Shoeless Child

by J. A. Schneider

“Is he a student?” Kerri asked.

  Rachel nodded. “Grad student in theater and acting. He’s written a script and is putting on a student play. He’s kinda brilliant.”

  Facebook, Instagram…On Kerri’s phone Rachel showed her Jed Stefan. He was close to handsome, with a rakish grin and longish, dark hair. Lots of photos of him acting, directing, standing on a ladder in one shot hammering his own stage props.

  Two nurses passed in the hall. At their sound Rachel peered out, looking for Charlie.

  Faster, Kerri thought. The knot in her chest tightened.

  “You sure brilliant Jed isn’t capable of jealousy?”

  Rachel lay her head back on the pillows. “Well…he’s intense. But not jealous, I don’t think so. He’s been through relationships and says he’s sick of the drama. Once, on the first date even, he got…ardent. I said stop and he did. I told him I’d been through awfulness and wasn’t ready” – she rolled her eyes – “for relationships. He kept saying sorry…also that he was looking for something permanent, and maybe the old-fashioned way might be better.”

  “Get to know each other first,” Kerri said drily, and thought: intense people like to be considered special. Theater types want to be divas.

  “Who’s the star of his play?”

  “He is.”

  Big surprise.

  Rachel fingered Stefan’s card. “How could there be jealousy? I was up front with anyone interested. If they bailed, they weren’t worth it anyway, right?”

  “Right. Did Jed Stefan know you were dating others?”

  “Yes, but not who.” Rachel frowned with sudden uneasiness. “Scott Mullin and I ran into him once, outside the Nitehawk Cinema. It was odd. He was standing right behind us.”

  Scott Mullin’s name made Kerri’s heart sink. “That had no effect on your friendship with Stefan?”

  Rachel shook her head no. “If anything, well…mainly I think we continued because I took an interest in his play, brought friends to audition for it, watched some of his rehearsals.”

  So Jed Stefan was the guy Gina Wheat had called an obnoxious jerk and a snob. She made it through two of his auditions, then he cut her cruelly. With his big, intense ego he could be biding his time; enjoying a studly challenge with Rachel…or not.

  “How did you meet Jed?”

  “He was a patient of my employer, James Burke.”

  “Oh!”

  Kerri had only guessed about one of Burke’s patients. And Alex had said, Maybe Burke, maybe someone Rachel’s been trying to date casually…

  “Jed was disappointed in Burke, actually.” Rachel frowned at the hand weights Cassie had left on her side table. They must have seemed unreal to her. “He resisted being called a ‘patient;’ said he’d just come for help exploring his psyche - or something affected-sounding like that. It’s how Jed sometimes talks, but once you get past the auteur stuff, he can be vulnerable and sweet. Frets constantly about his writing, creating characters and all that.”

  “Why was he disappointed in Burke?”

  “He said he just talks in generic psycho-babble, isn’t a good psychiatrist at all…and unfortunately, told him so to his face. They had words behind that door. Jed came storming out and said he didn’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t press. That’s doctor-patient stuff.”

  James Burke and Jed Stefan. They knew each other and didn’t like each other. Burke had to have felt jealous, but Kerri didn’t like the sound of Stefan, either.

  She held up Burke’s card, the one that had accompanied the sweetheart roses.

  “What about him? His approach to you hasn’t been platonic, has it?”

  Rachel seemed surprised. “You know?”

  “Paid him a visit.”

  A hesitation, then: “Right…things got uncomfortable. I explained why the boss/employee angle made it worse, and he backed off. I…got really mad once.”

  “Was that before or after he started psychoanalyzing you?”

  Rachel seemed surprised again at how much Kerri knew.

  “After. The daddy-shrink thing was probably his way of moving in, and I stopped it. Anyway, he never got to go that deep. I knew what my troubles were.” Rachel paused, a remote cloudiness in her eyes. “I was alone in New York, vulnerable, had a child…fair game for any employer, right?”

  “Old awful story. No one is fair game.” Kerri hesitated. “So once you laid the ground rules, what was he like?”

  Rachel winced. She’d moved her left arm a little. The pain in her shoulder was bad but she was keeping the meds at a minimum; wanted her head clear to help.

