Night Victims

39

When Horn finally got Anne calmed down enough to be coherent, she told him over the phone that someone had been in her apartment.

“You’re sure?”

“I called, didn’t I?” Fear was becoming anger. But plenty of fear remained vibrant in her voice.

Horn fought down his initial alarm. Like him, Anne wasn’t used to living alone, and she was in a precarious mental state due to the hospital lawsuit, and the loss of her marriage and job. Who could blame her for overreacting to whatever it was that had scared her?

“How do you know someone’s been there?”

“Things aren’t the same as when I went to bed last night.”

It was a sublet apartment on East 54th Street; most of the furniture and incidentals belonged to the regular tenant. “A new place, Anne. Maybe you’re not sure yet where everything belongs.” Maybe you made a mistake, leaving. Maybe you belong here.

“I’m not an idiot, Thomas! It isn’t only that items seem to have been moved about. There are things that weren’t here when I went to bed.” Her voice broke and he thought she was about to lose control again. But she remained calm. “Some things on my dresser. To think someone was right here while I was sleeping a few feet away, unaware. Christ, it gives me the chills!”

But he knew how strong she was. What had set her off so! Rattled her so that she was screaming when she phoned?

“What was it you found on your dresser, Anne?”

“I. . I’m not sure. Yes, I am. It looks like a tooth with. . maybe part of the gum still attached.”

“A tooth? You certain?”

“I think that’s what it is.”

“Maybe from the previous tenant.”

“Sure, Thomas. That happens all the time, somebody moves out and leaves a tooth.” Sarcasm. Good.

“Could be there was a pet there and it’s a dog’s tooth. Does it look like an animal tooth?”

“Well. . I guess it could be.”

“What else, Anne? Stay with what’s on the dresser.”

“Something not so disturbing. A little black figurine.”

“What kind of figurine?”

“Cheap, plastic. The neck and head of a horse.”

Horn went cold. “A chess piece?”

“Now that I hear you say it, yes, it could be. It probably is a chess knight. I suppose that’s something I overlooked last night. I should have known what it was right away.” She sounded peeved, as if he’d accused her of doing something wrong. “The previous tenant might have played chess and the piece got separated from the rest of the set. Something like that. Bounced under the bed and the janitorial service found it, and when the maid reached for it she slipped and struck her mouth on the bed frame and a tooth-”

“Anne.”

She recognized something in his voice and fell silent.

“So you’re cool enough to be sarcastic,” Horn said.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But damn it, Thomas!. .”

“Are you on the cell phone?”

“Yes. The phone service in the apartment hasn’t been switched over yet.”

“Is there a window in the bedroom?”

“Of course.”

“Go to it.” He waited only a few seconds.

“I’m there.”

“Is the window locked?”

“Yes. Just as I left it last night.”

“Don’t just glance at it. Look more closely. At the glass near the lock.”

“Oh, fuck! Thomas?”

“The glass is cut away so the lock could be worked from outside. Right?”

“That’s right. But. .”

“Be calm and listen, Anne. Please.”

He heard her sigh, hoped it wasn’t a sob. Then: “I’m okay. What now?”

“Lock the bedroom door and stay inside until you hear the police or the voice of someone you know.”

“Thomas!”

“Will you do that?”

“Of course!”

“Someone will be there soon, I promise. I’m going to hang up now so I can make phone calls while I dress and drive.”

“Thomas, hurry!”

“I’m stepping into my pants. I won’t be the first one there, but I won’t be far behind.”

He called 911 before leaving his house and was out of the building and in his car within five minutes, driving fast and recklessly and one-handed while making his other calls. First, the governing precinct, to light a fire under their collective ass, then Paula. She could phone Bickerstaff.

When Paula had hung up, Horn called the precinct house again to make sure they were on the move. Thinking there might be something to that law against simultaneously driving and using a cell phone in New York. The drivers blasting their horns at him, gesticulating and shouting insults as he sped past or cut them off, sure were in favor of it.

