Slope folded his arms. ‘Well, I won’t go along with it.’
‘Yes, you will.’ This was not couched as an order. She said it softly with resignation. ‘Your old buddy Grace set you up. The day the hospital did that bogus autopsy on the Nadler kid, the Driscol Institute made its first donation to your rehab clinic – it was huge. And every year after that—’
‘Grace is hardly my buddy. And I met her after my clinic got that donation.’
‘I believe you. But on paper it looks bad. Let’s say I can prove Grace had a reason to want the boy’s murder kept quiet. The donation makes it look like you helped her bury that autopsy – like she paid you to look the other way. If Grace and her pet ADA go down for this – so do you.’ Mallory turned her screen around so that the doctor could see it. ‘You’re not the only one. I’m still following the money, but so far I’ve got a slew of politicians in key positions. They all had pet projects funded by the Driscol Institute. Some of them did favors for Grace’s friends – tax breaks, city contracts, political appointments. They’re sitting in traps like yours. It’s a kind of extortion that never ends. It’s all in the public record – where anyone can find it. I’m sure Grace will be happy to explain how it works if you make any trouble.’
‘You can’t let her get away with this – not because of me. I want this to come out. We’ll drag the whole mess into open court. I insist! I can’t fight these insinuations if you’re doing dark little backroom deals.’
Mallory’s voice was calmer than his when she said, ‘Rules of New York City. You can get away with murder here. Or you can live your whole life without putting one foot wrong . . . and lose everything. So the dirt stays buried. I’ll find another way to bring that woman down. Count on it.’
In a minute more, he would regret speaking without his wits about him, but he was angry when he said, ‘And I’m supposed to be grateful that you’re covering this up for me? You figure I’ll owe you for this?’
Kathy was so rarely startled.
She had given him the pure gift of her protection. And he had stepped on it. Of course she was right. There could be no insinuation of wrongdoing in the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. Even if it were only a campaign of whispers, he would step down. He would lose everything, though he had done nothing wrong. She was saving him from a fight he could only lose – and how he had thanked her for that.
The young detective dropped his envelope of evidence into a deep desk drawer. He anticipated a slam, but she only closed the drawer and locked it. After turning out the lights of computer and lamp, she sat very still, her face in shadow, a silent invitation for him to leave her now.
He would have preferred that she had shot him. The doctor rose from his chair. ‘Kathy?’ His voice was hoarse, and what more could he say? He leaned down and kissed her hair, and then he took himself away.
Tonight Officer Chu carried field glasses on a strap around his neck. Key or no key? The big question was about to be answered as he followed Willy Fallon in her march toward the Driscol School’s iron gate, passing garbage bags and stacks of newspapers on the sidewalk. A sofa had also been put out for curbside pickup, and he trained his binoculars on it – no signs of wear. Trash night in New York City was a free flea market of amazing finds. In a pile for recycled metal was a bundle of perfectly good window blinds. Did rich people throw them away when the slats got dusty?
Willy Fallon stopped before the tall alley gate. Arthur Chu’s high-powered lenses could make out the clasp and even the stitches in the leather of her open purse. Would she pull out a key or lock picks? Oh, no. She stepped away from the gate. Something had spooked her. The woman flattened up against the wall of the building.
The shadow cop turned his lenses back to the gate, and now he noticed the padlock and chain. That was new. Two plump, white hands reached through the bars. The padlock was undone, the gate swung open, and a woman stood at the mouth of the alley. He recognized Phoebe Bledsoe from her picture on the wall of the incident room. She carried a plastic trash bag out to the curb.
Willy Fallon stepped away from the wall, hands outstretched and fingers curling into claws as she stole up behind the other woman.
Arthur Chu wanted to shout out a warning, but Detective Mallory would kill him for breaking cover. And so every civilized thing his mother had ever taught him was suppressed.
Phoebe Bledsoe was bending down with her bag of trash when Willy Fallon knocked her off balance with a shove. The falling woman crashed into the cans and knocked them over like dominoes, one hitting the other, and she let out a cry of surprise just before hitting the sidewalk. And there she lay sprawled in garbage.
