John Lutz - Night Victims

“He did,” Horn said. “And only about three blocks from here.”

Paula stared over at the grisly sight of the half-exhumed body. Wouldn’t it be something . .

“Naw! Can’t be Mandle,” she said. “Might be somebody he shot, then he threw down the gun. Buried it with the body.”

“Probably the dead guy was one of the homeless,” Bicker-staff said. “Or a doper using the building as a place to cook and shoot up. Mandle surprised him and had to get rid of him.”

“Most likely thing,” Paula agreed.

“I can’t see Mandle leaving the gun behind,” Horn said. “Earlier that night his only weapon was a screw. So now he’s got a couple of guns and he tosses one away? He sure as hell wouldn’t care if it linked him with the crime, considering his position.”

“Panic?” Bickerstaff suggested.

“Not our boy,” Paula said.

Horn glanced over at the techs carefully excavating around the dead man. “Another gun lying anywhere around there?”

“There was just the one,” called back a tech. “We used a metal detector to look before we started digging.”

The toe of one of the dead man’s shoes had been unearthed and shone dully with reflected light.

And that’s when Horn realized what had been skittering along the edges of his consciousness for days, the piece he couldn’t recall and fit into the puzzle. The photograph of the faint footprint in the heat-softened tar on the roof of Alice Duggan’s building. Horn closed his eyes and conjured up an image of that footprint, the gentle curve of the impression in the tar.

And he was sure: the footprint on the roof had been made by the sole of a shoe on a right foot. A shoe.

But that would mean!. .

He walked over to where Harry Potter was stooping near the body. “I need to look at the right foot,” he said.

Puzzled, the little ME pointed. “Right there it is, sticking up out of the earth.”

“I mean take off the right shoe. I need to know about the foot.”

The ME stood up. “That’d be better done in the morgue, when we remove the rest of the clothes.”

“I need to know now,” Horn said, and something in his voice made the ME step away and nod his assent.

While the shoe was being carefully removed, Horn looked over at the confused Paula and Bickerstaff, standing and waiting.

“We got us one weird-looking big toe,” Harry Potter said behind him.

Horn turned and looked.

One weird looking big toe.

The decomposed body in the shallow grave was Aaron Mandle’s.

Which meant Mandle had died before Alice Duggan.

The second gun! The missing second gun!

It took Horn another ten seconds to figure out what it meant.

He strode past Paula and Bickerstaff and barely glanced at them. “Let’s go! Fast! I’ll explain later.”

“Go where?” Bickerstaff asked, picking up the pace and catching up with Horn.

“To Kincaid Memorial Hospital. Where Anne is.”

“But that right foot,” Bickerstaff said. “If this is Mandle’s body. .”

“Since the escape from the van,” Horn said, “we’ve been hunting a different SSF member. A second Night Spider.”

As they sped through crowded streets toward the hospital, Horn got back on his cell phone. First he called the hospital and told them to be on high alert. Then he phoned Rollie Larkin. He needed something sensitive done quickly by someone with pull.

He explained to Larkin what had happened and what was needed.

Larkin called back even before the car reached the hospital.

“Public records,” he said to Horn. “Easy enough to get, and fast, if you have the clout. Joseph Arthur Vine joined the army in late ‘94, did his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in ‘95. The odd thing is, no posting after basic training is listed for him.”

“That’s when he began his SSF training,” Horn said.

Bickerstaff, driving the unmarked, had to swerve to avoid a double-parked cab. Paula, in the front passenger seat, cursed loudly.

“What was that?” Larkin asked.

“Just New York. Can I ask another favor? Will you check with your sources again and find out if Aaron Mandle and Joe Vine ever crossed paths in the service?”

“We’re going beyond public records, Horn. It would have to be just between us, whatever I told you.”

“That’s how it’ll be.”

Larkin said he’d get back to Horn and hung up.

Horn saw that Paula had both hands on the dashboard, squeezing it.

He looked down and saw the fingers of his left hand digging into his thigh.

A woman about to cross the street almost fell backward. She screamed at the speeding unmarked. A delivery van screeched to a halt coming out of a building garage, braking so hard that several cartons bounced from an open front door. The driver leaned on his horn and shouted at Bickerstaff, who ignored him.

Paula glanced back at Horn, wide-eyed. Horn shrugged.

He decided Bickerstaff had been away long enough that his driving skills were rusty. But they’d reach their destination. With luck.

They were in the hospital elevator when Larkin called back. Horn stood listening with the cell phone pressed to his ear. Reception wasn’t great in the elevator, but he knew it wouldn’t be good at all when they got to Radiology, Anne’s department.

“Aaron Mandle and Joseph Vine trained in the same unit at Fort Leonard Wood in the spring of ‘95,” Larkin said, “after which they don’t appear in official army records. Like they never were. When we reached that point I lost my source. He sounded scared.”

“Thanks. The information means a lot.”

“I hope so, Horn. I hope it takes us where you think it will.”

The elevator lurched to a stop. Horn thanked Larkin again and broke the connection.

Larkin’s information meant Mandle and Vine knew each other before volunteering for their special units.

And maybe later.

Anne was at her desk. She knew what Horn would want and was already cleaning out some of her drawers, stuffing things into a large brown valise.

When she saw Horn enter, trailed by Paula and Bicker-staff, she had to smile. She felt a bit like a princess in a fairy tale who at any cost mustn’t be harmed by a dragon-or a spider. Right now, she didn’t mind the feeling.

She said hello to the trio and closed her desk drawers.

“I thought I’d have to do some work at home,” she explained.

Paula looked into her blue eyes and saw fear but no panic. So cool under this kind of pressure. Paula could understand why Horn had married her, why her marriage to a cop had survived so many years.

“Not exactly at home,” Horn said.

Anne paused and looked at him. “You’re calling in that promise I made to you?”

“It has to be that way.” He explained the situation, watching her expression change as he did so.

Paula watched, too. Almost panic in those eyes now. For only an instant. .

“That makes it intensely personal,” Anne said.

“And intensely dangerous.”

“What about the dead guard’s tooth that was left on my dresser?”

“Mandle’s grisly souvenir, but to his killer it looked like a calling card he could leave to establish the false impression that the Night Spider was on the hunt again.”

Anne rested a hand on the desk as if for support but didn’t actually lean her weight on it. “I’ll do what you say. Where am I going?”

“I’m thinking your brother’s cabin in upstate New York. He only uses it in the winter, for hunting. If we can get you there without anyone following, you should be safe. You’ll be heavily guarded there, too, of course.”

“I can call him,” Anne said, “find out where he hides the key.”