In for the Kill

7

The office: three gray steel desks (as if Renz had known Pearl would be joining them); four chairs; a file cabinet; and a wooden table with a lamp, computer, and printer on it. The printer was the kind that copied and faxed and scanned and did who knew what-all that Quinn would probably never figure out. The table was directly over one of the outcroppings of wire on the floor, everything mysteriously connected to it via another tangle of wire emanating from computer and printer.

"This thing work?" Pearl asked, walking over to the computer. It was an old Hewlett-Packard, gigantic.

Quinn pulled a cord that opened some blinds, letting natural light in to soften the fluorescent glare. "Yeah. And some computer whiz from the NYPD's gonna set us up with more of them. Update our system. We're coded into the NYPD and various data banks. Codes and passwords are on a piece of paper under the lamp base."

Pearl grinned, the brightest thing in the gloomy office. "Everybody hides their passwords under the lamp base. First place burglars and identity thieves look."

"Nobody's gonna break in here," Fedderman said. "And far as I'm concerned, somebody else is welcome to my identity."

Quinn settled into the chair behind his desk and rocked slightly back and forth. The chair squeaked. The other two chairs at the desks were identical-cheap black vinyl swivel chairs on rollers. The fourth chair was straight-backed and wooden, presumably for an eventual suspect.

Pearl and Fedderman rolled the other two chairs up close and sat down. Quinn's desk was strategically placed directly beneath one of the fluorescent fixtures, so there was plenty of light even if it was ghastly. He slid open one of the rattling steel drawers and handed Pearl the murder books on Janice Queen and Lois Ullman.

"You can look them over now, if you want," he said, "then take them home and study them."

Pearl rested the files on her lap, and opened the top one. Quinn watched her scan each piece of paper or photograph inside, then move on and repeat the process. A tune from Phantom of the Opera was seeping over from the Nothing but the Tooth side of the building. Music to fill molars by? That, the hum and swish of traffic outside, and Pearl leafing through the files, were the only sounds for a long time.

Then Fedderman said, "'Music of the Night.'"

Pearl, not looking up, said, "Uh-huh."

Along with a ballpoint pen and the glass ashtray with BILTMORE HOTEL on it, was a telephone on Quinn's desk. It wasn't a rotary, but it was old and black with a base and receiver.

And it was ringing.

Quinn lifted the receiver and pressed it to his ear.

The caller was Nift, with a more detailed autopsy report.

"Death by drowning," he said. "Probably carved up by the same cutting instruments used on the previous victims. Looks like a power saw was used on the larger bones and tougher ligaments. Tightly serrated blade, like an electric jigsaw or maybe a circular. Her family should be glad she was dead at the time."

"A portable saw?"

"Could've been a portable. It'd almost have to be, wouldn't it, not to make too much noise? And they make them powerful these days."

"That's how we figure it," Quinn said.

"No signs of sexual activity of any kind around the genitals or on any of the body parts. No traces of semen anywhere at the scene. A residue of adhesive on ankles and arms, and around the mouth, from when the victim was taped in such a way that she wouldn't have been able to move anything but fingers and toes. In short, Ida Ingrahm died just like the first two victims. And she was a brunette, like the first two. If there was any doubt before that you're on the trail of a serial killer, there shouldn't be now. The beautiful if disassembled Ida was number three."

"You think it coulda been a doctor or a butcher? The way the work was done and he cleaned up after himself?"

"Coulda been almost anyone," Nift said. "It only took rudimentary knowledge, maybe gained from animals. Coulda been a fastidious janitor."

Quinn didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"Anything else I can help you with while I'm on the phone?" Nift asked.

"You called me," Quinn said. "Most of the time medical examiners wait for the detectives to call."

"I find this killer interesting," Nift said. "You know me, how I like to play cop. Also, I thought I should call and let you know there's a journalist from City Beat hot on this story. Woman named Cindy Sellers. She's a hard charger, and serial killers make for big news. These murders take 'if it bleeds it leads' to an extreme."

"I never heard of City Beat."

"It's fairly new, not much circulation yet. But you know the way it works: One wolf gets the scent, then the whole pack's on the hunt."

Quinn knew. He thanked Nift, then hung up and relayed the information to Fedderman and Pearl.

"No surprise there," Pearl said. She leaned forward and placed the murder files on the desk, then rolled back a few feet in her chair so her gaze could take in both Quinn and Fedderman. "But there is something."

