It took a little jostling and nudging to get to the officer on duty next to the break in the yellow tape. The crowd had not only grown in all these hours, it had also solidified. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, and not one of them felt like moving aside for anybody. He kept getting bounced back and forth along the line of people, going forward only rarely, as if he were in one of those mazes that came in Penny Press puzzle magazines. He got to the front just as four uniformed officers were hefting one of the body bags into the back of a van and presented himself to the officer waiting there. It was not the same one who had been there when he’d come through before.
The officer was young, and tired, and tense. He started to say something automatic to Gregor. Then he realized that he recognized the man he was talking to and stopped. “Oh,” he said, “it’s Mr. Demarkian. You can come in.” He looked over his shoulder nervously and then looked back.
“I don’t want to come in at the moment,” Gregor said. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”
“Sure.” The young officer looked back over his shoulder again.
“What’s your name?”
“Tom Celebrese.”
“Tom Celebrese. That’s good. Did Marty Gayle tell you not to talk to me?”
“Uh,” Tom said. “I mean—”
“Never mind,” Gregor said. “You do realize that he can’t tell you not to talk to me if John Jackman and Rob Benedetti say you should? Never mind again. It doesn’t matter. Why don’t you let me in, and I can find out what I want to find out for myself.”
“I’ve read all about the stuff you do,” Tom said, “in the papers. And guys talk about it at the precinct, you know. The stuff with Drew Harrington. It’s really impressive. I mean it. But this isn’t like that, is it?”
“Isn’t like it how?”
“Well, this is a serial killing,” Tom said. “This is some nut, you know, with sexual problems, something like that. Some guy who goes around killing innocent people just for the kick of killing them.”
“Is it?”
“Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? We’ve had eleven killings, and now this, whatever this is. There was at least one whole body in there. I heard them talking. With a cord around its neck. That would make twelve.”
“Would it?”
“Is this one of those things, you know? Like the Socratic method? Because you’re not making much sense. We do have a serial killer. The Plate Glass Killer. He’s been around for a couple of years without anybody catching him.”
“It’s what I used to do, you know,” Gregor said, “catch serial killers. When I was with the FBI. I was with a unit whose sole purpose was to coordinate interstate investigations of serial killers.”
“Yeah? Then why didn’t they call you in on this one before? We could use the help. It’s embarrassing when this guy keeps getting away with it.”
There was suddenly a lot of noise and commotion at the end of the block. Gregor looked up and saw a long black car making its way carefully down the street, moving forward inexorably, expecting the people to pull back.
“Who’s that?” Tom Celebrese said.
“My guess is it’s the district attorney,” Gregor said. “John Jackman said he would come in a limousine. Here, before they get here, let me tell you about serial killers. Serial killers work in a pattern. Once the pattern is set, they almost never deviate from it unless circumstances force them to.”
“So?”
“So if there’s an old body with a cord around its neck in there, a skeleton, or something decaying, that’s fine. That could have happened before the bodies started appearing in the alleys. Then the cellar got too full or burying the bodies there got too dangerous, so the killer had to move his operations. But there’s been no problem with leaving the bodies in alleys. There are hundreds of alleys in Philadelphia. We can’t patrol them all. So leaving the bodies in alleys is safe. The chances that he’d risk the far more dangerous prospect of burying a body here are virtually nil, if what we’re dealing with is a serial killer.”
“I didn’t mean new,” Tom said. “I mean, you know, intact. So that it looked like a body.”
“Still, if I were you, I’d hope you got that information wrong; because if you didn’t, we really have a mess here. Ah, that is the district attorney coming. I’m going to go talk to him. And don’t worry. I won’t tell Marty Gayle you’ve been talking to me.”
“We’ve just been passing the time,” Tom said stiffly. “He can’t blame me for that. I mean, what am I supposed to be, rude?”