Nightwatcher (26 page)

It was four
A.M
. when she awakened, got up to go to the bathroom, and found Mom lying on the tile floor there, cold and still and rock-hard. Bloody vomit was caked around her mouth and her eyes were fixed, as they so often were, on something only she could see.

This time, Mom wasn’t going to blink and drift reluctantly back to the real world. This time, she was gone for good, and Allison was left alone in Centerfield to face the gossip, and the financial fallout, and the cops and the social workers who said they had only her best interest in mind.

Maybe that was true.

Maybe not.

Maybe everyone had an agenda. Maybe they still do.

But that doesn’t matter; they don’t matter. You’re the only one who does. You just have to take care of yourself; just keep going through the motions of living, every minute of every day, no matter what happens, until one day you realize you’re actually living again.

Allison stands up, brushes off her jeans—the same old jeans she keeps picking up from the floor and putting back on—and looks up at the building.

She notices the metal fire escape that zigzags down the brick face. It’s meant to save lives; there was no such escape for all those people who burned to death in the World Trade Center, and yet . . .

Did someone climb that network of narrow stairs in the dark and crawl through Kristina’s window? Would she be alive if not for that?

As Allison shakes her head at the irony, a human shadow falls across the steps in front of her. Someone is standing behind her.

It’s broad daylight and she’s outside on an urban street, but it might as well be the middle of the night—and the middle of nowhere—for all the comfort that brings. The skin on the back of her neck prickles with awareness, and she’s afraid to turn around, afraid of what—whom—she might find there. Afraid.

Dammit
.

Slowly, she turns her head, bracing herself to come face-to-face with Jerry.

But it’s Mack.

He looks like hell. Yesterday’s five o’clock shadow has turned into full-blown scruff, his hair is wiry, and his blue chambray shirt is wrinkled and untucked from equally wrinkled khakis. His eyes are hidden behind dark glasses, but she can feel the gloom radiating from them.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, though the answer is obvious.

He shakes his head mutely.

“Where have you been?”

“At the Pierre, and . . . I, uh, registered.”

“Registered?”

“Carrie. Missing persons.”

As if his legs can no longer support his weight, he sinks onto the step at her feet and sits facing the street, hugging himself, shoulders hunched.

“I heard that they pulled some people out alive this morning,” she tells him. “Maybe Carrie—”

“No,” he says, “that was just a rumor.”

“But—”

“People
were
pulled out, but they were firemen who were part of the rescue effort.”

“Oh.” Deflated, she sits beside him. She sees that his hands are trembling, clasped around his bent knees.

“I have to get some hair from her hairbrush and bring it to the Armory later, for . . . DNA. It’s so they can . . . you know. It’s a long shot, but maybe they’ll find her. I mean . . . her body. Then at least I can bury her.”

Allison doesn’t know what to say to that. To any of this.

After a long moment, she reaches out and touches his arm.

He looks down at her hand resting on his sleeve, and then up at her face.

She can’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses. Maybe that’s a good thing, she thinks, and wishes he couldn’t see hers, either.

“W
hat are you doing?”

Startled by Jamie’s voice, Jerry jumps back, away from Mama’s closed bedroom door.

“Nothing!” He shakes his head rapidly.

“I told you not to open that door, remember?”

“I wasn’t going to open it,” Jerry lies. “I was just looking at it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He bobs his head up and down, feeling nervous and not sure why. “It’s just . . . it smells bad. I thought maybe she left food in there or something.”

Jamie doesn’t say anything about that, only, after a long pause, “Whatever you do, Jerry, don’t open that door.
Ever
. Got it?”

“Got it.” Jerry hesitates. “Can I have some cake?”

“Jerry, how many times do I have to tell you? You don’t have to ask me. Just take it. It’s for you.”

“Thank you, Jamie. That was so nice of you.”

Jerry goes to the kitchen. The Entenmann’s box is sitting on the counter. He opens it and sees just one small square of cake is sitting in the crumb-filled pan.

“Jamie? Did you eat my cake?”

“No. I told you, it’s for you, all of it. You must have eaten it and forgotten. You do that a lot. Your memory is bad because of your head injury.”

