He gazed up at the sky, where a lone crow scraped its way north, black and solitary against the creeping dawn.
Chapter Two
As it turned out, the boyfriend wasn't difficult to locate. Within an hour Lee was standing outside a grimy interrogation room inside a Bronx precinct house, watching through the one-way mirror as he waited for Butts to question the young man. The interrogation room was small and stuffy, its pale green walls scarred with stains and scuff marks. Lee imagined the scenes that had taken place in this room-the outbursts of rage, poundings by fists or boots or both. Some of the black smudge marks on the walls did appear to come from kicks-they were the right height and size. But others-coffee splotches, the occasional streak of blue ink, even a few ominous red patches, dried to a dark rust color-were more mysterious.
The young man inside the room sat quietly, hands folded on his lap. He was slight of build, with narrow, bony shoulders-a boy who wouldn't stand out in any crowd. Lee took an inventory of his regular but unremarkable features: straight brown hair over a thin, sensitive mouth and sad brown eyes. Under the harsh fluorescent lights his face had an unhealthy gray pallor, the circles under his eyes pronounced. He looked young-even younger than poor Marie-and very, very frightened. Not in a guilty way, Lee thought, just plain scared. He would bet that this boy had never seen the inside of a police station before, and certainly never as a suspect.
Ever since he could remember, Lee had an unusual ability to "read" people. He used to think that everyone could do this, and it wasn't until after his training in psychology that he had realized how uncommon his gift was. He studied aspects of human behavior in textbooks explaining things he had always known instinctively. He could see into people-into their souls, so to speak.
Now, looking at the scared young man sitting in front of him, Lee was quite certain that the boy was not guilty of his girlfriend's murder.
Detective Butts entered the room with two paper cups of coffee and slid one across the scarred Formica table to the boy.
"Thought maybe you could use one too," he said, sitting down across from him. "Hope you take it regular."
In western New Jersey, where Lee grew up, "regular" meant milk, no sugar, but in New York City, regular coffee always included a liberal amount of sugar.
"Thank you," the boy replied in a small voice, but he didn't touch the coffee. Butts flipped back the plastic lid of his own cup with a well-practiced gesture and slurped it noisily.
"That's better," he said, leaning back in his chair. He appeared to be enjoying himself. "I hate to start the day without it, y'know?"
The young man stared at Butts, his face still frozen in fear. He reminded Lee of a fox he had once seen cornered-the animal had the same expression of wariness and creeping panic. This interrogation was going to be a waste of time; he knew Butts was showing off for him, trying to impress him with interrogative skills. First soften him up, become his friend, then close in for the kill. This technique seemed so obvious to Lee that he couldn't imagine any criminal-even the simplest shoplifter-not seeing right through it. This kid was no criminal, though, and he figured that Butts knew this-but procedure was procedure. You had to jump through the right hoops.
"Okay," the detective said, setting his coffee down and glancing at a file on the table, "Mr… Winters. Rough luck, by the way-sorry about what happened to your girlfriend."
"Yeah," Winters responded softly.
"Can I call you Ralph?"
"Okay," the boy answered, his voice still barely above a whisper. Lee had the impulse to intervene, but that was out of the question. This was Butts's investigation, and the last thing he wanted was to alienate the burly detective.
Ralph sat staring at the untouched coffee in front of him, as a thin ribbon of steam spiraled upward through a tiny hole in the lid.
"Okay, Ralph," Butts said, "why don't you tell me anything you can think of that might help?"
Ralph gulped twice, his Adam's apple rising and falling sharply in his thin throat. He appeared to be on the verge of tears.
"Says here you're a chem major," Butts continued, maybe to save Ralph the embarrassment of tears. Whatever his motive was, it apparently worked. The boy leaned forward, and his eyes seemed to focus on Butts for the first time. He reached for the coffee, his hand trembling.
"Yeah. Organic chemistry. I'm studying to be a pathologist." He took a sip of coffee.
