Robert B Parker - Spenser 15 - Crimson Joy

by Crimson Joy(lit)

  Henry looked at the front desk. There was a trim young woman in white sweats there. Henry jabbed his finger at her and thumbed toward himself. She came over.

  "There," Henry said to the woman. "I've got you started; Janie will take you through the rest of the machines." The woman said, "I don't want to do all those machines today." Janie said, "It'll be fun once you get started, you'll see." She glanced at Henry. There was no kindness in her glance. I was on the lat machine, and as Henry and Janie exchanged their glances I turned around and did a handstand on the seat of the lat pull down machine, so that I was effectively on it upside down.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Cimoli," I said. "Am I doing this right?"

  Henry turned and stared at me for a moment with no change of expression.

  "Why, yes, sir," Henry said, and smiled kindly. "You're doing just fine." He stepped nearer to me and said more softly, but just as kindly, "Now, why don't you pull the weight down with your dick," and moved off toward the front desk.

  I finished up on the weights and put in an hour in the boxing room. It was Henry's last gesture to his roots. He kept a speed bag and heavy bag and a couple of jump ropes in a small room that could have been used for Jacuzzi space. I did ten 3-minute rounds, alternating on the heavy bag and, every third round, the speed bag, and then skipped rope for fifteen minutes. I tried to time the speed bag stuff for when a young woman walked by on her way from aerobics. I could still make the speed bag dance.

  When I got through with the jump rope I was blowing my breath and soaked with sweat. I felt like a squeezed out sponge. When I was fighting I used to be good in the late rounds. The other guy was getting arm-weary and I was still full of starch.

  I was out of the shower and getting dressed when Henry came in.

  "Used to be simple," Henry said. "I'd train hard and then when I was ready, I'd go in the ring and Willie Pep or Sandy Saddler would ring my chimes for me, and I'd go home and in a few days I'd start training again."

  "That woman didn't seem to have the killer instinct about training," I said.

  "Half the people who come in here are like that. They want to feel great and look great and not pop a sweat. That woman was bad. But the worst are the guys who always thought jocks were vulgar, you know? And then they get a physical and the doctor says they need exercise. So they come down here wearing black socks and white tennis shoes and say things like'this machine is rather intimidating," and you got to practically put their fucking hands on the handles for them. They don't come down and scope things out a little. They don't look at the machine and notice there's probably only one way it can work. They don't watch other people work out for a few minutes and see how they do it. They come in and get on the fucking equipment upside down and flap their fucking arms like a fucking cocka doodle fucking do until you go over and say, "Perhaps it would work better if you did it this way."

  "

  I was dressed by the time Henry got through and was buttoning up my shirt.

  "Feel better?" I said.

  Henry grinned. "On the other hand, I haven't had any stitches in my lip lately." "Good point," I said.

  It was a very fine spring day as I walked back to my office, across the Common. I was wearing chinos and white Reeboks and my leather jacket and a white shirt with a wide lavender stripe, which was as daring as I got. I felt strong and clean, like I always did after I worked out; and this evening, before dinner, two beers would taste exactly the way they should.

  Be nice to know why the Red Rose killer had threatened me.

  CHAPTER 7.

  I was in Quirk's office at 9:40 on a Thursday morning, trying to figure out why Red Rose had threatened me.

  "Maybe it's a variation on "Catch me before I do it again,"

  " Quirk said. "Maybe sort of a challenge to get us working harder."

  "You heard the tape," I said. "Is that what it sounds like to you?" "No," Quirk said. "It sounds like he feels hostile toward you."

  Quirk had his coat off and hanging neatly on a hanger from his coat rack. His cuffs were turned back on his white shirt. He was wearing a pink silk tie at half-mast and his starched collar was open. As he talked he leaned back in his swivel chair and locked his hands behind his head. His biceps swelled against the sleeves of his shirt.

  "Why would he be hostile toward you?" Quirk said.

  "Why would anyone?" I said.

  Quirk grunted.

  "Maybe he knows you," he said.

  "And doesn't like me," I said.

  "Hard as it is to believe," Quirk said.

  "Well," I said, "the man is a psychopath."

  "Cops who know and dislike you are not as scarce as hen's teeth," Quirk said.

  "Course maybe he's not a cop and maybe he doesn't know me and maybe something else is going on," I said. "Susan keeps reminding me that we're not dealing with two plus two here."

  A uniformed desk cop came and knocked on Quirk's glass door. Quirk nodded and the cop opened it and said, "Superintendent Clancy, Lieutenant, with some people." Quirk nodded again and the cop went away, leaving the door ajar.

  "Deputy Superintendent," Quirk said. "Community Relations. It'll be a group of citizens urging me to catch Red Rose."

  I started to get up. Quirk shook his head. "Stick around," he said. "Remind you of why you quit the cops."

  I sat back down.

