Chill of Night n-6

by John Lutz

  Except for the gray shot through her dark hair, Nola Lima didn’t look any older than the last time Beam had seen her. She was sitting down and had been reading something, and when she glanced up to greet the customer she’d just heard enter her shop, her amiable smile faded and her dark eyes bore into him.

  In a fog, Beam moved toward her. “I’m-”

  “I know who you are.” Her distinctive, surprisingly throaty voice took him back years. “Detective Beam.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Exactly enough,” she said. “I follow the news.”

  He said nothing. Could think of nothing to say.

  “Are you here because you’re interested in antiques?” she asked, her tone businesslike.

  “I’m not here for the reason you might think.”

  She smiled. “I might think somebody’s stolen some antiques and you’re here to see if any of my stock matches their description.”

  “It isn’t that at all.”

  She stood up slowly, letting whatever she was reading slip to the floor. Beam couldn’t help but notice she still had her figure. There was still something about her that made you think of royalty-the kind that had nothing to do with titles. Harry Lima had never known how lucky he was before his luck ran out.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “I heard you’d stayed with the shop,” Beam said, “turned to antiques instead of jewelry. I was in the Village and noticed your sign and wanted to look in on you.”

  “And now you have.”

  “Why didn’t you continue with jewelry, with what you knew?”

  “After Harry died, I chose to surround myself with the past. It’s already happened, so it provides the ultimate in predictability.”

  Beam smiled. “Does that make sense?”

  No return smile. “To me it does.”

  He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, as if it might help him find some kind of equilibrium with this woman. It wasn’t to be found. Not today in this musty, smothering little shop that smelled of the past. “I’m not welcome here,” he said, stating the obvious.

  “Why shouldn’t you be welcome? You extorted cooperation from my husband, tricked him into informing on dangerous people, and are responsible for them killing him.” There was nothing in her impassive, beautiful face he could read. “Do you intend to try the same thing with me?” she asked.

  “For God’s sake no!”

  “You’re here looking for a discount, then? A policeman’s discount? Or something bad might happen to my shop?” She was coming out from behind the display case, approaching him unafraid, her broad, handsome features still oddly placid. It was as if they’d played this scene before, and she recalled it but Beam didn’t. “Is that what you want, Detective Beam?”

  “Stop it with that crap, Nola.”

  She moved closer, until they were only inches apart. Beam almost backed away, but stood his ground. She looked up at him impassively.

  “Then what? Why are you here?”

  “To say I’m sorry.”

  She stared into him for several seconds before answering. “What I said about you being responsible for Harry’s death, it’s true.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He wished he could explain to her the relationship between a cop and his snitch, the relationship he’d had with her husband. He’d respected Harry Lima. You might even say they were friends. But they were opponents playing the same game, and Harry found himself at a disadvantage. It was Beam’s job to press his advantage, to use Harry Lima, and he’d used him up.

  “I don’t forgive you,” said Harry’s widow.

  “That’s not what I’m expecting, or asking. I simply wanted you to know how I felt.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “I remember the way you used to look at me,” she said, surprising him. Horrifying him. This wasn’t why he’d come here.

  “Look at you?” Beam automatically feigning ignorance.

  “When Harry wasn’t watching.”

  Christ! Where’s she going with this?

  She surprised him again by slapping him hard. The sharp impact was like a gunshot in the cluttered little shop.

  Beam didn’t move. The left side of his face stung as if bees had swarmed it. He couldn’t feel anger. She seemed completely unafraid of him. He understood why. I’ve already done my worst to her.

  “You came in here to make yourself feel better,” she said.

  His heart was hammering hard. “Yes.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then leave.”

  They stared as if trying to see deep into each other, neither so much as blinking, until finally Beam nodded, turned, and moved toward the door.

  “I miss Harry,” she said behind him.

  “So do I,” Beam said, and pushed out into the heat.

