Silent Screams (9 page)

“Wait a minute,” Lee interrupted. “That would be illegal
and
unethical, violating doctor-patient privilege.”

“But these guys ain’t docs,” Eddie protested.

“This guy is probably flying under the radar,” Lee said. “Not in treatment, probably not in the system at all. Even if he is, the chances of him coming through Bellevue—”

“Are roughly one in one hundred and forty-six thousand, if he lives in Manhattan,” Diesel said solemnly. When Lee stared at him, he leaned back and folded his powerful hands in front of him. “I enjoy statistics. It’s kind of a hobby.”

“Diesel’s a college graduate,” Eddie said proudly. “Somewhere in Michigan—?”

“Michigan State,” Diesel replied. “Magna cum laude.”

Lee guessed that Eddie knew both of them through Gamblers Anonymous, but he wasn’t about to ask. Eddie was very casual about the whole notion of his anonymity, and would tell anyone that he was attending meetings—whether they asked or not—but Lee didn’t want to compromise the privacy of Eddie’s friends.

“Look, isn’t there something we can do to help?” Eddie asked.

Lee looked around the bar, with its comfortable low lighting, the softly glowing yellow lamps casting shadows on the walls. The bar was filling up with theatergoers, all in a festive mood. It seemed odd, sitting here with Eddie and his two powerful-looking friends, that somewhere out there, a predator was ruthlessly stalking and carving up young women.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’ll think of something.”

Eddie winked. “These guys get around—know what I mean?”

Lee looked at the two companions. Rhino’s deep-set blue eyes were azure in the dim light, and his pale skin was a sharp contrast to Diesel’s richly hued coffee-colored skin. No doubt about it: singly, they were unusual looking. As a pair, they were striking.

“They used to be homeless,” Eddie continued, snapping a chip between his tobacco-stained fingers before popping it into his mouth. “Addicts, both of ’em. Hard to believe now, huh?”

Lee looked at the pair. With their well-muscled bodies and clear eyes, they looked like anything but addicts.

“Methamphetamines,” said Diesel. “My drug of choice, when I could get it. And Rhino was addicted to heroin.”

Rhino sipped at his soda and looked away.

“So not only do they have connections in the hospital nursing field,” Eddie said, “but they also know most of the guys who run the shelters around town—and most of the clients.”

“I don’t see how that can help us,” Lee replied.

Diesel leaned forward. “There is an underclass of people in this city who go places other people don’t, who see what other people miss. There are eyes and ears out there that the police have yet to fully appreciate.”

“Sort of like the Baker Street Irregulars in the Sherlock Holmes stories—right, Boss?” Eddie said.

Diesel took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth delicately. “We have access to those ears and eyes—what goes on in the dark of night when most people are looking the other way.”

“Methamphetamines and heroin, huh?” Lee said. “Those must have been hard ones to kick. Those are both really addictive.”

“You can accomplish anything,” Diesel said, “if you have the willpower and determination.”

Looking at the pair sitting across from him, Lee didn’t doubt that he was right. Then, against his own will, the words popped into his head:
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
. But he imagined that if the Slasher’s will prevailed, it would not be either as in earth or as in heaven, but as in hell.

Her breasts were small and round, the skin smooth and white as the inside of a clamshell
. The nipples were marbled mother-of-pearl—like faded pink summer roses. He thought he would faint at the sight of them. His head grew light, and a tingling came to his forehead, even as his eyes drank in the sight of them greedily. He felt like a starving man who had been watching a feast through a window all his life, and now that he was here, the table of delicacies spread out before him, his stomach rebelled at the sight of such abundance. Her body was achingly beautiful—and still it was not his to touch, to caress, to possess. Her mouth, marred by lipstick, was a red slash in the middle of the perfect white skin of her face.

He watched her through the crack in the white lace curtains, as her body rose and fell with passion. He felt his own body swell in response. She was his neighbor’s daughter, and the space between their bedroom windows was so narrow that he felt as if he could reach out and touch her.

Samuel! Sam-u-el! You will burn in hell if you don’t stop that right now!

If only he could make it stop, the sound of his mother’s voice, harsh as a crow’s, cawing at him, bleating, berating him, until he felt his ears would bleed.

Stop that right now, Samuel! The hand of God Himself will come down and strike you dead, and you’ll go straight to hell forever!

He turned his head to avoid the arrows of her eyes, his face hot with shame. Even with his face turned toward the wall, he could feel the heat of her anger on the back of his head. He closed his eyes and waited for her rage to pass, to burn itself out….

Afterward it wasn’t so bad, though—when she calmed down they would pray together, sometimes for hours at a time.

Pray with me, Samuel. Let God wash clean your spirit.

She would burn incense, and they would kneel together, the Bible spread out on the bed in front of them—though she had it memorized anyway. They would kneel in front of their little makeshift altar, with the figure of the bleeding Christ hanging over the head of the bed, the air thick with the smell of incense. Sometimes she would pray from Genesis, other times from Revelations or Ecclesiastes. After a while he had memorized the passages too, and he would kneel beside his mother until his knees ached…. But still he was proud to be sharing her passion for God, proud that he could endure the discomfort and pain—a cleansing pain, to relieve him of the stain of his sinful ways—as long as she could, until his toes were pins and needles and he could no longer feel his legs.

