Authors: Keith Gilman
“This is a god-damn nightmare, Lou.”
“Who’d you speak to? What did they say?”
“A Detective Lloyd. Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him. Billy Lloyd.”
“He said they found a body, Lou. They couldn’t identify her, but she matches Carol Ann’s description. He sounded so somber on the phone, like he’d seen this kind of thing a hundred times before and it always turned out bad. I never thought it would come to this.”
“Let’s go see what he has to say.”
Detective William Lloyd was a sharp dresser, a pretty boy with a full head of hair and a thin mustache cut tightly over his lip. He took great pride in his appearance and it had obviously worked for him. He was the first one from his graduating class at the academy to make detective. He wore a navy blue blazer over a powder blue oxford, khakis, and soft brown leather shoes. His tie was varying shades of gray, ocean waves rolling toward a winter shoreline, a hint of yellow on the crest as if the sun was struggling to escape from behind the monstrous gray clouds.
“What have you got, Bill?”
“Mrs. Trafficante told me you’d be accompanying her. It’s good to see you again. I’ll tell you what I can. You can probably guess, everybody knows by now. We got a serial rapist on our hands. It’s been in all the papers, on TV. The guy started in Fairmont Park, joggers, walkers. Next thing we know, he’s in Center City, grabs a few women in their offices late, riding the subway. Up to that point, no one really gets hurt. Roughed up, yeah, but not serious bodily harm.”
Sarah had turned her head away, refusing to listen. She looked like she wanted to run but there was nowhere to go.
“Well, the guy disappeared for a while. We thought he moved on or got locked up. Now, he’s back with a vengeance. First we get a couple of college students hurt real bad, one from Penn, the other from Drexel. One of them is still in the hospital. Then, the bodies start turning up. We figured we’d better catch the guy soon.
Anyway, a couple hours ago, some kids call in a girl’s body, in the bushes between two apartment houses on Ford Road. We assumed she was a St. Joe’s student but no one there recognized her. No ID on her. She’s maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, dark hair. We check missing persons and Carol Ann Blackwell pops up.”
He took Lou by the shoulder and turned him toward the wall, away from Sarah, out of earshot. Lou could smell his heavy, musky cologne, could see the gel that plastered his hair to the side of his head.
“If you hadn’t been a cop, Lou, I wouldn’t be telling you this. It’s not pretty. Her cell phone, we found it inserted into her vagina. We got her back here and the damn thing is ringing. Someone called her number and let it ring. We traced it to a pay phone in a strip mall right outside the Regal Deli in Overbrook. This guy’s a sick fuck.”
“Yeah, he is. It sounds like he’s sending a message.”
“One of those. I always seem to get the winners. I bet you the guy’s smiling when I blow him down. You can imagine what the boys in my unit are saying.”
“Let’s get this over with, Bill.”
They rode the elevator to the basement in silence, Sarah hanging on to Lou’s hand, her face streaked with tears. Lou wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but he didn’t like the feel of Sarah’s hand in his, not with Billy Lloyd standing over them. It was a quick ride and the doors slid open and Lou beat Lloyd into the hallway where he was hit in the face with a clean, antiseptic stink that was strong enough to kill anything that wasn’t already dead.
The rows of bright fluorescent light bathed the narrow hallway in a diffuse artificial white. Lou could hear the low hum of generators behind the thick cinder-block walls. The floor felt slippery with a new coat of clear wax under his feet. A numbness began to take over in his arms and legs as they entered a large examination room. He wondered if Sarah felt the same
way or if it was his cop instincts and the whiskey shutting off his emotions.
They were met by a woman in a white lab coat, her hair tied up under a gauze net. Her glasses were round and thick and made her eyes look too big for her face. She pushed back a sliding curtain exposing the body of a girl, naked on a metal slab. The girl’s skin had the grayishness of death, as if she were made of wax. She had a long, thin torso, small breasts, narrow hips, and muscular legs. Her hair was light brown, about shoulder length. She must have been a very beautiful girl, but now that was difficult to tell.
