“And this one?” Florette said, pointing to the final series of photographs, in which Sophia’s other arm had been placed at the feet of a pietà.
“That’s the fourth station,” Nelson replied. “Jesus meeting his mother on the way to his death.”
“Jesus,” Chuck said, wiping sweat from his forehead, even though the room was quite cool. “What does this tell us?”
“Well,” Nelson said, “the good news is that as his rituals get more bizarre and obsessive, his daily behavior may start to draw attention to itself. The bad news is that the killing is more frenzied, and that makes him more dangerous.”
“I still think there could be two offenders at work here,” Lee commented. “This new twist in the signature—”
“Oh, come on, Lee! If you learned anything from me, it’s that a signature is perfectly capable of evolving!” Nelson interrupted irritably.
“I know,” Lee answered. “I just think—”
“Do you think he had something to do with Laura’s disappearance?” Nelson said, changing the subject.
“My instinct tells me no. Because of the five-year gap, and also because it would be just too strange a coincidence.”
“But then how did he know about the red dress?” Florette asked.
“Maybe he knows the guy who did it?” Butts suggested.
“Okay, let’s shift focus,” Chuck said, turning to Florette. “Have you dug up anything on the churches?”
“I checked with the volunteer programs at all the churches, and none of the volunteers are screened. Some of them have a sign-in sheet, but they don’t really check up on anyone.”
“Sign-in sheets,” Butts said. “Does that include names and addresses?”
“Optional,” Florette replied. “But I thought it might be useful to have a look at these.”
He pulled a pile of papers from his briefcase. “Now, here are the sign-in sheets for the past few weeks—or at least all the ones I could get hold of. Fordham doesn’t keep theirs for more than a few days, but Saint Francis Xavier does, and Old St. Patrick’s adds the names to their mailing list. We got lucky at St. Patrick’s—they hadn’t yet updated their mailing list, so they hadn’t thrown it out yet.”
He spread the sheets, half a dozen crumpled pages, stained and covered with handwriting, out on the desk.
Lee looked over the first sheet of names, from Saint Francis Xavier Church. Nothing stuck out. It was about evenly divided between men and women, most of whom did not include their addresses or phone numbers. He picked up the second sheet. At the bottom, someone had signed in as “Samuel Beckett.”
He handed it to Nelson. “What do you make of this?”
Nelson peered at the list and frowned. “Very funny.”
“Can I see that one for St. Patrick’s, please?” he asked Butts, who was studying it.
“Okay,” Butts replied, handing it to him.
Lee looked at the list. The names were different from the one for Saint Francis Xavier, except for one name: Samuel Beckett. Same handwriting, delicate and almost feathery. Not “manly” handwriting. Maybe the handwriting of a mama’s boy?
He handed the sheet to Chuck.
“Samuel Beckett, like the playwright?” Chuck said. “This guy trying to be funny?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Lee answered.
“This is definitely strange,” Florette agreed. “I was wondering what you’d make of it.”
“If this is our guy,” Nelson said, “it would fit it with the whole idea of this being a game to him. He’d get a kick out of signing in as a playwright known for his gloomy existentialism.”
“Waiting for Godot,” Florette murmured. “That’s sort of what we’re doing.”
“Yeah,” Chuck agreed.
“So he could be using this volunteering to look for victims,” Butts said.
“Right,” said Nelson.
“I’ll run the name through VICAP, see if we come up with anything,” Chuck said.
“And we should also find out how many people with that name live in the five boroughs. Check up on each of them,” Florette said.
“Right,” Chuck agreed. “I’ll get the sergeant on it.”
“There’s something else about him doing all this volunteer work,” Lee suggested.
“What’s that?” Butts asked.
“Someone who has a lot of time on his hands. Not only does he volunteer a lot, but he does it all over the five boroughs.”
“Right,” said Chuck. “So maybe he’s wealthy, or at least well off?”
“Or self-employed,” Nelson suggested.
“Right,” Lee agreed.
Butts studied the sheet in his hand. “Do you think it’s possible this name is a clue to his identity in another way?”
“What do you mean?” Chuck asked.
“Well, like maybe it’s partially right—an anagram, or something like that.”
“That’s good,” Lee said. “That would fit in with his personality.”
“I’ll run it through an Internet program on anagrams,” Florette said. “It’s not that great on proper names, but it might give us something.”
“Good idea,” said Chuck.
The phone rang, and Chuck picked it up.
“No comment,” he said after a moment. “I have a suggestion, though. Why don’t you stop wasting the department’s time, so we can do our job?”
He hung up, his face red, and stalked out of the office. They could hear him through the closed door, chewing out the duty officer for putting the call through.
“But I didn’t know it was a reporter,” they heard the cop say. “He told me he was—”
“I don’t care what he told you!” Chuck bellowed. “Next time use your head!”
Lee looked out the window at the bright splash of sunlight on the windowsill. Even as the days were growing longer, everyone’s temper was getting shorter, as they all realized that time was slipping away.
