BLUE MERCY Read online

  “So you’re saying, besides the burning, she’s like Eales’s victims?”

  “No. There is another difference. Eales’s victims actually looked like suicides at first.”

  “Because of the heroin?”

  “Not just that. Their wrists had been slashed,” Kay said. “They’d all been bled to death.”

  “And what did Eales have to say about that?”

  “Nothing. According to the interview transcripts he doesn’t remember a thing.”

  Finn balled up the wax paper from his sandwich. “Well, there is the one other obvious difference between Valerie and those other victims,” he said. “Valerie sure as hell wasn’t picked up by Bernard Eales.”

  11

  VICKI DIGRAZZIO, the assistant state’s attorney, was waiting for them at Headquarters. In her red pumps, she paced the floor outside the elevators, a death grip on her leather briefcase.

  “Sarge just called over with the news,” she said, tossing loose blond curls over one shoulder, a movement Kay knew fueled more than a few male fantasies within the Homicide squads. She doubted Finn was immune. “I still can’t believe it.”

  They took the elevator up to the sixth floor. In the blurred reflection of the stainless-steel doors, Kay recognized Vicki’s distress. Even though Vicki DiGrazzio was a workhorse, regularly juggling a dozen of the state’s tougher prosecutorial challenges for the Homicide Division, Kay imagined the ASA managed to sleep most nights, that she wasn’t haunted by the same ghosts Kay was. As a prosecutor, she was one step further removed from the victims than Kay.

  With Valley, however, it was different. It was Vicki who’d helped Kay secure the job for the girl. Typing. Filing. Answering phones over lunch. And even though Valley’s charm was reserved for few, Vicki had liked the girl.

  Kay and Finn filled her in on the initial autopsy results, saving the news of the signature nicks on the sternum for more private quarters. When the elevator car jostled to a stop and the doors shuddered open, Kay could already hear the phones bleating from Homicide.

  Down the corridor to the Homicide offices, with its vomit-green walls and yellowed tile flooring, the air was thick with the odor of stale coffee, old lunches, and men’s cologne.

  Over the past months, though, a new smell had invaded the sixth floor: moldy air conditioners. With extensive renovations under way on the seventh and eighth floors, portable AC units had been installed to alleviate the interruption of the ventilation system. In the side office, one monstrous unit butted up to the bank of west windows, a plank of plywood replacing one pane and supporting an outtake vent. Tape and wire suspended flexible ducts from the ceiling, all leading to or from the rumbling unit, giving it the appearance of some oversize life-support system. But if there was any oxygen in hundred-degree humidity, it could hardly be considered life-sustaining.

  They led Vicki through the tight maze of putty-colored government-issue desks. Electric fans oscillated from the tops of file cabinets, rustling papers and stirring the thick heat as if it were soup. Kay’s desk sat at the far wall, edged into the corner she protected vehemently from the encroaching squalor of the male-dominated unit. Here she found privacy behind the rattling AC unit and maintained her clear view of City Hall two blocks over.

  Kay pulled her chair around for Vicki. “Couple more months of this,” she said, clearing a corner of her desk, “and they say we’ll finally be upstairs in the new offices.”

  Finn interrupted, “Listen, while you catch Vicki up, I’m going to pull those Eales files.”

  “Eales?” Vicki asked, but Finn was already on his way out. “What does he mean the Eales files? What’s going on?”

  “There’s something else,” Kay said, knowing the AC unit would shield their conversation. “Something that showed up at the autopsy. Valley’s killer used a knife.”

  “You said she was strangled.”

  “She was. The knife wounds were nonfatal. Just like with Eales’s victims.”

  Vicki’s face tightened. “Wait a second. How the hell is that possible? We kept that back. It wasn’t even in the reports.”

