Mallory was not listening anymore. She had discovered one of the stalker’s notes in a clear plastic evidence bag. She took it down from the wall and stared at a brief message penciled on thin airmail paper. The letters were painstakingly drawn in varying sizes and scripts.
“All seven of ’em say the same thing,” said Geldorf. “We figured they were traced from magazines. No newsprint smudges on the paper. Natalie found ’em under her door at night when she got home from work. Be careful,” said Geldorf, as she pulled them out of the bag. “That paper’s really fragile, and you don’t wanna smudge the pencil.”
Charles expected Mallory to be annoyed with this lecture on the handling of evidence, but she only stared at the paper, transfixed by the words, I touched you today.
Geldorf never noticed her reaction. Hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, he stared at the photographs of the murder scene. “That kid photographer who dropped his camera—he wasn’t the only one who got sick that night. There was this young cop—the uniform who found the body—I can’t remember if it was Parris or Loman.”
Mallory looked up from her reading. He had her undivided attention now.
Geldorf continued. “We couldn’t get him back inside the apartment again. An hour later, he’s at the station house, still batting off flies and stomping his feet to shake roaches out of his pant legs. Well, there weren’t any bugs on him—not one—not then, but he could still feel them.
Oh, and the stink. You can’t take a picture of that. But you know what I remember best? I could hear it outside in the hall when I was walkin’ toward that apartment. When I opened the door—it was so loud—so many of ’em. Scared the hell out of me.” He closed his eyes. “I can hear it now. The roar of flies—thousands of flies.”
Sergeant Riker entered the office, arms laden with the bags of a delicatessen breakfast. “Did I miss anything?”
Riker lured Geldorf down the hall to the office kitchen with promises of coffee and food. After settling the deli bags on the table, he fumbled with the wrappings, hunting for a bacon-and-egg on white toast dripping with heart-attack grease. He spread the packages on a red-checked tablecloth, the only bit of charm to survive the ruthless takeover of Mallory’s machine decor.
After writing down the delicatessen’s phone number, he handed it to Geldorf. “Lose this and you’ll starve.” While he and Mallory covertly worked on Sparrow’s case, Geldorf would have to fend for himself. Charles would be no help in foraging for food around the office; on principle, the man ignored all kitchen appliances with control panels more complex than the dashboard of his Mercedes.
“Deluthe should’ve made the deli run. What good is a slave if he doesn’t do errands?”
Geldorf grinned. “Mallory’s got him chasing down personnel files for all the cops from my crime scene.”
“Well, that should keep him occupied.” A whiteshield in training pants would have to stand in line all day long at One Police Plaza. But Duck Boy’s report would reinforce the fiction that they were working on Natalie Homer’s murder. He handed a paper coffee cup to the retired detective. “I hear you’ve been working Cold Cases for six years. You missed the job, huh?”
“Yeah, I like to keep—” Geldorf was facing the kitchen door when he stiffened slightly, then sat up very straight. This was Riker’s clue that Mallory was standing behind his own chair. Obviously, she had been training the help again. Every time she entered a room, Duck Boy had this same conditioned response.
She laid a stack of paperwork beside his coffee cup. Riker leafed through the familiar forms of citizen complaints. Natalie Homer had been a frequent visitor to her local police station. This was a replay of Lieutenant Loman’s squad making a station house pet of Kennedy Harper.
“There’s a big gap in the dates for these complaints,” she said.
Geldorf nodded. “The pervert gave her a breather. Two weeks later, he was stalking her again, and he was escalating. That’s when he started leaving those notes under her door. And phone calls—no conversation, and no heavy breathing either. I think he only wanted to hear her voice.”
Riker fished through his pockets for matches and cigarettes. “Was the ex-husband in town during those two weeks?”
“Oh, yeah. The guy never missed a day of work at the post office. But I knew he was guilty.”
After emptying the cigarettes from his crumpled pack, Riker hunted for one that was not broken. “So you never developed other suspects.”
