Night Kills (21 page)

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.

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.

Resist though he might, he needed another Charlotte.

 

Tom Coulter lay on his back in bed in his room at the Clover Motel, ten miles southwest of Hard Oak, Texas. He was a gangly man with raggedly cut black hair and bad teeth. He wore dirt-crusted jeans with a hole in one knee, expensive boots that needed polish, and a shirt unbuttoned to reveal scraggly dark chest hair and prominent ribs. He was perspiring heavily from the heat. He was breathing hard from the heat, too, not to mention the sour smell of his own body, but he was too tired right now to get undressed and shower. He had to rest. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and sighed. Until he'd exhaled, his ribs looked as if they might break through his pale flesh.

In the Clover's gravel parking lot was the dusty green Volvo station wagon he'd stolen in Charmont, Illinois. Its license plate was stolen from a Chevy in a shopping mall in Morristown, Tennessee. Tom had parked it several doors down from his room; if the law came for him, he might have precious seconds to get away.

His jangled nerves made it impossible for him to sleep. He opened his eyes and watched a fly bumping over and over against the dirt-smeared window, buzzing around and trying to find a way out to the light and freedom. He could identify with that fly. Most likely it wouldn't be alive much longer, but there it was, struggling to break through an invisible barrier like the barrier of lousy luck that had always plagued Coulter and blocked his progress. He would have swatted the fly and put it out of its hopeless misery, only it was too much trouble.

He absently reached to the bedside table and used the remote to turn on the TV. But after a glance at the screen he left the volume low and didn't listen to it. Some kind of commercial about an arthritis drug was on, so what did he care? His mind was still fixed on how he'd gotten here. It was like what he'd heard somebody on TV call a loop, where the same tape kept playing over and over.

None of what happened was really his fault. It was just that his luck had turned bad, and then it was one thing after another.

He'd been surprised in the kitchen by the woman in the house in New Jersey, but the opportunistic Coulter, figuring the shapely woman's presence was part of what the world owed him, simply smiled and told her the facts. He was a professional burglar, and now that she'd disturbed him at his work, it was time for her to undress. It was only fair, he'd explained to her.

She started to unbutton her blouse, started to cry, and that's when her two kids came in. Little bastards; he hadn't heard them at all, so they must have arrived with her and come in through the front door instead of the garage.

That was when his luck began to sour.

He turned around and told the kids to go to their rooms. It wasn't as if he had a gun or any other kind of weapon, so they didn't obey him. Instead they started to cry and looked to their mother for directions. Fat chance there. The bitch was crying too hard to be able to give them the word.

Coulter made a threatening jump toward the kids, yelling for them to shoo, so he could have some brief fun with their mother, then be on his way. Why didn't they move? He had no desire to hurt anyone. Well, mom, a little bit.

That's when everything really went haywire, and in ways he couldn't foresee. Simply shitty luck. It sure as hell hadn't been his fault.

When he moved to give the biggest kid a shove, the kid kind of sidestepped and Coulter stumbled and fell to his knees. The heel of his left hand landed on cookie crumbs or something that was brittle and dug into his flesh so that his hand stung. If it hadn't been for that, he might have noticed what mom was up to.

He was standing up when he heard her, in a new, confident voice, order him to get out—now, and fast. When he looked she was holding a gun she'd got from somewhere, a big blue steel semiautomatic. It made her a different woman. He sure didn't like the look in her eyes. He figured it meant he'd better not mess with her in any way at all.

Coulter was going to leave, and that would have been that. But he'd been too shocked to move. His feet were glued to the floor.

Mom started pulling the trigger, over and over. Coulter was horrified at first, then angry. She had no right to do that. She hadn't given him time to obey her command. He didn't have a chance. He sure as hell would have gotten out of there in a hurry if she'd given him the opportunity. He was a professional burglar and wanted nothing to do with guns. Nothing to do with violence of any kind. Whatever happened from here on out, it was on her and not him.

It was a good thing the gun was old and kept jamming.

He figured it wouldn't be long before it did go off, the way she kept pulling on the trigger; not squeezing, like you were supposed to, just clenching the thing tight and pulling so her bent forefinger went white on the unmoving trigger. Something seemed to be blocking it from moving. Maybe the safety was on. Maybe she'd figure it out any second and blow his brains out.

