Nightlife

by Thomas Perry

  He lived on the top floor of a commercial building on Northwest Vaughn in a space like an artist’s loft that had high ceilings with steel girders and big south-facing windows. Since he wasn’t an artist, he was freed of the responsibility to be tasteful. He had a basketball backboard and hoop at one end of the room, and at the other a treadmill, weights, and exercise equipment. The pictures on the walls were mostly advertisements that relied on near-naked girls in odd places. Two that were astride motorcycles. One, wearing an open blouse with the sleeves rolled up and short cutoff jeans, held a chain saw. Several others draped themselves like cats on the hoods and roofs of shiny new cars. He had a work area set up on a twelve-foot table, divided between computer equipment and piles of papers, schematics, and mechanical drawings. Behind a partition was a king-sized bed with a bedspread made of the fake fur of a bearlike animal.

  Tonight the loft was in the usual state of disarray. Magazines, books, socks, papers, sweatshirts all mingled in a circular pile around the overflowing laundry basket. In the part of the big room that was supposed to be the kitchen, the counter held two-day-old dirty dishes, a few beer cans, and a bowl half full of soggy popcorn.

  She watched Greg go to the end of the apartment and disappear into the bathroom. She wandered in the empty space and looked at it in new ways. She had removed all but a tiny residue of uncertainty about Greg, but there was still that last layer, so she stepped close to put her ear to the door of the bathroom to be sure he wasn’t talking on a cell phone. There was no voice, so she returned to her study of the apartment.

  Greg came out, tossed his wallet and keys on the long counter near where she’d left her purse, and began to make drinks.

  “Don’t make one for me,” said Judith.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’m tipsy enough already. Any worse and you won’t be able to wake me up to take advantage of me.” She watched his face as she talked, and she could see that he was happy, amused, but also calm and contented. He assumed that she cared for him sincerely—that maybe she really did love him.

  He came to her, held her hand and gave her a very soft, gentle kiss on the cheek, then kissed down to her neck, where it tickled. She liked it, and she knew that she was going to miss him. When she thought about Greg, she felt flattered, but she also felt the same surprised, distant curiosity she felt about dogs. He really seemed to love her in the same way dogs did, wildly out of proportion to the near indifference she felt for him. He always seemed to be quivering all over the way they did, wanting to dance around with joy. It must be wonderful to feel that joy.

  Greg walked her toward the screened enclosure of his bedroom, and kissed her again. She glanced at the bed. “My turn to use the bathroom. You see if you can make that mess look romantic, like someplace a girl would willingly go.” He released her and watched her walk off.

  She stood in the bathroom, looking at her face in the mirror. There was a ringing in her ears from the alcohol in her system, and her brain felt sluggish. The remnants of the smile she had forced for Greg were still there, making her facial muscles feel tired. She regretted the martinis again. Was she thinking clearly enough for this? There were so many details to consider, and she had to think of all of them right now. She had no choice. Tonight was the only night.

  So far tonight she had touched nothing but the doorknob. Had she ever left any prints in this loft? Maybe she had, weeks ago, and Greg certainly would not have cleaned anything. Did Greg have any photographs of her? No. He had once said he would like to have one for his desk, but she had made an excuse and he had forgotten to ask again. Was there anyone who had seen them together? Thousands of people probably had, but they were all strangers, just the undifferentiated mix of people sitting in restaurants or theaters and walking down streets where she and Greg had been. She had resisted meeting any of his friends from work.

  Poor Greg. He had not known what he was getting into. If he had been stronger, smarter, maybe she could have taken a chance on him. But now, it was already after midnight. In a few hours he was sure to go to work, to read a newspaper, to turn on a television set, to talk to people. Judith had to stop him. She had to keep Greg in his current state forever—it was like a snapshot. There would be a flash and he would freeze—ignorant, trusting, and happy.

  She looked into the mirror and fixed the smile on her face. She opened the door, walked out into the loft, picked up her purse. As she came around the partition she saw that Greg was already in bed, under the sheet, with the bedspread folded down to the foot of the bed. She set the purse on the floor by the near side of the bed, lowered the lights, took off her clothes, and laid them out neatly on the chair. It gave Greg a long time to watch her doing it, and she knew he enjoyed that.

  She went to his coat rack, took a scarf, crawled onto the bed, and slipped it under his head.

  “What’s that? What are you doing?”

  “It’s a blindfold. I’m blindfolding you. Don’t struggle.” She finished tying it and straddled his body.

  “Is this an execution?”

  She was taken aback for a half second. “It’s something nice. Don’t peek or you’ll spoil it.”

  Judith reached into her purse and took out the gun. She drew the end of the soft, fake-fur bedspread toward her and wrapped it around the gun, held it there with her left hand, and pressed it gently to his head. When he felt the soft, smooth fur touch him, he smiled.

  52

  Catherine Hobbes examined the blood-spattered screen beside Gregory McDonald’s bed. The coroner’s crew had taken his body out earlier, but this space was going to be the property of the visiting blood-spatter expert for a day or two, so Catherine had to stay back and look in from the opening at the side. She didn’t need to be any closer. Catherine Hobbes, or any other experienced homicide detective, could stand at the end of the screen and see what had happened.

