Dead Famous

by Carol O'Connell

  “So Riker surprised you,” he said. “You know he’s going to have some questions about what you’ve done.”

  Mallory took the long way round him. Closing the door behind her, she said, “You can fill in for me.”

  Right.

  Resigning himself to damage control, Charles walked down the hallway and paused by the open door to his business partner’s private office. Riker was scanning the half of the cork wall that was all Mallory’s work, a neat square composed of photographs all perfectly aligned and alternating with sheets of text. The overall effect was somewhat like a chessboard. Among the upper rows were candid shots of jurors who were still alive when captured by their photographers. Pinned alongside them were e-mails and letters from Ian Zachary’s fans. In the lower region were pictures with the same faces, eyes closed this time, and the predominant color of their photographs was blood red. These were the postmortem portraits of people lying on morgue dissection tables. Previously, the only corpse pictured on the wall had been the murdered FBI agent, Timothy Kidd, Riker’s own contribution from the suitcase of Dr. Apollo.

  “’Morning,” said Charles, trying to put a good face on what was already shaping up to be a bad day. He noted the man’s paleness and ill-concealed anger. Well, this was no improvement in Riker’s condition. Mallory’s game plan had a nasty glitch.

  “Where did she get all the photographs?”

  “Most of them came from Ian Zachary’s computer,” said Charles. “Mallory hijacked it. Apparently, Zachary’s fans are not above stealing things like morgue records to make him happy. And, of course, to win prizes.”

  The detective concentrated on the last row. Here were all the portraits of a surviving juror, Dr. Johanna Apollo. She was the only one on the wall to be represented from every angle. In the final shot, her deformed body was in clear focus, but the head was slightly blurred, turning in the direction of the camera click.

  “The fans didn’t send Zachary these pictures of Jo,” said Riker. “Mallory took them.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Years and years of looking at surveillance shots. Mallory’s the worst photographer on the force.”

  “Ah, the center fixation. Yes, lots of wasted space around the subject’s face. Not a very good sense of composition, is it?” Charles turned his eyes to the upper gallery of fan photographs representing nine other jurors, every one deceased. “To be fair, I think all of these pictures are equally bad.”

  “Yeah, but Mallory’s shots are always perfectly bad.” Riker tore a picture off the wall, and its pushpins went flying. “If I drew a gun sight on this, Jo’s head would be in line with a bullet.”

  The metaphor was not lost on Charles. Riker was obviously questioning Mallory’s intentions toward this woman. And now, in a face-off, the detective elicited a confession of sorts. It was all there, played out across Charles Butler’s face in the red flush and the sorry eyes that would not meet Riker’s own.

  After ripping all of Dr. Apollo’s photographs from the wall, the angry man slammed the door on his way out.

  Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope was seated behind his office desk, catching up on paperwork before cracking open the first corpse of the day. Without his uniform of bloodstained surgical garb, he might be taken for a graying general. His face was dignified, his expression set in stone, and his posture was perfect, even when he believed that he was not being observed. The pathologist looked up from his paperwork and almost betrayed a look of pleasant surprise.

  Before Riker had gotten two feet in the door, he was subjected to yet another impromptu examination. Checking the mended bullet holes?

  Dr. Slope’s quick appraisal also took in the bomber jacket, flannel shirt and jeans. In lieu of hello, he said, “You look like hell, and I don’t mean the wardrobe. I’m guessing that you’re losing sleep while working undercover as a lumber-jack.” Slope had always fancied that he possessed a sense of humor. “And now you need a consultation, right?”

  Apparently no one had told this man about the forced separation from NYPD, and Riker planned to take advantage of that. “It’s definitely not a social call, Doc.” He tossed a slew of photographs on the desk blotter. “What can you tell me about this woman?”

  The medical examiner hardly glanced at the pictures of Johanna Apollo. “Since she’s not dead yet, not one of my customers, I’m guessing you want me to tell you what’s wrong with her. Got an X ray or a medical history in your pocket? No, I didn’t think so. Well then, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Mallory—just before I sent her packing. I can’t do a diagnosis without the proper—”

  “Mallory showed you these pictures?”

  “Yes, two months ago, maybe three. At least she came in with a working theory. Based on her research, she decided the woman had Scheuermann’s kyphosis. Wanted me to confirm it. Mallory seems very well versed on the subject of hunchbacks. Perhaps you two should talk more often, maybe compare notes. You’re still partners, aren’t you?”

  Riker slumped down in a padded armchair in front of the desk. He was feeling all the aches of a night spent sleeping on the floor of Jo’s hotel room, what little sleep he had managed, but anger was slowly dissipating exhaustion. Mallory had lied to him again. What a surprise. Her investigation of Jo was apparently not a recent thing, but dated back to the first encounter during a visit to Ned’s Crime Scene Cleaners. He added this to the list of Mallory’s deceptions, then turned his tired face to Dr. Slope. “I need information on this woman, anything you can—”

  “She has a severe spinal deformity—that’s all I can tell you with just a damn photograph.”

  “Not good enough, Doc. I once heard you do a twenty-minute spiel on the history of a corpse with no ID. That time, all you had to work with was a damn tattoo.”

