Silent Screams (6 page)

“You know, it’s funny,” Lee remarked to Butts, “but I have more sympathy for these tortured, driven guys than for your run-of-the-mill murderer—you know, the ones who kill for ‘logical’ reasons.”

They were sitting on the uptown A train as it rattled its way to the Bronx, on their way to interview Christine Riley, Marie Kelleher’s roommate at Fordham.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘logical’?” Butts asked.

“Oh, you know…jealousy, greed, revenge, money, prestige—or killing to get rid of an inconvenient spouse or family member. The usual stuff.”

“You feel more sympathy for these psychos? How come?”

“There’s something cold blooded about killing…for money, for example. But sexual homicides—well, they may be planned, but there’s usually a compulsion involved. Especially for the repeat offenders.”

“Yeah? So what?” Butts asked as the train pulled into the station and jerked to a stop.

“Once they start it’s virtually impossible for them to stop.”

“Why do they start in the first place?”

“Usually some stressor occurs in their life, and bingo—they go over the edge.”

“So what do you think the stressor was in this guy’s life?” Butts asked as they trudged up the subway stairs.

They were greeted at the top of the stairs by a leaden gray sky. A low cloud cover had settled like a slab of granite over the city. February was not the best month to be in New York, and the Bronx was hardly the most glamorous of the five boroughs. As they walked up the Grand Concourse, a chill wind nipped at their backs, scattering dried leaves and loose bits of paper around their feet. Even the buildings looked cold—four- and five-story structures of grim gray granite, with the occasional decorative flourish or wrought-iron railing a welcome relief from the massive, stolid rock walls. The Grand Concourse was one of the widest avenues in the city, with a thick median strip down the center. In the spring it was probably festive, with all the trees in bloom and beds of crocuses lining the strip, but now it was just grim. Still, there was a grandeur and dignity in its winter desolation that made Lee sort of glad he was there.

“I don’t know what might have pushed him over the edge, but I’m sure he’s been hovering there for quite a while,” he answered as they turned onto the block Christine Riley lived on with her family.

The buildings on the side streets were smaller in scale than the ones lining the avenue, and Christine’s family occupied the second floor of a cozy little four-story walk-up. Dead clumps of chrysanthemums drooped in flower beds lining the neat little white fence in front.

They rang and were buzzed into the building. The knock on the door of the Rileys’ place produced a burst of rapid-fire barking from inside the apartment—high-pitched yapping from what sounded like a small and annoying dog. Sure enough, when Christine’s mother opened the door, at her feet was a ratty old white West Highland terrier. Fat and rheumy-eyed, the dog took little leaps up at them, barking in a shrill yelping that cut the air like bursts from automatic weapons.

“Stop it, Fritzy!” the woman commanded. The animal ignored her and continued its barrage of barking. Each bark lifted the tiny dog right off the ground, all four feet rising about an inch from the floor with every yap.

“Mrs. Riley?” said Butts.

“Yes?” She was a striking blonde with an athletic build—a swimmer’s body, with broad shoulders and long arms. She was young looking, but her eyes were worn and weary, and her pale, big-boned hands clutched the door frame.

Detective Butts showed her his badge.

“Oh, yes, we’ve been expecting you,” she said. “Please come in.” She led them through a cluttered hallway full of religious icons to a spacious living room, also decorated with the same theme of religious kitsch. A heavy, lavishly framed oil painting dominated the east wall—a young, beautiful Mary looking up at Christ on the cross, her tearstained eyes full of saintly love and loss. Fritzy followed after them, barking and bouncing, as if he were made of rubber. It was as if the barking were a kind of unique propulsion system, moving him forward with a little jerk each time he made a sound. Mrs. Riley motioned for them to sit on a flowered couch, sheathed in plastic. It reminded Lee of a huge condom.

Brought up to sneer at such lower-middle-class ideas of home furnishing, Lee had trouble understanding why anyone would choose the discomfort of sitting on plastic just to keep their furniture clean.

“Please sit down,” Mrs. Riley said.

He and Butts complied, the plastic making a crinkling sound as they sat.

“I’ll tell Christine you’re here. Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks, Ma’am—we’re fine,” Butts replied, hands on his knees. He looked uncomfortable, his sturdy body perching on the edge of the sofa, as if he were afraid to lean back, lest he might be swallowed in a sea of plastic.

