by Oliver Stark
‘How often do you pass out?’
‘Been happening for years but it’s worse now, I think. I can’t remember too well any more. I just don’t seem to remember much for long. I really can’t. I just feel drained. Look at me.’
Marty looked. Nick’s skin was pale and his eyes were sunken. He looked like he’d had a few rough weeks. ‘What started it? Do you remember that?’
‘Listen, Doctor, I haven’t even told Dee this, but I lost my job. They locked me out of the office, left my things in a box on the sidewalk. A woman was staring from the window. She was wearing pink. I dropped the box on the way to the car. She was laughing.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘Found nothing else?’
‘Not a thing. I’ve just been wandering around, driving my car, waiting. Then I got into arguments with Dee.’
‘What kind?’
‘I love Dee. I love my kids, but I wasn’t nice to her. I’m so sorry. I was so sorry. I told her about a hundred times, but she still looks at me strange.’
‘What happened with Dee?’
‘I hurt her, Doctor. I think I really hurt her.’
‘Why?’
‘I get the feeling she doesn’t love me.’
‘You feel pretty bad about it?’
‘Yeah, then I have to go out and drive and wait. I wait until she’s asleep, but sometimes I bring her presents. She likes the presents I bring her. She likes pretty things.’
‘You have bad dreams again?’
‘I dreamed of Bethany again.’
‘Your sister?’
‘She wasn’t my real sister, Doctor. I was fostered. She was nice to me but I never was part of that family. Bethany was so beautiful, though, she’d make me ache just to look at her. In the dream I was still just a boy.’
‘What happened?’ said Marty.
‘I watched her crossing the meadow again, her little frock blowing in the breeze. I remember that dress so clearly. Strawberry pattern all over it. She was such a perfect thing.’
Marty nodded. His own daughter was fifteen and a money-hungry, promiscuous little rock monster who left condoms on her bedroom floor to show Mom and Dad how mature she was. Still, if purity and innocence was Nick’s ideal then yeah, if the archetype works for you, run with it. ‘What happened this time?’
‘I was being beaten as I watched her. Held upside down and beaten.’
‘Who beat you?’
‘A man. Her father, I think.’
‘What for?’
‘Looking at his girl.’
‘He didn’t like you looking or you looked with your hands?’
Nick stared, fierce and unnerving.
‘What did I say?’ Marty asked.
‘I didn’t ever touch her, I told him I didn’t. I never did.’
Marty squinted. ‘Sure you didn’t. I’m just searching around. I need to find out why you’re fixated on Bethany.’
Nick rose to his feet. ‘Leave her alone. No one touched her. You gotta try to help me.’
‘I don’t get your problem, Nick. You want to stop the dreams or stop hurting your wife?’
‘I want my life back, Doctor Fox.’
Marty paused and looked up. ‘How so?’
‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m falling apart. I think about killing her.’
‘Your wife?’
‘Yeah, Dee. I think about it a lot.’
‘You want to kill her?’
‘Sometimes I can’t think of anything else. Sometimes I see Dee’s body all bloody and cut all over the floor.’
‘In your dreams, right?’
‘Not dreams like that, no. I daydream about it.’ Nick paused and stared towards the window. ‘But I get excited when I’m imagining it. I’m sick, Doctor. I’m so sick it scares me. I ain’t going to go home any more, in case I hurt them. I love them. I love my two kids. I love Dee, but I told her to hide all the knives in the house, put them away so I couldn’t get to them. If I find one, I don’t know if I can stop myself.’
‘She must be frightened.’
‘She made me come to see you, Doctor. She’s using her savings to pay for these sessions. She says if I don’t get better, she’ll have to go away.’
There was a pause as Nick let the thoughts fill his mind and float away. ‘I’ve got a little place in my head where I put these bad things, you know. All the blood and all the noise go there.’
‘Where do you put them?’
‘In a little glass cage inside my head. Where I can’t hear them scream and I can’t feel their hatred.’
‘You’re going to have to open that glass cage there, Nick, if you want to get better, you know. Get in touch with those feelings.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Doctor, you can’t open the glass cage. You gotta keep it locked up all the time.’
A cloud passed over the bright sun and the room darkened. ‘Why do you think you’re dreaming about Bethany?’ asked Marty.
‘Maybe I was in love with her. She was just about as beautiful as you could imagine. Like a cherub with a beautiful face and golden hair.’
‘Did something happen with your sister, Nick?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did anything happen with you and your sister?’
Nick stared coldly at Marty. ‘No, nothing happened to my sister. What do you mean?’
Marty Fox poured Nick a glass of water and passed it to him. Nick was staring up at him. ‘What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my mind?’
Marty put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. This poor American nobody was like a lot of people he saw. Their home lives were degenerating because they hadn’t become the people they imagined they would and they started to fall apart, lose their jobs and turn on their families. They were desperate to get some attention, but Nick was worse than most. He seemed close to the edge.
‘I can try to help you, Nick. It’s good you came. If you keep coming, I can help. Do you think you can do that?’
‘I think so,’ said Nick, looking up with hopeful grey eyes.
