The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  Handful of minutes after one, a midnight blue sedan pulled up. Window came down a fraction. Carol-Anne did the walk, one hand on the roof, another on her hip. Smiled like there was paparazzi.

  ′How old are you?′ the driver asked. The window wasn′t down far enough for her to see him clearly.

  ′Twenty-two.′

  ′Bullshit,′ the driver said. ′Tell the truth or walk.′

  ′Twenty-seven,′ Carol-Anne said.

  ′Twenty-seven is good,′ the driver said.

  She heard the lock disengage. Leaned up, stepped back, pulled the handle and opened the door.

  Once she was inside she could see the driver properly. Dark hair cut short in back, good eyes - not a druggie. Clean-shaven, straight teeth. Looked like a city guy.

  ′No weird shit,′ he said matter-of-factly. ′Straight sex, blow me first for a while.′

  ′Sixty,′ she said.

  ′Good enough.′

  Carol-Anne smiled to herself. He was a newcomer. He was supposed to haggle with her, get her to take forty-five.

  ′What′s your name?′ she said.

  The man shook his head. ′Doesn′t matter.′

  ′Gotta call you somethin′.′

  The man smiled. It was a good smile. ′Best guy you ever knew?′ he asked.

  ′The best guy I ever knew . . . jeez, what a question. Best guy I ever knew was a teacher in high school. Real sweetheart.′

  ′What was his name?′

  ′Errol.′

  ′Then call me Errol,′ the man said. ′Remind you of better times, eh?′

  Errol reached out and closed his hand gently over Carol-Anne′s left knee. His grip was gentle, his hand was warm, and for a moment she felt as if they might have been friends. Another life. In another life they might very well have been friends.

  Errol changed gear, pulled away from the sidewalk, drove a block and a half and turned right into a sidestreet. He didn′t talk, he didn′t ask any questions. He seemed completely at ease, which struck Carol-Anne as unusual considering the lack of bartering. He acted like a man very familiar with such things, but he hadn′t argued with the price. Did it matter? Did it, hell. Sixty bucks was sixty bucks. Couple of these and she′d be home and dry.

  He turned off the engine and switched off the dashboard lights.

  He turned to Carol-Anne and smiled again. ′Need you to do something for me,′ he said.

  Here we go, she thought.

  The man reached over into the back seat and pulled up a paper bag.

  ′Need you to put these on,′ he said.

  ′What is this?′

  ′Jeans, a tank-top, some flip-flops.′

  ′What?′

  Errol smiled. ′This is what I want you to do,′ he said. He spoke slowly, his voice kind, as if he really cared how she looked.

  He smiled again - sincerely, almost sympathetically - and nodded at the bag.

  Carol-Anne took out the contents. A pair of Calvin Klein denims, a white tank-top with red shoulder straps, a pair of blue flip-flops.

  ′Serious?′ she said.

  ′I sure am,′ Errol said. He took out his pocketbook, counted four twenties. ′Do this for me and you get another twenty.′

  Carol-Anne smiled, was already kicking off her shoes.

  ′I need you to take everything off except your panties,′ Errol said. ′Your stockings, blouse . . . everything. Just wear the jeans, the top, the flip-flops.′

  ′You want me to be someone?′ Carol-Anne asked.

  Errol nodded. ′You got me there.′

  ′High-school sweetheart?′

  ′Maybe.′

  ′What was her name?′

  ′Her name?′

  ′The girl in the jeans and the tank-top.′

  ′Her name . . . her name was Anne Marie.′

  ′Was?′

  Errol turned and looked at Carol-Anne. Suddenly there was a coolness in his expression.

  ′I′m sorry,′ Carol-Anne said. ′I didn′t mean to—′

  Errol reached out his hand and touched the side of her face. For a moment she could feel nothing but the sensation of his fingertips against her ear.

  She inhaled, closed her eyes for a second. She wondered if she would ever remember what it felt like to have someone love you for who you were, not who they wanted you to be.

