The Final Deception Read online

“And we wake up together,” he said.

  “And go to bed at night together. Sometimes.” She laughed softly. “It’s okay. Go—go! Get to your crime scene.”

  He gave her a grim smile and rolled to the edge of the bed to rise, and then padded into the bathroom. “I’ll see you at the pub. I’m just not sure how late.”

  “It’s open late. Especially on a Friday night. Oh, and I’m tight with the owners. It will be fine.”

  She lay back down, thinking she could just go to sleep, relax for the night, if she wanted.

  But she didn’t want to be alone right now, though she would never say so to Craig.

  She wasn’t usually so unnerved. She’d spoken to murderers before, along with rapists, child abusers, and then occasionally those who really might find a way to go straight.

  She’d get up and first go over her notes, because it was necessary. Then she’d head to the pub. She might not be needed to wait on any of the tables, but Declan was always there when she needed him. While she and Danny and Kevin had “day” jobs, they all headed to the pub when they were off, or when they wanted to be with the family, or when they were simply at loose ends.

  Craig emerged after what must have been a two-minute shower; he was buttoning his tailored shirt as he emerged. His Glock and holster were already at the small of his back.

  He barely finished buttoning his shirt before he reached for his jacket.

  He strode to the bed and hesitated, unusually tense. He was accustomed to his work; he dealt with it well.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” he promised. “And I’ll see you as soon as I can get there.”

  Then he was gone. She lay back down, contemplating the darkened sky. To her, it seemed there was something else about it.

  A whisper of warning.

  She shook off the thought, rose, showered, and dressed. Later, she would realize just how dark and foreboding the night and the coming days would prove to be.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CORPSE HAD been burned, Craig Frasier observed, something tightening in his gut.

  But the Fireman, Raoul Nicholson, was locked away at Rikers—Kieran had just interviewed him.

  “What the hell?” Mike Dalton muttered. Like Craig, his partner must have been feeling a sense of déjà vu. The crime scene was way too much like those they thought they had seen the last of. The apartment was crowded with personnel, including the medical examiner, FBI agents, cops, and the paramedics who’d answered what had gone out as an emergency call.

  One of the uniformed cops who had been first on the scene—a very young man whose face was turning an almost cartoon-character shade of green—started to give it up and made a choking sound.

  “Get him a bag, now! Kid, get control. You can’t vomit on the crime scene,” Craig said, grabbing a bag from a quick-thinking paramedic and handing it to the young cop.

  Most of the people in the room remained silent.Everyone here was likely thinking the same thing: they had caught this killer already; this shouldn’t be happening.

  They had to forget the past; forget what they thought they knew. Here was a new crime scene.

  And a new victim.

  Craig gave himself a firm mental shake. They all had to move. Starting with the cop about to contaminate everything around him.

  “Kid, we’ve all been there,” Craig said to the young cop, his tone quiet. The man was obviously new to the job; he didn’t even look as if he’d been shaving long. He’d probably be ribbed by his fellow cops later. But maybe not too badly. Every first responder had had a moment when they’d witnessed something that was beyond their level of acceptance, and had a gut reaction to the inhumanity of it.

  “Hey, someone help him out,” Mike suggested.

  “And, please, everyone else, clear the room—we’ve just about compromised the place all to hell here,” Craig said. “Unless you’re NYPD forensics or photography, get out. Officer Ridley,” he said, speaking to the man who appeared to be in charge, “could you start a canvas? See if any of the residents saw or heard anything.”

  Craig had called it right; Ridley was apparently ranking officer in the room. He nodded gravely to Craig and turned to the uniforms. “You heard him, let’s get started. We’ve access to every floor.”

  “So is the Fireman capable of astral projection?” one of the cops muttered. “There’s one way in, one elevator. It’s impossible. Unless he had a key to this apartment.”

  “It doesn’t mean someone didn’t hear something. We need witnesses, and this thing called evidence. Come on. Let’s act like cops, huh?” Ridley snapped.

  People began to filter out.

  For a moment there was quiet in the room. Everyone there felt a little shell-shocked—and a little nauseated, as well.

  “Let’s get on the phone up to Rikers,” Craig said. “Confirm that Nicholson is still in custody, or if he made it out somehow. We may have a copycat on our hands.”

  “I’ll make the call,” Mike said, stepping back to the little entry hallway right off the elevator. The hall led to a longer hallway, a dining room, and the parlor, where the body lay.

  Craig hunkered down by the body, across from the medical examiner. “What can you tell us, Dr. Layton?” Craig asked, looking over at the man.

  Soon after he’d gotten the call from his boss, FBI Assistant Director Richard Egan, that evening about the alert from the police precinct, he’d asked to make sure that Layton was put on the case.

  Layton had handled the victims of the Fireman.

  Frederick Layton shook his head. “Damn. This is all preliminary, Special Agent Frasier, but it sure as hell has all the aspects I saw with...yeah. The Fireman.”

  Craig didn’t need the medical examiner or anyone in forensics to tell them the flames in the apartment had been deliberately ignited on the body.

  Fire hadn’t even ruined much of the handsome Upper East Side apartment.

