by John Lutz
“Go ahead and smoke your cigar,” she said, surprising him again.
They were alone in the office. She’d come in to work late, as she often did, and he’d come in to reread and reorganize some of the case files. He’d been contemplating how nice it would be to light up a Cuban cigar and lean back in his desk chair. It would help him think. He hadn’t realized that, to Addie, his thoughts were so transparent.
She was smiling as she walked over to her desk. Hers and Fedderman’s.
She leaned back with her haunches against the desk and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. The way she stood made her skirt hike up so a lot of leg showed. Quinn had noticed before how small-breasted women sometimes tried to compensate by taking pride in and showing off their legs.
Sexist thought. He mentally slapped his wrist.
“You’ve been absently feeling your shirt’s left breast pocket,” she said, “as if there should be something in there. You’ve been licking your lips, and your eyes keep going to the drawer where you keep your cigars.”
“You notice a lot of detail,” he said.
She gave a small shrug, still smiling. “My job.”
“So what else have you noticed?”
“That this place is set up more like precinct squad room than an office.”
He glanced around and laughed. “I guess that’s natural. NYPD blue runs in my blood.”
“The past keeps its hold on us,” she said. “You’re the major partner and run the place, so maybe you should have your own private office.”
“I wouldn’t like that. I might lose touch.”
“You could at least smoke a cigar whenever you wanted one.”
“There is that.”
“And maybe if you broke more from the past it might help you to accept change.”
“You mean quarters, nickels?”
“You know what I mean. Treating a serious problem lightly is one way not to face up to it.”
He reached into his desk drawer and drew out a cigar. It was in a brushed aluminum tube that looked like some kind of ammunition. He closed the drawer but didn’t yet part the sections of the tube to get to the cigar. He regarded Addie, knowing where the conversation was going.
She didn’t seem to mind being regarded. She sat all the way up on the desk now, with the heels of her hands on its flat surface so her arms were propped straight and made her shoulders high and narrow. The skirt had worked even higher. One of her legs was rhythmically pumping so the back of her high-heeled shoe barely struck the desk and made a repetitive soft bumping sound in the quiet office.
“We’re talking about Pearl’s engagement,” he said.
She nodded, giving him that faint little smile that came mostly from her eyes. “That engagement is quite a change for Pearl, and for you.”
“Me?”
“Because of the way you obviously feel about Pearl.”
“I’ll cope,” Quinn said.
“It’d be easier with a cigar, I bet.”
She sat watching him, waiting, the leg still pumping.
He opened the aluminum tube and removed the cigar. Opened the desk drawer again and got out a cutter to snip off the tip. He didn’t have to rummage for matches. There was always a book of them next to where he kept his cigars.
The cutter that he used looked like a miniature guillotine. He worked it and was pleased to see that it was still sharp and efficient.
“Ouch!” Addie said. “What brand are you smoking? Marie Antoinettes?”
“It was a gift,” he said, holding the cutter up so she could see it clearly and then returning it to the drawer.
“From Pearl?”
“From another cop who liked cigars but had to quit them.”
Quinn held the cigar, but he didn’t light it.
“Pearl wouldn’t mind,” Addie said. She didn’t seem surprised by his hesitation.
Quinn smiled. “She might.”
“She couldn’t. She wouldn’t know.”
“She might.”
“It doesn’t make any difference now,” Addie said. Her tone was patient, as if she were speaking to a contrary child.
“It—”
“No,” Addie said calmly, “that’s over. It’d be better all around if you recognized that and accepted it.”
The psychologist in her coming out.
Quinn sat looking into her eyes, into her smile. A man might become used to that smile warming his world, might become addicted to it. His gaze slid down to her leg, still tapping out its rhythm, its message, softly, softly on the front panel of the desk.
He clamped the cigar between his teeth and struck the match. Touched flame to the tip of the cigar and got it burning smoothly with a couple of deep draws. He leaned back in his chair and relaxed.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Almost. I’ve learned to settle for that. It has to do with recognizing and accepting change.”
“There is no almost when it comes to satisfaction.” The smile again. So knowing and hinting of secrets. So invitingly erotic.
She stood up suddenly from the desk, tugged her skirt down, and smoothed it over her thighs. There was an air of embarrassment about her now, but it wasn’t real. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have broached the subject of you and Pearl. I know how it is—old loves, like old habits, die hard.”
“Sometimes they take us with them,” Quinn said.
She seemed alarmed. “This conversation is becoming morose.”
“I was talking about cigars,” he said.
“Thank God for that.”
“Addie, I would never—”
“I know. I didn’t really think you would.”
She gathered up some papers and stuffed them into a file folder, straightened and aligned whatever was on the desk top, then bent down and picked up her purse. She stayed bent over a few seconds longer than necessary. Quinn knew he was being worked, and she didn’t seem to mind if he knew.
She told him good night and walked to the door. She was obviously aware that he was watching her, but she wasn’t putting on any kind of show now. All business.
At the door she turned and said, “Maybe we’ll make some progress tomorrow.”
“On the case,” Quinn said.
“Sure. What else would I mean?”
When she was gone, some of the air seemed to go out of the office with her.
