Wolfman - Art Bourgeau (7 page)

When he didn't answer she said, "You mentioned
that your day had been bad from start to finish. What made it bad?"

Hearing her voice, he felt alone, more alone than in
a long time. He didn't like the feeling. Sitting across from her he
had felt a closeness, now it was gone. There was no future in
answering. He already knew that. Still, there was the moment, maybe
that would be enough . . .

He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. "My
sister called. . . to invite me to her wedding, and my mother and
her. . . husband were on the extension"

The memory of the conversation made his stomach knot.

The pain he felt was the drawing kind, like thin
lines of wire coming out weblike, reeling him in, wanting to bow his
back and fold him like an old pocketknife. He pushed against the
chair to keep himself straight.

"
Your mother's husband is not your father. . .
?"

"No," he said, trying to will away the
pain. "My father died when I was young . . . in an accident. My
mother married his business partner. . . afterward"

She stubbed out her cigarette. She’d taken him far
enough for now. Reliving the episode had made him afraid again, and
it was clear he was emotionally exhausted. So, she realized, was she.
But they'd been good together, she felt. They had chemistry. His
problem was an interesting one. He'd fought, held back, but had also
revealed. To get at the source would take time and work, but she
believed she could at least help him. It was too early to tell for
sure, but the episode in the store seemed linked somehow to the phone
call and his family. Maybe his sister, maybe his mother's remarriage,
maybe marriage period. Time would tell, if he gave her the chance and
she was good enough . . .

"I think we've covered enough ground for our
first session."

Her words pleased and displeased him. He felt like he
was all in pieces, but he knew he also wanted to stay, to look at her
beauty, be with her. It was a new sensation.

"What do I call you?" he heard himself say.
"I'm not too comfortable calling you Dr. Priest."

She sat, weighing whether it was wise to risk
closeness with a patient so new. But she also felt he needed to leave
with something, some small triumph. "My given name is Margaret."

He stood up to go. As he walked toward the door he
turned and stopped. "Wasn’t Margaret the name of the woman
Faust sold his soul for. . . ?"

"I’m sure I don't know," she said. And
she felt a chill.
 
 

CHAPTER 4

NATE MERCANTO pulled his old Camaro to the curb and
stopped in front of the warehouse on American Street near Third and
Spring Garden. Huddled in the passenger seat, an Irish walking-hat
covering his now total baldness, was his brother Frank. This was the
day each week Mercanto hated the most.

As he reached for the door handle his brother raised
a hand to stop him. "You stay. I’m fine. Besides, you have to
get to the stationhouse or you'll be late for your shift."

Mercanto wanted to protest, but Frank was right. The
captain had ordered him to report at four, and it was already a
quarter past three. Still, he didn’t like being forced to choose,
or even hurry, not with Frank so sick.

Frank fumbled with the door handle and pushed it
open. It was a scene they had played weekly for the past three months
as they made the trip home from the hospital, only each week the door
seemed to get heavier. Frank slowly swung his feet out and looked
back. "Call me." There was pain in his face when he said
it. The man who spoke bore little resemblance to the older brother
Mercanto had idolized all his life — the one in the picture in his
wallet of the two of them on the fishing boat out of Atlantic City
laughing, carefree, but that's how he tried to think of him.

"You know I will, and I’ll stop by during the
week," Mercanto said. He hadn’t mentioned finding the body.
Frank already had enough on his mind. He watched as his brother
started toward the warehouse.

The first floor housed a garage specializing in
repairs to foreign cars: lags, Porsches, Ferraris, Mercedes. The
second floor was Frank's living quarters and studio where for years
he’d tried so hard to get his thoughts and feelings on canvas. The
garage was closed now, had been since the cancer and treatments had
weakened him too much to work. He could still drive and care for
himself, but not on the day each week when he went for chemotherapy;
the treatment made him too sick. At the sound of the car door a young
black man dressed in work clothes and wearing a cap advertising Colt
.45 malt liquor appeared from inside and hurried up to help.

Mercanto watched them
step-by-step as they started up the stairs to the second floor, put
the Camaro in gear and started for the stationhouse in lousy spirits.
Frank was all the family he had left.

* * *

The Park Squad's headquarters was on Henry Avenue
near the Valley Green section. In the twilight, as Mercanto pulled
into the parking lot, it looked like a small-town city hall with its
stone front, double glass doors and a bit of green on either side of
the walk. He parked and started in to change into uniform.

The desk sergeant looked up as he came in. "The
captain wants to see you."

Mercanto nodded and walked toward the rear of the
first floor. The building had two floors and a basement, the first
was reception and administration, the second was lockers, squad room
and a small room with a microwave, Mr. Coffee, and three vending
machines, designated on the fire map of the building as the
"Cafeteria." The holding cells and interrogation rooms were
in the basement.

He stopped in front of a frosted glass door and
knocked. Behind the desk was Captain Mabel Zinkowsky, a black woman
of about fifty. She had joined the force during the Rizzo years as
part of an affirmative action program, but it wasn't her sex or her
race that had brought her to a captaincy, it was the desire to carry
on for her patrolman-husband, killed in the line of duty. Now,
because of her age and the way the force was changing, all that was
behind her and what was left for her, like for him, was the Park
Squad. Unlike him she never let her disappointments show.

Seated in front of her desk was Detective George
Sloan from homicide. She motioned to the empty chair beside him. "Sit
down, officer."

"What now?" Mercanto had given them
everything in his report. As far as he was concerned his business
with Sloan was finished.

"You two know each other," the captain
said. Both nodded, neither looked at the other. If the captain
noticed the hostility between them she did not acknowledge it. In her
blunt way she came right to the point. "George, I’m glad you
asked for this meeting because it gives me a chance to let everybody
know my decision. I’m assigning Officer Mercanto to work with you
until we solve the murder in the park."

