Pulse

by John Lutz

  “First of all,” she said, “let’s get it on the table that I’m crazy, but not all the time.”

  “Noted,” Quinn said.

  She waved her slender arms. “Schizophrenic is the diagnosis. Voices, hallucinations, the whole bag of agony.”

  “We can work around that,” Quinn said.

  She grinned. “You sound like my analyst.”

  He was glad to hear she was in treatment.

  “My name is Linda Brooks,” she said, “and I’m being followed.” She leaned slightly forward as if to give the words more impact. “Not just today, right now, but for about a week. It’s like I have a shadow, only it’s not a shadow. A shadow doesn’t keep its distance. Or disappear suddenly even though no light has been switched on. No shadow I’ve seen, anyway.”

  “Okay, Linda. Have you gotten a good look at him?”

  “How did you know it was a him?”

  “I surmised. I do that a lot.”

  “Yeah, you would. He’s about five ten or so, thin and fit looking. He wears a blue and gray sweat suit some of the time. Other times jeans and joggers. Some of the time a suit and tie. If I saw him in a photograph, I’d probably recognize him.”

  Quinn raised a forefinger, motioning for her to wait a moment, then rummaged through one of his desk drawers. He drew out a copy of an old photo of Daniel Danielle from a Miami Herald news item and laid it on the desk.

  Linda edged closer and peered at it. “That’s him.”

  Quinn got another photo, this one a shot of Jerry Lido taken for Q&A files.

  “I told you, that’s him,” Linda said, glancing at the photo.

  “Okay,” Quinn said. The two men weren’t completely dissimilar. They were about the same size and each had dark hair. Daniel was wearing what looked like a prison shirt, the booze-emaciated Lido a blue shirt with a loosened tie.

  “They’re not the same man,” Quinn pointed out.

  “I know that. But they could be at different times.”

  It took Quinn a few seconds to understand what she meant. “You mean following you at different times?”

  “Of course. I’m not stupid. I don’t think they change identities, just that the same man can look different in different photographs. I mean, I’m not crazy all the time.”

  “You said that.” He suspected it was her mantra.

  “Now you sound like my analyst.”

  Time to get off this track. “I won’t be analyzing you, just helping if I can. By the way, who is your analyst?”

  Without hesitating, she gave him the name and address of a psychoanalyst he’d never heard of but who had a respectable address.

  “I have good medical insurance,” she said, while Quinn was still jotting down the information. “My mother saw to that before she died. My father died the year before she did.”

  “Natural deaths, I assume.”

  “Sure. None of that forty-whacks stuff.”

  “Other relatives?”

  “None who’ll have anything to do with me. I stole from all of them.”

  “How long have you been seeing Dr. Moore?” Quinn asked.

  “Years and years. I’m not crazy twenty-four-seven. When I take my meds I’m perfectly normal for a while.”

  “Is this the first time you’ve been followed?”

  “By someone who wasn’t from the OSS, yes. You know who they are?”

  “A long time ago, they became the CIA,” Quinn said.

  “That’s if you accept the lie that they were ever completely disbanded.”

  “I’ve often wondered,” Quinn said.

  “I know you’re not the cops. You’ll want money. I can’t pay you.”

  “We’ll do it pro bono.” Because the city is paying me, and because you resemble Pearl.

  “It would be best if you could catch him in my bed.”

  “He sleeps in your bed?”

  “Naps, maybe. I can see that somebody’s been lying in it. When I’m not there, of course. He stays in my apartment sometimes when I’m not home.”

  “How does he get in?”

  “Windows sometimes, if they’re unlocked. And he probably has a key that opens all doors.”

  “Have you and he ever been there at the same time?”

  “Once, when I saw him leaving through a window. But time and place always intersect someplace, don’t they?”

  “They do,” Quinn said.

  “So here’s my place.” She dug in her purse for a paper and pencil and wrote down a West Side address a few blocks off Broadway, uptown from where they sat. Beneath the address was a phone number. “I know how you work,” she said, pushing the paper toward him over the desktop. “I’ve read the literature. I won’t know you’re around, but you’ll be there. If he comes around again, whoever’s watching over me will tackle him. Bend his arm behind his back and he’ll talk. You can make him tell you who he is. We both know who he is. The wind told me who he is.”

  “Is that where you hear voices, in the wind?”

  “Not always. But pretty often, actually. If the wind is blowing on stone.”

  Quinn thought that would be almost all the time, in New York. “What have the voices been telling you?”

  “To be careful. For God’s sake, be careful.” She stared at Quinn with those eyes that had seen way too much that wasn’t there, but in her view had to be somewhere. Whatever happened in her world became twisted and sharp before she could get a proper grasp of it. Her mortal enemy roamed the interior of her skull. Probably the pressure never ceased.

  Quinn understood that he couldn’t imagine her pain.

  58

  The killer watched Linda leave Q&A. Linda looked up and down the block but didn’t notice him. Perhaps she’d seen him but didn’t want to admit he was there, and so let her gaze slide past.

