Night Victims

by John Lutz

  “Do any of the other tenants remember something like that happening?”

  “Sure,” Bickerstaff said. “Half a dozen. It happens all the time. People are lazy with their keys and too trustful, even in New York. It’s like they go to sleep at night and forget everything that happened to them that day or what they’ve read in the papers, then they get up next morning not knowing again how many assholes are walking around out there. A guy NIGHT VICTIMS

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  edges in with them when they’re buzzed up or unlock a door, they don’t think much about it. They’ve done the same thing themselves.”

  Horn shook his head. “So much for building security.” He sipped from a glass of ice water. He was staying away from coffee so he could actually get a few hours’ sleep and be more effective the rest of the day. “Whatever’s driving Mandle is getting stronger. He’s stepped up the pace, killing with increasing frequency.”

  “Like most of those jerk-off serial killers,” Bickerstaff said.

  “What I don’t understand,” Horn said, “is why his method of entering Shoemaker’s apartment was different.”

  “Another message,” Marla said.

  Surprised, the three detectives looked up at her where she was standing near the booth. There were several customers in the front area of the diner this morning. Marla had to work her trade.

  “He wanted to let you know you had more than his usual MO to worry about,” she continued. “That he was ahead of you in your game of wits.” She might have been about to say more, but a voice called her name. She turned and strode toward an elderly man in a window booth who was animatedly motioning for her with his empty coffee cup.

  “She’s probably right,” Paula said.

  “Can we be sure the nurse wasn’t a copycat murder?” Bickerstaff asked.

  Horn and Paula looked at him.

  “Not likely,” Paula said. “Remember the phone call to Anne.”

  “Still possible, though,” Bickerstaff said. “All someone had to do was find out how to get in touch with Anne at the hospital. The news media’s been on this case like flies on a dead carp. Lots of information on TV and in the newspapers.”

  “There are too many similarities with the previous murders,” Horn said.

  “Not the method of entry,” Paula reiterated.

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  Bickerstaff grunted and got his notepad from a pocket of his wrinkled suitcoat. He absently propped his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose and consulted his notes.

  Paula thought he looked ten years older with his glasses on, the way they slid halfway down his nose. And incongruously academic. Mr. Chips with a 9mm.

  “We got the three victims,” he said. “Alice Duggan, Nicolette—long for Letty—Fonsetta, and Nora Shoemaker.

  The first two were in their early thirties, Nora in her early forties. All at least reasonably attractive. The first two were public figures. They were killed after Mandle dropped down like a spider from the roof and entered through their bedroom windows. The nurse was killed after her apartment was entered through the door.”

  “Because Mandle wanted to send a message,” Paula reminded Bickerstaff.

  He grunted again and nodded. “Thirty-seven stab wounds in the first and second victims, thirty-five in the nurse. All three with their heads bashed in.”

  “He might simply have lost track of the number of stab wounds,” Horn said.

  “Or was scared away,” Paula said.

  “Or got bored.” Bickerstaff dropped his notepad on the table. “I could go on, but it looks like the same killer to me.

  The nurse’s death looks quite a bit different from the other two until you start listing similarities.”

  “Different nonetheless,” Paula said. She yawned.

  Made Bickerstaff yawn. He glared at her as if he resented it.

  “Let’s catch up on some rest,” Horn said, “before we all drift off here in the diner.”

  Bickerstaff said, “You think he knows we meet here?” The thought hadn’t occurred to Horn or, apparently, to Paula, who was looking at him with a stunned expression.

  “I mean,” Bickerstaff went on, “Mandle knows who’s working his case. And we’ve been using this diner like it was a squad room.”

  “It’s always possible,” Horn said, watching Marla bring NIGHT VICTIMS

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  the impatient customer in the window booth a glass of orange juice. For a second, he thought about calling Larkin, getting protection for Marla. But he couldn’t do that. How many women could he insist the overworked NYPD protect?

