Night Kills

by John Lutz

  “Maybe stealing some of your clothes.”

  “I don’t think it would be the first time.” Jill stood away from the wall and Pearl released her hold on her arm. “A week ago I blamed the dry cleaners for something they lost, something I couldn’t find the receipt for. And there’ve been a few other items, even some jewelry, that seem to have disappeared.” She gave Pearl a wan smile. “At least you believe me now.”

  “Oh, we believe you,” Pearl said.

  Jill looked around as if suddenly realizing they were in the hall. “C’mon, Jewel. Somebody’s liable to overhear us and think we’re nuts.”

  At first Pearl didn’t know who Jill was talking to. She almost glanced around. Then she realized she was Jewel and followed Jill down the hall to her apartment.

  The door was unlocked.

  “She must have left in a hurry,” Jill said. “Maybe somebody did call and warn her.”

  Pearl edged in front of Jill. “Let me go in first.”

  Jill seemed to resist at first, then moved aside.

  Pearl drew her 9mm Glock from its belt holster and used her free hand to push the door almost closed. She motioned for Jill to stay in the hall, and then Pearl was inside.

  She was in a modestly decorated living room with cheap or old eclectic furniture. Covering most of the hardwood floor was a threadbare fake Persian rug that was mostly maroon. The blinds on one of the street-side twin windows were angled down, as if someone had been peering between the wooden slats keeping an eye on the street. The blinds on the window next to it were slanted to admit light from above. Sunbeams stenciled angled shadows over everything.

  The apartment was quiet. It felt empty. But Pearl knew that could be deceptive. People who knew how to hide could be as silent and still as the furniture. With the gun pressed against her thigh, she made her way past a small galley kitchen on her right, then the opened door to a bathroom with chipped gray tile and old but clean white fixtures. There was a bunched plastic shower curtain, pulled all the way open to the faucet side of the claw-foot tub. Nowhere to hide in the bathroom. Pearl continued down the hall to the bedroom.

  It was surprisingly large, with a double bed covered with a blue and gray duvet. On the wall near the foot of the bed was a tall chest with some of the wood veneer starting to peel. There was a small TV on a table near the chest. On another wall was a dresser with a mismatched framed mirror. A bench by the windows. The blinds were both half open to admit yellow sunlight. The room was bright. Pearl saw that the closet door was hanging open. A light beige dress, maybe something you’d wear someplace nice, was carefully spread out on the bed.

  Pearl approached the closet cautiously, gun at the ready, then parted the clothes.

  No one was hiding behind them.

  She checked under the bed, the only other place in the room someone might find concealment, and saw only a few dust bunnies. The floor was bare wood in here, too, like the living room floor under the faux Persian rug, only in here there were throw rugs scattered about. Throw rugs. The most dangerous things in a house or an apartment—usually.

  Still holding the gun against her thigh, she returned to the living room.

  Jill had of course disobeyed her instructions and was standing just inside the door.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Jill said. “I thought something might have happened to you.”

  “And you came in so it could happen to you too?”

  “It was dumb,” Jill said. “I’m sorry.” She hung her head like a kid who’d just been admonished.

  “Well, that’s one reason I’m here, to teach you how not to take risks,” Pearl said.

  “I’ll learn,” Jill assured her. “Really I will.”

  “Did you leave a dress on the bed when you walked out of here? Beige, lacy neckline, sexy?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have. I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “But it is your dress?”

  “It sounds like one of mine.”

  Pearl led her back to the bedroom and showed her the dress spread out on the bed, the closet door hanging open.

  “It’s mine, all right.” She glanced around, angry and scared. “I didn’t leave things like this,” she said. “She’s been here, handling my stuff, wearing my clothes.”

  “We might have gotten here just in time to save your dress,” Pearl said wryly.

  “Why would she steal my clothes?”

  “Easier to be you if she has some of your clothes. And maybe she wants to hang around the building, even the neighborhood, and let people glimpse her wearing them. Getting people used to seeing her as you. Safe enough, unless you and the other Jill are in the same place at the same time. The people we’re after are no doubt careful about that not happening.”

