Night kills

26

It was moments like this when Pearl emitted a kind of energy that anyone near her could feel. Quinn felt it now. Something was up with Pearl.

They were riding along in Quinn's big Lincoln on a fine New York morning. The slanted sunlight cast stark, sharply angled shadows of tall buildings so that light and dimness danced over the vast expanse of metal that was the car's gleaming black hood. Pearl had shown up at the Seventy-ninth Street office early in the unmarked car, and now they were driving to pick up Fedderman so the three of them could meet with Renz in his office at One Police Plaza. Quinn felt his hands tighten on the steering wheel as Pearl spoke.

"I understand you're seeing that M.E. who smells like formaldehyde."

Quinn braked to avoid rear-ending a dusty white delivery van and let the Lincoln edge forward in the blocked traffic. "I never noticed a formaldehyde scent." He felt his jaw setting. Who was Pearl, anyhow, to worry about whom he was seeing or sleeping with? Pearl and that asshole Milton Kahn. Quinn cautioned himself about his anger. After all, he'd never even met Kahn, only heard about him.

"I didn't say scent," Pearl told him. "I said smell. More like stench."

Quinn shrugged, which seemed to infuriate Pearl. He could sense her seething beside him. They drove along. The motor hummed. Pearl seemed to hum, though she wasn't uttering a sound.

She was trying to start something, Quinn knew. Always trying to start something. Born with a burr up her ass.

Finally she said, "Goddamned car stinks, too. Like you've been smoking cigars in it."

Screw this! Quinn had wanted a peaceful morning, but if she was determined to make trouble, he was going after her. She'd brought it on herself. "That might be you burning, Pearl."

"Why should it be?"

"You seem upset about me seeing Linda. Not that you oughta be. You're the one who's always harping about the end of our relationship."

"What's to harp about?" she asked. "It's over. There is no relationship."

"Then why are you-"

"Who said I was?"

"So pissed off about-"

"I'm not in the slightest angry over anything concerning you, Quinn. Who you're seeing. Who you're screwing."

"You brought up the subject."

"The Linda subject?"

"Doctor Chavesky," Quinn corrected, still in an unforgiving mood.

Pearl played it cool. She knew him, knew what he was doing, and how he usually refused to engage her in argument unless he was particularly angry about something. She must have pushed the right buttons. This Doctor Chavesky must've really gotten to him, for him to react by coming after Pearl so hard and tough. What was she supposed to do, shrink away in fear? Is that what the overgrown Irish thug expected?

"Move the goddamned car," Pearl said. "Try to keep up with traffic."

Quinn glanced up. It was true, traffic had begun to move forward. The dusty back of the van he'd almost hit was half a block away and picking up speed. He goosed the big Lincoln so it would keep up. He ignored Pearl.

She wouldn't let it go.

"So now you've got something new to obsess about," she said.

"You're the one with the new obsession."

"Which would be?"

Screwing Milton Kahn. "Disliking Dr. Chavesky."

She laughed loudly and without a shred of humor. "You talk like I should actually give a shit about you two getting it on."

"You talk like you care."

"Why should I care?"

"You shouldn't. I won't obsess about you anymore, Pearl. That's what you always accused me of doing. That's over. No need for you to get upset about it any longer."

"Is this me being upset?" she asked, pointing her forefinger at her deadpan expression. "Is it?"

"I've gotta keep an eye on the traffic," Quinn said, not looking at her. God help him, he was beginning to enjoy this. A little.

Pearl seemed to sense it. "You do that," she said. "You keep an eye on the traffic while you obsess about your doctor friend. You're not careful, you're liable to drive right up somebody's ass. Maybe like you-"

"Pearl!"

They were both silent while he tailed the van along Forty-ninth Street in stop-and-go traffic. About five minutes passed. Quinn thought maybe Pearl had run down. He settled back in the leather upholstery and paid more attention to his driving.

"Know what I think?" Pearl asked.

"Usually not."

"I think you're so good at getting inside the minds of serial killers because you're obsessive just like they are. You're psychotic. You and the killer are opposite sides of the same coin."

"That's important, being on the opposite side." But Quinn knew exactly what she meant and it bothered him. He'd always been stubborn, tunnel visioned, obsessive… Or was it persistent, unrelenting, determined…? And what the hell was the difference? These were fine distinctions that had now and then gotten Quinn in trouble. Pearl's hard head had gotten her into more than a few messes, too, so she had a lot of nerve talking to him that way, comparing him to serial killers.

He took a few deep breaths and swallowed his irritation.

So he was obsessive. So what? He put it to work and did some good in the world with it. If his obsessive nature helped to nail these assholes who killed women in the worst ways, so be it. That was their problem and he was coming after them hard. And didn't every coin have its opposite side?

