A Killer Like Me

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Sunday, August 5, 5:51 PM

The killer sits cross-legged on his bed watching television, flipping back and forth between the cable news networks and the local stations. His second video is on every channel. He is the topic du jour. In the heavily edited version of the video played on television, the young woman’s terrified face is clearly visible.

The press coverage is even better than he had hoped. Tomorrow the newspaper will certainly carry his letter.

Twice during the last few hours, the local TV stations have replayed this morning’s police press conference. The killer watched it both times with fascination. He is growing fond of Detective Murphy. The investigator appears to be a driven man, one who does not easily suffer the fools in the press. Unlike the mayor, though, Murphy is not insulting in his comments, just determined. The killer knows Murphy’s determination will ultimately be for naught, for God himself has so ordained it, yet he admires the detective’s doggedness.

Perhaps I have underestimated him. Perhaps he is my Javert.

As the killer watches a pair of talking heads on WDSU, the local NBC affiliate, debate what to do about the mayor’s missing daughter, a breaking-news banner flashes at the bottom of the screen, followed by a news scroll that reads POLICE AT SCENE OF NEW SERIAL-KILLER ATTACK. ..

What?

The killer stares at the screen as the same message crawls across again. This time it is followed by the additional teaser, DETAILS AT THE TOP OF THE HOUR.

The killer glances at the cable box above the television. Eight minutes until he can find out what WDSU is talking about. He switches to WWL, the CBS affiliate and the city’s perennial news ratings winner. The station is in the midst of airing a commercial for a car dealership. The killer suffers through the car ad, then has to watch a promotion for the network’s Sunday-night lineup, led by 60 Minutes.

Finally, the weekend anchor comes on. She is a light-skinned black woman with a foot of hair shellacked to the top of her head. The graphic below reads, NEWS ALERT.

She gazes into the camera, solemn faced.

“WWL has just learned that New Orleans police are on the scene of what appears to be yet another serial killer attack. This one on Wingate Drive, just blocks from the University of New Orleans. NOPD has not released the name of the victim, but we have reporters enroute to the scene of this deadly attack. WWL will interrupt our regular programming to bring you live reports as the situation unfolds.”

The killer continues to stare dumbfounded at the television, even after the station returns to the network news talk show it had been airing.

Wingate Drive?

He springs from the bed and pulls a spiral notebook from beneath his mattress. The notebook contains his research. He flips through several pages, then stops. He has a page of notes about a woman on Wingate Drive named Marcy Edwards, a thirty-five-year-old harlot who cheated on her husband. Has someone beaten him to her? Is someone copying him?

At 6:00 PM, the killer flips his television back to WDSU. The anchor, Randolph Neville, an aging black man with the bloodshot eyes of a boozer, leads with a brief description of the murder on Wingate. Then he cuts to a live shot at the scene. Greg Haynes, the station’s balding weekend crime reporter is there.

“Randolph, I’m standing on Wingate Drive, just a few blocks from the UNO campus,” Haynes says. “This was the scene of last night’s grisly murder and quite possibly the latest case connected to the suspected serial killer who calls himself the Lamb of God.” The reporter points over his shoulder. “This house behind me is where police discovered the body of a dead woman about nine o’clock this morning, and as you can see, several hours later, the house is still swarming with detectives, including members of the department’s serial-killer task force.”

The killer leans back against the headboard.

The screen splits and shows the anchor on the left, the reporter on the right. The anchorman, who only recently finished serving a thirty-day suspension following a DWI arrest, says, “Greg, what have the police said about this latest murder?”

After a few seconds delay, the reporter says, “They’re not releasing any details, as you can imagine, Randolph, but the continued presence of members of the serial-killer task force lends credibility to the speculation that this crime was the work of the Lamb of God.”

The killer loves hearing them call him that.

“Can you tell us what exactly is fueling that speculation?” the anchor asks.

“Well, no one is saying it officially, but sources close to the investigation have told me that detectives found something inside the house that is consistent with the other known serial-killer murders.”

“Have they identified the victim?”

The street reporter presses his earpiece deeper into his right ear. “So far, Randolph, the police have not released her name.”

“Can you tell us more about what it was that the investigators found that links-that may link-this case to the other serial-killer cases?” the anchor asks.

