The next two days went by fast. By Saturday afternoon, Emma was either in my arms or on my lap whenever she had the chance, and it was like the way it had always been with us. With Stevie, we were closer to the old days—not quite there, but closer. I had them out of the house as much as I could, and in the evening Carl had the decency to find things to do in other rooms so I didn’t have to see him much other than in passing.
My plan was to leave at four AM Monday morning and drive straight to the precinct. Sunday night I was having trouble sleeping and ended up wandering into the kitchen around one in the morning. I was in the middle of making a grilled cheese sandwich when Cheryl walked in wearing a robe over her pajamas.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked.
I nodded. “Must be my guilty conscience,” I said.
She peered over my shoulder to see what I was making. “You want to make me one also?”
“Sure.”
I gave her the first grilled cheese sandwich when it was ready, then joined her at the kitchen table when the second was done. It was the first time we’d been alone together, not only that weekend but since she told me she was leaving me. We ate quietly at first but it was a comfortable quiet. When I looked at her she seemed relaxed in a way I hadn’t seen her be for several years. I’d forgotten how pretty she could be, especially when she was just out of bed with her hair down past her shoulders and no makeup on.
“You still make a mean grilled cheese sandwich,” she said.
“Yeah, I’ve had a lot of practice.”
She put down what was left of her sandwich and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Stan, I am sorry about how things ended up between us,” she said. “And I’m so sorry to hear about your mom.”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. I hadn’t told her about my mom’s series of strokes, but she still had friends in Brooklyn. Someone must’ve filled her in.
“How have you been, Cheryl?” I asked.
“Mostly good.”
“You don’t miss Brooklyn?”
She shook her head, her smile turning more wistful. “I’m glad to be out of there,” she said. “I’ve grown to appreciate the quiet and calm I’ve got here. I needed the slower pace of life, you know, Stan?”
I nodded again, in a way understanding the allure of her new life, although I think I’d go nuts living in the cow pasture of a town she had chosen. I didn’t want to upset this new-found peace we had slipped into, but a question was nagging on the back of my mind about whether she regretted giving up her dream of acting. Throughout our marriage she always had this frustration burning inside her about never getting her big break, and it was hard to believe that she was no longer auditioning for roles. Ever since I’d known her she’d been running to every audition she could, barely slowing down even when she was pregnant with Stevie and Emma. I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask her about it.
“I’m okay with it,” she said. “At some point you have to get realistic about things. If it didn’t happened after fifteen years of busting my ass, it wasn’t ever going to. But I’m doing community theater now, and I’m content with that. In fact, guess who’s going to be starring in our local production of Cabaret?”
“No idea.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, then broke into a self-conscious grin. “The play’s running the first week of April. Any interest in coming?”
“I’ll be there. You can count on it.”
If this had been four months ago she would’ve rolled her eyes, or made some snide comment about how much she counts on any of my promises. Now, though, she nodded as if she believed me. There was something else nagging at the back of my mind, something I had picked up on earlier over the weekend. I asked her how things were with Carl. She hesitated for a slight moment before telling me that they were good.
“You’d tell me if they weren’t?”
“Of course,” she said, but from the way her face hesitated for a second, I wasn’t so sure she would. “How about you, Stan?” she said. “You haven’t told me how you’ve been.”
I swallowed back the trite answer that I had planned earlier in case she asked me something like that and shrugged instead. I wasn’t going to tell her about Bambi, about us breaking up, but I mostly leveled with her.
“It’s been tough,” I said. “With you and the kids gone, and with my mom, and what Mike’s been going through.” I looked away from her, then added, “I don’t know. For the last couple of years I’ve been feeling like I’m only drifting along in life. I can’t quite get a handle on where I fit in or what I should be doing next.”
I could feel her staring at me, and when I looked back at her there was only genuine concern in her eyes. We just sat like that for several minutes, neither of us talking, but feeling a comfort with each other that we hadn’t felt in a long time. Cheryl broke the quiet first.
“Things will get better for you, Stan,” she said, a moistness clouding her eyes. “I know they will. And I’m glad you came this weekend. And I’m proud of you for the effort you’ve been making with Stevie and Emma since October.”
I heard some rustling behind me and turned to see Carl stumbling into the room, his eyes squinting badly against the kitchen light. “There you are,” he said to Cheryl, his voice raspy as if he had something stuck in his throat. He smiled awkwardly at me before turning back to his wife. “You coming back to bed?”
She nodded, mouthed the word sure, then followed him out of the room. I sat for several minutes collecting my thoughts. There didn’t seem to be any point in waiting until four in the morning; now seemed as good a time as any to drive back to Manhattan. I pushed myself to my feet and spent a few minutes looking in on Emma and Stevie. After that I packed up my suitcase and left.
Chapter 24
Monday, February 14, 2005
Hennison had had no luck that past Friday convincing Phillips to link Solinski’s murder with Gail Laurent’s and Paul Burke’s. Unless we had something concrete, Phillips wasn’t going to do it, which meant he wasn’t going to be bringing the task force back together and giving us the extra resources.
