Night Victims

29

There was no record that Aaron Mandle had ever had trouble with the law. His last known address was three years old and in St. Louis, in a neighborhood where it was dangerous to grow up or to grow old. He’d lived in a six-family apartment building long ago torn down to make room for a highway exit ramp.

Horn had checked with the St. Louis police and was told Mandle didn’t have a record there, either. VICAP and NCIC had nothing on him. The man seemed to no longer exist.

But he’d definitely existed in St. Louis. The detective Horn talked to, a guy named Homolka, recalled a four-year-old unsolved homicide: a woman wrapped in her bedsheets and stabbed to death.

The next morning, Horn said, “We’re catching his act after he perfected it on the road,” as if Mandle were someone who’d recently opened on Broadway.

“Then we don’t know how many women he’s killed,” Paula said. “There might be dozens more, in other cities.”

“Not that I could find, other than the probable in St. Louis. But it’s still being checked out.”

“Wouldn’t he have been in the military around that time?” Paula asked.

“Maybe,” Horn said. “But if he was in the States, he’d have occasional leave.”

“The army should have his fingerprints,” Bickerstaff said.

“Should, but they don’t.”

They’d been in the Home Away for more than an hour, trying to figure out what to do with what seemed to be their best lead. Horn was finished with his corn muffins, and Paula and Bickerstaff had sneaked a stop at a Krispy Kreme and told him they were skipping breakfast today. Horn had congratulated them on their dietary virtuousness, then pointed out the doughnut crumbs on their clothes. There were only three coffee cups and saucers, a small cream pitcher, and sugar packets on the table now. Everyone knew where everyone else stood culinary-wise.

Horn said, “I didn’t want to drag Kray into this any further, so I contacted Altman and asked him about Mandle. Should have known it was a waste of time. Far as the government’s concerned, the SSF and its roster don’t exist and never did.”

“Not even to catch a killer?” Paula asked.

“Alleged killer. And according to Altman, SSF members’ military records are expunged to prevent any possible compromise even after they become civilians. He said he couldn’t help me if he tried.”

“And we know we can believe him,” Bickerstaff said disgustedly.

“Did he ask how we found out about Mandle?” Paula said. “Altman must know he wasn’t a name on the original list of SSF members.”

“The phony list,” Bickerstaff said.

“Useless, anyway,” Horn said. “And no, Altman didn’t ask. And I didn’t exactly use Mandle’s real name anyway. Sometimes it’s best to cast a lie to a liar.”

Paula stared at him. Fibbing to the Feds. You’re just like

Altman. Now and then Horn would do something that jolted her into realizing anew how devious and relentless he was. How he was so much more than a simple, by-the-book cop who’d put in his time, kissed ass, and gotten ahead in the department. She suspected Altman seriously underestimated him.

“Since we’re not even sure Mandle’s his real name,” Horn said, “we weren’t exactly lying to the federal government.”

“Good moral point,” Paula said with a smile. “And a relief to hear. If I were Catholic, I’d have an easier time going to confession Sunday.”

Horn looked at Bickerstaff.

“Botox for my brow, too,” Bickerstaff said.

“A unit like the SSF,” Paula said, “do you think the military might even have purged Mandle’s civilian criminal record?”

“I doubt it,” Horn said, “though it’s possible. I think we can work on the assumption that Mandle never had any brushes with the law.”

“Then why’s he so damned hard to find?” Bickerstaff asked.

“Running from family problems, maybe,” Paula suggested, burning her tongue on the coffee Marla the waitress had just topped off. “Ex-wife, child support, that kind of thing.”

Bickerstaff chewed on the inside of his cheek. A thinking gesture, Paula knew. More chewing. “Maybe he’s got an alias.”

Paula poured in more cream and cautiously tried her coffee again. Much better. “Or maybe Aaron Mandle’s an alias.”

“He has a Social Security number,” Horn told them. “Of course, by now he might have another, or one for every occasion.”

Paula looked across the table at Horn, trying to read him. It was like trying to read slate. “You really convinced Mandle’s our Night Spider?”

“He looks good for it to me.”

“We’ve gotta find this prick and shut him down,” Bicker-staff said. “If for no other reason than so I can go fishing.”

Paula didn’t comment. Trying to get a rise out of me.

“I told Larkin what we have,” Horn said. “He was thrilled, but he’s skeptical.”

“Can you be both those things at the same?” Paula asked.

Horn smiled. “It’s the very juggling act that gets you ahead in the NYPD.” He finished his coffee and rested the empty cup on the white paper napkin he’d folded and placed in his saucer. “Time to do the drone work,” he said. “Make more use of the department computers. I’m told nobody can walk, talk, and breathe on the planet these days without leaving a trail of some sort. We have to find that trail, then follow it.”

Bickerstaff had already stood up. Paula dabbed at her lips with her napkin and slid out of the booth. They’d learned that the emphatic draining of the coffee cup was Horn’s signal that strategy meetings at the Home Away were over.

