by John Lutz
“You know, that might be possible,” Renz said. “It was a greyhound, poor thing.”
Quinn knew Renz was making a joke by stating the obvious about his concern for an aging racing dog that had come to a bad end. That was contemptible but not unexpected.
Renz was aware that Quinn was a dog lover. A simple all-around pet lover. While Quinn felt genuine concern about Here’s to You, Renz felt none. What scared him was that Quinn might say or do something the public or some organization like PETA might build into an issue. Renz knew that if it helped to nail the Gremlin, however the dog was used would be okay with him. He would not be thinking of the dog.
Quinn would be.
That was a weakness.
Renz glanced at his watch and stood up, buttoning his voluminous suit coat. “Uniforms are still at the victim’s apartment. They and the ME know you’re on your way.” Renz tried to impress Quinn with an unblinking stare, but Quinn stared back mildly, unimpressed.
Beyond Renz, the pigeons had finally gotten out the word. Over a dozen now hopped and pecked around the bench where the ponytailed, beneficent woman sat casting out bread.
“I’ll swing by and pick up Pearl,” Quinn said.
Renz grinned. “Make sure she behaves.”
“Like always,” Quinn said, and walked toward where his black Lincoln sat gleaming in the blazing sun.
51
Once in the hushed quiet of the Lincoln, Quinn called Pearl on his cell and told her he’d be by the office to pick her up for the drive to Dora Palm’s address. Pearl said she was having lunch with her daughter, Jody, and would take the subway there as soon as possible.
Quinn told her he’d meet her at the victim’s address but to take her time, the person they wanted to see wasn’t going anywhere. “Better, too,” he said, “if you don’t bring Jody.”
“She wouldn’t be interested anyway,” Pearl said, sotto voce. “She’s all involved in an animal rights case. Can lizards be classified as pets that—”
“Never mind,” Quinn cut in. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“The lizards just might have a case. Of course, the roaches wouldn’t—”
“Still don’t want to hear it,” Quinn said, using his thumb to break the connection and turn off his phone.
He hadn’t told Pearl that the medical examiner assigned to the case was her antagonist, Dr. Julius Nift.
She was, after all, eating lunch.
Dora Palm’s apartment was in a midtown brick and stone structure that had once been an office building. Like many midtown buildings these days, its face was made temporarily anonymous by scaffolding.
Quinn saw a uniformed cop within the maze of scaffolding about the same time the cop saw him. When he flashed his ID, the cop motioned him over.
After parking the car, Quinn went on foot and zigged and zagged through the scaffolding, along a temporary plank walkway.
The cop motioned again, this time to indicate the building entrance. Quinn thought he might know the cop, but he wasn’t sure. The guy had one of those average-this, average-that faces. They might simply have glimpsed each other along the way. Be a cop long enough and faces were indelible once seen, stored somewhere along with identifying marks and bloody crime scenes and the indignities of death. A cop’s mind . . .
“This way, Captain,” the cop said. That was when Quinn recognized him. Vincent Royston, from Homicide South. It had been a couple of years.
“How you doing, Vince?”
Royston’s face lit up. He was pleased to be recognized by Quinn, whom he saw as someone reasonably famous. At least in cop circles.
It was a rhetorical question, but Royston said he was doing the best he could.
“Aren’t we all?” Quinn said.
But sometimes he wondered.
“Third floor,” Royston said, realizing he wasn’t going to be engaged in a lengthy conversation. “Left off the elevator.”
Quinn went through a narrow, unmarked doorway he would never have guessed was an entrance. He found himself in a fairly large foyer that had been created when several other spaces were taken down. It was the kind of place that ordinarily would have a doorman, if it weren’t for all the remodeling. Eight or ten people were coming and going through the maze of iron pipes supporting the scaffolding in the lobby. Almost everyone wore work clothes, and some had on hard hats. A sign was nailed crookedly to a vertical support beam reading EXCUSE OUR DUST.
The elevator looked purely functional on the outside, but when Quinn stepped inside and the door closed, everything looked finished, mostly in oak and brushed metal. Quinn’s mind went back to the elevator in the Blenheim Building, to what must have gone on among the passengers during the five or six seconds it took to reach the basement once they realized what must be happening. His mind recoiled.
The elevator stopped smoothly and the door opened on the third-floor hall. Quinn stepped out, turned left, and saw that on this floor everything looked as finished and usable as in the elevator. Oak wainscoting and brushed metal was the theme here, too. It appeared that interior rehabbing had begun in the upper floors and was working its way down. Probably a money thing, Quinn thought. Rents collected on the high-priced upper-floor apartments would help to finance the lobby’s modern curved marble registration area, and what might someday become a fashionable bar and restaurant.
A stalwart uniformed cop stood next to an open apartment door about fifty feet down the hall from the elevator. Quinn was sure he hadn’t seen the man before, who looked capable but about twenty pounds overweight. Gained recently, Quinn suspected, noting the cop’s youth, and the taut material stretched over a stomach paunch.
When Quinn flashed his ID the uniform stepped aside so he could enter.
