The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  Rica forced her concerns aside, grinned, and drank.

  She’d probably drunk a bit too much when a tall, handsome plainclothes detective came up to her and patted her on the back. She’d heard about him, seen him around, knew his name was Stack. Even then, the other cops seemed to think he was something special, though she didn’t know why.

  “Congratulations on a fine collar,” he said with a smile that suggested he meant it.

  Rica thanked him and he introduced himself.

  “I was lucky,” she said.

  “No,” he told her.

  “I was scared,” she admitted.

  He nodded and looked closely at her. There was something about his calm gray eyes that held her. He rested a big hand gently on her shoulder and his voice was soft and only for her. “Everybody, especially when they’re new, gets scared, does something wrong. The best of them make it right. I think you’ll be among the best of them.”

  That’s when she realized he knew about the gun, and that he wasn’t the only one who knew. There were few secrets in the badged and blue, mostly male world she had entered and had now become a part of, peopled by fellow professionals who understood in ways only other cops could comprehend.

  That was the night Rica became a better cop. The night the blood coursing through her veins turned blue.

  Looking back on it, she realized it was also the night she fell in love with Ben Stack.

  FIVE

  January 2002

  The sweet, burnt smell remained in Hugh Danner’s co-op unit. Rica wondered if it would ever leave completely.

  Helen Sampson said, “I don’t want to go into the kitchen.”

  “You don’t have to,” Rica assured her. “We only want you to look around, see if anything might be missing or out of place.”

  “Not in the kitchen.”

  Rica exchanged glances with Stack. “Of course not.”

  Helen Sampson was wearing a simple black dress and black flat-heeled pumps. Her straight blond hair was lank and looked greasy, and it had dark streaks, though Rica was sure she was a natural blonde. She was a gaunt, attractive woman with pale blue eyes, but she looked almost unbearably weary. Her grief was dragging her down. She glanced around her, then began walking slowly about in the living room, now and then running a finger lightly over things as if checking for dust, or maybe making sure she was among real objects and not in a bad dream.

  “Approximately how many times have you been here?” Stack asked her.

  She paused and looked at him as if he’d awoken her. “I’m not sure…a dozen, maybe more.”

  He smiled at her and made a palms-up motion with his hands held low, gently urging her to continue.

  She resumed her seemingly aimless slow roaming, her haunted eyes constantly moving.

  “Do the wall hangings look the same?” he asked.

  She nodded but said nothing.

  “Nothing missing? I mean, did Mr. Danner have any valuable art?”

  “He didn’t like art,” she said. “A decorator did the apartment a few years ago, and Hugh just left things the way they were.”

  She left the living room and went down the hall to the main bedroom, moving along the wall as far away from the kitchen door as she could, actually holding her hand up to her eyes to block her view into the kitchen in case she might accidentally glance in that direction.

  In the bedroom she went immediately to the bed and ran her hand over the wooden footboard, then touched the mattress softly with her fingertips. She clenched her hands together as if squeezing something between them and turned in a slow circle.

  “It all looks the same,” she said. She walked to the bureau, where there was a framed photograph of her and Danner standing before what looked like a lake with boats in the distance. There were no leaves on the trees, and both of them wore jackets and were smiling, huddled tightly together. Danner had his arm around her waist and she was clutching his wrist with both her hands, as if she didn’t want him ever to release her.

  “May I take this?” she asked, floating out a hand and touching the frame.

  “We’ll let you know when,” Rica told her, “and we’ll make sure that you get it.”

  “Hugh didn’t have any family he cared about other than his ten-year-old daughter in Oregon. I know he had a sister in Philadelphia, but they never saw each other and hardly even spoke except on birthdays. She wouldn’t want a photo like that. No one else would want it.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Rica said.

  “I think we were going to be married.”

  “Had he asked you?”

  “No, but I’m sure he was going to.”

  “Miss Sampson—” Stack began.

  “Helen.”

  “Of course. Helen. You’re an attractive young woman. Might there be somebody in your life who was jealous of Danner’s involvement with you? Who might have resented it and turned to violence?”

  She seemed to take the question seriously, chewing her lower lip for a moment as she searched her memory, then shook her head no. “In the relationship I was in before I met Hugh,” she said, “he left me.”

  “What about Danner’s former wife?” Stack asked.

  “That was long over. They weren’t even good friends. Would never have had anything to do with each other except for their daughter.”

  “There’s a woman’s dress and some blouses and slacks in the closet,” Rica said.

  “Mine,” Helen Sampson said.

  Rica smiled. “I thought so. They looked like your size.”

  Helen Sampson went to a modern, glass-topped dresser in a corner and opened and closed a few drawers. Then she surprised them by gripping the dresser with both hands and shoving it to the side. It was on rollers and moving it had taken little effort even for so slight a woman. “Did you know that was there?’ she asked, pointing at something low on the wall.

  Stack walked over and looked. A small safe with a combination lock was set in the wall about a foot above floor level and had been concealed by the dresser. “No,” he said. “Do you know what Danner kept in it?”

  Helen Sampson shrugged. “I think just papers and such. He was an attorney, you know.”

