Mister X (34 page)

As Quinn was parking the Lincoln across the street from the office the next morning, he saw Addie walking on the other side of the street. She was wearing blue slacks, a white blouse, and a tailored gray blazer.

He turned off the engine and sat for a moment admiring her walk, the play of leg and derriere muscle beneath the taut blue material. Half walk, half dance. Did women know what they had—really had—that was rooted in time and desire that went back to before the first scratches in the sand on some distant shore? The depth and timelessness of their simple but powerful magnetism reached through the ages with the power of ancient goddesses. It was a wonder more people weren’t killed as the result of passion gone wild.

It was a wonder there weren’t more Carvers.

On impulse, Quinn tapped the horn.

Addie turned and saw him and smiled, making the early afternoon brighter.

When she saw he wasn’t getting out of the car, she looked both ways and crossed the street toward him. Another symphony of motion. He pressed a button, and the window glided down.

“Going in to the office?” he asked, knowing it was an inane question. She hadn’t taken a leisurely stroll and happened to find herself right outside the building.

“I was,” she said. Her smile widened. “Am I still?”

“Depends on whether you’ve had lunch.” He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch. “It’s already five minutes to eleven.”

“Is this
Honk if you like the Early Bird Special
? Or is it work?”

“Some of each.”

She nodded and walked around to get in on the passenger side.

“It’s still cool in here,” she said. “You must have just arrived.”

“You were the first woman I honked at.”

“You must be hungry.”

He drove three blocks to Simone’s, a French restaurant that specialized in desserts. Scents from the kitchen teased the appetite. The tables were round and impracticably small, and there were polished wood partitions that lent privacy and created a maze for the servers. Silver and crystal glinted on white tablecloths.

“This is nice,” Addie said, glancing around. “Did you and Pearl come here?”

“Never,” Quinn said.

“Ah!”

She seemed to catch a meaning he hadn’t yet discerned.

A waiter arrived, poured water, and offered to take their drink orders. Addie stayed with water. Quinn ordered a coffee. Neither of them was really hungry, so they agreed to go straight to the desserts.

When the waiter returned with Quinn’s coffee, Addie ordered raspberry sorbet. Quinn chose the crème brûlée.

“I thought we might talk,” Quinn said, when the waiter was gone.

“That’d be nice.”

“About work,” he said.

“Only work?”

“No. But you never did weigh in on what you thought about setting up Ed Keller as a method of luring Chrissie. Or even whether Chrissie’s guilty of murdering in the manner of her twin’s killer in order to kick-start the Carver investigation.”

Addie didn’t hesitate. “I think Chrissie could well have killed Maureen Sanders precisely for that purpose. Sanders was a homeless woman. Chrissie might have thought she didn’t have as much value as other potential victims.”

“A less serious murder?”

“In some people’s twisted view.”

“But in Chrissie’s view? I’m not so sure.”

“Remember, Chrissie isn’t thinking straight. And if you were going to choose a victim for the purpose of attracting attention so you might find the person you
really
wanted to kill, what kind of victim would
you
choose? A woman with something to live for? Or someone like poor, homeless Maureen Sanders? Someone suffering on the streets, and who might not have lived much longer anyway.”

“Playing God.”

“We all do it sometimes,” Addie said. “In small ways and large.”

“But most of us know deep down we’re only pretending.”

“As Chrissie might, in unguarded moments.” Addie took a sip of water, little finger extended. “This is all supposing, of course, that Chrissie is a killer.”

“That she killed Maureen Sanders, at least,” Quinn said.

“As for there being enough hate generated by Chrissie’s history with her father, I agree with the NYPD profiler Helen on that one, too. That kind of hate can take total control of a person. I think Chrissie will go for him.” Addie took another sip of water. She left a crescent of lipstick stain on the glass’s rim that held Quinn’s attention.

Their desserts arrived, and he and Addie were quiet for a moment.

“Do you have everything set up at the hotel?” Addie asked, after a spoonful of sorbet.

“We do. And it should work, as long as Keller cooperates.”

