by John Lutz
The office was carpeted in a deep maroon and had oak-paneled walls. Requisite trophy plaques, commendations, and photographs were arranged on the wall behind the desk. The desk itself was a vast slab of speckled dark granite. Whatever electronic equipment was in the room was concealed in a huge, many-doored oak hutch that almost perfectly matched the paneling. Two brown leather armchairs faced the desk. There was a small table with four chairs off to the side, for miniconferences, and what looked like an antique table with a cut-glass vase on it stuffed with colorful flowers.
Quinn guessed that fresh flowers were brought in every day. Harley Renz, bureaucratic climber, living the high life. Wanting to climb still higher. Quinn had heard that cockroaches did that, inexorably climbed upward in a building. He wondered what they did when they reached the roof.
Along with Quinn and his team, Helen the profiler was there. She was wearing a green blazer and gray slacks, with high heels that made her even taller than her six feet plus.
Pearl had on a lightweight navy blue business suit that made her features and hair appear darker. She looked vital and alive this morning, Quinn thought. Healthy and glowing in a way that was wholesome and beautiful. Health had a lot to do with sex appeal, Quinn was beginning to realize.
She caught him looking at her and he looked away. At the same time, he was sure she’d abruptly looked away from him.
Renz pulled a City Beat from somewhere below his desk and laid it on a granite corner. “Cindy Sellers is asking why the killer doesn’t conceal the entire body. Why leave the untraceable torsos where they’ll surely be found.”
“We’ve been wondering the same thing,” Quinn said.
Renz glanced over at Helen, who’d moved to stand in front of the office’s window. It was her time to speak. It occurred to Quinn that she liked to stand in front of windows, maybe so she appeared in silhouette.
“That would be why I’m here,” Helen said in her Lauren Bacall voice. She even looked a little like a young Bacall, only much taller and more athletic. “The killer’s actions suggest that the torsos are part of his ruling compulsion and megalomania. He has to brag about what he’s done. He must make sure that someone knows a murder’s been committed, and that he’s gotten away with it.”
“By someone you mean the police?” Fedderman asked, from where he sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair near the table with the floral arrangement.
“Definitely. But the public, too. The torsos are his public souvenirs that he’s sharing with them.”
“Generous,” Fedderman said.
Helen might have smiled. It was hard to know from her silhouette. “They’re also a way of taunting the police and terrorizing the city.”
Quinn was long familiar with the games serial killers played, and he wasn’t convinced. “Isn’t it possible the killer makes sure his victims’ remains are anonymous simply to hinder the investigation into their deaths?”
“Quinn’s right. I can buy into that part,” Pearl said, before Helen could answer. “And to taunt us.” She shook her head. “The rest, the souvenir business, I’m not so sure. Some serial killers like to keep souvenirs of their victims—a lock of hair, that sort of thing—but they don’t generally want to share them with the public or anyone else. They want to keep them where they can look at them from time to time, like all collectors.”
“True,” Helen said. “They like to relive their conquests. It gives them a feeling of power and importance.”
Quinn shifted in the soft leather chair nearest Renz’s flight deck–sized desk and crossed his arms. “None of this is for sure.”
“Agreed,” Helen said. “Like you, I don’t have much to work with.”
“We do know for sure he’s one sick puppy,” Fedderman said.
“The stakes, or whatever he uses to penetrate his victims,” Pearl said.
“After they’re dead,” Renz reminded them. He looked inquisitively at Helen. “Why after they’re dead?”
“As of now, I don’t know,” Helen said.
“A necrophiliac who can’t get it up,” Fedderman suggested.
Helen shrugged. “Good a guess as any.”
Some profiler, Quinn thought. An honest one. “Truth is, this guy’s got us operating pretty much in the dark.”
“We can deduce from that that he’s smart,” Helen said sarcastically.
“Now you’re cookin’,” Renz said.
The poised silhouette that was Helen seemed unmoved by his return sarcasm.
