by John Lutz
Her palms were stinging, her locked elbows straining, as she backpedaled and tried to hold the bus at bay.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall ... !
Her maneuver worked, but not for long. She found herself falling. There were shouts, the hissing of air brakes.
Someone or something had her left upper arm in a strong grip and yanked her sideways and away, as the bus hissed and squealed to a stop.
Pearl lay limp on the pavement, breathing in the smells of oil and heat and exhaust fumes. She saw that one of the bus’s tires was only inches from her twisted right leg. People were gathered around her, trying to help, touching her almost everywhere in order to reassure themselves, and her, that she was alive and not dead or seriously injured.
Pearl brushed them away and managed to get to her feet, leaning against the stopped bus for support.
Standing, squinting, she looked around her. Somebody had given her the extra few inches of pavement she needed in order to survive. Whoever had grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side had saved her life.
She looked at the stunned, silent faces, and knew no one.
Then a hand touched her shoulder and she heard a familiar voice.
“You okay?”
Pearl’s savior, Nancy Weaver.
The killer had a way of moving at a near run on a crowded sidewalk without attracting attention. He’d pushed Pearl slightly harder than he’d intended, and she’d almost been killed. He hadn’t wanted her dead; he needed her alive—at least for a while longer.
Fortunately some other woman, very much alert, had kept Pearl from perishing beneath the wheels of the bus. The killer smiled. That wasn’t Pearl’s fate at all. He would decide that.
This was a message to Quinn as well as to Pearl: Anything could happen any time, anywhere, to anyone. But they already knew that. Brakes could hiss, tires screech on concrete, and then Wham ! And it’s a different world.
The message, a simple reminder: My choice.
“I had my choice,” Weaver said, later at Q&A. “I could save Pearl and make sure she was all right, or I could go after whoever pushed her.”
Pearl was sitting in her desk chair, bent forward and holding a damp washcloth on her knee where she’d skinned it. The knee had tiny bits of asphalt in it and stung like hell. Pearl was getting sore all over, the way it was sometimes after an auto accident. She was grateful for what Weaver had done, but anger and humiliation were also in her jumble of emotions.
Weaver must have been tailing her.
Then she thought about what almost happened and her anger paled.
Someone tried to kill me.
The others, Quinn, Fedderman, Sal, and Harold, were listening and watching the two women.
“Didn’t you even get a glimpse of whoever shoved you?” Sal asked in his gravelly rasp. It almost hurt Pearl’s throat to listen to that voice.
“All too fast,” Pearl said, “and from behind.”
“It could have been one of two people,” Weaver said. “Keep in mind that I was concentrating on Pearl, on what was happening, so the rest was just an impression. Both possibilities were average height and build. They sort of crisscrossed behind Pearl just before she was shoved, so there was no way to know who did what.”
“You think they were working together?”
“Naw. Nothing like that.”
“How were they dressed?” Quinn asked.
“One guy in a brown suit. The other had on jeans, maybe, and a light blue short-sleeved shirt. Hair color on both of them was brown. Dark, anyway. Neither had a shaved head or a full beard, nothing like that. Average size, maybe on the slender side.”
“Not much of a description.”
“I was busy saving Pearl’s life.”
“Tailing her so you could report to Renz.”
“Doing my job.”
“Question is,” Fedderman said, “why did the killer take a run at Pearl?”
“If it was Daniel,” Quinn said.
“Be too coincidental if it wasn’t.”
“To Feds’s question,” Harold Mishkin said, “I think the answer is Quinn. This is a game to Daniel, and Quinn’s the dragon he has to slay. He’d see it as a triumph over Quinn if he could get Pearl. Even if he didn’t actually kill her. It’d raise the stakes of the game even higher.”
“And he’s a high-stakes player,” Pearl said.
Sal was staring at Mishkin. “Sometimes you surprise me, Harold.”
“We’ll see what Helen has to say about it when she comes in,” Harold said. But they all knew that Helen had more or less weighed in on this one already.
Weaver went over and got a cup of coffee. She sipped it while she walked back to the group. Her hand holding the cup began to shake, and she held the cup with both hands to steady it.
“This was close,” she said. “It wasn’t for show.” Some of the coffee sloshed onto her hand. “Damn it!” She glared at all of them. “I thought you people were protecting Pearl with your own tail.”
“I took it off,” Quinn said, “once it became known you were keeping a loose tail on her for Renz.”
Weaver smiled miserably. “You weren’t supposed to know that.”
“Everybody knows everything eventually,” Quinn said.
Nobody spoke for a while, everyone thinking it was the who, what, when, and how much that made a difference.
Everyone but Quinn. He was thinking about what happened to Pearl. So close. But was it meant to be that close? This wasn’t a knife in the dark, slow strangulation in a hog-tie, or artfully applied pain that eventually became shock and death. This wasn’t the way the killer took his prey.
This was a message.
“There’s nothing more to say on this for now,” Quinn said. “Meeting’s over.”
“One thing,” the now perfectly calm Pearl said, looking at Weaver. “Thank you, Nancy.”
