Silent Screams (11 page)

Later that afternoon Lee sat in the overstuffed brown leather armchair by the window, his feet propped up on the windowsill, a cup of strong coffee on the round rosewood table by his side. He opened the yellow file folder on his lap. The red tab marking said simply
Kelleher, Marie
, followed by the case number. This young girl, who once had a life ahead of her, was now reduced to a manila folder, a few horrific photos, and a case number. A good girl, a practicing Catholic, pious and churchgoing, without an enemy in the world. His sister hadn’t had an enemy either, and yet someday someone would be sitting with a file like this one on his lap, and the tab would read
Campbell, Laura
…if her body was ever found.

What about the red dress?

Lee rubbed his forehead. There was no way to trace who might have left the text message—you could buy a disposable cell phone at any bodega in New York, use it for one call, and throw it in the East River. Lee debated whether to call Chuck and tell him about the message.

He forced his mind back to the file in front of him and looked at the forensic data, or lack of it: no semen, no prints, and—other than the victim’s—no blood. He studied the crime scene photographs, and was struck by the orderliness of the scene. Nothing out of place, the vase of flowers exactly where the priest said he had last seen them, the pulpit right where it belonged—very little had been touched, except for the awful presence of Marie’s body on the altar. The lack of defensive wounds meant she was probably blindsided—a blitzkrieg attack. The killer didn’t necessarily know her well, but she didn’t feel threatened by him—until it was too late.

The phone rang, jarring him out of his reverie. He picked it up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Heya, Boss.”

“Hi, Eddie.”

“I think I got something for you.”

“Really? What?”

“I can’t talk right now, but it might be good. Diesel and Rhino have been snooping around, you know.”

“Okay, listen—give me your number and I’ll call you.”

“No can do, Boss. I’ll have to call you back.”

“Okay.”

“When would be a good time?”

Just then Lee heard the beep of call waiting.

“Look, I have to go. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Right. Will do.”

Lee pressed the receiver and answered the other line.

“Hello?”

“Lee, it’s Chuck.” Something in his voice made Lee’s stomach clench. Before he spoke again, Lee already knew what was coming next. “There’s been another one—same MO. It’s him, Lee.”

“Where?”

“Brooklyn. The victim’s name is Annie O’Donnell. They found her in a church in the Heights.”

“Damn. Are you there now?”

“On my way. It’s in Park Slope—Two-two-five Sixth Avenue.”

“Okay, I’m leaving now. I’ll meet you there.”

Lee took a gulp from the cooling cup of coffee, threw on his coat, and grabbed his house keys, shoving them in his pocket.

He stepped out into the dimming February twilight and looked at the lights in the windows of the apartments lining Seventh Street. The apartment opposite his had cream-colored French lace curtains, and the soft yellow glow of lamplight inside was inviting. But behind even the most inviting glow of lamplight there could live a killer, plotting his next act of rage against society. Lee jogged a half block to the west to look for a cab at the intersection where the Bowery bifurcated into Third Avenue to the east and Fourth Avenue to the west.

As he stepped out from the curb to hail a cab, he heard the sound of a car backfiring. It wasn’t an unusual sound to hear on Third Avenue, but an instant later something whizzed by his head, embedding itself with a tinny thud in the lamppost behind him. He turned to look at the lamppost, but just then a cab pulled up in front of him. He looked around Third Avenue, but there was no sign of the shooter. No one on the street seemed to notice that anything unusual had happened. He searched the crowd, but no one was running away—even the sound of the gun firing had been swallowed up by the blare of car horns and traffic noise.

He glanced at the lamppost. Whatever the object was, it had cut deeply into the metal. He took a step toward it, but the cabbie honked his horn impatiently.

“Hey mister—do you wanna go somewhere or not?”

Lee looked down Third Avenue. A light rain had begun to fall, and this was the only free cab in sight.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, climbing in and closing the door.

There was no doubt in his mind that the dent in the lamppost was made by a bullet. What he wasn’t sure of was whether or not he was the intended victim.

The pursuer becomes the pursued
, he thought grimly as the cab rattled up Third Avenue.

Saint Francis Xavier was a graceful granite and limestone structure smiling down over the low buildings of Park Slope like a kindly uncle. The stone looked as though it had recently been cleaned; even in the feeble February sun, Lee had to squint against the glare. The elegant vaulted ceiling loomed above him as he walked past tall stained-glass windows of unusual beauty. The light cascaded onto the stone floor, magnified as it sliced through cut-glass figures of saints and apostles, sinners and deities, in their flowing vermillion and sapphire robes. In happier times, he would have stopped to study them, but he continued walking, his footsteps clicking rhythmically on the polished floor.

