Frenzy

by John Lutz

  Would London ever get used to this? Survive it? One thing was for sure: There was nothing left of Betsy’s destination, Treasure Island Collectibles.

  An air-raid siren growled then quickly died, as if clearing its throat, or emitting a terse reminder. Night was fast approaching. That meant another blackout, and almost certainly another rain of bombs.

  Betsy hurried back the way she had come. She saw in the gaps between the buildings stubby barrage balloons lifting into the low, lead-colored sky. The city was just beginning to dim when she’d returned to her bedsit, lowered the backpack onto the table, and collapsed into a threadbare armchair.

  She wanted to drift off to sleep, but instead forced herself up from the chair and closed the blackout curtains.

  She had some veggies and tinned beans, and thought about preparing a meal. But she was more exhausted than hungry. And the Germans might interrupt her supper anyway.

  She sat in her armchair and fell asleep trying to decide what to do with Henry Tucker’s backpack.

  When she awoke, the narrowest of cracks of light showed around the blackout curtains. Dawn. Betsy rubbed her eyes and squinted at her clock on the mantel. Almost eight o’clock.

  She recalled no air warning sirens during the night. Whatever air raids the Germans carried out must have been against military targets farther north. Or maybe the bombers simply hadn’t been able to find London. She was sure that had happened before, when the city was properly blacked out on moonless nights. Or when the RAF engaged the bombers when they were still over the channel.

  Betsy stretched and yawned. Wouldn’t it be nice to pretend the war was over?

  Sometime during the night, she’d decided on what to do with what was in Henry Tucker’s backpack.

  There was no time, though, until tomorrow, when she came home from working at the hospital and had a few hours to spare. And then she might be too tired to carry out her plan.

  No matter, she told herself, thinking again about the contents of the backpack. There was no rush about it, other than that it nagged.

  21

  New York, the present

  Minnie Miner, around whom the news-talk program Minnie Miner ASAP was created, was a small, African-American woman with the energy of a Consolidated Edison power plant. She sat in a chair angled to face her guest, and dispensed deviousness and venom through the smile that made her a beautiful woman. She moved fast, in unexpected directions, and she talked the same way. News was her addiction, and she yearned to be right in the middle of it.

  This afternoon her guest was the NYPD profiler, Helen Iman. She welcomed Helen vociferously and then put on a serious expression that was no more sincere than the smile it replaced. “You are, in a way, Helen, not a stranger to the D.O.A. killer.”

  Helen leaned forward in her armchair that was part of the set. She sensed one of the several cameras being dollied to a closer position, and tried to ignore it. “That’s true,” she said, “but remember, we aren’t sure this is the same killer, pursuing his sick hobby in his old killing ground.”

  Minnie squirmed and inched forward in her chair. “Sick hobby? Is it your opinion as a professional profiler that the killer is sick?”

  “He wouldn’t agree with me,” Helen said, “but yes, sick.”

  “Do you believe in evil, Helen?”

  “I do, but—”

  “Do you believe in demonic possession?”

  “Er, no, I—”

  “Might the killer be sick without being evil?”

  “Pigs might fly.” Helen was feeling irritated. She told herself to calm down; this was Minnie Miner’s method, to get her guests to, accidentally or otherwise, say something important—or at least entertaining.

  Minnie also cautioned herself. Helen had been on her program more than once, and had a way of using her without it being apparent.

  “It’s difficult not to think of him as evil,” Helen said.

  “But what if he really believes he’s helping those women leave an evil and unforgiving world, helping them because they were too afraid or too unknowing to help themselves? I mean, maybe he’s crazy but not, in his own mind, evil.”

  “He wants to be evil,” Helen said. “If he is D.O.A., operating again in the area he so terrorized a few years ago, he’s back in New York for a reason.”

  “He might know what he’s doing is wrong, but if it affords his victims an escape, as he might think of it, from a callous and dangerous world, he might see his motivations as pure.”

