Alone with the Dead Read online

  Robert J. Randisi

  Alone with the Dead

  ***

  A brutal serial killer stalks young women in New York City as Joe Keough, a detective with nothing to lose, challenges the system to get to the truth-and risks failure that could leave the city in the grip of fear.

  ***

  From Publishers Weekly

  Moving his readers along at a breathless pace (and keeping them one step ahead of the boys in blue), Randisi renders the mad ramblings of a pathetic young man who follows a series of sexual murders in the New York City tabloids and determines to copy, and finally to surpass, the murderer's work. For a number of sinister reasons, detective Joe Keough's superiors are determined to pin all the killings on the man the papers call "the Lover." But Keough isn't convinced: the earlier killings occurred in Manhattan and the later ones in Brooklyn, a change of venue that matches subtle alterations in MO. Keough has a reputation for trouble, but so do a few of his superiors-and they hold the face cards. Randisi power-shifts this work from the start, slowing only to provide procedural detail before resuming speed, even on the brave narrative detour in which the Lover, concerned about his reputation, makes phone contact with Keough. As one killer comes to the surface, the other's rage intensifies. This is top-notch suspense, right from the chilling prologue to the brutal conclusion.

  ***

  From Booklist

  The Lover is terrorizing New York City. He strangles and rapes women, and he leaves a rose protruding from their lifeless bodies. Lieutenant Joe Keogh, a renegade cop banished to Brooklyn, believes there are two Lovers out there, but when he tries to advance his theory, he's summarily ignored. A politically connected Lover Task Force is closing in on the killer and doesn't want to hear Keogh's strident cries of "copycat." The reader knows the truth because Randisi inserts brief chapters presenting the points of view of both killers, who soon come to resent sharing the limelight and plot to eliminate each other. Meanwhile, Keogh, with the help of crime reporter Mike O'Donnell, tries to convince an unyielding bureaucracy that it should be looking for two killers. This is an entertaining, well-written crime novel that stands out on the basis of its shifting points of view, sharp dialogue, humor, and bang-up conclusion.

  ***

  "Forget comparing him with Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh. From now on Robert J. Randisi is the yardstick against which all books of this type must be measured."

  -Loren D. Estleman, author of Edsel

  "I've been telling people for years that Bob Randisi will someday be a name to reckon with. Alone With the Dead marks that day. Randisi has arrived!"

  -Ed Gorman, author of Black River Falls

  "Randisi deftly creates characters, gets the reader hooked by the third paragraph, and fashions a plot that encourages readers this highly recommended book in one sitting."

  -The Armchair Detective

  "Bob Randisi keeps on getting better. This one's a piplean, tough-minded and right on target."

  -Lawrence Block, author of Eight Million Ways to Die

  "This is a major step forward in a career that's been paid too little attention. Randisi is now a contender."

  -Mystery Scene

  "Alone With the Dead is tough, gritty and grippingly realistic. Randisi knows which button to press-and how to press them. This one hits hard and on target."

  -John Lutz, author of Single White Female

  "Robert J. Randisi successfully combines dry humor and suspense to come up with one heckuva read.

  -Rave Reviews

  "Brooklyn is one of America's most famous regions, and Randisi is one of its best chroniclers."

  -Rocky Mountain News

  ***

  PROLOGUE

  Kopykat opened the album.

  It had been meant for use as a photo album, but instead it held fairly recent newspaper clippings, which had been Scotch-taped into the book.

  From down the hall, he heard his mother's cries and the sound of creaking bedsprings…

  The first clipping was from a page-three story in the New York Daily News, dated March 5. The girl had been raped and strangled, then laid out with a rose protruding from her vagina. (He'd had to look up the word vagina.) She had been discovered in her own apartment that way. From the moment Kopykat had first read the story, he knew that it was something special.

  He could hear the man now, a deep voice, shouting unintelligibly, bellowing…

  The second clipping was dated a month later. This time, it made page one of the New York Post. A second girl, raped and strangled and laid out with a rose. This time, the body had been found in Central Park.

  Kopykat had known, even before anyone else did-even before the newspapers made the connection.

  His mother had started shouting, things like "Yes, oh yes" and "Now, now" over and over again…

  It was with the third clipping, from a New York Post issue dated three weeks later, that the killer was first called "the Lover." The third girl had been found exactly the same way, roses and all, in the laundry room of her Manhattan apartment building. It was because of the roses that the Post dubbed him "the Lover."

  His mother and the man were still rutting as he looked at the fourth clipping-again from the Post, which was Kopykat's favorite newspaper. This one had a headline that read LOVER CLAIMS FOURTH VICTIM. This was eleven weeks after the first victim had been found.

  The headline on the fifth clipping-the fourth from the Post-read LOVER TAKES NUMBER FIVE!

  The five women were killed within a four-month period.

  As Kopykat closed the album, feeling all warm inside just from reading the clippings again, the door to his mother's room opened and the man came staggering out. He was wearing nothing but a pair of dirty Jockey briefs, and his hairy bare belly hung down like a swollen balloon. The man stopped when he saw Kopykat sitting there.

