The Screaming Room Read online

  Driscoll had spent the better part of his morning listening to the ranting of Joseph Santangelo, the chief of detectives. How the man had risen from inspector to chief was a mystery. There had been other more qualified candidates for the job. The belief was that he had some politician or cash-cow benefactor in his pocket. Chief Santangelo, derisively called “The World’s Greatest Detective” by his squad commanders, was his usual cantankerous self, telling Driscoll he’d be directing traffic down on Canal Street if he didn’t turn up a lead in the case soon. But after his posturing, he gave Driscoll the green light to set up a task force. A contingent of thirty detectives and three sergeants, from throughout the borough, would be handpicked by Driscoll. The support team at TARU, or Technical Assistance Response Unit, would be ordered to stand at the ready. And Fleet Services would supply ten additional cars and two surveillance vans. A Tip Line, a phone number established by the department at which the general public was encouraged to report any pertinent information, would be established and manned twenty-four-seven by a police investigator. The line had proven to be a valuable aid in many previous investigations. Thomlinson would be Driscoll’s broom, his right-hand man. He would oversee the Tip Line activity and other administrative duties. Any directives that came from him were to be interpreted as coming from the Lieutenant.

  Crime Scene had reported their findings to Driscoll immediately after the barrage of mortar fire from Santangelo. Helga Swenson’s blood had been found in the third stall of a second-floor ladies’ lavatory in the east wing of the museum. The blood of victim number two, Yen Chan, was found in one of those industrial green Port-a-Potties near the entrance to Cleary’s Boardwalk Fun House, just steps away from the site where his body had been found. Now came the hard part. Crime Scene would have to process two public facilities where hundreds, if not thousands, of fingerprints and other forensic evidence would be found. This wasn’t television’s CSI. The NYPD Crime Lab was understaffed and lacked the high-tech gadgetry of the highly equipped labs featured on TV. But they got the job done, just not within the sixty minutes it took their TV counterparts. But, as Driscoll was fond of pointing out, the NYPD did it without those annoying commercials.

  All precincts throughout the five boroughs had been ordered to beef up their presence at all tourist attractions throughout the city. This presence was to be provided around the clock. Thomlinson had made some of the forensic team’s findings known to the news media, asking that they include the information about the holding sites in their reporting. The general public was urged to call the task force’s Tip Line with information about any suspicious activity they may have encountered in and around the restrooms, the attractions, or on the bridge. Trace evidence of three other blood donors was also discovered at the museum. Test results showed all three to be menstrual blood. Driscoll figured as much. After all, it was a ladies’ room. Considering that the crime scenes themselves had been violated by being trampled upon by the general public, Driscoll wasn’t banking on much, if any, pertinent evidence. But the preliminary forensic reports did prove Sergeant Aligante’s theory to be correct about where the victims were held. And her assertion that the killer had a conversation with the deceased before rendering the fatal blow was also likely. The autopsies of all three victims revealed no defensive wounds. And all three were indeed tourists. The sad part was that none of them saw it coming. Support for Margaret’s speculation was encouraging news. Score one for the good guys. And a slam dunk for Margaret!

  Fifteen minutes later, Driscoll pulled the cruiser into a restricted parking space in front of Thirty-two East Houston Street, NYPD’s Crime Lab, where he tossed the Police Department Vehicle Identification card onto the dash.

  Once inside the building, he and Thomlinson were greeted by Ernie Haverstraw, the lab’s top criminalist, who reminded Driscoll of the ubiquitous hefty man you’d inevitably run across in the meat department of every Gristede’s grocery store in the city.

  The three men crowded around the Bontrager ten-speed bicycle that had been recovered from the Brooklyn Bridge. It was still coated with blotches of white powder, the residue of the technician’s search for fingerprints.

  “That exerciser-on-wheels retails for about twenty-one hundred dollars plus,” said Haverstraw. “But now it’s fit for the junkyard. Not only was the front wheel damaged but also the frame was bent in the collision. Whoever left it behind knew it was a total.”

  “What’d it hit?”

