Off-Kilter
Part One
Karen laughed. It was just a little laugh, more like a miniature chuckle, but it was odd to hear at a crime scene. More than odd: Jim had never heard her laugh at a dead body before. He knew very few people who were quite that callous.
"Karen?" She didn't know he was there, standing at the top of the stairs with Hank, not venturing further. The early-morning page from the squad had alerted everyone separately, at home, still asleep, to gather here instead of at the precinct. Jim could guess she hadn't been there long, either. A uniformed cop had just told him the body would be just to the right of the stairs, apartment 2-8, and upon reaching the top of the stairs, he'd heard the familiar rustling of a body bag that had preceded her laugh by a second. There was a click-whirr-winding noise from a camera. Three officers, at least, were around. To the far right a pair were talking quietly, and Karen murmured something, a humorous note to her voice.
He heard the swhfff sound of the body bag being laid back in place and then footsteps on the tile. "Jim, you're not going to believe this," she said quietly. Her body moved within the range that he could feel her presence and smell her perfume, or her shampoo, or both. She was wearing that leather jacket, he could tell by the way it squeaked slightly, a sound that echoed in the hallway, making the hall seem oddly empty, devoid of furniture and pictures, having high ceilings, bare walls, and tiled floors. Sound bounced around with nowhere to land. He always had trouble envisioning ornamentation to rooms, especially when the area sounded so completely bare. "The body? It's already… embalmed."
Jim raised his eyebrows, but waited silently as she filled him in. The body was in the apartment building hallway, where there was access from either end. The décor was southwestern, potted palms, red tile, wrought iron gates that led to outside stairwells on both ends. Nice and bright, well-lit. Nothing else out of place. A couple little alcoves for light fixtures, rounded, like an adobe house, and one large alcove for a few plants, putting them out of the way and concealing a doorway: a closet for maintenance equipment, cleaning supplies, storage.
Karen drew him down the hallway a little to continue her description further from the body. "The widow's here. About fifty. She'd just gotten up and come out for the morning paper to find her husband lying in the hallway. Hands folded across his chest. Make-up, lots of rouge and lipstick. Eyes closed. Lips have a little smile. Wearing a, like a smoking jacket, with one of those old-fashioned cravat things. Dress pants, dress shoes. Flower in the pocket of the jacket."
"What kind?"
"Maybe an orchid?"
"So what you're saying is, he's all ready for the coffin."
"Yeah."
Jim let out a breath, trying to picture it all, trying to figure it out.
"Weird, huh?" Karen said.
"He was just lying there?"
"Nah, he was reading the paper."
"ME been called?" Jim asked, ignoring her comment.
"Yeah. On their way."
"You got the photos?"
"Mhm."
"Then let's take a look around the apartment." Jim reached up for her arm, but instead of letting her guide him inside, he pulled her back. "You think he was murdered? Or you think he died of natural causes?"
"I can't tell."
For once he didn't fight her. It wasn't often they got a body gift-wrapped.
Fisk handed the photos back to Karen. "No clues in the apartment?"
Karen shook her head sadly.
"We couldn't find any sign of forced entry," Jim put in. "Thinking maybe Mr. Feldman left the apartment early—wife said he sometimes runs errands before work—and just didn't come back."
"So if it was murder, there'd be no evidence in the apartment," Fisk summed up.
"Yeah, if," Karen said.
"What's your feel?"
"Honestly?" Karen fidgeted and glanced over at her partner. Jim stood leaning against his desk, arms crossed, head tilted slightly down, as if avoiding eye contact. "I'm waiting for ME before I make any judgment."
Fisk shot her a look. That wasn't normal, for a detective to have no angle, to have gained nothing from the canvass, to not even want to make an educated guess. Detective work was all about running on intuition and guesswork. Waiting for forensic evidence? That was for pussies and reality TV.
"Let's say it wasn't murder," Jim put out, still not looking up. "Say this guy left his apartment that morning. Walked to the corner store. Had a heart attack and died. If it wasn't murder, someone's got a sick sense of humor. I mean, they did everything the mortician would have done. They even sewed his lips shut. Then somehow they carried him back home—guessing they got his ID from his wallet—and left him laid out, delivered with the newspaper. Good Samaritan, did the dirty work free of charge. For what? They were bored? Didn't take a dime from his wallet?"
