Twist (10 page)

E
veryone from New York wanted to kill him.

The killer lay alone in his bed, his head propped on his wadded pillow so he could see the TV on the mass-produced antique dresser facing the foot of the bed. He watched the umpire simply stand with his fists on his hips, staring off toward left field. Threats seemed to fall flat even before they reached him.

The big-screen TV was tuned to a Mets game with the Houston Astros. A pop-fly ball that should have been caught had dropped between two Mets outfielders near the foul line, allowing an Astros player on third base to score a go-ahead run. Replays showed that the ball was clearly foul. The umpires, besieged by Mets players and the Mets manager, stood their ground and seemed to have minds focused elsewhere. The two players who had muffed the play stood off to the side as if they were lepers.

Nothing was going to change the umpires’ decision. They turned in unison and walked away from the apoplectic Mets. Every Mets fan in the ballpark moaned as if they’d been stabbed in the heart.

Smiling, the killer sipped his beer, feeling some of it dribble from the corners of his lips because of the awkward position of his head.

Baseball really is like life
.
Once the play is called, it stands.

But he had more important things than a ball game to moan about, if he were predisposed to moan.

There was, as always, the gnawing suspicion that he might have overlooked something, left something of himself behind. A bloody footprint, perhaps.

Afterward, it was always blood that bothered him most. Blood science. The police were doing more things with blood all the time. Learning things. The slightest nick on his body could leave a usable sample of DNA.

Another sip of beer. His third bottle. He knew logically that he’d been careful enough. But still, it was so easy to ignore something important and incriminating, like DNA.

DNA evidence was like a two-edged sword in the hands of a fool. So unpredictable. In a world of risk and secrets, it made it difficult to move without getting something lopped off. Something you didn’t know was missing until it was too late.

The killer nursed his beer until a Mets player hit an easy pop fly that was caught behind second base, and the game was over. Another Mets loss. There would be post-game analysis, but the bartender knew his customers wouldn’t be interested in that. To them, a loss was a loss was a loss.

Three sips of beer and a string of commercials later, it was time for the local news. He separated his feet some more on the bed so he could see all of the screen between them. A world gone mad, bracketed by his bare feet.

Vibrant colors danced over the screen, music blared, and a banner proclaimed B
REAKING
N
EWS
. A beautiful African American newscaster appeared on the screen. The killer knew she was Minnie Miner, who had her own quasi-news show,
ASAP
. The show was more journalistic hijinks than factual, though it usually got things reasonably right. The killer was a fan.

Minnie Miner looked solemn as she spoke:

“Another Manhattan woman was murdered last night. Twenty-six-year-old Constance Mason, a consulting accountant, was slain in her apartment in the same manner as last week’s victim, Bonnie Anderson. Police aren’t saying much, but
ASAP
has learned from unidentified sources that both women’s abdomens were sliced open to reveal their entrails, some of which were removed. And in the body cavities of each was placed a cheap plastic statuette of the Statue of Liberty.” Minnie looked angry. “That isn’t what Lady Liberty was made for, folks. To be a cheap prop in a killer’s tawdry tandem homicides.” Morgue photos of the victims appeared behind Minnie. “As you folks can see, the victims certainly might, in the killer’s diseased mind, be the same
type.
There is at least a superficial resemblance.”

Minnie tilted her head to the side, touched her chin, obviously acting curious.

“What makes these serial killers of women tick? Why do certain women, looking a certain way or doing certain things, trigger their insane impulses? Dr. Joseph West-comber, clinical psychiatrist and former New Jersey assistant prosecutor, has some ideas on the subject, and will appear on
Truth Report
tonight to reveal some startling facts about such predators—and their prey.”

Minnie folded her hands. Sighed.

“There you have it—two beautiful New York women, both with so much to live for, both apparently victims of the same vicious killer. The Lady Liberty Killer, who leaves, propped in the gruesome wounds of his victims, plastic statuettes of the iconic female symbol of freedom, and of truth—two things we here at
ASAP
take very seriously. Unfortunately, we might not have seen or heard the last about this insane slayer of women. Yes, the Lady Liberty Killer is still at large, and still
extremely
dangerous.

“Sadly, history tells us this killer will strike again soon. If there are any new developments on this story, you can be assured that
ASAP
will be all over it. Sharing the news with you,
ASAP
!

