Pulse

by John Lutz

  “What kind of artist?” Pearl asked.

  “The kind you won’t find in a gallery.” Renz ground out his cigar on the sole of his shoe and flipped away the still-glowing butt. “You two had breakfast?”

  “Earlier,” Pearl said. Whatever happened, she didn’t want to wind up having breakfast with Renz.

  “Good luck,” Renz said, and led the way to the body.

  The victim was hog-tied, like the others, staring up at what would have been a night sky when she was killed. Though obviously beautiful when she was alive, her pale body, nude but for a pair of twisted pink panties, had the waxy sheen of death where it wasn’t smeared with blood. Her well-structured face with its once strong features now wore an expression of fear and distraction, her dark eyes focused on something far above where she lay contorted on planet earth. Her breasts had been neatly removed, leaving only a few jagged rags of flesh.

  “God, almighty!” Pearl said, as they stood staring down at the corpse. “You’d think we’d get used to looking at this.”

  “They’re individual people,” Nift said. “That’s what makes each one interesting.”

  Pearl didn’t know quite how to take that. Had Nift said something compassionate?

  “She had a great rack, like the others,” the nasty little M.E. added.

  There was the familiar disgusting Nift.

  Pearl refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

  “The panties look like they fit her,” Renz said. “Maybe they’re actually hers.”

  Quinn didn’t see how Renz could hazard a guess at that, considering the way the nylon panties were twisted.

  “I don’t think they were put on postmortem,” Nift said. “Looks like he either put them on her himself, or made her put them on before she was tied up.”

  “Looks like the same kind of rope he used on the others,” Quinn said.

  “It is,” Nift confirmed. “The ends cut with a sharp knife, like with the other rope. And she was tied up using simple but effective square knots, same as with the other victims.”

  “Same asshole,” Pearl said.

  “Without a doubt,” Nift said. “Almost surely the same knife.” He grinned at Pearl. “And of course there’s that other thing.”

  Pearl glared at him. “What would that be?”

  “She’s a dead ringer for you, Pearl.”

  Quinn rested a hand on her shoulder. “He’s pretty much right about that, Pearl.”

  “I can’t say I see her that way,” Pearl said. “But then maybe I wouldn’t, being me.”

  “Daniel Danielle liked them with dark hair and eyes and big boobs,” Nift said, leering at Pearl.

  Quinn gave him a warning look that made him concentrate again on the victim.

  Renz had been over talking to the CSU people and a uniformed patrolman. He came back now carrying a black computer case and a purse.

  “She has a name,” he said. “Neeve Cooper. And a West Side address within easy walking distance or a short subway ride from here. Purse had some of her business cards in it. They say she was a freelance editor.”

  “Worked at home?”

  “Or in the park,” Renz said. “There’s a bunch of paper in this case looks like it could be turned into a book. Red and blue pencil writing on some of the pages. Here and there, what might be somebody’s name.” He handed the purse and computer case to Quinn. “See if she knows anybody name of Stet.”

  “Could be Steve,” Quinn said.

  “Naw. It’s in there half a dozen times.”

  Quinn assumed the crime scene unit was finished with the purse, so he put his right hand into it, felt around among wadded tissue, a comb, a Metrocard with an angled corner, and a wallet, and found some keys on a ring. One of them felt like a door key.

  When he looked up he saw that Nancy Weaver had joined them and was standing alongside Renz. She and Quinn exchanged nods. Weaver, known among the NYPD as the woman who put the “cop” in “copulate,” had slept her way up the bureaucratic ladder. There were even rumors about her and Quinn, but Pearl had never believed them.

  Weaver had been out of town, recovering from serious injuries she’d received during her last case with Q&A. She’d been back for several weeks.

  Now Weaver acted as the sometimes liaison between Renz and Q&A. Another way of saying rat.

  “I’ve been filled in,” Weaver said.

  Numerous times in numerous ways, Pearl thought.

  “We’ll go have a look at Neeve’s apartment, talk to her neighbors,” Quinn said to Renz.

