Chill of Night n-6

by John Lutz

  As Justice finished putting away the groceries, he could hear April clattering around in the bathroom. The old house’s pipes rattled briefly as she ran water to wash down whatever in her galaxy of medications she was taking.

  Twice she’d mistakenly taken overdoses that would have proved fatal if she hadn’t told Justice about them. Once in bed beside him in the middle of the night, and once by phone when he was working in a twenty-four-hour convenience store that had since closed. Both times he’d called 911 and they’d reached the emergency room in time, where April consumed what they’d both come to refer to as “the charcoal milkshake” that neutralized what was in her stomach, and was then pumped out.

  After the second overdose, a doctor had told Justice that April might have taken an overdose deliberately in a suicide attempt, but Justice knew better. April wanted to live. She fed off his own determination that she should live, that everything should return to normal-but a different kind of normal, without their son, Will. It was possible. It must be. It seemed far away at times to Justice, but it was possible.

  He went into the bedroom and found April lying fully clothed on the bed that hadn’t been made for days. The old window air conditioner was humming and squealing away, not doing much about the humid St. Louis heat in high summer. The shades were pulled. Even if they didn’t fit well and light leaked in all around them; at least the room was dim. At times April got headaches that were unbearable, and lying perfectly still on her back in the dimness seemed the only thing that might help.

  Justice sat down on the bed beside her. “You doing okay?”

  She squeezed his hand. “I hate to put you through this shit.”

  He smiled. “It won’t be forever.”

  “It’s already been forever.”

  He sat and was silent, looking at her closed eyes, watching her pupils move beneath the thin flesh of her eyelids, knowing she might be exhausted but she wasn’t near sleep.

  “Headache, too?” he asked.

  “No. Just everything else.” Her breasts rose, fell. “It’s so goddamned hopeless.”

  He pressured her hand rhythmically with his own. “Don’t say it’s hopeless. It only seems that way sometimes.”

  “I know what I put you through,” she said, still with her eyes closed. “It isn’t fair.”

  “Maybe it’ll even out.”

  Her pale lips arranged themselves in a tired smile. New deep lines at the corners of her mouth. “You mean someday you’ll put me through the same thing?”

  “You know what I meant. Our life together will be better someday.”

  “You believe that? With Will gone from us?”

  “It won’t be as good as with Will, but it can be better than it is now.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.”

  She began to cry. He touched the backs of his knuckles gently to her cheek and she turned her head away.

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m afraid all the time.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know. The future. Nothing and everything. I’m tired of being afraid.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “If I didn’t-”

  “What?” He could tell by the tightness around her mouth that she was getting frustrated. With him. With everything. He knew he should think more before he spoke. If she didn’t have to be afraid, she sure as hell wouldn’t be.

  “Maybe you oughta take a drive,” she said. It was what he did when they both knew an argument was building like a summer storm on the horizon. “Get some ice cream and bring it back here.”

  “You didn’t want ice cream in the store.”

  “Go to Ted Drewes. Get me a chocolate chip concrete.”

  Ted Drewes was a frozen custard stand that was the most popular place in St. Louis when the temperature got over eighty. And it was over ninety today. “I’ll be in line behind a hundred people,” Justice said.

  She opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled, not the way she usually was with a fight coming on. “The lines there move fast, and only frozen custard can make me feel better.”

  “Or ice cream.”

  “Not the same.”

  Justice leaned down and kissed her cool forehead. “Frozen custard it is.” He stood up, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face and wrists. When he came back in the bedroom, he was tucking in his shirt. “You said chocolate?”

  “Chocolate chip,” she said, with her eyes closed again. She seemed tired now. When he got back, she might be asleep. That would be okay; he’d put both frozen concoctions in the freezer and they could eat them later.

  When he left the house, he locked the front door behind him, then drove their five-year-old Ford to the custard stand.

  After maneuvering through traffic surrounding the tiny stand, he finally found a parking space in the rear of the lot, near an alley. The car’s air conditioner didn’t work worth a damn, and as soon as he turned off the engine the heat closed in.

  He joined a long line at one of the serving windows and stood in the sun and sweated for about twenty minutes before he walked away with two frozen custard specialties in a white takeout bag.

  The drive back took another twenty minutes.

  As soon as Justice entered the house, he made his way toward the bedroom, where he assumed April was asleep.

  Peeking in, he saw her still in bed, lying on her side, turned away from him. He went into the kitchen, put her frozen custard in the freezer section of the fridge, then sat at the kitchen table and ate his own chocolate treat.

  Something wasn’t right. Something about the silence in the tiny, stifling house. He was finished with his frozen custard, so he dropped the cardboard container into the trash, then went to the bedroom to look in again on April.

  She hadn’t moved. He started to close the door so he could turn on the TV and not disturb her, when it struck him that she was lying exactly as before. On her right side, left shoulder slightly hunched, left hand turned palm out, the tips of her fingers just visible over the curve of her hip.

  His heart went cold; his legs numb; even before he knew for sure.

