The memory of his mother’s suicide haunted him every day of his life.
“Lieutenant? Are you all right?”
It was the voice of Sergeant Margaret Aligante, a member of Driscoll’s elite team. She had just arrived on the scene.
“I’m fine.”
“For a minute there, I thought you had seen a ghost.”
“Whad’ya make of it, Larry?” Driscoll asked, ignoring her remark.
“Brutal. Capital B. And I’d say this is the drop site, not the murder site. No blood splatter. Forensic’s been all over the body and all over the site, but they’ve yet to come up with a single strand of trace evidence.”
“This rain doesn’t help,” said Margaret.
“Looks like the boys may have missed something,” said Driscoll as he leaned in over the butchered corpse. His eyes had detected a tiny fragment of material protruding from the mutilated labia. His gloved hand provided protection and discretion as he pulled the object from the fleshy wound.
MCCABE, DEIRDRE
ID NUMBER: 31623916
EXPIRATION DATE: 2/04/08
CLASS D CORRECTIVE LENSES
ORGAN DONOR
The New York State driver’s license showed the face of a youthful redhead smiling for the camera.
“Here lies Deirdre McCabe,” said Driscoll. “And some sick bastard went to a lot of trouble to introduce us.”
Chapter 5
There is a sanctuary in this hustling city, a peninsula in the New York archipelago spanning the Atlantic Ocean and the greater Jamaica Bay. It is a community of freckle-faced children and burly blue-collar workers. They call it Toliver’s Point. This strip of land, a home to gulls awaiting its summertime awakening, lies trapped between sea and sky, situated just beyond the footing of the Marine Parkway Bridge on the outskirts of New York City.
A wooden dock juts one hundred yards out into the bay. On its tip stood Driscoll. The Lieutenant was drawn to this particular spot. Drawn to its silence, to its natural coastal beauty. Behind him sat the tranquillity and calm of Toliver’s Point. But before him, on the other side of the two-mile-wide body of water, prowled a killer.
Putting that reality aside, his thoughts drifted to earlier times. It was Colette who had discovered Toliver’s Point when, as a landscape painter at New York’s Art Students League, she had fulfilled her assignment to locate the most scenic spot in the city. She had found the location irresistible, and vowed to establish a home there as soon as she had raised $25,000 for the down payment. After five years as a pattern artist at Bertillon Textiles in Manhattan, she had saved enough money to put a deposit on her first piece of oceanfront real estate, a summer bungalow in Toliver’s Point.
The first night Sergeant John Driscoll was invited to the peninsula, he thought he had been transported to some distant island where she was Calypso to a young and inexperienced Ulysses. After he and Colette married, the bungalow was renovated and winterized and became for them a year-round home.
One afternoon in May, as Colette was driving Nicole to her weekly flute lesson, a Hess gasoline tanker side-swiped their Plymouth Voyager. The bleak images still haunted Driscoll’s consciousness. Colette’s twisted minivan, its shattered windshield, his daughter’s lifeless form, the overturned eighteen-wheeler, his wife’s mangled hand boasting the wedding band, the wail of the ambulance, the hellish dash to the hospital…his grieving.
After the accident that robbed him of fourteen-year-old Nicole and threw his wife into a permanent state of unconsciousness, his world changed. Driscoll the happily married man and loving father became Driscoll the caretaker and grieving dad. The bungalow that was their paradise became an intensive care unit. In the middle of what was once her artist’s loft, Colette lay in a positioning bed surrounded by a Nellcor N395 pulse oximeter, an Invicare suction machine, a Pulmonetic LTV 950 home-care ventilator, a Kangaroo model 324 enteral feeding pump, and an EDR super-high-resolution electrocardiograph. Her inert body was wired to amber screens. Her circulation, respiration, and cardiac tremors were being vigilantly monitored by a multitude of sensors. Constantly attended by a registered nurse, Colette waited, listless, comatose.
It had been no small feat to care for his wife at home. He had been forced to flex his authority and call in favors from friends in high places to convince the hospital’s administrative staff to condone such an unorthodox arrangement. But that’s where he wanted his Colette. The in-house treatment had been costly beyond his wildest imagination. He had to delve deeply into his pension to offset what was not covered by Blue Cross. But, to him, the expense was worth it.