Quinn was directed to the apartment’s one bedroom. Techs and the dance of the white gloves were everywhere except the bedroom. They’d finished in there, interpreting the bloodstains and gathering possibly minute evidence to be examined later. Trying to recreate what was.
Nift, the atrocious little medical examiner, was kneeling beside this victim in the way Quinn had often seen him, more intensely curious than somber. His lips were moving slightly and silently. It was almost as if he and the corpse were getting to know each other on the most intimate terms, which in a way was half true.
As he saw Quinn, Nift said hello, removing from the torso of the dead woman what looked like an indicator to probe for liver temperature, a valuable part of the calculus that would provide time of death.
The victim, Dora Palm, was on the floor, lying in an awkward position that needed a second look to be sure she was real. The observer would see that her arms, legs, and head were about a quarter of an inch from where they should have been attached.
“Skillfully done, isn’t it?” Nift said.
“Strange skill, though. And why in this cramped little room did he put her on the floor instead of the bed?”
Nift looked thoughtful. “Could be he wanted her in the lowest position possible. A measure of her importance compared to his. Gremlin the conqueror, his conquest lying on the floor like a detached and broken doll.”
“Or it could be that it’s difficult to pose a dead woman on a soft mattress, especially with her limbs and head severed.”
“I could think of more interesting poses,” Nift said, looking beyond Quinn.
“I’m sure you could,” said a woman’s voice.
Pearl had walked in. Nift looked instantly interested. Pearl had on a light tan raincoat over a gray pants suit and a white blouse open at the neck. The neckline was low enough to show the swell of her more than ample breasts. Why would she unfasten that top button on her blouse, knowing Nift might be here?
Or had the blouse come unbuttoned and she hadn’t noticed?
The things women did that made men think. But then, he was the one doing that kind of thinking.
“Hello to all three of you,” Nift said.
Quinn considered saying something to Nift, then decided
Pearl could speak for herself. She had once punched out an over-amorous police captain when she was in the NYPD. Promotion was difficult for her after that, if not impossible.
Nift began packing his instruments in a container that would keep them separate from the sterile ones. He straightened up slowly, as if his back hurt. Pearl hoped it did.
It occurred to Quinn that Nift was getting up in years to be acting like a nasty lothario who might have a strain of necrophilia in his horror-house mind.
“Unless you have some reason for her not to,” Nift said, “it’s okay now for Dora Palm to leave for our rendezvous in the morgue. I’ll phone you later and give you facts and figures, among them a more accurate time of death.” He glanced around to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything.
“By the way,” he said, “there’s a uniformed officer downstairs, a big cop named Vincent something. He can give you the name of the guy who found the body. Lives in Brooklyn and works for the company that’s doing the work now on rehabbing this area.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Quinn said.
“His name’s Stan Gorshin. You’ll recognize him. He’s the only hard hat out there in a suit.”
Quinn said, “Did he have on the hard hat before all the unscheduled demolition?”
Nift thought for longer than a minute. “Yeah. I think so. But I can’t be certain.”
“Seems nothing in life is certain.”
“Or in death,” Nift said.
There Quinn disagreed with him.
52
St. Louis, Missouri, 1999
Fran came in early the morning of a doubleheader that was going to be played because of an earlier rainout. Downtown St. Louis was still snoozing, as were most of the suburbs. But Fran knew that within a few hours, parking space would become a rare commodity, and expensive when you parked anywhere near the stadium.
She’d left the car near the double-wide where she and Willie lived and taken the Metro downtown.
By the time she was walking the short distance from the Metro-link stop to Busch Stadium, the slight drizzle had ceased, as the weather wonders on every TV channel had predicted, and the low gray sky had become blue. Probably, Fran thought, the temperature would reach ninety-five degrees, as predicted, and the sun would be blasting away most of the day. Baseball fans approaching and leaving the stadium would want bratwurst, which would make them want beer or soda, which would make them want bratwurst. A vicious, profitable circle.
Fran picked up her pace and smiled. It was going to be a good day; she could feel it. She could take the register, spelled now and then by Willie or Henry. The new kid, Pablo, could work the kitchen. The Happy Brat was the kind of restaurant where no table service was expected. Alcoholic beverages could be ordered at the counter and would be brought tableside, but customers served everything else to themselves. To eat here or to get food to go. It always impressed Fran to see how many people liked to eat and drink while they walked.
Multitaskers, Fran thought. That was okay with her, as long as they paid and didn’t make a mess of the public sidewalks.
As she rounded the last corner before reaching the Happy Brat, she saw that the lights were on inside, from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures. They cast a ghastly glow, adding age and angst to everyone inside. But it was summer and it wasn’t dark outside now. The night had been chased away, but recently. The diner shouldn’t yet be open. The notion that something might be wrong stirred in Fran, but she dispelled it. Henry had closed the diner last night, and had most likely simply forgotten to switch off the fluorescent overhead fixtures.
She was pleased that the red neon open sign in the window was off.
Fran realized her heart was banging away and told herself to slow down. Nobody was burglarizing the diner. Maybe Pablo had overslept again and Henry was getting a jump on things in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be the first time. She could smell the scent of the bratwurst rotating over the open oven, the special sauce crusting on the meat.
