Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

  “Our guy had to know something about the wives,” Pearl said. “Maybe he was in their circle of acquaintances.”

  “The couples didn’t seem to know each other,” Fedderman said, “and they moved in different circles.”

  Quinn swallowed a slug of Coke. “Let’s stick to similarities. Pattern.”

  “The victims were fairly well off financially.”

  “You have to be, to live in Manhattan these days,” Pearl said, then glanced around. “At least in the kinds of apartments they had.” She stretched and reached for a pretzel. “Maybe the killer was leaving gifts for the wives, even though he didn’t know them.”

  “A secret admirer,” Fedderman said.

  “Something like that. It’s kinda like he was courting them, plying them with presents.”

  “Not many serial killers are romantics,” Quinn pointed out. “If that’s what we’re dealing with.”

  “And the husbands woulda put a stop to it,” Fedderman said.

  “One of them tried,” Pearl said. “He went to a shop where she’d admired the jacket but didn’t buy it, and he raised hell trying to return it.”

  “So the killer at some point learned she wanted the jacket.”

  “Yeah, the salesclerk said she wanted it bad, but Hubby said no.”

  “Our killer must have seen her try on the jacket.”

  “Or overheard her and her husband talking about the incident,” Quinn said. “Maybe even days later.”

  “More likely he was watching her in the shop,” Fedderman said.

  Quinn nodded. “Or worked there.”

  “The clerk, that Ira guy, is a creep,” Pearl said, “but he’s got an alibi you couldn’t budge with dynamite.” She finished her beer and placed the can back on its coaster. “The gifts-if that’s what they were-are about the only pattern we have that might mean something. And the kitchens.”

  Quinn recalled her supposition that the killer had suffered some kind of childhood trauma involving a woman in a kitchen. The kind of speculation that was usually Freudian bullshit, but not always.

  “Maybe his mother was a terrible cook,” Fedderman said.

  No one acknowledged him. He shrugged.

  “We do know our killer has an affinity with kitchens,” Pearl said.

  “Like me,” Fedderman said, patting his ample stomach.

  Pearl ignored him. “The rest could be coincidence. We need more pattern. More commonality that looks and smells like evidence.”

  “We all know what we need,” Fedderman said in his cop’s flat voice.

  At first Pearl was irked, thinking he was ragging her; then she realized what he meant. The more they learned about the Night Prowler, the sooner they’d nail him.

  There was one sure way to learn more.

  Quinn went ahead and said it. “We need another victim.”

  “Another pair of openers,” Fedderman said. “When he kills, it’s like dealing us more cards to play.”

  “And it increases the pressure on us to stop him, making our job harder. It’s a trade-off and he has to know it. That’s the kind of game we’re playing.”

  Pearl gave Quinn a look he’d learned to interpret. The frustration was getting to her. She was heating up like a teakettle that bitched instead of whistled.

  “Our guy’s under pressure, too,” Fedderman said. “He’s gotta go for another double dip soon.”

  Pearl said, “This is becoming a crock of shit, Quinn.”

  “It was that from the beginning.”

  “This is the pressure we were talking about,” Fedderman said. “Egan and the killer want us talking like you two.”

  Pearl said, “Feds, shut up about pressure. And kitchens and card games.”

  Fedderman ate a pretzel.

  Pearl turned her attention back to Quinn. “So this is gonna be our strategy? We sit around like ghouls waiting for another slaughter so we can pick through the entrails?”

  “Like cops,” Quinn corrected her. “And we don’t sit around.”

  Fedderman stood up and tucked his shirt in tighter, where his suspenders buttoned to his waistband.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Pearl snapped at him, surprised by his sudden movement.

  “Not sitting around. Getting up to go fetch another beer. You want one?”

  “I’ll tell you what you can do with your can of beer-”

  “Don’t!” Quinn interrupted her, but he was grinning.

  That made Pearl really mad.

  David Blank was, as usual, punctual. But he seemed less at ease this visit as he settled into the deep leather recliner. He smiled, but not with his usual smugness, and glanced sideways expectantly at Dr. Rita Maxwell. His look said that they both knew the clock was running, time was money.

  Rita decided to play on his unease, perhaps draw him out. She maintained her silence.

  After almost a full minute Blank said, “Ticktock, Dr. Rita.”

  “That’s what bombs do, David.”

  “Clocks too. But it’s funny you should mention bombs. Time bombs.”

  “Did I read your mind?” Time bombs?

  “A paragraph or two,” Blank said.

  “Do you feel something’s ticking inside you, David?”

  “As if I swallowed my watch or something?”

  “You know what I mean. Something, some complex feeling, or a set of emotions that might lead to a kind of explosion.”

  “Explosion? No, I don’t think so.” He was silent for a moment. “But what if there were a certain pressure building? How would a person relieve that pressure by means other than an explosion?”

  “The pressure comes from conflict, David. You share your conflict. You tell someone like me, and I can possibly help you to help yourself.”

  “Help me stop the ticking?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “But what if the explosion’s already taken place?”

  “Has it?”

  “What if?”

  “Then it might be guilt causing your conflict and pressure. I might be able to help you there, too.”

