Night Kills Read online

  Praise for John Lutz

  “Brilliant…a very scary and suspenseful read.”

  —Booklist on In for the Kill

  “Lutz has a thorough command of plot and character, making this another enthralling page-turner.”

  —Publishers Weekly on In for the Kill

  “Lutz can deliver a hard-boiled p.i. novel or a bloody thriller with equal ease…. The ingenuity of the plot shows that Lutz is in rare form.”

  —The New York Times Book Review on Chill of Night

  “Lutz keeps the suspense high and populates his story with a collection of unique characters…an ideal beach read.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Chill of Night

  “John Lutz knows how to make you shiver.”

  —Harlan Coben

  “John Lutz is one of the masters of the police novel.”

  —Ridley Pearson

  “A major talent.”

  —John Lescroart

  “I’ve been a fan for years.”

  —T. Jefferson Parker

  “John Lutz just keeps getting better and better.”

  —Tony Hillerman

  “Lutz ranks with such vintage masters of big-city murder as Lawrence Block and the late Ed McBain.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Lutz is among the best.”

  —San Diego Union

  “Lutz juggles multiple storylines with such mastery that it’s easy to see how he won so many mystery awards. Darker Than Night is a can’t-put-it-down thriller, beautifully paced and executed, with enough twists and turns to keep it from ever getting too predictable.”

  —reviewingtheevidence.com

  “Readers will believe that they just stepped off a tilt-a-whirl after reading this action-packed police procedural…. John Lutz places Serpico in a serial killer venue with his blue knights still after him.”

  —The Midwest Book Review on Darker Than Night

  “John Lutz knows how to ratchet up the terror…. [He]propels the story with effective twists and a fast pace.”

  —Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) on The Night Spider

  “Compelling…a gritty psychological thriller…Lutz’s details concerning police procedure, firefighting techniques, and FDNY policy ring true, and his clever use of flashbacks draws the reader deep into the killer’s troubled psyche.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Night Watcher

  “John Lutz is the new Lawrence Sanders. The Night Watcher is a very smooth and civilized novel about a very uncivilized snuff artist, told with passion, wit, carnality, and relentless vigor. I loved it.”

  —Ed Gorman in Mystery Scene

  “A gripping thriller…extremely taut scenes, great descriptions, nicely depicted supporting players…Lutz is good with characterization.”

  —reviewingtheevidence.com on The Night Watcher

  “For a good scare and a well-paced story, Lutz delivers.”

  —San Antonio Express News

  “Lutz knows how to seize and hold the reader’s imagination.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “SWF Seeks Same is a complex, riveting, and chilling portrayal of urban terror, as well as a wonderful novel of New York City. Echoes of Rosemary’s Baby, but this one’s scarier because it could happen.”

  —Jonathan Kellerman

  “Lutz is a fine craftsman.”

  —Booklist on The Ex

  “A psychological thriller that few readers will be able to put down.”

  —Publishers Weekly on SWF Seeks Same

  “Tense and relentless.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Torch

  “The author has the ability to capture his readers with fear, and has compiled a myriad of frightful chapters that captures and holds until the final sentence.”

  —New Orleans Times-Picayune on Bonegrinder

  “Likable protagonists in a complex thriller.”

  —Booklist on Final Seconds

  “Lutz is rapidly bleeding critics dry of superlatives.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “It’s easy to see why he’s won an Edgar and two Shamuses.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  ALSO BY JOHN LUTZ

  In for the Kill

  Chill of Night

  Fear the Night

  Darker Than Night

  The Night Spider

  The Night Watcher

  The Night Caller

  Final Seconds (with David August)

  The Ex

  Available from Kensington Publishing Corp. and Pinnacle Books

  NIGHT KILLS

  JOHN LUTZ

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision, for they are both surrounded by enemies.

  —James Stephens, The Demi-Gods

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  1

  Madeline was on the run.

  She should have known better. She really should have.

  An insect—a large bee or wasp—whizzed past close to her ear as she skidded around a corner, her right foot almost slipping out of her low-cut sneaker. An instant later came a flat Blam! She knew he was shooting at her.

  No doubt now as to what he’d had in mind in the car.

  He’s trying to kill me!

  Why? What did I do?

