Silent Screams (7 page)

Lee sat off to the side in the drafty lecture hall at John Jay College, watching his old mentor in action. It was after 3
P.M
., but the heat wasn’t on in the cavernous room, and the students sat bundled in their down jackets, rubbing their hands and blowing on them. In spite of the chill, though, attendance was good. Nelson’s lectures always drew a crowd. This was a new course, something a bit daring for the typical John Jay curriculum: The Psychology and Philosophy of the Serial Offender.

Up on the stage, Nelson paced in front of the podium, hands jammed into his pants pockets. He lectured without notes, and the machine-gun delivery of his lectures had often been parodied by his students. When Lee was a senior at John Jay, the class sketch show included a satire of Nelson, played by a student in a red fright wig, chain-smoking several cigarettes at once and barking out his lectures so fast that they were unintelligible. To his credit, Nelson laughed himself silly over it. He later said it was the most flattering portrayal he had ever seen of himself.

“I want to continue today with a quote from the renowned FBI profiler John Douglas,” Nelson said, stopping his pacing to pull down a large projection screen at the front of the room. “In his book,
Mindhunter
, he writes, ‘To understand the artist, look at his work.’”

Nelson perched on the edge of his desk and rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, what exactly does this mean?”

He looked out over the sea of eager faces. “It’s been said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. If you carry that idea far enough, you might even surmise that beneath every genius lurks a potential madman. And certainly in cases like van Gogh or Lord Byron, you had both. Trying to separate a genius from his ‘madness’ is like trying to pull dye out of a fabric after it has set. It’s a chicken-and-egg question. Who’s to say which feeds which? Would van Gogh have painted sunflowers or the garden at Arles if he didn’t suffer from bipolar disorder? My guess is probably not. He may have painted—he may even have painted well—but he would not have been van Gogh.”

He paused to adjust the slide projector on the desk next to him. The students sat, captured by his intellect and charisma. Lee remembered that when he was a student, there were girls who had crushes on Nelson, following him around between classes, soaking in the heat of his forceful personality.

“So that takes us back to John Douglas,” Nelson said, rising from his perch on the desk and picking up a remote control for the slide projector. “‘To understand the artist, look at his work.’ And if you view a serial offender the same way you would look at an artist, then we can begin to understand what Mr. Douglas is saying. After all, the root for both is the same: obsession. It’s only the form and content that differs, the degree of sublimation, of social acceptability.”

“Now this,” he said, clicking his remote control so that a picture of the garden at Arles appeared on the screen, “is socially acceptable. But this”—another click and it was replaced by a photograph of a young woman with dark red strangulation marks around her neck—” is not.”

There were murmurs from his audience. Nelson’s lips twitched, and one side of his mouth curved upward in a smile. He liked shocking his students. Without this dark side, Lee thought, Nelson would not be Nelson.

A girl in the third row raised her hand. She was a thin blonde, with a pale, waifish face.

“Are you implying that there’s no difference between a serial predator and a great artist?” Her voice quavered, though Lee couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or anger.

“Not at all,” Nelson replied. “I merely suggest that what drives them springs from the same source. The form of expression couldn’t be more different.”

The girl’s pale face reddened, and her voice shook even more. “So it’s just a question of
form
?”

“But form
is
content, on some very profound level. Consider the irreducibility of a poem, for example. It’s like the artificial separation between mind and body, something eastern medicine has recognized for centuries. Is a migraine headache a product of too much red wine, a genetic predisposition, or a fight with one’s husband? Who’s to say? The doctor says it’s the result of an expanded blood vessel in the forehead, the allergist claims it’s an aversion to tannins and nitrate, the reiki healer claims it’s an imbalance of the energies—and maybe they’re all right.”

He settled himself on the front of the desk again, his arms crossed.

“As to the difference between an artist and a criminal, I would maintain that van Gogh, who was actually psychotic, was lucky to have found an expression for his spirit, for his demons, that was socially acceptable. Or take Beethoven, for example, who was a famously eccentric and tortured soul. They were better adapters than your average criminal. On the other hand, there are people who are both criminals and talented creative artists—like the playwright Jean Genet, for example.”

A boy in the second row raised his hand. “You said they spring from the same source—what’s the source?”

“Libido—the life force. Passion. Without passion, there is no creativity—or destruction. Passion in Greek means ‘to suffer,’ as in the passion of Christ. But in our culture it has come to mean the force that drives sex, not creativity. I might remind you,” he continued, “that Adolf Hitler was an aspiring artist before he became a dictator.

