Sigma Curse - 04

by Tim Stevens

  Azizi moved round to the head of the table and with his gloved hands gently lifted away the top of the skull. The brain was missing.

  “A depression is noted on the inner aspect of the calvaria, here.” With one latex-clad finger he pointed.

  Venn leaned in and peered at what looked like a tiny notch on the concave sweep of the inside of the skull’s lid.

  The pathologist continued: “Dissection of the brain indicates the passage of a foreign body through the left cerebral hemisphere very close to the corpus callosum. The trajectory of passage is consistent with both the entry wound and the lesion on the calvaria.”

  Beside Venn, Harmony said: “Doc. I don’t mean to be racist. But can you run that by me once more in English?”

  Inwardly, Venn winced.

  But Azizi didn’t appear to take offense. He nodded gravely.

  He said: “It looks like a long, sharp object was inserted up under this man’s chin, right back near the Adam’s apple. It penetrated the base of his skull, traversed his brain stem, and continued up through the brain tissue, at a backward angle, close to the center, until the tip hit the skull bone. He would have died instantly.”

  The doctor indicated with his eyebrows over his glasses. “Contusions at the ankles and wrists suggest that the subject was restrained at the time of death. The medial malleoli of the ankles - the inner aspects - aren’t bruised, so the feet weren’t bound together. The skin of both the wrists and the ankles is abraded on the inside, which points toward a spreadeagled posture, with the subject struggling against his restraints.”

  Azizi replaced the cap of the skull, put his hands together once more.

  “As you see, there’s a mark on the forehead, caused by the application of a heated object, probably metallic. Otherwise, the subject shows no abnormality. There are numerous scars on his upper limbs and abdomen, but they are old and well healed. The general musculature and the anatomical state of the heart indicate a high level of physical fitness. Full toxicology evaluation of the serum and cerebrospinal fluid is pending, but the preliminary results suggest nothing out of the ordinary. He was, as the British say, in rude health.”

  Dr Azizi lapsed into silence.

  As if he’d just listened to an elegy, Venn stood quietly by with the others, absorbing the pathologist’s words.

  When the time seemed right, he looked at Teller, the FBI man.

  Teller picked up on his cue, launched in, talking fast, his arms folded. “So we have an ID already. The guy’s name is Dale Fincher. He’s thirty-three years old. Single, with no family aside from a widowed mother. He was discovered at nine forty-five this morning by a maid at the Roebuck Hotel in Chelsea who went in to clean the room and found him lying there. On the bed, spread out like Dr Azizi said. Wrists and ankles tethered to the bedposts. It looked like an abattoir, blood soaking the pillows and sheets. But there was only the one wound, up under his chin. No weapon.”

  Venn said, “Two wounds.”

  Everybody looked at him.

  Teller said: “Say what?”

  “Two wounds.” Venn pointed. “That scar on his forehead. It’s new.”

  “Yeah,” said Teller. “That. You know the symbol?”

  Venn nodded. The gnarled but clearly discernible mark in the flesh of the corpse’s forehead made him think of his schooldays, and the math lessons he’d dreaded.

  It was a letter from the Greek alphabet.

  Sigma.

  Chapter 3

  The FBI offices were near the East River, a few blocks north of the United Nations building. Venn drove, with Harmony beside him in his Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was a replacement for his last, identical model, which had been shot up by a bunch of criminals three months earlier. He’d grown partial to the Jeep as a brand, and had decided to stick with the same car.

  Through the windshield, the lights of Manhattan glittered coldly, the air brittle and clear. There’d been relatively little snow so far this winter, but January had only begun six days earlier, and there was plenty of time yet for the city to become submerged under a blanket of frost and white. Venn hoped not.

  Harmony gazed out the window, saying nothing. It was a tell-tale sign.

  “What’s bugging you?” Venn asked.

  She didn’t answer for a moment. Then: “Working with the Feds.”

  “What’s the problem?” said Venn.

  She turned her head to look at him. “You know what it’s going to be like. They’ll want to be in charge, every step of the way. They’ll throw hissy fits every time they feel their authority’s being challenged. You’ll get pissed at them, and we’ll all be tangled up fighting each other. And the job won’t get done properly.”

