“But why would he give me a gift? What would he expect to get out of it?”
“Jesus, Marcy, what do you think?”
“We only met once, and you were there.”
“So what? Maybe he’s one of those fucked-up psychos who only have to see a woman once and some kind of weird connection’s made.”
“I guess that’s possible…”
“Goddamned right it is!”
“If it is, I don’t want to go near him again.”
Ron drew a deep breath, then sighed and dragged his forearm across his mouth, as if he’d just taken a long, sloppy drink from a stream.
“All right,” he said. “You stay here. I’m gonna take this thing and return it to Tambien’s. We’re gonna find out about this! And do something about it!”
And he was out the door and gone.
An hour later Ron was back, empty-handed. Marcy watched her husband remove his sport coat and drape it on a hanger in the hall closet. He seemed calmer now. His face wasn’t so flushed, and the blue vein in his temple wasn’t even visible. “Did they take the coat back at Tambien’s?”
“No,” Ron said. “They claimed they didn’t sell it. Said it was sold in at least a dozen shops in and around New York. I told them maybe Ira just walked out with it so he could give it to you. Ira got pissed and I threatened to twist his head off. He just smiled, the little bastard.”
“I think he might be dangerous,” Marcy said. “There’s something creepy about him.”
Ron shrugged. “Whatever he is, I told him if he ever came around here again, I’d cut off his balls.”
Before or after you twist off his head? “What did he say?”
“That Tambien’s wouldn’t take the coat in return unless I had a sales slip. He and that numb-brain manager went into their professional salesclerk mode, polite but underneath it acting like assholes.”
“So what’d you do?” Marcy asked.
“I told them I didn’t want a refund; then I tossed the coat on the floor and walked out the door. You shoulda seen the look on their faces.”
“That’s an eight-hundred-dollar coat, Ron.”
“Not to us, it isn’t. It’s worse than worthless.” He stalked into the kitchen and a few minutes later returned with a glass of water with ice cubes in it. Marcy watched him take a long sip, his head back, the Adam’s apple working in his powerful neck.
“You still think Ira somehow sneaked in here and left the coat?” she asked when finally he lowered the glass.
He’d downed half the water. His head bowed, he stared into the glass and swirled its remaining contents around so the ice cubes rattled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t. But if it was him, he won’t do something like that around here again. He’s been scared away.”
Marcy wasn’t so sure.
For some reason she doubted if Ira had ever been scared away from anything in his life.
10
This time Harley Renz knocked politely on Quinn’s apartment door.
Quinn peered through the round peephole and viewed the distorted police captain. Renz shifted his weight impatiently and raised his elongated arm to look at his watch. Busy man in a hurry, taking valuable time off to talk to a lowlife like Quinn.
Quinn waited awhile, until Renz knocked again, louder, before opening the door.
“Quinn,” Renz said simply, nodding hello. “I would’ve called up on the intercom, but I saw there was sixty years of enamel over the button.” He studied Quinn, who was in his stocking feet but was wearing new gray slacks and a white T-shirt, and didn’t look quite so like a thug as he had during Renz’s last visit. “You got a haircut.”
“Got a lot of them cut,” Quinn said. “You wouldn’t have noticed just one.”
Renz smiled. “Some new threads, too. I’m glad you put the money I sent to good use. May I enter your shit can abode?”
“Sure. You’re a fit with the decor.” Quinn stepped back and to the side, closing the door behind Renz after he’d entered.
Renz sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs, then looked around. “I don’t know or care if that’s an insult. You’ve cleaned up the place. No magazines, newspapers, or orange peels on the floor. And is that new mold in the corner?”
“Mold’s the same. Orange peels clashed with the carpet, so they had to go. You clash, too.”
“Remember I’m your friend now, Quinn. Your way up and back in.” Renz made a big deal of sniffing, wrinkling his nose, and squinting. “It doesn’t smell as bad in here. Is that insecticide? Or are you burning incense?”
“Have you come to pay me more money?”
“Do you need more?”
“Not yet,” Quinn said honestly.
“Come up with anything in the Elzner apartment or murder file?”
“Not much,” Quinn said. “The groceries bother me. The strawberry jelly.”
“Jelly?”
“Jam, actually. A fairly expensive gourmet brand. There were two jars in with the groceries in the plastic bags and on the kitchen table. And there was a nearly full jar of the same stuff in the refrigerator.”
Renz uncrossed his legs and crossed his arms, thinking about that. “Somebody else bought the groceries. Somebody who didn’t know the Elzners had plenty of jelly.”
“Jam.”
“Still odd, though. Two jars…”
“Maybe they were a gift from somebody who knew how much one or both of the Elzners liked that kind of jam.”
“A gift.” Renz made a steeple of his fingers. He liked the idea of a gift, except for…“But why would somebody buy the Elzners a gift and then kill them?”
“Maybe he hadn’t planned on killing them.”
“Maybe.” Renz grinned. “And he just happened to be carrying a gun equipped with a silencer. The important thing is, if you’re right, it points to a third party for sure. A killer still on the loose.”
“A third party who might’ve left before the Elzners were killed.”
Renz sneered at Quinn. “Don’t send me up, then bring me down. You’re coming around to my way of thinking about this case; you know you are.”
“I’ve moved in that direction,” Quinn admitted. He didn’t want Renz to think he’d moved almost all the way. “Also, it might be coincidental that the plastic grocery bags aren’t the kind that have the name of the store on them. Or it could be the killer deliberately bought groceries someplace where they couldn’t be traced by the bags and someone might remember him.”
“Very good, Quinn. I was sure you’d have a different slant on this and come up with something new. You didn’t disappoint me.”
“I’m flushed with pride. Are you here to tell me anything new?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid things have changed. Egan found out you’re on the case. I think from a uniform named Charlie Mercer.”
“Big, square-shouldered guy, blue and brown?”
“Fits him.”
“He was coming out of the elevator in the Elzners’ building when I stepped in.”
“He get a good look at you?”
“Like I got at him.”
“Then there’s no mistaking it; the bastard must’ve told Egan.” Renz’s brow furrowed. “Mercer’s made a
