by John Lutz
That seemed to be okay with Greeve. There was no way for her to know for sure if he’d been deliberately tailing her. Certainly no way to prove it. He wasn’t about to let this pint-sized pit bull take charge here.
He smiled and motioned toward the building. “So who lives in there?”
“A friend.”
“Jill Clark?”
Pearl understood Greeve was letting her know that he’d followed her before, and that she was being observed. Trying to make her lose her temper so he could get on top in the conversation.
She didn’t bite. “Yes. Jill’s an old friend. If she’s home, you can meet her.” Letting Greeve know Jill wasn’t home, or she wouldn’t have extended the invitation.
He gave her his undertaker’s smile—someday you’ll be mine—and made a motion as if tipping his hat. “Thanks anyway. Maybe some other time.”
“I don’t want to catch you following me again,” Pearl said.
“You won’t.”
He walked away without saying good-bye.
Pearl went back inside the building and became Jewel. She rode the elevator up to the eighth floor and her half-assed, barely habitable apartment.
The first thing she wanted to do was call Quinn, but almost as soon as she’d shut the door her cell phone began to buzz and vibrate in her pocket.
She took it out, flipped it open, and saw the phone number of Golden Sunset. Her mother again.
She tossed the phone, unanswered, onto the cot and then crossed the room to the landline phone.
Picked up the receiver.
Lowered it back in its cradle.
If Greeve, and by extension Wes Nobbler, knew that Jill Clark lived in the building, they might also know Pearl was staying there as Jewel. The line to this apartment might be tapped.
Probably not, but maybe.
Pearl returned to the cell phone on the cot.
It was wedged between the blankets and had stopped vibrating.
Quickly she snatched it up and pecked out Quinn’s number. If her mother called again, she’d get a busy signal.
Maybe she’d even think Pearl was busy.
Ruth stopped believing anything they told her as the big Chrysler slowly pulled in beneath the steel overhead door that was still rumbling open above them, like thunder portending a storm.
As the car braked to an abrupt stop, the lean but muscular arm of the woman in the backseat snaked around Ruth’s neck, and Vlad leaned over and held her arms pinned to her sides. Behind the car, the door was already clanking and rattling closed. The outside light faded with its descent.
The arm around Ruth’s neck tightened, making her attempted scream a strangled screech no louder than the cawing of a crow. As Ruth fought for breath, she thought she could hear and feel the cartilage in her throat cracking.
There was an increasing pressure in her head, as if her skull were full of expanding gas, and the dimness of wherever they were became total blackness as suddenly as if someone had yanked down a shade.
Ruth gained consciousness before she opened her eyes.
Think!
She realized she was breathing through her nose. Her lips felt bruised. She explored with the tip of her tongue, wedging it between her lips with effort. Something tacky, some kind of tape, had been fastened across her mouth. She tried to move her hands, but could only wriggle her fingers. Her arms were bent behind her back, her forearms tightly taped together and immovable. Tight seemed to be the operative word.
There was the certain knowledge without memory that time had passed, and she’d missed it.
Think!
Memory rushed in. Her mind quickly put together the pieces of what had happened since she’d gotten in the big dark car.
Ruth began to panic but quickly brought herself under control. She might be a costume designer now, but there was a time when she’d been a soldier, when she’d learned to organize and do difficult things right. She’d served in the U.S. Army in Kuwait, as a sergeant in a supply depot. She hadn’t seen action but she might have, and now her training took over. It was as if she were five years younger, thinking as she had back then. This was a tough spot; that was for damned sure. But she kept her head.
Don’t panic. Assess your situation. Plan.
Here was the situation: Supply Sergeant Ruth Malpass was lying nude on her stomach on a flat metal surface, her feet off the ground. Has to be the car’s hood. It was still warm, bare flesh against heated, ticking steel. Legs not bound. I can still kick.
Plan!
While you’re planning, act!
But when she attempted to kick, she realized how widely her legs were parted. Her calves and feet flailed frantically, contacting nothing but air. She couldn’t put her legs together.
She stopped kicking and moved her legs slightly in a soft pincers motion to feel the obstruction. Someone was standing between her thighs, up close to her crotch so her knees were far apart.
She lay still then with her eyes closed, thinking her leg movement might be taken as automatic reaction to being bound and gagged. Her captors might assume she was still unconscious.
“She’s awake,” a man’s voice said immediately. Vlad.
Bastard Vlad.
There was no sense in playing possum now. They knew she’d regained consciousness.
Ruth opened her eyes.
She was in a basement garage of some sort. As soon as she saw it, she could smell it, the faint scent of oil and gasoline. She had a headache and was squinting. She couldn’t see the source of the light, but it was harsh and shone from above, probably from bare fixtures. There were stark shadows along the walls.
Don’t give up! Plan!
Her neck was twisted and she was being held fast against the car so her left cheek was splayed against the hood. She saw the woman who’d been in the car—Vlad’s sister, Ivana—walk around the hood of the car. Heard something that might be soft plastic rustling beneath her feet with each step.
Something on the floor. Covering it.
