In for the Kill

by John Lutz

  "Did that," Renz said. "No matches. No mention. The note's genuine."

  "The bastard's toying with us," Pearl said.

  "So the profiler tells me," Renz said.

  "Nothing unusual in that," Qunn said. Like many cops who'd been on the job a long time, he had little faith in profilers; they could easily head an investigation off in the wrong direction. "It's all part of what drives sickos like the Butcher. He wants to engage in a game and prove he's smarter than we are. He wants this note released to the media."

  "That'd be your call," Renz said. "Why I hired you. And of course, you take the heat if it turns out to be a big mistake."

  Quinn shifted a few inches in his chair so the sun wasn't in his eyes. "You asked what the note means, and I don't know the answer. But apparently it was written after Marilyn Nelson's death, and it means something. We have to figure it out. I say release it to the media. Call Cindy Sellers at City Beat, give the little rag a scoop."

  "How will that help us?" Renz asked.

  "We might need a favor from her someday."

  "No, I meant what good will it do to release the note to the media?"

  "If we don't figure out what the killer's trying to tell us, maybe somebody else will."

  "You think he wants this figured out."

  "Yes, but only when it's too late. In fact, if we don't figure it out, he'll tell us. But not in time to have stopped him from taking his next victim."

  "Maybe the key is colors," Fedderman said. "Red and blue."

  "And gold," Pearl added.

  The three men looked at her.

  "'Fools rush in.' Fool's gold. The gold rush."

  "Somebody whose last name is, or starts with, the word gold," Fedderman suggested.

  "If the killer's still focusing on his victims' initials," Quinn said.

  "There's that question," Pearl said, "Maybe he's spelling out something else. I mean, not necessarily a person's name."

  "It better be the word apprehended," Renz said, looking at each of them in turn. "And soon."

  Quinn considered telling him to stop playing the hard-ass, then he decided to let it pass. It was part of Renz's persona. He needed to flex his bureaucratic muscles now and then to remind himself they were still there. The important thing wasn't that Quinn knew what made Renz tick; it was that Renz knew that he knew.

  Pearl, however, looked as if she were about to say something. He could tell by her eyes, by the way she was tensing her lips.

  "We're on it, Harley," Quinn assured Renz, figuring Pearl would be less likely to spout off to a superior who was on a first-name basis, who was one of them rather than simply an authority figure. Before she could cut into the conversation, he added, "We'll go to the office, run computer searches on the colors mentioned in the note. If you don't mind, I'll take it and the envelope with me so we can put it in the file."

  "That's the place for the original," Renz said, handing the items to Quinn. "We've got copies."

  As the three detectives filed from the office, Renz motioned for Quinn to stay behind and close the door.

  "Are you staying on those two?" Renz asked.

  "They don't need it, Harley. They're solid cops. And remember, you chose them just like you chose me."

  "But I had some reservations."

  "About who?"

  "You and Pearl together, if you know what I mean."

  Quinn knew. "It isn't any of your business, but that relationship's been over for a long time."

  "Then why do you look at her the way you do?"

  "Start worrying, Harley, if she looks back at me that way."

  Renz smiled. "I haven't noticed that. She looks terrific in that outfit. If boobs were brains she'd be a genius."

  "How come you have to keep trying to irritate people?" Quinn asked, pushing his anger away.

  "I dunno. How come the Butcher keeps killing and chopping up women?"

  "Maybe it's the same answer," Quinn told him.

  "Hey, screw you!" Renz said, as Quinn was leaving.

  Quinn couldn't help smiling. It wasn't easy getting over on Renz. He'd have to tell Pearl about it.

  As it turned out, the decision to release the note to the media wasn't relevant. It was featured on the front page of the New York Post. The killer had sent copies to all the New York papers and TV news desks.

  When Renz released the information that the tile in Marilyn Nelson's apartment was indeed blue, the media was on the story even hotter. Red blood on blue tiles. Cindy Sellers wrote it straight, but a columnist in City Beat speculated that if the bathtub and commode were white, there might be a patriotic slant to the killings.

