Silent Screams (14 page)

Chuck Morton walked down the long cold corridor of the city morgue, his footsteps sharp as gunshots. Of all his duties as a cop, he hated this one the most. As he approached the middle-aged couple at the end of the hall, huddled together, desperately clinging to one another, he recognized the body language. He’d seen it more times than he cared to remember. He took a deep breath as he got closer. The woman was transfixed on the plate-glass window in front of her, but the man turned his head toward him as Chuck approached. On his face, ravaged by worry, was written an unspoken plea Chuck had seen too many times:
Tell me this isn’t happening—isn’t it possible you’ve made a mistake
? Chuck looked through the window at the sheet-draped body on the steel gurney and braced himself for the inevitable flow of grief that would follow.

“Mr. O’Donnell?”

“Yes?” His voice was wary. He was tall, with thick sandy hair.

“I’m Detective Chuck Morton. We need you to—”

The woman interrupted, her voice shrill with pain. “It can’t be her! Not Annie—who would want to hurt her?” She clung to her husband’s arm, as if that were the only thing preventing her from collapsing onto the floor. Her eyes searched Chuck’s face for any hint of reassurance. Her curly dark hair—just like her daughter’s—was in disarray, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept for days. Her skin was pale, and under the green glow of the fluorescent lights it was a pasty, unhealthy color.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. O’Donnell,” he said. His voice felt disembodied, as if it were coming from someone else. “But we need you to identify your daughter.”

The husband turned to his wife. “Look, Margie, if you’d rather not, I can—”

“No!” She cut him off sharply. She turned to Chuck. “I’ll stay with my husband.”

Chuck nodded to the medical examiner’s assistant, who had been waiting next to the body. He was a young Asian man with thick dark glasses. His straight black hair, plastered to his skull, gleamed wetly under the fluorescent lights. He pulled back the sheet, revealing the girl’s face. Chuck was relieved to see that he avoided showing any of the rest of her mutilated body. Those details had not been released to the public or to any of the parents.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Mrs. O’Donnell, and silence for several moments—and then it started, a low, keening wail that began at the bottom of the scale and slid up to the high notes in one long gliding crescendo.

“No-o-o-o-o!
No-o-o-o-o!
Not my Annie, not my girl, my baby, not her! No-o-o-o-o!”

Chuck looked at Mr. O’Donnell, who had folded his wife in his arms as if she were a child. He stood there, rocking her, whispering to her, while Chuck watched miserably, hands at his sides. He hated the sheer senselessness of it all and the impotence he felt, but most of all he hated being a witness to these people’s grief. It felt like an invasion of their privacy, as if they were being violated all over again. It ran counter to his own deep longing for privacy, his reticence toward any public display of emotion.

He laid a hand gently on the man’s shoulder.

“I have to go—stay as long as you like, and someone will see you out. I’m so sorry.”

O’Donnell looked at him with glazed eyes, clearly in shock. Morton knew this, but he also knew there was nothing more he could do for them now—except to find their daughter’s killer.

Chuck’s cell phone rang.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, grateful for the interruption, and ducked around the corner to answer it. “Morton here.”

“Chuck, it’s Lee.”

“What’s up?”

“There’s a new twist—”

“What is it?” Chuck said in a lowered voice. The last thing he needed was the victim’s parents to overhear his conversation.

“The priest found blood in the communion wine.”

“
What?
”

“The priest at Saint Francis Xavier went in to prepare for the service tomorrow, and when he went to fill the communion wine carafe, he noticed something odd about it. Turns out there was blood in it.”

“Oh, Jesus. So CSI never vetted that—”

“Well, they searched the whole church, but that room was way in the back, and it was locked, with no signs of tampering. I mean, they can go back and dust for prints, but if he didn’t leave them at the crime scene, I doubt he got sloppy when he tampered with the communion wine.”

“Good lord. Send it to the lab for DNA analysis to find out if it’s her blood.”

“Butts already did that.” There was a pause. Then, sounding reluctant, Lee added, “You know what this means.”

“What?”

“He’s evolving.”

