Night Victims (The Night Spider) (19 page)

“Well, maybe I can enlighten you on the other part,” Mrs. Neidler said.

Paula leaned forward, not overdoing it.
Sip. Look interested.

“Those two are having trouble.”

“Uh-huh,” Paula said.
Sip. Don’t pucker!

“I guess you people know what kind of trouble.”

“Some of it, yes.” Paula got out her leather-bound notepad and a yellow stub of a number-two pencil. Waited.

“I think he leaves the kids alone.”

“That’s how we figure it,” Paula said, pretending to take notes. Mrs. Neidler was talking for the record now.

“But I’ve seen the bruises on Kim.”

Paula remembered Lincoln’s wife was named Kim. “Have you ever actually seen him strike his wife?”

“Are you from South Carolina?” Mrs. Neidler abruptly asked.

“No. Louisiana. Cajun country.”

Mrs. Neidler squinted and stared at her as if she’d mentioned one of the other planets. “The men there . . .  are they of a violent nature?”

“Some. Like anywhere else, I suppose. You were telling me you thought there might be some domestic violence in the Lincoln home.”

“I’ve seen movement behind their blinds. Silhouettes. I can read that kind of body language, even in shadow. Violence, I’m sure, Officer . . .”

“‘Paula’ will be fine.” Paula smiled and worked the blunt point of the pencil.

“Paula, I’m no stranger to domestic abuse.”

“Too many women aren’t.”

“I’ve seen poor Kim at the grocery or drugstore without bruises. Then I’ve heard her and that husband of hers shouting at each other, even from across the street. I could never make out the words, but I recognize the sounds. There’s no mistaking them.” Mrs. Neidler dabbed at a blue eye that had teared up. “The next day I’d see Kim again. She thinks she covers the marks with makeup, but another woman, one with experience, can see behind the makeup.”

“Have you ever asked her about any of this?”

Mrs. Neidler shook her head violently. “Not my place.”

Paula thought of differing with her, then changed her mind. “But you’ve never seen him harm the children?” Two of them, Paula recalled. Girls ages seven and ten.

“Never. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t. Go and talk to their teachers. They might tell you. Teachers can tell, even though they’re afraid to speak up sometimes.” Mrs. Neidler shook her head again and clucked her tongue. “Everybody’s suing everybody these days. Have you noticed?”

“Hard not to,” Paula said.

“Some teachers’d talk, though.”

“School’s out for the summer,” Paula reminded her.

“Ah, I forgot. Old people do forget.”

“They remember, too,” Paula said.

“Those two girls, cute as buttons, are away at camp, come to think of it. They’re always at one camp or another during the summers. Some people see camps as full-time baby-sitters, have you noticed?”

“I have.”

“And that Will Lincoln keeps odd hours. Works late in that garage art studio of his. Lots of times banging away on metal: bangedy, bangedy, bang! Got no close neighbors on either side of his house. I’m the closest one, so I’ve gotta put up with the noise. Bangedy, bangedy!”

Paula leaned sideways and glanced out the living room’s picture window. Mrs. Neidler had a view up the driveway of the modest house across the street. Most of the detached garage, gray clapboard like the house, was visible, including a garage window.

“I see the light on in that garage till all hours. And sometimes I’m up at night—old people don’t sleep well, you know. I see him leave the garage, must be by some back way. He sneaks down the driveway past that old eyesore truck of his, to where he leaves his car parked on the street. Then drives away quiet like.”

Oh, boy!
“About what time of night does he do this?”

“Early morning, really. I’d say about one or two o’clock. Sometimes even later.”

“And what time does he return?”

“Various times. Mostly he’s gone more’n an hour, though. Ask me, I’d say he’s seeing some other woman. Be good if he left Kim, beat up on the other one. She’d be the one that deserves it.”

Paula was getting some idea of what had happened to Mrs. Neidler long ago. “Does Lincoln work in his garage every night?”

“Most every one. Sometimes he’s in there during the day, but almost always at night.”

“Do you think he might go out there to get away from Kim? Feeling guilty, maybe?”

“Haw! Not feeling guilty. Not that one. That one’s not at all how everybody sees him.” She gingerly touched the pink scalp below her sparse gray hair, as if caressing an old injury. “They never are.”

“They?”

