The impressive surge of women’s advancement in police work over the last couple decades was well known to both of them, but they knew many higher ranking women in the force were at the commissioner level and other administrative posts within any department. The attraction to the power and the impact they could have as well as the ability to influence policy made such positions very alluring to most women officers. The number of women out in field in the positions of authority were smaller. The mere fact Diane was an exception to the trend made her an all the more attractive to Carly.
Trying to make sure she understood his question was one of respect rather than just idle curiosity, he added, “Detective work is a whole lot less glamorous and it just doesn’t hold the long range opportunities. What drew you to it?”
“You’re right, it isn’t very glamorous. Not like working out of the commissioner’s office. Nevertheless, I fought hard to make my way through the ranks. I got a lot of encouragement but that was always towards administration, like you said. Of course there were a few jerks who assumed any advancement I got was the result of some damn quota or affirmative action, but I came out of the academy first in my class.” Waving towards the citations and honors on the walls about them, she added, “I was a damn good street cop before I got my gold detective’s shield. When I became a detective it gave me the incentive to finish my degree, so I’d be able to move up, but not as a power broker but within the detective branch. I always wanted to solve crimes.”
“You know how that feels, don’t you?”
He nodded his assent. He knew exactly how that felt.
At ease in Carly’s presence, she slid out of her shoes and curled her legs under her as she settled into a large overstuffed chair opposite the sprawling ex-cop. Continuing in her warm almost throaty voice, which Carly found both soothing and sensual. “When I was a kid I looked up to my Dad. He was a cop, a great cop. He was on the force thirty years, the last fifteen as a detective. So that’s what I wanted to be. As I got older I started devouring all the mystery books, even the old ones, like the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie and such. Not to mention, Sherlock Holmes…. I love him. I was hooked, I didn’t want to just read about it, I want to live it.” With a warm smile she added with admiration, “…just like my Dad.”
Carly smiled, as this was a daughter who obviously loved her father.
“So when I got out of high school, there was only one choice for me. While the department was actively recruiting women and minorities, I made sure their desire to create more ‘diversity’ was one thing, while my professional advancement was another. Two years after I got my gold shield, I transferred to homicide and have been here ever since. I hadn’t found my niche; I had found my home. In time as positions came open, I got promoted. I made sure though no one could ever say it was because of any reason other than I was a helluva detective. I played fair, tried to fit in and let my police work speak for itself. As it sits, other than Chief Inspector, there is no other job on the force I would rather have. I love the puzzle. I love catching the bad guys.”
Staring out the window, she seemed almost embarrassed by this unusual bit of self-disclosure, at least it was unusual for her. Trying to make light of her ad hoc homily, she added, “Sounds pretty hokey doesn’t it?”
Carly admired her openness, as it put him completely at ease.“No it’s not hokey. I know how you feel; it was sort of the same for me. Although I found so much interest and intrigue in the psychology of it all. I wanted to know why these people were doing these things, what made them tick so differently from the rest of us. I wanted to catch them, so I could find out ‘the why’.”
Carly had entered the police academy a few years after high school, although his motivation had not been generational like Diane’s, but rather it was the sign of a young man looking for a niche. He had tried college but had become disinterested quickly. The military was not attractive to someone who had such an innately curious albeit a bit rebellious nature. After a few odd jobs, which he found mundane and boring, he tried the police force and found a career immediately. Once on the force the lure of a detective’s shield was strong. As it was with Diane, the idea of putting together the puzzle pieces was almost obsessive. With a goal in sight, Carly attended night school and got his degree in criminal psychology. Shortly after that he got his gold shield, started on a master’s degree, the “Crucifixion Killings’ case landed in his lap.
As Carly recalled his entry into the force Diane Edwards studied him in earnest, as she had felt the same attraction pulling her towards him, just as he felt the same about her. A career woman, she had not taken the personal time to develop a relationship to the point of marriage or anything close to it. As she aged, she doubted she ever would, but like she had in the past, she was not averse to some kind of relationship. Watching this tall lanky man speak, she liked the thought of seeing him socially. He was indeed a kindred spirit, self-effacing, articulate and handsome in a gruff sort of way. As he spoke, his story captivated her not so much because of its compelling nature, but rather because he was telling it.
Wrapping up his quick biography, Carly added, “After we put Dombrowski down, I got hurt on the job and had to take an early retirement.”
“Is that when you became a psychologist?”
“Yes. I used the time and the case as a springboard to my doctorate, actually.”
Admiringly she asked, “And the book after that?”
He lowered his eyes, not from embarrassment, but rather from the problems the notoriety of being a best-selling author had caused him. “Yes, the book came after the Ph.D. It propelled me into a full time career as a psychologist on a grand scale, but after I came down to earth, I got into teaching and direct therapy.”
“The book circuit didn’t set well with you?”
“It wasn’t that Diane,” he confessed. “I didn’t set well with the book circuit. I really didn’t handle all of it very well.” He laughed nervously as he admitted, “My fifteen minutes went to my head a bit.”
“And now?”