At least she thought she could smell it. She did have a powerful imagination when it came to food.
She saw now that someone, probably Henry, wearing a white shirt, dark pants, and a dark apron, was working in the kitchen, visible through the window and beyond the serving counter pass-through. Henry, all right. Or maybe the kid. Certainly not Willie. He was still home in bed, breaking the sound barrier with his snoring.
Or was he? He might have beaten her to the diner, if he’d left the double-wide right after she had.
The red neon bratwurst sign was still off, and most of the light in the diner was coming from the fixture in the kitchen, directly above the sink.
When Fran opened the door, the figure at the sink had his back to her, wearing the white and black outfit with the apron. He either heard or sensed something.
As Fran stepped inside, he turned.
The kid. Pablo.
When Pablo turned and saw her, his expression didn’t change for a few seconds. Then he forced a smile.
“Where’s Henry?” she asked.
“Still asleep.”
“What about May?”
He looked confused.
“Your wife,” Fran reminded him.
“Yeah. She’s still asleep. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get some brats ready to go. You know, for early customers.”
“I don’t know,” Fran said reasonably.
Pablo turned away from the sink to face her squarely. She saw the knife in his right hand. What looked like blood was on the blade.
“We need some buns,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of brats, but we need buns.” He placed the knife on the sink, wiped his hands on a towel, and removed his apron. “I’ll go see if I can find some.”
Fran decided there was no sense in arguing. Let the kid get out, get some fresh air in his search for buns.
She stepped around him, looked at what was on the cutting board, and recoiled. Her eyes were huge and horrified. “My God! What are you doing?”
“Nothing, really!” he said, backing away. Pablo had picked the knife back up. Time seemed to have solidified. He was the only thing in the diner moving.
Henry opened the door and came inside. His shirt was untucked and his hair was still wet and slicked back from showering. He glanced around. “What’ve we got going on here?” he asked.
“Good question,” Fran said.
Pablo noticed the others were staring at the knife, and he tossed it backhanded so it fell clattering behind the burners on the stove.
“What are you cutting there?” Henry asked calmly. He stepped toward Pablo, then to the side, and stared at the cutting board. “That what I think it is?”
Pablo couldn’t prevent a frightened smile that quickly disappeared as he regained control.
“It’s a rat!” Fran said in a horrified voice. “My God, he’s carving up a rat!”
“I got it here, in the kitchen,” Pablo said, as if that explained everything.
“This is a diner!” Fran said. “A restaurant!”
“That’s how the rat saw it.” He actually sounded sincere.
Henry glanced again at the carving board on the sink. “What were you gonna do with that?” he asked in a calm voice.
“I was just . . . looking at it. Studying it.”
“Studying a rat?”
“They do that at Harvard,” Pablo said.
Henry shook his head. “This ain’t Harvard. You ain’t Jonas Salk.”
“Jonas who?”
“Salk. He found a way to fight polio.”
“Who was polio?” Again he seemed serious.
“Don’t play dumb,” Fran said. “Like we’re supposed to believe you just happened to find that rat in here.”
“You can believe what you want,” Pablo said.
“Okay. You’re a medical doctor doing cancer research.”
“You got it first try. Now, I’m gonna leave here. Anybody tries to stop me, I’ll have to tell them about that rat. How I found him in the corner
by the stove.”
“Maybe you’re not so dumb,” Henry said.
Fran walked behind the counter and scooped a handful of bills from the cash register. She placed the money on the counter where Pablo could reach it.
“Take that,” she said. “All of it. And then leave us the hell alone.”
Pablo kept his eyes on her as he picked up the money and stuffed it into a side pocket of his jeans.
“Now go someplace else where they’ll believe you and your so-called wife are Mexicans.”
“Gracias, señora,” he said, patting his bulging pocket.
He backed out of the diner, almost falling as he spun in his worn-down boots and ran away.
Fran walked to the door, held it open, and watched as Pablo—or whatever his name was—joined his wife, May, or whatever her name was.
They cut across a level stretch of bare earth that would, within about four hours, become a parking lot. Then they both turned to look back. May waved at Fran, looking as if she might be smiling. Then they disappeared into downtown St. Louis, where Cardinals fans, and Cubs fans from Chicago, would soon be roaming the city streets, looking for new places to eat lunch, or find that bar or restaurant they’d been to during their last trip to St. Louis. Some of them would recall the delicious bratwurst served at a neat little diner not far from the stadium, in an area soon to be developed by the city.
“Better wake up Willie and give him the bad news,” Fran said.
Henry said, “I best get rid of that rat, first.”
When he went to the sink and got a better look at the rat, he was surprised by how neatly it had been carved and partially skinned by Pablo. The incisions were neat and precise, as if the kid had studied medicine and at one point wanted to be a surgeon. When Pablo worked at the grill, he always wore a do-rag, knotted at the corners so it made a sort of skullcap. Henry had assumed it was to keep his hair out of his eyes and out of the food. But he’d glimpsed the kid’s ear once, when he had the do-rag off and was splashing cold faucet water on his face to cool down in the heat. He remembered the kid’s right ear. It looked something like Dr. Spock’s ears in Star Trek.