Killer Heat (27 page)

“Does it mean anything to you if I tell you that each of his
victims-”

“Mr. Wallace, I'm not a shrink,” Kallin said, shaking a finger
at him. “Just a wannabe.”

“You're smart, Nelly,” Mike said, pacing again. “You've seen
Troy Rasheed-if he's our man-day after day for more than three
years now. We want your perspective.”

“If every one of these victims had some kind of uniform on when
she was attacked, would that surprise you?” Mercer asked.

Nelly Kallin stopped to think. “Not really. Get your hands on
his military records. He's been frustrated by that experience all
his life. His father's ambitions for him, his own discharge, the
fact that it ostensibly had to do with an assault on a female
member of the service. Maybe he blames her for all his problems.
He's had a few decades to chew on that.”

I could hear shouting outside the house. It distracted Nelly and
she glanced around at the windows once more. Mercer looked up from
the files.

“Control,” she said. “I'd say that control and having someone
weaker than he was, someone he could think of as inferior to
himself, that probably had something to do with Troy's crimes.”

“You mean the way he bound the women, tortured them for a period
of time?” I asked.

“Sure. You've probably worked with as many sexual sadists as I
have, Ms. Cooper. Don't you think there's something else going on
here?”

The intense humidity had wilted my clothes and created blond
curls around my forehead. I pushed them back. “I do,” I said. “Of
course I do.”

“The docs have known about all this for more than a century,
Kallin said. ”Krafft-Ebing and his definition of sadism."

“The experience of sexually pleasurable sensations, including or
gasm, produced by acts of cruelty,” I said. “The DSM hasn't done any better than that definition, all these years
later.”

Mike was running his hand through his hair.

“I think Troy Rasheed likes hurting women,” Kallin
said. “It may be as simple as that, Detective. It's one of the few
things in life that has given him pleasure, and he's had a long
time to look forward to enjoying that sensation again.”

She stood up and walked out of the room, returning with a
notebook. “I've collected my own 'who's who,' Ms. Cooper. Sometimes
the young shrinks aren't even aware of the history of these
crimes, they've got so many new perps to study. Gilles de
Rais-ever hear of him?”

“A fifteenth-century French nobleman who kidnapped, tortured,
and murdered children,” I said. Like Kallin, I had researched these
crimes for more than a decade, trying to understand the
motivations of these monsters and crimes that made no sense at
all.

“Hundreds of children. Entirely for his own pleasure and
physical delight, is how he described it. His 'inexpressible'
pleasure, to quote him exactly,” she said, turning several pages.
“Vincenz Verzeni?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Italian, nineteenth century. I'm surprised you missed him.
Raped and mutilated his victims. Described his unspeakable delight
in strangling women, experiencing erections while he did so.”

Nelly Kallin closed the looseleaf book and stacked it on top of
one of the piles. “Shrinks spend a disproportionate amount of
their time analyzing motivation, grasping at reasons 'why' these
men commit such heinous crimes. You don't need to look much beyond
the fact that many of them simply like to do it-something the rest
of us can't begin to fathom. It's what gives these sadists
pleasure.”

Voices outside the window were closer now, voices of people who
seemed to be arguing with each other as they ran up the path next
to the house.

Mercer got to his feet as Nelly Kallin grabbed his arm to hold
him back.

“It's not a problem, Mr. Wallace,” she said.

But something crashed through one of the panes of the kitchen
window at that moment and I jumped as glass shattered onto the
floor behind me.

FORTY-ONE

Nelly Kallin wasn't the least bit upset by the baseball that
flew into the room like a missile. The thirteen-year-old twins who
lived on the other side of the hedge had returned home from summer
camp over the weekend, and she explained good-naturedly that it
wasn't the first time she would have to replace a window that faced
their walkway.

Mercer opened the door for the kids, who came to apologize for
the accident.

Mike turned me around to make sure no bits of glass had landed
on my head or back. He rubbed my shoulders with both hands. “You're
shaking, Coop. You're really strung out.”

“Overtired. Worried about Kerry. Scared to death that the killer
is out there.”

