There’s a definite choreography to crime-scene response; I’d come to learn this in the past year and a half. I say choreography rather than system because it is, in its way, a sad kind of dance, repeated over and over again with the exact same steps, no matter what the circumstances may be.
For instance: This man needed paramedics just about as much as he needed ice-skating lessons, yet sure enough, EMS arrived within minutes of our 911 call.
And, as they set about determining that the stiff, cold man lying in a pool of his own blood was, in fact, dead, the sector car showed up.
Staying on script, the two uniformed cops from the sector car (Sector Six Charlie in this case; precinct sectors patrolled by squad cars get alphabetical pseudonyms, like army platoons) began preliminary questioning of the witnesses. They asked Yale, Peter and me for our full names, ages and occupations—even though, in my case, they knew the answers to all three of those questions.
Even though there were so many other questions more relevant: Why this man? Why the rose? Why this theater?
I remembered the broken Sterling rose in front of Marla’s shrine, the bloody valentine heart finger-painted on the brick wall I used to love. HE KILLED MARLA S. DON’T GET HIM ANGRY AGAIN.
Were two people really murdered because of me? Two people stabbed to death, their corpses placed where I could see them? If that was true, then why?
“I don’t know his name. But he’s planning…” The man was lying dead, center stage at the theater where I worked. He would never be able to complete that sentence.
“Did any of you know the victim?” asked one of the sector cops—a blunt-speaking redhead named Fiona Hamilton.
“I did,” I said.
Her partner, Billy Rathke, asked, “What was his name?”
“I have no idea. Can you guys please get Boyle and Patton over here?”
“Sure,” said Fiona. “But what about John?”
“If you can find him, that would be great.”
After Billy phoned the Crime Scene Unit from his cell and Fiona relayed facts to the detective squad room on the car radio, they asked us a few more basic questions. Who had found the body initially? Why were we here so early? How long did it take us to call the police?
Who did this? That was the question I needed answered.
CSU arrived on cue with their surgical gloves and cameras, their ominous dark briefcases packed with sterile evidence bags. I wanted to follow CSU into the theater—if only to look at the victim once more—but I was just a civilian witness; my place was outside.
So I sat down on the squad car’s bumper, closed my eyes, went over what little I’d learned from eavesdropping on Six Charlie:
Someone had repeatedly shoved a long, sharp knife into the man’s back. Most likely, it was a hunting knife, like the one Nate had posed with on the cover of Soap Opera Digest. And like the as-yet-unfound knife used to murder Marla Soble.
Though he’d been attacked from behind, there was some sign of a struggle. Scratches on his hands and impact wounds on his elbows and forearms indicated he’d fought back for an unusually long time before ultimately going unconscious from blood loss.
In other words, this guy may not have seen his killer coming, but he sure as hell knew what was going on. Watch your back.
He had not been killed in the theater. The man’s body showed signs of postmortem bruising—secondary lividity—meaning that, like Marla Soble, he’d been picked up and moved to a significant spot. It was important to the killer for this body to be discovered. Here.
The number of knife wounds on the man had not yet been determined—he was too much of a bloody mess, necessitating closer inspection by CSU—but I’d have bet both my salaries on thirteen. Just like Marla.
Same weapon, same killer—only Marla had gotten it in the chest, while this man had been stabbed in the back.
Mirror images, killed because…Because you made someone angry.
Yale sat down next to me and handed me a bottle of water. “Want it? I got it from the paramedics.”
“Thanks.”
“Peter’s throwing up right now—”
“Sorry,” Billy interrupted. “But you can’t converse with each other until you’re released from questioning.”
Yale leveled his eyes at him. “Billy, right? I met you at John and Sam’s Christmas party. You were dancing to that fabulous ABBA song in your underwear? I didn’t know they made Spiderman briefs for grown men!”
Billy’s face went pink. “Go ahead and talk.”
“Thank you.” He turned to me. “It’s not fair, Sam.”
“What’s not fair?”
“This. You should be happy, or bored, or annoyed or whatever the rest of us humans are.” He put his arm around me. “You’ve already used up your lifetime supply of mortal terror.”
“The man in the theater…he knew, Yale. He tried to warn me, and now he’s…”
He’s angry.