  He didn’t want to walk over and examine his wife more closely, didn’t want to step into a new and darker world. But he had to. He couldn’t go back to the kitchen, sit at the table, and pretend it was five minutes ago. So he walked across the bedroom’s threadbare carpet. On unfeeling legs of rubber, he walked. He leaned. He looked.

  Her eyes were closed, but her skin didn’t look quite right. Already it had begun to acquire a slight waxiness, and her perfect stillness was that of something inanimate. On the carpet on her side of the bed was a litter of vials and bottles-her stash of untaken prescription medicines the doctors had warned Justice that she might have hidden somewhere in the house. He stared at the lidless, capless empty containers, at the empty water glass on its side nearby. She’d taken everything, every kind of pill, every pill.

  In her right hand was a crumpled scrap of paper, a message perhaps to him. But when he detached the object from her hand he saw that it was a photograph of Will, their lost son, taken on his fourth birthday, beaming behind a three-layer cake while a hand that had found its way into the frame-Justice’s own hand-was about to hold a lighted match to four waiting candles. The photo was an instant caught in time that stabbed him like a blade through the heart.

  He had just enough willpower to dial 911 and give them a brief explanation and an address. When the operator asked if he was sure April was dead, he said he wasn’t, but in fact he was. He didn’t want them to take their time, not for any reason.

  After hanging up, he sat down on the bed next to April and stared at Will’s photograph. His breathing quickened without him realizing it until he was short of breath, then he was sobbing, taking in great gulps of air.

  When the paramedics arrived, he couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t even manage to stand up by himself so they had room to do their job.

  He heard their instructions
and conversation as if from a distance. They were going to transport April to the morgue, as they always did initially with suicides. It was the law. Taking one’s own life was a crime-not as serious a crime as what Davison had done to Will, but still a crime.

  Someone leaned over Justice, placed a hand on his shoulder, and asked him gently if he had any family or a priest or pastor. He told them no, he had no family and he had no religion. He no longer had a world to live in.

  They discussed him in the third person, as if he weren’t there, and decided he needed medical attention and counseling. He sat slumped on the sofa in deep shock and watched them remove April, the criminal. One of the paramedics hurried ahead to hold the screen door open.

  It all seemed so wrong. It wasn’t yet time. A mistake had been made and could be set right with a little reasonable discussion. Her frozen custard was still uneaten in the refrigerator.

  They parted then forever, she to the morgue, he to hospital emergency.

  Forever.

  30

  New York, the present

  Beam settled into the soft gray leather chair in Cassie’s living room. Her apartment was furnished in restful, muted tones like her office. But while the office was in shades of brown, the apartment was blues and grays.

  Cassie’s broad, sturdy figure appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. Not much was different about her shape and features from the time she was a child, one of those rare people who somehow mature without changing; you recognize them at sixty if you knew them when they were six. She was holding two martini glasses. She came over to the gray chair and handed one of the glasses to Beam.

  “Gin,” she said. “Mine’s vodka.”

  He smiled and raised his glass in a toast. The gesture was returned, and brother and sister took ceremonial sips of their drinks.

  “I know you didn’t come to me for help,” she said.

  “Not professional help.” Beam tried his martini again. His sister had a real talent for mixing these things. “Personal help. It’s been almost a year now since Lani died. How should I…I don’t know, how should I feel?”

  He felt stupid even asking the question.

  Cassie settled down on the pale blue sofa opposite Beam’s chair and regarded him. “You’re seeing another woman,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t act surprised. Are you?”

  “Surprised? Yes. I’m not exactly seeing another woman. Not in the way you mean.”

  Cassie grinned. “Ah, you equivocate.”

  “The woman hates my guts,” Beam said. “And is it too early for me to be interested? I mean, since Lani?”

  “Lani’s dead, bro. It’s rough, and I’m sorry. But that’s the way it is. She’s gone.”

  Beam took a sip of martini he didn’t need. “I knew I could count on you to be blunt.”

  “Direct.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I asked the question.”

  “Different people see it different ways. There isn’t any kind of timetable as to how long you should wait.”

  “I don’t care what people think, Cass. I care what I think. What you think.”

  “Like I’m not people. Okay, I think you’ve waited long enough if your heart’s told you so. Feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now we seem to be left with the problem of this woman hating you. What did you do to her?”

  “Killed her husband,” Beam said.

  Between calming sips of martini, he explained the situation with Harry Lima and his widow Nola.

  When he was finished, Cassie stood up and drifted over to the window to look out at Riverside Drive. “You might be screwed up, but you also must be one of the most interesting brothers in this diverse world.”

  “I need her to forgive me for what happened to Harry,” Beam said.

  “Oh, you figured that out, did you?” Cassie didn’t turn around, continuing to gaze outside. “What do you want me to tell you, bro?”

  “I guess I want you to say you understand, then tell me what I should do.”

  Cassie turned around and swirled what was left of her martini in its shallow-stemmed glass. “The first part’s easy: I do understand. You were doing your job. Nobody does his job perfectly, not a job like yours, anyway. That’s because no one can see into the future.”