“Now! Ever wonder what’s
really
in those off-brand frozen dinners . . . ?”

The killer pressed his head back farther into his pillow, looking up at the ceiling and away from the TV.
The Lady Liberty Killer
. He thought about that, and decided he liked it. The words had a . . . well, a
legendary
feel to them.

 

 

Quinn had assigned himself the top apartments in Constance Mason’s building, Fedderman the bottom units. They had canvassed the building for hours, expecting little, obtaining nothing. The building was a prewar structure with thick floors and ceilings, and even some interior brick walls. Almost soundproof. It was only through the ductwork, added decades after original construction to provide central air-conditioning, that sometimes secrets were unknowingly shared with neighbors.

Fedderman was still mildly confused after interviewing an aged tenant with hearing issues. He and the good-humored but less than communicative man had shouted back and forth and read lips, all to the conclusion that the hard-of-hearing tenant had seen or heard nothing the night of Constance Mason’s murder. The tenant had watched TV with closed captions until around nine thirty and then fallen asleep.

Fedderman clasped one of his earlobes between thumb and forefinger and shook it in a circular motion, trying to clear his mind. He checked his notepad for the name and unit number of his next interviewee.

He had drawn the apartment of Adelaide Appleton, which was directly beneath Connie Mason’s unit.

Fedderman scanned the copy of the cursory statement Appleton had given an NYPD detective the night of the murder.

Something interesting here.

Adelaide had heard something the night of Connie’s death, though not necessarily anything of importance. Still, it couldn’t be ignored, because she had heard it during the time the police estimated Connie was being tortured and murdered.

When Appleton came to the door after the third knock, she let Fedderman into the modest but comfortable-looking apartment. He showed her the account of her conversation with the detective concerning the night of the murder.

“That looks more or less right,” she said, handing the wrinkled paper back to Fedderman.

“This wasn’t an actual conversation that you heard?” Fedderman asked.

He watched Appleton’s round, lined face as she struggled to make herself understood. She was a roundish woman, as her name suggested, thick-waisted and with a large bust. In her mid-forties, she was attractive in a sweet and gentle manner. She wore dark bangs and seemed to peek out from beneath them like an animal peering out from where it had found refuge.

She seemed nonplussed as to why Fedderman had to hear her statement after he’d read the account of the original statement she’d given to that other detective.

“It’s as the other policeman wrote,” she said patiently, smiling at Fedderman as if he were a slow student. “I heard only one voice. That would, I believe, make a conversation impossible.”

“A man’s voice?”

“I think so.”

“And you heard it through that vent?” Fedderman motioned with his head toward a vent set low in the wall near a red leather recliner. Anyone reclined far back in the chair would have an ear very near to the vent.

“Did the speaker sound old or young?”

Adelaide sighed. That was okay, Fedderman thought. Let them get bored and itchy, and sometimes all of a sudden they remember something.

“In the middle,” she said. “Maybe forty—though to tell you the truth I think it’s a silly question. It’s often impossible to guess someone’s age by listening to their voice.”

“It is a stupid question,” Fedderman agreed. He kept a poker face. Conversational jujitsu.

“Yet you asked it.”

“Your answer might not have been at all stupid and imprecise. You might have said he sounded sixty-seven years of age.”

“That would be worse.”

Fedderman smiled. “Yeah. Then I’d figure you were fibbing.”

Adelaide thought about that. “Okay, I suppose you’re right. And a woman who is my New York neighbor—which is to say, we hardly knew each other—has been horribly tortured and murdered. I suppose any question is allowed.”

“And any answer is allowed to be questioned,” Fedderman said.

“Isn’t
that
reassuring?”

A rhetorical question, Fedderman decided. “You say you happened to hear voices through the vent—while sitting in that chair?” He pointed toward the red recliner.

Adelaide nodded. “I sit in that chair when I watch television. Sometimes I fall asleep there and wake up in the wee hours. Life isn’t a cabaret for me.”

“Is that what happened the night of Constance Mason’s death?”

“No, I
had
dozed off watching this reality show about a group of people trapped on an island.”

“Like Manhattan?”

“Very much so, except for the bridges and tunnels.” She smiled sweetly. “Are you pulling my chain, Detective Fedderman? Hoping maybe gears will mesh and some pearl of knowledge will come rolling out and drop into your hand like a gum ball?”

