Serial

87

Quinn sat in his usual booth in the Lotus Diner and absently sipped his third cup of coffee. He didn’t notice its bitterness. Nor was he paying attention to the pedestrians streaming past outside the window, hurrying to make the walk signal at the corner. His thoughts were elsewhere, in a place he wished they hadn’t gone but kept revisiting.

Harley Renz, and apparently everyone else involved, was satisfied with the result of the Skinner investigation, but the assumption that Link Evans was the Skinner kept jabbing like a needle into Quinn’s mind. It would wake him in the middle of the night, and he’d lie motionless and listen to Pearl’s breathing and let his mind work like an Internet search engine roaming the vastness of the ether. How could it come up with the right answers when he kept asking the wrong questions?

Something was wrong. He knew it but didn’t understand why.

Maybe it was because too much didn’t make sense to him.

The attempted murders of Beth Evans and Westerley must have been impromptu, and the Skinner never did anything impromptu.

It was difficult to believe Link had planned the murder of his wife, which he then planned to pin on Vincent Salas-or would have planned-if he really was the Skinner.

And where was the carpet-tucking knife the Skinner was going to use to remove Beth’s tongue? A careful planner like the Skinner wouldn’t have relied on a kitchen knife. It was probably ritualistically important to him to use a particular knife, his special knife that served no purpose other than to carve the flesh of his victims. The ritual knife was nowhere to be found in or around the Evans house.

Adding to Quinn’s doubts, Beth would have been the first Skinner victim to be shot to death.

The case might have been declared solved, but those were a lot of leftover pieces.

With Jerry Lido’s help, Quinn began to dig. It wasn’t that difficult, now that the Pandora’s box of Link Evans’s secret life was wide open. Lido used his legal and illegal skills to trace Evans’s movements during his New York visits. Everyone who moved about on this earth left a trail, and Lido was an expert at finding and following those trails, be they old or new, hot or cold, paper or electronic.

It was time-consuming, assiduous work, but when it finally brought results, things fell into place in a hurry.

Gas receipts, as well as restaurant and motel charges, turned up from an area of Long Island. One of the motel databases had the license number and make of the car Evans and a woman were driving when they checked in. It didn’t match the make or number of Link’s rental car; they must have used the woman’s car that night. A mistake that Lido, months later in a quiet room, pounced on like a famished predator.

A license-plate number was as good as a birth certificate to Lido. It rapidly opened door after door after door. The woman’s name was Julie Flack. She was forty-three years old, lived on Long Island, and was married to a circuit judge.

Then it got easier. She had a Facebook account.

There was her photograph. She was an attractive blond woman with a sly smile. She had a daughter by a previous marriage, liked to sail, shop, and dine out. Her favorite food was Indian. Her all-time favorite movie was An Affair to Remember. Her all-time favorite TV series was Sex and the City. She hated everything about The Sopranos.

Hated The Sopranos?

Lido found that odd.

Within five minutes after his phone conversation with Lido, in which Quinn learned these facts, he made a phone call to Julie Flack.

Her area code indicated she was on a landline, so he identified himself.

“I was expecting the pool-maintenance man,” she said.

“He’ll still turn up,” Quinn assured her. “In the meantime, you have me.”

“Why?” There was a hint of suspicion, maybe alarm, in her voice.

Quinn decided to hit her with it immediately, while she was off balance. “We need to talk about the Skinner murders, and your relationship with Lincoln Evans.”

Silence.

“You do know him,” Quinn said.

“I’d rather not talk on the phone.” Nothing in her voice now. Little Miss Neutral. Probably already thinking about lawyering up.

“I could drive out there,” Quinn said. “We could sit by the pool and chat.”

“I don’t think so. The pool-maintenance man will be here for quite a while, making repairs.”

“Fixing leaks?” Too late for that.

“No, the filter’s causing problems. Letting in the darndest things. Some of them through the phone.”

“We could meet somewhere,” Quinn said.

“Fine. The bar at the Medford Hotel? Say six this evening?”

“That would work.”

“Please be on time.”

“What’s really wrong with your pool?” Quinn asked.

But Julie Flack had hung up.

Quinn sat back and smiled. She was a cool one, Julie Flack. Though she had to have been horrified by his call, she’d stayed calm, and in fact managed to stay on top of the conversation, as if she’d called him and casually imploded his life.

Quinn could hardly wait to meet her in person.