comparing him to serial killers.
He took a few deep breaths and swallowed his irritation.
So he was obsessive. So what? He put it to work and did some good in the world with it. If his obsessive nature helped to nail these assholes who killed women in the worst ways, so be it. That was their problem and he was coming after them hard. And didn't every coin have its opposite side?
'Whatever's going on in our personal lives, we have to work together,' he said calmly. 'Can you manage that, dear?'
'Don't give me that sarcastic 'dear' bullshit. I'm not one of your gullible suspects or witnesses who fall for it and spill their guts.'
'Can you manage it?' he asked again.
'I'm still in the car, aren't I?'
He glanced over and was surprised to see that she was smiling.
She was actually smiling.
Pearl enjoyed combat. But Quinn knew that. He didn't say anything, and within a few blocks he found himself smiling along with her.
At Second Avenue he stopped for a red light, first in line, then suddenly ran the light and went the wrong way up Second while there wasn't any traffic coming. A uniformed cop was standing by his squad car halfway up the block. As they passed, Quinn slowed the Lincoln and held his shield up tight against the windshield so the cop would see it. The cop recognized the shield, maybe recognized Quinn, and nodded.
As they turned the corner at the next block so they could zigzag uptown and get going in the right direction again, Pearl twisted around in her seat and saw the roof bar lights on the squad car winking and the cop standing alongside a gray Ford sedan lecturing the driver about traveling the wrong way on Second Avenue. She knew the Ford was a press car, one of those that had been staked out near the detectives' office so media wolves could sneak photos or video footage, and sometimes follow them when they left.
Quinn cut over another block and got back on course, checking his rearview mirror to make sure the press car was nowhere in sight.
'That was nifty,' Pearl said.
Quinn nodded and drove on.
Jill knew she was being obsessive about Madeline. That was the only way to explain it. After all, the police artist sketch that was in all the papers and seemed to pop up every fifteen minutes on TV didn't really look that much like Madeline.
But Jill had worked her last day for Tucker, Simpson, and King, though they said there was a slight possibility she'd be called back in a week. It all depended on when Mr. Tucker's hernia operation was going to be scheduled. Things at the office would be hectic while he was off, and they'd need someone extra who could answer the phone and knew the filing system.
I know the filing system but no one there knows me.
On top of the situation at the law firm, Tony was out of town on business and would be for another four days.
For the first time in a while, Jill had time on her hands. That was why she couldn't stop thinking about Madeline Scott. About what might have happened to poor mad Madeline. About whether she was still alive.
Jill had eaten the other half of her Chinese take-out meal for dinner last night, and this morning she'd walked a few blocks to a deli and gotten orange juice and a toasted bagel for breakfast. Now what was she supposed to do, watch Oprah? Hell, Oprah wasn't even on.
The apartment was so quiet.
Jill paced a while, then turned on the TV and channel surfed until she was tired of talking heads and SUV commercials and bad drama and unfunny comedies. What she didn't want to watch was the news. It would make her think about Madeline.
Jill used the remote to switch off the television. She stretched out on the sofa on her back with her forearm over her eyes. She knew she wasn't going to sleep. She wasn't tired. Her mind wouldn't be still.
She removed her arm from across her eyes and sat up, remembering something. Thinking back. Making sure.
There was no reason why she couldn't do something about Madeline, satisfy her curiosity about the woman. She was certain Madeline had mentioned that her former apartment was on West Seventy-second Street, the apartment where the new Madeline Scott (if by some chance there really was one) would be living.
If the apartment actually existed.
If what she'd heard hadn't been another of mad Madeline's flights of imagination.
Jill got up from the sofa and went to where the phone sat, on a table near the door. A stack of borough directories lay on the table legs' cross braces. She stooped and got the Manhattan directory from the top of the stack and carried it back to the sofa.
She leafed through the pages to the Scott listings. There were quite a few Scotts, but she found it almost immediately: 'M. Scott,' with a West Seventy-second Street address.
Jill sat motionless for a few minutes with the open directory on her knees. Seeing the listing had given her a start, even though it was the object of her search. Its existence in the phone book made the rest of Madeline's story seem much more possible.
Jill shook off that feeling. The listing might be for a different M. Scott, a Mary, Martha, or Margaret Scott. Or maybe a Mathew or Martin Scott. It wasn't only women who tried to give the impression a man lived in their apartment, by using first initials for their phone number listings and mailboxes.
One way to find out.
Jill gathered her willpower and carried the directory to the phone. She pecked out M. Scott's number.
And was told the number was no longer in service. It was now unlisted.
Jill hung up the phone and returned to the sofa. She sat down heavily, still clutching the directory.
Great! Now what?
But she knew what.
Her boredom, her curiosity, her fear were driving her.
She tore out the directory page with M. Scott's listing on it and stuffed it in a back pocket of her jeans, in case she'd forget the address.
She'd seen the weather report three times this morning on TV and knew it was supposed to rain. No matter. She wouldn't take an umbrella.
She felt lucky.
27
The West Seventy-second Street address listed for M. Scott wasn't far from Columbus Circle. It was an old building, at least twenty stories tall, with an ornate brick and stone front that was chipped and stained. Maintenance or repair was being done on the building. Blue iron scaffolding nestled tightly against it, across and above the entrance, though at present no one was working. A red plastic cone lettered CAUTION stood to the side of the three shallow stone steps leading to its entrance. Jill thought that was apropos.
It wasn't the kind of building that featured a doorman. In fact, one of the wide entrance doors was propped open by a crude wooden wedge. Jill stepped inside, where it was a few degrees cooler and dim after the hot brightness of outside.
To her left was a bank of tarnished brass mailboxes. In a card inserted in the narrow slot above the locked box of apartment 16C was the name M. Scott. It was in slightly smeared black ink and appeared to have been there a while. Jill peered through the narrow grille in the box's door and saw only darkness. There was no mail inside. None that showed, anyway.
Jill moved farther into the lobby. It was large, with mismatched upholstered furniture arranged in two groups around low tables. One of the tables had a left-behind newspaper scattered over it. The other had an arrangement of plastic flowers in a glass vase on its center. Two elevator doors stood at the opposite end of the lobby, across an