“I’m at a small school in northern Colorado. I teach. I get in a lot of clinical case work and speak at the occasional seminar and conference. It is a whole lot more satisfying.”
“More than police work?”
The pained expression on his face told her she had dug too far, and the only answer he could give would be: ‘No’.
“When Sully caught me in the hall today, I jumped at the chance to get in on a real case. So there’s your answer. I do miss it.”
Eager to change the subject and delve into the work, he asked, “So tell me, what do you want me to do?”
“What we want Carly, is to find out how much of a copycat our killer really is. We want to know how far will he go and what can we do to stop him. Is our killer, a Dombrowski wannabe? You tell us.”
“Tall order! You’ve read the book, there’s not much to add.”
“Yes there is. The book is a psychologist’s perspective. We want to hear the detective’s story. Case by case, tell us how you did the investigation. We want to know the details of the grunt work. What things aren’t in the book? What did your guy do differently than ours? What is the same? From what I remember Dombrowski would have killed at least twelve women had you not caught him.”
Carly interrupted to tell her, “Eighteen. We had reason to expect that many.”
Diane let out a low whistle, “Eighteen? We have four already. If we get any more like the last one, we are going to have a media circus on our hands. Remember, this is LaLa Land! Every nut case and crackpot will come out of the woodwork. Pretty soon someone is going to see the similarities with the Denver murders.”
Without the least bit of pride for his efforts regarding the horror he had experienced fifteen years ago, Carly confirmed what she feared, “They should, it was pretty unique.”
“Then things will get crazy,” she said in a voice tinged with anguish.
As they pondered a reality so uncomfor
table and frenzied, the quietness of the room was shattered as Sully burst in panting, out of breath. Carrying several files and the long awaited lunch, he settled in on the couch. As everyone began to eat he updated Carly on the specifics the Professor had asked about earlier.
“The lab indicated that in all four of the cases, the killer sodomized the victims first, then had regular intercourse, as each victim had traces of their own fecal matter in their vaginal canals. So he saved his orgasm for the regular sex. Obviously he didn’t wear a condom at any point in the assault.”
Catching his breath and a bite of sandwich, Sully continued, “As for marks on the first two victims, there weren’t any. However, there was a small cross or plus sign on the nape of the neck of the LAST victim. It was a true cut with a knife or razor. It wasn’t an ‘x’ but its close. It was small and hardly noticeable. It had not been on the initial reports but came out in the full autopsy. You can imagine how it was missed considering the victim was thrown from a roof with a hundred-pound beam tied to her. She had a lot of marks which were more prominent than a five or six millimeter mark.”
He slid several folders over to Carly, indicating the case work and lab reports were there in total, including the pictures of the victims taken at the crime scene and by the lab people later.”
Carly’s mind reeled with the information at hand, as he leafed through the files. “Thanks Sully. I will want to look at this later. Right now the Inspector wants me to go through the Denver murders from a detective’s perspective.”
Setting aside his sandwich, he tapped his memory for the details of another time and another place, almost he thought…another life. For the distance it covered in his memories, he was startled at how he could recall it with such clarity and detail. The impact it had on him had never gone away it seemed.
Chapter Four
Carly stopped talking and took a drink. He had been talking such a long time, the ice had actually watered down the flavor of the cola. He didn’t mind though as he was parched. He was amazed at the veritable flood of information he still had within himself regarding the Denver murders. It amazed his audience as well, so much so the number had actually swelled as he spoke to include a few other detectives under Diane’ command. He nodded towards the newcomers, recognizing their presence.
With his thirst satisfied, he continued without prompting. “As I talked to these old-timers, I got a much deeper history of the LoDo area than the first time I did the door-to-door canvas. Historically it had been a pretty rich enclave…a city virtually unto itself. While thoroughly American, their souls were still old Europe. It was small enough for everyone to know everyone else, yet large enough to be a formidable political entity in city politics. The general area had nearly seven thousand residents in its heyday. There were numerous shops, businesses, bars, a couple of theaters and such. The neighborhood was close knit and supported its own. The houses, though close together, had been well cared for and reflected the strong familial model these people lived. They kept the essence of the old country but rolled it into the New World opportunities. For these people the streets were really lined with gold.”
“In listening to the people I interviewed there seemed to be very little link between this LoDo group and horse racing, thus the tie-in to horse racing and the killer having been a jockey was lost as a theory. If anything a new angle had to be considered. The most significant forms of recreation for the Europeans were the traditional sports, card playing, and games of chance. The residents spent a lot of time boxing or following boxing, and the same held true for wrestling, baseball, and football. The East Coast teams like the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Giants had a strong contingent of followers as many of the LoDo residents had migrated west out of New York and New Jersey, or their parents had. Probably the largest interaction these people had with horses was in the slaughterhouses. A situation which was definitely not linked to the horse racing theory.”