The Lieutenant left the dock and turned toward home. Sullivan’s Tavern, which lay at the beach end of the pier, beckoned. It had become a regular haunt for Driscoll, where bartenders Jim and Christopher helped him wrestle with his demons of despair.
But not tonight.
In the pocket of his Burberry topcoat he carried a jar of natural emollient, skin cream brought from Trinidad by his friend, Detective Cedric Thomlinson. Made from natural fruit oils, it was widely used by Caribbean women to moisturize and nourish the skin, and Driscoll wanted the nurse to apply it to his wife’s inert body.
The jar was deforming the pocket of his topcoat. Before he had known Colette, Driscoll wore polyester suits purchased at NBO on Washington’s Birthday, the great holiday of sales. He saluted patriotism with frugality. But Colette had introduced him to fine English tailoring. She believed it was more advantageous to own one exquisite suit, well made and designed, sewn to withstand the wear and tear of a harried life, than to boast five mediocre ones that were dull, uninspiring, and shoddily made. Her logic was irrefutable. Overnight, she had donated his wardrobe to the Salvation Army and bought him three luxurious suits at Barney’s annual sale, five Dior shirts at clearance, two Ferragamo ties with a gift certificate at Bloomingdale’s, two pairs of Kenneth Cole shoes at a One-Day-Only Two-For-One extravaganza, and her favorite men’s cologne, Halston 14.
Driscoll had become hooked on fine English cloth-expensive wools and beautiful silks. His wardrobe became his only indulgence. After a purchase of a jacket by Bill Blass or a pair of slacks by Ralph Lauren, he could sense Colette’s approval. He still dressed for her, not for the unanimous distinction of being New York City’s best-dressed detective, nor for the moniker “Dapper John” his well-cut suits had earned him.
Driscoll carried his height with a forceful stride that made his 6’2” stature seem intimidating. There was a swagger to his walk, not unlike that of Gary Cooper’s in High Noon. Precinct women found him irresistible, but Driscoll was impervious to feminine adulation.
Another remarkable feature of Driscoll’s face was his expressive lips-lips that were kind and generous, that did not belong to his Celtic jawline but were more Mediterranean, almost Latin. They responded to his emotional states, dilating when contented, contracting under stress, vibrating when anxious. There was a nonverbal language his lips communicated. Colette had learned to read his heart and transcribe his thoughts by observing his lips’ tremors. Because of those lips, Driscoll couldn’t boast a poker face that, in his profession, would have been an asset.
And now, his lips thin, he walked the deserted shoreline, heading for the bungalow and Colette. Arriving on the porch, he turned the key in the lock of their front door. Oil paintings that once seemed to have lived and breathed welcomed him. They too had become lifeless, a silent salute to their creator, who lay motionless in the center of the loft. The scent of fresh-cut peonies and artist’s turpentine had been replaced by the sharpness of Betadine antiseptic and the sterile smell of bleached hospital linen.
Colette lay with her eyelids closed and her lips parted, inhaling pure air brought to her lungs through plastic tubes that invaded her nasal cavity. Her skin was ashen, lusterless. Her once radiant hair was matted, flattened on her scalp.
“Bon soir, ma cherie,” he murmured, kissing her forehead.
“We had a lovely day,” sang Colette’s Jamaican n
urse, Lucinda, who was busy massaging his wife’s feet.
Driscoll unpocketed the jar of emollient, and Lucinda’s eyes widened.
“I haven’t seen that since I was a little girl in Kingston,” she said, unscrewing the jar’s lid and inhaling the fragrance. “Ain’t nothin’ better for the skin.” She began to apply the cream to Colette’s ankles.
“You can take a break when you’re done, Lucinda. I’ll fill in for you,” said Driscoll.
The nurse replaced the cap on the jar of emollient and placed the jar on Colette’s nightstand. She excused herself and headed for her room.
