Thirteen_The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury

by Steve Cavanagh

  Art Pryor was not a legal stylist. He was a businessman.

  “I know Art has a reputation for sweet-hearting juries. It’s that southern accent of his. New Yorkers love it. But don’t be fooled. Art may play the wise country bumpkin – but he’s devastating on his feet. I can’t talk about the evidence in the case, but you should ask Rudy about Pryor bumping a juror today. It was a masterful display. Guy’s a real pro,” said Harry.

  I took another drink. The pain was subsiding. Harry grabbed my empty glass, took it away.

  “That’s more than enough for tonight. Remember our deal: I say when you stop.”

  I nodded. Harry was right. I could handle a few drinks, but only in Harry’s presence. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the whiskey, my mind was on Pryor.

  “Is he better than me?” I said.

  “I guess we’re going to find out,” said Harry.

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kane couldn’t sleep.

  The anticipation was too great. He’d finally given up on sleep sometime past four a.m. For two hours he exercised.

  Five hundred push-ups.

  A thousand sit-ups.

  Twenty minutes of stretching.

  He stood before the mirror. Sweat covered his head and chest. Taking his time, Kane examined his reflection. The extra weight he just had to put up with. No point in feeling bad about it. He was playing a part, after all. His biceps felt hard, strong. From the age of eighteen, Kane had hit the gym. Because of his condition, he didn’t suffer the aches and pains that came with lifting weights. He ate right and worked out hard every day. Within a few years he had built a physique suitable for his purpose. Strong, lean, fit. The stretch marks over his chest had annoyed him at first; he was growing muscle faster than his skin could stretch. In time he came to love them. They served as reminders of his achievements.

  Looking down at his chest, Kane rubbed at his latest scar. A half-inch cut, over his right pectoral muscle. The scar remained purple and raised. Another six months and the color would drain from it, like the others. The memory of the cut was still strong. It made him smile.

  He opened the curtains and stared out at the night. Dawn threatened the sky. No one on the street below. The windows of the buildings opposite remained dark and silent. Leaning down, he flicked the catch and threw the window open. The freezing air hit his body like a cold wave from the Atlantic. Instantly the fatigue from the sleepless night left him. A shiver caught him. He didn’t know if it was the icy breeze or the liberation of standing naked before the city. Kane let New York see him. His true form. No make-up. No wigs. Just him. Joshua Kane.

  For a long time he’d fantasized about revealing himself to the world. His true self. He knew there had never been anyone like him before. He’d studied psychology, psychiatry and neurological dysfunctions. Kane didn’t fit into a neat box of diagnoses. He didn’t hear voices. He didn’t have visions. There was no schizophrenia, no paranoia. No childhood abuse.

  A psychopath, perhaps? Kane didn’t feel for other people. There was no kinship, no empathy. For in Kane’s mind, there was no need of such things. He didn’t need to feel anything for anyone because he wasn’t like anyone else. They were all beneath him. He was special.

  He remembered his mother telling him that.

  “You’re special, Josh. You’re different.”

  How right she had been, thought Kane.

  He was one of a kind.

  It hadn’t always felt that way. The pride in that statement hadn’t come easy. He didn’t fit in. Not in school. If it wasn’t for his gift for mimicry, and impersonations, he wouldn’t have been able to cope in school. It was his Johnny Carson routine that earned him a date for his high school senior prom with a pretty, brown-haired girl called Jenny Muskie. She was cute, even with her braces. Jenny often had time off school because of tonsillitis. When she did return to school from a bout of sickness she was often still hoarse and earned the nickname “husky Muskie”.

  On the night of the prom, in his mother’s car, wearing a rented tux, Kane had pulled up at Jenny’s house and waited. He didn’t go inside. He sat there for a long time with the engine running, fighting the urge to just drive away. Kane couldn’t feel physical pain, but he knew all about worry, embarrassment, feeling shy and awkward. He knew those feelings all too well. Eventually he got out of the car, rang her doorbell. Her father, a large man smoking a cigarette, gave him a stern warning about looking after his daughter and then laughed and coughed when Jenny made Kane perform his Carson impression. Her dad was a big fan of The Tonight Show.

