Chill of Night n-6

by John Lutz

  “To Broadway?”

  “To being a cop.”

  “Smart fella. You and an actor. I can see it. He treat you okay?”

  “Wouldn’t put up with him if he didn’t.”

  They walked for a few minutes without speaking. “You’re right,” Beam said.

  “About not putting up with him if he acts up?”

  “No. Well, yes. Also right about something you thought but didn’t mention.”

  “Ah!”

  “That your love life is none of my business.”

  They’d reached Cold Cat’s building. A uniform was still standing outside, helping the doorman shoo away curious fans.

  “Here we are,” Nell said.

  “Exactly where JK wants us.” Beam glanced around. “He might even be here with us.”

  “I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Nell said. “You’re on a roll.”

  57

  “You on your way to talk to my mom and dad?” Gina asked.

  She was wearing blue shorts, a ragged gray sweatshirt cut off at the armpits, and white jogging shoes that could use a turn in the washer. Her body was slim and lithe and well toned, Nell noted with a twinge of jealousy. Youth.

  “Not really,” Nell said. “They told me on the phone you weren’t home. Said you’d gone running. I’ve been waiting around out here for you to turn up.”

  Sunlight illuminated a low haze hanging in the warm air, either the result of exhaust fumes, or dust from construction in the next block. Every few minutes distant jackhammers beat out the frantic clatter of machine guns. Traffic was streaming past, and Gina, with her shorts and casual hipshot pose, attracted a few horn blasts, a male shout of…what? Admiration? More like verbalized testosterone.

  “Why me?”

  “So we can talk more freely.”

  That seemed to pique Gina’s interest. She shifted her weight to the other slim, tanned leg.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Carl Dudman’s death,” Nell said.

  “My family’s already talked about that. I’d think you’d be more interested in that rap star getting killed.”

  “No, it’s Dudman I’m interested in. And I want to know how you feel.”

  Gina shrugged. “I’m glad he’s dead. He was the person most responsible for Bradley Aimes walking out of the courtroom a free man even though he murdered my sister. It isn’t any secret. We’ve told the police and the media as much.”

  “Do you see the Justice Killer as some kind of hero?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Gina frowned and gnawed on her lower lip. “I would admit I’m grateful for what he did.”

  “Do you know a man named Terry Adams?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Did Genelle ever mention him?”

  This time Gina thought a long while before answering. “If she did, I don’t remember. It’s possible that she knew him, whoever he is. We didn’t have all the same friends.”

  “But would it be safe to say most of your friends knew both you and Genelle?”

  “Most, yes.” Gina cupped her waist with her hands and began jogging in place, causing some bouncing action beneath the baggy sweatshirt. “Whoo! Whoo!” yelled a guy from a passing car.

  “What’s this all about?” Gina asked, ignoring her motorized admirer. “You suspect this Terry guy?”

  “No,” Nell said, maybe too quickly, judging by the way Gina was staring at her. “We just want to make sure there was no connection between him and Genelle. Or between him and you, for that matter.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know him, and I don’t think Genelle did. But we can never be sure about Genelle. The only thing I know about her for sure is that I miss her. You know how people say they become sad because after a while they can’t recall precisely what the people they grieve looked like?”

  Nell didn’t know, but she nodded.

  “That doesn’t happen with me and Gina. I see her complete every day in the mirror.” Gina glanced up at the sky, then back down, her Adam’s apple working. “That’s about all I can tell you.”

  “I guess it is,” Nell said. She smiled. “Thanks, Gina. Say hello to your mom and dad.”

  “Sure,” Gina said. She returned the smile and jogged away toward her apartment building half a block down. She drew more admiring looks, a pretty girl catching the sunlight, hair flouncing with each stride. The young in New York. Nell knew they weren’t as enviable as they appeared. Gina, who certainly had her problems, was an example.

