Slaughter (22 page)

 

F
ran came in early the morning of a doubleheader that was going to be played because of an earlier rainout. Downtown St. Louis was still snoozing, as were most of the suburbs. But Fran knew that within a few hours, parking space would become a rare commodity, and expensive when you parked anywhere near the stadium.

She'd left the car near the double-wide where she and Willie lived and taken the Metro downtown.

By the time she was walking the short distance from the Metro-link stop to Busch Stadium, the slight drizzle had ceased, as the weather wonders on every TV channel had predicted, and the low gray sky had become blue. Probably, Fran thought, the temperature would reach ninety-five degrees, as predicted, and the sun would be blasting away most of the day. Baseball fans approaching and leaving the stadium would want bratwurst, which would make them want beer or soda, which would make them want bratwurst. A vicious, profitable circle.

Fran picked up her pace and smiled. It was going to be a good day; she could feel it. She could take the register, spelled now and then by Willie or Henry. The new kid, Pablo, could work the kitchen. The Happy Brat was the kind of restaurant where no table service was expected. Alcoholic beverages could be ordered at the counter and would be brought tableside, but customers served everything else to themselves. To eat here or to get food to go. It always impressed Fran to see how many people liked to eat and drink while they walked.

Multitaskers, Fran thought. That was okay with her, as long as they paid and didn't make a mess of the public sidewalks.

As she rounded the last corner before reaching the Happy Brat, she saw that the lights were on inside, from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures. They cast a ghastly glow, adding age and angst to everyone inside. But it was summer and it wasn't dark outside now. The night had been chased away, but recently. The diner shouldn't yet be open. The notion that something might be wrong stirred in Fran, but she dispelled it. Henry had closed the diner last night, and had most likely simply forgotten to switch off the fluorescent overhead fixtures.

She was pleased that the red neon open sign in the window was off.

Fran realized her heart was banging away and told herself to slow down. Nobody was burglarizing the diner. Maybe Pablo had overslept again and Henry was getting a jump on things in the kitchen. It wouldn't be the first time. She could smell the scent of the bratwurst rotating over the open oven, the special sauce crusting on the meat.

At least she thought she could smell it. She did have a powerful imagination when it came to food.

She saw now that someone, probably Henry, wearing a white shirt, dark pants, and a dark apron, was working in the kitchen, visible through the window and beyond the serving counter pass-through. Henry, all right. Or maybe the kid. Certainly not Willie. He was still home in bed, breaking the sound barrier with his snoring.

Or was he? He might have beaten her to the diner, if he'd left the double-wide right after she had.

The red neon bratwurst sign was still off, and most of the light in the diner was coming from the fixture in the kitchen, directly above the sink.

When Fran opened the door, the figure at the sink had his back to her, wearing the white and black outfit with the apron. He either heard or sensed something.

As Fran stepped inside, he turned.

The kid. Pablo.

 

 

When Pablo turned and saw her, his expression didn't change for a few seconds. Then he forced a smile.

“Where's Henry?” she asked.

“Still asleep.”

“What about May?”

He looked confused.

“Your wife,” Fran reminded him.

“Yeah. She's still asleep. I couldn't sleep, so I decided to get some brats ready to go. You know, for early customers.”

“I don't know,” Fran said reasonably.

Pablo turned away from the sink to face her squarely. She saw the knife in his right hand. What looked like blood was on the blade.

“We need some buns,” he said. “We've got plenty of brats, but we need buns.” He placed the knife on the sink, wiped his hands on a towel, and removed his apron. “I'll go see if I can find some.”

Fran decided there was no sense in arguing. Let the kid get out, get some fresh air in his search for buns.

She stepped around him, looked at what was on the cutting board, and recoiled. Her eyes were huge and horrified. “My God! What are you doing?”

“Nothing, really!” he said, backing away. Pablo had picked the knife back up. Time seemed to have solidified. He was the only thing in the diner moving.

Henry opened the door and came inside. His shirt was untucked and his hair was still wet and slicked back from showering. He glanced around. “What've we got going on here?” he asked.

“Good question,” Fran said.

Pablo noticed the others were staring at the knife, and he tossed it backhanded so it fell clattering behind the burners on the stove.

