John Lutz - Chill of Night

“The doorman was one of ours, undercover,” Nell said. “He’d seen Raymond the deliveryman here before, had checked him out, and knew he was genuine, so he told him to use the intercom and go on up with the take-out order.”

“At this point the killer must’ve already been in the building,” da Vinci said. “On his way to do Knee High.”

“Question is,” Beam said, “how did he know Knee High had a delivery coming?”

“Maybe found out at the restaurant,” da Vinci said. “He knew Knee High got take-out from there, so he hung around the place till he heard a delivery was on the way. Got himself in gear and left the restaurant before Raymond.”

“Except that no one entered the building for ten minutes or so before Raymond got here with the food,” Looper said.

“Doorman tell you that?”

“Yeah. Our guy and the other one.”

“Other one?” Beam asked.

“Working at the building across the street. Name’s, believe it or not, Dorchester. He saw Raymond enter the building. Then he saw a uniformed cop leaving the building just after the time Knee High got shot.”

Beam felt a twinge of uneasiness.

A homicide investigation goes where it goes.

“This Dorchester’s a sharp guy,” Looper continued. “He said he’d gotten used to seeing all the cops on the block the last several days and nights. He wouldn’t have thought much of this cop, except at the time he was leaving, most of the other cops he saw were entering the building. Dorchester said cops were flooding in.”

“That would’ve been right after Raymond raised the alarm,” da Vinci said.

Beam looked at Looper. “You mean this cop stuck in Dorchester’s mind just because he was leaving while other cops were going in?”

“No, something else. He said this cop wasn’t dressed quite like the others. He couldn’t put his finger on it at first, then he figured it out. It’s a hot night, and the cop he saw was the only one wearing a jacket with his uniform, a kind of baggy blue or black jacket.”

“One large enough to conceal a gun with a silencer,” da Vinci said.

“Something else Dorchester said was the cop’s uniform cap was a little different. He couldn’t say why-like it didn’t quite fit him right, maybe, was all I could get out of him.”

“But he saw a uniformed cop?” da Vinci asked.

“Definitely,” Looper said. “No doubt in Dorchester’s mind about that.”

“He mention this cop’s description beyond the uniform?”

“Yes, sir. Average size, average weight.”

Da Vinci snorted in disappointment, as if most killers were giants or midgets and they’d caught a bad break.

“That’s it?” Beam asked.

“’Fraid so, sir.”

“Sounds like the cop’s uniform was a costume,” Nell said.

“I sure as hell hope so,” da Vinci said. He looked at Knee High’s body, Knee High with a neat. 32 caliber-size hole in his head, and shook his own head in frustration. “This psycho’s so smooth at what he does, we never seem to get any kind of traction.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Beam told him. “We know how the Justice Killer managed to sidestep security to get to Knee High, and how he might have blended in to make his getaway. And maybe he also dressed as a cop to get to Cold Cat or some of the others.”

“It’s possible,” da Vinci said. “But we’ve got just one eyeball account from across the street. We’re not even sure he dressed as a cop at all.”

“It’s something, though,” Beam said. “We’ll canvass costume and used clothing stores in the city, find out who sold or rented a cop uniform during the last several months.”

“What if he’s a real cop?” Nell asked.

“We’ll run through the costume and rental shops before going down that road,” Beam said.

“She’s right, though,” da Vinci said. “It’s a friggin’ appalling possibility, but the Justice Killer might actually be a cop. We have to admit it makes a certain kind of sense. There’s plenty of resentment in the department about the revolving-door nature of the city’s judicial system.”

“Ask Helen if she can think of a serial killer who was also a cop,” Beam suggested.

“Point taken,” da Vinci said.

Nell thought, Ask Helen if there’s ever a first time for everything.

“He wants more than ever to be caught,” Helen said.

She was standing near the photo of a discredited former police commissioner who’d displayed no such compulsion. But then, he hadn’t been a mass murderer. Something of a hero, in fact. Justice did have a way of catching up with the most wily.

They were in da Vinci’s office. It was too warm, and there was an unpleasant hint of stale sweat and desperation in the air, the kind of atmosphere Beam usually associated with interrogation rooms. Da Vinci was seated behind his desk. Beam and Nell were in the padded chairs angled toward the desk, Looper was standing near Helen, playing with the button on his shirt pocket that might have held a pack of cigarettes.

“You told us last week he was coming unraveled,” da Vinci said to Helen, “yet he managed to outsmart us and get to Knee High.”

“God rest his little soul,” Nell said sarcastically.

Da Vinci glared at her. “Not friggin’ funny, Nell.”

Nell nodded. Da Vinci was right, even though he was the boss.

“He’ll have to kill again soon,” Helen said. “He’s hooked on it. He’ll need it more and more often.”

Da Vinci wiped his face with an invisible rag and looked pained. “Coming undone, hooked on killing, feeling the pressure. You’ve been pretty much right all the way down the line, Helen, but that’s not the picture I’m getting of this guy. He kills only those he considers to be the bad guys, who for one reason or another beat the system, or helped someone beat it.”

“There’s an endless supply of those,” Beam pointed out.

“He can kill as often or seldom as he chooses,” Helen said. “And he no longer feels he’s simply meting out justice. Whether he knows it consciously or not, he kills to avenge imagined wrongs, but he also kills for pleasure.”

“Sexual pleasure,” Looper said. “Like all the rest of his kind.”

“Uh-huh,” Helen said. “It’s a turn on for him, and he’s reached the point where he has to admit it to himself.”

“What we need from you,” Beam told her, “is a good guess at who might be the next victim.”

Helen looked thoughtful, crossing her arms beneath her tiny, tall-woman’s breasts and staring at the floor. “The more unraveled our guy becomes, the more difficult it is to predict his next intended victim. Self-revelation can be an agonizing, ongoing event. He’s in the stage where his own perverted logic is seriously breaking down as he’s developing a different, undeniable concept of himself. One he doesn’t like. That’s why he might make a mistake.”

“Do you figure him to go after a high-profile victim?” Looper asked.

“Could be,” Helen said. “He thinks he has an adoring public to play to.”

“He does,” da Vinci said. “Read the editorial page in this morning’s Times. Fifty-six percent of their readers view the Justice Killer as a hero. Seventy percent want Adelaide Starr released.”

“Do they want more courts, better staffed, and with more judges?” Beam asked.

“Wasn’t in the poll.”

“What did they think of the NYPD?”

“Don’t ask.”

“It’s a thankless job,” Looper said.

Everyone stared at him.

“I wish I had a cigarette,” he said.

“Another thing that’s coming up empty,” da Vinci said, “is trying to trace that cop costume.”

“It’s only been four days,” Beam said. “We’ve covered most of the costume rental shops. Now we’re checking S amp;M suppliers.”