Night Victims (The Night Spider)

by John Lutz

  Maybe Paula and Bickerstaff had learned something new in reexamining the two apartments earlier, as Horn had instructed. Probably it had been a waste of time, like so many things in homicide investigations.

  Horn figured he might have better luck stumbling across something new and pertinent in Sally Bridge’s apartment, which was still an official crime scene.

  He got the key from the super but when he reached the apartment found he didn’t need it. The yellow crime scene tape had been untied from the doorknob, and the door was unlocked.

  When Horn entered he found Paula and Bickerstaff inside.

  They’d heard him in the hall and were standing about ten feet apart, staring at the door to see who might come in.

  Neither of them appeared surprised, but both seemed relieved. Horn wondered if they thought Bridge’s killer might have wanted something in the apartment and returned for it.

  “Learn anything at the other two crime scenes?” he asked, noticing that the apartment still smelled of death, the faint coppery blood scent that could almost be tasted.

  “Nothing that isn’t already in the files,” Paula said. “And so far we haven’t found any connection at all between any of the three victims.”

  “Show me this footprint,” Horn said.

  Paula led the way into the bedroom. The air was stale and smelled more strongly of blood. Bickerstaff stayed in the living room.

  There was the footprint by the bed. It was faint but it was there, and Horn could understand how the techs could bring it out so it showed as the enhanced image in the file. The heel and ball of a bare foot, probably a man’s, medium size. A few distinctive lines, maybe enough to make a match that would mean something in court.

  Sally Bridge’s bed hadn’t been touched since the murder. It was stripped down to the bare mattress. The pile of bloodied sheets Horn had seen in the crime scene photos had been taken to the lab for testing and evidence entry.

  “They ever get a make on the blood type?” Horn asked, staring at the stained mattress.

  “O-negative,” Paula said. “Same as the victim’s; when the DNA match comes in, it figures that all the blood in the apartment will be hers.”

  Horn wandered over and examined the window where the killer had entered. The glass and handle had been dusted for prints, revealing only that the killer had worn gloves, but Horn was still careful when he slid the window open. It moved easily in its wooden frame.

  “The lab said the killer used candle wax on the window frame,” Paula said. “Just ran it over the tracks so the window would raise real easy and wouldn’t make noise.”

  “Uh-huh. So we look for a guy who carries a candle in his pocket.”

  “Narrows it down,” Paula said, smiling to let Horn know she was joking.

  Horn leaned out of the window and looked down.

  “Heck of a climb,” Paula said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t elaborate, and Paula figured she should hold her silence. She still wasn’t completely comfortable around Horn. The stories about his NYPD exploits sometimes contained touches of brutality. That didn’t seem evident in the man, despite his size. He acted more like a kindly uncle than a legendary tough homicide cop and political infighter.

  She watched as he stared pensively at the window for a while longer before closing it.

  “No marks on the marble sill,” he said. “Maybe a slight scuff mark from the killer’s shoe. But we can’t be sure.”

  Paula said nothing. She wasn’t sure of anything yet in this case.

  “Nothing for sure on the windowsills at the other two crime scenes, either,” Horn said.

  He walked back into the living room, and Paula followed.

  “You reinterview the neighbors here?” he asked Bicker-staff.

  “We just finished up before you got here. There were a few slight discrepancies, but their stories are pretty much consistent with their first interviews. Basically, nobody saw or heard anything unusual.”

  “We were about to leave when you arrived,” Paula said.

  “I’ll leave with you,” Horn said. “After we get done on the roof, we’ll find someplace to eat supper and compare notes.”

  “Roof?” Paula said.

  Horn nodded. “Yeah. You know—the windowsills.”

  “But they were left mostly unmarked when the killer climbed in.”

  “And out,” Bickerstaff added. “The techs found nothing even microscopic that was of use on the windowsills.”

  “Like a microscopic dog that didn’t bark in the night,” Horn said.

