Detective Tori Taylor could not believe her luck.
She’d been hunting the Upper East Side Killer for over a year. Lack of progress caused her to put on her tightest jogging Lycra and run the Park circuit in the crazy hours. The UESK was a Department secret. Dots had been joined and a pattern discerned. At least a dozen deaths and mysterious disappearances over four years. The center of gravity lodged squarely in the heart of Manhattan’s most fashionable and wealthy district and that’s exactly why the media couldn’t know. Murders and abductions were everyday occurrences. Serial killers were not.
The Long Island Serial Killer was still at large. But he was way out there and killed mainly meth-addled prostitutes. Detective Taylor’s quarry was very much here and liked rich young women from well-connected families. This caused phonecalls. The Commissioner didn’t like phonecalls.
When he jumped her, she knew she had her man, she could smell it. And she let the switch trip in her head and crushed his neck, so he was dead before her backup reached her.
‘He, he tried to kill me. I had to...’
‘It’s okay, Tori. You okay?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You think this is our guy?’
‘I sure fucking hope so,’ she laughed. ‘Get some ID and we’ll go knock on some doors. I’ll call the judge for some paper.’
A plain clothes detective went through Rod’s pockets, found his wallet, his keys, a syringe, a vial of propofol, a pair of latex gloves and a pair of handcuffs. He used his pocket torch to light up the vial. Another detective took Rod’s headphones and heard the screams. Together, they said ‘This is him.’
They went to Rod’s apartment. The concierge was shocked that Rod was dead, ‘Such a nice man,’ didn’t even look at the warrant, let the team into the apartment.
‘This is a crime scene,’ said Detective Taylor, her nose twitching at a vague smell. ‘Keep your gloves on. Jim, take notes starting with all our names and watch the door. What we’re looking for primarily is anything to link this guy to any of our open cases. Beyond that, well, let’s just see.’
On the surface, all was normal. Normal Manhattan rich: expensive, white leather furniture, a stunning view over Central Park, collectable art, a rarely-used kitchen, a wine rack with a dozen hundred dollar bottles, a mirror with traces of cocaine. They checked some drawers, found his chef’s whites, connected him to Oral Pleasures. They turned on the Apple MacBook Air, then looked in his fridge.
The smell. Even a couple of molecules per million was enough to identify the residual smell of death. It was an instinctive thing for a detective who’d smelt that smell a dozen times. Then, the visual confirmation.
‘Body parts,’ she said. ‘Looks like bodily fluids, too.’
‘Detective!’ called one of the crew. ‘Looks like we got keys to Jacob Johnson’s place.’ He dangled keys on a Hello Kitty chain with a brass plate, Jacob’s apartment building name engraved there. ‘The Leinster.’
‘So you did the congressman’s daughter, Rod. You dirty bastard.’ She instantly regretted killing him, worried that too many secrets might have slipped into his grave, to live quietly beside him in the dark, wet earth, with the nightmares and the worms and the demons. ‘At least this clears Johnson. I didn’t think he looked the type. This just keeps getting better.’ I like it when instinct proves to be correct. And I can safely like you now, Jacob.
Then Detective Taylor called the Commissioner. She arrived within thirty minutes, trailing media. The key newspapers and TV had agreed to keep the killings and disappearances unlinked and well below the typical hysteria levels in return for first look at the killer. The reporters were corralled outside the main entrance and a statement promised.
‘That’s a fine bruise on your neck, Tori.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise.’
‘It’s going to look great on TV,’ said the commissioner, patting her arm. ‘You did great. No, don’t shrug it off. You were one-on-one with a serial killer for a few, long seconds. That’s all it takes. You’re a hero. And you make me look good. Now, fill me in on what you’ve got so far so we can get the DNA teams in here and I can let the media run their stories. And it’s all over.’
‘Not quite, commissioner. We’ve still got the restaurant connection. This could upset a lot of people.’
Sophie arrived to a CSI truck, five police cars, yellow tape and media. A uniform lifted the tape for her and a detective brought her inside. Then, as she took in the scene, he caught her as she fainted, lay her on a leather booth seat and fetched a glass of water.
