by John Lutz
“No . . . ’course not. But . . .”
“So how about if we step inside and call out her name, look around to make sure she isn’t in there somewhere hurt and unable to get to a phone. Then we’ll leave.”
“What if the chain’s on?”
“Then we’ll call her name through the narrow door opening. If Nora doesn’t answer, and we know she’s inside because the chain lock is attached, we’ll know there might be something seriously wrong. She might be unconscious and need medical attention.” She smiled at him with perfect white teeth. “Make sense?”
“Makes sense,” Leonard admitted, and reached for the bulky key ring attached to his belt.
Michelle was surprised when there was a brief clatter and the chain lock stopped the apartment door after about four inches. She and Leonard exchanged glances. Genuine worry was gaining ground.
Michelle moved near the door and called Nora’s name three times. Then Leonard nudged her aside and put his face up to the space provided by the partly opened door. “Mizz Noon?” he boomed several times.
Silence.
“You got a bolt cutter?” Michelle asked.
Leonard nodded. “I’ll be right back, Michelle.”
He took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator, and within a few minutes returned with a long-handled bolt cutter.
The thick brass chain on Nora’s door didn’t stand a chance. It parted, and a severed link bounced noisily on the hardwood floor like a coin. The door swung open.
Leonard called Nora’s name again as Michelle let him lead the way inside.
The window air conditioner wasn’t running and the apartment was way too warm. Michelle stopped and stood still, touching Leonard’s shoulder so he’d stop, too. The two of them stood there. They both smelled the peculiar odor, like something . . . maybe meat . . . had been overdone to the point of becoming charred.
Leonard moved away toward the kitchen. Underlying that smell was a sharp, ammonia scent. Michelle, maybe because she did sense something terrible, made herself walk slowly to the bedroom she knew Nora used for sleeping and not storage.
She stood stunned in the doorway, staring at what was on the bed.
Leonard edged up behind her and looked over her shoulder.
“Oh, God!” he said, and squatted down, his head bowed.
Michelle turned to look at him. “If you’re going to puke, Leonard, try to do it out in the hall.”
Taking deep breaths, he straightened up slowly, carefully not looking again into the bedroom. His face was pale and perspiring, and his features were drawn tight as if he might cry. “I’ll be okay,” he said.
Michelle had long ago been married to a cop. He had told her about his work. Maybe too much. Too much communication could destroy a marriage. But it could also prepare a woman for what she might see at a murder scene.
She rested a hand on Leonard’s shoulder and guided him toward the door to the hall.
“We’re getting out of here and then I’ll use my cell to call nine-one-one,” she said.
“Right,” Leonard gasped, as if he were out of breath.
“Don’t touch anything,” she added.
“I don’t need reminding,” he said.
14
Hogart, 1991
The woods were dark, but Beth was familiar with them. She was making good time along a scarcely defined dirt path, Roy’s six-pack of beer tucked beneath her arm, when she heard a sound off to her right. She’d grown up in the country and spent time in the woods, even had camped in them as a young girl. She knew which sounds were natural and which weren’t. No animal moved in such a way, brushing low branches and taking even strides through the crisp carpet of last year’s dead leaves. No animal other than human.
Zombies, Beth thought, and she giggled. She’d watched an old zombie movie on TV last night, after Roy had fallen asleep. She hadn’t dreamed or thought about zombies since, though, until now.
Zombies on your brain, girl.
She made herself smile and continued her pace along the dirt path.
The sound she’d heard didn’t seem to move with her. The woods were silent now. More silent than they should be.
After about a dozen paces, she stopped. She knew she was approximately halfway through the stand of trees. Though there wasn’t the slightest breeze, she was aware of shadows on the periphery of her vision in slight motion.
Through the shadows, where the moonlight penetrated the canopy of leaves, she saw something shining. It was dark and metallic.
Beth got a firmer grip on the cool paper sack containing the beer and slowly moved forward.
She was relieved to see, parked off the path ahead of her, a motorcycle. A dark blue or black Harley, by the look of it. Nothing supernatural. No zombies. She heard herself breathe out her relief.
Something struck her from behind and she was on the ground. She’d landed with the sack in front of her, so that the six-pack of beer rammed into her stomach and drove the breath from her. She lay curled on her side, hearing her own half gasps, able to move only to draw her legs up after the shock of being unexpectedly knocked down.
Then, realizing what was happening, she became paralyzed with fear.
She could only occasionally glimpse her attacker in the moonlight as he ripped her shorts and panties and worked them down her legs. She tried to scream but made no sound. Her lungs wouldn’t work. He was laughing low in his throat, knowing she was breathless and helpless, without even the means to scream. Taking his time. Being methodical. Enjoying himself.
She got only a brief look at his face in profile, and not a clear look. He had long, stringy dark hair and a full beard. He was heavy, and strong, with a belly that hung over his jeans. His breath smelled like onions and gasoline, though she knew the gas smell had to be from the nearby Harley.
Her head was forced back so her mouth gaped open, and he placed his hand over her mouth in such a way that it stayed in front of her teeth and she couldn’t bite him. Struggling not to choke, she tasted oil and grit from the man’s palm and thick fingers. The edge of his palm pressed against her nostrils so she couldn’t breathe.
