Night Victims

9

When they approached the address of the reported homicide, Paula saw only one police car parked directly in front of the building. No unmarkeds of a make and model like hers and Bickerstaff’s. No ambulance or other emergency vehicles. Only a hint of the horror above.

“We got the call early,” Horn said from the backseat. “So we can examine everything fresh and unedited.”

Paula was impressed. She had to admit it was nice working with someone with pull. Bickerstaff, quiet beside her, simply stared straight ahead. “There,” he said, pointing to a parking slot that turned out to be a loading zone featuring a homemade sign saying don’t even think of parking here.

Paula parked there anyway and pulled down the visor to display the NYPD placard. Inanely, she wished she had a sign saying don’t even think of towing this car.

When they were out of the car, Horn led the way. He was swinging his long arms, head thrust forward on his bull shoulders. He seemed eager.

An overweight uniformed cop stood near the building entrance and straightened his posture when he saw them approach. Horn flashed his shield in the way of a man who’d made the motion thousands of times.

“Nineteenth floor, sir,” the cop said to Horn. “Apartment 195.”

“Anybody up there but the victim?”

“My partner Eb guarding the door. We got a ten-three when we got the call, then phoned in and were instructed to secure the scene and wait for you.”

Horn nodded and pushed inside, holding the door open for Paula and Bickerstaff. There was no doorman. Except for the uniform outside, nothing in the lobby seemed out of the ordinary. The elevator door opened and two women got out jabbering to each other about someone’s wedding. Not a word about anyone’s death.

The three detectives made it into the elevator before the door slid shut, and Paula punched the button for nineteen.

When the door glided open they saw Eb halfway down the hall. He was young and tall and looked as if he’d spent most of his brief life lifting weights. When he pushed away from leaning against the wall, Paula noticed his uniform appeared to be tailored.

When Horn showed his shield, Eb said, “Door’s unlocked, sir. Vic’s name’s Patricia Redmond. When she didn’t show for work this morning, her employer called and had the super check on her. He found her. . like she is.” An expression of distaste, maybe fear, crossed his handsome features, which appeared to be unmarked by previous experience. “My partner carl and I checked to make sure she was dead, like we were instructed when we phoned in to the dispatcher. Then we secured the area and kept a low profile till you guys showed.”

Paula wasn’t sure a low profile was a six-foot-two uniformed cop stationed in an apartment hall, but it seemed to have worked. An elderly woman emerged from an apartment down the hall, did a double take when she saw the uniform and knot of people near Patricia Redmond’s door, then got in the elevator and descended. Seemed to have worked so far, anyway.

The door was cracked open half an inch. Horn used a knuckle to ease it open all the way. He instructed Eb to stay on guard in the hall, then led the way into the apartment.

Immediately, Paula caught the faint but unmistakable scent of fresh blood and sensed the unearthly stillness that gathered like coagulated time in the wake of violent death. She and Bickerstaff looked at each other, then at the broad back of Horn moving almost grudgingly toward the bedroom. She knew both men felt as she did, that they were unwilling trespassers in a place made terrible and sacred by the killer.

Horn had been to this place many times following the footsteps of numerous killers. While he moved slowly, he didn’t hesitate as he entered the bedroom, leaving enough space for the other two detectives to come in behind him without inadvertently touching anything.

Paula heard her own involuntary gasp as she saw Patricia Redmond beyond Horn’s left shoulder. Bickerstaff swallowed, phlegm cracking in his throat. Horn, still facing away from them, held out a big hand and motioned for them to stand still.

To his credit, Paula thought, he didn’t voice what he was thinking: that they should be careful here and not disturb any evidence. A virgin crime scene had to be treated with respect.

Patricia Redmond was lying on her back in the center of her double bed, shrouded in tightly wrapped blood-soaked sheets. Even the bottom sheet, with elasticized corners, had been pulled up from the mattress and used to shroud her. She must not have been able to move anything but her head, fingers, and toes. The toes of her left foot, nails enameled a brilliant red, extended beyond the edge of the taut sheets, tensed and curled like talons. At the other end of the shrouded form was her head. Her shoulder-length dark hair was wild, suggesting she’d thrashed her head around violently as she’d suffered. The white of the one eye visible beneath the tumble of hair could be seen all the way around the pupil, as if she’d taken a terrified peek into the void an instant before death. Her mouth was agape, forming a round depression in the gray duct tape that covered it. To Paula, nothing had ever looked more silent. Where are the screams she tried to form? What happened to the stillborn screams of these women?

