Don't Look Now (2 page)

‘Certainly,’ she said.

Paris steadied Lawrence, guiding him to a bar-stool. ‘Don’t worry about it, Danny. How long can McGuinn have? Another fifteen, twenty years, tops.’ Carl McGuinn was a captain at the Fourth District. Hardass lifer. Nobody trusted him because he didn’t drink, which was hard to believe about a man named Mc-Anything. ‘Doesn’t matter anyway. Eighteen months, you’re gonna make detective.’

Danny sat down hard and zeroed in on the glass that Vic Ianelli had placed on the bar in front of him. After a few moments, he knocked it back in one gulp. ‘So tell me, Jack,’ Danny said. ‘How’d you know when it was time?’

‘Time? Time for what?’

‘You know. Time to give it up. Time to get married.’

‘Me? You’re asking
me
that question?’

‘You were married, right?’

‘Twelve years.’

‘You had to be happy for a while, no?’ Danny tried a second cigarette, but that one fell out of his mouth too. ‘Weren’t you?’

‘Yeah, we were,’ Paris said. ‘But things change. People change. And it takes a certain kind of woman to be a cop’s wife.’

‘Yeah? What kind of woman?’

‘I’m not really sure. All I know is
I
didn’t find her,’ Paris said. ‘Why? Are you in love, Danny? Is that what this is all about?’

‘Head over high heels, Jack.’ He clutched his heart with what looked like real pain.

‘Live with her first,’ Paris said. ‘That’s my advice to you. Live with her. Spend a couple of years in the same bathroom, the same kitchen, the same car, the same bed. See how enchanting she is when she snores and farts and makes noises when she eats and uses your razor to shave her legs. If you still think that’s cute after a couple of years, go for it.’

‘But I know now, Jack.’

‘No, you
think
you know now.’

‘I do too know,’ Danny slurred, trailing off, sounding unconvinced. He looked balefully at Nedra, who reached out and smoothed the hair across his forehead.

‘Sure you do,’ Paris said, catching Victor’s eye.

The barman nodded. He would start watering Danny’s drinks.

Paris left the lovesick Danny Lawrence in Nedra’s more than capable hands and made his way to the men’s room. As he washed his hands he caught his reflection in the barely silvered mirror, or what passed for a mirror at the Caprice. At least a dozen times Paris had told Vic and Marie Ianelli, the owners, that cops were probably the vainest people on the planet, they needed a better mirror. There was even loose talk about a fund to improve the lighting in the Caprice’s johns, in the hope that Vic would get the message. Regardless, a bare bulb on a bare wire remained, and looking into the mirror at the Caprice was like looking into a flattened-out saucepan.

Paris noticed with a spike of dismay that some of the silver that was missing from the mirror was starting to show up in his hair. He brought himself close to his reflection; a droopy, fun-house face stared back. Bleary eyes, heavy lids, midnight shadow. He poked at his hair.

He knew that all men, regardless of race, color, religion or country of origin, have one thing that they rely upon to get them laid throughout their lives. For some guys it’s an athletic ability or a talent of some sort. Rock stars and jocks who are ugly enough to clog a drain get laid all the time. For some guys it’s their intellect. For others it could be their shoulders, their cars, their dicks, their apartments, their eyes, their attitudes – who the hell knows with women?

The point was, if you’re a man, and you get laid more than once in your lifetime, there’s a reason. And for Jack Paris, it was his hair. He had great hair. And a quick sense of humor. He could always make a woman laugh.

Except, of course, a woman named Beth Shefler-Paris.

The day he lost the ability to make her laugh was the day she walked.

On his way back to the bar Paris saw Angelo Tucci, an old-time player from Murray Hill. They shook hands, embraced. Paris also spotted a pair of new recruits, female rookies, hovering around the video games. One of them, a pixieish but solid-looking little blonde in her early twenties, smiled at Paris when he walked by.

Before he could spin around his cell phone rang.

He looked at the number in the light thrown by one of the neon beer signs. At first he didn’t recognize it, but two and two added up in short order. Paris answered.

‘Tommy, what’s up?’

‘Hey, Jack, how ya doin’?’

Paris could hear Tommy’s signature hump music in the background.

‘From two hours ago? I’m fine, Tommy. What’s up?’ He knew very well what was up.

‘Good, good.’

‘I’m not doing it.’

‘I didn’t say a fuckin’ thing.’

