The Night Watcher (22 page)

When Stack picked up the phone on his desk, Sergeant Redd told him there was another call on the Torcher murders. Not unusual. The police were inundated with calls. Not only did hundreds of people have deliberately misleading or otherwise useless information about the Torcher to feed to the police, but, perversely, dozens of people pretended to
be
the Torcher. “Their fifteen minutes of flame,” the Beave had once remarked. Only some of the calls did Sergeant Redd take seriously enough to patch through to Stack or Rica.

“What is it about this one?” Stack asked the desk sergeant.

Redd knew what he meant. “It’s the fresh angle. And something in her voice.”

And something in your gut,
Stack thought. “Put her on,” he said. Then: “Detective Stack here.”

“Hello?” A woman’s voice, throaty and nervous.

“This is Detective Stack,” Stack repeated patiently in a neutral tone. Sometimes this job was like being a radio call-in show host. “I understand you have some information to convey.”

“Yes. About the Torcher.”

“And what would that be, ma’am?” He deliberately hadn’t asked her name. There was a pause. Stack liked that. She was reconsidering, screwing up her determination to forge ahead and tell her tale. Making sure she really wanted to do this. “I guess it’s what you’d call a tip.” Her voice was steady now; she’d turned the corner. “If you want to find the Torcher, I suggest you look in the mayor’s office.”

Fresh angle indeed.
“The mayor of New York?” Drawing her on. Keeping her talking.

“Of course New York!”

“His office?”

“Yes. Among his aides.”

“Oh? And which of his aides would that be?”

“You’re the police. You should be able to figure that out. If I give you a name, it might be too obvious where you got the information. That might be harmful to me.”

“What’s your connection with this person?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“You do understand that before we can act on this, we need to establish credibility.”

“That’s up to you. I only wanted to make sure you have the information.”

“We get dozens of calls a day like this,” Stack said.

“I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

“Would it be possible for you to elaborate on your information just a bit more?”

“No.”

Clamming up. Losing her.
“I only need something from you that makes your call more credible than most of the others. Is that too much to ask?”

Silence. Had she walked away? Left a phone off the hook somewhere?

“May I ask your name, ma’am?”

“Ask anything you damn well please. I don’t have to answer.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right about that, dear. But I do need—”

He was interrupted by a click, then a loudly buzzing dial tone that sounded like an angry wasp. She’d abruptly hung up the phone.

Stack replaced the receiver on his desk phone. “Anything?” Rica asked.

“A woman suggesting we look in the mayor’s office for the Torcher.”

“He’ll be hiding beneath the desk?”

“I don’t think she meant it precisely that way.”

Rica finished buttoning her coat to leave. “Another nutcase.”

“Probably. But she didn’t exactly sound like one.”

“Lots of them don’t.” She raised her chin high and flung one end of her long red muffler about her neck so that it dangled down the back of her coat.

“Well, it probably was another crank call,” Stack said. “But it’s one to put in the hopper.”

“With all the others.”

Hundreds of them.

The phone jangled again.

Sergeant Redd: “The call came from a pay phone down in the Village.”

Stack thanked him, then reached for his own coat.

After hanging up, Dani walked quickly away from the phone, her head bowed, her fists jammed deep in her coat pockets. For all she knew, the cops had traced the call and a police car was already on the way. That was why she’d kept the conversation short.

She was glad she’d made the call. She’d done the right thing, she told herself. No second-guessing.

A cold wind kicked up and propelled litter along the sidewalk, causing a dancing sheet of newspaper to snag for a moment on the instep of her left boot.

Dani crossed Bedford and hurried along Christopher Street toward Bleecker, thinking back on the phone conversation. What, really, might she have told Detective Stack that would mean anything and prompt police action? She really didn’t know anything substantive. It was all gleaned from her conversations with Etta, and during most of them Etta had been talking in a drug-induced haze or in her sleep. Fragmented, fanciful statements that might be fact or dream.

Dani sensed strongly that Etta was in danger. She worried about her. Feared for her. She was surprised by how intensely she cared.

Rica was tired enough that when she entered her apartment the first thing she thought about was dropping into bed and letting herself go unconscious.

Then she noticed the desk by the window. Something maybe only a cop would have noticed. Rica always,
always,
closed drawers all the way after opening them. Some kind of anal thing, she’d once been told. Well, maybe.

But one of her desk drawers was open perhaps a quarter of an inch. The drawer where she kept her notes on the Torcher case.

Before going to the desk, she glanced around.

Everything seemed okay, undisturbed. Except for that lamp shade that was slightly crooked, as if somebody might have brushed it. She might have brushed it herself on the way out and not realized it.

Rica wasn’t the sort to stand and agonize. She did a quick walk-through of the apartment, which didn’t take long, considering the size of the place. She encountered no monsters, and nothing else seemed to have been disturbed.

She went back into the living room and examined the desk.

The contents of the drawer had definitely been disturbed. Her notes were at a slightly different angle to the sides of the drawer, and she was sure a paper clip had been lying on top of them.

Stack! He must have come in and looked at her case notes. Checking on her, in their new intimacy. What was hers was his.

