Night Victims n-3

by John Lutz

  As the doorman pulled open one of the mirrored glass panels for them, Horn hesitated. “You two go on,” he said to Paula and Bickerstaff. “I’ll stay down here for a while and scan whoever shows up.”

  Bickerstaff knew what he meant. Sometimes when a crime scene was fresh, the perp couldn’t resist becoming one of the spectators. There could be an irresistible temptation for such a sicko to return and see what he had wrought. And maybe he’d do something to attract suspicion or give himself away. Bickerstaff recalled stories about a pyromaniac who was apprehended while having an orgasm at the scene of a fire he’d set. Wasn’t sure if he believed them, but he’d heard them.

  As Bickerstaff and Paula entered the building, Horn moved away and tried to look unlike a cop. He buttoned his suitcoat so the breeze wouldn’t flap it open and make visible his holstered revolver. Usually he wore the gun in a belt holster at the small of his back, but he didn’t like sitting in a wooden booth or riding in a car with it that way. Not only was it uncomfortable, but he didn’t like the remote prospect of the gun firing accidentally and shooting off the end of his spine.

  An ambulance showed up, without lights or siren, braked sharply, then angled backward into the curb. Then came the ME, who parked directly in front of the entrance and placed a medical examiner placard in his windshield, just in case anybody might not know there was a homicide in the building.

  Horn looked away from the ME in case he might be recognized and greeted. Then he sauntered along the sidewalk, farther away from the entrance, wishing he had an attache case like most of the executive types striding past. Maybe he could play the tourist. It occurred to him there might be something that looked like a camera, or maybe even a real camera, in the unmarked.

  As he strolled casually toward the car, he saw that a crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the street. Traffic was slowing down as it passed the building: gawkers on foot and on wheels.

  Might need a uniform out here to move things along.

  Horn was ten feet away from the car when he noticed a white Saturn sedan with a dented trunk easing along the opposite curb. The car Paula had to brake for to avoid hitting. At least its second time around the block. The driver was alone in the Saturn, wearing a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. Though it was a warm morning he had his shirt collar turned up so only a small part of his face was visible.

  But it was when he glanced over at Horn that there was a definite reaction. Dark eyes beneath the cap’s bill widened then focused sharply. Horn actually felt a chill.

  This could mean nothing, he told himself, deliberately not changing pace as he strode toward the car. The Saturn driver might simply be a guy on his way to work who couldn’t tear himself away from breaking news. But there was recognition in those eyes. Fear and hate. So maybe it was someone who recognized Horn, someone he’d helped put away. More than two decades in Horn’s job and you had enemies.

  He should reach the unmarked about the time the Saturn got to the intersection, then he’d get into the car casually, in case he was being observed in a rearview mirror. He’d watch carefully to see if the Saturn turned the corner.

  Don’t rush. . Walk slowly, slowly. . Should be time to catch up and follow. .

  And he was at the unmarked, fumbling for the door handle while he observed the Saturn from the corner of his vision.

  The handle slipped from his grip, bending back a fingernail.

  The car was locked, and Paula had the keys.

  He saw me!

  The Night Spider fought the impulse to tromp on the Saturn’s accelerator and screech away, try to outrun trouble.

  But he knew that wouldn’t help. He might have been seen, and, undeniably, something had passed between him and Horn, whom he’d immediately recognized from seeing all those photos Nina Cunt had featured on her nightly newscast that was almost completely about Horn. And about the Night Spider. What she said about me! What she called me!

  A check in the rearview mirror, without the slightest head movement, revealed Horn trying to open the door of a parked car. No doubt it was an unmarked police car.

  The Saturn was at the intersection. The Night Spider waited a few seconds for a cab to get out of the way, then made a right turn. Just before the street scene behind slid from the mirror, he was sure he saw Horn’s head tilt slightly. Watching to see which way I turn!

  Traffic was heavy in this direction, too. A bedlam of sun-warmed steel that yearned to roar and run. Blaring horns, frustrated shouting. Noise and exhaust fumes. Goddamn city’s a madhouse!

