Two Bare Arms Read online

  “You are so harsh.”

  “Your Honor, I just kinda felt like he was a bad guy. Call it a woman’s in-choo-ishun.”

  “Take a hike.”

  TWO

  We spent most of the day doing background research. I wanted to know about the CAC Corporation and Peter’s role in it over the last twelve years, and I had Dehan looking into who owned the other lockups in the alley.

  At lunch I went to get some beef sandwiches from the deli, and we sat in the gray light from the window and chewed in silence for a bit.

  “I went to see the new captain, John Newman,” I said after a bit. She glanced at me but kept chewing. “Nice guy. I asked him what he wanted to do with the cold cases. If he wanted us to keep going or return to regular cases.”

  “What did he say?”

  I made a smile that was rueful. “He said we made such an awesome success of the Nelson case, he wants us to keep going for now.” She rolled her eyes but didn’t look too upset. After a bit I added, “I told him, you know, I’m a dinosaur, but you, you’re young, you’re smart, you want to be building a career.” She gave me the dead eye and bit into her sandwich. “But he said it would look good on your CV and he’d review it in six months.”

  She said, “What? I’m no good as a partner? You want to get rid of me?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Dehan. I’m looking out for you.”

  “Like my dad?”

  “No… Well, kind of, but no. Like your partner. You could thank me.”

  “Thanks. But don’t. I want a transfer, I’ll ask for one.”

  We returned to our research. I glanced at her. She seemed to be smiling. I said, “Gets dark about six. We’ll head over to view the lockup at a quarter to.”

  “You want to view it in the dark?”

  “Yup.”

  “Don’t tell me why. I can figure it out.”

  “Good.”

  It had stopped raining by six, but the air was cold and the occasional icy drip brushed your face or made small ripples in the puddles. We left the car on Barkley Avenue and entered the alleyway on foot. It formed a dogleg to the left, where one tall lamppost cast a dispirited, yellow light on the blacktop. It was quiet, and our footsteps echoed loud in the dark stillness.

  We came around the corner, and I stopped. On either side of the alley there were red brick walls to a height of maybe eight feet. Fairly dense evergreens topped the walls most of the way along. There were eight units either side, with roll-down metal doors. The lighting here was not much better. Three lamps were bolted to the facades and cast a dead, yellow light that made the shadows seem deeper.

  I retraced my steps and took a look back at the road. It was brightly lit and busy. I said to Dehan, “How busy do you figure it is on the weekend?”

  She walked back to join me. “Saturday, busy. Sunday it’s probably pretty quiet, especially at night.”

  I nodded. “So, I’m trying to figure out what happened here. What have I done? I’ve brought the arms in the trunk of my car. I’ve parked down there on Barkley Avenue, what, fifty yards from the cop shop? I’ve taken the arms out of my trunk, or from the back seat of my car, and I have brought them into this alley.”

  Dehan was staring, like she could see the car parked, down there, by the road. “Have you got them in a big garbage bag? Or in a duffel bag? Or are they just bare?”

  I nodded, chewing my lip. “Right. And what has made me choose this alley, so close to the station house?”

  “It’s dark. It’s lonely. Maybe you’ve driven past a few times and spotted it. Either way, for some reason, you know it.”

  “Okay. So I park my car. I grab the arms, and I bring them up here. I get to this bend, and I see, if I didn’t know already, that there are sixteen units. All locked. What would you do?”

  Unconsciously, she curled her arms like she was holding a heavy bundle. She stared down the alley. The far end, maybe a hundred yards away, was in deep shadow. “It depends what my objective is. If I just want to get rid of them, I’d take them to the end and dump them in the shadows.”

  “Right, and for now we are assuming that that is what this guy wants to do. So let’s stay with that idea for the moment. Instead of doing the obvious thing…” I stopped and sighed, and topped it off with a shake of my head. “Dehan, when you use a public toilet, if you walk in and find all the cubicles unoccupied, which one do you automatically choose?”

  “The one at the far end by the wall.”

  “More than eighty percent of people do that, because somehow it feels more private.”

  “But this guy chooses a cubicle just past the middle, in the full glow of a lamp.”

  We walked up to the unit. I bent down and unlocked the padlock. I went on, “I dump the arms on the ground, and I take the time to pick the lock. I push up the roller blind…” I stood and heaved the blind up. It made a loud, clattering noise. “And either I risk switching the light on, or I have a flashlight.” I turned and pointed at her. “If I have the arms in a bag, I take the trouble to remove them and place them on a pile of boxes, just here.”

  I indicated a spot halfway down on the left.

  Dehan said, “If it’s a plastic refuse sack, maybe you’re worried about fingerprints. In fact, most bags will have some place where you might find a print.”

  “So, he’s not panicking. He is acting deliberately. I think the whole pattern of behavior involved—from coming to this particular alley, selecting and opening this particular unit, and placing the arms on the boxes—tells us that the whole thing was deliberate and not opportunistic.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So that leads us irresistibly to a conclusion…”

  “Either Peter put the arms here himself, or somebody chose to put them in Peter’s very lockup, for a particular reason. Maybe a warning, an attempt to frame him…”

  I scratched my chin. “So far I haven’t found a single thing in Peter Smith’s past that suggests he has any enemies, or is in any way involved in gambling or crime.”