  "Hey, where's your ol' lady keep the beer, kid?" he asked.

  "It's in the refrigerator," he replied, pointing toward the kitchen.

  The man walked into the small kitchen, scratching his belly, digging lint out of his navel with one hand while opening the refrigerator with the other. He reached in and took out a cold can of Meister Brau.

  "Jesus, this shit," he muttered, but that didn't stop him from popping the tab and draining half the can. He was still digging into his navel with the index finger of his other hand. Kopykat hoped that the man would push his navel all the way in. He wondered idly if that would cause the air to escape from the man's swollen belly.

  He walked out of the kitchen carrying the can and looked over at Kopykat, sitting on the sofa. His eyes fell on the closed album.

  "Whatcha lookin' at?" he asked. "Pitchers?"

  Kopykat nodded.

  The man leered and asked, "Dirty pitchers?"

  Kopykat shook his head. If the man tried to look at the album, Kopykat would hurt him. He didn't try, though. He burped, scratched his belly, and said, "M'gonna go give yer ol' lady 'nother ride."

  Kopykat didn't say anything. The man went back into his mother's room, closing the door behind him. Kopykat picked up the album and cradled it in both arms, holding it against his chest. He almost wished the man had tried to look at the book.

  Others took clippings from the careers of movie stars or sports figures. For Kopykat, "the Lover" was the ultimate celebrity.

  It was time, however, to do more than just sit back, cut clippings, and admire.

  It was time for Kopykat to step forward and take action.

  JULY

  CHAPTER ONE

  The kite swooped, caught an updraft, soared, swooped again, coming perilously close to crashing, then suddenly caught a good strong updraft, soared, higher, higher, and then stayed up.

  It wa
s a box variety, not Keough's favorite, but he'd wanted to try it out. Here, along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, right off the water, was where you saw kite fliers every day-serious fliers, not your weekend variety. Even in the middle of the summer, there was enough of a breeze coming off the water to accommodate a true enthusiast. Keough was just one of a dozen people flying kites, but most of the others were kids, either in a group or with a parent or parents. Joe Keough, all thirty-seven years of him, went there alone, every month, to fly a kite.

  He hadn't liked flying kites when he was a kid. Back then, his interest had been sports, but sports-almost any sport-involve other people, and when Keough reached his thirties, he suddenly found that he needed some solitude. So once a month-sometimes more-he went out and flew a kite.

  Keough worked the string gently, looking around at the joggers, the bike riders, the picnickers. One of the joggers was a particularly fetching-looking blonde wearing black and orange. She was tall, rangy almost, built like a long-distance runner rather than a casual jogger. Keough generally liked his women a little more padded, but he had no problem watching this young lady until she was out of sight before turning his attention back to the kite.

  He watched it fly, every so often letting out more string, for almost an hour and then started to reel it in. As he did so, he looked down and saw a young boy about eight or nine standing next to him, watching the kite. He stopped reeling in the kite and watched the boy for about ten minutes. The youngster never took his eyes from it.

  Keough checked his watch. If he was going to get some sleep before he went to work, he was going to have to get going now. He still had some errands that needed taking care of.

  "What do you think?" he asked the boy.

  "Huh?" the boy said, without taking his eyes from the kite.

  "What do you think of the kite?"

  "It's fresh!" the boy said enthusiastically.

  Fresh. Keough assumed that meant neat, which was what he would have said when he was eight or nine.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Kyle."

  "Are you here alone, Kyle?"

  "With my brother," Kyle said. "He flying a kite with his friends."

  "Why aren't you with them?"

  Kyle wrinkled his nose and said, "They're teenagers!"

  Keough looked around and saw three boys nearby, about fifteen or so, flying one kite, a colorful, swooping thing that resembled a dragon.

  "Kyle, I have to leave now, and I really don't have time to reel this sucker in. Would you like to fly it for a while?"

  Finally, the boy looked at him.

  "Really?"

  "Sure," Keough said. "Here, take it."

  The boy took the string from Keough and stared up at the kite.

  "I have to go, Kyle."

  "Okay."

  "Make sure you stay close to your brother, huh?"

  "Okay."

  Keough started to walk away, toward his car, when he heard Kyle shout, "Hey, mister."

  "Yeah?"

  "W-what do I do with it after I bring it in?"

  "Keep it," Joe Keough said. "It's yours."

  "Really?"

  Keough nodded, but the boy wasn't looking at him, so he said, "Yeah, really."

  "All right!" Kyle said. "Fresh!"

  "Yeah," Keough said, smiling at the boy's enthusiasm, "fresh."

  He hadn't felt that kind of innocent enthusiasm about anything in a long time.

  He missed it.

  ***

  Detective Joseph Sean Keough was working the night watch that week-second week in a row. He was regularly assigned to the Six-Seven Precinct in Flatbush, which had become known as a dumping ground for misfits, fuckups, and assholes.

