Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

  She grinned. “This isn’t the NYPD way. This is ‘copus interruptus.’”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get back to it. Wanna take a shower with me?”

  “You bet.”

  She scooted down to the foot of the bed and stood up, wondering if they’d slip and fall and break something in the old claw-footed tub. “What do you think of that ceiling fixture?”

  He glanced up. “Looks more like a glob of paint with a couple of dirty bulbs screwed into it.”

  “So you’d replace it?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  “With what?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I’d ask someone, or hire a…” He gave her a suspicious look, obviously wondering at what point she’d been thinking about light fixtures and decorators during the past half hour.

  Pearl was afraid she might have hurt his feelings. Men were so vain when it came to that sort of thing. And she really, truly did not want to hurt Quinn.

  If she had bruised his ego, she made it up to him under the shower.

  52

  Claire borrowed Maddy’s old Volvo and drove Jubal to LaGuardia for his flight to Chicago.

  “Don’t think too much about me or the baby,” she told him as they walked toward the security area leading to the concourses. “Concentrate on the play.”

  “That won’t be easy.” He was holding a black carry-on, which contained his laptop and a copy of the As Thy Love Thyself script. He sneaked a peek at his wristwatch, the way people do when they’re in a hurry.

  “Good luck!” Claire said. Don’t go! Don’t leave!

  Damn hormones!

  He slung the carry-on’s thick strap over his shoulder and smiled at her, then kissed her, letting his lips linger. “Be careful driving home. Take the tunnel.”

  “I always do. You be careful yourself. Love you.”

  “Me, too.”

  They kissed again, and then he was gone from her, striding toward the metal detector with the shortest line. He swerved to avoid a couple carrying an infant and trailing wheeled suitcases and a portable stroller laden with wadded blankets and a stuffed animal.

  Us in less than a year.

  Within a few minutes he was through security. He turned and waved to her, giving her another smile. Handsome actor. Colleague, lover, husband. She loved him so fiercely at that moment she was afraid she might break into sobs.

  Goddamn hormones!

  It’s worth it. It’s worth it.

  The drive back to the apartment alone seemed to take forever. Then she spent another twenty minutes finding a parking space within two blocks of her building. Why Maddy even owned a car in Manhattan was beyond Claire.

  To lend to needy friends-like me.

  She wished she were thinking more clearly these days.

  When she walked into the apartment, she immediately felt better. Balanced on the sofa back, where it would be clearly visible, was a large shrink-wrapped blueberry muffin from the nearby deli, the food that had become her vice during pregnancy. This one was particularly large, perhaps six inches across the top.

  Jubal must have bought it earlier and stashed it, then sneaked it onto the sofa just before they left for LaGuardia. Yes, she’d walked out of the apartment first, and he’d followed with his luggage, then keyed the dead bolt.

  Or had he stepped out into the hall first?

  Claire couldn’t remember and soon gave up trying to reconstruct in her mind the sequence of their departure.

  It didn’t matter. There was the muffin, his gift, his thoughtfulness.

  There was his love for her.

  The direct flight to Chicago had taken a little less than three hours. The carry-on strap was digging into Jubal’s shoulder with every step as he strode toward the point beyond security where people waited to greet incoming passengers. It hadn’t been an easy flight. An infant two seats in front of his had begun wailing during takeoff and only stopped occasionally to catch its breath so it could maintain volume. Concentrating on As Thy Love Thyself was impossible, so Jubal had put the script back in his carry-on and, despite the din, had dozed on the plane and was still slightly groggy.

  He became more alert when he saw a slight, shapely woman leaning casually against a post with her arms crossed. Her posture was one of easy grace, one leg slightly bent at the knee so her pointed toe retained balance, her body elegantly curved. A dancer’s line. She was wearing tight blue slacks and an untucked white T-shirt snug over small, pointed breasts. Her blond hair was styled close to her head in a boy cut to emphasize her gamine features.

  Dalia Hart.

