Crime School

by Carol O'Connell

  The detective looked up to see Heller standing by the door with a uniformed officer and signing a receipt for an armload of garments in clear plastic bags. After ripping the plastic away from one hanger, the criminalist held up a pale green blouse and motioned to Riker. “You might wanna look at this.” Heller turned the blouse around to display a large faded X on the back. Affixed to this stain was the dry cleaner’s We’re-so-sorry sticker.

  “I’ve seen this mark before,” said Heller, “on a shirt I found wadded up under Sparrow’s sink. She used hers for a cleaning rag.”

  “So it’s not a random killing.” Mallory joined them over the body. “We’ve got a stalker.”

  “Yeah,” said Riker. The X on the blouse worked nicely with her theory on the new locks installed a week before the murder. “He sees the women on the street. Then he marks their shirts to make it easier to follow them home in a crowd—like tagging animals in the wild.” Unlike Kennedy Harper, Sparrow had not complained about the stalking, the terror. Prostitutes were not given the same service as human beings.

  Sparrow, why didn’t you come to me?

  The East Side lieutenant had put in a personal appearance instead of sending one of his minions to the crime scene, and Mallory saw this as an admission of guilt for the mistakes made on his watch.

  “I brought her package.” Lieutenant Loman spoke only to Riker, pretending that Mallory was not in the room. “The complaints started a few weeks ago. Some pervert was following the girl.”

  After accepting the envelope, Riker pulled out four papers encased in plastic, each bearing the same brief message. Loman was tense, almost standing at attention, and Mallory wondered if this was a habit from the days when Riker had held the rank of captain.

  “Kennedy found those notes in her pockets.” Loman mopped his bald head and brow with a handkerchief. “Pretty harmless stuff.”

  Riker responded with a noncommittal nod, then scanned the paperwork attached to the evidence bags.

  The lieutenant stared at the stained green blouse draped over the detective’s arm. “She brought that into the station house. She said the perp did it on the subway. You should find a T-shirt marked up the same way. And the notes—every time she found one in her pocket, she’d been in a crowd of people—the subway, a store. That’s why Kennedy never got a good look at the guy.”

  Mallory noted the use of the victim’s first name. It was common for homicide detectives to speak of the dead with this familiarity; but Loman’s squad had only known Kennedy Harper as a living woman, one civilian complainant out of thousands. She stared at the man in silent accusation.

  You turned that woman into a pet, didn’t you?

  The lieutenant avoided Mallory’s eyes while he waited for Riker to say something—anything. “She never saw the perp’s face. What could we do?”

  “Did you put an extra patrol on this street?”

  And now the lieutenant was forced to acknowledge Mallory, for Riker looked up from his reading, and he was also showing interest in her question.

  “No,” said Loman. “It was that damn virus. The uniforms were spread too thin for extra patrols.”

  Mallory only shook her head. It would be gross insubordination to call him a liar out loud. Kennedy Harper was dead before the virus had grown to an epidemic in this part of town. And Loman’s men had found lots of time to visit with pretty Kennedy Harper. She had even come to the attention of the squad’s commander.

  Riker selected one piece of paper with dried blood on it and held it up to the lieutenant’s eyes.

  It was a moment before Loman spoke. “That was the last note. The perp used a hatpin to nail it into the back of her neck. Kennedy walked into the station house—dripping blood—and the note was still staked to her skin.”

  Mallory knew there was only one reason for a victim to go to that extreme. It was the woman’s plea for them to take her seriously—because they never had before.

  Riker read the bloodied note aloud,“‘I can touch you any time I want.’”

  “That was the day she snapped,” said Loman. “Told us she was leaving town. Well, we thought that was a real good idea. One of my men got her some coffee and a first-aid kit. I made her plane reservation for Bermuda.”

  How kind of you, how helpful.

  “Did you do anything else for her?”

  “Yes!” Loman turned to Mallory, and he was on the offensive now. “The girl was in shock. I got a police escort to take her to the hospital. And then they drove her back home. After that, all she had to do was take a cab to the airport.”

