Thomas O`Callaghan - The Screaming Room

Was this the man’s idea of a joke? Reirdon had promised not to send a female assistant. And of all people, Margaret! Goddamn him! Goddamn that son of a bitch!

Margaret sat down in a swivel chair. She looked dazed. “I swear, John. I had Lieutenant Troy try to convince Reirdon to leave me be. No such luck. The Mayor was hell-bent on having me work with you.”

Driscoll shook his head. That bastard! And look at me. I’m the fool who placed his trust in the word of a politician. He caught Margaret’s doleful gaze. She must feel terrible for her unwilling role in this deceitful maneuver. He softened. “I was glad to see you at the funeral,” he said. “That meant a lot to me. But I guess you know that.”

“How’s Mary?”

“She’s hanging in there. Thanks for asking.”

Margaret smiled.

“Well,” said Driscoll begrudgingly, “I guess if we’re going to work together again, now would be a good time to bring you up to speed.” He stuck his head out the door to his office and gestured for Thomlinson to come inside. Once the three were settled, he began. “We have two bodies, and the medical examiner coincides their approximate time of death. That gives us a four-hour window. We know the vics weren’t killed where they were found. Crime Scene reports two massive head wounds but no hair, brain matter, or blood splatter where the bodies were discovered. And since the media has been all over it, I’m sure you know both victims were scalped. We could be looking at two perps, but we can’t rule out the possibility of one guy doing both murders.”

“The American Museum of Natural History and Coney Island are less than an hour apart. One guy coulda easily done the two,” said Thomlinson.

“I think it’s best to consider this the work of one person until the evidence tells us otherwise,” Driscoll continued. “We’ve got the perp posing the bodies at both sites and concurrent causes of death. And, judging from what the autopsies revealed…” His voice trailed off, his mind wandering to the cold and sterile environs of the medical examiner’s mortuary he had visited earlier in the day. He envisioned himself marching down the long corridor toward the double-glass doors marked “City Morgue.”

Behind those doors Driscoll came upon a spacious room with white tiled walls and a high ceiling. High-wattage halogen bulbs illuminated an array of cadavers positioned atop stainless steel gurneys. Those corpses, their chests and abdominal sections gaping, were attended by three coroner’s assistants, who were dissecting and weighing lifeless organs.

On one such gurney, near the center of the room, one of the two tourists was being examined by Larry Pearsol, the city’s chief medical examiner, and Jasper Eliot, his assistant.

“Item D214B67. Arrival Date, June 4, 2006.” Pearsol’s voice boomed into the Uher recorder. “Deceased is Helga Swenson, tentatively identified by International Passport. Remains are that of a well-developed, well-nourished female. Weight sixty-eight-point-six kilos. Height one-hundred-sixty-seven-point-six centimeters. No remarkable scars, moles, or tattoos noted. Initial examination of decedent’s fingernails reveals no evidentiary properties. Inspection of genitalia reveals no indication of rape or assault. There is no semen present. Examination of the cephalic region reveals sharp force trauma resulting in a massive head wound, measuring seven-point-six-two centimeters to right parietal, causing fracture to the skull and bone splinters to penetrate the brain. Twelve-point-seven-centimeter linear penetration to the skin of the forehead noted. Irregular tearing of scalp-”

Pearsol hit the OFF button on the recorder to tell Driscoll that the same cranial wound pattern and evidence of scalping appeared on tourist number two, Yen Chan.

“Lieutenant, whaddya make of the head wound?” It was Sergeant Aligante’s voice. The question rocketed Driscoll back to the present.

“Maybe an ax,” Thomlinson suggested as Driscoll reexamined the eight-by-ten glossies in the open file on his desk.

“More likely a tomahawk. Our boy’s into scalping.” Driscoll was becoming more comfortable with Margaret’s presence.

“Someone piss off the Navaho and we don’t know about it?” Thomlinson ran a finger across his forehead and grabbed hold of his hair.

“The posing says the guy’s into showcasing his work,” said Margaret. “New York might be his new exhibition hall.”

“Say it ain’t so,” groaned Thomlinson,

“I agree with Margaret.” Driscoll smiled at her. “This guy likes to show off his work. Right now he’s probably fantasizing over his kills. But after awhile his recollection of the murders will fade. And so will the power those fantasies have had in keeping him satiated. Once that happens, he’ll need to kill again. He’s like anyone with a compulsion. He gets high on the first kill, but in order to keep the high going, he’ll need to do it again. I’d say our guy’ll want to expand. Artists have a whale of an ego. He’s gonna want a bigger and bigger audience, a standing ovation from eight million, nine hundred thousand New Yorkers. These two murders may just be the warm-up.”

Thomlinson had a puzzled look on his face.

“Whaddya thinking, Cedric?”

“How the hell does he know his targets are tourists?”

“He’s gotta get close enough to hear them speak. That’d be my guess,” said Margaret. “I say he stalks them, waits until they’re alone, whacks them, and then drags them off to hide them in some burrow for the night until morning, when it’s showtime.”

“Coney Island and a museum. We’re talking crowded crime scenes. How come no one saw anything?” asked Driscoll. “And the posing? No one sees that goin’ on?”

“The guy’s gotta be one strong son of a bitch,” said Thomlinson. “He carried a two-hundred-pound man up the side of the Wonder Wheel, for Chrissake.”

“How’s this?” said Margaret. “He selects a number of random targets that he thinks talk funny. Strikes up a conversation with one or more of them, where he learns who’s from out of town. Then he lurks in the shadows waiting for one of the poor suckers to stroll into his lair. And, whack! And you’re gonna love this. A public toilet! That could be the lair. One of the stalls would serve as a safe place to hide his victim until closing time.”

“And nobody notices the vic’s missing?”

“The guy goes after loners.”

“Possible,” said Thomlinson. “But that says two doers. One guy can’t spend all that time setting up his targets, kill one of them, wait ’til the middle of the night to showcase his work, and be able to do it in two places at the same time. Remember, the ME coincides their approximate time of death.”

“Okay,” said Driscoll. “We may be looking for a pair of killers. Cedric, get on the horn to the press and the media. We want to hear from anyone, and I mean anyone, at either location who may have been approached by a stranger. Margaret, call the Bureau of Indian Affairs. See if they’ve got any take on this. Then get a hold of Crime Scene. I want every toilet, every storage area, and any other stand-alone structure at the museum and on the boardwalk swept. They’re to look for blood and any other trace evidence that may be related to the crimes. But, Cedric, you have a point. How does our boy drag a two-hundred-pounder up the side of a Ferris wheel?”

“We’re lookin’ for one helluva bench-presser. Maybe two.”

HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE A CONQUI LA TOISON

That was the inscription etched on the stainless-steel back of Driscoll’s pocket watch. Colette had presented Driscoll with the watch on their wedding night.

“Happy, he, who like Ulysses, had conquered the Golden Fleece,” was the translation. She had chosen the verse from Dubellay, the Renaissance poet.