Secrets typed in blood, p.12
Secrets Typed in Blood, page 12
“You’ve got the money to…well, to do most anything you want. Travel. Collect Rolls-Royces. Why murder?”
The little smile under his mustache told me he liked that question. I knew he would. Not because of any detective jujitsu. If you want to make a man happy, ask him about himself. They’re really very simple to train when you know the tricks.
“I think we should dispense with a misconception first,” he began, because men also like to tell you about your misconceptions. “I am not merely interested in murder, nor are the attendees of my salons. Not in murder or murderers, but in the alchemy of the one upon the other.”
I didn’t follow that last turn and told him so.
“Much of modern psychology says that a murderer is different from so-called normal people. That variations in his mind cause him to kill,” Quincannon explained. “But I hold that the converse is also true. That murder changes a man. Or a woman. It changes them at an elemental level.”
His voice had developed that husky quality usually reserved for the bedroom.
“Some are born killers. Some become killers. The rest of us would do well to learn from both. Don’t you agree, Miss Parker?”
“I guess I’m just old-fashioned,” I said. “Born or bred, I say lock ’em up.”
He laughed—hearty, full-throated, and fake as a Cracker Jack diamond.
“I had much the same conversation with your employer once upon a time. Before she decided to…shun me.”
Something about his face shifted. Maybe it was a change in the light coming through the second-floor office windows. His skull seemed to stretch against the edges of his too-tight skin. Like it wanted to tear free.
“You know, Miss Parker, while Lillian refuses to attend our salons, you are most welcome. I’m sure my guests would love to hear you speak.”
“I think there are better people for that job,” I said. “More experienced detectives.”
He leaned across his desk, hands flat against the walnut.
“Oh, no, dear. Not because you’re a detective. Because you’re a killer. Throwing a knife into a man’s back—it doesn’t have the intimacy of a stabbing, but I don’t think that matters. Especially considering it was the entryway into your profession. Which is proof that the experience changed you. That it made you a different person. Don’t you think?”
My throat had gone dry. I felt light-headed. Like I was in danger of floating up or falling over.
“I…um…I don’t think—”
“Then of course there is your sex,” he continued. “We’ve had so few women speakers. I am sure our members would be terribly excited at the opportunity to hear you describe your…journey.”
At that moment, a sound came from the window. A light tapping. I glanced over and saw a blue jay sharpening its beak on the windowsill.
That simple reminder, that there was a world outside that included blue jays, was enough to nail me firmly back into my body.
I decided I’d had enough.
“I knew a guy,” I began. “This was back when I was working at the circus. Anyway, this guy, he liked to be spanked.”
Quincannon recoiled.
“Excuse me?”
“Perfectly nice guy. All his ex-girlfriends said so. But the plumbing wouldn’t work unless you went at him with a paddle like he’d gotten caught pilfering the cookie jar.”
I got up and went for my coat.
“All I’m saying is that I’ve met plenty of men who need something extra to get their rocks off. It’s really not all that special. I think I’ll pass.”
Quincannon smiled. But it was a different kind of smile.
“ ‘Get their rocks off.’ How deliciously vulgar. And how disappointing.”
“Sorry my vulgarity let you down,” I said, slipping into my coat.
“Oh, no, Miss Parker. That’s not why you disappoint me. I’m disappointed because you didn’t ask the obvious question. Detective Staples didn’t, either. Though I don’t think I would have answered him even if he had.”
I paused between one button and the next.
“What question?”
“Why am I so very certain Flavio’s killer is not a member of our group?”
To give myself some credit, I didn’t have to think about it long.
“You know something. Something that points somewhere else.”
“Your employer received an invitation to our forthcoming meeting on Wednesday of next week. She declined. Convince her to reconsider. Oh, and tell her to bring tribute. She’ll know what that means. Now, I have work to do. And you’ve ceased to be entertaining. Alathea will show you out.”
I opened the office door and found the secretary already standing there, posed like a model in a Macy’s window. Certainly not eavesdropping at all.
We followed the bread crumbs back downstairs, out of the house, and down the cobblestones to the gate, which she unlocked for me.
I was stepping through when she tapped the side of my purse with a manicured fingernail and said, “If you come on Wednesday, do please leave your firearm at home.”
