by John Lutz
“One mistake…” Ida Altmont said thoughtfully. She seemed intrigued by the idea. More eyelash work. “Might I interest you in some tea or milk and cake?” she asked. Pearl could see, with some irritation, that the woman was entirely smitten with Quinn.
“Next time perhaps,” he said. “It would be my great pleasure.”
He actually gave a little bow, somehow managing not to look foolish. Pearl had to admire how he so skillfully disguised his cynicism. It was something she’d have to work on.
Since Quinn, finding his own way out, had turned away from her, Ida Altmont went to the door of the room where Edgemore was safely locked away, instead of the door to the hall.
As Pearl and Quinn were leaving, Edgemore emitted a low growl, then began yapping frantically and charged at Pearl. His teeth were exposed to the gums. The nails on his tiny paws scratched the polished hardwood floor, seeking traction.
Pearl moved quickly out into the hall, almost bumping into Quinn, and shut the door behind her. On the other side of the door, Edgemore continued to bark. They could hear his nails scraping on the door.
“What the hell’s that dog got against me?” Pearl asked.
“Dogs know people,” Quinn said.
“They know more than some people.”
“Don’t be discouraged,” Quinn said. “Perpetrators always make a mistake.”
And sure enough, this one had made a mistake.
But not one Pearl was going to like.
45
The day got progressively hectic, making Quinn wonder if he was cursed.
When his desk phone jangled that afternoon, he was surprised to hear Renz’s voice. It was too early for the postmortem findings on Celandra Thorn.
“You’ll have to speak up, Harley,” Quinn said. Con Ed had begun tearing up the street right outside, and the intermittent clatter of a jackhammer punctuated everything said in the office. When the jackhammer wasn’t chattering, the muted shrill whine of a dental drill from Nothing but the Tooth made its way through the wall.
Pearl was at her desk, rereading witness statements about the Thorn murder. Fedderman was just coming in through the door, no doubt with additional statements. Quinn planned on the three of them sifting hay for the needle the next several hours.
But Renz wasn’t calling about autopsy reports.
“We have a print that might prove useful,” he said in a loud telephone voice. “Middle finger, right hand. A bloody fingerprint, no less.”
The jackhammer chattered. Quinn came hyperalert. One mistake… Maybe the Butcher had made his mistake, just as Quinn had described to Ida Altmont.
Might it really work that way?
“It’s the only print that doesn’t match any of the seven sets we’ve found and identified. An obsessive tech discovered it in the bathroom, beneath the front edge of the marble vanity top.” Renz gave a satisfied chuckle. “And it couldn’t be more clear.”
Amazing, Quinn thought. His mind flashed an image of the killer washing up after the murder. He’d removed his latex gloves, or one had torn, and he absently gripped the edge of the vanity while leaning forward studying himself in the mirror, looking for other bloodstains. The kind of small, casual action that could lead straight to hell.
But something was nagging Quinn. “Have you run the print?”
“We’re doing that now. I’ll fax an enlargement to you when I hang up. If the print’s in NCIC or any other data bank, we’ll have the name of our killer. He finally got careless. Sickos like him always do, eventually, and they get collared or go out in a blaze of glory. The needle or the gun.”
Still…
Quinn suddenly realized what was bothering him. “Harley, there’s no marble vanity in Celandra Thorn’s bathroom.”
“The bloody print wasn’t found there. It was found in Marilyn Nelson’s bathroom, and the blood was hers. Does it matter which murder this asshole gets nailed for?”
“Not if he gets nailed.” Quinn looked across his desk at Pearl and Fedderman, who were staring intently at him. His side of the conversation must have sounded pretty good. Quinn was aware of the fax machine gurgling and clucking over in the corner. Renz sending the fingerprint image even as he was talking on the phone. “Keep me informed, Harley. Once we ID him, he’s our meat.”
“And mine,” Renz said, no doubt keeping in mind the political ramifications of the killer’s arrest.
