Night Work

by Laurie R. King

  That was as far as Kate got before the back door of the house crashed open on its hinges and Rani Mehta charged out, as vengeful as Kali and every bit as bent on destruction. She ran full tilt across the brick patio at them, oblivious of the gun, heedless of any official warnings, intent only on the rescue of her husband. She threw herself at Kate, shrieking and clawing, and Kate, in an agony of conflict, simply could not bring herself to shoot the woman at point-blank range. Instead, she curled over to protect her face from those fearsome nails, switched the gun into her left hand, and then rose up and drove her right fist directly up into the woman's plump chin with all the strength in her arm.

  Rani sagged, and in that instant Kate yanked her handcuffs out and slapped one end around Rani's waving wrist, and then she felt Mehta beginning to move toward her and she let go of Rani to turn the gun on the husband. Unlike his wife, Mehta was very aware of the threat in Kate's hand, but it was Rani whom Kate had to neutralize, a recovering Rani about to launch a second attack. Kate shouted at her, “I'll shoot your husband.”

  Rani caught herself, and looked down at the gun, seeing it for the first time. She followed its aim, and in that moment of hesitation, Kate reached out with foot and hand to trip the big woman onto the hard knobs of the heavy cast-iron chaise longue; Rani's sharp cry of pain overrode the click of the cuffs over the metal frame. Gulping to catch her breath, aware of her own complete dishevelment and three of the Mehta children with the old servant Lali staring at her aghast from the doorway of the house, Kate panted her way through the arrest procedures. Even if she had carried a second set of cuffs, she could not have brought herself to clamp a handcuff over the raw and blackened skin of Mehta's right arm, but she did pat him down and kept an eye on him, as well as on the house behind him, until the sirens drew near, cutting off on the residential street, and the doors of several cars slammed in the street. She made Mehta go with her to the gate and unlatch it, and there she turned him over to a pair of uniforms to await the paramedics. She would meet up with him later, when a doctor had cleared him for interrogation.

  She ignored Rani and the rest of the family, going to kneel at last by Roz's side. Roz was wearing her clerical collar; her face was as white as the plastic strip. She was conscious but shivering, crying and tight-faced with shock. When the paramedics arrived, Kate insisted that they take Roz first, leaving Mehta for the next ambulance.

  On their way to the burn center, Kate sat holding Roz's unscathed hand with her own. Roz's pain came in waves, indicated by a clenching of her grip. At the height of one spasm, she turned her head and gasped, “Talk to me.”

  “About what, Roz?”

  “Anything. Take my mind off this.”

  Kate seriously doubted that words alone would make much progress in pain management, but if words Roz wanted, then words she would have. And, Kate figured, the stronger the better.

  “We caught Carla Lomax,” she told her, and waited for Roz to ask what Carla had been caught for. Roz did not ask, which confirmed a number of Kate's suspicions. “And Phoebe Weatherman is on the run. Did you actually know, Roz? Or just suspect?”

  The searing agony from Roz's legs was clearly battering at the woman, on the edge of overwhelming her. It was, Kate tried to reassure herself, a far better sign than lack of feeling—the fire had not gone deeply enough into Roz's skin to destroy the nerves. Roz held herself rigid and spoke in short gasps, but her words and thoughts were clear, as if willpower and grammatical precision were enough to keep the pain at bay.

  “I told you. I did not know. I suppose. I did not want to. If I had. I would. Have told you. I said I wouldn't. That was a lie. I do not condone. Murder. As a way of solving problems.”

  Oddly enough, Kate believed her.

  “Phoebe's gone. Underground. You won't … catch her.” The last phrase coincided with a sudden buildup of pain, and Roz panted and groaned in the back of her throat until the wave had passed. When her eyes came open again, they were commanding Kate to continue, and Kate realized that words were indeed an effective analgesic; they'd certainly taken her mind off her own pain for a moment or two. And from a more selfish point of view, taking into account Roz's temporary dependence on rigid order, questions put to her were likely to be answered before Roz stopped to consider what she was doing. Reluctantly, then, Kate continued.

  “You don't have any idea where Phoebe has gone?”

  Roz shook her head.

  “Roz, she's killed three people.”

  “Kate. I do not. Know.”

  Kate decided that was all she was going to get at the moment, and she sat looking at Roz and thinking about going underground, and about choosing invisibility as a way of life, as a form of self-defense. At the thought, and at her growing awareness of the community of invisible women out there, waiting to enfold Phoebe Weatherman, she had to smile in spite of the pain shooting up her arm. With a glance at the paramedic, she leaned over to speak quietly in Roz's ear.

  “And what about the LOPD? That's Maj, isn't it?”

  In Roz's pinched features, alarm mingled with the pain, and Kate hastened to explain herself.

  “I figured it out when I realized that the reason we didn't focus on Phoebe Weatherman was because she was just a secretary. Of course, she wasn't ‘just’ anything, but she was invisible—like the Web site said. And like Maj always seems to be. Roz, I promise you, anything you say to me in the current circumstances will be completely inadmissible. There's not a judge in the country would allow it as testimony. So you're safe to tell me: I know Maj has had nothing to do with the murders, but she is behind the actions of the Ladies, isn't she? She's written all over it, her kind of humor.”

