by John Lutz
“Haw! Not feeling guilty. Not that one. That one’s not at all how everybody sees him.” She gingerly touched the pink scalp below her sparse gray hair, as if caressing an old injury. “They never are.”
“They?”
“The ones that mistreat women.”
“You’re right about that,” Paula said. “Do you have much contact with Will Lincoln? Do you two ever talk?”
“Not hardly anymore. He saw me looking out the window at him one night about two in the morning. Began treating me cool after that. Not that we were ever chummy. Kim, though, she’s not like him. She’s still nice as pie to me.”
Paula looked up from the notes she was taking. “Do you think you’re in any physical danger, Mrs. Neidler?”
“Not hardly. Not with my late second husband’s twelve-gauge shotgun in the house. I was Portland County ladies’ skeet shooting champion two years running. That was some time back, though.”
“And you keep the shotgun nearby?”
“Nearby and loaded.”
Uh-oh. . Paula showed no reaction but made a note of that.
“Tell you what,” she said to Mrs. Neidler. “I’m going to give you one of my cards. Call me if you see anything else suspicious. Anything at all. Don’t mention our conversation. And if you happen to see me around in the neighborhood, don’t let on we’re friends.”
“Count on me, Paula. I know how the police work.”
Paula leaned forward and placed her business card and half-finished tumbler of lemonade on the glass-topped coffee table. She stood up and slid her notepad into her purse. “If you see a strange car parked near here with someone in it, that’ll probably be me or another detective.”
“Uh-huh. A stakeout. Watching Lincoln’s house.”
“And yours, too. For protection. Just in case, whether you need it or not.” She edged toward the door. Mrs. Neidler seemed reluctant to stand up and show her out. Obviously not enough people were good listeners and she wasn’t eager for Paula to leave.
“Please don’t get up,” Paula said.
But when Paula was almost at the door, Mrs. Neidler wrested herself up from her chair and plodded over to usher her out.
Paula stepped outside onto the porch. It was almost dusk and had cooled into the seventies. The darkening sky had the look of being hazed by smoke, but she could see or smell nothing suggesting a fire.
“You be careful, Paula,” Mrs. Neidler cautioned.
“I always am,” Paula assured her, glancing back at Mrs. Neidler through the screen door. “Skeet shooting,” she said to the aged form in the shadow of the dark screen. “That’s marvelous.”
“Ladies’ champion,” Mrs. Neidler said. “Two years running. Some time back, though.”
“Still. .” Paula said, stepping down off the porch.
“Still,” Mrs. Neidler said behind her.
Paula sat in the unmarked, which was half a block down from Will Lincoln’s gray house with its green metal awnings, and waited for him to leave. It had grown dark, and lights were on in the house. Paula drove to the end of the block once and did a turnaround, checking the garage. Its single, dark window seemed to peer back at her blankly. There was a rusty old Dodge pickup truck with a low front tire in the driveway: the eyesore Mrs. Neidler had mentioned. The truck seemed not to have moved since Paula had first seen it that afternoon. It looked as if it might not be able to move.
She returned to her parking space, which was midway between two streetlights and in the shadow of a big maple tree. Today she’d brought along a plastic portable device that enabled her to relieve her bladder without leaving the car. She’d never shown this valuable accessory to Bickerstaff, who usually availed himself of concealing foliage or dark passageways. There was no need for such a thing when they ran stakeouts together, and he would wait and watch while she found a public rest room. Such a gentleman.
She’d had to use the portable potty only once tonight, squirming to gain proper position in the car, then congratulating herself on her neatness, when a man emerged from the Lincoln house.
Paula hastily rearranged her clothes and got comfortable again behind the steering wheel, glancing at the luminous hands of her wristwatch. Almost ten o’clock.
She was too far away to recognize Lincoln for sure from his photograph, but the man’s height and weight looked about right, and he’d come out of Lincoln’s house. He also walked past the pickup truck, on down the driveway, and got into a ratty-looking twelve-year-old Pontiac, tan with a black cloth roof, that was parked near the house. Figuring the decrepit pickup truck wasn’t regular transportation, Paula had already checked the license plates of the cars on the street. Like the truck, the rusty old Pontiac was registered to Will Lincoln.