‘Like I don’t know what’s coming? Jack, I’d like to introduce you to Tommy. Tommy, this is Jack. What, we just met over here?’

Pause. ‘Just this once.’

‘No.’

‘Jack, please. Be the primary on this one and it’s pastry for a month.’

‘No.’

‘Two months,’ Tommy said, his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘Jack, she’s wearing a garter belt.’

Paris was quiet for a while, working him. ‘Two months?’

‘My mother’s eyes, Jack.’

‘Pastry from where?’

‘Is Stone Oven okay?’

‘Casa Dolce,’ Paris said. He loved doing this. Casa Dolce was all the way up in Mayfield Heights.

Silence.

‘Well, gotta run,’ Paris said.

‘All right, suck my blood, Jack.’

‘I think you’re the one getting something sucked here, pal. Tough duty, is it? Putting in for hazard pay, are you? Because if you can’t handle it, I’d be glad to relieve you. Code three and I’m there in six minutes.’

Tommy laughed.

‘I want bear claws, starting tomorrow,’ Paris said. ‘I want them fresh, I want them wrapped in one sheet of that wax paper with the serrated edge and I want them delivered with a smile.’

‘You’re a prince, Jack.’

‘Prince of the city,’ Paris said. ‘Where and who?’

‘See the man. Red Valley Inn on Superior. Coroner’s already rolled.’

‘Bear claws, Tommy,’ Paris said as he scribbled down the information and the time of the call.

‘I love you, Jack,’ Tommy said. ‘And I’m not just talking a summer thing. I love you for the man you are, the man you’ve helped me become. I
will
call you in the city.’

‘Go fuck yourself, Tommy.’

Paris felt his bacon cheeseburger about to travel north.

‘
Could
be skin,’ Ocasio said. He held the translucent, pinkish strip high into the air, suspended from his large forceps. He turned it around and around. The flap of skin – which measured two inches across and four or five inches in length – slapped together wetly as Ocasio taunted Paris, whipping the pelt from side to side. ‘On the other hand, it could be beef jerky.’

Morrison and Dolch, the two hyenas from the Special Investigation Unit, let out a snort and a barrage of adolescent cackling. They always thought whatever Ocasio said was hysterical as hell, especially if it caused Jack Paris to grab his ever-rumbling stomach.

‘What the hell’s the matter with you, Reuben?’ Paris said. ‘How many times are we going to do this?’

‘I don’t know, Jacquito. Maybe as long as you keep throwing up at scenes. You’re too easy
, padrone
.’

‘Jesus, man,’ Paris said, breathing deeply. ‘It’s amazing we have any kind of solve rate at all.’

Reuben Ocasio smiled and, for Paris, it ruined what little there was to like about his face in the first place. Yellow teeth, bits of tobacco on grayish-brown gums. Paris shook his head and walked out of the oppressive motel room, the late-winter chill helping to calm the mixture of pickles, ketchup and Maalox churning at the base of his throat.

Ocasio had joined the coroner’s office four years earlier, and from day one he had played with Paris’s better nature, especially during the days, weeks and months following Paris’s full-contact divorce. The two men had nearly come to blows one night at the Black Mountain Tavern, a cop bar on Payne, over something stupid like a crack Reuben had made about Paris’s ex-wife and a small-time doper named Grady Pike. Then, two weeks later, Reuben Ocasio put in twenty hours of overtime to close one of Jack’s cases. Paris found it difficult to hate the man completely.

But the sick shit – the leaving of spleens in lockers, the intestine-on-a-roll sandwiches wrapped up in Subway sandwich paper – made Paris want to shoot the asshole.

Hadn’t he known the moment he walked into the room? Hadn’t he known as soon as he rounded the corner and saw her face? That agonized mime face: perfect, beautiful, silent. Paris had seen Emily Reinhardt up close. It was his case and, in almost six months, he hadn’t turned up a single lead. He knew that whoever did that was an artist, a journeyman in the techniques of sexual torture, and wouldn’t strike just once. Paris knew that one day he was going to walk into another crime scene and see that death mask staring up at him again from an ever-widening pool of red.

And then there was Maryann Milius. Greg Ebersole’s case.

Three women now. Bodies torn, faces made up like cat-walk models. Eyeshadow, blush, mascara, powder, lipstick.

Conclusion, Inspector Paris?

Cleveland had a serial on its hands.