  He thought she might yell after him not to come back, perhaps that she hated him. But she held her silence. She wasn’t the sort to yell anything after anyone.

  Beam knew he would be back, because he understood that he needed this woman’s absolution.

  And that she knew it.

  17

  The court had been informed that the witness, the former William Tufts, had legally changed his name to Knee High and would be so addressed. The squat, frenetic little man with the screwed up features was, as far as Melanie could perceive, Cold Cat’s factotum, though his job title was, as he described it, Assistant to the Man. Like Cold Cat, he was African American, but unlike Cold Cat, his demeanor was anything but cool; he seemed unable to sit still in the witness chair.

  “Is it true you and the defendant shared lunch in your apartment on the day of Edie Piaf’s murder?” asked Farrato the prosecutor, as if the very act of sharing lunch on that fateful day somehow suggested guilt or, at the least, dark secrets.

  “We did lunch, yeah.”

  “We being…?”

  “Knee High an’ Cold Cat. Had us some sushi an’ beer an’-”

  “Please confine your responses to answering the questions,” Judge Moody wearily reminded Knee High. It was the fourth such warning since he’d been sworn in. “And try to refer to yourself in the first person rather than the third.”

  “Yeah. Yes, your honor. Knee-We had us some-” Knee High bit down on his words and was silent. The judge seemed pleased by this restraint.

  “Was this lunch delivered to your apartment?” Farrato inquired.

  “Naw, was leftover from the night before. We had us-” With a glance at Judge Moody, Knee High fell silent.

  “Was anyone else present for this lunch of”-Farrato made an unpleasant face-“leftover sushi?”

  “Jus’ me an-No.”

  “Then you and the defendant were alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Farrato smiled thinly. He would step by step reveal to the jury that no one, not the doorman, not any of Cold Cat’s backup musicians, not Cold Cat’s chauffeur-no one-could testify in court that Cold Cat was anywhere near Knee High’s apartment at the time of Edie Piaf’s murder.

  He faced the toad-like witness, who seemed so guileless that he worried Farrato on that minor point. Knee High didn’t look smart enough to lie to protect his friend, though that surely was what he was doing. “During what time did this lunch take place?”

  “Cold Cat-”

  “Richard Simms,” Judge Moody reminded the witness.

  “Mr. Richard Simms, he showed up all dressed real sharp-”

  “Simply give us the times,” said the Judge

  “He showed up right at one o’clock, left right at two.”

  “Are you certain of the time?”

  “I am ’cause I got this new Rolex.” Knee High held up his left wrist. “Knee High been checkin’ the time most every few minutes, make sure I’m with Greenwich Village, an’ jus’ to look at the watch.”

  Judge Moody let that one pass.

  Farrato appeared pained, bu
t continued. “Is there anyone who can corroborate your story that Richard Simms was with you between the hours of one and two o’clock on the date of Edie Piaf’s death?”

  Knee High appeared puzzled. “Collaborate?”

  “Corroborate,” Farrato repeated.

  Knee High looked to the judge.

  “Did anybody else see or talk to you there?”

  Knee High bit his lower lip, thinking hard. “No. But we was there. Ain’t no way Cold Cat coulda got to his an Edie’s place an’ killed her. Not if she died ’tween one an’ two.”

  Which Edie had, Melanie knew, because before the trial the news media had revealed that Edie phoned a friend and left a message at 12:55, and her body was discovered five minutes after two o’clock, when her personal trainer arrived to find Edie’s door unlocked and Edie dead.

  “Is it not possible that the defendant left your apartment slightly before two o’clock?” Farrato asked.

  “No-yes, it is not possible. Knee High looked at his-my-gold Rolex ’cause-”

  “Mr…High,” the Judge cautioned.

  “No.” Knee High crossed his arms and shook his head. “Knee High an’ Cold Cat was there together till one minute past two. Knee High looked, ’cause a second hand on a Rolex move steady like, an’ Knee High wanted to-”

  “Mr. High!”

