Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

  Luther headed for the door.

  “Luther!” she whispered in alarm.

  He paused.

  “Don’t forget.” She pointed to the covered china plate on the dresser that held a sandwich along with vegetables from the beef brisket dinner staying warm downstairs. Some of Milford’s food that Milford wasn’t going to eat.

  Luther grinned at her and picked up the plate, his shirt draped over his wrist to free his hand that wasn’t holding his shoes. Barefoot, he left the bedroom and padded down the hall to the narrow stairs in the back of the vast house. He wasn’t worried about making some slight noise. If Milford happened to hear it downstairs, he’d attribute it to Cara moving about above him, or simply to the sounds an old house frequently made, like the creaks and groans of an old person acknowledging age.

  When he reached the undecorated third floor, Luther relaxed. Milford and Cara planned on painting and furnishing the rooms on this floor, but they hadn’t gotten around to starting the project and both of them knew they probably never would.

  Moving more freely, Luther made his way down the hall to where a stout rope with a knot at the end dangled from the ceiling as if waiting for a hangman to tie a knot. He put down his shoes temporarily, yanked on the rope, and the folding stairs to the attic levered down from their opening in the ceiling.

  Luther retrieved his shoes, climbed the stairs, then with a practiced effort raised them from above.

  He was in the dim, shadowed attic, with no sign below of his passing.

  Cara had fixed him up with a cot and a sleeping bag, and even an electric hot plate in case the food she gave him needed warming. He had books, most of them on painting and interior decorating, which he read by the light of one of the bare bulbs that hung from rafters by their cords. He’d removed one of the lightbulbs and replaced it with a screw-in socket, from which ran an extension cord that provided power for the hot plate and an ancient but quiet box fan. When he read at night, he usually draped the old blanket he’d cut in half over the vents at each end of the attic so no light escaped. That was when it became uncomfortably warm and he’d lie nude on top of the sleeping bag.

  If he got too uncomfortable, late at night he’d venture down the back stairs into the main part of the house. Milford was no worry; he also enjoyed a nightly before-bed scotch and slept soundly.

  Sometimes Luther and Cara had sex in the early-morning hours while her husband slept upstairs or, if they were in the attic, while he snored beneath them. Most of the time, however, they followed a routine of making love during the mornings or afternoons, when Milford was at the mine office and Luther had free run of the house. They could act with more abandon if they weren’t afraid of waking Milford.

  Occasionally Luther would sneak down from the attic and quietly slip into Milford and Cara’s bedroom and watch them sleep, wondering how it would be if he were Milford, if Cara and the house, and being a solid citizen in Hiram, were all his to have and to hold and enjoy.

  Maybe it didn’t matter, he told himself. He was quite happy with things as they were, living secretly in his cozy attic nest. It was almost as if he were Cara’s pet, under her protection. She’d told him once during sex that it gave her a delicious thrill knowing he was in the attic while she and Milford were living their dull lives downstairs, or while Milford was making love to her.

  In a sense, Luther thought, things had worked out very well. Everyone had what they wanted. Everyone was…happy enough, which was about all anyone could ask of life in this hard world.

  So, during the night, Luther would leave the attic only secretly, and not often. He also ventured outside occasionally in the daytime, making sure no one saw him coming or leaving the house. Though lately he hadn’t gone out at all; there was always the possibility he’d draw attention, that someone would recognize him and ask where he was staying, what he was doing with himself these days.

  The limited times of sunlight and fresh air weren’t worth the risk, considering everything he needed was here, in the vast old house he regarded as his home. In the mornings, after Milford had left, Luther showered and brushed his teeth in the downstairs bathroom. Cara did his laundry separately, washing and drying during the day so Milford wouldn’t notice extra clothing he didn’t recognize. Luther had a jug of drinking water in the attic, and a chamber pot if necessary, if he couldn’t wait until morning.

  The best times were after Milford had left for work and the two lovers were on their own. Cara sometimes came up to the attic and told Luther how she adored him while she woke him gradually with her mouth. Usually they’d finish downstairs in the main bedroom where it was cooler. Afterward, Luther would casually get dressed, then help Cara with some of her housework. Sometimes they made love again, and sometimes they didn’t. It was all up to them. Confined and secretive though they had to be, they both had more freedom than they’d ever experienced.