“In fact, it’s been argued that had the art critics of Vienna been kinder to young Adolf, World War II might have been avoided. It was partly his frustration as an artist that turned him toward politics. As R. D. Laing points out, it is necessary for a person to feel they have made a difference—that they are being ‘received’ by others. So the ignored artist becomes the politician, and he ensures that he is listened to. Both his art and his political speeches were his attempts to impose his will—his
self
—upon the world. Like all cult leaders, he preys on his followers’ fears and dreams—”

A dark-haired girl in the front row raised her hand. “The Nazis were a cult?”

Nelson cocked his head to one side. “Of course they were a cult—a very successful one, for a while. All cults eventually self-destruct, of course. But that’s another topic.”

Nelson stood up from his perch on the front of the desk and pulled himself up to his full height of five foot six inches. “The ignored artist, or son, or lover, can also become a serial offender.” He clicked the remote in his hand and the slide of the young woman was replaced by a close-up of a smiling Ted Bundy.

“Most of you recognize this man. Handsome, intelligent, and charming, he was the sort of man your mother might wish you would marry.” Lee wasn’t sure, but he thought Nelson glanced at the blond girl when he said this. “But he was the very icon of the creature society fears most—the monster in its midst. And some deeply antisocial personalities, like Bundy, learn to imitate social behavior very, very well—you might even say they are masquerading as human beings.”

Nelson put down the remote and stood facing his audience.

“But he
was
a human being, and our job is to understand him, not merely judge him. It is a profoundly more difficult and disturbing task, of course, but it is the one we have chosen.”

A thin boy in the back raised his hand. “Would you say that Ted Bundy was evil?”

“That’s just a label—irrelevant, for our purposes. Leave it to the professional philosophers and theologians. The profiler and psychologist have no need to answer that question.”

The boy sat up in his seat. Lee couldn’t see his face, but he was slight and blond, and had a thin, raspy voice. “So do you believe there is such a thing as evil in the world?”

Nelson ran a hand through his wavy auburn hair. “The most profound questions are the very ones we should never assume to answer conclusively. Learning to live in a state of uncertainty is one of the most difficult tasks we have as human beings, but one of the most important. As soon as we feel we have all the answers, something inside us begins to die. But that’s for another lecture,” he added, glancing at his watch. “Any more questions?”

The thin blond boy raised his hand again.

“Freud said that if the id is left unchecked, it can run wild.”

Nelson flipped off the power switch to the slide projector. “The word for what we call the ‘id,’ by the way, in its original German, is ‘das Es’—the It. A much bolder statement, I think, than the flaccid Latin word. Compare ‘ego’ with the
Ich
, the
I
. And Germans, as you may or may not know, capitalize all of their pronouns.”

The blond girl raised her hand. “Their nouns, actually.”

Nelson smiled. “Thank you for that correction, Ms. Davenport. Okay, everyone, see you all next week.”

Lee smiled too—he wasn’t sure if she was one of Nelson’s admirers or not. As she gathered up her books and placed them in her knapsack, he thought she was sending lingering glances in Nelson’s direction, though, and she was the last to leave the lecture hall. When the room was empty Nelson sauntered up the steps to where Lee sat in the back row.

“Well, well, just like old times. Drop in for a refresher course?”

Lee smiled. “Something like that.”

“How about a drink? I’m buying. I need to wash the taste of undergraduate minds from my mouth.”

“Sure, why not? As long as you’re buying.”

The bar at Armstrong’s was one of Nelson’s favorite watering holes on Tenth Avenue. The menu was capricious and varied—and, more importantly to Nelson, the draft pints of Bass were reliable and cheap. Armstrong’s was one of Hell’s Kitchen’s best-kept secrets, known to locals but not to tourists, or to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd that swept down Ninth Avenue during rush hour.

“That was quite a far-ranging lecture,” Lee remarked as the bartender set a pair of dripping amber pints in front of them.

“Mostly these days I just try to keep myself amused,” Nelson replied, drinking deeply from the sweating glass. He wiped his upper lip and plunked the glass down on the bar. “Now
that
is what A. E. Housman was talking about when he said, ‘Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.’”

“Still, we need our Milton as well as our malt.”

Nelson dipped a hand into the bowl of fresh popcorn sitting on the bar. “True. It’s funny, but I still remember reading
Paradise Lost
in school and thinking how interesting Satan was—and how boring Christ was.”