  “No. Yes. Not possible.”

  Melanie stole a look over her shoulder and saw that Cold Cat’s mother had been allowed back into the courtroom. She was smiling, knowing the innocent believability of Knee High. This attorney-witness exchange was good for her son, with whom she exchanged encouraging glances.

  Farrato was unmoved by Knee High’s act. He knew the little man was lying, and he knew that before the trial was over, he would remove Richard Simms, aka Cold Cat, from that meal of day-old sushi, and place him where he belonged, in Edie Piaf’s apartment at the same time Edie Piaf died. Knee High was impressing the jury now, and no doubt he’d impress them when Murray presented the defense phase of the trial, but Farrato would slice Knee High to pieces on cross-exam. The stubborn gnome obviously worshiped Cold Cat, and was obviously-to Farrato, anyway-lying to protect him. Farrato smiled a quarter inch wider. A lecture on the consequences of perjury would do the trick with Knee High, at the opportune time.

  Melanie saw Farrato smile and didn’t like him. He seemed so arrogant, so unlike the defendant Cold Cat, who looked genuinely hurt and puzzled that he should be here. And he was suffering emotionally because of Edie Piaf’s passing-you could read the grief on his face for his lost love.

  Even as Melanie thought this, she watched Cold Cat glance at his mother, who was returning the look with an expression of mother’s love that couldn’t be faked.

  Cold Cat’s mother seemed to sense Melanie staring at her. She glanced Melanie’s way, then lowered her gaze to her lap, as if embarrassed to be caught in a moment of tenderness.

  Melanie looked down at her own lap, where her hands were folded, and tried to focus her attention on what Farrato was saying. Instead she found herself thinking of the defendant. Such an interesting man. His music was violent, but wasn’t he a poet of the streets, reflecting, rather than helping to create, a violent culture? There were those who called Cold Cat a musical genius, and perhaps he was one. Melanie wouldn’t know. But his music sold. He was worth millions. She’d never before seen anyone worth millions, and who’d been referred to as a musical genius. Now here she was sitting not twenty feet from one.

  Farrato, and Judge Moody, had cautioned the jury about the power of celebrity. They were to regard Cold Cat as simply another defendant to be treated fairly and dispassionately. The facts of the case were what mattered here, not that the accused happened to be famous.

  Melanie thought the warnings about the effects of celebrity were overblown. People were people. It was as simple as that.

  Judge Moody had been right when she declared that inside the courtroom, the accused was in no way special.

  Melanie raised her eyes and looked at the defendant, and found Cold Cat looking directly at her.

  Melanie melted.

  “This is approximately the number of days we might have before we lose our jobs,” da Vinci said, holding up a digital photo he’d taken of an image on a TV screen, then enlarged.

  They were in Central Park, where da Vinci requested the meeting with Beam. Which rather amused Beam. Had they reached the point where da Vinci didn’t want to be seen with him?

  Beam turned so the late afternoon sun wasn’t glinting off the photo. “It looks like a big red number six.”

  “Know what it stands for?” da Vinci seemed agitated now. Where had the cool young bureaucratic climber gone. “That’s the number of victims the Justice Killer’s notched. That photo’s of the news on Channel One a couple of hours ago. They were reporting on that press conference you advised me to hold.”

  Beam nodded and waited. He didn’t see where da Vinci was going with this.

  “The papers haven’t had time to get it out yet,” da Vinci said, “but do you know what tomorrow’s gonna be like for me, Beam? The main media’s gonna be all over me, wanting to know why we aren’t closing in on this sicko. Why we didn’t realize until recently that we had a serial killer operating in the city.”

  “Didn’t they hit you with those kinds of questions at your press conference?”

  Da Vinci glared up at a blue jay that was nattering at him from a nearby tree, as if the media had sent the bird to antagonize him. “I didn’t take questions.”

  Beam was surprised. “I thought that was the idea of the press conference.”

