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THERE WERE A HALF-DOZEN people in the Central Library on Thursday night; of those six, two were librarians and two were Police Academy cadets. The cadets, Cindy Wahl and Trina Rivera, were going over the microfilms of the newspaper stories about the Phantom’s victims, as they had for several nights.
“Well?” Wahl stacked the copies of the stories they’d reviewed.
“I found it. The last one has a picture, too.” She read off the date of the paper so that Cindy Wahl could have a copy made.
“Is it the same thing?”
“Sure is,” Rivera said. “She was thirty-three, blonde, well proportioned, and athletic. She was also divorced. She jogged daily to keep herself fit.”
“When did he take her?”
Rivera reversed the film. “Less than a week afterward.”
“She can’t possibly deny it now. We’re right,” Cindy Wahl said.
Trina Rivera drew back from the machine and looked at her friend. “Bet your butt we are.”
“When do we tell her?”
Rivera looked at the far wall for a moment. “Tomorrow. We’ll finish up the chart tonight.”
<><><>
He waited until the eleven o’clock news came on. From his knowledge of her, he was certain that she would not go out again, barring some emergency. And in that case, it would be pointless to go after her.
He exhaled angrily. His desire had been growing with every minute that had passed since he’d missed taking her the other night.
His craving was painful; it needed release. He had to teach her another lesson. It amazed him that she had not made the connection yet. For as smart a woman as she was, she was blind to her role in his life. Perhaps he needed to find another way to show her.
A tightness spread through him, his dark thoughts burrowed inward. He knew he had to find his release. He knew where it was.
Damn her! Damn her!
He started the car, pulled out of the parking space and drove off. Ten minutes later, he parked and got out. He left the doors unlocked, and then walked a half block.
He looked at the silver watch on his left wrist. It was eleven-fifteen. He had fifteen minutes to wait. He closed his eyes and forced his consciousness inward, fighting down his impatient hunger. When he opened his eyes, his breathing was slow and steady.
At exactly eleven thirty-three, the wide glass door to the building across the street opened and five women came out. The women comprised the evening shift of the Comstock Data Services Corp, one of the many telemarketing companies inhabiting the city. Three of the women turned left, toward the bus stop. A fourth turned right, and the fifth started across the street.
When the fifth woman reached the sidewalk, he turned and looked into a store window. She passed without noticing him. She was slim, around five-five, with soft blonde hair and a youthfully appealing face. She walked with a bouncy athletic stride.
He waited ten seconds before starting after her. When she turned exactly where he knew she would, he picked up his pace. His sneaker-clad feet made no sounds. His breathing was light, well-modulated, and quieter than his footsteps.
Smiling, he closed the distance between them.
She is perfect! He’d realized her potential the minute he’d seen her on the street, two months ago. And now she would fulfill that potential.
He looked around. The street was deserted. No cars were on the street.
Perfect!
He picked up his pace and closed in on her. Just as she came adjacent to his car he reached into his jacket and drew out a six-inch knife from the sheath strapped to his side.
He closed the remaining five feet and, with a fast strike of his left hand, he grabbed her hair and yanked her back.
She started to scream, but before the scream grew too loud, he pulled back even harder on her hair and let his knife bite into her cheek. “Shut up!” he growled into her ear.
She stopped.
Ignoring the sudden shaking of her body, he used her hair to drag her back toward the car.
He opened the back door. “Get in,” he told her, pushing her toward the opening.
She bent and started in. Then she tried to turn and run.
He still had her hair. He yanked her back. A shrill pained cry broke from her lips. He turned her, reversed the knife blade’s direction and swung with his full force.
The high ridge of his knuckles caught her on the side of her jaw. She went down instantly.
Moving fast, he looked around to make sure he was still alone. Satisfied, he lifted the blonde, put her on the back seat, and then slid in with her. He turned her on her stomach, twisted both arms behind her, and took a set of handcuffs from the front seat and cuffed her wrists.
Then he turned her over again, adjusted her legs, and got out of the car. He closed the door and looked in. To the world, it looked as if the woman was comfortably asleep.
