Switch (39 page)

When he made movies he always fussed around with the blood. He was famous for that, the way he insisted on applying it to his actresses. The makeup people could do the faces, but he always did the blood. It had to be just so, the way he remembered it from those primitive operations, and from the way it had flowed out of The Whore back in the trailer years before.

But it wasn't as if he were some kind of vampire.
Janek
should not misunderstand. He didn't actually like the stuff. What he liked was the way it
looked.

So when he planned the crime (and he did consider it a single crime; sure, there were two parts to it, but each one by itself was meaningless—it was only the combination of the two that made sense) he thought a lot about how he wanted the blood to look and how he didn't want any of it to get on his skin or clothes. So he used the shower curtain to protect himself with Mandy, and the rubber sheet with Brenda, which he'd told her was just "his little kinky thing." (She'd fallen for that easily; nothing surprises a whore; they know all about fetishes; from the start he'd palmed himself off to her as a "mild rubber freak.") And he had worn plastic clothes and gloves even though it was hot. And used plastic bags to carry the heads, and still he'd nearly swooned.

So, anyway...

P
eter stopped talking after a while;
Janek
guessed he was exhausted. It was three in the morning. Sometime during the tale the new year started. There was a sputtering of firecrackers, then the thunder of many fireworks at once, then an occasional squealing of tires out on the street, a burst of drunken singing, a siren wailing on a distant avenue. Laurie's reconstructed parlor was growing cold.

"What did you use?"

"Huh?"

"To cut off the heads?"

"Oh." Peter pulled himself out of his reverie. "Couple of old Jap swords I had around."

"Where did you get them?"

"Antique store in San Francisco. That was back five years ago."

"And the knives?"

"What?"

"You killed them first, before—"

"Yeah. Kitchen knives. Standard stuff. Paid cash at a cutlery shop. They won't remember, of course."

Of course.
"The vehicle?"

"God sakes,
Janek
. 'Vehicle'! Next thing you'll be calling me 'the perpetrator.' " He laughed scornfully. "You mean how did I get around? Motor scooter. Carry-box mounted on the back for the heads. Kept the swords in a guitar case. The changes of clothes and gloves and stuff in a backpack from an Army-Navy Store."

"So what did you do with all of it?"

"Deep-sixed it, naturally."

Naturally.
"The scooter too?"

He shook his head. "Abandoned the scooter. Figured someone could use a decent set of wheels." He paused. "You need all this for the file, right?" Again that withering scorn. But then, in a new voice done with scorn, filled with resignation, "What difference does it make? Sure, I'll tell you. I'll even show you. How's that? I'll even take you there."

W
alking across the icy deserted street toward
Janek's
Volvo: "How did you get into my girl's loft?"

Peter smiled. His breath was steam. "Wondering when you were going to ask me that."

"Well?"

"Fire escape."

"In daylight. Lucky you weren't caught."

"I went in at night."

Janek
turned; they'd reached his car. His hands trembled as he unlocked the door.

"...Yeah. Went in there when you were sleeping. Could have killed both of you in the bed. Spent half the night in her darkroom crouching on the sill. Heard you fooling around in the morning. That's a pretty high-strung girl you got there,
Janek
. Thought I could spook her pretty good." He laughed then, his voice filled again with resignation and despair: "Wanted to make you crazy. That's all."

Driving to Manhattan across the Williamsburg Bridge, the river black beneath them, black like roiling oil:

"What do you care about all this crap? You solved it psychologically. So tell me, how did you find the old
Greenpoint
hideaway? How'd you even know I had the place?"

When
Janek
told him about Nelly Delgado, Peter blinked—he couldn't remember who she was. Then, when he did remember, he shook his head. "Been years. Completely forgot. But she didn't. Should have thought of that."

Janek
glanced at him. The inference was clear: If Peter had thought of it he would have done something about it. Found her and killed her—that was what he meant.

Janek
drove him to the crime scenes. He wanted to know every detail: the way the wind had felt on his face as he'd raced through the park that sultry night, whether he'd grasped up the heads by their hair, the sound he'd made when he'd brought down the sword, whether he'd stared into or avoided the girls' lifeless eyes.... He wanted to know these things in the belief that if he did he would finally understand. But the details didn't help. He didn't understand. All he could feel was the coldness and the rage.

Driving downtown on Ninth Avenue, the same route Peter had taken after he'd completed the switch:

"Those pictures you sent Jesse..."

"Stills from my films.
Except, of course, for the final set. Thought he'd like them. Thought they'd make a good reminder.
In
case he let himself forget
."

"You were trying to torture the old guy."

"Wanted him to know I was still around."

"So you tracked down where he lived?"

"You did, too."

"Took my best detective three weeks."

"Big deal. Every time the fucker moved it took me three months."

"So"—
Janek
turned to him—"you wanted him to remember. Was that what it was all about?"

Peter glanced at him, then stared out, then he shook his head.

On West Street, crossing Fourteenth, New Jersey across the river lost in whorls of blackening mist:

"What was it then?"

"Much more than murder. I don't expect you to understand."

"Try me."

Peter smiled. "Okay,
Janek
. Call it art."

"I don't buy that. You were a film director. You made movies. You had an outlet. That should have been enough."

Peter shrugged. "Film's imitation." And then, his voice level, his eyes half-closed, his mouth dead serious: "Tell you a little secret,
Janek
. Even the real thing is not enough."

