Killing Critics

by Carol O’Connell

  “That’s my kid,” the inspector had told him then, behind the child’s back and with obvious pride. Though Quinn later realized that pride was not in the child’s beauty but in the quick intelligence behind her glittering eyes. He then learned that the girl frequently came in after school to jump-start the glitch-ridden computer system for her foster father. Markowitz had not resisted the urge to brag.

  “Kathy can do anything with a computer,” Markowitz had said. “This afternoon, she taught it to fetch the newspaper. ”

  The proof of this was in the copy of a crime reporter’s column, a fresh spate of information leaked from NYPD. It contained a plethora of typos and misspellings and could only have come from the city editor’s personal computer. This had been part of Markowitz’s plea for special cooperation, for concealment and covert assistance. And so Quinn’s conspiracy with this policeman had begun over an illegal computer theft by the baby hacker, Kathy Mallory. The other documents she produced had led them down dark streets of utter madness and up steep inclines of theory. The child had been a prolific thief.

  “I was sorry to hear of Inspector Markowitz’s death,” he said to the young woman beside him. “I liked your father very much.”

  And this was true. Markowitz had been a man of deep grace and charm, undisguised by his excess poundage and a bad suit. When Quinn had read of the man’s death in the papers, he felt the planet diminish beneath his feet because this policeman was no longer among them. He could count on three fingers the people who had so affected him.

  “I believe I was of some assistance to your father. If I can help you, of course I will.” He handed her his card, and with it the unlisted number which was given out to few people in this world.

  “I’ll need to talk with Gregor Gilette,” she said. “You might be able to help with that. We can’t work the old case in the open, so you could prepare him for the interview, ask him to keep it quiet.”

  “That would be difficult. He spent so many years getting over his daughter’s death. He won’t want to deal with this again.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, because it’s going to happen. It’s all new again. I’m starting over.”

  Her speech patterns spoke of good schools beyond the salaries of most city employees. Whatever the cost and sacrifice, Markowitz had invested wisely in his foster child.

  Her tone of voice strictly defined who was in charge here. And when Quinn ventured the proper form of address, he learned that he was to call her, not Mm, not Ms., nor by her given name, but only Mallory, and he was not likely to forget that-ever.

  “It’s impossible to get an appointment with Gilette,” said Quinn. “He’s in the middle of preparations to unveil his new building. I might be able to manage a brief social meeting. He’ll be at a charity ball at the Plaza. My mother hosts that ball every year.”

  Even before she spoke, he realized he had been telling her what she already knew.

  “I’ve seen the guest list,” she said.

  “I could arrange an invitation.”

  “It’s been arranged.”

  Apparently, she didn’t really need him at all; that was made very clear as she turned her face away from his.

  “Mallory,” said Riker, “is the meat wagon out front?”

  She nodded. Riker walked across the room and placed the papers in Koozeman’s hand. When Quinn looked her way again, Mallory was staring at him. The long, slanted eyes were beautiful and unsettling. Her expression was inscrutable, though he did detect a kindred coldness there.

  “Riker tells me you’re hoping to tie Dean Starr to the old murder case.”

  “I won’t discuss that here.” She turned toward the coffin, dismissing him again.

  Neither of them noticed the reporter taking a seat behind them at that moment. A pen scribbled furiously behind their backs.

  Riker was back again, checking all the rows and asking, “Where did Andrew Bliss go?”

  “He left right after you went to the men’s room,” said Quinn. “The other children were teasing him about his column.”

  Suddenly he found himself sitting alone, watching Riker and Mallory moving across the wide floor toward the door. A reporter fell over his own feet to leave the bleachers and catch up to Mallory. He stepped into her path, and a second later, stumbled backward, though Quinn could swear she never touched the man.

  The place Mallory had occupied was now filled by the less attractive person of a reporter, a man with sparse hair, a wide girth and grinning nicotine-yellow teeth.

