In for the Kill (21 page)

New York, the present

"This has to stop," Pearl told Lauri.

"You
saw
me?" Lauri's eyes widened in surprise. "How?"

They were in the Hungry U, where Pearl had stopped in to talk to Lauri as she waited tables. It was five o'clock, still early for the dinner crowd, and the lunchtime diners were long gone. Pearl and Lauri were alone in the restaurant except for a touristy-looking couple at a corner table, and whoever was in the kitchen or out by the register. Something in the kitchen was giving off a peculiar but not unpleasant scent, a mingling of sage and cinnamon.

Pearl had ordered only a diet Coke, which she sipped slowly as she carefully formulated her words. She released her plastic straw from between her lips, noticing that it was now lipstick stained. "It doesn't work to follow someone on the other side of the street unless you know what you're doing. It doesn't work to stand around outside someplace like you're haunting it unless you're careful to stay out of sight. And it especially doesn't work if you try to sneak inside without being seen so you can use the restroom."

Standing over Pearl, still holding her serving tray in one hand, other hand on hip, Lauri said, "What
do
you do if you're tailing someone and you have to pee?"

"If you actually become a cop, you'll go to the Academy and they'll tell you."

Pearl watched as the touristy couple beckoned Lauri over and asked for their check. Lauri smilingly presented it, then carried it and a credit card through the door to the restaurant's entrance area and register.

By the time she came back, returned the card and check to the couple, and walked back to where Pearl was sitting, Pearl had drunk half her Coke. Despite the early hour and having only three customers, there was soft background music in the restaurant. It didn't sound very Pakistani, but how would Pearl know? It bothered her that she'd probably have a hard time getting the nagging little melody that persisted between the overwrought drum solos and the unintelligible singer out of her brain. It sounded vaguely familiar, but it was that kind of melody.

Lauri returned to Pearl's table and stood hipshot, still holding the round serving tray--which Pearl was beginning to figure out was a prop to make her feel more like a professional food server--in her previous spot. The curtain-filtered light from a nearby window made her look even younger and yet somehow even more like Quinn.

"Want a refill?"

"I'm good," Pearl assured her.

"You haven't told Dad, have you?"

"That you're still tailing me? No. But I want it to stop, Lauri. I mean actually stop. Or I will tell him."

Lauri flashed her father's stubborn, defiant expression for a second, then shrugged and nodded. "Okay. If you say stop, I'll stop."

"Your solemn word?"

"I promise you'll never spot me following you again."

Which wasn't exactly the promise Pearl was requesting.

More of Quinn's bullshit. Was it genetic?

"Lauri--" But something had popped into Pearl's mind. "Now I've got it."

"What?"

"That tune. I
thought
I might have heard it before."

Lauri grinned proudly. "That's right. You heard it here. That's The Defendants' CD of
Lost in Bonkers.
"

"They actually sell their music?"

"Not yet, but they will. That's just a demo CD they made at the drummer's brother's apartment studio. Wormy's shopping it around. Well, looking for an agent to shop it around, actually."

"Speaking of Wormy," Pearl said, "do you realize he's following you following me?"

Lauri appeared temporarily confused. Then her face flushed with anger.

It was anger she didn't express in words; she knew what Pearl would say.

"Wormy? Why's he following me?" Lauri admirably kept her voice calm.

"I don't know for sure," Pearl said. "He might think you're seeing someone else. Or he might be afraid for you. The little--he probably loves you and feels protective. Men are like that."
Even worms.

"He's a musician, not a fighter," Lauri said.

Thinking Lauri had that right except for the musician part, Pearl finished her Coke, which was now diluted by melted ice. "I'm not saying he's a skilled bodyguard, only that he's been following you. I saw him outside the Pepper Tree the other day, trying to be invisible in a doorway across the street."

Lauri couldn't help looking miffed. Pearl figured if Wormy were around he might be beaned with the serving tray, the way Lauri's knuckles were so white on the hand that gripped it.

She stared at a point just above Pearl's head, the way Quinn did when he was angry, as if there were a message written in the air confirming his righteous rage. "I'll put a goddamned stop to that!"

Pearl left enough money on the table to cover the drink and tip and stood up. "You do that, Lauri. You talk to Wormy the way I talked to you. Of course, if you stop following me around, there won't be a problem."

"There won't be a problem," Lauri said, scooping up the money.

Not "I'll stop following you."

Genetic, Peal thought again, as she walked from the restaurant, not realizing she was moving to the infectious beat of
Lost in Bonkers.

Celandra jogged in place until the traffic signal changed at West Eighty-ninth Street, then crossed the intersection and continued jogging south on Broadway. Heads male and female turned to glance at the tall, graceful woman with the long brown hair, dressed in red shorts that fit her loosely but were nonetheless revealing, and a gray sleeveless T-shirt with a sports bra beneath. When it came to nullifying curves, the sports bra did about as well as the overmatched baggy shorts.

Most New York joggers favored the park or more sparsely traveled side streets, but Celandra loved running down Broadway, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of the city as she worked up a sweat and began breathing hard. She tried to jog every other night, and to push herself. It was good exercise not only for her appearance, but for her endurance in dance numbers. She'd take more dance lessons when she could afford it, but for now her running would have to do.

