John Lutz - Chill of Night

It was a sound bite, rather than an image, that caused her to pause at the next channel: “…says the judge is considering having the jury sequestered.”

Melanie passed the channel, went back to it, and saw that a commercial featuring a talking duck was coming on.

She switched off the TV so she’d neither hear nor see it. And she’d stopped herself from buying a newspaper from the vending machine at the corner. But it seemed almost impossible to escape news about the trial.

Judge Moody had apparently come to the same conclusion. That must be why she was thinking about sequestering the jury.

Melanie didn’t want that to happen, to be cooped up in a hotel room somewhere in town, probably sharing it with another juror to save money for the city. And how difficult would it be for the jurors not to discuss the case with each other if they were held hostage in a hotel, probably taking their meals together, living under watch, and riding back and forth with each other every day in vans?

Of course, those weren’t the only problems. The court paid a pittance to jurors, not nearly enough to make up for their stopped paychecks. Certainly not enough to slow Melanie’s financial slide! Her bills kept coming, and seemed even to have stepped up their assault on her checking account.

Savings?

Forget savings. Melanie needed to get back on the job.

Regal Trucking had been long enough without her office management skills. Trucks would be loaded with the wrong cargo; bills of lading would be misplaced; cargo would arrive at the wrong destination. The place would be a mess and take her a month to set right.

Worse still, the office might be running smoothly and efficiently without her. Irma Frinkle, in Accounts Due, was interim manager in Melanie’s absence and wouldn’t mind so much stepping up to Melanie’s job.

Plagued by the thought of demotion or even unemployment, Melanie really didn’t want to be sequestered for the remaining days of the trial. Especially now, when she was beginning to believe Cold Cat-Richard-was innocent, and that his arrest was a horrible mistake, or he’d been set up. Celebrities were targets for that sort of thing. Especially celebrities like Richard, whose art was controversial as well as popular. Melanie had even heard a snatch of one of his recordings wafting from a car backed up in traffic as she was approaching her apartment: “Off the bitch what did the snitch!” Then the traffic light changed and the car with the loud radio moved on. Those were the sorts of lyrics that might prompt some nutcase to strike out at Richard by trying to frame him for Edie Piaf’s murder.

Melanie thought the police should be paying more attention to real murderers, like the Justice Killer, who were going around doing actual damage to society. Soon no one would want to serve on a jury, if more forepersons were found slain. And the latest victim had simply been a juror, not a foreperson. No one on any jury was safe now. And why should they serve? Not only might they fall behind with their bills and lose their jobs to people like Irma Frinkle-“Off the bitch!”-but if they were assigned a serious criminal case, they might actually be killed themselves. Melanie, not a timid person, sometimes found herself afraid of the Justice Killer, and a verdict hadn’t even been rendered in Cold Cat’s-Richard’s-trial. If the jury acquitted him, as she thought more and more that they might, how frightened would she be then?

It was a question she’d begun to ask herself every night before sleep came.

Da Vinci had taken a hell of a reaming and didn’t like it. Some of the respect he’d long held for the chief was gone for good, dissipated in a storm of accusations and faulty blame. It wasn’t that da Vinci didn’t know how the game of buck passing was played; it was more that the chief had come down way too hard. Feeling the pressure. Da Vinci knew he was expected to come down equally hard on Beam.

Beam was a hard man to chew out. He sat in front of da Vinci’s desk, meeting his superior officer’s gaze calmly with eyes that had seen it all and left no doubt that he, too, knew how the game was played. Da Vinci had the distinct impression that Beam was right now viewing him as something not much more than a gathering storm that would blow over.

So what was the point? Da Vinci decided not to waste his energy. He said simply, “The chief gave me a hell of a going over about the Justice Killer investigation.”

Beam said nothing. Might as well have died right there in the chair a few seconds ago.

“Damn it!” da Vinci spat out.

“Yeah, I go along with that.” Beam might have smiled.

“He told me the commissioner wants this case broken yesterday. People are doing anything to avoid jury duty, and it’s causing a backup in the judicial system you wouldn’t believe.”

“I believe,” Beam said. He decided to give da Vinci something he, da Vinci, might give to the chief, and that the chief might pass on up the line of command, out of the NYPD and into the city’s body politic. “We’re thinking maybe copycat in the Tina Flitt murder.”

“Not seriously?”

That shadowy smile again. “Seriously enough.”

“You of all people know this sicko is willing to vary his method.”

“I know it more than the chief or commissioner.”

Da Vinci, with his usual mental alacrity, understood Beam’s generosity but gave no sign of knowledge or gratitude. “It surely can’t be ruled out,” he admitted.

“You read the lab report?” da Vinci asked.

Beam nodded.

“There’s nothing other than the bloody J to put the Justice Killer in that car when Flitt went out,” da Vinci said. “No prints, hairs, smudges, footprints, DNA-how does this bastard come away so clean?”

“He’s smart. He knows his craft. That’s how he looks at it by now, a craft. An art. Each murder neater than the last.”

Da Vinci swiped a hand down his face hard enough to hurt his nose and make his eyes water. “How are we ever gonna nail him?”

“We know our craft,” Beam said calmly.

“To the chief and, I can tell you, the commissioner, you’re still a cop even if you’re not technically NYPD permanent ranks. The machine won’t hesitate to make you the goat in this, Beam, screw you over.”

“Or you.”

“Goes without saying.” Da Vinci’s right hand went out as if of its own volition and caressed the polished brass motorcycle sculpture on his desk corner, reminiscent of his early days as a cop. “Much as I enjoyed it, Beam, I don’t want to go back to riding a cycle. Just like you don’t wanna go back to doing foot patrol.” He patted the cycle sculpture as if it were a pet, then sat back in his chair “You understand what I’m saying?”

“Understood it when I walked in here,” Beam said. “If it’s gonna be me or you, you’re gonna make it me.”

“That’s true. I wouldn’t bullshit you. I’m sorry, Beam, it just works that way, dog eat dog eat dog. We’ve gotta leave it at that.”

Beam stood up to leave the office. “I won’t miss that part of it.”

“Someday neither will I,” da Vinci said.

“Now you’re talking bullshit.”

Da Vinci tried to keep his features stiff but he had to grin.

“Yeah, I am. Both of us are talking bullshit. In some ways, Beam, we’re the same kind of animal.”

“In some ways.”

“Nell and Looper, I notice they’re getting testy.”

“We’re all getting testy. Especially the killer.”

“You really believe that?”

“Sure. That’s how the game goes. Ask Helen Iman.”

“Maybe I will.”

Beam’s presence was so dominant that when he left the office he seemed to take a lot of the oxygen with him. Da Vinci sat in the vacuum, beginning to perspire, and absently brushed the back of his right hand gently over the motorcycle sculpture again. His mind was turning over and over like a real cycle’s roughly idling engine.