Hangman: A Novel (3 page)

“A few words on Hangman,” he said, his voice dropping. “He’s a Buffalo native. I’m sure you all know that. This is his home territory, this is the place he’s most comfortable with, and if somehow he gets through the perimeter that we’re setting up, this is most likely where he’ll be headed.”

He took a breath.

“Now
nobody
wants that to happen. We’ve seen, most of us here, what he’s done to this city before. I’ll tell you something: Buffalo has never been the same since Hangman. A killer like that does something to people, permanently. We all still bear the scars.”

Abbie didn’t know many people in the Hangman’s target demographic—all his victims had been young teenage girls from the North of Buffalo—but she imagined many of the men and women in the room had daughters at home. They’d want to stop Hangman before he got near their schools and cul-de-sacs.

And she didn’t blame them one bit. Hangman was a scary one. Even from Miami, where she’d been when the murders went down, she’d felt a chill when reading the headlines from her hometown. Hangman was elusive, implacable, a hunter.

Trap the monster where he is, she thought. Upstate in the woods,
where the most he can kill is woodchucks. Everyone was thinking the same thing; she felt their strange, trigger-happy dread:
Keep this animal away from my city
.

Perelli stepped down and made a beeline for his office along the far wall.

Abbie tried to follow Perelli, but was blocked by a crush
of cops trailing John O’Neill toward the exit. Finally, she smiled and pressed her way forward until she’d reached the wall, then turned her shoulder and made her way to Perelli’s door.

Once in, she closed the door behind her and the drone of the office—all those male voices, excited, amped up—was snuffed out. Perelli looked up and shook his head. He’d tossed his jacket on a leather chair.

“You got here quick.”

Abbie nodded. “When they say Hangman, you come fast.”

Perelli closed his eyes briefly, and nodded. “Let me ask you something,” Perelli said. “How much do you know about Flynn?”

Abbie shrugged, sat in the chair facing his desk. “The basics. He was from the County, but lived downtown when the killings began. He was in his late thirties, good employment record, no arrests except for two drunk-and-disorderly the year before the murders began. Went to college in, was it Fredonia?”

“Oswego,” Perelli said, watching her.

“Right. He killed four girls …”

Perelli was about to speak, but Abbie cut him off.

“He killed three and kidnapped one. The last one was never found. All were from fourteen to sixteen years old, all brunettes, and all from the North. They died by strangulation, apparently hanged, judging by the width of the rope burn, et cetera.”

Perelli nodded.

“The last victim was Sandy Riesen, the killer’s cousin,” Abbie went on. “He was caught in a security video putting her in his car three blocks from her house. They put out a BOLO with the license plate of his car and it was spotted pulling into the parking lot of a hotel.”

“Motel,” Perelli said, nodding. “Called the Warsaw.”

“Right, the Warsaw Motel. When deputies arrived, they approached the room and found Hangman with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Hangman survived with some brain damage and was convicted on all four cases.”

“And Sandy?” Perelli said quietly.

“Was never found.”

A nod. “So I’m impressed. You know more than the basics. Well, I want you to know everything.”

Abbie narrowed her eyes. “This is a search operation, Chief, pure and simple. Why should we reopen the original case?”

“
Now
it’s a search operation.”

Abbie raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“What if it goes two, three days? Hangman goes to ground, we can’t find him. Then we’re going to have to use everything we have. I’m not saying it’s likely, I don’t think it is. But if he does get past the first forty-eight hours, then it’s something else, something where your talents might come into play.”

Abbie’s gaze was level, intense. “I have talents now?”

Perelli grunted, not quite laughing. “One or two.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re insurance,” he said. “You’ll be my lead on this, in case, by some fucking miracle that I don’t even want to imagine, Flynn escapes every law enforcement officer in Western New York and comes calling. You’re going to try to figure out where he might be headed, who he
wants to see. Look the case over, see if the detectives missed anything the first time around that tells us where he was hiding for those months back in ’07.”

Abbie watched him. “Where do you think he’d go?”

Perelli watched back. “
If
he gets through, we think he’ll be headed right here. Like I said. He has friends and family here, perhaps, who knows, he has unfinished business here as well.”

