Killer Heat

TWENTY-TWO

Ihad known Keith Scully for more than five years. He was the chief of detectives when we first worked together-the department's rising star-before the mayor appointed him to be top cop a couple of years ago.

If he was pleased to see me again, I wouldn't have known it from the expression on his face. He was an ex-marine, tall and sinewy, with close-cut hair that had whitened since his promotion, just as more creases had been etched in his face.

We were ushered into his office on the fourteenth floor shortly after two o'clock. With him were Guido Lentini, the deputy commissioner in charge of public information, and Mike's boss, Lieutenant Raymond Peterson. Scully was a stickler for protocol, and it was a sign of his respect for Peterson that the old-timer was allowed to smoke- maybe the only person in the department who was-in the headquarters building

Word travels fast, Loo," Mike said to Peterson. "Maybe too fast. "You can't sit on something like this, Mike. The public has to know."

None of us thought the case was ready to present to the commissioner yet, and certainly not to the media. Mike would have liked the lieutenant to hold back until we had learned more about each of our victims and had some lab results in hand. But Peterson had apparently taken the story promptly to the PC after he got the morning's news from Pollepel Island. He hadn't even paused to ask me about the previous day's shooting at the range.

"You giving this out to the press, sir?" Mike asked.

"You tell me, Chapman," Scully said, standing behind his great desk, not a paper out of place, although the hefty piles represented some sort of mayhem in each of the five boroughs of the city.

"We're just beginning to try to put it together."

"Good. Keep it up. Use your time well. You've got all night. In the meantime, give Guido something to run with," Scully said, hitting a number on his speed dial. "I've got to let the mayor know you're here. He's hot to go on this."

"No offense, Guido," Mike said, cocking his thumb at the commissioner as he talked to the mayor's secretary. "But who put the bug up his ass?"

Guido looked at Scully to make sure he hadn't heard Mike's comment. "The governor called the mayor as soon as he heard you guys were flying up the river to consult with his troopers. Like we're supposed to keep our killers within city limits."

"Is he talking press conference?"

"It's all politics, Mike. If we don't get out in front on this, then the governor will scoop the story and point his finger at City Hall."

"Battaglia and his wife left for London last night with the kids. Family vacation," I said. "He won't like missing this one."

"I always think of Scully as the strong, silent type. He was chief of d's during that museum caper the three of us handled. He almost took my head off over a harmless leak."

"I hate to correct you, Mike, but it was my head that almost rolled on that one," I said. Both Battaglia and Scully had jumped all over me when one of the facts we were sitting on appeared in a feature story.

"Yeah, 'cause you were dating that television news jerk."

"Whatever happened to him-that Tyler guy?" Guido asked. "I never see him on air anymore."

"There's a whole graveyard full of Cooper's capons."

"Capons?"

"Castrated roosters, Guido. They vanish into thin air when she's done with them. But that's all going to change now. Right, Mercer? I'm forming a committee of Coop's friends. We're going to pick her men for her."

"And why would that be necessary?" Mercer asked, leading us into a conference room where sandwiches and drinks had been set out for us.

" 'Cause her picker's broke. That's been obvious for years," Mike said, getting up to grab something to eat and smiling at me. "Although I have to admit she started her day a hell of a lot better than I did."

Through the open door we could hear Keith Scully arguing with the mayor against the idea of a press conference.

Guido looked stumped. "Why? What did you do so early, Alex?"

"Finished the Saturday Times crossword puzzle before Mike rang my doorbell," I said, hoping I had on my best poker face. "It was an absolute bear to get done."

Scully finally slammed down the phone and joined us. "As much as I'd like to know what Alex was up to this morning, I think we'll all take a pass, okay? I'd like to tell you exactly why there's a bug up my ass, Chapman. Keep eating. Yeah, I heard you. You'll need the stamina for all the OT I'm going to authorize."

The commissioner hadn't missed a thing, although he had lost his point with the mayor.

