There was nothing on the paper other than a small black printed question mark. Admirer or not, the sender was secret.
Quinn used the pen to move the tissue out of the way so they could see what was beneath it.
Again, no one spoke for a few seconds.
“It looks like a pouch,” Fedderman said, “made of soft leather with a leather drawstring on top.”
“I think it’s a tobacco pouch,” Darlene said. “But it would do for jewelry.” She reached out with an exploring fingertip. “That leather’s like butter. It’s pretty high-quality goods. Boomer sure wouldn’t mind chewing on it.” She pointed with her pink-enameled nail to the bottom of the pouch. “What’s that gnarly looking thing on the bottom?”
“That’s a nipple,” Quinn said.
Darlene and Boomer stood staring at the pouch. Darlene’s expression began to change.
Pearl pointed toward the half-bath over by the coffee machine.
Darlene and Boomer crossed the room so fast that Boomer stepped with a heavy paw on Pearl’s toe.
Quinn picked up the folded paper by its edges to look again at the question mark.
50
Q uinn was back behind his desk. Darlene and Boomer had gone and taken the pouch with them. The lab would doubtless be able to match the DNA with one of the victims.
Unless the pouch had been fashioned from the breast of one of Daniel’s earlier victims. Was that what the monster was doing with his victims’ body parts? Using them for some kind of grotesque hobby?
It seemed too horrible to be possible, but Quinn knew that human beings were capable of any nightmare they could conjure.
Helen the profiler had come in to the office. Quinn wanted her to be in on this. Her short, carrot-colored hair was ruffled and looked soft, as if she’d just washed it and sat under a dryer. Probably, Quinn figured, she’d rubbed it dry with a towel and forgotten about it. Her denim shorts made her long legs look even longer. She had on blue jogging shoes and a sleeveless Fordham sweatshirt. Quinn didn’t think she’d attended Fordham, more likely some college in the Midwest where they played basketball. He’d asked her once if she’d played basketball and she told him no, but she was a fan. Just because a woman was over six feet tall didn’t mean she’d played basketball.
Quinn had wondered why not.
“He’s trying to taunt us,” he said.
“More to it than that,” Helen said. She was wearing either no makeup or scant makeup skillfully applied.
Pearl returned from the coffee machine carrying two steaming mugs. “It’s goddamned gruesome,” she said, handing one of the mugs to Helen.
Helen accepted the mug and moved away a few feet to sit on a different desk. She’d been perched on Pearl’s. Now Pearl sat down at her desk and placed her coffee mug on a cork coaster.
“If the killer’s trying to send someone a message, it’s probably Quinn,” Fedderman said.
“And it’s probably more than a simple taunt,” Helen said.
“I don’t know if it’s complicated,” Quinn said. “He wants to get me mad so I screw up. He’s playing chess.”
“The chess analogy goes only so far,” Helen said.
“Maybe the idea is to make you feel vulnerable,” Fedderman said, thinking back on his recent conversations with Penny.
“That’s closer,” Helen said. “But it’s also possible that he wants to demonstrate how vulnerable Pearl is.”
Fedderman appeared puzzled. “Why Pearl in particular?”
“Because he knows we’re living together,” Quinn said. “He sees Pearl as my possession and wants to show me he can take it away whenever he chooses.”
“Women as toys for the sadist,” Pearl said.
Fedderman sipped his coffee, which had become cool. “I dunno, Pearl. It could simply be that you’re his type and he wants you the way he wanted those other women. That’s what the pouch might signify-he’s objectifying you. You’re no more to him than another souvenir pouch.”
“Thanks,” Pearl said.
“Or some other kind of souvenir,” Helen said.
“No, he’s a breast man,” Fedderman said.
Pearl shot him a glance that would have stung a more sensitive person.
“The package was addressed to me,” Quinn reminded them.
“He wouldn’t send something valuable like that direct to a mere possession of yours,” Helen said.
“That might well be,” Quinn admitted. Once you figured out where Helen was coming from, she tended to make a lot of sense.
“Men!” Pearl said. “It’s always about you.”
“Helen’s the one that worked it out,” Fedderman said, “and she’s a woman.”
Pearl had no adequate response to that, but she wished now that she hadn’t fetched Helen’s coffee.
“Whatever is in this sicko’s mind,” Quinn said, “Pearl is in danger.”
“And she’s being followed,” Fedderman said.
“That one’s been worked out,” Pearl reminded him.
“That’s right,” Helen said. “Your daughter.” She smiled. “I’d like to meet her.”
“I’m sure you will someday,” Pearl said.
She wondered as she spoke, had Jody been active in any kind of sport?
51
T his was odd, Renz thought.
Jim Tennyson, an undercover officer on the vice squad, had requested a private interview with him. Ordinarily Renz would have told him to go though the proper channels; scroungy undercover cops didn’t just call their way up the telephone ladder to Harriet Gibbs, Renz’s secretary, and have the unmitigated-or maybe it was mitigated-gall to leave a message asking for an appointment with the police commissioner. It was one word in Tennyson’s rambling message that caused all of Renz’s orifices to draw up: Olivia.
He’d granted Tennyson the interview.
Olivia’s name also prompted Renz to request Tennyson’s file and learn what he could about the undercover cop. These undercover guys could get too close to the goods sometimes and cause problems. Could, in fact, become the problem.
Tennyson had been in uniform for five years before becoming a plainclothes detective, then had almost immediately transferred to Vice and undercover work. He’d requested the transfer.
He’d used his gun once, winging a dealer who was waving his shotgun at the occupants of a crowded subway car. Renz thought about that. A close call, deciding to fire a shot in a crowded subway car. Turning loose one bullet to keep a scattering of deadly buckshot from being fired. Took some balls.
The shotgun had turned out to be empty. As far as Renz knew, Tennyson had had no way of knowing that. The review board had seen it the same way. Tennyson had not only been cleared by the board but had received a commendation.
Renz had to admit, the man’s record indicated he was a good cop. Still, those undercover guys… especially the ones who’d infiltrated the drug world.
Here he was standing slouched in front of Renz’s desk, wearing a dirty sleeveless T-shirt lettered CRASH CAB, equally dirty jeans, and worn-out brown shoes tied with white laces. Renz noticed that the bows were double knots. The shoes wouldn’t let Tennyson down if he found himself on either end of a footrace. Renz saw that the UC
