by John Lutz
Or maybe Erin would have settled for simple forgiveness.
But forgiveness was out of the question now.
Quinn tried again to make himself heard. “You can stop it now, Chrissie! Stop!”
“Kill her!” Erin shrieked. “Shoot her, goddamn it! Shoot her!”
The shotgun barrel stopped moving where it was aimed at a point precisely between Quinn, who was the hunter and authority figure who’d come for Chrissie perhaps in the way her father had, and Erin, her mother. It didn’t waver. But Quinn knew that it would soon move a foot or so one way or the other. Chrissie was making her choice.
“Don’t do it, dear….”
“Shoot her, goddamn it! Shoot her!” Erin shrieked again.
Quinn heard Fedderman’s nine-millimeter bark beside him. The bullet struck Chrissie in the side and jerked her half around so she staggered back a few steps. The shotgun barrel flew upward, and a round exploded into the ceiling, bringing down a shower of plaster or drywall powder.
Now she was lowering the gun, her finger still on the trigger. It would take a second for the long barrel to swing around.
Quinn’s old police special revolver was out of its holster and blasting away. He’d known he had no choice and had acted automatically.
A halo of red mist appeared around Chrissie’s head. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.
The silence was complete for several seconds. Then Quinn’s ears began to ring.
He looked at Fedderman, then at Pearl. They both seemed all right. Erin was slumped on the floor, the side of her head pressed to the wall. Quinn went to her, bent low, and looked into her wide, uncomprehending eyes.
“Are you hit?” His own voice, coming from far away. He screamed it again but could still barely hear himself. “Are you hit?”
She shook her head no and then said something. He read her lips: My baby was going to kill me.
Quinn straightened up and glanced at where the winner of the Tri-State Triple Monkey Squared Super Jackpot lay dead with the lower half of her face missing. He went to Pearl. She was still holding her Glock at her side, pointed at the floor. He gently removed the heavy gun from her hand and checked the breech, then the clip.
The gun hadn’t been fired.
He gave the Glock back to her and then gripped her shoulders and smiled down at her.
“Damned thing jammed,” she said.
He wondered if it had.
She looked away.
He kissed her forehead, and she smiled back at him.
Not much of a smile, but something.
79
Quinn was in Renz’s office the next morning, seated before Renz’s wide desk. Renz was ensconced in his plushy upholstered chair, looking plump, satisfied, and permanent. Heat lay over both men in slices of sunlight from the slanted blinds.
“It worked out well,” Renz said. One eye shone brighter than the other in the light from the blinds.
“It worked out,” Quinn said.
Renz appeared puzzled by Quinn’s lack of enthusiasm. “Addie has it right. Chrissie murdered the homeless woman, Maureen Sanders, to make us think the Carver was active again and prompt a vigorous investigation that might lead Chrissie to him. That was why Chrissie shadowed your activities. Then she committed the other two murders as a way to keep the investigation moving. Or maybe—and Helen thinks this is very possible—after doing Maureen Sanders, Chrissie developed a lust for blood and couldn’t stop.”
“Helen’s been wrong a few times,” Quinn said.
Renz leaned back in his chair, tucking in his chin so his fleshy jowls spilled over his stiff white collar. “If Chrissie didn’t commit the other copycat murders, and the real Carver was active again, Chrissie’s death and assumed guilt will probably induce him to return to his state of what he considers to be retirement.”
“Those sound like Helen’s words.”
“They are. And with the Carver’s last two murders—three, if you count Yancy Taggart—attributed to Chrissie, he’ll be safe. And the city is safe, comparatively.”
“And your political aspirations are safe.”
“Comparatively.”
“You are a bastard, Harley.”
“Sure. But I said if Chrissie didn’t commit the other murders. I think she probably did, and the Carver only had to outsmart us once, a long time ago.”
“Sounds like you admire him.”
“Well, he beat us,” Renz said. “That’s the only thing I admire about him.”
“So you’re satisfied with this outcome,” Quinn said.
“Everybody’s satisfied with it. Ask them.”
“I have.”
“And?”
“They’re satisfied.”
Renz grinned and shrugged. Then his expression abruptly changed, as if he’d suffered some slight pain. Or realized one might not go away. “You’re still not satisfied, right?”
“It fits together,” Quinn said. “But just.”
“Like the killer was shot through the head, just.” Renz tilted forward in his chair and propped his elbows on the desk. “Don’t poke around at this, Quinn. It’s a sleeping dog you’d best let lie.”
Quinn smiled. “Because the dog might reveal some inconvenient truths?”
“Because the sonofabitch might have rabies.”
Elana Dare twirled before the full-length mirror mounted on the back of her bedroom door, glancing over her shoulder so she could see the action of the silk skirt she’d bought only hours ago. The smooth, lined material draped from her hips as gracefully as it had in the shop’s mirrors. It moved just right, was just revealing enough. Any tawdriness that might be suggested by the brief hemline was mitigated by the overlapping panels and dark gray color. The skirt was sensual yet subdued.
