The nanny murders (18 page)

Dumpling? I remembered now; on her radio show, she used epithets all the time. Callers were “honey” or “peach.” It was her shtick to talk in food.

“Well, not as awful as it was for the woman who lost it.”

“I imagine not.” Her eyes probed mine, studying me. I felt them, hot like spotlights. “But cupcake, have you talked it out with anyone?”

Oh, please. Was she going to play sixty-second shrink with me? “Thanks for your concern, Dr. Gardener. I’m fine—”

“Really? Because Nick says you’ve been upset about the nanny case. He said one of the missing women is your friend.”

“Did he?” sonofabitch discussed me with her? What else had he said? That I was easy? That I’d hopped into bed after just two slices of pizza? “He must have caught me at a bad moment.” Damned if I was going to let on that I was upset.

“Look, sugar, you don’t need to impress me with your strength. This case is brutal. Horrible. You’d be nuts not to be upset.” Her eyes were jade green. “Professionals like us don’t like to admit that we can have problems, too. We’re supposed to be invulnerable and help everybody else. But guess what? We’re only human. sometimes we need a shoulder to lean on just like everyone else. so if there’s anything I can do for you—anything at all—just call. You hear?” she seemed sincere. Despite the food nicknames and the fact that she hadn’t answered my calls for three days, I found myself oddly drawn to her. Warmed by her energy, flattered by her attention. Almost believing her sincerity Almost wanting to.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m really fine, though.”

“I hope so.” Her voice was husky, like smoke. Her eyes glowed like green embers. “We’re on the same team, after all.”

We were a team? I pictured us in football uniforms, huddled around Nick. Not a good image. I blinked it away.

She was leaving. Heels clacking on my floor, reviving me. I remembered the message I had for her.

“Oh, Dr. Gardener?” Damn, why hadn’t I said “Beverly”? “There was a man at your office, Phillip Woods. He was waiting to see you—”

“Woods?” Her eyes widened. “He was? Oh, Christ. When?”

“Monday morning. He said he was your friend.”

“I’m sure he did. Actually, he’s more like my devotee. He’s a groupie. An infatuated fan. He writes letters and e-mails, sends me flowers, hangs around the radio station hoping to catch sight
of me. I guess it was only a matter of time until he showed up here.”

Were we talking about the same Phillip Woods? “Really? He didn’t seem the kind of person who’d intrude that way.”

“Actually, he’s not that unusual. I’ve come to expect that sort of thing—it comes with celebrity. When you’re in the public eye, people begin to think they actually know you, even that they’re in love with you. Like Phillip Woods. He has a crush on me. It’s a nuisance, but no big surprise.” She shrugged. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll take care of it.”

When she waved good-bye, the air shimmered around her; after she’d left, the room seemed empty and deprived. Except for the lingering scent of her perfume, I was alone with her profile.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I
T WAS IN A PLAIN WHITE ENVELOPE WITH NO COVER LETTER,
no return address, no instruction as to what I should do when I’d finished reading it.

The report itself was surprisingly short and contained few surprises. It said that the likely perpetrator was male, probably under forty, probably a loner, probably with low self-esteem. He probably lived, worked, or had lived or worked in the neighborhood where the crimes were committed. He likely had some sort of sexual dysfunction as well as a history of violence and/or abuse in his childhood. He hated young women or nannies, might have been a chronic bed wetter, might have started fires, might have been cruel to small animals.

The wording was general, the findings broad enough to apply to many serial killers, not just this one. Most of the second paragraph was blacked out; what remained suggested that the suspect would have to be familiar with a variety of tools and adept at using them. He would be neat, intelligent, and organized; a stickler for detail; a patient, persistent person who might have a background in medicine, anatomy, hunting, fishing, engineering, carpentry, or design.

I held the paper up to the light but couldn’t read the blacked-out section. I assumed, though, that it referred to specifics of the recovered victim’s dismemberment, details of which Nick
wasn’t ready to reveal to a “civilian,” even if she’d personally found one of the dismembered parts.