  “And a corpse on the dissection table.”

  Riker gathered up his photographs, preparing to leave. “Well, thanks for all your help.” As he rose from the chair, he thought better of taking the pictures with him and dropped them on the desk. “Keep ’em—a few souvenirs. If she shows up on your dissection table in the next few days, I want you to remember this conversation.”

  “Hold it.” The doctor picked up one of the photographs and studied it with more care. “I don’t believe I’ve seen this one. It shows a bit more of the pathology.”

  Riker sat down again.

  “Mallory was probably right,” said Slope. “Scheuermann’s kyphosis is the most likely cause. The range, in layman’s terms, is round back to hunchback. Hers is an extreme deformity. So I’m guessing there were other factors, maybe a childhood onset of osteoporosis or scoliosis.” He pointed to the duffel bag that Jo carried in the photograph. “Do you know if this is a heavy load she’s carrying?”

  “Yeah,” said Riker. “It’s her job bag, all the gear to clean a crime scene, her moon suit, a respirator and—”

  “So, in addition to heavy lifting and wearing a respirator on her back, she’s doing a lot of bending and stretching.”

  “Sure. Goes with the job. But she only works three days a week.”

  “Then I can tell you that she spends the other four days recuperating. This woman is either a masochist or a very determined individual. How long has she been doing this sort of work?”

  “Three months or so.”

  “By now, her pain medication is probably supporting three pharmacies—addiction levels. At one time, she might have controlled aches and pains with aspirin, but that won’t help her anymore. I doubt if she sleeps through the night without pills, so you can add more drugs to the list. Heavy sedatives, anti-inflammatory medication, amphetamines to keep her going after nights when the pills don’t work. She’s probably under medical supervision. She can’t get any of these meds without a doctor’s prescription.”

  “She is a doctor, a psychiatrist.”

  Slope arched one eyebrow, and this was tantamount to an emotional outburst in his limited range of stone-faced expressions. “And now a psychiatrist is
doing menial labor? I don’t suppose you’re planning to tell me why that—”

  “Nope.”

  “Well—a psychiatrist—that’s unfortunate. Then she also has a medical degree. She’s probably prescribing her own medication. Doctors make the most dangerous drug cocktails for themselves, things they’d never give to a patient. That’s why it’s illegal to self-prescribe. But the law is so easily—”

  “Back up, Doc. What about the masochist angle?”

  “What? Pain for its own sake? Well, many people go into mental health professions because they’ve been treated for emotional problems of their own.” Slope’s eyes drifted back to the photograph. “That’s a good possibility here. As a small child, her appearance would’ve been quite normal. Then—age ten to fifteen—she began to change—grotesque change. Hard to imagine a day in her life—curious stares, clumsy remarks. Now, given that teenagers are not the sanest, most stable peer group on the planet, try to picture this woman’s adolescent years at the mercy of—”

  “Pure hell.”

  Slope nodded. “At least a thousand arrows to the soul on a good day.”

  “Her father was a shrink, too.”

  “Then you can count on a history of long-term therapy. He would have put his daughter in treatment with a child psychiatrist.”

  “What about this angle?” said Riker. “You say the cleaning job brings on more pain. What if the job is like a hair shirt?”

  “Penance? I suppose that’s one possibility. Here’s another. Given her choice of work these days, crime scenes, she might be coming to terms with death. She could be suicidal.”

  This last suggestion remained with Riker, riding with him on the subway back to SoHo. And the idea nagged at him as he walked the streets, heading toward an old familiar haunt, where he had agreed to meet Mallory for breakfast. She had a lot to answer for today. He was planning to make it a very short meal, perhaps their last one together. In addition to her other crimes against him, she had yet to mention tailing the fake blind man last night, though she had been given that chance earlier this morning.

  Charles Butler had not remarked on Mallory’s reappearance a convenient five minutes after Riker’s angry departure. She had as yet not offered him any opportunity for conversation, but busied herself at a computer. Her fingers were flying across the keyboard. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, and she was stone-deaf to what he was saying—until he unplugged the thick gray cable from the wall and her screen went blank.

  Good job.

  Mallory’s hands came to rest, but she would not look at him when she said, “It’s better if Riker knows all of it now—all at once.”

  “Oh, well that explains everything, doesn’t it?” And he knew, in Mallory’s mind, it would excuse her for leaving him to face Riker’s suspicions alone.

  “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  “No,” said Charles. “I’m not sure we were on speaking terms when he left. He obviously thinks I was part of this scheme from the beginning.”

  “You didn’t tell him how long—”

  “Well, he’s a detective, isn’t he, Mallory? I’m sure he can figure that out. Just a warning.” And this advance notice was more than she deserved.

  “I’m meeting him for breakfast. I’ll patch it up, okay?”

  “No, that’s not okay. All this deception—that’s the least of the damage. He sees you as a threat to Johanna Apollo.”

  “He said that?”

  “He didn’t have to. It was—”

  “Now that he knows she was on that jury, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her alive.” As if this might pass for an answer to all present and future questions, she plugged in her computer, then resumed typing. “It’s better this way.”

