Frenzy (4 page)

8

 

T
he media went bonkers, and why shouldn't they? Six dead women, five of them still in their teens. It was a grisly sensation.

National news picked up on the story. Fox News did a special. The media argued with itself over who was covering the story too much or not enough. The muddled and misguided came forward and confessed to the horrible crime at the rate of a dozen a day. A man in Oregon sent Quinn a written confession complete with photographs. That one was taken seriously until the police lab determined that the grisly photos were shots of published NYPD photographs. Surprise, surprise. Someone in the department was leaking.

That was Renz's problem.

The rest was mostly Quinn's. He knew that if there wasn't another D.O.A. murder the papers and TV news eventually would stop running photos of him and bits of the video of his only press conference. But only if the killer ceased in his gruesome harvest.

And of course there were some who would never stop.

Quinn's answers to the media wolves' barrage of questions hadn't been satisfactory, and he knew they'd be after him for more. Minnie Miner, whose talk show
Minnie Miner ASAP
ran daily on local television, was the most persistent of the media types. And the call-in segment of her show was keeping New Yorkers not only interested, but afraid. Minnie was to New York what a mixer was to a milk shake.

Quinn did owe Minnie a favor. But then almost everyone newsworthy in New York owed Minnie a favor. She saw to that. Favors were the currency of her realm. Hers and Quinn's.

Renz held his own press conferences, often defending his decision to pit Quinn and the killer against each other a second time. It hadn't worked out so well the first time, which only added to this time's dramatic impact. Yet Renz's press conferences weren't as lively and well attended as Quinn's. Quinn, with his bony thug's countenance and perpetually shaggy haircut, simply made for better television than Renz, and that was that. Renz had to live with it.

Which Renz did for a while. Then he forbade Quinn to waste any more time on the media; he was to concentrate on the investigation. He, Renz, would be the link between the investigation and the media. If he needed more charisma he would grow some.

“ 'Bout time,” Pearl said, when she learned of Renz's instructions.

Quinn thought so, too. “You know how he is,” he said.

“Yeah. Renz waited for you to take all the heat and test the waters. Now he's ready to jump in and hog the publicity and whatever glory might come to pass.”

“That's Renz,” Quinn said, in his mind seeing Renz do a cannonball into a small pool.

Quinn and Pearl were sitting in the Q&A office on West 79th Street. It was arranged almost like a precinct squad room, with desks out in the open, some of them facing each other. There were fiberboard panels that could be moved around when privacy of a sort was required, but right now they were stacked back near the half bath.

Both Quinn and Pearl knew what the other was thinking. If Q&A didn't locate or apprehend the killer this second time around, it might result in losses of reputation and business. In no more Q&A.

Add to that the fact that this killer was prey that tended to morph into predator. A lot was on the line here.

“What's Renz?” Larry Fedderman asked, having caught the tail end of Quinn and Pearl's conversation. He was standing by Mr. Coffee, pouring some of the steaming liquid into his mug. His white shirt cuff, which usually came unbuttoned because of the way he gripped pen or pencil, was still fastened, indicating that the day was young and he hadn't yet made any notes.

“I think we all know the answer to that,” Pearl said.

Quinn went over and poured a mug of coffee for himself. Added some cream and stirred longer than was necessary. He was waiting for Sal Vitali and Harold Mishkin to arrive, the detectives who had worked so long as a team in the NYPD, and now were employed by Q&A. It was almost nine o'clock. Time for the morning meet, at which they all shared knowledge. Quinn was determined that everyone knew the same version of what was going on. It prevented a lot of wasted time and effort.

As Quinn took a careful, painful sip of the near-boiling coffee, Sal and Harold arrived. Sal, short and stocky and full of decisive movement, had a full head of wavy black hair just beginning to gray, and a voice that sounded like gravel in a bucket. His partner Harold was slender and balding, with a slight forward lean and a bushy gray mustache. He looked more like an actor who should be playing Mr. Chips in a movie than a cop. Sometimes Harold was difficult to figure out, especially for Sal. Both men were carrying flat white boxes with grease stains that somehow hadn't gotten on their clothes.

“We got doughnuts,” Sal rasped.

Over by the coffee machine, Fedderman said, “We got coffee.”

“We got cholesterol,” Harold said.

Sal glared at him. “Don't be crass, Harold.”

Pearl said, “Do you have something with cream filling?”

“We did,” Sal said. “Also with chocolate icing. Harold ate it.”

“Why?” Fedderman asked, sounding angry and puzzled. “He's the one concerned about cholesterol.”

“I'll compensate at lunch,” Harold said.

“You should have slapped it out of his hand,” Pearl said to Sal.

Quinn listened quietly. He knew that for whatever reason the ongoing angst among his detectives aided in their collective thought process. They were like oysters who needed agitation to produce pearls. They all knew that, but none of them would admit it except to him or herself. Better to maintain the productive balancing act.