Rare for Pearl.
The text message Pearl received on her phone fifteen minutes later was succinct and untraceable:
Whew!
74
The next morning, Quinn sat at his desk and called Jerry Lido’s cell phone number.
Lido answered on the second ring. Said, “Quinn.”
“I know who I am, Jerry. You sober?”
“It’s morning, Quinn.”
“You sound astonished.”
“You woke me up, is why I might sound sort of disoriented. I’m totally unmedicated. I heard about Pearl. How is she?”
“Pearl is ... Pearl.” Quinn knew enough not to ask how Lido had heard about Pearl’s close call.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“I’ve got a job for you,” Quinn said. He told Lido about his and Pearl’s conversation with Jody, about Meeding Properties and Mildred Dash and something secretive at Waycliffe College, the professor who had a file on old Daniel Danielle murders, and the mysterious and over-friendly Sarah Benham. And Macy Collins.
“Not to mention Daniel’s other, more recent victims,” Lido said.
“Not to mention. Daniel is topical again, studied along with Dahmer and Bundy in college courses.”
“And you want me to find out everything I can about all of this?”
“That’s it,” Quinn said. “It’s all connected in some way. Or can be connected. Like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit to create a picture.”
“Because maybe one is missing.”
“Or more than one.”
“Waycliffe College,” Lido mused. “Don’t they have a lacrosse team?”
“One of the best in the country.”
“Is that a lie?”
“Might be. Ask Helen the profiler. She’s a sports babe and would be happy to talk lacrosse.”
Lido emitted a sound like an animal might make while struggling out of deep hibernation. Quinn thought he recognized it as a laugh but couldn’t be sure. Why did so many people with genius ability have so many quirks? Pearl was staring at him across the office as if she was
wondering the same thing. She could only have picked up a word or two here and there in the conversation, so how could she know what he was thinking? She couldn’t know what they were talking about.
He’d tell her after talking with Lido, of course. And tell the others. He was beginning to get the feeling he sometimes experienced when a part of his mind knew an investigation was tracking toward a conclusion. Like radar locking on.
That feeling was seldom wrong.
“Gather round,” he told everyone, after breaking off his phone conversation with Lido.
They did, looking curious, oddly eager, with slight forward leans and direct eye contact. Senses were at their peak. These were hunters, picking up vibes from the lead predator.
“This have something to do with lacrosse?” Pearl asked.
75
While she was doing drone work at Enders and Coil, Jody’s cell phone played its “I Fought the Law” tune. She flipped it open to see Sarah Benham’s number.
That was fine with Jody. Maybe she’d probe and find out what Sarah was doing at Waycliffe while Jody was there.
But Sarah didn’t have time to talk now. She’d called to suggest she and Jody have lunch in an hour at their favorite restaurant—Sarah’s favorite, anyway—The Happy Noodle.
“We haven’t gotten together for a while,” Sarah said, “so I thought, why not this afternoon?”
“Why not?” Jody said. “We can catch up with each other.”
They agreed on a time, and Sarah called and made a reservation.
It was Sarah who arrived at the restaurant first. Jody saw her standing up and waving among the crowded tables.
Sarah had somehow wrangled a booth, where they could talk with at least some privacy. Jody exchanged air kisses with her and they both sat down.
“I’ve got two apple martinis coming,” Sarah said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No one could mind an apple martini,” Jody said. “You’ve made me a convert.”
A waiter arrived with their drinks, and they told him they’d study the menu a while before ordering.
Sarah sipped her drink. She was wearing makeup, but she seemed slightly older today. Thin lines showed when she tilted her head a certain way and changed the cast of the lighting. “So how are things going at Enders and Coil?”
Jody smiled ruefully and sampled her martini.
“Something wrong at the firm?” Sarah asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jody said. “Mildred Dash is still hospitalized. She was supposed to come home a few days ago but had a setback, and the situation has become awkward. Her holdout is making bigger news.”
“Mildred who? Oh, the woman who was holding out in her apartment. What happened to her?”
“A coma. And now possibly a heart attack. Brought on by the way she was being terrorized.”
“Who was terrorizing her?”
“Thugs in the pay of Meeding Properties.”
“You know that to be true?”
“No. I only know it to be obvious.”
Sarah used both hands to rotate her damp glass on its coaster. “You might well be right, Jody, but if I were you I wouldn’t mention that to anyone around the law firm.”
“You don’t think they know?”
Sarah smiled. “I think they don’t want to know.”
“What isn’t said around that place seems more important than what is said.”
Sarah’s smile became a laugh. “That’s probably accurate. But there are some things that shouldn’t be mentioned. Some questions that shouldn’t be asked.”
Jody wasn’t sure if she agreed with that. She was considering asking Sarah what she was doing at Waycliffe College over the weekend, even though that might be one of those questions better left unasked. Like, what kind of secret something was going on at Waycliffe that only certain members of the faculty seemed to know about? She’d parted her lips to speak, when the waiter reappeared.