“More like I’m trying to push your buttons, hoping I’ll find the right one.”

“Does that sort of thing work often?”

“Not really. But it’s part of the job, to be a smart-ass with some people so they’ll get emotional and reply in a way they wouldn’t if they were calm.”

Adelaide gave him her sweetest smile. “Are you married, Detective Fedderman?”

“Yes. And now you’re trying to press
my
buttons.” He touched the tip of his pencil to his tongue, then pretended to jot something in his notebook. “What you heard through the vent,” he said, “were probably the last words spoken by a woman nearing her death.”

Adelaide tilted back her head and surveyed the ceiling, rolling her eyes slightly as if seeing images up there, showing Fedderman that she was thinking. Then she abruptly shifted her bountiful body forward. Fedderman thought she might shout
Eureka!

“I think you might have pressed one of those buttons,” she said.

He leaned toward her. “How so?”

“It wasn’t a woman’s voice I heard—I’m positive now. It was a man’s. And I realize now what he was saying.”

Fedderman waited, encouraged. “So what
did
he say?”

“That’s the thing about it. He said nothing.”

“I thought you heard his voice.”

“I did. And I’m sure now what he was doing. He was reciting the alphabet. Even if I didn’t hear some of the letters, I could tell by the lilt of the voice, the old rhyme that we all learn at an early age. I almost thought he was going to finish and break into ‘Now I Know My ABC’s.’ He was reciting the alphabet. Not fast, but slowly, as if he were testing his memory.”

Tell me what you think of me.
Fedderman couldn’t resist reciting the last line of the childhood jingle in his mind.

“Maybe he was teaching someone. A kid. Or someone foreign trying to learn the language.”

No.” Adelaide shook her head. “It was more as if he was performing, trying to impress someone.”

“But there was no applause? No complimentary remarks?”

“Nothing. Only silence.”

“Are you sure the voice wasn’t Constance Mason’s?”

“Positive. It was a man speaking.” Adelaide gazed at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. “You absolutely positively sure you’re married?”

Fedderman said, “It isn’t the kind of thing you forget.”

He thanked Adelaide Appleton for her time and extended his hand to shake.

“If you don’t mind,” she said. Smiling her apple-sweet smile, she deftly tried to button his shirt cuff. Fedderman managed to avoid that, and she brushed some imaginary crumbs off the front of his suit coat.

Fedderman thanked her and got out of there.

W
hen Harold showed up outside Carlie’s apartment, to take his shift sitting in the unmarked Ford and watching her building, Sal moved over to make room behind the steering wheel. The car was parked half a block down from the apartment, in a dark space between the ranges of two streetlights.

Harold handed a carry-out coffee in through the window to Sal, and then got in on the driver’s side. No interior light showed in the car, as the bulb had been removed. The seat was still warm from Sal.

“Anything going on?” Harold asked.

“The usual.” Sal pried the plastic lid off his coffee, appreciated the rising steam for a moment, then took a sip that made a slurping sound.

Harold looked at the illuminated hands of his wristwatch. Ten minutes past midnight. Sal would start home in a few minutes, where he’d settle in for something like a night’s sleep. Then Harold would be alone, tired, and bored out of his skull.

“I wouldn’t mind switching shifts,” Harold said.

Sal grunted. “Too late for that.”

“How so?”

“One of us would have to work two shifts in a row.”

“You,” Harold said.

“Why?”

“To be fair.”

“I don’t deal in fair,” Sal said, irritated. Why couldn’t Harold simply do his job?

“We need a third guy,” Harold said. “That way nobody would do a double shift.”

“Then you’d bitch about doing your third of a shift.”

Sal opened the car door and prepared to leave. He was exhausted, his back ached, and he’d had enough of Harold, though he was grateful for the coffee.

“Who’s that?” Harold asked.

Sal looked and saw a man going up the steps to the entrance to Carlie’s building. Average-sized guy. Wearing dark clothes. Glancing around.

“He looks furtive,” Harold said.

“Could be a tenant who keeps late hours,” Sal said, thinking he couldn’t remember hearing any other cop use the word
furtive
. He placed his coffee in the car’s plastic cup holder. “Or something else.”

He and Harold waited until the man was inside the foyer, then got out of the car simultaneously, closing the doors but not slamming them and making noise that might attract attention. They walked fast toward the apartment building.

