John Lutz - Serial

“Oh, we will,” Quinn said. “Sooner or later we’ll nail the bastard.”

“I like the imagery,” Pearl said.

“I wonder how many other women are out there in the same positions,” Fedderman said, “with the men they falsely identified as their rapists recently sprung from prison.”

“According to Blood and Justice-” Pearl began.

“What’s that?” Quinn asked.

“The organization of attorneys dedicated to using DNA evidence to right legal wrongs. I used their website statistics to work it out. The number of mistakenly identified and convicted rapists released in the last five years in the New York area is thirty-two.”

“You’re joking?” Fedderman said.

Pearl finished with the comb and put it back in her purse. Her hair was still disheveled. “DNA doesn’t joke.”

“Assuming all those women are still in the area,” Quinn said, “they’re all in danger. We need to talk to them.”

“And the men who did time because of them,” Fedderman said. “One of them is probably the Skinner.”

“I’ll print out the list of women,” Pearl said. “Then I’ll work up the list of their exonerated alleged rapists.”

“Names, addresses, whatever else you can find out,” Quinn said.

Pearl was smiling. “I was just thinking, the safest of those women is the one the murderer doesn’t want to harm until he’s ready to risk drawing attention to himself-the woman who mistakenly identified the Skinner.”

“If she isn’t dead,” Fedderman said. “One of the early victims.”

Quinn shook his head no. “To be on the safe side, our guy will wait and take her down somewhere in the middle of his trophy hunt. He’ll want the camouflage.”

“Crazy old world,” Fedderman said.

“It is if you’re mooning about Penelope,” Pearl said.

Fedderman was about to say something when Quinn caught his eye. Fedderman let out a long breath and sat back. Some things, said the look on his face, you simply have to endure.

Like Pearl and inclement weather.

“First thing we need to do,” Quinn said, “is talk to the three men who were falsely accused of raping the first three victims.”

“Keeping in mind,” Pearl said, “that part of what we believe could be bullshit, and we might be talking to the killer.”

Pithy Pearl.

“There is one other job I figured I’d give to Feds,” Quinn said. “We need somebody to go to a slaughterhouse and find out if they use a special knife to remove calves’ tongues. If so, see if they’ll give you one.” Quinn grinned. “A knife, that is.”

Fedderman got up and deftly slipped on and buttoned his suit coat, as if he were about to model it. “Somebody’s gotta look into this tongue thing, so why not me?”

“It’ll keep your mind off Penelope,” Quinn said.

Pearl said, “God, I hope so.”

When Fedderman had left, Quinn phoned Renz at One Police Plaza.

“A breakthrough on the Skinner case?” Renz asked.

“Any second now,” Quinn said. “Did you talk to Nift or read his report?”

“Yeah. The thing with the tongue-that’s new. Give you any ideas?”

“Symbolism, maybe,” Quinn said. “The victims talked at a trial and sent people to prison for rapes they didn’t commit.”

“ All of the victims?”

“So far, yeah. And there are twenty-nine more women out there who might fit the profile. They need to be offered protection.”

“They will be,” Renz said.

The phone was silent for a few seconds.

“Then the entire goddamned chain of murders is symbolism,” Renz said. “I don’t see why we should settle on the tongue.”

“The killer apparently took it with him. Maybe that means something.”

“Or not.” Renz was thinking about what else might not mean something. Protecting as many as twenty-nine women around the clock. Three eight-hour shifts times thirty-two. Yeah, find me ninety-six cops with nothing to do, Quinn.

Renz would do what he could.

“Either way, let’s keep this tongue business from the media,” Quinn said. “Only the Skinner and us will know about it. That way we can use it to test for false confessions and weed out all the crazies.”

“Good idea, Quinn. Seems like everybody and their cousins are confessing to these murders, except for the real killer. Keeps our phone lines burning. And sometimes people actually walk into precinct houses and confess. Why the hell do people do that?”

“Maybe the same reason they confess in church,” Quinn said.

“There,” Renz said, “is a scary thought.”

It wasn’t as scary as the ones Quinn was thinking.

Hogart, 1991

“You’re what?” Roy Brannigan asked his wife. He jumped out of his chair as if lightning had struck nearby.

It was a warm summer night. The sky was still a faint purple, and dusk had sent its advance scout shadows among the trees. Crickets were chirping. Beth and Roy were on the porch. Beth had thought this would be a good time and place to tell him. Good as any, that is. She was pretending to sip ice water, and Roy had just finished drinking his second beer. Beth thought two beers might make him mellow enough that he wouldn’t turn mean when she… surprised him. She sure didn’t want to wait and take her chances with five or six beers.

She said the word again, realizing it was like dropping a stone into a calm pond: “Pregnant.”

Roy paced three steps this way and that on the plank porch, a man walking nowhere, banging his heels so they made a lot of noise. “For the love of Jesus, Beth!”

She remained seated in her rocking chair, knowing that if she stood it might escalate whatever was going to happen.

“Roy, please! It’s not like it’s my fault.”

He stopped pacing to face her with his fists propped on his hips. “How were you dressed? What were you doing taking a shortcut I told you over and over not to take? And at night! What were you carrying under your arm? How’d you just happen to cross paths with that Vincent Salas?”

“How do you know-”

“That it isn’t mine?” He turned his head to the side and spat. “I haven’t touched you since you became unclean in the eyes of the Lord. I hadn’t touched you the month before the… thing with Salas.”

You never touched me enough, she thought, and was immediately ashamed of herself.

“You got inside you a child with the mark of the beast,” Roy said.

“Don’t talk like that, Roy. I need you.”

“Oh, you got what you need. Dressed like a whore, with alcoholic drinks on display, and wandering through the dark woods. What did you think might happen? What did you want to happen?”

“Not what happened, Roy! I swear it.”

“You got nothin’ left to swear to,” Roy said, and hurled his empty beer can far out into the night.

“When you get raped,” Beth said, remembering the ER nurse’s words, “it’s something that happens to you. You have no control over it.”

“Like you got no control over lots of things once you start tempting fate and the devil.”

“But I didn’t start-”

He stomped inside the house and slammed the door after him. It made a sound like a gunshot. An execution.

She looked in through a front window a few minutes later and saw him seated at the desk reading his Bible. The hand that wasn’t turning pages was clenched in a fist.

The devil was very real to Roy.

They exchanged no more words before going to bed and lying with their backs turned to each other. Beth couldn’t stop crying and lay with tears tracking down her face and making her pillow damp. Outside the house, insects buzzed loudly and seemed to be accusing her, as if they knew what she was and disapproved. As if all of nature disapproved of her.