Mister X. John Lutz

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СКАЧАТЬ She knew she was having trouble sleeping because she was on the hunt with the pack she knew and in strange ways loved. Or was it the hunt that she loved? Either way, she liked it that her internal engine was running like a separate heart.

      The engine had awakened her early from her disturbed slumber, which was why she was the first one in the office this morning.

      Pearl sat down at her gray steel desk and booted up her computer. She’d done some research at home on her laptop, so she copied files from her flash drive to her desk computer. That completed, she replaced the flash drive in her purse and set to work running Internet searches for information pertaining to Chrissie Keller.

      When that failed she got up and went over and poured coffee from the brewer’s glass pot into her personalized ceramic mug, then added powdered cream and stirred until not much of it floated on top. Her second coffee of the morning. Cop pop.

      She glanced at her watch. Almost nine o’clock, and she was still alone in the office. What the hell?

      Then she remembered that, instead of meeting at the office this morning, Quinn and Fedderman were going to the East Side to interview some witnesses. Pearl might be alone a while longer.

      She sat down again at her computer and sipped her coffee while she idly typed “the carver, serial killer” into her browser and began another Internet search.

      Most of what came up she’d already seen, but there were a few unfamiliar sites. She sighed, sipped coffee, and visited the first one. It had to do with a butcher’s theft of Christmas turkeys from a halfway house for ex-convicts in 1997 in Miami.

      Off to a good start.

      The next link took her to a site that sold exotic wood carvings of birds. As she continued to link from one site to another, they became more and more remote from her subject. Still, she kept on. Sometimes doggedness turned the trick. Give Pearl the right haystack and she’d find the needle.

      The word “carver” alone eventually linked her to “Initials Carved in Trees,” which linked her to “Initials of the Famous,” which linked her to “Initial Reports,” categorized by city, which linked her to “Crimes against persons reports, Detroit PD,” which linked her to an amateur crime site called “Initial Attempts” that featured cases where inept beginner criminals had been interrupted during their attempted crimes. It featured photographs of an astounded would-be teenage burglar blinded by floodlights, one leg draped over a window 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 СКАЧАТЬ