In profiling criminals, successfully anyway, you had to dig into their past, swim through the folds of it and unravel each little detail, find a meaning for everything. What in that past had triggered the violence they brought forth to their unsuspecting victims? Sometimes, they learned, it was the result of sexual abuse or physical abuse that then manifested itself in their present.
Other times, it was just something so small and inconceivable you shook your head at the terrible waste of it all. A harsh word here, a brush off there. Been rejected by their crush, laughed at, and God knew what else.
It was clear now that they had a serial killer loose on the streets of New York City. Previously focused around Manhattan, he'd broken form and killed in Queens. And this time, this time he'd been sloppy. Forensics had taken two complete fingerprints and gathered small drops of blood from the crime scene.
Susan Goodly had been branded with a letter as well. The letter 'l'. Matt bent over his steno pad, flipped back through the notes he'd made so far. Seven pages had been filled, ranging from speculations on how heavy and tall the attacker was to what he could've been wearing, what kind of fibers they could find around the crime scene.
He didn't have to look up when Alexis came in. Four victims in and she was feeling the brunt of their failures, had experienced something on that stoop in Queens she might spend her entire life trying to forget and never really be able to.
They had worked together for four years, had weathered all sorts of cases. From jilted lovers to violent rapes to misanthropic shells of what had once been human beings finding sense enough to kill children.
They had seen the stuff you spend the first years of your life cowering from in the safety of your bedroom, the stuff you didn't have to see as long as that nightlight never blew out. They saw the stuff you imagined hid under your bed and in nightmares and really, those things were real.
So maybe he was used to it, used to that weakness in other human beings, but he felt this case like any other. It bothered him, but he wouldn't lose any more sleep over it than others that had passed before.
From the looks of his partner, she felt differently.
He wanted to take the pain away but it wouldn't recede, he knew, until they got the guy. Then sometime later, maybe years from now, there would be another case like this, another serial killer, and they would weather it and stop it and keep others from succumbing to the monsters under the bed.
But there would always be casualties in between that they couldn't stop.
Sergeant Croslen walked by, waved a hello to Alexis that she could've won an Oscar nomination faking. Boy, could she play people, play them fast and good. But he knew her like a book. She let him know her that way, because partners...partners, he mused, were laying there in your blood with all the other things that made you live.
"Have we considered the possibility that there's more than one person doing this?" She asked.
"We are now, " he responded, not looking up as he scratched a few more messy notes about the condition of Susan Goodly's body.
"I mean, one guy may have done the actual deed, but more than one could be in on this, the planning of it, the torture of the victims."
He nodded.
"Where were you by the way?" He asked.
"Stopped over at the lab again. Same marks around the wrist, just like the others."
"I'm writing that down now, " he pointed the tip of his pencil to his steno.
She leaned over the desk, read what he'd written so far.
"So, we've got 'You all l'. What are you thinking?"
He finally looked up, met her eyes, though they were still focused on his barely readable chicken scratch. He put the eraser of the pencil against his lip, chewed the thought around his mind for a moment.
"If I had to guess now, I'd say he was spelling out 'You all lose'."
"You do that all the time."
"What?"
"Read my mind."
And for the first time that day, she cracked a grin.
"That's why we're partners. You slack off, I pick up that slack."
"Slack off? Who solved that triple homicide last year out in Brooklyn Heights, huh? The one that had you pulling two all-nighters?" She wiggled her eyebrows up and down, blew on her nails with cockiness.
He just smiled.
They grew silent again.
"Hey, Matt, you find yourself getting used to this violence? I mean, that's our society now, isn't it? You turn on the TV, you hear about a murder, you flip by it like it's a commercial you've seen ten times already and it's getting so old you've got it memorized. You find yourself feeling that way?"
"Yeah, " he sighed.
That blood. That blood between them ran deep like the still waters of quiet mountains.
The fact that our society bred this type of evil consistently and with rising frequency, it seemed, was something most people had grown used to, no doubt.
More than just them, though, it looked as if society as a whole expected it now.
And maybe...that scared him more than anything.
*
"I didn't get much on Vincent's neighbor, Kenneth. Guy had what I expected: a few priors for drug possession, but that's about it."
