“Shit, we got Wyatt Earp here, Sam,” he said. “Shootin’ it out like it was High Noon.”
“Wyatt Earp wasn’t in High Noon,” I corrected him, as his partner checked my ID. The cop punched me hard in the kidneys in response and I fell to my knees. I heard more sirens nearby, including the telltale whine of an ambulance.
“You’re a funny guy, hotshot,” said the young cop. “Why’d you shoot him?”
“You weren’t around,” I replied, my teeth gritted in pain. “If you’d been here I’d have shot you instead.”
He was just about to cuff me when a voice I recognized said: “Put it away, Harley.” I looked over my shoulder at his partner, Sam Rees. I recognized him from my days on the force and he recognized me. I don’t think he liked what he saw.
“He used to be a cop. Leave him be.”
And then the three of us waited in silence until the others joined us.
Two more blue-and-whites arrived before a mud brown Nova dumped a figure in plain clothes on the curb. I looked up to see Walter Cole walking toward me. I hadn’t seen him in almost six months, not since his promotion to lieutenant. He was wearing a long brown leather coat, incongruous in the heat. “Ollie Watts?” he said, indicating the shooter with an inclination of his head. I nodded.
He left me alone for a time as he spoke with uniformed cops and detectives from the local precinct. I noticed that he was sweating heavily in his coat.
“You can come in my car,” he said when he eventually returned, eyeing the cop called Harley with ill-concealed distaste. He motioned some more detectives toward him and made some final comments in quiet, measured tones before waving me toward the Nova.
“Nice coat,” I said appreciatively as we walked to his car. “How many girls you got in your stable?”
Walter’s eyes glinted briefly. “Lee gave me this coat for my birthday. Why do you think I’m wearing it in this god-damned heat? You fire any shots?”
“A couple.”
“You do know that there are laws against discharging firearms in public places, don’t you?”
“I know that but I’m not sure about the guy dead on the ground back there. I’m not sure that the guy who shot him knows either. Maybe you could try a poster campaign.”
“Very funny. Now get in the car.”
I did as he said and we pulled away from the curb, the onlookers gaping curiously at us as we headed off through the crowded streets.
2
F IVE HOURS had elapsed since the death of Fat Ollie Watts, his girlfriend, Monica Mulrane, and the shooter, as yet unidentified. I had been interviewed by a pair of detectives from Homicide, neither of whom I knew. Walter Cole did not participate. I was brought coffee twice but otherwise I was left alone after the questionings. Once, when one of the detectives left the room to consult with someone, I caught a glimpse of a tall, thin man in a dark linen suit, the ends of his shirt collar sharp as razors, his red silk tie unwrinkled. He looked like a fed, a vain fed.
The wooden table in the interrogation room was pitted and worn, caffeine-stamped by the edges of hundreds, maybe thousands, of coffee cups. At the left-hand side of the table, near the corner, someone had carved a broken heart into the wood, probably with a nail. And I remembered that heart from another time, from the last time I sat in this room.
“Shit, Walter…”
“Walt, it ain’t a good idea for him to be here.”
Walter looked at the detectives ranged around the walls, slouched on chairs around the table.
“He’s not here,” he said. “As far as everyone in this room is concerned, you never saw him.”
The interrogation room was crowded with chairs and an additional table had been brought in. I was still on compassionate leave and, as it happened, two weeks away from quitting the force. My family had been dead for two weeks and the investigation had so far yielded nothing. With the agreement of Lieutenant Cafferty, soon to retire, Walter had called a meeting of detectives involved in the case and one or two others who were regarded as some of the best homicide detectives in the city. It was to be a combination of brainstorm and lecture, the lecture coming from Rachel Wolfe.
Wolfe had a reputation as a fine criminal psychologist, yet the Department steadfastly refused to consult her. It had its own deep thinker, Dr. Russell Windgate, but as Walter once put it: “Windgate couldn’t profile a fart.” He was a sanctimonious, patronizing bastard but he was also the commissioner’s brother, which made him a sanctimonious, patronizing, influential bastard.
Windgate was attending a conference of committed Freudians in Tulsa, and Walter had taken the opportunity to consult Wolfe. She sat at the head of the table, a stern but not unattractive woman in her early thirties, with long, dark red hair that rested on the shoulders of her dark blue business suit. Her legs were crossed and a blue pump hung from the end of her right foot.
“You all know why Bird wants to be here,” continued Walter. “You’d all want the same thing, if you were in his place.” I had bullied and cajoled him to let me sit in on the briefing. I had called in favors I didn’t even have the right to call in, and Walter had relented. I didn’t regret doing what I had done.
The others in the room remained unconvinced. I could see it in their faces, in the way they shifted their gaze from us, in the shrug of a shoulder and the unhappy twist of a mouth. I didn’t care. I wanted to hear what Wolfe had to say. Walter and I took seats and waited for her to begin.
Wolfe took a pair of glasses from the tabletop and put them on. Beside her left hand, the carved broken heart shone wood-bright. She glanced through some notes, pulled out two sheets from the sheaf, and began.
