Death by Pride: A Kyle Callahan Mystery

by Mark McNease

  CHAPTER Twenty-Two

  D ran his fingers over the keys for the hundredth time, feeling the metal with his fingertips, remembering the look of terror in Scott Devlin’s eyes as he realized he was dying at the hands of such a refined man, a man of taste who kept seventy-five-year-old Scotch and a Class A wine cellar in his basement. Meeting strangers had always been a gamble, but nothing about D made anyone think he was the least bit dangerous. That was part of the thrill, really. Appearing to be someone so completely different from who he really was. And then, near the end, revealing himself. Surprise! How’s that for failing to expect the unexpected!

  He was lying in bed, propped up on pillows against the headboard, with his favorite bamboo bed tray across his lap. He’d made his morning tea and accompanied it with buttered toast—a special treat on a special morning. He looked at the clock: 6:00 a.m. The news came on and he watched as the same reporter told the same breaking news that Kyle and Linda were watching on the other side of town. A body had been found in the East River. Speculation was rampant. Something about a hashtag. My, D thought, that was fast. Was it a good sign? A bad sign? No sign at all?

  He liked this young reporter; she was a rising star in the local TV news market and he would keep an eye on her, perhaps send her flowers when this was over and he disappeared for another year. He would be back, he had decided that. Retirement was not for him. The uneasiness he’d had after killing Victor Someone and feeling so little fulfillment had subsided. Scott reminded him how good he was at it, how much it meant to him. No, he was not going away, just taking his usual long vacation. But first, there was the spree to finish. The Pride Killer—and by day’s end everyone would be saying he’d come home to kill again—made his kills in threes. Three men. Three trips to the basement. Three bodies in the river.

  There had to be one more, and as D remembered it clearly now, the third time was the charm. In fact, the hardest part of his yearly ritual was stopping! He made it to three, he enjoyed the escalating pleasure of each kill, and then, on Sunday, he went to the parade. Hundreds of thousands of proud gay men, lesbians, allies, all letters of that ever-expanding acronym marching and hooting and hollering their way down Fifth Avenue. And D, there on a corner, so very proud himself. He belonged to them, and they certainly belonged to him. Thank you, Papa, he thought, nibbling at his toast. Thank you for the photographs and the letters I never answered. Thank you for showing me there is a different way, a better way.

  He had decided to find his third victim in a different way as well. The police would be stepping up their efforts. It did not serve the New York City tourism business to have the country’s most successful serial killer back in action during one of the biggest celebrations of the year. They would be looking at postings on websites, men seeking men for all sorts of things. And nowadays everything was spied on, everything was filtered. He wanted to do what they would least expect and find his next candidate offline. Someone he met in his everyday life, as long as it was nowhere near the store. He hadn’t cruised in a very long time, except twice his first year in Berlin when he was lonely and his mother, demented and taking much too long to die, had become insufferable. It had been more to get out of the house, away from her and the string of aides she hired and fired. He’d gone home with the men and talked, then fooled around just enough to frustrate them before heading back to the dreary reality of a dying mother.

  He would cruise again, finding his third victim on a park path or in a Chelsea coffee shop. There were still plenty of gay men in Chelsea among the baby strollers and nannies. He could meet one there. Or maybe the Met or the Guggenheim! Museums were especially fun to cruise in, pretending to look at paintings and sculpture while you were really stealing glances at men doing exactly the same thing!

  Whoever he met, and however he met him, it would need to be soon. He’d had to push up his schedule with Scott. The benefit of it was that it gave him more time. He did not have to rush now.

  He finished half his toast, leaving the second piece on the plate as he watched the weather forecast for the next five days. It was going to be a perfect weekend. He would excuse himself that afternoon, telling Jarrod, who was coming in late this morning after a doctor’s appointment, that he wanted to visit the church where his mother had loved to pray. He would light a votive candle and drop some money in the offering box. She’d never lived in New York City. There was no church, no favorite pew, no candle. Everything Jarrod knew about his boss was a lie. So he would lie again and wander out … cruise out into the world of Manhattan and see who caught his eye. Did he still have what it takes to seduce a stranger with just a smile and a wink? Why yes, he believed he did.

  Perfect weather. Perfect plan. Perfect weekend coming soon. He felt so alive, so renewed, that he took the second piece of toast and ate it after all. Why not? He deserved it, and the world deserved him. It was a match made in hell.

  CHAPTER Twenty-Three

  Kyle still marveled at how time slowed down the faster you wanted it to move. It was now 8:30 a.m. and they had another ninety minutes before Keller and Whitman opened for business. Kyle had done some online research and found nothing about the store that wasn’t on its website. Founded in 1995, Keller and Whitman served an exclusive clientele, and also an older one. The few models on the site were mostly mature white men, with one African-American and one Asian thrown in to give it a veneer of diversity; Kyle suspected the only minorities who shopped there were moguls and bankers from Tokyo, Beijing or the safer parts of Mexico City.

  The founders of the store were relatives, one Leo Whitman and his nephew Diedrich Keller III. Neither had a photograph on the “About” page, and there was a brief dedication to Leo, with the years 1944-2003 under his name. Kyle took that to mean Keller was running the store alone now. He would find out soon enough, since he and Linda planned to be the first customers through the door.