As they strode from the diner, Bickerstaff waved goodbye to Marla, who was busy behind the counter. She gave him a smile and a nod. Friendly but not too personal. Paula thought that if Bickerstaff had any designs on Marla, he’d better go back to thinking about ice fishing.

Outside in the first clear morning in several days, Bickerstaff said, “You notice that waitress isn’t a bad-looking woman?”

“I’ve noticed,” Paula said. “Though not like you, I’m sure.” And Horn’s noticed.

Horn had drawn an El Laquito Especial cigar from his pocket when Marla approached the booth.

He smiled. “I’m not going to smoke this here. Just unwrapping it so I can enjoy it on the walk home.”

She was carrying a towel, drying her hands on it though they didn’t need drying. He waited for her to warn him about the evils, perils, and addiction of smoking, but she didn’t. “How’s the Night Spider case going?” she asked.

“You seem particularly interested in this one.”

“Sure. I guess I’m hooked.”

Horn found himself hoping that was a double entendre.

“Any closer to catching the creep?” Marla asked.

He could smell the fine Cuban cigar and felt like lighting it while he was right there in the booth. “As a psychologist, I would have thought you’d regard the killer as sick. Dangerous, but still a product of society’s ills.”

“Creep fits all right. And I’m speaking personally, not professionally. What I am now’s a professional food server.”

The strategy meeting had started late that morning, probably because of Paula and Bickerstaff stopping for doughnuts, so it had broken up late. The last of the breakfast crowd had left, and Horn and Marla were alone now, except for the cook and whoever else might be in back beyond the swinging doors to the kitchen.

“You don’t trust me, Horn?”

“You know better.”

He filled Marla in on the case’s progress, while she stood by the booth listening. As he talked, she absently wound the dry dish towel around one of her hands, as if she’d suffered a wound.

“Aaron Mandle,” she said, when Horn was finished. “So your suspect has a name.”

“It might not be his real name. And if it is, he’s very successfully erased any sign of himself and gone into hiding. Knowing a name he’s used is one thing. Finding him is quite another.”

“You’ll probably never find him.”

Horn put the unlit cigar back in his shirt pocket. He was surprised by such a definite statement from her, and he sensed there was something more coming. “The police are better at finding people than a lot of folks think, or do you have an insight you might want to share?”

“I do. Aside from what you’ve just told me, I’ve done a lot of reading on this case, given it a lot of thought and formed some opinions.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re involved. If something happened to you, what would we do with our year’s supply of corn muffins?”

“Enough about me and my vices,” Horn said, hoping he wasn’t revealing how pleased he was with the reason for her interest in the case. “Why do you say the killer will be so hard to find?”

“He’s a sadistic perfectionist,” Marla said, “who murders as an erotic art. And I don’t think that’s putting it too strongly. My assumption is he’s also that careful and detail-oriented in other matters, such as concealing his whereabouts.”

“For a careful man, he’s found himself a pretty risky pastime.”

“It’s not a pastime for him. I’m sure he sees it as his calling. Convincing himself that what he’s doing is his destiny helps him to rationalize it, to reconcile it with the normal side of the self he shows to the world. His facade.”

“We talking split personality?”

“I don’t think so. Not even bipolar. I’d say your killer’s a sadistic, capable son of a bitch all the time. Only sometimes he acts differently, charms people so he can use them. But he’s probably quite conscious of doing that. Not like.. say, a Son of Sam type who hears voices or messages in a dog’s barking.”

“Any thoughts about motivation?”

She smiled sadly. “That could be a lot more complicated. Almost certainly he hates women, but that could be for a number of reasons. Possibly there was a formative traumatic event early on, something an important woman in his life did to him. A mother, sister. . But the reasons can also be cumulative, the turning point some seemingly insignificant act whose importance the perpetrator herself is unaware of. The profundity of these things can be entirely in the mind of the afflicted.”

Profundity. “You’re some hash slinger.”

“You’re some cop.”

“You’ve given me a lot to mull over. I thought you weren’t into profiling.”

She unwound the towel from her hand and smiled at him. “Just for friends,” she said. “And because I think it might help.”

Horn removed the cigar from his pocket again and examined it, rotating it with thumb and forefinger to check the tightness of the wrapper leaf. “It would help a lot more,” he said, “if you told me how to find him.”

“You probably won’t find him.”

“Oh?”

“But even though my opinions are based on estimation, I think I can tell you his vulnerability. He has a sick mind, but one you can get inside of. To a certain extent, you can know how he thinks.”

“That’s his vulnerability?”

“Not entirely. Everything in his actions suggests he’s built for risk. He can’t ignore a dare. You might be able to make him come to you.”

The bell above the door tinkled. A woman and three preschool children entered the diner in a rush of noise and motion.

Marla excused herself. She glanced back at Horn as she hurried around behind the counter. The woman and her charges were climbing onto stools. First up was the largest kid, a grinning blond girl about four who began to revolve.

