Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  ‘Some of us have already had a look.’ Kovacic announced his return to the room in his usual sensitive manner. ‘There’s more. Much more. This guy was a complete psycho.’

  Salgado and O’Neill swapped glances. ‘Show us.’

  Kovacic gave them a guided tour of Garland’s home, pointing out all stops of interest. The Manson piece of art hanging above the bed; a bible belonging to ‘Son of Sam’ David Berkowitz in the hallway below framed prison letters from Ed Kemper, Gary Ridgway and Arthur Shawcross; as well as a weights bench and dumbbells, the second bedroom even had a bed cover with a white prison label sewn onto the other side declaring it Property of Ellis Unit, Texas Department of Corrections and the initials HLL scrawled on it.

  ‘Henry Lee Lucas,’ Kovacic informed them before reluctantly admitting he’d had to google it.

  The collection was a who’s who of American serial killers. Art, clothing and letters once owned by Ted Bundy, Albert DeSalvo, Joel Rifkin, Aileen Wuornos, Edward Wayne Edwards, Ottis Toole and Dennis Rader.

  Every room ramped up the unspoken sense of alarm. It was sometimes called ‘blue sense’, cop intuition, knowing, just knowing when the shit was going to hit. Salgado was a big believer in it. O’Neill not so much, thinking it lay somewhere between seeing the obvious, and believing you were right even when you were wrong.

  They both knew the house screamed trouble – whether it was down to instinct or common sense, there was no ignoring it.

  Kovacic led them into the kitchen and stopped in the middle of the floor, well aware that he was holding court and clearly enjoying the moment.

  ‘This is my favourite,’ The cop wore a twisted grin that made O’Neill want to slap him. She didn’t like that the only thing stopping her was the desire to see what he was going to show them. The uniform moved next to the refrigerator and she dreaded what might be inside as he tapped a gloved hand on the front of it. All three cops held their breath as he slowly inched the door open.

  Kovacic was eying them all with glee, waiting for their reaction. When the door swung open, he laughed loudly at seeing the mild disappointment when it only revealed milk, juices, vegetables, two wrapped portions of meat in brown paper and a couple of cans of beer.

  ‘Very funny,’ Salgado snapped at him. ‘You wasting our time, wise guy?’

  ‘Nope,’ Kovacic’s grin widened. ‘You’re all staring right at it.’ He slapped a hand on the side of the old fridge.

  ‘This is Jeffrey Dahmer’s refrigerator. Can you believe that? Dahmer’s actual fridge!’

  He pointed to a plaque stuck on the side of the machine. Formerly the property of Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. Bought at auction 1996.

  ‘Dahmer kept the severed heads of his victims in his fridge.’ O’Neill’s reminder was short and to the point. Kovacic slid the door closed again.

  ‘Yeah, right. Kinda my point. Anyway, I say this is my favourite but I think there’s more. And worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ Salgado sounded sceptical. ‘What else have you found?”

  Kovacic grinned again. ‘Nothing yet. That’s what you smart guys get paid for. But there’s a room downstairs. A cellar, I guess.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s locked. With a keypad lock. So . . .’

  Salgado looked at O’Neill before answering for all of them. ‘So, if he was happy to hang all that freaky shit on the walls, what the hell down there is so bad that he felt the need to hide it?’

  CHAPTER 4

  They bypassed the cellar’s number entry system by a more old-fashioned method – Kovacic on the battering end of a metal enforcer. The heavy wooden door groaned and swung till it slapped against the wall inside. The cop had his body camera on so the whole thing was videoed. Behind him, a crime scene investigator was doing the same with a handheld device.

  O’Neill led the way down the short staircase, Salgado and Rojo following along with Kovacic and two criminalists from the Field Investigation Unit. It was cool and quiet inside, the impression reinforced by the clinical white walls. Windowless and still, it felt like an underground bunker or a laboratory.

  Except it was more than that. They all felt it the moment they stepped inside.