  The Night Spider eased the Saturn into the faster lane, which, in Manhattan, meant traffic moving forward in twenty-foot increments instead of ten.

  Horn has the same kind of traffic! Won’t use the light or siren!

  Another lurch forward. Halfway down the block now.

  Heart hasn’t pounded this hard in years!

  Horn decided to follow on foot. Traffic was slow enough he should be able to catch up with the bogged-down Saturn. At least get close enough to see a license plate number.

  He began running in the direction the Saturn had gone, not making very good time in his expensive black dress shoes, not made for speed. Leather soles. As Horn veered around a woman pushing a wire cart stuffed full of plastic grocery bags, he skidded and almost fell.

  “Excuse you!” the woman shouted after him.

  Horn ignored her and gained speed, lengthening his stride, starting to feel a stitch of pain in his right side. Old retired fucker, thinking you can still sprint. . He kept his gaze fixed on the intersection where the Saturn had turned.

  The Night Spider moved his hand to blast the horn, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to call attention to himself.

  Why the hell aren’t we moving?

  The little Saturn sat still, hemmed in by a delivery truck on the left, a cab behind, and a dust-covered Lincoln ahead. Exhaust fumes from the Lincoln shimmied in the heat then disappeared like ghosts in front of the Saturn’s white hood. The seconds the traffic had been at a dead stop seemed like minutes!

  Don’t panic. Horn’s sitting in the same traffic, blocks behind me.

  The Lincoln’s brake lights went dark, its rear end dropped about six inches, and the big car shot forward.

  Only to come to a halt again less than twenty feet down the street.

  The Night Spider thought about edging around it, but there was no room. Not without going up on the sidewalk, which wouldn’t take him very far, as crowded as they were with people still heading for work. Kill about a dozen, then the car would come up against mass, would be stopped, and they’d be on him.

  Don’t panic. Horn’s sitting in the same tra—

  Or is he?

  The Night Spider hadn’t actually seen Horn get into the car, only stand by the door. He might have noticed how slow the traffic was because of the gawkers near the Weldon Tower. The Nina Cunt was right that the man wasn’t stupid. He might have made his calculations, then decided he had a better chance of catching up with the Saturn on foot.

  Might be running now like an aging football back, shoulders hunched, head down, knocking people aside, making time. . gaining ground!

  Traffic was inching ahead again. The Night Spider veered the car slightly so its right front wheel was only a foot from the curb, then braked to a halt near a NO PARKING sign, obstructing traffic.

  He switched off the engine, slid over the console to the passenger seat, then scrambled out the right-hand door onto the sidewalk.

  “Hey, asshole!” the cabbie yelled behind him. “You gonna leave that there?”

  The Night Spider ignored him and joined the throng of pedestrians striding past the stopped traffic. He sped up, but not too much. Just enough so that he was surrounded by people who’d been ahead of the white Saturn when he’d exited it.

  Then he turned into the entrance to a used-books store.

  Familiar musty smell. Only a few other customers.

  He made his way to an aisle wher
e he was alone. Poetry, Self-Help, Inspirational. With a quick glance around, he removed his flesh-colored latex gloves and stuffed them in a pocket. After counting to ten, he went back outside to the hot, crowded sidewalk.

  No one seemed to be paying the slightest attention to him. Traffic still hadn’t moved enough that the cars he’d left stuck behind the Saturn had caught up. Behind him, from up the street, he heard horns honking but couldn’t be sure if it was because of the obstacle he’d left in the stream of traffic.

  He sensed the tempo and walked faster, feeling safer. Still some danger, though. Wonderful!

  Immersed in the hurried parade of flawed humanity, he blended. He walked toward the intersection at the same speed as other pedestrians. Turn this corner, then another, and he’d be lost in the crowded mad maze of the city.

  Horn was almost winded. He was about to stop and bend over with his hands on his knees, when he saw the knot of people ahead and caught a glimpse of white fender.

