Authors: Neal Baer

Kill Switch (10 page)

BOOK: Kill Switch

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“Thanks for understanding,” the cop said, walking away.

Nick slumped in his seat as the cops began to let the passengers back into the car. Then the train started off again.

Nick stared out the window for the rest of trip, not wanting to see the passengers looking at him with disgust because he had made them late. The train was crossing over the Harlem River now; the lit Manhattan skyline filled the window.

At least I can still see that.

And though he knew the time when he wouldn't be able to see was creeping closer, Nick breathed a sigh of relief. He was home.

It was just after midnight when Nick walked through the door into the ancient duplex he grew up in and now shared with his mother and two daughters. His parents had snagged the place decades earlier, the beneficiaries of once-in-a-lifetime luck combined with the city's financial ruin of the mid-1970s. Nick's father, a beat cop in the Upper West Side's 24th Precinct back then, helped evict a heroin dealer from the expansive five-room apartment. In return, the owner offered the place to Nick's father for the rent-controlled sum of $250 a month, a mere pittance for what most Manhattan apartment dwellers then and now would consider an urban mansion. Now, nearly forty years later, the rent was only $1,200, more than affordable on a detective's salary.

Nick made his way into the kitchen and went straight for the refrigerator. He hadn't eaten since before his visit to Dr. Mangone, and he was famished. He opened the door and shoved a couple of slices of cold-cut turkey down his throat, wondering why his mother hadn't saved him any dinner.

And then he felt guilty. His wife Jenny's sudden death not only left him bereft of a life partner and the girls of a mother, but it also presented a huge child-care problem. It was why Nick sold his attached house in the Queens hamlet of Whitestone and moved the girls back to Manhattan with his mother. Helen Lawler was in her early seventies, still vibrant but lonely since the death of Nick's father fifteen years earlier, and she welcomed Nick and the girls with open arms. Thus far she had kept her promise to look after her granddaughters.

“How'd it go?”

Nick turned. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway in a light green terry-cloth bathrobe.

“The girls okay?” he asked her.

“Jill got an A on her math test. Katie had a sore throat, so I kept her home.”

“Did you take her to the doctor?” Nick asked, concerned.

“It's only a cold, Nick. No fever. She'll be fine.” Helen knew that even a minor illness of one of his girls set him off, so she tried not to worry him.

“Thanks, Ma, for taking care of them,” Nick replied. “I'm going to bed.”

“You didn't answer my question,” his mother chided. “How was Boston?”

Nick couldn't help but think his mother should've been a cop. “It didn't go well,” he confessed.

“Then what are you going to do?” she asked him, frustrated.

“Now's not the time, Ma,” he said, feeling like a child. “I'm exhausted.”

“You got your twenty in. Every day after that is like you're working for half pay. That's what your father always said.”

“Ma, stop. Please.”

“You can do a million other things.”

“Guys who see can do a million other things. Not guys who're going blind.”

“Nicky, you gotta face facts.”

Nick sighed. The conversation had become a tiresome daily occurrence since he shared the secret of his deteriorating eyesight. And he'd long since learned the only way to win an argument with his mother was not to get into one in the first place.

“Can we drop it for tonight?” he pleaded.

“The girls already lost their mother. They can't afford to lose their father, too, and I won't be around forever.”

“I got another chance, Ma,” he argued. “To prove those rats on the job were wrong about me.”

“You know you didn't do anything wrong. So don't be like your father,” she said as she headed for the stove. “I'm scrambling you some eggs.”

That was the thing about his mother. She always had an answer and she was always right. “Don't bring Dad into this,” Nick said as he sat down at the kitchen table. Nothing had changed in the apartment for years, and Nick liked that. Same place mats, same bowl of plastic fruit on the table. He found comfort in his mother's predictability.

“Your dad, God rest his soul, was always trying to prove he was a good cop and look where it got himâdead of a heart attack before he could retire.” She sighed as she took out three eggs.

Nick liked how she cooked them real slow so they were soft and moist.

“Dad was a good cop who got stuck with a bunch of bad apples,” Nick now schooled her. “He never took money like the rest of them, and he never ratted them out. He had nothing to prove.”

“Neither do you, son.”

