In for the Kill (18 page)

New York, the present

The Pepper Tree was decorated mostly in grays and blues, with one wall a wide mural of green fields beneath a blue sky. The fields were dotted with trees Pearl assumed to be pepper trees, but then, she wasn't even sure if there were types of peppers that grew on trees.

Culinary license, she thought, as a smiling African American man approached. He was handsome if a bit paunchy, wearing a navy jacket with brass buttons, white shirt open at the collar, a red ascot. A guy who had lost his yacht.

"We're not open for breakfast," he said.

Pearl looked out over the rows of white tablecloths without flatware, china, or napkins. "I can see that. You should have locked your door."

He seemed amused. "We're trusting sorts."

"I wish I were," Pearl said, and showed him her shield.

The man's smile disappeared, which was a shame. He had a great smile but without it looked rather ordinary.

"This is about Marilyn Nelson?" he asked, surprising her, and for the first time sounding as if he had a slight Jamaican accent.

"You're clairvoyant," Pearl said.

"Oh, not hardly. Marilyn ate here often. She was a pretty woman. We notice pretty women, especially if they're also as nice as Marilyn."

Pearl glanced about. She and the man seemed to be the only ones in the restaurant.

"My employee Harmon is in the kitchen cleaning up," the man said, guessing her thoughts. "I am Virgil Mantrell."

"The manager?"

"And owner. Which means I'm here virtually all the time."

Useful,
Pearl thought. The prospects of her visit to the Pepper Tree brightened. Surely Jeb wasn't the only man who'd dined with Marilyn in the restaurant. "I understand Marilyn usually ate alone."

"Usually, yes. She hadn't been in the city long and hadn't had time to explore. Though she wasn't always alone. I remember her coming here for dinner with men a few times, on dates, it looked like. And another time, later, she had lunch with a woman."

"What do you remember about them?"

"The men were different. Except for one she was here with at least a couple of times."

"What did that one look like?"

"I don't remember much about him. He seemed to be in his thirties, had dark hair. I suppose you'd call him handsome, but at the same time he was very ordinary looking. I'd have trouble recognizing him if he came in here again, and I have a memory for faces."

"And the woman who dined with Marilyn?"

"Her I would recognize."

"Pretty, I'll bet."

"Not as pretty as Marilyn." The smile was back. "We don't like to quantify our customers in terms of beauty or handsomeness."

"Wise policy," Pearl said.

He nodded. "It is only polite, and politeness goes far in the restaurant business. When I made it a point to visit Marilyn's table and make sure everything was all right, she introduced me to the woman, who she said was an old college friend."

"Did she refer to her by name?"

"Yes, she did." He raised his dark eyebrows in a way that made him appear to be in pain. "I'm sorry, but while I remember faces, I don't remember names."

Pearl showed him a copy of the fax with the charge receipts and pointed to the one from the Pepper Tree. "Do you have a copy of this?"

"We do. We keep careful records. That would be from the meal Marilyn had with her lady friend."

"How do you know?"

"The price. And I remember. They were here for lunch. The time will be marked on our receipt."

"I don't see anything on the list from when she dined with the men."

"That would be because they paid cash," Virgil said. The smile flashed again. "It still happens." He looked thoughtful. "Or it's possible that there was an oversight and we haven't yet submitted a charge receipt to the bank. If so, it would still be here and wouldn't show up on your list."

"Shall we look?" Pearl asked.

"You won't need a warrant," he said, using the smile to make it a joke.

He led her through the kitchen, where a pimply teenager who had to be Harmon was cleaning or waxing the floor with some kind of sponge mop, then on to a surprisingly large office with a gleaming hardwood floor and a loosely woven carpet containing muted shades of myriad colors. Virgil Mantrell's desk was large, made of a lightly grained wood that could have been teak. There were oils of sailboats on the walls. Pearl was no judge, but she thought they were good.

Maybe her impression had been right and the man did own a yacht.

"Do you sail?" she asked, as Virgil rummaged through a black metal file cabinet behind the desk.

"Never," he said, not glancing back at her, "but I paint."

"And very well."

Virgil did look back at her and smiled at the compliment, then bent again to his task.

He found the sheaf of charge receipts he was looking for, and swiveled in his chair so he was facing Pearl across his desk. He began adroitly riffling through the receipts.

Pearl, knowing when to hold her silence, stood patiently waiting. Her gaze went to the paintings of graceful sailboats. She wondered if the one on the wall behind the desk was a sloop. She wondered what a sloop was.

Suddenly Virgil's dancing fingers stopped. "Ah!" he said, with seeming great delight.

"You found it?"

"No. The men and Marilyn must have paid cash for their meals."

"Then why the orgasm?"

