Serial (34 page)

The office was warm but dry, and not much street noise filtered in from outside. Expectancy charged the air like high-tension electricity.

Quinn was waiting until Fedderman had arrived before going into detail for Vitali, Mishkin, and Pearl.

Fedderman entered the office and glanced around. “So where’s the suspect?”

Quinn looked at Fedderman’s eyes.
He’s joking, but he’s locked in
.

“You said on the phone you had something interesting,” Fedderman said. “I figured there’d been an arrest.”

“You seem pissed off,” Pearl said. “Is there some personal reason you didn’t want to come in a little early this morning?”

Pearl and her antenna, Fedderman thought. But then it didn’t take a genius to know what was going on. Penny was attractive.

Quinn, knowing what Pearl was thinking, smiled over at her.

Damned Quinn!

Fedderman walked over to the coffee brewer as if he hadn’t heard what Pearl said. He poured himself half a cup and added cream. Stirred with one of the plastic spoons.

Everyone waited patiently until he came back to join them. He leaned with his haunches against the edge of a desk. The four of them were perched that way, like birds on a wire. Quinn, behind his desk, was the only one actually seated.

“Late last night,” he said, “a thirty-year-old woman named Jane Nixon came home alone from salsa dancing at a place down the block from where she lived. She unlocked her apartment door and started to go inside. That’s when a man approached and shoved her all the way in, then followed her into the dark apartment and closed the door behind him.”

“Our guy?” Fedderman asked.

“That’s my guess,” Quinn said. “He made sure the door was locked so she couldn’t get out in a hurry even if she reached it, then he came toward her carrying what she called ‘a curvy little knife.’” Quinn looked at his four detectives in turn. “This all happened within seconds. But while she’d been stumbling across the room after he shoved her, Nixon, who still had her hand in her purse after returning the keys when she unlocked her door, also had her hand near a small canister of mace she always carried.”

“Tricky Nixon,” Vitali said.

“Our assailant thought he had her cowed, and right where he wanted her. He was surprised when she waited till he was close, and then suddenly shot mace into his face from about a foot away. He got a snoot full.

“She spun and ran into the bedroom, and he made toward the door to the hall. He could still see well enough to get outta the building while Nixon was calling nine-one-one.”

“What about Jane Nixon?” Pearl asked. “She get a look at him?”

“Not a good look. She was close when she let fly with the mace, and some of the stuff got in her eyes, too. She was half blind when the uniforms arrived at her apartment.”

“Unhurt so far, though,” Vitali said.

“Physically, she sustained only a small knife cut on her forearm.”

“Poor thing’s probably still scared stiff,” Mishkin said.

“She’ll be scared for a while,” Quinn said.

“The knife sounds right,” Fedderman said.

“Everything sounds right,” Quinn said. “Right, and then fortunately interrupted.”

“Did anybody see this sicko flee the premises?” Vitali asked.

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “We got a cab driver picked up a guy near Nixon’s apartment building in the right time frame. A blind man, no less, wearing dark glasses and bumping into things. No seeing-eye dog or cane, just blind faith. Cabbie said he drove the fare to an intersection near Central Park and left him there.”

“He left a blind man near Central Park at night?” Fedderman asked.

“There are big apartment buildings on the other side of Central Park West, facing the park. The cab driver figured his fare was gonna enter one of them. The guy also gave him a line of bullshit about wanting to make it the rest of the way home by himself, so he’d feel self-reliant and useful.”

“A man with pride,” Vitali said.

“Those were the cabbie’s exact words. So he drove away and left the guy.”

“Smartest thing he ever did,” Fedderman said.

“Or luckiest,” Pearl said.

“He said he did glance in the rearview mirror when he was a little way down the street. The blind man was cautiously crossing the street, relying almost entirely on his sense of hearing not to be run down by some hard-charging motorist.” Quinn looked at his detectives and didn’t see optimism. “Nixon was raped six years ago and picked out her attacker from a lineup. The man she falsely accused got out of prison less than a year ago on new DNA evidence. He’s all alibied up.”

