Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

“We’re sure it’s a male?” Olivia asked.

  Detective Lassiter saw that Sergeant Payne was rolling his eyes again.

  Why now? Why was that a stupid question?

  Oh, God, the sperm on her breast!

  That was a stupid question.

  Keep your mouth shut!

  “There was sperm on the body,” Amy said.

  Sergeant Payne was now shaking his head.

  “On the body,” Amy went on. “On her breast and face. None in the vagina, anus, or mouth. . . .”

  The bartender set a martini glass before each of the women. Amy took a sip.

  Olivia reached for the glass and picked it up.

  She glanced at Sergeant Payne. He was holding both his hands palms outward. The gesture was clear: I wash my hands of you.

  Fuck you again.

  I will drink this drink and I will keep my mouth shut.

  The drink had a strange, heavy, but not unpleasant taste. Something like a martini.

  “What do you think, Lassiter?” Coughlin asked.

  “Interesting,” Olivia said.

  “Don’t take more than two at one sitting,” Wohl said.

  “I won’t.”

  “I presume there were sufficient quantities of that bodily fluid for DNA?” Washington said.

  “Plenty,” Sergeant Payne and Detective D’Amata said at the same time.

  “I asked Dr. Mitchell to see if there was any saliva,” Amy said.

  “You think he licked her, Doc?” Slayberg asked.

  Was that a bona fide question, or homicide humor?

  “I think he may have spat on her,” Amy said. “If so, that would confirm my first guess about this man.”

  “Which is?” Washington asked, softly.

  “That he gets his satisfaction from the humiliation of his victims.”

  “Victims, plural?” Wohl asked. “You think he’s done this before?”

  “I think he has. For one thing, with the exception of killing the victim, which may have been—probably was—accidental, I think things went as he wanted them to go, as he planned them to go.”

  “Why do you say that?” Wohl asked.

  “Those plastic things he used to tie her to the bed. That and the knife. People don’t usually carry things like that around. He brought them to the apartment, intending to use them.”

  Wohl grunted agreement.

  “Let me put it this way,” Amy said. “Psychologically, this guy is the opposite of Isaac ‘Fort’ Festung.”

  Who the hell is that?

  “Fort Festung?” Coughlin asked, visibly surprised. “What’s his connection with this?”

  “Bear with me, Uncle Denny,” Amy said.

  “Your show, sweetheart,” Coughlin said. “Handle it any way you want.”

  “When I was at Martha Pekach’s party, she told me that David was upset because he’d gotten another postcard from Festung. I guess he’s been in my mind since then. He’s another interesting character, psychologically speaking.”

  “Harry,” D’Amata said, chuckling, “ ‘interesting character, psychologically speaking’ is doctor talk for miserable slimeball. ”

  Wohl chuckled. Amy smiled at D’Amata.

  Why do I know that if Inspector Wohl had said that, Amy would have snapped his head off?

  “How, Joe, and why did Festung kill that girl?” Amy asked.

  “Mary Elizabeth Shattack,” Coughlin furnished.

  “He beat her to death,” D’Amata said. “With his fists.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t like her?” Wohl asked, mock serious.

  “Screw you, Peter,” Amy said.

  “She left him,” D’Amata said. “He couldn’t take that.”

  “She was his possession,” Amy said. “And when she misbehaved—announcing she had found someone else—that was unacceptable behavior, and he punished her. Like you whack a dog with a newspaper when he poops on the carpet.”

  “Sweetheart,” Coughlin said, “you’re losing me.”

  “And then he stuffed her body in a trunk and just left it there,” Wohl said. “Where are you going with this, Amy?”

  “I believe the phrase you policemen use is modus operandi,” Amy said. “They’re different here.”

  “Explain that to me. I’m a little dense this time of night,” Wohl said.

  “Let me have a shot, if I may, Amy,” Washington said. “You are saying that Festung regarded Miss Shattack as something worthless that he could deal with—in this case, discard—in any way that pleased him at the moment. An empty cigarette package, so to speak.”