  “My, aren’t you versatile.”

  Sarcasm. I’m losing him. “You know how it works, David: confess your guilt and it lessens because it’s shared.”

  “That isn’t logical.”

  “I know, but it’s human. That’s how it works with people. Always has. Have you ever gone to confession?”

  “You mean in a church? No, I’m not Catholic.”

  “That’s what confession is for, alleviating guilt. It’s a cathartic act, to unburden yourself to another. The church learned that centuries ago, and it still holds true. For Catholics, a priest might be sufficient. For others, perhaps someone like me would do.”

  “And I fall into the category of others.”

  “You said you weren’t Catholic.”

  “The church believes confession leads to salvation,” Blank said. “I’m not interested in salvation.”

  “Oh, David, I think we all are.”

  He seemed to consider that carefully. “Not all of us. Not the ones who are already lost.”

  “Do you consider yourself one of the irretrievably lost?”

  “I must be, if I’m not interested in salvation.”

  “Then what is your interest? Your reason for coming to me? You must have one, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m interested in relief. Simple relief. Because of what I might do if I don’t find it.”

  “Then we have two questions. What do you need relief from? And what might you do if you don’t find relief? I suspect if we answer the first, we can take care of the second.”

  Blank didn’t speak or change expression.

  “Are drugs involved?” Rita asked. “If so, I can-”

  “Not exactly drugs.”

  Rita waited. She sensed Blank was on the edge, finally about to open up to her. She remained silent. Knowing when not to speak had been the hardest thing to learn in her profession. At this point the
re was nothing to say; Blank had to make up his own mind.

  The muffled sounds of traffic below and far away filtered through the double-pane windows and heavy drapes. Faint noises from another world. They only made the office seem more quiet and isolated.

  Like a confessional.

  “I’m sure something is about to happen,” Blank said.

  Rita waited.

  “It always happens sooner or later. They find out. I always know that from the beginning, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s part of the reason. They learn about me. And then…”

  Rita waited.

  “There are lots of reasons why people confess, Dr. Rita.”

  Rita waited.

  “I was sixteen, living in Colorado. It was summer at a ski resort where I worked part-time. An older woman, about thirty, was a waitress at the lodge. She was a blonde and sexy. Bridget Olson was her name, but she wasn’t foreign or anything; she didn’t speak with a Swedish accent. I think she was from Iowa. She’d been divorced and drank too much, and she was always extra nice to me. The guy who ran the lodge made movies, but I didn’t know what kind then. Bridget did, though. She asked me one night…”

  Blank talked on while Rita sat pretending to take notes, listening to the familiar cadence of her mysterious patient’s voice. There was no need to pay attention. The recorder was preserving it all on tape.

  Not that it mattered.

  She knew it was all lies.

  I’ll find out, she thought confidently, letting him talk on and on, trying to shock and divert her. She idly watched her pencil move almost of its own accord and create obscure scrawling, like messages in another language. It was as if she were making note of David Blank’s earlier words that nibbled at truth and might be more prophetic than he imagined:

  It always happens sooner or later. They find out. I always know that from the beginning, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s part of the reason…

  They learn about me.

  Rita knew that eventually she’d learn.

  If David Blank-or whatever his name was-wanted an opponent to outwit in a game of his own making, he should have gone elsewhere.

  He was smart; she was learning that about him. And he was confident.

  What he needed to learn was that no matter how smart he was, there was somebody who could best him. In order to reach him, to understand him, his confidence in his superiority had to be shattered.

  Rita’s job.

  31

  The apartment was quiet and dark, cool enough that the air conditioner wasn’t running. A faint breeze wended through the shadowed rooms from a window that was open a crack. The bedroom seemed, like the apartment and the city around it, to be asleep itself, or at least in a state unlike complete wakefulness. It was the kind of place where dreams visited the dreamer.

  Mary Navarre woke up next to Donald, who continued to sleep peacefully beside her. She was sure she’d heard a sound in the kitchen.

  She prodded Donald in the ribs and whispered his name urgently.

  He mumbled something and raised his head to look at her.

  “I’m sure I heard a noise out in the kitchen,” she said, hearing the fear in her voice.

  “’Frigerator,” he said sleepily. “Icemaker or somethin’.”

  “It was more like somebody moving around out there, trying to keep quiet. I thought I heard the refrigerator door open and close.”

  He took in a deep breath, then sighed and propped himself up on his elbows. Donald was a big man, long-limbed but fleshy and with thinning blond hair. He was out of condition and not particularly strong to begin with, but his size was a comfort to her.

  He cleared his throat and swallowed so he could be better understood. “So you want I should go out and talk to this hungry burglar?”

  “You’re not taking this seriously enough. Maybe we should call nine-eleven.”

  “Lotta trouble for nothing.”

  “Maybe not.”

  He wearily sat up in bed, then turned his back to her as he planted his feet on the floor. “I’ll go out and look. It’ll put your mind at ease, and besides, I could use a glass of water.”

  She wondered if he was showing off, trying to impress her with his seeming nonchalance. “Okay, you go look while I call nine-eleven.”

