by John Lutz
“Which would be about the time Aimes died,” Beam said.
“Maybe Kolinksy just saw one of the uniforms we’ve got patrolling around here,” Looper said.
“I checked,” Nell said. “None of them were on the block at the time, and nobody was wearing a jacket.”
“Maybe the guy Kolinsky saw wasn’t a cop,” Looper said. “A delivery man, maybe.”
“Lots of maybes about this one,” Beam said.
“But at least we’ve got a witness who saw and heard something,” Nell said.
“There is that,” Beam said. “Even if we don’t understand it.”
“Yet,” Nell said, under her breath.
66
An hour later, in da Vinci’s office, Kolinsky’s name came up again.
Beam, Nell, and Looper were there, along with Helen. It seemed to Beam that the profiler was always in da Vinci’s office these days. He appeared to be relying more and more on her.
“Somebody must have seen you three talking to Kolinsky in the street and found out where he lived,” da Vinci said. “The man doesn’t mind talking to the press anymore than to the police. I got a call a few minutes ago from the Post, wanting to verify that we now suspect the Justice Killer is a cop.” He looked at his three detectives. “You should have conducted that interview indoors.”
“They still would have gotten to him,” Beam said, protecting Nell. “And when he isn’t playing chess, Kolinsky likes to talk.”
“The media’s gonna be in swarm mode,” da Vinci said. “Hell of a story, a cop who’s also the Justice Killer.” He looked over at Helen, who was seated slightly sideways in a chair and resting her chin on her fist.
“The odds are still against him being a cop,” she said.
“This is a killer who figures screw the odds,” da Vinci said. “Maybe one that’s smarter than the cops trying to chase him down.”
“That’s what he wants you to think,” said the imperturbable Helen. “He’s trying to pressure you.”
“He’s doing it.”
Beam thought da Vinci did look pressured. His hair was mussed, his eyes hollowed, and there was a slight razor cut on his chin, as if his hand had trembled while he was shaving this morning.
“And he feels pressured,” Helen said. “From within and without. At a certain point, he’ll want to be caught as badly as you want to catch him. Maybe more so.”
“Psychology bullshit,” da Vinci said.
Beam thought he was probably right. But Helen might be right about one thing: “There’s no guarantee the killer’s a real cop,” he said.
“Since when’s the media need a guarantee?” da Vinci asked.
“He’s got a point,” Helen said. “There’ll be more pressure applied by the press and pols and NYPD brass to stop the killings. Might as well be ready for it. And we’ll probably hear again from Adelaide Starr.”
“Unless she’s too busy writing her book,” da Vinci said.
“She’s probably got sample chapters by now,” Helen said. “Somewhere in them she’ll point out that the Justice Killer’s achieving his goal. Since the deaths of Cold Cat and Aimes, potential killers will know it won’t be only the courts weighing their guilt or innocence—or their punishment.”
“They already know it,” da Vinci said. “The assholes saying the city’s safer are right. Latest violent crime statistics, the murder rates, everything’s in free fall.” Jabbing a finger at stat sheets on his desk that he’d ordinarily be proud of, he looked mad enough that Beam thought he might actually spit. “If it weren’t for the Justice Killer, we’d hardly have any murders at all.”
“Put us all out of work,” Looper said.
Da Vinci gave him a black look. “Why don’t you go someplace and smoke a friggin’ cigarette.”
“Andy,” Helen said, “you’ve gotta take it easy, let things work for you. Remember, the killer’s feeling the same kind of heat you are.”
Beam was careful not to glance at da Vinci or Helen. Andy?
“I don’t think so,” da Vinci said. “Things seem to be going his way. The press, the public, they don’t want this sicko caught. They’re against us.”
“Bradley Aimes was part of the public,” Beam said.
“Who cares about that prick? He should’ve gotten the needle years ago. This killer’s doing what his name implies. He’s executing people who deserve it.”
“What about Cold Cat?”