  “Someone’s gotten it. Somehow. Whether it was a leak departmentally or came from Eales himself.” Kay perched on the cleared corner of her desk. “Either way, Vick, Valley’s murder looks like a copycat, or—”

  “No, Kay.” Vicki raised both hands as though to fend off the possibility. “No. We got the right goddamned guy. All the evidence is there. It’s the most airtight case I’ll ever prosecute.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Vicki was silent for a long moment. Clearly processing. “Son of a bitch,” she said finally. “You realize if Eales’s lawyer gets ahold of this, he’s got his entire defense? You know how James Grogan works. This is all he needs to establish doubt in a jury’s mind that the prostitutes’ killer is still out there.”

  She stared past Kay and out the window, but Kay doubted Vicki focused on anything. She was seeing months of work slipping away from them. She was seeing justice in the case of the women’s murders going unserved. And Kay knew Vicki DiGrazzio didn’t take that well.

  “This is a copycat, Kay. That information got leaked, and I want to know how. What else have you got?”

  “We still need to see what Arson came up with, and if the Crime Lab got any prints off the car Valley was driving last night.”

  “A witness or two would be helpful.”

  “We’ll go up to the campus again. And back to the warehouse neighborhood.”

  “There’s no way Eales didn’t murder those women.”

  “Something will surface.” But Kay could tell Vicki’s confidence wasn’t bolstered.

  “And what about you and Finn? You okay?”

  “Sure.” Kay wondered if Vicki sensed the lie. Besides her shrink, Vicki was the only person Kay had confided in about her past relationship with Finn.

  “Well, if you want to talk …” Vicki stood, straightened her fire-engine-red dress, and righted the shoulder strap of her briefcase.

  “Thanks.”

  “Call me when you’ve got something,” Vickie said before starting back across the crowded office, and Kay wondered if the ASA was even aware of the stares that tracked her exit.

  Kay wheeled her chair behind her desk. Draping her jacket over its back, she fished out her untouched breakfast from one pocket and tossed it in the trash. Nausea coiled in her stomach. It was the heat. And it was the memory of Valley’s autopsy. Seeing the girl being cut, hearing the whine of the Stryker saw as it touched against the bared skull, seeing her organs removed one at a time …

  “Hey, Delaney. Line four. ME’s office.”

  Kay pushed aside several reports to uncover the phone. “Hi, Jonesy. What’ve you got?”

  “Maybe nothing. Found a couple marks on your vic.” Eddie Jones watched too many cop shows and read too many novels. She hated when he resorted to fiction cop-talk. “Can’t be hundred percent certain. I’m waiting for Becky to look at ’em for me,” he said, referring to the other assistant ME on staff. “She’s dealt with these before.”

  “What are they?”

  “Couple small, circular contusions. Back of the neck. Two and a quarter inches apart. To me they look like the kinda marks left by the prods of a stun gun. If I’m wrong, I’ll give you a call back.”

  “Thanks, Jonesy.” Kay hung up. Next to the phone, on the top of her stacked paper trays, the plain manila envelope had already arrived from upstairs. One complete set of crime-scene photos.

  Kay opened the envelope and slid out the stack of photos. They were in the order they’d been taken. Long shots of the warehouse, the side alley, the charred openings of the windows. She could picture the scene before the destruction of the fire. And she could picture the back parking lot of Notre Dame.

  He’d waited in the dark, after busting the light. Then nailed her with a stun gun.

  Kay saw Valley on the autopsy table. Saw the rope.

  You tied her because you weren’t sure
how long she’d be out. Was she in the backseat? Or did you prop her in the front next to you, your hand on her knee the whole time?

  Once you had her in the warehouse, you held her throat in your hands. Did she struggle? Did it make you feel powerful?

  Kay exhaled, trying to let go of the anger that flexed along her jaw. She flipped through more photos: the red gasoline can, soot and debris, a mannequin’s arm.

  You burned her because you’d left evidence of yourself. What? Hair? Fiber?

  Jonesy said there was no evidence of sexual assault.

  But killing her turned you on, didn’t it? It had to have given you a rush. Did you masturbate on her, you son of a bitch? You’d left your DNA all over her, so you had to burn her. Did you watch while she burned? Did you enjoy the flames? The crackle of heat as the fire hissed against human flesh?

  But what about the knife? What about the goddamned knife?