  “No. My idea was to get the information out there, let the public know through the media what’s going on.”

  “Do it that way, it just makes you look like you’re trying to duck questions,” Beam said.

  “That’s exactly what I was doing. Because I don’t have answers. You and your detectives were supposed to supply me with answers.”

  Beam gave him a level look. “Is this supposed to be a chewing out?”

  “Of course not. I know what you’re up against.”

  “Then why’d you request this meeting?”

  Da Vinci seemed at a loss for words. He gave a nervous, crooked grin like the kind Tony Curtis used to in the movies. Beam wondered if da Vinci was aware of his resemblance to the movie star and had studied those expressions. Maybe even practiced them in front of a mirror.

  Beam said, “You asking my advice again?”

  Da Vinci seemed suddenly calm. A pretty blond woman, perched high on in-line skates, glided past on the path behind him. The skate wheels made a rhythmic growling sound that became fainter with distance. “I guess maybe that’s part of it,” he admitted, glancing after the woman. “Isn’t that some ass?”

  “I noticed, even at my age. My advice is the same as before-get out ahead of it.”

  “It is the result of getting out ahead,” da Vinci said. The blue jay fluttered to a lower limb, closer, and was definitely observing da Vinci.

  “You should have fielded questions, told them anything.” Beam thought that if they knew bird language, it would be clear that the jay was cursing at da Vinci.

  “They don’t settle for anything,” da Vinci said, “and now I’m in a shit storm.”

  “You were gonna be anyway. If not today, tomorrow. Today woulda been better, cut down on media speculation. Not much better, but better.”

  “You know the kinda pressure goes with this? From the mayor on down to the commissioner, to the chief, then down to me, and then to you and your detectives.” The blue jay flew at da Vinci’s head and he slapped at it and missed. “The hell’s wrong with that thing? Don’t it like me?”

  “Not so you could tell.”

  “Anyway, you heard what I said.”

  “You forgot somebody in that chain of increasing pressure,” Beam said. “The killer. Sure, he’s gotten some of the notoriety he wanted, but he knows now there’s an army of cops searching for h
im. That brings about a certain amount of pressure.”

  “You said it yourself, though, he’ll enjoy the publicity.”

  “He will. Like some of us enjoy walking the edge of a cliff. The publicity brings us closer to catching him.”

  The jay zoomed at da Vinci again. He swatted at it, then walked about twenty feet farther away from the tree. “Must have a nest in there.”

  “Must,” Beam agreed.

  “All the noise in the news might bring something else closer,” da Vinci said. “Number seven.”

  Beam knew he was right. And in a perverse way, he was almost looking forward to victim number seven. Every murder was a tragedy, but it was also a card to play. It was all the more likely they’d be able to stop this killer if he did more of what they were trying to stop. Ironic.

  Beam didn’t like irony. He was a cop. He liked things to the point, black or white, right or wrong.

  Alive or dead.

  “I swear,” da Vinci said, “if that friggin’ bird flies at me again, I’m gonna blast it with my nine-millimeter.”

  The jay knew when to quit.

  18

  Tina Flitt and her husband, Martin Portelle, sat on the balcony of their twenty-first floor East Side apartment and watched dusk settle over New York. They felt fortunate.

  Martin, a stocky, bald man with mild gray eyes and a scraggly beard grown to compensate for his lack of hair up top, had nothing about him in youth portending success. Yet here he was, a highly paid acquisition appraiser for a major holding company.

  His wife, Tina, was a smallish woman in a way that suggested extreme dieting, and was pretty in an intense, dark-eyed fashion. She was a defense attorney. The two had met in court, when Martin was jury foreperson in the trial of the infamous Subway Killer, Dan Maddox. Tina had been one of the jurors. Maddox had been acquitted.

  Martin used the remote to switch off the small Sony TV they used on the balcony. They’d been watching Channel One news. A special titled Six and the City. It was all about the victims whose deaths were attributed to the Justice Killer.