Kill Switch

by Neal Baer

  “Monday,” Gloria said.

  “Can you tell me the name of both the church and the cemetery?” Claire asked.

  “I can e-mail them to you if you’d like,” Gloria replied. “She’s being buried in our family plot here in town.”

  Claire silently breathed a sigh of relief, for Gloria had unknowingly provided her with the information she really needed: Tammy wasn’t going to be cremated. She wanted Tammy’s body intact and six feet under just in case the need ever arose to exhume her remains for further study. That would be impossible if she was reduced to ashes and spread over some mountainside.

  She thanked Gloria profusely before hanging up, promising to accompany Nick to the funeral if she possibly could and once again offering her condolences.

  Claire checked her watch. It was 8:32 on Friday morning. Dammit, Claire thought. Curtin’s Last Supper was at nine sharp today, and though she had no patients to present, she knew she best not be late.

  Claire bolted into the hospital and ran right into Ian, nearly knocking his armful of files to the floor.

  “Jesus,” he cried, “you got a train to catch?”

  “Sorry,” Claire answered, giving him a hug. “I don’t want to be late.”

  Ian shook off the surprise as they walked toward the meeting.

  “You didn’t call me last night,” he said.

  She gave him a kiss. “I’m sorry, I went to bed early—I was so exhausted.” Claire racked up another lie. But she justified it out of her love for Ian. She knew he’d worry if he found out that she was disobeying Curtin.

  “I understand. I’m just missing you so much,” Ian said.

  Claire couldn’t stand deceiving him. “Ian”—she paused—“I didn’t have a chance to tell you. Nick asked me to go with him to notify the parents of the victim from two nights ago. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Curtin told you to stay away from the Quimby case,” Ian replied. “And now you’re calling him ‘Nick’?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I feel responsible for what’s happened. That’s why I went with him—to do everything I can to stop Quimby.”

  Ian took Claire’s arm, guiding her into an alcove. “I’m not jealous,” he said, rubbing her shoulder the way she loved. “It’s just that you’re going through all this and . . . you won’t even let me help.”

  She looked at him. For a moment, all the insanity of the last week melted away and it was just the two of them.

  “I do need your help,” she said to him quietly. “And I have to get to the bottom of this, Curtin or no Curtin.”

  “You’re not a detective, Claire.”

  “It’s not just about the murders. The victim from two nights ago had metastatic Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And she was only twenty-eight.”

  Ian’s face registered his shock. “I’m a shrink but even I know that’s out of whack,” he said.

  Claire told him the story and let him in on her plan. “I think you’re crazy,” he said when she finished, “but I love you, and whatever you need, I’m in.”

  “Any doctor who saw an advanced case like Tammy’s would’ve notified the Tumor Registry,” Claire said to him. “Can you check and see if it was ever reported?”

  “Of course,” Ian assured her. “I’ll get you a printout.” Then he added, “If that’s what it takes for a guy to get laid around here.”

  “Come over to my place tomorrow night,” Claire said with a lascivious smile, “and you’ll get more than that.”

  She kissed him and walked away.

  “Wait a minute,” said Ian, still savoring the kiss as he caught up with her. “Why not tonight?”

  “I got about an hour of sleep last night,” Claire answered.

  “Message received,” Ian said.

  “I wouldn’t be much fun,” Claire continued.

  “I miss you,” replied Ian.

  “I miss you too.”

  And as they walked together toward the meeting, Claire was satisfied she hadn’t exactly lied to Ian. He would only worry about her, and she couldn’t take that on top of everything else. She also knew she wouldn’t be going back to the safe house to sleep until the wee hours of the next morning—that is, if everything went according to plan.

  Rain poured from the sky as Claire finally emerged from the front doors of the hospital at six in the evening. She cowered under an umbrella, quickly spotting Maggie Stolls’s police-issue dark gray Dodge Charger. She got into the front passenger seat.

  “Tough day at the office?” Maggie asked as Claire clumsily closed her umbrella.

  “I wish it was over,” Claire replied. “But that asshole Curtin wants me to stick around and finish up some paperwork.”

