Night kills

42

Renz was pacing his office grinning. Quinn wasn't sure he liked seeing the commissioner so pleased. It usually meant trouble. A steady drizzle from a leaden sky obviously wasn't the reason for Renz's good humor. The diffused light from the wet window, along with the pale glow of the desk lamp, gave Renz's sagging features a grayish cast. Now and then the long shadows from the raindrops crawling down the glass pane made him appear to be crying, his grin a grimace.

Quinn sat casually in one of the upholstered chairs near the desk and watched and waited.

"The media sure as hell bought into it," Renz was saying. "Every time you turn on the TV news, every time you pick up a newspaper, you see that shit-heel Coulter. He's on CNN, FOX News, everywhere."

"He oughta be getting nervous," Quinn said.

"It's bought us some time, just like you said." Renz suddenly looking serious, stopped pacing, and turned to face Quinn. "Now we've gotta make use of that time. What are our alternatives?"

So Renz is in his officious mood this gray morning.

Quinn knew how to deal with that. "Alternatives are several," he said. "My belief is that our best bet is to continue with Pearl playing Jill Clark's new friend Jewel, maybe force E-Bliss's hand."

"It's a damned dangerous game," Renz said.

Quinn wondered whether Renz remembered that he, Renz, had approved the strategy. "Everything about this case is dangerous."

Renz crossed his arms and nodded, as if approving of Quinn's answer. Then he said, "It could backfire. If either Pearl or Jill is killed."

"Or both of them," Quinn said.

"Christ! If that happened the media'd blame us for their deaths. They'd bury us. Don't doubt that for a moment."

Quinn didn't. "The way it works," he reminded Renz, "is it would be too dangerous for E-Bliss to kill both of them, and too dangerous to kill Jill with Pearl still around as Jewel. And it would be senseless to kill Jewel first, because it might draw suspicion if they later killed Jill."

"Sounds complicated," Renz said.

Quinn couldn't deny it. "It's like bombers flying in formation so enemy fighters can't attack one without drawing fire from the others."

Renz stood still and thought about that one. Quinn knew he watched hours and hours of old World War Two documentaries on the History Channel.

"I guess it makes sense, when you put it that way, but I still get the feeling we oughta move while we can nail some of these jokers."

"We still don't have much in the way of hard evidence," Quinn reminded him. "No identifiable victims, no solid connections between E-Bliss and their clients who've been killed-mainly because we don't know the identities that have been stolen. Surely E-Bliss has washed their files of any hint that they did business with the murdered women. Madeline Scott's the only name we've got, but now she's disappeared."

"'She being the new Madeline Scott?"

Quinn nodded, wishing Renz would stop playing the executive cop.

"All that client information's gotta be in their computers," Renz said. "They're a high-tech outfit."

"If everything incriminating hasn't been deleted yet, it will be at the first sign of trouble. And like you said, they're a high-tech outfit. They'd know how to actually destroy the evidence."

"What if we busted in there fast and confiscated everything?"

"Even if we could get a warrant, which I doubt, the computers might be set up to delete on seizure. There are lots of possibilities for built-in safeguards: destruction of files if the wrong password is used or the wrong fingerprint ID, or if the location of the computer is changed, or if a code number has to be fed in every so many hours so the files won't automatically be destroyed, or Stone might be able to send a signal some way we haven't thought of."

"Who knows what we'd find if we were successful, though," Renz said, undeterred by mention of all the potential tech catastrophes.

"I'm more afraid of what we wouldn't find. If nothing incriminating turned up, they'd know we were after them and every piece of potential evidence and everyone involved with E-Bliss would disappear. Then we'd be left with Jill Clark's unlikely story that she heard from a woman now dead, some unidentifiable torsos, and suspects who are on the wind. Nothing times three." Quinn said. Then he added, "Jill's all we have that could turn into something solid. They're not suspicious yet. They'll make some kind of play, some kind of mistake. Jill and Pearl put us in position to take advantage of it."

"You forgot to mention the new Madeline. She could be the key to this."

"If we could find her," Quinn said.

It had stopped raining by the time Pearl climbed out of the cab less than a block away from Madeline's apartment. This was the same unit the new Madeline had taken over after the death of the real Madeline Scott, and then recently abandoned.

Pearl watched the cab drive away down West Seventy-second Street, then stop near the next corner and pick up a man waving his half-closed umbrella like a signal flag. She stood for a moment getting her bearings and setting straight in her mind what she planned to do.

She decided to have the super let her into the vacant apartment. After looking it over, she'd talk to some of the neighbors. Since the new Madeline was gone from the building, she could identify herself as NYPD and maybe open some minds.

Quinn and Fedderman had gone over the place, as well as a CSU team, but Pearl knew it wouldn't hurt to look again. If nothing else, it might make this whole thing seem more real. The truth was, sometimes when she saw Jill and Tony Lake together, how devoted and seemingly enchanted Tony seemed, the horror that was behind it all was damned hard to accept.

But isn't that the way confidence artists work? Haven't I seen it over and over again?

It's real, all right, and doubting it can cost Jill Clark her life. Can cost me my life.

