The Anniversary Man (29 page)

Irving tried to look naïve. ′You′re not like - like a cop or anything are you?′

Chaz reached out and gripped Irving′s shoulder. ′Yes, of course I am,′ he said. ′I′m the New York chief of fucking police, don′t you know? I′m the chief of police and you′re all busted.′

There was a smattering of laughter from around the room. Chaz was the comedian. He was a funny guy.

′I′m sorry,′ Irving said. ′It′s just that . . . well, you know—′

′Gary,′ Chaz interjected. ′Take a fucking chill pill okay? This is as good as it gets, my friend. We′re gonna hang out here a little while. You can help me pack up shop, and then we′ll go get a beer or something and talk about what I can do for you.′

′Sounds good,′ Irving said. ′Thank you . . . I really appreciate this.′

′You′re welcome, buddy. Gotta look after each other, eh? Gotta take care of our own.′

L
eycross disappeared. One moment he was there, and then he was gone. He had gotten Irving into the meeting, evidently considered his job was done, and he′d left.

Quarter past nine and Irving was helping Chaz load his files of pictures into cardboard boxes. Chaz was talking about a Knicks game. Irving half-listened, ever alert for names that were being spoken in the room, making mental notes of faces - who seemed significant, who didn′t. Chaz had a dark blue station wagon parked in back of the hotel. They loaded the boxes and took a walk down the block to a bar called Freddie′s.

Irving knew this was a thread, nothing more nor less than that. He was not so naïve as to consider that Chaz was the man who had provided their Anniversary Man with crime scene photos. He couldn′t even assume that their killer had actually worked from crime scene photos. The replicas were close but not necessarily perfect. They were an accurate replication of the original crime scenes. None of the killings had remained completely unknown. Information - cause of death, victims′ manner of dress, body position, degree of decomposition - was all available in books, true crime magazines, on websites. This was a shot - long or short it didn′t matter - but it was a shot. If there really was a contact, someone within the PD or a coroner′s office, someone who had access to pictures and was stealing originals or making copies for sale, then that was a case all its own. If this came to nothing more than closing down such an operation, then so be it; Irving would have to be grateful for what he could get.

′So tell me, Gary,′ Chaz said. ′Your particular predilection is what?′

′Multiples,′ Irving replied. ′Two, three, more even. Multiple homicides.′

Gary smiled. ′Jeez man, that′s easy. I figured you were gonna give me something really difficult.′

Irving frowned.

′You wanna get some of the things I′m asked for? Hell, man, you have no idea. The true originals are the most difficult. The headline cases. We call them historicals. They′ve earned a place in history. They stand out as significant.′

′Such as?′

′Oh, I don′t know . . . original prints of confirmed kills . . . people like Ted Bundy, Zodiac, Aileen Wuornos, especially since that movie with Charlize Theron. And then you had the Capote thing—′

′Truman Capote?′

′Sure, the movie they made. The dude won an Oscar. Those killings in the fifties. Had a request to get original snaps of that family, the parents, the boy and the girl. You seen the movie?′

Irving shook his head.

′Good movie,′ Chaz said. ′Tough call on the pictures though.′

′Did you get them?′

′Copies, not originals. Copies were good, but nowhere near as lucrative. Copies went for two and a half. Originals would have gone for ten times that, maybe more.′

′Twenty-five thousand dollars?′ Irving asked.

′Sure, twenty-five thousand. That′s nothing compared to some stuff I hear about.′

′Like?′

′Like what′s the most expensive?′

′Sure,′ Irving said.

′Most expensive I ever heard of was not a crime scene picture. Was a picture of Gacy.′

′John Wayne Gacy?′

′The man himself. Signed, and with a very Gacy-type message scrawled across it.′

Irving raised his eyebrows.

′Seems someone smuggled a picture of Gacy into prison, gave him five hundred dollars cash to sign it, write something personal you know? Know what he wrote over his name? Fuck you to death. Much love, John. And then three kisses underneath.′

′You′re kidding me?′

′No word of a lie. Fuck you to death. Much love, John. Three kisses underneath.′

′And it sold for how much?′

′Three hundred and forty grand.′

′No fucking way,′ Irving exclaimed.

