Pearl wondered how she could ever have been in love with this creep.
"Do you still live with your mother, Jeb?"
"Of course not. I live in an apartment in Boston, where I have my office. I mean, I work out of my apartment. I'm an arbitrageur."
"What is that?"
"It's complicated. I make money off the differences in the exchange rates of currencies and in the fluctuating prices of certain commodities."
"You're a trader."
"Put simply, yes."
"Your mother lives alone in Louisiana?"
"Yes, but we're close in ways other than geographical. We talk on the phone almost every day."
"Why is she staying at one hotel and you at another?"
"I wanted to stay somewhere more suited to my identity as a struggling journalist."
"Your cover."
"Yes. Is there something illegal about that?"
"About inserting yourself in the middle of an active homicide investigation? You bet there's something illegal about it."
"He was searching for his brother," Pareta said. "Attempting to help."
Quinn laughed. "Spare us, counselor. But please tell your client that his best chance of extricating himself from the mess he's in is to tell the truth."
"My advice to my client would be to say nothing more. You've threatened to charge him with a crime."
"He's still charged with a crime-homicide."
Pareta saw this as her turn to laugh. She made a pretty good show of it. "And where's the evidence of that?"
"The point is," Quinn said, "the murder charge hasn't been dropped."
"Then as Mr. Kraft's attorney-"
Jeb raised his hands for silence and as if to calm everyone. "It's okay. The police know about us now. If talking helps to find Sherman, I want to talk. He has to be stopped."
He looked down the table at Pearl, this time meeting her gaze directly. Trying to con her again, she knew.
She looked at the new Jeb the way Quinn was looking at him.
"What do you think, Pearl?" Jeb asked sincerely.
"I think you're guilty as hell. Of a lot of things."
"Let's get back to where we were," Quinn said.
"Which was where?" Pareta asked.
"Mom."
52
An hour later, Quinn and Pearl met Fedderman in the cavernous lobby of the Meredith Hotel. Aside from poor acoustics, it featured lots of gray-veined marble and darkly polished paneling, a field of maroon carpet, and fern-adorned groupings of brown leather armchairs. You had to look closely to notice the fine cracks in the marble, patched areas of carpet, and that some of the armchairs were slightly worn. The ferns, which were artificial, looked new and not very much like ferns.
"She's not back yet," Fedderman said. He'd informed them by phone on the way over that Myrna Kraft, registered under her own name, wasn't in her room. "The desk clerk's going to give me a nod when she comes in."
Quinn glanced around the lobby. One of the elevators opened and a couple who looked like teenagers emerged and headed giggling for the street exit. Two elderly women were sitting in armchairs and talking on the far side near a closed shop that sold incidentals and travel supplies. The desk clerk, a slender African American man in advanced middle age and going bald unevenly, was standing and leafing through some papers. A uniformed bellhop lounged just inside the revolving-door entrance.
"Let's wait for her here, then let her go up to her room before we confront her," Quinn said.
The three of them sat in armchairs. Quinn's sighed and enveloped him seductively, and a nearby reading lamp warmed one side of his face. If he weren't so pumped up he might have fallen asleep.
"How long-" Pearl began impatiently, and was quiet as a tall, slim woman in tan slacks and blazer with a yellow blouse pushed in through the glass revolving door. Pearl noticed she wasn't wearing heels; she was simply tall. Her long arms swung freely and she wasn't carrying anything. Not even a purse.
Fedderman, who'd looked over at the desk clerk and gotten the nod, said, "That's her."
She didn't notice them among the almost-ferns as she strode past. Though she was well into her fifties, she moved with a natural grace that couldn't be taught in modeling school, and she had the kind of cheekbones and jawline that aged well. Her dark hair was slightly touched with gray. Her eyes were dark, deep, and widely set. Movie star eyes.
"Jesus!" Fedderman whispered.
Quinn and Pearl knew what he meant.
"She looks like the Butcher's victims," Pearl said. "The same type."
"Almost the same damned woman," Fedderman said. "If ever a serial killer was offing his own mother over and over…"
They watched as Myrna stood at the elevators and waited. She didn't seem at all nervous or on guard. Quinn guessed she hadn't seen or heard the news about her son Jeb being arrested.
When she'd entered the elevator and its door slid shut, the three detectives stood up.
"Room six-twenty," Fedderman said.
They crossed the lobby toward the elevators. The desk clerk was back to shuffling though his papers and didn't look up at them.
"He gonna warn her we're on our way?" Quinn asked Fedderman.
"Not unless she's got a third son. This isn't the kinda hotel where the policy is to warn clientele about the police."
Quinn wasn't so sure about that, but he let it go. Myrna Kraft probably wouldn't try to avoid them anyway, even if she knew they now had her identity and her son. She had the appearance of a woman who had never run from much of anything.
They rode the other elevator to the sixth floor. A maid pushing a linen cart with a squeaky wheel passed them with a shy, polite smile. Otherwise the carpeted hall was deserted.
Quinn knocked softly on the door to room six-twenty. Light behind the peephole changed, then the door opened, and Myrna Kraft looked out at them inquisitively.
He was surprised that she wasn't as tall as she'd appeared from across the lobby. It was an illusion because of the way she was built, her regal posture. There was something else about her, a kind of energy that was almost palpable, and her dark eyes were the kind that would hold whatever they were fixed on. Pearl thought that as a younger woman Myrna Kraft must have been quite something.
"Yes?" she said. In that single, drawn-out word was a trace of Southern accent.
"Myrna Kraft?" Quinn asked.
"I am."
"We're police, ma'am." Quinn showed her his shield, which she looked at carefully. Then she looked expectantly at the other two detectives, who also showed her their identification. Only then did she invite them inside. Quinn was hit with a faint acrid scent, almost like insecticide or disinfectant. The room was orderly and spotless. He remembered the maid in the hall.
"We have your youngest son, Jeb, in custody," he said, not mentioning that Renz had only promised he could detain Jeb a few more hours, with Pareta nipping, niggling, and threatening.
Something changed in Myrna's eyes, but you had to look closely and quickly to notice. A good actor, Quinn decided, like her son. Probably like both sons. Talent in the family.
"You have my son Jeb? Why? On what charge?"
"Murder." Quinn was still technically correct, still legal, until informed that the warrant was officially withdrawn.
Myrna didn't respond at all to his shock tactic. "That would be impossible. I know my son. Why, Jeb wouldn't harm anyone, much less take their very life." Laying on the southern charm now. The accent was still subtle, but what there was of it was pure molasses and used sparingly. She could turn it on and off. How much of Myrna Kraft was real?
Pearl and Fedderman remained silent, letting Quinn drive the conversation.
He decided to drive right over Myrna.
"Apparently you haven't seen the news lately."
"Tell you true, I'm usually not interested in the news. It's nothing but unpleasantness."