"Sorry, boss. I didn't mean-"

Scully picked up a sheaf of DD5s-the detective division reports, legal-size pages filled from top to bottom with single-spaced narratives of all the work that had been done on every case. He flipped through them as he recited details of Amber's and Elise's autopsy reports.

"I've been holding the lid all week on Amber Bristol's 'quirks'-to quote from your creative paperwork," he said, tapping Mike's DD5s with the back of his hand. "I got Dickie Draper dragging his heels in Brooklyn 'cause he'd rather sit in the squad room and wait for an informant to drop the killer's name in his lap than do a day's worth of work. And now, we've got a West Point cadet murdered on state property and the governor's story is going to be that the NYPD didn't warn the public that there's a psycho on the loose."

Peterson was the only person who still referred to the commissioner by his first name. "Keith, they can't stick you with-"

"This is Saturday, Ray. This is when kids go clubbing and barhopping. Suppose another girl goes missing tonight? Who else is there to blame but the cops? You can't be a politician if you're just willing to suck it up. It's much easier to stick someone else in the line of fire."

Scully walked toward the enormous map of the city that hung on the wall and stared at it, then swiveled when Peterson starting talking.

"You've handled worse, Keith. You'll survive it."

"The mayor thinks that he and I have got our own little town, and that we run it side by side. Only I have all the same problems he's got- plus a few more of my own-and I'm the one who gets none of the ribbon cutting." His ice blue eyes were fiery and his short hair seemed to bristle.

"Every one of my employees has a gun. Every one of them. I've even got to worry that a few may have-what's the politically correct jargon?-'emotional issues.' That one of mine might have been the guy taking potshots up at the range yesterday," Scully said. "Yes, Alex, I know all about it. We're checking into our loose cannons and the ones who've been discharged or sent out to pasture."

"I didn't mean to make-"

"There are union reps at all of my job sites. You think that doesn't add to my aggravation? And within my patrol territory I'm responsible for airports and churches, schools and opera houses, crack dens and sports arenas, housing projects and penthouse palaces."

He poked his chest with his forefinger. "When people feel threatened, when they think their loved ones aren't safe, then it's my problem, Ray. Then I own it, all by myself, 24/7."

None of us spoke. Scully's direction was clear.

Peterson lit another cigarette. "You're just feeding the beast, you know. They devour the headlines, Keith. You study these guys, the serial killers who wind up in prison, and they've all got scrapbooks. They like making news. They get off on reading their own ink."

"So does Coop. Doesn't make her a bad person."

"That's always the balance, isn't it, Ray?" Scully said, ignoring Mike's shot. "We've been lucky that Bristol and Huff didn't get much attention. That all changes with Connie Wade. The governor's going public at six o'clock tonight. He's got the perfect victim and he wants to take the lead."

"So what did the mayor say?"

Scully laughed in spite of himself. "He wants me in the blue room at five."

"Whatever happened to the old 'wait and see' attitude?" Peterson asked. "Used to be a valued principle in policing, back in the day. Don't rile the public. Figure the killer will get tired of the high cost of living in the big city and move on. Become someone else's headache. Seems like this character's already moving upstate."

"And there's a gubernatorial primary the second week in September," Scully said. "Nobody wants to sit on a political hot potato."

Peterson opened the foil on a turkey sandwich and handed me half. "Give the man what he needs, Mike. You two have anything to contribute," he said to Mercer and me, "feel free to jump in."

"What do we know about Connie Wade?" Scully asked.

Mike read her physical description from the notes he'd taken in his first phone conversation and our meeting with Bart Hinson. He outlined what he knew about her background and family, where she had traveled from and when she had last contacted relatives and friends. He described the injuries and the manner in which they were similar to Amber and Elise's.

"Elise Huff," Scully said, scanning the police reports. "Have you made any progress finding this guy she was supposed to meet?"

