Crime School

by Carol O'Connell

  When Mallory opened her eyes, her head was pillowed in Charles Butler’s lap. What time was it? She had no idea. Her internal clock had failed her.

  Unaware that she was awake, Charles absently stroked her hair, and she listened to the soft shuffle of paper, then watched the white pages sail by on their way to the pile on the rug below. She should rise now—time was precious.

  The hand lightly moving over her hair was intoxicating. The human touch was rare since she had lost the Markowitzes, first Helen, then Louis. During the years that followed his wife’s death, the old man had made a point of kissing his foster child twice at each encounter—a sorry effort to make up for her loss of a mother, and he had rarely missed an opportunity to capture her in a bear hug—hugging for two. And then he died.

  She was always losing people.

  Mallory closed her eyes and listened to footsteps in the hall. Now Riker’s voice called out, “It’s me. How’s it going?”

  “One possibility,” said Charles, “though not what I had in mind. Here, take a look at this article.”

  “Foster Care Fraud,” said Riker. “Catchy headline.”

  “That foster child ran away when he was twelve years old, but the police were never notified.”

  “And these people kept collecting his support checks?”

  “Right,” said Charles. “The boy was put in their care the same year Natalie’s son was taken from the Qualens.”

  Another hand, Riker’s, rested on Mallory’s shoulder a moment, then gently brushed the hair from her face. “I’ve never seen her sleep,” he said. “I always figured she just hung from the ceiling like a little bat. Damn, I hate to wake the kid up.”

  “Then don’t,” said Charles.

  “But I got her a present—Susan Qualen. The woman turned herself in. Janos is walking her over here now—in handcuffs.”

  “Why here?” asked Charles.

  “More privacy.”

  Stella pressed her back to the wall of the elevator and watched the man open a metal panel with one of a gang of keys hanging from his belt loop. A janitor? “So you work here?”

  No answer. He was not aware of her on any level, and this was hopeful. It could all be one ghastly coincidence. This man worked here; he belonged here. Of course, he would give her a gift certificate from this store. He probably got an employee discount. And now he was merely rounding up a stray shopper and escorting her to safety. Stella acted the part of a woman who could believe all of this, but she could not sustain the role for long.

  When he closed the metal panel, the light for the ground floor was no longer glowing. They were on their way to the basement level. Her heart beat faster, and adrenaline gorged every muscle for flight. When the doors opened, her legs ran away with her, flinging Stella headlong down a wide aisle of cardboard cartons. There were no hurried footsteps behind her. He had no worries that she would get away. Why should he? It would be so easy to follow her by the clack of high heels.

  Idiot.

  She slipped off her shoes and ran in barefoot silence down a corridor of boxes, running from the light, swallowed by the dark.

  All the television stations ran hourly updates on the plight of Stella Small, showing photographs of her early years and reading excerpts from letters to her mother and grandmother, known to locals as the Abandoned Stellas. The written words of the youngest Stella were upbeat and hopeful, full of the dream: She was going to be somebody, and fame could only be minutes or hours away.

  “What was that?” Riker turned off the volume, and now he could more clearly hear a knock on the door in the reception area. “That’s gotta be her.”

  He answered the door and greeted Detective Janos with a smile. Natalie Homer’s sister needed no introduction. His face was grim when he turned to the woman in handcuffs, only inclining his head a bare inch to say, “Miss Qualen.”

  Stella shrank into a small space behind a carton, playing the mouse, shaking and listening to the footsteps coming closer, stopping now. A nearby box was being moved. Eyes shut tight, her thoughts went out to the Abandoned Stellas. How sorry she was to let them down, yet she knew they would cope well with her dying, for that was their strength of purpose. They were younger than she was now when they had committed themselves to their own slow deaths at the roadside diner.

  But wait. This was New York City—different rules: No cowards allowed.

