Twist

by John Lutz

  She couldn’t see why not, if he wanted her to be an Eva. “Amazing that you knew that,” she said.

  “Eva and Brad pledge never to lie or even exaggerate to each other, ever again, under penalty of life without each other.”

  The new Eva thought about that. “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Brad is my actual given, birth certificate name,” he lied.

  “And mine is Evelyn.” True. Just in case.

  Wonderful! he thought. Fate again.

  He touched his fingertips to the bare back of her hand, and she felt something pass between them that surprised her.

  “Now we’ve been properly introduced to each other by each other,” he said. “You know what that means?”

  “Yeah.” She sounded slightly breathless. “That we want our experimental relationship to work.” As she spoke, she felt a pang of doubt. “We need to go slowly,” she said.

  “Agreed. You know where Mon Gourmet Ami is?”

  “Yes. On Second Avenue. One of the best French restaurants in New York.”

  “Not too good for us,” he said. “Let’s meet there tomorrow at eight o’clock. I’ll make the reservation under Brad. We’re not yet ready for last names, and there’s no need to rush.”

  Eva had been stood up before and knew how it felt. “You’re sure about this?”

  “No. We could eat Italian.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’ll be there, Eva. Please don’t doubt me. Not already.”

  She reached over and squeezed his wrist. “I don’t,” she said.

  But she did.

  After Eva (as they both thought of her now) left the coffeehouse, the killer waited a minute or two and then followed. He’d watched which way she turned, and it didn’t take long to spot her up ahead, making her way along the crowded sidewalk.

  He hung back, easily tailing her to her apartment. It was on the West Side, not far from Columbus Circle.

  Traffic was heavy as they negotiated crossing the roundabout, and he imagined that he smelled her perfume as he stayed well out of sight behind her. He was being extra careful, but he needn’t have been. She didn’t once glance back. A sign of a trusting soul, he thought.

  She entered a redbrick and stone six-story apartment building, perhaps a converted great mansion of one of the long-ago very rich. He waited, counting slowly to fifty, and then cautiously entered the lobby. Eva either lived on a lower floor, or had safely gone up in the elevator. The floor indicator above the elevator door suggested she’d gotten in and was rising. He watched the tremulous brass arrow to see where the elevator might stop.

  On the number three.

  And it stayed there.

  The killer didn’t follow her up. It was too soon for that. You didn’t long for something so strongly that you ache, and then appease your hunger with huge immediate bites. The experience was to be savored. He walked to the bank of painted-over mailboxes just inside the street door.

  Above the mail slot for 3-B was a metal framed window holding a card identifying the box as belonging to one E. Donavon. Nothing else was close. The killer did make a mental note that three of the six apartments on the third floor held names revealing only first initials before surnames. Probably they belonged to single women, not revealing their gender. It was a simple, much used precaution. Only one first initial was E.

  Everything was falling neatly into place. That was because it was meant to happen.

  The killer imagined: Upstairs, Eva would be standing in front of her refrigerator, drinking a canned soda or bottled water. Or maybe she was undressing for a cooling shower. Or was slumped on her sofa watching television. Mind turned off. Guard down. Vulnerable.

  The way the killer figured it, this kind of building, these units, were potential hunting grounds. The lairs of his prey.

  The killer knew that he and Eva were really not that much alike. In fact, in one important way, they were complete opposites.

  He was on this earth to take. She was here to be taken.

  They did have at least one thing in common: they enjoyed drawing out the pleasures of a burgeoning relationship. Beyond the bright smiles and forced clever patter, deep in the recesses of their brains, where instinct ruled, they both knew their respective roles.

  They weren’t thinking about their relationship in the same way, though their hearts knew its true purpose.

  The details were immaterial. Eva would become fuel for the fire growing in the killer’s soul. The obsession to possess and then kill, which he’d controlled and ridden as if it were a wild but manageable steed, was becoming stronger within him, almost as if there were no reins.

  When he felt that way, the killer began to watch, to search, to assess. He couldn’t get to the woman he yearned so much to destroy. She was in an invulnerable fortress, guarded by a small army behind stone and iron.

  Proxies would have to serve his purpose.

  Evelyn “Eva” Donavon fit the mold well enough. He would play her, use her, and then take her soul.

  But only to sate himself before taking his most desired objective that was vulnerable. A woman who didn’t fit the mold. Whose obvious death at the hands of the Lady Liberty Killer would throw Quinn’s investigation into a whirlwind of pure speculation and scant actual knowledge.

  They would know then that he wasn’t the usual serial killer, that like them he had read the literature, familiarized himself with the canon. He’d know what they were thinking almost before they did. Some of it would be right, and some wrong. They would try to outguess him, comprehending only gradually that he was better equipped to outmaneuver an opponent.

  Quinn and his detectives sometimes made the killer smile. When it came to the game they were playing, he knew the same rules they did, the same supposed tendencies. When his mind began to bleed, and to need, he would kill for a purpose as well as to assuage his need.

  His was an appetite with claws and fangs. He knew that if he ignored it, it would begin to feed on itself and everything around it.

  And everything included its host.

  But there was no reason to ignore it.

