Oliver Stark - American Devil

Their eyes fell from the five bright smiling faces to the corpses. It was a terrible contrast. Harper’s eyes scanned across the women in quick succession. The horror jumped right out, but so did something else. The five corpses were sexual to different degrees.

The victims, Elizabeth Seale, Jessica Pascal, and Amy Lloyd-Gardner were posed with their genitals covered; the others were posed pornographically. Kasper put it a lot more plainly. ‘Open legs, shut legs.’

Harper jumped down his throat. ‘Okay, I like the jokes, but do some thinking too. Why are they like that?’

Kasper looked again at the corpses. ‘Some got him hot, some didn’t.’

‘Try harder,’ said Harper.

‘I don’t know, Tom, that’s not my area.’

Harper paced up and down in front of the boards. ‘Maybe he thought some were whores, some were angels. Maybe it depends on how they responded to him. It’s still a feature that we can’t explain, so we ought to look into it.’

‘I’ll put it on the list for the briefing,’ said Eddie.

Harper thought about calling Denise Levene. He picked up the phone and then put it down. He needed clarity. He’d think through this himself.

Thirty minutes later, after reaching no conclusions whatsoever, he called Levene directly. He admitted to himself that he didn’t know what the symbols meant. Maybe this was Levene’s area. He heard her voice on the line. They hadn’t spoken since Nate’s death.

‘How is it going up there?’ she asked. ‘I wanted to call. I didn’t know if I should.’

‘Well, it’s been hard, but we’re all focusing on the investigation. It’s all we can do.’

Denise held her breath for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, Tom.’

‘We’re all sorry.’

‘My profile backfired, badly. I don’t know what to say.’

‘It wasn’t the profile, Denise. This guy had been stalking Nate for a good few days. We’ve got eyewitnesses.’

‘You sure?’

‘Don’t beat yourself up. The killer wanted to show us what he’s capable of.’

‘I thought it was my fault.’

‘Well, you can’t take the credit this time.’

‘You shouldn’t joke.’

‘What else can I do? No time for feeling. I’ve got to cut to the chase here.’

‘Fire away. What you got?’

Harper gathered his thoughts. ‘Our killer is a compulsive sexual predator, right? We’ve just got the crime scene photos of all five women in front of us. Amy, Elizabeth and Jessica are posed with their genitals covered, but Grace and Mary-Jane are posed explicitly. What do you think? Anything might help.’

Denise thought for a moment. ‘It’s a difficult one to call, Tom. Research says that if a killer poses them graphically and hides or mutilates their faces, then it’s likely that he knows the victim. Hiding the face and exposing the genitals is an act of depersonalizing the victim and, some say, blaming her.’

‘What about the other type?’

‘Well, the other type suggests that he doesn’t know them, so they aren’t personal to him.’

‘Can I conclude from what you’re saying that this killer might have known Mary-Jane and Grace?’

‘Well, it’s possible.’

‘But that’s important. That’s real important. How would he know them?’

‘It’s possible, if — as you say — the killer is stalking these women, that they are women he knows and has become obsessed by. Sometimes killers start with people they know. Then they move on to the unknowns.’

‘Okay, Denise, that’s a great help. We need to have a look at that. What the hell kind of job might this guy have to meet this kind of woman?’

‘Might not be his job. Maybe he knows them socially?’

‘What, like this guy is an upper-class madman?’

‘I don’t know, Tom, but it could be anything, that’s all.’

‘We’ll follow it up.’

‘I’ll try to work up some ideas.’

Harper nodded. ‘Keep thinking, Denise. We’ve got until tomorrow. If he’s keeping to his two-day cycle, then we’re expecting another body to show up.’ He put the phone down, his head spinning.

‘What she say?’ said Kasper.

‘Maybe the killer knew the first three victims.’

‘Okay, that’s worth a look,’ said Kasper. ‘We need to cross-reference every place they come into contact with others and see if there’re any points of connection.’

‘Exactly. Let the teams working Mary-Jane, Grace and Amy know about this.’

Eddie shrugged. ‘Will do, Harps. And listen, we’ve already got news coming in from the teams. You want the headlines?’

‘Sure, run it.’

‘They found out that Elizabeth Seale was drinking in the Fullerton Lounge yesterday. We got a pretty firm memory from the bartender that she was talking to a man in the bar before she met a friend. The bartender said the guy hit on her so he didn’t know her. The guy drank a Black Russian, wore a black suit. He was also good-looking with a touch of grey hair. It could be him.’

‘Just like he did with Jessica Pascal. So let’s say Denise is right and he knew the first three, then ran out of victims or maybe he tried to date the next two and that changed things for him. He likes to interact with them. He gets a buzz out of it.’ Harper went across to the board. ‘Listen, Eddie, we need to know where he got to meet these three women, which might be where he’s scoping the next victims. We need to find out where he does his stalking.’

The Frick

November 21, 4.30 p.m.

Across town, after the day shift, Tom met Denise at the Frick. He wasn’t sure whether she thought he was uncultured and needed an injection of art or whether she was keen to pick his brains about the job.

Walking the east side of Central Park in the fall dusk was a pleasure anyway. The wealth of New York had lined these avenues with grand houses, beautiful gardens and a peacefulness that you couldn’t often find in the city.

The Frick was a New York treasure. A beautiful house that was now a museum and art gallery. Harper stood around staring at the visitors, trying to guess at their lives. It was hard to know. Creative types, rich types, students — people who didn’t do nine to five or shift work to make ends meet.

Denise arrived in a yellow cab. She was dressed in a long black coat with her fair hair loose about her shoulders.

‘You not tried dyeing your hair like the rest of New York?’ asked Harper. He’d read that morning that New Yorkers had given up being blonde since news of the killings had come out. Everyone was turning brunette.

‘Mine’s natural and I like not being taken seriously.’

Harper laughed. ‘What’s the idea with the museum?’

‘I was thinking about things. Thinking about Williamson’s murder.’

‘I was going over it myself. It’s cruel.’

‘Then I remembered something. Something I want to show you.’

They talked low as they went into the museum. It was quiet and hushed inside the beautifully ornate rooms. It was obvious that Denise spent some of her spare time in the Frick, as she moved purposefully through the rooms to one in particular.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘See if you can spot it.’

Harper looked around the room. Lots of pictures hung closely together. Harper didn’t know what he was looking for, so he moved slowly from picture to picture. Denise watched him closely. She was comfortable with Harper. He had a rare commodity: he didn’t interfere, he let you be. It was just a quality he had and it was something she liked about him.

Suddenly, Harper shouted out, ‘Fuck!’

A guard took a step into the room and hushed him severely. Harper apologized. He turned to Denise. ‘Is this why you brought me here?’