by John Lutz
Vitali stood up and began stuffing pens and papers into his pockets. Mishkin worked a plastic lid onto his coffee cup so he could take it with him. Pearl was sliding into her desk chair, ready to boot up her computer.
Quinn and Associates’ office was set up a lot like a precinct squad room, a large space without dividers between the desks. Everybody working for the agency was a former NYPD detective, so they felt right at home and fell to work immediately when they were given assignments. Old habits died hard, especially if they were perpetuated by Quinn.
Quinn, Pearl, and Fedderman had always been in one of those thorny relationships where they regularly inflicted minor pain on each other. When things went too far, Quinn usually played the role of peacekeeper. He didn’t mind. The verbal jousting between Pearl and Fedderman kept them sharp and contributed to their efficiency. The funny thing was, since Vitali and Mishkin had joined the team, they’d fallen into the same kind of verbal bickering with the others, but not so much with each other. As they had in the NYPD, they acted as a team, with Vitali sometimes protective of the sensitive Mishkin. Whatever acidic chemistry existed at Quinn and Associates, it worked. It seethed and bubbled sometimes, but it worked.
Quinn glanced over at Pearl. She was intently tracing her computer’s mouse over its pad, staring at the monitor almost in a trance. A new day. Time to get busy. Morning, murder, and marching orders from Quinn. Another day on the hunt. Despite the fact that she and Quinn were once contentious lovers, Pearl responded exactly like the others.
Argumentative though she might be, in ways that were essential, she could become an efficient, integral part of an investigative team, responding to orders instantly and without question. Pearl could be counted on.
The door opened and Larry Fedderman came shambling in. There were spots and crumbs all over his dark tie, and he was gripping a grease-stained white paper sack.
“I got us some doughnuts,” he said.
Pearl glared at him. “Take your doughnuts and-”
Quinn stepped in front of her and showed her the palm of his hand, like a traffic cop signaling stop. She did stop, in midsentence.
Quinn walked over to where Fedderman stood by the door. Fedderman, looking bemused, clutching his perpetually wrinkled brown suit coat wadded in his right hand. There were crescents of perspiration stains beneath his arms.
“Let’s go, Feds,” Quinn said. “We’re gonna drive over to where Millie Graff was killed, find out if any of her neighbors remembered anything important, now that they’ve slept on it.”
As he was hustled toward the door, Fedderman tossed the white paper sack. “The doughnuts are right here on my desk. Anybody can help themselves.”
The sound of the car doors slamming on Quinn’s big Lincoln filtered in from outside. He left the Renz-supplied unmarked Ford for Vitali and Mishkin to use when they had enough Philip Wharkins to interview.
With Quinn and Fedderman gone, the office seemed suddenly and unnaturally hushed, as if there were no air in it to sustain sound.
Pearl, Vitali, and Mishkin looked at each other.
Pearl made sure her computer was still signing on, then got up from behind her desk and walked over to Fedderman’s. She rummaged delicately through the grease-stained white bag and found a chocolate-iced doughnut with cream filling.
She carried the bag over and placed it where Vitali and Mishkin could reach it, along with their cache of doughnuts.
Time for teamwork.
And time to wonder if, this time, teamwork would be enough.
7
Quinn and Fedderman split up. Quinn knocked on the door of the apartment adjoining Millie Graff’s, while Fedderman went upstairs. Millie’s apartment was a corner unit, so there was no one on the other side of her. The apartment directly beneath her was vacant.
The woman who lived next to Millie was in her sixties, dressed as if she were young and living in the sixties. She had on faded jeans with the knees fashionably ripped, a red, blue, and green tie-dyed T-shirt, and rings of every kind on every finger. No makeup. No shoes, either. Her thinning gray hair was straight and hung almost to her waist. Her toenails were painted white with intricate red designs on each one. Quinn considered giving her the peace sign and then decided against it.
He explained why he was there and then double-checked his notes. “Margaret Freeman, is it?”
“My friends call me Free,” she said, with a Mary Travers kind of smile.
“Okay, Free,” Quinn said, thinking, Oh, wow.
