Serial

61

New York, the present

A brief shower had cooled down the city, and the sun, back from behind scudding low clouds, made everything glisten in reflecting dampness. Quinn and Pearl couldn’t resist walking the short distance from the office to have lunch at home (as she lately found herself thinking of the brownstone). Besides, the rehab crew was closing in on finishing off the floor directly above, in what had once been the dining room. Quinn and Pearl could go upstairs and check on how things were going while a pizza heated in the oven.

They strolled down Amsterdam and saw by the faces passing them going the opposite direction that most people felt the way they did. This was one of those rare moments after rain when time seems to pause in order to give people a chance to glance around and really see fresh, wet actuality.

What they saw was a city they loved. Nineteenth-century buildings a short walk from glass and stone and poured concrete climbing toward an indecisive summer sky. Quinn appreciated the sights and smells and sounds around them. Twist-tied plastic trash bags huddled bursting at the curb, low-lying exhaust fumes from stalled traffic, a distant urgent siren, two people arguing about who had hailed a cab first, violin music-hesitant and distant. Quinn and Pearl exchanged a glance, each knowing what the other was thinking.

The inside of the brownstone was quiet until Pearl walked across the living room and switched on the window-unit air conditioner. There was no sound from upstairs. Maybe the workers had gone to lunch early.

Pearl and Quinn decided they’d have lunch first, thinking maybe the workers would return by the time they were finished. Pearl put a frozen pizza with sausage and mushrooms into the oven, then got a bag of pre-cut washed vegetables out of the refrigerator, along with a tomato, some green onions, and vinaigrette dressing. While she put together a salad, Quinn got out silverware, plates, and napkins and set the table.

He sat in one of the wooden chairs and watched Pearl fidget around the kitchen, opening and closing the oven door as if that would hurry the pizza, tossing the salad for a second and third time. Sprinkling ground pepper on the salad, adding bits of cheddar cheese she tore from slices that were meant for sandwiches. Even a pinch of salt. Not a born cook, Pearl.

The phone on the kitchen wall rang, breaking the silence and domestic mood. Quinn scooted his chair a few feet to the side and reached for the receiver.

He saw on the tiny caller-ID screen that the caller was Sal Vitali, from the morgue. He mouthed Vitali’s name silently to Pearl, who was staring at him curiously.

“You weren’t at the office,” Vitali said, “and you had your cell turned off, so I figured you might be there.”

“What’ve you got?” Quinn asked, eyeing the oven timer that was closing in on pizza time and a flurry of activity by Pearl.

“They got a print match on the Ben’s for Men’s victim, Quinn. She’s-she was Verna Pound, thirty-six years old, picked up for shoplifting two years ago.”

“She on our list?”

“Yeah. Back in 2005 she accused a guy named Tyrone Ringo of raping her. Got a conviction. Tyrone spent his time behind the walls and was exonerated and released from prison two years ago.”

“Not that long ago,” Quinn said. “Might seem like yesterday to Tyrone.”

“No,” Vitali said. “He died nine months ago of tuberculosis he contracted in prison.”

“Anything else notable about the postmortem?”

“Nothing other than that she was tortured for over an hour by somebody truly screwed up. Sick bastard with his trick knife made her death even more of a hell than her life was. You wanna read it, the whole report’s been faxed to the office.”

“Actual cause of death?” Quinn asked, not wanting to go back to the office just yet.

“Loss of blood from all the carving he did on her. Damn, Quinn, imagine it, with the cigarette burns and the knife, the bastard taking his time and enjoying himself.”

“At least we got her prints,” Quinn said. “Maybe she’s got family.”

“I doubt she has any family that gives a shit,” Vitali said, “the way she was barely staying alive on the street. Kind of person that made one wrong move after another because she had lousy luck. Tried to steal a coat and was unlucky enough to choose one with a mink collar. Expensive enough to make it a grand larceny charge. Put on probation, disappeared. Now here she is again, in the morgue, after a layover at Ben’s for Men’s. Hell of a life.”

“She tried to lift a coat,” Quinn said.

“Yeah. In January in New York. To survive.”

“Hell of a life,” Quinn agreed. He hung up.