Quinn drew on the cigar and tried to blow a smoke ring. He failed. He tried again, without success.
He watched the formless smoke drift toward the ceiling and thought about Addie thinking he might be contemplating suicide because of Pearl.
He thought about God.
He wished God would pay more attention to New York.
52
“The killer is moving up in the world,” Fedderman said.
Vitali had called and woken Quinn a few minutes past midnight with the address of the latest Carver victim, Lilly Branston. It was in a towering condo development on Park Avenue. The building was a pre-war honey, with a four-story granite façade topped by a tan brick and ornate pale stone structure thrust into the night sky. There was the usual cluster of radio cars, unmarkeds, and emergency vehicles outside, parked at crazy angles so it looked as if they’d all arrived at once and a massive collision had been barely averted.
Quinn nodded hello to a uniformed officer he knew, but used his ID to enter the lobby with Fedderman.
Impressive, the lobby. Cooler than the night. Pink-veined beige marble, brown plush carpeting, and polished copper elevator doors.
“A place like this,” Fedderman said, “there’s gotta be a doorman.”
“There is. Sal said he gets off at ten. The doorman claims he saw the victim leave by herself about six. Didn’t see her return.”
“Maybe she met her killer and brought him back to her place after ten.”
“Maybe the killer knew it was safe after ten,” Quinn said, “and came calling on his own.” He glanced up and around. “Any security cameras c
overing the entrance?”
“Yeah, but they’re live, and nobody was watching the monitors.”
Quinn flexed his jaw muscles and nodded.
Mishkin was standing by one of the elevators. His rumpled brown suit appeared too large for him. His eyes were pools of sadness. Even his bushy mustache seemed to droop a little, or maybe it was the mentholated cream caught in it.
“You look tired, Harold,” Fedderman said.
“Trying to find some meaning in slaughter wears a person down,” Mishkin said. “She’s on eighteen.” He pressed the elevator’s up button. “This one had a lot to live for. Tragic…”
It was well past midnight, and they were the only ones in the elevator. No one said anything as it ascended to the murder floor. Rising to hell—it didn’t feel right.
As they stepped from the elevator on eighteen, Quinn noticed an open door down the hall. A uniformed cop stood nearby, and bright light from inside the apartment cast faint moving shadows over the carpeted hall outside the door. Just beyond the open door was a small upholstered bench, and alongside it a tall stone urn with brown artificial pampas grass protruding from it.
A man about twenty who would always look about twenty at a glance sat slumped on the bench. He was wearing seriously faded and patched jeans, a fresh-looking untucked white shirt with vertical green stripes, and moccasins without socks. His straight brown hair was a tangle that might or might not have been an effort at style. He was staring at the floor with the intensity of a man watching an ant farm.
“That’s Stephen Elsinger,” Mishkin said. “He’s the kid who called nine-one-one. Saw some of what happened through the victim’s window. Trust fund baby, lives over on Lexington.”
“That’s in the next block,” Quinn said.
“Stephen’s got a powerful telescope,” Mishkin said. “He was in the habit of observing the victim.”
“Spying on her.”
“Stephen wouldn’t put it exactly that way, but yeah. She was masturbation material, is my impression.”
Quinn liked the sound of this. “He saw her murdered?”
“Not exactly.”
Quinn merely grunted, deciding to be patient while the story of what had happened here unfolded.
When they entered the bedroom and Quinn saw the victim, he knew what Mishkin had meant when he said she’d had a lot to live for. Lilly Branston’s address suggested she had plenty of money, and despite the gape-mouthed expression of horror on her face, she must have been beautiful. Quinn thought she was a bit older than the other victims, maybe even in her forties. But it was difficult to judge, with her staring eyes and the rictus of her mouth from which her panties, now crumpled on the pillow beside her head, had been removed by the assistant M.E. The attending examiner wasn’t Nift this time, but a middle-aged woman who was tall and storklike yet had innumerable chins. Quinn knew her slightly and thought her name was Norma. She was treating the victim’s horribly abused body with a cold precision and professionalism, through which now and then glimmered compassion and respect. So unlike her boss.
Quinn showed her his ID, which had his name on it, rather than the NYPD shield Renz had supplied.
“I’m Norma,” the woman said. She had a high, nasal voice. “I know you from the Kraft case some years back.”
“Ah, yes. Where’s Nift?”
“You miss Dr. Nift?”
Quinn smiled. “Like a bad case of shingles.”
“You know him, then,” Norma said. “Dr. Nift is home in bed, and he won’t meet Ms. Branston till well after sunrise.”
“Seniority,” Quinn said.
“Being the boss.”
“Being a prick,” Fedderman said.
Norma glanced at him, but nothing changed in her expression. She seemed a nice, if authoritative, woman and looked as if she should be principal of a school where the girls wore uniforms, instead of poking around a dead body.
Sal Vitali took a few steps into the bedroom. “Where’s Pearl?”
“I decided to let her sleep,” Quinn said. “Addie, too. That way we won’t be bumping into each other like zombies tomorrow morning.”