Then the man was on her. He weighed so much more than Roy. He was crushing her. His weight lifted momentarily and he pried her bare legs apart. She tried to kick but could only wave one calf helplessly in the air. She heard one of her rubber thongs land near her left ear.
His free hand was between her legs, his fingers oily. A later examination would reveal that oil was used as a lubricant for the rape. Valvoline thirty-weight.
He was on her again. In her! Piercing deep and hard, moving back and forth inside her. He quickly built up a desperate, driving rhythm. She knew it wasn’t going to last long, but it hurt so much. She had her teeth clenched and realized she was breathing again, slightly, through her nose. Because he was letting her.
This can’t be happening! Not to me!
She became someone else, moving off to the side, an onlooker who, thank God, couldn’t see through the darkness of the night.
She hid from what was happening. Hid in the darkness until it was finally over.
Huffing and puffing noisily, the man partially raised his weight from her. Then he patted her on her bare side, as if she’d done a good job. Was he thanking her for keeping quiet? Weren’t you supposed to scream as loud as you could if you were being raped? Beth had read that somewhere or heard it on TV, but she didn’t want to imagine what might happen to her if she did manage to scream.
He placed one hand on her head, and the other on her right thigh, using her to brace himself as he stood up. Suddenly his weight was off her entirely. She felt her shirt yanked up to cover her head.
She lay curled and quiet on her side, not attempting to stand.
The woods were silent.
It seemed as if forever passed.
Beth tried a scream and merely choked. Tried again.
This time she emitted a loud screech.
Then several more.
>
A great roar startled her and she drew her body into a ball.
Another roar. She recognized this one as a motorcycle engine.
The cycle gave two loud, abrupt snarls, as if issuing a final warning to Beth, and then roared intermittently and unsteadily as it made its way along the narrow path. Beth heard the Harley clear its throat like a triumphant beast as it broke from the woods. A few seconds later it emitted a steady yowl as it reached the state road.
Beth screamed some more, and then fell silent.
She continued to lie on her side, motionless. She didn’t want to rejoin the world outside the woods anytime soon. The darkness that had been her enemy had now become her ally and protector. Time moved for her, but slowly and in a disjointed manner.
Willis, at the convenience store, heard the scream when he stepped outside to bring in his LIVE BAIT folding sign.
He was sure it wasn’t an animal.
15
New York, the present
Mishkin and Vitali phoned Quinn on their way to the Nora Noon crime scene and arrived before anyone other than the two uniforms who’d taken the call in their radio car. One of the uniforms, a guy named Sorkin, had worked before with the two detectives and nodded to them. Sorkin had a long, lean face dotted with moles. His features were pale, making the moles more prominent, and he was perspiring. Vitali knew it would take a lot to bring about that kind of physical reaction in the veteran cop.
They were in the hall outside an open apartment door.
“We got a dead woman in the bedroom,” the other uniform said. A black man with a small, neat mustache and sad eyes with a lot of white showing beneath the dark irises. Sorkin nodded as if to show that he agreed with his partner.
Before entering the apartment, Vitali glanced over at a graceful, astonishingly attractive woman with black hair and high cheekbones. Alongside her was her physical opposite, a sweaty, chubby guy in dark green work clothes. They were down the hall about twenty feet, pretty much out of earshot.
“Those two are the building super and a friend of the vic,” Sorkin said.
“Which one’s the super?” Vitali asked in his gravel-pan voice.
“Not the time to joke, Sal,” Mishkin admonished him. He looked at Sorkin with his mild blue eyes. “Go on with what you were saying.”
Sorkin bobbed his head. “They discovered the body when they found the chain lock on and nobody answered their knock or call. Michelle, that’s the female one, had an appointment with Noon and she never showed. Michelle couldn’t raise her on the phone or by knocking, so the super—he’s the—”
“We know,” Mishkin said.
“Well, he couldn’t get in with his key because of the chain lock. Michelle told him to go get a bolt cutter, and he did.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Vitali growled.
“They smelled something coming from the bedroom, like what you can smell even out here.”
“Not barbecue,” Sorkin’s partner said.
“We’ll go in and have a look,” Vitali said. “Hold on to Michelle and the super, figuratively speaking, so we can get their statements.”
“I get Michelle,” Sorkin’s partner said.
Mishkin gave him a withering look.
“Everybody on the way?” Vitali asked.
It was Sorkin who answered. “Sure, we called it in. That’s procedure. You know that. Crime scene unit’s on the way, along with the ME, some real detectives—excuse me, Sal, but I mean, you two guys have gone private.”
“Semi-private, in this case,” Sal said.
“What exactly does that mean?” Sorkin asked.
“We got special powers even though we’re once removed, like a divorced father on visiting day.”
Sorkin seemed to think that over and find it adequate.
Mishkin removed a small tube from a pocket, squeezed a worm of something onto the tip of his right forefinger, and smeared it into his bushy gray mustache. The eye-watering smell of menthol displaced the faint odor of scorched flesh. If he didn’t supplant the various stenches of death with the overriding pungency of mentholated cream, Mishkin’s stomach sometimes acted up at homicide scenes.
