In for the Kill

54

He was always alone.

He'd come into the Hungry U a few times before, pretending to listen to the music. Lauri had noticed him because he didn't seem to actually like the music. There he'd sit, handsome in a pleasant sort of way, the kind of guy you didn't notice unless you looked at him closely, and then what was there not to like? He had blond hair, was average height and weight, and looked good in clothes. Lauri thought he was probably a young executive of some sort, or maybe a high-tech wiz with his own company. He looked intelligent. And he looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't know why. Another thing about him was he seemed interested in her.

She brought his second glass of milk over to his table.

"Lunch was delicious," he said, smiling up at her, "but I have no idea what I ate."

"At least you're honest about it," she said, liking his smile. It made him seem more familiar. Then suddenly she had it-he reminded her of Pearl's friend Jeb. That was something Lauri counted in his favor. "Lots of our customers like the food and pretend they're gourmets. Like they know more about food than our cook-chef."

"I know what I like," he said, aiming his smile at her in a way that left no doubt as to what he liked right now.

"People say that about art," she said

He shrugged. "There are all kinds of art. Beautiful women are art."

"I guess they can be."

"You should have said 'we can be.'"

Lauri felt her face flush. To the best of her recollection, Wormy had never referred to her as a woman-much less a beautiful one. Compliments didn't trip off his tongue. "Baddest squeeze" was as close as he'd come.

She cautioned herself. This guy was definitely hot for her, but he was too old for her, possibly way into his thirties. Look at those crinkly little lines just beginning at the corners of his brown eyes. But maybe that was what appealed to her-his maturity. Maturity was something Wormy definitely lacked. Sometimes he was difficult to talk with, as if he were in another dimension. Maybe he was. Lauri knew she didn't really understand musicians, didn't hear exactly what they heard, or at least not in the same way. So possibly it wasn't just Wormy's lack of maturity; maybe he was as mature as he was going to get. And the man smiling up at her wasn't that old. Crinkly little lines or not, he had nice eyes. They said he was a decent, compassionate person, and eyes didn't lie.

"When you get off after the lunch crowd leaves, maybe we could go have a coffee somewhere."

It took her a second to fully comprehend he was speaking to her.

"I, uh, don't get off after lunch. We start getting ready right away for the dinner rush."

"After dinner, then? Maybe a drink."

Should she tell him she wasn't of age, and she might get carded?

Lauri didn't have to think long or hard about that one. Jump in, she told herself. Swim! Wasn't that why'd she'd come to New York? And Wormy had a club date with the band in Tribeca. What he didn't know wouldn't make him sing off-key, and if he did somehow learn she went someplace after work and had a drink with a male friend, maybe it would do their relationship some good.

"I think I'd enjoy that," she said. "I get off work at eleven. But I don't even know your name."

"You're Lauri," he said. "I've heard people call you that."

She smiled. "I already knew my name."

"My last name's a little embarrassing," he said. "It's Hooker. I'm Joe Hooker."

Lauri was careful not to smile. "I've heard lots more embarrassing names. I knew a girl named Ima Hore."

Not true, but he'd never know. And if it made him feel better about his name, what was the harm?

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess I shouldn't complain. My name happens to be famous, too. Joseph Hooker was a great Civil War general."

"Then you oughta be proud of it."

"Tell you true," he said, "I am."

The crime scene was, as Pearl saw it, exactly like the others as far as potential leads were concerned. The only real difference was the noxious stench of corruption. It was as if this victim had been dead for a long time.

When they got near the apartment, Fedderman paused and drew a small jar of mentholated chest rub from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid, got a dab of cream on his fingertip, and applied it beneath his nose. He handed the jar to Pearl, who did likewise. Quinn refused.

When they entered, Pearl understood the stench. The apartment was stifling, at least eighty-five degrees.

The techs swarming over the place wore white face masks to go with their white gloves, like movie bandits who were the good guys. Pearl envied them their masks.

When she and Quinn entered the blue-tiled bathroom, she was glad to inhale the menthol. She knew what had happened here. Like the other victims, this one, Maria Cirillo, had been bound and gagged with duct tape, drowned in her bathtub, then disassembled like a helpless doll, her body parts stacked in ritual order in the tub. There was the head resting on its side on top of the severed arms, sunken eyes closed, as if Maria were napping.

Nift was playing with the doll now. He'd removed his suit coat and had the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, but he was the only one in the apartment not sweating.

"Though you wouldn't guess it now unless you had a trained eye," he said, "this one was a real beauty." He straightened up from where he was crouched froglike by the tub. "Best rack in the house, present company excepted."

"You're in the wrong end of the medical business," Pearl said. "You should be a patient."

Nift smiled, glad to be under her skin.

Standing beside Pearl, Quinn said, "Give us the particulars."