“What for? Erik Homer did it,” said Geldorf. “If only the bastard hadn’t up and died on me. He had a heart attack a year after the murder.”
Mallory laid down another sheet of paper. “This is the ex-husband’s statement. There’s just one line about Natalie’s son. How old was the boy when his mother died?”
“Oh, six or seven. The kid’s father had sole custody. After the divorce, she never saw her son again.”
Mallory’s eyes locked with Riker’s. He nodded, holding the same thought: Natalie’s son would be twenty-six years old today, a prime age group for serial killers. He lit a cigarette, then exhaled and watched the smoke spiral up to the ceiling. “You know where that kid is now?”
Geldorf shook his head. “After his father died, the stepmother told me she gave the boy to Natalie’s sister—a cop hater. Zero cooperation.”
“So she’s holding a grudge.” Riker looked back at the kitchen counter, seeking something to pass for an ashtray. “All this time and no leads on her sister’s murder. I can’t blame her.”
“Me neither,” said Geldorf. “But Natalie’s sister didn’t have the boy. That’s all she’d say. I figure she fobbed him off on another relative. A few months after I checked out the Cold Case file, I asked her to tell the kid that I never gave up on his mom. Then I left her alone.”
Riker stole a glance at Mallory. Was she also wondering if Lars Geldorf had triggered a murder spree?
The old man grinned at each of them in turn. “I know what you guys are thinking. You figure the boy’s grown up and gone psycho, right? You think he’s your perp for that hooker hanging?” He shook his head. “How would he get the details? Only the killer could’ve told that little boy about the hair packed in his mother’s mouth. I don’t see his dad sharing that with him.”
Mallory pulled up a chair at the table. “So you never talked to the boy.”
“No. There was no point in it.” Geldorf rose from his chair. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
When the bathroom door had closed at the other end of the hall, Mallory handed Riker a twenty-year-old statement signed by a rookie patrolman. “Is that Lieutenant Loman’s first name? Harvey?”
Before Riker could respond, Jesus Christ, yes it is, Charles Butler entered the kitchen, saying, “I can tell you why Natalie had those photographs taken. It was an actress portfolio.” He handed Riker a photocopy of a newspaper column. “I found that on microfiche at the library. It’s the only mention on the death of Natalie Homer.”
And the press had not wasted much type on the lying headline, SUICIDE. Riker skipped over the first dry lines and read the short story of Natalie Homer’s life and death. “‘She served cocktails at a local bar from six o’clock till closing time.’” And every Wednesday afternoon she sat in the cheap seats of off-Broadway theaters, watching matinees in the dark and learning another trade. She was too poor to pay for acting lessons, so said her landlady. The rest of Natalie’s days were spent dogging miles of pavement, making the rounds of theatrical agencies that never found her any work. Every day she reminded them that she was still alive and still determined to make it in New York City.“‘That girl worked so hard,’ said the landlady. ‘She was tired all the time. You say that when you write about her. You say something nice.’ According to police sources, the young actress was found at the end of the day ‘—at the end of a rope.’”
Mallory waited for Detective Janos at the address he had given her along with his promise that she would find it interesting, but he had said
nothing about the actress connection, not within earshot of Lieutenant Coffey.
The lot next to the narrow building was a dusty construction site. The only structure was a portable restroom the size of an upended coffin, and a troupe of children formed a wriggling column at the door. The day-camp supervisor, a very tired woman, called out her thanks to the men in hard hats. Her young campers were making a toilet stop while roaming the neighborhood on a nature walk, though the flora of this East Village street was limited to scrawny city trees dying of heat and urine showers. And the wildlife only amounted to one dead squirrel in the gutter and a pigeon strolling down the sidewalk. The bird was followed closely by a homicide detective carrying a rolled newspaper. The children were impressed by the man’s large size and his brutal face. They laughed, pointing fingers like guns, and then used one another for human shields.
