John Lutz - Darker Than Night

Would Ron have done such a thing? Had he even had the opportunity?

Unexpected presents were one thing. They were eccentric, weird, even, but flattering and not at all scary. Though they sure as hell made you wonder. She stared at the blank white bulk of the humming refrigerator. This was different. This was eerie.

She went to the left sink cabinet and opened it, then reached in through the hinged lid of the plastic trash can and felt beneath the loosely folded paper towel on top. Then she felt deeper beneath the paper towel.

Nothing. At least, not what she expected to feel despite her icy hunch.

She removed the plastic lid and looked to be sure.

The box of chocolates she’d thrown away last night was gone.

Pearl sat at her kitchen table and sipped from a bottle of water. She’d just finished a late-night snack of leftover pizza, which had been warmed and zapped of all form and structure in the microwave. It had become a kind of edible Dali painting-surreal, like her world.

She could feel the beginnings of trouble, a gentle, hypnotic draw that could deceive and suck her into a maelstrom if she’d let it. If she fell for it.

As she sometimes did.

She found herself thinking about Quinn too often. He’d seemed at first so much older that an affair with him wasn’t an option. She wasn’t one of those helpless, hopeless women looking for a substitute father.

But he actually wasn’t that old. Besides, she had a birthday coming up.

It was the weathered look to his features that made him appear older, as if he’d spent a hard life in the outdoors and the sun had leathered and seamed his features. A difficult life, especially lately, buffeted by storms within and without. With a face that suggested character and toughness even if masculine beauty had passed with the years and hard knocks. She could imagine him slouched in the saddle on a weary horse, overlooking a windswept plain. Big white horse, since he was the hero of her imagination.

Bastard belongs in a cigarette commercial, not in the NYPD.

She finished her water and smiled at her own recklessness. She didn’t always have to be her own worst enemy. Sometimes she was like a kid who couldn’t help reaching out and touching a flame.

She leaned back and looked at the stained and cracked kitchen walls that had once been some weird yellow color. She knew what she should do now. She should paint. Everything she needed to brighten up the place-brushes, rollers, scraper, drop cloths, masking tape, five gallons of colonial white paint-was waiting in the hall closet. And she had the blessing of the landlord. One thing about a dump like this, she could do what she wanted here, short of setting it on fire. Yes, she should paint.

Pearl knew she could spend the next few hours at least getting started on the job, maybe finish a couple of walls, and still have time to get a good night’s sleep before meeting Quinn and Fedderman tomorrow morning.

She also knew she wouldn’t paint. She had the Elzner case for an excuse.

She couldn’t put out of her mind what Quinn had said about the Elzners not necessarily being the first victims, but maybe simply the latest, of a serial killer who did couples. It seemed to Pearl that Quinn was working on insufficient knowledge to make such a statement. On the other hand, this wasn’t an ordinary man or an ordinary cop. He’d been right a lot of times in his long career.

Couples. Why would anyone want to murder couples? Resentment? Because they were happy couples and he was single and unhappy? Not likely. How many single, unhappy people were out there wandering around and not killing anyone? In New York alone?

Me. I’m a suspect.

So’s Quinn.

Depressing thought.

Okay, enough. Time to give up and go to bed.

She stood up from the table and placed her empty glass in the sink, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She secured the apartment all the way, chain lock and dead bolt, and turned out the lights, so there was only the illumination from outside that filtered through the flimsy drapes. On her way to the bedroom she gave the hall closet containing the paint and supplies a wide berth and didn’t glance in its direction.

At least I didn’t succumb to that temptation.

She made a detour into the bathroom to wash down an Ambien, which the doctor had prescribed so she could escape her thoughts and go to sleep. The pills worked okay, but she didn’t want to take too many and become dependent, so she spaced them out, trying not to take them on successive nights.

This was a logical night for one of the pills, what with the microwaved pizza’s potential effect on her dreams. Pepperoni and anchovies. She wasn’t about to give her subconscious and stomach that kind of chance to team up against her. It was a pill night for sure. Her belly was already growling in pizza protest.

Nude but for her oversize dark blue NYPD T-shirt, the window air conditioner humming and rattling away as it sent a cool breeze over her bare legs, she lay on top of the sheets and thought about the Elzner case.

Which led her to think about Quinn.

There he was again, slouched on his damned horse.

C’mon, pill!

Marcy Graham woke again from the dream she’d been having lately. Someone would be in the room with her and Ron, standing at the foot of the bed, watching them sleep. She would drift nearer and nearer to consciousness, then come all the way awake with a start.

And there would be no one there.

Again! So real!

She sat up in bed and looked around in the dimness, then relaxed and lay back, noticing her sheet and pillow were damp with perspiration though the room was cool. Ron stirred beside her, then sighed and rolled over onto his side, facing away from her. She took comfort in his bulk, in his nearness.

Yet she couldn’t return to sleep, so real was that dream. More real than at other times, she realized. She could almost recall the man’s dark form, the silent, motionless way he stood and stared.

But it didn’t make sense, any of it. What kind of maniac would want to simply watch other people while they slept?

Unless he wasn’t simply watching. Maybe he was making sure they were asleep so he could…do what? Something else? Something more? Knowing he wouldn’t be disturbed.

Marcy flung herself onto her side and fluffed her pillow so violently she woke up Ron. He rolled onto his back and looked over at her.

“Somethin’ wrong?” His voice was slurred by sleep.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah. I gathered s’much. Wha’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Fine.”

“Something!”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

He breathed in deeply and sighed. “An’ you want me to find out.”

“Would you?”

Instead of answering, he sat up and opened the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed. She knew he kept a souvenir baseball bat there, but while it was a miniature bat, bearing Sammy Sosa’s signature, it made a handy club about the size of a policeman’s nightstick.

She watched his muscular, slope-shouldered form, dressed in white undershorts and sleeveless undershirt, cross the room and go into the hall, saw the hall brighten as lights in the living room came on. She could hear him moving around out there, checking things, looking where someone might hide, opening closet doors. Master of his domain, stalking a possible enemy who’d gotten through the defenses.

Suddenly uncomfortable alone in the dim room, Marcy climbed out of bed and went to join him. Besides, if by some remote chance an intruder was in the apartment, two against one would be better than just Ron-though Marcy sure didn’t want to put that to the test.

Ron was standing in the middle of the living room, the miniature bat held low in his right hand.