Pulse

27

The Q and A office, 9:15 PM.

Sultry despite the rattling air conditioner mounted in the window with the iron bars, illuminated in yellow light from the glowing desk lamps.

They were talking about murder.

Quinn was behind his desk, leaning back in his swivel chair, his fingers laced behind his head, as he listened to Sal and Harold describe the neighboring super’s sighting of a woman emerging from the boarded-up apartment building where Ann Spellman was later murdered. Then the conversation with Spellman’s neighbor in her building, Audrey Ackenheimer.

Quinn said, “Why do they keep doing it?”

“You mean killing people?” Harold asked.

“No. Why do the neighbors only remember later seeing something that might be useful to us, and then never remember seeing the faces of the possible perpetrators?”

“If they saw the faces, they might remember.”

Quinn stared at Harold. The guy looked like a malnourished accountant, with his slightly stooped figure and oversized graying mustache. Quinn could understand why he got on Sal’s nerves. But he knew Harold was smart, and a tough enough cop. It intrigued Quinn, the way sometimes the most unlikely people were the ones who could reach deep inside and find what they needed in a crisis. Quinn knew that one of those people was Harold Mishkin, however he was wrapped.

“The woman was described as older than Spellman,” Sal said. “But then, Spellman was only twenty-four. Most of the three hundred million people in the country are older than her.”

“Narrows it up,” Harold said.

Quinn couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“Any info on whoever might be shadowing Pearl?” Sal asked.

“No. But Pearl’s hardly ever wrong about something like that. If she says she’s got a shadow, there is one.”

“You think she should have two?” Harold asked.

It took Quinn a few seconds to understand what he meant. “I suggested we should take shifts in watching her back. Pearl said definitely not. Doesn’t wanna spread us thin while we’re on the trail of a serial killer.”

“Maybe we should ignore what she wants,” Sal said.

Harold looked at him and swallowed.

“We should,” Quinn said, “except that if we do put a second tail on her, she’ll know. And she’s right: if this is the killer, we wouldn’t want to spook him before she gets some kind of line on him.”

“Still and all…” Harold said.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Quinn said.

“Jody Jason,” Professor Elaine Pratt said, when Chancellor Schueller asked why she’d come to his office.

Schueller remained seated behind his desk, absently using both hands to play with a yellow number-two pencil. Elaine noticed that it had an extremely sharp point.

“You did say she accepted the Enders and Coil internship,” Schueller said.

“She accepted, then took a train into the city for an interview. When she returned we talked, and she was unsure again.”

Schueller was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Do you suppose the murder of Macy Collins is giving her pause? I mean, we couldn’t blame her for that.” The chancellor shivered as if the office had turned cold. “It must have been like being attacked by an animal.”

“I think she feels like most of the students about that,” Elaine Pratt said. “They regard it in the way they would if Macy had been struck by lightning.”

“An apt comparison. It’s a tragedy they’ll have to put behind them.”

“They’re young enough to do that,” Elaine said.

Schueller touched the tip of the pencil as if testing for sharpness. “So our sticking point is simply that Jody is a fickle one.”

“Not usually,” Elaine said. “Coil wasn’t there, and Jack Enders interviewed her. He didn’t make a good impression.”

“I thought Jody was supposed to worry about impressing them.”

“She seems not to see it that way.”

Schueller smiled. “What did he say or do that turned her off?”

“She knows the firm is representing a client who owns three blocks of property in lower Manhattan. Old warehouses and deserted office buildings. Also a couple of rundown apartment buildings. The client wants to finish clearing the property so work can be started on a new complex of office buildings. Jody knows there’s a holdout tenant who refuses to move, preventing them from razing one of the buildings.”

The chancellor frowned, troubled. “She knows about Meeding Properties already?”

“Yes, but not much. That sort of thing is a matter of record and can’t be kept secret within the confines of the firm. Not telling her would arouse her suspicions later on. And the firm has taken extra steps to hide Waycliffe’s involvement.”

“Those eminent domain cases,” Schueller said, “don’t they always end the same way?”

“Not always. This woman claims her lease has a clause that precludes them from making her move in the event of eminent domain.”

“Doesn’t eminent domain by its nature transcend that kind of lease?”

“Her argument is that it doesn’t. It’s a specious legal position, but not so much that she can’t tie up the project for months if not years.”

“So if she’s got a case, they make her an offer.”

“She’s refused all offers. She and her late husband lived in the apartment for twenty years, so it’s an emotional thing with her.”

“Money can also be very emotional,” Schueller said. He began tapping the sharpened pencil on the desk, making a constant slight ticking sound. When he realized what he was doing, he drew his briar pipe from his pocket, tamped down the tobacco in its bowl with a forefinger but, as usual, didn’t light it. “So our young idealist has sided with the old lady.”

“I don’t think the tenant is an old lady,” Elaine said. “That’s the problem. She seems to be an attorney in her forties. Sophisticated and eager for the fray.”

“Still, she’s the underdog.”

“Yes, and that’s what’s bothering Jody. Meeding Properties.” The big development company was an Enders and Coil client. “But she knows only so much. What we expected.”

“Davida against Goliath,” Schueller said. “Starring Jody as Davida.”

“Something like that.” Professor Pratt moved closer to Schueller. “I know Jody. She and Enders and Coil are on the same page we’re on. It’s just that sometimes she doesn’t realize it. I understand our students, young girls especially.”

“If you feel that way, Elaine, I wouldn’t worry too much.”

“Enders and Coil need to feel that way. And so do you.”

“There’s no need to have any doubts about how I feel. I’m aware that Jody is wicked smart. The same youthful idealism that’s causing her to hesitate will also cause her to review the fact that everyone deserves legal counsel. That’s the beauty of our system. She’ll realize that Enders and Coil clients are true and deserving citizens being targeted simply because they have money.”

“I hope you’re right,” Elaine said.

“They’ll realize what an asset she can be.”

“Jody’s a stubborn one. And there’s something else. She didn’t like the way Jack Enders looked at her.”

Schueller clamped the unlit pipe between his teeth. “He was coming on to her?”

“She thinks he was. Or that he almost surely will.”

“Well, she’ll have to learn how to handle that.” He sucked on the pipe stem. “You know, Elaine, you were the one who recommended Jody to me to parade for Enders and Coil.”

“I don’t regret it,” Elaine said. “Jody’s an idealist, but she’s also smart, practical, and in some ways cynical.”

“Yet you come to my office because now there are doubts.”

“I thought you should be kept up to date,” Elaine said. Schueller removed the pipe from his mouth and smiled. “And up to date I am,” he said.

When Elaine Pratt was gone, he sat for a while and thought about Jody Jason, and whether she could be a fit at Enders and Coil. She was hamstrung so much by idealism. But then, that was the condition of so many bright young people. Sooner or later, they learned. And the sooner the better.

Idealism, he mused, was the bane of his existence.

He swiveled in his chair and looked out the window. Whatever clouds there’d been had fled, and the sky was a soft, unbroken blue.

A perfect day for flying, he thought. When he was in the air, things on the ground seemed so much more patterned and controllable.

More and more, he enjoyed flying.