In for the Kill

38

"Gertrude Stein," Pearl said, when she'd checked in by cell phone and Quinn told her about the Butcher's latest note. She was driving fast, trying to make up for heavy traffic due to construction on Lexington Avenue.

Now Quinn remembered. "Jesus, Pearl! It was right in front of us."

"She's the one who said, 'A rose is a rose is a rose."

"I know. Our sicko's going to kill a Gertrude." He wondered if there was a Gertrude rose. Something to check.

Steering one-handed, Pearl swerved around a furniture van. "I wouldn't be too sure. There are plenty of other possibilities, including some we haven't thought of."

"But I sure like this one, Pearl. It's oblique, which seems to be our guy's approach in his little puzzle notes. I'm glad you thought of it."

She couldn't help feeling a flush of pride. Also, she had to admit, affection. Despite her present relationship with Jeb, Quinn could still get to her. You didn't live with someone, sleep with him, without a part of that staying with you.

Maybe it wasn't just Quinn. She wondered if it somehow had anything to do with Lauri. For a moment she considered telling him about his daughter following her around after being forbidden to do so, then decided this wasn't the time or place. The way was a problem, too.

"I'm pulling up in front of the Pepper Tree to meet Ella Oaklie," she said. "Gotta go."

She replaced the cell phone in her blazer pocket and double-parked, then got out of the car and used her shield to chase away some joker who was waiting for someone while parked illegally in a loading zone. When he was gone, Pearl parked there. She placed the NYPD placard on the dash, just in case some civilian couldn't read the invisible letters on the unmarked that screamed police, and climbed out of the car into the brilliant heat.

When she entered the comparatively cool and dim restaurant, Pearl saw a thirtyish, rather plain-looking dishwater-blond woman seated on the gaily decorated deacon's bench just inside the Pepper Tree's door. The woman seemed anxious and looked up at her inquisitively, as if she'd been sitting forever in a doctor's waiting room and Pearl might at last usher her into a tiny room and poke a thermometer in her mouth. Pearl smiled, and the obviously greatly relieved Ella Oaklie rose and introduced herself.

Here is someone, Pearl thought, who's been often stood up.

They were led to a table toward the rear of the restaurant, near a corner. Pearl was glad. There weren't any diners so close that they might overhear and conversation would be inhibited.

Ella ordered a vodka martini before lunch, and Pearl a Pellegrino. This was going well; alcohol might help to loosen Ella's tongue.

"So you and Marilyn were college chums?" Pearl asked.

"We were roommates throughout our freshman year, so I guess you could call us that. We hadn't seen each other in years. I don't think I can be much help to you, but I'd sure like to do anything to help catch the bastard who killed her." Her voice didn't convey anger, but she did sound sincere.

"Conversations like this help us to get as accurate an idea as possible about a murder victim," Pearl explained. "Sometimes it leads us to the sort of people they associate with. Sometimes even to a particular person who turns out to be the one we're looking for."

Ella smiled with straight but prominent teeth. Her dentist had done everything possible but it hadn't been quite enough. "You might have some difficulty there. The Marilyn Nelson I knew liked all kinds of people. She was outgoing and friendly, and I guess what you'd call democratic. I couldn't name anyone who disliked her. I always thought she'd go into sales or public relations, but she stuck to her designing."

"Good student?"

"Dean's list. Beauty and brains. If we hadn't been roommates and friends, I'd have been jealous of her."

Ha! Pearl thought. She knew jealousy when she heard it. "Do you recall her using drugs?"

Pearl saw a sudden and familiar wariness in Ella's eyes at the mention of drugs, as the woman reminded herself she was talking to a cop.

"Not in any way meaningful," she said, obviously choosing her words carefully.

"The statutes of limitation have expired," Pearl assured her with a grin. Then she winked. "Not to mention we were all young once." Become a coconspirator; an interrogation technique she'd learned from Quinn.

It worked. Ella seemed to relax. "Okay. We smoked a little weed, took some uppers when we had to cram for exams. But when I knew her, Marilyn wasn't at all what anyone would describe as a drug addict."

"When you had lunch with her here, not long before she died, did she make any reference to drugs?"

"None whatsoever. She didn't even drink alcohol, just Pellegrino water, like you are."

"So what was your lunchtime conversation about?"

"What you'd expect. What time had done to us. What's happened to old friends. Then clothes. Or her job. Same thing in this case. She was really enthusiastic about her job designing some new store here, and the Rough Country line of clothing that was gonna be sold there. She was even wearing jeans and a Western-looking shirt and jacket to impress me."

"Did it?"

"Yeah."

"Trying to sell you?"

"I guess. That's what I'd have been trying to do in her place."