  There were more framed pieces, perhaps a dozen of them, white wood against the white walls, hiding in plain sight. Two large white cabinets stood against one wall like ghostly sentries. In the middle of the room was a large black glass desk and on top of that sat a single black Anglepoise lamp and a black computer monitor and keyboard.

  They moved silently from frame to frame, like respectful patrons at the opening of a new exhibition, nodding and assessing, all reluctant to be the first to say it was good or bad. Even though they all knew it was bad.

  The names on the items didn’t jump out at them the same way those upstairs had. But it was their job and the cases came back to them. Rodney Alcala. Lawrence Bittaker. Randy Steven Kraft. Lonnie Franklin Jr. William Bonin.

  ‘California’s finest,’ Salgado announced dryly.

  ‘This is where he keeps the good stuff,’ O’Neill announced.

  Salgado couldn’t quite agree. ‘I’m not sure “good” is the word I’d use.’

  ‘You know what I mean. These are the highlights of his collection. Things that mean more to him. The ones upstairs, everyone knows their names. They are the headliners, your Golden Age serial killers, if you like. This stuff is more niche, more insider knowledge, more . . . on the edge.’

  ‘More personal?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe. And . . . there’s this.’

  She pulled at the three handles on one of the white cabinets. They didn’t budge.

  ‘A locked cabinet inside a locked room? I’m pretty sure I want to know what’s in there.’

  One of the forensics, a short and stocky hipster known to all as Elvis, stepped forward. He produced a long, thin-bladed knife. ‘Let me.’

  They were all aware of Elvis’s reputation, of a misspent youth that brought transferable skills and street smarts to his job. If you needed an angle, Elvis was your man.

  He studied the lock from a couple of positions, deliberated, then slid the blade into the space with the precision of a surgeon. Or a burglar. The room reverberated to the sound of a quiet, satisfying click. Elvis stepped back, job done.

  Salgado pulled back the upper drawer to reveal a glass display case, a larger version of those that hung on the walls. Everyone in the room crowded around to see what it held but Salgado stretched his arms wide to push them back. ‘Let’s do this properly.’

  He reached under the unit, lifted it clear of the drawer and placed it on the black glass desk. The case itself was floored with red velvet. On top of that sat a women’s handbag, about twelve inches by eight. Made of black plastic, it had two leather handles, a large metal clasp, and a large V-shape was formed in the centre by metal studs.

  A black business card with white print seemed to give it ownership. Elizabeth Short. 15 January 1947.

  Next to that, a white card had a single name printed in black. Frankie Wynn.

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘No fucking way.’

  O’Neill wasn’t as sure as Salgado or Kovacic but she thought she knew the name. ‘Elizabeth Short was the Black Dahlia, right?’

  ‘Right. How the fuck could he get this?’

  ‘He couldn’t,’ Salgado insisted. ‘Could he? I mean, if this was the bag she was carrying when she was murdered . . .’

  ‘Who’s this Frankie Wynn character?’

  ‘Beats me. Never heard of him. But if the other cards and plaques are anything to go by, he’s the guy. And no one knows who the guy was.’

  Salgado shook his head and turned back to the white cabinet, sliding out the lower drawer and letting out a gasp of surprise that he immediately cursed himself for. The others crowded round again, seeing that the drawer, like the case above, was lined in red velvet and contained a closed black leather display case.

  ‘Can this shit get any wei
rder?’ O’Neill asked the question but they were all thinking it. It turned out the answer was yes.

  Salgado flipped the catch on the case and propped up the lid. Inside were six velvet bags that matched the drawer’s red lining.

  ‘Jesus. Make sure you get this on film. Everyone else give them room to shoot it.’

  Salgado grimaced as he felt the first bag while picking it up. He slowly, carefully slid the contents onto the velvet floor of the case. It was a finger. A finger, raggedly severed at the end and bloodlessly pale.

  ‘Shit.’ O’Neill screwed up her face.

  ‘Elvis, bag this before I open the next one,’ Salgado instructed. ‘We don’t need cross-contamination, right?’

  ‘Nope. Which is why nothing else can go onto this velvet.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. Just do it.’