  Ah, this was precisely where Helen wanted to go. “The thing is,” Helen said, “he tortures them and creates tremendous pain. Some of his victims died in shock, their bodies simply unable to accept what was happening. It was urgent to the victims that they should tell the killer the truth; it was the only way to stop the pain for whole minutes.”

  Minnie made her eyes round, above the red O of her lips. “God, that sounds so awful.”

  “One might even say evil.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand now what you mean.”

  “And what the killer wanted his victims to know was that if they lied to him their futures were indefinite. So they spilled their guts, going back to school days, afraid of what not to tell.”

  “Do we know that for sure?”

  “One would assume it after just a glance at the morgue photos.”

  “You make it all seem so logical—at least in the mind of the killer.” Minnie shifted her weight, unable to sit still, and stared intently at Helen. “But why did he come back here, to New York, to resume killing? Isn’t that especially dangerous for him?”

  “Definitely. He wants it dangerous. He’s egomaniacal. He doesn’t doubt for a minute that he’s the smartest one in this game of grisly chess.”

  “Egomaniacal,” Minnie said. “Grisly chess games. That brings us around to Captain Frank Quinn.”

  “Yes,” Helen said, “it certainly does. The killer sees Quinn as his alter ego, his flip side, his nemesis.”

  Minnie looked out at the world through the camera lens, wearing a puzzled expression. “But if Quinn is his nemesis, it would be easier for him to take up killing again in a different city.”

  “The different city wouldn’t have Frank Quinn,” Helen said. “If you were a chess master, you would want to avenge perhaps the only time you’d been outwitted, embarrassed, made a fool of for all the world to see.” Helen shook her head in disgust. “As if the world is interested in this pathetic creature.”

  “So he sees himself as a loser?”

  “God no,” Helen said. “He sees himself as the victim of incredibly bad luck. Not for one second does this nutcase think he can be outwitted by the law, especially the law as represented by Frank Quinn.”

  “So he’s convinced he’s the better man. Or the better chess player.”

  “In his mind, they amount to the same thing.”

  “So he came back here to New York to resume his murders,” Minnie said, trying to squeeze some more sensationalism out of Helen. “One of the world’s biggest losers, here to kill some more.”

  “Not exactly,” Helen said. “He came here to play chess. The sadism, the things he’s done to these women, the sick torture techniques, those are just a bonus.”

  “Wow!” Minnie said, shaking her head as if she had water in her ears. “For once I’m happy to be my gender.”

  Helen sat looking at her.

  “It’s not always good to be king,” Minnie said. “Especially in chess.”

  22

  Nift, the obnoxious little ME, was on the job, bent so low that Quinn could see a bald spot on the top of his head. He looked as if he wanted to climb inside the dead woman on the bed.

  Quinn, with Pearl at his side, looked beyond Nift to where Harley Renz stood with his fists on his broad hips, watching. He looked pissed off, as if he knew the dead woman, but Quinn figured the real source of Renz’s anger was that the D.O.A. killer had taken another victim in his city. With Renz, that was personal, as was everythi
ng that posed a threat to his political life.

  Quinn stepped closer to the bed and saw the familiar initials carved neatly into the victim’s forehead. Nift had removed the wadded gag from her mouth, and her jaws gaped wide. Even with such a grotesque expression, it was obvious that the woman had been attractive.

  “Hi, Pearl,” Nift said, without seeming to notice Quinn.

  Pearl didn’t seem to notice Nift.

  “Play well with others,” Renz said.

  All three of them ignored Renz.

  Quinn moved forward, giving Nift a look he hoped would be a warning. He looked at the cuts, punctures, and burn marks on the naked corpse, heard in his heart the terrible silent scream of her gaping mouth.

  “Same kind of injuries as with the Fairchild Hotel victims,” Nift said. “No doubt we’ve got a D.O.A. victim here.”

  “Sure it’s not the work of a copycat?” Renz asked.

  The little ME seemed to swell. “I know my business, Commissioner.”