"Whatever's going on in our personal lives, we have to work together," he said calmly. "Can you manage that, dear?"

"Don't give me that sarcastic 'dear' bullshit. I'm not one of your gullible suspects or witnesses who fall for it and spill their guts."

"Can you manage it?" he asked again.

"I'm still in the car, aren't I?"

He glanced over and was surprised to see that she was smiling.

She was actually smiling.

Pearl enjoyed combat. But Quinn knew that. He didn't say anything, and within a few blocks he found himself smiling along with her.

At Second Avenue he stopped for a red light, first in line, then suddenly ran the light and went the wrong way up Second while there wasn't any traffic coming. A uniformed cop was standing by his squad car halfway up the block. As they passed, Quinn slowed the Lincoln and held his shield up tight against the windshield so the cop would see it. The cop recognized the shield, maybe recognized Quinn, and nodded.

As they turned the corner at the next block so they could zigzag uptown and get going in the right direction again, Pearl twisted around in her seat and saw the roof bar lights on the squad car winking and the cop standing alongside a gray Ford sedan lecturing the driver about traveling the wrong way on Second Avenue. She knew the Ford was a press car, one of those that had been staked out near the detectives' office so media wolves could sneak photos or video footage, and sometimes follow them when they left.

Quinn cut over another block and got back on course, checking his rearview mirror to make sure the press car was nowhere in sight.

"That was nifty," Pearl said.

Quinn nodded and drove on.

Jill knew she was being obsessive about Madeline. That was the only way to explain it. After all, the police artist sketch that was in all the papers and seemed to pop up every fifteen minutes on TV didn't really look that much like Madeline.

But Jill had worked her last day for Tucker, Simpson, and King, though they said there was a slight possibility she'd be called back in a week. It all depended on when Mr. Tucker's hernia operation was going to be scheduled. Things at the office would be hectic while he was off, and they'd need someone extra who could answer the phone and knew the filing system.

I know the filing system but no one there knows me.

On top of the situation at the law firm, Tony was out of town on business and would be for another four days.

For the first time in a while, Jill had time on her hands. That was why she couldn't stop thinking about Madeline Scott. About what might have happened to poor mad Madeline. About whether she was still alive.

Jill had eaten the other half of her Chinese take-out meal for dinner last night, and this morning she'd walked a few blocks to a deli and gotten orange juice and a toasted bagel for breakfast. Now what was she supposed to do, watch Oprah? Hell, Oprah wasn't even on.

The apartment was so quiet.

Jill paced a while, then turned on the TV and channel surfed until she was tired of talking heads and SUV commercials and bad drama and unfunny comedies. What she didn't want to watch was the news. It would make her think about Madeline.

Jill used the remote to switch off the television. She stretched out on the sofa on her back with her forearm over her eyes. She knew she wasn't going to sleep. She wasn't tired. Her mind wouldn't be still.

She removed her arm from across her eyes and sat up, remembering something. Thinking back. Making sure.

There was no reason why she couldn't do something about Madeline, satisfy her curiosity about the woman. She was certain Madeline had mentioned that her former apartment was on West Seventy-second Street, the apartment where the new Madeline Scott (if by some chance there really was one) would be living.

If the apartment actually existed.

If what she'd heard hadn't been another of mad Madeline's flights of imagination.

Jill got up from the sofa and went to where the phone sat, on a table near the door. A stack of borough directories lay on the table legs' cross braces. She stooped and got the Manhattan directory from the top of the stack and carried it back to the sofa.

She leafed through the pages to the Scott listings. There were quite a few Scotts, but she found it almost immediately: "M. Scott," with a West Seventy-second Street address.

Jill sat motionless for a few minutes with the open directory on her knees. Seeing the listing had given her a start, even though it was the object of her search. Its existence in the phone book made the rest of Madeline's story seem much more possible.

Jill shook off that feeling. The listing might be for a different M. Scott, a Mary, Martha, or Margaret Scott. Or maybe a Mathew or Martin Scott. It wasn't only women who tried to give the impression a man lived in their apartment, by using first initials for their phone number listings and mailboxes.

One way to find out.

Jill gathered her willpower and carried the directory to the phone. She pecked out M. Scott's number.

And was told the number was no longer in service. It was now unlisted.

Jill hung up the phone and returned to the sofa. She sat down heavily, still clutching the directory.

Great! Now what?

But she knew what.

Her boredom, her curiosity, her fear were driving her.

She tore out the directory page with M. Scott's listing on it and stuffed it in a back pocket of her jeans, in case she'd forget the address.

She'd seen the weather report three times this morning on TV and knew it was supposed to rain. No matter. She wouldn't take an umbrella.

She felt lucky.