Slaughter

by John Lutz

  It took only a few seconds for Henry to figure out what he should do about the events of the morning—which was nothing. No way was he going to let anyone find out about the rat on the cutting board in the Happy Brat. Henry would tell no one. He might have been born yesterday, but it wasn’t at night.

  He lifted what was left of the rat by its tail and dropped it into a plastic bag, then put everything else on the board down the garbage disposal.

  “I’ll go drop this in the trash, then go wake up Willie,” he said to Fran. “You think we should tell him about the rat, and what the kid said?”

  Fran said, “I don’t see why we should. It would just give him something else to worry about.”

  “That’s for sure,” Henry said.

  53

  New York, the present

  Quinn felt a helplessness about Dora Palm’s death that he hadn’t felt after the other murders. It wasn’t that the severing of body parts and removal of internal organs was that much more vicious and sadistic than the other murders. It was more of a wearing-down process. Quinn knew his patience was getting thin.

  In a case like this, where the investigation seemed to go nowhere, there came a time when the strain reached its breaking point. The killer was aware that he could stretch his good luck only so far, then something he overlooked, or some little something that was supported only by a mass of lies and an alternative reality, would finally give. He would be tripped up, and he knew that moment would someday come, had been getting closer all the time.

  Quinn knew that some part of the killer’s mind yearned for luck that would see him through, and at the same time he wanted something out of his control that would end the suspense. In glory and gunfire, it would end. And no one would ever forget what the Gremlin had done.

  No one would ever forget the Gremlin.

  The public would eventually forget what Quinn had done. Who remembers who arrested Son of Sam? Or Ted Bundy? The age of tech didn’t help as often as it upset balances. Computer mice were clicked. Buttons were pushed. Digital blood was spilled. It all confirmed that death and murder could be reduced to a game. And even if the players were acutely aware that their luck, good or bad, couldn’t run forever, who was afraid of a game?

  Quinn felt about that the same way he knew his quarry felt.

  As if a noose were around his neck, and tightening.

  This game was going to end soon, along with someone’s death. It must end that way. Both men understood that. Someone’s trust would be misplaced, or an informant would whisper in the wrong ear. Or someone’s will would break. Someone would have to die.

  To help make sure he wouldn’t be the one, the NYPD photography director carefully selected enlarged backgrounds and photos.

  The photographs of what was left of Dora Palm looked as if they’d been taken by someone with more than mediocre skill with a camera. Still, they would accomplish their purpose, which was to encourage Minnie Miner to cooperate with the law. Minnie was glad to give Quinn a few minutes to describe any progress on the Gremlin case, and to answer a few questions. Quinn gave her the questions.

  Minnie, who had been in Renz’s office when Quinn arrived, gave Quinn a baleful stare and asked him if Renz had known about the use of her program, Minnie Miner ASAP, to help lay a trap for the Gremlin.

  “Maybe,” Quinn said with an enigmatic smile.

  But it was smile enough for Minnie, which is how Quinn came to find himself on her early call-in TV show the next morning.

  This was one interview, Quinn knew, that would have to go right.

  Not like the few, dream-filled hours’ sleep he had last night worrying about it.

  54

  After the round of applause for Quinn, Minnie let the callers talk about the Gremlin investigation. Quinn sat in one of the big easy chairs angled toward the audience, and Minnie sat in the other.

  She made a big deal out of using Quinn’s clout so they didn’t have to reveal the questioners’ names. For safety’s sake.

  “This man looks friendly,” Quinn said, about the composite rendering of the Gremlin on the big screen centered on the wall behind the easy chairs. Quinn wished he had a laser pointer. “He isn’t. He’s thirty-five years old. He was released from detention in Louisiana recently because some DNA in sperm found near a young girl’s dead body had been contaminated and so couldn’t be matched to his, as the prosecuting attorney had pointed out over and over to a grand jury. It was also confirmed that, while the grand jury had thought him guilty, they had their reasonable doubts about whether he should be indicted and tried in criminal court. Not only would the judicial process be futile, it might be unfair to the defendant.”

  “We could use fewer of those cases of mistaken identity,” Minnie said. She raised a hand palm-out. “I don’t mean we should railroad people, just that we get tough with the real criminals. The violent ones.”

  There was a great deal of applause from the studio audience.

  “We’re trying,” Quinn said. He continued to lie about the sprung prisoner in Louisiana, who didn’t exist except as a ploy created by Quinn. “The Louisiana defendant was released, though the jury made it clear they thought he did the crime. They were also sure that with the compromised DNA evidence, he would probably not be found guilty. In the court of public opinion, he would become a victim.

  “A range of other expert witnesses were called,” Quinn said. “But they couldn’t prove beyond some people’s idea of a reasonable doubt that the defendant was in any way implicated in what could have been an extremely unfriendly separation, like so many others wherein both parties became losers.

  “The prosecutor didn’t know it, but he was a pawn in a small game inside a large game.