Mercanto couldn’t believe it. It could be a big
step toward putting his career back together. On the other hand it
meant working with George Sloan.

"Over my dead body," Sloan said. "Homicide
rules the roost on murder cases. When I asked for help on this case I
didn’t mean him."

"George, you're wrong on this one. The Gunther
situation was unfortunate, but it doesn't alter the fact that Officer
Mercanto is a good cop — "

"He’s not going to work on this case — "

"
Don't get premenstrual on me, George. I've been
trying to be nice and act like everyone's mama lately, so don't force
me to remind you that captains still outrank lieutenants — and
while you are in charge of the case, since it happened in my precinct
I can make any administrative decisions I like. What I've decided is
to assign Officer Mercanto to the case."

"I can go over your head."

"I don't think so. You're a good cop, too."

Sloan chewed on it for a moment, nodded. Nothing else
to do . . .

Mercanto settled back in his chair. The thought of
doing some real police work for a change felt good. The closest he'd
come lately was investigating some missing rabbits from a pen behind
a house on the West Mt. Airy side of the Wissahickon and keeping an
eye out for something, probably a stray dog that had killed some
ducks near Devil's Pool.

"You understand he’s going to have to carry
the ball a lot," Sloan said. "Our people are jammed up with
that house of death in North Philly. This morning the mayor gave it
top priority, and we can't be two places at once."

"He can handle it. He has more experience in
plainclothes than anyone in my command. That’s why I picked him,"
the captain said. She took off her bifocals and rubbed the bridge of
her nose. "I can appreciate the mayor’s priorities but I have
mine, too . . . the Valley Green section is a nice little cabbage
patch and I don’t want it dirtied up. I want the son of a bitch who
did this. I want this murder solved . . ."

Mercanto wanted to say amen.

Sloan got down to business. "Here's what we
have. The victim’s name was Stanley Hightower. . ."

Mercanto frowned. The name meant something to him but
he couldn’t place it until Sloan said, "He was a Center City
optometrist. There was a piece about him in the Sunday paper. He’s
the guy near Rittenhouse Square who makes the glasses for all the
stars . . ."

"You remember?" the captain said.

Mercanto nodded. "Yeah, I saw the piece. He
makes stuff like prescription diving-masks and ski-goggles. I think
it said he even replaced the windshield in a Porsche with
prescription glass for some Hollywood hotshot who didn't want to be
seen wearing glasses."

Sloan took it up again. "He's divorced and lived
in a condo on Washington Square. Before that he was married to a
French clothes designer. . . Dominique’s her name."

Mercanto let out a soft whistle. Stanley Hightower
was a high-profile citizen. That’s why Sloan was willing to let him
in on it. Even short-handed this was a case that had to be solved.

Sloan consulted a file in his lap. "The Medical
Examiner's report is in. Death was caused by one shot to the right
temple from a .22 caliber gun. The bullet was a hollow point. The
impact splattered it too much for it to be of any use ballistically —
"

"A pro’s gun . . ." Mercanto said.

"Maybe. Death occurred between three and
three-thirty a.m. Just before you found the body," Sloan said,
glancing in Mercanto's direction.

"What about the mutilation, his hand?"
Mercanto asked.

"According to the M.E. that happened after
death. He said he could tell by the destruction of the arteries and
the coagulation of the blood."

Mercanto nodded, remembering the peaceful look on the
victim’s face. That’s what he'd thought, too. "How was it
done?"

"The M.E. identified bite marks on the hand . .
. human bite marks . . ."

"Human?" There was shock in the captain's
voice.

"Yes," said Sloan, keeping it clinical as
he could. "The M.E. couldn't make a cast of them because of the
destruction to the hand, but he says they were definitely human
bites."

Nobody said anything, and after a moment Sloan
continued.

"Robbery was the apparent motive. The victim’s
wallet was gone. We made the identification through motor vehicles."

"No, definitely not robbery," the captain
said. "Nobody does something like this for a robbery. There’s
a helluva lot more here than that. Any ideas?"

Sloan closed the file. "We’ve some
possibilities. The simplest first — it could have been a robbery, a
sex-related one. He was divorced. Maybe he picked up the wrong
person, a prostitute, took her out there to park and she killed him."

The captain nodded. "It’s true, the
sex-related ones are always the most gruesome. What do you think,
Mercanto?"

"I wouldn’t rule it out, still with AIDS
everywhere why would a guy like him risk going to a prostitute? He'd
have no trouble getting girls. Of course he could have been kinky, or
maybe it wasn't a prostitute. Maybe it was just someone he picked up.
Or maybe he was gay and picked up a basher. Is there anything in the
M.E.'s report about it?"

"They ran an AIDS test and he was clean. There
were no traces of semen, so he hadn’t come before he died, which
doesn't prove anything one way or the other. If it was like we just
said, it would have happened before he had a chance to."

Sloan paused. "Another possibility is his
ex-wife. Maybe she did it, maybe she hired it done, or had a
boyfriend do it and was there for it. Next to sex crimes, domestic
murders are the roughest." He paused again. "When she came
to identify the body we showed her everything, including the
mutilation, and she didn't bat an eyelash."

"She either hated him, or that’s one tough
woman," said the captain.

Nobody disputed it. "Our third possibility is
drugs. The M.E. found traces of cocaine in Hightower’s body. We
have the pro-type hit. Maybe he was a white-collar dealer who got out
of line, and his wallet was taken to confirm the hit. The mutilation
could have been to put the fear of God into others involved, or it
may even have been part of some damn ritual. He wouldn't be the
first. You know how the Jamaicans have been raising hell around town
lately. Remember what they did to those kids — "