'Fetishism-you mean like a fixation on shoes or women's underwear, somethin' like that?'
'Right. And that isn't illegal.'
'Not yet, anyway,' Florette remarked glumly. 'Though if this administration had its way-'
'Also, wouldn't that kind of behavior tend to be pretty private?' Chuck asked, turning to open a window. The frigid February air felt good as it rushed into the room.
'Right,' said Lee. 'He's a voyeur, obviously, but that too can be hard to spot, especially if he's careful. He's not breaking and entering to get his victims, so he's abducting them outside their homes.'
'That means less chance of leaving forensic evidence behind,' Chuck pointed out, bending down to pick up some papers the wind had blown off his desk.
'Exactly,' Nelson said. 'And the wide dispersal of victims means he's comfortable in a large geographic area.'
Lee pointed to the map on the wall, placing his finger on the red tack indicating the location where Pamela Stavros's body had been found.
'One of the reasons it's important that we include Pamela Stavros as the first known victim is that most likely this is the borough where the killer lives.'
Butts frowned again. 'Really? How do you figure?'
'Well, he's most likely to live nearest to his first victim,' Nelson said. 'It's where he feels most comfortable- closest to home. After that, he's more likely to branch out, but statistically, he will kill for the first time close to home.'
'He may have other attempts in his past, where he tried but failed to abduct a girl,' Lee pointed out. 'You should send that to the media for possible leads.'
'Right,' said Chuck.
'Isn't there usually a stressor of some kind that sets these guys off?' Florette asked.
'Usually, but not always,' Lee replied.
'Like what?' Butts asked.
'Oh, it could be anything-loss of a job, death of a parent, being dumped by a girlfriend. Something like that… an event that a normal person could handle, but which sends these guys over the edge.'
'Look, Annie O'Donnell's funeral is day after tomorrow,' Chuck said. 'I was thinking-'
'One of us should be there?' Nelson interrupted.
'Returning to the scene of the crime,' Florette murmured, running his elegant fingertips over the arm of his chair.
'Some criminals get a lot of pleasure from observing the results of their crimes,' Lee observed.
Butts frowned and kicked at the wastebasket. 'That always really fries me, you know.'
'Detective Butts,' Nelson remarked, 'I'm sure that we're all equally upset by these events, but do you think it's really necessary to express yourself constantly on the subject?'
Butts blinked twice, and his mouth moved like a fish gulping for air.
'All right, that's enough,' said Chuck. 'Let's focus.'
'I'd like to cover the funeral,' said Lee.
'Do you believe the UNSUB is likely to make an appearance?' Florette asked, removing a pair of glasses from his breast pocket and cleaning them with a crisp white handkerchief.
'It's not unusual for them to show up,' Nelson replied.
'Okay,' Chuck said. 'You've got the funeral, Lee.'
'But if he already took a shot at Lee-' Nelson protested, but Lee cut him off.
'We don't know whether the shot was even intended for me.'
'Right,' Chuck agreed. 'And no one is likely pull out a gun at a daytime funeral in Westchester. It's not the same thing as shooting at someone on Third Avenue at night. Detective Florette, I'd like you to start an investigation of the churches involved so far-find out what, if anything, they have in common.'
'Right,' Florette said, rising from his chair. 'I'll get right on it.'
Lee looked around the room at the others. The mood had visibly darkened. Butts slumped back in his chair, forgetting all about picking a fight with Nelson. Somehow, putting a name to Jane Doe Number Five didn't help things. Now they had a name to go with a victim, but they still didn't have a killer.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Annie O'Donnell's funeral was held in Hastings, one of the quaint Westchester towns dotting the Hudson Valley like puffballs after a spring rain. Lee took Metro North from Grand Central, catching the 12:15 local train on the Harlem Line, arriving in Hastings in forty minutes flat. He had convinced Chuck to remove the plainclothes cops who had been tailing him, as their presence at the funeral would be too conspicuous. The train station was down by the water, but it wasn't far to the church. He walked up the long road that curved inland from the river. Hastings was perched on the bluffs that rose from the banks of the Hudson, its waterfront buildings looking down over the moody currents of the great river. Clouds swung low over the sluggishly moving gray water, and seagulls swooped low over the river's opaque surface, searching for fish.
The church was a modest white clapboard affair, not very grand by Catholic standards. Except for the sepia tones of the grass on the church lawn, black and gray dominated the landscape. The drab February sky hung low over the mourners, not even a suggestion of sunlight filtering through the flat gray cloud cover. The monochromatic setting, the dark suits of the mourners as they stood in a little clump outside the white wooden church, all reminded Lee of a scene from a black-and-white film. A shiny black hearse was parked in the driveway, waiting for the slow, stately crawl to the cemetery.
The ceremony was just ending as Lee arrived. As he walked up the flagstone path, one of the mourners emerged from the church carrying a bouquet of red carnations, bright as a splash of fresh blood against her black dress.
A solitary crow perched atop a low branch of a black oak, observing the scene with its head cocked to one side, its bright eyes sharp as pine needles. The tree's trunk was darkened by the recent rain, the rough black bark still visibly damp, tiny droplets of water tucked into the deep crevices. The crow gave a low, hoarse caw and took off from its branch, ascending rapidly into the dun-colored sky in a flurry of flapping wings.
Lee watched it rise and disappear over a copse of trees as a light mist fell on the already soggy ground. The small clump of journalists looked miserable, huddled under their huge black umbrellas, cameras tucked under their raincoats. He studied them. Most were young, probably greenhorns still on probation with their cranky, overstressed bosses. None of them had the look of established stars or even up-and-comers-this was hardly a plum assignment, covering the funeral of the unfortunate victim. The real stars would get to cover the discovery of the body, police press briefings, that kind of thing.
Lee watched the mourners leaving the church, searching for any unusual aspect of appearance or behavior that stuck out-anything that didn't quite fit. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but hoped he would recognize it when he saw it.
He scanned the crowd of mourners. Their faces were suitably solemn, some swollen and red-eyed from grief, most of them pale and pasty in the feeble sun. A tall, sandy-haired man with handsome Irish features emerged from the church, supporting a slight, black-haired woman on his arm. She wore a long black veil, but the devastation on her face was clear even through the gauzy material. Obviously they were Annie's parents. The daughter took after her mother, with her wavy black hair-the so-called Black Irish, whose curly dark hair was a remnant of their Italian conquerors of centuries past. Annie's mother had the same delicate white skin as her daughter, though, bespeaking her Northern European ancestry.
Her father had the kind of Irish good looks Lee saw all over New York City: square, broad forehead, deep-set blue eyes, his prominent jaw jutting out beneath a thin, determined mouth. His ruddy, wind-burned skin was the complexion of someone who spent his time out herding sheep on the moors instead of working at an accounting firm. He had the big, blunt hands of a shepherd, not an accountant.
The rest of the crowd was varied-friends and family, as well as neighbors and schoolmates. A dozen or so young people of college age gathered in a little group to one side. As the O'Donnells made their way down the
