Denial (16 page)

She shrugged.  "Nobody wanted this to happen."

"Nobody?"  I could feel the blood rushing to my head.  "How about you?"

"I don't wish death on anyone."

"No?  Not deep down, where those nuns at Sacred Heart couldn't reach?  Think about it:  Isn't it easier to have Westmoreland out of the way than to risk some smart-ass public defender taking him on as a cause?"  I took a step toward her.  "Who's gonna squawk over what happens to a bum?"

She straightened up.  "I didn't kill him."

"Not in a way you could be punished for.  Not in this life.  But it does seem to tie any loose end that could snag your campaign.  Nurse murdered.  Killer caught.  Killer dead.  End of story.  Right, Mayor Hancock?"  I took another step toward her.

"No, you're wrong."

"
Wrong?
  Oh.  I want to hear it, Emma.  Tell me how sorry you are, how you wanted Westmoreland to get the justice he deserved."

"We've got another body."

"Another..."  I felt like I had been kicked in the gut.  I stared at her a few seconds, then staggered backward and sat on the cot.  "Same MO?"

"Not exactly.  But close."

"Who was she?"

"
She?
"

"The victim, Emma."

"Why do you say
she
?"

"Oh, little things.  Like the fact that the killer likes cutting tits off."

"She was nineteen years old," Hancock said in a monotone.  "Single.  Lived on Park Street.  Her roommate found her in their apartment a few hours ago."

"Nurse?"

"Dancer."

I looked up at her.

"She works over at the Lynx Club."  She studied me for my reaction.

"My God.  I was just there."

"I know that.  That's the reason I had Malloy bring you in.  The owner keeps a list of the plates of everyone who parks in his lot.  Just in case there's any trouble."  She crossed her arms.  "You're on the list."

"And..."

"And you were pretty steamed about not getting your way with Westmoreland."

"So?"

"So I don't know how steamed you get, Frank, especially on coke.  I'm not sure I know you at all anymore."

I squinted at her.  "You think I did the dancer?  What, to prove a point?"

She shrugged.

I got up and walked within arm's length of her.  "The guilt is eating at you, Emma," I said quietly.  "You're responsible for her death and you know it.  You let her murderer walk the streets without even having to look over his shoulder.  Because your life is so pitifully empty of everything else that you'll do anything to be mayor."  I leaned closer to her.  "Mayor of Lynn.  A goddamn job.  What a pathetic motive.  You make me..."

She turned away.  She seemed to be fighting back tears.

I just stood there.

She took a deep breath, then looked back at me.  "Her name was Monique Peletier," she said.  "She was my niece."

*            *            *

Training in psychiatry is supposed to make you comfortable sitting silently in the presence of another person's pain, but I longed for the shelter of words.

Hancock rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, crossed her arms again and gazed out the bars of the cell.  She looked even more confused than sad, as if she couldn't believe her instincts had failed her so miserably.  I knew the feeling.  "My brother passed away a few years ago.  I looked in on her now and then, hoping to get her interested in the church.  She was a beautiful person, just lost."

"Were you close with her?"

"I think you know I don't let myself get very close to anyone."

I stayed silent, hoping she might tell me more about herself.

She stood there looking at me for several seconds, then stiffened.  "I can't say for sure that the same man killed both of them.  The
North Shore Weekly
came out with a piece yesterday that described what happened to Sarah Johnston in detail.  This could be a copycat."

I nodded.  I suspected she was reaching for any explanation that would help absolve her of guilt, but I didn't know enough about the case to argue the point.  That suited me.

She clicked her nails so hard I thought they might break.  "Whoever did this to Monique, I'll find him," she vowed.  "As God is my witness."  She looked back at me.  "Whether we're dealing with a serial killer or not, the psychological profile will be crucial.  That's where I'll need your help."

I shook my head.  "You were on target the first time, Emma.  I'm not up to it.  If I were you, I'd avoid Fitz, but Chuck Sloan would probably take the case."

"I don't want Sloan.  He's a plodder."

"Andrew Rothstein at New England Medical Center is a reliable man."