  “Yes, we did know about him being an attorney.”

  “He had to put up with all those cruel lawyer jokes. So unfair.”

  “Would you happen to know the combination?” Rica asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “That’s okay,” Rica said. “We’ll have a locksmith open it.”

  They went into the smaller bedroom Danner had used as a home office. There was a wooden desk and chair, a bookshelf containing mostly reference books, a black metal file cabinet, and over in the corner a treadmill that looked brand-new. A stack of Money magazines was in another corner, and near it a pair of New Balance running shoes and a wadded pair of socks. The carpet was spotted with what appeared to be coffee stains. Stack’s carpet had similar stains; they were from pacing with a coffee cup while the mind was elsewhere. A large Far Side calendar was tacked to the wall behind the desk. Apparently the decorator hadn’t made it into this room.

  “It was always like this,” Helen Sampson said, as if in apology.

  She glanced into the gleaming tile bathroom. “The same as usual,” she said.

  On the way back to the living room, Stack made it a point to stay between her and the kitchen doorway.

  “I guess I wasn’t much help to you,” she said.

  “We know now that nothing’s been moved around or stolen, and that there’s a safe,” Stack told her. “I’d say you helped us a lot, dear. We’re grateful to you.”

  She managed a kind of half smile that faded fast. “I guess I won’t be coming back here.”

  “You don’t have to,” Rica said.

  “I mean, I’ll probably never see the place again. I don’t even know if I’ll want to. It’s so damned unbelievable about Hugh…so fucking unfair!”

  Rica hoped she wasn’t go
ing to start sobbing.

  Stack moved to Helen Sampson and rested a hand softly on her shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”

  She nodded and swiped at an eye with a knuckle, then drew a deep breath.

  “Want us to go downstairs with you?” Stack asked.

  “No, no, I’m fine now, really….”

  He opened the door to the hall for her, giving her a comforting smile, a final pat as he withdrew his big hand from her shoulder. “You sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you’re not going to be okay, or if you think of anything you might want us to know, you call us, you promise?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Thank you, Helen.”

  Rica watched Helen Sampson go, admiring the way Stack had handled her. The thing was, he did feel compassion for the woman. The other cops at the Eight-oh thought he simply had a knack for schmoozing along witnesses and victims, but Rica knew better.

  “Let’s get somebody here to dust that safe for prints, then get it open,” he told her.

  But she was already moving toward the phone.

  They’d had time to eat lunch at a diner around the corner before the techs finished dusting the safe and the locksmith arrived to open it.

  Back in Danner’s apartment, Rica could still taste pastrami. It didn’t go well with the lingering scent of Hugh Danner.

  The locksmith pronounced the safe one of high quality, then used a carbide-bit drill to open it within minutes while Stack and Rica stood watching.

  When the man was finished, he gathered his tools and bustled from the apartment, leaving it to one of them to open the safe door more than the few inches he’d eased it out to make sure the lock was destroyed.

  Stack waited until Rica was out of the way, then stood to the side himself and slowly pulled the small, thick steel door the rest of the way open; you never knew about spring guns or explosives that might be triggered to foil safe-crackers.

  But there was only one item in the safe—a roll of bills held tight by a rubber band.

  “Isn’t this suspicious?” Stack said.

  Rica didn’t know if he was doing some kind of TV cop act, putting her on.

  He withdrew the money, then sat on the edge of the bed and counted the bills, mostly hundreds and twenties.

  “Twenty thousand dollars even,” he said, looking up at Rica. “The bills have all been in circulation awhile and appear unmarked.”

  Rica shrugged. “He was an attorney, you know.” Being unfair. Like life.

  Stack dreamed of Laura that night. They were making love frantically, joyfully, rolling in a bed of soft green money. Then the money was on fire, the flames sweeping toward them. Stack didn’t want to part from Laura. They didn’t want to release each other but they had to in order to survive. If they stayed together, they would burn alive.

  It was wrong! Stack thought, sobbing in his sleep. It wasn’t fair!

  They would burn alive!

  He awoke as if breaking the surface of a lake, finding himself alone in his cold bed.

  SIX

  May 2000

  Myra Raven sat on the one piece of furniture in the co-op unit, a cheap imitation French provincial chair, and waited for them. Ordinarily she would have assigned one of her agents to show the unit, especially considering its modest price, but she’d liked the Markses immediately when they’d come into the office. Both of them. The woman, Amy—girl, really—was pretty and very pregnant. Her husband, Ed, a gawky kind of young guy with a shy smile, interested Myra right away when she saw his plain black shoes, the curved mark on his forehead just below his hairline. She recognized cop’s regulation shoes, and the semipermanent crease left by a cop’s blue six-pointed garrison cap. Her first husband, the cop, the only man she’d really loved, had been struck and killed by a passing car when he was helping a woman change her tire on the highway shoulder.

  Years ago, Myra thought. Worlds ago.

  She got up and paced to make herself feel better. Then she wandered into the tiny bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The light was harsh but she still looked okay. Her cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Preller, had removed exactly the right amount of fat from the fleshy part between her eyebrows and eyes, giving her a wider-eyed, younger look. Not only that, for insurance purposes the doctor had classified the process as necessary rather than elective, a procedure to restore her peripheral vision.