  Clancy came in with four people, two blacks, two whites. One of the whites was a woman. Clancy was a small, neat man with a face like a mole. He wore a white shirt with epaulets and a blue cap with gold braid. His shield was polished and shiny on his shirt, and he wore the short handgun high on his belt that headquarters types considered status. His trousers were creased, and his shoes gleamed with a spray-can shine. "Reverend Trenton," Clancy said, introducing one of the black men. "Representative Rashad," he said, "and Mr. Tuttle from the Christian United Action Committee, and Ms. Quince from the Friends of Liberty." Quirk said, "How do you do," and all of them except Quirk looked at me. Quirk ignored it.

  "What can I do for you?" Quirk said.

  Rashad, the state representative, said, "Commissioner Wilson said you were the one to brief us on this series of racial murders plaguing the community." "Last year," Quirk said, "thirty-six black people were killed in this city. Nobody came around for a briefing. Nobody called them racial murders."

  "Don't be evasive, Lieutenant," Rashad said. "We wish to know the progress you're making on this grisly matter." A man of substance, old Rashad, a man used to being a public presence, prepared to take no guff from a midlevel functionary on the police force. It gave me goose pimples just to watch him.

  "You read the papers?" Quirk said.

  "Of course," Rashad said. His hair was a close-cropped Afro. His mustache was carefully trimmed. He wore a dark blue suit and a white shirt with long collar points, and a blue-and-red-striped tie. Around his neck was a gold chain and from it a gold medallion hung on his chest, on top of the tie. On the medallion was the raised profile of an African.

  "That's the progress we're making," Quirk said.

  The white woman, Ms. Quince, leaned slightly forward. She was scowling with concentration.

  "You know nothing that hasn't been reported in the papers?" she said.

  "Just about," Quirk said.

  "Not good enough, Lieutenant," Rashad said.

  "No," Ms. Quince said. "We wish to know everything." "Why?" Quirk said.

  Ms. Quince opened her mouth and closed it and looked at Rashad.

  Clancy said, "Lieutenant Quirk." Rashad said, "That's all right, Jerry, I can handle the Lieutenant."

  Tuttle spoke for the first time. "Lieutenant, I would hate to have to report to Pat Wilson that you were uncooperative."

  Quirk was quiet.

  It was Reverend Trenton's turn. He spoke very softly. "We are here, Lieutenant Quirk, to ascertain if the police are doing everything possible on this matter. It is a matter of great concern to the black community, to women, to every one of us who opposes racism in
this city." "And sexism," Ms. Quince said.

  "And murder," Quirk said. "And the misuse of clothesline."

  "Lieutenant," Ms. Quince said. "That is uncalled for."

  Quirk nodded. "Sure it is, Ms. Quince. I apologize. But the thing is, your visit is uncalled for too." Rashad said, "Every citizen of this community has the right to hold you accountable."

  "Sure," Quirk said.

  "And there is a vicious racist, sexist killer out there, a self-admitted member of your department. We want answers, not smart remarks, and we want them now."

  "You may have to settle for smart remarks," Quirk said. "Because I don't have any answers." Clancy said, "Martin, there's no need to be angry." "The hell there isn't," Quirk said. "They come in here to be sure I'm doing my job, like I'd forget about it if they didn't." "Lieutenant," Trenton said, "the black community cannot be blamed for viewing the police with suspicion. How assiduous have you been in the past in solving what I've heard some of you call a 'shine' killing?"

  I saw Quirk take a long breath. He let his chair tilt forward and put his hand flat on his desktop.

  "Reverend," he said, "I am a professional homicide investigator. I've been one for twenty-seven years. I try to solve every murder, and catch every murderer, because I am employed to do that, and because I want to do that. I do that whether anyone is watching me or not, whether the victim is black or white, male or female; whether the commissioner wants me to or you want me to or God wants me to." Quirk paused. No one spoke.

  "Now, you people," Quirk said, "you people are not employed to catch murderers, and if you were employed to do it, you wouldn't know how. But here you are. If you can be honest with yourselves, you know that coming here won't catch the murderer. You're here so that you can tell your voters or your parishioners or your members that you're on top of things and that you are, therefore, the cat's ass."

  When Quirk stopped speaking there was enough silence in the room to walk on.

  Finally Rashad said, "Well, clearly, with that attitude there is little point in continuing." Quirk smiled pleasantly.

  Tuttle looked at me. "I will be reporting this meeting to Commissioner Pat Wilson," he said. "Might I know who you are?"

  "Orotund Vowel," I said. "I'm the lieutenant's elocution teacher."

  Tuttle stared at me. He knew he was being kidded but he didn't know what to say. Finally he turned and led them out.

  "Orotund Vowel?" Quirk said.

  I shrugged.

  "You're a strange bastard," he said.

  "... 7 was hers all the time I was a kid," he was saying.

  "Her what?" the therapist said.

  "What do you mean, 'her what'? I was her son."

  The therapist nodded.

  He wanted to say more about what he was. "I was her only child, you know, she worried about me all the time."

  "How do you know she worried?" the shrink said.