Abbie tilted her head down and eyebrows up. “Meaning what, Chief?”

Perelli shrugged and gave her an exaggerated frown. “Meaning unfinished business, Kearney.”

“That’s awful cryptic.”

Perelli grunted. “You’ve got a highly developed persecution complex, you know that?”

She laughed. “That’s why I’m still alive and gainfully employed.”

Perelli made a tossing motion with his left hand. “How the hell should I know where he’s headed? The guy’s been half a retard for the last five years. You know he took a bullet to the brain. Listen …”

The chief held his hands out in a calming motion. “It’s not going to come to that. We’re going to have more people on the ground than looked for the Lindbergh baby. Just do your thing and let me say I’m holding you in reserve.”

Abbie nodded. She didn’t want to mention what happened to Lindbergh’s baby. At least Perelli was being honest. She was political insurance on an explosive case.

“I have to cover every possibility,” he said. “Detective Raymond is looking at everyone Flynn knew who’s still in the area, anyone he might go to. I jotted his number inside the case file.”

Abbie knew about Raymond, a young black detective from Violent Crimes who’d just been transferred to Homicide. His reputation was solid. Non-political and non-County. The black skin had seen to that.

“Norwood and a couple of uniforms are passing by the Riesen mansion every fifteen minutes, in case Flynn wants to harass his uncle, Sandy’s father. And what if the killer wants to go out with a few more victims? Or visit the graves of one of the three girls? So …” Perelli
pushed a thick file toward her. “What can I do but put my best detective on the case?”

There was an electric charge in the dark eyes beneath the bristling eyebrows. Perelli and Abbie had never really worked past what had happened the year before: the Clan na Gael murders and his insistence, right here at HQ, that she’d been responsible for them. He’d apologized formally in the ceremony awarding her a commendation—and her father’s detective badge, which she now wore. But he’d never come to her in the hallways of HQ and spoken the words she felt she’d deserved. Personal words, cop to cop.

Abbie held his gaze. No, she didn’t quite trust him. “I never said I was your best detective.”

“You didn’t need to. Everyone else did.”

“You’d rather I be terrible at my job?”

“Absolutely not.” He patted a thick file marked “Flynn, Marcus” in candy-colored letters arranged on the edge. “That’s why I put you on this. If you’re ever going to hit a home run, I want you to do it on this one.”

Abbie thought this over. Finding no hidden traps in the offer, she reached for the file. “May I?” she asked.

Perelli gave a small smile, then lifted his hand, spreading the fingers as if to say,
Be my guest
.

Abbie flicked open the file. On top was a photo, a video grab from a security camera. Hangman leading his last victim, Sandy Riesen, to his dented black BMW. She recognized the shot; it had been everywhere five years ago. A grainy, smeared image of a tall, striking, seemingly unconcerned girl following the tall, slit-eyed killer to her death.

Just looking at Hangman’s eyes, Abbie felt an icy wave go through her.

“There’s someone you should talk to,” Perelli said. He picked up his phone and dialed a two-digit number.

“Who’s that?”

“Raymond. Since Z is still off duty …”

Abbie nodded. Z was at home, on disability. He was putting on weight and happy as ever.

“… he’s going to be with you on this.”

The door opened behind her and she smelled a citrus cologne. She looked over and saw a slim detective in a checked sports coat, tan slacks, and chestnut-colored shoes standing next to her. Billy Raymond smiled.

“Detective,” he said.

Abbie nodded.

“Abbie’s going to go look at the escape scene,” Perelli said, “see what we got.”

Raymond frowned thoughtfully.

“She’s the lead,” Perelli said.

Raymond looked over at her. His eyes were cool, evaluating. “Fine with me.”

“What about Auburn?” Abbie said, paging quickly through the file. “I may need to talk to people there to get a sense of what Hangman was acting like just before the escape.”

Perelli spread his hands wide. “Be my guest. So long as you stay away from the roadblocks and don’t get involved on the pursuit side, that’s fine. But we don’t have jurisdiction up there. You’ll have to get what you can get on your good looks.”