He welcomed the numbness, the release from the shameful feelings of lust. He was grateful to his mother for saving him, and if it was difficult and painful, that was proof to him that he was on the right road. After all, as his mother had told him over and over, nothing worth having is gotten easily.

She had brought him to God, and now he would bring these girls too, offering them as proof of his devotion, his faith, his earnestness. He would save them from their own lustful urges—and from his own.

That Sunday, after the second girl, he sat in the cold, darkened confessional, perched on the hard, narrow bench, until the little door slid open and he could hear Father Neill’s thick breathing, smell the spearmint mouthwash, and just beneath it the hint of Scotch whiskey.

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

The priest stifled a belch. Samuel heard the rustling of his robes as he shifted on his bench, heard his smoker’s cough.

“It has been two weeks since my last confession.”

“Yes, my son?”

“I have had unclean thoughts.”

“How many times?”

Samuel paused. It was important to be accurate.

“Three times.”

“Say twelve Hail Marys.”

It never occurred to him to mention the girls whose lives he had taken. That was not sin, because he was acting as the agent of God. He fingered the paper in his jacket pocket, snuggled next to the sharpened blade of his knife. The instructions on it were clear—and tonight he would do the work of his Master.

He left the church slowly, savoring the solemnity and grandness of the house of the Lord. He was at home here—everything was so much simpler, and he knew what was expected of him.

Lee sat on the hard bench in the back of the courtroom, watching the trial in progress. He had been wandering around downtown, and when he found himself standing on the steps of the criminal court building, he decided to go inside. It was Friday afternoon, and he felt at loose ends, with the weekend looming ahead. Lately he wasn’t dealing well with long stretches of unstructured time. He found courtrooms to be comforting places—they reminded him that sometimes criminals really
were
brought to trial and convicted.

The judge looked down on the proceedings with a weary expression. He had a long, jowly face topped by a brace of bushy black eyebrows so thick that it appeared a pair of caterpillars had attached themselves to his forehead.

This particular trial was a murder case, and the defendant—the victim’s husband—sat flanked by his attorneys. He sat quietly, hands folded in his lap, a slight, balding, unremarkable-looking man. Lee knew that a defendant’s behavior in court had little bearing on guilt or innocence. The most vicious killers could be brilliant actors once the public eye was on them.

The prosecutor, a slim, dapper Asian man with slicked-down thinning hair, stood and buttoned his jacket.

“We call Dr. Katherine Azarian to the stand, Your Honor.”

The judge nodded and pulled at his extravagant right eyebrow.

A small, compact woman rose from the gallery and walked to the witness box. Something about the quiet, contained way she moved caught Lee’s eye. She was dressed in a dark green business suit with a fitted jacket, nothing flashy—but on her somehow it looked glamorous. Her hair was dark and wavy, cut close to her head, emphasizing the curve of her cheekbones and firm, pointed chin.

“…the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” The bailiff, a fat, red-faced man, finished his recitation in a monotone.

“I do,” Dr. Azarian replied in a clear, firm voice, removing her hand from the Bible held by the bailiff and turning toward the witness box. Lee watched as she sat, her eyes on the prosecutor, waiting for his first question. Her manner was self-assured and yet entirely lacking in arrogance. He found it hard not to look at her.

The prosecutor approached her, smiling. “Would you please state your profession, Dr. Azarian?”

“I’m a forensic anthropologist.” A tiny dimple danced on the end of her chin when she spoke.

“And what exactly does a forensic anthropologist do?

“I aid in the identification of victims’ bodies and the causes of death through examination of their skeletons.”

“So you’re a bone specialist?”

“Yes.”

The prosecutor plucked a photograph from the exhibit table and held it aloft.

“Exhibit A, Your Honor. If I may, I’d like to show it to the witness and then to the jury.”

The judge nodded, his eyes heavy under the weight of his prodigious eyebrows. The prosecutor presented the photo to Dr. Azarian.

“Do you recognize this?”

“Yes. It’s a photograph of the victim’s skull.”

The prosecutor passed the photo on to the jurors, whose reactions were varied. Some stared at it with fascination, others with detachment, and a few were visibly upset by it. The prosecutor retrieved the photo from the jury foreman and turned to his witness.

“Did you also have an opportunity to study the skull itself?”

“I did.”

“And what conclusion did you reach as to cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head.”

“And could the damage you observed have been caused by a fall?”

“No. The wounds are inconsistent with a fall. For one thing, they occur on both sides of the skull. For another, the shape and size of the indentations indicate the victim was struck by a heavy object—most probably a horseshoe.”

“Like this one?”

There was a murmur from the courtroom as the prosecutor lifted a large horseshoe from the exhibit table.

“Yes. The curve of the indentations in the skull, as well as the peculiar mark made by the knob here”—she pointed to the raised edge at the crest of the U-shaped curve—“are unique.”

“You might even say unmistakable?”

“Yes.”