Chuck clicked off his cell phone and looked around at the shiny, antiseptic walls of the morgue, his forehead burning with rage. For the first time, he thought of the killer by the name Butts had picked out for him.
You sicko
, he said under his breath.
You goddamn psychopath Slasher…I’m coming for you, ready or not
.

The city sat in Sunday morning stillness as Lee and Nelson sat with Detective Florette in Chuck Morton’s office studying crime scene photos. The traffic in the street below was reduced to a sluggish crawl, with none of the usual impatient honking or screeching of brakes, just an occasional engine starting up or the sound of an empty truck rattling by.

Chuck and Detective Butts had not yet arrived, and the three men sat in a lopsided circle around Chuck’s desk. On the desk were the case files for Marie Kelleher, Annie O’Donnell, and finally, Jane Doe Number Five—or Pamela, as they now knew her. No one had come forward with a full identification of her yet.

After poor Annie was found, the Queens detective in charge of that investigation had grudgingly admitted there might be a connection and forwarded the files over to Chuck.

“Blood in the communion wine? Talk about gothic,” Nelson said, draining the last of a day-old cup of coffee. He made a face as he swallowed the last of the bitter brew. Lee had just finished filling them all in on the latest development in the case.

“How long will it take to get the DNA back?” Nelson asked.

“Usually that kind of thing takes weeks,” Lee replied, “unless they put a big rush on it.”

“Does it really matter whose blood it is?” Florette asked. “I mean, for your profile of this guy?”

Nelson shrugged. “Not really—unless of course it’s his blood. But I think we can safely assume it’s hers.”

“So this is part of his signature?” Florette said.

“Yeah,” Lee answered. “And it means it’s evolving, which is not necessarily a good thing.”

“The tox screen on her blood came in negative,” said Florette. “That means he’s restraining her physically—so he has at least average strength.”

“Not necessarily,” said Nelson. “He could blindside her in the initial attack, knocking her unconscious before he ties her up.”

Lee shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He realized he had been hoping the tox screen would be positive—at least if the victims were drugged, there was a chance their suffering would be dulled.

“There are some chemicals that wouldn’t remain in the system long enough to show up in a tox screen,” Chuck added.

“Some,” Nelson agreed. “But he would have to have access to them.”

“Okay, so he’s getting close enough to them to attack them suddenly,” said Florette. His deep, rich baritone sounded more like the cultivated voice of an FM classical announcer than a police detective. “If he’s not alarming to his victims right away, maybe there’s something about him that disarms them—that appeals to them, even.”

“That’s why killers like Bundy are so terrifying,” Nelson said. “It’s their appeal—he was killer, con man, and fantasy date all rolled into one.”

“I’ll tell you something else about him that is just like Bundy,” Lee said.

“What’s that?” Florette asked, sitting up a little straighter.

“Have you noticed the similarities in the victims?”

“You mean, they’re all nice conservative Catholic girls?”

“No,” Lee answered. “It’s more specific than that.”

Nelson looked at the photos spread out in front of him. “Oh, God—I didn’t see it before, but you’re right!”

“Right about what?” Florette asked.

“The hair,” Nelson replied. “Remember how Bundy always chose women with straight dark hair, parted in the middle?”

Florette frowned. “I don’t have quite the same expertise you—”

Nelson interrupted him. “His victims all resembled a woman who had broken his heart—”

“But wasn’t that a common hairstyle in the mid seventies when Bundy was operating?” Chuck pointed out.

“Fair enough,” Lee said. “But the point we’re trying to make is that there’s a physical similarity between this guy’s victims too, or at least there seems to be. They all have dark curly hair, cut short.”

“You’re right,” Florette agreed.

“I think we should open our minds to another possibility,” Lee suggested.

“What’s that?” Florette asked.

“That there is more than one person involved.”

“Oh, come on, Lee—” Nelson began.

“Just hear me out—”

“Doesn’t this kind of killer work alone?” Florette asked.

“Yes, but occasionally you find them working in pairs,” Lee replied. “A stronger, more dominant type with a submissive partner—Charles Ng, for example.”

“He was the exception that proves the rule!” Nelson retorted irritably.

