Darker Than Night. John Lutz
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pornography on the computer’s hard disk.
It looked bad for Quinn, he was told. And he knew it was bad. He understood the game. He knew what was coming next.
They were going to show him a way out of his predicament.
And they did. Retirement with partial pension, or he would be charged with child molestation, the rape of a minor.
Quinn realized it must have been Egan who’d tipped off the corrupt cops, and who was part of the corruption himself.
And probably it was the politically savvy Egan who prevented Quinn from being prosecuted, thus keeping a lid on the rot in the NYPD. Quinn, knowing he wasn’t going to be believed anyway, understood the arrangement, the addendum to corruption. He was if nothing else a realist.
So he preserved his meager pension, but lost his job and everything else.
Everything.
He hadn’t known the devastation would be so swift and complete. His reputation, credibility, and marriage were suddenly gone.
Not only that, he found himself existing only on his partial pension, a pariah unable to find a job or a decent place to live because he was on an unofficial NYPD sexual predator list. Every time he thought he was making progress, word somehow got to whoever controlled his future.
Whoever had put Quinn down wanted to keep him there.
After May left, he missed her so much at first that it affected his health. He thought his aching stomach would turn to stone.
Now, though he thought often of Lauri, he hardly thought of May at all. Renz was right. Things did change.
Quinn had never cared much for Captain Harley Renz. Ambitious, conniving bastard. He liked to know things about people. To Renz, personal information was like hole cards in a poker game.
“You been drinking?” Renz asked.
“No. It’s only ten in the morning. What I am now is fucked up with a headache.”
Renz drew a tiny white plastic bottle from a pocket and held it out toward Quinn. “Would some ibuprofen help?”
Quinn glared at him.
Renz replaced the bottle in his pocket. “This isn’t such a bad neighborhood,” he said, glancing around, “yet this place looks like a roach haven.”
“The building’s gonna be rehabbed, so the rent’s cheap. Anyway, I’ve hired a decorator.”
“Johnnie Walker?”
“Uh-uh. Can’t afford him.”
“Good fortune might change all that. Might throw you a lifeline of money and regained self-respect.”
“How so?”
“I’m here.”
“You said it was a roach haven.”
“It’s good to know you’re still a smart-ass,” Renz said. “You’re not completely broken.”
Quinn watched him settle into the worn-out wing chair across from the worn-out sofa. Renz made a steeple with his fingers, almost as if he were about to pray, a characteristic gesture Quinn recalled now. He’d never trusted people who made steeples with their fingers.
“My proposition,” Renz said, “involves an unsolved homicide.”
Despite his wish that Renz would make his pitch and then leave, Quinn felt his pulse quicken. Once a cop, always one, he thought bitterly. Blood that ran blue stayed true. Wasn’t that why he found himself sitting around all day drenched with self-pity?
“You know the Elzner murder case?” Renz asked.
Quinn shook his head no. “I stay away from the news. It cheers me down.”
Renz filled him in. Jan and Martin Elzner, husband and wife, had been discovered shot to death ten days ago in their Upper West Side apartment. The deaths occurred in the early-morning hours, at approximately the same time. The gun that fired the bullets was found in the dead husband’s hand. It was an old Walther .38 semiautomatic. Its serial number had been burned off by acid.
“Like half the illegal guns in New York,” Quinn said.
“Seems that way. He was killed by a single shot to the temple.”
“Powder residue on the hand?”
“Some. But it mighta been transferred there if the gun was exchanged.”
“Burns near the entry wound?”
“Yeah. He was shot at close range.”
“Murder, then suicide,” Quinn said.
“That’s how it’s going down. That’s what they want to believe.”
“They?”
“The NYPD, other’n me. I think the Elzners were both murdered.”
Quinn settled deeper into the sprung sofa and winced. His headache wasn’t abating. “What makes you different?” he asked Renz.
“For one thing, I intend to be the next chief of police. Chief Barrow’s going to retire for health reasons early next year. The department’s considering candidates for replacement. I’m one of those up for the job.”
“You’ve got the asshole part of it down pat.”
“You were the best detective in homicide, Quinn. You can be that again, if you take me up on my offer.”
“I haven’t heard an offer,” Quinn said. Christ! Another offer. He licked his lips. They were dry. “But let’s take things in order. What makes you think the Elzners were both murdered?”
“I’ve talked to the ME, Jack Nift, an old friend of mine.”
Quinn wasn’t surprised Nift and Renz were friends. A couple of pricks.
“Nift tells me in confidence that the angle of the bullet’s entry isn’t quite right for a suicide—too much of a downward trajectory.”
“Does Nift say it definitely rules out a self-inflicted wound?”
“No,” Renz admitted, “only makes it less likely. Also, there’s what might be a silencer nick in some of the spent bullets, where they might have contacted a baffler or some irregularity in a sound suppressor, and the gun in Elzner’s hand wasn’t equipped with a silencer. There were marks on the barrel, though, where one might have been attached.”
“But the marked gun and slugs are no more conclusive than the bullet wound angle.”
“True,” Renz said, “but then there are the groceries.”
“Groceries?”
“Some groceries were out on the table, along with a couple of half-full plastic bags, and a can of tuna was on the kitchen floor. The nearest grocery stores and delis don’t remember either of the Elzners shopping there or ordering a delivery that day or evening, and there was no receipt in the grocery bags.”
“Odd,” Quinn said.
“People don’t interrupt unbagging their groceries after midnight so they can commit murder, then suicide,” Renz told him.
Quinn thought Renz should know better.
He waited for more, but Renz was finished. “That’s it? That’s your evidence?”
“So far.”
“Not very convincing.”
“So far.”
Quinn stood up and paced to the window, pressing his palm to his aching forehead. He had to squint as he looked down at the street three stories below. The morning was warm but gloomy. Some of the people scurrying along the sidewalks were wearing light raincoats. A few of them wielded open umbrellas.