  Nell stood and watched her until she started up the steps to her building entrance, thinking about what had died along with Gina’s sister. Thinking about the Justice Killer, how he was killing victims, and killing her trust in Terry. Evil really was like a rock thrown in a pond; the ripples eventually reached every part of it.

  Well, she refused to let the ripples destroy her trust. Apparently there’d been no connection between Gina or Genelle and Terry. So there was a crime, Genelle’s murder, that he had no alibi for, and it might as well have happened in another galaxy. Absence of alibi didn’t mean likelihood of guilt.

  Suspicion could eat like acid. Like guilt itself. The best way to face it was head on. Find out. Shine the truth on it.

  Nell felt better after talking with Gina.

  Gina felt better after talking with Nell.

  She entered the lobby of her apartment building, stood hands on hips and let her breathing even out, then pushed the up button for the elevator. While she waited, she thought back on her conversation with Nell.

  The detective didn’t seem to consider that Gina or her mother or father might have murdered Dudman, a copycat crime.

  If Gina had gone beyond simply stalking Dudman as a kind of cathartic exercise, and actually used her gun, she might well have gotten away with it. After all, Dudman had simply been shot from a passing car. The police had nothing to go on. Gina had read that the most difficult crimes to solve were the simple ones. Criminals tended to outsmart themselves.

  The elevator arrived. Mrs. Grubman, from the apartment above the Dixon’s, appeared when the door slid open. She smiled and nodded to Gina. She had her feisty and odorous little dog Worry on a leash. Gina nodded back and stood aside, giving Worry plenty of room to get past. The animal had a habit of snapping at people.

  After suffering only a growl, Gina entered the elevator and pressed the button for her floor. She leaned back with her eyes closed. As the elevator ascended, she enjoyed the sensation; when she was younger she used to think she might rise all the way to heaven. Today she thought the elevator smelled like dog.

  Nell, the detective, had for some reason been interested in the Carl Dudman murder, rather than the more recent murder of Cold Cat the rap star. Gina was more interested in Cold Cat’s sudden and violent death, and not only because it screamed daily from every news source, along with that idiot woman’s campaign to stop conducting trials. What interested Gina was that Cold Cat, Richard Simms, hadn’t been a member of a jury, or any other part of the judicial system. He’d been the defendant.

  It wasn’t credible to Gina that the little man, Knee High, had killed Cold Cat’s wife. Or if he had, it was a scheme of some kind and the husband was involved. The husband was always involved. Cold Cat had been the guilty defendant who’d gone free. Simms was the first of such monsters to be murdered by the Justice Killer. The police must be trying hard to figure out what that might mean.

  Gina knew one thing it meant. Richard Simms’s murder signaled open season on Bradley Aimes.

  The elevator stopped, bobbed slightly to adjust itself, then dinged, and the door glided open.

  Gina had reached her destination.

  Homicide.

  Murder.

  Was there any difference now between him and the vicious killers the police hunted down and killed or placed in the hands of the bumbling, bureaucratic, and sometimes even kindly judicial system?

  Not enough difference.

  Not anymore.

  Not afte
r the murder of Richard Simms, an innocent man.

  The scales of justice seemed wildly out of kilter, and the sureness and clarity they offered no longer applied. Suddenly nothing seemed concrete and certain. Nothing offered support or reason. Change could occur instantly, and not for the better.

  It was unsettling.

  The Justice Killer had been getting headaches lately, and right now he had a brutal one. A migraine?

  He’d heard the term but really didn’t know what it meant. If it didn’t mean what he had, it should. He might as well have an axe buried in his skull.

  Deep.

  A guilt headache. That was how he actually thought of the pain behind his eyes.

  But did he deserve it?

  Was he a murderer?

  He’d been afraid to go to a doctor; the fewer medical records-or any kind of records-he created, the better for him and more problematic for his pursuers. So he was limited to over-the-counter pain remedies and switched from brand to brand.

  None of them seemed to help. He lay suffering in his bed and continued to ponder the question of his guilt.

  A murderer?

