In for the Kill (16 page)

Pearl flashed her shield for the uniform guarding the open door and found the victim's apartment crawling with crime scene unit techs.

As soon as she stepped inside, the familiar butcher shop stench made her stomach protest. She swallowed bile and continued past the techs busily gathering evidence in the modestly furnished living room, then continued through the kitchen and along a narrow hall to the bathroom.

She looked inside and found Quinn and Fedderman blocking her view. Pearl could see by the shape of the hips and the small black shoes that the Medical Examiner's office had sent a woman this time, who was bending over the bathtub to sort through what was left of the victim.

Quinn and Feds both glanced over at Pearl and nodded. There was no room for Pearl to enter the small bathroom, so Fedderman edged over so she could see.

Another jolt to her stomach. Even though she knew what to expect now, it was a shock.

That one human being could do this to another...

The detached head resting atop pale and severed arms had damp dark hair.

"Not a blonde," Pearl said.

The ME shot a look over her shoulder. She was about fifty, with puffy cheeks and carrot-red hair worn so short it was almost a buzz cut. Though Pearl was sure they'd never seen each other before, the glance seemed to satisfy the ME that Pearl belonged, because she simply returned to her work.

Quinn eased his way out of the crowded bathroom and led Pearl down the hall to the kitchen, where as yet there was no CSU activity.

"Same bullshit?" Pearl asked.

"So far," Quinn said. "When it comes to method, our guy's the model of consistency."

The ME came into the kitchen. She was wearing a man's pinstriped gray suit and tie and carrying a scuffed black leather medical bag. Perspiration beaded her puffy face and she looked tired and bored. Pearl thought that no matter how the woman felt, she probably always looked bored.

"Julius filled me in on the others," she said. Her voice didn't sound bored. It was crisp and efficient.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Julius?"

"Dr. Nift," she said. "This fits the pattern all the way down the line. Virtually all bodily fluids drained before dissection began. Most of the cutting done with sharp blades and a cleaver. The larger, more difficult cuts done with what appears to have been a power saw."

She might as well have been talking about carving a turkey. But then that was what the Butcher did, dehumanized his victims by making them mere meat.

Pearl must have appeared ill. The ME gave her a look without pity. "Sorry not to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Jane Tumulty."

Pearl nodded. "Pearl Kasner. Where's Nift today?"

"Dr. Nift had family business."

It was difficult for Pearl to think of Nift--Julius Nift--with a human family, but she supposed it was possible.

Tumulty turned her attention back to Quinn. "When the cutting was finished, the body parts were stacked and washed clean. Not scrubbed or rubbed in any way, though. I think the cleansing agents from the empty containers were used, along with spray from the shower, then bleach was employed. Everything liquid went down the drain with the shower water." She looked at both Quinn and Pearl. "I've never dealt with such a clean cadaver, whole or in part."

"He's a butcher who works clean," Quinn said.

Tumulty gave a swollen smile. "I don't think this was done by a butcher, and certainly not by a doctor, but whoever did it had experience with dismemberment. Maybe a short-term medical student with limited time with cadavers."

"Or on-the-job training," Quinn said.

"Possibly. Cause of death was probably drowning. I'll have more for you after the postmortem. Dr. Nift or I will be in contact." She hefted her black bag with both hands. It was obviously heavy. "She's all yours and the paramedics'. I'm finished here."

Quinn thanked her.

As she was leaving, Tumulty shook her head. "One sick bastard, this killer. I'd rather not do another of these prelims."

"We'll see what we can do," Quinn said.

When the ME was gone, Pearl said, "What do we know about the victim, other than that she's in pieces?"

"She didn't show for work," Quinn said, "so they called. They got no answer, so they asked the super to look in on her. When there was no reply to his knock, he noticed the smell, then let himself in and found her. The uniform at the door and his partner took the call. The super's down in his basement apartment, trying to get used to what he saw."

"I guess he is," Pearl said.

"Victim worked at Courtney Publishing. The super and neighbors aren't sure what her job was. We need to talk to the people at Courtney."

"What was her name?" Pearl asked, picturing again the severed head with its dark wet hair and closed eyes. She wondered if Jane Tumulty had closed the dead eyes. Nift wouldn't have bothered.

"Anna Bragg," Quinn said.

Pearl turned the name over in her mind. Quinn was watching her, smiling slightly and sadly.

Pearl struggled to connect Anna's name to the killer's note. "Bragg...Braggadocio...The victim worked for a publisher. None of it fits."

"He's more subtle than that," Quinn said. "But you're on the right track with the book connection."

It took a few seconds to dawn on her. "'Fools rush in,'" Pearl said. "The note didn't have anything to do with gold hair or the Gold Rush."