Virgil looked sharply at her and seemed genuinely shocked by her language. Pearl almost apologized.

"I mean," she said, "you gave the impression you'd found what we were looking for."

"Something else," Virgil said. "When Marilyn lunched with her lady friend, she paid the check by charge. But there's another receipt for that date, time, and table. Her friend used her own charge card to pay the bar bill." He slid the thin receipt across the wide desk so Pearl could reach it.

The name on the receipt was Ella Oaklie. Pearl read it aloud. "Ring a bell?"

"I don't think so," Virgil said. "But she must be the woman I saw with Marilyn. The receipt proves it."

"Can you please give me a copy of this?"

"I'll make a copy," Virgil said, "and I'll let you have the original."

"Because I'm polite," Pearl said.

"And have an eye for art." Virgil smiled. "And are quite pretty."

And could subpoena it anyway, Pearl thought, but politely kept silent.

Pearl found Ella Oaklie's address easily enough. She was in the phone directory. Sometimes detective work was a snap.

The woman behind the counter of a small flower shop on First Avenue had let Pearl used the shop's directory. Pearl made a note of the address and phone number. Not wanting to be overheard, she thanked the woman and stepped outside into the heat to use her cell phone to call Oaklie.

She got an answering machine informing her in stilted language that there was no one available to take her call right now, but if she would please leave a message...

Pearl waited patiently for the drivel to end, then left her name and number for Ella Oaklie and cut the connection.

Since it was almost lunchtime, she drove over to Third Avenue and Fifty-fourth, where she knew a street vendor sold tasty and reliable food. Pearl generally lightened up for lunch, so she bought a knish and bottled water from the vendor, then wandered over to sit on a warm stone wall and people-watch while she ate.

After her second bite, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Setting knish and bottled water aside, Pearl picked up.

Ella Oaklie had called home and checked her messages and wanted to get in touch with Pearl as soon as possible, since it was so horrible what had happened to Marilyn Nelson. When Pearl offered to meet Ella at her office, Ella was reluctant, but might they meet for lunch? Pearl said sure, and suggested the Pepper Tree near Marilyn Nelson's apartment. She'd found that putting the witness as close as possible to the scene of the crime sometimes did wonders for the memory.

Ella agreed at once. While Pearl had Ella going, she suggested they meet in half an hour. Forty-five minutes would work, Ella said, and Pearl said she'd meet her just inside the door, where there was a small waiting area with a bench. Ella asked if she'd be in uniform, and Pearl, irritated, told her no, she'd be wearing gray slacks and a blue blazer, not to mention sensible black shoes.

Kind of a uniform, Pearl thought, as she broke the connection and slid her phone back in her pocket.

It buzzed again almost immediately.

This time it was Jeb. He wanted to meet her for lunch.

"If you can get away," he added, when he sensed Pearl's hesitancy.

"I'm going to meet someone at a restaurant for a brief interview, then we can have a bite ourselves if you want, and maybe go somewhere."

"Sure it's okay? I mean, I don't want to mess you up in your work."

"It's more than okay," Pearl assured him. "The restaurant's the Pepper Tree."

"Great. We were planning on going there anyway."

She told him approximately what time the interview would be over.

"Go ahead and eat hearty," he said. "I'll have some lunch before I turn up at the restaurant, then we can have a drink or two and leave."

And go to your room at the Waverton?

Pearl didn't have to ask him. She knew it was what they both wanted.

She said good-bye to Jeb, then again slid the phone into her pocket, hoping the damned thing would stay there for a while and be quiet.

That was when she glanced across the street and saw Lauri Quinn.

Lauri, in patched and faded jeans and a baggy red pullover shirt, was standing near the doorway of an office supply store, pretending to look at something in the display window. Pearl figured she might be watching her in the window's reflection and averted her gaze.

She was more annoyed than surprised at seeing Lauri, because it wasn't the first time. Twice before Pearl had caught a glimpse of someone she thought might have been Lauri, but it had been so brief she couldn't be sure. Now she was sure. Apparently Lauri hadn't taken her insistence that she not accompany Pearl on the job seriously, but had decided to follow Pearl without Pearl's knowledge.

Lauri not giving up on what she wanted.

Lauri being like her father.

Pearl wasn't sure what to do about this, but decided not to do anything now. She had to meet Ella Oaklie soon, anyway, and didn't feel like confronting Lauri about being inexpertly and annoyingly tailed. And of course there was the danger of an amateur--a kid, at that--dogging a homicide detective on the trail of a serial killer. It might be a good idea to tell Quinn what was going on, find out how he wanted to handle the situation. After all, Lauri was
his
daughter.

On the other hand, Pearl did feel a certain protectiveness toward Lauri, and Quinn seemed completely at sea when it came to dealing with a teenage girl who wasn't a murder suspect.