  “You look like toast,” Maggie observed. “How the hell will you stay awake?”

  “Lots of coffee,” said Claire, looking at Maggie for the first time since getting in the car. She was about the same age as Claire, Brooklyn born and raised and lived there still. And like most Brooklynites, she would gladly tell you to go to hell if she thought you deserved it. Claire turned on her best shrink approach to help Maggie feel comfortable and trust her: Get Maggie to talk about herself.

  “You know, we can talk for a bit before I have to go back inside,” Claire said. “I could use a break.” Claire smiled at Maggie when she noticed that Maggie’s ponytail was damp and frizzy from the rain. “What made you decide to become a cop?”

  “I was about to graduate with a degree in accounting when a girlfriend dared me to take the police exam. I walked in and aced it without even studying,” Maggie said, shrugging her shoulders. “I realized then a life of crunching numbers wasn’t for me.” She paused, then asked, “What about you? When did you know you wanted to be a shrink?”

  “I always knew,” Claire said. “I love hearing people’s stories and helping them sort them out.”

  “Me too,” Maggie said. “I guess we’re a lot alike—though I’m helping the victims and you’re helping the perps.”

  “Not always,” Claire reminded her. “Prosecutors use shrinks too.”

  There was a brief, uncomfortable silence between them, punctuated by the pouring rain.

  “Can I bring you anything, like dinner?” Maggie asked her.

  “It’s bad enough you have to protect me,” Claire said. “I won’t make you a delivery girl too. Besides, I’m too tired to eat.”

  “I’m starving,” Maggie said. “I’ll go grab a slice at that place around the corner and be right back.”

  Maggie and Nick had decided Todd Quimby was way too smart to show his face again at Manhattan City Hospital, and even if he did, he’d have to come through the front doors. Claire was glad the protection wasn’t overkill. Especially tonight.

  “It’ll be a late one,” she said to Maggie.

  “I’ll keep the meter running,” Maggie replied jokingly. “Call me on my cell when you’re ready to go.”

  “Thanks,” Claire said, getting out of the car and opening her umbrella. She ran back through the hospital doors, stopping just inside. She shook the water off her umbrella as she watched Maggie pull away and drive around the corner.

  Then Claire walked back out of the hospital and ran to where a man was just exiting a taxi.

  She got into the backseat before he could close the door, and the cab pulled away.

  CHAPTER 15

  Nick awoke with a start, his eyelids open but his eyes seeing nothing. A brief, terrifying thought overtook him before he remembered the windowless room in the precinct where he’d chosen to grab a few hours of much-needed sleep.

  He fumbled for the button that lit up his watch. The numbers on the face slowly came into focus: 9:17 p.m. Shit. He sat bolt upright—and promptly hit his head on the underside of the top bunk.

  Rubbing his head, Nick swung his feet to the floor. He shook off the ever-increasing soreness of middle age and cursed the city of New York for forcing the best detectives in the world to nap on decrepit bunk beds, purchased no d
oubt from some nameless discount warehouse at least a decade before Nick was born. He breathed in the stale air and felt a twinge of panic. The last time he was here, a year ago, he could see the outlines of the beds from the light leaking under the door. Tonight he saw only black.

  He maneuvered carefully around the dark room, which was no bigger than a large closet; in fact, Nick thought, it probably was a closet before it was commandeered as the precinct “crib.” He peeled off his gym shorts, put on his jeans, undershirt, and sweater, and laced up his black Reeboks. No need for his usual suit tonight. He was going hunting.

  In the forty-eight hours since Tammy Sorenson’s body had been found on home plate in De Witt Clinton Park, Todd Quimby had become the most feared criminal in New York since David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer, murdered seven young people parked in lovers’ lanes thirty-five years earlier. Quimby’s body count was now four women (and one critically injured detective, Tommy Wessel), causing the police commissioner, a raging control freak on a good day, to declare war. The PC, a sergeant back in ’77, remembered all too well what the Son of Sam cost the Big Apple back then. No way was he giving Quimby carte blanche to scare the masses away from his turf. Not on his watch.

