Serial (13 page)

Quinn and Pearl stood among the Crime Scene Unit techs, medical examiner, and police photographer, looking down at the dead body of Candice Culligan. In the corner of his vision Quinn saw Pearl absently cross herself. She was given to spells of Catholicism.

Dr. Julius Nift, the ME, was still bending over the bed on which Candice lay. He was feeling and probing, his jaw set, his eyes intent. Repugnant though the little ME might be, Quinn had no doubts about Nift’s competence.

“Last night around midnight, give or take two hours,” Nift said, in answer to Quinn’s question about time of death. “That’s all I can give you right now. It looks as if he started in on her hours before she died.”

“Stringing it out,” Pearl said through clenched teeth.

“Exacting torture,” Nift said, “with periods of rage. The way she’s so tightly taped indicates that. And look at the careful and precise stripping away of the top layer of skin so it dangles in shreds. Almost as if he were decorating her.”

Quinn forced himself to look again at what was left of Candice Culligan.

“Observe how those small cut marks and cigarette burns were done with such deliberation,” Nift continued. “Now look at her pubic area, the way it was slashed. Those long, curved cuts. This was a crime of passion. Sometimes cold passion, but passion nonetheless.”

“What about the shoe used as a gag?” Quinn asked.

Nift shrugged. “You tell me.”

“The way it’s taped to her face, so the spiked heel looks like it’s coming out of her forehead, makes it look almost like a unicorn horn.”

“So why would he give up on the wadded panties used as a gag?” Nift asked.

“He’s not satisfied with just pain,” Pearl said. “He wants to humiliate his victims. He’s getting more violent, more dangerous, if that’s possible.”

“Why all the dried blood around her mouth?” Quinn asked Nift.

“Shoe toe mighta been jammed in there so hard it took some teeth out. I’ll know more when I get her on the table and we get intimately acquainted.”

Pearl felt her stomach turn. It was all she could do to hold herself in check and not physically attack Nift.

“The name on the mirror this time is Nathan Devliner,” Fedderman said, walking back into the spacious bedroom. He’d been in another part of the apartment, checking for bloody writing. “I guess we have to check the Socrates’s Cavern membership again.”

Quinn said. “We still have the chain with the letter
S
.”

“We were speculating about the shoe jammed in her mouth, and bent and taped over her face so it looks like she’s grown a horn,” Pearl said.

“Unicorn horn,” Fedderman said.

Pearl glanced at Quinn.

“Great minds in the same channel,” he said. But the stiletto heel
did
resemble a unicorn horn.

“Maybe a reference to a goat,” Fedderman said. “A unicorn is a kind of goat.”

“Sacrificial goats,” Pearl said. She looked at Quinn and Fedderman. “Who knows what goes on in the minds of these sickos?”

“Isn’t it sacrificial lambs?” Fedderman said.

“Lambs don’t have horns,” Pearl said.

“They do if they’re rams.”

“Then they’re not lambs.”

“Enough,” Quinn said.

“Maybe the killer just happened to find the shoe handy and figured it would make an effective gag,” Fedderman said.

“The shoe’s mate is in the closet,” Quinn said. “He must have taken time out while she was unconscious or too scared to scream, and gone to get it and bring it back over to the bed. He was looking for effect. Whether he was thinking of sacrificial lambs—or goats—is hard to say.”

“Or unicorns,” Pearl said. “They’re mythological, and maybe that’s what our killer wants to become. That’s what most serial killers want to become—myths.” She did a double take and gave Fedderman a keen, appraising look. “What’s with the new suit, Feds? I miss your baggy brown outfit. You keep wearing those Armani threads and people will stop thinking of you as a sartorial disaster. The rumor is that you abuse your suits before you wear them so you’ll look like a suspect after a rough night in the lockup. It makes the riffraff identify with you and open up in interrogations.”

“That’s only a myth,” Fedderman said.