  At the office, Pearl continued to work the computer, double-checking Renz to make sure no one had mentioned the color of Marilyn Nelson's bathroom tiles before the note arrived.

  She found no mention. The only way the author of the note could have known the colors was if he'd been in Marilyn's bathroom, unless someone in the NYPD had leaked the information to him. That last was one Pearl didn't want to think about.

  Quinn was at his desk rereading the murder files, while Fedderman was on line with his own computer, using the Internet to tie everything possible to the colors red, blue, and gold.

  Beneath the hum of the air conditioning, the only sounds were Quinn shuffling pages, and the rattling of keyboards. Pearl raised her head for a moment and looked around, thinking they were all probably doing precisely what the killer intended.

  She considered returning to the victim's apartment again. Maybe she'd missed something unobtrusive, or too obvious. Or maybe Jeb Jones would turn up again.

  Not that he had a reason, she thought.

  Or he might. She might be the reason.

  The possibility made her blood rush. It also made her realize she wasn't thinking straight or professionally. This was the kind of thing that had gotten her in trouble throughout her career. It was a bad idea to return to the Marilyn Nelson apartment on the unlikely premise that Jeb might be there.

  Not only am I flirting with disaster, but I'm making everything all too complicated.

  She put returning to Marilyn's apartment out of her mind.

  Easier simply to phone the Waverton.

  28

  Anna Bragg emerged from the dimness of the subway stop's narrow concrete stairwell into slanted, early evening sunlight. A compact, shapely brunette wearing a tight skirt and blazer, she drew admiring male glances as she strode along the sidewalk in her four-inch heels toward her apartment. Anna would have preferred wearing joggers back and forth to work like most of the other women at Courtney Publishing, but she was conscious of her height deficiency and thought it might be affecting her prospects for advancement. By chance or design, most of the other women at Courtney were built like, and in fact resembled, tall twelve-year-old boys.

  Anna had decided that for health reasons as well as how she wanted to appear, it was a bad idea to diet relentlessly and exercise away your hips and boobs. Anyone looking at her would have applauded the decision.

  Pedestrian traffic piled up at the corner, and Anna waited with everyone else for the light to change. She had a clear complexion, large brown eyes, and a way of holding her head always cocked to the side as if she were straining to hear a slight, distant sound.

  Usually she was thinking. Right now she was considering "Greenlander's meal on the wing" as a crossword clue for "puffin." Anna's job at Courtney was to edit their monthly crossword puzzle magazine. While the puzzle writers submitted clues and answers together, it was the clues that most often needed editing. Some were too vague, some too suggestive, some simply irrelevant or downright dull. The clue for "puffin" was one that definitely had problems. It might be too obscure. There were subscribers who didn't even know what puffins were, much less that Greenlanders ate them.

  The traffic light changed, and Anna stepped off the curb and moved with the mass of pedestrians across the street. A van making a right turn honked at her, though the vehicle wasn't nearly clo
se enough to hit her. The guy driving it might have been leaning on the horn as a way to compliment her. Anna preferred to think of it that way rather than contemplate what else might have been on his mind.

  Something, maybe a small pebble, worked its way between the sole of her shoe and her right foot. Anna moved to the side and stopped walking, then raised her leg bent at the knee so she could work a finger beneath her foot and remove whatever was bothering her. The pose she had to strike showed a lot of thigh and brought a lot of male looks, and an especially long look from a handsome, dark-haired man in a blue sport coat and gray slacks. He was average-size--not too tall for Anna--and his regular features almost but not quite formed a smile as he glanced at her and walked on.

  It occurred to her that he looked somewhat familiar. Had she seen him around the office? Maybe he worked in her building.

  On the other hand, he had the kind of regular, everyman features that were probably often mistaken for someone else's. He was like a catalog model--handsome, but you tended to remember the outfit.

