A Cruel Season for Dying (28 page)

L
ate Saturday morning. Willie lay curled on the sofa in the Jamilis’ pleasant living room, enjoying the fire that burned in
the grate. The second-floor apartment looked out onto Washington Square Park, and through the large picture window she could
watch the holiday crowds that thronged the Village, despite the awful weather. Christmas was less than a month away, and she
had yet to buy her presents, much less mail them to New Orleans. She would have to get out there today, her day of rest as
dictated by Jimmy.
Tunnel vision results when you’re too close to a case. Give it a rest. Come back with a fresh perspective.
Her own preaching thrown back at her.

It was still good advice. She was a bit burned-out after two weeks of sixteen-hour days working with the members of the task
force, talking one-on-one with as many of them as she could, hoping to fill in the cracks of dry reports with something that
would break this thing. But it was all with little result.

According to the colleagues she had called, there was no one on the East Coast with a grant for therapeutic use of psychoactive
drugs. So that particular theory of a patient “pushed over the edge” through LSD experimentation by a psychiatrist was pretty
much a dead end, since there was no way to trace illegal psychiatric use.

There’d been nothing new learned from Kerry’s murder, except the doctor’s connection to Carrera. No link to any of the other
victims. No witness since the bartender who had only glimpsed the probable killer with Westlake. Unless you counted the woman
in Kerry’s building
who’d seen an apparently different man with the doctor at his apartment. Nothing that would change her original profile or
provide new insight into the killer’s fantasy.

A week now since Kerry’s murder. They were all in suspension, consciously or not, waiting. It was a mood as oppressive as
the weather, a sullen premonitory coldness that hung about day after day.

As had so often happened since their visits together to the Milne and Westlake crime scenes, she thought of Darius. The intrusion
was irritating. His bowing out of the case had not really surprised her. But his abrupt departure had left her with a feeling
of …
Unfinished business
was the best way she had to describe it. And time after time this past week as she’d worked the case, she’d found herself
wondering what Michael’s response might be to some thought or theory that occurred to her. She had to admit he was interesting—more
than the bitter ex-cop. She was actually sorry she wasn’t going to see him again.

A log popped and stirred in the fire. She sighed and sat up. Enough damn rest. And the hell with Christmas. A serial investigation
was a full-time thing. She was going to Police Plaza, where she might at least do some good.

The bruised greenish sky had not changed since morning. It leaked a perpetual drizzle that thickened to gray mist shrouding
cold stone and pavement. Moving at ground level was a magical act, like breathing underwater.

The narrow side street seemed almost deserted, as quiet as a street in the city ever was on a Saturday in early December.
The small figure in the shiny yellow slicker bounded along the sidewalk, hood thrown back, rubbered feet dancing and splashing
through every slight depression where rain had collected in the pavement. For the man, following on his Harley, the light
bounced too. A spherical glow, lanternlike in the mist, tethered to the dark little head.

The light stopped, disappeared through the door of the small neighborhood pharmacy. He continued down the street, then turned
to circle the block. He did not believe in fate, was fully aware of the danger. But this kind of opportunity might not come
again.

The mobility of the bike made it possible. That, and the weird muffling effect of the weather. Still, his timing had to be
perfect.

She emerged from the store with a little white bag in her hand. He hung back, waiting, as her return trip through the puddles
brought her closer to the street. The traffic light went green at the end of the block; cars swept past. He gunned the Harley,
curving onto the sidewalk, sweeping her up, arcing into the alley.

She was strong for her age. A good fit for her body. His hand was across her mouth, keeping her silent, his arm pinning her
to his chest as she kicked and clawed. With his free hand he reached for the canister clipped to his belt beneath the dark
rubber poncho, held his breath while he sprayed her. A good dose before the quick injection that would keep her out for a
while.

The drizzling mist, condensing to rain in the narrow brick canyon, fell like a curtain between the alley and street. Still,
he was careful, propping her on the far side of the cycle to tape her wrists before removing his poncho.

