by John Lutz
“Yeah. I think so. How’d you find me?”
“I’ve been looking for you off and on. Finally came across you on the Internet. ’Least I thought it was you. It seemed like you. Then I saw you on campus with that other cop.”
“Quinn.”
“Whatever. I figured you were investigating the Macy Collins murder. So I asked around. Learned it was you. I decided to find and follow you.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity, I guess.”
“You been curious about your father?”
“Not for a while. He died fifteen years ago in a nightclub fire in Holland, along with a dozen other people. He was there playing music. I never met him.”
Pearl wasn’t prepared for the way her heart dropped. She began to sweat and felt dizzy.
“You okay?” the woman asked.
Pearl straightened up. I’m not okay. You dropped a nuclear bomb on me. I feel sick. “Yeah. Listen, what’s your name?”
“Juditha Jason. People call me Jody.”
“Juditha ... ?”
“I think somebody wrote my name down with a flourish.”
“And you’re a student at Waycliffe?”
“Studying law.” She grinned. “You find ’em, I put ’em away.”
“Lame,” Pearl said, dabbing perspiration off her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Yeah.”
“Er, Jody? Your time growing up? I mean ...”
Jody smiled. Pearl saw Cody and almost keeled over. “It was good. I loved the Jasons. They loved me.” The smile widened. “You did right by me. The right thing.”
“Are they ... ?”
“Both gone now. Mom of breast cancer two years ago. Dad had a stroke six months later.”
Mom ... Dad ... Would Pearl ever get her mind around this? “I’m sorry, Jody.”
Jody gave a sad smile. “Thanks. And thanks for giving me my time with them.”
Pearl took a deep breath and felt better, as if she’d been carrying around a weight most of her life and it had been lifted, though in truth she’d outlived the guilt she’d felt for putting Jody up for adoption. Yet here, along with surprise and joy was—not guilt, but something like guilt. She hadn’t even seen her daughter before the Jason family had obtained her. Of course Pearl hadn’t known their names. Or her baby’s. Nobody knew anybody then. The agency wanted to keep it that way. It had made sense to Pearl then. Still did.
For a few seconds she felt a deep anger directed at Jody. Then it passed. What had the girl done other than grow up well and search for her mother and father? She’d found her father. At least his memory.
And now ... what? Could all this ... disruption ... be true?
Pearl looked hard at Jody, who grinned and shrugged her shoulders to great effect but without much movement. The way Pearl shrugged her shoulders.
“We need to talk,” Jody said.
“One of us was bound to say that.”
“It figured I’d be the one.”
“I know a quiet place near here,” Pearl said.
She touched Jody’s elbow lightly to lead her out of the passageway, and found that she couldn’t release the elbow. She couldn’t. Her legs were numb and weak. Jody could feel her trembling and moved closer to support her. The two women hugged, and both began to sob.
God, Pearl hated this!
30
Deena was skating fast with a tray full of food. Hamburgers, mostly. The famous (so the restaurant claimed) Roller Burger. There were two beers on the tray, a small egg cream, and two orders of fried onion rings. She didn’t see Rolf, one of the busboys, with his tray full of plates and stacked cups, speeding toward the kitchen.
“Hey!” a man at one of the tables yelled, seeing the imminent collision.
Both Deena and Rolf turned their heads to look at him, which is why they collided with such force.
Deena was sure she’d blacked out for a moment. Her back hurt, just below her shoulder blades. And her head was throbbing. When she opened her eyes she was looking up at one of the slowly revolving ceiling fans. There was also a circle of faces above her, staring at her. Most of the faces wore concerned expressions. She caught two of the men and one of the women obviously enjoying her pain and embarrassment.
That was when she felt the real pain. Her right ankle sent spasms of agony up her leg.
“Could be sprained,” she heard a man’s voice say.
“It’s not sprained,” Deena said. If she could get upright, the pain might go away. She might not lose her job. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t hurt.”
