Night Victims

46

Patrolmen Lee Sanford and Amos Prince of the One-three precinct didn’t need lights or a siren as Sanford drove their radio car toward a Lower East Side address in response to a Crimes in the Past signal.

Sanford, a fifteen-year veteran of the NYPD, was a tall, thin, taciturn man with the solemn demeanor of a grave digger. The much younger Prince was a stocky African-American who, as far as Sanford was concerned, smiled too much and too broadly and was maybe a little too hip to be a cop. They’d been partners in the patrol car for a little over a month. It had taken three weeks before Sanford decided Prince might be a good cop despite his runny mouth and devotion to rap music. Prince was beginning to suspect his partner Abe Lincoln might just do when it came crunch time. Might.

Sanford pulled the car to the curb in front of one of a row of almost identical brick six-story walk-ups.

“This is it,” Prince said, seeing the crudely painted address next to the building’s door. “Let’s do it.”

“Wanna make sure,” Sanford said, sitting motionless behind the steering wheel and studying the notes he’d scrawled when the call had come through.

Prince squirmed. “C’mon, Lee. Time to get outta Car Fifty-four.”

Sanford gave him a sideways morose look, then put down his notes and opened the car door. Relieved, Prince reached for the door handle on his side.

“Had to be on the sixth floor,” Prince said as they climbed rickety wooden steps that led from landing to landing. Barely enough light made it through the landings’ dirty windows for them to see where they were going.

They were both breathing a little raggedly when they reached the door with a painted-over brass 6-B on it. Prince knocked on the age-checked enameled wood.

The door opened almost immediately and a worried-looking stout woman wearing jeans and combing her long dark hair looked out at them. “It’s you,” she said simply.

“Us,” Sanford confirmed.

“You put in a call for the police,” Prince reminded the woman.

She looked agitated, dark eyes narrowing. “I hear this shit, I gotta come home early from work.”

“What kinda shit?” Prince asked.

“Teenage, is what. I got two sons, fourteen and fifteen. You got teenagers, Officer?”

“Git outta here!” Prince said.

“Rafe and Georgie, only four days since school let out and they already found trouble.”

“What kinda trouble?” Prince asked.

Sanford gave him a disapproving look. He knew they should let the woman run her mouth; she’d get around to it in her own time. What she had to say might be hard for her to get out.

“I get a call at work from Georgie-”

“The fifteen-year-old?”

“Fourteen. He tells me Rafe’s got a gun. I say is Rafe there and let me talk to him and Rafe comes to the phone. You got a gun? How’d you get it? Where’d you get it? Jesus! I tell Rafe to put down the gun and the two of them stay right where they fuckin’ are and stay away from the gun. Okay?”

“You did right,” Sanford said.

“Not that they listened to me one little bit. They came home with the gun.”

The woman suddenly realized Sanford and Prince were still standing in the hall. She stopped combing her hair and moved aside so they could enter her apartment. The messy living room was unoccupied except for a grungy 9mm handgun lying on the coffee table next to a soda can.

“That it?” Prince asked unnecessarily, pointing to the gun.

“Course that’s it.”

“Where are the boys?”

“In their rooms. I didn’t send them there. They don’t like cops.”

“At their age? They should still love us, the way we give them directions and help them get across the street and such.”

Sanford had crossed the magazine-and-newspaper-littered floor and was leaning down looking at the gun. Besides being grimy, it was just beginning to rust and its barrel was clogged with dirt. It was also exactly the same model as the 9mm semiautomatic in Sanford’s holster. A cop’s gun. “Where’d the boys say they got this?”

“Off a dead body.”

“Really?” Prince asked. “That must have been some wild experience for the little shit-kickers.”

“Where?” Sanford asked.

An hour later Horn, Paula, and Bickerstaff were standing with Sanford and Prince in the basement of a condemned and boarded-up building off First Avenue in lower Manhattan. They were about ten feet away from the body, trying to avoid the smell that was made even worse by the usual musty and stale-urine stench of abandoned urban buildings. If the ancient basement had ever had anything other than a dirt floor, it was no longer evident. Lights had been carried down, the ME was in attendance, and techs were buzzing around the half-buried and badly decomposed body that had loose earth scooped over it. They weren’t the only things buzzing around it. The dead man was stripped to the waist and wearing what looked like the filthy remnants of work pants.

Paula saw that the ME was the little redheaded geek. Harry Potter.

“This guy’s been shot,” Harry Potter said to Horn.

“Fatal wound?”

“I haven’t checked his pulse yet.”

“Do I have to ask again?”