“Satan is more human,” Lee agreed. “He’s
conflicted
, whereas Christ has everything figured out. Who can identify with that?”

“Or maybe we just like our villains,” Nelson replied with a smile. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in the other direction. It smelled sharp and aromatic, like herbs.

“Clove cigarettes,” he replied in answer to Lee’s look. “Some of my students smoke them. Supposedly they’re better for you.”

“I don’t think Christ’s virtue is what makes him so opaque,” Lee remarked. “It’s his
certainty
. But even virtuous people are full of doubts and uncertainty. That’s what we relate to about Satan: he’s in pain, his soul is in torment. Christ is just so damn serene! Who can identify with that?”

“Not me, my lad, not me,” Nelson answered with a wave to the bartender. “Another for me, my good man. You’ll have to catch up,” he added, seeing Lee’s half-full glass.

Lee was concerned over the pace of his friend’s drinking. Nelson evidently picked up on this, because he laid a hand on Lee’s arm.

“Don’t worry, lad, I don’t have any more lectures today. I’ve never yet turned up to class under the influence, and I don’t plan to start now. So how’s your case coming?”

“We’ve got a suspect, but I don’t think he’s the man.”

Lee told Nelson about Father Michael and his relationship with the dead girl. Nelson listened intently, his eyes narrowed.

“He clammed up as soon as his lawyer arrived?”

“Yeah. His lawyer kept saying it was the girl’s word against his, and that we had no crime to charge him with.”

Nelson sighed. “He’s right, of course. You may be right that this priest isn’t the killer, but you should keep an eye on him.”

“We are.”

“Good. Now, how about one more round?”

“No, thanks,” Lee replied, feeling uncomfortable. “I can’t drink quite as much as I used to.”

“Keep such admissions to yourself, or they’ll have you thrown out of this place!” Nelson said loudly enough that the bartender could hear.

He clearly did not want to discuss his drinking, and the force of his personality was like a wall between them. Lee was partly relieved. He had no desire to turn the tables on their tenuous father-son relationship. He was pretty certain his friend’s drinking had accelerated since his wife’s death, but the thought of confronting Nelson about it was daunting. He vowed to keep an eye on his friend, but babysitting Nelson’s drinking would have to take a backseat to finding the man who was stalking and strangling young women.

He looked at the happy, relaxed faces all around him: the young Latino couple in the corner, the pair of students at the other end of the bar, the young mother with her son at the video game machine. He felt an irrational sense of responsibility to protect them all from a killer who—Lee was certain—would not stop until he was caught.

Lee’s visit to Nelson’s lecture and to Armstrong’s had done little to dispel the unsettling feeling he had had ever since morning. He couldn’t shake the twisting sensation in his stomach. As he was heading for the kitchen to make tea, the phone rang. He picked up the portable receiver and continued into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Lee, it’s Chuck.”

“Hi. What’s up?” He pulled a blue enameled canister of tea from the top shelf and put the kettle on.
Nothing a good cup of tea can’t fix
, his mother liked to say.
Yeah, right, Mom
.

“It’s about our Jane Doe.”

Chuck Morton had never been good at disguising his feelings. Lee decided to try to spare him the difficult task of breaking the news.

“No one believes me, right?” he said, plucking a tea bag from the canister. It was Lifeboat Tea, a good strong blend he discovered at Cardullo’s on his last trip to Boston.

“
I
believe you, but the brass isn’t buying your theory about Jane Doe Number Five. The detectives in Queens are determined to hold on to the file—they say it’s their case.”

“She’s this guy’s work, too—I
know
it!”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Lee looked out the window at the people lined up waiting to get into McSorley’s. He never went in there at night—afternoons were the best time, when the sun flooded in through the dusty windows, dancing across the sawdust-strewn floors and gleaming off the row of antique brass beer taps.

“You know how some of them feel about profilers,” Chuck said. “They’re not buying the idea that we’ve got a serial offender on our hands.” His voice was apologetic.

“Well, they’ll find out sooner or later they’re wrong—when another girl dies.”

Down on the street, a couple was having an argument. The girl leaned against the building, arms crossed, while her boyfriend ranted and paced in front of her, throwing his arms around. Lee couldn’t hear what he was saying, but judging from the sulky expression on the girl’s face, it wasn’t welcome. The boyfriend was bulky and blond, built like a bull terrier; she was lanky and dark-haired, with one of those Irish faces—sharp dark eyes and a pert, upturned nose. Her expression was defiant; she looked like she could handle him.