Supply Sergeant Malpass could find nothing there that might be used to her advantage. But she could guess the waterproof plastic sheet’s purpose. Her captors wanted to contain any mess they might make.
Ivana was nude, her breasts small and pointed, her ribs prominent. Her black hair was still combed severely back into a tight bun. Her dark eyes still burned. She was holding something with both hands. A mop? A broom? She reminded Ruth of a witch—the narrow, hard features; the black hair and intense eyes; the broom. An evil witch.
She raised the broomstick and Ruth saw that she was wearing white rubber gloves. When she held the broomstick still higher, Ruth saw that it wasn’t as long as she’d assumed. It might have once been attached to a broom, but it had been sawed off well above the bristles. It was about three feet long, and sharpened to a fine point.
“I wanted you to see this,” the woman said, grinning as she had when Ruth first saw her in the car.
Ruth felt the bulk of the figure between her legs move in tighter, felt strong hands on her knees, the thumbs digging into the soft, sensitive flesh behind them, pressing harder and painfully, causing her to go limp as he forced her thighs further and further apart. Then her left leg was pinned tight against the car by the heavy weight of a body, and the powerful hand released its unnecessary grip on that knee.
The witch moved back around the car, out of sight behind Ruth, and Ruth felt more hands on the backs of her legs, up high, higher, forcing her buttocks apart.
“Are you still with us, sweetheart?” the witch who called herself Ivana asked.
“She’s more conscious than she’s ever been,” Vlad said calmly.
“We’ll do this very slowly,” the witch said.
Ruth made a final, frantic, and futile effort to break free. Vlad laughed, bearing his weight down on her hard so she grunted in pain and stopped struggling.
She knew now that all the planning in the world wouldn’t change a thing. She surrendered entirely. All she want
ed now was for this to please be over. It was the end of plans. Everything ended sometime. Everything. This must end soon.
It must!
She screamed over and over soundlessly into the thick layers of duct tape, praying for unconsciousness and oblivion, a refuge from an agony she’d have thought impossible. It was there, almost within reach. She could sense it. A vast blackness without pain or dread knowledge.
“I brought smelling salts,” she heard the witch say in a faraway voice.
“You plan for everything,” her brother said.
46
“It happened two days ago,” Linda said. “That’s about as close to a time of death as we’re going to get.”
They were in Quinn’s bed, sated by good food, good wine, and good sex. Quinn was lying on his back looking up at Linda, who was sitting propped on her pillow, which she’d wedged against the headboard. He knew she’d deliberately waited before telling him this. He understood and was glad, because he thought he knew where it was going and it figured to make him mad as hell.
Linda had just told him about a woman found dead in a landfill outside Newark, New Jersey. Found pretty much by luck, actually, because a bulldozer operator happened to notice a human foot protruding from the dozer’s scoop as he was about to drop a load into a valley of varied trash that would soon be filled over with earth.
“Let me guess,” Quinn said. “Wes Nobbler got this from the Newark police and is keeping it secret for now.”
“Good guess. Nift hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, either. But they’ll both have to soon, even though their position is that the dead woman’s simply another homicide victim and has nothing to do with the Torso Murders.”
“If she was found in Newark, how come we have her body here in New York?” Quinn asked.
“Nift and Nobbler pushed hard, told Newark there’s a possible tie-in with the Torso Murders.”
“And Newark’s keeping this quiet.”
“For now. Nobody wants to screw up catching this guy.”
“But that’s exactly what Nobbler and Nift are doing.”
“I agree. But that wouldn’t be their spin.”
Quinn felt his anger rise. “They’re going to get away with this shit?”
“For a while,” Linda said. She seemed to have given this a lot of thought and become resigned to it. “It seems there’s only one thing that links this one to the Torso Murders. She died of massive internal bleeding from injuries caused by the insertion of a sharpened broomstick stake.”
“Quite a link, I’d say.”
“Yes and no.”
“Renz isn’t aware of any of this?”
“He knows about the homicide victim. Not about the broomstick.” Linda reached over for her warm can of Diet Pepsi. It was leaving a damp ring on a magazine lying on the table on her side of the bed. She took a long swig, made a face, and put the can back down. “More importantly, he doesn’t know what they found out yesterday, that the broomstick’s the same kind used in most of the Torso Murders. Nift is keeping it from his media mistress, too, but he’ll have to tell her soon or she’ll know he stalled on it. He wouldn’t want to get Cindy Sellers pissed off at him.”
“For damned sure.” Quinn found himself again longing for a cigar. Here, in his own bedroom, smoking one wasn’t even remotely possible. Women and cigars. “No bullet wounds in this one?”
“None,” Linda said. “And she’s still got her head and all her limbs. There’s a positive ID, too. Ruth Margaret Malpass, address on the East Side. It didn’t take long for her to be missed. She was a costume designer working on an off-Broadway play, Major Mary, scheduled to open in the fall. Two assistants from work went by to check on her when she didn’t come in to her studio. Not like her, they said. They got the building super and her neighbors in on the hunt. When they and no one else were able to locate her, they called the police. It was too early for her to be officially missing, but her description matched the woman found in the landfill. She was positively identified almost immediately through her fingerprints. She’d been in the army, and they were on file through her military records.”