“Mighta killed him eventually. Gotta examine a stiff like this in the morgue to make sure of anything, what with all the decomposition, insects, and dirt. Guy shoulda known we were coming, used some underarm deodorant.”

Paula felt her stomach kick. She could do without the sick cop humor. It was difficult enough trying to breathe only out. The techs were wearing surgical masks. Paula wished she had one but didn’t want to ask. She got one of those looks from Bickerstaff, even though he was standing with his hand cupped loosely over his mouth and nose.

“What the hell were two teenage boys doing down here?” Paula asked. “The place looks ready to fall down around itself.”

“Their mom said they came here to look for antique bottles,” Sanford said. “They collect them. The basements of these old buildings are a good place to hunt for them. One of the kids noticed a hand sticking up outta the dirt, so they dug and right away found the gun, found some more of the dead body, and got out fast.”

“I’ll just bet,” Bickerstaff said. “You say they took the gun with them?”

“Would a boy leave behind a gun?”

“Wouldn’t be natural,” Paula said.

“Mom oughta whip their asses!” Prince said. “Least the dead guy’s not a cop.”

“Probably not,” Horn said. “We’ve got no missing cops, but we do have a few missing guns.”

“Fucker mighta stole one from a cop,” Prince said.

Horn’s cell phone beeped, and he walked away a few feet to answer.

When he was finished with the call, he motioned for Paula and Bickerstaff to come over, leaving Prince and Sanford out of the conversation.

“We’ve got the computer match on the gun,” he said. “It’s NYPD and registered to Sergeant Donald Perlman.”

It took Paula and Bickerstaff a moment to recognize the name.

“Holy shit!” Bickerstaff said. “One of the guards Mandle killed when he escaped from the van taking him to Rikers. And Mandle got away with the guards’ guns.”

“He did,” Horn said. “And only about three blocks from here.”

Paula stared over at the grisly sight of the half-exhumed body. Wouldn’t it be something. .

“Naw! Can’t be Mandle,” she said. “Might be somebody he shot, then he threw down the gun. Buried it with the body.”

“Probably the dead guy was one of the homeless,” Bicker-staff said. “Or a doper using the building as a place to cook and shoot up. Mandle surprised him and had to get rid of him.”

“Most likely thing,” Paula agreed.

“I can’t see Mandle leaving the gun behind,” Horn said. “Earlier that night his only weapon was a screw. So now he’s got a couple of guns and he tosses one away? He sure as hell wouldn’t care if it linked him with the crime, considering his position.”

“Panic?” Bickerstaff suggested.

“Not our boy,” Paula said.

Horn glanced over at the techs carefully excavating around the dead man. “Another gun lying anywhere around there?”

“There was just the one,” called back a tech. “We used a metal detector to look before we started digging.”

The toe of one of the dead man’s shoes had been unearthed and shone dully with reflected light.

And that’s when Horn realized what had been skittering along the edges of his consciousness for days, the piece he couldn’t recall and fit into the puzzle. The photograph of the faint footprint in the heat-softened tar on the roof of Alice Duggan’s building. Horn closed his eyes and conjured up an image of that footprint, the gentle curve of the impression in the tar.

And he was sure: the footprint on the roof had been made by the sole of a shoe on a right foot. A shoe.

But that would mean!. .

He walked over to where Harry Potter was stooping near the body. “I need to look at the right foot,” he said.

Puzzled, the little ME pointed. “Right there it is, sticking up out of the earth.”

“I mean take off the right shoe. I need to know about the foot.”

The ME stood up. “That’d be better done in the morgue, when we remove the rest of the clothes.”

“I need to know now,” Horn said, and something in his voice made the ME step away and nod his assent.

While the shoe was being carefully removed, Horn looked over at the confused Paula and Bickerstaff, standing and waiting.

“We got us one weird-looking big toe,” Harry Potter said behind him.

Horn turned and looked.

One weird looking big toe.

The decomposed body in the shallow grave was Aaron Mandle’s.

Which meant Mandle had died before Alice Duggan.

The second gun! The missing second gun!

It took Horn another ten seconds to figure out what it meant.

He strode past Paula and Bickerstaff and barely glanced at them. “Let’s go! Fast! I’ll explain later.”

“Go where?” Bickerstaff asked, picking up the pace and catching up with Horn.

“To Kincaid Memorial Hospital. Where Anne is.”

“But that right foot,” Bickerstaff said. “If this is Mandle’s body. .”

“Since the escape from the van,” Horn said, “we’ve been hunting a different SSF member. A second Night Spider.”

As they sped through crowded streets toward the hospital, Horn got back on his cell phone. First he called the hospital and told them to be on high alert. Then he phoned Rollie Larkin. He needed something sensitive done quickly by someone with pull.

