Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (38 page)

Russo faced the glass and rested his hands on the ledge, then took a long, deep breath.

“Russo, I’m telling you. This guy isn’t Hades.”

“You mean you
think
he isn’t Hades.” He kept his gaze fixed on Dmitri. “Step back and ask yourself if your ego’s guiding your actions here.”

“My ego? How can you s—”

“Yeah, your ego. You can’t admit you’re wrong.”

Vail glanced at Proschetta: disbelief. Eyes squinting, she said to the back of Russo’s head, “That’s not what this is about. It’s not about me at all.”

Russo sucked in his breath. “Dmitri Harris is the killer. We’ve got his trophy stash. And I’ll bet his prints are all over it. Everything adds up. Plain and simple.”

“Everything except—

“None a those psychiatric mumbo jumbo theories count for shit. Real world, that’s what counts. I’ve been doin’ this almost forty-two years, I know when I’m lookin’ a killer in the eyes.”

Vail craned her neck back and stared at the ceiling.

“The commissioner and mayor are going before the cameras in a matter of minutes,” Russo said. “They’re gonna announce that we’ve caught the killer who’s terrorized the city for over three decades.”

“I was you,” Vail said, “I’d get down there. Better if they cancel it than look incompetent after the fact. The New York media are vultures, you know that. They’ll tear them apart like sharks, then spit them out.”

Russo stood there, unmoving.

Vail bit her lip. “Do you remember when we were at the Crinelli crime scene back in ’96? You told me I had good instincts, and the day would come when I’d know more than you, and you’d be proud of me. Like a father and his daughter.” She stopped to gauge his reaction. In the glass reflection, she thought she could see a glaze over his eyes. “I’m not saying that time’s come, Russo. What I am saying is that I’m coming at this from a totally different angle. Maybe the time’s right to trust my instincts. I’ve put it all together and I’m telling you Dmitri is not our offender.”

A minute passed. Russo did not move.

“You want me to go down there,” Proschetta said, “be the messenger? I’m retiring, man. They can’t screw me over. I’ll take the blame.”

“We’re good, Protch.” Russo continued staring at Dmitri. “Karen, always a pleasure to see you.”

Vail felt her face flushing. “But—”

“But nothing,” Russo said. “We don’t need your help anymore. I don’t need your help anymore.”

She turned to Proschetta, whose brow was raised in surprise. He took her gently by the shoulder and led her outside.

Down the narrow hall, in a secluded area of the precinct near the rest-room, Proschetta said, “Give him some time.”

“You and I both know that once the press conference starts, it’s going to be a whole lot more difficult to backtrack on this.”

Proschetta folded his arms across his chest. “That’s not your problem now, is it?”

“He’s not the killer, Protch.”

“Let me play devil’s advocate. Can you be a hundred percent sure he’s not Hades? Aren’t psychopaths expert manipulators?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Is it possible Dmitri Harris did an A-1 sales job on you? Put on a masterful act and did a really solid sell?”

Vail thought about that.
Of course it’s possible. Did I see what I wanted to see? Did I see what I saw because Rudnick told me that’s what I’d be seeing? Was I objective?

“Maybe he’s studied ASD, knows the key behaviors. Shit, if an actor can do it in a movie, why not in a police station, under interrogation? Act a little off at work around his colleagues, so if he ever falls under suspicion, he’s got this ASD thing to fall back on. Psychopaths can be coldhearted sons of bitches. Ice water in their blood. Right?”

Vail frowned, shifted her feet.
Is that what happened in there?

“And maybe, just maybe, there’s a case or two somewhere in the world that you and your friend don’t know about, where someone with ASD did something he’s not supposed to be able to do.”

There’s one potential case: the Newtown shooter. But is that enough?

“There’s nothing more for you to do here, Karen. Go back to your hotel room. The party’s in a couple of days. Enjoy New York. Go see a show or two with your boyfriend. Because I’m willing to bet it’s been a really long time since you’ve done that without the stress of a case weighing on your mind.”

She forced a half smile. “That’s for sure.”

He gave her a hug and she headed out of the building, unsure if she was making the right decision. One thing was certain, however: there was no way she was going to stay in New York.

57

“You sure you want to do this?” Robby asked as they stood in line at Kennedy’s American Airlines ticket counter. “We came for the party. For your friends. Not for you to close the Hades case.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t happen, did it?”

Robby took her by the shoulders. “All I’m saying is that you should be there to celebrate with your friends. You’re not thinking clearly.”