“You don’t think it’s the priest, do you?” Chuck said.

“No—and even if I did, you have to let him go unless you’re going to charge him with something.”

“Oh, hell, Lee, I wish there was something I could do.”

The kettle screamed its shrill crescendo, and Lee pulled it from the gas flame.

“Look, it’s not your fault,” he said. “I hope I’m wrong—I really do.”

“Well, maybe we’ve got enough to go on with this one up in the Bronx.”

“We’ll see,” he said, pouring the steaming water into a blue and white tin mug. “A killer’s progression tells us important things about him. The second killing was already more organized than the first.” He didn’t say what else he was thinking:
And more violent
.

“We’ve been interviewing anyone who works at the church, but so far no one’s given us anything. If it isn’t the priest, do you think this guy could be a member of the congregation?”

“I don’t think so. If we had enough manpower, though, it might be worth tracking down people to interview.”

He added milk and sugar to his tea and checked back in on the couple in the street. The girl was still leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. There was no sign of the boyfriend.

“For the time being we’re trying to rule out some local sex offenders,” Chuck said. “Butts and I are interviewing some possible suspects this afternoon—want to sit in?”

“Sure. What time?”

“In about an hour.”

“I’ll be there.”

The interrogation room was tiny and stuffy. Chuck had brought in a man named Jerry Walker. Walker was on the maintenance staff at Fordham, and had a record of two arrests and one conviction—both for sexual offenses against young girls. As they waited for Detective Butts to arrive, Lee leafed through Walker’s file. He had been convicted eight years ago of statutory rape, and had served five years of his ten-year sentence, with time off for good behavior. He was paroled three years ago. So far he appeared to have kept his nose clean, though with these guys you never knew. How on earth he’d managed to get a job doing maintenance at a college, Lee couldn’t imagine.

The door was flung open, and Butts entered, sweating and out of breath.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding more irritated than apologetic. “Damn fire on the A train.” He loosened his tie and took a drink of water from the cooler in the corner.

Walker smiled and leaned back in his chair as though he was enjoying himself. He was a cocky, macho type Lee was familiar with. He always wondered if these guys were for real—their behavior was full of clichés layered on top of clichés.

But Jerry Walker did not include self-awareness in his arsenal of personality quirks. He sat across from them at the interrogation table, legs spread wide, the insolent set of his shoulders expressing his disdain for the whole process. A pack of Camels was tucked into the sleeve of his T-shirt—
another cliché
, Lee thought. He was dressed like a biker from the fifties: white T-shirt, blue jeans, heavy black boots, slicked-back hair.

His pumped-up arms were crossed, the tattoos on his biceps bulging—a curvy mermaid on the left arm, “I Love Jenny” in Gothic lettering on the right. Lee wondered who Jenny was, and if she knew that she had been memorialized in ink on the muscular flesh of Jerry Walker’s right arm.

Detective Butts finished his water and paced behind Walker, rubbing his stubby hands together, while Chuck sat on the corner of the table across from him. Lee recognized the technique.
Invade his territory, crowd him, make him feel cornered, creating feelings of insecurity
. But judging by the smirk on Walker’s face, it wasn’t working.

“So you guys actually think I might be the killer?” Walker said, his mouth curled into a contemptuous smile.

“You tell us,” Chuck answered, his voice failing to conceal his dislike of Walker. “We’ve been asked by the mayor to interview a few sex offenders living in the area. And that would include you.”

“Hey, that stuff’s all behind me,” Walker protested. “I got a new life now, a steady job, a girlfriend—the works. I’m even seeing a therapist,” he added, “not that it’s any of your business.”

“You’re right,” Chuck replied, “it’s not my business. What I’m interested in is where you were on February eleventh.”

Walked smiled broadly, revealing a gold tooth. “No sweat. On the eleventh I was out of town. Went to see my dear old mom—I’m a very devoted son. I can show you the plane tickets to prove it.”

Chuck held his gaze. “Plane tickets can be forged.”

“Call my mother and ask her.”

Butts left his pacing and came around behind Walker. “Oh, that’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t be interested in covering for her only son—I know she wouldn’t think of lying to the police.”

Lee touched Chuck’s elbow.

“What?” Chuck said.

Lee leaned in to whisper into his ear. “It’s not him. This isn’t our guy.”

“Okay,” Chuck whispered back, “but I still have to go through with this.”

