Frenzy

by John Lutz

  “He was also a very successful banker in Paris.”

  “You know this how?”

  “I’ve looked into the Gundelheimer family,” Helen said.

  “Seems out of your bailiwick,” Quinn said.

  Helen shrugged. “I’m Jewish.”

  She said it in a way that Quinn knew meant something. He waited. Helen crossed her long arms, fought a mental conflict that showed on her face, and decided to share.

  “Samuel Gundelheimer and his wife, Rebecca, were sent to Bergen Belsen in 1944,” she said, “and there is no firm record of them or of any of the Gundelheimer family after that. There was a daughter, Elna, thirteen; and twin sons, Jacob and Isador, eight years old. The girl was of no use to the Nazis, and the boys were too young for forced labor. There is some indication, but no firm knowledge, of Samuel and Rebecca Gundelheimer dying of typhus in 1945. The children seem to have been transported to other camps, where they simply became part of the missing dead. They might have been gassed, or used for medical experimentation—especially the twins—then possibly incinerated. They might have become part of a mass grave near the camp that contained several thousand.”

  “Good God!”

  “He was nowhere to be found at the time,” Helen said.

  Quinn was surprised to see she that she’d teared up. “You see this shit on the Internet and it becomes real again if you let it. My great grandmother . . . my . . .” She could no longer force the words out.

  Quinn snatched up a tissue and moved out from behind his desk. He gave the tissue to Helen, who folded it into quarters and dabbed at her eyes.

  Quinn patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, dear.”

  She shook her head. “Men into monsters. How does it happen?”

  We’re supposed to know.

  He gave her another tissue, then sat on the desk corner. “You’re not assuming this case has something to do with the Holocaust . . .”

  “Nothing and everything,” Helen said. She dabbed twice at each eye and then slipped the wadded tissue into a pocket. “Samuel and Rebecca Gundelheimer didn’t want to surrender any of the world’s beauty to the enemy.”

  “The enemy got a lot of it,” Quinn said, “though plenty of it was recovered, too.”

  “The Nazis didn’t get our girl,” Helen said, “thanks to the Gundelheimers and some others.”

  Quinn almost smiled at her, then realized she might not understand. “We’re thinking the same thing, I’ll bet.”

  Helen nodded. “A serial killer talks with Grace Geyer, setting her up to be a victim, and out of the blue she says something that piques his interest. After pumping her for more information, he realizes he might have stumbled onto something big. He decides to cut himself in on what might be a valuable missing piece of art.”

  “But he needs to know more,” Quinn says.

  “Right. He follows Grace and the others to the Fairchild Hotel, intending to torture and question Andria Bell, being alone with her, taking his time. After all, she’s the expert in the group. Then he discovers Andria’s suite adjoins another, where five art students are staying, including Grace Geyer. Mass murder ensues, as well as skillful and agonizing torture, and the passing of information. That’s when the killer and our overactive family intersect.”

  And what began as a vendetta chess game between the killer and Quinn develops into a treasure hunt and murder spree.

  “Grace wouldn’t have known much,” Quinn said. “And Andria would have resisted talking.”

  Helen said, “Under certain kinds of torture, everybody talks.” Her voice was sad. “No exceptions.”

  Quinn had seen enough of the tortured and dead not to differ with her.

  Helen waited, eyes dry now. Her face was still flushed, making her freckles less obvious.

  “Are we still thinking the same thing?” she asked.

  “Henry Tucker’s backpack,” Quinn said.

  Helen managed a ragged smile. “You’ll find whatever was inside it. You’ll find the letters.”

  “How can you be so certain?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m certain of you.”

  52

  Honor Tripp looked at the man across the table and counted herself among the lucky.

  So far.

  They’d had only three dates, eaten three dinners together, and attended two off-Broadway shows. Neither show had been very good, but they didn’t much mind. That was because they did get along. This man, unlike so many others, seemed truly interested in her. What she was, who she was, what she thought. And he seemed to like her.

  Well, more than like her.

  The one thing about James Bolton that gave Honor pause was that he seemed somewhat secretive. He was skilled at deflecting questions.

  So he was wary, she told herself. Like most men. Like most people in the singles society. A person gets hurt so many times and then puts up defensive walls.

  Honor understood that and was patient.

  Still, she wondered. She probed. It was in her nature.

  “You’re not a native New Yorker, are you?” she asked, sitting across from Bolton in Beaux Arts Espresso in the Village.

  Bolton gave her the slow smile that had first attracted her to him, the way it crinkled the faint scar on the side of his face. That and the way he was dressed—casually, with dark slacks, a gray shirt with its long sleeves hiked up almost to his elbows. And there was something about his hands, so strong yet sensitive. He was always unconsciously caressing things, his coffee cup, the small table’s centerpiece vase, the backs of her hands and fingers.... That was why she was drawn to him, she realized. He was so very tactile.

  Bolton hadn’t answered. Honor cocked her head in what she fancied was her puzzled but pleased look. “So where are you from?”

  “Around. Right now I’m living over on the East Side, near First Avenue and 57th Street.”

