Pulse

31

P earl was still in shock.

She finished cleaning up after dinner, which took about five minutes. She fed what was left of the reheated pizza to the garbage disposal, resealed the plastic bag of pre-washed salad ingredients and placed it in the refrigerator, then dropped the paper plates and beer and soda cans into the trash. A quick wipe-off of the table with a damp dishcloth, and she was finished. This was the way to eat and clean up afterward, second only to dining out and letting someone else clean up the mess.

Quinn, seated on the sofa, could see into the kitchen and watched her curiously. She was moving like an automaton, with no wasted motion. On automatic.

Pearl had been quiet during dinner, thoughtful. He wondered what was occupying her mind. He knew something was. He also knew this was the time to hold his silence. If Pearl wanted to talk something out, she’d get around to it.

She came into the living room and sat down in a gray wing chair, curling her legs under her. Light from the streetlight in front of the brownstone filtered through the sheer curtains and softened her pale features, darkened her black hair and eyes. She was observing him now, weighing what she was going to say. He wondered if he was going to like hearing it.

“I met my daughter tonight,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

Well, he thought. Well…

“Quinn?”

“But did I hear you right?”

She smiled with a new wisdom. “Yeah, you did. Want me to tell you about her?”

“Maybe later.”

A widening of her eyes. Then the familiar smile. “You bastard!”

He listened intently, not moving a muscle, as she told him about Juditha Jason who was called Jody, about Cody Clarke and the pregnancy and adoption. About the Jason family, who had loved Jody and had been loved by her.

Luck, Quinn thought. It sounds like the kid was lucky.

“I was seventeen, Quinn. I didn’t know myself or the world. All I’ve known all these years is that my baby was a girl.”

Quinn didn’t know what to think. What to say. Other than, “It’s all right, Pearl.”

“Gee, thank you.”

“I mean… well, it’s great, I guess. This Juditha-”

“Jody.” Pearl swallowed. “Jesus, Quinn. She’s really something.”

Forces Quinn didn’t quite understand were at work here. He knew he’d have to come to grips with this and was working on it. Pearl a mother. The father, her long-ago lover, dead. Her daughter, a twenty-two-year-old girl-woman-was here in New York.

Pearl, a mother…

Pearl must have seen the consternation on his face. “You two’ll get along fine,” she said. “I know it!”

“When am I going to meet her?”

Pearl shot a look at her watch.

The intercom rasped. Someone downstairs in the foyer.

“That would be Jody,” Pearl said, and got up to go buzz her daughter in.

Quinn thought, Holy Christ!

“I don’t understand it,” Fedderman said to his wife, Penny. But he did understand. He’d just hoped it wouldn’t happen to them.

“I see you go out in the morning, and all day I keep wondering if I’m ever going to see you again.”

Fedderman nodded. Like so many other cops’ wives. “You knew I was a policeman, Pen. Hell, I’m not even actually that now. I’m a private investigator.”

“And look what you’re doing, Feds. You’re tracking the most dangerous killer in the city. You’re trying to be in the same place at the same time he is.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’m not asking you to quit. And I’m not about to quit on our marriage.”

“But you might change your mind about that.”

“I go crazy thinking you might be hurt or dead somewhere, Feds.”

“So you went out and got a job to fill your time.”

“To fill my mind. Is that so crazy?”

“I guess not.”

“I talked to Ms. Culver at the library and she told me there was an opening.”

“Getting your old job back.”

“Not exactly, but close. The library has a big DVD section now.”

“I guess they would,” Fedderman said. In truth he was kind of surprised. The Albert A. Aal Memorial Library didn’t seem large enough for such an addition. Maybe they had fewer books.

“I start day after tomorrow,” Penny said. She came to him and snaked her arms around him. “Can you put up with me, Feds?”

He hugged her back, kissed her lips, and gazed down at her. “Question is, can we put up with each other?”

“I know the answer to that,” Penny said, and kissed him back.

Fedderman hoped she was right, but he wondered.

“Are you any closer?” she asked.

“To what?”

“Finding the killer.”

He didn’t know the answer to that, either.