John Lutz - Pulse

“I’ll make a copy of Linda Brooks’s, and we won’t watch the others. Then you better wipe them and put them back where you found them.”

“You don’t think we should hand them over to Renz?”

“Are you kidding?” Quinn asked.

“Actually,” Fedderman said, “I am.”

That night at the Hamaker Hotel near Times Square, Harley Renz leaned over and kissed Olivia good-bye. She was sleeping deeply, snoring lightly, and didn’t notice.

Renz walked lightly even though he was sure he couldn’t wake Olivia with a gunshot. She’d taken something, and he hadn’t asked what. After dressing carefully, he used a washcloth from the bathroom to wipe the glass he’d used to drink Jack Daniel’s; then he slipped the bottle into his briefcase that was propped on a chair. He was sure he hadn’t touched anything in the bathroom or the rest of the hotel suite that would leave a legible print. He was always careful to touch almost nothing but Olivia, but especially so since his conversation with Jim Tennyson.

Nothing must go wrong. Women, one of Renz’s favorite perks of his office, had brought down more than one hardworking police commissioner. The trouble he went to when he saw Olivia was a precaution, Renz knew, but it allowed him to sleep better.

Or it had before his visit from Jim Tennyson. Weaver was a help in that regard, keeping tabs on Tennyson. But Tennyson was an undercover guy with street smarts. Renz knew he could slip Weaver when it suited him. He had to trust Tennyson, at least until he could get something on him. Mutual damaging information among thieves was almost as effective as honor.

The clock radio by the bed was set for six o’clock, and he knew that Olivia would get up and shower and be gone by seven. Renz stared at her in the dim light. It was hard to imagine something so beautiful being as deceitful as Tennyson had described.

But it wouldn’t be the first time Renz had seen it.

He slipped out of the hotel room and locked the door behind him, handling the knob with the dry washcloth, which he stuffed into his pocket as he strode toward the elevator.

No one had seen him exit, he was sure. He began to breathe easier.

Five minutes after Renz had left the room, someone else entered.

P enny wasn’t quite ready to tell Fedderman about the Shadow Guardians. She wondered if the time would ever be right.

“I saw yesterday how it is when your mind becomes your enemy,” Fedderman said.

He and Penny were in the apartment kitchen, drinking coffee and eating a Danish pastry they’d bought last night at the bakery down the street. Penny could do okay on this kind of breakfast. Sugar and caffeine. Fedderman figured he’d be jumpy as a cat until he got some lunch into him.

“Are we talking about insanity?” Penny asked.

“Yeah. Quinn and I listened to a recording of a young woman spilling her guts to her analyst. She was in so much pain I felt it along with her.”

“Feds the empathetic cop.”

“It made our problems seem small.”

Penny laid down her Danish and licked her fingers. “Are you trying to minimize my constant worry that you’re going to be seriously wounded or killed?”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“You’re the one who implied I was some kind of candy ass because I worried about you.” You should see me at the pistol range.

“I didn’t say that. Or even imply it.”

“Then why bring up this poor woman’s misery if not to dwarf mine?”

Fedderman didn’t have an answer. He hated arguing with someone smarter than he was.

He stood up and finished his coffee in two long swallows, then went over and put the cup in the sink. He returned to the table not to sit down, but to bend over and kiss Penny’s cheek. “I’ve gotta get to work.”

“To practice your religion.”

“My job,” Fedderman said, still trying to stifle his anger.

“Your obsession.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that-my obsession.”

“It’s Quinn. His obsessive behavior rubs off on you and the rest of the people at Q and A.”

“Maybe,” Fedderman said. “Obsession, persistence, dedication… whatever you want to call it, we get results.”

“And then?”

“People’s lives are saved.”

Penny attacked her Danish again. Chewed and swallowed. “So you have the high moral ground again, when both of us know it’s nothing more than a dangerous, sick game for all of you.”

“It’s a game we’re trying to end.”

“Isn’t that true of all games?”

Damn her! Being the intelligent one again.

“Most games,” he said.

He picked up his suit coat from where it was draped over the back of a kitchen chair and headed for the door.

“You’ve got icing all over your fingers,” Penny said behind him.

“I don’t care.”

“Typical.”

Chancellor Linden Schueller closed the lid of his laptop computer, then zipped the machine into its soft leather case. He’d been working on a program he’d developed that used GPS, distance, speed, and altitude to calculate metal fatigue on aircraft. The program would soon be working, but he’d probably keep it to himself. Use it to maintain his own private plane.

He sipped his iced tea and settled back in his leather recliner. He appreciated these brief stretches of ennui in his otherwise busy schedule. Where he sat, if he turned his head slightly, he had a wonderful view out the open French doors of Waycliffe’s green, manicured grounds.

The preteen lacrosse teams, both male and female, were out on the wide lawn, practicing their moves. They were from the Woodrow Wilson School and the Pierre Laclede Academy, both in towns a few hours’ bus ride away. The two schools used Waycliffe College’s facilities for practice and to play their games in what was known as the G3 division. The players weren’t as developed or skilled as the older Waycliffe athletes, but the chancellor enjoyed watching them. Some of them were future Waycliffe students.

“I see some real possibilities out there,” said Professor Wayne Tangler, who taught comparative literature. He was the one who looked like a western gunslinger, with his leanness, bushy mustache, lean build, and gray-eyed stare. He had never sat on a horse or fired a gun.

“Always,” Chancellor Schueller said, picking up a pair of binoculars and watching a tall boy in blue shorts run and weave through the field. “But you never know how much they’re going to grow in the next few years.”

“Yes, they need size and strength,” Tangler said. “Sometimes you can tell their eventual size by looking at their parents.”

“If the parents ever bother visiting the campus.”

“They’d come more often if they realized it was such a beautiful setting.”

Since it was the weekend they weren’t in Schueller’s office, but in his house on the edge of the campus. It was a large brick two-story with a portico in front. There was a walled-in brick patio in back that turned a corner and ran halfway down the house’s west side. The wall was only twenty-four inches high and its purpose was decorative. Ivy grew over some of it, and twined halfway up the side of the house. Two sets of French doors gave access to the patio from the house. There was lawn furniture out there, cushioned chairs, and a round table with an umbrella tilted for shade.

The inside of the house was spacious and eclectically furnished. On display were items acquired by Schueller during his annual journeys overseas. Statuary he’d had shipped from Greece and Italy, a table from Germany. There were circular and square soft leather pads beneath everything that might scratch the expensive wood and its antique patina. The tall mahogany bookcases in the den where they sat sipping iced tea were from France. They were lined up along one wall and half of another. Almost enough books to qualify for a library, arranged every which way in the shelves. The atmosphere was pleasant in here. Overstuffed and scholarly. No doubt exactly what Schueller and his decorator had envisioned. Mounted on one wall was a Manet preliminary sketch of a nude woman reclining on a sofa. Tangler knew the sketch was genuine. On an open French provincial antique secretary with its mottled original finish sat a modern desk computer, a contrast of ages. He knew that Schueller was skillful on the computer, and that he was on Facebook. It was amazing, what you could find on Facebook. Whom you could find. Old friends. New friends. Any kind of woman.