by John Lutz
Quinn was just about to tell the tech to let him answer the phone, when the buzzing stopped.
“It’s not a phone, sir. Only looks like one. It’s a vibrator.”
“That’s to let you know you got a call when you don’t want people to hear it ring,” Fedderman said.
“It’s not a phone. Really, it’s a vibrator.”
“Huh?” Fedderman said, finally getting it, interested.
The kid pushed another button and the buzzing got louder. The little cell phone became a blur.
“Whoa!” Fedderman said.
Quinn didn’t know what to say.
“It’s not the kind of vibrator you’d use on your sore back,” the tech said. He was still smiling, but looking thoughtful. “I guess it’s so women can carry it around, maybe use it when they travel, and it won’t draw attention and embarrass them if security or customs root through their luggage.”
“What a great idea,” Fedderman said.
The tech turned off the mock phone and placed it back down exactly in its original position. “I think I know whose prints’ll be all over this for everyone to see.”
“She’s beyond embarrassment,” Quinn said.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” demanded a woman’s voice.
Startled, all three men turned to look.
Pearl.
“Who’s guarding the bank?” Fedderman asked, after Pearl had been filled in and had looked around the apartment. They were outside on West Eighty-second, standing in the shade near the building’s concrete stoop.
“Someone else,” Pearl said. “I’m on a leave of absence.”
Quinn looked closely at her. She was simply Pearl. Compact, buxom, and beautiful. She had on her usual deep red lipstick today, so stark against her pale complexion that her generous mouth seemed to have been painted on by some manic, inspired artist. With her large dark eyes, perfect white teeth, black hair, she was so vivid she often reminded Quinn of some kind of cartoon character. But she was real. Quinn knew she was real.
“Renz call you?” he asked.
“Even before he called you.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in this case.”
“This sick asshole killed somebody in my old apartment. Somebody who might just as easily have been me. That makes it personal.”
“Also makes it coincidental,” Fedderman said.
“Doesn’t it, though?” Pearl said.
A brisk summer breeze kicked up and moved a crumpled white takeout bag along the sidewalk. Quinn stood his ground, merely lifting a foot to let the bag pass and continue along the pavement.
“We need you, Pearl,” Fedderman said.
She smiled. “Thanks, Feds.”
“You one of us again, Pearl?” Quinn asked.
“The smart one,” she said.
They spent the next several hours talking to Ida’s neighbors, some of whom remembered Pearl. No one had seen or heard anything unusual. Those who knew Ida Ingrahm said she was quiet, and worked as some kind of artist or graphic designer at a company in midtown. She rode the subway back and forth to work.
All the detective team’s time and effort left them right back where they’d started hours ago, standing on the sidewalk just outside the building. Ida Ingrahm’s remains had long since been removed, and the crime scene unit had pulled out. A uniform remained in the hall outside the apartment, with its door yellow-taped, and would be relieved in a few hours by another cop who would remain there all night. Sometimes criminals really did return to the scene of the crime. Especially if they forgot something incriminating.
Quinn unwrapped a Cuban cigar and lit it. The butcher shop stench had stayed with him and become taste. The acrid scent of burning tobacco helped. A few people walking past on the sidewalk glared at him as he exhaled a large puff of smoke. So arrest me. Neither Pearl nor Fedderman complained; they’d been upstairs like Quinn. It seemed to them that the entire building smelled like a slaughterhouse, but Ida’s neighbors didn’t seem to notice. Maybe the death stench had grown on them slowly, and they became accustomed to it.
Or maybe it was mental. The other tenants hadn’t been in Ida’s apartment to bid her farewell.
Ida nude. A three-dimensional Picasso. In pieces like a disconnected puzzle doll, chalk white and eerily pure in her drained bathtub.
Ida clean.
Her sins washed away?
Quinn knew better, but he wished for Ida that it worked that way. He felt an overbearing sadness not only for her but for himself and the entire human race.
The things we do to each other…
“You cab over here?” he asked Pearl.