I was feeling pugnacious, so I responded, “Or you’ll do what?”
She smiled, big and bright, showcasing a set of pearly whites.
“Or I’ll cut you,” she said. “Someplace it’ll show.”
She locked the gate.
“You walk safe, now.”
CHAPTER 18
I wasn’t much good at Shirley & Wise that afternoon. Not much good with Jules, either.
“Your fingers. They are made of mush. Go home. You waste both our time.”
I went home.
“Honey, I’m back from the wars,” I yelled as I walked in the door.
No answer.
I went into the kitchen, where I found a meatloaf roasting in the oven and a stewpot filled with water sitting out on the counter. At the bottom was something that would have been right at home on an autopsy table.
I opened the back door and poked my head out. If you were to do the same, you’d see a small courtyard with tall brick walls on either side, each containing a narrow gate that leads to the alleys that flank the brownstone. On the opposite end of the courtyard you’d see the renovated carriage house that Mrs. Campbell calls home.
Both gates were usually kept locked, except on Saturdays, when they were used to let in visitors who didn’t want to announce to the world they were calling on a private detective. I bring it up, because one was standing open. The sun had long set, but there was light enough that I could make out our housekeeper on the other side of the gateway, kneeling in the alley and scrubbing vigorously at a wooden bench.
I walked over. Mrs. Campbell, who usually favored cotton skirts and wool jumpers, was clad in a many-stained boilersuit, her tight-packed curls bouncing with each go of her brush.
The stream of soapy water trailing away from the bench and down the drain looked more blackish than red. Blood does that in the moonlight.
“I don’t want to be charged with aiding and abetting, otherwise I’d warn you you’re leaving fingerprints everywhere,” I said.
“You’re a very funny lass, you are.” The cold transformed her growl into a cloud of white. “You wouldn’t like me doing this inside. The smell would settle for days.”
“This” was the tending to of a lamb’s stomach, heart, and lungs and various other disembowelings, all in the name of good Scottish cooking. Mrs. Campbell got the bug about once a year to make haggis. I thought it was an awful lot of construction for what could just as easily be served as hash. I mentioned that the first time I saw her make it. I have not made that error again.
“You need a hand?” I asked.
“I’ve got this sorted. Once I’m done, I’ll get the meatloaf out of the oven and set the spinach on. I’ve also got rice pudding chilling in the fridge.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a witch trying to fatten me up.”
“You don’t know better,” she said, putting the brush to work on a stubborn spot.
“Point taken. The boss in her room?”
“I think she’s up in the files. She said she wanted to reacquaint herself with some old cases.”
“I’ll go check on her. If a cop comes by, slip him a fin and tell him to give you a two-minute head start.”
I hurried out of the cold before she could reply.
The third floor of the brownstone is a single open room almost entirely taken up by rows of tall shelves packed to bursting with boxes of files, clippings, case notes, and assorted evidence.
Most are arranged by date, but some are organized by criminal, by type of crime, and a dozen other exceptions to the rule. I could usually put my hands on the right file within a few minutes; Ms. Pentecost could do it instantly; anyone else would be out of luck.
The skylights peppering the high ceiling were dark, but the only electric light Ms. Pentecost had bothered turning on was the standing Tiffany lamp that illuminated an open island in the center of the room. Ms. P had opted against the perfectly comfortable armchair in favor of sitting, legs akimbo, on the massive Egyptian rug.
She had a stack of file folders next to her and a couple dozen photos spread out in a semicircle. The photos were all horror shows.
“Haggis prep or a murder scene?” I asked.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. Dinner’s soon. What awfulness are you wading through?”
“I thought I would reacquaint myself with a certain species of killer.”
“What particular breed are you looking at?”
“Most killings are the result of the usual handful of motives,” she said. “Money, revenge, lust, love. There are also those murders committed without forethought. Done in the heat of passion or intoxication.”
She picked up a photo and turned it to better catch the light. It showed an open trunk. A woman’s body had been folded to fit inside, her limbs bent at angles they were never meant to go.
“Then there are those murderers who kill for reasons that are decipherable only to them. Albert Fish, H. H. Holmes, Daniel Truelove, Earle Nelson.”
