by John Lutz
Marty felt sick to his stomach. He swallowed and tried to keep his voice as deep as possible, but it still broke when he spoke. “We goin’ lookin’ for your buck now?”
Marty’s father peered closely at him, as if trying to see into him, and smiled, then looked away, almost as if to see if there was anyone else in this part of the woods.
“Ordinarily we would,” he said, “but there’s somethin’ you gotta do first. Let’s jus’ take a little walk, wait for this fine animal to bleed out.”
Marty followed, not at all unhappy to be leaving the scene. As they walked away he could hear blood pattering on the ground. The sound of it, the scent and vivid red of the blood on the pure white snow, would never leave him.
They walked down to the lake, then along the frozen shoreline. Winter had hit with the lake level high, and the dark water that was flecked with ice looked to be halfway up some of the smaller trees. There was no sound in the winter woods other than the crunch of their boots in the snow, and sometimes in the frozen mud.
“There’s somethin’ Alma an’ me don’t much talk about,” Marty’s father said. Alma was his wife, Marty’s mother. He and Marty referred to her by her first name, because that’s what she demanded. His father looked over at him with a faint smile as he spoke. “The both of us-you an’ me-are from a family of hunters, descendents of Red Hawk, who was the most renowned hunter in the Chippewa nation.”
This wasn’t news to Marty. He’d even used the fact to earn some respect at school. Aside from family whispers, he had heard others mention Red Hawk and his father’s Chippewa lineage. He’d even read in some of the books in the school library about his ancestor, the legendary Red Hawk.
“You proud of who you are?” his father asked.
“ ’Course I am. Always been.”
“When my father was young, his father took him huntin’ when he was just about your age, an’ it was the same way with his father, all the way back to Red Hawk.”
“Family tradition,” Marty said.
“Oh, it’s somethin’ even more’n that.”
They’d left the lake and circled around and were back near where the dead deer hung from the stout tree branch.
When they approached the deer, Marty couldn’t believe how much blood was on the ground beneath the ugly jagged slice in its neck. There was so much blood around the gash itself that it made the cut look even deeper than it was, so it appeared as if the great animal’s head might fall off from its weight and the weight of the antlers.
Marty’s father reached beneath his jacket and drew out a different knife, large, with a sharp blade. About an inch from the knife’s point was a curved barb, jutting out about half an inch like a steel tooth.
“Take off your clothes,” he said to Marty.
“Wha-”
His father smiled. “Don’t be frightened. Jus’ go ahead an’ undress.”
Marty did as he was told, hanging his clothes over some nearby tree limbs, letting his boots sit on the ground with his socks in them. What had seemed a slight breeze became more brisk now, as if taking advantage of Marty’s nakedness.
His father smiled at him again, then turned his attention to the deer. He inserted the point of the blade in between its rear legs, then grunted with effort and made a long incision all the way down, even cutting through breastbone, almost to the gashed throat.
The deer’s stomach opened wide, and its entrails spilled out onto the ground. Marty recoiled from the fetid copper stench of blood and corruption. He could taste it along the edges of his tongue. A long gray section of intestine remained dangling from the body cavity.
His father flipped the knife around in his hand so he was holding it by the bloody blade. He extended the bone handle to Marty. “You finish the job. Ordinary way to do this is to lay the deer down, open it up more gentle, but we do it this way. This here’s a gutting knife. Some hunters like this kind ’cause it’s got a gut hook. You use that sharp barb on the blade to hook the deer’s insides. That’ll help you pull out the internal organs. You cut out the rectum an’ tie it with this cord, else wise you can have a hell of a mess. You gotta clean that deer out good so nothin’ll rot later on, so the meat’ll cure okay. You understand?”
Marty had never felt so naked and addled. His stomach was on a roller coaster. Bile rose bitterly in his throat. At first he thought he could stop it, but he had to turn away suddenly and vomit. His bare toes were splashed, and he moved back out of the way. That was when he noticed he was standing with his feet in blood. All around him was blood now mixed with vomit.
“Dad…”
His father moved the knife closer to him, and Marty took the bone handle and trudged through the snow and blood to the deer. He had goose bumps and was shivering, but not entirely from the cold.
The stench and heat of the deer almost overwhelmed him, and made him vomit again. But he steeled himself and found surprising resolve deep within him. A place in his mind he didn’t even know existed.
He did something like turning off his mind, and set to work with the knife.
“Use your hands,” his father said. “Both of ’em if you have to.”
Marty continued gripping slippery, sometimes still-warm internal organs, cutting them free and pulling them from the bloody cavity, dropping them to the saturated ground at his feet.
“Hollow him out good,” his father said encouragingly.
Marty worked harder and harder, not so much minding the blood now. What he wanted to do-what he had to do-was finish field dressing this deer so he had the approval of his father. Of his father’s father…
When the carcass was nearly hollowed out, he heard his father say, “Now rub the blood on yourself, Marty. All over yourself.”
And Marty, sobbing quietly from his stress and effort, did exactly that, painting himself with blood.
War paint. Like putting on war paint.
