A Cruel Season for Dying Read online

  Copyright

  The events and characters in this book are fictitious.

  Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned,

  but all other characters and events described in the book

  are totally imaginary.

  Copyright © 2003 by Bluestocking, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Lines from “Let There Be Peace on Earth” by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller,

  copyright © 1955 by Jan-Lee Music;

  copyright © renewed 1983. Used by permission; all rights reserved.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56548-6

  To angels past and present—Louise Ann, Charles, and Elle …

  and to Gerry and Ike—the best of friends in this life, or any other

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author would like to thank Dr. Karen Ross, Herbert Erwin, Gerrie Singer, Robert Aberdeen, Lisa Cordon, Dr. Alfredo Suarez, Bill Troy, Stirling and Migo Nagura, David Spiess, Dr. Hugh W. Buckingham, Rabbi Barry L. Weinstein, Jim Churchman, Chuck Farrier, and others who helped lend an air of authenticity to James Sakura’s fictional world. Any errors or creative interpretations are the author’s.

  Thanks also to Mel Berger of William Morris and his assistant Donna, and to editors Jackie Joiner and Colin Fox. A special thanks to Barbara Alpert for helping to make it all happen.

  PROLOGUE

  The man’s ear, an inch above the chest, listened for the silence. No breath. No beat of heart. His mouth longed to suck up the brilliant light now seeping from the pores. Passing from his too human vision. A firefly pinched between the fingers of God.

  There was a reverence in the manner in which he cleansed the body. And a meticulousness—depositing the soiled toweling and alcohol wipes into the garbage bag he’d packed. Rolling and safeguarding the Visqueen that had lain beneath the body.

  Now he straddled the waist, pulling the torso up toward him, angling the pale shoulder into his chest. In death there was a kind of clumsy resistance that made his work difficult, though not unmanageable. Carefully he rotated the torso farther to the side so that hips and legs remained parallel, the head in profile.

  The scalpel slipped easily into flesh as though through softening butter. There was no blood. The time of bleeding had passed. He inserted his latexed fingers into the deep pocket he’d made, severing more cleanly skin from muscle. The wound was precisely under the shelter of shoulder blade.

  Twisting the body to the opposite side, he made an identical incision. He bent the torso forward, head to knees, and slowly inserted the sharp projections of cartilage into the open slits, careful not to damage the tissue. Cradling the juncture of flesh and feather, he released the body back, flat against the bed. Arranged the arms and hands.

  He got up from the bed and retrieved the camera, loading a fresh roll of film. Through the Nocta’s lens the body seemed satisfyingly less human. He snapped the first photograph. The split-second illumination from the flash burned the white skin whiter, made the dark recesses of the body blacker. He focused on a crevice, the point where armpit fit chest. Click. Then down the long thin line of shadow tucked from groin to ankle. Click.

  He danced at the foot of the bed, moving from one side to the other. Clicking, clicking in rapid-fire succession, shots from a gun, the artificial explosions from his camera mimicking the natural explosions of dry lightning jumping through the uncurtained window. Big light. Little light. The whole of the room emitting a kind of cosmic warning signal.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER

  1

  In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Driving through dark streets to the scene of murder, Detective Lieutenant James Sakura repeated the words to himself, an important reminder of weakness as well as virtue.

  If not for his special FBI training, he would still be home in bed lying next to Hanae. But on Friday evening he’d been called to the apartment of Luis Carrera, a dancer with the Metropolitan Ballet, who’d been found in circumstances that suggested more than an ordinary murder. Now, less than seventy-two hours later, a second victim had turned up over an art gallery in the East Village. The investigation had been officially transferred from the precincts to his Special Homicide Unit.

  At three thirty-seven on a Monday morning, there was relatively little traffic on the Bowery. Sakura raced through intersections, running lights like beads collected on string. When he turned off on St. Marks, homicide and radio cars were already jamming the street. He pulled his own car halfway onto the sidewalk and got out.

  The month had been colder and wetter than was normal for October, and tonight’s rain waited in an indeterminate sky that seemed to feed on light. Despite the damp chilliness, a collection of street people from the nearby park had gathered at the lines of yellow tape. One of the patrolmen, canvassing for witnesses in the crowd, spotted Sakura and walked over.

  “Are you first officer?” Sakura flashed his gold detective’s shield.

  “No, sir. Frank Kramer’s first. He’s inside.”

  Sakura felt relief. Kramer was a good cop, a twenty-year veteran who knew how to protect a crime scene.

  Inside the gallery detectives from the local precinct stood talking to the chief of detectives. Lincoln McCauley’s presence at the murder scene was an indication of the importance that was being attached to the case. Sakura waited as McCauley detached himself from the group and walked over.

  “You made good time.” The chief of detectives reached into his pocket for the case that held his cigars. “Crime Scene’s still photographing the bedroom.”

  “Have my people been called?”