She stood aside so he could enter, and he was surprised. The apartment was furnished traditionally, even with a sofa and chairs that matched. The floor was polished wood, with woven throw rugs scattered about. A flat-screen TV reposed placidly in a corner like a god. No beaded room dividers, no rock-star posters, no whiff of incense, no sign or sound of high-tech stereo equipment.
She motioned for Quinn to sit on the sofa, which he did. Free asked him if he’d like anything to drink, and he declined. She settled across from him in one of the matching gray chairs. “I’ve already talked-”
“Yes,” Quinn said. “I read your statement.”
“Then you know I use my largest bedroom for an office, so Millie’s bedroom is right on the other side of the wall.”
She sat back and knitted her fingers over one bare knee, as if waiting for him to ask questions.
“Why don’t you tell me what, if anything, you saw or heard?”
Free drew a deep breath. Her breasts were surprisingly bulky beneath her kaleidoscope shirt. “Around ten o’clock, when I was working late, I came in here to lock up and thought I heard someone knocking on Millie’s door. Then I heard male and female voices, like when she answered the door and they talked, and then nothing. It seemed to me she let in whoever it was.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“I would have heard him walking away in the hall if she hadn’t let him in. That’s just the way this building is.”
“Did it sound as if they were arguing?” Quinn asked.
“No, nothing like that. I went back to my office but didn’t go back to work. Instead I stretched out in my recliner to read. I wasn’t too surprised to hear the same voices, at lower volume, coming from her bedroom on the other side of the wall.”
Quinn wondered if she’d stayed in the office hoping to overhear pillow talk.
“Still friendly voices?” he asked.
“I really couldn’t say, they were so faint.” She looked off and up to the right, the way people do when they’re trying to remember. “I sat there reading my Sara Paretsky novel, only halfway aware of the voices, and after about twenty minutes I heard something I recalled after I gave my original statement to the police.”
Quinn looked up sharply and felt his blood quicken. But probably this would be something inane and of no help at all. They weren’t in a mystery novel.
Free reined in her gaze to include Quinn. “There were no voices, and no other sounds for about twenty minutes. No-more than that. Then, just past ten-thirty, the man said something loud enough that I heard. His voice seemed raised, but not necessarily because he was mad. More like he was trying to make a point. It wasn’t until this morning that I went over again in my mind what I’d heard and it became intelligible.”
“And what did he say?” Quinn asked, realizing Free was drawing this out for dramatic effect.
“He said quite clearly, now that I recall it vividly: ‘You deserve it.’ ”
“But he didn’t seem angry?”
“No, not even upset. It was as if Millie had asked a question and he was answering her.”
Quinn knew Millie would have had to ask the question with her eyes. The wadded panties would have been in her mouth.
“And then?” he asked.
Free shrugged. “No more voices. No sound of any kind. I carried my book into my bedroom and went to bed and read myself to sleep.”
“You weren’t curious or concerned about what you’d heard?”
>
“Not at the time. Like I said, the man didn’t seem angry. He might even have been telling Millie she deserved something good that had happened to her.”
Quinn doubted that.
“Can you show me your office?”
“Of course.” Free unwove her meshed fingers from her knee and stood up. Quinn followed her down a short hall and into a room about ten by twelve. The word organized sprang to mind. A computer was set up on a wooden stand. Broad wooden shelves supported a printer/copier/fax machine, and neat stacks of books and magazines. Most of the books were mysteries, and some were on forensics and blood analysis. Several were on firearms. On a wall was a framed paper target with six bullet holes clustered around the bull’s-eye.
“That’s my score from the police target range out on Rodman’s Neck.”
“You’re a gun enthusiast?” Quinn asked, somewhat surprised.
“I’m a gun writer and editor of Firearms Today magazine and blog. I’ve given expert testimony in court.”
Quinn didn’t know quite what to say, and it showed.
“That’s okay,” Free said. “It often takes people a while to process that.”
Quinn grinned. “Yeah. To be honest, I was more prepared to see a gun with a violet sticking out of the barrel.”
“Oh, that’s not a bad idea, either,” Free said.