Pearl nodded. Did a thing with her lips so she could take in some secondhand smoke.
“That’s our unmarked across the street,” Quinn said.
“I know,” Pearl said. “It’s the only car that looks like it should be wearing a fedora.”
“Since you’re on the case, come with us back to the office and we’ll bring you up to speed.”
“We have an office?”
“Such as it is,” Fedderman said. “And not far from here.”
“Has it got a coffee machine?”
“No.”
“Then it isn’t an office.”
“Let’s move,” Quinn said, already starting to cross the street.
“Vroom! Vroom!” Pearl said behind him.
Smart-mouthing me already, Quinn thought. Hiding behind her wisecracks where no one could touch her soft spots.
Well, who doesn’t? At least sometimes?
A car pulled out of a parking space and had to brake hard to keep from hitting the three of them. The driver leaned on the horn. Pearl made an obscene gesture, otherwise ignoring the man.
Quinn thought this wasn’t going to be easy.
So why, whenever he looked at Pearl, did he feel like smiling?
7
The office: three gray steel desks (as if Renz had known Pearl would be joining them); four chairs; a file cabinet; and a wooden table with a lamp, computer, and printer on it. The printer was the kind that copied and faxed and scanned and did who knew what-all that Quinn would probably never figure out. The table was directly over one of the outcroppings of wire on the floor, everything mysteriously connected to it via another tangle of wire emanating from computer and printer.
“This thing work?” Pearl asked, walking over to the computer. It was an old Hewlett-Packard, gigantic.
Quinn pulled a cord that opened some blinds, letting natural light in to soften the fluorescent glare. “Yeah. And some computer whiz from the NYPD’s gonna set us up with more of them. Update our system. We’re coded into the NYPD and various data banks. Codes and passwords are on a piece of paper under the lamp base.”
Pearl grinned, the brightest thing in the gloomy office. “Everybody hides their passwords under the lamp base. First place burglars and identity thieves look.”
“Nobody’s gonna break in here,” Fedderman said. “And far as I’m concerned, somebody else is welcome to my identity.”
Quinn settled into the chair behind his desk and rocked slightly back and forth. The chair squeaked. The other two chairs at the desks were identical—cheap black vinyl swivel chairs on rollers. The fourth chair was straight-backed and wooden, presumably for an eventual suspect.
Pearl and Fedderman rolled the other two chairs up close and sat down. Quinn’s desk was strategically placed directly beneath one of the fluorescent fixtures, so there was plenty of light even if it was ghastly. He slid open one of the rattling steel drawers and handed Pearl the murder books on Janice Queen and Lois Ullman.
“You can look them over now, if you want,” he said, “then take them home and study them.”
Pearl rested the files on her lap, and opened the top one. Quinn watched her scan each piece of paper or photograph inside, then move on and repeat the process. A tune from Phantom of the Opera was seeping over from the Nothing but the Tooth side of the building. Music to fil
l molars by? That, the hum and swish of traffic outside, and Pearl leafing through the files, were the only sounds for a long time.
Then Fedderman said, “‘Music of the Night.’”
Pearl, not looking up, said, “Uh-huh.”
Along with a ballpoint pen and the glass ashtray with BILTMORE HOTEL on it, was a telephone on Quinn’s desk. It wasn’t a rotary, but it was old and black with a base and receiver.
And it was ringing.
Quinn lifted the receiver and pressed it to his ear.
The caller was Nift, with a more detailed autopsy report.
“Death by drowning,” he said. “Probably carved up by the same cutting instruments used on the previous victims. Looks like a power saw was used on the larger bones and tougher ligaments. Tightly serrated blade, like an electric jigsaw or maybe a circular. Her family should be glad she was dead at the time.”
“A portable saw?”
“Could’ve been a portable. It’d almost have to be, wouldn’t it, not to make too much noise? And they make them powerful these days.”
“That’s how we figure it,” Quinn said.