“What are you cutting there?” Henry asked calmly. He stepped toward Pablo, then to the side, and stared at the cutting board. “That what I think it is?”

Pablo couldn't prevent a frightened smile that quickly disappeared as he regained control.

“It's a rat!” Fran said in a horrified voice. “My God, he's carving up a rat!”

“I got it here, in the kitchen,” Pablo said, as if that explained everything.

“This is a diner!” Fran said. “A restaurant!”

“That's how the rat saw it.” He actually sounded sincere.

Henry glanced again at the carving board on the sink. “What were you gonna do with that?” he asked in a calm voice.

“I was just . . . looking at it. Studying it.”

“Studying a rat?”

“They do that at Harvard,” Pablo said.

Henry shook his head. “This ain't Harvard. You ain't Jonas Salk.”

“Jonas who?”

“Salk. He found a way to fight polio.”

“Who was polio?” Again he seemed serious.

“Don't play dumb,” Fran said. “Like we're supposed to believe you just happened to find that rat in here.”

“You can believe what you want,” Pablo said.

“Okay. You're a medical doctor doing cancer research.”

“You got it first try. Now, I'm gonna leave here. Anybody tries to stop me, I'll have to tell them about that rat. How I found him in the corner by the stove.”

“Maybe you're not so dumb,” Henry said.

Fran walked behind the counter and scooped a handful of bills from the cash register. She placed the money on the counter where Pablo could reach it.

“Take that,” she said. “All of it. And then leave us the hell alone.”

Pablo kept his eyes on her as he picked up the money and stuffed it into a side pocket of his jeans.

“Now go someplace else where they'll believe you and your so-called wife are Mexicans.”

“Gracias, señora,” he said, patting his bulging pocket.

He backed out of the diner, almost falling as he spun in his worn-down boots and ran away.

Fran walked to the door, held it open, and watched as Pablo—or whatever his name was—joined his wife, May, or whatever her name was.

They cut across a level stretch of bare earth that would, within about four hours, become a parking lot. Then they both turned to look back. May waved at Fran, looking as if she might be smiling. Then they disappeared into downtown St. Louis, where Cardinals fans, and Cubs fans from Chicago, would soon be roaming the city streets, looking for new places to eat lunch, or find that bar or restaurant they'd been to during their last trip to St. Louis. Some of them would recall the delicious bratwurst served at a neat little diner not far from the stadium, in an area soon to be developed by the city.

“Better wake up Willie and give him the bad news,” Fran said.

Henry said, “I best get rid of that rat, first.”

When he went to the sink and got a better look at the rat, he was surprised by how neatly it had been carved and partially skinned by Pablo. The incisions were neat and precise, as if the kid had studied medicine and at one point wanted to be a surgeon. When Pablo worked at the grill, he always wore a do-rag, knotted at the corners so it made a sort of skullcap. Henry had assumed it was to keep his hair out of his eyes and out of the food. But he'd glimpsed the kid's ear once, when he had the do-rag off and was splashing cold faucet water on his face to cool down in the heat. He remembered the kid's right ear. It looked something like Dr. Spock's ears in
Star Trek
.

It took only a few seconds for Henry to figure out what he should do about the events of the morning—which was nothing. No way was he going to let anyone find out about the rat on the cutting board in the Happy Brat. Henry would tell no one. He might have been born yesterday, but it wasn't at night.

He lifted what was left of the rat by its tail and dropped it into a plastic bag, then put everything else on the board down the garbage disposal.

“I'll go drop this in the trash, then go wake up Willie,” he said to Fran. “You think we should tell him about the rat, and what the kid said?”

Fran said, “I don't see why we should. It would just give him something else to worry about.”

“That's for sure,” Henry said.

 

Q
uinn felt a helplessness about Dora Palm's death that he hadn't felt after the other murders. It wasn't that the severing of body parts and removal of internal organs was that much more vicious and sadistic than the other murders. It was more of a wearing-down process. Quinn knew his patience was getting thin.

In a case like this, where the investigation seemed to go nowhere, there came a time when the strain reached its breaking point. The killer was aware that he could stretch his good luck only so far, then something he overlooked, or some little something that was supported only by a mass of lies and an alternative reality, would finally give. He would be tripped up, and he knew that moment would someday come, had been getting closer all the time.