  “I already sent a crime scene unit over there,” Renz said.

  “We’ll stay out of their way.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Weaver said.

  “Good idea,” Renz said.

  Nobody said anything for a while.

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Pearl said.

  Her gracious contribution to diplomacy.

  “I need to know her panty size,” Quinn said.

  “I wrote it down,” Weaver said. “Figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  Pearl gnashed her teeth.

  54

  Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986

  “Daryl Smith told me they found Duffy,” Sherri’s voice said on the phone.

  It was Saturday morning and Rory had slept late. He sat up in bed and wiped his eyes. His mother had answered the phone downstairs on the eighth or ninth ring and yelled up the stairs that it was for him and it was past time he got up and what was he going to do, sleep all day? Rory woke up all the way, trying to comprehend what Sherri had just said.

  Found Duffy?

  “How could they have?” he asked. “And how would Daryl know?”

  “He’s working for that construction company that’s widening the county road, and the bulldozer scoop turned over some earth, and there was Duffy. That’s what he said, anyway.”

  “So how’d you—”

  “Daryl just called me on his car phone. I’ve got no way to get out there, Rory. I need for you to drive us.”

  Us. I gotta wake up all the way, learn more about this. Duffy ... still making trouble.

  “I think my mom’s gonna use the car to go shopping,” he said. “She wants to go to Antoine’s.”

  “Can’t you talk her out of it?”

  “Talk my mom out of shopping? Are you kidding?”

  “For God’s sake, Rory, this is Duffy!”

  “Okay. I can try to talk her into staying home,” Rory said.

  “You will talk her into it, sweetheart. You can talk anyone into anything. I oughta know.”

  “It’s not like I have an actual driver’s license, Sher.”

  “There’s no car here, Rory. If you can’t get your mom’s, I’m gonna start walking.”

  “That’s miles, Sherri.”

  “It’s for Duffy, Rory.”

  Goddamnit!

  At that moment Rory wished that he could run over Duffy again.

  “I’ll go downstairs and talk to her,” he said.

  “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  Rory wasn’t used to being called sweetheart—by anyone. He thought it might be nice to get used to it.

  “You sound kinda foggy,” Sherri said. “Are you still in bed?”

  “I was about to get up.”

  “My God, Rory, it’s almost ten-thirty.”

  “I’m on my way.” He stood up as he talked and took a few stumbling steps.

  “Hurry, please!” he heard Sherri say, just before he hung up.

  “So how’d you deal with your mom?” Sherri asked Rory, as she slid into the Impala front seat beside him.

  “Told her this was super important, and it involved you. She likes you. Then I said I was just going two blocks to pick up Teddy Boylston first. He’s a eighteen and has a license, so I’d be okay with him with my learner’s permit.”

  “Will Teddy lie for you?”

  “I know where he keeps his stash, so he’ll cooperate.”

  “You oughtn’t use that shit,
” Sherri said.

  “It’s not heroin.”

  Rory and Sherri had argued about this before, and both knew where it would end. She wasn’t going to use drugs, and Rory was into moderate use of marijuana and coke. She couldn’t talk him out of it. He couldn’t talk her into it. They lapsed into silence as Rory drove toward the county road.

  They’d turned and driven about three miles when they saw the red cones on the road, and a WORK ZONE sign. A small Bobcat earthmover was jolting and jerking back and forth while two darkly tanned guys without shirts stood leaning on shovels watching. One of them was Daryl Smith.

  When Rory steered the Chevy to the shoulder and parked, Daryl nodded to Sherri and pointed precisely toward the spot where Rory had buried the dog.

  Sherri clambered out of the car and ran to it. Rory followed. He looked over at Daryl, who shrugged and walked toward the Bobcat to shovel and smooth a mound of dirt it had left.

  Rory stood beside Sherri, and there at her feet was what was left of Duffy. The remains were rotted and unidentifiable as a dog except for the once fluffy black coat, now lackluster and coated with dirt.

