Silent Screams (16 page)

They found him sitting on a bench not far from the Prospect Park Boathouse. That part of the park was usually busy, but today few people gathered near the marshy pond at the back of the boathouse. The man was long and thin as the reeds lining the banks of the lake. His stringy gray hair was tied back with a red sock, and he wore the matching sock on his left hand, with holes cut in it so that his fingers poked out. His bony right hand was bare, and the fingers twitched spasmodically from time to time.

His clothes were decent: a sturdy pair of brown corduroy trousers fastened with a leather belt, tied in a knot because the buckle was missing. Blue and green flannel shirt, also in good shape, over a long red undershirt, clumsily tucked into the pants, bits of it still poking out. A forest green down parka in good condition, wool socks, and leather Docksiders with thick soles completed his outfit. Either someone was taking care of him or he had hit a thrift store jackpot, Lee thought—either way, he was glad the man was warmly dressed. Being homeless wasn’t any picnic even in the best weather, but it could be especially brutal in February.

He watched Lee and Eddie approach with a wary frown.

“Hiya,” said Eddie. “Remember me?”

“Sure I remember you. You were here with your two bodyguards.” The man scrutinized Lee. “This guy doesn’t look so impressive. What happened to the other two?”

Eddie laughed. “This is my weekend bodyguard.”

The man’s frown deepened. “No offense,” he said to Lee, “but you don’t look very scary.”

“I’m not.”

“My friend’s name is Lee,” Eddie said. “And I’m—”

“No, don’t tell me,” the man interrupted. “Larry. Elmer. Pete. Elijah.”

“Eddie.”

“Right, right—Eddie. I remember now. My friends call me Willow,” he said to Lee. Then, with a chuckle that was more like a hiccough, he added, “My enemies don’t call me. You won’t tell them you saw me, will you?” he asked, his eyes searching Lee’s face. His eyes were watery and bloodshot, but radiated a sharp intelligence.

His face was as long and thin as his body, with cheeks so sunken that they made his protruding buckteeth look even more prominent. His eyes were dark and deeply recessed in their sockets, and Lee didn’t know if they were red-rimmed from booze, lack of sleep, disease, or just general ill health.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Eddie said. “We won’t tell anyone. Here—we brought you somethin’.” He dug a carton of Marlboros out from under his jacket. Willow leapt up from the bench and snatched them up eagerly, his eyes gleaming.

“Thanks! How d’you know my brand?” he asked as he tore away the cellophane wrapping and dug out a pack. He ripped it open and extracted a cigarette, examining it, peering at both ends. “Gotta check for microchips,” he said, placing the cigarette in his mouth. He pulled a stainless-steel lighter from his pants pocket and lit the cigarette, sucking on it so deeply that Lee imagined his cheeks touching inside his mouth. He exhaled a plume of blue-gray smoke and smiled blissfully. The expression sat oddly on his lean features, making his face even more grotesque.

“Oh, that’s better,” he said, taking another deep drag before settling back down on the bench. The hand holding the cigarette was still, resting on his bony knee, but the other one danced about nervously. He picked at the green chipped paint on the bench, and that seemed to calm him somewhat. His eyes roamed the park, as if trying to spot potential spies and saboteurs. The only people in sight, though, were a young mother rolling a baby in a stroller, and an old man walking a decrepit Boston terrier. Owner and dog shuffled along, both of them arthritic, the dog’s bulbous eyes cloudy with age. The man was wrapped in a red wool scarf under his parka, and the dog wore a little red wool coat made from the same material.

The pair didn’t escape Willow’s roving gaze. “Look at that!” he said. “Like master, like dog.” He muttered something under his breath and took another drag of the cigarette, pulling at it with his whole body. He held in the smoke and then let it snake slowly out through his nostrils.

Eddie sat next to him. “So you told my friend that you had something for us? Some information—something you saw.”

“I see a lot of things,” Willow said, almost to himself. “I see a
lot
of things.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie replied. “But there was somethin’ in particular you saw that we was interested in, remember?”

Instead of answering, Willow dug another cigarette from the pack and lit it with the first one, which he tossed over his shoulder. Lee’s hopes sank—this man was a washout, a dead end. He had come all the way out to Prospect Park to watch a homeless schizophrenic smoke himself to death.

But then, to his surprise, Willow nodded. Looking around one last time, he lowered his voice even more. “Okay, I’ll tell you what I saw, right?”

“Right,” Eddie said.

“If you promise not to tell the Feds. CIA, FBI—they all want to get me, you know?”