Quinn wanted to stop them before a volley of sarcasm got going that might lead to a real argument.
The phone beat him to it. He hadn’t even seen the phone; it was concealed in a sunken alcove on the far side of the desk. It had a soft, controlled ring that wasn’t a ring at all. It sounded more like a repetitive, soothing note of a violin about to begin a gentle melody.
As Renz lifted a dark plastic receiver that matched the desk, he looked annoyed that they should be disturbed. Almost immediately, his expression became serious. “Yes. Yes,” he said. He produced a notepad from the sunken alcove. “Christ!” he said, looking in turn at everyone in the office. He might have been identifying the caller, judging by the somber, dazed expression on his bloodhound features.
He switched the phone to his left hand so he could write on the notepad. He kept saying yes intermittently while scribbling with his pen. Finally, he thanked the caller and hung up.
He sat for a minute running his fingertips along the loose flesh of his sagging cheeks. It stretched the skin around his eyes downward and made him look even more like some upright breed of hound.
“We’ve got us another torso,” he said. “Found alongside a Dumpster on the Upper West Side.”
“Maybe a match for our arm,” Fedderman said.
Renz shook his head no. “This one’s too fresh. Killed within the last few days.”
Pearl, who’d been leaning back so only her chair’s back legs were on the floor, realized the import of Renz’s words. She sat forward so the chair’s front legs made a soft thump on the thick pile carpet.
“Victim number four,” she said.
Renz was staring down at the folded City Beat on his desk. “I guess I oughta call Cindy Sellers.” He looked at Quinn as if for help. “The woman’s become one big pain in the ass.”
Quinn shrugged. “You’re the one who made the deal with the devil.”
“I do it all the time,” Renz said. “Usually it works out okay.”
He shoved his notepad forward so Quinn could copy the information on his own.
“I need you to find this bastard, Quinn.”
Quinn didn’t think that required a reply and kept on silently writing.
They left Renz in his office to go to the West Side address where the torso had been found. Left him in the suddenly smaller room with his plaques and commendations and ego-inflating framed photographs.
Right now, it wasn’t a comfortable place for him.
14
The three of them were in Quinn’s old Lincoln on the way to the West Side address where the latest torso had been found. Quinn was driving, Pearl beside him, Fedderman in back. They were headed uptown on Broadway. Traffic was heavy, and there was a haze that smelled like exhaust fumes over everything. The sun angled in low along the side streets and turned the haze golden.
As Quinn veered around a sightseeing bus to make better time, Pearl’s cell phone buzzed and vibrated in her pocket.
She fished it out and saw by caller ID that the call’s origin was Golden Sunset.
Her mother. Had to be. A familiar dread and anger closed in on her.
Quinn glanced over at her, wondering if she was going to answer her call.
Feeling that she had little choice, Pearl made the connection. “Officer Kasner.” Let her mother know she was working. She glanced at Quinn, who was staring straight ahead. Was he smiling? Was that bastard smiling?
“It’s your mother, Pearl,” came the strident voice from the phone. Pea
rl didn’t want to hear it, yet she had to press the tiny phone close to her ear so Quinn and Fedderman couldn’t overhear.
“Pearl? Is that you, dear?”
“Yes.” Keep it terse and simple. Brief.
“I called your apartment, dear, and got your machine. Such a world since we started using machines to answer our phones. Maybe the phones could just talk to each other. Don’t you ever check your messages?”
“Sometimes.” Brief.
“Maybe your machine erases mine. What I wondered, dear, is if you and Milton Kahn left each other on good terms.”
Huh?
“I mean, after last night,” her mother said.
What? This was unacceptable. “Who told you? What do you mean?” Unacceptable!
“That’s two questions, dear.”
“Then answer them both.”
“Don’t snap, Pearl. That’s very rude. Mrs. Kahn told me. And why not? It’s no secret you and her nephew Milton are hotsy-totsy.”
