A Killer's Essence Page 6

  As I drank my second beer, I looked around the room. Most of the furniture in the apartment had been my parents’. The bookcases, the dining room table and chairs, the china cabinet, the dresser bureaus. The sofa I was sitting on had been reupholstered several times by my parents and once by me, as had the loveseat. There was just too much of my life in all of that furniture to give any of it up. Too many memories.

  I finished my second beer, and thought about calling Mike. I wanted badly to talk to him, but it was late and he had enough problems of his own. Sitting there I felt more numb than tired. After a while I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 8

  Friday, October 15, 2004

  It was raining the next morning, kind of a cold wet unpleasant October day. They were supposed to play the third game of the playoffs in Boston that night, but if the weather was anything like this they were going to have to cancel it.

  I had a late start that morning. Before heading to the station I stopped off to visit Rich. He was in plaster from his chest to his knees, and he looked miserable lying there. He had dropped even more weight since the day before, and the way the skin sagged along his face I couldn’t help thinking of a tire that had been deflated. I tried joking around with him and he halfheartedly tried giving it back, but he was too tired and too doped up on pain medication to keep his eyes open, and after a short while he dozed off. I couldn’t shake this feeling that something more was wrong with him than recovering from a surgery. Mary came in as I was leaving, and from the look she gave me she must’ve picked up that same vibe. I didn’t know what else to say to her other than lying about how Rich seemed to be in good spirits earlier.

  I had turned my cell phone off before visiting Rich. After getting back in my car I turned it on and saw that I had a message from Phillips. He wanted to know why there wasn’t an artist sketch from our witness. I turned my phone off again and sat quietly in my car for several minutes wondering what the fuck I was doing. In the end I called Phillips back and explained that Lynch wasn’t a reliable witness and there was no point in trying to get a description from him. From the stone-cold silence I received back from Phillips I knew that Joe Ramirez had already filled him in on that.

  “It’s ten thirty,” Phillips said at last, breaking his silence. “Where are you?”

  “I’ve been visiting Rich. He had surgery last night in case you weren’t aware.”

  “Your shift starts at eight,” Phillips said.

  “Poor guy’s not looking too good, but thanks for asking.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, I heard what you said. The last two days I’ve put in thirty hours. You can cut me some slack here.”

  “Thirty hours, huh? And where are you with the case?”

  I almost hung up on him. He knew damn well where I was with the case. I had left him a detailed report the night before, and he had Joe’s also. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to quiet the noise rattling in my head. I wasn’t going to play his game.

  “I found a witness,” I said. “The guy turned out to be mostly no good, but how was I supposed to know that?”

  “You seen the papers the last two days?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen them.”

  “How about you quit your excuses and get somewhere with this case!”

  “Here’s a novel idea,” I said. “Why don’t you assign me some help so I’m not working a major crime by myself?”

  “You have a partner. You want a new one, put in a request. And from now on I want you here at the start of your shift. No more excuses. You don’t like it and want to work elsewhere, put in for a transfer. I’ll be glad to sign it.”

  Phillips hung up on me. I called him back. I’d had it with his bullshit.

  “You want this case solved before more bodies start piling up, then put more manpower on it,” I said. “You can either do it now or when you’re forced to put a task team together.”

  “You don’t know there are going to be more bodies,” he stated as if he actually meant it. We both knew that Gail Laurent wasn’t going to be the last person our perp killed, and we both knew she wasn’t the first either.

  “There already are more bodies,” I said. “You know as well as I do we just haven’t found them yet. Our perp was out of bullets when he tried to shoot our witness. A .40 caliber is going to hold between ten and fifteen rounds in a clip. So what happened to the other rounds?”

  “The gun could’ve jammed,” Phillips tried arguing. “Or maybe he did some target practice first.”

  The gun jamming was unlikely. It happens but not often, especially with newer model automatics. As far as our perp firing off some practice rounds, yeah, probably, but you’re not going out hunting without reloading first, and our perp was out hunting that day. I didn’t bother mentioning any of that to Phillips—he knew it as well as I did. I just sat and waited for him to say something and after half a minute of silence he reluctantly asked what I needed. I gave him a list, the top item being sending officers out canvassing the area for anyone seeing a guy in a black hooded Mets sweatshirt, faded jeans, and gray sneakers.

  “I thought the witness was unreliable,” Phillips complained.

  “He mostly is, but this is worth checking out. At least Captain Joe Ramirez thought so.”

  I hadn’t discussed that with Joe, but I knew he’d back me up. I also knew Phillips would hate putting resources on this type of canvass. This was two days old already, and a man in jeans and a hooded Mets sweatshirt would’ve blended unseen into the area. If anyone was going to remember seeing him we would’ve known already because they also would’ve had to have seen something else to have made an impression, something like a bloody knife or an automatic sticking out of his pants. But there were video cameras in the subways stops, and maybe other store surveillance cameras in the area that could’ve picked him up. While it was a long shot, something could come of it. He had me tell him what I planned to do while he wasted manpower on this. After I did he told me I had my canvass and hung up abruptly.

