Mister X (18 page)

New York, the present

Pearl had been first to arrive and was alone in the office. A soft summer rain had begun to fall. It changed the colorful street scene outside the first-floor window from realism to impressionism. The light in the office was made soft by the wavering rain running down the glass panes. It was a light you could almost reach out and feel.

“It’s insane,” Pearl’s mother said over the phone.

Pearl squeezed her cell phone almost hard enough to break it. “I thought you’d want to know. You’re always so interested in my personal life, and now I’m changing my address.”

“To move in with the Yancy lizard. Not wise, Pearl.”

“It’s a decision of the heart, Mom. Like when you married Dad.”

“Heart, shmart,” her mother said. “Your father—and I still miss him dearly—and I were engaged for two years before we were married. Besides, it had all been arranged.”

“Well, I’m not married to Yancy, and anyway, marriages aren’t arranged anymore. At least not in this country. We’ve made progress in that regard.”

“You have noticed the divorce rate, Pearl?”

“But the murder rate among spouses has fallen,” Pearl lied.

“What does Captain Quinn think of this new living arrangement you propose?”

“I’ve told you, Mom, Quinn is no longer a police captain. And he doesn’t know about it yet.”

“I know in my mother’s heart—as do you in the heart of a dear daughter—that Captain Quinn would not approve.”

“So what?”

“So you are not heeding the opinion—which you know he has—of a man of the world who has sailed harsh seas and endured storms and developed a weather eye, and would tell you that over the horizon—”

“He doesn’t even know Yancy.”

“He knows many Yancys, dear. And their victims.”

“You haven’t met Yancy, either, Mom. How could you possibly know any of these terrible things about him?”

“I know those who know of him, Pearl. Word passes from mouth to ear, and the word is not good. Mrs. Kahn’s cousin’s son, himself not a young man with the highest prospects, has been in the Yancy lizard’s presence many times in the places where such people congregate, and Mrs. Kahn’s cousin’s son, once a psychology student at New York University until a so-called misunderstanding about purloined university property brought about the end of his scholarly pursuits, has seen and heard and has some insight into the Yancy lizard’s lies and deceptions and total lack of responsibility. He has seen the Yancy Lizard with women other than yourself, imbibing and laughing, and it would logically seem—”

“Mom, I’m not the only woman who goes into bars and imbibes and laughs.”

“And you would not be the only woman to fall prey to a reptile of the night and—”

“Gotta go, Mom. Police business.”

Pearl flipped the lid closed on the cell phone.

She could talk with her mother about personal matters only so long before snapping and saying things she’d regret. Pearl had learned not to let it reach that point. Not as often as before, anyway. And she hadn’t exactly lied about police business. She
was
in the office where, as of late, police business was conducted.

She was sliding her cell phone into her pocket when it vibrated in her hand.

She smiled when she saw that the caller was Yancy.

“Still love me?” she asked with the phone to her ear.

“If you’ll do certain things,” Yancy said.

“You know I will.”

“Then it’s a match. Did you mention to your mother you were moving?”

“I did. She isn’t happy about it. Isn’t happy about you and me.”

“She hasn’t even met me,” Yancy said in a puzzled voice.

“She thinks she knows you by reputation.”

“Nobody
knows
anyone by reputation. Introduce us, honey. I’ll win her over.”

“You can’t win over everyone you meet, Yancy.”

“Sure I can. She probably just heard something negative about me from someone jealous ’cause I’ve got you. Believe me, I can clear up any misunderstanding and change her mind about me.”

“She called you a reptile of the night,” Pearl said.

“Well, that’s nothing. Just a figure of speech. I can turn her around.”

Pearl saw one of the passing impressionist figures out in the street veer in toward the doorway, lowering and folding an umbrella. A figure tall, rangy, yet hulking. Quinn arriving.

“I need to go now, Yancy. Crime needs attention.”

“So do I, darling.”

“Yancy…”

“Always willing to step aside for crime. Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

Pearl slid the phone into her pocket just as Quinn was coming through the door. He nodded a good morning and shook water from his black umbrella before depositing it in an old metal milk container that had been pressed into service as an umbrella stand.

Pearl watched as he walked over and poured a mug of the coffee she’d brewed. He added powdered cream, stirred, sipped, made a face. It was all an act because she’d made the coffee. They both knew cops drank any kind of black sludge for coffee and it was all the same to them.

“Got those notes on our witness interviews from yesterday organized?” he asked, drifting over and settling in behind his desk.

Pearl went to her desk, got the folder of witness statements, and laid it on his desktop.

“I thought I might find Cindy Sellers and talk to her,” Pearl said. “I still think she’s a good bet to be our shadow woman.”

Quinn laced his fingers behind his neck and leaned his head back into them, moving his elbows back and forth and stretching. “Sellers is good at denying things,” he said.

“I’m good at seeing through fake denials.”