“Randolph, one source told me that the killer left behind a telltale mark, something the source would not describe in detail, obviously in order to prevent copycat crimes. However, the source did say that the telltale mark was something the serial killer mentioned in a previous communication with the police, likely the letter we’ve all heard about, and it was something the killer said he would leave behind at future crime scenes.”

The bleary-eyed anchor thanks the reporter and promises more updates later in the newscast if new information becomes available.

The killer is stunned.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then someone has just paid him a huge compliment.

But who?

Somewhere in the back of his mind an idea begins to take shape.

Murphy found out about the mandatory evacuation when he and Gaudet got back to the office at 9:00 PM, after more than eight hours at the Wingate crime scene.

All of the other homicide detectives were gathered in the outer office listening to Captain Donovan brief them on the latest news from headquarters.

“At zero six hundred tomorrow everyone in the department except Homicide is going on hurricane duty,” Donovan said. “All city services will be shut down except for police, fire, and EMS.”

The announcement was a shock to Murphy. He had not seen the news or listened to the radio since yesterday morning, nor had he heard anyone on Wingate talking about the storm. Or if they were, he hadn’t been listening. All he had heard was a constant replay of Marcy Edwards gasping for breath. “I didn’t think the storm was that close,” Murphy said, more to himself than to anyone else.

Standing in the doorway of his closet-sized office, Donovan shook his head. “It’s halfway across the Gulf of Mexico and headed straight for us. They’re saying it’s going to be another Katrina.”

Murphy hoped not.

He had spent the first forty-eight hours after Katrina in an eighteen-foot fishing boat, motoring around the Lower Ninth Ward, pulling people off rooftops. Then he hooked up with some SWAT guys and spent the next three weeks dodging sniper fire from the projects and chasing looters. They worked twenty-three days without a break, with barely any support from the department. They had no functioning radios, no clean uniforms, no fuel for their cars, no shelter, and no food other than what they could scrounge. During that same time, two hundred fifty of their fellow officers ran away.

The only funny part of the whole thing was when an overweight, out-of-shape, Hollywood action star showed up with his ponytail and his semiautomatic AR-15 to “help” the cops. Through some connection in the chief’s office, the actor tagged along with SWAT on a looter patrol. Halfway through the patrol, the aging actor, sweating buckets and looking like the last days of Elvis Presley, jumped into a supervisor’s car and rode back to the command post. The SWAT guys never saw him again.

So much for Hollywood heroes.

“It’s a phased evacuation,” Donovan said. “From six a.m. to six p.m., Plaquemines, lower Jefferson, and Saint Bernard parishes will move out. Then from six p.m. to six a.m., the rest of Jefferson Parish will evacuate. Finally, beginning at zero six hundred Tuesday, Orleans Parish residents will head north.”

“What’s our assignment?” Gaudet asked.

“As of tomorrow morning, the task force, along with A and B squads, will continue working the kidnapping. C Squad will handle any non-serial-killer calls.” Donovan slapped his hand against the wall like a gavel. “Go home and pack a bag, gentleman, because when you get back here tomorrow morning there is no telling when you’re going home again, or even if your home will still be standing when you get there.”

Donovan backed into his office and slammed the door.

“Merry Christmas and happy motherfucking New Year to you too,” Gaudet mumbled as the gaggle of detectives broke up.

Murphy and Gaudet walked into their squad room and headed for their desks. “Have you heard from Doggs or Calumet since this morning?” Murphy asked.

“Not a peep.”

“Are they still part of this task force?” Murphy said. “They didn’t bother responding to the… the scene on Wingate.”

Gaudet started chuckling.

“What?” Murphy snapped.

“I heard you blew your lunch on the lawn.”

As Murphy dropped into his chair, images of Marcy Edwards lying dead and bloody on her bathroom floor flashed through his mind. “I drank too much last night,” he said. “I guess the smell got to me.”

“I thought you were home sleeping.”

“I had to get to sleep didn’t I?”

The Wingate crime scene had been brutal. After Murphy finished talking to the lab tech who was busy collecting his DNA-laced cigarette butts, the coroner’s investigator showed up and Murphy had to help him and Gaudet roll the body and examine it. He had almost puked again. Staring at the dead woman, he had convinced himself that as soon as he got home he was going to put his gun in his mouth one last time and finally pull the trigger.