The names all rang bells, some loud, some faint. Nelson raped and murdered landladies; Holmes slaughtered women in his so-called Murder Castle, just a few miles from the Chicago World’s Fair; Truelove went after prostitutes, earning him the nickname the “New York Ripper.”
Fish was the worst of the lot. It had been more than a decade since he’d ridden the lightning at Sing Sing, but his name was still used to scare Brooklyn children into obedience.
You better behave or I’ll feed you to Al Fish.
“Are you familiar with these cases?” she asked.
“I’ve picked up this and that. Mostly from the pulps. I remember reading a piece on famous New York City slashers that included a few of the big names. Actually, it might have been in Strange Crime.”
“Really?” Ms. P said. “I’d very much like to read that.”
“You think our killer is looking for a space in the next issue?”
“I think we should be prepared for it.” There was something in her voice that gave me pause. Like she was at Coney staring up at the Parachute Jump and contemplating giving it a try.
“What does this preparation entail?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. An adaptation of our usual methods.”
The usual methods she was referring to involved centering the victim and spiraling outward, looking for patterns and aberrations to patterns, finding where the victim’s path intersected with their killer.
In short: learn about their life to understand their death.
It was generally successful. But it depended upon a more or less logical progression of human desire. Man wants woman; woman doesn’t want man; man kills woman. It isn’t pretty, but there’s a terrible rhythm to it.
The men in the files spread out before her danced to a beat all their own.
“If our guy is anything like these, he’s going to kill again, isn’t he?” I said.
“Almost certainly. Likely sooner rather than later. August, November, January. Three points makes for a loose pattern, but the style of the murders suggests our killer is gaining confidence. From shooting to stabbing to the grotesque theatricality of Mr. Checchetto’s murder.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Not to mention that ‘The Curse of the Red Claw’ came out in the December issue. That didn’t hit newsstands until just before Christmas. Our guy only had a few weeks from inspiration to execution. No pun intended.”
This was why I’d wanted to get Lazenby involved. We were racing against a clock and we didn’t know where the hands stood.
“How much experience do you have with this kind of killer?” I asked. “Personally, I mean.”
“Not enough,” she said. Then after a moment, “And too much.”
That was a side street I was tempted to drive down. But I figured I’d put things off long enough. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders.
“Speaking of our usual methods and how sometimes they aren’t up to snuff…”
She looked up, my tone tipping her off that I wasn’t delivering good news.
“What?”
“I went to see Jessup Quincannon.”
I don’t know if a spike in blood pressure can cause a glass eye to pop out of its socket, but I think it came close.
“I expressly forbade you from directly working on the Quick case,” she said with something nearing a snarl.
“You told Klinghorn not to approach Quincannon because it could alert the police to our interest. Well, the police are tipped.”
“That is not the only reason. And I’m sure you suspected that—otherwise you would have informed me ahead of time. Quincannon is a dangerous man.”
“I got that impression,” I said. “But I know my way around dangerous men. Look—you’ve got me sitting on the bench. I just wanted in the game.”
“This is not a game.”
“That was a goddamn metaphor and you know it!” I took a breath and turned down the volume. “All I’m saying is you’ve got Klinghorn out there doing my job and I might not have hit a home run with Quincannon, but Klinghorn wouldn’t have done any better. If you think he would have, maybe you should cut me loose and give my desk to him.”
Her brow collapsed into a furrow.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Whatever would make you suggest that?”
I didn’t have the presence of mind to pin the blame on some photos of Peggy’s nieces and a poem and the nagging worry that if you relieved me of the weight of my job I’d blow away like a scrap of yesterday’s newspaper.
All I got out was “I don’t know. Quincannon got me riled, I guess.”
She began shoving photos back into their respective folders.
“I have you pursuing the Waterhouse lead because you are the most capable for the job. As for Quincannon, I did not want Mr. Klinghorn or you approaching him directly. He, of all people, could connect—”
She snapped her mouth shut so quick I heard her teeth click.
“Connect what?” I asked. “That Checchetto’s murder was based on a short story? There’s probably a ten-year-old kid in Hoboken who’d have a better chance. Quincannon’s obsession seems rooted in the real world, not in fiction.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I crouched down so we were on the same level. She kept her gaze fixed on the files in her lap.