“No signs of sexual activity of any kind around the genitals or on any of the body parts. No traces of semen anywhere at the scene. A residue of adhesive on ankles and arms, and around the mouth, from when the victim was taped in such a way that she wouldn’t have been able to move anything but fingers and toes. In short, Ida Ingrahm died just like the first two victims. And she was a brunette, like the first two. If there was any doubt before that you’re on the trail of a serial killer, there shouldn’t be now. The beautiful if disassembled Ida was number three.”
“You think it coulda been a doctor or a butcher? The way the work was done and he cleaned up after himself?”
“Coulda been almost anyone,” Nift said. “It only took rudimentary knowledge, maybe gained from animals. Coulda been a fastidious janitor.”
Quinn didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“Anything else I can help you with while I’m on the phone?” Nift asked.
“You called me,” Quinn said. “Most of the time medical examiners wait for the detectives to call.”
“I find this killer interesting,” Nift said. “You know me, how I like to play cop. Also, I thought I should call and let you know there’s a journalist from City Beat hot on this story. Woman named Cindy Sellers. She’s a hard charger, and serial killers make for big news. These murders take ‘if it bleeds it leads’ to an extreme.”
“I never heard of City Beat.”
“It’s fairly new, not much circulation yet. But you know the way it works: One wolf gets the scent, then the whole pack’s on the hunt.”
Quinn knew. He thanked Nift, then hung up and relayed the information to Fedderman and Pearl.
“No surprise there,” Pearl said. She leaned forward and placed the murder files on the desk, then rolled back a few feet in her chair so her gaze could take in both Quinn and Fedderman. “But there is something.”
Quinn waited. “No dramatic pauses, Pearl. Please.”
“I’m not being theatrical,” she said. “I’m just thinking, trying to decide if it’s plausible.”
“Let us decide along with you,” Fedderman said.
Pearl looked at Quinn. “I think the killer chose you as his opponent.”
“That might be plausible,” Quinn said, “except Renz did the choosing.”
Pearl kept him trapped with her dark eyes, wouldn’t let him go. “The last victim, Ida, was killed in my apartment. You think that’s some wild coincidence?”
Quinn had to answer honestly. “No. But that doesn’t necessarily lead me to your conclusion.”
“It wouldn’t me, either,” Pearl said, “except for the victims’ last initials, in the order of their deaths: Janice Queen, Lois Ullman, Ida Ingrahm.”
“Q, U, I,” Fedderman said, staring at Quinn. “Almost spells—”
“It does,” Quinn said, standing up from behind the desk. He started to pace, but tripped over one of the wiring-clump mushrooms growing on the floor and almost fell.
“The next victim’s name will start with an N,” Pearl said.
“She’s right,” Fedderman said.
Quinn didn’t have to be told. Pearl wasn’t always right, but almost always.
She was almost surely right this time: The killer was choosing victims whose last initials spelled out Quinn’s name.
“Think we oughta tell the media?” Fedderman asked. “Be our asses if we don’t.”
“He’s got a point,” Pearl said. “Women with N surnames have a right to know.”
Quinn picked up the phone again.
“Who you calling?” Fedderman asked.
“Renz. Then Nift. He knows a journalist who’s already been on this, a woman named Cindy Sellers, with City Beat.”
“Never heard of her or it,” Fedderman said.
“You will after they scoop this story,” Quinn said.
As he was pecking out Renz’s number with his forefinger, Pearl got up from her chair and stood with her hands on her hips, looking around.
“We gotta get a coffee machine.”
Pearl arrived at the office early the next morning with a sack containing a bag of gourmet ground Columbian beans, a pack of filters, and a brand-new Mr. Coffee that was still in the box.
Under her other arm were the murder files, which she’d taken home for a closer read last night.
She placed the Mr. Coffee on the computer table, the beans and filter next to it.
The files she laid on Quinn’s desk. Ida Ingrahm’s was on top.
“I wish you’d told me yesterday about that vibrator phone,” Pearl said.
Quinn and Fedderman looked at each other. Fedderman, slumped in a chair in front of the desk, said, “Pearl, Pearl.”
