McQueen involuntarily looked up, caught sight of a few dozen onlookers peering down. He brought his eyes back down to the shoreline, where men and women were milling about, each waiting for the opportunity to do their job.
“Let’s take a look,” he said to Sommers, “then we can let everybody get to work.”
“Right over here,” Stamp said.
When they reached the body there was another detective standing there. Stamp introduced his partner, Feinstein, a sad-faced man in his forties.
The woman was naked, a slender woman who looked even thinner in death. At certain points of her body, her bones seemed ready to poke through her skin.
“Looks to be in her twenties,” Feinstein said. “Can’t see any marks on her, and no blood. She was probably dead when they dropped her from up above.”
“We’ll leave it to the M.E. to figure out how she died,” McQueen said. “I’m only interested in one thing.”
“What’s that?” Stamp asked.
The woman was facing McQueen, so he had to walk around to get a look at her back.
“Bailey.”
Sommers walked around to join McQueen and stare down at the woman. The first place she looked was down around the small of the woman’s back, but the flesh there was unmarked—pale, and unmarked. But then she brought her eyes farther up and stopped when she saw the scratch between the woman’s shoulder blades.
“My God . . .” she said.
McQueen put his hand on her arm to quiet her, and she caught on quickly.
He walked back around the body and saw that, for a slender girl she had very large breasts.
“Are those real?” he asked Sommers.
“What?”
Stamp and Feinstein smirked at one another, as did some of the Crime Scene and M.E.’s men who were within earshot.
“Are her breasts real, or implants?”
Sommers knew McQueen well enough by now to know that he didn’t ask frivolous questions. She actually squatted down to take a better look.
“I’d say they’re real,” she said, “although, real or not she’d need a support bra to carry them.”
“Okay,” he said, and that was it. They didn’t discuss it any further in front of the others.
It took some time to go through the proper procedures of M.E., Crime Scene Unit and duty captain and finally the body was carried up the embankment to an ambulance and removed to the morgue. The M.E. was not Doctor Bannerjee, but McQueen still extracted a promise of a written report as soon as possible. He also told the 69th Precinct squad detectives to go ahead and D.D. 5 the case over to him at Brooklyn South Homicide. After that he and Sommers went back to their cars. Around them emergency vehicles were backing out and pulling onto the highway to leave. Eventually, they were left alone.
“This sick bastard hung her up by her bra?” Sommers demanded.
“Same scratch, higher up,” McQueen said. “That’s what it looks like he did.”
“Arrogant prick!” she snapped.
“We need to get an ID on this woman, Bailey,” McQueen said. “This is our chance to link all three cases and get the third one back.”
“And how do we do that, Dennis?” she asked.
“By the numbers, Bailey,” McQueen said. “By the numbers.”
PART THREE
Chapter 39
December . . . nine months later
McQueen looked down at the body and had a feeling that it had finally started again.
It was the middle of December and there was snow on the ground. The forecast was for a terrible winter, and it had already begun. The temperature was close to zero and he could see just how unhappy this was making his partner, Bailey Sommers.
This time the body had washed up underneath the Verazzano Bridge, which connected Brooklyn to Staten Island. McQueen and Sommers were the last to arrive this time—even after the duty captain and M.E. —and now they were waiting for the body to be brought up the steep, craggy hill that led down to the water’s edge.
While McQueen watched the men struggle with the bagged body, losing their footing several tunes, he thought back to the previous winter, and the third body that had been found at the end of February. After Thomas Wingate and the second male had been found, the woman’s body was discovered in Canarsie, in the 69th precinct. McQueen and Sommers had responded, and the M.E. had confirmed the similarities with the other two bodies. However, since the woman had been strangled, the question of a serial killer had never been raised. They had successfully identified the woman because a missing persons report had been filed. She was Melanie Edwards, wife, mother of two small children, an attractive woman who had gone out with some friends and never returned home.
They had never identified the second male, and both his and Melanie Edwards’s murders remained unsolved, as did the murder of Thomas Wingate. The cases were still open—technically. It was as Detective Northrop had told McQueen almost a year before on the phone. “You know how it is.”
Yes, he did.
During the course of the year several other changes had occurred. First, Lieutenant Jessup had been replaced as head of the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad. He’d been laterally promoted, which meant he was still stuck in rank.
The new boss was Lieutenant Bautista. He was the first Hispanic head of a specialty squad in the NYPD. All eyes were on him to see how he performed and, consequently, on the squad. For that reason Bautista made some immediate changes. So the second major change was in squad personnel. Cataldo was out, shipped to a Staten Island Precinct, and Detective Second Grade Andrew Tolliver was in. In addition, Tolliver was teamed with Bailey Sommers, and McQueen went back to a supervisory position.
Also, Ray Velez was out on extended leave due to an injury. He’d fallen through a rooftop while in pursuit of a suspect, and nobody was sure when he’d be back. In fact, there was a possibility he might go out on disability, which would make him eligible to collect a three-quarters pension.
