Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [86]
“So, um, did she suffer much?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Lee replied gently. “The attack would have been sudden—it all happened before she realized what was going on.”
“So she didn’t fight back, get in a few swings at the bastard?” Mr. Stavros hissed, his bulldog face reddening.
“There wasn’t time for that,” Lee answered. What he didn’t add was that there was time for her to realize she was being strangled, to look up into the last face she would ever see—the face of her killer.
Mrs. Stavros let out a sigh—a thin, hopeless sound, like air escaping from a balloon. Lee felt sorry for this quiet woman whose one source of comfort had been snatched from her.
“So if she didn’t fight back, that means the killer’s got no marks on him either,” Ted Stavros remarked, displaying more intelligence than Lee would have credited him with.
“Right,” said Chuck.
Had she fought back—scratching, biting, maybe—there might be DNA samples of his skin under her fingernails. But they had no such forensic evidence. In fact, they had zip—nothing at all. They might as well be chasing a ghost.
Chapter Thirty-eight
“So you’re determined to play this out and not go to a doctor?” Chuck demanded as the two of them walked south on First Avenue. They had put the Stavroses in a cab, then headed downtown toward the Ninth Precinct. The sky was a dull gray—a typical February day in Manhattan. Even the trees looked cold, their bare black branches thrust upward in supplication to the unforgiving heavens.
“Look,” Lee replied. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go. But I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“You don’t think anything’s broken,” Chuck said with disgust. “Jesus Christ. What is it with you, Campbell? This isn’t a goddamn rugby game!”
“Let’s just say I’ve had enough of doctors and hospitals for a while.”
That shut Chuck up. Neither of them really wanted to talk about Lee’s nervous breakdown right now.
“Have you heard anything from the guys at the Chinatown precinct?” Chuck asked as they passed a row of food vendors lining the eastern side of First Avenue in front of Bellevue Hospital. People were lined up outside the carts, smoking cigarettes, talking, counting their money as they waited for their souvlakis, hot dogs, and shish kebabs.
“I don’t think they really have much evidence to go on,” Lee answered. “I’ll go down and make a full report later today.”
“Yeah,” Chuck said, stepping aside as a small boy escaped from his mother’s grasp and lurched toward him, arms outstretched. She ran after him, her pretty face lined with stress. She smiled at them apologetically as she scooped up her son.
Both Lee and Chuck knew nothing would come of the report, but they had to go through the motions anyway. “It does sound like they were professionals,” Chuck said. “I wonder how long they were following you.”
“I don’t know. They chose a good time to attack: it was a Sunday night, and the platform was deserted.”
“Yeah,” Chuck agreed. “Look, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to take some time off—you know, maybe get some rest.”
“Are you taking me off the case?”
Chuck paused as an ambulance rattled past them up First Avenue, lights flashing, siren screaming. “No,” he said. “I just think that—”
“Good,” Lee interrupted. “Then let’s talk about the case, okay?”
“I’m just worried about you. Whoever did this to you—”
“Whoever did this to me does not fit the profile of the Slasher.”
Chuck frowned. “So you don’t think there’s a connection?”
“I don’t know,” he answered as they continued walking.
“I was trying to think why he would target you in particular. I guess because you saw his face.”
“Could be. Or maybe there’s no connection.” Secretly Lee believed there was a connection, but he wasn’t about to say that.
“So you don’t like the boyfriend for Pamela’s death?”
“Nope.”
The two of them walked along for a while, passing Twenty-third Street, where a long line of people were waiting for the crosstown bus. They all had the look of middle-of-the-week