John Lutz - In for the Kill

Quinn had seen and heard about enough. "I want one taken downstairs on the sidewalk," he said. "Out in front of the hotel."

"A candid shot," said Klausman. "We can pretend we've caught her by surprise as she's entering the lobby." This sure beat photographing corpses. It was fun working with a live woman who moved around and smiled when he said say cheese.

Out on the sidewalk, a few people walking past slowed down and stared, wondering what was going on, thinking Myrna might be some kind of celebrity. Myrna seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"My hair all right?" she asked, barely touching it.

"Perfect," Pearl assured her, not mentioning the strand sticking almost straight up like a horn.

"You got some sticking straight up," Klausman said, dancing forward and deftly smoothing back the hair the breeze had mussed.

Myrna glared at Pearl.

"Except for that one strand," Pearl said.

"I can pretend I just got out of a cab," Myrna said.

"Sure," Quinn said to her and to Klausman. Why not?

Myrna flagged down a cab and worked her poses, momentarily confusing the cabbie and showing a lot of leg.

That seemed to disturb Jeb. "Better not overdo it, Mom."

She ignored him.

"Say 'Kate Moss,'" Klausman told her, evoking a wide grin.

"Lord Almighty," Pearl said under her breath.

"I want one of her going into the lobby," Quinn said to Klausman, watching the irate cabbie drive away, "but I don't want the name of the hotel to be in the shot."

"Why's that?" Jeb asked.

"We don't want to be sued."

In truth they'd decided not to make finding his mother too easy for Sherman Kraft. They didn't want him to become suspicious. It was better to leave it up to him to figure out which hotel was in the photograph.

There were two low marble steps leading to a weather-proof carpeted area beneath the marquee. Myrna took them like a young girl.

"Gotcha! Good! Perfect!" Klausman kept saying, as Myrna struck one pose after another, moving only slightly for each shot, like a figure on a film skipping frames. "You should be a model. Gotcha! Okay, that's it. Nope, gotcha one more time-that'll be the best one, most natural. Really, you should be a-there, one more-model."

"It did cross my mind when I was much younger," Myrna said.

Jeb silently turned away.

He's embarrassed, Pearl thought. She's embarrassed him.

Myrna didn't seem to notice. "How long will it take before they're developed?" she asked.

Klausman was surprised. "No time at all. They're digital." He went over to stand near her. "Here. You can review them."

Quinn let her Ooh! and Aah! over the camera's tiny digital display for a few minutes, then decided it was time to retake charge of this operation from Klausman.

"Take those back and make sure Renz gets them," he said to the photographer. "Ask him to call me so I know he has them." He turned his attention to Myrna. "Let's get back up to the room, and I'll give you final instructions."

Myrna nodded. "I like that third one," she said to Klausman.

But Klausman had caught something in Quinn's tone and was already hurrying to his double-parked car. The E-mailed photos should be in the hands of Mary Mulanphy and Cindy Sellers within the hour.

No one spoke as they rode up in the elevator. Jeb went with them, passing the floor where his room was located.

Quinn wondered what Jeb thought of the police using his mother for bait. Did he know what Quinn knew, that a psychosexual killer like Sherman probably wouldn't be able to resist not simply the type of woman who was his usual victim, but the archetype. Mom herself. Every serial killer's dream. A Freudian, or police profiler, might say "wet dream."

Something like this had never happened before in Quinn's career, and it would surely never happen again.

The elevator door slid open and they all strode down the carpeted hall toward Myrna's room. The hall was comfortable but noticeably warmer than the lobby.

Quinn fell back a few steps, watching mother and son. These two, Jeb and Myrna, were tricky. They were both intelligent and used to playing a double game. And they both came from a hard place.

Nothing they said could be trusted to mean or suggest anything. They might be smarter than the police and certainly were more desperate. They were not what they seemed and could misdirect or lull you.

They came to room 620 and Myrna used her key card dexterously to unlock the door on the first swipe.

Quinn rested a restraining hand on her shoulder and moved ahead of her to enter first while Pearl held the door open.

Nobody joked or made a crack about being overcautious.

As soon as they closed the room's door behind them, Myrna went to the window and gazed down at the street, as if to watch Klausman the police photographer drive away.

She absently raised a hand to make sure her hair wasn't too mussed.

"We should have had him take one of all of us together."

Killing could stimulate the appetite. The Butcher had finished his breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast at a diner over on East Fifty-first Street. He was walking along Third Avenue, using the tip of his tongue to try working a stubborn morsel of bacon from between his molars, when he stopped suddenly in front of a news kiosk.

A brick anchored a stack of New York Posts from the morning breeze. The brick, which had a red ribbon tied around it in a bow so that it resembled a wrapped gift, was slightly off center, revealing a color photograph beneath the large caption "BUTCHER'S MOM."

He stood motionless, ignoring people bumping into him, some of them glaring or cursing at him as they hurried on. It took all his effort to move closer to the kiosk and slide the top paper out from beneath the brick.

She looked so young! So beautiful! As he remembered her, only more so. She'd aged as did most truly beautiful women, in a way that made them look simply more the way they'd appeared as young girls, a way that preserved the magic.

The black magic.

Very much more themselves. Every artifice stripped away by time. Very much more themselves.

The ancient magic.

Mom.

Not in grimy jeans or a housedress with her hair a tangle. Not barefoot. Not bloody.

Not nude and bloody and screaming my name. Not dragging a black plastic trash bag across a wooden floor…thumping black trash bag. Reaching into it…into it…

Sam!

Oh, Christ! Sam!

"You gonna buy that or just memorize it?"

Jarred from the swamp of the past, the Butcher stared at the old man in the kiosk in a way that made the man blink behind his thick glasses and back up a step.

"They're for sale, you know," he said in a more moderate tone.

The Butcher tucked the folded paper beneath his arm, then worked a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and stuffed it into the man's hand. He then picked up a Times and Daily News. They also made note of the fact that Mom was in New York. They also featured at least one photograph and promised more on the inside pages.

What was he feeling, staring at her Post photograph? He didn't understand. This beautiful woman who'd given him life…

Pride? An insane pride?

Hate?

Rage?

He turned away abruptly and strode toward the intersection, where it would be easiest to hail a cab. He needed to get back inside the protection of his four walls, safe inside the womb, to recline in his chair, almost in the fetal position, with a Jack Daniel's over ice, back to where he could read.

No, to where he could look at the photographs, stare at them, etch them with fire into his memory.

Mom…

"You want your change?"

He ignored the voice calling from the kiosk behind him.

Too late for change.

He understood now that he hadn't escaped the swamp. He never would.