  “James Burke is…odd. Closed off, even though he puts on all kinds of pleasantness. There’s an undercurrent to him…a feeling of tension that got worse after I made things clear. But I kept the face on too. Where else would I get a job that paid well and gave me the chance to study, right there at the desk?”

  “Interesting he didn’t fire you.”

  “I’d learned his whole practice,” she sighed. “The billing, fighting with insurance…and the patients liked me. I would’ve been a pain to replace.”

  Hurriedly, they covered the last two men who’d sent flowers: a gay patient of James Burke, and one of Rachel’s professors who’d sent irises and loving wishes from her whole Shakespeare seminar.

  Nothing there. Then Rachel gave a start as a resident rushed in, smiled blankly, made a note on Rachel’s patient chart, and rushed out.

  She was disappointed. Her eyes stayed on the door.

  No Charlie yet. Wrap it up.

  “Have you ever been aware of a man following you? Any stranger appearing again and again, maybe too friendly?”

  “No, but I rush around, don’t notice much. Oh…there’s also someone named Ned Clark who’s asked me out twice. I turned him down.”

  “He a student too?”

  “Chemistry grad student. He’s a bit creepy. Both times I said I just wanted to spend what little free time I had with my son. I saw him recently and he just glared at me.”

  Kerri texted Ned Clark’s name to Alex, and felt her heart give a dive.

  Now came the hard part.

  29

  As delicately as she could, she told about the police finding Scott Mullin’s body.

  Rachel went white. Put her free hand to her face, murmuring “No. Oh no.”

  “He’d been a suspect until we found him.” Kerri described the red-scrawled emoji found in Mullin’s pocket, identical to one she’d found on Rachel’s wall. Then she showed the emoji on her phone.

  Rachel’s face sagged in shock. Tears welled.

  “My God, I’ve seen that before. Someone was marking our stoop with it. Gina Wheat said her father was furious – had to clean it off twice.”

  The killer.

  Kerri’s breath stopped.

  “How was it applied? With chalk? Spray paint?”

  Rachel’s eyes were wide. “With a dripping red brush. Scary.” She started to breathe faster.

  “Any idea what kind of paint?” Its source might finger the bastard.

  Rachel massaged her brow. She was smart. Kerri knew she’d understand the question. “The paint…dissolved in water, didn’t need turpentine. I saw Gina’s father scrubbing it. Maybe ask him.”

  You bet we will. “When did this happen? The emoji painted twice?”

  “More than a week ago, two days apart. People thought it was some kind of late Halloween thing.”

  Kerri’s pulse was racing. Charlie, Benton, and Billy DeWitt might be back any second; there was more to ask.

  “Did Jed Stefan know Scott was gay?”

  Rachel sniffled. “How could he? They met once, were from different worlds, and Scott kept it secret.”

  “Did James Burke know Scott was gay?”

  “Burke didn’t even know Scott. Didn’t know he existed that I’m aware of.”

  “Was Scott ever at your apartment?”

  “Yes. He played with Charlie, brought roses…oh.” Rachel’s gaze went to
the bouquets on the window sill, minus one. Scott hadn’t been heard from because he’d been murdered. She’d gone pale with deepening shock.

  Sounds in the hall. Two men discussing “taking Charlie to a Rangers game, he’ll love hockey,” and then there they were, trooping in. Uniformed Billy DeWitt smiled a spirited “I’ll be right outside,” patted Charlie’s shoulder, then stepped back out to the hall.

  Jake Benton approached with the boy. Who, wordless and looking spent, climbed in next to his mom, his face disappearing into her hug. Her alarm changed into sorrow to see her child still mute.

  Benton brushed Charlie’s sweaty, tumbled hair. “Hey pal, you really gave it to that bad guy, didn’t you?”

  Nothing. Charlie pulled tighter to his mother’s ribs.

  “He said so in the elevator. One word, ‘yeah,’” Benton told Rachel quietly, then raised dispirited shoulders to Kerri. “You got more. Wanna stick around?”

  Kerri gave back the same shrug. Charlie looked pallid and worn out. After the coloring book, Benton had used the wrestler toy to pull him into bigger physical action…but now what?