“I want the killer. You get the press conference.”
“That was pretty much the deal,” Renz said, and hung up.
Quinn replaced the receiver and related to Pearl and Fedderman what Renz had said, pausing whenever the jackhammer blasted off on a riff. Dust was somehow filtering into the building. The grit coated his teeth. He watched the other two detectives as he talked. He could almost feel the heightening of their senses, the increased voltage of their energy. At that moment they knew they were all in the right business, and in it together. If a clue dropped like a feather outside, they would all hear it.
Something primitive here? Hot on the scent? Hunting with the pack?
Whatever, it was a hell of a feeling. One worth living for.
“Asshole like that,” Fedderman said, “he’s bound to have a sheet somewhere. The print’ll be on file.”
Quinn knew it wasn’t a given that psychosexual killers probably had prior brushes with the law. They weren’t like burglars or confidence men; in fact, they tended to be closeted and law-abiding, if you didn’t count torture and murder. He didn’t mention this to Fedderman, who, after so much time retired, should enjoy the hunt.
“If he was ever fingerprinted anywhere,” Quinn said, “including the military, we’ll have him.”
Quinn picked up on a subtle change. Something wasn’t right. He wondered why Pearl suddenly didn’t seem as enthusiastic as Fedderman. She was seated back behind her desk, looking despondent. She sensed Quinn staring at her and glanced up to meet his eyes.
“What?” she said.
“You read my mind,” he told her. “That’s exactly what I was going to ask you.”
Fedderman walked over to stand near Quinn, adding his own curious and baleful stare.
Pearl knew the time had come when she had to reveal her relationship with Jeb Jones. If the bloody fingerprint was Jeb’s, he’d be arrested for the murder of Marilyn Nelson. And Pearl had been sleeping with him, even confiding to him about the investigation.
Was her luck with men still all bad? Had he been playing her for a fool?
She wanted to believe in Jeb, but now it wasn’t so easy. Her cynicism again. It could destroy a relationship, or catch a killer.
Jeb had spent time with Marilyn Nelson, but he claimed he was never actually inside her apartment (except for the brief interview on the sofa), so his prints shouldn’t be there, especially with her blood on them.
Pearl wondered, did she trust him enough to assume the print wasn’t his? That was the question, the kind of question that had destroyed most of her relationships.
Can I trust him enough?
She couldn’t answer right now. She didn’t have the clarity of mind. Couldn’t stop her thoughts from whirling. She did know that once she spoke up, be he guilty or innocent, her relationship with Jeb was finished.
Not yet, not yet.
“What are you two goons gaping at?” she asked angrily.
Quinn continued to stare for a moment, then busied himself with some papers on his desk. Fedderman turned away and walked over to the machine to get the fax. The image of a bloody fingerprint Pearl didn’t want to see.
An hour later, Renz called again. The print hadn’t triggered a match, not in the NYPD database, NCIC, VICAP, or the FBI’s all-encompassing IAFIS system. Apparently the killer had never been fingerprinted by the police, the military, or by the government for a civilian job.
They couldn’t match this print with any of the others in Marilyn Nelson’s apartment because the killer wore gloves, except perhaps for the one time when he was cleaning
up and got careless. All of the other usable prints in the apartment were obviously women’s or had been matched to Marilyn, a previous tenant, an electrical repairman, the super, and three of her neighbors.
So Jeb’s prints weren’t in the apartment because, just as he’d said, the only time he’d been inside was when he approached the door after her murder. The day Pearl had first questioned him. She was positive he’d never gotten past the living room sofa, and hadn’t touched anything other than upholstery material that wouldn’t hold a print.
Definitely he hadn’t been in the bathroom.
There’d been no need to fingerprint Jeb, so they hadn’t. He was a one-time visitor, after Marilyn’s death, who hadn’t gotten more than ten feet inside the door.
Pearl was sure of that.
