Slaughter (2 page)

“T
hey won't come near me,” Lois Graham said in a puzzled voice. “Not even when I try to feed them popcorn.”

She demonstrated by dipping her fingers into a small white bag and tossing backhand several still-warm kernels of popcorn.

“See,” she said, as the half dozen or so pigeons gathered around the bench drew back and away from the popcorn and Lois, as if a silent signal had been received. “It's almost as if they know something I don't.”

“Maybe they know more than most of us, only in different ways. Too bad they can't talk, like parrots.”

“I'm not so sure we can't trust parrots. They have a way of looking at me, as if they know something I should but don't.”

Corey smiled. He was a small man, wearing carefully faded jeans and a green polo shirt with the collar turned up in back. He had on a Mets cap, tilted so it made him look a little jaunty. “Haven't you ever noticed pigeons get that way just before sundown?”

“No. But I'll take your word for it. What do you think? Some protective instinct?”

“Sure.” The pigeons around them fluttered but went nowhere, as if on cue. “They know it's almost bedtime.”

Actually Corey had no idea how pigeons thought. Especially New York pigeons. You didn't notice them for a while, then some days they seemed to be everywhere. Dumb birds, skittering around and almost getting stepped on or run over, but never quite. He knew they were prey to the peregrine falcons that roosted on some of the tall buildings along Central Park West, almost directly across from where he and Lois were. Beautiful, deadly creatures. Corey thought it would be great if one of the large falcons swooped in and made off with one of the pigeons. Apropos, though Lois didn't yet know that.

“What's in the bag?” she asked, pointing to the large canvas bag at his feet. It was dark blue with black straps and handles and doubled as a backpack.

“Sweaty clothes and exercise equipment,” he lied. “I was working out at the gym before I came here.”

“The one on Amsterdam?”

“Seventy-second Street,” Corey said, figuring there must be a gym somewhere on Seventy-second. Not that it mattered, unless Lois happened to go to a gym in that neighborhood. Corey hadn't been to a gym in years. There were so many much more interesting things to do without breaking a sweat.

He prodded the bag with the toe of his shoe and glanced around. Shadows were longer and more defined. It would be dark soon.

“Why don't you come with me?” he said, picking up the bag, then slinging it over one shoulder by one padded strap.

“Where?”

“Out of the park. It's a dangerous place after dark. Full of predators.”

She smiled. “I'm not afraid when I'm with you.”

He returned the smile with his own. Ever wonder why that is? He wished sometimes for a victim whose intellect he could respect.

She stood up from the bench, brushed popcorn from her blouse and jeans, and turned to go. The pigeons that had ventured nearer fluttered, cooed, and closed in on the discarded popcorn. It must seem tastier to them now that Lois was leaving.

“This way,” Corey said, motioning toward a stand of trees and thick foliage.

“This is the way out,” Lois said, starting in another direction.

“I know a better way,” Corey said, and folded her hand gently in his.

He thought about the jogger, wondering if she was back on the crowded streets by now, or even home, if she lived nearby. A woman like that would explore every nuance of her pain. It was part of the instinct to attempt escape, or to find some hoped-for measure of mercy in her predator.

He felt Lois squeeze his hand three times, like some kind of secret signal.

He signaled back. There would be plenty of time later for the jogger, if that was what he decided. It would be up to him.

A soft breeze kicked up, breaking the heat and swaying the upper limbs of the trees they were walking toward. Lois shifted her weight and walked alongside him, and he was glad he didn't have to tell her yet that for her there was no way out of the park.

Not that it mattered.

She'd soon find out she was going somewhere much more interesting.

I
t was dawn when Patti LuPone's vibrant voice began imploring Argentina not to cry for her. Frank Quinn lay on his stomach, still half asleep, musing that he could never hear enough of the score from
Evita.
Usually he was awake and out of bed before the CD player's timer turned the bedroom of the brownstone on West Seventy-fifth into Argentina. This morning he clung to sleep, as if for some reason he knew he shouldn't get out of bed. If only he had a note from his mother for his teacher, he thought with a smile. He realized he'd been dreaming about algebra, and his math teacher in school in Brooklyn. He could hear her voice telling him that once he conquered algebra he would have no trouble with geometry. You can always find an angle, Francis.

And that's what he was doing in life, only looking for other people's angles.

“Turn shong off,” a voice muttered beside him.

Pearl, lying close with one arm slung over him, her face half buried in her wadded pillow.

“Shong off!”

Quinn worked his way out from beneath her arm, propped himself up on one elbow, and sat on the edge of the bed. With thick fingers he fumbled the digital controls on the combination CD player, clock radio, alarm, phone. Finally he touched the right button and the bedroom was silent except for the background noise of the city outside the brownstone.

“Thanksh,” Pearl said into her pillow.

Wearing only Jockey shorts, Quinn stood up, a tall, muscular man in the autumn of life but still strong. His shoulders were sloping and powerful, his hands large and dangling like grappling hooks at the ends of his long arms.

