Chill of Night

by John Lutz

  She laughed low in her throat in a way that horrified him—almost a death rattle. “I’m just goddamned tired,” she said.

  Justice lay still in the warm, humid bedroom that stank of mortality, hoping that if he said nothing she’d remain silent.

  After a while her breathing evened out, then slipped into its familiar shallow rhythm. He was the only one awake and alone again in their dark world.

  Their bright world had been shattered, but began its complete and irreparable disintegration when Elvis Davison, the rapist and killer of their son Will, walked smiling from the courtroom a free man, and soon dropped out of the news. The trial was over; he had his life back.

  Justice and April would never have their lives back, because Davison had taken away their son.

  “If someone killed Davison, we’d be the first people the police would suspect,” April said.

  It startled him that she was awake, and it frightened him. Is she privy to my thoughts? My night thoughts?

  “I don’t want to kill him,” he lied.

  “You do. We both do.”

  “It isn’t Davison, anyway. It’s the system.”

  “System?”

  “Judicial. The judges, the juries—especially the juries. They didn’t have to find him not guilty.”

  “They were following the letter of the law. Or thought they were.”

  “Juries are the law,” Justice said. “They can do what they want. They had to know Davison, what he…” His voice failed him. Neither of them could speak directly about what Davison had done to Will. “They knew he was guilty.”

  “Reasonable doubt,” April said wearily.

  “Do you have any?”

  “No.”

  “Then how could they?”

  “I would like to kill each and every one of them,” April said. “Only it wouldn’t bring Will back, and it would put us at the mercy of juries.”

  “I simply don’t understand their reasoning, their lack of understanding.”

  “They were led. They got into that damned jury room and somebody took charge and led them to their verdict.”

  “The jury foreman? You think he’s responsible?”

  “He was part of the system we know was responsible.”

  “The jury foreman…” Justice said. He remembered the man, a wiry redheaded CPA named Coburn. He’d always worn the same brown suit to court; probably had it cleaned and pressed on weekends. Maybe April had something. Maybe as jury foreperson, Coburn bore a disproportionate responsibility for the verdict. A disproportionate amount of guilt.

  “If we killed Coburn,” April said, “It’d be like we killed Davison. The police, the system, would know who did it. Then they’d kill us. I wouldn’t care.”

  “I would. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Be honest.”

  “All right, I don’t want to suffer alone. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “You’re a coward,” she said. “You’d be able to bear it if you weren’t a coward.”

  “I’m hearing pills talking,” Justice said, turning on his side to face away from her. There was a burning in his belly that drew up his knees. “I hear somebody who wants to pick a fight to rid herself of her rage. Pills talking.”

  “I’d like to pick a fight with the system that allows a monster to walk freely away from the pain he caused.”

  “We can’t kill the monster without losing our own lives,” Justice told her.

  “I don’t mean the monster Davison. He isn’t part of the system.”

  “You mean Coburn? He’s not much of a monster.”

  “Oh, he is. But we couldn’t touch him or anybody else involved with Davison’s trial without arousing suspicion. So I’m generalizing. Maybe I’ll blow up the goddamn courthouse.”

  “Pills talking.”

  He hoped.

  “Pills’re going to sleep now,” April said, and fluffed her pillow.

  She would be asleep soon. She could find refuge in sleep for hours at a time and escape her agony. Sometimes he envied her, but the cost of her ability to escape was her addiction to her medication, and if she didn’t get it under control, it would kill her.

  Staring hard at the shadowed ceiling beyond the rotating fan blades, Justice knew April was right. If Davison were killed, they’d be prime suspects. But the truth was that Davison wasn’t the problem—it was the system. April was right about that. The system didn’t know how rotten it was, didn’t seem to understand that an act like Davison’s created poisonous ripples that seemed never to end and became all the more toxic as they spread. And if the perpetrator escaped justice, the ripples became wider and spread more destruction with each passing day, month, year.

  The secondary victims, the survivors of the slain, simply died more slowly.

  That was what April knew, and what Justice was learning.

  “You awake?”

  April, awake again herself.

  “I’m asleep,” Justice said.

  He wondered how many other people were out there suffering the same way he and April suffered. The obviously guilty too often went free, but the families of their victims would never again be free.

  The wrongness of it overwhelmed Justice, and he lay beside April and wept.

  April heard him but didn’t make a move to comfort him. He had to suffer so he would come to understand what she already knew.

  It seemed he never would fully comprehend. There was only one way for April to make sure that he might.

  One final duty.

  20

  New York, the present

  Three days after Beverly Baker’s death, the Justice Killer sent Beam a letter, care of the NYPD, copy to The New York Times.

  There it was in da Vinci’s sunny office, on da Vinci’s desk. Everyone in the office had read the note but not touched it. The brief message was neatly printed in pencil:

  Hunter Beam:

  I know about your exploits and what you have for breakfast and what you dream. It is my pleasure that you’ve been assigned to track me down. Great men are judged by the quality of their enemies. We need each other. God provides for the just.

  You can no longer screw your wife. Are you screwing Officer Nell?

  JK

  “At least there’s one thing he doesn’t know about you,” Nell said.

