by John Lutz
With an oddly delicate motion, he removed the thin sheet that was covering her.
Tanya was suddenly cold, and at the same time felt a spreading warm wetness beneath her as her bladder released. Until now, she had only thought she’d known fear.
He gently laid something over her head-the sheet-so that she couldn’t see what was coming. She knew that he wanted each singular agony to be a surprise.
Two, three drops of liquid fell onto the sheet, and she smelled the acrid scent of ammonia. Then came a sound she recognized-the ratchet catch of a cigarette lighter-and another scent she knew. He’d lit a cigarette.
If there had been any doubt as to who had her, there was none now.
Tanya began to scream, over and over, sounding very much like a desperate bee trapped in a tightly sealed jar.
There was only one person close enough to hear her, and he wasn’t going to help.
71
“So here’s what I learned,” Lido said, standing up from where he’d been seated in Pearl’s chair.
Fedderman had come in. He stopped and stood still in obedience to Quinn’s hand signal. The Q and A detectives were all there except for Vitali and Mishkin, who were still touching final bases in their fruitless search for the source of the killer’s carpet-tucking knife.
Lido, drunk for a change on adrenaline rather than alcohol, began to pace as he spoke, three steps, then a quick turn, like a dance step, and three steps back. “I sifted through travel matches that occurred on or near the dates of the murders,” he said. “Concentrated on male passengers between twenty-five and fifty years old and traveling alone.”
“All this on the Internet?” Fedderman asked.
Lido glanced at him but didn’t bother to answer. Quinn gave Fedderman a nod.
“Whaddya think, Feds?” Pearl said. “He was running around in Nikes?”
Lido ignored them all and continued: “This turned up a possibility. A passenger named Lincoln Evans flew from Kansas City, Missouri, into Hartford, Connecticut, on two occasions in the past three months. Hartford is only ninetytwo miles from New York City. Both times the going and return flights bracketed Skinner murders, and both flights had layovers in St. Louis. Both times Evans paid cash for his ticket, and both times the airline made a note of his address for their database and for Homeland Security. Evans lives, or lived, in the small town of Edmundsville, Missouri.”
Lido stood still and looked at them, as if expecting a reaction.
“Seems kind of spare,” Pearl said.
“You don’t get it yet?”
“No.”
Lido grinned. “Only because I’m not finished.”
Here was something Quinn hadn’t seen in Lido-a flair for the dramatic. Probably a hopeful sign.
“I then went to work via the Internet”-Lido glanced at Fedderman-“on the car-rental agencies.”
Quinn knew these were mostly questionable databases. He hoped no one would ask Lido about the legality of his Net searches. And how those searches would be used as evidence in court. Quinn was already thinking about how to put the monkey of illegal searches on Renz’s back, where he could be sure methodology would never get in the way of results-or political glory.
“On both Hartford occasions,” Lido said, “Lincoln Evans rented a Budget midsized car, paying cash and using his driver’s license as identification. I managed to check deeper into the rental records.”
“Hacked into them?” Fedderman asked.
“I don’t like that term,” Lido said, and ignored Fedderman. “Car-rental agencies keep scrupulous mileage records. Both times, Evans drove far enough to have visited New York City and then return to Hartford.”
Lido sat back down in Pearl’s chair and looked around, grinning in exhausted triumph.
Pearl returned his grin. “Now I do get it. Our killer’s covering his tracks by not making any. He flies into nearby cities and then drives into New York.”
“His killing ground,” Fedderman said.
“And later he leaves New York the same way. I’m not finished checking other cities,” Lido said, “but it’ll be easier, now that we have a name.”
“Lincoln Evans,” Pearl said, as if the vowels left a bad taste.
“Great work!” Quinn said. And it was that, all right. Quinn knew that at the same time it might mean nothing other than that within the time frames of two of the Skinner murders, the same man, meeting their narrow criteria, visited a city within easy driving distance of New York. Maybe he was a business traveler with clients in Hartford and New York. Maybe he paid cash because he was a wise spender who didn’t believe in credit. Maybe his credit had been revoked. Maybe he was a serial murderer trying to cover his tracks on the way to and from his kill zone.
Though what they had wasn’t that much in and of itself, in the context of building a case, the information was specific.
Pearl was leaning a shoulder into the wall, obviously pleased by Lido’s jittery but cogent presentation.
Fedderman was still standing stock still, working out in his mind what it all might mean.
The office had slipped into an anticlimactic torpor.
Quinn looked at Lido. “You had breakfast?”
Lido shook his head no. “Too busy to eat.”
And too excited, Quinn thought. This was a major achievement for Lido. The discredited, ostracized alcoholic had come through with what might be the name of the killer. He had something to build on. But right now, Lido needed for his pulse rate to be brought down a few notches.
Quinn knew Lido must have done most of his work fueled on whatever was available to drink. This didn’t seem the time to mention that.
Lido must have known what Quinn was thinking, because he smiled guiltily and shrugged.
“Time for real food,” Quinn said. “Eggs, toast, sausages.”
Lido knew that tone in Quinn’s voice. It left no room for argument. He stood up out of Pearl’s chair. “Okay, and some coffee.”