"Rushin," Quinn said.

"
Anna Karenina,
" Pearl said. "Russian. A Russian novel. It's a stretch, but that's gotta be it."

"Not such a stretch," Quinn said. "We both came up with it. My guess is she's the most famous fictional woman in Russian literature. Probably the most famous Anna in any novel."

Pearl was pretty sure they'd figured out who the Russian was in the killer's note. They didn't have to guess the identity of the fools.

"So we agree," Quinn said. His voice softened. "It can happen."

Pearl didn't like the moony way he was looking at her. "What about Feds?"

"He's not in any novel I ever heard of."

"Stop it, Quinn."

"Sorry. He might not agree with us. But I don't think Feds reads Russian novels, even famous ones."

"He's probably the better for it," Pearl said. She remembered reading
Anna Karenina
in high school. Maybe she should read it again. The killer probably had. "Do you think we're in for more victims based on female characters in literature?"

"With this killer, who knows?"

Quinn wanted a glass of water but knew he couldn't touch the faucet handles, or anything else in the kitchen, until the crime scene techs were finished.

"I'll give the paramedics the word to remove the body," he said. "Then you and Feds can talk to the super and neighbors again while I drive over and see what Anna's employers have to say about her."

Pearl watched him leave the kitchen but stayed there to wait for Fedderman.

The sad, grueling work of restructuring the last few days in the life that had ended last night was about to begin.

Nighttime. Pearl had been here before. Because of death she wanted love. Being close to the former and yearning for the latter was nothing new and she understood it. Love and sex were life and the opposite of death. Love was, anyway. Sex and orgasm...well, Pearl wasn't so sure.

Her blood still pounded through her veins. Jeb Jones lay next to her in his madly mussed bed at the Waverton, still breathing hard. Traffic on the crowded avenue below was the only other sound.

"You're something," he sighed.

"I needed something."

"Did you get it?"

She reached over and patted his bare, sweating hip. "It was a start."

He laughed in a way she liked.

The small room was too warm and still smelled of sex. There was a ceiling fan but it didn't work, and the windows weren't the kind that opened. Pearl didn't mind. Lust was supposed to be a sweaty business.

She was lying nude on her back, feeling the damp pillow beneath her neck. The slightest cool stirring of breeze from the inadequate air-conditioning played across her midsection. Jeb's breathing was evening out, as if he might be falling asleep.

Pearl didn't move but turned her mind loose. She knew she might have made a mistake. But wasn't that how you won something, by risking a mistake? After what she'd seen in Anna Bragg's apartment, what happened in this room fell under the category of life-affirming, and that was what Pearl needed--her life to be affirmed.

What would Quinn think of her tryst with Jones--she had to smile slightly--other than wanting to kill Jeb? Though Quinn would disapprove because of how Pearl knew he felt about her, she didn't think he'd disapprove on a professional basis. Jeb was simply a guy who'd had a few dates with the luckless Marilyn Nelson, not a suspect. Not even a person of interest. If there was a difference. And though he'd dated Marilyn a few times, they'd always met someplace. According to Jeb, the only time he'd been in her apartment was when he showed up after she was murdered.

On the other hand, Pearl didn't even know if Jeb had a solid alibi for the night of Marilyn's death. Or for the time of Anna Bragg's.

She figured it might behoove her to ask.

She let her head fall to the side to gaze over the near white horizon of her pillow, and the cop in her took over.

There were her clothes folded neatly on the desk chair. She knew Jeb's were in a pile on the floor. On the desk were a Toshiba notebook computer, a portable printer, and a small spiral notebook with a blue cover. There was an opened package of printer paper on top of the nearby radiator cover. On a small table near the desk was a stack of books, all nonfiction on economics or politics. The largest one, on the bottom, was titled
America and Canada--Friends and Traders.
Pearl didn't think it was a threat to outsell Stephen King. Topping the uneven stack of books were a pad of yellow Post-its, a cheap ballpoint pen, and a couple of stubby yellow pencils. Though the pencils were worn down, their erasers looked fresh and unused.

A freelance journalist's room. At least as Pearl imagined one.

Pearl looked back at the ceiling and thought about Jeb. He'd proved himself a gentle but decisive lover, sometimes letting her take the dominant position, then reasserting himself. He was quite experienced, she was sure. He knew how to turn her in on herself, string her out, tease her, make her wait, and then surprise her.

Why do the erasers look unused? Does he never make a mistake?

"You had supper?" he asked, jolting her out of her thoughts.

"Forgot all about it," Pearl said, realizing she was hungry. "Been kinda busy."

