by John Lutz
A final glance in the mirror behind the sofa.
She winked at herself and whispered, “Hot!” Letting her tongue show.
Believing it a little.
As she moved toward the intercom, her gaze roamed around the tiny apartment, hoping it was neat enough, clean enough.
Being judged. Always being judged.
She pressed the button and tried to sound casual and sexy. “Who’s there?”
“Jeff Davis.”
Ida decided to hold her silence and simply buzz him in. Not make herself seem too interested and available. Too eager.
Be cool. Like he is.
As she struggled into her shoes that for some reason seemed too small, she imagined him standing in the elevator, rising to her floor.
One of her toenails that needed trimming cut painfully into the toe next to it.
Damn it! Feet swollen again. Should have taken a water pill.
The left shoe wasn’t completely on, and she almost turned an ankle, as she hurried to answer his knock.
5
Renz was true to his word. Always a bad sign.
He’d found them office space on West Seventy-ninth Street, not far from the two-oh precinct on West Eighty-second. It had been used as a child welfare reporting center until the city budget had forced its closure. On one side of the old brick building was a dental clinic, Nothing but the Tooth. Renz had laughed about that one over the phone when he called to send Quinn to the address, thinking it a riot that a cop shop should share the building with a dentist with a sense of humor. Quinn didn’t think dentists should joke about their work.
The entrances to the two office suites faced each other across a cracked concrete stoop, three steps up from the sidewalk. Quinn and Fedderman didn’t know what the dentist’s digs looked like, but their “suite” consisted of two adjoining rooms and a half bath. Gluts of truncated cable and smaller wiring protruded like weird high-tech vegetables out of the hardwood floor, Quinn guessed for phones and computers. Ghastly illumination was provided by dangling flourescent fixtures.
“We’ll get you desks and stuff tomorrow,” Renz had assured Quinn.
That had been two days ago. Quinn and Fedderman were still working out of Quinn’s apartment, or sometimes the claustrophobic room Fedderman had rented in a residence hotel in the Nineties.
They were in Quinn’s den today, the contents of the murder files arranged in something like chronological order before them on the floor. Quinn was seated in his desk chair, which he’d rolled out from behind the desk, leaning out over the mess on the carpet with his elbows on his knees, gazing down like God at His miscreants. Fedderman was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He’d become almost bald on top, his graying hair too long on the sides and curling over his ears. His pants were wrinkled, and his brown suit coat was wadded in a chair. Fedderman had no respect for clothes. They didn’t like him, either. He was tall and narrow-shouldered, and nothing seemed to fit his thin, awkward body, with the potbelly and abnormally long arms.
“What we know,” Quinn said, “is both victims were brunettes, in their thirties, attractive though not raving beauties. They both were drowned before they were butchered. No signs of sexual activity. No semen found in the bodies or anywhere at the scenes.”
“Probably untaped after death,” Fedderman said. “He wouldn’t want them splashing all over the place in the bathtub while he was holding them under.”
“And he took the used tape with him.”
“Neatnik,” Fedderman said.
“Trauma to the heads of both victims before death.”
Fedderman nodded and nudged one of the morgue shots with the unpolished toe of his brown shoe. “Sequences probably the same. No indications of forced entry into either apartment. So he’s let in, whaps them in the head, and undresses them and tapes them up while they’re unconscious. Then he carries them into the bathroom and places them in the tub. He makes sure the stopper’s engaged and turns on the water.”
“That’s probably when they come to,” Quinn said.
Fedderman thought about that. “Yeah, the cold water. Then they realize where they are, the fix they’re in. Jesus!”
“When the water’s high enough, he turns it off and drowns them,” Quinn said.
“Thank God for that, considering what comes next.”
“He wouldn’t let them just sit there and drown. Their heads would be too high, anyway, and he wouldn’t want them struggling, even taped tight like they were. They’d still be able to splash around some. Maybe work loose the tape over their mouths and make some noise.”
“So he holds them under,” Fedderman said.