  The car journey to the prom was mostly quiet. Kane didn’t know what to say, and Jenny talked too fast, then shut up, and then talked again, nervously, before Kane even had time to process the first thing she’d said. Kane knew books. That was it. Jenny didn’t read. And she hadn’t read Kane’s favorite book, The Great Gatsby.

  “What’s a Gatsby?” she’d said.

  Maybe out of embarrassment at the awkward silences, she asked him how he created his impersonations. He said he didn’t know exactly – he just kind of studied people until he saw something, or heard something that he thought was the essence of that person. She didn’t really get it, but Kane didn’t mind. The only thing that mattered to him that night was that she was pretty and she was with him.

  Kane walked into his senior prom, arm-in-arm with Jenny that night. Her in her blue dress, and Kane in his ill-fitting tuxedo. They got drinks, ate bad food, and separated after half an hour. Kane didn’t dance, and he’d been worried about dancing with Jenny for weeks leading up to the big night. He hadn’t had the chance to tell her that he couldn’t dance, and didn’t want to. He was just happy to talk to her.

  It was another half-hour before Kane saw her again, kissing Rick Thompson on the dance floor. Jenny was Kane’s girl. He wanted to march over there and pull Jenny away from Rick. But he couldn’t. Instead, he drank sweet punch, sat on a plastic chair and watched Jenny all night. He watched her leave with Rick. Watched them get into his car. He drove behind them, keeping a respectable distance, until they reached a peak on Mulholland Drive and parked up at a beauty spot overlooking Los Angeles. He watched them make love in the back seat. It was then that Kane decided that he didn’t want to see any more.

  Kane closed the window to the night, and to his past. He returned to the bedroom and opened his make-up kit. He’d already laid out some clothes. The dead man whose life Kane had stolen didn’t have much of a wardrobe, but such things didn’t matter to Kane.

  In a few hours it would begin. The trial he had dreamed of for most of his life. This one was special. The attention from the press was unbelievable. Beyond his wildest dreams. Everything that had come before had been mere practice. Everything had led him to this point.

  He promised himself he would not fail.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  For most of the night, Harry had tried and failed to get an ice-pack on my head. It was just too damn painful.

  We talked for hours. Mostly about Christine. About me. It was the last thing I wanted to discuss – but we couldn’t talk about the case.

  Around two a.m. Harry called his clerk who arrived by cab and drove Harry home in the green convertible he’d parked outside my office. He was used to picking up the judge – and Harry made sure to pay back every favor. Harry and I would have sore heads come morning. For different reasons.

  I woke up at five, still on the couch in my office. I got fresh ice from the mini-refrigerator beside my desk and held it against the lump on the back of my head. The swelling had gone down, and the pain woke me up as soon as the first ice cube touched my skull.

  For a long time I lay on the couch and thought about my wife and daughter. It was all my fault. All of it. I’d screwed up my own life. I thought it might be better for Christine and Amy if I wasn’t in their lives at all. Christine deserved better than me. So did Amy.

  I reached for the whiskey bottle. Normally Harry tak
es it with him, but he must have forgotten it last night. I picked it up and unscrewed the cap. I hit pause before the whiskey hit the bottom of the mug. Put the cap back on the bottle with my glass still empty.

  People were relying on me. Bobby Solomon. Harry. Rudy Carp. Harper too, in some ways. Even Ariella Bloom and Carl Tozer. I owed them most of all. Their deaths demanded a resolution, one way or another. If Solomon was guilty – he deserved to be punished. If he was innocent, the cops needed to find the real killer. Justice. Due Process.

  It was bullshit. But it was the best bullshit we had.

  I got up slow, made my way to the bathroom and filled the basin with cold water. I put my face beneath the surface, held it there until I felt my cheeks stinging.

  That woke me up.

  The phone rang. Caller display read, “Blow me”.

  “Harper, you should be asleep. You got something?” I said.