"No, sir. The bar car's going to give me some help this evening," Mike said, referring to the detectives assigned to check on all the establishments that sell liquor and are licensed by the SLA. "I hit a few clubs near the Pioneer last night but came up empty."

"I don't need another disappearing act tonight. I want every young lady who goes out on the town for a cocktail to come home safe. Troopers still waiting on confirmation about what Connie Wade was wearing?"

"They're thinking uniform. Fits in with the whole military fixation this guy has."

Scully was back to Elise Huff. "And Huff, in this airline outfit, you think it could have fooled a guy who knows his stuff?"

Mike scoffed at the suggestion. "What? Like it was real military gear? No way. I'm assuming he knows better. She had on a neat white blouse, wings on the collar, and navy pants with a crease up the leg. But our killer wouldn't be thinking wild blue yonder."

"Don't forget she had that ring of her grandmother's she always wore," Mercer said. "Her best friend claims she's a storyteller, commissioner. Maybe our perv recognized the ring and knew what it meant. If the perp makes his pickup in a bar, maybe she told him she had a West Point connection."

"I'm willing to buy that," Peterson said. "But Amber Bristol, I don't see how she fits with these other two girls. I like the manner of death and the cuffs and the remote dump, but there's nothing military about her."

"What's Herb Ackerman's condition?" Scully asked. "Maybe he can establish a connection."

"They wouldn't let me back at him yesterday," Mike said. "Still too groggy from the overdose. Mercer and I will put him on our list for tomorrow. I gotta be honest with you, sir, he doesn't strike me as recruit material for Parris Island."

"I've met the man, Chapman. I don't see him rowing a body out in the middle of the Hudson, either-"

"Not without really shitting in his pants, sir."

"Let's see how long it takes these investigative journalists to sniff out their own. I'll be leaving his involvement out of the news bulletin. But Ackerman was a war correspondent in Vietnam. Read his columns sometime. He knows as much about our armed forces-and weaponry- as anybody in the media. I'm just looking for connections here," Scully said, listing commands for us to follow. "Find out who does Ackerman's research, who edits his copy. What led him to write about the ferry terminal. Maybe he's got a young buff on staff-somebody who knows his secret. We don't even have Amber's client list. Don't even know if this freak is in her little black book. And how about that bar owner? Amber's boyfriend."

"Jim Dylan. That's still a work in progress. He looked good to me before we found Huff's body. I haven't given up the idea that he hired someone to get rid of Amber."

With us all trailing, Keith Scully went back to his office and stacked the Bristol and Huff case reports next to each other on his desk, then began a third pile with his pages of notes about Connie Wade. He pursed his lips and shook his head. "Yeah, well he's damn unlucky if the guy he hired can't turn off the faucet when he's in the mood to kill."

"I haven't mentioned Amber Bristol's superintendent, Keith," Peterson said. "He's dirty. Has a couple of assaults he got walked out of court on. Beats his woman."

"Bring him back in," Scully said, then pointed to Guido Lentini. "Be sure to get details on the old cases for the mayor."

"Commissioner Scully," I said, replaying in my mind each conversation I'd had about these women, "do you have the report Mike wrote up based on my interview with Herb Ackerman? It was Wednesday morning, before I went to court."

He licked his thumb and looked through the dates on the top of each page. The image Herb Ackerman painted came back to me faster than the police commissioner could pull it up on paper.

"Amber Bristol," I said. "The night she walked out of Ackerman's office she was wearing a new outfit. She looked just like the captain of a ship, he told me. White cotton, double-breasted jacket. It was trimmed with gold buttons and epaulets, with some gold braid on the shoulders."

"That doesn't make her an admiral," Mike said, blowing me off.

Ray Peterson crushed his cigarette against the sole of his shoe. "I see where you're going."

"Could be what turns the perp on, Commissioner, is women in uniform," I said. "Not authentic, not armed services for real, but just the look of it. He's a sexual psychopath, guys. Maybe all it takes to trigger his sadistic urge is the sight of a woman in uniform.