Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

Mallory walked up to Coffey as Blakely turned and headed down the hall at a faster pace than his usual rolling mosey. She stared after his retreating dark bulk. “I guess he’s pissed off about the article in yesterday’s paper.”

“No, Mallory, that’s been smoothed over. Blakely understands how it happened. He’s been misquoted often enough.” He motioned her to look through the glass of the pressroom door. “You see that guy at the end of the platform? He’s FBI. It’s going to be a joint press conference.”

“Why would the feds want in?”

“The art world makes sexy press. Blakely only wants them to support the idea that Oren Watt is not a suspect. The feds agreed, so Blakely did a deal.”

She turned away from the window. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Commissioner Beale wouldn’t like it either if he had any idea what was going on.” He stared through the window, eyes on the far door beyond the dais. “If the feds get a piece of this case, they’ll go for a quick and dirty wrap. They’ll pick up all the neighborhood freaks, and nail the one with no alibi.” The back door of the pressroom was opening to admit Commissioner Beale and his entourage. “It’s time, Mallory.”

They pushed through the door and into a loud room, filled to capacity with television crews, photographers and reporters. Bright, white-hot camera lights were trained on the long table which spanned the dais. Clusters of microphones in nests of wires were set before each of the three chairs. The short gray police commissioner was climbing the two steps of the platform. As he moved toward the center chair, flashbulbs went off, and thirty mouths closed simultaneously.

Coffey took her arm and pulled her back into the reach of intimate conversation. “Mallory, I don’t care how you do it. Just go up there and dazzle the shit out of them. Do whatever it takes to make Beale and the department shine. NYPD is in control of this case. You got that?‘’

“Right.”

“You smoke over the old case and concentrate on the new one. The feds’ interference is driving Beale nuts. He’s the one you need on your side, so do all the damage you can.”

She was smiling, and that worried him. But Commissioner Beale’s little washed-out gray eyes actually sparkled when Mallory walked up the stairs of the dais and took her seat beside him. She looked out over a sea of faces and bright flashes from every quarter of the room. When Beale introduced her, he mentioned that, in the area of computers, Detective Sergeant Kathleen Mallory had no peer. There were other words to the effect that she could turn water into wine. And now the old man gave a terse introduction to the special agent from the FBI, who apparently was not so talented in Beale’s estimation.

Special Agent Cartland shuffled his papers and looked up, smiling for the cameras with the practiced ease of a fashion model. He was the perfect specimen, a walking argument for eugenics, with youthful good looks, light brown hair and strong white teeth.

Coffey stood at the back of the room and watched Mallory seated at the left hand of the commissioner. Coffey suddenly understood why Beale had asked for her. Harry Blakely had underestimated the little man in the gray suit. Commissioner Beale understood image and press and public relations. Mallory, tall and wonderfully made, was more than a match for the FBI agent. If she only sat there and said nothing, Beale would have won the argument that God was on the side of the cops and not the feds. A reporter was rising, hand in the air. “Agent Cartland, what’s the FBI interest in this case? The terrorist line in Bliss’s column?”

The FBI agent leaned into his collection of microphones, each bearing a network logo. “If the case did develop along the lines of terrorism, we would certainly take a very active interest. Terrorism is an area best left to experts.”

Well, this was not part of the deal.

Coffey could see that Beale was not at all happy with that remark. The commissioner’s little head swiveled right, in the manner of a schoolteacher about to pounce on a student who has gotten out of line.

Beale spoke into his own group of microphones. “There is no planned FBI participation in this case. The press is making an unfounded and highly sensational connection to the old murders of Peter Ariel and Aubry Gilette. Special Agent Cartland tells me the FBI has a profile on the perpetrator that puts that speculation to rest. You may proceed, young man.” And the implication was that the young man should proceed with extreme caution.

“The FBI is always willing to help local law enforcement in the art of profiling a suspect,” said the smiling, unflappable Agent Cartland. “Based on the evidence of the crime scene, we can give you a rather detailed portrait of the man.”

“Why do you think it’s a man?” called out a feminine voice in a sniper shot from the back of the room.

“The overwhelming majority of psychopaths are male.”

A reporter stood up in the front row. By the back of his dark-skinned, bullet-shaped head, Coffey knew the man. It was McGrath, a seasoned journalist who had swapped lies with Markowitz for several decades. McGrath was recognized with a nod from Beale.

“So we’re looking for an insane killer?” McGrath addressed his remark to the FBI agent. “Say-oh, shot in the dark-someone like Oren Watt?”

Beale’s right hand wormed around the microphone at the center of his cluster, and his knuckles went white, as though he were choking it. He managed to lock eyes with the agent before the younger man responded to McGrath.

“Well, there are similarities,” said the FBI agent, and Beale covered his face with one hand. The agent continued. “In the old case of the artist and the dancer, the perpetrator used a fire axe he found at the crime scene. The killer of Dean Starr used an ice pick, also a weapon he found at the scene. And the word ‘dead’ was written on the back of one of the gallery’s business cards. Both the old killing and the recent one showed lack of premeditation. Both crimes were the spontaneous acts of disorganized personalities.”

McGrath remained standing, holding the floor. “Oren Watt arranged the body parts as artwork. The killer of Dean Starr arranged the body as performance art. You don’t think that calls for a little planning?”

The agent’s smile was benign. Let me lead you out of ignorance , said his tone of voice. “These things were done after the fact. The act itself was not planned in advance. Neither perpetrator brought weapons or materials to their respective crime scenes. As to the arrangement of the bodies, a psychopath will often indulge himself with ritual mutilation of the victims, or some personal theme in writing or acts performed on the corpse. But the killer in this instance is not Oren Watt. The murder was cleaner, quicker, less violent. The brutality always escalates in the second kill. It never lessens.”

“So you think our guy is a young Oren Watt in training.”

“He fits the same profile as Watt. He acted spontaneously, with no fear of discovery. The trigger for the act was probably a recent traumatic event in his life. For example, he may have recently lost his job. We’re looking for a white male between twenty-five and thirty-five, no close friends, no stable relationships with women, no social graces. His father died or left the home when he was very young. He lives alone, or with his mother. He doesn’t take proper care of himself, he’s badly dressed. Now, about the shabby clothing-in SoHo that would not be a standout feature. It would even have helped him to blend in with the crowd at the opening.”

“Hey, Mallory,” sang out a veteran cophouse reporter in the back. “You goin‘ along with this line?”