Mike's fingers massaged my shoulders and neck. “Crabby can't be
far behind. This is when you take it out on my hide.”

“Well, you're stuck with me till you find Troy Rasheed. And
Kiernan Dylan.”

Nelly Kallin dismissed the two boys and Mike told her we had to
get back to work with her files. She took ten minutes to go
upstairs and pack a bag, and we all drove away at the same
time.

“You want to try the Newark address for Wilson Rasheed?” Mike
asked Mercer.

“Yeah,” Mercer said, looking at the paper that Mike handed to
him. “You know the street? It's not far from the Amtrak
station.”

There were so many Manhattan perpetrators who commuted from New
Jersey to commit their felonies that most cops in each jurisdiction
were familiar with the other. It was less than a fifteen-minute
ride to the three-story row of attached houses in an as yet
ungentrified part of the old city that seemed continually to fight
a losing battle with violent crime.

Mike and I waited in the car while Mercer entered the vestibule,
presumably to look for the doorbell or some way to identify
Rasheed's home. Ten minutes later he emerged to tell us that when
he got no answer he gained entry by ringing a neighbor's buzzer.
The man knew Wilson but hadn't seen him in more than two weeks.
Mercer slipped a card with his name and phone number under the
door.

“How about a ride up to Sussex County?” Mike asked Mercer.

“It's after six,” I said from the backseat behind Mike. “We
won't get there till at least eight o'clock.”

“It's going to be eight o'clock no matter where you are,
Blondie. Might as well make yourself useful. Close your eyes and
enjoy the ride.”

Mercer got on his cell to call the sheriff's office in the small
village of Colesville, near the spot where Wilson Rasheed's hunting
cabin was located. He asked the sergeant he was connected to if
anyone there knew the man. There was a pause, then he gave Mike and
me a thumbs-up. We listened as he persuaded the sergeant to lead us
up the mountainous area to the property.

“They won't go in without us,” Mercer said when he was off.
“Says Rasheed's a real oddball. Doesn't like people trespassing on
his property. They don't exactly want to drop in on him without a
reason. He's been known to take a few potshots with a rifle and
claim later that he thought he was shooting at a black bear.”

“Damn. You better stay in the car when we get there, pal. Hate
for the guy to get you in his sights.”

I must have fallen asleep once Mike reached the interstate. The
smooth road and the light rain tapping on the windshield put me
out.

I awakened when Mike got off the highway and stopped at a gas
station. He filled the tank and bought coffee and sandwiches, which
we ate in the car. The attendant directed us to the small building
on the outskirts of town that housed the sheriff's office, where
the diminutive Sergeant Edenton was waiting to lead us up to
Rasheed's hideaway.

“I'll stop at the property line,” he said. “It's a dark, winding
drive up. Then you'll have to walk a bit longer.”

“I understand he doesn't have a phone,” Mike said.

“The man don't believe in creature comforts at all. It's better
if he can't see me, 'cause I only show my face when we get
complaints about him.”

“You know his son?”

“Troy? Haven't seen that troublemaker since he was a teenager.
Heard what he got locked up for and just glad it didn't happen
around here. You have flashlights?”

“One,” Mercer said, holding it up for Edenton to see.

“Let me get you two more,” he said, going back into the building
and returning with two lantern-sized beams. “You need to stay on
the main path. Wilson's got it all booby-trapped up there. Step in
the wrong place, you'll find yourself in a bear trap or a hole in
the ground.”

“Wouldn't it make sense to come back in the morning, in
daylight, with an Emergency Services team?” I asked.

“The guy's not a criminal,” Mike said. “He's a kook. We don't
have time to waste, Coop.”

“You're fine on the main path,” Edenton said, laughing at me.
“Just announce yourselves when you get close to the house. Maybe
you send her in first, saying she's the Avon lady.”

“We always send her in first. That's how come Mercer and I have
lived so long.”

Once we followed Sergeant Edenton off the paved town road and up
the dirt drive that wound around the small mountain, a blanket of
fog descended. Dense evergreens towered over us on both sides, and
deep ruts bounced the department car, which had already surrendered
its shock absorbers to the potholes of city streets.

