Meanwhile advantage the Claw.
So much wasted effort and time. Translating into eight wasted lives, he thought. When he was a kid he had seen the movie Psycho, and it had left an indelible mark on him. It changed the way movies dealt with bad guys and heroines when Bates murdered Janet Leigh in the shower scene. There was no boyfriend running in at the last moment to save her, no cops or cavalry to the rescue, and somehow, even as a child Rychman understood the simple truth that real life seldom meant justice or fairness, or saved-in-the-nick-of-time happy endings. Still, he had wanted to be a cop; he'd wanted to be one of the good guys, and do whatever he could wherever he could to at least make reality bearable. And what had it gotten him? A divorce, the estrangement of his kids and a nasty fight ahead for Eldritch's job, if he had the stamina to go through with it. There were a lot of people who were behind him, but most of these had their own agendas. “Hell,” he moaned as he opened the car door and sprawled out on the back seat, hoping to catch a few winks.
His detectives were still rattling doors, asking questions. They were all coming up empty-handed. The woman lived alone, never had relatives or visitors over, was as quiet and unimposing as a church mouse. Neighbors used to see her waiting for the bus on the corner.
Then who in hell was the old woman? What was the connection? Was there a connection, or was the Claw having them all on once more? Some sense of humor, he thought. But there must be something that attracted this demonic killer to his victims in the first place; something the two of them had in com-mon, some shred of a connection. But what could it be?
He played over the similarities and the differences again in his head. All the victims were women who were alone when they were attacked. In no instance had the killer dared attack a woman in the company of a man. The attacks appeared random, but he knew that random violence was unlikely, that what at first appeared random very often was far from it. No, the Claw had a plan, however bizarre the plan might be. There was nothing random about the killer's obvious decision to murder women only. The bastard either feared men or had no interest in feeding on male organs. Why? The bastard was a coward at heart, afraid to attack even two women together, it would appear, since the new victims had been attacked at separate locations.
“ Captain, Captain!” Lou Pierce interrupted his thoughts. “We've got word on the old woman.”
Rychman had no idea how long he had been lying in the car, but a glance at his clock told him it was almost 6 A.M. “A positive ID, Lou?”
“ Amelia Phillips. The super in her building reported her missing. Her place was searched a few hours ago by some guys in the 23rd. The place was a mess and there was blood, but no body. Missing Persons put two and two together, had someone go down to the morgue to ID her, and voila.”
“ Good to know somebody around here can still put two and two together. All right, hop in and let's have a look at her place.”
“ You want me to drive, Captain?”
“ Good idea, Lou. Dr. Coran get back okay?”
“ I dropped her and Dr. Darius off at the morgue.”
“ She'll wanta hear about this. See if you can get dispatch to put us through.” But dispatch was unable to reach her or Darius. The two had seemingly disappeared. Only Simon Archer was available to take the call. He took the address and said he would be right behind them, and that he was sorry but he didn't know where the other two M.E. s had gone.
On the way to the second crime scene, a Brooklyn apartment out of the 23rd Precinct's jurisdiction, but not out of the jurisdiction of the citywide task force, Rychman learned that Amelia Phillips was a live-alone with multiple health problems that'd turned her into a recluse. When she did venture out, she might visit the corner store, the free clinic or the neighborhood park where she fed popcorn and seeds to squirrels and pigeons.
Once at her apartment, Rychman could see at a glance just how close to the bone the woman lived. Her fridge was bare, and her cupboard was scantily stocked with a handful of tuna and soup cans, a box of Saltines and a bag of Fig Newtons gone stale according to O’Toole, whom Alan had found munching in the kitchen. The woman's furniture was early Salvation Army and had come with the apartment, but she kept the place neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in its place. So the ugly red stain on the hardwood floor, indicating the likeliest place where Amelia Phillips had died, seemed that much more alien here in this place she called home.
No forced entry-nothing to indicate she had any reason to fear her attacker any more than the Olin woman seemed to have had-gave Rychman a glimmer of hope. If both women knew their attacker, then some thread of commonality existed between these two victims which had gone unnoticed among the previous victims. Somewhere in each woman's past she had crossed the path of the Claw before last night, and when he came to call, each in turn had allowed him inside. Perhaps he was a neighbor, someone to be trusted, someone clever and cunning who had targeted these women in anything other than a random way after all.
“ This… this is dreadful,” whispered the building superintendent who'd crept in behind the detectives. Rychman thought the super was understandably upset by a tenant's death until he heard the man telling Lou that it was going to be hell to get the bloodstains up if they were allowed to remain much longer, and this would make renting out the place even more difficult in these recessionary times. He also complained of a missing rug.
“ What kind of a rug?” asked Rychman sharply.
“ An expensive one, Oriental.”
“ Hers or yours?”
“ Mine… at least, it was.”
“ Whataya mean, was? Either it belonged to you or it didn't.”
“ I didn't get it in writing. It was the only thing she had of worth, and she purchased her last month's rent with it. I figured it lent the place a touch of class, and if she moved out and it stayed, I figured… well, I figured…”
“ I get the picture, Mr. ahhh…”
“ Gwinn, Donald W.,” he told Lou, who was jotting information down on a notepad.
“ And the rug was here the last time you saw her here?” Rychman asked.
“ It was.”
“ And when was that, sir?”
“ Yesterday afternoon. Then I knocked on the door about nine, but I got no answer. I was supposed to look at some pipes; been puttin' it off. So I think it's odd she don't answer, on account she's always in after dark, you know, and so I tried again at ten, because the next day's my day off, and I didn't want her calling down and disturbing me. So when she didn't answer again, I used my passkey, and this is what I find.”
“ But you didn't call the police until ten-twenty?”
“ I did some looking around. Thought she might've been trying to ditch out on me. Another month's rent was coming due, and the rug was gone. I figured the blood was just her way of, you know, throwing me off. She was smart, that old bag. She'd been a teacher at some college once down South, and she was putting me on all the time. Used to be we had a nice relationship when her checks came in on time.”
“ Welfare checks?” That and sometimes she got money from her daughter, or so she claimed. That's her on the bureau.” He pointed to a picture of a rather plain young face. Beside this was a picture of the same young woman with a man, their arms entwined.
“ That's the daughter. Never comes around.”
Rychman stared at the black-and-white photos, realizing they were somewhat old. He slipped one from its holder and scanned the back for any notations. There were none, only the marks of the processor and the date, 1952.
“ This isn't her daughter,” Rychman concluded.
“ What?”
“ This is her, when she was young.”
“ Damn, then the old girl did have me fooled,” said Gwinn. “According to her, that was her daughter and son- in-law, some big-shot lawyer in Florida where the kids lived with her newborn grandchild.”
“ A boy or a girl, Mr. Gwinn?” asked Rychman, shaking his head.
Rychman considered the fact the killer hadn't bothered to clean up after himself, but the amount of blood on the floor was not enough to account for the condition of Mrs. Phillips' remains. “She was obviously carried out of here rolled in your rug, Mr. Gwinn, which has not been located.” He turned to Pierce. “Lou, I want our people to fan out and crisscross this neighborhood and speak to everyone within sight of this place about seeing a man carrying a