  “That’s a nice neighborhood, but I wouldn’t say it’s nearby. What are you doing here in the Village?”

  He sipped his coffee, smiling at her with his eyes through the steam wafting up from the cup. She thought it made him look kind of mystical.

  “I followed you when I saw you the other day,” he said.

  Honor was flattered but puzzled. She wasn’t ugly, and did have a trim figure, but she wasn’t the kind of femme fatale who drew men along behind her as if they were attached by a string.

  Or am I?

  “Why follow me?” she asked, and sipped her own coffee. “Didn’t you have better things to do?”

  “There are no better things to do.”

  “But why me?”

  “One reason is I liked your looks when I saw you coming out of the Marlborough Book Shop. You paused at the curb and waited for traffic, standing almost as if you were posed. You would have made a perfect photo. That image rang some inner bell in me. I had to walk across the street and try to get to know you better. To see what you thought.”

  “Thought about what?”

  “Oh, you know. Did Shakespeare write all his plays?”

  “You need to know what I think about that?”

  “Desperately.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I have no idea,” he said.

  She mock clapped her hands. “Finally! Do you realize how rare you are?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re a man who understands he doesn’t have all the answers.”

  He smiled. “There are more and more of us gaining that insight.”

  She cocked her head at him and looked inquisitive. Was he serious? Or was he painting a picture of himself he knew she’d like?

  Why not come right out and ask him?

  “Are you playing the feminist card?” she asked.

  “To what end?”

  “To get what you want from me.”

  “To be honest with you, I’ll play all the cards in my hand, if it means I get more acquainted with you.”

  “But you wouldn’t lie?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t think I’d have to lie to you. Soul mates don’t harbor secrets. Not from each other. They can’t.”

  She studied him even more closely, as if looking for some telltale sign somewhere on his clothes. Some giveaway stain. They hadn’t talked too much before.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any less from you.”

  “I wasn’t in that bookstore to buy books. I went there to see if they had any of mine on the shelf.”

  He didn’t understand at first, and then he beamed. “You’re a writer?”

  “Indeed.” She immediately felt like a numbskull. “I mean, yeah. Yes, I’m a writer.”

  “How many—”

  “This is my first novel.”

  “Where do you—”

  “I get my ideas from life. Experiences like this one.”

  “What’s the—”

  “Title?” they said in unison.

  “Strange on the Range,” she said. “It’s an occult western cooking mystery.”

  “I heard women were writing more and more mystery novels,” he said.

  “Have you read any?”

  “I will now.”

  “You really should. There are some great female mystery writers—Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Linda Barnes, Nancy Pickard . . .”

  “You know these people?”

  “I’ve met them at conventions.”

  He sat back and grinned. “Neat! I know a real writer.”

  Her smile was tentative. “I’m not sure it will change your life all that much.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve changed it already.” He reached across the table and lightly touched the backs of both her hands. His fingers seemed to emit low-voltage electricity. “I’ve often thought of writing a book myself.”

  She drew her hands back, cocked her head again the way she did. “Tell me something. You didn’t plan all this as a way to get to meet me so I could help you get published, did you?”

  He looked flabbergasted. Actually stuck out a forefinger and crossed his heart. “Not a chance. Do people really do that?”

  “More often than you’d think.”

  “All I’ve done is thought about writing a book. I’d never attempt one.”

  She appeared curious. “Why not?”

  “Well, I guess because I’m not a writer. I mean, when did you know you were a writer?”

  “I’ve always known.”

  “Well, I’ve never known and don’t know now.”

  “But you’d like to write.”

  “Well, somewhat.”

  “Maybe you won’t know till you try.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t even know how to try.”

  She said, “I have an apartment full of books that teach people how to write.” The words had come from her mouth automatically. She was embarrassed now, wishing desperately that she could snatch them back.

  His hands were touching her again. He said, “The least I can do is look at them.” He shrugged. “Who knows, I might be another Nancy Paretsky.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Honor said. “Maybe we’ll even solve that mystery you asked about.”

  “Mystery?”

  “Was Shakespeare a phony?”

  “You probably could tell me more than your books about that.”

  “If you asked the right questions, maybe.” She felt the blood rush to her face and hoped he didn’t notice. She sipped some more coffee as a diversion.

  “You could show me what questions to ask,” he said.

  “I’m no expert on the bard,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t know the difference.”

  Honor flipped a mental coin, knowing even as she did so that it was the same on both sides.

  “I’m only a few blocks from here,” she said.

  The killer knew where she lived but decided not to mention that. No reason for her to know he’d followed her home one evening. He’d even thought, momentarily, of paying her a visit. But he’d known the time wasn’t right.

  He left a tip and they walked from the coffee shop. She noticed he had a black leather case, almost like a purse, slung by its strap over a shoulder. It must have been out of sight beneath the table.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s sometimes called a European wallet.” In truth he’d seen such cases called that only in an advertisement. “Or a man purse.” He grinned over at her. “I prefer ‘European wallet.’ ”

  “I kind of like man purse,” she said. And she did. She liked a man who dared to be different. “What do you keep in it?”