This was not all bad news—except for Velez. In his position McQueen was not catching cases, so he was free to continue to work on the three murders from the previous winter in his spare—and not so spare—time. He was also able to continue to work the list Bailey Sommers had prepared in order to pursue their meat-hook theory, but the going on that was very slow and so far had yielded nothing.
Now, as they loaded this new body onto the ambulance, McQueen approached and called out, “Hold on!” Sommers and Tolliver moved in behind him.
“What’s goin’ on, boss?” Tolliver asked.
“I just want to take a look at the body.”
Tolliver turned and looked at Sommers.
“I don’t even know why you called him,” he complained. “We had this under control.”
“History, Andy,” she said. “History.”
Tolliver lowered his voice.
“You told me nothing went on—”
“Not that kind of history,” she hissed. “Now keep still.”
McQueen heard them bickering behind him. After only four months together they had coalesced into a good team. The bickering was just proof of that.
“Excuse me,” McQueen said to the M.E.’s staff and stepped up into the ambulance. He unzipped the body bag and got a look at the back of the dead man.
“Okay, thanks,” he said, stepping down.
The two men exchanged a look, shrugged and then got into the vehicle and drove off to the morgue.
“The scratch?” Sommers asked.
“It’s there.”
“What scratch?” Tolliver asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Dennis, what now?”
“Finish up here,” he said. “I’ll see you both back at the house.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Andy,” McQueen said, “I don’t mean to step on your toes. Bailey will explain.”
“Okay, boss,” Tolliver said. “Whatever you say.”
Back behind his desk, McQueen started to open the drawer in which he kept
the three case files, but then resisted. The lieutenant’s door was dosed, which usually meant he was in. When he went home he had a habit of leaving the door open. McQueen quickly realized this was because the man kept nothing personal in the office.
He decided he couldn’t go the man until he had the report from Sommers and Tolliver, and from the Crime Scene Unit and the M.E. He didn’t want to blow his request out of impatience.
He knew that no progress had been made on the Wingate case by Brooklyn North. The original detective assigned, Northrop, had moved on and typically, in a situation like that, a case—if it’s not fresh—can end up orphaned. He would probably meet no resistance in trying to get that case back from them, but he’d need his supervisor’s okay. Bautista had been his boss for almost six months, but during that time the two men had not come to know each other well. He couldn’t predict what Bautista would say when he made his request, so he decided he had to be well armed when he went in.
He took his hand away from the desk drawer and reached, instead, into his in-basket.
Chapter 40
He was deaf to the child’s screams as he held her by the elbows and pushed her hands down into the scalding water. Children had to be taught that you meant what you said, or they’d walk all over you. He’d learned that from his own father. Never had a beating been promised and not delivered. That was how he was going to be with his kids.
Granted, this wasn’t his kid, it was Kathy’s, but the principle was the same. Kathy had left the little girl in his care, and it was up to him to discipline her.
Miranda was screaming and crying now. When he thought she’d had enough he pulled her from the hot water and walked her over to the kitchen sink, where he ran cold water over her already reddening hands and forearms. That done he sent her to her room, where she settled into a low wail, and he pulled the plug out of the tub to let the hot water drain out. That done he went downstairs to the living room to read the TV Guide to see what was on tonight. He didn’t hear a sound out of Miranda for the rest of the afternoon.
Children should be unseen, and unheard.
Kathy returned home from work at six and came over to kiss him hello. She stood in front of the TV to do it, so he put his hands on her hips and moved her.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever you wanna make.”
Kathy stared at him. The price you had to pay to keep a young stud around, she thought. Here she was, almost forty, the mother of a four-year-old, trying to hold onto a twenty-seven-year-old boyfriend who didn’t work, didn’t clean, and didn’t cook. He fucked like a machine, though, and ate pussy like a starving man, but now she was starting to wonder if that was enough.
Oh well, at least he was starting to watch Miranda, since she couldn’t afford day care anymore.
“Where’s the baby?” she asked.
“Upstairs, in her room,” he said, without taking his eyes from the Seinfeld rerun. Now the broad on that show, she was something, not a washed-out, middle-aged mother like Kathy. Lately he was considering when to move on. He’d been seeing Kathy for four months, living with her almost from the beginning, but she was boring in bed and getting thick around the middle. The stretch marks on her stomach were starting to gross him out so much that he only fucked her in the dark the past few weeks.
“Was she any trouble?” she asked.
“Not much,” he said, and as she went upstairs he added to himself, “not after I showed her who was boss.”
Moments later he heard Kathy shout and then she was back downstairs with the kid in her arms. Miranda was soaked with tears, but too tired to cry anymore, even though the pain had hardly subsided. Her hands and forearms were an angry red, and swollen with puss-filled blisters.
“What happened?” Kathy demanded. “What did you do to her?”
Wearily, he pulled his eyes from the TV and looked at her.
“If you’re gonna leave her with me you can’t question how I discipline her.”
“Discipline her?”