Jack nodded, glanced around at his team and noticed the fatigue in all their faces, the fatigue he equally felt in his limbs and muscles and every organ that moved.
"Who was the arresting officer?"
"Doesn't say. It was over three years ago, so minor he was just fined. Marijuana, from the looks of it."
"Find out who the arresting officer was. If it was Vincent, we've definitely got motive."
Martin nodded.
"Okay, Viv, I want you and Samantha to dig up some of Joseph Marro's old cases, get a feel for him as well. There's something about this guy I don't like."
They both nodded.
*
And here he was again, alone. He was starting to become so familiar with Queens he was rethinking his previous assertion that it wasn't a nice place to live. It had its bad areas, sure, just like every city, but it wasn't any worse than the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
In fact, he'd gotten quite attached to a few of the diners here, namely the Italian one on the corner of 56th and the Indian one on Gladwin Avenue.
And waiting yet again, he fidgeted in his seat at the five minute marker, hoping what happened yesterday wouldn't repeat again. As though reading his mind, a different officer came back, though empty-handed.
"File seems to be missing."
"Missing?"
"Need me to spell it for ya?" the officer remarked sarcastically.
"Uh, no. How does a file just go missing?"
"Look, we've got a lot of files back there, especially on all the drug perps we've busted. Someone like you comes along occasionally to look over old cases, doesn't put 'em back or puts 'em back in the wrong spot, and that's how they go missing. I'm sure it'll turn up."
How weird was that?
"All right, thanks."
*
She had been so young when she'd first come to Manhattan. Her father had sucked her mother away from her, left one night without warning, her brother had his own problems for a while. When he finally sobered up, she wanted to be close to him, in a big city where no one knew who she was.
That's what she wanted. She didn't want a name. In a small town, you're recognized in grocery stores and restaurants and asked questions about your parents that you have to lie about because, We don't talk about our family, do we, Sammy? No. No, we don't. But the questions came and she realized once how twisted her father was when she saw her friends interact with their fathers. So that's how they were supposed to be, she thought. Not like hers. Not at all like hers.
So she needed to get out. And she did. Holed up in a shabby apartment in Midtown with Matt until she got on her own two feet. When she started, he had been starting too, starting a new life. And they had needed each other, had been allowed to be the brother and sister they couldn't be as children.
He'd become a detective eventually, she'd moved up to Narcotics and...and...push those memories away, push them away. Matt knew what happened during those times and she could only hope he wouldn't tell anyone. It wasn't relevant to their case, not really. So they didn't need to know.
She hoped they wouldn't. She didn't need it.
Nothing would be stranger than that...that sympathy in their eyes. The twisted sympathy of obligation, obligation, not understanding or friendship. Just the look of...Poor Sam, we should feel bad for her so we will.
Now here she was, digging up cases on men she already knew, pretending she didn't.
"What's going on with the serial murder your brother's working?" Vivian asked as she casually flipped through Joseph Marro's past cases.
God, was she ever sick of reading these reports.
"Oh, Viv, another girl was murdered late last night. This time in Queens."
A funny sort of clicky noise came from Viv's mouth, a sound of regret and unsurprise.
"Are they getting anywhere at all?"
"They're coming up pretty dry. Although, I did talk to Lex earlier on the phone, she said they had managed to get two full fingerprints off the latest victim. And some blood, too. She was pretty shaken up."
"Unusual?"
"Yeah, I've known her as long as my brother has and...she sympathizes with her cases, but she's always been able to keep a professional distance. Wish I could do it. But this, this girl last night just did her in today."
Vivian shook her head in sympathy. That obligated sympathy she'd been musing on only minutes before. It looked exactly as she'd expected: a pitifully masked duty. That's all it was.
"Sam."
"What?"
"Back in '95, partner of his accused him of sexual harrassment," Vivian said, pointing to the file.
Samantha looked up.
"What happened?"
"Charges were dropped a few days later."
"That's odd. I wonder if she still lives in Manhattan?"
"Only one way to find out."
*
It wasn't exactly the neighborhood you would picture a respectable cop to be living in. A junkie neighborhood, at that. The wind started picking up again and they both hoped Leslie Trilcen was still living here, would open the door and let them in, if even for a few minutes. The deep snow blew around, flakes hitting their face in wisps.