Quinn looked more carefully at Fedderman. He, too, had noticed something different about the potbellied, lanky detective. Fedderman’s obviously expensive blue suit made him look as if his mismatched body was made of matching parts, which was a triumph of tailoring.

The suit
was
a pip. Quinn could think of only a few reasons why Fedderman might suddenly have become a virtual
GQ
model. He didn’t like any of them.

After the techs left, Quinn and his detectives went through the apartment methodically. They were sure the lab wouldn’t come up with a useful fingerprint or palm print, and there would be nothing distinctive about the gloves the killer wore. The Skinner was nothing if not careful.

Quinn made it a point to check Candice Culligan’s address book. It contained no Nathan Devliner.

There was no Nathan Devliner in any of the NYC directories.

“Give me a minute,” Pearl said, from where she was seated on the sofa working her laptop. “I’ll check the Socrates’s Cavern membership list Lido came up with.”

The others stood silently while she bent closely over her computer.

“Here it is!” she said after a few minutes. “Devliner was a member.”

She raised a finger, asking for more time.

They gave it to her. More than a few minutes this time.

“Okay,” she said finally, looking up from her computer. “Nathan Ernest Devliner was a Socrates’s Cavern gold-key member from January, 1970, to September, 1975, when he moved out of the area. He died in Kingdom City, Arizona, in April of 1986. A cerebral hemorrhage. He was seventy-four. I guess he retired and moved west.”

“He retired and then some,” Quinn said. “What he didn’t do is torture and kill Candice Culligan. What he
isn’t
is the Skinner.”

Leaving them with the same puzzle they’d set out to solve.

Jock Sanderson had done time for raping Judith Blaney. It had been hard time. A small man, with fine features and a lean, muscular frame, Jock had fallen victim to sexual abuse in prison. Half a dozen gang members had in fact made him their own, passing him around like depreciating property.

It had been a nightmare, and it had lasted until the team of Legal Aid lawyers, campaigning to overturn wrongful eye-witness rape convictions, used DNA evidence to prove that someone else had raped Judith Blaney.

Late last year, Jock Sanderson was pardoned.

The real evidence had been skimpy to begin with. Jock had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Judith Blaney had been the wrong woman. She’d wrongly identified him in a police lineup, and again in court. She more than anyone had caused him to live his nightmare. To live it over and over for more than five years.

So what was left of Jock had been freed to walk in a world that still thought him unworthy. He’d begun to drink, an old habit that soon became an addiction. Now he was a regular at AA meetings and had been dry for months.

The only job he’d been able to find was with Sweep ’Em Up Janitorial Service, sweeping and cleaning entertainment venues, from sporting events to Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, the days after evening performances. A weekly paycheck had enabled him to leave the halfway house and the constant pressure of church services and one-on-one attempts to convert him to Christianity. Jock dealt with that by doing what he figured most Christians did—pretend. Prison had taught him well how to do that.

He could sometimes even pretend and fool himself.

The way Jock figured it, he’d been done wrong. Somebody owed him. That somebody was Judith Blaney.

He hadn’t raped Judith. He’d been home in bed alone, suffering with a cold, on the evening of her rape. Of course he had no witnesses to corroborate his alibi. Usually you didn’t welcome company when you were flat on your back with a fever and congested chest.

Jock had never seen Judith before his arrest. But he dreamed about her a lot in prison. He’d seen her face almost every night in his dreams. Her nightmare lived within his nightmare.

Often, some of the things that had been done to him in prison, he did to Judith Blaney in his dreams. His muffled screams became hers. Also his humiliation. His pain. She would beg him with her eyes to stop. But he didn’t stop. Not in his dreams.

Sometimes, he thought, dreams meant something.

Jock had been following Judith for almost three months. He didn’t mind if now and then she noticed him. Let her wonder.

After the first month, she’d obtained a restraining order. He was forbidden by law to harass her, or even to approach within a hundred feet of her.

