Mister X

23

Quinn and Fedderman were in the field. Pearl spent much of a rainy afternoon alone at the office, working at her computer. The new alliance with the NYPD gave her access to select databases, but so far she hadn't learned much more that was useful about Maureen Sanders.

Not that she hadn't learned some things. Sanders's fingerprints and arrest record led to her connections with various welfare agencies in New York. Slowly her background had come to light on Pearl's computer monitor. She'd been born in 1966 in Kansas City, Kansas, to parents who'd died within a few months of each other five years ago. Maureen had attended Kansas State University and at age nineteen had been expelled after falsely accusing her history professor of sexually assaulting her. Days later she was arrested for possession of cocaine, but claimed the drug had been planted in her car. Maybe it had been, because the charge was later dropped.

Still, it was easy to read between the lines that Sanders had developed a serious drug problem. After her expulsion from KSU she'd attended the University of Missouri for two months before dropping out. Then she seemed to have given up on higher education. Sanders had worked for three years as a waitress in a Columbia, Missouri, restaurant and then was arrested for stealing from her employer. She moved to San Francisco and worked off and on as an exotic dancer. Eight years ago, after her first arrest for prostitution, she'd left San Francisco for Las Vegas, supposedly for a job as a dealer in a casino.

There the thread of scant information played out. Pearl could find no record of Maureen Sanders in Las Vegas. She seemed to have been in suspended animation somewhere until she was arrested twice for prostitution in Trenton, New Jersey, three years ago. Again a gap after she failed to report to her probation officer. She appeared on New York welfare rolls two years ago, and was arrested twice on drug charges. For whatever reason the charges in New Jersey never followed her to New York, just as the California charge hadn't followed her to New Jersey, perhaps because she lived on the streets and had no known address. Pearl guessed that until the move to New York Sanders had been able to sustain herself through prostitution. Then her drug habit and lifestyle had taken their physical toll and made that kind of work impossible.

Pearl sat back and watched the summer drizzle running blurrily down the window facing West Seventy-ninth Street. She thought about what a familiar and dreary life Maureen Sanders had lived. Hers was a tragedy too often played out in New York, and doubtless in every big city. She happened to have fallen victim to a killer rather than to a bottle or a needle or a bitterly cold winter.

Pearl got up and started to pour herself a cup of coffee, then decided against it and made a cup of instant hot chocolate instead. It looked so dreary outside that chocolate seemed the better choice to improve her mood.

She returned to her computer and decided to take a break from researching Maureen Sanders. She'd probably learned all she was going to anyway. Besides, simply reading about the woman's wasted life was depressing as hell and had probably more than the weather resulted in the choice of chocolate over coffee.

Pearl let her fingertips drift idly over the computer's keyboard, barely touching the hard plastic. The rain continued to fall and began making a steady dripping sound on something metallic outside the window.

Casually-or so she told herself-she keyed in the name Yancy Taggart.

She soon became so engrossed in her search that she'd taken only an initial sip of her chocolate.

Yancy's full name-apparently his real name-was Yancy Rockefeller Taggart. He'd been born in 1954 in Pasadena, California. (Twelve years older then Maureen Sanders, yet he seemed so much younger.) Pearl was relieved when she was unable to find a police record. He had a business administration degree from Brandon University, served four years in the Coast Guard as something called an information officer, and finished his tour of duty in Norfolk, Virginia. Back in civilian life he'd gone to work in public relations for Philip Morris, then lobbied for the company when it became Altria. He was actually registered in Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist, though he'd lived at the time in North Carolina. Two years ago he'd moved to New York City and shortly thereafter resigned his position at Altria.

Lobbyist. What sort of man would admit to being a lobbyist? And for a tobacco company?

Of course, now he lobbied for some kind of wind power consortium. Curiously apropos.

Pearl worked her keyboard, then the mouse.

Though it didn't list all its employees, there really was a National Wind Power Coalition.

Pearl let out a long breath and sat back in her chair.

So it's true. Everything he told me is true. He actually is a lobbyist for something called the National Wind Power Coalition, headquartered in New York City. Windmills on skyscrapers. Maybe it's possible. At least some people think so. Maybe not Yancy, their lobbyist, but some people.

Pearl closed the windows she'd visited, then clicked on the computer's history and deleted everything pertaining to Yancy Taggart. He was her own personal business, certainly not Quinn's or Fedderman's.

She had wronged Yancy. As much as called the poor man a liar. Why did she always treat men's small talk or compliments as lies or insults? Had she become too cynical?

She decided to call Yancy and suggest they go to dinner tonight. He'd accept her invitation. They'd dine and sip wine in a nice, quiet restaurant, and he'd almost surely find some excuse to try to smooth talk her into going with him to his apartment.

Pearl decided that she'd go. Not without a bit of a hassle, but she'd go.

She was reaching across her desk to call Yancy's number when Quinn's desk phone rang.

Pearl punched the glowing button that directed the call to her line. She told the caller he'd reached Quinn and Associates Investigations.

"It's Sal," Vitali said in his gravelly voice. "Quinn around?"

