Killing Critics Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  “[O’Connell] has raised the standard

  for psychological thrillers.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  Praise for

  KILLING CRITICS

  “A shrewd and merciless detective.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “A tight, twisting mystery.”

  —Newsday

  “The heart-stopping, devastating ending is worth a thousand curtain calls. Another triumph for this truly gifted writer.”

  —Booklist

  “Hard to resist ... blazingly original.”

  —Karkus Reviews

  Praise for

  BONE BY BONE

  “Ingenious ... Ms. O’Connell gleefully invents a hothouse of ... malice. She assigns dark secrets and strange habits to every last character in her serpentine story.”

  —The New York Times

  “[Bone by Bone] pulses with a Gothic noir ... this is one of those books you can’t put down.”

  —The Boston Globe

  Praise for

  Carol O’Connell and the Mallory novels

  FIND ME

  “A terrific find: a tightly wrapped, expert combination of suspense, mystery, and show-stopping character ... For those who discover it at this breakthrough moment, Mallory’s story has just begun.”

  —The New York Times

  “A trip inside the dark heart of pop fiction’s most compelling mystery series.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “The female Dirty Harry of detective fiction.”

  —The New York Times

  “One of the most unique, interesting, and surprising heroines

  you’ve ever come across in any work of fiction.”

  —Nelson DeMille

  “America’s answer to Ruth Rendell.”

  —The Denver Post

  WINTER HOUSE

  “Pure O’Connell ... [Her] fans will be knocked out by this one.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “Scores on all levels ... O’Connell keeps the tension and suspense high right through to the surprising end.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Breaks the usual rules.”

  —The Baltimore Sun

  DEAD FAMOUS

  “Ingenious ... O’Connell sets the standard in crime fiction.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Blazingly original. Once again, O’Connell transcends the genre.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  CRIME SCHOOL

  “One of the most original and striking crime fiction protagonists to appear in the last few years.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  SHELL GAME

  “Rich, complex, memorable ... another superb effort from one of our most gifted writers.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “One of the most poetic yet tough-minded writers of the genre.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “An author who can raise goose bumps

  with both her plot and her prose.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  THE JUDAS CHILD

  “Breathtakingly ambitious suspense ... A brilliant twist ... mesmerizing.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Her most stunning novel yet ... more chilling, twisted, and intense with each page ... [a] soul-shattering climax.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  STONE ANGEL

  “Rich in people, places, and customs vividly realized, with mordant humor, terror, and sadness.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  THE MAN WHO

  CAST TWO SHADOWS

  “Even more satisfying than Mallory’s Oracle. And that’s high praise indeed.”

  —People

  “Beautifully written.”

  —Harper’s Bazaar

  “The suspense is excruciating.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  MALLORY’S ORACLE

  “Mallory is a marvelous creation.”

  —Jonathan Kellerman

  “A classic cop story ... one of the most interesting new characters to come along in years.”

  —John Sandford

  “An author who really involves you, and makes you care.”

  —James B. Patterson

  “Wild, sly, and breathless—all the things that a good thriller ought to be.”

  —Carl Hiaasen

  Titles by Carol O’Connell

  BONE BY BONE

  FIND ME

  WINTER HOUSE

  DEAD FAMOUS

  CRIME SCHOOL

  SHELL GAME

  THE JUDAS CHILD

  STONE ANGEL

  KILLING CRITICS

  THE MAN WHO CAST TWO SHADOWS

  MALLORY’S ORACLE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  KILLIING CRITICS

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Hutchinson, a division of Random House U.S. Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-45875-4

  BERKLEY ®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY ® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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ttp://us.penguingroup.com

  Version_2

  Many thanks to the people who answered my questions and extended their courtesy.

  Dianne Burke, Search & Rescue Research Associates, Tempe, Arizona, for her patience and diligence. ([email protected])

  Robbin Murphy, Creative Director of artnetweb, for a tour of the system. (http://artnetweb.com/artnetweb)

  YTNOP Music, for the use of an atmospheric Jean-Luc Ponty instrumental.

  FOR MY FATHER

  He was one of those quiet heroes who worked until the day he died. He was also a man who could do a financial transaction on a handshake; he bought our first house that way. And people who’ve known him since he was a child will tell you he never told a lie in his entire life. What spare time he had was spent in public service; what spare cash he had was given away. This remarkable man filled a church when he died, and the planet was diminished.

  PROLOGUE

  SPEAKERS WERE HIDDEN IN EVERY WALL, THEIR CLOTH covers painted over many times to render them invisible and to baffle the sound of Jean-Luc Ponty’s Civilized Evil. Throughout the evening, the dark sweet music of the jazz violin had been muted—strings and drums subdued to the level of a backdrop for a hundred inane conversations. A ripple of notes chaining into chords wove around the art gallery patrons as a subliminal entity. The crowd inhaled the music with every breath, and it hovered over their food and wine.

  Dean Starr’s head nodded, almost imperceptibly, to the beat of a drum just beyond the reach of his awareness. Much was beyond him this evening. In fact, he had just been stabbed and hadn’t the wit to realize it.

  Drugs and wine had sabotaged the switchboard operator of his brain. All internal lines of communication were botched, and trauma was never connected to pain. He had felt the contact, but knew not what it was, for he could not see inside himself, could not grasp the damage from the steel needle of the ice pick. And now the blood was leaking from the chambers of his heart. Weakening without understanding, Dean Starr slipped to the floor, his head gently settling to the hard wood as though to a pillow.

  A card wafted down to his chest. His eyes rolled toward the small white rectangle, but he was unable to read it, and felt no inclination to lift his head. Liquid warmth was spreading outward from the center of his back where the tiny hole was—the small back door to his damaged heart.

