The audacity of this man offended Driscoll. Driscoll thought of his daughter, Nicole. How could this man speak so cavalierly about a young woman? He’d seen a lot on the job, but this type of irreverence he found disdainful.
“What did you do with the other ring?” Margaret asked.
“Still have it.”
“We’d like to see it.”
“It’s in the back.”
“Let’s go get it.”
Driscoll and Margaret followed Gallows into the back room. A bloodstained dentist’s chair sat in its center.
“Some operatory,” Margaret grimaced.
Gallows opened drawers, then unsealed cardboard boxes, porcelain jars, and metal canisters. “Where is the damn thing?” he grumbled.
“Better be here,” said Driscoll.
The man’s hand reached for a Russian doll. Snapping back its head, he emptied the contents of its hollow chest into his massive palm. Out popped a gold crucifix, a penis-shaped pen, a miniature knife, and the ring. A smile formed on Gallows’s face.
“Did you get her name?” Margaret asked.
“Monique.”
“Monique what?”
“Beats me. She paid cash.”
“Wha’d you know about her?”
“Not much. Only in here once.”
“When was that?”
“About two months ago. She told me what she wanted, and I fitted her with the ring. No anesthetic for this one. She seemed to get off on the pain. I told her to come back in a week so I could take out the sutures, but she didn’t want to wait. Like I said, she insisted I do her then, right there in the chair.” Gallows studied Driscoll’s stare. Realization registered. “Someone killed her. That’s what this is about. Right?”
“Been to the beach lately?” Driscoll asked.
“I hate the beach.”
“What’s not to like?” asked Margaret.
“I’m a hemophiliac. The sand is littered with jagged shells and broken glass.”
Driscoll’s mind raced. Had something ugly ensued between Gallows and the girl to turn him into a killer? Or was he merely an opportunist gaining profit on a new wave of exhibitionism, and nothing more?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gallows said. “But I don’t get off on murder. I get off on scarification.”
“When do you know when to stop?”
“Hemophiliacs don’t do homicide. That’s for real, man. You can look up the statistics.”
Driscoll continued to stare at the man. He had done the piercing and had gotten off on the intimacy with the girl. That was for certain. But did he kill her? His instincts said no.
Chapter 19
Colm saw red: the blazing red nail polish that painted the brunette’s fingernails, the crimson adorning her toes, and a spot of red marring the waxy white of her eyes. In her fevered attempts to free herself from her bindings, a vein had exploded, flooding her retina with blood. Both eyes now teared, screaming of the atrocity committed on her flesh, while the sheen of those eyes reflected the frenzy of her executioner. But Colm was immune to the mute cry for clemency that her gaze transmitted.
Her resistance to the paracin trichloride and parasolutrine mixture was unnerving. His Casio flashed 2:48 A.M. He had waited the required fifteen minutes for the 20 cc’s to perform their wonder, but to no avail. He reloaded the syringe and injected her vein with another dose of the elixir. It was now 2:51 A.M. The second dose did the trick.
Colm’s heart stirred. He picked up her pocketbook and scrounged inside.
“Amelia Stockard,” he read from a credit card. “Such a classy name. Let me tell you, Miss Stockard, your e-mails were more amusing than most. And to think you once dated the late Charles F. Brunner, a former Sanitation Commissioner of Hoboken. Well, that entitles you to one hell of a resting place, young lady.”
He grinned at his unconscious captive, then hoisted her over his shoulder and headed for the meat hook that hung suspended from the crossbeam in the center of the operatory. Once there, he turned her body to face him, and lining up the hook with the third and fourth rib, he pressed her body against its point. The steel pierced the right lung on its way to the heart, which it entered at the left ventricle. A spasm rocked his hostage. Her lungs flooded with fluid, and she began to gurgle. Blood dribbled from her nose and trickled onto her fuchsia blouse.
The sight of the blood staining her blouse disturbed him. He unbuttoned the garment, removed it, and tossed it into the kitchen sink, which he had filled with warm water and a squirt of Woolite.