‘Sorry, I, I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s okay. Happens all the time. This is not what any restaurant owner wants to see.’
‘If Rod’s in trouble, I don’t see...’
‘Drink some water. It gets worse than that, I’m afraid. The CSI guys are taking some DNA samples from your kitchen. We’ll have the results back from CODIS later today. Probably you will not be happy.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘We believe that your business partner has been serving human meat to your clientele.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yes. Fuck. This is bad on so many levels. We’ve shut you down, probable cause.’
‘For how long?’
He laughed. Not a cruel laugh, more in surprise. ‘If it’s proven that your chef’s been serving the locals to the locals, well I don’t know. Seems to me you’ll be attracting every skell in the five boroughs.’
‘Skell?’
‘You don’t want these people in your restaurant.’
‘I guess not. It’s finished then isn’t it?’ Sophie said, gesturing with a dead hand.
The detective was called to the kitchen by a woman in a white evidence suit. So Sophie sat, closed her eyes, listened, thought.
The clattering pans. The clicking cameras. I was so close to my dream. Rustling plastic. Murmuring voices, like they didn’t want her to hear. But it was all revolving around a psychopath. A slamming door, the flapping wings of birds outside. The low, growling sound of a crowd. But shouldn’t I be grateful that I wasn’t served up in some kind of freakish pie? The bubbling of the lobster tank. The beeping from the unanswered phone. Shit, there’s that meal I was to cook with Rod, that feast thing. Shit. The dark, rusty colour inside closed eyes. A nuclear error, but I have no fear. The secret fireworks when she rubbed them hard. Ca plane pour moi. Punk. Is. Freedom.
The squeezing of her shoulder.
‘Hi, Sophie.’
A familiar face, thank God. ‘Danny. Is the congressman here?’
‘No. I’m taking a look at your business partner because it looks like he’s responsible for the finger thing. Look familiar?’
He dangled the keys to Jacob’s apartment. The ones that she’d forgotten to return. The ones that Rod had taken from their office.
‘Shit! Oh fuck. I put Jacob through so much. Stupid bitch.’
‘Not your fault, okay?’ He sat beside her. ‘It’s really rare for someone to work with a psycho and know. I think Jacob will just be happy he’s in the clear.’
Missing Sophie, wondering, Jacob had a shower so hot his skin roared red and he had to wipe patches through the mirror condensation to shave, every stroke.
The morning news was full of a breaking story that made Jacob’s heart stop. He ordered breakfast and sat on the edge of the bed in a heavy bathrobe, mechanically munching scrambled eggs with smoked salmon as the Nazi art horde discovery emerged.
It was an almost audible everything-clicking-into-place moment. The news commentary and discussion merged with Jacob’s own thoughts.
Munich. 1,600 pieces of ‘degenerate’ art. It's believed that the Nazis seized about 16,000 pieces of art from Jewish owners and art galleries as they conquered Europe. It is truly ironic that the Nazis labelled much the art 'degenerate' - art by greats like Picasso, Chagall, Dix and Beckmann - seizing and hiding it so as to protect public morals while Hitler and his cronies set about dismantling the very concept of morals, classifying certain types of people as animals and foisting the ultimate horror on Europe. How many art galleries built their collections on the Nazis' spoils? How many art dealers built their fortunes on the misery - and extermination - of others? Do we still consider Nazi ideas of degeneracy to be valid when considering 'modern art'?
Maybe it’s time, given the scale of the crimes against humanity and art committed by the Nazis, for a genuine re-examination of what values modern art holds? Can we continue merrily along the Nazi-defined path and consider what emerges from Munich as simply filling in the gaps in art history? Or must we start asking deeper questions?
Who, exactly, are the degenerates?
Jacob expected the phone to ring or jackboots to kick down the door. But the story continued, ticking almost every box that an interesting news story required, while New York woke up and got going as normal.
The Nazis never went away.
Then his cell phone did ring. The magazine office.
