She waited.
Jeb Jones took the steps down into the coffee shop with an athletic ease that bordered on arrogance. He was wearing designer jeans today, and a black blazer over a gray T-shirt. So was she.
'Jesus!' she said, taking in the fact that they were dressed almost identically.
He paused, not knowing what she meant at first, then he smiled. 'Fate.'
'If there is such a thing,' Pearl said. She saw that he did have on brown loafers, while she was wearing her clunky black cop's shoes.
'Such a thing as fate, or Jesus?'
'Take your pick,' Pearl said.
He sat down opposite her. His face looked scrubbed and unnaturally ruddy in a way that suggested he'd just shaved, and his wavy dark hair was damp and pushed back carelessly, as if he'd used his fingers instead of a comb or brush. 'Fate might have it that we develop a relationship made in heaven-a professional one, of course.'
The woman who'd taken Pearl's order came over and Jeb ordered a fountain diet Coke. Pearl didn't tell him that was what she was drinking.
When they were settled in with drinks and straws and no one was around to overhear, he said, 'Fire away, Officer Pearl.'
She gave him a mock angry look. 'Not 'Officer Kasner'?'
'I thought this might be an acceptable compromise,' he said with a grin.
'Let's make it just Pearl, if we have to compromise.'
'All right. You've got me in a compromising position, Pearl.'
So damned smooth. She felt a slight tingle of alarm, or was it something else? She sipped Coke through her straw, watching him watch her. 'Have you thought any more about Marilyn Nelson?'
He sat back and seemed to take the question seriously. 'I've thought a lot about what happened to Marilyn, especially after I read some of the details in the paper. From what little I knew of her, I liked her a lot, but to tell you the truth I'm not grieving as if she were an old and dear friend. She was a woman I dated twice.'
That seemed to Pearl to be an honest answer. 'Do you remember ever running into any of her friends?'
'On our first date we said hello to some people she knew in a restaurant-the Pepper Tree. It's right down the street from her apartment.'
'How many people?'
'Four. Two men and two women.'
'She introduce you to them?'
'Yes, but to tell you the truth I don't recall their names. They were seated at a table near ours and we stopped briefly and she said hello to them on the way out. I'd even have trouble picking any of them out of a lineup.'
Pearl smiled. 'I doubt it will come to that. Did she mention where she knew them from?'
'No, just said they were friends of hers. Maybe they live in her neighborhood, since they were eating at the Pepper Tree.' He brightened. 'If you and I had dinner together there, I could watch for them. You'd be working. It would be professional.'
'Hmm. The food good?'
'Mine was. I'm sure it would be again, if you were across the table.'
She sipped some more with her straw. 'You seem to believe in getting to the point.'
'I admit I don't like wasting time. In this kind of thing, there's no sense in dancing around forever unless that's what you enjoy most.'
'This kind of thing?'
'There was a handwritten phone number on the back of the business card you gave me.'
'My cell phone,' she said. 'In case you recalled something and wanted to talk to me when I was in the field.'
He wasn't buying into it. He gave her a confident smile, in that way he had of being just this side of arrogant that she found attractive. 'I don't believe you came here to have a conversation about Marilyn Nelson.'
Okay, you like coming to the point. She drew in her breath, and then plunged. Idiot, Pearl.
'No,' she said, 'I came to see you.'
'Good. I'm pleased. More than pleased.'
Done. And it worked out well. The world didn't cave in on me. She was having difficulty breathing. 'The dinner invitation still good?'
'Of course.'
Absently toying with the wrapper from his straw, he glanced through the archway dividing the coffee shop from the lobby, toward the elevators.
Uh-oh! Pearl knew where this was going. She knew where she might be going if Jeb Jones had his way. We not only dress the same; we both tend to seize the moment.
But not this moment. You're a cop on duty.
'You're not planning on asking a police officer up to your room, are you?' she asked with a poker face.
He grinned. 'I confess.'
She was about to speak when her cell phone chirped.
Still looking into Jeb's brown eyes, she drew the phone from her pocket, flipped it open, and saw by the caller ID that it was Quinn.
'What's up?' she said. She could hear traffic sounds in the background; he was calling from his car.
'We've got another Butcher job. Down in the Village.' He gave her the address.
'Like the others?'
'Feds said it was when he called me. He got there first. I'm on my way. Like you are.'
'Like I am,' Pearl said, and broke the connection and flipped the phone's lid down.
She looked across the table at Jeb. 'Work,' she said. 'I've gotta go.'
He reached across the table and his fingertips brushed the back of her hand. The contact almost hummed with high voltage. 'I'm disappointed, but I understand. Duty.'
When he withdrew his hand she stood up and reached for her wallet.
'On me,' he said, standing also. 'Dinner still on for tonight?'
'I can't promise,' she said.
'I understand again.'
She smiled nervously, feeling oddly as if she'd just been shot at and missed.
'I've got your number,' he reminded her, as she hurried away.
Yeah, she thought.
32
Pearl flashed her shield for the uniform guarding the open door and found the victim's apartment crawling with crime scene unit techs.
As soon as she stepped inside, the familiar butcher shop stench made her stomach protest. She swallowed bile and continued past the techs busily gathering evidence in the modestly furnished living room, then continued through the kitchen and along a narrow hall to the bathroom.
She looked inside and found Quinn and Fedderman blocking her view. Pearl could see by the shape of the hips and the small black shoes that the Medical Examiner's office had sent a woman this time, who was bending over the bathtub to sort through what was left of the victim.
Quinn and Feds both glanced over at Pearl and nodded. There was no room for Pearl to enter the small bathroom, so Fedderman edged over so she could see.
Another jolt to her stomach. Even though she knew what to expect now, it was a shock.
That one human being could do this to another…
The detached head resting atop pale and severed arms had damp dark hair.
