'Hello?'
Quinn was startled by the voice. He turned and saw a short woman with no waist and a lot of frizzy blond hair. She was wearing loosely cut jeans and a sleeveless white blouse. Her incredibly large blue eyes were the sort that didn't blink much. They looked frightened.
'I'm Hettie Crane from downstairs,' she said, 'a neighbor and good friend of Ruth's. When I heard what happened to her…'
Whatever else she'd been about to say was choked off by emotion.
'I know,' Quinn told her gently. He introduced himself, showing her his shield.
Hettie only glanced at it, but wouldn't have been able to see it well anyway from as far away as she was. She stood stiff legged where she'd stopped just inside the door, as if she might be invading Ruth's privacy if she ventured farther into the apartment. The way her friend died had obviously shaken Hettie's world.
'You all right, dear?'
Hettie nodded. She lifted her chin slightly and tried to smile, but her facial muscles wouldn't cooperate.
'It always smelled so good in here,' she said. 'Ruth burned scented candles.' Her eyes became moist. She swallowed.
Quinn smiled at her and decided to give her time to wrestle some more with her new reality. Her juicy blue gaze followed him as he walked over to the drafting board.
The top sheet of paper was filled with skillfully rendered sketches of what looked like military uniforms, male and female. Quinn flipped the raised sheet of paper and saw more of the same.
'These mean anything to you?' he asked Hettie, keeping his tone casual.
She reluctantly came over to stand next to him where she could see Ruth's drawings.
'They're costume concepts for Major Mary,' she said. 'I know because I'm directing the play. It was set to open in a couple of months.' She moved closer and looked again at the sketches. 'It'll still open. We'll use Ruth's costuming ideas. These sketches. They're far enough along, and she would have wanted it that way.' She looked up at Quinn. Her eyes were still teary. 'It'll be at the Marlborough Theater in the Village. It's a musical comedy.'
'Good luck with it,' Quinn said, and meant it. 'Did you know Ruth well?'
'Very well. She's the one who recommended me for my apartment. This building rents to a lot of theater people.'
'So you had mutual friends.'
'Quite a few,' Hettie said.
'Was Ruth involved with anyone?'
'Romantically? Sexually?'
'Either one,' Quinn said, smiling.
'She broke off about four months ago with this guy she'd been seeing. Buddy Erb. He's an actor.'
'Know where he can be found?'
'In L.A. He does the voice-over in that commercial where the frog recommends an insurance company and then drives an SUV off a cliff. You know the one?'
'Sure.'
'Buddy does a great frog.'
'Got that kinda voice,' Quinn said. 'They fight or anything when they broke up?'
'No, they just got tired of each other. It was pretty much over when Buddy got the job offer.'
'The frog?'
'Yeah. Which meant he had to move to the West Coast.'
'Yuck,' Quinn said. 'All that sun and surf.'
Hettie gave him a look. She knew what he was doing, loosening her up, getting her to talk so maybe she'd yield a nugget of information. It was okay with her. She wanted the big, homely-handsome cop to catch the animal who had killed her friend.
The guy has an interesting face, Hettie thought. Rugged and memorable. And so, so trustworthy. He should have been an actor. Leading man. Not that he wasn't way too old for her…
Not that he wasn't an actor, in his own way.
'I know Buddy pretty well,' she said. 'He's an actor, not a killer. And from what I hear, his sexual needs are standard issue. If you check, I'm sure you'll find he was on the other side of the continent when Ruth was killed.'
'We'll check. You know how we are.' Quinn ran his fingertips over the sketch pad, as if trying to gain some knowledge about the sketches' creator. 'Ruth date a lot?' he asked.
'Some. She liked men, but she was busy much of the time. Especially lately, what with Major Mary.'
'You recall her mentioning anyone?'
'Since Buddy? No.'
'Since Buddy, did she ever use a dating service?'
'I doubt it. Ruth was great to look at. Men liked her. If she wanted to go out, there was always somebody there.'
'I don't want to sound like a TV cop-'
'You'd make a great TV cop.'
'But did Ruth have any enemies whom you know of?'
'Everybody loved Ruth.' Hettie gave him a sad grin. 'More TV dialogue, but it happens to be true. She was a terrific and talented person. Even the sicko who killed her must have loved her in his own twisted way.'
'How so?'
'He chose her, didn't he?'
50
Hettie had left, and Quinn was standing in the center of Ruth Malpass's apartment, slowly looking around, when Pearl came in.
'Anything from the neighbors?' he asked.
'Nothing useful. They all liked Ruth. She'd been seen coming and going with a man now and then. Nobody steady. Nobody lately. She was friendly-I heard the word sweet a lot-but pretty much kept to herself.' Pearl glanced around the apartment. 'Anything here?'
'Nothing unusual or helpful. Just like on her computer.'
'Nobbler had it first. You think we saw everything that was on it?'
'You watched the file transfer. The tech whiz seem okay?'
'Yeah. Seemed.'
'Then we probably got it all,' Quinn said. 'Nobbler'd be taking a hell of a risk tampering with that kind of evidence. And it'd take somebody who really knew computers to be sure whatever was deleted was really and truly gone from the disk for good. You know how it works.'
'Yeah. E-mail is forever.'
They both turned when they heard the door open.
Fedderman. He looked tired, and his brown suit was even more wrinkled than usual. He'd canvassed the top floors, while Pearl had worked the ones below. He didn't look happy.
'Any luck?' Quinn asked.
Fedderman shook his head.
'Probably not except maybe for the woman living right in the next unit, a loft apartment just like this one. Name's Emma McKenna. Real nice. Pretty enough to be an actress.'
'She probably is an actress,' Quinn said. 'What did you learn from her.'
'She was a good friend of Ruth's. According to her, they kind of looked out for one another. She said Ruth phoned her on what must have been the day she died and left a message on her machine. Said it probably wouldn't happen, but if a guy named Vlad came around looking for her, tell him he just missed her and get his phone number.' Fedderman shrugged. 'Emma didn't know anyone named Vlad and said Ruth never mentioned a Vlad