  ′It′s okay,′ Errol said. ′It′s okay.′

  ′You want to call me Anne Marie?′

  ′Just put the clothes on, sweetheart.′

  Carol-Anne struggled with the jeans in the confines of the car. She was better experienced at taking them off.

  A handful of minutes and she sat back. Her own clothes were in the paper bag.

  ′Feel like I′m going to the beach,′ she said. She scrunched her toes and made the flip-flops slap against the soles of her feet.

  Errol put his arm on the headrest and turned himself toward her.

  Carol-Anne reached out her hand and started massaging his groin. She pulled the zipper and snaked her fingers through the hole. With her other hand she unbuckled his belt, undid the buttons, leaned forward as she felt the response in his erection.

  Her face was inches away from his thigh when she felt his hand on the back of her neck.

  ′Gently, gently,′ she said, but Errol didn′t seem to hear her. The grip on the back of her neck tightened.

  Carol-Anne tried to lift her head away from Errol′s crotch but the strength of his grip was far beyond her ability to fight back.

  Her legs were in the well of the passenger seat, and when she kicked out her feet they collided with the door. Instinctively she jerked her knees up and felt excruciating pain as they connected with the underside of the dash.

  ′Hey!′ she shouted, and that was all it took for Errol to jerk her head upwards, to grab her hair, to pull her right back until she felt the coldness of the window against her cheek, and then he had both hands around her neck, and the intense and unrelenting pressure of his thumbs as they were driven into her throat.

  Had she even dared to scream she could not have done.

  She felt her eyes swelling.

  Waves of darkness momentarily clouded her vision. She could see the blood behind her eyes as it tried to escape through the sockets.

  She gasped hysterically, but Errol maintained his grip, ever-tighter, until she felt as if his thumbs would meet his fingertips in the middle of her throat.

  She tried to raise her arms, but already her strength was diminishing. She managed to lift one hand, made her hand into a claw, fingernails ready to dig holes in Errol′s face, but he saw the movement, jerked her head toward him, and then slammed her back against the window. Unconsciousness was swift, but momentary, a brief black-out - that was all, for she opened her eyes and realized she was still alive. Errol′s face was inches from hers. He seemed unhurried, as if this was no more significant than buying coffee, and she could see he was smiling. Whatever thoughts he might have had were not evident on his face. He still looked kind, compassionate even, as if he believed he was doing something that was difficult, but nevertheless entirely necessary - as if someone had to do it, and it might as well be him.

  Had Carol-Anne Stowell been any stronger, had her immune system been any less devastated, had her muscles not been ravaged and her respiratory system so weakened, she might have survived a few moments longer. Regardless, she was no match for her attacker. His strength was far in excess of her own, and the certainty of his actions made it all too clear that there was no possibility in the world she would ever walk away.

  And so it was, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Twenty-seven years old. Not much of anything at all as far as a real life was concerned, and Carol-Anne Stowell gave up and stopped breathing. Maybe, in some small way, she might even have been relieved. Skag was nothing compared to dying. Dying had to be the biggest rush of all.

  SIXTEEN

  By the end of the late shift on Monday the New York Police Depart - ment, Seventh Pre
cinct Homicide Division, ably represented by Detective Eric Vincent, had very little at all.

  She was a hooker, no doubt about it, found just after six a.m. by a longshoreman down near Pier 67, a handful of yards from Twelfth Avenue. By seven-thirty they knew her name, had backtracked her movements to the edge of the theater district, and aside from a possible connection to a midnight blue sedan they had nothing at all. Eric Vincent questioned eight girls; five of them mentioned a guy in a car, slowing to ask them their age, nothing more. They had told him, he had questioned the veracity of their responses, they had answered truthfully, and he′d driven on. In their line of work it was not uncommon for a crawler to want a particular height, hair color, cup size. Age was a little different perhaps, but in this business even the strangest requests seemed normal after a while. A description? None of them had seen his face. The window had been lowered just enough for him to see them, ask the question, hear the answer.