The last can to fall was filled with metal window blinds. The clatter on the sidewalk was so like the clang of being slammed into lockers at school. Phoebe saw the back of a skinny woman and knew it was Willy before her assailant said, ‘You were there, too. You’re next.’ And the X was dragged out in a hiss.
Her old schoolmate walked away, transforming in comic-book fashion as she passed in and out of the lights of street lamps. Ernie’s world of monster mutants was more real than Phoebe knew – and now, in mind’s eye, she watched Willy quick-scrabble down the pavement on eight spider legs.
Limping on one sore ankle, Phoebe shut the gate behind her and secured it with the padlock. She made her way to the end of the alley just as the telephone rang in her cottage across the garden. The answering machine had been turned off after the last message from Willy, and the ringing continued. Upon entering the cottage, she stared at the telephone, as if waiting for it to explode. So many rings. Did the caller know she was home, just standing there – afraid? She picked up the receiver, but her mouth had gone dry, and she said nothing.
After a while, a man’s voice said, ‘Phoebe?’
It was Rolland Mann.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m still concerned about your safety,’ he said, ‘and your . . . involvement. Did the detectives ask you about Ernie Nadler’s death? Do you think they know?’
‘Know what?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ he asked in his talking-to-idiots voice. ‘When that little boy was strung up and left to die in the woods, you waited three days before you told me where to find him.’
THIRTY-SIX
Tonight, I listen from the hallway while my parents sit at the kitchen table with Detective Mann. He tells them I made the whole thing up, and the autopsy proves it – kids didn’t murder the wino. He says I only ratted out my classmates to get even with them for bullying me at school.
My father nods. He’s seen the evidence of bullies – the marks they left on my body. He believes the detective. Mom cries. She believes him, too.
I have lost everything.
—Ernest Nadler
Elderly Mrs Buford bent down to fetch her morning Times, eager to read the next episode of the Ramble murders. The saga of the Hunger Artist had become her new soap opera.
The door across the hall opened, and she braced herself. The neighbor woman’s husband had done morning paper duty for the past few days. Such a creepy fellow, he had interfered with the digestion of her breakfast. But now – oh, thank God – she saw Annie standing on the threshold.
What a relief. Rolland Mann had apparently not done away with his wife after all.
Well, now they could resume their old morning ritual, cordial exchanges of hellos and comments on the weather. Or maybe not. Mrs Buford noticed the suitcase. ‘Going somewhere?’
Escaping, perhaps?
Annie nodded.
‘Have a lovely time.’ The old woman closed the door only to open it a minute later at the sound of weeping. Annie Mann had traveled only a few steps from her own door before she crumpled to the floor beside her luggage. She sat huddled against the wall.
Mrs Buford belted her robe and bustled across the hallway with the shush of fuzzy pink slippers. Bending creaky knees, she knelt down beside her fallen neighbor and took the woman’s hands in hers, rubbing th
e cold, clammy flesh till it warmed, till Annie’s breathing was less of a struggle, and the sweat of her brow ceased to roll into her eyes. The younger woman fumbled with the catch on her purse and spilled a dozen pharmacy bottles across the carpet.
‘I’ll get you some water so you can take a pill.’ Mrs Buford had no sooner entered her own apartment than she heard the ping that announced the arrival of the elevator. When she looked out the door, it was a great surprise to see two uniformed policemen in the hall – a greater surprise for Annie Mann, who slumped over in a dead faint. And perhaps that was for the best. Poor woman. She never could have left the building fully conscious. One officer picked up Annie’s wallet from the spilled contents of her purse. He nodded to the second man, who carried her limp body to the elevator, leaving the suitcase behind. A young blonde knelt on the carpet, scooping the pill bottles back into the fallen purse. How odd.
Well, in any case, Annie had made her escape.
