by John Lutz
As she walked, Lavern tried to think of lots of things, but found her mind focusing on the shotgun at home in the hall closet. The sharp pain in her left side whenever she took a step kept bringing her back to the gun. It was a twelve gauge, like the one her father had let her fire once in some woods behind a rented cabin. She remembered the deafening bark of the gun, the heavy recoil against her right shoulder. She’d fired at a paper target he’d nailed to a tree, and she’d hit it.
She’d hit it.
A pretty damned good shot.
I could do it again.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the shotgun. It was unhealthy, a fixation like this, but she couldn’t seem to control it. She guessed that was why they called them fixations. It was all Hobbs’s fault.
Hobbs’s damned fault.
He’d blocked every avenue of escape, made her into something that would have no choice other than to do to him what he might secretly want but not have the courage to do himself.
Suicide by wife.
I could do it again.
The pain in her side became more intense, and she wondered if Hobbs had cracked one of her ribs,
Traffic was backing up because the signal at the next intersection was red. A young couple, a tall man and a blond woman, climbed nimbly out of a stopped cab and disappeared into one of the buildings. They ran hunched over with their arms linked and their heads down, as if they were trying to get in out of the nonexistent rain or escape the paparazzi.
Their own dreamworld. Do they know, or even care, what’s real?
Lavern felt a pang of envy so sharp it made her break stride.
She knew that inside the building the couple had entered was a small fusion restaurant with a bar, where she could get a drink. Alcohol would moderate her rage and dull the pain.
Every step was agony, but she began to walk faster. The shotgun remained on the edge of her thoughts.
I could do it again.
PART III
A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.
— Wordsworth, “Alas! What Boots the Long Laborious Quest?”
57
He would need a few things from a hardware store: a steel bicycle hook, a length of strong nylon rope, a roll of wide duct tape, a plastic drop cloth, some rubbing alcohol to clean flesh so it would dry fast and completely and the tape would be well bonded. He already had the rest of what he’d need-a portable electric drill to create a starting hole, so he could make sure he was fastening the hook in a solid wood joist capable of supporting body weight.
As always when collecting his materials, he acted circumspectly.
A short subway ride got him within walking distance of a big-box chain store in Queens, where he bought the required items. It might raise suspicion if he made his purchases in Manhattan, especially the steel hook, after all the publicity about Terri Gaddis.
Along with the hook he bought a bicycle tire pump, a diversionary item just in case the dazed-looking teenager behind the checkout counter was more alert than she appeared. On the way home, he stopped in at a Duane Reade and bought the bottle of rubbing alcohol. No danger there of arousing suspicion.
In a luggage shop on Third Avenue he purchased a cheap blue canvas carry-on to put everything in so that people glancing at him wouldn’t fix him in their memories. He’d be merely a man in a hotel lobby carrying unexceptional luggage. One of hundreds of such men on hundreds of hours of security tape.
Once back in his room he’d phone Mitzi and tell her he’d reserved a table at Mephisto’s for them tomorrow night. She was expecting that. It was her birthday. After drinks and dinner, he’d suggest they go to her apartment. He’d hint that he had a gift for her. She’d see the blue canvas bag and assume it contained her gift, and in a way it did.
He had something rare indeed to give her on her birthday-the perfect symmetry of time. Enter and exit screaming on the same date, though thanks to the duct tape, exit would be much quieter than entry.
Check the birth and death dates on a lot of tombstones, he mused, and you’d seldom see such ideal closure.
He was sure that Mitzi, if she could, would instantly come up with a joke about it.
Quinn was sure the reason why Renz had chosen the corner of Forty-third and Broadway for their meeting was so he could eat one of the knishes sold by the street vender there.
They had to move down the block and back into the display-glassed doorway of an electronics shop in order not to be buffeted by the tourists and various Times Square area characters streaming past. Renz’s driver followed unobtrusively in Renz’s long black limo, gliding from one illegal parking space to another.
