Carnage: Short Story (4 page)

Desoto took it all in, and then informed Quinn that Audrey Simmons was divorced and a third-grade schoolteacher. She was a runner and took part in local marathons to raise money for charity. There was no obvious love interest in her life, but Desoto would learn more talking to friends and relatives of the victim.

“And of course,” he said, “we’ll keep each other informed about your detective, Pearl.”

“More than just a detective,” Quinn said.

“Ah. I thought so. From watching you at the pool.”

Desoto smiled with perfect white teeth. His thick black hair was undisturbed by the breeze, nailed down with some kind of greasy pomade, but on him it looked good. The guy really did resemble an old time matinee idol. He promised to keep Quinn informed of anything that might develop with the local investigation. That didn’t mean much to Quinn, who already knew who the killer was, and that he was staying on the move.

Where the hell is Pearl?
He didn’t want to think she was with the killer. Or worse . . .

That isn’t how the bastard works. Isn’t part of his sick pattern.

But Quinn knew he was lying to himself. No one was completely predictable.

When Quinn returned to where the car was parked, his cell phone buzzed.

Sal growled, “Quinn?” in Quinn’s ear.

“Yeah.”

“The guy from the motel office said he got an anonymous phone call saying we should search Pearl’s room again.”

“
Again
means he was probably watching us the first time.”

“Creepy bastard might be watching now, or listening to our phone conversation. Anyway, we’re going back in and searching.”

“Not till I get there. I’m sitting in my car now.”

“You got any idea of why the killer wants Pearl’s room tossed again?”

“Not really,” Quinn said.

“We can handle it right now, in case it might be time urgent.”

“I want the Del Moray police in on this, assuming they’ve got a bomb squad.”

“Christ, a bomb! I never thought of that.”

“The killer might have.”

“A bomb . . . Well, I can see why you wouldn’t want to miss that.”

Quinn wondered for a moment if Sal was trying to be funny. He decided to let it pass. Probably Sal had been spending too much time with Harold.

“I’m on my way,” Quinn said.

He was thumbing out the Del Moray Police number on his cell as he pulled the big Lincoln away from the curb.

Quinn parked as close as possible to Pearl’s motel room. He saw Sal, Harold, and Fedderman standing outside in the shade of a palm tree, about a hundred feet from her door. They had strung yellow tape to keep gawkers a safe distance away. People stared, but most went on their way, either to the beach or leaving it. The motel manager, a tall, slender young man with huge tortoiseshell glasses, was on a sandy path just beyond them, pacing.

“Bomb squad’s on the way here from Fort Lauderdale,” Fedderman said.

“Too far away,” Quinn said. His throat was dry but he felt like spitting.

When he looked up, he saw a Del Moray police car pulling into the parking lot. The light strip on its roof was flashing a riot of color. He headed for Pearl’s motel room.

“Where you going?” Sal rasped in surprise.

“To Pearl’s room, while I’m still in charge.”

The door was locked so he kicked it open.

Quinn knew he might not have much time. He stood in the center of the room and moved in a slow circle, then he checked the closet and bathroom, anyplace a bomb might be hidden.

The last place he decided to check was beneath the bed, where a blast would be limited by the heavy mattress and bedsprings.

He bent over, peered into the shadows beneath the bed, and immediately saw a woman’s arm.

Just as immediately, he knew the arm was dead.

Quinn stood up and heaved the mattress out of the way, off the box springs. Then he gripped the limp cool arm and pulled.

The woman wasn’t Pearl. She was Latin and matronly, and in a maid’s uniform. She had obviously been strangled, judging by her bulging eyes clouded with broken capillaries.

Quinn heard a low moan. Another. And shoved the mattress all the way off the bed frame.

There was Pearl, wrapped in gray duct tape. Her legs were fastened together, her arms and hands were taped to her hips. A rectangle of duct tape served as a gag. She and the maid must have been lying side by side, immovable and silent as the room was searched. At least Pearl was alive. Her eerily calm brown eyes stayed fixed on Quinn as he worked her out from beneath the bed. He could see and hear her breathing.

Seething with anger and at the same time relief, he gently picked her up and carried her outside.

The Del Moray police car he’d seen arrive was parked near the yellow tape. Nearby was another vehicle. An ambulance. Desoto at least was thinking.

Two white-uniformed paramedics ran toward Quinn, and he carefully handed over Pearl. In short order she was lying on a gurney, then was placed in the back of the ambulance.

Quinn rode with her to the hospital.

“We gave the room a quick look, never thought to check under the bed,” Sal said in the hospital waiting room. They’d stayed, even though the doctors said it looked like Pearl was unharmed.

Quinn could understand Sal’s position. Still, he didn’t like it.

