by J. A. Kerley
I couldn’t finish eating. I tossed the cup and skewer in the trash can, mashing its point on the sidewalk so no rifling trash-picker would spear his hand. There was a fresh-looking newspaper atop the trash, and I pulled it out, shaking off congealed French fries. When I saw it was The Watcher, I nearly jammed it back in the can but remembered the crime reports and snapped it open to local news.
The headline grabbed my eyes.
Slasher Kills Woman in Harlem.
There was no shot of Waltz and me this time. Just a picture of Angela Bernal centered beneath the headline, a head-and-shoulder shot with an out-of-focus beach in the background. A breeze was trying to push her hair into her eyes and she was smiling as she held it back.
My breath stopped. I stared at her features, heart racing. I grabbed my cell, glanced down to dial, returned my eyes to the paper. I couldn’t take them off the photo.
This is Detective Sheldon Waltz, the recorded message said. I’m not able to take your call right now, but please leave your –
I dialed my other NYPD contact number. It rang twice.
“Lieutenant Folger.”
“We’ve got a problem,” I said, feeling sick. Things had just jumped from bad to worse.
TWELVE
“The victim’s not Ridgecliff’s type,” I told Folger. “It’s all wrong.”
The full cast and crew had been assembled in a windowed briefing room with a whiteboard, a lectern, a dozen metal folding chairs. A bulletin board displayed photos of the victims, Jeremy, and a timeline. Half the chairs were taken by detectives working the case. Cargyle was multitasking in the corner, listening while repairing one of his phones. Bullard had shifted to jeans and an NYU tee, allowing him to wear a low-slung bandana over a bulge like a halved lemon. Whenever someone shot a curious glance, Bullard glowered back. Waltz watched from the doorway.
“Not his type?” Folger said, incredulous. “You’re talking like he orders them from a goddamn dating service.”
“The women Jeremy Ridgecliff killed were stand-ins for his mother. He thought she’d betrayed him by not stopping his sadist father. All his targets were Caucasian because his mother was Caucasian. Bernal is Hispanic. Out of his cultural pattern.”
“Cultural pattern?” Folger rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you a pattern: The woman was re-fucking-arranged. Forensics found more hairs and fibers on the floor. The same internal organs are gone. What do you need, Ryder? Ridgecliff to leave a calling card?”
“You’re not understanding, Lieutenant. I’m not saying Ridgecliff didn’t do it. I’m saying he’s jumped from his target profile.”
Folger narrowed an eye. “You’re saying he started out killing Mommy, but they’re all Mommy now? Every woman out there might be setting the bastard off?”
“It’s possible,” I said.
“Jesus.”
Leaving Folger shaking her head, I walked to the window, put my hands on the sill, and looked skyward into a sprawling advance of nimbus clouds, their purple underbellies gravid with rain. The room was silent at my back, everyone digesting the news that our suspect was potentially at war with every woman in New York City.
The quiet was broken by Bullard’s voice, loud and demanding attention.
“Everyone seems to have forgotten that Ridgecliff’s first vic, Prowse, made a recording saying ‘call Ryder’ if she was found dead. Am I the only one that thinks that’s real curious?”
Folger said, “How so, Detective Bullard?”
“Prowse was under Ridgecliff’s total control, right? Who doesn’t believe that? Show of hands.”
No hands went up. Bullard continued.
“I saw the reports from the nut basket, the Institute or whatever. Ridgecliff’s a whack job, but he’s probably the Einstein of whack jobs.”
“Your point, Detective?” Folger said.
“In the video recording, Prowse looks scared. What if Prowse didn’t make the recording on her own? What if Ridgecliff was behind the camera flashing one of those knives he loves?”
“It’s a possibility,” Folger nodded. “Maybe a big one. And?”
“Then it wasn’t Prowse that wanted Ryder here. Ridgecliff did.”
I felt the sudden weight of every eye in the room. Bullard’s point was a damn good one, and I realized he might be a jerk, but he wasn’t a dim bulb.
“Reflections on that idea, Ryder?” Folger asked, arms crossed. “That it’s Ridgecliff who wants you here?”