Sexy with class, Elana decided.
Perhaps the most momentous thing she’d done in her life was to mention during a conversation with Gerald Lone the date of her birthday. He’d phoned later and asked if he could take her to dinner on that night to celebrate. He’d also promised there would be no strings attached, that he simply liked and admired her and wanted to contribute to her happiness.
No mention of how they’d grown closer on discovering how much they had in common, or of the electricity they could almost see when bare flesh touched bare flesh. And of course there was no mention of how his charm had finally overwhelmed her.
So they had a dinner date. No strings.
And after dinner, though Gerald might not know it yet, they would come here to her apartment—which she’d better start cleaning, since there wouldn’t be much time tomorrow.
Elana smiled at her image in the mirror. It was still an attractive image, but no longer a young one. For God’s sake, she’d be twenty-seven years old tomorrow! How had it happened?
Time was such a clever thief; she understood that now, and she knew that a person had to anticipate that stealth. Time would have you before you knew it. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to Elana. She wasn’t going to grow old too fast and smart too slow, while year after lonely year passed faster and faster.
She had her mind made up that tomorrow night things would be different. Those strings Gerald had mentioned would attach themselves, and bind them one to the other.
Elana could be clever, just like time. After a good meal, good wine, it would be easy to make it seem like Gerald’s idea to come home with her.
But it was Elana’s idea. She’d be the one in control.
She was determined that tomorrow night she would make of Gerald Lone a birthday present for herself.
80
Quinn left Renz’s office in a glum mood. It was true that everyone else who’d been involved in the investigation was satisfied with the outcome. Satisfied enough, anyway. Renz was certainly content with his cemented and powerful political position.
Fedderman was a realist and resigned to a gray world.
Helen the profiler would get a pat on the back and maybe a raise in pay.
Addie Price would have something to chatter about during her TV spots in Detroit, and no doubt her speaking fee would increase.
Vitali and Mishkin were in line for commendations and might be kicked up a notch in rank and pay.
Bribes to let the sleeping dog lie.
Even Pearl seemed comfortable with the result of the investigation. There seemed to be no doubt in her mind that Chrissie had killed Yancy. Pearl had come to the hostage site ready to find any excuse to avenge Yancy’s death by killing Chrissie. She’d been burning to kill Chrissie. Only Pearl could have stopped Pearl from squeezing the trigger. And Pearl had.
But that didn’t change the way she felt about Chrissie Keller.
Well, maybe they all had it right, Quinn thought. Justice had been served here in a number of ways. Chrissie’s death might mark the end of the new incarnation of the Carver, and Chrissie had found her revenge. She’d killed her father, and her mother had to live with her guilt for not speaking up years ago, and with the image of her daughter’s head exploding from the impact of a bullet that took brain matter with it as it exited the skull.
Maybe worst of all for her, Erin would always remember that shotgun barrel moving back and forth between her and Quinn, and she’d always wonder who would have been her daughter’s choice to die next in the West Side apartment.
With the later murders attributed to Chrissie, the Carver’s time of bloody rampage was finally over.
The victims’ families would find peace and the much-mentioned closure. Mary Bakehouse would cease to be afraid and have two good and loyal friends in the large golden retrievers she’d bought as her protectors, dogs that would probably never under any circumstances bite anyone.
Maybe Renz was right, and Quinn shouldn’t poke and probe.
Quinn believed that.
Sure, he did.
81
Addie phoned Quinn and told him she was returning to Detroit on a late flight out of Kennedy. He asked to see her one more time. About the case, he assured her. It was already afternoon; could she drop by his apartment to discuss the investigation in private?
“The investigation’s over,” she said.
“I’m not so sure.”
He could hear her breathing into the phone as he sat watching the only thing moving in the quiet office, dust motes swirling in a sun beam that had penetrated the front window.
“Have I made you curious?” he asked.
She laughed. “I’ll admit that.”
“Because you have doubts, too?”
“Because you’re always sure of everything. That’s what attracted me to you in the first place.”
“So we can talk about it? Maybe we can discuss it over dinner someplace.”
“I’m having dinner on the plane.”
“What? Peanuts and miniature cookies?”
“I’m flying first class, Quinn. It’ll be steak.”
“My apartment, then. Afterward we’ll stop by your place for your luggage, and I’ll drive you to the airport.”
“Okay, your apartment,” she said. “For a drink and a chat. And we can leave from there for the airport. I only have a couple of carry-ons. I travel light and unburdened by baggage.”
“Then you’re lucky,” Quinn said.
She laughed again. “So philosophical for a cop. That’s something else that drew me to you.”
“So what’s scaring you away?”
“So dark,” she said.
When they’d broken the connection, he wondered if she’d been kidding.
She was wearing a light beige blouse with a white scarf knotted loosely at her throat, dark brown slacks with brown high heels that made her legs look longer. A large black leather carry-on was slung by a narrow strap over her shoulder. She smiled at Quinn in a way that wounded him, and he would always remember.
