by John Lutz
“You aren’t sick, Beth. Guilty, either. And you’re right about it being possible.” He lifted his glass again and took a long sip of the cold water. Condensation dripped from the glass onto his thigh, spotting his uniform pants. “I’m going to see if there’s enough left of the blood sample from the rape scene to make another DNA match. That’d be hard evidence.”
“Whatever you say, Wayne.”
“No, Beth, it’s whatever you want.”
She took several breaths and extended a hand with tentatively groping fingers, as if trying to find her balance. “I want to know everything, Wayne.”
She lifted her gaze. No sign of tears now. “Even if it means Link is Eddie’s biological father, and the man I’ve been loving and living with is the one who raped me.”
“There’d be serious fallout,” Westerley said. “You ready for that?”
“Of course not. But I need to know. I need the truth.”
“It doesn’t always set you free,” Westerley said.
“But it doesn’t slowly kill you, like a lie.”
When Westerley got back to his office, he found Billy Noth watching a guy from the state who looked about fourteen installing a new computer system. Westerley had been satisfied with the last one, but he’d been told it was five years old and hopelessly out of date.
“This is Jimmy,” Billy said.
The young guy grinned at Westerley. “You’re gonna love this, Sheriff. Put you right inside the heads of the bad guys.”
“Just where I want to be,” Westerley said.
“This baby’s gonna have some RAM,” Jimmy said. “New software’s gonna be ideal for data mining.”
Westerley wondered if Jimmy shaved yet.
“Soon as I’m done here,” Jimmy said, “I’ll give you a short orientation course. Then, you need any questions answered, all you gotta do is click on Help.”
And get further confused, Westerley thought.
That was pretty much the way it turned out. The new software was a lot like the old, only with additional speed and muscle. Trouble was, Westerley forgot how to use those new muscles almost as soon as Jimmy finished explaining.
“If you’re past fourteen years old,” Billy Noth said, smiling, “it’s hard to remember this crap.”
“That’s too bad,” Westerley said, “because you’re gonna be the department’s IT guy.”
“What’s that?” Billy asked.
Jimmy glanced from one to the other and shook his head hopelessly. “I’d stay and explain some more, but I’ve got another one of these to install before lunch.” He motioned with a lean, youthful finger for them to step closer. “C’mere. Before I leave, I just wanna make sure you two know where the Help button is.”
“Button?” Billy said.
After Jimmy had left, Westerley played with the computer awhile, trying to run through some of the routines he’d been shown. It soon became obvious how much more useful the new system would be once Westerley, or Billy, mastered it. Trouble was, that day seemed a long way off.
Westerley left Billy to play with the computer and walked down to the Hogart Diner for some lunch before he went mad. He made sure Billy understood the Help feature. That was the key, Westerley thought. Or button.
Norbert Vanderbilt (not a relation to the Vanderbilts), owner and cook at the diner, leaned on the counter and listened to Westerley’s computer woes.
After setting up a customer with a cup of coffee in a window booth, he returned to face Westerley across the counter. “You really need help with anything to do with computers, you oughta talk to my wife’s nephew, Mathew Wellman. Kid’s a genius.”
“Comes to tech, being a kid’s the first qualification,” Westerley said.
Norbert nodded. “Mathew’s only twenty-two and already graduated from Northwestern, got a doctorate from Cal Tech.”
“Expensive education,” Westerley said. “He go on scholarships?”
“Well, when you figure it out mathematically, these places paid Mathew to attend. He somehow worked it out so he made money getting his education.”
Westerley was interested. “So he really knows his stuff.”
Norbert made a backhand flipping motion with his right hand. “Mathew discusses computers and the Internet, nobody knows what the hell he’s talking about.”
“Sounds perfect,” Westerley said.
“He’s on sabbatical for a couple of months, staying at our place, so if you want, I’ll tell him to drop by and see you.”
“Sabbatical? I didn’t think students went on sabbatical.”