  “Time of death can be narrowed down without me,” Layton said. Craig knew they had a good approximate time of death because they knew when the man had last been seen alive. The guard on duty at the door to the elegant apartment complex had known that their victim, Charles Mayhew, had arrived home just about three hours ago. About forty-five minutes later, Mayhew hadn’t answered a call for a delivery. The guard, Joey Catalano, had become nervous and headed up.

  Catalano said he’d smelled fire as soon as he’d got in the elevator; he’d hurried into Mayhew’s apartment, which occupied the entire seventh floor. The parlor was visible from the entryway, and Catalano had seen flames and grabbed the fire extinguisher that was right next to the elevator door. He’d called 911 as soon as he’d put out the fire consuming Mayhew’s body.

  “There’s more left than there has been at other times,” Layton said matter-of-factly.

  The bodies they had found across the city had burned quickly and fiercely, leaving very little to be discovered by the medical examiner.

  But if this killer was a true copycat, they would discover the fire had not been set to cause the agony of burning to death. Dr. Layton had told them that on the original cases, the victims had been strangled before death, and then gasoline was used as an incendiary accelerator.

  The horrible smell of burned flesh was strong. Craig had a handkerchief with him and was holding it across his nose and mouth until one of Layton’s assistants provided him with a mask.

  The corpse was black and gray and mottled, giving it an ancient appearance, despite the speed with which the security guard had arrived to spray it with a fire extinguisher. The flame retardant added to the grotesque look of eerie bubbles that had formed over the remains.

  And still, one thing was obvious: the eyes had been gouged out. Craig thought that when Layton worked on the body, he would certainly discover that the tongue had been cut out, as well.

  He’d seen it all in h
is sleep, in his dream, his memory—a moving picture within his mind’s eye, haunting and terrible, and now, once again, real.

  “If Nicholson’s still locked up, he had to have been in close contact with someone,” Layton said. “This is just...too close. I’d almost venture to say identical.”

  The details of the mutilations had not been shared with the media. Any copycat at work would have had to somehow have learned the specifics. There could have been leaks, of course, but to the best of Craig’s knowledge no insider information had ever made the news, in print, online, or on the television. Dr. Layton looked up from the corpse and straight at Craig. His eyes—large behind his gold-framed glasses—betrayed the fact even he was a little unnerved by the discovery, again, of a corpse in this condition. But he began his professional spiel.

  “Anything I tell you is going to be an assumption. The fire inspector is on his way. Hopefully he can tell you how long the fire burned. The body has lots of fatty tissue, so with an accelerant, one can burn quickly. But I do believe the security guard found Mayhew almost immediately. He dialed 911 straightaway, patrol came...and they sent for you and me. I’m going to say he was killed right before he was set on fire. We know for sure it was in that three-hour window. I’m going out on a limb a little, but based on experience, I’ll suggest he might have been killed before he was set on fire, which would put his death about an hour ago. I’ll tell you close as I can...”

  Layton paused, and then continued. “This is unnerving. It really looks like the same killer—method of body burning exact, and...no tongue. No eyes.” He was quiet a minute. “If Raoul Nicholson is still up at Rikers, he may have had an accomplice. Because this is one hell of a copycat.”

  “The tongue is gone?” Craig asked. “You checked?”

  Layton nodded grimly.

  It was bad news having a serial killer at work in the city—any serial killer. The Fireman killings had been exceptionally bad. And now it seemed that they were starting all over again. Craig looked at the notes sent to him by the tech team at headquarters.

  Victim: Charles Mayhew, real estate magnate. Fifty-two, divorced, no children, CEO of his own company, Mind Mechanics. Popular with politicians—belonged to numerous social clubs. Residence at the Marchman Building for ten years. Each floor is one apartment—each elevator key brings a resident to his or her apartment. Security personnel do have master keys in case of emergency. In Mayhew’s apartment there are three bedrooms, three baths, kitchen, parlor, dining room, and office. Mr. Mayhew had never been arrested; he was a graduate of Yale, was included in lists of important New Yorkers, and his financial status put him into the realm of multimillionaires. He was known for his philanthropic works.

  Craig looked around the apartment; nice place for a guy alone in NYC. It was exceptionally fine, and befitting a man of his status.

  Known for his philanthropic works.

  Dr. Layton cleared his throat and said, “I’m just the ME, and some detectives and agents like to do the theorizing and detecting themselves, but...”

  Craig looked at him, nodding, and said, “I’m happy to hear anything you have to say, Doctor. Your opinion is an educated one, and you are more familiar with the evidence than anyone else.”

  Layton swallowed. “Maybe it is different. Might be a copycat with an agenda.” Layton went on quietly, “This was a very, very wealthy man. He wasn’t an easy target. Prostitutes on the street are accessible. And even a student, out wandering, shopping. The other victims were a designer and an accountant. They were average people, caught alone—something of a feat in New York City, but still caught alone. If Nicholson wasn’t at Rikers, I’d say this was his work, certainly. But this murder was also bolder. You know more about the minds of men, and I don’t really have a theory, but more a question. Is that a natural progression for a serial killer? There will be a complete autopsy, of course, but on initial observation it appears the cause of death was asphyxiation. A cursory exam shows the windpipe is crushed. He was killed in the same way the other victims were killed, down to a T. So, if Nicholson’s somehow out, is he escalating? Or did he have a partner, and they’re growing bolder?”