  Kay flipped through the last of the photos, stopping when she found one of Finn. It wasn’t uncommon for a detective to request his picture be taken on a crime scene. Usually for posterity. But Kay didn’t imagine Finn had asked for this photo. He’d obviously gotten into the camera’s frame, or maybe the lab tech had a crush on him.

  In the picture Finn towered over Valley’s body, the edges of his jacket brushed aside, his hands on his hips. The flare of the camera’s flash was harsh, and Finn was obviously tired. Still, he looked good. He’d never stopped looking good to her, she realized.

  For the first time, Kay wondered if he was seeing anyone.

  12

  “EARLIER THIS MORNING Baltimore Fire personnel responded to a two-alarm blaze here in Canton, at this vacant warehouse north of Boston Street, last operated as Dutton Mannequin. Fire officials are not revealing what sparked the fire, but at this time arson has not been ruled out.”

  The news camera panned the front of the warehouse and the sea of emergency vehicles lighting up the night. It was beautiful. Like something out of a movie.

  But the tint on the TV mounted in the corner of the diner was on the fritz. The Channel 11 reporter’s pinched face looked green.

  He swilled back the last dregs of coffee from the stained mug, before pushing it across the Formica-topped table, next to the chipped plate. He hadn’t finished the eggs and bacon, the grease already congealing and opaque across the strips of fatty pork. A fly landed on a triangle of toast. He watched it suck at the cold butter before his eyes went back to the TV.

  “Homicide detectives responded to the scene just after one a.m. Police spokesperson Sergeant Richard Contel confirmed later this morning that the fire claimed the life of a young woman. Further details have not been released …”

  The footage from last night showed two men in white coveralls as they picked their way out of the wreckage, balancing a litter between them. The black body bag glistened in the rain.

  Valerie Regester. It hadn’t taken much to find the girl. Even less to actually snatch her. Everything like clockwork.

  It was a job, he’d tried to remind himself last night, sitting behind the wheel of his Buick as she crossed the college lot. Taking care of loose ends. He hadn’t expected the thrill he’d felt as she’d tried to turn over the engine. And when she’d gotten out of the shitbox car of hers, and he’d stepped from his, he’d felt alive for the first time in months. And when she’d turned to look at him, he’d loved how her eyes had narrowed with suspicion. But his smile had eased her concern. It always did.

  Then the drive through the city—nerve-jangling, but exhilarating. Her thin, mewling sounds from the backseat had bubbled up old desires. And the need reemerged, like a cockroach clawing from its spent shell, mutating into a stronger, indestructible state. The final metamorphosis.

  But it wasn’t until he’d finally had her throat in his hands, until he’d felt her life pulse—potent and desperate—against his palms, that he’d been struck by the unexpected jolt of arousal. He thought the fucking Zoloft had killed all that. He would’ve liked to have spent more time with her. Regretted that he hadn’t made arrangements.

  Still, there’d been enough time to go back to the car for his knife. And now, as he cleaned his hands with a paper napkin, he was warmed by the memory of that pleasure, the rage of blood in his ears, the thundering of his heart as he’d emptied himself onto her.

  On the TV, the camera followed two detectives, the bulge of their suit jackets barely concealing the nine-millimeters clipped to their belts. The camera zoomed in. And his heart fluttered.

  She looked different from the grainy, black-and-white photo from the Sun, taken after Bernard had finished with her. The photo he’d cut out and saved, of her face all battered and bloodied beyond recognition. But it was her.

  Detective Kay Delaney.

  13

  PAST THE WINDSHIELD and through the haze of afternoon heat, the steep sides of the State Pen’s old fort-style turrets loomed over the Madison Street entrance, the granite darkened by more than a century of grime. It was the second-oldest penitentiary in the country, and an unmistakable landmark on the eastern bank of the Jones Falls. An 1800s fortress that could never be confused for anything but a prison.

  And Eales was in there. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, chain-link, and razor wire.