He returned the knife to its sheath, and checked the street once more. Then he went to the driver’s side of the car, got in, and drove away.
A half hour later, carrying her in a fireman’s carry, he stepped into a dark apartment. He turned on the hallway light and walked through the railroad apartment to the rearmost bedroom.
He lowered the woman to the floor, bent, and ripped the dress from her body. Her white bra and panties followed seconds later. When she was completely naked, he lifted her from the floor, and put her on the brass bed in the center of the room.
The light filtering in from the hallway barely illuminated the room. He went to the far wall and turned the light switch. When the weak overhead light came on, it did little to brighten the walls darkened not by paint, but by layers of soundproofing. The ceiling was covered in the same manner, and the floor had three carpets stretched from wall to wall.
He went to the bed, and turned her over to unlock the handcuffs. She moaned as he worked, and he increased his speed.
When her wrists were free, he turned her, took her left hand in his left hand, and drew it back behind her head. At the same time, he reached toward the headboard with his right hand, and pulled a leather wristband free.
He attached it to her left wrist, buckled it securely, and locked the clasp with a small padlock. Then he went around to the other side of the bed and repeated the movements with her right wrist. He did the same thing to her ankles and when he was finished she lay spread-eagle and naked upon the bed.
He stepped back to survey his handiwork. A few seconds later he smiled. Her skin was the color of alabaster. Her body was lean and gracefully athletic, yet she had full breasts and gently swelling hips.
His desire grew painful while he watched her struggle up from unconsciousness. It took another eight minutes for her to finally open her eyes. When she did, she froze, and then began to struggle madly against the leather shackles.
“It won’t do any good.”
She froze at his voice. Then, slowly, she lifted her head and sought him out. When her eyes locked on his, she blinked. “Please,” she cried. “Please don’t hurt me.”
His smile widened. “Hurt you? Oh, my dear Amy, I’m not going to just hurt you, I’m going to teach you about being a woman. I’m going to teach you everything you should have learned from your father and from your husband.”
He slowly undressed and when he was as naked as she, he started toward her.
She screamed, twisting and fighting against her bonds.
“It won’t do you any good, Lieutenant Amy Morgan, because it’s time for you to learn your lessons.”
He stood over her for a moment. Then he bent, caught her head between the palms of his hands, and as he lowered his mouth to hers, whispered, “And you will learn everything.”
<><><>
Amy glanced around the office. Since she’d gotten the phone call from Jim Frankel, early that morning, Friday had dragged on forever.
She looked at her watch. Thankfully, the day was drawing to an end. She had a half hour in which to finish up here and meet her ex-partner uptown.
She organized her papers and put them in her attaché case so she would be able to work on them over the weekend. Luckily, the weekend would be peaceful because everyone would be gone.
Paul would be with his father all weekend and her mother was going to visit a friend upstate. Amy hoped to get a lot accomplished in the quiet.
Closing the attaché case, she locked it, shut off the office lights and opened the door.
Two dark silhouettes emerged before her. She was momentarily startled before recognizing cadets Wahl and Rivera. “Ladies, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant.” Rivera hesitated and looked at Wahl, who remained silent.
“Ladies, I’ve an appointment in a few minutes.”
“Ma’am, you said to come to you when we did our homework. We did, and we’re ready.”
Amy groaned inwardly. “Can it wait until Monday?”
Wahl spoke next. “It can, but it shouldn’t. We have to talk to you.”
Amy saw the excited glow in her eyes. She looked from one to the other. Their unspoken determination and desire reminded her too much of herself. “Why do I think you two ladies are going to be my biggest problem? Okay. Twelve eighty-one, East Fiftieth Street. Be there at eight tonight.”
“Thank you,” they both said.
“Don’t be late. And bring Chinese—not too spicy.” With the cadets’ thanks echoing in her ears, Amy trotted out of the academy building and into the street. She claimed her car from the staff parking lot and drove uptown.
She would have made it on time if it hadn’t been for the weekend traffic. But by the time she entered Beanie’s, the pub most homicide and burglary detectives hung out at, Jim Frankel and another senior detective were surrounded by a handful of cops.