The heavy marble altar was magnificent, its splendor only serving to heighten the gloom he felt as he approached it. The CSI team was already there, moving about the church with their usual efficiency, dusting for prints, scanning the pews for any stray scrap of evidence. He approached the little group around the pulpit. Chuck Morton was there, still wearing his overcoat, which was cream colored and looked pricey. Chuck’s wife, Susan, had a knack for buying clothes that weren’t expensive but looked like they were.

When Chuck heard Lee approach, he looked up.

“Thanks for coming out on such short notice.”

Lee looked at the body draped over the altar.

The victim in this attack was eerily similar to the one at Fordham—young, with dark curly hair and a decidedly Irish look about her. This time, however, the crime scene showed evidence of a frenzied attack. Several hymnals had been ripped from their racks in the front choir loft surrounding the altar and lay scattered about, their pages ripped and spattered with blood. A large blue and white flower vase lay a few feet from the victim’s body, broken in two, its contents strewn over the thick carpet covering the floor of the altar. Yellow roses—ironic, Lee thought, since they were the symbol for friendship.

But what he couldn’t take his eyes off were the words carved into her chest.

Hallowed be thy name.

The cuts were deeper than last time, the slashes cruder—the
e
in
Hallowed
bisecting her right nipple so deeply that it had almost come off. There was more blood, too—
a lot more blood
. He thought about what the pathologist at the morgue had said about postmortem injuries—and these injuries did not appear to be postmortem. He turned away, sickened.

Hallowed be thy name.

The phrase circled his brain rhythmically, mockingly.
Hal-low-ed be thy na…

“Jesus,” Lee muttered. He had another horrifying thought. The Slasher was only two lines into the prayer—not even a quarter of the way through it.

“It’s him—it’s the same guy,” Chuck sighed, coming up to stand next to him. “You were right about one thing: he isn’t going to stop.”

“And there was less than a week between these two killings,” Lee pointed out. “The last time he waited a month, but this time—well, he’s either more driven, more confident, or both. What do you have on the victim so far?”

Chuck looked down at the girl. “Poor kid. Name’s Annie O’Donnell.” He indicated a nearby detective interviewing a middle-aged Hispanic man in a drab green uniform, who appeared to be distraught. “Even the janitor recognized her—said she attended this church. Apparently she’s fairly quiet, but he says he has an eye for pretty girls.” Chuck glanced over at the man. “He’s not…is he?” he asked.

“Too old, wrong race. The Slasher is younger, and probably white. Interracial sex crimes aren’t unknown, but they’re rare, and this guy seems to be a preferential killer.”

“Meaning—?”

“He targets a specific kind of victim.”

“Yeah, okay,” Chuck said, with a glance at the technicians quietly dusting for prints, gathering and bagging evidence. “The CSI team is doing what it can, but I wouldn’t expect much.”

“No,” Lee agreed. “If he covered his tracks last time, he will this time too. He knows what he’s doing. On the other hand, this time there is evidence of a struggle, so it’s always possible—”

“Lee,” said Chuck, “do you think that John Nelson would consider…”

“What?”

“Well, you guys are pretty close, right? So I thought maybe you could ask him if he would—if he would like to consult?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I mean, no offense, but we could really use all the help we can get, right?”

“Sure,” Lee said. “When it comes to criminal psychology, he’s the guy. There isn’t anyone better outside of Quantico.”

The detective who had been talking to the janitor had finished with him, and walked over to where Lee and Chuck stood. He carried a small notebook, an essential tool for any detective, and was dressed in the usual “uniform”: a tan raincoat over a somber suit, black shoes, dark socks. Lee wondered why the man was dressed this way on a Saturday afternoon. It seemed a little out of the ordinary on a weekend, but maybe he was already on duty when the call came in.

Chuck made the introductions. “Detective Florette, this is Lee Campbell. Lee, this is Detective Clyde Florette, Brooklyn SVU.” SVU was short for Special Victims Unit, which dealt exclusively with sex crimes.

“How do you do?” Clyde Florette reached for Lee’s hand. His grip was firm and assertive without being aggressive. He was the physical opposite of Detective Butts: a tall black man, slim and elegant, with slicked-back graying hair. His features were too aquiline to be conventionally handsome, with thin lips and a long nose, but with his neatly trimmed graying beard and luminous eyes, Lee guessed that women went for him, especially the ones who liked the professorial type. His voice was low and cultured, with a hint of an island lilt—from Haiti, perhaps, or Barbados.

