“And got into the locked room where they kept the communion wine with no sign of a break-in?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, this may sound far-fetched, but what if he has an expertise that helps him do this?”
“Such as?”
“Well, what if he’s a locksmith?”
“Hmm. You mean as in ’Lock, Stock, and Barrel.’ That’s not bad. It’s worth a shot, anyway.”
“We agreed that he was probably self-employed, right?”
“Right.”
“So what if he actually owns a business?”
“Okay,” Chuck said. “We can put Florette’s men on it right away.”
“I rode the train down with him.”
“Yeah? And?”
“He liked the idea. I suggested we draw a radius to begin with of a mile around that church in Queens. That will be the most likely place—assuming he works not far from where he lives.”
“Okay. We can start calling places by about eight a.m.”
“I’ll be in your office at eight sharp.”
“Okay.” There was a pause, and Chuck spoke softly, as if he didn’t want someone in the room with him to hear. “Lee?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay. Do that, all right?”
“Sure. I may call Nelson first, but—”
“Oh, let him sleep it off. He acted like a total jerk.”
“I know. He’s in pain, though.”
“Yeah, right. Aren’t we all?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Bed, Lee.”
“Right. Good night.”
“Good night.”
There was a click on the line, and Lee imagined Susan wrapping her arms around Chuck, luring him to bed. Well, he thought, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
He put on a CD of some vocal music by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, and looked out the window at the fading light as the voices of the choir floated around him in the air, singing cluster chords in soft, spooky tones. The days were getting longer now, and on warm days he could smell a hint of spring in the air. He knew he was supposed to rejoice in the opening of buds and the quiet greening of the trees, and yet all he felt was wistfulness.
He longed for a retreat into darkness, to sink into the womb of winter, instead of having to claw his way into the light. The longer the day, the more he felt the pressure to solve this case, and the growing impossibility of his task shook him to the core.
He could not know that was something he had in common with the man he pursued.
His mother rejoiced in the sunlight, of course; in fact, she took Lee’s journey into depression as a rebuke to her very existence. When she asked about his mental health—which she did rarely—she danced around the topic as though it might bite her.
The phone rang. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me.” It was Kathy. “Just called to say good-bye.”
“Why?”
“I’m going back to Philadelphia tomorrow. The Vidocq Society monthly meeting. My dad invited me, remember?”
“Oh, right. Sorry—I forgot.”
“No problem. My place is being renovated, so I’ll be staying with my dad. I’ll call you.”
“Okay, great.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, make sure you get enough rest,” she said, sounding unconvinced.
“I’m going to go lie down right now.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later in the week.”
“Right.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.”
After they hung up, he looked out the window at the Orthodox Ukrainian church across the street. A ray of moonlight fell on the huge round window above the door of the church, lighting up the colors of the stained glass like a kaleidoscope.
He was reminded of the sun glinting off the windows of the World Trade Center, windows that would never reflect light again, and of the three thousand souls that lay buried in the debris. The sheer arbitrariness of the attack still stunned him. But for the grace of…God? Fate? Nature? What would you call it if you’d rejected traditional Christian notions of faith? A leap of faith—more like a dive, a plunge into the abyss. And yet, he thought, surrender could be sweet—so sweet that intelligent, educated young men had surrendered themselves, or so they imagined, to the will of Allah.
He wondered what was in the minds of the hijackers as they carried out their implacable plan. For, he was convinced, it was not so different from what was in the mind of his own Holyman, the Slasher.
Chapter Sixty
He looked around the restaurant in Grand Central Station. These were all nice people, surely, with families and mortgages and dogs they had gotten from rescue shelters—scruffy terriers with sweet, lopsided faces, sporting red bandanas, who liked to chase Frisbees in the park on Sunday afternoons. They were the kind of people that advertisers targeted on television: middle-class families looking to upgrade their dishwashers, their laptops, their life insurance policies. They had aging parents in managed-care facilities they were concerned about, college tuition to save up for, IRA accounts to roll over.
But he existed outside of their world. His was a half-lit netherworld of dark drives and even darker deeds. He glided in and out of their cheerful daytime lives like a ghost, an unwelcome visitor whose mission was to disrupt their daily ordinariness to satisfy his appalling fantasies.
If he could not be one of them, then he would live to remind them of that, to let them know they were not safe—not in their fortified SUVs, their multiplex houses with the elaborate security systems, or their fabulously expensive office buildings with the Japanese fountains and designer furniture fresh from the showroom. He would strike wherever they lived, worked, or played. He would invade their safety like a virus, a worm, a bacterium. They could not know his world, but he would know theirs.
He glanced at his watch—it was time to leave. His train would be boarding for Philadelphia soon.