  His orders were clear: screw the city’s budget deficit. Blanket overtime was approved, vacation days and time off revoked for every cop in the five boroughs. Todd Quimby would be captured at all costs; they would pursue him until he was either locked up or, as the PC was heard to say to a select few, dead. The Boss of Bosses let it be known that the cop or cops who stopped Quimby from dropping another corpse would be rewarded with promotions and plum assignments.

  Damn him for saying those exact words to the press, Nick thought.

  He hadn’t been home since Tammy’s murder, running down every possible lead, each one leading nowhere. Even worse, though, were the now-constant, always-annoying encounters with the New York news media. Cops loved tipping off their “friends” in the press, and in a high-profile case like this, the NYPD leaked like Hoover Dam had burst. Every reporter worth his salt knew Nick was the lead detective on the case, which translated into at least a dozen microphones and TV cameras being shoved up his nose every time he walked in or out of the precinct. Always polite (because you never knew when you’d need them), Nick gave a friendly “No comment” unless the reporter “went Geraldo” (the cops’ term of derision for any bastard who got in their face), to which he would give a glare and walk away.

  Of course, what he really wanted to tell them was to get the hell out of his face so he could do his job. And after two relentless days without sleep, Lieutenant Wilkes had ordered Nick to the crib. Nick chose not to argue with his savior, the man who literally resurrected his career, and went without protest to catch three hours of shut-eye.

  Now, four hours later, Nick emerged from the bunk room, clipping his holster to his belt and adjusting his eyes to the much brighter light of the hallway just in time to see Savarese bounding toward him.

  “Just coming to get you,” he said to Nick.

  “What’s up?” Nick replied.

  “Heard back from Tammy Sorenson’s employer, Biopharix. Human Resources confirmed she took two weeks’ vacation.”

  “Did she tell them where she was going?” Nick asked, hoping for even the smallest lead.

  “Nope,” Savarese said. “We checked her credit cards. No plane, train, or hotel reservations. For Hawaii or anywhere else.”

  They entered the buzzing squad room, which was too small to handle the sheer number of bodies assigned to the case. Detectives doubled up at desks, almost falling over one another as they walked in and out. Phones rang off the hook as Wilkes, in his tiny office at the far end of the room, screamed expletives into his phone and then slammed it down on the cradle.

  “You think Tammy checked in somewhere secretly for treatment?” Savarese asked. “Some kind of private clinic or something?”

  Nick couldn’t help but think of his secret trips to the ophthalmologist in Boston.

  “If she did, it’s gonna be a bitch finding out where, what with the federal privacy laws,” Nick replied. “When was the last time she used a credit card?”

  “The night we found her,” answered Savarese.

  “Which was two nights after she was murdered,” Nick replied, grabbing a marker and writing credit cards in dark blue ink on the dry-erase board. “Means Quimby used her credit cards. For what?”

  “Bar tabs at every hot club in Manhattan. Guy’s been busy. He hit the Iguana, Baby Face, South of SoHo, Red . . .”

  Nick scribbled the club names on the board. “Hold on. That’s the same club Tammy went to three weeks ago,” he said, circling the name Red.

  “And there’s a charge here to Red the night she was killed,” Savarese said, scanning the printout.

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Nick challenged him.

  “I only just got her financials—”

  “I got it!” Nick interrupted with an excitement Savarese hadn’t seen in over a year. “Tammy kept a diary of all the clubs where she picked up men. She went back to Red the night she was killed—it’s only two blocks from De Witt Clinton Park.”

  “Which means Quimby met her there,” Savarese added.

  “The clubs are his hunting ground,” Nick said, underlining Red on the board for emphasis.

  “Then we’d better get detectives into every one of them, right?” growled Wilkes, now beside them. Neither detective had seen him come over.

  Nick grabbed his jacket from his chair. “I’ll take Red—”

  “Not so fast,” Wilkes interrupted. “Maggie Stolls just called in. Your shrink gave her the slip.”