  She spotted Jubal and came alive with a glow. Grinning widely, she pushed away from the post she’d been leaning on and ran to greet him.

  He let the carry-on drop to the floor and gathered her close in his arms.

  She nuzzled the base of his neck, flicking with her tongue. “Glad to see me?”

  “Understatement,” he said.

  “I know,” she said through her smile. “I can feel it.”

  He kissed her hello as fervently as he’d kissed Claire good-bye only hours ago in New York.

  53

  Rain had begun to fall, or rather hang in the air, a heavy mist that made umbrellas useless and found its way beneath exposed cuffs and down the backs of collars. At least the heat had broken, Quinn thought as he struggled out of a cab and stepped into a puddle, which made his right sock wet.

  A woman wearing rubber boots sloshed through the water and claimed his place in the back of the cab even before he had a chance to shut the door. He barely got out of the way and avoided being splashed as the vehicle rejoined start-and-stop traffic on Park Avenue.

  While Pearl and Fedderman were continuing their interviews with interior decorators who’d been employed by Night Prowler victims, Quinn had cabbed here to meet Harley Renz at a psychiatrist’s office. Renz had requested the meeting but hadn’t told Quinn the reason for it. As he crossed the wide street toward the sedate, prewar building, Quinn thought it was way past time for Renz to find his way to a psychiatrist’s office.

  The lobby was gold-veined gray marble and soft oak paneling, understated and elegant. It was unattended. Quinn paused on a large rubber mat and stamped water from his shoes, noticing a security camera mounted in a corner and aimed his way. He found a directory near the elevators and quickly located his destination.

  The office, on the ninth floor, was at the end of a wide hall. Its door was open about six inches in coy and silent invitation.

  He pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. Something about the subtle, chemical scent of the place alerted him. Then he noticed smudges on various objects, like someone had gone through with a greasy feather duster, from when prints had been lifted. Now he recognized the scent; more obscure prints had been made visible with the Super Glue method.

  Crime scene.

  Quinn was in a receptionist’s outer office and waiting room. There was a desk with a computer on it, a bank of tan file cabinets, softly painted earth-tone walls, restful prints of water lilies. Current magazines were spread out on a coffee table before a long beige sofa, a Forbes, a New Yorker, an Architectural Digest. A Mr. Coffee sat on a small table in a corner, a stack of white Styrofoam cups next to it along with packaged cream and sugar. Mr. Coffee’s burner light wasn’t glowing, but the glass pot was half filled.

  Quinn saw that a closet door on his left was hanging open. A man’s worn blue windbreaker on a wire hanger was the only garment. There was an X of masking tape on the floor, no doubt to indicate where a body had been stuffed into the narrow closet. The tape was smeared with blood and curled where it lay over a dark stain on the carpeted floor. Quinn noted that the carpet had absorbed a lot of blood, so when the door was closed, it wouldn’t be visible to anyone coming in from the hall. A killer thinking ahead?

  He went to another half-opened door alongside the reception desk and used the back of a knuckle, so as not to disturb or leave a print, to push it open all the way. Not
necessary, since the scene had obviously been gone over by the crime scene unit and the body removed, but habits formed in the presence of death died harder than some homicide victims.

  There was Harley Renz, lying on his back on a brown leather sofa, his legs crossed at the ankles, his fingers laced behind his head. He looked over and smiled when Quinn entered the room. “Welcome to the confessional.”

  “Sorry I missed it. I bet you had some doozies.”

  “I was too late myself.” Renz motioned lazily to where an outline of a human body had been marked out crudely with tape on the carpet near the desk.

  “Was that the Dr. Rita Maxwell whose name was on the building directory,” Quinn asked, “or was she the one in the closet?”

  “This one was Dr. Maxwell.” Renz sat up but remained slumped and relaxed on a corner of the comfortable-looking sofa. “The vic in the outer-office closet was her receptionist, one Hannah Best. This Dr. Maxwell”-he pointed to a wall displaying photographs and framed diplomas and certificates-“was some impressive babe.”

