In for the Kill

36

New York, the present

The Pepper Tree was decorated mostly in grays and blues, with one wall a wide mural of green fields beneath a blue sky. The fields were dotted with trees Pearl assumed to be pepper trees, but then, she wasn't even sure if there were types of peppers that grew on trees.

Culinary license, she thought, as a smiling African American man approached. He was handsome if a bit paunchy, wearing a navy jacket with brass buttons, white shirt open at the collar, a red ascot. A guy who had lost his yacht.

"We're not open for breakfast," he said.

Pearl looked out over the rows of white tablecloths without flatware, china, or napkins. "I can see that. You should have locked your door."

He seemed amused. "We're trusting sorts."

"I wish I were," Pearl said, and showed him her shield.

The man's smile disappeared, which was a shame. He had a great smile but without it looked rather ordinary.

"This is about Marilyn Nelson?" he asked, surprising her, and for the first time sounding as if he had a slight Jamaican accent.

"You're clairvoyant," Pearl said.

"Oh, not hardly. Marilyn ate here often. She was a pretty woman. We notice pretty women, especially if they're also as nice as Marilyn."

Pearl glanced about. She and the man seemed to be the only ones in the restaurant.

"My employee Harmon is in the kitchen cleaning up," the man said, guessing her thoughts. "I am Virgil Mantrell."

"The manager?"

"And owner. Which means I'm here virtually all the time."

Useful, Pearl thought. The prospects of her visit to the Pepper Tree brightened. Surely Jeb wasn't the only man who'd dined with Marilyn in the restaurant. "I understand Marilyn usually ate alone."

"Usually, yes. She hadn't been in the city long and hadn't had time to explore. Though she wasn't always alone. I remember her coming here for dinner with men a few times, on dates, it looked like. And another time, later, she had lunch with a woman."

"What do you remember about them?"

"The men were different. Except for one she was here with at least a couple of times."

"What did that one look like?"

"I don't remember much about him. He seemed to be in his thirties, had dark hair. I suppose you'd call him handsome, but at the same time he was very ordinary looking. I'd have trouble recognizing him if he came in here again, and I have a memory for faces."

"And the woman who dined with Marilyn?"

"Her I would recognize."

"Pretty, I'll bet."

"Not as pretty as Marilyn." The smile was back. "We don't like to quantify our customers in terms of beauty or handsomeness."

"Wise policy," Pearl said.

He nodded. "It is only polite, and politeness goes far in the restaurant business. When I made it a point to visit Marilyn's table and make sure everything was all right, she introduced me to the woman, who she said was an old college friend."

"Did she refer to her by name?"

"Yes, she did." He raised his dark eyebrows in a way that made him appear to be in pain. "I'm sorry, but while I remember faces, I don't remember names."

Pearl showed him a copy of the fax with the charge receipts and pointed to the one from the Pepper Tree. "Do you have a copy of this?"

"We do. We keep careful records. That would be from the meal Marilyn had with her lady friend."

"How do you know?"

"The price. And I remember. They were here for lunch. The time will be marked on our receipt."

"I don't see anything on the list from when she dined with the men."

"That would be because they paid cash," Virgil said. The smile flashed again. "It still happens." He looked thoughtful. "Or it's possible that there was an oversight and we haven't yet submitted a charge receipt to the bank. If so, it would still be here and wouldn't show up on your list."

"Shall we look?" Pearl asked.

"You won't need a warrant," he said, using the smile to make it a joke.

He led her through the kitchen, where a pimply teenager who had to be Harmon was cleaning or waxing the floor with some kind of sponge mop, then on to a surprisingly large office with a gleaming hardwood floor and a loosely woven carpet containing muted shades of myriad colors. Virgil Mantrell's desk was large, made of a lightly grained wood that could have been teak. There were oils of sailboats on the walls. Pearl was no judge, but she thought they were good.

Maybe her impression had been right and the man did own a yacht.

"Do you sail?" she asked, as Virgil rummaged through a black metal file cabinet behind the desk.

"Never," he said, not glancing back at her, "but I paint."

"And very well."

Virgil did look back at her and smiled at the compliment, then bent again to his task.

He found the sheaf of charge receipts he was looking for, and swiveled in his chair so he was facing Pearl across his desk. He began adroitly riffling through the receipts.

Pearl, knowing when to hold her silence, stood patiently waiting. Her gaze went to the paintings of graceful sailboats. She wondered if the one on the wall behind the desk was a sloop. She wondered what a sloop was.

Suddenly Virgil's dancing fingers stopped. "Ah!" he said, with seeming great delight.

"You found it?"

"No. The men and Marilyn must have paid cash for their meals."

"Then why the orgasm?"

Virgil looked sharply at her and seemed genuinely shocked by her language. Pearl almost apologized.

"I mean," she said, "you gave the impression you'd found what we were looking for."