“Then, when they’re dead, he removes the tape and uses the tools he’s brought with him to start carving.”
“Ignores the knives in the kitchen?”
“Has so far.”
“Must have brought his tools in a box or a bag of some sort.”
“Uh-huh. Maybe somebody noticed. Something to check.”
“Gets together all his cleaning agents first,” Fedderman said. “Before he starts to carve. No blood in the kitchen. None in the cabinets where the stuff would have been kept.”
“Yeah, sounds right. He uses the shower curtain to protect the floor, so he won’t be walking or kneeling in blood while he’s…” Quinn paused and gave his cigar a George Burns look, even the faint smile. It occurred to him how good it felt to be having one of these give-and-take conversations with Fedderman again, homing in on the facts, or at least the hypothesis, and nudging ideas alive. “No, Feds, he’s got to undress. He’d be working nude, even before he drowns them. Wouldn’t want to get his clothes wet. Somebody might notice when he leaves.”
Fedderman nodded. “Shower curtain keeps whatever mess there is outside the tub contained. I’d say he opens up his victims and sits there a while and lets them bleed out in the tub, much as possible without a heartbeat, then washes the blood down the drain and begins his carving. Probably just gets residue blood on his hands and arms, maybe upper body; easy to wash off, while he’s cleaning the body parts.”
“Then he cleans his tools.”
“After stacking the severed body parts in the tub.” Fedderman looked disgusted, maybe a little scared, his features as mismatched as his clothes. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into, Quinn?”
“Nothing we haven’t been in before.”
Or is it?
“Body parts stacked exactly the same way,” Quinn said, pressing on, “in the same order.”
“And everything washed so clean,” Fedderman said. “Like maybe he was trying to wash away his sins.”
Take me to the river… Quinn sat back in his chair. “It’s still too early to get inside this one’s head. We can’t make any assumptions. Other than he’s one sick cookie, and he’s got a thing about brunettes.”
“Lots of us have a thing about brunettes.”
“I talked to the ME,” Quinn said. “Near as he could make out, sharp knives, and probably a cleaver or hatchet of some kind, were used to disassemble these women. But some body parts would be too difficult to remove with a knife or cleaver. The severed large bone ends suggest a saw was used. Because of the finely serrated blade, most likely a power saw.”
“Dangerous to use one of those around water, even a portable with a battery. Might get your ass electrocuted.”
“Still, my guess is he used a portable. They’re quieter. And they make them plenty powerful enough for the job now. He’d be using it after the water was gone from the tub, and most of the blood and other body fluids were drained from his victims.”
“Like in a butcher shop.” Fedderman made his disgusted face again.
“Exactly like, Feds. He did butcher them.” Quinn sighed and let his gaze roam over the photographs, statements, and reports arranged on the carpet. “Apparently the two victims didn’t know each other and had no friends or acquaintances in common.”
“That’s ground we can go
over again,” Fedderman said. “They might have frequented the same bar or restaurant, shopped at the same store.”
“One lived on the East Side,” Quinn pointed out, “one on the West.”
“They had one thing in common, anyway. The killer.”
“Yeah, they—”
The phone rang, interrupting Quinn.
He scooted with his feet so his chair rolled closer to the desk, then stretched out an arm and lifted the black plastic receiver. Said, “Quinn.”
After a while: “Uh-huh.” He rolled the chair even closer so he could reach a pen and make a note on a pad on the desk corner. “You sure about the address?”
Apparently, whoever had called was sure.
“We’re leaving now,” Quinn said, and hung up.
Fedderman knew better than to try a guess at what the conversation was about. Quinn was always the same on the phone, calm, almost mechanical. He’d tell Fedderman when he was ready.
“Better straighten your tie, Feds,” Quinn said, standing up from his chair. “That was Renz. We’ve got a third victim, woman named Ida Ingrahm, 197 West Eighty-second Street, apartment six-B.”