She looked at him a second longer and turned back to the stove. In silence, Nick ate his eggs and three slices of white toast almost burnt, the way he liked it. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and kissed his mom on the cheek good night, just like when he was a little boy. After checking on his sleeping girls and giving each a peck on the forehead, he went into his room and closed the door. As he did every night, he removed his gun and locked it in the safe that was built into the table beside the bed. His mother and daughters had no idea where he kept his guns and never asked. And he'd told only one other person the combination, which had ended in disaster.

He switched off the light, plopped down on the bed in his clothes, and shut his eyes, waiting to succumb to exhaustion. But it didn't take long for him to realize he was in that ironic state of being too tired to fall asleep.

Nick found himself reaching under the bed, pulling out a large envelope.

Why am I doing this? Why now?

He couldn't answer his own question as he opened the flap and reached in. When his hand emerged, it held a series of newspaper clippings. He turned on the lamp on his night table and began reading the headlines, written eight months ago:

The
Daily News
: MURDER COP ACCUSED OF KILLING WIFE

The
New York Times
: NYPD DETECTIVE CHARGED IN WIFE'S SHOOTING DEATH

The
Post
: HUBBY HOMICIDE COP WHACKED WIFE

All three sported the photo that would make Nick cringe for the rest of his life: There he was in handcuffs, being led away from his Queens home in the middle of the night as his daughters watched from the doorway. The
Post
was the only newspaper that bothered to print a picture of Jenny, snapped by a neighbor whose backyard barbecue they had attended the previous Labor Day. Nick stared at the photo of his deceased wife.

Why? Why? He ran up the stairs. Down the hallway, past the family pictures on the wall. Don't do it, Jenny ... I'm coming
...
Pop! The muzzle flash cut through the blackness. He ran into the bedroom. Her eyes were wide open in instantaneous death. Blood poured from the exit wound in her back, spreading across the white sheets....

Ringing. Ringing ...

Nick sat bolt upright. He'd fallen asleep. The ringing phone on his night table wasn't part of his recurring nightmare. He picked it up without checking the caller ID.

“Yeah.”

“Wake up and get dressed,” came the unmistakable voice of Lieutenant Wilkes from the receiver.

“What is it, Lou?” Nick asked groggily.

“You had your day off. Quimby did another girl.”

Nick was suddenly wide awake, a pen in his hand. “Where?”

“Central Park,” said Wilkes. “Ninetieth Street and the lake.”

“On my way, Boss.”

“You better be.”

Nick hung up the phone.

He killed again. While I was gone.

Nick reached for his wallet. Fumbled for the piece of paper he knew was still inside. He unfolded it, hesitating just briefly. A year ago, he never would have considered doing what he was about to do. But too much had happened since then, almost none of it good. And Nick couldn't help but think he was responsible for Quimby killing again.

Slowly, he picked up the phone and, still not wanting to, dialed Claire Waters's phone number.

C
HAPTER
11

C
laire stared out the windshield as Nick maneuvered the unmarked Impala through the throng of emergency vehicles cluttered beside the Central Park Reservoir. A horde of news vans was setting up nearby, their microwave masts high in the air, preparing no doubt to beam whatever gruesome story awaited them back to their stations and out to the tristate area.

A serial killer is on the loose. He's struck again. And he's my patient.

Was
my patient,
Claire corrected herself.

Curtin had told her to take the previous day off, and she'd spent it at home, not leaving the apartment, catching up on some pleasure reading, finally relaxed enough to fall into a deep sleep spooned into Ian's warm body. Then Nick Lawler's middle-of-the-night call woke her up, reminding her that she would never really be able to relax or forget until Quimby was caught.

On the phone, Nick had been polite to the point of apologetic. He thanked Claire for giving him Quimby's address and explained how Tommy Wessel was critically injured. Claire felt sorry for Nick, appreciating how uncomfortable it was for him to break the bad news while waiting for the request she knew was coming.

“There's been another homicide,” Nick said. “We've gotta stop this guy Quimby and you know him better than any of us.” He then asked, almost pleaded with her to accompany him to the crime scene. Despite Curtin's admonition to stay out of itâhe'd told her yesterday that Quimby was a police problem nowâClaire didn't hesitate for a second.

They drove the short distance from her apartment to Central Park in silence, Claire focusing on the reflection off the windshield of the red teardrop light atop the dashboard. She hadn't been in a police car since the day Amy disappeared, and the novelty of it wore off the moment she spotted two attendants removing an empty gurney from the back of the medical examiner's van.