Screw that!

Then it occurred to her that he didn’t have a key. She smiled. That would be no problem for an experienced cop like Stack.

Stack, all right. Something to know about him. Maybe he’d say something about it to her. She’d wait for that. See what happened.

Then she told herself to ease up, she was thinking and acting out of exhaustion. There was probably a reasonable explanation for the drawer business, and she was the one being paranoid. Stack might only have wanted to refresh his memory about some aspect of the case, so he’d dropped by when she wasn’t home and done just that. They were sleeping together, so why shouldn’t he feel free to take that liberty? There was no real reason to believe he’d be checking on her work.

She made extra sure the door was locked, then staggered toward the bedroom already beginning to undress.

Lying in bed, she thought about what had happened. Maybe she was unused to intimacy and that was why she was making too much of a small thing. It could happen when you lived alone, lived for your work. It could happen. Especially when you were so tired and not thinking straight….

By the time she fell asleep, she was no longer mad at Stack.

No longer uneasy.

No longer on guard.

The next afternoon, Chips dropped Mirabella off at work, and at the last moment, just before she closed the car door behind her, told her he’d be seeing somebody in the city about a consultant’s job and would spend the night there. He’d be home sometime the next morning, and she wasn’t to worry about him.

But she was worrying already, he could tell.

Consultant’s job! Does he think I’m brain-dead?
“Listen, Chips, why don’t you just tell me—”

“I’ll explain later,” he said, glancing behind him. “I can’t stay parked here, baby. I hate spending the night away from you. It’s business.”

“But what kind of—”

“Baby, I gotta go.” An angry horn blast behind the Neon made Mirabella jerk. Good. “See, I’m holding up traffic parking here. I’m a navigational hazard.”

“But, Chips—”

“Tomorrow morning, baby.” He blew her a kiss. The driver behind him gave the horn two long blasts this time.

“Blow it out your…” Mirabella was shouting at the driver, as Chips pulled the Neon back out into traffic and drove away. There was no doubt she was upset.

Chips was breathing kind of fast, but he felt okay about this. You could trust any woman only so far, even a dumb one like Mirabella. When he got back to the house in New Jersey, he’d pack his suitcase and put it in the car with what he’d need for the job. Maybe drive the Neon to Philadelphia and leave it in the airport parking garage, then buy a ticket to Boise. He knew somebody in Boise, and the law would never think of looking for a guy like Chips in a place like Boise, was his reasoning. Though he’d never been to Boise.

“We’d like to speak with you,” Rica said to Myra Raven. She’d been sitting at Stack’s desk and working the phone most of the afternoon, when at 4:10
P.M
. she was finally able to get through to the real estate maven. Myra Raven, according to the receptionist, had been in a meeting all afternoon. Rica would bet that if the receptionist had a wooden nose, it would be about the size of a two-by-four.

“Speak with
me?
The police? About what?”

Rica picked up something in the woman’s voice.
Why do I think you’ve been avoiding this conversation?
“It’s just a routine matter concerning the Torcher murders. We thought you’d be the logical person to ask some general questions regarding New York real estate.”

“Me? But, why?”

Rica put a deliberate chuckle in her voice. “Well, I guess it’s just because yours is the most successful real estate agency in town, and everybody else we’ve asked about the subject recommended we talk with you.” Another chuckle, like the ones in Stack’s repertoire. “You’re what we in police work call an expert.”

“As in expert witness?”

“Oh, I don’t think it would go that far. It’s just that if we knew more about New York real estate, the investigation might go easier. Your chance to perform a public service, I guess. We’ll hardly trouble you. We’ll come to you, and I promise we won’t take up much of your time.”

“Well…”

“It could be great publicity for your company. Unless of course you wanted to keep our conversation confidential.”
You don’t have a reason to refuse, lady. Unless you want to attract suspicion.

Myra Raven said nothing. Neither did Rica. She knew when not to talk.

After a long pause, Myra’s defeated voice came over the line. “I would insist on confidentiality. For business reasons.”

“You would know best about that,” Rica said, with a huge grin. “We can be at your office in fifteen minutes, get it over with.”

“Today, you mean?”

“It happens I’m on a cell phone, and we’re only a few blocks away from you.”

A sigh like water from a tap came over the phone. “All right. Anything to help the police stop these ghastly fires. Not only are they tragic in human terms, they’re terrible for business.”

“I can imagine,” Rica said. “See you soon.” She hung up the phone before Myra Raven could change her mind, then looked up at Stack, who’d been standing next to his desk listening to the conversation.

“Bullshit like magic,” he said with a smile.

“I learned from a master.”

“We’ll use the light and siren for a while,” he said. “Maybe we can make it in less than fifteen minutes. If she’s got something to be nervous about, it’s all the better if we’re a little late and she has to wait.”

At that moment in New Jersey, Larry Chips was hefting his suitcase into the backseat of the Neon. There would be room in the trunk, but he didn’t want his clothes to pick up any of the accelerant scent.

