said. 'Spelling out Quinn's name, he's finishing what he started, and he chose a victim with Quinn's birthday so we wouldn't have any doubt about what he's doing.'
'And so we know he's in control,' Quinn said. 'Moving us around like pawns.'
Pearl did some deep breathing, feeling her rage at Nift dissipating now that she had something else to occupy her mind. The person she should be mad at, the killer. 'You really figure that's what this is about?'
'It's at least a possibility,' Fedderman said.
'We all know when we can be positive,' Quinn said.
'She did have pretty good boobs,' Nift called from the bathroom.
Pearl started toward him, but this time Fedderman held her back.
'Ignore the little prick, Pearl. He just wants to get to you. We've got other things to think about.'
They both knew what Quinn had meant. There was little doubt that the killer knew how to spell Quinn's name: with two Ns.
13
Manhattan was like a kiln that had been shut down, but only temporarily and not for long. It was another morning already uncomfortably warm because of yesterday's heat still permeating the city's miles of concrete. Day after day, the heat built pressure. Off in the distance a siren wailed, bemoaning the meteorological injustice of it all.
'There was never much doubt he was jerking our strings,' Harley Renz said. 'We just didn't know how hard and how many strings.'
They were in Renz's office at One Police Plaza, where it was at least cooler than outside. The office was small and looked as if it had been decorated by Eliot Ness. An old Thompson submachine gun was displayed in a glass-fronted case on the wall behind Renz's desk. Also on the wall were framed certificates and awards Renz had accumulated through wile or war; a photo of him shaking hands with the mayor; another, older, photo of the two of them on a dais in a similar situation. In that one the younger, less saggy-faced Renz was holding up his right hand as if about to inhale from a cigarette he was smoking, only the cigarette had been airbrushed from the photo, leaving Renz looking like he was signaling someone somewhere that the number was two.
Quinn, seated between Pearl and Fedderman before Renz's wide desk, glanced around and noted that everything in the office was either functional or laudatory, no doubt exactly the impression Renz wanted to project. Quinn recalled that he'd never been here when there wasn't an open file with some fanned papers on Renz's desk, as if he'd just been interrupted while pondering a case. This time maybe he really had been pondering, because the file was the autopsy report on Florence Norton.
'The killer must have gone to a lot of trouble to find a victim who shared Quinn's birth date,' Pearl said. Renz was important enough to have an office with a window; light shone through the blinds and illuminated her black hair as if it were a raven's wing.
Renz said, 'Our guy's resourceful, like you people are gonna have to be in order to catch him.'
Pearl didn't figure there had to be a reply to that.
'Did the lab find anything he left behind on this one?' Quinn asked. He noticed something new on Renz's desk, a small silver picture frame propped at an angle to face the chair where Renz sat. Quinn knew Renz was unmarried and had no children. He wondered who or what was in the photo, or whatever the silver frame contained. Maybe a romantic interest.
Renz swiveled a few inches this way and that in the brown leather chair while he shook is head no. 'Forensics has got nothing to work with. Nothing left behind but death. Our sicko is pathologically neat.' He stopped swiveling and leaned forward in his chair; fitted small, rimless reading glasses onto his nose; and surveyed the Florence Norton file's contents. 'Postmortem indicates this one died by drowning, like the others. Sucked in almost half her bathwater. She was dismembered by a knife or knives, a hatchet or cleaver, and the same or a similar saw used to sever those joints too resistant for smaller cutting instruments.'
'Power saw?' Fedderman asked.
Renz nodded without looking up. The reading glasses picked up the light from the window and made him appear owlish and scholarly. 'Same as with the other victims. Kind of saw you'd buy at Home Depot to build your deck.'
'Ah,' Fedderman said. Pearl couldn't imagine Fedderman building a deck without cutting off at least a finger.
'The cleanser found on Florence's body parts,' Renz continued, 'was Whoosh, a common dishwasher detergent. The empty plastic container was found on the floor behind the commode. A bottle of carpet cleaner, also empty, and devoid of prints like the Whoosh squeeze bottle, was lying on its side in the hall outside the bathroom. An empty bleach container was in the kitchen, its cap in the sink. Apparently all three cleansers and purifiers were used, the dishwasher detergent last. Our neatnik makes do with whatever's at hand.'
'All these containers wiped?' Quinn asked.
'Signs of wiping. Also signs that the killer wore rubber or latex gloves.'
'Consistent with the other crime scenes,' Pearl said.
'What else is consistent,' Renz said, removing his reading glasses and tucking them in his shirt pocket, 'is that we've got nothing to work with.'
'We can be pretty sure he'll be looking for another N victim,' Fedderman said. As usual, one of his white shirt cuffs was unbuttoned and dangling, the shirt's arm too long for his coat sleeve. Fedderman unconsciously buttoned it as he spoke. It came immediately unbuttoned.
'Which leaves us with a question,' Renz said. 'How much should we tell the media?'
'What they're going to find out anyway,' Quinn said, 'which is everything. The more information that's out there, the more it's liable to shake something loose.'
'And we have an obligation,' Pearl said.
'Obligation?' Renz seemed puzzled as if by some foreign term.
'To warn dark-haired women with last-initial Ns that they're in particular danger.'
'Don't they already know that?' Renz asked.
'Not all of them. And not how much danger.'
Renz looked inquisitively at Quinn. The sun glanced off his glasses again, giving him the same owlish expression.
'Pearl's right,' Quinn said. 'We've got an obligation to warn them. This psycho finishes what he starts, and he's going to finish spelling out my name.'
'We've gotta make damned sure they're warned.' Pearl pressing her point. Maybe too hard, judging by the expression on Renz's face. She knew she had the reputation of getting too passionate about her cases, sometimes losing her cool. She glanced at Fedderman for support.
'Sure,' he said daringly.
'It's the politically smart thing to do,' Quinn said, coming to Pearl's rescue, 'as well as the right thing. That combination happens seldom enough you oughta take advantage of it, Harley.'
'Now you're talking sense,' Renz said. 'I'll issue a press release making it clear that the Butcher's next victim will likely be a brunette between twenty and fifty with a surname beginning with N.'
Pearl smiled, pleased. If most New York women hadn't already heard or caught on, by this time tomorrow they'd be in the know. Brunettes all over the city would be going blond.
'What about the birth date?' Fedderman asked.
'Let's not mention it,' Renz said. 'There's no guarantee the killer will use it again, and it might cause women not born on Quinn's birthday to be complacent.'
Everyone agreed that made sense.
As they stood to leave Renz's office, Quinn made a thing of maneuvering his chair back into some kind of alignment. It enabled him to sneak a look at who or whatever was in the silver frame on Renz's desk.
It was Renz.