“He will,” Addie said. “Partly because of his ex-wife’s instructions. She knows too much. He’s afraid of her.”

“Relationships never really end, do they.” It wasn’t a question.

“Never.”

Addie took another bite of sorbet. Quinn was fascinated by the pink of the raspberry melting against the red of her lips. She caught him watching, looked right into his mind, and smiled.

He was suddenly uncomfortable, perched on his miniature chair at a tiny table. He felt oversized and out of place, and trapped in a silence that badly needed to be filled.

“It’s something, what we do to our children,” he said. “The way it eventually comes around in pain and anger. It makes for a hell of a world.”

“Is this the part of our conversation not about work?”

He grinned. “I guess it is. On the other hand, maybe it’s what our work is all about. Especially this case.”

She used her napkin to dab at her lips and then surprised him. “You’re still in love with Pearl, Quinn.”

He sat for a while without breathing.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“It’s obvious.”

“Does Pearl know?”

“Oh, God, yes!” Addie sat back and waited for the question he had to ask.

Quinn didn’t disappoint her. “Does Pearl still love me?”

“Yes, she does. But she doesn’t know it. She’s in denial, just like you. Only her denial is deepened and complicated by the fact that she’s grieving.” Addie leaned forward and rested her fingertips lightly on the back of his hand. Her eyes held a depth of sadness that made him curious. “Whatever personal relationship we have has to take that into account, Quinn. Take Pearl into account.”

“Are we headed toward a personal relationship?”

“We both know we are. That’s how we came to be here.”

Quinn thought about that. He’d been the one to suggest lunch together, and not only for business reasons. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world.

“We need to be honest with ourselves,” Addie said.

“And careful.”
Am I ready for this? Do I really want it?

“That, too.”

“There’s a mutual attraction,” Quinn said, “but you and I can’t have much of a relationship.” His words seemed inadequate. They didn’t nearly express what he felt about Addie. The strengthening undercurrent of conflict and confusion that made him hesitate on the brink.

“I know,” she said sadly. “But we’ll wait.”

“For what?”

“To see what time permits.”

After a few more bites of sorbet, she stood up.

“I’ll walk back while you finish eating,” she said. “It’ll look better if we don’t arrive at the office together.”

“We have nothing to hide.”
How many times has every cop heard that?

Addie answered him with a smile.

“I’ll go,” Quinn said. “Stay here and finish your sorbet.”

“You finish it.” She bent down and kissed his cheek.

Her lips were still cool from the sorbet, but beneath the ice was fire.

“People really in love aren’t hungry,” she said, and walked from the restaurant without looking back.

Quinn sat and sipped his coffee for a while. He knew he was being worked. Oh, Christ, was he being worked!

Lunch with Addie had seemed like such a good idea, but it had made him uneasy. More tentative. He knew about how human experience was doomed to repetition. One fall after another.

When he closed his eyes he could almost see his toes hanging over the abyss.

He wasn’t hungry.

Lisa Bolt crossed the street toward her hotel, where she’d left her luggage after checking out. Surely they must have held it while she was in the hospital. She’d registered under another name, so they wouldn’t connect her with the Lisa Bolt in the news. But had the fact that she’d not returned for so long attracted suspicion? Would the hotel contact Homeland Security and have the suitcase treated as a possible bomb?

Lisa doubted it. The last thing a down-and-out hotel like hers would want is a posse of authorities searching the place with everything from metal detectors to dogs.

If anything, hotel personnel might have opened the suitcase to see what was inside—maybe to find out if there was something valuable. If that had happened, they had been disappointed. They’d have found nothing but Lisa’s limited and well-worn travel wardrobe.

She was about to enter the lobby when a hand gripped her arm just above the elbow, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

“Quiet and you won’t be harmed,” a man’s voice said.

She turned to look at who had her. A medium-height man, middle aged but trim, wearing dark dress pants, a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His eyes were barely visible behind darkly tinted glasses. They were steady and serious and made her a believer.

“I have a knife,” he said. “Start a fuss and I’ll use it.”