They’d taken only half a dozen steps when the building’s door opened and the average-sized man in dark clothing came back outside.

“Surprise,” Harold said softly.

The man immediately noticed Sal and Harold approaching and bounded down the steps, touching only the middle one, and was running hard away from them.

“Jesus!” Sal said. “Why can’t the bastard have average speed?”

“We can get him,” Harold said, and turned to run in the opposite direction.

Sal knew what he was doing, running the short distance to the corner behind them, then cutting left on the cross street. If the guy they were chasing made a right turn, he and Harold might run into each other.

But just as Harold’s strategy seemed like a good idea to Sal, the man ahead glanced back. He knew there was only one pursuer now, and if he was smart he’d figure out why and go straight or run left at the corner.

He chose left, crossing the intersection, picking up speed.

Harold was out of it now.

Sal continued to give chase. He tried using his two-way to summon backup, young cops with young legs. But he was bouncing up and down too hard to control his grip and figured the hell with it. If he stopped and called, the man would surely outdistance him far enough to disappear. Maybe he’d even snag a late-running cab.

When he approached the corner, Sal made his left on the diagonal to pick up a step or two. At this hour, he didn’t bother looking for cars.

A shadow flitted among darker shadows on the sidewalk ahead. The average guy, not as far ahead of him as Sal had assumed.

But this was getting to be agony.

Sal lowered his head and tried breathing through his nose so he wouldn’t get winded.

His lungs were working like noisy bellows, and his heart was pounding. Not only that, he was developing a stitch in his right side. He knew what might be up ahead of him, and hoped if he did catch up, he’d have something left with which to fight.

He was considering firing a warning shot, right here in the middle of Manhattan. The streets were almost empty.

But there were windows. And people turned up when and where you least expected them.

And who knew where a ricochet might go?

Sal began to wobble, then faltered.

A horn blared, jolting his senses, and a patrol car roared past him, the light strip on its roof sending out dancing bolts of color. The man ahead looked back and began to slow down, realizing he couldn’t outrun a car.

The car’s siren yelped once, like a dog’s warning bark. Sal watched the man stop altogether and stand, leaning forward with his hands on his thighs.

Sal slowed to a steady walking speed, hoping he’d reach the NYPD car and the possible killer before his heart gave out.

Ahead of him, the police car veered toward the man and angled in to the curb. Car doors opened and two uniforms got out. The runner raised his hands as if he were in a cowboy movie. One of the uniforms yelled something, signaling with his drawn gun, and the darkly dressed man stooped low and then lay facedown on the sidewalk.

Within seconds, both uniformed cops were over him. One of them was cuffing his wrists behind him.

Footsteps behind Sal made him turn.

Harold was chugging along behind him, breathing hard, looking as pale as his gray mustache.

“We’re getting too old for this stuff,” he said.

Sal made a growling noise to disguise the fact that he was panting. “We got him, didn’t we?”

“We got somebody,” Harold wheezed.

Both men continued trudging toward where the Lady Liberty Killer might be, lying on the sidewalk with two cops standing over him. Both cops had their arms crossed. One of them was staring down at the suspect, and the other was watching the approach of Sal and Harold.

Sal and Harold broke into a steady jog, side by side, putting up a pretty good front but actually moving more slowly than when they were walking.

“One of us should have gotten into a foot race with him,” Sal said. “The other should have gone back to the car and driven after him.”

“Easy to say now,” Harold said.

“No,” Sal said, “I can barely breathe, much less talk.”

 

 

Sal flashed his shield and explained to the two uniforms who he and Harold were, and why they were there.

“So this asshole might be the Lady Liberty Killer?” the younger of the two uniforms said. He sounded awed. He wore his cap tilted forward and looked like a young Clint Eastwood. His partner looked like no one in particular but was larger than Clint. Not good casting.

“No, no, no . . .” the man lying awkwardly on the sidewalk said. He began to move.

“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” Harold said.

The older, larger uniform helped the handcuffed suspect stand up, while his partner opened their patrol car’s rear door. They loaded him into the backseat, which was separated from the front of the car by a steel mesh divider.

Sal gave Carlie’s address to Eastwood and his partner, and they drove to the apartment building and waited while Sal and Harold walked the three blocks to join them.

When the two walking detectives reached the parked police car, they were still breathing hard.

