The tall detective in the front row raised his hand and spoke at the same time.
“But he only bit women so far, right?”
“That’s all we know about. He bites a lot, though. Six bad ones in Mrs. Leeds, eight in Mrs. Jacobi. That’s way above average.”
“What’s average?”
“In a sex murder, three. He likes to bite.”
“Women.”
“Most of the time in sex assaults the bite mark has a livid spot in the center, a suck mark. These don’t. Dr. Princi mentioned it in his autopsy report, and I saw it at the morgue. No suck marks. For him biting may be a fighting pattern as much as sexual behavior.”
“Pretty thin,” the detective said.
“It’s worth checking,” Graham said. “Any bite is worth checking. People lie about how it happened. Parents of a bitten child will claim an animal did it and let the child take rabies shots to cover for a snapper in the family—you’ve all seen that. It’s worth asking at the hospitals—who’s been referred for rabies shots.
“That’s all I have.” Graham’s thigh muscles fluttered with fatigue when he sat down.
“It’s worth asking, and we’ll ask,” Chief of Detectives Springfield said. “Now. The Safe and Loft Squad works the neighborhood along with Larceny. Work the dog angle. You’ll see the update and the picture in the file. Find out if any stranger was seen with the dog. Vice and Narcotics, take the K-Y cowboys and the leather bars after you finish the day tour. Marcus and Whitman—heads up at the funeral. Do you have relatives, friends of the family, lined up to spot for you? Good. What about the photographer? All right. Turn in the funeral guest book to R & I. They’ve got the one from Birmingham already. The rest of the assignments are on the sheet. Let’s go.”
“One other thing,” Commissioner Lewis said. The detectives sank back in their seats. “I have heard officers in this command referring to the killer as the ‘Tooth Fairy.’ I don’t care what you call him among yourselves, I realize you have to call him something. But I had better not hear any police officer refer to him as the Tooth Fairy in public. It sounds flippant. Neither will you use that name on any internal memoranda.
“That’s all.”
Crawford and Graham followed Springfield back to his office. The chief of detectives gave them coffee while Crawford checked in with the switchboard and jotted down his messages.
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you when you got here yesterday,” Springfield said to Graham. “This place has been a fucking madhouse. It’s Will, right? Did the boys give you everything you need?”
“Yeah, they were fine.”
“We don’t have shit and we know it,” Springfield said. “Oh, we developed a walking picture from the footprints in the flowerbed. He was walking around bushes and stuff, so you can’t tell much more than his shoe size, maybe his height. The left print’s a little deeper, so he may have been carrying something. It’s busy work. We did get a burglar, though, a couple of years ago, off a walking picture. Showed Parkinson’s disease. Princi picked it up. No luck this time.”
“You have a good crew,” Graham said.
“They are. But this kind of thing is out of our usual line, thank God. Let me get it straight, do you fellows work together all the time—you and Jack and Dr. Bloom—or do you just get together for one of these?”
“Just for these,” Graham said.
“Some reunion. The commissioner was saying you were the one who nailed Lecter three years ago.”
“We were all there with the Maryland police,” Graham said. “The Maryland state troopers arrested him.”
Springfield was bluff, n
ot stupid. He could see that Graham was uncomfortable. He swiveled in his chair and picked up some notes.
“You asked about the dog. Here’s the sheet on it. Last night a vet here called Leeds’s brother. He had the dog. Leeds and his oldest boy brought it in to the vet the afternoon before they were killed. It had a puncture wound in the abdomen. The vet operated and it’s all right. He thought it was shot at first, but he didn’t find a bullet. He thinks it was stabbed with something like an ice pick or an awl. We’re asking the neighbors if they saw anybody fooling with the dog, and we’re working the phones today checking local vets for other animal mutilations.”
“Was the dog wearing a collar with the Leeds name on it?”
“No.”
“Did the Jacobis in Birmingham have a dog?” Graham asked.
“We’re supposed to be finding that out,” Springfield said. “Hold on, let me see.” He dialed an inside number. “Lieutenant Flatt is our liaison with Birmingham . . . yeah, Flatt. What about the Jacobis’ dog? Uh-huh . . . uh-huh. Just a minute.” He put his hand over the phone. “No dog. They found a litter box in the downstairs bathroom with cat droppings in it. They didn’t find any cat. The neighbors are watching for it.”
“Could you ask Birmingham to check around in the yard and behind any outbuildings,” Graham said. “If the cat was hurt, the children might not have found it in time and they might have buried it. You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home. And would you ask if it’s wearing a collar?”