Wolfman - Art Bourgeau (24 page)

Seated around the table were Captain Zinkowsky, Mary
Kane and three detectives he recognized as Rafferty, Evans and Spivak
from Sloan’s unit Seven Squad. Sloan was at the head of the table
talking with a man Mercanto did not recognize. Everyone in the room
was smoking except himself. The air stung his eyes. In the center of
the table was coffee in styrofoam cups. He helped himself to a cup as
the door opened and the Medical Examiner came in with a file under
his arm. He looked beat from his long night of autopsying the body.

Sloan looked over. "We’re all here. Let’s
get started."

The man he was talking to took a seat. Sloan held up
a copy of the morning edition of the Globe. The headline read:

"Cannibal Loose in Fairmount Park."
Mercanto had not seen it. Below the headline was a picture of the
body bag being unloaded at the morgue.

"I'm not going to ask who leaked this to the
press," Sloan said, "but if I find out he’s in trouble."
His gaze seemed to be more fixed on Mercanto than the others. "We
kept this quiet in the Hightower case but whoever did it now has made
our job twice as hard as before. The switchboard downstairs has been
ringing off the wall since this hit the streets. Not only do we have
a weirdo killer to contend with but a frightened public as well."

No one at the table had to be told what that meant.
Teenagers would be cruising the park hoping to get a glimpse of him.
Citizens would be getting out loaded guns. And worse yet, some other
nut might be inspired to imitate.

People shifted uncomfortably. Sloan put down the
paper.

"Spivak, you're going to be in charge of sorting
out this part of the mess. That means fielding the crank calls,
reassuring the public, making sure no valid lead from any of them
gets by us. Any further statements to the press will be handled by
me.’

Sloan looked at Captain Zinkowsky. "How we
coming on this Rashid character?"

"Nothing yet. I'm meeting with the drug people
after we finish here. We'll get him, don't worry," she said.

The name caused looks of interest to be exchanged
around the table. "For those of you who don't know," Sloan
said, "this Rashid is a lead Mercanto turned up. He’s
apparently a Jamaican drug dealer working the Germantown Avenue area.
Hightower was involved with him. That could explain what Hightower
was doing in the park that night. We don't know about the kid yet."
He turned to the Medical Examiner. "Any trace of drugs on the
kid?"

The Medical Examiner opened the file in front of him.
"He wasn’t high when he was killed, but we did find traces of
cocaine in his system."

Mercanto remembered the look on the kid's face during
the holdup. So he was right, the kid was a user.

"We’ve finished the autopsy," continued
the Medical Examiner. "There was nothing that we didn't expect
to find. Death was caused by loss of blood from a torn carotid artery
in the neck. From traces of saliva we found in the wound, we were
able to determine that the killer was a male with blood type ’O.'
We also found blond hairs on the body. They were from his head, not
from a mustache or beard — under a microscope you can tell the
difference. Because of the violence of the killing, specifically the
biting aspect of it, I think we can assume that the absence of any
facial hairs in the wound or on the victim means that the killer was
cleanshaven."

He paused to look at the file again. "Sorry I
don't have this on the tip of my tongue but I’m speaking for the
lab boys, too, and I want to be sure I’m right," he said. "It
rained the night of the murder. I checked the weather report to be
sure. We found some footprints at the scene. They came from a man’s
sneaker, size ten. From the tread we think it might be the Nike brand
but can’t be sure. There are other models with similar treads. We
were able to make a partial mold of the teeth marks from the wound.
They seem to match the teeth marks from Hightower’s mutilation. But
we can’t be positive of that either."

"Why not?" asked Mary Kane.

"With wounds of this type it’s not like making
a mold from a half-eaten candy bar or chunk of cheese where you have
a clean bite. Here we have as much tearing as biting, so the
impression is distorted, in some places obliterated."

Which brought an uneasy silence even over this table.