  She'd forgotten about the man by the time she turned a corner and walked two more blocks to her building.

  Like the buildings on either side, it was a redbrick, three-story walkup in the middle of the block. Anna took the four worn marble steps to its entry and pushed into the vestibule. The familiar mingled scents of stale urine, disinfectant, and cooking spices told her she was home. White was showing in the fleur-de-lis cutout in her brass mailbox. She fished her key ring from her purse, opened the box, and drew out two pieces of mail.

  It didn't take her long to glance at them and decide she'd throw them in the trash when she got upstairs. She hadn't won the lottery, or gotten a job offer, marriage proposal, or free vacation. She keyed the mailbox locked and told herself she also hadn't received an eviction notice or jury summons.

  Cheer up, Anna.

  She used another key to open the security door from the vestibule to the rest of the building's interior.

  Her legs were twenty-three years old. Even in high heels, she barely noticed climbing the three flights of creaking wooden stairs to her corner unit apartment.

  Twenty-three. For all she cared, it might as well have been a ten-story walkup.

  The Butcher was pleased when he entered the vestibule of the attractive brunette's building. He had no trouble finding the mailbox he'd watched her open as he observed her through the long window in the street door. And just in case he couldn't trust his eyes, the tarnished brass box appeared to be one of the empty ones--only darkness beyond the carved fleur-de-lis. Second row end, he was sure, apartment 3-B.

  The slotted card above the mailbox read A. Bragg. She was cautious, like most single women in New York, and simply used her first initial. He smiled. He'd seen what office she'd emerged from and followed her down in the elevator and then to the subway and home. While he only knew her first initial and last name, he also knew where she worked and where she lived.

  He was also glad to see that, while the building had a sturdy security door between the vestibule and the first floor and stairwell, the intercom looked newer than the mailboxes, and workable.

  He was whistling when he left the vestibule and took the marble steps down to the sidewalk, betting that, like most businesses, Courtney Publishing had a website.

  Only fifteen minutes after sitting down at his computer, his search engine located Courtneypub.biz.

  He clicked on Divisions on the home page and saw that Courtney published half a dozen magazines as well as a line of paperback romance novels. Back to the home page, where he clicked on Personnel.

  Courtney's employees were arranged alphabetically. Bragg, Anna was third down.

  Wonderful. This was much easier than constructing a puzzle note and then finding a suitable victim. Better to select the victim then construct the corresponding puzzle.

  He clicked on her name and found that she was the editor of CrossWinds, a monthly magazine of crossword puzzles.

  Small world, puzzles.

  Fate.

  Destiny. His and hers.

  Anna Bragg. What might he do with that name? A literary allusion. Sports? Politics? Show business? He knew that while Quinn looked like a kind of handsome thug, he in fact was rather cultured and enjoyed the theater, reading, and dining out. The Butcher had followed him more than once to Barnes & Noble, and had sat directly behind Quinn one night in the theater and enjoyed a performance of an Edward Albee play, one of the playwright's more enigmatic endeavors.

  After the play he'd studied Quinn's rugged face briefly in a lobby mirror. Quinn did seem to have understood the play.

  The killer concentrated again on Courtneypub.biz on the screen of his laptop.

  There was Anna's photo alongside her brief profile. She was smiling, head tilted to the side, looking beautiful. Her company profile didn't reveal her age, but she was younger than he might have wished. She'd graduated from Sweetbriar with a journalism degree, been with Courtney Publishing two years, and loved her work because she loved all kinds of puzzles. Her ambition was to set the world on fire, but not so the flames couldn't be controlled. Her likes were red convertibles and gin martinis with olives. Dislikes were dogs that bit and people who deliberately insulted.

  The Butcher noted that the profile didn't list her fears.

  29

  Bocanne, Florida, 1980

  Alone and lost and lonely.

  That was how Sherman felt.