  She was gasping for breath now, beginning to stumble from exhaustion as she ran down the dark street. Even late as it was, even in this neighborhood, somebody must be awake who would help her. Anyone!

  Terror propelled her. Terror and the steady,
relentless pounding of his footsteps behind her.

  What caused this?

  What’s this about?

  If he gets close enough to take another shot…

  Her right side was aching now. The pain was an enemy trying to bend her body forward so she could no longer run, no longer live. Her legs weren’t merely tired. They were becoming so numb that she could hardly feel any contact with the sidewalk.

  Madeline was ready to surrender to the inevitable, and then she saw a shifting of shadow and a brightening at the next dark intersection.

  A car’s coming!

  Behind her, closer, the gun fired again. It sounded like the flat of one huge palm slapping against another. There was a finality to the sharp report.

  It signaled the end of something.

  2

  Retired homicide detective Frank Quinn was having strong black coffee after his breakfast at the Lotus Diner on Amsterdam when a saggy-jowled man who looked like a well-tailored bloodhound sat down opposite him.

  “I know I’m late,” the bloodhound growled.

  “How so?” Quinn asked, sipping his coffee.

  “If it were up to you, I’d have been here much sooner.”

  Quinn didn’t answer. Overconfident people bored him.

  The two men were almost exact opposites. The bloodhound, who was New York Police Commissioner Harley Renz, was not only saggy jowled but saggy bodied. He’d put on about forty pounds in the past few years, and the expensive chalk-stripe blue suit didn’t disguise it as workable muscle. All vertical stripes did for Renz was zigzag.

  Quinn, on the other hand, was tall and rangy, with a firm jaw, a nose broken once too often, and disconcerting flat green eyes. His straight, gray-flecked dark hair was cut short, and recently, but, as always, looked as if a barber should shape it to suit a human head. If Renz was the bloodhound, there was something of the wolf in Quinn.

  “You’re glad to see me,” Renz went on, “because you don’t like rotting in retirement at the age of fifty-five.”

  Thel the waitress came over and Quinn said, “A coffee for my antagonist.”

  “I haven’t had breakfast,” Renz said. “I’ll have a waffle, too. Diet syrup.”

  “Stuff tastes like tree sap,” Thel said. She was a dumpy, middle-aged woman who’d never been pretty, so substituted being frank. It worked pretty well for her.

  “The real stuff, then,” Renz said, grateful to be nudged off his diet.

  Quinn listened for a moment to Upper West Side traffic flowing past on Amsterdam. Somebody just outside shouted an obscenity. Somebody leaned on a car horn and shouted back. New York.

  “I’m rotting fast,” he said. “Why don’t you get to the point?”

  “Sure. I need you and your team again.”

  Quinn and the two detectives Renz had assigned to him on his last case had become media darlings by tracking down a serial killer aptly called the Butcher. Their success had also resulted in Renz’s swift climb up the promotional ladder to commissioner. He was, in fact, one of the most popular commissioners the city had ever known. In New York that meant he could do just about as he pleased, including yanking three detectives temporarily back into the NYPD as long as they were willing. He knew Quinn would be willing. And if Quinn was willing, so would be his two detectives. Like Renz, Quinn was a hard man to refuse.

  “Why do you need us?”

  Renz smiled. Still looked like a bloodhound. “In this city, Quinn, you’re Mister Serial Killer.”

  “I’m not sure I like the way you put that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Last time we went to work for you, you got promoted all the way to commissioner.”

  “And you got your good name back and became a big hero. There’s something in this for both of us, Quinn. This for that. Tit for tat. That’s how the world works.”

  “Your world.”

  “Well, that’s the one I live in.”

  “What’s next for you, Harley, mayor?”

  Renz shrugged. “Who knows?” He seemed serious. Quinn couldn’t see Harley as mayor. But then he hadn’t been able to see him as police commissioner, and there he sat. Police commissioner.

  “What are the terms?” Quinn asked.

  “Work for hire. It won’t interfere with your settlement or interrupt your retirement pay.”

  Quinn wasn’t worried about the pay. Soon after the Night Prowler case, he’d gotten a large settlement from the city after having been falsely accused of raping a fourteen-year-old girl. Another cop had done it, and Quinn proved it. There was noplace Quinn could go to get his reputation back, so he settled for enough money to pay his attorneys and support himself comfortably with or without his pension.