“A good theory,” I said, nodding to Bullard, credit where credit’s due. “But if Ridgecliff’s so smart, why would he want me in New York? I was the one who ID’d him, after all.”
“He sent the blind guy to you,” Bullard said. “Why?”
“Once he saw the picture in the Watcher and knew I was here, he had to make contact. It was pure hubris.”
“Pure whatsis?”
“Pride,” Waltz interrupted. “Sociopaths are ego machines, part of their delusion being they’re smarter than everyone else.” He paused. “Ridgecliff has some actual claim there.”
“He was pissing on my shoes,” I explained. “Rubbing my face in the fact that he knows I’m here and he thinks there’s nothing I can do.”
But Jeremy always had a subtext. Was it my brother’s way of saying good-bye, a last fond knock on the kid’s head before he slipped into the persona that was consuming him? What, exactly, had my brother tried to convey through Parks’s message?
“We might also consider the opposite,” Waltz said. “Let’s say Ridgecliff believes you’re the only one outside of Dr Prowse who knows how he thinks. Maybe he does want you here. He can’t do a thing if you’re in Mobile.”
I stared, not grasping the implication.
“Don’t be obtuse, Ryder,” Folger said. “Waltz is suggesting Ridgecliff brought you here to kill you.”
“What? Why?”
“Maybe he figures he’ll be free from then on.”
The door banged open. A dick named Perlstein ran into the room, breathless, waving a page of notes. “We got a fix on him. Ridgecliff. Or at least we know where Ridgecliff’s been hiding. A homeless shanty town by the docks. Sleeping in a box. The precinct cops found people who remember him. Forensics just pulled his prints off a cereal box and a pop bottle.”
“He’s trying to blend in with the homeless,” Cluff said. “He can add or lose clothes, fatten his shape or go skinnier, hide his face. He can eat at churches, soup kitchens. Panhandle money.”
“I’ll update the BOLO,” Folger said. “What was he last seen wearing?”
Perlstein frowned at his notes. “It keeps changing. A green raincoat. A pair of overalls. A blue sweater and plaid pants. Black boots. Leather sandals. Purple running shoes.”
“That covers half the homeless in New York,” Waltz noted, not hiding skepticism.
“We’ve got a basic fix,” Folger defended. “Check every bum on the street. The info on Ridgecliff keeps mentioning his big baby blues. If a bum’s got blue eyes, hold him until he’s cleared five ways from Sunday. Exercise extreme caution. This guy thinks fast, kills like a machine. If he even smells like he’s gonna pull something, put three in his center ring, no regrets. Got that?”
Nothing but assent.
The news that Jeremy had been spotted scattered everyone in different directions. Folger went to update the info in the Be On the LookOut broadcasts. Cluff, Bullard and two others headed to the shanty town. That left just Waltz and me.
“What can I do?” I asked. “Give me something to do.”
“Maybe you should leave the city. If this guy feels some kind of bond with you, you’re in more danger than you recogni—”
His cell went off. He checked the number, muttered, “Pelham’s HQ.” Put the phone to his ear. I listened unobtrusively, hearing the words Doll? and When? and We’ll be right there, the last words spoken while looking at me.
“We received it today,” Pelham’s adjutant, the petite, square-jawed woman named Sarah Wensley said, looking o
ver reading glasses at Waltz and me. “It came to Cynthia personally, but addressed to the campaign headquarters.”
We were back in the small room to the side of the rah-rah phone-bank operation up front. A knock hit the door before it opened and Pelham scooted in, dressed in a red pantsuit, a white neck scarf billowing in her wake. She looked delighted to see a room with fewer than a hundred people inside.
“I’m just back from my third lunch today. If I push any more chicken salad in circles, I swear I’ll go crazy. What’s happening, people?”
Wensley said, “I’m showing the detectives the weird doll.”
She pulled a rotund, vase-shaped doll from the bag. I was close and took it from her, latex gloves now covering my hands. The doll was maybe six inches tall. I opened the doll at the waist, empty. It should have revealed a smaller doll inside, and so on, for several dolls. I’d seen them in gift catalogs.
