by Joel Goldman
Anthony Corliss was the only one waiting and he was dead. His body lay across the stairs. He was nude, his chest and belly a torn quilt of stab wounds, his blood running down the stairs into a dark puddle on the floor, his right ear gone, another souvenir, a serrated gash on the side of his head taking its place.
We kept our distance from Corliss's body, not wanting to disturb the scene any more than was necessary to make certain no one else was in the building. Lucy made a quick check of the side rooms and the second floor.
"It's clear," she said.
I walked outside, standing on the front steps, and started to punch in Carter's number on my phone when I saw him turn the corner from Oak, his partner McNair riding shotgun. Lucy came up behind me and slipped my gun back into the holster. I leaned against the wall and shook, the bricks absorbing the tremors, Lucy squeezing my arm.
McNair got out of the car, pushed past us like we weren't there, and into the Gallery. Carter stopped at the foot of the steps.
"Who is it?" he asked me.
"Anthony Corliss. He was stabbed to death. The killer stripped him and cut off his ear."
"Naked and mutilated. Staged for us. Just like Anne Kendall."
"The way it looks."
"It's not being wrong about Corliss that bothers me," Carter said.
"I know. It's being late."
Chapter Sixty-two
Cops, ambulances, news crews, and gawkers came in predictable succession, sawhorses and yellow tape keeping people where they belonged. Lucy and I had found the body so our place was inside the perimeter until Carter cut us loose. He put Lucy in the backseat of his unmarked and me in a squad car. We weren't suspects but he was playing it straight, making certain that he got each of our stories instead of one we'd told each other.
Carter gave McNair the perfect job, one where he could do no harm, stationing him at the entrance of the Gallery, deciding who got in like a bouncer working the rope line at a hot nightclub. McNair was in his element, strutting without straining.
I looked out the window at the gathering crowd. People love a parade. They're drawn by the pomp and pageantry, the marching bands and smiling faces. Fathers hoist little kids on their shoulders, those too big for shoulders climbing lampposts or straddling mailboxes for a better view.
The dead man is just as big a draw, the spectacle of the crime scene offering a dangerous whiff of mortality. Its attraction is hypnotic. Though some people are afraid to look while others can't bear to look away, no one wants to miss any of it. The visceral reminder of our shared vulnerability tweaks a primal fear, leaving us entranced and relieved that this time wasn't our time.
Rachel Firestone jostled her way to a sawhorse directly across from me, waving until I nodded, holding her thumb to her ear and her pinky to her mouth, gesturing me to call her. Jason Bolt tapped her on the shoulder, saving me from responding. Rachel gave me a parting wave and followed him into the crowd.
I settled back against the seat, my assumptions about this case once again upended. Corliss wasn't the perfect fit but he was the best fit I had, not because the evidence against him was overwhelming. It wasn't. It was circumstantial, reinforced by more assumptions predicated on his relationships with the victims, their shared history of abuse, and what had happened to Kimberly Stevens in Wisconsin. My suspicion of Corliss depended as much on what I didn't know as what I did know. The biggest gap in my knowledge was that there was no plausible alternative.
Having guessed right about the Gallery was small consolation, though Corliss's murder had given me that plausible alternative-Gary Kaufman. He had picked up the key to the Gallery from Sherry Fritzshall's secretary. When I talked to him on Monday he was nonchalant about the deaths of Delaney and Blair, saying that we all died, adding that it made no difference if a few people went ahead of schedule. I passed it off as lame humor and even more lame philosophy, though his wife, Janet, had recoiled, admonishing him that two people were already dead, as if to say that was enough. It was a reach to now put the murders on Kaufman, but that's what you did when you guessed wrong and had nothing else.
If Gary Kaufman were the killer, I had little doubt that Maggie Brennan was next on his list. He'd save his wife for last, debating whether to end his spree with a murder-suicide or just another murder. I knew my latest scenario was a castle in the air, the foundation built on missing pieces. I called Simon, hoping he had found some of them.