Later, while he was riding back to the office with Gaudet, Murphy changed his mind again. Focus on the case, he told himself. There was a chance the mayor’s daughter was still alive. Find her and catch the killer, then decide what to do.

Murphy snatched his portable radio off his desk and called for Doggs and Calumet. He got no answer. “Do you have a cell number for either of those idiots?” he asked Gaudet.

After shoving a pile of papers around on his desk, Gaudet found a yellow sticky note. He read out a telephone number.

“Which one is that?” Murphy said.

Gaudet shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Murphy picked up his desk phone and punched in the number. Joey Dagalotto answered.

“Where the hell have you been?” Murphy said.

“Murphy?” Joey Doggs asked.

“Yeah, it’s Murphy. Where the hell have you and Calumet been? You left us at the Wingate scene all day.”

“We were running down a lead.”

“A lead?”

Gaudet peeked around his computer monitor.

“It’s a long shot,” Doggs said, “but we were going back through all the case files and we found a good picture of a tire track from the crime scene near Michoud Boulevard.”

Murphy remembered the scene and the tire impression. By his tally, the dead prostitute was the killer’s fourth victim. She had been strangled with a cable tie and dumped in an isolated spot off Interstate 10, out in the alligator-infested bayous of eastern New Orleans.

During his initial survey of the crime scene, Murphy had spotted the tire track in the mud. He ordered a crime-scene photographer to take high-resolution photos of the track. Then he had a lab tech make a cast of it. “I sent pictures of the tread pattern to the FBI lab three months ago, but I haven’t heard anything back from them.”

“We have a way around that,” Doggs said. “Calumet’s dad owns a tire shop in Metairie, so we showed him the pictures. He said the print is from a Goodyear Aquatred Three, which isn’t that common in New Orleans. He called somebody at Goodyear and got us a list of local customers who bought that model tire.”

“On a Sunday?”

“We actually got the list Friday night. We’ve been working on it ever since.”

“Doing what?”

“Narrowing it down.”

“How many people are on it?” Murphy said.

“A hundred and fifty.”

“That’s a pretty big list.”

“There were more than that, but Mr. Calumet said the tread looked pretty new, so we asked the Goodyear guy to give us only sales that went back six months from the day the body was discovered.”

Regardless of whether he killed himself or not, Murphy wanted the serial killer arrested. His mind ran through the investigative angles. “Did you prioritize the list based on criminal-history checks and sex-offender-registry listings?” he asked.

“Yes,” Doggs said.

“What’d you come up with?”

“Forty-seven people. We started interviewing them last night.”

“Good work,” Murphy said. “You get anything?”

“Not yet. So far we’ve only found thirteen customers, but we got nine DNA swabs. We’re asking everybody we interview for one just in case we recover DNA from a victim.”

DNA. It conjured an image in Murphy’s mind of the crime-scene tech squatting in the street, picking up cigarette butts with a pair of tweezers.

Murphy ignored the image. “Pay careful attention to the ones who refuse,” he said, “and don’t discount women who bought tires, or men over, say, fifty. They could have husbands or adult sons living at home. Run the addresses in MOTION and check out any males under forty who’ve used those addresses in the past two years.”

“Thanks,” the young detective said. He sounded excited. “Look, I just got home, but I can come back in if you need me.”

“You know the mayor called for an evacuation?”

“Yeah, I heard it on the radio.”

“You and Calumet need to be here at six a.m. Donovan said we’re staying on the case, but bring your tactical gear, because we won’t be going home for a while.”

“Just like last time, huh?”

“I hope not,” Murphy said. Then he hung up.

He had been in two shootings in the weeks following Katrina. One he reported, one he didn’t.

Hearing the fire in the young cop’s belly made Murphy less inclined to shoot himself when he got home, at least for now.

Gaudet, who had been staring at Murphy while he was on the phone, said, “What up?”

Murphy gave him the short version.

“Got to hand it to those kids,” Gaudet said. “That’s not too shabby a piece of detective work.”

“No it’s not,” Murphy said, but he was still thinking about DNA.