“It’s one of those stacking dolls or whatever,” Pelham said. “They’re all over Russia. But usually there are other dolls inside.”
I considered the cartoonish face. “Why no mouth?” I asked.
“That’s what made it kinda strange,” Wensley said. “Detective Waltz said call if anything was even a little odd.”
“No mouth?” Waltz said, pulling on his own gloves. “Pass it over.”
Waltz studied the flesh-pink paint below the nose. “The mouth has been painted over. Nice job of matching the color.”
I said, “Do you have Russian followers, ma’am? Or enemies?”
Pelham shook her head. “I’ve been to Russia three times, junkets, trade assemblies. Part of a crowd of officials meeting a crowd of officials, everyone mouthing platitudes. I’ve never taken any sort of volatile position concerning Russia or member states of the former Soviet Union.”
Wensley said, “There’s something creepy about it.”
Waltz and I traded glances. He thought so, too. That made three of us. He said, “I want everyone who touched the doll to get fingerprinted. And I want Forensics to check it over.”
“Why has the mouth been painted over?” I wondered aloud.
“Obviously, someone’s taken her voice.”
We all looked at Pelham. She started to say something else, but leaned against the wall and shook her head.
Jeremy Ridgecliff was crossing Canal Street, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, two shopping bags in the other. He’d been to electronics marts, gourmet shops, and import outlets. New York had something for every taste.
“You, sir. Stop right there.”
He turned to see a jowly uniformed cop leaning out the window of a blue-and-white cruiser. The fiftyish cop was looking over his sunglasses, brown eyes vacuuming in every nuance and detail. Jeremy felt angry that a stranger could so brazenly attempt to take his measure. He pictured the cop’s head rent with a sturdy axe, a ten-pounder. Crunch went the cranium. The picture and sound calmed Jeremy’s anger.
“Que?” Jeremy asked softly, stepping on to the sidewalk.
“Please stop walking, sir.”
Jeremy halted and pointed to his motionless shoes, like You mean this?
“Yes, dammit. I mean, si.” The cop exited the cruiser, an older guy, heavy. His equipment squeaked and rattled on his leather belt. Another cop, much younger, sat in the driver’s seat looking between a photo on the computer screen in the car and Jeremy. He made a motion at his hip Jeremy interpreted as unstrapping his weapon.
The driver opened his door and stepped out, watching across the hood of the car, one hand dangling by his sidearm. The heavy cop kept a half-dozen paces between him and Jeremy.
“Please set the cup on the ground, sir.”
Jeremy affected puzzlement, though he felt a sizzle of anger arcing across his gut. The cop jabbed a finger at the cup, then at the ground, meaning, Set it down, now! Jeremy complied, bending his knees, setting the coffee on the sidewalk, straightening. He kept his hands away from his body; Carson had said cops liked hands kept far from pockets.
“Now,” the cop said, “may I see some ID? Slowly, please.”
Crunch, the axe repeated.
“High-Dee?” Jeremy said, stretching puzzlement across his face. “Oh, iden-ti-ficacion. Um momento por favor. Está em meu revestimento.”
Jeremy reached toward his jacket, the cop watching the hand like a hawk focused on a field mouse. Jeremy retrieved his dog-eared passport, handed it over. The cop stared past Jeremy’s glasses and into his eyes, then studied him and the ID with equal scrutiny.
Crunch, crunch …
Jeremy pretended to watch a burst of pigeons overhead, not overly concerned with the verisimilitude of the passport. His neighbor down the hall in the Institute, Ismael Rogmann, had been a forger in addition to his habit of collecting human hands. Rogmann knew his competition, naturally, a good businessman. He’d traded the name of another master forger for thirteen plaster renditions of Albrecht Dürer’s Praying Hands sculpture. Rogmann had arrayed them on the floor and slept in their midst, a happy man.
The cop relaxed. Shot a stand-down glance at the driver. Handed back the Portuguese passport. “Thank you – I mean, Gracias, Señor Caldiera. We’re just doing some checking.”
“Chic-king? Muito bom.”
