The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (19 page)

“Maybe forensics would be a good choice.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Paul said uncertainly. “But do you think I’m ready? I mean, ready to get out in the real world?”

The doctor didn’t hesitate. “I absolutely do.”

Several days later Paul was doing what he often did at 10
A.M.
on a weekday: having a coffee at Starbucks near his apartment on the Upper West Side and reading. Today, however, it was not fiction he was engrossed in, but the local newspapers.

He was considering what Dr. Levine had told him and was trying to find some way to use his skills in a practical way. He wasn’t having much luck.

Occasionally he would look around and make deductions about people sitting near him—a woman had broken up with a boyfriend, one man was an artistic painter, another was very likely a petty criminal.

Yes, this was a talent.

Just how to put it to use.

It was as he was pondering this that he happened to overhear one patron, looking down at her Mac screen, turn to her friend and say, “Oh, my God. They found another one!”

“What?” the companion asked.

“Another, you know, stabbing victim. In the park. It happened last night. They just found the body.” She waved at the screen. “It’s in the
Times.
”

“Jesus. Who was it?”

“Doesn’t say, doesn’t give her name, I mean.” The blonde, hair pulled back, ponytail, read. “Twenty-nine, financial adviser. They shouldn’t say what she does without giving her name. Now everybody who knows a woman like that’s going to worry.”

Paul realized this would be the man—
surely
a man, according to typical criminal profile—who was dubbed the “East Side Slasher.” Over the course of several months he’d killed two, now three, women. The killer took trophies. From the first two victims, at least, he cut off the left index finger. Postmortem, after he’d slashed their jugulars. There’d been no obvious sexual overtones to the crimes. Police could find no motives.

“Where?” Paul asked the Starbucks blonde.

“What?” She turned, frowning.

“Where did they find the body?” he repeated impatiently.

She looked put out, nearly offended.

Paul lifted his eyebrows. “It’s not eavesdropping when you make a statement loud enough for the whole place to hear. Now.
Where
is the body?”

“Near Turtle Pond.”

“How near?” Paul persisted.

“It doesn’t say.” She turned away in a huff.

Paul rose quickly, feeling his pulse start to pound.

He tossed out his half-finished coffee and headed for the door. He gave a faint laugh, thinking to himself, The game’s afoot.

“Sir, what’re you doing?”

Crouching on the ground, Paul glanced up at a heavyset man, white, pale white, with slicked-back, thinning hair. Paul rose slowly. “I’m sorry?”

“Could I see some identification?”

“I guess, sure. Could I?” Paul held the man’s eyes evenly.

The man coolly displayed his NYPD detective’s shield. The detective said his name was Carrera.

Paul handed over his driver’s license.

“You live in the area?”

“It’s on my license.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s current,” the detective responded, handing it back.

He’d renewed two months ago. He said, “It is. West Eighty-Second. Near Broadway.”

They were just north of the traverse road in Central Park, near the pond where the Starbucks woman had told him the body had been found. The area was filled with trees and bushes and rock formations. Grass fields, trisected by paths bordered with mini-shoulders of dirt—which is what Paul had been examining. Yellow police tape fluttered, but the body and crime scene people were gone.

A few spectators milled nearby, taking mobile phone pictures or just staring, waiting to glimpse some fancy
CSI
gadgets perhaps. Though not everyone was playing voyeur. Two nannies pushed perambulators and chatted. One worker in dungarees was taking a break, sipping coffee and reading the sports section. Two college-age girls roller-bladed past. All were oblivious to the carnage that had occurred only fifty feet away.

The detective asked, “How long have you been here, Mr. Winslow?”

“I heard about the murder about a half hour ago and I came over. I’ve never seen a crime scene before. I was curious.”

“Did you happen to be in the park at around midnight?”

“Was that the time of death?”

The detective persisted. “Sir? Midnight?”

“No.”

“Have you seen anyone in the park recently wearing a Yankees jacket and red shoes?”

“Is that what the killer was wearing last night? . . . Sorry, no, I haven’t. But is that what the killer was wearing?”

