Silent Slaughter Read Free Page B

said. “What’s up?”
    “They found the girl,” Butts said. “Lisa Adler.”
    “Where?”
    “In the back of Shinbone Alley, off Bond Street. It’s him, Lee. It’s the guy who wrote to me.”
    “How do you know?”
    “He left a note. I’m on my way to the scene now.”
    Lee glanced at his watch. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Call Krieger, and tell her to meet us there.”
    Elena Krieger, forensic linguistics specialist, was the most glamorous cop Lee had ever met. She was also the most difficult to work with. But her skill was needed now—and even Butts, who couldn’t stand her, must realize that.
    The detective was silent.
    “Call her,” Lee said. “We need her.”
    “All right.” Butts didn’t sound happy about it.
    “See you there.”
    “Right.”
    He hung up and threw on his coat, pausing to pull his curtains closed as night settled over the East Village. The sound of Christmas carols floated out from the Ukrainian church across the street: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” He recognized John Calkin’s setting of Longfellow’s words.

    Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

    As he turned out the lights in his apartment and closed the door behind him, he could only hope that Longfellow was right.

C HAPTER F IVE
    N ew York City had an excess of many things—buildings, people, noise, poverty and glamour—but it was severely lacking in alleyways. More modest East Coast cities, such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, boasted far more, and Boston was fairly bursting with them. Real estate in New York had always been a numbers racket, and through the years buildings had been crammed next to one another like cupcakes stuffed into an undersized bakery box. One casualty of the city’s unbridled real estate frenzy was its alleys.
    Shinbone Alley was one of the few remaining of its kind. Nestled between Lafayette and Broadway on a block of Bond Street still sporting its original cobblestones, the alley was separated from the street by a tall metal gate that now stood open, bordered by yellow crime scene tape.
    Lee Campbell nodded at the pair of uniformed cops guarding the entrance and ducked under the tape. He walked toward the group of people huddled at the far end of the alley, his steps echoing in the narrow canyon formed by the buildings on either side. Floodlights mounted on metal poles gave the scene an eerie resemblance to a movie set.
    In the apartments above them, a few windows had been opened, and several people leaned out to watch the proceedings. Even in New York, where you could see just about anything, people were curious. Lee couldn’t blame them—it wasn’t every day you saw a body dumped on a city street like this. In recent years Bond Street had been transformed from its funky East Village roots of crumbling storefronts and underground theaters to a gleaming showcase of upscale boutiques, galleries and chain croissant shops. Aging hippies, low-rent artists and folk singers had been replaced by well-heeled young Asians, NYU students and Euro-hipsters.
    Lee had liked it better in the old days.
    Crime scene technicians were everywhere—photographing the body, dusting for prints, carefully inspecting the sidewalks for trace evidence.
    Butts looked up as Lee approached and shook his head. “I’ll say this. He’s an arrogant son of a bitch, to dump a body in a place like this. Anyone could have seen him.”
    “You have the cause of death yet?”
    “Looks like ligature strangulation. Petechial hemorrhaging, bruises around the neck—the whole nine yards.”
    “Who found her?”
    “The building super’s son,” Butts said. “Snuck out to the alley for a smoke, found her there.” He glanced at a slim Latino youth huddled on the stoop of the western building’s entrance. The boy sucked heavily on a cigarette, his eyes haunted and vacant. A short,