John Lutz - Chill of Night

“You’re only as old as-”

“-you are,” she finished for him. “Any progress in tracing where the duplicate ring came from?”

“Not yet.” He didn’t tell her that NYPD personnel had already been diverted from the task of finding the ring’s origin to protecting the soon-to-be-released Knee High. The ring itself wasn’t in its usual spot on a shelf next to a rose-colored vase. “Did you put the ring in your safe?”

“In a drawer. I’m hoping somebody will steal it.”

“You should give it to me. It might become evidence.”

She moved to the far end of the counter, reached down and opened an out-of-sight drawer, and tossed him the ring.

Beam caught it and stuck it in his pocket. “Do you want a receipt?”

“You’re my receipt.” Nola looked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. “When this business with the ring, the Justice Killer, is over, Beam…”

“What?”

“I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Beam said honestly. “I’d like to think it’s happily ever after for us.”

“Such bullshit, Beam.”

“Well, maybe tolerably ever after.”

Nola smiled. “That’s more like it.”

The bell above the door tinkled, and a short, middle-aged woman in jeans and a T-shirt lettered NO FEAR entered the shop. She gave Beam and Nola a blue stare through rimless glasses and smiled. Beam pretended to be interested in a shelf lined with cut-glass vases that all looked pretty much alike.

Nola asked the woman if she was looking for anything in particular and the woman said she was just browsing. Which she did for about five minutes before buying a beat-to-hell looking antique doll and leaving.

Beam had heard the conversation before the sale. “She really pay two hundred dollars for that?” he asked.

Nola nodded. “It’s nineteenth century, and it’s eyes close when you lay it on its back. It’s worth three hundred.”

“What did you pay for it?”

“Ten.”

Beam glanced around the shop. “Maybe there’s more to this antique business than I thought.”

“Oh, there is,” Nola said. She walked over and turned the deadbolt on the door, then put up the Closed sign.

“Lunch time?” Beam asked.

“Already had lunch.”

“Back room?”

“Let’s go see.”

“He’s coming undone,” the police profiler, Helen, was saying in a television interview done outside One Police Plaza. “He’s finding more and more pleasure in his murders, and more and more hell.”

“He’s conflicted?” asked the interviewer, a man six inches shorter than the statuesque Helen.

“I thought I made that clear,” Helen said. “Inner conflict is what started his string of increasingly brutal murders, and inner conflict will destroy him. That’s the way it works with serial killers. The process is already well underway. It’s like acid produced by the soul it’s destroying.”

“That’s very poetic.”

Helen smiled grimly. “I guess it is. What it means is that the killer’s thought process is breaking down. It will eventually lead to his arrest or suicide.”

“He’ll get careless?”

“He’ll take larger and larger risks,” Helen said. “He won’t be able to stop himself.”

“You’re saying he’s going mad?”

“Oh, he’s already quite mad.”

The taped interview with the police profiler was too much to bear. The Justice Killer felt like throwing the remote at the TV. Instead he merely switched channels.

And there was another interview. This time with the intrepid Beam, saying something about Knee High.

Justice listened, turning up the volume.

A few minutes later he sat back, shaking his head.

Released on his own recognizance!

Goddamned judges!

A commercial came on the cable news channel he was watching. A duck, or some other kind of fowl, talking about term insurance. He used the remote to switch to another channel.

There was a photograph of Knee High, a mug shot taken shortly after his arrest. The hash marks and numerals behind him indicated he was five-foot one with his hair combed almost straight up. He wore a cocky, nervous smile, as if made apprehensive yet enjoying his notoriety.

“-released this afternoon,” the newscaster was saying. He was a full-faced man in a gray suit with some kind of pin on the lapel. “The court ruled that it didn’t consider the accused a risk to do public harm or to flee. He is not required to wear an electronic anklet.” The anchorman turned to a guest. “Now, if Martha Stewart-”

Justice switched to another twenty-four-hour news channel. A female anchor with teased red hair was sharing a split screen with the same mug shot of Knee High. They were both smiling.

Why was Knee High smiling minutes after being booked? Advice of counsel? Was he already working toward an insanity plea?

Or perhaps the relief of confession had prompted Knee High’s smile when the mug shot camera had captured his image. Or maybe even then Knee High had understood that not everything was lost. Like so many others before him, he could use the system to his advantage.

Justice full well knew how firmly fate was on his side, how Knee High was being delivered to him. Fate would side with the avenging angel of justice, the divinity of death. Because of Knee High, the Justice Killer had slain an innocent man. That was the very antithesis of what Justice was trying to do. It could undermine his mission.

“Oh, he’s already quite mad.”

What Knee High had done was an abomination. Justice could not let the matter stand, and he would not. That wasn’t madness; it was making a madness right.

The police would strive to protect Knee High, but even with the tightest security there would be lapses, vulnerable moments. Time would pass without incident, and even Knee High might consider himself in danger only from the usual justice delayed.

Delayed forever.

Not this time, little man. Justice hastened, Justice served, Justice pleasured.

Sooner or later, by breath, blade, or bullet, you belong, to me.

“This isn’t the usual thing,” Beam said, when Knee High approached him for their meeting in Grand Central Station.

The little man had phoned Beam personally and requested that they speak, and had chosen the place. The shuffling of hundreds of soles and heels was a constant echoing whisper, as if there were secrets in the stone and marble vastness.

“Knee High be short,” Knee High said. He moved over toward a wall where they’d be more or less separated from the throngs of train passengers and tourists. “This the most public place in New York, lotsa people all the time. Hard for anyone to follow Knee High, ’cause he get in amongst the masses and everybody be taller, shield him from prying eyes.”

“That makes sense,” Beam said. “But what I meant is, it’s unusual that a murder suspect who’s out of jail would phone a police detective so they can meet someplace and he can complain about being free.”

Knee High looked astounded. “Free? You call this free? Knee High got cops comin’ out his ass, mornin’ till night.”

“All night, too,” Beam said. “That’s because they’ve been assigned to protect you.”

“Protect Knee High, shit. What they’re hanging around for is a shot at the Justice Killer. You think Knee High don’t know how you guys set up Knee High? Knee High ain’t no fool. Weren’t born yesterday, nor at night, neither.”

Beam wished Knee High weren’t one of those people who habitually referred to themselves in the third person. It gave the impression there might be another Knee High here.

“You want that Justice Killer mother come after Knee High,” said Knee High. “You tell Knee High that ain’t the truth.”