Oliver Stark - American Devil

‘We can count on this being private until tomorrow morning,’ said Harper to Captain Lafayette and Eddie Kasper. ‘Then, if she’s true to form, Erin Nash will tell the world that the American Devil took out the lead detective.’

‘You want us to put the frighteners on her, Tom?’ said Eddie.

‘I tried that and she doesn’t frighten easy. I think I might have even strengthened her resolve. But maybe we could try to get the DA to agree to get her put under surveillance. What do you think, Captain?’

‘You want the District Attorney to agree to the NYPD spying on journalists? Are you out of your mind?’

‘Look, Captain, did you read her account of Elizabeth Seale’s murder? It’s just gone up on the website. She’s got everything. She knows about the false arrest in the wrong apartment and another piece of information that we only got back from the autopsy this morning.’

‘What was that?’

‘That the killer took another trophy. Elizabeth Seale’s uterus had been removed from the body.’

‘I didn’t know. How the hell did she get that information?’

‘Only Blue Team and the Medical Examiner’s office knew that her uterus was taken,’ said Harper.

‘You think it’s someone on the team?’ asked Lafayette.

‘I’d hate to think that, but where else? And if not, then we’ve got to pin her source down. Can’t you do anything at all, Captain?’

‘After what you tried with her, you’re lucky we’re not facing a lawsuit. Her editor made it clear that he’ll run with a harassment and assault suit if Erin gets any more heat.’

‘It was self-defence,’ said Harper.

‘Always is with you, but even if they make the complaint, you’re out. You made her untouchable.’

Harper shot looks between them both. ‘Look, if the DA won’t sanction it, Eddie, how about you see what you can get done unofficially.’

‘Will do, boss.’

‘And one more thing, Captain. Can you at least get us some peace? Guys are getting hammered as they go in and out of the building. The press have been camping outside since Erin Nash called this guy a serial killer. Now we’ve got news crews running hourly updates. If I’ve got a grimace on my face, they’ll report it.’

‘I can move them away from the building, but it’s a free country.’

‘Well, get them across the street, at least. Give our guys a chance.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Harper had been sifting through the files for an hour and he wasn’t at all impressed with Williamson’s approach to systematic logging and filing of case information. In fact, the dead man’s approach stank. Harper could see what was wrong immediately. Due to the speed of the kills, each murder hadn’t been fully investigated and the information hadn’t been cross-referenced with any of the other victims or even logged centrally. Williamson was leaving too much to chance and old-fashioned thinking. This all meant that they were walking blind through the case, hoping to stumble on something. With Harper in the lead spot, it had to be different.

At 1.15 p.m. Tom Harper called the investigation team together for a briefing. Along with the core members of Blue Team, he had over a hundred detectives working the case, but he only wanted his top people. He had six members of Blue Team, another six members of Manhattan North, four detectives drafted in from Manhattan South, and another six from the precinct detective squads. These experienced homicide detectives made up his core team. Along with his administrative team, there were twenty-five faces looking up at him, all angry and expectant.

‘Good morning to you all. I’m Detective Harper and this is Detective Kasper. Nate Williamson was a good cop and he didn’t deserve to die. So we’ve got to nail this creep for Nate. We’re here to take down the American Devil, but we’re not going to do it unless we’re organized. So far, as far as we know, this guy has killed five women in New York and one cop. Around the room, we’ve got five boards. I’m putting a team of six detectives on each woman. I need their lives fully investigated. We’ve got another team working Williamson’s murder. I want to know everything these women did for the last month of their lives. I want to know every person they spoke to, every phone call they made, every shop they visited. I want a moment-by-moment account with nothing left out. I want to see photographs and names of their boyfriends, dates, family, and friends. I want their computer records searched. I want everything back here. This killer has been interacting with them and he will have left traces.

‘So listen up, we will work two systems. The boards for all the visuals and key incidents, people and places. The database for absolutely everything. Every name, number, location and event. We’re working six different murders here, gentlemen, and it’ll be easy to miss something, but the computer won’t. It’ll flag up any similarities. Got that? The boards for basic facts, key leads and suspects, the database for everything. All clear?’

The room nodded its approval. Harper continued. ‘Secondly, I’m putting three teams, round the clock, to respond to information from the public. I don’t want to be swamped by this shit and I don’t want to miss anything. Again, all names, numbers, details logged and cross-referenced to crime scene details — if anyone is authentic it should flag it up. We meet every day to give a brief report, we see what the computer flags up and we see if anything on the boards throws up an idea. We haven’t been doing the ground work, gentlemen, and it’s not good enough. He’s one man, we’re many. We’ve got over a thousand hours a day of detective time pouring into this case, so let’s not waste any of it.

‘And one more thing. We’re getting serious heat from One PP and I don’t want anyone, and that means anyone, talking to the press. Someone is briefing Erin Nash and it’s ripping big holes in our investigation. They’re hyping this up enough as it is. I trust you, so be trustworthy. Now, let’s go to.’

‘Amen!’ shouted Kasper and the room laughed in response.

Harper dismissed the detectives to set up their teams and then started calling in the advisers he’d identified as necessary. First he called the FBI at the New York field office and asked for two special agents to join the task force and offer advice. As far as Harper could see, they needed every bit of help they could get.

By the end of his first few hours in the lead spot, Harper returned with Kasper to find the boards were already filling up. They had three full-time administrative staff and it was finally beginning to look like a serious operation.

Harper looked at the photographs of the five female victims. They had a lot of overkill and they were all posed. He looked slowly at each in turn: Mary-Jane Samuelson with her legs apart in the hallway of her own home; Grace Frazer, hands together, on the rocks off Ward’s Island; Amy Lloyd-Gardner posed like an angel in an underground parking lot; Jessica Pascal posed like Christ in the doorway of her apartment; and Elizabeth Seale posed like a nude in a painting on her own bed.

Each of the victims had their most recent photograph next to their crime scene shots. They looked undeniably similar. All had the same blond hair, but more interestingly they all had similar features. It took a while for Harper to see, but there was definitely a ‘look’ the killer went for. They all had long hair and thin, angular faces. And, of course, they were all very rich and very beautiful. But it was more than that. Harper called Eddie to his side.

‘What do you think? It must take him quite a while to find the particular type,’ he said.

Eddie moved over to the boards. ‘Yeah. Rich, blonde and — well, if I saw them in a club, I’d call them stuck-up. No, not even that. They’ve got a quality to them. I don’t know. Innocent. Not ones I’d pick out for a one-night stand.’