Mister X (31 page)

Quinn told Pearl she should take some time off and pull herself together. He wanted her to wait until Yancy was buried before even thinking about returning to work. Of course she ignored his advice. She was at her desk the next morning.

Pearl was locked on.

Even the afternoon after Yancy’s funeral in New Jersey—paid for partly by Pearl but mostly by the Wind Power Coalition, as Yancy had no living relatives—Pearl came in to the office.

Quinn walked in and found her there, alone. They’d all attended the service and funeral. Afterward Vitali and Mishkin had left to tend to NYPD business for Renz. Probably they were filling Renz in on every detail of the attempt on Pearl’s life, up to and including Yancy’s funeral. Fedderman was reinterviewing Pearl’s neighbors to see if anyone had recalled some minor detail that might have major significance.

Fresh news, much of it inaccurate, would be in tomorrow’s
City Beat
as well as in the major papers. Cindy Sellers had been at the funeral, wearing a tight black dress accessorized with a small black digital camera. There had been no gathering after the funeral. Some of the mourners had gone on their own to an upscale Manhattan bar near Grand Central Station to drink and reminisce about Yancy. They were mostly men, expensively dressed, neatly groomed and with styled haircuts. If they weren’t staying in Manhattan they had trains to catch to upscale communities back in New Jersey or in Connecticut. Quinn didn’t know who they were. Neither did Pearl. Brother lobbyists, maybe.

The office was hot and damp, but Pearl didn’t seem to notice. Her world was internal. Quinn walked over and switched on the air conditioner. The metallic hammering began, and he slapped the side of the unit. The hammering noise remained, but it was softer, as if in respect for Pearl’s grief.

Quinn’s shirt stuck to his perspiring back as he settled into the warm leather upholstery of his desk chair.

Sitting slouched behind his desk, he looked over at Pearl. There was a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and above her upper lip. She’d stopped at her apartment, or brought clothes, and had changed from her funereal black dress into tan slacks and a white tunic gathered at the waist with a maroon sash. Her eyes were slightly puffy, but other than that there was no sign that she’d been crying disconsolately only hours ago in New Jersey. The funeral, Yancy, were part of the past now, on the continent. Manhattan was another place altogether, an island. A hunting ground more sophisticated than veldt or jungle, and every bit as deadly.

On a corner of Pearl’s desk was a lush floral arrangement Quinn remembered from the funeral home, though it hadn’t been transported to the gravesite. The mortuary must have given the cut flowers to Pearl, and she brought them here, where they should last about a week if she kept them watered in their pressed glass vase. Quinn wondered what Pearl thought when she looked at them. Was she fondly remembering Yancy, or using the sight of the flowers to stoke the fire in her heart so she could find his killer?

Quinn said, “You all right, Pearl?”

“Um.”

Apparently she didn’t want to talk.

The phone rang, and Quinn punched the glowing line button and picked up before Pearl had a chance to answer. He saw by caller ID that the call’s origin was Roosevelt Hospital.

“Quinn and Associates Investi—”

“It’s Fedderman, Quinn. How’s Pearl doing?”

Quinn glanced over at Pearl and caught her lowering her eyelids. She’d been staring over at him, curious.

“Okay,” he said.

“What I called for,” Fedderman said, “is Lisa Bolt is conscious.”

“Is she—”

“She’s slightly addled, but the doc says that’s natural and there’s no apparent brain damage. You know head injuries, how they bleed. It was bad, but not as bad as it looked. The rest of her’s about healed up, too. She’s in pretty good shape, Quinn, considering.”

“What about her tongue?” Quinn saw Pearl glance over again.

“It can wag at us this afternoon, if we don’t push her too hard.”

Quinn looked at his watch. “It’s afternoon now.”

“So it is.”

“See you shortly.”

Quinn replaced the receiver and stood up behind his desk.

“Want to go for a drive?” he asked.

Pearl looked at him with her puffy eyes. “Where to?”

“The hospital. Lisa Bolt is awake.”

A change came over Pearl’s features. Within seconds, grief had given way to a hardness and determination. “Let’s go.”

“You sure you’re up for this?”

“You sure you can stop me?”

“Actually,” Quinn said, “I’m not.”

As they were leaving, she turned back and lifted the vase of mortuary flowers. She deftly removed the tag and black ribbon without damaging a flower.

“For Lisa Bolt,” she said. “They might help make her more talkative.”

Quinn grinned at her with a kind of sadness. “Pearl, Pearl…”

“I can’t think of a better use for them,” Pearl said.

“Nor can I.”

Quinn put up the
BACK SOON
sign and locked the door behind them.