His father came to him, dipped a hand inside the deer, and rubbed more blood on Marty’s forehead. The tip of his forefinger moved with slow purpose above Marty’s closed eyes, tracing some kind of design, a symbol. Then he removed the knife from his son’s hand and stuck it into the deer. Still holding Marty’s hand, he led him down to the lake.
Marty washed in the icy water, rinsing the blood from his hair, splashing lake water coldly over his face. He was trying to shock himself back from what seemed like a dream.
Only he never made it all the way back. It hadn’t been a dream.
His father told him to run ahead and get dressed, and Marty, shivering, made his way back to where the deer was strung up. He got his clothes down from where he’d draped them over branches. Fumbling with frozen fingers, he managed to dress himself.
He was still cold, even with his boots and coat on. He tried not to, but he began to shiver.
“You’ll get used to field dressing game,” his father said. “The way I did after my father had me do the same thing you jus’ did.”
Marty could only nod, still trembling from the cold.
“Think of it as an initiation. A rite of passage. Can you?”
“I can,” Marty said. It didn’t seem like enough. “I do.”
His father gazed at the sky and pointed.
Marty looked and saw a large bird, maybe a hawk, circling high above. It was wheeling lazily, the way hawks do, as if they’re more concerned about rising than falling.
“You’re one of us now, son. A hunter.”
A sudden flush of pride warmed Marty so that he not only stopped trembling, he barely felt the cold.
“A hunter,” his father said again. But it didn’t seem like his father’s voice that time. Not exactly. It was almost like a third voice, inside Marty’s head.
30
New York, the present
Pearl and Fedderman were out reinterviewing witnesses. Quinn had assigned them that task mainly because Renz had wanted to meet with him alone.
They were in the sparse but efficient office on West Seventy-ninth
Street. Quinn was seated at his desk. Renz was standing across from him, leaning back with his butt propped against the edge of Pearl’s desk, the way Pearl often stood. Quinn wondered if there was something about that spot, the way the two desks were arranged, that induced people to stand that way.
“The Hettie Davis murder,” Renz said. “Hell of a mess.”
“The job takes a strong stomach sometimes,” Quinn said.
“I don’t mean just that kind of mess,” Renz said. “The sort of butchery that was done on the victim, that’s usually not a one-time thing. The bastard treated her like she was some kind of animal he’d killed and was gonna make a rug out of, or something.” He absently toyed with a cellophane-wrapped tip of a cigar protruding with a clipped pen from the pocket of his white shirt. “How likely is it that we’ve got two major psychotic serial killers operating at the same time in the same city?”
“In this city,” Quinn said, “maybe not so unlikely. But whoever killed Hettie Davis might not be a serial killer.”
“We both know better than that,” Renz said. “By the way, she’d had sex, but some time before death. Impossible to know how long, but at least six hours. No sign of forcible entry. No semen, either, so no DNA. Traces of condom lubricant. Might have nothing to do with her murder and she was a random victim.”
“Or maybe it was a crime of passion.”
“Cold-blooded passion,” Renz said. Both men knew there was such a thing. “I had a records search done, and there’s nothing like that kind of killing happened here as far back as it went.”
“So it would be his first,” Quinn said. “At least in this city.”
“All that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the kind of gory, ritualistic murder serial killers commit.”
“But not always serial killers. Not even usually. Maybe she wasn’t a random victim. Maybe there’s something personal in this.”
“Personal?” Renz asked, as if people murdering people they knew were a new concept.
“Killer and victim could have known each other,” Quinn said, “could even have been lovers, and there was something between them that led up to the murder, maybe even over a period of years.”
“I got a good team on it, checking all that out. Vitali and Mishkin.”
Quinn knew both men, and they were top detectives. Sal Vitali was a pushy kind of guy, a hard driver. Harold Mishkin was almost timid, a deep thinker with a weak stomach. Together they got things done. “My guess is they’ll find the victim had a history with the killer,” Quinn said.
“Your guess and my hope. Two psycho freaks terrorizing the city at the same time’s a nightmare scenario.”
“We don’t have that,” Quinn reminded him, almost adding yet.
Renz seemed suddenly to become aware that he was fingering the cigar. “Okay to smoke in here?”
“Sure. Pearl’ll find out-she can smell tobacco smoke at a mile and a half-but that’s okay.”
Quinn waited until Renz had used a thin gold lighter to fire up his cigar, then got one of his Cubans from a desk drawer and lit it with a book match. When Pearl got hissy about the air quality, as she almost certainly would, he could truthfully blame it on Renz.
The two men enjoyed their smokes for a while, not saying anything. Then Renz said, “I’m the goddamn police commissioner and whenever I light up anywhere in this city I feel like I’m back smoking in the boys’ room in high school.”
“You get to be mayor, Harley, and you can change that.”
“Be at the top of my agenda,” Renz said. “Right after bustin’ balls in the NYPD so the murder rate drops. Between that and the smokers’ vote, I don’t see how I can’t get elected.”
Probably, Quinn thought, he was serious.
Renz tilted back his head and blew a series of imperfect smoke rings that created a white pall up near the ceiling. He laughed. “Pearl will be furious.”
“At somebody,” Quinn said.