“You know something, don’t you?” I said. “Something about this case. There’s a reason you’re bending over backward for Holly Quick. Is it Quincannon? Do you have something on him?”
She opened her mouth to say something, stopped, opened it again, stopped. She set the files aside and pulled herself up off the floor and into the armchair.
Once settled, she looked me in the eyes and asked, “Do you trust me, Will?”
It wasn’t quite as rhetorical as “Is the sun warm?” or “Is water wet?” But it was close.
Of course I trusted her. If Lillian Pentecost asked me to put on a blindfold and walk a wire, the only question I’d ask is if she wanted it done barefoot or in heels.
All I said was “Yes.”
“Then trust me that we can serve this case better than the police.”
“What is it?” I asked her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Someday I’m going to teach Lillian Pentecost to play poker and we’re gonna make a goddamn fortune.
Eventually I answered for her.
“I’m guessing a whole lot. But that’s your prerogative. So, good idea or bad idea, do you want my report on the meeting with Quincannon?”
She nodded.
I gave her the lot. I stayed standing, as she had the only chair in the room and I’d spent most of the day on my rear. By the time I got to Alathea’s not-so-veiled threat, the smell of meatloaf had reached the third floor.
“She didn’t show a knife, but I gotta say I believed her.”
“You should,” Ms. Pentecost said. “Alathea is not Quincannon’s secretary. She’s his bodyguard.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be. The man invites killers into his home—of course he’d want protection. I’m not surprised he’d go with someone like her. He probably thinks it’s…I don’t know…playfully ironic.”
“By all accounts she is exceptionally dangerous,” Ms. P said. “I have a file on her, though it’s very thin. Alathea—last name unknown.”
“I’ll look it up when I need some light bedtime reading. Now, what do you think of the rest? Do you think he’s got something on the Checchetto murder?”
“I do,” she said. “If for no other reason than that he requested tribute.”
“What does that mean, by the way?”
“An exchange. Quincannon is, for all his talk of spiritual alchemy and human elevation, like most wealthy men. He believes in a transactional world. It would never occur to him to gift me information I find valuable. I must purchase it. With my presence. And a gift.”
The little smile under his mustache told me he liked that question. I knew he would. Not because of any detective jujitsu. If you want to make a man happy, ask him about himself. They’re really very simple to train when you know the tricks.
“I think we should dispense with a misconception first,” he began, because men also like to tell you about your misconceptions. “I am not merely interested in murder, nor are the attendees of my salons. Not in murder or murderers, but in the alchemy of the one upon the other.”
I didn’t follow that last turn and told him so.
“Much of modern psychology says that a murderer is different from so-called normal people. That variations in his mind cause him to kill,” Quincannon explained. “But I hold that the converse is also true. That murder changes a man. Or a woman. It changes them at an elemental level.”
His voice had developed that husky quality usually reserved for the bedroom.
“Some are born killers. Some become killers. The rest of us would do well to learn from both. Don’t you agree, Miss Parker?”
“I guess I’m just old-fashioned,” I said. “Born or bred, I say lock ’em up.”
He laughed—hearty, full-throated, and fake as a Cracker Jack diamond.
“I had much the same conversation with your employer once upon a time. Before she decided to…shun me.”
Something about his face shifted. Maybe it was a change in the light coming through the second-floor office windows. His skull seemed to stretch against the edges of his too-tight skin. Like it wanted to tear free.
“You know, Miss Parker, while Lillian refuses to attend our salons, you are most welcome. I’m sure my guests would love to hear you speak.”
“I think there are better people for that job,” I said. “More experienced detectives.”
He leaned across his desk, hands flat against the walnut.
“Oh, no, dear. Not because you’re a detective. Because you’re a killer. Throwing a knife into a man’s back—it doesn’t have the intimacy of a stabbing, but I don’t think that matters. Especially considering it was the entryway into your profession. Which is proof that the experience changed you. That it made you a different person. Don’t you think?”
My throat had gone dry. I felt light-headed. Like I was in danger of floating up or falling over.
“I…um…I don’t think—”
“Then of course there is your sex,” he continued. “We’ve had so few women speakers. I am sure our members would be terribly excited at the opportunity to hear you describe your…journey.”
