American Devil th&dl-1

by Oliver Stark

  ‘Is that coffee I smell?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll get you some. This is Detective Harper, North Manhattan Homicide. Tom, this is Daniel Mercer.’

  ‘Morning,’ said Tom. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you.’

  Denise walked through to the kitchen to fetch the coffee. Daniel stood looking at Harper. ‘My girlfriend under arrest, Detective?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Early for a house call, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re talkative, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m on police business, sir. Got nothing to say.’

  ‘What do you want with Denise? She’s a psychotherapist, not a cop.’

  ‘It’s confidential business, sir. I can’t say.’

  Denise arrived back with the coffee. ‘Daniel, we’re kind of in the middle of something. Would you give us a minute?’

  ‘Sure, but it all sounds very secretive to me. Hope you’re not getting in too deep, Denise.’

  ‘Hey, if I wanted a handler, I’d be wearing a collar.’

  Daniel took his coffee and left the room. Harper looked across to Denise. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had someone here. I’ll go. I’m just not thinking straight. My apologies.’

  ‘What about your reconstruction?’

  ‘I can go through it alone. We can talk later.’

  ‘You think I can help?’

  ‘It might make the difference.’

  ‘It’s a long shot,’ she said, breathing in the aroma of her coffee. ‘I’ve never even been to a crime scene.’

  ‘It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’

  ‘And what do I do?’

  ‘You’re the victim.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just terrific. I’m typecast on my first case.’

  ‘I’m not much good in heels. And I need to walk in his shoes a while. I got to feel this guy think. But don’t feel you ought to.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’m coming,’ Denise said. ‘But no weird shit. Give me ten minutes.’ She drank the espresso down in one.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Laker Building

  November 22, 6.48 a.m.

  Denise and Tom drove over to the Laker Building in silence. Daniel had not been in a good mood when she went back into the bedroom to dress, but she just ignored it. It was the only way to deal with his unfounded jealousy. She put on her jacket, and then, as an afterthought, took a little photograph of her father and put it in her pocket. He’d come with her. She might need some moral support.

  There were reasons why Denise knew the criminal mind and it wasn’t from anything she’d learned at Quantico. Throughout her childhood, she had come to know the inside of a prison well. She had come to know about the dangerous criminals who inhabited the same strange rooms as her father. He told her the stories. No lies from her old man. He told his little girl, straight. Never romance or euphemism. He pointed them out — the rapists, the murderers, the child molesters he did time with. He told her what they’d done, why they’d done it and what they were like. He told her that’s why they were locked up. Her father had told her everything she ever needed to know about the criminal mind from behind a perspex screen.

  He also told her that he never meant to kill Albert Mack and she believed him. He told her he regretted it every day, but you had to live with your mistakes.

  Her mother was long gone by the time Denise got to know her father. The little girl lived with a collection of relatives in a small tenement building. It was not bad. It was limited, sure, they had nothing, but they were good people, all of them. And they looked after her.

  When Denise Levene got a scholarship to university, she was the pride of her family. Her old man cried for the first time in his adult life. It was the only time they’d ever got sentimental with each other and it didn’t last long. Cancer was burrowing up through his gut by then and he only had a year to live.

  So Denise was left with a legacy. She was not afraid of criminals or their mental states. She was fascinated by the darkness that took those lives and destroyed them. She was just about brilliant enough to end up at Quantico, but her family’s criminal background meant that she didn’t get through the first round of interviews.

  But you pick yourself up and try again. And then again and then again. And that was her philosophy: get off your knees.

  She looked across at Harper, firmly gripping the wheel. She could see from his eyes, his attitude, that he could easily have been on the other side — some maverick, hard-ass criminal. She thought he maybe saw something in her too. Some basic recognition. You know it when you meet someone who’s actually lived. You see it. You just have to look down a little to catch it. People with scuffed knees.

  They arrived at Elizabeth Seale’s apartment just before 6.50 a.m. Harper’s police shield got him through the doors, and Marvin was still sitting on the desk.