“Oh, Mathew’s teaching now. Back at Cal Tech. Making a fortune for such a young person.”
“Jesus!” Westerley said, thinking how nice it would be if he had a sabbatical coming, never mind the fortune. He did have some protracted time off once, after a fleeing felon had slammed an axe handle down on the back of his neck. It took a while for the bones to heal. “Ask Mathew to drop by the office when he has the time,” he said. “I’ll make out a list of things Billy and I can’t cope with.”
“Oh, he’ll be glad to help. He loves problems almost as much as he loves answers.”
64
New York, the present
Fedderman didn’t go home after leaving the hospital. He went instead to the Albert A. Aal Memorial Library, where Penny worked. Careful to avoid the venerable Ms. Culver, he sat in a corner of the magazine section and pretended to read Popular Science.
That lasted about five minutes, and Fedderman was asleep.
He awoke with Penny standing over him, nudging his shoulder gently, but again and again.
Fedderman sat up straight and looked around. He and Penny appeared to be the only people in the magazine section. He wiped a hand down his face and looked at his watch. Good God! Almost nine o’clock.
Penny smiled and leaned close so she could speak softly to him. “The library’s about to close, Feds.”
He smiled back. “That means you’re ready to go home?”
She nodded.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“Starving.”
“Me, too.”
He became aware of a magazine in his lap and placed it on the chair next to him. Then he unfolded his lanky body from where he sat and touched Penny’s arm lightly, as if to make sure she was real. He tapped all the pockets of his new suit to make sure nothing had fallen out, then glanced down to be positive there was nothing of his on the chair cushion.
“So how does Italian sound to you?” he asked.
“Just right.”
Ms. Culver was behind the main desk, but with her back conveniently turned. She was looking for something in a cabinet. It seemed to Fedderman that she was pretending to search so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Ms. Culver seemed to be that way, where he was concerned.
They went to Delio’s, a relatively new restaurant in the lobby of a tall building that contained mostly offices. Soft lighting was provided by artificial candles that looked real in the center of each white-clothed table. A piano was playing somewhere out of sight, and a guy in a suit and wearing a gray fedora wandered by now and then, crooning Frank Sinatra songs. Fedderman thought he sounded more like Bobby Darin, and with the snap-brim hat he looked like Mickey Spillane.
“So how’s the case going?” Penny asked, after they’d ordered and were sipping wine.
Fedderman waited for the crooner to drift into another room of the restaurant before answering. He decided his suit beat the hell out of the one on the singer, even figuring in the fedora.
“We’re making our usual slow but sure progress.” he said. He thought it better not to mention the carpet-tucking knife theory. Not so soon before dinner.
“How’s Officer Weaver?”
“Not good. She’s slipping in and out of a coma.”
“And she never identified who beat her up?”
“Not positively, no. And any other way doesn’t count.”
“But you’ve got a good idea who it wa
s.”
“Not really. Not the way Weaver’s been talking. Her mind’s not right yet. Maybe it never will be.”
Penny hunched her shoulders and shook her head. “God, what a world.”
“Weaver will be all right,” Fedderman said. “She’s a tough one.”
“You think it was the Skinner who attacked her?”
“It would make sense. Serial killers do that sometimes, taunt the police.”
“But why try to kill her that way?”
“He might not have been trying to kill her.”
“But why not? Why beat her up at all, instead of treating her as he did his other victims?”
Fedderman had asked himself the same question. He told Penny what he’d come up with by way of an answer. “Because he’s crazy.”
“Or maybe for some reason he doesn’t want you to think he was the one who attacked Weaver.”
Fedderman regarded her across the table. It can make you smart, spending all that time in a library. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s possible.”
Penny sipped her cabernet. “Do you think he’d really try to finish the job while Weaver’s in the hospital?” she asked, replacing the stemmed glass on the table.
