Free Night Victims (The Night Spider) by John Lutz Page B

wrapper.
    “Juicy Fruit,” Bickerstaff said, staring at the smoothed-out wrapper in his hand.
    “The sun’s faded the lettering,” Horn said, “and the antenn wire’s rusty. This stuff ‘s been here awhile and doesn’t help us.”
    Bickerstaff nodded, then wadded and flipped the gum wrapper away.
    They went back through the service door and into the building. As they were descending in the elevator, it stopped at nineteen to pick up Eb, the uniform. He nodded to them, and when he stepped in, Paula looked beyond his bulk and got a glimpse of the techs and emergency personnel milling around in the hall. The ME was there, too. Harry Potter again.
    He caught sight of Paula and smiled and winked at her as the elevator door slid shut. There was no reason death shouldn’t be a little bit fun.

10
    Pattie Redmond’s fellow clerk at Styles and Smiles wasn’t a guy who minded people seeing him cry. His name was Herb, and dressed in black as he was, he looked too thin to be alive as he stood near a rack of swimwear and unabashedly let tears track down his sallow cheeks.
    “She was a sweetheart,” he said of Pattie Redmond between sobs.
    “They say the good die young,” Bickerstaff said.
    Paula rolled her eyes. She felt sorry for Herb and wished Bickerstaff would keep his sarcastic platitudes to himself.
    “Ain’t it the fucking truth!” Herb said, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief.
    “Did she have any—”
    “Nobody in their right mind could help loving Pattie,” Herb interrupted her.
    “We don’t think whoever killed her was in his right mind,” Bickerstaff said. “You got any idea who he might be?”
    Herb shook his head, sniffed, and folded and replaced his handkerchief in the pocket of his black silk shirt. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, gaining control of himself but not completely or permanently. He stood there as if he were balancing on a wire.
    “She confide in you much?” Paula asked.
    “Quite a bit.” Sniff. “We were friends.”
    “Just friends?”
    Bickerstaff gave Paula an incredulous glance.
    “You can count on it,” Herb said. Sniff, sniff. Out came the handkerchief again. He dabbed at the tip of his nose while holding his free hand out away from his body as if to provide a counterweight and keep from tilting.
    “So she might talk to you about the men she dated?” Bickerstaff asked.
    “Now and then. She wasn’t the sort to dish.”
    Bickerstaff looked puzzled. “Dis?”
    “Dish. The dirt.”
    “Ah!”
    “She was kinda excited about this guy she met last week. Gary something. According to Pattie, they met some place in the Village. I’m not sure exactly where.”
    “So you can’t think of Gary’s last name, and you don’t remember where she said they met.”
    “She never told me Gary’s last name. The place in the Village she did tell me. Sounded something like a stream or river, but not those.”
    “Like Mississippi or something?”
    “No, no.”
    “Creek?” Paula ventured.
    “Brook!” Herb almost shouted. “Brook’s Crooks. It’s near McDougal, I think.”
    “I know where it is,” Bickerstaff said. To Paula: “It’s a respectable enough place, hangout for yuppies who work nearby on Avenue of the Americas. They go there and pick each other up, try to mesh their pathetic lives.”
    Herb gazed at Bickerstaff with wounded eyes. “God! Such a cynic!”
    “You’ve just seen the surface,” Paula said.
    “I doubt if it was Gary,” Herb said, “considering how kind and gentle Pattie said he was.”
    Bickerstaff simply looked at him, and Herb turned away.
     
    About ten years before, on the Upper East Side, some people were killed with an ice ax of the sort mountain climbers used. Back then the NYPD had called on a mountain climber of note named Royce Sayles to identify the weapon, then to help the police locate the killer. Sayles had then testified in court and helped to gain a conviction. The murderer turned out to be an attorney who was