by John Lutz
The crime scene unit was already inside Terri Gaddis’s cramped apartment, doing their white-glove ballet. Sal Vitali and Harold Mishkin were talking to Nift, the obnoxious ME, in a hall that probably led to a small bedroom and bathroom. Mishkin looked ill.
Vitali nodded a hello and motioned with his head. “In the bathroom,” he said in his gravelly voice. Mishkin gave them a faint and sympathetic smile as they edged past, as if to warn them they weren’t going to like what they were about to see.
Mishkin was right.
A tech who’d been dusting the toilet tank and vanity for prints saw them and got out of their way, leaving the tiny bathroom so they had a clear view of what was dangling from a hook in the ceiling.
It was what Quinn had braced himself to see, but it was still worse than he’d imagined. The woman’s upside-down body was laid open from her pubis to the base of her neck. Her internal organs and entrails had been removed and were piled in the bathtub. Flies were beginning to feast.
Terri Gaddis had been an attractive woman. Her face, even with its horror-stricken expression, had somehow escaped being coated with blood and was in sharp contrast to the carnage.
Quinn looked up at the ceiling, almost as if to offer a prayer.
“Bicycle hook,” Pearl said. “The killer located a wooden joist on the other side of the drywall so it would support plenty of weight. You do that if you’ve got a bike to hang.”
Nift had halfway entered the tiny bathroom and was clucking his tongue. “She’s no bicycle, but you can tell she was the kinda woman who’d give you a helluva ride.” He leered at Pearl. “Hello, shweetheart.” It was a bad Bogart imitation.
“Hi, ashhole.”
“It’s like the other victims,” Nift said to Quinn, no longer Bogart and ignoring Pearl. “Same kind of knife was used. Looks like at pretty much the same angle. We’ll know more once we get her to the morgue and I put her back together.”
Why? Are you coming apart?
Quinn felt queasy as he recalled his joke with Zoe less than an hour ago.
“You can tell she had a pretty good rack on her,” Nift said.
It was like something a hunter would say about a slain deer, and it made Pearl suddenly furious. “How does a prick like you become a doctor?”
Nift grinned. “People I work on never complain, so why should you?”
“Because you’re a-”
“Pearl!”
Quinn’s hand was on her shoulder, holding her back, and she realized she’d been advancing on Nift.
“Let’s keep it professional,” Quinn said. Then, to Nift: “Is everything there?” If only you could put her back together.
The cocky little ME seemed surprised by the question. Then he understood. “Yeah, I looked and made sure. And the organs have to be cut away from the peritoneum differently from the way it was done here if they’re gonna be reusable. Nobody’s doing this so they can get healthy organs to sell on the black market.” He glanced at Pearl. “Shame. The killer’s missing a bet, and he could maybe save somebody’s life whenever he killed someone.”
The stench in the stifling little room was beginning to get to Quinn. The stench and Nift.
He led the way, and they returned to where Sal and Mishkin were standing, watching the techs go over the living room.
“They won’t find anything we can use,” Mishkin said. “The guy works clean.” He had so much mentholated cream all over his mustache he looked as if he had a bad cold.
Vitali noticed Quinn looking at his partner and said, “Harold does what works for him, just like the rest of us, even if he does smell like a walking meth lab.”
“He smells better than the corpse,” Quinn said.
“That’s absolutely the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me,” Mishkin told him. He had a deadpan, dry delivery. Quinn made a mental note that the innocuous-looking little guy might occasionally sting.
“Let’s go out in the hall,” Quinn suggested, in deference to Mishkin’s weak stomach.
They dodged the techs and left the apartment, then moved down the hall so they were out of earshot of the cop posted at the door and the distraught young woman on the bench.
“Her name’s Martha Swann,” Vitali said. “She’s the one found the body. When the victim, Terri Gaddis, didn’t show up for work at one of those Office Tech stores and didn’t answer her phone, they sent Martha here to see if Terri was all right.”