They got in the Lincoln, Quinn at the wheel. On the drive to the hospital Pearl was quiet, but he could feel the energy coming off her damp flesh like waves of high-tension electricity. It reminded him of the way you could put your fingers up close to a TV screen and see the individual hairs on the back of your hand rise.

Lightning stitched the gray summer sky, bright enough to hurt the eye even in daylight. Quinn wondered if it was a coincidence.

He lay in agony, the edge of the knife blade resting lightly on his chest. He’d thought he was in control, but it hadn’t turned out that way. The need had always been there, and now it was alive.

Unknown forces, driven by shame and guilt, were in control. He could see his fate moving like clouds across the ceiling.

This must not happen.

He should have known, should have been more careful, should have planned better.

Didn’t he think he’d someday reach this point?

“
Should have” is in the past.

The past that he’d thought was dead. That he feared so that it ruled his dreams. The past.

It must not happen again. It must not!

He had said the words aloud the first time to gather courage. Now he said them again, this time only in his mind.

I am a fool.

He applied the knife.

I must wash the sheets carefully.

Lisa Bolt’s hospital room smelled like Lysol and spearmint, as if it had just been disinfected by a cleaning lady chewing gum. Lisa was sitting almost completely erect in her cranked-up bed, her back propped against a pillow. She looked thin but surprisingly well. There was a flesh-colored strip of adhesive tape on the side of her neck. A beige turban was wound around her head, obviously to conceal a bandage. She was wearing light makeup but had her eyebrows penciled in as dark slash marks.

The nurse, who was middle-aged and looked like a gaunt, predatory bird, informed them that only two visitors would be allowed in the room. Quinn settled on himself and Pearl.

“Please keep in mind that she’s still weak,” the nurse cautioned Quinn.

“Of course we will.”

The nurse glanced at him from the corner of her eye and seemed dubious.

“These are for you, Lisa,” Pearl said with a smile. She placed the vase of flowers on an otherwise bare windowsill and deftly and lovingly adjusted the arrangement.

“Do you want some water?” Quinn asked Lisa, motioning with his head at the plastic glass and pitcher on the tray table rolled close to the bed.

Lisa kept her head on the pillow as she moved it slowly back and forth once to decline. Her head didn’t move at all as she looked at Pearl and then at Quinn.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. Her voice was raspy from disuse, or perhaps from the feeding tube that had been recently removed.

“We’re glad you’re alive,” Quinn told her.

“You owe us the truth,” Pearl said, pushing too hard too fast.

Quinn gave her a look, signaling her to ease up and listen for a while without butting in. She understood it perfectly, and he knew it. Both of them thought it was scary sometimes, the way they could almost read each other’s thoughts.

Pearl moved a step back from the bed as Quinn continued. “It is time for the truth, Lisa.” His tone was not at all threatening.

“I know,” Lisa said. She took a deep breath and swallowed, wincing as if it hurt.

“You’re sure about the water?” Quinn asked.

She nodded and then closed her eyes. “I’m trying to organize my thoughts before I tell you about this.”

“Of course…of course…we understand.”

“It’s as if I’ve been away on a trip.”

“Of course, of course…”

Lisa waited almost a full minute before beginning: “It started when Chrissie Keller came to my office in Columbus and hired me to see if I could somehow get her murdered twin’s case reopened. She told me about her slot-machine windfall and waved a lot of money at me. Enough to convince me to take her on as a client even though I thought there wasn’t a chance in hell I could reexamine the NYPD’s old investigation and find something that would get them to reactivate the case.” Lisa turned her head to the side, and her eyes teared up. “Since I didn’t think I could help her, I shouldn’t have taken her money. I know that.”

“I think it’s understandable,” Quinn said. “You were in business to make money, and someone wanted to hire you. That’s how it works in our occupation.”
We’re all in this together. Allies.
“Go right on with your story, dear.”

Lisa gazed up at him and managed a slight smile. Pearl could hardly stand watching this.

“I knew that to help Chrissie I’d have to be creative,” Lisa said. “I did some research and decided that since I wouldn’t have much pull with the NYPD, maybe I could sort of sublease the case to somebody who would have pull. Somebody like you. To do that, I’d have to be convincing, the way Chrissie was convincing with me. I struck on the idea of pretending at first that I
was
Chrissie, the surviving twin. Chrissie liked the idea.”

“And why not? It’s quite clever.”

Lisa signaled silently that she would like some water now, and Quinn helped her to take a few dribbling swallows.

