Urge to Kill

50

New York, the present

The first thing Dr. Alfred Beeker saw when he opened the door to his office’s anteroom at 9:45 A.M. was Beatrice with her blond head thrown back, laughing so hard that her fillings showed. Quinn was in Beeker’s waiting room, charming the doctor’s middle-aged, attractive receptionist, but he was sitting off to the right and not immediately noticeable to anyone walking in.

Beeker was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his forties, with thinning black hair combed severely sideways to disguise his baldness. His features were sharp, with dark eyes that appeared slightly crossed and lent him an expression of intensity. He was wearing a nicely tailored gray suit and carrying a beat-up black leather briefcase with a large tarnished brass clasp. Quinn wondered if the briefcase was an affectation. Or maybe that was where the good doctor kept his whips.

“Am I missing something?” Beeker asked Beatrice. Then he glanced to the side and saw Quinn.

Beatrice put on a straight, if twitching, face and stood up behind her desk. “This is Detective Frank Quinn.”

Beeker didn’t seem thrown by finding a cop in his office. He smiled at Quinn and looked at him curiously.

“I thought it best to catch you before your morning appointments,” Quinn said, standing up. “It’s become necessary for you and I to have a conversation. It won’t take long.”

“Am I under arrest?” Still the smile. A joke.

“Not yet,” Quinn said. No smile. A joke, maybe.

“Come in and sit down,” Beeker said, with a sideways glance at Beatrice, who was now engrossed in some kind of paperwork. He stepped past the reception desk and opened a plain oak door, then stood back so Quinn could enter first.

“Wonderful talking to you, dear,” Quinn said to Beatrice, as he entered the office.

It was everything a Park Avenue psychoanalyst’s office should be, restful and hushed. Very much like Zoe’s office. Maybe they had the same decorator. Pale green walls, darker green carpet, lots of dark brown leather furniture, framed modern paintings that would scare no one. Centered in the room, facing the door, was a vast mahogany desk. There were matching file cabinets on the wall behind it. There was one very large window. Pale beige drapes lined in caramel-colored silk extended from the ceiling on either side of it and puddled on the floor.

The desk was uncluttered but for a dark brown phone, a freshly cut long-stemmed rose in a delicate crystal vase, and a gold picture frame. The wall to the right was floor-to-ceiling books, most of them medical journals. An ornate brass floor lamp near the desk was unnecessarily on and softly glowing. Apparently Beatrice had readied the office for her boss. Have a nice day hung in the air.

Beeker motioned for Quinn to sit in one of the sumptuous leather armchairs angled toward the desk. Quinn lowered his weight into the chair, which was even more comfortable than it looked. The seat cushion hissed as if it didn’t like being sat on.

After waiting until Quinn was seated, Beeker walked around and situated himself in the high-backed leather chair behind his desk. He rocked back and forth a few times in the chair, and then sat forward and made a pink tent with his fingers the way Renz often did, which made Quinn distrust him. It wasn’t hard for Quinn to imagine the doctor as his assailant in the dark Seventy-ninth Street office.

The doctor smiled faintly. “So how can I help you, Lieutenant Quinn?”

“Captain Quinn.”

Beeker looked a bit surprised, as if he’d suddenly recognized Quinn’s name from the news, though he didn’t seem exactly thrown. His smile returned. Quinn might as well have been here to promote some sort of community action or to make a charity pitch. Beeker glanced at his watch, then touched the tip of the pink finger tent to the dimpled tip of his chin. “Well, Captain?”

“You don’t have much time left,” Quinn said.

“I know. My first appointment will be here in ten minutes, and I’ll need to make a few preparations.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Quinn said. He thought he could smell the rose in the crystal vase. “If you ever lay a hand or any other object again on Zoe Manders, I’m going to kill you.”

Beeker didn’t change expression at first; then his intense dark eyes bored into Quinn. He lowered his hands palms down on the desk. He didn’t seem afraid, only hyperalert. “Isn’t it against regulations for an NYPD police captain to threaten a lawful citizen?”