That morning we met with Jill Chandler and went over the details of James Solinski’s murder with her. She thought it was possible it was the same guy, but she didn’t have enough to say it was definitively so.
“How about saying it’s highly likely?” Hennison asked, barely controlling the exasperation in his voice.
“I can’t do that,” Jill said. “There are similar elements with this murder to the others—the type of knife that was used, cutting off several fingers, and the overall savagery of it—but this one was so much more so. What this murder speaks to is an uncontrollable rage. His gouging out the eyes of the victim is different also. It’s almost as if the killer couldn’t stand being looked at by his victim and had to destroy any vestige of it. While it wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out to be the same killer, it also wouldn’t surprise me if this was a completely different one and that the killer knew his victim and targeted him, or maybe even something that started off as a simple mugging.”
“This was never any mugging,” Hennison said, his voice strained. “And about it being someone who wanted Solinski dead, I’ve looked into that angle and there’s not much chance of it. Look, you wouldn’t be committing to anything, but you’d be doing us a solid if you could just use the two words highly likely in your report.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Unless you give me something more, I can’t do that.”
“Any idea why Solinski’s coat was taken?” I asked.
She smiled at me. It was a nice smile, warm, inviting. Earlier I had noticed her giving me an odd look, almost as if she knew what was going on in my life. Damn her profiling training!
“Who knows?” she said. “The killer might’ve needed a coat or just liked the cut of the material. Or maybe he was being careful, suspecting his own clothes were going to end up blood-splattered and he would need something to cover himself. Whatever the reason,
I wouldn’t put too much significance in it.”
“So we’re done here,” Hennison grumbled hastily as he got to his feet and made a quick exit out of the room. I shrugged, gave Jill a halfhearted smile by means of an apology for Hennison’s lack of tact, and followed him out of the room. On the way back to my desk I stopped off for some coffee. Jill Chandler joined me there.
“I’m really sorry I couldn’t help,” she said. “If you find anything else, give me a call and maybe I’ll feel better about connecting this murder with the ones back in October.”
“It sure seems like the same guy,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why wait almost four months between this murder and the others? And why change his method of killing? This could’ve started off as a mugging that turned into a brutal killing.”
“About why our guy could’ve waited four months, I think he was running scared after being spotted by Zachary Lynch. I’d bet he’s been hiding since then. I’d also bet he dumped his gun and knife and only recently rearmed himself. This last murder is just him picking up his story where he left off. And about this being a mugging that got out of hand, how many muggers cut off their victim’s fingers? Or stab them more than a hundred times?”
“Not too many,” she admitted, “but it’s possible that that’s what happened. And it’s possible we have the same killer at work, but without more to work with, I can’t say it’s anything more than a possibility.”
When she had walked into the meeting room earlier, she was all angles and hard lines. Now there was that same inviting softness about her. She hesitated for a moment and looked like she was going to ask me something, and I found myself hoping she would, but instead she only smiled pensively and told me she’d be in touch. I nodded and watched her walk away.
The rest of the day Hennison and I checked out some bum leads that came in from our informants. Since we also had to work the angle that the killing could’ve started off as a street mugging, we searched pawnshops throughout the five boroughs for the camel hair topcoat Solinski had been wearing, as well as shelters for any residents who appeared to have recently come into some money. We came up empty.
I took a break at six o’clock to call my kids and get some food. I wasn’t too eager to head back to the Y and ended up staying on the job until two in the morning. None of the leads I checked out went anywhere, not that I was overly optimistic that any of them would.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
The pretrial hearing for the two Russians was scheduled for ten in the morning. I arrived to the courthouse at nine thirty to meet with the prosecuting attorney. After talking with her, I waited until ten o’clock to enter the courtroom. The two Russians were there, both dressed conservatively in gray suits, and both still looking every inch like the thugs they both were. The thicker-bodied Russian—the one with his hair cut close to the scalp and the scarred face—glared blindly at me, his facial muscles unflinching. Looking at him, I couldn’t help thinking of a marble sculpture that had been nicked up. The thinner Russian had gotten a haircut. He stared straight ahead, ignoring me.
I was brought to the witness stand, and the prosecuting attorney had me tell what happened. Both Russians were being defended by the same lawyer, a short, square-looking man with a flat, pan-shaped face and maybe the thickest, bushiest eyebrows I’d ever seen. He made a show of approaching the witness stand, all the while glowering at me under those thick eyebrows. After loudly clearing his throat, he asked me in a booming voice wasn’t it true that I had failed to identify myself as a police officer.
“No, sir,” I said, squarely meeting his eyes. “The first thing I did when I approached your clients was to identify myself as a member of the NYPD, as well as show them my badge.”
That took him by surprise. He must’ve been told that I was going to be recanting my statement. He cleared his throat again, his stare losing a bit of its forcefulness, and asked if I was sure about that.
“Yes, sir. They both heard me and they both looked at my badge. Their response to me was for me to mind my own business.”
