Cold Day in Hell

by Richard Hawke

  Minutes later, Nikki was lying on the bed, faceup, with both wrists handcuffed to the bars of the antique wire headboard. Her V-neck sweater was bunched on the floor. The dog tag rested just between her perfect breasts. Fox was pulling off his shirt.

  “That skirt’s got to go, little girl. We’ve got to get that thing off you.”

  He picked up something shiny from beside the alarm clock as he climbed onto the bed. A pair of scissors. When he came down on top of her, Nikki imagined the warmth of her own torso melting him. Melting them both. Like hard rubber going soft. She imagined the two of them as warm melting liquid. That was it. Nothing but liquid. Everywhere. Warm liquid all over the damn place. Crazy with liquid.

  “Cut it,” she murmured into his ear, giving it a sharp bite. “Go ahead. Cut it.”

  22

  MEGAN STOOD in the drizzle at the base of the Obelisk and read the translation of the inscribed plaques.

  Ramesses, Beloved-of-Amun, who came forth

  from the womb in order to receive the crowns

  of Ra, who created him to be sole lord the

  Lord of the Two Lands…

  Okay, she thought. So we’re looking for Ramesses, beloved of Amun. This’ll be a piece of cake.

  The roof of the museum was visible beyond the trees. Megan’s dulled mind whirred. The rooftop garden. Mount an infrared camera. Bastard tries for number three, we nail him. She looked over at the sheet-covered body, and the bile rose in her throat. The canopy had been set up to protect the immediate crime scene from any additional rain intrusion. The scene’s likeness to a funeral was unavoidable. The body, the canopy, the world’s tallest gravestone. Megan’s new partner, Ryan Pope-a decent stand-in for the priest-was standing near the edge of the canopy, looking up at the tip of the Needle.

  Megan wanted to crawl into a hole and gather the loose dirt in behind her.

  A uniformed cop made his way to her. Raindrops beaded like balls of mercury on the protective plastic of his cap. “Found something you’ll want to see.”

  “Show me.”

  She followed the policeman down the slight slope north of the monument. A copse of cherry trees stood at the base of the slope, some twenty feet from the roadway. Another uniformed cop was crouched in an area where the branches of several trees created a low canopy.

  “We found tracks,” the cop said.

  “Tire tracks?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Megan gave the officer a sharp look. Old women were ma’ams. Old women and southerners. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Tell me about your tire tracks.”

  He pointed toward the roadway. “They come in over the curb. Looks like they stop where my partner is.”

  Megan nodded. “You mean where your partner is tromping all over the wet ground?”

  “No, ma’am. John’s the one who spotted the tracks right where he’s squatting. He hasn’t moved.”

  She looked at the cop again to make sure he wasn’t being a wise guy. “Tell your partner to stay where he is. I’ll send down the photographer. Make sure he gets everything.”

  “If we’re lucky, we might get some footprints leading up to the body.”

  “If we’re lucky, I’ll buy your partner a cigar.”

  “John doesn’t smoke, ma’am.”

  Megan started to respond, then changed her mind. She retraced her steps up the slope and directed the crime-scene photographer to go shoot the tracks. Pope asked her, “What’ve you got?”

  “Possibility our package was delivered by car. There’s a clump of trees down there just off the road. At night you could pull in there, your car’d be fairly hidden.”

  “No evidence last time of a car.”

  “The last time he also didn’t have a hammer and nail ready, either. Not to mention the knife to cut open her throat.”

  “He’s refining his method.”

  Megan shrugged. “Using more hardware. That’s not necessarily refining.”

  The ambulance had arrived to transport the body to the medical examiner’s office. Megan asked that the area beneath the canopy be cleared. At a signal from her, Ryan Pope pulled the sheet back from the victim’s face, paused, then removed it altogether. He stepped back as Megan came forward for a final look.

