part0009

She didn’t answer, but pulled her hair behind her neck and tied it into a knot. The watery sun we’d had earlier had increased to a warm, russet glow which reflected in her shades. But she raised them onto her head now to squint at me.

“We know that Frank will lecture us on the impossibility of establishing an accurate time of death from the condition of the body, but we also know that our main suspect, such as he is, was seen by two separate witnesses leaving the victim’s house, in a hurry, at noon. We know he left the door open, as Benny found it four hours later, and that he got into a cream or off-white Ford Kuga.”

She went quiet for a while. I turned onto White Plaines Road and started accelerating north. She started talking again.

“We also know that he is smart. He knows the cops are going to try and make sense of what he does, and search for patterns and clues to his motivation, so he litters his MO with red herrings to keep cops like Alvarez chasing their own tails.”

She stuck out her bottom lip and drummed a brief tattoo on her knees with her palms.

“And we also know that he was active from the first of January 2014 until the third of January 2015 and then went off the radar, but has now returned.”

“Do we know that?”

She blinked at me and asked, “Don’t we?”

“It could be a copycat.”

“He knows things only the killer could know.”

“That’s not exactly accurate, Dehan. He knows things that were not released to the press. But he could have acquired that information by working with the cops or the forensics teams, or being involved in some way in the investigation. Or he could know the original killer.” I shrugged. “We have to consider the possibility that the original Mommy’s Boy stopped killing because he was somehow confined,” I shrugged again, “I don’t know, either in prison for some other offense, or in hospital, and met somebody inside whom he told that he was the Mommy’s Boy killer.

“It is also possible that the killer is simply a friend of his. We should not discount too easily the possibility of a copycat.”

“OK, but it still holds that we know he stopped abruptly on the third of January, five years ago. And that the killings have started again and appear to be identical. So that begs two questions: One, what made him stop? Two, what has caused the killings to start again?”

I turned right onto East Tremont and headed east toward Silver Street.

“Do we know anything else?”

She shook her head. “Anything else at this stage is conjecture, Stone. Before we go any further we need to talk to Frank and Joe and see what they have for us.”

I grunted. “Two gets you twenty they won’t have very much. This guy seems to be very aware of forensics, and of the way cops think.”

Shortly after that we pulled into the Jacobi and made our way to the ME’s department. Frank was in his small, untidy office when we arrived, sitting behind his steel desk going through forms. He looked up and I noticed he had shadows under his eyes. I sat opposite him in a chair made of blue synthetic wool and chrome tubing, while Dehan leaned on the doorjamb. Frank shook his head.

“What can I tell you? She bled to death.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “She was practically exsanguinated.”

He sighed and stood, then walked out into the autopsy room, speaking over his shoulder.

“There is no physical evidence of how he gets them to comply. She was not a small, weak woman. Like all the others she was on the large side, and by no means weak.”

Dehan pushed off the jamb and we followed Frank over to the body. He pulled back the sheet to reveal the waxy, pale corpse.

“There was no bruising to the jaw or the face, no damage to the knees or the legs. He didn’t punch or kick her into submission or unconsciousness.”

Dehan gazed at the body. “Drugs?”

“I’m doing the analysis now, but I doubt we’ll find anything. I haven’t found any puncture marks and there are very few drugs that work that quickly to paralyze someone, yet leave them conscious enough to know what is happening to them. There is mandrake, as you found out recently, but it takes time to work, and it kills. I really doubt he used any kind of narcotic.”

“So he threatened her into submission.”

He shrugged. “You’re the detectives. I am just saying that there is no sign of a fight or a struggle, and she was not beaten unconscious. In fact she was not made unconscious in any way. Her facial expression shows that she was fully aware of what was happening to her.”

I said, “She removed her clothes beside the bed. They were on the floor in a small pile. So he gained access to the house, persuaded her, either with threats or otherwise, to go upstairs, take off her clothes and lie on the bed.”

