The Assailant (17 page)

“Look, Ronnie, I don't have a chip on my shoulder.”

“Don't you?”

“No. I worked that case last year with them and we got along okay.”

“Not at first, though.”

“Maybe not at first. Some are okay, some aren't. It's just that I don't think profiling is a science. Even if I did, even if I thought that Larry MacPherson ‘fit' the profile of a serial killer, it wouldn't be enough to make a case on its own. There has to be evidence that he did it. Evidence beyond just being a guy who beats up his girlfriend.”

“Okay,” Wulf said. “Well, you're entitled to your opinion, George. No one's denying that.”

“It's not an opinion,” Hastings said. He couldn't stop himself from saying it. And he liked being patronized less than he did being bawled out.

Wulf gave him a brief glare. Hastings did not think he was being insubordinate, but it was clear that Wulf thought he was pushing it.

“That'll be all for now,” Wulf said. He didn't say anything else.

•

Driving home, Hastings thought it was ironic. He had been trying to caution his superior about the dangers of giving too much
significance to intuition.
I know he's the guy. I feel it in my bones
. Horseshit. Intuition was not evidence. Intuition could lead to false arrests. Maybe he shouldn't have made that remark about guts having shit for brains. Where had he heard that in the first place? . . . Right. Klosterman had said it. Funny when Klosterman says it to him. Not so funny when he says it to the chief of detectives.

And now the irony was that Hastings was having his own intuition about his place in this investigation. Specifically, he was intuiting that Ronnie Wulf was going to take him off it. Not officially, of course. Ronnie Wulf was smart, politically. He would not be the sort that would create unnecessary drama by saying,
You're off the case, Detective!
He would just sort of quietly exclude Hastings from things. Meetings would take place and Hastings would not be asked to come. Additional reports or tips would come in and Hastings would not be apprised of them. He wouldn't be fired or removed. He would just be left out of the loop. The investigation would continue without him. Which would be the point.

Christ, Hastings thought. For what? For not going along with Wulf's theory about Larry MacPherson? For not wanting to charge MacPherson with the murders of Adele Sayers and Reesa Woods? There simply wasn't enough evidence to put it on MacPherson. That was the logical, by-the-book, law-and-order conclusion.

That's what was so perplexing about it. It was not that Wulf was taking the correct, “official” position and that Hastings was rebelling
because of a “gut feeling.” If anything, it was the opposite. If there was an “establishment” position in this stupid pissing contest, Hastings was the one taking it.

But Wulf's in charge of the investigation, Hastings thought. You're not.

This was why he was still a lieutenant. And it was also why Karen Brady was a captain. Karen's lack of intellectual curiosity and her determined willingness to get along with her superiors got her promoted. Karen didn't intimidate anyone.

Well, he could go in tomorrow morning and apologize to Wulf. Tell him that he'd meant no disrespect, it had been the end of a long day, blah, blah, blah. Do that and maybe Wulf wouldn't cut him out of the loop. In short, go in and eat shit.

Maybe he could do it. But then maybe that would just make it worse. Above all, he did not want to acquiesce in charging MacPherson for these murders. Did not want to go along with it. Not yet, anyway. If he did that, he wouldn't deserve the rank he had now. He wouldn't deserve to work in homicide at all. If he had to, he'd examine every scrap of evidence himself. And if at the end of the day the facts showed that MacPherson had killed those women, Hastings would give Wulf a full-blown apology.

But he doubted it would come to that.

He wasn't sure why he was so sure of this. Maybe it was because MacPherson's girlfriend seemed so utterly convinced that MacPherson was not a monster. Which would not be conclusive
on its own. Girlfriends and people in general tend to see what they want to see. But it was more than that. Hastings had looked into the eye of MacPherson and had seen a 'roided-up man-child. A violent con and a loser, yes, but a fool too. And Hastings had trouble believing that the real killer was a fool.

“Lew speaking.”

“Mr. Llewellyn?”

“Yes.”

“Cliff Llewellyn?”

“Yeah. What can I do for you?”