Chapter Sixty-one
Lee promised himself that he would call Nelson right after he had a short nap on the couch. His head had been pounding now for hours, his neck was stiffening up, and he felt nauseous. He took one of the pills Dr. Patel had given him, and tried not to think about the doctor’s face when he announced his intention to leave the hospital. He lay down on the couch and pulled the green afghan, the one Laura knitted him when she was sixteen and he was on his way to his freshman year at Princeton, over his legs. As he drifted off, he saw a thin ray of moonlight reflecting off the silver wind chimes Kylie had given him last Christmas.
He awoke to a ringing bell. In his dream it was the wind chimes ringing, but when he regained full consciousness he realized it was his phone. He threw off the blanket and staggered over to the phone.
“Hello?” His voice was slurred, ragged.
“Lee?” It was his therapist.
“Oh, hello, Dr. Williams.”
“Are you all right?”
“Uh, yes, I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry to call you on a Thursday evening, but I was becoming concerned about you. You’ve never missed an appointment and then not called.”
Thursday! His weekly appointment with her was on Wednesday afternoons, and he had completely forgotten about it.
“I’m sorry. I was in the hospital.”
“What’s wrong?”
He could hear the concern in her voice, underneath the patrician professionalism.
“I’m okay now.”
“Was it…?”
“I had an infection of the brain. Bacterial meningitis.”
“That can be very serious. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. I was just asleep, that’s all. I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
“Never mind. I’m just concerned about you.”
“Look, I’d l
ike to reschedule, but I think we’re closing in on this guy.”
“The Slasher, you mean? That’s wonderful.”
“Yes.” He tried to sound hopeful and positive, but knew he had failed.
“You feel conflicted about it.”
He stared out into the blackened sky. The stained-glass window on the Ukrainian church now reflected only pale lamplight.
“Maybe you identify with him. You told me that you believe he has an absent father and controlling mother.”
“Yes, but—”
“So in some ways, you may feel that his rage is your rage.”
A terrible thought crowded itself into his mind. Though he was, in every way, luckier than this young man, Lee realized that he felt an unwelcome emotion.
“It sounds awful, but I think I envy him just a little.”
“What do you envy about him?”
“Because I have to swallow my rage, and he gets to act it out.”
“So you wish you could be like him?”
He took a breath and held it. “Yes. I wish sometimes I could just be a murderer.”
There was a pause, and Lee heard the click of call waiting.
“Dr. Williams, will you excuse me? There’s another call coming in, and I really should get it.”
“Of course. Why don’t you just call me when you’re ready to see me?”
“I will. Thank you for understanding.”
He clicked the receiver button and picked up the second call. It was Nelson, and he sounded stone-cold sober.
“I am so sorry. Can you ever forgive me for acting like a damn fool?”
“Of course,” Lee answered.
He filled Nelson in on his theory about the locksmith store.
“That makes sense,” he agreed, “because he would probably have a van with the company logo on it—a perfect way to transport the bodies.”
“And a place to do the killing away from prying eyes.”
“Yeah, that too,” Nelson said. “So what did he say to you in the hospital?”
“He went on about being a servant of God, that kind of thing.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really—mostly how he was on a holy mission.”
“So he’s a true believer.”
“Looks like it.” The sound of the killer’s voice was still fresh in his ears, and Lee continued to have the feeling he had heard it before—but where? An image popped into his head of Nelson lecturing in the crowded classroom, and then it struck him. The voice belonged to the thin young man at the far end of the hall—whose face he had never seen.
“Do you have a listing of all the students signed up for your class?” he said.
“Why do you ask?”
“Do you remember that thin blond boy with the raspy voice?”
“Let’s see…I think so.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t recall his name offhand, but he said he was doing a makeup class or two because he missed a lecture in Dr. Zellinger’s class.”
“I think that’s him.”
“You mean him?”
“Yeah—I think he’s the Slasher.”
“Oh my God. If you’re right, then he could have posed as building maintenance, or even picked a lock on a side door.”
“Sure,” Lee answered. “The main security gate at John Jay is up front, but no one guards the side entrances.”
“So he’s been watching us all this time.”
“That explains how he knew who I was—and you too.”
“Damn. So we had him under our noses all that time! Goddamn it!”
“Let’s just focus on getting him, okay? I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Right.”
After he hung up, Lee looked at the Seth Thomas clock on the mantelpiece, a gift from his mother. It was ten o’ clock.
He looked out the window one last time before going to bed. He could feel the Slasher, out there in the darkness, waiting for him, waiting,
“I’m coming,” Lee whispered. “Ready or not, here I come.”
Chapter Sixty-two
By 8:30 the next morning all the members of the task force were seated around the table in the conference room, a pile of phone books scattered over the big oval table. Florette and his sergeant sat at two computer terminals, doing their search online, while the rest of them leafed through the Queens phone book.
“Not too many locksmith shops will have Web sites, I’d think,” Chuck said, peering over their shoulder.
Florette turned to look up at him. “Maybe, but you never know.”
