Silent Slaughter (24 page)

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Authors: C. E. Lawrence

BOOK: Silent Slaughter
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“One more thing,” Butts said. “This Professor Moran—what does he look like?”
Morris Epstein flinched. “He’s tall and thin, with a dreadful scar on his left cheek.”
Butts and Lee exchanged a look.
“Okay, thanks,” said Butts. “We appreciate your time.”
Epstein held up the coffee. “May I take this with me?”
Butts stared at him.
“Go ahead,” Lee said. “It’s all yours.”
C
HAPTER
S
IXTY
A
fter Epstein had gone, Butts and Lee headed for the detective’s office.
“It’s a good thing Dr. Epstein didn’t know his rights,” Lee remarked dryly, closing the door behind them. “He could have gotten up and left at any time.”
“Most people are intimidated by the badge,” Butts answered with no hint of contrition. “We haven’t got a lot goin’ for us, but at least we got that.” He threw himself into the swivel chair behind his desk and grabbed his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Lee asked.
“I’m gonna have Moran’s place tossed.”
“What makes you think a judge will give you a search warrant?”
“It’s him—Moran is our guy.”
“We don’t have any evidence yet. I think we should call him in for an interview.”
There was a quick rap at the door.
“Yeah?” said Butts.
The desk sergeant poked his head in the door. He was big and young and blond, with baby fat, like a pudgy golden retriever.
“Sorry to disturb you, Detective, but I have a Mr. and Mrs. Hwang here to see you.”
“Christ,” Butts muttered, replacing the phone. “Okay,” he said to the sergeant. “Show ’em in.”
The sergeant ushered a middle-aged Asian couple into the room. Mr. Hwang was a slight man with worried eyes, his thick black hair graying at the temples. He wore a pressed white shirt, buttoned at the collar, simple black pants and a smudged gray parka. His wife had a pretty, delicate face creased with grief. She wore a red wool coat and clutched an enormous pocketbook in her gloved hands.
“Please, have a seat,” said Butts, pulling up chairs for them. “I’m Detective Leonard Butts—I’m in charge of the investigation into your daughter’s death. This is my colleague, Dr. Lee Campbell.”
The couple nodded and seated themselves, Mrs. Hwang tightening her grip on her purse.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you for seeing us,” Mr. Hwang said. His accent was thick, and he pronounced the words carefully, enunciating each one slowly, as if speaking them was a sacred ritual.
“First let me just say that we’re doing everything we can to—” Butts began, but Mr. Hwang held his hand up.
“Excuse me, please,” he said. “I do not want to take up your time. I know you work very hard, very busy, and we”—he indicated his wife, who nodded and attempted a smile—“have very much gratitude.”
“It’s our job,” Butts said, “and like I said, we’re doing—”
Again, Mr. Hwang held up his hand. Politely but firmly he said, “No need to explain. We just come to say we offer reward,” he continued, with another glance at his wife, who nodded. “We offer reward to anyone who help catch this terrible person.”
This seemed to be Mrs. Hwang’s cue—she began digging energetically in the depths of her massive purse.
“We cannot offer lot of money,” her husband continued in his laborious, painstaking manner. “But we give what we can.”
Mrs. Hwang produced a crisp white envelope and waved it in the air.
“We bring cash reward,” Mr. Hwang said, “so you can give—”
This time Butts interrupted.
“Look, Mr. Hwang, Mrs. Hwang,” he said, “I really appreciate that—I do. But please, keep your money. If we catch this guy, no one’s going to need a reward. And I don’t think any amount of money is going to help—we’re going to get this creep, and we’ll do it with or without the public’s help. Okay?”
The Hwangs were evidently unprepared for this response. They looked at each other, then at Lee, and finally back at Butts.
For the first time, Mrs. Hwang spoke. Her voice was high and light and more singsong than her husband’s, but her accent wasn’t as thick.
“Detective,” she said firmly, “in China, family take care of each person. Son, daughter, father, mother—we consider
responsibility
.” She said the word slowly, carefully, as if it was important to get the idea across. “We have duty to our daughter. We fail to protect—okay, we understand no parent can always protect child. But now we do what we can for justice, you see? For justice for our daughter. We just want do something. We feel better, we do something—anything. You see?”
Butts looked at her without saying anything, then held out his hand. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll keep it safe for you.”
“You give to anyone who help you find this man,” said Mr. Hwang.
