Chill Of Night. John Lutz

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СКАЧАТЬ important information,” Beam said. “It enlarges a pattern, and it indicates that the killer’s increasing the rate of his murders.”

      “Yeah. Just what the media in this town will want to know. Do you realize what they’re going to do to me? To you?”

      “Stay ahead of the curve and notify the media,” Beam said, ignoring da Vinci’s questions. “Act as if the discovery of two earlier murders represents progress, which in fact it does. These victims didn’t die again just because Nell discovered their connection to the Justice Killer. The more we know, the sooner we’ll nail this asshole.”

      “Can I quote you?”

      “I’d clean it up.”

      Da Vinci grinned. “Well, I’d be quoting you.”

      Nell was normally intimidated by these two, but she’d had about enough. Besides, the office was too hot; a trickle of perspiration found its way out from beneath her bra and trickled down her ribs. “I don’t get it. I find something useful and you act as if I did something wrong. Maybe I oughta talk to the media.”

      Da Vinci stood up behind his desk and Nell actually winced.

      So did Beam. “She didn’t mean that, Andy. Not the way it sounded.”

      “The politics of this business are delicate and complex. I’ll concentrate on that part of our game while you concentrate on yours.”

      “That’s what I was—”

      “Nell.” Beam reached over and rested a big hand on her knee. For an instant she thought inanely that he might squeeze just behind the kneecap, prove she was boy crazy. “This is one phase of the game you don’t understand, Nell. You did nothing wrong and everything right—we all know that. It’s just that we handed Andy something valuable, but hot enough to burn his hand.”

      We. Nell liked that. Beam and Nell together against the bureaucratic monster. “Okay,” she said, “I’m sorry, Chief.”

      “Deputy Chief,” da Vince corrected. He actually smiled. Nell had to admire him for it. “Keep unearthing whatever you can,” da Vinci said. “And go wherever the investigation takes you. You’re the one who’s right, Nell, we’ve gotta have faith that the truth will bear us out. It’s our job, finding the truth.”

      Nell thought he was getting a little sickening. Beam gave her a cautioning glance.

      Beam stood up suddenly, surprising Nell.

      “We’ll get back to our end of the game while you take care of business on your end,” Beam said to da Vinci. “All I’ll say is that if I were you, I’d dump it all on the media before it leaks on them. You know how it works; there’ll be less pressure on us that way in the long run.”

      “Yeah,” da Vinci said, obviously pretending to become engrossed in some papers on his desk. “They’ll think we’re actually doing something.”

      Outside One Police Plaza, as they were walking toward Beam’s car, Beam said, “da Vinci’s right about this, in some ways.”

      “I thought you were on my side,” Nell said.

      Beam smiled. “I am. You’re right about it in every way.”

      “Departmental politics are a pain in the ass,” Nell said. “I’ll never understand them.”

      “Probably not. Best thing.” They crossed the street. “Know what would help?” Beam said,

      “Tell me.”

      “If we solved one of these crimes.”

      “And then the others,” Nell said, reaching for the Lincoln’s sun-warmed door handle.

      “And then the others.”

      16

      Cold case files, suddenly hot.

      Beam and his detectives studied the Rachel Cohen and Iris Selig murder files, then Beam sent Nell and Looper to snoop around the Selig crime scene. He took the Rachel Cohen murder, in the Village, himself.

      Cohen had been single and a freelance journalist who hadn’t sold much. She’d been supported by her lifetime partner, a woman named Angela Drake, who’d discovered Rachel’s corpse in their apartment on MacDougal Street. Drake had long ago moved from the city. The people who lived in the apartment now, a young artist and his wife, consented to let Beam look around; but as Beam suspected, nothing much resembled the four-year-old police photographs of the murder scene. The furniture was different, and the papered walls with their fleur-de-lis pattern had been stripped and painted.

      Beam was driving back uptown and turned onto Fourteenth Street when he noticed a small antique shop, Things Past, where he’d expected to see a jewelry store. His reaction was out of proportion to his surprise. A block away, he pulled to the curb and switched off the ignition.

      Five years ago Things Past had been Precious Gems Limited, and was owned and managed by a fence, Harry Lima, who was one of Beam’s most valuable and reliable snitches. More than one burglary ring had been broken up after using Lima’s services to handle stolen goods, without the arrested parties suspecting the reason for their downfall was their fence.

      But Beam had pushed when he shouldn’t have, and pressured Lima into informing on a jewel theft ring that was connected to organized crime and particularly dangerous. Despite Beam’s promises of protection, Lima was killed. Most of his body was found in a dumpster; his severed right hand, wearing his gaudy trademark diamond ring and clutching a dollar bill, was discovered six blocks away and served as a ghoulish and striking message as to why he was murdered. Tabloid news photos of the hand and ring were viewed by others in Harry Lima’s business who might be considering informing. It was more than a year before sources of information about jewel thefts in Manhattan began to open up again.

      Beam was still haunted by the ghost of Harry Lima. Harry was one of the few major mistakes in his career, but more than that, he’d given his personal guarantee and let Lima down. Beam had been—and this is what Beam still came face to face with in his dreams—responsible for Harry Lima’s death.

      It wasn’t only Harry Lima who haunted Beam. It was Harry’s wife, Nola, who’d been skeptical from the beginning about her husband’s safety, and who’d never completely believed Beam about anything. Nola had been a stunningly beautiful woman whose dark eyes and wide cheekbones suggested Native American ancestry. Harry had once caught Beam looking at his wife with more than professional interest, and it seemed to amuse him. He’d begun bragging about Nola’s beauty and passion, more than Beam wanted to hear, and told Beam she was half Cherokee. Both men knew Nola was off limits to Beam, not only because of Harry, but because of Nola herself. This wasn’t a woman to be used; she was the brains behind the legitimate retail jewelry business, and for all Beam knew, the brains behind the fencing operation.

      Beam had found himself thinking more and more about Nola’s calm beauty, her slender waist, ample breasts, and what he saw as her noble bearing. He was attracted to her and couldn’t deny it. For a while, it even threatened his marriage to Lani. Not that Nola showed the slightest attraction to Beam. He knew that to her he was simply a danger to her husband, a cop, somebody on the other side, a liar. Nola had been right.

      Beam’s СКАЧАТЬ