Killing Critics

by Carol O'Connell

  “Wait!” He raised one hand, and she stopped. He removed the mask and held it out to her. “This should make it easier for you.”

  Her blade came closer. He no longer believed he understood her well enough to anticipate her. But he had well understood Louis Markowitz, and now he was betting his eyes on the man who had raised her.

  She put up the sword. “You know, there’s stabbing, and then there’s stabbing.”

  She backed away from him. “Aubry was never meant to die that night. I figured it out with the messages. You didn’t know about the message left at the ballet school, did you?”

  He shook his head, and she continued. “I got that from my interview with Gregor Gilette. You figured they already had her when that message was left at your paper, right?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes. Her next words came from behind him.

  “According to her father, Aubry’s message was a long one. That’s what made me think she was being sent somewhere else—so you wouldn’t be able to reach her by phone when you got your own message. Aubry’s was garbled by the clerk, too many instructions to write down in a hurry. So she killed a lot of time trying to decipher the message, and then more time trying to locate you. Finally, she called your newspaper. By then, a message had been left for you. A receptionist probably checked your message box and confirmed the meeting at the gallery. It’s the only scenario that fits the two messages. Too bad you wouldn’t let Markowitz near the family. He could’ve worked it out twelve years ago. It only took me five minutes with Gregor Gilette.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Markowitz usually went for the money motive. My father was a smart cop, but with Aubry as the primary target, he had nowhere to go with this case.”

  She was very close to his side, speaking into his ear. “If he’d only known that Aubry was there by accident, he would’ve gone after the man with the profit motive to kill Peter Ariel, someone who knew your family connections.”

  He opened his eyes. She was in front of him now, leaning down, her face close to his.

  “Everything pointed to Koozeman,” she said. “The killers would have been jailed—if you’d only stepped out of my father’s way. And Sabra? She’s been strung out on the street all these years for nothing.”

  His head lolled back, eyes rolled up to the ceiling. He felt as though he had been mortally wounded. As she had said, there was stabbing, and then there was stabbing.

  “So, Quinn, would you call this a clear win?”

  He nodded.

  She sat on the floor beside him and laid down her sword. “You knew the link between the old murders and Dean Starr. How did you know he was one of the killers? Did Sabra tell you, or did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t send that letter to Riker.”

  “I never said you did, Quinn. I know who sent that letter. I figured that one out a long time ago. How did Sabra know about Dean Starr’s connection?”

  “Sabra surfaces now and then. When she turns up, I give her walking-around money and a place to stay. I keep an apartment for her—she keeps losing the key. But there are times when she seems fairly rational. She visits old haunts, old friends. For a while, she’s almost herself, almost sane. But then in a few days, she’s back wandering the streets again, looking for—”

  “Answer the question! How did she know about Dean Starr?”

  “I’m trying to tell you she doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She has sources in the art community. Koozeman has no idea how much the gallery boys hate him—they talk about him incessantly. So she was in Godd’s Bar one night and heard something strange, just snatches of conversations among the gallery staff. Sabra thought Starr might be blackmailing Koozeman. She asked me to find out more about it.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes. It only cost me a few hundred per gallery boy to get all of it. It didn’t really sound like blackmail. Starr was only pressuring Koozeman to make him into a hot artist. Starr said he wanted to use the same scheme he used for Peter Ariel. I never heard Koozeman’s end of that conversation.”

  “Is that all you told her?”

  “That’s all there was to it.”

  “She was crazy, you knew that. You just let her draw her own conclusions?”

  “Well, they were the right conclusions, weren’t they? I gave her whatever she asked of me.”

  “And then you went down to the morgue to view the remains of the jumper, the homeless woman who died in Times Square. You thought Sabra had killed Starr and then killed herself, right?”

  He nodded.

  “But now you believe your sister killed them both, don’t you? Starr and Koozeman?”

  “We never discussed the murders.”

  “How convenient. Was that on your attorney’s advice? Were you worried about conspiracy charges?”

  “Mallory, I have an idea you know that feeling of nothing left to lose. So does Sabra. She can’t depend on the police to finish it for her, can she? Look at the way they—”

  “Are you telling me she’s not done? There’s another one on her list? You son of a bitch! Who is it? Andrew Bliss? Did you give her Andrew as a murder suspect? I told you his pathetic little confession was nothing—”

  “‘What does it matter? Andrew is well away from harm on the roof of Bloomingdale’s.”

  “Your own mother could make it up to that roof. Anyone who wants him can get at him.”

  “But you have people watching him, right?”

  “Yes, from the distance of the next roof and a street. If she goes near him with a weapon, she’ll be shot down. I selected that assault rifle to make a big hole. She won’t survive.”

  The rain shower had ended. Charles wiped the lenses of the binoculars and looked again. He believed he was watching a religious ceremony—a baptism or purification rite. Andrew had been on his knees in fervent prayer for a long time. Then he had removed all his clothes.

