by John Lutz
“About what Helen the profiler said, that the killer taunts me because secretly, even to himself, he yearns to be caught. And the more he taunts, the closer we are to finding him.”
Nola said, after a while, “Makes a crazy kind of sense.”
A fly had gotten into the room. It buzzed the bed, then began flinging itself repeatedly against the nearby window-pane. They watched it.
“Frustration,” Nola said.
“The NYPD with wings.”
“I didn’t mean the police. I meant the Justice Killer. He wants to kill, he wants to be stopped, he wants to be anonymous, he wants to be famous. He can’t get enough of any of it. It must be making his heart beat faster and faster.”
“That’s more or less how Helen sees it.”
“And you seem to be relying more and more on Helen.”
“Because da Vinci is.”
“Why?”
“He’s frustrated, too,” Beam said. “Like that fly and the rest of us only more so.”
“Maybe he’s afraid the killer will stop taunting and come after one of you.”
“Helen said it isn’t likely. We’re his reason for being. Only she has a French phrase for it.”
“Raison d’etre,” Nola said.
“Very impressive.” Beam wasn’t kidding. “She says we symbolize the system he’s acting out against, so he wants to keep us alive.”
“As symbols.”
“Yeah.”
“There are other symbols, like Adelaide Starr.”
“The killer wants her alive, too” Beam said. “She’s practically become his biggest asset. Helen says Adelaide’s adding to the killer’s celebrity and feeding his delusions. Besides, she’s so cute, who could kill her?”
“Helen could be wrong about all that symbolism and its value to the killer,” Nola said, “in whatever language.”
“Da Vinci doesn’t think so. Sometimes he says he does, but he doesn’t. Not really. She’s having more and more of an influence on him.”
“You think they might be in love?”
“Might,” Beam said.
Beam had lunch the next day with Cassie at a recently opened restaurant called Mambo, near the vast concrete and marble indoor park in the financial district. There were a lot of new businesses and new construction in this part of town, the city still coming back strong from the 9-11 horror. New York, the city that never sleeps and never surrenders. The city of scars with yet another.
Artificial potted palms flanked the restaurant’s canopied entrance. It had a dance motif, life-size silhouetted figures on the walls doing what looked to Beam more like tango than mambo. There were more potted palms inside, lots of ferns, and soft background music that sounded like samba.
The food couldn’t make up its mind what it was, either, though the menu was in Spanish. It wasn’t bad, just not as good as one of Cassie’s homemade dinners. And who was Beam to assume that Irish potatoes weren’t eaten south of the border?
“Been a while since we’ve seen each other,” said Beam’s sister.
“As you might guess, I’ve been busy into the evenings.” With Nola. Missing Cassie’s cooking so I could be with Nola. Twisting back and forth between man’s two essentials: food and women. Beam knew that if Cassie or Nola could somehow know the thought had entered his mind, they might seriously injure him.
“Nola,” Cassie said, pausing before taking a bite of something supposedly Latin.
Beam actually felt himself blush. He’d forgotten how preternaturally insightful Cassie could be. From the time they were children, she’d occasionally astounded him.
“She’s forgiven me,” he said.
“Wonderful,” Cassie said, inserting food in her mouth and smiling simultaneously. She’d said it as if she knew everything Nola’s forgiveness entailed, and she probably did know.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asked. Seeing that Beam was surprised by the abrupt question, she added, “I was sure you wanted to change the subject.”
He laughed. “You should play poker for a living.”
“It would bore me.”
He brought her up to date on the hunt for the Justice Killer. As he talked, her expression changed from intensely interested to concerned.
“So Looper thinks the killer might be a woman,” she said. “He didn’t strike me as such an independent thinker.”
“He’s real independent on that one,” Beam said. “Nobody agrees with him.”
“You don’t think it’s possible the killer’s a woman?”
“Possible. Sure. In the way that just about anything’s possible. But what we know about serial killers suggests it’s highly unlikely. Which camp are you in?”