“What were you talking about?” Pearl asked.

“Death.”

The oven timer started its annoying chiming, and Pearl sprang into pizza mode.

After pizza and cold Heineken beers, Quinn and Pearl trudged up the brownstone’s steep wooden steps to the floor above.

The workmen were up there. They’d finished lunch and were back on the job. About half of the carpet was laid. It was light beige. Seeing so much of it down made the space seem surprisingly vast. And sound carried differently. Quinn could understand why the work hadn’t been audible down in the kitchen.

“Think we got the color right?” Quinn asked.

“I’m sure we did,” Pearl said, though she didn’t give a shit one way or the other. She knew it made Quinn happy when she went domestic on him and displayed interest in colors and furnishings. In truth she could barely remember the carpet color in her old apartment where she’d lived for years. She knew it had some kind of spatter design on it, but she wasn’t positive that wasn’t accidental and hadn’t accumulated over time.

“Then I’m sure,” he said.

“Sounds like closure,” she said.

He looked at her. She shrugged.

“Okay to step on it?” Quinn asked one of the workmen, a guy named Cliff who seemed always surly.

“That’s what it’s made for,” Cliff said, and continued crouched on the floor and banging a padded device with his knee to stretch the carpet.

Quinn wandered over to where the job supervisor, Wallace, was down on his hands and knees working the carpet to fit around the door to the next room.

Wallace glanced up and nodded to Quinn. “It’s going great,” he said, before Quinn could ask. He continued cutting the carpet before working it beneath the recently painted white baseboard.

Quinn felt a sudden chill. “What kind of knife is that you’re using?”

Something in Quinn’s voice made Wallace stop what he was doing and straighten up to a kneeling position. He held up the knife. It had a blunt wooden handle that looked something like the knob of a bedpost, and a sharply curved blade about five inches long.

“This is a carpet-tucking knife,” he said. “Looks somethin’ like a linoleum knife, only it’s not. It’s for fine work around baseboards and thresholds, anyplace that’s tricky and requires a touch.”

Pearl had seen what was going on and came over, her footfalls silent on the new carpet. “That looks sharp,” she said, pointing at the knife.

Wallace grinned. “Gotta be sharp. Carpet, and carpet pad, don’t cut easy, ’specially where you’re doin’ delicate work and can’t get a lotta muscle into it.”

Pearl said, “Jesus, Quinn.”

Wallace stared at her.

“Where would you buy a knife like that?” Quinn asked.

Wallace, still on his knees, shrugged. “Hardware store, I guess. Or commercial tool supplier. I bought this one years ago in New Jersey from some place that was goin’ outta business.”

“What’s a knife like that cost, Wallace?”

Wallace managed another kneeling shrug. “A good one, about fifty, sixty bucks. Thereabout.”

“I’ll give you seventy-five for that one.”

Wallace squinted one eye. What the hell was going on here? What was special about his carpet-tucking knife? “That’s too much, Mr. Quinn.”

Quinn smiled. “Okay. We can make it twenty-five.”

Wallace gave him a sly smile.

“Fifty,” Quinn said.

“I ain’t one to dicker,” Wallace said.

Quinn peeled the bills from his wallet and handed them to Wallace in exchange for the knife. Pearl watched Quinn’s jaw muscles work as he hefted the small but lethal instrument in his huge right hand.

“I can finish the job without it,” Wallace said. “Cliff’s got another one in his tool box.”

“Cheaper’n that one, too,” Cliff said. He kicked again with his knee at his padded carpet stretcher and gave Quinn a conspiratorial wink. “You can buy mine for twenty bucks.”

“Shoulda spoken up sooner,” Quinn said. He nodded to Wallace and moved toward the stairs. Pearl gave Cliff a hard look and followed.

Back in the kitchen, Quinn knocked back what was left of his warm beer and called Sal Vitali on Sal’s cell phone.

“Got a job for you and Harold,” Quinn said, when Sal had answered. “I want you to check on commercial and retail places that handle tools, building supplies.”

“What are we building?” Vitali asked in his gravelly voice.

“A case,” Quinn said. “Airtight.”