A Killer's Essence Page 4

  Rachel Laurent physically resembled her mother. Petite, with a slender athletic build, and blond hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. Her facial features were similar enough to the drawing to leave no doubt that she was related to the victim. Under normal circumstances she would’ve been very attractive, but as I talked to her she was a wreck, her eyes puffy and her skin blotchy and raw.

  She thought her mother had gone to Manhattan for a day of shopping. She claimed her mother had no enemies and that there was no reason anyone would want to hurt her, and also that her mother had not dated since her father died. She was adamant that her mother was not romantically involved with anyone—that she was close with her mother and would’ve known if she was. That morning they were supposed to meet for breakfast, and she knew something was wrong when her mother didn’t show and she couldn’t reach her by cell phone.

  I had her give me her mother’s cell phone number and tried to get a description of the jewelry her mother might’ve been wearing. Earlier I had put in a call for a social worker. When she showed up, I had her accompany us while I brought Rachel to the morgue to identify her mother’s body. She didn’t take it well when she saw the body. I watched helplessly as she broke down, wishing there was something I could do other than promise I’d find the person who had done this, but that was all I could do. I don’t think she heard me. She was sobbing too hard.

  At four o’clock I was back in Tribeca looking for my witness. I started on Chambers Street and worked my way toward City Hall, showing photos from the videotape to every market, drugstore, coffee shop, and restaurant that I came across. It was at a small grocery store on Murray Street when I found someone who recognized the guy in the photo. The cashier—a girl in her early twenties with piercings all over her face, tattoos wrapping around her neck, and long black hair that reached halfway down her back—told me with a sly smile that the man in the photo was Lisa’s boyfriend. She pointed out a small woman in her mid-twenties working behind the sandwich counter.

  “What do you mean her boyfriend?” I asked.

  “Well, not really,” she said, her smile stretching a bit over her private joke. “He comes in like every week and just like stands and gawks at Lisa. And she’s the only one he lets wait on him. I tried talking to him once and he like couldn’t look at me. Why, what did Mr. Freakazoid do?”

  “Mr. Freakazoid? Is that his name?”

  She rolled her eyes at me as if I was dense. “That’s just my nickname for him. So like come on, what did he do?”

  “Nothing. I need to talk to him is all.”

  I left the cashier to talk to Lisa. At first glance she wasn’t much to look at: a short, square body and an equally square-shaped face, as well as reddish-brown hair that was thinning badly and a dead-fish paleness to her complexion. But she had soft eyes, and as soon as she noticed me approaching she showed one of the nicest smiles I had ever seen. Seeing that smile instantly lifted my mood and even made me feel a little weak in the knees. I could see the attraction then. I identified myself, handed her one of the photos, and asked if she knew the man in it.

  “That’s Zachary,” she said in a soft voice that matched her smile. Her forehead wrinkled as a perplexed look formed over her face. “He usually comes here every Wednesday night, but he didn’t come in yesterday. Is everything okay?”

  “I hope so. I need to talk to him. We believe he witnessed a crime. Do you know his last name?”

  Her perplexed look intensified.

  “It’s funny,” she said. “Zachary’s been coming here every Wednesday night for over three years. I know he told me his last name once, but I only think of him as Zachary …”

  “Maybe he used a credit card?”

  She shook her head. All at once the skin smoothed out across her forehead and her smile flashed back on. “Lynch, that’s his last name. I’m sure of it. Lynch.”

  “Any idea where he lives?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.” Her smile faded and a sadness showed in her eyes. “I don’t know much about him except that when he comes here he would like to talk more with me than he does, but I also know I’d make him too uncomfortable if I pressed him. I was worried when he didn’t show up last night and I almost called the police, but I was hoping he would show up tonight. Thursdays are usually my night off. Would you please call me when you find Zachary? I would like to know that he’s okay. I would ask you to have him call me but I know the idea of that would terrify him.”

  “Sure.”

  She wrote down a number on a slip of paper and handed it to me. The smile she gave me damn near broke my heart. She asked if I could be gentle in my dealings with Zachary, that he had a delicate soul. I found myself unable to refuse her and promised that I would within reason. Yeah, I could see the attraction, and it was pretty clear it went both ways.

  I called my precinct and waited while they looked up Zachary Lynch’s address. There was only one listed in Manhattan and it was a Tribeca address a few blocks from Chambers Street. Lynch must’ve been on his way to see Lisa when he stumbled upon Gail Laurent’s murder.

  It was already past six and my stomach was rumbling again. I picked up a couple of slices of cheese pizza and ate them as I walked what I hoped would be the same path Zachary Lynch would take if he was out again walking to the grocery store. I didn’t want to miss him if he was.

  Chapter 6

  Zachary Lynch’s address was a one-bedroom walk-up in an early-1900s building off of West Broadway. I knocked on his door, announced myself, and, after several minutes of no one answering, began debating whether to look for his landlord or try for a search warrant. A voice from inside interrupted me by asking if I could slide some identification under the door.