  Carol-Anne Stowell had been strangled to death. Her body had been thrown off the pier and was found on the gravel embankment at the edge of the Hudson. She was lying on her left side in a semi-fetal position. She had on a pair of Calvin Klein denims which had been pulled down around her ankles and turned inside out. A white tank-top with red shoulder straps had been wrapped around her right wrist, and a pair of blue flip-flops were found nearby. Aside from the bruising on her throat, an abrasion on her knee and a swelling on the side of her head, a hank of hair had been torn from her scalp and her eyes had been removed. CSA came down, took pictures, collected items from the area, but the body had to be moved. The water was rising and whatever crime scene they might have had would soon be lost.

  Eric Vincent took what notes he could and informed the CSA that he would follow up on the autopsy. They parted company - Vincent and Carol-Anne Stowell - and he stood for a moment at the edge of Twelfth Avenue as the coroner′s wagon pulled away. It was not the missing eyes that bothered Vincent, nor the clump of hair torn from her head. It was the flip-flops. No-one went to work in flip-flops, especially not New York hookers, and that meant that someone had dressed her - pre- or postmortem. And if someone had dressed her then they were not dealing with an opportunist, or a guilty trick who couldn′t bear the thought of the girl telling someone what he had done to her. Nor were they dealing with her pimp, outraged at her decision to quit the business. No, they were dealing with premeditation and malice aforethought, with someone creative. And the creative ones were always and invariably the worst.

  Irving was late. Some guy, couldn′t have been more than twenty-five, had keeled over in Carnegie′s in an epileptic fit. Irving had helped, laid him in recovery, held people back from their claustrophobia-inducing curiosity, and waited for the ambulance. Kid was fine by the time they arrived, but they took him anyway. He′d thanked Irving without understanding what he was thanking him for.

  It was a little beyond ten when Irving checked in at the desk, and the desk sergeant - a man by the name of Sheridan - handed Irving a plain manila envelope.

  Irving raised his eyebrows. ′What′s this?′

  ′How the hell would I know? Some guy brought it in, handed it over. Asked him if he needed to see you and he said no. He went away. End of story.′

  ′Time was it?′

  ′Half an hour ago, forty minutes maybe.′

  Irving smiled, thanked Sheridan, opened up the envelope as he walked to his office.

  It took a couple of minutes for him to understand what he had there. Evidently the pages had been printed from some website. The link sequence was listed in the lower left-hand corner:Somewhere within the depths of solitary confinement in Sullivan Correctional Facility, Fallsburg, New York, exists a man called Arthur John Shawcross. His name comes from the Old English crede cruci, literally ′belief in the cross′ but nothing could have been further from the truth. Called ′The Monster of the Rivers′ by the media, Shawcross is believed to have been responsible for at least 53 homicides, though only 13 have been conclusively attributed to him. A juvenile sadist, a burglar, rapist, pedophile, shoplifter, school drop out, he was first arrested as a teenager in December 1963 for breaking into a Sears Roebuck store. He was not jailed, but given 18 months′ probation. By this time, little more than seventeen years old, he had developed certain idiosyncrasies and behavioral traits. He spoke in a high-pitched, childish voice. He employed a habit of walking ′cross-lots′, moving at a fast pace, arms swinging by his side as if marching in the school band, his body erect, his arms rigid, walking over anything that was in his way. Secretly he enjoyed the company of much younger children. He played with kids′ toys. He was accident-prone, knocked himself unconscious while pole-vaulting, was hit by a discus and suffered a hairline skull fracture, suffered electric shocks from faulty appliances, was hit by a sledgehammer, fell from a ladder, and was hospitalized after a truck collided with him in the street.

  Irving scanned through half a dozen paragraphs, and then a highlighted section a few pages further on caught his attention:Anne Marie Steffen, 27, was a heroin-addicted prostitute who started working to support her habit after her paralzyed sister died. By all accounts she was last seen alive on Lyell Street on Saturday, July 9th, 1988. From circumstantial evidence and Arthur Shawcross′s later testimony, it has been determined that Shawcross met Steffen by the Princess Restaurant on Lake Avenue, and then walked with her to an area behind the Young Mens′ Christian Association building. A little later he took her down to the Driving Park in his car, and during oral sex he strangled her. Once she was dead he pushed her body over the edge of the Genesee River Gorge. Anne Marie Steffen was found on her left-hand side in a fetal position, a pair of Calvin Klein jeans turned inside out and pulled down around her ankles. A white tank-top with red shoulder straps was tied around her wrist and a pair of blue flip-flops was located nearby, confirmed as having belonged to the victim. A large hank of hair had been torn from her scalp and her eyes were missing from their sockets.