  “Oh, just things that I use.”

  “For what?” she asked coyly.

  “This and that.”

  “Like maybe staying the night someplace and still being able to have a fresh shirt and shave?”

  “That, too,” he said, and felt to make sure the black leather flap was locked.

  PART FIVE

  Cookery is become an art.

  —ROBERT BURTON, The Anatomy

  of Melancholy

  53

  “She wrote a cooking mystery,” Fedderman said.

  They were in Honor Tripp’s apartment. She was lying dead on her bed, on her back, wrists and ankles bound so that her legs would never again straighten in response to what she wanted, because she was past wanting anything. The expression on her face suggested she had died in pain. The knife and cigarette burn injuries on her nude body indicated how intense that pain must have been.

  Quinn and Pearl were there with Fedderman, along with Captain Harley Renz, who’d come right over from his office when he heard about the homicide call, and that the letters D.O.A. had been carved in the victim’s forehead.

  Nift the nasty little ME was there, hands on hips, staring down at what was left of Honor Tripp.

  “Straighten her out,” Nift said, “and she would have been a good looking piece of trim.”

  The others ignored him, as well as the CSU techs bustling around the apartment. Except for Pearl. Quinn heard her slight intake of breath and sensed her body tightening. Nift could get under skin, and had sensed that shortly after they’d met. There was nothing she could do about it but endure.

  “A cooking mystery,” Renz said. “No doubt she shared her knowledge about her special dishes with her killer.”

  “He would have asked her about them,” Quinn said.

  “Tenderized meat dishes especially.” Nift said.

  “Just make yourself useful,” Quinn told him, sensing Pearl was coming to a boil.

  “Okeydoke,” Nift said, seemingly unconcerned. He used a stainless steel probe for a pointer. “The carving in her forehead occurred after death. But don’t assume the killer showed her any mercy; he simply wanted there to be less bleeding than if her heart was still pumping. Less mess that way, and his carving would be legible.”

  “D.O.A. I guess that means the obvious,” Pearl said. “Dead on Arrival.”

  “Who called it in?” Quinn asked Fedderman.

  “Neighbor in the apartment upstairs. Said he heard a lot of moaning and sobbing around midnight. It went on for over an hour. A short while after that, he heard somebody leave.”

  “He do anything about it?”

  “Said he considered it and decided not to. Figured it might be his neighbors making love.”

  “With the sobbing?” Pearl said.

  Nift smiled and said, “Strange on the Range.”

  “The neighbor still over there?” Quinn asked Fedderman, before Pearl could launch a zinger at Nift.

  It was Renz who answered. “Yeah. I talked to him after Fedderman did.”

  Renz wasn’t wearing his uniform. The neighbor had probably assumed he was an ordinary detective in a sharp suit.

  “His name’s Justin Beck. Laid-off engineer.”

  “Midnight’s a good approximate time of death,” Nift said. “I can make it more precise later.” He resisted looking at Pearl’s breasts, or making a smart re
mark. Quinn didn’t figure he was reforming. Nift smiled. “Honor Tripp and I will get together later at the morgue, and she’ll reveal all her silent secrets.”

  “So screwed up . . .” Pearl said, under her breath.

  “You and Quinn have got this one,” Renz said.

  “So we figured,” Quinn said. He remembered that Jeanine Carson had been killed around midnight. It was a popular time for murder. Also alibis.

  Renz gave an exaggerated sigh and glanced around the bloody bedroom, like an animal seeking an exit. “I’ll be in my office at the precinct,” he said, finding the way out.

  Quinn looked at Pearl. “Let’s go next door and talk to Mr. Beck.”

  “You kids needn’t be concerned with me,” Nift said, motioning deftly with his probe. “I’ll be here for a while, having fun.”

  Pearl said, “We won’t give you another thought. People say you’re a jerk-off, and they’re right. It’s lucky you don’t have any real authority.”

  Nift’s features remained impassive. Quinn had to admire his coolness. Pearl could be a tough in-fighter.

  “I’ll stay here and keep Nift company,” Fedderman said, helping to keep Pearl cool.

  “Just stay away from the corpse,” Nift said. “I wouldn’t want anything to fly out of your suit and contaminate the scene.”

  Ignoring Nift, Quinn said to Fedderman, “If he says anything you dislike, shoot him.”

  “Come get me first,” Pearl said, “so I can help.”

  “Just make sure you get him in a crossfire,” Quinn said.

  “I might only be a bit player in these little dramas,” Nift said, “but I always get the girl.”

  54

  New York, earlier that morning

  The killer sat at an outdoor table of a restaurant almost a block away from the building where Honor Tripp had lived and died. His bare forearm was in bright sunlight and resting on the warm metal table. The rest of him was in the deep shade of a large green umbrella sprouting from the table’s center.

  What was going on down the street, and the cold beer the waiter had just brought, made for good entertainment. All the more so because he was the cause of it. The script was written and was being followed. And it was his script.