Their drinks came, and they each ordered a salad, Ella because she was on what she called her endless diet, and Pearl because she'd already scarfed down a knish.

"You sound a bit defensive about her," Pearl said, when the server was gone.

Ella sampled her martini and shrugged. "I liked her. And my God, she's been murdered. I mean, I wouldn't trample all over her memory even if I hadn't liked her."

"But you did like her."

"Of course! Unless she changed a lot, you'd have to turn over a lot of rocks to find somebody who didn't like Marilyn."

"Did she talk much about her job? The people she worked with?"

"Quite a bit about the job, but not about the people. I think she was pretty much on her own here in New York, except for the one other store over in Queens or someplace. And she hadn't been in town long enough to make any enemies."

"In this city you can be murdered for looking at somebody the wrong way," Pearl said.

"Yeah, but the way Marilyn was killed…" Ella took another sip of martini. "Jesus! That was so awful!" She stared across the table at Pearl. "You actually saw it, what that ghoul did to her. Doesn't that haunt you?"

"Forever," Pearl said, being honest to evoke honesty. Another Quinn technique.

"And it happened just a few blocks from here," Ella said, "in the everyday world."

"That's the horror of it," Pearl said. "Everything happens in the everyday world."

"But you're a cop, so you should be used to it."

"Well, I see more of it than most people. But no matter how much or how little any of us sees, it's still happening. What goes on behind all those walls and windows out there sometimes isn't what we imagine or would like it to be. But it happens every day."

Ella seemed to think about that most of the time while they ate their salads.

They'd both virtuously decided against dessert when Pearl noticed a change in Ella's eyes, a kind of double take, as she looked over Pearl's shoulder.

Pearl turned and saw Jeb Jones approaching the table.

He smiled and said hello to Pearl, then nodded at Ella.

"Spotted you when I walked in," he said to Pearl, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder. "I just wanted to let you know I was here."

He backed away. "You're working. I'll grab a table up near the front and we can talk when you're done."

"Haven't we met?" Ella said.

Jeb studied her. "I don't think so. I'm Jeb Jones."

"Ella Oaklie."

"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell." He gave her his incandescent grin. "But now we know each other." To Pearl: "Take your time."

Pearl said that she would and watched him cross the restaurant. Watched the way Ella was looking at him.

"I thought that was the same guy I saw with Marilyn about two weeks before she was killed." She frowned. "But now that I look at him, I suppose he's just the same type."

"You saw them where?"

"Outside her apartment."

Jeb had dated Marilyn Nelson a few times, but hadn't been inside her apartment except for the initial interview with Pearl.

"They were just coming out when I interrupted them," Ella said. "We talked a few minutes and I tried to leave, but Marilyn insisted I come up and have a drink with them. I figured that might be awkward so I refused. Then the guy insisted, said we were old friends and should catch up, but we didn't need him. Then he said his good-byes and left. He was very nice about it."

Pearl put down the fork she'd been toying with. "Did Marilyn introduce him?"

"Sure." She bit her lower lip. "I'm trying to remember his name. It wasn't Jeb Jones, I'm sure." She brightened. "Joe! That was it. Joe something. Joe Grant! So it couldn't be him." She glanced toward the front of the restaurant. "Your guy, I mean."

Pearl made a show of making a note of the name. "Very good," she said.

"Is he a suspect?"

"Not really. Marilyn Nelson was an attractive woman. I'm sure she had her admirers. Most of the Butcher's victims were attractive, so we've had to routinely eliminate the men who dated them recently. Did Marilyn and this Joe Grant seem close?"

"Not particularly. At least not in the way I think you mean."

"But you did think they were more than friends."

"Maybe. I can't be sure of that. It was just that your guy, Jeb, something about him reminded me of Joe, or I wouldn't even have thought of it." She looked at Pearl over the dessert menu they'd decided to spurn. "You and Jeb, you're close, right?"

Pearl smiled. "You're intuitive." Which was true, and probably meant she'd read the Marilyn Nelson-Joe Grant relationship correctly-nothing serious. Pearl decided not to tell Ella that Jeb had also dated Marilyn. Not so odd that there'd be a slight resemblance. Like many women, Marilyn had liked a certain type.

It struck Pearl that they might be approaching this from the wrong direction; the Butcher chose as his victims a certain type of woman, but he might also have been able to get next to them because he was their type.

Ella looked again toward the front of the restaurant, where Jeb was seated alone at a table with a glass of beer before him. "Now that I think about it, there really isn't that much of a resemblance. But when your Jeb walked in and I thought he was Joe, it sure gave me a start."

"Me, too," Pearl said.

Me, too.