The way she was bent at the waist from the pain was attracting attention. A woman came close and asked in a concerned voice if she was all right.

“She’s fine now,” the man said. “I won’t let her fall again.”

He led her away, toward a narrow walkway that ran alongside the hotel. Shaded as it was by brick and stone walls that seemed to converge above them, it was dim as evening in the confined space. There were a few plastic trash bags piled there, and a Dumpster squatted in the light near the opposite end of the passageway. She knew there was a fire door somewhere along the hotel’s wall, but she didn’t think they were going inside. That didn’t seem to be what the man had in mind.

Though badly frightened, she tried to gather her courage.

“Listen,” she said, when he’d loosened his grip on her arm. “Don’t think you—”

His fist hit her ribs like a hammer, and she sagged against the wall.

“Don’t have any doubts about who’s in charge here,” he said. He leaned in close to her, supporting his weight with one hand against the bricks, his face inches from hers. As if they were lovers.

That was what anyone glancing in the walkway would see, a lovers’ tryst, away from crowded streets and prying eyes. Two people who wanted to be left alone by the rest of the world.

They stood that way for what seemed a long time while she managed to catch her breath. His breath smelled like a combination of onions and mint-flavored mouthwash.

“What the shit do you want?” she finally managed to gasp.

“That’s easy,” he said.

Quinn parked the Lincoln illegally in the same loading zone where he’d been parked when he’d seen Addie and called her over. His mind was still working on their conversation in the restaurant. Parsing words, reading meanings and messages that probably hadn’t existed. Trying to figure out how he felt.

He entered the office and caught a glimpse of Addie over by the coffee brewer, but he didn’t look directly at her. Fedderman was at his desk, going over something in a file folder. Pearl was seated at her computer, staring past it at Quinn. There was a gleam of curiosity in her eyes. Pearl sensing that something had shifted in some subtle way, but she didn’t yet know what, how, or why.

“Anything?” Quinn asked. His standard question.

“Nobody else has been murdered and had her nipples cut off,” Fedderman said. “That’s the good news.”

“And the bad news?”

“Everything else.”

Both women were silent.

“I had Sellers wait till tomorrow morning’s edition before planting the info about Keller’s presence in the city, and at the Belington,” Quinn said. “She promised to do it subtly enough that it won’t seem an obvious trap.”

“Can she bring that off?” Addie asked.

“She’s an artist at that kind of thing,” Quinn said. “She—”

He was interrupted by the door flying open and banging against the wall.

Lisa Bolt staggered in. Her left eye was swollen, and she was limping with one foot cocked out at an odd angle.

Fedderman jumped up and kept her from falling. He led her to his desk chair and sat her down.

Quinn had picked up the phone and was about to peck out 911. Lisa shook her head violently from side to side and held up a hand in a signal for him to stop.

He placed the receiver back in its cradle.

“I’m not hurt that bad,” she said. “Nothing’s broken. Not like the accident.”

But the way she was wincing and holding herself, it obviously pained her to talk.

“You’ve been beaten,” Quinn said.

She nodded and then whispered something no one understood.

Quinn moved closer and bent low so he could hear. She turned her head so her lips were close to his ear.

“Archer.”

“You mean Keller,” Quinn said.

Lisa shook her head no again. Her breathing was ragged. “He’s here in New York, been here a while, under the name Archer. You called him on his cell phone thinking he was in Detroit. He’s been
here
, and he must have found me somehow, maybe followed me from the hospital.”

Addie arrived with a glass of water and handed it to Quinn, who held it in front of Lisa. Her throat worked noisily as she took half a dozen swallows, spilling most of the glass’s contents onto her blouse. Quinn saw what might have been specks of blood on her blouse along with the water.

“Take your time,” he said, still holding the water close. “Tell us about it when you’re ready.”

She pushed the glass away. “He approached me on the street near my hotel. I didn’t recognize him at first, but Chrissie’d told me about him, shown me some of the old family photos.”

“You’re sure it was Keller?” Pearl asked.

