Dead of Winter

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "And have a lot of faith in whoever was holding the chain," added Mac.

  "And what about that hole in the wood at the bottom of the bathroom window," Stella said. "It's not from a chain. It's from a big screw."

  "So," Mac said. "What do we have?"

  "A fingerprint belonging to Steven Guista," she said. "Also known as Big Stevie."

  "Got an address?"

  "He could be out celebrating," she said, handing Mac a fax sheet with Big Stevie's photograph and record on it. "Today's his birthday."

  "I wonder what he was celebrating last night," said Mac. "Let's bring him a present."

  * * *

  It felt wrong. Flat. Detective Don Flack felt it. No evidence. Gut feeling. He had checked out the door to the bedroom in which Alberta Spanio had been killed. He had asked a maid to go into the room and scream after he closed the door. The maid was Mexican, a legal alien, Rosa Martinez. She didn't want to go into the room where the woman had died hours ago.

  "You're not going to lock the door?" she asked.

  Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. The door could only be locked from the inside.

  Rosa went in the room, closed the door, and screamed. Then she opened the door.

  "Go over by the bed, next to the bed and scream again," he said.

  She definitely did not want to go over to the bed in which the woman had died, but she did, and Flack closed the door. She screamed again and then hurried to open the door and step into the outer room.

  "OK?" she asked.

  "One more thing," Flack said. "Go into the bathroom. Open and close the window and scream."

  "Then I'm done?" she asked.

  "Then you're done," he said.

  Rosa returned to the bedroom, closed the door, moved to the bathroom, and opened the window. Then she screamed once, closed the window, and hurried through the bedroom and into the outer room where the detective was waiting.

  "OK," he said. "Thanks."

  Rosa left quickly.

  The first time she had screamed Flack had heard her, but faintly. The second scream from the bedside was even more faint, and he heard neither the scream from the bathroom nor the opening and closing of the window.

  He pulled out his cell phone and called Stella.

  They had news for each other.

  7

  AIDEN BURN ENTERED THE LAB about five minutes after Mac and Stella had departed. She had the lab to herself. The refrigerator in the corner hummed and through the closed glass door she could see only an empty corridor.

  She put down her kit, carefully unloaded the contents she needed, placed them next to the microscope, and then went in search of a cup of coffee.

  She could get decent coffee from Adelson in firearms but she'd have to politely endure at least five minutes of feeble jokes. She chose the machine instead. With plenty of cream and one of the packets of Stevia in her bag, the coffee was tolerable.

  She carried it back to the lab table, carefully placing it several feet from where she was working. No spills. She would move when she wanted a sip.

  First she wanted to look at the typewriter ribbon from Lutnikov's apartment, which she did by placing it over a built-in light box in the laboratory table.

  She drank some coffee. It was still hot but not burning.

  Aiden gently, slowly, rewound the ribbon. It took her a little less than five minutes to get back to the beginning. She laid the ribbon flat and slowly began to wind it again, reading the words that showed through as clear indentations in the black ribbon.

  … the third door, the last one, the only one left. He, it, had to be behind that door. Peggy had two choices. Run or, fireplace rod in hand, open that last door. It was almost dark, but not quite. Some light came through the window in the hallway of the small house. She had no idea how much light there would be inside the room. She had more than an idea of what she would find, a killer, the person who had brutally dissected three young women and one gay transvestite. The killer would be holding his working tool, a very sharp knife or a scalpel. The killer could be behind the door ready to attack her. Peggy knew she could use the rod. All she had to do was remember the photographs she had been shown of the victims, particularly of her own niece Jennifer. Rod held high in her right hand, Peggy reached for the doorknob. There was still time to turn and run, but if she did that the killer known as The Carver would get away, get away to kill again. There was no point in being quiet. He knew she was in the house, had certainly heard her footsteps on the wooden floor. Peggy turned the knob and shoved the door open.

  A hand shot out and caught her wrist as she swung.

  "He's dead, Peggy," Ted said releasing her wrist.

  His face was bleeding from a cut above his right eye.

  She dropped the rod on the floor and fell into his arms.

  The End

  She looked up, had some more coffee, which was now tepid, and reached for her phone to call Mac. There was still plenty of ribbon to read. Mac picked up the phone after two rings.

  "Yes," he said.

  She explained what she had found, and he said, "Have it put on a computer and leave it on my desk. I'll pick it up later."

  "I'll go to the library," she said.

  She hung up.

  * * *

  Stella and Mac got to Steven Guista's apartment just before three o'clock. They had picked up sandwiches at a corner deli and eaten them in the car on the way to Brooklyn. Mac had chicken salad. Stella had egg salad.

  "Didn't we have the same thing for lunch yesterday?" she said.

  He was driving.

  "Yes," he said. "Why?"

  "Variety is the spice of life," she said, taking a small bite of her sandwich.

  "We get enough variety," he said.

  Mac's wife, he remembered, had liked chicken salad, which was probably why he had been eating it. The taste, the smell, reminded him of her. It was something like pinching a taste bud to remind him, though he took no great pleasure in it. He had not been eating well for weeks. Tonight he semi-planned to pick up a couple of kosher hot dogs and a large Diet Coke. The date was coming soon, a few days. As it grew closer, Mac Taylor felt it deeper and deeper inside him. The sky was dark and he sensed more snow coming. He would check the Weather Channel when he got home. He considered calling Arthur Greenberg, then decided against it.

