think?’
‘It’s very good.’
‘Even though it’s written by a civilian?’
‘Even so. It reads good. Shit, Denise, it’s very good. You’ve brought him to life.’
‘You’re not going to call this a load of psychobabble?’
‘Not this time.’
‘You think they’ll use it?’
‘I guess that they will.’
‘So,’ said Denise, ‘do we know where he buy his socks?’
Tom looked at her. ‘Yeah, we know. He doesn’t buy them — his wife does.’
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The Met
November 27, 10.35 a.m.
Straight after they agreed all aspects of the profile, Denise and Tom left his apartment and continued their conversation over breakfast in a coffee house for another couple of hours. By the end of that time Tom was convinced he should do something with Denise’s profile.
He called Eddie Kasper. He couldn’t meet him at the station house, so they agreed to meet on the steps of the Met, a short walk from Harper’s apartment and a shorter walk to the murder sites on the Upper East Side.
When Denise and Harper arrived at the elegant steps leading up to the stone facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art they stood for a moment and looked at each other in the winter sunlight. Tom was preoccupied. He felt guilty about his late night dance, the subsequent kissing. It was supposed to show him he was over Lisa, but it had just brought her back to life. He still felt connected. He needed to get out of the deep tracks in his own mind and there was only one way he knew — Denise Levene’s way: an elastic band. He snapped it hard against his wrist and looked up at the cool grey facade of the museum. A text message interrupted him.
‘It’s Eddie,’ he said.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s inside pretending he loves art. It’s a surefire way to get a date.’
‘What happened to the last love of his life?’
‘Like a firework — they burn bright, but die out quick.’
Tom and Denise waited in the lobby until Eddie Kasper drifted across in a sports jacket. He was smiling.
‘Look the fuck at this,’ he said, holding up a small piece of paper. ‘I got three numbers here inside of ten minutes. This place is like some secret garden of available hotties. Why you never tell me about this place, Harps?’
‘Just as long as they didn’t ask you about the paintings,’ said Tom.
‘Fuck that, I’ve got that critical look down to a fine art. I suck my cheeks and say, well, you know, you got to ask yourself, what was the artist trying to say, you know, we got to throw our minds way back to understand all of this.’
‘Nice threads,’ said Denise, smiling at the jacket.
‘You offering your number too?’ Eddie held out his scrap of paper.
‘Only when you need therapy, which is going to be soon.’
They walked across the polished stone floors until they found a quiet room, where they sat in a line on the bench.
Harper shuffled for a moment. ‘Thanks for hearing me out a moment. Denise has been researching and working up a profile.’
Kasper nodded, ‘Least someone has. FBI profilers say that our pattern killer is too indistinct. They won’t give us a line in case it’s wrong and we point the finger their way. There’s nothing they say we can go public on. And we’ve got nothing new on the case down at the station house. The new lead, Detective Lassiter, is still clearing his throat.’
Harper half smiled. ‘Listen, they’re wrong. Denise has a profile of the guy. It’s very good. It’s based on his behaviour patterns. Imagine what his wife would see and you’ll get the picture. She’ll see a violent, preoccupied and secretive husband who shows small signs of the kills. He’ll have dirty fingernails, scratches, blood stains, and he’ll make frequent changes of clothes and stay away from home.’
Eddie looked hard at Tom. ‘You serious, Tom?’
‘Yeah, it’s a good profile.’
‘No, I mean about praising someone else for casework? Are you ill or something?’
‘Hey, I praise when it’s due, which isn’t often.’
‘Denise,’ said Eddie, ‘you need a medal for getting a good word out of this sonofabitch. Can I be the first to congratulate you?’
‘Knock it off, Eddie. Just tell us — do you think you can get Lafayette and Lassiter to go public with this? The killer’s wife knows him. She’ll recognize him. It’s a chance.’
‘We publish these telltale signs of the killer and wait until she calls? Is that what you’re saying?’ said Eddie.
‘Yeah. Exactly.’
‘I’ll try for you both. You know Lafayette thinks Denise is a good thing and Lassiter will want to look like he’s making a difference, so it might be okay.’
‘We also think that there’s more to find out about where Lottie was held for four days before she was murdered. I want to look into it,’ said Tom.
‘Why? Lottie Bixley’s got nothing to do with Sebastian.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. I found cherry blossom at the scene, which is something. In the profile, we suggest that maybe the family were away from home for the four days Lottie was held.’
‘That’s a long shot,’ said Eddie.
‘Just go with it,’ said Tom. ‘Listen, I went back through the case in my mind and we didn’t even start to do work on Lottie’s murder. We were preoccupied with the Kitty situation. Things got messy and then I was off the case. We need to speak to some people who knew Lottie. There might be some play in checking out her last movements.’
‘Maybe,’ said Eddie. ‘Denise, what do you think?’
‘We need to look into it,’ said Denise. ‘My take is that Lottie might have been an opportunity he couldn’t bear to miss, so he may have made mistakes there that we haven’t spotted.’
‘Okay,’ said Kasper. ‘I get it that Lottie is a different package. You’re saying it’s like someone likes real fine food but sometimes they just want a good old hamburger.’
‘Yeah, something like that,’ said Denise.
‘For some reason,’ said Tom, ‘whoever killed Lottie held her for four days and then discarded her quickly. We got to figure what happened.’
‘So we need to go speak to some hookers,’ said Eddie. ‘See if we can get anyone talking.’
On the way over to Lottie Bixley’s last known location, Eddie Kasper stopped at the station house to pass Denise’s profile to Lafayette at Blue Team. Captain Lafayette looked at it gratefully and promised to consider it carefully. He agreed that they needed something to big-up the department’s efforts after the debacle with Winston Carlisle and this would keep the hungry mouths at One Police Plaza quiet for a day or two.
If Lafayette could get the executives to agree to the profile, every newspaper would run the short 500-word description covering her key points. The headline would read: ‘Is This Your Husband Or Boyfriend?’ There would be many across New York having sleepless nights.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