  It was wonderful that she’d come here. She understood, and without knowing who or what was stalking her. And on some level Quinn would know what Linda knew, that he was meeting the woman whose violent death he’d soon be investigating. Of course, probably neither of them had talked about it. Not directly, anyway.

  The elephant in the room was no less invisible and unmentioned because it was preparing to charge.

  The Shadow Guardians meeting at the library had gone well. Penny felt better about it when she learned that Ms. Culver wasn’t going to attend. She had a seminar on e-books at another library that evening.

  Penny had come away assured that the Shadow Guardians weren’t a group of far-right or far-left nutcases. They were wives and children of cops who wanted to make sure their loved ones had every advantage in a war against crime that was becoming more and more one-sided. The bad guys—the drug dealers, muggers, gang-bangers, and plain old thieves—were winning. And had the police outnumbered and outgunned. The Shadow Guardians were there to help and to prevent, that was all. But there was no doubt that even that could be dangerous.

  The guest speaker at the meeting, a woman with sprayed, helmet-like hair, from California, talked about how this concept was working in some of her state’s large cities. The organization wasn’t an extension of the police force, but a simple aid in the critical time before confrontations and arrests. It helped to put time and numbers on the side of the law. It had saved some lives.

  Though she’d been advised to sleep on her decision, Penny joined the Shadow Guardians that evening.

  It was Penny’s day off at the library. She kept her destination a secret from Feds, and from everyone else. Feds didn’t really understand the pressure she was under because of his job. He certainly wouldn’t understand how what she was doing would relieve that pressure—at least for a while.

  Penny had roamed the Internet until late last night, contacting several Shadow Guardians via their websites, searching for answers. She’d been referred to a woman named Noreen, an ex-cop’s wife who ran a blog about and for cops’ wives. Sensing a kindred spirit, Penny had messaged Noreen.

  She’d been surprised when she got a rep
ly early the next morning. Surprised again by something Noreen recommended.

  Penny took the subway to Grand Central, then a short train ride to a spot in New Jersey outside Newark. She was wearing jeans, a darker blue blouse, her worn jogging shoes, and dark sunglasses. All very unobtrusive. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she was recognized, but she’d have a lot of explaining to do. Mostly to Feds.

  It would be better all around if he never found out about this. And, she hoped, she wouldn’t always need it.

  She hailed a taxi and gave the driver an address.

  Half an hour later she was on the line at Shooter’s Alley, a public firing range. Penny used a house gun. She didn’t own or want a gun, and using a rental precluded Sullivan Act violations and crossing state lines and sundry other problems a gun could cause.

  What surprised her about the firing range, and the nine-millimeter Walther semiautomatic that she used, was that she loved to shoot. The bullets went into a paper target on which was the outline of a man. Life-sized, from the waist up. He had broad shoulders and an oval face without features.

  She could imagine the man to be whomever she chose. Usually it was the man who’d killed her sister. Sometimes it was the killer Feds sought. Sometimes it was simply a stranger.

  Penny wore earplugs, but she liked the heavy bark of the gun, the feel of it kicking in her hand.

  When the electric winch brought the target back to her on its track, she enjoyed seeing that most of her shots had gone where she’d aimed. Usually it was the target’s head. Sometimes the heart.

  The experience was, as Noreen on the Internet had promised, stress relieving and liberating.

  Not that she ever wanted to use the gun on someone, or even carry the bulky, oily thing in her purse.

  But somehow it helped her to know that she could.

  If she wanted to, she could.

  59

  Jody stood up so Sarah Benham would notice her on the other side of The Happy Noodle.

  Sarah, smoothing back her hair and patting this and that into place after coming in out of the cooling summer breeze, saw her immediately and smiled and waved back. She began weaving among the tables of the crowded restaurant, holding a general direction toward Jody like a ship in a storm.

  Jody sat back down with her apple martini and watched her. The two women met for lunch every now and then. Despite—or possibly because of—their age difference, they had become very comfortable in each other’s company; each knew the other wasn’t a competitor in either work or love.

  Sarah was still attractive, for a woman past the edge of middle age. She took good care of herself, spent money on it. Jody had decided weeks ago that Sarah might well have employed the services of a cosmetic surgeon. There was a subtle stiffness to her features, and deepening lines running from the corners of her mouth to her chin.

  “I ordered you a drink,” Jody said, as Sarah sat down on the chair across from her. “An apple martini. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s what I would have ordered,” Sarah said. “That’s why I introduced them to you.” She settled deeper in her chair, leaning briefly to rest her purse on the floor, then did a lot of fidgeting and rearranging, like a bird settling into its nest.

  The server came with her drink. Sarah accepted it, then raised her glass. Jody followed suit.

  “To good friends,” Sarah said.

  Jody smiled and repeated the toast. She took a sip of martini. There were a lot of people she’d choose not to lunch with before Sarah.

  Sarah smiled and licked her lips. The way she always did after the first sip of any kind of drink. She seemed very much to enjoy the moment. Something Jody would have to work on.

