Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

  But this time her gaze didn’t stray but went directly to the white box on the sofa cushion. Not only didn’t she know what it was, she was sure it hadn’t been there when they left for the theater.

  Donald must have somehow arranged for this; it was the only explanation.

  She moved toward the large, rectangular box. Its lid was lifted on one corner and a fold of white tissue paper protruded as if testing the air.

  “What the hell is that?” she heard Donald say behind her.

  An act? It wasn’t her birthday or their anniversary. She couldn’t think of any reason she should receive a gift from her husband except for pure impulsiveness, which wasn’t entirely beyond Donald.

  “One way to find out,” Mary said, and lifted the lid off the box.

  Inside was more white tissue paper. She unfolded it and recognized the crimson silk kimono she’d admired two days ago in Bloomingdale’s.

  But Donald hadn’t been with her. Had she mentioned the kimono?

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, pulling the kimono from the box and holding it up so they could both admire it. “But how did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That I wanted it and decided it was too frivolous for the money.”

  “Why would I know?”

  “Because you ordered it from Bloomingdale’s.”

  He came over to stand next to her and reached out and touched the smooth material. “Much as I’m tempted to take credit, Mary, this isn’t a gift from me.”

  She looked up at him. He seemed to be telling the truth. And why would he deny buying the kimono now that she’d accepted it?

  “It must be from a secret admirer,” he said. He didn’t seem to be kidding.

  “An admirer with a key?”

  “Obviously. Or maybe he bribed the super to let him in.” Spurred to action by that possibility, he went to the phone.

  Mary laid the kimono over the box and stared at it, listening to Donald in the background as he questioned the super.

  When he came back, he said, “Nobody was let into our apartment.”

  “If the super was bribed,” Mary said, “maybe he’s lying.”

  “He didn’t sound like he was lying,” Donald said. He looked hard at Mary, his brow furrowed so his eyes were squinted. “You sure you didn’t order this and forget about it?”

  “I wouldn’t forget, Donald. Besides, that would explain the kimono, but not how it got inside the apartment.” Maybe you ordered it and forgot, like with the bouquet. Everyone had their little mental glitches; maybe this was one of Donald’s-mystery gifts. Maybe he’d instructed the super to admit the deliveryman and had only pretended to phone downstairs. Maybe the flowers had been from him, too. Roses, a silk kimono…There could be worse faults in a husband. “Even if you didn’t give this to me,” she said, “thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me for what I didn’t do.” He seemed genuinely irritated. “The kimono isn’t from me any more than the roses you found in here before we moved in.”

  “Do you think we should change the locks?”

  “We should consider it.” While I bide my time and see if more mysterious gifts turn up after your shopping expeditions. He thought he’d known everything about Mary, though they’d only been together a little over a year. Maybe he was learning something new. Maybe she was having a secret affair.

  He immediately rejected the idea. After all, she’d told him about the roses.

  If she had bought the kimono, or if she was some kind of kleptomaniac, sick, that could be dealt with medically.

  But he had to know.

  What if he hired a private detective to follow her and find out if she behaved in any way peculiar during her shopping? It was something to consider.

  If Mary was ill, he wanted to help her. And if there was some other reason for the unexplained gifts-first the flowers, now the kimono-he sure as hell wanted to know what it was.

  Either way, he was afraid of what he might learn.

  Renz sat on the sagging sofa, opposite Quinn in Quinn’s apartment, glancing about while gnawing his lower lip.

  “You’ve certainly done wonders with the place,” he said. “With each visit I see improvement. Is that a new bent lampshade? Was that wall always a mossy green? And is it my imagination or are the roaches smaller?”

  “You said you had something important to discuss,” Quinn said, marveling that this was his friend and protector in the NYPD and not his enemy. What kind of dung had he gotten himself into?

  “Is this what they call shabby cheap?” Renz asked, refusing to let go of his own cleverness. Then he looked sheepish, wilting beneath Quinn’s baleful stare. “Oh, all right. It’s this.” He held up the folded newspaper he’d brought with him.

  “That the Times?”

  “The Voice. ”

  “You’ve always struck me as a typical subscriber.”

  Renz shrugged. “The poetry in my soul.” He dropped the paper on the glass-ringed coffee table. “What’s interesting in this edition is another installment of the saga of Anna Caruso.”

  “The papers like her story,” Quinn said. “I can understand that.”

  “Then you should also understand this. The more they like her story, the less they like yours. In this particular piece you are the villain. There’s an old photo of you coming out of the precinct house just after your hearing. You look angry, and about to unzip your pants.”

  Quinn knew the shot. The photographer had caught him coming down the concrete steps and swinging his arms. His right hand, which was about two feet away from his body when the photo was taken, appeared in only two dimensions to be adjusting his fly.

  For a few seconds he felt again the injustice of his situation, the old futility and rage. I’ve become the victim of my own good intentions-can’t the fools see that? He’d never been naive enough to think something would inevitably right the wrong done to him, but he hadn’t counted on self-pity enveloping and smothering him.

  He became aware of Renz smiling at the expression on his face.

  “I thought that was your end of the bargain,” Quinn said. “To get me out from under the rape charge that was never filed.”