Mrs. Riley left the room, but Fritzy stayed behind to guard his quarry. The dog’s barking had subsided to a few hiccough-like eruptions deep in its throat, disgruntled rumbling sounds that served as a warning that, come what may, Fritzy was on the job. He sat lopsidedly a few feet away, leaning on one pink haunch, his bright little eyes shining out from under overhanging terrier brows, fixed on his prisoners.

“I don’t get how they can see through all that fur,” Butts whispered, “but the wife tells me that they do. That’s a lousy excuse for a dog,” he added, shaking his head.

As if he had heard the insult, Fritzy looked in the direction of the kitchen, then jumped up and followed his mistress out of the room.

Lee and Butts looked around the living room. Everything was flowered—the couch, the rug, the curtains, even the wallpaper. The excess of floral patterns made Lee’s head ache.

“Geez,” Butts said, “this place is nice, huh? My wife would love this.”

Lee had an uncomfortable image of the Butts household, and wondered if it included plastic on the furniture. His musings were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Riley and her daughter Christine. The girl’s resemblance to her mother was striking: the same pale eyes, so light they appeared colorless, the same husky, athletic build, all shoulders and right angles. Christine had more color in her face than her mother—her cheeks were ruddier, her lips fuller.

She walked over to the chair opposite them and sat down. Fritzy trotted officiously after her, settling himself down at her feet.

Mrs. Riley stood behind her, as if unsure of her role in this matter.

“Do you want me to leave you alone with her?” she asked.

“No, you can stay if you want,” Butts said, taking out his little notebook. Lee noticed that he rarely wrote in it, but he seemed to like holding it.

Mrs. Riley perched on the arm of her daughter’s chair and put a hand on her shoulder, in a gesture of maternal protectiveness.

“So,” Butts said to the girl, “I’m Detective Butts, and this is Lee Campbell.”

“Is he a detective too?”

“No, but we’re both cops,” Butts replied with a little cough. “He’s a criminal profiler.”

Her eyes widened, and Lee could see the pale blue irises.

“Like on TV?”

“Yeah, like on TV,” Butts sighed before Lee could say anything. “Just like on TV,” he repeated, his jaw tight. He leaned back against the plastic couch cover, which made a little sucking sound. Fritzy looked up, cocked his head, and licked his lips.

“So you were Marie’s roommate?” Butts asked Christine.

“Yeah,” she replied. “We lived in Wykopf East. It’s an all-girls dorm,” she added, with a glance at her mother.

“Okay,” Butts answered. “Were there any weird guys hanging around, anyone who caught your attention?”

Christine frowned. Her strong-looking hands played with a strand of her lank blond hair, twisting and curling it around her fingers. “Uh, not really. I can’t think of anyone. I mean, her boyfriend is a little weird, but he’s a sweetheart. You don’t think he would—” She broke off and looked up at her mother.

“Mr. Winters is not a suspect at this time,” Butts replied.

“Oh, good. Because if you thought he—I mean, that would just really be awful. Not that it isn’t awful already,” she added.

“Like I said,” Butts repeated, “he isn’t a suspect at this time.”

“Is there anything you can think of, anything out of the ordinary, that you think might help us with our investigation?” Lee asked. “Anything that struck you as odd or unusual?”

Christine frowned and looked at her hands. “I wish I could be more helpful, but I can’t think of anything.”

“It’s okay,” Lee said gently. “If you think of anything, you can always call us.”

“How would you describe Marie Kelleher?” Butts asked.

“Oh, she was really sweet—quiet, studied hard, just a real good girl…” Her voice trailed off.

“A good
Catholic
girl,” her mother interjected.

“I see you’re Catholic too, Mrs. Riley,” Butts said.

“The one true religion,” she replied sharply.

“Is that why your daughter and Ms. Kelleher were roommates? They shared the same religious beliefs?”

Mrs. Riley picked at an invisible piece of lint on her immaculate carpet. “That’s one of the reasons. They had other common interests.”

“She was the kind of girl who would talk to anyone, you know?” Christine said. “She wasn’t snobby or anything. She was…well, she was very kind, okay? She’d help anyone in need. Why does it always seem like those people are the ones who die young, who are killed by crazy people? Why is that?”

“Maybe it’s because those deaths strike us harder, as more cruel or unjust somehow,” Lee answered.

Fritzy wagged his tail and licked Christine’s exposed ankle.

“Oh, Fritzy,” she said, bursting into tears. “You always seem to know what I’m feeling.” She picked up the dog, pressed him to her chest, and sobbed into his fur. Butts looked at Mrs. Riley and cleared his throat.

“That’s—uh, that’s enough for today. Thanks for your time.”

