John Lutz Bundle

by John Lutz

  Fedderman said, “It’s a good question.”

  “The media seem to think two’s enough,” Quinn said.

  Pearl said, “It’s still a good question.”

  Quinn leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “We all know how we’ll find out the answer.”

  The truth of what he’d said sobered all of them.

  Pearl sniffed the air. “You been smoking in here?”

  “It’s a good question,” Quinn said.

  7

  Jill Clark sat in front of her computer staring at her screen saver of great Impressionist paintings gliding past. There went a Renoir, delicate and graceful in composition and color, so unlike the struggle and ugliness just outside her window.

  She watched the painting disappear at the edge of the monitor screen.

  She’d been sitting for a long time staring at the screen and had come to the conclusion that it was time to take stock.

  The paintings were beautiful, but her own life seemed to be getting uglier and more of a struggle by the day. This was a hard city. Hard and merciless. If it were possible for a city to have a killer instinct, this one did.

  Jill was twenty-nine years old with shoulder-length blond hair that often had a way of being enchantingly mussed. Her features were symmetrical, with perhaps too much chin. She had full lips, strong cheekbones, and an undeniably good figure, from jogging almost daily in her neighborhood or in the park. Her eyes were blue and she had a scattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Men seemed to find that an attractive combination.

  She had a degree in accounting and a background in sales: office furniture, then insurance policies for antique and collectable cars.

  Along with a nice smile, those were her assets.

  Then there were her liabilities, mostly credit card debts. Revolving accounts to which she paid only interest while the balances ballooned. From time to time, Files and More, the temporary employment agency that found her part-time work, would land her a decent-paying job, but this was temporary employment. Jill would earn enough to make some headway with the charge accounts, but then there would be periods of inactivity and she’d fall further behind than ever. This seemed to be a cycle she couldn’t break.

  Jill had, in fact, come to think of herself as a professional temp. That was how she might fill in job applications and various other forms under “occupation.” Temp. It at least kept prospective employers from thinking she might have just gotten out of prison. Now and then temporary jobs obtained through Files and More resulted in permanent employment—that’s what the company had told her—but Jill soon learned it didn’t happen very often. And she’d become convinced it wasn’t going to happen for her.

  Not only was the work temporary, but no matter where you were assigned the other employees treated you differently. You would never be one of them. They knew you’d simply fail to come in someday and that would be the last they’d see of you. They wouldn’t exactly be rude to temporary workers, but no one wanted to form anything like a fast or permanent friendship. And romance seemed to be out of the question. Sex was always possible with the geeks she ran into who saw her as temporary in more ways than one, but romance, connecting with someone she might eventually love and depend on, that was as distant as the farthest star. Romance was, of course, what Jill wanted desperately. That and an infusion of cash.

  A Monet smoothly crossed the screen. A garden scene: water lilies; muted, beautiful colors; lush green at the edges but subdued, like the green of a faded dollar bill.

  Romantic, but the painting had made her think of money.

  If she didn’t find steady employment soon, Jill would have real money problems. She had no family, hadn’t since her brother in Missouri died last year, and she was only four months in New York.

  It had seemed the longest four months of her life. There was no one she could turn to for a personal loan, or even a reassuring hug. What people said about New York was so true: It took a lot of money to exist here. And if you were by yourself in the city, the loneliness could crush you.

  Jill was determined not to be crushed, not to return to Wichita, Kansas. That way lay defeat as well as more loneliness.

  On one of her jobs, helping to label and box catalogs, a woman named Billie had told her about Internet dating, how she’d started to do it and it had turned out well for her. Sure, she’d met a lot of losers, but a few winners. Nothing permanent, but guys who wanted more than drinks, laughs, and a quick go-round and see you later.

  At the time, Jill had been almost horrified by the idea. Having to resort to the Internet for romance seemed so wrong, and it was embarrassing. High tech meets the heart. She sure as hell didn’t need that.

  But now…well, it was different. Maybe because Jill hadn’t had a meaningful date in months. The last guy had taken her to a Village dive and expected oral sex right there under the table. And he’d seemed so…normal at first. Maybe that was the trouble. Maybe she’d lost touch and he was normal and she was living outside the real world.

  No, she refused to believe that.

  There went a Manet, an ordered but vivid scene of revelers, a beautiful woman wearing a low-cut dress and a large locket standing behind a bar and looking out and smiling at whoever over time might observe the painting. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, no doubt a raunchy place in nineteenth-century Paris. Now it would seem tame. Its festive image had lost its lasciviousness and become art, and great art at that.

  Jill had done some research, and it altered her opinion about Internet dating. Billie was probably right. It was a new world and things had changed. Jill would simply have to adapt. In this hectic life, in this mad city, there was nothing wrong, or particularly unusual, about using an Internet matchmaking service. Romance—possible romance, anyway—might be had at a price. Plenty of people were paying that price and finding romance. Why not Jill?

  A Degas glided past, one of his poised and elegant ballerinas glowing in the limelight of the past.

  Jill owed on her plastic cards, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t maxed out. Plastic and elastic. Hope. The thing that sprang eternal.

