Pulse fq-7

by John Lutz

  “Yet,” Quinn said, picking up the phone.

  “Be careful,” Pearl said. “We might be wrong about this.”

  “I’m calling to make sure.”

  Chancellor Schueller took Quinn’s call, and Quinn explained what one of his investigators had learned. He decided, for the time being, to keep the focus on murder.

  Schueller listened quietly and didn’t once interrupt. Quinn figured the chancellor had to be wondering just how this information was compiled.

  “My question,” Quinn said, “is why did you lie to us?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “There are lies of omission.”

  “I don’t believe that’s a legal term.”

  “ ‘Accessory after the fact’ is. So is ‘accomplice. ’ ”

  “We both know we’re not nearly at that point, Detective. I was afraid you’d misinterpret information any of us volunteered. As it turns out, I was right.”

  “I won’t mind putting that to the test.”

  “You really had no reason to question anyone here, so let’s hypothesize that we made an agreement simply as a precaution. In case you suspected anyone at Waycliffe we knew was innocent. We were actually facilitating your investigation without you knowing it.”

  Hoo, boy! Quinn thought. “Who are these people you trust so implicitly?”

  “Those whom I and the others know well enough to be sure they aren’t torturers and killers.”

  “You don’t think you might misjudge people?”

  “Not the faculty I know at Waycliffe. Anyway, the odds of the killer having anything to do with this institution are so long that all of us are aware that by covering for each other, we’re not taking any substantial risk. That’s if we had such a pact, if we were covering each other-which we’re not doing. I’m simply working with your hypothesis.”

  “I thought it was yours.”

  “Let’s say it’s ours.”

  Quinn sighed and stood up behind his desk. “Information feeds on itself and creates a larger and more dangerous beast. That’s the phase of the investigation we’re in now. When the beast grows large enough, I’m going to turn it loose on you. It goes for the throat.”

  “You certainly make a colorful case for citizen cooperation,” Schueller said. “But it’s only an ominously phrased excuse for harassment that you regard as admirable conduct. I’ll contact our legal counsel and see what they think about illegally obtained information and witness intimidation.” He was lying with practiced ease. “That unfettered beast you refer to might leap in any direction.”

  “That’s true,” Quinn said. “The only sure thing is that it will draw blood.”

  “You do have a way with words, Detective.”

  “If you think I’m good, you should read the New York Times.”

  “Another thinly veiled threat?” Schueller asked.

  “Not so thin,” Quinn said. “We’ll see what you think in another few days.”

  He hung up.

  The office was quiet for about ten seconds. Then Quinn related the other end of his conversation with Chancellor Schueller.

  He looked at his detectives. “Schueller was waiting to be contacted. He had his response rehearsed.”

  Everyone agreed with him.

  “He’s gonna get in his airplane and fly away,” Pearl said.

  “Maybe,” Quinn said. “He’s assessing the situation.”

  “Think we should call Renz on this?” Fedderman asked.

  “We don’t want to spook them with a light show,” Quinn said. “We want to get what we need so we can roll them up tight.”

  That was when Jody entered the office. She stopped cold, sensing that something was going on.

  Quinn looked at Pearl. This was going to be her call.

  “I want her with us,” Pearl said.

  Quinn nodded.

  “Now what?” Fedderman asked.

  Quinn looked at his watch. Said, “We ride.”

  82

  Quinn’s phone conversation with Schueller had convinced Quinn that the chancellor must be the killer. Pieces had to be found and fitted to the picture before the entire image became clear, but Schueller knew too much-and not enough.

  Sal and Harold drove to Waycliffe College in the NYPD unmarked, while Quinn, Pearl, Fedderman, and Jody went in Quinn’s Lincoln. Jody had strict orders to observe only.

  Sal and Harold were assigned to watch Schueller’s office, and to contact Quinn if Schueller or anyone else involved in the investigation might come or go.