  “Here’s the thing,” Quinn said, leaning forward in his chair. “This woman had been raped and killed, and now the law can prove it. And if it weren’t for contaminated DNA, there wouldn’t have been a chance in hell of the suspect escaping punishment. All of you know, or think you know, that he’s beaten the justice system. All of us also know that sometimes the justice system isn’t enough, and that’s because we subscribe to the idea that it’s better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison, or even execute, an innocent man.” Quinn looked directly at the camera. “This refusal to bring an indictment will be appealed.”

  Knowing all the time that an actual appeals court would never act on this matter. It couldn’t, without an actual potential defendant.

  “We did good,” Renz said to Quinn later, in Renz’s office.

  Quinn’s gaze slid over the wall festooned with framed photos of Renz receiving medals, winning awards, posing with celebrities.

  “We only did half a job,” Quinn said.

  “Now don’t go getting all wishy-washy, Quinn. We put a dagger through the heart of whoever it was who’s trying to ruin my political career. You might be able to make it look like we solved your case.”

  “We solved nothing,” Quinn said. “Not for sure, anyway.”

  Renz shrugged his meaty shoulders. “I’m suspicious of that word, sure. What the hell’s for sure in this life or the next?”

  “I’m sure I’m the lead investigator on this case,” Quinn said.

  “In a way.”

  “In a way that might have got my brains shot out.”

  “Prepare to be shocked, Quinn: I don’t care a rat’s ass about who gets shot or who’s guilty.”

  “Speaking generally, what about the hypothetical guy in a jail cell who’s innocent?”

  “He’s just that—hypothetical, not real.”

  “You’re all politics and games,” Quinn said.

  Renz shrugged. “You forgot heart.”

  “No,” Quinn said, “I didn’t.”

  Renz was now occupied in making sure his expensive pen was working well so his signature would be unbroken and impressive. He was way, way beyond inkblots.

  Quinn felt anger rise in him, along with a kind of pressure. He absently reached into a shirt pocke
t and pulled out a cellophane-wrapped cigar that he’d been given earlier as a kind of harmless bribe involving Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

  Harmless bribe?

  Renz raised a pudgy hand. “You can’t smoke cigars in here.”

  “I have before, just like you.”

  “We’ve got rules, regulations.”

  “Laws,” Quinn added. He lit his cigar, drew smoke into his mouth, and exhaled. All with a stare fixed on Renz.

  “Look at yourself,” Renz said. “You’re no different from me. It’s just that you won’t admit to yourself that you’re like the rest of the world. You are definitely not the type who wouldn’t jaywalk even if there wasn’t a car for miles. Just look at you.”

  “We’re dealing with rape, torture, murder.” Quinn said. “Not jaywalking.”

  Renz smiled, his jowls spilling bulbously over his white shirt collar.

  Then he leaned sideways and opened a desk drawer. He withdrew a yellow envelope with its flap fastened by a clasp. “And then there’s this.” He laid the envelope on the desk where Quinn could reach it.

  Quinn worked the clasp and opened the envelope. Its contents were photographs. A dozen eight-by-tens in black and white.

  “These are copies, found hidden in Dora Palm’s kitchen.”

  Quinn looked closer at the photos. They seemed to be of the same scattering of pieces, large and small. “What the hell is this?” he asked Renz.

  “They were found by the crime-scene people when they did their deep search. And don’t give fingerprints a thought.”

  “Wiped?”

  “No, but the killer was wearing latex gloves.”

  Quinn looked more closely at the photos. Whatever had been found torn to pieces in the dead woman’s kitchen didn’t look very familiar. “So what was it, a blender?”

  “Some kind of coffeemaker that uses compression, so it forces the grounds through a filter.” He pointed. “There’s the handle. The way it’s shaped, that glass part, is what makes it look like a filter.”

  “Our gadget guy again,” a voice said.

  It belonged to Nift, the Napoleonic little ME.

  “My secretary let you in?” Renz asked.

  Nift smiled his oddly reptilian smile and stuck out his pigeon chest. “I charmed her.”

  Neither Quinn nor Renz knew how Nift had sneaked or lied his way into the office. But they were sure he’d entered of his own accord. Otherwise Renz’s receptionist /aide would have called and alerted Renz that someone was on their way, in case Renz or a guest wanted to maintain privacy and leave by the rear exit.

  The rear exit was a way out of the building, supposedly secret, that almost everyone knew about. If the news was hot enough, media types would have someone posted to see if anyone of any consequence was sneaking out. Those with something to hide usually fabricated stories authenticated by friends or lovers. Or by the police, who didn’t like to be one-upped in the media.

  If they didn’t remember that secrets known by more than one person were no longer secrets, people who should have heeded the old adage would often get tripped up. The relationships between the criminal world and cop world involved people knowing secrets about people with secrets.

  People forgot that, even though it was no secret.

  PART THREE

  And now I see with eye serene

  The very pulse of the machine

  —WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

  “She Was a Phantom of Delight”

  55

  New York, the present

  Quinn lay in bed listening to Pearl’s deep and regular breathing. They had enjoyed sex last night; he couldn’t imagine not enjoying it with Pearl.