  “You can, Cass.”

  She shot him her gap-toothed grin. “Maybe a glimpse now and then. Usually more disquieting than useful.”

  “You really do understand, then?”

  “Yes, and I don’t see how anybody can blame you for Harry Lima’s death. This man chose his course, or at the least placed himself in a position where you had little choice but to steer him into possible harm’s way. But he’s the one who set sail in that sea. He could have been an honest jeweler. Of course, his widow might have difficulty being that objective.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Not for sure,” Cassie said, “but I think I know something about her.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She needs to forgive you.”

  Beam smiled. He believed his sister; she had a way about her. It had made her a success in her field. He also believed her when she admitted to a glimpse now and then into the future. Some people had the gift, Beam was sure. His own hunches sometimes proved predictive, but he’d always seen them as the subconscious instantaneously rummaging through mental files, shuffling index cards and coming up with the right one. Maybe that was how it was with Cassandra. Whatever the reason, she’d had the gift since they were kids and she repeatedly beat him at cards. She’d somehow known when their father was going to die; then, fifteen years ago, their mother. She’d phoned him the night before.

  Now for the big question about Nola.

  “So what do I do now, Cass?”

  She shrugged in back-lit, bulky silhouette against the wide window.

  “Hell, that’s entirely up to you, bro.”

  Nell and Looper sat in the unmarked on West Eighty-third Street and checked Nell’s list of families who’d lost someone to a killer-alleged killer-who had walked, either through a legal technicality or because the jurors behaved in a way incomprehensible to the public. Near the top of the list was the Dixon family.

  Lloyd and Greta Dixon’s teenage daughter Genelle was raped and murdered in Central Park four years ago. The alleged killer, Bradley Aimes, who hung out with Genelle’s group of teenage friends, was from a wealthy family and had the advantage of high-priced legal counsel. They managed to quash the introduction of damning evidence. Though the jury wasn’t allowed to consider this evidence, they certainly knew about it from wide media coverage, yet nevertheless chose to turn in a controversial not guilty verdict.

  “You do this one,” Looper said. “I’ll observe.”

  That was the technique they used-one would be the interviewer, the other would simply interject something now and then, but was mainly there to observe the family. Sometimes faces revealed what words concealed.

  Nell didn’t argue. Not only was it her turn to be the interviewer, but she remembered the case. Bradley Aimes had been a handsome, smug twenty-something sadist who’d seemed to know from the start that his family’s money and connections would enable him to walk away from a murder charge. He was right. The Dixon family was left to suffer the loss of their ravaged and murdered daughter. If one of them turned out to be the Justice Killer, Nell wondered if she’d have the professionalism to make an arrest.

  The Dixons lived in a modest brick and brownstone building not in the best repair. Looper worked the intercom, identified himself and Nell, and they were buzzed up to a second floor apartment.

  Mrs. Dixon, Greta, opened the door when they knocked. She was a medium-height, dark-haired woman who was attractive despite her worn down expression. Nell made the introductions, and after glancing at their shields, Greta let them in.

  They were in a modestly furnished living room with a woven oval rug over hardwood flooring. A sofa that looked as if
it had once been expensive and handsome now sagged in the middle. One wall was lined with a mix of books, paperback and hardcover, and some stacked magazines. Most of the books were novels. The top magazine was a Time.

  Two matching green chairs were angled to the couch, and a TV was placed where it was visible to anyone seated in the room. On a far wall was a mahogany secretary that made everything else seem cheap and functional and looked as if it might be a family heirloom.

  A thin, round-shouldered man wearing a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, suspenders, and pleated slacks, came in from a doorway that led to a short hall and kitchen. The kind of guy who looked like he should be wearing sleeve garters and a green eye shade, and whose books never balanced. He was chewing. When he saw Nell and Looper, he quickly swallowed. There was a furtiveness about him, as if he’d been caught eating something forbidden.

  “My husband Lloyd,” Greta said.

  “We interrupted your dinner,” Nell said.

  “Not at all,” said Greta. “We were just finishing.”

  “You’re police?” the man asked. He wore rimless glasses and had a narrow, pointed chin. He and Greta were in their early fifties, Nell guessed.

  “’Fraid so,” Looper said.

  “We hate to disturb you,” Nell said, “but it’s part of our investigation.”

  “Investigation?” Lloyd Dixon seemed unfamiliar with the word.

  “About the Justice Killer,” said a voice from the doorway behind Lloyd.

  A young woman entered the room. Nell was struck by her dark-haired beauty, so like her mother must have looked when younger. So like her newspaper photographs.

  But Genelle Dixon is dead.

  “You seem startled,” Greta said with a slight smile. “This is Gina, Genelle’s twin sister.”

  “She might be the one you want to talk to,” Lloyd said. “Gina and Genelle were close.”

  “Twins are,” Greta said. “Were.”

  “You knew Bradley Aimes?” Nell asked Gina.

  “He was a bastard. I’m sure he still is.”

  “Why don’t we all sit down?” Greta asked. The family peacemaker.