Killer Heat

TWENTY-ONE

Mike handed me a pair of latex gloves and I stifled my intense claustrophobic fears to lower myself into the dungeonlike space

Don't touch anything, Coop. Bart's getting a team in here to tear it apart. Just look around and tell me if you get any brainstorms. I couldn't stand up all the way. Hunched over, I shined the light around the four-foot-square room. A ladder had been cobbled together from large tree branches, while smaller limbs-strung with strips of canvas-were hung as shelves, above an old army cot resting on rusted springs

Looks like he's moved out," I said. "No clothes, no fresh food. Not even water."

"There's no potable drinking water on the island," Bart said. "You'd need to bring that along to live here."

There were several cans of food and fruit stacked under the cot, and packages of MREs, the meals ready-to-eat used by our military. A large shovel lay beneath the rungs of the ladder, and next to the spade was the translucent skin of one of the island snakes.

Weapons of every variety were ranged on the floor and propped against the walls. Ropes of varying lengths and widths were stuck into the dirt walls with large nails. Hunting knives and revolvers, hand grenades and bayonets from another era, fierce-looking metal objects large enough to trap a bear-Bannerman's arsenal had inspired some modern-day madman to collect his own assortment of deadly toys.

"You see anything to suggest Connie Wade was down there?" Mike asked from above.

If the same man had killed all three victims, the impersonality of the crime scenes was the most solid link we had. He had left no signature at any of them, dumping women in remote locales without depositing a hint of his genetic profile-despite the obvious sexual overtones to the attacks.

"No."

"Put yourself in her place."

"I wouldn't have lasted an hour," I said, my gloved hand on the ladder, ready to pull myself out. It was dark and dank, and the daddy longlegs that was scampering across the narrow cot seemed as anxious for me to leave his home as I was.

"Everything goes," Mike said to Bart as I climbed out. "Don't let anybody touch the handle of the shovel. Maybe we'll get his DNA on that or on the trigger of one of the guns."

Bart nodded in agreement.

"Who's got the handcuffs?" I asked.

"They're already in Albany, at the state lab."

Mike was writing Bart's phone number in his pad. "If this killer was as organized as I think, he was wearing gloves. There won't be anything on the cuffs."

"I'm talking about swabbing the inside of the cuffs," I said.

Mike raised an eyebrow at me.

"In addition to Connie Wade's DNA, you might find Amber Bristol's. Link your cases to each other through the victims, even if you can't find any trace of the perp yet."

"Every now and then you are useful, Coop."

Mercer extended his hand and pulled me out of the hole. "You've got to think that maybe our man never got Wade this far," Mercer said. 142 LINDA FAIRSTEIN "Maybe he was on his way to this spot with her when something interrupted him. "Could be," Bart said. "Hard as we try to keep people away from the island, it's impossible to stop them."

"We'll need a news alert covering the killer's window of opportunity, see whether anyone can come up with a description, if that's the case," Mike said. "Maybe someone else passed our man on his way to the dock or on the other side of the shore, where he parked."

"What else will you need from us?" Bart asked.

"Everything you've got, for starters."

Mercer looked at Mike. "RTCC?"

The most innovative new development was the NYPD's Real Time Crime Center, a state-of-the-art computer system designed to accelerate the analysis of data, interact instantaneously with field personnel, and connect the dots between law enforcement agencies all over the country. Discrete bits of information supplied from commands in any jurisdiction were fed into a "brain" that coordinated them to enable patterns to emerge from seemingly unrelated facts.

"You bet. This guy's a poster child for Real Time Crime. I'll call the lieutenant on our way back. The chief of detectives will have us up and running by sundown," Mike said. "We'll enter every bit of detail you and your men have got into this think tank."

Bart led us back through the maze of brush to get to the clearing where Joe Galiano was waiting to return us to the city. It must have been the layer of haze and the storm clouds forming off to the west that had mercifully kept the serpents from sunbathing on the boulders.

We climbed into our seats and buckled up. Galiano had the rotors whirling within minutes, warning us that we would be flying through some rough weather.

Mike was as uncomfortable in this fast-moving glass-enclosed bubble as I had been underground. We lifted off over the river, climbing above the West Point campus on our bumpy ride back to Manhattan.

I thought he would kiss the ground when Galiano lowered us onto the landing pad at the heliport.

A uniformed cop was waiting for us at the security gate. "Detective Chapman? You're to go directly to One PP," he said. Police Plaza, the department headquarters, was farther downtown, three blocks south of the criminal courthouse. "Commissioner Scully wants to see the three of you immediately.