  “I can't …”

  “Roz, I swear to you, on anything I hold precious. On Lee's head, if you like: Even if I could, I will not do anything with what you tell me.”

  The injured woman said nothing, but eventually, her eyes holding Kate's, she nodded, and the faint twist of a smile, affectionate and admiring, came across her mouth. Yes, it was Maj.

  “Roz, I love the two of you. I owe you both one hell of a lot. So I'm not even going to ask for the names of the women who did the actual assaults—which I assume that Maj had nothing to do with, considering the shape she's in at the moment.” The image of Maj Freiling, seven months' pregnant and dressed as a ninja assault warrior armed with a roll of duct tape, danced through Kate's mind, nowhere near as impossible as she would have wished. She pushed the image away, but she knew it would return at unlikely moments. “I want you to tell Maj that if she stops now, if she closes down the Ladies and doesn't attack any more men, I won't go any further with it. But she's got to stop. Now.”

  Roz held her eyes, and nodded again. Kate sat back, palm still clasped to palm, satisfied.

  Roz's eyes drooped and then shut, which Kate hoped meant that she had drifted off, but after a minute Roz said, “Still, it was a great Campaign while it lasted, wasn't it?”

  Kate struggled to keep her face straight, and failed. “I hope—” she began, and then snorted loudly, startling the ambulance attendant. “I hope you guys bought stock in duct tape before you started.” The alarmed paramedic stared at the two injured women with the tears starting down their faces, and fumbled hastily for his bag.

  At the hospital, Roz was whisked away, and Kate put off treatment of her own burns to phone Lee. She told her to bring Maj to the hospital, reassured Lee that her own burns were minor, put down the receiver, and looked up to see Al Hawkin furiously shouldering his way through uniforms and nurses alike. He stopped when he saw her standing there—half her hair burnt to a frazzle, her shirtsleeves scorched and covered with ash, stinking to high heaven, her left forearm wrapped in the paramedic's gauze—and most of the storm clouds left his face.

  “God damn it, Martinelli, don't do that to me. Lee would wrap those crutches of hers around my neck if I let anything else happen to you.”

  She tried to stir up some resentment at his protectiveness, but failed. She
did manage a stir of feeble humor, however.

  “Oh, you know me, Al. I like my cases to end with a bang.”

  And on the other side of town, in a pool of blood on the wall of the shelter for battered women, dark Kali smiled.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LAURIE R. KING lives with her family in the hills above Monterey Bay in northern California. Her background includes such diverse interests as Old Testament theology and construction work, and she has been writing crime fiction since 1987. The winner of the Edgar, the Nero, and the John Creasey awards, her most recent novel is Justice Hall.

  Visit her website at www.laurierking.com.

  “Rousing … Riveting … Suspenseful.”

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  Since 1993, Laurie R. King has been tantalizing readers with her award-winning, internationally-acclaimed novels of mystery and suspense. Turn the page for a special look at Laurie King's books, along with excerpts from the more recent novels. Each is available now wherever Bantam Books are sold.

  THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE

  A Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Mystery

  In 1915, long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he think to meet an intellect to match his own—until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a very modern fifteen-year-old whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and penchant for trousers and cloth caps, unthinkable in any young lady of Holmes's own generation. …

  I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defence I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.

  It was a cool, sunny day in early April, and the book was by Virgil. I had set out at dawn from the silent farmhouse, chosen a different direction from my usual, and spent the intervening hours wrestling with Latin verbs, climbing unconsciously over stone walls, and unthinkingly circling hedgerows, and would probably not have noticed the sea until I stepped off one of the chalk cliffs into it.

  As it was, my first awareness that there was another soul in the universe was when a male throat cleared itself loudly not four feet from me. The Latin text flew into the air, followed closely by an Anglo-Saxon oath. Heart pounding, I hastily pulled together what dignity I could and glared down through my spectacles at this figure hunched up at my feet: a gaunt, greying man in his fifties wearing a cloth cap, ancient tweed greatcoat, and decent shoes, with a threadbare Army rucksack on the ground beside him. A tramp perhaps, who had left the rest of his possessions stashed beneath a bush. Or an Eccentric. Certainly no shepherd. …

  “The Beekeeper's Apprentice has power to charm the most grizzled Baker Street Irregular.”—Daily News, New York.

  —————

  TO PLAY THE FOOL

  A Kate Martinelli Mystery

  When a band of homeless people cremate a beloved dog in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the authorities are willing to overlook a few broken regulations. But three weeks later, when the dog's owner gets the same fiery send-off, the SFPD has a real headache on its hands. The autopsy suggests homicide, but Inspector Kate Martinelli and her partner have little else to go on. They have a homeless victim without a positive ID, a group of witnesses who have little love for the cops, and a possible suspect, known only as Brother Erasmus, whose history leads Kate along a twisting road to a disbanded cult, long-buried secrets, the thirst for spirituality, and the hunger for bloody vengeance.