“You are at that.” Quinn looked closely at Pearl for the first time this morning. She was well put together today, dark slacks, light tan blazer, black hair brushed back to a knot at the base of her neck. He remembered how surprisingly long her hair would be when she loosed it from that knot. The way it would tumble to below her shoulders and close in an oval frame around her face, making her eyes look larger, softening her features.

“Quinn?”

She was still waiting for his response.

“Can’t hurt,” he said. “You might learn something while Sellers is lying to you. Go ahead and talk to her woman-to-woman.”

“Woman to piranha,” Pearl said.

Quinn figured she was waiting for him to ask which woman was the piranha, but he was too smart for that.

As she was going out the door, she glanced back and for just a second pursed her lips and arranged her features in what was unmistakably a kind of fish face. Knowing as she often did exactly what was in his mind.

Quinn pretended not to have noticed and started leafing through the material she’d placed on his desk.

He didn’t look up until he heard the door close. Mumbled something that might have been, “Piranha…”

Quinn thought Pearl had returned, but when he looked up he saw that Addie Price had entered the office. Her hair was damp from the rain, but its mussed condition somehow improved her looks. Her jeans and green tunic looked good on her, too. She grinned and wiped rainwater from her brow and said hello to him.

“Morning,” Quinn said. Then, “Sorry about your desk. It’s still on order.”

“That’s okay. I can continue doubling up with Fedderman for a while.” She crossed the room and then sat on the edge of Pearl’s desk, not at all the way Pearl habitually perched there. Addie’s lanky body looked more comfortable, maybe because her legs were longer than Pearl’s and one of her feet was flat on the floor. “Anything new?”

“Nothing,” Quinn said.

She straightened up. Her roomy tunic was damp and clung to her in front, and he wondered if she was wearing a bra. All that material, he guessed probably not. And with that coltish figure, she probably wasn’t much in the boobs department.

What am I, fifteen?

“I’ll continue to familiarize myself with what we have,” Addie said. Then caught herself. “If that’s okay with you.”

“It’s what I was gonna suggest,” Quinn said. “A fresh eye, maybe something will jump out at you.”

She walked around the desk and booted up Fedderman’s computer, then got some of the murder books from the file cabinet. Fedderman’s password was the same as everyone’s in the office and posed no problem. She sat down and busied herself, appearing to compare information in the files with what was on the computer. Looking for inconsistencies. That was so much of their work, Quinn mused, searching for inconsistencies. God knew there were a hell of a lot of those in the world.

After about half an hour, Addie glanced over at Quinn and caught him looking at her. She had to know she was attractive; she smiled as if she were accustomed to being studied by men.

Quinn smiled back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I’m used to seeing Feds sitting there. You’re an improvement.”

“That could be a sexist remark.” Still smiling.

“If you’re offended—”

“I know. I can go—”

“No, no!” Quinn laughed. “I was gonna apologize, is all.”

“Well, you might do that over lunch.”

He shot a glance at his watch. “It’s only ten-thirty.”

“I know. I thought we’d get our reservation in early.” Another nice smile. Something enigmatic about it. About her.

Quinn wasn’t sure what was going on. Was she coming on to him, or was his ego trying to convince him of that? It would be just like his ego, setting him up to play the fool.

“We could discuss the investigation,” she said. “A business lunch.”

“Okay. If you like Italian, I know a place we can walk to.”

“That would be nice,” she said.

“I’ll call and make the reservation,” Quinn said. “Noon okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Addie concentrated again on whatever she was doing on the computer.

Quinn knew Addie was a trained psychologist. Was she up to something? Probably she’d picked up that he was still halfway hooked on Pearl, even though it was no secret that Pearl was going out with this Yancy character. Was she trying to move in on Pearl?

Quinn rejected the thought. Male ego again. Most likely Addie was trying to get a line on him so she could manipulate him.

He looked over at Addie. She was glancing back and forth between the computer monitor and her open notebook, copying something with a stubby yellow pencil.

Quinn told himself not to be so damned suspicious of a woman who simply wanted to lunch with a colleague. After all, they did have plenty to talk over, and she was ambitious and eager to learn.

He called Pasta Paradiso over on Columbus and made a reservation for noon; then he got up and went into the wash-room near the table where the coffee brewer sat. After rinsing off his face, he looked at his bony, homely features in the mirror above the washbasin. He’d roughened as he got older, and didn’t see himself as a prize. It was unlikely that Addie was interested in him in a potentially romantic way. He combed his hair with his wet fingers and dried his hands on a paper towel.

After wadding the towel in a tight wet mass, he tossed it toward the wastebasket, telling himself that if it went in he’d be lucky the rest of the day.

It bounced off the metal rim and landed on the floor.

When Quinn returned to the office, Addie was still at Fedderman’s desk. A woman was seated in the client’s chair in front of Quinn’s desk.

He stopped in mid-stride and stared.

The woman was attractive, with dark hair and eyes, and looked like Tiffany Keller, who was dead.

Not again!

When he regained his composure and moved closer he saw that this woman was older, in her forties. There were fine crow’s feet at the corners of her brown eyes, and the beginning of that tendon tightness beneath the chin that happens to some women in their forties. Time touching lightly for now, exploring for vulnerabilities. Quinn’s quick assessment suggested to him that she’d probably be attractive all her life.