Renz shifted the knish to his right hand. “This guy comes into the two-one precinct yesterday and complains he found a package on his doormat. It was wrapped in brown paper and taped tight. His name was printed on it. Seems somebody left it there, rang the bell, and ran. Inside the package was a revolver.”
“A twenty-five Springbok?” Quinn asked hopefully, watching Renz take a bite of knish while holding his free hand cupped beneath his chin as a crumb catcher.
“I wish it wash sho,” Renz said around the knish.
Quinn knew something must have come of the man’s complaint, or Renz wouldn’t even have learned about it.
“Shmith an’ Weshon,” Renz said, and swallowed. “But the meaning here was clear, so the guy was told what all these poor schmucks are being told. There’s no way to know who put the gun there, and yes, he was probably being challenged to what the media and public are calling a duel, and could he list any enemies who might have left the gun.”
“Let me guess,” Quinn said. “He didn’t have any enemies.”
“No! The guy listed over twenty people he thinks might like to shoot him. He’s sales manager at a real estate agency, and apparently that makes for a lot of enemies.”
“If you do it the wrong way, I guess.”
“Oh, he even struck the detectives taking the complaint as a prick. I’m sure he’s a real bully. That’s what everyone’s saying now, including Berty Wrenner.” Renz took another bite of knish. Half of it broke off and fell into his waiting palm, and he flicked it away. Some of it got on the pants cuff of a man in a suit walking past, and he glared at Renz.
Quinn waited until Renz had chewed and swallowed, so as not to be sprayed by knish. “Who’s Berty Wrenner?”
“The guy that shot the complainant,” Renz said.
Quinn looked at him. “The guy who came into the precinct house with the package and gun got shot?”
“Once, in the middle of the forehead,” Renz said. “It did the job, even though it was a twenty-two-caliber slug.”
“Who’s-who was the guy that got shot?”
“Name of Alec Farr. He was Wrenner’s boss, and apparently rode the hell out of him, drove him nutty enough to kill. The other salespeople at the agency confirmed this. They didn’t disguise the fact they were glad Farr was dead, said Wrenner was his favorite whipping boy.”
“So you have Wrenner in custody.”
“Yep. He was found sitting next to the body, sobbing.”
“He’s not our serial killer,” Quinn said.
“Not a chance. Our problem, though. The mayor himself was on the phone this morning telling me these murders are out of control.”
“He’s just catching on to that?”
“He’s had other things on his mind. But now we’re on his mind.”
“Why didn’t Farr get out of town, if he took the threat seriously enough to go to the police?”
“Said he couldn’t. He had a job, work to do here. He’d get fired if he left town just because some asshole threatened him. Besides, he was the stubborn sort.”
Quinn thought that should be engraved on the tombstones of a lot of people he’d known: He was the stubborn sort. Maybe on his own tombstone.
“I’m getting pressure from on high you wouldn’t believe,” Renz said.
“Am I supposed to be feeling pressure here?” Quinn
asked.
“That’s the purpose of this conversation. Mayor told me to light a fire under you.”
“Isn’t that arson?”
“Unless you’re protesting something. Like lack of progress. I know there’s already a fire under you, Quinn, but that’s because I know you, and the mayor doesn’t. I’m simply delivering the message.”
Quinn said nothing while Renz finished his knish, then produced a white handkerchief from a pocket and fastidiously wiped his hands finger by finger.
After stuffing the handkerchief back in his pants pocket, Renz reached into an inside pocket of his suit coat and brought out a folded City Beat and held it out to Quinn. “Sellers has got the exclusive on this; that’s why it wasn’t in the big papers this morning. It’s on their Web sites, though, and radio and TV news is on the story heavy. Sellers painted Wrenner as a victim, said he shot Farr for the same reason women kill their abusive husbands. Wrenner was too dependent on Farr and his job to go out and get another job, just like wifey’s too dependent to get another hubby and goes for the knife or gun instead.”