  “Mr. Quinn, would you say this death is a great loss to the art community?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. There are perhaps ninety thousand other hack artists in New York to fill the void.”

  “What’s your personal response to the death of Mr. Starr?”

  “One down and eighty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go. Is there anything else?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you think it’s a little odd they didn’t arrest Oren Watt?”

  Quinn’s posture was aloof, his expression slightly bored, but beneath the skin, where everyone’s innards were equally inelegant, was the sickening confusion of emotions tied to his niece and all her butchered body parts.

  Emma Sue Hollaran, head of the Public Works Committee, had pinned him to this appointment. Thus pinned like a butterfly, Andrew Bliss had been drinking steadily, wings astiffening throughout the day. Emma Sue, root of every bender, probably had no idea that he was drunk each time they met, for she never saw him in any better condition. She must believe he lay over every armchair as a second skin to the brocade, and that his eyes were always languid.

  Among the evolved humans, Andrew was too quick to be kept track of. His normal everyday eyes were rocketing pinballs, powered by manic energy. And when he was in the depressive stage, his eyes were dark crawling slugs. But tonight, he was merely in the bag and unfocussed.

  He stood up on wobbly legs and walked to the French windows, which opened onto the terrace. He inhaled the fresh air and eyed the near ledge.

  If she doesn’t shut up, I’ll jump.

  Ah, but they were only five flights up, and the fall might not kill him immediately. He abhorred messy scenes. He was trapped then, escape cut off-so scowling Emma Sue might have the pleasure of doing the same to his soft parts.

  She droned on in a testy nasal twang. Few of her words penetrated his skull. Only the tone was clear. She was pissed off.

  What is it this time?

  Did she hate his review of her pet artist of the month? And however did she get those boys into her bed? Who had so much ambition and such control of the flesh as to keep it from crawling off the bones when she touched him?

  There was one ugly drawback to being mercifully swacked out of his mind: his reaction time was poor. He was not quick enough to dodge the flying spittle as she stomped toward him.

  At some point in her fifty-one years, Emma Sue must have noticed that people would not come close to her, not within spitting range. He credited her alienation from all things human and good to this one tragic flaw. Even with her gift for self-delusion, how could she be unaware of it?

  The darker possibility was that she was aware of it.

  As a personal quirk, spit did have its fascination. This woman was not a hairy biker, but a power broker in the art community, directing the funds of every architect’s budget to include the mandatory bit of sculpture which graced, or more frequently wrecked, each public plaza.

  Her most glaring visible flaws began with the ankles of a plow horse. From there up, she bore a family resemblance to a succession of other animals, despite years of cosmetic surgery. No reputable doctor would touch her, for the best of surgeons could not make a muzzle into a human-scale nose, nor could they enlarge upon the piglet eyes. And so she had been relegated to the hacks of Fifth Avenue, putting all her faith in a good address.

  She had the look of a jury-rigged job in the misalignment of her features. Deep chemical peels had tightened the skin of
her face to expose the contours of fat deposits and bulging veins. The flesh was scarred and discolored beneath many coats of concealing makeup. And yet, with each new procedure, the magic mirror of her mind was telling her that she was becoming more beautiful.

  On the upside, her wardrobe was flawless-and here he complimented himself. It was his chore, as her personal advisor, to dress her properly, though not literally. Saliva was their only intimacy.

  Though her face was still puffy from her last surgery, her makeup was perfect, and kept perfect throughout the day, thanks to his scheduling of pit stops at the makeup counters of Bloomingdale’s. Now, out of habit, he checked her fingernails. Perhaps he should send her back to the shop for a nail wrap. It was always something, wasn’t it?

  What is she going on about now?

  Ah, the new artwork for the Gilette Plaza. So old Gregor hadn’t left her any room to sufficiently vandalize the plaza of his new building? Really? Brilliant man-the only architect in New York who’d found a way to foil her.