  “Something made of brick. My guess would be one of the columns on the bridge.”

  “Come up with any prints?” asked Thomlinson.

  “A few. But none that matched any in our databases.”

  “Figures,” said Driscoll.

  “Found something, though.” The technician held up a clear plastic envelope about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Driscoll squinted to see what was trapped inside. “We found it wedged into the brake assembly on the bike’s handlebars. We know it doesn’t belong to your victim.”

  Driscoll brought the bag to within inches of his nose. He was able to identify the find: the jagged edge of a bloodstained fingernail. He handed the pouch to Thomlinson.

  “Now if we could only get hold of the guy that belongs to this nail…” Thomlinson said.

  “That won’t be easy,” said Haverstraw. “We tested the blood. Another no-hit. We’re still waiting for the chromosomal scanning results on the blood’s white cells. That’ll give us the likely race and gender.”

  “Tell me more about the bike,” said Driscoll.

  “It’s imported from Italy by Stranier and Sons. You’ll find it available in only three stores in the Northeast. One’s in Darien, Connecticut. Another in Manhattan. And one more in Southampton. But you see that emblem? That bike ran the Tour de France. And your rider is a professional who bought it right here in Manhattan.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Thomlinson. “All that from a bike?”

  “Well, the serial number helped.” Haverstraw grinned like the Cheshire cat.

  “So we’ve got a name,” said Driscoll.

  “That we do. The bike’s owner is one Kyle Ramsey. He lives at Two-Thirty-one Pineapple Street. Downtown Brooklyn. That makes him a Brooklyn Heights resident, Lieutenant. Right in your own backyard.”

  Chapter 16

  The club was called the Wet Spot, and it was ladies’ night. k. d. lang’s sultry voice flooded the dance floor as a crowd of drag queen revelers responded rapturously to the balladeer. Sweat glistened. Tongues explored. Limbs intertwined. Flesh clung.

  At the bar, a ponytailed lass dipped her pinkie in her mimosa and tickled the cherry. Her pristine white blouse, her parochial-school jumper, and her bleached cotton knee-highs made her look like a Catholic schoolgirl.

  “I could drink Veuve Clicquot all night,” her bar companion singsonged as she ran a teasing finger under the small of the schoolgirl’s foot. “They call me Gretchen,” she added with a wry little smile that accented a Betty Boop face.

  “Dance! Dance! Dance to the music! Grind! Grind! Grind to the beat!” The DJ’s rhythmic incantations exhorted the excitement seekers to heightened realms of rapture spurred now by Janet’s Jackson’s “Nasty.”

  Circumnavigating the bar, waiters, costumed as mermaids, scurried in stiletto heels to deliver drinks.

  “I just love ladies’ night. Don’t you?” Gretchen crooned.

  “That I do,” said the schoolgirl. “But I’m inhaling enough noxious perfume to hatch a pulmonary tumor.”

  “Oooooo, pulmonary! Sounds raunchy. Sure like the sound of that. You a nurse or an obstetrician?”

  “Silly,” the girl giggled.

  “Why don’t you lead me to your examination table? I just love stirrups.”

  “All right, then. Hi-ho, Silver!”

  Gretchen signaled the bar’s mermaid for the check.

  The Catholic schoolgirl rummaged through her over-stuffed bra and produced a crisp $50 bill.

  “The libations are on me,”
she said, grabbing hold of Gretchen’s hand, before heading for the exit.

  “You Kyle Ramsey?” The voice cropped up out of nowhere. It stopped the Catholic schoolgirl dead in her tracks. When she turned around, the glow of a woman’s face stared back at her.

  “Sorry, honey. The name’s Celeste. And who might I ask are you?”

  “We’ve got your bike,” Sergeant Aligante said flatly, producing her shield.

  Gretchen quickly disappeared, swallowed up by the throng of gyrating dancers.

  “Do I look like I’d be riding a bike in this getup, darling?”

  “Your bike. The Brooklyn Bridge. Am I ringing any bells?”

