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CHAPTER 3

The color slide of a nude ash-blonde young woman filled the screen. She lay face up in a pool of blood on top of a linoleum floor. The gash across her neck was so deep that her head hung at a ninety-degree angle from her torso and although she was naked, her breasts were not visible due to the amount of blood that covered them. Multiple deep slashes had mutilated her face, and two bullet holes disfigured the center of her chest. Her blue eyes stared out at nothing and her mouth was agape in an expression of surprise that said dying had not been on her agenda that day.

“Lacy Wooden, age 24, single, professional dancer, found dead in her apartment on East 72^nd Street, with ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in her CD player programmed to the ‘Repeat’ mode” Moran said from the back of the dark room at 1 Police Plaza. “The coroner’s report placed the time of death between noon and two in the afternoon, about four hours before the body was supposedly discovered by Paul Myer. Moreover, according to the file, Paul Myer and she were a hot-and-cold item. Statements from neighbors and friends corroborate that they would fight like cats and dogs and then a week later be lovey-dovey again. There are also statements that Lacy occasionally showed up to dance classes with a mouse under an eye, compliments of Myer.”

When Moran pressed the remote, the close-up slide of Lacy Wooden’s neck and chest wounds were met with a collective gasp. Hernandez was seated in a tattered black swivel chair at a long foldable table. Third grade detective Robert Darcey, a thin, lanky man in his early thirties with boyish features and sandy hair sat next to him, and second grade detective Alice Simms sat across from the two cops, drumming with her fingernails the open file that lay in front of her.

Moran went on. “The gashes were so deep that they almost severed her head. Whoever killed her had a lot of pent up anger. Butchered and shot her.”

Another click and the photo of a bloodstained ten-inch kitchen knife came on. “This had Paul Myer’s fingerprints all over it and—” Moran began and then clicked on another slide. This time an enlarged bloodstained fingerprint on a wall appeared. “This was identified as being Paul Myer’s fingerprint.” Moran walked to the wall light switch.

“What about the gun?” Hernandez asked.

“Never found,” Moran said, and flicked on the lights. The overhead fluorescents flickered for an instant and then glowed.

“The report says she was sexually assaulted,” Simms said. She was a slender, green-eyed woman in her mid-thirties with mocha-colored Creole features and short curly mouse-brown hair.

Moran strode toward the whirring projector and turned it off. “Semen was found inside her, and that’s where things get ugly for DA Shilling.” Moran marched to the front of the table, leaned in, placed his fists on the table, and repeated what Commissioner Newbury had told him about the lack of DNA testing.

“Yeah, but Myer was convicted of first-degree murder and got life without parole, anyway,” Darcey piped in.

“Didn’t you read your copy of the file?” Hernandez said.

Darcey put on his best little-boy smile and said, “Sorry, I had a heavy date and—”

Hernandez stared at him, shook his head and shot Darcey an impatient look. “Myer was exonerated by the Court of Appeals thanks to a sharp-thinking young Legal Aid lawyer who had a DNA test run on the semen and proved it wasn’t Myer’s.”

“But—” Darcey started to say.

Moran interrupted. “Myer told the detectives that on the afternoon Lacy was killed, he was going to her apartment to patch up a row they’d had. When he got off the elevator at the third floor, a person in a black motorcycle skintight latex outfit wearing a helmet with the visor down brushed by him and headed for the emergency stairwell.”

“Says here,” Simms said, pointing to the file, “that Myer told police there was something familiar about that individual, but he couldn’t remember what it was.” She pulled at her hip-long white cardigan sweater.

“He said he handled the knife out of panic and possibly touched the wall on his way to the phone,” Hernandez said.

Darcey shrugged and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “I think we should check out the victim’s apartment and Myer’s place.”

Moran swung out a swivel chair from the table and lowered himself into it. “Thanks for volunteering; you can take Simms with you.”

“Me?” Simms said with broadened eyes.

“Darcey sometimes needs guidance,” Moran said. “With regard to Lacy Wooden’s apartment, that’s a no-can-do. It was rented out right after Myer’s conviction. However, there are five boxes full of her belongings that Frank and I will go through.”

The phone in the middle of the table rang. When Moran answered, he crinkled his brow, pointed at the receiver and mouthed: S-h-i-l-l-ing.

“Yes, I just finished briefing my people and—” he began, and then listened to the raised voice of Manhattan District Attorney Howard Shilling. Moran pulled the receiver away from his ear and everyone in the room heard the DA’s shrill voice.

“I know you’re the mayor’s fair-haired boy, because you saved him and his wife from Hubert Singer,” Shilling shouted, “but I also know that Singer, one of this city’s most sadistic serial killers, vanished from under your very nose. This time—”

Moran raised the middle finger of his left hand to the phone, gave the DA the Bronx cheer, and hung up. “God bless his pointy little head.”