Her Playtex bra was now blood soaked as well. He used a small scissors to slice it free, and tossed it in with the blouse. Her skirt, stockings, and panties followed. He positioned a bucket under her feet to catch the remaining blood. How ashen white she had become, in contrast to her scarlet flow.
Once she was bloodless, Colm unhooked her and loaded her onto the meat-cutting block, where the surrounding sawdust gave off a brassy smell.
The boning knife was pitiless to the muscles surrounding the humerus, hacking away the resilient tendons without scoring the bone. He turned his attention next to the brunette’s hindquarters, then on to her lower extremities.
After decapitation by cleaver, he dunked her head into the vat of sulfur trioxide and watched its jubilant effervescence. It was less toilsome to dislodge the flesh from the skull with the acid solution. It avoided nicking the gentle veneer of the bones. Past mistakes had taught him that facial bone was more subtle and could be easily damaged by a sharp tool. The hands and feet would be next.
Ray Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” blared from the surround-sound speakers. It was the perfect accompaniment for the meeting of blade to flesh. He had chosen well. His musical taste was impeccable.
Chapter 20
The fibulas and tibias of the brunette’s legs just fit the kiln. It was designed to fire clay pottery, but was quite adequate for drying human bones. It was important that all of Colm’s relics be dehydrated and preserved. Without moisture they’d survive the insult of time, like those Inca kings who emerged intact after centuries buried in the dry sands of Peru. Colm stood by, motionless, embraced by the searing heat that permeated the small room, while the kiln performed its magic.
The ring of the oven’s timer shattered his reverie. He opened the kiln door and stared at his trophies, appreciating their purity. The bones were whiter than white, chalky. He longed to hold them, but he’d have to wait until they sufficiently cooled. Only then could the fondling commence.
A buzzer sounded, profaning the solemnity of the ritual. Colm shivered like a night creature in his burrow, narrowing his eyes to tiny cracks, straining to detect the slightest stirring from the outside world.
The buzzer sounded again. The resonance was unmistakable. He had a visitor at the gate. He turned on the security monitor. The image of a young girl filled the screen. She was no more than four feet tall. Her blue blazer and plaid, pleated skirt draped a thin frame. She had a curious smile, and she was alone.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked, his voice crackling through the outdoor speaker of his palatial estate.
“Would you like to buy some shortbread cookies?”
“Cookies. Now there’s a thought.”
Colm buzzed her in. The gate unlocked. He had plenty of time before she reached the door. Swiftly, he turned off the heat and headed for the vestibule. The doorbell sounded. He opened the door and invited her in.
“And you are from Saint Agnes Elementary,” he said, eyeing the insignia on her blazer.
“Sister Mary Sean is collecting for our missions in San Salvador.”
“Our missions?”
“Yessir, because of the war there are many orphans.”
The girl, perhaps twelve, looked more fragile in person than she did through the security monitor. Her glassy eyes revealed signs of malnutrition. Poverty was etched all over her skin.
“I do have a sweet tooth,” he said.
“The cookies have
been blessed by Monsignor Carlucci.”
“Delighted.”
“Smells like something’s burning,” she whispered, sniffing the air.
“You’ve got me there. I’m an awful cook.”
Colm disappeared, leaving her in the vast, well-appointed living room. When he returned, she was nowhere in sight.
It was going to be a room-to-room search, was it? All twenty-two of them, throughout the mansion? The thought intrigued him. He had never hunted a Catholic schoolgirl before.
“What took you so long?” she grinned, emerging from behind an Oriental screen, her snooping interrupted.
“I thought, for a minute, you wanted to play hide-and-seek,” he replied.
“No time for that. I’m here on a mission,” she said. “And that is to help the missions. Gee, I made a joke.” She giggled. “Anyways, it’s really, really important to help our missions, so can I count on you to buy some cookies? Please?”