The old car needed exhaust work. It growled loudly when it started, then popped and rattled like a machine gun when it pulled away from the curb. Paula followed in the unmarked. She thought that if this guy was smart, he’d trade both his clunkers in on one reliable vehicle that wasn’t a tetanus risk. But the Pontiac quieted down to a steady roar when it got up to speed.
Lincoln didn’t drive very far, only about five blocks to Minnie’s Place, the neighborhood bar Paula had checked out earlier. She hoped no one in there would mention to Lincoln that she’d been around asking about him. There was a chance they wouldn’t. Probably there’d be a different bartender on duty by now and mostly different patrons. And contrary to TV, movies, and popular fiction, lots of citizens actually didn’t mind helping the police.
Some citizens, anyway.
Minnie’s must not have been crowded, because Lincoln found a parking space almost in front of the entrance. Paula parallel-parked between a van and a compact pickup truck and watched him climb out of the old Pontiac and enter Minnie’s.
When he crossed a patch of bright light beneath the bar’s illuminated sign, Paula got a good look at him for the first time and knew for sure she’d been following the right man. Dark hair with a bald spot, slim, muscular build, long neck and jaw. There was an arm-swinging swagger in his stride that was a challenge. Try me. I’m easy to provoke.
Paula considered going into Minnie’s and unobtrusively watching Lincoln, then thought better of the idea. Maybe it would work if she knew the place was packed with drinkers who’d provide some cover. As it was, she figured her wisest course was to stay in the car and wait for Lincoln to come back out.
She settled low in the seat and listened to salsa on the factory-installed radio. The evening was warm, so she cranked down the unmarked’s front windows. The back of her neck rested against the lowered, padded headrest. She half closed her eyes, slipping into stakeout mode. Though she wouldn’t sleep, she’d still rest, and a part of her mind would be alert to the comings and goings at Minnie’s Place.
Minnie-if there was a Minnie-must do all right. Somebody entered or left the bar every five minutes or so. Mostly men, but a few women. Paula wondered if someone was making book in there. Or dealing drugs.
Time passed, and more time. Paula, thinking about Lincoln in there drinking all that draft beer (Budweiser, the day bartender had informed her), used the portable potty again. It was getting full and she was beginning to worry.
She’d barely finished and put the contraption aside when three customers staggered out of Minnie’s and charted an unsteady course toward the unmarked. When they got near, Paula saw that they all looked like teenagers and were undoubtedly underage. Minnie, Minnie. . At least the boys weren’t driving. They snickered and hesitated near the car. One of them, wearing a black T-shirt with red lettering that said Pervert, leaned down and asked if Paula was a working girl. She said she sure was and flashed her badge. The boys hurried away. She kept an eye on them in the rearview mirror, making sure they really were on foot and not simply parked farther down the street.
When she looked back, the battered tan Pontiac was pulling away from the curb.
Paula hurriedly started the unmarked and followed, raising the windows and switching o
n the air conditioner as she drove.
Lincoln retraced his earlier drive and returned home, parking in exactly the same spot he’d left. He climbed out of the Pontiac and strode up his driveway, moving with the same confident swagger and walking as if he’d consumed nothing alcoholic.
Paula waited a few minutes, then drove slowly past the house. When she glanced up the driveway, she saw there was now a light on in the garage.
She looked at her watch. Almost midnight. Lincoln kept odd hours, as Mrs. Neidler said. Mrs. Neidler, who might well be watching her.
Paula knew what she had to do now. She parked in the shadow of the maple tree again, killed the engine, opened the windows to the cooling night air, and settled in for what she knew might be a long time.
She made it till 3:00 A.M. before deciding she was simply too tired to maintain the stakeout.
When she drove past Lincoln’s driveway, she saw that the light in the garage was still burning. With the car’s windows down, she could hear the faint, rhythmic banging of metal on metal wafting from the garage. Bangedy-bangedy-bang!