“That was Knee High’s fault. And Knee High paid the price.”
“I’ve been thinking about the cop who was spotted at the crime scenes,” Looper said. “The jacket, the cap that doesn’t fit right. Maybe the officer has breasts. Maybe the cap’s too small or crooked because it has long hair tucked up under it.”
“You think the killer might be a woman?” Beam asked.
Da Vinci was looking at Looper with cautious contempt. That the Justice Killer might be female was something they hadn’t considered.
“Female cop?” Helen asked.
“Maybe, or a female civilian in a cop uniform.”
“Not much chance of it,” Helen said. “Serial killing is something women don’t do. Something cops don’t do. Not normally, anyway.”
“Who’s thinking about normal?” da Vinci said.
“All I’m saying,” Helen said, “is the odds are so long it’s not a hunch worth pursuing.”
“There really isn’t much evidence pointing that way,” Nell said.
Da Vinci grinned. “So the two women present agree.”
“What do you think?” Beam asked him.
“Helen’s right. As usual. And as usual, Looper’s—”
The desk phone buzzed. Beam thought it was a break for Looper.
“I know what that is,” da Vinci said, “only call I’m letting straight through.” He snatched up the receiver.
After a series of “yeahs” he said, “You’re sure?” Then he grunted and hung up.
“More bad news?” Beam asked, looking at his face.
“I ordered a rush on the Aimes postmortem,” da Vinci said, “told them to call me as soon as possible. That was Forensics.”
“And?”
“Cause of death, a bullet to the brain, thirty-eight caliber. This bullet doesn’t match the others.”
“Shit!” Looper said. “He’s switched guns.”
“I’m sure he’s trying to help us out, right, Helen?” Da Vinci slumped down in his chair and stared at nothing on his desk.
No one said anything. The silence took on weight.
After a while, da Vinci said again, “He’s smarter than the cops trying to chase him down.”
“He’ll screw up,” Nell said. “We’ll be there.”
“Then go there,” da Vinci said dejectedly. “Find there. Go.”
Beam nodded toward the door, then led his detective team from the office.
Behind them, Helen said, “Andy.”
67
It was amazing how easy they were with each other now that the dam was broken. Nola enjoyed Beam’s slow and attentive lovemaking, and the guilt he felt from being with a woman other than Lani had fled his mind.
Not that Lani didn’t intrude in his dreams sometimes, as Harry must do in Nola’s dreams. But Beam and Nola both understood that every day, when they were awake and alive and together, was precious.
Finally, for both of them, the present outweighed the past.
They lay side by side in Nola’s bed, listening to New York slowing down outside the window. The scent of their lovemaking was still in the air despite the rose sachet Nola had dangling from the corner of her dresser mirror. Beam, who had always associated roses with funerals and death, now associated them with love and sex.
He had never talked much with Lani about the Job, but he did discuss his work with Nola. Especially the Justice Killer investigation. Part of it, he knew, was because he wanted her to better understand what he did for a living, a calling, so she might understand the symbiotic relationship bet
ween cop and snitch. Beam and Harry.
And now, Beam and Harry’s wife.
But Nola was also part of the case. The Justice Killer had made her that, had used her antique shop, Nola herself, to divert the investigation and taunt Beam.
Nola smiled over at him and ran a fingertip down the ridge of his nose. “What are you thinking, Beam?”
“About what Helen the profiler said, that the killer taunts me because secretly, even to himself, he yearns to be caught. And the more he taunts, the closer we are to finding him.”
Nola said, after a while, “Makes a crazy kind of sense.”
A fly had gotten into the room. It buzzed the bed, then began flinging itself repeatedly against the nearby window-pane. They watched it.
“Frustration,” Nola said.
“The NYPD with wings.”
“I didn’t mean the police. I meant the Justice Killer. He wants to kill, he wants to be stopped, he wants to be anonymous, he wants to be famous. He can’t get enough of any of it. It must be making his heart beat faster and faster.”
