"Yes."
"Do you have proof?"
"I will have, when you want to go press with this."
"Which is not yet… right?"
"You can't go to press with anything I've told you, but you will be able to after you talk to the Lover."
"Jesus," O'Donnell said excitedly, "he really is going to call me?"
"He is."
"Why?"
"It's very important to him that people don't think he's having sex with high school girls."
"And killing them."
"After I told him I thought he should call a newspaperman, he said, and I quote, 'I am not a pervert; I would not have sex with high school girls.' Apparently, he's not worried about people thinking he killed them, just that he had sex with them."
"This is a sick bastard."
"Yes, but an educated one. He sounds like he could be a teacher."
"And he's gonna call me," O'Donnell added proudly.
"Well, after I told him to call you, he asked me what paper you wrote for."
"He didn't recognize my name?" O'Donnell asked sadly.
"No," Keough said, "apparently he doesn't read the Post. He, uh, asked if I didn't know somebody at the Times."
"And you told him to get fucked, right?"
"Something like that."
"Jesus, I can't believe this. Do you know what kind of story this will be? This is Pulitzer stuff."
"Not to mention the book you could get out of it."
"Hell yes. Well, when is he gonna call?"
"If he calls, it will be this week."
"If he calls?" O'Donnell asked. "I thought it was all set?"
"He has your name and number, Mike, but whether or not he calls is up to him."
"Jesus, what if he doesn't call?"
"He'll call."
"How can you be so sure?"
"He wants everyone to know that he's not killing in Brooklyn. He'll call."
"What if he calls some jerk at the Times?"
"I talked you up."
"What if he doesn't take your word for it?"
"It's funny."
"What is?"
"I really thought we hit it off, you know? He seemed to know what I was up against, and he sympathized. He said he'd often come up against the same sort of thing in his business."
"And what business was that?"
"I didn't ask."
"Why the hell not?"
Keough studied O'Donnell for a few moments before speaking.
"Mike, I think you're going to have to handle this guy a certain way so he doesn't hang up on you."
"I've done interviews before, Joe."
"Not like this," Keough said, "and that's my point. This is not an interview I've set up. You can't start asking him a lot of questions. If you do, you'll lose him."
"What am I supposed to do, then?"
"Just listen to him," Keough said. "He wants to tell his side of this Brooklyn thing."
"There's something I don't think you've thought of," the newspaperman said.
"What's that?"
"I'm going to have to call the task force before I run with this. I'll need to have a statement from the commander-what's his name?"
"Lt. Dan Slovecky."
O'Donnell wrote the name in his notebook.
"He's going to deny everything," Keough said.
"That's okay," O'Donnell said. "I just have to hear his side and cover it-but that's not what I was talking about. I meant you."
"What about me?"
"You're gonna get into a lot of trouble over this. You're gonna get jammed up; that's what's gonna happen."
"I'll worry about that."
"Do you want me to check in with you when he calls?"
"No, just print it, Mike."
"You want this guy bad, don't you?"
"The Lover?" Keough shook his head. "I care about him the least in all of this. Oh sure, I want him caught before he kills again, but he's really the least of my worries. I want Swann's killer, and I want the department to recognize that there's someone else at work in Brooklyn. That's the guy I want to catch. He's a sicko."
"And this guy isn't?"
Keough sat back in his chair.
"Let me see if I can explain this."
"Wait, wait," O'Donnell said, taking out his notebook again. "You mind if I take this down for the book?"
Keough thought a moment, then said, "Why the hell not. If I lose my job after all this, I can do talk shows."
O'Donnell found a clean page and said, "Okay, shoot. You were gonna tell me why the guy in Brooklyn is a sicko and the guy in Manhattan's not."
"Don't get me wrong, Mike. The Lover is a killer; he's just not a sicko. I mean, they're both crazy, but the Lover isn't… mad. Am I making sense?"
"No," O'Donnell said, "but I'm taking it all down, anyway. Keep going."
"It's just that the Lover sounded so educated on the phone, and so hurt that people would think he was raping high school girls. Hell, he even removed the thorns from the roses he… Jesus…"
"What?"
Keough put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.
"I was just going to say he removed the thorns from the roses he inserted in his victims' vaginas. Christ, Mike, do I even know what I'm talking about? What kind of man does that, and I'm making excuses for him?"
"Hey, hey." O'Donnell reached across the table with real concern in his voice. "Don't start comin' down on yourself, Joe. If you're right about this, you're doing a lot of good by taking two killers off the streets."
"Maybe."
"No maybes. Besides, I know what you're tryin' to say."
"You do? Then tell me."
"This Brooklyn guy is trying to copy the Lover, but he's picking younger girls, and he's shoving roses up their, uh, twats without removing the thorns. Jeez! What you're saying is that this guy's brutal and mad, while the Lover is… well, in need of psychological help."
Keough made a face.
"I'm not saying that at all. The last thing I think about either one of them is that they're killing girls because they used to wet their beds, or because their daddies drank. I don't believe in that shit."
"So what are you saying?"
"Maybe I'm just saying that the second guy is mine. I found him; he's my responsibility-not the Lover, but his copycat."