  The etchings of fear began to form on Ramsey’s face. He climbed back onto his barstool and invited Margaret to join him.

  “It was just supposed to be an early-morning jaunt. That’s all. The guy’s dead. Right?”

  “What guy is that?”

  “The guy whose head was bleeding.”

  “The man’s dead, all right. What can you tell me about him?”

  “What’s to tell? He was lying there when I found him. I’m the one who called 911.”

  “Been to Coney Island recently, Mr. Ramsey? Or to the Museum of Natural History?”

  A look of panic seized Kyle Ramsey.

  “Wait a minute. Does this have something to do with those two tourists who were killed?”

  “This’ll go a lot easier if I ask the questions.”

  “I’m sorry. But that’s gotta be it. Why else would you be here asking questions?”

  “Which you haven’t answered.”

  “I’ve never been to Coney Island. It’s a dreadful place. And the last time I was to a museum I was six years old. Honest!”

  It appeared to Margaret that the man was about to cry.

  “We think there may have been someone else on that bridge, Mr. Ramsey.”

  “You’re damn right there was. There was this guy. At least I think it was a guy. Anyway, he darted out in front of me. I swerved the bike to avoid him and hit the goddamn bridge.” Ramsey leaned in conspiratorially. “I think I may have hit the bastard.”

  “We do too.”

  Margaret eyed the man dressed in Catholic schoolgirl attire. Could she have found her serial killer hiding behind lipstick, mascara, and a padded bra? Every instinct said no. His story too closely paralleled the evidence. And why would a killer leave a traceable ten-speed racer at the scene of a murder?

  “Let me buy you a drink,” said Margaret. “What’ll it be?”

  “I’ll have another mimosa.”

  “Make that two,” said Margaret to the bar’s mermaid.

  “You look more like the Cosmopolitan type, if you don’t mind me saying,” said Ramsey. “And don’t you feel just a tad out of place in this meat emporium?”

  “What? You don’t like my Versace blouse?”

  “On the contrary, I like it too much.”

  Whoa! Was this guy a switch-hitter? Margaret couldn’t remember ever being hit on by a man dressed in drag. Oddly enough, she found it amusing. Life’s just full of surprises, she thought.

  “Kyle, tell me about the guy you think you hit.”

  “From the top?”

  “From the top.”

  “Okay. I’m racing across the bridge. I do it every morning. That particular morning I was trying to better my time from the day before. As I’m closing in on the second piling, I check my stopwatch. I’m doing okay. Then out of nowhere this guy…or girl. Whatever! Let’s call him a guy. This guy pops out in front of me. Smack! I hit him. At least I think I did. It all happened so fast. Anyway, the guy does a cartwheel and I hit the floorboards. Man, did that hurt! When I get to my feet the guy is bolting and my bike looks like an accordion. That’s when I spotted the man with the head wound. I checked for a heartbeat. There didn’t appear to be any. So I called 911.”

  “Why didn’t you identify yourself?”

  “I should have. I know. The whole thing was just too scary. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

  “Why’d you leave the bike behind?”

  “It was beyond repair. It wasn’t until I reached home that I remembered the bike’s serial number and that it might be traceable. I was gonna head back to retrieve it, but by that time the bridge was filled with police cars. I made a mistake in leaving it, huh?”

  “Let’s get back to the guy you hit. Wha’d he look like?”

  “I never saw his face.”

  “He was a foot in front of you!”

  “It all happened in a flash. I think he had a hood on. Maybe a baseball cap under that. But I didn’t see his face. That’s all I can tell ya. Honest.”

  Margaret glanced around the crowded club. The music was still blaring and the crowd was still jostling to the beat. An odd smile creased her face. She turned her attention back to Kyle Ramsey.

  “All guys, huh?”