Mike had given up air-conditioning in favor of opening all the
windows so that we could hear noise, if there was any. Moths
attached themselves to the headlights and mosquitoes searched for
landing places on my face and hands.

The SUV Edenton was driving tracked the familiar course faster
than we did, and he repeatedly stopped to let Mike catch up.

We drove for more than a mile, but the fog made it impossible to
tell whether there were any occupied buildings set back from the
road. When Edenton finally turned off his engine and got out of his
car, his flashlight focused on the red and white metallic surface
of the NO TRES- PASSING signs that lined the path.

“You got a plan, Mike?” the sergeant asked.

“Mercer'll back me up. I suppose I'll shout when I get close
enough to see the cottage,” Mike said. He took his gold shield from
his pants pocket and held it up in his palm. “Shine your light on
it, Sarge. Does it gleam?”

From a distance of five feet, the rays danced off the metallic
badge. But the mist would obscure it from any farther away.

“There should be an old jeep next to the place if he's home. And
I'm telling you guys, watch your step,” Edenton said.

“Will do. Light a fire and Coop'll roast you some marshmallows.
It's one of the few culinary chores I think she can handle.”

Mike saluted the sergeant and started off slowly, walking on the
right tire track. Mercer was just a few steps behind him.

Edenton seemed embarrassed by his decision to stay back with me.
A minute or two later, he opened the rear of his SUV and took out a
shotgun, checking to make sure it was loaded. “I'd better give them
a hand. You want to sit in the car and lock the doors?”

There was an eerie stillness in the woods around me. “I'll
follow you.”

We walked for at least five minutes, and although Mike and
Mercer could not have been more than fifty yards in front of us, it
was impossible to see them.

I stopped short when I heard Mike's voice call out Wilson
Rasheed's name.

“Are we close to the cabin?” I asked Edenton.

He swept his light around the foliage. “Should be. I can't pick
up any reflectors from the back of the jeep.”

“Mr. Rasheed. My name is Chapman. NYPD,” Mike was shouting now,
and I pressed Edenton's back to move him ahead. “I'm here with some
other detectives. We've come to help you, sir, so I'm going to
approach your door and knock on it.”

I could see Mercer's large frame outlined in the haze by the
sergeant's flashlight. Edenton stepped over the hump in the middle
of the roadway to the left track, and I advanced closer behind
Mercer.

“Where's Mike? Did you lose him?”

“Right up ahead,” he said, lifting the light. “See the
door?”

I added the beam of my flashlight to the others and could make
out the shape of a primitive log cabin. There was no sign of a car
close to the place. Mike was standing on the porch, to the side of
the front door. There were no lights from within the small
structure and no sound except the buzzing of mosquitoes and black
flies around my head.

Mike rapped on the door several times. No noise, no
response.

He turned around so that his back was against the building. He
pocketed the flashlight and drew his gun in his right hand,
reaching out to lift the latch with his left. The door opened and
swung in, banging several times against an interior wall.

“Give me some light.”

Mercer took two steps forward.

Mike swiveled around, and as his right foot landed squarely in
front of the door the plank beneath him cracked in half. His foot
disappeared into the hole it made, and his gun bounced off the
steps as he dropped it in order to grab on to the jamb to keep from
falling into the crevice.

Mercer was there with three giant steps, crossing over the hole
into the entrance of the shack, supporting Mike under the armpit
with one of his enormous hands.

Mike clung to Mercer with both arms and disappeared from my
sight into the blackness of the entryway. I started forward before
Edenton could, letting my light guide me behind Mercer and taking a
big step to avoid the hole Mike had almost fallen into.

Mercer stopped me, bracing me at arm's length. “Stay back, Alex.
It's bad.”

Edenton came up behind me and shone his flashlight into the
room. “My God,” he said. “It's Wilson.”

The body was laid out on the floor on its back, spread-eagle,
the skull crushed, probably by the large rock that rested next to
one ear.