  Her heart ached for this hurting child. She so wanted to hug and protect him.

  And he was their only eyewitness.

  “Still nonverbal,” Benton was telling Rachel in the softest voice imaginable. “Physicality often comes first: fidgeting, facial tics, nail biting. In this case amazing physicality, but words…” His own failed. He put both hands on his white-coated hips and looked down, exhaling. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  Kerri reached for Charlie’s coloring book and crayons.

  “Hey Charlie? Your crayons need reinforcements, they’re worn way down. Want me to get you some new ones?”

  Several seconds’ silence; then, muffled in Mommy: “Yeah.”

  “Same size box? Or maybe the big box with more colors?”

  “Big.”

  Jake Benton raised incredulous brows to her.

  She opened the coloring book and put it on the bed behind Charlie. “Here’s Harry Hippo right behind you. Maybe next time you can draw us something else? Ice cream or a hot dog or even the bad guy?”

  The child rolled around, grabbed his book, and spun back again with it jammed between him and Rachel. His hand made a fist clenching its corner and he shut his eyes tight. Charlie was back with his animals in his safe, uncommunicating little world.

  Over his head, Rachel sent Kerri a look of grief and new fear. The killer had killed again, and was still out there. Her child had seen him.

  Kerri gave her a gentle hug.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, feeling tears sting. “They’re done with your phone. I’ll bring it.”

  Minutes later, walking the hall to the elevators, she texted: Big ego Jed Stefan didn’t know Mullin was gay, saw them dating, may have been stalking. Also, Stefan and Burke knew and hated each other.

  She passed a window and looked out. It was already dark out there. The time was 5:15.

  Her hands were shaking.

  30

  “Damned rain. More damned rain.”

  A female cop drove Kerri back to the station, and all the way back, over the radio’s squawking and Raylene’s bitching about the weather, the thoughts churned.

  A student of theater who didn’t like drama, ha…the Shrink Burke relationship even more tense with Jed Stefan in the mix…and the surprise that Rachel had already seen the emoji.

  Dripping red paint on her stoop.

  Her stalker closing in.

  The rain was biting cold when Kerri ran into her station. South Precinct on West 33rd was five floors of square, 1960’s-ugly, but she loved it. Her Homicide squad on the third floor housed friends who’d cried like babies when she was shot. She’d also slept here, in the crib, almost as much as she had at Alex’s or in her apartment way up on West 110th. The precinct’s old foyer smelled of Lysol, but still felt like home.

  Jo Babiak brought over a box of sandwiches - “Saved you the tuna. Your favorite.” - and Buck Dillon brought her coffee. They both looked tired. Everyone was pulling double shifts.

  “Nice intel you’ve been texting,” Buck said. “Jed Stefan has a restraining order out against him. Some ex called him violent.”

  “I’m shocked.” Kerri looked around. Alex’s desk facing hers was empty. “Where is he?”

  “He was processing the Mullin murder.” Jo indicated towering files on his desk. “Now he’s interviewing with Zienuc. Guess who?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “Jed Stefan here already, can you beat it? Came right over, keeps looking at his watch and says he has to be back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Some rehearsal he takes very seriously.” Jo raised her hands over her head and snapped her body around like a dancer. Her ponytail swung. “Seems earnest and oh so sad.”

  “He’s an actor.”

  Buck gestured over his shoulder. “You gotta see him, what a hoot. Want to watch the monitor?”

  They went, Kerri carrying her sandwich and coffee with her. On the screen mounted near Ted Connor’s desk, they watched Alex and Ray Zienuc interview a young man: good-looking with curling dark hair and…

  “What’s with his eyes?” Kerri frowned, chewing.

  Jo smirked. “Go in and look.”

  Kerri took another bite and swallow, walked a hall carrying her eats, and entered Interview Room Three.

  “…can’t believe anyone would hurt Rachel,” Jed Stefan was saying, clutching a Styrofoam cup they’d given him. “God, anything I can do to help…”

  He stopped, eyeing Kerri take the fourth chair at the small table. “Oh,” he smiled, watching her set her coffee down and lay her sandwich on its wrap. “You eat like we do.”