O'Donnell closed his notebook, but not before Keough noticed that it was full of indecipherable scribblings that were obviously the newspaperman's own personal shorthand.
"Joe, I think you better go home-uh, after you buy me dinner, that is."
"Don't worry," Keough said, "I didn't forget." He picked up a menu. "Where's that waitress?"
***
After dinner, they left Brendan's together, pausing only to wave at the owner before leaving. The same unusual cold drizzle that had been falling all day was still there. They both turned up the collars of their raincoats.
"Crummy day," O'Donnell said.
"Yeah."
"I've got to go back to the office and finish up some work. You goin' home?"
"I guess."
O'Donnell looked over at Keough.
"You having a problem with this, Joe?"
Keough returned the look.
"With what, Mike?"
"Going outside channels like this?"
"Maybe I am," Keough said after a moment, "but if I don't, then the second killer gets away with what he's done, and whoever killed Swann gets away with what he's done"
"Joe, do you think you know who killed Swann?"
Keough hesitated, then said, "No, Mike, I don't… not yet."
O'Donnell was not convinced.
"Uh, Joe, is there some stuff here that you aren't telling me about?"
"Some maybe," Keough said, patting the newspaperman on the shoulder and then shoving his hands in his pocket, "but it will all come out in the end."
He hoped.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It took three days for the story to ap
pear, and when it did, it was splashed all over the front page.
The dead girl in Brooklyn was indeed added to the Lover's dance card by Lieutenant Slovecky, who warned Keough with a steely glance about saying anything. Keough decided not to say anything to anyone and just to wait and see what happened between the Lover and Mike O'Donnell.
Keough had been buying the Post every day since his dinner with O'Donnell. On the day the story broke, he approached the newspaper stand and was able to see the headline from far off.
"All right!" he said under his breath. He bought a newspaper and read it on the subway on the way into the city.
O'Donnell embellished and extrapolated around a simple statement by the Lover that he had not raped or killed any girls in Brooklyn and that he resented the implication he would molest girls of high school age. Keough was sure that this was a sincere statement on the part of the killer, but anyone reading it in the newspaper would have to laugh. Here was a man who had killed several women in a particularly brutal manner, and he was sounding insulted by the implication that he would touch high school girls. O'Donnell also printed the contents of the Lover's original note, which must have been dictated to him over the phone by the killer. There was also a very short "no comment" from Slovecky. Keough thought it odd that the lieutenant hadn't said anything after the phone call from O'Donnell, which must have come in the previous evening, before they'd all left for the day.
One man who wasn't laughing, however, was Lt. Dan Slovecky. Keough was walking in the door of the task force office when Slovecky was calling everyone into his office for a meeting. When he entered the office behind everyone else, Keough noticed that Slovecky was seated behind his desk.
"My guess is you've all seen this morning's New York Post." Slovecky was holding the paper up over his head and then he slammed it down on his desk with such force that the pages separated and scattered all over the office. "This son of a bitch called the Post! Can you believe it?"
"Maybe it wasn't him," Dolan suggested.
Red-faced, Slovecky shouted, "It was him all right. He knew about the note. We never released any information about the goddamned note."
Through much of Slovecky's tirade, he kept his eyes on Keough, but how could he even think that Keough had anything to do with this? Slovecky could never suspect that Keough had actually spoken to the Lover and had him call O'Donnell at the Post.
The phone rang at that point and Slovecky picked it up. He listened for a moment and then said, "No comment… I said no fucking comment!" He slammed the phone down.
"The goddamned Daily News. They're a little behind. So far, I've had calls today from the Times, and from NBC and CBS News."
"What, no ABC?" Keough asked.
They all turned and looked at him.
"You think this is funny, Keough?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do, Lieutenant."
Slovecky glared at Keough for a few moments, then shouted, "Everybody out… except Keough."
The other detectives moved toward the door, Dolan trailing behind them. Keough stayed where he was, standing at the back of the room, leaning against the wall.
"Close the fucking door!" Slovecky shouted.
Dolan, last out, closed the door gently.
"You know," Slovecky said, glaring at Keough, "if I didn't know better, I'd think you had something to do with this."
"I did."
"What?" Slovecky looked surprised.
"The Lover called me and asked me what newspaper he should talk to. I like the Post. They have the best sports section."
Slovecky stared at Keough for a few moment, then shook his head and snorted.
"Yeah, right. The killer calls here to talk to you."
Keough spread his arms helplessly and said, "Hey, I was the only one here. I'm the clerical, remember?"
"You like this, don't you?" Slovecky asked. "You like that the killer called the newspaper and disavowed any knowledge of the Brooklyn killings. It supports your theory, don't it?"
"Disavow," Keough said thoughtfully. "That's a big word for you, isn't it?"
Slovecky's face reddened even more-if that was possible. Keough decided then and there to push even harder.
"Maybe I just want to see where your limits are, Lieutenant. Maybe I just want to see at what point you'll pick up a letter opener."
"A letter opener? What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'll tell you what I'm thinking, Lieutenant, and then you can tell me how you feel about it, all right?" Keough moved away from the wall to Slovecky's desk, where he rested his hands. "I think it's time for you to step down as commander of this task force."