Her face had been beaten savagely, the bones on the left side of her face broken and collapsed, the eye hanging from the socket. Her lips were swollen with dried blood, shattered teeth still clinging to the dead tissue, her jaw fractured and twisted into a ghoulish scowl. Lou stood across the table from Sarah, thought of his own daughter, and touched the back of the girl’s lifeless hand. He wanted to remain there, whisper in the girl’s ear, tell her they’d find the person that did this to her. But he knew that was a promise he couldn’t guarantee. His gaze rose to meet Sarah’s. She was shaking her head, her hand over her mouth. It wasn’t her daughter. It wasn’t Carol Ann Blackwell.
“It’s not her. Lou, it’s not her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think I’d know my own daughter, Detective Lloyd.” Lloyd looked at Lou. “How do you explain the phone?”
“What phone? Lou, what phone?”
“They found your daughter’s phone on this girl. He’d like to know how it got there and I don’t blame him.”
“How is that possible?”
“Do you recognize this girl, Mrs. Trafficante?”
“No, I don’t. I need to leave, Lou. I need to get out of here.”
“We’ll be in touch, Mrs. Trafficante. If you hear from your daughter, you need to let us know right away.”
She’d run out of the room with Lloyd following. Lou reached her in front of the elevator. She’d pushed the button and was pacing frantically, losing patience. The exit sign over the door to the stairs glowed sharply in red neon and she hauled it open and started up the stairs, her high-heels clattering on the concrete steps. There were two doors opposite to each other at the top of the first flight. One opened back onto the first floor and the other opened onto the street. She pushed on the crash bar with two hands and ran outside moaning like a wounded animal. Lou was right behind her going out the door and waited for her to catch her breath before he spoke. He lit a cigarette.
“Where to now? It looks like we’re going to be a little late for the festivities.”
“What does it mean, Lou?”
“It means someone knows where your daughter is.”
“Someone? What someone?”
“Someone with a sick sense of humor. Someone who enjoys making other people suffer, making women suffer, a killer. Do you know anybody like that?”
“I can’t think straight right now, Lou.”
“You don’t want to think about it.”
“He wouldn’t do that to a girl, Lou. Tommy’s bad, but he wouldn’t do that.”
“He might be your son, Sarah, but he’s killed before. You said so yourself. You’ve seen it with your own two eyes.”
“But not like this, Lou.”
“Maybe you just don’t want to believe it.”
“Take me to the party, Lou. And please don’t say anything to Vincent about this. I don’t want to spoil his big night.”
“You think that girl in there had her night spoiled?”
“Shut up, Lou. Just shut up!”
Lou drove and thought about how he was supposed to feel about what he just saw. How was he supposed to reconcile his
emotions? He was relieved, elated that the ghost of a girl in that cold room wasn’t Carol Ann Blackwell, and that it wasn’t his daughter, either. But she was someone’s daughter, someone who would soon be contacted by the Philadelphia Police Department. They’d get that call and would have to walk into that same room consumed with the dread of knowing that their baby girl was the person on that slab. He wasn’t sure how he should feel.
Lou dropped Sarah off
and watched her run through the front door of Vincenzo’s. He took his time parking the car and went in himself.
The upstairs banquet room was filling up fast. The gold-plated sign on the door marked it as private. The men were dressed in dark suits, white shirts, and red or blue ties. The women were squeezed into long black party dresses that swept the hardwood floor. The men smoked fat cigars and the women sipped champagne. There were enough gold and diamonds dripping off Vince’s guests to keep Freddie Mac in business for a lifetime.
The buffet table contained a variety of seafood and freshly sliced meats. Oysters, clams, shrimp, scallops, and crablegs warmed in silver trays. A man in a white apron and chef’s hat carved prime rib on a cutting board and a black man in a tux played piano in the corner. A cocktail waitress in a white shirt with a black bow tie, a short black dress, black stockings, and
heels offered Lou an hors d’oeuvre from a serving tray. It was Jennifer Finnelli. Her hair was tied up over her head and a pair of dazzling silver earrings hung down beside her slim neck. She smiled and stood in front of him as if she wasn’t going to move until he took one.
“I need to talk to you, Mr. Klein.”
“So talk.”