  “Mike is on the phone right now, checking,” Craig said.

  “If it wasn’t him...” Layton muttered.

  “It was someone who knew him,” Craig agreed. “And, yes, this is a step forward—by Nicholson, or someone who studied him. All the victims were different, but they were killed outside, in dark alleys, quiet streets. The killer this time took a far greater chance accessing Charles Mayhew’s apartment.” There had never appeared to be any external rhyme or reason to the chosen victims previously—only that for some reason, Nicholson had believed they were witches. Was there something else behind the killings they didn’t see? A correlation...a thread?

  “Nicholson’s fourth victim, the fashion designer, he was also a drag queen. Had a hell of a following, from what I read,” Craig said, thinking out loud. “When the first two came in, both sex workers, it did seem like someone was down on prostitutes...playing a different kind of Jack the Ripper. But the murdered student was superior at academics, and shy and studious. No sexual content there, even after all the digging we did. And the accountant was a family man without a whisper of scandal to his life. And now, this man was known for his good works. What I’m wondering is, why the hell would someone think he was a witch, about to do evil to someone?”

  “Why indeed,” Layton agreed. Despite the clamp and tension in his gut, Craig was still hunkered down by the body across from the ME. The mask he’d been provided helped, but it didn’t obliterate the smell. The corpse didn’t appear to be real, except the awful smell of burned flesh was a sharp reminder he’d been very real indeed. Historically, witches had been burned in areas of Europe, hanged in others. In the United States, they’d been hanged, not burned. The most infamous slayings had been in Salem, Massachusetts, purportedly by good Puritans convinced the devil was causing their problems. And yet, in retrospect, theories suggested that those accused of being witches also happened to be those holding land the accusers coveted.

  So was there something that these victims had in their possession that their killer—Nicholson—had actually wanted? Was there a tie in there he wasn’t seeing?

  It was easy to covet wealth, but who stood to gain from Mayhew’s death?

  And how had the killer gotten in—and out—of an apartment with one entrance, needing a special key for the elevator to even stop at the floor?

  Craig stood as Mike walked toward them, a grim look on his face.

  “What is it?” Craig asked.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Mike said.

  * * *

  “You know, I never doubted you’d have your reception here,” Declan, the eldest of the four Finnegan siblings, told Kieran, grinning. “I mean, you’d have to worry about Mom and Dad rolling around in their graves if you didn’t. And, on a lighter side, the price tag is going to be right. Also, seriously, your family, friends...everyone comes here.”

  “Still, it was a decision we had to make,” Kieran said. Declan was behind the bar; it was Friday night, so Jimmy Murphy, one of the pub’s regular bartenders, was on, but Declan was helping out.

  Kieran was at the one stool that sat by the hinged piece of curved bar that allowed for an exit or entry. The siblings referred to it as the “loner” chair, but it was a great place to converse with a bartender and not be annoying to or heard by anyone on the other stools in front of the bar with its two dozen taps.

  “The decision you have to make is picking a date—and a church. Or other venue,” Declan said firmly. He smiled. Her eldest brother made a great bartender—he was a listener—and often replied with safe advice to be taken or ignored. Of course, he’d taken on “protector” mode where she was concerned, but he liked Craig and respected him.

  “It’s hard to set a good date,” Kieran said. “Somet
hing is always happening.”

  “You’re making excuses. You’re not afraid of getting married, are you?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “Just checking.”

  She sighed. “It’s what we do...there is always another case.”

  “Yes, that’s the point. There will always be something. So, you choose your date, and whatever comes up, there are many other competent agents who can handle Craig’s cases. And Fuller and Miro are not the only psychiatrists on call. You can never find time? You two have to make time.”

  “Right. Yes, sir!” Kieran said, smiling.

  “Hey, you need to be happy.”

  “I am happy. I love our new place. And, seriously, most of the time I feel good. A lot of my work has to do with reuniting families, making sure people are receiving the treatment or the therapy they need... It’s not all about crazy murderers!”

  Declan nodded. “You can find someone to do the wedding right here—go from wedding to immediate reception. Or there are a lot of fantastic venues in the city. Have the ceremony at a park or up at the Cloisters. But then again, you’d have a long trip with a lot of people from way up the city to downtown.”

  “A park would be pretty,” Kieran mused, noting that Declan was suddenly staring at her hard—and frowning.

  She loved her brothers equally, but Declan had quickly taken on the mantle of responsibility when they’d lost their mother years before, and then their father. He was tall and well built, with fine blue-gray eyes and dark auburn hair—a very handsome man. She was incredibly proud of him. Finnegan’s had maintained its reputation under his leadership and had been written up by many travel magazines and websites as a go-to venue.

  Right now, he looked a great deal like her father—filled with authority and concern.

  “What did you just say?” he demanded.

  She was startled. “Uh—a park would be pretty for a wedding?”

  “No, about crazy murderers. What are you up to now?”