She nodded. “Yeah, Greene is my mom’s maiden name. I changed it after I left the News. . . . Kathy never told me she knew that.”
“She said, before he was caught, Barclay started calling you, giving you exclusives because he’d read your pieces and was obsessed with you. I know how that feels, Zoe. . . . You should see some of the fan letters I’ve gotten.”
Zoe shook her head.
Warren looked at her, a question in his eyes. He sat down on the blanket and she sat beside him.
“It wasn’t him that was obsessed,” she heard herself say. “It was me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I wrote about the murders, yes. Do you remember them?”
Warren nodded. “In the Village, right? Young women, their heads shaved . . .”
“Their whole bodies shaved, their throats slashed. After the third one, the cops came out and said it was a serial killer. I had amazing police sources. I got all sorts of exclusives. They interviewed me on the local FOX affiliate a bunch of times, and before too long—”
“Barclay was your fan.”
“At first, yeah,” she said. “He started calling me at work. The calls couldn’t be traced because he always used one of those disposable cells. I would tape record the conversations, turn them over to the police. If they told me we could, we’d run parts of these interviews in the paper.” Zoe’s stomach constricted. She swallowed more champagne.
Warren watched her, nodding slowly.
“I . . . I started to look forward to the calls,” she said. “The more I heard from him, the more curious I got. How does someone become a killer? How do they live from day to day? When they close their eyes and remember the things they’ve done with their own hands, what exactly do they see? It was like talking to pure evil, like interviewing the devil or something. He answered all my questions. He was . . . proud of his work.”
Warren put a hand on hers. For a second, she thought he was going to tell her that she didn’t have to speak anymore, but he didn’t. She saw it on his face. He wanted to know.
“One day, he told me he’d seen me on the news. He complimented me on my lipstick, asked what the shade was called. It was one of the few questions he’d ever asked me, so I told him. Revlon, Deep Berry. Then he says, ‘You know, kitten, I feel like I owe you something special.’ ”
Zoe’s eyes were welling up. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t think that much of it. He said crap like that to me all the time. Two days later, there’s another murder, then another, then another. . . .”
Warren nodded.
“The first three killings had happened over the course of three months, Warren. The second three in one week. These women weren’t just shaved and slashed—they’d been brutally sexually assaulted, both before and after they were killed.”
“Right. Wasn’t it the DNA that got him caught?”
Zoe nodded. A tear trickled down her cheek. “All three wore lipstick. Revlon Deep Berry.” She started to cry, then sob, the sobs racking her body. Warren put his arms around her and held her tightly. She didn’t tell him how Barclay had stared at her during his sentencing or how, when the judge said, “Death,” Barclay had given her a wink she’d seen in so many dreams since then—the type of wink you give someone when you’ve made good on a deal. She didn’t tell Warren what she’d known at that moment: He’d left the DNA on purpose. He’d given himself to the police for her, yes. But he’d slaughtered three innocent women for her, too.
During that final phone call, just before he’d hung up, Barclay had said, You’ve made me a star. I’ll always be grateful.
She didn’t tell Warren that, either. But tonight, with fireworks popping and blazing in the sky, Zoe had told him more than she’d ever told anyone about the guilt that still ripped at her, that had made her give up real news of any kind. And from the way he pulled away and watched her face . . . he understood. He understood in a way that no one else ever had. It surprised her, frightened her just a little. . . . Warren took her by the shoulders, stared into her eyes. “You didn’t cause those murders,” he said. “You couldn’t have prevented them.” His grip tightened. “You are not a killer.” He said it with passion, hanging on to each word as if he wanted to keep it for himself.
SEVEN
Glen Campbell was diligent—Steve had to give him that. And annoying though he could be, Glen was also, as it turned out, a genuinely good guy.