“She wouldn’t shut up,” he said, “so I stuck her hands in some hot water—”
“You what?”
“I—”
“How could you do that to a child?”
“Hey, she’ll live,” he said. “My old man did worse than that to me plenty of times, and look how I turned out.”
Kathy stared at him for a few moments, feeling totally amazed by the fact that she could have been fooled by this monster, fooled not only into letting him move in with her, but ultimately leaving her daughter in his care, all because he paid attention to her every now and then.
“You’re crazy,” she said, “you know that? Crazy!” She started for the door, but he got there first, barring the way.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve got to get her to the hospital,” Kathy said. “Look at her hands, her arms . . . Jesus—”
“No hospital,” he said, shaking his head emphatically.
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll ask questions.”
“So what? You don’t think you did anything wrong, so what do you care?”
“No hospital,” he shouted. “I mean it.”
“Get out of my way. I’m taking my child to the hospital.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You sick fuck,” she screamed, “get out of my way!”
Maybe things would have gone differently if Miranda hadn’t started to cry again at that moment, but he couldn’t take Kathy’s screaming and Miranda’s crying, not at the same time.
He backhanded Kathy across the face, a stinging blow that sent her staggering back. She tripped on the throw rug behind her and fell. The sound that her head made striking the coffee table was a loud crack, like a bone breaking. He’d heard a similar sound when he was a child, the time his father snapped his arm. There was also the sound of the cheap coffee table splintering.
Miranda flew from her mother’s arms, landed on the floor and began to scream.
“Shut up!” he snapped. He took two quick steps and kicked out at her blindly. His foot caught her in the ribs, snapping two of them and quieting her.
He leaned over Kathy and shook her, but he already knew she was dead.
“Stupid cunt,” he said, and kicked her, too.
Then he turned and walked toward Miranda. She was lying in a crumpled heap, trying desperately to get her breath back. He had to take care of her before she started screaming again. After all, he couldn’t let her be the only witness who could link him to Kathy’s death . . . even though it was her own damned fault!
He moved toward the child, drawing back his foot for another kick . . .
Chapter 41
The next day both Sommers and Tolliver came into the office just after noon, both obviously excited about something.
“You got it, boss,” Tolliver said.
“Got what?”
“This is the M.E.’s report,” Sommers said. “I went down and got it personally.”
“And?”
“The lungs are the same,” she said.
“And means?”
“His neck was broken.”
“You got yourself a serial killer, boss,” Tolliver said. “It’s hard to get this department to go that way, Detective, when we have four different MOs.”
“Yeah, but from what Bailey’s been tellin’ me I bet you got enough,” the younger man said. He was about Bailey’s age, which also made them a good fit.
“It won’t be up to me,” McQueen said, “but this helps.”
“Just remember us when you’ve got to put together your task force,” Tolliver said.
“I’ve got dibs,” Sommers said, “I was there at the beginning.”
“Don’t worry” McQueen said, “I’ll remember. Look, until I’ve got some word on this, keep working the case. Get an ID on this guy.”
“Already did,” Tolliver said. He slapped another folder down o
n the desk. “John Bennett. His prints were on file.”
“Rap sheet?”
“No,” Tolliver said. “Get this. He took the test for F.A.A. a few years ago. He got called for the job, went as far as getting fingerprinted, and then suddenly withdrew.”
“So we got his prints because he almost got a job with the department?”
“Ain’t that a kick in the head?” Tolliver asked. “The only problem is, the address we’ve got on file is old,” Sommers said.
“Well, you’ve got his name,” McQueen said. “Find out where he lives now and find somebody to ID the body.”
“Are you gonna talk to the Loo today?” Tolliver asked.
McQueen looked over at Lieutenant Bautista’s door, which was wide open.
“As soon as he comes in,” he said. “Now you two get back to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Sommers said.
McQueen collected the folders off his desk, opened his drawer and added them to the three cases there. As soon as Bautista put in an appearance, he’d make his pitch.
Around three P.M. the lieutenant arrived. He was, as usual, impeccably dressed, today in a dark blue suit, powder blue shirt and red tie. He went directly to his office without speaking to McQueen and the Double Ds, who were seated at their desks, and closed the door behind him.
“One day he’ll say hello, or good afternoon,” Diver said, “and I’ll faint.”
“Quiet, Jimmy,” McQueen said.
“Sorry, boss,” Diver said, “but it wouldn’t hurt him one time to act like we’re here.”
“This is just a pit stop for him, Jimmy,” McQueen said. “He’ll be gone inside of a year.”
“They should give the squad to you then, Sarge,” Dolan said.
“Forget it, Artie,” McQueen said. “I got enough problems.”
“Let’s go, Jimmy,” Dolan said. “We got that interview to do.”
Both men stood up and Diver said, “See ya later, Sarge,” as they went out the door.
McQueen was actually glad they were gone. Now nobody would see him going into the boss’s office. He grabbed his files, went to the door and knocked.
Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02) Page 15