  He drew a deep breath and continued at a fast but unsteady walk, feeling his heart hammering as he wondered what Anne would think if he arrived on a gurney at Kincaid Memorial Emergency.

  The white Saturn was parked in a traffic lane.

  People were standing around staring at it, their hands on their hips, as if it might gain a mind of its own and move. Traffic had built up behind the Saturn, but drivers were grudgingly giving enough ground to let blocked cars get around the illegally parked vehicle.

  When Horn reached the car, he paused for a few seconds while he tried to catch his breath, waiting for the ache in his side to let up. Then he flashed his shield and asked everyone to move on and not touch the Saturn. He used his cell phone to call in the plate number.

  When the phone chirped ten minutes later, he was told the car was registered to C. Collins, address not far away on the East Side.

  Horn didn’t even put the phone back in his pocket. He stood there holding it, his chest still heaving as his lungs worked to pull in oxygen. He knew what was coming next.

  And it came. Another ten minutes and the cell phone chirped again.

  The Saturn’s owner, an exotic dancer named Christina Collins, had slept late and hadn’t even realized her car was stolen until the police knocked on her door and gave her the bad news. She was terribly upset, Horn was told. She wondered if she’d ever get her car back.

  Eventually she’d get it back, Horn thought. And he was sure nothing about it would be different. Not even new fingerprints.

  He wondered if he’d ever get his breath back.

  24

  Horn looked in on the late Neva Taylor and found the now-familiar scene of sadism and death.

  Despite the horror on her immobile pale features, it was obvious that Taylor had been a beautiful woman. This was, Horn noted, the first victim with red hair. The killer was continuing what might be a deliberate variation in the types of his victims.

  “Same sad story,” said the assistant ME, a woman with short blond hair and a wattled neck.

  “Was she a natural redhead?” Horn asked.

  She leaned close and examined the roots of Taylor’s splayed red hair. “What you see’s the real thing. And in case you’re wondering, pubic hair isn’t the best way to judge. Sometimes it isn’t the same color as natural hair on the head.”

  “I wasn’t wondering.”

  The woman smiled at him. “No, I guess you weren’t.” In a more businesslike tone, she said, “At least thirty stab wounds in this one, skillfully applied to prolong suffering before death.”

  “Look like the same weapon?”

  The woman nodded. “A long, thin blade, very sharp. Plenty of bleeding, but gradual and absorbed by the sheets and mattress. Not the bloody river you’d ordinarily get with that many wounds.”

  “Must have been a helluva way to die.”

  “There had to be a lot of pain. But then, that’s what the shit-head who’s doing these murders is all about, isn’t it? Inflicting pain? Torture?”

  “That’s exactly what he’s all about.”

  “He’s good at it.”

  Horn walked over and examined the open window. There was the expertly removed crescent of glass dangling on a strip of masking tape. The unlocked brass window latch. No noticeable marks on the sill. No blood on the floor. Nothing to suggest the killer had been in the room, except for the corpse on the bed.

  A camera flash sent miniature lightning through the room. A police photographer documenting everything visual about the crime scene.

  “Smile,” he said, as he approached the victim and squinted through the viewfinder.

  Nobody did, especially not Neva Taylor.

  The woman from the medical examiner’s office moved back to give the photographer room. “It’s like a spider crawled into the building, immobilized her, and slowly drained her of life,” she said to Horn. She must have been reading the papers. “You think this sick asshole really thinks he’s a spider?”

  “He seems to identify with them.”

  “I don’t see how anybody could identify with bugs,” the photographer said, going about his business of launching one flash after another. Zeus with a Minolta.

  “I don’t see how anybody could ask a corpse to smile,” Horn said.

  The photographer grinned at him around the camera. “Yes, you do. You’ve got it harder than I do. You have to look at this kind of stuff without the emotional distance a lens gives you.”