He propped his fists on his hips and looked closely at the victim. She was nude and had been bound with strips of torn sheet. Her nipples had been removed. A glaring X about twelve inches long was carved between her breasts. She’d suffered a terrible ear-to-ear slash, creating what looked like a horrible, greedy mouth straight out of a nightmare.
Then Quinn noticed something that made the nightmare more poignant and terrible.
He pointed to the white flower tucked in her tangled hair just above her left ear. “Was that there when they found her?”
“Yeah,” Norma said. “’Case you’re wondering, it’s a lily.”
“I knew that,” Fedderman said.
Norma glanced at him skeptically and continued to pick and probe.
“Our killer likes to pun,” Fedderman said.
Norma said, “I don’t concern myself with that kinda thing.”
“Nift would,” Quinn said. “He likes to play detective.”
Norma shrugged. “Play is the operative word.”
There was plenty of spilled blood, but it had the same controlled look as that of the earlier victims. The killer had been deft and knew how and how much they were going to bleed, and how to avoid the blood as much as possible.
“Do you think the killer might have some kind of medical background, the way he seems able to predict and avoid arterial blood?” Quinn asked Norma.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “Some reading, and of course practice, and it would be pretty simple to attain a butcher’s skill.”
“But he’d get some blood on him.”
“It would seem inevitable.”
“Looks like he washed up in the bathroom when he was done,” Sal said. “Crime scene unit’s gonna check the basin and shower drains. What they found with all their dusting for prints were mostly glove smudges, and a lot of the apartment looks like it’s been wiped.”
“They won’t find any of the killer’s blood or hair in the drain or anywhere else,” Fedderman said. “He doesn’t leave DNA, probably showers with a cap and maybe has his pubic hair shaved, the way some of these sickos do. And he’s careful to be the cutter rather than the cuttee.”
“The cuttee’s name is confirmed as Lillian Maria Branston,” Sal said. “Thirty-eight years old. A real estate agent—high-end stuff, judging by this place. Business cards say she was with the Willman Group.”
Quinn had heard of the Willman Group. It was one of the largest and most successful real estate agencies in the city. And, as Vitali had said, it worked the high end of the market. And here they were on Park Avenue. Lilly Branston must have done okay.
“Keep one of her cards, Sal. We can check with the agency tomorrow.” He smiled incongruously but warmly and turned his full attention to Norma. “Okay, dear, what’ve we got so far?”
Norma met his charm offensive with a meaningless smile, as if someone had reminded her of something remotely humorous that had happened years ago. “Body temperature puts the approximate time of death at about an hour ago. Maybe earlier.”
“Good Christ,” Fedderman said.
Quinn knew what he meant. It was as if they might be able to catch up with the killer if they hurried.
So close…
“You’ll understand when I tell you how the squeal came in,” Sal said.
Quinn might not have heard him. He was staring at the body with his arms crossed. The compression of time between the murder and the discovery of the body gave the impression they’d come close to nailing the killer, but of course it was only an impression. Time wasn’t distance, and distance didn’t mean much in Manhattan anyway. The sicko might be sitting in some all-night diner a few blocks away now, sipping coffee and basking in recent memories.
“Sexual penetration?” Quinn asked Norma.
“Thanks, but I’m gonna have to refuse,” Norma said, deadpan
. “As for the victim, there are no signs of sexual penetration. Nothing in the way of bruises. If there was any sort of sex, it was possibly consensual. As for the rest of it…” She waved a latex-gloved hand to take in the mutilated corpse.
“Nonconsensual,” Quinn said.
“Murder usually is,” Norma said.
Quinn didn’t mind her short manner. She simply carried a cop’s defensive humor in her black bag, along with her other medical supplies.
“We get her to the morgue and we can tell you a lot more,” Norma said. “What she had for dinner, drug or alcohol content in her blood, precise cause of death…those kinda things. You know, clues.”
“‘We’ would be Nift?”
“Yeah, these are his cases. Instructions are that everything with these kinds of injuries goes through him.”
“Carver victims.”
“I would be assuming,” Norma said, and began to gather her stainless steel instruments to place them in a sealed container and return them to her medical case. Every move was practiced and very businesslike.
The police photographer, a red-faced guy named Willis, poked his head in the door. He was wearing a wide grin. “Anything else in here I should shoot?” he asked, knowing he was teeing it up for someone.
Norma closed her bag and sighed, but shook her head no.
“I admire your restraint,” Quinn said.
“I’m not built so sexy without it,” Norma said. “Good night, good morning. Whatever the hell it is.”
She left without looking back at any of them.
Quinn said, “Let’s go talk to Stephen. See if he knows some jokes, since we’re losing Norma.”
Everyone other than Lilly Branston filed from the bedroom.
Nobody was smiling. Once again, comedy had not quite fended off horror.
On the way out of the apartment, Quinn told a paramedic eating a sandwich that it was okay now to remove the body.
The paramedic had removed a lot of bodies from a lot of crime and accident scenes, and had somehow found a way beyond tasteless humor to cope. He simply nodded and continued to chew.
53
Seated in a way that made him almost curled up on the hall bench, Stephen Elsinger looked distraught. Up close, he had bad skin and an overactive Adam’s apple.