Quinn walked over and leaned with his haunches on his desk. Crossed his arms. Pearl knew what his choice would be and brought him a chocolate-iced cake doughnut from one of the grease-stained boxes. Quinn took a sample bite. Terrific. He wasn't sure where Sal and Harold got their doughnuts, or if they paid for them, and figured it wiser not to ask.

He glanced at his watch. Six minutes after nine. Everyone was here except for Jerry Lido, the Q&A tech whiz, who might be too hungover to struggle out of bed.

Nobody was talking right now, so Quinn jumped in:

“All the girls' families have been notified,” he said, “at least in time for them not to learn about their daughters' deaths on the news.”

“Musta been all kinds of hell,” Harold said. He had too much empathy for a cop, and occasionally threw up at crime scenes.

The street door opened, and warm air and exhaust fumes wafted into the office. A car horn honked three times, fast, outside, as if something had drawn the driver's attention. Or as if to announce something with a trumpet. Coincidental, surely.

Officer Nancy Weaver entered. The NYPD liaison Renz had mentioned.

9

W
eaver had worked with Q&A before. She would fit right in, as long as she and Pearl didn't actually come to blows.

She was an attractive, compactly built brunette in her forties, with a keen intelligence and an overactive libido. She'd gotten the hell beaten out of her on her last go-round with Q&A, but she still had her slightly crooked grin and the same good-to-go glint in her brown eyes. Quinn heard she'd been working with the vice squad. Typecasting, he thought. Her sleeping with superior officers was legendary. She was known as the officer who had put the “cop” in “copulate.” It was all exaggerated and rather unfair, Quinn thought. On the other hand, how could he know?

She was wearing what looked like six-inch heels, a short, tight red skirt, and a form-fitting bowling team shirt lettered
DO IT IN THE ALLEY.
Dressed for work with the vice squad, Quinn hoped.

Weaver grinned and nodded a hello to all of them. She was carrying a cardboard brown accordion file tied with a brown cord that looked like a shoelace.

“Can you actually bowl in that outfit?” Pearl asked.

“When I do,” Weaver said, “it doesn't matter where the ball goes.”

Quinn cut in before Pearl could reply. He told Weaver it was good to see her. He did admire her tenacity. As did Pearl, although Pearl was silent while the rest of Q&A welcomed Weaver. Quinn knew that the two women had some time ago come to an understanding with each other, something reminiscent of a Middle East treaty.

“I've got the first on-the-scene officers' written statements here,” Weaver said, “along with their brief initial interviews of hotel guests in adjoining rooms, and potential witnesses.”

Quinn waved an arm, indicating that Weaver had the floor.

“Enlighten us,” he said.

 

 

Weaver moved to a spot near the center of the room. She said, “Grace Geyer, Christy Mathewson, Sheryl Stewart, Dawn Kramer, Lucy Mitchell. And their teacher and guide, Andria Bell.” Weaver looked up from the paper bearing the names. “The victims,” she said. “They seem to have little in common other than that they attend—attended—some academy in Cleveland and were chosen for the trip because of their interest and/or talent in art. Mitchell and Stewart were best friends and shared secrets. Grace Geyer was something of a daredevil and troublemaker. She was on probation—the school's, not the law's—and was on the tour primarily because she was the one with the most artistic talent.”

“Figures,” Harold said.

No one asked him why.

“The victims-to-be all checked in without anything unusual happening. Andria Bell asked the concierge down in the lobby about directions to the Museum of Modern Art. That was about it. The girls didn't raise any hell or cause any trouble or play music too loud. The only other hotel guest who even recalls seeing them was a woman on the same floor, a writer named Lettie Soho—small
h
—down the hall about four rooms. She happened to take an elevator up from the lobby with them and saw them all go into their room. Everything seemed normal, she said. There were some giggles in the elevator. One of the girls poked another in the ribs. Their teacher tour guide gave them a look. Then they went out, and while Soho was trying to get her card key to work, she watched them all file into their suite. This was on the day of the crime, approximately an hour before they were killed. When Soho went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner, she saw the older woman, Andria Bell, let a man into the room.”

The Q&A detectives were silent and leaned slightly toward Weaver.

“Probably he was the killer,” Weaver said. “Soho didn't get a good look at him before he went into the suite and the door closed.”

“But the uniforms got what Soho had to give. Some kind of description.”

“Yeah,” Weaver said. “Average size and build, but maybe taller or shorter. Hair brown or black, cut short or medium. Eyes maybe dark, or possibly blue. Wearing gray pants or maybe jeans. White or blue shirt. Possibly a tie, yellow or brown. Age, somewhere between late twenties, mid- or late forties.”

“Okay, we get it,” Quinn said.

“No distinguishing marks,” Weaver said.

“Don't push it,” Pearl said.

Weaver smiled. “Might have moved with a slight limp.”

Quinn's body gave a start.
The plane crash in Maine!
“Which leg?”

“Nothing on that,” Weaver said.

“Did the uniforms find out if Lettie Soho is the woman witness's real name?” Harold asked. “Sounds like a nom de plume
.
”

“Right you are,” Weaver said. “Her real name's Marjory Schacht. She uses a pen name and writes chick lit.”