  Salgado picked up the second pouch, aware that he was playing a game of guess the contents as he did so. His guess proved wrong when an ear tumbled noiselessly onto a plastic sheet.

  ‘Different victim.’ O’Neill’s voice held no doubt.

  ‘What?’ Salgado and the others were a step behind.

  ‘Different skin tone, different victim. I’d say neither are Caucasian, but the ear is a few tones darker than the finger.’

  Elvis bagged it before being asked and Salgado reached for the third one. ‘Any guesses?’

  ‘I say toe,’ Kovacic replied, even though he knew the question wasn’t meant for him, or truly needed a reply.

  It wasn’t. Instead, the third pouch produced a thumb. The fourth was a toe and the fifth a human scalp.

  They now lay side by side on the top of the cabinet, each encased in a transparent plastic bag.

  ‘Are we all thinking the same thing here?’ O’Neill asked them.

  ‘Try us.’

  ‘Okay, the house is full of murderabilia. Creepy and weird but not in itself a crime. Everything is labelled though. Every item has the name of the killer. It’s part of his thing, right? Showing off. Displaying it, shouting it.’

  ‘Right. But in here, presumably the prized pieces of his collection, nothing.’ Salgado continued thinking. ‘All unmarked, no sick plaques of honour. No mention of who killed these people, assuming they are actually dead.’

  ‘I think that’s a fair fucking assumption.’

  ‘So, the question is, what’s different about the person that killed these people? Why’d he not want to put the killer’s name to them?’

  ‘Because it would be admitting guilt. Because these are his own collection. Garland is a serial killer.’

  ‘In that case, yeah, we’re thinking the same thing.’

  The four cops, uniforms and detectives, stood and looked at the array of body parts in silence.

  ‘Anyone remember that episode from The Wire?’ Salgado asked eventually. ‘The one where Bunk and McNulty go to the scene of a shooting. They see more and more bullet holes and all they say is “fuck”. Over and over. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, that.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Dark clouds scudded low over Police Scotland’s west HQ on French Street as Narey drove into the car park, the building’s wide glass front shining bluer than the sky above or the Clyde below. It had been four years since they’d upped sticks and moved to Dalmarnock in the East End from the old red-brick monstrosity on Pitt Street, but she still thought of it as new. And she still didn’t like it much.

  Sure, the parking was so much easier, the building was clean, fit for purpose and free of asbestos, but it had no bloody soul. Pitt Street had the ghosts of five thousand coppers and the stale stench of their cigarettes in the bones of the place. On a night shift, you could hear them swapping war stories and grumbling about reorganisation and overtime and where it had all gone wrong. She missed it.

  She knew it was the inevitable result of modernisation but all it did was make her feel old and she wasn’t a fan of that at all. Bringing up a three-year-old and a husband while holding down a more-than full-time job was already accelerating the ageing process and she didn’t need nostalgia finishing the job.

  She was inside and halfway to her office when DC Davie Corrigan stepped across her path with the apologetic look of someone about to spoil her day before it even began. Her heart sank. Could they not even wait until she took her coat off?

  ‘Detective Superintendent McTeer is looking for you. Says you’ve to go straight to his office once you get in.’

  ‘Does he know that I’m in?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Then I’ll get a coffee first.’

  Corrigan’s face screwed up. ‘I’m not sure that’s a great idea. If you don’t mind me saying. He was pretty insistent.’

  Narey sighed. ‘Okay, okay. Did he say what it was about?’

  ‘He just said that you’d know.’

  Shit. Tam Harkness. It had to be. He’d made a complaint about her harassing him in the chicken joint. It wouldn’t stick but the brass wouldn’t be happy. The last thing she needed was for them to tell her to back off. Damn it.

  McTeer’s office was on the top floor, the fifth. She opened the door as soon as he replied to her knock, her plan being to go in with momentum and get her retaliation in first.

  He had his back to her, fishing through files in the cabinet that stood near his desk.

  ‘Take a seat, Rachel. I’ll be with you as soon as I find this. Do you remember when they promised we’d be a paperless office? Fat chance.’