  The body was splayed on the ground on her back. The woman was petite. Maybe five-one. Long blond hair, clumps of which were saturated with blood. Her slender neck was a mess, the blood in the wound more black than red. Like a mass of insects, Megan thought. The victim appeared to have suffered several blows to the left side of her head, just above her ear. Her right arm was stretched out above her head, a pair of handcuffs attached to the wrist. Her left hand was resting on her chest, held in place by what looked to be a nail, hammered dead center.

  “Who’d you piss off, cutie?”

  Megan’s words were so soft they were barely discernible to Pope. She squatted next to the victim’s head and forced herself to gaze at the face. Perfect skin. White as wax. The large brown eyes were open, staring up at the underside of the canopy. Mascara ran from them like dark, blurred tears. A dozen sentiments crowded onto Megan’s tongue, but she forced them all to retreat. The revolving light of the silent ambulance was playing off the victim’s face, lending the illusion that there was some slight movement there. Megan closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer. Not so Pope could see, her hand dropped and she let her fingers trail lightly along the victim’s wrist.

  IT WAS LESS than an hour after getting back from the park that Megan overheard Brian McKinney starting in on Nicole Rossman. He was cracking a can of Pepsi at the door of the so-called lounge.

  “I hear we’ve got someone slashing blow-up dolls out in the park.”

  He was talking to Ryan Pope, but his comment was aimed for as large an audience as could hear him, Megan being the prime target. To say nothing in response was to hand him a simple victory. To bother responding was doing the same thing. Lose, lose. Story of her life these days.

  Megan said, “Better go check your locker, Brian. See if your doll is missing.”

  McKinney gave a deliberately slow reaction, a world-class lousy show of surprise. “Why, it is missing, Detective. But I thought you said you were going to return it last night after you were finished with it.”

  Calm, Megan thought. Inhale, exhale. McKinney went on, “I hear you caught yourself a real silicone special over at the Needle. Jackson ’s promised to share some of the shots he took on the scene. Bodacious. He swears he saw a pair just like them at Hooters the other night.”

  “Does your mother know you’re this cute?”

  McKinney leveled a finger at her. “Hey now, Lamby. Don’t go bringing my dear mother into this.”

  “The victim was somebody’s daughter, Brian. It might not hurt to keep that in mind.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Thank you for reminding me, sir.”

  Pope shot Megan a sympathetic look. She nodded tersely at the both of them and headed down the corridor toward Gallo’s office. As she rounded the corner, she heard McKinney ’s deliberate stage whisper: “Shake it now, Lamby chops.”

  Gallo was at his desk, reading the medical examiner’s preliminary report. He looked up as Megan entered his office. “I’m looking at a number here, Megan. You want to give me a name?”

  Megan dropped into the chair in front of Gallo’s desk. “Nicole Vanessa Rossman. Friends called her Nikki. Twenty-four. Single. Employed at the Tigress fragrance counter at Bloomingdale’s. Lived in a rental in Tribeca.”

  “Says here there’s evidence of recent sexual activity. Quote, not gentle, unquote. Do we think she was raped?”

  “Nothing at the scene takes us in either direction. If it was rape, the panties went back on before the gentleman moved on to his next order of business.”

  “Cynthia Blair wasn’t raped.”

  “That’s correct. However, both women were left at the base of a fairly obvious phallic symbol.”

 
Gallo’s eyebrows raised. “I hadn’t thought of that. They didn’t have cigars in their hands, too, by any chance, did they?”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “Sorry. It’s just not something I’d have thought of right away.”

  “Blame it on my therapy.”

  Gallo ran his hand lightly over his hair. “Okay. First thing’s obvious.”

  “Who was she seeing?”

  “Right. Boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Wanna-be boyfriend. Next-door neighbor with a peephole drilled into the wall.”

  “It should be so easy.”

  “And the other thing,” Gallo said. “Probably more important. The connection between Rossman and Blair. Were they friends? Did they frequent the same restaurants or bars or clubs? Maybe the same health club. What was it you said Nikki Rossman did? Sold perfume at Bloomingdale’s? See if Cynthia Blair had any of that perfume at her place. Somebody knew the two of them. That’s the triangulation we’ve got to make. We know we’re not talking about a copycat here. We haven’t released the information about Cynthia Blair’s hand being affixed to her chest.”