That earned another smile from Lisa, as if Quinn were Father Teresa. “My job was to gain your trust,” she said in a somewhat revitalized voice, “and then shadow the investigation and eventually tell Chrissie who and where the killer was before the police got to him. That last part was important.”

Quinn understood why. Chrissie wanted to get to her sister’s murderer first. “She wanted to be ensured of justice. Her kind of justice.”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “Chrissie is consumed by a yearning to avenge her twin’s death. It’s almost as if she herself had been molested, mutilated, and murdered.”

“I take it you mean she feels that way…beyond the norm.”

“Far beyond. If there is such a thing as a norm in this kind of situation. She’s obsessed. You know how it can be with twins. It’s spooky, almost like two bodies sharing a common mind. And it doesn’t seem to stop after death. At least, that’s the way Chrissie sees it. And there’s something else.”

“Else?” Quinn said, wishing Addie or maybe Helen the NYPD profiler was present to decipher some of the deeper motivations floating around here.

“During the twins’ childhood, Tiffany was molested by her father. And whenever that happened, Chrissie was badly beaten where it didn’t show. Chrissie, of course, was confused and intimidated and did nothing about it. Nothing to help Tiffany. She feels extremely guilty about that.”

“When you say extremely…”

“Chrissie is driven by guilt and feels she can find redemption by locating, torturing, and then executing Tiffany’s killer.”

“So she’s using us to try to commit murder.”

“She wouldn’t call it murder,” Lisa said.

“I’m not sure I would either,” Quinn said. “But the way for us is clear: We’ve got to find and stop her.”

Pearl moved closer to the bed and spoke looking down at Lisa. “Do you think she might want her kind of justice so badly she’d kill in order to get to the Carver?”

“I do,” Lisa said without hesitation.

“You and Chrissie have been in touch?” Quinn asked.

“I have no idea where she is,” Lisa said.

Sort of an answer,
Quinn thought.

The door opened, and the nurse who’d allowed them access to Lisa Bolt entered the room. There was a smaller, younger nurse standing off to the side and behind her. The younger woman, who looked about twelve, was holding a rectangular metal tray containing a lot of rigmarole that included a large hypodermic needle.

“I’m sorry, but we think the patient needs to rest,” the older nurse said.

“Of course,” Quinn said. He started to pat Lisa’s hand and then saw all the bruising from intravenous needles. He patted her shoulder instead. “You rest now, and we can talk later. I hope you feel better having told us this. I know we’ve been heartened by seeing you awake and looking so much better.”

The older nurse, who knew bullshit when she heard it, pointedly moved out of the way so there was room for Quinn and Pearl to leave.

“Take the best care of her,” Quinn said, as he and Pearl edged past both nurses.

“We will indeed, sir,” the older nurse said. “It’s what we’re doing right now.”

Quinn smiled beatifically at the nurse as he held the door open for Pearl.

“Watch out for that one,” Pearl heard the older nurse say to the younger, as she and Quinn found themselves in the hall.

They walked a little way toward the nurses’ station and stood near a drinking fountain.

“You know we still can’t believe anything Lisa Bolt says,” Pearl told him.

“Of course not. On the other hand, maybe she’s had an epiphany. That can happen when you’re struck by a moving vehicle.”

“Or you can wake up in a hospital and be as big a liar as before you were struck.”

“That too,” Quinn said. He paused and felt at his shirt pocket, as if absently seeking a cigar. “Do you think whoever attacked you could have been a woman, Pearl?”

Pearl gave it some thought. “It’s possible. It all happened so damned fast. He—or she—was slender, maybe short to average height for a man, but damned strong. I’d guess an athletic, wiry man. But a woman…possibly.”

“Tiffany’s postmortem has her at five-feet-nine. Chrissie would be the same height.”

“Might fit. I never saw whoever killed Yancy stand up straight, so I could only guess within several inches either way.”

“And madness, obsession, gives people strength,” Quinn said.

You should know,
Pearl thought.

They were quiet for a moment as a trio of nurses bustled past.

“Lisa Bolt’s going to be out of here soon,” Pearl said, “and she needs to be watched.”

“Your job and Fedderman’s,” Quinn said. He laid a hand very lightly on her shoulder, as if concerned that she might drift away like a balloon, and looked down into her eyes. “How are you doing, Pearl? Really?”

“I don’t want you worrying about me.”

She was determined not to let Quinn find his way back into her affections by way of her grief for Yancy. She didn’t think he’d do that deliberately, but it sure as hell could happen. She couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t trust herself, so she had to play it tough.

“But I do worry, Pearl. I can’t help it.”

“And I can’t help it if you do,” she said. “So worry away. Just don’t involve me.”