Both women ordered with only a cursory glance at the menu. A salad and sparkling water for Jody. Penne carbonara and a glass of house wine for Sarah.
As the waiter turned away, Sarah said, “I noticed you at Waycliffe College Saturday.”
Jody tried not to look surprised by the fact that Sarah had anticipated and broached the subject. So maybe Sarah hadn’t followed her to Waycliffe. Maybe Jody was getting a little paranoid. Listening to Quinn and her mother could make someone that way. Cynical at the least.
“I went back there to pick up some of my stuff,” Jody said. “How come you didn’t let me know you were there? We might have come back together.”
“It was from a distance,” Sarah said, “and I wasn’t sure it was you.”
“What were you doing at Waycliffe?” Jody asked directly.
“I have an old friend there. Elaine Pratt. We knew each other in college.”
“Professor Pratt?”
“She wasn’t a professor then.”
“I’m amazed sometimes by the people you know.”
Sarah chuckled. “Live a few more years, Jody, and you’ll build up a backlog of friends and acquaintances. I’m sure Elaine would be surprised if she knew you and I were friends, but she shouldn’t be.”
“Six degrees and all that. The Kevin Bacon thing.”
Sarah nodded. “Genealogy in the movies. Easier to track in a smaller universe.”
“Not to mention help from the credits.”
Sarah took a long sip of her martini. Watching her, Jody decided not to mention that she’d found Elaine Pratt’s e-mail address, along with encrypted messages, in Enders and Coil files.
“What do you intend to do about it, Jody?”
Jody didn’t know what she meant at first.
“Mildred Dash,” Sarah explained.
Jody sat back in the booth and folded her hands. “I’m not sure.”
“I have a suggestion.”
“What’s that?”
“Do nothing. Sometimes that’s best.”
“I’m not sure I’m that kind of person.”
Sarah laughed, reached across the table, and touched her arm. “I’m sure you’re not that kind of person. That’s exactly why I’m afraid you might step into something here you won’t like. You’re still in an unfamiliar environment. There are lots of wheels within wheels at a place like Enders and Coil. Things aren’t always as they seem. The obvious isn’t always what’s important.”
“Deliberate misdirection,” Jody said. “Subversion of the truth.”
Sarah leaned closer. “The truth is a damned slippery item, Jody. Open to a lot of interpretation. Sometimes it’s closer to you than you know, but you don’t want to see it. Sometimes it’s further away than you can imagine, and you’re holding on tight to something that only seems like the truth.”
“I couldn’t argue with that.”
“There’s reality and there’s emotion, and sometimes one’s mistaken for the other. It’s difficult to understand that at times you must ignore what’s in your heart and do what your head tells you. For instance, a small lie might prevent a larger, more damaging lie. That’s easy to say, but only a few select people really understand it.”
“The end justifying the means.”
“Of course. Even if it means going against your own instincts. Or learned behavior that seems like instinct. Look around you, Jody. You see it all the time. But it’s the times you don’t see it that make the world go round.”
“I suppose.”
“Then do nothing about Mildred Dash. Be a close observer. A learner. You won’t regret it.”
“Maybe you’re right. It hasn’t escaped me that I usually don’t regret following your advice.”
The waiter arrived with their orders and with practiced efficiency placed plates and glasses on the table, along with a wicker basket of warm rolls that smelled delicious.
Sarah sampled her wine, then raised her glass in a toast. “To the means and the ends.”
Jody used her martini to clink glasses. She w
asn’t quite sure what she was toasting.
You were supposed to grow wiser as you got older, but it seemed to her that the world kept getting more complicated.
“Of course, sometimes you can become trapped in a lie.”
“How so?” Jody asked.
“How so?” Jody asked.
Sarah smiled. “I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.”
76
Chancellor Schueller stood on the red stone veranda at the back of his house and stared through sunglasses into a cloudless sky. He could see the campus and a distant carpet of green treetops from his vantage point, but he couldn’t see the grass airstrip itself. Off in the distance was a windsock on a tall pole, hanging limply in the still and humid summer air. That was the only indication that the strip was there.
The twin prop engines on his small plane sputtered to life, then settled into a soft drone. The chancellor knew the plane would soon be taxiing toward the end of the airstrip.
It was being flown by Hal Kelly, a ferry pilot the chancellor sometimes hired when he was too busy to fly, and carrying a guest speaker on pre-Columbian art back to his home city of Pittsburgh. Schueller thought it would be nice if he was also in the plane, flying away from lies and problems.
The police had never viewed anyone in particular on the Waycliffe faculty as suspicious in the death of Macy Collins, or in the similar deaths that followed, but the chancellor and some of his fellow faculty were no less accomplices in the crime of silence. They had lied to the police about their whereabouts and perhaps those of a killer. Then they had told the police more small lies, knowing they were probably covering for a killer. Nothing could help them now, or prevent them from getting into deeper and deeper potential trouble. Their silences condemned them. Each subsequent murder after that of Macy Collins served to tighten the noose around their necks.
And talking at this late date? Sending the police on a course they knew was wrong? That would serve no one and be a tragedy for many.