"Oh, really?" Butts's tone was friendly, jocular. "You interested in forensics?"
"Uh, I want to specialize in diseases, actually."
"Well, well," Butts replied, smiling. "How 'bout that? You gotta be real smart to do that kinda stuff, I know that much. Me, I was no good in science. I envy guys like you."
Ralph seemed suspicious of this attempt to butter him up. He sat looking at Butts, his hands wrapped around the paper coffee cup.
"So, Ralph, what can you tell me?" Butts said, his tone indicating it was time to get down to business. "How long have you known Marie?"
"Since last semester. We, uh-we were in the same comparative lit class."
Butts frowned. "But you're a science major."
"It's a required course. I need it to graduate."
Butts cocked his head to one side. "I get it. And Marie was a religion major?"
"Comparative religion, yeah. She wanted to teach eventually."
"I see. So you guys just sorta hit it off?"
Ralph winced. "Yeah. I mean, at first I didn't believe a girl like her would be interested in me. I mean, she's so pretty and lively and everything, and I'm…well, a science geek, you know?"
Butts gulped down some more coffee. "Yeah. I know what you mean-never could figure out what the wife sees in me. Women are a mystery."
This admission seemed to put Ralph more at ease, and he sipped at his coffee, though without taking his eyes off the detective.
"Tell you what, Ralph," Butts said. "I'm not gonna keep you here very long, but can you think of anyone who'd want to hurt Marie? Anyone at all?"
"Well, she was really sweet and trusting. I can't think of anyone who didn't like her. I mean, she didn't try to be popular or anything, but there was just something about her, you know?"
"Yeah, sure."
Ralph shifted in his chair. "There was one thing…"
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Well, I had the feeling she was seeing someone-someone else, I mean. I don't really have any evidence of it. It was more of a feeling, I guess."
"Okay. Any idea who it was?"
Ralph looked down at his hands, which were clasped tightly in his lap. "No. I was meaning to ask her about it, but…I guess I didn't want to pry. It's not like we were engaged or anything, you know?"
"Yeah, sure. Will you excuse me for a moment?"
He got up and lumbered out of the room, closing the door behind him. He came over to Lee and slumped his stocky body against the wall.
"That kid's clean as my mother-in-law's kitchen. No way he did it-and I don't think he has any idea who did." Butts pulled a cigar stub from his breast pocket. Placing it between his sturdy teeth, he bit down on it hard.
"Do you ever actually smoke those things?" Lee asked.
"Not anymore. Used to, wife hated the smell, said it got into everything. So I gave it up. This is the closest thing I have now to a vice… I miss it, but I'll tell you, this is a helluva lot cheaper. I used to buy the good ones-you know, the Cubans-when I could get 'em, and they set you back a buck or two."
Butts shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth. "This other guy he mentioned-that could be a lead. That is, if she really was seeing anyone else."
"Maybe," Lee replied. "I wonder if you'd just let me ask him one thing?"
Butts shrugged. "Go ahead-knock yourself out. Then we should let the poor bastard go home."
"Thanks."
Lee entered the interrogation room and felt the oppressiveness of its windowless silence. The one-way mirror behind which Butts now stood watching only added to th
e sense of isolation and paranoia the suspects must feel.
Ralph Winters looked up at him apprehensively when he entered the room. Lee tried to dispel his fear with a friendly smile, but the boy's body didn't relax as Lee sat down opposite him.
"Hi, I'm Lee Campbell. I'm helping with this investigation."
Ralph responded with a twitch of his head and wrapped his hands tighter around his coffee cup.
"Look, Ralph," Lee said gently, "we're going to let you go soon. I just want to see if there's anything else you can tell us about Marie that might help us catch her killer."
The boy's face reddened, and his eyes welled up with tears. "You-you don't think I did it, then?"
"No, we don't. But we hope you can help us by telling us about Marie-anything you can think of."