  Looper was sitting next to her, smiling. Beam was standing off to the side, his hands in his pockets. Da Vinci sat in his big black swivel chair behind his desk. The fifth person in the room was police profiler Helen Iman. She was a tall woman, athletically curvaceous and attractive, who would have looked right at home playing beach volleyball. She had slanted emerald eyes and the kind of bony, ageless features that would look the same at sixty. She was about twenty years shy of that now. She stood on the opposite side of the desk from Beam.

  “We got us a madman for a perp,” Looper said, sitting back after reading the note.

  “I think we can all agree on that,” da Vinci said.

  “Techs looked at this yet?” Beam asked.

  “Of course,” da Vinci said. “It didn’t take them long. There’s nothing in the way of prints that might be brought out on either the envelope or paper, and both are from stock sold in office supply stores, drugstores, and even grocery stores.”

  “Any DNA?”

  “No. Analysis of the envelope flap reveals no saliva. He didn’t lick it. A few microscopic cotton fibers were found, indicating he dampened a cloth and ran it across the adhesive areas. But the fibers are so common they lead nowhere.”

  “What about the printing itself?” Beam asked.

  “Handwriting analyst says it’s so carefully drawn and proportioned, maybe using a ruler or some other straight-edged object to maintain evenness, that it doesn’t reveal much. Certainly nothing that would bear meaningful comparison in court. Pencil’s number two lead, like ninety-nine percent of the pencils sold. A wooden pencil, probably, not mechanical. Lab says it didn’t w
ear down the same way as less tapered mechanical lead.”

  Da Vinci turned the note paper so it was angled Helen Iman’s way. “Tell you anything about this guy?” he asked, “Like how tall he is, is he a Mets or Yankees fan, what’s his favorite color?”

  Helen Iman admirably ignored da Vinci’s sarcasm. In her business it was the usual thing. Some cops, especially the older ones, or those in higher office like da Vinci, didn’t have much faith in profiling.

  Helen moved nearer to the desk and looked closely, the second time, at the printed note.

  “She’s gonna tell us everything about this guy,” da Vinci said with mock confidence, “including whether he wears boxers or Jockey shorts.”

  Helen felt like telling da Vinci the killer wore shorts that were all twisted up like his own.

  “He’s psychic,” she said. “He knows what Captain Beam dreams.”

  Da Vinci glared at her, waiting for her to smile. She didn’t.

  “What would be his reaction if I answered this note,” Beam asked the profiler, “and we get my reply printed in the Times?”

  “He’d probably love a public display of your reply to his letter. It would make it seem the two of you were a set, acting out a drama on a vast stage. You might see this investigation as a job, but he sees it as an epic.”

  “I’ll tell him I’m simply doing my job,” Beam said. “I’ve seen insane killers like him before and I will again. After he’s lost his freedom or his life, I’ll move on and he’ll be forgotten.”

  Helen smiled. “He wouldn’t like reading something like that. Especially the mention of insanity.”

  “Might it rattle him?”

  “It might. I think he’ll almost immediately write an answer. He’d love to carry on a public correspondence with you.”

  “I’ll tell him this will be the only message he’s going to get from me until I read him his rights.”

  “Tell him again he’s a nutcase,” Looper suggested.

  “Once is enough,” Helen said. She looked at da Vinci. “What do you think of the idea?”

  “You’re the profiler,” he said. “What will it accomplish?”

  “It’ll anger him. Maybe to the extent that he’ll make a mistake. And it will make him dislike Captain Beam all the more. And respect him all the more.”

  “Will he fear him all the more?”

  “Yes, but remember, he chose him because he feared him.”

  “I’d like you to look over the letter before I send it,” Beam said to Helen. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all.” Helen was gaining respect for Beam herself. If the Justice Killer had wanted a formidable opponent, he’d chosen well.

  “Will it make him kill again?” Nell asked.

  Helen shrugged. “It might make him kill sooner, but I doubt even that. He’s going to kill again one way or the other. He’s going to keep killing until he’s stopped. And he knows it. A certain part of him even wants to be stopped, because he knows he can’t stop himself. That’s why he’s happy to have Captain Beam in charge of the investigation. After six victims, the killer might be in the early stages of coming unraveled. He wants to be famous when he is caught or killed, and he knows he’s working toward that moment. He’s sure that in the end, Captain Beam won’t let him down.”

  Da Vinci chortled and shook his head. “God! Is it really that complicated?”

  Helen grinned as if she and da Vinci shared a secret. “Maybe not.”

  “Madmen can be complicated,” Looper said.

  “I’m not so sure he’s mad,” Helen said. “Not in the way we’re talking about—uncontrolled, irrational. That’s not what comes across to me in the note. He’s more like someone pretending to be mad.”

  “Laying the basis for an insanity defense when he’s caught?” Nell asked.

  “Possibly. Or maybe he’s simply playing for effect.”

  “Killer like that’s already a leg up on an insanity plea,” Looper said.

  “If he’s only pretending to be irrational,” Beam said.

  Helen looked at him and nodded. “It’s true that at this point we can’t know for sure, but my hunch is that he’s feigning insanity.”

