Quinn had assigned them that task mainly because Renz had wanted to meet with him alone. They were in the sparse but efficient office on West Seventy-ninth Street. Quinn was seated at his desk. Renz was standing across from him, leaning back with his butt propped against the edge of Pearl’s desk, the way Pearl often stood. Quinn wondered if there was something about that spot, the way the two desks were arranged, that induced people to stand that way. “The Hettie Davis murder,” Renz said. “Hell of a mess.” “The job takes a strong stomach sometimes,” Quinn said. “I don’t mean just that kind of mess,” Renz said. “The sort of butchery that was done on the victim, that’s usually not a one-time thing. The bastard treated her like she was some kind of animal he’d killed and was gonna make a rug out of, or something.” He absently toyed with a cellophane-wrapped tip of a cigar protruding with a clipped pen from the pocket of his white shirt. “How likely is it that we’ve got two major psychotic serial killers operating at the same time in the same city?”