As usual, the crowd was mostly younger detectives who liked to hang out with older veterans and hear the stories, of which they had a plethora.
Frankel shrugged when he saw her, smiled, and motioned her over. Suppressing her annoyance at the upcoming delay, she waved hello to several cops as she navigated the crowded room. When she reached Jim’s table, she greeted three homicide detectives she knew, and shook hands with two she’d never met.
A glass of white wine on the rocks arrived, compliments of Beanie, who bent, served her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, Beanie. I am allowed to drink other things, remember? I’m over twenty-one.”
“Your father said nothing harder than wine, and that’s the way it is,” Beanie replied with a smile. “Especially when it’s on the house.”
She winked at him. “Okay, thanks.”
“We miss you, Amy, you know that.”
“I miss you, too, Beanie. Kiss Nancy for me.”
When he left, Amy drifted into the conversation, standard cop talk that always centered around two things—ongoing cases and gripes about superiors.
She let herself go, falling in with the patter, and enjoying the camaraderie she had not been a part of for a long time. But when her drink was gone, and one of the younger detectives offered to refill it for her, she waved his offer away.
“I’ve got to get going. It’s been fun, guys.”
She stood, and Jim Frankel did the same. “Let me walk you out. Gentlemen,” he said, turning to the crew of five baby ‘dicks’. “Order me another Dewar’s. I guarantee, I shall return.”
With that, he took Amy’s arm and escorted her out. When they reached his car, Amy said, “That’s some fan club, tonight.”
“Hey, they all got to learn, kiddo, just like you did.”
“I guess. Jim, anything new?”
Squinting off into the distance, he pursed his lips and blew a sharp breath through them. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. The ribbon was from the same bolt as the rest. He didn’t make any mistakes. The body and the scene were clean as a whistle.”
She looked into his wise eyes. “We have to stop him.”
“I know that, partner, but we have to catch a break as well.” He frowned. The lines between his graying hair and his eyebrows increased tenfold. “Is that why you want your case files? Do you think there’s something you missed?”
“There has to be!”
“I made copies of everything, including the reports on all the cases since you...”
She put a hand on his arm. “I appreciate it, Jim. It’s important.”
He unlocked his car, bent inside and took out a half-sized brown cardboard file box. “Listen, Amy,” he began, holding the box in both hands. “The old man is being pushed to the wall. He gave orders that no one is to talk to anyone about the case, and...”
“It’s okay, Jim, I understand. I took these with me when I cleaned out my desk and locker. Brice won’t push me on this. Besides, he already told me he would keep me up to date.”
“Amy, I don’t want you going after him yourself. If I taught you anything, it was to always have a partner that you can depend on.”
“I know.” He hadn’t said the obvious because he didn’t have to. They were both very aware that he had not been with her when she’d been run down.
“I’m going to try and do this from a desk. If I have to hit the street, I’ll have someone watching my back, or I’ll call you.”
“That would be best,” the grizzled detective told her. “Don’t forget it.”
“I won’t. When are you coming for dinner?”
“Call.”
“Okay. Jim, thank you,” she said, swallowing back her rising emotions.
“You be careful, kiddo.”
When Jim Frankel disappeared inside the pub, Amy put the file box into her car trunk, closed it securely, and went to the driver’s door. She opened the door but, just before she got in, the sensation of being watched grew inside her, again.
She turned and scanned the street. Bringing forth her years of experience, Amy studied the people walking near her. None spurred her intuition. She waited another minute, but when the feeling did not return, she got behind the wheel and started off.
Was she truly becoming paranoid? Yet, even as she told herself that she was being foolish, she could not shake off the feeling that someone had been watching her.
Someone evil.
<><><>
The coffee was cold but she didn’t notice. Her mind was years away as she reread the reports of the first murder. The case hadn’t been hers. But after they’d tied the first and the second killings together, she and Jim Frankel had been assigned as the case detectives.
She’d known that part of the reason for the assignment was because she was one of the few women detectives on the force, and the only woman homicide detective at that time.