‘I know,’ said Marty. ‘Keep talking, Nick. The talk is good. It helps the brain to process the traumatic details. Let it flow.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Academy Lecture Hall
November 21, 10.30 a.m.
First thing in the morning, Captain Lafayette got the message out that he wanted to get together the task force and everyone else in the team. He pulled in the detectives from North Manhattan Homicide, all the precinct homicide detectives, the back office staff, everyone involved in the case.
Bringing everyone together unexpectedly brought a locker-room camaraderie to the room. In the large academy lecture hall, the air was thick with jokes, insults and testosterone. They’d managed to keep Williamson’s death from the news crews, but that meant that most of the team were still in the dark.
Lafayette walked in. He wasn’t looking either solemn or jovial. The deputy commissioner and Ged Rainer walked in by his side. A chorus of whistles went up. This was the main man coming down to see his troops.
Lafayette mounted the platform. He introduced Lenny Elwood and invited him to speak.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Elwood said, ‘a while back, Blue Team took down Eric Romario, one of the most repulsive killers we’ve seen in this great city. They took him down with perseverance, good old-fashioned police work and great leadership. ’ He paused. ‘Great, great leadership. I’d hoped to come here to encourage you to redouble your efforts to catch the American Devil, but I’m here as the carrier of bad news.’
The lecture hall dropped to silence. Bad news in the NYPD always meant that somebody had died. The teams started looking across their ranks, thinking it might be someone close to them. Lenny Elwood looked left to right, top to bottom, his eyes trying to meet every person in the room.
‘Nathan Alexander Williamson, Detective First Grade, North Manhattan Homicide Squad, was found dead e
arly this morning in the back yard of his own home. He’d been murdered. Details are unclear at the moment, but it looks like the American Devil is responsible. He has just made this very personal. But I wanted you to know that Nate died fighting. He was a fighter through and through. Nate leaves behind his wife and daughter. I’m very sorry for you all. It’s a terrible thing to lose a great detective, for a family to lose a father and for each of you to lose a friend. My heartfelt condolences.’
Lenny Elwood stepped back from the podium and Ged Rainer moved in close to the mic. ‘Detectives and police officers of North Manhattan, your job is one of the most dangerous and demanding there is. Make no mistake, you’re all heroes out there, but you’ve got no superpowers to protect you. When you get shot, you bleed, just like the rest of us; but that only goes to prove what real heroes look like in our day and age. They are not made of iron, they cannot fly, they do not have supernatural strength or amazing powers of recovery. Detective Williamson was an everyday, made-of-flesh hero, just like yourselves. Your job is to protect this great city and keep her from harm, to make America as safe for others as we want it to be for our own children. That is what Detective Williamson spent his life doing. That is what he died doing. Ladies and gentlemen, he gave his life in the line of duty, he died keeping our city safe, I salute him. God bless him and God bless America.’
A round of applause broke out in one corner of the room and quickly moved through the audience. Captain Lafayette was emotional as he rose to the platform.
‘Sorry, guys, that’s all we have. We will all miss a cynical old bastard, a good friend and a great cop. Nothing to add. We’ve got a lot of police work to do to find out what happened. Dismissed.’
Lafayette left a silent hall stunned and confused.
Directly after the briefing, Lafayette called the Blue Team together. He had already told his close associates an hour before the briefing and they’d had time to absorb the horrific truth that the American Devil had gone after one of their own.
Tom Harper was devastated by the news, but he didn’t show it to the other guys. The false profile had been his idea. He had forced it through and now Nate Williamson was dead, cut down outside his own home. He looked each of them in the eye solemnly as they listened to Lafayette going through the next steps. Then Lafayette turned to Harper. Harper was feeling bruised by his own guilt, but most of all he felt angry. He’d watched Nate walk away from the scene with his head bowed. He could have gone after him. He stared back at Lafayette.
‘Detective Harper, we need you to step up to the plate on this. I want you as the lead. Nate would’ve wanted it too. I know what you must be feeling, but bottle it. This guy has killed six people, none of which is anybody’s fault but his. Listen to me, Harper, I want you to take this bastard down for all of us. What do you say?’
Harper moved his weight from one foot to the other. He wasn’t worthy of it. He gritted his teeth and looked up. ‘I’ll do it if the team wants me to, otherwise you gotta find another guy.’
Lafayette looked around the room, and each member of Blue Team nodded the signal that it was okay by them. ‘Okay, I’m in,’ said Harper. ‘Let’s get to work. He’s a cop-killer now: we’re all targets.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Blue Team
November 21, 1.00 p.m.
L ead Detective Tom Harper knocked back his fifth cup of strong black coffee. He hadn’t slept at all since he walked in on Elizabeth Seale’s still-warm corpse and now he didn’t want to sleep. Williamson had been dead less than twelve hours and someone needed to focus the investigation. There were so many people involved now, the leads were in danger of getting lost in the mass of detail.
‘We can count on this being private until tomorrow morning,’ said Harper to Captain Lafayette and Eddie Kasper. ‘Then, if she’s true to form, Erin Nash will tell the world that the American Devil took out the lead detective.’
‘You want us to put the frighteners on her, Tom?’ said Eddie.