“You didn’t know. How were you supposed to?”
“I’m just such a…crappy judge of character.” Even as I said it, a string of thoughts flooded my mind. Ugly thoughts, lodged in my subconscious, but now center stage. Like the dead body.
Krull handing me three Sterling roses. “One for ‘I,’ one for ‘love,’ one for ‘you.’”
The bent rose in front of Marla’s shrine, the rose clasped in the dead man’s bloody hand.
Krull, climbing into bed after a four-hour disappearance, his hair wet, his skin wet. “Sorry. I just needed time alone.”
“He’s taking this case too personally,” Pierce had said. “There’s something else going on in his head about Soble.”
HE KILLED MARLA S. DON’T GET HIM ANGRY AGAIN.
“The only him I got angry that night…was you!” How had he looked at me when I said that? What was that strange emotion sneaking into his eyes?
“What would you do if you found out something about me? Something that…isn’t good?”
“Sam?” said Yale. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…I’m just…I’m exhausted….” If it’s the beginning of the end when you suspect your lover of cheating, what does it mean when you’re afraid he might have…
“Touch anything?” said Billy.
“Huh?”
“I forgot to ask if you guys touched anything at the crime scene. CSU wants to know.”
“Just the body,” I said.
“What?!”
“I only lifted his head for a couple of seconds. I just needed to see his face.”
Fiona left the car. “Hey, Yale, is your man still busy puking?”
While Yale went back to the phalanx of parked ambulances to check, she said, “The bad news is, we’re going to drive you guys to the precinct house for questioning.”
“And the good news?”
She smiled. “The good news is, you get to talk to John.”
“You found him?” I said.
“Sure. It’s not like I had to issue an all-points bulletin or anything.”
“Not yet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Yale, Peter and I climbed into the back of the squad car, and the choreography continued. In five or ten minutes, the medical examiner would make his grand entrance in that dark blue morgue van with the sad white letters stenciled on the side.
But we wouldn’t be around for that. We wouldn’t be around to see this broken little man—the star of this show—carried out of the theater in a body bag.
When we got to the squad room, Fiona and Billy took our driver’s licenses and led us into two separate interview rooms for questioning. Fiona stayed with me; Billy and another male uniform went with Yale and Peter. Same-sex chaperones, as if a strip search were involved in questioning.
The interview room was small and shabby—they all were, which had always struck me as counterproductive. Honestly, who wants to answer questions in a place like that, with one metal table, folding chairs that hurt your ass to look at them—not to mention that big spy window, masquerading as a mirror but fooling no one?
Besides, what was I supposed to say? “I’ve got a sneaking suspicion my boyfriend—that’s right, your medal-winning superhero detective—might have…”
I couldn’t even think it all the way through, let alone say it out loud. You’re tense, you’re scared, you’re hungover, so cut it out, because he wouldn’t. John Krull would not.
Then who would?
“Hey, Fiona, do you know if they ever got a match on the fingerprints from Marla’s apartment?”
“Which ones?”
“The valentine.”
“Oh, ewww, yeah…There aren’t any.”
“But he finger painted that thing.”
“Gloves. We’re talking very thin, plastic, sterile gloves. Like a surgeon would use.”
My mind flashed to CSU. “Or like a cop might use? To collect evidence?”
“Exactly.”
I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. Stop it.
“You want to know the freakiest thing about that heart, though?”
I nodded.
“What?”
“It’s not Marla’s DNA. Tests came up negative for both her and her fiancé. We’re running the sample through all the unsolved-crime databases, and the felon database too. So we’ll find out soon, I guess….”
“That’s so…”
“Isn’t it? Maybe we’ve got a cutter, but I don’t know…. All the cutters I’ve ever known have been girls. And this one definitely seems like a man.”
“Why?”
“The removal and posing of the body. And the overkill. Those are usually guy things. Fucked-up, angry guy things.”
“Look at me, Sam. I’m a man. Do you think violence is a part of my DNA?”
“Stop,” I whispered.
“Stop what?”
“Nothing, Fi. You got an aspirin, by any chance?”
“I’ll get you one out of the first-aid box. Just a sec.” She opened the door. “Oh, hi, Detective Krull,” she said.