"Last night Captain Zinkowsky and I met with the
Chief and the Mayor," Sloan said. "They’ve agreed to
clear the decks, give us all the help we need. Temporarily our
headquarters will be the park station. Beginning today we’re
tripling park patrols. That means more cars, more men. We're bringing
in the whole mounted patrol. With the terrain, horses may be more
useful than cars, but we’re going to have both."

He unfolded a map of the park on the table. "As
you know, the park is the largest city park in the world. At one
point you can ride on horseback for over twenty-five miles without
coming out of it. Effectively patrolling the whole thing is out of
the question, so we're going to eliminate the area around the zoo,
Strawberry Mansion, Robin Hood Dell, Kelly Drive, West River Drive
and Lincoln Drive. For now we'll use the two murder sites as our
boundaries and concentrate on the area between them.

Mercanto well knew what a big area they were still
talking about. The killer had too many places to hide.

Sloan drew an imaginary circle on the map with his
forefinger. "Inside this area we're also going to deploy
plainclothes people posing as couples parking. Might draw him out. On
the West Mt. Airy side we're beginning a house-to-house canvass.
Captain Zinkowsky will be heading that up."

It would be the biggest manhunt any of them could
remember.

"
This is Dr. Charles Foster, a psychiatrist who
consults for the department," Sloan went on. "Maybe he can
give us some help about the man we're looking for." Sloan nodded
toward the man in his mid-sixties who was sitting next to him.

Dr. Foster cleared his throat: "I don't need to
tell anyone that the person we're talking about is severely
disturbed. From what the Medical Examiner just told us, we know he is
male by his saliva and hair. Because of the viciousness of the
attacks we can assume he was a young man, somewhere between his late
teens and mid-thirties, I'd say. He will be someone who's badly
repressed, unable to express his true feelings in any normal fashion.
We all know people who are like this in one degree or another. In its
mildest form it can be the sort of person who is fine when he’s
sober but becomes an unpleasant drunk. Or in its more serious stages,
like now, the sort of person who internalizes things until such a
rage builds that he goes on a killing rampage. The kind of man the
neighbors invariably describe afterward as being a quiet man who kept
to himself and never made any enemies."

"A psycho . . ." ventured Mary Kane.

"
Not exactly," Foster said. "The term
is often misused. A psychopathic personality is usually a very
charismatic one, made up of impulsive, immoral behavior marked by
antisocial tendencies. For our purposes a psycho, a psychopath, is a
person who has no guilt mechanism or ability to distinguish between
right and wrong beyond a very rudimentary level. I doubt that is the
sort of man we’re looking for. More likely our man will have a very
clear-cut idea of right and wrong, at least by his lights, and that
may just be the triggering influence of his disturbance."

"Disturbance," Mercanto thought. Some
fucking "disturbance."

"What kind of a job will he have?" Spivak
asked.

"
Difficult to say," said the Holmesian Dr.
Foster. "Let’s use the word psychosis to describe his illness.
In this case the psychosis is in a very advanced stage. If this is
something that has been occurring in varying stages throughout his
adult life, he is likely to be unemployed or a menial employee. If it
is something that has had a long latent period, he may well be
anything — a lawyer, a businessman, an accountant — "

"
A doctor?" someone muttered.

Foster let it pass. "Whatever stage he is in
now, he will have increasing trouble functioning."

"What do you mean?" Sloan said.

"He will have periods in which he seems normal,
then periods when he is clearly not. Right now the periods when he is
not normal will probably be greater than the periods when he is.
Since he has no control over these periods they will naturally affect
every aspect of his life, his job, his friends — "

"What about his family life?" asked Mary
Kane.

Foster hesitated. "That's a complex matter. In
all likelihood he is single with probably no close attachments. His
behavior is too bizarre to go unnoticed within a family circle, but
that doesn't mean that he wasn't married at one time. Separation
could be a triggering influence."

