Pulse

72

T hey had dinner in the brownstone.

Pearl had outdone herself in the kitchen this evening, stopping at two delis for pre-cooked and heated vegetables that went perfectly with the stuffed pork chops she’d had delivered from a restaurant six blocks away.

“Delicious,” Quinn proclaimed, wondering if this was as close as he’d ever again come to a home-cooked meal. He pushed his plate away to signify that he was finished.

“Much better than passable,” Jody said.

“It’s all in the timing,” Pearl said.

“What’s that, Mom?”

“Being a good cook is all in the timing, having everything ready and heated at the same time.”

Quinn and Jody exchanged glances. Neither knew if Pearl was kidding, so they maintained wooden expressions.

Pearl brought in vanilla ice cream and coffee for dessert. The ice cream was from D’Agostino, some brand Quinn had never heard of, but it was pretty good. The coffee tasted much like the coffee she made at the office. They ate the ice cream with chocolate syrup and a sprinkling of chopped nuts on it.

The ice cream was in fact so good that no one spoke until they were finished eating it. They sipped their coffees contentedly without speaking. A family scene too late for Rockwell. Quinn was reminded of his first marriage, with May, when their daughter Lauri was young and living at home. Somehow the memory didn’t make him sad. This was good, what he, Pearl, and Jody had. For Quinn it was like an unexpected bonus. He wondered if the other two felt the same way. He was pretty sure Jody did. Not so sure about Pearl.

Jody dabbed at her lips with a napkin, which she then wadded and put on the table. “Either of you heard of Waycliffe College being involved with Meeding Properties?” she asked.

“Involved how?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard mention of the college at the firm, and it’s usually in an odd way, as if there’s some kind of secret connection.”

“Some kind of legal matter,” Quinn suggested. “I hear they do that kind of thing there.”

Pearl gave him a be serious look.

Jody shook her head, not noticing Quinn’s sarcasm. “No, I, er, checked and the firm doesn’t have anything pending with the school.”

“Checked how?” Quinn asked.

“Never mind that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Snitch, the cat, appeared and Jody placed her paper deli dish on the floor so the animal could lap up what was left of her ice cream.

“Maybe there’s something hush-hush about the way the internship dropped into my lap after Macy Collins was killed.”

“You’re in an advanced student program,” Pearl reminded her. She couldn’t help sounding a little proud. “There’s nothing that unusual about you getting the open internship.”

“Yeah, so maybe I got the wrong impression. About Meeding Properties, too. They’re always whispering about that at the firm.”

Quinn sipped his coffee and studied Jody over the cup’s plasticized paper rim, which was beginning to break down from the heat. “You’re linking the law firm, Meeding Industries, and Waycliffe College together?”

“And Sarah Benham.”

“The woman you sometimes go to lunch with?”

“Yeah. We’ve become pretty good friends. She’s also a former Enders and Coil client, but only in a small way. A class action suit against a mutual fund. Diddly-squat for everyone but the lawyers. Anyway, I’m sure I heard her mention my name when she and Jack Enders were talking.”

“While you were eavesdropping,” Pearl said.

“I was out at Waycliffe today and I think I caught a glimpse of her.”

Pearl placed her heated, cooled, and reheated coffee cup where the tablecloth was already stained. “So what were you doing at Waycliffe?”

“I’d gone through all the files at Enders and Coil. Because of the Mildred Dash dilemma.”

“Dilemma?” Quinn asked.

“Sure. You must have been reading about it in the papers. How Mildred Dash is in a coma and she’s-”

“We know about it,” Pearl said. “She was due to go home, but she’s staying in the hospital. Which puts Meeding Properties in something of a public relations quandary.”

“So I was searching the files for something to use against Enders and Coil.”

“Use against them?”

“Against their client, actually.”

“It amounts to the same thing,” Quinn pointed out.

“You were searching for something your own firm did that could be construed as criminal?” Pearl asked.

“Sure.”

“Isn’t that criminal?”

“I could make a case for it being legal. I’m an employee. Why shouldn’t I have access to the files? I might have broken some obscure company regulation-though I’ve never seen anything specific-but that doesn’t mean a statute has been violated.”

Pearl chewed her lower lip. Quinn tried not to smile,

“I’m not going to argue law with you,” Pearl said. “What did you find?”

“Exchanges of encrypted e-mails with somebody at Waycliffe.”

“My, my,” Quinn said.

“Did you break the encryption?” Pearl asked.

“Enough to see the word cabal used more than once. And my business psychology professor at Waycliffe, Elaine Pratt, was the recipient and sender of some of the e-mails. That’s why I rented a car and drove up to Waycliffe.”

“To do some breaking and entering,” Pearl said.

“I’m a student there,” Jody reminded her.

“So did you learn something more about Meeding Properties and Mildred Dash?” Quinn asked. “And a cable?”

“Cabal,” Jody said. “A secret group that has some kind of agenda.”

“Did you learn the secret agenda?”

“No. But Meeding is in trouble. Time’s running out on the date they have to finish demolition. If they don’t make the deadline, they’ll lose a humongous amount of money. I could tell even though they were encrypted that the issue with Mildred Dash was what a lot of the e-mails were about.”

“So maybe the college is invested in Meeding Properties,” Quinn said.

“So why would that be such a big secret?”

“I dunno. PR?”

“Ha! The college portfolio contains cigarette companies, so I don’t think they’d be ashamed of Meeding. Unless murder was involved.”

“Murder?”

“Maybe. Hard to say for sure, with the encryption. Or Professor Pratt might have been talking about a teaching project. She had a file stuffed with newspaper items about some old murders. We discuss that kind of thing in her class all the time.”

“So who was the killer?” Quinn asked.

“Daniel something.”

“Daniel Danielle? Last name a female version of the first?”

Jody slapped her forehead so hard her springy red hair jiggled. “Of course! It should have registered. Only this guy died like over a decade ago.”

Quinn looked at Pearl. Pearl looked at Quinn and Jody. All of them thinking this could be a coincidence, Professor Pratt researching for her class presentation the same killer who appeared to have returned and taken up where he’d left off when he’d supposedly died ten years ago. After all, Daniel Danielle was a topical subject again. Fair game for a psych teacher.

“Coincidences do happen,” Jody said, “or there wouldn’t be such a word.”

“What are you going to do with your information?” Quinn asked.

“Try to stop demolition somehow on Mildred Dash’s apartment.”

“You mean calling the shots because you might have something on Enders and Coil?”

“Possibly.”

“Leverage?”

“Maybe.”

“Extortion?”

“I’m not gaining anything.”

“Blackmail?”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“Preventing something criminal. Do either of you know anything about it?”

“I don’t,” Pearl said.

“We don’t,” Quinn added.

“Okay.”

Quinn and Pearl sat staring at each other. They both felt as if they’d just been spewed from a conversational whirlpool.

Jody smiled and stood up from her chair. “Is it my turn to help with the dishes?”

“It’s your turn to do the dishes,” Pearl said.

“That’s right.” Jody began collecting the paper plates and plastic utensils supplied by the restaurant and delis.

Off she went into the kitchen, almost tripping over the cat still intent on its ice cream.

Pearl hadn’t moved. She was gazing toward the kitchen, looking solemn and concerned.

“Your kid,” Quinn said.