He knew what a hundred feet meant. He could measure the precise distance in his mind. So he continued to follow Judith. He would be far enough away that she couldn’t do anything about it. She would know he was there though. Not always, but she could never be sure when he was observing her. At times she’d forget and feel safe. Then she’d glance behind her and there on the crowded sidewalk, or perhaps across the street watching her pull away in the back of a taxi, there he would be, and any joy would drain from her features and an expression he interpreted as fearful would come over her. That would give him a cold satisfaction.

But most of the time she didn’t know he was tailing her. That also gave him satisfaction. He was becoming expert at watching her without her knowledge. Sometimes even moving close to her, inside the protective hundred-foot legal distance. Like a trespasser on a dare.

Like tonight. He’d been on the same crowded subway car, then only ten feet behind her on the teeming platform. He’d been nearby her on the escalator. He kept a more prudent distance behind her on the sidewalk on the way to her apartment. She would often glance behind her, especially if the night was dark and the sidewalks not crowded.

He was close enough tonight to hear the tapping of her high heels. If he stayed tight to the buildings, keeping an awareness of light and shadow, he could haunt her like a ghost whose presence she would barely sense.

Now and then he’d deliberately let her catch a glimpse of him, let her know she wasn’t alone in this fear-filled world that only the two of them inhabited and that she had helped to create.

Jock knew Judith now better than she could imagine. The way hunters knew the thing they hunted.

It was almost an hour after dusk. They were on a long block that was almost deserted. Only the two of them.
Tap, tap, tap
went her heels on the hard concrete. Echoing in the street and in his mind.

Can you feel my eyes on you?

Sense my thoughts?

I already served time for raping you. Maybe I have a free one coming. Maybe more than just rape. I paid. You should pay.

Her stride was brisk and rhythmic, hurried but not panicked. Not yet.

Tap, tap, tap …

Faster now. She was picking up her pace. Afraid of something. Did she know he was here? No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t be sure.

He was certain she hadn’t spotted him.

He dropped back, confused by her obvious uneasiness, and saw a figure detach itself from the shadows and fall in behind Judith. The figure was that of a man. Medium height. Medium build. That was all he could be sure of from this distance.

Jock slowed his pace and tailed the man who was following Judith. Unquestionably, the shadowy figure was acting furtively. What was going on? Was Judith getting plainclothes protection? Had she gotten the police interested in him again?

No, he was sure the police would have approached him or come to his door and warned him. Since the day Judith had pointed her finger at him in a lineup, he’d been close acquaintances with the police, with the prison system, with the thugs that kept the order. They were all alike.

Sometimes they wore uniforms, sometimes not. But he was positive the figure ahead wasn’t a policeman. The police didn’t work that way. Didn’t look that way. Didn’t
feel
that way.

Jock watched the man following Judith stand across the street from her as she entered her apartment building.

The man tilted back his head and stared up at the correct window and waited patiently until it became illuminated. Then he put his hands in his pockets and walked away. His gait was different now. More relaxed. The intensity had gone out of him.

Excitement rippled through Jock like a chill. Something strange was happening here. Someone else had entered their private, fearful world.

He wasn’t the only one stalking Judith.

It was a few minutes past eleven the next morning. Quinn was alone in the office, a quiet cocoon in the maelstrom of Manhattan. The sharp ring of the phone was startling. He squinted at caller ID. Nift from the morgue. Quinn reached for the receiver.

“I won’t keep you in suspense,” Nift said, when Quinn had picked up. “Official cause of Candice Culligan’s death was a heart attack.”

Quinn was slightly surprised. “Pain did that to her?”

“More likely the thought of more pain. Under the kind of torture she underwent, sometimes the body and mind simply can’t endure any longer. If Candy hadn’t had the coronary event, she would have soon bled to death from the knife wounds. The partial skinning process.”

Candy.
Not only was Nift on a first-name basis with the woman’s corpse, he was using a nickname. Quinn wondered sometimes about Nift’s relationships with his female subjects. Pearl had voiced suspicions about the obnoxious little ME, and Pearl had an annoying way of being right about people.

