Night Victims

27

New York, 2003

Cindy Vine thought she might be going crazy. She managed the household budget, and the money was tight. Joe’s hours had been cut back, and she’d tried to get some kind of job but couldn’t. What office skills she possessed were hopelessly out of date. Computers scared the hell out of her. And nobody gave a damn if she knew how to file and could type fast. They might never have seen a keyboard attached to a typewriter.

Now this!

The hospital had made a settlement offer. Three hundred thousand dollars! Plus medical expenses for Alan.

And Joe told the lawyers no.

The apartment had never seemed so small, the furniture so threadbare, the kitchen so dated, the carpet so worn.

“Why, Joe? For God’s sake, why?”

He simply stood there in the living room looking at her, wearing the angry but faintly amused expression she was beginning to hate. You could never understand, the look said. You have no choice but to leave it to me. You have to trust my judgment. You have no choice. You have no choice.

“Joe?”

“Because it isn’t enough, Cindy. They owe us more. And I want an admission of guilt. No amount of money’s enough without that. I want them to say they were wrong, that they turned Alan into-That they did that to Alan!”

“Their position’s that they won’t admit wrongdoing even if they make a settlement offer. That’s what we were told.”

“They can change their position.”

She was struggling but staying outwardly calm. During the last six months they’d fought enough about this kind of thing. What good was any of it if it was killing you measure by measure, word by word? How did it help Alan or anyone else? And while it was all being hashed out, the bills continued to pile up. “What did our attorneys say when you told them we were refusing the offer?”

“They said it’s what they would’ve advised.”

“They?”

“Larry Sigfried. The other partners. They discussed it and that was their conclusion.”

She wasn’t sure if she believed him. The room seemed even smaller and warmer. Cindy was light-headed from the heat. She had to sit down. She took three unsteady backward steps to the couch and sat slumped in it, pressing a palm to her forehead.

“Hey, Cindy. You okay, babe?”

She couldn’t look up at him. Am I okay? A three-hundred-thousand-dollar settlement offer. No, thanks. No need to check with the wife. Does he know how much that is?

Now she met his eyes, his expression mingling concern and truculence. “We already turned down half that much money, Joe. Don’t you think there’s going to come a time when the hospital, through their attorneys, is going to say that’s it, that’s our limit, Mr. and Mrs. Vine? We doubled our offer and you foolishly refused. So we’ll see you in court.”

“No. And lawyers don’t talk that way except in movies or television cop shows. I think negotiations are just beginning. And that’s how our attorneys see it.”

She’d noticed that to Joe the hospital attorneys were lawyers, and the law firm representing the Vine family was peopled by attorneys and partners. “I’m their client, too. Don’t they understand that?”

“Cindy, you know how it is. What we told them. If they speak to either one of us, it’s like they’ve spoken to us both.”

“Then how would you feel if I turned down all that money without consulting you?”

“I’d understand.”

“Would you understand if I demanded to be consulted in the future? Would you agree with that?”

“No.” His face was flushed. He was getting angrier. “I don’t want any of your goddamn word games, Cindy. Turning down a second settlement offer was the right thing to do, whatever you believe. You don’t understand about this kinda thing. Cases like ours are usually settled out of court, but they sometimes drag on for years.”

“Years? What are we going to eat in the meantime? And what’s your plan for paying the bills?”

“We’re making it okay.”

“Says the man who doesn’t write the checks.”

“That’s right! Says the man!”

“Since you’re in charge, Joe, tell me where the money’s going to come from. You’re down to temporary hours at work, and I’ve tried and can’t get a job. Probably couldn’t work one if I did, what’s happened’s got my brains so scrambled. The checking account’s overdrawn again. So tell me, where the fuck will we get the money to buy next week’s groceries?”

“We can max out the Visa card.”

“We did that.”

“The other Visa card, the one that came in the mail last week.”

He doesn’t understand. . He doesn’t get it.. Cindy bowed her head and cupped her face in her hands, trying not to sob in frustration. “We owe thousands, Joe.”

“And we’re angling for millions.”

She looked up at him. “Do you actually believe that?”

“Other people in our position have gotten that much.”

“But it isn’t just the money with you, is it?”

Flushed again. Furious. He wrestled out of the rain-spotted jacket he’d put on this morning and hurled it, wadded, into a chair. Righteous rage. He’d gotten good at it. “Fucking right it isn’t just the money! It’s justice! For Alan! Have you forgotten about Alan?”