Chapter Fifty-two
When Lee returned to his apartment later that afternoon, the first thing he did was sit down at the piano. The sight of the notes on the page comforted him. Music was a language he had spoken since childhood, a language of sound and rhythm and color. It went directly to a part of him that was beyond the reach of words.
He began a Beethoven sonata, enjoying the pure physical pleasure of his fingers on the keyboard. He played the adagio movement first, lingering on the graceful phrases, the swell and rise of the melodic line. Then he plunged into the allegro passage, channeling his rage and frustration through his fingertips onto the keys. He couldn’t help thinking about what Nelson had said. There were fourteen Stations of the Cross, and the Slasher was only up to number four.
During the dark days, there were times when music alone could reach him, when it was the only thing that passed through the wall of his depression, to lift him back into life.
He was dimly aware of the sound of the phone ringing, but he blocked it out and continued until he finished the sonata. Then he rose, went to the answering machine, and listened to the message.
The minute he heard Diesel’s voice, he knew something was terribly wrong. He listened to the message in a fog of impending horror. He was vaguely aware of hearing the words “Eddie…subway train,” and “killed instantly.”
No, not Eddie…
He dialed the number showing on his caller ID. Diesel answered after one ring.
Fifty minutes later he was sitting in McHale’s, nursing a pint of Saranac Amber, waiting for Diesel and Rhino to show up. The beer, with its dark, nutty flavor, reminded him of Eddie. Maybe the demons that had plagued him since the war—the napalm-scarred corpses of his nightmares—really had come to call on him one final time, luring him down onto the subway tracks. Even Eddie’s chattiness was just another camouflage for his pain. In his tales of wartime horrors, he always appeared to leave something out. Lee had the sense that things happened in Vietnam that even now he couldn’t come to grips with.
But suicide? Lee didn’t believe it. Something else was at work.
When Diesel and Rhino arrived, Diesel’s eyes were red rimmed. Rhino wore dark glasses, his white skin pasty in the weak light coming in through the grimy windows. They both slid into the booth across from him without a word. They were both wearing dark jeans and very white T-shirts under black leather jackets.
“Sorry,” Diesel said. “I had a few people to call—you know, to tell them.”
“What happened?” Lee asked. Their phone conversation had been brief, confined to the where and the when, leaving out the uncomfortable question of why.
Diesel shook his head. “I don’t know yet. It’s only been a couple of hours so far. They haven’t even released his name to the press yet.”
“How did you find out?”
Diesel leaned back in his chair. “I have a few contacts here and there.”
As usual, Rhino did not speak. He took off his glasses, cleaned them carefully, and put them in his jacket pocket. His hands were surprisingly delicate for such a powerful-looking man. Lee noticed that his eyes, too, were bloodshot.
“You want anything?” Lee asked them.
“Let us get this round,” Diesel said as Rhino rose from his seat and headed for the bar.
“Thanks,” Lee said. He could use a second drink.
“Eddie didn’t even like riding the subway,” Diesel said. “Always said he hated standing on that yellow warning track.”
Lee leaned forward. “Do you think he jumped?”
“Absolutely not. I know Eddie could get low—it wasn’t any secret that he suffered from ups and down—but right now he was in an up phase.” He picked up a beer coaster and ran his fingers lightly over the edges. “Could have been an accident, I guess. He had just won a lot of money, and he was probably excited about it. He may not have been paying attention because of all the money he’d just won—maybe he was thinking about that.”
“But you said he hated standing on the warning track. Why would he even be close to the edge like that?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out.”
Rhino returned with three glasses of very cold beer. Lee drank half of his in one gulp, and felt the bubbles rise to his head.
For the first time since Lee had met him, Rhino spoke.
“I think someone got to him.” His voice was oddly thin and high, like the upper reaches of a woodwind instrument—a reedy oboe or clarinet.
“You mean someone pushed him?” The minute Lee spoke the words, he knew that was what he had been thinking all along, in the back of his mind.
Rhino’s pale eyes narrowed. “No way a guy like Eddie falls onto a track—or even jumps. It’s not his style.”
Lee turned to Diesel. “Do you agree?”
Diesel nodded slowly. “I can’t figure it any other way.” He took a long drink and wiped his mouth delicately with a cocktail napkin.
“Did Eddie have any enemies that might have—I mean, he did gamble, right?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t owe his bookie, and he’d just won big at the track.”
Lee frowned. “He told me he was clean—that he’d given it up.”
His companions exchanged a glance.
“Eddie didn’t always exactly tell the truth,” Rhino said, looking down at his beer glass.
“This guy you’re after,” Diesel said, “is he capable of something like that?”
“Oh, he’s capable of just about anything.”
“But I thought he killed women.”
“Yes, but a murder like this would be different. It would be to protect himself from getting caught. But how would he know who Eddie is?”
“I don’t know,” Diesel said. “But maybe he tailed him into the subway and waited for his chance.”
“But why? What did Eddie know? That’s a big risk to take.”
“Yeah, it is. I don’t know what Eddie knew, because I hadn’t spoken to him for a couple of days. But maybe this guy had been watching him.”
