Mister X. John Lutz
ledge, a sack of loot in his hand; and a security camera shot of a would-be robber fleeing a convenience store empty-handed while a large dog snapped at his heels.
And there was something else.
Pearl sat forward. There was a blurry photo of what appeared to be a slender young woman. Her face wasn’t clearly visible. There was a brief accompanying news item that made no reference to the photograph but reported that a woman named Geraldine Knott, twenty-two years old, had been attacked by a masked assailant in the parking structure of her apartment. He’d struck her, straddled her, then drawn a knife and begun telling her exactly what he was going to do with it, including severing her nipples.
Something had caused the assailant to break off his attack and flee. Possibly it had been the coincidence of sirens, as police arrived at the building across the street after being called on another matter. Ms. Knott was discovered when a woman who also lived in the building entered the parking structure and noticed her slumped and dazed on the concrete floor. The news report said the victim had a broken collarbone, was suffering from extreme stress, and was hospitalized in stable condition. An artist’s sketch of the attacker, based on Geraldine Knott’s description, would be in the paper soon. The date of the news item was April 7, eight years ago. Shortly before the Carver began his horrific string of murders in New York.
Pearl ran a search of the Detroit paper archives and easily found another item about the Geraldine Knott assault, accompanied by the sketch artist’s rendering of her attacker. He was wearing a balaclava that covered his head and all of his face but his eyes. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the eyes. Geraldine Knott couldn’t recall their color.
All in all, Pearl thought, the sketch was useless. Nevertheless, she printed out what she had, three copies, for Quinn, Fedderman, and herself.
Ten minutes later, Quinn and Fedderman came into the office. The sultry summer air came with them, thick as syrup. Both men were damp. Quinn’s hair stuck out every which way and was glistening with rainwater, and his blue tie was spotted. Fedderman’s customary wrinkled brown suit looked even more rumpled than usual. When he walked past Pearl’s desk she noticed he smelled like a wet dog. Maybe the suit, maybe Fedderman.
“Raining again out there?” Pearl asked, knowing the answer was obvious but wanting to rub it in.
Quinn and Fedderman ignored her. Quinn nodded toward the computer.
“What are you doing?” he asked, walking over to remove his rain-spotted suit coat and drape it over a brass hook on the wall near his desk.
“Running a computer check on one Geraldine Knott,” Pearl said. Not telling them everything up front, letting the geniuses work for it.
“Why?” Fedderman asked, shambling over like a curious hound and staring at Pearl’s computer monitor.
Pearl didn’t answer but pointed to the paper-clipped printouts on her desk corner.
“Read those,” she said.
Fedderman and Quinn both read silently, then looked at each other.
“Holy Jesus!” Fedderman said.
“Not Him,” Pearl said. “Me. This came up on an Internet search for the Carver while you two were frolicking in the rain.”
“Holed up eating doughnuts,” Fedderman said. “And we brought one for you.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Fedderman ate it,” Quinn said. “Just as we turned the corner and pulled in to park out front.”
Fedderman shrugged.
Quinn laid his copy of the printout back on Pearl’s desk. “Great work, Pearl. Stay on it. Find out everything you can about Geraldine Knott.”
Fedderman grinned and pulled a greasy white paper sack from where it was jammed in his suit coat pocket. He placed it on Pearl’s desk.
“For you,” he said. “Chocolate icing. A cake doughnut, so in case you want to dunk, it won’t come apart in your coffee. Don’t believe everything you hear. We’re always thinking of you.”
“Yeah,” Pearl said.
But thinking what?
She thanked Fedderman, opened the grease-stained sack, and removed the sticky doughnut that had been in Fedderman’s pocket.
It smelled like a wet dog.
9
Mary Bakehouse maneuvered toward the doors of the crowded subway car, wielding her large, flat imitation-leather artist’s portfolio vertically like the prow of an icebreaker to forge ahead. A man with breath smelling of onions pressed tightly behind her, pushing her even faster than she wanted to go. A bead of sweat trickled down her ribs. Someone stepped on her toe.
Nothing like South Dakota.
She’d barely gotten out onto the platform when the doors hissed closed behind her. Walking away, she heard the train squeal and roar as it pulled forward and picked up speed. The public address system was repeating something no one from any country on earth would understand.
Mary was exhausted from her two job interviews, and not very optimistic. An ad agency had told her that things were slow, but maybe. An architectural firm had candidly told her they simply weren’t hiring, and in fact the man who had posted the want ad in the paper’s classified section had himself been laid off and was leaving at the end of the week.
As she trudged up the granite steps to the entrance to her apartment building, she was beginning to think she’d chosen precisely the wrong time to attempt a move to New York.
The lobby, which was really more of a vestibule, was at least quiet. She pressed the up button for the elevator and settled her weight equally on both tired legs. In the building above her cables thrummed, but the brass arrow floor indicator on the wall over the elevator door didn’t budge.
As she waited patiently, she heard footsteps descending the nearby stairs. Somebody in a hurry.
But at the landing just above the lobby, the sound of hurried soles on rubber stair treads suddenly ceased, as if whoever had come down from upstairs was standing absolutely still, waiting for something.
For me to leave?
The landing was out of sight, but Mary thought she could hear someone breathing heavily, almost asthmatically.
A man. She was sure it was a man. Not only because of the loud breathing but because of the sound his soles had made on the stairs, a rapid, repetitive clomping that was almost like a machine gun firing. As if he was simply letting his weight tilt him forward and catching himself with each step. Most women didn’t take stairs that way.
The elevator arrived, unoccupied. Mary hurried inside and pressed the button for her floor. When the steel door had glided almost shut, she thought she heard the footfalls continue on the stairs. It was obvious now that whoever was on the landing had been waiting for her to clear the lobby so he or she wouldn’t be seen leaving the building.
Mary told herself there could be a dozen reasons for that, none of them concerning her.
As the elevator rose, she glanced down and saw that the dusting of fine hairs on the backs of her arms was standing up. Suddenly she had to swallow.
I guess this means I’m scared.
She told herself that rationally she had no reason to be afraid. If someone wanted to use the stairs instead of the elevator and not be seen, that was fine with her.
Unless her apartment had been burgled.
Well, she’d soon see if that had occurred. She almost smiled. If a burglar had chosen her apartment to break into, he’d be one disappointed thief. She had little worth stealing.
No, that wasn’t quite true. She remembered her Dell notebook computer sitting right out in plain view on the desk in the living room. But