‘I tried that and she doesn’t frighten easy. I think I might have even strengthened her resolve. But maybe we could try to get the DA to agree to get her put under surveillance. What do you think, Captain?’
‘You want the District Attorney to agree to the NYPD spying on journalists? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Look, Captain, did you read her account of Elizabeth Seale’s murder? It’s just gone up on the website. She’s got everything. She knows about the false arrest in the wrong apartment and another piece of information that we only got back from the autopsy this morning.’
‘What was that?’
‘That the killer took another trophy. Elizabeth Seale’s uterus had been removed from the body.’
‘I didn’t know. How the hell did she get that information?’
‘Only Blue Team and the Medical Examiner’s office knew that her uterus was taken,’ said Harper.
‘You think it’s someone on the team?’ asked Lafayette.
‘I’d hate to think that, but where else? And if not, then we’ve got to pin her source down. Can’t you do anything at all, Captain?’
‘After what you tried with her, you’re lucky we’re not facing a lawsuit. Her editor made it clear that he’ll run with a harassment and assault suit if Erin gets any more heat.’
‘It was self-defence,’ said Harper.
‘Always is with you, but even if they make the complaint, you’re out. You made her untouchable.’
Harper shot looks between them both. ‘Look, if the DA won’t sanction it, Eddie, how about you see what you can get done unofficially.’
‘Will do, boss.’
‘And one more thing, Captain. Can you at least get us some peace? Guys are getting hammered as they go in and out of the building. The press have been camping outside since Erin Nash called this guy a serial killer. Now we’ve got news crews running hourly updates. If I’ve got a grimace on my face, they’ll report it.’
‘I can move them away from the building, but it’s a free country.’
‘Well, get them across the street, at least. Give our guys a chance.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Harper had been sifting through the files for an hour and he wasn’t at all impressed with Williamson’s approach to systematic logging and filing of case information. In fact, the dead man’s approach stank. Harper could see what was wrong immediately. Due to the speed of the kills, each murder hadn’t been fully investigated and the information hadn’t been cross-referenced with any of the other victims or even logged centrally. Williamson was leaving too much to chance and old-fashioned thinking. This all meant that they were walking blind through the case, hoping to stumble on something. With Harper in the lead spot, it had to be different.
At 1.15 p.m. Tom Harper called the investigation team together for a briefing. Along with the core members of Blue Team, he had over a hundred detectives working the case, but he only wanted his top people. He had six members of Blue Team, another six members of Manhattan North, four detectives drafted in from Manhattan South, and another six from the precinct detective squads. These experienced homicide detectives made up his core team. Along with his administrative team, there were twenty-five faces looking up at him, all angry and expectant.
‘Good morning to you all. I’m Detective Harper and this is Detective Kasper. Nate Williamson was a good cop and he didn’t deserve to die. So we’ve got to nail this creep for Nate. We’re here to take down the American Devil, but we’re not going to do it unless we’re organized. So far, as far as we know, this guy has killed five women in New York and one cop. Around the room, we’ve got five boards. I’m putting a team of six detectives on each woman. I need their lives fully investigated. We’ve got another team working Williamson’s murder. I want to know everything these women did for the last month of their lives. I want to know every person they spoke to, every phone call they made, every shop they visited. I want a moment-by-moment account with nothing left out. I want to see ph
otographs and names of their boyfriends, dates, family, and friends. I want their computer records searched. I want everything back here. This killer has been interacting with them and he will have left traces.
‘So listen up, we will work two systems. The boards for all the visuals and key incidents, people and places. The database for absolutely everything. Every name, number, location and event. We’re working six different murders here, gentlemen, and it’ll be easy to miss something, but the computer won’t. It’ll flag up any similarities. Got that? The boards for basic facts, key leads and suspects, the database for everything. All clear?’
The room nodded its approval. Harper continued. ‘Secondly, I’m putting three teams, round the clock, to respond to information from the public. I don’t want to be swamped by this shit and I don’t want to miss anything. Again, all names, numbers, details logged and cross-referenced to crime scene details — if anyone is authentic it should flag it up. We meet every day to give a brief report, we see what the computer flags up and we see if anything on the boards throws up an idea. We haven’t been doing the ground work, gentlemen, and it’s not good enough. He’s one man, we’re many. We’ve got over a thousand hours a day of detective time pouring into this case, so let’s not waste any of it.
‘And one more thing. We’re getting serious heat from One PP and I don’t want anyone, and that means anyone, talking to the press. Someone is briefing Erin Nash and it’s ripping big holes in our investigation. They’re hyping this up enough as it is. I trust you, so be trustworthy. Now, let’s go to.’
‘Amen!’ shouted Kasper and the room laughed in response.
Harper dismissed the detectives to set up their teams and then started calling in the advisers he’d identified as necessary. First he called the FBI at the New York field office and asked for two special agents to join the task force and offer advice. As far as Harper could see, they needed every bit of help they could get.
By the end of his first few hours in the lead spot, Harper returned with Kasper to find the boards were already filling up. They had three full-time administrative staff and it was finally beginning to look like a serious operation.