"So you're saying murder?" Fisk asked.
Jim shook his head. "I won't call that, but I will say it was premeditated. Whoever it was, they knew this guy. They knew his habits. I doubt they just stumbled onto a body in an alley and decided to take it home on a whim."
"Mhm," Fisk agreed.
Jim chewed his lower lip, thinking.
Karen stared at the phone, willing the medical examiner to call.
Tom's voice floated down the hall, arguing with Mary as they got closer. "…saying, couldn't be random."
"Why not?" Marty said, his voice fading in and out. "Helpful neighbor… or a bartender… doesn't want to get involved…. Guy was a freak, already wearing the make-up."
"Address in the wallet was wrong—Feldman hadn't gotten his ID changed yet," Tom said as they rounded the corner.
"There goes that idea," Karen muttered.
"Anything?" Jim asked the other two detectives.
"Nothing," Marty said. "Couldn't find a single person who'd even seen the man leave this morning, or seen him come back, but the wife insisted he was home last night."
"Marty says the guy was a freak," Tom said, sounding amused.
"Marty," Fisk said sternly.
"I'm just saying." Marty shrugged and grinned. "It's more fun that way. Messing with your partner's head; it's not going in the report."
"…yeah, sure, come on up." Karen hung up the phone and turned to face Jim, who was listening intently to something on his computer. He was hunched forward, staring at the screen, earpiece in, his lips drawn tight in concentration. "Jim?"
He tapped a few keys, pulled out his earpiece, and turned.
"What're you looking into?"
"Normal burial practices. Seeing if everything was followed according to procedure. Was that ME?"
"No. Kyle Boyd, uniformed officer. Heard about our new DOA, wants to run something by us."
Jim grimaced. "Rookie?" Some rookies had a bad habit of trying to solve everything, getting way over their heads, trying to get on the fast track to a promotion.
"Nah. Been here a few years at least."
"He say what he has?"
"Wouldn't say. Sounded kind of embarrassed." Karen leaned back in her chair. "Last I heard from ME was in the middle of the autopsy, nothing yet. The widow insisted they be thorough. If we have to rely on blood tests, that could take weeks."
"Great." Jim leaned back, letting his chair bob for a moment before settling. "I got nothing."
"Yeah…"
"All we got's a body. From a legal standpoint. No motive, no weapon, no clear cause of death. And if he did die of natural causes…"
"You think so?"
"No. But if he did, we got no case."
Karen nodded to herself. If they weren't going to have a case, it would be pointless to spend too much time on it now. They had other open cases they could be scoping.
"Detective Bettancourt?"
Karen looked up to see a man near thirty, young-looking in uniform with a crew cut. "Interview one," she told Jim as she extracted herself from her comfortable chair. "This way," she told Kyle Boyd, who was staring at her chest. She jerked her thumb, the movement caught his eye enough to raise his gaze. But as she led the way, she got the distinct impression his eyes had fallen to her rear.
Boyd carried a stack of skinny case folders, each of which only held a sheet or two, by the looks of them.
Jim settled into place across the table, Boyd by the door. Karen moved over by the window, hoping the bright sunlight behind her would deter him from staring and distracting him from his job. "Well?" she asked.
Boyd slid the folders to the middle of the table, halfway to Jim. "I, uh, I'm not sure your body was murdered. I mean, you DOA." He was turning red, staring at the folders, not the type of cop you wanted to send to send to notify the loved ones of a murder, not the type of cop who had a lot of people skills.
"Okay. Why not?" Jim asked calmly.
Boyd fidgeted once more, then leaned toward Jim intently, finding his audience. "I sort of got stuck with these dead-end weird cases. The nothing cases. But we've had such a rash of bizarre crimes the past few weeks, I'm starting to think they're connected."
"What sort of crimes we talking about here?"
Boyd pulled the files back and opened them one by one to give them the gist.
"Yeah, but—" Karen argued when he was done, picking her words carefully. "Are those even crimes?"
But Jim was rubbing his bottom lip, thinking them all through, analyzing, computing, compiling. "Can we keep these files here for a while?"
"S-sure," Boyd agreed.
There was a silence, then Karen waved him away. "You can go."
He scurried out of his chair and rushed from the interview room like a perp who'd just been exonerated.
