John Lutz - Night kills

She regretted nothing of the life that had led to them being here in this room at the Hotel Casa Grande. Her family considered it sinful, and they didn't know the half of it. With Jorge, boundaries fell one after another, and behavior changed, along with what was unacceptable. Life was something to be seized. If it was selfish to live it to the fullest, so be it. People might not approve. Screw them, Maria thought.

Jorge didn't want to make love again. He leaned back away from her and rested his head on his pillow. The air conditioner kicked in with a soft rushing sound, almost like water flowing, sending a cooling breeze like a benediction down from the vent near the bed. It might not have been so pleasant lying here under different circumstances.

"A sad day for us," Jorge said. "After this morning, we won't be able to see each other for quite a while."

Maria scooted nearer to him on the bed and kissed him on the lips. "I understand," she said.

And he knew she did. And she accepted. He smiled. "You are unlike any other woman."

"So is every other woman, but no other woman is yours."

His smile widened. "That is because you would cut off my testicles."

"You are so right. And I love you so much."

"And I you."

They kissed again and she moved away from him and climbed out of bed. She didn't see any point in drawing out what for both of them was going to be a painful but necessary parting.

Raising her arms high, she stretched the length of her sleek body. "I'll shower first."

"Perhaps I'll join you. Save the hotel some water."

She paused and grinned at him. "Yes, you've always been interested in hotel water conservation."

"If it involves you, I find it a fascinating subject."

An hour later, Maria left the room first. She rode the elevator down to the lobby, walked to an archway beyond the reservation desk, and found a table in the coffee shop.

She ordered an espresso and sat calmly sipping it, waiting for Jorge to finish dressing and come downstairs.

As she sipped her espresso and gazed out the coffee shop's wide window that provided a view of the street, she noticed two identical black Volkswagen Jettas parked at the curb near the hotel's entrance. Though they were in the way of taxis, and a shuttle bus, if one were to arrive, the uniformed doorman was obviously ignoring them.

He also ignored the three men in dark suits who hurried past him, walking side by side. From her table, Maria could see beyond the entrance arch as the three men entered the lobby and strode across the terrazzo floor toward the elevators.

Only there were four of them now, all walking in step. One suddenly veered off and stood leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, staying well out of the way of guests and bellhops scurrying past. Through the window, Maria saw a third black Jetta. A van peeled away from the traffic and parked directly across the street. Several men emerged from it and began to cross.

Maria's heart was hammering as she drew her cell phone from her purse and called upstairs.

After breaking the brief connection, she kept her eyes trained on the lobby, and a few minutes later there was Jorge. He must have passed the men in the elevators, descending in a different car as they were going up. He was hurriedly making his way through the lobby, his shirt untucked, his hair uncombed. He didn't glance toward her as he passed the coffee shop entrance and walked faster toward the street exit.

Quickly he passed from her sight.

Almost immediately she heard gunshots and screaming. She watched through the window as the figure with the half-tucked shirt came into view and began to run. His pace faltered, and red splotches appeared on the broad back of his white shirt.

Then he stopped, raised both hands, and collapsed dying on the sidewalk.

People in the hotel and out in the street were rising from where they'd sought shelter and moving around now. Some of them were running. People were hurrying from across the street, weaving between the stopped cars. All were moving faster and faster toward the scene of the shooting.

Maria rose from her table, hurried to the lobby, and joined the throng of people rushing to see what had happened. Car horns were honking. There was much shouting. The wailing of sirens drifted over the city.

Like banshees, she thought. They sound like banshees mourning for Jorge.

But she knew the sirens meant only more police closing in to help establish and maintain order.

Out on the sidewalk, she avoided elbows and shoulders, pushed her way against the flow of the crowd, and slipped away.

New York, the present

One of those days.

Quinn sat at his desk, leaning far back in his swivel chair, and watched the rain fall outside the window of the office on West Seventy-ninth Street. It must have been cool where the rain fell from, because steam was rising when the angled drops struck the warmed street and concrete sidewalk.

Pearl was, for a change, in her chair, rather than perched on the edge of her desk. Fedderman was slouched in his desk chair nursing a mug of coffee. They were looking at the rain, too, aware of the constant trickling noise from a ledge above the window, and the occasional rattle of the loose pane when the summer wind kicked up. The city had slowed perceptibly, unaccustomed to such a gray morning in midsummer. This was somehow more depressing than the relentless heat they'd been enduring. The mood from outside had penetrated inside to the office.

Fedderman lifted his coffee mug and observed it carefully, as if he suspected a leak.

"We're not," he said, "getting a helluva lot done this morning."

"I am," Pearl said.

Quinn adjusted his chair slightly so he could look at her. She seemed small in the black vinyl swivel chair that was identical to his. Small and unproductive. Was she serious?

"I've been thinking," she said.

"Oh, Christ!" Fedderman said. "Let's hope it hasn't borne fruit."

Pearl looked at him as if he were an insect. "But it has. It's a big juicy theory."

"Like with relativity?"

"Let's hear her out, Feds," Quinn said. He leaned farther back in his chair, as if to gain distance from Pearl and her theory.

"You're going to fall on your ass," Pearl told him.

"Is that your theory?"

"No, it's about our killer."

"I assumed," Quinn said, with a smile.

They all listened to the patter of rain for a moment. Then Pearl sat up higher and leaned forward with her elbows on her desk. "It's possible that the victims' unidentifiable torsos are left where they're sure to be found not as the killer's calling card, or simply because they're deemed untraceable, or even to taunt authorities, but so the police will assume the women were victims of a serial killer."

Quinn and Fedderman stared at her.

"I hate to point out the obvious," Fedderman said, "but whoever killed those women is by definition a serial killer."

"But maybe one who kills with a logical purpose," Pearl said, "who might have a real and practical motive."

"They all think they have a real and practical motive," Fedderman said. "It always turns out to be psycho squirrel shit."

"Maybe not this time, though. Our guy might be pretending to be a psychosexual killer so that's what we'll be hunting."

"The old serial killer diversion," Fedderman said. "While we're searching for a killer, our perp might actually have a bunch of unpaid traffic tickets."

Quinn thought, You seldom hear people say perp anymore. Where did it go?

"If it's an act," Fedderman said, "it's sure as hell a convincing one."

"So why's our perp leaving the torsos and concealing the rest of the bodies?" Quinn asked, thinking it felt odd to say perp.

"I'm not sure. All I'm saying is, it might really be a kind of diversion, so we're looking for a nutcase killer and not for whatever else he is," Pearl said.