  “If I’m going to do it,” he said, “it’s got to interest me.”

  “Oh, it will.”

  Thel came over with Renz’s coffee and waffle, and maple syrup in a container that looked like one of those little liquor bottles the airlines give you.

  “This,” Thel said, tapping the bottle’s cap with a chipped, red-enameled nail, “is good stuff. Straight from the tree.”

  “I believe you, sweetheart,” Renz said.

  When she’d walked away, he slathered his waffle with butter, then poured the little bottle’s entire contents over it.

  “We’ve got us a serial killer,” he said to Quinn, “but the media’s not onto it yet. Except for Cindy Sellers, who’s sitting on it.”

  “How many victims?”

  “Two women.”

  “Doesn’t sound like enough to make a serial killer.”

  “They were both killed in identical, distinctive ways.”

  “Then you have the bodies.”

  It wasn’t a question. Renz picked up knife and fork and attacked his breakfast. “Parts of them,” he said. “Well, that’s not quite accurate,” he amended through a mouthful of waffle. “We’ve got just their torsos.”

  He swallowed, then smacked his lips together in appreciation. “This stuff is yummy.”

  Which seemed a strange thing for a bloodhound to say, especially one who was police commissioner, but there it was.

  Thel sashayed over with some more coffee immediately when Renz had forked in his last bite of waffle, probably because he’d called her sweetheart.

  She returned to behind the counter.

  “Shot with the same gun,” Renz said, pushing away his empty plate. He dipped a finger into the residue of syrup and licked, then took a sip of coffee. Not in a rush. Relishing his tale. “Twenty-two-caliber hollow point, through the heart.”

  “Small gun.”

  “Big enough. The M.E. says the wounds were fatal, but the victims might have taken a while to die. Could be they were finished off with shots to the head. Not having the heads, we wouldn’t know.”

  “Professional?”

  “Nah. Pro wouldn’t go to all the trouble of dismembering the bodies.”

  Quinn figured that was true. Then he cautioned himself not to come to any conclusions so soon.

  “The other thing,” Renz said, “is that both women were sexually violated by a long, sharply pointed instrument. Not a knife, more like a stake.”

  “Tell me that happened after they died,” Quinn said.

  “It did according to Nift.” Nift was Dr. Julius Nift, a skillful but verbally brutal medical examiner. “Nift seemed disappointed by this glimmer of mercy in the killer.”

  “More like convenience,” Quinn said. “Easier to bring down a victim with a bullet before going to work with a sharp instrument.”

  “That’s why you the man,” Renz said. “You can slip right into the minds of these sick creeps.”

  “Into yours, too.”

  “You figure he does that thing with the sharp stake or whatever ’cause he can’t get it up?”

  “There you go.”

  Renz licked some more syrup off a finger and smiled at Quinn. “So whaddya say?”

  “We’re on,” Quinn said. “I’ll ca
ll Feds and Pearl.”

  Feds was retired homicide detective Larry Fedderman.

  Pearl was…well, Pearl.

  And that could be a problem.

  3

  Pearl was short and curvaceous, buxom, and even in her gray uniform looked almost too vivid to be real. Perfect pale complexion. Black, black hair and eyes. White, white perfectly even large teeth. And there was a kind of energy about her that seemed as if it might attract paper clips if she got close to them.

  She watched the man over at the table where the deposit and withdrawal slips were filled out. He seemed to be taking a long time filling out whichever he’d chosen, and he kept glancing around the bank.

  Sixth National Bank was an older institution and boasted lots of marble, walnut paneling, and polished brass. Behind the long row of tellers’ cages the great vault’s open door was visible, like the entrance to the nineteenth century. This was the kind of bank where if anything changed it was with the slowness of molasses dripping on a cold day, and you just knew your money was safe.

  Pearl liked being a bank guard at Sixth National. It was like a relaxed version of being a cop. The uniform might be gray instead of blue, but it was a uniform. You spent a lot of time on your feet, and many of the required skills were the same. If only the pay were better. But she wasn’t complaining. She’d probably never remove the gun on her hip from its holster. Even if one of these days somebody like the dork at the walnut writing table really was casing the bank, or about to present a teller with a note informing him or her of a stickup.