Gladyss of the Hunt (32 page)

“So the new guy is not quite copycatting, is he?” said Barry. “The big question is, why.”

“And his latest vic isn't even a hooker,” I pointed out. “We don't know that Jane Hansen was, either. He could start killing anyone now.”

“That's the first thing we got to figure out,” Bernie said. “We need to find out why he killed Caty Duffy.”

“Well, you established a possible motive for her death,” I reminded him.

“That's right!” he remembered almost happily. “The bitch was cheating on him with Mr. Reynolds in accounting. Get me the husband's number.”

Since Caty was clearly not one of O'Flaherty's victims, we definitely needed to talk to her husband. Bernie called the widower and asked if he could pay him a visit. After he hung up he said Mr. Duffy told him he was at work because it was too painful to stay at home alone. I could identify with that, but Bernie found it suspicious.

As we were walking out the rear door of the precinct to the Lumina, Bernie had another of his sudden coughing fits. After he finally spat out a disgusting gob of green phlegm he said, “This guy tries to blitz me, it'll be your turn to shove his head in the toilet.”

While we were driving up to Duffy's publicity firm on Madison Avenue, I asked Bernie if he really thought we could get anything from the widower.

“Considering the fact that she was seriously cheating on him, we'd be pathetic if we couldn't,” he replied. “Spouses are always offing each other. Jealousy, betrayal, shared property—custody problems if they got kids, and the Duffys do. That shit turns love into a minefield.”

Hearing the bitterness in his voice, I couldn't help thinking that poor Bernie was reviewing his own recently failed marriage.

“You know, I can see him killing his wife and trying to make it blend into the serial killings, but do you really think Frank Duffy killed Jane Hansen first to cover his future tracks, and
then
killed his own wife?”

“No, Hansen's husband probably killed
her
,” he kidded, adding more seriously, “We have to do a face to face just to be sure.”

“Are you really going to tell him his dead wife was having an affair with another man?”

“Hell no. I want to see if he suspected anything.”

We parked in a loading zone and went up to Duffy's office. Bouquets of flowers and condolence cards littered his room. Frank Duffy was a small man with graying sideburns. He looked permanently drained of happiness. If he had killed his wife, or for that matter if he knew she was cheating on him, he was doing a great job at covering it up.

Before he even closed his door he asked us a rush of raw questions—How was she killed? Was she raped? Did we have any suspects? Bernie threw him a curve ball, claiming that we had a suspect in custody. He was either trying to throw the widower off-guard, or he was holding back until Duffy could be completely cleared. Then he delicately mentioned Caty's mutilation and poor Mr. Duffy broke down, nearly collapsing onto the carpet. Bernie helped him back into his swivel chair while I went to get him a cup of water. When Frank regained his composure, Bernie asked him about his marriage.

“We used to meet at her office, and commute home together, but they had her working later and later at night. Whenever she was alone, Caty would walk west on the north side of Forty-second to Port Authority, where she'd grab the bus to Union City.”

“Do you know if anyone at work ever walked her to the bus?” he asked.

“Maybe her lover,” Frank said casually. “She was having an affair.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“She told me,” he said. “It wasn't her first.”

“How long have you been married?” Bernie changed his tone.

“Just over ten years . . . She told me she had met some young hotshot at work.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“She said he was married with a kid, too. Neither of them wanted to leave their families.”

“Didn't that piss you off?” Bernie asked.

“Officer, please, we're realists.”

“Really?” Bernie said, leaning forward, “so being at home, changing your kid's shitty diapers, and picturing some guy banging your wife—that realistically didn't bug you?”

“I cheated on her a couple of times and never even told her about it. Do you think it would've bothered her?”

“Guys tend to be a little more possessive,” Bernie said.

“What can I say? We loved each other but, however much we wanted to be, we just weren't intimate anymore, so we had affairs. We agreed to be discreet about it.”

“Do you think there's any chance the other guy killed her?” Bernie asked. “Maybe he actually did want her to leave you and run off with him.”

“Guys usually don't want their mistresses to leave their husbands, only the mistresses want that. No, he had exactly what he wanted: a wife, a kid, and an afternoon lover.”

“I gotta tell you, all this would just burn the shit out of me,” Bernie confessed.

Duffy sighed. “I wish the kind of passion and loyalty I felt toward Caty would've lasted forever. We were together for over fifteen years. For ten of those years she was my wife as well as my lover, but gradually the sex came to a halt. We tried to fix it, we really did, but we finally decided that at least we could be honest with each other. We amended our vows and agreed we would stay together and try to hold on to what we had. You can always find another lover, but a best friend and a loving mom for your child, those are a lot harder to find.”

The
New York Times
on Duffy's desk was open to a full-page advertisement for
Fashion Dogs
. As Bernie asked a few final questions, just formalities really, it occurred to me that it was only after my evening with Noel at his apartment—specifically after I had told him details of O'Flaherty's crimes—that the two copycat murders had occurred. Bernie thanked Mr. Duffy and said he'd be in touch when there was any news.

When we returned to the precinct, I was able to look at the evidence logs forensics had compiled for the Hansen and Duffy crime scenes. Among the dozen or so new prints, fibers, and other microscopic details that had been painstakingly lifted from the two scenes was a size eleven shoe print—Noel's size.