“That isn’t fair, Joe.”

“Maybe it isn’t. But Alan deserves a lot better than he got. I don’t know if it’s possible, but when this is over I want to think he at least got justice.”

“It’s too late for him to have justice, Joe. No amount of money will ever even the scales.”

“I can’t believe that. I have to think some kind of justice is possible. It’s the only way I can keep on living.”

Vengeance. For Joe. Cindy bowed her head again and said nothing.

There was nothing more to say. He wouldn’t listen to reason. And she wasn’t even sure if it really was reason. Millions of dollars. If Alan lived-and he must live-think of the things they could do for him with all that money. She had to admit it made sense to give up hundreds of thousands for future millions. Her thinking had been addled lately, so maybe Joe was right.

“I’m going to visit Alan. Are you coming?” His voice was calm. Gentle. Surprising her.

Cindy sighed. She swallowed the years, the pain, and the compromise that was really simply giving in, giving up.

She nodded and stood up from the sofa. Her body ached and her shoulders slumped. The tragedy of what happened to Alan, then the conflict with the hospital, seemed to make Joe more determined and stronger. But it was wearing her down. Aging her prematurely. She felt so weak, as if something more than bone or tissue was broken inside her. She didn’t want to fight. Not anymore.

“It’s still drizzling outside, but it’s warm,” he told her.

“I’ll get an umbrella,” she said. “And one for you.”

* * *

The rain made it easier. The Night Spider stood in the spacious underground garage of the Arcade Building, where the broadcasting studios of Nina Count’s Eye Spy news show were located. No one was there to see him. But if they had been, they wouldn’t have taken special notice, with the weather the way it was. It wasn’t unusual for someone to be wearing a light raincoat with the collar turned up. A baseball cap pulled low like a pitcher’s who wanted to conceal his eyes from the hitter.

It was his face the Night Spider wanted to conceal. There were dozens, hundreds of pockmarks where skin had sloughed off from the spider bites. It had taken a while for him to become immune to the bites, before he no longer felt ill from the venom used to paralyze helpless prey.

Then he’d no longer minded the bites, or the spiders themselves. You became what you got used to, and, so, were immune. The captive came to imitate his captor and then, when the opportunity arose, became his captor, or the captor of a suitable substitute. Concentration camps had made that clear; the imitators who became trusties and camp guards were crueler than the real captors. Crueler or wiser. The Night Spider had read much about concentration camps. They were, in fact, his favorite reading.

He’d even gotten used to what the spiders had done to his face and body, how they’d made him pitted and grotesque. Pitted and pitied. People thought spiders were grotesque. They didn’t understand because they’d never looked closely enough. The small and the crawl. . You had to kneel down, lie down, get very close to see them in the dark.

Not many people could get close enough to understand, and if he tried to explain it to them, that only made things worse. The only girl he’d tried to date in high school had spurned and denigrated him, humiliated him. Her words had stayed with him like burns. Especially one word: Hideous! For weeks after she’d walked away from him, he could hardly bear to look at his own features in the mirror, the pockmarks, the dark eyes full of pain.

Then the pain had changed. There was something else in his eyes.

He met the girl by coincidence in the parking lot of a roadside bar two years after graduation, and he’d taught her what had changed. Followed her home after their so-called friendly conversation, waited for the night to come, then taught her what had changed.

He stepped back into shadow as the sound of a car engine echoed in the garage. Tires swished on concrete, headlight beams danced in the dimness, and the large white Ford SUV that he knew was Nina Count’s leaned as it turned a corner too fast.

It pulled into a parking space, and almost immediately Nina and a man got out. Without a backward glance, Nina worked her key fob and the SUV’s horn gave an abbreviated eep! as the doors locked.

The Night Spider stood still and watched as they walked toward the elevator to the lobby. He could tell by the looseness of their strides that they were relaxed and unsuspecting, even confident. The man, short and with a face like a rodent’s; Nina, taller than the man and with her long, nyloned legs glimmering in the dim light. She was even taller than she appeared on TV. Wearing some kind of green cape to protect from the rain. It flowed from around her shoulders to a few inches below her slender waist, almost like graceful, folded wings.

The elevator door glided open and she and the rodent man stepped inside. The man glanced around as the door closed, but the Night Spider knew how shadow and light worked, knew everything about the darkness, and knew he hadn’t been seen.

He made a mental note of the black number painted on the concrete wall in front of the white SUV No doubt Nina Count’s personal parking space.