She breathed in warm, humid air that smelled fresh after the rain; held the still-folded umbrella in her right hand; and strode down Seventy-second toward the apartment building.

As she walked, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Jill at her temporary job. Since going undercover as Jewel, Pearl had a different cell phone and number, registered to a Jewel Karsdan. Lies within lies. Like life itself.

Seeing Pearl's number on her cell phone display, Jill answered immediately. "Jewel? Is everything okay?"

"That's what I called to ask you," Pearl said.

"Yes, everything's normal here. Other than the job's boring as hell."

"Boredom we like," Pearl said.

"If you say so."

"Let me know if you leave early."

"I will, but it doesn't seem likely."

"Remember, your guardian angels are around, even if you don't see them."

"I appreciate that, really." A beat. "It's so hard to believe all this. I feel like a character in some kind of mystery novel."

"Tell me about it," Pearl said and broke the connection.

She was almost to the building entrance when she saw a blond woman wearing a lightweight white raincoat emerge and trot gracefully down the shallow steps to the street. She was clutching a large black leather purse tight to her side. There was something familiar about her, but only vaguely.

She turned and walked toward Pearl.

As the woman drew closer, Pearl's flesh began to crawl. She'd seen the sketches and the morgue photos of Madeline Scott.

When they were twenty feet apart, Pearl knew.

This woman was Madeline Scott.

Pearl put on her poker face and hoped her heart wouldn't hammer its way out of her chest. She and the woman exchanged the briefest of glances as they passed each other. Pearl didn't break stride as she listened to the receding tap, tap of the new Madeline's high heels on the damp pavement.

The sound faded.

One thousand, two thousand, three thousand…

Pearl casually turned around and began to follow the woman.

Victor graciously lent the woman his umbrella. Of course, Victor went with it.

He and the woman shared the large black umbrella until the cool drizzle that had been falling all morning became a fine mist and then stopped altogether.

"We're here," he said, folding his umbrella and smiling at the woman. Not that they'd had a common destination.

They and the rain had happened to stop simultaneously near a Village restaurant that had outside tables beneath a canvas awning. The metal tables and chairs were dry. Only a few of them were occupied.

The woman, a theatrical costume designer named Ruth Malpass, smoothed back her bouncy short brown hairdo, now limp from the rain and humidity, and took a closer look at the man with the umbrella. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties and had regular, handsome features, eyes of an almost indeterminate color that seemed to reflect surrounding hues, and was nicely dressed in obviously expensive pleated brown slacks and a lighter tan pullover shirt with a collar. His medium-length brown hair was neatly combed. His wristwatch, she noticed, was a stylish and expensive Movado, and his shoes were rich-looking brown loafers.

Look at their wristwatch and shoes. That's what Ruth's mother had always told her. That was the way to judge a man's wealth and style.

Ruth had taken the advice to heart and it had served her well during her year in New York. A small, slender woman with large brown eyes and a long neck, she looked like a scaled-down high-fashion model. Ruth attracted plenty of men, and she preferred them to be at least solvent. If their watch and shoes were of good quality, usually so was their bank account. Not that Ruth was in it only for the money. But there were so many men to choose from, why not make money one of the criteria?

"Two of you?" a smiling waiter with a towel over one arm and a pad and pencil was asking.

"Definitely," the handsome man said. He really did have a charming smile.

"Why not?" Ruth said, trying to match the smile.

The waiter ushered them to a table near the black iron railing that defined the outdoor section of the cafe and took their drink orders. Handsome asked for a Jack Daniel's on the rocks. It was early for alcohol, but Ruth again asked herself, why not? She ordered a whiskey sour.

"I'm Vlad Novak," Victor said, offering his hand.

Ruth noticed the gold ring (not a wedding ring) and manicured nails. She shook his hand and smiled. "Ruth," she said.

"Got a last name?"

"We'll see."

The charming smile again. She had to admit it got to her. The light was such that she could see her twin reflections in his eyes.

"Vlad's an unusual name," she said.

"Short for Vladimir. It's an old family name, from when my grandfather emigrated here from Yugoslavia."

"Isn't there a baseball player named Vladimir?"

"There is," Vlad said. "And a good one. Vladimir Guerrero."

The waiter arrived with their drinks, and two vastly oversized menus in black leather folders.

"It's not too early," Vlad said. "Should we make it lunch?"

"We'll see," Ruth said again. Trying to hit the right note and not sound too coy. She didn't want to signal any kind of a turnoff here. Testing, testing. She fully intended to have lunch with this prize that had fallen into her lap.

The waiter glanced at Vlad.

"Leave the menus," Vlad told him.

Ruth's heart grew a few sizes.

"I'll give you time to decide," the waiter said. He laid the menus on the table and retreated. Ruth got the definite impression he was rooting for Vlad.

Vlad lifted his glass, and Ruth mirrored his action.

They drank. Smiled at each other.

Ruth found herself flushed with a desire she hoped didn't show. She searched uneasily for words. "Funny how things can just happen. I mean, you politely offered the use of your umbrella, and here we are."

"Into each life…," Vlad said.

"…A little rain must fall," she finished.

Vlad widened his smile.

"And then," he said, "the sunshine."