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I ignored his taunt. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the homicides here in New York. Then we’ll review Atlanta and San Francisco, where your presence was verified during all of the related murders in those cities.”
“That’s how you found me, isn’t it?” Ott asked. “Timed the murders to the schedule of my contract work?”
I knew better than to confirm any information. “There were a lot of factors that went into your arrest.”
Ott ignored my non-answer to his question and continued. “And then you saw me at the library. That was my big mistake. I got so used to most people looking right through me that at a crucial time I forgot a detective might be watching. You got my attention that day as a worthy opponent,” Ott said. “I tried and failed to derail your investigation. You won. And now I won’t hold anything back. I promise.”
I sat there, astonished, as Daniel Ott began listing the murders he’d committed in New York City.
“When I first arrived in New York,” he said, “I went exploring, looking for interesting neighborhoods and people I wanted to spend time with.”
“That’s your way of saying you wanted to kill them, isn’t it?” I asked.
He nodded, then said, “I found a woman in the Bronx, and one in Brooklyn. I don’t even know their names, only that they had loud American mouths on them.”
Ott made no effort to hide his obsession with forcing women to obey rules and show respect. I shuddered to think how he treated his wife and daughters.
“It was easier to get to know the women in Manhattan,” Ott said. “I met them on the job. One was a law student moonlighting in a medical supply office. And I told you about that disrespectful intern already.”
“She had a name,” I said. “Elaine. Her mother and friends called her Laney.”
Chapter 95
Tactically, it wasn’t the smartest idea to loosen Daniel Ott’s handcuffs and move them to the front, but I had to reward him for being so forthright.
Though Ott, by his own admission, had made some mistakes, I knew he was skilled and he was smart. Scary smart. He’d evaded us a number of times. I didn’t want to find out he was some kind of martial arts genius or an assassin who could take a straw and cram it up your nose into your brain. Or maybe I’d just watched too many Jason Bourne movies.
“Tell me about the librarian,” I said, focusing on one of the recent murders I was not absolutely sure he’d committed. I wanted confirmation one way or the other. “That’s where your pattern seems to have suddenly shifted.”
“I didn’t want to kill the librarian,” Ott said, “and I didn’t enjoy it the way I did spending time with the others. When she confronted me in the computer room, she saw my face, and I couldn’t risk her recognizing me.”
“That doesn’t explain why you killed the young man,” I said.
“He was there.” Ott shrugged. “I tried to do a quick job in front of the apartment building since there were people nearby, so I slashed her across her throat and intended to keep walking. Then that guy came out of the building at the wrong time and saw her dead body. I had to kill him too. I had no choice.”
There’s always a choice, I wanted to say, but someone like Ott would never understand.
“And the bartender from The Queen’s Castle?” I asked, referring to the incident report I had been handed as I entered the interview room.
“My latest victim,” Ott said with a fearsome smile. “How I did enjoy her, once she stopped talking.”
This story was getting sicker and sicker, but I had mostly known the answers to the questions I had been asking Ott. I was about to forge into unknown territory.
“What about the murder on Staten Island?”
“Staten Island?” he said. “I’ve never even been there.”
“You had nothing to do with the stabbing of Marilyn Shaw in her apartment?” I said, showing Ott a picture of the murder victim.
He leaned back like we were old friends having a beer after work. “That must’ve been the one I read about in the paper. I have enjoyed reading about myself, but you know as well as I do that the media is wrong most of the time. It should have been obvious I wasn’t the Staten Island killer.”
I took my time writing some notes. I needed to think about this. I wanted him to think about it too.
I asked him about the SoHo homicide, which was another one he hadn’t confessed to. “What about Lila Stein in SoHo?” Again, I displayed a photo of the victim.
He shook his head. “Not me.”
I looked at Ott, trying to get a feel for him. Here was a guy who had freely admitted to committing half a dozen murders in the city. Plus more across the country that he’d
