John Lutz - Night kills

"A sexual lubricant?" Pearl asked.

"Furniture oil," Quinn said.

"He polished them off," Fedderman said. He seemed obviously pleased by his humor.

"Shut up with that kind of stuff," Pearl said.

Fedderman noticed his shirt cuff was unbuttoned and fastened it. "Where were they found?" Mr. Serious now.

"The first in a Dumpster behind a restaurant on the Upper West Side. The second in a vacant building in lower Manhattan."

"Vacant why?" Pearl asked.

"Being renovated."

"Actively?"

"Yeah. A condo conversion." Quinn knew where she was going with this and was pleased.

"Found on a Monday?" Pearl asked.

"You guessed it."

"The workmen would be bound to find it, then. And the torso in the Dumpster would be found next trash pickup."

"Which was scheduled for the morning after it was placed there," Quinn said. "Restaurant employees said they would have seen it during working hours, so it must have been put in the Dumpster the night before."

Pearl uncrossed her legs and placed her stockinged feet on the floor, wriggling her toes. "The killer wanted the torsos found soon after they were dumped. Any idea why?"

"Not as yet," Quinn said.

"I take it there's been a missing persons check on the two victims," Fedderman said.

"Sure. No women their sizes, ages, or ethnicity have been reported missing lately in and around New York. Both were in their early thirties." Quinn leaned back slightly in his desk chair and began swiveling gently an inch or so each way. He'd oiled the chair recently and it didn't make a sound. "Another thing. A journalist, Cindy Sellers of City Beat, knows everything I just told you and is sitting on the story as a favor to Renz."

"I remember her," Pearl said. "She's an asshole."

"No more so than the other media wolves," Quinn said, thinking Pearl would have made a good investigative reporter.

"Pearl's right," Fedderman said. "The Cindy Sellers I remember won't sit on the story for long. Not unless Renz has got something on her."

"If he does," Quinn said, "it isn't enough to keep the lid on very long. That's why he activated us. He wants to be out in front of the story."

"Wants to be mayor," Pearl said.

Still astute, Quinn thought.

Pearl suddenly wondered what she was doing here. Why had she chosen this option? She seemed unable to escape Quinn's presence and influence. Another appeal from Renz to Quinn, another critical case, another psychopath, the call to her from Quinn, and here she was again. This held the repetition of madness. It was as if she were on a masochistic treadmill that she couldn't get off because some part of her didn't want to leave. This case…she felt in her bones it was something special. She had to be in on it.

"Go over the files on both killings," Quinn said, "and we'll meet back here tomorrow and brainstorm."

"We gonna keep meeting here?" Pearl asked. She had lived here with Quinn and wasn't comfortable with the idea. Their bedroom had been right across the hall.

"Renz has promised to get us office space, as usual. He won't want us in a precinct house. The idea is we can be NYPD, but at the same time more independent than ordinary homicide detectives. We'll be reporting only to him."

"It'll be a roach-infested dump, as usual," Pearl said. "But anyplace is better 'an here." Maybe not. She remembered the last office space Renz had found for them, and the shrill scream of the drill from the dental clinic on the other side of the wall.

Quinn looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. Fedderman's flight out of Florida had been delayed, so the meeting had started late. "Nine o'clock tomorrow morning okay?"

Both detectives agreed to the hour, then stood up. Quinn got up to show them out.

As they passed the bedroom, Pearl couldn't help herself and glanced in at the bed. It was made, but not very neatly. A book lay on the table by the reading lamp on what she still thought of as Quinn's side, but she couldn't make out the title. Nothing seemed to have changed since she'd moved out two years ago. Quinn caught her looking and she glared at him.

She knew he was still in love with her, and it was a damned inconvenience. They'd tried to live together and found it impossible. Pearl didn't want to repeat the experience. It was obvious what the trouble was. Quinn was self-controlled, deliberate, and quietly obsessive. Pearl was impulsive, combative, and volatile. They clashed. Another difference was that Pearl knew when to give up on their relationship and Quinn didn't. He didn't know when to give up on anything.

At the street door, Fedderman said, "I've still got my rental. I'll drive you home, Pearl."

"Okay. Better than a subway."

"Better company, too," Fedderman said.

"If you don't count dress, manners, and intelligence."

Quinn was glad to hear them bickering. That was how it worked when they were a team, questioning and challenging each other, wearing away what wasn't solid or didn't fit, until only the truth remained.

Even if they might not like the truth.

Compared to most of the other New York papers, large and small, City Beat didn't have much of a circulation. But Deputy Chief Wes Nobbler always picked up a copy, because he knew of the relationship between Commissioner Renz and Cindy Sellers. More than once Sellers had been Renz's conduit to the larger media.

Nobbler, a large, portly man with squinty blue eyes and a complexion that made him always appear to have been out in the sun too long, was thinking about City Beat now. His bedroom was still dark, but he couldn't sleep, and the red numerals on the clock by his bed glowed the time to him: 5:02 A.M. Too early to get up, and too late to bother going back to sleep. And his bladder was swollen, though not to the point of urgency. Why get up, switch on the light, relieve himself in the bathroom, and then go back to bed?

He couldn't think of a good reason.

Ten minutes passed. Now getting up or not wasn't the question. He had to take a leak.

With City Beat still on the periphery of his thoughts, he struggled to a sitting position on the squeaking bed, turned on the lamp, and plodded into the bathroom.

Might as well stay up now. He put on his wrinkled uniform pants from yesterday, knowing a freshly pressed uniform just back from the dry cleaners hung in the closet. He'd change into the clean uniform later, after he'd showered and shaved. He slipped bare feet into his shoes and left on the gray T-shirt he'd slept in. He went back into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and used wet fingers to slick back red hair that hadn't a trace of gray in it.

Awake all the way now, he went into the kitchen and set up his Mr. Coffee to brew. Then he took a look out the window to make sure it wasn't raining and left the apartment to walk to the end of the block and get a Times and City Beat from their respective vending machines.

By the time he got back it was starting to get light out and traffic was just beginning to pick up. The apartment smelled of freshly brewed coffee, and he felt hungry and wished he'd found someplace open and bought some doughnuts. Not that he needed the calories.

He poured a cup of coffee, added a dash of cream from the refrigerator, and sat down at the kitchen table.

Nobbler glanced at the Times first. There was rioting in France, Congress was calling for an investigation into something Nobbler didn't understand, and beneath the paper's fold there was great consternation over the Yankees's seven-game losing streak.

The usual, Nobbler thought. All the money the Yankees had, you'd think they could buy some pitchers who didn't have arms ready to fall off. He put the Times aside, took a sip of coffee, and looked at City Beat.

Holy Christ!

Nobbler forgot all about his appetite, the Yankees, and his coffee as he read.