  Luther sat down on his cot and fitted the earpiece of the battery-operated portable AM-FM radio Cara had given him. Then he stretched out on his back on top of the sleeping bag, laced his fingers behind his head, and listened to his favorite local station. He was confident no one way down on the first floor would hear his movements. And even when Milford and Cara were upstairs in their bedroom, Luther was still two stories above them. It was almost like having a private apartment in the same building, separated by more than an entire floor. Why should Luther worry in his spare but comfortable home in a corner of the Victorian’s vast attic?

  Roy Rabbit, a local disc jockey, was on the radio, playing the kind of music Luther liked, old songs from the 1960s. Lots of Beatles stuff. Luther especially liked the Beatles. The Monkees he thought were just okay.

  When Roy Rabbit said good-bye and segued into news, Luther removed the earpiece and turned off the radio. He ate the sandwich Cara had made for him, but not the green beans and carrots, telling himself it was because they’d gotten cold but knowing he would have skipped them, anyway.

  After dinner he listened to the radio some more, then read for a while, before falling asleep.

  It was well after midnight when Luther awoke, warm and with a parched throat. He reached for the nearby water jug but decided a lukewarm drink wasn’t what he needed. Something cold would be a lot better. And as he stood up from his cot, he realized he was hungry.

  He left the attic, not raising the stairs behind him, then crept down the back steps to the third, then second floor. On the landing he stood very still, listening. He was sure he could hear Milford snoring.

  Luther followed the sound down the dark hall, then peered in through the couples’ half-open bedroom door.

  There was Milford, a lump beneath the white sheet that Luther wouldn’t have minded seeing as a shroud. Cara lay gracefully on her side next to him, one long, pale leg outside the sheet.

  Luther smiled, staring at the leg. It seemed the limb of something beautiful in the act of being born. Then he returned to the landing and made his way to the first floor and the kitchen.

  He got a cold can of Pepsi from the refrigerator, and then noticed a slice of peach pie on the top shelf.

  Why not? Pepsi and pie. If the last piece of pie was being saved for Milford to eat tomorrow, Cara would make up some story. She was getting good at that.

  He was at the table and had just finished the pie and was reaching for the Pepsi can when he heard a sound and jerked his head around so fast he felt a brief pain in the side of his neck.

  Cara was standing in the doorway with her forefinger to her lips. She was wearing her pale blue silk nightgown that showed the generous contours of her breasts and her hard nipples.

  “Jesus, Cara!” Luther whispered.

  She walked over and picked up the pie plate, which now contained only crumbs, and carried it over and set it in the sink.

  “Was that Milford’s pie I ate?” he asked.

  “None of it’s Milford’s pie.” She grinned. “C’mon.”

  Carrying the half-full soda can, Luther stood up
and followed her into the living room.

  The background hum of the refrigerator receded. It was quiet and dim in the living room, but within seconds they could see by the streetlight’s soft illumination filtered through the lace curtains.

  “Milford’s sleeping like the dead,” she said. “He won’t hear us.” She took Luther’s hand and led him to the sofa.

  “Over there,” he said, and pointed.

  She giggled. “Milford’s chair?”

  “Can’t think of anyplace better.”

  Luther took her other hand, so he was holding both, and walked backward, drawing her to the big wing chair that directly faced the TV. He placed the Pepsi can on an accounting magazine on a nearby table, then stripped off his jockey shorts and sat down. Cara removed the panties beneath her nightgown and sat on his lap. He kissed her cheek and ear and used his hand on her. It was cold from carrying the soda can, but that didn’t last long.

  She wriggled around so she could kiss him on the lips. They remained kissing while she adjusted her body so she faced him squarely, straddling him. Then she raised herself so he could suck her nipples. Within minutes she lowered herself onto him. She made a sound now familiar to Luther, like a soft and desperate breeze sighing through summer leaves.

  Half an hour later, Cara was back in bed beside the lightly snoring Milford, and Luther was back in his corner of the attic, warmed by his love and his secret.

