by John Lutz
Or was it so bizarre? When Madeline told it to Jill it seemed to possess a stubborn if frightening truth that kept finding its way to the surface. Jill had believed her enough to be afraid, to need to know more. Which was why Jill was here.
But where was Madeline?
Madeline never did show up. Jill waited fifteen minutes more inside the library, then went outside and stood in the shade near the entrance and waited another ten. People came and went. None of them was Madeline.
Jill rode the subway back toward her apartment half expecting, maybe fearing, that the door at the end of the car would open with a blast of air and noise and in would burst crazy Madeline to slump down next to her again and fill her ears with madness.
But the subway ride was uneventful except for a desperate man who set half a dozen small stuffed animals to bound about on the car’s floor and tried to sell them for five dollars each.
During the next few days, as Jill entered or left her apartment, walked the streets, and rode the subway, she found herself watching for Madeline. Now and then she’d spot a bundle of rags that turned out to be human and her heart would jump, or she’d spot a haggard, lonely homeless woman who only vaguely resembled Madeline when she got up close. No Madeline. She seemed to have left Jill’s life as abruptly and mysteriously as she’d entered it.
Jill couldn’t leave the matter alone. She caught up on the news reports about the Torso Murders, spending much of her time reading daily papers and then more time online searching local newspapers’ archives.
Without Madeline there to make the murders seem connected to E-Bliss.org, Jill began to doubt that either of them was in any real danger. Madeline must simply be one of the many mentally precarious and delusional souls wandering the New York streets. Perhaps Jill could find help for Madeline. If she could find her.
If she truly wanted to find Madeline.
What she wanted to do, really, was forget Madeline, though she didn’t like admitting it to herself.
Each night before Jill slept, and in the dawn just after waking, she found herself thinking about Madeline. There was no way she could keep her mind from working on Madeline’s story. If Madeline was telling the truth and was found and murdered, her killers wouldn’t necessarily leave her torso to be discovered and examined by the police. The fact that she’d escaped for a while might have put her in a different category, someone E-Bliss.org wouldn’t want in any way connected to the other murders.
But what bothered Jill most about Madeline’s story, what snagged her thoughts whenever she let her guard down, was that Madeline, who’d been vibrating with the urgency that they meet and discuss some kind of plan, was nowhere to be found. Not in Jill’s banal, workaday world, anyway.
But Madeline was real. Jill kept reminding herself of that.
Had to be real.
Five days after they were to meet in the library, Jill tuned her TV to NY1 local news and learned that the decomposing body of a woman had been found in the shadows of a subway stop on Fifty-first Street. No one had noticed the body at first because it was just inside the dark tunnel at the very end of the platform, down in the deeper darkness alongside the tracks. Train after train must have traveled alongside the dead woman, barely missing her.
There was no identification on the body.
In the Post the next morning was a police artist’s depiction of what the woman might have looked like when alive. Jill saw it while riding the subway when the man seated across from her opened his newspaper wide to read the inside pages.
Jill sat rocking gently in her seat with the subway’s constant swaying motion staring at the sketch. The woman’s eyes seemed to stare back at her.
The woman looked like Madeline.
Charlotte Lowenstein kissed Dixie on the lips as they were about to leave The Bad Sister and walk the few blocks to Charlotte’s apartment in the Village. Charlotte was slightly drunk and knew it but didn’t care. Dixie would take care of her, make sure she didn’t stumble and fall or walk out in front of a car. Not that there was much traffic this time of night in this part of the Village.
Dixie helped her to stand up from her chair at the tiny table where they’d been sitting. The tabletop was a clutter of empty glasses, wadded paper napkins, miniature plastic swords, and bent swizzle sticks. They’d been sitting and talking, lost in each other, for at least two hours.
The bartender smiled and told them good night as they made their way along the bar, where about a dozen women sat, then past an old-fashioned glowing jukebox near the street door.