  No, not yet, he finally assured himself, a cold washcloth pressed to his forehead and covering his eyes. He was still an executioner. A force for justice. In a larger sense, genuine crime, genuine guilt, even murder, was in the intent, and his intent had been pure.

  He’d been tricked into executing Richard Simms. The real killer had been sitting right in the courtroom during Simms’s trial, had even been one of the key witnesses. That Knee High creature. The jurors hadn’t taken him seriously enough to think he might be lying, deceiving, committing perjury.

  But the little man with the big lie was being taken seriously enough now, by the police, by the system.

  By the Justice Killer.

  Whose headache raged like a fire behind his eyes.

  58

  When Beam entered da Vinci’s office, he found the deputy chief seated behind his desk, watching a DVD recording of the latest Free Adelaide demonstration on his new TV. The blinds were half open this morning, admitting bright sunlight over a narrow area. Dust motes played everywhere, threatening to make Beam sneeze. The television’s screen was a little difficult to see unless you found the right angle.

  This demonstration had tied up traffic in Times Square for over two hours. The volume was barely audible on the TV. There was no sound in the office that wasn’t muted almost to nonexistence. A faint, acrid odor hung in the still air, like that of burning electrical insulation, as if the subject matter being shown were too hot for the television perched on top of the file cabinet.

  Da Vinci glanced over at Beam. “Isn’t this a crock?” He motioned with his head toward the television.

  “Crock and a half,” Beam said. “Console yourself with the fact that Adelaide doesn’t have TV in her cell.”

  “She knows what goes on,” da Vinci said. “That lawyer-manager of hers, press agent-whatever the hell he is-tells her.” He pointed at the TV, muted mayhem on a small screen. “Look at the Free Adelaide signs! I count over a dozen. Free her to do what? I hear she’s already got a schedule of talk show appearances lined up, and a goddamned book contract. She’s writing the opening chapters in her cell.”

  “Industrious,” Beam said, “but she never struck me as the writer type.”

  “Got some uppity little editor who visits and tells her the difference between who and whom,” da Vinci said in disgust. “Or is it whom comes to visit her?”

  “I’m not sure,” Beam said. “We could ask Adelaide.”

  Da Vinci scowled and threw a paper clip at him. “I got more DVDs,” he said. “You should see the one of the Cold Cat memorial service held in Riverside Park last night.”

  “It features some of the same faces that are in the Adelaide demonstrations, I’ll bet.”

  “Yeah, but made saintly by candlelight. And maybe one of them is the Justice Killer. Helen said he might be compelled to attend some of these mob scenes. After all, he caused them.”

  “Like a pyromaniac hangs around the fire he’s set,” Beam said.

  “Exactly. That’s what Helen said.”

  Beam wondered about da Vinci’s relationship with Helen. He was single, but still, an affair with a police profiler could squelch his NYPD career. Something like it had happened in recent memory.

  “This shit has got to be stopped,” da Vinci said, “before the Justice Killer’s a bigger hero than Superman, leaving you, me, and the rest of the NYPD about as popular as kryptonite.” He used the remote to switch off the DVD, then the TV. Tiny green lights dimmed, as did the TV screen. Hot plastic popped faintly, and the acrid scent in the office seemed to lessen. Da Vinci looked hard at Beam. “So you’re the idea man, the cop who’s supposed to be able to think like the killer. What’s he thinking now, besides how much fun he’s having at various demonstrations that make us look like monkeys and tie up traffic?”

  “He’s thinking about Knee High,” Beam said.

  Da Vinci began running his fingertips lightly over the motorcycle sculpture on his desk, as if the feel of cool metal reassured him. “Say again?”

  “Cold Cat’s death and the news of his innocence mean Melanie Taylor is probably no longer in danger.”

  “One victim for each trial.”

  “You noticed.”

  “Yes, but what’s it got to do with Knee High?”

  “I think the Justice Killer’s been thrown badly off his game by killing Cold Cat, an innocent man. That makes him no better-even a damned sight worse-than the people he’s been going around despising and murdering. The person to blame for that is the defense’s main witness, who lied on the stand and provided a false alibi-Knee High.”