“Not Looper’s,” Cassie said. “I don’t see the Justice Killer as female.”
“It’s nice to have my opinions confirmed,” Beam said.
“Shored up, anyway,” Cassie said.
Beam recalled how she’d almost always won every game she played as a kid. How she consistently beat the other kids at guessing where someone would move a checker, which sweaty little clenched fist held the coin, which was the short straw, which cards would turn up.
“Maybe you really should play poker,” he said. “It’s only a game, but these days there’s big money in it to go with the risk.”
“Life’s only a game, and it contains all the risk we need.”
Beam raised his water glass and drank to that.
After the waiter brought them coffee, and bread pudding (was that a Latin dish?) for dessert, Cassie said, “You need to be careful.”
“Of the bread pudding?”
“I’m serious.”
“You think something bad is about to happen?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I have no idea, bro. I’d tell you if I could. I’m not God.”
“You’re his messenger,” Beam said.
“Trouble is,” Cassie told him, “the message is always in code.”
Despite the ordinariness of the rest of the food, the bread pudding was delicious. Better than Cassie’s. Who would have guessed?
The next morning the Times ran a feature about Adelaide Starr being mistreated in jail. Beam sliced, toasted, and buttered a poppy seed bagel for breakfast, then poured a cup of coffee and sat at his kitchen table with the paper. He chewed, sipped, read.
Adelaide was a pest, but she sure had charisma, not to mention chutzpah. She was awaiting trial, like many of the other prisoners in the Bayview women’s correctional facility, but her treatment was actually better. The food she complained was causing her to waste away was the same as the other prisoners’, but because of her special status, she had a private cell. Under media pressure, she’d even been supplied with an electric typewriter. A hardship, she proclaimed, because she didn’t know how to type. Why couldn’t she have a computer she could talk to, like other writers? Or a tape recorder, so she could express her thoughts more completely to her editor, who had to type a lot of Adelaide’s story herself, from interview notes and memory? The truth was getting lost here, Adelaide said. The truth was a victim again. And the place where they held her was noisy. It was heck for a creative person. How could she possibly write with such distractions?
On its editorial page, the Times suggested that Adelaide might be confined to a hotel room and wear an electronic anklet. Beam had to smile.
After breakfast, he went into the living room and switched on the TV, and there was Adelaide, being interviewed in her cell by a blond woman he recognized from local cable television.
Adelaide had apparently gotten permission to wear a frilly blouse, and dangling pearl earrings. Her bright red hair looked professionally mussed. She didn’t appear to Beam in any way malnourished.
She twisted her lipsticked mouth into a sexy moue, her head cocked to the side, listening intently to her interviewer’s questions.
I-Do you think justice is in any way being served by your confinement, Adelaide?
> A-Oh, not at all. There’s justice on both sides of the law. I think we’ve all learned that.
I-Could you explain that statement?
A-I mean, look at the statistics I saw in the papers. Since the Justice Killer has come to our city, it’s become much safer. Women and majorities no longer have to fear for their lives every day.
I-You mean women and minorities?
A-Them, too. (Big smile.) I love everybody!
I-Do you even have love for the Justice Killer?
A-In a way, yes I do. I was taught as a child to hate the sin and love the singer.
I-“Sinner,” you mean?
A-Of course. I’m sorry. (Sheepish grin. Cute.) I guess I’ve been in too many musicals.
I-Then you hate what the Justice Killer is doing, but for the killer himself, you do harbor some compassion?.
A-(Huge grin. Toss of hair. Darling.) I try, I really do, but I can’t hate anyone.
I-How’s the book coming?
A-Of course, it’s a struggle. But I-
Beam had had enough. He aimed the remote like a gun and switched off the TV. The silence and blank screen were an immediate relief.
Some world, especially the New York part of it.
He balanced the remote on the arm of his easy chair, shrugged into his suit coat, and left to meet Nell and Looper in da Vinci’s office. Maybe Helen would be there.
