“Hell if I know,” I answered back.
Something about my tone warned him he’d better drop the subject. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him elbowing his buddy on the other side of him, and then heard him as he told his buddy about me having those tickets. I felt my hands clenching into fists, but he was smart enough to avoid any further direct conversation with me, and his buddy sensed that he’d better keep his mouth shut also.
* * *
The game ended up being a nineteen-to-eight slaughter. While the rest of the bar whooped it up and celebrated, I sank deeper into my thoughts. I tried to justify how things had turned out by telling myself that it would’ve been worse with Stevie if I had taken him to the game—that with his team taking the beating that they did, he would’ve ended up resenting me all the more, and that Emma would’ve only gotten bored and cold being up that late at a baseball game. Of course I knew I was full of shit, but I tried convincing myself of it anyway.
It was three thirty in the morning before I worked up the strength to head back to my apartment. When I opened my apartment door and walked in I nearly fell over a suitcase of Bambi’s that she’d left in front of the doorway. After simultaneously cursing her out and regaining my footing, I stood still until I could hear her tossing around in the bedroom, then stood even stiller until I heard her snoring and knew that she was asleep.
I turned on the lights to see that there were two more of her suitcases in the living room, as well as a small wall of boxes left stacked up next to the TV. An empty highball glass also lay on the floor alongside the sofa. From the sound of her breathing I knew there’d be a mess in the kitchen. I picked up the glass and brought it into the kitchen. A tequila bottle that was one third empty sat open on the countertop, as well as a bottle of grenadine. I screwed the tops on both of them and put them away, then tossed what was left of some limes down the disposal and washed out the glass. After I was done wiping off the countertop I turned off the lights and went back into the living room.
As tired as I felt I knew I’d only be tossing and turning all night with the thoughts that were buzzing through my mind. This was going to make three straight nights with little or no sleep, but that was the way it was going to be. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, right? I made my way over to my recliner, deciding it was best to just let Bambi sleep alone in the bed. I just didn’t have the strength to deal with her right then.
I sat in the dark and thought about all the wrong turns I’d made over the last few years. Cheryl hadn’t made things any easier by moving to Rhode Island, and I wasn’t kidding Mike when I had told him how she’d probably move again if I followed her there—I knew her well enough to know there was a good chance that’s what she would’ve done. Still, though, this was on me. That night after I left Mike I had promised myself I would visit my kids every weekend, and how had that worked out? Over the last seven months, I’d driven up to Cumberland five times. With each visit I only felt the distance between me and my kids growing. It killed me during my last drive up to see how close my kids had gotten to Cheryl’s new husband, Carl, and it took every bit of resolve I had not to punch his lights out when he gave me that look of pity and disappointment over how Stevie and Emma were so standoffish with me.
For a while I sat and wondered how much damage had already been done and whether it was at all salvageable. I couldn’t help laughing as I thought about how the night had gone—how I had spent three thousand dollars only to end up jeopardizing my job and at the same time ruining any chance of a relationship I might still’ve had with my kids. After a while I just felt too damn tired to do much of anything other than close my eyes, my mind shutting down on me.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
An early morning sunlight filtered in through the windows, leaving the room a murky gray. I stared bleary-eyed at my watch until I could make out that it was a quarter past five. I decided I had enough self-pity for one night. It was about time to do something constructive, or at least try to, anyway.
I forced myself to focus back on the case and the two murders, about what the sequence of events must’ve been. Of course, I didn’t even know if I was still on the case. After walking out of the meeting the way I did, it wouldn’t surprise me if Phillips reassigned me to something else—a low-level B&E, or maybe a mugging, or something that would feel like a slap in the face. And that would only be if he wasn’t filing insubordination charges and trying to get me bounced from the department. I didn’t think he’d get anywhere if he tried, not with Joe Ramirez covering my back, but I wouldn’t put it past him to put me through the ordeal.
I waited until six o’clock to get a change of clothing out of the bedroom. Bambi was still dead to the world and making the same labored breathing sounds she always made after having one too many the night before. I took a quick shower, dressed in a suit and tie that would be appropriate for a funeral, and left the apartment without waking Bambi.
Chapter 12
First thing, I investigated the Upper West Side address where the second body was found. An alley ran behind the apartment building making it easy for someone to park as close as thirty feet from the building’s dumpsters. If the body was wrapped in plastic, one person would’ve been able to drag it over easily enough.
The dumpster that the body had been left in was closest to the alley, and was four feet high, opening at the top. According to the initial medical examiner’s report, the victim was five foot eight inches tall and a hundred and sixty-four pounds. Two men would be able to get the body inside that dumpster fast and easy; one person would be able to do it if he could lift the body high enough so it leaned over the edge of the dumpster. Then it would just be a matter of lifting the body up until it fell in. Forensics wasn’t able to find any of the victim’s blood on the outside of the dumpster, so the perp either washed down the container walls with chemicals or, more likely, kept the victim wrapped in plastic until he had it in the dumpster, then went in after it to remove the plastic wrapping and cover the body with enough garbage to hide it from sight.