She squinted at me.  "I'm not looking for a
reliable man
, Frank.  Not anymore.  No ordinary shrink is going to be able to think like this monster."

"I wouldn't be any good to you.  My head isn't clear."

"I hear you.  Two-fifty an hour.  Ten hours up front."

"It's not about money."

"Thirty-five hundred up front, and I send somebody to straighten out the kid with the hit-and-run.  The tell me he's hot for the Police Academy."

I rolled my eyes.  "Great.  Another sterling character with a license to carry."

"What else do you want?  Name it."

I looked over at Westmoreland's dried blood on the wall.  I gritted my teeth.  I felt like telling her that I wanted her to feel the terror that consumes a paranoid man when he's caged like an animal.  I wanted her to experience the psychological suffocation that makes shoving a sock down your throat seem like a reasonable escape.  I wanted her to admit that she didn't have the capacity to grieve for her niece nearly so deeply as Westmoreland had for his friend.  But she was already suffering in her own way.  "I don't want anything from you, Emma," I said.

She pursed her lips.  "You're looking at possession of cocaine."

"I'll do my sixty days.  I've got it coming to me," I shrugged.

"Could be longer.  The court could make an example of you."

"Maybe."

"Then there's the Board of Medicine."

I stared at her.

"You're sure about this."  Her eyes bore down on me.  "I won't ask you again."

I nodded, but tentatively.  I didn't know what else she had up her sleeve.

"I understand," she said.  "You're going your own way."  She started for the door but turned back.  "I'll fix the drug charge against you and the hit-and-run and see to it you get paid for the work you put in on the case.  Nobody's squealing to any Board.  This whole thing — Westmoreland and Monique — was my fault.  You were right from the beginning."  She took a deep breath and let it out.  "For whatever it's worth, I don't care what they say about you, not about Prescott or the coke or anything else.  You're the best there is at what you do.  Whether you think so or not."  Then she walked out.

*            *            *

So much for McLean.  I was following another cruiser, this one carrying Emma Hancock and her driver, headed for the morgue.  It was just after 8
A.M.
, and garbage trucks were fanned out on both sides of Union Street.  The stench seeped through the Rover's window seals.  I fantasized about peeling off for Route 1 north, driving straight to the clear air of Vermont, but Hancock's mea culpa had gotten to me.  I would help her catch the psychopath who had butchered her niece.

There was another reason I wasn't running away.  A selfish one.  I needed to find the killer, too.  With Prescott and Billy and, now, Westmoreland, I was wondering more than ever whether I could follow a trail of rage and destruction all the way to the end.  Days before Westmoreland's death I had read in his Stonehill Hospital medical record about his history of suicidal thinking.  Yet I hadn't asked him whether he planned to do himself in.  Not even after he had nearly spit out his tongue.  What if that question alone would have reassured him that someone understood his desperation?

And why hadn't I gone back to see Westmoreland after reading the Boston V.A. medical record about the horrors he had witnessed in the Son Tay raid?  Did I lack the courage to help him face his friend's random death, to see that George LaFountaine had died needlessly in that prison camp, too?

The cruiser pulled up to the curb.  I parked behind it.  I walked to the door of the morgue with Hancock.  "You sure you want to look at this?" I asked her.

She opened the door and walked in.

I followed her to the autopsy suite.

Paulson Levitsky was standing to one side of another gray body, holding a clipboard.  He looked up when we were halfway to the dissecting table.  "The second one always brings out the brass," he deadpanned.  "Nothing like a serial killer to get people working on the same team."

Hancock stopped and grabbed my arm with her meaty hand.  "He doesn't need to know it's family," she whispered.

"It'll come out eventually."

"I'll settle for eventually."

"Fair enough."

We walked to the table.

"This one's worse than Ms. Johnston," Levitsky said, tightening the Windsor knot in his tie.  He took the stainless steel pointer from his pocket and flipped it open.  "There has been trauma to Ms. Peletier's genital area."

I glanced down at the hacked flesh between Monique's legs.

"Lord God," Hancock muttered.