I
t was important now to find the knives.

Peter was bored. He waited in
Janek's
car, stretched out on the back seat, handcuffed, his coat thrown over him like a blanket.
Janek
rubbed his hands together as he paced the Bank Street Pier. The fog was heavy, wet.
Janek
stopped from time to time to stare at the water lapping the pilings beneath the rotting planks.

Finally, at dawn, the police boat came. He stood watching the divers while they struggled into their wet suits, checked their canisters and underwater lights. They were happy to come, even so early on New Year's Day. They knew
Janek
and they knew about his case.

When they were ready, he showed them the place where Peter said he'd ditched the stuff. Then he took Peter back to the precinct, got the skeleton of his confession onto videotape, returned with him to the pier, checked on the underwater work, then walked up to Fourteenth Street looking for a diner.

It was nine in the morning on New Year's Day, but he found one open, no customers, the waitress's hair done up in a beehive, the counterman in a grease-stained butcher's apron, a streamer of bunting hanging over the cash register and trailing to the floor.

He ordered a mug of coffee, carried it to the pay phone in back, woke up Aaron and Sal, told them what had happened, then picked up a coffee-to-go to take back to Peter in the car.

Aaron was the first to come. He'd called Stanger; Howell was too far away. Sal arrived a few minutes later. The two detectives wore nearly identical three-quarter-length black leather coats.

The fog was even thicker now and they could hear boat horns calling and answering off the Battery. The police divers worked steadily, bringing up objects covered with muck. The radio crackled on the boat while a mound accumulated: empty liquor bottles, a discarded pail, hunks of glass, bricks, a tire iron, the carcass of a bicycle—all coated with a black ooze that made them shine beneath the harsh quartz lights.

Stanger came and stood with them. He too wanted to be there for the finish. None of them paid any attention to Peter—it was as if the knives were now the most important thing, the evidence more important than the man.

The sun finally broke through, a gray and noxious hazy sun that reminded
Janek
of the day they'd buried Al except that that day had been hot and this one was very cold. Aaron, nudging him with his elbow, motioned for him to turn around. When he did he saw the patrol cars, a half dozen of them parked at odd angles in the lot behind the pier, lights on, silhouettes of cops visible through the windshields, waiting, watching, silent in the mists that rose from the pavements all around.

"What's going on?"

"Guess our show's on the air," Aaron said.

"Who knew?"

"Jesus, Frank,
everybody
knew."

He shook his head. The case had never been in the papers, not the part, at least, about the switch. But in the department it had become a famous case, and now, on this New Year's morning, word had gone out on the police radio band that it was nearly done.

At eleven o'clock the divers brought up the first of the two Japanese swords. By noon the dredging was complete. They had both swords, both knives, a rotted-out guitar case, a water-stiffened backpack, plus assorted plastic garments, bags and gloves and two sets of apartment keys. From an investigative standpoint the case was finished. All that remained was to take Peter downtown, book him and turn him over for prosecution.

When
Janek
left the pier more than fifty patrol cars, including some from precincts in other boroughs, had assembled at the foot of Bank Street. He walked among them recognizing faces, greeting officers he knew, accepting their homage to him and to his special squad for having solved the unsolvable Switched Heads.

T
hey watched the 11
P.M. news wrapped naked
in each other's arms.

Manhattan District Attorney Francis
Semple
announced the indictment of Peter Lane and also, for the first time, publicly linked the killings of Amanda Ireland and Brenda Beard.
Semple
sat at a table in front of a battery of microphones beside Chief of Detectives Dale Hart.
Janek
stood in the background along with his squad waiting to be introduced.

"...revealing certain gruesome details concerning the Ireland/Beard double homicide," said the pert and breathless female reporter, "which, according to Chief Hart, were kept confidential until the investigation was complete. It was revealed this afternoon by sources close to the Chief's office that for months this case has been known informally as 'Switched Heads.' Chief Hart gave no special praise to individual detectives but chose to emphasize the awesome responsibilities of his division. A division which builds hundreds of important cases a year, he said, out of old-fashioned legwork performed day in, day out by thousands of dedicated men.... "

Janek
slipped out of bed to switch the TV off. Then, standing naked before the set, he turned and faced Caroline.

"God, didn't you just want to slug him?"

"Told him I wanted a transfer to Internal Affairs."

"Hope that jolted him some."

"Some. But not enough."

He walked into the living area, went to the table where she kept her liquor, poured out two glasses of Scotch, handed one to her, then sat down on a hassock.

"You're a great detective, Frank. Everyone says you are. Aaron told me no one else could have gotten Lane."

He sipped his Scotch. "We could get Hart too, you know. The two of us. I couldn't do it alone."

She slipped into her robe, picked up his, placed it over his shoulders, then knelt before him and tied the belt. Then she leaned against his knees. For a while they drank in silence. "Okay," she said finally. She looked up at him. "Let's, the two of us, nail the prick."

"W
hen Carmichael told me about the car being filled with junk what struck me was how Al had gotten so excited hearing that. Soon as Lou told me Al was after Hart I put the two things together. Hart obviously didn't kill your father himself. He ordered it done, which meant a chain of command. It all snapped together. Hart tells his henchman, Sweeney, to get rid of Tommy Wallace. Sweeney, in turn, passes the word to a couple of the goons who work at his garage."