Hangman: A Novel Read Free Page B

headed.”
    He took a breath.
    “Now
nobody
wants that to happen. We’ve seen, most of us here, what he’s done to this city before. I’ll tell you something: Buffalo has never been the same since Hangman. A killer like that does something to people, permanently. We all still bear the scars.”
    Abbie didn’t know many people in the Hangman’s target demographic—all his victims had been young teenage girls from the North of Buffalo—but she imagined many of the men and women in the room had daughters at home. They’d want to stop Hangman before he got near their schools and cul-de-sacs.
    And she didn’t blame them one bit. Hangman was a scary one. Even from Miami, where she’d been when the murders went down, she’d felt a chill when reading the headlines from her hometown. Hangman was elusive, implacable, a hunter.
    Trap the monster where he is, she thought. Upstate in the woods,where the most he can kill is woodchucks. Everyone was thinking the same thing; she felt their strange, trigger-happy dread:
Keep this animal away from my city
.
    Perelli stepped down and made a beeline for his office along the far wall.

4
    Abbie tried to follow Perelli, but was blocked by a crush of cops trailing John O’Neill toward the exit. Finally, she smiled and pressed her way forward until she’d reached the wall, then turned her shoulder and made her way to Perelli’s door.
    Once in, she closed the door behind her and the drone of the office—all those male voices, excited, amped up—was snuffed out. Perelli looked up and shook his head. He’d tossed his jacket on a leather chair.
    “You got here quick.”
    Abbie nodded. “When they say Hangman, you come fast.”
    Perelli closed his eyes briefly, and nodded. “Let me ask you something,” Perelli said. “How much do you know about Flynn?”
    Abbie shrugged, sat in the chair facing his desk. “The basics. He was from the County, but lived downtown when the killings began. He was in his late thirties, good employment record, no arrests except for two drunk-and-disorderly the year before the murders began. Went to college in, was it Fredonia?”
    “Oswego,” Perelli said, watching her.
    “Right. He killed four girls …”
    Perelli was about to speak, but Abbie cut him off.
    “He killed three and kidnapped one. The last one was never found. All were from fourteen to sixteen years old, all brunettes, and all from the North. They died by strangulation, apparently hanged, judging by the width of the rope burn, et cetera.”
    Perelli nodded.
    “The last victim was Sandy Riesen, the killer’s cousin,” Abbie went on. “He was caught in a security video putting her in his car three blocks from her house. They put out a BOLO with the license plate of his car and it was spotted pulling into the parking lot of a hotel.”
    “Motel,” Perelli said, nodding. “Called the Warsaw.”
    “Right, the Warsaw Motel. When deputies arrived, they approached the room and found Hangman with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Hangman survived with some brain damage and was convicted on all four cases.”
    “And Sandy?” Perelli said quietly.
    “Was never found.”
    A nod. “So I’m impressed. You know more than the basics. Well, I want you to know everything.”
    Abbie narrowed her eyes. “This is a search operation, Chief, pure and simple. Why should we reopen the original case?”
    “
Now
it’s a search operation.”
    Abbie raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
    “What if it goes two, three days? Hangman goes to ground, we can’t find him. Then we’re going to have to use everything we have. I’m not saying it’s likely, I don’t think it is. But if he does get past the first forty-eight hours, then it’s something else, something where your talents might come into play.”
    Abbie’s gaze was level, intense. “I have talents now?”
    Perelli grunted, not quite laughing. “One or two.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “You’re