by John Lutz
“You’re serious?”
“Sure am.”
“Damn!” Quinn said.
When he got to the office, Pearl was already at her desk. Her coffee mug was steaming away alongside her computer, and he realized he’d left his to-go cup in the car.
“Renz dropped a word in Cindy Sellers’s ear already,” he said, sitting down behind his desk and swiveling the chair this way and that as if to fasten it firmer to the floor. “Doing damage control.”
“No surprise,” Pearl said, eyes still on her computer monitor as she maneuvered and clicked her mouse.
“Anything?” he asked.
“World of knowledge, but none of it any help.”
Quinn got up, walked over to the brewer, and poured some coffee into his initialed mug. He was returning to his desk when Fedderman walked in. He looked overheated and rumpled already, and it was still three hours till noon.
“The windows on your car are all steamed up,” he said to Quinn. “Looks like just the place to lose the crease in your trousers.”
Quinn nodded. “Been having trouble with that,” he said, not wanting to explain, thinking nobody but Fedderman still said trousers.
He settled back down in his desk chair with his coffee. Sipped. Yuk!
“Erin’s got form,” Pearl said.
Quinn and Fedderman looked at her.
“Not the kinda form you guys are dreaming about,” Pearl said. “She got into trouble in a little town in Florida twelve years ago when she was on vacation with her girls. Assault charge. A small-town cop pulled her over for speeding, and they got into a spat. Erin broke his nose.”
“She doesn’t seem the type,” Fedderman said.
Pearl smiled at him. “She said it was self-defense, that she was trying to push him away and hit him accidentally.”
“While she was swinging at him,” Quinn said.
“Twelve years ago,” Fedderman said. “And it could have happened to anybody. Doesn’t mean much now.”
“You’re cutting her a lot of slack,” Pearl said.
“Jesus, Pearl! She lost a daughter to a monster. You don’t understand how that feels.”
“I think I might,” Pearl said.
Fedderman sighed. “I’m sorry, Pearl. I mean, about Yancy.”
Pearl’s eyes teared up, and Quinn thought she might leave her desk to go into the half bath, or at least use a tissue. She simply continued working her computer, maybe reading more about the old assault charge. Tough Pearl. Quinn felt a swelling admiration for her.
His desk phone rang. As he leaned forward to reach for the receiver he glanced at caller ID and recognized Edward Archer’s cell phone number.
“Mr. Keller,” he said, when he picked up.
“Archer,” Keller corrected. “Until I get to New York. That’s part of the deal.”
“There’s a deal, Mr. Keller?”
“I’ll rearrange my schedule and fly in to LaGuardia tomorrow morning.”
“That would be fine.”
“How long will I be staying?”
“That’s impossible to say. Bring plenty of clothes.”
“You don’t make it easy.”
“It isn’t going to be easy. It’s what you should do.”
“Have to do,” Keller said. “Where do you want me to stay?”
“The Belington Midtown. It’s on Twenty-fourth Street.”
“That isn’t Midtown.”
“Few things are what they seem,” Quinn said. “Remember to check in as Edward Keller. I’ll be in touch.”
“I don’t want Chrissie harmed,” Keller said. “That’s why I’m doing this.”
“Of course.”
Quinn hung up on Keller before Keller’s cell phone could be shut off. It felt good.
“We’ve got him,” he said, thinking, Thank you, Erin Keller.
Pearl was grinning. Fedderman looked glad but thoughtful.
Quinn had a connection at the Belington. He remembered when it had been a flophouse. Then it had become gentrified. Now it was on the way again toward becoming a flophouse, but hadn’t gone so far that it wasn’t still respectable. Years ago Quinn had saved the manager’s son’s life in a shoot-out in a Chinese restaurant. The manager at the Belington would provide a room for Keller, and whatever else Quinn might want.
Vitali and Mishkin had to be brought in on this, and soon. Before that happened, Quinn knew he had to make a phone call to Cindy Sellers.
She’d been using Quinn and his team to sell papers. Now it was time to use her.
71
As Quinn was parking the Lincoln across the street from the office the next morning, he saw Addie walking on the other side of the street. She was wearing blue slacks, a white blouse, and a tailored gray blazer.
He turned off the engine and sat for a moment admiring her walk, the play of leg and derriere muscle beneath the taut blue material. Half walk, half dance. Did women know what they had—really had—that was rooted in time and desire that went back to before the first scratches in the sand on some distant shore? The depth and timelessness of their simple but powerful magnetism reached through the ages with the power of ancient goddesses. It was a wonder more people weren’t killed as the result of passion gone wild.
It was a wonder there weren’t more Carvers.
On impulse, Quinn tapped the horn.
Addie turned and saw him and smiled, making the early afternoon brighter.
When she saw he wasn’t getting out of the car, she looked both ways and crossed the street toward him. Another symphony of motion. He pressed a button, and the window glided down.
“Going in to the office?” he asked, knowing it was an inane question. She hadn’t taken a leisurely stroll and happened to find herself right outside the building.
