Carol O’Connell: Crime School

He nodded absently as he placed each aerosol can in its proper compartment in the toolbox. ‘One of Loman’s detectives got statements from everybody on the fire truck.’

She pointed to a couch cushion leaning against another wall. A large square of material had been cut away. ‘What’s that about?’

‘I cut out a scorch mark and bagged it. That was the perp’s first try at arson. It should’ve gone up like a torch. The couch must’ve come from out of state. New York law doesn’t require fire-retardant upholstery. Lucky for you it didn’t burn. Inside of four minutes, the whole place would’ve gone up in flames.’

‘And destroyed all the evidence,’ said Riker. ‘You’re sure that’s not what he wanted?’

‘Yeah, I’m damn sure. This guy was looking for a fast controlled burn. Lots of smoke, but no major damage. He was real careful to clear the area around his bonfire.’

Mallory agreed. The hangman had wanted to call attention to his work, not destroy it. A wet mound of bright cloth and sequins lay at her feet. ‘Some of these clothes have scorch marks.’

‘Another experiment,’ said Heller. ‘He picked them because the material’s so flimsy. More bad luck. The law does call for fire-retardant costumes. Eventually, they’ll burn – everything does. But the guy’s in a hurry. So next, he collects all the paper – junk mail, magazines. He even burned the window shade.’

‘So our boy’s an amateur at arson.’ Riker leaned down to examine the pile of wet cloth deemed unworthy of evidence bags. ‘I spent four years in Vice. Never heard of a streetwalker with a costume collection like this.’ He drew out a scanty garment with sequins and sewn-on wings. ‘I’ve seen this one before. June, I think. Yeah, Shakespeare in the Park. The play was Midsummer Night’s Dream. I loved the fairies.’

With a rare show of surprise, Heller turned to stare at the man voted least likely to have an up-close encounter with culture.

Riker shook his head, saying, ‘Naw, must’ve been October – the Halloween Parade.’

The forensic expert sighed, then returned to the task of putting his toolbox in order.

Mallory looked down at the carefully labeled insect collection on the table. Heller was deluded if he thought Lieutenant Coffey would pay for an entomologist. It would be a fight just to keep this case in Special Crimes Unit. Among the evidence containers stashed near the door was a bag of votive candles. There were at least two dozen in various stages of meltdown. All were covered with fingerprint dust. ‘The candles belonged to the killer?’

‘Yeah. Part of his little ritual.’ Heller pointed to the area beneath the ceiling fixture. ‘Check out the wax.’ Melted droppings had survived the fire hose, and they formed a circle on the cement. ‘There were spots of red wax on the victim’s skirt. So I know she was lying on the floor while the candles were burning. I used the wicks for a time frame. The last one was lit fifteen minutes before the place was hosed down. That’s how much time he had to hang the woman and start his bonfire.’

‘That can’t be right,’ said Mallory, risking heresy. ‘We have to add on another ten or twelve minutes before Sparrow was cut down and revived. But she isn’t even brain-dead.’

‘She was starved for oxygen, but her air supply wasn’t completely cut off.’ Heller reached into the evidence pile and selected a canister. After breaking the seal, he pulled out a section of rope. ‘With a hangman’s noose, he could’ve killed her in a few minutes. But this is a fixed double knot. The noose didn’t tighten with the weight of the body. Satisfied?’

Yes, she was. Mallory could see it now – Sparrow hanging quietly, sipping air and playing dead, waiting for the freak to leave. Cagey whore. She must have had great hopes. The window had been bare and all the lights left on. Help would surely come any moment. Then her lungs had filled with smoke, and Sparrow had blacked out. Or perhaps she had been dimly aware of her rescuers, the conversation of firemen all around her, and not one hand lifted to help a lady down from the ceiling.

‘The jar of dead flies doesn’t fit,’ she said.

‘You’re right.’ Heller interrupted his work to stare at the perfect circle of wax droppings. ‘A very tidy job, meticulous. Even the scalping. You can’t trim a moustache without making a mess, but there wasn’t one stray hair on that woman’s clothes. And the candles – each one an equal distance from the next. Your perp is compulsively neat. I can’t see this guy catching bugs.’

Mallory could. She pictured a man ripping garbage bags open, then waiting patiently with his can of insecticide. He would have worn gloves to harvest the dead and dying flies, and still it would have made him queasy to touch them.

The basement door opened, then slammed with a bang. The commander of Special Crimes Unit had arrived. Before his last promotion, Jack Coffey had been a middling man with a forgettable face, hair and eyes of lukewarm brown. Now, at age thirty-seven, the stress of a command position had widened the bald spot at the back of his head and added a premature decade of worry lines and character. Riker noticed the lieutenant’s hands were balled into fists, and he counted down the seconds, waiting for the man to explode.

Coffey’s gaze passed over the two men and settled on his only female detective. His tone was too calm, too reasonable when he spoke to her. ‘Imagine my surprise when Lieutenant Loman dropped off the paperwork for a hooker.’ His voice jumped ten decibel levels when he shouted, ‘And she’s not even a dead hooker!’

Mallory never flinched. She had the slow blink of a drowsing cat, and her serenity would cost the lieutenant one game point.

‘We’re tossing this case back to the East Side squad,’ said Coffey. ‘ Tonight! What the hell were you guys thinking? This is assault, not murder. Loman says it’s a damn sex game gone wrong.’

‘Autoerotic asphyxiation?’ Heller kept his eyes on his toolbox as he shook his head. ‘I’ve seen a few teenage boys strung up, and even some old guys, but no women. Her hands were tied with – ’

‘She was a damn hooker; said Coffey. ‘She did whatever she was paid to do. And bondage is part of the trade.’

‘Sparrow was never into freaks and their games.’ Riker said this so casually, an offhand line dropped into the conversation.

The lieutenant’s reaction was predictable. ‘We’re not tying up a squad so you can keep faith with one of your snitches.’

Riker shrugged, then lit a cigarette as he leaned against the wall, leaving the fight to his partner. Coffey could make no personal connection between her and Sparrow. Mallory had been ten years old the last time she had spoken to the whore.

‘The perp is a serial killer,’ she said. ‘Loman’s squad would’ve botched it.’

Riker sucked in his breath. Awe, Mallory, what are you doing? Was she trying to lose this case? No cop on the force had ever heard of a serial hangman. It would have been better to run with Heller’s portrait of a tidy psycho with a penchant for dead flies.

‘A serial killer?’ Coffey wet his lips, tasting the words. ‘So, tell me.’ His cursory glance swept the entire room. ‘Where are the rest of the bodies?’

‘In a Cold Case file,’ she said. ‘It’s the same MO. The rope, the hair – everything.’

And now the fun begins. Or this was Riker’s impression of Jack Coffey’s smile. Hands on his hips, the lieutenant squared off with Mallory. ‘And where is that file?’

‘They haven’t located it yet.’

Riker relaxed a little, for his partner was on safer ground now. The Cold Case files dated back to 1906, and the squad had recently moved this staggering inventory to new headquarters. What were the odds that they would rush to unpack a hundred cartons just to appease Special Crimes Unit?