“Are you the renowned sixties liberal who got mugged?”
“No, I grew up on a farm in Iowa. My dad hunted and plinked and got me interested in guns when I was a kid. I stayed interested. Simple as that.”
Quinn walked over and laid his hand on the back of a leather recliner set precisely in a corner. “Is this where you were when you heard the voices between ten and ten-fortyfive?”
Free nodded.
He glanced at the apartments’ common wall. There was a small louvered vent near the baseboard, painted the same light beige as the wall.
“Were you picking up sound through that vent?” he asked.
“Mostly.”
Quinn gave a final glance around.
“Anything else you recall?” he asked. “Sometimes talking about one thing triggers another.”
“I’m afraid not this time.”
Quinn wandered back into the living room and Free followed. He thanked her for her time.
At the door, he paused and turned. “You’re sure of his words.”
“Yes. ‘You deserve it.’”
“Anything else?” he asked again. You never knew.
Free smiled. “Wanna share a joint?”
Quinn’s face gave him away. She had him.
“Just kidding,” she said.
“I knew that.”
“Yeah, you did. But I was just thinking how I know a lot about guns, and somebody gets murdered next door with a knife.”
“Funny world,” Quinn said.
“Not so funny.”
“You just offered a cop a joint.”
“Nobody laughed.”
“Peace,” Quinn said.
As Quinn waited for Fedderman to meet him down in the building’s vestibule, he thought that if they needed to talk to Free again, he’d send Pearl.
8
Quinn, Pearl, and Fedderman were in the office later that day when the door opened and an emaciated-looking man in his forties burst in and stood swaying. He was average height and dressed in dirty gray pinstripe suit pants and a jacket that almost matched them. His white shirt was yellowed, his tie loosely knotted and layered with stains. His shoes were scuffed and one of them was untied. He made Fedderman look like a clotheshorse.
The man steadied himself by resting one dirty hand against the wall and said, “Quinn.” His gaze roamed redeyed around the room.
“You’re drunk,” Pearl said. “Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m drunk, asshole, but I’m not going nowhere till I find Quinn.”
“I’m here and I’m found,” Quinn said. He stood up and moved around his desk, peering at the man. From the corner of his eye he saw Fedderman also stand, in case the obviously inebriated visitor started trouble.
“I’ll asshole you,” Pearl said, and came up out of her chair.
Quinn raised a hand and she stopped. Something was going on here beyond a drunk finding his way through an unlocked door.
The man removed his hand from the wall, leaving a dark smudge, and stood almost humbly before Quinn.
“I know you,” Quinn said. “Jerry Lido.” He saw again the young, uniformed cop standing frozen by fear against a brick wall, watching a child burn.
“I didn’t wanna come here at first,” Lido said. “Wasn’t sure what was gonna happen. Were you gonna listen to me or beat the shit outta me?”
“I’ll listen,” Quinn said. He wasn’t sure how to feel about Lido. He abhorred what the man had done-rather not done. On the other hand, how could he not feel sorry for him? Quinn had suffered debilitating guilt because he hadn’t at first seen the infant in the car seat. What had guilt done to Lido?
“I don’t feel like I deserve a chance,” Lido said, “but here I am anyway.”
“Why?”
For a few seconds Lido looked as if he was wondering that, too. “You mighta heard I got interested in computers, got good at using one.”
“I heard you were a genius at using one, sometimes illegally, but you were too smart to get caught.”
Lido chanced a rueful smile. “Too smart to admit it, too.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “So why did you look me up?”
“I saw in the paper what happened to Millie Graff,” Lido said. He writhed slowly as he spoke, as if suffering great internal pain. “Wanted to do something about it, so I read all about the case in the news. Then talked to some guys I know who are still in the NYPD. Then I set to work with my computer. You’re looking at a man who don’t have shit, Quinn-except for my tech equipment. I spent every dime I begged or borrowed on that, and I can work it like I’m conducting an orchestra. You wouldn’t believe-”
“Let’s get to the point, Jerry.”