Lieutenant Wilkes was getting out of his beat-up unmarked Crown Vic as Nick pulled up beside him. Wilkes glared at Claire sitting in the passenger seat.

“Who the hell is this?” Wilkes demanded as Nick got out of the car. Wilkes wore jeans and a sweatshirt, and his usually well-combed red hair stuck out like straw, giving Nick the impression that his boss came over right out of bed.

“Quimby's shrink,” Nick replied.

“You brought a shrink to a crime scene?”

Claire was out of the car by now and heard Wilkes's comment. She decided to kill him with kindness. “Claire Waters,” she said, extending her hand. “I believe you know my boss, Paul Curtin.”

Wilkes shook her hand while cutting her off at the knees. “Yeah, I know him,” began the lieutenant. “And when the sun comes up, I'm gonna tell him to have his own head examined, sending you here.”

“He doesn't know she's here,” Nick told his boss. “I called her.”

“We don't need her,” Wilkes said, not caring that Claire was standing right in front of him. “We got enough problems, Nicky.”

“What we've got, Boss, is three dead girls in two days,” Nick replied, his voice low but emphatic. He gestured to Claire. “We know it's her patient who's doing these murders. Maybe she can shed some light on what his next move might be. She can't do any worse than we have.”

Wilkes looked at him. The old Nick Lawler was back, the one who wouldn't take no for an answer, the Nick who had closed more than a few murders that were stone whodunits and considered unsolvable. The lieutenant beckoned Nick and Claire to follow him.

“I hope you can help us nail this lunatic,” Wilkes said, turning to Claire, “because I'm told he really went off the deep end this time. Are you squeamish, Doctor?”

“We dissected cadavers in medical school,” Claire said. “I've seen death before.”

“This isn't just death,” Wilkes returned. “It's murder. And believe me, there's a big difference.”

Claire was sure she could handle it. “I'm a forensic psychiatrist, Lieutenant,” she said. “If I can't deal with violent death, I probably should find another line of work.”

Wilkes didn't have a chance to respond as reporters, gathered at the edge of the crime scene tape, fanned out to surround and pepper them with questions.

“Do you have a name for the victim?”

“Is this another blond girl?”

“Are you thinking it's the same guy who murdered Catherine Mills?”

Claire knew enough to keep her mouth shut.

Wilkes looked straight into the cameras. “Hey,” he said, “you see us standing out
here
.” Then he pointed to the crime scene. “That means we haven't been in there yet. Give us a break, okay? You'll get your story when we know what's going on.”

He gestured to the three officers standing guard, and they lifted the yellow tape, allowing them to pass through.

The reservoir was directly in front of them, though the crime scene itself was several dozen yards away, hidden from view by leafy trees and thick shrubs. Storm clouds had gathered in the sky, blotting out the stars. Nick could smell the rain coming and knew he had to work fast before it washed the crime scene of any evidence.

As they reached the jogging path along the water, Claire thought of the dozens of times she'd run this route. She could see the glow of the klieg lights illuminating the crime scene. As they got closer, she hoped the bravado she displayed to Lieutenant Wilkes was more than just talk.

They rounded a corner. A Crime Scene Unit detective was shooting photos of the ground along the water. Claire noticed the grass had been flattened, the tips of each blade pointing away from the lake.

She was in the lake. He dragged her out. Why?

Her thoughts were interrupted as Assistant Medical Examiner Ross emerged from the bushes. “It's him, all right,” he said, seeing Nick and Wilkes.

“What'd he do, drown her this time?” Nick asked.

“I don't think so,” Ross replied, leading them to the body. “There's no water in her airway. More like he murdered her first, took her for a romantic midnight swim, then dragged her up here. This dude's crazy.”

They reached the body, covered by a white sheet, which Ross now pulled back.

Claire gasped in pure terror. Nick grabbed her so she wouldn't fall. The victim was another young blond woman. Quimby had burned her eyes with lye as he had Catherine Mills and the victim from Coney Island, and he'd left his signature rope around her neck with the same Dutch marine bowline.

But this victim was soaking wet.

And her long hair was cut short. In clumps. By an amateur.

“We find her hair?” Nick asked.