"What's up chief?" he asked.
"Corliss is dead." I gave him the quick and dirty.
"Since Kaufman had the key to the Gallery, sounds like that puts him at the top of the leader board."
"Only because there's not much competition. You told me he had a juvie record. What did you find out about that?"
"Those records are impossible to get into. Best I could do was check newspaper reports, see if there were any stories that matched the location and time frame."
"And?"
"Kaufman grew up in a suburb of Las Cruces, New Mexico. I found a story in the local newspaper about a kid charged with animal cruelty around the same time Kaufman's record pops up. The kid in the newspaper story was put on probation. The paper didn't identify him because he was a juvenile. A week or so later, there's a letter to the editor from a woman who says it was her cat the kid killed and that he should have been tried as an adult and sent to jail."
"Tell me you found the woman and talked to her."
"Got off the phone with her about twenty minutes ago. She's old and hard of hearing and she slurs her words like she's half in the bag or maybe she had a stroke. Anyway, from what I could make out, she claims the kid strangled her cat, gutted it, and amputated its paws. When I asked her if the kid's name was Gary Kaufman, she started crying."
"Kaufman wouldn't be the first kid to graduate from torturing animals to being a serial killer."
"One weird thing," Simon said. "She asked what kind of trouble Kaufman was in and I asked her what made her think he was in trouble and she says mine was the second call she'd gotten about him. The first one was from a policeman but she couldn't remember his name or where he was calling from."
"I'm betting it was Quincy Carter. How about Tom Goodell? Any luck tracking him down?"
"That's not as easy I thought it'd be. He's not on the grid. No address, no utilities, no credit cards."
"He's an old guy, probably in his eighties and not in the best health. I remember him saying that his son is a cop. Works in Lenexa or maybe in Leawood. Could be he's living with his son. Check it out."
"I'm on it," he said, hanging up.
Carter opened the door and slid in beside me. "Next time, I'll take your call."
"Wouldn't have mattered. We were both late."
"The coroner will figure the time of death but I'm betting Corliss has been dead at least twelve hours."
"Maybe longer than that," I said. "There were no tracks in the snow on the sidewalk or on the steps. The snow probably covered the killer's footprints and it stopped snowing during the night."
"No tracks in front but there's a door in the back. Leads into an alley. We found footprints and tire tracks."
"I guess I'm rusty. I should have sent Lucy around to the back and taken the front myself."
"No. You should have stayed out of it," Carter said. "Like I told you. And I should have known you wouldn't. Would have been better if I had arrested you when I had the chance."
"Don't feel bad. I found a body for you."
"But no killer. Thanks a lot. I've got to admit that Corliss looked like the right guy especially after I got an earful from that lawyer, Jason Bolt."
"He tell you about the coed at the University of Wisconsin?" I asked.
"You too, huh. Even had the lawyer from up there call me. So, I talked to the detective who investigated that girl's death. Said it was accidental or suicide. No evidence it was a homicide."
"Everyone we look at in this case has dirt on them, but not killer dirt."
"Including your boss. B
olt also told me about Peggy Murray, tried to convince me that Milo Harper murdered her. We ran the traps on that one too. Another accident."
"Bolt's doing what lawyers do. Stir up a lot of shit, hope enough of it sticks to turn into money."
"Harper's problem, not mine. I didn't buy him or Leonard Nagel as killers and I started falling out of love with Corliss when we had a handwriting expert examine the list with the victims' initials on it that you found in his desk. Preliminary analysis says it's not Corliss's handwriting. We're trying to match it with handwriting samples from other people at the institute but that will take time."
"Maybe the killer wrote it and planted it in Corliss's desk, same as he planted Anne Kendall's ID badge in Leonard Nagel's desk."
"Or maybe Corliss found it and knew who the killer was, which got him carved up. Tell me how you tripped to the gallery."