"What are you thinking?" Karen asked.
"If Rich Feldman wasn't murdered, we really don't have a crime, right? All we got is someone who took him home and dressed him up. Not exactly illegal."
"Right."
"And each of these police reports, they're not exactly illegal."
"Right."
"But someone's making our precinct into their own little playground. I mean, if they are connected, it points to someone who's bored. And has a terrible sense of humor. And is very smart. They can do their research, then apply it to a new job. Barber. Mortician. Surgeon. Dog walker."
"At best they'll get disturbing the peace," Karen complained.
Jim felt along the table for the folders, carefully stacking them, methodical, matching each corner. "At best we have a very disturbed individual who we can head off before they do a major crime—"
"Something other than making their neighbors really uncomfortable…"
"Or maybe these are all fun little calling cards for something bigger already. Maybe they're little distractions." He stood up, the files in hand, one hand still on the table for orientation.
"Don't you have something better to do all day?" Karen asked, teasing.
"Let's ask the boss if we can call these people in."
"On what grounds? That the "oh my gosh some guy cut my hair without permission" lady is connected to our DOA?"
Jim grinned and followed the table around to the door. "If nothing else, they'll be entertaining."
"If nothing else, Marty and Tom'll give us hell about this for the rest of our lives."
Jim opened the door and waited for Karen to take it from him. "Or maybe they'll want to help, too."
"Yeah," she said sarcastically, "fun for the whole family."
Karen stepped around the car and up the curb as Jim moved to join her, Hank panting in the back of the car. The apartment of the most recent victim was in an old converted brownstone, but before Jim and Karen could meet at the front corner of the bumper, a woman rushed down the concrete steps. "You're the detectives?" She checked her watch, her eyes wide to the point of being manic. Her hair was short, but fly-away, permed to the point of being an afro, bleached so it was nearly orange-blonde, which clashed with her stylish black leather coat, expensive plunge-cut blouse with tapered collar, and black fitted pants over black pumps. She looked like a hippy—a yuppie hippy.
Jim had his badge out before Karen could open her mouth.
The lady barely glanced at the badge before forging on. "Thank goodness, you made it just in time, I'm on my way to get this taken care of." Her hands both flew up toward her head, making a motion as if the hair were exploding, grimacing as if she were in pain. "I was lucky they'll get me in today. Can't possibly work like this. I just received an e-mail."
Paper fluttered in the wind, sounding like it was being unfolded hastily. Something hit the back of Jim's hand and he reached out, finding the paper being thrust at him. He passed it to Karen.
"Locks of Love, you've heard of them? They thanked me for my donation. It's nice they could use the hair, but the problem is, I didn't donate it. I mean, I guess the guy who did this donated it, but I didn't donate it willingly."
"So—" Karen started.
"This man, I remember a male voice. I didn't actually see him. Okay, I was coming out of my apartment," she said, starting over at the beginning. "I've got my back turned, right, because I'm checking to make sure the door is locked, and something covers my face. I swiped at it, but then, I guess I passed out, because when I came to, I was inside my apartment, like an hour later, with a bleach kit in the trash, and my hair was gone. Two feet of it, although the e-mail says it was 18 inches. Not that I'm not glad I can help some poor kid, but—" She sighed, cutting herself off.
"You wanted a choice," Karen said.
"Exactly. I don't want some guy coming up and forcing himself into my apartment. I'm assuming it was chloroform, right? That's what it probably was? The people in the emergency room couldn't find anything wrong with me. Other than the hair. And the officer there thought I'd done this to myself. They just don't listen to reason, do they? I mean, why?" Again, her hands both flew to her head, but still didn't touch the fly-away hair, stopping just short, as if an electric current were keeping her hands at bay. "I gotta take care of this—you had some questions?"
"You woke up in your apartment?" Jim asked.
"I said that."
"You mind if we take a look around?"
"What for?"
"Maybe there's fingerprints? That box of bleach you talked about. Maybe if the man did this in your apartment, there might be some clue left behind?"
"Right. Look, if I let you in, you'll lock the door behind you? When you leave? I have to get this taken care of."
"Um…" Karen waited a moment to be cut off, but the woman just looked at her impatiently. "Did you get a picture of your hair?"
"Now?" She wrinkled her pert little nose.