The CD player, clock, radio, alarm, phone beeped.

A phone call.

“Damn!” Pearl said, quite clearly.

Quinn saw on the glowing ID panel that the caller was Police Commissioner Harley Renz.

Quinn didn't like talking with Renz anytime, much less when he was still half asleep.

He picked up the receiver, with trepidation.

“Quinn?”

“It's me,” Quinn admitted.

“You still in the sack?”

“Sack. Yes.”

“Had breakfast yet?

“No.”

“Don't. I got something for you.”

Quinn's interest quickened. He and his investigating agency, Quinn & Associates (Q&A), sometimes took on cases on a work-for-hire basis for the NYPD. Renz was a purely political animal, stepping on necks and trading in corruption on his way up the bureaucratic path to the top. If a case had political ramifications and was deemed by Renz to be too hot to handle, he passed it down to Quinn and his detectives. Quinn had worked his way, and Renz had bought and extorted his way, to the higher echelons of the NYPD, before Quinn had gone into business for himself.

“You don't want to get your fingers dirty?” he asked Renz.

Renz laughed. “You're my go-to guy when a case looks like shit that might rub off. I admit it. Our business, you gotta expect some shit.”

“I like to limit it.”

“And I like to roll in it,” Renz said. “I don't mind admitting I'm ambitious. We both know the score. We got things to trade. You take the risk and the media flack, and the money. I come away clean, move up a notch or two, and there's more money for me down the line.”

Quinn didn't know how Renz figured that, and didn't want to ask. “What is it that you have,” he said, “that you're so afraid will bite you in the ass?”

“Someone is dead,” Renz said. “A young woman whose purse contents identify her as Lois Graham. Got an address in SoHo.”

“Is that where the body is?” Quinn asked. He heard and felt Pearl stir next to him.

“Nope. Central Park. Near the Eighty-first Street entrance, not far off Central Park West.”

“Sexual assault?”

“Maybe.”

“That why she was killed?” Women were murdered occasionally in Central Park. So why was Renz calling Quinn about this one?

“The why isn't what bothers me. It's the how.”

“So what's the how?”

“You'd have to see it.”

Quinn knew Renz was right. Despite the aggravating word games, Quinn would be curious enough to get up and drive to Central Park, even at this early hour.

“I'll be there soon as I can,” Quinn said.

“Bring Pearl.”

Quinn glanced toward the other side of the king-size bed and saw that Pearl was gone. Pipes rattled and squealed and he heard the shower run. Pearl could shower and dress faster than any woman Quinn had known.

“Try to stop her,” he said.

A
fter parking the Lincoln illegally near a loading dock on a side street, Quinn propped his NYPD plaque in the windshield, and he and Pearl jogged across Central Park West toward the park.

It wasn't difficult to find the crime scene. White canvas panels were propped on two sides of where Quinn and Pearl assumed the body to lie. Yellow crime scene tape kept gawkers at a distance on the other two sides. A uniform appeared and moved to stop them. Then the young cop recognized Quinn and backed away, pointing needlessly toward the canvas and the knot of uniforms as well as plainclothes cops in suits and ties. Most of the detectives had taken off their suit coats, and their shirts were glued to them so the color of their flesh showed through the damp material.

Quinn and Pearl moved through dappled morning sunlight toward the crime scene. Today showed every indication of becoming another scorcher. Quinn, as usual, wore a coat and tie as if already on the hunt. Pearl, vividly attractive as ever with her dark hair and eyes and generous figure, had on casual navy slacks and a white tunic. A breeze rattled the leaves on the branches above as they moved toward the body, careful to avoid where the CSU techs told them not to step. Renz noticed them and gave a half wave. He was wearing a light tan suit instead of his commissioner's uniform. His increasingly rotund form put to waste the expensive material and expert tailoring.

Doctor Julius Nift, the little necrophiliac (it was rumored) ME, was kneeling by the nude dead woman and looked up and smiled at them. Especially at Pearl, who hated him with a passion.

Renz also smiled, his flesh-padded cheeks almost hiding his eyes, the fat pink of his bull neck spilling over his white shirt collar.

“Meet Lois Graham,” Nift said. “Beautiful in death.” He rose to his full height, which wasn't much, and expanded his chest. He saw himself as Napoleonic. Quinn thought of him as a banty rooster with a sour disposition.

Lois Graham's clothes were stacked neatly folded off to the side. It took a second look to realize they appeared to have been cut away from her body rather than removed in ordinary fashion. Her pale, still form lay on its back so she seemed to be staring up at the sky with frozen wonder.

“She has some rack on her,” Nift commented, doubtless trying to get a rise out of Pearl, who ignored him.

But that wasn't what sickened and angered Quinn. Lois Graham had been eviscerated, her intestines coiled next to her body. And there was something about how she lay. A strange awkwardness. Quinn and Pearl moved closer.