I walked back to the part of the alley where the perp had most likely parked and, while timing it, played out in my mind how the disposal of the body would’ve taken place. One person could’ve managed it in less than three minutes, and if it was done between one and four in the morning, that would explain why he wasn’t spotted. The perp must’ve known about the dumpster and the easy access to it before the killing. Maybe he lived here once, or had a friend or relative who did, or maybe he spent time searching out locations. Hell, he could even have worked for the waste disposal company that serviced the building. These murders weren’t spur of the moment. The killer spent time planning them, both the sequence of the murders and the signature he left us. He orchestrated Gail Laurent’s murder to leave us wondering whether it was a brutal street killing or something else, knowing that once we found the second body we’d have our answer that we were dealing with something more ominous.
I walked through the alley slowly as I searched it, then circled around the building trying to get a sense of anything that could help us. I came up empty. After that I talked with the doorman. His shift ran from midnight to eight, so he would’ve been working when the body was dumped. A detective from the precinct had already interviewed him—from the doorman’s description it must’ve been Jack Hennison. He hadn’t seen or heard anything that night, and didn’t remember anyone suspicious hanging around the building beforehand. There were security cameras on both sides of the building, but they wouldn’t have captured the dumpster, and even if they did, the tapes were rotated after twenty-four hours so Wednesday’s tapes were already history.
The doorman took a sip of the coffee I had brought him, then to lighten the mood asked, “How about that game the other night? Nineteen to eight, damn. Those Yankees are something else, huh? Steamrolling right over those Red Sux.”
I wasn’t in any mood to trade small talk about the game. I nodded and walked away, probably leaving him th
inking I was one of the legion of masochistic Red Sox fans.
I turned my cell phone on to listen to Phillips’s message from the other day. It was about what I expected: him warning me to get my ass back up there or face disciplinary actions. There were other messages waiting for me also. Agent Jill Chandler—the FBI profiler who had reminded me so much of Helen Hunt—had called two hours after Phillips. She wanted to talk with me on Sunday if possible to pick my brains on any thoughts or feelings I might have about the case. Bambi also left several messages. She called first at seven thirty to tell me that she was back at the apartment and wanted to know when I’d be there. She sounded timid in her message, maybe even a bit vulnerable, and told me she was going to be making us tequila sunrises. After that she left another message at nine, and a third one an hour later. I guess she had gotten tired of waiting because with each successive call her voice showed more of the effects of the tequila. The last message waiting for me was from Cheryl. She had called after midnight. Her voice was so strained I could barely hear her. She wanted to let me know how sick she was of how I was treating our kids, and how she was going to see her lawyer about changing our agreement—that as far as she was concerned all I was doing was damaging both Emma and Stevie, and that I deserved no further contact with them.
I replayed that last message several times and stood motionless as I listened to it. A slow simmer of anger burned inside, and I could feel the heat of it rising up my neck. Some of my anger was at her; most of it, though, was directed at myself. For several minutes I didn’t trust myself to move. When I did I decided to take my anger out on Phillips. He was going to threaten me with a disciplinary hearing for wanting to see my kids on my day off? Fuck him. My hands shook as I called his home number. It was a quarter past seven on a Sunday morning. I knew he’d be asleep, and when he answered the phone I could hear the grogginess in his voice. I could also hear his wife next to him complaining about being woken up.
“Who’s this?” he croaked.
“Detective Green.”
“Wha—? Chrissakes, what are you calling for this early on a Sunday morning?”
“I got your message from yesterday,” I said, my teeth clenched to the point where my jaw ached. “I want to know if you’re planning to file disciplinary charges against me.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? You’re waking me up on a Sunday morning to ask me that?”
“That’s right. I’m working on the case right now, and I’ve got Jill Chandler at the FBI wanting to meet with me, and Gail Laurent’s funeral later this afternoon. If I’ve got my shift captain trying to put me out on the street, then I don’t see much point in doing any of that, especially on my day off.”
I stood listening to Phillips’s ragged breathing over the phone. He told me in a tight, barely controlled voice that he wasn’t going to be putting me up for disciplinary actions, that Joe Ramirez explained the situation to him later.
“Hennison’s been made lead detective for these murders,” he added. “You’re still assigned to the case, and I still want your best effort on it. I also don’t want you ever calling me again this early on a Sunday morning for something like this. Understood?”
“Captain, if you’re going to leave that type of message on my cell, you should expect me calling to clarify the situation.”
He hung up on me.
The call helped. I could breathe easier, some of the pressure building up in my chest having been released. I found a diner near Union Square and had a breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes, and after lingering a bit over the coffee I headed to St. Vincent’s to visit Rich. He looked more shriveled than he had even the other day and there was something not quite right about his eyes, and he also kept pressing a button to increase his morphine dosage. We traded a few good-natured cracks about each other’s appearance, but it seemed forced on both our parts. I told him about the second murder and that interested him until the morphine took effect and he drifted off. I waited for him to wake up, but when he did he was too drowsy to do much more than keep his eyes half-opened. I promised him I’d bring a Toscone sausage sandwich next time I saw him, and that barely sparked a smile from him.