  His breath huffing in clouds and the news announcer still jabbering against his unemployed ears, the currently unemployed former Bank of America vice presidential assistant was slogging his disconsolate way alongside Kennedy Drive in the park when, to his instant and unreasoning fury, he was attacked for a second time by a branch-wielding bearded man from the shrubbery. Three weeks of ego deflation blew up like a rage-powered air bag. He instantly took four rapid steps forward and clobbered the unkempt head with the only thing he carried, which happened to be a Walkman stereo. Fortunately for both men, the case collapsed the moment it made contact with the wool cap, but the maddened former bank assistant stood over the terrified and hungover former real estate broker and pummeled away with his crumbling handful of plastic shards and electronic components. A passing commuter saw them, snatched up her car telephone, and dialed 911.

  Three minutes later, the eyes of the two responding police officers were greeted by the sight of a pair of men seated side by side on the frost-rimed grass: One was shocked, bleeding into his shaggy beard, and even at twenty feet stank of cheap wine and old sweat; the other was clean-shaven, clean-clothed, and wore a pair of two-hundred-dollar running shoes on his feet.

  The two officers never were absolutely certain about what happened, but they filled out their forms and saw the two partners in adversity safely tucked into the ambulance. Just before the door closed, the female officer thought to ask why the homeless man had been dragging branches out of the woods in the first place.

  By the time the two officers pounded up the pathway into the baseball clearing, the second funeral pyre had caught and flames were roaring up to the gray sky in great billows of sparks and burning leaves. It was a much larger pile of wood than had been under the small dog Theophilus three weeks earlier, but then, it had to be.

  On the top of this pyre lay the body of a man.

  —————

  A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN

  A Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Mystery

  The dawn of 1921 finds Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes's brilliant young apprentice, about to come into a considerable inheritance. Nevertheless, she still enjoys her nighttime prowls in disguise through London's grimy streets, where one night she encounters an old friend, now a charity worker among the poor. Veronica Beaconsfield introduces Russell to the New Temple of God, a curious amalgam of church and feminist movement, led by the enigmatic, electrifying Margery Childe. Part suffragette, part mystic, she lives quite well for a woman of God from supposedly humble origins. Despite herself, Russell is drawn ever deeper into Childe's circle … far closer to heaven than Mary Russell would like. …

  The door closed behind Veronica, and I was half-aware of her voice calling out to Marie and then fading down the corridor as I sat and allowed myself to be scrutinised, slowly, thoroughly, impassively. When the blonde woman finally turned away and kicked her shoes off under a low table, I let out the breath I hadn't realised I was holding and offered up thanks to Holmes's tutoring, badgering, and endless criticism that had brought me to the place where I might endure such scrutiny without flinching—at least not outwardly.

  She padded silently across the thick carpet to the disorder of bottles and chose a glass, some ice, a large dollop from a gin bottle, and a generous splash of tonic. She half-turned to me with a question in her eyebrow, accepted my negative shake without comment, went to a drawer, took out a cigarette case and a matching enamelled matchbox, gathered up an ashtray, and came back to her chair, moving all the while with an unconscious feline grace—that of a small domestic tabby rather than anything more exotic or ang
ular. She tucked her feet under her in the chair precisely like the cat in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, lit her cigarette, dropped the spent match into the ashtray balanced on the arm of the chair, and filled her lungs deeply before letting the smoke drift slowly from nose and mouth. The first swallow from the glass was equally savoured, and she shut her eyes for a long moment.

  When she opened them, the magic had gone out of her, and she was just a small, tired, dishevelled woman in an expensive dress, with a much-needed drink and cigarette to hand. I revised my estimate of her age upward a few years, to nearly forty, and wondered if I ought to leave.

  “Why are you here, Mary Russell?”

  “King has a gift for the rich, decisive detail and the narrative crispness that distinguished Conan Doyle's writing.”—The Washington Post Book World

  —————

  WITH CHILD

  A Kate Martinelli Mystery

  Adrift in mist-shrouded San Francisco mornings and alcohol-fogged nights, homicide detective Kate Martinelli can't escape the void left by her departed lover, who has gone off to rethink their relationship. But when twelve-year-old Jules Cameron comes to Kate for a professional consultation, Kate's not sure she's that desperate for distraction. Jules is worried about her friend Dio, a homeless boy she met in a park. Dio has disappeared without a word of farewell, and Jules wants Kate to find him. Reluctant as she is, Kate can't say no—and soon finds herself forming a friendship with the bright, quirky girl. But the search for Dio will prove to be much more than either bargained for. …

  And still, all that fall, she looked for Dio. Once a week, she made the rounds of the homeless, asking about him. Always she asked among her network of informants, the dealers and hookers and petty thieves, and invariably received a shake of the head. Twice she heard rumors of him, once at a house for runaway teenagers, where one of the current residents had a friend who had met a boy of his description; and a second time, when one of her informants told her there was a boy-toy of that name in a house used by pederasts over near the marina. She phoned a couple of old friends in the Berkeley and Oakland departments to ask them to keep an ear out, and she arranged to be in on the raid of the marina house, but neither came up with anything more substantial than the ghost she already had. She doubted he was in the Bay Area, and told Jules that, but she also kept looking.