Charles Ng was one of the most sadistic and horribly deviant serial killers who ever lived—and a lot was known about him, because he videotaped his crimes. His sidekick Leonard Lake was the weaker but equally culpable partner in their rampage of kidnapping, torture, and murder of men and women in California in the 1980s.

“What if he was the ‘assistant’ or sidekick to a rapist say, five years ago—and he’s since graduated to his own crimes?” Florette suggested.

“I actually think the nature of these killings indicate there could be two perpetrators working together,” Lee said. “There is evidence of arrogance
and
gentleness—”

“What’s ‘gentle’ about these crimes?” Chuck asked.

“The killer is someone who didn’t seem threatening to his victims, which means he was probably shy and unassuming—”

“Or smooth and convincing, like Bundy,” Nelson interjected.

“Then there are the physical difficulties of one perpetrator doing this all by himself,” Lee went on.

“Yeah,” Butts agreed. “It does seem kinda tricky.”

“The girls were all low-risk victims who were left in public places,” Lee continued. “And the carving is both arrogant and incredibly risky. At least one perpetrator is controlling and organized, with a sophisticated knowledge of forensic investigation.”

“It’s perfectly believable that it could be the work of one person,” Nelson argued.

“If there are two killers,” Lee continued, “we could expect the more submissive partner would be exhibiting odd behavior as the stress begins to get to him. People around him would notice this.”

“What about the other guy?” Florette asked.

“If he is in a relationship of some kind, he would be controlling and possibly violent—though not necessarily physically violent. But he would certainly be manipulative and controlling. He might have a history of petty crimes: shoplifting, breaking and entering, that kind of thing. But he might not have a criminal record yet, depending on how old he is—or how lucky.”

“What about these mysterious text messages you’ve been getting?” Chuck asked, changing the subject. “Do you think they’re related?”

“I don’t know,” Lee replied. All attempts to trace them had been unsuccessful so far.

“What text messages?” Nelson asked. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”

The door was flung open, and Detective Butts stormed into the room, brandishing a newspaper over his head as though he were going to swat someone with it.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, slapping the paper down on Morton’s desk.

Nelson’s eyes narrowed and hardened, as they did when he was dangerously irritated. Butts was oblivious to Nelson’s mood, however; his square body was rigid with rage.

“Look at what these pansy reporters wrote! Where the hell do they get off writing this kind of crap?”

Lee looked down at the paper, its headline screaming out alarm:

Slasher Continues to Terrorize City
Police Baffled

“For Chrissake, talk about yellow journalism!” Butts fumed, shoving a chewed cigar stub into his mouth.

Florette snorted. “Well, what do you expect from the
Post
?”

“That’s all we need, to have a goddamn panic on our hands!” Butts threw himself into the beat-up chair in front of the window and stared out moodily.

Lee looked down at the headline, and read the first paragraph of text. “
The killer is not content to merely kill, but must mutilate his victims in order to achieve his sick satisfaction…”
He looked at Butts. “Where did they get this? This information wasn’t released to the public.” What he didn’t say was that it was curious that the press had picked up on the nickname Butts himself had chosen for the killer.

“Who knows?” Butts replied. “They’re goddamn vultures—scavengers makin’ money off these girls’ deaths.”

“Well, if you put it that way, we are too,” Florette pointed out.

Butts chewed viciously on his cigar, nearly biting it in two.

“It’s not the same thing! We’re workin’ to
solve
this thing. Our job is about protecting people.”

“Well, we’re not going to get very far if someone keeps leaking things to the press,” Lee pointed out.

Butts got up and tossed what was left of his cigar in the trash basket next to Morton’s desk and sat in one of the captain’s chairs scattered around the desk. “It probably was one of the geeks in the morgue, or maybe a CSI did it. Who knows? Could be anyone.”

Chuck walked into the room, his face grim.

“We’ve got trouble,” he said, sitting behind his desk. “Walker’s lodged a formal complaint against you,” he said to Lee.

Butts smacked the arm of his chair with his closed fist. “
Bastard!
”

“What does this mean for the investigation?” Lee asked.

Chuck picked up the glass paperweight from his desk and held it in both hands. “It’s hard to say. Internal Affairs will have to evaluate the complaint and decide what to do about it.”

“Can they take me off the case?” Lee asked.