"Just me at the moment. You got Quinn's cell number?"

"Yeah, but you'll do. I was just being polite. I'd much rather talk to you."

"You're so full of bullshit I'm surprised grass doesn't grow on you."

Damn it! There I go again!

"Be that as it may," Vitali said, "you guys need to know something. Harold was working his computer, doing some cross-checking with violent crimes against women in and around New York. He found an interesting one. Woman named Mary Bakehouse, attacked in her Village apartment three nights ago by a guy who was about to work her over with a knife, when he was scared away by something. Could've been our guy."

"Three nights ago, you said?"

"Yeah. The uniforms who took the call said she was scared shitless, had a hard time even telling them what had happened."

"You'd think she'd have wanted police protection."

"The guy warned her not to tell anyone, and she took it seriously. Besides, she was embarrassed as well as terrified. Not all women are like you, Pearl, with a set of balls."

"Aw, that's one of the nicest things you ever said to me, Sal. Should I adjust my protective cup and go talk to this shrinking violet?"

"Pearl, I meant it as a compliment."

"I know, Sal."

"Harold and I were gonna go talk to the victim while there's still time today. I just wanted to keep you guys informed."

"Thanks," Pearl said. "I'll let Quinn know."

"Okay. We'll check with you tomorrow. And Pearl…"

"What?"

"You okay, Pearl?"

"Fine. Very good, in fact. Balls and all."

"I didn't mean about that."

"Then why would you ask?"

"I dunno. You seem distracted."

Pearl almost blushed. Jesus!

"I'm fine, Sal. Just tired from sitting at my computer. Learning some sad facts about Maureen Sanders."

One part of her mind still thinking about calling Yancy, she told Vitali what she'd discovered about Sanders.

"Hell of a life," he said, when she was finished.

"Not unlike a lot of others."

"So true, Pearl. Talk to you tomorrow."

After she'd replaced the receiver, Pearl sat at her desk quietly thinking.

She had been distracted, by thoughts of Yancy Taggart, and shrewd Vitali had sensed it with his cop's finely tuned ear.

Enough of this, she told herself. She'd focus in, do her job. She'd call Quinn and fill him in on what she'd learned about Maureen Sanders, and about the possible earlier intended victim Vitali and Mishkin had uncovered.

She stretched out her arm and reached for the phone. There would still be time enough tonight for the improbable but apparently genuine Yancy Taggart.

Is his middle name actually Rockefeller?

Quinn had left Fedderman and gone home to think. He sat at the desk in his den, a cup of coffee before him. No cigar, though.

Maybe that's what was wrong. Why he couldn't get his mind going. He needed a cigar.

He got one of the Cubans from the mini-humidor in his desk drawer, used his guillotine cutter on it, and fired it up. He sat back and watched the smoke writhe toward the ceiling.

After tapping his fingers on the desk for a while, he sat forward and got his legal pad from the flat drawer. He looked over what he'd written so far, then drew a line beneath it. Beneath the line he wrote: Maureen Sanders dies, wounds unlike those made by the Carver, too shallow, silver spoon in her mouth like Carver's sick humor. Carver older so more hesitant? Mary Bakehouse attacked before Maureen Sanders. Carver frightened away?

Quinn still didn't know a lot about the Bakehouse woman. Sal and Harold would fill him in later. But it wasn't the Carver's style to leave a survivor behind. One slash of the knife was all it would have taken, and then run, run, run. Chrissie still missing. Carver victim?

Quinn stared at the yellow legal pad. Too many question marks. He tossed the pad onto the desk and leaned back in his chair. Clamped the cigar between his teeth.

Watching the smoke's writhing dance toward the ceiling, he thought about where he was, what he was doing. He remembered how May hated for him to smoke inside. May was still here, part of her, even though they'd been divorced for years. May and Lauri, when Lauri was small…good years.

Then the loneliness, and then Pearl.

Then the loneliness again.

Quinn could still remember Pearl here. Her presence still haunted the apartment. He would wake up sometimes thinking about her. She was so vibrant, and could be so loving when she wasn't…pissed off about something. Pissed off about everything, in fact. Pearl was not a contented person. She was a driven and obsessive one.

Quinn had to admit that he was obsessive, too, but in a larger, more comprehensive way. Not minute by minute, like Pearl. Not with a short fuse like Pearl's.

And not with insight like Pearl's. It was almost as if she had little antennae all over her, picking up other people's silent signals. Whatever else she was, she was a hell of a detective.

Quinn leaned back farther in his chair and smiled around his cigar, thinking about their life together here in this apartment. Dinner with friends, taking long walks, going to the theater and then coming back here and making love as pleasurably and slowly as if there were no numbers on the clock and they'd never have to leave the bed. The look in Pearl's eyes after making love, so dark and unimaginably deep. If you could somehow see clearly in those dark depths you might glimpse the far end of the universe.

The truth was, he'd like to return to those days.

The truth was, he didn't see much hope for that to happen.

Pearl saw to that.

He continued watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling and thought about Pearl.

Jesus, she can be a bitch!