Free Night Kills by John Lutz Page B

surprise. Before we go upstairs for our drinks.”
    For a wild second Shellie thought he might mean the umbrella, but that didn’t make sense.
    The car’s headlights winked off, making the garage even gloomier. Shellie glanced around and didn’t see an elevator. No stairs, either. There must be a door somewhere leading to an elevator or stairwell.
    â€œLet’s go upstairs and get comfortable and you can surprise her,” Gloria said. She was smiling at Shellie, her dark eyes intense. Whatever light there was in the garage, they reflected.
    â€œBetter right here,” David said, and again he kissed Shellie on the forehead. His lips felt cool.
    â€œStubborn,” Gloria said, shaking her head. “I guess that’s why you love him.”
    â€œOne reason,” Shellie said. She really did love David. More than anyone or anything at any time in her life.
    Stepping back, David smiled down at her and reached into a pocket of his suit coat. Beyond him, Shellie noticed Gloria reaching for the umbrella as if to open it.
    She didn’t open it. Instead, she withdrew a long, pointed wooden shaft that had been concealed inside it.
    â€œClose your eyes, darling,” David said.
    But Shellie didn’t. Even through her wine-induced drowsiness and love and trust for David, the feeling of security she always had in his presence, she realized something was very wrong. A tingle of fear played up her spine.
    Foolish. Why should I be frightened? He’s here.
    His hand emerged from his pocket not with a piece of jewelry or a gift box, but holding a small gun.
    â€œDavid?”
    He shot her through the heart.
    She dropped to a sitting position, her legs straight out, and then toppled backward. He immediately took two steps, leaned down, and shot her again, twice, through the forehead.
    Gloria tossed him the pointed shaft so it remained vertical in the air, as if she were a dancer tossing her partner a cane. Matching her stagecraft, he snatched it neatly with one hand. He felt the point with his index finger, testing for sharpness.
    Gloria walked around closer to stand next to him over Shellie’s dead body.
    â€œLook at her face,” she said. “She was surprised. You didn’t disappoint her.”
    â€œI never disappoint the ladies,” David said.
    He bent low with the sharpened section of broomstick, and then slowly straightened up without it.
    Gloria was breathing hard as she stared down at the foot or so of wood protruding from Shellie.
    â€œDon’t you ever wonder, David, how it would be if you didn’t wait until they were—?”
    â€œGrab the other end of this plastic sheet and let’s move her so we can get busy.”
    â€œFor everything there is a purpose under the heavens,” Gloria said, still staring at the protruding section of broomstick. “Sometimes more than one purpose.”
    â€œAside from your cynicism, this is no time to go biblical on me.”
    â€œIt’s exactly the time,” she said, grinning. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

11
    â€œOnly an arm,” medical examiner Dr. Julius Nift said, kneeling alongside the pale object before him on the wet bricks. “Yet look at the attention it’s attracted. Some show. I wish somebody would give us a hand.”
    Pearl despised Nift and his callous sense of humor, but she said nothing, because, sick jokes aside, she agreed with him. A hand would mean fingerprints. She wasn’t sure how much this arm that had been fished from the East River would be able to help them.
    Nift continued to probe and examine the arm. He was a short, chesty man inflated by self-importance who dressed more like a banker than a doctor who spent a lot of time with corpses. He wore his black hair combed forward, resulting in sparse bangs that made him look Napoleonic. That was how Pearl thought of him, as a crude, cynical Napoleon. It was lucky the little bastard