“Tough night for you guys,” the younger cop who looked like Eastwood said, half sitting and propped against a front fender.

“See what you got to look forward to?” Sal rasped, and spat off to the side.

The young cop grinned.

“It’s not so bad,” Harold assured him.

Sal could have kicked Harold.

“Don’t I know you from someplace?” Harold asked the young cop.

Eastwood shook his head. “I don’t think so. Why? You feel lucky?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sal thought about straightening Harold out, but what was the use?

Instead, he went into the apartment building and woke up Carlie Clark.

Carlie was wearing jeans, a blousy red tunic, and slippers, when she emerged from the building with Sal. Her eyes looked swollen from sleep, and her blond hair was tousled. The young cop stared at her appreciatively.

She flinched as Sal gripped her elbow gently and guided her toward the back of the police cruiser.

There were reflections on the slightly tinted car windows, and she leaned forward so she could see into the dim, meshed-in confines where the suspect sat. Sal could feel the vibrations of fear running up her arm.

“He’s cuffed,” he assured Carlie, “even if he could get out.”

That seemed to relax her, but not a lot.

“This the guy who’s been stalking you?” Sal asked.

She leaned slightly farther forward.

“Jesse Trummel!” she said, and straightened up, wearing a surprised expression.

Sal was surprised, too. “You know him?”

“Yes. He works at Bold Designs.”

“I guess he had designs on you,” Harold said.

He was ignored.

The large cop inside the car had been listening. The back window glided down.

Carlie moved back a step. There was nothing but air between her and Jesse Trummel now.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Carlie,” Trummel said. He had a high, phlegmy voice.

“What were you doing in her apartment building?” Sal asked.

Trummel made a point of looking him directly in the eye, not realizing that was what most liars did. “Leaving her a note, is all. Honest!”

“You just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“Not far from here, actually. I was drinking at a friend’s house. You can check that and see—there was a bunch of us. When the party broke up and everyone started to leave, I remembered that Carlie lived nearby.”

“So what?” Sal asked.

“I . . . I admired—I mean, I admire Carlie. I don’t know if she knows that. But . . . well, I was drinking and not thinking straight, and I decided to let her know how I felt.”

“Past midnight, and you were going to surprise her and declare your love?” Sal asked.

“No, no. I wouldn’t do that. I left a note in her mailbox, is all.”

“Weren’t you going to see her at work tomorrow?” Harold asked.

“Sure, I was. But like I told you, I’d had enough to drink that I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Thinking with the wrong head,” Eastwood said.

Sal looked over at him. “You want me to include that in my notes?”

Eastwood shrugged and leaned farther back against the car. He tilted his cap down low on his forehead and looked even more like the movie star.

Sal led Carlie away from the car, out of earshot. Harold knew the routine and stayed near the car, like the uniformed cop. Leaving Sal and Carlie alone so they could become buddies and confidants.

Sal moved closer to Carlie and glanced over as if to make sure they were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Were you aware of the way this guy thought of you?” he asked.

Carlie seemed slightly embarrassed. “To tell you the truth, it’s been hard not to be aware of it. I mean, the way he stares at me . . .”

“He looks average enough. Is he the man who’s been following you?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“How can you be so definite, if your stalker is so average looking?”

“I see Jesse every day at work. He’s a draftsman. He works at a desk and computer setup not far from mine. Makes renderings.”

“Which are?”

“He works from plans or blueprints and shows what projects will look like after they’re completed.”

Sal leaned toward her so their foreheads were almost touching. “Understand, I have to ask you this. Have you and this Jesse guy ever—”

“Never! Our relationship—or at least what he’d like to be a relationship—is platonic and only one way.”

Sal knew that people often fibbed about this. “So you and he aren’t in a romantic situation.”

“Not in the slightest. I don’t dislike Jesse. But . . .”

“So you don’t think of him
that
way?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay. I had to ask. I mean, Trummel’s not a bad-looking fella.”

“I suppose not,” Carlie said. “He’s just . . .”

They looked at each other and spoke simultaneously: “Average.”

While the others stood and watched, Sal went back into the building with Carlie. To be on the safe side, he went up to her apartment with her so she could get her mailbox key and come back down to the foyer

Her brass box contained only a single folded sheet of white paper. It was nothing the Postal Service had delivered. Sal slipped on a pair of white gloves and removed it from the box before she could.