanted time to think. He didn′t understand what had happened at the Winterbourne Hotel. He didn′t understand the brief words he had shared with Costello in the foyer of the City Herald. He felt out of his depth, and did not understand why he should feel such a thing. Nothing made sense. Nothing at all.

  Back at the precinct house, Irving learned that Farraday had left for the day. He was somewhat relieved; he didn′t want to try and explain something that he did not understand himself. Instinct told him that, despite the fact that he had nothing but circumstantial suspicion, he should drag John Costello in for questioning - interrogate him, find out how he′d supposedly put two and two together on these murders, but the thought of Karen Langley stayed his hand. There was already one proposed newspaper article, and one was more than sufficient.

  There were no messages on his desk, and he assumed there had been no agreement reached on a collaborative investigation between the different precincts involved. Once again there was no proof, not even circumstantial evidence of any probative nature, that these recent murders were linked. There was no more than an article, written by Karen Langley and researched by John Costello.

  Ray Irving sat at his desk with a cup of black coffee and trawled the inter
net, looking to understand more about the original murders that were apparently being replicated. He read some pieces about Harvey Carignan, the man whose 1973 murder of Kathy Sue Miller had been replicated in the death of Mia Grant. He found a quote about Carignan from a man called Russell Kruger, a Minneapolis PD investigator. ′The guy′s the fuckin′ Devil,′ Kruger had said. ′They should have fried him years ago, period, an′ they would have queued up to pull the switch. When he was dead they should have driven a stake through his heart and buried him, digging him up a week later to ram another stake in, just to make sure he was fuckin′ dead.′

  He also found a piece about the execution of Kenneth McDuff, the murderer whose 1966 triple killing had been re-created with the deaths of Luke Bradford, Stephen Vogel and Caroline Parselle. McDuff had been executed on November 17th, 1998 in Walls Prison, Huntsville, Texas. He was responsible for at least fifteen homicides and, according to reports from those present, not one anti-death penalty protester had shown up. His execution was overseen by the Assistant Warden-in-Charge of Executions, Neil Hodges.

  Hodges was quoted as saying, ′People think this is all painless and stuff like that. It ain′t. Basically, they suffer a lot. They are sort of paralyzed, but they can hear. They drown in their own fluid and suffocate to death really. Yeah, we get problems. Sometimes the guy doesn′t want to get on the table. But we have the largest guard in Texas here. He gets them on that table, no problem. They are strapped down in seconds. No problem. They go on that mean old table and get the goodnight juice, whether they like it or not.′

  Irving looked at the clock above the door. He felt a disquieting sense of unease in his lower gut. It was six-forty. Another hour before he left for Carnegie′s. He drank his coffee. He craved a cigarette for the first time in as long as he could recall.

  He took note of the fact that there seemed to be websites running for those who possessed a particularly unhealthy interest in the lives and deaths of serial killers. He considered himself someone who could not be easily surprised, but in some of the articles he found disturbing indications of idolatry and fixation. An obsessive and compelling desire to know what really went on in the minds of Jeffrey Dahmer and Henry Lee Lucas and their ilk as they butchered dozens of human beings did not seem such a healthy pastime.

  Still - in some small way akin to slowing to look at a car crash - Irving found himself drawn back to Kenneth McDuff, the man′s final hours, the report that had been posted about what had really happened at his execution.

  This was the man responsible for the deaths of Robert Brand, Mark Dunman and Edna Louise Sullivan in August 1966, the killings that were described in the statement that Karen Langley had shown him. Irving recalled the complete lack of humanity displayed by this man as he repeatedly raped a sixteen-year-old girl and then choked her to death with a three-foot broom handle. It had taken thirty-two years to finally bring him to justice. McDuff had been given three death sentences in 1968, two years after the Brand/Dunman/Sullivan homicides. Those death sentences were later commuted to life, and McDuff had been freed on October 11th, 1989. Within days he murdered again. Two years later, on October 10th, 1991, he inflicted an excruciatingly torturous death on a prostitute. Five days after that he killed another woman, and four days after Christmas, he kidnapped a five-foot-three, 115-pound woman from a car wash. Her raped and murdered body wasn′t found for seven years. On and on it went - a catalog of brutality and inhumanity that McDuff seemed incapable of stopping. And he didn′t just kill his victims, he savaged them. He bludgeoned with sticks and clubs. He raped with a sadistic fury that gave veteran investigators nightmares. He blew off his victims′ faces at point-blank range, he slashed and butchered them with knives.

  Irving went back to the report of McDuff′s execution, and couldn′t help but feel some sense of retributive satisfaction in reading it.