“It’s gotta hurt, Deena,” her boss said, though she couldn’t see him.
“Gimme a chance!”
Hands reached for her, levitated her, and set her on her skates.
And the pain did go away. Her ankle felt numb, though. One by one the hands removed themselves from her arms and shoulders.
She stood still for a moment, and then attempted to take a step.
Pain ran like electricity up her leg and she heard herself scream. She landed hard on her ass and sat leaning back on her elbows. The woman who’d been enjoying her pain was grinning at her now.
I’ll remember you, bitch.
“Call nine-one-one,” Deena heard her boss tell someone.
“Hey! What about me? I’m hurt, too.” It was Rolf, the busboy. Deena looked over at him. He was lying among a mass of broken plates and cups, but she knew he wasn’t really hurt. He was making a joke of it.
“If we saw bone sticking out of your leg like Deena’s,” a woman said, “we’d take you more seriously.”
Deena’s stomach lurched. She looked down at her ankle. Looked away.
And passed out.
31
Pearl was still in shock.
She finished cleaning up after dinner, which took about five minutes. She fed what was left of the reheated pizza to the garbage disposal, resealed the plastic bag of pre-washed salad ingredients and placed it in the refrigerator, then dropped the paper plates and beer and soda cans into the trash. A quick wipe-off of the table with a damp dishcloth, and she was finished. This was the way to eat and clean up afterward, second only to dining out and letting someone else clean up the mess.
Quinn, seated on the sofa, could see into the kitchen and watched her curiously. She was moving like an automaton, with no wasted motion. On automatic.
Pearl had been quiet during dinner, thoughtful. He wondered what was occupying her mind. He knew something was. He also knew this was the time to hold his silence. If Pearl wanted to talk something out, she’d get around to it.
She came into the living room and sat down in a gray wing chair, curling her legs under her. Light from the streetlight in front of the brownstone filtered through the sheer curtains and softened her pale features, darkened her black hair and eyes. She was observing him now, weighing what she was going to say. He wondered if he was going to like hearing it.
“I met my daughter tonight,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You heard me.”
Well, he thought. Well ...
“Quinn?”
“But did I hear you right?”
She smiled with a new wisdom. “Yeah, you did. Want me to tell you about her?”
“Maybe later.”
A widening of her eyes. Then the familiar smile. “You bastard!”
He listened intently, not moving a muscle, as she told him about Juditha Jason who was called Jody, about Cody Clarke and the pregnancy and adoption. About the Jason family, who had loved Jody and had been loved by her.
Luck, Quinn thought. It sounds like the kid was lucky.
“I was seventeen, Quinn. I didn’t know myself or the world. All I’ve known all these years is that my baby was a girl.”
Quinn didn’t know what to think. What to say. Other than, “It’s all right, Pearl.”
“Gee, thank you.”
“I mean ... well, it’s great, I guess. This Juditha—”
&nbs
p; “Jody.” Pearl swallowed. “Jesus, Quinn. She’s really something.”
Forces Quinn didn’t quite understand were at work here. He knew he’d have to come to grips with this and was working on it. Pearl a mother. The father, her long-ago lover, dead. Her daughter, a twenty-two-year-old girl—woman—was here in New York.
Pearl, a mother ...
Pearl must have seen the consternation on his face. “You two’ll get along fine,” she said. “I know it!”
“When am I going to meet her?”
Pearl shot a look at her watch.
The intercom rasped. Someone downstairs in the foyer.
“That would be Jody,” Pearl said, and got up to go buzz her daughter in.
Quinn thought, Holy Christ!
“I don’t understand it,” Fedderman said to his wife, Penny. But he did understand. He’d just hoped it wouldn’t happen to them.
“I see you go out in the morning, and all day I keep wondering if I’m ever going to see you again.”
Fedderman nodded. Like so many other cops’ wives. “You knew I was a policeman, Pen. Hell, I’m not even actually that now. I’m a private investigator.”
