John Lutz - Chill of Night

They were in Central Park, where da Vinci requested the meeting with Beam. Which rather amused Beam. Had they reached the point where da Vinci didn’t want to be seen with him?

Beam turned so the late afternoon sun wasn’t glinting off the photo. “It looks like a big red number six.”

“Know what it stands for?” da Vinci seemed agitated now. Where had the cool young bureaucratic climber gone. “That’s the number of victims the Justice Killer’s notched. That photo’s of the news on Channel One a couple of hours ago. They were reporting on that press conference you advised me to hold.”

Beam nodded and waited. He didn’t see where da Vinci was going with this.

“The papers haven’t had time to get it out yet,” da Vinci said, “but do you know what tomorrow’s gonna be like for me, Beam? The main media’s gonna be all over me, wanting to know why we aren’t closing in on this sicko. Why we didn’t realize until recently that we had a serial killer operating in the city.”

“Didn’t they hit you with those kinds of questions at your press conference?”

Da Vinci glared up at a blue jay that was nattering at him from a nearby tree, as if the media had sent the bird to antagonize him. “I didn’t take questions.”

Beam was surprised. “I thought that was the idea of the press conference.”

“No. My idea was to get the information out there, let the public know through the media what’s going on.”

“Do it that way, it just makes you look like you’re trying to duck questions,” Beam said.

“That’s exactly what I was doing. Because I don’t have answers. You and your detectives were supposed to supply me with answers.”

Beam gave him a level look. “Is this supposed to be a chewing out?”

“Of course not. I know what you’re up against.”

“Then why’d you request this meeting?”

Da Vinci seemed at a loss for words. He gave a nervous, crooked grin like the kind Tony Curtis used to in the movies. Beam wondered if da Vinci was aware of his resemblance to the movie star and had studied those expressions. Maybe even practiced them in front of a mirror.

Beam said, “You asking my advice again?”

Da Vinci seemed suddenly calm. A pretty blond woman, perched high on in-line skates, glided past on the path behind him. The skate wheels made a rhythmic growling sound that became fainter with distance. “I guess maybe that’s part of it,” he admitted, glancing after the woman. “Isn’t that some ass?”

“I noticed, even at my age. My advice is the same as before-get out ahead of it.”

“It is the result of getting out ahead,” da Vinci said. The blue jay fluttered to a lower limb, closer, and was definitely observing da Vinci.

“You should have fielded questions, told them anything.” Beam thought that if they knew bird language, it would be clear that the jay was cursing at da Vinci.

“They don’t settle for anything,” da Vinci said, “and now I’m in a shit storm.”

“You were gonna be anyway. If not today, tomorrow. Today woulda been better, cut down on media speculation. Not much better, but better.”

“You know the kinda pressure goes with this? From the mayor on down to the commissioner, to the chief, then down to me, and then to you and your detectives.” The blue jay flew at da Vinci’s head and he slapped at it and missed. “The hell’s wrong with that thing? Don’t it like me?”

“Not so you could tell.”

“Anyway, you heard what I said.”

“You forgot somebody in that chain of increasing pressure,” Beam said. “The killer. Sure, he’s gotten some of the notoriety he wanted, but he knows now there’s an army of cops searching for him. That brings about a certain amount of pressure.”

“You said it yourself, though, he’ll enjoy the publicity.”

“He will. Like some of us enjoy walking the edge of a cliff. The publicity brings us closer to catching him.”

The jay zoomed at da Vinci again. He swatted at it, then walked about twenty feet farther away from the tree. “Must have a nest in there.”

“Must,” Beam agreed.

“All the noise in the news might bring something else closer,” da Vinci said. “Number seven.”

Beam knew he was right. And in a perverse way, he was almost looking forward to victim number seven. Every murder was a tragedy, but it was also a card to play. It was all the more likely they’d be able to stop this killer if he did more of what they were trying to stop. Ironic.

Beam didn’t like irony. He was a cop. He liked things to the point, black or white, right or wrong.

Alive or dead.

“I swear,” da Vinci said, “if that friggin’ bird flies at me again, I’m gonna blast it with my nine-millimeter.”

The jay knew when to quit.

Tina Flitt and her husband, Martin Portelle, sat on the balcony of their twenty-first floor East Side apartment and watched dusk settle over New York. They felt fortunate.

Martin, a stocky, bald man with mild gray eyes and a scraggly beard grown to compensate for his lack of hair up top, had nothing about him in youth portending success. Yet here he was, a highly paid acquisition appraiser for a major holding company.

His wife, Tina, was a smallish woman in a way that suggested extreme dieting, and was pretty in an intense, dark-eyed fashion. She was a defense attorney. The two had met in court, when Martin was jury foreperson in the trial of the infamous Subway Killer, Dan Maddox. Tina had been one of the jurors. Maddox had been acquitted.

Martin used the remote to switch off the small Sony TV they used on the balcony. They’d been watching Channel One news. A special titled Six and the City. It was all about the victims whose deaths were attributed to the Justice Killer.

“Six so far,” Tina said. “New Yorkers are getting frightened.”

“Or the media wants us to see it that way.” Martin sipped the vodka martini he’d brought with him out to the balcony. The greed and paranoia of the media were subjects he could talk on for hours.

“Anybody who’s served as jury foreperson in the past ten years has reason to worry,” Tina told him.

“Only if the defendant got off in court, but was convicted in the media.”

“That list of forepersons could include a lot of people.”

Martin smiled. “It includes me, counselor.”

“I don’t find it particularly amusing,” Tina said. She didn’t like it when Martin called her counselor. It was as if he had little respect for her profession.

An emergency siren sounded far below, a police car or ambulance shrieking protest at the uncooperative traffic.

“You worry too much,” Martin said, reaching across the glass-topped table and squeezing Tina’s delicate hand. He was careful not to squeeze too hard; his wife was one of those women addicted to rings, and wore three on each hand.

“You haven’t met some of my clients.”

“You get them off,” Martin said. “Sometimes when they don’t deserve to walk.”

“They all deserve legal representation.” This was a discussion Tina and Martin had almost worn out.

Martin released Tina’s hand and leaned back in his chair. He wished she’d practice some other form of law. Four months after his acquittal, ten years ago, the acquitted Maddox had pushed a woman into the path of an oncoming subway train. It had shaken Martin’s faith in the legal system, his faith in the world. He’d felt responsible for the woman’s death, and for six months he was clinically depressed. He was in analysis for years. Even as he and his fellow jurors had voted Maddox out of legal jeopardy and back onto the streets, they’d strongly suspected he was a killer.

But “suspected” wasn’t enough. The defendant’s confession had definitely been made under duress, and was disallowed by the judge, who’d had no choice. So the jurors voted to acquit, because they had no choice.