From memories of the movies and books they had read, Carly’s audience could imagine the Old World atmosphere of LoDo as the Europeans built the neighborhood. On the whole, the people in old LoDo had been predominantly Catholic. Nearly every man, woman and child, had been Catholic. On occasion a few Jews also migrated to the area, but still Catholicism was the prevalent religion. Every Sunday the local community had trooped off to mass at St. Kashmir’s church. Friday evenings families attended the church fish fry and other festivities, while Saturday was reserved for weddings, baptisms and bingo. Through the week, most kids under the age of sixteen went to the parish schools, run by the Sisters of Mercy. The local hospital was operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The St. Vincent DePaul Society, a Catholic philanthropic charity offered those in need, a social safety net: giving away clothes, food stuffs, and an occasional month's rent for a family on hard times. If this area had a social service, the Catholic Church ran it. If this city within a city had a soul, the Catholic Church owned it. The bond between the people and the church was as strong and deep as their ethnic heritage.
Besides welcoming the company and the chance to talk about the 'good old days', the old-timers Carly spoke to, were quite helpful in painting the portrait of the early urban area. While he hadn’t learned anything specific about the murders, he did come away from those interviews with the gut feeling the killer wasn't Hispanic, nor was he a jockey, and mostly likely he probably didn't live in the LoDo area anymore. Carly was positive he might have lived there when he was a kid. Along with the strong Catholic background, Carly envisioned this group of broad shoulder people working and playing in the neighborhood. It was a perfect fit for the killer. He imagined a kid from hearty powerful stock, growing up Catholic in LoDo. The profile fit for a serial killer as well: white, a moderate level of education, and about the right age.
Explaining to the group of detectives huddled in the office, he told them how he made the leap from speculation to realization. “My only avenue for learning anything specific was to find someone who would know more about the children who grew up there. What I was looking for was someone, anyone that might explain why on earth a maniac was recreating a macabre Catholic ritual. The logical point to start was with the focal point of community life, the parish Church itself.”
His initial tour of the new parish weeks earlier, had put him in touch with the new pastor, Father Solano. So Carly contacted him again after the second round of interviews. The young priest had been there about six months, and didn't have much to offer in the way of a historical knowledge about the parish, or the former parishioners. The school had been closed a number of years earlier as the funds had just not been available. The people of ‘Sangre de Cristo’ parish did not have the money to support the necessary tuition. The St. Vincent DePaul Society was gone, it’s building vacant. A national for-profit corporation out of Atlanta now operated the hospital. The church itself was all that remained.
When Carly went back to see Father Solano, he had told the detective the only way to get real background on the area was to find one of the old priests or nuns from the original St. Kashmir’s. There weren't any old-timers left at the parish at all according to Father Solano, in fact he was the only cleric left at the parish. He was all the parish could afford any more, and then just barely. Using the local diocese office records, Carly located a former principal from the school living in a retirement home for the Sisters of Mercy back east in Michigan. He called the home and made arrangements for an interview. Within the week Carly was in Millville, Michigan to interview a Sister Mary Anastasia, formerly of St. Kashmir’s parish.
“It was a real stretch to have hoped a retired nun in Michigan might have had something for us, but the fact the brass allowed me to go tells you how far the department was ready to go just to grasp at any straw. The pressure on the team, the chief's office, the city administration was getting to be of such magnitude, another murder would have cost people their careers.” he explained.
Diane muttered just loud enough for the others, “Sounds fami
liar doesn't it? Around her, the detectives nodded in pained agreement. The pressure for them was becoming unbearable.
Carly shook his head in sympathy and continued his story, hopeful the others would find some solace in his past miseries, “Anyway, meeting Sister Anastacia was a great experience. What a character! She was an old Irish woman over ninety years old, full of fire and spunk, small and wiry. All those years of riding herd on thousands of grade school kids gave her a sassy strength which was truly amazing. If you can imagine, she actually corrected my posture as I sat talking with her.
“Straighten up young man,” she had told me. Despite her years, she was ramrod straight herself, she hadn't lost the proverbial step...physically or mentally.”
“The way she went on, one would have thought she had taught Moses when he was a boy. She had been at the St. Kashmir School for over thirty-five years. The first twenty years as a teacher then the last fifteen years as the principal, although she would had been more than willing to tell me she had deserved the promotion a whole lot earlier. Stunningly, she remembered every family, every kid, every priest, and every nun that had passed through St. Kashmir’s doors. As a historian she was truly spectacular...such an incredible resource! It was a shame no one had committed her story to the written word, it would have made a wonderful tale of the continued migration across America.”
Carly could still see in his mind’s eye, the small wizened figure, barely ninety pounds on a less than five-foot frame. She had grabbed his attention from the start and had not let it go. She never repeated herself or left him adrift in minutiae. She unveiled a history of her life back in Denver in bold clear strokes. After having listening to her for about an hour, and after she had told him all about St. Kashmir’s parish, it was hard for him to broach the subject of the murders with her. She had been so joyful in her reminiscing he had hated to bring up the subject. He didn’t want to taint the memory for her. He had never really told her why he had come, other than he had wanted to hear more about the early days of LoDo. She hadn't seemed to suspect his real intentions.
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