John Lutz - Pulse

“Didn’t you even get a glimpse of whoever shoved you?” Sal asked in his gravelly rasp. It almost hurt Pearl’s throat to listen to that voice.

“All too fast,” Pearl said, “and from behind.”

“It could have been one of two people,” Weaver said. “Keep in mind that I was concentrating on Pearl, on what was happening, so the rest was just an impression. Both possibilities were average height and build. They sort of crisscrossed behind Pearl just before she was shoved, so there was no way to know who did what.”

“You think they were working together?”

“Naw. Nothing like that.”

“How were they dressed?” Quinn asked.

“One guy in a brown suit. The other had on jeans, maybe, and a light blue short-sleeved shirt. Hair color on both of them was brown. Dark, anyway. Neither had a shaved head or a full beard, nothing like that. Average size, maybe on the slender side.”

“Not much of a description.”

“I was busy saving Pearl’s life.”

“Tailing her so you could report to Renz.”

“Doing my job.”

“Question is,” Fedderman said, “why did the killer take a run at Pearl?”

“If it was Daniel,” Quinn said.

“Be too coincidental if it wasn’t.”

“To Feds’s question,” Harold Mishkin said, “I think the answer is Quinn. This is a game to Daniel, and Quinn’s the dragon he has to slay. He’d see it as a triumph over Quinn if he could get Pearl. Even if he didn’t actually kill her. It’d raise the stakes of the game even higher.”

“And he’s a high-stakes player,” Pearl said.

Sal was staring at Mishkin. “Sometimes you surprise me, Harold.”

“We’ll see what Helen has to say about it when she comes in,” Harold said. But they all knew that Helen had more or less weighed in on this one already.

Weaver went over and got a cup of coffee. She sipped it while she walked back to the group. Her hand holding the cup began to shake, and she held the cup with both hands to steady it.

“This was close,” she said. “It wasn’t for show.” Some of the coffee sloshed onto her hand. “Damn it!” She glared at all of them. “I thought you people were protecting Pearl with your own tail.”

“I took it off,” Quinn said, “once it became known you were keeping a loose tail on her for Renz.”

Weaver smiled miserably. “You weren’t supposed to know that.”

“Everybody knows everything eventually,” Quinn said.

Nobody spoke for a while, everyone thinking it was the who, what, when, and how much that made a difference.

Everyone but Quinn. He was thinking about what happened to Pearl. So close. But was it meant to be that close? This wasn’t a knife in the dark, slow strangulation in a hog-tie, or artfully applied pain that eventually became shock and death. This wasn’t the way the killer took his prey.

This was a message.

“There’s nothing more to say on this for now,” Quinn said. “Meeting’s over.”

“One thing,” the now perfectly calm Pearl said, looking at Weaver. “Thank you, Nancy.”

Rare for Pearl.

The text message Pearl received on her phone fifteen minutes later was succinct and untraceable:

Whew!

T he next morning, Quinn sat at his desk and called Jerry Lido’s cell phone number.

Lido answered on the second ring. Said, “Quinn.”

“I know who I am, Jerry. You sober?”

“It’s morning, Quinn.”

“You sound astonished.”

“You woke me up, is why I might sound sort of disoriented. I’m totally unmedicated. I heard about Pearl. How is she?”

“Pearl is… Pearl.” Quinn knew enough not to ask how Lido had heard about Pearl’s close call.

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“I’ve got a job for you,” Quinn said. He told Lido about his and Pearl’s conversation with Jody, about Meeding Properties and Mildred Dash and something secretive at Waycliffe College, the professor who had a file on old Daniel Danielle murders, and the mysterious and over-friendly Sarah Benham. And Macy Collins.

“Not to mention Daniel’s other, more recent victims,” Lido said.

“Not to mention. Daniel is topical again, studied along with Dahmer and Bundy in college courses.”

“And you want me to find out everything I can about all of this?”

“That’s it,” Quinn said. “It’s all connected in some way. Or can be connected. Like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit to create a picture.”

“Because maybe one is missing.”

“Or more than one.”

“Waycliffe College,” Lido mused. “Don’t they have a lacrosse team?”

“One of the best in the country.”

“Is that a lie?”

“Might be. Ask Helen the profiler. She’s a sports babe and would be happy to talk lacrosse.”

Lido emitted a sound like an animal might make while struggling out of deep hibernation. Quinn thought he recognized it as a laugh but couldn’t be sure. Why did so many people with genius ability have so many quirks? Pearl was staring at him across the office as if she was wondering the same thing. She could only have picked up a word or two here and there in the conversation, so how could she know what he was thinking? She couldn’t know what they were talking about.

He’d tell her after talking with Lido, of course. And tell the others. He was beginning to get the feeling he sometimes experienced when a part of his mind knew an investigation was tracking toward a conclusion. Like radar locking on.

That feeling was seldom wrong.

“Gather round,” he told everyone, after breaking off his phone conversation with Lido.

They did, looking curious, oddly eager, with slight forward leans and direct eye contact. Senses were at their peak. These were hunters, picking up vibes from the lead predator.

“This have something to do with lacrosse?” Pearl asked.

W hile she was doing drone work at Enders and Coil, Jody’s cell phone played its “I Fought the Law” tune. She flipped it open to see Sarah Benham’s number.

That was fine with Jody. Maybe she’d probe and find out what Sarah was doing at Waycliffe while Jody was there.

But Sarah didn’t have time to talk now. She’d called to suggest she and Jody have lunch in an hour at their favorite restaurant-Sarah’s favorite, anyway-The Happy Noodle.

“We haven’t gotten together for a while,” Sarah said, “so I thought, why not this afternoon?”

“Why not?” Jody said. “We can catch up with each other.”

They agreed on a time, and Sarah called and made a reservation.

It was Sarah who arrived at the restaurant first. Jody saw her standing up and waving among the crowded tables.

Sarah had somehow wrangled a booth, where they could talk with at least some privacy. Jody exchanged air kisses with her and they both sat down.

“I’ve got two apple martinis coming,” Sarah said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No one could mind an apple martini,” Jody said. “You’ve made me a convert.”

A waiter arrived with their drinks, and they told him they’d study the menu a while before ordering.

Sarah sipped her drink. She was wearing makeup, but she seemed slightly older today. Thin lines showed when she tilted her head a certain way and changed the cast of the lighting. “So how are things going at Enders and Coil?”

Jody smiled ruefully and sampled her martini.

“Something wrong at the firm?” Sarah asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jody said. “Mildred Dash is still hospitalized. She was supposed to come home a few days ago but had a setback, and the situation has become awkward. Her holdout is making bigger news.”

“Mildred who? Oh, the woman who was holding out in her apartment. What happened to her?”