Cody chose not to reply. “Jackson very well could be Androg’s work,” he said instead. “But why Philadelphia—and what’s the connection?”
“The connection,” Stinelli said, “is that the guy used to be a pal of mine.”
“Just like Uncle Tony was Bergman’s pal, and Dr. Wiley was Kate’s?” Wolfsheim said.
Whose pal was Raymond Handley? Cody wondered. “Go ahead, Wolfie, give the Chief your thoughts.”
Wolfsheim summed the case up: “All we know about these crimes is what we don’t know. No DNA, no hairs, no prints, no blood, not even a definitive footprint. No direct connection between the victims, no particular geographical area or social status. We got everything from a rich stockbroker to a restaurant owner to an E.R. doctor, and maybe to a bum in an alley.”
“We know the killer is doing a tour de force of murder methods each time,” Cody said, “using one way but perversely disguising it as one or more other m.o.’s.”
Wolfsheim nodded. “We also know that most serial killers have two characteristics in common: they want us to know the killings are their work; and they subconsciously want to get caught. That’s why they usually leave a totem or trophy.”
“But this isn’t business as usual,” Cody said. “I don’t think this killer is that simple. If he’s like other serial killers, he will develop a ritual to preserve his success—but he hasn’t developed it yet. If Androg wants to get apprehended and brought to justice, it’s gonna be in no way we’ve seen before. There’s some kind of elaborate and unique game going on, and unless we figure out the rules soon it’ll only get worse. If Jackson turns out to be one of them, we’ve got four in four days.”
Stinelli looked at his Blackberry’s calendar as though trying to read its secrets. “It’s gonna be a media meltdown when they get wind of this.”
“Hamilton already got wind.”
“How?” Stinelli asked.
“I don’t know,” Cody answered. “It’s just a hunch. A very strong hunch.” There’s one way he could know that had nothing to do with leaks, he was thinking.
Wolfsheim continued. “He’s not exactly leaving trophies, but this perp clearly wants us to know these killings are his handy work. All the victims were found in a seated position. All three of them were naked—including Jackson.”
“Causes of death?” Stinelli asked.
“Asphyxiation, stabbing/slashing/puncture wounds, and gunshot.”
“Which leaves drugs/alcohol/poison,” Cody added.
“Right,” Wolfsheim interrupted. “And, if you go by the book, blunt trauma and electrical-thermal. And don’t forget: All the murders take place right after midnight.”
Δ
The forensics exam began minutes after the New Yorkers arrived at Philadelphia Police Headquarters on Franklin Square.
Jackson’s body had been moved from the cooler an hour earlier so that it would reach room temperature before the procedure.
Lou was surprised at his own reaction to the sight of his old high school classmate’s rigid face. A wave of sorrow washed over him, followed by anger at a life wasted and snuffed out. Why was it, he thought, that some people get it together and others don’t? Is the shape of your life really under your control, or is it all the luck of the draw? Certainly Steamroller had little control over his death. Some heartless prick had selected him as a pawn in his own sick game.
Wolfsheim saw the detective’s nostrils flare. “Ammonia,” he nodded at Cody. “Probably maggots in there somewhere.”
The Philly coroner was named Sam Liu, an Asian so diminutive he had to stand on a stool to operate. As Sam made the Y-cut and the abdomen fell open, the smell of ammonia intensified. And, sure enough, they discovered unhatched maggot eggs in the abdominal cavity.
“What does that tell us?” Cody asked.
“You know as well as I do,” Wolfsheim said.
“I like to hear you tell it.”
“Dead bodies attract flies within minutes. The females swarm around open wounds and lay hundreds of eggs which hatch twelve-fifteen hours later.”
“So Jackson was found before they hatched,” Stinelli said.
“And before they could destroy the evidence,” Cody added.
“Maggots can consume a full grown pig in days,” Liu said, apropos of nothing.
The three New Yorkers looked at him, but he continued his examination without further commentary.
“I think we can safely conclude,” Wolfsheim said, “that time of death was shortly after midnight Saturday morning.”
One of Liu’s intern-assistants ran the eggs through a blender, and returned to report that she’d found traces of cocaine in the sample.
Liu nodded. “Happy maggots. That’s consistent with our first conclusions.”
“Something else,” the assistant said. “We identified a residue of liquid in the Chivas Regal bottle found near the body. It was loaded with coke. That’s how it was introduced,” she said.
“At least he died a happy death,” Stinelli commented sorrowfully.
Δ
Liu continued the autopsy, meticulously examining every inch of the flabby corpse that had once borne the nickname “Steamroller.”
“Take a look at this,” he finally said.
At first the visitors couldn’t see what the Philly coroner was pointing to. But it came into focus as he explained.
“Residual pressure point,” Liu indicated with his finger, “precisely adjacent to the heart.”
Now they saw it clearly: the trace of a grid mark on the pressure bruise.
Wolfsheim admitted he was baffled.
“Wait a moment,” Liu asked them. He removed his plastic gloves, excused himself, climbed down from his bench, and left the operating room.
A few minutes later Liu returned, a Taser gun in hand.