Quinn knew that some part of the killer's mind yearned for luck that would see him through, and at the same time he wanted something out of his control that would end the suspense. In glory and gunfire, it would end. And no one would ever forget what the Gremlin had done.

No one would ever forget the Gremlin.

 

 

The public would eventually forget what Quinn had done. Who remembers who arrested Son of Sam? Or Ted Bundy? The age of tech didn't help as often as it upset balances. Computer mice were clicked. Buttons were pushed. Digital blood was spilled. It all confirmed that death and murder could be reduced to a game. And even if the players were acutely aware that their luck, good or bad, couldn't run forever, who was afraid of a game?

Quinn felt about that the same way he knew his quarry felt.

As if a noose were around his neck, and tightening.

This game was going to end soon, along with someone's death. It must end that way. Both men understood that. Someone's trust would be misplaced, or an informant would whisper in the wrong ear. Or someone's will would break. Someone would have to die.

To help make sure he wouldn't be the one, the NYPD photography director carefully selected enlarged backgrounds and photos.

The photographs of what was left of Dora Palm looked as if they'd been taken by someone with more than mediocre skill with a camera. Still, they would accomplish their purpose, which was to encourage Minnie Miner to cooperate with the law. Minnie was glad to give Quinn a few minutes to describe any progress on the Gremlin case, and to answer a few questions. Quinn gave her the questions.

Minnie, who had been in Renz's office when Quinn arrived, gave Quinn a baleful stare and asked him if Renz had known about the use of her program,
Minnie Miner ASAP,
to help lay a trap for the Gremlin.

“Maybe,” Quinn said with an enigmatic smile.

But it was smile enough for Minnie, which is how Quinn came to find himself on her early call-in TV show the next morning.

This was one interview, Quinn knew, that would have to go right.

Not like the few, dream-filled hours' sleep he had last night worrying about it.

A
fter the round of applause for Quinn, Minnie let the callers talk about the Gremlin investigation. Quinn sat in one of the big easy chairs angled toward the audience, and Minnie sat in the other.

She made a big deal out of using Quinn's clout so they didn't have to reveal the questioners' names. For safety's sake.

“This man looks friendly,” Quinn said, about the composite rendering of the Gremlin on the big screen centered on the wall behind the easy chairs. Quinn wished he had a laser pointer. “He isn't. He's thirty-five years old. He was released from detention in Louisiana recently because some DNA in sperm found near a young girl's dead body had been contaminated and so couldn't be matched to his, as the prosecuting attorney had pointed out over and over to a grand jury. It was also confirmed that, while the grand jury had thought him guilty, they had their reasonable doubts about whether he should be indicted and tried in criminal court. Not only would the judicial process be futile, it might be unfair to the defendant.”

“We could use fewer of those cases of mistaken identity,” Minnie said. She raised a hand palm-out. “I don't mean we should railroad people, just that we get tough with the real criminals. The violent ones.”

There was a great deal of applause from the studio audience.

“We're trying,” Quinn said. He continued to lie about the sprung prisoner in Louisiana, who didn't exist except as a ploy created by Quinn. “The Louisiana defendant was released, though the jury made it clear they thought he did the crime. They were also sure that with the compromised DNA evidence, he would probably not be found guilty. In the court of public opinion, he would become a victim.

“A range of other expert witnesses were called,” Quinn said. “But they couldn't prove beyond some people's idea of a reasonable doubt that the defendant was in any way implicated in what could have been an extremely unfriendly separation, like so many others wherein both parties became losers.

“The prosecutor didn't know it, but he was a pawn in a small game inside a large game.

“Here's the thing,” Quinn said, leaning forward in his chair. “This woman had been raped and killed, and now the law can prove it. And if it weren't for contaminated DNA, there wouldn't have been a chance in hell of the suspect escaping punishment. All of you know, or think you know, that he's beaten the justice system. All of us also know that sometimes the justice system isn't enough, and that's because we subscribe to the idea that it's better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison, or even execute, an innocent man.” Quinn looked directly at the camera. “This refusal to bring an indictment will be appealed.”

