The Killer in My Eyes (17 page)

The ME waved towards the corpse without looking at it. ‘Well, I can’t really do a proper examination of the body yet, not with the way it is. In fact, I’m wondering how we’re even going to get it out of here. God forgive me, but if we weren’t dealing with a death, I’d think we were in an episode of
Mr Bean
.’

Although the ME had seen almost all the variations that death could offer during the course of his career, even he seemed bemused by the circumstances of this one.

‘Let us know the results of the post mortem as soon as possible,’ Burroni sighed.

‘Of course. From what I gather, I’m likely to get a phone call quite soon telling me this case is top priority.’

He left them to join the men who had come to remove the body, and who were standing by the piano with bewildered expressions on their faces.

‘What do you think, Jordan?’ Burroni asked.

‘Frankly, I’m not yet sure what to think. And that worries me a little.’

‘Do you reckon we’re dealing with a serial killer?’

‘Everything seems to point to it, but I’m not entirely convinced. We’re clearly dealing with someone who’s not right in the head, someone with his own private symbolism, but it all seems a bit too elaborate, too complicated . . . Serial killers, at the moment of contact with their victims, are usually wilder, more frenzied, less concentrated. I don’t know. I think we should have a word with the bodyguard.’

Burroni made a sign to the officer who had greeted them in the lobby and brought them up to the apartment, a sturdy black man with a moustache, who was still standing by the door of the elevator. He left his post and joined them.

‘Where’s the man who found the body?’

‘Follow me.’

They made their way past the members of the Crime Scene team, who were just finishing off their work, and through the apartment – a walk that confirmed to them its vast size and luxury – until they came to a large room that was clearly some kind of study. On the walls were high bookcases full of books that could be reached with the use of metal ladders running on rails. A large pair of French doors facing the entrance led to a balcony that was probably the continuation of the one outside the living room.

Behind a desk partly occupied by a computer, a man was sitting. He got to his feet when he saw them come in. He was tall and athletic-looking, with grey hair, angular features, and a small scar near the right ear.

‘I’m Detective Burroni and this is Jordan Marsalis, a police consultant.’

Jordan might once have smiled at a term like that, which meant everything and nothing. Now it just made him feel like an intruder, more anxious than ever to keep in the background and let Burroni be the official face of the investigation.

‘I assume I spoke to you on the phone, Mr . . .?’

‘Haze. Randall Haze. Yes, it was me who called you when I discovered what had happened.’

The man came out from behind the desk and Burroni and Jordan shook hands with him in turn. He was a strong man: you could sense it not only from his grip but by the way he moved. It was the kind of strength that came from the experience of the streets, not from fake martial arts schools or gyms where people were pumped full of steroids.

‘Before we go on, there’s something I want to say,’ he told them. ‘I guess you’re lifting prints from all over the apartment . . .’

‘Of course.’

‘And of course you’ll find mine, too. So I’ll tell you this before you discover it for yourselves. I’ve done time. Five years for assault and attempted murder. I’m not justifying myself, just explaining. I was a rough kid, I made a mistake and I paid for it. Since then, I’ve gone straight.’

‘OK, noted. Please sit down, Mr Haze.’

Before he sat down again in one of the two armchairs in front of the desk, Haze arranged the crease in the pants of his elegant dark-grey suit. Burroni walked to the French doors and stood there for a moment, staring out at the darkness.

‘How long have you been working for Miss Stuart?’

‘About five years, give or take a month.’

‘In what capacity?’

‘Bodyguard and private secretary.’

‘How private, exactly?’

‘My job was to accompany Miss Stuart in personal situations she preferred not to . . . how shall I put it? . . . not to make public.’

For the moment, Burroni chose not to pursue that subject. ‘So tell us what happened.’

‘This evening Chand . . . Miss Stuart called me.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Around eight thirty, I think. In any case she called me on her cellphone. You should be able to check the time from the phone company’s records.’

Burroni turned, with the fleeting expression on his face of someone who doesn’t like being taught how to do his job. ‘All right, we will if we have to. And what did she want?’

‘She told me to be here by midnight because she was planning to go out. I got here at a quarter of twelve, came up to the apartment and found the body. I immediately grabbed the phone and called you.’

‘Was it normal for her to go out at that hour?’

‘In some cases, yes. Miss Stuart was . . .’ Randall Haze broke off, bowed his head and looked at the floor as if a chasm had suddenly opened up between his shiny shoes.

At this point, Jordan decided to intervene and went and sat down on the chair facing him.

‘Mr Haze, listen to me. There’s something here I don’t understand and when that happens I feel stupid. Unless it’s the person I’m talking to who’s stupid. And I don’t think that’s the case here. So, is there something we should know?’

Haze let out a sigh. ‘Miss Stuart was sick.’

‘What do you mean by “sick”?’

‘I don’t know what else to call it. She was sick in the head. She had very dangerous tastes and the biggest part of my work was to protect her whenever she satisfied them.’

‘Can you be more spectifc?’

‘Chandelle Stuart was a nymphomaniac who liked being raped.’

Jordan and Burroni looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing: this could mean big complications.

Haze continued his story without need for further prompting. ‘I went with her to protect her in situations that most women would have thought of as their worst nightmares. Some nights, Chandelle had sex with ten, even twelve men at a time. Homeless people, vagrants, people of all races. And it was completely risky sex, without any kind of precautions. At other times, I had to stay hidden here in the apartment in case one of the sadists she’d invited home went a bit too far and did her real harm. And then there were the films.’