“So the sharpened broomstick is the only connection,” Quinn said.
“It was inserted anally, like in the latest Torso Murders.”
“Something else similar.” Quinn said.
“And it was inserted when she was alive,” Linda said. “Continuing on the killer’s new variation on his M.O.”
“God help us.” Quinn said.
“He didn’t help Ruth Malpass,” Linda said. “I hope He doesn’t help Nobbler and Nift.”
“Nobbler’s counting on all the dissimilarities to keep him out of trouble, but you’re right, he can’t play dumb much longer.”
“He’s got a defense,” Linda said. “There are no prints on the broomstick, the victim is whole and easily identifiable, and she lived quite a while in New York, even went to art school here, and seems to have had plenty of acquaintances and connections. Something else. I used my home computer to check out E-Bliss’s database. They don’t have a Ruth Malpass as a client.”
“How’d you get to their client list?” Quinn asked.
“Easy,” Linda said. “I joined it.”
Quinn didn’t wait until morning. It was eleven-fifteen. Renz might still be awake. If he wasn’t, Quinn would take care of that.
He phoned from where he was, in bed next to Linda. Though he was seething inside, he might as well be physically comfortable.
Renz picked up on the second ring, sounding angry.
Quinn began relating what Linda had just told him, but Renz interrupted.
“I already know,” he said. “It’s breaking news, all over TV, all over the damned country, but not in my office.”
“Nobbler must have gotten nervous and released it.”
“Or Cindy Sellers learned it somehow. I’ll bet City Beat already has a special edition all over town.”
“Was it on TV news about the broomstick stake?”
“Second from the lead. First thing I saw was one of Tom Coulter’s old mug shots, then a news anchor holding up a sawed-off broomstick explaining what happened to the poor Malpass woman. The news sees a tie-in because Coulter killed his victims in New Jersey. They think he might have come home.”
“Maybe he did,” Quinn said. “This could be a copycat killing.”
“That’s what Nobbler’s going to say, a copycat job.”
“It’s possible, considering what wasn’t done to the victim.”
“Don’t even go there,” Renz said. “I don’t want to think we might be responsible for Coulter figuring he was going down for the Torso Murders anyway and joining the party.”
“I doubt it was Coulter,” Quinn said. “He’s basically a professional burglar that killed in a panic.”
“Once they get a taste…”
“Yeah, sometimes. But I still don’t like Coulter for it. The media’s on him because we gave him to them. If we hadn’t, they wouldn’t even be mentioning his name.”
“That’s true,” Renz said, after a pause. “Meat to the wolves. Tell me something else reassuring, Quinn. Like what we do next.”
“You have a press conference as soon as possible,” Quinn said. “Emphasize the differences between the Malpass murder and the Torso Murders. Hint that we have good reason to believe Malpass wasn’t murdered by the same person, that we know something the public and the killer don’t know. Say we have no reason to believe there’s any connection.”
“Play dumber than Nobbler?”
“Dumber faster. You can do it. I know you can.”
“Hmm.”
“It takes a fox to play a rabbit,” Quinn said.
“Have I told you lately that I like your style?”
“It’s why you hired me.”
When Quinn clicked off his cell phone and laid it back on the nightstand, Linda sat up straighter in bed, drawing up her knees and hugging them. She’d been listening to Quinn’s end of the conversati
on.
“Do you think it’s possible this one is Coulter’s?” she asked.
“No. The balls to commit burglary and the balls to commit murder are two different things.”
“Four,” she said.
Quinn did half a sit-up and kissed one of her knees, then settled back down.
“Do you think Ruth Malpass’s death is connected to E-Bliss?” she asked.
“I don’t think there’s a chance in hell it isn’t the same killer,” he said.
Linda frowned, puzzled. “If Malpass wasn’t an E-Bliss client, why would the Torso Killer murder her? I don’t see anything to gain. She was outside the circle. Where’s the motive?”
“Think about it.”
Linda did, for about five seconds.
“My God!” she said.
“It started out strictly business,” Quinn said. “Now he enjoys it.”
47
Palmer Stone had the morning Post lying open on his desk. He’d invited Gloria to read it, but she told him she already had.
Stone had called her in for a morning confab. Gloria, alone, not with Victor. So here she was, wearing a white tunic, black slacks, and black boots, with her red silk scarf knotted loosely at her neck.
Stone was in his big swivel chair behind his desk, his head not moving as he stared at Gloria, but his body inching this way and that in the chair. Nervous.
“If you already read the paper,” he said in his usual modulated voice, “you know this dead woman they found in New Jersey was impaled with a sharpened broomstick.”
“Kinda shit happens,” Gloria said.
“I don’t like it happening right in our backyard. It makes me wonder.”
“The cops’ll probably wrap it up soon. The guy they suspect’s photo’s right there on the front page.” Gloria motioned with her head toward the newspaper on the desk. “They even have his name. Tom whatever.”
“Tom Coulter. He’s a house burglar who had a job go bad and killed some people.”
“In New Jersey. Where this woman’s body was found.”
“Awful close to New York.”
Gloria tilted her head and stared at Stone with an expression of disbelief.