He simply wasn’t getting it, so Prudence Langton patiently explained it again to the apartment building’s super, a grossly overweight man wearing a dirty gray uniform. He was sweating profusely, causing his dark chest hairs to glisten where the top two buttons of his shirt were unfastened. He was bald, smelled rancid, and wore what looked like a religious symbol on a silver chain around his thick neck. She didn’t consider him dating material.
Prudence had on a fashionable gray pantsuit with a ruffled white blouse. She was wearing her usual Blind Obsession dabbed behind her ears and at the top of her cleavage, but its delicate scent was easily overwhelmed by that of the super. “I was Vera’s roommate in college,” she said. “I knew I was coming to New York on business and wanted to see her. I’ve been calling for two weeks and getting her machine. And I’ve been here twice knocking on her door, and nobody answers.” She leaned toward him, trying not to breathe in. “You do know who I’m talking about?”
“Sure. Miz Doaks, Seven B. I ain’t seen her in quite a while neither, runnin’ in an’ out like she usually does. A regular jogger. Keeps in shape, all right.” His small gray eyes journeyed up and down Prudence as if they had a lascivious mind of their own. “She’s an actress or somethin’. I just figured she had a job outta town. Summer stock theater, or whatever it is them kinda people do.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t that. I talked to her literary agent. He said he’s been trying to get in touch with her, too, and hasn’t had any luck. What I’d like is for you to unlock her apartment so we can see if anything’s happened to her.”
“You mean is she up there dead?”
Pru swallowed. Dead? Not Vera. Not possible. “I’d prefer to think that perhaps she’s sick and unable to get to the phone. Or possibly she’s taken a trip and there’ll be some sign of that.”
“Summer stock,” the super said again. He used a filthy rag to wipe his gleaming face. He seemed to see for the first time the look of apprehension in this obviously refined woman’s eyes. Maybe it was because of him. He didn’t like it that his appearance might be scaring her. Slightly embarrassed he forced a smile. “I been workin’ on the plumbin’,” he explained. “Dirty work.”
“You don’t have to go in yourself,” Pru said, assuming he was concerned about smudging Vera’s apartment. These were two people who definitely couldn’t communicate on the same wavelength. It was more than frustrating for Pru. “I just want to glance around and make sure she isn’t there.”
“Then what?”
Pru’s plan was to go to the police and see if they’d list Vera as a missing person, but she decided not to involve the super in that.
“Then I’ll know,” she said simply.
The super made a big show of considering. “I don’t usually do something like that unless it’s the police or somebody like that askin’. Or unless I know there’s some kinda trouble in a unit.”
“Well,” Pru said, running out of patience, “I can get the police. But time might be important. If Vera’s up there with some sort of health problem and the worst happens, I don’t want to be in any way responsible. Nor do you, I’m sure.”
The prospect of legal responsibility did the trick. “You got a point there.” He untucked the dirty rag from his belt and used it to wipe his hands. “I’ll go get my passkey, and we can take a look-see.”
As they rode the elevator up, he said, “Miz Doaks is one of the nicer tenants here. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her, so I guess it is best we decided to look in on her.”
Covering his ass. Not so dumb. “We have to look out for each other,” Pru said.
“Used to be you didn’t have to,” the super said, “but now you do. In this city, you sure do.”
After he unlocked the door he stood back, obviously intending to stay in the hall. His visitor’s apprehension had proved contagious.
Pru opened the door to a stillness and staleness that suggested the apartment had been unoccupied for some time. She stepped inside, noting that Vera’s home was functional and fairly well decora
ted.
Immediately she noticed the potted plants on a windowsill. They were brown and dead.
Pru’s heart began to pound as she moved deeper into the small apartment. She held her breath as she glanced in each room.
No sign of Vera.
Now she wished the super had come in with her. She had to make herself open the door to the closet in the bedroom, and to another in the short hall. She had to make sure Vera wasn’t in one of them, that someone hadn’t locked or hidden her out of sight.
But Vera was in neither of the closets. The one in the hall held only linens; the one in the bedroom, what looked like Vera’s full complement of clothes and shoes. Pru made herself peer under the bed. There was nothing there but dust bunnies and two suitcases, one large, one small, both with wheels. Both empty.
It seemed unlikely that Vera was traveling.
When Pru went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator she found sour milk, and green mold on cheese and meat. In the produce drawer were limp brown celery stalks and two shriveled tomatoes.
This wasn’t good. The dead plants, unpacked suitcases, closet full of clothes, and the obviously old contents of the refrigerator. Something was very wrong.
Pru went back into the living room and noticed the phone with its answering machine blinking red, signaling there were messages. She thought about playing the messages and then decided against it. Maybe she shouldn’t touch anything in the apartment.
When she returned to the hall she watched as the super relocked the apartment.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Yes,” Pru said. “She isn’t in there.”
But where is she?
She decided that her next stop would be the nearest NYPD precinct house.
Pearl stood staring at herself in the restroom mirror. She didn’t like admitting that they were getting to her. At odd times of the day or night, she found herself wondering and had to check.
She leaned toward her mirror image and with her right hand bent her right ear forward, tilting her elbow in as she rotated her body to the left.