John Lutz - Serial

The office was warm but dry, and not much street noise filtered in from outside. Expectancy charged the air like high-tension electricity.

Quinn was waiting until Fedderman had arrived before going into detail for Vitali, Mishkin, and Pearl.

Fedderman entered the office and glanced around. “So where’s the suspect?”

Quinn looked at Fedderman’s eyes. He’s joking, but he’s locked in .

“You said on the phone you had something interesting,” Fedderman said. “I figured there’d been an arrest.”

“You seem pissed off,” Pearl said. “Is there some personal reason you didn’t want to come in a little early this morning?”

Pearl and her antenna, Fedderman thought. But then it didn’t take a genius to know what was going on. Penny was attractive.

Quinn, knowing what Pearl was thinking, smiled over at her.

Damned Quinn!

Fedderman walked over to the coffee brewer as if he hadn’t heard what Pearl said. He poured himself half a cup and added cream. Stirred with one of the plastic spoons.

Everyone waited patiently until he came back to join them. He leaned with his haunches against the edge of a desk. The four of them were perched that way, like birds on a wire. Quinn, behind his desk, was the only one actually seated.

“Late last night,” he said, “a thirty-year-old woman named Jane Nixon came home alone from salsa dancing at a place down the block from where she lived. She unlocked her apartment door and started to go inside. That’s when a man approached and shoved her all the way in, then followed her into the dark apartment and closed the door behind him.”

“Our guy?” Fedderman asked.

“That’s my guess,” Quinn said. “He made sure the door was locked so she couldn’t get out in a hurry even if she reached it, then he came toward her carrying what she called ‘a curvy little knife.’” Quinn looked at his four detectives in turn. “This all happened within seconds. But while she’d been stumbling across the room after he shoved her, Nixon, who still had her hand in her purse after returning the keys when she unlocked her door, also had her hand near a small canister of mace she always carried.”

“Tricky Nixon,” Vitali said.

“Our assailant thought he had her cowed, and right where he wanted her. He was surprised when she waited till he was close, and then suddenly shot mace into his face from about a foot away. He got a snoot full.

“She spun and ran into the bedroom, and he made toward the door to the hall. He could still see well enough to get outta the building while Nixon was calling nine-one-one.”

“What about Jane Nixon?” Pearl asked. “She get a look at him?”

“Not a good look. She was close when she let fly with the mace, and some of the stuff got in her eyes, too. She was half blind when the uniforms arrived at her apartment.”

“Unhurt so far, though,” Vitali said.

“Physically, she sustained only a small knife cut on her forearm.”

“Poor thing’s probably still scared stiff,” Mishkin said.

“She’ll be scared for a while,” Quinn said.

“The knife sounds right,” Fedderman said.

“Everything sounds right,” Quinn said. “Right, and then fortunately interrupted.”

“Did anybody see this sicko flee the premises?” Vitali asked.

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “We got a cab driver picked up a guy near Nixon’s apartment building in the right time frame. A blind man, no less, wearing dark glasses and bumping into things. No seeing-eye dog or cane, just blind faith. Cabbie said he drove the fare to an intersection near Central Park and left him there.”

“He left a blind man near Central Park at night?” Fedderman asked.

“There are big apartment buildings on the other side of Central Park West, facing the park. The cab driver figured his fare was gonna enter one of them. The guy also gave him a line of bullshit about wanting to make it the rest of the way home by himself, so he’d feel self-reliant and useful.”

“A man with pride,” Vitali said.

“Those were the cabbie’s exact words. So he drove away and left the guy.”

“Smartest thing he ever did,” Fedderman said.

“Or luckiest,” Pearl said.

“He said he did glance in the rearview mirror when he was a little way down the street. The blind man was cautiously crossing the street, relying almost entirely on his sense of hearing not to be run down by some hard-charging motorist.” Quinn looked at his detectives and didn’t see optimism. “Nixon was raped six years ago and picked out her attacker from a lineup. The man she falsely accused got out of prison less than a year ago on new DNA evidence. He’s all alibied up.”

“Too bad Nixon didn’t get much of a look at her attacker,” Pearl said.

“She did say she thought he was average height and build. The word average came up a lot.”

“It always does,” Fedderman said.

“What about our guy Link Evans?” Vitali asked. “He was starting to look good for it.”

“Different story. His wife in Missouri said he was at a big numismatic convention in Denver.”

“That’s coin collecting?” Vitali asked, to be sure.

Quinn nodded.

“In point of fact,” Mishkin said, “he might collect other kinds of money, Sal, not only coins.”

Vitali glared at him, still intolerant from his confinement in the car with Mishkin. “What the hell does that mean, Harold?”

“Bills. Paper money…”

“No. ‘In point of fact.’ What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“In this case it means he was lucky,” Pearl said.

“Not exactly,” Quinn said. “Seems there is no coin show in Denver. Hasn’t been one there in weeks.”

Focus narrowed. Attitudes changed immediately.

Pearl stood up away from her desk. “We’ve got him.”

“Not yet,” Quinn told her. “And not for sure. We still can’t be positive he’s the Skinner.”

“Maybe you ’re not positive,” Pearl said, “but I-”

The door banged open, and Jerry Lido came stumbling in.

One lapel of Lido’s wrinkled sport coat was twisted inside out. His stained paisley tie was loosely knotted and flung back over one shoulder, as if he was battling a strong headwind in an open-cockpit plane. He needed a shave, and his eyes were reminiscent of stuffed olives.

“Don’t you look like shit,” Pearl said.

“Been busy,” Lido said, shuffling his feet with nervous energy.

Pearl could smell the gin. She knew Quinn must, too. “Been at the bottle?” she asked.

“Just enough to straighten me out so I could come over here,” Lido said. “I been at the computer.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “I found out a couple of things.”

“I told them about the nonexistent Denver coin convention,” Quinn said.

“Found something other’n that,” Lido said. “Link Evans took a flight out of Kansas City two days ago, not to Denver, but to Philadelphia.”

“So Denver was a feint,” Vitali said.

“He rent a car in Philly?” Pearl asked.

“No,” Lido said. “But he coulda taken a train right into New York City. It’s an easy commute, and if he paid cash for his ticket, there’s no way to check.”

“Security tapes,” Pearl said.

“Maybe. But that might take weeks. Months, even. And they might’ve missed him, or had a bad camera angle. You know security cameras.”

Pearl did.

Quinn slowed Lido down enough to tell him about last night’s attack on Jane Nixon.

“Okay,” Lido said, still vibrating. “That dovetails. I think Evans trained into New York, and he paid Jane Nixon a visit. Then, after spending the night in New York, it was back to Philadelphia.”

“Or somewhere nearby,” Pearl said.