Frank nodded. “Her condition is consistent with that. Now, here is what happens next: The first wound is the removal of her left breast. He does that in a single, slicing cut, starting at the lower underside of the breast and cutting up and around. The blade was extremely sharp. There is no hacking or tearing of the flesh or the skin. So this was a very fast, skillful, practiced cut, and it had a devastating effect on his victim.”

Dehan frowned. “Having a boob removed will do that to a girl.”

“Don’t be facetious, Carmen. What I am telling you is that she went very rapidly into hypovolemic shock, aggravated by what I could only describe as intolerable emotional distress.

“This would have caused her to convulse on the bed, her pulse and blood pressure would momentarily rise dramatically, but then, with the massive loss of blood, both would have dropped catastrophically, bringing about death very quickly.

“And it is at that moment that he plunges the knife into her womb. The bleeding from that wound is minimal, and after that he removes her right breast. There is no bleeding from that wound, though it is also performed with skill, in a single cut.”

I said, “So he’s using two weapons. The knife which he stabs into her womb, and another which he uses to remove the breasts.”

He nodded. “Joe is looking at the knife, and he’ll tell you about that. But in my opinion that knife is nowhere near sharp enough to produce the cuts that removed her breasts.”

I scratched my chin, thinking aloud. “The knife—it’s a kitchen knife—it has some kind of symbolic meaning. The way he stabs it into the womb, it’s Freudian. I wonder if it’s for real or one of his red herrings. It’s a bit on the nose, isn’t?”

Dehan twitched her head. “Yeah, but cutting off plump women’s breasts is pretty on the nose too, Stone. He does it every time. I think it’s for real. Even if he thinks it’s a red herring, it’s for real. This is something he feels the urge to do.”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Yes, that’s probably true.”

Frank continued. “As with the others, there is no sexual abuse, and nothing from him in the way of sperm, saliva, blood or hair.”

“How about the makeup?”

He went to the workbench which ran along the wall from the door to the corner. There he shook a mouse that awoke an iMac, rattled at the keyboard, and a moment later Joe’s face appeared on the screen.

“Frank, you missing me already?”

“Not much, I gotta tell you, Joe.” They both laughed. “I got John and Carmen here, and we were talking about the knife and the makeup...”

“The Carter case?”

Joe shook his head. “No, there is no way that knife is sharp enough to make those cuts. It’s like you said, Frank, he’s using a scalpel, maybe even an old-fashioned razor, but my money is on a scalpel.”

Dehan crossed her arms. “What about the makeup, Joe?”

“He’s using the same L’Oreal products he used before. I’ve checked them all and they are identical. And this presents you with a new problem...” He raised both hands like she was pointing a gun at him. “This is just my opinion, but this is either the same guy or a copycat. Now, if it’s a copycat, he has copied the MO down to the smallest detail, and that means two things: he knows the original killer, and he is fixated with him. My advice, you really need an FBI profiler on this case.”

I said: “That’s a good point. I was thinking the same, but for a different reason. The removal of the breasts and the knife in the womb, you couldn’t get two more direct attacks on symbolic womanhood. But at the same time, you have the elaborate painting of the face, like he is trying to restore her femininity.”

Joe was nodding. “Frank and I both agree on this. The makeup was applied postmortem, to dead skin. So he is done with the killing and the destruction, and now he, as you say, tries to restore her to womanhood by painting her.”

I sighed and scratched my head. “It feels , almost, like two men working together.”

Dehan frowned at me. “One dominant, a leader, the other servile but trying to save the woman…?”

I winced at the sound of it. “Something like that. It sounds improbable, even fantastic, but I can’t shake the feeling that we are dealing with two people here.”

Frank said, “None of us here is qualified to make that call, Stone. You need the Feds.”

“How about prints, Joe?”

“Nada, the knife is clean, her skin is clean. There are a number of prints that occur repeatedly throughout the house and we’re in the process of eliminating them. But the frequency and location suggest regular visitors to her house. There is no trace of the killer.”

I sighed. “No real surprises there. It was pretty much what we expected. Thanks, Joe, Frank.”