  Tom flicked on the lights. Denise was feeling her heart beat heavily in her chest. ‘Kind of spooky to think the poor girl came in like this and was dead an hour later.’

  ‘Medical report says he kept her breathing for as long as he could. He sat there and held a plastic bag round her neck until she nearly died, then he opened up the bag. Over and over again, just playing with her life like it’s some toy.’ Tom walked further into the apartment. ‘I like to do reconstructions. Run through the scene, see if it brings anything to light.’

  Denise looked around. The apartment was cold. It already had the feel of an abandoned place. She shrugged. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘I’ll hide in the wardrobe, just like he was. You come in, put your bag down. Come into the bedroom.’

  ‘Got it. Then you kill me, right? It’s just like a first date.’

  Tom nodded and went into the bedroom. He moved inside the wardrobe. The chair that the killer had used was still there. Tom sat down. He tried to calm his breathing. It was definitely spooky. He could see through the thin gap between the wardrobe doors. A thin line of light. This was how the killer had seen his victim. This was where he sat, excited and demonic. What was he doing in the wardrobe? Was he daydreaming? Anticipating? Thinking of how he was going to kill her?

  Denise went outside the apartment. Half of her was thinking, what the hell am I doing? Still, if it might help, she was willing to try it. She wondered if the hardnosed Detective Harper was just plain old-fashioned lonely and needed a good excuse for company. She suspected that he was.

  She re-entered Elizabeth Seale’s apartment, but this time she was on her own. She looked into the dark and silent room and switched on the lights. She felt the apprehension that Elizabeth Seale would not have felt and tried to act casual. She did what she would’ve done, which was to toss her bag on the polished mahogany side table in the small hallway. Elizabeth was probably a lot more refined. She probably had a handbag storage system. Denise shivered. She shouldn’t make light of it. Poor Elizabeth Seale had no idea that there was a killer lurking in her home. A killer who had been tracking her movements for months, who was waiting in the shadows, waiting not only to kill her but to slowly torture her to death.

  ‘Perhaps he was taking things from his victims for months,’ she called out. Harper heard her but didn’t reply. The silence made Denise feel doubly scared. Suddenly she felt really alone.

  ‘Tom!’ she said quietly, trying to stop her hand shaking. Pretending to be a murder victim was just plain wrong in every way. She felt the fear soak through her. She knew it was irrational, but she felt it just the same. A thin line of perspiration formed on her upper lip. Her skin was tingling, her pulse drumming a fast beat. The room was still cordoned off and sealed. In the early morning, it was an eerie place to be.

  ‘Bastard,’ she mouthed as she walked through the living room and kicked off her shoes. She then walked into the bedroom. ‘Okay, I’m in the bedroom.’ Still no reply from the guy in the closet, who was taking this way too seriously. It wasn’t nice. Not long ago, in this very room, the American Devil had been waiting i
n the wardrobe with a seven-inch blade and a plastic bag. He’d killed Elizabeth slowly, slit open her side, taken out her uterus and probably photographed her in all kinds of poses.

  Denise shivered. Her eyes were on the wardrobe. On the bed, she saw that Tom had placed a dress. She walked over and looked at it. Then, from behind, she heard the door of the wardrobe creak open. She turned quickly.

  For a moment, it was not Tom coming out of the wardrobe but a stranger in the shadows and her heart thumped. ‘Tom,’ she called out. There was no answer. He was staring hard, trying to feel the killer’s movements.

  ‘Tom, you’re scaring the fuck out of me, you shit!’

  ‘Shut up. I’m concentrating. The killer approaches the victim. She freezes and he shows her his knife. He tells her not to cry out or he’ll hurt her. She asks him what he wants. She says she can get him anything he wants. He shakes his head. Nothing is knocked over, so I guess she doesn’t run. He walks over. He’s holding the knife. Then he takes hold of her.’

  Tom walked over to Denise. He suddenly realized that she wasn’t joking. Her hands were shaking. He pulled up and smiled. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

  ‘I’m okay. But, no, I don’t like it. I don’t like it. Why did he do that to her? In here. God. She was alone and terrified and there was nothing she could do. How can anyone put someone through that?’