Of course, Mrs Buford had imagined this scene a hundred times, but she had always envisioned the husband in police custody – not the wife. She was about to close her door when a voice called out, ‘Wait!’ She poked her head into the hall once more and saw the long-legged blonde coming toward her – closer, closer. Oh, my, what strange green eyes.
The young woman showed her a gold badge and a police identification card that made her a detective. A detective! How exciting. As the blonde restored the badge to a back pocket of her jeans, her blazer fell open on one side, and now a very large gun was on display in a shoulder holster.
Oh, this was simply marvelous. Mrs Buford was fairly giddy when she said, ‘Tell me it’s murder.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
The old woman rose up on her toes, all atingle with anticipation, and when the young woman asked, ‘Wanna play?’ Mrs Buford replied, ‘Could I?’
Coco perched on a desk near the stairwell door and lectured Detective Gonzales on the terrible importance of toilet-seat locks. ‘The rats can get in that way. They swim up through the water in the toilet bowl. But if the seats are locked down, they just swim round and round till they drown.’
The lieutenant stood with Mallory and Riker on the squad-room side of the window, watching the action in the next room through the blinds. Via an open intercom, the three of them eavesdropped on a conversation between the people inside the not-so-private office, where the two civilians were on a first-name basis now, Annie and Charles.
The lady was not what Jack Coffey had expected, not the pretty trophy wife of a political up-and-comer. She looked so ordinary – if he discounted the fact that she was terrified.
Annie Mann held tight to the arms of her chair, so afraid that she might lift off into space. Despite the fear, she smiled when Charles Butler did. This new expression transformed her. No longer plain, she was all warmth and charm personified. Magnetic. It was almost a magic act. But the illusion was short-lived, and she shifted back into panic mode, eyes darting everywhere, on the lookout for danger in the corners of the room. And now she panted like a dog.
Charles perused the pharmacy stash from the woman’s purse, then selected a bottle and handed her a single pill. She popped it in her mouth and chomped it like a candy. When she was calm, he left her alone to join the covert observers on the other side of the office window.
Mallory looked through the blinds, staring at the woman as she spoke to the psychologist. ‘Is she crazy?’
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘Not at all.’
‘So she’s faking,’ said Riker.
‘Oh, no. I agree with Mrs Buford’s diagnosis. Annie’s genuinely phobic. She tells me she’s always been prone to panic attacks in social situations.’
The lieutenant and his detectives feigned interest in this, as if they had not been privy to every word. And now, with the mistaken idea that they were actually interested, Charles continued. ‘Well, that’s how agoraphobia begins. In the early stages, Annie was quite functional. Hospitals were her primary safety zones – areas of competence and confidence for a nurse.’
‘She hasn’t worked for fifteen years,’ said Jack Coffey, in a game attempt to speed this along.
‘And during that time,’ said the man with no short answers, ‘the rest of her safety zones also dwindled. She’s afraid of having panic attacks in public areas. Over the years, she’s avoided a growing list of such places. And finally, she had nowhere to go. Then there’s the additional reinforcement of long-term confinement. She hasn’t left her apartment since they moved in.’
‘We saw you give her that pill.’ Mallory said this as if accusing him of drug trafficking.
‘A very mild sedative,’ said Charles. ‘She was badly frightened – about a minute away from meltdown. I assume you want her coherent?’
‘Legally coherent,’ said Coffey. ‘Is that woman stoned?’
‘No, I’d say she’s more clearheaded now.’
‘That’s all we need to know.’ The lieutenant signaled Detective Janos, who entered the office and led Annie Mann outside to the squad room and down the hall to a place for less genteel conversation.
‘Rats have agoraphobia, too,’ said a small voice closer to the floor.
Four people looked down to see that Coco had ditched her babysitting detective, and she was not smiling anymore.
‘Rats don’t feel safe in open spaces.’ Coco’s solemn eyes followed the woman being led away. ‘That’s why they keep close to the walls.’
And now all of them watched Annie Mann’s body grazing the wall as she was escorted down the hallway.
Her shoulders hunched. Her eyes were wide.