Knowing all the time that an actual appeals court would never act on this matter. It couldn't, without an actual potential defendant.

 

 

“We did good,” Renz said to Quinn later, in Renz's office.

Quinn's gaze slid over the wall festooned with framed photos of Renz receiving medals, winning awards, posing with celebrities.

“We only did half a job,” Quinn said.

“Now don't go getting all wishy-washy, Quinn. We put a dagger through the heart of whoever it was who's trying to ruin my political career. You might be able to make it look like we solved your case.”

“We solved nothing,” Quinn said. “Not for sure, anyway.”

Renz shrugged his meaty shoulders. “I'm suspicious of that word, sure. What the hell's for sure in this life or the next?”

“I'm sure I'm the lead investigator on this case,” Quinn said.

“In a way.”

“In a way that might have got my brains shot out.”

“Prepare to be shocked, Quinn: I don't care a rat's ass about who gets shot or who's guilty.”

“Speaking generally, what about the hypothetical guy in a jail cell who's innocent?”

“He's just that—hypothetical, not real.”

“You're all politics and games,” Quinn said.

Renz shrugged. “You forgot heart.”

“No,” Quinn said, “I didn't.”

Renz was now occupied in making sure his expensive pen was working well so his signature would be unbroken and impressive. He was way, way beyond inkblots.

Quinn felt anger rise in him, along with a kind of pressure. He absently reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out a cellophane-wrapped cigar that he'd been given earlier as a kind of harmless bribe involving Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Harmless bribe?

Renz raised a pudgy hand. “You can't smoke cigars in here.”

“I have before, just like you.”

“We've got rules, regulations.”

“Laws,” Quinn added. He lit his cigar, drew smoke into his mouth, and exhaled. All with a stare fixed on Renz.

“Look at yourself,” Renz said. “You're no different from me. It's just that you won't admit to yourself that you're like the rest of the world. You are definitely not the type who wouldn't jaywalk even if there wasn't a car for miles. Just look at you.”

“We're dealing with rape, torture, murder.” Quinn said. “Not jaywalking.”

Renz smiled, his jowls spilling bulbously over his white shirt collar.

Then he leaned sideways and opened a desk drawer. He withdrew a yellow envelope with its flap fastened by a clasp. “And then there's this.” He laid the envelope on the desk where Quinn could reach it.

Quinn worked the clasp and opened the envelope. Its contents were photographs. A dozen eight-by-tens in black and white.

“These are copies, found hidden in Dora Palm's kitchen.”

Quinn looked closer at the photos. They seemed to be of the same scattering of pieces, large and small. “What the hell is this?” he asked Renz.

“They were found by the crime-scene people when they did their deep search. And don't give fingerprints a thought.”

“Wiped?”

“No, but the killer was wearing latex gloves.”

Quinn looked more closely at the photos. Whatever had been found torn to pieces in the dead woman's kitchen didn't look very familiar. “So what was it, a blender?”

“Some kind of coffeemaker that uses compression, so it forces the grounds through a filter.” He pointed. “There's the handle. The way it's shaped, that glass part, is what makes it look like a filter.”

“Our gadget guy again,” a voice said.

It belonged to Nift, the Napoleonic little ME.

“My secretary let you in?” Renz asked.

Nift smiled his oddly reptilian smile and stuck out his pigeon chest. “I charmed her.”

Neither Quinn nor Renz knew how Nift had sneaked or lied his way into the office. But they were sure he'd entered of his own accord. Otherwise Renz's receptionist /aide would have called and alerted Renz that someone was on their way, in case Renz or a guest wanted to maintain privacy and leave by the rear exit.

The rear exit was a way out of the building, supposedly secret, that almost everyone knew about. If the news was hot enough, media types would have someone posted to see if anyone of any consequence was sneaking out. Those with something to hide usually fabricated stories authenticated by friends or lovers. Or by the police, who didn't like to be one-upped in the media.

If they didn't remember that secrets known by more than one person were no longer secrets, people who should have heeded the old adage would often get tripped up. The relationships between the criminal world and cop world involved people knowing secrets about people with secrets.

People forgot that, even though it was no secret.