Quinn waited. "No dramatic pauses, Pearl. Please."

"I'm not being theatrical," she said. "I'm just thinking, trying to decide if it's plausible."

"Let us decide along with you," Fedderman said.

Pearl looked at Quinn. "I think the killer chose you as his opponent."

"That might be plausible," Quinn said, "except Renz did the choosing."

Pearl kept him trapped with her dark eyes, wouldn't let him go. "The last victim, Ida, was killed in my apartment. You think that's some wild coincidence?"

Quinn had to answer honestly. "No. But that doesn't necessarily lead me to your conclusion."

"It wouldn't me, either," Pearl said, "except for the victims' last initials, in the order of their deaths: Janice Queen, Lois Ullman, Ida Ingrahm."

"Q, U, I," Fedderman said, staring at Quinn. "Almost spells-"

"It does," Quinn said, standing up from behind the desk. He started to pace, but tripped over one of the wiring-clump mushrooms growing on the floor and almost fell.

"The next victim's name will start with an N," Pearl said.

"She's right," Fedderman said.

Quinn didn't have to be told. Pearl wasn't always right, but almost always.

She was almost surely right this time: The killer was choosing victims whose last initials spelled out Quinn's name.

"Think we oughta tell the media?" Fedderman asked. "Be our asses if we don't."

"He's got a point," Pearl said. "Women with N surnames have a right to know."

Quinn picked up the phone again.

"Who you calling?" Fedderman asked.

"Renz. Then Nift. He knows a journalist who's already been on this, a woman named Cindy Sellers, with City Beat."

"Never heard of her or it," Fedderman said.

"You will after they scoop this story," Quinn said.

As he was pecking out Renz's number with his forefinger, Pearl got up from her chair and stood with her hands on her hips, looking around.

"We gotta get a coffee machine."

Pearl arrived at the office early the next morning with a sack containing a bag of gourmet ground Columbian beans, a pack of filters, and a brand-new Mr. Coffee that was still in the box.

Under her other arm were the murder files, which she'd taken home for a closer read last night.

She placed the Mr. Coffee on the computer table, the beans and filter next to it.

The files she laid on Quinn's desk. Ida Ingrahm's was on top.

"I wish you'd told me yesterday about that vibrator phone," Pearl said.

Quinn and Fedderman looked at each other. Fedderman, slumped in a chair in front of the desk, said, "Pearl, Pearl."

"I don't have one," she said, not blushing, "but I happen to know where they're sold. A little shop in the Village. Intimate Items."

"How would you know that, Pearl?" Fedderman asked.

"I shop there sometimes, asshole. The place isn't as risque as you might think. It's erotica that's mostly for women."

"Ah," Fedderman said, "no whips and chains."

"Well, some. But mostly stuff like those Dial In phones."

"Dial In?" Quinn asked.

"That's the brand name, even though they're not really phones and have a fake keypad. I haven't seen them anywhere but in that shop. We can check and see if they have a record of Ida buying one there, or maybe they'll recognize her photo."

"How would that help us?" Fedderman asked.

"She might not have been alone when she bought her phone."

Quinn tried not to smile. Pearl a step ahead of Fedderman. Old and familiar patterns taking form. They were again becoming a team.

"Drop Feds and me off at Ida Ingrahm's apartment," Quinn said, "and we'll reinterview some of her neighbors, see if anybody's memory can be jogged. Then you drive the unmarked down to…what's it?"

"Intimate Items," Fedderman reminded him.

"Yeah. Talk to the clerk, or whoever." He handed her a morgue photo of Ida Ingrahm. "Nift faxed this here this morning."

"It's a head shot," Fedderman said.

Pearl looked at him in disgust. "Jesus, Feds." Her expression was unchanging as she glanced at the photo. She reached for the murder files she'd laid on the desk. "I'll take photos of the other victims, too. Just in case."

"No coffee this morning?" Fedderman asked, looking over at the packages Pearl had piled on the computer table.

"No time," Pearl said. "You guys can make some tomorrow."

Quinn stood up from behind his desk.

"I'll drive," Pearl said, "since I'll be going on down to the Village."

"Seat's all the way back," Quinn said, "so I might as well drive to the apartment." So we get there alive.

He and Fedderman knew how Pearl drove-as if she'd learned by watching The French Connection.

Fedderman glanced over at Quinn, smiling slightly, but like Quinn, he held his silence.

Familiar patterns.