"Something else," Virgil said. "When Marilyn lunched with her lady friend, she paid the check by charge. But there's another receipt for that date, time, and table. Her friend used her own charge card to pay the bar bill." He slid the thin receipt across the wide desk so Pearl could reach it.

The name on the receipt was Ella Oaklie. Pearl read it aloud. "Ring a bell?"

"I don't think so," Virgil said. "But she must be the woman I saw with Marilyn. The receipt proves it."

"Can you please give me a copy of this?"

"I'll make a copy," Virgil said, "and I'll let you have the original."

"Because I'm polite," Pearl said.

"And have an eye for art." Virgil smiled. "And are quite pretty."

And could subpoena it anyway, Pearl thought, but politely kept silent.

Pearl found Ella Oaklie's address easily enough. She was in the phone directory. Sometimes detective work was a snap.

The woman behind the counter of a small flower shop on First Avenue had let Pearl used the shop's directory. Pearl made a note of the address and phone number. Not wanting to be overheard, she thanked the woman and stepped outside into the heat to use her cell phone to call Oaklie.

She got an answering machine informing her in stilted language that there was no one available to take her call right now, but if she would please leave a message…

Pearl waited patiently for the drivel to end, then left her name and number for Ella Oaklie and cut the connection.

Since it was almost lunchtime, she drove over to Third Avenue and Fifty-fourth, where she knew a street vendor sold tasty and reliable food. Pearl generally lightened up for lunch, so she bought a knish and bottled water from the vendor, then wandered over to sit on a warm stone wall and people-watch while she ate.

After her second bite, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Setting knish and bottled water aside, Pearl picked up.

Ella Oaklie had called home and checked her messages and wanted to get in touch with Pearl as soon as possible, since it was so horrible what had happened to Marilyn Nelson. When Pearl offered to meet Ella at her office, Ella was reluctant, but might they meet for lunch? Pearl said sure, and suggested the Pepper Tree near Marilyn Nelson's apartment. She'd found that putting the witness as close as possible to the scene of the crime sometimes did wonders for the memory.

Ella agreed at once. While Pearl had Ella going, she suggested they meet in half an hour. Forty-five minutes would work, Ella said, and Pearl said she'd meet her just inside the door, where there was a small waiting area with a bench. Ella asked if she'd be in uniform, and Pearl, irritated, told her no, she'd be wearing gray slacks and a blue blazer, not to mention sensible black shoes.

Kind of a uniform, Pearl thought, as she broke the connection and slid her phone back in her pocket.

It buzzed again almost immediately.

This time it was Jeb. He wanted to meet her for lunch.

"If you can get away," he added, when he sensed Pearl's hesitancy.

"I'm going to meet someone at a restaurant for a brief interview, then we can have a bite ourselves if you want, and maybe go somewhere."

"Sure it's okay? I mean, I don't want to mess you up in your work."

"It's more than okay," Pearl assured him. "The restaurant's the Pepper Tree."

"Great. We were planning on going there anyway."

She told him approximately what time the interview would be over.

"Go ahead and eat hearty," he said. "I'll have some lunch before I turn up at the restaurant, then we can have a drink or two and leave."

And go to your room at the Waverton?

Pearl didn't have to ask him. She knew it was what they both wanted.

She said good-bye to Jeb, then again slid the phone into her pocket, hoping the damned thing would stay there for a while and be quiet.

That was when she glanced across the street and saw Lauri Quinn.

Lauri, in patched and faded jeans and a baggy red pullover shirt, was standing near the doorway of an office supply store, pretending to look at something in the display window. Pearl figured she might be watching her in the window's reflection and averted her gaze.

She was more annoyed than surprised at seeing Lauri, because it wasn't the first time. Twice before Pearl had caught a glimpse of someone she thought might have been Lauri, but it had been so brief she couldn't be sure. Now she was sure. Apparently Lauri hadn't taken her insistence that she not accompany Pearl on the job seriously, but had decided to follow Pearl without Pearl's knowledge.

Lauri not giving up on what she wanted.

Lauri being like her father.

Pearl wasn't sure what to do about this, but decided not to do anything now. She had to meet Ella Oaklie soon, anyway, and didn't feel like confronting Lauri about being inexpertly and annoyingly tailed. And of course there was the danger of an amateur-a kid, at that-dogging a homicide detective on the trail of a serial killer. It might be a good idea to tell Quinn what was going on, find out how he wanted to handle the situation. After all, Lauri was his daughter.

On the other hand, Pearl did feel a certain protectiveness toward Lauri, and Quinn seemed completely at sea when it came to dealing with a teenage girl who wasn't a murder suspect.

Pearl glanced at her watch. Forty minutes until her meeting with Ella Oaklie. She had the unmarked and could get to the Pepper Tree in a hurry, so she was okay on time.

Being careful not to glance again in Lauri's direction, Pearl ate her knish.