  “I know six people who’d disagree with you,” da Vinci said, “if they could.”

  Martin Portelle liked to ride the subway to and from work. Not that he couldn’t afford a cab. For that matter he might have twisted somebody’s arm and gotten a company car to drive him back and forth. He was at that level, since the report he’d made on Sculler Steel, a small foundry in the Midwest that had the potential of increasing top line earnings by fifty percent with only a few minor operational changes.

  He wished he were paid a commission on all the money he’d saved his company. He might be the firm’s highest paid employee. Mr. Kravers had referred to him more than once as its most talented. Martin could spot, in corporate financial statements, anomalies that other analysts’ attention glided over. It was as if they were half blind and he had perfect vision.

  Besides knowing how to squeeze a dollar, that was Martin’s great gift, perceiving anomalies however slight. Which was why over the past several days he’d become increasingly worried.

  More than worried, actually—spooked.

  “You mean afraid?” Tina asked, when he tried to explain. They were seated, each with a cool drink, on their high balcony, tiny creatures affixed to their building and waiting for the sunset.

  Martin wasn’t so sure now that he should have confided in Tina. She was such a fearless, practical woman. Yet she’d been afraid for him; that was why he’d told her about what had been happening lately, how he felt.

  “All right,” Martin said, “I’m not too proud to admit it. I’m seeing…I don’t know, pieces that don’t quite fit.”

  “What’s that mean—pieces?”

  It was so difficult to explain this to someone else. “I might see someone in the corner of my vision, and when I turn around they’re not there. Or a door might close, someone going out just as I enter a room.”

  “That happens to all of us.”

  “It’s a small thing, but to me it’s been happening too many times.” He took a sip of his drink.” I’ve seen the same man seated across from me on the subway three times in five days. What are the odds?”

  “Slim,” Tina sipped her Long Island iced tea. She could drink the lethal things without showing any signs of inebriation. Up to a point, of course. “What does he look like?”

  “Average. Very average. He’s always wearing sunglasses.”

  “Not unusual,” Tina said. “Summer in New York. Are they always the same kind of sunglasses.”

  “Yes…Well, I don’t know. They’re always the most common kind. You know, like aviator’s glasses. But I suppose they could be different ones.”

  “And he always sits directly across from you?”

  “Not directly, no. But always on the opposite side of the car, facing me.”

  “You wouldn’t notice such a man if he were sitting on the same side of the car, would you?”

  “Of course not.” Martin was getting irritated. Tina seemed to be suggesting that if he switched sides, he might very well see a similar man who’d draw his suspicion. “I also get the feeling someone’s been following me as I walk the sidewalks. To and from my subways stops, and sometimes when I go out for lunch.”

  “Same man?”

  Martin put down his drink on the glass-topped table and cradled his head in his hands. “I don’t know. It isn’t as if I’ve ever directly looked into the eyes of whoever might be tailing me. Maybe they’re that skilled, or maybe I’m that paranoid. If you’re telling me this might be my imagination, you could be right. But it’s got me going. Yesterday, when I got this creepy, watched feeling, I even walked up to a cop that was handy and talked to him.”

  “Told him someone was following you?”

  “No. I didn’t want to open that can of worms.”

  “You should go to
the police and request their protection.”

  “You’re not saying they actually could protect me—or anyone else?”

  “Theoretically they could,” Tina said. “But in reality, no. Not with certainty. Yet, when you thought you might be in danger, you went to a cop.”

  “I just knew if somebody meant me harm they wouldn’t try it with a uniformed cop next to me. Besides, this could all be my imagination. Maybe I’m paranoid. The calm and reasoning part of my mind thinks I’m spooked by shadows, but it gave me a sense of security, talking to that cop about the weather. One I’ve never needed before.”

  “I don’t think you’re paranoid,” Tina said. “And I didn’t marry you for your imagination.”

  Martin opened his eyes and peered at her through spread fingers. “Lawyers aren’t supposed to be enigmatic. What does that mean?”

  “That I think you might have real reason to fear. I’ve thought so ever since this Justice Killer psychopath started murdering former jury forepersons. In case you’ve forgotten, we acquitted Maddox. You were jury foreperson. He killed again, later.”

  Martin lowered his hands from his face, lifted his martini, and took a long sip. “Unfortunately, there are too many such cases, in New York and other cities, where the obviously guilty have to be set free because of trial irregularities or just plain dumb-ass prosecutors, judges, or juries. That’s how the system works; there are Constitutional rights, and lots of guilty people take advantage of them and are walking around free even though they should be imprisoned or executed. Lots of them. What that means is, logically, I’m not much more likely to be this sicko’s next victim than I am to win the lottery.”

  Tina stared at him over the rim of her glass. “Logically, somebody wins the lottery.”

  Martin gazed out over the darkening city, understanding why his wife was such a good trial lawyer. “I guess that’s why I’m afraid.”

  “Then we’re both afraid for you.” She set the glass down and leaned toward him. “But Martin, we don’t have to be afraid.”

  “Are we back to me leaving the city until this nut is caught?”

  “It makes sense. At least you can get away for a while. You’ve got vacation time coming.”