  All her verbal defecation was being sifted and sanitized through a gauze of alcohol. His thick wine stupor prevented her from knotting his insides while she damped his skin.

  What now?

  Oh, that. Of course he had attended the funeral. He was an art critic, wasn’t he? Her feud with Koozeman shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with his own job. That was asking too much. He had half a mind to leave, and perhaps never to return. She’d be ruined then, wouldn’t she? Who but himself would tell the ignorant bitch when she had lipstick on her teeth? This heinous symbiotic relationship worked more in her favor than his.

  What? Oh, right.

  He bade farewell to the wine as he felt its effects abandoning his brain cells, being displaced by chilling sobriety.

  The upper half of the office wall was solid glass, a wide window on the larger area of Special Crimes Section, where uniformed officers and civilian clerks moved in crisscrossing patterns through the labyrinth of file cabinets, desks and chairs. A score of taxpayers and suspects sat with detectives under the bright lights of the second shift. Across the room at the far desk, one of the taxpayers was crying. Her face contorted with pain; her mouth opened wide.

  The woman’s scream never penetrated Lieutenant Coffey’s office. On his own side of the thick glass, it was a drawn-out silence that disturbed Jack Coffey. The muscles of his neck tightened as every quiet second was adding to the tension of the room.

  Detective Sergeant Mallory had turned her back on him and faced the wall of glass. Her blond hair hung in curls over the collar of a long, black coat. Only a few inches of her blue jeans were visible below the hem. And now Coffey noticed Mallory was wearing her formal black running shoes tonight-all dressed up for the funeral service.

  Sergeant Riker had made no such effort for the murdered artist. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, staring at his scuffed shoes. Coffey’s first indication of trouble was the absence of Riker’s cigarette smoke and sarcasm. This evening, the man was actually deferring to his younger superior officer, and this worried Coffey. How much damage could they have done tonight?

  “The focus is on the murder of Dean Starr,” said Coffey. “We are not resurrecting the old Ariel-Gilette case. Is that real clear, Mallory?”

  Was she even listening to him? Jack Coffey thought not. His own ghostly reflection wafted in the glass behind Mallory’s, the image of a man thirty-six years old, not tall or short, hair and eyes neither dark nor light-best described as average in every aspect but his rank. In a bygone era, Coffey would have spent five more years in the slow mentoring process before he got his own detective’s shield. Now, the younger investigators dominated every squad room. But at twenty-five, Mallory was the real standout. And in this young woman, Coffey could see all the flaws and virtues of the new NYPD cult of youth.

  Lieutenant Coffey looked from one detective to the other. Riker was too easy a target. There were entirely too many things he could threaten this sergeant with; first among them was the aroma of wine imbibed on overtime. Jack Coffey was not one to press unfair advantage on a man.

  So he turned on Mallory.

  “Sit your ass down, Mallory! I want to see your damn face when I’m talking to you. I don’t want to hear any crap later on about how you didn’t quite hear a direct order.”

  She turned to glare at him. Well, that was something. Even Riker was impressed enough to lift his sorry head.

  “I want to know where these orders are coming from.” Her tone of voice put her on the borderline of insubordination. She had been straddling that line from the moment she walked in the door with Riker. Coffey had to admire her tactics. Whenever she was in deep trouble, she always went on the offensive.

  She continued, not waiting for his reply, not wanting to lose momentum. “Oren Watt is out of the asylum less than a year, and we’ve got another body fixed up to look like a work of art. That bastard should be sitting in an interview room right now. Don’t you think it’s just a little strange that we can’t touch him?”

  Her sarcasm stayed within the gray zone, where Coffey could not challenge her without playing the fool.

  “You know she’s right,” said Riker. “This is trouble. The press is already carping about it. Everybody’s gonna think it’s odd if Watt doesn’t make the short list.”

  “Oren Watt has been vouched for,” said Coffey. “He was never in the gallery the night Dean Starr went down.”