  “Not to mention,” da Vinci said, “Knee High going out and recruiting another witness to perjure himself and back up that lie.”

  Beam was surprised. “Knee High recruited Merv Clark?”

  “That’s what they’re both saying now. But we know how credible they are. It’s a good thing for Knee High he’s safe in jail awaiting arraignment.”

  “Spring him,” Beam said.

  Da Vinci stopped caressing his motorcycle and stared at him. “You serious?”

  “Yeah.

  Reduce his bond and let him walk. He’ll need the police to protect him from the Justice Killer, so he’ll be even more cooperative. More credible.”

  Da Vinci went into his chin-rubbing routine, thinking hard. “What if Knee High cuts and runs?”

  “He won’t. Too many cops will be protecting him for somebody not to notice him leaving. And where’s he gonna go where Cold Cat’s fans won’t tear him apart, even if the Justice Killer doesn’t find him?”

  “You’re right,” da Vinci said. “And after a few days, he’d feel awfully naked without that police protection.” He leaned back in his chair so he was looking up quizzically at Beam. “So we get Knee High back out in the world, then what’s our next move?”

  “We let it leak that we made a mistake. It’s been decided he’s too likely a flight possibility, and his bond reduction’s going to be rescinded. Knee High will soon be going back to jail to await trial.”

  “We change our minds? Just like that?”

  “Uh-huh. We say so, anyway.”

  “Which accomplishes?”

  “The Justice Killer will know that if he wants to kill Knee High, the clock is ticking. His opportunity is limited to the time until Knee High’s taken back into custody.”

  Da Vinci rubbed his chin a while longer, then smiled. “A rattrap with a timer, and Knee High will be the very nervous cheese.”

  “Run it by Helen and see what she thinks of the idea,” Beam suggested.

  Da Vinci reacted as Beam thought he would. “I don’t have to run it by anyone. You’re the one I put in charge of the investigation, and you ran it by me. I like it. We’ll do it. But keep in mind, it’s your ass if it goes wrong.”

  “Always,” Beam said.

&nb
sp; Da Vinci seemed mollified. He sat back and appeared to be more relaxed. “You’re an even more devious bastard than I thought.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll run it by Helen anyway.”

  “I don’t look outside without seeing a cop,” Nola told Beam that afternoon in Things Past. The shop seemed brighter than usual. The display window had been washed, and the stock was less layered with dust and more neatly arranged. Beam could actually walk along the aisles without brushing something a hundred years old and sending it plummeting to the floor.

  He glanced out beyond the display of antiques, through the window and across the street. “I don’t see anyone out there now.”

  Nola looked exasperated, for her. “Of course not. There’s a cop in here with me.”

  “Are you sorry about that?”

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the chin. “Not really.” She walked around behind the counter and began sorting through some papers. It occurred to him for the first time that she didn’t need glasses for reading. He was pretty sure she didn’t have contact lenses.

  Aging well…

  Despite her initial reticence, once they’d become lovers, her sexuality amazed him. Made him amaze himself.

  “Ever think about sex in the back room?” he asked.

  “These days, I think about sex now and then whichever room I’m in.”

  Beam grinned.

  Nola tapped the edges of whatever it was she was sorting through and laid the neatened papers aside. “This is a place of business,” she said. “Besides, we’re both a little old for the kind of thing you have in mind.”

  “You’re only as old as-”

  “-you are,” she finished for him. “Any progress in tracing where the duplicate ring came from?”

  “Not yet.” He didn’t tell her that NYPD personnel had already been diverted from the task of finding the ring’s origin to protecting the soon-to-be-released Knee High. The ring itself wasn’t in its usual spot on a shelf next to a rose-colored vase. “Did you put the ring in your safe?”

  “In a drawer. I’m hoping somebody will steal it.”

  “You should give it to me. It might become evidence.”