“Sure,” Butts said, taking the envelope. “I promise.”
“Thank you, Detective,” said Mr. Hwang. “Thank you,” he repeated to Lee.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Hwang.
“You’re welcome,” said Butts. “Thanks for coming by. We’re doing everything we can, I promise.”
“We know,” said Mr. Hwang. “We believe in justice system.”
Taking his wife’s arm, he escorted her gently out of the room.
When they were gone, Butts sank back into his chair. His bulldog face sagged, and he looked as if he was about to cry. He closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.
“The justice system,” he said. “Jesus Christ. For God’s sake, Lee, let’s get this creep.”
C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-ONE
I
n the end, Butts agreed with Lee that they should call Columbia University the next day to see if Edmund Moran would come in for an interview. When Lee got home that night, Chuck was sitting on the living room couch doing paperwork.
“Hey,” Lee said, closing the door behind him.
“Hey,” Chuck replied without looking up. “Chinese food in the fridge.”
Lee went to the kitchen, microwaved a couple of spareribs and noodles, and came back out into the living room with a plate of ribs and lo mein.
“How’s it going?”
“Fine,” Chuck said. “You?”
“Okay.”
Lee perched on the arm of the couch and chewed for a while. Then he said, “Sure you’re okay?”
Chuck stopped what he was doing. “Sorry, but I have a lot of paperwork to do. I can take it into my room if you want.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll go for a run.”
“You sure?”
“It’s fine, really.” He finished the rest of the food in the kitchen, then went through to his bedroom to change. When he emerged dressed in running gear, Chuck was still on the couch, head in his hands.
“Hey,” Lee said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice was ragged and thick.
“No,” said Lee. “You’re not. Stop playing goddamn games with me and tell me what’s going on.”
Chuck raised his head, his face tragic. “Susan had a spot on her mammogram.”
“Okay,” Lee said. “You know that most of the time those anomalies turn out to be nothing.”
“That’s not the
point
!” Chuck replied, his pale skin reddening. “I wasn’t there to give her support!”
Lee sat down opposite him in the red leather armchair.
“Look, Chuck, there’s always going to be something. No one’s life is trouble free, and if it’s not this, it’ll be something else. If you go running back to her at every bump in the road—”
Chuck stared at him. “It could be breast cancer, for Christ’s sake!”
“You don’t know that yet. Why don’t you wait until she—”
“Why don’t I just wait until she’s
dead
? Then I can be done with her once and for all! How about
that
?”
Chuck got up and began to pace the room. Lee had never seen him like this—agitated, hostile, frightened. He wondered if his friend was on something.
“Okay,” Lee said, trying to keep his voice calm. “Do you have any friends in Jersey you can call on to help out? Maybe she can go for her follow-up with a girlfriend.”
Chuck snorted. “You know as well as I do that Susan doesn’t have ‘girlfriends.’ She has admirers and acquaintances and plenty of ‘frenemies,’ but—”
“What about neighbors? Aren’t you friendly with that older couple next door?”
“You mean the Gogolicks?”
“Yeah.”
“Charlie is nice enough, but Jean is a space cadet. I can’t see relying on her in a crisis.”
“What about—” Lee began, but he was interrupted by the ringing of his landline. The caller ID showed
Gemma
.
“Who is it?” Chuck asked.
“Brian O’Reilly’s sister. I can call her back.”
“No, no—take it,” Chuck said. “It’s okay.”
“I can call her back—”
“
Take
it.”
Lee picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me—uh, Gemma.”
“Hi.”
“You have a minute?”
“Uh, sure.” He watched as Chuck put on his coat and hat. Lee waved at him, trying to signal him to stay, but Chuck ignored him. He unlatched the door and slipped out of the apartment. Lee had an impulse to toss the phone down and go after him.
“You there?” said Gemma.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”
“Sorry I didn’t call earlier—I’ve been slammed with work.”
“I showed the notes to our forensic linguist.”
“And?” Her voice was tight with anticipation.
“Brian did not write the suicide note.”
“I
knew
it!” she said triumphantly.
“You realize what this means?” he said. “Your brother’s killer is still at large.”
“Yeah, I know. We’ll both have to be careful from now on.”
But as she spoke the words, he realized that
careful
might not be good enough.