  This latest improvement made Myra, who at fifty-four was still rather attractive, appear somewhat less predatory. Still there was the angular bone structure, the smooth, taut flesh from too many visits with Dr. Preller, and the prominent chin (an insert) and perfectly straight nose. Her skinned-back blond hairdo was perfect, as it should have been at the price paid to her hair stylist, and her makeup was thick to hide faint surgery scars. She’d heard her looks described as brittle, herself described as a bitch. The remarks hurt her deeply, but at least she knew she was a successful bitch. In business, anyway. Her personal life, her interior life, was mostly pain. The more youthful image in the mirror didn’t mean she was actually younger, or that she could live over the years of tragic luck and wrong decisions. Still, it was a younger Myra who looked back at her; she would have to settle for the illusion.

  The cosmetic surgery was another reason she’d taken the appointment with the Markses. She’d been sitting around the office, still wearing dark glasses while her eyes healed completely and the bruises faded, and she was going crazy needing something to do.

  The Markses were something to do. The husband reminded her of her early marriage days. The young wife with her slight underbite (less severe than Myra’s, before she had it repaired years ago) reminded Myra somewhat of herself when she was in her twenties. When she heard Amy, the wife, remark that she was expecting twin girls within a month, Myra had made up her mind. One of Myra’s early regrets in life was that she hadn’t borne children. She didn’t like them, in fact. Told herself over and over that she didn’t like them or want them, until finally the regret went away. Children were like—

  The doorbell chimed.

  Myra, who owned and managed the most successful real estate agency in Manhattan, hurried into the living room like an eager rookie salesperson and pressed the intercom button.

  “Ed and Amy Marks,” the husband’s voice declared, made faint and hollow by the intercom.

  Myra buzzed them up.

  She was smiling, as she trained all her agents to do, when she opened the door.

  The Markses weren’t smiling. They looked apprehensive. And appropriately so, since they were considering embarking on the largest investment of their young lives.

  “So wonderful to see you again!” Myra said. She stepped back and waved an arm in an encompassing sweep. “This is it!” she said of the 800-square-foot unit. It was the smallest in the building, but she knew it had what the Markses wanted and needed: a separate, second bedroom for the twins.

  “It doesn’t look very big,” Ed Marks said.

  “Two bedrooms, though, darling.” Amy coming through for Myra.

  “And it boasts a wonderful eat-in kitchen!” Myra said. “These units have quality cabinetry, and the refrigerator is brand-new. The stove’s electric, so you can warm those baby bottles to exactly the right degree.”

  “Great view,” Ed Marks said. He’d wandered over to the wide window.

  “Look,” Myra said, “I wouldn’t try to kid you, this is a gorgeous unit, but it’s smaller than what you probably had in mind. Still, like Amy said, it has separate bedrooms. The kitchen and bath are terrific, and if the payment is a stretch, you don’t have to buy all your furniture right away. The girls will need room to crawl.” Myra threw up her hands and laughed. “Don’t believe me, look around and the place will either sell itself or it won’t.”

  Amy assessed her calmly and after a while nodded. Maybe there was something operating inside that pretty young head. Potential, such as Myra had at that age. She hoped Amy would see it in herself and do someth
ing more with it than simply raise offspring.

  Myra knew when not to talk. She stayed in the living room and admired the view from the window while Amy and Ed took a walk around the place. She could hear them talking in the main bedroom. Couldn’t understand what they were saying but knew by their tone that Ed was sold and was now trying to talk Amy into it.

  “What about price?” Ed asked, when they came back into the living room. Amy, tired from lugging around her pregnancy, sat down in the one chair. A good sign; she was prepared to settle in and negotiate.

  “There’s wriggle room,” Myra said in a confidential tone.

  She listened carefully while Ed Marks made the offer and Amy watched with her somber brown eyes.

  “It might be doable,” Myra said. “What about down payment?”

  “No problem there,” Ed said. “My father died last year and I have a small inheritance. That’s the only reason we might be able to afford this place on a cop’s salary.”

  A cop only a year out of the academy, Myra thought. Ed had mentioned that and the inheritance before and apparently forgotten.

  “You are offering twenty percent off the asking price,” Myra pointed out.

  “If the owner’s as eager to sell as Myra thinks,” Amy said from behind her pregnant bulk in the tiny chair, “he should make a counter offer.”

  Myra grinned at her. “That’s exactly the way it works, dear.”

  A cricketlike chirping erupted from her Coach handbag on the floor near the chair where Amy sat. Myra excused herself and drew her cell phone from the purse, then carried it into the short hall to the bedrooms. She wasn’t surprised by the interruption. Louella at the office had been told to call her at this time.

  Myra asked Louella what was happening at the office, listened carefully, then gave her instructions.

  As Myra walked back into the living room, slipping the phone back into her purse, she said, “Believe it or not, that was the owner. I made your offer. You have your counter offer.”

  Ed stared at her. Amy squirmed and sat back in her chair. They both looked scared.