“It’s doubtful. I know it happens in books in the mystery section of your library, but in real life a hospital is a pretty secure place.” He looked at her curiously. “Why are you so worried about Weaver?”
She seemed slightly surprised. “I’m not thinking about Weaver now. It’s you I’m worried about, Feds. The killer might have to get past you to get to Weaver.” She reached across the table and gripped his wrist.
Fedderman didn’t know quite what to say. This woman often made him tongue-tied. He used his free hand to reach into a suit coat pocket and withdrew the small velvet-lined box from the jewelers. He held it out to her. It obviously contained a ring, and Penny realized it immediately and her eyes widened. She released his wrist and accepted the tiny box. As she slowly opened it, she peeked inside. She grinned at him.
“Is that a yes?” Fedderman asked. It sounded like someone else’s voice. Am I really doing this?
“It’s a yes, Feds! And this is beautiful!” She slipped the engagement ring on her finger. It looked slightly too large to Fedderman. Penny extended her hand and stiffened all its fingers, the way women do when displaying a ring. “Beautiful!” she repeated.
“So are you,” Fedderman said, sounding as if he had a frog in his throat.
Penny got up from her chair, moved smartly around the table, and kissed his cheek. She sat back down. She had done all that in a crouch, and none of the other diners seemed to have noticed her maneuver. Do women practice that? Penny was still smiling. The Frank Sinatra imitator reappeared in their part of the restaurant. He seemed to sense something and drifted in the direction of their table. He was singing “My Way.” Fedderman’s marriage proposal and ring presentation were now drawing the attention he’d feared.
Penny was still grinning hugely, now in part at Fedderman’s embarrassment.
“It might have been ‘The Lady Is a Tramp,’ ” she whispered.
Fedderman knew that his life had changed forever.
Jock Sanderson stood waiting for the traffic signal to change. He’d wanted a drink badly all day but had made it through without touching a drop. He was proud of himself and dismayed at the same time. It was a weakness, this craving for alcohol, and Jock didn’t like to think of himself as a weak man. Not in any respect. He was the one who was usually in charge of situations. He sensed weaknesses in others and moved in. That was what that prick the Skinner was going to realize one of these days soon-that Jock had moved in on him. He’d provided an alibi for the Skinner and made sure the killer knew that if anything happened to him, to Jock, the cat would be out of the bag. Letters could be left with lawyers, and in safety deposit boxes. The Skinner got the headlines, but Jock was in charge. The Skinner just didn’t know it yet.
The light signaled walk, and he crossed the street with the knot of people who’d been waiting with him at the curb. He was wearing Levi’s and a short-sleeved shirt he’d bought at the Wear it Again, Sam secondhand shop off Canal. There shouldn’t be too many secondhand shops in Jock’s future. Not with what he had in mind. He could go live someplace in South America, where there was no extradition treaty with the United States. Or maybe to someplace in the Caribbean. He’d heard that was where some people dropped out of sight and lived like royalty, on those islands. If he kept a low profile, he’d never be found.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the approaching figure that veered slightly so it was headed directly at Jock. When he did notice, he didn’t pay much attention. Only a step or two away, Jock lowered his head, expecting the man to move out of his way, but he didn’t.
Jock pulled up short to avoid a collision, and was about to say something. He found himself looking directly into the eyes of the Skinner. There was something in those eyes, something beyond cruelty and intensity, that froze Jock. The Skinner was smiling faintly, as if something far removed was amusing him.
“Jesus! You gave me a start,” Jock said. They were standing so close to each other that he automatically dropped his gaze to see if the Skinner was brandishing a weapon of some sort. A guy this loony, he might not hesitate to kill someone even on a crowded sidewalk.
The Skinner’s hands weren’t empty. His right one was carrying a small white box.
Jock backed away. Oh, God, not again!
“Take it,” the Skinner said. “Add it to your collection.”
Jock’s hands remained at his sides, pressed tightly against his thighs. “I don’t have a collection. I don’t want one.”