  She sighed and rolled onto her side. One of her ample breasts spilled halfway out of her unsnapped nightgown. The city, an hour before the dawn, lay beyond the brownstone’s bedroom window. Its sounds, made fainter and less definable by distance, seemed to ebb and flow with Pearl’s breathing.

  Quinn’s own breathing did not seem as regular, almost as if he didn’t belong in this room, this city, with this woman. As if he didn’t deserve them. Some kind of celestial accident must have occurred, and, improbable as it seemed, here they were.

  That was how lucky he felt some mornings.

  Pearl let out a long breath and rolled further onto her side, almost resting on her stomach. Her head was turned toward him, and she sensed his attention, opened her eyes, and smiled.

  He propped himself up on one elbow and rested his chin in his hand, still looking at her even though she seemed to have fallen back asleep.

  He felt rising in him again a thought that was becoming stronger and more powerful.

  He wanted a family.

  A certain family.

  Pearl, Jody, and himself.

  They were already much like a family. They lived together and had become that close, that dependent on each other for the various things that kept a family together.

  It wasn’t that family life was foreign to him. He’d had something like it with his former wife, May, and their daughter, Lauri. He still, in a less forceful way, loved them both—especially Lauri. But he knew he had never loved as he loved Pearl.

  He reached over and ran a knuckle gently across her cheek, waking her halfway. Still only partly awake, she turned toward him.

  Quinn whispered to her, “We should be married.”

  A long several seconds passed before she answered. “Is there a law?”

  “Probably none we haven’t broken,” he said.

  “Then we can’t fail,” Pearl said.

  He drew her to him. Kissed her.

  “There is one thing,” she said.

  “Like in all marriages,” he said.

  “I think we should wait until this case is over.”

  “Kind of a distraction,” he said.

  “A distraction,” she said, “would be Renz watching us walk down the aisle while a murderer is still walking his streets.”

  Quinn said, “There you have a point.”

  56

  New York, the present

  Anyone watching the woman walk along First Avenue would have guessed her age at about seventy. Her walk was slow and indecisive, as if she had no destination. Which was probably true. Her back was slightly bowed, and her hair was dull and frizzled, too long in back and sticking out in clumps on the sides. Her complexion was pale and there were sores on the sides of her neck. From the way she thrust out her jaw and held her lips, it was obvious that she needed cosmetic dental work. She must have been in her thirties.

  She kept her chin up as she walked, slowly looking to the right then the left, like a turtle gazing from a shell that was a tattered green coat. The coat, which she had stolen from a used clothing store, was already too warm, but it would keep the rain at bay at least for a while, until it became soaked through.

  She was approaching the doorway of a closed beauty salon. A few months ago she’d been shooed away from that same doorway by the woman who ran the place and was the main beautician. Most likely because the woman had been too much of a smart-ass with her customers, the shop was now permanently closed, its windows soaped. The blank white show windows lined the entrance. They did a slight zigzag to a door that was now locked and featured a red-lettered CLOSED sign.

  The woman moved back and out of sight in the doorway until she was out of the drizzle that would eventually soak her only coat. A low, fierce wind swished in, whirling a mini-tornado of trash out on the sidewalk. A loosely crumpled sheet of newspaper broke away from the other litter, skipped into the doorway, and wrapped itself around the woman’s leg.

  She bent over, peeled away the paper, and tossed it aside.

  The breeze picked it up, and the airborne newspaper page swirled around and again found the woman’s leg. She bent slowly, as if her back hurt, snatched the paper away from her ankle, and was about to crumple it into a tight ball when she noticed something and stopped.

  She smoothed out the crumpled newspaper and read it.r />
  On the front page was news about the so-called Gremlin, who was by now, if you believed all accounts, responsible for over a dozen victims. The captions beneath renderings of the Gremlin were pretty much like others. No one seemed to have gotten a clear look at him. The woman mostly used newspapers to line her clothes so she wouldn’t become chilled in the early morning hours. She didn’t read much, and sometimes wondered if she’d lost the knack.

  Here was good reason to find out, and maybe sharpen her skills.

  She studied the crinkled newspaper and laboriously read the tawdry, horrible accounts of the victim’s death, as theorized by the police.

  But there was something else that caught her attention. For some reason the killer had taken the time and risk of disassembling the latest victim’s expensive and complex coffeemaker.

  When the old young woman turned the newspaper page over, she saw the composite rendered image, as imagined by the police and media. She still couldn’t be positive, but the more she stared at the composite, the more she thought she knew him. Or had known him.

  Something about his eyes.

  Her memory suddenly gave up the man’s identity like a prize. My God! He was a childhood friend! More than a friend.

  Years ago she had helped him throw a man out of a boxcar that was coupled to a moving train.

  She and Jordan Kray had saved each other’s lives.

  Their childhoods were far away from them now. Though the sketch in the newspaper wasn’t all that accurate, the artist had captured something of his subject. There was no doubt that it was Jordan. It was difficult to imagine him as a serial killer, though not so surprising to learn he was probably the prime suspect in a series of murders.

  She recalled how Jordan liked to take things apart and put them back together—if he could. Things that were simply objects, and things that were alive.