"It might be evidence. We'll need a before and after picture, if you have one. There might be something connecting what happened to your hair, to what's happening around the city."
She laughed. It was loud, bursting. "You're joking?"
Jim reached in through the open window of the car and felt around for the camera, then passed it over to Karen, who passed back the e-mail. He folded it and slid it in the pocket of his trench coat. He heard the click and the Polaroid sliding out.
"I'll let you in," the woman said, sounding pissy suddenly, after catching a glimpse of the slowly-developing photo. "And if I find out you've posted that around the police station, you'll hear from my lawyer."
Karen ended the phone call. "That was ME. Our DOA? His brain was apparently removed through his nose." She sounded confused, but like she wanted to laugh. And be disgusted at the same time.
"Petty theft?" Jim asked.
She groaned. "Nice, Jim."
Karen looked around the apartment of the second most recent victim. The room hadn't been updated since the 70s, the drapes were drawn, only one lamp was lit. Jim had already settled onto the couch, which had sunk so his knees were higher than they should have been.
"So someone came in while you were gone?" Jim prompted.
"Yes." The man was hidden in the shadows of the room, some old recliner, which he'd sunk into, but his hands were both resting on the armrests.
"Where'd you go?"
"Deli. Down the street."
"And you're sure you locked the door?"
"The door's always locked. You need a key to open it. Lock's permanent. You can get out without a key, but you ain't ever getting in."
Jim nodded and leaned forward a little. "You know anyone who has a key?"
"Just me. I'm very private."
"And you came back from the deli?"
"I got my chips and a little sandwich for the missus. I got the big pastrami for me. We ended up eating in the dark."
"Your wife wasn't here?"
"She gets home kinda late. She wasn't home yet when I left, and she wasn't home when I got back. I flipped the light switch. Nothing."
"The power…?"
"Power was fine. The light bulbs were all missing."
"Were they stolen?"
"Nope. Removed. And hidden. I've only found the one so far."
Jim heard a few drawers open in the kitchen directly behind him in the small apartment. A cupboard opened. "You could buy some more?" Jim suggested.
The man snorted. "It's the principle of the thing."
The woman sniffled. "My cat—Muffy—died—sent her to the vet to get her cremated…"
"And?" Jim asked.
Karen stared at the little cardboard box next to the fireplace. The woman started crying harder, unable to talk. "It's okay, we're done," Karen said. She hurried back to Jim's side and tugged at the sleeve of his jacket until he finally took her arm. "We're really sorry for your loss." She glanced back at the box in which Muffy had been stashed, fluffy and taxidermed with glass staring eyes.
Jim settled back into Karen's car, seatbelt in place, German shepherd panting in his ear. "So the only thing in common so far is the intruder has actually managed to enter each house. Without anyone knowing."
"You wanna start a canvass? See if any of the neighbors saw someone?"
Jim just shook his head and listened to the catch as her car started, then rumbled softly beneath him. "None of the victims seem to have any connection."
"So we keep going."
There was something disorienting about the crimes. For the victims, and for Jim as they played through his head. For the victims, so far, they'd all had someone enter their place in the city, like a violation of their haven. As bizarre as the crimes were, they were unsettling. People always expected someone to break in and steal everything, not to come home and find everything rearranged. They expected to get attacked and brutally beaten, not to have someone cut their hair while they were unconscious. In a way, the psychological brutality of each of the incidents was as damaging as the more violent crimes would have been during consciousness. The powerlessness, the fact that someone was blatantly showing them all that they had no control over their own lives, and that anything could happen.
For Jim, it was a reminder of how delicately balanced his life was. As each of the victim's testimonies played through his head, searching for a connection, it kept coming home to him. He had no faces for these victims, and somehow, instead, each crime infiltrated his subconscious to the point where he felt, for a second, as disoriented as if it had happened to him. What if someone broke into his apartment and rearranged the furniture? What if someone nabbed him in the hallway, shaved his head, and changed his clothes? What if someone violated his last wishes for the burial of a loved one? He'd feel like a stranger in a strange land, like he wasn't himself, like he didn't know where he was going, and he'd wonder: what next?
The only other thing plaguing him was the futility of the situation. Was following up on these cases going to help anyone? Even if they weren't linked to this morning's DOA, even if one man was breaking into apartments all over their jurisdiction, if they could come up with a connection, would it mean much? Wouldn't their talents be better used actually finding murderers and saving lives?