  Gregory McDonald had apparently been blindfolded with a scarf. The killer had wrapped the gun in the bedspread, held it to the left side of Gregory McDonald’s head, and pulled the trigger. The blood had sprayed mostly from the exit wound on the right side of the head, and the blowback spatter had been taken mostly by the bedspread, but the killer had almost certainly been bloodied too. The upper end of the bed and the pillow under the victim’s head had been soaked. Just from a glance at the bathroom, it looked to Catherine as though the killer had needed to clean up before leaving.

  Catherine stepped away and surveyed the loft. What she could see made the murder seem even worse, more wasteful. Gregory McDonald had been a well-paid software designer with an engineering degree, but the loft was decorated in fraternity-boy baroque, complete with a basketball net and a few empty beer cans. He had not had time to reach anything she would have recognized as adulthood.

  As Catherine thought about the simple, unembellished facts—a single man found naked in bed shot once through the head, but no gun at the scene, and a killer who had cleaned up afterward—she began to have a sinking feeling.

  Her cell phone rang, and she took it out of her purse. “Catherine Hobbes.”

  “Hey, Cath.” It was the captain. “I’m moving my knights around on the board. Where are you?”

  “Gregory McDonald’s loft. Where do you want me?”

  “You may as well stay there. This one is going to be yours too. One of the prints the forensic people lifted off the tile in the shower belongs to your girl.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Instantly she wished she hadn’t said that. The captain didn’t need to be reminded that she had predicted this. He had given her as many people as he could spare to canvass the area where Tanya had used the credit card. She had to think ahead, not back. “Captain, I wonder if we could delay releasing the news about the fingerprint for a day or two.”

  “Why? Do you think if she hears it, she’ll take off again?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s a distinct possibility. I’m sure that she watches the television news.”

  “All right
. Let’s keep the print out of the press for the moment.”

  “Thanks.”

  She heard him disconnect, so she folded her phone and put it away. She raised her voice so all of the officers in the loft could hear her. “Attention, everybody. One of the prints on the shower tile has turned out to be a match for Tanya Starling. That is not to be released to the press for the moment. We’ve got a female perpetrator who sometimes dyes her hair. The minute you find hairs that don’t match the victim, please find me or call me. I need to know what color Tanya’s hair is this week.”

  She walked to the door of the bathroom and looked inside. The tiled walls, the sink, and the mirror were almost completely blackened with print dust. The crime scene people loved mirrors and tiles. Anything that got cleaned frequently and was smooth and glassy was made for preserving clear prints.

  Catherine stood still and imagined the scene, putting herself in Tanya’s place. Tanya had been in the bedroom area with Gregory McDonald. He had been naked, and so she had been too, probably. She had blindfolded him in some playful way. But she had done it because she had needed to have him lying still and not fighting her for the gun or ducking behind things. She had wrapped the bedspread around the gun to muffle the sound and then pulled the trigger.

  The sound had not been as quiet as she had hoped. The gun must have sounded like a cannon in this loft. Catherine could almost hear the blast in her imagination.

  Catherine imagined she felt the gun kick upward, heard the ringing in her ears. The bedspread had not muffled the sound. Tanya was afraid, and Gregory looked terrible now. She placed the pillow over what had been his face. She became conscious of her nakedness and felt vulnerable; the blood spattered on her was warm, almost hot, and the feel of it made her sick. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to put on her clothes and run, but she had Gregory McDonald’s blood on her—on her face, in her hair, on her chest, her belly. She had been beside him, or maybe above him, straddling him, and now she rolled off the bed and crouched, the gun aimed at the door of the loft.

  She stayed there for a long time, listening. Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe only five minutes, but it seemed to her to be much longer. She was waiting for a sound that would indicate that someone had heard. Cautiously she moved in the dark to the window and looked down at the street. Probably she knew that if a neighbor were coming to investigate, he would already have banged on the door. If the Portland Police Bureau had been called, their response time would not be this long. She reassured herself, because she knew the secret of shots fired in a city. When people heard one shot they told themselves it was a car backfiring or a firecracker. It was only when they heard multiple shots that they couldn’t tell themselves that it was something harmless.

  She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was freckled with Gregory’s blood, and she had to get it off. She turned on the shower, adjusted it to a bearable temperature, and stepped into it. She scrubbed herself, washing her hair and her skin, then stayed in the shower for a long time, being sure that the bright red blood was off her and the pink diluted remnant had long since washed off the tub. Maybe she was even aware that firing a pistol had left a residue of burned powder and heavy metals on her skin, so she scrubbed harder. She came out and dried herself with the cleanest towel she could find, then wiped the floor with it and the faucets and anything else she could remember touching. The one place that she missed was where she had touched one of the shower tiles and forgotten it: had she lost her balance for a second while she was getting out, or leaned against it to dry her foot? She took the towel back to his bedroom enclosure, stuffed it in the laundry basket beneath his clothes, or maybe tossed it in and then picked up some clothes from the floor and threw them in to cover the towel she had used.

