John Lutz - In for the Kill

Sherman lay in bed thinking he'd sob himself to sleep. Only he didn't sob. And he didn't sleep. His eyes were open and dry.

He lay quietly listening to the sounds of his mother down the hall, scrubbing the bathroom. When she was finished there, she'd return to her bed, alone.

Sherman knew that if he could cry it would relieve some of the pressure in him that was making it difficult for him to breathe. And maybe his heart would stop crashing around in his chest as if it wanted to get out. If only he had Sam to talk to…

Sam was gone. But what would Sam tell him to do?

Sherman got out of bed and slipped into his stiff and damp Levi's cutoffs, then the T-shirt he'd worn that day. Moving quietly, he rummaged through his dresser drawers and pulled out what clothes he'd need, including some socks and his old joggers. He'd go barefoot for now, for silence. He stuffed the wadded socks into the shoes, then wrapped his clothes around the shoes and fastened the roll tightly with his old leather belt.

All he had to do now was remove the screen from his bedroom window and slip outside, and he could be miles away by morning.

Miles away! Free!

"Sherman."

His mother's voice was soft and neutral, almost lazy. He was too terrified even to move from where he was crouched facing the other way.

"You plannin' on leavin' me, son?"

He moved only his head, craning his neck so he could see behind him.

She was standing in the doorway, not frowning, not smiling, her dark eyes fixing him where he crouched. In her right hand she clutched the bamboo rod she used to summon the alligators. Slowly, she raised it high.

She moved fast toward Sherman, crossing the room like a tiger.

New York, the present

The printed note was sent to Quinn via the NYPD:

Red blood on blue tile. Fools rush in.

So do the police.

The Butcher

"It came in the mail yesterday," Renz said, seated behind his desk. He was wearing his reading glasses, and the sun piercing the blinds glinted off their lenses. The office was too warm and smelled faintly of cigar smoke again. Renz the addicted couldn't keep away from whatever cheap brand he smoked. How he must long for one of Quinn's illegal Cuban robustos. He knew damn well they weren't Venezuelan, as Quinn claimed.

Renz held up note and envelope. "Lab's already gone over it. The paper's cheap stock, sold all over the place. Same with the envelope. It's the kind people buy by the thousands to pay bills and send letters. No DNA on the flap. Nothing remotely like a fingerprint. And two handwriting experts agree the printing is almost drawn and there isn't enough of it to be distinctive or provide material for a meaningful match. The killer used a number-two lead pencil, the most common kind."

Quinn said, "You've got it pretty well covered."

Renz peeled off his glasses so he could focus long on Quinn. "Doing my job."

Quinn was seated in one of the chairs angled toward Renz's desk. Pearl and Fedderman were standing on either side and slightly behind him. "You might have told us about this yesterday," he said.

Renz shrugged. "I wanted to have something to tell, so I waited for lab and handwriting analyses." He squeezed one hand with the other, as if someone had given him a high five way too hard. "What do you think this means?"

"Can we run a computer check and see if the tile color in Marilyn Nelson's bathroom was mentioned to the press and repeated?"

"Did that," Renz said. "No matches. No mention. The note's genuine."

"The bastard's toying with us," Pearl said.

"So the profiler tells me," Renz said.

"Nothing unusual in that," Qunn said. Like many cops who'd been on the job a long time, he had little faith in profilers; they could easily head an investigation off in the wrong direction. "It's all part of what drives sickos like the Butcher. He wants to engage in a game and prove he's smarter than we are. He wants this note released to the media."

"That'd be your call," Renz said. "Why I hired you. And of course, you take the heat if it turns out to be a big mistake."

Quinn shifted a few inches in his chair so the sun wasn't in his eyes. "You asked what the note means, and I don't know the answer. But apparently it was written after Marilyn Nelson's death, and it means something. We have to figure it out. I say release it to the media. Call Cindy Sellers at City Beat, give the little rag a scoop."

"How will that help us?" Renz asked.

"We might need a favor from her someday."

"No, I meant what good will it do to release the note to the media?"

"If we don't figure out what the killer's trying to tell us, maybe somebody else will."

"You think he wants this figured out."

"Yes, but only when it's too late. In fact, if we don't figure it out, he'll tell us. But not in time to have stopped him from taking his next victim."

"Maybe the key is colors," Fedderman said. "Red and blue."

"And gold," Pearl added.

The three men looked at her.

"'Fools rush in.' Fool's gold. The gold rush."

"Somebody whose last name is, or starts with, the word gold," Fedderman suggested.

"If the killer's still focusing on his victims' initials," Quinn said.

"There's that question," Pearl said, "Maybe he's spelling out something else. I mean, not necessarily a person's name."

"It better be the word apprehended," Renz said, looking at each of them in turn. "And soon."

Quinn considered telling him to stop playing the hard-ass, then he decided to let it pass. It was part of Renz's persona. He needed to flex his bureaucratic muscles now and then to remind himself they were still there. The important thing wasn't that Quinn knew what made Renz tick; it was that Renz knew that he knew.

Pearl, however, looked as if she were about to say something. He could tell by her eyes, by the way she was tensing her lips.

"We're on it, Harley," Quinn assured Renz, figuring Pearl would be less likely to spout off to a superior who was on a first-name basis, who was one of them rather than simply an authority figure. Before she could cut into the conversation, he added, "We'll go to the office, run computer searches on the colors mentioned in the note. If you don't mind, I'll take it and the envelope with me so we can put it in the file."

"That's the place for the original," Renz said, handing the items to Quinn. "We've got copies."

As the three detectives filed from the office, Renz motioned for Quinn to stay behind and close the door.

"Are you staying on those two?" Renz asked.

"They don't need it, Harley. They're solid cops. And remember, you chose them just like you chose me."

"But I had some reservations."

"About who?"

"You and Pearl together, if you know what I mean."

Quinn knew. "It isn't any of your business, but that relationship's been over for a long time."

"Then why do you look at her the way you do?"

"Start worrying, Harley, if she looks back at me that way."

Renz smiled. "I haven't noticed that. She looks terrific in that outfit. If boobs were brains she'd be a genius."

"How come you have to keep trying to irritate people?" Quinn asked, pushing his anger away.

"I dunno. How come the Butcher keeps killing and chopping up women?"

"Maybe it's the same answer," Quinn told him.

"Hey, screw you!" Renz said, as Quinn was leaving.

Quinn couldn't help smiling. It wasn't easy getting over on Renz. He'd have to tell Pearl about it.

As it turned out, the decision to release the note to the media wasn't relevant. It was featured on the front page of the New York Post. The killer had sent copies to all the New York papers and TV news desks.

When Renz released the information that the tile in Marilyn Nelson's apartment was indeed blue, the media was on the story even hotter. Red blood on blue tiles. Cindy Sellers wrote it straight, but a columnist in City Beat speculated that if the bathtub and commode were white, there might be a patriotic slant to the killings.