Night Kills. John Lutz

in on CNN and Fox News. The story had already gone national. He wasn’t surprised that news of the murders had hit so soon and with such impact. It was a sensational story, like one of those TV cop shows, only real. That was why political-and media-savvy Renz had been so desperate to hire them.

      “Had time to go over the murder books?” Quinn asked, settling down behind his desk. The unlit Cuban cigar was still in the ashtray. He was smoking less and less these days, like other New Yorkers, being systematically backed into a physical and psychological corner by the mayor and his minions. Quinn reminded himself that the mayor had his health and well-being in mind. It kept him from disliking the mayor.

      “Last night and this morning,” Fedderman said.

      Pearl simply nodded. Quinn thought she looked beautiful in the bright morning light that would expose other women’s flaws.

      She noticed the way he was looking at her and stared at him until he averted his gaze.

      “Nothing jumped out at me that’d crack the case and make me a hero,” Fedderman said. “I’m sure the police profiler will have plenty to say about the victims being dismembered. And that impaling business. Phallic symbolism. They’re always quick to find that.”

      “There’s a lot of it going around,” Pearl said. “Maybe our guy is impotent.”

      Fedderman shrugged. “Just because some guy shoves something other ’an his dong up some broad doesn’t mean he can’t get it up.”

      “How would you know that, Feds?”

      “I’m a detective, Pearl.”

      Quinn was looking at Pearl. “Something bothering you?”

      “A niggling doubt.” she said. “These two murders were obviously committed by the same psycho, but still there were only two of them. It’s possible both women did something that set this guy off, maybe even together, and he doesn’t have a grudge against other women, or some kind of fixation and compulsion to kill more. Maybe the two victims and the killer shared some kind of past that led to violence. I mean, do two victims make a serial killer?”

      Fedderman said, “It’s a good question.”

      “The media seem to think two’s enough,” Quinn said.

      Pearl said, “It’s still a good question.”

      Quinn leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “We all know how we’ll find out the answer.”

      The truth of what he’d said sobered all of them.

      Pearl sniffed the air. “You been smoking in here?”

      “It’s a good question,” Quinn said.

      7

      Jill Clark sat in front of her computer staring at her screen saver of great Impressionist paintings gliding past. There went a Renoir, delicate and graceful in composition and color, so unlike the struggle and ugliness just outside her window.

      She watched the painting disappear at the edge of the monitor screen.

      She’d been sitting for a long time staring at the screen and had come to the conclusion that it was time to take stock.

      The paintings were beautiful, but her own life seemed to be getting uglier and more of a struggle by the day. This was a hard city. Hard and merciless. If it were possible for a city to have a killer instinct, this one did.

      Jill was twenty-nine years old with shoulder-length blond hair that often had a way of being enchantingly mussed. Her features were symmetrical, with perhaps too much chin. She had full lips, strong cheekbones, and an undeniably good figure, from jogging almost daily in her neighborhood or in the park. Her eyes were blue and she had a scattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Men seemed to find that an attractive combination.

      She had a degree in accounting and a background in sales: office furniture, then insurance policies for antique and collectable cars.

      Along with a nice smile, those were her assets.

      Then there were her liabilities, mostly credit card debts. Revolving accounts to which she paid only interest while the balances ballooned. From time to time, Files and More, the temporary employment agency that found her part-time work, would land her a decent-paying job, but this was temporary employment. Jill would earn enough to make some headway with the charge accounts, but then there would be periods of inactivity and she’d fall further behind than ever. This seemed to be a cycle she couldn’t break.

      Jill had, in fact, come to think of herself as a professional temp. That was how she might fill in job applications and various other forms under “occupation.” Temp. It at least kept prospective employers from thinking she might have just gotten out of prison. Now and then temporary jobs obtained through Files and More resulted in permanent employment—that’s what the company had told her—but Jill soon learned it didn’t happen very often. And she’d become convinced it wasn’t going to happen for her.

      Not only was the work temporary, but no matter where you were assigned the other employees treated you differently. You would never be one of them. They knew you’d simply fail to come in someday and that would be the last they’d see of you. They wouldn’t exactly be rude to temporary workers, but no one wanted to form anything like a fast or permanent friendship. And romance seemed to be out of the question. Sex was always possible with the geeks she ran into who saw her as temporary in more ways than one, but romance, connecting with someone she might eventually love and depend on, that was as distant as the farthest star. Romance was, of course, what Jill wanted desperately. That and an infusion of cash.

      A Monet smoothly crossed the screen. A garden scene: water lilies; muted, beautiful colors; lush green at the edges but subdued, like the green of a faded dollar bill.

      Romantic, but the painting had made her think of money.

      If she didn’t find steady employment soon, Jill would have real money problems. She had no family, hadn’t since her brother in Missouri died last year, and she was only four months in New York.

      It had seemed the longest four months of her life. There was no one she could turn to for a personal loan, or even a reassuring hug. What people said about New York was so true: It took a lot of money to exist here. And if you were by yourself in the city, the loneliness could crush you.

      Jill was determined not to be crushed, not to return to Wichita, Kansas. That way lay defeat as well as more loneliness.

      On one of her jobs, helping to label and box catalogs, a woman named Billie had told her about Internet dating, how she’d started to do it and it had turned out well for her. Sure, she’d met a lot of losers, but a few winners. Nothing permanent, but guys who wanted more than drinks, laughs, and a quick go-round and see you later.

      At the time, Jill had been almost horrified by the idea. Having to resort to the Internet for romance seemed so wrong, and it was embarrassing. High tech meets the heart. She sure as hell didn’t need that.

      But now…well, it was different. Maybe because Jill hadn’t had a meaningful date in months. The last guy had taken her to a Village dive and expected oral sex right there under the table. And he’d seemed so…normal at first. Maybe that was the trouble. Maybe she’d lost touch and he was normal and she was living outside the real world.

      No, she refused to believe that.

      There went a Manet, an ordered but vivid scene of revelers, a beautiful woman wearing a low-cut dress and a large locket standing behind a bar and looking out and smiling at whoever over time might observe the painting. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, no doubt a raunchy place in nineteenth-century Paris. Now it would seem tame. Its festive image had lost its lasciviousness and become art, and great art at that.

      Jill had done some research, and it altered her opinion about Internet dating. Billie was probably right. It was a new world and things had changed. Jill would simply have to adapt. In this hectic life, in this mad city, there