Helen was.
She looked as if she’d gone to the same beautician as Adelaide, only her red hair wasn’t as brilliant, and she wasn’t Adelaide cute. She was much taller and more the serious type, but not unattractive. If da Vinci was involved with her, Beam could understand how it might have happened. Beam, sleeping with his late snitch’s widow.
They took the positions that had become habit-da Vinci behind his desk, Beam and Nell in the chairs angled toward it, Helen in the wooden chair used to work on the computer, off to the side. Looper pacing and patting his pockets.
“Anything new on the Aimes postmortem?” Beam asked.
“He was shot just behind the ear at point blank range,” da Vinci said. “His hair was singed.”
“I wonder if a sound suppressor could make for singed hair,” Nell said, “even held close.”
“I asked the ME that,” da Vinci said. “He said it depends.” Da Vinci glanced at the light breaking through the blind slats. He made a face as if it hurt his eyes.
Helen had on gray slacks today and was sitting with her chair turned around, straddling the seat and resting her bare forearms on the top of the wooden back. She had graceful but strong looking arms, as if she might play a lot of tennis or racquet ball. She was looking at da Vinci with a concerned expression. Then she looked at Nell in a way that puzzled Beam. Back to da Vinci.
“We’ve got a new development,” da Vinci said. “A note from the killer. It came in the morning mail. The envelope was sent care of the NYPD, addressed to Beam.”
68
“You opened the envelope?” Beam asked da Vinci.
“Yes. Only because it was from the killer”
“How did you know that beforehand?”
“I held it up to the light.”
“But you were going to open it anyway.”
“You were going to keep the contents secret?”
Leaning forward in her chair, Helen rested her chin on her muscular forearms and smiled.
Beam knew da Vinci was right to have opened the envelope. The Killer and his deadly games had them all edgy enough to play gotcha with each other, rather than with him.
“As you might expect,” da Vinci continued, “paper and envelope are the common sort, not easily traced. The message was brief and printed in such a rudimentary way it doesn’t provide much of a handwriting sample. No prints on any of this, of course, and no DNA sample on the stamp or flap. Our killer’s as careful as he is vicious.”
“He’ll get careless,” Helen said. No one seemed to have heard her. She was looking at Nell.
Da Vinci handed the folded note to Beam. It was plain white typing paper, twenty weight, not quite transparent. Printed on it was a simple message:
For whom the bell tolls its death (k)Nell.
Justice
Beam read it aloud, complete with parentheses.
“Jesus!’ Looper said. “He’s coming after Nell.”
“No question about it,” da Vinci said.
“Telling us ahead of time.” Looper’s tone suggested he could hardly believe this. He touched all his pockets and picked up his pacing. “Some ego this bastard has.”
“Taunting you again,” Helen said. “Trying to rattle you the way you’ve rattled him. It’s to be expected.”
“You mean he might not mean it?” Beam asked.
“He means it,” Helen said.
“What are we gonna do about it?” Looper asked.
“Let him come after me,” Nell said. “Be ready for him.” She sounded angry and confident.
“Don’t doubt he’ll come,” Helen said.
“I don’t,” Nell said. “Unless he’s using me as a diversion. Maybe he’s really going after Beam.”
“Or me,” da Vinci said.
“He wouldn’t lie in the note,” Helen said.
Looper paused in his pacing and looked at her. “Huh?”
“He’s essentially an honest man,” Helen said. “A killer but, in his way, honorable. At least, that’s how he sees himself. That ego you mentioned. The killer’s locked onto Nell.”
“Why me?” Nell asked.
“You’re a woman. He sees you as the weakest link. The place to start. My guess is, if he succeeds with you, he’ll come after Looper. Then Beam. Then Andy-Deputy Chief da Vinci.”
“Working up the chain,” Nell said.
“What about you?” Beam asked Helen.