  “You sure it’s him?” Rory asked.

  Sherri sobbed, did a half turn, and dug her forehead into his chest. She began to sob, then quickly gathered herself, straightened up, and swiped her arm across her nose. She nodded. “It’s Duffy. But he had a collar.”

  “This dog doesn’t have one. Maybe it’s not—”

  “It’s Duffy,” Sherri said firmly. She began to look around. “They’ve moved so much with that little bulldozer.”

  But Rory knew they hadn’t moved enough. The Bobcat had gone nowhere near where he’d thrown Duffy’s collar into the brush. If the collar was still there, Sherri was sure to find it. She was moving slowly, head down, playing her lead foot back and forth through the weeds with each step as she advanced toward where the collar must be. Rory knew that if the collar was still there, it would look better if he found it.

  He mimicked Sherri’s slow, dragging walk and pretended to search with her, but moving at a different angle. The terrain was unchanged enough that he was pretty sure he knew where the collar had landed when he tossed it the night of Duffy’s death.

  Damn! There it was, a touch of faded red in the green-brown undergrowth. He considered leaving it there, but knew it would be found. If not by Sherri, then by someone else. Maybe Daryl. He might be able to bend down and slip the collar into one of his pockets. He also might be seen. And if he did manage to transfer the collar to a pocket, what then? Sherri might be all over him, even if the outline of the collar didn’t show in his tight Levi’s.

  He made his decision and thought no more about it. The wisest alternative would be to find the collar.

  He went to it, kneeled down with his back toward Sherri, and rubbed the dust-covered metal tags on his pants. Half turning out of his stoop, he held the unbuckled and weathered red collar high. “This it?”

  She hurried toward him.

  He rubbed the tags with his fingers as if cleaning them so he could read them. Now his would be the only prints on them, only smeared.

  “Says Duffy,” he told her sadly.

  She took the collar, held it to her with both hands, and started crying again.

  “I’m being stupid,” she said after a while.

  Rory held her and patted her back. “No, not stupid. You loved your dog, is all.”

  Daryl Smith walked over and leaned on his shovel near them. “It yours?”

  Rory thought that should be obvious, but he said nothing as Sherri nodded.

  “Thanks for calling and letting me know,” she said.

  Daryl shrugged, still leaning with both hands on the long wooden shovel handle.

  “She’ll be okay,” Rory said.

  Sherri stood straighter and moved away from him. “There’s a place in the backyard where I wanted to bury him.”

  Daryl glanced at the Chevy. “Maybe I can get you something so the trunk don’t get messed up.”

  “I brought a plastic bag in my purse,” Sherri said. “If you can get Duffy into it. I ... don’t want to watch.”

  “That’s fine,” Daryl said.

  Rory waited with him while Sherri went to the car and got the black plastic bag from her purse. She handed it to Daryl and walked back to the car, standing by it and staring down the empty road.

  The Bobcat ceased its clanking and roaring, and the other two construction guys watched as Rory held the bag open and Daryl used his shovel to move the dead dog into the bag. Rory fastened the bag tightly with its yellow plastic pull ties.

  Daryl stooped and picked up the red collar. “She musta dropped this. You want it?”

  Sherri was standing by the open trunk of the Chevy, watching them.

  “I better take it,” Rory said, and accepted the collar. “She might wanna save it.”

  “Women,” Daryl said.

  “Dogs get like kids to them,” Rory said.

  Daryl nodded toward the plastic bag. “I’m glad that’s just a dog and it ain’t my kid.”

  “Yeah, well ... we’ll get him buried, maybe even say a few words.”

  “Put up a little marker. Here lies Duffy. Fetch in peace.”

  “Don’t let her see you smile,” Rory said, starting with the bag toward Sherri and the car’s open trunk.

  Rory dug Duffy’s second grave at the far end of Sherri’s backyard. Her ten-year-old brother, Clyde, watched somberly from a distance.