“You're the man that wrote the story in yesterday's paper, aren't you?”

Llewellyn sighed. He was approaching fifty and felt older. “Which one?” he said.

“The one on page twenty-three in the metro section. ‘Police investigate woman's murder.' Rather prosaic headline, don't you think?”

“Right.” Llewellyn started to hang up on the crank. But he stopped when the voice spoke again.

“Don't hang up,” it said. “Don't do that. I can help you.”

“How?”

“Let me ask you something, Mr. Llewellyn. Do you not see that the murder of Ms. Sayers is connected to the murder of the other woman? The one named Reesa Woods? The one who called herself Ashley?”

The crime reporter stayed on the line. He said, “The police reports don't indicate that.”

The man said, “They don't, do they? I see the police are hiding things from you. Well, Mr. Llewellyn, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. There's a connection between the two, I assure you. A connection that I believe will demonstrate that this story does not deserve to be relegated to the back pages.”

Llewellyn said, “Who is this?”

“Call me Jim.”

“Jim. Jim what?”

“Springheel Jim. Now listen to me because I'm only going to tell you this once and then I'm going to let you go. In the central downtown library there is a book on the third floor entitled
When Terror Walked in London
. It's an old book; I don't think anyone's checked it out in years. In that book, you'll find a letter that I believe you'll find very interesting.”

The expression on Llewellyn's face was changing now. He couldn't help himself. Coworkers near his desk were taking notice.

Llewellyn had been the crime reporter for the
St. Louis Herald
almost twenty years. Had seen all manner of brutality and violence. He wanted to remain skeptical and detached at this moment. But he was frightened too.

Llewellyn said, “Are you telling me you killed those women?”

“Boy, you like to go straight to the point, don't you? Right for the jugular. Like Mike Wallace. Are you taping this?”

“No,” Llewellyn said. He wasn't either. He hadn't been ready for this.

“You should be. It's an exclusive. It could make you famous. But I'm afraid I must go.”

“Wait a minute.
Wait
. I need to know more.”

“I will not spoon-feed you. You have what you need now. Don't be greedy. Oh, and, Clifford? It's three now.” Springheel Jim allowed himself a chuckle. “Bye-bye.”

•

Raymond Sheffield hung up the phone and walked back to his car. And indeed there was a spring in his step. He wondered why he hadn't done this before. Before it was fun, before it was a kick. Killing the girls and dodging the police had been something. But it was too easy. It was like watching a top-notch football team take on the army. Score 77 to 3 or something embarrassing like that. There was no challenge there. No excitement. And he was entitled to excitement. He was entitled to respect. He had earned it.

A tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it actually make a noise? Indeed, does it even fall? Does it matter if it falls or not? It has to matter. It has to mean something. If it doesn't mean something, it doesn't mean anything. It must have significance. It must achieve notice.

He felt so much better now. He felt better that the pieces were connected. The death of two prostitutes was meaningless unless they were connected. One prostitute dead, who cared? But two by the same killer, now
that
was something to write home about. And three women, well . . . that was an achievement. Surely the
journalist would see that. If he had any artistic sense, he would see it. If he was more than just a hack, surely he would see it. Oh, don't let him be a hack, Raymond thought. Please don't let him be a hack. He had been generous with the reporter. He had pointed him to a letter that he had placed in a library. A letter that he had stored in a book about Jack the Ripper, no less. Which was obvious and clichéd, but, oh, why not? Why not give the masses something to latch on to? Something old, but something new too. Something fresh.

Yes.
Fresh
was the right word. Something new, bold, and exciting. Something fulfilling. Something not yet perfect. But getting there.

Tonight, he had killed the woman with a dumbbell. That had been a mistake. He had intended only to knock her unconscious with it and then strangle her when he got her out of the Central West End. But he had brought the weight down too hard and too quickly and it had killed her. It messed up the symmetry of his work. He wanted them all to die by strangulation. His signature, his calling card. It just didn't have the same effect if one was bludgeoned to death. Raymond had always admired the big-game hunters of Africa, true professionals, who refused to use machine guns to bring down their prey. You don't use a machine gun to kill a leopard. It was unsporting, they'd said. Unsporting, yes, but vulgar as well. Messy and lacking in finesse.

