his non-verbal communication, as if he needed to get this horror out of his system.
In the corner, Harper sketched a falcon from memory, the pylon below. Denise watched the children closely, then spotted something. A small, perhaps insignificant thing. She honed in on the girl and flicked a quick look over her shoulder. The girl was watching Harper.
What was interesting her? Denise waited another two minutes. Again, the girl’s eyes rested beyond Denise’s left shoulder.
Denise leaned back in her chair and reached her arm out. ‘Can I have your sketch?’
Harper let her take his notebook. Denise started to look through the pictures, concealing them from the girl. She needed to know what was interesting her. Another two minutes passed. The second hand on the white clock- face was slipping by. She didn’t have much time left. Then it happened again. The girl looked up through her bangs. She looked first at Tom but then quickly searched the room and rested her eyes on the book in Denise’s hand.
It was not Tom she was interested in, it was the book. Denise placed it in front of her. She slowly lifted her eyes again and stared at the picture of a falcon. There was a moment of apprehension, then she reached out and touched the picture of the bird.
‘Do you have the crime-scene sketches in here?’ said Denise.
‘Few pages back.’
Denise took up the book and flicked back to the scene of the alleyway. It was drawn several times, from different angles. She chose the one from the perspective of the far end where the dumpster was. She placed it in front of the children.
They both stared at the alleyway. The little girl reached out her hand and touched it.
‘Tom, draw a figure in the alleyway.’
Harper moved across and sketched a person standing in the alleyway. The two children watched intently.
‘Okay, draw another figure.’
Tom drew another figure. The mother this time, wearing a black suit. The little girl’s hand reached out and touched the figure.
‘Good. Now draw a third figure.’
Harper moved in again and drew a third figure next to the first. The girl’s hand darted out and she started to shake her head vigorously. Harper took his pen and scribbled over it. The girl calmed.
‘Okay, this is good. It’s one guy.’ She looked at Tom. ‘Draw me the dumpster.’
He did. The children looked at it. Presumably, they had heard people coming up the alleyway and had scurried behind it.
‘Draw them. Draw the boy watching but the girl hiding her eyes.’
Harper drew, but the girl’s head started shaking again. Tom sketched the boy hiding his eyes. He then showed the girl watching. There was no interference. ‘It was the girl who saw what happened,’ said Denise. ‘No one’s ever asked her. We’ve all just presumed the boy saw it while the girl hid.’
Harper drew a gun in the man’s hands. The girl pointed to the page. Harper seemed to understand and changed the man’s arm to point to the ground. Then the little girl pointed to the sketch of her mother and then at the man’s feet. It had been Harper’s instinct that she’d been kneeling and polishing his boots. He drew. The girl rested her finger on the man.
‘What?’
She took the notebook and turned a few pages back. She found the bird and pointed at it.
Harper and Denise stared for a moment. They didn’t understand. The girl then turned back to the alleyway and she pointed to the man.
‘A tattoo?’ said Denise.
Harper drew a small bird on his arm. The girl nodded. Harper then drew three quick sketches of birds. She chose the picture of the American Eagle, its head to the side, its wings arched.
‘Unbelievable,’ said Denise. ‘She was ten yards away.’
Harper looked at the girl. Her features were like her mother’s. Blue eyes, freckled cheeks. He drew her mother from memory and put it in front of her. The girl stared down. It had been only a day since the children had seen her face. Her brother looked away, biting his thumb, curling all his limbs inwardly.
The girl’s hand reached out and touched the face on the page. Harper handed her the pencil. She took Harper’s pencil and wrote two numbers beside her mother’s face. Two number 8s, side by side. Then she looked up at Denise and Harper. ‘Did he say anything?’ said Denise.
The girl looked up. It was the first time she had spoken and her voice was clear and unemotional. ‘He said his name.’
Harper and Levene held their breath. ‘What was it?’ asked Denise.
‘Something I don’t remember,’ said the girl.
‘Josef Sturbe,’ said the boy. ‘I heard it.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “I am Officer Josef Sturbe. Clean my boots”.’
The girl and the boy stared at them, clear-eyed.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ said Denise. ‘It’s going to be okay. Do you think you could tell us your names?’
‘Ruth Glass,’ said the girl. ‘This is Jerry. We’re both seven but I was born first.’
‘Thank you, Ruth. We’re going to go now, but we’ll find the person who did this to your mother. I am so sorry she’s been taken away.’
Denise stood up as the social workers walked in. Denise thanked them again as she walked out. Harper waved at the little girl and drew a quick smile on a face on his sketchpad. As he showed it to her, the little girl forgot herself for a single moment and smiled back.
Chapter Sixty-Four
He sat outside the garage, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup. His eyes were fixed on the small TV screen. He’d bought every one of the papers but none of them mentioned a blue eagle from the murder. He liked reading about his dead. He liked to see how dumb they all were, how little they understood. He liked to keep the clippings about them. But he didn’t understand how someone had seen the eagle.
They’d found the body of Becky Glass a day earlier but the TV reports were now talking about the latest NYPD discovery. They were looking for a man with a blue eagle tattoo. The image they had was of a small blue eagle with its wings outstretched. It was more of an American eagle than the one on his arm, but it was still shocking to see the image in connection with the 88 Killer. It shouldn’t have happened. How did the cops have a picture of the eagle on his arm? He considered it closely.
He hadn’t removed his coat until he was alone with Becky Glass. He had waited outside the alleyway until she walked by. She looked distressed. She was searching for her children. He was an opportunist. He’d told her they were in the alleyway.
She ran in, all on her own. Stood there and looked around her. Then he put the gun against her head and told her to take off her pants.
He only wanted her to do that in order to remove her underwear. It was important that she was degraded and humiliated. He had not intended to rape her. She had fought and cried and disobeyed him. He had to hit her face. He had to rip off her clothes. The attack excited him. He was ashamed. He made her kneel at his feet and wash his boots clean with her spit.
No one but the victim should have been able to see the blue eagle.
He let his mind return to his victim kneeling in front of him, thinking about angles. Perhaps someone had seen him from the street. He had pushed a large metal bin in the entrance to the alley, but someone might have looked round it.
He didn’t usually kill in the daylight, but he couldn’t help himself. It had been a mistake. He had lost control.