“Yeah,” Eddie assured him. “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone.”

“Plant microchips in your brain, that’s what they do when they get you, you know. Did you know that?”

“I heard something’ about it, yeah,” Eddie said. “Now what was it you saw?”

“Well, it was this guy, you know, and what was weird about it was that he was taking trash
into
the church. I thought that was odd. Thought maybe he was one of the ones after me—I’m always on the lookout.”

“Right, right,” Eddie encouraged him. “This is All Souls Church, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When was this?” Lee asked.

“Well, it was last Saturday night. I know ’cause that’s the day they have their soup kitchen, and I always go. Well, sometimes they throw stuff out later in the day, so I was just poking around, you know—nothin’ illegal.”

“No, of course not,” Lee reassured him.

“So it’s Saturday evening and there’s really no one else around, and then I see this guy.”

“What he look like?” Eddie asked.

“Little guy—runty, you know? Like if he was a pup in a litter they woulda drowned him. Only they didn’t, ’cause there he was.”

Lee had the uncomfortable thought that it might have been better for everyone if someone had drowned the man they were pursuing.

“Runty like how?” said Eddie. “You mean deformed or something?”

“Naw, nothin’ like that. Just small—short, you know—and skinny. Not as thin as me, maybe, but pretty damn skinny, I’ll tell you.”

“Did you get a look at his face at all?” said Lee.

Willow shook his head, loosening the sock holding his gray ponytail. Lee didn’t want to think about what might be living inside that greasy nest of hair.

“Not real well—too dark. No moon that night, and one a’ the street lamps was burned out—has been for a while. But I did see the light across the street shine on his forehead. He had a big forehead. High, y’know, like his hair is receding.”

“This trash can he was carrying,” Eddie said, “did it seem like it was full?”

“Yeah, that’s the other weird thing,” Willow said, scratching his head. “Who brings a full trash can
into
a building, you know? Weird.”

“Did you see him bring anything back out?” Lee asked.

“Nope. I saw a guy light up on the corner, bummed a smoke from him. Didn’t see anything after that.”

“Do you remember how he was dressed?”

“Mmm…dark clothes. Raincoat sort of like the ones the Feds wear, except this guy was no Fed—not well enough fed for that. Hey, that’s not bad,” he said, smiling broadly, displaying a mouth badly in need of dentistry. Several teeth were chipped; others were missing altogether. “Not well enough
fed
for a
Fed
—hey, not bad.” He gave a chuckle, a low rumbling sound of phlegm rattling in his lungs.

“Anything else?”

“Oh, yeah—there was one thing.”

“What?”

“His breathing. It was wheezy, you know? Like a guy who’s been smokin’ too long—except he didn’t light up or nothin’.”

“Do you think you could identify him from a police sketch?”

Willow picked at a scab on his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

“Okay, look,” Lee said, “you’ve been really helpful. Is there anything we can get you—some food, a place to sleep?”

Willow held up the carton of cigarettes. “More of these?”

“Hey, look,” Lee said, pulling five twenty-dollar bills from his wallet. “If I give you this, will you promise to spend some of it on food and shelter?”

Willow took the money and counted it. “You made a mistake, man—these are twenties.”

“It’s not a mistake. I want you to have them. But please buy some decent food for yourself, will you? And maybe a room at the Y?”

“Y-M-J-A,” Willow sang softly as he stuffed the money into his shoe. “I can stay at the Y-M-J-A. Da da da da da da, I can get anything I want, at the Y-M-J-A.” He looked at Lee. “I’m Jewish—get it?”

“Yes,” Lee said. “I get it. You will? Promise?”

“Sure!” Willow sang out, but his attention was drawn by a passing jogger, a well-built young black man in red spandex.

“Now
he’s
a Fed,” Willow whispered. “You see? They’ve found me already—they move fast, lemme tell you.” He began singing again. “Who needs a bunker in Iraq-aq-aq-aq-aq-aq?” He sang to the tune of the Billy Joel song, “Movin’ Out.” “If that’s what’s movin’ in, I’m gettin’ out.”

Without saying good-bye, Willow stood up and wandered off in the direction of the boathouse.

Eddie looked at Lee. “Well, I guess that’s all she wrote.”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “Listen, how can I reach you?

“You can’t,” Eddie replied. “I’ll call you.”

Lee wanted to protest, but he knew there was nothing like pressure to drive Eddie even further away. And, as they walked out of the park, he was busy thinking about why someone would drag a trash can into a church in the middle of the night.

