The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  There was no hesitation. Stack and Rica followed Perriman and the bulky shadows along the second-floor hall to 2C. Some of the shadows moved to the side and paused, but the two with the battering ram picked up speed, and the tubular ram swung forward, backward, forward as they strode. It was like a dance done in practiced rhythm to music only they could hear.

  Their timing was perfect. The ram struck the apartment’s old door with maximum force, splintering it and knocking it completely off its hinges. The SWAT members darted in, guns at the ready.

  Stack and Rica exchanged a glance, damned impressed. Like Perriman, they also had their guns out.

  Perriman seemed to count silently to about three, then gave a hand signal and led the way through the door. Stack pushed in front of Rica, irritating her because she knew he was trying to protect her, and they actually charged over the unhinged, splintered door into the apartment.

  Silence, stillness, dimness…on the edge of the edge…

  “Clear!” a deep voice shouted.

  There was a rushing sound of collective released breath.

  The SWAT members in the cramped living room lowered their weapons. Perriman, Stack, and Rica holstered theirs.

  Someone switched on the lights.

  The place was a mess, with a bare minimum of flea-market furniture, a TV with the screen broken out, some yellowed newspapers and Spanish-language porn magazines scattered over the floor. Stack noticed it smelled like urine in here, too.

  And something else.

  A SWAT guy in a dark baseball cap with a gold insignia on it appeared in a doorway and motioned for Perriman, Stack, and Rica to enter what turned out to be the bedroom.

  Larry Chips was lying on his back on the bed, his legs straight, his feet together, his hands folded peacefully low on his chest, as if he’d assumed the coffin position to make it easy for the mortician. There was a large and messy exit wound in his stomach just below his sternum.

  Blainer’s bullet had found its target, all right.

  “Oh, Christ!” Rica said. Looking at Chips’s corpse, the way it was laid out, had reminded her of something.

  Stack stared at her. It wasn’t like her to gag at the sight of a dead man. Not after what they’d seen lately. “You okay, Rica?”

  “The funeral!” Rica said. “Little Eden Wilson’s funeral! Amy was there. It didn’t ring a bell when we saw her briefly at the Myra Raven Group office, but I’m sure I remember her being there.”

  “What’s this about?” Perriman asked.

  “We’re not positive,” Stack said. “Another lead that probably won’t pan out.”

  He was even more sure than when they’d left the precinct house to visit Amy Marks.

  There were voices and footsteps out in the hall and in the living room. The news media had been appropriately notified and had arrived in force and fury.

  “No farther,” said a cop outside the bedroom. “Nobody goes any farther than this right now. We’ll have a statement in a minute.”

  Rica saw that the blood around the wound, on Chips’s shirt and on the sagging mattress, was dark and crusted. Almost black. One of the SWAT guys, following protocol, rested fingertips on Chips’s neck just below the ear to feel for a pulse, and Chips’s head lolled to the side. Rigor mortis had come and gone.

  Rica didn’t have to be told Chips had been dead for quite a while. That he must have been already dead when Myra Raven was set on fire. She knew Stack didn’t have to be told, either.

  There was no doubt now of the truth neither of them wanted to believe.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Stack and Rica were silent during the drive across town. They both understood that everything meaningful on the subject had been said. Stack had considered bringing along Perriman and the FBI, the SWAT members and the media hounds. But he knew what that would mean, and Amy Marks was a cop’s widow and deserved a chance. Ed Marks was owed something. And Amy was owed something for the loss of her husband and children. The news media, Internal Affairs, a civil review board, might not agree, but Stack saw it as his call and that was the way he’d made it.

  He’d voiced none of this reasoning to Rica. There was no need.

  Amy Marks lived in a modest but well-kept apartment building on West Eighty-fourth Street. It had a stone facade, green canvas awnings above the ground-floor windows, and wasn’t the sort of place that would feature a doorman. Stone planters that held what looked like long-ignored dead mums flanked the entrance. Lights were glowing behind about half the windows.

  Stack parked the unmarked a few buildings down the street in a loading zone. He didn’t flip down the visor sign identifying it as an NYPD vehicle; it was always possible that Amy was out, would walk past the car on the way home and notice the lowered visor, then turn around and walk fast in the other direction.

  Stack and Rica passed no one as they strode back to the building through the cold night, then entered the small outer lobby. It was cold in there, too. Chipped and cracked gray marble ran halfway up the walls. Near the door was some graffiti in black spray paint, recently and ineffectively altered to read BOOK YOU.

  There was no way to get farther into the building without using the intercom and being buzzed through. The intercom buttons were beneath rows of brass mail slots, and Stack saw that A. Marks lived in 8D, on the top floor. He scanned along the mail slots and was about to press the button for the super when the street door opened behind them and a woman with a baby stroller struggled to enter.