  “Who can sleep? I’ve been up all night. Joe pulled some strings. I’ve been reading the case files on the Dollar Bill murders.”

  “You got all three?”

  “Yep. There’s not much to them, really. The feds wouldn’t release the files. For that we would’ve had to go through Delaney. So I went right to the source. The detective bureaus for Springfield, Wilmington and Manchester. Joe cooked up a story about running a training course on crime scene investigation. They’re dead cases. Nobody is remotely worried about sharing the files.”

  “Anything leaping out?” I said.

  “Nothing. No connections. Far as I can see, Annie Hightower, Derek Cass and Karen Harvey never met. There’s extensive bios on each victim. There’s nothing to connect the victims other than the dollar bills. And at the time, PD didn’t think much of the dollars. But they kept them all. You know how cops work. They make a drug bust and find a suitcase full of cash – that case will probably be a little lighter by the time it’s booked into evidence. But if it’s a murder scene on Joe Public – nobody messes with a single dime. Everything is preserved. Perfectly.”

  I let out a sigh. I’d been hoping there would be something to connect them. I had no doubt that Delaney had already made some kind of connection between the victims. One that she couldn’t tell us about. Delaney had a head start.

  “In the cases of Cass and Hightower the perp’s fingerprints were found on the bills. That’s what sent them away. With Karen Harvey, the half dollar bill was found in Rhodes’ apartment but his prints weren’t on it. Any other prints or DNA on the bills?” I said.

  “No DNA. There’s a partial print on the bill in the Derek Cass murder. Multiple prints on the bill found between Annie Hightower’s toes. None on the torn bill found in Roddy Rhodes’s apartment linking him to Karen Harvey’s robbery homicide. There’s no record of matches with prints on the databases.”

  “Were those other prints tested, though?” I said.

  “I would imagine so. Can’t tell for sure.”

  “We need to be sure,” I said.

  I heard Harper’s fingers tapping on a keyboard.

  “I’ll email the labs in each case. No harm in double-checking,” she said.

  “Any chance you could send the files to me?” I said.

  “They’re already waiting in your inbox.”

  Harper stayed on the line while I booted up my laptop. It didn’t take long until I found the zip files and imported them.

  “What’s the link?” said Harper.

  “I don’t know. If it is a serial killer, like Delaney suspects, there may be no link other than the bills. What’s it called? A signature?”

  “Yeah, like a calling card. It’s all linked to the killer’s psychology. It’s not like they’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs on purpose. The signature is part of who they are and why they kill,” said Harper.

  “I think there’s something else. Has to be,” I said. “No one would spot those bills without something else pointing toward it. The cases all have one thing in common – the bill led the cops to the killer. That’s the thing. Maybe that’s what Delaney spotted. If it is one man then they sure as hell don’t want to be found. They’re taking extreme measures to make sure someone else goes down for their crime. Why?”

  Harper didn’t hesitate. She knew already.

  “What’s the best way to get away with murder? Make sure the cops aren’t looking for you. If the murder is solved it won’t show up as a pattern. He’s masking these crimes – taking extreme steps to ensure he’s not discovered. Take a look at the files, I’m going to take a nap. I’ll see you in court.”

  She hung up.

  I brewed coffee and opened the files. By seven a.m. I’d read all three cases. The coffee was cold and my brain was on fire. I found my wallet, drew out the dollar bill I’d scribbled on in Delaney’s office and examined the marks.

  All my life I’d been used to handling money. Even conning people with it. Many a grafter could swap a hundred for a ten in the blink of an eye in front of a sleepy bartender in a nightclub. I’d seen it done. And I’d done it myself in another life.

  I washed, shaved, dressed. Every second I thought about the Great Seal of the United States. The marks on the dollar. The arrow. The olive leaf. The star. Three marks per dollar. Three marks per murder.

  And the fingerprint on the butterfly bill in Carl’s mouth. How the hell did the cops get Richard Pena’s DNA on the bill when he’d been dead long before the bill had even been printed?