Yes. That’s right. Jerry’s memory is bad. Sometimes, he doesn’t even remember the head injury, but that’s fine with him. He just wishes he remembers eating the cake, because he loves cake.

He opens the silverware drawer. Something moves inside: a fat cockroach skitters toward the shadows and disappears through a crack.

Jerry recoils and slams the drawer closed. He’ll eat with his hands.

He grabs the hunk of cake, swallows a dense, fudgy-sweet bite, and it comes back to him: last night, he ate the rest of the cake himself. He stood right here at the counter, tears rolling down his face and Marianne’s words echoing through his head as he shoveled cake into his mouth until he felt sick.

She said she loved him.

That surprised him, because she didn’t act like she loved him when he saw her at her apartment yesterday afternoon. She didn’t even seem to like him very much.

I guess I was wrong about that
, Jerry thinks, wetting his finger and running it along the bottom of the foil tray so that the crumbs stick to it. He licks his finger and sticks it into the tray over and over again, until every last morsel of cake is gone.

But it isn’t enough.

“Jamie? Can I please have more cake?”

“Yeah . . . okay.”

“When?”

“Later. I’ll go get you some.”

Jerry considers that. “Can you go get it now?”

Jamie sighs. “Sure, Jerry. I’ll get it now.”

“V
ic?”

He sets down his plastic glass of Coke and turns to see Rocky Manzillo standing behind him.

“Well, would you look who’s here.” Vic gets to his feet to greet his friend.

It’s been less than a week since they saw each other, but he notices that Rocky’s aged in that time. The hair he has left is grayer, the lines around his eyes deeper than they were on Saturday night. These aren’t laugh lines, either. Not by a long shot.

Ordinarily, they greet each other with a jovial handshake or a casual clap on the back. Today, though, Vic gives his friend a quick, hard hug, which Rocky returns fervently.

“I didn’t expect you to show,” Vic tells him.

“I was in the neighborhood, headed up the FDR when I called Ange to check in. She told me you left a message that you were here eating, but I thought I might have missed you.”

“You didn’t. I ordered dessert.” He settles back into the booth and gestures at the padded brown vinyl bench opposite him. “Sit down. Got time?”

“I’ll just grab something quick. I’m on a case.”

Rocky sits across from him and Vic looks around the crowded coffee shop for the lone waitress. There she is, taking an order from a pair of weathered-looking streetwalkers.

Following his gaze, Rocky comments, “Nice clientele. How’d you pick this place?” He plucks a cold, mealy French fry from the plate Vic pushed aside a few minutes ago.

“It got a top rating in Zagat’s,” Vic tells him. “Right above Le Cirque.”

“Funny guy.” Rocky takes another fry and eyes the crusty, congealed remains of Vic’s grilled cheese sandwich.

“Actually, this was the first place I saw when I came out of the Midtown Tunnel. First thing I’ve eaten all day and it’s going to be a long night.”

“Yeah, no kidding. So you’ve been over in Queens?”

Vic nods.

“Where, at the airports?”

Vic nods again. He’s spent an exhausting afternoon interviewing airline employees.

“Got any leads?” Rocky reaches for the sticky-looking ketchup bottle on the table and unscrews the cap. Seeing that the top of the bottle is gummy with blackish ketchup goo, he makes a face and takes a napkin from the holder on the table.

“Maybe.” Vic shrugs. “You know I can’t get into details.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You guys have a lot of rules.”

You guys.
Their friendship has never been entirely immune to the legendary tension between the FBI and local cops, but Vic learned long ago to let comments roll off his back.

He watches Rocky wipe off the neck of the bottle, pour some ketchup onto the plate, and sprinkle a liberal amount of salt over the pool and the cold fries.

“That’s not good for you, Rock . . . you know that, right?”

“What’s not good for me? Salt? French fries? Ketchup?”

“All of the above.”

“What’s wrong with ketchup?”

“
That
ketchup?” Vic shoots the grungy bottle a dubious look. “I thought you were on a diet.”

“Who told you that?”

“Ange. On Saturday night. She said the doctor wants you to drop thirty, forty pounds.”

“Ketchup isn’t fattening, Vic.”

“Never mind. How did the colonoscopy go?”