Outside, walking wasn’t as much of a problem as Charlotte had assumed. Dixie lent her an arm for support, but it wasn’t necessary. Charlotte could walk a straight line. She pretended anyway that she required Dixie’s assistance. It was so nice, for a change, to have someone taking care of her.
So much better than the loneliness, the emptiness that was becoming vaster and vaster and threatened to leave a hole in her soul.
The dating service had worked the first time. First time for Charlotte, anyway. Its website had boasted about same-sex matchups, and it had been true to its word. Dixie, tall, dark haired, with strong features and a slim, powerful body, was exactly what Charlotte needed. Maybe opposites did attract, up to a point.
Unlike the sleek and sensual Dixie, Charlotte was short and blond, and about fifteen pounds overweight, most of it in her hips. She had a heart-shaped, sweet face, as opposed to Dixie’s chiseled features and sharp vulpine profile. Dixie was undeniably sexy, but in a way that when she got a few years older might prompt people to refer to her as “handsome.” Well, she was handsome to Charlotte right now, tonight.
And tonight was going to get better. Each night during the month since they’d first met by appointment at Starbucks seemed better to Charlotte than the last. It was tough enough in a new city without being one of the sisters. True, you could hook up easily enough in New York, but there were risks involved. Sometimes serious risks. There were people, male and female, out there who would hurt you in the worst ways.
Charlotte found Dixie to be delightfully perfect. Dixie knew just how far not to go.
The two women leaned toward each other for mutual support, though Charlotte was sure Dixie had downed only one drink, maybe two. Charlotte’s memory was fuzzy. She heard Dixie draw a deep breath.
“Beautiful night.”
“Every night’s beautiful with you,” Charlotte said.
Dixie smiled. Two men, maybe a couple, passed on the other side of the street and glanced over at them. Charlotte knew that one way or another it was probably Dixie who drew their attention. Dixie, with her slicked-back black hair, her dark leather jacket and black tights, her high-heeled black leather boots that made her long legs look even longer. And the red scarf tied loosely at her neck, a splash of brilliance like blood. Man or woman, who wouldn’t stare? Who wouldn’t want?
Charlotte rested her head on the point of Dixie’s shoulder as they strolled. “We gonna put on a CD tonight?”
Dixie smiled. “If you’d like.”
“I like it with music.”
“You like it with or without,” Dixie said. She pinched Charlotte playfully on the cheek. Not that it didn’t hurt a little. Charlotte didn’t mind.
Headlights behind them bathed the street in yellow light, but they didn’t alter stride or stance. This was friendly territory late at night.
But Charlotte’s heartbeat did pick up when the lights got brighter and the car was obviously slowing behind them. She could hear its engine ticking. She didn’t look back, though. Neither did Dixie.
The front of the car came into view beside them. A large black car, shiny and with lots of gleaming chrome. Charlotte couldn’t help but glance over at it. She thought it was a Chrysler.
It pulled right alongside them and a little ahead and stopped at the curb. The driver buzzed down the passenger-side tinted window and leaned across the seat to look out at them.
“Dixie?”
A man’s
voice.
Dixie stopped walking and gave Charlotte a brief squeeze, letting her know there was nothing to fear.
“What are you doing here?” Dixie asked the driver, sounding surprised but not particularly afraid. The sure tone of her voice made Charlotte feel better. There wasn’t much Dixie couldn’t handle.
The driver was smiling. A nice-looking guy. “I just dropped a friend off at his apartment and was on my way home. Didn’t expect to bump into anyone I knew, much less you.” Still smiling, he looked at Charlotte, then back at Dixie.
“This is my friend Charlotte,” Dixie said. Her arm stayed reassuringly firm around Charlotte and contracted again in a gentle squeeze. “Charlotte, this is my brother, Don.”
“On your way someplace?” Don asked.
“Just left someplace,” Dixie said.
“We haven’t seen each other for quite a while.”
“That’s for sure,” Dixie said.
“I’ve got an idea,” Don said. “Why don’t we go to my place for drinks? The three of us. I can drive us there, then afterward take you wherever you want to be dropped off.”
