Free shrugged. “No more voices. No sound of any kind. I carried my book into my bedroom and went to bed and read myself to sleep.”
“You weren’t curious or concerned about what you’d heard?”
“Not at the time. Like I said, the man didn’t seem angry. He might even have been telling Millie she deserved something good that had happened to her.”
Quinn doubted that.
“Can you show me your office?”
“Of course.” Free unwove her meshed fingers from her knee and stood up. Quinn followed her down a short hall and into a room about ten by twelve. The word organized sprang to mind. A computer was set up on a wooden stand. Broad wooden shelves supported a printer/copier/fax machine, and neat stacks of books and magazines. Most of the books were mysteries, and some were on forensics and blood analysis. Several were on firearms. On a wall was a framed paper target with six bullet holes clustered around the bull’s-eye.
“That’s my score from the police target range out on Rodman’s Neck.”
“You’re a gun enthusiast?” Quinn asked, somewhat surprised.
“I’m a gun writer and editor of Firearms Today magazine and blog. I’ve given expert testimony in court.”
Quinn didn’t know quite what to say, and it showed.
“That’s okay,” Free said. “It often takes people a while to process that.”
Quinn grinned. “Yeah. To be honest, I was more prepared to see a gun with a violet sticking out of the barrel.”
“Oh, that’s not a bad idea, either,” Free said.
“Are you the renowned sixties liberal who got mugged?”
“No, I grew up on a farm in Iowa. My dad hunted and plinked and got me interested in guns when I was a kid. I stayed interested. Simple as that.”
Quinn walked over and laid his hand on the back of a leather recliner set precisely in a corner. “Is this where you were when you heard the voices between ten and ten-fortyfive?”
Free nodded.
He glanced at the apartments’ common wall. There was a small louvered vent near the baseboard, painted the same light beige as the wall.
“Were you picking up sound through that vent?” he asked.
“Mostly.”
Quinn gave a final glance around.
“Anything else you recall?” he asked. “Sometimes talking about one thing triggers another.”
“I’m afraid not this time.”
Quinn wandered back into the living room and Free followed. He thanked her for her time.
At the door, he paused and turned. “You’re sure of his words.”
“Yes. ‘You deserve it.’”
“Anything else?” he asked again. You never knew.
Free smiled. “Wanna share a joint?”
Quinn’s face gave him away. She had him.
“Just kidding,” she said.
“I knew that.”
“Yeah, you did. But I was just thinking how I know a lot about guns, and somebody gets murdered next door with a knife.”
“Funny world,” Quinn said.
“Not so funny.”
“You just offered a cop a joint.”
“Nobody laughed.”
“Peace,” Quinn said.
As Quinn waited for Fedderman to meet him down in the building’s vestibule, he thought that if they needed to talk to Free again, he’d send Pearl.
8
Quinn, Pearl, and Fedderman were in the office later that day when the door opened and an emaciated- looking man in his forties burst in and stood swaying. He was average height and dressed in dirty gray pinstripe suit pants and a jacket that almost matched them. His white shirt was yellowed, his tie loosely knotted and layered with stains. His shoes were scuffed and one of them was untied. He made Fedderman look like a clotheshorse.
The man steadied himself by resting one dirty hand against the wall and said, “Quinn.” His gaze roamed redeyed around the room.
“You’re drunk,” Pearl said. “Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m drunk, asshole, but I’m not going nowhere till I find Quinn.”
“I’m here and I’m found,” Quinn said. He stood up and moved around his desk, peering at the man. From the corner of his eye he saw Fedderman also stand, in case the obviously inebriated visitor started trouble.
“I’ll asshole you,” Pearl said, and came up out of her chair.
Quinn raised a hand and she stopped. Something was going on here beyond a drunk finding his way through an unlocked door.
The man removed his hand from the wall, leaving a dark smudge, and stood almost humbly before Quinn.
“I know you,” Quinn said. “Jerry Lido.” He saw again the young, uniformed cop standing frozen by fear against a brick wall, watching a child burn.
“I didn’t wanna come here at first,” Lido said. “Wasn’t sure what was gonna happen. Were you gonna listen to me or beat the shit outta me?”
“I’ll listen,” Quinn said. He wasn’t sure how to feel about Lido. He abhorred what the man had done-rather not done. On the other hand, how could he not feel sorry for him? Quinn had suffered debilitating guilt because he hadn’t at first seen the infant in the car seat. What had guilt done to Lido?
“I don’t feel like I deserve a chance,” Lido said, “but here I am anyway.”
“Why?”
For a few seconds Lido looked as if he was wondering that, too. “You mighta heard I got interested in computers, got good at using one.”
“I heard you were a genius at using one, sometimes illegally, but you were too smart to get caught.”
Lido chanced a rueful smile. “Too smart to admit it, too.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “So why did you look me up?”
“I saw in the paper what happened to Millie Graff,” Lido said. He writhed slowly as he spoke, as if suffering great internal pain. “Wanted to do something about it, so I read all about the case in the news. Then talked to some guys I know who are still in the NYPD. Then I set to work with my computer. You’re looking at a man who don’t have shit, Quinn-except for my tech equipment. I spent every dime I begged or borrowed on that, and I can work it like I’m conducting an orchestra. You wouldn’t believe-”
“Let’s get to the point, Jerry.”
Lido moved farther into the office and was standing near Pearl’s desk. “I worked the Net, learned something about Philip Wharkin. You gotta-” As he spoke he gesticulated with his left arm and knocked Pearl’s empty coffee mug off her desk. It bounced loudly on the floor but didn’t break.
“Clumsy alky!” Pearl said, her temper flaring. She stood and reached over her desk, shoving Lido backward.
Lido knocked her hand away. “Don’t you ever goddamn touch me, you pussy cop!”
Pearl was around the desk, after Lido. He used his arm to sweep everything from her desktop onto the floor; then he snarled and went at her.
Pearl didn’t back up. Lido swung at her and missed. Pearl started to punch back, but Quinn had both her arms