In the West Sixties she began to tire, and to feel the stitches of pain in her ribs and the burning in her thighs.

Had enough...Time to turn around.

She drew admiring stares and a man's offer to run with her as she jogged in place again and waited for a traffic-locked furniture van to move so she could cross the street. Trying not to breathe the van's noxious exhaust fumes too deeply, she began the return run toward her apartment.

She was spent a block from home and began to walk, her shirt plastered to her by perspiration, her head bowed, her hands on her hips; still drawing stares, a marathoner and wet T-shirt contest winner.

By the time she reached her building, her breathing had evened out but was still labored. The burning sensation in her thighs was gone. Her legs felt heavy, tired, good. She smiled. It had been a productive workout. Someday all her hard work would pay big career dividends. She truly believed she'd make it as a major actress. Had anyone ever made it without believing?

She wiped her forearm across her sweaty brow and drew deep, steadying breaths as she waited for the elevator. The ancient brass arrow above the door trembled and hesitated as if struggling against gravity as it dropped from
3
to
2
to
1,
and the elevator's steel door scraped and slid open.

A sixtyish, red-haired woman Celandra knew only as Mrs. Altmont stepped from the elevator with her tiny Yorkie, Edgemore, on a leash. Mrs. Altmont lived down the hall from Celandra and had the tight, stiff stare of too much cosmetic surgery. Her lean features seemed out of sync with her pudgy body. She'd once told Celandra she'd named Edgemore after her former husband. Celandra assumed Edgemore, the husband, might still be paying off the surgery.

The canine Edgemore growled at Celandra, as he always did, and as she always did, Mrs. Altmont smiled at her. As they passed getting in and out of the elevator, Celandra glanced down and saw that Mrs. Altmont already had a small plastic bag like a mitten over her free hand.

She saw where Celandra was looking and her smile widened and became almost apologetic. "Why do we love them so?"

She might have been talking about either of the Edgemores.

"Sometimes they're worth it," Celandra said, returning the smile.

The elevator door slid closed.

Other than her killer, Mrs. Altmont would be the last person to see Celandra alive.

The odor was overpowering.

Quinn wondered if the relentless repetition of the butchery was meant to assail the senses and wear down the killer's pursuers, if it was part of a strategy. If so, it might be working.

Dr. Julius Nift was present for this one. He was dressed for a day in the boardroom, in a black chalk-stripe suit, white shirt, red tie, gleaming black wing-tip shoes. He didn't look as if he belonged in the cracked tile bathroom of this little apartment in the West Nineties, bent over a bathtub and probing at body parts.

Quinn and his team had gotten the call at the office from Renz, so arrived together in an unmarked city car driven by Fedderman. Quinn left Feds to talk to the uniforms who'd been first on the scene, then went inside the apartment.

It was crowded with crime scene unit techs. A police photographer was there, too, sending pops of illumination over the odd sight of people wearing white gloves and assuming various awkward positions so they could see something close up or pluck it up with tweezers and drop it into a plastic evidence bag. So many bodies moving around in the small apartment, it was a wonder they didn't bump into one another. Crime scene choreography was in itself a science.

Nift and the victim were alone together in the bathroom, though. The techs had finished there as quickly as possible and left it to the medical examiner. After a first glimpse, and sniff, not even the most hardened of the professionals present were tempted even to go near the bathroom again.

The little ME didn't actually look back at Quinn and Pearl, but by his head movement acknowledged their presence. They glanced around the beige and white tiled confines. There were the empty cleaning containers--a box of powdered dishwasher detergent, green plastic shampoo bottle, laundry detergent, a couple of gallon bleach jugs capless and lying next to each other.

The raw meat stench was stomach kicking despite the obvious use of the cleansers. Pearl unconsciously raised her cupped hand to cover her mouth and nose, then realized what she was doing. She couldn't appear soft in front of Nift and Quinn, so she pretended her nose itched, rubbed it, and lowered her hand.

Nift shifted to his left and a dim brown eye gazed up at Quinn.

Pearl almost gagged as she returned the dead stare of the severed head resting on its side atop the detached arms.

"Brown hair," she said flatly, of the dead woman in the tub. No emotion. Better to be a cop instead of a horrified basket case.

Nift said, "Let me introduce you to Miz Celandra Thorn. Forgive her if she doesn't shake your hand, but you can shake hers all you want."

Pearl felt like kicking the little bastard.

"Thorn!"
Quinn said. "Not the roses themselves. Goddamnit!" He knew it was something they should have thought of; it had been hinted strongly enough by the note about roses. They'd missed the oblique reference in the killer's note again. It was there for them and so obvious in retrospect. They'd been outsmarted.

"Maybe Celandra is a type of rose," Pearl said, but she knew better. Like Quinn and Fedderman, she'd researched roses named after women until she'd never see roses the same way. It had been
thorn,
and they'd missed it.