Dixie felt Charlotte draw back. But then, she knew what Charlotte wanted. She kept her arm tight around Charlotte at the shoulder and looked down at her, smiling encouragingly. “Charlotte?”
“I don’t think so, Dixie. Not tonight. I’m feeling pretty dragged down.”
“You sure?”
“Certain.” She gave Don a tentative smile, asking for help.
The two guys who’d passed on the other side of the street appeared again, walking the other way.
Don seemed to think about it. “Don’t force her,” he said to Dixie. He grinned up at Charlotte. “There’s always another time.”
“Okay,” Dixie said. “We’ll give you a call.”
Don was still looking at Charlotte, still smiling warmly at her. He winked. “It’s a date.”
He drew back into the shadowed confines of the car and the window glided up. Charlotte and Dixie watched as the big Chrysler pulled away from the curb and turned the corner at the next intersection.
“Your brother,” Charlotte said, as if still digesting this new piece of information about Dixie.
Dixie took her arm and they began walking again. “My brother. We don’t see each other often, but we get along. I think you’ll like him.”
Charlotte kept pace and leaned into Dixie again so that they were almost thigh to thigh. “He seems nice.”
“Everyone says that,” Dixie said.
26
It was moments like this when Pearl emitted a kind of energy that anyone near her could feel. Quinn felt it now. Something was up with Pearl.
They were riding along in Quinn’s big Lincoln on a fine New York morning. The slanted sunlight cast stark, sharply angled shadows of tall buildings so that light and dimness danced over the vast expanse of metal that was the car’s gleaming black hood. Pearl had shown up at the Seventy-ninth Street office early in the unmarked car, and now they were driving to pick up Fedderman so the three of them could meet with Renz in his office at One Police Plaza. Quinn felt his hands tighten on the steering wheel as Pearl spoke.
“I understand you’re seeing that M.E. who smells like formaldehyde.”
Quinn braked to avoid rear-ending a dusty white delivery van and let the Lincoln edge forward in the blocked traffic. “I never noticed a formaldehyde scent.” He felt his jaw setting. Who was Pearl, anyhow, to worry about whom he was seeing or sleeping with? Pearl and that asshole Milton Kahn. Quinn cautioned himself about his anger. After all, he’d never even met Kahn, only heard about him.
“I didn’t say scent,” Pearl told him. “I said smell. More like stench.”
Quinn shrugged, which seemed to infuriate Pearl. He could sense her seething beside him. They drove along. The motor hummed. Pearl seemed to hum, though she wasn’t uttering a sound.
She was trying to start something, Quinn knew. Always trying to start something. Born with a burr up her ass.
Finally she said, “Goddamned car stinks, too. Like you’ve been smoking cigars in it.”
Screw this! Quinn had wanted a peaceful morning, but if she was determined to make trouble, he was going after her. She’d brought it on herself. “That might be you burning, Pearl.”
“Why should it be?”
“You seem upset about me seeing Linda. Not that you oughta be. You’re the one who’s always harping about the end of our relationship.”
“What’s to harp about?” she asked. “It’s over. There is no relationship.”
“Then why are you—”
“Who said I was?”
“So pissed off about—”
“I’m not in the slightest angry over anything concerning you, Quinn. Who you’re seeing. Who you’re screwing.”
“You brought up the subject.”
“The Linda subject?”
“Doctor Chavesky,” Quinn corrected, still in an unforgiving mood.
Pearl played it cool. She knew him, knew what he was doing, and how he usually refused to engage her in argument unless he was particularly angry about something. She must have pushed the right buttons. This Doctor Chavesky must’ve really gotten to him, for him to react by coming after Pearl so hard and tough. What was she supposed to do, shrink away in fear? Is that what the overgrown Irish thug expected?
“Move the goddamned car,” Pearl said. “Try to keep up with traffic.”
Quinn glanced up. It was true, traffic had begun to move forward. The dusty back of the van he’d almost hit was half a block away and picking up speed. He goosed the big Lincoln so it would keep up. He ignored Pearl.
She wouldn’t let it go.