Pearl had a pretty good idea where Mrs. Kahn had gotten her information. She fell silent, noticing Quinn watching her from the corner of his eye. “Some things you don’t talk about,” Pearl said.
“Don’t you know I agree with you, dear? But these were extraordinary circumstances. Mrs. Kahn tells me Milton is worried sick about you. About your personal safety. They—Mrs. Kahn and wonderful Milton—thought I should talk to you about it.”
Wonderful Milton’s going to learn to keep his mouth shut. “I appreciate his concern, but it’s really none of his business. Or the business of whomever he might have told.”
“The people who love you, darling Pearl, they’re concerned. What else do we have in this world where everything, including your own mother, will someday turn to dust? Someday soon, I might add in all sincerity, feeling more and more distressed every day as I do here in this nursing home hell.”
“Assisted living. It’s not a nursing home. Assisted-living apartments with televisions, comfortable beds, kitchens, private baths, recliners, all the food you can eat—including the pot roast you like so much. People who were on The Lawrence Welk Show come there to perform. There are game rooms, buses to Atlantic City. They’re assisted-living apartments.”
“Death’s waiting rooms, dear.”
Pearl was seething. “I think not.” She so yearned to terminate this conversation. “Is that all you wanted? If so, I’m busy.”
“You’re being snappish again.”
“I mean to be.”
“What I want is for you to consider the future, Pearl. Milton and a home—and children, God willing. A place without killers and guns and knives and rap talk. There are other jobs, Pearl. Milton said to Mrs. Kahn that you could work as his receptionist. It would be safe there. He wants you off the streets, Pearl. We all do. The people who—”
“Yeah, yeah. This is my job.”
“What I’m saying, Pearl, is there are other jobs.”
Like dermatologist receptionist.
Quinn blasted the horn and cursed at a battered, dusty cab that had cut him off.
“Is that that nice Mr. Quinn I hear, Pearl?”
“The same.”
“Such a good man. A protector and a provider. You should feel blessed, Pearl. You have your choice between two good men—one a mensch policeman retired with a generous pension, and the other a medical doctor, no less.”
“An obsessive maniac and a weasel.”
“What?” Quinn asked.
“I was talking into the phone.”
“What, dear?”
“I have to end this conversation, really.”
Quinn blasted the horn again, still focused on the cab that had cut him off. The driver extended his arm out the window and raised his middle finger.
Quinn leaned on the horn again. “If we had time I’d pull that bastard over.”
“We’ve got time,” Fedderman said from the backseat. “Lady we’re going to see is dead.”
“Look at that asshole, Feds!”
“Cabbies think they own the road like cops,” Fedderman said.
“Screw a buncha cabbies.”
“Pearl? Dear?”
“I need to go now. Sorry.”
Pearl broke the connection and sat seething over weasel Milton yammering his business to his motormouthed aunt.
What was wrong with the world?
“Was that your mother?” Quinn asked, seeing clear pavement ahead and goosing the car to higher speed.
“How’d you guess?” Pearl asked.
“Shoulda told her I said hi.”
“I should have, since she thinks you’re God.”
“Shoulda told her hi from me, too,” Fedderman said from the backseat.
“She thinks you’re a prick,” Pearl said.
The passageway where the dusty green Dumpster squatted like a military tank without a gun was blocked off at both ends with yellow crime scene tape. CSU techs were swarming busily about the scene with their luminol, magnifiers, tweezers, and plastic evidence bags. Tagging and bagging. The photographer was finished and tinkering with her equipment. Nobody seemed to want to look directly at the pale, waxy flesh object beside the Dumpster.
Quinn glanced around and didn’t see Nift. Maybe the Napoleonic little pest had come and gone.
Then a woman wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and one of those vests with a thousand pockets approached. She was in her forties and had short brown hair in a practical cut, a trim body, and a sweet, lined face that was slightly red around the nose and eyes, as if she had rosacea. She was carrying a black medical bag.