Maybe it wasn't too late to get out and away. He ran for the door, but he had to pass close to the woman to get there. When he pushed her aside, she must have thought he was attacking her. Bad luck again, for both of them.

She started hitting him with the gun, a couple of times on the side of the head, really hurting him. Retaliating in a way that any
fair
judge or jury would say was self-defense, he wrapped an arm around her neck and wrestled her to the ground, trying to get the gun away from her.

Then damned if the two kids didn't jump on him. He figured they must not have liked him attacking their mother, not knowing
she'd
attacked
him
. Coulter guessed you couldn't blame them.

The biggest kid, a boy about eleven, found a full can of root beer somewhere and started slamming it into the back of Coulter's neck. That distracted Coulter enough so that mom managed to get out from under him and grab a drawer handle so she could pull herself up.

But the drawer slid all the way out of the cabinet. Crash and clatter, and there were knives all over the floor.

Coulter snatched one up before anyone else could and started hacking and slicing away, yelling as if he'd lost his mind, which he guessed he had, for a while. But he was fighting for his life. He had no choice, and there were three of them and only one of him. Not a fair fight.

Then he was standing there holding the big, wood-handled kitchen knife he'd picked up with blood all over him, all over the floor. All over mom and the kids. It was the most unreal thing Coulter had ever seen.

Everything stopped. Time crawled, like in a bad dream. Nobody was moving, not even Coulter.

He noticed that he was the only one not dead.

The kids had so much blood on them he couldn't tell where they were cut or stabbed. Mom had a deep gash from ear to ear. The way her eyes and mouth were wide open, it looked as if the knife blade had surprised her. Or maybe she'd died struggling to breathe.

The knife slipped from his hand and bounced on the floor.

Real time again:

Move! Move! Move!

Coulter got out of there, leaving the bloody knife behind.

 

Coulter had made it home to his apartment, back in the city, and showered and cleaned up. It was still almost like a dream. But he knew he had to move and keep moving, get far away, sort things out.

Coulter was wrestling his big suitcase out of the closet, so he could pack a lot of things in a hurry, when the police showed up.

He knew exactly what to do. Coulter never lived anywhere without a prepared exit route and a plan to go with it. He left everything as it was, set his bed on fire, and climbed the fire escape up to where he could reach the roof. From that roof he made it over a thick wood plank to the adjoining roof, let himself in through the service door, and took the elevator to the lobby. He already knew about the side exit.

Within five minutes of the knock on his door, he was making himself walk slowly toward where he'd parked the SUV he'd stolen for the trip he was planning.

He had to hand it to the cops. They'd spotted him somehow, but by that time the fire department had started to arrive with its equipment in response to the fire in his apartment. There was a lot of activity and confusion. After he pulled away in the SUV, a squad car followed him for a few blocks, but he shot at it, knowing there'd be no return fire on the crowded streets. He didn't know if he'd hit the driver, or maybe disabled the car, but it pulled to the curb. After turning the corner, Coulter drove a few more blocks, then ditched the SUV and lost himself in the mass of people in Manhattan.

After that, no problem. He stole another car—another big SUV, because he liked them—and was on his way out of town.

He'd overcome his bad luck.

 

There were lots of stories about Coulter after that, in the papers and all over TV. And not just New York papers and television.

He'd have kind of enjoyed the stories if they were true, only they made him out to be the bad guy. Still, he was famous. And for now he was free. He might even stay free, if only he could get to Mexico. That border had to be easy to cross in both directions, right? The government had never been able to stop the Mexicans from getting into the country, so he oughta be able to get out. When he got to Mexico, he could turn bad luck into good.

After a while, whenever he'd switched on the TV or bought a New York paper, there wasn't much being said or written about him. He had to admit he kind of resented that. He was supposed to be famous, right? What did it matter how he'd become a celebrity? You were one or you weren't.

He was one.

Not that he wanted any paparazzi around.

He didn't want to be a dead celebrity, or one spending his life in prison.

Now here he was at the Clover Motel, half watching a trapped fly at the window and half listening to a cheap little TV near the foot of the bed.

Mexico figured to be his best chance. He could even speak a little—

“…Tom Coulter, who murdered a suburban woman and her two children in New Jersey. In other news…”

Huh?

He grabbed the remote from the bedside table and ran up the channels until he found another cable news network.