"What?" Karen asked.
The car eased over to the side of the road, then the engine stopped. Metal jingled—she removed her keys.
"Nothing," Jim said.
He heard the pop of the automatic locks and fumbled finding the handle. This car was as familiar to him by now as his home, but his hand slipped right past the handle and bumped the armrest. He had to stop thinking. Just open the door, step out onto the curb, slam the door, pat the dog. He lost Karen's footsteps as someone down the road honked and swore, yelling out the window.
"Jim?" she prompted, right next to him.
He stepped back, bumping the side of the car.
"What?" she asked, sounding almost peeved.
"What would you do if something like this happened to you?"
"Like what?"
"If someone attacked you—then did the stupidest thing imaginable? Like they were just playing cat and mouse with you. Teasing you."
"I'd get out my gun and shoot them, Jim." She grabbed his arm and tugged.
Jim took her arm and let her lead him down the block where a young man was waiting outside his apartment, sitting on the stairs. Karen described him as a skinny fellow of about 25 with a small terrier of some sort. The man was wearing a long t-shirt and jeans and looked nervous.
"Detective Bettancourt and Detective Dunbar," Karen introduced. "You wanna tell us exactly what happened?"
"Um, yeah, sure."
"Dognapping?" Karen asked.
"Right. I mean, I didn't know what else to call it. I left for a jog. Sparky can't keep up, so I walk him right before work."
Jim crossed his arms and waited for the punch line. "Is this Sparky?"
"Yeah, this is the little guy. So, I mean, there's not an outstanding missing dog report, it was just more weird, and I don't want it to happen again, and maybe it happened to someone else, you know? And if it did, I'd worry. It's just… odd."
"Right," Jim agreed and motioned for him to continue.
The little dog yapped, having a minor conniption. "So I come back and Sparky's on the front stairs here. Right here. Tied up, just like this, right? And he'd been inside my apartment when I left."
"So someone removed your dog from the premises?" Karen asked, trying to sound professional, but Jim could hear a tiny undercurrent of laughter in her voice.
"Someone walked my dog, detective," the young man protested. "Without my permission."
Jim turned his head to cover the smile. He rubbed the back of his neck to help cover.
"It's not funny. I mean, I can see how it could be. But this is my dog we're talking about."
Jim's smile faded. What if someone took Hank? Without telling him? Even if they did return him, Jim'd never be sure they hadn't done something to him, and that they wouldn't do it again. He strained his ears down the sidewalk, hoping for the sound of a panting German shepherd, but of course the car was too far away. He'd have to trust that Karen would keep an eye out.
"Are you sure they walked your dog?" Karen asked. "I mean, maybe they just moved him? Maybe your friends did it? A little joke?"
"No one else has a key to my apartment." There was a scuffling sound, like rubbing feet nervously on the sidewalk. "Look, Sparky won't… go… if we don't go to the park. He can't do it without trees and grass. I mean, when it snows, it's like I almost gotta dig out a shovel and dig a hole 'til I hit dirt. It's almost embarrassing. So I know he… went… somewhere… because sitting next to him on the stair is a bag of… dog shit. Sorry. But it was sitting right there."
"Oh geez," Karen whispered. "Okay," she said louder, "where's the dog shit now? And was the bag one of yours or did the dognapper provide it?"
"It was Ziploc, could've come from anywhere. I don't know if it was mine. Could be."
"And where is it?"
"The cops took it. I mean, they dumped out the poop—they didn't want that—but they took the bag."
Karen sighed and Jim moved over to take her arm. "You mind if we take a look around your apartment? See if the dognapper moved anything when he was looking for the leash or something? Was anything out of place?"
"No, nothing. At least, not that I saw. Right, Sparky?"
Karen moved forward, her body moved up a step. Jim followed, up, step, up. Karen's body pitched forward. Jim held on and pulled her back up. "You okay?"
"Broken step."
The little dog yapped to see such a sport.
"Nothing. Again."
"Yeah," Jim agreed. He followed her as she carefully traversed the broken steps.
"The last time you looked that absent, you came up with some brilliant idea," Karen said.
Jim smiled a little.
"Nothing?"
He shook his head.