She rested her chin again on her forearms, which were still folded on the chair’s back. “He doesn’t see me as part of the team. I don’t strategize. I don’t actively pursue him. I’m just a scientist. He has no more against me than he does against a tech in the fingerprint division.”
“Even with all your face time on television?”
“The media have interviewed countless people regarding the Justice Killer. It goes on around the clock. Maybe you don’t watch enough TV to know that, Beam.”
“I hope not, having other things to do. Anyway, none of us has been on camera much since Adelaide came on the scene.”
Da Vinci said, “Try not to mention that name in this office.” He leaned forward, meeting Nell’s gaze. “I think you should be publicly taken off the case, Nell.”
“Seconded,” Looper said.
Beam turned to face Nell directly. “How do you want to play this, Nell?”
She aimed her words at da Vinci. “I don’t want to go anywhere. If I did, it’d only be delaying the inevitable. The killer would go after Loop, then Beam. Why not stop this before it picks up momentum?”
“Remember Knee High,” Looper said. “Cheese in the trap.”
Da Vinci looked away from Nell. “I put Beam in charge of the investigation. It’s his call.”
“You know my wishes,” Nell said to Beam.
“And I know you well enough to figure there’s something more to it.”
“You’re right. There’s something about this cop costume thing that’s eluding me, but I know I’ll grab hold of it. And I don’t like this prick thinking of me as the weakest link in the chain just because I’m a woman.”
“You’re a damned good cop,” Beam said. “One of the best I’ve come across.”
“And one who knows when she’s being set up to get cut out.”
“No,” Beam said. “I think we should do it both ways. We’ll announce you’re off the case, that you’ve been put on indefinite leave and are no longer in New York. But you won’t leave town. You’ll live in your apartment, and leave it occasionally for routine reasons-to buy food, take a walk, maybe even meet someone for lunch. It will all look casual and unplanned. In
fact, every step you take will be observed by undercover cops assigned to protect you, and to close in immediately on the Justice Killer when and if he appears.”
“It can work,” Nell said, too fast.
“We might be able to stop him in time,” Looper said. “He’ll have to move in on Nell. He kills at close range.”
Beam thought about Aimes’s singed hair around the ugly entrance wound, the smell of it in the stifling tile vestibule. Close range. “Loop’s right. Other than shooting Dudman in a drive-by, he hasn’t been a distance killer.”
“You really think the asshole will go for this?” da Vinci asked.
“He’ll go for it,” Helen said. “He’ll assume Nell wouldn’t really leave town, and that he’s outsmarting us. Winning the game. He’ll try for her.”
“Will he also know she’s being guarded?”
“Probably,” Helen said. “He’ll enjoy the challenge.”
“If we play it right, and make Nell’s actions seem casual and spontaneous rather than planned out, he might have his doubts,” Beam said. “He might get careless.”
Helen nodded. “There’s a chance. As I’ve been saying, he’s coming undone, and he’ll eventually take too large a risk, make a mistake. Accidentally on purpose. Deep down, but not as deep as before, he wants to be stopped.”
“Why?” Beam asked, knowing the profilers’ stock explanation involving the killer’s inner conflict, but wanting Helen to say it in all its pop psychology glory, for the record. In case this went horribly wrong.
But Helen knew a thing or two about Beam. She smiled thinly, not at all like the other redhead, Adelaide.
She said, “He believes in justice.”
69
“Are you out of your mind?” Terry asked.
They were in Nell’s apartment, where he’d come to see her after learning from the news that she was being taken off the Justice Killer case. He’d seemed glad about it until she told him her plans.
She was near the living room window, using a small green plastic pitcher with a long spout to water a potted fern. Maybe she could bring the damned thing back to life, now that she had more time to nourish it.
“I was so glad you were getting out of that madness,” he said. He’d been working, and he had on jeans and a black golf shirt, brown leather moccasins. She knew he expected to shower and change here, then they’d go out, have dinner, maybe take a walk and have a few drinks someplace, and he’d spend the night.