  You left her alone.

  Mallory edged toward the lieutenant. “There was no follow-up?”

  “No! What the hell for? As far as we knew, she was on the way to Bermuda.”

  Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope had arrived to give this case his personal attention. He knelt on the floor and rolled the corpse to expose a ruined face for the police photographer.

  “Well, this is different,” said Heller, and everyone in the room turned to look at the dead woman. Flies crawled among the strands of long blond hair that trailed from her mouth. The rope’s double knot had snagged on her teeth and pried her mouth open, spreading the lips in a death’s head grin. “Looks like she almost got away.”

  Only Mallory was watching Lieutenant Loman’s reaction. His face was pale, and his mouth was slack. This veteran of a thousand crime scenes was about to be sick. He was most vulnerable now, and she stepped closer, her shoulder touching his. “So then, the reporters stopped by with their murder tip . . . and still no follow-up? Sir?”

  “My men didn’t know about that.” Again, he spoke only to Riker. “The desk sergeant never mentioned any reporters. As far as he was concerned, the lady was in Bermuda. He was going off duty, and it wasn’t worth his time to walk up a damn flight of stairs and talk to us. I promise you, his head’s gonna roll.”

  Ah, too late.

  Mallory perused the folder. “We need more men to work this case.”

  “Well, now you guys got two more. Just tell me—”

  “Three,” said Riker. “Make it three. You came up one short the last time you promised her some help.”

  “You got it,” said the lieutenant. “We’re finished?”

  Riker nodded, giving a man who outranked him permission to leave. Loman turned on his heel and started across the room. Mallory wondered if he would make it to the street before he vomited.

  Dr. Slope supervised the removal of the body, then remained behind to study a drawing of the apartment floor plan. Heller squatted next to the victim’s fallen purse and began to draw another diagram on his sketch pad, noting all the scattered items and their positions.

  Mallory knelt beside him and studied the objects around the purse. “Looks like a struggle.”

  “No.” Heller drew black crayon circles around the fallen items. “It’s a nice tight pattern. These things just fell out when she dropped her purse. The way I see it, she was standing here when something made her jump.”

  Riker stared at the front door. “I count three locks and a chain, but no sign of a break-in. This woman was nervous as hell. I don’t see her opening the door for a stranger.”

  “Maybe we’re looking for a cop,” said Mallory.

  “I wouldn’t rule it out.” Heller pulled on a new pair of gloves. “But I don’t think the door was locked when the perp arrived. This woman was planning a long trip, so she ran some errands after the cops brought her home.” He picked up a packet of fallen traveler’s checks. “A trip to the bank, right?” Next, he pulled a bottle of pills from a small pharmacy bag. “And she refilled this prescription. But she forgot the receipt for the dry cleaner. So she came back to get it.”

  Riker pulled out his cigarettes. “Is this a guess or—”

  “It’s a fact,” said Heller. “The dry cleaner said she dumped out her purse to look for the receipt. But she’d left it at home. I found it on the counter next to the sink. Now remember, she’s g
ot a plane to catch. She plans to grab that receipt and run right out again. So she doesn’t lock the door this time.” Heller rose to his feet. “She’s standing here, reaching for it, when the perp startles her, and she drops her purse. I say he walked in right behind her.”

  Click.

  Ronald Deluthe snapped pictures of civilians on the sidewalk. He had quickly divided the crowd into categories. The out-of-towners were the people disguised as the Statue of Liberty. Their spiked crowns of green foam rubber were purchases from a street vendor working the crowd with a carton of souvenirs. The visitors smiled as they posed for the camera, then took their own pictures of the young detective with exotic bright yellow hair. He had become a tourist attraction.

  All the blasé faces belonged to the natives who were almost bored by murder. And lots of them fit Miss Emelda’s loose description of the hangman. T-shirts and jeans were the uniform of this neighborhood, and five of the men wore baseball caps.

  Click, click.