It was much the same the next few nights when Paula kept a loose tail on Lincoln. Days were no problem; he seemed to sleep through them. And Paula got a good look at Kim Lincoln as she followed her to the grocery store one afternoon. She got within two feet of her as she shopped. Kim was a slightly overweight woman with drab brown hair and defeated eyes. There were what looked like strawberry birthmarks on her right forearm. No signs of bruises, though. Paula could tell the difference and wondered if Mrs. Neidler could.
Every night Paula watched. Instead of being in bed with his wife, he would simply drive around, or drink beer at Minnie’s, then spend long hours in his garage studio shaping and welding hard metal.
Paula thought it was something, what people did for love, hate, and art.
23
Neva was having her dream again, the one where she was gently swaddled and drifting warmly through a dark void. Floating, turning, turning. . Someone, something, touching her lightly, caressingly. Prenatal memory. ?
I must be waking up, to wonder that. .
And she couldn’t breathe!
She quickly sucked in air through her nose, her sleep-fogged mind whirling before she realized something had been clamped over her mouth. She was lying on her back. Awake!
Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit straight up in bed.
Her head and upper back rose a few inches off the mattress, straining her stomach muscles, and she flopped back down.
She couldn’t move! Not her arms or legs or even her fingers, which were pressed firmly to her thighs!
Cold fear closed tightly around her. She was wrapped in fear.
There was a movement of air across her face, and she realized the window must be open. She was sure she’d closed it, since the night was warm and the air-conditioning was working. Again she tried to move, tried to call out. She could only emit a muffled moan, and her internal silent screams built an unbearable pressure that swelled painfully in her throat and lungs.
A faint noise. The floor creaked softly. Something dark, huge, and spindly moved in the dimness. Neva had read the papers, watched TV news. She knew now what was happening. She knew!
The cold paralysis of fear turned to horror, then panic. Neva’s lithe, powerful body, shrouded tightly in her bedsheets, stiffened and began to vibrate.
The thing in her room moved swiftly around a chair and came toward her. The mattress sagged; bedsprings sang. Neva opened her eyes wide and tried to crane her neck to see but could make out only a large, shadowy form at the foot of the bed. Fear caused her to lose control, and a wet warmth spread rapidly inside the taut sheets. Humiliation touched on her terror.
Then there was weight on her. Heavy, but she could breathe.
Dark eyes stared into hers, reflecting what faint light was in the room. The eyes fixed her in a gaze that oddly mixed compassion with cruelty. Neva and her attacker were alone now, was the unmistakable message in the unblinking stare. Only the two of them in the world. Everything was under complete control, but not hers. Certainly not hers. No one to help or hear or care. She was trapped, held suspended and motionless, while around her time and events continued to flow. No longer did any of it have anything to do with her. For her, everything had been decided. It was now pointless to hope.
Nothing of mercy in those eyes.
Hoarse, ragged breathing.
The real pain began. .
When Paula swerved the unmarked toward the curb to park across the street from the Home Away the next morning, she saw Horn standing outside, motioning with his long arms.
Paula realized he wanted her and Bickerstaff to stay in the car. She eased closer to the curb but left the engine idling as Horn timed the traffic and jogged across the street toward them. Running pretty well for a retired guy, she thought.
Paula lowered the window, letting warm morning air tumble in.
“We’ve got another Spider murder,” Horn said. “Weldon Tower on the East Side, last night. We hurry, we’ll be early on the scene.”
Bickerstaff stretched out an arm to unlock the car’s street-side back door, and Horn slid into the car. Paula checked the outside mirror for traffic, then tromped the accelerator and they were away. “Use the siren?” she asked.
“Too early,” Horn said. “It’ll give me a headache.”
“I’ve already got one,” Bickerstaff said.
“Just drive like hell,” Horn said.
The car swerved and slowed, and then abruptly shot forward around a van that was trying to turn a corner. A ballpoint pen tucked beneath the passenger-side visor slid out and bounced off the dashboard. Bickerstaff grabbed for it but missed, and it fell to the floor. He didn’t try to retrieve it.