  “Right,” Amy said.

  “And the Williamson girl?” Matt asked.

  Amy ignored him.

  “Which suggests to me that Festung has an enormous ego,” she said.

  “Which would also explain the postcards,” Wohl said. “Festung is making the point with his postcards that he can do whatever he wants to do, and there’s nothing we can do about it. ‘We’ being the police, representing society.”

  She ignored him too.

  “Are you suggesting, Amy,” Washington asked, “that the Williamson girl was in some way important to her killer?”

  “I think that as Festung had this pathologically enormous ego, the man who killed the Williamson girl has a pathologically inadequate ego, which he has to buttress. I don’t think he intended to kill her or, possibly, even rape her. What he wanted, what he was driven to do, was humiliate her. He had to prove to himself that she was in his power.”

  No one responded.

  “Rape, generally speaking,” Amy went on, “is rarely to attain sexual gratification. The satisfaction comes from having the victim in your power, terrifying them, forcing them to do something they really don’t want to do, something that will humiliate them.”

  “The sperm on the victim’s face and breasts . . . ” Wohl said.

  “Precisely, Peter,” Amy said. “Breasts he exposed by cutting away her clothing with that enormous knife . . .”

  “. . . suggesting he masturbated, ejaculating on her face . . .”

  ". . . for the purpose of humiliation,” Amy finished for him. “I can think of nothing more humiliating for a young woman . . .”

  “Who was not a bimbo,” Olivia said.

  “. . . he believed to be a, quote, nice girl, unquote,” Amy said.

  Olivia had a quick mental image of herself tied naked to a bed while some sicko . . . did that . . . in her face. She felt a chill.

  She picked up her Doctor’s Irish Special and took a deep swallow without knowing she had done so until the whiskey began to warm her body.

  She sensed Matt’s eyes on her and glanced at him. This time she thought she saw understanding—maybe even a little sympathy—in his eyes.

  “You’re saying this guy is a real sicko,” D’Amata said. “I mean, we know he’s sick to start with, but . . .”

  “This man is driven, Joe,” Amy said. “And from the— what do I say?—practiced manner in which he did this—the plastic ties, the knife, the camera to capture the victim in her humiliation—I would be very surprised if this was his first victim.”

  “And you feel certain there will be others?” Washington asked.

  “That opens another unpleasant avenue of thought,” Amy said. “His reaction to her death. I don’t think he intended to kill her. But he did. The question then becomes whether the knowledge that he has taken a life is going to frighten him, possibly to the point where he will at least try not to let something like that happen again, or whether killing the Williamson girl gave him greater satisfaction than the previous incidents of humiliation ever gave him. And thus make him want to do it again?”

  “Jesus Christ!” Slayberg said.

  “So who do we look for, Concerned Citizen?” Wohl asked. “How do we find this guy?”

  “I don’t think he knew her,” Amy said. “I mean, I don’t think you’re going to find him by finding a rejected suitor. He may have known a
bout her . . . as Detective Lassiter said. . . .” She paused and looked and smiled at Olivia. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten your first name.”

  “Olivia.”

  “As Olivia said, the Williamson girl was not a ‘bimbo.’ Maybe that’s why this man selected her as his next victim. He may be a customer at some bar she went to . . .”

  “Halligan’s Pub,” Matt furnished.

  “. . . or someone at work, at church. I was about to say car wash, grocery store, but I don’t think so. I think this man is intelligent, which would tend to eliminate minimum-wage people. For that matter, he may be from Podunk, South Dakota, just passing through. . . . So, I have no idea where to look for him.”

  “Has anyone thought to ask Special Victims if they have jobs like this?” Coughlin asked.

  “I did,” Olivia said. “When Sergeant Payne and I were there printing the photographs. No, sir. They have had nothing like this.”