  The freelance reporters were easy to spot. They were the ones hustling every cop in uniform. The pros with real media jobs were disgorged from vans with network logos. Their technicians were setting up pole lights and carrying cameras. A brunette with a microphone was headed his way. She ignored the officers standing behind the blue sawhorses. The woman only had eyes for Deluthe as she worked her way around the semicircle of barricades—so she could be close to him.

  She was pretty. He took her picture.

  Click.

  The reporter smiled for him.

  Click, click, click, click.

  She called out to him—a siren song, “It’s a murder, right?”

  “No comment,” he said. This time, the crime scene was under tight control. Even the uniformed officers could not give any helpful information to reporters, however pretty they might be.

  Deluthe was out of film and praying that Mallory and Riker would not show up before Officer Waller got back from the store.

  He was saved. The uniformed policeman was fast approaching, elbowing his way through the crowd. Perfect timing. There was a God. Waller handed over the backup film, and Deluthe opened the camera to remove the used roll.

  A face in the crowd distracted him. The spectator was staring up at a high window while everyone else watched the front door. The young detective looked up at Kennedy Harper’s fourth-floor apartment. All he could see was blue sky reflected on glass. He reloaded the camera, but before he could snap a picture, his subject slung a gray canvas bag over one shoulder and backed up into the crowd. The bag looked like one in the trunk of Deluthe’s car, where he kept a change of clothes for a baseball game in Central Park.

  And now he remembered to shoot the man.

  Click.

  Shit.

  He had only caught the back of the civilian’s head turning away from the camera. Deluthe wondered if he should chase the man down. But what pretext could he use? Excuse me, sir. You looked up instead of down. That scene might not play half as well as his attempted arrest of the building handyman.

  The odd spectator was forgotten when Deluthe spied a familiar face behind the barricades. It was the fireman who had left the prostitute hanging at the last crime scene. Gary Zappata’s eyes were fixed on the door to Kennedy Harper’s building.

  Waiting for what?

  Click.

  Detective Mallory stepped out on the sidewalk, followed by her partner. Zappata’s angry eyes locked onto Sergeant Riker.

  Click.

  The detectives would not give his opinion any credence, but they had to believe a picture. Zappata clearly wanted Riker dead.

  Mallory walked up to Deluthe, giving him no time to explain his theory on the fireman. She was saying, ordering , “Get out your notebook.”

  Deluthe complied, and now his pencil hovered over a clean page.

  “Get your film developed,” she said. “And don’t take any grief. You tell the techs you want it now. Go back to Special Crimes and clear a section of wall in the incident room. Pin up this paperwork.” She handed him a large manila folder. “You’ll find some still shots of news film on my desk. Compare the faces to the ones you shot in this crowd. Meet Riker back here when you’re done. He’ll give you another list. Run.”

  No baseball game tonight.

  Detective Janos was a human tank, physically and psychologically. Nothing stopped him. However, if Lieutenant Coffey had sent him out in search of the Holy Grail, he would have been back with it long before now. The more difficult errand had been securing a voice recording for the tip line of a local news program.

  He was exhausted.

  The television people had called him Babe, then misused the word synergy twice in five minutes, saying nothing intelligible for another twenty minutes of wasted time. Everyone on the news staff had labored under the whacked impression that the Constitution of the United States allowed them, even encouraged them, to conceal evidence of murder.

  Yet Janos had not killed any of these people. That was not his way. He had merely loomed over the news director, one hand outstretched, saying, “Give me the tape.”

  Another member of the staff, the anchorwoman, had expounded on freedom of the press, making it clear that she had never read the pertinent passage of First Amendment rights.

  And Janos had replied, “Give me the tape.”

  Half an hour had passed by before the network attorney arrived to yell at his clients, “Give him the tape, you fucking idiots!”

  More time had been spent convincing an overworked support technician at One Police Plaza that he could not simply leave the tape and go; he needed a copy for his lieutenant. Mere looming had done the trick with the small man in the lab coat.

  And now, finally, Janos carried his hard-won trophy down the hall to the incident room. He opened the door and paused on the threshold, taking a moment to admire a crude flat scarecrow nailed to the rear wall. The boys had been busy while he was away.

