Mister X. John Lutz

47

      Chapter 48

      Chapter 49

      Chapter 50

      Chapter 51

      Chapter 52

      Chapter 53

      Chapter 54

      Part IV

      Chapter 55

      Chapter 56

      Chapter 57

      Chapter 58

      Chapter 59

      Chapter 60

      Chapter 61

      Chapter 62

      Chapter 63

      Chapter 64

      Chapter 65

      Chapter 66

      Chapter 67

      Chapter 68

      Chapter 69

      Chapter 70

      Chapter 71

      Chapter 72

      Chapter 73

      Chapter 74

      Chapter 75

      Chapter 76

      Chapter 77

      Chapter 78

      Chapter 79

      Chapter 80

      Chapter 81

      Chapter 82

      Chapter 83

      Epilogue

      PART I

      And what are you that, missing you

      I should be kept awake

      As many nights as there are days

      With weeping for your sake?

      —EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, “The Philosopher”

      1

      Quinn had found a box of paper clips in his bottom desk drawer and was just straightening up when the dead woman entered his office.

      She’d startled him, the way she’d come in without making any noise.

      She wasn’t what you’d call beautiful, but she was attractive, with slim hips and legs inside new-looking stiff jeans, small breasts beneath a white sleeveless blouse. Her shoulder-length hair was brown, her eyes a deeper brown and slightly bulbous. She had symmetrical features with oversized lips, a slight overbite. A yellow file folder stuffed with what looked like newspaper clippings was tucked beneath her left arm. Her right hand held a brown leather shoulder bag, the strap scrunched up to act as a handle. She’d said on the phone her name was Tiffany Keller. If she were still alive, Quinn thought, she’d be pushing thirty.

      There was a kind of grim resolve to her expression, as if she’d just been affronted and was about to fire back.

      The generous mouth suddenly arced into a toothy smile, and the dogged expression disappeared entirely, as if a face like hers couldn’t hold such a visage for long. Quinn was left with the impression that he’d momentarily glimpsed someone else entirely.

      “Captain Frank Quinn, I presume.”

      “Just Quinn,” he said. “Like the lettering on the door, Quinn and Associates Investigations.”

      “I was aware you were no longer with the NYPD,” she said.

      “Want to sit down?” he asked, motioning with a paper clip toward one of the walnut chairs angled in front of his desk.

      “I’ll stand, thanks.” Her smile widened. “I’m Tiffany Keller.”

      He continued staring at the woman while his right hand groped for the empty glass ashtray he used to contain paper-clips. “You said when you phoned earlier to make this appointment that you were Tiffany Keller. Would you be the same Tiffany Keller who was a victim of a serial killer?”

      “That would be me.”

      Unable to look away from her, he turned the tiny box upside down and dropped the paper clips into the ashtray, hearing the faint clickety sound that told him he’d hit his glass target. “Excuse me, but aren’t you dead?”

      “Not exactly.”

      Wondering where this was all going, Quinn tossed the empty paper-clip box into the wastebasket inside the desk’s kneehole. It landed on recently shredded paper and didn’t make a sound. “What is it you want, Tiffany?”

      “I want you to find the Carver.”

      The Carver was a serial killer who’d taken five victims, the last one five years ago, and then suddenly ceased killing. In the way of most serial killers, he’d slain only women. His victims’ nipples had been sliced off and a large X carved on their torsos just beneath their breasts. Then their throats had been cut.

      At the time, Quinn had been laid up after being shot in the leg during a liquor store hold-up, and hadn’t been involved in the Carver investigation. He’d followed it in the papers and on TV news with a temporary invalid’s distracted interest. It had been one of his few alternatives to staring at the ceiling. If he remembered correctly, Tiffany Keller had been the Carver’s last victim.

      He leaned back in his desk chair and studied his visitor more closely.

      She didn’t wilt under his scrutiny.

      “Actually I’m Tiffany’s twin sister,” she said.

      “Then why the act?” he asked.

      She smiled even wider. Lots of even white molars. Quinn would bet she’d never had a cavity. The large white smile gave her a kind of flashy cheerleader look. It would dazzle you even in the cheap seats.

      “I thought one of the Carver’s victims herself appealing to you to take this case might be more convincing,” she said. She spoke with a hint of accent, her intonations flat and slightly drawn out. She wasn’t from the Northeast. Probably someplace Midwestern. Corn country. “I’m Chrissie.” Ahm. “Chrissie Keller. My twin sister and I were named after two of our mom’s favorite eighties recording stars, Chrissie Hynde and Tiffany.”

      “Tiffany who?”

      “She didn’t use a last name. Some artists don’t.”

      “Some artists I’ve met don’t, either,” Quinn said.

      “Like pickpockets and confidence men and such?”

      “Uh-huh. And impersonators.”

      “I didn’t have to impersonate Tiffany,” she said. “I just wanted you to think that maybe, for only a second or two, you were face-to-face with her. A victim asking that her killer be brought to justice.”

      “An emotional appeal.”

      “You got it.”

      “Justice is a hard thing to find in this world, Chrissie. Sometimes even hard to define. It can be a lot of work and expense, and then we might not like it when we find it.”

      “Or we might glory in it.”

      Never having been in her position, Quinn found it difficult to disagree.

      “I have the means to pay you for your work,” she said. “And what I want to do with my money is find out who killed Tiffany and make sure he pays for his crime. This might sound strange, but I think that’s why I have the money. Why I won the Tri-State Triple Monkey Squared Super Jackpot.” She shifted her weight in the stiff jeans so she was standing hip-shot. “That’s three monkeys in a row three times,” she said with a note of pride.

      “You did