“Yeah. No doubt about it. He’s been in New York trying to find Chrissie, and he figured I’d know where she is. He didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t know, so he tried scaring me into telling him. Then he tried to beat it out of me, kept hitting me and asking over and over.”

“You told him?” Quinn asked.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know Chrissie’s whereabouts. Still don’t know. Keller’s afraid that if she’s taken alive, not only will his dual identities come out, but so will his darker secrets. He’ll be professionally, politically, and personally ruined.”

She made a fish mouth and strained to move her head forward. Quinn tilted the glass so she could slurp down more water, feeling some of it slosh coolly over his thumb.

“I’m sure Keller intends to kill Chrissie,” Lisa said. “He has to. She’s the only eyewitness to what he did back in Ohio. He wants to short-circuit any investigation or testimony that will substantiate Tiffany’s childhood molestation.”

“Makes sense,” Fedderman said, giving Quinn a look.

Quinn didn’t have to be told. “While you were shadowing our investigation so you could get prior information to Chrissie, Keller was shadowing you so he could locate Chrissie.”

“Right,” Lisa said. “I knew somebody was tailing me, but I didn’t know who. It wasn’t a pro, so I ruled out anybody here, and Vitali or Mishkin. I wouldn’t have known I was being shadowed at all if it was someone like that. I also had no idea what my shadow wanted.”

“But now you do.”

“Yeah. I’m sure I always shook him; it was easy. And I never led him to Chrissie. He must have gotten frustrated and decided to confront me. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”

“Of course not.” Quinn patted her arm.

Lisa drew in a deep, harsh breath and braced herself with her hands on the chair arms. She stood up, swayed, and then remained steady. She smoothed her clothes, brushing futilely at the stains on her blouse.

“I had to come here and tell you,” she said. “I thought you should know about Archer putting one over on you.”

“Keller,” Quinn said.

“Whatever. Long as we’re talking about the same creep. Long as you know his real purpose is to see that Chrissie’s killed before she can talk about him. About the past. He’ll tell you he has her best interests at heart, that he wants to keep her safe. But he’s lying.”

“Everyone seems to be,” Quinn said. “Are you sure you don’t know where Chrissie is?”

Lisa’s blood-rimmed eyes met and held Quinn’s gaze. “I do not know.”

“And we believe you.”

She shuffled toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Addie asked in alarm.

“My hotel. Gotta rest.”

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Quinn said.

“I’ll be all right. Archer—Keller—finally believed me when I said I didn’t know where Chrissie was. In my job, I’ve been beat up before. I’d know if I was hurt bad. If I just get some rest I’ll be okay. Company’s the last thing I need.”

“We can’t force you,” Fedderman said.

Lisa managed a painful grin. “I always hear that, then damned if somebody doesn’t try.”

“If you say you’re not badly hurt, we’ll take your word for it,” Quinn said. “But at least let one of us drive you to your hotel.”

“No, I’ll take a cab.”

“We can call one.”

“They’re easy to hail down at the corner.”

Quinn knew that was true. Lisa could walk to the corner, and within minutes she’d be gone. “That address you gave the hospital,” he said, “it isn’t accurate.”

“I was afraid of whoever was shadowing me. It turned out I was right to be scared.”

“You surely were. What’s your hotel?”

“The Middleton Towers on Eighth Avenue.”

She made her way to the door, moving normally now except for a slight limp. She turned and smiled. “Thanks, all of you. And I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused you.”

A few seconds after she went out the office door, Quinn heard the street door open and close.

“Follow her, Pearl,” he said. “And do a fine job of it.”

“Always do,” Pearl said, and went to the door and then stood for a few seconds, playing out some time and distance for Lisa Bolt.

When Pearl was gone, Quinn phoned the Middleton Towers and asked to be connected to Lisa Bolt’s room.

The desk clerk told him there was no Lisa Bolt registered.

Quinn hung up the phone and gave a grin that was more of a grimace. “Is there no one in this screwed-up world who isn’t a liar?” he asked the room in general.

“No one,” Addie said.