Mister X

81

Addie phoned Quinn and told him she was returning to Detroit on a late flight out of Kennedy. He asked to see her one more time. About the case, he assured her. It was already afternoon; could she drop by his apartment to discuss the investigation in private?

"The investigation's over," she said.

"I'm not so sure."

He could hear her breathing into the phone as he sat watching the only thing moving in the quiet office, dust motes swirling in a sun beam that had penetrated the front window.

"Have I made you curious?" he asked.

She laughed. "I'll admit that."

"Because you have doubts, too?"

"Because you're always sure of everything. That's what attracted me to you in the first place."

"So we can talk about it? Maybe we can discuss it over dinner someplace."

"I'm having dinner on the plane."

"What? Peanuts and miniature cookies?"

"I'm flying first class, Quinn. It'll be steak."

"My apartment, then. Afterward we'll stop by your place for your luggage, and I'll drive you to the airport."

"Okay, your apartment," she said. "For a drink and a chat. And we can leave from there for the airport. I only have a couple of carry-ons. I travel light and unburdened by baggage."

"Then you're lucky," Quinn said.

She laughed again. "So philosophical for a cop. That's something else that drew me to you."

"So what's scaring you away?"

"So dark," she said.

When they'd broken the connection, he wondered if she'd been kidding.

She was wearing a light beige blouse with a white scarf knotted loosely at her throat, dark brown slacks with brown high heels that made her legs look longer. A large black leather carry-on was slung by a narrow strap over her shoulder. She smiled at Quinn in a way that wounded him, and he would always remember.

She pecked him on the cheek and slid past him into the apartment, dragging an arm. At the end of the arm was the handle of a red rolling suitcase that would be maximum size for a carry-on.

"I'm going to miss you," she said.

"And I you."

He stepped well out of the way of the suitcase, then relieved her of the handle and sat it upright near the door.

Quinn led her to the living room, and she crossed to the upholstered green chair that long ago had been his wife's favorite. She sat down and crossed her legs, placed her arms on each arm of the chair, and looked expectantly up at him.

"You should be the prettiest passenger on the flight."

"That's nice of you to say, Quinn."

"Can I get you a drink?"

"Anything but gin."

He went into the kitchen, and a few minutes later returned with a scotch and water over ice in an on-the-rocks glass. In his other hand was an opened bottle of Heineken.

After he handed her the glass, they sipped their drinks, then Quinn went over to the sofa. He didn't sit down on the cushions, though. Instead he sat perched on the wide sofa arm, facing Addie.

"When we're finished with our drinks," he said, "I'd like for us to go into the bedroom."

Addie seemed to stir without actually moving, and for only a second seemed alarmed. "I didn't think that was our deal."

"Do you realize," Quinn said, "that despite our attraction to each other, we've never even kissed? I mean, really kissed?"

She took another sip of her drink and then nodded. "I realize that." She sat back, but it was as if she was trying to get as far away from him as possible. "I made a mistake coming here."

"Why's that?"

"I thought better of you."

"I would like for us to have sex," Quinn said.

She gave him a calm, level look with eyes he'd never seen before. "That isn't going to happen." She moved to stand up.

"Sit down, Addie."

His voice was calm, his tone moderated, but it carried authority. She sat back precisely in her previous position.

Quinn said, "This hypothesis that we're left with after the investigation, do you agree with it?"

"That's a rather awkward change of subject, but I'll take it."

"Do you agree with it?" he repeated.

"Of course I do."

Quinn placed his Heineken bottle on the lamp table, not caring if it left a ring, and crossed his arms. "Want to hear my hypothesis?"

"That's really why I'm here, isn't it?"

He ignored her question and continued, but there was a note of sadness in his voice. "Here are some facts," he said. "You were with the Michigan state police when you sought out your assignment to this case. Ed Keller traveled to New York from Detroit. You worked skillfully in guiding the investigation, gaining credibility each time you were right about something. You have an impressive resume, but there's a hole in it during the first period when the Carver was active years ago here in New York. When Erin Keller visited the office the first time, you wore a pair of reading glasses. You haven't worn them before or since. You succeeded in avoiding Erin after that. And I noticed that whenever we saw the shadow woman at or near a crime scene, you weren't with us."