Caty Duffy had been killed earlier the same evening that Noel saw me, just before his big trip to L.A. For someone so in control and in a weird way asexual, Noel was oddly virile that night. It was after I'd heard that Tinkerman had killed himself that he called and insisted he had to help me deal with my guilt, as though he had a lot of personal experience coping with it. Then I remembered that he had painfully recounted that weird incident in which, as a child, he had unintentionally maimed a cat. Strangely the victim who would die the following morning was named Caty. I'd been taught at the academy that murderers were always leaving subconscious traces of their guilt behind. Could removing her breasts be some kind of parallel for his amputation of the cats' paws?

But why? Why would he do this? Other than the fact that he was fascinated with murderers—which was probably true of most Americans—Noel never displayed any violent tendencies.

I couldn't fully dismiss him as a suspect, and yet I was supposed to meet him tomorrow for his publicity stunt on the catwalk. What had I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Back then, Fashion Week was held in Bryant Park, just east of Times Square, at the top end of the Garment District. Twice a year, the park was occupied by four huge white tents, in which the new spring and fall fashions were trumpeted. As usual, the entrance was lined with white French doors, and a pair of cops had been assigned to those doors. Of the thirty thousand or so police in New York City, of course it was Officer Eddie O'Ryan and his partner who'd drawn those short straws.

“Holy shit! Look at you!” O'Ryan said, inspecting my face and forehead, which were still visibly bruised despite the layers of concealing and foundation I'd applied. “I hear Burnout is putting you in for a commendation.”

“I didn't hear that.”

“Well you deserve it, after what you've been through.”

“Give me a break.”

“Aside from the beating you took, you found the murder weapon! Because of you they'll be able to put away the cocksucker who butchered those women. That's amazing.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Listen, Gladyss, you trust me, right?” he asked softly.

“Why?”

“I know that I can be difficult, but I do care about you.”

“And I care about you too, Eddie.”

“I heard a rumor that Internal Affairs is going to call you in.”

“Me?”

“That's what I heard. I don't know what it's about,” he said, looking down Sixth Avenue toward his partner Lombardi who was stationed by the doors at the southern end of the park. “If you want
to grab a bite, I'm going on break soon and—”

“Eddie,” I said awkwardly. “I'm off duty. I'm here to see the Rocmarni show with Noel Holden.”

“You're kidding! I thought you were done with that clown.”

“He turned out to be a nice guy.” I said, not entirely truthfully, given my wild speculations of the previous evening.

He smiled politely, and I said I had to run. “Thanks for the heads up about IA.”

Within the tents, four venues operated simultaneously all day long. Each show lasted only about fifteen minutes, but the load-in and load-out took nearly an hour. The Rocmarni show was taking place in the largest tent, the one in the front that could hold over a thousand people. I had arrived unfashionably early. The previous show was just ending, so most of those present were just staffers. Picture IDs dangled from bright ribbons around everyone's necks. I was directed to a hip-looking woman with a earpiece and a glass clipboard, who checked my ID, gave me a temporary badge, a seat ticket, and a catalog. She let me inside.

I headed to the back of the heated tent, past the long narrow runway. Glancing into an adjacent tent, I saw that another show was still in progress there. The catwalk was bordered by row after row of rising seats. I hadn't thought it was possible that there were many women bonier and taller than I was, but a succession of them emerged, scantily clad, one after the next through a narrow space between two brightly lit flats in the rear. Among the bars of swirling colored lights, through the pounding music, they strutted in rapid sequence to the very end of the catwalk. Each one paused there in front of a firing squad of flashes, then turned about face, and hip-snapped her way back to the narrow exit. All I could think was how grateful I was that the heating system pumped out such an abundance of warmth. It was freezing out there.

I heard a commotion, then spotted a crowd of people at the back of the room. Noel, wearing clearly borrowed finery, was busily signing autographs. When he saw me, he excused himself, a sun bursting out of its own little solar system. He dashed over and casually gave me a big hug, as though endless cameras weren't documenting his every move. Despite an acute ache from my recently pummeled kidneys it felt wonderful. When he finally let me go, a shooting sensation radiated up
and down my back that momentarily made me light-headed.

“I don't suppose you saw today's
Variety?
” he asked modestly. “
Fashion Dogs
topped forty-two mill this weekend.”

I had barely made it through that month's issue of the PBA newsletter.

“Great,” I said tiredly.

“Here I am bragging about my weekend box, and look at you,” Noel said, closely inspecting my facial contusions under my veil of foundation.

“I'm okay.”

“I meant to pick up something for you in LA,” he said, “but it was crazy. This is a small way of saying I'm sorry.” He handed me the gift basket that Rocmarni was giving all their invitees. In addition to samples of their latest skin cream and perfumes, and CDs by hip hop bands I had never heard of, there were gift coupons for luxury items—but these weren't exactly free. One coupon offered fifty percent off at an ice spa near the Arctic Circle. Finally, at the very bottom of the cloth bag, I found the only useful item inside, a miniature bottle of designer vodka.

“Perfect,” I said unscrewing the little top. “My back is killing me.”

The throng of guests had not entered the vast showroom yet. Noel took advantage of this to rummage through several other gift baskets placed on nearby seats, harvesting three more small bottles of vodka, which he discreetly slipped into my bag.

Noel parked me in a front row seat. “We'll talk afterwards,” he promised and dashed.

Spectators entered over the next twenty minutes, filling the seats, as I discreetly sucked down one little vodka bottle after the next and felt the ache in my jaw and forehead replaced by warm giddiness. Eventually after most of the seats were filled, I felt someone gently touch my back.

I turned to see Maggie. I didn't know if it was my breath or the gloss to my eyes, but she immediately asked, “Are you drunk?”