“Right, I don’t know how familiar you are with all this, so I’ll take it slowly.” She paused for a moment. “Detective Parker, you may find some of this difficult.” There was no apology in her voice; it was a simple statement of fact. I nodded and she continued. “What we’re dealing with here appears to be sexual homicide, sadistic sexual homicide.”
I traced the carved heart with the tip of my finger, the texture of the grain briefly returning me to the present. The door of the interrogation room opened, and through the gap, I saw the fed pass by. A clerk entered with a white I Love NY cup. The coffee smelled as if it had been brewing since that morning. When I put in the creamer it created only the slightest difference in the color of the liquid. I sipped it and grimaced.
“A sexual homicide generally involves some element of sexual activity as the basis for the sequence of events leading to death,” continued Wolfe, sipping at her coffee. “The stripping of the victims and the mutilation of the breasts and genitals indicate a sexual element to the crime, yet we have no evidence of penetration in either victim by either penis, fingers, or foreign objects. The child’s hymen was undamaged and there was no evidence of vaginal trauma in the adult victim.
“We also have evidence of a sadistic element to the homicides. The adult victim was tortured prior to death. Flensing took place, specifically on the front of the torso and the face. Combined with the sexual elements, you’re dealing with a sexual sadist who obtains gratification from excessive physical and, I would think, mental torture.
“I think he—and I’m assuming it’s a white male, for reasons I’ll go into later—wanted the mother to watch the torture and killing of her child before she herself was tortured and killed. A sexual sadist gets his kicks from the victim’s response to torture; in this case, he had two victims, a mother and child, to play off against each other. He’s translating sexual fantasies into violent acts, torture, and, eventually, death.”
Outside the door of the interrogation room I heard voices suddenly raised. One of them was Walter Cole’s. I didn’t recognize the other. The voices subsided again, but I knew that they were talking about me. I would find out what they wanted soon enough.
“Okay. The largest focus group for sexual sadists consists of white, female adults who are strangers to the killer, although they may also target males
and, as in this case, children. There is also sometimes a correspondence between the victim and someone in the offender’s own life.
“Victims are chosen through systematic stalking and surveillance. The killer had probably been watching the family for some time. He knew the husband’s habits, knew that if he went to the bar then he would be missing for long enough to allow him to complete what he wanted to do. In this case, I don’t think the killer managed that completion.
“The crime scene is unusual in this case. Firstly, the nature of the crime means that it requires somewhere solitary to give the offender time with his victim. In some cases, the offender’s residence may have been modified to accommodate his victim, or he may use a converted car or van for the killing. In this case, the killer chose not to do this. I think he may like the element of risk involved. I also think he wanted to make, for want of a better term, an ‘impression.’ ”
An impression, like wearing a bright tie to a funeral.
“The crime was carefully staged to impact in the most traumatic way on the husband when he returned home.”
Maybe Walter had been right. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to the briefing. Wolfe’s matter-of-factness reduced my wife and child to the level of another gruesome statistic in a violent city, but I hoped that she would say something that would resonate inside me and provide some clue to drive the investigation forward. Two weeks is a long time in a murder case. After two weeks with no progress, unless you get very, very lucky, the investigation starts to grind to a halt.
“This seems to indicate a killer of above-average intelligence, one who likes playing games and gambling,” said Wolfe. “The fact that he appeared to want the element of shock to play a part could lead us to conclude that there was a personal element to what he did, directed against the husband, but that’s just speculation, and the general pattern of this type of crime is impersonal.
“Generally, crime scenes can be classified as organized, disorganized, or some mix of the two. An organized killer plans the murder and targets the victim carefully, and the crime scene will reflect this element of control. The victims will meet certain criteria which the killer has set: age, hair color maybe, occupation, lifestyle. The use of restraints, as we have in this case, is typical. It reflects the elements of control and planning, since the killer will usually have to bring them to the scene.
“In cases of sexual sadism, the act of killing is generally eroticized. There’s a ritual involved; it’s usually slow, and every effort is made to ensure that the victim remains conscious and aware up to the point of death. In other words, the killer doesn’t want to end the lives of his victims prematurely.
“Now, in this case he didn’t succeed, because Jennifer Parker, the child, had a weak heart and it failed following the release of epinephrine into her system. Combined with her mother’s attempted escape and the damage caused to her face by striking it against the wall, which may have resulted in temporary loss of consciousness, I believe the killer felt he was losing control of the situation. The crime scene moved from organized to disorganized, and shortly after he commenced flensing, his anger and frustration got the better of him and he mutilated the bodies.”
I wanted to leave then. I had made a mistake. Nothing could come of this, nothing good.
“As I said earlier, mutilation of the genitals and breasts is a feature of this type of crime, but this case doesn’t conform to the general pattern in a number of crucial ways. I think the mutilation in this case was either a result of anger and loss of control, or it was an attempt to disguise something else, some other element of the ritual which had already commenced and from which the killer was trying to divert attention. In all likelihood, the partial flensing is the key. There’s a strong element of display—it’s incomplete, but it’s there.”
“Why are you so sure it’s a white male?” asked Joiner, a black Homicide detective with whom I’d worked once or twice.
