The Delilah Complex

Thirty-Two

By 7:00 p.m. on Monday night, Jordain and Perez’s office was littered with used foam coffee cups and takeout food wrappers.

“Why the hell don’t we have anything? How can you kill two men and hide the bodies for this long? And now a third? Shit. Where are they?” Perez said as he poured himself yet another cup of the strong chicory-laced coffee that Jordain had just made. It was their fourth pot that day.

“You really asking that?” Jordain asked.

Perez shot him a look. Obviously, it hadn’t been an actual question. The two detectives were frustrated, tired and angry with the killer, who was so elusive.

“How much you think Delilah would hate it that we’ve given him a woman’s name?” Perez asked.

They’d taken to calling the anonymous killer “Delilah” because of the locks of hair that had been sent to Betsy Young, along with all three sets of photographs.

Yes, three. The third had come in early that morning.

“He would despise it. An affront to his power. To his masculinity. We’re really getting him but good by calling him that.”

For the second time in less than five minutes, Perez shot his partner an exasperated look.

The phone rang, as it had been doing all afternoon, but all calls were being intercepted. Half of them were from the managing editor of the New York Times, who was waiting for the police to give him the go-ahead to run the next story in the series, which announced that there was a third victim. Grant Firth. Forty-two. Doctor of orthopedic surgery at New York Hospital. Father of three girls. Husband of Donna Firth, who was a medical reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

“You know that’s Hastings on the phone,” Perez said.

“Of course it’s him. He can’t stand it. Every minute that goes by is one more minute lost. And if he loses too many of them, he loses his lead story for tomorrow.”

There was nothing about this case that pleased either detective, except perhaps watching Harry Hastings wait and beg. The paper could run the story when they said so. And not before.

The lab reports had all come back without a single break. The envelopes were a mess since they’d been through the postal system. There was no saliva on the inside flap or under the stamps. There were no stray hairs inside. Just the clippings put there on purpose.

There was one fiber in the second envelope. A small white thread, no more than an eighth of an inch long. Frayed at the end. Meaningless on its own.

The paper that the photographs had been printed on was standard and sold in almost every photography-supply store in the United States, as well as hundreds of stores online. Even if they found out where it had been bought, what were the chances that the photographer would have used a credit card?

It didn’t matter. They had experts working on tracing the stock.

The nine-by-twelve manila envelopes were even more common than the photo paper. The postmarks were at least interesting. The first envelope had been sent from midtown Manhattan. The second from Port Chester, New York, about a half hour away from the city. And the third had been mailed from Harlem.

They were working on finding the pattern to those three locations. But it was too early for them to lock in on it.

The footsteps were light, but since both men were waiting for her they looked up even before Officer Butler walked in.

She was smiling, which Jordain thought was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in at least thirty-two hours. “What do you have?” he asked.

“The hair sample on Firth.”

Both men had leaned forward and were listening hard. “Yeah?”

“There was some blood on it. And in the blood are traces of Thorazine. We checked with Firth’s wife. No history of any prescription drugs. No antidepressants. No mood elevators. Nothing.”

“Which means that he was drugged before he was killed,” Jordain said. “Or the drug killed him.”

Butler nodded.

“How hard is it to get Thorazine?” Perez asked. “And how hard is it to OD on the stuff?”

“I’m ahead of you on that,” Butler said. “As soon as I saw the report, I put in a call to the M.E.”

“And?”

“And I’m waiting for him to call me back.”

“More waiting,” Jordain said.

“There’s something else,” Butler said.

“Yes?” Both men looked back at her.

“There’s another substance on one of the hair samples. The lab guys aren’t sure what it is. A chemical. They’re running more tests now. Should have some information in a few hours, if we are lucky.”

“So far there hasn’t been any luck on this case,” Perez lamented.

“Maybe that’s about to change,” Jordain said.

Perez smiled at his partner the way a parent smiles at his child on Christmas Eve when the kid is putting out cookies and milk for Santa.

“It’s nice that you can still dream.”

“If you stop dreaming, you might as well stop living,” Jordain said.

It was true. He believed that. Even doing what he did every day, even seeing what he saw, even knowing what he knew about the human psyche and the ability man had to be evil.

“It’s that damn piano,” Perez said. “You’re a fucking romantic because of that damn piano.”

In answer, Jordain put his hands on the edge of his desk as if it were a keyboard and moved his fingers up and down, miming playing. He scatted along with the action, his voice giving real life to a jazz riff that he’d written. Perez had seen his partner do this a hundred times, and so had Butler, but they still stared in wonder at the way Jordain’s hands moved with a grace that wasn’t expected, and the way his voice moved them even though they were tough cops and should know better.