Night Prey

by Carol Davis Luce

  The policewoman knew what was beyond that door. An alley. Beyond the alley, a parking lot. She and Avondale had checked it out days earlier. Avondale! her mind screamed. Where the hell are you!

  He crashed through the door into the night air and kept going. Down the alley toward the parking lot.

  No, she couldn’t let him get her in his car.

  Her entire body went limp. The sudden slack forced him to pause and reposition the now-dead weight in his arms. She took her best shot and dropped to her knees, at the same instant she drove her arm upward into his groin. Without waiting for his reaction, she scrambled backward, reaching into her purse and pulling out both gun and handcuffs. The cuffs she let fall to the ground, the gun she aimed at him and said, “Police. Freeze!”

  “Bitch!” He grabbed the front of her blouse and pulled her to him. His other arm drew back, the hand a bulky fist, then it came at her like a gigantic hammer—

  In the circle of Jake’s arms, Roberta squirmed and moaned. The long, sleek muscles of her body jumped, bunching tautly.

  More moaning.

  This was no ordinary dream, Jake thought, pulling her unresponsive body closer to him.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The woman cop dodged, causing his fist to drive through empty air. Eckker cursed.

  In the dark, narrow alley the policewoman began to scream.

  His hand clamped over her mouth savagely. He felt something cool and hard press into his stomach. He twisted, heard the explosion, then felt a burning ache tunnel into his side. She had fired a round, the percussion muffled by his own flesh. Something warm and wet mushroomed beneath his shirt. Blood.

  She’d shot him. The bitch had shot him. He found that remarkable.

  They scrabbled in the alley, both slipping on the slick rivulet of water running from the building toward the sewer grate.

  He wrenched the gun from her hand and dropped it into the pocket of his coat. She screamed again, snatched up the handcuffs, and on hands and knees managed to crawl to the side of the building. He grabbed her.

  A door opened opposite them. A small Oriental man dressed in chefs whites peered out. He advanced a step, uncertainly.

  “Get outta here,” Eckker growled, averting his face.

  The small man disappeared inside, the door closing resoundingly after him.

  As quick as lightning the cop managed to secure one wristband of the handcuffs to the handle of the steel door.

  He smiled, thinking she had in mind to cuff him to the door, and it was going to be interesting to see her try. But instead of attempting to clamp the other band over his wrist, she brought it to her own, the sound of the serrated teeth crunching like steel jaws as she squeezed it closed.

  She had handcuffed herself to the metal door. With her other hand she grabbed the bottom of her purse and slung it, scattering the contents every which way across the dark alley.

  A rage surged up in him. The ache in his side burned. No one had ever beaten him. He could cut her hand off at the wrist, rip her arm out of its shoulder socket, crush the bones in her hand until it was mush, no longer an obstacle against the circle of steel—but he didn’t want her now. She was a cop. She was everything he hated.

  His hand loosened from her mouth, then inched downward to circle her throat. She opened her mouth to scream, but within moments the paralyzing constriction to her vocal cords rendered her speechless. Nothing more than a pathetic squeak escaped her lips.

  He squeezed and squeezed.

  Staring down into her saucerlike eyes, he squeezed until all emotion dissolved, leaving only two blank, glazed circles of icy blue-green glass.

  The Power. The power to eliminate what was worthless, what served no good purpose. He could spare a life or he could take it. It was so easy. He blustered in the power radiating through his loins, making his heart thump like one wild beast triumphant over another. She’d been a cop and she’d shot him and now she was nothing.

  Clasping the woman’s limp body to his chest, the stainless steel handcuffs clinking against the metal handle, he hauled her dead weight up.

  “Where’s your power now?” He lifted the lifeless woman’s face. “What good’s your badge or gun now?”

  The door across the way was flung open. The small Oriental and another even smaller man, brandishing a meat cleaver, stared.

  “P’lice come now,” one called out in a shaky voice.

  A siren warbled in the distance. Eckker swung around to the plate metal door to which the dead woman was handcuffed, the light from the Chinese kitchen making it a bright mirror, and glared at his own reflection.

