Sooner or Later (4 page)

“I bought it at Madame Pepita’s on the faubourg Saint-Honoré. Fifty-five dollars it cost. And that was a small fortune then, I can assure you.”

“See, Miss Lottie. You can remember when you want to.” Ellie helped her into the custom-built 1972 white Cadillac, whose only outings these days were to the Biltmore and back. Miss Lottie had always refused to own a Rolls. She said she bought Paris hats and English woolens, but her automobiles were always American.

“You have to support your country’s economy,” she’d quoted her own father. Not that the economy was currently benefiting from her beliefs—she hadn’t bought a car in twenty years. “Buy good and it lasts” was another of her mottoes, and the old Caddy had proven that one true, though the car still had only twelve thousand miles on it.

The car purred smoothly down the drive, cushioned as a baby carriage, and Ellie said, “The manager is expecting
us. No doubt they’ll roll out the red carpet for you.”

“Nonsense, Ellie. They see us every Monday. Besides, they understand a lady doesn’t like a fuss.”

Still, Miss Lottie was pleased, and she patted her hair and adjusted the angle of her hat in the mirror, then polished up her old diamond brooch with a linen handkerchief. She wondered fleetingly who had given her it, but the identity of the donor was lost in the mist of her faulty memory.

Secretly, she enjoyed the fuss they made over her at the Biltmore. After all, she’d been dining there for more than half a century now. Besides, she and Ellie always had fun together, and maybe later, she would persuade her to sleep over. Then it would be just like old times.

B
UCK
D
UVEEN BOUGHT A NEWSPAPER AND A PACK OF
Camel Unfiltered at the rail station. It felt strange, handing over the money, checking the change from the twenty, stepping onto the waiting train. He turned his head, half expecting to see the armed guard behind him, ready to haul him off again, tell him it was all a sick joke and he was heading right back into the hard-timers ward. But the only person behind him was a young woman in a blue suit with a very short skirt and very good legs.

Buck stood politely to one side to allow her to get by and she threw him a casual smile of thanks. He grinned maliciously as he walked behind her through the railroad car. It wasn’t politeness that had made him step back. He hadn’t seen a real honest-to-god woman in years. The Amazons in the Hudson Institute didn’t count, though they would have done in a pinch, if he could have stunned one of them long enough to get his hands up her skirt. Now he could hardly contain his excitement, just looking at the movement of her taut little butt.

She stopped at an empty seat, took off her jacket and
placed it on the overhead rack, giving him a further opportunity to linger. He’d seen young women on TV, but watching her was like the difference between reality and a porn magazine. Each had its place but he knew which he preferred. She took her seat and he nodded to her and went on his way.

He chose a seat opposite another woman, an older one this time but still attractive, in her early forties: short bouncy black hair, brown eyes, a fleshy mouth. Her fingernails were very long, squared off at the tips and painted dark red. He thought they looked predatory, like a vulture’s claws. He imagined them digging into a man’s back, instead of into the bag containing a ham sandwich.

She acted as if he were not there, opening her book, taking a bite out of the sandwich. Buck placed his newspaper on the table, took the pack of cigarettes and shook one out. She glanced up, frowning.

“Smoking is not allowed.”

“Excuse me. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” He was polite, a gentleman. He put the cigarettes away and popped a breathmint in his mouth, and she went back to her book.

He did not open the newspaper. He sat facing her, his eyes fixed on her. It was a game he’d always liked to play and he wondered how long she would last.

The woman could feel his eyes, like heat on her skin. She glanced up at him, then away again. She shifted uncomfortably and held the book higher in front of her face so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Duveen smiled, that same knowing little curve of the lips he’d given the secretary when she’d handed him the money. He felt a surge of power as he watched her. It was a feeling he had not experienced in a long time,
deprived as he was of human prey, and he knew himself to be glorious again. He had not lost his touch.

The woman snapped the book shut. She flung it into her bag along with the remains of the sandwich, grabbed her coat from the seat next to her and eased sideways out of the seat as quickly as she could. He watched every move, every fluid ripple of her body.