The police brass’ thinking was that since the victims were women, and it was shown that a woman was working the case, the press would go easier on her than on a man.
It hadn’t worked out that way, nor had Amy minded. She wanted the case, and if it took a PR ploy for her to get it, that was okay.
Still, in all the years, she had not really made a dent in the case. In the months before she’d been run down, she’d come up with two viable suspects, but there had been no real follow-up.
Pushing the reports away, Amy stood to get herself a fresh cup of coffee. Halfway to the counter, her doorbell rang.
“Already?” She looked at her watch. It was eight and her two eager-beaver cadets were right on time.
“This won’t give you any better grades,” she warned when she opened the door.
Trina Rivera met her open stare. “Wanna bet?”
“Trina!” Cindy Wahl exclaimed, half in fear, half in surprise.
Amy couldn’t help the low laugh that escaped. “If you were a man, you know what I’d say you have.”
Rivera nodded. “Been there: told that. I guess I made them feel ah...less manly than they thought they were.”
“You’ll have a lot more telling you that once you wear your blues in the street.”
“I’ll handle it when the time comes. You said not too spicy, right?” she asked holding up a large paper bag.
Amy inhaled the tangy scent rising from the bag and said, “Let’s eat.” She stepped back so they could enter the house.
Cindy Wahl protectively hugged two large manila envelopes to her chest. The friendship between the two women interested Amy. They complemented each other in their mannerisms. Where Rivera was intense, Wahl was easy and gentle. But Amy knew better than to mistake Wahl’s soft manner for something it wasn’t.
She had glimpsed, in class and in conversation, that Cindy Wahl had a resolve of steel, and was one very tough lady.
She brought the two cadets into the dining room, where she’d already put out plates, utensils, and chopsticks on the teak table.
“Very nice,” Rivera said, looking around the room. The walls had a small floral design in soft pastels on a mauve background. The furniture was all teak, from the chairs to the table to the breakfront housing her mother’s good china.
The fixture hanging over the table was polished brass. The curtains on the double window overlooking the street were the same mauve as the background of the wallpaper.
“Shall we?” Amy motioned them to the table.
A half hour later, the three women cleared the table. Once the dishes were in the dishwasher, and a fresh pot of coffee was brewing, Amy brought them back to the dining room.
Sitting at the head of the teak table, she said, “Thank you for dinner, ladies. Now it’s time for you to dazzle me with proof of your theory.”
Rivera looked at her paler counterpart. “Lieutenant, we think we’ve found enough to substantiate that this guy is after you.”
“Show me,” Amy said in a calm and level voice that did not betray the tightening inside of her. The confidence exuded by the two cadets added another level to her suddenly taut nerves.
Cindy Wahl removed three file folders from the first of the manila envelopes, opened one, and took out a photostat of a newspaper story. She laid it carefully on the table and pushed it toward Amy.
“The first killing happened on the twenty-fifth. As you see, she bears the closest resemblance to you of all the victims—the resemblance is physical as well as facial. She was the same height, had the same eye color, hair color, weight, and I would bet that her physical measurements were very close to your own. She was a phys-ed teacher. Do you see the resemblance?”
Amy looked at Wahl, not at the picture. “I’ve been looking at her photograph all evening. Go ahead.”
Wahl slid another copy of a newspaper story toward Amy. “This story was published eight days before her death.”
Amy looked down and saw herself talking to the two gunmen who had taken the hostages from the bank. The picture showed her in profile and the two bank robbers were the same way. The headline read, HEROINE COP! The story detailed her successful negotiations with the bank robbers.
Amy didn’t have to read the story to remember that the reporter had concluded the article with a personal observation that perhaps a woman was not a bad thing to have as police officer. After all, he’d written, ever since the dawn of civilization, mothers have proven to be the best natural negotiators around.
Amy didn’t like the direction her two pupils were taking. “Okay, this story and the first rape and murder were a week or so apart. That doesn’t prove very much.”
“Give us a chance, Lieutenant,” Rivera said.