“And look what you’re doing, Feds. You’re tracking the most dangerous killer in the city. You’re trying to be in the same place at the same time he is.”
“It’s my job.”
“I’m not asking you to quit. And I’m not about to quit on our marriage.”
“But you might change your mind about that.”
“I go crazy thinking you might be hurt or dead somewhere, Feds.”
“So you went out and got a job to fill your time.”
“To fill my mind. Is that so crazy?”
“I guess not.”
“I talked to Ms. Culver at the library and she told me there was an opening.”
“Getting your old job back.”
“Not exactly, but close. The library has a big DVD section now.”
“I guess they would,” Fedderman said. In truth he was kind of surprised. The Albert A. Aal Memorial Library didn’t seem large enough for such an addition. Maybe they had fewer books.
“I start day after tomorrow,” Penny said. She came to him and snaked her arms around him. “Can you put up with me, Feds?”
He hugged her back, kissed her lips, and gazed down at her. “Question is, can we put up with each other?”
“I know the answer to that,” Penny said, and kissed him back.
Fedderman hoped she was right, but he wondered.
“Are you any closer?” she asked.
“To what?”
“Finding the killer.”
He didn’t know the answer to that, either.
32
Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986
Rory was fourteen years old and didn’t have a driver’s license. That didn’t mean he was a bad driver. Or so he told himself. Hadn’t he had almost a dozen lessons from Jack Smith, an older brother of one of his friends? Even Rory’s mother had let him drive, with her along, in the Leighton Mall parking lot. When the mall was closed.
His mother was at the citizens’ meeting about the proposed new dam tonight, like half the adult population of Leighton, and she’d gone with a neighbor and left the family car in the garage. So it seemed a perfect time for Rory to test his wings—or wheels. After all, he’d never gotten much chance to drive at night. He wasn’t surprised to find it just as easy as daylight driving. Probably he was a natural driver.
He was a bright kid, and while not big for his age was well built, so he could pass for older than fourteen if anybody saw him driving the big green Chevy Impala. The car was three years old, and his mother had bought it used two months ago, trading in the old Volvo that had almost two hundred thousand miles on it. She liked the Chevy. Its styling was bold, and a pleasant change from the staid and solid Volvo.
Rory imagined how he’d look from outside the car. Pretty damned dashing. He pushed a button and the driver’s side window glided down out of sight into the door. He rested his arm on the open window, causing the bicep to spread. He had to steer with one hand, but that was okay; the big Chevy almost steered itself. And he was familiar with the road. It was Oaks Road, which ran parallel to the train tracks for a while and then veered off into lightly wooded farm country.
He made the turn, away from the tracks. Less traffic now. No one was likely to see him. He ran the speedometer up to forty, fifty. The speed limit was fifty miles per hour, which meant sixty was okay. Seventy if you weren’t caught.
Most of the Leighton police department was at the meeting about the dam the state wanted to build. And the state police hardly ever patrolled here, well off the main highway.
Okay, seventy.
Rory edged his foot down on the accelerator and the Chevy responded as if it would like to run up to a hundred miles per hour.
No thank you, Rory thought. He was a risk taker, not a fool. A man has to know his limitations.
A car passed him going the other way.
Another.
Even though there was a full moon, all he saw of the other two vehicles were their headlights. There was nothing ahead of him now traveling either direction. Nothing in the rearview mirror. He relaxed and sat back in the comfortable seat.
The road straightened out like a black ribbon. It had been recently asphalted, and the tires hit the seams with soft slapping sounds. Neat. Rory liked that sound. Warm air came in the open window and swirled around the inside of the car. Trees lined the road here and there, and the car flashed past steel crash guards on each side where there was a culvert. Rory had chosen the right road. This was a cinch.
It was because he was so relaxed that he didn’t see the medium-sized shaggy black dog that trotted from the high weeds out onto the road. Rory noticed the dog only when it was in the car’s path. It stopped and stared at him, its eyes glowing in the reflected headlight illumination.