For a moment as he lifted her, the puppy dog smell of her damp hair evoked a human sadness. In the next moment he had settled
her with her arms around his neck, her body hanging limply at his back. He straddled the Harley and put the poncho back on.
Beneath its heavy folds, balanced behind him on the seat, Lucia and her light were invisible.

Tony Paladino was furious. At the weather. At his luck. He knew what he must look like as he walked into the dealership. Wet
to the skin and puffing like a bull with a cardiac. He should have gone home to change, but that would have put up Barbara’s
antenna and made him even later than he was now for his Saturday split.

It hadn’t been the best of times at Odyssey Lincoln Mercury. What with the freaky weather bumming everyone out. October and
November, usually among the best months, had been lousy for sales. So it shouldn’t matter at all that he was late for his
shift, but Harris was an asshole who wanted a full complement of salesmen on the floor, even if all that was dribbling through
the big glass doors was rain.

“You’re a bit late to the dance.” Steve Meyer was grinning ear to ear as he walked up. The prominent teeth in his too thin
face made him look like a weasel.

“Don’t fuck with me, Steve. Besides, you didn’t have to stick. What’s one less salesman on the floor these days?”

Meyer’s grin grew wider. He had something to say but held it. “So what happened to you?” he said instead.

“Fucking flat.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah … well. For God’s sake, what’s up? You gonna bust a gut if you don’t tell me.”

“That Cartier L … silver frost with graphite leather interior. I sold it.”

“No shit.”

“This woman comes in. Didn’t look to be more than twenty. Jeans and a sweatshirt. No makeup. No flash at all. Just looking,
I figure. You’re up, but you’re not here, and no way am I letting Jennings take it, even if she looks like she’s got empty
pockets. So I waltz over sweetly and ask if I can help.”

“Is this gonna be a long story?”

“Nah.” Meyer brushed off his sarcasm, too wound up in his own bullshit to take offense.

“The little lady wants something safe and comfortable,” he went on. “So what the hell, I show her the Cartier L. She gives
it the once-over, don’t even blink at the sticker price. Just asks if she gets something off for cash. I start to explain
how cash don’t really matter much the way financing’s done today. But then I just say, ‘
Cash?
Yeah, I can take maybe a full hundred off.’ And the next thing I know she’s writing out a check that her bank clears in maybe
five seconds.”

Meyer stood looking at him with that damn weasel grin, waiting for the explosion.

“Son of a bitch!” he complied. But his heart wasn’t in it. Fuck the stupid commission. There was no way now with that idiot
bragging all over the place that the sales manager didn’t know just how late he was. And worse than Barbara in one of her
moods was Harris asking too many questions.

The rain had stopped, like skeleton fingers that suddenly cease their tapping. The shades drawn up, the windows stood black
and cold, rectangles of blankness in the far wall of the bedroom. From where he stood in the unlit space, the man could see
nothing beyond them, as if the city lights had disappeared along with the day’s sun. Whatever illumination existed seemed
pebbled and sourceless, an ambient trait of the objects in the room. The small yellow slicker at the foot of the bed, alone
in the general dimness, maintained a plastic brilliance, sharp angled and bright.

She slept soundly. Dreamless in the dark. Eyes stilled beneath lids. Lashes like spiders against her flesh. He bent his face
close, his mouth grazing her lips, parted as though ready to blow a bubble. Drawing in her breath, he could taste its little-girl
hard-candy flavor, taste the faint top note of the gas she’d inhaled. A small jumping of her arm, a sigh now and again.

He pulled back, reaching for her wrist, checking her pulse. Her blood flushed rhythmically through a tapestry of tiny vessels.
An endless dance of red. He counted beats against the second hand of his watch. Slower than he thought, but certainly within
normal range.

A child was new territory. The injections of potassium didn’t matter, but he would have to be careful with the LSD. A small
girl’s brain was different from an adult male’s. Everything depended upon precision and timing. He would wait for her to wake
naturally. And like a china doll, he would handle her. She was imminently breakable. And he needed her alive, at least until
he wanted her dead.