  An inspired Stella sat in the dark and prepared herself for something finer than slaughter by box cutter. Adjusting her chin to a determined angle, she created the role of a lifetime, imagining her own heart engorging and growing into the part, pounding harder, louder—stronger.

  Can you hear it, you son of a bitch?

  The box was moved aside. A hand reached out for her, and the greatest thing that ever came out of Ohio jumped to her feet. She raked his chest with five long fingernails that left red streaks on his T-shirt. He stopped, as if his batteries had suddenly run down, stunned that an object would fight back. And then she clawed his face.

  Stella had drawn first blood, and now she ran for the light at the end of the box corridor, screaming, “I’m gonna live, you bastard!”

  Janos leaned against the door to the back office, making it clear to the prisoner that she was not going anywhere. Mallory and Riker closed in on Susan Qualen. The woman backed into a computer station and slipped. Her handcuffs bound her wrists behind her, and she could not break the fall. She awkwardly managed a squat, then rose to a stand and revolved slowly, looking from face to face. “Why am I under arrest?” She jangled the chain of her manacles. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “You got that part right,” said Riker. “You wouldn’t help us. You ran away.”

  The words were spoken in a monotone, but the woman behaved as if he had screamed at her. She bowed her head and stared at the floor. As a reward for this attitude of contrition, Janos removed the handcuffs, then stepped back.

  Mallory kicked a chair toward the suspect. It fell over, and Riker commanded, “Pick it up!”

  Susan Qualen did as she was told.

  “Sit down!” said Janos.

  “That day you came around—” Qualen’s voice faltered and cracked. “I couldn’t help you. I didn’t—”

  “You have to sign this.” Riker held a small card that listed her rights under the constitution. “We’ll get you a lawyer if you want one. Do you understand your rights?”

  “I don’t need a damn lawyer. I didn’t do—”

  “Then sign it!” Riker was not playacting. He was angry when he grabbed a clipboard from the desk, then attached the card and a pen. She accepted the board, fingers slowly closing around its edges, and quickly signed her name. Mallory tore the clipboard from the woman’s hands and threw it across the room. Qualen jumped as it skittered across the floor for the last few feet before hitting the wall.

  “And now,” said Riker, “tell us that twisted freak didn’t look up his aunt Susan the minute he got to town.”

  “It’s your fault!” Qualen faced each of them in turn. “You lie to people. You don’t—”

  “All those details in the papers,” said Mallory. “You knew there was a link between the last hanging and—”

  “And my sister? The police only told me Natalie was murdered. I read about her hanging in the newspapers—the fake suicide, a damn cover-up!” Susan Qualen’s voice was in the high wavering pitch of hysteria. “Nobody wanted to solve Natalie’s murder.”

  “Your nephew gave you all the details,” said Mallory. “That’s how you knew. When you saw the story in the papers, it was Natalie’s murder all over again.”

  “Stop it! Junior didn’t tell me anything!” She was in tears. “That little boy could barely speak. He was almost catatonic.”

  “So you sent him away. You conspired to hide the only witness who could’ve helped the police find your sister’s killer.”

  “Oh, that’s rich.” Susan Qualen was not frightened anymore. She was angry. “Who do you call when a dam
n cop kills your sister—the cops?” She wore a grim smile and took some satisfaction in their stunned faces.

  Running toward the light at the end of the corridor, Stella turned a corner of boxes and saw a small office walled in glass. The door was ajar, and she pushed it wide open. At the point of slamming it behind her, she regained her sanity, then closed the door quietly and turned a knob to lock it. The desk offered the only cover in a room made of glass, and she crouched behind it, taking the telephone with her. She dialed 911, but the call would not go through. And now she listened to an automated recording that instructed her to dial another digit for an outside line.

  He was coming.

  She could hear him walking at a mechanical clip. Stella held her breath as the man tried the knob, and then she heard metal on metal—a key in the lock.

  Oh, you stupid fool. He’s a damn janitor. He has all the keys.