  “And so can’t be disproved,” Renz pointed out.

  And Quinn knew the accusation wouldn’t have been disproved if charges had been filed, even though he was innocent. Every cop knows truth is usually one of the early victims in the legal process. For a while he’d forgotten that, and it had cost him. He was still paying and, as Renz knew, was almost tapped out and dealing from desperation.

  What Quinn didn’t know was that Renz thought he was guilty. That was why he’d come to him. To catch a sicko like the Night Prowler, you had to think like him, get into his mind, and be him. And who better to do that than his spiritual brother?

  Set a sicko to catch a sicko.

  “I’ve been watching the media on this one,” Renz said. “If I might brag a bit, I’m something of an expert when it comes to media in this town.”

  “I give you that,” Quinn told him.

  “What I see happening, even though it’s still in the beginning stages, is you gradually morphing from heroic and beleaguered ex-cop, getting his second chance, to lecherous bully with a badge, getting a few more free whacks at the public. And all at the cost of a sweet young thing who withers at the thought of you, and is, to boot, very photogenic.”

  “She’s withering at the thought of somebody else.”

  “Don’t we both know it?” Renz shook his head sadly. “And don’t we both know it doesn’t make any difference unless you step it up and catch this loony who’s offing happy couples in their prime?”

  “That’s why you came here? To light a fire under my ass?”

  “Something like. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

  Quinn gave him a progress report. Though even to him it didn’t sound much like progress.

  “You’ve got shit,” Renz said.

  “We’ve got pieces-”

>   “Pieces of-”

  “All right, all right!” Quinn waved his fist in a gesture that was threatening enough that Renz quieted down and settled back on the sofa.

  “We’ve got pieces,” Quinn continued, “that haven’t yet been put together. The beginnings of a pattern. Of a picture. It’s how these cases always shape up in the beginning. You’re the one who knows media, Renz. I’m the one who knows police work.”

  Renz sighed. Made a big show of it, in fact. He picked up his Voice and stood up from the sofa, stretching and working one shoulder, moving his arm in a slow circle as if he were a big-league pitcher worrying about his rotator cuff.

  “I’m gonna leave you with the thought that you don’t have much time,” he said. “Once your image is fucked, so are you. And what’s happened is, your image’s asshole is all greased and ready.” He dropped the folded paper back on the table. “You don’t believe me, read about it in the Voice. It’ll tear your heart out. It’ll make you wanna send money and flowers to little Anna Caruso.”

  “I already want to,” Quinn said to Renz’s back as he walked out the door.

  He seemed not to have heard.

  Or to have noticed the tears in Quinn’s eyes.

  26

  Hiram, Missouri, 1989.

  Luther had spent the last month learning more and more about what was becoming his trade, and what Tom Wilde assured him could be raised to approximate, if not become, art. Luther became an expert at stenciling, layering, tinting, and shading, using tone and texture and creating illusion.

  His affair with Cara continued. Milford spent his evenings with his ledger books, working overtime in his office at the mine. Luther spent his evenings with Cara. She became more easily aroused and erotic under Luther’s touch, and he continued to learn from her. He thought that if she loved him only a fraction of how much he loved her, he’d be happy. She couldn’t love him more, because she was everything to him.

  Nothing was out of bounds to the lovers. No part of either of them was secret to the other.

  Which was why, when Milford unexpectedly came home from work early one evening, he walked into his bedroom and found Cara and Luther blissfully locked in mutual oral pleasure.

  On Milford’s side of the bed.

  He stood stunned, unable to believe what he was seeing. He had to look more closely to be sure that, yes, the woman was actually Cara. Doing…what she chose not to do with Milford.

  So engrossed were the lovers in each other that they had no idea he was there. That somehow added to Milford’s astonishment and indignation-it was as if he didn’t exist to them. Worst of all was his feeling that he was the interloper, the one who didn’t belong here.

  Here, my home, my bed, my woman…God, God, God…

  Slowly he unclenched his fists, letting an inner steadiness, a solidity, focus his anger even if he couldn’t control it. He went to the closet and opened its door, then began rooting around behind the hanging clothes.

  He’d made enough noise to distract Luther and Cara from each other.

  “Milford?” Cara’s voice was choked.

  Well, no wonder! Milford felt the rage in the core of him become white-hot.

  “Milford!” she said again behind him, now with a curious hoarseness he’d never heard before, as if she were some other woman. “What are you doing?”

  His hand closed on warm walnut. “Looking for my shotgun.” How calm and matter-of-fact was his voice.

  “Milford-Mr. Sand-wait a minute!” Luther now, talking to his back. “Let me explain how this happened. Maybe you’ll understand. Honest, I’m not trying to make excuses, but this was something Cara and I didn’t do on purpose. It just happened! It was nobody’s fault!”

  Young, so young. Milford smiled grimly. Not going to get any older.

  He reached up on the closet shelf and found his box of shells. Then he turned and faced his wife and her lover as he broke down the double-barreled twelve-gauge and began loading it.

