Night Victims

7

New York, 2003

Pattie Redmond hung up the phone behind the counter at Styles and Smiles and looked pensively out the window at the backed-up morning traffic on Second Avenue.

The guy she’d just talked to, Gary, was still a question, so maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to meet him for drinks tonight at the same place they’d met last night. It was a bar in the Village, where she and Ellen had gone to pass time before seeing a movie. Pattie’s mom, who lived up in White Plains, had cautioned her about meeting men in bars enough times. Still cautioned her regularly over the phone. A young girl living alone shouldn’t take chances, her mother would tell her. Some things, she would say ominously to Pattie, never change. Like Pattie might meet some nice fella in church, if she went to church.

Pattie had to smile. She was twenty-four-not so young, at least in her mind. Pretty enough, she knew, with her long auburn hair and too-wide mouth with white, even teeth that almost didn’t look real. Lips a little too large, like they’d been collagened. Gary said it was her smile that attracted him.

This guy, Pattie had thought last night in the bar, looked like something out of a soap opera. He was tall enough, darkly handsome, and perhaps partly Hispanic-the sexy part. And his suit looked expensive, maybe even Armani. Pattie knew clothes; she’d learned about them working here at Styles and Smiles, which sold men’s as well as women’s apparel.

Ellen had listened to their conversation and afterward told her that Gary had a practiced line of bullshit. Sure he did. Didn’t they all? He was single-said he was, anyway. And he’d been straightforward enough, just walking over and asking if he could buy her a drink. Ellen thought he might have assumed they were prostitutes, the way they were perched at the bar on those high stools and surveying the room, and for a few seconds Pattie thought the same. She’d even found herself toying with the possibilities. In her mind, toying.

Line of bullshit? Maybe. But it turned out Gary was more interested in listening to Pattie’s story than in telling his. She hadn’t told him where she lived, but she had mentioned where she worked. So he’d called and-

“. . forty percent off each of these, or if you buy two?” a short redheaded woman holding a blue blouse was asking. “The sign says buy two, get forty percent off.”

“You don’t get the forty percent off if you only buy one,” Pattie said.

“But if you buy two, do you get forty percent off each of them, or off the total price?”

“It’s the same thing,” Pattie said. Isn’t it?

“Or do you get forty percent off one but not the other?”

“Well. .”

“Or just twenty percent off if you buy only one?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Pattie said, “you buy both and I’ll give you forty percent off each one.”

“Isn’t that what the sign says?”

“Uh, well. . yes.”

“You people won’t get anywhere trying to confuse customers,” the woman said. She put down the sweater, turned, and strode angrily from the shop.

Pattie normally would have been seething. But this morning her mind was on other things. She simply smiled and walked over to return the sweater to stock.

She caught sight of herself smiling in one of the mirrors by the changing room. The sensuous and vibrant woman looking at her from the mirror made her feel good. She could understand why Gary had been attracted to her. She really could.

Horn hadn’t expected much from his visit to the first two crime scenes, and he hadn’t learned much. The apartment of the first victim, call girl Marilyn Davis, in lower Manhattan, was still vacant but had been cleaned. That of the second victim, computer programmer Beth Linneker, on the Upper East Side, had already been leased to a new tenant. Both women had lived on high floors where they must have assumed they were safe from street criminals and crime in general.

In each apartment the killer had entered through the victim’s bedroom window. In the Linneker murder, he’d cut away a crescent of glass and used masking tape, a bit of which was still on the outside glass, to catch and hold the detached glass and keep it from falling and attracting attention. Davis’s window had been unlocked and open slightly to allow in a summer breeze after a brief shower.

Horn examined each windowsill and found scratches and dents on the wooden one but nothing on the marble sill. It was impossible to tell if the marks were from the killer’s entrance, but some of them looked fresh. In both murders the women had been wound in their sheets. Since there was no sign of struggle, this was done while they were still asleep, or so quickly and deftly they hadn’t time to resist. Duct tape was placed over their mouths to silence them. They’d apparently been killed with the same weapon that was used on Sally Bridge. Davis, with thirty-seven stab wounds, had bled to death. Linneker had a fatal heart attack-after being stabbed thirty-six times. In neither case had the killer left anything behind that hinted at his identity.

Maybe Paula and Bickerstaff had learned something new in reexamining the two apartments earlier, as Horn had instructed. Probably it had been a waste of time, like so many things in homicide investigations.