  Tom moved forward. He put his arms round Denise and she let herself fall against his body. ‘It’s just like you say in your theories,’ he said. ‘He desires them as objects, but doesn’t see them as people. Are you okay?’ Just a second more, she thought, resting her head on his shoulder. It felt safe against his chest, with his arms around her. And then she felt herself resenting her own weakness and pushed him away from her.

  ‘We’ve got to catch him out, Tom. What can we do?’

  Tom put his hands in his pockets. ‘We’ll forget the reconstruction. I’ll go through it on my own. I’m sorry. Let’s look around. How about that?’ Denise stared at him. Something she didn’t understand yet. Was it intimacy Tom didn’t like? Or was he being sensitive?

  ‘He scopes them for a long time. That’s got to leave some tracks. Look at this place. Open her wardrobe.’

  Denise walked to the wardrobe and opened it. Tom stood where the killer had stood and looked out of the window. The city was just waking up.

  ‘She’s got a lot of clothes,’ Denise called. The walk-in wardrobe was expansive, with racks of outfits and shoes.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom confirmed. ‘She was a big shopper.’

  Denise came back. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Maybe he likes well-dressed women. Maybe he likes clothes. Maybe all rich women shop a lot.’

  Denise looked around. ‘Maybe he finds these women at the upmarket stores.’

  Tom looked up. ‘That might go somewhere. If we want to find this killer, we’ve got to find out where he stalks them. What’s the link? We’re guessing he’s after rich blondes. So he finds one. He follows her. He seems intrigued. We found Amy Lloyd-Gardner’s SUV; the new clothes she’d just bought from Madison Avenue were missing.’

  ‘Take a look at Elizabeth’s shoe collection,’ said Denise.

  Tom walked to the wardrobe. It was neat and organized, in colours and styles. The shoes had their own little shelves and there were upwards of a hundred pairs. Tom looked at the shoes. There were spaces on the shelves where two pairs were missing. One, no doubt, was the pair she died in, but the other pair? Had he taken them?

  ‘Denise, take a look here. Why would she be missing two pairs of shoes? One pair she was wearing, but the others, how does that work?’

  Denise stared into the wardrobe for a moment. ‘He fetishizes objects, maybe shoes too. Maybe he took them. They all take little reminders, don’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, but a second pair of shoes is strange. We ought to go back to the other murders and see if any clothes were missing. We wouldn’t have spotted this if she wasn’t so organized.’

  Tom looked again and noticed a bright chiffon scarf hanging with several others. He called Denise over and pulled it off the hanger. It was crimson with a gold design. Very distinctive.

  ‘What do you make of this, Denise?’

  ‘Silk scarf. What of it?’

  ‘Elizabeth Seale had a scarf wrapped round her head. Just like this. I’ll have to check it, but I’d say it was identical. This is a pretty distinctive design.’

  ‘So what are you saying, Tom?’

  ‘Elizabeth had this scarf around her head. Exact same design.’

  Denise just stared. ‘She had two scarves. She’s a woman, she’s got a hundred pairs of shoes.’

  ‘How many pairs of shoes the same?’

  Denise took a few seconds to look. ‘None.’

  ‘Expensive scarves. You don’t buy two of them, do you?’

  ‘Maybe one was a gift.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Tom.

  Denise clicked. ‘Or maybe, he doesn’t just follow the women. Maybe he’s doing more than just following.’

  ‘That’s right. We’ve got evidence from every victim now that showed he was either stalking or interacting, but this is different.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Denise. ‘Let’s say he’s scoping his target, getting closer, but he’s not quite ready to go the next step and talk to her or touch her, so what does he do? He breaks in like he did with Mary-Jane or he starts to buy the same things that they buy. You know, mimicking them and taking the same item home. It could have a kind of totem value to him.’

  ‘Psychologically, is that possible? That buying the same thing could give him a buzz?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so. Imagine it, he’s watched her for a few days. He follows her into a store, sees her buy something, then he goes up and buys the same thing. He’s walking right behind her with the same item that she has. It’s a kind of weird way of connecting.’

