“He look’s like he’s got all his parts,” he said.
She laughed. That hurt a bit, but the pain didn’t dent her relief and euphoria. “I’m gonna make you his godfather.”
“Fine with me,” Westerley said. “In fact, I’m honored.”
On the birth certificate Beth used her maiden name, Colson. The space for father was filled in with unknown. Beth named the baby Edward Hand, after her grandfather. Her son would be Edward Hand Colson.
Beth, lying in bed with her eyes closed and with an inner peace that she’d never believed possible, was already thinking of him as Eddie.
43
New York, the present
Fedderman and Penny Noon were eating pasta at Vito’s Restauranti in Lower Manhattan. The food was a lot better than the neighborhood.
“The angel-hair pasta’s terrific,” Penny said, winding another bite around the tines of her fork, “but I wouldn’t risk coming here alone for it.”
“Mean streets,” Fedderman said. He had on the new suit and looked better than merely respectable.
Penny paused in her winding and raised her eyebrows. “You’ve read Chandler?”
“And Hammett,” Fedderman said. “We detectives like detective fiction. It gives us a break from the real thing.”
“The novels aren’t realistic?”
“Sometimes, but not usually,” Fedderman said. “Down in Florida, when I was sitting fishing and not catching anything, I read a lot.”
“Just detective fiction?”
“Mostly. Connelly, Grafton, Parker, Paretsky, Mosley…”
“Those are fine writers.”
“I left out a lot who are just as good. There’s this guy in St. Louis…”
“Something about you,” Penny said. “When we met I knew somehow you had a literary bent.”
Fedderman took a sip of the cheap house red. He’d never considered himself the literary sort. He realized Penny was doing something for him, lifting him in ways he hadn’t suspected possible.
“Sometimes your boss, Quinn, seems like a character out of a book,” Penny said.
“A good book?”
“The best. There’s something about him. He can make you trust him. And he’s handsome in a big homely way. Like a thug only with a brain. It’s easy to see that people respect him. And sometimes fear him.”
“It can be the same thing,” Fedderman said.
“Have you ever seen Quinn angry?”
“Sure have. And sometimes he’s angry and you don’t know it. That’s what’s scary. He’s tough in ways that are more than physical.”
“You obviously respect him.”
“I know him. He’s a good man. We’ve been friends for a long time. Rode together in a radio car back in another era.”
“Has police work changed that much?”
“Society has. Police work changed along with it.”
Penny was going to ask what Fedderman meant by that when his cell phone buzzed.
“Sorry,” he said, smiling apologetically as he dug the phone from a pocket and checked caller ID. He delayed making the connection. “It’s Quinn.”
“Of course. He sensed we were discussing him.”
Fedderman pressed TALK. If the call was one he didn’t want Penny to overhear, he was ready to remove his napkin from his lap and stand up from the table.
But it was Quinn who did most of the talking, and the call promised to be brief: “We’ve got another Skinner victim, Feds. Woman named Judith Blaney.” He gave Fedderman Blaney’s address.”
“On my way.”
After breaking the connection and slipping the phone back in his pocket, Fedderman said, “That’s something that hasn’t changed about police work. We get a call, day or night, and we have to respond.” He reached across the table with his right hand and stroked the back of Penny’s hand, so delicate and smooth. “I’m sorry.”
“We both are,” she said. “But I understand.”
Fedderman noticed that his right shirt cuff was unbuttoned. He raised his arm to fasten it, at the same time waggling a finger to summon their waiter.
“I’ll put you in a cab, then I’ll have to drive cross-town,” he told Penny. He’d driven them to the restaurant in the unmarked and had it parked outside near a fire hydrant.
The waiter arrived with the check and surveyed their half-eaten food. “Wanna box?” he asked.
Fedderman, who’d planned on spending the evening with Penny in her apartment and wanted to punch someone, felt like telling him yes, he did want to box, but instead declined.
Penny accepted the waiter’s offer, but she had in mind angel-hair pasta rather than pugilism.
44
When he glanced across the room, over what was left of Judith Blaney, Quinn saw Fedderman enter the apartment. Fedderman had his designer suit on, causing a few of the uniformed cops and white-clad techs to regard him with new respect. Maybe Fedderman had been elevated to their superior in some way they didn’t yet know.
It was a good thing the victim’s apartment was spacious. Vitali and Mishkin were also there, along with Pearl. Nancy Weaver, in plain clothes, was also there, and nodded to Fedderman, or to the suit. Nift was at work on the body. The techs were doing the dance of white gloves. The two uniformed cops who’d taken the squeal stood near the door, controlling entrance and egress. They were Bob Stanze and Paul Goldak, two of the NYPD’s best. Fedderman wondered if they’d just happened to take the call or they were there by design because Judith Blaney was somebody important. The apartment was big and in an expensive neighborhood-but not that expensive for Manhattan.
“Was she queen of something?” Fedderman asked Stanze, as the handsome young cop moved to block the entrance again.
“Office manager for Bleaker and Sunshine, Mad Avenue ad agency.”
Fedderman must have looked blank.
“You know, the talking goose?” Stanze said.
“Oh, yeah. The Southern Morgan Bank commercials.”
“Blaney must have known everything the goose was gonna say,” Goldak said. He was a small man with a big heart, and a kidder. It was impossible to know if he was joking or suggesting a possible motive.
Quinn, wondering what they were talking about, motioned Fedderman over.
“What was that all about, Feds?”
“Talking goose.”
Quinn felt like sighing. Did talent for detective work come with a skewed view of the world?
Like the killer’s?
“Lots of artistic blade work this time,” Quinn said, gazing again at the victim.
The silver letter S and its chain were draped across Judith Blaney’s forehead and open eyes instead of looped around her neck and resting on her chest and breasts, as with the previous victims. Part of the reason was that the Skinner had removed both breasts and tucked each neatly in its corresponding armpit. The usual shreds of flesh were there, barely still attached to the rest of the body. This time there were also intricate, curving cuts. Designs. Then the wild stabbing and slashing of the abdomen and pubic area. A waddedpanties gag lay near the victim, presumably removed by Nift, and her mouth was open, clogged with blood that had welled up from her throat instead of a scream.
“No shoe in the mouth this time,” Nift said, “like with the last victim.”
“Same killer, though,” Quinn said. “He’s just trying to throw shit in the game. They do that sometimes.”
“Or he might not have found a shoe he liked,” Fedderman said. “One that would make a good unicorn horn-if that’s what it was supposed to be.”
Nift nudged Judith’s hair aside, and for the first time Quinn noticed something white stuffed in her ear. “What’s that?”
“Cigarette butt,” Nift said. “He extinguished a cigarette in each ear. Looks as if it happened some time before her death.”
“Mother of God!” said one of the techs, who’d overheard.
“Hardly.” Weaver’s voice.
“Anybody make anything out of those carved designs or symbols?” Quinn asked.
“Just that the Skinner’s a head case,” Vitali rasped.