He had recovered enough from his surprise to launch into a series of questions trying to shake my version of the events. Once he realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere with it, he changed tactics and tried to suggest that Joel Cohen had hired me to plant guns on his clients. The prosecutor jumped at that, objecting strenuously to these allegations, and the judge sustained, refusing to allow that line of questioning without evidence. The defense attorney was stuck. My folder was clean, I had never been the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation, and he wasn’t going to be able to uncover any hidden bank accounts or unexplained money. Reluctantly, he gave up trying to impugn my testimony. Neither of his clients bothered taking the stand. The judge denied his motions to dismiss the charges, and a date was set for when the trial would begin.
Both of the Russians gave me dead-eyed stares as they got up to leave the courtroom. They were both out on bail. I didn’t like that, but the prosecutor told me she didn’t have enough to revoke their bail, even with the vague threat that I had received through Earl Buntz.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
The investigation for Solinski’s murder was going nowhere. We had no witnesses, no leads, and no prospects for getting any. Late that morning I had dug out all the paperwork for it, and was going through it sheet by sheet trying to divine some inspiration. When I looked over the customer list the restaurant manager had provided us, one of the names stopped me. James Longo. The name sounded so damn familiar. I knew I had seen it before. I dug out my notes from Gail Laurent’s murder and had to smile when I realized where I had seen that name. He was the guy who owned the bookstore right outside where Gail Laurent had been murdered. I read over what he had told me—how he had frozen up after the gunshots so the killer was already gone by the time he looked outside—and felt my smile tighten across my face.
I looked over the tenant list for the apartment building where Paul Burke’s body was found and couldn’t find Longo’s name on it. We were going to have to question all the tenants again to see if any of them knew him. I felt it was a long shot, but I called the apartment building and asked the manager there whether James Longo had ever lived there. He didn’t even have to look it up. He remembered that Longo had moved out of the building September thirtieth. I hung up the phone and sat thinking how convincingly that sonofabitch had lied to me, and how I bought it.
Christ, I wanted to kick myself for not getting a search warrant for that bookstore. It made sense in so many ways. It explained why the killer was conveniently out of sight by the time Longo looked outside his shop, and why we couldn’t find any witnesses seeing anyone arriving or leaving the murder scene in a Mets sweatshirt. I thought of how Zachary described the killer’s spiritual essence resembling that of a ferocious wolf, and as I pictured Longo with his stooped shoulders and hunched back and his lanky body I could see the wolf in him. It also fit with Jill Chandler’s profile; what I took as Longo’s haughtiness could’ve easily been narcissism. After selling so many other people’s stories, the sonofabitch wanted to tell one of his own.
I called Longo’s bookstore and was told that he had left on a personal errand and wouldn’t be back until three o’clock. I considered telling Hennison about Longo, but instead called Lynch. I told him I had someone for him to look at.
“Is this another wild goose chase, or do you really believe this person is the killer?” he asked.
“Zach, this time it’s real. I have good reason to think he’s our guy.”
There was a long hesitation on his end, then, “Will this be safe for me?”
“It will be safe.”
Very softly then, “Okay.”
I could hear the fear in his voice. It was only a few minutes before eleven, and I didn’t want him sitting around for hours making himself sick with fear. I told him I’d bring lunch over after I saw a judge about a search warrant, and would explain more when I saw him.
/>
I took out my cell phone and checked the time again. It was three fifteen. We’d been camped out across the street from the bookstore since two thirty and still no sign of Longo. Lynch sat rigid, his color a sickly milk-white, his face frozen in the type of expression you might see on a bad actor in a very bad horror movie. I could just about smell the anxiety coming off him like cologne. I called the bookstore, and when I recognized James Longo’s stilted voice answering the phone, I asked what their hours were and hung up. Damn, he must’ve slipped in the back door. I was hoping Lynch would be able to see him from the safety of the car and not have to be brought up so that Longo could see him also. Swearing softly to myself, I put the phone away. It couldn’t be helped, I had to bring Lynch into the store.
I turned to Lynch. “He’s in there. Let’s go.”
He gave me a dazed look before collecting himself and nodding in a harsh, almost violent fashion. We both left the car, and as we walked across the street and up the steps to the bookstore, I told Lynch all I wanted him to do was get a look at Longo, tell me whether he was the killer, then leave the store and wait for me by the car. He nodded in response. I doubted at that moment whether he was capable of speech.
We walked into the store. There were a half dozen customers milling about, one employee stacking books, another at the cash register, but no James Longo. I moved deeper into the store and spotted Longo making his way in from a back room, his arms loaded with books. Lynch, who was standing just behind me, gasped, then squeaked out, “That’s the killer!”
James Longo’s appearance was similar to the last time I’d seen him; same tweed jacket with the leather patches, same trousers, his long hair giving him a shaggy appearance. I could see something almost feral in him now, and I moved quickly toward him. When he looked up and saw me he became startled and dropped the books he was carrying. From behind me I heard Lynch screaming, “What are you doing? What are you doing?”
A Killer's Essence Page 20