He was clean-shaven, his hair damp from a recent shower, and he wore a dark blue suit I’d never seen before. “Where did you get those clothes?” I said.
“I keep a spare suit in my locker.”
“Well, that makes a million and one things you’ve never told me about.” Angry as I was, though, it was still so good to see him.
My perspective came back, and those awful thoughts crumbled as I watched him, watched my sexy, flawed but incredibly sweet John Krull say, “I’m so sorry, Sam.”
He was not, could never be, a killer.
Fiona quietly placed two aspirins on the table, then mumbled something about the other witness interviews and crept back out of the room.
I aimed my eyes at Krull and took a deep breath. “You left me in the restaurant without giving me a chance to explain, and that wasn’t fair.”
“I know.”
“You left me alone all night long, and it isn’t the first time.”
“I know.”
“You’re the one with the secrets—not me! You’re the one with the…the moods and the…who knows what the hell you’re thinking three-quarters of the time because—”
“I know.”
“You need to realize that I’m not an open book, and I yell because I want to be heard!”
“I know, Sam, I know.”
He put both arms around me and held me, and just like always, I felt so protected, so safe.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the clean scent of his skin. My boyfriend, who had too many secrets but wasn’t a murderer. Who disappeared so much, but was here now. And that, I supposed, was better than nothing.
I kissed his mouth. Cigarettes.
“Where were you?” I said. “I drank all this Scotch, and I yelled at the neighbors. I even called my mother.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“And then…then this…”
“I know. I should have been there for you.”
“And…what was this evidence you were talking about?”
“Oh, that woman, Jenna Sargent.”
I looked up at him. “What about her?”
“She came over here two days ago, told me you were screwing Nate. She said she found these straight brown hairs on his shirt and I could run DNA tests on them.”
“Man, she has been on that soap too long.”
“Anyway, it’s bullshit, because I remembered—you said he visited you at school. So of course your hair could’ve gotten on him, even if he leaned against a wall or brushed against your chair.”
“It wasn’t even my hair, John. It was—”
“Yes, it was.”
I pulled away from him. “You ran the test?”
I backed up, stared at his face.
“What difference does a test make if you’ve got nothing to hide? You flunked it, and I still trust you. What does that say?”
“It says we don’t know each other as well as I thought.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. It wasn’t until he moved farther away that I noticed the deep, red cuts on both his hands.
We sat at the metal table in silence. “Where the hell is everybody else?” I said.
Krull pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds out of his coat pocket. “Do you mind?”
“No. Just give me the butt afterward so I can take a saliva sample.”
“Sam.”
“Maybe there isn’t some stalker out there. Maybe it’s just been you…staking me out.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Tell me something. How come it’s not okay for me to ask what you happen to be thinking about but it’s fine for you to run secret forensic tests on me?”
He lit his cigarette. “I’m sorry. I…we were going through a rough patch, and Jenna Sargent tells me this crazy story. I just wanted to make sure.” He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Maybe I was being such a jerk, I figured it would be a miracle if you weren’t cheating on me.”
I shook my head, but still, I felt my reserve softening a little. “Can I have a cigarette?”
As he gave me one, I couldn’t take my eyes off those shimmering wounds.
“What happened to your hands?”
“Bar fight.”
“Bar fight?”
But before either of us could say another word, the door opened “…Peter Steele is USDA Prime,” Fiona was saying, as Patton and Boyle entered behind her.
“Yeah, well, put your tongue back in your mouth,” Patton said. “He grazes on the other pasture.” She spotted Krull. “Hi, John.”
“Mandy.”
“So long as we’re in the interview room, you mind telling me where the fuck you were for three hours yesterday? I was actually worried about you.”
He’s heard that one before.
“Kids,” said Boyle, “we’ve got a case here to discuss.”
“I had some personal issues,” said Krull. “I know it was irresponsible and I’ll make it up to you, but I’d rather talk about this…body…if you don’t mind.”
Fiona flipped on the tape recorder. “Please state your full name and date of birth.”
“Samantha Elizabeth Leiffer. January seventh, 1973.” I smiled at Boyle. “Capricorn.”
“Best of the best. Hardest-working sign in the zodiac.”
