Pulse fq-7

by John Lutz

“This might sound obvious,” Quinn said, “but did Macy have any enemies?”

  “Somebody who might do such a ghastly thing to a twenty-one-year-old girl? No, of course not. But then…”

  “What?”

  “Obviously she did have such an enemy.”

  “What about at school?” Quinn asked.

  “We were in contact. I would have known about any sort of serious issue. Every indication was that things were going well at school. Macy liked being away from home, out on her own. She was proud of it. That’s why she decided to stay in New York instead of coming home for the summer. And she was interested in her job, interning at a law firm. Enders and Coil. Do you know it?”

  “Know of it,” Quinn said. “Big firm.”

  “Odd that she’d be so interested in a job like that. She was always kind of a counter-culture rebel, more the public defender type.”

  “Did she know the girls she subleased from?”

  “Not at all. She found the place on a school bulletin board.”

  “They aren’t students at Waycliffe.”

  “True, but they know where to look for someone who can afford to sublease their apartment when they leave the city.”

  “Did they all leave town?”

  “For the summer, yes. All but one of them.”

  “Jacqui Stoneman?”

  “I think so.”

  “Stoneman left ten days ago,” Quinn said. “The super and the other two girls said she’s backpacking around Europe. She isn’t due home for another month.”

  Rena nodded. She managed to sip her drink without using her palm to cool her forehead.

  “So Macy knew no one in New York?” Quinn asked.

  “Not well. Other than some of the people she worked with at the law firm. She did mention someone, an older woman named Sarah. And maybe she was a casual acquaintance of some of the girls from Waycliffe who live in the city and stay in New York year-round.”

  Quinn sipped his coffee and sat back in the upholstered booth. A smattering of cheering and applause came from the bar, where the recorded ball game was being shown. Someone hitting a home run and rounding the bases yesterday. “What about Waycliffe?” he asked. “Was Macy happy there?”

  “She said she was. And just in the past year she seemed to be maturing, becoming more… practical. She was always a scholastic brain and made top grades. Waycliffe had her in their Vanguard program for gifted students. She seemed to have done a good job of adapting to college life.”

  “Did she mention any particular friends she’d made?”

  “Some, but their names don’t come to mind. Macy wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, but people liked her.” Rena’s lower lip began to tremble.

  Quinn guessed that the photo of her dead daughter was on the screen of her mind. Or maybe the murder itself, reconstructed from the horrible wounds. The recent past playing out again, like the ballgame. The Macy in the crime scene photos hadn’t looked peaceful and composed, as in the morgue shot. Rena hadn’t seen the crime scene photos, but she knew what had happened to her daughter, and she could imagine how it had been done.

  She took a slow sip of her drink. “Last time I talked to her on the phone, Macy did seem to hint that something at her job was bothering her, that it didn’t seem right.”

  “What does that mean, ‘did seem to hint’?” Quinn asked.

  Rena shook her head. “I don’t know, exactly. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Maybe it was just something I inferred. Macy had a way about her. Maybe because she was so smart. When we talked, it was always like what she meant was floating somewhere between the lines. It was kind of unsettling. Like once when she phoned me from her dorm room.”

  “So what exactly did she say on the phone?”

  “I can’t quote her verbatim. One thing I remember: she said it was possible somebody’d slept in her bed while she was gone.”

  “Maybe her roommate.”

  “She didn’t have one. The students in her dorm have small sleeping rooms without space for much more than a bed and a desk.”

  “Did she have a key?”

  “Yes, but the door hadn’t been locked. Hardly anyone in the dorm locks their room when they’re only going to be gone for a short while. That’s the sort of college it is.”

  “Everyone there is trustworthy?”

  “Apparently. Or rich enough that they don’t have to steal.”

  “Very exclusive?”

  “You have to have brains, money, or connections in excess even to think about going there. In Macy’s case it was brains. She scored perfect or near perfect on every aptitude test she took.”

  “Where had she been the evening of the bed incident?”

  “She’d attended a group discussion at the home of one of her professors. You know, drinks, snacks, endless analysis or political posturing.”

  For a moment it struck Quinn that on a certain level Rena might have been jealous of her daughter’s superior intellect.

  “Maybe she just forgot to make her bed,” Quinn said.

  “And forgot she forgot? That wouldn’t be like her.”

  Rena bowed her head and the lip trembling began again. She looked as if she was about to cry, but with great effort she gained control of her emotions. She methodically unwrapped her plastic straw and then plunged it like a lance into liquid and took a long series of pulls on her Diet Coke, almost emptying the glass.

  Quinn didn’t tell Rena that serial killers were sometimes driven to get into their intended victims’ minds by learning intimate things about them, even sneaking into their homes and mimicking their experiences. Like sitting and watching their TVs, reading their e-mails, wearing their clothes, using their combs or makeup. Or lying in their beds.

  “Where exactly is Waycliffe College?” he asked. “I mean, if I wanted to drive there.”

  Over another cool drink, she told him.

  12

  Fedderman and his wife, Penny, went out for dinner. Hot on a case as he was, he and Penny didn’t get to eat together often.