  “On their way.” McCauley parked an unlit cigar securely in his teeth. Put the case back inside his jacket. “Dr. Linsky’s been notified too.”

  Sakura nodded. Linsky had been the medical examiner at the murder scene on Friday. Calling him tonight would insure continuity.

  “Have you been upstairs?” he asked McCauley.

  “Yeah, Jimmy. I’ve seen worse. But never anything like this.”

  Sakura understood. Certain things weren’t measured in blood.

  In the bedroom the smell of dead incense was a cloud existing at eye level. It crawled into Sakura’s throat, recalling the death scene on Friday, feeding his awareness of what waited for him on the bed. He fought off the image. This room and what it contained had to stand apart. Later, when he could reconstruct every detail in his mind, then the two murder scenes could be compared. By then, anything that was different should shout at him as loudly as that which seemed the same.

  The room, apart from the bed, appeared to be, if anything, too normal, without even the usual clutter of cast-off clothes. There was no sign of a struggle. A collection of clay figures stood undisturbed on a shelf. Canvases on the walls hung straight. There was no blood spatter on the rugs
or wooden floor. Not a piece of furniture seemed to be out of place.

  Sakura turned to the bed. It, too, was neat, seemingly undisturbed by the nude body that lay on top. There was no illusion of sleeping. The man on the bed was dead, with the overwhelming sense of flesh vacated. The arms were arranged, hands crossed over genitals tucked between the legs. The blue eyes, half open, fixed in an expression that Sakura had observed many times. Of course was what the eyes seemed to say, as if dying brought the solution to some very simple riddle.

  The spent sweet smell of incense was stronger near the bed, concentrated in the charcoal letters scrawled across the wall. The same ashy residue stood out darkly on the victim’s chest in a pattern of roughly concentric circles, with other lines coming down.

  Sakura moved closer. The bedspread beneath the body was a gray, heavy silk. Against its dull luster, the small blood pools forming beneath the shoulders were nearly invisible. Leaking from incisions cut into the victim’s back, the stains were only apparent because he’d known they would be there, overshadowed though they were by the large white wings that stretched across the pillows.

  He stared at what had once been human on the bed. For some detectives, the motive in finding the killer was a kind of sanctioned revenge, and Sakura knew veterans who spoke sentimentally of victims in forgotten files who still cried out for justice. For him, it was simpler. Murder, the most heinous of crimes, was the most disruptive of social order. To restore balance, one must find and punish the killer.

  Looking at the winged corpse, the indecipherable writing, he suddenly understood what it was about these crime scenes that most unnerved him, what had kept him awake at Hanae’s side each night since the first murder. It was not doubt that he could do the job, but a much more primal fear. In the undisturbed room, in the weird and careful ritual, lay a precise if bizarre logic, the signature of a mind that, in its own twisted way, craved order as much as his own.

  The living area had the same studied spareness as the bedroom. Artwork dominated. A few large canvases, mostly abstract, arranged on pale glazed walls—collections of small ancient-looking objects on glass and wrought iron tables. The Crime Scene Unit had begun their work in the rest of the upstairs apartment, and fingerprint powder like drifting volcanic ash lay everywhere on the living room’s hard surfaces. A single sooty shoe print marred the bleached wool carpet, like an artifact or an omen.

  Sakura stood inside the doorway observing the man on the sofa. Jerry Greenberg was, according to Kramer’s report, the victim’s business partner and lover. He sat hunched forward on the gray leather cushions in a classic pose of mourning, elbows on knees, the heels of his palms pressed hard against his eyelids. He wore jeans and a turtleneck sweater, which showed above the collar of the outdoor jacket he had not taken time to remove. He did not seem aware of the heat in the apartment or that anyone had entered the room. Sakura walked over.

  “Mr. Greenberg …”

  An indistinguishable noise, a simultaneous sucking in of breath and grief, shuddered in the fabric of the jacket as Greenberg pulled himself up, his blond head thrown into relief against the abstract painting behind him. He was thinner than Sakura had first imagined, and the vague slackness of sudden shock made his face appear older than the thirty-six listed in Kramer’s report. The pale eyes seemed unnaturally large, as if he had to concentrate to keep them open.

  “I’m Lieutenant Sakura, Mr. Greenberg,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry for your loss, but there are questions I have to ask.”

  Greenberg swallowed once, nodded.

  “As I understand it,” Sakura began, “you’ve been away for the last few days. You arrived here from the airport around one forty-five this morning.”

  “Yes, I’ve been on a buying trip. I was supposed to fly home tomorrow.” Greenberg’s voice was unexpectedly deep and resonant. It made his simplest statement sound important. “But I finished up early and managed to get a flight….” The words trailed off.

  “What happened when you got here?”

  “I came straight up to the bedroom.”

  “The downstairs door was locked as usual?”

  “Yes.”