  “So how are things in your life?” Sarah asked, placing her glass on the table but leaving a fingertip touching it, as if she’d be aware if it started to wander.

  “If you mean love life,” Jody said, “I’m too busy for anything like that.”

  “It’s been my experience,” Sarah said, “that love lives pretty much take care of themselves, and in their own time. There isn’t much to be gained by planning.”

  “Good. Because I don’t.”

  The waiter returned and Jody ordered penne pasta and a salad, Sarah only a salad.

  “Not hungry today,” she said. “The heat.”

  Jody took a sip of her martini, which prompted Sarah to do the same.

  “I never asked you about your family,” Jody said. “Do you have—”

  “Children?” Sarah grinned. “Not me, and not ever, at my age. I suppose you’re wondering if I ever married, whether I’m widowed or divorced.”

  “I don’t want to pry,” Jody assured her.

  “Of course you do.” Sarah touched the back of Jody’s hand. “We all do, but we don’t want to step on someone’s feelings.”

  “Would I be doing that?”

  “Not in the slightest, dear. Both my parents have been dead for years. My mother had a fatal heart attack while swimming. My father died a month after that. He was in an auto accident. A one-car crash. I’ve always wondered if he’d made it happen, if he was simply ready to go to a place without grief.”

  “You were left an orphan,” Jody said sadly.

  “For a few years. I was sixteen when I found myself without parents. Or siblings. I lived in an institution—it was never called an orphanage—for about two years, then I found a job that would allow me time to also go to college. I was good at math, and was drawn into the insurance business. Started out with mortgage insurance, then life and property for several years. Then I got a job offer and moved to Manhattan. I’m an adjuster, mainly. Mostly art.”

  “Art insurance. That’s fascinating.”

  “Not really. Not once you get used to staring at damaged Van Goghs and Kandinskys and calculating their market worth. Which is sometimes much different from the worth placed on them by their owners.”

  “Still, you must know a lot about art.”

  “I know more about insurance, and how to adjust it. That’s really what I’m doing, just like with insurance on cars or, in some questionable cases, life insurance. It’s all about odds, and settling on a number.”

  “Lots of things seem to be about that. Life isn’t much different from gambling.”

  “We can do something about the odds, though. See me if you ever come into possession of a damaged valuable painting or sculpture, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  “Someday when I’m rich.”

  The food arrived, and both women concentrated for a few minutes on arranging plates and passing this or that across the table to each other.

  “You have the capacity to become rich, Jody. I really believe that.”

  “I’ve been told so, often enough,” Jody said.

  Sarah was obviously very interested in Jody’s future.

  And Jody was interested in Sarah’s past. Had Sarah been trying to sell Jack Coil art insurance that time she’d visited the offices of Enders and Coil?

  Jody wondered, did Sarah also sell insurance on property development projects?

  60

  Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986

  Sherri Klinger said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  They were sitting in Rory’s mom’s Chevy with all the windows rolled down, letting the summer breeze wend its way through the car’s interior. The Chevy was parked well off the road and shielded from view by large pine trees. The woods they faced were beginning to fill with twilight’s shadows. Rory picked up the scent of tobacco smoke. His mom had been smoking again, even though she swore she quit months ago.

  “We didn’t come here to think,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Sherri smiled. “We took care of that other thing, though.”

  “You’re not gonna tell me you forgot your pill, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So what’s your famous brain been working on?”

  “Now that you’re finished with my famous body.”

  “Not fini
shed. It’s just time out.”

  “God, Rory!”

  He settled back where he was sitting behind the steering wheel, aware that he was already getting an erection just talking about sex with Sherri. And it had been ... what, twenty minutes since the last time?

  “I’ve been thinking about Duffy,” she said, leaning her head against the point of his shoulder.

  Rory’s erection was immediately lost. “Not much to think about now,” he said. He hoped. Sherri was a brilliant girl, but she seemed fixated on the dog. What was she going to suggest, a Duffy memorial?

  Sherri snuggled closer. The breeze working through the car was cooling. “I mean, like the way his collar was discovered about a hundred feet from where somebody buried him. It was unbuckled, so he couldn’t have slipped it before he died. Somebody must have taken it there. Or thrown it. How could that have happened? And why?”

  “Maybe he laid there a while before somebody found him, then they took the collar off before scooping dirt and leaves over him.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Or it could be a fox or something dug Duffy up and moved the collar.”

  “A fox couldn’t unbuckle the collar, and there were no tooth or claw marks on it. Somebody must have removed it either before or after Duffy was put in the ground the first time.”

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure that one out. It was like they didn’t want Duffy to be identified if he was found.”

  “But he was identified.”

  “A little longer underground and we wouldn’t have known him. I think whoever killed him got scared, hid the body, and threw the collar far as he could into the woods thinking nobody would ever find it even if they did find Duffy.”

  Rory found himself squirming. He coughed to disguise his reaction to Sherri’s words. She had it figured exactly right.

  “Either way,” he said, “the result is the same.”