Quirk nodded. 'As a warning,' he said.
'Which is probably why she was killed.'
'To shut her up,' Quirk said.
'And to shut other people up,' I said. 'No need to cut her tongue out to keep her quiet.'
'And they left the door open,' Quirk said.
'Because they wanted her to be found soon.'
'Before we got to anyone else,' Quirk said.
We thought about it for a minute.
'But you'd figure the tongue'-Quirk made a face-'would work pretty well as a warning.'
'If they could show it to everyone they wanted to shut up,' I said.
'So maybe there's more than one,' Quirk said. 'Maybe they left the door open to be sure we'd find her and word would get out and people they couldn't show the tongue to would hear about it, and know what it meant.'
'Somebody they couldn't find,' I said.
'Somebody missing.'
Quirk sat back in his chair, his thick hands folded in front of his chin, the thumbs resting in the hollow under his lower lip.
'Like your client,' he said after a time.
'Just like my client,' I said.
'Who is Susan's ex-husband,' Quirk said.
'Well put,' I said. 'No wonder you made captain.'
Quirk tapped his thumbs gently against his chin. He looked at me silently, shaking his head slowly.
'So you figure her death was at least partly to be a warning to Brad Sterling?'
'Maybe,' I said.
'All because somebody might have scammed some money from a charity bash?'
'Maybe.'
'And they might have cut out her tongue to drive the point home,' Quirk said, 'but there'd be no need to take it away to show it to Sterling if they didn't know where he was.'
'This is true,' I said.
'So it wasn't for Sterling.'
'Maybe just the fact of it, when he heard about it,' I said.
'Then why take it away?'
'Good point,' I said.
'So who's the tongue for?' Quirk said.
'Here's what I know,' I said. 'Carla is formerly married to Brad Sterling. I'm not sure which wife, but after Susan, who was the first. She is connected to Richard Gavin, who was a director of Civil Streets, who was also Cony Brown's lawyer, and Cony was killed in Sterling's office.'
'You're thinking out loud,' Quirk said, 'and it's not a pretty sight. Tell me something I don't know.'
'Couple days ago Hawk and I saw Gavin having lunch with Haskell Wechsler.'
Quirk's head lifted slightly and he let his chair come forward so that his feet touched the ground. For Quirk that was a reaction approaching hysteria.
'Haskell the rascal,' he said. 'He spot you?'
'I sat down with them,' I said.
'You would,' Quirk said.
'They weren't pleased.'
'They wouldn't be.'
'Haskell said I was going to be tended to later.'
'Haskell would mean that,' Quirk said.
'If he can,' I said.
'Anyone can kill anyone,' Quirk said.
'I know that's true,' I said. 'But if I'm going to do what I do, I have to act like it's not so.'
'You've gotten this far,' Quirk said. 'What's the relationship?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'Gavin acted as if he were Haskell's lawyer.'