“Too bad Nixon didn’t get much of a look at her attacker,” Pearl said.

“She did say she thought he was average height and build. The word
average
came up a lot.”

“It always does,” Fedderman said.

“What about our guy Link Evans?” Vitali asked. “He was starting to look good for it.”

“Different story. His wife in Missouri said he was at a big numismatic convention in Denver.”

“That’s coin collecting?” Vitali asked, to be sure.

Quinn nodded.

“In point of fact,” Mishkin said, “he might collect other kinds of money, Sal, not only coins.”

Vitali glared at him, still intolerant from his confinement in the car with Mishkin. “What the hell does that mean, Harold?”

“Bills. Paper money…”

“No. ‘In point of fact.’ What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“In this case it means he was lucky,” Pearl said.

“Not exactly,” Quinn said. “Seems there is no coin show in Denver. Hasn’t been one there in weeks.”

Focus narrowed. Attitudes changed immediately.

Pearl stood up away from her desk. “We’ve got him.”

“Not yet,” Quinn told her. “And not for sure. We still can’t be positive he’s the Skinner.”

“Maybe
you
’re not positive,” Pearl said, “but I—”

The door banged open, and Jerry Lido came stumbling in.

One lapel of Lido’s wrinkled sport coat was twisted inside out. His stained paisley tie was loosely knotted and flung back over one shoulder, as if he was battling a strong headwind in an open-cockpit plane. He needed a shave, and his eyes were reminiscent of stuffed olives.

“Don’t you look like shit,” Pearl said.

“Been busy,” Lido said, shuffling his feet with nervous energy.

Pearl could smell the gin. She knew Quinn must, too. “Been at the bottle?” she asked.

“Just enough to straighten me out so I could come over here,” Lido said. “I been at the computer.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “I found out a couple of things.”

“I told them about the nonexistent Denver coin convention,” Quinn said.

“Found something other’n that,” Lido said. “Link Evans took a flight out of Kansas City two days ago, not to Denver, but to Philadelphia.”

“So Denver was a feint,” Vitali said.

“He rent a car in Philly?” Pearl asked.

“No,” Lido said. “But he coulda taken a train right into New York City. It’s an easy commute, and if he paid cash for his ticket, there’s no way to check.”

“Security tapes,” Pearl said.

“Maybe. But that might take weeks. Months, even. And they might’ve missed him, or had a bad camera angle. You know security cameras.”

Pearl did.

Quinn slowed Lido down enough to tell him about last night’s attack on Jane Nixon.

“Okay,” Lido said, still vibrating. “That dovetails. I think Evans trained into New York, and he paid Jane Nixon a visit. Then, after spending the night in New York, it was back to Philadelphia.”

“Or somewhere nearby,” Pearl said.

“I checked his round-trip ticket,” Lido said. “He’s due back in Kansas City at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

“We can meet him when he comes through security,” Quinn said.

“Call the K.C. cops,” Vitali said.

“You’re thinking like you’re still NYPD,” Fedderman said. “Besides, we’ve gotta be certain about this guy.”

“If he gets a whiff of cop, he’s gonna go underground and we might never get him,” Vitali said.

“Pearl and I will fly to Missouri and meet him in Edmundsville when he comes home,” Quinn said. “I want to talk to the wife before he gets there, be sure of our facts so we don’t make asses of ourselves.”

“If he’s the Skinner,” Pearl said, “wifey will know. She might not have admitted it to herself yet, but she’ll know. And when she does admit it, we can be sure.”

She smiled faintly at Quinn. Quinn and Pearl, thinking alike again.

“Get on the phone or Internet and get us airline tickets to whatever’s closest to Edmundsville,” Quinn told Pearl. “Let’s see if we can get into a motel near there to use as our base, then drive in early tomorrow morning and talk to the wife before hubby arrives.”

“I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for his chances,” Vitali said.