Addie sipped again at her drink and met his gaze directly. "Anything else?"

Quinn smiled but his eyes didn't join in. "Yes, Addie. You were never in the slightest really interested in me."

She became smaller in the chair, wounded by his words.

Then she put down her glass and began to unbutton her blouse.

"Addie-"

"Be quiet, Quinn."

She continued to work the buttons, and then used both hands to open the blouse wide.

He could only stare at the false breasts that were some kind of foam creation.

"That's why the Carver broke off his attack on you," Quinn said.

"No one knows for sure. Perhaps something surprised him, frightened him away. As you know, he's the reason why, as Addie Price, I became a police profiler. I wanted revenge, and I thought I could finally attain it by getting assigned to this case. I could do what Chrissie Keller wanted to do, use you and your detectives to locate the killer. Chrissie must have murdered that homeless woman and mutilated her in a way that would draw out the Carver, or at least cause the police to reopen the investigation."

"It worked too well," Quinn said.

"The Carver murdered Joyce House and Lilly Branston," Addie said, "and that allowed us to get closer to him."

"We still didn't get him," Quinn pointed out.

"We did," Addie said. "You summoned Keller as Edward Archer to New York on his cell phone, but Lisa Bolt, who at a certain point had begun working for me, will attest that Keller didn't fly to New York. He was already here. You were using him to bait Chrissie, while he was using you to bait her. If he could kill Chrissie, his secret would be safe no matter what anyone else said. If you check Keller's resume, you'll find a hole in it, too, for the same time period when there was a hole in mine. While I was trying to fit the fragments of myself back together after he attacked me and was scared away before he could slit my throat. You'll also find he was in New York at the time of the Carver murders."

Quinn stood all the way up from the sofa arm and paced a few steps back and forth. He stayed standing. "You're telling me Edward Keller was the Carver? Your attacker wore a mask when he almost killed you years ago in Detroit, so how can you possibly be sure?"

"I recognized his voice. And Lisa Bolt saw him undressing for bed through the cracked door of the cheap hotel where he was staying here in New York."

"And…?"

"Call your medical examiner. Ask him about the corpse."

Quinn called the morgue and eventually was put through to Nift.

"Anything unusual about Edward Keller's body?" he asked.

Nift didn't say anything for a while. Then: "It's got bullets in it, Quinn. That's unusual."

"Something else," Quinn said.

Again the long silence. "Call Renz," Nift said, and hung up.

Carver called Renz, who also played dumb.

"It's going to be in the news tomorrow anyway," Quinn lied. "You might as well tell me."

"What news?"

"Nift knows it. He's sitting on the goddamned body. How do you think the word got out?"

"That asshole!" Renz said.

"You've realized what he was for years, so why'd you try to keep a secret with him in the know?"

"I shouldn't have. Let Cindy Sellers have her way."

"She usually gets it," Quinn said.

"I wanted to keep it out of the media, didn't want more questions, more attention drawn to the fact that we carried this thing in the cold-case file for years."

"What are we talking about?" Quinn asked.

"Keller's torso. His nipples have been removed. And there's a large letter X carved into his chest."

"Jesus!"

"The wounds are recent, and were almost certainly self-inflicted."

Quinn stood quietly, putting it all together.

"Jesus!" he said again.

Renz was saying something else, but Quinn hung up. He knew the real reason Renz wanted Keller's self-inflicted injuries kept secret. It was critical to his political ambitions that Chrissie remain the latest and last Carver. He wanted the case to stay on the record exactly as it was, wrapped tight and neatly filed away, a fading part of the city's ignoble past.

Quinn looked at Addie, who had the answers. Who'd from the start had most of them.

"There you have it," she said. "Insofar as anyone ever has all of anything."

"Keller might have been the Carver all the way through. Chrissie might have been innocent."

"Might," Addie said. "We'll never know for sure."

"Other things we can know for sure," Quinn said.

"But are you sure you want to know them?"

"I'm sure I have to," Quinn said.