When she returned his smile she was even more beautiful. Quinn guessed she was about half the age of Bud Peltz, who looked to be in his late forties.
“We met when I was working for a contractor in Mexico,” Peltz said. He directed his attention to his wife. “They’re here to listen to my account I gave to Officer Toth.”
“Ah, yes, your account.”
A look passed between Peltz and his wife. Something in hot-blooded Maria’s eyes. She seemed angry, but at the same time amused.
“Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?” she asked.
Quinn declined, wondering how many times he’d heard that line in the movies or on crap television.
“Ice water would be good,” Fedderman said.
Quinn relented and seconded Fedderman’s request, and Maria glided gracefully into the kitchen. He noticed that she hadn’t offered her husband a glass of water. People in hell . . .
Toth had a good eye, or ear, for a cop. A good gut, really. That was where cops got their hunches. There was something out of tune between Bud Peltz and his wife. Would his statement contain the same discord?
“I’m going outside to shop,” Maria said. “I slept through everything last night, so I have nothing to relate. Not even dreams. I’ve already talked with Officer Toth. But if you need me . . .”
“No, no,” Quinn said. “Go right ahead. If we need a statement from you we can get it later.”
Fedderman glanced at him, surprised.
Maria said good-bye to them, not including her husband. Quinn might have imagined it, but he thought he heard those shapely thighs brush together as she walked.
“A beautiful woman,” he said, when Maria was gone.
Bud Peltz seemed unmoved by Quinn’s observation. “Everyone says so, and it’s true. But you get used to how your wife looks.”
Is this guy nuts?
Quinn stood up. Peltz started to stand also, but Quinn raised a hand palm out and motioned for him to sit back down in the creaky basket chair.
Peltz sat.
“Your account,” Quinn said, “is a load of bullshit.”
Peltz sat quietly for a few seconds, staring at the floor.
Then he sighed.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
21
The door to Margaret Evans’s second-floor apartment was still unlocked, but there was a roll of yellow crime scene tape leaning against the doorjamb, and an NYPD sticker that had to be peeled off before the door could be opened. Quinn and Fedderman were ready to enter, but Bud Peltz ushered them to the next door, leading to the apartment directly adjacent to the scene of the murder. The detectives were curious about what Peltz had in mind.
The apartment next to Margaret Evans’s was vacant and unfurnished. There were clean rectangles on the otherwise bare off-white walls where picture frames or similar objects had hung. A dead geranium sat in a green plastic pot on the living room windowsill.
Peltz led them toward the hall to the rear of the apartment, then into a bedroom. Their footfalls on the bare wood floor carried a faint echo.
They entered a bedroom with a window overlooking a side street. The room was completely bare except for a stained double mattress leaning against the window. It blocked enough light so that it was dim in the room.
Quinn flipped a wall switch that turned on an overhead fixture. Nothing changed, only became more visible.
“You need to turn the light out,” Peltz said.
Quinn did, making the room dim again. He was getting an idea of where this might be going.
Peltz went to a door, unlocked it with a skeleton key, and opened it. The door led nowhere but to an empty closet. Even the bar where clothes could be hung had been removed. The closet had an empty twelve-inch wooden shelf above and behind the clothes bar. Peltz tilted the shelf, removed it, and a narrow lance of light penetrated the dimness. Behind where the shelf had been, at its precise level, was a one-inch-round peephole.
Quinn stepped into the closet, peered through the hole, and saw two paramedics putting parts of Margaret Evans into a body bag.
“I saw what he did,” Bud Peltz said in a tremulous voice. “I couldn’t help her. When I started looking, she was already dead. There was nothing I could do to save her.”
“So you watched,” Fedderman said.
“I—I couldn’t look away.”
“You could have called us,” Fedderman said. “We could have caught the bastard. Stopped him from doing this.” Fedderman’s voice rose in anger. This voyeur scumbag had watched and done nothing.
Peltz raised both shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I told you, she was already dead. And I . . . Well, I admit, I was afraid to leave and get to a phone.”
“Did you have your cell phone?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, but he might have heard, would have killed me.”
“Not much doubt of that,” Quinn said, modulating his voice. He wanted to get on this guy’s side, become his confidant, learn what he knew. “I won’t condemn you for looking through a peephole, Mr. Peltz. You’re not the only man who’s ever done that.”
Peltz’s entire body was quaking. “I’m so damned ashamed. And Maria might leave me.”
“Did you tell her what you saw?”
“Not everything. I didn’t want to talk about some of the things the killer did. Didn’t want to think about them.”
“It isn’t easy,” Quinn commiserated.
Fedderman still wanted to toss Peltz out the second-story window, but he knew what Quinn was doing. Getting on Peltz’s good side so he could mine him for information.
Then maybe they could toss him out a window.
“I saw what he did with his jigsaw,” Peltz said. He looked as if he might break down and start sobbing any second. “Poor Maggie . . .”
Maggie?
“We need to know,” Quinn said. “Did you and Maggie—Margaret—have a relationship?”
“We were friends.”
“With benefits?”
“You mean did we have sex?”
“Yes. By any definition.”
“Twice. Three times.”
“Idiot!” Fedderman said softly, thinking of Maria Peltz.
“But it didn’t mean anything serious. Not to either of us.”
“Of course not,” Quinn said. “A woman like that, and a man like yourself . . . hell, things like that are hard to avoid.” He gave Fedderman a stern look so he’d be quiet. “They’re like ripples in a lake. Left alone, they disappear and it’s as if they never happened.”
“That’s what I wanted,” Peltz said. “That’s where we were at. The ripples were disappearing and there would have been smooth sailing except for—what happened.”
“One thing, Mr. Peltz. And I hope you won’t object to my asking this, but did you ever take photographs through that peephole?”
“Oh, God no! I swear!”
“Video?” Fedderman asked.
“Not that, either. And believe me, I could have. The bedroom was bright enough. Margaret liked it with a light on.”
Quinn tried not to show his disappointment. It would have been more than convenient to have the Gremlin’s photograph. His likeness on video or as a still would go a long way toward finding him.
“So you got a good look at him.”
“Yes. Though a lot of the time his back was turned toward me.”
Fedderman had his note pad out. “Can you describe him?”
“A small man, but very muscular.”
“Hair?”
“Black. Maybe brown. He wore it kind of long in back and on the sides, combed back over his ears.”
“Eye color?
Peltz shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t recall.”
“He have his clothes off?”
“Yeah. Everything. I guess so he wouldn’t get blood on his clothes he couldn’t wash off.” Peltz began shaking again. “Margaret was nude, too.”
“Any identifying marks on either of them?” Fedderman looked up from his note pad. “Like tattoos or scars.”