I picked my way through piles of corrugated tin, broken toilets, and lawnmower parts and came to a halt when I saw the blue uniforms and the wheel-less old Lincoln Town Car, with the smashed-in engine compartment, sitting on concrete blocks. Mullins had said it was an Inevitable Case when he'd called me, but I'd never get used to seeing the various ways that could play out. What we referred to as an Inevitable Case was a street whore or hustler some john or pimp had taken for that final ride.
The back door of the Town Car was open and I could see the body—small, slim, and folded over in a near-fetal position, knees on the floor of the car in front of the backseat, chest pushed up against the partition wall to the driver's compartment, the red sash around the neck, angrily contrasting with the supple, creamy skin. Golden curls drooping down over the side of the face. Even from here I could see that it was a young Caucasian, probably male. At least I'd been told on the phone that it was a male, connected with a series of cases we were pursuing.
When I got closer to the car, Mullins and Paxton looked up and gave me a slight grimace. I didn't know who any of the young, uniformed cops were who were milling about the scene—more cops than were necessary, certainly. Sightseers just like the people gathered at the entrance to the junk yard. No doubt they were from the local Bronx precinct. Mullins and Paxton I knew because they were my men. We all were Central Headquarters Vice Homicide, the only such specialized unit in the city. The case had already been bucked up to us because of the red sash. It was becoming a city-wide signature, as was the victim also IDing as a young prostitute.
Flat chested. That was where the "probably male" had come from. No one had messed with the body to be positive about that. The side of his chest was hidden by the fold of his arm. If there'd been tits in evidence, protruding beyond the curve of the arm, it could have been a young, slim female, of which there were plenty walking the streets of the city. Now that I was closer, I could see his shorts and briefs down around his ankles and the T-shirt—a familiar one, but it probably was a popular design—puddled on the floor of the Town Car.
The perpetrator had been sitting on the seat, with the rent-boy riding him and facing the front seat. The red sash probably had started as just a breath-control kink and turned into something terminal. You'd think these young street whores would take notice of what little we put out on the street about this—be careful of red scarves and of johns interested in breath control.
"Any ID on him?" I asked Paxton.
"Left him his wallet, in his shorts, Mike. Name on the NYU student card is Sean Parks."
I grunted. "Leaving ID follows the pattern. Thumbing his nose at us. Didn't care that we knew who the vic was in short order. Probably meant he was picking them at random, not providing a pattern of mutual contact. Time of death?"
"The ME hasn't arrived yet," Mullins answered. "Apparently it was a busy night in the Bronx."
I leaned into the backseat and reached over and brushed the curls of the hair away—and my hand immediately began to tremble. It couldn't be. But of course it was. I took a moment to take deep breaths. Mullins and Paxton couldn't see how this had undone me.
Either his name wasn't really Sean Parks, or I had been duped. I knew him as Spencer Prentice. Same initials, though. And same angelic face and smooth, perfectly formed body. And if he really was a student at NYU, he must only be taking a class every other week. He was into—had been into—so much other shit. Including this. I had warned him several times about this. But, like all barely legal youths, he thought he was invincible. Well, now he was marked up as just another inevitable.
I swallowed hard twice and came out of the car, putting on my "just another day" face, even though the inside of me was jumping up and down and wanting to keen a death dirge.
"Anything unusual found?"
"Pretty much clean as a whistle, as usual," Mullins said. "I'm sure the ME will find he used a condom, and the body and the car surfaces have been rubbed down with cleaning solvent. True to pattern. But, what the fuck, why is a junk yard left without any security like this? No dogs even, and the fence is a joke."
"It's Pedersen's Junk Yard," I said. "It's one of those last stops for junk. Pretty much anything no one could possibly do anything with anymore. I was raised just a couple of blocks from here. Me and my brother used to use this as a fantasy land playground during off hours. So nothing unusual found at all?"
"Nothing other than this rosary," Paxton said, holding up a string of beads. "At the base of the partition, by the body. But it could have been put there by anyone at any time, I suppose."
I froze. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate, but I had to keep it together. None of the cops here could know what I was feeling. "Here," I said, pulling an evidence bag out of my pocket, "Put it in here and I'll get it into the evidence file. But I bet you're right—that it's not connected with this. Our man hasn't been that sloppy before."
"Do you think it belongs to the rent-boy? Do you think he was Catholic?" Mullins asked.
"Hell if I know," I answered. "We'll have to check that out." What was screaming through my head, though, was a response that hell, no, he wasn't Catholic. Spencer's religion had never gone beyond himself—which was the root of what had gotten him here. If he believed in any ism, it would be narcissism.