Pearl glanced at her watch. Forty minutes until her meeting with Ella Oaklie. She had the unmarked and could get to the Pepper Tree in a hurry, so she was okay on time.

Being careful not to glance again in Lauri's direction, Pearl ate her knish.

Another one.

Quinn had expected it. The Butcher was going to continue taunting the police with his puzzle notes.

Renz had just faxed the newest one to Quinn, along with the expected useless results of lab tests on the note itself and the envelope it arrived in. No prints on envelope or stamp, no DNA on the envelope flap, the usual common and virtually untraceable paper stock, a midtown New York postmark, and almost mechanically neat printing in number-two pencil. Like the first note, this one was addressed to Quinn.

Pearl and Fedderman were in the field, leaving Quinn alone in the office. He carried the just-faxed note to his desk to give it some thought. It was cool in the office and quiet except for an occasional thump or muffled voice from the dental clinic on the other side of the wall. Quinn leaned back in his swivel chair and rested the note on his knee, squinting at it and trying to parse its brief and cryptic message:

A rose is a rose is a rose by any other name.

Take care,

The Butcher

Fedderman came in from helping to canvass the buildings surrounding Anna Bragg's apartment. He looked hot, his suit coat hooked over his shoulder with a forefinger as he often carried it, his shirt sweat-stained and wrinkled. His right cuff was flapping unbuttoned, as it often was. Fedderman was the only person Quinn knew whose cuff persistently came unbuttoned while he was writing with pen or pencil. Maybe it was the brand of shirts he wore. His rep-striped tie was loosened and looked as if it had been used in a tug-of-war.

He sighed, and his desk chair sighed as he sat down in it.

"Any progress to report?" Quinn asked.

Fedderman rolled his weary eyes in Quinn's direction. "How can you even ask that?"

"I wanted to get it in before you passed out."

"None of Anna's neighbors remembered anything they hadn't recalled or made up last time they talked to us. There are a few inconsistencies, but I think that's because the heat is addling their brains. I know it's addling mine."

"Maybe you oughta have a hot coffee," Quinn said. "There's a theory that if you drink something warmer than your body temperature it will feel cool on a hot day. Worth a try."

"Sadist," Fedderman said. "Lab give us anything from the paper or envelope?"

"Not a thing. We got zilch. Except for this other note he sent us."

Fedderman stopped feeling sorry for himself and sat forward, interested.

"Renz just faxed it over." Since Fedderman still looked too exhausted to stand, Quinn got up from behind his desk and walked over to the opposite desk and handed him Renz's fax.

Fedderman studied the brief printout for almost a minute, as if waiting for inspiration.

It never came.

"Woman named Rose?" he said finally.

"Kind of obvious."

"Kind of rose," Fedderman said. "We look for roses named after women, maybe we come up with the next victim's name."

"I thought you said your brain was addled."

"If I said that, I forgot it," Fedderman said. "The composer, what's his name, Cole Porter. Didn't he name a kind of rose after his wife?"

"He did," Quinn said, but I can't think of it."

"Internet," Fedderman said.

As Quinn was returning to his desk, Fedderman was already booting up his computer.

Within half an hour they had more than twenty species of roses that were named after women, including the Linda Porter, namesake of Cole Porter's wife. There were also among the multitude the Betty Boop rose, the Helen Traubel, and the Charlotte Armstrong.

And Quinn came across another possibility as he was roaming the Internet--Shakespeare: "
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
A quote from
Romeo and Juliet.

Would the next Butcher victim be a Juliet?

When he asked Fedderman what he thought, he agreed that Juliets were in danger.

"Should we warn them all?" Fedderman asked. "The Juliets and all the other rose women?"

Quinn stared at the lengthy list of rose names and thought about all the Lindas, Bettys, Charlottes, Annabels, Sonias, Michelles...He saw that there was indeed a Juliet rose listed. Not only that, it was the
Sweet Juliet.
He informed Fedderman.

"I dunno," Fedderman said, perusing the same list. "It seems like every woman's got a rose named after her. I still kinda like Starina. Sounds like a stripper."

"We need to make the note public as soon as possible, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to see if we can get the media to print all of the names."

"My guess is that's what the Butcher wants us to do," Fedderman said. "That way he can terrorize more women."

Quinn thought he was probably right. Still, it was the thing to do.

"I'll call Renz," he said. "He likes to hold press conferences, especially the part where you refuse to take any more questions and strut away."

"She might already be dead," Fedderman said sadly, looking at his list. "Starina, Elle, Carla, Dainty Bess..."

"Christ!" Quinn said. "Dainty Bess."

He pecked out Renz's phone number, hearing Fedderman say, "I wonder if there really is a Starina out there."