And who was going to put it together? Tommy Raposo? Too busy with his tailor and his stockbroker and his harem. Greg Ebersole? Maybe. Except Greg had been shutting down the Caprice quite a bit himself these days and he was getting sloppy.

Paris lit his last cigarette.

Reuben already knew. Or he would soon. Then, of course, the
Plain Dealer
would have it. Then Channel 5 and their Crime Watch or Cop Watch or whatever the hell it was.

But in the end, and probably within the next forty-eight hours, the task of setting a trap for this psycho was going to fall to one man: Jack Paris.

The woman’s face, like the others, was free of blood: white and wooden against the navy-blue carpeting. Her lipstick was fresh, deep red, glistening in response to the flashbulbs exploding around the room. All she wore was the remains of a black-lace camisole which had been cut clean away at the shoulder blades, and a pair of high heels, now flecked with red. The patch of skin had come from the woman’s right calf. It bore a tattoo.

A pair of roses.

The comforter lay on the floor to the right of the bed, unstained and folded, as if set carefully aside. It looked incongruously pristine, as if it were on sale at JCPenney’s amidst a display of blood and flesh. The sheets were gathered at the foot of the bed as witness to a session of violent sex. Bloody sex. The killer was either monstrously large or had used an object on the woman. The blood from the wound that had most likely caused her death – the deep razor cut to the top of her spine – had spread to a diameter of four or five feet and looked black against the dark blue of the carpet. Paris noted that the death blow could have easily been dealt from behind in the throes of passion.

He slipped on a rubber glove and began to look through the woman’s purse as the forensic activity in the room died down and the lab boys and the team from the coroner’s office wrapped up, taking the body with them. Paris pulled out a small, red leather wallet, bulging with plastic, the snap all but torn off. He looked at the driver’s license and was once again taken aback by the woman’s face. She was striking, even in the blurry little picture laminated in clear plastic.

The dead woman was Karen Schallert, twenty-three, five six, one-twenty. Lived in Lakewood on Bunts Road. Paris pulled out a small stack of business cards. All belonged to men. Andy Sipari, attorney-at-law. Robert Hammer, theatrical management. Joe Najfach, Prestidigitator Deluxe! Marty Jevnikar, Lakeside Lexus.

Paris searched her purse further. A half-finished bag of peanut M&Ms, a pair of matching combs, different widths. There were a few cosmetic basics like lipstick and a perfume atomizer. Paris found no mascara, no blush, no powder.

Because
, he thought,
the killer carries his own, doesn’t he? And he is putting it on these women after he cuts them
.

Paris made a note about funeral parlors, and drove back to the Caprice.

Drunk. Staring at the side of the Red Valley Inn. Had to be four, four-thirty. Long after the crime scene techs had left, long after the yellow tape had secured the crime scene until morning. This one, it appeared, even rated a cop at the door, stationed there to protect all the juicy evidence that wasn’t going to add up to shit. Paris parked his car alongside the motel, cut the engine, dimmed the lights, unscrewed the cap on his fresh pint of Windsor. He flashed his badge to the uniform, who nodded in deference to Paris’s gold shield, his seniority.

Paris stared at the door to 127 and tried to imagine the scene from earlier in the night. According to the desk clerk, a tall white man had rented the room. Thirtyish, mustache, tinted glasses. He wore an Irish tweed walking-hat that covered most of the upper part of his face. There was, of course, no register to sign at a place like the Red Valley Inn. The Valley was strictly pay and play, no questions, no paper. The night clerk had gone to the room after receiving a number of complaints about the TV being on full blast. He knocked on the door and found the body a few minutes later.

Paris sipped from the bottle. The liquor warmed him. He closed his eyes, imagined the man opening the door, all charm and compliments and cologne, letting Karen Schallert, twenty-three, late of Lakewood, Ohio, into the room. His abattoir. Paris imagined them making love, Karen Schallert a bit nervous at first, but soon becoming aroused.

Had she enjoyed it? Did she think she had made the right decision, making it with this guy who was, most likely, a total stranger?

What did she think when she saw the blade?

Paris hit the bottle lightly, replaced the cap and stepped out of the car. The night was clear and still, the traffic had diminished to a procession of only the most desperately addicted – food, cigarettes, dope, sex, booze. He walked to the back of the motel parking-lot and ran his flashlight around the base of the two giant Dumpsters parked there. Beer bottles, a few candy wrappers, fast food detritus.