  Venn laughed softly. “Come on. Tell me you don’t want in on this. I bet you can’t.”

  Harmony sighed. “Of course I do.”

  “So, it’s big enough to warrant a federal taskforce. We’re lucky we got included at all. But now that we are, we’ve got to work with them. Get over it, Harm. It’ll be fine.”

  “That Teller guy,” she said after another pause.

  “Yeah.”

  “Kind of a smarmy asshole.”

  Venn shrugged. “I don’t know. He seemed okay to me. Not a bullshitter. Yeah, he dresses sharp. But most of them do. They’re the FBI, after all. Not working-class stiffs like us.”

  Harmony snorted. “Don’t try that I’m-one-of-the-people crap with me, Venn. From where I’m sitting, you’re practically royalty.”

  “Whatever.” He held up a hand to stave her off. “Harm, I got to say, you’re more than usually cranky tonight. Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  They drove in silence. Venn counted down the seconds. Three, two, one...

  She muttered: “Personal issues.”

  He’d just opened his mouth when Harmony said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  So he let it go.

  *

  Venn had gotten the call at a little after seven p.m., ninety minutes earlier.

  He was on his way to a grocery store on Ninth, a few blocks from his office, meaning to pick up a couple of steaks before heading home. Beth had said she’d be able to get away earlyish, which for her meant before eight, and he wanted to surprise her with supper. Medium-rare sirloin, new potatoes, a French side salad and a bottle of the Australian Shiraz they both liked. Some soft Latin jazz on the stereo to set the mood, and a slow post-dinner hour on the couch in the living room, in front of the fireplace, letting their conversation lead them in any direction it chose to wander.

  Followed by... well, whatever.

  But Venn never set foot in the grocery store. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he stepped into a doorway out of the cold wind and said, “Yeah.”

  “Joe. You still at work?”

  David Kang always sounded hearty. He had the kind of manner that would cheer you up if you were sick, but would probably strike a false note if you were really sick, like with cancer or something.

  “I guess I am now, Cap,” said Venn.

  Kang was Venn’s boss. A Korean-American who’d rocketed his way up the ranks in the New York Police Department, he’d recruited Venn almost two years earlier when he’d first set up his baby, the Division of Special Projects. Kang was flippant and irritating. But he was also smart, shrewd and ambitious, and knew exactly how to play the people under his command. Venn had pulled off a major coup for the DSP last summer, when he’d not only taken down one of the biggest narcotics barons in Mexico but had also torn the lid off an illegal government black-ops initiative which was involved in the war on drugs. Kang had gotten a commendation out of that business, something that would lubricate his path up the chute toward Commissioner, and Venn had been his golden boy ever since.

  Kang said: “I’ve got some serious shit for you, Joe. I mean, major league. You won’t want to miss this one.”

  “I’m all ears.” Venn checked his watch. Damn. An evening with Beth, and it looked like it wasn’t
going to happen. Kang never called him in the evening between cases, unless he needed something urgently.

  “Okay,” said Kang. “There’s been a homicide, out in Chelsea. Looks fetishistic. A guy tethered to a hotel bed, with an icepick wound through his brain. And some kind of weird symbol branded on him. The local cops barely secured the crime scene before the Feds appeared. They’ve set up a task force.”

  “Huh.” Venn felt a quirk of interest. “Who’s the guy?”

  Kang paused for effect. “He’s nobody. But his mom, on the other hand... She’s Marilyn Fincher.”

  Venn searched his memory. The Division of Special Projects handled political cases, and as such he kept himself constantly up to date on the changing personnel in New York City’s Byzantine governmental structure. But the name Marilyn Fincher didn’t ring any bells.

  He knew Kang was testing him, and he sighed in resignation.

  “Okay,” said Venn. “You got me.”

  “Judge Fincher is a justice of the Supreme Court of New York,” said Kang triumphantly, like a poker player brandishing a royal flush.

  Then Venn got really interested.