  The night before I had called Mount Sinai to confirm that Dr. Wallace Brennan still worked there and to get his hours. Six years earlier he had been Lynch’s neurologist. I called back and was able to get him on the phone. He told me he wouldn’t be able to discuss a patient without a signed consent form, but that he’d have the hospital fax a form to my station. We agreed on a time when he’d be available to talk with me, assuming I had Lynch’s consent.

  I drove back to the station to pick up the form, and while I was there I called Lynch. He told me he’d sign whatever I needed him to but I was wasting my time—that Dr. Brennan would tell me the same that he had been telling me. After I got off the phone with Lynch I called Rachel Laurent to make arrangements to meet her at her mother’s house.

  Zachary Lynch was right, at least about Dr. Wallace Brennan giving me the same story.

  “His brain was deprived of oxygen for over six minutes,” Brennan said in explaining the damage that had occurred. “He was fortunate that he didn’t end up brain dead from the incident.” Brennan frowned, adding, “At least in a way. I’d have to think the damage Mr. Lynch suffered provides more than its share of challenges. Imagine living out your life in a horror movie, seeing everyday people as demons and monsters.”

  I consulted a notepad. I had done some research and knew that the occipital lobe was responsible for the visual processing within the brain. I asked Brennan whether he confirmed that Lynch had suffered lesions there.

  Brennan’s frown deepened. “That type of damage wouldn’t be detectable by an MRI. We couldn’t be absolutely sure of the existence of those lesions without the benefit of an autopsy, but they would explain his altered perceptions.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How come this only happens when he looks directly at someone and not a photograph? And why does he only distort people and not objects?”

  Brennan shrugged. “It’s peculiar but it’s explainable. We performe
d enough tests on Mr. Lynch to verify that this is what is happening. And it’s not distortions. The way his brain visually processes people isn’t as some twisted or misshapen representation of them, but as something completely unique. He may look at two people, both six feet tall, and see one of them as under two feet in height, the other as a nine-foot monster.”

  “And these hallucinations—”

  “Visual interpretations,” Brennan corrected me.

  “They’re consistent? He sees the same person the same way every time?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you say he sees people as demons and monsters …”

  “Not everybody,” Brennan said, smiling patiently, “but a high enough percentage of people to make life a challenge for him.”

  “And what about the other people, the people he doesn’t see as demons and monsters—does he see them normally?”

  “No. He has an equally altered visual interpretation of them.”

  “What about hypnosis?” I asked. “Would that help in getting him to remember what someone really looked like?”

  “Not at all. It’s not a matter of a memory locked away in his unconscious. These visual interpretations of his are as real to him as how you’re seeing me right now.”

  “How about his account of what a person is wearing? Can we trust that?”

  Brennan smiled weakly. “As much as you could from any other witness.”

  I was going to leave it at that. Brennan couldn’t tell me anything that contradicted what Zachary Lynch had said, but there was something I was curious about. I asked Brennan how Lynch would see identical twins.

  “That’s an interesting idea.” Brennan chewed absent-mindedly on a thumbnail as he thought about it. “I don’t have the answer to that and I don’t see how it would help you if I did, but it would be interesting to know that. Yes, very much so.”

  I could see the wheels spinning behind Brennan’s eyes, probably as he was trying to figure out how to convince Lynch to agree to this type of test. He was right—knowing that wouldn’t help as far as Lynch as a potential witness went—but for some reason I wanted to know the answer to that also. It was twelve thirty. I had arranged to meet Rachel Laurent at her mother’s house at two, and I had an hour and a half to drive to Princeton. I thanked Brennan for his time and left him pondering how a man with a damaged occipital lobe might perceive identical twins.

  Chapter 9

  Rachel Laurent followed me as I went through her mother’s house. At one point she asked whether I’d like some coffee, and the effort in that seemed to sap the strength out of her. While I searched her mother’s bedroom she sat in a corner, somberness masking her features. I found a closet full of men’s clothing, but she looked it over and told me it was her father’s.

  “I guess my mom couldn’t give up that piece of my dad,” she said, her mouth weakening and wetness showing around her eyes.

  Other than that clothing and a shaving kit in the bathroom, which Rachel also told me had been her dad’s, there was nothing to indicate a man had been spending time there. Nothing to indicate Gail Laurent had been involved in a romantic relationship or had problems with anyone. Rachel gave me permission to turn on her mother’s computer, and there was nothing suspicious from her email or from the websites she had bookmarked. I now had little doubt that Gail Laurent’s murder was the random act of a serial killer. It had been too brutal to have been a simple robbery, and unless it turned out to be contract killing made to look like something else it seemed the work of a psychopathic mind. So far it appeared that the only person who would benefit financially from Laurent’s death was her daughter, Rachel, and I had a hard time believing she could be responsible. Her father’s death on 9-11 resulted in a large financial settlement, which Rachel told me her mother insisted on sharing equally with her. She was an only child, and while she was going to be inheriting a large sum from her mother—the house alone, a stately four-bedroom brick colonial in an upper-class neighborhood, was probably worth at least a million—I just couldn’t see it. She’d have to be putting on an amazing act and be one ice-cold sociopath otherwise. Still, I was going to have to look into it and check her phone records and finances.

