Urge to Kill

Zoe Manders’s fashionable Park Avenue office address, just off Fifty-ninth Street, whispered success. Standing in the towering building’s glass and marble lobby, Quinn studied the directory and found that she was one of maybe a dozen doctors of one sort or another on the floors not occupied by corporations large and small. He walked over to where a uniformed security guard sat in a low chair behind a curved marble-topped counter and signed in. The marble was cold to the touch.

“Good to see you again, Captain.”

Quinn glanced again at the guard and recognized the grinning, puffy face of former NYPD detective Ben Byrd. Byrd had worked out of Manhattan South homicide and been in a bad car accident while on the way to a crime scene…what, five years ago?

“You’re looking good, Ben,” Quinn said, shaking hands. Quinn meant it. He’d heard about how seriously Byrd was injured, the endless rounds of operations.

Byrd added a shrug to his smile. “I don’t get around so well, but other than that there’s no pain. It’s pain that can wear you down, especially the back pain.”

Quinn caught a glint of polished steel behind the counter and noticed for the first time that Byrd was seated in a wheelchair.

“I don’t get up outta here by myself,” Byrd said, but the grin didn’t waver. “I can get around okay, though. Things turned out all right, considering.”

“Better than what almost happened.”

“That’s what I tell myself, Captain.” Byrd’s gaze dropped to the building log on the marble counter. “I see you know Dr. Manders.”

“Meeting her for the first time,” Quinn said.

“Police business, I guess.”

“Yeah. Thanks for assuming I’m not one of her patients.”

“It wouldn’t be an insult. I was one of ’em myself, after the accident.”

“She must know her job,” Quinn said, a bit awkwardly.

“I figured you were here ’cause of what happened to her brother. That Twenty-five-Caliber thing. How’s it going on that one?”

“Slowly,” Quinn said.

“So nothing’s changed.”

Quinn told him nothing had, then offered his hand again to shake.

Byrd, with a still-powerful grip, gave Quinn’s hand a squeeze and said, “Take it easy on Dr. Manders. She’s one of the good ones.”

“In the building, you mean?”

“One of the good ones anywhere,” Byrd said. “A class lady.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Quinn smiled. “She’s not a suspect, Ben. Class ladies don’t shoot people in the head.”

“Most of them don’t,” Byrd said.

Quinn found the neatly disguised elevators and rode one to the ninth floor. At the end of a long, carpeted corridor, beyond the door to a law firm, was a plain wooden door simply lettered DR. ZOE MANDERS.

The door opened to a small anteroom that was tastefully furnished in grays and greens, with a brown leather sofa and two matching chairs. There were a lot of potted plants that looked artificial, but when Quinn touched one of the leaves he found it was real.

There was no receptionist and no place for one to sit and greet people. No phone in sight. The doctor must have an answering service. Next to a door beyond one of the brown leather chairs was a small illuminated button. Quinn had called ahead for an appointment, so he went over to the button and pressed it. A buzzer sounded behind the closed door.

Within a few seconds Dr. Zoe Manders opened the door and smiled at Quinn. She was a slim woman who looked too young to be in her forties, slightly taller than average, with brown eyes and short brown hair. Her features were even and radiated more health than delicacy. Maybe it was her wide cheekbones and wonderful smile, or maybe it was the fact that she was a psychoanalyst, that reminded Quinn of Ingrid Bergman, who’d played a psychiatrist in a Hitchcock movie.

“Detective Quinn?” she asked.

He’d been staring. “Yes, and you’re Dr. Manders?”

“The introductions are out of the way,” she said, still smiling, and stood aside so he could enter her office.

Simply being there made Quinn feel better, and he’d felt okay when he arrived. Gray and green in here, too, but with lighter tan leather. There were some heavy, shaded lamps with oversized bases on darkly grained wood tables, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in matching wood, the books neatly arranged. The carpet was a plush beige two shades darker than the leather chairs. The heavy drapes that muffled the sounds of Park Avenue traffic nine stories below were the deep, velvety green of old moss. On two of the walls were framed prints of Monet garden paintings, containing almost every color but in a muted harmony that made them relaxing to gaze on.

Dr. Manders was wearing loose-fitting charcoal-gray slacks, a silky pale gray blouse with a white pattern that made it look almost lacy, and low-heeled shoes of a gray that matched the blouse. She led Quinn to one of the comfortable-looking leather chairs and motioned for him to sit down, then she sat behind a polished wood desk that had delicately carved legs and looked more like a table. The effect of the room with her in it was strangely soothing. It was all calculated, Quinn told himself, but it certainly worked.