“So he’s convinced he’s the better man. Or the better chess player.”

“In his mind, they amount to the same thing.”

“So he came back here to New York to resume his murders,” Minnie said, trying to squeeze some more sensationalism out of Helen. “One of the world’s biggest losers, here to kill some more.”

“Not exactly,” Helen said. “He came here to play chess. The sadism, the things he’s done to these women, the sick torture techniques, those are just a bonus.”

“Wow!” Minnie said, shaking her head as if she had water in her ears. “For once I’m happy to be my gender.”

Helen sat looking at her.

“It’s not always good to be king,” Minnie said. “Especially in chess.”

22

Nift, the obnoxious little ME, was on the job, bent so low that Quinn could see a bald spot on the top of his head. He looked as if he wanted to climb inside the dead woman on the bed.

Quinn, with Pearl at his side, looked beyond Nift to where Harley Renz stood with his fists on his broad hips, watching. He looked pissed off, as if he knew the dead woman, but Quinn figured the real source of Renz’s anger was that the D.O.A. killer had taken another victim in his city. With Renz, that was personal, as was everything that posed a threat to his political life.

Quinn stepped closer to the bed and saw the familiar initials carved neatly into the victim’s forehead. Nift had removed the wadded gag from her mouth, and her jaws gaped wide. Even with such a grotesque expression, it was obvious that the woman had been attractive.

“Hi, Pearl,” Nift said, without seeming to notice Quinn.

Pearl didn’t seem to notice Nift.

“Play well with others,” Renz said.

All three of them ignored Renz.

Quinn moved forward, giving Nift a look he hoped would be a warning. He looked at the cuts, punctures, and burn marks on the naked corpse, heard in his heart the terrible silent scream of her gaping mouth.

“Same kind of injuries as with the Fairchild Hotel victims,” Nift said. “No doubt we’ve got a D.O.A. victim here.”

“Sure it’s not the work of a copycat?” Renz asked.

The little ME seemed to swell. “I know my business, Commissioner.”

Renz looked as if he might be about to lean into Nift. This wasn’t the way an ME talked to a commissioner, especially one who had definite if distant ideas about the office of mayor.

Quinn shook his head slightly when Renz looked at him. There was no point in getting angry with Nift. That’s how the little bastard got his jollies, getting under people’s skin.

“What’s with the catalogs?” Quinn asked, seeing colorful art catalogs spread all over the floor. Some of them had blood on their pages.

“The victim was an art restorer,” Renz said. “Worked at museums and galleries. Doing restoration work at the Kadner Gallery down in SoHo. Looks like she was also an art connoisseur.”

“Or our killer’s the connoisseur. He seems partial to museums and the women who frequent them.”

Quinn leaned low and read one of the subscription labels on the magazines. “Jeanine Carson?”

“That’s her,” Renz said.

“Was, anyway,” Pearl said.

“They could have both been,” Quinn said.

“What,” Renz said.

“Art connoisseurs.”

Renz said, “There’s a question mark in blood on the bathroom mirror.”

“No surprise there,” Quinn said. “He’s taunting. Saying, ‘come on, play harder!’ He’s pretending to be bored.”

In the corner of his vision, he saw Nift’s hand run gently over one of the dead woman’s breasts, pausing at the nipple. It made Quinn think of all those whispered stories about necrophilia that were considered NYPD myth. Nift didn’t look so mythical to Quinn.

“Shame to kill a woman with a rack like this,” Nift said, glancing at Pearl.

“Shame not to kill an asshole with a mind like yours,” Pearl said.

Quinn sighed. He was relieved to see Renz smiling rather than angry.

“Let’s talk out in the hall,” he said. “Let the ME do his job.”

“If we can trust leaving the victim alone with him,” Pearl said.

“Enough of that kinda talk,” Renz said. “It’s nasty.”

“What if it’s true?”

“Even nastier.” He led the way out of the bedroom, down the hall, through the living room crowded with CSU techs, and out into the hall.

They moved down about fifty feet so the uniform guarding the apartment door wouldn’t overhear them.

“Who found the body?” Quinn asked.

“Super, name of Fred Charleston. He had an appointment to repair a dripping shower head. When he knocked and didn’t get an answer, he figured the tenant had left for work. He let himself in with his key, found what you saw, and said he backed out of there and called the police. Uniforms got his statement, if you want to see it and talk to him.”

“I’ll read it and get to him later.”

“He’s no good for this,” Renz said. “Was up arguing with his wife until late into the night, well past when the victim died. Got up early and went to the diner down the street for breakfast, stayed there until after the time of death.”

“It happens at that diner,” Quinn said.

Renz didn’t get the joke. That was okay with Quinn. It bothered him when the commissioner came across as having a sense of humor.

“I’ll go talk to Fred the super if you want,” Pearl said.

Quinn nodded. “Good idea.”

“Keep an eye on Jeanine with Nift,” Pearl said.

Renz said, “Jesus, Pearl! The man’s an employee of the city, just like I am. Let up on him.”

“Nift will soon have her all to himself in the morgue, anyway,” Quinn said. “She’s beyond caring about anything he can do to her.”

That seemed to mollify Pearl, in a smoldering-fuse kind of way.

23

London, 1940

She would ship it by sea, to a place Henry Tucker would think suitable.

Betsy Douglass had spent much of the early morning locating a sturdy wooden shipping box that would contain Tucker’s backpack. Finally she found one in the basement, where she had stored some blankets. She emptied the wooden crate and placed the backpack snugly inside.

She held the definite impression that the object it contained was real and valuable. Why else would it be the center of so much danger and concern? Whatever it was, it deserved her care. She owed that to Henry, whom she missed more every day.

She had assumed that when someone you loved died—and she realized she did love Henry—that the ache of parting would gradually become more dulled. Hers had sharpened by the hour and sometimes felt as if it cleaved her heart.

Inside the box containing the backpack, she laid the addressed instructional letter Henry had left. It was undeliverable, and probably its intended recipient, M. Gundelheimer, was dead. Most of the people on that heavily bombed block had died or were still missing, buried beneath the rubble.

Alongside the letter that had come in the backpack was another letter, this one written by Betsy to her sister, Willa Kingdom, and Willa’s husband, Mark.

Mark had lost an arm when the merchant ship he was serving on had been torpedoed by a German submarine and sank in the Atlantic. He’d been one of only a few lucky survivors. Now he and his wife, Willa, were leaving England to settle in Ohio in the USA. Betsy wanted the box shipped to America so it would be waiting for them at their Ohio address when they arrived.

She found hammer and nails in the basement and nailed the box tightly shut so it would make its Atlantic journey without breaking open. Of course, there was always the chance of yet another U-boat attack. Betsy sighed, making a sound like a hushed breeze in the dim, silent basement. Life of late had become dangerous at every corner.

It wouldn’t feel so perilous if Henry had lived. If only he and she had . . .