John Lutz - Serial

Another flash of lightning illuminated the night. Rain began falling in a torrent.

When Beth picked up the phone again, a strange thing happened. Some of her fear disappeared, and it was replaced by an odd kind of exhilaration. This was really happening. She was about to become a mother.

She made her call, alerting what had obviously been a soundly sleeping Westerley, who came awake in a hurry.

“You sure?”

“I wouldn’t have called if I wasn’t,” Beth said. “You told me-”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was putting on my pants. How close together are the contractions?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“We got some time, then. Stay calm.”

“I’m glad you know something about this. What was that?”

“Knocked over a lamp. Oww! Damn it!”

“Sheriff? Wayne? You okay?”

“Yeah. Stubbed my toe. You stay calm and I’ll be there before you know it.”

“Wayne?”

“I’m leaving. I’ll see you soon.”

There was a crash, and he hung up.

Beth lay in bed smiling, until the next contraction.

The seven-pound-four-ounce baby boy was born at 6:07 that morning. The birth had been accomplished without complications. It hadn’t been easy for Beth, but it was less painful than she’d expected.

Sheriff Westerley had stayed at the clinic throughout the ordeal of birth. He came into her room a few minutes after the nurses had given Beth the infant to hold.

He leaned over the bed, and she thought he might kiss her on the forehead. Instead he straightened up and smiled down at her.

“He look’s like he’s got all his parts,” he said.

She laughed. That hurt a bit, but the pain didn’t dent her relief and euphoria. “I’m gonna make you his godfather.”

“Fine with me,” Westerley said. “In fact, I’m honored.”

On the birth certificate Beth used her maiden name, Colson. The space for father was filled in with unknown. Beth named the baby Edward Hand, after her grandfather. Her son would be Edward Hand Colson.

Beth, lying in bed with her eyes closed and with an inner peace that she’d never believed possible, was already thinking of him as Eddie.

New York, the present

Fedderman and Penny Noon were eating pasta at Vito’s Restauranti in Lower Manhattan. The food was a lot better than the neighborhood.

“The angel-hair pasta’s terrific,” Penny said, winding another bite around the tines of her fork, “but I wouldn’t risk coming here alone for it.”

“Mean streets,” Fedderman said. He had on the new suit and looked better than merely respectable.

Penny paused in her winding and raised her eyebrows. “You’ve read Chandler?”

“And Hammett,” Fedderman said. “We detectives like detective fiction. It gives us a break from the real thing.”

“The novels aren’t realistic?”

“Sometimes, but not usually,” Fedderman said. “Down in Florida, when I was sitting fishing and not catching anything, I read a lot.”

“Just detective fiction?”

“Mostly. Connelly, Grafton, Parker, Paretsky, Mosley…”

“Those are fine writers.”

“I left out a lot who are just as good. There’s this guy in St. Louis…”

“Something about you,” Penny said. “When we met I knew somehow you had a literary bent.”

Fedderman took a sip of the cheap house red. He’d never considered himself the literary sort. He realized Penny was doing something for him, lifting him in ways he hadn’t suspected possible.

“Sometimes your boss, Quinn, seems like a character out of a book,” Penny said.

“A good book?”

“The best. There’s something about him. He can make you trust him. And he’s handsome in a big homely way. Like a thug only with a brain. It’s easy to see that people respect him. And sometimes fear him.”

“It can be the same thing,” Fedderman said.

“Have you ever seen Quinn angry?”

“Sure have. And sometimes he’s angry and you don’t know it. That’s what’s scary. He’s tough in ways that are more than physical.”

“You obviously respect him.”

“I know him. He’s a good man. We’ve been friends for a long time. Rode together in a radio car back in another era.”

“Has police work changed that much?”

“Society has. Police work changed along with it.”

Penny was going to ask what Fedderman meant by that when his cell phone buzzed.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling apologetically as he dug the phone from a pocket and checked caller ID. He delayed making the connection. “It’s Quinn.”

“Of course. He sensed we were discussing him.”

Fedderman pressed TALK. If the call was one he didn’t want Penny to overhear, he was ready to remove his napkin from his lap and stand up from the table.

But it was Quinn who did most of the talking, and the call promised to be brief: “We’ve got another Skinner victim, Feds. Woman named Judith Blaney.” He gave Fedderman Blaney’s address.”

“On my way.”

After breaking the connection and slipping the phone back in his pocket, Fedderman said, “That’s something that hasn’t changed about police work. We get a call, day or night, and we have to respond.” He reached across the table with his right hand and stroked the back of Penny’s hand, so delicate and smooth. “I’m sorry.”

“We both are,” she said. “But I understand.”

Fedderman noticed that his right shirt cuff was unbuttoned. He raised his arm to fasten it, at the same time waggling a finger to summon their waiter.

“I’ll put you in a cab, then I’ll have to drive cross-town,” he told Penny. He’d driven them to the restaurant in the unmarked and had it parked outside near a fire hydrant.

The waiter arrived with the check and surveyed their half-eaten food. “Wanna box?” he asked.

Fedderman, who’d planned on spending the evening with Penny in her apartment and wanted to punch someone, felt like telling him yes, he did want to box, but instead declined.

Penny accepted the waiter’s offer, but she had in mind angel-hair pasta rather than pugilism.

When he glanced across the room, over what was left of Judith Blaney, Quinn saw Fedderman enter the apartment. Fedderman had his designer suit on, causing a few of the uniformed cops and white-clad techs to regard him with new respect. Maybe Fedderman had been elevated to their superior in some way they didn’t yet know.

It was a good thing the victim’s apartment was spacious. Vitali and Mishkin were also there, along with Pearl. Nancy Weaver, in plain clothes, was also there, and nodded to Fedderman, or to the suit. Nift was at work on the body. The techs were doing the dance of white gloves. The two uniformed cops who’d taken the squeal stood near the door, controlling entrance and egress. They were Bob Stanze and Paul Goldak, two of the NYPD’s best. Fedderman wondered if they’d just happened to take the call or they were there by design because Judith Blaney was somebody important. The apartment was big and in an expensive neighborhood-but not that expensive for Manhattan.

“Was she queen of something?” Fedderman asked Stanze, as the handsome young cop moved to block the entrance again.

“Office manager for Bleaker and Sunshine, Mad Avenue ad agency.”

Fedderman must have looked blank.

“You know, the talking goose?” Stanze said.

“Oh, yeah. The Southern Morgan Bank commercials.”

“Blaney must have known everything the goose was gonna say,” Goldak said. He was a small man with a big heart, and a kidder. It was impossible to know if he was joking or suggesting a possible motive.

Quinn, wondering what they were talking about, motioned Fedderman over.