  *

  He called Beth first, to put the kibosh on their evening. She took it easily, said she’d stay a little longer at work, maybe grab a coffee with a couple of colleagues, then head over to his place anyhow. Venn felt a surge of exultation in his gut.

  If he made it home tonight, she’d be there. Even if she was asleep.

  Next, Venn called Harmony Jones. Kang had suggested he involve her from the get-go, because they were going to be dealing with the FBI, and it would be good to have two of them there right away. It would add weight to the DSP’s credentials.

  “Jesus,” Harmony muttered.“Now?”

  “Yep,” said Venn. He told her about it. Felt her hesitate down the line, but only for a moment.

  She said: “Meet you there. Twenty minutes.”

  Venn arrived at the morgue fifteen minutes later. He waited in the underground parking lot until, two minutes and forty seconds afterwards by his watch, Harmony’s Crown Victoria came roaring down the ramp, unnecessarily fast as if she was chasing a perp.

  “You got here quick,” Venn said as they headed for the elevator. “Were you home?”

  “No,” Harmony said shortly.

  She didn’t elaborate. That was when Venn first noticed something was up with her.

  *

  It was in a second underground parking lot that Venn dumped the Jeep. The building was a medium-sized one for this city, neither in the same league as the skyscrapers around it nor obviously dwarfed by them. It was an office block, one Venn had never visited before.

  They ran a small gauntlet of security at the elevator and in the lobby before being issued with visitor ID cards in plastic wallets which they clipped to their jackets. Mort Teller, the FBI man they’d met at the morgue, greeted them at the foot of the stairs.

  “Come on up,” he said. “We’re on the second floor, so if you don’t mind walking...”

  They entered an open-plan office with glass walls and doors, that looked like an old-fashioned press room. A bunch of men and women, seven in all, sat or walked around, drinking coffee, working computer keyboards, shuffling papers. They glanced up as Venn and Harmony entered, though in a mildly curious manner rather than with the restrained hostility you saw in a movie Western when a stranger walked into a saloon.

  “Let me introduce you to the task force,” said Teller.

  Chapter 4

  “Fran Rickenbacker.”

  Her handshake lingered, and was firm. It wasn’t a bonecrusher – Venn was a big man, and she’d know she couldn’t hope to match him so didn’t try – but there was definite assertiveness in her grasp.

  She’d been the first to stand and approach them, and Venn was instantly aware that she was either Teller’s second-in-command or his partner. A tall woman of around forty, she was dressed in a sharp but unflashy business suit without the jacket on. Her chestnut hair was casually tied back but would otherwise have tumbled around her long face, which was sharply planed, all cheekbones and edges. Her eyes were level and dark, and wary.

  Quite an attractive woman, Venn thought, though she was a little too thin, as if she either over-exercised or didn’t get round to square meals as often as she might.

  “Joe Venn.” He held her gaze.

  Teller said, “Lieutenant Venn and Detective Jones are joining us from the NYPD’s Division of Special Projects.” He seemed to be addressing the room in general. Venn was aware Rickenbacker would know this stuff already. “We’ve just been to see the body at the morgue.” He swept his arm across the room, pointing people out one by one. “Agents King, Abbot and Leonard. And our administrative assistants, Deb Parker, Tom Wylde and Meredith Smith.” The men and women, three of each, raised their hands or nodded in turn. They carried on what they were doing, and Venn didn’t feel the need to go round and pump each one’s hand.

  “Okay,” said Teller, clapping his hands together. “Gather round, people, and we’ll do a recap.” Venn and Harmony pulled up seats, while the others walked around the desks or wheeled themselves into position on the castors of their chairs. On one wall of the office was a large smartscreen, with a placeholder image already up. Teller strode over to the screen and stood to one side, while Rickenbacker placed herself at the other. She stood with her arms folded, as if asserting her authority again.

  Teller picked up a combination pointer and clicker.

  The first slide to come up showed the dead man, Dale Fincher, but fully alive. It was a straight-on, head-and-shoulders shot with him facing the camera, unsmiling. His hair was short, in a buzz-cut, and his chin slightly raised. A strong face.

