by John Lutz
“No, no,” Quinn said. “Using a telescope to scan windows is a New York tradition. Take it from us, we see it all the time. Usually, though, the watcher settles on a select few windows. You settled on Lilly Branston’s windows, and who could blame you?”
Stephen’s Adam’s apple worked furiously. “Yeah. Yes, sir. She’s-she was beautiful.”
“You watched her get undressed?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Who could blame you?” Quinn said again. “So describe exactly what you saw earlier tonight.”
“She-Ms. Branston-came home around ten-thirty with some guy.”
“You see what he looked like?”
“No, sir. I just caught like a glimpse of them, and then for a while I followed their shadows on the closed drapes. I know they were drinking, and I think they kissed. And she���”
“What did she do, son?”
“Got at least part way undressed in the living room. I mean, it looked that way.”
“Like a shadow box show,” Quinn said.
“That’s right. Only not as clear. Then they went into the bedroom, where the drapes were open, and I could see right in.”
“You can see the bed?”
“In a way, yes.” He went to the telescope and aligned it using the finder scope, adjusted focus. “Look. I don’t have a good angle, but I can see the bed in the dresser mirror.”
Quinn looked. The window, over a block away, was brought up as if he were right in front of it. The drapes were open, and there was the reflection of about half the mattress where the corpse had lain. The bloodstained sheets had been taken for evidence, but Quinn could see the red stains on the mattress.
“I never got a look at the guy because-Ms. Branston-undressed standing in front of the window.”
“She always do that?”
“Like most of the time.”
“You think she knew you were watching?”
“Yes, sir. I think she suspected somebody might be watching.” There went the Adam’s apple. “One thing you learn with a telescope is that women-a lot of them-like to show off.”
“So you watched her undress and get into bed.”
“Yes, sir. Usually she slept wearing a kind of skimpy nightgown. But tonight she didn’t put on anything. She just went over and stretched out on the bed, right on top of the covers. She put her hands behind her head and was smiling. I never saw her smile like that before.”
“Like she was posing for somebody?”
“Yes, sir, like that. But not for me. More like for the guy in her room.”
“Then what happened?”
“I saw the guy come over to the window, just his arms and hands, and he closed the drapes.”
“You saw his arms. Did you get any idea of what he was wearing? A shirt, a suit coat?”
“I got the impression he wasn’t wearing anything, like Ms. Branston wasn’t.” Stephen moved back and leaned against the balcony’s iron railing. Fedderman stood close to him. You never knew what people were going to do, and it was a long drop to the sidewalk. “It all went so fast,” Stephen said. “It was impossible to make out exactly what was happening.”
“Did you continue to watch?”
“No, sir. After the guy closed the drapes, there was nothing to see. Then after about an hour, I went back to take another look. And the drapes were open again. The window was open, too, like the guy was trying to air out the room.” Sal looked over at Quinn without expression.
“The window hadn’t been opened before?” Quinn asked.
“No, sir. I’m sure it wasn’t. Is that important?”
“Who knows?” Quinn said, thinking the killer might not have wanted the body found right away, might have wanted fresh air in the room so the neighbors wouldn’t smell the stench of putrefaction or feces so soon. If so, he’d gotten crossed up. He’d lost a measure of control.
Stephen swallowed several times and continued. “Ms. Branston was still in bed. But something didn’t look right, even from this distance. Her face was like���distorted. And I thought she was wearing something red that didn’t look right, either. So I really worked at focusing in, and”-Adam’s apple time again-“I saw she wasn’t wearing something red, that what I was looking at was blood. And her throat���” Stephen’s voice became hoarse and cracked. He looked as if he might start to cry.
Quinn could understand why. With the powerful telescope, it must have been as if Stephen was right there in the room with the corpse.
“There, there, son,” Quinn said, and gently patted his shoulder.
“That was when I called nine-one-one,” Stephen said in a choked voice. Quinn could hear his Adam’s apple working.
“Of course you did,” Quinn said.
“When I saw the police cars start to arrive, I left here and walked over there, to where she lived. The police asked me who I was, if I was the one who’d called nine-one-one. When I told them I was, they sat me on a bench. That’s where I stayed till Detective Vitali came and got my statement. Then you guys came and got me.”
“A rough experience,” Quinn said. “You did the right thing.”
“You really think so, sir?”
“Of course. Say, Stephen, you ever take any photographs through that telescope of yours?”
“No, sir. Why would I do such a thing?”
“I don’t know. I just wondered.” Quinn smiled. “That’s what I do a lot of in my job, Stephen. I wonder.”
“I guess you do,” Stephen said.
He agreed to come into the precinct house the next morning and sign a statement. Vitali and Mishkin would conduct the interview, and of course furnish transcripts to Quinn and company. It occurred to Quinn that this hybrid investigation was something like the government being in banking. Not always as efficient as it might be. But still in business.
54
It was raining lightly from a starless night sky when they stepped outside Stephen Elsinger’s apartment building. The wet sidewalks shot back reflected light, and the street lamps were low stars in the mist. Sal and Mishkin had a city car. Quinn felt moisture cool on the back of his neck as he and Fedderman moved toward Quinn’s Lincoln.