“Crime Scene did,” Ross said. “About fifty yards away.”

“Why cut it?” Wilkes asked.

“Because of me,” Claire replied, still shaking. “He was killing me.”

Wilkes shot Nick a hard glance. “What the hell's she talking about?”

“She's right, Boss,” Nick said.

“Clear waters,” Claire continued, her eyes never leaving the dead girl's body. “Quimby calls me
clear waters
. That's why he dragged her into the lake. That's why he hacked off her hair just like I cut mine. He wanted me to know.”

“Know what?” Wilkes asked.

“That Quimby's after Dr. Waters,” Nick said. “That she's next.”

“Or that this murder was my fault,” Claire barely uttered.

Nick turned to Wilkes. “Can you cover me here?”

“What, you taking another day off?” the lieutenant replied.

“No. I'm taking Dr. Waters to her hospital.”

Wilkes looked at Claire. She was still shaking. He actually felt bad for her.

“Don't worry, Doc,” he said to her. “We're not gonna let this whacko get anywhere near you, okay?”

All Claire could manage was a nod.

“You did us a solid,” the lieutenant continued, meaning it. “I'm calling Paul Curtin to ask him to assign you to us. If you're up to it.”

“I have to be,” said Claire.

An unusual early morning thunderstorm crackled as Curtin perused the crime scene photos from Central Park. He flipped through them and returned them to a manila envelope.

“I can't allow this,” he said to Nick and Claire.

They were seated in Curtin's office. Lieutenant Wilkes had wasted no time making good on his promise to call Curtin, phoning him from the crime scene just moments after Nick and Claire left. Curtin asked to see the photos, and Wilkes had dispatched a detective to print them out and bring them to Manhattan City.

“I have to do this, Doctor,” Claire pleaded with Curtin. “He's after me now.”

Curtin wouldn't budge. “That's exactly why you shouldn't be involved,” he said flatly.

“But I have to find outâ” she began.

“Not by risking your own life you don't,” Curtin retorted.

“But what if this is my fault?” Claire asked.

Curtin softened. “Nothing you did made this guy go out and kill these women. He was doing that before you met him.”

“I cut my hair,” Claire responded. “And Quimby made this victim look like me.”

“Claire. Listen to me,” Curtin said, looking directly into her eyes.

“There's no way that what happened this morning was in any way your fault.”

Nick decided to try to break the stalemate. “Dr. Curtin,” he began. “We would've banged our heads against the wall for days, if not weeks, wondering why this fruitcake dragged that girl into the water after he did her. It took Dr. Waters here about five seconds to nail it.”

Curtin wasn't giving in. “Under any other circumstances, Detective, I'd be thrilled to have one of my students working with you. But I'm not going to paint a big bull's-eye on Dr. Waters's back. She's in my program, and her safety is my responsibility.”

“Taking her off the case won't stop Quimby,” Nick responded.

“That's right,” Curtin shot back, “and that's why I'm asking you for a protective detail to guard Dr. Waters until Quimby's locked up.”

Nick stood. “My boss has already approved it,” he said. “She'll have a detective with her both at home and here at the hospital.”

Claire was tired of listening to these two men decide how she was going to live her life. “I'm sitting right here, guys, in case you care about what I think,” she said to them. “And whether you do or not, I don't need protection.”

“Well, Doctor,” Curtin said in that condescending tone Claire hated, “you don't have a say in this. I'm not losing a fellow on my watch.”

Claire knew he wasn't changing his mind. She nodded her reluctant assent.

“C'mon,” Nick said to her. “I'll take you home.”

Half an hour later, Nick's police Impala pulled to the curb of a residential block on the Upper East Side. Completely across town from where Claire and Ian lived. The rain had stopped and the air was refreshed, rinsed of its city grime.

“I thought you said you were taking me home,” Clare said to Nick.

“I am,” Nick replied, shutting off the engine. “Your temporary home.”

Through the windshield, Claire saw Ian, a duffel bag at his feet, standing on the sidewalk with an attractive woman she didn't know.

“City seized this place from a drug dealer back in the eighties,” Nick said. “We use it to keep witnesses under wraps. Sammy the Bull lived here while he was testifying against Gotti.”

“And the woman with my boyfriend?” Claire asked.

“Your protection,” Nick replied.

BOOK: Kill Switch

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