I read on. The suspect was probably but not necessarily white; his victims had no consistent racial makeup, and victims usually matched the race of their killer. He was precise and planned carefully. He believed he was empowered to kill because of his own innate superiority, the value of his mission, or the power of a superior being who directed him. He might or might not be torturing his victims. His father might have been an alcoholic or drug abuser; his mother might have abused him, possibly sexually. Also, he might or might not have had a nanny or babysitter who’d abused him. The increasingly bold and open nature of his kidnappings implied that he was confident, even taunting authorities, growing bolder with each crime.

The report so far seemed general and indefinite. Nothing particularly insightful or striking. Was this vague garble the kind of work that had earned Beverly Gardener world renown as a forensic psychologist?

The next paragraph was highlighted in yellow. It said that the killer might insert himself somehow into or close to the investigation, possibly pretending to protect potential victims or to help solve the crime. The fact that significant evidence had been left out in the open indicated that he intended to keep on killing. He might, in fact, leave significant clues in significant places where they would be found by significant parties. An arrow was drawn to a handwritten comment in the margin. It said, “E.g., finger? Z. Hayes? Significance?”

A chilled ripple slid down my back. With equally cold certainty, I understood why Nick had asked for my help.

TWENTY-EIGHT

F
OR SEVERAL MINUTES,
I
SAT AT MY DESK, SHAKEN BY DR
.
GAR
dener’s notation. Had the finger been dropped in front of my house deliberately? Was my doorstep a “significant” location to the killer? If so, why? Who was he?

The faces of local men stampeded through my mind. Victor. Charlie. Joe. Gene. Stop it, I told myself. Calm down. Think. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, made the faces stand in an orderly line. Victor was first. He was the right age, somewhere in his thirties. I didn’t know much else about him, beyond rumors. supposedly, he’d lived with his mother all his life, until her death. Maybe something unnatural had been going on. Had he been abused? Victor was a loner, dysfunctional at everything, probably at sex, too. But Victor was so afraid of violence that he holed up in his house. Unless that was just an act. Maybe Victor wasn’t phobic at all. Maybe he actually snuck out his back door, grabbed nannies, and chopped their fingers off in his spare room. Who would know? Agoraphobia would be a great cover.

What about Charlie? He insisted that he knew all about the evil around us. He said the evil guy was “in his head,” controlling, monitoring his thoughts; that sounded like a “superior power.” Oh Lord. Was the dangerous person Charlie’d warned me about none other than Charlie himself? Had Charlie left the grisly clue at our door as a warning? He had a carpentry
background. And skill with tools. And he’d inserted himself into the investigation, promising to protect me. He fit the profile in many ways. But that was ridiculous. Charlie had bad knees. He was no killer. Was he?

Then there was Phillip Woods. He’d seemed almost obsessed with Dr. Gardener. Here was a thought: He’d followed Dr. Gardener’s career and read her books; he knew she was a forensic consultant for the police. Could he have killed women just to get her attention? To be the subject of one of her chapters? How infatuated was he? He was almost forty, a little old for the profile, but he fit it in other ways. He was a loner. A planner. Precise with details. Able to wire an electronic santa—maybe he’d studied engineering.

There were others, too. Coach Gene, for example. Rejected by both Tamara and Claudia, maybe by others. He was physically strong. Lived alone.

Damn, the profile fit both nobody and everybody I knew in the neighborhood. Of course, there were a lot more men I didn’t know. And hundreds of pedestrians who passed by each day. And friends or relatives of people in the neighborhood. The de-liveryman who brought Victor his food. Joe, Angela’s jealous boyfriend. Jake and his construction crews—a dozen guys, all strong and young and good with tools. Who knew if any of them had been bed wetters or abused as kids? And if they had, what would that mean? Nothing by itself. The report, as far as I was concerned, had been useless.

If someone had singled out my doorstep as a place to drop a finger, I had no idea who he was or why he’d picked my house. Besides, Beverly Gardener might be mistaken; the finger might not have been left there deliberately. Another, after all, had been found in Washington square. The killer might have dropped them accidentally, might just have been passing by.

Within half an hour, I’d decided that my insights were
useless, that I didn’t know the killer. I’d finished “consulting.” It hadn’t been worth my anxiety over it, hadn’t required any risk or even much time. I would write Nick a brief, professionally worded note, offering my thoughts. I’d even be generous and praise the work of his “friend” Beverly Gardener. And then, I’d be done.