  Sleeping the best sleep of his life.

  33

  New York, 2004.

  Pearl and Quinn reached the scene before Fedderman.

  Quinn had gotten the call from Harley Renz at eight A.M. Another married couple had been slain in their Manhattan apartment. Mary Navarre’s blood had seeped through a crack in the kitchen floor and spread beneath the tiles. Some of it found its way to the apartment below, leaving a narrow, scarlet streak on the wallpaper above the stove.

  The super let himself in and discovered the bodies at seven forty-five, after being shown the apartment below and recognizing that the substance on the wall was blood. He’d wisely touched nothing, locked the Navarre apartment door behind him, and called the police from his own phone. Renz, or someone in Renz’s camp, had intercepted the call and gotten to Quinn immediately. The crime scene unit hadn’t yet arrived. The two uniforms who’d taken the call after it had gotten past Renz were outside in the hall. It was only Pearl and Quinn in the apartment, along with the dead.

  “We have our pattern now,” Pearl said in a disgusted tone. They were in the kitchen, staring at Donald Baines curled on the floor, and his wife, Mary Navarre, sprawled dead in a crusting pool of blood on the other side of the kitchen. When the super had told them the victims’ names, that was all they had been-names. Now, too late, they were people. Had been people. Pearl suppressed the nausea and cold anger that built in her whenever she first came on a homicide scene. Violent death always stayed around awhile, hanging in the air like a malevolent ghost.

  Quinn slipped on his latex gloves, and Pearl did the same.

  “The kitchen again,” Quinn said.

  Moving carefully and not stepping in any blood, he and Pearl made their way over to the table. On a certain level they were both pleased. The killer was far enough along on his sick and deadly journey that it could be said he was leaving his signature at the scenes of his murders.

  “Something new,” Pearl said, looking at the carton of milk, unwrapped loaf of bread, and half-eaten sandwich on the table. She touched the milk carton; even through the glove she could tell immediately that it was room temperature. “It appears the killer was interrupted while having a snack.” She bent low to examine the sandwich more closely. “Pastrami.” She eased up the top slice of bread with her fingertip and peered beneath it. “Mustard and pickles.” There was no mustard container on the table. And no pickle jar. But the sandwich was definitely homemade, not a carryout or delivery.

  Quinn was stooping over Donald’s body. “Stab wound.” He straightened up with difficulty, a grinding cartilage sound reminding him his knees were no longer what they’d been, then went over to Mary’s corpse. “Lots of stab wounds in this one. I count twelve and I probably can’t see them all. Mostly around the breasts and pubic area.”

  “Fits our guy,” Pearl said. “Focus is on the woman.”

  “Hubby’s got something that looks like a pineapple clutched in his hand. Not a real one. Plaster or metal. As if he was going to use it as a weapon. There isn’t any blood or hair on it, though.”

  “A shame.”

  Quinn twisted his body so he could scan the tabletop. He wasn’t moving his feet much, what with all the mess on the floor. “Check the fridge.” His own words sounded incongruous to him, as if he were asking the little lady to see if there was cold beer on hand.

  Pearl opened the refrigerator door. “Well stocked, and there’s a squeeze bottle of mustard and a jar of what looks like the same kind of pickles that are on the sandwich.” She pulled out a deep plastic drawer lettered that it was for meat, and there was the package containing the rest of the pastrami. “Meat’s in here.”

  “So our killer built himself a sandwich, put away the meat and condiments he used, then sat down at the table to eat.”

  “Like he didn’t want anything perishable to spoil.” Pearl felt a chill. “Maybe he planned on coming back for seconds some other night.”

  “Or he’s compulsively neat.”

  “What he did here isn’t neat.”

  “What about the milk?” Quinn asked.

  “It’s warm. And there’s no glass. He was drinking it straight from the carton. Kind of homey and familiar. Bad mannered, though.”

  “Should be plenty of DNA evidence,” Quinn said. “Saliva on the milk carton and sandwich.”

  “Maybe even tooth marks.”

  “It’d all be very helpful, if only we had samples to match it against.”