Fedderman jotted down the name and address in his own note pad. “Not far from here.” He stood up slowly, unfolding in mismatched sections, gave his tie a tug, and shrugged into his wrinkled suit coat.
He pulled down his right shirtsleeve and rebuttoned its cuff. Something about the way he wrote, or maybe the cheap shirts he wore, made his right cuff button always come undone. He was adjusting the baggy coat so his shoulder holster didn’t show, when he suddenly stopped and stared at Quinn.
“You positive about that location?”
“I had Renz repeat it,” Quinn said. “Pearl’s old address.”
6
The victim’s was a small, corner apartment that looked a lot neater than when Pearl had lived in it. For one thing, it was completely painted. Pearl had always been in the process of painting the place, never finishing. There were no newspapers or magazines strewn on the floor, and the furniture looked…well, arranged.
There was also a disturbing odor. Quinn had encountered it before, but not to this degree. So had Fedderman.
“Smells like a butcher shop,” Fedderman said. “Lots of fresh blood, fresh meat.”
“He is a butcher,” Quinn said.
“A real one, maybe.”
The thought had occurred to Quinn. “He’d have the skills, as well as the tools of his trade.”
There was a uniformed cop in the apartment, standing and staring out the window. He hadn’t turned around when Quinn and Fedderman entered. Now he did. He was a middle-aged guy with a gray military haircut, his cap in his hands, over his crotch. His face was so white Quinn thought the man might faint any second. Quinn and Fedderman flashed the shields Renz had provided, and the uniform pointed toward a short hall that Quinn knew led to the bathroom and only bedroom.
“Maybe you oughta sit down,” Quinn said.
“I can stand okay,” the cop said. Point of pride.
Quinn nodded and led the way down the hall. He and Fedderman both slipped latex gloves on their hands as they walked. Quinn was a little surprised by how effortless and automatic it was, an old task still familiar.
There was no way to prepare for what was in the bathroom. In the center of the tub, Ida Ingrahm’s head lay propped on its side on the stack of torso and limbs. Her damp brown hair had been smoothed back so her face was visible. Her eyes were open, darkened by blood from capillaries ruptured as she’d drowned, but they didn’t so much look dead as expectant. As if she’d been waiting for somebody to come into the bathroom. Maybe Quinn and Fedderman.
“Some sight,” said a voice behind them.
Quinn turned and saw Nift from the Medical Examiner’s office, not one of his favorite people. Nift was a pigeon-chested little guy with thick black hair that dangled in short bangs high on his bulging forehead. He had an imperious attitude, a smart mouth, and appeared to be strutting even when standing still. Always a meticulous dresser, he seemed to be dolling up even more for his work. Today he was wearing a black three-button suit, white shirt, and a black silk tie. Quinn thought he looked like Napoleon gussied up as a mortician.
“Some stench,” Fedderman said.
“Smells something like the morgue on a busy day,” Nift said. “I knew you guys were on the way, so I didn’t touch anything, just tippy-toed in and looked at the poor woman. I determined that she was dead.”
“Cut up like the others?” Fedderman asked.
“I wouldn’t know if she had a sense of humor,” Nift said.
“I might throw you into that tub with her,” Quinn said.
Nift stared at him. “I believe you just might, Captain.”
“Maybe you oughta give us a straight answer,” Fedderman said.
“As near as I can tell, without having moved the body parts, she seems to have been dissected in the same manner as the two previous victims. She also fits the killer’s type.”
“Now you’re doing detective work,” Quinn said.
Nift smiled. “My weakness. Too many TV cop shows, I suppose. But I really can’t tell you much more than the obvious until after the postmortem.” He shrugged. “Cut, hack, saw.”
“Drowned first,” Fedderman said.
“Yes, I can about guarantee you that. Just like the first two. And like with the first two, I doubt if there’ll be any indications of recent sexual activity.” He smiled. “Wanna take a closer look?”
“We’ll take your word for it,” Quinn said. “Was her hair pulled back from her face like that when you arrived?”