At that moment, a sound came from the window. A light tapping. I glanced over and saw a blue jay sharpening its beak on the windowsill.
That simple reminder, that there was a world outside that included blue jays, was enough to nail me firmly back into my body.
I decided I’d had enough.
“I knew a guy,” I began. “This was back when I was working at the circus. Anyway, this guy, he liked to be spanked.”
Quincannon recoiled.
“Excuse me?”
“Perfectly nice guy. All his ex-girlfriends said so. But the plumbing wouldn’t work unless you went at him with a paddle like he’d gotten caught pilfering the cookie jar.”
I got up and went for my coat.
“All I’m saying is that I’ve met plenty of men who need something extra to get their rocks off. It’s really not all that special. I think I’ll pass.”
Quincannon smiled. But it was a different kind of smile.
“ ‘Get their rocks off.’ How deliciously vulgar. And how disappointing.”
“Sorry my vulgarity let you down,” I said, slipping into my coat.
“Oh, no, Miss Parker. That’s not why you disappoint me. I’m disappointed because you didn’t ask the obvious question. Detective Staples didn’t, either. Though I don’t think I would have answered him even if he had.”
I paused between one button and the next.
“What question?”
“Why am I so very certain Flavio’s killer is not a member of our group?”
To give myself some credit, I didn’t have to think about it long.
“You know something. Something that points somewhere else.”
“Your employer received an invitation to our forthcoming meeting on Wednesday of next week. She declined. Convince her to reconsider. Oh, and tell her to bring tribute. She’ll know what that means. Now, I have work to do. And you’ve ceased to be entertaining. Alathea will show you out.”
I opened the office door and found the secretary already standing there, posed like a model in a Macy’s window. Certainly not eavesdropping at all.
We followed the bread crumbs back downstairs, out of the house, and down the cobblestones to the gate, which she unlocked for me.
I was stepping through when she tapped the side of my purse with a manicured fingernail and said, “If you come on Wednesday, do please leave your firearm at home.”
I was feeling pugnacious, so I responded, “Or you’ll do what?”
She smiled, big and bright, showcasing a set of pearly whites.
“Or I’ll cut you,” she said. “Someplace it’ll show.”
She locked the gate.
“You walk safe, now.”
CHAPTER 18
I wasn’t much good at Shirley & Wise that afternoon. Not much good with Jules, either.
“Your fingers. They are made of mush. Go home. You waste both our time.”
I went home.
“Honey, I’m back from the wars,” I yelled as I walked in the door.
No answer.
I went into the kitchen, where I found a meatloaf roasting in the oven and a stewpot filled with water sitting out on the counter. At the bottom was something that would have been right at home on an autopsy table.
I opened the back door and poked my head out. If you were to do the same, you’d see a small courtyard with tall brick walls on either side, each containing a narrow gate that leads to the alleys that flank the brownstone. On the opposite end of the courtyard you’d see the renovated carriage house that Mrs. Campbell calls home.
Both gates were usually kept locked, except on Saturdays, when they were used to let in visitors who didn’t want to announce to the world they were calling on a private detective. I bring it up, because one was standing open. The sun had long set, but there was light enough that I could make out our housekeeper on the other side of the gateway, kneeling in the alley and scrubbing vigorously at a wooden bench.
I walked over. Mrs. Campbell, who usually favored cotton skirts and wool jumpers, was clad in a many-stained boilersuit, her tight-packed curls bouncing with each go of her brush.
The stream of soapy water trailing away from the bench and down the drain looked more blackish than red. Blood does that in the moonlight.
“I don’t want to be charged with aiding and abetting, otherwise I’d warn you you’re leaving fingerprints everywhere,” I said.
“You’re a very funny lass, you are.” The cold transformed her growl into a cloud of white. “You wouldn’t like me doing this inside. The smell would settle for days.”
“This” was the tending to of a lamb’s stomach, heart, and lungs and various other disembowelings, all in the name of good Scottish cooking. Mrs. Campbell got the bug about once a year to make haggis. I thought it was an awful lot of construction for what could just as easily be served as hash. I mentioned that the first time I saw her make it. I have not made that error again.