  “What if Victor Campagna never made it there?” Linda asked. They were sitting on the couch as Danny prepared to leave for Margaret’s Passion. It was a part of Danny’s daily ritual Kyle rarely got to see, since he would normally be heading to his job by now and Danny usually left later in the morning.

  “Then we’ll know something—or someone—happened to him between the time he left Cargill’s bar and the time he expected to be at the men’s store.”

  “Maybe he met someone there. Another customer, or someone outside the store.”

  The Pride Killer was not careless; he may be stalking his victims first. For all they knew, Victor had been selected days or even weeks before his murder. It could be that the killer simply bided his time until the right opportunity arose for him to act.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Kyle said. “I’m starting to think Victor was followed.”

  Linda nodded; she’d considered the same thing. “And somehow, somewhere along his path, the killer got him to take a detour.”

  Danny came into the living room. He was dressed for work in black slacks, a light blue shirt and dark tie. He’d always been meticulous in his work appearance and had become more so since he owned the restaurant. The burdens of ownership were several degrees higher and heavier than simply managing the place, and he wanted to always be prepared for doing business, meeting clients as well as customers, and generally looking like he owned one of the best restaurants in Manhattan.

  “I’m heading out now,” Danny said. He grabbed a lint roller from several they had on a shelf just inside the kitchen. Cat hair was a constant in their home, and he rolled the latest batch from his pants legs.

  “You’re leaving early,” Kyle said.

  “More planning to do.”

  “How’s that all going, by the way?”

  “Fine, considering this is the one party I never wanted to have. We’re whittling down the list, getting the invitations out. We’ve only got a month. Some people we knew were invited got a ‘Save the Date’ email a couple weeks ago. Is your mother coming?”

  “No,” Kyle said, sec
retly glad of it. There had been increasing friction between Danny and his mother-in-law since they’d been business partners and Kyle wanted this going-away party to be free of it. Sally might have suggestions for the seating plan, suggestions for the menu, even suggestions for who was being invited. Kyle was relieved she’d be on a cruise with her man-friend Farley somewhere in the Caribbean.

  “That’s right,” Danny said, remembering. “She’s taking a cruise. Good for her. Better for me.” He put the lint roller back on the shelf. “Margaret suggested, now that we have title to the building, we could get a line of credit and buy your mother out.”

  Kyle hadn’t given any thought to being landlords and didn’t want to think about it now. But he liked the idea of buying out his mother. It could relieve a source of stress that had been in their lives the last six months.

  “Margaret’s a smart woman,” Kyle said. “Let’s talk seriously about that after her going-away party.”

  Danny nodded. He walked over to Kyle and kissed him goodbye. “Love you,” he said. They always said this to each other when they parted, even when one was simply going across the street for milk. Life was unpredictable. People got hit by cars, they had heart attacks. Better to always say “I love you” and not wish later you had.

  Danny leaned down and gave Linda a hug. “Please keep an eye on him,” he said. “And yourself. One of these days you two are going to go after a killer who’s smarter than you are.”

  It reminded Linda she needed to tell Kyle she’d brought her gun. She would do that as soon as they were alone. There was something about this killer that put her more on guard than usual.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kyle said. “Safety in numbers.”

  “I’m not convinced ‘two’ qualifies for that,” Danny said. “Bye everybody, bye cats.” He waved at Smelly and Leonard. The cats glanced at him, uninterested, as the door closed.

  Kyle looked at his watch. They still had over an hour. “Hungry?” he said.

  “I could use some breakfast.”

  “I know a diner, the Moonrise, not far from where we’re going.”

  “Sounds good.” Linda got up from the couch. “Let me get my gun and jacket first.”

  “Your gun?”

  “Well, yes. I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”

  Kyle followed Linda into the guest room as she began to tell him about her father’s gun—now her gun—and why she planned on bringing it along.

  CHAPTER Twenty-Four

  Danny walked slowly along Lexington Avenue, south toward 23rd Street. It was only a six-block walk to Margaret’s Passion and one he’d taken a few thousand times in the last eleven years. It was also one he knew he would take only a dozen more times before Margaret Bowman was gone. What then? He would get to the restaurant knowing she was not upstairs. And now it was his building! What would he and Kyle do with it? He needed to speak to the managing agent and see about keeping them on, arranging as seamless a transition as possible from Margaret’s ownership to theirs. What of the tenants, too? Danny knew some of them. There was the older couple in the second floor apartment next to Margaret’s, and the author who lived on the fourth floor and came in for lunch every Tuesday—a woman in her 50s who wrote a wildly successful series in the Young Adult fiction genre. Gladys Markowitz, although she did not write under that name. Danny was trying to think of her pen name as he turned left at 23rd. Tess Collins? Tess Collier? Something like that. Sold books by the hundreds of thousands to teenagers around the world.