He explained to Larkin what had happened and what was needed.

Larkin called back even before the car reached the hospital.

“Public records,” he said to Horn. “Easy enough to get, and fast, if you have the clout. Joseph Arthur Vine joined the army in late ‘94, did his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in ‘95. The odd thing is, no posting after basic training is listed for him.”

“That’s when he began his SSF training,” Horn said.

Bickerstaff, driving the unmarked, had to swerve to avoid a double-parked cab. Paula, in the front passenger seat, cursed loudly.

“What was that?” Larkin asked.

“Just New York. Can I ask another favor? Will you check with your sources again and find out if Aaron Mandle and Joe Vine ever crossed paths in the service?”

“We’re going beyond public records, Horn. It would have to be just between us, whatever I told you.”

“That’s how it’ll be.”

Larkin said he’d get back to Horn and hung up.

Horn saw that Paula had both hands on the dashboard, squeezing it.

He looked down and saw the fingers of his left hand digging into his thigh.

A woman about to cross the street almost fell backward. She screamed at the speeding unmarked. A delivery van screeched to a halt coming out of a building garage, braking so hard that several cartons bounced from an open front door. The driver leaned on his horn and shouted at Bickerstaff, who ignored him.

Paula glanced back at Horn, wide-eyed. Horn shrugged.

He decided Bickerstaff had been away long enough that his driving skills were rusty. But they’d reach their destination. With luck.

They were in the hospital elevator when Larkin called back. Horn stood listening with the cell phone pressed to his ear. Reception wasn’t great in the elevator, but he knew it wouldn’t be good at all when they got to Radiology, Anne’s department.

“Aaron Mandle and Joseph Vine trained in the same unit at Fort Leonard Wood in the spring of ‘95,” Larkin said, “after which they don’t appear in official army records. Like they never were. When we reached that point I lost my source. He sounded scared.”

“Thanks. The information means a lot.”

“I hope so, Horn. I hope it takes us where you think it will.”

The elevator lurched to a stop. Horn thanked Larkin again and broke the connection.

Larkin’s information meant Mandle and Vine knew each other before volunteering for their special units.

And maybe later.

Anne was at her desk. She knew what Horn would want and was already cleaning out some of her drawers, stuffing things into a large brown valise.

When she saw Horn enter, trailed by Paula and Bicker-staff, she had to smile. She felt a bit like a princess in a fairy tale who at any cost mustn’t be harmed by a dragon-or a spider. Right now, she didn’t mind the feeling.

She said hello to the trio and closed her desk drawers.

“I thought I’d have to do some work at home,” she explained.

Paula looked into her blue eyes and saw fear but no panic. So cool under this kind of pressure. Paula could understand why Horn had married her, why her marriage to a cop had survived so many years.

“Not exactly at home,” Horn said.

Anne paused and looked at him. “You’re calling in that promise I made to you?”

“It has to be that way.” He explained the situation, watching her expression change as he did so.

Paula watched, too. Almost panic in those eyes now. For only an instant. .

“That makes it intensely personal,” Anne said.

“And intensely dangerous.”

“What about the dead guard’s tooth that was left on my dresser?”

“Mandle’s grisly souvenir, but to his killer it looked like a calling card he could leave to establish the false impression that the Night Spider was on the hunt again.”

Anne rested a hand on the desk as if for support but didn’t actually lean her weight on it. “I’ll do what you say. Where am I going?”

“I’m thinking your brother’s cabin in upstate New York. He only uses it in the winter, for hunting. If we can get you there without anyone following, you should be safe. You’ll be heavily guarded there, too, of course.”

“I can call him,” Anne said, “find out where he hides the key.”

“Don’t call him. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. We’ll get you into the cabin even if we have to force a lock or break a window. We’ll explain it to your brother later; he’ll understand.”

“Jim’s in Philadelphia. And he’d never tell anyone where I was.”

“He would if they started snipping off his fingers.”

Anne looked ill. “Jesus, Thomas. . Can I go to my apartment and pick up some clothes?”

“Of course. Paula and Bickerstaff will drive you. Then they’ll take you to the cabin after making sure nobody’s following. Do you have your Ladysmith thirty-eight here, or at your apartment?”

“Neither. I left it. I didn’t want to live with guns anymore.”

“Swing by the brownstone and get it,” Horn said to Bickerstaff. “She’s qualified and can shoot both eyes out of a gnat.”

This seemed a bad idea to Paula: maybe the gnat had to be sitting still: maybe one of the cops guarding Anne would be mistaken for a gnat.

Anne started to hoist the big valise down from the desk, but Bickerstaff hastily stepped forward and took it from her. He wheezed and was obviously surprised by its weight.