  The news worried Nick and pissed him off. “Did Maggie say how?”

  “She told Stolls she was working late and then took off,” Wilkes replied.

  Claire wouldn’t intentionally ditch her protection after everything that happened, Nick thought. Or would she?

  “Maggie’s gotta get back to the safe house in case Dr. Waters shows up,” Nick said.

  “She’s on her way,” replied Wilkes. “And you’ve gotta get out there and find that crazy shrink. Before Quimby does.”

  “I need to find Quimby,” Nick shot back, turning for the door.

  “And I don’t need a murdered psychiatrist,” Wilkes shouted back, turning all the detectives’ heads. “I got enough problems as it is. Find her, Nick. Now.”

  Nick stopped and turned back to face Wilkes, knowing it was useless to argue.

  “Okay,” he said simply, and headed out.

  Total darkness. Then searing bright red lights, flashing on, off, on, off, against the pounding beat of hip-hop as Nick pushed his way into the club, struggling to see.

  Then the lights came on low, allowing his eyes to finally focus on the sea of bodies gyrating against one another like bacteria in polluted waters. He was in Red, one of the clubs that appeared in Tammy Sorenson’s sex diary and, posthumously, on her credit card statement.

  As he flashed his detective’s shield to the bouncer outside the club, Nick couldn’t help but notice the thick red velvet rope that held back the waiting crowd. He knew he was crossing the line in more ways than one. He was actively disobeying Lt. Wilkes’s order to find Claire. Violating a direct command from his superior, the one who’d saved his ass. An offense punishable by loss of vacation, pay, or, if they really wanted to get you, termination from the police department and forfeiting one’s pension.

  Or, if he found Todd Quimby inside the club, a promotion.

  Until the job learned about his secret disability.

  How long can I keep it from them? Nick thought as he moved through the crowd, passing patrons who looked at him like he was a freak of nature. Did they make him for a cop? In a room full of Armani and Hugo Boss, did his Men’s Wearhouse Super 180 wool pinstripe pants and turtleneck peg him as a wannabe? He’d stopped at home to change, putting on the hippest outfit he owned. What was I thinking? I�
��ll never fit in, he thought as he felt someone bump him in the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Nick said instantly to a good-looking guy in his thirties dancing with a woman wearing a dress that barely covered her obviously enhanced breasts.

  “Watch where you’re going, asshole,” the guy said.

  Nick wasn’t in the mood. “Sorry doesn’t work for you?” he asked in a way that sounded like a dare.

  The guy, who was obviously trying to pick up the woman, got in Nick’s face. “You need to apologize to the lady too.”

  “And what if I don’t?” Nick returned.

  “You the cop?” came a voice from behind them.

  Nick turned to face a man in his late forties, the lines in his face a testament to years of hard partying. “I’m Andros Szabo. The owner.”

  Nick displayed his shield. “Detective Nick Lawler,” he said. He shot a look to the jerk, who made the prudent decision to step back. Nick caught the wink the woman with the fake breasts shot him as she walked away from the troublemaker. Nick then turned to Szabo. “Somewhere we can talk?” he yelled above the din.

  Szabo nodded, parting the crowd and leading Nick up a flight of stairs and into a plush office with a huge one-way mirror that looked out over the gyrating bodies.

  “Appreciate the time,” Nick said, pulling a photo of Tammy Sorenson from his pocket and handing it to Szabo. “Have you seen this woman in here?”

  Without missing a beat, Szabo nodded. “A shame. Such a beautiful girl,” he replied in his Eastern European accent, looking up at Nick. “I see the news.”

  “You know her,” Nick said.

  “Tammy,” Szabo replied. “Everybody knows Tammy,” he said with a smile.

  Nick knew exactly what he meant but wanted to hear it from him. “Can you be more specific?”

  Szabo looked at him like he was a rube. “Every night, she come in. Have a drink, go on the dance floor. Pick up a guy. Leave with guy. Every night, different guy. Tried to leave with me one night,” he said wistfully. “I know better.”