“Okay,” Lee said to the pair sitting opposite him, “I’m going to need some information from you.”
“Anything you want, you got it,” Rhino replied.
“Right,” said Diesel. “If this guy did Eddie, we want to help you any way we can.”
Lee shivered as another thought came into his head. For the first time it occurred to him that whoever wanted him off the case might very well be someone he knew.
Chapter Fifty-three
The SRO desk clerk was a thick, lumpy man with a face that looked like it had been hewn from an oak tree with a rusty ax. His cheekbones were set at different heights, giving his whole face a lopsided look, and his nose was flattened and crooked. Lee realized he was looking at a boxer’s face. The man’s clothes and haircut belonged to a different era. They reminded Lee of gangster films of the ’30s and ’40s.
“Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me,” Lee said as he approached the desk.
The man looked up from the sports pages he was reading. “Sure, Mac, whaddya need?” Even his voice was straight out of a B movie.
Diesel and Rhino had given Lee the address of the West Side flophouse where Eddie lived, but they didn’t know the manager’s name. This guy had night staff written all over him, though, and a couple of twenties later Lee was seated on the bed in Eddie’s room, going through his things. Word had already gotten around about what happened to Eddie, and the clerk insisted on watching while Lee went through his friend’s possessions. He stood in the doorway fingering a cigarette, as if he couldn’t wait to go outside and smoke it.
It was a dismal room, the stale smell of desperation clinging to the peeling wallpaper, and Lee felt ashamed that he hadn’t known how close to the edge his friend was living. Any offers of help had been politely rebuked. Eddie had a way of appearing to be able to take care of himself. A single bed and an unpainted pine dresser were the only pieces of furniture, a green braided rug the only touch of comfort.
He looked through the contents of the dresser: half a dozen shirts, a couple of pairs of pants, socks and underwear, and a couple of sports jackets. The rest of Eddie’s possessions were unremarkable—pens, paper, and other simple office supplies, a few cans of soup, a box of crackers, several decks of cards, well thumbed and grimy—but one thing caught Lee’s eye. It was a racing form dated the day Eddie died. In the first race, a horse’s name was circled in red pen: Lock, Stock, and Barrel. Lee looked at the night clerk and held up the form.
“Can I keep this?”
The man stuck the unlit cigarette behind his ear. “You can keep all of it, Mac. Poor Eddie won’t be needin’ it now, I guess. Unless he had family somewheres, but I don’t think so.”
“Did he seem depressed in the last few days?”
The man cocked his lopsided head to one side. “Naw, that’s the thing—he seemed really happy, y’know? Told me he’d bet on a sure winner.”
Lee held up the racing form and pointed to the circled name. “This horse?”
The man squinted to read the name and shook his head. “Don’t know. Just said he had a feeling his horse was gonna win. Never saw him after that. Poor guy. He was a good egg, you know?”
Lee slipped the clerk another twenty before leaving, because the man seemed to feel sorry for Eddie. As he stepped out of the building, hot tears clouded his vision. He took a deep breath and headed out into the night.
The next stop was Eddie’s bookie—another bit of information he managed to get out of Diesel and Rhino. He didn’t know what he expected to find; he only knew that he owed it to Eddie to try and find out anything he could.
The apartment was in the ground of floor of a five-story walk-up, one of the rows of brick tenement buildings the lined the forties and fifties from Eighth Avenue to the river. The long, narrow “shotgun” apartments (so named because you could fire a shotgun at one end and the bullet would pass straight through to the other end) were once crammed with poor migrant families—and more recently, st
ruggling actors and writers. But now you could buy a house in New Jersey for the price of a one-bedroom co-op on West Forty-seventh Street.
The building showed all the signs of a neglectful landlord. The hallway was drafty and badly lit. The walls were an insipid shade of pale yellow, and hadn’t seen a paintbrush for years, and the tile floor was chipped and stained. Lee knocked on the door of apartment number 1C and waited. After a moment the metal peephole cover slid open.
“Yeah?” The man’s voice was wary, hoarse.
“Hi. I’m Eddie Pepitone’s friend.”
“Yeah?” There was an echo, as though he was inside a cave.
“He made a bet with you the other day. Lock, Stock, and Barrel—trifecta in the third race.”
“Yeah? So?”
“What happened? In the race, I mean.”
“His horse won.”
“I need to know if he spoke to you about it.”
“So why don’t you just ask him?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” The voice was suspicious.
“He’s dead.”
There was a long silence. Lee heard the sound of something frying inside the apartment. The smell of rancid oil floated out into the hallway.
“Who are you?” The voice was tighter, accusatory.
“I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
There was the sound of a chair scraping over a bare floor, then the sound of many dead bolts being unlocked. The door opened a few inches, restrained by a metal chain. Lee got a whiff of bacon grease and fried potatoes. A bloodshot eye peered out at him.
“You a cop?”
“No,” Lee lied. “I’m just a friend who wants to find out who killed Eddie.”
“Shit,” the man said. “So you weren’t shittin’ me? Somebody iced Eddie?”
Silent Screams Page 28