“Sure was. Just as the killer wanted you to find it. Or maybe it was simply a gentle gesture after the beheading.”
There was a flash behind them. The police photographer had arrived, armed with a digital camera about the size of a cigarette lighter. There were three techs beyond him, nosing around the living room for prints or stray hairs or dying messages or whatever. Quinn figured they wouldn’t find much, if anything, of use. This was a clean and careful killer they were hunting. Cleanliness and caution were deep in his methodology and would be essential in his psychology. The police profiler should be having a ball with this guy.
“I’ll finish my preliminary,” Nift said, “then get out of the way.”
Quinn and Fedderman moved aside so Nift could squeeze back into the almost sanitarily clean bathroom. Chromed faucet handles glittered. The ceramic tiles gleamed. Admirable.
Except for what was in the tub.
“Let’s go into the bedroom,” Quinn said.
Fedderman followed. “We’ll look for clues where it’s less crowded and the light’s better.”
Quinn was glad Fedderman was recovering his cop’s sense of humor that helped to keep him sane. Like Nift, maybe, only without the mean streak.
Fedderman knew why Quinn wanted to examine the bedroom—to get a better sense of Ida Ingrahm, who she was before she became victim number three.
The bedroom was neatly arranged, the bed still made. The room didn’t seem to have been touched by the crime except for the odor. Their bed had been against the other wall when Quinn and Pearl had slept here. He tried not to think about that.
Ida Ingrahm seemed to have fit the mold of thousands, maybe millions, of single women in New York. On her dresser was the framed family photo, a man and woman and two teenage girls, posed smiling in front of a lake ringed with trees that looked about to surrender their leaves to autumn. The females in the photo looked quite a bit alike. Quinn figured he was looking at Mom, Dad, Sis, and the future murder victim. There was nothing in the smiling faces of either of the daughters that portended an early, violent death.
Ida’s closet held an assortment of mix-and-match black clothing, a rack of shoes. Near the foot of the bed was a small TV on a white wicker stand. There was a bookshelf that held mostly self-help and diet books, a few paperback mysteries. On the lamp table next to the bed, a pair of glasses was fo
lded atop a Stuart Kaminsky novel. Pearl used to read Kaminsky’s series about a cop named Lieberman, and Quinn wondered if she’d left behind the book when she moved out. It bothered him that the dead woman had read the same book as Pearl, maybe even turning down page corners the way Pearl did to keep her place. He went to the glasses and, careful not to touch anywhere that might obscure prints, examined the lenses. Single power and weak. They looked like drugstore reading glasses.
“Lots of shoes,” Fedderman said behind Quinn, still staring into the closet.
“Lots of women have lots of shoes,” Quinn said, glancing over at him. When he turned back, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before because it was mostly hidden behind the lamp base. A cell phone.
Maybe with speed dial numbers, information, a log of recent numbers called or received. Maybe with a recorder, a calculator, a digital camera with a stored photo of the killer. Well, who knew, these days? It looked like an ordinary cell phone, but who could tell? Quinn couldn’t keep up with technology.
He left the bedroom and went halfway down the hall, then summoned one of the techs, a bright looking young guy with dark-rimmed glasses and a bow tie. Quinn had always thought that men who wore bow ties were a separate breed, understood only by themselves. Probably had a secret handshake.
Like Quinn and Fedderman, the bow-tied tech was wearing white evidence gloves. Unlike Quinn and Fedderman, he was under thirty and would understand cell phone technology.
“Do what you want with this so we can check out any information stored,” Quinn said, pointing to the phone.
The tech nudged the phone with a gloved fingertip, then began dusting for prints.
After a few seconds, he looked up at Quinn, smiling. “Something you should know about this phone, sir.”
Quinn liked it when a tech called him “sir.” Very rare. He put it down to youth. “There something different about it?”
“Yeah.”
What happened to “sir”?
The tech carefully lifted the phone between thumb and middle finger, then lightly squeezed. It began to buzz.