  In the shiny chrome of the door his face was captured cruelly, indelibly, like a tintype portrait. Those piercing black eyes burning—

  “Robbi—Robbi, wake up!” She heard him calling. Felt him shaking her. Slowly, Roberta dared open her eyes. She was in a dim place, diffused light came from a doorway—not the doorway in the alley, don’t let it be that doorway. She raised her head and looked into Jake’s gentle blue eyes.

  Robbi threw her arms around Jake’s neck. “Ohhh, God, Jake, he killed her. The woman from the bar ... it was Detective Lerner. He killed her.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Yes! She’s dead. He killed her.” She moaned, tightening her arms around him.

  “Where?” Jake flipped on the bedside lamp. He grabbed the phone and dialed.

  “I don’t know. An alley.”

  Into the receiver Jake said, “I’ve got to talk to Detective Avondale. This is Dr. Reynolds. I know he’s not at the station. Find him and patch me through to him. It’s an emergency. It’s about his partner, Lerner. She may have been killed.” The muscles in his back tightened. “Yes, yes, Reynolds. My number is 555- 9007. Tell him Roberta Paxton saw it.”

  He hung up, turned to her. “They’ll find him and he’ll call.” He pulled on a pair of sweat pants.

  Roberta shivered.

  Jake pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her, then he left the room. A minute later he returned with a snifter of brandy and handed it to her.

  She sipped slowly; the burning path the liquor made going into her stomach warmed her.

  “What happened,” Jake asked.

  Before she could answer, the phone rang. He snatched it up, listened a moment. “Yeah, she saw it. A vision. Not more than five minutes ago.” He handed the receiver to Roberta.

  “Miss Paxton, Avondale here.” His voice was highly charged. “What did you see?”

  “He strangled your partner in an alley.”

  A long pause, then, “Can you come down here—to the crime scene? I can’t leave. I’ll send a car.”

  She looked at Jake. “He wants me to go there. He’s sending a car.”

  Jake took back the phone. “I’ll bring her. Where are you? No. She only knows it was in an alley. She doesn’t know where.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  At one-thirty A.M. Roberta, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, entered the alley with Jake. A uniformed policeman held up the yellow tape that was used to cordon off the area. They ducked under.

  Avondale rushed over to them.

  The body was still there, handcuffed to the door, just as she’d seen it in the vision. Roberta tried not to look.

  Over the next half hour Avondale had her reenact the events as she’d seen them.

  “You think he was shot here, where this water is?” Avondale asked. She nodded. “Damn. Most of the blood would’ve been diluted or washed away. You smoke?”

  When she told him no, he bummed a cigarette from one of the crime scene investigators.

  She pointed at the stainless steel door. “That’s where I saw his reflection. The light came from inside the door across the alley.”

  Avondale crossed the alley and pounded on the opposite door. “Police! Open up!”

  The door opened cautiously, an inch at a time. A tiny man poked his head out. Avondale pulled at the door, exposing the man. “Is this the man yo
u saw?” he asked Roberta.

  “One of them.”

  Avondale looked back at the door on the other side of the alley, the bright metal sharply reflecting Roberta and Jake’s image. He pressed his lips together, puffed out his cheeks, and nodded.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to the cook. “I wanna talk to you and anybody else in there.”

  At two, Jake, Roberta, Avondale, and a police artist sat in a large booth inside the Zenith Club. Earlier the customers and employees had been given a basic description of the killer. Those who did remember seeing a large man with dark hair and beard that evening had never seen him before. He was not a regular to the club. Everyone had been sent home and all the lights turned up.

  “Are you certain she was the one who handcuffed her own wrist to the door?” Avondale asked.

  “Yes.”

  The detective clasped and unclasped his long fingers, then patted his breast pocket. “Anyone got a cigarette?” The police artist offered him his pack, lit one for him. “Thanks. We—Lerner and I, were both over there sitting at the bar. She signaled she was going to the head. She didn’t come back.”