  “Who vouched for him? His quack psychiatrist?” Mallory faced the window, stepping on his authority by the simple act of turning her back on him again.

  “Senator Berman vouched for Watt,” said Coffey. “You might remember Berman. He was the police commissioner when you were just a little girl.”

  Riker was trying not to smile, and Coffey knew he had scored a game point by knocking Mallory down in size. He walked over to the window, tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Sit down, Sergeant.”

  She shrugged off the trench coat and folded it neatly over one arm. And now, as though it were her own idea, Mallory pulled up a chair and settled into it. She stretched out her long legs, and avoided looking at him-yet another sign of trouble.

  He addressed both of his detectives. “Senator Berman says Oren Watt wasn’t there, and none of the other guests saw him either. When Berman was the commissioner, Oren Watt’s art show was the biggest, bloodiest case of his career. Watt’s face was all over the papers for months, so it’s not likely the senator would forget what the bastard looked like. None of us will. If Berman says the man wasn’t there, we take his word for it.”

  “You talked to Senator Berman?” There was a light incredulity in her question. It was a well-placed shot, for he had not been allowed near the senator.

  Good guess, Mallory. “Blakely interviewed him.”

  “That figures,” said Mallory. “The chief’s one hell of a political animal, isn’t he? So this is all coming down from Blakely’s office, right? Twelve years ago, it was Blakely who tried to force Markowitz to close out the double homicide.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mallory! It made sense to close out the case. Watt was insane-he couldn’t stand trial, and you know-”

  “And what about the gallery owner?” Riker’s voice carried a suspicious amount of respect this evening. “Do we ever get to talk to Koozeman?”

  “No,” said Coffey. “We already have his statement from the first officer on the scene.”

  “He should be at the top of the suspect list.” Mallory turned to Riker. “Can’t you just smell the money? I want to go over Koozeman’s books.”

  “You don’t go near him!” Coffey’s gut sent him a sharp message of pain, and then he realized that she was only torturing him for fun. Well, shot for shot, Mallory. “If you can’t follow orders, I’ll bury you in the computer room, and you’ll never get out on the street again. Is that understood?”

  Oh, she didn’t like that one bit.

  He could see her return volley coming, the predictable threat to quit t
he force. The slight lift of her chin was all but telegraphing a reminder that she could make twice the money in the private sector. Maybe she would escalate her illegal, unauthorized fiddle and become less than a silent partner in Charles Butler’s consulting firm. Coffey stood a little straighter, squaring off his body, gearing up his mind for the inevitable fight. Just let her try to jerk his-

  “You’re right,” she said softly. “It was a bad idea to go after Watt. And the less the gallery owner knows, the better.”

  What did she expect him to do with all this excess adrenaline? Maybe she was hoping it would burn a hole in his veins.

  She crossed the room to settle on the corner of his desk. One long blue-jeaned leg draped over the edge of it. One black running shoe dangled as she smiled. He had to wonder what she was planning to do to him. Boxing with Mallory so fascinated him, he was ruined for every other form of blood sport.

  “You think I don’t understand your position,” said Mallory. “But I do. If Blakely found out you disobeyed an order, he’d go after you, wouldn’t he? It makes a lot of sense to keep a low profile.”

  He was digesting her if-you-only-had-a-spine implication when she reached down to the canvas tote bag on the floor and pulled out a set of photographs.

  “These are the old shots of the dancer’s funeral.” She held out one panoramic view of a large group of people. “The Gilettes hired security to keep the circus out. Only friends, relatives and police. Look at this figure two heads away from Markowitz.” Mallory was pointing at the one outstanding mourner, remarkable for his height of six four, and his large nose. “Look at that. It’s Charles.”

  Charles Butler had been one of her foster father’s closest friends. Though Louis Markowitz came from humble environs and Charles was descended from Park Avenue stock, commonalities had outweighed their differences- Charles was also a charming man with a giant brain. But years before Charles and Markowitz ever met, they had attended a funeral together.