Lido moved farther into the office and was standing near Pearl’s desk. “I worked the Net, learned something about Philip Wharkin. You gotta-” As he spoke he gesticulated with his left arm and knocked Pearl’s empty coffee mug off her desk. It bounced loudly on the floor but didn’t break.
“Clumsy alky!” Pearl said, her temper flaring. She stood and reached over her desk, shoving Lido backward.
Lido knocked her hand away. “Don’t you ever goddamn touch me, you pussy cop!”
Pearl was around the desk, after Lido. He used his arm to sweep everything from her desktop onto the floor; then he snarled and went at her.
Pearl didn’t back up. Lido swung at her and missed. Pearl started to punch back, but Quinn had both her arms pinned to the side within a few seconds. Fedderman grabbed Lido by his belt and shirt collar and yanked him back so he and Pearl were out of punching range.
“Calm down now, damn it!” Quinn shouted. He spun Pearl to face away from Lido, staying between them. “You calm?” he whispered in her ear.
“Don’t I seem calm?” She was actually vibrating in his grasp.
He walked her over and forcibly sat her back down in her desk chair. Then he looked over and saw Lido curled in the fetal position on the floor.
Fedderman, standing over him, shook his head. “He ran out of gas in a hurry.” He looked over at Pearl. “You okay?”
“She’s got it together now,” Quinn said, hoping saying it would make it true.
“Who’s gonna pick up all that shit he knocked on the floor?” Pearl asked.
“I am,” Fedderman said, and began doing just that.
His actions did more than anything to cool Pearl’s temper. She breathed in and out deeply.
Lido was sitting up now but stayed on the floor, his arms folded across his chest as if he were freezing. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry.” He crawled over and started helping Fedderman. Found Pearl’s initialed coffee mug and p
laced it carefully on her desk. “You gotta forgive me!”
“I don’t gotta do shit,” Pearl said.
“Jerry, stand up,” Quinn said, figuring a first-name basis might be a mitigating factor here. He went over and helped Lido to his feet. Lido felt as if he weighed about ninety-eight pounds. Quinn led him over and plopped him down in one of the client chairs.
“What is it you’ve got to say, Jerry?”
“I wanna help you on this case. I’ve gotta do that, for my own self-respect. I need enough of it so I can at least shave once in a while without wanting to cut my throat.” He looked ready to cry, dabbing at his eyes with a dirty knuckle. “I’ll work mostly on my own, but I could at least drop by here now and then and report what I find out. And you can tell me what you need to know and I can find it. I can go places on the Internet you wouldn’t believe. Databases you never heard of ’cause they’re top secret.”
“Illegal places?” Fedderman asked.
“Don’t make me walk some fine goddamn line,” Lido said. “All I wanna do is help. I’ll just drop by here now and then. Report in. What’s it gonna hurt?”
Quinn looked at the mess on the floor that Fedderman was still picking up, the mess on Pearl’s desk, the furious glint in Pearl’s dark eyes, the smudged wall where Lido had leaned.
“Nothing, I guess, Jerry,” he said.
Pearl said, “Jesus!” under her breath.
“What were you about to tell us, Jerry?” Quinn asked.
“This guy whose name was written on the mirror, Philip Wharkin. I fed his name in everywhere I could.”
“The bloody name on the mirror never appeared in the press.”
Lido waved an arm. “I told you, I got connections in the department. Other places.”
“Illegal Internet connections?”
“It don’t matter. Anyway, you know where Wharkin’s name came up? On an exclusive members list for Socrates’s Cavern in the sixties.” Lido raised his voice, as well as the level of the alcohol fumes he exhaled. “You remember what that place was, Quinn. A sort of high-class S and M club where kinky business types went to let their hair and whatever else down. I checked the other Philip Wharkin. It’s not a common name. One’s in his eighties living in Queens. Another one’s a nine-year-old black kid goin’ to school in the Bronx. Then there’s our guy, used to be a Wall Streeter, sold bonds for Brent and Malone-they’re outta business now. Our Wharkin retired in nineteen-eighty, and died of a heart attack in Toms River, New Jersey, in nineteen-eighty-two.”