Thinking clearly? I’ve been pissed and enraged. Confused. Disappointed. Depressed. Who can think clearly?

“Next in line,” the service representative said.

Vail turned and headed toward the man, pulling her suitcase behind her.

AFTER STRUGGLING WITH the decision to change their tickets and board the flight home, Vail could not leave New York without closure, one way or another. And she did not like the way she left things with Russo. It ate at her like bile burning her throat, and she did not care for the feeling.

Vail rose from her seat and argued with the flight attendant about opening the door that she had just sealed.

“I’m going to call the captain,” the steward said.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Vail said as she held up her BlackBerry. “Why don’t you call Douglas Knox? He’s listed on my speed dial under ‘FBI director.’”

The two flight attendants looked at each other, then the one closest to the inflight phone lifted the handset. “Captain, sorry to bother you. But we’ve got a situation out here … not exactly. An FBI agent.”

The pilot emerged from the cockpit seconds later and called company dispatch, which spoke to the air marshal, who in turn called his boss, and—fifteen minutes later, they agreed to open the hatch and let Robby and Vail off with their carry-on luggage.

VAIL WAS QUIET during the cab ride into the city as she tried to clear her mind and focus on the bare components of the case. In a way, having nearly twenty years of history with it was a curse. It made stepping back and looking at it with impartiality and without preconceptions—as she would with new serials that cross her desk—extremely difficult.

She wondered if she needed to hand it off to someone else in the unit, like Art Rooney or even, God forbid, Frank Del Monaco. That would require the NYPD to request that the BAU officially take the case, and she doubted Russo was in the mood to authorize that.

Moreover, she was in Manhattan and they had a suspect in custody. There was no time to take a step back and reassess, even if Russo went along. That may yet need to be done, but for now, she was it.

One of her attempts at taking a fresh look led her to wonder whether Dmitri’s mother’s friend, Fedor, had been looked at as a suspect. She thought about asking Russo, but instead called Proschetta; he would know if Jenkins and the homicide detective had done a backgrounder on Fedor when Dmitri’s sister was killed—and what they found, if anything.

The call went straight to voice mail, so she left a message asking him if Fedor had ever been investigated, or even questioned. She was certain it had been done, but she wanted to be thorough.

“If you think this guy is a viable suspect,” Robby said, “you should call Russo.”

“Yeah, I know. But I don’t want to.”

“You can’t just show up. You should call him, tell him you’re still in town.”

“I never told him I was leaving.”

“He’s known you a really long time, Karen. I’m sure he knew you were pissed and hurt, and that you intended to be on the next flight out.”

Am I that transparent?

“You’re right.” She phoned Russo and immediately regretted it. He was not pleased to hear from her—or so she thought—and although he attempted to put her off, she told him she was trying to step back and take a fresh look at the case.

While he did not argue with her, he was unyielding in his position. “It’s the NYPD’s responsibility. Go home.”

Vail felt Robby’s stare on her face. She turned away, facing the side window.

“I—I want to help.”

She heard muffled sounds—someone asking Russo a question, and then him giving orders to someone—a driver?

“Karen, I don’t have time for this. I’m on the way to a scene. I’ll get back to y—”

“Hang on a minute. Another vic? One of ours?”

There was a long silence.

“Russo, is there another vic?”

“Yes.”

58

Vail and Robby walked into the Battery Park City high-rise apartment twenty-five minutes later. The unpleasant smell meant the victim had been killed awhile ago—and exactly when could be significant.

Ryan Chandler, who had arrived just prior to them, appeared surprised but pleased to see Vail. Russo, on the other hand, made no attempt to hide his mixed feelings.

Vail was unsure what to make of the look he gave her, but ultimately it did not matter. If the ritual behaviors on this new victim were consistent with the other Hades victims, Russo would have to admit, to himself if to no one else, that he had been wrong in his assessment of Dmitri Harris … unless the time of death turned out to predate his arrest.

Unless, of course, he
was
right and she was wrong.

As Vail started her analysis of the crime scene, Robby introduced himself to Russo. Russo seemed to give him a more favorable reception than he would likely give her at the moment. She pushed it aside and focused on what was more immediately important.

As she turned away, Vail saw her former partner, Leslie Johnson, across the room. Johnson had apparently made detective at some point in the intervening years and had drawn this case. Vail had not seen her since Vail bolted for gangs after her two-year probationary period ended back in ’97.