  Mac knocked at the door to apartment 4G in the pre-war, three-story brick building. The hallway was dark, but reasonably clean.

  There was no answer.

  "Steven Guista," Mac said. "Police. Open up."

  Nothing.

  Mac knocked again. The door across the corridor opened. A lean woman in her fifties stood in the doorway. Her hair was dark and frizzy, and she wore a waitress's uniform with a coat draped over her arm. Next to her stood a girl, very much her mother's daughter, every bit as serious. She couldn't have been more than eleven.

  "He's not home," the woman said.

  Mac showed his badge and said, "When did you last see him?"

  "Yesterday, morning some time," the woman said with a shrug.

  "He wasn't home all night," said the girl.

  The mother looked at her daughter, making it clear in that look that she wanted to give the police as little information as she could. The girl didn't seem to notice.

  "He checks on me at ten," the girl said. "He didn't check last night or this morning."

  "I work the evening shift and sometimes nights," the woman said. "Steve is good enough to check on Lilly."

  "Sometimes we watch television together," Lilly said. "Sometimes."

  "He say something about going to a party or being with relatives or friends today?" Stella asked.

  Both girl and woman seemed surprised at the question.

  "It's his birthday," said Mac.

  "He didn't tell us," the woman said. "I would have gotten him a cake. Maybe I should pick up a present. Steve's been good to us, particularly Lilly."

  "He looks scary," s
aid the girl, "but he's very gentle."

  "I'm sure he is," said Stella, remembering Stevie Guista's criminal record.

  "I've got to go," said the woman, leaning over to kiss her daughter's forehead.

  "Lock the door," the woman said.

  "I always do," said Lily.

  The mother smiled and turned to the two Crime Scene Investigators. "You want us to tell Steve you're looking for him?"

  Mac pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to the woman, who handed it to her daughter.

  "Did he do something?" asked the girl.

  "We just want to talk to him," said Stella.

  "About what?" Lilly asked.

  Murder, thought Mac, but he said, "He may have witnessed a crime."

  "What kind of-?" the girl began, but her mother cut her off.

  "Lill, time to go inside. Time for me to go."

  The girl said good-bye to Stella and Mac, went inside, and turned the dead bolt.

  When the door was closed, the woman said, "I know about his past. Steve is a good man now."

  Mac nodded and handed her a second card saying, "Please give this to him when you see him and ask him to give me a call."

  The woman took the card, glanced at it, and put it in her coat pocket.

  * * *

  The woman with platinum hair and a fur hat got on a Number 6 subway train at 86th Street with the man following her in the next car. The weather had increased the afternoon crowd, which was fine with the man who could, through the window between cars, see the woman holding onto a steel pole. In spite of her tightly pressed lips, the woman was pretty. The man thought there was something about the way she moved that made him think she was older than she looked, that it was likely her looks had been helped by plastic surgery.

  He was a trained, experienced observer and he was out to save his ass and his job. He would not lose her. The man had followed her to Woo Ching's, had seen the woman passing something to the man next to her. He was too far away to know what it was. But one thread connected to another, and now he was following the thread of the woman. He hoped it would be tied at the other end to someone else. If he was lucky, that would be the end of the line. If not, he would have another thread to follow. He had to keep telling himself to be patient, though patience had never been one of his virtues.

  When she got off the train at Castle Hill in the Bronx, he followed her from far enough back that he was certain he would not be spotted. Now he had an idea of where she might be headed. He almost smiled with satisfaction. Almost, but it was too early to be satisfied.

  The woman turned into the entrance of a large, one-story brick building that half a century had turned nearly black, with only a smudge of the ancient dirty yellow paint showing through.

  When the woman disappeared through the door, the man moved forward. He knew where she was going, who she was going to see. He would have to witness it, tie off the thread.

  He went through the wooden doors and found himself in a dark corridor with doors on both sides. The satisfying smell of what he was sure was bread baking filled the air and reminded him of some moment when he was a kid, some holiday, maybe more than one that smelled like this.

  The woman was nowhere in sight. He walked forward, working out his story, feeling the comforting weight of his holstered weapon against his chest under his arm.

  Then it happened. No time to go for his gun. No time to do anything except reach up for the arm of the man who had stepped out of the open door of a dark room and circled his thick forearm around the man's throat. When the man reached under his jacket, the big man choking him swatted the hand away and gave a final neck-breaking tug.

  The body of Detective Cliff Collier slumped to the floor. The killer looked around and then easily lifted the nearly two hundred pounds of dead weight. He carried the dead man into the darkened office, pushed the door closed, and went to the window.

  He opened it and looked around. He really didn't have to look. He knew the alleyway was empty, that only the small truck stood there with open doors.

  He dropped the body into a small bank of snow and climbed after it, closing the window behind him. As he lifted the body through the open back doors of the truck, he glanced at the gun in the man's holster, which made him go for the man's wallet.