“The ones that mistreat women.”

“You’re right about that,” Paula said. “Do you have much contact with Will Lincoln? Do you two ever talk?”

“Not hardly anymore. He saw me looking out the window at him one night about two in the morning. Began treating me cool after that. Not that we were ever chummy. Kim, though, she’s not like him. She’s still nice as pie to me.”

Paula looked up from the notes she was taking. “Do you think you’re in any physical danger, Mrs. Neidler?”

“Not hardly. Not with my late second husband’s twelve-gauge shotgun in the house. I was Portland County ladies’ skeet shooting champion two years running. That was some time back, though.”

“And you keep the shotgun nearby?”

“Nearby and loaded.”

Uh-oh . . .
 Paula showed no reaction but made a note of that.

“Tell you what,” she said to Mrs. Neidler. “I’m going to give you one of my cards. Call me if you see anything else suspicious. Anything at all. Don’t mention our conversation. And if you happen to see me around in the neighborhood, don’t let on we’re friends.”

“Count on me, Paula. I know how the police work.”

Paula leaned forward and placed her business card and half-finished tumbler of lemonade on the glass-topped coffee table. She stood up and slid her notepad into her purse. “If you see a strange car parked near here with someone in it, that’ll probably be me or another detective.”

“Uh-huh. A stakeout. Watching Lincoln’s house.”

“And yours, too. For protection. Just in case, whether you need it or not.” She edged toward the door. Mrs. Neidler seemed reluctant to stand up and show her out. Obviously not enough people were good listeners and she wasn’t eager for Paula to leave.

“Please don’t get up,” Paula said.

But when Paula was almost at the door, Mrs. Neidler wrested herself up from her chair and plodded over to usher her out.

Paula stepped outside onto the porch. It was almost dusk and had cooled into the seventies. The darkening sky had the look of being hazed by smoke, but she could see or smell nothing suggesting a fire.

“You be careful, Paula,” Mrs. Neidler cautioned.

“I always am,” Paula assured her, glancing back at Mrs. Neidler through the screen door. “Skeet shooting,” she said to the aged form in the shadow of the dark screen. “That’s marvelous.”

“Ladies’ champion,” Mrs. Neidler said. “Two years running. Some time back, though.”

“Still. . .” Paula said, stepping down off the porch.

“Still,” Mrs. Neidler said behind her.

Paula sat in the unmarked, which was half a block down from Will Lincoln’s gray house with its green metal awnings, and waited for him to leave. It had grown dark, and lights were on in the house. Paula drove to the end of the block once and did a turnaround, checking the garage. Its single, dark window seemed to peer back at her blankly. There was a rusty old Dodge pickup truck with a low front tire in the driveway: the eyesore Mrs. Neidler had mentioned. The truck seemed not to have moved since Paula had first seen it that afternoon. It looked as if it might not be able to move.

She returned to her parking space, which was midway between two streetlights and in the shadow of a big maple tree. Today she’d brought along a plastic portable device that enabled her to relieve her bladder without leaving the car. She’d never shown this valuable accessory to Bickerstaff, who usually availed himself of concealing foliage or dark passageways. There was no need for such a thing when they ran stakeouts together, and he would wait and watch while she found a public rest room. Such a gentleman.

She’d had to use the portable potty only once tonight, squirming to gain proper position in the car, then congratulating herself on her neatness, when a man emerged from the Lincoln house.

Paula hastily rearranged her clothes and got comfortable again behind the steering wheel, glancing at the luminous hands of her wristwatch. Almost ten o’clock.

She was too far away to recognize Lincoln for sure from his photograph, but the man’s height and weight looked about right, and he’d come out of Lincoln’s house. He also walked past the pickup truck, on down the driveway, and got into a ratty-looking twelve-year-old Pontiac, tan with a black cloth roof, that was parked near the house. Figuring the decrepit pickup truck wasn’t regular transportation, Paula had already checked the license plates of the cars on the street. Like the truck, the rusty old Pontiac was registered to Will Lincoln.

The old car needed exhaust work. It growled loudly when it started, then popped and rattled like a machine gun when it pulled away from the curb. Paula followed in the unmarked. She thought that if this guy was smart, he’d trade both his clunkers in on one reliable vehicle that wasn’t a tetanus risk. But the Pontiac quieted down to a steady roar when it got up to speed.

