The Laker Building
November 21, 1.47 a.m.
The proud, glass-fronted lobby of the Laker Building reflected a massive light show of flashing red and blues. It looked like carnival time, but it wasn’t. Not even close.
The small crowd that had started to form a couple of hours earlier as seventeen patrol cars swooped, full of authority and optimism, had swollen to a great sea of wide-eyed gawping faces, all flickering with the dancing lights of the NYPD.
Harper looked out at the crowd. He knew that the killer may well be out there watching them all, enjoying the scene he’d created. They liked to do that sometimes. Watch their own show. They couldn’t resist. Harper scanned left to right. It could’ve been any of them.
Harper had just walked the perimeter. He had yet to figure out how the killer had left the building. He knew damn well that the killer had duped them, and that made him doubly dangerous. This killer had sidestepped a SWAT team and executed a young woman, then walked out of a murder scene. He would be walking tall, feeling supercharged and invulnerable.
The two partners went across to the concierge, who was talking to a uniformed cop. Tom wanted to know one thing only. ‘How many ways can a guy get out of here?’
‘Two ways,’ said Marvin. ‘Out through the front, or through the service doors, but they’re electronically sealed. We don’t open them until seven a.m.’
‘So this is the only way out?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And no one saw a thing? Not one of the patrol? There were thirty to forty guys out there. How did he do it?’
The concierge shook his head. ‘I ain’t the detective.’
Elizabeth Seale’s apartment overlooked Central Park. It was a stunning apartment. Worth a fortune. At the door, two uniformed officers stepped aside. They knew Harper from the Romario case and nodded respectfully.
There was something different about this crime scene and Harper was trying to pin it down. Two officers were still there hanging just inside the apartment talking to CSU detectives. The crime scene had been secured and no one had moved the body.
The patrol supervisor nodded across to Eddie. The two detectives walked over.
‘You been in yet?’ the broad-backed, silver-haired supervisor asked. Both Eddie and Harper nodded. ‘We should’ve protected this girl better,’ the big guy sighed.
Harper looked at him directly. ‘We tried, we were just too late this time. The truth is, he was probably watching us all arrive as he killed her. Bastard. He was torturing her as we were running around like headless chickens. That was his plan. Kill her with the cops in the building. Another buzz.’
‘We’ll know more later,’ said Eddie, ‘but as yet it’s as clear as Mississippi mud.’
Harper shuffled past into the living room where Williamson was waiting. It was bad. He felt it. He wished he had something to say.
The supervisor called out, ‘Williamson has the reins, Detective. We’re waiting on next steps.’
Williamson was staring at Harper. ‘I messed this up, Harper. I should’ve listened.’
Williamson was granite hard and chewed constantly, but his cold grey eyes were full of sadness. Harper shook his head. ‘He was playing us, Nate. It made no difference. He knew what he was doing. He knew that there was only one Elizabeth on that resident list. He knew what we would do, too.’
‘How did you know my guess wasn’t right?’
‘He’s an obsessive planner, Nate. He wouldn’t have dared to do this if she’d moved in two weeks ago. She had to be a phoney.’ Harper looked about him, embarrassed with Williamson’s awkwardness. Finally he walked away and opened the bedroom door. Garcia was already inside. ‘We’ve got a crime scene to get through. Let’s make like it matters.’
The crime scene detectives were combing the scene, taking photographs, sketching and lifting prints. Detective Williamson called to Garcia.
‘Anything gives?’
‘No, sir, nothing.’
Williamson lowered his head and slipped out the living room. The bureau chief, Ged Rainer, moved through to the bedroom. He was shaking his head as he passed Harper and Eddie at the door.
The two detectives looked at each other. Whoever Elizabeth Seale was, she clearly mattered. The top guys were already there. That’s what felt so strange. A crime scene was usually a lonelier place.
‘Who is she?’ Harper asked Ged Rainer.
‘Patty Seale’s little girl. The evangelist preacher — Mr Moral Outrage. This is going to be bad. That’s all I know.’
Harper felt nervy. The whine and flash of the cameras. The smell of death. Not good when you’re already about to puke your guts. And death scenes always smelled of shit. He didn’t feel ready for a lungful of putrid air and an eyeful of the grotesque. The things you never forget about a crime scene. Reluctantly, he led Eddie back into the bedroom. It felt harder second time round.
Elizabeth Seale was lying on her side on the bed, facing the door. It was like a film set in the perfect little room, like some sick fairy tale gone wrong. Her body was full of knife cuts. Harper felt the emotion but he went cold, like you have to. You either go cold or you lose your focus.
He stared at the vision of death. Except it was strange. From the door, her naked body was posed in a carefully arranged S-shape, upper torso upright, her arm modestly over her pudenda. Her mouth was closed in a smile and a black ribbon was tied around her neck. She had a scarf around her hair. It was crimson with a gold design. She looked like she was posing for a painting.
The body shocked you with its nakedness and direct stare. Harper felt as though he was looking at an exhibit in some sinister museum. On the white carpet beside the bed, the girl’s clothes were laid out, the dress, the brassiere, the panties, the nylons, the jewellery and the shoes. Each item was perfectly spaced.
Harper couldn’t do any more. He needed air. He walked out of the building. On the street, the crowds and the press had all come out. It was a mass of lights and cameras and perverts and people, all there to soak up the gruesome glamour of murder. Harper knew what this killer was doing, all right. He was showing off and this was just the beginning. He had started his show, the lights were bright, the audience was set.
The circus animals were all in town.