  Renz looked as if he might be about to lean into Nift. This wasn’t the way an ME talked to a commissioner, especially one who had definite if distant ideas about the office of mayor.

  Quinn shook his head slightly when Renz looked at him. There was no point in getting angry with Nift. That’s how the little bastard got his jollies, getting under people’s skin.

  “What’s with the catalogs?” Quinn asked, seeing colorful art catalogs spread all over the floor. Some of them had blood on their pages.

  “The victim was an art restorer,” Renz said. “Worked at museums and galleries. Doing restoration work at the Kadner Gallery down in SoHo. Looks like she was also an art connoisseur.”

  “Or our killer’s the connoisseur. He seems partial to museums and the women who frequent them.”

  Quinn leaned low and read one of the subscription labels on the magazines. “Jeanine Carson?”

  “That’s her,” Renz said.

  “Was, anyway,” Pearl said.

  “They could have both been,” Quinn said.

  “What,” Renz said.

  “Art connoisseurs.”

  Renz said, “There’s a question mark in blood on the bathroom mirror.”

  “No surprise there,” Quinn said. “He’s taunting. Saying, ‘come on, play harder!’ He’s pretending to be bored.”

  In the corner of his vision, he saw Nift’s hand run gently over one of the dead woman’s breasts, pausing at the nipple. It made Quinn think of all those whispered stories about necrophilia that were considered NYPD myth. Nift didn’t look so mythical to Quinn.

  “Shame to kill a woman with a rack like this,” Nift said, glancing at Pearl.

  “Shame not to kill an asshole with a mind like yours,” Pearl said.

  Quinn sighed. He was relieved to see Renz smiling rather than angry.

  “Let’s talk out in the hall,” he said. “Let the ME do his job.”

  “If we can trust leaving the victim alone with him,” Pearl said.

  “Enough of that kinda talk,” Renz said. “It’s nasty.”

  “What if it’s true?”

  “Even nastier.” He led the way out of the bedroom, down the hall, through the living room crowded with CSU techs, and out into the hall.

  They moved down about fifty feet so the uniform guarding the apartment door wouldn’t overhear them.

  “Who found the body?” Quinn asked.

  “Super, name of Fred Charleston. He had an appointment to repair a dripping shower head. When he knocked and didn’t get an answer, he figured the tenant had left for work. He let himself in with his key, found what you saw, and said he backed out of there and called the police. Uniforms got his statement, if you want to see it and talk to him.”

  “I’ll read it and get to him later.”

  “He’s no good for this,” Renz said. “Was up arguing with his wife until late into the night, well past when the victim died. Got up early and went to the diner down the street for breakfast, stayed there until after the time of death.”

  “It happens at that diner,” Quinn said.

  Renz didn’t get the joke. That was okay with Quinn. It bothered him when the commissioner came across as having a sense of humor.

  “I’ll go talk to Fred the super if you want,” Pearl said.

  Quinn nodded. “Good idea.”

  “Keep an eye on Jeanine with Nift,” Pearl said.

  Renz said, “Jesus, Pearl! The man’s an employee of the city, just like I am. Let up on him.”

  “Nift will soon have her all to himself in the morgue, anyway,” Quinn said. “She’s beyond caring about anything he can do to her.”

  That seemed to mollify Pearl, in a smoldering-fuse kind of way.

  23

  London, 1940

  She would ship it by sea, to a place Henry Tucker would think suitable.

  Betsy Douglass had spent much of the early morning locating a sturdy wooden shipping box that would contain Tucker’s backpack. Finally she found one in the basement, where she had stored some blankets. She emptied the wooden crate and placed the backpack snugly inside.

  She held the definite impression that the object it contained was real and valuable. Why else would it be the center of so much danger and concern? Whatever it was, it deserved her care. She owed that to Henry, whom she missed more every day.

  She had assumed that when someone you loved died—and she realized she did love Henry—that the ache of parting would gradually become more dulled. Hers had sharpened by the hour and sometimes felt as if it cleaved her heart.