And suddenly understood. The corpse's limbs had been neatly sawed through at the joints. Her wrists were a quarter of an inch short of her hands. Her arms had been severed at the elbows and shoulders. Same kind of sawing with her legs, at the ankles, knees, and hips. Quinn had assumed her throat had been cut. He saw now that her head had been sawn off and replaced slightly crookedly on the stump of her neck. There was, oddly enough, not a lot of blood.

“The injuries are postmortem,” Nift said. “If her heart hadn't stopped first there'd be blood all over the place. But as you can see, there isn't.”

“Thank God for that,” Pearl said.

“Did the killer have medical knowledge?” Quinn asked.

Nift shook his head. “Some. He isn't a surgeon, but he has a basic knowledge of the human body.”

“Med-school dropout?” Pearl asked.

“Doubtful. A med-school student would have done this a bit differently, and with different instruments.”

“Still . . .” Quinn said

Nift shook his head. “Not part of the curriculum. Though my guess is that he's done this kind of thing before.”

They all glanced at Lois Graham. Her corpse reminded Quinn of a marionette that had been carefully laid out because its strings had been removed. Unlike some of the recently dead they had seen, she didn't look as if she might surprise them by getting up and walking away. Something about the detached but related parts. Then there was the compactly coiled length of intestine. Quinn regarded the incision from her sternum to pubis.

“What do you think made the cuts?” he asked.

Nift shot a look at Renz, who had already asked him some of these questions. Renz said nothing. Nift sighed and knew he'd better answer again. He winked at Pearl, who stood stone-faced.

“Not a surgical tool that I could identify,” Nift said. “Some kind of sharp, agile saw with a narrow blade. It cut cleanly through bone and gristle, along with flesh.”

“Electrical?”

“You mean battery powered?” Nift smoothed his tie. “I doubt it. Not because a portable saw wouldn't do this. It looks to me that the instrument was sharp enough that an electrical or fuel-powered saw wouldn't have been needed. And I'm sure the cutting was done right here. She wasn't sectioned off like this and then moved here and so neatly reassembled.”

“But it's possible?” Pearl said.

“Possible,” Nift conceded. “More like the work of a jigsaw in the hands of a reasonably strong man.”

“Or woman?” Pearl asked.

Nift shrugged. “I doubt it, but I wouldn't rule it out.”

“This was . . . sex to him,” Pearl said.

“Understandable,” Nift said.

Pearl looked at him as if he were the most loathsome thing on the planet.

“Control's what it's all about,” he explained. “That's why victims die such slow deaths.”

Pearl said, “It's almost as if she was a doll and he took her apart to see how she worked.”

Quinn thought it was exactly like that. “Jigsaw,” he said. “Do you really suppose that's how he killed them?”

“That's how I'd do it.” Nift winked at Pearl. “If I wanted these same results. Of course, I'm a professional. I'd do a cleaner, neater job.” He waved a hand to take in the death scene. “This guy was a butcher, but not one without promise.”

“As a surgeon,” Pearl said.

Nift smiled at her. “No, as a serial killer.”

Renz looked at his watch. “I've got important meetings this morning.”

And we don't. Pearl considered Renz and Nift. Control.

“I'll drop by and sign the work-for-hire contract, and pick up some NYPD shields,” Quinn said. “Then we'll go look over the victim's apartment.”

“Crime scene techs have already been there. No sign of the killer having visited. Nothing unusual. Place neat enough, if you don't count a D-cup bra draped over a chair in the bedroom.”

“I'm gonna give you Helen for this one,” Renz said. Helen Iman was an NYPD profiler, a six-foot-plus amazon in her forties who looked like a women's basketball coach. She was the only profiler Quinn had much faith in. She talked some of the familiar and obvious profiler-standard yammer, but there was no arguing with her results.

“Does Helen know that?” Quinn asked.

“She does,” Renz said. “She'll be by for you to brief her later this morning. Remember, she reports to you and works for me.” Renz smiled. “She has a tightrope to walk. Not so unlike yourself.”

“Who discovered the body?” Quinn asked.

“Early morning jogger. Health nut like the victim. Name of Rose Darling.” Renz glanced again at his gold watch. “I'll fax you what we got when it comes in. Keep the info tight, though. The sooner the media find out, and the more they know, the harder it will be to find this psycho and put him down.”

“There's only so much we can do with media,” Quinn said. “We can't keep this a secret, unless we pay off Rose Darling and send her away on vacation someplace nobody ever heard of.”

“It's the mob that does that kind of thing,” Renz said.

Pearl concealed a thin smile. Control.

“Let Rose Darling talk,” Renz said. “I run an open shop and play square with the citizens. We just won't mention anything in detail about the manner of death, especially about the dismemberment. And we've got a couple of days before we have to officially ID the body.”

“A few facts and an inconclusive story will drive the media wolves crazy. They'll have their fangs out and will be pressing for answers.”

“Not to worry,” Renz said. “I've got a guy who can handle them.”

“Who would that be?” Quinn asked.

“You.”