Night Victims (The Night Spider) (7 page)

“Maybe. But I carry them ‘cause I figure I might need energy when I least expect it.” He patted the bulging side pocket of his rumpled suitcoat. “I got chocolate peanut butter with almonds.”

Paula held out her hand.

8

Pattie Redmond had used her Styles and Smiles employees’ 20 percent discount to buy two of the 40-percent-off blouses, one of which—the gray one—she wore with her navy slacks, the ones that showed off her slender curves. Why not impress the hell out of Gary?

After get-acquainted drinks at the Village bar where they’d met, Gary suggested they have dinner at a Peruvian restaurant just a long walk or short cab ride from Pattie’s West Side apartment. Since Gary had never asked where she lived or even known her complete name before tonight, she knew that had to be a coincidence.

Or maybe fate.

Everything had gone wonderfully. Her hair had behaved and the summer breeze hadn’t mussed it. The conversation over drinks had been smooth. And she hadn’t drooled or spilled anything on her new blouse during dinner. Not only that, Pattie had caught Gary staring at her a few times in a way she knew and liked.

Gary Schnick was his name. He smiled and said that was why he hadn’t told her the first night they’d met; his name sounded kind of dirty or like an insult. Pattie told him she found nothing wrong with “Schnick” and he put on a puzzled look and said he’d meant “Gary.” So he had a sense of humor. That was essential in a man, especially one with the good looks that suggested he was vain, humorless, married, or gay.

By the time they took a cab to her apartment, she was satisfied he was none of those. She fought him off in the back of the cab, having to struggle exactly the right amount, keeping it all light even if serious. And he gave up at precisely the right time, letting her know he yearned for her but respected her and wasn’t some kind of rapist who couldn’t control his sexual appetite. Not Gary Schnick.

Still, Pattie didn’t invite him in. She wanted to string this out, test him a little. She felt strongly that Gary wasn’t one-night-stand material. He was a keeper.

He didn’t give her a lot of crap about not being invited in. Not any, in fact. He simply grinned, kissed her on the forehead, and said he’d call her. Then he climbed back into the cab and waved to her out of the rolled-down window as it pulled away from the curb.

Mrs. Ledbetter, the elderly widow who lived on the floor below Pattie and sometimes talked to her in the laundry room, happened to be leaving the building as Pattie arrived and saw the cab drive away.

“So who was that?” she asked. “Antonio Banderas?”

“I don’t know any Antonio Banderas,” Pattie said, playing dumb.

Mrs. Ledbetter, who knew she wasn’t dumb, grinned at her and wagged an arthritic finger. “I’m going to the grocery store to get one of those giant blueberry muffins for a late-night snack. You need anything?”

Pattie thanked her but said she didn’t, then punched in the tenants’ code and pushed open the door to the outer lobby. She used her key to unlock and open the door to the inner lobby, then crossed the stained marble floor to the elevator. For a building without a doorman, this one had good security. And where she lived, on the nineteenth floor, she didn’t have to worry about break-ins by junkies or weirdos. Safety was one of the things Pattie liked most about living here. That and the very reasonable rent.

The elevator smelled like somebody had smoked a cigar in it recently. Pattie tried to hold her breath all the way up but didn’t quite make it. The tobacco scent followed her most of the way down the hall as she strode toward her apartment door. Why
on earth
did people still smoke? She hoped the stench wouldn’t cling to her clothes and make her smell like an icky tobacco fiend if she wore the same slacks tomorrow.

The apartment was small but she didn’t mind. The landlord had recently refurnished it in a kind of modern style, with lots of pastel vinyl and light-colored wood, and while the colors didn’t quite match, that was okay with Pattie. At least everything was new or almost new, even if it might not be comfortable. She wasn’t mad about the stark wall hangings either, except for a big framed photograph of lightning striking far away on a dark plain. She liked that one.

She closed the door behind her and tugged at it to make sure the lock had caught. Then she keyed the dead bolt and fastened the brass chain. The lamp she’d left on had a 150-watt bulb and made the living room so glaringly bright that the blue vinyl sofa looked wet.

