Saints Of New York (53 page)

'Meaning
what?'

'Strangulation
and suffocation are non-invasive. It's not a gun, it's not a knife, it's not
beating someone's head in with a hammer or a brick or something. There's no
blood, there no actual visible physical damage aside from a few bruises
perhaps. Strangle someone, suffocate them and they look pretty much the same,
at least for a little while. You can sit them up, lie them down, put them in a
chair, talk to them, explain yourself, even fuck them some more. You can have
them be around you without being constantly reminded of the fact that you just
took their life from them.'

'And
he would do this?'

'Absolutely
he would. These guys hold on to the victims as long as they can, right until
the point that it becomes unavoidably obvious that they are dead. They rigor
up, they start to decompose, then they ain't the sweetheart anymore and they
have to go. Oh, and the fact that he's strangled at least one of them with a
scarf implies guilt, implies a desire to be as gentle as possible, and also
removes him from the physical reality of killing by insuring that he does not
have to have physical contact with the victims as they die.'

Parrish
nodded. He wanted more coffee but he didn't want to break the flow of what he
was being told.

'I
think if you managed to get a look inside the guy's house, that's assuming that
he is the guy, then I believe you would find an exceptionally well organized,
immaculately clean place. This is the kind of guy that arranges his canned
goods alphabetically and by expiry date.' Ron smiled drily. 'But, of course,
you are not going to have a chance to look inside his place, are you, Frank?'

Parrish
shook his head. 'Way it's going right now I don't see that we're going to get a
chance to look at anything. He's got us boxed out, Ron, seriously boxed out,
and there's nothing probative that gives me probable cause for a search and
seizure, a further interrogation—'

'You
know where he lives. Go and see him at home. Go tell him that you wanted to
speak to him about how he's co-operated, that you are very grateful for his
time, and that you wanted to apologize for any degree of harassment he might
have felt.'

'I
have considered that, but I don't want to tip my hand any further, and I sure
as hell don't want him to slow up on his plans.'

'The
proverbial rock and a hard place,' Ron said. 'Do we go after the guy and blow
any possibility of securing a conviction, or do we wait until he moves again
and risk losing another victim?'

'Right.'

'There
is one thing that is puzzling me, and that's the timescale. Tell me again.'

'First
one, at least the first one that we're tying to this pattern, was back in
October 2006.'

'And
that's the Baumann girl, the one you found the picture of?'

'No,
the first one was the Melissa Schaeffer girl, the one we found in the trash
can. Jennifer Baumann was the second one, and that was January of 2007. Third
was August, fourth was December, and then there was nine months until Rebecca
Lange at the start of this month—'

'And
the last one was the girl in the box back of Brooklyn Hospital ten days ago.'

'Yes,
that's right.'

Ron
was silent for a moment, and then he leaned forward. 'I think you've missed
some, Frank . . . not
you
specifically, but I don't think you have all the victims. The pattern doesn't
make sense. Three months between the first and second, then seven months, then
four months, then nine months and then a week?' He shook his head. 'I'm
thinking that there are other girls outside of the Family Welfare connection.
Either that, or perhaps you have a cycle that isn't based on predetermination.'

'Meaning?'

'Situational
dynamics, Frank. Situational dynamics, and also something that the profilers
are looking at now that's called the Exceptional Human Experience.'

Parrish
frowned.

'It's
not complex. Situational dynamics you understand. Simply the environmental,
familial, social and educational factors that contribute to the person becoming
who they are. There's a pattern to these things. Physically and sexually
abusive parents or relatives, social alienation, a complete collapse of
self-worth. They start off torturing animals, then they graduate to arson, then
it's arson and manslaughter, then murder. Some of them have a pattern within
themselves, and that can manifest itself in both who they kill, and in most
cases
when
they kill. Lunar cycles, harvest moons, every seven Sundays, whatever. Then
there's this new idea creeping in. This EHE principle. This works on the basis
that every serial killer is continually trying to stop themselves from killing
further. It's like the alcoholic who has to stop drinking, the kleptomaniac
who has to stop stealing . . . that underlying knowledge that what you're
doing is wrong, and the battle that rages inside the person. This Exceptional
Human Experience thing is simply something that occurs in the individual's life
that tips them over the edge of self-control. It empowers the impulse to kill
to such a degree that they cannot stop it. It overwhelms their power of choice
completely, and they have to go find a victim. The need has been externally
generated, they seize the opportunity, and the original situational dynamics
help them rationalize their actions. They don't have to deal with the guilt
until after the fact, and by then it's too late. Someone else is dead. That
could be the case with your guy. There is no pattern. He just holds himself
back as long as he can, and then he explodes. That is a possibility. However, I
do believe that in this case it's simply that there are other girls and you've
missed them as part of the serial. We have well in excess of three quarters of
a million child disappearances a year in the US, and we find a depressingly
small percentage of them.'

'I
don't want to hear that.'

'Hear
it. Deal with it. This is the nature of the beast, my friend. I don't have to
tell you that.' 'So what do I do? Where do I go from here?'

Ron
smiled. 'You tell me what you're not telling me.'

'There
isn't anything I'm not telling you,' Parrish replied. He felt the knot in his
lower gut tighten a good deal more.

Ron
lifted his coffee cup and drained it. He made as if to get up.

'What
are you doing?'