After five hours and five cups of coffee at Starbucks with his bribe-scandal source Padmé, Steve had gone home, typed up all his notes, drunk three beers and watched the whole of Lisztomania just to get to sleep—only to be awakened at six Sunday morning by Glen, calling to inform him that a small-time drug dealer named Carlos Royas had confessed to Jordan Brink’s murder. Glen could have easily kept that information to himself. He could have taken the Brink story and run with it, telling the metro editor it had been his idea to follow through and contact his roommate from J school. But he hadn’t. He’d given Steve his former roommate’s work and cell numbers and let Steve ask the questions himself. Really, really good guy. Steve hadn’t told Glen yet, but he was planning on sharing the byline with him. (Truth be told, he couldn’t wait for his own friends to see it: BY STEVE SORENSEN AND GLEN CAMPBELL.)
The ex-roommate was a Mexican-American kid by the name of Miguel Guzman who spoke fluent Spanish, and Steve had already talked to him a few times this morning. Guzman knew most everything about the arrest—he’d given Steve all the details and a cop to talk to for an on-the-record quote, and he’d e-mailed him a dozen pictures of Royas, telling him the Trumpet could use any of them. He was looking into the dealer’s previous convictions, he said, and would get back to Steve as soon as he heard anything. Guzman had also told him (deep background, under penalty of lawsuit) that Vanessa St. James had been questioned only because her niece had found Jordan’s body.
Steve was glad Zoe’s boyfriend had no connection to the murder—and that her “romantic vacation” would be just that, nothing more. But still, something bugged him about Warren Clark. He’d read several interviews with him online yesterday, and they hadn’t left him with the best impression.
In a way, Clark reminded Steve of some of the guys he used to play hockey with—the ones who’d pray before games, as if God were up there saying, “Hold up, starving people in Africa! I’ve gotta make sure Cornell kicks Prince-ton’s ass!” and who’d beat the crap out of anyone who dissed their skating. Steve never got that. Yeah, hockey had earned him a scholarship, but when it all came down to it, it was sliding on some ice, knocking a rubber disk into a net. It wasn’t saving lives—and neither was walking around shirtless, pretending your evil twin had amnesia. But Clark seemed to think it was. In one of the articles, he’d even referred to acting on daytime TV as “my craft.”
Zoe usually laughed at guys like Warren Clark—pretty boys who took themselves oh so seriously. Was she really that hard up—or was Steve really that clueless about what made Zoe happy?
Steve pushed the thought out of his mind. He was at his desk at the Trumpet, the Royas pics lined up on his computer screen like a virtual poker game, and a deadline of just a few hours from now. He needed to concentrate on the story.
Man, what a pathetic kid . . . Steve wasn’t sure what he’d expected Jordan’s killer to look like—a sick twist to the features, maybe; a Charles Manson gleam in the eye. He knew he hadn’t expected the Royas that he saw in these photos. There was one of him standing in front of a bull ring in San Miguel de Allende, a baseball cap shielding sad eyes; another of him sitting on a couch next to his mother—a nervous-looking woman with his same frail build, a baby in her arms. There was one of him at church in an ill-fitting suit and one in baggy black swim trunks and a long-sleeved T-shirt at a public pool and one with a fat kid in a park, both of them smoking cigarettes. In every single one of them, Royas had the look of someone going to his own funeral. Steve stared at the swim trunks one—the defeated slump of the shoulders,
the wan, poster-child face . . . and what was with the long-sleeved shirt? He pictured this boy ripping a young man’s heart out, blood spraying everywhere. Somehow, the image was even more terrifying than if Royas had been a Manson type. There were no warning signs in his appearance. Nothing to scare you away until it was too late.
Unless he didn’t do it . . .
Steve’s desk phone rang. He picked it up to the voice of Miguel Guzman. “Got Royas’s arrest history.” He sounded kind of strange, tentative.
“So?”
“Just a sec. I’m calling it up.”
There was a pause, during which Steve continued to look at the pictures. He stared into the huge eyes of Royas’s mother. How was she able to get up in the morning? How was she able to take care of that baby in her arms without thinking, What’s the point? Look how the other one turned out.
Unless Carlos Royas didn’t do it.
“Lot of drug arrests,” said Guzman. “Looks like he stole a whole bunch of nitrous oxide from the hospital, along with some sedatives and muscle relaxants and crap.”