  “I read about the case in the papers,” Quinn said. “The doctor and her assistant were stabbed to death. The pattern didn’t fit the Night Prowler, so I didn’t pay too much attention.”

  “I don’t think it fits, either,” Renz said, “but I thought you might wanna take a look at the scene. You never know what might trigger an errant thought, wandered somehow into an infertile brain.”

  “True enough. Any leads?”

  “One. Like I said, there’s probably no connection, but sometimes New York can be a small town. Both these women were stabbed only a few times each, as if more to send them on their way without a lot of time, trouble, or passion than for any sadistic enjoyment. Not like what your guy does to them. Still, we got women stabbed to death here. The media’s taken note. And a Park Avenue analyst murdered in her office-lots of people will be disturbed by that.”

  “You mean people who were disturbed to begin with and had motive and opportunity to kill Dr. Maxwell.”

  “Among others. Just think of all the secrets passed in confidence in this quiet, restful room.” Renz grinned. “But we know there’s really no such thing as secrets in confidence.”

  “They exist,” Quinn said, “but briefly.”

  “Like true love.”

  “I noticed a security camera in the lobby. Did it show anything?”

  “You mean like a shot of the killer on his way in or out? No. It had recycled and was on its next loop by the time we knew it was there. Everybody coming or going on the tape was here well after the murders.”

  “What about the doctor’s files?”

  “They don’t appear to have been disturbed. It seems the killer entered the outer office, killed ‘Hard Luck Hannah’ the receptionist, and hid her body in the closet. Then he came in here and did the doctor.”

  “Maybe a patient thought twice after revealing something during analysis and wanted to take it back.”

  “Always that possibility, with a victim like this.”

  “It wasn’t done on a whim,” Quinn said. “The only blood from the receptionist is in the closet. Looks like she was knocked out and stuffed in there before she got knifed.”

  “That’s how I figure it. The killer just wanted her out of the way. Dr. Maxwell was the primary target.”

  “Have you searched her files?”

  “That’d be a touchy matter legally,” Renz said. “We’re working on a warrant right now.”

  “Have you searched her files?” Quinn repeated in the same tone.

  “Yeah. And found about what you’d expect. But there are some interesting names in there.”

  “Potentially useful to a shameless climber like you,” Quinn said.

  “They might prove useful to our side.”

  He was right. Our side. Our team. It made Quinn wince.

  “And aren’t you just the one to talk about shame?”

  Quinn felt his anger rise but pushed it back. “You mentioned you had a lead.”

  “Sort of a lead. The receptionist kept a patient schedule on a software program in her computer, but she was old-fashioned and distrustful of technology. Like us. So she also kept names and appointment times in a book. One of the names in the book is missing in the computer and file cabinet. A patient named David Blank.”

  “So, you think Blank did the killings, then deleted his appointment from the computer calendar and removed his file, but he didn’t know about the book.”

  “So I surmise. He was the last appointment the afternoon of the murder. The first appointment the next morning discovered the bodies and called the police. We’re pretty sure Blank had previous appointments, because the records show gaps in the doctor’s schedule. Several of them. Damned computers. Global search and delete. Handy for felons.”

  “Bits and bytes have no moral compass.”

  “If you say so. There’s a recorder over there on the desk. Some of the other patients said it was how Dr. Maxwell worked. She listened to her patients and recorded the sessions so she could review them later, then placed the tapes in the files. There’s no cassette in the recorder.”

  “So, David Blank wanted to remove all evidence of his having been a patient.”

  “Sure looks that way. And turns out he’s proving difficult to locate. The few David Blanks we can find have been eliminated as suspects, so all we have is a name. The David Blank in Hannah Best’s appointment book didn’t and doesn’t exist. Only he’s real, because he probably murdered these two women.”