The vision of her skeleton, her bones, like twigs of malnourished brush, exhilarated him. But her ashen skin told of unnamed deficiencies and genetic defects. She’d make a pale trophy in a room full of glorious relics.
“Would you like to taste one of the cookies?” she asked, opening the near-empty box with spindly fingers.
Colm envisioned the bones below those fingers, like white pebbles chiseled and polished by the tide. The urge to suck them was compelling. His craving became intense.
“I’d like that,” he murmured.
She approached, offering a chocolate-covered shortbread like a priest dispensing the Eucharist. The proximity of her fingers was maddening. “Come on, take a little bite.”
He quickly took hold of her hand, his lips avoiding the shortbread and nibbling her pinkie instead. His head lolled in bliss. To mask his perversion, he gulped the cookie whole.
“Those are three dollars and fifty cents,” she stammered, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She withdrew her hand and gawked fearfully at the tip of her pinkie finger. “Maybe I should go now.”
“Feed me another.”
“I’d hafta open a new box.”
“Please do. I’ll pay for it.”
With trembling hands, she unwrapped the box’s cellophane and exposed row after row of glazed cookies. Reluctantly, she brought a second one to his lips.
This time, desire emboldened him. He slid his tongue into the hollow of her hand. She didn’t budge, frozen now in fear.
“You could win a statue of the Blessed Virgin,” she whimpered. “If you buy two boxes, your name goes into the raffle. Please let me go home.”
As the clock struck, sounding the hour, the buzzer at the front gate interrupted his rapture. Colm had another visitor. He gave the girl a puzzled look.
“Goody, goody,” said the girl. “That must be Mommy.”
Chapter 21
All things considered, it wasn’t a bad day. Goulee had gleaned enough copper and brass pipes for two quarts of Thunderbird. It pissed him off, though, that he had to split the loot with the sanitation foreman. After all, he was the one crawling around in all the filth.
“C’mon down, Goulee, today’s my lucky day, and you gotta leave,” hollered the foreman from the bottom of the trash heap.
“What’re ya talking about, Henshaw, it can’t be three-thirty yet,” Goulee yelled back, tugging on what looked like the narrow end of a fishing pole.
“Never mind watchin’ the clock, ya prick. Get down here. Now!”
Goulee gave one last yank on the fiberglass rod and threw up both hands in frustration. “Give me a minute.” He took out a spray paint canister and marked a circle where the fishing pole was embedded so he could resume his search on his next visit. That is, if the trucks didn’t offload more trash on top of his find. The dump was huge. The odds were in his favor.
“C’mon, numnuts. Put a move on!” Henshaw’s lucky day meant his waitressing girlfriend was getting off early, and he could steal away to her house for some horizontal mambo before her husband came home.
“I’m comin’. I’m comin’. Keep your fucking pants on!” Goulee hollered as he stepped grumpily over the mounds of refuge.
That he was endowed with only five toes, all of them attached to his left foot, made his stepping precarious. What he sought was solid footing. He balanced himself on a thin fragment of discarded plasterboard. It didn’t hold his weight, and his body cartwheeled. An avalanche of garbage cascaded down, smothering Henshaw. Goulee was lucky, though. He had landed on something soft and gelatinous that had spilled out of a plastic trash bag.
Chapter 22
The stench from Goulee’s find gagged both the Medical Examiner and Driscoll.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Driscoll exclaimed.
The abomination stared at them under the flash of the camera manned by Jasper Eliot, the coroner’s assistant. Illuminated was boneless membrane and tissue, along with blood-drenched cartilage that was full of maggots.
“This one looks like it’s been in a blender. It’s hard to tell if it’s human,” said Pearsol.
“What’s that mound?” Driscoll asked, gesturing toward a protrusion in the middle of the bloody mush.
“An air bubble. Fermentation does that.”
Driscoll took a pair of surgical tongs and reached for the blood-soaked bulge. Steel teeth clenched a spongy mass.
“Mother of God! It’s a fetus!” Driscoll cried out. “And what’s that thing in its middle?”