“Decaf,” Quinn said.
He was pleased to see Pearl smiling as they went out the door.
72
Edmundsville, the present
Edna Wellman was distraught when she phoned the sheriff’s office, so Billy Noth passed the phone to Westerley. The sheriff and Edna’s husband Joe had been hunting buddies before Joe’s fatal heart attack five years ago.
“It’s about my nephew Mathew,” Edna said in a voice made soprano by… what, disbelief? Anger?
“He and I have met,” Westerley said calmly, trying to slow down Edna. “He seems like a nice kid.”
“Well, you wouldn’t think so if…”
“If what?” Westerley wanted to get this call out of the way and tend to more important business, like surveying the week’s traffic citations and felony statistics.
“If you come over here, I think you could better understand the problem.”
Westerley sighed, hoping Edna hadn’t heard. “Okay, Edna, I’ll be right there.”
The Wellman house, a 1970s brick ranch with two-car garage, was only three blocks from Westerley’s office, on a tree-lined cross street of similar houses. Edna was waiting for him with the door open.
She was in her early fifties now, and had put on a lot of weight since Joe’s death. Her pretty, flesh-padded face was lined with concern. “Thanks for coming, Sheriff.”
Not Wayne. A professional call.
“Somebody try to break in?” Westerley asked. There’d been a few house burglaries in the area over the past six months.
“Worse,” Edna said.
She led Westerley to a small den where Joe used to go to smoke his cigars. The room hadn’t changed much, except now there was a computer with a large monitor on the old maple desk.
On the monitor was a hefty blond woman having sex with a cucumber. Though he didn’t know quite why, Westerley was glad to see that the cucumber was wearing a condom.
“This is mild,” Edna Wellman proclaimed, looking away from Westerley and the imag
e on the monitor, “compared to some of the other sites Mathew has been visiting.”
Westerley coughed. “Well…”
“Isn’t this kind of thing illegal?” Edna asked.
“It is if there are minors involved.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are, on some of the sites.”
“You’ve looked at other sites he’s visited?”
“Yes, I thought I had to know what I was talking about, if I was going to confront Mathew.”
“Good point. He’s no dummy.”
“I swear, Wayne, you wouldn’t believe some of what goes on that a ten-year-old could visit if he swore he was twentyone. There are safeguards to screen out minors, but there are also mere children who know more about computers than the people who designed the safeguards.”
“Sometimes the people who produce this stuff use models who are of age but look a lot younger,” Westerley said. He looked again at the woman on the screen. She didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. “Mathew’s what, twenty-two?”
“Just.”
Westerley shrugged. “He’s an adult, too.”
Edna Wellman stared at him. “So what can we do, Wayne?”
“Where’s Mathew now?”
“He left right after I walked in and found him looking at this filth. He’s embarrassed, no doubt. He should be.”
“I’m sure he is.” Westerley moved the mouse along a series of blue numerals on the screen and clicked on one. A brunette with bangs was performing fellatio, not on a vegetable. She did look like a minor, but it was impossible to be sure. “I’ll go look around, see if I can find Mathew. If I don’t, and he comes back here, tell him I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll do that. And thanks.” Edna shook her head. “He seems like such a normal young man.”
“He is,” Westerley said. “He’s curious, is all.”
“Then you don’t think it’s unusual for a boy-a young man-his age to visit these kinds of Internet sites?”
“It can’t be,” Westerley said. “Porn sites are the most visited places on the Internet.”
“The women in those photographs, at least some of them, must have parents, husbands, maybe children.”
“You left out money,” Westerley said.
Edna looked disgusted. “Some world it’s become.”
“Some world,” Westerley agreed.
73
Beth had used a brush to get around the edges of the porch floor with flat gray paint. That was the hard part, now that she was done with the scraping, and hammering in all the loose nails so they wouldn’t stick up from the floor.
The floor had become so weathered that bare wood was peeking through the paint leading up to the door, and beneath the glider where people rested their feet. All she had to do now was pour paint into a tray and roll the floor. It wouldn’t take very long, even though she’d be covering a large area.
She paused as she heard a car slow on the country road and turn into the driveway.
No, not a car-a truck. She could hear the rattling bass note of its big diesel engine.
As she watched, a gray, dusty truck cab parked near the short gravel jog to the house. It was one of the big rigs, with twin exhaust stacks protruding straight up on each side of the cab’s sleeper. On the tops of the exhaust-blackened stacks were loosely hinged caps that bounced and danced as the engine idled. Behind the cab were only the greasy fifthwheel connector plate, and air brake and electrical lines leading nowhere. No trailer, just the cab. There were numbers on the truck’s door, meaningless to Beth. She stood and watched, the paintbrush forgotten in her hand.
The truck’s door opened and Roy Brannigan swung down out of the cab.
Beth drew in her breath. Time seemed to collapse away beneath her, leaving her weightless and floating.
She and Roy hadn’t seen each other in years. Beth was surprised by how her ex-husband had broadened, though he wasn’t fat. More muscular, as if he worked out regularly in a gym. Or maybe driving, or loading and unloading trucks, had kept him in shape. She’d have known him at a glance, though, despite the buzz-cut hair and dark sunglasses.