“Pretty routine.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But . . . Okay this is the part that’s weird. This one happened in 2004. He was just sixteen years old.”
“Violent crime?”
“No,” he said. “Grave robbing.”
Steve sighed. J school grads. “That’s not all that weird actually, Miguel,” he said. “Lots of poor kids steal jewelry off dead people. It’s kind of gross, I know, but—”
“You don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand?”
“He didn’t steal jewelry. He stole the people.”
Steve’s breath caught. He stared at Royas’s sad eyes.
“He was living in a trailer next to his parents’ house,” Guzman was saying. “Police found a woman’s corpse in there that had been missing from a cemetery in Queretero.”
“Jesus.”
“He later confessed stealing three other bodies from the same cemetery. He said he burned them after they got too old. Wouldn’t say what he used them for when they were, you know . . . fresh.”
Steve cleared his throat. “He did that alone?” he said. “This skinny kid was stealing bodies all by himself?”
“That’s what he claimed. Of course, the skinny kid killed Jordan Brink alone, without even a fight,” Guzman said. “Did I tell you? The police say there were no defense wounds on the hands or arms. No sign of a struggle.”
“No,” he said. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I’ll call you if I hear anything else,” he said.
Steve thanked him and said goodbye, thinking about that saying: The eyes are the windows to the soul. What a load of crap that was. Guess you can’t tell much about someone’s strength from the size of his body, either.
He was about to close the screen when he noticed something in the bullring picture. Royas’s baseball cap.
Steve blew the photo up 50, then 100, then 300 percent, until finally, he could clearly read the white logo that was stitched over the bill.
There had to be a logical explanation for it. Royas had probably just found the cap somewhere, and even if he hadn’t . . . You arrest somebody for a murder. He’s wearing an Ozzy T-shirt. Do you question Ozzy? Of course you don’t.
Which was all well and good, but the fact remained: The logo on Carlos Royas’s black baseball cap wasn’t for Ozzy or Metallica or any of the newer death-rock stuff that Steve had never heard of, but that a sullen, nihilistic teenage boy would probably love.
It was the logo for The Day’s End.
Warren had a skylight in his bedroom. Zoe had missed that detail the night before, but waking up in the morning, bathed in sunlight, she appreciated it as much as she appreciated everything else in this room, from the king-sized cherrywood bed to the crisp sheets to the walk-in closet to the enormous windows—of course they were enormous—overlooking that otherworldly rooftop patio. Still no personal photos on any of the walls, but everything else met with her approval, particularly the man who was sleeping next to her. . . .
Zoe stretched out to touch him, but felt only the cool, bare pillow. And sure enough, when she rolled onto her side, she saw she was alone in bed. Zoe sighed. This was getting to be a habit with him. Only no roses this time. No plane to catch, either.
“Warren?” she called out. “You in the bathroom?”
No reply. Maybe he was downstairs.
Zoe’s stomach growled. What time was it, anyway? She grabbed her watch from the bedside table. Last night, Warren had told her the altitude might make her sleep longer, and when she looked at her watch, she saw how right he was. One in the afternoon.
She’d slept away half the day, but she’d probably needed it. Last night had been so intense, she still felt sort of wrecked.
She remembered the way Warren had looked at her when he’d asked her about Barclay—that healing gaze. And how, after she told him what had happened, he’d seemed not only to understand her pain but also to feel it. Looking into his eyes, she had seen her own emotions mirrored back at her—that wrenching guilt, that yearning to be a different person, that feeling of If only . . . And when she thought she could no longer take it, Warren’s gaze had softened, and he’d slipped his hand into her hair so gently, it had made her feel . . . Special was the wrong word. Precious. Treasured.
I will fix you, he had whispered. I will make you strong again.
She got out of bed. She still hadn’t even unpacked, although Warren had brought her suitcase up to the bedroom. She unzipped it, got out a clean pair of jeans, some underwear and a tank top. No use bothering with shoes just yet. After she was dressed, she wandered into the master bathroom and splashed cold water in her face. She felt better now, last night’s pain fading with the memory of Warren’s gentle touch. She noticed the enormous marble tub, candles placed around the sides. It was a tub bursting with possibilities. . . .
