Nift smiled. 'My weakness. Too many TV cop shows, I suppose. But I really can't tell you much more than the obvious until after the postmortem.' He shrugged. 'Cut, hack, saw.'
'Drowned first,' Fedderman said.
'Yes, I can about guarantee you that. Just like the first two. And like with the first two, I doubt if there'll be any indications of recent sexual activity.' He smiled. 'Wanna take a closer look?'
'We'll take your word for it,' Quinn said. 'Was her hair pulled back from her face like that when you arrived?'
'Sure was. Just as the killer wanted you to find it. Or maybe it was simply a gentle gesture after the beheading.'
There was a flash behind them. The police photographer had arrived, armed with a digital camera about the size of a cigarette lighter. There were three techs beyond him, nosing around the living room for prints or stray hairs or dying messages or whatever. Quinn figured they wouldn't find much, if anything, of use. This was a clean and careful killer they were hunting. Cleanliness and caution were deep in his methodology and would be essential in his psychology. The police profiler should be having a ball with this guy.
'I'll finish my preliminary,' Nift said, 'then get out of the way.'
Quinn and Fedderman moved aside so Nift could squeeze back into the almost sanitarily clean bathroom. Chromed faucet handles glittered. The ceramic tiles gleamed. Admirable.
Except for what was in the tub.
'Let's go into the bedroom,' Quinn said.
Fedderman followed. 'We'll look for clues where it's less crowded and the light's better.'
Quinn was glad Fedderman was recovering his cop's sense of humor that helped to keep him sane. Like Nift, maybe, only without the mean streak.
Fedderman knew why Quinn wanted to examine the bedroom-to get a better sense of Ida Ingrahm, who she was before she became victim number three.
The bedroom was neatly arranged, the bed still made. The room didn't seem to have been touched by the crime except for the odor. Their bed had been against the other wall when Quinn and Pearl had slept here. He tried not to think about that.
Ida Ingrahm seemed to have fit the mold of thousands, maybe millions, of single women in New York. On her dresser was the framed family photo, a man and woman and two teenage girls, posed smiling in front of a lake ringed with trees that looked about to surrender their leaves to autumn. The females in the photo looked quite a bit alike. Quinn figured he was looking at Mom, Dad, Sis, and the future murder victim. There was nothing in the smiling faces of either of the daughters that portended an early, violent death.
Ida's closet held an assortment of mix-and-match black clothing, a rack of shoes. Near the foot of the bed was a small TV on a white wicker stand. There was a bookshelf that held mostly self-help and diet books, a few paperback mysteries. On the lamp table next to the bed, a pair of glasses was folded atop a Stuart Kaminsky novel. Pearl used to read Kaminsky's series about a cop named Lieberman, and Quinn wondered if she'd left behind the book when she moved out. It bothered him that the dead woman had read the same book as Pearl, maybe even turning down page corners the way Pearl did to keep her place. He went to the glasses and, careful not to touch anywhere that might obscure prints, examined the lenses. Single power and weak. They looked like drugstore reading glasses.
'Lots of shoes,' Fedderman said behind Quinn, still staring into the closet.
'Lots of women have lots of shoes,' Quinn said, glancing over at him. When he turned back, he saw something he hadn't noticed before because it was mostly hidden behind the lamp base. A cell phone.
Maybe with speed dial numbers, information, a log of recent numbers called or received. Maybe with a recorder, a calculator, a digital camera with a stored photo of the killer. Well, who knew, these days? It looked like an ordinary cell phone, but who could tell? Quinn couldn't keep up with technology.
He left the bedroom and went halfway down the hall, then summoned one of the techs, a bright looking young guy with dark-rimmed glasses and a bow tie. Quinn had always thought that men who wore bow ties were a separate breed, understood only by themselves. Probably had a secret handshake.
Like Quinn and Fedderman, the bow-tied tech was wearing white evidence gloves. Unlike Quinn and Fedderman, he was under thirty and would understand cell phone technology.
'Do what you want with this so we can check out any information stored,' Quinn said, pointing to the phone.
The tech nudged the phone with a gloved fingertip, then began dusting for prints.
After a few seconds, he looked up at Quinn, smiling. 'Something you should know about this phone, sir.'
Quinn liked it when a tech called him 'sir.' Very rare. He put it down to youth. 'There something different about it?'
'Yeah.'
What happened to 'sir'?
The tech carefully lifted the phone between thumb and middle finger, then lightly squeezed. It began to buzz.
Quinn was just about to tell the tech to let him answer the phone, when the buzzing stopped.
'It's not a phone, sir. Only looks like one. It's a vibrator.'
'That's to let you know you got a call when you don't want people to hear it ring,' Fedderman said.
'It's not a phone. Really, it's a vibrator.'
'Huh?' Fedderman said, finally getting it, interested.
The kid pushed another button and the buzzing got louder. The little cell phone became a blur.
'Whoa!' Fedderman said.
Quinn didn't know what to say.
'It's not the kind of vibrator you'd use on your sore back,' the tech said. He was still smiling, but looking thoughtful. 'I guess it's so women can carry it around, maybe use it when they travel, and it won't draw attention and embarrass them if security or customs root through their luggage.'
'What a great idea,' Fedderman said.
The tech turned off the mock phone and placed it back down exactly in its original position. 'I think I know whose prints'll be all over this for everyone to see.'
'She's beyond embarrassment,' Quinn said.
'What are you doing in my bedroom?' demanded a woman's voice.
Startled, all three men turned to look.
Pearl.
'Who's guarding the bank?' Fedderman asked, after Pearl had been filled in and had looked around the apartment. They were outside on West Eighty-second, standing in the shade near the building's concrete stoop.
'Someone else,' Pearl said. 'I'm on a leave of absence.'
Quinn looked closely at her. She was simply Pearl. Compact, buxom, and beautiful. She had on her usual deep red lipstick today, so stark against her pale complexion that her generous mouth seemed to have been painted on by some manic, inspired artist. With her large dark eyes, perfect white teeth, black hair, she was so vivid she often reminded Quinn of some kind of cartoon character. But she was real. Quinn knew she was real.
'Renz call you?' he asked.
'Even before he called you.'
'I thought you weren't interested in this case.'
'This sick asshole killed somebody in my old apartment. Somebody who might just as easily have been me. That makes it personal.'
'Also makes it coincidental,' Fedderman said.
'Doesn't it, though?' Pearl said.
A brisk summer breeze kicked up and moved a crumpled white takeout bag along the sidewalk. Quinn stood his ground, merely lifting a foot to let the bag pass and continue along the pavement.
'We need you, Pearl,' Fedderman said.
She smiled. 'Thanks, Feds.'