“Captain Morton tells me that you’re working on a multiple, and that this is his second victim,” Florette said. “Multiple” was police shorthand for “multiple homicides,” and like a lot of cop jargon, it fell stiffly on Lee’s ears. It seemed to him the lingo itself was an attempt to distance cops from the things they encountered in the line of duty.

“That’s right,” Lee answered, “except that it’s his third victim.”

Detective Florette raised an eyebrow and looked at Morton.

“We haven’t yet determined that,” Chuck said, an edge of irritation in his voice.

“Well, whether this is his second or third,” Florette went on, “he somehow managed to get in and out of here without anyone seeing him. I got zip from the janitor, likewise the chaplain, who says he was in his office for part of the afternoon.” He nodded in the direction of the dead girl; a team from the medical examiner’s office was bending over her. “She’s only dead three, maybe four hours, according to the body temp, when the janitor found her.”

Since body temperature fell one to two degrees Fahrenheit per hour after death, on average, undoubtedly one of the first things the ME team had done was to measure the girl’s temperature.

Lee said, “That means he brought her in here in broad daylight, and yet no one saw him.”

Florette frowned. “How could he do that? Wouldn’t someone have seen him?”

Lee considered the question. “Somehow, he must have found a way to sedate her.”

“For a while,” Florette added. “She obviously struggled once he got her here.”

“Maybe she didn’t even look like a person at all,” Morton suggested. “Maybe he brought her in a bag or container of some kind.”

“That would make sense,” Lee agreed.

“I’ll do a complete sweep of the building and see if we can come up with anything,” Florette said. “I also want to talk to your primary on the Bronx girl…. what’s his name? Detective Butts?”

“That’s right,” Chuck said. “We tried to reach him, but his daughter says he took his wife to a matinee, and he’s turned off his cell phone.”

“Well, give him my number and tell him to call me as soon as he can.”

They all looked at the dead girl, her skin already turning bluish white as the blood drained away. The carved words stood out against the pale skin.
Hallowed be thy name
. The wounds were the color of dried rust.

“I suppose the brass could establish a task force on this guy, right?” Florette said.

“They might,” Chuck answered.

“In that case, Detective Butts would be the primary from now on,” Florette said, looking down at his polished shoes, and Lee could sense the reluctance in his voice. He understood the way the system worked, but once cops got a case, they didn’t like to let go—especially when they were homicide detectives, and especially when the victim was a young girl. Lee had noticed the white knight types were drawn to police work, and often ended up in homicide. Seeing women in distress was likely to press every button they had. The fact that the women were young and attractive would just raise the stakes for the white knight cops—they wanted to come to the rescue of the princess, to kill the dragon and claim the prize.

Lee glanced at poor Annie again, lying so still in the midst of all the activity around her, as the CSI and ME teams continued with their work. This princess was dead, and there would be no prize, no hand given in marriage to the hero who tracked down this dragon.

“I’ll just have to wait to see how they handle it, but I’d guess a task force is likely, yeah,” Chuck said.

Florette took a deep breath and put his little notebook in his pocket. “Okay. Well, I don’t have to tell you that I’d like to be on it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Chuck answered, “if I have anything to say about it.”

Florette wandered over to speak with the CSIs on the other side of the room, and Lee took the opportunity to draw Chuck aside.

“There’s something else I should tell you,” Lee said.

“What’s that?”

“I…I think someone took a shot at me tonight.”

“What?”

Lee told Chuck about the bullet that narrowly missed him, and Chuck called the commander of the Ninth Precinct to send someone over to dig out the bullet.

“We’ll do a ballistics test on it. It could give us something,” Chuck said. “And you’ll need protection.”

“Oh, come on—” said Lee.

But Chuck cut him off. “It’s not up for debate.”

“Okay,” Lee answered. “It doesn’t really fit the profile, though. I wouldn’t expect someone like this killer to be a shooter. It could be completely unrelated to the case.”

He thought about mentioning the text message on his cell phone, but he saw Detective Florette heading their way and decided to wait.

Florette walked up and stood beside them, hands in his pockets. “This guy is really sick, isn’t he?” he said to Lee.

“Yeah,” Lee replied. “He’s really sick.”

“So now we’ve definitely got a multiple on our hands,” said Chuck.

“What we have here,” Lee said, “is a serial killer.”