  Irving picked up the phone, called the desk. ′Any female homicides booked last night?′ he asked Sheridan.

  ′Nothing so far . . . still haven′t had reports in from all units, but nothing I′m aware of. Why?′

  ′I think there might have been,′ Irving replied. ′I′ll check the inter-precinct bulletins.′

  Irving hung up, logged onto his computer.

  He found two dead - one at the Eleventh, another at the Seventh. The Eleventh was a middle-aged woman, fatal GSW, still waiting on the coroner to confirm suicide or homicide. The report from the Seventh was vague, but still sufficient for him to call them.

  When Irving spoke to the desk at the Seventh, he felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand to attention.

  ′We got a hooker, I think. Eric Vincent was on it . . . he might still be here, hang on a minute.′

  Irving waited, tension and a sense of unease in the base of his gut.

  ′Vincent.′

  ′Detective Vincent, this is Ray Irving from the Fourth.′

  ′What′s up? I′m on my way home.′

  ′Won′t take a minute. Just wanted some details on your homicide.′

  ′The hooker?′

  ′She was a hooker? You′re sure?′

  Irving could hear Vincent′s sardonic smile. ′Hell, Ray, if she wasn′t a hooker then she really had a problem with taking care of herself.′

  ′Where was she found?′

  ′Down off Pier 67 . . . why you asking?′

  ′Think I might have something on it, but wanted to check a few of the details.′

  ′Sure, sure . . . whaddya wanna know?′

  ′She was strangled?′

  ′Looked like it from the bruising on the throat. Either that or she was choked unconscious and then the drop from the pier broke her neck. Have to wait for the autopsy report.′

  ′And her clothes?′

  ′Her clothes?′

  ′Yes . . . how was she dressed?′

  Vincent paused.

  It was in that p
ause that Irving knew.

  ′Well, that′s the odd thing. From what we can tell she was out working, but she had on jeans and flip-flops—′

  Irving′s heart missed a beat, then another.

  ′And a tank-top, but that was wrapped around her wrist for some reason.′

  Irving swallowed. He took a deep breath. ′Twenty-seven years old, right? And her eyes were gone.′

  Vincent didn′t speak for a moment.

  ′Eric?′

  ′How the fuck do you know that?′ Vincent asked.

  ′Because I think it might be a serial,′ Irving replied.

  ′You have someone else with their eyes out?′

  ′No, but there′s a connection with some earlier cases.′

  ′So what′re you saying? You taking this one off me? Jeez, if you could do that I′d be real grateful.′

  ′I don′t know yet,′ Irving replied. ′I don′t know what I′m gonna do yet, I gotta speak to my captain, see if we can collaborate on this. You say you′re off shift now?′

  ′I got my kid′s birthday,′ he said. ′This is a big deal. This is something I can′t—′

  ′It′s okay. I′ll handle it,′ Irving replied. ′My captain′s gonna have to speak to the Chief. God knows how long this is gonna take, and whether or not anything will come of it . . . you know how these things are. You got a number where I can reach you?′

  Vincent gave Irving his cell number.

  ′What was her name?′ Irving asked.

  ′Carol-Anne Stowell.′

  ′And when was she found?′

  ′ ′Bout six this morning.′ Vincent inhaled audibly. ′This is freaky shit now, my friend. What the fuck is this?′

  ′I think whoever did this was looking for a particular type of girl of a very specific age.′

  ′Makes sense,′ Vincent replied. ′We talked to some girls and five of them mentioned a trick in a midnight blue sedan, asked their ages, drove away until he found Carol-Anne.′