“I was,” she said. Her smile widened. “Am I still?”
“Depends on whether you’ve had lunch.” He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch. “It’s already five minutes to eleven.”
“Is this Honk if you like the Early Bird Special? Or is it work?”
“Some of each.”
She nodded and walked around to get in on the passenger side.
“It’s still cool in here,” she said. “You must have just arrived.”
“You were the first woman I honked at.”
“You must be hungry.”
He drove three blocks to Simone’s, a French restaurant that specialized in desserts. Scents from the kitchen teased the appetite. The tables were round and impracticably small, and there were polished wood partitions that lent privacy and created a maze for the servers. Silver and crystal glinted on white tablecloths.
“This is nice,” Addie said, glancing around. “Did you and Pearl come here?”
“Never,” Quinn said.
“Ah!”
She seemed to catch a meaning he hadn’t yet discerned.
A waiter arrived, poured water, and offered to take their drink orders. Addie stayed with water. Quinn ordered a coffee. Neither of them was really hungry, so they agreed to go straight to the desserts.
When the waiter returned with Quinn’s coffee, Addie ordered raspberry sorbet. Quinn chose the crème brûlée.
“I thought we might talk,” Quinn said, when the waiter was gone.
“That’d be nice.”
“About work,” he said.
“Only work?”
“No. But you never did weigh in on what you thought about setting up Ed Keller as a method of luring Chrissie. Or even whether Chrissie’s guilty of murdering in the manner of her twin’s killer in order to kick-start the Carver investigation.”
Addie didn’t hesitate. “I think Chrissie could well have killed Maureen Sanders precisely for that purpose. Sanders was a homeless woman. Chrissie might have thought she didn’t have as much value as other potential victims.”
“A less serious murder?”
“In some people’s twisted view.”
“But in Chrissie’s view? I’m not
so sure.”
“Remember, Chrissie isn’t thinking straight. And if you were going to choose a victim for the purpose of attracting attention so you might find the person you really wanted to kill, what kind of victim would you choose? A woman with something to live for? Or someone like poor, homeless Maureen Sanders? Someone suffering on the streets, and who might not have lived much longer anyway.”
“Playing God.”
“We all do it sometimes,” Addie said. “In small ways and large.”
“But most of us know deep down we’re only pretending.”
“As Chrissie might, in unguarded moments.” Addie took a sip of water, little finger extended. “This is all supposing, of course, that Chrissie is a killer.”
“That she killed Maureen Sanders, at least,” Quinn said.
“As for there being enough hate generated by Chrissie’s history with her father, I agree with the NYPD profiler Helen on that one, too. That kind of hate can take total control of a person. I think Chrissie will go for him.” Addie took another sip of water. She left a crescent of lipstick stain on the glass’s rim that held Quinn’s attention.
Their desserts arrived, and he and Addie were quiet for a moment.
“Do you have everything set up at the hotel?” Addie asked, after a spoonful of sorbet.
“We do. And it should work, as long as Keller cooperates.”
“He will,” Addie said. “Partly because of his ex-wife’s instructions. She knows too much. He’s afraid of her.”
“Relationships never really end, do they.” It wasn’t a question.
“Never.”
Addie took another bite of sorbet. Quinn was fascinated by the pink of the raspberry melting against the red of her lips. She caught him watching, looked right into his mind, and smiled.
He was suddenly uncomfortable, perched on his miniature chair at a tiny table. He felt oversized and out of place, and trapped in a silence that badly needed to be filled.
“It’s something, what we do to our children,” he said. “The way it eventually comes around in pain and anger. It makes for a hell of a world.”
“Is this the part of our conversation not about work?”
He grinned. “I guess it is. On the other hand, maybe it’s what our work is all about. Especially this case.”
She used her napkin to dab at her lips and then surprised him. “You’re still in love with Pearl, Quinn.”
He sat for a while without breathing.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“It’s obvious.”
“Does Pearl know?”
“Oh, God, yes!” Addie sat back and waited for the question he had to ask.
Quinn didn’t disappoint her. “Does Pearl still love me?”
“Yes, she does. But she doesn’t know it. She’s in denial, just like you. Only her denial is deepened and complicated by the fact that she’s grieving.” Addie leaned forward and rested her fingertips lightly on the back of his hand. Her eyes held a depth of sadness that made him curious. “Whatever personal relationship we have has to take that into account, Quinn. Take Pearl into account.”
“Are we headed toward a personal relationship?”
“We both know we are. That’s how we came to be here.”
Quinn thought about that. He’d been the one to suggest lunch together, and not only for business reasons. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world.
“We need to be honest with ourselves,” Addie said.
“And careful.” Am I ready for this? Do I really want it?
“That, too.”
“There’s a mutual attraction,” Quinn said, “but you and I can’t have much of a relationship.” His words seemed inadequate. They didn’t nearly express what he felt about Addie. The strengthening undercurrent of conflict and confusion that made him hesitate on the brink.
“I know,” she said sadly. “But we’ll wait.”
“For what?”
“To see what time permits.”