  ‘Very weird,’ said Tom.

  ‘You’re not getting it, are you? Listen, he bought the scarf, Tom. He bought the scarf, brought it to her apartment and strangled her with it.’ She trailed off.

  Harper let the idea travel once round his mind, then he nodded. ‘Yes, I get it. I think you’re right. I think he did buy it. That means we’ve got a potential point of contact. We need to find out where she bought this. But why does he do it? What’s he after, Denise?’

  ‘Intimacy,’ said Denise and held Tom’s stare. They both suddenly got it.

  ‘We’ve got to hunt the stalker, not the killer,’ said Tom ‘And now we know where he’s been stalking. The killer is very careful. But maybe the stalker isn’t.’

  Chapter Forty

  Dr Fox’s Office

  November 22, 11.00 a.m.

  Nick looked up at the cream ceiling of Dr Fox’s office and closed his eyes. He’d been sitting opposite his psychoanalyst for just under an hour and was feeling no better. He’d spilled his sick nightmares all over Marty’s lap but that just left him feeling confused and angry. He looked across at Marty with wide eyes.

  Marty was drumming on his desk. Nick hadn’t answered his question so he repeated it. ‘How often do you dream about hurting people, Nick?’

  Nick had felt bad for so long, he’d forgotten what feeling normal was like. He didn’t enjoy the dreams, no question about it. He wasn’t himself. The thing was to keep tight. When the feelings came on him, he had to concentrate real hard, but he was scared. He looked up at Marty. ‘The thing is, Doctor, I think maybe there’s a devil in us all, wanting to get out there and destroy, you know. My wife, Dee, she says I’m possessed sometimes. ’ Nick turned his eyes to the psychologist. They were rimmed with red. He had a real strange look to him sometimes. ‘It doesn’t feel like I’ve got a lot of control left. I used to be able to stop it, you know, hold it off.’

  ‘Hold what off, Nick?’

  ‘The pain in my head. I used to be able to run clear through it. Now it just continues until I just… I can’t stop it any more.’

  ‘T
hen what happens?’

  ‘I told you. I can’t remember what happens next. I black out. I wake up and I don’t know what I’ve been doing. I don’t know where I am. Sometimes, I’m wet all over. My clothes, you know, are dripping wet like I’ve been standing in a shower. What am I?’

  ‘I don’t know, Nick, you’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘I sometimes find things in my car.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  Nick turned away from Marty. ‘Can I tell you?’

  ‘Sure you can tell me.’

  ‘I won’t get into trouble?’

  ‘I can’t tell anyone anything, Nick. Not a thing.’

  ‘Sometimes I find things I must’ve stolen.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Jewellery, clothes, shoes. Money sometimes.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘I’m some sick bastard, aren’t I? Ever since I lost my job, I’ve been blacking out and stealing things. Haven’t I, Doctor?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, where in the hell do these things come from?’

  Nick’s right hand slipped into his trouser pocket and pulled out a necklace. He held it up. A small silver crucifix studded with diamonds glinted in the light. ‘I found it yesterday. Along with over a thousand dollars in cash. I’m burglarizing people, aren’t I?’

  Marty picked the necklace from Nick’s hand and held it up. ‘Looks expensive.’

  ‘I know I’m doing something, Doctor. Sometimes, I got scratches on my face and hands. Is it possible to rob people like that? What am I, some monster? But I don’t remember any of it. Only sometimes I see the inside of people’s cars or apartments. I guess that’s where I must steal these things.’

  Marty Fox wrote Dissociative Identity Disorder on his pad. This guy was a potential multiple personality. Memory loss. Flashbacks. It was possible Nick had invented an alter ego. A man who gave an outlet to whatever Nick couldn’t face about himself. From Nick’s dreams, Marty guessed that this alter ego stole what he could and maybe stalked women and even mugged them. He didn’t know. This was beyond his expertise. He leaned in to Nick and spoke as quietly as he could.