  McDuff had been driven the fifteen miles from Ellis Unit to the Walls. He was given a cell, in it nothing more than a bunk, a small table and a chair. Beside it was a strictly no contact cell, the door covered with a fine steel mesh screen. McDuff ate his final meal - two T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, vegetables, french fries, coconut pie and Coca-Cola. At 5.44 p.m. he was given a pre-injection of 8cc two-percent sodium pentothal. Waiting silently, in an adjacent room, were the extraction team, all of them attired in protective clothing and armed with mace. At 5.58 p.m., McDuff learned that the Supreme Court had denied his final request for a stay of execution. Witnesses were already arriving, and were being escorted through the main prison gate and directed toward the Death House viewing room. At 6.08 p.m. McDuff was invited to leave his cell and walk to the chamber. He did not resist. He was laid on the gurney and left for an hour before the straps were tied. Paramedics inserted two 16-gauge needles and catheters into both of his arms, each of them connected by tubing to the executioner′s position. A cardiac monitor and stethoscope were attached to McDuff′s chest. The curtains that separated the chamber from the viewing room were drawn back and Warden Jim Willett asked McDuff if he had any final words.

  McDuff simply said, ′I′m ready to be released. Release me.′

  In the viewing room sat the seventy-four-year-old father of Robert Brand, the eighteen-year-old boy who′d been murdered alongside Mark Dunman and Edna Sullivan thirty-two years earlier.

  Over the next ten seconds McDuff was injected with sodium thiopental, a fast-acting anaesthetic. After a further minute he was given 15cc of saline to ease the passage of 50mg/50cc Pancuronium bromide, a curare-derived muscle relaxant that paralyzes respiratory functions. McDuff would have felt an intense pressure in his chest, a suffocating feeling that made him instinctively gasp for air, and dizziness and hyperventilation, his heart beating faster and faster as his entire nervous system was barraged with poison. McDuff was then unable to move, but was still capable of hearing and seeing. His eyes dilated, every hair on his body erect, and then a further 15cc of saline opened his veins in readiness for a massive dose of potassium chloride. When injected intravenously potassium chloride burns and hurts. It immediately disrupts the chemical balance of the body. It causes extreme contraction in every muscle, and when it reaches the heart it causes it to stop beating. Unable to scream, McDuff would have felt nothing but an excruciating cramp enclosing his heart. After a further two minutes he was examined and pronounced dead. Another witness, Brenda Solomon, mother of one of McDuff′s victims, was moved to say, ′He looked like the Devil. He′s going where he needs to go. I feel happy . . . I feel wonderful.′

  At the bottom of the article Irving noticed that the author had given the cost of the drugs used to kill McDuff. Eighty-six dollars and eight cents.

  Irving sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and pondered. He had aspired to make detective, had left Narcotics and Vice to come to Homicide. He had studied and crammed and stayed up late to pass exams and gain qualifications. None of it had prepared him for the horrors he had witnessed, but Irving - cynical and bitter though he could sometimes be - still believed in the fundamental goodness of Man. He believed that those who killed, even in an explosion of jealousy and hatred, were in the minority. But such things as this, these sadistic murders, and the state executions that seemed nothing more than the most coldly precise and bureaucratic revenge, were a world apart from most peoples′ lives. It was the eternal question: life imprisonment or execution? Was it really an eye for an eye?

  And who were such people, Irving asked himself. And why were they this way? In one further article he read, another convicted serial killer stated simply, ′There was nothing they could have said or done. They were dead as soon as I saw them. I used them. I abused them, and then I killed them. I treated them like so much garbage. What more do you want me to fucking say?′

  In the silence of his office, of the corridor beyond, the question was right there at the front of Ray Irving′s mind: If Langley and Costello were right, if they were right, then there was someone out there deliberately carrying on where these people had left o
ff . . .

  He rose from his desk and stepped out of the room. There was no-one else around. The lights in the offices further along the corridor had been switched off.

  He felt disturbed, uneasy. For the first time since his childhood he experienced that same sense of disquiet that crawled over you when you were alone in a dark house.

  He went back for his jacket, his car keys, and then hurried out of the room and down the stairwell.

  He was relieved to see familiar faces on the ground floor, to acknowledge the desk sergeant, and then he was out into the street, the hubbub of crowds and traffic, the noise and smell and sounds of the city.

  He thought once more of John Costello, the approaching rendezvous at the Carnegie Deli - and the bizarre riddle about the speeding car. Assumption limits observation; an old saw given him at the Academy a thousand years ago.

  Assumption limits observation, and observation is for the purpose of seeing what is really there, not what you expect to be there.

  Irving buried his hands in his pockets and made his way down the ramp to the underground car park.

  THIRTEEN

  A tear-shaped mark on the detective′s tie. Such a mark would come out with a clean cloth and some club soda.

  John Costello counted the diamonds in the pattern on that tie. There were thirty-three, thirty-five if you took into consideration the two that were partly obscured at the edge of the knot.

  The shadows around Irving′s eyes told John Costello that Ray Irving was tired of being alone.

  Alonefatigue.

  Something such as this.

  Irving was a difficult man to read. There were angles, and the angles gave the impression of depth, though Costello could not be sure the depth was there.

  Costello was aware that someone had died. Someone important. People wore such a thing as if a second skin.

  ′Were you married?′ he asked Ray Irving.

  Irving smiled. ′No, I wasn′t married. Why d′you ask, Mr Costello?′