Amy looked at Rivera. The mocha-skinned woman had spoken softly and without disrespect. “Go ahead.”
“Six months after he killed Dolores Vaccio, he raped and murdered my cousin.” Wahl opened the second file folder. “While her facial features didn’t have as close a resemblance to you as victim one, her eye color, the blonde shade of her hair, and her athletic build were a duplicate of yours.” Wahl stumbled emotionally on the last few words.
Cindy Wahl swallowed, picked up a photograph, and passed it to Amy. “This is one of my own pictures. It was taken a year before her death. That’s Sandra next to me, at the beach.”
Taking the photograph, Amy studied it carefully. If she’d looked at it fast, she would have thought it a picture of herself in a one-piece bathing suit. Yes, there was a strong physical resemblance. Strangely, Amy was also aware of the similarity between Cindy Wahl and her dead cousin.
She thought back to the time period of Sandra’s death but couldn’t remember any instance where she was in the public light. She looked at Wahl. “I do see a resemblance.”
“This newspaper article came out eight days before her death,” Trina Rivera said, taking over. She handed Amy the copy of the story.
HEROINE COP TOPS LIST OF MEDAL WINNERS.
Beneath it was a photo of the police commissioner giving her a medal for the hostage negotiation she’d done.
Amy looked up from the article to find both women watching her intently. “It could be a coincidence.”
Trina Rivera met her gaze openly. “It isn’t.”
A chill spread along Amy’s spine, not created by Rivera’s words, but by the cadet’s absolute certainty. Somehow these two young women had stumbled onto something she and the entire department had been unable to find—a link.
“Go on.” Her voice was suddenly hoarse.
“Barbara Llewellyn was the third victim of the Phantom. She was a dance instructor at the East Side Children’s Dance Studio. Again, she was between five-five and five-seven, with medium-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and athletic. It was from her death that the nickname ‘Phantom’ came.”
Rivera paused to find the copy of the article she wanted. When she pulled it from beneath a photo, she handed it to Amy. It was a crime reporter’s story of an interview with the man in charge of the case, Lieutenant Robert Campbell and the caption above the story was:
PHANTOM KILLER MYSTIFIES POLICE
As soon as Amy began reading the article, she remembered it. The reporter had asked the lieutenant if he’d found any leads whatsoever. Campbell, tired and grouchy, had dropped his guard, snapping, “Got anything? I’ll tell you what we’ve got—a phantom. No one sees him, no one hears him, and no one knows a damned thing about any of these killings! He picks his victim, takes her in the nighttime, and vanishes.”
The name stuck and from that point, the killer was known as the Phantom. But it shed no light on the situation for Amy. “I know about the name, but I don’t understand how this murder ties in with me? I was on the case, but I’d just started working it.”
Before Trina could respond, Cindy Wahl said, “It’s not about you being on the case: it’s about you, period.”
Rivera passed another story to Amy. “Here’s the connection.”
Amy’s breath lodged in her throat. Swallowing, she forced herself to breathe. The date of the story was nine days prior to Barbara Llewellyn’s abduction and death.
HEROINE PROMOTED
The story dealt with the promotion of Sergeant Amy Morgan to the rank of lieutenant. It went on to explain that Amy Morgan was the first woman homicide detective in the history of the Metropolitan Police Department to reach that rank. She was also one of the youngest police officers of either gender to be promoted to lieutenant.
When Amy finished the article, she set it on the table. “I need some coffee. Anyone else?” When both women started to rise, she motioned them back. “I’ll take care of it.”
She went into the kitchen, where she worked mechanically, taking down a serving tray and setting it up with milk, sugar, and cups. She put the pot of coffee on the tray and started back into the dining room.
She stopped before she stepped out of the kitchen, her mind awash with emotions she could barely contain. So far, the women were right. Everything pointed to her. But she didn’t understand why.
She set her features into a mask of resolve, knowing it would not be good to allow the two to see how badly this was affecting her.
Entering the dining room, she put the tray on the table. “Help yourselves,” she instructed, as she poured herself a cup and fixed it the way she liked.