"I have a couple questions. One, how's this guy getting into their apartments. I mean, without being seen, even, but first off, how's he getting through the doors?"
Jim grinned. "Now you're doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Talking like this kid."
"What do you mean?"
"Clarifying everything."
"Oh. Well, second thing I want to know is, who knows all of these people?"
"You wanna call a support group together?"
"Maybe when they give us a list of all their friends and relatives we'll find a match."
"Until then, you're right. This guy's getting into their apartments, maybe he works for some shop that makes keys? And when they get copies made, he makes an extra?"
"Maybe," Karen agreed. "Maybe…" She skirted around something and Jim let his arm slacken for a second before following her movement.
"Let's get a map drawn up first," Jim suggested when they were free and clear on the path to the car again. "Say maybe there's a pattern there."
"And we're only assuming there's a pattern because—"
"If we didn't, we'd have nothing to go on. And people are creatures of habit. I'm having trouble believing this is all random."
"So Officer Boyd might have a point, right? I mean, he's got all these unsolvable cases, though, so what makes us think we'll be able to solve them?"
"And why should we?" Jim asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Who's next? We gotta get you talking like a human being again."
"What do you mean? Am I still talking like him?"
He patted her shoulder comfortingly as he let go of her arm and stepped toward the car. "You'll grow out of it."
"Geez, you sound like my mom. I mean, you don't sound like a woman, I mean—oh god, I am doing it."
Jim grinned and popped open the door.
Jim stretched out his hand, his shin butting against a low table and preventing him from moving closer to the next victim. "Nice to meet you."
"You'll forgive me if I decline, detective," the man said, his voice low, calm, but bordering on the dangerous side of humanity. He sounded depressed, but like he'd been around.
Jim let his arm drop. "Sorry." He couldn't remember what this guy's complaint was, so he just stepped back until he found the couch with the back of his legs, and slid into the seat.
"Your hand," Karen said.
"Assault, that's what I asked the other officers to take a report on."
"How so?"
"I was attacked. I was unconscious—"
"Where were you?"
"I was in the bar next door. I stumbled and this guy caught me from behind, said he was leaving, too, he'd help me to the door. The linoleum's up in the entryway and I'd forgotten. So dark in there you can't see half the time. The streetlight was out, so I didn't see him even when we got outside. The city should take more pride in its façade, don't you think, detective?"
"So the man who helped you out of the building, he assaulted you?" Jim asked.
"I think so."
"You think?"
"I remember something was pressed over my face, some cloth, but as I turned to look down at this man, nothing. I blacked out."
"And?"
"And when I woke up, I was up here on the couch, with a bandage on my hand."
Jim's brows knitted together. "What'd he do?"
"Cut off the tip of my pinkie. It's not a lot, mind you, but who wants to lose even the slightest bit of themselves? Not that he didn't do a good job. The officers weren't sure if they could take a report on assault, because of the stitches, and when they took me to emergency, the doctors said it was an excellent incision. No bone was removed, just the fleshy part, and part of the nail. They assume chloroform, which they're unsure if that would have been sufficient, had my assailant decided to hack away at the bone, which would have required more tools to round it off, care not to cut the tendons, or to reattach them if they did…"
Jim just stared toward the man, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to picture, not just the finger, but why someone would attack him leaving a bar, take him to his apartment, and proceed to hack off part of a finger. He swallowed hard. "Did the assailant keep the finger?"
"No. It was in the trash. Which was the only reason the first officers here thought maybe I hadn't had this stitched up in a hospital and was so completely drunk that I'd forgotten about it. It's not everyone who has the ability to stitch up their own hand like this, at home. This wasn't just a needle and thread job."
"Do you think you'd recognize the man's voice again, if you heard it?" Jim asked.
"I think so."
"But you had no idea who it was?" Karen asked. "Or even had any inclination that he meant you harm?"
"No, none. And believe me, in my younger days, I ran with a tough crowd. I've been there. Never let your guard down, out with the tough guys, raising hell, getting drunk, getting into fights every night, having loan sharks breathing down my back, not having a phone, never knowing if you'll have enough money to eat, never knowing where you'll sleep that night, or with who."
"So you think, if this guy'd seemed threatening, that you might have noticed?"
"Might have?" The man laughed. "Honey, I would have."