“That’s more or less how Helen sees it.”
“And you seem to be relying more and more on Helen.”
“Because da Vinci is.”
“Why?”
“He’s frustrated, too,” Beam said. “Like that fly and the rest of us only more so.”
“Maybe he’s afraid the killer will stop taunting and come after one of you.”
“Helen said it isn’t likely. We’re his reason for being. Only she has a French phrase for it.”
“Raison d’etre,” Nola said.
“Very impressive.” Beam wasn’t kidding. “She says we symbolize the system he’s acting out against, so he wants to keep us alive.”
“As symbols.”
“Yeah.”
“There are other symbols, like Adelaide Starr.”
“The killer wants her alive, too” Beam said. “She’s practically become his biggest asset. Helen says Adelaide’s adding to the killer’s celebrity and feeding his delusions. Besides, she’s so cute, who could kill her?”
“Helen could be wrong about all that symbolism and its value to the killer,” Nola said, “in whatever language.”
“Da Vinci doesn’t think so. Sometimes he says he does, but he doesn’t. Not really. She’s having more and more of an influence on him.”
“You think they might be in love?”
“Might,” Beam said.
Beam had lunch the next day with Cassie at a recently opened restaurant called Mambo, near the vast concrete and marble indoor park in the financial district. There were a lot of new businesses and new construction in this part of town, the city still coming back strong from the 9-11 horror. New York, the city that never sleeps and never surrenders. The city of scars with yet another.
Artificial potted palms flanked the restaurant’s canopied entrance. It had a dance motif, life-size silhouetted figures on the walls doing what looked to Beam more like tango than mambo. There were more potted palms inside, lots of ferns, and soft background music that sounded like samba.
The food couldn’t make up its mind what it was, either, though the menu was in Spanish. It wasn’t bad, just not as good as one of Cassie’s homemade dinners. And who was Beam to assume that Irish potatoes weren’t eaten south of the border?
“Been a while since we’ve seen each other,” said Beam’s sister.
“As you might guess, I’ve been busy into the evenings.” With Nola. Missing Cassie’s cooking so I could be with Nola. Twisting back and forth between man’s two essentials: food and women. Beam knew that if Cassie or Nola could somehow know the thought had entered his mind, they might seriously injure him.
“Nola,” Cassie said, pausing before taking a bite of something supposedly Latin.
Beam actually felt himself blush. He’d forgotten how preternaturally insightful Cassie could be. From the time they were children, she’d occasionally astounded him.
“She’s forgiven me,” he said.
“Wonderful,” Cassie said, inserting food in her mouth and smiling simultaneously. She’d said it as if she knew everything Nola’s forgiveness entailed, and she probably did know.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asked. Seeing that Beam was surprised by the abrupt question, she added, “I was sure you wanted to change the subject.”
He laughed. “You should play poker for a living.”
“It would bore me.”
He brought her up to date on the hunt for the Justice Killer. As he talked, her expression changed from intensely interested to concerned.
“So Looper thinks the killer might be a woman,” she said. “He didn’t strike me as such an independent thinker.”
“He’s real independent on that one,” Beam said. “Nobody agrees with him.”
“You don’t think it’s possible the killer’s a woman?”
“Possible. Sure. In the way that just about anything’s possible. But what we know about serial killers suggests it’s highly unlikely. Which camp are you in?”
“Not Looper’s,” Cassie said. “I don’t see the Justice Killer as female.”
“It’s nice to have my opinions confirmed,” Beam said.
“Shored up, anyway,” Cassie said.
Beam recalled how she’d almost always won every game she played as a kid. How she consistently beat the other kids at guessing where someone would move a checker, which sweaty little clenched fist held the coin, which was the short straw, which cards would turn up.
“Maybe you really should play poker,” he said. “It’s only a game, but these days there’s big money in it to go with the risk.”
“Life’s only a game, and it contains all the risk we need.”