“Terri wasn’t,” Mishkin said.
“You wanna talk to Martha?” Vitali asked. “That’s the only reason we were still keeping her around.”
“You got her full statement?” Quinn asked.
“Sure.”
Quinn nodded to Pearl, who went down the hall and sat next to the woman, calming her and telling her she could leave, that a squad car would drive her back to work, or to where she lived, if she preferred.
“Poor kid won’t forget this,” Mishkin said.
“Her friend Terri already has,” Vitali said. There was venom in his voice.
“Lighten up, Sal,” Mishkin told him.
Partners for a long time, Quinn thought. He was glad they were on the Slicer end of the investigation and under his command. “Nift said all the organs are there,” he said. “You guys check that on the other victims?”
“We did,” Vitali growled. “Nobody’s out there selling livers or kidneys. That’d make it too easy, give us a motive.”
“Hunting,” Mishkin said. “The bastard likes to stalk and kill, then field dress his game.” He swallowed and absently moved his right hand across his stomach.
Pearl was back. Quinn looked down the hall and saw that Martha Swann was gone.
“She decided to go back in to work,” Pearl said.
“Gutsy young lady,” Fedderman said.
“Or one who needs the money,” Vitali said.
There was a flurry of activity down the hall. Terri Gaddis was in a body bag on a gurney, being maneuvered out of her apartment. Also on the gurney was a black plastic bag twist-tied at the top. Quinn knew what was in it and thought it looked too much like a trash bag. Another defilement of a beautiful young woman.
“We told them they could take her after you had your look,” Vitali said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Quinn said he didn’t.
As the remains of Terri Gaddis were wheeled past them, Nift, following the gurney, glanced over at the detectives.
“My examination told me there were times the lady looked a lot better on her back,” he said, flashing his practiced leer at Pearl.
As the death procession was trying to fit itself into the elevator, Pearl said, “I wonder what makes Nift such an asshole.”
“He makes those nasty cracks in an effort to stay sane,” Mishkin said. “It isn’t working.”
“How’s the other end of the investigation going?” Vitali asked.
Quinn filled him in.
“I thought we were gonna hold back that Becker was shot inside his hotel, then moved outside,” Vitali said. “It’s in all the papers.”
“We tried,” Quinn said. “The information leaked, and a reporter we had on our side double-crossed Renz.”
“Cindy Sellers,” Mishkin said. “Only a snake would trust somebody like her.”
“Uh-huh,” Pearl said.
“We can still use her,” Quinn said. “Sometimes it works in our favor that she has no scruples.”
“Any ideas as to why Becker’s body was moved?” Vitali asked.
“None. Do you?”
“No tengo ni nocion.”
The reply in Spanish was surprising, coming from the most Italian-looking man Quinn had ever seen.
The diversified city. He loved it.
“Anything in particular you want us to do now?” Vitali asked.
“Stay on the case,” Quinn said. “And be careful.”
“Have a good one,” Pearl said, as the Vitali-Mishkin part of the team started toward the elevator.
Vitali
gave a little wave. “Ciao.”
“Happy hunting,” Fedderman said.
“Shalom,” Mishkin said over his shoulder.
Au revoir, Quinn thought.
Jerry Dunn chewed absently on a gin-soaked olive. He was nervous, but didn’t know why. The man from Quest and Quarry had called and asked to meet him here, in Gillman’s Bar on West Forty-second Street. It was about business, he’d said. Maybe that was why Dunn was nervous; he knew the business of Quest and Quarry, had in fact been part of it.
He swallowed what was left of the olive and wondered if he should mention the newspaper piece he’d read about the guy who’d been shot in the Antonian Hotel and then dragged outside. The latest victim of the. 25-Caliber Killer. It had to have something to do with Quest and Quarry, but it might be a sensitive subject,
Here came the guy now, medium height, compact, clean cut, and thoughtful looking in a way that made him seem like a youthful college professor who hadn’t yet burned out. But there was a grace and muscularity about him that attracted attention and suggested a lot of strength beneath that tailored blue suit. He gave his handsome smile and extended his hand to Jerry, who shook it and noticed how dry and strong it was.
