Urge to Kill

22

Zoe Manders’s fashionable Park Avenue office address, just off Fifty-ninth Street, whispered success. Standing in the towering building’s glass and marble lobby, Quinn studied the directory and found that she was one of maybe a dozen doctors of one sort or another on the floors not occupied by corporations large and small. He walked over to where a uniformed security guard sat in a low chair behind a curved marble-topped counter and signed in. The marble was cold to the touch.

“Good to see you again, Captain.”

Quinn glanced again at the guard and recognized the grinning, puffy face of former NYPD detective Ben Byrd. Byrd had worked out of Manhattan South homicide and been in a bad car accident while on the way to a crime scene…what, five years ago?

“You’re looking good, Ben,” Quinn said, shaking hands. Quinn meant it. He’d heard about how seriously Byrd was injured, the endless rounds of operations.

Byrd added a shrug to his smile. “I don’t get around so well, but other than that there’s no pain. It’s pain that can wear you down, especially the back pain.”

Quinn caught a glint of polished steel behind the counter and noticed for the first time that Byrd was seated in a wheelchair.

“I don’t get up outta here by myself,” Byrd said, but the grin didn’t waver. “I can get around okay, though. Things turned out all right, considering.”

“Better than what almost happened.”

“That’s what I tell myself, Captain.” Byrd’s gaze dropped to the building log on the marble counter. “I see you know Dr. Manders.”

“Meeting her for the first time,” Quinn said.

“Police business, I guess.”

“Yeah. Thanks for assuming I’m not one of her patients.”

“It wouldn’t be an insult. I was one of ’em myself, after the accident.”

“She must know her job,” Quinn said, a bit awkwardly.

“I figured you were here ’cause of what happened to her brother. That Twenty-five-Caliber thing. How’s it going on that one?”

“Slowly,” Quinn said.

“So nothing’s changed.”

Quinn told him nothing had, then offered his hand again to shake.

Byrd, with a still-powerful grip, gave Quinn’s hand a squeeze and said, “Take it easy on Dr. Manders. She’s one of the good ones.”

“In the building, you mean?”

“One of the good ones anywhere,” Byrd said. “A class lady.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Quinn smiled. “She’s not a suspect, Ben. Class ladies don’t shoot people in the head.”

“Most of them don’t,” Byrd said.

Quinn found the neatly disguised elevators and rode one to the ninth floor. At the end of a long, carpeted corridor, beyond the door to a law firm, was a plain wooden door simply lettered DR. ZOE MANDERS.

The door opened to a small anteroom that was tastefully furnished in grays and greens, with a brown leather sofa and two matching chairs. There were a lot of potted plants that looked artificial, but when Quinn touched one of the leaves he found it was real.

There was no receptionist and no place for one to sit and greet people. No phone in sight. The doctor must have an answering service. Next to a door beyond one of the brown leather chairs was a small illuminated button. Quinn had called ahead for an appointment, so he went over to the button and pressed it. A buzzer sounded behind the closed door.

Within a few seconds Dr. Zoe Manders opened the door and smiled at Quinn. She was a slim woman who looked too young to be in her forties, slightly taller than average, with brown eyes and short brown hair. Her features were even and radiated more health than delicacy. Maybe it was her wide cheekbones and wonderful smile, or maybe it was the fact that she was a psychoanalyst, that reminded Quinn of Ingrid Bergman, who’d played a psychiatrist in a Hitchcock movie.

“Detective Quinn?” she asked.

He’d been staring. “Yes, and you’re Dr. Manders?”

“The introductions are out of the way,” she said, still smiling, and stood aside so he could enter her office.

Simply being there made Quinn feel better, and he’d felt okay when he arrived. Gray and green in here, too, but with lighter tan leather. There were some heavy, shaded lamps with oversized bases on darkly grained wood tables, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in matching wood, the books neatly arranged. The carpet was a plush beige two shades darker than the leather chairs. The heavy drapes that muffled the sounds of Park Avenue traffic nine stories below were the deep, velvety green of old moss. On two of the walls were framed prints of Monet garden paintings, containing almost every color but in a muted harmony that made them relaxing to gaze on.

Dr. Manders was wearing loose-fitting charcoal-gray slacks, a silky pale gray blouse with a white pattern that made it look almost lacy, and low-heeled shoes of a gray that matched the blouse. She led Quinn to one of the comfortable-looking leather chairs and motioned for him to sit down, then she sat behind a polished wood desk that had delicately carved legs and looked more like a table. The effect of the room with her in it was strangely soothing. It was all calculated, Quinn told himself, but it certainly worked.

“You came about George,” she said. Her voice was unexpectedly low, also soothing.

At first Quinn didn’t understand, then realized he’d been thinking of the victim, her brother, by only his last name. “I did.”

“You’re not the first.”

“I know that, Dr. Manders. I mean I really came about George.”

She appeared puzzled.

“As opposed to his killer,” he said.

“You need to explain.”

“You know who I am? I mean, beyond my name and NYPD identity?”

She nodded. “I read the papers, watch TV news. When I heard the city had put you in charge of the investigation, I was glad. Not just because of George, but for the other victims. A serial killer…”

“The way we search for them,” Quinn said, “is figure out how they think, what passes for logic in their damaged minds. The more we can learn about them the better, even if it’s not directly related to the murders.”