Horn figured he might have better luck stumbling across something new and pertinent in Sally Bridge’s apartment, which was still an official crime scene.

He got the key from the super but when he reached the apartment found he didn’t need it. The yellow crime scene tape had been untied from the doorknob, and the door was unlocked.

When Horn entered he found Paula and Bickerstaff inside.

They’d heard him in the hall and were standing about ten feet apart, staring at the door to see who might come in.

Neither of them appeared surprised, but both seemed relieved. Horn wondered if they thought Bridge’s killer might have wanted something in the apartment and returned for it.

“Learn anything at the other two crime scenes?” he asked, noticing that the apartment still smelled of death, the faint coppery blood scent that could almost be tasted.

“Nothing that isn’t already in the files,” Paula said. “And so far we haven’t found any connection at all between any of the three victims.”

“Show me this footprint,” Horn said.

Paula led the way into the bedroom. The air was stale and smelled more strongly of blood. Bickerstaff stayed in the living room.

There was the footprint by the bed. It was faint but it was there, and Horn could understand how the techs could bring it out so it showed as the enhanced image in the file. The heel and ball of a bare foot, probably a man’s, medium size. A few distinctive lines, maybe enough to make a match that would mean something in court.

Sally Bridge’s bed hadn’t been touched since the murder. It was stripped down to the bare mattress. The pile of bloodied sheets Horn had seen in the crime scene photos had been taken to the lab for testing and evidence entry.

“They ever get a make on the blood type?” Horn asked, staring at the stained mattress.

“O-negative,” Paula said. “Same as the victim’s; when the DNA match comes in, it figures that all the blood in the apartment will be hers.”

Horn wandered over and examined the window where the killer had entered. The glass and handle had been dusted for prints, revealing only that the killer had worn gloves, but Horn was still careful when he slid the window open. It moved easily in its wooden frame.

“The lab said the killer used candle wax on the window frame,” Paula said. “Just ran it over the tracks so the window would raise real easy and wouldn’t make noise.”

“Uh-huh. So we look for a guy who carries a candle in his pocket.”

“Narrows it down,” Paula said, smiling to let Horn know she was joking.

Horn leaned out of the window and looked down.

“Heck of a climb,” Paula said.

“I don’t think so.”

He didn’t elaborate, and Paula figured she should hold her silence. She still wasn’t completely comfortable around Horn. The stories about his NYPD exploits sometimes contained touches of brutality. That didn’t seem evident in the man, despite his size. He acted more like a kindly uncle than a legendary tough homicide cop and political infighter.

She watched as he stared pensively at the window for a while longer before closing it.

“No marks on the marble sill,” he said. “Maybe a slight scuff mark from the killer’s shoe. But we can’t be sure.”

Paula said nothing. She wasn’t sure of anything yet in this case.

“Nothing for sure on the windowsills at the other two crime scenes, either,” Horn said.

He walked back into the living room, and Paula followed.

“You reinterview the neighbors here?” he asked Bicker-staff.

“We just finished up before you got here. There were a few slight discrepancies, but their stories are pretty much consistent with their first interviews. Basically, nobody saw or heard anything unusual.”

“We were about to leave when you arrived,” Paula said.

“I’ll leave with you,” Horn said. “After we get done on the roof, we’ll find someplace to eat supper and compare notes.”

“Roof?” Paula said.

Horn nodded. “Yeah. You know-the windowsills.”

“But they were left mostly unmarked when the killer climbed in.”

“And out,” Bickerstaff added. “The techs found nothing even microscopic that was of use on the windowsills.”

“Like a microscopic dog that didn’t bark in the night,” Horn said.

Paula grinned. “Sherlock Holmes.”

“I’d have guessed Lassie,” Bickerstaff said.

“Got a handkerchief in your purse?” Horn asked Paula.

She searched but couldn’t find one. “Only tissues.” Among other items she pulled from her purse while rummaging through it was a white latex glove of the sort used to examine crime scenes.

“That glove’ll do,” Horn said.

Paula and Bickerstaff glanced at each other.

They followed Horn into the bedroom, where he got a wire hanger from the closet, straightened it, and tied the white glove on one end. He then went to the window and opened and closed it, wedging the hanger between frame and sill so the end with the glove stuck outside about eighteen inches.

“Oughta do,” he said.

Understanding now, Paula led the way out of the apartment. She was starting to like this, Horn thinking a little outside the box. Sometimes a little was all it took. Outside was outside.

She could hardly wait to get to the roof.