He peeled off the tinted glasses and smiled at her, then took a few tentative steps toward the porch. He’d left the truck’s engine idling. It sounded like a great beast’s heartbeat, powerful, indestructible.
Beth walked to the top of the porch steps and stood looking at him. Somehow holding the brush gave her confidence, as if she might simply paint him out of her life again if he made trouble.
He moved a few steps closer so they could talk.
“Been a long while, Beth.”
She said nothing.
“I’m driving a truck now, doing long-distance hauling. My route on this run took me close to where I knew you lived, so I thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing.”
“I’m doing fine, Roy.”
“Me, too, I guess.”
“Eddie’s fine, too.”
At first he didn’t seem to recognize the name. Then he said, “Good. I was gonna ask.”
Sure you were.
“You look real good,” Roy said, as if at a loss for words. He moved his scuffed black leather boots around on the gravel. “Look, Beth, I just wanted to let you know I was sorry about everything. What I did… how it happened… I upped and left you because of my religion.”
“You still got religion, Roy?”
“I do, but you might say it’s less severe. I mean, what I’m trying to say is, I wised up, like everybody does when time passes. I apologize for overreacting. You know, back when… it happened.”
Beth chewed on her lower lip for a while, listening to the low, diesel beat of the truck. She didn’t like this, Roy showing up this way out of nowhere.
“I’ve got a husband, Roy,” she said.
He smiled. “I know you do. I checked on you. Fella in town mentioned Link’s away on a trip someplace. That his name, Link?”
Mentioned it because you asked about him. “You know his name.” Beth was beginning to feel the first cold touch of fear. “What is it you want, Roy?”
“It ain’t to dig up the past. Except I would like to know that you at least sort of forgive me-no, not even forgive. I guess I’d like you to understand that I was more rigid in my thinking back then. Now I can’t believe God would’ve approved of my actions. I’ve apologized to Him, and now I wanna apologize to you. I had no right to act like I did. I’m truly sorry.”
She studied him. He did seem sincere. “All right, Roy. I can’t forgive you, but I do understand.” She wondered if there might be some way she could get into the house if he tried anything, hold him off long enough to phone Wayne Westerley. But, hell, Wayne was all the way over in Hogart. It’d take him just inside an hour to get here.
“I heard about Vincent Salas being released,” Roy said. “Has that been making you uneasy in any way?”
“Not really,” Beth lied.
“I’d be glad to go talk to him if you want.”
“He wouldn’t like that.”
“You can’t know for sure. His soul might need succor if not salvation.”
“I’d prefer it if you’d just let all that drop, Roy. Let the past stay the past.”
Roy seemed to think that over. “Okay, Beth, if that’s what you want. But I got one question.” Roy moved a few steps closer. “Even though things worked out the way they did, is it possible we could be friends?”
Beth got a firmer grip on the paintbrush handle. “I don’t think I want that, Roy. I don’t go around thinking ill of you every day, and I can’t see where it does anybody any good to call up bad memories, or even good ones if they attach themselves to the bad. I’ve got a new life, and it looks like you do. Let’s leave it that way.”
Another step closer. “You sure that’s what you want?” He squared his new, overpowering body to hers and leaned toward her.
Gravel crunched out near where the truck cab was parked, and Eileen Millvany, who lived with her mother two houses
up the road, slowed her SUV and glanced over at Beth, then drove on.
Roy and his truck had been seen, and Roy knew it. That made Beth feel better, safer.
“I’m sure and I’ll stay sure,” she said.
Roy stood and stared at her, a kind of quizzical expression on his face, and then he nodded, turned around, and walked slowly toward his truck. The confused expression was one she’d never seen before. She remembered him being certain of everything when they were together. The younger Roy thought he knew all the answers before he’d even heard the questions.
He climbed back up into the cab, shifted gears, and the truck rumbled away. Nothing was left of it but a thin haze of dust and a final dying growl from the direction of the county road.
Beth tried to make herself believe Roy’s appearance was something other than an illusion. It was so strange and unexpected, him suddenly turning up here like that.
She looked down at the brush in her hand and saw that the paint on it had become tacky and the bristles were stuck together. It needed to be placed in the jar of turpentine, and then she could continue with what she’d been doing and roll the porch’s paint-starved plank floor.
But not immediately.
She propped the brush in the turpentine jar and went inside the house.
She needed to make a phone call.
74
New York, the present
“At least a couple of days,” Dr. Julius Nift said. “That’s why it smells the way it does in here. But I’ve got other ways to tell: lividity, putrefaction in relation to ambient temperature-”
“All right, all right,” Quinn said. He was the one who’d asked Nift how long the woman had been dead.
“Of course I’ll be able to give you a more accurate estimate when I get her laid out at-”
“I know, I know,” Quinn interrupted.
Pearl was standing dangerously close to Nift, looking down over his shoulder at Tanya Moody’s corpse. Quinn caught her eye and gave her what he hoped was a cautionary look. Even in the initial stage of decomposition, it was obvious that Tanya Moody had been a gorgeous woman. Nift was almost sure to say something that might set off Pearl.