  Stack hurried to hold the heavy door open for her, while Rica picked up one of several paper sacks the woman had dropped. Rica noticed the bag contained a loaf of bread and a package of hot dog rolls. Stack was about to compliment the woman on the cuteness of her child, when he saw that the stroller contained only two stuffed grocery sacks from D’Agastino’s. He was prepared to show his shield and allay her suspicions so they could gain further entrance, but the woman smiled her thanks to both of them, then asked no questions as they followed her into the main lobby and entered the elevator with her. People should be more careful.

  They all exchanged polite smiles again as she got out at three. Stack held the elevator door for her to make sure it wouldn’t close as she dragged the heavily laden stroller out.

  “Nice woman,” Rica said inanely, not knowing why. Nerves?

  Stack said nothing.

  He and Rica rode alone the rest of the way to the top floor. Rica could feel her heart thumping; her body knew something her mind hadn’t quite caught up with. No time to think about it now.

  The elevator door slid open, and she and Stack stepped out and walked down the hall to 8D. Stack knocked on the door softly but persistently.

  Nothing happened for about a minute; then Rica heard the floor creak slightly on the other side of the door. The light changed in the tiny round glass peephole. They were being observed.

  When the light in the peephole changed again, both Stack and Rica expected it was because Amy had stepped back to open the door.

  But the door didn’t open. There was no more sound from inside.

  Rica looked over at Stack and whispered, “She knows what we look like.”

  That would be true, Stack figured. Not only had she seen them at the Myra Raven Group offices, but their photographs had been on TV and in the papers. Amy was the widow of a cop; she would have been curious about whoever had her case, whoever was stalking her. Possibly she’d been watching them for weeks. As she had been the night of the fire on East Fifty-ninth, when Stack had chased and almost caught her.

  He knocked again, louder, this time stepping to the side and motioning for Rica to do the same.

  No answer. But Amy was in there. She had to be.

  Only one way now.

  Stack drew his gun from its shoulder holster. Waited for Rica to get hers out. She nodded to him. He stepped quickly square to the door and kicked it hard with the sole of his right shoe, just below the doorknob. It splintered away from the frame, sending hardware clattering
across the floor. Even before the door could bounce off the wall, Stack and Rica were inside.

  No one.

  Only a small, neatly furnished living room, unoccupied and with no place to hide. Blue sofa. Wood shelving with books and TV. A table with a lamp glowing. Framed Monet exhibit print on the wall.

  But cold. Drafty.

  Motioning for Rica to stay behind him, Stack slid along a wall to a doorway, then gripping his heavy revolver with both hands, moved quickly into the apartment’s tiny L kitchen.

  It was immediately clear why the apartment was cold. The window near the stove was wide open, one sheer curtain swaying, the other pressed by the night breeze to the window frame.

  “Fire escape!” Rica said behind Stack.

  He went to the window, then carefully peered outside. There was an iron fire escape, all right. He raised a leg and went out over the sill, into the night, pausing to see if he could pick up sound or vibration in the steel made by someone descending.

  Nothing.

  He moved to the rail and leaned out so he could look straight down.

  There was no one on the fire escape.

  Eight floors, though. Would Amy have had time to make it all the way to the ground?

  When he turned to go back inside, he saw the narrow black steel ladder attached to the brick wall behind him. The fire escape extended to the roof.

  As Stack began climbing the ladder, he could see Rica’s hand, then leg and hip emerge from the window below. She was coming out to join him.

  When he reached roof level, he slowly raised his head to peer over the tile-edged parapet. Rica was right behind him, her left hand near the heel of his right shoe on a cold iron rung.

  She heard him say, “Amy Marks. You don’t have to do that, dear.” Moving his bulk slowly above her, he climbed the rest of the way onto the roof.

  Rica followed, faster, almost scurrying. She had to know what was going on up there.

  Amy Marks was standing at the far edge of the roof. She was barefoot and wearing a simple white blouse and a full blue skirt. Stack was about twenty feet away, facing her. Something about Amy’s skirt, Rica thought, then realized it was the darkness and drape of the material. It was soaked, along with the white blouse that clung to her torso so that her small breasts and dark nipples were visible.

  Rica moved slowly and smoothly to stand beside Stack. Amy’s face in the soft reflected light was all downturned mouth and wide, anguished eyes. Like a mask. As the breeze shifted, a faint scent came to Rica. She recognized it and understood the wetness of Amy’s skirt and blouse.

  Amy had soaked her clothing with the accelerant she used to set her fires.

  “You don’t want to do anything rash, dear,” Stack said gently. “We truly do understand. We’re cops, like your loving husband was, and we want to help you, is all. You’ve nothing to fear from us.”

  “If you come closer,” she said, “I’m going to jump.”

  “That will solve nothing. But you know that, don’t you?”

  “It’s the only way to solve everything.”

  He decided to give her something to think about, a hint of absolution. “Myra Raven is still alive.” For a few more hours.