Beam raised his water glass and drank to that.
After the waiter brought them coffee, and bread pudding (was that a Latin dish?) for dessert, Cassie said, “You need to be careful.”
“Of the bread pudding?”
“I’m serious.”
“You think something bad is about to happen?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I have no idea, bro. I’d tell you if I could. I’m not God.”
“You’re his messenger,” Beam said.
“Trouble is,” Cassie told him, “the message is always in code.”
Despite the ordinariness of the rest of the food, the bread pudding was delicious. Better than Cassie’s. Who would have guessed?
The next morning the Times ran a feature about Adelaide Starr being mistreated in jail. Beam sliced, toasted, and buttered a poppy seed bagel for breakfast, then poured a cup of coffee and sat at his kitchen table with the paper. He chewed, sipped, read.
Adelaide was a pest, but she sure had charisma, not to mention chutzpah. She was awaiting trial, like many of the other prisoners in the Bayview women’s correctional facility, but her treatment was actually better. The food she complained was causing her to waste away was the same as the other prisoners’, but because of her special status, she had a private cell. Under media pressure, she’d even been supplied with an electric typewriter. A hardship, she proclaimed, because she didn’t know how to type. Why couldn’t she have a computer she could talk to, like other writers? Or a tape recorder, so she could express her thoughts more completely to her editor, who had to type a lot of Adelaide’s story herself, from interview notes and memory? The truth was getting lost here, Adelaide said. The truth was a victim again. And the place where they held her was noisy. It was heck for a creative person. How could she possibly write with such distractions?
On its editorial page, the Times suggested that Adelaide might be confined to a hotel room and wear an electronic anklet. Beam had to smile.
After breakfast, he went into the living room and switched on the TV, and there was Adelaide, being interviewed in her cell by a blond woman he recognized from local cable television.
Adelaide had apparently gotten permission to wear a frilly blouse, a
nd dangling pearl earrings. Her bright red hair looked professionally mussed. She didn’t appear to Beam in any way malnourished.
She twisted her lipsticked mouth into a sexy moue, her head cocked to the side, listening intently to her interviewer’s questions.
I—Do you think justice is in any way being served by your confinement, Adelaide?
A—Oh, not at all. There’s justice on both sides of the law. I think we’ve all learned that.
I—Could you explain that statement?
A—I mean, look at the statistics I saw in the papers. Since the Justice Killer has come to our city, it’s become much safer. Women and majorities no longer have to fear for their lives every day.
I—You mean women and minorities?
A—Them, too. (Big smile.) I love everybody!
I—Do you even have love for the Justice Killer?
A—In a way, yes I do. I was taught as a child to hate the sin and love the singer.
I—“Sinner,” you mean?
A—Of course. I’m sorry. (Sheepish grin. Cute.) I guess I’ve been in too many musicals.
I—Then you hate what the Justice Killer is doing, but for the killer himself, you do harbor some compassion?.
A—(Huge grin. Toss of hair. Darling.) I try, I really do, but I can’t hate anyone.
I—How’s the book coming?
A—Of course, it’s a struggle. But I—
Beam had had enough. He aimed the remote like a gun and switched off the TV. The silence and blank screen were an immediate relief.
Some world, especially the New York part of it.
He balanced the remote on the arm of his easy chair, shrugged into his suit coat, and left to meet Nell and Looper in da Vinci’s office. Maybe Helen would be there.
Helen was.
She looked as if she’d gone to the same beautician as Adelaide, only her red hair wasn’t as brilliant, and she wasn’t Adelaide cute. She was much taller and more the serious type, but not unattractive. If da Vinci was involved with her, Beam could understand how it might have happened. Beam, sleeping with his late snitch’s widow.
They took the positions that had become habit—da Vinci behind his desk, Beam and Nell in the chairs angled toward it, Helen in the wooden chair used to work on the computer, off to the side. Looper pacing and patting his pockets.