  When I was done with my search I told Rachel that I would have that coffee she offered earlier if it were still available and if she were willing to join me.

  We went downstairs to the kitchen. She found some French roast to brew, and while we waited for the coffee she joined me at a small glass table. She looked so worn out emotionally that I hated asking her how much she was going to be inheriting from her mother’s estate. She gave me a puzzled look and told me she wasn’t going to be inheriting anything.

  “I thought you were an only child?” I asked.

  “That’s right.” From her blank expression it hadn’t dawned on her yet why I was asking about the money, or maybe it had and she was just too exhausted to care. “I was only willing to take money from my dad’s settlement if my mom agreed to leave her money to the types of charities my dad would’ve wanted to support. I couldn’t stand the idea of becoming rich off my parents’ deaths. I also didn’t want to think about losing my mom, and that seemed the best way to distance myself from the idea of it. So we worked out her will together. I did the same with my own will.”

  “That includes the house?”

  “That includes everything my mom owned.”

  “Anyone at these charities know money was being left to them?”

  She gave me a puzzled look and shook her head.

  The coffee had finished brewing. I got up and poured two cups and brought them back to the table. She just didn’t seem to have the energy left to do that.

  “I’d like to see a copy of the will,” I said. “Also your phone and bank records. It will help move things along.”

  She nodded. “I’ll call our lawyer and arrange for him to send you a copy of whatever you need. I’ll get my records together also and send copies to your precinct.”

  We drank our coffee quietly for several minutes. I broke the silence by asking whether she had a date yet for the funeral. She told me it was that Sunday.

  “I don’t have much family left,” she said, struggling to keep her tears held back. “My grandparents are gone, and I only have an uncle on my father’s side. There won’t be many people attending. Just Uncle Robert and friends.”

  “I’ll have to be there,” I said.

  She gave me a questioning look.

  “In case anyone shows up who you don’t know …”

  I didn’t spell out that her mother’s killer was the person I was concerned about showing up at the funeral, but she got the idea and her mouth started to tremble. She put a hand to her face as tears leaked from her eyes. I sat frozen, wanting to comfort her but not sure how to do that, not even sure if it was possible. In the end, I sat silently drinking my coffee and feeling like a fraud and a coward. Eventually she fought back her grief and composed herself. When she could talk she gave me the time and place of her mother’s funeral. I left her then.

  While walking to my car I held my jacket collar closed and lowered my head against the rain. It was a miserable day, and it pretty much matched my mood. While on I-95 North heading back to Manhattan I almost called Cheryl to let her know how much I appreciated her poisoning my kids against me and Bambi, but I had just enough wits about me to realize what a mistake that would be. Instead I fumbled with my notepad until I found Zachary Lynch’s number, then called him. First time I got his answering machine. I left a message that I knew he was home and for him to pick up to save me a trip to his apartment. I called again afterward, and this time he picked up.

  “Detective Green?” he asked, an uneasiness in his voice.

  “Yep,” I said. “I wanted to ask you again about your being able to identify the killer if you saw him in the flesh. You’re sure you could do that?”

  He hesitated before telling me that he thought he’d be able to. “Why … have you found
someone?”

  “Not yet. The woman who was murdered, her funeral is this Sunday. I’d like you to accompany me. It’s possible the killer might show up. Sometimes they like to do that.”

  “I don’t know … I’m not sure I could … That would mean I would have to look at everyone … You don’t know how hard that would be for me, detective … I’m not sure I’m up to doing that.”

  “It could be our best chance to catch this guy before he kills someone else. I’m sure you’d like to do everything you can to help us.”

  “I would, detective, but what you’re asking of me … I don’t know.”

  According to the odometer my speed had edged past ninety. I didn’t trust these New Jersey staties to pay any special attention to my NYPD badge. The way my day was going they’d write me up just the same as the next guy. I eased my foot off the gas.

  “Lisa told me you were a good guy,” I said.

  “Lisa?”

  “Yeah, from Strombolli’s. Where you go food shopping every Wednesday night. So what do you say, Zach? Will you help us?”

  “What … what else did Lisa say?”

  “I’ll tell you Sunday. Okay?”

  He cleared his throat and in a hoarse whisper told me he would go with me. I let him know what time I’d be picking him up and suggested he wear a suit and tie. After getting off the phone with Lynch I called Phillips. So far the canvass had turned up nothing of interest. They had collected several dozen videotapes and gone through half of them.