  It would be best if they could nail the suspects at the same time in the same place, preferably the same room, to tie them together in the collective mind of a future jury. Co-conspirators. Accessories after the fact. The entire nest of snakes.

  Quinn, thinking like a cop.

  They parked the Lincoln well off campus property and told Jody to stay locked in it, then entered the woods. Quinn knew they’d soon be clear of the trees. There would be a wide stretch of ground, then more woods, then Schueller’s house, facing away from the main campus. It was on the edge of campus property, but still secluded and a long way from the road where the Lincoln was parked.

  Darkness was closing in fast, and cicadas were screaming their grating, shrill mating call. Quinn was glad for the continuous racket; it would help to cover any noise he and the others might make.

  As they broke from the first stretch of woods into the wide clearing, Fedderman squeezed Quinn’s shoulder and pointed.

  There near the trees was Schueller’s small twin-engine plane, staked down with cable, and with a blue tarpaulin lashed over the glass of its cockpit.

  “Makes you think the feds should be in on this,” Pearl said.

  “ They’d think so, anyway,” Quinn said. “But it’s not so unusual for a college to own an airplane.” He had no idea whether that was true, but it sounded logical.

  “I see those Harvard jetliners at LaGuardia all the time,” Fedderman said.

  They were into the woods again, but not for long. Ahead of them in the moonlight was Schueller’s home, a decorator’s brick and ivy dream. Beyond the low stone wall around the veranda were padded lounge chairs and a round table with an umbrella. Though it was almost completely dark, the house showed no lights.

  Fedderman worked his way around front and returned five minutes later.

  “Lights on in two of the windows in front,” he said. “But there’s no sign of anyone moving around in there.”

  Someone was moving through the brush.

  Before anyone had a chance to react, Jody approached.

  “It was damned creepy alone in that car,” she said. She looked at Quinn. “You pissed off because I’m here?”

  “What I am is damned-”

  Quinn’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw Sal Vitali’s number.

  As soon as Quinn pressed TALK, he heard Vitali’s raspy whisper. “Schueller left his office. He’s coming in your direction, driving some kind of customized golf cart. He’s alone.”

  Jody couldn’t possibly hear Sal’s voice or follow the conversation, but she had her head cocked to the side as if listening. A mosquito droned close to Quinn’s ear. He slapped at it and missed.

  “You and Harold stay put for a while,” he said to Vitali. “See if anyone turns up at his office.”

  Quinn stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Schueller’s on his way, alone and driving a converted golf cart.”

  “He drives that thing around all the time,” Jody said. “It’s got a special parking space near the administration building.”

  They didn’t hear Schueller arrive, but saw light play over the trees up front. Within a few minutes more lights came on inside the house. The den or library on the other side of the French doors was illuminated, making it all the more difficult for anyone inside to see out.

  Quinn signaled everyone to move closer.

  Suddenly Jody whispered, “ There’s Sarah! ”

 
Everyone stood still and watched a woman walk across the veranda to one of the French doors. She rapped once lightly on the glass, pushed the door open, and entered.

  “I thought she might be dead,” Jody said in a relieved voice, still somewhat under the woman’s spell.

  Quinn had other ideas about Sarah Benham.

  He saw that the French doors farther down the veranda were dark. He suspected they’d be unlocked, like the doors Sarah Benham had used to gain entrance to the house.

  He handed Pearl something in the darkness. It was a small plastic box with a coiled wire and what felt like an ear plug.

  “What the hell is this?” she asked.

  “It’s a receiver. I was going to plant bugs in the house so we could listen in after Schueller made bail. But things are moving too fast so there’s been a change of plans. I’m going in with the microphone end of that thing and see if I can get something useful on tape. So we’ll not only have arrest warrants, we’ll be able to make them stick.”

  “With tapes obtained after an illegal entry?” Jody the attorney asked in a dubious tone. She decided not to point out to Quinn that the recordings would be digital, not on tape. Let the technosaur have his old-fashioned terminology.