The detective seemed to debate. He said, “A witness from a street-sweeping crew reported seeing somebody walk out of bushes there about twelve-thirty this morning in a Yankees jacket and red shoes.”

Paul squinted. “There?”

The detective sighed. “Yeah, there.”

“And he was in his street-sweeping truck?”

“That’s right.”

“Then he’s wrong,” Paul said dismissively.

“I’m sorry?”

“Look.” Paul nodded, walking to the traverse. “His truck was over there, right?”

The detective joined him. “Yeah. So?”

“That streetlight would’ve been right in his face, and I’d be very surprised if he’d been able to see writing on the jacket. As for the shoes, I’d guess they were blue, not red.”

“What?”

“He would only have seen them for a second or two as he drove past. An instant later his mind would have registered them as red—because of the afterimage. That means they were really blue. And, by the way, they weren’t shoes at all. He was wearing coverings of some kind. Booties, like surgeons wear. Those are usually blue or green.”

“Covering? What’re you talking about?” Carrera was rocking between interested and irritated.

“Look at this.” Paul returned to dirt he’d been crouching over. “See these footprints? Somebody walked from the body through the grass, then onto the dirt here. He stopped—you can see that here—and stood in a pattern that suggests he pulled something off his shoes. The same size prints start up again here, but they’re much more distinct. So your suspect wore booties to keep you from finding out the brand of shoe he was wearing. But he made a mistake. He figured it was safe to take them off once he was away from the body.”

Carrera was staring down. Then he jotted notes.

Paul added, “And as for the brand? I guess your crime scene people have databases.”

“Yessir. Thanks for that. We’ll check it out.” He was gruff but seemed genuinely appreciative. He pulled out his mobile and made a call.

“Oh, detective,” Paul interrupted, “remember that just because the shoe’s big—it looks like a twelve—doesn’t mean his
foot
is that size. It’s a lot less painful to wear two sizes large than two sizes smaller, if you want to fool somebody about your stature.”

Paul’s impression was that the cop had just been about to say that the suspect had to be huge.

After Carrera had ordered the crime scene back and disconnected, Paul said, “Oh, one other thing, detective?”

“Yessir?”

“See that bud there?”

“That flower?”

“Right. It’s from a knapweed. The only place it grows in the park is in the Shakespeare Garden.”

“How do you know that?”

“I observe things,” Paul said dismissively. “Now. There’s a small rock formation there. It’d be a good place to hide, and I’ll bet that’s where he waited for the victim.”

“Why?”

“It’s not unreasonable to speculate that his cuff scooped up the bud while he was crouched down, waiting for his victim. When he lifted his foot to pull off the booties here, the bud fell out.”

“But that’s two hundred yards away, the garden.”

“Which means you haven’t searched it.”

Carrera stiffened, but then admitted, “No.”

“Just like he thought. I’d have your people search the garden for trace evidence—or whatever your forensic people look for nowadays. You see so much on TV. You never know what’s real or not.”

After he’d finished jotting notes, Carrera asked, “Are you in law enforcement?”

“No, I just read a lot of murder mysteries.”

“Uh-huh. You have a card?”

“No. But I’ll give you my number.” Paul wrote it down on the back of one of the detective’s cards and handed it back. He looked up into the man’s eyes; the cop was about six inches taller. “You think this is suspicious, I’m sure. I also wrote down the name of the chess club where I play, down in Greenwich Village. I was there last night until midnight. And I’d guess the CCTV cameras in the subway—I took the number 1 train to Seventy-Second—would show me getting off around one-thirty. And then I went to Alonzo’s deli. I know the counterman. He can identify me.”

“Yessir.” Carrera tried to sound like he hadn’t suspected Paul, but in fact even Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes books would have had him checked out.

Still, at the moment, the detective actually offered what seemed to be a warm handshake. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Winslow. We don’t always find such cooperative citizens. And helpful ones too.”

“My pleasure.”

Carrera pulled on gloves and put the bud in a plastic bag. He then walked toward the garden.

As Paul turned back to examine the scene, a voice behind him asked, “Excuse me?”

He turned to see a balding man, stocky and tall, in tan slacks and a Polo jacket. Topsiders. He looked like a Connecticut businessman on the weekend. He was holding a digital recorder.