“So now you’ve got something new to obsess about,” she said.
“You’re the one with the new obsession.”
“Which would be?”
Screwing Milton Kahn. “Disliking Dr. Chavesky.”
She laughed loudly and without a shred of humor. “You talk like I should actually give a shit about you two getting it on.”
“You talk like you care.”
“Why should I care?”
“You shouldn’t. I won’t obsess about you anymore, Pearl. That’s what you always accused me of doing. That’s over. No need for you to get upset about it any longer.”
“Is this me being upset?” she asked, pointing her forefinger at her deadpan expression. “Is it?”
“I’ve gotta keep an eye on the traffic,” Quinn said, not looking at her. God help him, he was beginning to enjoy this. A little.
Pearl seemed to sense it. “You do that,” she said. “You keep an eye on the traffic while you obsess about your doctor friend. You’re not careful, you’re liable to drive right up somebody’s ass. Maybe like you—”
“Pearl!”
They were both silent while he tailed the van along Forty-ninth Street in stop-and-go traffic. About five minutes passed. Quinn thought maybe Pearl had run down. He settled back in the leather upholstery and paid more attention to his driving.
“Know what I think?” Pearl asked.
“Usually not.”
“I think you’re so good at getting inside the minds of serial killers because you’re obsessive just like they are. You’re psychotic. You and the killer are opposite sides of the same coin.”
“That’s important, being on the opposite side.” But Quinn knew exactly what she meant and it bothered him. He’d always been stubborn, tunnel visioned, obsessive…. Or was it persistent, unrelenting, determined…? And what the hell was the difference? These were fine distinctions that had now and then gotten Quinn in trouble. Pearl’s hard head had gotten her into more than a few messes, too, so she had a lot of nerve talking to him that way, comparing him to serial killers.
He took a few deep breaths and swallowed his irritation.
So he was obsessive. So what? He put it to work and did some good in the world with it. If his obsessive nature helped to nail these assholes who killed
women in the worst ways, so be it. That was their problem and he was coming after them hard. And didn’t every coin have its opposite side?
“Whatever’s going on in our personal lives, we have to work together,” he said calmly. “Can you manage that, dear?”
“Don’t give me that sarcastic ‘dear’ bullshit. I’m not one of your gullible suspects or witnesses who fall for it and spill their guts.”
“Can you manage it?” he asked again.
“I’m still in the car, aren’t I?”
He glanced over and was surprised to see that she was smiling.
She was actually smiling.
Pearl enjoyed combat. But Quinn knew that. He didn’t say anything, and within a few blocks he found himself smiling along with her.
At Second Avenue he stopped for a red light, first in line, then suddenly ran the light and went the wrong way up Second while there wasn’t any traffic coming. A uniformed cop was standing by his squad car halfway up the block. As they passed, Quinn slowed the Lincoln and held his shield up tight against the windshield so the cop would see it. The cop recognized the shield, maybe recognized Quinn, and nodded.
As they turned the corner at the next block so they could zigzag uptown and get going in the right direction again, Pearl twisted around in her seat and saw the roof bar lights on the squad car winking and the cop standing alongside a gray Ford sedan lecturing the driver about traveling the wrong way on Second Avenue. She knew the Ford was a press car, one of those that had been staked out near the detectives’ office so media wolves could sneak photos or video footage, and sometimes follow them when they left.
Quinn cut over another block and got back on course, checking his rearview mirror to make sure the press car was nowhere in sight.
“That was nifty,” Pearl said.
Quinn nodded and drove on.
Jill knew she was being obsessive about Madeline. That was the only way to explain it. After all, the police artist sketch that was in all the papers and seemed to pop up every fifteen minutes on TV didn’t really look that much like Madeline.
But Jill had worked her last day for Tucker, Simpson, and King, though they said there was a slight possibility she’d be called back in a week. It all depended on when Mr. Tucker’s hernia operation was going to be scheduled. Things at the office would be hectic while he was off, and they’d need someone extra who could answer the phone and knew the filing system.