Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

A flagstone walkway led from the courtyard to the house. At the living room window, he peered inside. He could see all the way to the open back windows, overlooking the canyon. A pass-through connected the room to the kitchen, which was dark. He could see a hallway leading to the bedrooms, but he didn’t see anyone inside.

Then, through the speakers, a woman screamed.

It sounded as if she were next to him. Behind him. Above him. Her odd, strangled cry got louder until it drowned out the music, and then, with a gasp, it fell silent. He didn’t recognize the distorted voice; he didn’t know if it was Lucy.

Frost drew his gun. He bolted to the double front doors and pounded on them with his fist. “Police! Open the door!”

No one answered.

He twisted the knob with his hand, and it turned. The door was open. He shoved it with his shoulder and spilled inside. Cool, clifftop air whipped through the house from the rear windows. Fresh orchids scented the foyer. Down the dark hallway, a dog barked wildly at the unexpected intruder, scratching to claw its way through a closed door. He shouted again.

“Police!”

Carole King stopped singing. A door at the end of the hallway opened, letting out a triangle of light. Frost aimed his gun at the doorway and balanced his wrist with his other hand. “Come out slowly, and put your hands in the air.”

He saw a bare foot nudge the door wider. A man stood in the doorway, his hands up, his body lost in shadows. He wore only loose-fitting boxers. “Come closer,” Frost demanded. “Slowly.”

The man approached him step by step. The light of the foyer splashed over his face, and Frost recognized Darren Newman. Newman’s mouth was creased into a smile. He didn’t show fear or surprise at a confrontation with an armed policeman inside his house. The dog kept barking from the other bedroom, but Newman silenced it with a snap of his fingers.

“Is there a problem?” Newman asked.

Frost didn’t lower his gun. “Who else is in this house?”

“My secretary.”

“I heard a woman scream,” Frost said.

“What can I say? Simona is loud when we’re having sex.”

“Get her out here,” Frost snapped.

Newman rolled his eyes and called over his shoulder. “Simona, there’s someone who wants to meet you. The cops want to make sure I’m not strangling you or something.”

Frost kept an eye on the doorway. The bedroom door opened all the way, revealing the rumpled end of a king-sized bed and walls covered in a metallic wallpaper made up of different stripes of blue. A young woman wandered toward him, unconcerned by his gun. She had severely short blond hair, and she wore a peach-colored man’s dress shirt, unbuttoned down the front to reveal her stomach and the half-moons of her breasts. A black towel was wrapped around her waist.

“Is this one of your jokes, Darren?” she asked. “Is this guy a stripper or something?”

“No, he’s really a cop.”

Frost reholstered his gun. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Other than being interrupted in the middle of a good banging, I’m fine,” she told him.

“Are you here voluntarily? Were you coerced in any way to have sex this evening?”

“Coerced? Hardly.”

“Have you taken any drugs or consumed any alcohol?”

“That’s none of your business,” Simona fired back. “And if you’re planning to tell me about Darren’s past, don’t be boring. I know all about it. You people should leave him alone.”

“Do you remember how you got here tonight?” Frost asked.

“Do I remember ?” the woman asked. “What kind of question is that?”

Newman flicked his fingers like a magician readying an illusion. “He thinks I put you in a trance to have sex with me. You’re hypnotized, didn’t you realize? Haven’t you seen the news today? When I play the song ‘Nightingale,’ you will get on your back, and you won’t remember a thing in the morning.”

“Oh, I’ll remember,” Simona told Frost. “Believe me. I’m all stretched out.”

Newman winked. “Well, are you satisfied, Officer?”

“For now,” Frost replied.

“Then get out of the house. Leave me your card, too. I bet your superiors will be interested to hear you about you breaking in here with your gun in hand. Of course, I was really hoping it would be Frankie. I was looking forward to taking out a restraining order against her.”

Frost began to appreciate Newman’s talent for manipulation. He could see in the man’s reptilian eyes exactly what he was. A ruthless, calculating predator.

“You knew Dr. Stein was following you?”

“Sure, I spotted her behind me on the bridge. She’s scary. You should keep an eye on her. No telling what she might do.”

“Darren’s right,” Simona added. “I met that bitch. You could tell she was hot for him. I think she’s obsessed.”

Newman gave the woman’s bare ass a playful slap. “Go back to bed, love. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Simona walked down the hallway with an exaggerated sway in her hips. Frost was careful to keep his eyes on Newman’s face and not on the barely dressed girl. Newman grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a bowl near the open front door and strolled with Frost out to the courtyard. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the cold air.

“Is this your house?” Frost asked him.

“My parents own it. They’re in Zurich now. They travel a lot.”

“Your parents have been very good to you. They get you out of a lot of trouble.”

“That’s what parents do,” Newman replied.

“What about the dog? Does he belong to them, too?”

“No, that’s Simona’s. Pissant yipper dog never shuts up. I may have to kill it.”

He made the threat so casually that it took Frost’s breath away. There was not a shred of doubt in his mind that Newman was serious. It made him want to go back inside and tell the young girl that she was in danger, even if she didn’t believe him.

“A lot of people think you killed Merrilyn Somers, too,” Frost told him.

“Sooner or later, every bitch needs to be put down,” Newman said with a smirk.

“None of this is funny.”

“No? You’re just like Frankie. You don’t appreciate my sense of humor.”

Frost leaned in close to the man, but Darren Newman didn’t look easily intimidated. He was too cocky. Too sure of himself.

“Where is she?” Frost asked.

“Who?”

“Lucy Hagen.”

“I have no idea who that is,” Newman replied.

“I want her back. I want her back right now.”

“Is this another one of Frankie’s unfortunate patients? Too bad. I wonder what this one will do when the music starts playing. Drive her car off a cliff. Swallow a bottle of pills. Slit her wrists. Whoever this Night Bird is, you have to admire his imagination.”

Frost didn’t like being baited. And this man was good at it.

“You made a mistake this time, Mr. Newman. You screwed up.”

“Did I? How so?” He took another casual drag on his cigarette.

“You’ve been setting someone up. A man you wanted to frame, just like you framed Leon Willis. The thing is, this man caught you on videotape in a bar. We can put the two of you together. That’s going to make it hard to sell him as the one behind the game. It won’t be like Merrilyn Somers.”

In the semidarkness of the courtyard, Frost saw a darker shadow flit across Darren Newman’s face. He’d struck a nerve. Newman didn’t know about the video. Even so, the man’s smile quickly returned.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied. “But a video of me in a bar? Is that the best you can do? I go to a lot of bars. I’m a party animal. Simona will tell you that. I think you better take a long, hard look at the lies that Frankie has been spreading about me. I’m beginning to wonder whether Frankie is doing this herself. The woman isn’t stable. She lost her father recently, did you know that? Tragedies like that can push people over the edge.”