“What the hell is that?” Quinn asked.

“Hard to explain,” Pearl said. “Think of it as women's light fiction.”

“No sign of drugs or alcohol in any of the victims,” Weaver continued.

“Now, that's odd,” Fedderman said.

“Could be they just didn't have time to get a buzz on before the bastard killed them,” Sal said.

“Small amounts of marijuana in the purses of Kramer and Geyer,” Weaver said.

“Geyer again,” Quinn said. “I wonder if the killer used her to get into the suite. Did Margory Schacht see who let the man in?”

“She isn't sure, but she thinks it was Andria Bell.”

“Still,” Quinn said. “He might have learned about their presence from Geyer. Seen Geyer as the wild one in the flock and struck up a conversation with her.”

“At the museum, maybe,” Pearl said. “She was an artist, and he might have pretended to be one. He could have gotten her chatting about art.”

Weaver folded her papers and slid them back in the brown accordion file. Finished with her presentation, she moved from the center of the room and stood near Pearl's desk.

“We need to get back to the hotel,” Quinn said. “Talk to whoever was staying near the victims. Talk again with Marjory Schacht—Lettie Soho.”

Harold said, “Christy Mathewson.”

The name of one of the victims.

Everyone looked at Harold, waiting for more. Harold was used to being looked at that way.

“He was a great ball player. Old time pitcher. Way back when they used little gloves.”

“Is the victim's name spelled with an
ie
or a
y
?” Pearl asked Weaver.

Weaver reopened her brown file folder, shuffled some papers, and looked. “Uniform spelled it with a
y
.” The male spelling.

“Like the baseball player,” Harold said. It got him another look.

“Do you know how the ballplayer spelled his name?” Sal asked.

“No,” Harold admitted.

“So you think the victim was a male impersonating a female?” Fedderman asked.

“Naw,” Sal said. “The uniformed cop probably just spelled it his way.”

“If Christy was actually a male,” Quinn said, “Nift would have noticed.”

“That's for damned sure,” Pearl said.

Quinn's cell phone buzzed and vibrated. He worked it out of his pocket and saw that the caller was Renz. He walked over near the coffee brewer for something like privacy before answering.

Renz filled him in on what the NYPD knew. Pretty much what Weaver had covered minutes ago. Then: “Nift said all the victims were tortured with the knife, some worse than others. But especially Andria Bell. Also, she died last.”

“He wanted something from her,” Quinn said.

“Looks that way. Like he was trying to get some information from her. I wonder if he did.”

“My guess,” Renz said, “after looking at the body, is that she told him whatever he wanted to hear. Then he made sure it was the truth.”

“The girls . . .”

“The asshole saw them as a bonus. Might not have even known they were all staying in the same suite, until he was inside and they'd all seen him.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, “we have to allow for that possibility.”

“We do have a security guy at MoMA says he saw Grace Geyer talking with some man, away from the rest of the group. In the fourth floor painting and sculpture section.”

“But he doesn't remember what the man looked like,” Quinn said.

“Right. We tried to find the guy on the security cameras, but had no luck there. And the guard says he couldn't pick the guy out of a lineup.”

“If we get a suspect,” Quinn said, “he sure as hell is going to try.”

“I'm going on Minnie Miner's show tomorrow,” Renz said. “I won't mention the security guard. Guy's liable to leave town like a rocket.”

“If he's smart,” Quinn said. He didn't think the museum guard would be much of a help as a witness, but the killer wouldn't know that for sure. “If we need him, we can reach out and get him. Whatever you tell or don't tell Minnie Miner, be careful with it.”

“She'd really rather talk to you,” Renz said, sounding a little miffed.

“That would just impede the investigation,” Quinn said, feeding Renz what he wanted to hear. Not that it wasn't the truth. “Maybe someday,” he said, “we can use Minnie.”

“Weaver see you yet?” Renz asked.

“Yeah. She filled us in on what the uniforms first on the scene had.”

“Tell her what you know,” Renz said, “so I can know it.”

“You bet,” Quinn said, and broke the connection.

The detectives were all staring at him, wondering if they had anything new to work with.

“Was that Renz?” Fedderman asked, unnecessarily.

“Yeah. Grace Geyer was seen by a museum security guard talking with a guy in MoMA. They were standing away from the rest of the group.”

“Maybe trying to pick her up,” Fedderman said.

“Or just talking about brush strokes,” Sal said.

“You ask Renz about Christy Mathewson?” Harold asked.

“While you and Sal are on the way to get verification statements from potential witnesses at the hotel,” Quinn said, “why don't you call Nift and see about this Mathewson thing.”
Keep us from possibly looking stupid, now that you've brought it up.

“Good idea,” Harold said. “Touch all the bases.”

Quinn gave him a look that might have meant he was perplexed or angry.

Sal said, “Let's get out of here, Harold.”

They left, Sal thinking you really never knew for sure about Harold.