“You aren’t a lawful citizen. You’re guilty of assault.”

“This Miss Manders…”

“Dr. Manders. Zoe.”

“She’s filed a complaint against me?”

“No, and she won’t.”

“What makes you think I assaulted her?”

“She told me.”

“Did she offer any proof?”

“No.”

“But you believe her.”

“Yes.”

“I think I can guess why.”

Guess away, asshole.

Beeker stared at Quinn for a while, obviously calculating. Then he stood up behind his desk. “Well, you’ve delivered your message. Now you can go about your business and I can go about mine.”

Quinn didn’t budge from his chair. “Where were you between one and three o’clock this morning?” This morning…had it been so recently?

Beeker smiled faintly. “Did someone attack Dr. Manders around that time? Or make a threatening phone call? Is that it? She thinks it was me?”

“Where were you?” Quinn asked again, calmly.

“Where any sane person who doesn’t have a night job was—home in bed. And alone.” He cocked his head to the side and gave Quinn an appraising look. “You have a personal interest in Zoe.”

Quinn said nothing.

“I wouldn’t believe everything Zoe says,” Beeker told him.

“I don’t believe everything anybody says.”

“Zoe especially, you shouldn’t believe.”

“She said you threatened to put photographs of her on the Internet,” Quinn said. “I believed that.”

“There’s nothing improper about those photos,” Beeker said. He leaned forward, planting his hands on the desk. “But you can remind Zoe that she willingly posed for other photographs, and if she sends you or someone like you here again, they’ll be posted on the Internet. She knows where.” He leaned farther over the desk toward Quinn. “I won’t be threatened. And I’d like to see your identification. I don’t think you are from the police.”

Quinn stood up, leaned across the desk, and shoved Beeker hard back into his chair. The chair was on rollers and shot back and slammed against the file cabinets, jolting Beeker. He remained seated, staring up at Quinn. He still didn’t look afraid.

“I think you should reconsider posting photos of Zoe on the Internet,” Quinn said.

“It was only a threat.”

“Reconsider the threat.”

“I could go to the real police,” Beeker said.

“While you’re there, you can read the assault complaint Zoe will file. And I’ll get to interrogate you.”

“Someone assaulted Zoe last night—earlier this morning?”

“Much earlier,” Quinn said.

“Ah! Bruises fade with time. You must know that in your business. Zoe has no proof of anything.”

Quinn walked around the desk and gripped Beeker by his shirt lapels. Some silk tie and flesh were pinched in with the material. He shook the doctor hard so that his head flopped around, bouncing off the chair’s high leather back, and a few times off a filing cabinet as the chair rolled. Beeker’s plastered-over hair rose on his head and stood high like a sparse rooster comb.

Quinn released him, but remained close, staring down at him. “You were right about me having delivered my message. Now I’ll leave. Don’t do anything that might prompt me to return. And remember what I said about those photographs.”

Beeker was busy rearranging his shirt and tie, and didn’t bother looking at Quinn.

As Quinn turned to walk past the desk, he glanced at the framed photo near the phone. He’d expected to see a family shot, or maybe Beeker’s latest punching bag. Instead it was an outdoor photo of Beeker standing with three other men. They were all wearing mackinaws and boots and carrying shotguns or rifles. Beeker and another man were holding out what looked like dead rabbits they’d shot. Everyone in the photo, other than the rabbits, was smiling.

“You a hunter?” Quinn asked.

“Sometimes. Why do you ask?”

Ignoring the question, Quinn walked to the door, opened it, and went back out into the anteroom. The idea was to let Beeker stew, but Beeker didn’t seem to be stewing.

“Is everything okay?” Beatrice asked. She must have heard Beeker’s chair bumping around. Or maybe it was Beeker’s head.

“Everything’s violets and roses, dear,” Quinn said, and smiled reassuringly at her on the way out.

But it wasn’t okay. Beeker hadn’t once seemed even slightly afraid during Quinn’s violent visit.

That worried Quinn.