  The superintendent was known to be a reluctant administrator, a man who joined the force to catch crooks not to file reports but got too good at what he did so kept getting promoted despite his protests. It was the kind of career history that always endeared itself to those still working cases. He’d earned respect from his work as well as his rank.

  He turned, dropping a folder on his desk and finding Narey still standing.

  ‘If you’re standing up because you’re going to argue with me then at least let me say what I’ve got to say first. Sit down, please.’

  She slid reluctantly into the seat, her intended momentum taken from her by the more experienced player. He watched her sit then exhaled heavily, his eyes never leaving hers.

  ‘Let’s start with a guessing game, Inspector. I’ll go first. Why do you think I’ve asked you to my office this morning?’

  Oh shit. If McTeer was playing the guessing game, then he was mightily pissed off. She couldn’t win the game, she just had to make sure she didn’t lose too badly.

  ‘Sir, I was only in Chicken Choice getting some food to take home. How was I supposed to know Harkness would be there?’

  McTeer stared at her, unblinking.

  ‘Detective Inspector Narey – firstly, wouldn’t that just be the silliest bloody answer if my question wasn’t about Thomas fucking Harkness? And secondly, don’t kid a kidder. You’re talking to me, not preparing your answers for Professional Standards. Not yet, anyway. Am I understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So, once more, why do you think I’ve asked you to my office this morning?’

  Her only chance of getting out of it relatively unscathed was to front up. It was the only thing McTeer was going to tolerate.

  ‘I’m guessing I’m here because Tam Harkness, or more likely his lawyer, has been complaining that I’ve been harassing him. Which, if I’m not talking to Professional Standards, then I’ll admit I did. A little bit.’

  ‘A little bit?’

  ‘I wanted a reaction. I wanted him to know that I’ve not gone away, that I’m still on his case. In every sense. I can’t let this go, sir.’

  ‘Yeah? Well maybe you’ll have to. As you rightly guessed, I’ve spent a fair bit of this morning getting my ear chewed by a very angry lawyer. That’s not something I enjoy. Nor is making concessions to a lawyer, nor is apologising to a lawyer. I’ve never liked bloody lawyers. This one is a poisonous little toerag who was obviously loving every frigging minute of
it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’ll speak to him myself if—’

  ‘No. Oh no you won’t. I’ve persuaded him not to make an official complaint and not to go chapping at the chief’s door and there’s no need for you changing his mind on that. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed, sir.’

  McTeer shook his head wearily and blew out hard. ‘Rachel, how sure are you that Harkness is guilty of this?’

  He was asking her straight. Cop to cop.

  ‘Honestly? I can’t be sure. I’ve got no evidence, that’s for sure, or else he’d be in a cell. Everything circumstantial says it’s him and everything about him says it’s him.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Sir, I’ll admit my judgement might be skewed by him having a history of violence against partners and having threatened her. I want it to be him, I know that. But from the start I’ve shoved that as far to the side as I could and been as objective as I could. And I think Harkness is guilty.’

  ‘You think?’ McTeer ducked his head and scratched the top of it. ‘Rachel, if you were sure – or if I was sure – that Harkness had killed her, then I’d tell his lawyer to do one and back you every inch of the way. But as it stands, I have to tell you to back off. Or at least back far enough off that he can’t see you. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’m not expecting you to like it. I just need you to act on it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Okay, good. What about this Jamie character? The supposed new man in Eloise Gray’s life. Where are we with him? Do you believe there’s mileage in him yet?’

  ‘I think there’s more in Harkness but yes, of course, I’m not ruling him out of anything. But we’ve hit a dead end in every direction with him. There’s no Jamie the teacher. He lied or she lied, or she was wrong.’

  ‘If he did lie to her about who he was then doesn’t that make him more interesting to us?’

  She sighed internally. ‘Yes sir, it does. No argument. But we’ve nothing to tell us who or where he is.’

  ‘Then I suggest you find something. I’m not saying he’s a better lead than Harkness but he’s not throwing lawyers at us. You don’t have to get off his case, just get out of his face.’