“Pervert,”
she muttered. And then she was gone, striding purposefully down the swaying train, away from him.

Duveen heaved a pleased sigh. He was back in biz.

In Manhattan, he checked into a cheap hotel near Times Square. He went out and bought himself a steak dinner and found a back-street bar where they stocked reasonably good bourbon. Then it was time to put his first plan into action.

Tanked up and humming with power like an electricity pylon, he found himself a hooker. He took her into a dark alley and had her up against the wall behind a Dumpster. While he was doing it he put his hands round her slender neck and began to squeeze. He had no worries about anyone coming into the alley and seeing him, because he was in control. He was invincible.

She gagged, fought back, so he punched her senseless. When he had finished, he let go of her and she slid to the ground. He took the knife from his pocket and carefully etched a deep cross into her forehead. Temple to temple, scalp to nose. It was something he liked to do, his personal mark. Hefting her easily in his strong arms, he flung her into the Dumpster, took the bottle of bourbon from his pocket, and poured it over her.

He straightened his clothing, took out a cigarette, lit it, and tossed the lit match into the Dumpster. Whistling “Dixie” under his breath, he strolled back down the alley. He felt like a new man.

As he turned the corner, he heard the
whoosh
of flames. He smiled, that curious little smile. He’d always enjoyed fire.

He hung around awhile, mingling with the crowds on the busy sidewalks, inspecting the sleaze shops selling porn equipment and magazines, the theaters selling blue movies and the pimps selling their women. Ten minutes passed before he heard the wail of fire engines racing toward the alley.

Mingling with the crowds rushing to the fire, he was filled with excitement at his power. He had created a little free theater for the excited populace: lights, noise, leaping flames, gleaming fire engines. All the shouting and hurry and tear of a real-life drama.

He turned his footsteps back toward his hotel. It was only a warm-up but he thought it wasn’t bad for his first day’s work in twenty years.

H
OMICIDE DETECTIVE
D
AN
C
ASSIDY WAS AT HIS DESK IN
the squad room of Manhattan’s Midtown South Precinct, fiddling with the computer. There was no need; his notes were as complete as he was ever going to make them. Shutting the machine down, he turned his attention to his files. They were all in order. He opened the desk drawers and closed them again. They were empty.

Pushing back his chair, he prowled restlessly down the hallway to the vending machine and punched out his fifth cup of coffee of the evening. Leaning his rugged body against the wall, he sipped the sluggish brown liquid, wondering anxiously if he was doing the right thing. Didn’t they always say you couldn’t go home again? He shrugged off the misgivings. It was too late now.

Dan was dark-haired and blue-eyed, like his Irish ancestors, and built tall and rangy like his mother’s family. He’d grown up in Santa Barbara, a typical outdoorsy Californian; a champion swimmer in high school, on the rowing squad at UCSB, and an avid surfer and fisherman.
He was a lean, hard-bodied thirty-nine-year-old, attractive and with an ex-wife in L.A.

They’d married young, when Dan was still in college. The breakup came a couple of years later and he’d wanted to put as much distance between himself and the past as possible. He’d needed a new direction, so he’d gone to New York and become a cop. He’d never regretted it. His colleagues knew him to be a tough, intuitive detective. A man who cared about his job, and cared about the victims. “Dan’s only failing is that he can’t set the whole world to rights all by himself,” the Chief had complained, but he was smiling when he said it.

Two years ago, Dan had been badly wounded, shot in the chest while arresting a murder suspect. Only quick action by his partner and friend, Detective Pete Piatowsky, had saved him.

Being that close to death had given him pause for thought. He’d been lucky this time, but what about the next? The answer was moot, because the injury left him with a stiffness in the right arm and shoulder that hampered his speed drawing a weapon. It didn’t seem like much of a disability to him, but the Police Medical Board had disagreed and assigned him to permanent administrative duties.

Life as an NYPD detective was one thing, out on the edgy streets, doing his bit to clean up the city. Life behind a desk did not have the same appeal. And that’s why, tomorrow, he was on a flight back to California and a new life as the owner of a small winery he’d bought, not far from the town where he grew up.