  “So if somebody isn’t trying to frame or incriminate him, why choose his lockup?”

  “What is it about his lockup that would make somebody with two severed arms choose to leave them here?” I stepped out into the damp darkness. The pools of orange light made the shadows black. I looked at the silent, dead roller blinds. “Take me through who owns them, Carmen.”

  “That whole side opposite was bought up about fifteen years ago by GCS, a local export company that specializes in IT products. This one here on the left of Peter’s belongs to a supermarket on the avenue, but twelve years ago it belonged to Hank Junkers. At the time, he was a member of the Hell’s Angels, and he used it to store his spare parts, tools, yadda yadda. He lived not far from here with his girlfriend, Lynda Holly. He has a history of violence and assault, some against women. Three on that side belong to a large pharmacy and a whole-food shop. And the three on this side belong to a bar and the local newspaper. An initial survey of employees doesn’t throw up any flags.”

  “You like the Hell’s Angel.”

  “He kind of sticks out.” She walked away from me and stood in the glow of one of the lamps. It made her into a desolate silhouette and cast a twisted shadow at her feet. She was staring back down the alley, the way we’d come. Her voice sounded strange, too loud. “They have a row. Maybe he’s drunk, high or both. He knocks her about and kills her. Now what the hell is he going to do with her? So he cuts her up into manageable portions and distributes her around town. He’s not going to put her in his own lockup. So he puts her in the one next door.” She shrugged. “Picking locks is the kind of skill he might have.”

  “December 2005, January 2006, there were no dismembered bodies found in the New York area. What did he do with the rest of her?”

  “He’s got a few big rivers to choose from.”

  “Where they will never be found. Especially if he loads her down with a few engine parts.”

  “Exactly.”
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  “So what made him put the arms in Peter’s lockup, instead of dumping them with the rest of her? If he put her legs in the river, why not her arms?” I stuffed my hands in my pockets and took a couple of steps toward her. I couldn’t see her eyes. “No, whoever put those arms there made a deliberate choice about the location. That leads to one irresistible conclusion. He was not hiding them—he wanted them to be found. He would do that for only one of two reasons. To throw a scare into Peter, which suggests a threat or a criminal connection, or because he knew that Peter would be going into his lockup within days rather than weeks.”

  “He wanted them to be found…?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. So we have to ask ourselves, what makes a killer hide a whole body so well that it is never found, but put the arms in a place where it is guaranteed that they will be found within a day or two?”

  She stood staring at me with invisible eyes. The rain started to patter again, not heavy but enough to make you wet. After a moment she returned to the black mouth of the unit. I joined her and saw her shudder.

  “I can’t think of a single reason you would do that, unless you were trying to intimidate somebody. And we have already established that was not the case. So…?”

  “So you’re thinking like Carmen Dehan. If you ever killed somebody, it would be for a practical purpose, and you’d either call the cops as soon as you’d done it, or you’d make damn sure the body was never found. But one thing is for sure. Unless it was a real bad case of revenge, you would not enjoy it. You would never feel the desire to boast about it.”

  The rain started coming down harder, hammering on the steel roof and hissing in the trees.

  “A murder for pleasure? Placing the arms as a tease?” She turned to look at me, and now her eyes were luminous in the darkness. “You’re talking about a serial killer. You think that’s what this was?”

  I stared a long time at the puddles without answering. Was it? I watched their ever expanding and interlocking ripples and the complex interference patterns they made with each other. Above them the trees bowed and danced and whispered wet whispers, and the cold air crept in around our feet and clenched damp fingers around my ankles. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain eased and paused, and I said, “Come on. There’s an Italian restaurant up the road. It’ll be warm, dry, and quiet. Let’s have a pizza and a couple of beers.”

  THREE

  The bell chimed as we stepped in and stamped the rain from our boots, stripping off our coats. The place was empty except for a waiter who was walking toward us, beaming. An open fire was burning over on the left, and as the waiter approached, I smiled at him and said, “We’d like a table by the fire.”

  His face lit up, and he spread his hands like I’d said the very thing he’d been waiting all year to hear. “Ma certo! Certo che puoi!”

  He led us to a table for two, held Dehan’s chair for her, and looked inquiringly at me. I asked him for two beers, and he took our coats away to a coat rack near the door. Then he went to get the beers. Dehan was staring at the fire, and I could see the light from the flames playing in her eyes.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Stone. I follow your logic, and I see where you’re coming from. But it just seems a hell of a conclusion from very little evidence.” She paused. “Some might say no evidence at all.”

  “Is that a feeling or a thought?”

  “Come on. Give me a break. You’re basing a theory that the arms belong to the victim of a serial killer on what? The fact that they were found in a lockup?”

  The waiter arrived with two frothing beers, and I asked him for two sirloin steaks with plenty of french fries, easy on the salad. I glanced at Dehan. “That okay with you?”

  “I thought we were having pizza.”