Lincoln didn’t drive very far, only about five blocks to Minnie’s Place, the neighborhood bar Paula had checked out earlier. She hoped no one in there would mention to Lincoln that she’d been around asking about him. There was a chance they wouldn’t. Probably there’d be a different bartender on duty by now and mostly different patrons. And contrary to TV, movies, and popular fiction, lots of citizens actually didn’t mind helping the police.

Some citizens, anyway.

Minnie’s must not have been crowded, because Lincoln found a parking space almost in front of the entrance. Paula parallel-parked between a van and a compact pickup truck and watched him climb out of the old Pontiac and enter Minnie’s.

When he crossed a patch of bright light beneath the bar’s illuminated sign, Paula got a good look at him for the first time and knew for sure she’d been following the right man. Dark hair with a bald spot, slim, muscular build, long neck and jaw. There was an arm-swinging swagger in his stride that was a challenge.
Try me. I’m easy to provoke.

Paula considered going into Minnie’s and unobtrusively watching Lincoln, then thought better of the idea. Maybe it would work if she knew the place was packed with drinkers who’d provide some cover. As it was, she figured her wisest course was to stay in the car and wait for Lincoln to come back out.

She settled low in the seat and listened to salsa on the factory-installed radio. The evening was warm, so she cranked down the unmarked’s front windows. The back of her neck rested against the lowered, padded headrest. She half closed her eyes, slipping into stakeout mode. Though she wouldn’t sleep, she’d still rest, and a part of her mind would be alert to the comings and goings at Minnie’s Place.

Minnie—if there was a Minnie—must do all right. Somebody entered or left the bar every five minutes or so. Mostly men, but a few women. Paula wondered if someone was making book in there. Or dealing drugs.

Time passed, and more time. Paula, thinking about Lincoln in there drinking all that draft beer (Budweiser, the day bartender had informed her), used the portable potty again. It was getting full and she was beginning to worry.

She’d barely finished and put the contraption aside when three customers staggered out of Minnie’s and charted an unsteady course toward the unmarked. When they got near, Paula saw that they all looked like teenagers and were undoubtedly underage.
Minnie, Minnie. . .
At least the boys weren’t driving. They snickered and hesitated near the car. One of them, wearing a black T-shirt with red lettering that said
Pervert,
leaned down and asked if Paula was a working girl. She said she sure was and flashed her badge. The boys hurried away. She kept an eye on them in the rearview mirror, making sure they really were on foot and not simply parked farther down the street.

When she looked back, the battered tan Pontiac was pulling away from the curb.

Paula hurriedly started the unmarked and followed, raising the windows and switching on the air conditioner as she drove.

Lincoln retraced his earlier drive and returned home, parking in exactly the same spot he’d left. He climbed out of the Pontiac and strode up his driveway, moving with the same confident swagger and walking as if he’d consumed nothing alcoholic.

Paula waited a few minutes, then drove slowly past the house. When she glanced up the driveway, she saw there was now a light on in the garage.

She looked at her watch. Almost midnight. Lincoln kept odd hours, as Mrs. Neidler said. Mrs. Neidler, who might well be watching her.

Paula knew what she had to do now. She parked in the shadow of the maple tree again, killed the engine, opened the windows to the cooling night air, and settled in for what she knew might be a long time.

She made it till 3:00 A.M. before deciding she was simply too tired to maintain the stakeout.

When she drove past Lincoln’s driveway, she saw that the light in the garage was still burning. With the car’s windows down, she could hear the faint, rhythmic banging of metal on metal wafting from the garage.
Bangedy-bangedy-bang!

It was much the same the next few nights when Paula kept a loose tail on Lincoln. Days were no problem; he seemed to sleep through them. And Paula got a good look at Kim Lincoln as she followed her to the grocery store one afternoon. She got within two feet of her as she shopped. Kim was a slightly overweight woman with drab brown hair and defeated eyes. There were what looked like strawberry birthmarks on her right forearm. No signs of bruises, though. Paula could tell the difference and wondered if Mrs. Neidler could.

Every night Paula watched. Instead of being in bed with his wife, he would simply drive around, or drink beer at Minnie’s, then spend long hours in his garage studio shaping and welding hard metal.