killer pulled this one apart limb by limb, numbered the pieces, then taped her back together.” An annoying strand of sauerkraut was hanging from Lenny’s large right cheek.
“Numbered her?” Inside I could only see the back of one of the gloved and masked CSU investigators. He was on his hands and knees, going over the worn carpet with a lint brush. Since the window was open and it was about thirty degrees, he had kept his Northern Exposure parka on. The other technician had Crime Scene Unit printed on the back of his jacket, and was dusting the end table for fingerprints. Their metallic suitcases were open in the corner of the room.
When I took a step inside the room, I saw the vic. With her blood-splattered arms and legs thrust in the air, it looked as if she’d died in the Happy Baby yoga pose. I couldn’t understand how the limbs were defying gravity until one of the forensic people moved away. Several tight coils of transparent tape glistened in the sunlight. The tape encompassed the victim’s elbows and wound its way up her wrists. A black bracelet with large onyx-like pieces dangled from her left wrist, and between her slightly curled fingers the killer had apparently slipped a business card for some local establishment. Another spiral of tape was wrapped around her knees and connected her ankles. More tape tied her upper and lower limbs together.
Not until I looked closely did I see the full barbarity of the crime. The victim had been raggedly decapitated. Nestled on her abdomen, within the tightly woven confinement of taped-up arms and legs, was her head. I slipped back out to the hallway.
“Anyone know who she is?”
“Pross.”
As I watched the technicians dusting the surfaces and the bedside lamp, I asked, “When did they find her?”
“Maid found her this morning,” Lenny said.
“No one saw the john?”
“The desk clerk said the girl signed for the room. A guy was with her, but he couldn’t even give an age or race,” Lenny explained. I knew he was tired of talking about it.
“So whose case is it?”
“Hernandez already came and went.” He was one of the precinct homicide detectives.
When a murder occurred, the precinct detectives came first. If it was an isolated killing, as it usually was, it belonged to them. After they ran it through the database, if a preexisting pattern turned up—an open case—they would call for homicide investigators from Manhattan South. They caught everything south of 59th Street.
As he pulled on his scarf and buttoned up his coat, Lenny said, “About ten minutes ago, the guy at the desk was going to send someone up with a chair. I’ll remind him on my way out.”
I thanked him and he was gone.
When one of the techs finally exited the room, I peeked inside as the other guy was carefully putting away his tools and chemicals and asked if they’d found anything.
“Yeah, a sperm archive of every man born in the last century. I don’t think they ever changed the sheets.” He nodded toward the body. “No sign our killer had sex with this one, though.”
“How old was the victim?” I asked.
“Early twenties,” he read from his report. “Blonde hair. Several identifying tattoos that could have been done in prison.”
The maid, an older black woman in a torn wool sweater, appeared at the end of the hallway. She was pushing a broom cart out of one room, heading toward another.
“Excuse me!” I called, walking over to her. “Are you the one who found the body?”
“Hell yeah, and I’ll never forget it. Never saw no one with no head before.” She spoke with a faded island dialect. “And some policeman took my fingerprints, but I was telling them, I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“They’ll just be elimination prints, to make sure we can rule you out. Did anyone interview you?”
“Yeah, some guy with a bushy mustache.” That was Hernandez. “Oh, and the cop who was just here. He took my name and the name of a tenant who’s lived down the hall a long time.”
“Did you ever see the victim before, when she was alive?” I inquired. I wasn’t supposed to question anyone, but I was alone and I had time to kill.
“Yeah, I told the other officer. She came here from time to time.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I remembered her ’cause she tipped me once, when the room was a real mess.”
“How’d you know it was her?”
“The cop let me look at her face,” she said. “I remembered her tattoo.”
“What tattoo?”
“She had a tiny tear drop near her eye.” I had noticed it.
“So when was the last time you saw her?”
“A month or so ago, I guess. I don’t really remember. The old desk clerk, Sam, he used to have deals with some of the girls.”
“What kind of deals?”
“He’d give the girls a room, just for an hour or so. After a guest checked out, but before I’d clean them. He died a while back, before the big sweep. Maybe the new guy does it now.”
“Would you recognize any of the johns who were with her in the past?”
“Maybe, if I saw them, but I didn’t know her regulars.”
“Does this place have any exits other than the one through the lobby?”
“The fire escape out front,” she replied.
Some detective, a young guy in a Gucci knock-off, came in with a uniform cop named Ray. I sensed they were only there for a little sightseeing.
I thanked the cleaning lady, and followed them into the room. The sightseers fell silent when they saw the vic, so I asked them to watch the scene a minute while I dashed out.
I thought there was at least a chance the killer had left some trace behind, on his way to and from the room. Flicking on my Maglite, I pointed it at the floor as I headed down the hallway. Stopping myself, I paused, closed my eyes, and took some quick shallow breaths—a technique I had recently learned that was designed to heighten my awareness. After a moment my heartbeat quickened. I knew I was ready.
I continued to the staircase and looked down all the way to the lobby—nada. I went back up. On the half landing, just above the murder scene, I spotted a double A battery in the corner. Let it be relevant to the case, I thought as I bent over. Almost through sheer force of will, it became a tube of lipstick. When I rolled it up, and saw the color was bright orange, I realized I had stopped willing too soon. It didn’t quite match the color worn by the victim. Still, I held it by its edge as I returned to the room.
“We gotta dash,” one of the sightseeing cops said when I returned.
An old wooden folding chair was now leaning against the hallway wall. I opened