‘Yes, it’s the story of the year. Yes, cover story. Can’t do it today. Or tomorrow. I’m contracted.’ If only you knew. ‘Get someone else to write up what’s known for now. In a couple of days when the dust has settled, I’ll tackle it. Yeah. Oh, one thing: get an intern to write up bios on every significant artist in the haul along with their treatment under the Nazis. Just a couple of hundred words apiece. We’ll be pulling in plenty of first-timers from Google, so we need to sell them on the big picture. Yes, it’s very exciting. Who knew?’
So Jacob left the hotel, joined the morning rush and made his way on foot to Vierte, across to the Park, into the glory of the most inspired piece of city planning, thanking the editor of the New York Post for getting the ball rolling back in the 1840s.
A song thrush skipped ahead of him, glancing back every other leap. She found a fat worm and Jacob smiled as the thrush cut the helpless invertebrate to frantic, wriggling pieces.
They came in the night, shouting and breaking things and stomping heavy boots. Her mother pulled her from bed, dragged her wintercoat around her nightdress, her best shoes onto her cold feet as she clung to her threadbare teddy.
The family joined the others on the street, occasional flakes of white drifting down, breaths like ghosts in the still night. When every Jew in the neighbourhood was there, shivering, they were marched for an hour to a military barracks and into a huge wooden billet, a single weak bulb hanging from the roof trusses. As dawn broke, a train arrived, shaking the ground, its whistle shocking. They were loaded on, the guards kicking and hitting with rifle butts. At least we are all together. A hundred to a car. Yes, mama.
The train carried them away, for a day and a night, stopping only to take on water and coal. She could see mountains through gaps in the carriage wall, snow-capped peaks glowing in the moonlight.
When the train stopped for the last time, they fell to the hard ground, limbs in shock. They were separated then. Men. Women. Boys. Girls. They cried.
She was taken with the girls, still crying, to a dormitory of metal-framed beds and the smell of a hospital.
A meal of boiled potatoes, some hard bread and a metal cup of milk made her feel a little better. But she still cried.
A man in a white coat came then, the girls standing at the end of their beds. He looked each girl over before choosing her. He told her that he had something special in mind for her and that she would be rewarded. You do understand, don’t you? His eyes seemed friendly. Of course I understand. I’m German. Like you.
So she followed him to a kind of doctor’s room, a nurse there, trays of medical instruments, a bright light. She was nervous. It’s okay, little one. You can take that coat off. Sit here. I just want to check that you’re healthy. So she sat on the black leather chair and the nurse came from behind and snapped rings around her wrists so she couldn’t move her arms. Then she snapped more rings around her ankles and another big one across her lap and forced a rubber ball into her mouth so she couldn’t move at all or talk or scream.
Then the man in the white coat chose a knife with a curved blade from the tray as the nurse cut a hole in her nightdress, right across the middle. Mama will kill me. He decided where her left kidney should be and began to make the incision.
Later, much later, he smiled at this memory, reliving the procedure as if the hot, young blood was still on his hands, squirting onto his face. He licked his lips.
‘Doctor?’
Oh, go away. ‘What is it now? Can’t you see I’m resting?’
‘The valuer is here. Mr Johnson.’
‘Ah. Good. Tell Julia to keep me informed.’
He looked up at the screens, saw how the Asian markets had played along with his plan. But his mind strayed back to Mauthausen.
As it always did.
Sophie drank cup after cup of thick, black coffee with Danny as other detectives came and went and word kept coming through about discoveries at his apartment. Sophie wanted to throw up but she’d reached saturation there.
The whole thing was worse than she’d feared.
The DNA tests from the restaurant were the final insult.
‘He’s been serving human flesh to your customers. I’m sorry, Sophie.’
‘We’re finished.’
‘It doesn’t look good, does it? Hey, listen. People have short memories. That’s how politicians get re-elected.’
‘This is different, Danny. This is notoriety. This is something that’s never going away. The Freak Tour of New York, or whatever they call it, that’s going to stop outside the door.’ She cried then. ‘Jesus, I feel so bad for the staff. Fifty people tainted. How are they going to get hired anywhere with the fear of complicity? Why did that bastard have to die?’
An investigating detective she’d seen at Jacob’s on that morning called Danny away, out of earshot. They both glanced at Sophie and she knew what was coming next.
‘I need to take you in for questioning.’