Frenzy

6

“The maid came in this morning and found them,” New York Police Commissioner Harley Renz said. “I figured this was one for you.”

Former homicide captain Frank Qui

Qui

Greed of every sort had helped to make Renz fifty pounds overweight. He was wearing his artfully tailored commissioner’s uniform this morning, knowing there’d be plenty of photographs and maybe a TV spot. The pink flesh of his neck ballooned over his stiff white shirt collar, lending him multiple chins.

Qui

“They were all killed the same way,” a nasty nasal voice said. It belonged to Dr. Julius Nift, the medical examiner. He was a short, fashion plate of a man, best described as Napoleonic. He used some sort of a shiny steel instrument to poke at the end girl on the bed, a slender redhead who looked about sixteen years old. Most of all the girls’ clothes had been cut away, some of the remnants used to cover where their throats had been cut, to minimize arterial blood being splashed around during their death throes. “Same knife, and probably its point was used for the torture leading up to their deaths.”

“Same knife used to slice the initials in their foreheads?” Qui

“Don’t know for sure, but probably.”

“Old friend of yours,” Renz said to Qui

The scar where the bullet had ripped into the right side of his back began to burn, as it often did when he thought of that day at the lake. Unfinished business. It drove a man like Qui

Memory was a powerful engine that drove him. He would never forget, but there was one way to lessen the pain.

“My dead friend, we hope,” he said. “This could be a copycat killer, a secret admirer.”

Nift glanced at the row of dead, all-but-nude young women. “He left the good parts alone, anyway.”

Qui

“Maybe the killer just ran out of room on the bed,” Renz said.

“No,” Qui

Nift was gri

“Thirty-seven,” Renz said. “According to her Ohio driver’s license.”

“You got all the IDs?” Qui

“Yeah. The special one on the table was Andria Bell. She was chaperone and guide for the others. The young girls were art students at some academy in Cleveland.”

“Andria was an artist?”

“A teacher, anyway.” Renz propped his fists on his hips and shook his head in dismay. “Damn it all. Those young girls, never had much of a chance to get to know life. Imagine how the news media’s go

“Why shouldn’t they?” Qui

“Oh, no reason in the world. The bastards are doing exactly what I’d do. Only there’s only one of me. They’re like a pack of wild dogs, go

“There are five dead women here,” Harley said. “Plus we’ve got two killed in Maine, plus at least four in New York prior to Maine. And you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Isn’t that just the point? I’m still alive.”

And still wants to be mayor someday.

Qui

He looked around at the carnage. “Any computers?”

“If there were any,” Renz said, “the killer took them with him. But that’s doubtful.”

“Why?”

“Everybody here has an iPhone, or something like one. Damned things are like little computers themselves.”

Renz gave Qui

“Yes and yes,” Qui

“It’s yours, then. Keep me apprised, and I’ll handle the media unless I tell you otherwise.”

So I can take the serious media shots and be blamed for every day the killer isn’t caught. “Of course,” Qui

He’d been chosen, and not only by Renz.

Renz moved toward the door. “I’ll get the papers to you to sign. And appoint some kind of liaison.”

Qui

Liaison. Another word for informer. Just what Qui

A man in white coveralls appeared in the doorway. The crime scene unit had arrived. Usually they arrived at crime scenes about the same time as the ME. Qui

“Where’s Pearl?” Nift asked. Working the love-hate thing they had going but without the love.

“She’ll be here,” Qui

Nift gri

“Yeah. You’d be surprised what Pearl’s capable of if you piss her off.”

There was something to that, and Nift knew it. He began putting away his instruments in a compartment of his black valise where they’d be separated from those that were still sterile. “Tell Pearl I said hello. I’m done here, anyway. Got a hot date with all these beautiful ladies, down at the morgue.” He shrugged. “Well, not so hot.”

Qui

“Let’s get some breakfast,” Renz said. “Let the CSU do its thing without us in the way.”