Chapter Thirty-eight

"So you're determined to play this out and not go to a doctor?" Chuck demanded as the two of them walked south on First Avenue. They had put the Stavroses in a cab, then headed downtown toward the Ninth Precinct. The sky was a dull gray-a typical February day in Manhattan. Even the trees looked cold, their bare black branches thrust upward in supplication to the unforgiving heavens.

"Look," Lee replied. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll go. But I don't think anything's broken."

"You don't think think anything's broken," Chuck said with disgust. "Jesus Christ. What anything's broken," Chuck said with disgust. "Jesus Christ. What is is it with you, Campbell? This isn't a goddamn rugby game!" it with you, Campbell? This isn't a goddamn rugby game!"

"Let's just say I've had enough of doctors and hospitals for a while."

That shut Chuck up. Neither of them really wanted to talk about Lee's nervous breakdown right now.

"Have you heard anything from the guys at the Chinatown precinct?" Chuck asked as they passed a row of food vendors lining the eastern side of First Avenue in front of Bellevue Hospital. People were lined up outside the carts, smoking cigarettes, talking, counting their money as they waited for their souvlakis, hot dogs, and shish kebabs.

"I don't think they really have much evidence to go on," Lee answered. "I'll go down and make a full report later today."

"Yeah," Chuck said, stepping aside as a small boy escaped from his mother's grasp and lurched toward him, arms outstretched. She ran after him, her pretty face lined with stress. She smiled at them apologetically as she scooped up her son.

Both Lee and Chuck knew nothing would come of the report, but they had to go through the motions anyway. "It does sound like they were professionals," Chuck said. "I wonder how long they were following you."

"I don't know. They chose a good time to attack: it was a Sunday night, and the platform was deserted."

"Yeah," Chuck agreed. "Look, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to take some time off-you know, maybe get some rest."

"Are you taking me off the case?"

Chuck paused as an ambulance rattled past them up First Avenue, lights flashing, siren screaming. "No," he said. "I just think that-"

"Good," Lee interrupted. "Then let's talk about the case, okay?"

"I'm just worried about you. Whoever did this to you-"

"Whoever did this to me does not not fit the profile of the Slasher." fit the profile of the Slasher."

Chuck frowned. "So you don't think there's a connection?"

"I don't know," he answered as they continued walking.

"I was trying to think why he would target you in particular. I guess because you saw his face."

"Could be. Or maybe there's no connection." Secretly Lee believed there was a connection, but he wasn't about to say that.

"So you don't like the boyfriend for Pamela's death?"

"Nope."

The two of them walked along for a while, passing Twenty-third Street, where a long line of people were waiting for the crosstown bus. They all had the look of middle-of-the-week workday weariness, with tired eyes and sore feet.

"Could it be a copycat, maybe?" Chuck suggested.

"No," said Lee. "I'm more convinced now than before that this is our guy's work. If the missing necklace weren't enough-"

"Granted, that's a bit of a coincidence," Chuck agreed, "but she could've lost it anywhere. She could have sold it, had it stolen."

"Come on," Lee said, sidestepping a dog walker with eight or ten different breeds in tow. "We never released that information to the press. Don't you think that's too much coincidence?"

The dog walker paused to let a black Labrador retriever relieve himself on a hydrant. The other dogs followed suit, eager to deposit their calling cards, in the mysterious language of dog communication.

"I don't know," Chuck said. "I feel like I don't know anything anymore."

"Think about it," said Lee. "She was found in the crucifixion pose, just like others. The only difference was that she wasn't in a church."

"And she wasn't mutilated."

"No, because he didn't feel comfortable where he was. He didn't feel he had enough time. Or..."

Lee looked down the avenue. From where they stood he could see long gray plume of smoke snaking skyward from the still smoldering ruins. The odor was sharper today: the thin, acrid smell of defeat.

"Or what?" Chuck said.

"He keeps refining his signature-like the blood in the wine, which is a whole new thing. Did the DNA tests of the blood turn up anything yet?"

"It's all hers. Not surprising, I guess."

"The thing I don't like about it is that he's becoming more more organized, instead of less," Lee said. "That means that instead of falling apart, as some killers do, he's actually gaining more control as he goes." organized, instead of less," Lee said. "That means that instead of falling apart, as some killers do, he's actually gaining more control as he goes."

"Have you seen that Willow guy again?" Chuck asked as they dodged a gaggle of schoolchildren. The students were about seven-just Kylie's age, Lee thought. They walked hand in hand, three abreast, followed by a harried-looking teacher. The tassel on her striped Guatemalan wool hat swung back and forth as she lunged after the children, her arms full of papers and notebooks.

"Uh, no-not yet." Lee had waited for Eddie to contact him, but so far had heard nothing from his friend.

"Did you get your statement in to Internal Affairs?"

"Yeah. I did that right after the guy showed up in your office."

"Jeez," Chuck said. "Doesn't all this sort of-get to you?" to you?"

Lee looked at him. "Chuck, these days, everything everything gets to me, okay?" gets to me, okay?"

"Okay, okay. Don't bite my head off. I was just asking."

"Look, here's how it is for me: this is awful stuff, but it's something I can do do, something that I have some control control over, you know what I mean? I can't control what these guys do, but I can help catch them-and that gets me up in the morning. And for a while, that was the hardest part of the day. Still is, I guess." over, you know what I mean? I can't control what these guys do, but I can help catch them-and that gets me up in the morning. And for a while, that was the hardest part of the day. Still is, I guess."