Surely his mother wouldn’t object to his spending time with this girl. She was so slight, so frail, more like a little bird, really, than a girl. A little sparrow—yes, that was it
. She was exactly like a tiny, underfed sparrow, and he longed to take her in his arms and feed her until she fell asleep, contented and safe in his gentle embrace. It was nothing lustful; it was more like the feeling you might have toward a beloved pet, a desire to take care of them, to nurture them the way you might a puppy, or any helpless creature. What could be the harm in that?

He screwed his face up and put his hands over his ears, as if that would drown out the voice in his head, but the voice burrowed all the way through to his eardrums, making him dizzy. The memory of that first awful humiliation played like a tape in his head, from beginning to end.

Sam-u-el! How could you do that? How could you touch that nasty, nasty creature, that filthy little harlot? How could you do that to me—to Him? Do you want to make Jesus cry? Do you?

The wooden figurine of Jesus on the cross above her bed looked down on him, disappointment carved into the wooden face. The tortured eyes implored him—him, Samuel—for help as if he could ease Jesus’s suffering.

Sam-u-el! Look at me when I’m talking to you! Did you think Jesus wouldn’t see you, wouldn’t know what filthy thoughts you were thinking?

He didn’t think his thoughts were filthy, but maybe he was wrong. His mother had said that the Devil disguises thoughts sometimes, to fool the sinner—maybe his heart was full of lust after all. He thought about the girl, so thin, so pale, her bones fragile as a bird’s. Even her delicate little pointed chin had a beaklike quality. It didn’t feel like lust, or what he thought of as lust, but how could he argue with God? Even worse, how could he argue with his mother?

He had to make the voice stop before his head burst. He had to make God happy, and he knew of one way to do that—thanks to his Master. He looked at his watch. It would be dark soon, and then his work could begin.

“Oh, yeah, he’d be just a
dream
in court,” Butts said, rolling his eyes.

He was sprawled in one of the chairs facing Chuck’s desk. Lee sat across from him in the matching one. They were in Morton’s office the next day, comparing notes. Chuck was perched on the windowsill, arms folded. Nelson sat in the captain’s chair behind the desk, his fingertips drumming the arm of the chair. Detective Florette sat in a straight-backed chair in the corner, his posture as disciplined and rigid as the starched cuffs of his immaculate white shirt.

“A lot of credible sources make lousy witnesses in court,” Chuck pointed out. “You know that as well as I do, Detective Butts. We both cover the Bronx, for Christ’s sake.”

“Excuse me, Mr.—uh,
Willow
, is it?” Butts continued. “Can you tell me who, if anyone, in this courtroom is an informant working for the FBI? Oh, I see—that man in the long black robe? And how do you know that? Oh, because of the microchips they planted in your
brain
?”

“All right, Detective, knock it off,” Chuck said wearily. “Obviously this guy isn’t usable in court. The question is, is it a lead we can work with?”

Nelson shrugged. “He may turn out to be the only eyewitness we have so far.”

“Unless that really was the Slasher that Campbell saw at the funeral,” Butts pointed out.

“I don’t see how it could have been anyone else,” Florette pointed out. “That last text message seemed pretty conclusive.”

By now they had all been told about the text messages Lee had been receiving; there was general agreement among them that the killer was probably sending the messages about Laura, though Chuck remained skeptical.

“You said this Willow character didn’t get that good of a look at this guy, right?” Butts asked.

“Right,” Lee agreed.

“But you did—assuming it was him,” said Nelson. “Any hits on the families with the sketch of the guy you saw?”

“No. None of them recognized him.”

Chuck picked the police artist sketch up from his desk and held it aloft. Even now, looking at it sent a shiver up the back of Lee’s neck. The artist had captured the intensity of his stare, the look of both loss and danger in his eyes.

“Why don’t you take the sketch to this Willow character, and ask him if it looks like the man he saw?” Chuck asked.

“All right,” Lee replied, “but he said it was too dark to make out any of the man’s features.” What he didn’t say was that he had no idea how to get in touch with Eddie—Eddie always called him, usually from a pay phone on the street. Lee had never mentioned Eddie by name, nor did he say how they had met. He referred to Eddie as “a reliable informant.” No one had pressed him for more information. Everyone in law enforcement had their sources, and they weren’t often choirboys.

“Let’s say we identify the guy that this Willow fellow saw as being the same guy you saw at the funeral—and let’s assume he is the UNSUB,” Florette said. “You said before that chances are he could have a record, but maybe not?”