Ralph swallowed hard. "Well, like I told the other detective, she was really sweet, and everyone liked her."
"Yes," Lee replied. "I know." On the last day of her life Fate swooped down upon her, a slap out of nowhere, a sudden shock as she rounded the corner of her life. It was a line from a poem he had written about his sister, and he shook it out of his head. "Why don't you just tell me what you can about Marie?"
"Well, she was kinda religious-Catholic, you know."
"So she went to church how often?"
"Oh, not more than twice a week. She went Sundays, and then sometimes to Wednesday night mass. But she didn't like people who swore and took the Lord's name in vain, you know? And she had a crucifix over her bed-kind of creepy, if you ask me, but I wasn't raised religious." His lower lip trembled. "Have they called her parents yet?"
"We're taking care of that. They live in Jersey somewhere, I think?"
"Yeah-Nutley." He swallowed again and took another sip of coffee.
"Did she have any special friends at church?"
"Not that I can think of. A couple of girlfriends. She didn't really socialize all that much. She did volunteer to feed the homeless at the church once a month."
"Did you go with her?"
"Sometimes."
"You mentioned her girlfriends-are they religious?"
"I don't think so."
"But Marie was?"
"Yeah. She wore a cross around her neck all the time."
"Can you describe it?"
"Uh, yeah…it was plain gold-oh, with a tiny little pearl in the center."
"A white pearl?"
"Yeah. She never took it off."
Lee felt his heart quicken. He carried a clear image of Marie as she was in death, and he could swear that when they found her there was no cross around her neck.
"Never?"
"No. She kept it on even in the shower-said it was like keeping Jesus with her all the time. I remember it scratched me one time when we were…" His face crumpled, and his thin shoulders sagged under the weight of his grief. "Oh, God, oh, God!" He collapsed sobbing, burying his head in his arms. Lee laid a hand on his shoulder just as Butts reentered the room.
"Come on, kid, we got a car to take you home."
Ralph raised his head and looked up at the detective through tearstained eyes.
"You don't have any more questions?" He sounded disappointed.
"Not right now. We know where to find you if we do." Butts spat out a piece of cigar into the trash can and handed Ralph a business card. "Give me a call if you think of anything else. Especially if you have any ideas about who this other guy might be. Sorry you had to go through this."
"That's okay," said Ralph, clutching the coffee cup as he stood up unsteadily.
"Officer Lambert here will take you home," said Butts, indicating a thin, sallow-faced policeman standing just outside the room.
"Can you make it okay?" asked Lee.
"Yes, thank you-I'll be all right," Ralph replied, and followed Officer Lambert meekly down the hall.
"I know what he took," Lee said as soon as the boy had gone.
"Who took what?"
"The killer. I know what he took as a souvenir."
"Oh yeah? What?"
"The gold cross-the one she never took off."
"But there was no cross on her when we found her."
"Exactly."
Butts rolled his eyes. "Okay. So all's we have to do is find some pervert wearing this girl's cross."
"No, he wouldn't wear it himself. He would either put it away in a drawer or give it to a woman in his life-someone important to him, someone he wants to impress."
Butts shuddered. "Kinda like my cat bringing in a mouse head and dropping it on my pillow."
"That's a good analogy, actually."
"Do creeps like this have girlfriends?"
"Some of them do. I doubt this guy does, though."
"A sister, maybe?"
"Maybe. He's an introvert, though, and my guess is that if he gives his trophy away to anyone, it'll be to his mother."
Butts shivered again. "Oh, man, that's just too weird."
Lee felt his own spine tingle as a thin finger of dread wound its way up his back. "Yes. We're dealing with someone who is profoundly disturbed."
"You can call it what you want, Doc," Butts replied. "I call it creepy."
