some of Pickett's books. Sam told him he could read any or all of them without asking, only had to put them back when he was finished.
Sherman soon understood why Sam knew so much about the Civil War, because that was what most of the books were about. Some of them looked so old they might have been written during the Civil War. Sherman got to know all about William Tecumseh Sherman and some of the other famous generals and other personalities on both sides of the great conflict. And he learned about the battles, how sometimes their outcome turned on little things, like which troops needed boots and shoes, or maybe on the weather that might turn open fields into deep mud that mired down troops and made them easy to slaughter with artillery. Death meant something in the Civil War, Sherman decided. Every death.
The Civil War became Sherman's obsession because it was Sam Pickett's obsession. And Sam became like a father to Sherman-at least the closest thing to a father Sherman had ever known.
Once when he was lying quietly in the warm dark and listening to Sam and Myra talking in the kitchen while they drank beer, Sherman heard Sam remark on how uncommonly smart Sherman was for a boy ten years old, how quickly he caught on to things. That was news to Sherman. He heard his mother say that was news to her, too.
Sherman just lay there in the night, smiling, while they drank more beer and changed the subject.
Sometimes, years later, he'd lie in his bed in the dark and recall that conversation and smile. He might drift off to sleep while mentally re-creating that long-ago time and Sam Pickett.
It truly had been a great summer.
For a while.
20
New York, the present
It was beginning to feel like a recurring nightmare to Quinn. Here he was again with Pearl and Fedderman in an apartment crowded with cops and techs, the bleached stench of death and dismemberment made somehow obscenely sanitary. More and more he was asking himself the question cops asked when they'd seen too many dead bodies: What was the value of life, if it could come to this?
'I wish we didn't have to look at this one,' Pearl said, probably thinking the same thoughts as Quinn.
'Want me to check with the uniforms, then the neighbors, as usual?' Fedderman asked Quinn.
'Go to it, Feds.'
Fedderman gratefully disappeared from the apartment.
Quinn eased past two techs who were diligently dusting and tweezering, then made his way down the short hall to the bathroom. Pearl was right behind him.
There wasn't much room for both of them in the bathroom, so both stood in the doorway looking in. Nift the ME was bending over the tub. An empty detergent box lay on the floor near a plastic bleach bottle. The box proclaimed in bold text that the soap contained bleach. A lot of bleach here, Quinn thought, but the smell of corruption somehow seeped through to lodge in the nostrils and lie like a dull taste on the tongue. He swallowed and only made it worse.
'Jesus!' Pearl said in a hushed voice behind him.
'No, only me,' said the smart-mouthed little ME, still facing away from them. He'd known they were there. He duckwalked aside slightly in his crouch, maybe to allow them to see the severed head of Marilyn Nelson lying on top of her bone-white crossed arms. Marilyn was staring back at them with an expression of alarm, as if they'd interrupted her in an intimate moment, which in a manner of speaking they had. Quinn wished Nift would close her eyes.
'This one is really a shame,' Nift said, probing pale dead flesh with a bright steel instrument.
It wasn't like him to show anything other than callousness or dumb wit toward his job. Was he developing human feelings? Sensitivity?
'They're all a shame,' Pearl said.
'Yeah, but this one especially. You put all the pieces together, at least in your mind, and she was built like a sex machine.'
'Dr. Frankenstein Nift,' Pearl said in disgust.
Nift glanced back and up at her. 'Frankensteen!'
'This one like the others?' Quinn asked, trying to head off a verbal confrontation, not to mention more mundane drivel.
'In almost every way that matters,' Nift said. 'Looks like the same kind of cutting instruments, then the same draining and immaculate cleansing of the body parts. She's stacked-no pun intended-in the same ritualistic way. Adhesive residue indicating that tape was recently removed from her wrists and ankles, as well as from across her mouth. I can't say for sure before the postmortem, but my guess would be death by drowning. Then chop, chop. And just as in the other cases, the killer left the bathroom cleaner than my wife ever could.'
Pearl stared at him. 'You've got a wife?'
'I was speaking metaphorically.'
Quinn gave Pearl a warning look. He knew how she felt about Nift and didn't want her going ballistic at a crime scene.
'You said this one was like the others in almost every way that mattered,' Quinn pointed out. He knew that Nift liked to put off whatever of value he might have to say, savoring the suspense and then the moment.
'I meant that mattered to the victim,' Nift said.
'How about what matters to us detectives?'
Nift appeared to give the question some thought. 'C'mon in all the way so you can get a closer look,' he said. 'Just you, not the cop with the curves.'
Pearl showed admirable restraint, clamping her lips together.
Quinn moved farther into the bathroom, unconsciously holding his breath against the ungodly stench, and saw for the first time that the victim's wet and slicked-back hair was blond. That must be the difference Nift had referred to, what mattered; the other victims were brunettes. And there was something stuck to Marilyn Nelson's left cheek, a few inches in front of her ear. At first Quinn thought it was a dead insect. He leaned closer and saw that it was a clipping of dark, curly hair.
'That what I think it is?'
Nift smiled. 'Uh-huh. Dark pubic hair. Not a clipping, though. The follicles are still attached. These hairs were yanked out, then placed on her cheek on display. The victim was a dyed blonde.'
Quinn leaned closer to examine the blond hair. 'It would figure, but I don't see any dark roots.'
'That's because it's a very recent dye job. She's a brunette.' Nift chuckled. 'Take it from me, I checked.' Nift shot a look back at Pearl. 'Wish I coulda checked when she was alive.'
Pearl had her jaws clenched so tight in her effort to remain silent that Quinn thought she better be careful or she might break a tooth.
He straightened up, leaving Nift down in a crouch to finish his preliminary postmortem.
But Nift also stood up. He had on his creepy smile. 'Know what I think that display of pubic hair means, Quinn?'
'What it might mean,' Quinn said, 'is that our killer who prefers brunettes was acquainted with the victim well enough to know she wasn't a real blonde.'
'No might about it,' Nift said. 'He wouldn't have killed her in the first place if he didn't know she was actually a brunette-his type. I think he knew this one personally.'
Pearl had to admit to herself that Nift had a point, but she still maintained her silence, biting down on her anger and fierce dislike for the nasty little ME. If she started in on him…Well, there was no reason to consider that.
'It's a recent dye job,' Quinn said. 'But that doesn't mean the killer knew his victim personally. He might have stalked her for weeks, even months, when she was a brunette.'
And because her last name began with an N, Pearl thought.