  Just as there was no reason for him not to take and use, and make his own, one of Quinn’s women.

  The killer was having fun.

  The game had barely begun.

  PART TWO

  To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms

  Have souls: there’s soul in everything that squirms.

  —WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY, The Menagerie

  30

  “What I’d like to do,” Jody said, “is help.”

  They were at the table in the brownstone’s spacious dining room, with its wainscoting, high ceiling, and original gas and electric brass chandelier. It was the sort of dining room where servants might be dispensing exotic dishes on bone china. They were eating takeout pizza off paper plates.

  “You mean help people, as opposed to animals and insects?” Quinn asked.

  “The law doesn’t make the distinction,” Jody said, and took a huge bite of cheese-dripping pizza.

  “Between people, animals, and insects?” Quinn asked.

  “Yep. The cute little kit fox and the snail darter can both halt huge construction and destruction projects.”

  “I was thinking more of how people figured into the equation,” Quinn said.

  Pearl, seated directly across from Jody, had heard about enough of their verbal give and take. She swallowed her last bite of pizza and washed it down with Diet Pepsi. “What are you trying to say, Jody?”

  “I’m thinking of putting aside the rats’ rights-as-legal-squatters case, for the time being.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can be of more help with the Lady Liberty Killer case.”

  Quinn said nothing.

  Pearl said, “Is this because of Carlie?”

  “Well, she is my sister.”

  “In a limited kind of way,” Quinn said.

  “She’s part of the family.”

 
Quinn smiled, shrugged. “Yeah. She is.”

  There was a lot Pearl wanted to say, but she limited herself to, “You are a trained attorney, Jody. Not a trained detective.”

  “I did all right on the last case, which was my first.”

  “Can’t argue against that,” Quinn said, “though I’d like to.”

  “Are you sure your law firm approves of this?” Pearl asked Jody.

  “I’ve already cleared it with Prather and Pierce. They want to expand their criminal defense department, and they have me in mind as the principal attorney. Eventually.” She gave them her naïve but indomitable crooked grin. “So can I help more?”

  Quinn studied pizza crust crumbs.

  “Yeah, you can,” Pearl said.

  Quinn repeated her words. Pearl glared at him, knowing he’d let her answer Jody first. Knowing, if anything happened to, or because of, Jody, how the blame would be shared. Pearl knew how he hated bureaucracies, and sometimes she thought he’d survived in one too long.

  Quinn dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin, then glanced at his watch.

  “Yankees game on TV?” Jody asked.

  “Even better,” Quinn said. “Helen the profiler’s going to be on local television. The Minnie Miner ASAP show. Starts in five minutes.”

  “We should hear what she says,” Jody said.

  “And what she doesn’t say.”

  They cooperated with each other without being told. Quinn put the grated cheese and other condiments in the refrigerator. Pearl gathered paper plates, wadded napkins, and plastic utensils and dumped them in the trash. Jody ran what was left of the pizza through the garbage disposal, then used a damp dishcloth to wipe down the table. Quinn enjoyed watching Jody’s face while they all worked. Obviously she enjoyed this ballet of family cooperation.

  Together they went into the living room, where Quinn opened wooden panels to reveal the flat-screen TV. He sat on the sofa next to Pearl. Jody curled up in the chair that had customarily been his before she’d arrived.

  On the TV, Helen appeared seated calmly, her long legs crossed in a chair angled to face three quarters of an identical chair. In that chair, beaming into the camera, sat Minnie Miner. Helen was casually dressed in Levi’s and a gray pullover. Minnie Miner was festooned with bracelets and necklaces and rings, and was about half the size of Helen. She looked, in fact, like a pretty, grinning doll that Helen had brought onto the set.

  Until she began to talk. Then there was little doubt as to who was the ventriloquist.

  “So no progress has been made in the Lady Liberty Killer murders,” Minnie said.

  Helen said, “I wouldn’t—”

  “And another victim was found only days ago, horribly mutilated. Tortured by this elusive madman that the police can’t figure out. Would it be safe to say that he has this city totally horrified?”

  “Well, he is killing—”

  “And it could be any one of us. You’re a profiler, Helen. What is there in this killer’s profile that makes him so badly want to destroy women?”

  “My belief is that it’s his mother. She—”

  “Why the woman? Isn’t it the father who usually molests a child?”

  “Well, we’re not talking about—”

  “But it goes back to his childhood.”

  “We can’t know that for certain, but almost always—”

  “As the twig is bent,” Minnie said.

  “More like as the seed is—”

  “Who is the mother? For that matter, who’s the father?”

  “We don’t know. We can only—”

  “And what is it that makes this killer especially terrifying, that reaches into the dark corners of every woman’s soul and creates fear and sleepless nights?”

  “I wouldn’t say no one is sleeping,” Helen said. “But there’s no denying—”

  “That he’s a monster,” Minnie finished.

  “We agree,” Helen said quickly, finally catching on that she was going to have to jump right in, elbows flailing, if she wanted to be heard.

  “Our thanks to Helen,” Minnie said, swiveling in her chair to face away from Helen. “A real profiler with some real information about the Lady Liberty Killer.”