  “Open your door a crack and I’ll show you my badge and police ID,” I said.

  “I–I don’t have a chain lock,” he said.

  “For Chrissakes, if you did I’d be able to kick the chain in if I wanted to. Just open the door.”

  He opened the door enough for me to show him my badge and ID, then he opened the door to let me in. In person he was the same stick he was in the video but was even taller than I had thought—at least six and a half feet. He had the look of someone who was perpetually crouching for fear of cracking his head against a doorway. He was also as nervous and jittery as he appeared on the tape, and when he looked at me he jerked his head away as if he’d been slapped and stumbled back a step. His reaction surprised me enough to ask him what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, averting his eyes from me.

  I stared at him for a long moment. He was a mess of discomfort and nervous twitches. I showed him one of the photos from the surveillance tape and he looked it over and nodded, tugging uneasily at his lower lip.

  “I guess you’d like to talk to me about that,” he said.

  He wasn’t looking at me so it wouldn’t have done much good to nod.

  “Yeah, I’d say so,” I said, not bothering to hide my sarcasm. Then I remembered the promise I had made a half hour earlier to be gentle. I didn’t like that he hadn’t bothered to come in on his own after witnessing a woman being butchered, but a promise was a promise. I took a deep breath to calm myself.

  “A woman was murdered on Chambers Street yesterday evening, and we’re hoping you can help us identify the person who killed her,” I continued, my tone softer and as non-threatening as I could make it under the circumstances. “I need to talk with you.”

  He nodded, still looking away from me, still tugging uneasily on his lower lip. He led the way into a small cramped room that would normally have been a living room but was being used as a workspace. A computer bench with a laptop, printer, and other equipment was pushed against one wall, while books and magazines were stacked all along the floor and against the other walls. He removed a stack of papers from a battered cloth recliner and left that for me to sit on while he took a chair next to the computer. The room had a stale, unhealthy smell to it, as if it badly needed to be aired
out. It also needed more light.

  Lynch, still unable to look directly at me, gave me a helpless shrug. “I’m not going to be able to help you, officer,” he said.

  “Detective Green,” I said. “And let’s talk and decide later how much help you’ll be able to give us.”

  I noticed he had adjusted his computer’s webcam so it was pointed at me. While he appeared to be fumbling through some papers he snuck several glances at my image on his computer monitor before bumping the webcam with his elbow so it pointed elsewhere. The whole thing struck me as a peculiar thing to do, but I ignored it. I explained to him what was captured on the surveillance tape.

  “At ten minutes past six you were seen on that tape. At the same time a fifty-two-year-old woman named Gail Laurent was being brutally murdered less than a hundred feet away from where you stood. You witnessed her murder.”

  His nodded dully, more to himself than to me. “I can’t help you,” he said.

  “Why can’t you help me?”

  “Because I can’t tell you what the murderer looks like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what he looks like, so I can’t tell you what he looks like. I don’t even know the murderer’s sex, to be completely honest about it. I can only guess that the murderer was a man.”

  I stared at him for several minutes while he continued to look down at the floor, a sick smile pulling at his lips. Neither of us said a word. The room made me think of a tomb the way it was so damn stuffy and quiet.

  “He tried to shoot you,” I said.

  He nodded, still smiling sickly. “I think so. At least I think he tried to. I’m not sure what happened. Either his gun jammed or he was out of bullets, but yes, I’m pretty sure he wanted to shoot me.”

  “Let me get this straight. He’s facing you from less than a hundred feet away. Not just facing you, but pointing a gun at you. At six ten yesterday it would still be light out. You’re trying to tell me you were unable to get a good look at him?”

  He seemed stuck. The sickly smile frozen on his face had morphed into something hopeless. Finally he made up his mind and nodded weakly.

  “I had an accident some years ago,” he said, his voice flat and barely above a whisper. “It left me changed. Damaged, I guess, at least according to the doctors. They believe it left lesions in the occipital lobe of my brain, so now when I look at people I don’t see them as they really are but instead as hallucinations. At least that’s their explanation for what happened to me.” He looked up at me for a second before flinching and averting his eyes from me. “If I was able to describe the person who did this I would’ve contacted the police.”

  “What do you mean you see hallucinations?”

  “That’s what the doctors tell me I see.” He shook his head as if something were fogging it up and he were trying to clear away the cobwebs. “If I told you what I saw it wouldn’t help you except to make you think that I was insane.”

  “Try me.”

  His eyes were still staring hard at the floor. They had a vacant, distant look, his face wooden.