  “A photographer-philosopher,” the ME said, not as if she were kidding but was actually surprised to hear such wisdom from the lips of a guy who shot pictures of crime scenes.

  The photographer jokingly aimed his camera at her and she quickly turned her head.

  “Your sidekicks are up on the roof,” she said, finding herself facing Horn.

  “I figured.”

  “Our kind of job,” the photographer said. “There’s no place to go but up.”

  “Unless I throw you out a window,” Horn told him.

  It was windy on the roof of the Weldon Tower, but it felt pretty good on such a warm day. The city was a vista of beautifully sunlit buildings softened by late morning shadow. It all looked antiseptically clean from here, and not as if anything of horror would be happening behind the thousands of windows.

  “You almost need a jacket up here,” Paula said.

  Horn didn’t think so, but he didn’t disagree with her.

  “We got pretty much what we expected here,” Bickerstaff said. He pointed to an adjacent building about thirty feet away. “Looks like that’s where he came from. We’ll do the usual checking with that building’s doorman and tenants.”

  And probably come up with nothing, Horn thought.

  “There’s marks from a grappling hook of some kind on the base of that antenna,” Bickerstaff continued, “and the roof ‘s surface indicates some activity almost but not directly over the victim’s bedroom window. Looks like our guy came down the outside wall between the rows of windows so he wouldn’t be seen, then swung or walked himself over about five feet to center on Taylor’s window.”

  “No fresh hole in the brickwork,” Paula said, “but we think he wrapped a line around that vent pipe, since it was right where he wanted it.”

  Horn walked over and stooped down to examine the four-inch pipe protruding from the roof. There was a circular mark on it, maybe a slight indentation, that looked fairly new. Paula was probably right in her assessment.

  “How do you figure he detaches the lines when he goes back to the other rooftops?” she asked.

  “Sayles told me there are grappling hooks, even knots, that can be detached by whipping or snapping the rope or cable.”

  “Nifty,” Bickerstaff said. “Must take practice.”

  “And training,” Horn said. “That our guy is an expert climber is about the only thing that narrows our search.”

  “And that he gets in and out so clean,” Paula said. “Even a good B-and-E artist leaves a scuff mark or clue here or there. Other t
han a couple of indistinct footprints, we’ve been given nothing of much substance to work with.”

  “Will Lincoln has the skill set,” Bickerstaff pointed out.

  “And an alibi,” Paula said. “Me. I’ve practically been living with the guy. Last night he knocked down some beers at a bar in Queens, then went into his garage studio and worked until about three in the morning. I saw him pass the lighted window now and then, and I saw him leave the garage and go into his house when he was finished working.”

  “And let me guess,” Horn said. “The ME says the victim died sometime before three o’clock this morning.”

  “That’s it,” Paula said. “Closer to midnight. Will Lincoln didn’t do Neva Taylor.”

  “Unless he found a way to leave his garage and return without you knowing it,” Bickerstaff said.

  “I don’t think it was possible,” Paula said. “Besides, I’m sure he didn’t know I was out there watching him almost all night.”

  “So Altman was playing straight with us when he gave us the list,” Horn said.

  Bickerstaff stuffed his hands deep in his pockets, cool on the roof like Paula. “It’s almost enough to make you trust the Feds.”

  “I think I saw him down in the street,” Horn said.

  Bickerstaff looked at him. “Altman?”

  “The Night Spider.”

  Horn had their attention, judging by the way their jaws dropped.

  He told them about the dark-eyed man in the white Saturn, his pursuit of the car, and the chase’s ultimate unsatisfactory conclusion.

  “Jesus!” Bickerstaff said. “Maybe there’ll be prints in the car.”

  “I’d be surprised if he didn’t wear gloves to steal cars the way he does for his ritual killings.”

  “Clean,” Paula said. “He operates so damned clean.”

  “That’s the thing about him,” Horn said, admiring Paula’s knack for homing in on what was pertinent. And for not shooting off her mouth, holding her thoughts till they were ripe. She was impressing him more and more.