“Right,” Nelson said. “Sexual killers often begin with break-ins, burglaries, that kind of thing—and sometimes they’re Peeping Toms before they ‘graduate’ to more serious crimes.”

“He’s already graduated,” Chuck pointed out.

“And do you think those text messages came from him?” Butts asked.

“I think it’s likely,” Lee answered. “Otherwise, the timing does seem too coincidental.”

“How about your idea that there’s more than one perp?” Florette asked.

“Yeah, what about that?” Chuck asked.

“I still say that’s an incredible long shot,” Nelson protested. “It’s just not—”

The phone on Chuck’s desk rang. He grabbed the receiver.

“Morton here.” He listened, his face darkening. “No, I don’t have any comment on the case.”

He slammed down the receiver. “Damn press—they’re all swarming around like flies on honey.” He sank down in his chair and leaned rested his elbows on the desk. “Look, I don’t have to tell you that forensic evidence on this case is not exactly piling up, so we have to try different angles. What about the churches?” he said to Florette. “Any luck there?”

“Well, staff interviews haven’t gotten us much—no one saw anything unusual, that sort of thing. Detective Butts and I have been looking into the congregations, but that’s taking a while.”

“Right,” Butts agreed. “So far no one fits the offender profile. And no one recognizes the sketch of the guy Lee saw.”

“We’ve also been looking for something these churches had in common,” Florette answered. “Maybe something that links them in some way.”

“And did you find anything?” Butts asked.

“Nothing obvious, other than they’re both Catholic churches. But then we looked into all the programs going on at the churches—most of them have lots of meetings, you know, support groups and the like.”

“Right,” Nelson said. “There’s a support group for everything these days. Mothers Who Lactate Too Much, Adult Children of Republican Parents—you name it.”

“But most of those groups are anonymous,” Lee pointed out.

“Exactly,” Florette replied. “So there’s not much we could do there—at least for the time being. We’d have to have a lot more evidence linking this guy to membership in one of the groups.”

“Which we don’t have,” Butts pointed out, extracting a battered cigar from his pocket.

“Right,” Florette said. “But then we started looking into the charitable works the church is involved in—feeding the homeless, that kind of thing.”

“We know that Marie Kelleher volunteered at her church once a month,” said Butts.

“Any leads there?” Nelson asked.

“Our first thought was that maybe he works for one of these organizations,” Florette replied.

“Okay,” Chuck said. “Definitely stay on that—we’ll check all the employees you can dig up against the profile we’ve got so far.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Chuck asked.

The answer was curt and businesslike. “Internal Affairs.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Chuck said, opening the door. “This is not a good time.”

“It’s never a good time for IA,” Butts muttered.

The man was tall and stern-looking, with an impassive, long-jawed face. He reminded Lee of a cross between his grade school principal and Abraham Lincoln.

“Dr. Campbell?” he said, looking at Lee.

“Yes?”

“Lieutenant Ed Hammer, Internal Affairs. I’m investigating the matter of a brutality complaint by a Mr. Gerald Walker, who was being interrogated in this facility on—”

“Yeah, we know who he is,” Chuck interrupted. “Get to the point, please.”

“Were any of you present during the interrogation?”

“I was,” Butts said. “And I can tell you—the guy is a class-A creep.”

“That may be, Detective…”

“Butts.”

The man checked a notebook he was carrying. “Detective Butts, would you like to tell me why you haven’t returned any of my phone calls?”

“I got more important things to worry about. Let me tell you something, Lieutenant Hammer: this guy was askin’ for it. I woulda whaled on him myself in a minute.”

“So you saw Mr. Campbell abuse the suspect?”

“Abuse, my ass!” Butts snarled, his cratered cheeks reddening. “He barely touched him.”

Lieutenant Hammer looked at Lee. “Is that how he got the black eye?”

“Look,
Lieutenant
,” Butts said, biting out the words, “Walker is a crybaby as well as a wife beater.”

“Will you come down to our office and make a statement?”

“You bet!” Butts snapped back, grabbing his coat.

Chuck waved Butts back to his chair. “Just a minute, Detective.” Then he stood up and crossed the small space between himself and Hammer, putting his face very close to Hammer’s.

“Look, Lieutenant Hammer, I appreciate that you are just trying to do your job, but both Dr. Campbell and Detective Butts are important members of our investigative team. I promise I will have Detective Butts make out a statement and send it to your office. I don’t need to tell you that our work is vitally important to the security of the citizens of this city. For every minute of our time that is wasted, another woman could die.”

Hammer sighed. “Yes, Captain Morton, I understand that. But, as you say, I have my job to do, just as you have yours. We would also like to get a formal statement from you.”

