There was also a disturbing odor. Quinn had encountered it before, but not to this degree. So had Fedderman.
"Smells like a butcher shop," Fedderman said. "Lots of fresh blood, fresh meat."
"He is a butcher," Quinn said.
"A real one, maybe."
The thought had occurred to Quinn. "He'd have the skills, as well as the tools of his trade."
There was a uniformed cop in the apartment, standing and staring out the window. He hadn't turned around when Quinn and Fedderman entered. Now he did. He was a middle-aged guy with a gray military haircut, his cap in his hands, over his crotch. His face was so white Quinn thought the man might faint any second. Quinn and Fedderman flashed the shields Renz had provided, and the uniform pointed toward a short hall that Quinn knew led to the bathroom and only bedroom.
"Maybe you oughta sit down," Quinn said.
"I can stand okay," the cop said. Point of pride.
Quinn nodded and led the way down the hall. He and Fedderman both slipped latex gloves on their hands as they walked. Quinn was a little surprised by how effortless and automatic it was, an old task still familiar.
There was no way to prepare for what was in the bathroom. In the center of the tub, Ida Ingrahm's head lay propped on its side on the stack of torso and limbs. Her damp brown hair had been smoothed back so her face was visible. Her eyes were open, darkened by blood from capillaries ruptured as she'd drowned, but they didn't so much look dead as expectant. As if she'd been waiting for somebody to come into the bathroom. Maybe Quinn and Fedderman.
"Some sight," said a voice behind them.
Quinn turned and saw Nift from the Medical Examiner's office, not one of his favorite people. Nift was a pigeon-chested little guy with thick black hair that dangled in short bangs high on his bulging forehead. He had an imperious attitude, a smart mouth, and appeared to be strutting even when standing still. Always a meticulous dresser, he seemed to be dolling up even more for his work. Today he was wearing a black three-button suit, white shirt, and a black silk tie. Quinn thought he looked like Napoleon gussied up as a mortician.
"Some stench," Fedderman said.
"Smells something like the morgue on a busy day," Nift said. "I knew you guys were on the way, so I didn't touch anything, just tippy-toed in and looked at the poor woman. I determined that she was dead."
"Cut up like the others?" Fedderman asked.
"I wouldn't know if she had a sense of humor," Nift said.
"I might throw you into that tub with her," Quinn said.
Nift stared at him. "I believe you just might, Captain."
"Maybe you oughta give us a straight answer," Fedderman said.
"As near as I can tell, without having moved the body parts, she seems to have been dissected in the same manner as the two previous victims. She also fits the killer's type."
"Now you're doing detective work," Quinn said.
Nift smiled. "My weakness. Too many TV cop shows, I suppose. But I really can't tell you much more than the obvious until after the postmortem." He shrugged. "Cut, hack, saw."
"Drowned first," Fedderman said.
"Yes, I can about guarantee you that. Just like the first two. And like with the first two, I doubt if there'll be any indications of recent sexual activity." He smiled. "Wanna take a closer look?"
"We'll take your word for it," Quinn said. "Was her hair pulled back from her face like that when you arrived?"
"Sure was. Just as the killer wanted you to find it. Or maybe it was simply a gentle gesture after the beheading."
There was a flash behind them. The police photographer had arrived, armed with a digital camera about the size of a cigarette lighter. There were three techs beyond him, nosing around the living room for prints or stray hairs or dying messages or whatever. Quinn figured they wouldn't find much, if anything, of use. This was a clean and careful killer they were hunting. Cleanliness and caution were deep in his methodology and would be essential in his psychology. The police profiler should be having a ball with this guy.
"I'll finish my preliminary," Nift said, "then get out of the way."
Quinn and Fedderman moved aside so Nift could squeeze back into the almost sanitarily clean bathroom. Chromed faucet handles glittered. The ceramic tiles gleamed. Admirable.
Except for what was in the tub.
"Let's go into the bedroom," Quinn said.
Fedderman followed. "We'll look for clues where it's less crowded and the light's better."
Quinn was glad Fedderman was recovering his cop's sense of humor that helped to keep him sane. Like Nift, maybe, only without the mean streak.
Fedderman knew why Quinn wanted to examine the bedroom-to get a better sense of Ida Ingrahm, who she was before she became victim number three.
The bedroom was neatly arranged, the bed still made. The room didn't seem to have been touched by the crime except for the odor. Their bed had been against the other wall when Quinn and Pearl had slept here. He tried not to think about that.
Ida Ingrahm seemed to have fit the mold of thousands, maybe millions, of single women in New York. On her dresser was the framed family photo, a man and woman and two teenage girls, posed smiling in front of a lake ringed with trees that looked about to surrender their leaves to autumn. The females in the photo looked quite a bit alike. Quinn figured he was looking at Mom, Dad, Sis, and the future murder victim. There was nothing in the smiling faces of either of the daughters that portended an early, violent death.
Ida's closet held an assortment of mix-and-match black clothing, a rack of shoes. Near the foot of the bed was a small TV on a white wicker stand. There was a bookshelf that held mostly self-help and diet books, a few paperback mysteries. On the lamp table next to the bed, a pair of glasses was folded atop a Stuart Kaminsky novel. Pearl used to read Kaminsky's series about a cop named Lieberman, and Quinn wondered if she'd left behind the book when she moved out. It bothered him that the dead woman had read the same book as Pearl, maybe even turning down page corners the way Pearl did to keep her place. He went to the glasses and, careful not to touch anywhere that might obscure prints, examined the lenses. Single power and weak. They looked like drugstore reading glasses.
"Lots of shoes," Fedderman said behind Quinn, still staring into the closet.
"Lots of women have lots of shoes," Quinn said, glancing over at him. When he turned back, he saw something he hadn't noticed before because it was mostly hidden behind the lamp base. A cell phone.
Maybe with speed dial numbers, information, a log of recent numbers called or received. Maybe with a recorder, a calculator, a digital camera with a stored photo of the killer. Well, who knew, these days? It looked like an ordinary cell phone, but who could tell? Quinn couldn't keep up with technology.
He left the bedroom and went halfway down the hall, then summoned one of the techs, a bright looking young guy with dark-rimmed glasses and a bow tie. Quinn had always thought that men who wore bow ties were a separate breed, understood only by themselves. Probably had a secret handshake.
Like Quinn and Fedderman, the bow-tied tech was wearing white evidence gloves. Unlike Quinn and Fedderman, he was under thirty and would understand cell phone technology.
"Do what you want with this so we can check out any information stored," Quinn said, pointing to the phone.
The tech nudged the phone with a gloved fingertip, then began dusting for prints.
After a few seconds, he looked up at Quinn, smiling. "Something you should know about this phone, sir."
Quinn liked it when a tech called him "sir." Very rare. He put it down to youth. "There something different about it?"
"Yeah."
What happened to "sir"?