Pattie placed her purse on the table by the door, then kicked off her high-heeled shoes and padded into the tiny alcove kitchen. She wolfed down half of a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut left over from breakfast, then opened the refrigerator and sipped some milk out of the carton.

She went into the bedroom, walked to the window, and switched on the air conditioner. It settled into a soft hum and started to cool the room while she washed off her makeup and brushed her teeth. She would shower in the morning, before work, she thought. Maybe get up early enough so she had time to wash her hair.

By the time Pattie left the bathroom and turned off the light in the living room, the bedroom was comfortably cool.

Her apartment was a corner unit, so the bedroom had two windows. She went to the one without the air conditioner in it and made sure it was locked. Though she was wearing only the oversized men’s Rangers shirt she slept in, she didn’t bother pulling the drapes shut. Whoever might be watching, let them look. What did she care? Give the poor lonely sickos a thrill. She was going to turn out the light soon anyway and go to bed. For a few seconds she contemplated getting her vibrator, which she kept hidden in the back of a dresser drawer. Then she decided against it. For all she knew, Gary might phone tomorrow and want to meet her for lunch, or immediately after she got off work.

She turned back the top sheet and light cover on the bed, then sat down on the edge of the mattress and switched off the lamp. In the abrupt blackness, before her eyes got used to the dark, Pattie swiveled on the mattress and lay down, adjusting her pillow beneath her head. The room wasn’t yet as cool as it was going to get, so she lay on her back on top of the thin blanket and sheet.

She sighed, comfortable, feeling the cool breeze from the air conditioner play over her bare thighs.

Her intention was to relive in her mind tonight’s date with Gary, but the alcohol she’d consumed earlier that evening must have gotten to her. Just as Gary was standing up at the table and smiling to greet her, she fell asleep.

Pattie was rolling down the grassy hill in the yard alongside the house, toward where her father had raked the autumn leaves into a big pile. She was about twelve and knew she’d soon be too old to enjoy this kind of thing.

She came to the bottom of the hill and started to stand up.

But she couldn’t stand.

Couldn’t even move. Her arms were tight to her sides, her legs bound together so firmly her knees and protruding ankle bones hurt where they pressed against each other.

When something clamped itself firmly and roughly across her mouth, she breathed in hard through her nose and woke up. Her bulging eyes stared into solid blackness.

For a brief moment she felt relief.

Okay, this is the end of the nightmare . . .

Only it wasn’t.

The air conditioner continued its monotonous low humming. A car horn honked blocks away. Far, far in the distance a police or emergency vehicle siren wailed like a lost lament. The soft breeze pushing through the open window caused the drape cord to sway so its plastic pull tapped lightly against the sill.

All of these sounds were louder than Pattie’s screams.

They had all made do on Bickerstaff ‘s high-energy candy bars and decided to meet for breakfast so they wouldn’t be too exhausted to talk. Paula had said good night to Bicker-staff, climbed out of the unmarked, then trudged up to her apartment. She was barely able to stay awake long enough to undress and fall onto the bed.

Horn was right, she remembered thinking just before falling asleep. It was already 11 P.M., and everyone’s brains were scrambled from listening to the same stories for the second or third time, going over the same crime scenes, and making the same notes. Tomorrow, Horn had said, was soon enough to start analyzing what they had.

It hadn’t taken them long to examine the roofs above the victims’ apartment windows and determine the killer had lowered himself to his prey, not climbed up. Other than that, they’d have to talk things over in the morning and compare notes, see if there was something else worthwhile when they put their information together. Other than that . . .

When Paula and Bickerstaff walked in, Horn was already at the diner where he’d set up the meet, a place called the

Home Away, not far from his brownstone. He was slouched in a back booth, sipping coffee, with a plate in front of him that contained nothing but yellow crumbs.

There were only a few other customers, and it was pleasantly cool in the diner. The unmarked’s air conditioner wasn’t working well, so Paula and Bickerstaff had removed their jackets and, still uncomfortable, had left them in the car. Bickerstaff had tucked his holstered service revolver beneath his shirt, where it was barely noticeable amidst his bulk. Paula had her handgun and shield in her small black leather purse, which she carried just for that purpose. After a few days around ninety, with nights that didn’t cool down much, the city’s miles of concrete held the heat like a kiln. Summer in New York could be brutal. For some people it was hell.