She looked at the disappointed expressions of Quinn and Fedderman, her fellow cops.
Sure or not, she owed them something. Owed it to herself.
When they weren’t paying attention to her, she picked up her phone and called Ella Oaklie’s work number.
When Ella came to the phone, Pearl identified herself and said, “The evening you saw the man who resembled Jeb Jones with Marilyn, are you sure the two of them were coming out of her apartment?”
“Positive,” Ella said. “I think they’d just come down the steps to the sidewalk.”
Pearl knew how the minds of witnesses could play tricks. “You think? Is it possible they’d just met outside the building?”
“No. Marilyn even told me they were on their way out for drinks and invited me along.”
“Maybe she was simply being polite?”
“Well, I suppose that’s possible.”
Possible. Dangerous word.
“Is it possible the person you saw actually was the same man I was with in the Pepper Tree?”
“Sure. I told you to begin with I thought it was him. You didn’t seem to want to believe me.”
Pearl cringed when she heard that. She knew Ella was right; she hadn’t wanted to believe. She still didn’t want to believe.
She thanked Ella Oaklie and hung up the phone. Pearl knew the answer to her question was no, she didn’t trust Jeb enough.
Maybe she couldn’t trust anyone enough, and maybe that was her problem. But there it was.
She decided she had no choice but to reveal her and Jeb’s relationship before the bloody print might be matched to his.
The jackhammer chattered and she waited for silence. She cleared her throat.
“There is someone we should try to match with that print,” she said.
Quinn and Fedderman looked over at her as if they hadn’t understood.
She repeated what she’d said, and then said so much more.
46
Quinn was obviously angry. When Pearl was finished talking, he stood up and started pacing around, not looking at her, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw muscles were flexing.
Pearl and Fedderman sat watching him. The office was warmer than usual, and humid, and the grit from the construction or destruction outside hung in the air. The jackhammer had let up, and the only sound in the office was the faint shrillness of the dental drill on the other side of the wall.
“Should we pick up this Jeb Jones character and print him?” Fedderman asked.
Quinn stopped pacing and faced them. His features were now calm and thoughtful. If he was going to be furious with Pearl, it could wait. His mind was on his prey. “I don’t want to move on the basis of one print,” he said. “Let’s tail him, find out more about him.”
“Give him some line,” Fedderman said, “while we set the hook deeper.” He made a sudden jerking motion with both hands wrapped around an imaginary rod. Showing some signs of all that Florida retirement fishing.
“You latch on to him first, Feds,” Quinn said, spoiling the fish metaphor. “Pearl and I will work the computers to see if Jones’s prints are in any of the minor databases around the country, then one of us will spell you. Check in every few hours, let us know what’s he’s up to.” There was, other than the large, official websites that afforded the best possibilities, another layer of smaller, lesser-known sites. There were social services, corporate employee sites, backwater police or sheriff’s departments, that hadn’t merged their files with larger databases. Combing through them was the computer age equivalent of what used to be known as police legwork. It seldom paid off, but often enough that it had to be done. The only way to do it was relentlessly.
“I don’t think searching any more databases will do much good,” Fedderman said. “A name like Jones.”
Fedderman had a point. They’d wasted a lot of time following up on Jones computer hits that had led nowhere productive. There were plenty of people who simply had never been fingerprinted. Jeb Jones was probably one of them. But considering the time they’d put in, a little more wouldn’t hurt. Learning everything possible about Jeb Jones before he was picked up could be essential.
Renz called again and told Quinn the blood on the fingerprint had tested A-positive, same as the victim’s, so there was no reason get any hopes up over DNA evidence. Still, if the killer and victim had the same blood type, and it was a common type…
But Quinn doubted if that line of inquiry would lead anywhere. In order to leave a sample of his own blood, the Butcher would have had to cut himself, and he was a killer ever so careful. The fingerprint was almost certainly made with the blood of the victim.
