Ah! A good night’s work.
Chapter 6
Wednesday, November 17th, 1965
“We’re getting nowhere,” said Carmine to Silvestri, Marciano and Patrick. “It’s coming up for two months since Mercedes was abducted, and we’ve lifted every stone in Connecticut to look under it. I don’t think there’s a deserted house, barn or shed in the whole state that we haven’t turned inside out, or a forest we haven’t tramped through. If he sticks to his pattern, he’s already got his next victim marked out, but we know no more about him or the identity of his next victim now than we did on Day One.”
“Maybe we ought to be looking in houses, barns and sheds that are not deserted,” said Marciano, always the one impatient at official restrictions.
“Sure, that’s agreed,” Silvestri said, “but you know very well, Danny, that no judge would issue us with a search warrant as things stand at the moment. We need evidence.”
“It could be that we’ve frightened the killer off,” Patrick said. “He mightn’t snatch another victim. Or if he does, it might be in another state. Connecticut’s not huge. He could live here and still snatch in New York, Massachusetts or Rhode Island.”
“He’ll snatch, Patsy, and inside Connecticut. Why inside Connecticut? Because it’s his turf. He feels like he owns it. He’s not a foreigner here, this is home, sweet home. I think he has lived here for long enough to know every town and village.”
“How long would that take?” Patrick asked, intrigued.
“Depends whether he’s a traveling man, doesn’t it? But I’d say five years, minimum – if he’s a traveling man.”
“That doesn’t knock too many Huggers out of the running.”
“No, Patsy, it doesn’t. Finch, Forbes, Ponsonby, Smith, Mrs. Liebman, Hilda Silverman and Tamara Vilich are Connecticut born and bred, Polonowski’s been here for fifteen years, Chandra for eight, and Satsuma for five.” Carmine scowled. “Let’s change the subject. John, are the press co-operating?”
“Really well,” Silvestri answered. “It’s going to be much harder for him to snatch this kind of girl. In another week the warnings will be going out – newspapers, radio, TV – with good pictures of the girls and emphasis on Caribbean Catholic origin.”
“What if he switches his type of girl?” asked Marciano.
“I am assured by every goddamn psychiatrist I consult that he won’t do that, Danny. Their contention is that he’s snatched eleven girls who could be sisters, therefore he’s fixated on a package consisting of skin color, face, size, age, geography and religion,” Carmine said. “The trouble is all the psychiatrists can go on are patients who haven’t yet murdered, though some have multiply raped.”
“Carmine, all of us in this room know that most murderers are pretty dumb,” Patrick said, sounding thoughtful, “and that even when they’re smart, they’re not brilliant. Rat cunning, or lucky, or maybe competent. But this guy is way ahead of the pack – including us. What I’m wondering is, will he obey the rules the psychiatrists have laid down? What if he’s a psychiatrist himself? Like Professor Smith? Polonowski? Ponsonby? Finch? Forbes? I looked them up in the Chubb book, and they’ve all got D.P.M.s – Diplomas of Psychiatric Medicine. They’re not merely neurologists, they’ve gone the whole hog.”
“Shit,” said Carmine. “I just saw D.P.M. I don’t deserve to be heading this task force.”
“Task forces are cooperatives,” Silvestri soothed. “We know now, and what difference does it make?”
“Could it be a woman?” Marciano asked, frowning.
“According to the psychiatrists, no, and for once I agree with them,” Carmine said positively. “This kind of killer preys on women but isn’t one. Maybe he’d like to be one who looks like our girls – who the hell knows? We’re fumbling in the dark.”
Desdemona had abandoned walking to and from work, telling herself she was a fool, but unable to conquer the feeling that dogged her every step through those fallen leaves – someone was following her, someone too clever to be caught. The very thought of leaving her beloved Corvette in an open parking lot on the edge of a ghetto went against the grain, but she couldn’t help herself. If the thing was stolen, then she’d have to pray it came back in one piece. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Carmine what had happened, though she knew he wouldn’t laugh. And as she was neither of Caribbean ancestry nor a bare five feet tall, she didn’t think for a moment that her stalker had anything to do with what plagued him.
Eating pizza with him in his apartment, she thought him as tense as a cat whose territory had been usurped by a dog; not that he was curt, just – the Americans had an excellent word for it – twitchy.
Well, she was twitchy herself, blurted out her news. “Kurt Schiller attempted suicide today.”
“And no one told me?” he demanded.
“I’m sure the Prof will tomorrow,” she said, wiping tomato off her chin with fingers that trembled slightly. “It didn’t happen until shortly before I left.”
“Shit! How?”
“He’s a doctor, Carmine. He took a cocktail of morphine, phenothiazine and Seconal to cause cardiac and respiratory failure, with Stemetil to make sure he didn’t vomit them up.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“No. Maurie Finch found him shortly after he’d taken everything and kept him alive until they could transfer him to the emergency room at Holloman Hospital. A lot of antidotes and gastric lavage later, he passed the crisis. Poor Maurie was shocked to pieces and blaming himself.” She put down her half-eaten pizza. “Talking about it takes the edge off one’s appetite.”
“I’m inured,” he said, taking another slice. “Is Schiller the only casualty?”
“No, just the most dramatic. Though I predict that after he has recovered enough to return to work, those who have made his life a misery will let him be. No more swastikas inked on his rats – that I found so disgustingly petty! Emotions can be – oh, terribly destructive.”
“Sure. Emotions get in the way of common sense.”
“Is this murderer emotional?”
“Cold as outer space, hot as the center of the sun,” Carmine said. “He’s a cauldron of emotions that he thinks he controls.”
“You don’t believe he does control them?”
“No. They control him. What makes him such a successful killer is the counterpoise between outer space and the center of the sun.” He took the remains of the pizza from her plate and substituted a fresh slice. “Here, this is warmer.”
She tried, but gagged; Carmine handed her a balloon of XO cognac, frowning. “My mother would say grappa, but cognac’s far better. Drink it, Desdemona. Then tell me who else at the Hug is a casualty.”
Heat flowed through her body, followed by the most marvelous sense of well-being. “The Prof,” she said then. “All of us think he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Issues directives, then forgets he has, countermands things he shouldn’t, lets Tamara Vilich get away with murder -” She put her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that literally. Tamara is a right cow, but I think her crimes are moral, not homicidal. She’s having it off with someone, and she’s terrified of it getting out. Knowing her, I think it’s more than just that he’s forbidden fruit. She’s in love with him, but he’s put a condition on it – secrecy or else.”