“Ready, Harold?” Vitali asked.
Mishkin dried his finger with a handkerchief, nodded, and they went in.
The first thing they noticed was the blood. It was all over the body. Then it became obvious that some of it wasn’t blood, but the red of raw flesh showing at the edges and beneath where skin had been sliced. Peeled flesh. The victim appeared to have been partially skinned alive. Some of her pale skin was dangling in shreds, left attached at the top and narrowing to points at the bottom. There was more blood that had come from where skin had been broken on the victim’s wrists and ankles, from her struggle against the pain.
Pain showed in every line and angle of her face, as if she still suffered even in death. Like the first victim, her eyes were fixated with horror and staring at nothing. There was a thin silver chain around her neck, bearing the letter S.
On the nightstand next to the bed was an electric hair curler. Sal noted that it had been switched off. He also noted the dozens of narrow rectangular burns all over the victim’s nude body. Burns where they would hurt the most. Was she burned before or after the partial skinning? Any of the injuries would have caused the victim to lose consciousness, but there had been no relief from the pain. As with the last victim, around this one lingered the faint but sharp odor of ammonia. Vitali figured Harold might not have needed his mentholated cream this time.
“Sadistic bastard!” Harold said.
“The window’s partly opened over there,” Vitali said. “That’s why the chain lock was on. He locked her in before going down the fire escape.”
Noises behind them made them turn, figuring it was the crime scene unit, or even real detectives.
It was Quinn.
“Feds is out in the hall interviewing the super and the woman who found the body,” he said. “Pearl’s on the way.”
Sirens began echoing through the city’s stone canyons. Everyone stood and listened for a moment, and it became obvious the yowling was headed in their direction.
Of course, all that yowling didn’t mean the vehicles were making good time in Manhattan traffic. Emergency vehicles could howl and yodel as if they were doing ninety while sitting perfectly still blocked in by cars.
“Bet you Pearl will beat them here,” Sal said.
Quinn shook his head. “I wouldn’t bet against Pearl.”
He strained forward toward the corpse, noticing something, then went over and looked more closely at one of the bound and bloody ankles.
“Looks like something, probably a finger, has been dragged through this blood,” he said.
They all glanced around, and then moved toward the bathroom at the same time. The other two detectives fell back in deference to Quinn and let him enter first.
There were bloodstains in the white basin and on white towels. But most of the blood was on the medicine cabinet mirror, where it had been used to write what presumably was a man’s name: Simon Luttrell.
Quinn left the bathroom and moved through the bedroom and down a short hall to the living room. Sorkin and his partner were still there, the partner leaning in the doorway, Sorkin visible outside in the hall. Guarding the crime scene even though Harley Renz’s growing and unhealthy influence had gotten Quinn and his team inside before the yellow tape went up.
Quinn nodded at the two uniforms as he went out into the hall. The sirens were right outside now, some of them growling to silence. They were going to beat Pearl here after all.
Fedderman, standing with pencil and notebook and talking to Michelle Roper, looked over at Quinn.
“Do either of you know or know of someone named Simon Luttrell?” Quinn asked.
“He don’t live in the building,” said the super immediately.
Michelle gave the question a few more seconds’ thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”
/> Quinn nodded and said, “Come on into the apartment when you’re done here, Feds.”
“Just a few more questions,” Fedderman said.
“You hear that a lot on TV,” the super said.
Quinn edged his way around Sorkin and his partner and went back into Noon’s apartment. Mishkin was standing in the living room. Vitali came in from the hall that led to the bedrooms and bathroom.
“The bedroom she’s not in,” Vitali said. “It’s full of nothing but clothes. I mean really full of clothes.”
“The second bedroom, you mean?” Mishkin asked.
Vitali stared at him.
“How would you know which is which, Harold?” Mishkin could be a trial sometimes. Vitali bore him like a cross.
“The second one’s usually smaller. Did you check to see about size?”
“It’s not supposed to matter,” Vitali growled. “The thing is, that bedroom’s damn near bursting open, what with all the clothes in there. Most of them are on hangers, but some are just piled on the floor. I mean, a hell of a lot of clothes.”
“Maybe she was in some kinda clothes business,” Mishkin ventured.
“Nothing in there looked secondhand to me, Harold.”
“Maybe she was a designer,” Mishkin said.
Sal smiled. “Or a master of disguise.”
“Wouldn’t it be mistress of disguise?” Mishkin asked.
“Not unless she was a dominatrix or some married guy’s secret girlfriend.”
“Couldn’t she be both?”
Quinn knew what they were doing, cracking wise to stay sane, to scare away the ghosts. Cops had to learn to do that, if they were going to last.
He stopped listening to Vitali and Mishkin as he heard a commotion in the hall, a lot of clinking and clacking of equipment along with hurried, shuffling footfalls on the carpet. The sirens outside were fully stopped now. The troops had arrived, and in force. Sorkin and his partner moved back as if facing a tsunami to give them a clear route to the apartment.