Quinn fixed narrowed eyes on Pearl. “Did he ever act like Jeb Jones was an alias?”
Pearl was losing her fear and getting angry now, at herself mostly, and also at Jeb. But anyone would do to take it out on.
Out of love, back in the real world, back in the shit…
Maybe she should do as her mother suggested and meet Mrs. Kahn‘s eminently eligible nephew. What was the geek’s name…Milton?
“Pearl?”
“When we were having sex and I came and said ‘Oh, Jeb!’ he didn’t seem to think I was talking to somebody else.”
Quinn stared deadpan at her. Behind her, Fedderman was trying not to laugh.
Quinn, still with a straight face, said, “Get out, Feds.”
Fedderman picked up his suit coat from where it was draped over the back of his chair and went to the door. He looked back at Pearl. “The Waverton Hotel. You remember the room number?”
“You can figure it out,” Pearl said. “You’re a detective.”
Fedderman shook his head with mock sadness. “You actually got off in a hotel room with a guy named Jones.”
“Get out, Feds,” Quinn said again, before Pearl could answer or reach her gun.
Fedderman managed not to grin until he was out the door.
“Asshole!” Pearl said.
Quinn was already at his computer, scanning the fingerprint image into their system so they could search for matches in unlikely places. He started with remote and small-town police departments that hadn’t merged their files with national data bases.
The NYPD tech whiz had set them up for something like this so they could work separately on their computers through different connections. Quinn said he’d take the eastern half of the country, and Pearl should take from the Mississippi west.
Sure, that covers only a couple of time zones.
She rolled her chair closer to her desk and began the Internet search. It wasn’t likely to produce results, but staying busy was the best thing for her.
After three hours they’d gotten nowhere. If Pearl’s stomach hadn’t been so knotted, she would have been hungry.
She sat back, pinched the bridge of her nose, and bowed her head.
“Want to break for lunch?” Quinn asked. He still didn’t seem angry.
Pearl didn’t look up. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
She was hoping he’d reassure her, tell her it was all right, that she hadn’t known Jeb Jones would become a suspect, that who she slept with was personal and her own business
What he said was,
“It’s done. We go from here.”
“That’s goddamned obvious,” Pearl said.
“Then let’s do it. I’ll buy you a pizza.”
She knew that was all she was going to get from Quinn for now. She needed loving, holding, comforting, forgiveness. She’d get pizza.
When they were settled in with pepperoni pizza slices and beer at D’Joes, a tiny restaurant down the street, they made awkward small talk and then lapsed into silence.
Until Quinn took a long pull of beer, licked foam from his upper lip, and said, “Has it occurred to you that if Jeb Jones is the Butcher he might have you in mind for one of his victims?”
Of course it had occurred to Pearl, but she’d been keeping it at a distance. Now she felt her heart turn cold. Her throat tightened and she could only shake her head no, lying to Quinn. Some things were none of his damned business.
“You’re a brunette he obviously finds attractive. Why not you as the subject of one of his puzzle notes? Why not you—”
“Enough, Quinn!” She took a vicious bite of pizza and chewed hard.
“Okay, but give it some thought.”
Pearl knew what he was thinking. She could be used as bait. Would she be willing?
Would she?
But he never actually suggested it.
The thing was, even though she knew Jeb could be a killer, a part of her still wouldn’t accept it. Maybe Quinn understood that, or at least part of it.
When they returned to the office it was still too warm, but mercifully quiet. Con Ed had broken off their work out in the street, maybe for lunch. Quinn and Pearl settled in at their computers to resume their Internet search. Pearl did give what Quinn had said some thought.
She phoned his daughter, who’d just reported for work at the Hungry U.
Keeping her voice low so Quinn wouldn’t overhear, she said, “Lauri, I have a question about Jeb Jones, my friend you met at the Pepper Tree. Remember him?”
“Mr. Hot,” Lauri said.