“What took us so long to find her this time?” Jordain asked Perez as they climbed the first flight of stairs, trying not to pay too much attention to the stench or the filth.
“Cutting isn’t the most popular scene and it was late. Fewer men were watching. Fewer men, fewer calls.”
It took from two in the morning, when the first call was taken by a 911 operator in Miami, until 10:30 a.m., when the fifteenth call came through in Georgia, for New York to be alerted and start a trace on the woman’s IP address.
“Every damn police department in the country knows about this. Even one call should have gotten the ball rolling. How does a 911 operator not get what she’s hearing when someone describes a woman on the Internet who looks like she’s dying? We might have saved her.”
“It wasn’t as clear that she was sick this time, Noah. She’d finished cutting herself and put on a Band-Aid. Then she sat back down again in front of the camera. At first, she didn’t do much but play with the razor blade, teasing the guys who were still watching. This went on for ten, fifteen minutes according to the reports. The few guys who hung around weren’t sure that anything else was going to happen. But there was something sort of mesmerizing about her, one of the men said. That’s when she started to get sick.”
Inside the third-floor apartment, Jordain looked out of the window that faced into another building. A woman in an old flowered housedress stared at them from her apartment.
“Can I lower these blinds?” he called out to the forensic team working by the body.
“Sure, boss.”
The woman looked annoyed when she saw Jordain pulling the cord.
He joined Perez by the body.
Yasmine was an extremely thin, young, very pale woman whose long black hair spread out around her like a raven’s wings. Except for her legs, her skin was smooth and luminous.
But her thighs were disfigured with welts, scars and cuts- some so fresh there was still a trail of dried blood, others so old they were only faint lines. Hieroglyphs of pain, telling a story that Jordain couldn’t translate into a language he understood. “I don’t get this. Not why she’d do it-I understand why people are cutters-but who the hell would find that a turn-on?” Perez asked.
Jordain sighed. This was one of the toughest parts of the job. Seeing the brutality of perversity and trying, but always failing, to bring some sense to it. When he attempted to imagine the mind of the person who had perpetrated a crime like this, he saw a morass of writhing worms, twisting, feeding on themselves, sick and sickening.
“We’ve got something,” one of the forensic cops said, and within seconds Perez and Jordain had crowded around the garbage pail where Officer Keller was working.
In his rubber-gloved hand he held an ordinary Band-Aid box. Taped to it was a note on a small card, the kind that comes with a bouquet of flowers.
“I want to help you heal” was printed on it. It looked as if it had been computer generated.
“If we’re lucky, there’s something on this.”
“If the perp is stupid, there’s something on it.” Perez shook his head. It was rare that the clue that broke a case was in the most logical place.
In the car going back downtown, Jordain’s cell rang, and he spent the next five minutes caught in traffic, listening to the lieutenant warn him that he’d better break this case soon, and it better be with Leightman as the killer. The powers that be were not happy about the judge’s search and seizure. If it was warranted, they’d deal. If not, there was going to be hell to pay.
Back at the station house, Jordain stopped at Butler’s desk.
“This is for you.” He put Yasmine’s computer in the middle of all the paperwork. “You know what you are looking for, right?” he asked.
“Same thing I looked for on the other two computers.”
“God help us if you find it. God help us if you don’t.”
As Jordain walked back to his office, he took a small vial of extra-strength aspirin out of his pocket and popped three. He got headaches when he didn’t sleep enough. Too bad. He’d live. That was the shame of it. On days like today, he almost didn’t care.
Judge Leightman.
That was what everyone was pissed about.
Even though he’d followed all rules and regs and gotten a legit warrant, the powers that be were taking him to task for treating Leightman like an ordinary citizen instead of one of the most powerful judges in the city of New York.
Even though the Web-cam women had e-mails that came from Leightman’s address entreating them to use the very items that had killed them, what Jordain had done was still unacceptable according to the top brass.
Perez was standing by the cork wall in their office, pinning up lists and photos of items found at the scene.
“We have to find out if someone has it out for the judge. Someone who would know he has a little porn problem. It’s hard to imagine the guy who sat there in his study with us last night did this, much less let this fourth poisoning happen after he knew he was under suspicion.”
“He could be a lot more psychotic than anyone realizes. And it could be that he couldn’t call it off.”
“Possibly.”
“We just better make sure nothing about this leaks before we know one way or the other. You and I, partner, are going to be paraded through the city streets, tarred and feathered, if this gets out and we’re wrong.”
It came as no surprise to the two detectives when Butler stuck her head in their office a half hour later and told them there was e-mail from Alan Leightman on Yasmine’s computer.
“Same kind of note that you found on ZaZa’s and Penny’s?” Perez asked.
She nodded.
“Same e-mail address for him?”
She nodded again.
“But the geeks still haven’t found any deleted e-mail to any of them anywhere on Leightman’s hard drive?” Jordain asked.
“Nope. Lots of proof he’s visited their sites. But, no. No deleted e-mail.”
“Damn it!” Jordain pounded his desk with his fist. He looked down at the yellow pad full of his notes. “You know what I don’t understand? What does it mean that so far all the women who have been targeted are living in New York? It’s not a coincidence. There are hundreds of girls at Global. And why Global? Do you think this is a vendetta against the people who own the company?”
Perez shook his head. “Well, you’re asking good questions. If we could just get ahold of the people who run the company. You know, now that this has happened, we really need to rethink alerting the women at Global.”
“How can we do that without the company’s help?”
“We can have someone go to the site and send each girl e-mail directly. One at a time. I don’t see how we have any choice.”
“Neither do I. Let me get clearance for that. Even if we start a panic-it’s that or tell the press.”
“Listen, there’s something else. It makes it more complicated…” Butler said.
Jordain uttered a small moan. “Just what I love. More complications.”
“There is e-mail sent from Leightman’s computer to someone in his office that’s time-stamped within ninety seconds of the e-mail that ZaZa received from him.”
She handed Jordain two printouts.
“What does this mean?”
“Just that he was online at that time. At home.”
“Why can’t we find his fingerprints on the tube of lubricant? Would that be too much to ask for? And while we’re at it, how about a motive. We still don’t have a new forensic psychologist. I’m still waiting to borrow Dr. Schoenfeld for a few days.”
“I’m sorry, boss,” Butler said.
“Hell, what of all this is your fault?” Jordain looked at her for what seemed like the first time. Her eyes were hollow and haunted. She had some kind of personal history that had led her to work in SVU, but she’d never shared the whole story and he’d never pushed.
“I want you to go home early today. Eat something good. Get some sleep.”