Her figure inside her two-piece blue outfit was trim. Her legs were shapely, and she wore medium heeled pumps. Dressed as if going for a job interview.

When Quinn approached, she stood up and managed a nervous smile. They shook hands. Her grip was cool and firm. Behind her, Addie was watching, interested. If she’d had antennae they would have been fully extended.

“I’m Erin Keller,” the woman said. “Chrissie’s mother.”

Quinn motioned for her to sit back down, then went behind his desk and settled into his swivel chair.

He held his silence, leaving it up to her to start the conversation.

“I’m aware that Chrissie hired you,” she said. Another tentative smile. “I’ve been following the case in the news, back in Ohio.”

“Then you know,” Quinn said. “We’re looking for Chrissie.”

“She left without any notice? Any indication of where she was going?”

“She simply dropped out of the investigation and our lives,” Quinn said. “Didn’t answer her cell phone or call, and checked out of her hotel.”

“There must have been a reason. There’s a reason for everything.”

“Is there?”

Erin Keller gnawed on her lower lip for a few seconds. “When Chrissie left Holifield, I wasn’t surprised. She’d won all that money. She was restless. And I’m afraid her desire to see her sister’s killer brought to justice became an obsession. I mean, with so much money she suddenly realized she could actually
do
something about finding the monster.”

“Easy enough to understand,” Quinn said.

“She said that since it was gambling winnings, and usually she didn’t gamble, it meant she was
supposed
to avenge Tiffany’s murder. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have won. It was her mission.”

“I can understand that, too.”

“I’m not sure I can. Whatever she accomplishes, it won’t bring Tiffany back. Or any of those other young women.”

Behind Erin Keller, Quinn saw Addie still sitting motionless, listening, her expression giving away nothing. Quinn saw that she was wearing tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. He’d never seen her with glasses before. It was as if she wanted to see everything possible that was going on between Erin and Quinn.

“After Chrissie left home,” Erin said, “I found some New York travel brochures in her room, along with copies of old news clippings about Tiffany’s…passing. You must know how I felt…feel about this.” Tears brimmed in her dark eyes. “Both my daughters. In a way, the monster claimed them both. Tiffany was tortured and killed, and now Chrissie’s disappeared…. Maybe it was meant to be. You know, twins, destiny…”

“That I don’t understand,” Quinn said.

And neither does anyone else.

Addie stood up, and Quinn thought she was going to comfort Erin. Instead she nodded to Quinn and quietly walked from the office. As if it had occurred to her that she might be eavesdropping on something personal.

More likely, Quinn thought, Addie had decided Erin might open up and reveal intensely personal information if she was alone with Quinn. Suspects could spill information like that when they got emotional.

“Even before I saw on the news what was happening here in New York,” Erin said, dabbing at her swollen eyes with a wadded tissue she’d produced from a small purse, “it wasn’t difficult to figure out where Chrissie had gone.”

Quinn stood up and walked around the desk. He patted the back of Erin’s cool hand. The blue network of veins was very near the surface. “It will be all right, dear,” he assured her. “We intend to find Chrissie, and to find Tiffany’s killer.”

“Before he finds Chrissie?”

It was a possibility Quinn so far hadn’t given much weight, but maybe he should. The killer—Maureen Sanders’s killer—might be searching for Chrissie as they were.

And vice versa.

Either way it was an explosive situation.

“Chrissie did strike me as a young woman who could look after herself,” he said.

Erin, still teared up, nodded.

Quinn went to the file cabinets. He withdrew the file of newspaper clippings Chrissie had given them and laid it on the desk where Erin could reach it.

“She brought us these,” he said.

He remained standing, and opened the file so the two of them could examine the contents.

“You’ve probably seen some of these before,” he said.

“Most of them,” Erin said.

She examined the file’s contents, idly turned the last clipping in the folder, and there was a sketch of Chrissie.

“That’s one of dozens of copies,” Quinn said. “We had that done by a police sketch artist. We’re using it to help search for her.”

“Her?” Erin Keller said, looking confused.

“Chrissie. For some reason she—”

“This woman?” Erin asked, placing a finger with a painted pink nail on the sketch.

Confused, Quinn nodded. “We think it’s a reasonably good likeness.”

“Maybe it is, but it isn’t Chrissie. This woman looks nothing like Chrissie. Or Tiffany.”

“She told us she and Tiffany were fraternal twins. They wouldn’t necessarily look anything alike.”

“My daughters are—were—identical twins.”

“They were…alike?”

“Identical means identical. Especially when it came to Tiffany and Chrissie.”

Quinn moved around the desk and sat back down heavily. He leaned backward in his chair and for some reason wished he could light up a cigar. But it wasn’t the kind of thing to do now, in front of Erin Keller.

Who the hell is our client?

“Whoever this woman is,” Erin Keller said firmly, “she isn’t Chrissie.”