I stuck my hands in my pockets so the guys couldn't see that they were trembling. It was hot as hell out here. I had left my coat and tie in the car and was just in my short sleeves—which alone, marked what we were doing here as reality and not a TV show, where the cops chasing the criminals through the alleys all wore tailored and pressed suits—and still I was sweating like a pig. Of course, I was sweating more than the other guys were, which I hoped they weren't noticing. I had to get out of here. I leaned back into the backseat as if to check something and laid a hand on Spencer's shoulder, closed my eyes, and mouthed an abbreviated prayer.
He may not have been Catholic, but I was. An Irish Kavanagh through and through. Feeling guilty went with the religion, and God, did I not feel guilty now? Spencer, of course, was beyond feelings of guilt.
I had told him it would end like this if he didn't rein it in, but, of course, he hadn't believed me. Had I believed it really would happen to him? If I could say yes to that, why hadn't I tried harder to prevent it?
"It's hot as hell out here," I said, coming up out of the car. "No reason for all of us to wait out the ME. I'll go back to headquarters and start the file work."
I knew that neither Paxton or Mullins would object to that. The choice of standing out under the sun in the middle of a smelly junkyard and fighting off the flies was a thousand times more agreeable to both of them than filling out paperwork.
I drove the three blocks to Saint Barnabas Catholic Church, went into the church gift shop, and bought a rosary that, luckily, was identical to the one Paxton had handed me. Neither he nor Mullins would have any idea I had pulled a switch. I put it in another evidence bag. I'd sanitize it before I checked it into the evidence file, though. No use getting some Saint Barnabas parishioner who liked to finger merchandise she didn't buy involved in this. It would just be another teaser the red sash killer had cleaned any possible prints from. Mullins and Paxton both had been wearing evidence gloves, and I had put a pair on before approaching the car. I had to just hope that the first cops on the scene had been as careful.
I had no idea what I'd do with the rosary that had actually come out of the Town Car. I would think about that later. In the end, I knew I would send it to a private lab for fingerprinting. I knew I couldn't go without knowing.
When I went back to the car after leaving the gift shop, I sat there for a good twenty minutes, taking deep breaths and trembling, with tears rolling down my cheeks.
It wasn't just Spencer I was hyperventilating and crying for.
* * * *
Both the Central Headquarters Vice Homicide unit and my apartment, if you could call essentially one room, a bedroom only large enough for a double, and a bath, an apartment, were located in the South Central district of Manhattan, just to the east of the Avenue of the Americas. But I usually went for coffee on the west side the avenue, just inside the Chelsea district. Chelsea was more eclectic than the surrounding districts and open to various lifestyles, which seemed to accommodate each other amicably. I went to the same café in Chelsea most of the time to rub elbows with another lifestyle than my presumed one without running much of a risk of being tagged with it. No one at work knew of my inclinations. I could hang with the NYPD boys as much as anyone and spent a lot of time in the gym with them being just another one of them. None of my compatriots came over into Chelsea for their coffee fix or knew that I did. I could sip and ogle in comfort there in my completely different world.
And there was a lot to ogle. I didn't touch. At least not the clientele. Despite being another world than South Central, it still was too close to home. There was a barista, though, who I struck up an acquaintance with over time. A short, slim-bodied blond, with curly hair, an angelic smile, a sassy nature, and a mouth that spieled light sarcasm and increasingly pointed innuendo the longer I came in and saddled up to the counter for my "just black and strong."
After a few months, he was Spencer and I was Mike—and we both knew, since I didn't retreat from his innuendo, that we both were likeminded and interested.
I would have hit on him, but I was afraid I'd break him—that I couldn't control myself in using him. It was a David and Goliath thing. I didn't have much question that he was gay. He didn't try to hide it much. But I had him by at least eight inches and surely weighed twice as much as he did, though I wasn't a fatty. Four days a week working hard in the gym and my active and athletic work style pounding the streets kept me in top shape—as did the need to pass the regular exams. Vice homicide was an elite unit.
Then came the day, a slow day at the café, and one where I'd come in late and a little bummed out from the case I was working on and one that was nearing the end of Spencer's shift. I certainly hadn't planned it. I'd never been in this late before, and I'd never thought of when Spencer got off work. Maybe it was my late presence that prompted him, but the proposition was his, not mine. I don't know as I would have ever done more than have looked and jawed suggestively. I had gotten a rush out going just that far that kept me coming into the coffee bar.
Leaning over the counter, he whispered to me, with a smile that reached right up to his blue eyes, "You want to fuck me, don't you?"
Replacing my first shocked look with a steady gaze, I told him the truth. "Yeah, of course I do. I've wanted to since the first day I walked in here. But we don't have to—"
"I'm off in ten minutes. I live nearby, although it's not much. If you have something close that's better, neutral ground—"
"I'll spring for a hotel, if you know of an acceptable one nearby."
"I don't know about acceptable, but there are several within a couple of blocks that rent by the hour and where I'm known and there won't be any hassle."