He told himself he’d had enough of murder and mayhem to last him several lifetimes. He wanted to get back to the simpler life the countryside offered. Horses, dogs, chickens; small-town living. If it meant he had to become Farmer Dan to do it, then that’s what he intended to be.

His father had died recently, and he’d bought the vineyard on a wave of memories and nostalgia with the idea of getting back to his roots. On bad days, he told himself he must be crazy and that Running Horse Ranch was doomed to failure. And on the good days he told himself he was a quick learner and willing to give it all he’d got. His time, his energy, his money—what he had left of it. And one day it would all pay off and be a big success.

He’d never actually visited the property, though when he first saw the ad, he’d remembered the area from when he was a kid. And he wasn’t a complete greenhorn. The year before he left for college, he’d earned tuition money working at a vineyard in Napa. He’d done everything from toiling in the fields to harvesting grapes; to working the crush and in the bottling plant. Interested, he’d hung out with the winemaker, observing the various processes. He’d experienced all the problems: the sudden frost that could wipe out a crop overnight if you didn’t get out there fast—usually at three in the morning—and mist down the vines. He’d seen grapes shriveled to hard worthless little raisins by disease. He’d fought flood and worked with the burning sun on his back. And most of all, he’d learned exactly how dependent a winemaker was on the weather. Good vines plus good weather equaled a good crop. It was a simple equation. He only hoped he could make it work.

The sunshiny photos of the property had shown a rolling landscape scattered with scrub oak, shady eucalyptus and bare-looking rows of vines. There was a little wooden house complete with a wraparound porch, a red barn that housed the winery, and Spanish adobe-style stables set around a picturesque courtyard. It looked so good he had fallen instantly in love with it. Besides, it was cheap, a bargain they’d told him. With what he’d
inherited from his father, his savings, and his disability pension, he could just about swing it. And now he was hoping, uneasily, that it was really as great as it looked in the pictures.

Heaving a half-regretful sigh, he wandered back into the squad room, just as the call came in about the burned-up body in the alleyway off Times Square. His adrenaline rose in conditioned response as he headed for the door.

“What the hell, I’ll ride with you one last time,” he said to Pete Piatowsky, his partner of five years.

Piatowsky threw him a shrewd sideways glance. “You’re never going to make it, alone out there in the sticks. You can’t even get yourself outta here and into the saloon for your own farewell party—you‘ve still gotta hit the streets. What’s the bettin’ you’re back in three months?”

“Five-to-one on two,” Dan heard someone yell over the laughter in the squad room.

Piatowsky’s fair-skinned amiable face split in a snaggle-toothed grin. If making book wasn’t illegal, he’d have shortened those odds.

Dan was tall, but Piatowsky was a blond giant. He was forty-two years old, wore his thinning blond hair combed carefully across his high forehead, and his blue eyes had a deceptively mild expression. Dan knew him to be sharp as a razor, in sync with life on the streets. He was a good detective as well as a good friend. And Piatowsky had saved his life. He owed him.

The sickening stench of charred flesh hit them as soon as they stepped out of the car. Death on the streets was never pretty and this one was stomach-churning gruesome. The flames had not eliminated the cross etched deeply into the woman’s forehead, curling back the blackened edges of the cut flesh like pages in a book,
exposing her skull. And her eyes bugged from her head in the terrified stare Dan knew she must have given her killer at the moment of death.

The Medical Examiner arrived just after they did, leaning over the stinking Dumpster, doing what he had to do. Dan didn’t envy him his job, and he reminded himself again of the blue skies, the sunshine, the fresh country air that would soon be his.

“I’d bet it wasn’t the knife that killed her,” the ME said finally. “Nor the fire. It was manual strangulation. Mutilation came after death, and the fire was probably an attempt to destroy the evidence.”

To their disgust, the fire department had washed away any possible clues with the fierce water hoses.

“Whoever he is, he’s a lucky bastard,” Piatowsky said wearily to Dan. “Anyhow, why did he have to carve a cross on her forehead after she’s dead? What kind of a sicko is he? Some New Age disciple, out to reform Manhattan his way?”