  “So here’s what we know,” Teller said. “Dale Fincher, thirty-three years old, died some time between nine p.m. Last night and three a.m. This morning, as a result of an icepick-sized object being driven up through his brain. He was tethered to a bed at the time, and there was no sign of a struggle. Branded on his forehead, probably before death, was the Greek sigma symbol.” Teller clicked on to the next slide. This one was also of Fincher, but showed his whole body. He wore military uniform.

  “Fincher was a corporal in the US Army, based at Fort Irvington upstate. He was on leave of absence with a bunch of buddies last night, drinking at a bar in Greenwich Village – the Rococo Club – when some woman came over and started coming on to him. He left with her. His buddies didn’t go along, for obvious reasons. This was at approximately seven o’clock last night. That’s the last anyone so far reports seeing of him.” Teller glanced across at Rickenbacker, who picked up as if on cue.

  “Fincher wasn’t scheduled to return to the base until tomorrow evening.” Her voice was strong and clear, and carried the slight rasp of a heavy smoker. Venn had noticed the odor of cigarette smoke on her clothes when he’d shaken hands. “His buddies expected him to show up some time, but they weren’t unduly worried when he didn’t appear back at the bar. They tried texting him, got no reply, and assumed he’d gotten lucky with this woman and was otherwise occupied. They went on their way, hit a few more bars, and eventually crashed out at the apartment one of them had here in Manhattan. Next morning, around eleven-thirty, one of the buddies tried texting, then calling Fincher. They’d been planning to meet up that afternoon and take in a football match. When he still didn’t answer, they began to get antsy. They tried calling his home in Albany, but there was no answer there either. Eventually, they called Fort Irvington and reported him missing, admitting they felt a little foolish doing so.”

  Teller took over.

  “At around the same time Fincher’s pal was making his call, one of the domestic staff at the Roebuck Hotel in Chelsea entered a room and found Fincher like that, spreadeagled and killed. The hotel IDed him immediately, which wasn’t all that hard since his wallet was still there. Nobody understood quite who he was at first, which is understandable enough. But the local cops ran his name thr
ough their database as soon as they secured the scene, and discovered quickly that he was both an active member of the military, and the son of Judge Marilyn Fincher of the New York Supreme Court.”

  “And then the proverbial hit the fan,” Harmony said.

  Both Teller and Rickenbacker looked at her, the latter with irritation as if she’d committed a major social gaffe.

  “Pretty much,” Teller agreed. “Our local FBI took over quickly, much to the annoyance of the NYPD, as you can imagine. In fact, the wrangling delayed things, up to the point that a compromise was reached. This would be a Federal investigation, but the NYPD would be intimately involved. In the form of the Division of Special Projects, which is where you come in, Lieutenant Venn.”

  Venn felt all eyes turn toward him.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

  Teller raised an eyebrow. “What doesn’t?”

  “The murdered man is the son of a judge. That makes it a high-profile case, sure. But not necessarily one that warrants a Federal task force. The NYPD handles this kind of thing all the time.”

  Teller wagged a finger at Venn appreciatively. “You’re right. Well spotted.” He paused. “But there’s another aspect to the killing. Something you won’t know yet. It isn’t the first.”

  Venn waited. The tension crackled in the air as if from a power cable. Clearly, everybody else in the room apart from Harmony knew the punchline.

  Teller said: “Five weeks ago, a man named Barnaby O’Farrell was found killed in a similar fashion. Not tied up, but on his bed at home, with the same kind of injury through his head. And a sigma symbol branded on his forehead. Then, eleven days ago, the body of a homeless John Doe was discovered in an alleyway off Varrick. Same thing. Single stab wound through the brain, and sigma on the face.”

  Venn became alert. His demeanor didn’t show any change.

  Rickenbacker said: “We’re looking at a serial killer.”

  *

  “The definition depends on which authority you listen to.” Teller had started to pace a little, back and forth in a short path. The slide on the smart screen had changed to the FBI’s website, and a document titled simply The Serial Killer. It appeared to be some sort of academic monograph.