Pulse

20

T he foyer of the super’s building was the same as that of the one next door, with a stairway falling away toward the basement, as well as ascending to a landing and a stairwell running up the rear wall. The walls had just been painted a pale green and there was no graffiti. An elevator had been installed in this building, but it had a handwritten O UT OF ORDER sign taped to its door. Quinn didn’t mind, as he went ahead of Pearl down the steps and felt her lightly touching his shoulder as if for balance.

He pushed a button near a brass-lettered SUPER sign on the door, and it opened almost immediately. Fernandez had heard them descending the steps.

“I thought you’d be along soon,” Fernandez said, as Quinn and Pearl flashed their IDs. He had a slight Spanish accent. He raised dark eyebrows. “You are NYPD?”

“Working with them,” Quinn said.

“Closely?”

“Like lovers.”

Fernandez grinned and stepped aside so they could enter. He was a short, handsome man in his forties, with sharp features and only a few gray strands in his jet-black hair combed straight back. He was wearing a green work outfit, but it was easy to imagine him in a tailored European suit playing a sleek gigolo in a play or movie.

Quinn had expected a modest basement apartment, but this one was spacious and well furnished, with a large flat-screen TV on one wall. A green recliner faced the TV directly. There was a small table next to the recliner with a beer bottle sitting on a magazine so it wouldn’t leave a ring. Quinn could see a modern kitchen with white appliances beyond the living room.

“You live here alone?” he asked.

“I was with my wife until six months ago.” Fernandez motioned with his arm toward a stiff-looking leather or vinyl sofa. “You want to sit down?”

Quinn and Pearl both declined.

“You and your wife separated?” Pearl asked. Fernandez hadn’t struck a tragic note, so she assumed the wife hadn’t died. Maybe the couple was divorced.

“She ran away with an electrician.”

Pearl resisted asking him if it had come as a shock. She almost smiled.

Quinn, seeing something was going on with her, took over the conversation. “Did you know Ann Spellman?”

“The vic?”

Obviously Fernandez used his big TV to watch cop shows.

“The vic,” Quinn confirmed.

“I never saw her before but to glance at her,” Fernandez said.

A large gray cat entered the room, took brief notice of the presence of Quinn and Pearl, then ignored them. Quinn watched the cat effortlessly jump up onto a plush chair and curl into a ball, facing the other way.

“That Theo?” Quinn asked.

“The one and only,” Fernandez said. “He slipped out when I was opening the door to go check and see if I had mail in my box. I forgot to look earlier, and I got a Netflix coming. Lie to Me. You ever see that one?”

“Constantly,” Pearl said.

“So I go after Theo, up into the foyer, and damned if the street door wasn’t open a few inches, the way it sticks sometimes, and I saw Theo squeeze through and outside.”

“What time was this?” Quinn asked.

“About midnight.”

“You wanted to watch Lie to Me at midnight?”

Fernandez shrugged. “What else I got to do, with the wife gone? I sure as hell couldn’t get to sleep.”

“Thinking about her and the electrician,” Pearl said.

“You got it.”

“Did you notice anyone coming or going at the building next door?”

“Just Theo. When I went outside to try to get him and bring him back, I saw him go into the other building. Its street door was hanging wide open.”

“That was unusual?” Quinn asked.

“You bet. It might be an unoccupied building, but there’s stuff to steal in there. Raw lumber, copper plumbing, even tools the workmen leave behind. That’s why they hired me, to make sure nobody unauthorized came or went. The place is usually locked tight.”

“But not tonight,” Pearl said.

“No. The lock had been forced. Like somebody wedged a pry bar or something between the door and frame and leaned hard on it.”

“A large knife, maybe?” Quinn asked.

“Yeah, that’d do it. The screws just popped out of the old wood door frame, and the lock wasn’t worth diddly.”

“So Theo was inside,” Pearl said. She and Quinn could be a smooth team when it came to keeping someone talking.

“And I went in after him.”

“You’re a brave man,” Quinn said. “Seeing the door had been forced, didn’t you think there might be someone in there?”

Fernandez gave his little shrug. “I love my cat. And I did run back here and get a flashlight and a baseball bat. Then I went back next door and went inside. I knocked the barrel of the bat against the floor and kept calling Theo as I went, making plenty of noise so if there was somebody in there he’d have plenty of time to get away. I wasn’t looking for trouble; I was looking for my cat.”

“And?”

“I didn’t find Theo, but I saw that one of the French doors out to the courtyard was open. I went to it, shined my light out there, and saw…” Fernandez stopped and swallowed.

“The vic,” Pearl said.

Fernandez gulped again at the grisly memory. “Yes. Right away, I came back here and phoned the police.”

“Not nine-one-one,” Quinn said.

“ Madre de Dios, I knew she was dead.”

“Yeah.”

“I waited till a police car came, then I told the officer what happened. He went in, then came back out and called for help. He asked me where I lived, then told me to come back here. First thing I saw when I stepped inside was Theo. He acted like he’d never been gone.”

“Cats,” Pearl said.

“Is there any way to get into the courtyard from the street?” Quinn asked.

