SERIAL KILLER STRIKES NEW YORK

AN AMERICAN DEVIL’S CAMPAIGN OF SLAUGHTER

by Erin Nash

New York detectives are investigating the gruesome murder of a young woman whose naked and mutilated corpse was discovered yesterday afternoon lying in an upmarket underground parking lot on East 82nd Street, a police source said.

A female shopper returning from a Park Avenue shopping spree discovered the unidentified corpse at 3.15 p.m. lying flat on its back on the dirty asphalt in a pool of blood, said the source.

The victim, described only as a wealthy white woman in her early twenties, had such severe injuries that police detectives were stunned by the extent of the overkill. The medical examiner is yet to determine the cause of her death.

A source close to the NYPD’s elite Blue Team said that the victim had been brutally raped before her chest was cut open and her heart removed. It is said that the killer pushed cherry blossom down the victim’s throat.

The corpse is the third young female victim to be found in Manhattan in the last two weeks. Detectives are speculating that the murders, all occurring in the east of the city, are the work of a single man, a serial killer dubbed the American Devil because of the way he poses his victims in religious postures.

The killer appears to be targeting rich, white women in the Upper East Side region. His aim is unclear, but is sure to strike terror into one of the world’s wealthiest and most established communities.

Harper sat up straight in his chair. Everyone had absorbed the information. There was a long silence. Every one of the cops in the room who’d worked a high-profile case knew the impact the story would have. It was like standing in front of a derelict building, with the wrecking ball about to fall. ‘They’re going to print it?’ he asked. ‘That’s the bottom line?’

‘That’s the bottom line, Tom. This goes to press in the next couple of hours. It’ll be on the newsstands tomorrow first thing, then the world and his nephew is going to come calling. And you know what they’re going to say, don’t you? They’re going to start pointing and asking why the hell didn’t Homicide let anyone know?’

‘Who the fuck is Erin Nash? And how has she got this information?’

‘We don’t know, Tom. We have no idea. The paper is keeping her well protected. We haven’t been able to speak to her.’

‘Do we even know this shit?’ said Tom. ‘It says the victim had cherry blossom in her throat.’

‘Yeah, it’s true. The Medical Examiner confirmed it. The report went up to Williamson this morning.’

‘Who did you share it with, Nate?’

‘Not a soul,’ said Nate. ‘Soon as it came in, I got pulled out and taken down to headquarters to try to talk these newspapers into sense.’

‘So how many people knew about the cherry blossom?’ asked Tom.

‘The Medical Examiner and her team. Me and the captain. A couple of other administrative staff.’

‘You think one of us is briefing the gutter press, Nate?’

‘No. No one in Blue Team would piss on his own floor. Either this is a very good investigative reporter piecing together fragments, or else I don’t know how she knows.’

‘They’re going to be all over this now,’ said Eddie. ‘She’s called him a serial killer, she’s given him a moniker. Hell, where did that name come from? The American Devil?’

‘She probably made it up,’ said Williamson. ‘Creative types do that. Make up names to scare people.’

‘What’s the plan?’ Harper asked.

‘We got a few hours to put out our own story. That’s all. We’ve got to take the initiative and roll this out ourselves. We’ve got a press conference in a couple of hours.’

‘And what about the scale of the operation we’re going to need?’

‘It’s being agreed,’ said Lafayette. ‘We’re going to double the team, keep the press pack away from you guys. I want you to keep working the case, not the fucking media.’

Harper was working the case, but his question was all about Erin Nash and where she got that privileged information. He looked at the apprehension in the faces around him. The investigation had just entered phase two. Phase one was the quiet time, when you tried to get a lead. Now it was the public phase. And the media would be hunting for every scrap of information and raising fear levels by a factor of about a thousand.

Chapter Sixteen

Ward’s Island

November 18, 8.35 a.m.

From a distance, the killer watched the release. They always threw them out early in the day. Winston Carlisle was a sad case. He was thirty-six years old, his family had abandoned him at an early age and he had stalked and attacked pretty young girls once too often. He’d never actually raped any of the girls. He liked following them and had groped them, pushed them to the ground, threatened them with a knife and exposed himself to them. He didn’t seem able to go further. His records showed that he was arrested for attempted rape at the ages of twelve and fourteen, twenty-two and twenty-nine. However, not one of these attacks resulted in a court case. Instead, because he was delusional, Winston was given treatment. He’d been in and out of institutions his whole life.

And now Winston Carlisle was on the sidewalk outside Manhattan Psychiatric Center with a small brown case, an address he didn’t recognize and a look of profound confusion on his face.

The killer followed him as he walked from the hospital towards the bus stop. He took the bus into the city and the killer got on behind him and sat there. He enjoyed the feeling of following people. It was like being in a movie. You had real purpose when you were scoping out a victim. Winston got off the cross-town bus and struggled to work out the right way to go. He stared at the scrap of paper the orderly had given him and then up at the street signs. He finally just started walking.

At the first burger joint he came to, Winston stopped and ate three hamburgers, one after the other. It was the only time he looked content. He got on his way again soon enough and even asked a passer-by about the address. Eventually he found the discreet halfway house that would be his new home.

It didn’t surprise the killer much that characters like Winston spent their whole lives in horrible anonymity and bewilderment - moving between the ordered cleanliness of a psychiatric unit and the profound confusion of the outside world. Winston needed an escape, that was for sure. The killer just knew it.

He was going to make Winston famous. He was going to give this nobody a profound legacy. Winston Carlisle, another nobody from nowhere, was going to be remembered, just like his victims. The killer smiled at the thought as he watched Winston enter the halfway house. Winston looked just right for the part he was going to play. But he would need some very close direction.

The killer noted the address and went on his way. A sprinkle of New York rain was beginning to fall. He smiled. He liked the rain. It called to him. He walked down the street and hailed a cab. He spoke through the glass.

‘Kinsley Memorial Church.’

He sat back, leaving his seatbelt undone. A recorded voice suddenly cut in, telling him to belt up and proudly exclaiming, ‘That’s the law in New York City.’ He pulled the belt across his chest. This was one law he was happy to oblige.

The cab took thirty minutes to travel three blocks through a snarl-up on Second Avenue. As it passed the big yellow diggers and two blocks of orange and white plastic bollards and vehicle barriers, the cabbie complained, ‘Can you see a fucking construction worker? They close off the street and then go for a three-hour cup of coffee. No one works any more.’ The passenger in the back seat checked his watch again and nodded silently. It was ten minutes before ten.