  “Accepting for the moment,” Washington said, “the doctor’s premise that this is not the first time this fellow has done something like this, and I think she’s right, and Sex Crimes—”

  “Special Victims, Jason,” Wohl interrupted.

  “To be sure. Special Victims,” Washington said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Thank you, Inspector, for the correction. The proper terminology is now burned indelibly in my memory. May I proceed?”

  “As long as you get the terminology right,” Wohl said, smiling, unabashed. “Correct terminology, as you have so often pointed out to me in the past, is very nearly as important as turning over the stone under the stone.”

  Coughlin chuckled. Hollaran, D’Amata, Slayberg, and Matt smiled.

  “A serpent’s tooth causes no greater pain than an ungrateful child,” Washington said, solemnly. “Or a once barely adequate Homicide detective who, realizing his inadequacies, left Homicide for the far less challenging arena of supervision, and then mocks his mentor.”

  “Commissioner,” Wohl said. “I think he’s talking about you.”

  “I thought he was talking about Frank,” Coughlin said.

  Now the suppressed laughter could not be contained.

  “Is there no one at this table except for Olivia and myself over the mental age of fourteen?” Amy demanded angrily.

  “Probably not, Doctor,” Washington said. “But I will nevertheless continue.”

  He waited until everyone was looking at him.

  “Despite serious doubts that any or all of you has the mental capacity to follow this reasoning, I submit the following possible scenario: In the presumption that this fellow (a) is everything Dr. Payne believes him to be and (b) has done something like this—possibly, probably, without fatal results—several times before, and inasmuch as we have no record of a similar modus operandi here. . . . Were they positive about having nothing similar at Special Victims, Olivia?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He called me by my first name.

  “The reasonable inference may be drawn that the previous incidents were in another large city.”

  “Why large city, Jason?” Coughlin asked.

  “I have added to Amy’s hypothesis (a) he is intelligent and (b) he was probably not known to the victim; that he stalked, so to speak, Miss Williamson because she represented the type of nice young female he wished to humiliate. His pool of potential victims would obviously be in proportion to the population of a city—”

  “And he would not be known in—could hide easier in—a large city not his hometown,” Wohl interjected.

  “Perhaps you did learn something from your mentor after all, Peter,” Washington said. “Say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Peter said. “Yes, I’d love another.”

  He signaled to the bartender for another round of drinks.

  “I will not rise to that,” Washington said. “You are not very bright, but you knew precisely what I meant.”

  “I want somebody here to be sober enough,” Coughlin said, “to check the NCIC database tonight, and maybe to send wires to every large—”

  “I’ve already checked with the FBI, Denny,” Washington said. “They have nothing. And I have very little faith in the efficacy of a teletype message to other police departments. They probably pay as little attention to them as we pay to theirs.”

  He met Coughlin’s eyes for a moment and then, when Coughlin said nothing, turned to Matt.

  “Sergeant Payne, I suggest that starting first thing in the morning, whenever she is not occupied with the Williamson family, you have Detective Lassiter make two telephone calls to every major city police department in the country. One to their Homicide bureau and the second to whatever they have elected to dub their sex crimes unit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “While you’re at it, Olivia,” Amy said, “get their fax numbers, and tell them you’re going to fax them the DNA makeup of this guy. If they have any unidentified rapists where the only positive identification factor is the DNA, they can run theirs against ours to see if there is a match.”

  “I didn’t know that really worked,” Olivia said. “We can really do that?”

  “Sure,” Amy said. “DNA markers are a series of unique, really unique, identifiers, according to scientific standards used around the world. No two are alike; they’re much more difficult—almost impossible—to challenge in court.”

  “And as my contribution to the general fund of knowledge,” Washington said, “let me add that two months ago, in federal court right here in Philadelphia, a defense lawyer successfully challenged the scientific validity of fingerprints—the admission thereof as evidence—arguing that the standards for fingerprint identification vary from state to state, and even other countries. I’m really glad Amy brought that up.”

  “Good thinking, honey,” Coughlin said.