  Oh, of course. That, after all, had been her purpose in posing a threat to Johanna Apollo. And Mallory had done it so graphically, so deliberately in every photograph.

  “You should have been honest with Riker,” he said, “right from the start. Why can’t you just sit down with the man and talk to him like a—” He had been about to use the words normal person, words that did not apply to her—nor to himself.

  Charles Butler had been raised in an academic womb, entering Harvard at the age of ten, a freak, a thing apart from his peers. Mallory had matriculated to the streets at an even younger age and had also learned to survive on her own, absent any ties to other children. And, thanks to his own more elite education, Charles knew the cantos of Paradise Lost, but he was unable to recite the simplest line of a valentine to her for fear that it might strain their friendship or altogether end it. For her part, Mallory knew all the dimensions of hell on earth, having taken its measurements in her formative years, but she knew nothing about the human heart. And so they coexisted side by side, each in their own separate cell, business partners and prisoners who sometimes met for lunch or dinner, conversing but never quite touching one another.

  And now he felt like a fool.

  Why should it come as a surprise that Mallory could not sit down with Riker, all that she had left in the way of family, and tell him that she had created all this misery for him—out of love? He stood behind her chair, planning to tread more carefully with his remaining suspicion. “Riker doesn’t know everything yet, does he, Mallory?”

  She glanced at her watch as a pure distraction. Mallory always knew the exact time to the second. This was a gift, an odd quirk of her brain, and perhaps she made finer distinctions in increments of time for all he knew. Charles watched her quickly gather up keys and coat, playing out the charade of being late for her appointment, as if that could ever happen to one so pathologically punctual. And now, without further complaint, he watched her go. What else could he do? Mallory had taken hostages.

  Riker walked into the din of conversation, clattering plates and silverware, with no hesitation, not pausing this time to examine every face with a wary eye, nor to check the patrons’ clothing for the bulges of concealed weapons, for this was a haven, a safety zone, and most of the regulars carried guns. The rest were tame tourists with I-Love-New-York T-shirts and souvenir buttons.

  Breakfast in this SoHo café was a habit that he had cast off during his extended leave from NYPD, not wanting to meet any familiar faces from his squad, and he had missed this place so much. The ritual meal had spanned twenty years, beginning with his oldest friend and continuing with that man’s foster child, his partner—ex-partner—Kathy Mallory. It was nine o’clock, still crazy hour for the morning trade, but the small table by the front window was magically vacant, as if the third chair were still occupied by the late Inspector Louis Markowitz.

  It felt like coming home again as Riker pulled up his regular chair. He nodded to a lean gray woman with a gravedigger’s face, who stood five tables away. Her arms were laden with a juggling act of perfectly balanced trays as she distributed ten separate meals round a table of tourists, dealing out plates like playing cards. She astonished the out-of-towners, not asking who got what, but simply getting it right, each entrée, beverage and side order. Gurt was an actual waitress, not a starving actress or a painter. She had always waited tables for her living and knew all her regular customers and what they wanted, and she suffered no grief from anyone.

  “You’re early!” Gurt yelled at him across the room, as if the past six months of his absence were but a single day. “Planning to surprise the kid?”

  Kathy Mallory had made no stronger impression on this waitress over the years. On her first day as a rookie cop, Lou Markowitz had brought his foster child to the café in uniform to show her off to Gurt, saying with great pride, “This is my kid.” As far as the waitress was concerned, the young cop was then and now and forever—the kid. And, yes, even though this late breakfast date had been earlier arranged, the kid would be surprised. Mallory always walked in the door exactly on time, little punctuality freak that she was, and Riker was always late—but not today.

  And he had other surprises for Mallory.

  Gurt ha
d no sooner placed his coffee mug on the table than he looked up to see Mallory hovering in the open doorway, and this could only mean that the second hand of the clock on the wall had struck the hour. It was rare to see her startled. As she crossed the room, her long black leather duster was swept back on one side, and she consulted Lou’s old pocket watch tethered to her blue jeans by a gold chain. Reassured that her internal clock had not failed her, despite Riker’s timely presence, she shrugged out of her coat, folded it over the back of her dead father’s chair and took her customary seat at the table.

  This café was also her own haven. She disliked change so much. Lou Markowitz might be gone, but his chair was still here. And, though she got no respect from Gurt, the waitress was a constant fixture in her life. Thus Riker knew with absolute certainty that Mallory had sat here each morning of his long absence, her head bowed over her plate, eating her meal in silence—all alone, and that realization caused him unexpected pain. Other cops, men she worked with every day, also frequented this place, but they would never sit down at this table with her, for she would do nothing to invite them. She would not know how.

  Guilt and sorrow tempered everything he had prepared to say to her. All his stored-up accusations simply died.

  This morning, Johanna showed some charity to Special Agent Marvin Argus, only opening the door by a crack. Mugs could not maul the man’s legs, not unless Argus tried to force his way into the room.

  “Got a warrant?”

  “No.” Having learned deep respect for the cat, the FBI agent stood beyond the range of swatting claws. His eyes were anxious and sunken in their sockets. His face was pale and bereft of the annoying smile. “I need your help, Johanna. There’s been a murder—a man you knew.”