Mishkin said, “I bet he knows exactly what one of those is worth.”

Hogart, the present

Mathew Wellman was eating chocolate ice cream. He would spoon it into his mouth with one hand, and with the other manipulate the mouse and keyboard of Westerley’s computer. With Westerley’s permission, and charge card, Mathew had added to the computer memory chips and apps and features that Westerley not only had never heard of but still didn’t understand.

Bobi had soon developed a liking for young Mathew and brought him snacks from time to time, even on days when she wasn’t working.

Westerley sat at his desk and observed Mathew, marveling at how his gooey fingers danced. The sheriff couldn’t see what was happening on the monitor because of reflection, with the sun angling in through the bamboo window treatments Bobi had bought. They softened the light somewhat but didn’t keep it out.

After a while, Westerley voiced what he’d been wondering. “Is all this tech wizardry—which I heartily admire, Mathew—actually getting us somewhere?”

Mathew didn’t answer until he’d swallowed the ice cream he’d skillfully transferred from bowl to mouth.

“’Es, sir,” he said, swallowing. On the return trip to the bowl, his spoon dribbled chocolate onto his blue Stephen Hawking T-shirt. Westerley had broken his rhythm.

“Where?” Westerley asked, somewhat surprised.

And Mathew Wellman proceeded to tell the sheriff everything that Jerry Lido had told Quinn and Associates.

When Mathew was finished talking, Westerley sat for a while thinking over what he’d heard.

He stood up and put on his Sam Browne belt, and the leather holster he wore on his right hip. Then he adjusted with movements of long habit the rest of the gear that was affixed to and dangled from the belt. The tools of his profession.

“Call Bobi and tell her I want her to come in,” he said. He smiled. “You’re doing a great job, Mathew.”

Mathew beamed.

Westerley got his Smokey hat from where it hung on a wall hook. “If anybody needs me, I’ll have my cell phone turned on. I’m gonna be at Mrs. Evans’s house.”

“I’ll tell Bobi, sir.”

Mathew watched Westerley go out the door and then observed through the window as the sheriff strode toward his SUV. He walked kind of neat, Mathew thought, with the uniform and thick belt across his back, and all that paraphernalia dangling from his belt. Holster, cell phone with GPS, key ring, leather notepad holder, telescoping billy club. Handcuffs, even.

Going to Mrs. Evans’s house.

Mrs. Evans
, Mathew thought with a smile. Was that kind of formality supposed to fool anyone? Not that Mathew blamed Westerley. He’d seen Mrs. Evans and thought she was hot.

Mathew called Bobi Gregory and then viewed some porn from Sweden on the Internet. He could cover his tracks with a few clicks of the mouse when he saw Bobi coming. And what he was doing should be safe, considering he was using the sheriff’s department’s computer.

Sweden usually meant blondes. Mathew liked blondes.

New York, the present

Quinn and Pearl’s plane lifted off from LaGuardia at six o’clock that evening. The closest airport to Edmundsville was St. Louis’s Lambert International. From there they could rent a car, wend their way to Interstate 70, and drive west out of the St. Louis area.

In mid-Missouri, they could stay at a Hampton Inn just off 70, and in the morning drive less than an hour to reach the Evans house. If they left the motel about nine-thirty, they should easily arrive well before Link Evans. Evans’s flight touched down at ten o’clock, and his drive from the Kansas City airport to home was slightly farther than theirs, leaving them plenty of time to talk to Beth Evans before her husband got home.

The flight from LaGuardia to St. Louis seemed longer than it was, maybe because of the infant in the seat behind Quinn that somehow kept managing to touch cold and sticky miniature fingers to the back of his neck. While they were deplaning, the kid looked over at Quinn from his mother’s arms and grinned, as if they shared a secret: There were people, and then there were people who plagued them, and that was that.

Quinn and Pearl traveled with only rolling carry-ons. As they made their way through the crowded terminal to where they could rent a car, Quinn said, “That kid behind us was driving me nuts.”