“Not now. I’ll find you later.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
He saw Sarah, in a short, low-cut black cocktail dress and heels. She’d obviously made a quick change in Vince’s office, one of the advantages of being the owner’s wife. A glowing white pearl necklace hung around her neck, stopping just short of the curve of her breasts. She had taken her place next to Vince at a long rectangular table at the head of the room. Warren Armstrong sat at Vince’s right. Next to him, a man Lou recognized from the Philadelphia Police Department, Inspector Ray Boland, sat munching on a cigar. Most of the other guests were seated around one of about fifteen tables ringing a dance floor in the center of the room.
Lou took a seat at the bar and ordered a Scotch. The bartender packed a short glass with ice and filled it. His long sleeves were rolled up, exposing part of a greenish tattoo, a leprechaun with his fists in the air and his chin pushed out in defiance, daring someone to take a poke at him. The ice in Lou’s glass cracked under the pressure of the cloudy brown liquid. The alcohol burned going down.
“I have a feeling we’re going to be good friends,” Lou said, toasting the bartender.
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t have to ‘sir’ me. I’m just part of the scenery.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“How long you been on the force?”
“That obvious, huh.”
“I spent twelve years there myself. Takes one to know one.”
“It’s been eighteen for me. And I’m still doing these bartending gigs.”
“You play your cards right, you won’t be standing behind that bar much longer. Look around. One word from anyone in this room and you’re a captain.”
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’ve had enough of working for a living.”
“Be careful, boss. Once these guys get their hooks in you, they don’t throw you back. They own you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lou slid two dollar bills into his tip glass. The bartender dropped a few more ice cubes into a glass and cracked open a new bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Lou toasted him again and spun his stool to face the crowd, the rattling of silverware and the ringing of glasses competing with the soft notes from the piano.
Vince was coming toward him, though a few young ladies on the dance floor were trying to coax him into a dance as he angled between them.
“Mr. Klein, I’m glad you could make it. It’s great to see you again so soon.”
“The pleasure is all mine. I’m a little out of my league, I think.”
“Nonsense. Glad to have you. Don’t leave before you speak with Mr. Armstrong. I think you’ll be happy to hear what he has to say.”
“By the way, Vince, where is Tommy? Having some trouble finding a suit to fit him?”
“He had some business to attend to. I’m hoping he’ll be back soon.”
Vince disappeared into the crowd amid a hale of greetings. Jennifer Finnelli floated by with her tray and Lou nabbed a piece of sushi from it.
“What was it you wanted to tell me, Jennifer?”
“There’s just so much. Carol Ann’s in trouble and it’s partly my fault.”
“I had the impression you two were friends.”
“We were.”
“What changed?”
“I’d been seeing a lot of Tommy lately and I don’t think she liked it. Then, she walked in on me and Vince and assumed the worst. There was nothing going on but she freaked out. I think she was looking for an excuse to have it out with me.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Right before she disappeared.”
“Why do you say it’s your fault?”
Neither of them noticed Sarah Blackwell standing a few feet away.
“Can I have word with you, please?”
“Of course,” Lou said. “You two know each other, I presume.”
“Hello, Jennifer.”
Jennifer didn’t say anything. Her eyelashes fluttered a few times and she walked away with her tray.
“What the hell are you doing with her? If Tommy walks in and sees you two together, he’ll go ballistic.”
“Why? She offered me sushi. I like sushi.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lou. That girl is nothing but trouble. And after what we saw today, she’s playing with fire.”
“Enough trouble to end up in the morgue? Is that it?”
“Just don’t believe everything she says.”
“She didn’t have anything to say.”
“I doubt that.”
“Did she tell you she was Tommy’s fiancé?”
“No.”
“She thinks she’s marrying Tommy. That marriage is a long way off and a lot can happen between now and then.”
“This is a family where things seem to happen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re drunk.”
“Not really.”
“I need to get back.” She put her hand gently into his. “Lou, you’re the only person in this room I can trust. I want you to know that.”
Lou looked into her red, swollen eyes and gave her hand a light squeeze. “You better get back.”
Lou was just about finished with his drink when Vincent stood up and called for his guests’ undivided attention.
The speech started in the customary way, with Vince thanking all the people who helped him along the way, recognition of his closest associates. Everyone put their knives and forks down and swallowed hard. He was building up to something and Lou had the feeling that everyone in the room knew what it was but him. Lou had the glass to his lips, letting the last sip of Scotch roll into his mouth as Vince got to the point.