Night Victims (The Night Spider) Read Free Page A

Bickerstaff ‘s memory method.
    “Mmph,” was all Harry Potter said, nodding.
    Paula went to the window where long sheer drapes were dancing rhythmically in the summer breeze. In the room’s other window an air conditioner was humming away. Who’d open one window on a hot night, then switch on an air conditioner in another?
    “Was this window open?” she asked.
    “That’s just how I found it,” Potter said.
    Keeping her hands away from the brass handle, Paula gripped the wooden frame and lowered the window until it was almost closed. It worked smoothly and silently.
    She was about to turn away when she noticed through the inner glass that a small crescent of glass had been neatly cut from the bottom of the top window. It was centered precisely over where the lock would be if the window were closed and secure.
    “I’ll be damned,” Potter said, looking where she was staring. “The killer got in through the window.”
    “And out,” Paula said, “seeing as the door was locked and had to be forced by the cop who got the call. Unless the killer had a key and locked the bedroom door on the way out.”
    “If he had a key,” Potter said, “he probably wouldn’t have come in through the window. And anyway, he’d have no reason to lock the bedroom door behind him when he left.”
    “You oughta be a detective.”
    “So I’ve been told,” Potter said. “But not often.”
    Two white-uniformed men appeared in the doorway. EMT had arrived to remove the body. The paramedics were both hefty guys with black curly hair, and could have been brothers.
    “Okay to take that now?” one of them asked, motioning toward the dead woman.
    “If she says so,” Potter said, pointing to Paula.
    “Police photographer been here?” Paula asked.
    Potter nodded. “Left just before you arrived.”
    “She’s yours,” Paula told the paramedics.
    “What kinda accent is that?” one of them asked, as they bent to their task.
    “Cajun.”
    “Alabama?”
    “Louisiana.”
    “Cajuns make great music,” Harry Potter said.
    “Jumbalya,” said the paramedic.
    “That’s food,” said the other.
    “A song, too,” Potter said. He began to sing. It didn’t sound like singing.
    “Yuck,” the paramedic said, working his gloved hand beneath the butchered body. “Crawfish pie.”
    Harry Potter packed his instruments into his bag and said good-bye. Paula was glad he was finished singing.
    As Sally Bridge was leaving her bedroom, Bickerstaff returned.
    “Got the officers’ story,” he said. “And Crocker the super’s. And the doorman said nobody suspicious entered or left the building all evening.”
    “Our killer came in through the window,” Paula said.
    Bickerstaff raised his bushy brows. “No shit?”
    Paula walked with him to the window and opened it wider, still careful not to touch the glass. They both looked down. Paula got dizzy up high and had to back away a few steps.
    “Hell of a climb,” Bickerstaff said.
    “But the street’s pretty deserted after midnight, and once the killer got a few stories up he’d be in darkness and nobody’d notice him.”
    “But it’s damn near a sheer brick wall. How’d he climb it?”
    “Maybe pulled himself up on some kind of line,” Paula said. She examined the windowsill for marks where a grappling hook might have been attached. The sill was unmarked, and nothing else in the room seemed to have been disturbed other than Sally Bridge.
    “The super said she lived alone,” Bickerstaff said.
    “I gathered.”
    “She was a casting director. Even did some work on Broadway.”
    “Really? She have a boyfriend?”
    “She was between them, according to the super and the doorman. They both said she was always working and didn’t have much opportunity for romance. She used to joke about it, how she needed more time to meet interesting men.”
    “She found time last night.”
    “And she isn’t joking,” Bickerstaff said. “Or even slightly interested.” He nodded toward