“I guess because I was an oldest child,” Horn said.
“No, you weren’t the oldest.”
Horn was surprised. Marla was right; he was the middle of three brothers and the only survivor of the three. “So pop psychology can lead us astray,” he said.
“You better believe it.”
There were no other customers in the diner, and the glass coffeepot she held was almost empty, so she lingered by his booth as she often did.
“So what do you think?” Horn asked.
“About?”
“This serial killer.”
“I don’t have all the facts.”
“None of us do,” Horn said. “That’s the problem. What do you make of it from what you read in the papers and hear on the news?”
Marla seemed a little surprised he was asking her about this seriously, but she walked over and placed the coffeepot back on its burner, and then returned. Her manner was slightly different, but it would take a practiced eye like Horn’s to notice. She wasn’t in her waitress persona now; she seemed involved and thoughtful. There was more going on behind her eyes than over easy and bacon crisp.
“He kills women he doesn’t know,” she said, “or he’d simply knock on their doors then incapacitate them instead of sneaking through their windows.”
“He might have a thing about them needing to be asleep,” Horn suggested.
“I know. I’m only hypothesizing. The victims are all attractive women but not of a particular type.” She saw the curiosity in his eyes. “Television news had their photos on last night. Nina Count’s channel.”
“It would be hers,” Horn said. “She’s a wolf among news hounds.”
“Your killer must have some kind of climbing skills,” Marla said. Something in the look she gave him revealed she was locked on like radar, now that he’d asked her opinion. She wasn’t interested in his asides about a TV anchor-woman. “So he might be involved in rock climbing-that’s a growing sport-or mountain climbing. Or maybe entomology.”
That brought Horn up short as he was lifting his cup to his mouth. He placed the steaming cup back down. “Entomology? The study of insects?”
Marla nodded. “The media aren’t just calling him the Night Spider because he crawls up and down buildings. There’s the way he swathes his victims, like a spider using secretions to wrap and disable a victim before draining it of fluids. And the wounds are stabs rather than slashes, almost as if he’s emulating a spider slowly sapping the life of helpless prey caught in its web. The killer doesn’t seem to be in a rush. Neither is a spider. It feeds at its leisure off insects it’s trapped and wrapped, until they weaken and die and become useless husks.” She smiled without humor. “If I were a bug, I wouldn’t want to be at the mercy of a spider. It doesn’t know mercy, and neither does your killer.”
“You’re saying the killer somehow identifies with spiders?”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how or why, but it looks that way. And for that he needs familiarity with spiders. Like an entomologist.”
Horn sat back, studying her. It wasn’t just what she’d said but the way in which she’d said it. “You weren’t always a waitress, Marla.”
“Who was? I had a life before this.”
“What kind of life? You don’t look that old.”
She laughed. “The past is dead and gone. And I’m. . let’s just say in my early forties.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stray where I shouldn’t.”
“That’s okay. I understand. It’s the cop in you.”
“Marla-”
The bell over the door jingled, and she hurried toward the front of the diner to wait on a guy in a business suit mounting a stool at the counter.
Horn used his cell phone to contact Paula and Bickerstaff.
It was Bickerstaff who answered.
“You still interrogating Gary Schnick?” Horn asked.
“Paula’s in the room with him now. This guy didn’t do it. Two of his neighbors saw him arriving home last night a couple of hours before Redmond’s time of death. He doesn’t know that yet, though, so we’re letting him ramble.”
“He might have returned to her apartment later.”
“Could have, but I doubt it. Nothing in his apartment suggests he knows anything about climbing, and his hands are soft from years of pushing pencils and tickling tax returns. This character’s no more a mountain climber than I am. Doin’ it without Viagra’s the extent of his vertical challenge.”
“You press him hard?”
“We did. He had a rough night and looks about ready to fold. Paula’s easing up now. He didn’t even ask for an attorney for about two hours. Then he got some schmuck tax client of his that knows nothing about criminal law. I think they’re bartering, trading services so they can screw the IRS. We were about to release Schnick. His lawyer will be shocked.”
“You want to cross him off our list entirely?”
“Almost entirely. I
“Before you uncage him,” Horn said, “have Paula find out if he knows anything about insects.”
“Incest?”
“Insects. Bugs.”
Bickerstaff was silent for a moment. “Like was he ever an exterminator?”
“Or a scientist. An entomologist or biologist.”
“We checked out his background,” Bickerstaff said. “Nothing like that in it. No sheet on him, degree in accounting, been a CPA for the last ten years. Course, there’s always hobbies. Maybe he had a butterfly or beetle collection. You know, one of those guys sticks pins through bugs to mount them on a display.”
“Yeah,” Horn said. “Find out about that. Make sure before you put him back on the street.”
“Will do,” Bickerstaff said before hanging up. “Bugs. .”
“Spiders,” Horn said into the dead phone.
As he slid the phone back in his pocket, he saw that Marla had finished waiting on the executive type at the counter and was returning to his booth, carrying the coffeepot as an excuse. She was eager to talk to him about this case. He wondered why.
The cop in him.
13
Seven years old and he was terrified.
But he was used to being frightened, existing with the living lump of fear in his stomach. There was no light or movement of air where he was, only heat and darkness. His mouth was dry, and the corners of his eyes stung with perspiration. Listening to the sounds coming from the other side of the locked closet door, he wondered why his mother did this. Did all mothers do it?
He understood some things from hearing his mother and father arguing, yelling and losing their tempers, like he did at times. Their faces would be red, their eyes bulging. Their mouths were ugly and shaped like the ones on the stone things he’d learned about in school, the gargoyles. They would scream at each other sometimes until they got too tired to go on. Did they feel as he did afterward, empty and lost? He thought they did.