  “You didn’t wonder ... ?”

  “She wasn’t gone that long. Six, seven—ten minutes tops.”

  “Who made the call to the police?” Robbi said.

  “Anonymous. No doubt someone from the restaurant across the alley.”

  “Would she have gone out into the alley with him?” Jake asked.

  Avondale shook his head. “No, not without letting me know. She was bushwhacked. You saw where the rest rooms are... out back by the exit. That’s probably why she handcuffed herself to the door. She figured I’d”—his voice cracked, he dragged on the cigarette—”I’d be along any minute to back her up.”

  The police artist cleared his throat, glanced at his watch, then tapped the Identi-Kit on his lap.

  Avondale sat forward. “Ready to give the composite a try?”

  She nodded. Before speaking, she sat up straighter, brushed her hair from her face, then closed her eyes.

  Her eyes quickly opened as a spark of fear ignited in her. If she concentrated too intensely on him, she might just find herself joining him in whatever endeavor he was presently engaged in. His kidnap attempt had failed. Would he continue to prowl tonight, seeking prey, or give it a rest? Go home and lick his wounds?

  “Miss?” the artist queried.

  Robbi drew in a long breath. She closed her eyes again. “He’s very big. Tall, large, though not fat.”

  “Height? Weight?”

  “Six-five at least. Two hundred and eighty pounds.”

  “Like a professional wrestler?” the artist asked.

  “In size, but not bulk. I don’t see the muscle. He’s just a very large man. Big-boned.”

  “Go on,” Avondale prompted.

  “His face is angular, rugged. His hair is black, short, and thin on top. He has rather full lips, what you’d call blubbery. Long teeth. He has a full beard ...” With her fingers she indicated whiskers high on his cheeks and under his chin. “Not long, but untrimmed, mountain man-like.”

  “Sounds Neanderthal,” Avondale said.

  “Sort of. His eyes—it’s his eyes that are so terrifying,” she said in a quiet voice. “They’re deep-set in shadows, heavy brows that meet above his nose. The eyes are pitch black.”

  The charcoal whisked over the sketch paper.

  “And?” the artist said.

  ‘That’s about it. He has large hands with coarse black hair on the fingers.”

  The artist turned the pad around for Robbi to see.

  She stared dispassionately at it. Everything about the composite was on target. The hair, beard, full lips, just as she had described. The eyes, she realized, could belong to anyone.

  “The eyes are all wrong.” To the artist she said, “On TV, the late movie, they sometimes show old horror movies—”

  “Vampire movies ... Bela Lugosi?”

  “Exactly,” she said carefully. “Exactly.”

  The artist set to work again, the bit of charcoal scratching and scraping on the paper, his strokes urgent, determined.

  He turned it around for her to see.

  She felt the hair at the back of her scalp rise. “Yes,” she said so quietly it sounded like a hiss.

  The artist turned it around for Avondale to see. The detective shook his head. “I don’t remember seeing him, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t here.” He cleared his throat, his pen poised for writing. “Tell me about the bullet wound.”

  Robbi was thankful for the change of subject. Without hesitation, she touched her left side. “Right there.”

  “Unless it was a flesh wound, our guy will be looking for a doctor to treat that wound.”

  “I think the bullet went through his body and came out,” Robbi said. “I saw blood on his back.”

  “I’ll have forensic scour that alley for the slug.” He scribbled frantically. “The bullet didn’t knock him down? He didn’t black out?”

  “No. Nothing like that. I’d say he was more surprised than hurt.”

  “Jesus,” Avondale said under his breath.

  Robbi became conscious of a dull ache at the base of her skull. She hoped it was nothing more than the strain of the evening and not the signal for another vision. She rubbed her neck.

  “I think Roberta’s about had it for the night, gentlemen,” Jake said, standing.

  They left the booth.

  “Now, you’re pretty sure that the man you saw tonight is the same man who killed—who you think killed those other women?” the detective asked Roberta.