That was the information he’d come for. That and whatever else he might learn. Like the presence of the man with Nina. It would be useful to know who he was and what their relationship was. This was the beginning of the stalk, the first tendrils of the web, the growing knowledge and design of its architecture and of how to spin the rest of it. The first excitement.

He unconsciously reached down and stroked himself. For a moment he considered going to the SUV and leaving some kind of message for her. Not a note. But maybe he could break a taillight or bend out a windshield wiper arm and make it useless. Bend both wiper blades so they stuck out like helpless, feeling antennae.

But it wouldn’t be wise to alert her. Not yet. When the time came he might frighten this one with a subtle opening feint, make her pay in dread for what she’d said about him. Then she wouldn’t see him again. Not until she was securely snagged by his cunning and it was too late for her. Not until she knew it was too late.

Then hunter and prey would become captor and captive.

Her last, endless hours. .

His soft-soled shoes made no sound as he left the garage, skirting a wall and avoiding the light as long as possible.

Marla said, “Think it’ll ever stop raining?”

She’d brought Horn the club sandwich he’d ordered. He noticed she hadn’t asked about his dropping into the Home Away for lunch, though before he’d had only breakfast there. He figured she hadn’t asked because she already knew the answer.

“Never,” he said. He wished it would stop raining. Wet weather always made his right shoulder and arm ache. He bit into his turkey club: lots of mayonnaise, crispy bacon, not so much lettuce the thing resembled a salad. It was actually past lunchtime, quarter after two, and he was the only customer. Marla leaned back with her fanny against the table across from his, half sitting, not in a hurry to leave.

“You grumpy today?” she asked, as if it were a serious question.

“A little, I guess. Did I ever tell you about the lawsuit against the hospital where my wife works? Names her as a defendant?” This is why I came here. To confide. To reach out.

“Never did,” she said.

So he told her. She didn’t interrupt him with questions, simply stood staring at the floor and listening. Had she listened to her patients that way, with that same intent but neutral expression?

When he was finished explaining, he brought her up to date. “Anne found out this morning the Vine family turned down the hospital’s latest settlement offer. She thinks they want to go to court no matter what and try to ruin the hospital and ruin her. For revenge.”

Marla crossed her arms and thought for a moment. “She might be right. You have to remember, they think she’s responsible.”

“I don’t see how they could really believe that. They must have seen the medical reports.”

“Probably think they’ve been doctored, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

Horn finished the first triangular quarter of his sandwich. “Yeah, could be. They’re not exactly full of trust at this point, and I guess I can’t blame them. Four-year-old kid in a coma he might not come out of. That’s a damned hard thing.”

“So revenge isn’t out of the question, right?”

“I don’t know. You’re the psychologist.”

“You’re a cop. Cops know people as well as any psychologist.”

“Was a cop.”

“Was a psychologist.”

He laughed and sipped his Diet Pepsi.

“Let’s get to your problems,” she said. “Any developments in the Night Spider case other than the new victim I read about in the papers? Neva?. . ”

“Taylor.”

“Was she killed like the others?”

“With only the minor variation you’d expect. There isn’t any doubt it’s the work of the Night Spider.”

“What about a copycat?”

“Not likely. He wouldn’t know enough about the murder scenes from the news reports to recreate one so faithfully. But why do you ask about a copycat? Does the psychoanalyst in you sense something?”

She smiled. “It’s the waitress in me asking the questions, Horn. What’s the police profiler tell you?”

“Exactly what you’d think. The killer’s between twenty and forty-five years old, organized, intelligent, hates women and probably his mother, and stalks his victims before killing them. Yearns for fame and anonymity simultaneously. A sadist who relishes what he’s doing even though he’s driven to it and knows it might destroy him eventually.”

“You buy into all that?”

“Only some of it.”

“Good.”

“This the psychoanalyst talking now?”

“Yes. And a woman who lives alone. I’d like to see this dangerous sociopath caught.”

“We’ve got a fresh list of suspects, some of them in the New York area. Detectives are checking the names now.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because we have enough cops on the case to check on and interview suspects in and around New York City.” A lie, but she couldn’t know for sure.

“No, I meant here. The diner.”

“I don’t know. Not for sure. Do you?” He smiled when he asked, signaling to her that he might have been joking.

Might have been.

Marla drew a deep breath, then sighed and straightened up from where she’d been leaning back against the table. “Think it’ll ever stop raining?”