“You mean killers,” Shewster barked.
“We don’t know they’re working in tandem.”
“Are these sick bastards playing some sort of game? Some sort of competition as to who can kill more people? And, if so, what would the prize be?”
“We don’t know their motive,” Driscoll said, flatly.
“Is it money they’re after? Maybe the bounty I’m considering will turn them against each other.”
“There’s been no evidence of robbery. In many cases, crimes of this nature don’t follow any standard of normalcy. They may be simply getting off on the act of killing.”
An electronic purr interrupted the conversation.
“Driscoll, here.”
The look on the Lieutenant’s face confirmed what the Mayor feared most.
“Another one?” Reirdon asked.
Driscoll nodded.
“Where?”
“Central Park.” He stood. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to get over there right away.”
The Mayor agreed.
As Driscoll disappeared out the door, Shewster exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke and raised an eyebrow at Sully Reirdon.
Chapter 30
Hours before news of the latest murder broke, Angus, clad in Old Navy overalls and a blue polo shirt, slid into a fiberglass seat across from his sister. The all-night diner was near empty. It would be some time before the early morning rush of breakfast-hungry New Yorkers would descend upon the eatery. The only other night owl was a bulbous female patron seated diagonally across from the booth where the teens were hunkered down. She had stopped stuffing herself with corned beef on rye long enough to stare openly at Cassie’s scarred face.
“And what the hell are you lookin’ at?” Cassie asked.
The patron cast her eyes downward and returned to her meal. Cassie turned her attention back to her brother.
“Score?” she asked, eyes wide and expectant.
“Of course,” her brother said with a grin, before disappearing behind an oversized laminated menu. “Hot fudge sundae for me! You?”
“Stack of blueberry pancakes on the way. Tell me! Tell me!”
Angus’s face floated up balloonlike from behind the list of delicacies. “It all began with a stroll…”
Chapter 31
An anonymous 911 caller had brought the police to Strawberry Fields, a two-and-a-half-acre tear-shaped landscape inside Central Park. The well-manicured expanse had been dedicated to the memory of the slain music icon John Lennon, who lived and died a stone’s throw away at the Dakota on West Seventy-second. The site boasted a bronze plaque listing 121 countries that endorsed the area as a Garden of Peace. Driscoll pondered the incongruity as he stared into the face of the city’s latest victim, propped, marionette-like, against a bald cypress that marked the sanctuary’s northern perimeter. Dead eyes, open and sullen, returned his gaze.
“She’s been dead eight to ten hours.” It was the voice of Medical Examiner Larry Pearsol, who had sidled up next to Driscoll. “No defensive wounds or evidence of sexual assault. ID has her as Antonia Fucilla, from Tuscany. What she’s doing inside a New York City park, alone, after dark is what I want to know.”
“She wasn’t alone,” said Driscoll, tracing a gloved finger along the linear head wound made by the killer’s weapon. His frustration was escalating. He turned and barked orders at the flock of Crime Scene detectives. “I want every inch of ground swept within a hundred-foot radius. Cigarette butts, gum wrappers, food containers, the goddamn soil if it looks out of place. Anything! You find a snipped fingernail, I want it bagged.”
“Whaddya make of the scalping?” asked Pearsol, eyes on the ravaged head.
“Serial killers are collectors, Larry. But I’m betting these scalps are more than just a trophy. These lunatics are doing something with them. Though I’ll be damned if I can figure out what that is.”
“The Indians used to post them on a stick.”
“I know. Nineteenth-century machismo in the Wild Wild West.”
Margaret approached, wearing a smug look. “The vic’s got surprise painted on her face and my money says the killer put it there.”
“These killers are no Picassos.”
“They think they are. They’re posing the bodies, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, someone’s supposed to get their message.”
“Meaning?”
“Follow me on this one. The woman at the museum is shoved up the ass of a dinosaur. Our vic on the Wonder Wheel gets taken for a ride. They prop a guy from Kamikaze Central inside the cockpit of an American fighter plane for Chrissake! This pair is doling out humiliation. God knows what they had planned for the German on the bridge because the killing was interrupted and how they posed Miss Moneybags at the zoo is anybody’s guess ’cause she did a Humpty-Dumpty.”
“That’d take careful planning and a lot of smarts,” said Pearsol.
“We may be dealing with psychos. But nobody said they had to be stupid. They’ve got an agenda, these two. I say it’s spearheaded by vengeance.”
“You may be right,” Driscoll said, impressed with Margaret’s insight.
“It’s textbook. Ask any profiler and he’ll tell you these killers are inflicting punishment to match the way they were punished. Look at her,” she said, motioning to the murdered woman. “There’s no evidence of a struggle. She knew her killer.”
“That’d give us motive and would indicate the killings weren’t random. You know? I think you are right! We’ve been looking at these attacks from the wrong side. Sure! The answer may lie in what the victims had in common. Margaret, I could kiss you.”
“For now, I’m gonna settle for a pat on the back,” she said, hoping her angst wasn’t showing.
Chapter 32
“I had placed a call to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources making an inquiry about this Raven’s Breath ever being part of their foster care system. A Cynthia Travis there said she’d check into it.” It was Margaret on the phone. She sounded excited. Driscoll listened intently to what she had to say. “The woman just called back, said she’d found no records in foster care but had run the name through other state agencies. On the line with her, by way of a conference call, was Pauline Curley of the North American Registry of Midwives. Her search shows a Raven’s Breath as being a midwife in 1991, residing on the Catawba Indian Reservation outside of Oak Flat. Cedric’s news article, which ID’d her as the pair’s foster parent, indicated the twins were five in 1996. The numbers add up. She probably was the midwife who assisted in their birth!”
“Great work, Sergeant. I’d say it’s time to have a powwow with the Indians. While I’m gone, I want you and Cedric to check into the backgrounds of the vics. We’ll run with your theory. See if they share anything in common that would warrant a set of twins wanting them dead.”
“On it.”
Driscoll wasn’t fond of flying. Once the aircraft came to a complete stop on a regional airfield outside of Healing Springs, Virginia, he stood and grabbed his carry-on luggage. Anxious to get on with the investigation, he stepped onto the tarmac and headed for the Avis Car Rental Booth to secure the Dodge Intrepid he had reserved.
Traveling north on Route 220, he paralleled the Allegheny Mountains. The sun had climbed high in the sky, casting shadows on the red clay and evergreen mix that made up the countryside. He crossed the border into West Virginia at a town called Harper. It boasted a convenience store, an Exxon station, a single-screen movie theater, and a bait-and-tackle shop. Driscoll followed the instructions of a gas station attendant and climbed the side of the mountain into Oak Flat, destined for the Catawba Indian Reservation, which spread for two miles beyond the northern edge of town.