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.
“Now, what would be the proposition?”
“I want you to investigate the Elzner murder secretly,” Renz said, “with my surreptitious help. I’ll sit on the evidence as long as possible, so you and I will be the only ones to know it in its entirety. You’ll be paid well, and you don’t ask where the money’s coming from. And if I—you—solve the case and I become the next chief of police, you’re back in the NYPD and part of its inner circle.”
“A crooked deal.”
“Sure, sure. And you’re so fucking ethical. I know your reputation, but you mighta noticed you’re about out of options. I’m holding out a chance for you. And it’s my chance, too. The way it looks, it comes down to me or Captain Vincent Egan as the new chief, and you know Egan’s not gonna play it straight.”
Quinn had to smile. Renz had gotten his ducks in a row before coming here. Quinn knew something else: Renz would never have come to him with this if somebody higher in the NYPD or in city politics hadn’t approved it. Maybe somebody had his suspicions and wanted to place Egan and Quinn, and possibly Renz himself, under a microscope.
“There’s no way I can conduct an investigation without Egan and the rest of the NYPD finding out about it,” Quinn said.
“Egan won’t find out if you work fast enough. And if he does, we’ll think of something else. What I’m asking is that you climb outta this physical and psychological shit hole you been in and do your job the way I know you can.”
“That last part’d be easy enough,” Quinn said, still gazing out the window.
“Not without the first part. Can you manage it?”
Quinn saw more umbrellas opening below, like dark flowers abruptly blooming. He thought it would be nice if the sun would burst out from behind the clouds, send him a sign.
Screw it. He didn’t need a sign.
“I can try,” he said, turning away from the
