Night Kills Read Online Free PDF

usual dark eyeliner, which made her almost black eyes appear even darker. Quinn thought she looked fabulous.
    Fedderman, perched on the less comfortable wood and leather casual chair, looked his usual discombobulated self. Though his face had gotten thinner, it still had its expectant, hangdog look, as if he’d just committed some transgression and now needed forgiveness. He’d lost a bit more of his graying hair since Quinn had last seen him and was now almost bald on top. Quinn was sure he recognized the baggy brown suit Fedderman was wearing, and noticed that his right white shirt cuff was unbuttoned and hanging out of his coat sleeve. For some reason that often happened to Fedderman’s cuffs when he used a pen or pencil for any length of time. Quinn almost smiled, seeing the frayed, loose cuff peeking out of the coat sleeve at him. Old times.
    Fedderman looked over at Pearl. “I heard you had some trouble at the bank.”
    â€œScrew you,” she said, dismissing Fedderman. She turned her attention to Quinn. “Lauri’s no longer living with you?”
    Lauri was Quinn’s daughter, now almost twenty. “She and Wormy are living in California, trying to promote his music career.” Lauri’s lover, Wormy, so called because he was tall and painfully thin and kind of undulated when he walked, was front man for his band, The Defendants. Lauri’s last letter said the group was close to a record contract. Her next-to-last letter had said that, too.
    â€œI thought the boy had talent,” Fedderman said.
    â€œBut what about his music?” Pearl asked.
    â€œWhat about these murders?” Quinn said, reminding them why they were here. He picked up four green binders, then moved out from behind his desk and handed two to each of his detectives. “Renz supplied copies of the murder books. I made copies for you two.”
    â€œYou must already have looked yours over,” Fedderman said. “Any conclusions?”
    Quinn sat back down behind his desk, automatically reached for his cigar, then drew his hand back when he noticed Pearl giving him a look. “I already told you some of the basics: two torsos, female Caucasian, each shot through the heart, no prints on file, and no way to identify them. Twenty-two-caliber hollow-point bullets. Both of them separated when they entered the victims, but the pieces stayed in the bodies and the lab managed to reconstruct them enough to be sure they were fired by the same gun. Both victims were sexually penetrated by what seems to have been a long, sharp stake of some kind that left a residue of oil.”
    â€œA sexual lubricant?” Pearl asked.
    â€œFurniture oil,” Quinn said.
    â€œHe polished them off,” Fedderman said. He seemed obviously pleased by his humor.
    â€œShut up with that kind of stuff,” Pearl said.
    Fedderman noticed his shirt cuff was unbuttoned and fastened it. “Where were they found?” Mr. Serious now.
    â€œThe first in a Dumpster behind a restaurant on the Upper West Side. The second in a vacant building in lower Manhattan.”
    â€œVacant why?” Pearl asked.
    â€œBeing renovated.”
    â€œActively?”
    â€œYeah. A condo conversion.” Quinn knew where she was going with this and was pleased.
    â€œFound on a Monday?” Pearl asked.
    â€œYou guessed it.”
    â€œThe workmen would be bound to find it, then. And the torso in the Dumpster would be found next trash pickup.”
    â€œWhich was scheduled for the morning after it was placed there,” Quinn said. “Restaurant employees said they would have seen it during working hours, so it must have been put in the Dumpster the night before.”
    Pearl uncrossed her legs and placed her stockinged feet on the floor, wriggling her toes. “The killer wanted the torsos found soon after they were dumped. Any idea why?”
    â€œNot as yet,” Quinn said.
    â€œI take it there’s