John Lutz - Urge to Kill

And what about Dwayne Avis, prime suspect alphabetically but not in any other way? Quinn realized with a jolt that identification with the prominent rental car agency had diverted his attention from the fact that avis was Latin for bird.

Apropos of nothing. But still…

On the other hand, Avis was unlikely. He was in his late fifties, in the outer range of age for serial killers.

Still, it was possible. While the psychologists might be right and it was a long leap from torturing and killing animals to torturing and killing women, maybe it worked in the other direction. The dogs might not have been first. They might have been used as some kind of stopgap between human victims. Grisly offerings to relieve the compulsion to kill.

Quinn had to do something, and he needed his computer and directories, the files on the women’s murders.

He got back into the car and drove toward the office on West Seventy-ninth Street. The hell with the media.

There were only about a dozen of them outside the office, perhaps because they thought the main narrative of the story they were simultaneously following and creating was over. Quinn brushed past them with relative ease, smiling and no-commenting every third step.

When he was inside, he ignored frantic, loud knocking and locked and chained the street door. This wasn’t a regular precinct house; there was no reason to keep it open when most of the neighborhood didn’t even know it existed.

He switched on the office lights and sat down at his desk, then booted up his computer. He ignored it while it was activating its underlying software, and instead turned his attention to his phone directories and the Dwayne Avis file.

There was plenty to be found on the arrest and conviction of Avis in Browne County in upstate New York for cruelty to animals.

It took Quinn about fifteen minutes to contact the Browne County Sheriff’s Office that had apprehended Avis. The officers who’d been involved in the case were no longer with the department, but the undersheriff (which Quinn figured was some kind of deputy) Quinn talked to had, like Quinn, a voluminous file on Dwayne Avis.

The undersheriff’s name was Tom Hazelhoff, and he held a dim view of Avis. “Guy’s quite an asshole,” Hazelhoff said, “but he don’t give us much trouble anymore. Keeps to himself, and the neighbors don’t call in about some poor dog yowling all night. Guy who’d do that to dogs…” Hazelhoff ’s voice trailed off in disgust.

“I hear you,” Quinn said. “I’m a dog man myself. Your files’d be more extensive than ours, since he was in your system and went to trial there. What I want to know about Dwayne Avis is whether that’s his real name. ”

“Hold on,” Hazelhoff said. “Lemme look.”

He was gone more than ten minutes. Quinn almost hung up.

Then his patience was rewarded. Hazelhoff came back on the line.

“It’s his real name, all right,” Hazelhoff said.

Quinn’s heart became a weight in his chest.

“He had it legally changed to Dwayne Avis twelve years ago when he came here from Missouri,” Hazelhoff continued, “from his Native American name, Wild Sky Hawk. It says here for reasons of convenience.”

That was when the building collapsed on Quinn. Or was it the truth and full understanding?

Dwayne Avis was Martin Hawk’s father.

It was the son who procured victims for his father, repaying old debts, or perhaps even out of twisted familial love or obligation. The son, Martin, had nothing to do with the actual slaughter. Martin Hawk had personally killed no one.

Suddenly it occurred to Quinn that Dwayne Avis must be aware of the barrage of media attention being given to the. 25-Caliber Killer case and the death of Martin Hawk, his son. Avis was isolated on his remote farm, but he surely had a generator, electricity, a radio or television.

“Quinn? You still there?”

“I am. Thanks, deputy.”

“Undersheriff. I hope I was of help.”

“Oh, you were. Can I ask another favor?”

“Sure can.”

“Get someone to Dwayne Avis’s farm soon as you can and hold him for questioning.”

“In regards to what?”

“Murder,” Quinn said. “Not dogs this time.”

“I’ll go myself,” Hazelhoff said.

“I were you, I’d take backup.”

But Hazelhoff had broken the connection and was gone.

An hour later, Hazelhoff called back.

“Avis wasn’t there,” he said. “There are indications that he’s fled. Couple of long guns are still in his farmhouse, and there’s a box, opened, with half a dozen twenty-five-caliber Springbok revolvers and ammunition. Ain’t that the kind of revolver was used-”

“It is,” Quinn said.

“Well, my guess is he mighta taken one or more of those guns with him. He’s probably headed someplace where you can’t walk around with a rifle or shotgun, but he’d still wanna be armed.”

“Agreed,” Quinn said. “You sure he’s fled, not just out somewhere and he might come back?”

“His dresser drawers are hangin’ open an’ there’s signs he’s grabbed some clothes from his closet. Half a carton of milk’s settin’ on the kitchen table, like he took a drink an’ didn’t bother to put the carton back ’cause he knew he wasn’t comin’ back. Didn’t even put the cap back on. The milk’s still cool, so he couldn’t have left very long ago. Also, you can see where he musta dragged somethin’ large an’ heavy off the closet shelf, left a big space an’ knocked a few things onto the floor. There’s an indentation on the mattress where it looks like a suitcase sat. Top of all that, that old truck of his is gone from behind the house. He’s fled, all right. No sign of where, though.”

Quinn thought he might know where. To New York City, to avenge his son’s death by killing the woman who’d caused it.

He hung up on Hazelhoff and called Pearl.

“Quinn,” she said, when she answered. “What’s up?”

“I don’t want to take time to explain, Pearl, but I want you to leave your apartment right now. Don’t take anything with you, just hang up the phone and go.”

“Go where, Quinn?”

“To the corner deli down the street from your apartment. Stay there till I show up.”

“I don’t understand this, Quinn.”

“Do you have to? Right now?”

“Damned right I do.”

“Can’t you trust me, Pearl?”

“Do I have to answer that?”

“Damn it, Pearl!” He surprised himself by how anguished he sounded.

“I can trust you,” she said, hearing the same thing in his voice. “Quinn-”

“Go, Pearl. Please! Go now!” Quinn broke the connection.

Quinn immediately phoned Renz and explained the situation, then asked Renz to send radio cars to intercept Avis if he happened to show up.

On the way outside to climb into the Lincoln, Quinn phoned Fedderman on his cell and told him what was happening.

Then he drove fast toward Pearl’s apartment.

It had been damned hard work. Must’ve been, or Hobbs wouldn’t be so winded. And his right arm was sore, as if he might have messed up his rotator cuff again.

He’d been drinking a while and figured he must have a snoot full, the way the room was tilting this way and that, making it difficult not to bump into things as he made his way toward the bed. It was like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

Hard work, but worth it. Teach the bitch a lesson.

After beating Lavern harder than he ever had, Hobbs staggered across the bedroom and fell onto the bed. He snorted a couple of times and then let out a long sigh. He lay there in peaceful drunken slumber as she crawled from the bedroom, certain that this time he’d broken one of her ribs completely. More than one. He had to have, the way he’d hit and kicked her.