Nift shrugged somehow without moving his shoulders, an illusion he managed to create just with his mouth and eyebrows. "Trauma wound to the head consistent with being knocked unconscious with a blunt object. Tape marks and adhesive traces on her arms and legs, and across her mouth. Death by drowning, then she was dissected with what my guess is were the same instruments-or similar ones-used on the previous Butcher victims. The killer then cleaned her body parts, making them more sterile than any cadaver I ever handled during medical training." He motioned with his head and waved an arm to encompass the tiny blue-tiled bathroom. "It's a wonder he didn't melt her down with all that stuff."

Or she didn't melt away from the heat, Pearl thought.

Quinn glanced around at the cleaning agent containers lying capless and empty on the floor-a shampoo squeeze bottle, a box that had contained dishwasher detergent, bottled hand soap with a plunger, a spot remover bottle. There was an empty white plastic bleach jug on the floor, another upright on the porcelain top of the toilet tank.

"It'd smell good in here if it weren't for Maria," Nift said.

"Don't you have the slightest respect for the dead?" Pearl asked.

"Never had any complaints."

In the afterlife, asshole.

Nift must have read her thoughts. "When we all meet again in the great hereafter, we won't take death so seriously."

There was a sadness in the way he said it that threw Pearl. If violent death could become so matter-of-fact to a cop, how must it seem to a medical examiner? Was crossing the line between life and death more significant than stepping outside to flag a cab?

Pearl looked at the woman in the bathtub and told herself she hadn't thought death mundane. Something precious and irrecoverable had been taken from Maria Cirillo. Stolen by a monster.

"Time of death," Nift said, "was around seven P.M. evening before last, give or take a few hours."

More or less what Renz had said.

"Why's the odor so strong?" Quinn asked.

"The air conditioner was turned off, probably by the killer."

"Jesus!" To Pearl: "Go out there and make sure the techs have examined it, then turn the damned thing back on."

Pearl squeezed past him to leave the bathroom and made her way toward the living room.

"My guess is," Nift said, "the killer wanted this body to be found earlier rather than later. They can be home alone for more than a week sometimes before anyone notices, if the conditions are right and the place is tight. So he switched off the air conditioner so Maria would get ripe faster and attract attention."

Quinn's guess was the same, but he merely nodded, then left the bathroom to join Pearl and Fedderman-if Feds was done talking to the uniforms and neighbors.

He wasn't, so they waited for him out in the hall where the odor wasn't so bad. Pearl peeled off her crime scene gloves and hoped Fedderman hadn't used all his menthol cream.

He hadn't, and when Fedderman arrived ten minutes later she dabbed some more beneath her nose.

The three of them walked another twenty feet down the narrow hall, toward some fire stairs, to be out of earshot of the uniform standing outside the apartment door.

"Neighbors saw and heard nothing," Fedderman said. "Mrs. Avarian, old woman who lives in the adjoining apartment, smelled something, though, and notified the super. He let himself in, saw the victim, then backed out and tried not to touch anything. He upchucked on the carpet, though, about six feet inside the door."

"I noticed that," Pearl said, "and assumed it was one of the cops."

"We'll tell Nift to check it," Quinn said, "just in case the victim or killer vomited."

Pearl smiled. "I'll tell him before we leave."

"This victim's the same type as the others, but she followed the last one more closely, and there was no note beforehand to challenge and antagonize us."

"He's changed his MO again," Pearl said. "Even changed his timing."

"More likely this one was a target of opportunity," Fedderman said.

Pearl looked at him, thinking he was a good cop despite being a sartorial disaster. He could be surprising.

"The killer knew we had his brother in custody," Quinn said, "and killed Maria Cirillo then switched off the air conditioner to make sure she'd be discovered soon. His way of letting us know Jeb wasn't the Butcher. He didn't have time to do much research on her. He might have simply latched onto her as she was walking along the sidewalk and followed her home, made sure she lived alone, then killed her."

"Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Pearl said.

"And having the wrong hair color," Fedderman added.

"And looking so much like Mom," Quinn said.

"I don't know," Pearl said. "Maria's such a good example of type, it could be that she was slated to be his next victim and he moved her time up."

"Either way," Quinn said, "the message is the same-set my brother free."

"Sounds almost noble," Fedderman said.

"Not even close," Pearl told him. She borrowed Fedderman's jar and rubbed more mentholated ointment beneath her nose. "I'm going back in and talk to Nift."

Quinn thought Nift would probably tell her to instruct the SCU team to bag a sample of the vomit on the floor, then who knew how Pearl would react? She was on tilt already, after their visit with the late Maria Cirillo.

He told Fedderman he'd be right back, and then went inside the apartment so he could be there to extinguish any sparks between Pearl and Nift.

Looking out for Pearl was an old habit hard to break.