She pecked him on the cheek and slid past him into the apartment, dragging an arm. At the end of the arm was the handle of a red rolling suitcase that would be maximum size for a carry-on.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said.
“And I you.”
He stepped well out of the way of the suitcase, then relieved her of the handle and sat it upright near the door.
Quinn led her to the living room, and she crossed to the upholstered green chair that long ago had been his wife’s favorite. She sat down and crossed her legs, placed her arms on each arm of the chair, and looked expectantly up at him.
“You should be the prettiest passenger on the flight.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Quinn.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Anything but gin.”
He went into the kitchen, and a few minutes later returned with a scotch and water over ice in an on-the-rocks glass. In his other hand was an opened bottle of Heineken.
After he handed her the glass, they sipped their drinks, then Quinn went over to the sofa. He didn’t sit down on the cushions, though. Instead he sat perched on the wide sofa arm, facing Addie.
“When we’re finished with our drinks,” he said, “I’d like for us to go into the bedroom.”
Addie seemed to stir without actually moving, and for only a second seemed alarmed. “I didn’t think that was our deal.”
“Do you realize,” Quinn said, “that despite our attraction to each other, we’ve never even kissed? I mean, really kissed?”
She took another sip of her drink and then nodded. “I realize that.” She sat back, but it was as if she was trying to get as far away from him as possible. “I made a mistake coming here.”
“Why’s that?”
“I thought better of you.”
“I would like for us to have sex,” Quinn said.
She gave him a calm, level look with eyes he’d never seen before. “That isn’t going to happen.” She moved to stand up.
“Sit down, Addie.”
His voice was calm, his tone moderated, but it carried authority. She sat back precisely in her previous position.
Quinn said, “This hypothesis that we’re left with after the investigation, do you agree with it?”
“That’s a rather awkward change of subject, but I’ll take it.”
“Do you agree with it?” he repeated.
“Of course I do.”
Quinn placed his Heineken bottle on the lamp table, not caring if it left a ring, and crossed his arms. “Want to hear my hypothesis?”
“That’s really why I’m here, isn’t it?”
He ignored her question and continued, but there was a note of sadness in his voice. “Here are some facts,” he said. “You were with the Michigan state police when you sought out your assignment to this case. Ed Keller traveled to New York from Detroit. You worked skillfully in guiding the investigation, gaining credibility each time you were right about something. You have an impressive résumé, but there’s a hole in it during the first period when the Carver was active years ago here in New York. When Erin Keller visited the office the first time, you wore a pair of reading glasses. You haven’t worn them before or since. You succeeded in avoiding Erin after that. And I noticed that whenever we saw the shadow woman at or near a crime scene, you weren’t with us.”
Addie sipped again at her drink and met his gaze directly. “Anything else?”
Quinn smiled but his eyes didn’t join in. “Yes, Addie. You were never in the slightest really interested in me.”
She became smaller in the chair, wounded by his words.
Then she put down her glass and began to unbutton her blouse.
“Addie—”
“Be quiet, Quinn.”
She continued to work the buttons, and then used both hands to open the blouse wide.
He could only stare at the false breasts that were some kind of foam creation.
“That’s why the Carver broke off his attack on you,” Quinn said.
“No one knows for sure. Perhaps something surprised him, frightened him away. As you know, he’s the reason why, as Addie P
rice, I became a police profiler. I wanted revenge, and I thought I could finally attain it by getting assigned to this case. I could do what Chrissie Keller wanted to do, use you and your detectives to locate the killer. Chrissie must have murdered that homeless woman and mutilated her in a way that would draw out the Carver, or at least cause the police to reopen the investigation.”
“It worked too well,” Quinn said.
“The Carver murdered Joyce House and Lilly Branston,” Addie said, “and that allowed us to get closer to him.”
“We still didn’t get him,” Quinn pointed out.
“We did,” Addie said. “You summoned Keller as Edward Archer to New York on his cell phone, but Lisa Bolt, who at a certain point had begun working for me, will attest that Keller didn’t fly to New York. He was already here. You were using him to bait Chrissie, while he was using you to bait her. If he could kill Chrissie, his secret would be safe no matter what anyone else said. If you check Keller’s résumé, you’ll find a hole in it, too, for the same time period when there was a hole in mine. While I was trying to fit the fragments of myself back together after he attacked me and was scared away before he could slit my throat. You’ll also find he was in New York at the time of the Carver murders.”
Quinn stood all the way up from the sofa arm and paced a few steps back and forth. He stayed standing. “You’re telling me Edward Keller was the Carver? Your attacker wore a mask when he almost killed you years ago in Detroit, so how can you possibly be sure?”
“I recognized his voice. And Lisa Bolt saw him undressing for bed through the cracked door of the cheap hotel where he was staying here in New York.”
“And…?”
“Call your medical examiner. Ask him about the corpse.”
Quinn called the morgue and eventually was put through to Nift.
“Anything unusual about Edward Keller’s body?” he asked.