  Danny stopped on the corner and looked around him. He was acutely aware of how little attention we pay to our surroundings. New York was just a glaring example of it: everyone stumbled along with smart phones in their hands, ear buds shoved into their ears, or both. Texting, reading, typing, ignoring everything and everyone around them without realizing they would never, ever, encounter this moment again. He’d been guilty of it himself and had only stopped looking at his phone the last few months. Whatever emails were there could wait until he got to work. He and Kyle watched the morning news in bed every day, that was enough. He didn’t need to read the New York Times in miniature as he shuffled along Third Avenue. It could all wait—which was exactly the opposite of how the world lived now. Most people thought nothing could wait anymore, not their Facebook updates, not the latest tweet from their favorite celebrity, not the endless stream of “click-bait” trying to grab their attention with headlines that would shame a high school newspaper writer at his most vulgar and juvenile. Danny had a dim view of the culture he found himself living in at fifty-six. Was it age? Or was it simply coming to see it all as flotsam clogging the surface of a sea of emptiness?

  He smiled at that one, “a sea of emptiness.” What did that even mean? He waved at the old man who ran the shoe repair store near the corner of 23rd and Third. He was surprised the store was still there. Almost everyone around it had gone out of business, replaced by other shops that would last six months, maybe a year or two, then they’d be gone as well. Flow and change.

  A lot had changed in Danny Durban’s life the last seven years. He was married. He owned a restaurant, and now the building it was in. His second mother, the one he loved as dearly as he loved his own, was about to move to Florida for the last few years of her life. But the shoe repair store was still there! Third Avenue was still there! Smelly and Leonard and Kyle were still there. He straightened up, smiled. The sun was out, the temperature expected to stay below 80. What a beautiful morning. So many beautiful mornings he’d missed, walking with his head down, staring at the tiny screen on his phone. No more. Today, and tomorrow, and the next day, he would look at the world around him. He would take comfort in what had not changed. He would cherish it all for every moment it lasted and not fall prey to sorrow, wondering when it would end.

  He had a party to plan. He had a life to celebrate—Margaret’s and his own. And the lives of his cats, and the lives of everyone he loved. His mother, his father, his sisters, his nieces and nephews, his husband, Detective Linda and Kirsten, the old man in the shoe store and the bus driver and the mail lady. Celebrate all of them, celebrate each step he took as he walked along, celebrate being alive.

  Yes, he thought, as Margaret’s Passion came into view just a half-block ahead. Time for a new suit—literally and figuratively. Time to be alive.

  He reached the restaurant and saw Chloe already there. He waved at her through the window; she waved back. Trebor the bartender was there, too, making everything look fabulous for the coming lunch crowd. He opened the door and just stood there looking around at his restaurant. His Margaret’s Passion. He would make sure it always lived up to its name, and he would thank Margaret every day of his life for the passion she inspired in him. No time now for sadness, no time for mourning what had not yet passed. It was time to get to work, and do it with a song.

  CHAPTER Twenty-Five

  Kyle loved diners. There had always been something about them that gave him comfort. He traced it back to his childhood, when he and his parents would go to breakfast on Saturday mornings in Highland Park, Illinois. The Chicago suburb was Kyle’s home until he left for college. His father, Bert Callahan, an architect of some renown, died at his desk in the house—the same desk Kyle now used as his own. It was the only possession of his father’s Kyle asked for when his mother moved to Chicago. But the memories of the diners had never faded, and he loved sitting in them, interacting with the waiters and waitresses who came by with coffee and an occasional attitude. He liked the feel of the leatherette booths and the paper placemats with advertisements on them for local businesses. Everything about a diner said home for Kyle, and they were a way for him to go there no matter where he was: diners on the road when they traveled, diners near their apartment, diners in other states, other worlds. Like comfort food itself, diners were consistent, reliable and soothing.

  They’d taken a booth near the window facing Lexington Avenue. It was just nine-thirty and they were only a few blocks from the men’s
store. Linda was eating light, a fruit bowl with cereal, while Kyle had a Greek omelet, dry toast, no potatoes. He was now aware of the gun Linda carried in a holster beneath her jacket that would be visible only to the trained eye had she not told him about it. Being a retired detective allowed her to carry her firearm across state lines, provided she also had proof she’d qualified with the weapon in the past twelve months. Linda never failed to qualify.

  “So here’s where we stand,” Kyle said, waving away their waitress who was making the rounds with fresh coffee. “We know Victor Campagna was at Cargill’s where he was supposed to meet Sam Paddington, who never showed up.”

  “Sam’s last communication with Vic was a text about going to look for a suit. If there were more we’ll never know, since there’s no phone.”

  “At least no phone we know about.”

  “Maybe the phone was the souvenir. You said the Pride Killer always keeps one.”

  “That’s a distinct possibility. And I would guess, given how careful and successful this guy is, that if the cops have the phone, there’s nothing on it that will lead them to him. Otherwise there might not be a second victim—they would have stopped him by now.”

  Kyle had blamed himself all morning for not finding some way to prevent the latest murder. It was useless guilt and fantasy—there was nothing more they could have done—but it troubled him to know the killer had acted outside his pattern. Did it mean he was escalating? That he was in a hurry for some reason? If that was the case he might be meeting his third victim as they spoke.