  One roll of the dice, and it could be a beautiful world.

  She decided to take a chance.

  There went a Van Gogh.

  Quinn and his team members had exchanged ideas and information and decided they needed to start at the beginning and cover ground already trod. They’d visit the places where the torsos were found and question people in surrounding buildings, try to find someone who’d heard something unusual or happened to look out a window and see something that might be pertinent. Even if they’d given previous statements, the same questions after the passage of time could sometimes trigger memories.

  They were about to get up and leave Quinn’s office when they got a call from Renz saying he’d just finished taping a television interview that was about to air on a local channel.

  Quinn aimed a remote at the small TV in the bookcase across from his desk and ran up the channels. Pearl got up from the armchair and closed the drapes to block the sunlight. Her motions were almost automatic, as if she still lived there and adjusted the drapes often.

  By the time Quinn found the interview it was well under way. Michelle DeRavenelle, an impossibly cute local news anchor, was standing alongside Renz, holding a microphone. The interview was taking place in a sunny spot outside One Police Plaza. A slight summer breeze ruffled DeRavenelle’s hair and made her look even cuter, while making Renz’s sparse locks stand straight up so he looked as if he’d just gotten up from reading in bed.

  “…only the nude torsos?” DeRavenelle was finishing asking. She held the microphone out toward Renz as if offering him a bite.

  There was a small, lonely potted tree just behind and to the left of Renz. He shifted slightly to his left and a branch seemed to be growing out of his head. “Serial killers operate out of compulsion,” he said. “They feel they have no choice. While leaving the victims’ tors
os to be found seems—and in fact is—bizarre to us, it might not seem so to him.”

  DeRavenelle appeared to dismiss this answer. “Hopefully, the FBI or police profilers have analyzed this killer, Commissioner.”

  “Of course.”

  Quinn smiled. He didn’t recall any profiler report in the files. What could anyone really surmise with any degree of certainty about a killer from a couple of unidentifiable torsos? That was the sort of thing that happened only in mystery novels and television drama.

  “Do the police have any ideas as to who he is, what kind of madman he is? If indeed he is mad.”

  “Oh, he’s mad by our standards,” Renz said, “however anyone might decide to label him. Early on in a case, that’s about the only thing we can be sure of when dealing with this kind of killer. Our profiler is examining evidence and working out a hypothetical composite suspect who I’m sure will eventually turn out to be much like the real suspect when we arrest him. Sadly, at this point there simply isn’t much to work with, so it will take time.”

  “Can the same be said about Captain Frank Quinn and his detectives—that it will take time for them to assemble enough information to find the killer? Unfortunately, there might not be time to waste.”

  Renz wasn’t thrown. “It’s difficult to predict how this kind of investigation will go, but I’m sure that with Quinn in charge it will take the minimum amount of time to make an arrest. That’s why I partnered with him and his team and tasked them to find the killer. I know they’re the best, and in a case like this, one that impacts virtually all of our citizens who are women—or men who have lovers, wives, or daughters—the city deserves the best.”

  DeRavenelle cocked her head and smiled. This guy knew how to play the game. “But no suspects so far, Commissioner?”

  “Not solid suspects. Because of the deviant sexual aspect to these terrible crimes—”

  “You mean the sharpened stake?”

  “Yes, the sharpened stake.” It bore repeating.

  “Does penetration of the victim occur before or after death, sir?” DeRavenelle grimaced, somehow prettily, and gazed out at her viewers. “Hopefully, after.”

  “Sadly, before,” Renz lied.

  Quinn saw Pearl and Fedderman exchange glances. They looked at him and he nodded. They approved of Renz’s lie. This was something that only the killer and police would know was untrue, and it could infuriate the killer so that he might make a mistake. He might even contact the police or media to try to set the record straight.

  “Good man,” Fedderman said of Renz’s deception.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Pearl said.

  “Do the police have any clues as to the whereabouts of the rest of these poor dismembered women?” DeRavenelle asked. “I mean, their body parts.”

  “I can only say at this point in time that we’re cautiously optimistic.”

  “Anything more you’d like to add, Commissioner?” DeRavenelle was wearing her somber but inquisitive expression. Had one of the best in the business. She was short on time and knew this was a final rhetorical trolling for a juicy sound bite.

  Renz knew it, too, and tried to oblige. “Only that I’m sure the Torso Murders will soon be part of this great city’s past. We have the best people possible working around the clock to find the pieces and put them together.”

  Quinn winced.

  “That would be a good start,” Pearl said.

  DeRavenelle didn’t change expression as she looked somberly into the camera and returned coverage to the studio.

  Deputy Chief Wes Nobbler sat behind his desk and watched the end of the Renz interview, then aimed the remote like a gun and switched off the TV just as the weatherman came on smiling.

  Nobbler wasn’t smiling. His pink jowls spilled over his tight collar and exaggerated the downward arc of his thin lips. “Plenty of people wouldn’t mind seeing Renz’s investigation fall flat on its face,” he said. The bright morning sunlight searched his fleshy cheeks and couldn’t find a single beard stubble.