"Wanna go out or do room service?"

Pearl didn't like the idea of a bellhop coming into the room. "Coffee shop downstairs any good when it comes to dinner?"

"Good enough that I eat there almost every night," Jeb said. "Not to mention cheap enough."

He swiveled his body and sat up on his side of the bed, his bare feet on the floor. Pearl studied the lean musculature of his back. He had to be a journalist who worked out regularly.

"Let's take a shower," he said.

"Together?"

"Has to be that way. There's only one cake of soap."

"Can't argue with that," Pearl said, and stretched her arms and legs before getting up out of the warm, perspiration damp bed. The air was cool on her bare buttocks and legs.

Jeb sauntered into the bathroom ahead of her and turned on the shower.

Pearl wasn't surprised that he'd gotten the temperature just right.

Half an hour later they sat in a booth in the Waverton coffee shop, showered, dressed, reasonably unrumpled, and not so obviously lovers.

Pearl had followed Jeb's recommendation and ordered chicken pot pie. They were both having draft Budweisers in frosted glasses. Pearl enjoyed her cold beer while looking across the table at Jeb and waiting hungrily for her food. She thought life was pretty good. Rare for her.

A broad-hipped waitress with a name badge that said she was Maize arrived with their food on a large round tray and began placing plates on the table. "You must like the pot pie," she said to Jeb.

"Or maybe it's you," he said with a grin.

Maize shook her head and looked at Pearl. "He ordered the same thing for supper last night."

"You were working then, too," Jeb said, still flirting but in no way meaningful.

Maize grinned with crooked teeth. "Yet I don't think we have anything going together except as tipper and tipee."

Jeb aimed his grin at Pearl. "Maize serves humor with the food."

Maize kept a straight face. "But only if its yesterday's special. It's a distraction." She placed the last dish on the table. "Getcha anything else?"

"We've got it all," Jeb said, smiling at Pearl.

Knowing when to be silent, Maize returned to behind the counter.

"You had this same dish here last night?" Pearl asked.

Jeb nodded and poked his fork into browned pot pie crust, causing a faint curl of steam to rise. "I told you, I eat here most of the time. You'll see why. It's delicious."

Careful not to burn her tongue, Pearl dug into her pot pie and found she agreed. Maybe it was because she'd worked up such an appetite in Jeb's room. Or maybe it was because Maize had just supplied her new lover with an alibi for last night, when Anna Bragg was murdered.

Of course it was always possible Jeb had convinced Maize to lie for him. They were tipper and tipee.

Pearl told herself not to be so cynical and sipped her beer.

Celandra left the audition thinking she didn't have a chance, but also telling herself that sometimes those were the roles you got. This business was full of surprises. But if you halfway expected them, they weren't really surprises. But if she understood that, then she must think there was a chance.

The hell with it, she thought. It was all too complicated. All she knew was that she'd waited her turn on stage and read the lines of the mad housewife. Mad as in insane. In the six years she'd been pursuing an acting career in New York, she'd landed several off-off Broadway roles, and a few juicy Off Broadways, but she hadn't experienced what she'd define as success. And here she was almost thirty. She was a handsome rather than pretty woman, with a pale, somber face and tall, athletic build. She'd gone heavy on the eye makeup for this audition, so that her large brown eyes appeared darker and sunken, and she'd made her shoulder-length brown hair suitably mussed.

When she left the theater through a stage door alongside the marquee, she found that the heat had built to an uncomfortable level, and the humidity lay like damp felt on her bare arms. She hailed a cab rather than ride the smelly, stifling subway to get to her apartment in the West Nineties. The last time she'd ridden the subway, coming home from buying a knockoff Prada purse on Canal Street, some goon had rubbed himself against her, and as she was getting off pinched her left buttock hard enough to leave a bruise. When she'd turned to confront him, she was looking at the mass of people eager to get out through the sliding doors before the train pulled away for its next stop. Apparently her assailant had faded into the crowded car and left by one of the other doors. Or maybe the creep was still on the train, hunched in a seat and hiding behind a newspaper or magazine.

Celandra didn't have the time or opportunity to find him. People glared at her, or looked right through her, as they streamed from the train, forcing her to exit along with them. On the way out, she was buffeted by people boarding the train. New York, the city that got you coming and going.

When she'd arrived home and examined the bruise developing low on her ass, she vowed never to ride the subway again, knowing she would someday break that vow, so maybe it wasn't really a vow. But if she was going to break whatever it was, today wouldn't be the day. She was still in a quandary after her audition, and there was the cab right in front of the theater, like a consolation prize from the city.