The Skinner shrugged as if that were no concern of his.
“You’re not going to do this… every time, are you?” Jock asked.
The Skinner seemed to consider. “Only if I deem it necessary,” he said.
“Necessary for what?”
“Consider it a reminder.” The Skinner moved the box closer to Jock, and something changed in his eyes in a way that scared the holy hell out of Jock. “People who wag their tongues out of turn risk the damndest things happening to them.” He smiled broadly. “Not by coincidence, you understand.”
“I understand,” Jock said, and accepted the box.
“Maybe you’ll become a collector, after all.”
“I told you-no! There’s no reason to keep doing this.”
The Skinner ignored Jock’s protests. “Keep that in a cool place so it stays fresh. The poor woman it belonged to was trying so hard to use it right up to the end that it might still have plenty to say.” The Skinner put on an amused expression, toying with Jock. Sadistic prick! “Do you believe in life after death, Jock?”
“I’m not sure I even believe in life before death.”
“Whatever you choose to do with those unfortunate appendages, maybe they’ll talk to you in your dreams, or even sometimes during the day, when you least expect it. Especially Judith Blaney’s tongue. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I would,” Jock said.
“Ah, think where that tongue might have been when she was alive. Its many talents. She wasn’t a chaste woman, our Judith.”
Some of his initial fear had left Jock. He felt himself getting angry, or maybe frustrated. He couldn’t tell which. He was the one who was supposed to have the whip hand here, and yet this asshole had the nerve to stop him on the sidewalk and give him somebody’s severed tongue. Sick bastard!
Jock decided to try taking control of the situation. “Listen, you!” he said. “If you think…”
He let his voice trail off as the Skinner simply turned and walked away, glancing back for a final, smiling look at Jock, as if fixing him firmly in his mind.
Jock considered following him, laying a hand on his shoulder, and spinning him around, then handing him back his goddamned box. But he was paralyzed by what he’d seen in the Skinner’s eyes.
He began walking,
faster and faster, gripping the small white box in his right hand, digging his heels into the pavement with each step. He might be late for work now. He couldn’t afford to screw up and get fired, all because of some psycho bastard who cut out people’s tongues.
People’s tongues!
The papers and TV news speculated about the tongues being removed because the Skinner was a cannibal and might consider them a delicacy. Jock might be the only one who knew better.
Of course, some other parts of the victims could have been removed and the police weren’t telling the public. They did that sometimes, to weed out the screwballs that made false confessions. Maybe there was something to the cannibal angle. After dealing with the Skinner, Jock could easily believe it. Lord, right now he could believe almost anything!
Noticing a wire trash basket at the next corner, he veered toward it and dropped the small box in it as he strode past. There! Maybe it would wind up in the same landfill as the first tongue.
He regained some of his confidence by reminding himself that he knew more about the Skinner than the pathetic psychopath imagined. The next time they met, that might be worth mentioning. It might keep the nutcase from giving him somebody else’s tongue. Or maybe something more personal.
He reached his subway stop, and almost without slowing took the concrete steps down into dimness and dampness. Now and then he stole a glance behind him.
Maybe I should have wiped my prints from the box. Both boxes!
He wished he had a drink.
65
Vitali and Mishkin had been driving most of the day. Telephone checking could do only so much. They needed to drive to various retail and wholesale outlets and show people the drawing of the carpet-tucking knife, close cousin to the lower-class linoleum knife.
They had worked their way through Queens, then returned to the office and played with the phones some more to get some addresses, and had spent much of the afternoon in Brooklyn.
When they reported their wasted day to Quinn, he instructed them to widen their search to New Jersey. Which was where they were now, cruising along the highway in the Garden State toward a place called Underfoot Carpet Supplies, where maybe they sold carpet-tucking knives. Ordinary hardware stores sometimes had no idea what Vitali and Mishkin were talking about.