“She was great,” Pearl said. “She didn’t utter a peep.”

“How do you know it was a she?”

“Could have been the pink dress.”

As they rounded a corner to leave the secure area, Pearl’s rolling suitcase bounced over Quinn’s toe. He was pretty sure she’d done it on purpose.

The drive toward Edmundsville was better than the flight to St. Louis. Their room was reserved at the motel, so there was no hurry. The sky was cloudless and tinted a deep purple. Though the day had been warm, it was so pleasant now that Quinn felt like putting down the Ford Taurus’s windows. He didn’t, though, knowing Pearl would complain about her hair blowing all over the place. She had no idea that he thought she was sexy with her hair all tousled by the wind. Or maybe she did know that, and she figured he was the one who’d made it clear that this was a business trip, so let him yearn.
There were people….

The motel was so well kept it looked as if it had been built yesterday, even though the architecture was a couple thousand years old. It had tall fluted columns that looked like the entrance to a Greek temple, with cars parked outside instead of chariots.

They checked into a room with a king-sized bed—Quinn’s idea—then rolled their suitcases along a long hall toward an elevator to the second floor.

“I noticed they serve breakfast,” Quinn said. “Means we can stay in bed pretty late tomorrow in case we don’t get much sleep.”

“Why would we not get much sleep?”

“We might be busy in a carnal way.”

“You would think that,” Pearl said.

“You’d be surprised what I might think,” Quinn told her, as he used the key card to unlock and open the door on only the fourth try.

The phone was ringing as they entered the room and deposited their suitcases on the bed. Quinn cursed inwardly. This didn’t bode well. Not that Pearl seemed to be getting in the mood. But then you never could tell about Pearl.

Quinn snatched up the receiver, thinking he’d hear the voice of the desk clerk downstairs checking to make sure everything was to their satisfaction.

Instead he heard Fedderman: “Things have changed, Quinn. Lincoln Evans’s flight tomorrow was canceled, so he booked another for this evening. He’s in the air now. He’ll change planes in Pittsburgh and will arrive in Kansas City at nine-thirty tonight.”

“Which means he’ll get home about ten-thirty.”

“Roughly,” Fedderman said.

Quinn glanced at the multifunctional alarm clock night-light sleep timer radio on the dresser. “It’s almost nine o’clock now.”

“That nine-thirty is central time,” Fedderman said, from far away in the eastern time zone. “Just so there’s no mistake.”

“We’re in sync,” Quinn said.

He felt a stirring deep in his hunter’s heart. It was all coming at them fast now, the way it sometimes did. Any damned thing could happen, and they had to be ready.

“One other thing,” Fedderman said. “Tom Stopp really does have a brother, and his name is Marvin and he’s in California, writing for TV and the movies. Or struggling to, anyway. He’s got a sister Terri, too. Beautician, unmarried, likes the ladies.”

“Thanks for the confirmation, Feds.”
So much for that
TS
possibility—if Tanya Moody actually
did
scrawl those two letters in blood.
“Call me on my cell if anything else happens. We’re gonna be on the move.”

“Good luck, and whatever else you can use.”

Quinn placed the phone’s receiver back in its cradle. Pearl was standing by the window, staring at him now instead of at the swimming pool below, knowing the game had unexpectedly changed. There was a special intensity in her dark eyes. He doubted it had anything to do with motel sex.

“We’re checking out,” Quinn said. “We’ve got more driving ahead of us tonight.”

He explained to her about Fedderman’s phone call.

Without having unzipped their suitcases, they got them down from the bed and headed for the door. They didn’t talk as they rode the elevator down. Their minds were already an hour’s drive away and on a dozen things at once. The endgame did that to people.

They didn’t bother checking out. Probably it was done automatically tomorrow anyway. The clerk had already run the company charge card.

As they rolled the suitcases across the lobby’s tiled floor toward the exit, Pearl said, “There goes that free breakfast.”

She didn’t sound as if she cared.