Nift straightened up, holding a gleaming steel probe in his gloved right hand, and the entire familiar stack of pale body parts in the bathtub was visible. As with the other Butcher victims, the blanched cleanliness of the victim and the crime scene appeared antiseptic and barren of anything that might prove in any way useful. Probably it would be difficult even to find a germ, much less a clue. There was only the ritual arrangement of meat on display.

"Like the others," Nift said. "Same blades, same saw marks, same technique in reducing the whole to its parts." He flashed his nasty smile. "If you put her back together, you'd have a beautiful woman."

"Would you rather we leave?" Pearl asked.

Nift ignored her. "As you can see, she was facially a knockout. She had the build, too. Very muscular as well as shapely. I'd guess she danced, judging by the impressively developed musculature in her thighs and calves. Or ran cross-country or lifted weights or some such thing. But with her looks, I think it'd be show business."

"Playing detective again," Quinn said.

"Don't you watch those programs on television? We forensics guys solve crimes all the time. We shoot pretty damned straight, too."

"If this was television," Pearl said, "I'd mute you."

"Your partner takes life too seriously," Nift said to Quinn.

"It's death we're talking about here," Quinn said.

"Which brings us to cause of same," Nift said. "Looks like drowning. Also, the usual traces of adhesive from duct tape. Body fluids, what have you, all washed neatly down the drain. Time of death probably early last evening; I'll get you closer after the official postmortem." He bent down and placed his steel probe in his black medical case, then peeled off his gloves and slipped them into a plastic bag, which he also placed in the case.

"So much for the prelim," he said. "Whenever you're done playing with her, you can send Celandra down to the morgue."

They walked with him into the living room and watched him leave.

Fedderman, talking to one of the techs over near a window, noticed Pearl and Quinn and came over. Even though it was warm in the apartment he still had on his wrinkled brown suit coat, and had his notepad stuffed in the coat's breast pocket behind where he had his shield displayed. He'd been taking notes. A stub of yellow pencil was tucked behind his right ear.

"Just a moment," he said, excusing himself.

Quinn knew where he was going, though probably there was no need. It was a professional obligation to call on Celandra Thorn.

Fedderman looked pale and somber as he returned to the living room.

"The bastard!" was all he said. Then, "Like the others. Leaving us nothing to work with."

"Someday maybe he'll drop his wallet with his ID and photograph," Pearl said.

Quinn wondered what was bothering her. He could understand her being sarcastic with that little prick Nift, but why was she riding Fedderman?

Still sobered by what he'd seen in the bathroom, Fedderman ignored her and pulled his notebook from his pocket. He flipped through the pages for a few seconds then stopped. "Victim's name's Cecelia Thorn," he said. "Acted under the name Celandra. A friend she had a breakfast date with came by to get her, found the door unlocked, then let herself in and found what was left of Celandra." He glanced over at Quinn and Pearl. "The name Thorn--"

"We know," Pearl said, cutting him off.

"We should have thought of it," Fedderman said. "It's right there in the note between the lines, just like thorns are between the roses. If you're thinking roses, you're a fool if you're not also thinking thorns. Like coffee and cream."

"Ham and eggs," Pearl said. "The Butcher is probably feeling pretty smart right now."

"The smarter he feels," Quinn said, "the sooner we'll nail him."

"Techs told me not to expect much in the way of useful prints," Fedderman said. "There are various ones around the apartment, but they're sure our guy wore gloves. No blood-work to be done, either. He drains them as best he can before he cuts, and whatever blood gets splashed or smeared around he scrubs away like an honest Dutch maid."

"So we've got zilch again," Pearl said.

"Not quite," Fedderman said. "A neighbor down the hall seems to be the last one who saw Celandra alive, in the elevator about six o'clock yesterday evening."

"According to Nift, that's just about the time she was killed," Quinn said.

"This"--Fedderman consulted his notes again--"Mrs. Ida Altmont was going out to walk her dog and stepped out of the elevator at lobby level when Celandra was coming in. They exchanged a few friendly words, then Celandra got in the elevator. The thing is, when the Altmont woman's dog was finished doing its business, Mrs. Altmont went grocery shopping, then stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee. Got back home about eight o'clock and saw a man leaving the lobby carrying a white box. He had on a gray shirt and dark pants, and she thinks he mighta been a deliveryman of some sort. Not much help on the description. Average height and weight. Dark hair, she thinks, but he was wearing a baseball cap. She remembered him because her dog growled at him even though he was over a hundred feet away, and the man looked what she called furtive."

Quill sighed. "Furtive, huh?"

"You don't often hear a witness say furtive," Fedderman said.

"He was carrying a box," Pearl reminded them. "The Butcher's gotta have something to lug around his cutting tools and power saw."

"And maybe an apron or change of clothes in case he gets bloody," Fedderman added.

"Let's canvass the building," Quinn said. "Make sure nobody got a delivery or had a pickup around eight last night."

"We've also got Debrina Fluor," Fedderman said.

Quinn and Pearl looked at him.

"She's downstairs in the unmarked. She's a dancer and friend of the victim, the one who let herself in and discovered the body. Pretty little thing."

"You go down and get her statement," Quinn said. "I'll tell the paramedics they can remove the body soon as the techs are finished here. Then Pearl and I will see what Ida Altmont has to say."