CHAPTER TWO #4
“June 12.” Larkin pinned the photo of Wagner’s face to the board.
Her third eye was stark against the pallor of her greasy skin.
“To use an idiom suitable for a killer nurse,” he began, “I believe she got a taste of her own medicine.” He picked up his mug and took a sip of the now-lukewarm coffee.
“Autopsy report is pending. If Dr. Baxter was serious about my cases having priority, perhaps we’ll hear from him come morning.
Until then, I can’t be sure of the caliber bullet or tool used for dismemberment. ”
“This is going to be exactly like the Niederman case,” Doyle said.
“Not exactly. We already know the victim.”
“I mean, it’s going to be difficult to muster giving a shit, you know?” Doyle’s brows were drawn together. “Wagner murdered a lot of innocent women, including a teenage girl.”
“Her victims deserve justice and remembrance in a court of law,” Larkin added, while motioning to the photo of the dismembered body, “I suspect Matilde Wagner ended up like a game of Operation gone wrong to keep her from talking about the relationship she had with Adam Worth. Because of Sal Costa’s admission, we know she was in business with him. ”
“You think the sender offed Wagner?”
“Not him, specifically. Remember the ants and the aphids,” Larkin said.
“Worth makes his clients’ crimes a reality, but when the relationship is no longer beneficial, he uses what they’ve done as blackmail, turning a mutualistic relationship parasitic.
Earl Wagner murdered Charlie Stolle. Matilde murdered Earl. ”
“Worth pits them against each other?”
“Yes. He’s hands-off—always.”
Doyle sipped his coffee, thoughtful. “I guess that logic applies to Alfred Niederman as well. Worth egged Noel Hernandez into a physical confrontation. It was only bad luck that Megan York got involved.” He leaned in to more closely study the photographs, rubbing the stubble on his chin with his index and pointer fingers.
“What,” Larkin asked.
Doyle tapped the image of the fridge door.
“What if Worth does the same thing with the messages? Stolle admitted to having written that ridiculous fax, as well as the note on the back of the postmortem photograph, but that still leaves the VHS tape from last month, which I don’t think he’s responsible for. ”
“Why don’t you think so.”
“Because there’s only so much one person can do to alter their penmanship, and we saw that his technique for doing so was using his nondominant hand.”
Larkin turned to the bulletin board and considered. “Worth blackmails his clients, they write the correspondence, which muddies the waters and keeps his own penmanship a mystery, thereby rendering it an unreliable clue.”
“Worth is personally responsible for the notes you’ve gotten, though,” Doyle added. “The ones with the cut-out letters.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Larkin agreed without hesitation. He took one more sip of coffee before setting the mug aside. “He can’t resist making it personal. Those letters are his special touch.”
“And unless one of his clients is ambidextrous,” Doyle continued, “I’d say we’re looking at two different people for the VHS tape and this .” He tapped the photo of the fridge a second time.
“That’s always a possibility,” Larkin said. “I’m ambidextrous and my lefthanded penmanship is distinctly unique from my right.”
“How many people are truly ambidextrous?” Doyle countered.
“One percent of the human population—around seventy-eight million. Statistically, if we consider the thirteen thousand criminals convicted of violent felonies in New York City last year, one hundred and thirty of them are likely to be ambidextrous.”
“That’s very impressive,” Doyle said. “But do you believe it?”
“It’s mathematics, not ideology. But I understand your point.
” Even though the bullpen was empty, the building was not, and Larkin found himself double-checking the open door of the Fuck It before saying, quieter, “We both know, whether my lieutenant wants to believe it or not, that Worth has a connection to law enforcement—Detective Stolle was proof of that. And if prison bars won’t stop him, Sal Costa and Harry Regmore might be involved in a limited capacity. ”
“It’s like going after a hydra….”
Larkin nodded before tacking another photo to the board.
“This is where you come in. I believe the message ‘Pin me to Detective Larkin’ is in direct reference to a brooch we found inside Wagner’s mouth—pierced through her tongue, to be exact.
To me, it looks like costume jewelry, but this many cases in, it would be remiss to make such an assumption. ”
Doyle was shaking his head as Larkin spoke.
