would be better than okay if she had somebody steady. Somebody who cared about her.
She could learn to care about him.
I could learn…Stupid attitude.
Her smile faded, and for an instant her blue eyes did flash panic. Perhaps that was her problem, why men left her; her desperation shone through. Thirty-eight and alone in New York-scary. Then again, she knew there were millions of unhappy Midwestern housewives who'd give up their drudge lives in a New York minute for her situation.
Independence! Wa-hoo! She told herself, Quit being such a wimp.
She put on a sapphire pendant with a long silver chain that formed a V so her neck looked longer, her face thinner. Then she unfastened the top button of her blouse to reveal a suggestion of cleavage that wasn't there.
She wasn't a wimp. She was doing just fine, sticking in the big city, date with a guy like Jeff, living the life unlike the one she would have led back in Fort Taynor, Arkansas.
She'd thought she'd gotten rid of her southern accent completely, but Jeff had picked up on it right away and said he found it charming. Some of the other women in Loiter, the lounge where a crowd younger than Ida hung out, had glanced with envy at her, seeing her with Jeff. He was easily the best-looking man in the place, and he hadn't come in with a bunch of leering buddies whose goal for the evening was to score. He was nicely dressed in a dark blue suit that looked expensive. He was even the kind of guy who wore cuff links.
Nobody back in Fort Taynor wore cuff links.
She fumbled trying to fasten the clasp on her knockoff retro wristwatch, and almost dropped it when the intercom buzzed.
Ida squinted at the watch's tiny face. It was difficult to make out the time without her reading glasses.
Almost seven o'clock. Jeff was early. If it was Jeff.
She gave a final try to engage the miniature latch of the watch's silver-plated chain, and smiled in surprise when she was successful. A good omen? She hesitated, considering slipping into her high-heel pumps, then padded in her nylon feet toward the intercom. If it was Jeff, she'd have enough time to put on her shoes while he was coming upstairs.
A final glance in the mirror behind the sofa.
She winked at herself and whispered, 'Hot!' Letting her tongue show.
Believing it a little.
As she moved toward the intercom, her gaze roamed around the tiny apartment, hoping it was neat enough, clean enough.
Being judged. Always being judged.
She pressed the button and tried to sound casual and sexy. 'Who's there?'
'Jeff Davis.'
Ida decided to hold her silence and simply buzz him in. Not make herself seem too interested and available. Too eager.
Be cool. Like he is.
As she struggled into her shoes that for some reason seemed too small, she imagined him standing in the elevator, rising to her floor.
One of her toenails that needed trimming cut painfully into the toe next to it.
Damn it! Feet swollen again. Should have taken a water pill.
The left shoe wasn't completely on, and she almost turned an ankle, as she hurried to answer his knock.
5
Renz was true to his word. Always a bad sign.
He'd found them office space on West Seventy-ninth Street, not far from the two-oh precinct on West Eighty-second. It had been used as a child welfare reporting center until the city budget had forced its closure. On one side of the old brick building was a dental clinic, Nothing but the Tooth. Renz had laughed about that one over the phone when he called to send Quinn to the address, thinking it a riot that a cop shop should share the building with a dentist with a sense of humor. Quinn didn't think dentists should joke about their work.
The entrances to the two office suites faced each other across a cracked concrete stoop, three steps up from the sidewalk. Quinn and Fedderman didn't know what the dentist's digs looked like, but their 'suite' consisted of two adjoining rooms and a half bath. Gluts of truncated cable and smaller wiring protruded like weird high-tech vegetables out of the hardwood floor, Quinn guessed for phones and computers. Ghastly illumination was provided by dangling flourescent fixtures.
'We'll get you desks and stuff tomorrow,' Renz had assured Quinn.
That had been two days ago. Quinn and Fedderman were still working out of Quinn's apartment, or sometimes the claustrophobic room Fedderman had rented in a residence hotel in the Nineties.
They were in Quinn's den today, the contents of the murder files arranged in something like chronological order before them on the floor. Quinn was seated in his desk chair, which he'd rolled out from behind the desk, leaning out over the mess on the carpet with his elbows on his knees, gazing down like God at His miscreants. Fedderman was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He'd become almost bald on top, his graying hair too long on the sides and curling over his ears. His pants were wrinkled, and his brown suit coat was wadded in a chair. Fedderman had no respect for clothes. They didn't like him, either. He was tall and narrow-shouldered, and nothing seemed to fit his thin, awkward body, with the potbelly and abnormally long arms.
'What we know,' Quinn said, 'is both victims were brunettes, in their thirties, attractive though not raving beauties. They both were drowned before they were butchered. No signs of sexual activity. No semen found in the bodies or anywhere at the scenes.'
'Probably untaped after death,' Fedderman said. 'He wouldn't want them splashing all over the place in the bathtub while he was holding them under.'
'And he took the used tape with him.'
'Neatnik,' Fedderman said.
'Trauma to the heads of both victims before death.'
Fedderman nodded and nudged one of the morgue shots with the unpolished toe of his brown shoe. 'Sequences probably the same. No indications of forced entry into either apartment. So he's let in, whaps them in the head, and undresses them and tapes them up while they're unconscious. Then he carries them into the bathroom and places them in the tub. He makes sure the stopper's engaged and turns on the water.'
'That's probably when they come to,' Quinn said.
Fedderman thought about that. 'Yeah, the cold water. Then they realize where they are, the fix they're in. Jesus!'
'When the water's high enough, he turns it off and drowns them,' Quinn said.
'Thank God for that, considering what comes next.'
'He wouldn't let them just sit there and drown. Their heads would be too high, anyway, and he wouldn't want them struggling, even taped tight like they were. They'd still be able to splash around some. Maybe work loose the tape over their mouths and make some noise.'
'So he holds them under,' Fedderman said.
'Then, when they're dead, he removes the tape and uses the tools he's brought with him to start carving.'
'Ignores the knives in the kitchen?'
'Has so far.'
'Must have brought his tools in a box or a bag of some sort.'
'Uh-huh. Maybe somebody noticed. Something to check.'
'Gets together all his cleaning agents first,' Fedderman said. 'Before he starts to carve. No blood in the kitchen. None in the cabinets where the stuff would have been kept.'
'Yeah, sounds right. He uses the shower curtain to protect the floor, so he won't be walking or kneeling in
