“I couldn’t say for sure, but I think it was a man.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He moved like a man, and not like a woman.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What do you mean, ‘What do I mean by that?’”
“How did the person move that made you think it was a man?”
“He moved like a man—I already told you.”
“How does a man move?”
“Strong—you know what I mean?”
Rackman looked at Reynaldo. “Did you see the person?”
“Yes, and it looked like a man to me too.”
“Why?”
“Because women run on their toes, and men run on their whole feet. This person ran on his whole feet. I’m sure he was a man.”
Rackman decided to stay with Reynaldo. “Can you describe him in any way?”
“We only saw him for about a second or two.”
“Was he tall or short?”
“It was too far away to tell. But he was wide.”
“Wide?”
“Yeah, he looked big.”
“Heavy?”
“Yeah.”
“What else?”
“We didn’t have a chance to see much else.”
“Was he wearing a hat?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was he wearing a topcoat?”
“No.”
“Then he must have been wearing a jacket.”
“I don’t know, but he wasn’t wearing a topcoat.”
“You could tell the color of his hair?”
“No.”
“Could he have been bald?”
“I don’t think so. It looked like he had hair.”
Rackman turned to Sylvia Suarez again. “Did you see anything that Reynaldo didn’t see?”
She shrugged. “Reynaldo seen more than me, I think.”
“Could I see the window you looked out of?”
“Sure.”
They led him into the living room and then the small bedroom. There was barely space for the bed and dresser. A plaster statue of Christ on the cross was nailed to the pale blue wall above the bed. They stood at the window and looked down the alley.
It was a long way down, and Rackman realized it’d be difficult to see anything at night. It was hard to believe that dirty, deserted alley had been filled with cops and reporters looking at a murder victim named Cynthia Doyle a half-hour ago.
Rackman moved back from the window and turned to Sylvia Suarez and Reynaldo Pifla. “Thanks for the information. If you can think of anything important after I’m gone, call me at my office.” He reached to the inner breast pocket of his leather jacket and took out his card, which he handed to Reynaldo. “And thanks for the cup of coffee.”
Downstairs, Rackman threw his cigarette butt into the gutter and got into his unmarked Plymouth. He lay the girl’s shoulder bag on the seat beside him and started up the engine. The street was deserted, and a lone truck rumbled past the intersection at Tenth Avenue. The first glimmering of dawn was coming up over the East Side.
Rackman stopped at an all-night pizza joint on 9th Avenue near Twenty-Third Street and got a meatball hero, which he ate while driving downtown to Police Headquarters in the new red stone building behind City Hall.
He took the elevator down to the basement, where the medical examiner’s office was. Giving his name to the officer on duty, he was escorted back to a white room where a doctor was bending over the naked body of Cynthia Doyle. Her belly was as white as the belly of a dead fish, and her neck was cut from her right ear nearly to her left. The open flesh looked like corned beef. A puncture mark was under her left breast.
“Death was from massive hemorrhaging caused by a severed jugular vein and windpipe,” the medical examiner said. “Other injuries consist of bruises on the face that were caused about the same time as the injuries that caused death. If I had to guess, I’d say they were caused slightly before death.”
“Were the bruises heavy or light?”
“Heavy. Whoever hit her evidently was pretty strong. He cut her throat several times and went pretty deep each time.”
“Did he fuck her?”
“Somebody did about an hour before she was killed. She’d washed her vagina but there were still traces of semen. The tissues looked like she’d been having a lot of sexual activity. If she wasn’t a pro, she was a very bad girl.”
Rackman pointed to the mark under her left breast. “What’s that?”
“I can’t say for certain, but it occurred at around the time of death. I’d guess that the killer jabbed her with his knife.”
“Anything under her nails?”
“Just the usual dirt.”
“Where are her clothes?”
“At the front desk.”
Rackman handed him his card. “If anything comes up, give me a call.”
Rackman went to the front desk, signed for the girl’s belongings, sat in a wooden chair against the wall of the waiting room, and went through them. The jeans were Levis, her blouse came from Alexander’s, her underpants were made by Bonnie Dee, the expensive leather boots were from Bloomingdales, and her pea coat was marked Schott Bros. Co. In the pea coat were a pack of Virginia Slims and a throwaway cigarette lighter. The pockets of the jeans carried some marijuana in a plastic bag and a pack of Job Cutcorners rolling paper.
Rackman returned to his car and drove uptown to Roosevelt Hospital, where he parked in the lot next to the Emergency Room and went inside to the Records Room. He showed his shield and Cynthia Doyle’s blue ID card to the attendant on duty, and was led to a file cabinet, where the attendant took out a thick folder.
Rackman sat at an empty desk and went through the folder. He found a description of Cynthia Doyle that matched the way the victim looked, confirming her identity. The address given was 449 West Forty-Ninth Street, just like the blue card. Cynthia Doyle had been in various clinics at Roosevelt Hospital for influenza, an ear infection, eye infection, bladder infection, and pregnancy. It was noted that she’d taken care of the pregnancy at an abortion clinic. She’d told her doctor that she smoked marijuana and used to shoot speed.
Rackman returned the folder to the attendant, and drove to 449 West Forty-Ninth Street, between Eleventh Avenue and the defunct West Side Highway. It was a neighborhood of slum tenements and warehouses, next to railroad tracks that weren’t used anymore. The little valley where the railroad tracks ran was filled with garbage, old mattresses, beer cans, and wine bottles. Rackman double-parked in front of the building and pulled down the Official Police Investigation sign on the visor, then got out of the car and slung Cynthia Doyle’s bag over his shoulder.
There was no buzzer system in the building; you just walked in and went to whatever door you wanted. If you were a thief, you broke down the door, took whatever wasn’t nailed down, and split. Rackman climbed the stairs to apartment 4-C, located in the rear. The stale hallways smelled of urine. He knocked on the door.
There was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. Opening the shoulder bag, he was fishing around for Cynthia Doyle’s keys when he heard light footsteps on the other side of the door. He knocked again.
“Who is it?” asked the voice of a black man.
Rackman held his shield before the peephole in the door. “Police—open up.”
There was a pause. “What you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“You got a warrant?”
“Yeah.”
“Just a second.”
The footsteps retreated from the door, and Rackman figured the man was either hiding something or putting on clothes. The footsteps returned and the door opened. A long-faced black man stood there, his head appearing lopsided because his afro was matted down on one side. He must have been in bed.
“Lemme see the warrant,” the black man said gruffly.