“What kind of a person would do this to a woman?” McCabe’s hands were trembling, and his face was as pale as chalk.
“Your wife’s Volvo was found parked in a retail strip on Ralph Avenue and Avenue L. Would that have been a normal stop for her?” Margaret asked, not answering his question.
“She must have stopped at Video-Rama, on her way back from the mall. The tapes were two days late. She said she’d drop them off for me. I’m a pharmacist who never has a chance to get out from behind the counter. My God, does that make me responsible?”
Driscoll understood his guilt. “Mr. McCabe, it was a simple shopping trip with a stop at the video store, the kind of errand thousands of housewives make every day, in every town in the country. What happened to your wife was not part of the picture. Something ugly and unexpected intervened.” He looked at the distraught man with sympathy, trying to keep his own emotions at bay. “There are some personal questions I’ll need to ask.”
“I understand.”
“Were you and your wife having trouble, sir? I mean, was your marriage OK?”
“The marriage was fine.”
McCabe had flinched, and Driscoll had caught it. The man was hiding something. Something wrong with the marriage? Had his wife taken a lover? Had that gone bad? Bad enough to end in her slaughter?
“Do you know of anyone that may have had a grievance against your wife?” asked Margaret, picking up on Driscoll’s lead.
“Who wouldn’t like Didi? She was a wonderful woman.”
“Define fine,” said Driscoll.
“Excuse me?”
“Fine. Before you said your marriage was fine.”
McCabe’s eyes narrowed. Driscoll had struck a nerve.
“I see where you’re going with this. You’re thinking this had something to do with infidelity. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. I’ll admit our marriage has baggage. What marriage doesn’t? You live with someone long enough, the passion dwindles. But if you’re thinking Didi was having an affair, you’d be way off-target. That I’m certain of. Believe me, I’d know.”
McCabe’s eyes held fast to Driscoll’s.
The Lieutenant let it go. He reached out his hand and placed it on the grieving man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I can’t change what happened to your wife,” he said. “But I will make you this promise. I’ll do my best to catch this man, although in this case I’m not sure it’s a man I’m after.”
“What do you mean, not a man?”
Driscoll’s eyes drifted toward Margaret’s.
“This time, I think we’re after a ghoul.”
Chapter 7
The heinous murder put the political machinery of the city in motion. The Police Commissioner and the Mayor himself were leaning on Captain Eddie Barrows, who made it clear to Driscoll that he was to have some leads in the case, now thirty-six hours old, before the next newspaper headline thrashed the police department for its ineptness. Both the Post and the Daily News had aptly labeled the killer “The Butcher” and had forecast a long and arduous investigation because, as the New York Post’s Stephen Murray put it, “The NYPD is clueless.” The front-page coverage by both newspapers sprouted seeds of paranoia in New York City’s populace.
Driscoll paced the floor of the Command Center. It was a large room on the fourteenth floor of One Police Plaza. Though it featured a panoramic view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the lower New York harbor, the homicide detectives referred to it as the dugout. It was where strategy was planned, orders rendered, and where all particularly vicious crimes and high-profile cases were investigated. The pea-green walls of the dugout were lined with photos and the minute details of this latest abominable crime. Margaret and Driscoll were briefing their associate, Detective Cedric Thomlinson.
“I hear the driver’s license was shoved into her vagina like it was an ATM slot,” Thomlinson remarked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Maybe the guy’s got credit problems.” Detective Thomlinson’s Trinidadian roots gave him a sunny and uninhibited perspective on reality.
“I’ve got more snapshots,” Driscoll offered.
“I’ll pass,” said Thomlinson.
Driscoll stopped pacing, coming to a halt beside a large map of New York City that was thumbtacked to the east wall of the Command Center.
“This is where her Volvo was abandoned,” he said, the tip of his finger on a small blue pennant that punctured the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. “And here is where her body was found.” He sprinted his finger to a red pennant inside Prospect Park. “A ten-mile stretch between the Volvo and the dump site.”
Hearing himself speak of the dead woman, Driscoll considered the parallel to his own life. Hadn’t villainous fate interceded and robbed him of his wife as well? Sure, Colette’s body was intact. She hadn’t been boned. But she might as well have been, for her soul had been stolen.
“Back home in Trinidad, when bones are missing, we’re usually looking for a ritual sacrifice.” Thomlinson said. “Whad’ya got on the victim?”
Whad’ya got on the victim? Driscoll’s mind raced. His wife loved art. It was her life. She built her world around it. She loved her family. Nicole was her sunshine on a rainy day. She was my wife, goddamn it! She was my wife. Do you know what it’s like to lose the love of your life? And to lose that love at the merciless hands of some bastard who has no regard for the law, and little regard for the grieving spouse?
“Lieutenant, whad’ya got on the victim?” Thomlinson’s voice echoed, dispelling Driscoll’s anger and instantly bringing him back to the matter at hand.
“The victim was a housewife and mother whose only mistake, it seems, was in dropping off videos after dark in a dimly lit parking lot,” he said.
“What kind of movies we talkin’ about?”
“She returned South Pacific and The King and I, and rented It’s a Wonderful Life. That one’s still missing.”
“Broadway musicals and a seasonal love story. Downright innocuous. Simple romantic movies,” said Margaret.
“Now what provoked our guy?” Driscoll pondered. “This bone scavenger? Cedric, do you know how many bones there are in the human body?”
“Aahh…two hundred?”
“Two hundred and six. And judging from what he did to the torso, I’d say the son of a bitch removed each one of them. That’s dedication. That’s tolerance under stress.”
“And our boy’s meticulous,” said Margaret.
“This ain’t no sexual crime. No run-of-the-mill butchering. We’re looking at the artwork of an educated vandal. A white-collar psycho,” said Driscoll. “But how much of this was planned in advance? Did he know his victim? Had he stalked her? Will he strike again? One thing’s for certain, our subject is arrogant. He flaunts his crime. Hell, he identified his victim for us.”
“Was there any semen?” Thomlinson asked.
“The lab says no,” said Margaret.
“How ’bout how he savaged the body? Now that says overkill.”
“I don’t think his primary intent is killing,” said Driscoll.
“Are you for real?” said Thomlinson.
“We’re looking for a thief. A bone thief.”
“Then why are we handling the case? It should’a been Robbery that caught it.” The black detective grinned and lit a cigar. With one eyebrow arched like a drawbridge, he blew out a cloud of smoke that filled the Command Center.
“What you said before about a ritual sacrifice may have some merit,” said Driscoll. “Could we be dealing with voodoo in the Big Apple?”
“It might be worth a looksee.”
“What’s going through your head?” Driscoll asked, sensing that Thomlinson wasn’t satisfied with the voodoo theory.
“Still got the look of a sex crime to me.” Thomlinson leaned back on the rear legs of his chair and expelled a series of smoke rings, poking at each one with his finger.
“And what makes you so sure?” said Margaret.
“Look where he left the ID. Only a disgruntled lover is gonna use her slit as a mailbox.”
“Go on,” Driscoll urged.