He shut the Neon’s door and went into the garage. On the workbench were five leak-proof containers that were ice bags of the type used by hospitals to relieve swelling and headaches. They were pliable plastic encased in rubberized blue felt. Once full and attached with duct tape to his inner thighs, his waist, and the small of his back, they would conform to the shape of his body and draw no attention beneath his knee-length coat. Though they were plastic, it would take a long time for the accelerant to cause enough of a chemical reaction for them to leak. Chips had been using them for years, using phony ID if he had to in order to buy them from medical supply stores; they were ideal for his purpose.

Using a metal oil-change funnel, he carefully transferred the contents of most of the orange juice bottles into the ice bags. As an afterthought, he filled two more of the plastic bags to put in his coat’s generous side pockets. He didn’t spill a drop.

When he was finished, he arranged the swollen ice bags on the workbench and stepped back. He was satisfied with his preparations, still relaxed, though soon he’d be on edge in the way he enjoyed.

There was only one ice bag left over. He carried it with him into the house, then went to the kitchen and got some ice from the refrigerator. It wasn’t the kind of refrigerator that supplied crushed ice, so he had to dump a couple of trays in the sink and break up the cubes using an ice pick. Scratched the hell out of the sink, but what did he care? He’d stuff some ice in the plastic bag, add water, then sit on the sofa with the bag over his eyes and forehead, taking it easy and going over in his mind his plans for the evening. He could unwind completely that way, wait for the edge, and the cold bag would help him relax and at the same time keep him from drifting off to sleep.

It felt good, knowing he was leaving New York tonight. He’d done enough here, shown himself to too many people. Though that old photo the cops and media were flashing around no longer looked much like him, there was still a chance some sharp citizen would recognize him, then phone
America’s Most Wanted
or some such shit. He remembered an old guy, name of Ernie, who was so afraid of being on one of those TV shows he couldn’t even watch football, thinking there might be a network commercial—

Enough ice. He turned on the cold side of the tap and held the ice bag beneath the spigot. Good. Still not a drop spilled. A challenge met. That meant his luck would hold tonight. He began screwing the bag’s white plastic cap back on.

“Chips.”

He spun around, feeling cold water splosh over the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

Mirabella was standing in the kitchen doorway. “Jesus, baby! You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were at work.”

A funny look in her eye. Not exactly anger. Not exactly fear. “You got a headache, Chips?”

“Matter of fact I do. I was gonna turn on some music, lay back on the couch, and try to relax with this ice bag on my head.” Keeping his voice casual. “How come you came home? You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t feel right about the way we left each other, you saying you wouldn’t be home this evening. All night, you were gonna be gone. But here it is evening, and you’re home.”

“I came to pick up some things; then I’m gonna drive back into the city.”

“You can’t do any of that if you’re laying on the sofa with an ice bag on your head.”

“I didn’t plan on getting a headache.” He made himself grin. “Hey, why the interrogation?”

“I got to thinking about a lot of things, Chips. About us.”

He nodded. “I think about us all the time.”

“I saw your suitcase in the car, Chips.” She moved farther into the kitchen now, maybe starting to get really mad, hurt. “I saw the garage door was open and went inside. There are more ice bags on the workbench. I unscrewed the cap on one to see what was inside.” Another step toward him. “I’m not stupid, Chips. I know who you really are. You’re the Torcher. I just want you to—”

Jesus! Where’d the ice pick come from? How’d it get back in my hand?

It was as if the ice pick had a mind and mission of its own, as if it were pulling Chip’s hand rather than him pushing it into Mirabella low between her breasts, then up into her heart, almost lifting her off the kitchen floor. She made only a slight sound, a funny little
“Uhnn!”
Then she fell back and down, sliding off the ice pick.

Chips had always heard that once you killed, it was easier each time. He guessed now that was true. He even tried to feel remorse but couldn’t. His mind, bent on self-preservation, was too busy racing ahead to explore the new terrain of his life.

In a way, Mirabella was now a problem solved. A problem he hadn’t asked for. So why should he feel guilty? The truth was, any second she mighta gotten a wild hair up her ass and called the law down on him. At least Chips knew now where she was, what she was doing. On the kitchen floor, doing nothing. Guilt? Piss on it. Why should he feel guilt?

What did bother him, what was kind of eerie, was the look on Mirabella’s face when the ice pick went in. Not really surprised. It was if she’d been expecting something like what happened. Like it was why she’d come back home.

Chips understood women. He knew she
had
come back just so she could catch him in a lie, so he’d have to show her he loved her enough not to kill her. That was what she wanted, but not what she really expected. She got what she expected. She put him in a position where he didn’t have any choice.

He stared down at her body where she’d rolled onto her side against the cabinets under the sink. Her skirt was up around her thighs, twisted tight. One red high-heeled shoe was off except right at the toes.
Fuckin’ loser! What else could I do?

He dumped the ice and water from the plastic bag into the sink, then carried the bag out to the garage.

When he came back, the bag was full. He carried it into the kitchen and glanced again at Mirabella’s body.
Worthless bitch!
He was still so mad at her, at what she’d done to him, that he felt like kicking her. He actually drew back his right foot, then stopped.

What good would it do?

What would it change?