  “That’s my big sister,” Matt said with mock pride.

  “And as for you, Sergeant Payne,” Washington said quickly, to keep Amy from replying to the sarcasm, “whenever you can tear yourself from the supervision of the other detectives working this investigation, it would be useful for you to lend Detective Lassiter a hand in that endeavor. Perhaps fortune will smile on us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  What he’s saying, Matt decided, is that the two people least likely to make any other substantial contribution to this investigation, Mother and me, will spend all day tomorrow—or for however long it takes—with a telephone stuck in our ears.

  Well, what the hell, sergeant or not, I am the rookie in Homicide, and that’s what rookies do, whatever jobs will release someone who knows what he’s doing to do it.

  Olivia thought: Well, however politely put, that was a kick in the teeth, wasn’t it, Sergeant Hotshot? You and the temporary employee from Northwest get to work the telephones, while the real detectives do their thing.

  And you really deserved a kick in the teeth to bring you down to size, so why do I feel sorry for you?

  The bartender began distributing drinks, starting with Doctor’s Specials for Dr. Payne and Detective Lassiter. She was surprised that the first martini glass was empty. She looked at the fresh one.

  I don’t need that. I don’t want that. I’m going to make a fool of myself.

  “How are you going to get home, Olivia?” Amy asked.

  “I’m riding with Matt . . . Sergeant Payne.”

  Like just now.

  “Are you all right to drive, Matt?” Amy asked.

  “Hey, fight with Peter all you want, but lay off me.”

  “I was thinking of Olivia,” Amy replied, “and what makes you think I’m fighting with Peter?”

  “Your claws are showing.”

  Washington stood up, holding his glass.

  “I am leaving before these adorable, loving siblings enter the violent stage,” he said. “But not before I take aboard sufficient liquid courage to face the unsheathed claws I fear I will myself find at home.”

  He took a healthy swallow of his drink.

  �
�You will drop by the lab, Frank?”

  “Just as soon as I drop the boss off,” Hollaran said.

  “I was going to say Frank could take Lassiter home,” Coughlin said, “but his going by the lab is important.” He looked at Matt. “You drive very carefully, Matt. I don’t want to hear on Phil’s Philly that you ran into a school bus.”

  “I’m all right, Uncle Denny,” Matt said.

  “Okay, Frank,” Coughlin said. “Let’s call it a night.”

  He stood up, finished his drink, and walked to the door. Hollaran followed him. Washington finished his drink and followed them.

  “What Slayberg and I are going to do tomorrow, Matt,” D’Amata said, “is run down the known acquaintances and ring some doorbells. If anything turns up, we’ll let you know.”

  “Fine,” Matt said.

  That was really nice of him, Olivia thought. He picked up on Matt getting kicked in the teeth and was trying to make him feel better.

  D’Amata and Slayberg left.

  “You want to go, Mother?” Matt asked.

  She stood up, picked up her glass, met his eyes, and drained it.

  He shook his head in resignation and gestured toward the door.

  “You were lucky in there, Mother,” Matt said when they were in the Porsche.

  “I’m not your Mother, goddamn it!”

  “You were lucky, Mother,” Matt went on, “that your mouth didn’t run away with you any more than it did. Nobody likes a drunken woman. Last warning.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “With the additional warning to never say that to me again, the conversation is closed, Detective Lassiter,” Matt said. “Now, where do you live?”

  “Take me to City Hall. I’ll take a taxi.”

  “Commissioner Coughlin ordered me to take you home. Answer the question, Detective Lassiter.”

  “The 100 Block of Orchard Lane,” she said, icily, after a moment. “It’s east of the North Philadelphia Airport. Take I-95, and get—”

  “I know where the North Philadelphia airport is.”

  Matt put the Porsche in gear and backed away from the curb.

  [TWO]

  “Take the next left, onto Knight’s Road,” Olivia said, as they were headed down Woodhaven Road.

  It was the first thing either of them had said since leaving Liberties.