John Lutz - Pulse

She brought her elbows back so her breasts protruded, then gave her ass a lot of swing as she crossed the street and took up position on the corner in front of a closed tavern.

There was a NO PARKING TO CORNER sign there that made it possible for cars to pull to the curb. Weaver stuck out a hip.

“Everything seem to be working okay?” she asked the air.

The van’s headlights blinked on and off enthusiastically.

No sooner had that happened than a blue Lexus SUV pulled toward the curb near her. The driver-side tinted window dropped.

At first Weaver just stood there, then she sashayed around the car and peered in through the window. A guy in his fifties leaned toward her. He had a buzz haircut to disguise the fact that he had little hair anyway, and was wearing a jacket and tie. Mr. Executive. Maybe he was only going to ask for directions.

“You got a permit for those dangerous weapons?” he asked, nodding toward her boobs.

Weaver grinned. “Awww, how sweet.”

She realized that for some reason she’d laid on a Southern accent. She could imagine Mimms and Chick laughing back in the van.

“You working?” the man in the Lexus asked.

Weaver gave him her biggest smile. “Ah surely am. Ah cain’t just give it away.”

The man reached for his wallet, all the while unable to take his eyes off her. Mimms and Chick had told her the going rate on this corner was fifty. But what the hell, the guy was driving a Lexus. “Ah don’t come cheap.”

“A hunert dollars do it?”

“A hunert’ll get you somethin’ real special,” she said.

He held out a single bill. “You gotta earn it, sweetheart. Fifty up front, the rest afterward.”

“Ah do thank you for this,” Weaver said. She stood up straight, tucking the bill beneath her belt for the benefit of the camera and for Mimms and Chick.

She had the view from the SUV blocked, but she saw the van’s doors open and her two fellow cops emerge and start striding across the street. They were both grinning like hyenas, but they had on their deadpan expressions by the time they were flashing their shields and asking the Lexus driver to step out of his vehicle.

Mr. Executive began cursing Weaver as soon as his rights had been read. She ignored him and lit a cigarette. Smoked it in a long ivory-colored holder. For all she knew it was illegal to smoke here, but so what? It went with the outfit.

Mimms looked at her and rolled his eyes. Chick loved it.

They were right about the nooner business. It was brisk until almost two o’clock.

Weaver started having fun well before then.

It was approaching midnight, and Jerry Lido was out-and-out drunk.

Sober, he was an expert on the computer. Inebriated past a certain point, he was an Internet genius.

Tonight he’d sacrificed his sobriety in order to solve at least part of the nagging problem Quinn had laid in his lap.

As usual, he wrote everything down so he’d remember it when he recovered from his alcohol-saturated state the morning after. He wrote very carefully with a rollerball pen on a single sheet of lined paper. From time to time he would sit back and marvel at the fullness and clarity of his handwriting. The written English language could be so elegant! Such a beautiful thing in and of itself! It was poetry without poetry-insightful and inspiring.

He wondered just how drunk he was. He knew that a certain part of his mind was functioning very well indeed. Staring at the cursive glory of his thoughts on paper, he stifled a sob of joy. And yet…

A quill! He wished he had a quill to do his thoughts true justice.

Might there be a pigeon about?

He stood up unsteadily and stumbled to the window, threw it open and felt a bracing wall of cool air engulf him.

What?

What on earth would I want with a pigeon? And don’t ’t they sleep at night?

He staggered away from the open window, toward the sagging sofa. He fell forward on the sofa so that he was lying on his stomach, one arm dragging on the carpet.

Where do pigeons go at night? What do they do?

Gotta find out. Make a note to find out…

He drifted off to sleep, comfortable enough to coo.

When he awoke and focused a bleary eye on his clock radio, Lido was pleased to see that it was only 5:15. He could sleep a while longer, if he could contain himself and not jump up and hurry to Q and A.

He punched up his pillow and settled back into the bed’s lumpy mattress. Tossed. Turned.

Maybe he should call Quinn. He could be an early riser. Sometimes.

But when Lido heard a pigeon and glanced toward the window, he saw that there was something different about the light.

It seemed to be getting darker outside.

Must be something wrong with the sun.

Then he realized the sun was okay; it usually knew what time it was. Five-fifteen was the right time, only it was not morning but evening.

No wonder Lido’s head felt ready to explode. He snatched up the papers from the bedside table. His vision swam and he was having difficulty reading his wobbly handwriting. He did not even attempt to climb out of bed yet, but lay on his back, head propped on his pillow, and reviewed his notes.

The very fact that he had to decipher his own writing jolted his memory of what he’d accomplished last night. He’d managed to hack into and decipher encrypted e-mails that had been sent and received by the second Wisconsin victim, Sherri Klinger, and her teenage boyfriend, a kid named Rory. Sherri was distraught over the death of her dog, Duffy. The e-mail correspondence mentioned where Duffy had been buried by someone and then found and moved. It was very near where the two dead women were found buried. Rory hinted at having seen something horrible (his word) at that site. Lido assumed he was referring to the earliest victim being tortured.

Christ! What effect would that have on a teenage boy?

A hacking expedition into County Sheriff’s Department files indicated something that would surely interest Quinn. The panties on the earlier, unidentified victim didn’t fit her. Sherri’s panties, the later victim’s, were her usual label and their remnants suggested they’d been her size.

But the most intriguing thing about the other murder was that dates of several e-mails indicated that the teenage Rory not only knew about it, but knew about it before the police. He almost had to have witnessed it.

The Waycliffe college faculty e-mails, bearing more recent dates, were also curious. They referred vaguely to a secret agreement (called a compact) that they had no choice but to embrace. It seemed to be about something more important than money and possible jail time, which were pretty damned important. Some critical deadline had passed, and the truth now would bring ruination (Armageddon) to them and to an institution that was never named but was undoubtedly Waycliffe College.

It was also revealed that Waycliffe College’s investment account (hacking banks and brokerage firms was easy for Lido) was top-heavy with ownership in Meeding Properties. Lido recalled that Pearl’s daughter, Jody, was interested in that company. Something about eminent domain. Amazing how, when you followed the strings, they all led to the same ball of twine.

Quinn would surely now want to take in some of the faculty at Waycliffe, put them under the lights, sweat the truth from them, and find out about this secret they shared and that had come to possess them.

It seemed as if someone at Waycliffe might know something about whether Daniel Danielle was alive and on another murder rampage, or whether he had an imitator. The puzzle pieces that might fit and complete the image were out there, waiting to be picked up and tried. The fruit was ripe and ready to pluck.