  Jill sat down on the edge of the bed, just missing the hem of the dress, and slumped staring at the floor. She looked as if she might start crying. Pearl didn’t want that, didn’t want to waste time with it.

  “They’re even stealing my clothes,” Jill said. “They’re stealing me. Madeline said I was halfway to nothing already. She was right.”

  “No, we can change that.”

  Jill looked up at her with moist eyes. “I believe you. I have to. These people might follow me anywhere. You’re the only chance I’ve got.”

  “It’s not just me, Quinn, and Fedderman,” Pearl reminded her. “There’ll be undercover cops looking after you every step of the way, Jill. You’ve got a whole brigade of guardian angels on your side. Angels who know their jobs. Angels with guns.”

  Jill stared again at the worn hardwood floor. “The only chance I’ve got,” she repeated in a soft and lonesome voice.

  Pearl thought she had it about right.

  For the next several hours, Pearl stayed with Jill in her apartment and went over instructions Jill was to follow until the case was resolved and she was again safe. Jill was to inform Tony Lake that Jewel, who lived just upstairs, had become her friend. After that, Jewel would be hanging around Jill most of the time when Tony showed up. Maybe Jill would even invite her new friend to dine with her and Tony. The best way for Jill to be safe was for her to get Tony to think she and Jewel had become a pair, the way it was sometimes with women who were best friends. If he suspected anything, let him suspect they were lovers. That would make it even more problematic for E-Bliss.org to murder Jill and try to pass off another woman as Jill Clark. New best friend Jewel would almost certainly notice the differences in the imposter. Short of murdering both women, which would be way too risky, E-Bliss.org would have no choice but to delay the substitution.

  That was what Quinn and his team were counting on—delay while they gathered evidence. While they built their case brick by brick into a wall that would fall on and crush E-Bliss.org in a court of law.

  It was only when Pearl finally left Jill, to return to her apartment on the floor above, that it struck her.

  Which of the two Jills she’d met today was the original?

  39

  Deputy Chief Harley Renz, potbelly straining the buttons of his white shirt, sat behind his desk looking like an angry Buddha with a basset-hound face. If he kept putting on weight, he’d soon catch up with Nobbler.

  Quinn had filled Renz in on the latest developments in the Torso Murders case, and while Renz was reasonably pleased by the progress they’d made, he was seriously ticked off about Wes Nobbler and the leaks from the medical examiner’s office.

  Renz’s office was too warm this morning, reflecting his mood. Sunlight fairly roared through the window, heating up Quinn’s vinyl chair, his right arm and shoulder, and one side of his face. The same sunlight was also harsh on Renz’s face, emphasizing his mottled, flushed complexion.

  There was a lot of dust in the sunlight, as if Renz had just finished beating a carpet. Quinn had to control his breathing to keep from sneezing.

  “I expected Nobbler to be a political animal and put the knife in my back,” Renz said. “Nobbler’s an asshole. But he’s a player. What’s that
little prick Nift doing messing in Homicide’s business? He’s a physician, for God’s sake! What’s he got to gain?”

  “Aside from enjoying examining dead women,” Quinn said, “he figures to move higher in the bureaucracy. Maybe be the city’s chief medical examiner someday.”

  “He’s probably the one dumping information on that Cindy Sellers bitch. Damned woman’s a bottom-feeder.”

  “You’re her source,” Quinn reminded him.

  “It started out that way; then she turned on us.”

  “But you’re still talking to her.”

  Renz waved a hand dismissively. “I use her, she uses me, and we try to stay ahead of each other.”

  He leaned back, moving his mottled face out of the sunlight, and took a few deep breaths. Quinn thought he might pop a pill next. If he wasn’t taking something for his blood pressure, maybe he should. Renz looked like the definition of an impending heart attack.

  “The same gun, different kind of broomstick, vaginal, anal…Somebody’s screwing with our minds, Quinn.”

  “That’s how Pearl sees it. I think she might have a point. I also think we might have two killers.”