'I'm
leaving, Frank, what the fuck do you think I'm doing? You ask me to meet you, I
meet you. You want to tell me something, I listen. I ask you to tell me
everything and you bullshit me. You and I did a good thing four years ago, and
you helped me out. Okay, so maybe we didn't follow the rules precisely, but we
did it and we got the guy. But we said back then that neither owed the other
anything. That's what we agreed. No debts, no dues, nothing. I'm not down here
for the good of my health. This is all off- the-record. It has to be, just
because of the nature of what we do and who we are. The FBI owes the NYPD
nothing and vice versa. When we collaborate it's because we want to, not
because we have to. I've sat here and listened, and now we're done and I'm
going home.'

Parrish
looked up at Ron. 'I think I might know who he's after next.'

Ron
paused for a moment, and then he sat down heavily. 'And now you're going to
tell me that you're the only one who knows this, and that the way you found
this information could get you suspended, perhaps even fired.'

'I'm
already on pay hold,' Parrish replied. 'I don't have
a
drivers'
license. They're waiting for me like vultures. One more fuck-up and I'm out on
my ass. It's cheaper this way. They don
't
have
to pay me off or give me a full pension.'

'Jesus
Christ, Frank, what the fuck is it with you?'

Parrish
smiled sardonically, if I knew that I'd market it 'cause I know everyone would
love to have a little.'

'What
did you do?'

'I
looked someplace I shouldn't have.'

'And
what did you find?'

'A
file on a girl that looks like the others.'

'And
was it one of his own cases?'

'No.'

'In
his house?'

'His
car.'

Ron
inhaled deeply and sighed. 'Fuck,' he said, and the single syllable was said
with such certainty and emphasis that it hit Parrish like a physical blow.

Perhaps
then - in that split-second - he knew that he'd pushed things so far off-kilter
that there was no going back.

'I
don't know what to tell you,' Ron said. 'Whatever it is that you might have
found
out. . .
well, you know as well as I do that you can't use this information, not only
because it was gained illegally, but because it wouldn't do you any good. Any
arrest or interrogation secured on the basis of illegally obtained evidence is
useless, Frank. You know this.'

'Of
course I know it, but it was something I had to find out. I had to reassure
myself that I wasn't chasing this guy for nothing.'

'And
what has it proved? Nothing, right? He's supposed to have Family Welfare case
files. He's meant to have that stuff. It's his job, isn't it?'

Parrish
shook his head. 'I don't think this girl was his day job, Ron, I think it was
part of his extra-curricular plans.'

'All
of this based on nothing but coincidence, circumstantial evidence, and the
incontrovertible certainty of gut reaction.'

Parrish
hesitated. He didn't want to sound foolish, but he did. There was no escaping
it.

Ron
looked at his watch. 'Persistence, Frank. Persistence, hard work, stubbornness,
and an unrelenting willingness to stay late, work harder still, persist even
more. Those are the primary reasons cases get resolved. You know that. I don't
even know why I'm here. I cannot sanction anything. I cannot give you any
information you don't already have. I can give you suppositions, theories,
perhaps confirm one or two suspicions you might have regarding rationale and
motivation, but aside from that I am useless.'

'But
you're a G-Man,' Parrish said. 'You're one of Hoover's superheroes.'

'Hoover
was a closet transvestite, paranoid control freak, but we don't put that in the
brochures.' Ron paused for a moment, and then he leaned forward. 'I'll tell you
one thing more, and that's all I'll say. They keep mementos. Always,
invariably, they keep mementos. I could tell you to not cross the lines, Frank,
but you already did that. It didn't get you anyplace, but you did it anyway.
Seriously, you're in so fucking deep already you're pretty much all done and
finished. And if you make a decision to push this further? Well, what can I
tell you that I already haven't? There will be mementos, and they will be close
to him, and however much he knows he should get rid of them, he won't. Whatever
you want to do with that piece of information is entirely up to you.' He moved
out along the seat and stood for a moment looking down at Parrish. 'As is always
the case, this conversation never happened. Your secret is safe with me because
you never told me, okay? Whatever you do now is your call, not mine.'

Parrish
didn't respond.

Ron
reached out and gripped Parrish's shoulder. 'You take care now. Find the truth
for sure, but don't kill yourself in the process.'

He
left. Parrish watched him go. He asked the waitress for a refill and a danish,
and then he called the Precinct and got Carole Paretski's number.

She
picked up on the second ring.

'Ms
Paretski? Frank Parrish. I just need to know something. Your daughter . . .
Sarah, right? What does she look like?'

He
paused, listened.

'No,
of course not. No danger whatsoever. I just need to know for a physical profile
analysis thing we're doing.'

Parrish
nodded, and his expression changed subtly.

'A
little taller than average, slim, blonde hair, blue eyes . . . your regular
cheerleader, right?'

Parrish
closed his eyes and nodded.

'Yes
of course I will. Yes, absolutely. You take care now, Carole.'

He
set his phone on the table, and he lifted his coffee cup. He held it in mid-air
as he considered what to do next. There wasn't really any consideration at all,
it was simply a moment of reflection. As Ron had so eloquently put it, he was
useless for anything else. The case they had worked on together four years
before had resulted in a man's life being saved, perhaps two men. The simple
fact was that those potential victims had never even been aware of what was
happening around them. They had been targeted, and then the threat against them
was removed silently, swiftly, expertly. They were none the wiser. Parrish
knew
that Amanda