Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [50]
The detective who had been talking to the janitor had finished with him, and walked over to where Lee and Chuck stood. He carried a small notebook, an essential tool for any detective, and was dressed in the usual “uniform”: a tan raincoat over a somber suit, black shoes, dark socks. Lee wondered why the man was dressed this way on a Saturday afternoon. It seemed a little out of the ordinary on a weekend, but maybe he was already on duty when the call came in.
Chuck made the introductions. “Detective Florette, this is Lee Campbell. Lee, this is Detective Clyde Florette, Brooklyn SVU.” SVU was short for Special Victims Unit, which dealt exclusively with sex crimes.
“How do you do?” Clyde Florette reached for Lee’s hand. His grip was firm and assertive without being aggressive. He was the physical opposite of Detective Butts: a tall black man, slim and elegant, with slicked-back graying hair. His features were too aquiline to be conventionally handsome, with thin lips and a long nose, but with his neatly trimmed graying beard and luminous eyes, Lee guessed that women went for him, especially the ones who liked the professorial type. His voice was low and cultured, with a hint of an island lilt—from Haiti, perhaps, or Barbados.
“Captain Morton tells me that you’re working on a multiple, and that this is his second victim,” Florette said. “Multiple” was police shorthand for “multiple homicides,” and like a lot of cop jargon, it fell stiffly on Lee’s ears. It seemed to him the lingo itself was an attempt to distance cops from the things they encountered in the line of duty.
“That’s right,” Lee answered, “except that it’s his third victim.”
Detective Florette raised an eyebrow and looked at Morton.
“We haven’t yet determined that,” Chuck said, an edge of irritation in his voice.
“Well, whether this is his second or third,” Florette went on, “he somehow managed to get in and out of here without anyone seeing him. I got zip from the janitor, likewise the chaplain, who says he was in his office for part of the afternoon.” He nodded in the direction of the dead girl; a team from the medical examiner’s office was bending over her. “She’s only dead three, maybe four hours, according to the body temp, when the janitor found her.”
Since body temperature fell one to two degrees Fahrenheit per hour after death, on average, undoubtedly one of the first things the ME team had done was to measure the girl’s temperature.
Lee said, “That means he brought her in here in broad daylight, and yet no one saw him.”
Florette frowned. “How could he do that? Wouldn’t someone have seen him?”
Lee considered the question. “Somehow, he must have found a way to sedate her.”
“For a while,” Florette added. “She obviously struggled once he got her here.”
“Maybe she didn’t even look like a person at all,” Morton suggested. “Maybe he brought her in a bag or container of some kind.”
“That would make sense,” Lee agreed.
“I’ll do a complete sweep of the building and see if we can come up with anything,” Florette said. “I also want to talk to your primary on the Bronx girl…. what’s his name? Detective Butts?”
“That’s right,” Chuck said. “We tried to reach him, but his daughter says he took his wife to a matinee, and he’s turned off his cell phone.”
“Well, give him my number and tell him to call me as soon as he can.”
They all looked at the dead girl, her skin already turning bluish white as the blood drained away. The carved words stood out against the pale skin. Hallowed be thy name. The wounds were the color of dried rust.
“I suppose the brass could establish a task force on this guy, right?” Florette said.
“They might,” Chuck answered.
“In that case, Detective Butts would be the primary from now on,” Florette said, looking down at his polished shoes, and Lee could sense the reluctance in his voice. He understood the way the system worked, but once cops got a case, they didn’t like to let go—especially when they were homicide detectives, and especially when the victim was a young girl. Lee had