TWENTY-NINE

S
OME DAYS, NOTHING HAPPENS
.
OTHER DAYS, EVENTS ASSAULT
relentlessly from all sides, nonstop. Thursday was one of those days. It began in the dark, before dawn. susan called at six, hysterical for a change.

“she misses work for months, and then she gives me two weeks’ notice? I’ve got a trial next week. What am I going to do?”

“Bonita quit?” I yawned, trying to wake up.

“I can’t blame her, in a way. she’s scared. A lot of them are quitting, even some of the live-ins. I gave her the whistle and a can of Mace. I told her I’d bought the gun and was getting her a permit. But she won’t have any of it. she quit.”

“Damn. I mean, I can understand—”

“Of course. But what am I going to do? Tell the judge I can’t defend my client because the babysitter quit?”

“The girls can come to my house. Angela’s still on the job.” “How are they going to get there?” “It’s only about a mile. Walk?”

My doorbell rang. I checked the clock again. It was barely six-fifteen. Who the hell was ringing the bell? It was too early, couldn’t be Angela; besides, she had a key. Maybe Charlie? Was he feverish again?

“Mom? somebody’s at the door.” Molly’s feet thumped down the hallway. “I’ll get it!” I heard her bounding down the steps.

“Molly, no! Wait—you know the rule. susan, can you believe somebody’s at my door?”

“At this hour?” she was appalled. Calling me at this hour, however, had been acceptable.

“I’ll call you back.”

“No, don’t. I gotta get to work. It’s round the clock for me these days. And thanks for your offer. But, fact is, with all their music lessons and swim team and all, it wouldn’t work. I might have to ask Tim’s mother to stay with us. Can you imagine? It could come to that. Dear Lord—look, I’ll see you tonight, the moms’ meeting, right?”

“Right.”

The bell rang again. Molly called, “Mommy. Hurry up!” I dashed down the steps to the door and peered out the peephole.

“Who is it, Mom?”

“Nobody,” I said. “Go ahead, you can open it.” Carefully, she undid the bolt and turned the handle. “Greetings.”

Good Lord, he was growing a mustache. The thing looked alive, as if it had crawled onto his face.

“Jeez, Michael. What are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?”

“No, no, Zoe. You’re supposed to say, ‘Michael—how nice to see you! Michael—what a nice surprise. How sweet of you to bring doughnuts. Won’t you come in?’ “ He stepped around me, carrying a bakery box.

Molly stood by my side, blinking coyly.

“And who’s this pretty young lady?” Michael stooped to her level. “I’m uncle Mike. What’s your name?”

“Molly,” she muttered.

He shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Molly. How are—”

“Listen, Uncle Mike,” I cut him off, “we have to get ourselves dressed here, so—”

“You have time. I came early so we’d have time to talk. Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of coffee? Decaf if you have it.” He was already helping himself, taking a mug out of the cabinet, reaching for the coffee grinder. “You know, this thing’s the best investment we ever made. Nothing like waking up to fresh brew.”

“so you came to visit the coffee grinder?”

“I came to see you, Zoe. Here. Let me fix us a cup.”

“What’s in that box?” Molly was clearly baffled. She hadn’t processed my night with Nick yet, and now Michael’d shown up, bearing gifts.

“A surprise.” He opened it, revealing assorted doughnuts. “Ask your mom if you can have one.”

“Can I?”

Before I could answer, Uncle Mike had poured Molly a glass of milk and given her a wad of pink-iced dough, and the two of them were sitting together, chattering and laughing like a pair of happy old hens. What was going on? I’d barely opened my eyes, and already events had sped past me. I couldn’t catch up, much less rein them in. When had I lost control? And how was I going to get rid of Michael? How many times in one lifetime did I have to throw the man out?

Calm down, I told myself. The coffee was brewing and smelled warm and toasty. And I was hungry. What difference would it make if I ate a doughnut. I could exercise away the calories. On my stairMaster. Besides, doughnuts were a basic food group, weren’t they? Like gnocchi. Again, without wanting to, I thought of Nick. How his hand had felt on mine. Oh, the hell with Nick. I bit into chocolate icing and, in a few bites, devoured the whole doughnut. Then, unable to contain myself, I burst into their happy conversation.

“Molly,” I told her, “Uncle Mike and I have to talk.” she was unimpressed. “I’m not done with my doughnut,” she said.