Seven ways to die

17

“Jesus!” Stinelli said. “What the hell kind of wacko are you dealing with?”

Hue and Cody had just run the entire Handley briefing for him, but the commander’s eyes were fixed on the photograph of the death scene. Stinelli and Cody stood at the back of the operations room as he stared at the main board. Simon and Hue were at their posts, Kate Winters was sitting at her desk and Charley was asleep on the cot in Cody’s office. The rest of the crew was in the field.

“Si, can you elaborate a little bit for the commander,” Cody said.

“A conundrum,” the little man said.

“That’s obvious. A little more than that.”

“I’m still working on a couple of things,” Simon said. “I have a lot of blanks to fill in.”

“Just give him the general profile for now, Si.”

“Well, we’re not dealing with a wacko in the sense I think you mean, Chief. Not like, say, Richard Trenton who believed he had to drink his victim’s blood to stay alive. He was a true psychotic. Our killer is a psychopath. The murder has all the indicators of a serial killer-who are mostly white, male, psychopaths between the ages of twenty-five to forty-three. Average age thirty-four. Only five percent are psychotic and, of the entire lot, only about one percent are women. So for the sake of this discussion let’s just say this killer is a white male who appears to be normal, probably follows a routine-a civil servant or blue collar person although he could be a doctor, lawyer, or college professor. He shows minimal bizarre behavior in everyday life but harbors a secret need to dominate and control others, has a constant need for sexual stimulation and gratification, has no conscience, knows good from evil but feels no guilt or remorse. He’s a hedonist. No worse, a sybarite. Cynical, often impulsive. And a contact killer because he enjoys inflicting pain and killing. It’s an addictive obsession. Normally he would have left a trophy or some kind of signature because he’s proud of his accomplishment. So far we haven’t found one.”

“But, maybe he didn’t need to. The slaying itself is unique,” Cody added.

Si paused for a moment and said: “The scariest thing about these killers is they usually take a cooling off period after a kill. Weeks, months, sometimes years. Until something prods their appetite.”

“So how can you be sure this is the work of a serial killer?” Stinelli asked.

Nobody answered for a minute or two.

“Look at the picture, Chief,” Cody said. “This is a sadist at work. He controlled Handley and tortured him. He dominated the scene. The whole set up was manufactured. This killing was brilliant. No clues, no prints or DNA that we can determine. It was not impulsive, the killer had it planned and timed perfectly and had the prerequisite biological knowledge to pull it off.”

“The simple answer is because there’s too much joy in this kill,” Si said.

“Joy?”

“He obviously enjoyed every minute of it.”

“We call the killer Androg because it could be a male or female,” Cody added. “Either way, this killer’s addicted.”

“And brilliant,” Si said. “Most serial killers commit their acts in the same way. John Wayne Gacy is typical. His trademark was that he stuffed his victim’s underwear down their throat so they’d gag and die in their own vomit.”

“This one?” Cody said. “This one’s all over the map.” “He’s the guy next door, Commander,” said Winters. “Hiding in plain sight. And waiting to kill again.”

“I hope to hell he’s not living next door to me,” Stinelli growled. “How about a motive?”

“The motive is Androg’s compulsion,” Simon said.

“And you’re expecting more,” Stinelli said flatly.

“That’s Wolf’s appraisal and we all agree. Frank and his team are working the neighborhood. Bergman is checking the company where Handley worked. I’ve got my three best street cops working the West Village hoping to find out where Handley spent the missing thirty minutes on his way home.”

Almost on cue, the phone rang. Hue fielded the call and nodded to Cody. “It’s Butch.”

Cody answered it. “Yeah. Where? Okay stay on top of it, call me when you get something.” He signed off and turned to Stinelli. “Ryan says they may have nailed down a spot. They’re scoping it out now.”

“A sex club?”

Cody nodded.

“Amazing,” Kate said.

“It’s what they do,” Cody said. “Nothing sets off their adrenalin like the old needle in a haystack.”

Stinelli shook his head. “Christ, how are you going to keep this one under wraps, Micah? Victor Stembler? Hell, Handley might as well be the mayor’s son-in-law.”

“Victor Stembler doesn’t want the details to leak out.”

“He almost fainted when he came over and made the official ID,” Kate said.

“So far he’s the only one who knows exactly what happened. We treat it as a break-in that went sour. A case in progress. Everybody stays mum as usual.”

“How about the autopsy?”

“Nothing on paper yet.”

“And McKeown? It’s his precinct.”

“He’s working with us. Some of his people are doing the door-to-doors with Frank. He’ll file a normal report with the generic stuff. Name, address, occupation, blah, blah…”

“How about cause of death?”

“Possible homicide during a break-in. He’ll just drop it in the box. No press conference or any of that. He’ll treat it as a normal homicide.”

“A normal homicide. There’s an oxymoron. And you also got that guy Hamilton dogging you about the Cramer murder.”

“Out of town. I’ll worry about that Monday.”

“Sometimes you make me nervous, Micah.”

“Ah, come on, boss. Keeps us on our toes.”

Stinelli shook his head and looked back at the board.