Denise got out of the car too. ‘Nice to hear some wildlife,’ she said. ‘It’s been an intense few days.’
‘So many birds in this little park. Makes you think.’
‘About what?’ said Eddie.
‘Life,’ said Harper. ‘Makes you think about life.’
‘What the hell is he on about?’ said Eddie. ‘We came to hear a theory.’
Harper took out his NYPD shield and opened it up. ‘I needed to tell you this somewhere private. Away from the rest of the team. Away from all the cops we know and love.’
‘What is it?’
‘Look at my shield. What do you see?’
‘A police number,’ said Eddie.
‘A gold emblem,’ said Denise.
‘And what’s in the emblem?’
‘An eagle,’ said Denise. Her voice dropped. The sound of birdsong rose high above them.
They stopped. Denise and Kasper suddenly saw where Harper was going.
‘When did it click?’ said Denise.
‘A few hours ago. I’ve just been turning every angle in my head, trying to see if I’m thinking straight.’
‘And are you?’
‘Yes. I’m sure of it. Think about it. It clicked for me with the children. I couldn’t make it work out. How the hell did this killer lure Capske into East Harlem? How did he lure Becky Glass off a street into an alley? How the hell did he dare to sit with Capske all that time? He’s a cop.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ said Eddie. ‘How the hell could this happen?’
‘It’s the only thing that pulls this all together. He knew the safe house, right? He knew how many people would be there. Christ, he even knew the weak point between shifts. He knows so much, it’s the only possible answer.’
‘You might be right,’ said Denise.
‘I’ve been thinking about Denise’s psychological fingerprint all day. We’ve got a killer who is fixated on Lucy Steller, a non-Jewish girl. She throws him off. She gets together with a Jew. And this guy’s got levels of anti-Semitic hatred so deep he’s never really acknowledged them, and this is the trigger. She leaves him and he kills someone who looks like her. A Jew. Esther Haeber. Then he abducts a girl who looks very like her. Maybe to try to replace her. But he can’t deal with the lover, David Capske. So he kills him, then tries to disguise it. And now he’s in love with his own power.’
‘Damn right,’ said Denise. ‘Lucy’s the trigger. He starts to stalk her after she ends it, then he starts to hassle Jews, and blame them, then he kills one. He starts to let this fantasy grow.’
‘Then, he joins Section 88,’ said Harper. ‘But never as a member like the rest. Why conceal his identity even then? Because it would show up. Because he knew, even then, back at the start of this. He’s known all along. How to kill in different precincts, how to stage, how to keep Abby from being fully investigated.’
‘How comes he used the same bullet and shit?’ said Eddie.
‘Some things he can’t help,’ said Denise. ‘He’s a narcissist. He believes he’s ultimately powerful. The rituals he can’t change. He wants to be known, they are part of this identity, a uniform so that he can express this self.’
Harper looked up to the sky. ‘He needed a name that allowed him to hide his identity but also to display what he was.’
‘Sturbe,’ said Denise. ‘A Nazi serial killer.’
‘Exactly. He wears the name like a confession.’
‘Meaning?’ said Eddie.
‘Meaning, people want to show what they’ve done, so he’s wearing the badge — the serial-killer name. Like some sick joke.’
‘It’s unbelievable.’
They stared at each other, a horrible truth dawning. Harper looked from Denise to Eddie. ‘Tell this to no one. Not another soul. If our killer is a cop, then we’ve got to stay one step ahead of him — and that means keeping our communication tight.’
‘How do we find him?’ asked Denise.
Harper smiled.
‘What you got, Tom, what you thinking?’
‘If it’s a cop, then he’s listening in. He’s got access to case information. You know what we do?’
‘No.’
‘We use the same lure on him that he’s used on others.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The lure of authority.’
‘How?’
Harper sat down on the hood of his car. ‘We’ve got to frighten him into believing we do know his face or are about to. I guess that’s what he did with Capske. I guess he had something to sell. I guess he told Capske that he wanted to put things in the past with Lucy. We do the same. We lure him to us.’
‘What’s the plan, big man?’ said Eddie.
‘We go back in. We claim we’ve found something. A roll of film — that’s it. A roll of film from Lucy Steller’s apartment, dated according to her journal on some trip and labeled
‘Yeah,’ said Eddie. ‘She was a good photographer. Used 35mm film. She had lots of photographs of animals from that trip. No reason why there wasn’t another film.’
Harper nodded. ‘We make all this known, we send the film to the photographic lab, then we lie in wait. And then he’ll come to us.’
Chapter Ninety-Six
The plan had been set. They didn’t even tell Lafayette the truth. They only wanted the three of them to know. Any more added extra layers of doubt. A single offhand word, the smallest indication that it was a fraud and they were dead in the water. And that meant Lucy and Abby were also dead.
The evidence was sealed in a brown paper evidence bag. Harper brought it into North Manhattan Homicide after a further visit to Lucy Steller’s apartment.
He threw it down on the table and called to Denise, ‘Hey, we’ve found something that might give up the clue to this boyfriend.’
‘What have you got?’ said Denise. The team listened in.
‘We’ve got a roll of film. Lucy used an old 35mm camera. She liked to take shots. This is dated the last week of May last year — anything in the journals?’
Denise nodded and moved towards her desk. The other members of Blue Team started to draw in.
‘What is it?’ asked Garcia.
‘Film from Lucy Steller’s place. Dated. Could have shots of the killer,’ said Harper.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Garcia, ‘and it’s just been sitting there all this time.’
‘Exactly.’
Denise rushed back over with an open journal. ‘That’s fantastic,’ she said. ‘Lucy spent the whole week with this guy in Yellowstone. This is dynamite.’
Harper banged the table. ‘We might just have him. Let’s get this down to the photographic lab, see if they can get us something.’
Harper made sure that the team spoke about the new evidence via email, radio and phone. He had no idea who the killer was or how and when he was listening, but things were getting increasingly tense so he presumed