“Detective Quinn?”
He admitted it.
She smiled. Nice teeth—probably used whitener. “I’m Dr. Chavesky from the medical examiner’s office.”
“I expected Nift.”
“He had to go out of town on business.” Again the smile. Blinding but natural. “Disappointed?”
“Not so far.” He nodded toward the torso. “Finished with it?”
“Her? Yeah. I’m up on the case. As far as a preliminary gets us, she’s the same as the others. Shot through the heart, obvious postmortem trauma to the vaginal area. The point of whatever was shoved into her snagged on her labia minor. The way she was taken apart—crude but effective dismemberment.”
“Bullet still in her?” Pearl asked. She and Fedderman had been standing off to the side, listening. Dr. Chavesky turned her attention to them, knowing they were with Quinn, a set. “Yes. No exit wound. It’s a small caliber and it feels like it went through the sternum. We’ll have to see if it didn’t break up too much to run a comparative ballistics test.”
“Kill her right away?” Fedderman asked.
“Probably not. But within a few minutes. Of course, it’s also possible the killer shot her more than once. Obviously, the entire body isn’t here.”
Quinn looked over at the torso, the headless end. He quickly looked away. “How long’s she been dead?”
“My estimate’s ten to fifteen hours. I’d say she was in her early thirties when the clock stopped for her.”
“Any other trauma to her body?”
She gave him a look. “Besides the vaginal penetration and dismemberment, no. Just the bullet. It appears to have entered from a point directly in front of her while she was standing.” Chavesky glanced at her watch. “EMS should be here any minute to remove the body, unless you want them to leave it for a while. I gotta go.”
“We won’t be long looking it over,” Quinn said.
Dr. Chavesky nodded. “I’ll get a comprehensive postmortem report to you as soon as possible.”
She and Quinn exchanged cards. He glanced down at hers and saw that her full name was Dr. Linda Chavesky. He slipped the card into his shirt pocket, behind his folded reading glasses, and watched the doctor duck gracefully beneath the crime scene tape and climb into a gray city car. Though she was slender, she had to be strong, judging by the effortless way she handled the large black medical bag.
Qu
inn and his two detectives walked over to the nude torso.
Nift would have remarked on the victim’s breasts, which were not large, but well formed even in death. A young woman, all right. So much life stolen from her. Quinn quickly examined where her arms had been severed, where her head had been severed. He was able to do so without suffering any reaction. That would come later, when he was alone and not on the job. She had black pubic hair, and it didn’t take a doctor to know that violence had been done to the vaginal area.
“It would have been easy to put her behind the Dumpster,” Pearl said. “Even inside it.” The sweet, rotting smell coming from the Dumpster—she hoped that’s where it came from—was making her nauseated.
“Our guy wanted her found as soon as possible,” Fedderman said.
“Question’s why,” Pearl said.
“We’ll think on it,” Fedderman told her, giving her a look that let her know she’d stated the obvious.
“Sure. We’re detectives.”
“Act like it,” Quinn said. He didn’t want them getting into a spat, especially in front of the CSU people. They were pretending not to be listening, but he knew they were.
“No tattoos on any of the victims,” Fedderman said. “Could just be coincidence.”
“No nipple, nose, or belly button rings, either,” Pearl said.
Quinn looked at her with something like approval.
“What the hell does that mean?” Fedderman asked.
“Maybe nothing.”
“Means they probably didn’t run with a kinky crowd,” Quinn said. “Not part of the S&M scene, that kinda thing.”
Fedderman pointed at the lifeless, violated torso. “You don’t call that sadism?”
Quinn let out a long breath. “You’ve got a point.”
“An interesting one to ponder,” Pearl said.
“Whether they’re S&M snuff victims?” Fedderman asked.
“No. Whether you’ve got a point.”
She’d said it thoughtfully, obviously not trying to rag Fedderman.