  He looked down at a gray canvas bag near the baseboard. A pair of wadded gym socks had been dropped on the floor, apparently rejected as feet for the image on the wall. Janos agreed with this aesthetic decision—less was more. In the space below a tacked-up baseball cap was a photograph showing the back of a man’s head; this was in keeping with Miss Emelda’s sighting of a suspicious character in her tree, a man without a face. Beneath this picture, a T-shirt had been spread out and pinned to the cork. Sturdy nails supported a pair of blue jeans to fill out the lower half of the body. Crime-scene gloves were positioned where the effigy’s hands would be, and a nail had been driven into one latex palm to hold the strap of a cheap instant camera, yet another detail from Miss Emelda’s description.

  Interesting.

  However, the truly original touch was a halo of fat black flies impaled around the scarecrow’s cap. One was a large horsefly speared on a long pin, but still alive, twitching, buzzing—

  At the sound of footsteps, Janos turned around to see the yellow-haired youngster from Lieutenant Loman’s squad. Judging by the slim build, Janos assumed that the scarecrow’s clothing belonged to this detective. And there was more damning evidence: Ronald Deluthe’s face was flushed red with sudden guilt—perhaps because he carried a living, squirming fly impaled on a hatpin.

  “Deluthe, you’re very young to be this jaded.” Janos smiled at the blushing whiteshield, who now realized that this was a compliment and resumed breathing.

  This meeting place had been chosen to increase the prostitute’s anxiety, but Daisy was too stoned to appreciate the decor of framed photographs and citations that screamed, This is a cop bar! Detective Mallory kept fifteen feet of mahogany and five drinking men between herself and the aging whore with electric-red hair.

  The skeletal woman perched on the edge of her stool, one eye cocked on the door. Riker was ten minutes late, and the woman would not wait for him much longer. Mallory put on her sunglasses when the hooker glanced in her direction, though it was doubtful she would be recognized; they had both changed so
much. Kathy the child had grown into a woman, and Daisy the whore had become a superannuated corpse.

  In the old days, this redhead had been a longhaired blonde who had shared heroin with Sparrow. They had done everything together. Mallory had a childhood memory of the two prostitutes vomiting in the same toilet bowl.

  Daisy’s bright red mouth formed a suggestive smile for a male customer. The man turned to catch the attention of the bartender, another recent redhead, though, unlike Daisy’s color, Peg Baily’s was a shade found in nature. Also, Baily was softly rounded, glowing with good health, and in her younger days, she had been a decorated police officer.

  The customer arched one eyebrow to ask why a sickly hooker had been allowed to stay so long. Tradition demanded that Daisy be kicked into the street, literally, with the press of a boot on her backside. Peg Baily held up two fingers to let him know that the whore was on the way out in just a few minutes.

  Trouble.

  This was a new location for the bar. Perhaps it was a coincidence that Baily had moved her business to Riker’s neighborhood, but Mallory thought otherwise.

  The bartender looked up at the clock on the wall, then turned to the detective. “Your partner’s not gonna show, kid. I’m tossing that hooker out of here right now.”

  A whore wasting from AIDS was bad for trade.

  Mallory turned to the window—and inspiration. The former Angie Riker was opening the door to a barber shop across the street. Riker’s ex-wife was leading a parade of four teenage boys, the brood of her second husband. Mallory wondered if it was pure accident that her partner had set this time for the interview. Or was he still keeping close tabs on Angie?

  The bartender rapped the mahogany to get Mallory’s attention, saying, “Time’s up, kid.”

  “Quick question, Baily? You knew Riker when he was married, didn’t you?”

  “You know I did.” Peg Baily’s eyes were suddenly unfriendly, silently asking, What are you up to? “I was his partner. You know that too. What’s this—”

  “How come you never told him his wife was playing around behind his back?” As a child, Mallory had learned many things by listening in on her foster parents’ late-night conversations. “You knew Angie was a slut. But even after the divorce, you never told Riker. He still doesn’t know you held out on—”