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Authors: C. E. Lawrence

BOOK: Silent Slaughter
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C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO
H
is mother followed him into the house, clucking and scolding, shaking her head when he asked to use the phone.
“You know, one of these days you’re going to just—” she began.
“
Please,
” he said. “It’s important.”
“Of course you can use the phone, if it’s working. But you’d better lie down and rest before you faint dead away.”
“I will,” he lied. “I just need to make a couple of calls.”
She went into the kitchen and returned with a package of frozen peas wrapped in a towel.
“Put this on your head,” she said. “It’ll help with the swelling.”
There was no point in arguing. He went to the phone extension in the living room and picked up the receiver. To his relief, the phone line was working, though it sounded scratchy. He called Butts, got a busy signal, then dialed Brian O’Reilly’s number. A woman picked up on the second ring.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lee said. “I must have the wrong number.”
“Are you trying to reach Brian O’Reilly?” Her voice was low and thick, as if she had been crying.
“Uh, yes. I—”
“Brian is dead.”
The news hit him like a body blow. He took a step backward and sank into the armchair next to the couch.
“
What?
What happened?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, what—”
“Are you a friend of Brian’s?”
“My name is Lee Campbell. I’m—”
“I know who you are. I’m very sorry about your sister. Brian wanted more than anything to find out what happened to her.”
“I know. I—I saw him just a couple of days ago.”
“Then tell me something. Did he seem suicidal to you?”
“Well, no—depressed, maybe, but not—”
“The police say it was suicide.”
Just then Kylie wandered into the room, carrying Fiona’s big, ill-tempered tabby, Groucho. The cat was growling and trying to break free, but Kylie had him in a half nelson.
“Who are you talking to?” she demanded, with the tactless directness of a child. She was still wearing her pink flannel pajamas, and her uncombed blond hair shot out in all directions in wispy cowlicks. Lee was surprised his mother was allowing this, but maybe she was treating her granddaughter delicately, hoping to stop her self-destructive behavior.
Lee covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “I’m on a business call, sweetie,” he said.
“Why are you wearing peas on your head?”
His hand went up to the package of peas, which he had placed on top of his head when he sat down. He had completely forgotten about them.
“This is to help with the bump on my head. Do you mind playing with Groucho in the other room?”
Kylie shrugged. “Okay. I think he wants to watch cartoons. Do you, Groucho?” she asked, nestling her face close to his. The cat responded by throwing a left hook in the direction of her cheek, but she was quick, pulling away in time to avoid the flying claws. She tightened her hold on him and padded into the parlor.
“I’m sorry,” Lee said into the phone when Kylie had gone. “That was my niece.”
The woman sighed, or shuddered, or maybe it was a sob; he couldn’t tell.
He lowered his voice. “I need to . . . are you Brian’s—”
“I’m his sister.”
“Oh. I didn’t know he had a—I really didn’t know very much about him.”
“Nobody did. That’s the way he wanted it.”
“Can we—can I see you when I get back to the city?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks—I’ll call you.”
“Good. I have to go—I have a lot of calls to make.”
“Can I just—what’s your name?”
“Gemma.”
“Thanks, Gemma.”
He was about to hang up when he heard the beep of call waiting. He clicked the receiver once and answered it.
“Hello?”
Detective Butts’s growl of a baritone came ringing through the phone line, as clearly as if he was standing next to Lee.
“Oh, man, I’m glad I got you. Your cell phone is bouncin’ straight to voice mail.”
“I know. The storm—”
“Sorry to track you down at your mom’s, but we got another body.”
“Oh, God. Where was she—”
There was a buzzing sound, a series of clicks, and the line went dead again.
“Damn,” he muttered, slinging the receiver back into place. “Goddamn it!”
His mother appeared in the doorway, her arms folded. “Please don’t swear in front of your niece,” she said icily.
He stood up, swayed a little and caught himself on the back of the chair.
She scowled at him. “Am I going to have to tie you down to prevent you from doing something foolish?”
He started to explain, but the room took his head for a little spin, and he had to sit down again. His head was beginning to pound.
“I’m going,” he muttered. “Even if I take the bus, I’m going back to the city,
now.
”
“Suit yourself,” she said airily as she left the room—but he knew he would have hell to pay later.