The driver of the cruiser, who looked in his mid-twenties, shook his head, thumped the roof of the cruiser. “Come on, Pinelli. He ain’t close to the Ridgecliff guy. Let’s grab some chow.”
The older cop grunted as he climbed into the car. “He fit the height and weight. Same face shape, too. Chances are Ridgecliff’s fifty blocks away and looking like a bum, but everyone’s guilty until I check ‘em out.”
“Tarde boa, chefe.” Jeremy said, waving at the departing cruiser. He picked up his cup, tucked his axe away, and continued down the sidewalk deep in thought. It was a minor incident, but it had made him aware of the sudden increase in cops on the street. Some of them would be like the guy he’d just dealt with, a street animal, seen it all, suspicious of it all. Carson had said there were cops who could smell guilt on a perp’s breath.
He decided it would be good to keep a weapon in reserve in case something or someone got in the way of his plans. Nothing so primitive as an axe, of course, though the hands-on aspect was a pleasant thought. He needed something bigger, totally unexpected …
And as powerful as lightning.
I paced the floor for an hour until Folger, Cluff and Bullard returned from the homeless camp. Folger stripped off the jacket of her gray business ensemble, tossed it over a chair beside mine. I smelled a wisp of clean body warmth and perfume and caught my eyes studying the way her skirt hem slid across her geometrically perfect knees.
“Ridgecliff seems to have gone underground, Ryder. But people there claim to see him every night. He’ll return to the roost sooner or later.”
“We planted two dozen surveillance people planted in the area,” Bullard crowed. “Plus two undercovers in the camp itself. He’s nailed.”
It didn’t work for me because I knew my brother. He hated dirty people and cold cereal with equal vigor. I sat in the corner and pictured the brother I knew. I could see him visiting the encampment, tossing a box of cereal or two to the ground, then paying or otherwise convincing psychologically wounded people to claim to have seen him on a regular basis, loading their answers with misinformation. Given the people Jeremy would select, they’d believe it themselves after several repetitions.
The cops were wasting their time. Jeremy delighted in sending people into mazes where every path led to a wall. It was on me to do something.
I stood, picked up a metal chair, banged it on the floor. All conversation stopped, every eye turned to me.
“He’s not around the homeless camp,” I said. “Not even close. He went there once, a misdirection. He’s not coming back.”
“You got a reason for that conviction, Ryder?” Folger said.
“Anytime you think you’ve got him figured out, it’s a set-up. Jeremy Ridgecliff is playing you.
And unless you stop running in circles and start listening to me, he’s going to keep playing you.”
“You’ve finally managed to get my attention,” Folger said.
THIRTEEN
I stepped to the front of the room, feeling the stares.
“First order of business …” I said. “Forget the homeless camp; he’ll be a forever no-show. Then shitcan any searches in the other boroughs. Ridgecliff won’t leave Manhattan.”
Bullard said, “Total bullshit. The loony will hide wherever he can find a –”
“Zip it, Detective,” Folger said. She shot a glance at Waltz, then dropped the big eyes back on me. “Waltz told me your hunch that Ridgecliff would stay in Manhattan. I didn’t believe Waltz then, I don’t believe you now. Here’s your chance to change my mind with actual proof.”
“There is no proof with Ridgecliff, Lieutenant. You get my gut instincts. Right now they’re the best thing you’ve got.”
Bullard slapped the desk. “We’re the fucking NYPD, Ryder. We don’t need your gut inst—”
“Shut up,” Folger snapped at Bullard. “Tell me about Ridgecliff, Ryder. Have your gut sing me a song.”
I started pacing the floor, snapping my fingers, skin tingling, hairs prickling on the back of my neck, a hunger in my innards that had nothing to do with food. I had what Harry called the predator’s rush, the mind energizing the body for the hunt.
“Ridgecliff will only leave Manhattan if he’s cornered. He’s not cornered, so he’s here. To leave would be perceived as a loss of face.”
Bullard said, “Makes no fucking sense. Why would Brooklyn or Queens be a loss of face?”
“It would be a retreat, signifying we had control.”
“The ego thing,” Waltz affirmed.