She returned to her spot at the table, where she studied the photograph of the dance teacher, Barbara Llewellyn.
When Wahl and Rivera were back in their seats, Amy took another sip of coffee. “All right, what’s next?”
Rivera nodded to Wahl before turning to Amy. “Robert Campbell was transferred from homicide, three months later and you were put in charge of the Phantom case.”
“This story was run the morning following the police commissioner’s press conference announcing that you would be heading the case.”
She glanced at the headline, then looked from one cadet to the other. “I was the nominal head of the case. There was so much negative publicity on the case that they needed someone to ease the heat the department was taking. The brass felt that putting a woman on the case would help them in the public eye,”
“The reason doesn’t matter,” Rivera said. “Nine days later, Julia Greenburg was reported missing. Eleven days later her body was found in the same parking lot where the first victim had been discovered.”
Julia Wahl poked a finger at the image. “And Julia Greenburg looked like Dolores Vaccio, like my cousin Sandra, and like Barbara Llewellyn. They were all blondes, they all had your particular shade of light blue eyes. They were also all athletically fit women.”
Amy started to pick up the cup, but stopped herself. Her hands were trembling and she refused to let the two women see her reactions.
The more she looked at the pictures, and the more she studied the correlations between the deaths and her own life, the more afraid she became.
The fear wasn’t for herself; rather, it was for her own inability to have seen the connection. If they were right, she was responsible for what was happening.
“Before we go any further, I want you to know that so far you’ve made a somewhat decent case for yourselves. But you also have to accept the fact that it’s not a clean theory, only circumstantial.”
She saw that Rivera wanted to say something, but waved her back. “I’m not saying you’re off target, nor am I saying that you’re right. What I want to hear, right now, is any idea you have as to why the perp would be after me.”
Rivera sighed. “We’ve talked about it, but we haven’t been able to figure it out, yet.”
Amy almost smiled at the woman’s self-confidence. For four plus years, the best minds in homicide had been trying to figure out the Phantom. “Okay, let’s look at something else. What connection was there between my being run down, and the woman who was killed afterward?”
“Two days afterward, to be exact,” Wahl said, handing Amy yet another newspaper story. “Maryann Porter was killed. But the only connection we have is the same as all the rest. A story about you appears in the paper, and afterward, someone dies.”
“And then the Phantom disappeared until a few weeks ago,” Amy said, watching their reaction to her statement very carefully.
Wahl nodded, glanced at Rivera, and then turned back to Amy. “That’s the catch. There’s only one flaw—one inconsistency in our theory during that time period.”
Amy’s senses went acutely alert. Had they somehow learned about the victim that the police had kept out of the news? “And that is?”
“There was an article about you.” Wahl paused to look through a folder. Next to her, Rivera opened another folder. Rivera found the article and handed it to Wahl.
Cindy Wahl looked at it. “It was an interview with you during a physical therapy session.”
Wahl handed it to Amy, who looked at the headline.
HEROINE COP ON ROAD TO RECOVERY
Sick did not come close to what she felt when she saw the photograph of herself and the therapist. Then she looked at the date. It had been two weeks before the death of the unreported victim who Brice had told her about.
“Maybe he missed it,” Wahl said.
“Maybe,” she said a moment later. “Okay, what else do you have?”
Wahl pulled out a newspaper, not a photostat. It was not the front page, but one of the interior sections called IN THE NEWS. She set it on the table in front of Amy.
The article was titled THE FUTURE IN BLUE, and it was a story about the newest class entering the Police Academy. Amy skimmed the article, and then turned the page, remembering the photographers who had been at the academy that first day of the fall session.
She saw herself on the inside page, in uniform, standing at the head of the class and talking to the cadets. The inside article had a sub caption: Heroine Cop Teaches New Cadets.
She closed the paper without reading. “And a week later, the last victim was found.”
She closed her eyes and massaged her eyelids with the tips of her forefingers. Her mind was screaming at her. Her heart was breaking for all the dead women. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t.
“It’s you, Lieutenant,” she heard Trina Rivera say. “He’s always been after you.”