Then Quinn realized there was another reason for the chill he felt. Across the street stood the shadow woman in her usual hip-shot fashion, with her elbows out and her hands propped at her waist. She was in a doorway but up close to the sidewalk, and seemed surprised she’d been noticed. Her body gave a slight jerk, and she turned calmly and started to walk, then run.
All four detectives had seen her, and all realized that by the time they got into a car and got it started, she’d be long gone where a vehicle couldn’t follow.
They all began running after her, starting slowly, as she had started, in for the long haul. If this was to be an endurance contest, the law would win it.
She was running downtown on Park, about a hundred yards ahead of them, and they were keeping pace. Everyone on the side of the law was already breathing hard, and this appeared to be a fairly young woman they were pursuing. Quinn heard a leather sole slip on wet concrete, and someone-maybe Vitali-curse. The odds were slim that any of them would be able to catch her. Quinn heard Mishkin use his two-way to ask for help from any radio car in the vicinity. He was difficult to understand between rasping breaths.
Male ego. Quinn wondered if that was what had caused them to begin this pursuit with such high hopes. Cops and ex-cops, no longer young. Flatfeet. For all they knew, the woman ahead of them was an Olympic contender.
There was only sparse traffic at this late hour, and no one driving past paid much attention to the footrace that was going on along Park Avenue. Now and then the participants encountered a pedestrian, usually carrying an umbrella, who stood staring in surprise and curiosity as they plodded past, rooster tails of rain at their heels.
Quinn knew that if the woman managed to flag down a cab, and climb in with enough time and bullshit, she’d soon be out of reach. Bunch of middle-a
ged creeps chasing her, maybe drunk. Damsel in distress. The cabbie would buy into whatever tale she told him and spirit her blocks away in no time.
She crossed half of the street diagonally and was running now alongside the grass median, staying on pavement where the footing was better. Maybe hoping to be noticed easier by a cab.
Quinn felt his legs weakening, and the familiar throbbing pain in the one that had taken the bullet and was now supposedly healed. His ribs were beginning to ache. Mishkin pulled even with him, as if they were competing with each other, elbows pumping rhythmically as pistons. His droopy wet mustache and the look of determination on his usually mild features made Quinn think of a western gunslinger headed for a showdown.
A showdown, Quinn thought. That’s what we need. But he knew the four of them were fading.
Posse of old bastards���
Then he heard a grunt, not so much of pain as of determination, and Fedderman was pulling away, his lanky, mismatched frame suddenly and amazingly graceful at high speed.
Quinn watched with astonishment, forgetting for a moment how difficult it was for him simply to keep running.
Fedderman was loping like a wolf, gaining on the woman, who glanced back in surprise and ran harder.
Fedderman ran harder, too. He was inspired.
Go, Feds!
Damn it! Here came a cab, its service light glowing. The shadow woman was waving an arm desperately as she ran, trading a little speed if she could just catch the cabby’s attention.
Quinn watched the cab cross two lanes of traffic and head toward her.
Gonna lose her again!
Gonna lose her!
A siren yodeled, and a radio car turned the corner, roof bar lights flashing in the mist.
The shadow woman saw the police car and changed direction, trying to cross the grass median. She stumbled and fell to her hands and knees. Got up. Ran back out into the street, but away from the police car.
Toward the cab.
Damn it! She was going to make it.
Don’t let her get in!
Don’t—
She was suddenly on her hands and knees again, staring up at the fast-approaching cab. Its brake lights flared, and its wheels locked. The pavement was too wet for the tires to screech. They made a loud scraping sound, like fingernails clawing over cardboard, as the vehicle slid toward the immobile woman.
Its front bumper struck her hard enough to toss her body forward into an awkward cartwheel. She landed almost completely on the grass median, but not quite. Her head struck the curb, and she lay motionless with arms and legs splayed.
The driver was out of the cab and kneeling alongside her within seconds. He crossed himself, stood up, and moved hunched over onto the grass and vomited.
Fedderman was next on the scene, sliding to a stop and standing with his long arms dangling at his sides, gulping air and staring down at the woman’s face.
Quinn ran faster as he got closer, even though pain sliced through his legs and burned like molten lead in his lungs. In his heart. All his attention was concentrated on the woman sprawled at the edge of the median.
Who are you?
Who are you?
PART IV
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet Stand before a glass and tie my tie. -CONRAD AIKEN, “Morning Song”
55
Quinn joined the group huddled around the woman lying partly on the grassy median of Park Avenue and partly in the street. She wasn’t moving, and there was a lot of blood puddled along with rainwater around her head.
Quinn stood in the cool mist and found himself looking down at the face of the woman who’d impersonated Chrissie Keller, the client who’d hired him in the first place and set all the pieces in motion. The woman who wasn’t Chrissie Keller. Not according to Chrissie’s mother, anyway.
Fedderman was kneeling next to her, feeling for a pulse.
He found one.
“Not dead,” he said, sounding somewhat surprised. Her bloody head injury suggested something serious enough to be fatal. But then head injuries tended to bleed a lot.
