Night kills

32

It took Jill Clark almost half an hour to tell Quinn everything. When she was finished, she wasn't sure how she felt about what she'd done.

She still felt she'd had to do it, to talk to Quinn before her next date with Tony. But now she began to think again about what Madeline had told her and wondered if she really trusted Quinn. If she trusted anyone.

She hadn't been disappointed in Quinn. His strength and calm were obvious and reassured her, drew her out. He seemed to understand and to forgive her for any naivete or foolishness that had led her to this predicament. But was that the idea? Was it a trick? Was everything a trick?

The sense of being drained, of absolution, after telling her tale was fast disappearing. She'd opened herself to new problems. She was still suspicious of everyone.

You're being paranoid. Like Madeline.

Dead Madeline, who'd had real enemies.

But she didn't know for sure that Madeline was dead. Jill had only been sure enough to come here, to talk to Quinn.

Tony. Why didn't I talk to him? Why didn't I trust Tony?

It was as if her heart had known secretly what hadn't yet found its place in her mind. Her heart hadn't trusted Tony. Was her heart right?

It hadn't been right yet.

She was still afraid.

Appraisal time.

Quinn had been reviewing his notes when Jill arrived. He'd left his reading glasses on so he'd seem less intimidating. Anything to make her conversational and keep her talking. And she'd told him plenty, the words tumbling out sometimes so close together they got tangled up.

He leaned back in his desk chair and peered over the rims of his glasses at this young woman who'd just unburdened herself to him. She seemed entirely rational but obviously distraught. She was wearing lightweight blue slacks, a white blouse with a coffee stain on it, very little makeup. Her blond hair was carelessly combed and slightly flattened on one side, as if she'd been lying down. Her eyes were red, but he couldn't be sure if she'd been crying. She was perched on the very edge of the visitor's chair in front of his desk, facing him. Quinn, after all his years as a detective and all those lies he'd been told, could almost unerringly know if someone was telling the truth. Jill Clark seemed too frightened to be lying.

"I know it's hard to believe," she said, mistaking his silence. "I didn't believe it myself at first."

"And you think the woman you saw in the elevator on Seventy-second Street has taken over the identity of the one you referred to as mad Madeline. Has moved into her apartment."

His words were statements, not questions.

"Only Madeline wasn't mad," Jill said. "I'm sure of that now."

Quinn peeled off his glasses, folded them, and slid them into his shirt pocket.

"It's hard to believe," Jill said again.

"It's hard to believe we're finding human torsos lying around the city, but we are."

"Then you do believe me!"

He wasn't ready to give her that yet. "I think you and I should take a ride in my car," he said.

"To Madeline's apartment?"

He smiled. "It's a little premature for that, I'm afraid."

She shuddered and her lower lip trembled. "I know where we're going. I expected it."

"You've given this some thought."

"Of course I have."

And you'll give it more thought after today. Probably for the rest of your life.

Quinn scooted back his chair and stood up, then walked around the desk and placed his hand on Jill Clark's shoulder. He could feel the fear and tension like electric current in her slender body. "You're safe now, dear. You did the right thing coming here."

She surprised him and placed her hand on his and squeezed. "I don't think anyone's really safe," she said. "Not anymore."

"Relatively safe," Quinn amended. "And that's about all we get in this cockeyed world."

She managed a smile, but it wasn't much.

"Ready to take that ride?" he asked.

She nodded and stood up from her chair as if she were an arthritic old woman. The mind was forcing the body where the body didn't want to go. Quinn couldn't blame her for being reluctant.

"We'll make it as easy as possible for you," he said. "Nothing's as bad as the fear of it."

Almost nothing.

He scribbled a note to Pearl and Fedderman explaining where he was going. Then he placed a hand gently on Jill Clark's shoulder and steered her toward the door. He saw that the label on her blouse was sticking up out the back of her collar and deftly tucked it in. She glanced over at him and they exchanged smiles. He had to keep her moving, keep her from thinking too much.

They were on their way to the morgue.

Victor paced in his apartment, roaming through all the rooms, head bowed, his mind processing new experience, the new Victor.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was business. He'd started out so detached. The dismembering was useful as a public signal to the waiting client as well as a hindrance to victim identification. And most of all, it helped to divert the police by convincing them a psychosexual serial killer was operating instead of a unique and profitable business. If the dismemberment didn't do it, surely the phallic broomstick stakes forced up through the vaginal and womb walls, or the rectum, would.

At first there was no emotional reaction to using the sharpened broomstick stakes. But soon he'd become fascinated by the homemade stakes and began taking great care in their selection and transformation in his skillful hands. The sharpening, sanding, and oiling became tremendously important to him. Somehow extremely personal. It made using the broomstick stakes easier.

It made doing business easier. That part of the business.

Then slowly, without him being aware of it, he began to enjoy more than the preparation. He began to enjoy using the stakes.

That wasn't like him. Not at all. He was Victor the businessman, not Victor the Impaler.

He glanced over at his bookshelves, at the Vlad the Impaler books. When he'd seen them in the biography section at Barnes amp; Noble he had to have them. That really was when he first suspected the presence of a demon in him, a sickness, and his uneasy suspicions were confirmed when he read more and more eagerly about the sadistic despot and warlord.

Good Christ! He and the long-dead Vlad had something in common.

They were kindred spirits.

Victor wasn't pleased by this. He went into the kitchen and poured some Johnnie Walker Black into a water glass. The liquor felt hot going down; maybe it would jolt him out of his depression, his reluctance to accept what he'd done, what he was.

It was Gloria who'd suggested using the broomstick stakes. Maybe she was the one who'd infected him. And she was the one who'd suggested that Charlotte's penetration be anal, like that of the man. Victor remembered what he'd immediately thought when she'd suggested that. It was the way Vlad had impaled his victims. He'd agreed to Gloria's suggestion without argument, as if it was all business with him so it made no difference. But he knew by the smile in her hard, dark eyes that she was aware of this new side of him, or old side that had always been there as a secret even from himself. He and Gloria could have few secrets from each other.

Victor continued to pace. He simply couldn't sit down and be still.

He knew why he couldn't sit and be still, the real reason. What had happened wasn't Vlad the Impaler's fault, or Gloria's. The decision had been his.

He'd make the same decision again.

He took another generous swallow of scotch, nailing down the admission that hadn't come easily, and that somehow made him feel marginally better.

This time when his mind began replaying Charlotte's squirming and soft screaming on the hood of the car, he didn't immediately deflect his thoughts, the muted pleas for mercy and the violent images. He found his courage and welcomed them into his consciousness, into his new being.

Victor the Impaler.

Another swig of scotch.

I enjoy my work. Why shouldn't I?