by John Lutz
“Of course, of course…”
Lisa waited almost a full minute before beginning: “It started when Chrissie Keller came to my office in Columbus and hired me to see if I could somehow get her murdered twin’s case reopened. She told me about her slot-machine windfall and waved a lot of money at me. Enough to convince me to take her on as a client even though I thought there wasn’t a chance in hell I could reexamine the NYPD’s old investigation and find something that would get them to reactivate the case.” Lisa turned her head to the side, and her eyes teared up. “Since I didn’t think I could help her, I shouldn’t have taken her money. I know that.”
“I think it’s understandable,” Quinn said. “You were in business to make money, and someone wanted to hire you. That’s how it works in our occupation.” We’re all in this together. Allies. “Go right on with your story, dear.”
Lisa gazed up at him and managed a slight smile. Pearl could hardly stand watching this.
“I knew that to help Chrissie I’d have to be creative,” Lisa said. “I did some research and decided that since I wouldn’t have much pull with the NYPD, maybe I could sort of sublease the case to somebody who would have pull. Somebody like you. To do that, I’d have to be convincing, the way Chrissie was convincing with me. I struck on the idea of pretending at first that I was Chrissie, the surviving twin. Chrissie liked the idea.”
“And why not? It’s quite clever.”
Lisa signaled silently that she would like some water now, and Quinn helped her to take a few dribbling swallows.
That earned another smile from Lisa, as if Quinn were Father Teresa. “My job was to gain your trust,” she said in a somewhat revitalized voice, “and then shadow the investigation and eventually tell Chrissie who and where the killer was before the police got to him. That last part was important.”
Quinn understood why. Chrissie wanted to get to her sister’s murderer first. “She wanted to be ensured of justice. Her kind of justice.”
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Chrissie is consumed by a yearning to avenge her twin’s death. It’s almost as if she herself had been molested, mutilated, and murdered.”
“I take it you mean she feels that way…beyond the norm.”
“Far beyond. If there is such a thing as a norm in this kind of situation. She’s obsessed. You know how it can be with twins. It’s spooky, almost like two bodies sharing a common mind. And it doesn’t seem to stop after death. At least, that’s the way Chrissie sees it. And there’s something else.”
“Else?” Quinn said, wishing Addie or maybe Helen the NYPD profiler was present to decipher some of the deeper motivations floating around here.
“During the twins’ childhood, Tiffany was molested by her father. And whenever that happened, Chrissie was badly beaten where it didn’t show. Chrissie, of course, was confused and intimidated and did nothing about it. Nothing to help Tiffany. She feels extremely guilty about that.”
“When you say extremely…”
“Chrissie is driven by guilt and feels she can find redemption by locating, torturing, and then executing Tiffany’s killer.”
“So she’s using us to try to commit murder.”
“She wouldn’t call it murder,” Lisa said.
“I’m not sure I would either,” Quinn said. “But the way for us is clear: We’ve got to find and stop her.”
Pearl moved closer to the bed and spoke looking down at Lisa. “Do you think she might want her kind of justice so badly she’d kill in order to get to the Carver?”
“I do,” Lisa said without hesitation.
“You and Chrissie have been in touch?” Quinn asked.
“I have no idea where she is,” Lisa said.
Sort of an answer, Quinn thought.
The door opened, and the nurse who’d allowed them access to Lisa Bolt entered the room. There was a smaller, younger nurse standing off to the side and behind her. The younger woman, who looked about twelve, was holding a rectangular metal tray containing a lot of rigmarole that included a large hypodermic needle.
“I’m sorry, but we think the patient needs to rest,” the older nurse said.
“Of course,” Quinn said. He started to pat Lisa’s hand and then saw all the bruising from intravenous needles. He patted her shoulder instead. “You rest now, and we can talk later. I hope you feel better having told us this. I know we’ve been heartened by seeing you awake and looking so much better.”
The older nurse, who knew bullshit when she heard it, pointedly moved out of the way so there was room for Quinn and Pearl to leave.
“Take the best care of her,” Quinn said, as he and Pearl edged past both nurses.
“We will indeed, sir,” the older nurse said. “It’s what we’re doing right now.”
Quinn smiled beatifically at the nurse as he held the door open for Pearl.
“Watch out for that one,” Pearl heard the older nurse say to the younger, as she and Quinn found themselves in the hall.
They walked a little way toward the nurses’ station and stood near a drinking fountain.
“You know we still can’t believe anything Lisa Bolt says,” Pearl told him.
“Of course not. On the other hand, maybe she’s had an epiphany. That can happen when you’re struck by a moving vehicle.”
“Or you can wake up in a hospital and be as big a liar as before you were struck.”
“That too,” Quinn said. He paused and felt at his shirt pocket, as if absently seeking a cigar. “Do you think whoever attacked you could have been a woman, Pearl?”
Pearl gave it some thought. “It’s possible. It all happened so damned fast. He—or she—was slender, maybe short to average height for a man, but damned strong. I’d guess an athletic, wiry man. But a woman…possibly.”
“Tiffany’s postmortem has her at five-feet-nine. Chrissie would be the same height.”