“Your friend is right, you know,” Walker said. “I’m not your guy.”

Chuck’s fair face reddened. “You know what? I’ll decide that for myself.”

Walked shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Suit yourself,” he said, cleaning his fingernails with a book of matches. The picture on the matchbook cover was of a tall, curvaceous feline wearing black lingerie. The logo read PUSSYCAT LOUNGE.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t go for Catholic girls. Too uptight.”

Chuck leaned into Walker’s face. “This may be just a game to you, you son of a bitch, but it’s not to us, and if you make one more crack like that, I swear—”

“Hey, easy, there,” Walker said, holding up his callused hands. “I didn’t mean anything by it, man. Just trying to let you know I’m not your guy.”

“Jesus,” Chuck muttered. “What is it with you guys that you can laugh about something like this? What was left out when they put you together, huh?”

“I’m not any happier than you are about this guy,” Walker snarled. “Hell, I’m no killer. It would never occur to me to hurt a woman—ask my girlfriend. I’m a pussycat.”

“Like the dancers at the Pussycat Lounge?” Butts said, indicating the matches on the table.

“Hey, hey—my girlfriend works there, okay?”

“Figures,” Butts muttered.

“She’s a
waitress
, okay?” Walker said, going for a cigarette.

“No smoking in here,” Chuck snapped. He tried to snatch the cigarette from Walker’s mouth, but Walker was faster, and put it back in the pack.

“Hands off, man—these things are
expensive
! Jeez, what do you guys do around here for fun?”

“Beat the crap out of guys like you,” Butts shot back.

“No shit. And you don’t get busted for police brutality?” Walker asked with mock innocence.

“Why don’t we find out?” Butts replied.

“That’s enough!” Chuck snapped at the detective.

Walker smiled, and Lee was taken aback by the cruelty in that smile. “You know, every minute you spend with me is time you’re not spending catching this guy. Why, he could be out there right now, selecting his next victim, some good little Catholic girl. Nice piece of virgin ass. He could be putting his hands—”

Lee’s vision seemed to contract, and he felt as if the air in the room was pressing in on him. “That’s
enough
!” he bellowed, springing to his feet. He lunged at Walker and managed to wrap his hands around Walker’s throat.

But Walker was bigger than he was, and very quick. He broke Lee’s grip and landed a series of punches with such speed that no one in the room could move fast enough to stop him. The first blow connected with Lee’s stomach, knocking the air out of him, and then Walker aimed for his face, an uppercut to the chin followed by a roundhouse that caught Lee in the upper cheekbone, right at the bridge of his nose.

He staggered backward, feeling the blood rushing from his nose, blinded by the force of the blow. He hit the floor hard, dazed and shaken.

Chuck seized Walker by the shoulders, at the same moment calling for backup. Butts was right behind him, pinning Walker’s hands down as two uniformed officers rushed into the room, guns drawn.

“Handcuff this guy,” Chuck said, and one of the officers quickly slipped a pair of cuffs around Walker’s wrists. “Now get him out of here!”

As the officers escorted Walker out of the room, he called out over his shoulder to Chuck.

“Hey, why don’t you get your friend some lithium to calm him down?”

“Shut up!” Butts shot back.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” Walker said as they dragged him away.

“Whatever,” Chuck muttered. He looked at Lee, who stood leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, blood trickling from his nose.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

Chuck had heard that answer before.

“I’ll call a doctor.”

“No!” Lee tried to calm his breathing and realized he was trembling—not with fear, but with rage.

“I think we’ve had enough today.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay, but you can’t let that happen again.”

“Right. I won’t.”

Chuck sighed. “So what about Walker? Could he—”

“No. The Slasher isn’t a child molester. His rage is directed against women—and God. And I think he could be a virgin.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I know it’s a stretch, but I think the knife is a phallic substitute. There’s been no sign of actual penetration. Which means he would probably come across as emotionally immature.”

Chuck snorted. “When’s the last time you met an emotionally mature criminal?”

“No, I mean seriously emotionally challenged. Like if you met him, you’d really notice it. Shy, withdrawn, odd—not your cocky sleazeball type like Walker. Sort of childlike.”

“The priest is pretty childlike.”

“Yeah, I guess he is,” Lee admitted.

“And he would be totally unthreatening to women.”

Even Lee had to admit that Father Michael Flaherty was beginning to look better as a suspect. But there was one thing they could all agree on: time was running out, and if they didn’t close in soon, another woman would die.