God, no! Rory thought, sitting bolt upright behind the steering wheel. Move, won’t you? Move!
But the dog didn’t move. There was a solid thump and what sounded like a yelp.
Shit!
Rory braked the car and parked on the grassy shoulder. He found that he was shaking.
Gotta stop that!
He drew some deep breaths and did manage to regain control of his jangled nerves. The smart Rory kicked in.
A quick examination revealed no apparent damage to the car, thank God. His mother would kill him if she found out about this.
He walked back toward the point of impact.
The moonlight was bright enough to show that there was nothing on the road. Maybe he’d actually missed the dog, and that’s why the car wasn’t damaged. Maybe the whole thing hadn’t happened. Had he seen something that only looked like a dog? A possum or coon, maybe.
But there was a streak of what looked like blood on the pavement. Rory knew then that he’d hit something, and probably not a possum or coon.
He followed the trail of blood into the weeds, and found in the shadows beneath some trees a black dog lying on its side, panting and whimpering.
Trembling again, his heart in his mouth, Rory knelt beside the dog and examined the wound. He could see white bone, maybe a rib, and the dog’s front right leg was terribly twisted. It had a red leather collar but no tags.
Damn! Time for smart Rory again. Calm Rory. Analyze and act.
Rory straightened up and stood in the moonlight with his fists propped on his hips. What now? He felt sorry for the dog, but it obviously didn’t have long to live. And it was suffering. He could put it in the car and drive it into town to a vet. But he was sure a vet would simply put the dog down. Stop its suffering, at least.
But there would be blood in the car. Rory’s mother would know he’d driven it despite her strict instructions to leave it parked in the garage.
The dog whimpered and gazed over at Rory. Its tail wagged.
Rory set his emotions aside, and his quick and logical mind came up with wh
at he should do. It would be best for everyone, including the obviously suffering and dying dog.
Act!
He didn’t hesitate. He walked a few feet away to where he’d seen a large rock and pried it up from the ground. It weighed at least five pounds—large and heavy enough. It also had an edge.
Rory kneeled down beside the dog, raised the rock, and brought it down three times on the dog’s head. The dog let out only a faint whimper. Its legs trembled and thrashed as if it were running in death, and then it lay still.
The plan was in action and there was a directness and purpose to all of Rory’s decisions and actions. Buzzards would find the dog and their circling might draw someone’s attention. He left the dog where it was, and went back to the car and got the tire iron. Using the hard end of the tool, he scraped and dug a shallow grave near the dog. He dragged the dog over to the grave, removed the red collar, and shoved the animal into the hole. It took him only a few minutes to hurriedly scoop dirt over the dog, then brush some of last year’s dead leaves over it. It was unlikely that anyone would find it even if the buzzards did somehow get to it and circle. And if the remains ever were found, the conclusion would be that the animal had been struck and killed by a car, which was in fact the truth.
Rory wiped the bloody rock on the grass and then threw it as far as he could. It bounced once and made no sound. Then he rolled up the red leather collar and threw it in the opposite direction.
He looked around, satisfied, and then trotted back to the Chevy. He was high on adrenaline now. And something else. He was fooling them. All of them. He’d be the only one who knew about this. It was an unexpected, exhilarating rush.
The Chevy’s cooling engine was ticking in the warm night. He clambered back in and drove.
He was careful to stay well within the speed limit, and was glad traffic was light and his mother’s car, with him behind the steering wheel, wasn’t likely to be noticed.
Every second of the drive home, his mind was working.
When the car was safely in the garage, Rory sat and waited for the overhead door to lower, then got out and switched on the fluorescent light mounted on a crossbeam. He cleaned the tire iron with a rag and replaced it in its bracket with the jack. Then he reexamined the right front of the car where the results of any impact might be found. There was what might have been a dent, but it was barely noticeable. It might even have been a reflection. Also there was some kind of dark stain near the dent, maybe blood. Rory wiped it off with the same rag he’d used to clean the tire iron and then threw the rag away.