were some distance up the street, so he knew he’d be able to cross safely enough.
As for Central Park at night, that could be dangerous.
The Skinner had to smile.
Fedderman didn’t feel like getting out of bed and going to work. Mostly, he didn’t feel like leaving Penny. He looked over at her across the white plain of his pillow. It felt so natural waking up next to her, smelling her perfume, feeling the warmth of her. As if they’d been doing this for decades instead of days.
Penny was breathing deeply and evenly, her lips slightly parted. Fedderman couldn’t know for sure, but he thought she might be smiling in her sleep.
It was ironic, Fedderman thought, how something so tragic could be the source of something as wonderful as his relationship with Penny. It would seem, since he was part of the investigation into her sister’s murder, that the gruesome crime would be a barrier between them. Instead, it seemed to make them closer, as if sharing the knowledge of such a thing had created a bond. They understood intimately the fickle nature of death and appreciated each other all the more. That the death was so vivid and real made life all the more so.
His cell phone on the table by the bed began vibrating and buzzing loudly, bouncing on the smooth wood surface. Fedderman knew that if he didn’t grab it fast it would dance off the table. If it missed the throw rug, it might shatter on the hardwood floor.
He located the phone by touch almost immediately, closed his hand around it, and drew it close to him. It pulsed again, like a live bird cupped in his hand. He was aware of Penny, a pair of sleep-puffed eyes. She was up on one elbow, curious to know who was calling.
Fedderman looked at caller ID and pressed the talk button, silently mouthing work to Penny. She let her head fall back on the pillow.
“Where are you, Feds?” Quinn’s voice asked on the phone.
“Whaddya mean, where am I?” Not that it’s anybody’s business. Fedderman felt the light touch of Penny’s fingertips on his bare stomach, then his thigh.
“Never mind,” Quinn said. “Where you need to be is what concerns me. Come in to the office ASAP. Something interesting’s going on.”
Something interesting here, too. “What is it?” Fedderman asked.
But Quinn was no longer on the phone.
“Damn it!”
“Something wrong?” Penny asked.
“The only thing I know for sure is wrong is that I have to get dressed and leave.”
Fedderman wouldn’t mention it to Penny, but as he came more awake he felt a growing eagerness to learn the reason for Quinn’s call. There’d been something in Quinn’s voice, the controlled urgency of a predator closing in on its prey. Signaling the rest of the pack. Fedderman the predator had heard the message and caught the mood. Penny couldn’t be expected to understand that, when Fedderman didn’t himself.
He did know that over a week had passed since Tanya Moody’s body was discovered. It was about time for the Skinner to take another victim, spill more blood. He was following a classic serial-killer pattern, striking more often and with increasing viciousness.
Fedderman climbed out of bed, stood on the cool hardwood floor, and looked around. He even stooped to glance under the bed.
Where the hell…?
“What’s going on?” Penny asked, propped back up on her elbow.
“Jockey shorts,” Fedderman said, “if I can find them.”
“Go ahead and take your shower,” Penny said, getting out of bed. “I’ll find your shorts. If I don’t, you can wear something of mine.”
It took Fedderman a few seconds to realize she was joking.
Out on the sidewalk, he felt an exhilarating disconnection from the people around him. They were on their way to work, maybe some of them with night jobs coming home from work, doing normal things, thinking everyday thoughts.
Fedderman knew he looked like one of them, but this morning he was different.
Behind him lay the woman he loved, sexually sated and alone, and he was on the hunt. Ancient blood ruled his thinking. If the tone of Quinn’s voice was any indication, they were closing in on a killer.
Fedderman’s wrist brushed his thigh, and his shirt cuff came unbuttoned. He didn’t notice. He quickened his pace.
79
The office was warm but dry, and not much street noise filtered in from outside. Expectancy charged the air like high-tension electricity.
Quinn was waiting until Fedderman had arrived before going into detail for Vitali, Mishkin, and Pearl.
Fedderman entered the office and glanced around. “So where’s the suspect?”
Quinn looked at Fedderman’s eyes. He’s joking, but he’s locked in .
“You said on the phone you had something interesting,” Fedderman said. “I figured there’d been an arrest.”
“You seem pissed off,” Pearl said. “Is there some personal reason you didn’t want to come in a little early this morning?”
Pearl and her antenna, Fedderman thought. But then it didn’t take a genius to know what was going on. Penny was attractive.
Quinn, knowing what Pearl was thinking, smiled over at her.
Damned Quinn!
Fedderman walked over to the coffee brewer as if he hadn’t heard what Pearl said. He poured himself half a cup and added cream. Stirred with one of the plastic spoons.
Everyone waited patiently until he came back to join them. He leaned with his haunches against the edge of a desk. The four of them were perched that way, like birds on a wire. Quinn, behind his desk, was the only one actually seated.
“Late last night,” he said, “a thirty-year-old woman named Jane Nixon came home alone from salsa dancing at a place down the block from where she lived. She unlocked her apartment door and started to go inside. That’s when a man approached and shoved her all the way in, then followed her into the dark apartment and closed the door behind him.”
“Our guy?” Fedderman asked.
“That’s my guess,” Quinn said. “He made sure the door was locked so she couldn’t get out in a hurry even if she reached it, then he came toward her carrying what she called ‘a curvy little knife.’” Quinn looked at his four detectives in turn. “This all happened within seconds. But while she’d been stumbling across the room after he shoved her, Nixon, who still had her hand in her purse after returning the keys when she unlocked her door, also had her hand near a small canister of mace she always carried.”
“Tricky Nixon,” Vitali said.
“Our assailant thought he had her cowed, and right where he wanted her. He was surprised when she waited till he was close, and then suddenly shot mace into his face from about a foot away. He got a snoot full.
“She spun and ran into the bedroom, and he made toward the door to the hall. He could still see well enough to get outta the building while Nixon was calling nine-one-one.”
“What about Jane Nixon?” Pearl asked. “She get a look at him?”
“Not a good look. She was close when she let fly with the mace, and some of the stuff got in her eyes, too. She was half blind when the uniforms arrived at her apartment.”
“Unhurt so far, though,” Vitali said.
“Physically, she sustained only a small knife cut on her forearm.”
“Poor thing’s probably still scared stiff,” Mishkin said.
“She’ll be scared for a while,” Quinn said.
