“Did your sergeant finally listen to you then?” Maggie asked quietly.
Riley shook her head. “He ordered me and Adam, my partner at the time, to hand over everything we had on the first two vics to the northern district detectives. Said they had more bodies, so they could deal with it.”
Eric rolled his lips inward, his frustration obvious. “Did they?”
“For a while. Until they gave up and pitched the case over to the FBI. After that, they wiped their hands of it and moved on.”
Her partner muttered a curse beneath his breath and Maggie shook her head in disgust.
“Those other detectives...” Riley continued. “They had the same opinion as my boss.”
“Which was?” Eric stared back at her.
“The girls were prostitutes. Criminals. Hell, they acted like the guy was doing the city a favor by killing them.”
Admittedly, Riley’s outlook on how it all went down was probably skewed by her frustration and personal drive to find the killer. Even so, the complete disregard in finding justice for those women still burned her ass.
Not this time.
By and large, Riley knew the vast majority of NYPD detectives cared about each and every case that crossed their desks. They worked night and day, pounding the pavement doing whatever they could to solve them.
Despite the overwhelming backlog and constant roadblocks and hurdles.
But the unfortunate reality was, for some, the deaths of a few hookers with rap sheets a mile long were less important than victims who were wealthy or more privileged.
It’s why, in her professional opinion, the killer had chosen the prostitutes to begin with.
Easy access, no family or friends to report them as missing...they were the perfect target for a fucked-up mind like the one she’d been so desperate to catch.
And like the one they were dealing with now.
Except...
“The Feds caught the guy, though,” she told the other two. “Six months after I left New York and moved here. A drifter by the name of John Lewis. My sergeant called me out of the blue one day to tell me Lewis was caught standing over his fifth victim.” She huffed a breath. “Sarge actually apologized for not listening to me from the start.”
The man’s apology had come too little, too late. Especially for Lewis’ victims.
“Apparently, someone phoned in an anonymous tip about a man with a body near the river,” Riley continued. “Agent Crenshaw, the Fed in charge of the case, was less than two blocks away following up a lead with his partner. They swooped in and caught Lewis red handed.”
Literally.
According to Crenshaw’s report, Lewis had been crouched by the body with the woman’s blood on his hands. The rope used to strangle her by his feet.
“Lewis claimed he was innocent, but Crenshaw had the case tied up all nice and neat for the prosecution.”
All that was missing was the big, red bow.
“Where is John Lewis now?” Maggie watched her closely.
“He cut a deal to avoid the death penalty. Judge gave him five consecutive life sentences...one for each of his victims. He was sent to the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, New York.”
“Shawangunk?” Maggie tilted her head. “The same prison as Berkowitz?”
Riley nodded, not surprised her curious friend was familiar with the infamous Son of Sam killer.
“I’ll search for their number.” Eric pulled his phone from his pocket. “We need to call them. Make sure Lewis didn’t escape or accidentally get released.”
“There’s no need.” Riley stopped him before he could dial.