Lately, it seemed, there was a lot of hell to go around.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-THREE
T
he Hunterdon County buses were running on a cut-back schedule, but there was one leaving at four o’clock that afternoon for New York. Fiona gave up trying to make him stay and agreed to return his rental car in Somerville, the nearest large town, where there was an Enterprise office. Of course, Stan Paloggia was only too delighted to help. He had come and gone twice already since Lee had returned from Lumberville—once to deliver mail from Fiona’s mailbox at the end of the long driveway, and the other to bring coffee and Danish from Errico’s Market, which was giving out hot coffee to everyone who had lost electricity in the storm. Fiona’s house had power, but any excuse for a visit would do for Stan. Afterward, he chugged off in his John Deere to find someone else in need, humming tunelessly to himself, his nose red and dripping from the cold. Lee had never seen him happier.
Kylie spent the afternoon sledding with her friends Meredith and Angelica before going over to Angelica’s house for hot chocolate and video games. Lee stood at the kitchen window listening to the shrieks of glee from the girls as they piled on top of one another on his old Flexible Flyer, wobbling unsteadily down the hill leading to the springhouse until one of them fell off, amid more squeals and giggling. He swallowed a couple of ibuprofen to control the drumming in his head and gulped down a couple of glasses of water. For some reason, he was very thirsty.
Listening to the girls, he found it hard to believe his niece was struggling with the kind of issues that lead to self-mutilation. To his eyes, she looked like a normal, happy little girl. Before she left for Angelica’s house, she wrapped her arms around him in a bear hug and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you for coming to my concert, Uncle Lee.”
He nestled in the warm scent of her hair, inhaling the fresh smell of the woods.
“I really enjoyed it. I’m so glad you’re enjoying music; it’s something we share.”
She pulled away and looked at him searchingly for a moment. “Fiona says my mom liked music too.”
“She did, honey. She had a wonderful singing voice.” Lee noticed they were both using the past tense to talk about her. He wished he had more time to spend with his niece, but the case was pressing on him. He couldn’t resist lifting the phone receiver every ten minutes or so to see if the line was back on, but it was still dead.
When Lee came downstairs with his overnight bag a little after three, his mother stood in the doorway to the parlor, arms crossed, a frown on her face.
“May I have a word with you?”
“Sure,” he said, following her into the living room.
He thought she was going to try to talk him out of going again, but apparently she had given up on that.
“Look, I know you’re really busy right now, but . . . I was wondering if you could make some time to spend with Kylie—just talk to her, you know. I know she really looks up to you.”
The pounding in his head increased, and his mother’s face was beginning to blur. He blinked his eyes in an attempt to focus.
“Well, I—”
“I really feel like I can’t handle this on my own.”
“What about George?”
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, you know George—he’s a big, sweet baby. God knows what Laura saw in him.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t really mean that. It’s just that he’s—well, he’s very kind, but—”
“Kind of clueless.”
“I’m afraid so. Big and sweet and clueless. Like a teddy bear.”
He pressed his fingers to his right temple and blinked again.
She peered at him, frowning. “What is it? Your head bothering you?”
“No, no,” he lied. “Look, I’d really like to help with Kylie, so why don’t we make a plan for her to visit me in a week or so? Do you mind sending her on the bus?”
“That’s fine—she likes the bus.”
“I’ll see if I can talk to her then. Meanwhile, keep me posted, okay?”
She sighed and looked down at her long hands, with their elegantly tapered fingers. “You sure you have to go back today?”
“I’m sorry, but they just found another girl.”
“Oh, God,” she said, looking out at the Currier and Ives landscape of eighteenth-century stone buildings surrounded by soft, billowy snow. “Brigadoon”—that’s what his mother called her property—had been featured on the cover of
New Jersey Life
, and
Elegant Homes
had done a spread on it a few years ago. In addition to the main house, there was a stable with its own walled paddock, a carriage house and a springhouse. Under Fiona’s stewardship, Brigadoon was a fusion of comfort, taste and elegance. Now, though, his mother’s face reflected the despair he knew she must be feeling. Her only daughter was gone, probably dead, and now her only grandchild seemed to be spiraling into a lonely place where she might soon be out of reach. Fiona Campbell was a relentless optimist, but even she seemed to be bending under such burdens.
“Why do they do it, Lee?” she said softly, almost to herself. “What makes people do wicked things like that?”
“Nobody really knows for sure,” he replied. “But it’s my job to try to stop them.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and turned to him. Her face was a mask of pain, but her eyes were dry.
“Then you go do it,” she said. “You go do your job.”