"Sounds like my theory about the drug dealer is
kaput!" Mercanto said. "Him being Jamaican, I thought it
might be something cultural, like voodoo. I asked an expert at the
Braddon — "

"I could be wrong," said a suddenly
cautious Foster, "but I don't think the dealer is the answer, at
least not without seeing him or the people he employs. It's a
question of control. The kind of rage our killer must be feeling is
not something that can be turned on and off."

"What do you think's causing this rage?"
Spivak asked. Dr. Foster, true to his image, paused to light his
pipe. "There are a number of possibilities, so anything I say
will be a guess. Psychiatry is not the science of detection, it's the
science of clarification. To do that we need to study the patient,
but I know that's not why you called me here so I’ll say, based on
the small amount of data we have to work from, that he is most likely
a schizophrenic with paranoid delusions."

"What the hell is that?" said Rafferty.

"Paranoid delusion is pretty well-known. He
hallucinates . . . hears things, smells things, sees things that
aren't there," he said, thinking for a moment about the patient
Margaret described at their lunch, then dismissing it. "Schizophrenia
is trickier. Usually it starts in the early twenties, though
sometimes later. It's characterized by anxiety, sleep disorder,
hallucinations, too, and the tendency to withdraw from others. We
tend to think of it as a problem of perception. Among the outward
signs are confusing language, compulsive alliteration . . . for
example phrases like every exigency for final finesse . . . and a
change in eating habits. No one knows for sure what causes it. Some
think it is hereditary, some think acquired. Often the two go hand in
hand."

"My voodoo expert said schizophrenics were
shamen in some societies . . ." said Mercanto.

"Leave the damn voodoo thing alone," Sloan
told him.

"
No, no, he’s right," said Dr. Foster.
"Because it's a problem of perception they are often viewed as
holy men in primitive societies. In our man's case he may have a
genetic predisposition to the disorder but I think it's safe to say
it's also somehow tied in with the family. Actually, most
schizophrenics exhibit little or no sign of rage. They are more
dangerous to themselves than others. With their altered perceptions
suicide or death from starvation are more likely. When you do
encounter rage, most often it is a result of their abuse as a child,
sexually or physically."

"We're checking profiles of people recently
released from mental hospitals and known sex offenders," Sloan
said.

"A good idea, especially in the first case,
possibly not so much in the second. As a Freudian, I believe sex
plays a part in most disorders, but in this case I think our man may
have very little sexual experience, a low sex drive, and even be
impotent. Again, the rage and the nature of the disorder lead me to
think that. The denial of his normal urges would close out this
avenue of release and tend to fuel his rage."

"
Isn't what you just said contradictory? Earlier
you said that he might have been married once . . . " Mary Kane
put in.

"
No, I don't think so. For instance, in this day
and age would you classify someone who has only had sex with one
person, or even a couple of people as sexually inexperienced?"
he said.

She nodded, he had a point.

"Remember I also said that marital breakup could
be a trigger for what’s happening now. I'm sure you can see what I
mean. His wife, the only woman he’s ever slept with, rejects him,
maybe humiliates him, then leaves him . . ."

"
Then you think he'll do it again . . ."
Mary Kane said.

"Definitely, but he’s not like a serial
killer. The pattern will be much more vague. His victims chosen just
because they happen to be there rather than fitting some
psychological profile, such as prostitutes in the case of a Jack the
Ripper."

"Why did he pick the park for his turf?"
Mercanto asked.

"
A very good question. And one that I can't
answer, except to say that to him there is a valid reason. It may be
the offshoot of the disorder. . . the desire to withdraw. In a city
where there are not many places where a person can withdraw from
human contact, be alone, the park offers an excellent opportunity
with its remoteness. Schizophrenics also tend to seek or respond to
signs from nature. Their disorders are more likely to be worse during
the full noon, or a particular time of the season, or even at high or
low tide if they're near the seashore. But it might not be any of
these. Don’t laugh, but it might be that he’s going to the park
because he’s waiting for a spaceship to pick him up and take him to
Mars, outer space. Remember I said it was a problem of perception. Or
it might be something as simple as the fact that the park is
convenient for him, nearby."