The interrogation room with its puke-green walls and blood-leaching fluorescent lights was too alien for this agoraphobic – but not scary enough. Riker wondered how edgy the woman might have been without the damn sedative.
‘You changed your name,’ said Mallory.
‘I got married,’ said Annie Mann.
‘She means your first name,’ said Riker. ‘You used to be Margaret – now it’s Annie.’
There was no hesitation when the woman said, ‘I was always Annie to my friends.’
‘You gave us the wrong Social Security number,’ said Mallory.
‘I changed it. I was worried about identity theft.’
This was the first stumble. Thus far, Mrs Mann’s responses had been too quick, and they had the tone of a memorized script, but now the detectives had what they were waiting for. This was the hook, the first bungled lie.
‘Fifteen years ago,’ said Riker, ‘nobody worried about identity theft. I don’t think we even had a name for it.’
‘My wallet was stolen – my license, credit cards—’
‘You never filed a police report, never checked your credit report.’ Mallory tapped keys on her laptop computer. ‘And you didn’t replace the driver’s license. It says here, your license expired. So did your charge cards. I can’t find any paper on you for the past fifteen years.’ She turned the computer around so that Annie Mann could see the document on-screen. ‘Look at this. Your name isn’t even on the deed for your condo.’
Annie leaned closer to the screen, as if that might clarify the line of type that declared her husband the solitary owner. ‘This can’t be right.’
‘You didn’t know? Your neighbor, Mrs Buford, thinks you’re married, but she’s the only one in the building who’s ever seen you.’
‘I’m married!’
Riker leaned forward. ‘We pulled all the phone records. You never called your husband at the office – not once. His secretary tells us he’s single.’
Mallory raised more documents on the screen. ‘You’re not a beneficiary on his pension plan. You’re not even listed as a dependent on his health insurance.’
‘But, hey,’ said Riker, ‘you don’t need health insurance. You’re low risk. According to the neighbor, you never leave that apartment.’
‘Rolland Mann files as a single taxpayer,’ said Mallory. ‘No dependents. So you lied when you
said you were—’
‘We’re married. We were married in Canada.’
Riker smiled. ‘I’d like to believe you. But there’s no record of a marriage registered in this country. There’s no trace of you anywhere, Annie. It’s like he wiped you out of existence fifteen years ago. You know how we found you? My partner stopped by to find out why Rolland made a three-minute phone call to his empty apartment.’
‘If he killed you today,’ said Mallory, ‘the only one who’d miss you is the old lady across the hall.’
‘We’re trying to help you, Annie.’ Riker reached across the table and covered her cold hands with his. ‘So . . . you and Rolland, you met at the hospital – when you were watching the Nadlers’ kid. Nurses and cops, that’s a natural combination.’
‘No. Rolland was my boyfriend before that. He’s the one who got me the job with the –’ Annie Mann pulled her hands back and covered her mouth. And now in the posture of I give up, her shoulders slumped and she bowed her head. ‘It was just a few hours a night, but the Nadlers paid me for whole shifts. Real nice people. They’d been cooped up in that hospital for a solid month. They only wanted to step outside for a regular meal together . . . like normal people . . . just a few hours. Their kid was supposed to be stable.’
‘You were on duty when Ernie Nadler died,’ said Mallory. ‘You were the last person to see him alive. And that looks bad for you, Annie. The parents did everything they could to keep Ernie safe, but their little boy was murdered on your watch.’
‘No. He died from the injuries – or maybe infection from—’
‘You know it was murder,’ said Mallory. ‘You were in that hospital room when he was killed, smothered to death with a pillow.’
‘Oh, my God. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t even there when he died. I went out for a smoke on the fire escape. I swear I was only gone a few minutes. When I came back, the boy was dead. Rolland – he was a detective then – he was in the room. He can tell you.’
‘You should worry about what he already told us.’ Mallory pushed a sheet of paper across the table. ‘That’s his witness statement. You recognize the handwriting? He says he was at the hospital in the morning, not the evening – not when the kid was murdered.’
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