Driscoll was alone with his wife. He reclined in the armchair next to her bed, where electronic instruments monitored life signs, supervising the maintenance of her existence.
“Let me tell you about my day,” he said. “I visited the dock at Sullivan’s. Remember, honey, the time we launched the catamaran from there? Your face went ashen when we hit the water, and whiter still when the first wave nearly toppled us over.”
Colette’s breathing faltered. The respirator displayed a quavering line. After ten seconds, an alarm would ring. Driscoll leaped from his chair and watched the digital chronometer showing the passing of seconds. Three…four…five. Panic seized him. Was she going to die right here and now with him watching, powerless to keep her alive? Seven…eight. My God, he was losing her.
No. Her breathing returned to normal. The line showed her lungs were working again, ventilating her body.
What had just happened? Had she been dreaming? Was he in her dream? What had taken her breath away?
Driscoll loosened his tie and collapsed back into the chair. He flicked on the room’s Sony receiver and loaded a new CD into its feed. The sound of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s flute filled the loft. He rambled to the kitchen, retrieved a bag of frozen scallops from the Frigidaire, and placed them into the microwave to defrost. It was Colette who had introduced him to French cooking, and he had relinquished his diet of Quarter Pounders and fries for the nuances of coq au vin, agneau a l’estragon, escalopes a la colonnade, and tranche de boeuf au madere.
Tonight’s dinner would be coquilles chambrette, a combination of sea scallops, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, cognac, and wine. It took him fifteen minutes to prepare the dish. He brought his meal to the easy chair beside Colette’s bed.
Suddenly the heart monitor beeped. The pattern of electronic zigzagging had changed. The rhythm seemed more agitated.
“Lucinda!” he shouted.
The nurse came running in, dressed in a robe.
“There’s a change in her heartbeat! It’s up to 98!”
“I see that,” Lucinda said, eyeing the monitor. “But, she’s not in any danger, sir. It would have to climb above 110 for there to be a problem.”
“Why did it change?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
She turned a knob on the monitor that darkened the screen, then turned the knob back to its original position. The agitated pattern returned.
“Machine’s working fine,” she reported.
The music stopped. It was the last selection on the Rampal CD. The zigzagging of the heart monitor returned to its original pattern.
“She’s back to 62,” Lucinda announced. “It dropped when the music stopped.”
Driscoll hurried over to the wall unit that held his stereo system and hit play on the CD player. He then depressed the right arrow button eleven times until he had recalled the last selection that had played. The sound of Rampal’s melodious flute filled the loft again.
“That’s La Ronde des Lutins, from Bazzini,” said Driscoll, his eyes riveted to his wife’s chalky face.
“Her heart rate is climbing again. It’s up to 99!” gasped the nurse. “She’s reacting to the music. But that would be impossible.”
“That was Nicole’s favorite flute piece,” said Driscoll, absently. “She used to practice it over and over again.”
“Lord Almighty,” breathed Lucinda.
Sadness and despair filled Driscoll as the musician’s crystalline notes played on. He knew there was no chance Colette would awaken from her coma. He placed no hope in that. There was only one unresolved question rolling around in his head. He knew it would go unanswered, but he wondered nonetheless. Was it his daughter or his wife that was now speaking to him from the grave?
Chapter 6
To Driscoll, Sergeant Margaret Aligante was a looker. Five-feet-seven, and a figure that would rival any of Veronese’s models. She carried her High Renaissance body with confidence, using her physical charisma to her advantage. Driscoll knew that suspects she interrogated were often distracted by her curvaceousness and sensuality. She was a Brooklyn girl, born and raised in Red Hook, an Italian neighborhood where the men worked as firemen, cops, and truck drivers. It surprised Driscoll that, as a teen, she had run with the Pagano Persuaders, a street gang that intimidated ten city blocks. But that had soon ended. She had decided to become a police officer. She had registered at John Jay College, completing the four-year curriculum with a 3.96 grade-point average; complemented her education with a smattering of courses in criminal behavioral science, forensic psychology, and profiling methodology; and studied the martial arts of aikido and tae kwon do.