“What about the way her throat was cut open?” Quinn asked, trying to shake the creepy feeling that sometimes came over him when he was talking with Nift.

“A sharp, broad, and curved knife blade did that in two intersecting cuts, probably done slowly. The cutting wasn’t as deep or damaging as it appeared. The throat wound might have been the final one inflicted, and the killer thought it was the coup de grâce. But she was already near death when her throat was cut. I say
near
death because her heart was still pumping when the injury was inflicted. The wound bled enough to indicate that.”

“Was the same knife used to inflict all her wounds?”

“It looks that way. A handy little blade. And by the way, there was no damage from the necklace chain with the
S
charm. And apparently it was put on the victim before her death.”

“I don’t suppose there was anything of the perpetrator on her.”

“Not even a hair. And the only blood on her was her own. There was no flesh beneath her fingernails. No saliva or sperm anywhere. Just the marks of long and arduous torture, mostly of peeling off her top layer of skin and leaving it hang in shreds, until finally her heart gave out. I’ve been over every inch of her, Quinn, and I can tell you this little tootsie went the hard way.”

Little tootsie. Jesus, Nift!

“There were twelve carefully placed cuts on her body, used to initiate the peeling process, and twenty-seven stab wounds in and around her pubic area. The knife penetrated her vagina at least twice. Not far, but it did great damage.”

“Raped with a knife blade,” Quinn said. “Was she dead at the time?”

“No, those injuries were all antemortem.”

“He’s one sick bastard,” Quinn said. “What about the blood around her mouth. The shoe do that?”

“No,” Nift said, “her tongue was cut out.”

“God! I hope he didn’t do
that
to her while she was still alive.”

“She was dead, or there would have been even more blood. And maybe we’d have gotten lucky and she might have bitten him. That would have given us some DNA to work with. He’s one careful killer, Quinn.”

“And angry.”

“The tongue might have been removed by the same knife he used to skin her. Actually, it did a neat job, like it had a hook blade and was made expressly for removing tongues.”

“People eat calves’ tongues. Do slaughterhouses use a special kind of knife to remove them?”

“I don’t know. Your department. Go question some cows. If you don’t have any more questions, I’m going to terminate our conversation, Quinn. I got another hot date waiting. Well, cool date.”

“I’ll call you if I think of anything,” Quinn said.

“I was just about to suggest that,” Nift said, and broke the connection.

The street door opened with a draft of warm air, and Fedderman came in wearing his brand-new suit and a fresh white shirt. He walked like a model in need of a runway. “There’s no Nathan Devliner in the New York phone directories,” he said.

“No surprise there,” Quinn said.

“Also, I talked with all the residents in Candice Culligan’s building. Nada for my efforts.” He strutted over and poured himself a mug of coffee, careful not to drip anything on his sleeve. “What the animal did to her couldn’t have made much noise.”

Fedderman went to his desk and slouched in his chair, ruining the suit’s effect so that he was once again the familiar Fedderman. Quinn told him about Nift’s phone call.

“Cut her tongue out?” Fedderman’s face screwed up as if his own tongue ached in sympathy.

“’Fraid so,” Quinn said. “Nift said the Skinner did a neat job of it. Probably with the same knife that inflicted the other wounds. Happened after she was dead. Killer probably knew there’d be too much blood if he tried it while she was still alive. Besides that, she might have managed to bite him.”

“Killer’s smart,” Fedderman said. “He leaves us nothing to work with except what he chooses. Sends us the way he wants us to go.”

“Toward Socrates’s Cavern,” Quinn said. “The members’ names written in blood, the letter
S
on or near the victims, maybe even a victim resembling a sacrificial animal…it all points too clearly in that direction. By now the killer must know we’re not buying into it.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Fedderman said. “He might think we’re not very smart.”

“I can’t imagine what would give him that idea,” Quinn said, “except he’s getting away with murder.”