After surveying the apartment and the personal effects of the victim—a thirty-four-year-old Greek woman named Katherine Stavros—Vail crossed paths with Johnson and they made small talk about what they had been doing the past seventeen years. They were having too much of a good time poking fun at themselves and their rookie days, so Vail pulled them back to reality. There was nothing amusing behind the reason for their reunion.

Vail excused herself and sought out Finkelstein, who had closed up shop and was ready to turn the body over to Johnson. “Any new surprises, Max?”

“Same old same old. You’ve seen it before.”

“Eight times, to be exact.” She looked at the body, at the disfigured eyes and the shard of glass protruding from the neck. How about the X logo?”

“No changes. Except the lowercase letter is—”

“A k.”

He looked at Vail over his reading glasses. “Like I said, you’ve seen it before.”

“When was Katherine killed?”

Finkelstein made a note on his clipboard, then clicked his pen shut. “I did a liver stick. Looks like twenty to twenty-four hours ago. Bottom line, the guy you got in custody’s good for this.”

“You sure?” Russo asked, coming up behind them.

He thinks his collar is still intact. He’s relieved.

“Yeah,” Finkelstein said, his brow knitting together. “Twenty to twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure. You know that.”

Vail figured Russo had said something to Finkelstein about placing a priority on determining the time of death.

Whatever. Just leave it alone, Karen.

Joe Slater arrived at the apartment, saw Vail, and squinted confusion. Off to the side, Chandler brought him up to speed.

“Let’s find out if there’s been any contact between Dmitri Harris and Katherine Stavros,” Russo said. “A meeting, a phone call, a Facebook post, anything that we can use to draw a line between victim and suspect. Nothing’s insignificant until we determine it’s insignificant.”

Does Russo sound desperate? Stop it, Karen.

“When you have a minute,” she said to Russo, “I want to ask you about another potential suspect.”

His jaw tensed and he glanced up at the ceiling—it was subtle but she caught it.

She added, again, “When you have a minute,” and left the room before she said something she would immediately regret. The case aside, Russo was one of the oldest friends she had, almost family, and when all was said and done she wanted to maintain that. Hades had killed a lot of things; she didn’t want to add her relationship with Russo to that list.

Vail moved on to a wall where framed photos were prominently displayed. Vail looked them over, and as she had so often seen, they gave a pictorial representation of the victim’s life. Several exterior Facebook-style candids showed Katherine in various cities with male and female companions: people having fun, sharing a beer, or standing on a bridge with a city skyline behind them.

Posed studio portraits also adorned the wall, with what appeared to be family members—parents and great-grandparents, perhaps. By their strong features and complexion, Katherine clearly had Greek blood coursing through her arteries.

As she started to turn away, her eye caught something. She leaned in closer, then lifted the frame off the wall, examined it and—

Wait, what the hell?

Her phone rang. She answered it without taking her eyes off the photo, trying to work it through her brain. “Vail.”

“Hey Karen,” Protch said, “just got your message. Fedor’s clean, I knew the guy back in ’73 when I caught the original case with Livana’s husband. A straight shooter. Nothing suspect. Jenkins said he looked at Fedor back when Cassandra was killed because it wasn’t my—”

“Did Fedor have a son? Was there another sibling in this combined family other than Dmitri and Cassandra?”

“Yeah, Niklaus. Couple years older than Dmitri.”

“Is their last name Prisco?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Find out where he is,” Vail said. “Right now. Niklaus Prisco is Hades. He’s a cop with Harbor Patrol.”

“A cop?”

“Just find out where he is and call me back.” She ran into the bedroom, still holding the picture frame, and showed it to Russo. “Dmitri Harris is not Hades.”

“Ah, shit, Karen. Will you just drop th—”

“But I know who is.”

Russo went silent. All eyes were on Vail.

“Niklaus Prisco, a Harbor Patrol officer. One of us.”

They stood there, either waiting for Vail to elaborate, or unsure of what to make of that claim.

“What makes you think this guy’s our perp?” Russo finally asked.

Vail held up the frame and stabbed at the picture of Katherine Stavros. “The earring in this photo. I found one just like it on the boat, when Harbor Patrol took us over to Ellis Island.”

Russo stepped closer to look at the picture. “You sure?”

“It’s a pretty distinctive earring.”

“But so what?” Russo asked. “Even if it’s the same earring, I mean, it’s an NYPD boat. What’s it got to do with Prisco? Anyone could’ve lost it.”