Finally, the door opened just enough for a pair of greyish-white eyes to stare back at them. Samantha and Vivian flashed their badges, introduced themselves, and the door opened fully now, revealing a skinny young woman with knotted hair hanging in tufts around her head. A raggedy sweater fell halfway down her shoulders and she wore ratty sweatpants with holes at the knees.
"Leslie Trilcen?" Vivian asked.
She nodded warily, as though expecting something else to go wrong in her life.
"Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"
"What about?" she asked of Vivian, pulling her sweater into her body.
"Joseph Marro."
Something in her eyes changed, a flicker of recognition surfaced, then she looked for a moment like she was about to refuse them entry before she at last bowed her head in acquiescence and let them in.
Clearing a spot on her sunken two-seater, beer-stained couch, she folded her legs beneath her as she took the recliner across from them. Cigarette ashes littered the ground and furniture and the place reeked of alcohol, leaked into the walls.
A small wall separated the kitchen from the room they sat on, a tiny TV perched on an end table next to the stained couch and a door fifty feet to their right contained the bathroom in privacy.
"What do you wanna know about that bastard?" she asked, lighting a cigarette in her bony fingers.
"His brother, Vincent, has been missing for three days. We have reason to believe Joseph might be involved somehow."
"Vinny? Fuck, he was a scumbag too. Kept appearances around the station, but you get alone with him, that asshole inside shined through, just like his godamned brother."
Vivian, concentrating on Leslie, didn't notice the knowing look that passed through Samantha's eyes, the look of understanding. She had an idea of what Leslie was talking about.
"And why were they scumbags, Ms. Trilcen?" Vivian asked.
"Call me Leslie, please, no one else does. I kinda miss hearing it, " she puffed around her cigarette.
"Okay, Leslie, what can you tell us then?"
It seemed a puff of the cancer stick was needed before questions could be answered, Samantha observed.
"Joined the force early in '95. Came from a bad home, but I wanted to make a better life for myself, get into a good job, you know, make something of myself. I was good at it too, I liked it. I liked cleaning the streets. Now. Heh. Now I'm living what I hated."
Another puff.
"Anyway, around June, they paired me with Joseph. Seemed okay at first, nice even. Then about two months into it, he starts acting weird. Turns out, he was only being himself. Christ. He was insane. One night, we're working night shift, it's slow, we're parked in an alley, I'm munching on some crackers. It's fuckin' slow and he decides to get fresh with me. Starts trying to unbutton my uniform."
"Leslie --"
"That's not all. He starts pulling on my bra, says I probably got beautiful ones behind that ugly uniform, I look so damn good in the dress blues, he wants to see them off. And then -- God -- then he asks me to blow him. Fuckin' blow him. I pushed him hard against his door, tried to climb out and he grabbed my legs, I got a nasty cut from hitting the door."
Samantha closed her eyes, Vivian just shook her head.
"And you reported him."
"Damn right I did. But turned out Joseph was chummy with the Police Chief who apparently agreed that I was the one pushing myself onto Joseph and if I was real good, they wouldn't put it on my record."
"So you dropped the charges?"
"Hell no. I wanted to pursue it, I needed to. So they dropped the charges for me. Nice, right? I lost my job."
"Leslie, why didn't you bring this to another cop, report them, get the Chief fired?"
The ash on her cigarette had accumulated into one long strand, finally fell on the carpet with the rest of the ash. A wild, mutely fearful look passed through her eyes.
"I didn't much feel like it after he raped me and then...then threatened to kill me. Said if I didn't talk about it, he'd leave me alone for the rest of my life. So...I didn't talk about it."
"God, Leslie --"
"Look, it was nine years ago, it's over. I wish the bastard would rot in hell, but nothing I do can will fix what happened."
"Based on your experience, do you think him capable of harming his brother?"
"Wouldn't put it past him."
Vivian stood and moved to leave, but Samantha hung back a moment, stood in front of Leslie. Before she could say anything, Leslie spoke.
"He got you, didn't he?" she asked.
"Who?"
"One of them."
"I don't --" she started, wanting to deny it. Leslie patted her shoulder.
"Don't look like me in a few years. Talk to someone. You like your name?"