  Her expression went from tragic and puzzled to deeply concerned and knowing, somehow without any of her features seeming to move. “Speaking of killers, a killer tornado slashed through the small town of—”

  Quinn pressed buttons on the remote and the Yankees game appeared. There was no score.

  “That was informative,” Pearl said.

  “Had to watch it,” Quinn said.

  “Why?” Jody asked.

  “Because, almost surely, somebody else was watching.”

  When Carlie left Bold Designs to buy lunch from a street vendor, she couldn’t help but notice Jody lurking nearby. Carlie bought a knish and bottled water and walked directly toward where Jody was standing in the doorway of a luggage shop across the street.

  She and Jody exchanged smiles.

  “If you’re trying to be unnoticeable,” Carlie said, “you could be doing a better job. Unless you’re really interested in buying luggage.”

  “Don’t need luggage,” Jody said. “Also don’t care if the killer spots me, if he happens to be stalking you. The object is to keep you alive.”

  “But we might be doubling the desirability of the target.”

  “How so?”

  “If it’s the killer’s intention to send a message to Quinn, isn’t he just as likely to try for you?”

  “I’m as different as possible from his type,” Jody said. “A scrawny redhead with freckles and corkscrew hair. Also, I’m an attorney. Everybody says they’d like to kill all the lawyers, but nobody ever actually does it, even to one. They might need to sue someone someday.”

  “Well, that sounds logical.”

  “It does when you consider that I’m not new to the detective business. I’ve been taught by experts. And I carry this.” She raised her tunic a few inches to reveal a belt holster holding a compact handgun.

  “Is that legal?” Carlie asked, slightly unsettled by the sight of the gun.

  “It’s legal and I’m licensed,” Jody said. “And I’ve spent time learning how to use it. And when not to use it.”

  “Okay,” Carlie said, unscrewing the cap of her water bottle. “I feel safer with you here. Really.” She peeled the paper covering the cardboard container holding the knish. “I’d have gotten you something, but I wasn’t sure what you’d want,” she told Jody.

  “I’ve already eaten,” Jody said.

  “Then let’s sit down.”

  Carlie moved toward a small concrete ledge where several other people were perched eating food from the kiosk. The ledge was hard and not the cleanest. There was plenty of room for two more. Carlie and Jody sat at the far end, where they wouldn’t be overheard.

  Carlie offered her water bottle to Jody, but Jody shook her head no. Carlie took a swig, then started on her knish. Jody wondered how she could eat anything that was flavored by the low-lying exhaust fumes from the nearby traffic.

  After chewing silently, Carlie swallowed some water and put bottle and knish on a white paper napkin that had come with her lunch order. She drew a sheet of paper from her purse.

  “I thought you’d be interested in this new ‘professional woman’ line that the company I’m designing for is bringing out next month,” she said. She deftly unfolded the glossy paper with one hand and gave it to Jody. “High style and very severe. For every woman from attorney to dominatrix.”

  “Pretty much the same thing,” Jody said. She made sure the paper was right side up and stared at it. “Keep an eye out for the killer while I study these,” she said almost absently.

  In fact, that was exactly what Carlie was doing.

  31

  The killer bought a cheap throwaway cell phone from a chain drug store in Williamsburg. He thought it would be safe enough, especially if he thoroughly destroyed it im
mediately after his call.

  He would call from a relatively quiet place in Times Square (or at least a place where the din was manageable), and keep his conversation brief.

  Not too brief, though. He’d call just past the top of the hour, when Minnie Miner ASAP usually took listener calls. Minnie enjoyed arguing with or commenting on her show’s callers. The Lady Liberty Killer smiled, thinking Minnie didn’t know it, but she was in for a treat. ASAP.

  “For God’s sake, put him on!” Minnie said.

  Her producer, Hal Divet, wasn’t so sure. He was an overweight, florid man, given to wearing sweaters in the cool studio even during the summer. “We don’t want to set off a bunch of numb nuts calling in for nothing other than to get a few minutes in the spotlight.”

  Minnie, seated like an angry patriot in the middle of her red, white, and blue set, was fuming. “Maybe you didn’t notice, Hal, but we already have that!”

  “Not like this guy,” Hal said. He seemed actually frightened. “I mean, there’s something about this caller. You don’t want him to get to know you, or even think he does.”

  “If our viewers feel the same way, fine. If he’s genuine, what can the competition in our time slot do? I want them to be the ones caught sitting with their thumbs up their asses! Not us!”

  Hal sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Min.”

  “All the goddamn lines are lit up. So where is he?”

  “Line four,” Hal said.

  The director gave his cue. “. . . two, one”, and the commercial was over and they were live on TV again. Well, that was if you didn’t count a seven-second delay. In case somebody said something truly politically incorrect.

  Minnie presented her good side to the camera, leaned in close to the mike, and pressed the glowing white four button.

  Being Minnie, she got right to the point:

  “Is this really the Lady Liberty Killer I’m talking to, or just another imposter looking for temporary fame?” She glanced at the camera, smiling slightly, showing her audience that at this point they should be skeptical.