“What are we lookin’ for, exactly?” Butts sneezed as he dialed a number. He was coming down with a cold, and his pockets bulged with tissues.
“Names and addresses of the owners,” Lee replied.
“How will we know when we find the right one?”
“We won’t,” Nelson growled from the corner, where he sat, sucking at an unlit cigarette, a phone book balanced on his lap. He was looking more cheerful than the previous day, since as it turned out, the FBI was too swamped to send anyone for at least a week.
“We’ll just start within a three-mile radius of the church, and go outward from there,” Lee said. “Assuming that he lives near his shop—”
“Which is a pretty big assumption,” Butts sniffled.
“Which, I was just going to say, is a pretty big assumption.”
“Hey,” Butts said, “do you remember the day that first girl died, and a locksmith showed up at the church? Claimed there was a broken lock in the basement?”
“Yeah,” Lee answered. “It turned out there was a broken lock, but no one seemed to know about it at the time.”
“You think that was him, coming in to check on his handiwork?”
“I think it’s likely. He’s been close to the investigation all along, it seems, in one form or another.”
“Too bad we didn’t detain him for questioning then.”
“How could we know?”
“Yeah,” Butts said. “I guess you’re right. Still, it really burns me that he was right there—”
“Never mind, Detective,” Chuck Morton said. “Let’s concentrate on the task at hand.”
They sat for about twenty minutes, dutifully collecting names and addresses of owners, when Lee chanced to put in a call to a place called Locktight Security Systems. It had a big ad splashed over half a page in the Yellow Pages.
We make sure that you stay safe—it’s our business! All the latest technology in locks and security systems
Lee dialed the number. A kid answered—unenthusiastic, bored.
“Locktight Security.”
“May I please speak with the owner?”
“Uh, he’s not here right now.”
“When will he return?”
“I dunno, really.”
“What’s his name—can you tell me that?”
“Uh, sure, I guess. It’s Sam. Sam Hughes—or Samuel, he likes to be called.”
“And he lives in…?”
“Queens. Not far from here. Can I ask who’s calling?”
“I’m an old friend. I’ll try back later—thanks.”
He hung up and sank back in his chair.
“What is it?” Chuck said, noticing him. “You got something?”
“I’m not sure. Remember how we kept seeing the name ‘Samuel Beckett’ on all those church volunteers lists?”
“Why, did it come up again?”
“Not exactly. Guy’s first name is Samuel, though. I just have a feeling. Let me try something.”
He called back, and when the boy answered, did a passable stab at an upper-class British accent.
“I say, my good man, I’m trying to get in touch with Mrs. Hughes, Samuel’s dear mother, old school chum of hers. He lives with her, I believe?”
There was a pause. Lee was afraid the kid wasn’t going to buy his act. But then he snickered.
“Yeah, sure he does. Guy’s pushing thirty,
and he still lives with his mother.”
“I see. Do they still live on the same street—oh, what was it…?”
“Lourdes Street.”
“Yes, of course! Number—”
“Number 121.”
“Right. Thanks ever so much. Cheerio.”
He hung up, to find everyone staring at him.
“Cheerio?” Nelson said. “Cheerio?”
Lee made a face at him. “I was improvising.” He looked at Butts. “Want to go out to Queens and check this out?”
Butts muffled a sneeze in a wad of Kleenex. “Yep—you bet!”
Fifty minutes later, Lee and Detective Butts emerged into the diffuse glare of an overcast sky, the sun struggling to assert itself through a thick gray cloud cover. Lourdes Street was a few blocks from the subway, right across the street from St. Bonaventure Catholic Church.
The Queens neighborhood had the smell of defeat. The houses were depressing little boxes with peeling paint, crumbling bricks, and cheap aluminum siding, stained and battered with age, overlooking cramped lots with rocky lawns—if you could call them that—of crabgrass and overgrown weeds. The occasional lawn ornament—mostly plaster dwarfs and religious figures—only reinforced the aura of hopelessness.
The same attitude of resignation was stamped upon the faces and slumped shoulders of the residents, who shuffled along the ill-kempt sidewalks, heads down, eyes focused on the cracked slabs of concrete, probably to keep from tripping and breaking their necks.
“This is it,” Butts said, pointing to a little white house crammed between its equally undistinguished neighbors. Like many of the other properties, it was surrounded by an ugly chain-ink fence. Number 121 was a little neater than some of the others. The walk was swept, and a small concrete pond was adorned with a white plaster Virgin Mary, perched next to a statue of a fawn drinking from the pond.
The front gate on the chain-link fence creaked when they opened it, and their footsteps clicked loudly on the concrete path leading up to the house. When they reached the front door, Lee lifted his hand to knock, but saw that the door was cracked open. He pushed on it, and it swung forward on well-oiled hinges but then stopped, as though something was blocking it. There were no lights on inside the house, and no sign of life within its whitewashed stucco walls.
Silent Screams Page 32
