And it sounds as if he’s reacting to threat. At the core, psychotics are helpless, no? Fear biters, not attack dogs.”
“True.”
“What a mess,” said Shacker. “Poor Vita. All the others, as well.”
Just before we turned onto Butler, Alex Shimoff called back.
“You need another masterpiece, Lieutenant?”
“You’re the man, Detective.”
“Last time was easy,” said Shimoff. “Dr. Delaware’s girlfriend had a good eye for detail, she gave me a lot to work with.”
“Nothing like a challenge,” said Milo.
“I’m married with children, I know about challenge. Sure, what’s your schedule?”
“I’ll get back to you with a time and place.”
“Tomorrow would be good,” said Shimoff. “Got a day off, my wife wants me to take her shopping, you can help me get out of it.”
Back at his desk, Milo phoned D.C. Maria Thomas, told her of his intention to release a suspect drawing and the question marks to the media, asked her to facilitate with Public Affairs.
She said, “Cart before horse, Milo.”
“Pardon?”
“Go get your rendering but nothing gets facilitated until the basic decision is reified. That’s a fancy word for it turns real. That means the chief clears it.”
“His orders?”
“Do anyone else’s matter?”
She hung up. Milo cursed and called Margaret Wheeling. She’d had enough time to retreat from the offer to cooperate, claimed she really hadn’t seen the man in the shearling well enough to be useful. He worked with her for a while to get her to agree to the sit-down with Shimoff.
He was reaching for a panatela when his phone rang. “Homicide, Sturgis.”
“Better be,” said a raspy, Brooklyn-tinged voice. “This is your fucking extension.”
“Afternoon, sir.”
The chief said, “When all else fails go the artistic route?”
“Whatever works, sir.”
“You have enough to turn out a decent enough drawing? ’Cause we probably won’t get more than one bite of the apple and I don’t want to waste it on some ambiguous bullshit.”
“Me neither, sir, but at this point-”
“Nothing else has worked, you’re stuck, you’re freaking out about more victims popping up. I get it, Sturgis. Which is why I swallowed my pride and put in a call to a guy I know at the Bureau who is a lard-ass pencil-pusher but used to be a behavioral sciences honcho at Quantico. Not that I think their bullshit profiles are more than a carny show, which is why I called him personally, said forget your stupid questionnaire and just give me something off the top of your head about a loony who snaps necks then cuts out guts and plays with them. He gave me big- time Ph. D. wisdom, so now you’re going to hear it: white male, twenty-five to fifty, probably a loner, probably doesn’t have a happy domestic life, probably going to be living in a weird home situation, probably jacks off when he thinks about what he did. That any worse than what Delaware’s given you so far? So what does this suspect whose image you want to foist on a neurotic public look like?”
“White, thirty to forty.”
“There you go,” said the chief. “Science.”
Milo said, “He wears a heavy coat in all sorts of weather.”
“Big deal, he’s concealing a weapon.”
“That could be part of it, sir, but Dr. Delaware says it could be a sign of mental illness.”
“Does he?” The chief laughed. “Big fucking genius. I’d say ripping people’s intestines out covers that base pretty well.”
I said, “It sure does.”
Silence.
“I figured you were there, Doctor. How’s life treating you?”
“Fine.”
“That makes one of us. Charlie sends his regards.”
Charlie was his son and the regards part was a lie. A brilliant, alienated kid, he’d asked me to write a college recommendation, emailed me a couple of times a month from the seminary he was using to defer college.
He hated, loved, feared his father, would never use him for a messenger.
I said, “Hope he’s doing well.”
“He’s being Charlie. By the way, the department still owes you some consult money on the last one.”
“True.”
“You haven’t bugged my office about it.”
“Would it have helped?”
Dead air. “Your loyalty in the face of our bureaucratic ineptitude is laudable, Doc. So you concur that broadcasting this lunatic’s face is a good idea?”
“I think if we keep the information tight it’s got potential.”
“What does tight mean?”
“Limit it to the artist rendering and the question marks and don’t let on that anyone could theoretically be a victim.”
“Yeah, that would set off some skivvy-soiling panic, wouldn’t it? Speaking of those question marks, what the hell do they mean? The FBI guy said he’d never seen that before. Checked his files and there was nothing. Only similar gutting was Jack the Ripper and there were enough differences between our boy and Jack to make that avenue a dead end.”
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“What the question marks mean.”
“So much for higher education… what do you think about releasing details on the coat? Could jog some citizen’s memory.”
“It might also cause the bad guy to ditch the coat and you’d lose potential evidence.”
Silence. “Yeah, there could be spatter on the fucking thing, gut juice, whatever. Okay, keep it tight. But you could still be screwed-I’m talking to you, Sturgis. He sees himself on the six o’clock, he rabbits.”
“There’s always that chance, sir.”
Another silence, longer.
The chief said, “Doctor, what’s your take on another victim coming up sooner rather than later?”
“Hard to say.”
“That all you do? Sidestep questions?”
“That’s a poser, Chief.”
“Shrink humor,” he said. “I wouldn’t count on getting a sitcom anytime in the near future. You still awake, Sturgis?”
“Wide awake.”
“Stay that way.”
“God forbid I should sleep, sir.”
“More to the point,” said the chief. “I forbid.”
CHAPTER
23