“I don’t have one,” she said, not blushing, “but I happen to know where they’re sold. A little shop in the Village. Intimate Items.”
“How would you know that, Pearl?” Fedderman asked.
“I shop there sometimes, asshole. The place isn’t as risqué as you might think. It’s erotica that’s mostly for women.”
“Ah,” Fedderman said, “no whips and chains.”
“Well, some. But mostly stuff like those Dial In phones.”
“Dial In?” Quinn asked.
“That’s the brand name, even though they’re not really phones and have a fake keypad. I haven’t seen them anywhere but in that shop. We can check and see if they have a record of Ida buying one there, or maybe they’ll recognize her photo.”
“How would that help us?” Fedderman asked.
“She might not have been alone when she bought her phone.”
Quinn tried not to smile. Pearl a step ahead of Fedderman. Old and familiar patterns taking form. They were again becoming a team.
“Drop Feds and me off at Ida Ingrahm’s apartment,” Quinn said, “and we’ll reinterview some of her neighbors, see if anybody’s memory can be jogged. Then you drive the unmarked down to…what’s it?”
“Intimate Items,” Fedderman reminded him.
“Yeah. Talk to the clerk, or whoever.” He handed her a morgue photo of Ida Ingrahm. “Nift faxed this here this morning.”
“It’s a head shot,” Fedderman said.
Pearl looked at him in disgust. “Jesus, Feds.” Her expression was unchanging as she glanced at the photo. She reached for the murder files she’d laid on the desk. “I’ll take photos of the other victims, too. Just in case.”
“No coffee this morning?” Fedderman asked, looking over at the packages Pearl had piled on the computer table.
“No time,” Pearl said. “You guys can make some tomorrow.”
Quinn stood up from behind his desk.
“I’ll drive,” Pearl said, “since I’ll be going on down to the Village.”
“Seat’s all the way back,” Quinn said, “so I might as well drive to the apartment.” So we get there alive.
He and Fedderman knew how Pearl drove—as if she’d learned by watching The French Connection.
Fedderman glanced over at Quinn, smiling slightly, but like Quinn, he held his silence.
Familiar patterns.
8
On the drive to Ida Ingrahm’s apartment, Fedderman tried to talk Quinn into sending him along with Pearl to follow up on the cell phone lead. Quinn knew this would be more for Fedderman’s amusement than anything else, so he’d nixed it and told Pearl to take the unmarked and return to pick them up later. So here Pearl was alone, without having to cope with Fedderman and vibrator cell phones simultaneously. Pearl considered it a gift.
Intimate Items was a block off Broadway, and wasn’t the kind of blatant sex shop its name might suggest. The merchandise was varied but mostly ran toward sexy lingerie, massage potions, aphrodisiac incense, romantic CDs, and other mood makers. Pearl thought the mannequin in Intimate Items’ display window was dressed more for a romantic night at the Hilton than a session at an S&M club. Satin rather than leather, lace rather than Velcro. Make the mannequin’s see-through gown more opaque, her panties bikini instead of thong, and she might fit right in flaunting her stuff in the windows of midtown department stores.
Opening and closing the door set off a soft chime somewhere in the shop. A hidden sachet made the place smell faintly of cinnamon. The design and decor were those of an upscale boutique, racks of clothes down one side, harder merchandise and a sales counter on the other. Changing rooms and full-length triple mirrors up on a low, carpeted podium were at the far end. Vibrators were kept out of sight beneath the counter. The shop’s customers were almost exclusively women.
At the moment, Pearl was the only customer.
A young, primly dressed woman in a high-necked white blouse, with a sweet face that looked swollen from too much sleep, smiled puffily at her from behind the glass counter.
“May I help you?”
“Cell phone vibrators,” Pearl said.
The woman, maybe still in her twenties, appeared faintly surprised by Pearl’s request. Then the puffy smile widened, doing something to her eyes and making her appear Asian. “Dial Ins?”