As soon as they were on the roof, Bickerstaff wedged a piece of tile in the service door so it wouldn’t close and trap them up there. Then they went to the low brick parapet at the roof ‘s edge, approximately above the window to Sally Bridge’s bedroom. About ten feet from the parapet, Horn held out a hand and stopped them. “Look at the tar and gravel near the edge,” he said. “It seems it might have been disturbed.”

Paula looked. The gravel adhered to the blacktop roof seemed to have been rearranged recently, some of it even kicked or scraped loose.

Horn went to the parapet and examined it, then leaned over it, staring straight down.

“I see the glove sticking out right under the disturbed gravel,” he said, turning away and standing up straight. And there’s a spot on the parapet where the tile’s been rubbed clean. And look at this.”

Paula and Bickerstaff moved closer to see where he was pointing. There was what appeared to be a fresh hole low in the brickwork of the parapet, as if something sharp had been driven into the brick and mortar at an angle.

“A whatchamacallit, maybe,” Bickerstaff said. “One of those steel spikes mountain climbers use to fasten ropes to cliff faces.”

“A piton,” Horn said. He glanced around, then walked over to where a grouping of vent pipes protruded from the roof.

He stooped down next to one. “Look at the way the grime has been rubbed away from the base of this pipe. My guess is our killer drove in his piton near the roof ‘s edge, then ran the roof end of the rope back to this vent pipe. He then wrapped it around the pipe as a safety precaution in case the piton broke free when he draped the other end of the rope down the building wall and began his descent.”

Paula stared at the base of the old lead vent pipe. Horn was right. Something had definitely been tied around it, then perhaps tugged at and rotated to test for tightness and strength. “How did you know one of the pipes would be marked up?” she asked.

“Mountain climbers are nothing if not cautious. They believe in backup, just like cops.”

Paula was liking this more and more. “So our killer doesn’t necessarily climb buildings; he goes to the roof and lowers himself to the bedroom window he wants to enter.”

“Probably easier when you stop to think about it,” Bicker-staff said. “But how did he get to this roof? If he used the front entrance, he’d risk being seen coming or going. And if you look around, there’s no way he coulda got up here other than stairs or elevator.”

Horn put his fists on his hips and turned in a slow circle. The adjacent buildings were too far away to leap across.

“Maybe if we look on one of those other building roofs we’ll find a board or something that enabled him to cross over to this roof.”

“Or maybe he tossed or shot a line over here,” Paula said.

“Yeah. Like Spiderman,” Bickerstaff said dryly.

“Not exactly,” Horn told him, nodding and smiling at Paula. “He might have tossed a grappling hook over here and snagged it on something, maybe one of those vent pipes. Then he attached his end of the line on the other roof and hand-walked to this one, or used a sling or pulley of some sort.”

They went to the parapet and vent pipes and searched for fresh scratches, and found a pipe that might have suffered a little recent damage from a grappling hook catching hold.

“I dunno,” Bickerstaff said dubiously, scratching his double chin. “Those marks don’t look all that recent to me.”

“But look at the tracks in the tar,” Horn said, “from where he overshot with the hook and dragged it back to catch on the vent pipe.” He pointed to long, parallel gouges in the blacktop that led to and then straddled the protruding pipe. Subway tracks, Horn thought, seeing Anne thinking deep thoughts.

“Lowering himself from the roof like that,” Paula said, “probably nobody’d notice him in the dark even if they did happen to glance up. Not if he wore dark clothes. I kind of like the theory. And I don’t see any other way he’d be able to get to this roof without risking coming and going through the lobby.”

“Let’s put off supper for a while,” Horn said, “and talk to doormen and neighbors in the adjacent buildings. See if anybody saw or heard anything suspicious the night of the murder.”

Neither Paula nor Bickerstaff objected. Paula wasn’t hungry anymore. Her heartbeat had picked up, the way it sometimes had when she went hunting long ago with her uncles, when they sensed they were closing on their prey.

Bickerstaff simply pulled a candy bar from his pocket and started peeling off the wrapper.

“Since we’re gonna eat supper late,” he said, “anybody else want one of these? It’s a high-energy sports bar.”

“Those things are about six hundred calories,” Paula said. “They’ll even put weight on your eyeballs while they petrify your arteries.”

“Maybe. But I carry them ‘cause I figure I might need energy when I least expect it.” He patted the bulging side pocket of his rumpled suitcoat. “I got chocolate peanut butter with almonds.”

Paula held out her hand.