  Stella closed her eyes and covered her ears, blocking it out, wishing it away, this thing at the door. The lock came undone. The door opened, and that insect smell was in the room with her. She opened her eyes. Very slowly, deep in shock, she lifted her face. He was standing beside the desk, looking down at her, yet not really seeing her. And he said nothing; one did not converse with objects. She saw the sign behind him, the shield of the alarm company pasted to the glass wall encircled by metallic tape. If she could break the glass, that would trigger the burglar alarm and bring a watchman.

  Susan Qualen was all but spitting the next words at them. “If I’d given him up, how long would that little boy have stayed alive? The only witness to a cop killing his mother. I lived in that neighborhood for years. Drug dealers bought the police for a song. And you guys always cover for your own.” She put up one hand, sensing Riker’s intention to interrupt. “Don’t start with me. I did the right thing, and you know it!”

  “He ran away from the foster parents,” said Mallory, “a pair of chiseling—”

  “And he went back to my cousins. They took him to Nebraska. When he grew up, he had a lot of questions about his mother. They told him everything they knew. Then he came back.”

  “Back home,” said Mallory. “To you.”

  “He only spent a few hours with me. That was a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t want to see him again.” Riker folded his arms. “He scared you, didn’t he?”

  “No! He wasn’t some whacked psycho. He was as normal as I am.”

  Janos pulled out his notebook. “Where’s your nephew now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does he call himself these days?”

  “Junior, I guess. That’s what he always called himself.”

  “I want a straight answer.” Janos moved closer. “Did you hear the question? What name is he—”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Right,” said Mallory. “You don’t know anything helpful. I keep forgetting that. So why did you run?”

  Susan Qualen sank into the chair, trembling, not with fear but excess emotions, none of them good ones. Hate predominated overall.

  “Okay,” said Riker. “Here’s an easier question. Why did you come back?”

  Stella had no clue to the source of sudden strength in her arms. She picked up the heavy wooden desk chair and sent it hurtling through the glass wall, fracturing it into a hundred pieces. The man turned to a panel of buttons beside the door and cut off the alarm while it was merely a squeak and before the glass shower had ended. One long shard lingered in the frame, then toppled and shattered across the office floor. The broken pieces crunched under his shoes as he walked toward her, one hand rising, reaching out.

  “No,” she said. “No!” she yelled.

  And now she realized that she was invisible to him. He walked past her and took a card from a rack on the wall, then fed it into the slot below the time clock. Because this was such a normal act for any employee beginning his shift, it unhinged Stella’s mind. The night watchman was never coming to her rescue. He was the watchman.

  “I came back to beg you not to kill Natalie’s son.” Susan Qualen doubled over, as if they had kicked her. “Killing is what you do best, isn’t it?” She was nearly spent. Anger was all that sustained her. “You gun-happy bastards kill people all the time. You made Junior what he is. A goddamn cop killed his mother. So I figure you owe him a life. You can’t just put him down like a sick animal.”

  Riker could see that Janos was losing the heart for this. The man’s voice was too soft when he said, “Tell us where your nephew lives. If we have some control over the capture—”

  “I don’t know!” She shook her head. “That’s the truth. I told you—I only saw him for a few hours. That was three years ago, and he asked all the questions.”

  Mallory gripped the woman’s arm. “What did your relatives tell you? What was he doing for a living when he—”

  “He was a cop!” Susan Qualen’s face was wet with tears. “Can you believe it?” Her words came out in a stutter of sobs. “A cop . . . like you . . . so don’t . . . don’t kill him.”

  Stella backed up to the wall, cutting her bare feet on broken glass and never feeling the pain. Her mouth was dry, and her eyes were on the box cutter in his hand. Involuntary responses came first, cold chemicals flooding her veins. Her palms were clammy, and her heart banged in a full-blown panic attack. There was nowhere to go but into the corner. She pressed up against the plaster, eyes wide, staring at the razor. Her sweaty hands spread out on the corner walls, and she climbed them, finding traction with the sticky flesh of palms and soles. Her feet were inches off the floor, toes curling over the baseboard—a human fly.