By the time Horn reached Anne’s building and got up to her apartment on the twenty-ninth floor, it was crowded and buzzing with activity. His first impression as he approached the open door was that a party was going on there. His wife’s new apartment and she was throwing a party and he wasn’t invited. Jesus, what an inane, self-involved thought.

He walked in past the open door. Strange apartment. Modern furniture except for what Anne had contributed. Some things were familiar, most not. Did Anne really live here? He knew almost everyone at the party: Paula, Bickerstaff, a hulking plainclothes detective named Ellison; Johansen, one of several techs swarming the place, vacuuming for hairs and particulate matter; two uniforms, one of whom Horn knew though he couldn’t recall his name. He was a big guy with a deep scar on his face. It bothered Horn that he seemed to have lost some ability to put name to face. Advancing age?

Bullshit!

Anne saw him and came to him. “Thanks, Thomas.” At first she appeared ready to hug him, then stepped back, merely touching his arm.

“You back to your usual self?” he asked.

She managed a smile that was a little weak at the corners. “Pretty close. Thanks in large measure to you.”

Beyond Anne, Horn saw Paula standing in a doorway. She nodded and beckoned to him.

He left Anne talking to the patrolman with the scar, made his way toward Paula, and saw that the doorway led to the bedroom. Paula moved aside so he could enter.

A woman from the ME’s office was hunched over the dresser, picking up something with tweezers and preparing to drop it into a clear plastic evidence bag. She was young, almost a kid. Straight blond hair, blue eyes, no makeup because she didn’t need it. Looked like a cheerleader his daughter had known years ago in junior high. But she carried herself and did her work with a kind of confidence Horn liked.

He moved closer. She knew who he was and didn’t object, even inched over to make room for him. He looked down at a pointed white tooth with gray matter dangling from it.

“Tell me that’s an animal’s tooth,” he said.

“It’s a human eyetooth,” said the assistant ME, who’d probably never been a cheerleader. “I’d guess it was knocked out, or maybe caught in material or something and ripped out. People get in fights sometimes, try to bite the other guy, and their teeth get snagged in a shirt or whatever. A violent motion and the tooth gets yanked.”

“Have you ever actually seen that?”

“Once. A bunch of teeth, all false. We got a good yuk out of it.”

Horn pointed to the object in the delicate grasp of the tweezers. “So what’s that hanging from it?”

“That’s part of the gum still attached.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. But we can all be positive after some concurring opinion and basic tests to confirm.”

Horn saw the chess piece near the base of the dresser mirror. Black plastic. An opposing knight to the red one he’d found on the brownstone’s stoop this morning. Almost certainly it was from the same chess set.

He walked over to the bedroom window. There was the brass lock that connected top and lower aluminum frames. It was set, but that was meaningless; behind it, a neat crescent of glass had been cut away and was prevented from falling by a strip of masking tape.

There wasn’t any doubt now.

Aaron Mandle had been here.

Horn remembered the hateful diatribes in court. The dead-eyed, baleful stares. How Mandle must despise him! Must blame him for his capture and conviction.

And now he wanted to punish Horn by making Anne one of his victims.

Mandle wouldn’t know about their separation. He must be assuming Horn had moved Anne out of the brownstone and was hiding her here for her protection until the Night Spider was once again captured and imprisoned.

And right now Mandle was moving freely and could take Anne whenever he chose. That was the message of last night. The chess knights, signifying that the game had begun. The opposing knight and the grisly souvenir, letting Anne-and Horn-know that Anne was alive only because the Night Spider didn’t yet want her. Her destiny was in his hands. The knowledge would be toxic, working inexorably inside her. She walked the earth knowing her free will meant nothing if it existed only at his discretion. She wasn’t free at all and never would be again. After last night, her every breath occurred only because he chose to let breathing continue.

And it wouldn’t continue much longer.

The Night Spider was toying with her, and showing his disdain for Horn.

The intricate dance that would end in torture and slow death had begun.