  And Rollie would ask, what was Marla Winger to Horn?

  Horn had no concrete answer.

  “Let’s meet back here about two this afternoon,” he said, sliding out of the booth and standing. He tossed enough money on the table to cover breakfast and a tip.

  Both men stood aside and let Paula lead the way toward the door. They all paused to say good-bye to Marla, who was now busy behind the counter.

  At the door, Paula stopped and stood still. “Wait a minute!”

  “You’re letting out the air-conditioning,” said Mr. Impatient with the orange juice.

  She realized she was holding the door open and went the rest of the way outside. Horn and Bickerstaff followed. Heat and noise wrapped around them like a blanket.

  “You said Letty Fonsetta’s first name was short for Nicole.”

  “Nicolette,” Bickerstaff said.

  “Think of the three victims in the order of their deaths,” Paula said, keeping her voice down and moving back against the building so passersby wouldn’t overhear. “Their first names.”

  “Jesus!” Horn said.

  Bickerstaff looked from one of them to the other.

  “Alice, Nicolette, and Nora,” Horn said grimly. “The first letters of their names spell Ann.”

  “Maybe a coincidence,” Bickerstaff said.

  “They don’t exist,” Paula told him. Something she’d heard Horn say.

  “It’s too much of a stretch not to be deliberate.” Horn had removed a cigar from his shirt pocket when they left the diner. Now he put it back.

  “Remember the note Mandle sent her,” Paula said. “A-N-N-E, with the dashes between capital letters.” 336

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  “I’ll be damned!” Bickerstaff said. “The son of a bitch is leading up to Anne’s murder, spelling out her name with his victims’ first initials.”

  “If that’s true,” Paula said, “there’ll be another Night Spider murder before he tries for Anne. The victim will be a woman whose first name begins with E. ” Bickerstaff gazed out at the traffic, at the endless stream of vehicles and countless pedestrians. The expression on his face suggested he was thinking about all the Ellens and Emmas out there. “At least we have the note he sent Anne, so we know we’ve got a little time.”

  Paula stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bickerstaff turned to look at her. “We can be sure he knows how to spell her name.”

  The two o’clock meeting with Paula and Bickerstaff had yielded nothing else new. Horn was wearing down. He didn’t bother undressing or going up to his bedroom. He merely removed his shirt and shoes and stretched out on the sofa in the living room. Planes of sunlight dancing with dust motes sliced in through the spaces between shades and window frames. The chaotic but muted sounds of the city found their way inside and were oddly relaxing. Four familiar walls, dimness, cracks of sunlight, sounds of human connection too distant to be threatening . . .

  Horn rested the back of his wrist on his forehead, blocking some of the light, and closed his eyes.

  He woke in darkness.

  Horn was hungry, but he was sure that wasn’t what had woken him.

  He straightened his right arm and worked it back and forth until most of the soreness was gone. Then he sat up on the sofa, managed to stand, and switched on a table lamp. He saw by the grandfather clock that it was past 9:00 P.M.
>
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  Great! He’d intended to check and make sure Anne’s security had been increased and was in place. And he wanted to call Anne and reassure her. He rubbed the back of his hand across his lips. They seemed to be glued together.

  As he staggered through the brownstone toward the bathroom, switching on lights as he went, he wondered if he should tell Anne about how Mandle was spelling out her name with victims before trying to kill her. A sadistic game played by an expert. If she knew about his latest gambit, she might feel all the more helpless.

  By the time he’d relieved his bladder and was leaning over the washbasin splashing handfuls of cold water on his face, he decided Anne deserved to know. It was, after all, her life that was at stake. There might even be an odd comfort in the knowledge that probably another victim, whose first initial was E, stood between her and her encounter with the Night Spider.

  But he’d also have to tell her that might be precisely what Mandle wanted the police to think, so he’d have an easier time getting to her.