  Now he was standing in a circle of candles and pouring champagne over his head, letting the liquid run over his naked body. Andrew looked up at the mangled staircase twisting away from the roof door. He turned and stared at the storm cellar door of the second exit. The ground door was more than half covered by steel beams and large wooden crates. Andrew put his shoulder to a crate and tried to move it. No luck. He slid to the ground and banged his fist on the door handle like a tired child begging to be let back into the house. The door fell away under his hand, opening downward to expose a square of dull light.

  Charles focussed on the opening in the roof. So the heavy material blocking half the door had never been an impediment. Mallory had been right. All this time, anyone who wanted Andrew could have gotten at him by simply opening the door inward.

  Andrew was climbing down the rungs of an interior ladder, disappearing through the square of light and below the level of the roof, wearing nothing, only carrying a cellular phone.

  Charles was thinking of the cellular phone he had left behind on the coffee table by the sleeping Riker. How foolish. That was the one thing he should have brought with him. Well, at least Andrew was moving slowly. Charles’s own roof had more floors. He would have to hurry.

  When Charles emerged on the ground floor, he ran across the street to the fire exit Mallory had diagrammed on her bulletin board. He looked around in all directions. Andrew had not yet emerged.

  He began to turn around at the sound of a squeaking wheel, but he was not fast enough. He felt the blow to the back of his head, and he was falling to the sidewalk as Andrew exited by the fire door, setting off the alarm.

  Riker awakened under the cover of a toasty quilt. He looked to the clock on the end table by the couch. He was slow to register the fact that he had overslept—and there was no one watching over Andrew Bliss. He sat bolt upright.

  “Charles?”

  He knew there wouldn’t be a response. The apartment had an empty feel to it. He was alone.

  Now he saw the sheet of paper on the coffee table. It was Charles’s note to say he had
taken the tour of duty on the roof. But the rifle was still under the couch, and the cellular phone was lying on the table.

  Charles would never make it as a cop.

  Riker threw off the quilt, smashed the phone into his pocket and looked for his shoes. When his laces were tied, he put on some speed, gathering up his gun and the rifle and heading out the door.

  The alarm for the department store continued to scream and wail. Cars drove by, drivers hazarding a quick look at the trio on the sidewalk and then driving on.

  “Is he all right?” Quinn raised his voice to be heard above the alarm.

  He knelt down beside Mallory as she ran her fingers over the back of Charles’s skull. Next she rolled the large man’s unconscious body onto his back and gently pulled back one eyelid. She moved her hand to create extremes of shadows and light. Satisfied with the reaction time of his pupils, she nodded. “He’ll be okay. It’s just a scalp wound. I’m guessing she came up behind him and hit him with a bottle.”

  “You don’t know that Sabra did this.”

  “I know Andrew didn’t do it. He couldn’t beat up a bouquet of flowers—not in the shape he’s in.”

  She pulled out the antenna of her new cellular phone and punched in the number for Riker’s. “Riker? It’s Mallory.... Yeah, I’m here now.... How far away are you? ... Fine.” Closing the antenna, she turned back to Quinn. “I want you to stay with Charles until Riker shows up.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going hunting for Sabra. His wound is fresh, so she can’t be far away.”

  “If you take her in, you know what will happen to her. She’ll be a circus freak for the media. Just let her be. I promise you I’ll find her again, and I’ll find another hospital. She’s weak and sick, she can’t do any real damage.”

  “She did Charles in rather nicely, didn’t she? I think you know exactly what she’s capable of.”

  “You don’t know what she’s been through. You can’t. Aubry’s skull was split up the back. Her brains were falling out through the bone fragments. I watched Sabra trying to force the tissue back into Aubry’s skull. And then the back of it fell off, and it was all in her hands, a piece of the skull, the blood and the brains. She was trying to fix the skull when I pulled her away. She was trying to fix her dead child.”

  “That’s why it took you so long to call it in. You took her to a safe, quiet place and then you went back.”

  “Yes, you were right about everything.”

  “You believe she killed Starr and Koozeman. And you gave her Andrew. You told her about that pathetic little rooftop confession—all the sins he ever committed before the age of twelve. But all that Sabra knows is that he confessed. Am I right? For all I know, Andrew is already dead. Now I’m going to get Sabra, and you’re not going to stop me.”

  He pushed her into the doorway and blocked her escape with outstretched arms, palms pressed to the stone wall on either side of her. He was surprised to see the gun in her hand. It just appeared. He never saw her pull it from the holster, and now it was leveled at his heart.

  “Get out of my way, Quinn.”

  “No, you won’t fire that. The game field is all different now. Different rules and weapons. I’m unarmed, and you’re a police officer. I know you a little better now. You do have rules, Mallory, and I don’t think you’ll break them. You wouldn’t maim me with a sword when I was helpless, and you won’t shoot me now.”

  Mallory shot him.

  He was so startled by the explosion of sound and the sight of the blood, he never felt the butt end of the gun as she pistol-whipped him and sent him to the ground.

  A naked man can walk unmolested down any street in New York City. It is a place where people rely on peripheral vision for the imminent dangers of day-to-day living. If no figure rushes at them in peripheral, then no one else exists. There should be no eye contact with lunatics ; they all agree on this. When the eye of the New Yorker does fall upon an unfortunate whose mind is absent without leave, said New Yorker’s eye, in the interest of preserving the life of the body, will often fail to inform the brain so long as the lunatic remains on some outer periphery. Eye contact might draw the crazy closer. Eye contact, they tell their young, is to be avoided.