We left and made our way down the stairs to the parking lot in silence. There I called the inspector.

“Sir, it’s looking as though we really need an FBI profiler for the Mommy’s Boy case. We need a much better idea of who we are dealing with.”

“I’ll call them and request somebody. Are we making any progress?”

“It’s too soon to say, sir. We’ve just spoken to the ME and the head of the forensics team, but they were able to tell us very little. One thing is clear, and that is that we are not dealing with a below-average intellect. This guy is smart, he knows about crime scenes and he enjoys leaving red herrings for investigators to chase after.”

“Indeed, fine, well, leave it with me and I’ll get on to the Bureau.”

I hung up and stood looking at Dehan. She was easy to look at. She, for her part, did not look at me. She stared south into the cold wind, then she stared north at the massive hospital complex, and finally she stared up at the low, gray ceiling of cloud.

I sighed again. It was a case that made you sigh. “I know what you’re going to say, Dehan, but we have no choice. We have to follow the leads Alvarez followed until we find where he went wrong, or until we unearth something new.”

She shook her head at the trees the framed the Van Etten Building.

“It feels like we’re dancing to his tune, following his lead, chasing the clues he wants us to chase.”

I nodded. “And to some extent that is what we’re doing, Dehan. But we have to do it and look a little deeper. We have to ask how he corralled us into doing that? Is there a connection between the suspects and the killer? We have to redo the footwork.”

“Yeah,” she grunted. “I know. And meantime the clock is ticking. Who d’you want to go and see?” I thought about it but she didn’t give me time to answer. She said, “I want to go see Nelson Vargas. I have a feeling about that SOB.”

“OK, but do me a favor.”

I opened the driver’s door and she pulled open the passenger door on the other side. “What?”

“You’re going to hate this guy. Just remember that he is, in all probability, guilty of several murders. That doesn’t mean he’s guilty of this particular series of murders.”

She offered me a lopsided grin and an arched eyebrow. We climbed in and slammed the doors.

“Did you ever get her to learn?”

I frowned as I fired up the big old beast. “Who learn what?”

“Your grandmother, did you ever manage to teach her to suck eggs?”

I laughed. “Touché.”

Dehan made a couple of calls and we learned from Vice that Nelson was working at the Mescal, on Park Avenue, Mott Haven. The Mescal was a bar that doubled as a club for the Cupacabras . It was a known place where you could buy just about any kind of narcotic and fence just about any kind of stolen goods. The Cabras tolerated non-gang members, especially if they were known, but it wasn’t the kind of place you’d take your maiden aunt for a glass of sherry.

It was open pretty much all day and all night, but it did most of its trade after midnight. I figured if we went right then, at midday, it would be quiet and we stood a chance of finding Nelson there too.

I turned the key and the big cat roared, and I pulled out onto Morris Park Avenue. Dehan screwed up her face and scratched her head. “Do we actually have a plan, Stone? What are we going to do? Go in and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Vargas, suspected of killing and raping a large number of people, what is your connection with Claire Carter, who was murdered yesterday morning?”

I showed her an arched eyebrow.

“I gather that is a rhetorical question?”

She shrugged. “Kinda, Boss. But what is the plan?”

“I have no plan right now, Dehan. I just want to look into his eyes and ask him a few questions, to see how he reacts. We have a number of suspects, and there is a good chance they are all there to give us a false scent. I’m actually more interested in Vargas’s connection with our killer than his connection with Claire Carter.”

She scowled at the passing shops, like they had annoyed her somehow by being there.

“So you’re assuming Vargas is not the guy.”

“No, right now I am not assuming anything. But I am open to the possibility that the killer is trying to play us the way he played Alvarez. I’m not sure we realize yet how deep his game was.”

She grunted, and after a while she asked me, “So what are you hoping to get from Vargas?”

“I’m going to tell him I think somebody is framing him for murder, and I want to see how he reacts to that, and who he goes to visit afterwards.”

She thought for a while, with her bottom lip stuck out. Eventually she nodded and said, “Yeah, that might work.”