  “Please don’t.” She was stripped down to the naked personality of the little girl from Ohio. “Please,” she said. “Please,” she whispered.

  Jack Coffey looked up to see two visitors in his office. New Yorkers had come to know these women as the Abandoned Stellas of Ohio. They stood before his desk in sturdy serviceable shoes and their best dresses. They had brought him their frightened eyes and wavering smiles, brave then not, and all the baggage of hope. First, they destroyed him, they broke his heart, and then they said hello and “Did you find our Stella?”

  Another bag of delicatessen food sat on the floor at Ronald Deluthe’s feet. He was operating a laptop computer and scanning all the transcriptions of tip-line calls. The sightings of Stella Small spanned four states. Charles Butler sat beside him on the leather couch, rolling one hand to tell the younger man to scroll faster. “Stop. Highlight that one too.”

  Mallory stood over them, saying, “What? Let me see.”

  “Here,” said Charles. “Multiple sightings in department stores. Look at this last one. Stella was shopping rather late this evening.”

  Deluthe shook his head. “This can’t be right. The discount store I can see, but where would she get the money to shop on Fifth Avenue?”

  “Hmm. Bergdorf’s had a moonlight sale,” said Mallory. “So did Lord and Taylor.” She leaned over to look at another highlighted entry. “That designer outlet store checks out. That’s where she bought a suit this morning, and the bastard ruined it.”

  “Well, she’s not gonna find another one on Fifth Avenue,” said Deluthe with absolute conviction. “You saw that place she lived in, all those unpaid bills. So the late sightings are bogus.”

  Mallory glared at him briefly, a small threat to tell him that he must defer to her in all matters of police work and shopping. “Stella has good taste.”

  Charles stared at the glowing screen. “This place was on the news tonight. There was a small fire on the top floor. The whole store was evacuated. Perhaps a—” He looked up to see the back of Mallory leaving the room. “Well, I guess it was worth checking out.”

  “Waste of time,” said Deluthe. “The scarecrow always hangs them in their own apartments.”

  “Twice isn’t quite the same as always.” Charles picked up the deli bag and searched among the sandwiches for his own dinner. “Oh, and he’s got the hang o
f setting fires now.”

  Suddenly, Deluthe was also leaving him, feet slapping the wood in the hallway, making a dead run for the front door.

  It had never occurred to Mrs. Harmon Heath-Ellis that cabs might be scarce in the hours after all the bars had closed. She crossed the small park and passed the fountain, hoping to improve her chances of hailing a car on Fifth Avenue.

  A group of six people had gathered in front of her favorite department store. Suppose someone recognized her? Her social stature was too secure to worry about being caught in town during the loser’s month of August. However, she did fear being discovered near her brother-in-law’s hotel.

  The socialite waved frantically, though the only cab, indeed, the only vehicle on the avenue, was stopped at a traffic light a block away. She glanced back at the people in front of the store, her store. They were wearing what must pass for evening clothes in that third-world country, Middle America. The rubes were fixated on one window. Curiosity prevailed, and she walked toward the shabby little gathering. What was the harm? None of their social orbits could possibly intersect with hers.

  The wealthy society matron looked over their shoulders and between their heads to see the lighted display. After all she had spent on haute couture, who was better qualified to critique the window dresser’s art?

  Well, this was different. And it was inevitable, she supposed. This must be the next big thing, the new wave beyond heroin chic—dead.

  “That’s no manikin,” said the man directly in front of her.

  Of course not. As any fool could see, this was a living woman playing the role of a department store dummy. It was an old idea with a new twist—literally. The model was slowly revolving at the end of a rope, allowing the public to view all sides of the blue suit and matching shoes.