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-FOUR
L
ee went straight from the Port Authority to the Thirteenth Precinct, where the other members of the task force were already gathered. The station house was deserted except for a desk sergeant and a sleepy-looking civilian clerk. He nodded at the sergeant and went through to Butts’s office, where he found the others seated around a bulletin board covered with crime scene photos.
He took a seat next to Jimmy Chen, who was dressed in a blue turtleneck and soggy hiking boots instead of his usual Italian suit. Everyone in the room looked damp and bedraggled, except for Krieger, who was crisp and immaculate as usual in a white cable-knit sweater, ski pants and black thigh-high boots. In the corner underneath the window, the room’s only radiator sputtered and hissed.
“Where did they find her?” Lee asked.
“MacDougal Alley, behind a row of garbage cans,” Butts said. “She had been dead for over twenty-four hours, so he put her there before the storm.”
“Who found her?”
“Guy walkin’ his dog,” said Butts. “The dog started digging in the snow, wouldn’t give up, so the guy goes over to see what’s up and finds her.”
“That’s not a very secluded spot,” said Lee. “Why didn’t someone didn’t see her sooner?”
“He put a tarp over her this time,” said Butts. “The lab is checkin’ it for trace evidence.”
“Same MO otherwise?” Lee asked.
“Ligature strangulation, yeah,” said Butts. “But there seems to be a change in what you would call his signature.”
“How so?” asked Detective Krieger, cocking her head to one side. “Didn’t he take a finger this time?”
“He did,” Butts said, holding up a photo of the girl’s left hand, missing the pinky finger. “Exact same one as before, in fact. But this is different.” He held up a photo of the young woman’s nude torso. As before, there were minute, evenly spaced puncture wounds, but this time the pattern was immediately apparent: it was a pentagram.
“More of that—what did you call it?” said Butts.
“Piquerism,” said Lee.
“Yeah.”
“What, is he into witchcraft now?” Jimmy Chen asked.
They all looked at Lee. He blinked his eyes to eliminate the blurred edges around everything; a couple of trolls with sledgehammers had now taken up residence inside his head.
“I don’t think we should jump to conclusions,” he said. “We have to look at everything in context. What do we know about the victim?”
“Name’s Mandy Pritchard. She’s a part-time student at Columbia.”
“So he has a thing for college students,” Jimmy mused aloud.
“Could be a coincidence,” said Krieger.
“Maybe,” said Lee. “But I think we have to consider someone who moves comfortably in the world of academia, someone who would fit in on a college campus.”
“Another student?” suggested Butts.
Lee shook his head. “I don’t think so. This guy is likely to be older—maybe even much older. He’s as pure an example of an organized killer as I’ve ever seen. And he calls himself The Professor.”
Krieger frowned. “So are we talking about a real professor?”
“Not necessarily. There are a lot of people who come and go on a college campus.”
“But the notes,” Jimmy said. “Don’t they indicate a high level of education?”
“Did he leave one this time?” Lee asked Krieger.
“No, he didn’t—or at least we haven’t found it yet,” she replied.
“Interesting . . . I wonder why he didn’t leave one this time.”
“Maybe he was in a hurry,” Jimmy suggested.
“Except that he’s completely organized and plans every detail carefully,” said Lee.
“Could he be losin’ it?” Butts asked. “Starting to fall apart from the stress?”
“That would be great, but I don’t think so. Everything else points to just as much control as before.”
“The lab is looking for DNA, prints, trace evidence—anything they can find,” said Butts, listlessly fingering a chocolate doughnut. It took a lot to put the detective off his food, and Lee didn’t envy Butts being in charge of this case.
“Maybe this time we’ll get lucky,” Jimmy suggested.
“Yeah, right,” said Butts, but no one believed it.
“I was hoping for a handwritten note, but he’s too smart for that,” Krieger commented.
“So what’s with the pentagram?” asked Butts. “Looks like some kinda devil worship to me.”
Lee studied the photo. The tiny puncture marks were evenly spaced, even more precise than the last time, and made up a perfect pentagram.
“No,” he said slowly. “He’s not falling apart. If anything, he’s getting more confident.”
In the corner, the ancient radiator hissed and clanked, the metallic rattling keeping time with the pounding in Lee’s temples. Looking at his colleagues’ grim faces, he wished he could take his words back, but it was too late. It was too late for a lot of things; the question was whether it was too late to stop this killer before he struck again.

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