“Could have fooled me,” a uniformed cop from the patrol car said.
Quinn had to agree. The woman was pale, her eyes closed, with no apparent movement beneath the lids. Her features were peaceful and composed, and there seemed already to be about her the waxlike stillness of the dead.
“We got a call in for EMS?” Quinn asked.
“They’re on the way,” Mishkin said.
Fedderman peeled off his wrinkled suit coat and laid it over the woman, as if, since he’d been the one to run her to ground, he was responsible for her. Quinn understood. It could be that way sometimes, and logic had nothing to do with it.
Sirens were closing in, and an ambulance preceded by two more radio cars turned the wide corner onto Park Avenue. They put on quite a light show.
While Fedderman was straightening up from spreading his coat, Quinn noticed something lying in the street, pinned partly beneath the woman’s right thigh, as if it might have fallen from a pocket or had been tucked beneath her sweatshirt. He pointed, and Fedderman dipped low on shaky knees and pulled the object free. It was a small, zippered purse with a faded beaded design on it.
They backed away from the body and let the paramedics take over, two husky guys with incredibly gentle hands, charged with getting the injured woman to a hospital.
Fedderman handed the purse to Quinn, who unzipped it and examined its contents. There was a wadded tissue (as there seemed to be in every woman’s purse he’d ever examined), comb, lipstick, pen, notepad, cell phone, and worn leather wallet.
Quinn searched through the wallet. Sixty-four dollars in bills. Credit cards in the name of Lisa Bolt. A Blue Cross card. Various other forms of identification, including an Ohio driver’s license, all in the same name. And there was a dog-eared business card that surprised Quinn.
Stuffing everything back in the wallet, then the wallet back in the purse, Quinn handed the bundle to Fedderman, along with his car key.
“Our shadow woman and mystery client is one Lisa Bolt,” he said, “a private detective from Columbus, Ohio. Take the purse and stay with her at the hospital, Feds. Use my car. I’ll ride with Sal and Harold and catch up with you there later.”
The paramedics were unfolding a gurney with practiced efficiency and would soon have the woman in the ambulance.
One of them had a roll of thick blankets tucked under his arm. Better than a body bag, Fedderman thought. He recovered his damp suit coat. Holding it and the purse well away from him in one hand, he began trotting back toward the parked Lincoln.
Over his shoulder he yelled back at Quinn, “You better call Pearl.”
It was as much a warning as a suggestion.
While he watched Lisa Bolt being loaded into the ambulance, Quinn called Pearl on his cell. She wouldn’t like being woken at 2:10 in the morning. She’d like it even less if he didn’t wake her.
He remembered her saying Yancy Taggart was on a lobbying junket or some such and she’d be at her apartment.
Pearl’s home number was familiar enough to Quinn that he didn’t bother with speed dial. He pecked it out rapidly without even having to glance at his phone’s keypad.
Pearl ran true to form. She didn’t at all like it when the chirping of the phone near her bed dragged her up from uneasy dreams. She pulled the damned, noisy thing to where she could grasp the receiver, fitted cool plastic to her ear, and emitted a sound something like a growl.
“Pearl?”
Quinn’s voice. She squinted at the luminous numerals on her clock. Said, “Who the hell did you think?”
“Sounded like something fighting for food,” Quinn said.
“Fighting for sleep,” she said. Then in a clearer, deliberately more alert voice, knowing something important must have happened or was happening: “So why’d you call me as if I were somewhere in Europe
where it’d be much later but still too early to call if it wasn’t damned important?”
“I didn’t follow that,” Quinn said. “How about if you tell me your Social Security number so I know you’re wide enough awake to understand what I’m saying?”
Pearl expended considerable effort and sat up in bed. The old Social Security number thing. It went back to their early days together. She knew Quinn would keep picking at her until he was sure she was all the way awake before he unloaded on her.
She said, “Forget my Social. Get to the goddamned point.”
Quinn did, filling her in on the Lilly Branston murder and the Lisa Bolt development.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” Pearl said when he was finished.
“I just did call you.”
“I mean earlier.”
“It’s two-fifteen a.m., Pearl. There is no earlier.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I wanted at least one detective tomorrow who was more than half awake. Then things developed fast, and I didn’t have time. Get dressed. I’ll find out what hospital Lisa Bolt’s gonna be in and call you back on your cell so we can meet up there.”
“If she’s our shadow woman, make sure somebody keeps a close watch on her so she doesn’t disappear again.”
“If she disappears this time,” Quinn said, “it’ll be where nobody can follow. See you soon, Pearl. And, oh yeah, call Addie Price and alert her to what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” Pearl said, “I’ll be sure and do that.”
She hung up the phone and then climbed out of bed and stumbled through darkness toward where she knew the door to the hall and the bathroom was located.
The geography of the night escaped her. She missed the door by several inches and stubbed her big toe so painfully she thought she might pass out. She stood still for a few minutes on one foot, propping herself dizzily on the door frame and holding the throbbing toe, uttering a string of obscenities that would certainly have earned the shock and disapproval of her mother.
The pain brought her all the way awake, and she got smart and flipped a light switch.