  Sam had been gone for three days, and Sherman hadn't been the same. He didn't go fishing by himself, and of course there was nothing to read now that the swamp had claimed Sam's Civil War books. He tried to watch television, but reception wasn't good, far as they were from town, and he didn't want to see quiz shows and soap operas anyway. His days were hot and boring, and he felt so strange, like something was about to happen, like he was on a speeding train and another one was on the same track, headed toward him so they were bound to meet.

  They would meet at night sometimes, in his dreams, and he'd spring awake wondering if he'd screamed out loud and stirred his mother from sleep.

  The worst part was, he was afraid and wasn't sure why.

  Evenings TV reception was better, and whenever they were on, Mom would let him watch The Rockford Files or Magnum, P.I., but none of it seemed as real to Sherman as the Battle of Gettysburg. He knew none of it was that real. There was a special on PBS once about the Civil War, but soon as she noticed what he was watching, Sherman's mother made him switch channels and watch some quiz show. He knew all the answers the contestants missed, but he kept quiet so as not to rile his mother.

  Sherman thought about what she'd said the night they gave Sam to the swamp: "Bad don't figure into it, Sherman. It's about survival."

  Sherman guessed she was right. A person first of all had to do everything possible just to survive. But it seemed to him they'd been doing that okay with Sam alive.

  If there were only somebody he could talk to about how he felt inside, somebody like Sam, it would sure make things easier. He knew he couldn't talk to his mother. He'd considered it a few times, but then he'd see her standing with her fists on her hips, looking at him in a funny way that scared him. Other times he'd think that maybe if they talked about things, whatever was in her eyes that was scaring him would go away.

  Or maybe it would get more scary.

  He'd seen that look in her eyes before and knew what it might mean, though he didn't want to admit it to himself.

  On the fifth night after Sam was gone, when Sherman was undressing for bed, he saw that he'd soiled his underwear. This was about the only situation that prompted Sherman to voluntarily change Jockey shorts, so he removed the shorts he was wearing and tossed them in a corner with some dirty socks, then went to his dresser for clean underwear to sleep in and wear tomorrow.

  But he was out of underwear. His mother had fallen behind in the wash, and there were only clean socks and T-shirts. Sherman remembered stuffing some not-too-soiled underpants into h
is closet with some other dirty clothes, and he decided to retrieve them.

  Rumpled and dirty clothes were piled two feet high on the closet floor, and the Jockey shorts were buried somewhere in there. Sherman got down on his hands and knees and began digging.

  His fingertips slid over a surface unexpectedly smooth. He scooted deeper into the closet and pushed away some of the rumpled clothing and saw something glistening and black. More digging through the clothes revealed black plastic trash bags and his dad's power saw.

  This was odd. Other than trash, there was only one use Sherman knew of for the bags. And he was the one who was always sent to the toolshed to get the saw.

  He drew in his breath, and his heart broke like fragile glass as meaning came to him.

  Sam...the look in his mother's eyes. She knew Sherman understood what she was doing--at least most of it--and after Sam died he'd questioned her about it as he never had before. She knew Sam had been different, had changed things forever, and Sherman would continue to question her. Sherman was getting older, getting ideas of his own.

  Dangerous ideas.

  After his initial attempt to escape into the swamp, his mother had caught him, whapped him over and over with the bamboo rod so hard he could still feel it, and made him swear an oath to obey her without question.

  He'd sworn the oath when the pain was at its worst, meaning it at the time with all his heart.

  He knew he had to break that oath now.

  It was about survival.

  Forgetting about underwear, he quickly struggled into his jeans and moccasins, a dirty T-shirt from the closet floor.

  It was well past sundown, plenty dark outside. This time he wouldn't wait until the middle of the night when it was more likely his mother was asleep. She was in the living room watching a quiz show now--she loved quiz shows because just like him she usually knew the answers ahead of time--and she wouldn't want to leave even to check on him. And concentrating as she was on the TV, she wouldn't hear Sherman remove the screen and climb outside.