Jerry had been drinking a Beefeater martini. The man from Quest and Quarry sat down opposite him in the wooden booth near the window and ordered a scotch rocks and a fresh drink for Jerry.
“I wanted to congratulate you on the fine hunt you conducted,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Joseph Galin was a formidable quarry.”
The drinks arrived, and both men were silent until the barmaid had left.
“I’m offering you another hunt,” the college professor (as Jerry thought of him) said. “Same terms.”
Jerry thought about it and sipped his fresh martini. “If I keep doing this I might wind up being a rich man.”
“But that’s not why you’re going to say yes.”
Jerry smiled. “We both know that.”
“Do we have an agreement?”
Jerry nodded.
“This hunt will be slightly different,” said the man from Quest and Quarry.
When he was finished explaining that difference, he said, “Your quarry will be a man named Thomas Rhodes.”
After leaving Gillman’s Bar, Martin Hawk took a cab to the block of Thomas Rhodes’s West Side brownstone and got out at the corner. He put on the plain blue baseball cap he’d had in his suit coat pocket and adjusted the bill at a slight angle. Everyone in a baseball cap looked like everyone else in a baseball cap. He walked down the street and, without being noticed left a small, tightly wrapped package in the brownstone’s mailbox.
He was smiling as he strode casually away. The package contained a small. 25-caliber revolver. He knew that Rhodes would understand what it was for, and he knew how he’d react. Rhodes should never have discharged his weapon inside his opponent’s hotel. It had been carefully explained to him that both hunters’ hotels were safety zones. He’d broken the rules and the code of honor, and that was unforgivable, as well as dangerous.
Rhodes wouldn’t contact the police, but he might try to leave town with his life preserved, made silent by fear. Or he might feel that he had no choice but to take up the challenge.
Either way, Hawk had faith in Jerry Dunn. Also either way, Quest and Quarry would neutralize a former client who was a potential problem. This kind of pairing was Martin Hawk’s way of sweeping up after himself.
He glanced at his watch. It was still early enough to see a woman who very much interested him. A special woman.
The special ones were getting closer together, he knew, and it was beginning to worry him. But there was no way to deny the need or the urgency. He really had no choice. And this woman…she was unique, like all of them, and the same, like all of them.
In the end, alike.
Simple puzzles. All of them.
He’d know how to deal with her, how to figure her out. He’d observe her and learn her thought processes and habits, and then take advantage of them. It was all in knowing when to move in. It was much like hunting.
It was hunting.
He stepped off the curb into the oil-stained street and hailed another cab.
43
Black Lake, Missouri, 1986
The old Chevy pickup was dented and rusty, but it was all determination as it snarled and rattled over the rough and uneven dirt drive leading to the dilapidated farmhouse and outbuildings.
During the year since his initiation rite at the lake, Marty had become the hunter his father had anticipated, keen of eye and eager. He was twelve now, taller, still skinny but filling out.
The truck needed exhaust work. Anybody within a quarter of a mile might have heard it. But there was a brisk wind to go with the subzero temperature, so there was nobody to hear and notice the pickup with the illegal deer in the bed. Most folks knew Carl Hawk and his son Marty hunted out of season anyway, and chose not to do anything about it. They were more than a little scared of Carl, and besides, the family needed the meat.
Carl was driving. Marty sat next to him with one hand on the door handle to brace himself, his teeth clenched, as the truck bucked and swayed. Their rifles were unloaded and fitted into brackets so they were stacked horizontally across the back window. The deer in the truck’s bed was a dead six-point buck that Marty had shot three hours ago. Its throat was slashed and the animal had bled out where it hung in the woods while Carl and Marty had hunted some more, so it wasn’t making much of a mess in the truck.
“We’ll drive on into the barn,” Carl said, “so’s you can get right to it.”