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “After we met the other night, I did some checking. I called around up to Tahoe. It seems that last summer a young woman disappeared from Sand Harbor. She was at one of the outdoor Shakespeare performances they have up there in August. In the middle of a thousand people, she just up and disappears.”

  “Any others missing?”

  “Still checking.” Avondale took the sketch from the artist. “Okay. We’ll circulate this.”

  It was nearly three A.M. when Jake and Roberta walked out into the crisp early morning air. The body was gone, but the crime scene investigators were still going over everything, gathering evidence.

  “Stay with me tonight,” he said.

  “I think I’d be more comfortable at home.”

  Then I’ll stay at your place.”

  She leaned into him as they walked, grateful for his sensitivity.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Roberta awoke at her usual hour. She vaguely remembered Jake kissing her good-bye and mumbling something about lunch. With only three hours sleep, she felt groggy, disoriented, and dead tired. She had dreamed of Carl Masser, Carl wandering aimlessly in the woods calling for Maggie.

  Roberta called the center. After giving Sophie an abbreviated account of the previous night’s activity, she informed her she’d be in late.

  “We’ve a lot of catching up to do,” Sophie said. “And I don’t mean with work. I wanna hear everything. Holler when you come in. Oh, by the way, Donald’s been looking for you.”

  Donald? Shit. Donald’s timing was rotten. Well, she’d deal with him later.

  “Get some rest,” Sophie urged. “G’bye.”

  Robbi managed to sleep another two hours, though she awoke feeling no more rested. Grudgingly, she opened her eyes to the bright summer day. There was so much to think about, none of which was pleasant—except for Jake.

  Minutes later she stepped into a steaming shower. Standing under the needle-sharp spray, the water cascading over her face and hair, she tried to force away all but the memory of Jake’s lovemaking. But try as she might, her mind refused to release the image of the dead woman cuffed to the metal door. She shook her head to clear it, and succeeded only in replacing the mask of death with the hideous face of the killer; those black eyes bored into hers. A wave of nausea washed over her.

  As Roberta reach
ed down to shut off the shower, the light in the room suddenly dimmed. With the water beating down on her back, Roberta jerked her head around. Through the shower curtain she made out an obscure figure silhouetted in the doorway. She froze, the blood in her veins icy, racing. Before getting into the shower, she had made certain both doors were locked. No one else had a key.

  Anxiously, she looked around for something to use as a weapon. Plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles, a sea sponge, and a pumice stone—Christ. The figure moved closer.

  Acting instinctively, Roberta simultaneously reached up and twisted the shower nozzle as she yanked open the shower curtain. The water shot out into the room, hitting the intruder in the face. He yelled, a string of curses followed.

  From the sink she snatched a can of hair spray and sprayed wildly, aiming for the face, eyes.

  “Robbi! What in Christ—!” a drenched Donald Bauer blurted out as he lunged for the shower and quickly shut off the water.

  He turned to her, his face questioning.

  The silent scream at the back of her throat became a painful knot. Anger erupted, canceling the intense terror of a moment before. Her heart pounded; she felt lightheaded.

  “Donald, you ... you dumb, stupid ass, you ... you—Don’t you have any goddamn sense?” she said as she sank to her knees in the tub, gripping the porcelain edge.

  “Ah, words I’ve been longing to hear all these lonely months,” he said, shaking water from his arms and hair.

  “How—what... what in God’s name were you thinking?” She turned, glared up at him.

  “Hey, babe, I’m sorry.” Donald knelt and began pushing the wet hair from her face. “I only wanted to surprise you. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I forgot they still show Psycho reruns.”

  “I c-could have h-hurt you,” she sputtered, water from her hair running into her mouth. “If I’d had my gun, you could be lying there dead this very minute.”

  “I’m sorry. Baby, I’m sorry. I tried to reach you yesterday to tell you I was coming in this morning. I talked to Sophie. Then I decided to surprise you. I used my key. C’mon—get out of there.” He helped her out of the tub, covered her with a towel.