killer had been scoping each of his victims and interacting with them. Mary-Jane’s diary was a good place to start and gave him the idea, but the thought that this killer had watched the girl for months before striking was terrifying. Grace Frazer had called the cops about someone hanging around her apartment, but, as yet, Tom had nothing on Amy Lloyd-Gardner. If this guy was stalking them all over an extended period, then there ought to be something. He’d spoken to her husband and family earlier that day and they could think of nothing. The kill was so personal, though, Harper’s thinking was that he had interacted with her somehow. He just needed to find out how.
‘You heard yet?’ asked Eddie, tossing a paper across to him.
Tom looked up. ‘I’m just trying to imagine how I’d follow a rich shopaholic. Maybe Amy didn’t notice things around her. Or the killer got too close with Mary-Jane and Grace and he watched Amy from a distance. What do you think?’
‘You really haven’t heard, have you?’
Tom turned the paper towards him. ‘What?’ He looked at the story in the Post. The NYPD had done a good job of keeping the press from linking the killings. There was enough heat after Mary-Jane’s murder, and they were already getting over fifty confessions a day. They didn’t want this to escalate. They’d be swamped. Tom read the small story about Amy Lloyd-Gardner in the paper. Another murder. The reporter had none of the gruesome details. He’d presumed a robbery and the interest level dipped to monotone prose.
‘I’ve seen this,’ said Harper. ‘If we can keep it like this, it’s good news.’
‘Yeah, that’s right, but it’s not going to stay that way,’ said Eddie.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Lafayette’s just gone in. We need to get to the briefing. Harps. You’re not going to like this.’
Tom and Eddie got to the briefing room and found a spot amongst the other detectives working the heart of the case. Lafayette was sweating. His red face looked agitated. Williamson wasn’t looking the audience in the eye. What the hell had happened? Not another body?
Lafayette craned his neck and the room slowly went quiet. ‘Okay, people. We’ve got a problem. This has been running since early this morning and we’re getting nowhere with it. I just want you all to know, we’ve been down at One PP all day using any leverage we can get and they won’t budge. Not an inch.’
‘Not an inch,’ said Williamson. ‘I’ve got a copy made, so pass these around.’ He handed a thick ream of paper to the end of the row. The pile made its slow route around the room.
‘What is it, Eddie?’
‘I ain’t gonna tell you, Tom. I don’t want to be in the firing line.’
Tom watched the pile moving up the rows.
‘Just to paint the picture,’ said Lafayette. ‘The New York Daily Echo did us the courtesy of sending across the copy this morning. They informed us that they intend to go to print tomorrow morning. They asked if any of the details in the story are inaccurate. We’ve been at them all day. Our lawyers have been trying to get this stopped, but it looks like we’ve got nothing.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Harper.
‘Read the paper, big guy. If you can’t do the long words call me over. We can sound them out together and wiki them online. Then again, it’s the Daily Echo, four syllables bad, two syllables good — one syllable even fucking better — so you should be all right. You know why they call it the Daily Echo? Once they start blabbering about something, you can never get them to shut up.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Read the report by Erin Nash. She’s an investigative reporter who has just blown our case wide open. She seems to have some hotline to the heart of the case.’
Harper had been through the papers that morning. Most of them gave the basic story about Amy Lloyd- Gardner, reflecting what the NYPD had decided to tell them. A homicide in a parking lot in suspicious circumstances. Another woman found dead. Police yet to comment. No one, so far, was linking Mary-Jane, Grace and Amy, and the cops hadn’t released any of the details. The pile of tomorrow’s paper then arrived in Harper’s hand. He took one and passed the pile to Eddie. He stared down at the Daily Echo. The headline kind of spat at you in large red and black print.
SERIAL KILLER STRIKES NEW YORK AN AMERICAN DEVIL’S CAMPAIGN OF SLAUGHTER
by Erin Nash
New York detectives are investigating the gruesome murder of a young woman whose naked and mutilated corpse was discovered yesterday afternoon lying in an upmarket underground parking lot on East 82nd Street, a police source said.
A female shopper returning from a Park Avenue shopping spree discovered the unidentified corpse at 3.15 p.m. lying flat on its back on the dirty asphalt in a pool of blood, said the source.
The victim, described only as a wealthy white woman in her early twenties, had such severe injuries that police detectives were stunned by the extent of the overkill. The medical examiner is yet to determine the cause of her death.
A source close to the NYPD’s elite Blue Team said that the victim had been brutally raped before her chest was cut open and her heart removed. It is said that the killer pushed cherry blossom down the victim’s throat.
The corpse is the third young female victim to be found in Manhattan in the last two weeks. Detectives are speculating that the murders, all occurring in the east of the city, are the work of a single man, a serial killer dubbed the American Devil because of the way he poses his victims in religious postures.
The killer appears to be targeting rich, white women in the Upper East Side region. His aim is unclear, but is sure to strike terror into one of the world’s wealthiest and most established communities.
Harper sat up straight in his chair. Everyone had absorbed the information. There was a long silence. Every one of the cops in the room who’d worked a high-profile case knew the impact the story would have. It was like standing in front of a derelict building, with the wrecking ball about to fall. ‘They’re going to print it?’ he asked. ‘That’s the bottom line?’
‘That’s the bottom line, Tom. This goes to press in the next couple of hours. It’ll be on the newsstands tomorrow first thing, then the world and his nephew is going to come calling. And you know what they’re going to say, don’t you? They’re going to start pointing and asking why the hell didn’t Homicide let anyone know?’
‘Who the fuck is Erin Nash? And how has she got this information?’
‘We don’t know, Tom. We have no idea. The paper is keeping her well protected. We haven’t been able to speak to her.’
‘Do we even know this shit?’ said Tom. ‘It says the victim had cherry blossom in her throat.’
‘Yeah, it’s true. The Medical Examiner confirmed it. The report went up to Williamson this morning.’
‘Who did you share it with, Nate?’
‘Not a soul,’ said Nate. ‘Soon as it came in, I got pulled out and taken down to headquarters to try to talk these newspapers into sense.’
‘So how many people knew about the cherry blossom?’ asked Tom.
‘The Medical Examiner and her team. Me and the captain. A couple of other administrative staff.’
‘You think one of us is briefing the gutter press, Nate?’
‘No. No one in Blue Team would piss on his own floor. Either this is a very good investigative reporter piecing together fragments, or else I don’t know how she knows.’
‘They’re going to be all over this now,’ said Eddie. ‘She’s called him a serial killer, she’s given him a moniker. Hell, where did that name come from? The American Devil?’
‘She probably made it up,’ said Williamson. ‘Creative types do that. Make up names to scare people.’
‘What’s the plan?’ Harper asked.
‘We got a few hours to put out our own story. That’s all. We’ve got to take the initiative and roll this out ourselves. We’ve got a press conference in a couple of hours.’
‘And what about the scale of the operation we’re going to need?’
‘It’s being agreed,’ said Lafayette. ‘We’re going to double the team, keep the press pack away from you guys. I want you to keep working the case, not the fucking media.’
Harper was working the case, but his question was all about Erin Nash and where she got that privileged information. He looked at the apprehension in the faces around him. The investigation had just entered phase two.
