In for the Kill

20

New York, the present

It was beginning to feel like a recurring nightmare to Quinn. Here he was again with Pearl and Fedderman in an apartment crowded with cops and techs, the bleached stench of death and dismemberment made somehow obscenely sanitary. More and more he was asking himself the question cops asked when they'd seen too many dead bodies: What was the value of life, if it could come to this?

"I wish we didn't have to look at this one," Pearl said, probably thinking the same thoughts as Quinn.

"Want me to check with the uniforms, then the neighbors, as usual?" Fedderman asked Quinn.

"Go to it, Feds."

Fedderman gratefully disappeared from the apartment.

Quinn eased past two techs who were diligently dusting and tweezering, then made his way down the short hall to the bathroom. Pearl was right behind him.

There wasn't much room for both of them in the bathroom, so both stood in the doorway looking in. Nift the ME was bending over the tub. An empty detergent box lay on the floor near a plastic bleach bottle. The box proclaimed in bold text that the soap contained bleach. A lot of bleach here, Quinn thought, but the smell of corruption somehow seeped through to lodge in the nostrils and lie like a dull taste on the tongue. He swallowed and only made it worse.

"Jesus!" Pearl said in a hushed voice behind him.

"No, only me," said the smart-mouthed little ME, still facing away from them. He'd known they were there. He duckwalked aside slightly in his crouch, maybe to allow them to see the severed head of Marilyn Nelson lying on top of her bone-white crossed arms. Marilyn was staring back at them with an expression of alarm, as if they'd interrupted her in an intimate moment, which in a manner of speaking they had. Quinn wished Nift would close her eyes.

"This one is really a shame," Nift said, probing pale dead flesh with a bright steel instrument.

It wasn't like him to show anything other than callousness or dumb wit toward his job. Was he developing human feelings? Sensitivity?

"They're all a shame," Pearl said.

"Yeah, but this one especially. You put all the pieces together, at least in your mind, and she was built like a sex machine."

"Dr. Frankenstein Nift," Pearl said in disgust.

Nift glanced back and up at her. "Frankensteen!"

"This one like the others?" Quinn asked, trying to head off a verbal confrontation, not to mention more mundane drivel.

"In almost every way that matters," Nift said. "Looks like the same kind of cutting instruments, then the same draining and immaculate cleansing of the body parts. She's stacked-no pun intended-in the same ritualistic way. Adhesive residue indicating that tape was recently removed from her wrists and ankles, as well as from across her mouth. I can't say for sure before the postmortem, but my guess would be death by drowning. Then chop, chop. And just as in the other cases, the killer left the bathroom cleaner than my wife ever could."

Pearl stared at him. "You've got a wife?"

"I was speaking metaphorically."

Quinn gave Pearl a warning look. He knew how she felt about Nift and didn't want her going ballistic at a crime scene.

"You said this one was like the others in almost every way that mattered," Quinn pointed out. He knew that Nift liked to put off whatever of value he might have to say, savoring the suspense and then the moment.

"I meant that mattered to the victim," Nift said.

"How about what matters to us detectives?"

Nift appeared to give the question some thought. "C'mon in all the way so you can get a closer look," he said. "Just you, not the cop with the curves."

Pearl showed admirable restraint, clamping her lips together.

Quinn moved farther into the bathroom, unconsciously holding his breath against the ungodly stench, and saw for the first time that the victim's wet and slicked-back hair was blond. That must be the difference Nift had referred to, what mattered; the other victims were brunettes. And there was something stuck to Marilyn Nelson's left cheek, a few inches in front of her ear. At first Quinn thought it was a dead insect. He leaned closer and saw that it was a clipping of dark, curly hair.

"That what I think it is?"

Nift smiled. "Uh-huh. Dark pubic hair. Not a clipping, though. The follicles are still attached. These hairs were yanked out, then placed on her cheek on display. The victim was a dyed blonde."

Quinn leaned closer to examine the blond hair. "It would figure, but I don't see any dark roots."

"That's because it's a very recent dye job. She's a brunette." Nift chuckled. "Take it from me, I checked." Nift shot a look back at Pearl. "Wish I coulda checked when she was alive."

Pearl had her jaws clenched so tight in her effort to remain silent that Quinn thought she better be careful or she might break a tooth.