  Christ, couldn't she figure anything out? "She said so," he said, "and when I did stuff that worried her she'd get, like, sick."

  "Sick?" the shrink said.

  "Yeah, she'd lie on the couch and not talk all day and her face would have this look, like she was having cramps or something. You know, like broads get when they're having their period. "He felt the tingle of daring and guilt when he said it.

  "Like mean, you know. Bitchy."

  "What does bitchy mean to you?" the shrink said.

  "It means crabby, it means, you know, not talking to you, being mad at you, not... not loving you. Not being nice to you."

  The shrink nodded.

  "If I'd come home late for supper or hang around with the guys or go out." He could feel the tightening in his throat and the way his nose began to tingle.

  "Go out?" the shrink said.

  "With girls," he said. His eyes were filling. He felt himself burning with frustration and shame. "She told me that every girl was going to take me for all they could get." He fought the hot crying. He turned his head.

  The shrink said, "Let it come. Let's see what comes with it."

  Like hell. He wasn't going to cry here. His mother had never caught him crying. He held his head down and forced his breath in and out. In his groin he could feel the pressure.

  "I can control myself," he said.

  "Always?" the shrink said.

  He felt a trill of fear.

  "Absolutely," he said.

  "Control is important," the shrink said.

  "You lose control," he said, "you lose yourself."

  The shrink waited.

  "You get controlled," he said. "You don't control yourself, people control you."

  "Then they could take you," the shrink said, "for all they could get."

  He wanted to speak and couldn't. He felt as if he'd pushed something aside. He felt shaky now. Deep breath. Let it out. His arm muscles were bunched, and he pressed with his elbows against the arms of the chair.

  "My mother always used to say that," he said.

  The shrink nodded.

  CHAPTER 8.

  The next woman was a schoolteacher, killed in her own apartment on Park Drive overlooking The Fenway. It was Saturday, lunchtime. Quirk and Belson and I looked at the murder scene again. It was as before. The rope. The tape. The blood. One of the precinct detectives was reading aloud from a notebook to Belson.

  "Name's Emmeline Washburn," he said. "Teaches at the Luther Burbank Middle School. Seventh grade. Fortythree years old, separated from her husband, lives alone. Husband's over there." He nodded to a black man sitting motionless on an uncomfortable red couch, staring at nothing. "Emmeline went to the movies with a friend, lives on Gainsborough Street, Deirdre Simmons. She left Deirdre at about ten-fifteen at her place, and intended to walk home. Husband came by this morning to have lunch with her and found her. He hasn't been able to say much.

  ME hasn't established time of death yet. But she's in rigor. MO seems just like the other four.

  Quirk said, "You establish an alibi on the husband yet?"

  The detective shook his head. "He's in bad shape, Lieutenant. All I got so far is, he found her." Quirk said, "I'll talk to him," and walked over to where the man was sitting. "I'm Martin Quirk," he said. "I'm in charge of homicide."

  "Washburn," the husband said, "Raymond Washburn."

  He didn't look up at Quirk. He didn't look down at the dead woman. He simply fixed on the middle distance.

  "I'm sorry," Quirk said.

  Washburn nodded. "We were going to put it back together," he said. "We'd been separated a year and we'd been seeing a counselor and it was working and we were going to put it back together."

  As he spoke, his body suddenly went limp and he began slowly to lean forward on the couch. Quirk dropped to one knee and caught him as Washburn pitched off the couch. Washburn looked to weigh maybe 190 pounds, and Quirk had to steady himself a moment as he caught the dead weight. Then without apparent effort he stood, his arms around Washburn. Washburn wasn't out. As Quirk straightened I could see him staring blankly over Quirk's shoulder. Then he began to cry. It sounded like the sobs were being twisted out of him. Quirk held Washburn and let him cry until he stopped. Then Quirk eased him back on the couch. Washburn slumped when Quirk let go of him, as if there were no strength in him. His eyes were swollen and his face was wet.

  Quirk looked at one of the EMTs that had come with the ambulance. "He'll need help," Quirk said.

  "We'll take him down to City," the EMT said, "let one of the doctors talk with him."

  Quirk nodded. He looked at me.

  "You got any thoughts?" he said.

  "No."

  "Belson?"

  "No." "Me either," Quirk said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

  We went to my office. I sat at my desk. Quirk sat across, and Belson stood, as he almost always did, leaning against the wall. The office had a closed-up smell. I opened the window and the sparse weekend traffic noise drifted up.

  "Could be a copycat," Belson said. "Guy wants to do his wi
fe in, covers it up by making it look like Red Rose, except there's no semen." "Scene looked authentic," Quirk said, "otherwise." "It's all been in the papers," Belson said.

  "Takes a special guy," I said. "To murder his wife and then deposit semen stains on the rug."

  Belson shrugged.

  "He was grief-stricken," Quirk said, "but that doesn't mean he didn't do it." "Got the name of the counselor?" I said.

  "Yeah, woman in the South End," Belson said, "Rebecca Stimpson, MSW."