Abbie closed the file. “The thing is, Chief, I can’t tell if you’re giving me a real assignment or just cleverly getting me out of the way.”

Perelli frowned, glanced at Raymond with a
see-what-I-mean?
look.

“Hangman’ll be in custody by tomorrow morning,” Raymond said.

Abbie turned slowly to look at him. “Is that right?”

“He’ll break into someone’s house, maybe carjack an old lady,” Raymond said. “But we’ll get him. He’s got no one to run to.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this,” Abbie said. “Maybe I’ll go home and harvest my fall vegetables.”

“Yeah, I got this.”

Abbie leaned forward toward Perelli. “Are you telling me everything?”

Perelli glared, then slowly leaned forward. “Excuse me, Detective Kearney? Say that again.”

“Is … this … everything?”

Raymond coughed. He seemed to want to be out of the room.

Something strange in Perelli’s eyes. Something she hadn’t seen before. He seemed actually distressed. His voice, when he started to speak, was aggrieved and just a tone lower.

“I’m going to give you a pass on that last comment, because you weren’t here when Hangman was active.” He pointed to his chest, stabbing the tie with a thick index finger. “
I was
. I was a lieutenant in the 5th District. I interviewed the mother of Sabrina Kent, the second victim.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I had to tell her that we found her daughter’s body on Oakland Place between Delaware and Elmwood,
three days
after she went missing. You know what she was thinking?”

“Who killed her,” Raymond said.

“No,” Abbie said. “Not that. She wanted to know how long she was alive. Or what Hangman was doing with her daughter’s body.”

Perelli looked down at his desk. “Both. Was he talking to Sabrina? Did he have her propped up on the seat next to him as he drove around the city? Did he use—” He broke off. His face was past anger and Abbie saw what he would look like as an old man.

“So please, Detective Kearney, don’t tell me that I’m not doing my utmost here.”

Abbie watched him. Perelli was a good actor, she knew that. But she knew just as well that this wasn’t acting. She hadn’t been here. It was true. Never say you know what it’s like when you don’t.

“Okay,” she said. She didn’t offer an apology. How hard she worked would be her apology.

Perelli picked up the phone. “I feel better already.”

Abbie stood and brushed by Raymond. He stepped out of her way, then followed her out. “You headed to Auburn?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I’ll let you know when we pull Hangman in.”

Abbie stopped, her eyes wide. “You’re very sure of yourself, Raymond.”

“Best solve rate in the department,” he said. “Three years running.”

“Not to be picky, but those weren’t homicides.”

He didn’t smile at that one. “You know, most of the guys’d be falling over themselves to work with you. I figure maybe you have something to learn from
me
.”

Abbie laughed. At least he was honest. “You know what one of my professors told me in college, Raymond?”

“What’d he say?”

Abbie stopped. “I was a lot like you back then. And what
she
said, my professor …?”

Raymond grinned.

“… was this: ‘Abbie, be bold. Be very bold. But not
too
bold.’ ”

Raymond nodded.

“It’s an old French saying,” she said. “I found it to be helpful.”

Raymond’s eyes gleamed. He seemed to lean toward her on the balls of his feet. “Shit, Kearney,” he said softly, “ain’t no such thing as too bold.”

The file was as thick as a phone book for a midsize city
and Abbie stuffed it into a large liver-colored envelope. She grabbed a Lime Diet Coke from the vending machine on the first floor and walked outside. The wind was swatting newspapers and trash around and there was a line of law enforcement types—in and out of uniform—lined up to the right. The seriousness of any case can be judged by how smartly cops line up for it. The line out back could have been cut with a ruler; it was an informal car pool being directed by a BPD uniformed officer.

The others glanced at her, holding the file, as they all shuffled forward. Everyone else was holding flashlights and backpacks or, in the case of two officers, Remington Versa Max shotguns, the tactical models with the eight-round magazine.

Getting in line, she held the envelope in the crook of her elbow. Her favorite reading. She pulled out the file, opened it, holding down the first page so the wind didn’t take it, feeling the jangle of excitement that always came over her when starting a new case.