“You need a hand?” I asked.
“I’ve got this sorted. Once I’m done, I’ll get the meatloaf out of the oven and set the spinach on. I’ve also got rice pudding chilling in the fridge.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a witch trying to fatten me up.”
“You don’t know better,” she said, putting the brush to work on a stubborn spot.
“Point taken. The boss in her room?”
“I think she’s up in the files. She said she wanted to reacquaint herself with some old cases.”
“I’ll go check on her. If a cop comes by, slip him a fin and tell him to give you a two-minute head start.”
I hurried out of the cold before she could reply.
The third floor of the brownstone is a single open room almost entirely taken up by rows of tall shelves packed to bursting with boxes of files, clippings, case notes, and assorted evidence.
Most are arranged by date, but some are organized by criminal, by type of crime, and a dozen other exceptions to the rule. I could usually put my hands on the right file within a few minutes; Ms. Pentecost could do it instantly; anyone else would be out of luck.
The skylights peppering the high ceiling were dark, but the only electric light Ms. Pentecost had bothered turning on was the standing Tiffany lamp that illuminated an open island in the center of the room. Ms. P had opted against the perfectly comfortable armchair in favor of sitting, legs akimbo, on the massive Egyptian rug.
She had a stack of file folders next to her and a couple dozen photos spread out in a semicircle. The photos were all horror shows.
“Haggis prep or a murder scene?” I asked.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. Dinner’s soon. What awfulness are you wading through?”
“I thought I would reacquaint myself with a certain species of killer.”
“What particular breed are you looking at?”
“Most killings are the result of the usual handful of motives,” she said. “Money, revenge, lust, love. There are also those murders committed without forethought. Done in the heat of passion or intoxication.”
She picked up a photo and turned it to better catch the light. It showed an open trunk. A woman’s body had been folded to fit inside, her limbs bent at angles they were never meant to go.
“Then there are those murderers who kill for reasons that are decipherable only to them. Albert Fish, H. H. Holmes, Daniel Truelove, Earle Nelson.”
The names all rang bells, some loud, some faint. Nelson raped and murdered landladies; Holmes slaughtered women in his so-called Murder Castle, just a few miles from the Chicago World’s Fair; Truelove went after prostitutes, earning him the nickname the “New York Ripper.”
Fish was the worst of the lot. It had been more than a decade since he’d ridden the lightning at Sing Sing, but his name was still used to scare Brooklyn children into obedience.
You better behave or I’ll feed you to Al Fish.
“Are you familiar with these cases?” she asked.
“I’ve picked up this and that. Mostly from the pulps. I remember reading a piece on famous New York City slashers that included a few of the big names. Actually, it might have been in Strange Crime.”
“Really?” Ms. P said. “I’d very much like to read that.”
“You think our killer is looking for a space in the next issue?”
“I think we should be prepared for it.” There was something in her voice that gave me pause. Like she was at Coney staring up at the Parachute Jump and contemplating giving it a try.
“What does this preparation entail?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. An adaptation of our usual methods.”
The usual methods she was referring to involved centering the victim and spiraling outward, looking for patterns and aberrations to patterns, finding where the victim’s path intersected with their killer.
In short: learn about their life to understand their death.
It was generally successful. But it depended upon a more or less logical progression of human desire. Man wants woman; woman doesn’t want man; man kills woman. It isn’t pretty, but there’s a terrible rhythm to it.
The men in the files spread out before her danced to a beat all their own.
“If our guy is anything like these, he’s going to kill again, isn’t he?” I said.
“Almost certainly. Likely sooner rather than later. August, November, January. Three points makes for a loose pattern, but the style of the murders suggests our killer is gaining confidence. From shooting to stabbing to the grotesque theatricality of Mr. Checchetto’s murder.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Not to mention that ‘The Curse of the Red Claw’ came out in the December issue. That didn’t hit newsstands until just before Christmas. Our guy only had a few weeks from inspiration to execution. No pun intended.”
This was why I’d wanted to get Lazenby involved. We were racing against a clock and we didn’t know where the hands stood.
“How much experience do you have with this kind of killer?” I asked. “Personally, I mean.”
“Not enough,” she said. Then after a moment, “And too much.”
