John Lutz - Nightlines

"She's a kind, decent human being who didn't deserve what she got," Oliver said. "I could introduce you to dozens of such people, right here on this floor."

"And all over the streets outside," Nudger said. He stood up. "One other thing, Doctor, while I'm face-to-face with an expert. Can you give me any insight into the mind of your average mass murderer?"

Oliver laughed at the abrupt and bizarre change of subject. "Only very generally. He-and the mass murderer usually is a he-is nonsocial, a loner, with a gigantic repressed ego. If he kills women, he despises a formative woman in his early life, his mother, usually. He wants to kill secretly, to get by with something few would suspect him of, but he also needs for people to know about it. He needs recognition, needs glory-or his idea of glory-even if it means going out in a blaze of it."

"Then he'd have to kill more and more frequently, until finally he was caught and exposed. After a certain point, he'd have no choice."

"That's the classic pattern. The killer might even feel remorse: the well-known catch-me-before-I-kill-again syndrome. You said you were a private detective. Are you looking for a mass murderer?"

"I might be." Nudger moved to the door and opened it. The quiet of the office was broken by the bustle of staff and visitors in the hall. "Thanks for the time, Doctor. I know it's scarce around here."

Oliver looked at his watch and grinned. "Fifteen minutes. That would cost you twenty dollars with a psychiatrist out in Clayton or Ladue."

"But not here, Doctor. I've been here before, as a cop. The people you help here are the ones who need help most and can afford it least. If you were in it for the money, you'd be in the other end of the medical business."

"And if you were in it for the money," Oliver said, "you'd be in the other end of the crime business."

Nudger considered the doctor's remark all the way home.

When he got to his apartment his phone was ringing. He heard it in the hall as he was fitting his key to the lock, but he didn't hurry, hoping whoever was on the line would lose patience and hang up. Now that he felt better, he didn't want his stomach needlessly aroused by someone wanting money or selling storm windows or urging him to see another dead body.

The phone didn't give up as he closed the door behind him and walked slowly toward the persistent ringing. Few things are more irresistible than a ringing phone. Usually Nudger would have done just as well not picking up the receiver. He knew that. On the other hand, it was always possible that he'd bought a lottery ticket and forgotten. Monetary magic might strike at any time. Might. With misgivings, he lifted the receiver and held it to his ear.

"Mr. Nudger?" Jeanette Boyington said.

Nudger grunted in tired confirmation.

"You took long enough getting to the phone."

"I was outside rotating my tires."

She ignored him, following her own script. "I have another appointment, for eight o'clock tonight at the Twin Oaks Mall fountain. This one calls himself Kelly. He says he's about six feet tall-but most of them say that-and he'll be wearing gray slacks and a black sport shirt with white buttons."

"Kelly at eight," Nudger said. "Gray, black, and white." He knew he was speaking with a kind of sad weariness, like a man who had just that day met a butchered woman.

"Make sure you phone me tonight if this works out," Jeanette said.

"Are you getting impatient?"

"No, I'm getting more patient with each meeting that doesn't mean anything. They only eliminate suspects and improve the odds on encountering Jenine's murderer."

"That's true only if our premise is correct," Nudger told her, thinking she should have been a cop. "If her killer did meet Jenine on the nightlines."

"That's how he selects his victims," Jeanette said. "I'm sure of it. That's why he hasn't been caught, because there's no connection between him and his victims other than a late-night telephone connection."

Nudger agreed with her, remembering the 666 number found in Susan Merriweather's flat, but he kept silent. Hammersmith might not want that information told about town.

"That Valpone woman," Jeanette said, "the one who was found murdered in her bathtub on the south side. I think she was one of his victims."

"It's possible," Nudger said, "but so far there's nothing to link the two murders." Jeanette would soon hear the news of Susan Merriweather's death, if she hadn't already. "There's been another bathtub murder," he said. "I've just come from the scene. This one has caused the police to come around to your way of thinking, but it hasn't made my job any easier."

"Tell me about it."

Nudger did, giving her a fair share of the details.

Her voice was tight and cold, as if mechanically forced between her teeth. "I don't want the police to find Jenine's killer before we do. I want to be instrumental in his capture, and I want him to know it."

"It might work out that way," Nudger said. "But either way he'll be caught soon. He's gone completely insane, out of control, killing more often and maybe not even caring now if he gets caught. Maybe he hopes he'll get caught. The question is: How many more women will die before that happens?"

"Maybe not one more, if Kelly is our man."

"Your mother left a message for me to phone her," Nudger said. "Do you have any idea what she wants?"

"It doesn't matter what she wants," Jeanette said. "You work for me, and don't forget it."

"Apparently Agnes can't forget it. She keeps sending a leviathan named Hugo Rumbo around to try to dissuade me."

"Why would she do that?" There was a tremor, maybe of anger, in Jeanette's voice.

"I'm not sure. You should ask her."

"Rumbo is an idiot who has to reason out putting one foot in front of the other to walk somewhere. Someone in your profession should be able to handle him."

"Should," Nudger agreed.

"Don't forget to phone me about Kelly," Jeanette said, and hung up.

Nudger replaced the receiver and stood in the quietude of his apartment, where everything was exactly the way he'd left it this morning. No one to misplace things or greet him. The refrigerator hummed a belated hello to him, that was all. A bachelor's life sure was a solitary journey. He walked into the kitchen, smiled at the refrigerator, opened its door, and reached in for one of the generic beers he'd bought on sale.

He sat at the kitchen table, sipping beer and waiting for it to be time to leave for his appointment with Kelly. There was a lot of time between now and then. It would take a lot of beer to get through it. More beer than Nudger cared to drink. Carrying his plain yellow can into the living room, he got out the phone directory and looked up Ralph Ferris.

Ferris lived on Nightingale Drive in Ferguson. Not far from Nudger in driving time, just a swift jaunt north on the Inner Belt highway. Ferris, who had gotten the house and children in the divorce. Ferris, who knew more about Claudia than Nudger did.

Nudger looked at the clock by the phone. He could skip supper, or stop for fast food if he regained faith in his digestive system. He gulped down the rest of his beer. There. That would fend off hunger.

He checked his wallet to make sure he was carrying enough cash to see him through minor emergencies, called in to the refrigerator that he was leaving, and went out the door.

A few minutes later he was in the Volkswagen, his bumpy course set for Nightingale Drive, his ear tuned to Jumbo Al Hirt's trumpet on the radio. Golden notes; a golden, temporary sanctuary from trouble and fear. From loneliness. Nudger turned up the volume. Blow, Jumbo, blow.

Nightingale Drive was a flat subdivision street of frame houses that had been built by the same contractor at the same time, about ten years ago, and were all one of three models with little variation. Ferris's address belonged to the largest model, a long ranch house with a picture window, an oversized chimney, and an attached two-car garage. Nudger bet himself that it was called the Executive Model.