  After putting on his shoes and a clean shirt, Horn phoned Lieutenant Howard Burton, who’d been put in charge of Anne’s security detail. From Burton he learned that two more undercover cops disguised as hospital employees had been placed in the hospital on Anne’s floor, and another uniformed cop was stationed in the lobby. Good. More visibil-ity. But the NYPD was aiming for an arrest, while Horn’s top priority was prevention. Anne was working in her office at the hospital now, he was told, with her uniformed guard outside her door.

  When Horn had hung up on Burton, he phoned Anne’s direct line.

  “You doing all right?” he asked.

  “Only if you call worrying about getting sued and getting killed doing all right.” She sounded tired. Discouraged.

  “You should leave the city, Anne. Go somewhere you know you’ll be safe until we find Mandle.” 338

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  “That sounds so much simpler than it is. And how do you know I would be safe? Or that you’ll ever find him? In the meantime, I’ve got a life to live.”

  “Mandle sees you as a life to take. You’re running a big risk, choosing this as the time to assert yourself and prove your independence.”

  “The time chose me, Thomas. And this isn’t political correctness or feminist dogma. I’m clear-eyed about the facts and who and what I am. And I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to be a victim of fear.”

  “How about of murder?”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t afraid. I said I wasn’t going to be a victim. Any kind of victim, including one who’s willing in some indirect, perverse way.”

  “Were you ever?”

  “A victim?” She took a few seconds to consider. “I don’t think so, no. And I’m not going to begin because this evil freak is pushing my buttons.”

  “Mandle’s changed his MO somewhat. He’s not as predictable now.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me more?”

  “For God’s sake no, Anne! I want you to know the facts so you can take precautions. Mandle didn’t come through the window of his last victim. He forced the lock and came in through her door.”

  He could hear her breathing loudly into the phone.

  “Okay, Thomas. I’m sorry. I’m strung out with this . . . with everything that’s going on. But my nerves are holding.

  Damn it, they are! The more I know, the better off I am.”

  “Here’s something else you need to know, or at least have a right to know. The NYPD’s not releasing the information yet, so this is in confidence. It appears Mandle’s using his victims’ first initials to spell out your name.” He explained to her what Paula had figured out. “It doesn’t necessarily mean,” he added, “that a woman whose first initial is E will actually be a victim before Mandle tries for you. The order NIGHT VICTIMS

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  of victims’ names might only be his way of throwing us off guard so he can get to you while we’re concentrating on someone else.”

  “You really think his fucked-up mind works that way, Thomas?”

  “Why not? You just said yourself it was fucked up.”

  “He’d only be pretending to be locked into a compulsion.

  I’m no psychiatrist but nothing Mandle’s done before has suggested he’s anything other than a true obsessive-compulsive.”

  “The sad truth about serial killers,” Horn said, “is that we really don’t know how their minds work, what’s missing in them. They aren’t all locked into patterns. And some of them, for unknown reasons, change patterns. Some of them even suddenly stop killing, as if finally they’ve become sati-ated with death.”

  “Satiated with death . . .” The concept seemed to intrigue her. “God, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Mandle suddenly decided he’d taken enough lives?” There was a slight note of hope in her voice, beneath her despair.

  “Wonderful,” Horn agreed, “but not the sort of notion I’d stake my life on.”

  Horn left the brownstone before ten o’clock to stroll down to the Home Away and have a late-night snack, hoping Marla was working. The evening was warm, with a breath of breeze, and reminded him of other warm evenings of his life: swimming illegally in a lake as a teenager; cruising in his first car, an old Ford convertible; romancing Anne; swel-tering during summer stakeouts; helplessly watching a mugging victim bleed to death on a sidewalk in Queens . . .

  Enough of warm nights.

  He was a hard man who’d long dealt with hard facts; he’d never been able to afford a world of fancy. Now here he was feeling as if he were walking in a dream. Had he really awoken, or was he still home, lying asleep on the sofa? Was 340

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  the warm evening a dream while he was suspended in the world between sleeping and waking? So many mornings he hadn’t wanted to wake up . . .