  Inside the box containing the backpack, she laid the addressed instructional letter Henry had left. It was undeliverable, and probably its intended recipient, M. Gundelheimer, was dead. Most of the people on that heavily bombed block had died or were still missing, buried beneath the rubble.

  Alongside the letter that had come in the backpack was another letter, this one written by Betsy to her sister, Willa Kingdom, and Willa’s husband, Mark.

  Mark had lost an arm when the merchant ship he was serving on had been torpedoed by a German submarine and sank in the Atlantic. He’d been one of only a few lucky survivors. Now he and his wife, Willa, were leaving England to settle in Ohio in the USA. Betsy wanted the box shipped to America so it would be waiting for them at their Ohio address when they arrived.

  She found hammer and nails in the basement and nailed the box tightly shut so it would make its Atlantic journey without breaking open. Of course, there was always the chance of yet another U-boat attack. Betsy sighed, making a sound like a hushed breeze in the dim, silent basement. Life of late had become dangerous at every corner.

  It wouldn’t feel so perilous if Henry had lived. If only he and she had . . .

  She turned away from that kind of speculation. From torturing herself. She wasn’t the only one suffering because of the war. Now and again, like so many others, she had to remind herself of that fact.

  Betsy found the two-wheeled wire cart she used to transport groceries, took it up to sidewalk level, then dragged the wooden box up after it.

  She was breathing hard from the effort, and her legs were trembling. Barrage blimps that sagged and looked partly deflated were visible beyond the end of the block, trailing what from this distance looked like slender cables.

  The morning was quiet except for the steady, distant hum of traffic. A siren wailed forlornly from the direction of the hospital, where she would soon be helping to tend to the wounded, and comforting the dying.

  She managed to lay the rectangular wooden box sideways across the top of the wire basket. Avoiding pits and cracks in the paved sidewalk, she began rolling the cart with surprising ease.

  Here was something, at least, that was easier than she’d anticipated.

  There was a fine morning mist in the air that smelled vaguely of charred wood, and something Betsy didn’t want to dwell on.

  She opened her mouth slightly and pulled in deep breaths of the air for whatever clean oxygen it cont
ained. Now and then someone on the street—usually a man—would pause and look and seem to contemplate helping her. She shook her head to refuse them, and they went on about their business. A few of them gave her approving smiles. She continued on her way to ship her wooden box, knowing that Henry Tucker, if he were alive, would appreciate her faith and tenacity.

  And love.

  Only a few hours later Betsy reported for duty at the hospital. The shipping of the backpack and its contents seemed in a sad way to have severed all of her ties with Henry Tucker. At the same time, it freed her from some of her grief. If he could rest easy in his grave, then, when the time came, so would she.

  How very often she thought about death in this war.

  What had being so close to it, day after day, done to her?

  It was almost 1:00 A.M. when Betsy stumbled, exhausted, up to her apartment and undressed for bed. She removed her nurse’s uniform and put it in the washstand in cold water with soap. Tomorrow morning, before leaving for the hospital, she would hand wring the uniform, then hang it up to dry.

  She took off her slip, then her garter belt and white cloth stockings. Her knickers and the stockings she wadded and tossed so they landed near the washstand. She would retrieve them tomorrow and let them soak while she was on duty at the hospital in her second uniform.

  Wearing only her nightgown and padded slippers, she ran enough water from the tap to capture in her palm and used it to wash down one of several white pills she’d brought home from the hospital. She didn’t so much need the pills to help her get to sleep, but they aided sometimes in preventing the dreams from invading her slumber. Without them, she might experience some of the horrors of the day again, and wake up sweating and shivering. Afraid. So afraid . . .

  The physical effort of what she had done today, starting so early in the morning, had taken its toll. As had being with men in various stages of their dying. She had tried desperately to be offhand and make them smile. Sometimes she’d been successful. But all the time she knew they would be leaving her as had Henry Tucker, changing for their survivors the world in which they’d lived.