“Hey, Mallory.” Detective Janos joined her at the door of the narrow shop that now served as a makeshift theater for art films. “You were right. Everybody wants to be in show business. Kennedy Harper worked second shift. That left her days free for auditions.”
“So she had an agent?”
“No, she didn’t need one. There’s open auditions all over town.” He handed her a page torn from an old copy of Backstage. “Heller found a sheet like this in her trash—ripped to shreds. I’m guessing the auditions didn’t go well.” He handed her his rolled newspaper. “This is a recent edition.”
The pages were turned back to columns of dates and locations for open casting calls. “There’s at least five auditions a day.”
“Not if you scratch the out-of-town locations and the song-and-dance gigs. More like one or two. I just came from an audition. Must’ve been a hundred actors standing in line on Spring Street. I figure that’s how he found Sparrow and Kennedy. He just walked down the line and picked out the blonde he liked best.”
“So now we’re three for three,” said Mallory. Natalie Homer, Kennedy Harper and Sparrow had all been aspiring actresses.
“Yeah, and I think you’re right about consolidating the cases, but Coffey’s never gonna buy that. The boss figures our chances are better if we work the fresh hangings. And he’d go nuts if he knew I was here.” Janos’s implication was clear: There would be no more covert meetings. He turned to the grimy window of the Hole in the Wall Theater. “An actor in Sparrow’s play tipped us off to this place. They’re running a videotape of her dress rehearsal.”
A handmade poster taped to the window had retitled Chekhov’s play The Three Sisters as The Hanging Hooker. Alongside the poster was the attendant publicity. Front-page stories of New York tabloids had also given star billing to the comatose prostitute.
You’re famous, Sparrow. You made it.
And now, if only the whore would finish this dragged-out affair of her dying.
After Janos had walked back to his car, she paid the three-dollar admission at the door, then passed through a curtain to enter a dark room that stank of smoke and sweat. There were chairs for twenty, but only two other patrons watched the television monitor. One of the men rose from his chair, muttering, “Rip off.” He was obviously disappointed that The Hanging Hooker was actually a classical play—no nudity and nothing lewd. The second man followed him out of the room, equally offended, leaving the detective to watch the video alone.
Only the keenest observer would have noticed the change in Mallory as her young face took on the conviction of a stubborn child. She sat very still, eyes fixed on the screen, a window she watched with great expectation—waiting for Sparrow. She had been waiting for years.
An elderly crone appeared on stage in company with a young actress, a beautiful girl so far removed from the drooling, eye-rolling dementia of the coma patient. The voice that filtered through Mallory’s shock was familiar and not.
“—Nothing ever happens the way we want it to—”
Sparrow was dressed in the clothes she had worn to her hanging. The southern accent had been erased, and a gifted surgeon had made her too young for the part of Olga. Years had passed since Mallory had last checked up on Sparrow, and now she saw another change in this woman, something surgery could not provide. The whore was lit from within—fresh fire. Even Sparrow’s eyes had made a comeback, clear and bright, seeing the world for the first time—all over again, an encore of youth. This was what she had looked like on the night they first met.
And how old was I, Sparrow? Eight? Nine?
It was winter then, a sudden storm, and a feverish young Kathy Mallory had crawled into the last remaining telephone booth in New York City, the only one with a door that she could close against the stinging snow. She had fed money into the coin slots, a daily habit and the only constant of a childhood on the streets.
More than a thousand miles away and years away, a dying woman had written a telephone number on the little girl’s palm. All but the last four digits had been smudged off her hand before that terrible day had ended. Kathy continued to obey long after her mother had died. Though she had forgotten the reason for these telephone calls, she continued making up numbers to replace the three that were missing. Whenever she heard a feminine voice on the line, the child would become inexplicably hopeful and say the ritual words, It’s Kathy. I’m lost.