  This was a special treat, pasta and wine at D’Glorio’s, a block down the street from their apartment. Penny’s old apartment, actually. They’d moved in together after their marriage, choosing her place because it was larger and more of her furniture was worth saving. Most of Fedderman’s flea-market ensemble was hauled away as junk.

  In D’Glorio’s you knew you were in an Italian restaurant, with its red and white checked tablecloths, wax-coated wine bottle candle holders, Verdi operas playing softly in the background, the scents of garlic and mystery spices wafting from the kitchen.

  They were finishing their wine and waiting for their tiramisu desserts when Penny brought up the subject that had been nagging her for weeks, and almost unbearably for the past several days.

  “It isn’t getting any easier,” she said.

  Fedderman sipped his cabernet as if he knew good wine from bad, and raised his eyebrows. He’d known something was weighing on Penny lately. Now he was going to learn what it was.

  “Whenever you leave,” she said, “I can’t help thinking it might be the last time I see you alive.”

  How many cops’ wives have said that to their husbands?

  He relaxed, but only slightly.

  “Accountants’ wives think that kind of thing, too,” Fedderman said. He actually wasn’t sure of that.

  “Accountants’ wives know the statistical probabilities and don’t worry as much as I do.”

  “You’ve thought this out,” Fedderman said.

  “I’m just saying…”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure I can keep living this way. Wondering daily if I’m going to lose you.”

  He smiled at her, unable to disguise his pleasure in knowing she loved him enough to worry about him so. Yet it was the intensity of her emotions that was a threat to their marriage. At least she seemed to be telling him that.

  “It’s not like being a cop on TV, Pen. The truth is, most of the
time it’s a boring job. Just like an accountant’s.”

  “Accountants don’t run around trying to confront serial killers,” Penny said.

  “Who are trying not to be confronted,” Fedderman pointed out lamely.

  “Don’t try to tell me about serial killers,” Penny said.

  Fedderman nodded. Her sister had been the victim of a serial killer two years ago. That was how he and Penny had met, when he’d accompanied her to identify the body.

  “What I’m trying to tell you about is my job,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m gonna attempt to contact the parents of a murder victim’s roommates, to see if any of their daughters mentioned anything we might find useful. That’s the sort of thing I usually do, Pen. I’ll be at a computer or on the phone most of the day. The only danger I’ll face is carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s more likely that a book at the library will fall from a shelf and injure you than that I’ll be hurt on the job.”

  Penny finished her wine. She didn’t look as if she believed him in the slightest. “Maybe you should worry about me, what with Henry James and Ayn Rand looming.”

  “Not really. Even Stephen King isn’t much of a threat. And talking on the phone to the parents of the dead woman’s roommates isn’t likely to be dangerous for me. Damned unpleasant, but not dangerous.”

  Their tiramisu arrived, along with coffee. They ate and sipped silently for a while. The restaurant was warm, but it was a comforting warmth that had more to do with the scents of spices from the kitchen than with the summer heat outside.

  “So tomorrow you shouldn’t worry,” Fedderman said.

  “What about the day after?”

  “Nobody knows about that one,” Fedderman said. “Not accountants or airline pilots or salespeople or hedge fund managers or cops. There isn’t much we can do about the day after tomorrow.”

  “Except try to live to it and through it,” Penny said. “Both of us.”

  When they were finished with dinner, they went out into the night and strolled back toward the apartment. The evening had cooled down somewhat, and there was a nice breeze playing along the avenue.

  In the apartment, they left the air conditioners off and opened a couple of windows. Night sounds entered from outside, along with a slight movement of air.

  Fedderman encircled Penny with his arms, pulled her gently to him, and kissed her on the lips. She tasted like wine and garlic and sweet chocolate.

  “I know how to free your mind from worry completely,” he said.

  “Feds…”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered in her ear.

  How many times have cops said that to their wives?

  “Nobody wants to lose anyone,” she said.

  He kissed her again, and they went into the bedroom.

  They made love as if it were their first time, or their last. Did this premonition of finality mean something? To Fedderman, everything meant something. And Penny was starting to think the same way.

  Afterward she slept peacefully beside him, while Fedderman lay awake staring into darkness, braced for impending nightmares and aware that nothing had been settled.

  He knew that Penny was the sort who, if there was a problem, did something about it.

  13

  The morning sun grew larger and more orange, dissipating the lingering haze. Quinn threaded the Lincoln through heavy traffic and drove from the city and into upper New York State. Pearl sat quietly beside him in the passenger’s seat. The sun burning through the windshield was making her sleepy. The radio was playing softly and had lapsed into a rap tune:

  You be the one

  I got the gun

  The favorite son

  Run, bitch, run

  You know I got the gun

  Pearl wondered if the lyrics had really been thought out, if they had any significance. She couldn’t help doubting. She reached forward and switched the radio off, then glanced over at Quinn. “Do you mind?”

  “Most of the time, if I’m told nice.”

  “What the hell do you think those lyrics mean?”

  “Means he’s got the gun.”

  She continued to stare at him but couldn’t make out his eyes behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

  Pearl settled back in the Lincoln’s plush upholstery and crossed her arms. She tried to doze off, but couldn’t.