′Yes fucking way, believe me. Three hundred and forty grand to some Russian guy who had signed pictures from all sorts . . . Dahmer, Bundy, even the cannibal guy who ate all them folks, the Russian one, don′t remember his name.′

′This is a hell of a business,′ Irving said.

′Supply and demand, my friend, supply and demand.′

′And you have someone . . . where? In the police department?′

Chaz smiled knowingly. ′I have someone, and that′s enough for you to know.′

Irving nodded. ′I′m sorry, I wasn′t meaning to pry, I′m just fascinated by the whole thing.′

′It′s a fascinating business. Anyway, you want another beer?′

′Sure,′ Irving said. ′Let me get them.′

′Good man,′ Chaz said. ′I′ll have a Schlitz.′

They talked around things for an hour. Close to ten-thirty Chaz said he had to go. He put Irving on the spot. What did he want? What was he looking for specifically?

′Multiples,′ Irving said. ′More than twenty years old, preferably showing clear details - you know, clothes, body position - stuff like that . . . not just faces, you know? The whole thing.′

′Just that? Just multiple homicides, right?′

′Anything with two or more, yes. Two victims, three, four. Or anything out of the ordinary, like the victim was dressed up, made to wear something that was significant to the killer.′

Chaz took a beer mat and scribbled his cellphone number. ′Call me lunchtime tomorrow, one, one-thirty, you know?′ he said. ′I′ll have word for you.′

Irving smiled, seemed surprised. ′So fast.′

′Gonna do something, do it professionally, that′s what I say. I can either get you what you want or I can′t. It′s not complicated and I′m not gonna bullshit you. Call me tomorrow and I′ll let you know if I can help you.′

They parted company in the parking lot back of the bar. Chaz had drunk four beers at least, should not have gotten behind the wheel of the station wagon, and Irving prayed that he wouldn′t be stopped. A night in the tank would not bode well for tomorrow′s phone call.

Irving walked back to St Vincent′s, picked up his car and headed back to the office. It was nearly midnight by the time he arrived.

From the beer mat he took Chaz′s cellphone number and the license number of his station wagon, and ran a search on both.

Charles Wyngard Morrison, 116 Eldridge in the Bowery. Irving found his landline number, his Social Security number, the fact that he worked as a computer software technician for a small firm in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Chaz Morrison had no record, though he had been given a warning for obstructing a police officer at a crime scene. He was a murder junkie. Probably went down there to take pictures.

Irving spent an hour filling out the required paperwork for a phone tap on both the landline and cell. He was thorough and careful. He missed nothing out. He stressed the point that he was scheduled to call Morrison by one p.m. on Saturday, and thus the tap needed to be on his phones as early as possible. Irving hoped that Morrison would leave his calls until late the following morning and not make them tonight.

The pictures he′d bought he locked in the drawer with Leycross′s DVDs. He was becoming quite the collector.

He left close to one-thirty, drove home slowly. He was tired but he knew he wouldn′t sleep. He would find that dime-width escape route on the radio dial, and there - as if they′d been waiting for him - would be Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus.

Made him think of his father, the fact that he had not visited since May. Reminded him that the living required as much attention as the dead.

T
hinking not of Deborah Wiltshire but of Karen Langley, Irving woke with the underlying headache attendant to insufficient rest. It was six forty-five. He lay still until seven, tried not to think, tried not to be anywhere at all, and then he rose and showered. It was Saturday. It should have been late breakfasts and weekend newspapers, perhaps plans to see a ball game, a movie, the theater. But there was no room for such things in Irving′s life these days - at least not yet.