Accepting the newspaper, Quinn said, “There’s enough truth in it that in some quarters it might wash.”
“That’s what worries me, Quinn. The rest of the media’s already spouting the same nonsense. They’re making it look like murder’s okay in certain circumstances. There are too many damned people in this city who think they’re in those circumstances.”
“Copycats with guns,” Quinn said.
“Only nobody’s got nine lives.”
Quinn looked at a display of miniature digital cameras behind Renz. With all the electronic crap taking over the world, for all they knew they were being video streamed right now. Not that they had anything to hide, but neither one would want…say, the mayor, to see or hear their conversation.
Tucking the City Beat beneath his arm, Quinn said, “What would you have me do about all this, Harley?”
“Catch the bastard,” Renz said, as if the answer was obvious and Quinn had somehow missed it.
“Uh-huh. Gonna have another knish?”
“One’s enough. Moderation in all things. What I’m gonna have next is a cigar.”
“Tell the mayor I’m on fire,” Quinn said.
Renz smiled and motioned to his driver.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, and got into the limo.
“Catch the bastard,” Renz said again, and pulled the door shut so that all Quinn saw in the limo’s tinted window was a bent-nosed, tough-looking guy with a thatch of unruly straight hair. Quinn.
58
Pearl told herself it was too early for Dr. Eichmann to call about her biopsy report, but she was nonetheless impatient. Quinn was off somewhere in a meeting with Renz, and Fedderman was trading briefings with Vitali and Mishkin so the left hand would know all about the right hand.
She’d been jumpy all morning, still angry at her mother and that prick Milton Kahn, anxious because she’d slept so poorly. She was jacked up on too much coffee and considering taking up smoking to calm her nerves, though she had never smoked. But most of all she was worried about the removed mole. Where was it now, somewhere out of state in a jar on some laboratory shelf? Being whirled dizzily in a centrifuge? Subjected to extreme light, magnification, and probing with sharp instruments?
For the past two hours she’d been seated at her desk, working on her computer because there was nothing more productive or distracting for her to do. Now and then leaning forward to sip more coffee, she played her fingers over the keyboard and jerked and clicked the mouse on its pad, trolling for information on any murders, anywhere, any time, that involved the hanging and disemboweling of the victims.
There was a case in Seattle two years ago, but they’d caught and convicted the guy, who’d turned out to be a former medical student and city employee. Another, five years ago, in California. In that one the killer was a mental case searching for a healthy kidney to be transplanted in exchange for his own diseased one. He’d been caught when he’d broken into a hospital to perform the surgery on himself. His motive was that he’d been unfairly kept too long on the transplant waiting list. He, too, was convicted, and died in prison.
That was it. This kind of murder was less popular than gunshots, stab wounds, poisoning, blunt instruments, or strangulation.
Pearl was about to give up, get another cup of coffee, and do some serious pacing, when on an obscure Web site about crimes against animals she discovered the case of a man named Dwayne Avis. Five years ago he had gotten a suspended sentence and paid a fine after torturing dogs on his upstate New York farm. Six of the animals had been found hanging and gutted in his barn.
Not quite the same thing as dead women, Pearl thought, leaning back in her chair and pressing a fist into her aching back.
But what other leads did they have?
She reread the small-town newspaper article on her computer monitor. Avis expressed no remorse, according to the reporter, and had threatened state police with a shotgun when they entered his property. When subdued and arrested, he stated that the dogs were his and what he did with them was his business. There was no photo of Avis accompanying the article.
Sick bastard, Pearl thought. Who’d do that to defenseless animals and then resist arrest and try to defend his actions? Or maybe he was simply evil. It might not be a bad idea to at least talk to him, make sure he wasn’t getting away with doing the same thing again. After five years, people forgot.
After five years, people had moved away. It was possible Dwayne Avis was one of them. He might be gone or might even have died. Some dog lover might have shot him, and good riddance.
Or maybe he’d moved to New York City.