  And so it was that Andrew crossed all the traffic lanes of wide streets without incident or interference. No homeward-bound commuter, no hack-bound cabdriver ever thought of pulling over to alert the authorities. So Andrew continued to walk north, wearing only a broken smile that tipped up on one side of his mouth and down on the other.

  Two men, standing on a street corner, were speaking in heated, rapid Spanish. He passed by them without causing a lull in their conversation. Near Seventieth Street, he walked by a young woman who was debating the affordability of a cheeseburger. After he passed by, she decided, yeah, she might as well spend the money. An old woman carrying a bag of groceries came out of the deli on the corner of Lexington and had to make a detour around Andrew when he paused on the sidewalk. The woman’s mind only registered the darkness. She wanted to be off the street while it was still only a semi-savage hour.

  The naked man walked on, stopped by no one, safe in the constant that a cop was never where a cop was needed.

  The cellular phone beeped. He raised the antenna. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Andrew.”

  “Oh, Mallory.” She asked where he was, and he told her.

  “Look out for a bag lady, Andrew. I’m on my way.”

  Mallory was coming for him. He had not long to make his last act of atonement. He should hurry.

  He crossed the street.

  Charles heard the beeping noise and opened his eyes to focus on the burning ember of a cigarette dangling from the side of Riker’s mouth. The spinning cherry light of a police car was illuminating his immediate surroundings in revolving bright red flashes. It was clear that he was not in his own bed, but spread out on the concrete. Riker’s worried face was relaxing to a broad smile of relief.

  “Riker, I think your phone is beeping.” Charles put one hand to the back of his head where it ached with dull, throbbing pain. When he tried to sit up, it hurt more. He lay back again, staring at the sky.

  Riker was speaking into the phone. “Yeah?” He listened a moment and said to Charles, “It’s Mallory.” Into the phone he said, “Naw, Charles is fine. The other one’s still breathing too.... Sure. No problem.”

  Charles propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Quinn’s prone body. He reached over and placed one finger on Quinn’s jugular. As he felt for the pulse, he was wondering if Riker might think it was rude of him to double-check on Quinn’s continuation among the living. Above the bloody wound on the man’s arm was the makeshift tourniquet, an Irish linen handkerchief with the initial M.

  “Riker, did you call an ambulance?”

  “What—for a little flesh wound like that? Naw, think of the paperwork. And Mallory would have to take another psych evaluation. It’s standard after a shooting. How many of those tests do you think she can take before the department finds out what they’ve really got here?”

  “He has a big hole in his arm, Riker, and he’s losing blood.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen a lot worse wounds than that one. She put the shot where she wanted it. That’s the least amount of damage it’s possible to do with a cannon like Mallory’s. And I’ve got twenty bucks says she didn’t even fracture his skull with the gun butt. Look at that scalp wound,” he said, turning Quinn’s head to the side and pointing at the cut as though offering up something to be admired. “See how low it is? She laid him out right. Her old man would’ve approved.”

  “He’s not conscious, Riker. He needs medical attention, and right now.”

  “When he gets to the hospital, they’ll file the mandatory report for a gunshot wound. No way you can pass that off as an accident with a knitting needle. If he mentions that a cop shot him, we’ll be going round and round with the paperwork and the newspapers for weeks. Quinn’s not
gonna like that any better than we will. We’d have to nail him with obstruction charges to cover for Mallory, and her career would still go down the tubes. It’s just not a real good idea, Charles.”

  “He’s right,” said Quinn. His eyes were not yet open as one hand was going to the base of his skull where Mallory had kissed him with the butt of her gun. “I’m sure we can manage without the ambulance.”

  “You need a doctor.”

  “But I don’t need the media circus. And then there’s Mallory to consider.”

  Riker gave him the thumbs-up sign. “You’re a good sport, Quinn.”

  Now Charles realized that he and Jamie Quinn had a great deal more in common than fencing. First she shot him, and now Quinn would rather bleed to death than damage her in any way. And Riker was right. She would not go on with her career after shooting a prominent art critic. It would not play well in the newspapers or the commissioner’s office.

  “Jamie, you still need medical attention. There’s a doctor in my building who could patch that up in a hurry.” He watched Quinn’s face go slack again, fading out of consciousness.

  Riker stood up and signaled to a uniformed officer leaning against a police car. “Charles. That kid’ll take you wherever you like. So I can tell Mallory we’re bypassing channels on the shoot, right?”

  “Right.”

  Riker held up his phone. “You need this?”

  “Yes. Thanks.” Charles took the phone, and Riker stood up and walked to the car to speak to the young uniformed officer.

  Quinn was back among them again, his eyes opening as he struggled to raise himself on one arm. “Charles, we’ll have to come up with a plausible story for your doctor friend.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it will be much of a problem. Henrietta will understand.”

  “According to Riker, she’s bound by law to report the bullet wound. It’s highly unlikely she’d risk her license for neglecting that bit of paperwork.”