The two detectives slid into the booth so they were across the table from Horn. Paula thought the mingled scents of fried bacon and slightly burned toast or bagel smelled great, but she wasn’t hungry. Bickerstaff ‘s energy bars seemed to have formed an indigestible lump in her stomach.

Bickerstaff didn’t feel the same gastric discomfort. “So what’s good here?” he asked.

“Toasted corn muffins,” Horn said without hesitation.

A waitress with an order pad came over. She was a nice looking brunette with a good figure and kind of sad face.

“I’m not a muffin man,” Bickerstaff said.

“Could have fooled me,” the waitress said without a change of expression.

Bickerstaff grinned.

“Marla, Marla. . .” Horn said. Then to Bickerstaff: “Marla has a droll sense of humor, among her many other attributes.”

Marla seemed unaffected by the compliment.

Bickerstaff simply grunted, then ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee. Paula just went with coffee.

“You must come in here pretty often,” she said to Horn.

“Probably too often. It’s the muffins.”

“They must be something.” Paula glanced at the waitress, making sure Horn saw her.

So she’d built up the nerve to joke with him. Horn liked that. It could be they were becoming a real team.

“Let’s go over what we learned last night,” he said.

They did this through breakfast, then over second cups of coffee.

“Seems to me the only new thing we learned is that the killer lowers himself from the roof to get to the victims’ windows,” Bickerstaff said.

But something had struck Paula after hearing overlapping accounts of the murders. “The first victim was stabbed thirty-seven times, the second thirty-six, the third thirty-seven.”

“Sounds like my first wife,” Bickerstaff said. “Thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty seven.”

Christ!
Paula thought. She and Horn both frowned at Bickerstaff.

“According to the ME, the sick bastard knows exactly where to stab them over and over without killing them, so they suffer maximum pain,” Bickerstaff said with exaggerated somberness, obviously realizing he might have gone too far humorwise. “Turns out the way he does it, the number of stab wounds they survive is in the mid-thirties.”

Paula felt slightly ill.

“A surgeon?” Bickerstaff asked.

“Not likely,” she said, “according to the ME. The murder knife isn’t surgical, and a doctor would probably cut rather than stab.”

“So?” Bickerstaff raised his bushy eyebrows as he delicately picked up a last crumb of bacon from his plate and popped it into his mouth. Paula noticed that though it was cool in the diner, there were still dark crescents of perspiration beneath the arms of his wrinkled blue shirt.

“He’s killed plenty of times before,” Paula said. “Not only these three times. He must have, in order to learn precisely how, where, and the number of times to stab his victims to inflict pain without causing immediate death.”

“Or even unconsciousness,” Horn said, smiling at Paula.

She was pleased by his approval but at the same time irritated. Horn had known where she was going and was there ahead of her, waiting for her to catch up. He must have thought of the likelihood of previous victims and already talked to the ME about it.

“I called the ME from home this morning,” he said, knowing what she must be thinking.

“What about the partial bare footprint?” Bickerstaff said. “What the hell is that all about?”

“Our barefoot boy didn’t get undressed to prevent himself from getting bloody,” Horn said. “In all but the Sally Bridge murder, the sheets wrapped around the victims absorbed most of the bleeding and prevented him from becoming bloodstained. At least bloodstained enough that it was worth the risk to take extra time undressing, washing up afterward, and dressing. And there was no sign of blood in the bathroom or kitchen drains.”

While they were thinking about that, Horn finished his coffee and set the cup down slowly but firmly in its saucer so it wouldn’t clink. If the cup was going to be picked up again soon, it wouldn’t be by him.

“So what’re our marching orders for the day?” Bicker-staff asked.

“You and Paula see if you can find some cold cases in the area during the past three or four years that are similar to the three murders we’ve got.”

“Murders when he was learning,” Paula said. “Perfecting his act.”

Horn nodded. “And it wouldn’t hurt to check some other cities. Our killer might be a transient.”