  Renz wearily rubbed his fleshy features, leaving marks beneath both eyes. “Serial killers don’t usually come in pairs.”

  “But it happens,” Quinn said. “A leader-follower kind of relationship. Together they’re capable of what neither of them might do individually. And considering E-Bliss, the switch in M.O.s might be part of a diversion to lead us to the assumption that we’re looking for a garden-variety psychosexual serial killer.”

  “I don’t see where it’d make much difference to whoever’s killing these people whether we’re looking for one or two psychos. The murders are part of a business plan, if what this Jill Clark says is true.”

  “It’s true,” Quinn said. He told Renz about Pearl coming face-to-face with the other Jill Clark yesterday in Jill’s apartment building.

  Renz dry washed his face again with his blunt-fingered hands. “Sometimes I think there are two of everybody,” he said.

  Quinn didn’t know what he meant by that. Probably another reference to two-faced backstabbers in the NYPD. He should know they could be found wherever there was rampant ambition, which was just about everywhere.

  “You sure you’re set up well enough to protect the real Jill Clark?” Renz asked.

  “She’s safe as we can make her. Protection around the clock, and Pearl’s staying on the floor above, playing the new best friend. We need more information. And we need to link Tony Lake and E-Bliss with the Torso Murders without Jill Clark becoming a victim.”

  “Sounds like she’s ripe for it,” Renz said, “considering what you told me about Pearl bumping into the other Jill yesterday.”

  Quinn heard a series of soft pops. Renz was absently cracking his knuckles. It was a new habit that could soon get on Quinn’s nerves. People do change their habits, sometimes their M.O.s. Maybe this is another Renz.

  “What the hell’re you smiling about?” Renz asked.

  Quinn hadn’t been aware of the slight smile on his face. “Nothing. Nervous reaction, I guess.”

  Pop, pop went the knuckles.

  “What would flush them out,” Renz said, “is if they made a play for Jill.” Quinn knew that was what he was secretly hoping for. “Unsuccessful, of course. But we need for something to happen before the media learn everything. That’d blow the investigation and we’d all get fed to the wolves.”

  “Maybe there’s a way to hold the wolves at bay,” Quinn said.

  Renz sat forward again, subjecting himself to the hot sunlight. Pop, pop. “Are you about to show me your devious side, Quinn?”

  “That’s why you hired me.”

  “One reason,” Renz admitted. “Takes one to catch one.”

  “And know one. Let’s give the media a suspect.”

  Renz’s face fell in disappointment. “Hell, I thought of that. Standard operating procedure. Trouble is, we don’t have anyone to give them.”

  “All the better. That way they won’t be able to nail anything down. If it’s somebody we can’t find, they won’t be able to find him either and eliminate him as a suspect. It might also lull the real Torso killer into thinking we’ve gone off on a tangent.”

  Renz stopped unconsciously cracking his knuckles. “You’ve obviously given this some thought.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Quinn watched Renz’s expression, the Swiss-watch mechanism behind the sad eyes. Renz was figuring the odds and risks and rewards of what Quinn was suggesting, and what it might mean to his career, his relentless climb up the slippery ladder. It took him only seconds to grasp it all. He was shrewd as well as ambitious. It struck Quinn, as it had many times, that Renz was a great politician in a small way.

  Renz smiled. “Who’ve you got in mind? Nift?”

  “I wish,” Quinn said. “I’m thinking Tom Coulter.”

  Coulter was a burglar and rapist who had allegedly murdered a single mother and her three young children a month ago in New Jersey. He’d used a kitchen knife on them, leaving his fingerprints on its handle and in the blood of the victims. There was virtually no doubt of his guilt. When police located him and approached with a warrant for his arrest, he shot at them and sped away in a stolen SUV. Neither he nor the vehicle had been seen since.

  With the victims in their graves, and the disappearance of the killer, Coulter had pretty much dropped out of the news. He’d reportedly been spotted here and there, but none of the leads went anywhere.

  “Leak to the media that Coulter’s suspected of committing the Torso Murders,” Quinn said.

  Renz began chewing the inside of his cheek, thinking it over. “Think there’s enough similarity in M.O.s for them to buy into it?”