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” he said. “But I’m sure it’s no more than what you already know. I was walking down Chambers Street a little after six, as you already know. I was looking down toward the ground as I usually do when I’m outside my apartment when I heard what must’ve been two gunshots. They startled me, and by reflex I looked up. That’s when I saw someone bent over a woman’s body. I guess he was lifting up her head. It was hard to tell exactly with his back to me. I heard another gunshot, this one more muffled than the other two, and saw what must’ve been pieces of her face flying off of her. After that he was bent over her doing something to her … I’m not sure exactly what except he was using a knife … maybe cutting off pieces of her?”

  “He cut off several of her fingers,” I said.

  His face ashen, he nodded, again more to himself than to me.

  “He noticed me then,” Lynch said. “He stood up and pointed his gun at me. I think he tried to fire it. I’m pretty sure he did, but for some reason it didn’t go off. I’m pretty sure he tried to shoot me.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  Lynch shook his head.

  “He didn’t say anything when he saw you? Not for you to lift your hands or anything?”

  “No. I lifted my hands because he pointed a gun at me. He didn’t order me to.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  “It wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “Look, I don’t care if you’re convinced you saw a hallucination. Just describe him as best you can.”

  I waited for him to answer me. When he didn’t I asked him what the guy was wearing. His eyes shifted to a different part of the room as he thought about it.

  “A New York Mets sweatshirt. Black, hooded, with ‘New York Mets’ spelled out in blue letters. Faded blue dungarees. Sneakers, also, but I didn’t see the brand, just that they were gray. They looked old.”

  “You can tell me all that but you can’t tell me what he looked like?”

  “My perception and cognitive processing with objects is normal. It’s with people that it’s different … I don’t see them the way other people do … everything’s different … their size, shape, color, physical characteristics. There’s nothing else that I can tell you about this person that could help you.”

  I didn’t know what to make of him. He seemed sincere enough—maybe he even believed the bullshit he was telling me. I mean, fuck, if he was determined to keep from being a witness he could’ve told me any number of stories that would’ve been easier to sell: that he was too afraid to look directly at the killer, that he suffered some sort of temporary blindness or, better yet, amnesia, or the old standby, that he was too traumatized to remember anything. Hell, I’d heard them all from my years of being a cop. This was different. He even had me wondering about it.

  “What color are my eyes?” I asked.

  Without looking at me: “Gray.”

  “My hair?”

  “Brown.”

  “Is it short or long?”

  “About average.”

  “How come you’re able to tell me all that?”

  He smiled. It was the defeated smile of someone who knew he was in a losing battle. “Because I saw your picture from your ID,” he said. “I also caught you on my webcam so I could verify that you’re the same person as your ID.”

  “So you can see pictures okay?”

  He nodded. “It’s only when I look at someone in the flesh that I see them … differently.”

  He almost told me then what he thinks he sees, and it was clear it wasn’t hallucinations, at least not in his mind. A coolness whispered through my head as I stared at him. “What color are my eyes when you look at me directly?”

  His mouth crumbled for a second before he told me that I didn’t have eyes, just dark holes.

  “What else do you see when you look at me?” I asked, my voice odd, almost as if it were echoing from someplace off in the distance.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said.

  “Humor me.”

  He closed his mouth. He wasn’t going to tell me.

  The coolness in my head left me light-headed. I stood up shaking my head trying to clear it. Taking him to the station was risky. He was obviously cracked, and if his statement about what the killer was wearing turned out to be on target we wouldn’t be able to use it in court with what a defense attorney would do to him on the stand. But if I tried to sell Phillips on the information coming from an anonymous source, he’d rip me a new one. As bizarre as Zachary Lynch seemed, something might click when he looked at the mug shots. It was all I had.

  “You’re going to have to come with me,” I told him.

  It was almost as if he’d been punched in the gut the way he reacted to that. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the floor, his mouth hanging loosely open. I considered him for a long moment. I wished there was another way,
but there wasn’t.

  “Detective Green,” he said, his voice cracking. “Please. You know I had nothing to do with that woman’s death.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need to bring you in to look at mug shots. If I don’t my Captain would look to bust me down a grade, and he’d be sending me right back out to bring you in.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. Knowing Phillips he’d send another detective for Lynch. Me, I’d be too busy being ordered to take a psych evaluation.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Lynch implored. “What if I was blind? Would I have to come in then?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not blind. You were able to give me a full description of what the perp was wearing. I’m sorry, I have no choice in this. I’ll try to get you in and out of the station as fast as I can.”

  “What if I refused to go?”

  “Then I’d have to arrest you as a material witness. You’d end up spending the night in lockup before you’d have a chance to see a judge about bail. It wouldn’t be pleasant.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought of that. He stood up slowly, his legs wobbly, and nearly fell back into his chair before he was able to regain his balance. Perspiration gleamed off of his forehead and neck. As we walked out of his apartment, he suggested that I keep our police sketch artists away from him. That it wouldn’t help his credibility as a witness if he was forced to give his recollection of the killer.