  The night watch was usually worked by three detectives from three different commands. They worked out of an office in the Borough Headquarters, which was right upstairs from the Six-Seven, on the second floor of the Snyder Avenue building. That is, the Borough Headquarters was on the third floor, but the actual office the night watch used was on the second. It wasn't usual that one man would work the watch two weeks in a row, but it wasn't unprecedented, either.

  The night watch covered all of the precincts in the Brooklyn South Area, which pretty much covered Brooklyn from Eastern Parkway to Sheepshead Bay.

  Keough was actually working a second week in a row because he had switched with a married detective whose bliss was under a strain. Keough, single and living alone, didn't much care which tour he worked, so he'd readily switched with the man.

  He was working this night with Johnson, from the Six-Nine, and Adair, from the Six-Three. Both men were out getting something to eat, leaving Keough alone with the radio and his thoughts-which was always a danger these days.

  Keough had a lined yellow legal pad on the desk in front of him and he had written three words on it. He was sitting in a borough office, even though the office of his own squad was right across the hall.

  The three words were misfit, asshole, fuckup. Actually, he'd written fuck up, then fuckup, and then crossed out the former, finally deciding that fuckup was one word.

  Which am I? he thought, looking at the three words. He'd been assigned to the Six-Seven Precinct five months ago, following an unfortunate… incident. As a result of the incident, he had been labeled one of these three things and dumped into the Six-Seven Detective Squad. He supposed now that he was lucky they hadn't dropped him back into "the bag"-into uniform again.

  He thought about the boy he'd given the kite to that afternoon, Kyle. He realized now that the boy had strongly resembled the other boy, the one he'd seen five months ago in the men's room of the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, with Eddie Vargas.

  Eddie Vargas…

  ***

  In January of that year, Keough had been working Vice in Midtown Manhattan. The funny thing was, he'd liked it-up until Eddie Vargas, that is.

  Eddie Vargas was a weenie-wagger, with a long sheet to prove it. Everybody knew what Eddie did, but Eddie was also a snitch. Keough didn't use him, but several other detectives who worked Vice did.

  Keough had been taken off the clock to testify in court on a collar he'd made the month before. While waiting to be called, he saw Eddie Vargas in the hallway. As it turned out, Eddie was testifying in a different case, for one of Keough's colleagues. Keough saw Eddie Vargas go into the men's room and then saw a small boy go in moments later. Keough waited a few minutes, and when neither Vargas nor the boy came out, he got a bad feeling.

  As he entered the men's room, he saw Eddie Vargas kneeling down in front of the boy, his hands on the boy's shoulders. It was the sick, hungry look on Vargas's face that convinced him, rather than the look on the boy's face, which simply looked confused. Also, the boy's pants were down around his ankles.

  "Pull up your pants, son," Keough said, "and go find your parents."

  Vargas started to get up, but Keough pointed and said, "Stay there, Eddie."

  "Wha…"

  "Stay there!"

  The boy, who was about eight or nine, pulled up his pants and ran from the room. At that moment, he was more afraid of Keough than he was of Eddie Vargas. Keough was speaking sharply, while Eddie Vargas had spoken to him in soft, soothing tones.

  "H-hey, K-Keough," Vargas said, recognizing the detective. He started to get up again.

  "Damn it, I said stay there, Eddie," Keough said. He moved right up to Vargas, pulled out his .38, and jammed it into the man's ear. Vargas's hair had so much grease in it that it reflected the light from the overheads.

  "Jesus, Keough," Vargas said, bug-eyed and sweaty, "you gotta have a heart…"

  "You like little boys, Eddie?" Keough asked him.

  "Look, Keough, the kid was cute… b-but I wasn't gonna do nothin'."

  "Graduating from weenie-wagging, Eddie?" Keough screwed the .38 into the man's ear even tighter. He felt a rage that frightened him, that was uncharacteristic, and the thing about it that bothered him even more-at that moment and later
-was that he didn't know where it came from.

  But it was there, and he was in the throes of it.

  "You like weenies so much, Eddie, I got one for you," he said, and he proceeded to unzip his own fly, remove his penis, and urinate on Eddie Vargas.

  Vargas, humiliated by the indignity, started to rise almost involuntarily, stunned by what was happening to him. Keough clubbed him down with the .38. Had he left it at that, maybe things would have been different, but the rage had a firm hold on him and he began to beat Eddie Vargas, not with the gun but with his fists, and with his feet, until the little boy's story to his parents and Vargas's screams brought several pairs of hands to pull him off…

  ***

  The phone rang, jerking him from his reverie.

  "Keough, night watch."

  "We got one for you, Keough."

  "Who's this?"

  "Aiello, downstairs."

  Aiello was a Six-Seven cop Keough knew personally. He often worked the front desk as the desk officer when there was no lieutenant or sergeant available for that duty-as was often the case on late tours.

  "What have you got for me, Jerry?"

  "A body," Aiello said, "a girl."

  "What's it look like?"

  "I'll tell you what it looks like to me," Aiello said. "It looks like the Lover has moved his dance card to Brooklyn."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Erasmus High School was once attended by young students who went on to bigger and better things in life. Two in particular who came to mind for Keough were Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand.