Stacey Read online

  The delivery guy smiled at the most famous detective in the city. “Ms. Iris. I didn't forget.” On his days off from Ming's Chinese Restaurant, the delivery guy would wash the patrol cars in the precinct's parking lot.

  “C'mon, chop-chop,” Iris shouted.

  Who the fuck does she think she is, Queen fuckin' Sheba or somebody? “I'll be right over, Ms. Iris.”

  “You messed up on the order the last time.” Iris removed the shrimp rolls from the small plastic bag, took a bite, and looked at the delivery guy like he was the enemy. “Why can't Mr. Ming ever get our orders right... what, he doesn't like police officers or something? This is an egg roll, a freakin' egg roll.” Iris threw the egg roll into the wastebasket.

  “I'm sorry, Ms. Iris...” the delivery guy lowered his head.

  Iris felt bad for snapping at the young man. But she didn't express it. Instead, she said, “Go back and tell Mr. Ming to make my freakin' shrimp rolls, please.” At that moment, Lt. Stone called Iris and Toni into his office.

  Chapter 4

  STACEY MCHILL, THE youngest serial killer the city of New York had ever known, sat in a wheelchair wearing a straightjacket at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in upstate N.Y. Her ankles were shackled together, and she was medication. Stacey was awaiting transfer to a new state-of-the-art facility for the criminally insane in Jamaica Queens, N.Y. A judge had found Stacey McHill incompetent to stand trial for the murders of fourteen people.

  Stacey had been living at Bedford Hills for eight months. She arrived at the facility after one of the largest manhunts in the city's history. Her identical twin sister, Jannifer McHill, had lost her life after a bloody confrontation with Detectives Iris Williams and Annette Toni.

  Since Stacey’s arrest, she’d been in a catatonic state. But upon her arrival at Bedford Hills, she attacked and seriously injured two male nurses. The doctors all agreed that only female staff members would handle Stacey because of her temperament toward the male staff.

  Stacey was on psychotropic meds when a male correction officer, who’d been assigned to transfer her to the new facility, entered her holding cell. “Ahh, Lookie here, Lookie here. Super crazy woman is all drugged up and waiting for her man,” the correction officer whispered as he closed the cell door. He walked up behind the wheelchair that Stacey was sitting in and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I'm gonna be yo' escort today, sexy lady.” The correction officer looked over his shoulder and glanced at the cell door. He wanted to make sure that no one was watching him.

  He removed his hands from Stacey's shoulders and placed them on her breasts. “You like dat, don't cha, you crazy bitch.” He leaned over and licked the top of Stacey's ear. Stacey McHill's eyes fluttered, but the chlorpromazine that she was on had her in such a groggy state that all she could do was moan. “Yeah, tell me you love it,” the correction officer said. He walked around to the front of the wheelchair and stared at the twin. A long string of saliva dangled from the corner of her mouth. “Look at ya, do you want me to wipe that off for ya?” The correction officer unzipped his pants and removed his penis, but not before he took another look at the cell door. Using his erect penis, the correction officer wiped away the string of saliva. The sound of hard-soled shoes caused the correction officer to freeze. The officer abandoned his lewd intentions. “Hey Morgan!” another correction officer shouted as he unlocked the cell door. “The move has been postponed 'til next week. They're bringing in a couple of female officers to do the move. C’mon, let's get the hell out of here.”

  “O. k., I'm coming.” The correction officer looked down at Stacey McHill and flinched. Stacey was looking up at the correction officer; her face twisted with rage. If looks could kill, the correction officer would've been shaking hands with the devil.

  But that would come later.

  Chapter 5

  IRIS AND TONI WALKED into Lieutenant Stone's office. "Have a seat, ladies. You two took care of business this afternoon. Made the Double 0 look good."

  "Thank you, sir," the detectives said together. Lt Stone was leaning his beefy, two hundred and seventy-five-pound frame over a yellow and purple Phalaenopsis plant that sat on top of a mahogany credenza. He touched the leaves as if he was touching the finger of an infant. Without looking at his detectives, Lt. Stone said, " Next week Stacey McHill is being moved to a new state-of-the-art, maximum security facility for the criminally insane in Queens." Stone turned and faced the detectives. "She's going to Tanawan." Stone watched Iris and Toni's facial expressions. Toni's face turned pale and her newly healed arm throbbed. "Are you o.k., Toni?" Lt. Stone asked her.

  "Yessir..." Toni paused. "Yessir. I'm fine."

  At the mention of Stacey McHill's name—a name that Iris and Toni hadn't uttered since that frightful night eight months ago—a cold chill went down Iris’ spine. She touched the left side of her face and rubbed her ear. Eight months earlier, Iris had broken into the twins' apartment. After watching the apartment for over ten hours she was convinced that the twins weren't home (she was wrong). She needed a sample of the twins' DNA. But once she was inside the apartment, Stacey and Jannifer attacked her. One of the twins struck Iris across the left side of her face with such force that Iris lost most of her hearing in her left ear. Stone called out Iris’ name, snapping her out of her daydream.

  "Yessir."

  "Are you—"

  "Sir, I'm fine," she said, cutting her boss off. "I assume that she'll be under heavy security?"

  “Of course.” Lt. Stone sat down at his desk. “I just wanted to pass that little bit of info on to you guys.” Just then Stone's phone rang. "Yes... where? Slow down, will you..." Lieutenant Stone scribbled on a notepad. "O.k. I got it." Stone hung up the phone, tore off the note from his pad, and handed it over to Iris. Before Iris and Toni walked out of Lt. Stone's office, he told them not to worry about Stacey McHill, "because where she's going, a ghost couldn't escape."

  Iris and Toni marched back to their cubicle. The delivery guy was still in the squad room. "You guys got a case?" He asked excitedly.

  Iris grabbed her Chinese food off her desk.

  “Who got killed?” he asked.

  Iris pushed pass the delivery guy and headed toward the exit with Toni on her heels. "Go get 'em, girls!" Lori shouted. The delivery guy followed the detectives toward the exit. He stopped and watched as Iris and Toni raced down the stairs. He stood at the top of the steps grinning to himself. The delivery guy had hidden the true nature of his character so assiduously that a person would never imagine the darkness that lived in his soul. "Yeah, go get 'em, girls. See if you can solve that... super cunts." Billy Madison murmured.

  As Iris drove out of the parking silence invaded the space between her and Toni. Thoughts of Stacey McHill and the horrific carnage she and her sister had left in their wake left the detectives speechless. In the fourteen years that Detective Iris Williams had been on the force, she had never witnessed such atrocities... atrocities committed by two teenage girls, no less. The thought of it made her shiver. “Of course there’ll be enough security," she muttered to herself, answering her own thoughts.

  "What? Toni asked.

  "I was just thinking out loud."

  "Stacey McHill, huh?"

  Iris didn't answer. She turned her truck onto Bradhurst near 150th Street. Three patrol cars, the ME's vehicle, and an EMS van were parked in front a five-story walk-up. Iris doubled parked her Durango. A EMS technician ambled out of the building and lit up a cigarette.

  A cold March wind embraced the detectives as they stepped out of Iris’ vehicle. Iris opened the back door and removed two windbreakers; she handed one of them to her partner. A patrolman stood at the entrance to the building. "Good evening, detectives."

  “Whatcha got, officer?" Iris asked. She zipped up her windbreaker while the patrolman pulled out his notepad: "Well...." He flipped through the pages. "... two middle-aged Caucasian women were found dead in apartment 2a. The apartment belongs to a... a Mrs. Liza Brown."
r />   "Was she one of the victims?" Toni asked.

  "Yeah," the officer said.

  "Was he the one who called it in?" Iris was pointing at a cab driver.

  "Yeah, the poor man's in shock."

  "I'm going to talk to him," Toni said. Iris entered the building and raced toward the second floor. As soon as she entered the apartment of Mrs. Liza Brown, her eyes focused on the electric stove and the two front burners that were turned up high. Iris asked a technician about the burner. He told her that the knobs hadn't been dusted yet. A Grocery bag and a set of keys were on the kitchen table. Iris also noticed a set of sneaker prints in front of an open window; the young technician placing a ruler by the print. Another tech handed Iris a pair of white booties to place over her Nikes and a pair of latex gloves. After slipping the items on, Iris made her way toward the back of the apartment. Inside the living room, crime scene technicians were hard at work dusting and collecting evidence.

  "Hey, Raymond. Whatcha got?" Detective Iris Williams and Forensic Pathologist Raymond Johnson had dated briefly before Iris had called it quits. Aside from having a degree in Forensic Science, Raymond Johnson was also the chief medical examiner who prefers being in the field.

  "You're lookin' good, Iris."

  "Thanks," she said, avoiding eye contact.

  "O.k... this poor soul here was Liza Brown. From what I can tell, she died from a myocardial infarction. Probably from what she saw in the next room.”

  Chapter 6

  IRIS ENTERED THE BEDROOM. The sight of an old woman wearing a pair of red pumps and a sexy, white lingerie startled her. But it wasn't what the old woman wore that shocked the detective, it was the way her body was displayed. Someone had tied the woman's wrist to each of the bedposts. She was on her knees, and a cord had been tied around her face and fastened to her ankles forcing her head backward, black electrical tape covered her mouth. The victim's entire body was beaten black and blue. Iris scanned the room. Chunks of brown and gray hairs—pulled out from the roots of the woman's head—were scattered all over the parquet floor; a metal pipe was inserted into the woman’s anus. Liquid feces stained the sheet. Toni walked into the bedroom and stared at the body.

  Iris felt a knot swelling up in her throat. She placed her hand over her mouth and nose. "What kind of monster would do such a thing?" she muttered.

  "Satan," Raymond replied. "That pipe was heated to a high temperature before it was inserted into her body."

  "Fuckin' monster." Iris’ eyebrows were straining to touch one another as rage covered her face. There were two things that got under Detective Iris Williams' skin, and those were: harm to the elderly and harm to a child. "What are those round marks on her body?"

  "A ball-peen hammer made those marks," Johnson said. "It's tagged and bagged.

  "Any latents?" Toni asked.

  "No. Our killer wore gloves."

  Toni studied the wounds on the dead woman's back. "What did the perp do, heat the weapon up before he struck her with it?"

  "That's exactly what he did," Johnson said as he walked over to the other side of the bed where Toni was standing.

  “The killer broke all of her fingers, smashed her nose, and broke her jaw. She has no defensive wounds,” Johnson said. Iris stared at the round burn wounds on the victim's back.

  "So, the bastard heated up his weapon, struck her with it, and when it cooled he ran back into the kitchen to reheat it," she said.

  Raymond looked at Iris and said, "He took his time with our victim."

  Toni shook her head in disgust. She walked over to the closet, opened the door, and peeked inside. Toni closed the door to the closet and stood there. She closed her eyes, which made her looked as if she was meditating. But Iris and Raymond knew what Toni was doing: she was recreating the crime in her mind's eye.

  "What was her name?" Iris asked.

  "Her name was Donna Mills." Raymond pinched the bridge of his nose, yawned, and shook his head. “Man, I'm exhausted," he muttered. Then he continued. "According to her driver’s license, she was from Maine.”

  “How old was she?”

  “She turned sixty-one yesterday.”

  “Damn!” Iris stared at the sexy lingerie that the victim wore. “Looks like she was getting ready for her man when she was attacked.”

  "Or maybe it was her man who attacked her—" Just then Toni snapped out of her trance and began to speak as if she had been talking all along. "Our UNSUB came in through the kitchen window," she said, using her hands to illustrate. "Then he walked over to this closet, entered it, and waited for his victim. Toni opened the closet door. "Come over here, Iris. What does it smell like in here?"

  Iris stuck her head into the closet and took a deep breath. "It smells like garbage, sweat, and shit."

  "Exactly." Toni pointed at the two-large sneaker print. "Reeboks, size twelve. He was in this closet for a long time. This was not Donna's apartment, according to her driver’s license, so our other victim must have given her the key. The perp was waiting for the owner of this apartment. Donna Mills was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  "Do you think he raped her?" Iris asked.

  "From the way the scene is set up, I would bet he did." Iris looked around the room. There were scented candles placed all around the bedroom; they were still burning.

  Raymond said, "When we get the body back to the lab we'll check for vaginal tissue scarring, see if our guy left a little of himself inside our victim. We're definitely going to get something from these sheets," he said.

