Alone with the Dead Read online

  ***

  Capt. Andrew Baker had also read Joe Keough's five on the Carradine murder, and if Clipboard Carson hadn't come through his door at that moment, he would have sent for him.

  "Captain, do you have a minute?"

  "Of course, Henry," Baker said. He sat back from his desk, wishing once again that he had an office. All he had was a desk in a room with two other desks, right outside the precinct commander's office. One desk-the one by the door-belonged to the precinct commander's clerk, a pretty civilian named Betty Roland, whom the old man liked having around. It was a bonus that she was also good at her job.

  The other desk, which was back-to-back with Baker's, belonged to Lt. John Brady, the administrative lieutenant. Brady was a white-haired man in his sixties who was good for little else at this time in his career than pushing papers around his desk and pressing little colored pins into a precinct map, marking off the locations of this month's burglaries and robberies. It was he, with the help of the female clerk, who kept track of how many of each crime were committed each month, which enabled the command-the precinct-to keep track of whether crime was up or down in the precinct.

  Given half a chance, John Brady would downgrade a crime-like changing an "assault" to a "harassment" because the latter was a lesser crime-to keep the precinct figures down.

  This kind of thinking usually infected anyone above the rank of lieutenant, which was why Clipboard Carson and "Where's Your Hat" Baker were about to have the conversation they were about to have.

  "What's on your mind?" Baker asked, casting a covetous glance at the door to Captain Farrell's office.

  "This homicide that Detective Keough caught on his night watch… you were at the scene."

  "I was."

  "Well, sir, it's my opinion that this is another Lover victim. I think we should refer the case to that task force."

  "Henry," Baker said, sitting forward, "that's why I like you, because we think alike. Yes, I was there, and yes, I agree with you. It's definitely another Lover killing. Refer it to the task force."

  "I'll take care of it, sir."

  As Carson was leaving, Betty Roland was coming in. Instead of letting her in first, Carson tried to fit through the doorway with her. They passed so close that her breasts brushed his clipboard, which he was holding against his chest. He wasn't trying to cop a feel; it just never occurred to him to step aside and allow her to enter first. She tried to see what he had on the clipboard, but he kept it too close to his chest.

  There was a fifty-dollar reward in the precinct for anyone who could find out what Carson had on that clipboard. A couple of cops broke into his office one night on a late tour, but the clipboard wasn't there.

  Everyone was convinced he took the damned thing home with him.

  "Betty," Captain Baker called.

  She turned around and looked at the red-haired captain. She was sorry that they had an office in common, because she thought Baker was a real asshole.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Who is the head of the Lover Task Force?"

  "I'll have to look that up, sir."

  "Well, do that, will you? And then get him on the phone for me?"

  She bit her lip, wanting to tell him that she worked for Captain Farrell, but Baker was a captain and she was only a civilian.

  "Yes, sir," she said, "I'll do that right away."

  "Thank you, sweetheart."

  She bit her lip harder and sat down at her desk to look up the information.

  ***

  Lt. Daniel Slovecky hung up the phone and rubbed his hands together. He'd just finished talking to the exec of the Six-Seven Precinct in Brooklyn, Capt. Andrew Baker. Apparently, the Lover had included Brooklyn in his little crime wave and had killed a girl out there. That made six victims. By the time they caught him, maybe he'd have killed a few more. When Slovecky did catch him, he knew that the more people the Lover had killed, the better he was going to look for catching him.

  He had told Baker to send the report right over, then had thanked him effusively.

  Dan Slovecky was thirty-four and had twelve years on the job. The job had cost him two marriages and would probably come between him and the woman he was presently living with, as well. Slovecky had graduated from the Academy near the top of his class and had worked his way up to lieutenant fairly quickly. In fact, he'd made the rank just a week after his thirtieth birthday. Since then, however, he had not been able to make any headway toward a promotion to captain. He thought it was a matter of jealousy-higher-ranking officers who had taken longer to get there were trying to slow him down. What he'd never admit to himself was that his personality and failure to play the game might be standing in his way, but that was, in fact, the case.

  He had lobbied and fought hard to be the whip of this task force, and he was damned sure there was a captaincy in this for him-as long as nobody fucked it up for him!

  The Lover was his own private rainbow and pot of gold rolled into one.

  ***

  When Joe Keough returned from his days off, he was informed that the squad commander wanted to see him. He suspected that he was about to be informed of the fate of the Carradine case.

  Keough went to the lieutenant's office and knocked on the door.

  "Come!"

  "You wanted to see me, Loo?"

  "Yeah, Keough," Carson said. His speech pattern was staccato style, with barely a pause between words, sentences, and phrases. When there was a pause, it was usually to chew on the piece of gum he always had in his mouth, which he did with a particularly offensive liquid sound. As always when Carson spoke to him, Keough had the urge to wipe the corners of his own mouth with his thumb and forefinger.

  "You did some good work on that girl the other night," he said between chews.

  "Thanks, Loo."

  "The case has gone to Manhattan, to the Lover Task Force," Carson said, "so you won't have to worry about it anymore."

