wouldn’t notice extra clothing he didn’t recognize. Luther had a jug of drinking water in the attic, and a chamber pot if necessary, if he couldn’t wait until morning.
The best times were after Milford had left for work and the two lovers were on their own. Cara sometimes came up to the attic and told Luther how she adored him while she woke him gradually with her mouth. Usually they’d finish downstairs in the main bedroom where it was cooler. Afterward, Luther would casually get dressed, then help Cara with some of her housework. Sometimes they made love again, and sometimes they didn’t. It was all up to them. Confined and secretive though they had to be, they both had more freedom than they’d ever experienced.
Luther sat down on his cot and fitted the earpiece of the battery-operated portable AM-FM radio Cara had given him. Then he stretched out on his back on top of the sleeping bag, laced his fingers behind his head, and listened to his favorite local station. He was confident no one way down on the first floor would hear his movements. And even when Milford and Cara were upstairs in their bedroom, Luther was still two stories above them. It was almost like having a private apartment in the same building, separated by more than an entire floor. Why should Luther worry in his spare but comfortable home in a corner of the Victorian’s vast attic?
Roy Rabbit, a local disc jockey, was on the radio, playing the kind of music Luther liked, old songs from the 1960s. Lots of Beatles stuff. Luther especially liked the Beatles. The Monkees he thought were just okay.
When Roy Rabbit said good-bye and segued into news, Luther removed the earpiece and turned off the radio. He ate the sandwich Cara had made for him, but not the green beans and carrots, telling himself it was because they’d gotten cold but knowing he would have skipped them, anyway.
After dinner he listened to the radio some more, then read for a while, before falling asleep.
It was well after midnight when Luther awoke, warm and with a parched throat. He reached for the nearby water jug but decided a lukewarm drink wasn’t what he needed. Something cold would be a lot better. And as he stood up from his cot, he realized he was hungry.
He left the attic, not raising the stairs behind him, then crept down the back steps to the third, then second floor. On the landing he stood very still, listening. He was sure he could hear Milford snoring.
Luther followed the sound down the dark hall, then peered in through the couples’ half-open bedroom door.
There was Milford, a lump beneath the white sheet that Luther wouldn’t have minded seeing as a shroud. Cara lay gracefully on her side next to him, one long, pale leg outside the sheet.
Luther smiled, staring at the leg. It seemed the limb of something beautiful in the act of being born. Then he returned to the landing and made his way to the first floor and the kitchen.
He got a cold can of Pepsi from the refrigerator, and then noticed a slice of peach pie on the top shelf.
Why not? Pepsi and pie. If the last piece of pie was being saved for Milford to eat tomorrow, Cara would make up some story. She was getting good at that.
He was at the table and had just finished the pie and was reaching for the Pepsi can when he heard a sound and jerked his head around so fast he felt a brief pain in the side of his neck.
Cara was standing in the doorway with her forefinger to her lips. She was wearing her pale blue silk nightgown that showed the generous contours of her breasts and her hard nipples.
“Jesus, Cara!” Luther whispered.
She walked over and picked up the pie plate, which now contained only crumbs, and carried it over and set it in the sink.
“Was that Milford’s pie I ate?” he asked.
“None of it’s Milford’s pie.” She grinned. “C’mon.”
Carrying the half-full soda can, Luther stood up and followed her into the living room.
The background hum of the refrigerator receded. It was quiet and dim in the living room, but within seconds they could see by the streetlight’s soft illumination filtered through the lace curtains.
“Milford’s sleeping like the dead,” she said. “He won’t hear us.” She took Luther’s hand and led him to the sofa.
“Over there,” he said, and pointed.
She giggled. “Milford’s chair?”
“Can’t think of anyplace better.”
Luther took her other hand, so he was holding both, and walked backward, drawing her to the big wing chair that directly faced the TV. He placed the Pepsi can on an accounting magazine on a nearby table, then stripped off his jockey shorts and sat down. Cara removed the panties beneath her nightgown and sat on his lap. He kissed her cheek and ear and used his hand on her. It was cold from carrying the soda can, but that didn’t last long.
She wriggled around so she could kiss him on the lips. They remained kissing while she adjusted her body so she faced him squarely, straddling him. Then she raised herself so he could suck her nipples. Within minutes she lowered herself onto him. She made a sound now familiar to Luther, like a soft and desperate breeze sighing through summer leaves.
Half an hour later, Cara was back in bed beside the lightly snoring Milford, and Luther was back in his corner of the attic, warmed by his love and his secret.
Sleeping the best sleep of his life.
33
New York, 2004.
Pearl and Quinn reached the scene before Fedderman.
Quinn had gotten the call from Harley Renz at eight A.M. Another married couple had been slain in their Manhattan apartment. Mary Navarre’s blood had seeped through a crack in the kitchen floor and spread beneath the tiles. Some of it found its way to the apartment below, leaving a narrow, scarlet streak on the wallpaper above the stove.
The super let himself in and discovered the bodies at seven forty-five, after being shown the apartment below and recognizing that the substance on the wall was blood. He’d wisely touched nothing, locked the Navarre apartment door behind him, and called the police from his own phone. Renz, or someone in Renz’s camp, had intercepted the call and gotten to Quinn immediately. The crime scene unit hadn’t yet arrived. The two uniforms who’d taken the call after it had gotten past Renz were outside in the hall. It was only Pearl and Quinn in the apartment, along with the dead.
“We have our pattern now,” Pearl said in a disgusted tone. They were in the kitchen, staring at Donald Baines curled on the floor, and his wife, Mary Navarre, sprawled dead in a crusting pool of blood on the other side of the kitchen. When the super had told them the victims’ names, that was all they had been-names. Now, too late, they were people. Had been people. Pearl suppressed the nausea and cold anger that built in her whenever she first came on a homicide scene. Violent death always stayed around awhile, hanging in the air like a malevolent ghost.
Quinn slipped on his latex gloves, and Pearl did the same.
“The kitchen again,” Quinn said.
Moving carefully and not stepping in any blood, he and Pearl made their way over to the table. On a certain level they were both pleased. The killer was far enough along on his sick and deadly journey that it could be said he was leaving his signature at the scenes of his murders.
“Something new,” Pearl said, looking at the carton of milk, unwrapped loaf of bread, and half-eaten sandwich on the table. She touched the milk carton; even through the glove she could tell immediately that it was room temperature. “It appears the killer was interrupted while having a snack.” She bent low to examine the sandwich more closely. “Pastrami.” She eased up the top slice of bread with her fingertip and peered beneath it. “Mustard and pickles.” There was no mustard container on the table. And no pickle jar. But the sandwich was definitely homemade, not a carryout or delivery.
Quinn was stooping over Donald’s body. “Stab wound.” He straightened up with difficulty, a grinding cartilage sound reminding him his knees were no longer what they’d been, then went over to Mary’s corpse. “Lots of stab wounds in this one. I count twelve and I probably can’t see them all. Mostly around the breasts and pubic