  He was a cop. He hadn't been told he was going to be killing a cop, not that it made any real difference, but for an instant he felt that it would have been right to tell him he was going to be killing a cop.

  He closed the truck doors and got into the driver's seat.

  Big Stevie had never killed a cop before. No regrets, not really, but it would have been nice if he had been told. He drove slowly out of the alley, trying to decide where he was going to dump the body.

  * * *

  Mac had left Stella and Don to track down Big Stevie and went as quickly as weather and traffic would allow to the upscale apartment building where Charles Lutnikov had been murdered.

  Aiden had called him after sending the typewriter ribbon back to the lab so the text could be printed by someone in the NYPD typing pool. She knew a call from Mac would speed the work but it would still be a while, perhaps a day or more, till she had a disk with the contents of the typewriter ribbon on it. Mac had made the call to the office, assuring the office manager that the job was urgent.

  Aiden was waiting for him in the lobby. He stamped the snow from his boots before entering and received a nod of thanks from Aaron McGee, the doorman.

  "People asking lots of questions," McGee said. "I've got no real answers. What should I tell 'em?"

  "As little as possible," said Mac.

  "That's what the lady said," McGee said, nodding at Aiden who stood next to her evidence box. "Not much I know anyway."

  Aiden led the way to the elevator. There was still a crime-scene tape across the open door. They ducked under it and Mac looked at Aiden, who said, "Every inch dusted. Prints of almost everyone in this part of the building."

  Mac pushed the button that would take the elevator up to the penthouse. As the elevator rose, Mac knelt and examined the thin metal strip at the front of the elevator. There was a small space, perhaps an inch, between elevator rim and the door on each floor. He looked up.

  "It's possible," Aiden said, knowing where this was going.

  "I'll go with you," Mac said.

  They had both seen stranger things than a spent bullet sliding into a small space and getting lost or stuck.

  It could be a dirty job.

  Aiden hid a sigh and wished for a cup of coffee. The elevator came to a slow gentle stop at the penthouse floor and the doors opened silently.

  Mac stepped forward and used the knocker.

  Both Aiden and Mac could sense a presence behind the door looking at them through the peephole. The door opened.

  "Have you caught him?" asked Louisa Cormier. "The man who shot that poor Mr. Lutnikov?"

  "Might have been a woman," said Aiden.

  "Of course," said Louisa Cormier with a smile. "I should have said that. Please come in."

  She stepped back.

  The woman wasn't quite as fashionably chic and casual as she had been earlier. Her hair was almost perfect, but a few of the coiffed curls were slightly out of place and her eyes looked tired. She wore a pair of designer jeans and a white cashmere sweater with the sleeves rolled up revealing a bejeweled watch.

  "Please," she said, showing perfect white teeth and pointing palm up at a small wooden table by the window. There were three chairs around it, all with a panoramic view of the city.

  "Coffee? Tea?" she asked.

  "Coffee," said Aiden. "Thanks."

  "Cream? Sugar?"

  "No," said Aiden.

  "Cold water," said Mac.

  "I let Ann have a few days off," she said as the two police officers sat. "She was really disturbed by the shooting. I'll go get the coffee. I've got a fresh pot started. Frankly, I think she's afraid to come here till the killer is caught. Ann's a gem. I'd ha
te to lose her."

  Louisa Cormier hurried out of the room.

  "Anything on the Alberta Spanio killing?" Aiden asked.

  "There's always something," Mac said, looking out the window.

  Monet had done London, bright and glittering, misty from fog, damp from rain, he thought. Had he ever done New York? What would Monet have seen had he looked out of this window on this day?

  Before Louisa Cormier returned, Aiden told Mac that she had re-searched Lutnikov's apartment.

  "No sign that he wrote any fiction," she said. "No manuscripts, no sheets in drawers, just what's on the ribbon."

  Mac nodded, his mind taking in what he was being told but also wandering out across the rooftops toward the gray skyline.

  Louisa Cormier came back with the coffee and a glass of ice water. She had nothing for herself. When she sat, she ran a hand through her hair.

  "Long night," she said. "I have a deadline on a new Pat Fantome novel.

  "If you read any of my books, you'll see I'm nothing like Pat unless I'm writing. I leave Pat in my office when I get up from my computer and I become Louisa Cormier everywhere else unless I'm doing a book signing or a talk. Then, I think I let a lot of Pat Fantome take over. I'm grateful to Pat, but she's difficult to live with, driven. I, on the other hand…" and she dismissed the rest of the sentence with the wave of her hand.

  Aiden sipped the coffee. It was hot, good, exotic. Mac swirled the water in his glass, watching the ice cubes.

  "Oh, no," said Louisa Cormier with a laugh at their expressions. "I'm not delusional. There is no Pat Fantome, not really. It's just a mode of thinking I adopt when I write. There are a few similarities between Pat and me, but there are far, far more differences. But you didn't come here to talk about me or Pat. You have questions about poor Mr. Lutnikov."

  Mac finally took a drink of water and paused before going on.

  "Do you own a gun?" he asked.

  Louisa Cormier looked startled and put her right hand to her neck, touching a thin gold band.