John Lutz - Serial

“She okay?” he asked.

“We’ll find out soon,” Westerley said.

“Who did this?” Brannigan asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Westerley said.

“We’ll find the son of a bitch,” Billy said.

“God had best find him before I do,” Brannigan said.

“We’ll do the looking,” Westerley said, remembering Willis’s shotgun. He knew Brannigan owned several guns. Too many damned guns around here.

More gravel crunched out in the parking lot. This time it was the ambulance. Tight metal doors thunk ed shut almost in unison, and shortly thereafter came the sound of somebody entering the store.

“Back here!” Westerley yelled.

Two burly paramedics in white outfits came into the storeroom, making it suddenly seem small and cramped and very warm. Westerley was perspiring heavily and could feel the taut material of his tan uniform shirt sticking to his back.

He told the paramedics briefly what had happened, and they hurriedly set about bringing in a gurney and transferring Beth onto it. As they shifted her weight, the towel came half off her. There were leaves and dirt sticking to her nude body. One of the paramedics got a blanket over her in a hurry and kicked the towel to the side. Elvis’s eyes showed, somewhat rumpled, and seemed to be observing everything with mild interest.

“Lord, Lord…” Brannigan said in a choked voice. “I’m goin’ with her to the hospital.”

The paramedics looked at Westerley.

“He’s her husband,” Westerley said. For a moment he wondered how it would have felt to say he was Beth’s husband. Westerley’s own wife had left him three years ago, unable to stay married to a cop.

“You can ride in back, sir,” one of the paramedics said to Brannigan.

“Make absolutely sure they do a rape kit on her,” Westerley said softly to the other paramedic.

The paramedics rolled the gurney through the store and outside, handling it gently. Everyone followed. The night was dark but for the island of light where the convenience store stood. The ambulance’s flashing red and blue roof lights seemed inadequate, surrounded by all that vast darkness and silence. Moths flitted like stunned spirits before its headlights.

As the gurney’s wheels were raised and Beth was loaded into the ambulance, Brannigan walked about ten feet away and stood staring up at the sky. He suddenly howled, startling everyone. His jaws spread even wider and the tendons in his neck tightened like cables as he howled again, louder.

Then he calmly walked to the rear of the ambulance.

“The Lord doth have his reasons,” he said, and climbed into the vehicle after Beth.

One of the paramedics shut the ambulance’s rear doors. As he walked around to get in the passenger’s seat, he looked over at Westerley and rolled his eyes.

Westerley didn’t respond, thinking about Beth.

The three men stood and watched the ambulance spray gravel, then break from the lot. A couple of hundred feet down the road, its siren cut in.

“I’d like to know what those reasons are,” Billy Noth said. He turned his head off to the side and spat.

When the ambulance was out of sight and could no longer be heard, Westerley laid a hand on Willis’s bony shoulder.

“Take us to where this thing happened,” he said.

New York, the present

“I figured that sooner or later I’d see my good buddy Detective Quinn again,” William Turner said.

Quinn was back in the brownstone vestibule that smelled faintly of cat urine. Turner, the former manager and part owner of Socrates’s Cavern, had opened the door and was staring out at him, grinning. He didn’t look so much like Einstein today. With his meaty lips and gapped teeth, he had what could only be called a lascivious grin. It went so well with his former business that Quinn wondered if it might be practiced.

Turner wasn’t wearing a blazer and ascot today. He had on a shimmering purple silk kimono and the same fleecelined leather house slippers he’d worn during Quinn’s last visit. His curly gray hair still looked as if it would overwhelm any comb. His blue eyes were alight with amusement, as if Quinn had just told a joke. Or maybe Turner regarded Quinn simply being there as a joke.

“I heard on the news you found another Skinner victim,” Turner said, “so I suppose you’re here to ask me about Simon Luttrell.” The New York media had already tagged the killer the Skinner. He was going to be valuable to them. Turner opened the door wider and moved aside so Quinn could enter. “Ask away, Detective.”

“Do you have a cat?” Quinn asked.

Turner grinned wider and appeared quizzical. “Pardon me?”

“A ca-”

“No, no. I don’t much care for them.”

Quinn didn’t tell him why he’d asked. The acrid scent in the vestibule that seemed to clog the bridge of the nose. Well, maybe it was some kind of antiseptic cleaning fluid.

He sat down as he had before on the flowered beige sofa, facing Turner’s pottery collection. “It didn’t take long for the news media to pick up the name Simon Luttrell.”

Turner stayed with his grin, but it became knowing as well as lewd. “Prompt coverage is what you might expect, considering the name was scrawled in blood on the bathroom mirror, like with the last victim. And we both know how the NYPD leaks information.”

“Not every compartment is watertight,” Quinn admitted, “but the ship sails on.”

“Poetic and true.”

“Do you remember Simon Luttrell?”

“Never laid eyes on the man, that I can recall. No surprise. Our membership numbered well into the hundreds.”

“He had a gold key.”

“Ah, you’ve been doing your research.”

“Do you recall him now?”

“No. Sorry. Gold-key membership also numbered in the hundreds. It wasn’t as exclusive a club within a club that the members assumed.” Turner strode to a chair and sat down, causing the kimono to work up and reveal thin, bluish ankles. The reflective purple material was so full of static electricity that it actually struck sparks. “Look, Detective Quinn, all Simon Luttrell is to me is ancient history that I’m not particularly interested in and don’t even remember. And as far as I know, he isn’t part of the New York S and M world now.” The gap-toothed, nasty grin again. It came and went so easily on his fleshy face. “What I think,” he said, “is that someone clever is playing with your mind.”

“We’ve considered that,” Quinn said.

“And we both know it isn’t me.” Turner shrugged his narrow, rounded shoulders beneath the kimono. “But, when you’ve got dead tortured women, one after the other, and sexually adventurous men like Philip Wharkin and Simon Luttrell, or someone pretending to be their ghosts, who you gonna call? An old porn king, that’s who.” He sighed. “Hell, I guess it’s only natural. But it’s misguided.”

“How did you know Simon Luttrell was dead?”

“That leaky boat we talked about.”

Quinn decided not to comment. He stood up, not really surprised that he’d drawn a blank here.

Turner also stood. It took him a while, as a man grown old and slow. “You know the one part of me that doesn’t get stiff these days?” he asked.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to guess,” Quinn said as he moved toward the door.

His dismissiveness prompted Turner to further proclaim his innocence.

“I’ve got nothing to do with those killings, Detective Quinn, and I don’t know anyone who’d do such a thing. Hell, I’ve got a daughter myself.” He motioned with his head toward a photo in front of his pottery in the bookshelf. A bright-eyed young girl with springy dark hair grinned crookedly at Quinn from a tilted wooden frame.