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be sure. “I’m no art expert.”

    McNally stopped pulling on his neck, which was now red like the clouds in the one painting. “What about that woman, you know, the one you worked with, from TV? She knows all about this art shit. Maybe she’d take a look.”

    “I don’t know.” Brown knew how traumatic the Death Artist case had been for Kate, that now, finally, she had gotten her cushy life back on track. He doubted she’d want to hear from him or have anything to do with tracking another killer—and he couldn’t blame her. Still, there were two bodies in the morgue with the same MO and maybe she could tell them something they should be looking for.

    “It’d make Tapell real happy,” said McNally. “She’s coming up for reappointment as chief of police and she don’t need no serial killer out there to make her look bad.”

    “Two murders are no serial, Tim. You know that.” Floyd looked again at the two paintings, a grenade going off in his gut. Two eviscerated women, two paintings left at the scenes. It had all the markings of a ritual, of a serial killer. He just didn’t want to think so. Maybe he should call Chief Tapell, see what she thought about contacting McKinnon. After all, Tapell and McKinnon were friends—the two of them went all the way back to Astoria, when Tapell was Queens Chief of Police and McKinnon was a cop under her.

    McNally frowned. “Two murders in a month. Within blocks of each other. Both vics killed in the same way.” The older cop sighed. “But I guess you know best.”

    Floyd gave him a look. “It’s not my jurisdiction.”

    “Jurisdiction?” McNally repeated the word as though Brown had taken a dump on his feet. “I’m not askin’ you to move back to the Bronx. Just help me out here.” He slumped into a stiff-backed metal chair. “They’re retiring me. Next month. I’d like to go out in style, you know?” He forced a smile. “Don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself. Watch TV all day, follow the soaps, right?” He laughed, but there was no cheer in it. “I never did develop no hobbies .”

    Brown took in his old chief’s blurred features—the effect of thirty-five years on the force. “Look, I’ll talk to Tapell, but I’m not even sure that the chief would want me interfering in another borough. But”—he pinched the bridge of his nose—“I’ll see, okay? But no promises.”

     

    BAD PAINTER GOOD KILLER

The NYPD has a new psycho on their hands with two murders reported in the Bronx now very possibly linked. The victims, whose names are being temporarily held until families can be notified, were both savagely mutilated. But the most bizarre element in both cases was the oil painting planted by the killer at each scene.

    Though the police declined to discuss the details of these paintings, it has been confirmed by an inside source that they were rather ordinary—one a still life of fruit, the other a street scene. No one has yet determined the paintings’ particular relevance to the victims or if they contain clues to the murders, though it appears as if Manhattan’s elite murder squad has been called in…
    F loyd Brown crumpled the newspaper in his fist. How the hell these damn reporters got information so quickly, he’d never know. There was no “inside source” as far as he knew, nor had the police intentionally leaked the information, which they did when they wanted to flush out a perp or bring additional witnesses to the surface. Floyd was quite sure that Chief of Police Tapell wanted this kept under wraps until they had more information. Well, too late for that. He figured Tapell was reading this too, probably taking someone’s head off. Plus, the reporter had used his special homicide squads’ nickname, the “murder squad”—and he had yet to agree they would be a part of it.
    Brown scanned his desk, the files of unsolved homicides stacked in the corner like a mini Aztec pyramid, then reached for the phone. Better to call