That was a side street I was tempted to drive down. But I figured I’d put things off long enough. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders.
“Speaking of our usual methods and how sometimes they aren’t up to snuff…”
She looked up, my tone tipping her off that I wasn’t delivering good news.
“What?”
“I went to see Jessup Quincannon.”
I don’t know if a spike in blood pressure can cause a glass eye to pop out of its socket, but I think it came close.
“I expressly forbade you from directly working on the Quick case,” she said with something nearing a snarl.
“You told Klinghorn not to approach Quincannon because it could alert the police to our interest. Well, the police are tipped.”
“That is not the only reason. And I’m sure you suspected that—otherwise you would have informed me ahead of time. Quincannon is a dangerous man.”
“I got that impression,” I said. “But I know my way around dangerous men. Look—you’ve got me sitting on the bench. I just wanted in the game.”
“This is not a game.”
“That was a goddamn metaphor and you know it!” I took a breath and turned down the volume. “All I’m saying is you’ve got Klinghorn out there doing my job and I might not have hit a home run with Quincannon, but Klinghorn wouldn’t have done any better. If you think he would have, maybe you should cut me loose and give my desk to him.”
Her brow collapsed into a furrow.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Whatever would make you suggest that?”
I didn’t have the presence of mind to pin the blame on some photos of Peggy’s nieces and a poem and the nagging worry that if you relieved me of the weight of my job I’d blow away like a scrap of yesterday’s newspaper.
All I got out was “I don’t know. Quincannon got me riled, I guess.”
She began shoving photos back into their respective folders.
“I have you pursuing the Waterhouse lead because you are the most capable for the job. As for Quincannon, I did not want Mr. Klinghorn or you approaching him directly. He, of all people, could connect—”
She snapped her mouth shut so quick I heard her teeth click.
“Connect what?” I asked. “That Checchetto’s murder was based on a short story? There’s probably a ten-year-old kid in Hoboken who’d have a better chance. Quincannon’s obsession seems rooted in the real world, not in fiction.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I crouched down so we were on the same level. She kept her gaze fixed on the files in her lap.
“You know something, don’t you?” I said. “Something about this case. There’s a reason you’re bending over backward for Holly Quick. Is it Quincannon? Do you have something on him?”
She opened her mouth to say something, stopped, opened it again, stopped. She set the files aside and pulled herself up off the floor and into the armchair.
Once settled, she looked me in the eyes and asked, “Do you trust me, Will?”
It wasn’t quite as rhetorical as “Is the sun warm?” or “Is water wet?” But it was close.
Of course I trusted her. If Lillian Pentecost asked me to put on a blindfold and walk a wire, the only question I’d ask is if she wanted it done barefoot or in heels.
All I said was “Yes.”
“Then trust me that we can serve this case better than the police.”
“What is it?” I asked her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Someday I’m going to teach Lillian Pentecost to play poker and we’re gonna make a goddamn fortune.
Eventually I answered for her.
“I’m guessing a whole lot. But that’s your prerogative. So, good idea or bad idea, do you want my report on the meeting with Quincannon?”
She nodded.
I gave her the lot. I stayed standing, as she had the only chair in the room and I’d spent most of the day on my rear. By the time I got to Alathea’s not-so-veiled threat, the smell of meatloaf had reached the third floor.
“She didn’t show a knife, but I gotta say I believed her.”
“You should,” Ms. Pentecost said. “Alathea is not Quincannon’s secretary. She’s his bodyguard.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be. The man invites killers into his home—of course he’d want protection. I’m not surprised he’d go with someone like her. He probably thinks it’s…I don’t know…playfully ironic.”
“By all accounts she is exceptionally dangerous,” Ms. P said. “I have a file on her, though it’s very thin. Alathea—last name unknown.”
“I’ll look it up when I need some light bedtime reading. Now, what do you think of the rest? Do you think he’s got something on the Checchetto murder?”
“I do,” she said. “If for no other reason than that he requested tribute.”
“What does that mean, by the way?”
“An exchange. Quincannon is, for all his talk of spiritual alchemy and human elevation, like most wealthy men. He believes in a transactional world. It would never occur to him to gift me information I find valuable. I must purchase it. With my presence. And a gift.”
