“The guy that shot the complainant,” Renz said.
Quinn looked at him. “The guy who came into the precinct house with the package and gun got shot?”
“Once, in the middle of the forehead,” Renz said. “It did the job, even though it was a twenty-two-caliber slug.”
“Who’s—who was the guy that got shot?”
“Name of Alec Farr. He was Wrenner’s boss, and apparently rode the hell out of him, drove him nutty enough to kill. The other salespeople at the agency confirmed this. They didn’t disguise the fact they were glad Farr was dead, said Wrenner was his favorite whipping boy.”
“So you have Wrenner in custody.”
“Yep. He was found sitting next to the body, sobbing.”
“He’s not our serial killer,” Quinn said.
“Not a chance. Our problem, though. The mayor himself was on the phone this morning telling me these murders are out of control.”
“He’s just catching on to that?”
“He’s had other things on his mind. But now we’re on his mind.”
“Why didn’t Farr get out of town, if he took the threat seriously enough to go to the police?”
“Said he couldn’t. He had a job, work to do here. He’d get fired if he left town just because some asshole threatened him. Besides, he was the stubborn sort.”
Quinn thought that should be engraved on the tombstones of a lot of people he’d known: He was the stubborn sort. Maybe on his own tombstone.
“I’m getting pressure from on high you wouldn’t believe,” Renz said.
“Am I supposed to be feeling pressure here?” Quinn asked.
“That’s the purpose of this conversation. Mayor told me to light a fire under you.”
“Isn’t that arson?”
“Unless you’re protesting something. Like lack of progress. I know there’s already a fire under you, Quinn, but that’s because I know you, and the mayor doesn’t. I’m simply delivering the message.”
Quinn said nothing while Renz finished his knish, then produced a white handkerchief from a pocket and fastidiously wiped his hands finger by finger.
After stuffing the handkerchief back in his pants pocket, Renz reached into an inside pocket of his suit coat and brought out a folded City Beat and held it out to Quinn. “Sellers has got the exclusive on this; that’s why it wasn’t in the big papers this morning. It’s on their Web sites, though, and radio and TV news is on the story heavy. Sellers painted Wrenner as a victim, said he shot Farr for the same reason women kill their abusive husbands. Wrenner was too dependent on Farr and his job to go out and get another job, just like wifey’s too dependent to get another hubby and goes for the knife or gun instead.”
Accepting the newspaper, Quinn said, “There’s enough truth in it that in some quarters it might wash.”
“That’s what worries me, Quinn. The rest of the media’s already spouting the same nonsense. They’re making it look like murder’s okay in certain circumstances. There are too many damned people in this city who think they’re in those circumstances.”
“Copycats with guns,” Quinn said.
“Only nobody’s got nine lives.”
Quinn looked at a display of miniature digital cameras behind Renz. With all the electronic crap taking over the world, for all they knew they were being video streamed right now. Not that they had anything to hide, but neither one would want…say, the mayor, to see or hear their conversation.
Tucking the City Beat beneath his arm, Quinn said, “What would you have me do about all this, Harley?”
“Catch the bastard,” Renz said, as if the answer was obvious and Quinn had somehow missed it.
“Uh-huh. Gonna have another knish?”
“One’s enough. Moderation in all things. What I’m gonna have next is a cigar.”
“Tell the mayor I’m on fire,” Quinn said.
Renz smiled and motioned to his driver.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, and got into the limo.
“Catch the bastard,” Renz said again, and pulled the door shut so that all Quinn saw in the limo’s tinted window was a bent-nosed, tough-looking guy with a thatch of unruly straight hair. Quinn.
58
Pearl told herself it was too early for Dr. Eichmann to call about her biopsy report, but she was nonetheless impatient. Quinn was off somewhere in a meeting with Renz, and Fedderman was trading briefings with Vitali and Mishkin so the left hand would know all about the right hand.
She’d been jumpy all morning, still angry at her mother and that prick Milton Kahn, anxious because she’d slept so poorly. She was jacked up on too much coffee and considering taking up smoking to calm her nerves, though she had never smoked. But most of all she was worried about the removed mole. Where was it now, somewhere out of state in a jar on some laboratory shelf? Being whirled dizzily in a centrifuge? Subjected to extreme light, magnification, and probing with sharp instruments?
For the past two hours she’d been seated at her desk, working on her computer because there was nothing more productive or distracting for her to do. Now and then leaning forward to sip more coffee, she played her fingers over the keyboard and jerked and clicked the mouse on its pad, trolling for information on any murders, anywhere, any time, that involved the hanging and disemboweling of the victims.
There was a case in Seattle two years ago, but they’d caught and convicted the guy, who’d turned out to be a former medical student and city employee. Another, five years ago, in California. In that one the killer was a mental case searching for a healthy kidney to be transplanted in exchange for his own diseased one. He’d been caught when he’d broken into a hospital to perform the surgery on himself. His motive was that he’d been unfairly kept too long on the transplant waiting list. He, too, was convicted, and died in prison.
That was it. This kind of murder was less popular than gunshots, stab wounds, poisoning, blunt instruments, or strangulation.
Pearl was about to give up, get another cup of coffee, and do some serious pacing, when on an obscure Web site about crimes against animals she discovered the case of a man named Dwayne Avis. Five years ago he had gotten a suspended sentence and paid a fine after torturing dogs on his upstate New York farm. Six of the animals had been found hanging and gutted in his barn.
Not quite the same thing as dead women, Pearl thought, leaning back in her chair and pressing a fist into her aching back.
But what other leads did they have?
She reread the small-town newspaper article on her computer monitor. Avis expressed no remorse, according to the reporter, and had threatened state police with a shotgun when they entered his property. When subdued and arrested, he stated that the dogs were his and what he did with them was his business. There was no photo of Avis accompanying the article.
Sick bastard, Pearl thought. Who’d do that to defenseless animals and then resist arrest and try to defend his actions? Or maybe he was simply evil. It might not be a bad idea to at least talk to him, make sure he wasn’t getting away with doing the same thing again. After five years, people forgot.
After five years, people had moved away. It was possible Dwayne Avis was one of them. He might be gone or might even have died. Some dog lover might have shot him, and good riddance.
Or maybe he’d moved to New York City.
Pearl manipulated the mouse and made her way electronically to the paper’s front page. It was the Mansard Gazette, headquartered in Mansard, New York. Pearl clicked back to the five-year-old news article about the slaughtered dogs. She printed it out to show to Quinn or Fedderman, when one or the other turned up at the office. Then she made use of the Internet to find out more about Mansard.