  “In this weather? You’ve got to be kidding.” I nodded at him. He bowed and went away. “Okay, Dehan, go wild here, really go out on a limb, push the boundaries of credibility and find me one single theory that is more credible than mine.”

  She was silent a long while, staring at the coals. Eventually, she sighed. “You always wind up with the same problem—why didn’t he do the same to the arms as he did to the rest of the body?”

  I sipped my beer. “And the related question, which to me is more important, having successfully disposed of the whole body, what benefit does he get from leaving the arms somewhere where he knows for sure they will be found?”

  “What benefit does he get…?” she muttered.

  “The benefit is right there, in the question…”

  “That they will be found.”

  “Precisely. Which leads us to the next question. In what way is that a benefit to him?”

  She sighed again. “And we’re back to square one. He is either throwing a scare into somebody, or…”

  “Or the benefit is subjective. It gives him a kick, a thrill, an ego boost. And that leaves us very firmly in one place. Serial killer territory. Somebody who kills for pleasure.”

  “If you’re right, Stone, the problem becomes much more complicated. This woman could be from anywhere in the United States, and the rest of her could be scattered from here to California.”

  “Yup.” I nodded. “And the lack of motive means we have no idea what kind of man we’re looking for.”

  “Serial killers are always men, right?”

  “Male. There was one case of a woman serial killer, but she was emotionally and intellectually male. The overwhelming majority are men. Within that, there is no profile for a serial killer. They tend to have average to below-average intelligence, though a few are highly intelligent. They tend to be underachievers and feel inadequate, though some have risen very high in their professions as doctors or soldiers. They tend to be victims of violent, unhappy families, though again, one or two have come from perfectly normal, middle-class families. The only thing they really have in common is that they invert the normal progression for killing.”

  The waiter, wearing an air of triumph, delivered our steaks, gave a little bow, and withdrew.

  I cut into mine and watched the blood ooze onto the plate. It was perfect. Dehan said, “What does that mean?”

  I chewed, enjoying the rich flavor, watching the luminous beads of rain slide down the black glass on the window.

  “Normally, in a murder, there is a very clear progression. The killer and the victim meet and form a relationship. Often it’s a loving relationship, sometimes a business relationship. Always it’s a close relationship. The relationship provides the motive for killing—jealousy, vengeance, financial gain… Those are the big three. And from the motive springs the desire to kill. So relationship leads to motive leads to desire. The serial killer inverts that process.”

  She sat back and sipped. “So the serial killer first forms the desire to kill. He doesn’t care who. He just wants to kill. From the desire he develops the motive—the desire is his motive. And then he develops a relationship with his chosen victim.”

  I nodded. “Exactly. The relationship may be short, a few minutes or hours, or it may be longer. But usually he will start by stalking, then sometimes he will progress to kidnapping…”

  She waved her knife at me. “I have read that they fall into roughly two categories, organized and disorganized…”

  I shook my head and spoke with my mouth full.

  “Three. Organized, disorganized, and mixed. If I’m right, and it is still a big if, we are most likely to be dealing with an organized serial killer.”

  “Why?”

  I gazed down into the flames in the fire. “Organized serial killers plan their killings methodically. The placing of the arms in the lockup, the absence of any forensic evidence, the absence of any witnesses—it all suggests methodical planning.” She nodded and continued eating. I carried on talking, thinking aloud. “Often they will abduct their victims, kill them in one place, and then dispose of the body somewhere else. As you said, if I am right, she could have been killed anywhere in the U.S.A.


  “They often target prostitutes. Not only are hookers likely to go voluntarily with a stranger, they are also less likely to be reported missing. He will have control over the crime scene and have a good knowledge of forensic science. He will also follow reports on the news relating to his crime, because he will feel a kind of narcissistic pride in what he’s done, as though it were some kind of achievement.

  “Organized killers often seem normal. They have friends, romantic relationships, and even get married and have kids. They tend to think they are a lot smarter than they are. Their IQs tend to be around 90 to 99.”

  I could tell by her face that she’d been thinking while I was talking. Without looking at me, she asked, “They often keep trophies, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “Could the arms have been a trophy?”

  “I know where you’re going. It’s possible, but they’re a bit big. But then you face the same question. If the killer intended to keep them as a trophy, why put them in Peter’s lockup? If Peter was the killer, which is what I think you are driving at, why report them?”

  She had finished her steak, and she sat back, narrowing her eyes at me. My steak was getting cold, so I started eating while she watched me.

  “I have no grounds for this at all, Stone. But I am just imagining Jenny going to get the decorations from the locker without telling Peter. I can see her falling down, then running home hysterical, and Peter taking charge, like the pompous little prick he is… ‘Just let me handle everything, little lady…’”

  She was right. It was a compelling image. I spoke through a mouthful of french fries. “He had the job for it.”

  “So we need to be looking at other states for dismembered bodies.”

  I drained my beer. “Yes, we do. We must also avoid fixating on Peter. I am also interested in Hank the Hell’s Angel and his girlfriend, Lynda. And we should explore the other tenants, the export company, the whole-food shop and the chemist.”

  She tipped her empty glass around a bit while I ate. The warmth from the fire was soporific. After a moment, she waved her glass at the waiter and winked at me.