  Quinn walked over and stared down at the taped outline on the floor, trying to imagine a human being lying there. A woman Renz had called a babe, with friends, family, and a medical degree. Looks, brains, she’d had it all, but had was the operative word. Don’t get sentimental. Maybe she didn’t have a family. But even I have a family. Some remnants of a family. The soon-to-be Franzine family. “If Blank did the deed after taking pains to create a false identity, he planned to kill the doctor from the beginning of his visits.”

  “Why would anybody do something like that?” Renz asked, sounding deeply perplexed. “Go to a shrink knowing you were setting up to kill her?”

  “I have no idea,” Quinn said. “But then, I don’t think I need one. Like you said, this doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “Still, it’d be nice to solve it. Throw some meat to the media wolves and take some heat off you.”

  And you. “I’ll point out one thing. There might have been someone else who deleted and removed files. Somebody more successful than David Blank at covering his tracks.”

  Renz looked at him with a kind of growing anger. “A killer who might have been a patient we never heard of and never will?”

  “It’s possible. Somebody who knew about or never made it into Hannah’s appointment book. Who wants you looking for David Blank instead of him.” Quinn motioned with an arm toward the file cabinets in the office, then toward the reception area on the other side of the wall. “How can we know what else might be missing?”

  Renz ran a hand down his face, stretching the flesh beneath his eyes so he looked mournful. “Jesus H. Christ! Leave it to you to make everything complicated.”

  “It’s what you get for leaving it to me, Harley. And almost everything is complicated, if you’re really trying to get at the truth.”

  “I’m not interested in the truth, Quinn. I’m interested in evidence. That’s all that counts in court.”

  Quinn thought Renz might have something there.

  He thanked Renz for calling him to the scene, then filled him in on what Pearl and Fedderman were doing and left.

  He didn’t try pointing out that evidence was supposed to lead to truth, no matter how it played in court. There were only so many links in Renz’s chains of logic.

  Enough to reach where he wanted to go, but no further.

  As Quinn closed the door on the bloodied office, he wondered if the law would ever catch up with David Blank.

  But then, it wasn�
�t his concern.

  54

  Successful decorators were a flighty bunch, flitting all over the city as if in a panic, difficult to catch up to. They were late there, in the wrong place here, ahead of schedule there. Apparently, they could arrange anything but time.

  Pearl finally located Victory Wallace at a crumbly red-brick building just off Christopher Street in the Village. It was obvious that the building was being refurbished. A tubular slide ran from a second-floor window down to a rusty Dumpster. The front shop window was covered with graffiti-marred plywood featuring BOOK ’EM ALL in large black letters. The first three letters looked somewhat suspicious, and Pearl could interpret the original message. Sometimes she shared the thought.

  Two vans and a pickup truck overloaded with debris-rotted lumber, broken wallboard, splintered lathing, an old door-were parked near the entrance. The building’s front door was not only open but off its hinges. Pearl wondered if it was the door in the truck.

  She heard hammering as she stepped inside. Daylight streamed narrowly in through the few unboarded windows, completely missing areas that were illuminated by flood-lights. A fine dust hung in the air. Plaster dust, Pearl assumed. A burly man in jeans and a sleeveless shirt was on a ladder, using a trowel to spread drywall mud over seams in newly applied wallboard. A skinny, shirtless teenage boy, his upper body covered with tattoos, was sanding dried applications of the putty-colored substance-the cause of so much dust. His dark hair had a film of gray over it, making him look prematurely aged. At the far end of the area, whose interior walls had been removed, a man in baggy overalls was using a circular saw on boards laid over a pair of sawhorses. To Pearl’s left, another workman was on a stepladder, wielding a red-handled hammer.

  In the middle of all this heavy-duty, purely practical activity stood an improbable figure in tight black leather pants, boots with built-up heels, and a sky blue shirt with puffy sleeves. Pearl wished she had the guy’s waist, not to mention his ass.

  “Are you Mr. Wallace?” she asked between passes with the power saw.