  “No, no, Milford!” Cara retreated to the headboard and curled in the fetal position against it, as if shielding herself from an approaching tornado. Luther, the other nude figure in the disgusting scene, stood up from the bed and held out a palm in a signal for Milford to halt what he was doing.

  “Give this some thought, Milford. Don’t do this, please!”

  He seemed afraid now, but not in the slightest embarrassed. Milford thought that was odd, thinking how devastated he’d feel in Luther’s place. How wrong.

  Well, Milford had read about Luther’s background. What had the filthy animal learned during his time on the streets?

  And taught Cara!

  Milford finished slipping the shells into their chambers and deftly locked the shotgun closed. It made a cold metallic clucking sound-so efficient, a hard, impersonal substance forged precisely to its purpose, not like flesh.

  He could smell their sex now, the heat and wetness of it. It made him more sure of what he was about to do. He thumbed off the safety.

  “You can’t do this, Milford!” Luther said. He was hurriedly getting dressed, already had his pants half on and was buttoning his shirt.

  “Scum,” Milford said calmly. “Street scum that doesn’t deserve to breathe.”

  Cara remained curled on the bed, wrapping her bare arms about her head and whimpering.

  Luther was imploring but not giving ground, as if he had a few bargaining chips left to play and might yet be persuasive. “Think about this, Milford! I mean, like, really think about it!”

  “I am thinking about it. Are you?”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry! I apologize for this. And I really mean it! Will you give me a chance to leave? Will you promise not to hurt Cara? That’s all I’m asking!”

  “No and no.” Milford raised the shotgun to his shoulder and sighted down its long twin barrels to the end of everything.

  Luther was hobbling toward the door now, carrying his shoes in one hand and fumbling to button his jeans with the other.

  “I’ve been a fool!” Milford screamed at him. “And you betrayed me! You betrayed me! Scum! Street scum!”

  Milford squeezed the trigger for the left barrel. The right barrel was for Cara. The reload was going to be for him.

  The hammer clicked on the shell, but the gun didn’t fire.

  Luther continued his flight out the door, not looking back, an absurd figure dressing and hopping and ducking simultaneously. Astonished, Milford squeezed the trigger for the right barrel.

  Nothing. Another misfire.

  The shells must have been on the closet shelf too long. They were too old, Milford figured.

  Milford screamed and hurled the shotgun at the door Luther had slammed shut behind him.

  He heard Milford’s scream and what sounded like the heavy shotgun clatter off the door and drop to the floor. But Luther didn’t slow down. He kept running through the house, down the stairs and toward the front door, bumping into things, brushing furniture aside. Something fell and broke behind him. Like his life.

  Then he was outside, across the wood porch and down the steps and into the warm night.

  Away!

  Life on the streets had taught Luther some hard lessons, and when he came across the shotgun several weeks ago, he made sure it was unloaded, then left it where he’d found it in the back of the closet. The half-dozen shells in the box on the closet shelf he didn’t leave exactly as he had found them. He removed all their pellets and powder, then replaced them in their box and made sure nothing looked as if it had been disturbed.

  It was a precaution that saved his life.

  But now what was he going to do? It was just past dusk, and the darkening, tree-lined street was deserted and quiet, but for the ongoing scream of crickets. A car’s headlights passed a block down at the intersection, but that was the only movement. Luther was sure no one had seen him leave the house, or heard the disturbance inside.

  His heart was hammering and he was perspiring. Sweat stung his eyes, making it d
ifficult to see. He dabbed at his eyes with his shirtsleeve, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, tasting Cara. Cara!

  Should he go back and do what he could to protect her?

  No, that might only make things worse. After dealing with the shotgun, Luther had searched the rest of the house to make sure there were no more guns. Milford wasn’t armed and wouldn’t shoot her. And whatever else he might do, with a knife or his bare hands…well, it would already have been done.

  A dog began barking far away, as if to remind Luther of a wider world beyond the dark street. He noticed the smell of recently mowed grass.

  The best thing he could do was get farther away from the house and neighborhood and stay away. He’d phone later, though, and make sure Cara was all right. He wouldn’t give up on her. He wouldn’t!

  But what would he do now?

  Where would he go?

  What would happen to him?

  It wasn’t the first time in his young life he’d asked himself those same questions he couldn’t answer.

  Each time, the terror and loneliness were worse.

  What will happen to me?

  Luther awoke, slumped low on the seat of Tom Wilde’s rusty pickup truck, and knuckled sleep from his eyes. The morning light flooding through the cracked windshield was blinding.

  He squinted at his watch. Past ten o’clock. Unable to think of where else to go last night, he’d finally walked to Wilde’s closed painting and decorating company and found a place to sleep in the cab of the old truck parked on the back corner of the lot. In the morning he’d go to work and try to figure out what he might do on a more long-term basis. As long as he had a job, he’d have some money and some options-if the state didn’t send a caseworker to find him.

  He thought there was a good chance Milford wouldn’t bother notifying the state for a while. He’d probably prefer that Luther find his way to another part of the country. Then he could cook up some phony story as to why Luther had left, rather than admit his wife had slept with their foster child. That admission would stop the money they were receiving from the agency in exchange for their temporary care of kids adrift like Luther.