“Might fit. I never saw whoever killed Yancy stand up straight, so I could only guess within several inches either way.”
“And madness, obsession, gives people strength,” Quinn said.
You should know, Pearl thought.
They were quiet for a moment as a trio of nurses bustled past.
“Lisa Bolt’s going to be out of here soon,” Pearl said, “and she needs to be watched.”
“Your job and Fedderman’s,” Quinn said. He laid a hand very lightly on her shoulder, as if concerned that she might drift away like a balloon, and looked down into her eyes. “How are you doing, Pearl? Really?”
“I don’t want you worrying about me.”
She was determined not to let Quinn find his way back into her affections by way of her grief for Yancy. She didn’t think he’d do that deliberately, but it sure as hell could happen. She couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t trust herself, so she had to play it tough.
“But I do worry, Pearl. I can’t help it.”
“And I can’t help it if you do,” she said. “So worry away. Just don’t involve me.”
66
Quinn sat in Renz’s office and watched sunlight angle in through the blinds and cast slices of brilliance swarming with dust motes. The office was warm, crowded as it was and with the invasion of the sun. Renz, seated behind his desk and wearing navy blue suspenders and a white shirt with the sleeves neatly rolled up, appeared cool. There was in the air the faintest scent of cigar smoke, as there was the whiff of political corruption.
Quinn had suggested the meeting, but Renz was pretending he’d summoned him. Quinn knew it was some kind of ruse to maintain dominance. Renz was full of such minor stratagems to help him become or remain top dog. Quinn used to enjoy deflating Renz, but he’d become bored with that and usually let the dog have his day.
“This investigation is turning into a disaster,” Renz said. “The media wolves are all over it and all over me. The mayor’s office calls half a dozen times a day.” He leaned forward over his desk and glared at Quinn, who was seated in one of the chairs facing the desk. “What the
bejesus is going on?”
“Progress,” Quinn said.
“Do illuminate me.”
Quinn told him about Lisa Bolt’s recovery and what she’d said yesterday at the hospital.
“And we still don’t know where the real Chrissie Keller is?” Renz asked.
“Not yet,” Quinn said.
“Then the only actual progress I see is you found the woman who conned you into thinking she was Chrissie. And you needed a careless cab driver to do that.”
“Not quite.”
He told Renz about Tiffany Keller’s childhood molestation by her father, and about Chrissie’s guilt over doing nothing to stop it. Watching Renz’s flabby features, Quinn was glad he’d decided to present this information to the Machiavellian police commissioner face-to-face. It opened up all sorts of possibilities.
Renz sat running a fingernail over his close-shaven, over-flowing jowls. Anyone listening closely could hear the sound of the nail scraping minute gray stubble.
At last he said, “You proposing using the father as bait?”
Renz hadn’t quite proposed the idea himself, which was what Quinn had wanted. But this should be close enough.
“Addie gave me the idea,” Quinn said. Since Renz had assigned Addie to the case, he had to at least pretend to give serious consideration to a strategy based on her theory.
“What’s the wife, Erin, say about this?” Renz asked.
“Nothing yet. She doesn’t know we’re considering it.”
“Does she know her prick husband molested their daughters?”
“Probably. That’s usually the case.”
“She’d go along with using him as bait, then. Might even be enthusiastic.”
“Might be ecstatic.”
“Where’s hubby now?”
“We haven’t tried to locate him yet. I wanted your opinion first.”
“Tell me more.”
“We could leak it to the press that he’s in town, leak where he’s staying. If Chrissie really did commit any of these murders, making it look like the Carver’s back in action, she might go after old dad. She’s already got blood on her hands, and she is out to avenge her sister’s death. Why not also avenge her sister’s molestation? Assuage at least some of that guilt she’s suffering for keeping quiet about what was going on?”
“Might work,” Renz said. “But if we try it and fail, I’ll be chewed up like dog food by the media. You understand that politically this will be a risk?”
“Sure. But it might be a bigger risk not to act and make something happen.”
“There’ll be no way to keep it out of the media.”
“No,” Quinn said. “But that’s okay. At least some of it has to be public knowledge for it to work.”
“Do you even know where Dad is?”
“He should be easy to find.”
“Hah! If you do find him, how will you make him go along with being bait?”
“I don’t know yet. We might ask the twins’ mother.”
“Maybe you could hold a child molestation charge over Dad’s head, so he cooperates or does prison time.”
“The statute of limitation’s expired,” Quinn said. “He couldn’t be prosecuted even if there was enough evidence.”
“He might not know that.”
Quinn stood up. “So I’ve got the okay to do this?” He wanted no mistake about Renz’s involvement. He and Renz would own this decision, and suffer their respective consequences if it failed.
“Do it,” Renz said, also standing. “It’s better than what we’ve been doing, which seems mostly to be going around finding fresh victims.”
Quinn nodded and moved toward the door.
“How are Vitali and Mishkin working out?” Renz asked behind him.
Quinn stopped and looked back. “They’re good cops.”
“And Addie Price? How’s she working out?”
“She’s the reason I’m here,” Quinn said.
Renz grinned. “I can pick ’em. Right?”