  Paula grinned. “Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I’d have guessed Lassie,” Bickerstaff said.

  “Got a handkerchief in your purse?” Horn asked Paula.

  She searched but couldn’t find one. “Only tissues.” Among other items she pulled from her purse while rummaging through it was a white latex glove of the sort used to examine crime scenes.

  “That glove’ll do,” Horn said.

  Paula and Bickerstaff glanced at each other.

  They followed Horn into the bedroom, where he got a wire hanger from the closet, straightened it, and tied the white glove on one end. He then went to the window and opened and closed it, wedging the hanger between frame and sill so the end with the glove stuck outside about eighteen inches.

  “Oughta do,” he said.

  Understanding now, Paula led the way out of the apartment. She was starting to like this, Horn thinking a little outside the box. Sometimes a little was all it took. Outside was outside.

  She could hardly wait to get to the roof.

  As soon as they were on the roof, Bickerstaff wedged a piece of tile in the service door so it wouldn’t close and trap them up there. Then they went to the low brick parapet at the roof ‘s edge, approximately above the window to Sally Bridge’s bedroom. About ten feet from the parapet, Horn held out a hand and stopped them. “Look at the tar and gravel near the edge,” he said. “It seems it might have been disturbed.”

  Paula looked. The gravel adhered to the blacktop roof seemed to have been rearranged recently, some of it even kicked or scraped loose.

  Horn went to the parapet and examined it, then leaned over it, staring straight down.

  “I see the glove sticking out right under the disturbed gravel,” he said, turning away and standing up straight. And there’s a spot on the parapet where the tile’s been rubbed clean. And look at this.”

  Paula and Bickerstaff moved closer to see where he was pointing. There was what appeared to be a fresh hole low in the brickwork of the parapet, as if something sharp had been driven into the brick and mortar at an angle.

  “A whatchamacallit, maybe,” Bickerstaff said. “One of those steel spikes mountain climbers use to fasten ropes to cliff faces.”

  “A piton,” Horn said. He glanced around, then walked over to where a grouping of vent pipes protruded from the roof.

  He stooped down next to one. “Look at the way the grime has been rubbed away from the base of this pipe. My guess is our killer drove in his piton near the roof ‘s edge, then ran the roof end of the rope back to this vent pipe. He then wrapped it around the pipe as a safety precaution in case the piton broke free when he draped the other end of the rope down the building wall and began his descent.”

  Paula stared at the base of the old lead vent pipe. Horn was right. Something had definitely been tied around it, then perhaps tugged at and rotated to test for tightness and strength. “How did you know one of the pipes would be marked up?” she asked.

  “Mountain climbers are nothing if not cautious. They believe in backup, just like cops.”

  Paula was liking this more and more. “So our killer doesn’t necessarily climb buildings; he goes to the roof and lowers himself to the bedroom window he wants to enter.”

  “Probably easier when you stop to think about it,” Bicker-staff said. “But how did he get to this roof? If he used the front entrance, he’d risk being seen coming
or going. And if you look around, there’s no way he coulda got up here other than stairs or elevator.”

  Horn put his fists on his hips and turned in a slow circle. The adjacent buildings were too far away to leap across.

  “Maybe if we look on one of those other building roofs we’ll find a board or something that enabled him to cross over to this roof.”

  “Or maybe he tossed or shot a line over here,” Paula said.

  “Yeah. Like Spiderman,” Bickerstaff said dryly.

  “Not exactly,” Horn told him, nodding and smiling at Paula. “He might have tossed a grappling hook over here and snagged it on something, maybe one of those vent pipes. Then he attached his end of the line on the other roof and hand-walked to this one, or used a sling or pulley of some sort.”

  They went to the parapet and vent pipes and searched for fresh scratches, and found a pipe that might have suffered a little recent damage from a grappling hook catching hold.