After a few more bites of sorbet, she stood up.
“I’ll walk back while you finish eating,” she said. “It’ll look better if we don’t arrive at the office together.”
“We have nothing to hide.” How many times has every cop heard that?
Addie answered him with a smile.
“I’ll go,” Quinn said. “Stay here and finish your sorbet.”
“You finish it.” She bent down and kissed his cheek.
Her lips were still cool from the sorbet, but beneath the ice was fire.
“People really in love aren’t hungry,” she said, and walked from the restaurant without looking back.
Quinn sat and sipped his coffee for a while. He knew he was being worked. Oh, Christ, was he being worked!
Lunch with Addie had seemed like such a good idea, but it had made him uneasy. More tentative. He knew about how human experience was doomed to repetition. One fall after another.
When he closed his eyes he could almost see his toes hanging over the abyss.
He wasn’t hungry.
72
Lisa Bolt crossed the street toward her hotel, where she’d left her luggage after checking out. Surely they must have held it while she was in the hospital. She’d registered under another name, so they wouldn’t connect her with the Lisa Bolt in the news. But had the fact that she’d not returned for so long attracted suspicion? Would the hotel contact Homeland Security and have the suitcase treated as a possible bomb?
Lisa doubted it. The last thing a down-and-out hotel like hers would want is a posse of authorities searching the place with everything from metal detectors to dogs.
If anything, hotel personnel might have opened the suitcase to see what was inside—maybe to find out if there was something valuable. If that had happened, they had been disappointed. They’d have found nothing but Lisa’s limited and well-worn travel wardrobe.
She was about to enter the lobby when a hand gripped her arm just above the elbow, squeezing hard enough to hurt.
“Quiet and you won’t be harmed,” a man’s voice said.
She turned to look at who had her. A medium-height man, middle aged but trim, wearing dark dress pants, a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His eyes were barely visible behind darkly tinted glasses. They were steady and serious and made her a believer.
“I have a knife,” he said. “Start a fuss and I’ll use it.”
The way she was bent at the waist from the pain was attracting attention. A woman came close and asked in a concerned voice if she was all right.
“She’s fine now,” the man said. “I won’t let her fall again.”
He led her away, toward a narrow walkway that ran alongside the hotel. Shaded as it was by brick and stone walls that seemed to converge above them, it was dim as evening in the confined space. There were a few plastic trash bags piled there, and a Dumpster squatted in the light near the opposite end of the passageway. She knew there was a fire door somewhere along the hotel’s wall, but she didn’t think they were going inside. That didn’t seem to be what the man had in mind.
Though badly frightened, she tried to gather her courage.
“Listen,” she said, when he’d loosened his grip on her arm. “Don’t think you—”
His fist hit her ribs like a hammer, and she sagged against the wall.
“Don’t have any doubts about who’s in charge here,” he said. He leaned in close to her, supporting his weight with one hand against the bricks, his face inches from hers. As if they were lovers.
That was what anyone glancing in the walkway would see, a lovers’ tryst, away from crowded streets and prying eyes. Two people who wanted to be left alone by the rest of the world.
They stood that way for what seemed a long time while she managed to catch her breath. His breath smelled like a combination of onions and mint-flavored mouthwash.
“What the shit do you want?” she finally managed to gasp.
“That’s easy,” he said.
Quinn parked the Lincoln illegally in the same loading zone where he’d been parked when he’d seen Addie and called her over. His mind was still working on their conversation in the restaurant. Parsing words, reading meanings and messages that probably hadn’t existed. Trying to figure out how he felt.
He entered the office and caught a glimpse of Addie over by the coffee brewer, but he didn’t look directly at her. Fedderman was at his desk, going over something in a file folder. Pearl was seated at her computer, staring past it at Quinn. There was a gleam of curiosity in her eyes. Pearl sensing that something had shifted in some subtle way, but she didn’t yet know what, how, or why.
“Anything?” Quinn asked. His standard question.
“Nobody else has been murdered and had her nipples cut off,” Fedderman said. “That’s the good news.”
“And the bad news?”
“Everything else.”
Both women were silent.
“I had Sellers wait till tomorrow morning’s edition before planting the info about Keller’s presence in the city, and at the Belington,” Quinn said. “She promised to do it subtly enough that it won’t seem an obvious trap.”
“Can she bring that off?” Addie asked.
“She’s an artist at that kind of thing,” Quinn said. “She—”
He was interrupted by the door flying open and banging against the wall.
Lisa Bolt staggered in. Her left eye was swollen, and she was limping with one foot cocked out at an odd angle.
Fedderman jumped up and kept her from falling. He led her to his desk chair and sat her down.
Quinn had picked up the phone and was about to peck out 911. Lisa shook her head violently from side to side and held up a hand in a signal for him to stop.
He placed the receiver back in its cradle.
“I’m not hurt that bad,” she said. “Nothing’s broken. Not like the accident.”
But the way she was wincing and holding herself, it obviously pained her to talk.
“You’ve been beaten,” Quinn said.