"Most of the time, " she replied, confused by why it mattered.
"Then tell someone. Don't lose your name, Agent Spade, don't lose it. No one calls me Leslie anymore...no one, " she said, and walked into her kitchen for a scotch.
*
By mid-afternoon, the snow had started to fall again. She agreed to meet Alexis and Matt at the diner across from the FBI building. She seemed to be coming here a lot lately. Choosing the booth furthest from the one she'd shared with Jack yesterday, she took a seat and threw her coat beside her, opened up a menu and waited for them.
She didn't have to wait long. Matt slid in beside her, Alexis across from her. He stole her menu from her hands.
"Hey, I was reading that."
"You know what you're getting. Besides, I'm a skinny ginny, I need to pack some pounds on. Dessert's sounding nice right about now."
"Meal first, Matthew, " Alexis said through her menu.
"Sure, Ma, " he winked.
The waiter came and they ordered. Matt folded his hands together and leaned far back against the booth, looked up at the ceiling.
"How are you doing, Lex?" Samantha asked.
"This guy knows what he's doing. More than the usual murderer. He picks up on every little detail, doesn't miss a beat, " she said, reverting to the case rather than her own emotions.
"Lex, " she said, repeating her question again, "how are you doing?"
"I'm not gonna lie, I feel like shit. You know what keeps me going? Those women? Probably felt ten times worse just before they died. It keeps me going, Sam, it does."
Matt suddenly felt his beeper go off, groaned when he saw it.
"We got to go, partner. The lab's got something for us."
"Sam, drinks later tonight?" Alexis asked, to which Samantha nodded in agreement.
*
"You pulled me away from a Hot Pastrami, Max, this better be good, " Matt spoke as they blew into the forensics lab.
Max moved around the table, tapped his fingers on the smooth top.
"Got a match on the blood, traced it back to a Kenneth Mercel, lives in Queens. Right next door to a Vincent Marro."
Matt turned to Alexis.
"Sam's missing guy. All right, give us the address, we'll check it out."
*
Night fell fast again on Manhattan, always came fast in December. Almost six o'clock and they were hunched over lamps, studying the notes they'd taken and bouncing theories around so wild sometimes they wouldn't have made sense to the most sleep-deprived of agents.
Samantha came over from where she'd been hunched against her desk on her phone.
"Got a call from my brother. The blood they found on the latest victim matched Kenneth Mercel."
"Son of a bitch, " Martin muttered under his breath.
The city moved routinely below them, people leaving from work, going into their late shifts, leaving home, going home, going out, and finding all points from here to the Upper East Side to keep the lights on all night everyday. By now, they were all aware of the silent predator lurking in the darkness, searching for its next prey, but they continued on like they always had.
New York City was nothing if not resilient, that much was evidenced through the tragedies and pitfalls it had faced over the span of two hundred years. It had been hit and hurt and tossed around and still it stood.
The night, the darkness it contained in its infinity, seemed markedly endless -- seemed to stretch on and on and forget the stars that first claimed the sky. The night was endless on this chilly Saturday evening, but it was still brightly lit against the black canvas, staying true to what it had always been; the city of light.
"They're over in Queens now, but the guy's not there."
"Probably taking care of his 'stuff', " Vivian remarked and shared a knowing laugh with Martin.
Vivian and Samantha had filled in the rest of the team on what they'd gathered from Leslie Trilcen. Now Joseph Marro's name was written along with Kenneth Mercel's on the list of possible suspects. Possibly in it together, though time would tell.
Samantha chanced a look at Jack, not sure what she'd see there, not sure she wanted to see what would be there, but she looked anyway because he was Jack. If it had been any other day of any other year under any other circumstances, if they had been how they were when they started, this could've been an easy time, just looking at him, taking him in, appreciating his olive skin and dark, passionate eyes.
But they had a past together and now she was sitting here in a conference room looking for a guy who'd made her shiver with his smile, waiting for a killer to be caught, hoping her brother and his partner were all right, hoping no one else would be lost to the endless night.
Here she was. Hoping maybe he'd look up just as she looked at him and they could forget what had been said yesterday, forget what they'd done and be Jack and Samantha again. She wanted those things, but really, she was just screaming to whispers.
And she couldn't feel him anymore.