  “Slash killings in this area—that’s all they’ll need because they’ll be hungry for the story. They’ll make Coulter a viable suspect. Rumor will build on rumor. The media will furnish the facts and the credibility.”

  “We’ve seen them do that before,” Renz said.

  “It might shake Coulter loose somehow so we can pick him up, but that’d only be a bonus. The main thing is, it’ll generate endless ink and TV babble and take media minds off the real investigation.”

  “A diversion,” Renz said in a pleased voice. “Like the diversion created by E-Bliss.”

  “Something like that,” Quinn said.

  “Raw meat thrown to the media wolves so they’ll gorge on it and slow down. Chew on each other in their blood feast.”

  “More like that.”

  “I like it,” Renz said, closing his eyelids and showing some REM movement, as if enjoying the imagery. “In fact, I’ll enjoy it.”

  Thinking no doubt of Cindy Sellers.

  40

  Victor walked back and forth along Sutton Place, his untucked shirt whipped by the breeze off the East River, his thumbs hooked into the side pockets of his designer jeans. He knew he hadn’t actually gone for a pleasant walk, as he’d assured himself. He was pacing. Trying to work off tension that had been building for days.

  There were certain thoughts Victor couldn’t shake, dreams he couldn’t forget. Most of the dreams were about Charlotte Lowenstein. What he and Gloria had done to the poor woman was sick and depraved, but it had, for a while, provided some relief.

  Still, Charlotte’s death was disturbing to Victor in a way that wouldn’t give him peace. He’d never been one to believe the hogwash that dealing out death somehow diminished the dealer. Especially if there was a sound business reason for killing. War, for instance. That was usually a business reason, and we made heroes of people who killed efficiently and in great numbers. The reality was simple. For some people to flourish, others had to die.

  That rationale had worked for all of the victims but Charlotte.

  As relief, then satiation, was gradually supplanted by reawakening desire, the dreams and dark yearnings returned. It was becoming more and more difficult for Victor
to regard Charlotte’s death as merely part of a business plan.

  But why shouldn’t he regard it that way? That was what it was. Victor told himself that repeatedly. One way or another, the E-Bliss.org victim clients were expendable. It was the computer that had decided that. This was the new age of technology, and in a way the dead clients were among the earliest victims of the new technology society. They had to be deleted. What practical difference did it make if he enjoyed ending their lives?

  The lion that killed the antelope felt nothing beyond hunger, but did the antelope not suffer and die? What went on in the minds of slayer and slain was irrelevant. That was how the world worked. It was teeming with predators and prey animals, with nothing in between. Only people had their choice. They could become one or the other. Victor had long ago made his choice.

  Conscience didn’t enter into it.

  That was exactly how Victor saw it when it came to the earlier victims, the ones for whom he’d felt little compassion or anything close to sadistic arousal. He was the lion, and they were the antelopes. The world in its turning. The lion did not regret. The lion did not worry.

  Still, Charlotte worried Victor. Charlotte in her dying and death was causing him distress. She was the one victim he—and Gloria—had intended to enjoy.

  And, God, we did enjoy her!

  Gloria deceived her, but we both enjoyed her.

  A gray Mercedes sedan turning off East Fifty-sixth onto Sutton Place honked at him, jolting him out of his gloomy self-recrimination.

  He waved at the driver in apology for almost stepping off the curb into the car’s path, then continued his restless walking.

  This isn’t like me, what I did to Charlotte, what I’m thinking. It’s something I have to shake off or it will control me. And I can shake it off. It isn’t me. Not the real me. It isn’t.

  Victor drew comfort from the fact that he, more than most people, possessed iron self-control.

  If only I could sleep without the dreams….

  But in truth he knew there was only one thing that would enable him to sleep soundly through the night. It was the one thing that would chase the deep desires roaring through the core of him when he awoke from terrible nightmares in his sweat-drenched bed. That would free him from the persistent thoughts that claimed his daylight hours and prompted him to almost step in front of moving cars. That might someday cause him to make a critical mistake in his work.