“You mean you want my input as a psychoanalyst? I’m afraid you—”

“No, no,” he interrupted, leaning forward, realizing for the first time she was wearing perfume, something subtle that carried the scent of lilacs. “What I mean is that, the next best thing to knowing the killer is to know the victim. It might seem that these are random killings, but to the murderer, they’re not. Even if the killer thinks they are, they still might not be. The more I know about George, the more I can surmise about his killer. It’s even possible that I’ll be able to discern some sort of motive, even if your brother and his killer never crossed paths until the time of the murder.” He studied her impassive features. “Does that make sense, Dr. Manders?”

She locked gazes with him and nodded. “Very much sense. And it’s Zoe. We might as well be informal if I’m going to talk about George. It will make it easier for me.” Her dark eyes remained trained on his, searching, maybe imploring. He didn’t quite understand that. It came to him that there might be a lot about this woman that was beyond his understanding.

“All right, Zoe. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just sit back and you can tell me about your brother. Even the things that don’t seem important. I need to have some idea of him.”

She smiled. “Shouldn’t we change places?”

“No,” Quinn said seriously, “you’re in control here.”

“I sometimes wonder,” she said, and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes fixed on some point above Quinn’s head and behind him.

“I am—was—three years older than George,” she began. “We grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, but a kind of tough one. For a while, I was his protector. Not that he wouldn’t fight, but he was small for his age.”

“Was he a magnet for bullies?”

“No more than any kid small for his age. And bullies didn’t taunt him once they learned he was my little brother.”

“So you were pretty tough.”

She laughed. “No, just pretty. The boys wanted to stay on my good side.”

“Easy to see why.”

She ignored the compliment. “When I was sixteen and George was thirteen, our father died in an industrial accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Chemical,” she said. “He was a chemist, and someone at the plant where he worked for Montrose Insecticide and Feed used a wrong compound in a weed-killer, and it…killed my father. Our father.” She looked at Quinn, then back at the point above his head. What does she see there?

“Poisoned him?”

“The fumes destroyed his lungs. It was a terrible way to die.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. Quinn sat quietly, giving her time.

“When Dad died, it was as if a bomb had exploded in the family. Our mother raised us, never remarried. She had to work two jobs to keep the family going. Things changed between George and me. He became the protector. I became more of a…victim.”

Quinn listened patiently for well over an hour while she went on to describe their home life, the pets they’d had, the arguments, how she and her brother had attended the same college, how George had an inborn skill with numbers, which carried him through business school. After working at a brokerage house he managed to attract investors and started a growth mutual fund, which evolved into a hedge fund, Prudent Power. Zoe meanwhile had gone on to postgraduate studies and earned her degree. She interned and worked for a while in a clinic, then as a corporate psychologist. Eight years ago she began her own practice.

“Obviously, you and George were both highly motivated.”

“I suppose so.” She smiled sadly. “To escape grief, perhaps.”

“Sounds as if things were hard for you.”

“Only to a degree. We were both good students, and we must have inherited ambition.”

“Strange thing for a psychoanalyst to say.”

“I suppose it is. But I think we both felt that things would work out okay for us.”

“Is your mother—”

“She died twelve years ago. A heart attack.”

“George never married?”

“He almost did, once. But the girl changed her mind.”

“What about his sister?”

She looked startled. Then she smiled, understanding he was talking about her. “I almost did once, too. Only I changed my mind.”

“George and you turned out to be overachievers.”

“That’d be my diagnosis,” she said.

“Because of your father’s death?”

“Maybe. He was an overachiever, too, as was his father.”

“In your genes.”

“Yeah, maybe. So much is genetic. Do you think murder is genetic, that it’s in your killer’s genes?”

“I honestly don’t know. That’d be your field.”

“Well, Detective Quinn—” She seemed suddenly surprised at herself. “I forgot to get your first name.”

“Just Quinn’ll work.”

“I thought we were on a first-name basis.”

“We are, Zoe. My given name’s Frank, but everyone calls me Quinn.”

“Well, Quinn, I don’t know, either. About the killer gene.”

She sat farther back. He sat back. They regarded each other.

“Life’s so goddamned short,” she said.

“For some of us. Usually the wrong ones.”

“Has this conversation been a help?” she asked.

“Has it helped you?”

She swallowed. “I suppose it has. It hasn’t brought George back, though.”

“It might help to catch his killer,” Quinn said. “There’s no way to know for sure at this point.”

“If you really think you and I getting together might help,” she said, “maybe we should do it again.”

Quinn felt surprised and oddly embarrassed. He couldn’t contain his smile. “I thought you psychoanalysts were supposed to be obscure.”

“That was me being obscure,” she said. “What I really meant is that you intrigue me. Your methods, who you are. Maybe it’s because you’re trying to track my brother’s killer. Maybe when you catch him, or kill him, you’ll no longer intrigue me.”

“That was direct enough,” Quinn said.

“Often being direct is wise. Life offers only so many opportunities, it’s a shame not to explore them. Believe me, I’m not being impulsive. I’d tell you I hardly ever do this kind of thing, only you already know that.”

“I do know it,” Quinn said.

“I don’t take very many chances.”

Oh, yes you do. Was your brother a gambler like you? A risk taker? Some people say that’s in the genes.

“Neither do I,” he said.

She crossed her arms, cocked her head to the side, and stared at him with hope and a certain vulnerability. He knew what courage it must take. But at the same time, the lady seemed to get off on risk. Quinn understood that; he often fought the same instinct in himself.

And sometimes he didn’t fight it.

What the hell, since we’re being direct: “How about dinner, then maybe later…?”

“How about sooner,” she said “then maybe dinner?”

Later that night Quinn wondered, is there a victim gene?