Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [17]
Lee laid a hand on the bust of Beethoven, the metal cold and hard under his palm. “You think this is about my sister, don’t you?”
Nelson raised his left eyebrow. “This victim is about the same age Laura was when she…” he looked away as if embarrassed.
Lee’s grip on the bust tightened. “When she died,” he said.
Even though Laura’s body had never been found, Lee was certain that his sister was dead. He had known it from the very day of her disappearance, so finally and irrevocably that the countless questions and speculations from well-meaning friends, family, and news reporters became intolerable. “She’s dead!” he wanted to scream at them. “Isn’t it obvious?” But his mother’s denial was like a wall of granite between them.
He needed no such pretense around Nelson, who understood the inside of a criminal’s mind better than anyone Lee knew. Looking unblinkingly at hard human truths was what the criminal psychologist did, his raison d’être.
“She is dead, you know,” Lee said, his voice as steady as he could manage. “And like it or not, to some degree, for me every case is about Laura.”
Nelson sighed. “All right. I just think maybe you’re getting in too deep too soon.”
Lee paced the small room impatiently. “I know I can see into this killer, if I can only get a chance! I’m already beginning to see his patterns at work—”
“What patterns? There’s only been one body.”
He stopped pacing and faced Nelson. “Oh, no, that’s where you’re wrong. There’s another one—I’m sure of it.”
“I didn’t hear any—” Nelson put his hand to his forehead. “Wait a minute—there was a girl out in Queens a few weeks ago, a Jane Doe. Is that the one you mean?”
“Yes,” Lee said. “They called her ‘Jane Doe Number Five.’ I’m certain the two are linked.”
“Same signature?”
“Not exactly, but—”
“Wasn’t the girl in Queens found outdoors—not far from Greenlawn Cemetery, if I remember?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t far from a church, and I’m convinced that he would have left her there if something hadn’t stopped him.”
Nelson rubbed his chin, thick with reddish-brown beard stubble.
“I’ll be damned. I wonder if there are others.”
“I don’t think so. The Queens killing was hurried, opportunistic. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was completely unplanned. The one yesterday was much more organized, very carefully thought out. And he—” Lee paused and looked at Nelson.
“He what?”
“It hasn’t been released to the public, but he carved her up.”
Nelson sucked in a large quantity of smoke and flicked cigarette ash into a solid green jade ashtray he had brought back from Turkey.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“The words to the Lord’s Prayer—or at least the beginning of it. Post mortem, thank God.”
“Jesus.”
“That took some time to do.”
Nelson rubbed a hand over his face. “God, Lee, I’m still afraid you’ll be getting in over your head on this one. Are you taking your medication?”
Lee fished a bottle of pills from his jacket and held them in front of Nelson’s nose. Nelson studied the bottle.
“Not much of a dosage. When Karen was sick I was on twice that much.”
Lee put the bottle back in his pocket. “This stuff is expensive.”
Nelson gave a laugh—a short, mirthless puff of air. “Tell me about it.”
Lee looked out the window at the cars and pedestrians on Tenth Avenue, everyone hustling up the avenue—jostling, honking, competing for space in the rush hour traffic, all in a big hurry to get somewhere, to be part of the endless, restless motion that is New York City. He remembered being one of those people, before depression came along, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him facedown into the pavement.
The view from down there was different. It was strange to look up and see people still hurrying along with their lives intact, while for him just getting out of bed was an act of enormous willpower. Now, looking down at them on the street below, he had the same feeling of distance, of being an alien in a world where everyone except him seemed to know where they were going. He envied them, but he also felt