Pelham laughed, hearty and deep and bordering on bawdy. Unlike many candidates, she wasn’t afraid laughter would mark her as more human than machine, therefore unfit for high office.
“A lot of ladies don’t like me either. Hell, a lot of people’s pets don’t like me, if I’m to believe my mail.”
“You do seem to seriously set some folks off,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at my voice, then the eyes went serious. “A lot of politicians get hate mail from people who live under rocks, but mine seems to come from the people beneath the people under the rocks. I showed a few letters to Rich Stanzaro when we were primary opponents. He said, ‘I see some strange shit, Cyn, but no one ever wants to cut my tits off.’”
“Rabies, like I said,” Banks noted to Waltz.
Pelham turned the curious eyes to me. “You’re the first NYPD cop I’ve ever met with a Southern accent.” She raised an eyebrow and grinned. “South Bronx, maybe?”
“I’m with the police department in Mobile, ma’am. I’m consulting on another case and Detective Waltz thought I might have a useful insight or two.”
“Because you’ve done something like this before? Helped guard against the angry people?”
“In a way. Back in Mobile I’m part of a unit that deals with mentally unstable criminals.”
“How unstable?”
“They’d not only cut your tits off, ma’am, they’d bread ‘em and fry ‘em up for supper.”
Eyes widened around us. Even Waltz raised an eyebrow. There was a moment of silence before the congresswoman barked the laugh, slapped my shoulder.
“I’m glad they sent out for Southern cooking, hon. You got some pepper in your gravy.”
Pelham shot us either a peace or victory sign and scurried off to pump up the cheerleader section out front. I stayed quiet as Waltz explained to aides and senior staff how he’d be checking the hate mail and unsavory phone calls, cautioning everyone to stay alert for strange people, incidents, and items in the mail.
The whole trip to and from Pelham’s HQ took under an hour. Cargyle, the young guy from Technical Services, ran across the floor as we returned to the detectives’ room, excitement in his voice and a tape cassette in his hand.
“Dr Prowse’s arrival was caught on security cameras at LaGuardia. I found two sections when she’s on camera. The first is by the baggage carousel, the second is going out the door. She seems normal, picking up her bag, heading out to grab a cab. She talks to a man beside her for a second. Probably small talk with another passenger.”
“Folger and her crew in?” Waltz asked.
“Due back shortly, but I don’t know exactly when.”
“Let’s get a preview.”
Cargyle wheeled a playback system into a conference room. He had a bag of tools and tape and electronic doohickeys slung over his skinny shoulder. His wristwatch had more buttons than my truck’s dashboard. He had not one but two skinny telephones. If Cargyle was like our Tech Services crew in Mobile, he read schematics instead of books.
“You just now find the footage?” I asked him.
“I’ve been at LaGuardia all night. Found one image at three, the other a half hour ago.”
“There all night, here all day? You ever sleep, buddy?”
Waltz said, “Cargyle’s assigned to the precinct, his training phase. I’m making sure he gets the full learning experience.”
“Full and more,” Cargyle grinned. The tape stuttered into action. The quality was better than your standard convenience-store cameras and I figured Homeland Security had a bigger budget than the Gas‘n’Gulp.
“Here’s the first segment,” Cargyle announced. “By the baggage carousel.”
I held my breath as Vangie stepped into the frame, flight bag over her shoulder. She ran to the carousel and snatched her suitcase. She paused, then spoke to a white-shirted man beside her, slender, facing away. The scene lasted all of five seconds.
“That’s snippet number one,” Cargyle said. “The second is a couple of seconds longer, but not much.”
The edited video jumped to the next scene. The camera was positioned above the door, the crowd herding tight for the exit like cattle down a chute.
“Here she comes,” Waltz whispered, picking Vangie from the on-rushing mob while she was still a blur. I leaned close to the screen. It took a second to discern the familiar features, the large eyes, dark and compact hair, rosebud lips. The eyes looked wary and tight with tension as Vangie exited the terminal with the slender man by her side, his head again canted away. At the last moment, he snapped his face toward the camera. His grin was ecstatic, his joy dominating the screen.
My spine turned to ice. I couldn’t choke back a gasp.
“What?” Waltz said. “You know him?”
“I’ve seen him before,” I whispered. “He’s a patient at the Institute. Brilliant and murderous and unpredictable.”
I didn’t add that he was my brother.
“The crazy’s name is what?” Folger asked.
“Jeremy Ridgecliff,” Waltz said. “He killed his father when he was sixteen, then brutally murdered five women. Ridgecliff has been in the Alabama Institute for Aberrational Behavior for over a dozen years.”
Folger turned to me. “Didn’t you say they never got out of that place?”
I barely heard her and made no response. I sat in the corner, stunned. Somehow, Jeremy had escaped and forced Vangie to New York. Vangie was dead, mercilessly and bizarrely mutilated by my brother.
Tell them, my mind said. Tell them he’s your brother. You’ve got to tell them now.
I opened my mouth to speak as Waltz waved everyone silent, holding up pages fresh from the fax machine. “Our first look at Ridgecliff. He likes knives, mutilation and symbolism. And he’s had years of incarceration to dream up new stuff. That’s the good news.”
A detective in the back of the room, Perlstein, looked up from his note-taking. “If that’s good, Shelly, what’s bad?”
“He has a higher IQ than anyone in this room, I’d wager. I’m talking maybe thirty points higher.”
Low whistles, groans. A killer with creative intelligence could be as elusive as a black shark in a midnight ocean.
Stand up and tell them, my mind repeated. They’re cops. You’re a cop.
Folger’s heels ticked on the floor as she paced. “Ridgecliff somehow coerced the Prowse woman into bringing him here, then killed her, no longer needed. What he did to her got him so juiced he had to do it again. Like Waltz said, this monster’s had years to let his fantasies cook. His feet barely hit pavement and we’ve got two women torn to bits.”
What would happen when I told them? I’d become their information machine, held distant from the investigation, used but not completely trusted. It was the smart thing to do. It’s what I would do in the same situation.
Waltz’s voice broke into my thoughts. “It was Detective Ryder who ID’d Ridgecliff, saving hundreds of man-hours. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.”
My face burned as the other faces in the room turned to me. Cop faces, my brethren, nodding thanks at me. I heard