"And why is that, Keough?"
"The obvious reason, Lieutenant," Keough said. "You have royally fucked up this investigation by insisting that the Brooklyn murders are part of it."
"Bullshit! The roses…"
"The roses don't even match, Slovecky!" Keough cut him off loudly. "Swann noticed that, too. What happened that night, Slovecky? Were you outside the house, waiting for me to leave?"
"You're crazy."
"You went in to talk to him, to see what was going on. Somehow, you found out he was making copies of files, right? Maybe he left a sheet in the Xerox machine?"
Slovecky stared at Keough without saying a word.
"That was it, wasn't it? You found an errant copy, and you went to his house. You waited until I left, went inside, killed him, and took back the duplicate file-and you removed the memo he'd written."
"You're crazy, Keough," Slovecky said, "and you're bucking for a suspension."
"Come on, Dan," Keough said. "Get it off your chest. Maybe you didn't mean to kill him. Was there a struggle? Come on."
"Shut up."
"Maybe when you saw the memo and realized that he and I were going over your head, you just flipped, huh?"
"Stop. You're getting in deeper."
"And what about me? Why simply transfer me here? Why not kill me, too?"
"I'm warning you…"
"That memo went through, you know. Yeah, you thought you stopped it by taking it from his desk, but I rewrote it. Maybe I didn't do as good a job as he had, but the gist of it was there. I rewrote it and sent it to the chief's office."
Keough expected that to ruffle Slovecky's feathers even more, but all of a sudden the lieutenant looked calm.
"The chief will never see it," Slovecky said with a slow smile. "You wasted your time trying to go over my head, Keough. You wasted your time taking me on. You're not in my league."
"Your league?" Keough laughed. "Your fucking league? Why would I want to be in the same league with a man who would kill a fellow cop?"
"I told you…"
"You're a cop killer, Slovecky," Keough said tightly, "and I'm going to prove it!"
Keough was surprised by Slovecky's reaction, because the man seemed to have gone so calm, but suddenly the lieutenant came over the desk at him, his hands closing around Keough's neck.
"Call me a cop killer, you son of a bitch!" Slovecky shouted. He lifted Keough off the floor with incredible strength and ran with him until he slammed the detective's back into the wall.
The office door slammed open and the other detectives charged into the room. When they saw what was going on, they rushed to separate the two men, but they had difficulty prying Slovecky's hands from Keough's neck.
The edges of Keough's vision were getting fuzzy as Slovecky continued to squeeze. He had done everything he could to get away, including kneeing Slovecky in the groin, but the man seemed so incensed, so enraged, he apparently was impervious to pain.
Keough knew that if the others couldn't get Slovecky off of him, the man was going to kill him.
The phone rang then, just as three of the detectives finally managed to pull Slovecky off of Keough. Keough fell to the floor, dazed, and Slovecky was shouting and spitting and trying to get away from the men holding him.
Dolan answered the phone, then held his hand over the receiver a
nd shouted, "Quiet!"
Everyone in the room turned to looked at him, because they had never heard the normally soft-spoken man ever yell like that.
Dolan looked at Slovecky and said, "It's the chief."
Slowly, Slovecky's eyes came back into focus, the rage flowing out of them.
"Let me go!" he said, pulling away from the other men.
He went around the desk and took the phone from Dolan.
"Get out, and take him with you," he said, pointing to Keough. "And don't let him leave. I'm not through with him yet."
"Come on," Dolan said to the others, "pick him up."
They helped Keough off the floor, walked him out of the office, and closed the door behind them. In the other room, they lowered Keough into a chair.
"What the hell happened in there?" Dolan demanded.
"He's crazy," Keough said, rubbing his neck. His voice was coming out raspy. "He killed Len Swann, and he just tried to kill me."
"What?" Samuelson said.
"Keough…" Dolan said warningly.
"I'm telling you, Sarge, he killed Swann!"
"That's crazy," Det. Tim Mollica said. "Why would Slovecky kill Swann?"
The door to the office opened before Keough could offer an answer. Slovecky stood in the doorway, staring at all of them.
"Keough, I want your gun and shield. You're on suspension."
"Lieutenant…" Dolan started.
"Shut up! Keough, your gun and shield… now." Slovecky extended his hand for Keough's hardware.
"You can't do this, Slovecky," Keough said, even as he was taking his gun out of his holster and his shield from his pocket.
"I can and you know it. Don't worry, you'll get to tell your side of it at your disciplinary hearing."
Keough handed his gun and badge to the lieutenant, who was suddenly once again in control. Keough wondered what the call from the chief had been about.
"Sergeant, see Detective Keough out. If he doesn't leave, arrest him."
"Oh, don't worry," Keough said, standing up, "I'm leaving, but you haven't heard the last of me, Slovecky. You and I know what you did."
"Well, good luck proving your charges, Keough." Slovecky turned and looked at Dolan. "Search his desk first, and search him before he leaves. I don't want a scrap of paper to leave here with him, Xerox or original. You got it?"
Alone with the Dead Page 15