The New Yorkers watched as Liu held the gun up to the corpse, demonstrating how its grid-like contact surface could have left the mark sealed by death on Jackson’s body.
Δ
An hour later, Liu concluded his examination of the heart muscle, confirming that “the victim’s heart arrested, probably following constant arrhythmia that it could no longer compensate for due to the strain already put on his system by the alcohol and drugs.”
The Taser had finished him off.
“No doubt about,” Cody said. “It’s our guy.”
Wolfsheim concurred. “And this is yet another m.o.—thermal/electrical. The guy’s working the neighborhood.”
As he saw his visitors to the exit, another of Liu’s assistants handed him a plastic bag. Liu nodded, and gave it to Stinelli.
“What is it?” Lou asked.
“One of the items found on the victim’s body,” the coroner explained. “The minute I walked in I realized who it was.”
Looking perplexed, Stinelli held the plastic flush to the newsprint contained in the bag. Cody and Wolfsheim saw the Chief physically react as he recognized what it was. In a well-weathered newspaper clipping, it was a faded photo of Stinelli with his arm around Jackson. Jackson’s face was a mass of cuts and scratches, but his grin showed through it all.
Stinelli regained his composure. “This was taken outside his locker room, when Valerie and I attended our last prize fight.”
“Who knows about this photo?” Cody asked Liu.
“No one but us chickens,” the coroner replied. “And the cops who found the body.”
“Check the prints on it,” Cody said.
Δ
Cody was silent on the drive back to New York, mulling over the entire Androg scenario to date. It was nearly six when Stinelli dropped off Wolfsheim at his apartment, then, at his insistence, dropped Cody back at the Loft. “Knock off early. Get some sleep,” Stinelli advised.
“I’ll sleep after we stop this son of a bitch,” was Cody’s reply.
Stinelli grunted. That’s why he’d chosen this man to head TAZ.
Cody lost no time getting to Google. He looked up “Cl
ue Awards” and, pinpointing the date, quickly corroborated the suspicions that had been nagging at him for the last twenty-four hours.
Hamilton was in Philadelphia at the time of Jackson’s murder. If he had planned it in advance, he could have had his limo drop him off near the alley after the event, walk a few blocks to find him, tempt Jackson with the fine scotch, chat with him while the combination of coke and liquor produced its effects, press the Taser against the man’s chest until his heart failed, then walk to the waiting limo, and head back to New York as though nothing had happened.
How could he possibly know that Jackson was in that particular alley? Even the homeless have habits, Cody thought. And Hamilton was a master researcher.
But something was wrong with this theory. How could he still be so certain when there was an obvious problem with it?
The problem was Uncle Tony.
With growing dread, he knew the evidence was right in front of his eyes. The totem was subliminal and artfully designed so only Cody would begin to flash on it, which he did as the messages from his unconscious continued.
One after the other, he deciphered the subliminal signs—trying to figure out if each murder had either a distinctive male or female overtone:
Was it Victoria who had killed Handley, after giving him oral sex?
Victoria could have killed Uncle Tony while Hamilton was busy in Philly. She hid in the ladies room until the time was right because she was a lady.
She would have gotten home just in time to greet Hamilton returning from the Awards.
Hamilton, who had just killed Jackson in the alley. Chivas was a man’s drink. It had taken a man’s strength to hold the former boxer still enough for the Taser to finish the drugs’ work. Cody could imagine the scene: a man in a tuxedo with his arm around a bum in the alley, the Taser concealed as it shocked the boxer to death.
Hamilton or Victoria could have killed Song, though women killers rarely use guns.
Whose turn was it next? Who was Number Five?
This entire theory was too preposterous to take seriously. It would leave Cody out on a limb that could fatally distract him from stopping Androg. Or was it? He couldn’t get it out of his mind.
Cody studied the calendar. He picked up the phone and dialed Wolf’s number. “I need you to do me a favor,” he said, “and do it personally, no questions asked.”
“Shoot,” replied Wolf.
“Get me Ward Hamilton’s medical records.”
“Why in the hell—?”
“—No questions asked,” Cody interrupted.
Wolf grunted. “You got it.”
“And Wolf… Whatever it takes. Do it.”
Tonight was Halloween, exactly one week since the killings started.
If seven was the magic number, there’d have to be three more deaths.
With a shaman’s certainty, Cody knew they were planned for tonight.
And that one of them was meant to be him.
40
Halloween Night
Jake Sallinger got out of the shower, careful to navigate his balance on the slippery porcelain that had, more than once, ushered him to a painful slip.
As he reached for his towel, he contemplated with excitement the evening’s entertainment. Waiting for him at the Lotus Club would be the woman who described herself as a “strawberry blonde, green eyes, wicked smile” in the Metro Magazine personals ad. Who knows? Tonight might be his lucky night. It was certainly overdue. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten laid.
But something was off.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand to clear them from shower fog.
Where his towel should have been a manila envelope was propped on the rack.
More than puzzled, he reached for it without thinking, disturbing the white powder that covered the flap.
As his eyes automatically began to scan the first page, Jake found himself sneezing uncontrollably. He doubled over from the sneezing attack—just as the bathroom door pushed open.