“Pattie,” Bickerstaff said, breaking Paula’s mood.

“What?” Horn asked.

“I bet the people she knew called her Pattie. She was probably a pretty thing.” Bickerstaff shook his head. “Fuckin’ shame!”

“The victim was stabbed repeatedly,” Horn said, slipping into cop talk to put a protective shell around his emotions and to signal Bickerstaff and Paula to do the same.

“I’ll bet somewhere around thirty-seven times,” Paula said, noting the many slits in the bloody sheets. Each cut must have seemed like a world of pain in suspended time. Paula hoped her stomach, her emotions, were going to hold up here.

Careful not to tread on any impressions on the throw rug, Horn moved across the bare wood floor to the open window. He peered up beneath the shade. “The glass has been cut so he could open the window and climb in. Looks like soap or candle wax on the tracks to smooth the way and mute the sound.”

“Our guy,” Paula said. Not that there’d been some doubt.

Horn led them back into the living room. Strangely, it was like leaving a church.

“We’ll let the ME and techs go over the place,” he said, “see what they come up with before we conduct a thorough search. Assign some uniforms to question neighbors in this building, and don’t forget canvassing adjacent buildings. Then you two interview the best possibilities in a second pass and compare their stories with the first versions.”

Bickerstaff was staring down at an angle through the living room window. “Cavalry’s here. Ambulance, two squad cars, and the ME.”

Paula walked over and looked down at the small shiny vehicles parked at careless angles in front of the building, like toys hurriedly shoved there by a child. Tiny, foreshortened human figures were scurrying toward the entrance. “They’re on the way up.”

“Fine,” Horn said. “We’re done here, for the moment, anyway.”

“Let’s go up to the roof,” Bickerstaff said. “Maybe he dropped his wallet.”

It’s happened before, Paula mused, as they exited Pattie Redmond’s apartment and made their way toward the elevator.

Not this time, though.

But the roof gave them what they expected to find. There were scuff marks in the heat-softened, graveled tar directly above the victim’s window. The tile-capped parapet was marked by what might have been a rope rubbing on it. And there, low on the parapet, was a deep and freshly forged hole where a piton might have been driven into the mortar.

“He was here, all right,” Horn said.

“Notice the pigeon droppings here have been stepped in,” Paula said. Further evidence.

Horn looked over at her approvingly, but Bickerstaff said, “Sherlock Homing pigeon.”

The roof of the building next door was only about ten feet higher than the one on which they stood, and only about ten feet away, sharing what amounted to an air shaft. At that edge of the roof they found more scuff marks, and, in farther, a vent pipe that was marked by what might have been some kind of grappling hook that secured a line.

Horn smiled grimly. “We certainly have his MO nailed.”

“Now all we have to do is nail the bastard himself,” Paula said, surprising herself with the vehemence of her words. Horn didn’t seem to notice, which didn’t fool Paula. Bickerstaff was grinning at her.

The three detectives spent another ten minutes on the roof, carefully searching for anything of possible use.

All they came up with were a tangle of old antenna wire and a crumpled chewing gum wrapper.

“Juicy Fruit,” Bickerstaff said, staring at the smoothed-out wrapper in his hand.

“The sun’s faded the lettering,” Horn said, “and the antenn wire’s rusty. This stuff ‘s been here awhile and doesn’t help us.”

Bickerstaff nodded, then wadded and flipped the gum wrapper away.

They went back through the service door and into the building. As they were descending in the elevator, it stopped at nineteen to pick up Eb, the uniform. He nodded to them, and when he stepped in, Paula looked beyond his bulk and got a glimpse of the techs and emergency personnel milling around in the hall. The ME was there, too. Harry Potter again.

He caught sight of Paula and smiled and winked at her as the elevator door slid shut. There was no reason death shouldn’t be a little bit fun.