C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-TWO
M
urtis Pullman slid her feather duster into its slot on her cleaning cart and took a bottle of Coke from her lunch bag. She plopped down into the chair by the door in the office, lifted her legs up onto another chair, leaned back and took a long swig of soda, savoring the acidic bite on her tongue as the liquid slid down her throat. She only liked Coke in glass bottles—none of this canned stuff the kids drank nowadays; she could taste the metal on her tongue. There was a bodega in her Washington Heights neighborhood that sold Coke in the old-fashioned bottles, and she stocked up every week, bringing them to work with her.
Murtis had been on the cleaning staff at Columbia University for thirty-three of her sixty-seven years on God’s green earth. She had seen department chairs come and go, generations of students pass through the halls and rooms she dusted and swept, and she had seen professors receive or be denied tenure. Some of them shared bits of their lives with her—the good news and the bad—and the really nice ones even brought her gifts on the holidays.
Murtis Jefferson Pullman was a lady of great and generous girth; her skin, brown as a coconut, was as clear and firm as that of a woman half her age. She felt that Columbia belonged as much to her as to the generations of fey, waifish students who wandered through the hallowed halls with their oversized backpacks and thirst for knowledge. She looked upon them with a mixture of motherly affection and disdain. Murtis had all the knowledge that anybody really needed: she had the love of her Savior in her heart. Since she had found Jesus, her outer life mattered not a whit. The sweetness she carried inside made up for her lowly position in life, her humble occupation of cleaning up after other people far more privileged and respected than herself.
She took another swig of Coke and looked around the tidy office. He was a neat-freak, this one—everything stacked so perfectly on his shelves, the book bindings lined up so that they all were on the same plane. His desk was immaculate and nearly bare, with only a clock and a phone on it. No family pictures in clunky homemade frames, no sentimental keepsakes; the office was as orderly and impersonal as a hotel room. She wondered if he had any family—there was something heartbreaking and disturbing about the obsessive neatness.
She barely saw him—once or twice darting out of the office as she arrived to clean it—and he nodded curtly to her, ducking out of sight to avoid further contact. Murtis was used to odd behavior—they were a strange lot, these university professors, with their rumpled suits, bow ties and stringy hair. And none were more peculiar than the math and science professors.
Murtis swallowed the rest of her Coke and glanced at her watch. She could afford a few more minutes’ rest before getting back to her chores. She felt a song coming on. She leaned back, closed her eyes and let it wash over her. Songs often popped into her head, gifts from her sweet Savior. They were always about Jesus, and they came complete with words and melody. She sang them softly to herself as she worked, and sometimes she would sing them to her nephew, Jeffrey, who lived with her, and he would play them on the piano, putting chords to her melodies. Jeffrey encouraged her to take them to Pastor Jackson, but Murtis had no such ambition; she was happy enough to have these songs in her heart, and the knowledge that they were a special gift from her Lord.
You are my only Savior, sweet and good and true.
My life was emptiness and pain before I knew you.
I lived in a world of suffering and sin
Before I opened my heart to let you in.
She smiled to herself as the lyrics floated through her head—if Jeffrey was there when she got home, she would sing them to him. She took a deep breath and heaved her bulky body from the chair, wincing at the sharp twinge in her left knee. No doubt about it, the pain was getting worse. She should probably think about taking that nice young doctor’s advice about losing weight. Murtis sighed—she loved her honey buns from the local bodega, smeared in cinnamon and sugar. . . .
As she reached for her feather duster, she thought she heard a sound coming from—where? Murtis froze, listening intently. There it was again—coming from beneath the floor, of all places. It was a kind of squeaking noise, like something a small animal might make. The office was on the first floor, and she wasn’t aware of a basement underneath the building, but she supposed there must be one. And if there was a basement, no doubt there were mice—or, worse, rats.
In her years at Columbia there had of course been occasional infestations of vermin from time to time, but she had never heard this sound. There it was again, louder this time—
eee-eeek, eee-eeek.
She shuddered. Yes, it must be coming from the basement, and it was probably a rodent of some kind. It sounded trapped, poor thing—she reminded herself that God loved even the humblest of his creatures. Still, it was her duty to report it to the chief of the maintenance staff. God might love rodents, but universities did not. Murtis made a mental note to tell her boss about it as soon as she finished her rounds.
She took up her feather duster again and began humming her new melody as she cleaned. She was happy that the good Lord had given her the gift of a song. It was a good day, Murtis thought, one she would remember.
Later, she would reflect that she remembered that day, but not for the reasons she had thought.

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