“Fine,” Chuck said coldly without breaking eye contact. “I’ll fax one over tomorrow. Give me your number.”

Hammer scribbled a number in his notebook, ripped the page off, and gave it to Chuck, who stuffed it in his pocket.

“And now, if you’ll excuse us, we have work to do.”

“I’ll expect your statements by oh eight hundred hours tomorrow,” Hammer said. “You too, please, Dr. Campbell.” And with that, he left.

There was an awkward silence; then Butts muttered, “Oh-eight-hundred hours my ass! Who the hell does he think he is, Goddamn Patton?”

“Never mind,” Lee said. “I think we should all get him our statements as soon as possible.”

“I agree,” Chuck said. “But let’s forget it now, okay? Can we get back to the case at hand?”

“The Catholic angle is interesting,” Florette suggested. “You definitely believe we’re dealing with a religious fanatic here? I mean, he’s not faking it or something?”

“I don’t know if the killer is trying to set up an insanity plea or not, but the religious fervor is real,” Lee ventured.

“Really? Why?” Florette asked.

“Leaving the bodies in churches is risky and difficult—he could have easily been caught, and he’s too intelligent not to know that. And the carving is even more risky. It’s an important part of his signature, what he needs to get emotional satisfaction.”

“Yeah? So now we know what drives him, how does that help us nab him?” Butts asked.

“You know,
Detective
, if you spent less time criticizing the profiler and more time working with him, you might be closer to catching this guy.” Nelson’s voice oozed sarcasm.

Butts frowned and crossed his arms. “Yeah, and if pigs had wings, they’d fly.”

“All
right
!” Morton interrupted. “I know this is frustrating for all of us, but let’s remember we’re on the same team and stop sniping at one another. Knock it off.” He fixed a stare on Butts until the burly detective sighed and looked away. Morton turned his gaze on Nelson, who smiled.

“I couldn’t agree more, Captain Morton,” he replied.

“Well,” Butts remarked, “this guy is bound to slip up sooner or later.”

Nelson looked at the detective as though trying to determine what species he belonged to.

“The question is,” he said acidly, “what do we say to the parents of the next victim? That we decided to wait until he ‘slipped up’?”

Butts’s pockmarked face turned purple, and he clenched his plump hands into fists. “Look, I wanna catch this guy as badly as you do! Anyone who says otherwise is—”

“All
right
!” Chuck shouted. “Will you both cut it out? We have work to do!” He pointed to a map of the five boroughs tacked up on the wall. “Now, the red thumbtacks indicate where he’s struck already.”

“Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn,” Florette said. “So far he’s going borough by borough.”

“Could that be a coincidence?” Chuck asked.

“No,” Lee replied. “This guy is compulsive and orderly—obsessively organized. No,” he said, looking at the little row of tacks, “I think it’s all part of a pattern. He’s staking out his territory.”

“I agree,” Nelson said. “However, the question is, what’s next? Is he going to come to Manhattan, or cross down to Staten Island, leaving Manhattan as the final jewel in his crown, as it were?”

“You’re right,” Lee agreed. “There’s no way of knowing.”

“Why don’t we put out a public warning telling girls in those two boroughs not to go out alone?” Butts suggested.

Nelson bit his lip. “We tried that during Son of Sam. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. People are going to do what they’re going to do.”

“Of course we’ll issue a warning,” Chuck said, rubbing his eyes.

“It won’t do any good,” Nelson said. “This guy is patient. The only way we stop these killings is to stop
him
.”

“Right,” Lee agreed. “He’ll wait—sooner or later he’ll find someone who fits his profile.”

“So he’s profiling his vics the way you’re profiling him?” Florette asked.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Lee answered.

“Man,” Butts said. “That’s creepy.”

Nelson smiled. “Detective Butts, I must agree with you there. Creepy is exactly what it is.”

As they filed out of the office, Nelson took Lee aside.

“What is it?” Lee asked, seeing the troubled look in his friend’s face.

“I’m worried about you, lad. You look tired. Maybe you should take a leave of absence for a while, get some rest?”

“I’m fine,” Lee replied.

“Well, you don’t look fine. Are the text messages getting to you? They must be very upsetting.”

“I’m fine—really. And I need to see this case through to the end.”

Nelson’s face was stern and grim. “The end may be more than you bargained for.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be all right.”

“Well, at least be careful, please?”

“I will. I promise.”

But even as he said the words he knew that being careful might not be enough—for him or for the Slasher’s next victim.