  I threw on my overcoat, drained the last of the bad coffee and headed out into the cold with my laptop in a bag. Soon as I opened the front door the chill hit my freshly shaved face like it was trying to rip off my skin. No way I was walking in this weather, but I couldn’t take my car either. The windshield had a hole in it. Frost and snow had blown in on the passenger seat. I called a guy I know who used to run a chop-shop in the Bronx. He was obliging but expensive.

  Leaving the key to my car on the top of the driver’s side tire, I huddled into the folds of my coat and set off in search of a cab.

  Five minutes later I was in a cab on my way to Center Street and the biggest trial the city had seen in years. My mind was a mess. I should’ve been thinking about the witnesses, the opening statements, Art Pryor’s strategy …

  Instead, I thought about the dollar bill.

  Rudy had the trial covered. I was only playing a small part in this case. In a way, I was thankful. It took some of the pressure off.

  The cab driver tried to start a conversation about the Knicks. I gave him one-word answers until he piped down.

  The dollar.

  I was close. There was something in those three murders that Delaney had found. When I thought about the bill in Bobby’s case – I lost sight of something. Whatever was working away in the back of my mind, it wasn’t Bobby or that butterfly.

  I repeated the names of the victims I’d learned about yesterday. Derek Cass. Annie Hightower. Karen Harvey. There was something about those three that pulled a rope somewhere, deep inside. It felt like it was staring me in the face, but I couldn’t see it.

  Cass. Hightower. Harvey.

  Cass died in Wilmington. Annie Hightower in Springfield. Karen Harvey was shot and robbed in Manchester.

  We pulled up outside the court building. I paid the driver, tipped him.

  It had just turned eight a.m. and already the masses were out in force. Two crowds of people. Both were waving signs, hollering and singing at each other. One crowd held up signs that read “Justice for Ari” while the others were holding posters supporting Bobby Solomon. The Solomon supporters looked to be in the minority. God knows what a jury would think, having to walk between these people. The crowds were getting bigger by the second, and NYPD officers were erecting barriers to keep both crowds apart.

  I had to push past a line to get into the court building. Everyone wanted a spot in the courtroom for this trial. It was the hottest ticket in town. By the time I got through security and I’d pushed the button for the elevator, my mind had drifted back to Dollar
Bill.

  The stars.

  I drew out a buck, stared at the seal as I rode up to the twenty-first floor. There were thirteen arrows clutched in the eagle’s left claw. Thirteen olive leaves on the branches held in its right claw. Above it, a shield made of thirteen stars.

  Stars. Shield. Derek Cass murdered in Wilmington. Annie Hightower murdered in Springfield. Karen Harvey gunned down in Manchester.

  I flipped over the note and stared at George Washington, took out my cell phone and called Harper.

  She picked up right away.

  “I’ve got something. Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way, I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said.

  “Pull over,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Pull over. I need you to turn around and go see Delaney at Federal Plaza. Tell her you’ve found a link. And you have more information.”

  “Wait, just pulling over now,” she said.

  I heard the roar of Harper’s Dodge Charger die down as she stopped the car.

  “What’ve you got?” she said.

  “The marks on the bills. It’s a pattern. You got a buck on you?”

  Harper must’ve had the phone on speaker. The sound of horns, air brakes and traffic played in the background. My elevator hit the twenty-first floor. I got out of the car and went right, toward the window in between elevator banks. I stared out at Manhattan through a window pane covered in dirt. It gave the city a muddy filter – like I was looking at an old photograph.

  “Got one, what am I looking at?” she said.

  “The Great Seal. There’s thirteen olive leaves, thirteen arrows, and thirteen stars above the eagle. Why thirteen?”

  “I don’t know, off the top of my head. I never noticed before.”

  “You know this. You learned all about it in school. You just don’t remember. Flip over the bill. Washington. First President of the United States. Before he was President he commanded troops in New York, defending the city against the British. He read out the Declaration of Independence to the army. When the Declaration of Independence was signed and Washington read it out, it had only been signed by thirteen states.”