“My ass is clean as a whistle. Okay? That what you want to hear?”

“Congratulations, Rock. That’s what everyone wants to hear.”

The waitress, a wizened redhead with nicotine-stained fingers, materializes with a pot of coffee and a slice of pie with rubbery-looking blueberry filling.

“Here you go,” she tells Vic, setting the pie in front of him, turning his cup right-side-up in the saucer, and pouring coffee. She addresses Rocky. “You eating, hon?”

“You bet, hon. What’s quick?”

“Everything’s quick here.”

“Yeah? I’ll have the meatloaf.”

“Trust me . . . you don’t want the meatloaf, hon,” she tells him, taking a pen from behind her ear and an order pad from her pocket.

“No? Then give me the chili.”

“Onions? Sour cream? Cheese?”

“The works. And coffee.”

“You got it.” She walks away.

“How’s the coffee?” Rock asks Vic, who just took a sip.

“How do you think it is?” Vic shakes his head. “She tells you not to order the meatloaf, so you order the chili?”

“What’s wrong with that? She didn’t tell me not to order that.”

“Forget it. Tell me what you’re working on. Unless you can’t.”

“The hell with can’t. I’m old school. I need all the help I can get right now,” Rocky tells him. “My partner, Murph—his brother’s missing. He’s down on the pile. I’m working the case with a female detective I’m not crazy about.”

“Why not?”

“She smokes.”

“A lot of cops do.”

“Yeah. I hate it. So does Murph. Anyway, she’s just not seasoned enough. Kinda like these French fries.” He dumps more salt on them.

“Tell me about the case, Rocky.”

“Down at the station house, they’ve got a name for this bastard. The Nightwatcher. Bona fide serial killer.”

Vic looks up from a forkful of pie. “How many murders?”

“Only two so far.” Curtailing what Vic was about to say, Rocky quickly adds, “I know, I know, you need three, right? Technically? For it to be a serial killer? Never mind—don’t answer that. I know you guys got a lot of rules. But from where I sit, this is a serial killer.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Vic listens with interest as Rocky describes the case between sips of black coffee, cold French fries, and spoonfuls of chili that actually looks—and smells—pretty good. A lot better, at least, than the wedge of cardboard and blue goo pie Vic opts not to finish.

“So the long hair that was in the second victim’s fist—that’s got me confused,” Rocky tells him. “Because it was looking like we had a male perp on our hands. But now . . .”

“Men do have long hair.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Have you seen my son Donny lately?” Rocky shakes his head. “But Vic, listen, there was nothing sexual involved here. With cases like this, when the killer is a man, you’ve almost always got rape involved, you know?”

“
Almost
always,” Vic echoes. “There are other motives—the thrill of the kill, or some mission to rid the world of a certain kind of person . . .”

“What’s your take on this one?”

“What’s the victimology?”

“Both single women. Both live alone in buildings owned by the same guy, with the same handyman—my prime suspect, if I could track him down.”

“You can’t?”

“No one I talked to even knows the guy’s last name.”

“What’s his deal?”

“Sounds like he was infatuated with the first victim. The second one, I’m not sure. She just moved in yesterday, and she was a lesbian, so . . .”

“He might not have known that.”

“Maybe not. Her family sure as hell didn’t . . . but they do now. She had her girlfriend listed as the emergency contact in her Filofax and there was a picture of the two of them on the bedside table—crazy thing is, the twin towers were in the background. But I don’t even think her brother noticed that. He was as upset when he figured out his sister was gay as he was that she was dead.” Rocky shakes his head sadly.

“What about the other victim? Any chance she was a lesbian, too?” Vic asks, considering the mission killer theory.

“No. At least, doesn’t look that way.”

“The missing middle finger makes me think your unsub made a move on these women and they literally or even figuratively flipped him off.”

“Yeah, I know, I thought of that. And remember—this
guy
might be a woman.”

“Female serial killers are rare,” Vic points out.

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“They usually kill people who are close to them—or at least, people with whom they have a relationship. And they do it a lot less violently, less sadistically, than your Nightwatcher does. Their motives tend to be financial gain, or if not, then they’re sometimes part of a killing team.”