After leaving St. Vincent’s I went to the precinct. Jack Hennison was there, which surprised me since he usually made Sundays off-limits. He looked like he hadn’t slept much the night before with thick grayish bags under his eyes and an unhealthy pallor to his skin. Of course, he was probably noticing the same about me. He pulled a chair up to my desk and, after perching on it like a hawk, told me about him being made the lead for the case. I could tell he was trying to gauge my reaction to that, and I told him it didn’t much matter to me, which was mostly true. Hennison was a solid detective, and I doubted he’d do anything to get in the way of the investigation.
He had brought a file with him and, while consulting it, filled me in on what they had discovered since the meeting the other day. The victim had been identified as Paul Burke. He was thirty-one, lived alone in a co-op apartment in the West Village, and worked as a financial analyst for one of the Wall Street firms. The last anyone saw of him was midnight when he left his office. They were concerned about him at work when he didn’t show up Wednesday morning, and his boss had called the police then and again on Thursday and Friday, convinced that something must’ve happened to him, that only death or a serious injury would’ve kept him out of the office. Hennison showed me a photo of the victim taken recently at a company event. He was a good-looking man—athletic, strong chin, with dimples showing in his cheeks as he smiled for the camera. It would have been near impossible to match that photo with what had been left in the dumpster. So far no connection had been found between the two victims.
“Gail Laurent’s husband was a financial analyst,” I said.
Hennison’s eyes glazed as he stared at me. “Yeah, so?” he said. “So are probably fifty thousand other people who work in New York. They worked for different firms. The daughter didn’t recognize Burke’s name. There’s no connection.”
“I was just pointing it out,” I said. “Did you find where he was killed?”
“We’re still looking.”
“You search his apartment yet?”
Hennison made a face at that question, not bothering to mention the obvious, that not only had they searched it but had found nothing helpful. After waiting for him to answer me and getting annoyed that he wasn’t going to, I asked whether there was any chance Burke was murdered there.
He scowled at the idea. “None. They have a doorman, and the guy didn’t see Burke come home Tuesday night. Forensics went over his apartment and found nothing, no blood traces, no gunpowder residue, no recent heavy cleaning. Zero footprints that a shooting could’ve happened there.”
“You check whether his mail was picked up?”
“Yeah, it hasn’t been since last Monday. I’m telling you, the guy never made it home Tuesday night.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“You’re fucking right I’ve been.”
An obvious thought stopped me. “Burke didn’t have a girlfriend, did he?” I asked.
Hennison understood the ramification of that—because if the guy did, why didn’t she get worried about him being missing and call us. He shook his head. “No sign of one from his apartment. According to his buddies at work he was straight but too much of a workaholic to get involved in a relationship. Instead, he was into hookups. Quick, easy sex. Supposedly he was pretty active.” A thin smile replaced the scowl on Hennison’s face, and it tightened to the point where it looked etched on. “It’s going to be a pain in the ass tracking down all his partners. His buddies gave us some club names, but that’s all we’ve got right now until the FBI can crack into his laptop. The guy had to password-protect the damn thing up the wazoo.”
My gut was still that both murders were the random work of a psychopath, and I told Hennison that. “It’s not going to help knowing who Burke’s been in bed with. He worked on Wall Street, lived
in the Village. What’s going to help is knowing why his body was dumped where it was on the Upper West Side.”
“Ramirez told me your theory,” Hennison said. “I don’t know if I buy it yet. If this guy was hopping around from bed to bed as much as it sounds like, we’ve got a lot of potential boyfriends and exes we’re going to have to look at. Laurent’s murder could’ve been done for no other reason than to confuse us about this one.”
“Jack, take another look at Gail Laurent’s crime scene photos. Tell me this guy wasn’t getting off on what he did.”
“I’ve seen them,” he said. “And I’m not convinced of that.” He gave me a cautious look. “Ramirez told me you were planning to go to Laurent’s funeral today. You still doing that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Just asking.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Jack. I’m happy you’re the lead on this. I don’t need the headache right now. And yes, I’m going to the funeral and I’ll be bringing Zachary Lynch with me. He claims if the killer shows up he’ll be able to recognize him.”
“Fuck,” Hennison said, his face reddening at the thought of Lynch. “If this guy wasn’t loony tunes, we’d be somewhere right now instead of wandering around with our heads up our asses. I’m putting together lists of people we need interviewed. When you’re done with the funeral, if you want more overtime today see me. I’ll be living here until we get somewhere with these murders.”
I told him I’d probably take him up on that. He gave me a tired nod, his expression softening.
“I’m glad you’re taking this the right way,” he said. “I had nothing to do with me being made lead. Phillips has his reasons, whatever the fuck they are, but you know I wouldn’t screw over a fellow Brooklyn guy.”
I couldn’t help smiling over that comment. Yeah, we were both from Brooklyn, but he grew up in the Williamsburg area, which was a different world as far as Flatbush went. As a kid growing up, the only thing I remembered about kids from Williamsburg was that whenever I ran into one I would always seem to end up in a fist fight—usually the other kid’s decision, not mine. I doubted any of them would lose sleep from screwing over a guy from Flatbush.
A Killer's Essence Page 9
