That stink from the vials still came through the scent of artificial honeysuckle after three hand-washings.
“No perfumes of Araby,” Carmen muttered, and went to scrub again, telling herself that the clinging stench was not a metaphor.
In the morning, she was still trying to decide whether to call Quinn and what to tell her when Quinn, again, appeared at her door. Carmen jumped in her seat when the other woman leaned around the frame.
Quinn looked at her curiously. “Maybe you are the killer after all.”
“Maybe you’re a ghost who keeps materializing.”
Quinn shrugged, lower lip stuck out, her head bobbing to one side. “I know I haven’t given you enough time—”
“You have,” Carmen said.
Quinn looked at her. Looked again, frowning. Held out a hand. “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” she said.
Carmen led the way to the small kitchen where Quinn sniffed the coffeepot, said, “I’m buying,” and brought Carmen back through the corridors and the lobby to a small café across the street. When they were settled with cappuccinos and biscotti, Quinn leaned her elbows on the red-check tablecloth and said, “You don’t like cops.”
Carmen swizzled her cookie in the coffee to give herself an excuse to look down. “I like you just fine. It’s your job I have problems with.”
“To be frank with you,” Quinn admitted, “most days I agree. But somebody has to do it, and if I’m doing it I know who’s making the choice about whether or not to be an asshole, and I have some influence over them.”
Carmen laughed in spite of herself. “I’m having a moral crisis, Quinn. I think I know who did it.”
“All by yourself? Fantastic. We’re going to put you on retainer.”
“Well, not exactly who did it. I know how to find out who did it.”
Quinn sipped her coffee. “So what’s the crisis about?”
“What I told you,” Carmen said. “Prisons are evil.”
“Necessary evil.”
“No.”
Quinn tapped her cookie on the rim of her cup. “You just want to let murderers and rapists go?”
“I want to change society so that people are supported and connected. So that murderers and rapists don’t… just don’t occur.”
Quinn guffawed. “That’s not human nature. How many rich assholes ought to go to jail? They have plenty of support and they still do crimes.”
Carmen’s laugh was much more bitter than the coffee. “How many rich assholes actually do go to jail? When was the last time you perp-walked a banker, Quinn?”
Quinn looked down. “I’m a murder cop.”
“So if murders didn’t happen you’d be out of a job.”
“Happily so,” Quinn admitted. “That dog won’t hunt, Pollyanna.”
Carmen stared at her. Maybe she could try a different approach. “Have you ever murdered anybody?”
“Of course not.”
“Aren’t you human?”
Quinn snorted. “My ex-wife might disagree, but… I’m human. Okay, then: committing violent crimes is damaged human nature. Selfish human nature. Predatory human nature. You just want to turn the predators loose to harm anybody they choose? What are you going to do with all of the murderers we have already? You can’t prevent those people from growing up awful. What about all of their victims and their trauma response? What about protecting society?”
“Punishment isn’t a deterrent. A punitive justice system doesn’t cut down on crime, because it doesn’t address the root causes of crime. It just creates more criminals down the line. If you don’t want recidivists and more damaged generations, you have to change your whole philosophy.”
“It’s not my philosophy.” Quinn bit a chunk out of her cookie and crunched in evident frustration. She slurped the last of her coffee. Fortified, she went on. “My first priority is keeping innocent people safe and protecting the fabric of society.”
“So is mine. I think one day, prisons as we understand them will be considered as barbaric as the iron maiden, as roasting people on a spit.”
“That sounds great.” Quinn picked her teeth with a thumbnail. “What’s the action plan?”
Carmen said, “Change the world.”
Quinn tossed her cup at the recycler without looking. As if guided by an angel’s hand, it went in. The detective lifted her eyes and appealed to some invisible authority. “The last anarchist here needs to lay off the weed and fellow feeling.”
“I am not an anarchist!” Carmen protested. “I just believe in a collaborative government rather than a punitive one. If you want people to feel invested in the system you have to give them access to it and power over it.”
“There will always be assholes,” Quinn said. “Please tell me what you have on this asshole so I can stop him from immediately being an asshole again.”
Carmen picked up a sugar packet and began fiddling with it.
Quinn said, “I could mention that not telling me, now, is withholding evidence.”
Really? “Conscientious objectors have gone to jail for their principles before.”
“It’s obstruction of justice.”
“You gonna arrest me?” Carmen wondered if she could get a martyr thing going. BRAVE SCIENTIST DEFIES COPS, RISKS JAIL ON PRINCIPLE. SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE.
No. That last part would not endear her to anybody.
It didn’t endear her to her.
Quinn held her challenging gaze for a moment. “No,” she said at last, without looking down. “I’m going to beg you. Tell me what you know. Let justice take its course. The person who did this will kill again.”
He would. Carmen knew it. She hadn’t slept the night before. Every time she closed her eyes, images of the struggling, stumbling victim and the killer shoving her along the embankment had returned. Carmen could imagine too well what it would feel like: wire cutting your wrists, the sickening plummet, the icy disorienting splash—
The futile struggle. The pain of water filling your lungs.
Carmen pushed her coffee away.
“Whatever I do here is not the right thing,” Carmen said. “The right thing to do cannot be reached from where we’re standing. We have to build a bridge from here to the right thing before we can touch it.”
“You need a place to stand before you can build a bridge. What you’re suggesting is just not practical. There’s no path.” Quinn shook her head. “Some people,” she said definitely, “are just plain mean.”
“That’s what they said about addressing climate destabilization, too,” Carmen said. “Too hard. Not practical. But here I am. And an unstable climate contributes to social stresses and antisocial behavior. So if we can mitigate one, why not the other?”
Quinn crossed her arms and cocked a shoulder against the wall. “Okay. What would be the right thing?”
“To save the world,” said Carmen. “And all the people in it.”
“You’re saving lives if you put this guy away.”
“In the short run,” Carmen agreed. “In the long run, I’m reinforcing a system that ruins and sacrifices far more lives.”
“You’ve got yourself some kind of bullshit ethical trolley problem there.”
“I’m already compromising my principles.”
“All we have is expedience and approximations. All we ever have. Would it make you feel better if I got the prosecutor to subpoena whatever information you have? It wouldn’t be your fault, then.”
It seemed like a genuine, friendly offer of help. She realized with a shock that Quinn was sincere. That she didn’t agree with Carmen—she probably thought Carmen was an idiot—but that she also respected Carmen’s right to make those choices, even when they annoyed the hell out of her.