  Then she got dressed. If the gun was a revolver, she put it in her purse. If it was semiautomatic, she found the shell casing and put it in her purse with the gun. She went to the front windows again and looked outside to be sure the police were not visible in the streets below the building. Since they weren’t, she explored the loft, probably with a flashlight. She was looking for money, or jewelry, or anything else that might be valuable. She took some time looking around, probably using something like one of Gregory’s socks over her hand to open drawers. She bothered to do it not because she was desperate for money but because there was no reason not to, and the sound of a gun should not be followed by the sounds of someone leaving the building until a long time had passed.

  Catherine knew that Tanya had learned that by now—that one reason people got caught was that they did not take time to think and prepare and act normally. They ran and they sweated and they looked suspicious. When she felt ready, she glanced outside once more, took Gregory McDonald’s car keys, went down the stairs, and drove his car away. It had not turned up yet, but Catherine was sure it would later in the day, parked at a shopping mall or an airport or a public parking lot.

  Catherine walked away from the bathroom and up to two of the forensic people who were dusting the long counter by the window. “If nobody’s done it yet, I’d like somebody to take out the trap in the shower drain to check for her hairs. I’m almost certain the reason she touched a tile was that she took a shower after she killed him. Another good place to look is in his laundry basket. There should be a damp towel about halfway down.”

  Catherine walked down the stairs, not touching the railings, and stepped outside the building to look up at the windows of Gregory McDonald’s loft. Nobody could have seen anything from down here, and the buildings across the street were lower. They seemed to still be used for some industrial purpose, not yet part of the gentrification that was gripping the neighborhood, but she would find out who occupied them and ask.

  She hesitated for a moment, then took out her cell phone and dialed a Los Angeles number.

  A woman who sounded younger than she was answered, “Pitt Investigations. May we help you?”

  Catherine said, “This is Catherine Hobbes. Is Joe in?”

  “No, I’m sorry. He’s out right now, but I’ll transfer your call to his cell phone.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” said Catherine.

  “Yes, I do,” said the young woman. Catherine thought she heard amusement in her voice. “He told us all that if he misses a call from you, then whoever dropped it is in trouble. Please hold for a moment.”

  After a few seconds she heard Joe’s voice. “Catherine?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s only me. Do you really threaten your employees?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t have any. I just called to give you more bad news. Tanya has done it again. I don’t know why I’m bothering you with it, but I felt as though you had earned a right to a share of the misery.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A young guy named Gregory McDonald. He was some kind of software engineer. He was shot in the head while he was in bed with her in his loft.”

  “So it’s like some of the others—Dennis Poole and the guy in the hotel down here.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure yet if it was a one-night thing or a bad end to a relationship. I just got word a few minutes ago that one of the prints in the loft belonged to Tanya, so I’m just getting started. Nobody has checked yet to find out whether they were seen together, and so on.”

  “Would you mind if I flew up there tonight or tomorrow to take a look around?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I definitely would mind. This is my case, and my job, and you’re the biggest distraction in the world. I’ve got to follow up the leads now, and then maybe later I’ll talk to you about what it all means.”

  “It means she’s still there,” said Joe. “Be thorough, and be careful. I love you.”

  She said, “Why do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Say ‘I love you’ when I’m just about to hang up. I could listen to you until my ears dropped off, but you never say it e
xcept at a crummy time like this.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. Is it?”

  “Yes, Joe. It’s true. The first time, I thought it was a bad cell phone connection. Now, is it just a figure of speech, like ‘Take care,’ or are you actually telling me that you love me?”

  “I’m actually saying that I love you. I’ll say it again. I love you.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “Because I love you too. Now I can hang up and have about a second of intense happiness before I go off to the coroner’s and look at the young guy with the bullet hole in his head. Bye.” She pressed the end button, put her cell phone in her purse, and got into her car, thinking about Joe Pitt.

  As she drove toward the coroner’s office, she prepared herself for the sight that she knew awaited her. Head shots were horrible, but she had to look at everything that Tanya had done or touched or left. Maybe this time Tanya had acted carelessly. Maybe this time she had forgotten to eradicate some detail that would tell Catherine where to find her.

  53

  Judith had stayed in bed almost all day. She slept for nearly twelve hours during the first stretch, letting the exhaustion keep her unconscious and the time pass so the sights and sounds would not be so clear and sharp in her memory. When she awoke she lay in bed thinking and remembering, but what she thought about was not last night. Once an unpleasant decision had been made, there was no reason to go over and over it.

  What she thought about was that nothing ever seemed to work out for her. It never had, and it was because there was always somebody who didn’t want her to be happy. The very odd thing was that the people who really wanted to hurt her were always other women.

  Judith didn’t expect much of men. They were indifferent and thoughtless. They were insensitive and selfish. A few even had some sexual issue, some program running in their heads that made them behave a certain way, and want her to behave in a certain, exactly complementary way. In fact there was a little of that in all of them—they thought about sex all the time, and every dealing with them had that as a part of it. Even if it was wildly impractical or even impossible for them to have sex with a particular woman, they wondered about her. All of those things were part of the world that was known. Nobody was hiding any of it.