  “We will someday,” Pearl said, “and we’ll use them to nail this bastard to the wall.”

  Quinn glanced at her and smiled slightly, no longer surprised by her vehemence. What is it, genetic?

  “What if it was one of the victims who was having the snack?” Pearl asked.

  “Good question. Medical examiner can answer it later. But I don’t think he’ll be able to help us with what Mary tried to write on the wall.”

  “Huh?”

  “C’mon over here,” Quinn said, “and I’ll show you.”

  Pearl followed him to where Mary Navarre lay, and they both stooped low to be closer to what she’d begun to write with her own blood on the wall.

  “It looks like a caret,” Pearl said.

  “You kidding?” Fedderman’s voice. He’d entered the apartment and come up behind them. “It’s too pointy, upside down, and doesn’t have any leafy stuff growing outta the top.”

  “She means a caret, like an A without a cross stroke, to show where something should be inserted in print.”

  “Ah,” Fedderman said. “So maybe the victim was starting to print an A when she died. Or it could be the first part of an M.”

  “Looks like she died last,” Quinn said, “like Marcy Graham. Only one or two stabs to finish the husband-I can’t tell for sure and don’t wanna move the body-then our killer took out all his frustration on the wife.”

  “He hates women, all right,” Fedderman said.

  Pearl gave him a look. “Don’t they all? It’s why the scumbags kill.”

  She left the kitchen and walked into the bedroom. It was restful and tastefully and expensively furnished. Not like my bedroom. The bed was unmade, the duvet and a blanket folded on a chair. It looked as if the victims had been sleeping with only a light sheet over them, and it was thrown back and wadded as if they’d climbed out of bed in a hurry. Maybe somebody heard a noise. On the windowsill was a lineup of books-mysteries, biographies, including some recent bestsellers. There was a gold-painted pineapple bookend supporting them on the left, nothing on the right. That was where Hubby found his we
apon, Pearl thought. It appeared as if one or both of the victims woke up afraid of something. Hubby grabbed hold of a convenient blunt object, the pineapple bookend, and bravely went to investigate. The alpha male. His wife, Mary, followed and shouldn’t have.

  Why don’t people call 911?

  Pearl walked back into the kitchen and told Quinn and Fedderman what she’d observed. Then she went to the refrigerator again and looked for duplicate items or gourmet food. Nothing unusual, but if the couple got stranded in the apartment, it would be months before they’d starve.

  She wandered over to the door to the hall and examined it. “No sign of forced entry.”

  Quinn and Fedderman didn’t answer; she realized they’d both made a note of the door’s condition when they entered. Pearl was a bit surprised to realize this didn’t annoy her; it was great to be working with pros.

  There was a crisp snapping sound as Quinn peeled off his gloves. “Egan’s army’s gonna be here soon. Let’s get the jump on them. I’ll go downstairs and talk to the super. You two start with the neighbors and the doorman. Later we’ll get together at my place and compare notes.”

  Pearl nodded. Maybe I’ll stay the night at your place.

  Where did that come from?

  She started toward the door to the hall, Fedderman close behind.

  The Night Prowler stood beneath the shower and let hot needles of water drive away his thoughts. It was a time of satisfaction and peace, of triumph. When he turned off the shower, he knew he wouldn’t hear the buzzing.

  He’d been prepared, and his dark knowledge had been validated. He’d stood at the foot of their bed and observed them, Donald who didn’t know, and Mary who knew but wouldn’t admit it. They slept lightly, Mary close to Donald, as if her asleep self knew she was being watched and was disturbed. They loved each other, the Night Prowler was sure. They didn’t love him and wouldn’t have, even if they’d known they were two-thirds of a menage a trois.

  Mary had known, of course, but tried to hide from the knowledge.

  He smoothed back his wet hair with both hands, then reached out and turned off the shower. In the white steaming bathroom he dried himself with a rough terry cloth towel; then, leaving his hair damp, he went out into the coolness on the other side of the door. He didn’t bother putting on clothes; no one could see in, and he was comfortable as he was. He got a glass of ice water from the refrigerator, then sat in a corner of the sofa and used the remote to switch on the TV.