“You’d been in and out of her room, and you didn’t look under the bed?”

Fedderman wore a pained expression. “Remember, when we were looking for Pearl, we still thought she was probably okay.”

“Nobody heard anything?”

“She couldn’t move or make a sound,” Sal said. “Neither could the maid.”

“The maid—”

“She was strangled. The manager assumed she was still making her rounds, or had already finished and left work for the day.”

Fedderman still couldn’t look Quinn in the eye. “But D.O.A. didn’t kill Pearl . . .”

“Playing his friggin’ games,” Sal rasped. “Wanted us to know he
could
have had his way with her.”

“He killed someone else besides the maid,” Quinn said. “A woman named Audrey Simmons. Lived in a house with a pool.”

“Asshole’s gotta have his water nearby,” Sal said.

“She was in the pool. He tortured her before he killed her and carved
D.O.A.
in her forehead.”

“Games,” Sal said again. “Even with chess pieces.”

“What I don’t like,” Quinn told him, “is that he seems to be a couple of moves ahead.”

By the time Quinn and Fedderman returned to the motel, the desk clerk had left for Quinn a small brown wrapped package. It had been placed in with the regular mail, with Quinn’s name and room number instead of an address.

Quinn immediately carried the package to the far end of the parking lot, then laid it gently on the ground. Then he phoned Desoto, told him about the package, and asked him to go ahead and send the bomb squad from Fort Lauderdale.

Less than an hour later Quinn stood with Desoto, his sidekick Beckle, and the Q&A detectives, and watched a robot that looked deceptively like a toy roll to where the brown package addressed to Quinn lay. It slowed and seemed to creep up on the package. Metal arms reached out, clutched the package, shook it. Raised it several times and dropped it.

Ten minutes later, two guys who looked more like astronauts than bomb disposal experts cautiously approached the package, which was now illuminated by bright lights from several angles to eliminate shadows. They regarded it carefully, then kneeled and bent over it. Soon the package was unwrapped, the box inside opened.

One of the astronauts waved for Quinn and Desoto to come over. Everyone else was held back, just in case. Bomb disposal experts regularly bet their lives on an abundance of caution, but made sure nobody else’s life was at stake.

In the glare of artificial light, they looked down at the package’s contents.

Two plastic chess pawns.

Back in New York, Quinn and his detectives gathered at the office, along with Helen the profiler and Jerry Lido. Some stood; others sat in client chairs, mostly clumped around Quinn’s desk. Pearl was slouched in one of Quinn’s chairs. Helen was perched on the edge of Pearl’s desk, her long arms crossed and rippling with muscle and sinew. There was a clammy feel to the air, and the scent of fresh-brewed coffee.

Quinn leaned back in his swivel chair and listened to the brainstorming. He liked this kind of group approach, though it could drip with sarcasm and erupt in violent shows of temper. Every once in a while, something valuable could come of these impromptu confabs.

“What’s with the two pawns?” Sal asked. “Is the killer telling us he’s gonna start murdering victims in pairs?”

“Not likely,” Helen said.

“He didn’t kill Pearl along with the maid,” Sal pointed out.

“Exactly. It would have been too impromptu. He’s in charge. He wants to decide when, where, and how Pearl dies.”

“What
is
likely?” Fedderman asked.

“Occam’s razor,” Harold said.

Sal said, “What the hell does that mean?”

“Whatever is simplest is most likely the truth.”

“Who’s Occam?” Fedderman asked.

Quinn really felt like lighting a cigar.

“It doesn’t matter,” Helen said. “What Harold said is usually true. It’s commonsense reasoning.”

Harold looked triumphant, but only for a few seconds. “On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes said—”

“Forget about Sherlock Holmes,” Helen said. “It’s the two pawns that interest me.”

“The incident of the two pawns,” Harold said, and was ignored.

“There are six murders that we know about, in this latest string of killings.” Lido said. He was farthest away from the nucleus of the group, at his computer. Usually above the fray.

“Meaning what?” Fedderman asked.

“Each player has eight pawns at the beginning of a chess game,” Helen said. “The killer might be telling us we’re out of pawns, and the game is going to get more serious. Bishops, rooks, knights . . . We’re going to be playing with the royalty of chess.”

“I say the two pawns means he’s going to kill two more women,” Sal said.

“Occam again,” Helen said.

“Sherlock Holmes—” Harold began.

“That’s most likely,” Helen said. “Two more victims. He’s getting anxious, more and more in the grip of his compulsion.”

“Sherlock—”

“He’ll want to kill more often,” Fedderman said.

“He isn’t wrapped up in all that mapping and distance for nothing,” Helen said. “I’d say he’s eager to get to his final destination.”

“New York,” Sal and Fedderman said simultaneously.