Fernandez shook his head. “No, all these buildings, you got to go through them to get to the courtyards. They’re built that way for security, I guess. That’s why whoever took that lady-the vic-back there had to get through the door, then go through the apartment to the French doors.”

“Are you sure you didn’t notice anyone suspicious hanging around next door, or even in the neighborhood, the last few days or so?”

“Everybody in the neighborhood’s suspicious,” Fernandez said.

“Every neighborhood,” Pearl said.

“Hey!” Fernandez said, as if jolted by his memory. “I did see someone last week. Mr. Kemmerman, in the apartment right across the street, he’s been having trouble with his toilet leaking at the base. I been working and working on it. He seems to think it’s the flapper, making the water overflow and run down the sides of the bowl when he’s not around. Water pressure or something. I don’t see how-”

“Never mind that,” Quinn said.

“Anyway, I was leaving the Kemmerman apartment, looking out the window on the second-floor landing, and I saw a woman standing at the door to the vic’s place. At first I thought it was a Jehovah’s Witness-they been coming around-or maybe some kind of inspector. Then I saw her glance up and down the street and try the door. She gave it a good yank.”

“It was a woman?”

“Oh, sure. I could see that much, even though there were some branches in the way.”

“She see you?”

“No, I just stood still and watched, and she walked away.”

“What’d she look like?”

“Blond, I think. But it was hard to tell in the light. And there were those branches and the leaves.”

“What was she wearing?” Quinn asked.

“Jeans, I think. I don’t remember up top. Light-colored blouse or something. Thing is, I never saw her face. There wasn’t much light, and she was mostly facing away from me. And the angle I was at, her hair got in the way.”

“How was she built?”

“Looking down at her like I was, it’s hard to say, but I’d make her to be tall average. On the slender side. Had on high heels. I do remember that.”

“Would you describe them as extreme high heels?” Pearl asked.

“You mean like hooker shoes? No, nothing sexy like that. It’s just that I recall high heels. I’m a leg man, I guess.”

“I figured you for one,” Quinn said, to keep him talking. He considered asking Fernandez why, if he was a leg man, he kept staring at Pearl’s breasts.

Pointless question.

“I got the impression,” Fernandez said, “just from her arms and the way she moved, she was older than the vic, like in her forties. The vic was like a kid, almost.” He swallowed and looked grim. “She sure didn’t look like a kid last time I saw her.”

“You’re positive you never got even a glimpse of this woman’s face?” Quinn asked, keeping Fernandez on point.

“No, not the way she was standing.”

“What time was it when you saw her?”

“Around two o’clock. I’d just come back from lunch, and I rested up a little and read the paper, then went across the street to check the toilet bowl in the Kemmerman apartment. There’s no way that could have been the flapper. That’s got nothing to do with-”

“Was Mr. Kemmerman home when you saw this woman?”

“No, he was at work. He’s a teller at a bank. The people on this block, we know each other. They trust me. They know I don’t pry, like some supers. I mind my own business.”

“Too bad,” Quinn said. “If somebody had seen the killer and his victim enter that building and not minded his own business, maybe a life would have been saved.”

“I did hear one thing,” Fernandez said. “My window on that side of the building was open and I heard somebody-maybe one of the cops-say the vic was some kind of designer. A very talented artist. Is that true?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. That explains the protractor. It fits right in with the killer’s ghoulish sense of humor, the protracted grin. “We’re still in the early finding-out stage. Know the name of the company where she worked?”

“No, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t stand there and eavesdrop. I don’t pry.”

“Too bad,” Quinn said.

Fernandez flashed his handsome grin.

Quinn and Pearl exchanged glances, letting each other know that at the moment they had nothing more to ask. They let Fernandez know, too, and thanked him for his time.

“Sorry I couldn’t help,” he told Quinn, as they were going out the door.

“Ah, you never know,” Quinn said.

When they were back out on the hot sidewalk, Pearl said, “What do you make of it?”

“Fernandez might have seen the killer,” Quinn said. “Or he might have made the whole thing up.”

“You see Fernandez as the killer?” Pearl asked, surprised.

“Not likely. A lot of supers pry. He might have been lying about something to cover his ass, but I figure he’s the guy who found the body, and he’s nothing more. I’ll have Sal and Harold check to see if he’s got alibis for the times of the other murders, so we can cross him off our list.”

“Fernandez doesn’t feel like the killer.” Pearl said. “He passes the gut test.”

“Exactly.”

They continued along the sidewalk to the entrance of the building where the murder had taken place. The uniform who’d stood screening visitors was gone, as were the radio cars and CSU van that had been parked in front. The ambulance was nowhere in sight. Ann Spellman was on her way to the morgue, where she’d be the subject of intense scrutiny and expertise by Nift, the nasty little M.E. Nift should have more to tell Quinn soon. Renz was seeing to it that these killings got top priority.

Quinn absently fingered the wrapped illicit Cuban cigar in his shirt pocket, then realized what he was doing and quickly lowered his hand. He’d thought there’d be a chance to be alone for a while and smoke the cigar today, not figuring on Ann Spellman interfering with his plan. He felt like smoking it in the car when they were finished here, but he knew better. Pearl might erupt.

“I’d like to know who that woman at the building’s door was,” Pearl said.

“Or if she was.”