  "How long was she lying here?" Iris asked.

  "She's in full rigor... I'd say between eight and twelve hours."

  A young technician called out, "I've pulled some prints from the dresser here."

  Iris, Toni, and Johnson all turned in the tech’s direction. “I don't think our UNSUB would've left any prints,” Iris said. "This guy came to this apartment carrying his murder kit. He's not going to be careless enough to leave behind any prints."

  Toni turned to Iris and said, "This guy struggles with inadequacy." She looked at the victim. "He chooses the weak and helpless as his prey—"

  "Goddamn coward, Iris said, cutting Toni off.

  "I agree. It's a good bet that this sicko lives in this neighborhood, too." Toni looked at the open suitcase that was lying on the floor. "And he took a trophy with him." The three criminalists all stared at the beaten mound of flesh that was once Mrs. Donna Mills.

  DANIEL LEWIS WALKED through Wagner project on 119th Street dressed in a female's coat. At six feet-two, one hundred and ten pounds, Daniel Lewis looked like a walking skeleton. The cold night air wreaked havoc on his emaciated frame. It was 2:10 in the morning and Daniel Lewis was looking to cop some crack.

  Beneath the female coat, Daniel Lewis wore only a filthy tee-shirt. He had two dirty sweatshirts wrapped around his feet. Daniel Lewis had worn the same pair of pants for the last eighteen months. His lips were chalk white from dehydration and his body odor was frightening. At twenty-six years old, Daniel Lewis was a pitiful sight to behold, a drained, bleeding mass of inferiority and shame. He'd been walking around the housing complex for the last two hours, but with only one dollar and twenty-five cents to his name, nobody would sell him anything. Daniel Lewis stopped in front of a wooden bench and sat down. He pulled the small female coat closer to his shivering body and cried.

  BACK AT THE DOUBLE 0 precinct, Iris retrieved Donna Mills' emergency contact information from her cell phone and called her husband back in Maine. Mr. Mills was shocked to hear that his wife had been murdered. When Iris asked him if he thought his wife was having an affair with someone in New York, Mr. Mills went silent. Then he told her he wasn't the best husband in the world and that it would not surprise him if she were having an affair.

  In the meantime, Toni was on the phone with Liza Brown's daughter. The young woman informed the detective that her mother had a weak heart; she also told Toni that her mother was not involved with anyone that she knew of.

/>   Toni handed Iris a cup of green tea. "The perp brought the lingerie with him, it was a part of his kit." Toni sat down at their connected desk and took a sip of her tea.

  "Go on," Iris told her. Iris respected Toni's knowledge in criminal behavior. Every year since she became a police officer, Toni had traveled to the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia to study behavioral science at the famed Behavioral Analysis Unit. There she learned how to scrutinize a crime scene and patterns of a crime to determine the relevant characteristic of a perpetrator. Toni's analytical mind fascinated Iris. "And like I said before, I don't think Mrs. Mills was the intended target. Our guy was probably surprised as much as our victim was."

  “Back at the crime scene you said that our... UNSUB was inadequate, that he feeds off the weak and helpless.”

  "Yeah, his overriding characteristics...." Toni took another sip of tea, then she continued. "He has a pervasive pattern of instability. He most definitely suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. He's most likely a narcissist and maybe even a paranoid schizophrenic. This guy doesn't have the conventional sweep of emotions, such as empathy or compassion. He's devoid of these emotions. This guy is a slave to his impulses. He's probably unemployed, or if he is working, it's most likely in a menial capacity. True Personality dictates true behavior, Iris.”

  "From the smell of that closet he must he a nasty son of a bitch, too...” Iris’ cell phone went off. "It's Raymond Johnson," she said to Toni. "Go, Raymond, whatcha got?... You found what?" Iris jumped out of her chair, spilling her tea. "That's great. Fax me the results as soon as you get them... Raymond, please. This is not the time for that," she said as she rolled her eyes. "Just fax me over the info when it comes in, o.k., thanks." Iris switched off her phone. "That man is relentless."

  "Did he find something, something that he could extract some DNA from?"

  "He sure did. When they removed the electric tape from our victim's mouth, they found semen on her tongue."