“Most likely,” Harold said. “He wants to make it here.”

Sal gave him a look.

“Where Quinn lives,” Harold added.

When they were gone, Quinn fired up a cigar, sat at his desk, and tried to figure out what to make of it all.

He was sitting on a wooden folding chair, alone at a small round table covered with a white cloth. It was one of many in the beige-toned conference room. On each table were a small writing tablet, a cheap ballpoint pen, and a slender glass vase containing a single red rose. The killer’s rose looked as if it needed water.

Speed dating, the killer thought. What a useful idea.

Everyone had ten minutes to convince the prospective date at a table to take a chance. Just meet somewhere for a cup of coffee, maybe. Or a drink. An exploratory date. If the suitor (so called) was interested, he or she could arrange a date, or at least exchange phone numbers. If, as happened most of the time, the spark wasn’t struck, tables were changed when a chime sounded, indicating ten minutes had elapsed.

The starting chime set in motion the dozen or so men clustered at one end of the room. The women sat at the tables.

Here they come, Alma Fenster thought, wondering if you could actually smell testosterone. They were an unlikely looking bunch, dressed every way from motorcycle gang member to Sunday school teacher. There was one guy wearing a conservative blue blazer and khakis, deck shoes with no socks—like Mr. Suburban who’d lost his way and found himself in the big city.

Yet there was something about him. A kind of easy sophistication that peeked through no matter what. He wasn’t what you’d call spectacularly handsome, but he was hard to find fault with in a way that Alma liked. He could best be described by the word
pleasant
.

But would he like her?

She dispensed with a guy who seemed to love the rooftop pigeons he kept more than anything else. Next came an elderly man who was obviously drunk. He left before his ten minutes were up, after Alma had declined suggestions encompassing half the
Kama Sutra
.

Then the pleasant-looking guy took a seat at Alma’s table.

“Hi, I’m Corey,” he said. Then he smiled. “It’s my real name, actually. Who are you, really?”

“Alma Fenster.” God! She felt herself blush. “I wouldn’t make that one up.”

He seemed to consider the name. “I could learn to like it,” he said.

She laughed. Some lies you appreciate. And some truths. “And if it was your own name?”

He gave her a grin that melted her. “Honestly,” he said, “I’d change it to Corey.” He leaned closer. “Have I insulted you?”

“No. You’ve honored me with the truth.”

“Ah! A woman with common sense.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“I don’t need ten minutes. I knew before I sat down I wanted to walk out of here with you.”

Alma was flustered. She had to fight the instinct to jump up and run for the door. She could yell that she’d forgotten to turn off the oven—something like that. She didn’t make friends easily, much less lovers.

Her voice was halting. “Maybe we should simply exchange phone numbers, then think about this when we get home.”

“I’ve already thought about it,” he said.

Alma considered herself to be an average-looking woman, a blonde about ten pounds overweight with a weak chin.

Of course, lots of men liked a weak chin. Something sexy about the overbite, or so she’d heard.

“Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” he said. “So we can talk more than—”

The ten minute chime interrupted him.

He stood up and crooked his elbow, offering his arm. “Let’s go, Alma,” he said through that damned smile that sent her into a tizzy.

Tizzy.
Her mother used to use that word a lot.

Her mother also had told her that the brass ring didn’t come around very often. Corey looked like the brass ring.

Alma gripped her purse and stood up. “There’s a Starbuck’s on the corner,” she said.

His smile widened. “On every corner.”

Alma thought that was reasonably funny, even when you stopped to think about it and realized it was an old joke and almost true.

She could feel the eyes of other women on her as she and Corey made their way to the door. She was glad now that she’d gotten her hair done at Tina’s this morning, thinking that maybe she’d have something to tell Tina when she saw her next week.

“I was surprised to find someone like you in a place like that,” he said, as they walked through the hot night toward Starbuck’s.

“How so?”

“A looker like you . . . you know the line. In this case, it happens to be accurate. Seriously, what were you doing there?”

They walked awhile as she thought. “It’s this city,” she said. “New York.”

“What is?

“The problem. It’s so heartless here sometimes. And it’s true that being alone in a crowded place can be excruciatingly lonely. Especially if you’re like me.”

“Which is how?”

“I find it difficult to make friends.”

He patted her shoulder. “You made one tonight. I’ll prove it by rescuing you and spiriting you out of the city to somewhere interesting.”

Spiriting me. At least this guy has a vocabulary.

“How about somewhere quiet?” she said. “There’s always something making noise here, from jackhammers to horns honking. Even dogs barking.”

He smiled. “I’ll take you somewhere quiet. Not far, but in another state. We can read and eat bonbons.”

“That sounds pretty good,” she said, and moved closer to him.