"Note that the clitoris has been excised," Levitsky pointed out, "in addition to the breasts.  Again, the offending instrument appears to be a razor-sharp blade not greater than five centimeters."  He gently raised the head of the corpse, exposing a blue-purple depression behind the right ear.  "Cause of death, however, is trauma to the head with a blunt object.  Something like a tire iron.  Mutilation occurred thereafter."  He eased the head back down.  "We don't have the missing body parts."

I looked at the girl's mangled chest, then at her face.  I shook my head.  "I saw her dancing at the Lynx Club hours ago," I said.

"Where?" Levitsky asked.

I turned to him.  "
The Lynx Club
.  The strip joint in Revere.  I had a couple drinks there last night.  She's one of the dancers.  Her stage name was Candy."

He raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

I glanced at Hancock, then turned back to Levitsky.  "She wasn't completely shaved then, Paulson.  She had a triangle of hair right above her labia."  I pointed.

Hancock grimaced.  "How do you remember something like that?"

I had to go on.  "Another thing.  Her clitoris was pierced.  She wore a ring through it."

"A ring?" Hancock said.

"It takes all kinds," Levitsky said.  "In some cultures piercing the clitoris is commonplace.  In ours I believe it's a ritual among sadomasochists.  She did have calluses and minor abrasions around her wrists.  Handcuffs could explain them."

I noticed Hancock's hand drift to her own set of cuffs.  "Was she raped?" I asked.

"Semen was recovered from the vaginal vault.  I can't know if it belongs to the assailant or a lover."

"You'll analyze it for a match with the sample from Sarah?" I asked.

Levitsky winked at me.  "You think I should take the time?  Or better to let it go?  You know, the police department hasn't wanted me to get bogged down in details."

"You take all the time you need," Hancock said evenly.

"I guess we're not in a  rush to close the case now that Jack the Ripper has struck again."  Levitsky looked knowingly at me.  "Patience bestows its gifts a little late for Mr. Westmoreland, I fear."

Hancock had it coming to her, but not with her niece laid out on a stainless steel table.  "Let's move on, Paulson," I said.

"OK.  Onward.  But first, what do you know about her that I should know?"

"About her appearance?" I stalled.

"You’ve been at the table before, Frankster.  I need to know anything that might help me interpret what I find."

I instinctively turned my back to Hancock.  "I think she was a pro," I said softly.

"A what?" Paulson said.  "Speak up for the microphone."

"A pro," I said, feeling defeated.  "A prostitute.  A friend of hers told me she was for sale."  I felt Hancock's hand grip my shoulder.

"Don't hold back on anything that could help us nail this guy," she said.  Her voice had the distant quality of someone lost in thought.

Levitsky squinted at the two of us.

"That's all," I said.

"OK.  At least we know the reason if I come up with different blood types for the sperm inside her."  He was still on Hancock's case.  "I hope my analysis of the semen in this young lady won't embarrass any of your contributors.  This being campaign season."

Hancock's forehead was red.  She took a deep breath.  "Let your work take you where it leads, Doctor."

"Thank you."  Levitsky bowed slightly.  "That's a great gift to me."  He pulled the cuff of each sleeve briskly to get the wrinkles out.

"You have anything that can help me with the psychological profile?" I asked him.

"Just that the sculptor has more than a passing interest in his craft.  I prepared slides from the tissue margins where the breasts were removed.  The same scarring is present as in the first body.  He's doing something to the wounds.  Maybe sprinkling something on them.  I'm still not sure."

"Nothing back from the FBI lab?" I asked.

"FBI?" Hancock asked pointedly.

"Paulson has a pathologist friend at Hopkins who forwarded tissue samples from Sarah's wounds to their lab in Quantico," I said.

"This damn thing will be on
Inside Edition
before long," she said.

I was taken aback.  Was she still hoping for damage control before the election?

"I'm thinking of the girl's mother," she explained.  "She's having a hard time."

The door to the autopsy suite swung open, and Malloy bounded in.  He swaggered up to the table, planted himself between Hancock and me, and looked the corpse over.  "Wow," he grinned.  "Talk about razor burn."  He sensed his humor was lost on us.  "I've heard of close shaves, but..."  He looked from face to face, then shrugged.