“Yes, sir.” Marty’s breath fogged like his father’s in the cold truck, as the heater hadn’t worked since he could remember. He’d thought some days that they might as well be driving with the windows down.
When they reached the barn, Marty climbed down out of the truck and used the cold, rusty hasp for a handle as he swung one of the big wooden doors open. The hinges squealed, and the wind tried to take control of the door, so he had to hold tight to keep it from blowing shut.
The old truck growled and spat as if clearing its throat as Marty’s father bounced it over frozen ruts and inside the straw-littered building. Curtains briefly parted in one of the house’s front windows, but neither Carl nor Marty noticed, being too cold and bent on their task.
As soon as the truck was clear, Marty leaned into the barn door and walked backward, letting it close of its own accord as a concession to the wind.
There was no electricity in the barn, but it was easy enough to see by the light slanting in through spaces between the boards. There wasn’t much warmth, either, and eddies of winter wind found their way inside. There wasn’t any livestock. The family was down to half a dozen chickens, huddled in their coop, and four hogs crowded together for warmth in the walled plywood lean-to attached to their pen.
There was more growling and grinding of gears as Carl maneuvered the truck so its bed was directly below the block and tackle attached to one of the barn’s rafters.
Marty scampered up into the bed and got hold of the thick rope dangling from the pulley. He looped the rope around and between the deer’s stiffened rear legs and fastened it with a solid bowline knot.
When he was finished, he hopped down off the truck and went over to where the rope was angled away from the overhead pulley and was wound about the spool of a steel winch. Marty clung to the winch handle and gave it several turns while his father edged the truck forward until the deer was hanging free of the opened tailgate.
The truck’s engine gave a few mighty roars and died, and Carl got out and helped Marty work the winch another turn until the deer was hanging upside down with its antlers a few inches off the plank floor.
Carl brushed his gloved hands together, then stood off to the side and lit a cigar. He was watching Marty squinty-eyed through the smoke, a slight smile on his seamed face.
Marty knew what to do. He removed his jacket and draped it over the sid
e of the truck bed, then rolled his shirtsleeves up above his elbows. The gutting knife was hanging by its buckskin cord on one of the wood supporting beams. Marty took it down and ran a finger over its cutting edge to make sure it was sharp. Then he approached the deer, struck with the knife hard and straight between the deer’s rear legs, and used his own body weight to make a ripping incision down the deer’s swollen belly all the way to the base of its throat. He had to move back fast then, as undrained blood and the animal’s intestines spilled out onto the floor.
Marty worked quickly and skillfully with the gutting knife, his arms inside the still-warm animal up to their elbows. Cold as the barn was, the deer’s dwindling body warmth felt good. He tied off the anus, then sliced away the internal organs, making sure all the intestines were detached, letting the visceral matter drop to the floor where the initial mass of bloody innards lay. Marty and his father would later feed it to the hogs. Most of the rest of the deer they would store in the keep box outside the house, where it would remain frozen for weeks while the family gradually consumed it. Sometimes Carl would want the antlers saved, so he could mount them on one of the barn walls with dozens of other impressive racks of antlers. But this deer was merely a six point, so the antlers could also go to the hogs.
“You make sure you hose all that blood off you ’fore you come in the house,” said a woman’s voice.
Marty turned from his task and saw his mother, Alma.
Of course he hadn’t been able to clean his arms and hands completely of blood. Not that Alma wouldn’t have found blood, anyway. She always found something wrong.
That night, after Marty was in bed, she sighed and put down the Bible she’d been reading. He heard the faint squeaking of her chair’s wooden rockers stop as she stood up from it.
She didn’t delay. She came into the bedroom and yanked the T-shirt Marty slept in off him so hard that it tore. Then she took one of Carl’s belts to Marty, and, as usual, Carl did nothing to stop her.
“You want the blood of the beast on you?” she asked, over and over as she lashed Marty, who was now wearing only his jockey shorts.