  When the grave was finished, Rory placed the plastic bag containing Duffy in it, as well as the collar and tags. Sherri mumbled a few words that Rory could barely hear, then picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it on the bag. Then she backed away, and Rory went to work again with the shovel.

  When he was finished, Clyde came closer. “You gonna put a cross on the grave?”

  “No,” Rory said. “That’d just make people curious and they might disturb it. This way Duffy will rest in peace.”

  “Do dogs do that?” Clyde asked. “Wouldn’t they rather be running around?”

  “Ask your sister.”

  “She went on in the house. She was crying.”

  “Well, she’s upset.”

  “I miss Duffy, too. I don’t cry about it.”

  “Girls are different.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Rory put the shovel back in the garage, then went to an outside faucet and began washing off his hands.

  Sherri was back outside now, and stood close to him. “Take one of these, why don’t you?”

  He saw that she was holding three small white pills in her pink palm.

  “I thought you were so against drugs.”

  “These are prescription. They’re different.”

  “So what are they?”

  “Loraza-something or other. My mom takes them to help her sleep. If you take them, they’ll make you feel better. Not so sad.”

  “Have you taken any?”

  “Yeah. Two. I brought you three because you’re bigger.”

  Rory didn’t want to admit he wasn’t terribly broken up about Duffy’s passing, so he accepted the pills and put them in his mouth, then ran faucet water into his hand and scooped water into his mouth and swallowed.

  “You got water all over your shirt,” Sherri said. Her dark eyes were red and swollen.

  “You gonna be okay?” he asked, turning off the spigot.

  “I think so.”

  “Your mom home?”

  “No, but Clyde is. We can’t mess around.”

  “Guess not.”

  “I’ll thank you later for doing this for me,” she said. “Thank you properly.”

  She kissed him on the lips and he felt an immediate erection.

  Sherri must have felt it, too. “I better not do that,” she said, smiling up at him. “And you better get the car back to your mother.”

  Rory waved good-bye to Clyde, who’d been standing watching them, then got into the Chevy and backed it dow
n the driveway and into the street. So far he didn’t feel any different from taking the pills. He ran a stop sign near his house, but managed to get the Chevy parked back in the garage.

  When he went in through the kitchen he saw a note from his mother beneath the salt shaker on the table. She’d gone shopping with a neighbor in the woman’s car and would be back soon.

  Rory got a soda from the refrigerator, went into the living room, and slumped down on the sofa. He used his cell phone to call Sherri and they talked for a while. Sherri was the one who started giggling and talking crazy, then they both started making less and less sense so they each kissed their phones and then broke the connection.

  Leaning back in the sofa, Rory sighed happily. It had been a hell of a day, but looking back on it, not such a bad one. He and Sherri were closer now, that was for sure. All in all, his world seemed pretty good, its pieces all in place.

  He rested the back of his head against the sofa cushion and wondered ...

  It seemed like five seconds later when Rory woke up. It was dark outside. He struggled to an upright position and took a sip of soda. It was warm and fizzy and some spilled down onto his shirt.

  He looked around for a clock, then remembered that there was none in the living room. That was where he was, in the living room of his house.

  Reassuring, familiar territory.

  After unremembered dreams?

  He took a few deep breaths and decided he felt pretty good. Maybe a little confused, and sort of... heavy.

  Light played over the living room walls. Headlights. Tires scrunching gravel. A car in the driveway.

  Voices. A car door slamming. High heels clacking on the concrete porch. Paper sacks crackling. A soft jingling and then the ratcheting sound of a key being inserted in a lock.

  The light came on, causing his eyes to ache.

  “Why on earth are you sitting there in the dark?” Rory’s mother asked. She was standing near the door, clutching several large Antoine’s bags.

  “I was watching TV. Musta fell asleep.”

  “I hope you didn’t spill any of that soda on the couch.”

  “Nope. I was careful.”

  He suddenly realized he had to piss, and urgently, so he stood up, swaying gently. He couldn’t get his legs to work for a moment; then he trudged heavily toward the hall and the bathroom.