  Detective Sergeant Ed Greeve nodded, knowing when not to speak. He was one of those average-height men who seem taller because of their gauntness and slight forward lean. His long, chiseled features, and his serious brown eyes with lids that angled down at the corners, added to the illusion of height. He was wearing an unremarkable gray suit that seemed to match his mood. His nickname was “The Ghost” because of his skill at tailing people or remaining unnoticed at observation posts. Greeve was a man going through life hiding in plain sight, making a career out of it.

  He was also a man Nobbler had used before, in ways that skirted the law but advanced the cause of justice, not to mention Nobbler’s career. And Greeve was using his boss, Nobbler. What they knew about each other made them fellow travelers on the treacherous road up the ranks in the bureaucracy that was the NYPD.

  “We need to monitor this situation,” Nobbler said.

  Again Greeve merely nodded. A wooden toothpick protruded from the left corner of his mouth. It waggled slightly as he maneuvered it with his tongue.

  “Renz has found his rent-a-cops office space to work out of over on West Seventy-ninth Street. That should make it easier to keep tabs on them.”

  “We gonna need more people?” Greeve asked around the toothpick.

  “Not yet, but when we do, it won’t be a problem. A loose tail should be enough for now. If they split up, choose the one who looks most interesting and follow. It shouldn’t take you long to figure out what they might know that we don’t.”

  “They’ll probably lock that office when they’re out in the field, sir.”

  “Most likely,” Nobbler said. “Most doors have locks.”

  That was all he said or had to say. He knew locks were seldom a problem for Greeve, who had been an officer in the old Safe and Loft division investigating burglaries. In fact, locks were something of a challenge to Greeve, who would probably pay a late-night visit to the office on Seventy-ninth. Late night was his time, and darkness his good friend. He could see like a cat in the dark, which was another reason for his nickname. Greeve was viewed by his fellow officers as being a little spooky.

  “What about my caseload?” Greeve asked. He removed the toothpick and reinserted it, this time in the right corner of his mouth.

  “I’ve reassigned it. You’ll be on this more or less full-time. Report to me daily, or if anything notable needs to be shared.”

  “Understood,” Greeve said.

  “Needless to say, for now this is just between the two of us.”

  “Needless,” Greeve agreed.

  Nobbler felt a slight twinge. He couldn’t be sure sometimes if Greeve was taking him seriously or secretly making fun of him. Well, that was simply Greeve’s personality, or lack of same. One way or another, the man was useful and reliable.

  Nobbler picked up a blue ballpoint pen and started playing with it using both hands, his elbows on the desk. He stared at the pen as if he’d never seen any kind of writing instrument before. He often did that with common objects. It gave the impression he was thinking of something other than what he was talking about, and was speaking in the abstract. “To be something like frank,” he said, “I’m not sure a police commissioner should run his own team of detectives, brought in and controlled by him as temporary employees of the NYPD.”

  “I know others in the department who feel the same way, sir.”

  Nobbler held the pen vertically and studied it, as if gauging it for angle. “Damned shame, but there it is.”

  “Yes, sir. And splashed all over the media for everyone to see. There’s not much you can say, though. As a politician and media darling, Renz is golden.”

  “There might be plenty we can do without saying anything,” Nobbler said. “It’s just a matter of deciding what, how, and when. There’s not much question about why.” He pressed the top of the pen and the point clicked out. Here was magic, his expression seemed to say. “I guess we’d both better get busy, Sergeant. Th
e bad guys never take time off.” He dragged over some papers from the corner of his desk so he could sign them.

  The conversation was over. A conversation that would never be referred to, because it hadn’t taken place. Like the tree that had fallen in the woods without anyone there to hear it. Anyone who mattered.

  Greeve had experienced several such conversations with Deputy Chief Nobbler. The toothpick did a little dance and he almost smiled as he moved toward the door. “We’re on the same page, sir.”

  Which didn’t mean they were going by the book.

  8

  Two weeks earlier

  What the hell?

  Shellie Marston stood before her open closet door and stared at her meager wardrobe. The black dress with the gray polka dots was still in its plastic bag from the dry cleaners, but she was sure she’d hung it yesterday on the opposite side of the closet rod.

  In fact, some of her other clothes seemed to be out of place. The white blouse with the lace collar—she wouldn’t have jammed it between the two business blazers she seldom wore these days. And look, one of the lapels was bent.

  This was damned odd. In fact, it made her flesh creep.

  She recalled now the morning a few days ago when her cosmetics seemed to have been rearranged. Not drastically. Maybe a jar or bottle transposed or otherwise out of place. A can of hairspray she recalled as still useful had been dead when she picked it up, without the usual sputtering and irregular spray that could go on for several more uses.

  She looked at herself in the vanity mirror. What? Was she getting paranoid? No one was getting in here. No one had the key, except for the super, a man in his sixties. She had to smile. Mr. Mercurio would hardly be wearing her clothes and using her cosmetics. He’d split all the seams if he tried to wriggle into the polka-dot dress. A vision of the dignified, mustached, and paunchy Mercurio struggling with her wardrobe almost made her laugh out loud. No, he was definitely not a suspect.