  “I dunno,” Bickerstaff said dubiously, scratching his double chin. “Those marks don’t look all that recent to me.”

  “But look at the tracks in the tar,” Horn said, “from where he overshot with the hook and dragged it back to catch on the vent pipe.” He pointed to long, parallel gouges in the blacktop that led to and then straddled the protruding pipe. Subway tracks, Horn thought, seeing Anne thinking deep thoughts.

  “Lowering himself from the roof like that,” Paula said, “probably nobody’d notice him in the dark even if they did happen to glance up. Not if he wore dark clothes. I kind of like the theory. And I don’t see any other way he’d be able to get to this roof without risking coming and going through the lobby.”

  “Let’s put off supper for a while,” Horn said, “and talk to doormen and neighbors in the adjacent buildings. See if anybody saw or heard anything suspicious the night of the murder.”

  Neither Paula nor Bickerstaff objected. Paula wasn’t hungry anymore. Her heartbeat had picked up, the way it sometimes had when she went hunting long ago with her uncles, when they sensed they were closing on their prey.

  Bickerstaff simply pulled a candy bar from his pocket and started peeling off the wrapper.

  “Since we’re gonna eat supper late,” he said, “anybody else want one of these? It’s a high-energy sports bar.”

  “Those things are about six hundred calories,” Paula said. “They’ll even put weight on your eyeballs while they petrify your arteries.”

  “Maybe. But I carry them ‘cause I figure I might need energy when I least expect it.” He patted the bulging side pocket of his rumpled suitcoat. “I got chocolate peanut butter with almonds.”

  Paula held out her hand.

  8

  Pattie Redmond had used her Styles and Smiles employees’ 20 percent discount to buy two of the 40-percent-off blouses, one of which—the gray one—she wore with her navy slacks, the ones that showed off her slender curves. Why not impress the hell out of Gary?

  After get-acquainted drinks at the Village bar where they’d met, Gary suggested they have dinner at a Peruvian restaurant just a long walk or short cab ride from Pattie’s West Side apartment. Since Gary had never asked where she lived or even known her complete name before tonight, she knew that had to be a coincidence.

  Or maybe fate.

  Everything had gone wonderfully. Her hair had behaved and the summer breeze hadn’t mussed it. The conversation over drinks had been smooth. And she hadn’t drooled or spilled anything on her new blouse during dinner. Not only that, Pattie had caught Gary staring at her a few times in a way she knew and liked.

  Gary Schnick was his name. He smiled and said that was why he hadn’t told her the first night they’d met; his name sounded kind of dirty or like an insult. Pattie told him she found nothing wrong with “Schnick” and he put on a puzzled look and said he’d meant “Gary.” So he had a sense of humor. That was essential in a man, especially one with the good looks that suggested he was vain, humorless, married, or gay.

  By the time they took a cab to her apartment, she was satisfied he was none of those. She fought him off in the back of the cab, having to struggle exactly the right amount, keeping it all light even if serious. And he gave up at precisely the right time, letting her know he yearned for her but respected her and wasn’t some kind of rapist who couldn’t control his sexual appetite. Not Gary Schnick.

  Still, Pattie didn’t invite him in. She wanted to string this out, test him a little. She felt strongly that Gary wasn’t one-night-stand material. He was a keeper.

  He didn’t give her a lot of crap about not being invited in. Not any, in fact. He simply grinned, kissed her on the forehead, and said he’d call her. Then he climbed back into the cab and waved to her out of the rolled-down window as it pulled away from the curb.

  Mrs. Ledbetter, the elderly widow who lived on the floor below Pattie and sometimes talked to her in the laundry room, happened to be leaving the building as Pattie arrived and saw the cab drive away.

  “So who was that?” she asked. “Antonio Banderas?”

  “I don’t know any Antonio Banderas,” Pattie said, playing dumb.