I ran through it for him. He took notes on a spiral pad, stuffing the pad in his shirt pocket when I finished.
"So Kaufman is in the mix."
"Not just because he had the key to the gallery. He was busted for strangling and mutilating a cat when he was a teenager. That shit is like an advanced placement class in serial killer school."
He looked at me, eyes wide. "I don't want to know how you know about Kaufman's juvenile record."
"Then don't ask. How did you find out about it?"
Carter smiled. "You think I'm sitting on my ass waiting for you to call me? I'm like Santa Claus. I've got a list and I'm checking it twice."
"What's your take on Kaufman?"
He shrugged. "Could be him but the cat story doesn't do it for me."
"Why not?"
"It may not have happened."
Chapter Sixty-three
"What do you mean? A friend of mine you don't want to know about talked to the woman that owned the cat. He got the story from her."
"And I talked to the prosecutor's office in Las Cruces. Had them dig out the file. The woman was a drunk then and she's still a drunk. When Kaufman was a kid he liked to chase her cat. Then, one day the cat disappeared. Except for one of the paws that turned up in the woman's mailbox."
"So, no strangled, gutted cat."
"Right. Kaufman denied having anything to do with the cat but he had a nickel bag of marijuana in his pocket when he was picked up. He pled to a misdemeanor possession charge and the animal cruelty count was dropped for lack of evidence. After that, he stayed out of trouble."
I sighed. "I don't get it. Leonard Nagel is a registered sex offender only maybe he got a bum deal. Anthony Corliss was run out of the University of Wisconsin on a sexual harassment charge where the victim ends up dead and, depending on whose lawyer you talk to, he may have gotten hosed. And Gary Kaufman was a teenage psychopath except there's no proof of that."
"Like you said, every one of these people was dirty."
I took a deep breath. "Okay, let's look at it another way. The killer planted evidence in Leonard Nagel's desk to implicate him in Anne Kendall's murder and may have done the same thing with the list of initials in Corliss's desk. For that matter, the killer could have arranged for Gary Kaufman to pick up the key to the gallery to make certain we'd focus on him."
"So, the killer is leading us around by the nose, getting us to chase the wrong guys."
"Not just any wrong guys. Each of them had something in their background that would make us suspicious even if it didn't hold up when we took a close look at it."
"Maybe that was the point," Carter said. "It's a classic misdirection play. Keep you and me running in a dozen different directions."
"And the longer we do that, the worse the odds are that we find Maggie Brennan, Janet Casey, and Gary Kaufman alive."
Carter nodded. "It's like after a tornado. You start out looking for survivors but at some point it's all about finding the bodies."
"The killer had to know what baggage Leonard and Corliss and Kaufman were carrying."
"I know you've only been at the institute a few days but who had access to that kind of information?"
"Milo Harper knew about Corliss and he might have known about the first sexual harassment complaint against Leonard and he knew what was in the victims' dream project files but there's no way he could have known about Anne Kendall's sexual harassment complaint or Kaufman's juvenile record."
"The description of her nightmare Anne Kendall wrote for Corliss was about being sexually abused. Stands to reason she might have also told him about Leonard Nagel coming on to her. And Kaufman would have had to explain his juvenile record to get into the grad program at Wisconsin with Corliss."
"That puts some but not all of the information in Corliss's head and he's dead. We're looking for someone who knew all of it."
"One way or another," Carter said, "everything was available to someone willing to dig for it. Your anonymous friend found out about Kaufman. The sexual harassment charges against Leonard were on the office grapevine and the criminal case against him in Colorado was public record, same as the Wisconsin lawsuit against Corliss. Plus, we know that Leonard hacked into the dream project files, which means the killer could have done the same thing to learn about the victims' nightmares. Who at the institute has the skill set to do all that?"
I shook my head, not able to get my mind around what I was about to say. "There's only one person. His name is Frank Gentry. He's head of the IT department."
