“Jesus. Who was it?”
“Doesn’t say, doesn’t give her name, I mean.” The blonde, hair pulled back, ponytail, read. “Twenty-nine, financial adviser. They shouldn’t say what she does without giving her name. Now everybody who knows a woman like that’s going to worry.”
Paul realized this would be the man — surely a man, according to typical criminal profile — who was dubbed the “East Side Slasher.” Over the course of several months he’d killed two, now three, women. The killer took trophies. From the first two victims, at least, he cut off the left index finger. Postmortem, after he’d slashed their jugulars. There’d been no obvious sexual overtones to the crimes. Police could find no motives.
“Where?” Paul asked the Starbucks blonde.
“What?” She turned, frowning.
“Where did they find the body?” he repeated impatiently.
She looked put out, nearly offended.
Paul lifted his eyebrows. “It’s not eavesdropping when you make a statement loud enough for the whole place to hear. Now. Where is the body?”
“Near Turtle Pond.”
“How near?” Paul persisted.
“It doesn’t say.” She turned away in a huff.
Paul rose quickly, feeling his pulse start to pound.
He tossed out his half-finished coffee and headed for the door. He gave a faint laugh, thinking to himself, The game’s afoot.
“Sir, what’re you doing?”
Crouching on the ground, Paul glanced up at a heavyset man, white, pale white, with slicked-back, thinning hair. Paul rose slowly. “I’m sorry?”
“Could I see some identification?”
“I guess, sure. Could I?” Paul held the man’s eyes evenly.
The man coolly displayed his NYPD detective’s shield. The detective said his name was Carrera.
Paul handed over his driver’s license.
“You live in the area?”
“It’s on my license.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s current,” the detective responded, handing it back.
He’d renewed two months ago. He said, “It is. West Eighty-Second. Near Broadway.”
They were just north of the traverse road in Central Park, near the pond where the Starbucks woman had told him the body had been found. The area was filled with trees and bushes and rock formations. Grass fields, trisected by paths bordered with mini-shoulders of dirt — which is what Paul had been examining. Yellow police tape fluttered, but the body and crime scene people were gone.
A few spectators milled nearby, taking mobile phone pictures or just staring, waiting to glimpse some fancy CSI gadgets perhaps. Though not everyone was playing voyeur. Two nannies pushed perambulators and chatted. One worker in dungarees was taking a break, sipping coffee and reading the sports section. Two college-age girls roller-bladed past. All were oblivious to the carnage that had occurred only fifty feet away.
The detective asked, “How long have you been here, Mr. Winslow?”
“I heard about the murder about a half hour ago and I came over. I’ve never seen a crime scene before. I was curious.”
“Did you happen to be in the park at around midnight?”
“Was that the time of death?”
The detective persisted. “Sir? Midnight?”
“No.”
“Have you seen anyone in the park recently wearing a Yankees jacket and red shoes?”
“Is that what the killer was wearing last night?... Sorry, no, I haven’t. But is that what the killer was wearing?”
The detective seemed to debate. He said, “A witness from a street-sweeping crew reported seeing somebody walk out of bushes there about twelve-thirty this morning in a Yankees jacket and red shoes.”
Paul squinted. “There?”
The detective sighed. “Yeah, there.”
“And he was in his street-sweeping truck?”
“That’s right.”
“Then he’s wrong,” Paul said dismissively.
“I’m sorry?”
“Look.” Paul nodded, walking to the traverse. “His truck was over there, right?”
The detective joined him. “Yeah. So?”
“That streetlight would’ve been right in his face, and I’d be very surprised if he’d been able to see writing on the jacket. As for the shoes, I’d guess they were blue, not red.”
“What?”
“He would only have seen them for a second or two as he drove past. An instant later his mind would have registered them as red — because of the afterimage. That means they were really blue. And, by the way, they weren’t shoes at all. He was wearing coverings of some kind. Booties, like surgeons wear. Those are usually blue or green.”
“Covering? What’re you talking about?” Carrera was rocking between interested and irritated.
“Look at this.” Paul returned to dirt he’d been crouching over. “See these footprints? Somebody walked from the body through the grass, then onto the dirt here. He stopped — you can see that here — and stood in a pattern that suggests he pulled something off his shoes. The same size prints start up again here, but they’re much more distinct. So your suspect wore booties to keep you from finding out the brand of shoe he was wearing. But he made a mistake. He figured it was safe to take them off once he was away from the body.”
Carrera was staring down. Then he jotted notes.
Paul added, “And as for the brand? I guess your crime scene people have databases.”
“Yessir. Thanks for that. We’ll check it out.” He was gruff but seemed genuinely appreciative. He pulled out his mobile and made a call.
“Oh, detective,” Paul interrupted, “remember that just because the shoe’s big — it looks like a twelve — doesn’t mean his foot is that size. It’s a lot less painful to wear two sizes large than two sizes smaller, if you want to fool somebody about your stature.”
Paul’s impression was that the cop had just been about to say that the suspect had to be huge.
After Carrera had ordered the crime scene back and disconnected, Paul said, “Oh, one other thing, detective?”
“Yessir?”
“See that bud there?”
“That flower?”
“Right. It’s from a knapweed. The only place it grows in the park is in the Shakespeare Garden.”
“How do you know that?”
“I observe things,” Paul said dismissively. “Now. There’s a small rock formation there. It’d be a good place to hide, and I’ll bet that’s where he waited for the victim.”
“Why?”
“It’s not unreasonable to speculate that his cuff scooped up the bud while he was crouched down, waiting for his victim. When he lifted his foot to pull off the booties here, the bud fell out.”
“But that’s two hundred yards away, the garden.”
“Which means you haven’t searched it.”
Carrera stiffened, but then admitted, “No.”
“Just like he thought. I’d have your people search the garden for trace evidence — or whatever your forensic people look for nowadays. You see so much on TV. You never know what’s real or not.”
After he’d finished jotting notes, Carrera asked, “Are you in law enforcement?”
“No, I just read a lot of murder mysteries.”
“Uh-huh. You have a card?”
“No. But I’ll give you my number.” Paul wrote it down on the back of one of the detective’s cards and handed it back. He looked up into the man’s eyes; the cop was about six inches taller. “You think this is suspicious, I’m sure. I also wrote down the name of the chess club where I play, down in Greenwich Village. I was there last night until midnight. And I’d guess the CCTV cameras in the subway — I took the number 1 train to Seventy-Second — would show me getting off around one-thirty. And then I went to Alonzo’s deli. I know the counterman. He can identify me.”