  “I’m not surprised. In fact, I’m glad. I didn’t want to kill her, but she was starting to suspect me, I’m sure. Even after I gave her a threatening note I pretended came in the office mail. So I waited for her and followed her to the agency, hit her on the head, tied her up, then set her on fire. The night security guard phoned up to her office and kept asking over the answering machine for her to pick up, is there something wrong? I couldn’t say anything to him. He knew me, knew my voice, and he would have known I sneaked into the building. I thought he might be on his cell phone, on the way up in the elevator.”

  “He was,” Stack said. “He found her soon enough to save her life.”

  “That’s good. Myra’s a fine person. She did right by me.”

  “I don’t think you know how near you are to the edge of the roof, dear,” Stack told her in a concerned tone. A kind uncle. “I think you had best move a few steps toward us.”

  Instead Amy slipped her hand into her skirt pocket.

  Rica tensed to raise her gun and fire. Knew Stack was ready, too. Had to be.

  Not yet…not yet…be sure…it’s forever…

  Amy drew from the pocket a small object. Not a gun. When she gripped it tightly in her fist and crooked her thumb over it, there was no doubt it was a cigarette lighter.

  “I told you, don’t come closer!” There was a note of pleading in her voice now.

  But Stack did edge closer, drifting to the side at the same time, drawing Rica along as if by magnetism, hoping Amy wouldn’t notice as he tried to soothe her with his words. “The plain truth is, we really do understand. Once a cop, or a cop’s wife, it’s that way always. We’re all in the same family, dear, and when one of our own is in trouble, by God, we help our own. And now we want to help you. And we can, I swear to you.”

  Rica saw the change in Amy’s expression. She no longer seemed trapped and terrified. Now the mask was serene. Rica knew what it meant. There were two ways down from the roof, and Amy had chosen one.

  Spark, then flame appeared in Amy’s hand that held the lighter, and she stared at the tiny orange-red dance with a kind of wonder, as if she’d just discovered fire.

  “Amy!”

  Stack had time to call her name only once before the flame jumped to her skirt and blouse, grew, and then greedily wrapped itself around her and consumed her as she whirled and leaped from the roof. One pale arm extended languidly, as if reaching for the moon, and the brilliance fell from sight.

  Neither Stack nor Rica moved to look down.

  Instead Rica glanced at Stack and saw the tears in his eyes, the clenching of his jaw and quiver of his lower lip. It was something she didn’t like seeing.

  Rica holstered her 9mm and crossed herself.

  Stack was looking over at her now, smiling down at her with an ineffable sadness. “Ah, the good Catholic again.” He reached out and softly touched her shoulder.

  “It comes and goes,” she said.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  July 2002

  The wedding was small and nondenominational because the priest had explained to Rica that in the eyes of the church she was still married to her first husband. It made sense to Rica, and she knew there was no way around it, but she didn’t much mind.

  A chaplain from the Two-seven precinct performed the service. Mathers and Fagin were there, along with Sergeant Redd and the rest of the Eight-oh and Mobile Response. Rica actually sent an invitation to Myra Raven, who would have been there, but she was still hospitalized and undergoing skin grafts. The two women had gotten to know each other when Myra, herself under indictment, gave evidence that resulted in the indictment of the surviving co-op board extortionists. Myra’s amazed doctors said she was a fighter the likes of which they’d never seen, a survivor who used adversity for fuel. She’d lost sight in one eye and would be permanently disfigured, but she would live and stand trial for real estate fraud. Stack figured she’d find a way to be acquitted, then maybe sue the prosecutor and win.

  After the wedding there was a reception in an American Legion hall, because Rica thought the best wedding receptions she’d ever been to were in American Legion halls. It sure wasn’t ritzy, but it was just fine. It felt right. Rica felt married.

  This time, she knew, it would take.

  She and Stack went to Cancun for their honeymoon and had a great time. They stayed at a nice hotel, swam, had sex, ate a lot of shrimp. Neither of them got sick from the water. A success.

  They had extended leave after their week in Cancun, so as soon as they got back to New York they started looking for somewhere to live that was roomier than either of their apartments. Since neither of them was particular, it didn’t take long to find a place. Since neither of them had much in the way of possessions, it didn’t take a lot of time or effort to
move. They’d chosen an apartment on the Upper West Side. One on the third floor with a view of some treetops out the main bedroom window. They paid rent. Neither of them wanted to buy. It was too uncertain a world.

  Stack thought it was too uncertain for them to have children.

  Rica thought maybe it wasn’t.

  When they returned to their jobs, NYPD policy kicked in. Husbands and wives didn’t work as partners, so Rica was transferred to Brooklyn South Homicide. Stack seemed okay with the arrangement, and Rica didn’t mind.

  It was all family.

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  Copyright © 2002 by John Lutz

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