“Objection!” The defense counsel yelped, leaping to his feet. “Leading the witness!”

“Very well, Mr. Passiano—your objection is sustained,” the judge replied, but his voice implied what everyone in the courtroom knew: the damage had been done. Kathy Azarian was not just a good witness, she was the prosecution’s star witness, and Lee knew that anyone putting money on the defendant now was making a fool’s bet. He smiled to himself and slipped out the back door of the courtroom.

When he reached the corridor, his cell phone rang. He found a quiet corner by the restrooms before answering it. He hated talking on his phone in public, and thought people who did were “coarse,” as his mother would say.

“Campbell here.”

“Lee?” It was Chuck Morton, and he sounded nervous.

“Yes. Chuck? What’s happened?”

“Now, Lee, don’t get excited, please—”

“What? What is it?”

“Now, don’t call your mother until we know more—”

“It’s about Laura, isn’t it? What’s happened?” Lee heard his own voice rising in pitch and volume, and felt himself starting to hyperventilate.

“Lee, please calm down. It may be nothing at all.”

Spots danced in front of his eyes. He forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke again. “What have you found?”

“A couple of kids came across some bones in Inwood Park.”

Inwood Park was an unlikely place for a body drop, especially if Laura was abducted near her apartment in Greenwich Village, he thought.

“What makes you think it’s her?”

“The medical examiner’s office thinks it may be about the right age and, uh, gender, but we—uh, they—want to do a reverse DNA analysis.”

Lee forced himself to breathe again, doing his best to sound professional.

“No clothing or other identifying—”

Chuck interrupted him. “No, nothing. But if we can get DNA samples from you and your mother—”

“Yeah, I know how it works. I’ll be right there.”

“Wait—I’m not in my office. I’m at the ME’s office.”

“Okay. Be right there.”

He turned off his phone and shoved it into his pocket, but his hand was trembling and sweaty, and the phone slid from his hand, clattering to the floor. It skidded across the smooth tiled floor and came to rest at the feet of Dr. Katherine Azarian.

“You dropped your phone,” she said, picking it up.

“Uh, thanks,” Lee mumbled, taking it from her.

“No problem,” she said, and continued on toward the ladies’ room. She carried a cream-colored lamb’s wool overcoat in one hand and a leather briefcase in the other.

“Uh—wait!” he cried.

“Excuse me?” She turned back to face him, her expression wary.

“Please—please just wait a second. I’m with the NYPD—” Lee fumbled for his ID, trying desperately to keep her from leaving.

“I knew that,” she said. “You don’t have to show me your ID.” She smiled, revealing teeth that were unreasonably white. They gleamed like polished porcelain, and Lee found himself staring at them, unable to look away.

“How did you—”

“Oh, please,” she said. “I’ve been around them long enough to be able to spot one at a hundred paces.”

“Oh, okay,” Lee said. “I just saw you testify in court, and—”

“Oh? Are you on that case?”

“No, no. I just had some time to kill—but that’s not important. I want to ask you something.” In this light, her eyes were the color of roasted almonds, and rimmed with thick, dark lashes. “Would you—would you possibly be willing to help identify a body?”

She cocked her head to one side and shifted her backpack to the other shoulder. “Well, that’s what I do. Do you mean right now?”

“Are you finished testifying?”

“Yes.”

“Then right now—unless you have other plans.”

She laughed. “They can wait. You seem very anxious to have your answer. Where is this body?”

“At the medical examiner’s office.”

“Okay—I have some time to kill, too, actually,” she said, putting on her coat and gloves. Her hands were small and fine, delicate as the hands of a child, with perfectly manicured pink fingernails. He couldn’t imagine those hands in a laboratory, handling the gruesome remains of murder victims. “When did this body turn up?” she said, buttoning her coat.

“I just found out about it.”

“One of your cases?”

“Sort of. It—it may be my sister.”

She stopped midway through putting on her second glove. “Oh my God. What happened to her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. She disappeared five years ago.”

“I’m so sorry to hear it. I hope I can be of some help.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, let’s go,” she said.

“What about—?” Lee said, glancing toward the bathroom.

“It can wait.”

As they left the courtroom a brisk wind was blowing from the west, and Lee pulled his coat tighter around his neck. He looked at Katherine Azarian, who had flung a hand skyward in hopes of snagging one of the yellow cabs barreling up Center Street. Even flagging a cab, she looked confident, authoritative.

She glanced at her watch. “This is a lousy time to try for a cab. I think we should take the bus. It’s not far.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a stop for the M15 right around the corner at Chatham Square.”

He followed her, bent forward against the wind, past the Tombs, with their stark vertical stone walls, the long grim columns rising like the Death Star from the streets below. They hurried past the statue of Lin Zexu, the Fujian hero who defied the British, standing tall on his pedestal in the center of the square. He looked cold, draped in his gray granite robes, gazing northeast toward the rising sun, his stone face shielded by a broad-brimmed hat. Across from the statue stood the Republic National Bank, with its flashy red-tipped pagoda, marking the entrance to the heart of Chinatown. Another time, he might have thought it charming, but right now, to Lee, the color red only evoked one thing: blood.