"You know if he's at work today?"
"He was there a while ago."
"Let's hope he hasn't gone home early."
"I'll go with you," I said.
Carter laughed. "I don't think so. You wait here. I'm going to have someone drive you to police headquarters so you can give your statement."
"I already told you what I know."
"Yes, you did. But you didn't write it down and you know we have to have it in writing."
"I can do that tomorrow."
"No. I don't want to take a chance that you might forget something. I want you to cover every detail, make it as specific as you can. Take all the time in the world. Be sure you get it right."
"If you want me out of your hair that badly, why don't you just arrest me?"
"Too much paperwork. What I'd like to do is Taser you again but I'll settle for you and Lucy spending the rest of the day with a pad of paper and a pen and bad coffee. Sit tight and I'll find your driver."
I waited until Carter was inside the gallery and then got out of the squad car. I stepped between two sawhorses, putting the front row of spectators between the yellow tape and me, walking the perimeter until I found Lucy sitting alone in the backseat of Carter's unmarked. She turned my way and I signaled her to follow me. A moment later, we had threaded our way through the crowd to the north side of Twentieth.
We walked west toward my car as two cops pulled alongside it and stopped, boxing it in. We ducked behind a van parked at the curb as the cop in the passenger seat got out and scanned the crowd, talking into the radio pinned to his shirt. The driver left him there, leaning against the car.
"What the hell is going on?" Lucy asked.
"Carter wants us to give our statements."
"I know. That's what the detective who questioned me said."
"Yeah, but Carter will make sure it takes the rest of the day and night to get it done."
"He wants us off the street."
"As long as he can get away with it," I said. "Which may be too long for Maggie Brennan and the others. The killer has been sending us down one blind alley after another and I may have just sent Carter down another one."
"What now? We're not getting near your car with that cop on top of it."
A city bus westbound on Twentieth rolled toward us, blocking the cop's view.
"I hope you've got exact change," I said.
We walked alongside the bus until it stopped near the intersection with Oak. The doors opened and a stream of people descended. I looked back to the east. The cop who'd been guarding my car was coming our way. We w
eren't fugitives but he could hold us long enough for Carter to decide that we were material witnesses and take us in.
A black SUV with tinted windows cut in front of the bus. Rachel Firestone rolled down the passenger window and leaned out.
"Need a ride?"
"As far as you're going," I said, climbing into the backseat with Lucy.
A woman with swimmer's shoulders and close cut brown hair was behind the wheel, her deep brown eyes studying us in the rearview mirror.
"Where to?" the woman asked.
"Just drive," Rachel said.
Chapter Sixty-four
"Why were you and Lucy about to be arrested?" Rachel asked, turning toward the backseat.
"What makes you think we were going to be arrested?"
"I'm a reporter. I notice little things like the cops putting you in separate cars, and the two of you sneaking out of those cars and hiding in the crowd before trying to get on a bus instead of into your car which is being guarded by a cop who was about to nab you when Edie and I saved the day. You know, the kind of details that win Pulitzers."
"We were invited, not arrested," I said.
"That was some RSVP. But I'm glad Edie and I are not accomplices."
"Your conscience is clear."
She laughed. "A reporter with a deadline doesn't have a conscience. What happened back there?"
"I told you that I'd give you the story when it's over and it isn't over."
"And I just saved your ass. That's a deal changer."
"For you, not for me. If you've got a problem with that, pull over and we'll get out."
Edie slowed, swinging the wheel to the curb.
"It's okay, Edie," Rachel said. "He's stubborn enough to get out and then all I'll have is a story I can tell but can't write."
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't mention it because I won't. Not in the paper, anyway. Makes me part of the story and that's no good."
My cell phone rang. Caller ID said it was Quincy Carter.
"Don't answer it. Turn it off," Lucy said. "They can triangulate our location using cell towers."