  Lizard skin shoes approached his prone body in the company of patent-leather pumps. Now, other shoe styles which he approved of joined this pair. His slow eyes roved from sequined bows to golden buckles. And there was the sound of shoes behind his head, a light dancing-shoe scuffle mingling with the tap-tap of stiletto heels, the tinkle of champagne glasses, and the chatter of mouths opening and closing to say nothing that was any longer intelligible to him—if ever it had been.

  A woman’s gloved hand reached down for the white card and picked it up, the better to read it. The owner of the glove tilted the card as she was putting it back where she had found it—on his chest. Now he was able to read the single word DEAD.

  And then he was.

  Long after all the pretty shoes had departed for the evening, a pair of black shoes approached the body. These shoes extended out from the blue cuffs of the gallery rent-a-cop’s uniform.

  “Christ,” said the owner the black shoes.

  In this one word, he gave away his lack of sophistication and education, his utter ignorance of the fine arts, for he had instantly realized that this was a dead body lying in a red spread fan of blood—and not a piece of performance art.

  CHAPTER 1

  ALL AROUND THE FRENETIC CIRCUS OF TIMES SQUARE, car lights blinked and traffic lights glared. Above the din of horns and shouted obscenities, neon signs flashed and clashed with messages on every surface that was for sale. The wraparound sign on the old Times Building sent headlines in a band of bright letters running around the facade. Mounted over the running words was a giant motion picture screen with an ever changing array of full-color commercials.

  At street level, less electrifying messages rode the backs of men with sandwich board signs. Pedestrians moved in quick streams of intricate traffic patterns, flying through the rush hour, dodging those who moved into their path to hand them bright-colored ads for local stores. The beggars also worked this fast-paced stream, moving along with their marks to flash broad smiles and holler pitches for spare coins. And on every corner, there was a great war of odors from the street vendors’ carts, as pretzels battled with roasted animal parts.

  Only two people, a man and a woman, were not in motion, and the whole world moved around them.

  The woman stood near the curb, flashing white teeth and large breasts. Both her profession and her unnatural shade of red hair fit well with the advertising atmosphere. “Care to dance?” she called to every passing stranger. And then her eye fell on the elegant lone figure in the expensive suit.

  With a predatory stare, she watched this man from the distance of a few squares of the sidewalk. He didn’t belong here. She checked the length of the curb for the limousine that should accompany such a man, but there was none in sight.

  He was staring up at the roof of the building across the street. Only this afternoon, a derelict had hovered at the edge of that roof. And then, the ragbag had spread her skinny arms on the wind and sailed off the high brick wall. So like a bird she was, even as she fell, and caused no more than a brief interruption in the flow of the square, only the time it had taken to improvise the foot traffic around the body and over it, and some had trodden on it. But to compensate for that indignity, the dead woman had received two minutes of fame on the evening news.

  Now the man in the expensive suit seemed fixated on that same ledge. The woman strolled over to him and lightly touched his sleeve to call his attention back to the earth, to her.

  “Sugar, if you’re waitin’ on another jumper, I’d say you’ve got some time to kill.” She rolled her shoulders back and thrust her breasts out in a none too subtle offering.

  “Thank you.” He inclined his head, and she knew if he’d had a hat he would have tipped it. “But I’m afraid I have an appointment,” he said, addressing her as a lady and not a whore.

  His dark hair was threaded with silver, and his moustache did not quite conceal the line of a faded scar. The scar made him look a little dangerous, and she liked that. And there was something about his mouth that would make any woman wonder what it might be like to sleep with him. She was wasting her time here, and she knew it. Yet she lingered awhile. Perhaps it was the challenge of those eyes hooded in shadow.

  She came closer.

  The beams of a turning car flashed on his face, flushing out the shadows with brilliant light. And now, though it was spring and the evening was mild, she wrapped herself in her own arms. Her sudden shiver was not caused by any expression of his intentions, for surely he had been born with those eyes.

  Imagine a baby with eyes like that.

  Obediently, her imagination conjured up the face of an infant with alien irises the color of blue frozen water, and with black pupils like onrushing missiles.

  Well, ain’t that cold?

  She looked up to the man with another question in her thoughts. Did your mama shiver when she suckled you?

  In a burst of intuition, the woman, who truly understood men, realized that this man’s entire life had been shaped by his eyes, which could not convey any semblance of humanity—only bullets and ice.

  She forgot the pitch to sell her body. In silence, she stepped back and watched as he turned away from her and entered the Gulag. The restaurant’s glass door swung shut behind him.

  The Gulag was brightly lit to obliterate any trace of ambiance which might induce the patrons to linger over their food. Eat and get out! said the overhead fluorescent lights. The strong aroma of coffee dominated the single room, riding over the stale odors of bygone meals.

  J. L. Quinn threaded his way through tables of tired conversations and the quiet islands of solitary book readers.
A cockroach ran for its life across the cracked linoleum in advance of the man’s handmade shoes. Quinn sat down at his regular table, a small square of Formica in company with two plastic chairs.

  Few people knew that he frequented this place. Those few had often pressed him with variations of “Why in God’s name would you eat in a hole like that?” The famed art critic always responded with high praise for the cheeseburgers. This from a man who had authored four books on fine art, whose suits were tailored by maestros, and whose moustache never trapped crumbs.

  He glanced at his watch. Detective Sergeant Riker would be arriving soon. Riker’s urgent business could only be the recent murder of that hack artist—and this made him smile. The police department was so right to suspect an art critic. In his youth, Quinn had taken a postulant’s vow to kill off bad art before it could spread.