“You look rough this morning, Paula,” Horn said from the backseat. He’d been observing her reflection in the rearview mirror and noticed the bags under her eyes.
“Stakeout till late,” she explained, taking a corner too fast and ignoring a pedestrian in a business suit who’d had to skid to a sudden stop in his wing tips. She didn’t let up as they flashed past a line of parked cars. There was a ticking sound, as if they’d nicked somebody’s outside mirror. Look rough, huh? Let’s see if I can get the guy in the backseat to pray.
“Maybe it’ll pay off,” Horn told her, sounding as excited as if he were sitting in that big leather chair of his.
“For God’s sake!” Bickerstaff said. “Slow down, Paula! This isn’t a suicide run!”
Some satisfaction.
The Night Spider had returned. He couldn’t stay away. He wanted to see Thomas Horn, the man the beautiful Nina Count obviously worshipped. She’d predicted it wouldn’t be long before Horn would rid the city of the Night Spider. Inevitably, Nina said, Horn would locate this malicious and dangerous psychotic and stamp the useless life out of him.
Dangerous is the operative word, the Night Spider had felt like telling her. Had even contemplated calling the TV station and actually telling her.
But mightn’t that be precisely what she wanted? Ratings. Television personalities fed on ratings and didn’t seem to care where they came from or how. Nina Count, Nina Cunt, was no exception. Nina, with her long legs and pithy insults. As if she understood him in the slightest.
Everyone was a psychologist these days. Everyone knew from a mere few facts what everyone else was thinking, as if people could be read like books of simple prose. Psychoanalysis for Dummies.
He replayed in his mind part of last night’s Nina Count newscast. A mental case like most serial killers. . sick individual. . pathetic subhuman. . afraid of women. . afraid of her!
Not likely, thought the Night Spider.
He was not like most serial killers.
Nor was he afraid of Thomas Horn.
As Paula turned the corner of Neva Taylor’s block, she had to hit the brakes hard to keep from running up the back of a white Saturn sedan with a dented trunk, which was moving slower th
an the rest of the traffic.
“Idiot!” Bickerstaff said. “Kinda asshole causes accidents.”
“Too bad we’re not Traffic, we could ticket him,” Paula said, forcing herself to be patient.
She saw two police cruisers angled in at the curb in front of the building and steered toward them. There was a uniformed cop keeping people from gathering near the entrance, but a knot of onlookers stood about fifty feet down the sidewalk, talking and pointing and wondering what was happening.
“Looks like the public just caught on to this one,” Bickerstaff said. “Media vultures will be here next. Nina Count.”
Horn paused getting out of the car. “Why Nina Count in particular?” Horn asked.
Bickerstaff looked surprised. “You must not have caught the news last night. She went off on a riff, got all emotional, put you on a pedestal, and then called the Night Spider every insulting thing she could think of but larva.”
“Taunting him,” Horn said.
“And how. And it looks like she’s trying to set up a mano a mano showdown.”
Horn smiled. “That would be nice.”
“Any way we can arrest the dumb bitch?”
“That would be nice,” Horn said again.
“Maybe it’s really possible,” Paula suggested. “She’s interfering in a homicide investigation.”
“And half the TV audience in New York watches and sympathizes with her,” Horn said.
“Try and get her fired,” Bickerstaff said to Paula, “and she’ll get a couple hundred e-mail marriage proposals and you’ll be eating doughnuts in the Bronx.”
“Let’s go meet the victim,” Horn said. “Do our job and let Nina worry about hers.”
“Maybe we can get there before Harry Potter,” Paula said, working the door handle and climbing out of the car. Both men looked at her quizzically but said nothing. Paula could be a puzzle.
The Weldon Tower rose over forty floors above its phony Greek Revival lower facade. It had a glass entrance so darkly tinted it was a mirror, a doorman who looked like a general in the army of some small country more given to ceremony than war, and bulky concrete planters that held a variety of colorful blooms, none of which grew taller than six inches. The wide sidewalk in front of the building was wet; it had been hosed off recently, probably before the more important business upstairs was discovered.