  Ramsey returned her gaze. “Like a little piece of heaven. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Chapter 17

  Driscoll pulled the rain-battered Chevy to a complete stop as the Long Island Railroad’s red and white crossing gates descended up ahead. He narrowed his eyes, focusing them on the rearview mirror, hoping to sidestep a haunting recollection from his past. But the thunderous sound of the passing commuter train catapulted the nightmarish memory to consciousness. On a sunny morning in August, when Driscoll was eight years old, he had been standing curbside, watching his mother climb the steps of the LIRR’s Jamaica station. Ten minutes later, as the Manhattan-bound 10:39 came rumbling in, the woman launched herself into its path, ending her life and indelibly scarring John Driscoll. He never forgave his mother for her selfish act and never forgave himself for that notion.

  His heart was still racing when a car horn sounded. The train had passed, the gates were up, and a motorist behind him was politely asking Driscoll to proceed. Guilt ridden, he put the cruiser in drive and stepped on the gas.

  Thirty minutes later, with the rain still playing havoc with the cruiser’s windshield wipers, Driscoll guided the Chevy past the limestone pillars that marked the entrance to Saint Charles Cemetery. Although his mother was interred there, it wasn’t her grave he had come to visit. After giving the security guard a nod, he followed the curves in the road until he came to within fifty feet of the section where his wife and daughter were buried. Pulling the Chevy to the curb, he turned off the engine and sat motionless, lost to reflection. Lightning filled the luminous sky, followed by a slow rumble of thunder that echoed through the graveyard. Driscoll thought it sounded like the drumroll that preceded an execution.

  Silence filled the cruiser’s cabin as the rain subsided. Driscoll opened the car door and was engulfed by cold and damp air. Heading for the gravesite, he noticed green moss had begun to obscure the headstone’s carved lettering. He used his handkerchief to scrape away the uninvited decay.

  “Bonjour, ma cherie,” he whispered to his bride, standing somberly before the mute stone. “Nicole, Daddy is here,” he added.

  Was it merely the wind that rustled the nearby willow or was his salutation being answered?

  He marveled at the sweeping motion of the tree, smiled, and returned his focus on the grave.

  “I miss you,” he said. “Both of you.” He leaned over and placed his hand on the damp granite stone as serendipitous thoughts whirled into a kaleidoscope of memories. He saw himself and Colette lounging on the open porch outside their Toliver’s Point bungalow; a wooden glider providing a view of an ocean varnished in moonlight. The liquid sounds of Debussy serenaded them, as notes from Nicole’s flute wafted through an open window.

  Without warning, the intrusive peal of a cell phone interrupted his reverie. He reached inside his breast pocket and turned the unit off. But it was too late. His daughter’s concert had ended and the vision had ceased.

  “Gotta go,” he grumbled.

  Forcing a smile, he climbed behind the steering wheel of the Chevy and guided it along the winding
road that led to the cemetery’s exit, taking note of the tombstones that stood like sentinels on either side. Too many lives lost, he thought, reaching the limestone pillars, where the security guard gave him his customary salute. Odd, even the dead need guarding, he said to himself as he veered the cruiser onto Saint Philip’s Drive.

  On the entrance ramp to the Meadowbrook Parkway, he remembered he had turned off his cell phone. He reached in his pocket and turned it back on. It rang almost immediately. He flipped it open.

  “Driscoll.”

  “Lieutenant, I’ve been trying to reach you. Something wrong with your phone?” It was Thomlinson. He sounded anxious.

  “I was elsewhere. Whaddya got?”

  “The DNA results are in on the nail.”

  “It’s about time. Meet me in my office in forty-five minutes.”

  “Will do.”

  When Driscoll arrived at his desk, he found Thomlinson seated beside it. Driscoll slid into his seat and unpocketed a pack of Lucky Strikes and lit one up.

  “Thought you were off those things.”

  “I am,” he said, shooting Thomlinson a glare. “Let’s see what Forensics has to offer, shall we?”

  He reached for the secured file, broke its seal, and leafed through a score of typed pages.

  …Complete search of the national DNA database produced no match.

  …subject unidentified. “Now, that’s a surprise,” he quipped and read on.

  …In conclusion, chromosomal scanning, utilizing standard Bayesian interpretation, suggests the subject to be Caucasian…Polymerase chain reaction-short tandem repeat methodology, reveals the subject to be male.