Quinn said, “That’s the reason you’re here.”
He went out the door, wondering if the twins’ father was still alive and could be found.
67
“He lives in Detroit and uses the name Edward Archer,” Erin said. She elevated her chin slightly. “We have very little contact.”
Quinn and Fedderman were in the office, along with Helen Iman, the NYPD profiler and psychologist Renz had insisted sit in for Addie, who was with Renz today, helping him prepare for his regular briefing of the press. She was becoming something of a media consultant to him. Helen was a lanky six feet tall with choppy red hair and looked like a natural basketball center. She was also the best at this kind of thing, and the only profiler Quinn trusted.
Erin was seated in a chair angled toward Quinn’s desk. Her long auburn hair was neatly combed, and she was wearing a light beige pantsuit, tan high heels, and a dainty silver and pearl necklace inside the V-neck of her white blouse. She was a compact package next to Helen. Quinn could detect the subtle scent of her perfume. It made him think of the flowers Pearl had taken to Lisa Bolt.
“But you do know how to contact him?” he said.
“Not directly,” Erin said. “I’d have to make a few phone calls.” She smiled in that secretive way of hers, as if she was a move ahead of him. “But why should I? He has no interest in either me or Chrissie now. I haven’t seen him since Christmas three years ago, when he dropped by unexpectedly. I think he’d been drinking.”
“What does your husband do in Detroit?” Quinn asked.
She crossed her legs so her calves were close together. “Former husband. He’s in the insurance business, has his own agency. Doing quite well. I was told that he has political ambitions.”
“Political?” Quinn sensed a vulnerability.
“He wants to run for city council or some such thing. Maybe alderman. Whatever they have in Detroit.” She absently fished about in her matching tan purse and then stopped and looked around. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes,” Pearl said, from where she sat behind her desk.
Erin shrugged and snapped the purse closed. “Why are you asking me about Ed?”
Quinn told her what they had in mind, touching on the regular molestation of Tiffany, witnessed by Chrissie. Not asking if Erin had known about it.
But the question remained in the air, unasked.
Erin reached again for her purse, opened it, and snapped it shut. She sat thinking, neither confirming nor denying that she’d been aware of the molestations and beatings that had dominated her children’s young lives. The truth was a beast better kept caged.
She addressed Quinn calmly. “You want Ed to come to New York and let you make it known that he’s here.”
“Yes. Under his real name: Keller.”
Erin crossed her legs even tighter. “To avoid unfavorable publicity, he might agree to do that. He’s an ambitious bastard. But I can’t believe Chrissie—”
“I know,” Quinn said. “But you must consider that you’re the poor girl’s mother. And she’s not been thinking straight. Our psychologist”—he nodded toward Helen, all strung-out six feet of her leaning casually on a wall—“believes that if she knows he’s in town, Chrissie might break cover and go after her father.”
“You mean try to kill him.”
“Perhaps. Though that might be putting it too dramatically. She might at least want to see him and have it out with him.”
“At which point the police will step out from behind the curtains and Chrissie will be arrested.”
“Melodrama again. But yes. I’m being honest with you. Your daughter is a murder suspect. That’s not to say she’s guilty.”
“But you think she is.”
“Not necessarily. What I think is that we can’t find her, and nothing else seems to be working. You do want her found?”
“Of course I do. Found and not hurt.”
“That would be our objective. I promise you that none of u
s wants to see the slightest harm come to Chrissie.”
“And you want me to talk Ed into this.”
“If that’s what it takes, yes.”
Erin rearranged her legs and stood up. “I need to think about this.”
“Of course.” Quinn stood also. “But can you let us know as soon as possible?”
“I’ll do that,” Erin said.
She glanced around at everyone, gave a tentative nod, and left the office.
“Best follow her,” Quinn said to Fedderman.
Fedderman snatched up his suit coat and shrugged into it. Buttoning his shirt cuff on the run, he hurried from the office.
Nobody said anything for a while.
Then Pearl said, “Do you think she’ll go for it?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Quinn said. He looked over at Helen.
“You handled her very well,” Helen said, pushing away from the wall. “Odds are she’ll do what you asked. One way or the other, she does want her daughter found.”
“We don’t need her to do this,” Pearl said. “Now that we know Edward Keller is Edward Archer, he should be easy enough to find. We can make him cooperate.”
“Erin can be far more persuasive,” Helen said. “We need her to pull him back into the past and pressure him into cooperating. He knows she can blow his cover any time, make public the fact that he beat and molested his own daughters. With a few words she can ruin him in his new life as Edward Archer.”
“The past can be a son of a bitch,” Pearl said, maybe thinking of Yancy.
Helen nodded. “Even though Erin professes to hate Keller, he’s her former husband. She’s got a difficult phone call to make. It won’t be easy for her to put him in a vise and squeeze.”
“Oh, it might be,” said Pearl.
“Do you think she will squeeze?” Quinn asked.
“I think she’s a woman who can,” Helen said.
Half an hour later, Fedderman called.
“When Erin left the office she got into a cab,” he told Quinn. “She went to Fifth Avenue and did some window-shopping, and then hailed another cab. She just went into her hotel.”