She told herself not to be an idiot; the city wasn't God, maintaining a celestial equality, answering prayers or handing out damnation on a whim. Though sometimes it seemed that way.

She settled back in the soft upholstery while the cab rocked and jerked about as the driver fought his way into heavier traffic on West Forty-fourth. Horns blasted. From somewhere came an angry shout. Away from the curb lane at last, the cabbie cursed under his breath and shook his head. "...ing city..." she heard him grumble. "Hard as rock..."

Tell me about it.

She decided she'd take the cab all the way home unless it got bogged down in traffic. If that happened, and she was within eight or ten blocks of her apartment, she'd get out and walk the rest of the way. Celandra liked to walk. It was good exercise and she was used to it, having spent her formative years on a wheat and soybean farm in Kansas.

Celandra had almost gone insane there, which was why she'd come to New York after her drama coach at the University of Missouri assured her she had real talent. But then she knew she was one of his favorites in another way, too. Not that she'd truly encouraged him or he ever really tried to get in her pants, but he'd made it obvious that was what he wanted. But then, if he hadn't actually tried...

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. It seemed there was nothing definitive in her life. Was it that way with everyone? Weren't there some people who understood exactly where they'd been, where they were at the moment, and where they were going, and planned and noted the steps along the way? She tried to plan her life, but everything turned out to be a goddamned surprise. She'd be an old lady before she knew it, surprised to see the wrinkles. But wasn't that true of everyone?

The cab hit a pothole, jarring her so she actually rose a few inches off the seat.

A few blocks farther and it slowed to an intermittent crawl, then a complete stop. Traffic was backed up and unmoving for as far as Celandra could see through the windshield. And it was getting too warm in the cab. Maybe the driver had switched off the air conditioner so the engine wouldn't overheat in the stopped traffic, or to save precious gas. They did that sometimes. She used the power button to lower the window, and even warmer air fell into the cab. Out of patience, she plucked her wallet from her purse and told the driver she was getting out.

"I get you to the curb," he said, when he saw the bills wadded in her perspiring hand. His accent, which she hadn't noticed earlier, was one she didn't recognize.

"This is fine," she assured him, stuffing the bills into the little swivel tray in the Plexiglas divider, leaving a generous tip.

"You be killed," he said in his peculiar accent, not wanting to lose his fare. "Run flat over. Be my fault."

"I'll be fine," she insisted, thinking there was nothing moving out there to run over her.

"I want no--"

She didn't hear the rest of what he was saying, because she already had the cab's door open.

Three steps, then up on the curb, and she was on the sidewalk and striding away from the stalled cab. Horns blared behind her. Probably one of them was the cab's, but she ignored the brief but violent torrent of noise and walked on.

A medium-height, well dressed man walking in front of her turned around to see what all the honking was about, and their eyes met. Celandra looked quickly away, not wanting to give the guy ideas, but it did register in her mind that he was handsome and well groomed. More than that--there was the mysterious instantaneous something between them that everyone was always searching for. Forces had met, with undeniable potential. But in the beginning there was always a choice.

Right now, still upset over the audition, Celandra told herself she wasn't interested. And apparently he wasn't interested in her. He didn't glance back at her again as he stopped at the intersection and waited for the light to change so he could cross.

He also didn't bother looking at her as she strode past him and he stepped down off the curb to cross with a dozen other people.

So maybe he hadn't felt the magic. It didn't always work in both directions. She might have been flattering herself.

After walking another block, Celandra had forgotten the man.

It never occurred to her to look for him on the other side of the street, where he was walking parallel to her, dipping a shoulder to ease between people on the crowded sidewalk, occasionally bumping into someone and mumbling a perfunctory "'Scuse me" as he continued at his pace.

At her pace.

Keeping his gaze glued to her.

Making up his mind.

Later, when she left her apartment, he followed her to a Starbucks where she met two other women. Hanging back, he ordered a cappuccino and watched them have Danish and coffee in a booth near a window. Not a low-calorie lunch, but a light one in bulk. All of the women had trim figures, but then they were all young.

After following her home, he'd gleaned her last name from the slot over the mailbox she'd perfunctorily checked before going upstairs to her apartment.

She hadn't seen him, and might not recognize him now if she noticed him in Starbucks, sitting only two booths away, where he could overhear the three women.

So far, none of them had called each other by name. It was amazing how, after the initial meeting, people seldom used names to address each other. He did learn from their conversations that they were actresses. That didn't surprise him, considering the beauty and bearing of the woman he'd followed. The woman he'd chosen.

So she was an actress, which meant it shouldn't be difficult to learn her given name. He smiled. Her name might even be up in lights somewhere.

All he really needed now was her name.