  He still had his make-up on; his face was orange, his eyes black-lined and large.

  “We?” Kerri asked.

  “My troupe.” He was immediately happy to talk about himself. “We live on take-out, eat running around, speak our lines with our mouths full, even.” Then he caught himself; touched his hand to his heart. “Sorry…how’s Rachel’s little boy?”

  Three stony expressions told him nothing. Alex and Zienuc were both hunched with beard stubble, dark circles under their eyes.

  “Did you ever meet Charlie?” Kerri asked.

  Stefan shook his head. “No. Understand, Rachel and I were just beginning, taking it slow.”

  Alex’s grim eyes met Kerri’s. “Mr. Stefan says he was with about ten people rehearsing at the time of Rachel’s attack.”

  “Did you get all ten names?”

  “Just starting,” Zienuc said, sliding a yellow legal pad to Stefan. “Write them down, please?” The big, dark-haired cop’s ‘please’ held sarcasm. “That is, if you can write and talk.”

  Stefan started to write, and Alex got up to pace.

  “Where did this rehearsal take place?”

  “Eighty-one A, North Moore Street. A rehearsal space.” He didn’t look up.

  “Three blocks from Rachel’s apartment.”

  Stefan scribbled faster. “It’s close. She came a few times to watch. Brought friends.”

  “How long did you rehearse for?”

  “Two hours. I’d re-written lines they had to learn.” His hand shook as he scribbled.

  “And you never left the others for even a minute?”

  “No. It was pretty intense.”

  Zienuc was meanwhile searching the rehearsal space on his phone; showed what he found first to Kerri, then to Alex. “An old, converted warehouse,” he chortled. “A dump.”

  Alex squinted hard at it, handed back the phone, and looked at Stefan. “Two hours and you never even took a leak? This place would be easy to duck out of for a few minutes. Nice wide fire escape in back. The website practically says, We’re cheap, you won’t burn alive here.”

  Stefan’s black-lined eyes scowled imperiously at him. “Hey, I came here willingly. Just want to help.”

  They were getting nowhere. Kerri shifte
d impatiently and switched tacks.

  “Did you know Scott Mullin?” she asked.

  “Who?” Jay Stefan blinked. “Oh God, that murdered guy, I saw it online. Horrible. No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did.” Kerri wanted to grab him by the throat and smack his smug face. “Rachel introduced you to him outside the Nitehawk Cinema. Did it bother you that they were together? That he’d been to her apartment” – she said it as if it meant something – “and you hadn’t?”

  Stefan went into defensive body language: pulled back in his chair, folded his arms tightly across his chest.

  “Was that him?” he said in surprise, as if for the back row of the audience. “Hey, I’d had a few, never even caught his name. What you’re saying is nuts.”

  “And by the way, ten people in a play?” Kerri bore down. “Isn’t that a lot?”

  Stefan’s eyes slid away. “Five leads,” he said, sounding strangled. “The rest are the script girl, the props and lighting guys-”

  “And no one had to go off alone or in pairs to learn your re-writes? No one scattered? Where’d the props and lighting guys wander off to?”

  Alex saw the opening. He sat, leaned, and got in Stefan’s face.

  “In a cavernous floor-through full of shadows, with people bored, waiting, ‘running around eating’ as you’ve termed it” – his finger jabbed the legal pad – “every one of these names can vouch for your whereabouts every minute?”

  Jed Stefan got calmly to his feet. “Enough,” he said with resigned disgust. He gestured theatrically. “I came here voluntarily. To help.”

  “Sit down,” Zienuc ordered.

  “I don’t think so.” Stefan’s diva voice raised as he headed for the door. “I know my rights.”

  “Such feeling for Rachel,” Zienuc taunted. “From the guy whose ex has a restraining order on him. You’re a violent abuser.”

  “Lies!” Stefan shot back. “The ex lied. You just want to close this case, find some poor slob to pin it on.” His hand was on the knob. “One woman dead, another shot and you have nothing. This is entrapment. I’m going to tell the media.”

  The door slammed behind him, and he was gone.

  They were silent for moments, with Zienuc finally falling back frustrated in his chair. “He’s right, we have nothing.”