Pearl manipulated the mouse and made her way electronically to the paper’s front page. It was the Mansard Gazette, headquartered in Mansard, New York. Pearl clicked back to the five-year-old news article about the slaughtered dogs. She printed it out to show to Quinn or Fedderman, when one or the other turned up at the office. Then she made use of the Internet to find out more about Mansard.
It turned out to be a small upstate farming town with a population of less than five hundred. Pearl figured most of that meager number lived on outlying farms. The Web site listed two phone numbers for the Mansard city hall. Pearl called the one titled “Public Relations.”
She didn’t introduce herself as a cop. Small towns could be gossip nests. If Avis did somehow turn out to be a suspect, she didn’t want him alerted that the police were again interested in him.
A perky-sounding woman named Jane Ellen answered the phone and never even asked Pearl’s name, but assumed she must be writing an article or doing a school paper on Mansard-maybe because Pearl led her in that direction.
Pearl listened to a lot about average rainfall and temperature, home prices, school ratings, and something called the Fall Apple Theater, before asking if Dwayne Avis still lived in or around Mansard.
“He’s still on his farm,” Jane Ellen said. Her tone had definitely become cooler.
“I met him once, and he told me about Mansard,” Pearl said.
“Oh? He have anything good to say about it?”
Pearl laughed as if Jane Ellen were joking. “Of course he did.”
“Dwayne is one who keeps pretty much to himself. Likes it out there on his farm, all secluded. Folks pretty much respect his wishes.”
“Is his farm far from town?”
“’Bout ten miles.”
“What’s he grow?”
“Not much. Drives his old truck in and sells some tomatoes and corn at a local produce market the town has in season. Sometimes okra.”
Okra? Haven’t had that in years. Don’t miss it. “Does he have any animals on his farm?” Pearl asked.
Jane Ellen was silent for a while. Then she said: “Not anymore. Had some kind of trouble years ago, but that’s not for me to talk about.”
But you just did. “What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, I don’t know.
There’s just stories floating around. I don’t pay much attention to them. Where do you know Mr. Avis from?”
“Oh, I don’t know him at all. We just found ourselves sitting together on a bus once and got to talking. You know, passing strangers thrown together-and he started talking about Mansard, and I found myself getting interested.”
Jane Ellen was starting to get suspicious. It wouldn’t be good if Dwayne Avis learned someone had called and inquired about him.
“So tell me,” Pearl said, “just what is the Fall Apple Theater?”
“I realize we’re both usually free around lunchtime,” Zoe said, “but we’ve got to do something about meeting like this.”
“We need a bigger bed,” Quinn said.
Zoe didn’t seem amused. She was standing alongside her bed, where Quinn still lay nude and perspiring and sexually sated. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m going to have to hurry to be in time for my next appointment.”
Quinn thought she sounded like a hotel prostitute, but he decided he’d better keep that to himself. He lay quietly and watched her dress. She’d showered, and her body was still damp despite all her toweling off, which made her clothes stick to her. He watched her wriggle into her panties, then her slacks. She smoothed material with her hands, tugged at it, rearranged it, glanced at her image in the dresser mirror and seemed dissatisfied by the way the slacks fit. Quinn thought they looked just fine. She bent down and picked up her bra from where she’d dropped it on the floor an hour earlier. He watched her extend her elbows out while leaning forward and reaching behind her to fasten the clasp. The movement reminded him of a graceful exotic bird flexing its wings.
“You sure you have to leave right away?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m sure.” She reached for her blouse.
While she was standing at the mirror working a comb through her mussed hair, he sat up in bed and scooted his body so he was leaning with his back propped against the pillows.
Zoe was fully dressed now. As soon as her hair was to her satisfaction, she’d pick up her purse, kiss him good-bye, and be gone. They were both out of the mood now, even as they enjoyed the afterglow. Quinn knew he should follow Zoe’s example and reset his mind for work. Noontime assignations were fun-more than fun-but you couldn’t let them control your life.