With surgical pliers, the medical examiner freed a plastic card.
Driscoll wiped it clean and read its inscription:
COURTESY OF SAKS FIFTH AVENUE TO OUR PREFERRED CUSTOMER, AMELIA STOCKARD, ACCOUNT NUMBER 2476-3876-1204
A flurry of flashes radiated as Jasper Eliot followed the find with his high-speed camera.
“Amelia Stockard? That name sounds familiar,” said Larry Pearsol.
“It should,” said Driscoll. “She’s the Magnolia tea heiress. Worth more than fifty million dollars.”
“She was pregnant. There’s a man involved. Could be your elusive assailant.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll need to track him down to find out. But one thing’s for certain.”
“What’s that?”
“Move over, New York Post and Daily News. This particular murder will make international headlines.”
“That’s sure to put the heat on.”
“In a hell of a hurry.”
Driscoll pulled out his cellular and punched in a number. Cedric Thomlinson answered the call and spoke quickly. “Lieutenant, the scene down here is like a madhouse. Newspaper reporters and TV crews are camped outside the building. Santangelo’s been on the horn four times. He wants to know what progress we’ve made in the case.”
“Well, he’s not gonna like the latest development. Amelia Stockard is our latest victim.”
“Holy shit! That was the Magnolia tea heiress they found at the dump?”
“That’s right. Now listen carefully. I want you to get hold of Butler and Vittaggio. Fill them in on the latest development, then send them to Saks Fifth Avenue. Have them get the rundown on Miss Stockard’s charge card, number 2476-3876-1204. They’re to see the security manager and keep it on the QT. I want a list of purchases for the last year, and I want to know if anyone else was authorized to use the card. They’re to get me her current address as well.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
Detective First Grade Liz Butler was part of the Task Force. She was a top-notch police officer, with a keen investigative mind and tenaciousness. Her partner, Luigi Vittaggio, stood on equal ground. Driscoll knew they would both do a thorough job. Now if only he could keep the press and the newscasters at bay. But this was New York City, the capital of the world, and as far as news was concerned, the death of the tea heiress would rival the sojourns of Patty Hearst.
Driscoll turned his attention back to Larry Pearsol. “Can you take a DNA sample from the fetus and run it against the known sex offenders list?�
� It was a long shot, but Driscoll wanted to cover all possibilities.
“Sure, but it may take a couple of days.”
“Larry, I may not have a couple of days.”
Chapter 23
Colm had been at it since 6:00 A.M. when his shift had begun, and it had proved to be another grueling day. The workday’s end seemed out of reach, and he was in the grip of despondency, finding no immediate escape or relief. His vocation offered some insulation from his demons, but everyone else he was forced to work with annoyed him, and his mood was growing increasingly bleaker. He glanced at his watch. It would be another forty-five minutes before he could put the day behind him and meet his date. Time seemed endless.
He leaned back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes. For some reason, the memory of his first visit to a hospital floated to consciousness.
It was to the Williston Medical Center in South Burlington, Vermont. He remembered the shushing sound his gurney made as it zigzagged through the hospital’s bleach-scented corridors on its way to a cloistered ward on the third floor. His wrists and ankles were restrained, held fast to the metal transport by leather straps. In a dreamlike state, brought on by a potent dose of diazepam, he had difficulty remembering the events that had led up to his arrival at the hospital. And where were his parents? Why weren’t they at his side? He sensed something ominous had happened to them. And what was that smell? It wasn’t coming from the winding corridors of the hospital. No. It was coming from his own tattered clothing. In his drug-induced stupor he had difficulty affixing a name to the scent, until it suddenly dawned on him: it was the smell of smoke. Had he been in a fire? He looked up at the orderly that was guiding his gurney. He tried to speak but had difficulty forming words. It was as though someone had put a stranglehold on his vocal cords. Drool was all that escaped his mouth. He tried to communicate through tear-soaked eyes, but all the orderly saw was Colm’s glassy-eyed doelike gaze.
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