Fiona asked if I recognized the man’s body immediately upon seeing it in the theater.
“I had to look at his face first,” I said. “But then I did. Immediately.” It was hard to explain the complex relationship I’d managed to form with this man I’d known for only two days, whom I’d spoken to twice, whom I’d seen alive once, and whose name I never knew. But I tried. “I don’t think there’s been a minute since I met him that he hasn’t at least been in the back of my mind,” I said.
After I was finished, I took a drag off the cigarette. It felt like someone stuffing burning cotton down my throat; never could get used to smoking, much as I tried sometimes.
“We can tell you his name now,” Boyle said. “Nikolas Stavros, DOB seven/five/seventy-eight Brussels, Belgium. Father, deceased, owned a gas station, and his mother is—”
“Katia Stavros,” I said.
“Yes.”
Krull said, “Who is that?”
“She is the super of a walk-up right across from Sunny Side,” I said.
“If it was her son watching Sam with the binoculars,” Boyle said, “it would explain why she didn’t say anything to us about—”
Krull said, “He was watching you—”
I rolled the dead cigarette butt between my fingers. “Maybe he was trying to keep me safe.”
There was a knock on the door. Fiona opened it for Pierce. “Hi, Detective.”
Patton said, “There’s not a bomb in the squad room, is there?”
Boyle guffawed, while Fiona stifled a giggle.
Pierce’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not funny, Patton.”
“Ah, lighten up,” said Krull. “I was there too, remember?”
Pierce cracked a smile. “Sure, John.” He winked at Boyle. “Guy buys me a twelve-pack, he can ask to diddle my dead mom and I’ll say sure. Oops. Sorry, ladies.”
Boyle rubbed his temples. “You got some questions for Sam?”
“Just one,” Pierce said. “How you holding up?”
I smiled. “Not bad, considering.”
Pierce smiled back. He had a kind smile. If it wasn’t for that gleaming head of his, I imagined he could be a very comforting presence during difficult interrogations.
Boyle said, “Only one more from me, Sam. This series of messages you received…‘You are in danger. Don’t show this to him, you got him angry, he’s always watching you…’ Do you have any idea who this him might be?”
I shot a quick look at Krull, and his gaze went down to the wounds on his hands. Is that a bite mark?
“Yes,” I said. “I do have an idea.”
Patton said, “Who?”
Funny what love does. Your boyfriend gets in some so-called bar fight and winds up with bite marks on his hands. And strange as you think that sounds, much as you try to plaster warning signs all over your brain, all you really want to do is put Band-Aids on those wounds—make him feel better.
“I think,” I said, “it’s an obsessed fan—someone who got interested in me when I was in the news.”
“Someone you don’t know.”
I glanced at Krull again. “Someone I’ve never met.”
Nothing stirs up claustrophobia more than a half hour in an interview room. So when Boyle declared the questioning session over, it wasn’t a second too soon. On my way out, as Fiona brushed by to reconnect with her partner, I took a huge, gulping breath of the air her movement created, then exhaled shakily.
Patton said, “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just…I want to get out of this place.” I looked from her face, to Krull’s, to Boyle’s, to Pierce’s. “Can I?”
“You’re late for your class, huh?” said Krull.
I nodded.
“I don’t see why she can’t go to work,” said Boyle. “So long as we put her under surveillance.”
I glared at Krull. “That wouldn’t be anything new.”
“I promise I’ll never do that again.”
“Do what again?” said Pierce.
However Krull might have replied, he was interrupted by a group of three uniforms escorting a woman into the squad room. She was smaller than me, with short silver hair, powder-blue sweatpants, and an oversize T-shirt that read, in childlike letters, #1 GRANDMA.
She looked as if she’d been crying for a very long time.
The cops were taking her into an interview room, but in the seconds before she entered, she turned toward our group. Her expression was flat, numb—but then something happened.
The woman’s bloodshot eyes widened, and her face began to twitch, as if she were trying to breathe, but had suddenly forgotten how.
“You…” she whispered. Then she collapsed into sobs. A female officer put her arms around the tiny woman, nearly lifting her away, out of our sight, into the safety of the interview room.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Katia,” Patton said quietly. “Katia Stavros.”