Margaret graduated from the Police Academy in 1991. Her first assignment as a patrolman had her monitoring the arteries of the 72nd Precinct, between Third and Fifteenth Streets in Brooklyn. In six years, she had earned her gold shield, passed the Sergeant’s test, and was working undercover with Vice. After that, it was Homicide with Lieutenant Driscoll for the past four years.
Driscoll had asked Margaret to sit in as he conferred with Gerard McCabe, the murder victim’s husband. A somber silence filled Driscoll’s office. The two police officers waited compassionately for McCabe to pull himself together. Then Driscoll said, “You should know we don’t have a DNA profile yet, but it is your wife’s license.”
“What kind of a person would do this to a woman?” McCabe’s hands were trembling, and his face was as pale as chalk.
“Your wife’s Volvo was found parked in a retail strip on Ralph Avenue and Avenue L. Would that have been a normal stop for her?” Margaret asked, not answering his question.
“She must have stopped at Video-Rama, on her way back from the mall. The tapes were two days late. She said she’d drop them off for me. I’m a pharmacist who never has a chance to get out from behind the counter. My God, does that make me responsible?”
Driscoll understood his guilt. “Mr. McCabe, it was a simple shopping trip with a stop at the video store, the kind of errand thousands of housewives make every day, in every town in the country. What happened to your wife was not part of the picture. Something ugly and unexpected intervened.” He looked at the distraught man with sympathy, trying to keep his own emotions at bay. “There are some personal questions I’ll need to ask.”
“I understand.”
“Were you and your wife having trouble, sir? I mean, was your marriage OK?”
“The marriage was fine.”
McCabe had flinched, and Driscoll had caught it. The man was hiding something. Something wrong with the marriage? Had his wife taken a lover? Had that gone bad? Bad enough to end in her slaughter?
“Do you know of anyone that may have had a grievance against your wife?” asked Margaret, picking up on Driscoll’s lead.
“Who wouldn’t like Didi? She was a wonderful woman.”
“Define fine,” said Driscoll.
“Excuse me?”
“Fine. Before you said your marriage was fine.”
McCabe’s eyes narrowed. Driscoll had struck a nerve.
“I see where you’re going with this. You’re thinking this had something to do with infidelity. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. I’ll admit our marriage has baggage. What marriage doesn’t? You live with someone long enough, the passion dwindles. But if you’re thinking Didi was having an affair, you’d be way off-target. That I’m certain of. Believe me, I�
�d know.”
McCabe’s eyes held fast to Driscoll’s.
The Lieutenant let it go. He reached out his hand and placed it on the grieving man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I can’t change what happened to your wife,” he said. “But I will make you this promise. I’ll do my best to catch this man, although in this case I’m not sure it’s a man I’m after.”
“What do you mean, not a man?”
Driscoll’s eyes drifted toward Margaret’s.
“This time, I think we’re after a ghoul.”
Chapter 7
The heinous murder put the political machinery of the city in motion. The Police Commissioner and the Mayor himself were leaning on Captain Eddie Barrows, who made it clear to Driscoll that he was to have some leads in the case, now thirty-six hours old, before the next newspaper headline thrashed the police department for its ineptness. Both the Post and the Daily News had aptly labeled the killer “The Butcher” and had forecast a long and arduous investigation because, as the New York Post’s Stephen Murray put it, “The NYPD is clueless.” The front-page coverage by both newspapers sprouted seeds of paranoia in New York City’s populace.
Driscoll paced the floor of the Command Center. It was a large room on the fourteenth floor of One Police Plaza. Though it featured a panoramic view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the lower New York harbor, the homicide detectives referred to it as the dugout. It was where strategy was planned, orders rendered, and where all particularly vicious crimes and high-profile cases were investigated. The pea-green walls of the dugout were lined with photos and the minute details of this latest abominable crime. Margaret and Driscoll were briefing their associate, Detective Cedric Thomlinson.
“I hear the driver’s license was shoved into her vagina like it was an ATM slot,” Thomlinson remarked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Maybe the guy’s got credit problems.” Detective Thomlinson’s Trinidadian roots gave him a sunny and uninhibited perspective on reality.
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