  She’d toyed with the notion all day, and an hour ago— standing under the pounding water of her shower at home—Kay had at last made the decision: she needed to talk to the one person who had the most to gain from Valley’s death. Now though, with the lobby doors less than fifty yards from the nose of the Lumina, her courage was sapped, and the questions she’d so carefully rehearsed scattered.

  Exhaustion played a role. It had been a long afternoon with Finn. A walk through the burned Canton warehouse offered nothing. Then, up at the college, Valley’s drawing instructor, distraught and shaken, had been a dead end, unable to supply them with anything more than the number for campus security. A couple hours ago, frustrated, Finn had gone home to shower and sleep, taking with him the Eales case files he’d pulled. Kay had her own copies at home, and in their pages she’d found the reference to Dutton Mannequin.

  Deeply embedded in transcripts and office reports, Eales had listed Dutton as one of more than two dozen places of employment in his past. He’d been twenty-six, and the job had lasted ten months.

  She’d reached Vicki on her cell, somewhere between the State’s Attorney’s Office and the courthouse, their conversation broken as the cell picked up static in the downtown core. Just keep the interview focused on links to the new murder, Vicki had warned her. No reference to Spence and the upcoming trial. And as protocol would dictate, Vicki advised her to bring Finn, even though she agreed Kay would likely get more from Eales on her own.

  So here she was. The passenger seat of the police car empty.

  The smell of old cigarette smoke lingered, the stained velour seats saturated with it from years of her and Spence sharing their habit. She’d cleaned the ashtray months ago and wiped down the interior. A faded air-freshener dangling from one of the vent knobs had lost the battle.

  Kay’s craving rose. She felt the half-empty pack of Camels in her suit pocket. Her emergency stash. It had taken work to dig it out of the clutter on the top shelf of her closet, but that had been the point. And now they would be Eales’s. The cost of information.

  Kay closed her eyes, imagined tapping one of the unfiltered cigarettes from the pack right now, lighting it up and savoring the smooth smoke as it filled her lungs and calmed her nerves. She resisted and at last reached for the door handle.

  The glass-enclosed lobby of the Reception and Diagnostic Center was cool. Sterile. At the front desk, Kay was handed a visitor’s pass and reported to Administration. There, she accessed the prison records and Eales’s visitation logs.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for. A name. Someone who came to see Eales regularly. Or recently. Someone who might have done him the favor of killing Valley. But aside from his defense attorney, Ea
les’s only recorded visitor was a woman—Patricia Hagen.

  A clerk of Grogan’s? An intern? Or maybe Eales had some fanatical girlfriend. An inside-outside relationship, Kay guessed as she took stock of the frequency of the visits. What kind of woman spent that much time with a sour, ill-tempered South Baltimore billy-boy awaiting trial for multiple murders? It took all kinds.

  From Admin, Kay was escorted through the barren, blue-gray maze of the Metropolitan Transition Center and led to a twelve-by-sixteen-foot iron cage.

  “You’re in here.” The guard motioned her into a holding cell, two sides flanked by barred hallways, the other two, solid cinder-block. And in the center, a table and two steel-cased chairs.

  Tension tightened in Kay’s gut at the realization of what she was about to do. She certainly hadn’t expected to sit face-to-face with Eales with nothing but three feet of stale prison air between them. Back home, when she’d convinced herself to come here, she’d imagined a visitation booth, with its reinforced, Plexiglas partition and handsets.

  From somewhere deep in the bowels of the MTC, gates slammed and a yelled chorus started up, then died just as abruptly. Five hundred and forty hot cells, most of them double-bunked, made up Blocks A and B of the west wing alone. A thousand violent men crammed into an oven. And one of them was Bernard Eales.

  “Listen”—she turned to the guard—“I didn’t request a holding cell.”

  “Front desk said this was a police interview. Figured you’d want some privacy.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Look, you got this cell, okay? It’s all set up. ’Sides, they’re bringing Eales in now.”

  She heard the chains first. Then another steely slam.

  And finally, in the convex mirror mounted high in the corner of the corridor, she watched the image of two uniformed guards leading a large white mass in a tangerine-orange jumpsuit.