He straightened up, leaving Nift down in a crouch to finish his preliminary postmortem.

But Nift also stood up. He had on his creepy smile. "Know what I think that display of pubic hair means, Quinn?"

"What it might mean," Quinn said, "is that our killer who prefers brunettes was acquainted with the victim well enough to know she wasn't a real blonde."

"No might about it," Nift said. "He wouldn't have killed her in the first place if he didn't know she was actually a brunette-his type. I think he knew this one personally."

Pearl had to admit to herself that Nift had a point, but she still maintained her silence, biting down on her anger and fierce dislike for the nasty little ME. If she started in on him…Well, there was no reason to consider that.

"It's a recent dye job," Quinn said. "But that doesn't mean the killer knew his victim personally. He might have stalked her for weeks, even months, when she was a brunette."

And because her last name began with an N, Pearl thought.

Nift chewed on the inside of his cheek, then nodded. "Possible," he admitted.

Good, Pearl thought. The little prick's been squelched. Teach him to cross swords with Quinn.

"Another thing," Nift said. "My guess is Miz Nelson hasn't been dead more than three hours."

That interested Quinn. It meant the killer must have made his anonymous call to the police shortly after murdering Marilyn Nelson, his second N victim. The bastard had probably planned on the phone call. Didn't want to wait for the body to be discovered by someone other than the police. He wanted Marilyn Nelson to be viewed by Quinn and company exactly as he'd left her so the strands of dark pubic hair were sure to be found. Playing his gruesome game.

Quinn took a careful look around, and then started to back out of the bathroom so he and Pearl could talk to the first uniforms on the scene, then to the crime scene techs, to see when they'd be finished. Then they'd help Fedderman interview Marilyn Nelson's neighbors. She'd been dead only a few hours. Maybe someone would remember actually seeing the killer come or go.

As they were leaving the bathroom and the immediate presence of violent death, Pearl decided to mention calmly to Nift something to the effect that from now on he should concentrate on his job and let the detectives concentrate on theirs. She really did intend for it to be calm and measured. A relatively polite parting shot.

What came out was, "Hey, Frankenstein, you really are an insufferable little asshole."

Far from being insulted, Nift grinned and glanced wide-eyed at Quinn. "She's alive!"

Quinn wrapped an arm around Pearl's waist and turned her away from Nift, then gripped her elbow tightly and got her out of there.

"Sorry," Pearl said, when they were back in the living room. "I couldn't resist."

Quinn smiled at her. "Considering the provocation, I thought you did well."

Still avoiding the CSU techs, who assured them they were almost finished, they crossed the room to a small desk where a phone sat. A tech told Quinn the phone had already been dusted for prints, so it was okay to touch. Quinn touched. He pressed the redial button on Marilyn Nelson's phone and got a number that gave out time and temperature and an offer for expense-free checking. So the killer hadn't called the police from the apartment. At least not on this phone.

A cursory search of Marilyn Nelson's apartment wasn't very revealing. There was no sign of a cell phone, vibrating or otherwise. Maybe she'd had a cell and the killer had taken it with him, used it to call the law.

Quinn had to smile, thinking maybe the killer had tried to use the cell phone and it only vibrated.

They left the apartment and stood out in the hall, more to get away from the stench of bleached death than for any other reason.

Quinn said, "Nift is probably right. This one might have been chosen because her last initial was N, but the killer probably got to know her first as a brunette, or had known her all along."

"Maybe it's her brother," Pearl said, glaring back into the apartment in the general direction of Nift. Once someone got under her skin she simply couldn't let it go. She fumed for a long, long time, maybe unto eternity. Quinn thought it might be part of what made her such a good detective and such a bad cop.

He was familiar with the white splotches at the corners of her mouth, the pugnacious thrust of her chin. In truth he'd always found these manifestations of her righteous rage oddly attractive, though he'd never told her so.

He shook his head slowly and with sad knowledge. "Pearl, Pearl…"

The look she gave him might have scorched his clothes.

The sanitized stench of death stayed with them the rest of the evening and followed them home.

Quinn shared Pearl's rage, but in a quieter way and directed at the killer. Pearl was a hothead buffeted by her emotions. Quinn's rage was constant and controlled and patient, a laser beam probing the darkness, obsessively seeking its target.

Pity the target.