  “And so far, Jimmy Puck doesn’t seem to have gotten the word.”

  Gallo took a beat. “We both knew that Blair’s pregnancy was bound to come out sooner or later.”

  “It would have been nice if it had come from us. I mean officially.”

  “There’s a message for either of us to call Cynthia’s mother in Tucson,” Gallo said. “If it doesn’t make any difference to you, I’m going to make the call.”

  “ McKinney should make the fucking call,” Megan said pointedly.

  “You wouldn’t do that to the Blairs.”

  “No, I guess you’re right. You know, he’s already started, Joe. Just now I had to do a little dance with him about Nicole. For Christ’s sake, she’s practically still warm.”

  “No one ever accused McKinney of bucking for the Mr. Sensitivity merit badge.”

  “Let’s forget him,” Megan said. “I’m sorry I brought him up.”

  “Look, maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the word on Cynthia being pregnant will bring someone forward. Contacting every obstetrician in the city to see if they were seeing Blair hasn’t exactly been the lean-and-mean approach. It could prove to be a decent leak.”

  “Do you want to pin a badge on Jimmy Puck and make it official? This is our case. How about we control the flow of information? Well, forget it. It’s done. Cynthia’s going to be background noise anyway, now that there’s fresh blood. Nicole Rossman was a pretty little sexpot, to put it bluntly. I’m sure you know there’s already a pool on how many days in a row her photo will make front page of the Post.”

  “We need a connection between the two, and quick,” Gallo said. “If this is just random women…Well, how many random women do we have in Manhattan alone?” Gallo’s phone rang. He grabbed it. “Yeah? Okay. Tell them I’ll be right out.” He hung up the phone and straightened his tie. “Nicole Rossman’s parents are here.”

  Megan groaned. “Take a look through all those papers on your desk, Joe. I know my resignation is in there somewhere.”

  MEGAN CALLED a Thai restaurant for takeout. When the delivery guy showed up, she had to walk down the narrow steep stairs of her building to the first floor. One day the buzzer would work again, she just knew it. Josh had offered to fix it, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted the landlord to fix it, like he was supposed to do. Of all the battles a person might choose, Megan knew that this one was among the most ridiculous. She couldn’t explain clearly why she allowed her slovenly landlord to get under her skin. She could have opted to avoid him more often, work around him, call a truce, go on a charm offensive, ignore her apartment’s problems, any of a dozen options.

  That she chose to keep him as an object of her anger might have been amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. Josh had been the one to suggest that maybe it was because Helen had always been the one to square off against the landlord and that, in her absence, Megan was taking up the battle. When Josh had floated the theory, it had sounded too pat to Megan’s ear. Typical Josh-think. But as she reflected on it, she had seen the logic. She didn’t want to see it, but it was there and hard to deny.

  She paid for her pad thai, giving the delivery guy a good tip. On her way back up the steps, her toe caught a frayed pocket of the runner and she stumbled, almost falling to her knees. The blood rushed into her face. I’ll trip and fall down the steps and I’ll paralyze myself and I’ll sue that fat prick for every fucking cent he’s got.

  While eating her noodles in the small kitchen, Megan went through the two sets of crime-scene photographs. She laid them out on the tiled floor, Cynthia Blair on the left, Nicole Rossman on the right. The photographs covered nearly the entire floor. Forensics had determined that Cynthia Blair’s attack had taken place essentially where the body had been discovered, on the west side of the Obelisk, the side facing away from the park roadway. Apparently, Nikki’s attack had taken place elsewhere and she was transported to the site, presumably dead already. Tests were being run on the tire tracks that had been lifted from the wet ground. Megan had sent a team of investigators moving out in widening arcs from the Egyptian monument in search of more evidence of Nikki or her attacker, but by nightfall nothing of consequence had turned up. The teams were going to resume work tomorrow. However, the farther from the Obelisk the teams moved, the less certain Megan was that they would be turning up anything. Still, even notwithstanding the lack of the actual murder site and any evidence that might be gleaned from it, it was significant that whoever had carried out the attack on Nikki had moved the body so that it would be found exactly where Cynthia Blair had been found. Significant of what, Megan didn’t yet know.

