Mister X

22

Quinn's phone call from Nift the next day at the office shed more light on the dead woman found on Eighteenth Street. She'd had a high alcohol level in her body, along with traces of methamphetamine. Cause of death was the stab wound in her chest. The slicing off of her nipples and the X carved into her abdomen had occurred after death, as had the slit in her throat. Probably the same knife had been used to inflict all the injuries.

"Was she stoned when she died?" Quinn asked.

"It's doubtful. She wasn't legally drunk, and the meth wasn't enough to have made her stoned. I'm not saying she used these two substances simultaneously. The meth stays in the blood one to three days, in the urine even longer."

"Time of death?" Quinn asked.

"I make it between midnight and three a.m. Something else, Quinn, she displayed all the signs of heavy drug use over a long period of time. And not just meth. She was a real veteran, and on the way out. Needle marks on both arms and between her toes. Hadn't bathed in at least a week. This cunt probably smelled better dead than alive."

"She was somebody's daughter or sister," Quinn reminded him, "so why be such a contemptible asshole?"

"Hey, I'm somebody's son. Don't have a brother, though. Don't get your undies all twisted, Quinn. I'm just trying to get across to you the deplorable shape this vic was in even before she was spoon-fed and offed. If the killer hadn't gotten her, she wouldn't have lasted much longer on her own."

"Any identification yet?"

"No. Who'd want to claim her?"

"Would your mother claim you?"

"You would have to ask her nice."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. Next time try to get me a higher class of victim."

Nift hung up before Quinn could reproach him.

That was okay. Quinn had other things on his mind.

Quinn sat staring at the phone on his desk, letting his mind continue to work on the conversation with Nift.

The death of the Chelsea woman certainly bore the Carver's signature, except for the fatal stab to the heart. And the Carver had inflicted the breast and torso injuries before slitting his victims' throats.

Was the Carver getting soft?

Not likely. That wasn't the way with sadistic killers.

All but one of his other victims had been killed indoors, in their apartments, except for Rhonda Nathan, who'd been killed at work in her office. Possibly he'd learned his lesson. Maybe for some reason he'd had to kill the Eighteenth Street woman outdoors, and wanted to minimize the flow of blood. There would be nowhere to wash up after maiming her breasts and abdomen and then slashing her throat, and blood tended to spurt from the large arteries in the neck. The stab to the heart had been relatively neat. It would cause immediate death and minimize blood flow from subsequent wounds.

A warm flow of air stirred the papers on Quinn's desk as Pearl entered the office and nodded a good morning to him.

"Doughnut?" she asked, holding up a Krispy Kreme bag.

He told her no thanks and said he'd just hung up on Nift.

"Glad I didn't have to talk to the little asshole this early in the morning," she said. She went over to the coffee brewer and poured some of the strong black liquid into her mug. The trickle of coffee caught the lamplight for a moment and glowed a beautiful translucent amber. Pearl added powdered cream, which did not look so inspirational going in.

While she sat at her desk dunking a doughnut, Quinn told her about his and Nift's conversation.

She licked glaze from her fingers. "We could have a copycat killer, what with the news about the investigation being reopened." She deftly flicked her tongue over the back of her thumb. "Could be some psycho thinks he can have a free one by blaming it on the Carver."

"Or the Carver has simply changed his M.O. after all this time. His compulsion would demand that the essentials remain the same, but he might change the details. He might be more practical."

"Huh?" Pearl sipped at her coffee.

Quinn told her his theory about the killer minimizing the bloodshed so he'd be less likely to have noticeable and incriminating stains on his clothes or person.

"Maybe," she said, but she sounded dubious. She glanced around. "Where's Fedderman?"

"He drove the unmarked down to Eighteenth Street. Gonna talk to the people who live and work around where the body was found. Maybe somebody noticed something. Mishkin's down there, too."

"How about Vitali?"

"He's at a precinct house utilizing the vast resources of the NYPD."

"Or reporting to Renz."

"Better Vitali than me," Quinn said.

He noticed that Pearl had left a glazed doughnut untouched on a paper napkin on her desk. As he gave in to temptation and parted his lips to ask her for it, his phone rang again.

This time it was Vitali.

"Waddya got, Sal?" Quinn asked.

Vitali started telling Quinn about the postmortem results on the Eighteenth Street victim, but Quinn interrupted him and said he'd already talked with Nift.

"Something new, though," Vitali said. "We just got a positive ID on the dead woman. Turns out her prints were on file. Maureen Sanders, forty-four years old, no listed address, unmarried, probably unloved. She's got a sheet. Two arrests for cocaine possession a year ago. Three arrests for prostitution the year before that. One conviction on the drug charges. She was on parole, but her P.O. hadn't seen her in months."

"A street person."

"Street junkie," Vitali said. "I'm still trying to find family. And by the way, that spoon that was jammed in her mouth-it was real silver."

"Part of a set?"

"At one time, sure. But it looks old and like it might have been knocking around secondhand shops and flea markets for years. Good for Antiques Roadshow, but not much of a clue."

"Died with a silver spoon in her mouth," Quinn said. "Ironic humor. It fits the Carver. Let's get a morgue photo to the media. Maybe somebody'll claim Maureen Sanders." Quinn thought of Cindy Sellers. "And Sal, soon as you can, will you fax that photo to me?"

"Sure."

"I've got Mishkin down in Chelsea with Fedderman, canvassing the neighborhood where we found Sanders's body. You gonna need him?"

"I thought it'd be a good idea to run a check of violent crimes in South Manhattan for the last six months," Vitali said, "see if anything similar to the Sanders killing went down. I could use Harold for that."

"I'll send him to you," Quinn said.

He hung up the phone and stood up to slip on his suit coat. He and Pearl could drive down to Eighteenth Street in the Lincoln. On the way, he could fill her in on what Vitali had found.

He remembered the doughnut on Pearl's desk and turned to ask her about it, but he saw that it was gone. She was licking the back of her thumb again.

"Let's go," he said. "We're joining Feds and Mishkin."

She stood up, took a final sip of coffee, and wadded the white paper napkin the doughnut had rested on. She dropped the napkin into the Krispy Kreme bag, which she wadded and dropped into the wastebasket beneath her desk. It made the lightest of sounds in the metal wastebasket.

"You eat all those doughnuts?" Quinn asked.

"Yup. All three."

"You're gonna die of a sugar high."

"About the time you die of doughnut remorse."

Had she somehow known he was about to ask for the remaining doughnut? It was eerie sometimes, the way Pearl could almost read minds.

He didn't mention doughnuts again as they went out to where the Lincoln was parked in front of the office.

As they were pulling away from the curb, Quinn said, "You putting on weight?"

Pearl smiled.