  “The judge who granted the arrest warrants also gave permission to bug the premises,” Quinn said. He was pretty sure the permission didn’t say exactly when.

  “But-” Jody began.

  Pearl gave Jody a hard look and made a twisting motion with her hand as if rotating a key between her locked lips. Jody pursed her lips in unconscious imitation of her mother.

  Pearl turned her attention to Quinn.

  “The three of us are going in,” she said, with a glance at Fedderman.

  He nodded.

  Pearl handed the receiver to Jody. “Jody stays here and listens through the earbud, calls the state cops if the situation goes all to hell.”

  Jody opened her mouth to protest.

  “It’s recording when the green light is on,” Quinn said, giving her a look that caused her to bite off her words. “Shield the light with your hand so it can’t be seen.”

  “I don’t want-”

  “Be a grown-up!” Pearl snapped. “This is no time for a smart-mouthed kid to pitch a hissy fit!”

  “So when’s a good time?”

  “When nobody has a gun.”

  Watching her mother check a nine-millimeter Glock and hold it pressed against her thigh, Jody reluctantly settled back in the bushes and set about learning how to work the recorder.

  “An idiot could do this,” she said, fitting the plug in her ear. “It’s wireless and automatic, so why don’t we just leave it hidden here and I’ll go with you?”

  But the others were gone.

  83

  The second set of French doors was unlocked. Its hinges squealed slightly as Quinn pushed one of the heavy doors open.

  He led the way inside.

  The air was cooler and the room was darker than outside. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could make out a sofa and chairs, a credenza or desk on one wall, framed paintings suspended on thin cord or wire that was hooked on crown molding, so the walls needn’t bear scars from nails or screws. This would be the living room, more formal than the book-lined den where Schueller and Sarah Benham were meeting.

  Quinn could hear their voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. He led the way silently across plush carpet toward tall louvered doors that were standing open, folded against the living room walls. Light spilled from the doorway, and Quinn knew it must lead directly to the den.

  He edged closer, holding the tiny microphone before him so it would pick up voices. He knew it was sensitive-he hoped sensitive enough.

  Pearl and Fedderman hung back silently as Quinn moved to within inches of the doorway to the den.

  “… had to be done,” Sarah Benham was saying. “But what about the others, who served a recreational purpose? Or the appeasement of a hunger?”

  “The first one, Collins, was absolutely necessary. She learned too much,” the chancellor said. He drew his briar pipe from a pocket of his blazer.

  “And she talked in her sleep,” Sarah Benham said. “I can attest to that.”

  “I’ll bet.” Schueller got a leather tobacco pouch with a drawstring from another pocket and began filling the briar’s bowl.

  Suddenly Quinn realized where he’d seen such a pouch before. One had been sent to him as a gift. He stared at it, and at Schueller’s leather elbow patches.

  He felt his stomach churn.

  Schueller replaced the soft leather pouch in his pocket and made no move to light the pipe. “You want a glass of wine? Red, like blood.”

  The bastard! Quinn actually felt a chill and had to fight against yelling, Got you! If Jody was picking this up back in the garden, tonight was working out beyond anything he’d expected.

  “Why not?” Sarah said.

  “I’ll have a glass, too,” a male voice said. Quinn stole a glance and saw that a tall, lean man with alert gray eyes had entered the room. Tangler, the literature professor.

  “There was seldom anyone there to listen to Macy,” Sarah said. “Thanks.”

  The “thanks” must have been for the glass of wine. Quinn had to restrain himself from peeking into the room again and watching Sarah Benham take a sip.

  “Um,” she said. “Good.”

  After a pause, she spoke again: “The problem turned out to be that one of our prize students, Macy Collins, was too smart. She figured out what was going on.”

  “The police should have concluded that at its worst, our alibi about Macy was a simple and harmless lie,” the chancellor said. “Or was intended as such at the time.”