  But he knew he was awake and walking in the city of his younger days, away from his wife’s voice and toward another woman. Looking forward to seeing the other woman.

  Feeling the stirrings of new beginnings.

  Brakes squealed and rubber rasped on concrete.

  “Watch where you’re fuckin’ walkin’!” Horn backed away from the cab he’d almost stepped in front of and waved an apology to the driver.

  He stood chastised and did not look back at his fellow pedestrians on the sidewalk, who were staring at him with blank cops’ faces as they waited for the traffic signal to change.

  Marla was off work until morning. Horn got his usual booth but had to settle for an omelet and decaffeinated coffee served to him by a new waiter named Leonard who spoke so softly it was hard to understand him. That seemed to work both ways because he brought Horn a cheese omelet thinking Horn had said “cheese” instead of “please” when he’d ordered.

  Horn, who chose his battles carefully, said nothing, fear-ing more complication.

  He’d taken only a few bites of the omelet when his cell phone beeped in his pocket.

  Good. Someone I can understand.

  But at first he wasn’t sure who was on the other end of the connection.

  “Waldo Winthrop,” repeated the caller.

  “Sorry, I don’t know any—”

  “Newsy. I used to be Nina Count’s assistant.”

  “Newsy! Sure, I remember you. How’d you get this number?”

  “Captain Horn, you insult my professionalism.” NIGHT VICTIMS

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  “Sorry, Newsy. So I take it you’re still in the business.”

  “As an independent.”

  “You mean you sell information?”

  “To news outlets. Not to you, Captain Horn. Nina wouldn’t have wanted it that way. She liked you.”

  “I liked her.” But Horn knew others in the information business, at her station, who hadn’t been crazy about Nina and her news-diva ways. And resentment of her rubbed off on her assistant. After Nina left for Atlanta, it probably hadn’t taken long for the corporate sharks to close in on Newsy
and chase him out of his job.

  “One of my informants in the NYPD told me the story’s been leaked,” Newsy said.

  “What story?”

  “About how the Night Spider’s spelling out your wife’s name with the first initials of his victims. And now it’s E’s turn.”

  “I don’t suppose it’d do any good if I asked how it leaked?”

  “Hey, Captain Horn . . .”

  “Okay, Newsy. Thanks for the information. I owe you.” Horn deactivated the phone and slipped it back in his pocket.

  Leonard had been hovering in the distance with the coffeepot, obviously waiting for Horn to finish his phone conversation. Now he closed in and topped off Horn’s cup, spilling a liberal amount of coffee on the table.

  Leaks.

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  Newsy was right to warn him.

  The next morning’s Post all but shouted the glaring headline E-E-E-K! superimposed over the gray silhouette of a tarantula. Kudos to the art department.

  Horn bought a paper and continued his walk toward the Home Away, glancing at the text and stopping now and then to read more carefully.

  The Post contained a painstakingly accurate description of the Nora Shoemaker crime scene, almost as if it were lifted directly from a police report.

  No almost about it, Horn reminded himself. Sometimes he wondered if every large bureaucracy was so porous. But he knew the answer.

  The fact that since his escape, the first initials of Mandle’s victims spelled the first three letters of Anne’s name was said to have been noticed by “several journalists.” The media protecting their sources.

  Horn removed his half-glasses, tucked the folded paper beneath his arm, and continued walking. The cool summer morning gave him slight respite from his worries. Breezes and rising exhaust fumes sent discarded advertising circu-NIGHT VICTIMS

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  lars and scraps of newspaper dancing over curbs and wide sidewalks. The sun’s increasing heat drew a melange of odors both rank and delicate from uncollected trash. The morning traffic roared and blared, a cacophony of constant background noises.

  All of it surrounded Horn and he was glad. The city was beautiful and wonderful in its own flawed way, always moving, always vital, a presence indomitable in fact and mind.