“Not costume,” he confirmed. “That’s mourning jewelry—hair jewelry, to be specific.
The braided lock would have belonged to the deceased and the brooch would’ve been worn by the mourner—typically a family member.
This was probably designed for a mother, wife, maybe a sister. ”
“Interesting,” Larkin murmured, still staring at the photograph.
“It probably belonged to a parure,” Doyle continued thoughtfully. “In nineteenth-century Western mourning, jewelry sets for a woman of means would have also included a pair of earrings, necklace, and bracelet. Do you have any photos of the back side?”
Larkin glanced down at the remaining printouts in his hands, shuffled through them, then pinned another photograph.
“Yeah, see that? It’s an inscription. The mourner might have only worn this for the designated period of time, in regards to their relationship with the deceased—”
“Wives mourned husbands for up to three years,” Larkin interrupted. “That’s what you told me.”
Doyle nodded. “That’s right. But jewelry was easier to maintain than the strict clothing guidelines. Some mourners wore these pieces for the rest of their lives. Do you see how faded the inscription is? It rubbed against clothing for a long time.”
“What might it have said.”
“It’s typically the name and death date of the deceased,” Doyle confirmed. “But I’d need to see it to be certain.”
“It’s at the lab in Queens.”
“Whaddya think the brooch has to do with Wagner?” Doyle asked. “I mean, could it have belonged to her? Like a family heirloom?”
“Speculation without the introduction of evidence allows for anything to be a possibility,” Larkin replied, and when he didn’t get an immediate response, when he instead felt eyes on him, Larkin turned his head.
Doyle’s expression had gone soft, almost dreamy, around the edges.
Every minute of every day, he had this way of looking at Larkin, like being in his presence was akin to having been struck by a lightning bolt—just three hundred million volts of attraction and affection coursing through his body—and all of that sentiment portrayed in the smallest of gestures, like the way his eyes drew a little half-lidded whenever he listened to Larkin speak.
Larkin had been with other men, loved other men, had been married to another man, but in the last eighteen years, not one of those men, not even Noah, had been smitten with Larkin’s brand of sarcasm and humor, wrapped up and delivered in a monotone package.
Doyle touched a bit of hair that’d fallen free from Larkin’s side part and curled against his forehead. He gently combed it back into place before suggesting, “This whole thing has an uncanny resemblance to the subway events… it mirrors how Alfred Niederman was found.”
Larkin crossed his arms and studied the brooch again—the way the camera flash had picked up the viscous fluid covering it.
He said, “Serial killers who opt to take a trophy have utilized a number of different personal effects—undergarments, driver’s licenses, the victim’s internal organs, even—but jewelry is by far the most commonly found cache.
Rodney Alcala, the Dating Game Killer, kept the earrings of several of his victims. DNA from some found in a storage locker was later used in his conviction. ”
“I sense a ‘but.’”
“But we know what Wagner kept as a trophy: scraps of clothing from her victims. She had sewn them together—a mourning veil by another name.”
“Somebody did a sweep of the Wagners’ apartment, right?” Doyle asked.
“O’Halloran,” Larkin confirmed. “Last month, after Sal Costa was arrested.”
—the sour taste of the handsewn rag stuffed in his mouth, the weight of the gun barrel against his forehead, the gurgle and choke of the Maglite crushing Doyle’s windpipe—
Larkin flinched.
He wanted to spit.
Instead, he took a swig of cold coffee.
Doyle’s reaction, always subdued where Larkin’s was visceral, was in his tone of voice. “We should go back.”
Larkin set his hands on his hips, index finger tap , tap , tap ping as he considered. After a moment, he asked, “What does a toothpick have to do with the Hudson River.”
“What do you mean?”
Larkin glanced up. “The first letter included a transit token. Forty-eight days later, Alfred Niederman is found dead in the subway. The second letter had a ticket stub. Nineteen days later, Mia Ramos—”
“Is found on Broadway,” Doyle finished.
“So, what does a toothpick have to do with the Hudson,” Larkin asked again.
“I don’t know.”
Larkin blew out a breath. He checked his watch. “Would you like to take a night drive.”