Chuck stopped walking and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Look, I know you've been through a lot," he said, staring at the traffic barreling noisily up First Avenue. "I just-well, I guess I worry about you sometimes, you know? I mean, I don't want to get weird on you or anything, but you aren't looking all that great these days."

"Really?" Lee said. "You Lee said. "You think?" think?"

This struck them both as funny for some reason, and they burst out laughing. A thin brunette in a tracksuit frowned as she approached them, as if she thought they were laughing at her. She had a tight little ass and was power walking with Heavyhands weights, and her face curled up in contempt as she passed them without breaking stride. That just made them laugh even harder. The more they tried to stop, the more impossible it was. Tears spurted from their eyes like buttons popping from a shirt, and they were forced to stop walking, totally immobilized by unrestrained, hysterical laughter. Lee leaned against a parking meter for support, and Chuck collapsed on the steps of a deli, holding his stomach. Lee's stomach ached too, but he still couldn't stop laughing.

Passing pedestrians looked at them, frowning, as if they disapproved of such levity so soon after the worst tragedy in the city's history. It wasn't levity, though, Lee knew. The laughter had an out-of-control, frantic quality. The tension of the preceding days had risen to such a level that the only thing left was to release it in a torrent of explosive laughter. It hurt him even to breathe, and laughing was agony-but there was no stopping it. He hugged the parking meter, hanging onto it like a drunken man, while Chuck sat doubled up on the concrete stairs of the deli.

After a couple of minutes, they both ran out of steam at the same time. Lee wiped the tears from his eyes as Chuck got to his feet and stumbled to stand next to him.

"What was that that?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Well, I guess that would be what folks in my line of work might call a catharsis."

"What the hell were we laughing about?" Chuck said as he straightened his tie and ran a hand through his short blond hair.

"Nothing, really," Lee answered, letting go of the parking meter. It was one of the old mechanical types, and the white-on-red lettering said EXPIRED EXPIRED. "That was just a physical release to a buildup of stress."

"I just suddenly completely lost control," Chuck said. "That was weird weird."

"Our bodies had had enough stress, and found a way to release the tension."

"Okay," Chuck answered. "You're the doc."

Chuck's comment reminded Lee of Eddie Pepitone, and he wondered how Eddie was getting along. He made a mental note to call him. He also wanted to talk to Willow again, to bring him the police sketch and see if he could get a positive ID of any kind.

"So you don't think there were others before Pamela?" Chuck asked. They walked side by side down First Avenue as the lights in the shop windows went on one by one. Inside the restaurants lining the avenue, waiters were lighting candles, turning up the dimmer switches on the chandeliers, staving off the coming sense of isolation as dusk settled over the city.

"It's possible, but I don't think so. The placement of her body was hurried, unlike the later crimes, where a lot of care and planning took place. It was risky, too, to leave the last two where he did, and this guy is no dummy. He was aware of the risk. With Pamela, though, he shows all the hallmarks of spontaneity. It's as though he was in more of a hurry. Her killing might have even been unplanned."

Lee looked in the window of Ryan's Irish Pub, at the row of regulars hunched along the bar, necks lowered over their drinks, the red in their eyes measured by the number of shots in their glass. He wondered how Nelson was doing.

"Why does a guy like this just suddenly start killing?" Chuck was saying.

"There's usually a precipitating stressor, something to make him crack when he did."

"You mean like losing his job or breaking up with his girlfriend?"

"Yes, except not those things. I seriously doubt he's ever had a real girlfriend, and I don't think this stress was job related."

"Why not?" In the dim light, Chuck's blue eyes were opaque topaz.

"Call it a hunch, I guess. No, it's something else with this guy-something related to control and his feelings of frustration and impotence."

They walked for a while, then Lee said, "Did you hate leaving Princeton when you did?" He needed to know if Chuck was holding on to resentment because Lee got to graduate-resentment that might compromise their work together.

In front of them, a line of people waited for the M15 bus. They were hunched against the cold, hands in their pockets, scarves wrapped tightly around their necks. This had been a cold winter, and everyone looked worn out by the gray skies and chill winds of February.

Chuck stopped walking.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"You had a choice to make, and you chose being a good son."

"Yeah, I know. It still didn't feel good."

"The right choice doesn't always feel good."

Chuck kicked at a stone on the sidewalk. "I resented you for a while, for being able to finish. But then I looked at what you didn't have that I did."

"Like a father."

"That, and other things."

"You mean Susan."

"Yeah."

There was a pause, and then Chuck said, "Tell me something, Lee-did she really leave you for me?"

"You know she did," he lied. "Why do you have to ask me?"

"Sometimes I wonder, that's all. She's so...how can I put it? I wonder how much she really needs me."

"From what I can tell, she dotes on you."

"Well, she's got me jumping through hoops, that's for sure." He patted his flat stomach. "Even got me on a low-carb diet, for Christ's sake. Oh, hell, Lee, I love her and I always have, and maybe I'm a fool for it, but damn it, there it is. She's still every fantasy I've ever dreamed of."

"That's great, Chuck. I think that's just great." Susan Beaumont Morton was a woman who thrived on worship-without it, Lee suspected, she would dry up and blow away like a discarded seedpod.

Lee's cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Boss." Eddie didn't sound good.

"Eddie, what's up? I've been waiting for you to call."

"Bad news."

"What's wrong?"

"It's about Willow. He's dead."

Lee stopped walking. "What happened?"

"I found him floating in the boat pond in Prospect Park."

"Did he drown?"

"No, Boss, he definitely did not drown."