  The photographs told her nothing she didn’t already know. One a choking with the victim’s own scarf, the other a bashed skull and a knife to the throat. Megan sat with her elbows planted on the kitchen table, scissoring the pad thai with the red lacquered chopsticks she had given Helen for some occasion she could no longer recall. Her eyes trolled back and forth along the sets of photographs. As she seared the photographs into her brain, Megan found value in trying to imagine the killer in the moment before he quit the scene. The crime-scene photographer had taken shots from nearly every angle. At least one of these angles had to approximate the view of the killer as he looked down on his handiwork. Megan rose from her chair and stood over the photographs, casting her own shadow on them.

  I’m the killer, she thought. I’m taking one last look at what I’ve done.

  She stepped carefully around the photographs of the two slain women, sampling the different angles. Clutching the chopsticks in her right fist, she assumed a sense of being heavier than she was. Taller. With her free hand, she pushed her hair off her face and held it there, clutching it tightly, using the hair to pull her head back, exposing her neck. She looked at a close-up of Nikki’s left hand. Two of her sculpted nails were broken off. Megan placed her own short fingernails against her neck and pressed. She imagined a heavy guttural breathing, sharp grunts as the knife worked its way from one side to the other. She lowered herself to her knees and stared at the open eyes of Nikki Rossman. Then it came to her. The utter loathing for the person who had done this, the person whose actions she was aping in the privacy of her small kitchen. Megan caught her breath. She placed the tips of the chopsticks against her abdomen and pressed them there. Softly at first but then harder. The chopsticks were pressing into her skin. They were hurting. Hurt him, she thought. Let him feel what it’s like. And not a quick slashing cut, either, but something slower and deliberate. Something meaningful. Her hand was beginning to tremble with the effort, and Megan closed her eyes, trying to picture the killer. Faceless. A face in shadow.

  Suddenly, as if a fork of lightning had ripped through her imagination, a face did appear. The Swede. Of course. The goddamn Swede. The broad brow. The large dull mouth. Him. She pressed the chopsticks even harder as she imagined Albert Stenborg
and his large, oafish smile. She wanted to see blood seeping its way out of the Swede’s mouth. She wanted to see his heavy blue eyes freeze in sudden bewilderment, followed by the awareness. Hands-on this time. Not from a distance. Not with a handgun. So much more meaningful this way. Megan imagined she could move as close to his face as she wished. Close enough to feel his foul breath. Close enough this time to see her own reflection in his eyes, and to see in them the last thing on earth the murderous bastard was ever going to see.

  Her.

  The chopsticks snapped. The broken ends fell lightly to the floor, landing on the photograph showing a close-up of Nikki Rossman’s hand. The one nailed into her heart. Megan opened her eyes and looked down at her own belly. A tiny pink strip. A quarter-inch cut. In the scheme of things, nothing. On her hands and knees, she gathered up the photographs of the two murder victims, squared off the pile and placed it reverently on the kitchen table. There was enough pad thai in the container for two people. Or for a second meal. Megan finished it off. She took a shower, got into her faded robe and took the photographs into the front room, where she spread them out again on the floor, this time in front of the couch. She poured herself a small glass of bourbon and got onto the couch.

  At twelve-thirty, Megan tried getting into bed. She made certain to drink several full glasses of water before she got under the sheets. There was a slight buzzing in her temples. She picked up the remote and turned on the television. Ever since Cynthia Blair’s murder, Megan had made it a habit to watch Midnight with Marshall Fox. She had never been a particularly huge fan of Fox, which she knew put her in the minority. She found his show oddly uneven. This one was a rerun. Megan realized that this was what she had tuned in tonight to find out. Was Marshall Fox going to stand up and make jokes in front of the entire country on the day when another young woman had been found murdered in nearly identical circumstances as his former producer? Megan was glad to see that the answer was no.