“Maybe he believes in ghosts. All the suspects he’s given us are dead.”

Fedderman stood up from his chair in seemingly disjointed sections, the way he always did; even the Armani suit couldn’t disguise that. He walked over to the rack and removed his suit coat, then draped it carefully on a hanger.

“Why the new threads?” Quinn asked, as Fedderman returned to his desk chair. He picked up some papers and idly scanned them, then dropped them back, as if he might not have heard Quinn.

“I thought it was time,” he said at last.

“I didn’t notice any patches on your old clothes,” Quinn said.

Fedderman sighed and met Quinn’s gaze directly. “You aren’t gonna let this go, are you? You or Pearl?”

Quinn smiled. “Sorry, Feds.”

“Okay. I’m interested in somebody, and she seems interested in me. I figured, in her honor, I oughta replace at least one of my old detective suits.”

“I would think you’d save the Master of the Universe outfit for when you weren’t working.”

“When am I not working?”

“You’ve got a point. In fact, you need another suit.”

Fedderman shrugged. “I got a couple of sport jackets that’ll get me by.”

“Do any of us know this woman who wields such sartorial influence?”

“I don’t think so.” Fedderman squirmed in his chair. “You know her name, though. Penny.”

“I don’t think—” Then Quinn remembered. “Penny Noon?”

“We’ve gone out a couple of times.” Fedderman made a backhanded, dismissive motion with his long fingers, as if the assignations meant nothing of importance.

Quinn knew better. “I dunno, Feds. A victim’s sister…”

“Are there rules and regulations?” Fedderman asked.

“No, no…” Quinn leaned back in his chair, almost toppling, and laced his fingers over his stomach. Fedderman was right. Penny Noon wasn’t all that close to what had happened to her sister Nora. Or didn’t seem to be. It wasn’t as if she was a suspect or an eyewitness. And this wasn’t the NYPD. He lifted his feet and let the chair tilt forward. “No problem, Feds. Live happily ever after.”

“Well, thank you very much, Your Honor.”

“Thanks for what?” Pearl asked.

Neither man had noticed her enter. She wandered over and got her morning mug of coffee. Third mug, actually. Her lush black hair was still mussed, almost the way it was when Quinn had left the brownstone this morning and she was tumbling out of bed.

As she moved toward her desk, she glanced in the direction of the coatrack, then at Fedderman. “You got an ascot goes with that thing?”

“I don’t need a mascot,” Fedderman said.

She plopped down in her desk chair, ostensibly uninterested in what he had to say. She got out the Swiss Army knife she kept in her drawer and used as a letter opener, and deftly sliced open an envelope she’d plucked from her post office box on the way to the job. Maybe she was going to forget about the portion of the discussion she’d overheard on entering the office.

“Thanks for what?” she asked again, absently.

Quinn said nothing. He and Fedderman knew Pearl was on the scent and would one way or another get an answer to her question.

“Penny Noon,” Fedderman said, in quick surrender.

“Penny Noon what?” Pearl asked, glancing at what looked like an ad that she’d slid from the envelope.

“Nora Noon’s sister,” Quinn said. “Feds is seeing her.”

“She’s been invisible?”

“No.
Seeing
her.”

“In a romantic way?”

“Yes.”

“Explains the amazing dream suit,” Pearl said. She crumpled envelope and ad and dropped them into her wastebasket. She looked deadpan at Fedderman. “Penny short for Penelope?”

“I don’t know,” Fedderman said.

“Must be serious.”

Quinn thought it was time to change the subject before Fedderman could come up with a retort. “Nift called about the postmortem,” he said to Pearl. He told her about the phone call and about Candice Culligan’s tongue being removed. Even tough Pearl blanched when she heard about the tongue. But she seemed to regain her equilibrium quickly.

“That’s sick, Quinn.”

“Don’t I know it? All in all, there’s not much we can use. The victim was methodically tortured and then stabbed twenty-seven times in and around the pubic area.”

“The things we do for love,” Pearl said.