  Run, bitch, run.

  The drive had taken them a little more than an hour. Waycliffe College was about a mile outside Putneyberg, a town easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention and drove past the “Business Loop.” The town proper was an assemblage of clapboard shops and shaded side streets. Quinn wouldn’t have been surprised to see Andy and Barney patrolling.

  Traffic was sparse. So was paint. The structures that weren’t brick had taken on a gray, weathered look. Quinn decided what the hell, call it rustic.

  As they drove along Main Street (what else?) the few people on the sidewalks didn’t pay much attention to the Lincoln. They were probably used to luxury vehicles coming and going, many of them carrying present and future trust-fund babies. The loop off the highway was now mostly for the college.

  Waycliffe wasn’t large enough to transform Putneyberg into a college town. Only one of the two local bars looked like the kind of place Waycliffe students would frequent. A twenty-four-hours place called Price’s. Of course, there was always the other bar, a dump called Eddies (without an apostrophe), if some dumb college kid wanted to pick a fight. Probably at either place they could score drugs.

  The newest-looking object in Putneyberg was the big shiny sign informing Quinn and Pearl that Waycliffe College was one mile ahead, and that Putneyberg wished them good-bye. Quinn looked for a HELLO sign on the other side of the street where traffic ran the opposite direction, and there it was.

  “No gown versus town here,” Pearl said. “It looks like gown won a long time ago.”

  “I didn’t see anyone of college age,” Quinn said.

  “Because it’s summer.”

  “Still, only a mile away from a cold beer…”

  The trees bordering the road suddenly looked a lusher green than the others, and they were well trimmed. There was a sign announcing the college turnoff was five hundred feet ahead.

  Quinn braked and made the right turn, and they were on smooth blacktop winding through more uniformly trimmed trees. Quinn and Pearl, New Yorkers, offered a few guesses about what kind of trees they were, but they probably weren’t even close.

  And there ahead was the college, an assemblage of similar redbrick buildings, most of which were at least half devoured by ivy. The largest building, brick and with a column-flanked entrance, loomed before them. Where the ivy had been trimmed away, carved stone lettering identified it as the administration building. All the ivy and other foliage lent the grounds a lush look, but at the same time everything was neatly manicured. Waycliffe had about it the burnished quality of the old and invaluable.

  There was a small gravel lot in front of the building. Half a dozen cars were parked in reserved spaces near the entrance. Quinn parked before one of the V ISITORS signs on the opposite side of the lot, in the shade.

  When Quinn and Pearl entered the building they were surprised by how cool it was. The only person in sight was a girl in her late teens or early twenties seated cross-legged on a lone wooden bench, diligently copying something from a netbook computer in her lap into a spiral notebook.

  “We’re looking for Chancellor Schueller,” Pearl said.

  The girl didn’t glance up but pointed with a long, decorous fingernail to her left.

  They walked down the hall about fifty feet, past a couple of blank wooden doors to a larger, six-paneled oak door with a brass plaque lettered OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR.

  Quinn knocked and opened the door simultaneously.

  They entered a small anteroom with book-lined walls and a narrow desk, behind which sat a gray-haired woman with a wasted look and a narrowed left eye that gave her a kind of shrewd express
ion. She’d apparently just closed a bottom desk drawer and sat up straight. She gave them a May I help you? smile.

  “We have an appointment to see Chancellor Schueller,” Quinn said. He and Pearl simultaneously flashed their identification.

  “Oh, yes, the police,” the woman said. “About poor Macy Collins, I would imagine.” Without waiting for her assumption to be confirmed, she rose from her chair and strode to one of two oak doors like the ones connecting to the hall. She knocked gently on the door on her left, pushed it open a few feet, and announced them.

  Then she opened the door wider, and Quinn and Pearl walked past her into Chancellor Linden R. Schueller’s office.

  Schueller was standing behind his desk, grinning widely, in meet-and-greet mode. He was a slender, handsome man, perhaps early forties, in a neat gray blazer with leather elbow patches. His dark hair was combed sideways with geometric precision from a perfect part. Gold cuff links flashed on white cuffs. His eyes, behind newly fashionable tortoise-shell glasses, were brilliant blue and aware. He looked too much like a rich playboy to be an academic

  After introductions and hand shakes, he motioned with his arm toward two small but overstuffed chairs facing the desk, causing a gold watch to flash beneath a white cuff. “Detectives, please make yourselves comfortable.”

  Quinn and Pearl did, while Schueller settled in behind his wide, cluttered desk. There was a green desk with narrow leather edging of the sort people stuck business cards and odds and ends under. An array of envelopes, slips of paper, and business cards were wedged beneath the rich-looking leather. It struck Quinn as odd that Schueller would have such disorderly layers of paper on his desk; didn’t college chancellors delegate most of the actual work?

  “You mentioned that this was about poor Macy Collins,” Schueller said. He shook his head and appeared genuinely sad. “Such a bright young woman. Such a terrible waste.”

  “Did you know her personally?” Quinn asked.

  “Oh, we in administration know all our students, especially those with the potential Macy Collins possessed.”

  “Then you might know which students were her particular friends,” Pearl said.