“The most frequent perpetrators of sexual sadism are white males. Not women, not black males. White males.”
“You’re off the hook, Joiner,” someone said. There was a burst of laughter, an easing of the tension that had built up in the room. One or two of the others glanced at me but for the most part they acted as if I wasn’t there. They were professionals, concentrating on amassing any information that might lead to a greater understanding of the killer.
Wolfe let the laughter fade. “Research indicates that as many as forty-three percent of sexual murderers are married. Fifty percent have children. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re looking for some crazy loner. This guy may be the hero of his local PTA meetings, the coach of the Little League team.
“He could be engaged in a profession that brings him into contact with the public, so he’s probably socially adept and he may use that to target his victims. He may have engaged in antisocial behavior in the past, although not necessarily something serious enough to have gotten him a police record.
“Sexual sadists are often police buffs or weapons freaks. He may try to stay in touch with the progress of the investigation, so keep an eye on individuals who ring in with leads or who try to trade off information. He also owns a clean, well-maintained car: clean so it doesn’t attract attention, well maintained because he has to be sure he doesn’t get stranded at or near the crime scene. The car could have been modified to allow him to transport victims; the door and window handles in the rear will have been removed, the trunk may have been soundproofed. If you think you have a possible suspect, check the trunk for extra fuel, water, ropes, cuffs, ligatures.
“If you go for a search warrant, you’ll be looking for any items relating to sexual or violent behavior: pornographic magazines, videos, low-end true-crime stuff, vibrators, clamps, women’s clothing, particularly undergarments. Some of these may have belonged to victims or he may have taken other personal items from them. Look out also for diaries and manuscripts; they may contain details of victims, fantasies, even the crimes themselves. This guy may also have a collection of police equipment and almost certainly has a knowledge of police procedures.” Wolfe took a deep breath and sat back in her chair.
“Is he going to do it again?” asked Walter. There was silence in the room for a moment.
“Yes, but you’re making one assumption,” said Wolfe. Walter looked puzzled.
“You’re assuming this is the first. I take it a VICAP has been done?”
VICAP, operational since 1985, is the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Under VICAP, a report is completed on solved or unsolved homicides or attempted homicides, particularly those involving abductions or that are apparently random or motiveless or sexually oriented; on missing persons cases, when foul play is suspected; and on unidentified dead bodies, when the manner of death is known or suspected to be homicide. The report is then submitted to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI’s academy in Quantico, in an effort to determine if similar pattern characteristics exist elsewhere in the VICAP system.
“It was submitted.”
“Have you requested a profile?”
“Yes, but no profile as yet. Unofficially, the MO doesn’t match. The removal of the faces marks it out.”
“Yeah, what about the faces?” It was Joiner again.
“I’m still trying to find out more,” said Wolfe. “Some killers take souvenirs from their victims. There may be some kind of pseudo-religious or sacrificial element to this case. I’m sorry, I’m really not sure yet.”
“You think he could have done something like this before?” said Walter.
Wolfe nodded. “He may have. If he has killed before, then he may have hidden the bodies, and these killings could represent an alteration in a previous pattern of behavior. Maybe, after killing quietly and unobtrusively, he wanted to bring himself to a more public arena. He may have wanted to draw attention to his work. The unsatisfactory nature of these killings, from his point of view, may now cause him to revert to his old pa
ttern. Alternatively, he could recede into a period of dormancy; that’s another possibility.
“But if I was to gamble, I’d say that he’s been planning his next move carefully. He made mistakes this time and I don’t think he achieved the effect he was looking for. The next time, he won’t make any mistakes. The next time, unless you catch him first, he’s really going to make an impact.”
The door of the interrogation room opened and Walter entered with two other men.
“This is Special Agent Ross, FBI, and Detective Barth from Robbery,” said Walter. “Barth was working the Watts case. Agent Ross here deals with organized crime.”
Close up, Ross’s linen suit looked expensive and tailored. Barth, in his JCPenney jacket, looked like a slob by comparison. The two men stood against opposite walls and nodded. When Walter sat, Barth sat as well. Ross remained standing against the wall.
“Anything you’re not telling us here?” Walter asked.
“No,” I said. “You know as much as I do.”
“Agent Ross believes that Sonny Ferrera was behind the killing of Watts and his girlfriend and that you know more than you’re saying.” Ross picked at something on the sleeve of his shirt and dropped it to the floor with a look of distaste. I think it was meant to represent me.
“There was no reason for Sonny to kill Ollie Watts,” I replied. “We’re talking stolen cars and fake license plates here. Ollie wasn’t in a position to scam anything worthwhile from Sonny and he didn’t know enough about Sonny’s activities to take up ten minutes of a jury’s time.”
Ross stirred and moved forward to sit on the edge of the table. “Strange that you should turn up after all this time— what is it? six, seven months?—and suddenly we’re knee deep in corpses,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. He was forty, maybe forty-five, but he looked to be in good condition. His face was heavily lined with wrinkles that didn’t seem like they came from a life of laughter. I’d heard a little about him from Woolrich, after Woolrich left New York to become the feds’ assistant special agent in charge in the New Orleans field office.