Jesus. I’m turning into Jenna Jameson.
She heard movement in the bedroom, and smiled. Good. He’d just been downstairs. “Warren,” she said, “you think maybe you could come in here, show me how the tub works?”
No answer.
“Warren?” She opened the bathroom door to find a silver-haired Mexican woman stripping the sheets off the bed.
The woman stopped what she was doing and gave Zoe a disdainful look. For a second, Zoe felt like a bimbo from an old Dean Martin movie—the wall-eyed blonde in the baby-doll dress who gets shoved into the closet when the nice girl knocks on Dean’s door. “Uh . . . ¿Hola?”
“Hello,” said the woman in accented English. “Señor Clark has gone out for a little while. I am the housekeeper, Guadalupe.” She stuck out a hand and smiled warmly, which made Zoe think she might have just presumed the how’d-the-slut-get-in-here glare.
Zoe shook her hand. “I’m Zoe,” she said.
“I know.”
“Warren told you I’d be coming?”
She nodded. “It isn’t often Señor Clark has a visitor.”
Guadalupe turned back to the bed, and it hit Zoe how little she still knew of Warren, how much she wanted to know. She thought of the lack of personal pictures on his walls, how the only information she had about Warren’s past (he’d grown up in Westport, Connecticut, was an only child, had gone to New York’s High School of Performing Arts) she’d obtained via Headquarters interviews. It brought to mind a song Zoe had once heard on the radio. You’re a mystery, my mystery. . . . “How long have you worked for Warren?”
“Ten years.”
“Since he first bought this house.”
“Yes.”
Now here’s a source. Here’s a real, bona fide insider. “Can I ask you something?”
Guadalupe stopped working. She looked at Zoe’s mouth rather than her eyes—a sign of trepidation, according to a body-language course Zoe had once taken at the Ninety-second Street Y to improve her interview technique. Zoe gave her a slight smile and mirrored her stance, whic
h disarmed the woman a little, brought her gaze back up. “When did Warren last have a visitor?”
“You mean, from the U.S.?”
“Yeah.”
Guadalupe thought. “Ten years ago.”
Zoe stepped back. “Whoa. That is a while.”
“Yes,” Guadalupe said quietly. The gaze returned to Zoe’s mouth.
“I mean, a beautiful place like this, I’d want to show it off to my friends back home. Wouldn’t you?”
“I . . . suppose.”
“You keep it so clean, too. Too bad Warren couldn’t bring you up to the States. His New York apartment is a disaster.”
She smiled, returned to Zoe’s eyes. “¿Verdad?”
Zoe nodded. “Dust all over everything. The silver’s so tarnished it looks like lead. Men don’t notice these things, you know?”
Zoe laughed, and Guadalupe laughed along with her— an easy, childlike laugh that relaxed her face, made her seem much younger.
Zoe said, “Who was that visitor, anyway?”
She stopped laughing. Before answering, she glanced up and to the left—a cue, according to Zoe’s course, that she was about to lie. “I . . . I don’t remember his name.”
“His? The visitor was a man?”
Guadalupe nodded very slowly, a look on her face as if she’d inadvertently screwed her best friend out of a promotion. It made Zoe feel as if she were taking advantage. Guadalupe was such a dignified-looking woman—no makeup, spotless clothes, a gold saint’s medal around her neck. She probably saw all this as gossiping about her very private boss, which, frankly, it was.
“Well, it was very nice meeting you,” Zoe said. “I’m going to go out for a little while, explore the town.”
Guadalupe broke into a smile—pure gratitude. “It was nice meeting you as well.”
Zoe unplugged her cell phone from its charger and tossed it into her purse, then grabbed a pair of flip-flops from the outer pocket of her suitcase.
“You might find the cobblestones difficult in those shoes,” Guadalupe said.
Zoe shrugged. “I’ll take my chances. I’m not sure where I put my sneakers, and I don’t feel like digging through my suitcase.”
Heartless Page 8