“When you leave the brownstone,” Horn said to Bicker-staff, “give me a call.”

He watched them leave, Anne walking between Paula and Bickerstaff, who was leaning sideways, the heavy valise bumping against his knee with every step.

When they were gone Horn talked to the security cops at the hospital, then called Lieutenant Burton to arrange for re-assignments.

Then he took an elevator to a floor where he knew there was a large waiting area with public phones in insulated stalls, where people had privacy to inform friends and family of joyous or tragic news. Either way, they could shed tears without anyone watching.

The carpeted area lined with sofas and chairs was almost unoccupied. No one was near the phones, and the TV mounted on the wall was showing a muted Law and Order rerun with Jerry Orbach as Detective Lenny Briscoe. Horn’s favorite.

He used one of the phones to call Victor Kray at the Rion Hotel.

“There’s news?” Kray asked, when Horn had identified himself.

“The news is your list of SSF members was incomplete. You left off Joe Vine.”

“What’s Vine got to do with Mandle?”

“Why did you leave him off the list?”

“Ah, a question in answer to a question.”

“Cop stuff,” Horn said. “We also demand answers that aren’t questions.”

“I knew Vine lived in the area, and I learned about his family situation. His son’s in a coma and might not recover. He has money problems. In fact, I think he’s suing a hospital, or is being sued. I liked Joe. He was one of our best. I was sure he was above suspicion. Still am. I simply didn’t want to involve him in this and add to his problems.”

“He’s suing the hospital where my wife works,” Horn said. “He’s suing my wife personally.”

Kray was silent while he processed the information. Then: “Where is this conversation going, Horn?”

Horn told him what he thought. After escaping from the police van, Mandle contacted his old SSF buddy Joe Vine and asked for help. Vine helped him by killing him with one of the guns Mandle took off the dead guards. Then, as the Night Spider, Vine could continue Mandle’s string of killings, and Anne Horn, wife of the Night Spider’s public nemesis, would be considered another Spider victim. Vine would never be suspected of executing the woman he held responsible for his son’s permanent near-death state. If Mandle’s body were never found, or if enough time passed to make it possible to ascertain only an approximate date of death, Mandle would be blamed for Vine’s killings as well as his own crimes.

“That doesn’t sound like the Joe Vine I knew,” Kray said. “Are you sure Mandle is dead?”

“I saw the corpse’s right foot.”

“Oh. . Christ!” What sounded almost like a sob came over the phone. It was strangely shocking to imagine Kray as its source, like a tear shed from Mount Rushmore.

“I’m not accustomed to telling people I’m sorry,” Kray said. “That’s not often done in my line of work. Maybe not in yours, either. But I am sorry, Horn. If there’s any way I can make it up to you, anything I can do. .”

“Tell me about Vine. Is he as capable as Mandle?”

“Almost. Not as adept a climber. He’s an explosives expert and a skilled sniper and knife fighter.”

“Great.”

“He didn’t like killing as much as Mandle,” Kray said. His tone of voice suggested that was something Horn needed to know.

Horn imagined Vine dutifully stabbing four women over and over to emulate Mandle’s murders, then bashing in their heads to make sure they were dead and couldn’t identify him.

He likes killing well enough.

So Mandle had waited around for his victims to suffer and bleed out, but Vine wasn’t having as much fun and wanted to leave the party early. Horn didn’t see that as much of a distinction.

“If I can help. .” Kray offered again, a plea for forgiveness.

“I’ll let you know,” Horn said, and hung up.

As he stood and turned away from the phone, he saw that Law and Order on the waiting-room TV had been interrupted for a news flash. The condemned building on the Lower East Side where Mandle’s body was found filled the screen except for the crawl at the bottom:

NIGHT SPIDER SQUASHED? IT’S REPORTED THAT LESS THAN AN HOUR AGO POLICE FOUND. .

Horn thought of Newsy and everyone like Newsy only worse. And the people who supplied their information. Damned leaks!

His cell phone chirped and he yanked it from his pocket. Oughta get a belt clip.

It was Larkin. “A SWAT unit’s on the way to Vine’s apartment,” he said. “You wanna be there for the collar or whatever?”

“You know it. I’m at Kincaid Memorial, but it won’t take me long.”

“I’ll see you there,” Larkin said. “Just make sure you don’t arrive before we do.”

As he hurried from the waiting area, Horn glanced over and saw that Law and Order was back on above the crawl. Lenny, questioning a suspect in the interrogation room, gave his patented hopeless smile and weary shrug. The world kept turning, the truth would seep out, justice would find its way to the surface. It was in the script and took about an hour.