  There was a note of finality in his statement, which irked Keough.

  "Uh, Loo, did you read my five on that?"

  "Sure, I read it."

  "I wasn't finished with the investigation."

  "I told you," Carson said, interrupting him, "it's out of your hands-it's out of our hands."

  "By whose authority?"

  Up to this point, Carson hadn't looked up from his desk. Now he looked up and stared at Keough for a moment.

  "Captain Baker went over your five," he said finally, "and he transferred the case to the Lover Task Force. It's somebody else's headache now, Keough. We don't need that kind of headache in this command."

  "Loo…"

  "That's all, Keough." Carson stood up and picked his clipboard up from the desk. "I have to go downstairs and talk to the exec."

  He walked past Keough, opened the door, and then looked at the detective wide-eyed and said, "You want me to tell him anything for you?"

  "No," Keough said. "No, Loo. Nothing."

  Carson left the room for his meeting with Baker, and Keough figured that the two men were made for each other. Baker loved having his ass kissed, and Carson was a brownnoser deluxe. It was a well-known fact in the command that Baker couldn't wipe his ass without first asking Carson to please move his nose.

  Keough left Carson's cubicle and sat at his desk. He had no cases at that moment. The Carradine killing had been his only one, and now that was gone. Good riddance. Let the task force handle it.

  Now that he was off night watch and back on the chart, he'd be working with his partner again. He and Pete Huff had been partners for five months now, having been put together as soon as Keough arrived, and they still hadn't worked the kinks out of their relationship. Keough was a bit relieved that Huff wasn't in yet.

  The phone at his elbow rang.

  "Keough, Six-Seven Squad."

  "This is PAA Haley," a man's voice said, "down in the one twenty-four room?"

  Haley was a civilian, the station-house clerk. The job used to be manned by cops, but more than fi
fteen years ago, the city began to bring in civilians-calling them PAA's, short for police administrative aide-to cover inside clerical jobs so the cops would be free to patrol the streets. Among other jobs, the station-house clerk interviewed complainants who walked in off the street to report a crime, then referred the proper cases to the squad.

  "What can I do for you today, PAA Haley?" Keough asked.

  Fuck it, he thought. Mindy Carradine's own parents didn't give a shit who killed her, and neither did his bosses, so why should he?

  "Got a lady down here says she needs to talk to a detective. You catching?"

  "Yeah," Keough said with a sigh. "Yeah, I'm catching. Send her up."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kopykat pasted the new clipping into his book with unrestrained glee. His eyelids felt heavy and he was aware of the pulsing erection he had as he ran his hands over the article.

  It was from page one of the Post, and the story was continued on page two.

  The headline said:

  LOVER EXTENDS HIS REIGN OF TERROR TO BROOKLYN!

  He continued to run his fingers lovingly over the headline, giggling at the fact that he had fooled them all. He had perfectly copied his idol's style, and now they all thought that the Lover had killed again-and it was really him!

  Abruptly, he closed the book and hugged it tightly to his chest. He held it that way as he walked to the bathroom.

  ***

  The man the newspapers had begun to call "the Lover" stared at the Post headline that morning. What the hell was going on? He knew that he damn well hadn't been out last night. Somebody had killed a girl and was trying to blame him. Hell, he didn't mind being blamed for murders he did commit, but he didn't like being blamed for something he didn't do. Also, he had come to like the nickname the papers had given him, and he didn't like the idea of someone else being called by it.

  "Professor?"

  He looked up from his desk and saw one of his male students looking in at him.

  "Yes?"

  The student looked pointedly at his watch and said, "Lecture time, sir."

  "Oh," the Lover said, "right, I'll be along, Ken. You go ahead."

  "Yes, sir," the student named Ken said.

  The Lover stared at the newspaper for a few moments more, then folded it and left it on his desk. He had a lecture to deliver, and to date he hadn't let his little extracurricular activities interfere with his job. He knew that he had to do something, but he didn't know what. He'd just have to think about this later…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Keough rushed home from the station house because he had a dinner invitation.

  Nancy Valentine was Keough's neighbor. At thirty-two, she was widowed and the mother of a precocious ten-year-old girl whom Keough admitted he was in love with. He also felt that Nancy would have liked to be more than neighbors, but she wasn't pushy about that. Keough didn't quite know why he was so… reticent.

  When he was transferred to the Six-Seven, he moved out of Manhattan and found an apartment in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, on Oliver Street. That was his way of admitting to himself that his "dumping" was going to last a good long time.

  Nancy and her daughter, Cindy, had the apartment next to his, and from day one Cindy had been very friendly toward him. It had been Cindy who introduced him to her mother, and although Nancy had been friendly, she had also been wary of the stranger. After a few months, though, they were all friends, and after five months, Keough didn't have many friends better than Nancy and Cindy.

  He often had dinner at their place, and tonight was one of those nights. He had returned from his first day back at work after the Carradine killing, very unsatisfied with himself. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the Carradine girl was not a Lover victim. To his way of thinking, the differences outweighed the similarities. He had, however, already been overruled by his lieutenant and by Captain Baker, so who was going to listen to him? He had thought about talking to Huff about it, but Huff had spent the whole day talking about his new girlfriend.