Chapter Three
An hour later Lee entered his empty, darkened apartment on East Seventh Street, savoring the stillness before turning on the hall light. He removed his coat, hanging it on the Victorian bentwood coatrack, a gift from his mother. She loved all things Victorian: burgundy velvet drapes, satin-lined Chinese scarves with fat laughing cherubs, lace curtains, painted china tea sets, opera capes. Men were unreliable, and would come and go, but the Victorian era had a solid, carved-oak heaviness that she seemed to find comforting.
"Well, it's a theory, anyway," Lee muttered as he walked to the kitchen.
His piano sat in the corner under the window, waiting for him. But right now he wanted a cup of coffee, strong and bitter and hot, with a dollop of milk and a teaspoon of sugar. His insides ached from the strain of digging around among the demons that continued to plague him. There was something in the back of his mind, something he couldn't quite grasp. He had a feeling that it related to Marie's death in some way. As he put the water on to boil, the phone rang. The sound was jarring, cutting through the stillness of the air like a summons. He picked up the receiver and held his breath.
"Hello?"
"Hello, dear." It was his mother, brisk and cheerful as usual. Her voice was a shield, with a veneer of warmth and optimism, but he could sense the fear and sadness underneath.
"So how are things?" His mother's cheeriness was resolute, implacable-an immovable object.
"Fine, Mom." There was only one answer to this question in the Campbell family. Nothing else was acceptable. Fine, Mom. Everything's just fine. Laura's murderer is still out there, and there's a college girl in the city morgue with her chest carved up, but everything's fine.
"Isn't this weather just awful? It's hard to believe there are only six weeks until spring."
Weather-a safe topic. Weather, food, home improvement, gardening-all safe topics for Fiona Campbell.
"I just can hardly wait to get my roses in. I've got three different colors of tea roses this year." She was always planting things: roses, begonias, petunias.
"Oh, good."
"Stan thinks it's too early. He says we'll have another frost, but I don't believe him."
Stan Paloggia was her next-door neighbor who hovered around her like an eager beagle. Actually, he was a lot like beagles Lee had known: short and stocky, with a voracious appetite, thick around the middle. His voice, too, was a kind of a bray, like the hoarse baying of a hound on the hunt. He followed Fiona Campbell around like a one-man posse, being helpful in any way he could, whether it was gardening advice or plumbing repairs. Lee had often wished he could tell the man he was wasting his time-his mother was only attracted to remote, elegant men like his father. Tall, glamorous, and handsome, Duncan Campbell was Stan's opposite in every way-but Stan seemed to enjoy the quest, and panted happi
ly along whenever he could. His mother tolerated his attention, and treated him about as well as she treated anyone.
"Well, if Stan says so, maybe you'd better listen," Lee said, pouring coffee beans into the white Krups grinder.
"I don't know; I just hate waiting," his mother replied.
Lee turned the grinder on and took the phone into the living room as the machine whirred into action, screeching harshly as the beans tumbled over each other.
"How's Kylie?" he asked.
"Oh, she's just fine-growing like a weed, you know. It's hard to believe she's almost seven!"
Lee looked at one of the snapshots of Laura on the door of his refrigerator. It was taken in front of his mother's house, and she was squinting into the sun, her hand raised to push back a few stray strands of long brown hair. He remembered the day well-he had taken the picture shortly before her graduation from college.
But his niece would have no memories of her-she would know her mother only through photographs like this one, or in the stories people told about her. Kylie lived with her father, but she spent Saturdays and Sundays with her grandmother, as he worked the ER shift at the local hospital most weekends. George Callahan was a big, bluff man without an evil thought in his head. Lee always wished Laura had married him, but he wasn't her type. Steady, unexciting, and kind to a fault, George was nothing like the vain, high-strung father Laura had never stopped searching for in the men she dated. Even after Kylie was born, Laura refused to marry George, even though he had begged her.
"You're still planning on spending Saturday with her, aren't you?" His mother sounded wary-lately Lee had been less than reliable.
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