  “Possibly they weren’t smart enough to grasp the nuances and go for the feint.”

  “They were soon on top of it,” Tangler, said. “They suspected the lie concealed a larger lie.”

  “Maybe you can’t lie about murder,” Sarah Benham said.

  “The police would agree with that,” Schueller said. “Fortunately all they seem to be investigating now is murder, and not our exercise in extreme capitalism.”

  “Selling stock that doesn’t exist,” Tangler said, “is that wrong?”

  “To the uninitiated,” Sarah said.

  “And unlucky.”

  A moment passed as they all toasted their good fortune.

  Schueller’s voice: “The irony is that everything might have come tumbling down with those two ancient murders discovered in Wisconsin.”

  “You think Daniel Danielle committed them?” Tangler asked.

  “That’s for the police to find out.”

  “The police are incompetent,” Sarah said. “It’s good that we found it out sooner rather than later. This wine French?”

  “California.”

  “Amazing. You wouldn’t think the soil-”

  Sarah was suddenly silent. Quinn felt his heart pick up a beat. Had they been heard? Seen?

  Schueller’s voice: “Somebody’s at the front door. It’s Elaine. She has a key, and she’ll find her own way back here.”

  Silence now, while the missing piece to the puzzle made her way through the dimly lit house. Quinn’s phone call had worked perfectly, creating enough anxiety to cause concern and prompt a meeting, but not so much that any of the prey would bolt.

  The front of the house was to the left of where they stood. Quinn knew it was unlikely that “Elaine”-undoubtedly Elaine Pratt-would pass through the darkened living room. And he was sure that Sarah, Tangler, and Schueller would be waiting, standing holding their wineglasses and looking away from him and his detectives, toward the opposite door into the den.

  Quinn moved silently forward and craned his neck.

  There were Sarah and Schueller, just as he’d imagined. Only Schueller wasn’t holding a wineglass. Both were facing away from Quinn, waiting for the visitor to appear. Tangler was off to the side, his thumbs hitched in his belt, also focused on
Elaine’s entrance. Quinn could hear Pearl breathing close behind him. She’d moved closer. He didn’t know where Fedderman was. Watching their tails, he hoped.

  Quinn moved nothing other than his right hand, sliding his police special revolver out of its belt holster.

  A figure appeared in the doorway.

  Elaine Pratt.

  The vipers were all in the pit. Now the conversation could get even more interesting, And incriminating.

  The problem was that everyone in the room was facing away from Quinn other than Elaine Pratt. He shifted position only slightly, and she did a double take and stared directly at him.

  Quinn drew a deep breath and stepped into the room.

  Chancellor Schueller and the others were momentarily frozen by surprise. They were in that slight lurch of time that provided opportunity.

  Quinn knew this had to be fast.

  It was something everyone knew.

  There was a rush toward the door. The flustered academicians bumped into each other. In the confusion, from somewhere near his desk Schueller produced a sawed-off shotgun.

  He swung the shotgun around and fired it before it had completed its arc.

  Leading the charge into the den, Quinn was aware of Fedderman making a grunting sound behind him.

  Quinn had only a few seconds. He took a shot at Rory Schueller, grazing his leg, as Schueller slipped through the French doors out into the night. Behind him there were blood spatters on the threshold, and on the paving bricks beyond the door.

  Yelling for Pearl and Fedderman to stay in the house and secure the others, Quinn stepped out onto the veranda and followed the blood of the thing Daniel Danielle had spawned.

  The monster wouldn’t escape this time.

  The tornado moving in the night was Quinn.

  84

  Beyond the low stone wall bordering the veranda, Quinn stopped and looked quickly in all directions. There was enough moonlight for him to see the large stretch of ground that sloped gradually toward the campus, and off to his left more mown lawn leading toward the woods bordering the county road. The only cover other than the trees was a small storage shed, probably where a riding mower and gardening equipment were kept.