‘What films?’

‘The ones I made. Everthing she got up to, either here or outside, I had to film with a digital camera. Then it was all transferred to DVD and she’d watch it later. It gave her a kick, watching herself in those kinds of situations. The discs should be here somewhere.’

Burroni and Jordan looked at each other again.

‘I assume Miss Stuart paid you well for these services of yours,’ Jordan said.

‘Oh yes. When it came to money Chandelle Stuart was very generous. When she wanted, she could be generous in all kinds of ways . . .’ Randall Haze bowed his head again.

‘A few more questions and you’ll be free to go. Does anything seem to be missing from the apartment?’

It was just a routine question: both Burroni and Jordan knew perfectly well that robbery was extremely unlikely as a motive for this homicide.

‘At first sight, I’d say no. Seems to me everything’s normal.’

‘And have you noticed anything or anyone suspicious lately? Anything unusual, I mean.’

‘No, everything she ever did was unusual.’

‘Do you know if Miss Stuart ever saw or knew a man named Gerald Marsalis? He was also known as Jerry Ko.’

‘You mean the Mayor’s son, the guy who was killed a while ago? I saw his picture in the papers. As far as I know, she didn’t. Though come to think of it, one time when I was with her at a disco called Pangya, he was there. They passed each other and waved their hands. So maybe they did know each other, but in all the time I’ve worked for her, I never heard her mention his name, and I certainly don’t think they ever saw each other.’

Jordan gave an almost imperceptible nod to Burroni. The detective put his hand in his pocket, took out a business card, and gave it to Haze.

‘All right, Mr Haze, I think we’re done for now. I’d like to continue our conversation this afternoon, at Headquarters. When you get there, ask for me.’

Haze took the card and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket, then stood up and said goodbye.

They waited for Chandelle Stuart’s now unemployed bodyguard to leave the room, then Burroni took his walkie-talkie from his belt.

‘Burroni here. A man’s on his way down. Grey hair and dark suit. His name is Randall Haze. Put someone on his tail, twenty-four-seven. And make sure it’s discreet. This guy knows his job.’

In silence, they left the study and walked back the way they had come. By the time they reached the living room, the body had been removed. There were still traces of glue on the shiny lacquer of the piano, as well as marks left by the crime scene team to indicate where the elbows had been.

‘What do you think, Jordan?’

‘I think we’re in deep shit. We have two victims. Two extremely dubious individuals, both from very high-profile families. And the same MO linking them. So far we’ve managed to keep a pretty tight lid on things, but how long do you think it’s going to take now for the whole story to come out, including my involvement in the investigation?’

‘I think this means we have to work damn fast.’

‘Right. For a whole lot of reasons. The most important being that, if we don’t, we’ll soon have three victims instead of two.’

‘And what do you think of Randall Haze?’

‘You were right to put someone on his trail, but I don’t think it’ll lead us anywhere, any more than it has with LaFayette Johnson.’

‘Christ, what a story. The things people do for money.’

Jordan shook his head, staring at the piano. ‘It’s not only a matter of money. In fact, I’d say that in this case money has nothing to do with it. You may think this is crazy after what he told us, but I’m convinced that Randall Haze was in love with Chandelle Stuart.’

Burroni turned to look at Jordan.

He was standing in the middle of the room, gazing intently at the enormous painting on the wall, as if he had just become aware that there was a new passenger on board the raft of the Medusa.

The walkie-talkie on Burroni’s belt emitted the two beeps that meant a call. The detective lifted it to his ear.

‘Detective Burroni . . . All right, we’re on our way down.’ He turned to Jordan. ‘The Security Manager for the Stuart Building has just arrived. You want to talk to him?’

‘No, you go, for now. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here for a few minutes alone.’

Burroni nodded. He did not yet fully understand Jordan Marsalis’s investigatory methods, but he had accepted them, instinctively knowing that it wasn’t just a question of experience or inclination, but of genuine talent. The man’s fame was fully justified. He stepped into the elevator and the doors closed noiselessly on the image of Jordan, motionless in the middle of the living room.

Jordan stood there, waiting for the apartment to speak to him. There was always something that hovered in the air at a murder scene, some invisible sign you couldn’t pick up with fingerprint powder or Luminol or any of the other methods available to the investigators. Jordan had often sensed it, and every time he had felt goose bumps on his skin. It was as if Death wanted one last round of applause and was going to wait there until it came.

Calmly, he walked back in the direction of the study where they had questioned Randall Haze. On the way, he went inside all the rooms he had previously only glanced in, and listened to what the apartment was telling him. It was a story of wealth and boredom and sickness, of money spent – in vain – trying to defeat the boredom and the sickness.

At last he came to the study. He knew something had struck him while he was talking to Haze, but he couldn’t remember what it was. That was why he was here again, alone, waiting for an answer only he could hear. He sat down in the armchair he had occupied during the questioning and let his eyes wander around the room.

Behind him were bookshelves filled with volumes. To his left, the French windows, leading to the balcony and the lights of the city. Facing him, on the wall behind the desk, a Mondrian with its lines and squares and perfectly balanced colours. On either side of the desk, two more areas of shelving similar to that on the wall behind him.

On a shelf to the left of the desk there were . . .

That was what it was! Jordan stood up and went to take a closer look at the four volumes with dark red bindings lined up side by side on a shelf at eye level. On the cover of the one closest to him was a logo and below it, in gold lettering, the words:

Vassar College

Poughkeepsie