  At forty-three, Pete Huff was married, but he always had something on the side, and he loved to talk about them. Keough had learned to turn a deaf ear and just let Huff go on and on, but on this particular day, Huff's droning had annoyed him. That, combined with losing the Carradine case-and not having spoken up about his hunch-had put him in such a piss-poor mood that he had forgotten about dinner until Cindy Valentine reminded him in the hall.

  "Don't forget, Joey," she said as they passed in the hall, "you're having dinner with us tonight."

  Nobody had called him Joey since his mother, when he was little.

  "How could I forget, kitten?" he asked, hoping that he was successfully hiding his guilt. They had gotten to the point in their relationship where this beautiful little girl could read him like a book.

  "Sure, sure. I'm going to the store for Mommy," Cindy said. "She's making… well, I'm not gonna tell you. It's gonna be a surprise."

  "I love surprises."

  "See ya later," Cindy called, and ran out the front door, her long blond ponytail bouncing behind her. She was probably going to the little deli right on the corner.

  Knowing Cindy Valentine made Joe Keough wonder what it would be like to have kids of his own-but he never wondered about that for very long.

  ***

  It wasn't until after dinner-an Oven Stuffer roast chicken with gravy, stuffing, broccoli, salad, and Italian bread-and Cindy was in her room finishing her homework that Keough started to talk to Nancy about the Carradine girl. Keough had been drinking wine with dinner after more than several beers before dinner.

  "I read about that in the paper," Nancy said. "I was wondering if you were involved."

  "Well, I am," Keough said, scowling, "for all the good it's going to do that little girl."

  "She wasn't so little, Joe," Nancy said.

  "She was to me."

  "They're all little girls to you, Joe," Nancy said. She put her right elbow on the table and tucked her hand beneath her chin. Her chin rested on the second joint of her fingers. Nancy's eyes were large and brown and would have dominated her face had it not been for her mouth. Her upper and lower lips were of equal fullness, giving them an overripe look. "You know, in the past few months I've come to know you pretty well."

  "You have, huh?"

  She nodded, bending her fingers as she did so. A lock of dark blond hair had fallen across her forehead, and she left it there.

  "Yes. You bleed."

  "We all bleed when we get hurt, Nancy."

  "Not you," she said. "You bleed even when other people get hurt."

  He reached for the bottle of wine and filled his glass again.

  "A lot of people do that."

  "Policemen?"

  "Some."

  "Not many though, huh?"

  "Some," he said again. "I can't give you a number."

  "Well, I only know one. You bled for that little boy in the men's room."

  He frowned. He had gotten drunk on wine one night, and Nancy was such a good listener, he had told her the Eddie Vargas story.

  "That was different…"

  "You bled for the children you encountered when you were on the Vice squad," she said. "Hell, you probably even bled for the adults"

  "No," Keough said, cutting her off, shaking his head, "not for the adults. They had a choice; they had control over their own lives. Children do not. The little boy in the men's room didn't, and this little-this girl certainly did not."

  "That's it, then," Nancy said. "You bleed for children. That's why Cindy likes you so much."

  "Is it?"

  She nodded, bending her fingers again, and then lowered her hand.

  "She sees that in you, Joe," she said, "and she loves you for it."

  "Well, I lo… I'm pretty fond of her, too."

  "I know," Nancy said, smiling, "I know you do." Love her, she meant.

  "Yeah…"

  An awkward silence followed and K
eough tried to fill it by filling Nancy's glass with wine. They both listened to the sound it made flowing into her glass.

  "I shouldn't have that," Nancy said.

  He put the bottle down and said, "I didn't notice you stopping me from pouring."

  She laughed, picked up the glass, sipped the wine, and put the glass back down.

  "What are you going to do, Joe?"

  He took a deep breath and stared at her.

  "Keep my mouth shut, I guess."

  "Are you sure?"

  His expression became pained and he said, "No, I'm not sure, Nancy. I'm not sure at all."

  He picked up his wineglass, filled it, drained it, and filled it again. When he drained that one, Nancy pushed hers across the table to him.

  "Here," she said, "drink that, too. Cindy and I will walk you back to your apartment."

  ***

  As promised, half an hour later, Nancy and Cindy staggered across the hall, trying to support Keough's weight between them.

  "This is silly," Keough said. "I can walk."

  "We know you can, Joe," Nancy said. "We just want to make sure you know when to stop walking."

  At Keough's door, Nancy put her hand into his left pocket and felt for his keys.

  "The keys aren't on my side, honey," she said to Cindy. "Try yours."

  Cindy put her hand into Keough's right pocket and came out with the keys.

  "Unlock the door," Nancy said.

  "Can you hold him?"

  "I'll hold him."

  While Cindy unlocked the door, Nancy fought to keep Keough on his feet. His knees kept bending and she kept having to jerk him upright. If Keough had been sober enough to notice, he probably would have been impressed by her strength.