“I’m Franklyn Moss. I’m a reporter for the
Daily Feed.
”

“Is that an agricultural newspaper?” Paul asked.

Moss blinked. “Blog. Feed. Like RSS. Oh, that was a joke.”

Paul gave no response.

Moss asked, “Can I ask your name?”

“I don’t know. What do you want?” He looked at the recorder. Something about the man’s eager eyes, too eager, made him uneasy.

“I saw you talking to the cop, Carrera. He’s not real cooperative. Kind of a prick. Between you and I.”

You and me, Paul silently corrected the journalist. “Well, he was just asking me if I saw anything—about the murder, you know. They call that canvassing, I think.”

“So, did you?”

“No. I just live near here. I came by forty-five minutes ago.”

Moss looked around in frustration. “Not much good stuff, this one. Everything was gone before we heard about it.”

“Good stuff? You mean the body?”

“Yeah. I wanted to get some pix. But no luck this time.” Moss stared at the shadowy ring of bushes where the woman had died. “He rape this one? Cut off anything other than the finger?”

“I don’t know. The detective—”

“Didn’t say.”

“Right.”

“They always play it so close to the damn chest. Prick, I was saying. You mind if I interview you?”

“I don’t really have anything to say.”

“Most people don’t. Who cares? Gotta fill the stories with something. If you want your fifteen minutes of fame, gimme a call. Here’s my card.” He handed one over. Paul glanced at it and then pocketed it. “I’m writing a sidebar on what people think about somebody getting killed like this.”

Paul cocked his head. “I’ll bet the general consensus is they’re against it.”

All the next day, Paul had been in and out of the apartment constantly, visiting the crime scenes of the Upper East Side Slasher, getting as close as he could, observing, taking notes. Then returning and, as he was now, sitting at his computer, continuing his research and thinking hard about how to put into practical use everything he’d learned from his immersion in the Sherlock Holmes books.

His doorbell rang.

“Yes?” he asked into the intercom.

“Yeah, hi. Paul Winslow?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Detective Carrera. We met the other day. In Central Park?”

Hm.

“Sure. Come on up.” He hit the button to unlock the door.

A moment later there came a knock on the door. Paul admitted the detective. Breathing heavily from the two-story walkup—he apparently hadn’t waited for the elevator—the man looked around the apartment. Maybe his cop training precluded him from saying, “Nice digs,” or whatever he would say, but Paul could tell he was impressed by the small but elegant place.

His trust fund was really quite substantial.

“So,” Paul said. “Did you check me out? I’m guessing you did, ’cause you don’t have your handcuffs out.”

Carrera, who was carrying a thick dark-brown folder, started to deny it but then laughed. “Yeah. You weren’t much of a suspect.”

“Perps
do
come back to the scene of the crime, though.”

“Yeah, but only the stupid ones give the cops advice . . . and good advice, in your case. The shoe was a Ferragamo, size twelve—you got a good eye. So our perp’s pretty well-off.”

“And you checked the indentation?”

“It was pretty deep. He’s a big man, so the shoe’s probably the right fit.”

“How old was the shoe?”

“They couldn’t tell wear patterns.”

“Too bad.”

“And you were right about the jacket. The street cleaner didn’t really see the logo. He was speculating—because it was black and had the cut of a Yankees jacket his kid owns. Trying to be helpful. Happens with witnesses a lot.”

“Remember the back lighting. It might not have been black at all. It could have been any dark color. Can I get you anything?”

“Water, yeah. Thanks.”

“I’m having milk. I love milk. I drink a glass a day, sometimes two. You want some milk?”

“Water’s fine.”

Paul got a glass of milk for himself and a bottle of Dannon for the detective.

He returned to find the man studying the shelves. “Man, you got a lot of books. And that whole wall there—true crime, forensics.”

“I’m thinking maybe someday I’ll study it. Go to school, I mean. I’ve got degrees in math and science.”

“That’s a good start. All the good crime scene cops I know have science backgrounds. Hey, let me know if you need advice on where to go, what courses to take.”

“Yeah? Thanks.”

Carrera turned away and said, “Mr. Winslow?”