Cynical laughter he’d recognize anywhere, then: “Thought you might appreciate it more by manual delivery,” Hamilton said.
But Sallinger had fainted from the effect of the mysterious powder. The last things the editor’s eyes saw were Hamilton’s clear plastic gloves and green surgical booties.
Δ
Careful not to slip on the wet floor, Hamilton dragged Sallinger’s naked body toward the bathtub. He lifted the still-breathing editor into the tub. Taking a deep breath to recover from the exertion, he grabbed his editor’s head with both hands—and slammed it repeatedly against the brass towel rack, until he was satisfied Sallinger was dead.
To be doubly certain, Hamilton took the man’s pulse, and nodded to himself when he found none.
Deftly, and quickly before rigor mortis set in, he arranged Sallinger in a sitting position.
Taking another calming breath, Hamilton reached for the wall telephone and dialed 9-1-1.
“You’d better send someone to 155 E. 49th St. #3D,” he said to the operator. “The best crime article ever written has just been delivered to its former editor. Right on deadline.”
Before the operator could respond, Hamilton hung up and, as he headed for the service entrance, grinned at himself in the dining room mirror.
It was seven-thirty p.m. The wolves in the zoo were howling again. Hearing them, Hamilton thought about Detective Cody—and grinned.
Δ
Way south in Cody’s apartment, Charley was hearing them too. “I know, pal,” Cody said, as he emerged from the shower, “they’re calling us. And this time they mean business.”
Using his hunting knife, he went through the ritual movements of preparing a venison stew, chopping the cranberries in half the way Old Man had taught him. This was the hunter’s meal, the meal he’d first eaten on the Reservation so many years ago on the night before his walk-out. When the simmering was done, the fruit and vegetables crisp and the venison still rare, Cody carefully divided the savory mixture between his own and Charley’s bowls. “I need you for this one, old friend,” he said.
Charley, licking every drop of the stew from his bowl, greeted him with a grunted bark of acknowledgement.
Just as Cody took his last bite, his cell phone rang.
It was Amelie. She heard the wolves too, Cody thought. “Don’t even think of arguing,” she began. “I need to see you now.”
“I honestly can’t,” Cody said. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“If you want to see me again, ever,” Amelie said, a strange tone in her voice Cody couldn’t identify, “You will give me one hour. That’s all I’m asking.”
Cody looked at the time on his cell phone. It was seven forty-five. If Androg stayed true to form, nothing would happen until midnight. “One hour,” he said. “This better be important.”
“It is,” she said.
Instead of canteen, flint, matches, and blanket, he rummaged in his socks drawer, found his ipetes, the eagle feather he’d carried with him from adolescence. On this quest, it would suffice.
Δ
Somewhat against his better judgment, but somehow not wanting to over-analyze it either, Cody headed for Amelie’s apartment. Trust your head, a voice from the past was telling him. Everything you have learned. The answers will be there.
As for Charley, “It’s on the way, after all,” he told his sidekick.
Charley’s look said he wasn’t quite buying it.
“I know, I know,” Cody responded to the shepherd’s baleful stare. “But she said it was important, and she’s a potential witness after all.”
He left Charley in the SUV. No sense in having them sniff each other out unnecessarily.
Δ
He heard the piano as he approached her apartment. Something by Gershwin? And she was good.
But the music had stopped abruptly and Amelie opened the door before he could lift his hand to knock. “I will help you prepare,” she said, as though he’d told her
what he was about to do.
She led him toward the massage room. Her voice was businesslike. “Take your clothes off and get on the table.”
For a moment, Cody hesitated. Then he saw that she was doing the same—unbuttoning her blouse, zipping down her pants.
His eyebrows went up, partly because he was admiring her perfect athletic figure, partly because he was admiring the audacity of her invitation. “I thought you didn’t do this kind of massage,” he said, stupidly, as he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his loafers.
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” she said, impatiently reaching out to help him with his shirt buttons. “Just had to be the right man at the right time.”
She waited for him to be face down on the table before removing her bra and panties.
Turning his head to watch her, he was rebuked.
“Focus on your breathing,” she said. “It will loosen you up.”
The massage that followed redefined sensual. Her hands were strong and experienced and both relaxed and excited him to a point he’d never experienced before.
“Turn over,” she said, after kneading his legs, lower back, and shoulders.
Without a word he complied, and let her work her will on the front of his legs and abdomen, careful to keep the towel positioned in his midriff.
Although inevitably the towel betrayed him.
“Did I miss anything?” Amelie asked coyly.
“You missed the main attraction,” Cody responded. “And you know exactly what you’re doing.”
Her laugh only ignited the heat between them.
“Lose the towel,” she said, “and join me in the sauna.”
And he did.
Δ
She was in his lap facing him. He was inside her. They sat unmoving, staring deep into each other’s eyes.
Always look at the creature who looks at you, he remembered. The doorway to the truth is in the eyes. Listen.
Finally, when she began to move, they moved together as though they had been moving together all their lives. They made love slowly and thoroughly, and Cody flashed back to that sweat house he entered as a young man before embarking on his walk-out.
It was nothing like this.
She reached up and undid his ponytail, so that his long hair fell down to envelop them both.