They would say all sorts of things about him, he knew. They would try to diagnose him with their pedestrian psychology.
Loser
, they would say. Lacking what they called “affect.”
Probably works at a bowling alley or a factory. A misfit living in his mother's basement
. They would say such things about him to comfort themselves. They would say such things because they wouldn't know what else to say.

He had seen the real estate lady's picture in the paper last week. She was with her husband, one of the owners of the Lacey Park Cancer Clinic. Dr. Benjamin Hilsheimer was his name. The two of them standing next to another couple at a fund-raiser for multiple sclerosis, as if any of them gave a damn. Typical society function. Dress up and smile for the cameras. Right away, Raymond had been drawn to her. Tall, red-haired woman of forty or so. With her surgically implanted bosoms and her long legs, she still looked good. She looked very good. And what was she doing with this Dr. Hilsheimer? This gray-haired old goat who was at least twenty years older than her? Really, what was she doing with him? And where did she get the nerve to list her profession as “Realtor” when obviously she was little more than this old goat's concubine?

Now she was dead, disposed of in woods twenty or so miles north of the city. He had not buried her. She didn't deserve it. She had cheated him by dying too soon. He propped her up against a tree in a seated position.
Hi ya, sailor!
He debated undressing her or pushing her skirt up to make her appear ridiculous. Expose her for what she was. But he decided that that would detract from the effect he was seeking, and took only her turquoise bracelet to remember her by.

On the way back to the city, he told himself not to let her get him down. Okay, so he had not done a perfect job. He had muffed it. He had screwed up the conclusion, the finale. But the process was better. It was better this time, it was more satisfying, because he had tricked her. And she had not been just some low-rent escort. She was above ground, a woman with her picture in the paper. A middle-class trollop, trying to marry her way up.

And how wonderfully susceptible she was! She had seen his Mercedes, had seen his expensive clothes, and that was enough for her to let him get close. Maybe she thought she could even spirit a few bucks out of him at the end. Line up a future client. Can I show you a house, Doctor?
Is that what you thought, Ms. Hilsheimer? Did you take
me
to be such an easy mark? Did you underestimate me, like all the others
?

Easy. It had been so easy. He could do anything. He believed that he would have made a good spy or maybe even a good actor. Playing the butler in a murder mystery, wearing white gloves as he wrapped his hands around lovely white necks.

Raymond suppressed a laugh.

He felt better now. He had cheered himself up. And remembering the phone call to the reporter made him feel better still. Now let it work, he thought. Raymond smiled to himself. Shakespeare. He knew his Shakespeare. He wondered if he should've said that to the reporter. Maybe the reporter would have gotten it.

The assistant managing editor looked skeptical.

He was about ten years younger than Llewellyn. He was thin, and he wore a trimmed goatee like many men his age. He had a degree in journalism from Columbia University and an MBA from Washington University. He was inordinately sure of himself. His name was Mitchell Coury, and he didn't like his first name shortened.

He said, “A serial killer? I haven't heard of that.”

Llewellyn said, “He said the murders of the two call girls are connected. One Friday and the other Saturday. This past weekend.”

“You wrote a story on it?”

“On the second one. You know, I just reviewed the police report.”

“All of them?”

“No, not all of the police reports.”

Mitchell Coury frowned. “And you say you asked him if he did it?”

“Yes.”

“And he said no.”

“No, he didn't deny it. He didn't admit it either. Well . . . I think he did admit it.”

Coury sighed. “Sounds like a crank.”

Llewellyn said, “That's what I thought too.” Though he didn't. Not entirely. Llewellyn was afraid of Coury in the way that middle-aged men sometimes become afraid of younger men in the workplace. Finding a new job or a new career at fifty is a frightening prospect. Fate or nature or some angry god had made Mitchell Coury his boss.