Horn laid some bills on the table, then slid out of the booth and walked from the diner, the unlit cigar in his hand. As he left, Marla gave him a smile he’d never seen before.

One he didn’t understand.

Outside the diner, Horn stood near a doorway and fired up his cigar. He was strolling along the sidewalk, smoking and enjoying the fact that the sun was paying a visit this morning, when his cell phone chirped.

He dug the phone out of his jacket pocket, then removed the cigar from his mouth and watched the morning breeze claim the smoke he’d exhaled. With his free hand, the unimpaired left one, he held the small plastic phone to his ear. “Horn.”

“Captain Horn, this is Nina. Nina Count.”

“Am I going to be glad it is?”

“I didn’t call to give you any bullshit, Horn. I’m scared.”

She seemed to mean it. Her voice was different from any other time he’d heard it, a slight quaver making her sound as if she were cold.

Horn stepped aside, letting a knot of pedestrians who were going in the opposite direction pass by. Then he moved into the display-window-corridor entrance to a menswear store so he could hear better. “I didn’t think scared was a word you knew, Nina.”

“I got up this morning, dressed, and was about to leave for work, when I checked my bedroom window to make sure it was locked.”

Horn felt his hand tighten on the phone.

“It was locked,” Nina went on, “but I noticed something in the upper right-hand corner. Someone had scratched- etched is more the word-a design there. A spiderweb.”

“You’re sure.”

“No mistake about it. It’s rather artistic.”

“But it’s on the outside of the glass?”

“If it weren’t, I wouldn’t still be in my apartment talking to you.”

You might still be in your apartment. Dead. He found his gaze fixed on a pair of two-tone loafers with oversized tassels in the show window and knew he’d remember them the way he’d always remember this phone call. The human mind was something, with its overlapping layers of thought. Why would anyone wear a pair of shoes like that?

“What’s this mean, Horn?”

“You know what it means. You got the desired result through your newscast. Attracted the killer’s attention. Now he’s playing with you. Trying to frighten you.”

“He succeeded more than I thought possible.” The chill in her voice again.

“You want police protection?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation. Horn knew she realized the Night Spider didn’t have to spend his time etching windowpanes. He could have used his glass cutter and masking tape to unlock the window, then entered her bedroom while she slept and taken her as one of his victims. Spent his idea of quality time with her.

“Should I stay here, Horn?”

“For the time being. You’re probably safe enough. He obviously wants you alive for now so he can continue his terror campaign.”

Silence. Then, “Yeah, I guess that’s true. How long do you think that part of it will go on? I could make a story out of it.” Her fear was slackening somewhat. Thinking ratings again. She wasn’t short on guts. “The police protection might make a good angle for my newscast. Or maybe I shouldn’t mention it. Do you think I should mention what he did to my bedroom window?”

“You can mention the window, but not the protection. That’d only make your guardian angels’ job more difficult.”

“Do you really think he’d try for me if he knew I was under police protection?”

“I’m sure of it. In fact, I think it would make an attempt more likely.”

“Jesus, Horn!”

He can’t ignore a dare. .

“Nina, there’s something we need to talk about.”

The Night Spider sat on a bench just inside the entrance to Central Park and watched children using the playground equipment. And watched their mothers and nannies.

Nina Count is afraid. Right now. This second.

He played with that fact in his mind and was aware of warm sunlight on the part of his face that was exposed. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, but with the collar turned up, a Mets baseball cap, and oversized orange-tinted glasses that made the park’s foliage a more vivid green, and the flesh of the women and children all the more vital and sumptuous.

Nina Count is afraid. She knows it’s begun.

He could have taken her last night, as he dangled like death outside her window, watching her sleep through the web he etched in the glass. He’d used soap on his diamond glass cutter so it was silent. Nina Count hadn’t stirred. She lay on her side, partly covered with a white sheet that might become her shroud. One languid bare leg was extended, pale even against the sheet. He guessed she’d be a natural blonde, though these days, with all the improved dyes and techniques, it was difficult to know. He’d find out for sure soon enough.

When he was almost finished with the web, he had to fight the desire to tap on the glass and wake her, give her a glimpse of him outside her high window, so close to her. Only a thin pane of glass between Nina and everything she’d ever feared.

But he’d resisted and quietly ascended to the roof. He used his line, slender but strong, and, from the ground, invisible as a spiderweb, to traverse dark space to the adjacent roof.

He left behind a sleeping Nina Count, who would look out her window in the morning and know he’d been there, so very near her. Terror would leap through the glass to her and cling to her and bore into her like a parasitic insect that would be her companion for the brief duration of her life.

Something to think about.

She’s thinking about it now. She must be because she isn’t able to think about anything else. Not completely. She’s thinking about me at this precise instant.

Because she knows I’m thinking about her.

Through the light and shadow and angles of the narrow streets, the greater and lesser terrors of swarming humanity, the raucous, hard-shelled traffic with cars like intrepid beetles dusty or glistening in the sunlight, her fear wended its way to him.

He closed his eyes behind the bulging, tinted lenses and fed on it.