Chuck put the paperweight down and put his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “They can do anything they want.”

Butts blinked, his homely face slack. “
Anything?
”

The relationship between Internal Affairs and the other members of the police force was like the relationship between a prison warden and the incarcerated: watchful, wary, and mutually distrustful. Visitors from IA were as welcome in precinct houses as an infestation of head lice in an elementary school classroom.

The phone on the desk rang, and Chuck answered it.

“Morton here.” He listened briefly and then he said, “Really? When? Where are they now? Okay, thanks.”

He hung up and exhaled. “Jane Doe Number Five has been identified. Her parents just called and ID’d her photograph from our Web site.”

Lee rose from his chair. “Who is she?”

“Name’s Pamela Stavros. She’s a runaway from New England. Parents are flying down from Maine today.”

“Okay,” Chuck said, “let’s go over what we have.” He read from aloud from an autopsy report on his desk. “Two of the autopsies indicated the presence of semen. One girl was on the pill, the other was found still wearing her diaphragm. The third girl used a condom. In each case there was sexual conduct shortly before her death, but no evidence of rape. In the case of Marie Kelleher and Annie O’Donnell, the boyfriends admit to having sex with the victims the night before they were found dead.”

Lee stood up, his face rigid. “He watches them.”

Chuck stared at him.

“You mean…?”

“He watches them have sex—but he can’t stand the feelings it stirs in him, so he has to kill them.”

“So since they’re the source of his arousal,” Nelson said, “they have to die?”

“But that’s not how he sees it. Somehow he manages to rationalize his acts.”

“Maybe he sees himself as their savior, rescuing them from the sin of carnality?” Florette suggested.

“Yes, yes. That would make perfect sense,” Lee agreed.

“Look, the mayor and the DA are both coming down hard on us,” Chuck said, “so we’re going to—”

“Round up the usual suspects?” Nelson suggested dryly.

“Bring in a few more known sex offenders for questioning,” Morton finished, ignoring him.

They had already completed interviews of half a dozen known sex offenders. Nelson disdained to be present at any of these interviews, which he deemed a waste of time and taxpayers’ money, but Detective Butts was keen on them.

“Go ahead,” Nelson said. “But it won’t do you any good.”

“Yeah?” Butts challenged. “And why’s that?”

“Because you won’t find him that way.”

Butts blew air out of his nostrils and rolled his eyes.

Chuck looked at Lee. “You agree?”

“I’m afraid so,” he replied. “He’ll have a history of abusing animals, maybe setting a few fires, but chances are he wasn’t caught.”

“I checked with VICAP again for crimes similar to this UNSUB,” Florette said, flicking an invisible speck from his immaculate shirt. He seemed to enjoy using anagrams whenever possible. VICAP stood for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and UNSUB was shorthand for Unknown Subject.

“VICAP could be useless for a guy like this,” Nelson responded. “Up until now, he could have been flying under the radar.”

“Oh, that’s just
great
!” Butts said, biting off the end of a cigar and spitting it in the trash can. He frowned, the pockmarks on his forehead merging. “You said this was a sex crime.”

“Like I said, this guy will probably have a history of cruelty to animals,” Lee said. “Also possibly voyeurism and fetishistic behavior, maybe some arson—but arsonists are hard to catch, so he may not have any criminal record.”

“Fetishism—you mean like a fixation on shoes or women’s underwear, somethin’ like that?”

“Right. And that isn’t illegal.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Florette remarked glumly. “Though if this administration had its way—”

“Also, wouldn’t that kind of behavior tend to be pretty private?” Chuck asked, turning to open a window. The frigid February air felt good as it rushed into the room.

“Right,” said Lee. “He’s a voyeur, obviously, but that too can be hard to spot, especially if he’s careful. He’s not breaking and entering to get his victims, so he’s abducting them outside their homes.”

“That means less chance of leaving forensic evidence behind,” Chuck pointed out, bending down to pick up some papers the wind had blown off his desk.

“Exactly,” Nelson said. “And the wide dispersal of victims means he’s comfortable in a large geographic area.”

Lee pointed to the map on the wall, placing his finger on the red tack indicating the location where Pamela Stavros’s body had been found.