None of the startled women on the receiving end of these calls had known who she was, thus giving themselves away as impostors. That night, one of them had cried into the telephone, “Won’t you tell me who you are? How can I—”
Click. And another connection was severed, another woman left in tears, and hope died. The child had become an addict of hope, and the best part of this game was that she could get it back again every day, any time she wanted it.
The fever had given way to violent chills. Her small hands were shaking as she tried her last coins, her last call, saying, “It’s Kathy. I’m lost.”
Out of a thousand women, only Sparrow had responded, “Where are you, baby? I’ll come get you.” This had been said with the lilt of the Southland—so like a dead mother’s voice.
Anticipation had kept Kathy from giving into sleep and death while she waited for the Southerner to come and find her. The little girl’s eyes had begun to close when she saw a shadow on the other side of the fogged glass. It was coming for her, moving quickly, flying through the storm. The door opened, and a woman’s arms reached into the telephone booth to gather up the shivering child, warming Kathy with fake fur and perfumed body heat.
While the delirium lasted, the little girl believed that her dead mother had come to carry her home, and all that was lost had been restored. The night of the snowstorm, pressed up against the warm breast of a whore, was the happiest time that Kathy Mallory had ever known.
“—our life is not over yet,” said the actress on the screen.
The summer heat was stifling in the small theater, yet the young detective remained in her seat after the play was done. Head bowed, she sat in absolute darkness, awaiting the video’s next run—so she could continue to nurse her deep hatred of Sparrow.
Riker had already made a case for combining the investigations, and he had lost. Mallory should have handled this, but she had failed to show, and this worried him. Coming late to any appointment was outside the pathology of a punctuality freak.
She was still wearing dark glasses when she entered Jack Coffey’s private office and pulled up a chair without waiting for an invitation to sit down. Riker smiled in the belief that she had picked up this bad habit from him.
Lieutenant Coffey leaned back in his chair, only glancing at his wristwatch to remind Mallory that she was late. “Riker tells me the scarecrow has a type—stage-struck blondes.”
“Hmm. His victims were stand-ins for Natalie Homer.” Mallory seemed almost bored as she leaned toward the stack of newspapers at the edge of the desk. “Her case is the key to the scarecrow’s hangings.”
The lieutenant was not rising to this bait, but it was early in the game, only round one by Riker’s reckoning. The boss kept
his silence, expecting Mallory to elaborate. She picked up a newspaper, cast it aside after a minute, and opened another. After folding back a page, she glanced at Coffey, her eyebrows arching to ask him why he kept her waiting.
“The scarecrow is a copycat, and a bad one,” said the lieutenant. “He was nowhere near Natalie Homer’s crime scene.”
Did that sound defensive? Riker thought so.
“And I say he was there.” Mallory lowered her sunglasses to scan a column of newsprint that interested her more.
“Too many things don’t fit,” said Coffey, “all those candles, the wrong noose. I know this perp never saw that crime scene.”
“I would’ve thought just the opposite,” said a friendly voice, and Coffey spun his chair around to stare at the tall man whose head barely cleared the top of the door frame. Misunderstanding the look of surprise, Charles Butler glanced at his watch, saying, “Oh, sorry. I’m too early?”
The lieutenant would be wondering why a civilian had been invited to the briefing. Riker gave up on the idea of damage control and braced himself for a shouting match. It was predictable that Coffey would do all the yelling. Mallory would sit back and let the man knock himself out. And perhaps then she would drop the bomb of Lieutenant Loman’s presence on Natalie Homer’s crime scene.
There were no free chairs, and Charles Butler was always self-conscious about inadvertently dwarfing people and their furniture. He leaned against the glass wall, believing this would make him smaller and more polite. “The inconsistencies make sense to me.”
The lieutenant was forcing a smile. “So you’re siding with Mallory?”
What a damn surprise.
“Yes,” said Charles. “The scarecrow is working from a twenty-year-old memory—bound to be errors. At least he has a fair idea of how many flies were at the original crime scene. I understand he brings them in a jar.”
Crime School Page 15