  Mrs. Ledbetter, who knew she wasn’t dumb, grinned at her and wagged an arthritic finger. “I’m going to the grocery store to get one of those giant blueberry muffins for a late-night snack. You need anything?”

  Pattie thanked her but said she didn’t, then punched in the tenants’ code and pushed open the door to the outer lobby. She used her key to unlock and open the door to the inner lobby, then crossed the stained marble floor to the elevator. For a building without a doorman, this one had good security. And where she lived, on the nineteenth floor, she didn’t have to worry about break-ins by junkies or weirdos. Safety was one of the things Pattie liked most about living here. That and the very reasonable rent.

  The elevator smelled like somebody had smoked a cigar in it recently. Pattie tried to hold her breath all the way up but didn’t quite make it. The tobacco scent followed her most of the way down the hall as she strode toward her apartment door. Why on earth did people still smoke? She hoped the stench wouldn’t cling to her clothes and make her smell like an icky tobacco fiend if she wore the same slacks tomorrow.

  The apartment was small but she didn’t mind. The landlord had recently refurnished it in a kind of modern style, with lots of pastel vinyl and light-colored wood, and while the colors didn’t quite match, that was okay with Pattie. At least everything was new or almost new, even if it might not be comfortable. She wasn’t mad about the stark wall hangings either, except for a big framed photograph of lightning striking far away on a dark plain. She liked that one.

  She closed the door behind her and tugged at it to make sure the lock had caught. Then she keyed the dead bolt and fastened the brass chain. The lamp she’d left on had a 150-watt bulb and made the living room so glaringly bright that the blue vinyl sofa looked wet.

  Pattie placed her purse on the table by the door, then kicked off her high-heeled shoes and padded into the tiny alcove kitchen. She wolfed down half of a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut left over from breakfast, then opened the refrigerator and sipped some milk out of the carton.

  She went into the bedroom, walked to the window, and switched on the air conditioner. It settled into a soft hum and started to cool the room while she washed off her makeup and brushed her teeth. She would shower in the morning, before work, she thought. Maybe get up early enough so she had time to wash her hair.

  By the time Pattie left the bathroom and turned off the light in the living room, the bedroom was comfortably cool.

  Her apartment was a corner unit, so the bedroom had two windows. She went to the one without the air conditioner in it and made sure it was locked. Though she was wearing only the oversized men’s Rangers shirt she slept in, she didn’t bother pulling the drapes shut. Whoever might be watching, let them look. What did she care? Give the poor lonely sickos a thrill. She was going to turn out the light soon anyway and go to bed. For a few seconds
she contemplated getting her vibrator, which she kept hidden in the back of a dresser drawer. Then she decided against it. For all she knew, Gary might phone tomorrow and want to meet her for lunch, or immediately after she got off work.

  She turned back the top sheet and light cover on the bed, then sat down on the edge of the mattress and switched off the lamp. In the abrupt blackness, before her eyes got used to the dark, Pattie swiveled on the mattress and lay down, adjusting her pillow beneath her head. The room wasn’t yet as cool as it was going to get, so she lay on her back on top of the thin blanket and sheet.

  She sighed, comfortable, feeling the cool breeze from the air conditioner play over her bare thighs.

  Her intention was to relive in her mind tonight’s date with Gary, but the alcohol she’d consumed earlier that evening must have gotten to her. Just as Gary was standing up at the table and smiling to greet her, she fell asleep.

  Pattie was rolling down the grassy hill in the yard alongside the house, toward where her father had raked the autumn leaves into a big pile. She was about twelve and knew she’d soon be too old to enjoy this kind of thing.

  She came to the bottom of the hill and started to stand up.

  But she couldn’t stand.

  Couldn’t even move. Her arms were tight to her sides, her legs bound together so firmly her knees and protruding ankle bones hurt where they pressed against each other.

  When something clamped itself firmly and roughly across her mouth, she breathed in hard through her nose and woke up. Her bulging eyes stared into solid blackness.