He called Farraday from the Fourth, drove to his house and had him countersign the phone tap request. He took it directly to Judge Schaeffer, tough bastard, head like a mallet, known for his willingness to work with the police as opposed to against them. The tap was up and running by eleven, two uniforms briefed and stationed to listen in on every call that was made, incoming and outgoing, and Charles Morrison′s sordid little world was on record. If he now organized the purchase that Irving had requested by phone, they would know who his contact was.

With little else to do but wait, Irving turned his attention to the Winterbourne group. If Costello himself was a potential suspect, then any member might be the one. He didn′t know who they were, and the likelihood of obtaining a warrant to enforce the release of such information from the hotel proprietor was very unlikely. Costello had been nothing but co-operative, yet his willingness to involve himself in the investigation, formally or otherwise, was the very thing that raised Irving′s suspicion. He knew little of serial murderers, their whys and wherefores, but he did know that it was not uncommon for a perpetrator to engage with the police, even to assist in the investigative procedure. A child abductor, for example, organizing locals to search an area for a child they themselves had kidnapped, raped, dismembered and buried; or a killer of young women presenting themselves as a volunteer, ready to walk the streets and show pictures of the missing victim. What prompted such actions? Self-denial, an effort to disassociate themselves from the crime by becoming their own apparent nemesis? Some belief that, by doing this, they could determine how much information the police possessed and take measures to insure no further progress was made in their identification? A desire to prove themselves better, smarter . . .

Irving stopped for a moment.

He walked to the window of the incident room and looked down into the street. He could see the edge of Bryant Park, and across to the 42nd Street subway station. Pedestrians were still sparse at this time of a Saturday morning, traffic still relatively light.

A desire to prove himself better . . .

He was reminded of something Costello had said - had it been Costello? - that the anniversary killings were replicas of killings perpetrated by people who had all been caught. Some of them were buried forever within the federal penitentiary system, others had been executed, one had died of natural causes as far as Irving could recall. And then there was the Zodiac letter. For sure, it had been a word-for-word transcription of a Shawcross letter, but it had been in the Zodiac′s code, the code broken by a history teacher and his wife after failed attempts by the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence. The Zodiac, by all accounts, had never been identified, and certainly had not been knowingly caught. Perhaps the Zodiac was even now languishing in a cell within some state prison, caught, tried and convicted for some unrelated crime, and no-one was any the wiser. Perhaps he would die someplace and leave evidence of who he was, what he had done . . . perhaps an explanation of why he did it. But currently he remained unknown. In serial-killer terms, Zodiac was a success. He did what he did. He got away with it. He remained an enigma.

Irving searched through the stack of pages on his desk for notes he had previously made until he found what he was looking for - the complete list of all Zodiac killings, confirmed and unconfirmed.

Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin, both incontrovertible Zodiac victims, had been shot on July 5th, 1969. Mageau survived, Ferrin did not. Further victims who were attacked or killed on dates preceding September 16th numbered twenty-seven. Irrespective of the year, for there were murders attributed to the Zodiac from October 1966 all the way to May 1981, there were five carried out in February, nine in March, one in April, two in May, three in June, five in July, one in August and, prior to today′s date, the 16th, there was one that took place in September. The anniversary killer could have replicated any one of them, and even if he had adhered solely to those confirmed, it would have been a Zodiac anniversary on July 5th. As far as Irving knew no double murder had been reported on July 5th anywhere in the state of New York, and had there been, then Costello surely would have known about it.

Irving accessed the system and checked. He was right. There was no case county-wide that in any way bore similarities to the Vallejo shooting of Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin on July 5th, 1969. Which meant what? That the killer replicated only those killings perpetrated by identified and convicted individuals? Then why employ the Zodiac code to relay the Shawcross letter? Was he simply insuring that they got the connection between what he was doing and these past murders, or was there some other reason?

At twenty-five past twelve Ray Irving called the New York City Herald. He didn′t find John Costello, but Karen Langley took the call.

′Hey there.′

′Karen.′

′You′re after John?′

′I am, yes.′

A moment′s hesitation, and then Irving said, ′I was going to call you—′

′You don′t have to,′ Karen replied.