  Sakura nodded. As with the Carrera apartment, there had been no sign of forced entry. “So you came upstairs, and you saw Mr. Milne,” he prompted.

  “Yes,” Greenberg said again, “but I couldn’t make sense of it. I mean, I didn’t even know it was David at first. It wouldn’t register…. Then I just knew he was dead.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

  Greenberg shook his head. He was no longer looking at Sakura.

  “Could you have done it?”

  The gray eyes flashed upward, indignation penetrating the grief. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Direct.” Sakura didn’t smile.

  “I loved David.”

  “That doesn’t disqualify you, Mr. Greenberg.”

  Greenberg had pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Now one of them came out. “This does.” He held up a boarding pass.

  Sakura took it, read the time and flight number. “May I keep it?”

  “Of course … check it out.” Greenberg’s voice had developed an undertow of belligerence.

  Sakura did not react, slipping the boarding pass into his pocket. “Perhaps Mr. Milne invited someone up here this evening,” he said.

  Greenberg’s eyes flashed again, but his answer was calm. “David and I were faithful to each other.”

  “But you had friends?”

  “A lot of them. Everyone loved David.” There was no irony in the statement.

  Sakura held the man’s eyes. “Were you or Mr. Milne, or any of these friends, into any kind of religious or ritualistic … activity? Something that could get out of hand?”

  Greenberg didn’t flinch. “I know no one who could have done this.”

  Sakura let it drop. “We’ll want a list of those friends,” he said, “as well as lists of your artists and clients…. You get a lot of traffic in the gallery?”

  “Yes.” For the first time Greenberg nearly smiled. “David was a sculptor,” he said. “The problem was he had rheumatoid arthritis. He started the gallery when he couldn’t continue to work. He liked finding new artists and helping them. Even when our people made it uptown, a lot of them would come back here and do shows for us.”

  Sakura listened, letting him finish. “I think you would have to agree,” he said, “that there is a certain artistic element to what happened in that bedroom. I ask you again. Can you think of anyone who might have done this to Mr. Milne?”

  “No.” Greenberg was shaking his head violently. “And I find it disgusting that you could call what I saw in there … artistic.”

  Sakura watched him. There was a suggestion of performance in all Greenberg’s reactions. The man was very self-aware. It did not follow, however, that the emotions had to be anything less than genuine.

  He tried another tack. “Does the name Luis Carrera mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Greenberg said, looking up again. “Should it?”

  Sakura did not answer. The truth was, he’d been hoping for some easy connection between David Milne and Friday night’s victim, who’d also been homosexual, but Greenberg’s denial seemed real. And with no personal link between the gallery owner and the dancer, it seemed more probable that the killer was targeting gay men at random.

  “It’s important,” he said finally, “that you don’t talk to anyone about the details of Mr. Milne’s death. Especially anyone from the media.”

  Greenberg nodded.

  “One of my people will drive you to headquarters for a formal statement. You can wait here till we finish; then get whatever you need. The building will have to be sealed for a few days.”

  Greenberg stared, and Sakura could read in the man’s face exactly what he was thinking. That a few days would do nothing to change the enormity of what had happened.

  “I’ll want to speak w
ith you again,” he said, “so make sure we know where you can be reached. If anything occurs to you before then”— he pulled a card from the inside pocket of his jacket—“this has my number. And don’t forget what I said about talking to anyone about the details of what happened here tonight. That would damage our chances of finding Mr. Milne’s killer, and you could be charged with obstruction of justice for interference in a criminal investigation.”

  Greenberg’s eyes had gone blank again. He took the card without looking. Kept it in his fingers.

  At the door Sakura turned back. The man had not changed position. His stricken face, made paler by distance, seemed frozen and flat, floating like an icon on the painted surface behind him.

  Beneath the corner of Thirtieth Street and First Avenue was the realm of the dead, the basement morgue that handled Manhattan’s homicides. Colder and damper than the outdoor October, the morgue was a fluorescent-lit underworld where toe-tagged bodies waited like hitchhikers along the steel-lockered corridors for attendants who would wheel them into the cutting room. Fortunately for Sakura, the hierarchies of city bureaucracy reached even beyond the grave. Bodies with clout moved to the head of the line.

  Still with a weekend between the two murders, Sakura had yet to receive even the most basic toxicological or lab reports. And Saturday’s autopsy on Luis Carrera had failed to establish a cause of death. Earlier at the Milne apartment, he had tried to question Linsky, but the medical examiner had remained determinedly closemouthed, deferring any discussion of his findings to this morning’s autopsy on the gallery owner.

  The procedure had been quickly scheduled, and Linsky, as was his custom, had shunned the protective “bunny suit” for more traditional scrubs and apron. The son of Russian émigrés, the medical examiner possessed the preciseness of an old-world technician. It was not unusual for the apron to remain virtually spotless throughout the most involved procedure. A starched white lab coat would replace it as Linsky exited the swinging metal doors.