“No, not anyone,” Johnson said. “First, it’s gotta be a woman. And female cops don’t wear long dangly earrings like that unless they’re undercover.”

“Put it together, Russo.” Vail set the frame down. “We got a killer who lived on Ellis Island, who kept a photo album, a scrapbook, of his kills hidden under floorboards.”

“Yeah,
Dmitri’s
scrapbook.”

“No, those
other
books are his. The hardcovers and paperbacks. That’s all we know. He admitted to that. One thing my BSU colleague told me is that high functioning people with ASD tend to fixate on things, learn all they can on that topic, to the extreme. Dmitri’s fascinated with death and killers because of what he experienced as a youth. His father’s brutal beating by Crinelli and his crew. Or his kidnapping and near-death experience on the train tracks. That makes sense.

“But this album, this scrapbook, it’s got a photo of his sister, taken by the offender right after he killed her. Every time we brought it up and showed it to Dmitri, it upset him. A lot. Believe me, I saw the rage it stirred in him when he backed me up against the railing on the torch.”

“So if it’s not his,” Chandler said, “why do you assume it belongs to this Niklaus Prisco?”

“Niklaus is Dmitri’s stepbrother.” She shook her head. “Two families came together, out of necessity, friendship. They leaned on each other, drew strength from each other. In essence, they became one family unit. Niklaus, if he is a psychopath, if he is our killer, he would’ve created this scrapbook of photos and news clippings as a trophy collection, pieces of his conquests. And he kept it in Dmitri’s bedroom in the house they lived in on Ellis Island in case we started to connect the dots. He was basically framing his brother, making sure things pointed to Dmitri. Psychopaths don’t form bonds like you and me. People are there to be manipulated, used. And Dmitri was a perfect target.

“But there was a flaw in his plan. There’s no way Niklaus could know that Dmitri had a disorder that’d make him unlikely to commit murder, something that’d make it almost impossible for him to commit premeditated serial murder. And since we know Hades can’t be Dmitri”—she glanced at Russo—“then the needle points right back at Niklaus. Because once you eliminate Dmitri, no one else has the connections to the victims that Niklaus has. Not even Victor Danzig.”

“The Xs on the walls in Dmitri’s bedroom,” Russo said.

“What Xs?” Slater asked.

“This morning at Ellis Island we found all these Xs drawn in pencil on the wall next to Dmitri’s old bed.”

“Dmitri likes to draw Xs because to him they represent Christ,” Vail said. “It’s another one of those fixation-type ASD behaviors. Niklaus knew Dmitri was enamored with Xs, so he used it as a logo that he drew on each of his vics. He used it, like so many serial killers do, to claim his vics, to take credit for them. Like a painter signing his work. But he chose the X because it’d point back to Dmitri. The letters he used inside the Xs were E, I, and D. They correspond to Ellis Island and Dmitri. Again, he chose those letters so that if anyone found the lair, they’d put it together just like we did and think the killer’s Dmitri.”

“And you’re resting this entire theory on an earring?” Russo asked.

“Chandler,” Vail said, “have you catalogued a jewelry box?”

“Not yet.”

“I saw one,” Johnson said. “In the walk-in closet.” She led Vail inside, turned on the light, and opened the sizable rosewood case.

They ignored the gold earrings and dug through the sterling silver ones and found a match. “This is it,” Vail said, holding it up and showing it to Johnson. They compared it to the photo. “Got it,” Vail yelled to the others.

“There’s only one in here,” Johnson said, sifting and sorting the various pieces.

“Exactly. The matching earring—its pair, which is missing—was the one I found on the Harbor Patrol boat.”

“What happened to it?” Finkelstein asked.

“When I saw it, I picked it up and showed it to Prisco. He said it belonged to a night shift officer and told me to bring it by the Harbor office when I got back.”

“But we didn’t go back,” Russo said.

“Right. I asked if he could do it because we had too much going on. Prisco should’ve been shitting bricks that he’d dropped his trophy from his latest kill and that it was in the hands of an FBI agent. He could’ve been discovered. Most perps would’ve broken out into a cold sweat. But he was so damn cool about it.”

“If you’re right,” Johnson said, “and he’s a psychopath, doesn’t that fit?”

“Exactly.” Before she could elaborate, Vail’s phone rang. “Talk to me, Protch.”

“Prisco’s working the evening shift, but he’s out on patrol.”

“Call ESU. Have them meet us at Battery Park.”