He struggled up from the sofa, fumbling with his notebook. “We’ll be in touch if there’s anything further we need. Don’t hesitate to call if you think of something,” he said, handing her his card.

“I’m sorry, Detective,” Mrs. Riley said as she walked them to the door. “It’s been a really hard time for us.”

“No need to apologize,” Butts assured her. “I’m sorry if we caused your daughter any more distress.”

“You were just doing your job.”

Butts coughed and looked down at his feet. “Yeah, well, not everyone understands that. I wish everyone was more like you—sure would make my job a lot easier.”

“Forgive me,” Lee said, “but is there a Mr. Riley?”

Mrs. Riley’s mouth tightened. “There was. Not anymore.”

She didn’t offer any further explanation, so they thanked her and left the house, heading back toward the subway. When they were some distance from the building, they heard footsteps and turned to see Christine running after them. She wasn’t wearing a coat, and her cheeks were flushed from cold and exertion.

“Please,” she said, catching up with them. “Please—I just can’t go any longer without telling someone!”

“What?” Lee said. “What is it you need to tell?”

“They don’t want me to tell, but I have to—I just can’t keep quiet anymore!”

“Who doesn’t want you to tell?”

“My mom—and Marie’s parents. They know about it—or at least I think they do.”

“What is it they know?” said Butts.

“It’s—it’s Father Michael.”

“What about him?”

“He…he was having an affair with Marie.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he was having sex with me too.”

And with that, she burst into tears.

“So you just didn’t bother to mention that one little detail, huh?” Detective Butts said, putting his face close to the priest’s. “That you were having sex with a girl who just happens to end up dead
in your church
?”

Father Michael Flaherty sat, hands folded on his lap, staring at the floor. Butts paced around him, his stocky body vibrating with rage.

It was less than two hours since Christine’s revelation about the priest’s sexual involvement with her and Marie. Lee and Butts were in an interrogation room in the Bronx Major Case precinct house while Chuck Morton watched through the one-way mirror from the hallway outside.

“How many others were there?” Butts continued. “Huh? Pretty good pickings, undergraduate coeds, I guess. You must have had a field day with all those nice Catholic girls. Is it true what the song says, Father?
Are
Catholic girls more fun?”

The priest stared at his hands. “I’d like a lawyer, please,” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry—there’s one on the way,” Butts said with disgust, and plopped down in the chair next to Lee.

Chuck opened the door and motioned to both of them to come outside.

“Okay, that’s it—no more questions until he’s lawyered up,” he said once they were out in the hall. “I don’t want to risk losing him, so we go by the book. We don’t have anything on him, so unless he confesses, we’ll have to let him walk.”

“Can we put a tail on him, have him watched?” Butts asked.

“Sure, but I don’t know how much good that’ll do. He hasn’t committed any crime—having sex with these girls was unethical, but it wasn’t illegal. They were both over eighteen. I did call the administration at Fordham, and they’re going to deal with him on the ethics charges.” He turned to Lee. “What do you think? Does he fit your profile so far?”

Lee looked at the priest, who sat staring at the empty space in front of him, hands still in his lap. “My instinct tells me no, but he is the right age and race. And the religious angle fits—almost. But something’s not right…I don’t think the killer is going to be someone in a religious profession. This is more the work of an outsider, someone who
longs
for religious absolution, but doesn’t quite believe he’s worthy of it.”

“So if the priest isn’t the Slasher, we’re back to square one,” Butts said.

Butts had nicknamed the killer the Slasher. Lee didn’t like the word much, but he and Butts were just beginning to get comfortable with each other, and he didn’t want to rock that boat, so he went along with it.

“We’ve got a search warrant for his rooms, so if the missing necklace is there, we’ll find it,” Chuck said.

“I don’t think you’ll find the necklace,” Lee answered and turned to Butts. “Remember the boyfriend thought Marie was seeing someone? It must have been Father Michael he was talking about.”

“Son of a bitch. Taking advantage of those girls. And you know what really gets me? The families knew about it, and they didn’t say anything.”

“Well, there are different levels of knowing, and we can’t say exactly what they knew—maybe they just suspected,” Lee pointed out.

“But why cover up a thing like that?”

“Because they were ‘good Catholics,’” Chuck said.

Butts scratched his head. “I don’t follow.”

“How could they allow themselves to believe their daughter’s priest is capable of that?” Lee said. “It throws their whole belief system into chaos.”

“Oh, man,” said Butts. “That really burns me.”

“It’s bad, I agree,” Lee replied. “But what the killer is doing is worse—much worse.”