  “Don’t do that, Mary. Really. All it’ll be is a big pain in the ass. And next time, if something serious does happen and we call, they might not respond. I’m gonna go out there and find an ice cube on the floor, or something that fell over in a cabinet.”

  “It didn’t sound like either of those things.”

  He reached back and patted her knee. “Maybe not in your sleepy mind.”

  “I was awake, Donald. I couldn’t sleep.” A lie. I’m afraid enough to lie to him.

  He stood up and began plodding barefoot toward the bedroom door.

  “Wait!” She was out of bed in a hurry, slipping on her robe. “I’ll go with you.”

  While he waited, she went to a row of books on the windowsill and picked up one of the plaster pineapple bookends. It was painted plaster, but lead filled and plenty heavy enough if she had to use it.

  Donald pried it from her rigid fingers. “I’ll take it.” He hefted the bookend in his right hand. “I wouldn’t want you to panic at a mouse and accidentally hit me with this thing.”

  “We don’t have mice.”

  Mary followed him from the bedroom. Why am I doing this? Why don’t I stay and call nine-eleven?

  But it was all happening too fast, and she couldn’t let him go out there alone. Besides, he was probably right. She told herself he was probably right. Whatever she heard, or thought she heard, was probably nothing she needed to fear.

  But she was afraid.

  The kitchen was softly illuminated from the light on the stove. Mary stood just behind and to the side of Donald as he stepped through the doorway. She heard his intake of breath and saw his body stiffen, and she moved to the side so she could see around him.

  A man was seated at the kitchen table. Before him was an opened milk carton, half a glass of milk, and a partly unwrapped loaf of bread. Mary realized she smelled something familiar and an instant later saw what it was-spicy lunch meat. The man was eating a pastrami sandwich. He was leaning forward over the table and had just taken a big bite when they’d interrupted him.

  He seemed surprised, though not exactly. More like disappointed and angered.

  What happened next took her breath away.

  It was almost as if he’d expected to be discovered. He was ready to act. In one smooth and lightning motion, he was up out of his chair and around the table, wielding a long knife. Mary saw in that instant that he was wearing flesh-colored rubber gloves. The bite of pastrami remained in his mouth, forgotten and unchewed, a long red slab of the thinly sliced meat protruding like a shredded tongue. Donald, paralyzed with shock, had no time to react. It was as if his assailant had rehearsed for this moment, as if it were choreographed. The man was on him without hesitation and the knife blade flashed.

  The explosive violence, the sudden blood flow and horror, rooted Mary where she stood. Donald lay folded on his side like a full-scale, discarded doll at her feet, the plaster pineapple still clutched in his right hand. It had all been so fast, so fast!

  It has to be happening to someone else. I’m here but only watching, like a movie… Time, time for everything, about to stop…

  A powerful hand gripped her hair and yanked her head back and she knew her throat would be slashed.

  Instead, the long knife blade lanced like ice low into the softness of her belly. It took her breath away and numbed her more than hurt. Each time she began to fall, the blade winked in the kitchen light, piercing her and holding her up with its force. Somewhere in her terror her mind was working. She wanted to drop, wanted this to end, but he wouldn’t let it happen. Not yet. She couldn’t die.

  He knows where to stab me where it hurts but won’t kill me!

  He’d bee
n standing back from her and slightly to the side. So he doesn’t get too bloody. Now he shifted position and his face was inches from hers and in brighter light.

  I know him! My God, I know him!

  He stabbed her differently then, harder, just beneath her breasts and twisting up to touch and detonate her heart. The explosion of pain turned the world white and then dim, dimmer…

  The last thing she saw was her killer’s leering face, with its lolling pastrami tongue-familiar, faint memory from a thousand nightmares that had become real. She sank, sank, and both her palms were flat on the floor, in warm liquid. Through silent blackness she crawled until her feeble, bloody right hand contacted something solid, a wall.

  With her forefinger she blindly began to write.

  32

  Hiram, Missouri, 1989.

  They heard his heavy footfalls on the front porch’s wood floor; then the door opened and closed.

  It was no surprise. As was his custom, Milford was home in time for the dinner Cara had simmering on the stove. She’d set the burners on warm and the oven’s thermostat at 150 degrees; then she’d come up to the master bedroom, where Luther waited.

  Luther raised his nude body off Cara and sat on the edge of the bed. He was breathing hard, watching the bulge of his slight belly go in and out like a bellows. A bead of perspiration clung to the tip of his nose, then plummeted to leave a dark, almost perfectly round spot on the carpet. He studied the spot for a moment, losing himself in it while his breathing evened out.

  There was no hurry. The lovers knew Milford’s habits. He’d stay downstairs and sit in his usual chair and have his usual before-dinner scotch.

  Nevertheless, Cara was nervous. She climbed out of bed and dusted herself with deodorant powder; then she slipped her dress over her head and smoothed the material. After switching the slowly rotating overhead paddle fan to a higher speed, she went to the vanity mirror and arranged her hair. Luther, who was by now back into his Levi’s and holding the rest of his clothes, kissed the side of her neck. She locked gazes with him in the mirror and they exchanged smiles that were amazingly similar in their secret desires and contemplations.