Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  What did you steal?

  And why would he risk it?

  Riker joined the others, and they moved away from the body. None of them noticed when a young man entered the basement room. Zappata’s nemesis, the rookie detective with bright yellow hair, approached the gurney and leaned over the victim. Mallory saw a wet wad of blond hair come away in his hand as he removed the packing from the corpse’s mouth.

  That chore belonged to a crime-scene technician.

  You idiot.

  What else could go wrong tonight?

  The young cop blocked Mallory’s view as he leaned over the dead white face, as though to kiss it.

  What are you doing?

  In the next moment, he was straddling the body.

  What the -

  The fool was pumping the victim’s chest, performing emergency first aid on a dead woman. Now he grinned and shouted, ‘She’s alive!’

  No! No! No!

  Three detectives whirled around. The horrified pathologist moved toward the gurney. Riker was quicker. Hunkering down beside the victim, he held one finger to her nostrils. ‘Oh shitl She’s breathing!’ In a rare show of anger, Riker’s hands balled into fists, and he yelled at the younger man, ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ Unspoken were the words, You moron.

  Too much time had elapsed since the woman’s death. An inexperienced cop had just turned a perfectly good corpse into a useless vegetable.

  The chief medical examiner broke the silence of the hospital room with a dry pronouncement that ‘Human vivisection is illegal in all fifty states.’ Dr Edward Slope had the physical authority of a tall gray general. This impression persisted despite the tuxedo, a physician’s Gladstone bag and heavy sarcasm in the presence of a dying woman. The pale patient swaddled in bed-sheets took no offense. The involuntary movement of her eyes was mere illusion of awareness. ‘I say the autopsy can wait until she’s dead.’

  ‘That’s just a technicality,’ said Riker. ‘She used to be dead.’ And all the detective needed was a superficial exam by this man, whose word was never questioned in court.

  ‘She’ll die again soon enough.’ The medical examiner held up a clipboard and read the patient’s chart. ‘Her attending physician has a note here, „Do not resuscitate.“ She’s brain-dead. Give her another ten hours without life support. That’ll kill her.’ He turned to the bald man beside Riker. ‘Loman, bring the body to my dissection room in the morning. But first – check for a pulse.’

  Lieutenant Loman seemed close to death himself. A virus epidemic in the East Village precinct had short-staffed his squad, and the longer duty hours were showing in his bloodshot eyes and pasty flesh. ‘Not my case, Doc’ Loman clapped one hand on Sergeant Riker’s shoulder. ‘It’s his body now.’

  ‘No way!’ said Mallory. And now, for Loman’s benefit, she glared at the patient, clearly estimating the value of a comatose hooker as being right up there with a dead cat.

  ‘It’s your case, kid.’ The lieutenant’s voice was still in that cautionary zone of rumbling thunder. ‘A deal is a deal. Sparrow was Riker’s snitch. He wants the body.’

  Mallory gave Riker the squad’s camera, as if she might need two free hands to finish this fight. She turned to face Loman. ‘So a John strings up his hooker. That’s not a case for Special Crimes, and you know it.’ As an afterthought, she remembered to say, ‘Sir,’ then promptly abandoned the protocol for speaking with command officers. ‘Palm it off on the cops in Arson.’

  ‘The guy’s a freaking psycho!' Lieutenant Loman moved away from the bed and advanced on Mallory, yelling, ‘Jesus Christ! Look at what he did to her!’

  What remained of the victim’s hair was a fright wig of wild spikes, and saliva dribbled from her lips. Adding to this portrait of dementia, her eyes rolled back and forth like shooting marbles.

  Riker drew the curtains around the bed, closeting himself with the patient and the medical examiner. ‘Just a quick look, okay?’

  ‘No,’ said Dr Slope. ‘Tie a note to one of her toes so I’ll know who won the body. I’m late for a dinner party.’

  Beyond the flimsy curtain, a fast, light rapping on the door escalated to two-fisted banging, then stopped abruptly. Riker could hear muffled words of argument from the guard he had posted in the hall. When the banging resumed, Mallory raised her voice to be heard above the racket. She was telling Lieutenant Loman, thanks anyway, but he could keep the dying whore. To his credit, the man never pulled rank on her when he went ballistic, shouting that he was understaffed, that his men were stacking up corpses in a heat wave when tempers were exploding and homicide rates soared.

  August was a busy season for cops and killers.

  Dr Slope had formed a shrewd guess about the incessant banging on the door. His wry smile said, Gotcha. ‘The attending physician wouldn’t allow his patient to be stripped for an audience of cops. Am I right?’ He stared at the camera in Riker’s hand, as if he suspected the detective of being a closet pornographer.

  ‘The doctor’s a kid, an intern,’ said Riker. ‘Even if he did the exam – what good is his testimony in court?’

  The door-banging was louder now, accompanied by shouts of ‘Let me in, you bastards!'

  Dr Slope dropped his smile. ‘And that would be our earnest young doctor trying to get to his patient. Any idea how many laws you’re breaking tonight?’

  ‘Well, yeah – I’m a cop.’

  Riker heard the door open. Mallory was speaking to the young doctor in the hallway, saying, ‘This is a hospital. Keep the noise down.’ The door slammed, and her bargaining with Lieutenant Loman resumed. ‘I’ve got my own problems with manpower,’ she said. ‘I’d need at least three of your men to make it worth my while.’

  ‘You’re nuts! NutsF The lieutenant’s voice was cracking. If Mallory had not been Markowitz’s daughter, he would have slammed her into the wall by now.

  Behind the thin protection of the curtain, Riker lowered his voice to plead with the chief medical examiner. ‘Just five minutes? A fast exam, a few samples for – ’

  ‘Not a chance.’ Slope turned in the direction of the banging. ‘You have to let that doctor in.’

  ‘Why? What can he do for her now? He’ll stop the – ’

  ‘If this woman has family, you’re leaving the city open for a lawsuit. So we’ll go by the book.’

  As Slope reached for the curtain, Mallory ripped it aside. Behind her, the door was closing on the East Side lieutenant. As a parting gift, Loman must have released his pent-up aggression on the doctor in the hall, for the banging had ceased.

  ‘I made Loman give us two detectives for grunt work.’ Mallory turned to face Dr Slope. ‘Dead or alive, we need the exam. Now.’

  The chief medical examiner was a man who gave orders, and he was not about to take this from her. All of that was in his voice when he said, ‘The victim will be dead by morning. This can wait.’

  Riker braced for a new round of hostilities, but Mallory surprised him. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘A cover-up is better.’ And now she had the pathologist’s complete attention.

  Dr Slope folded his arms, saying, ‘What do you – ’

  ‘A lot of mistakes were made tonight,’ said Mallory. ‘No one called an ambulance. A rookie fireman decided the victim was dead. Maybe because she didn’t blink – who knows? He used to be a cop, so he preserved the crime scene.’ She pointed to the hospital bed. ‘And he left that woman hanging.’

  Her foster father had been Edward Slope’s oldest friend and the founder of his weekly floating poker game. The doctor had known Mallory in her puppy days, loved her unconditionally, and knew better than to trust her. He turned to her partner for confirmation of this highly unlikely scenario.

  ‘It happened,’ said Riker. ‘It’s the East Village virus. No senior men were riding on that fire truck tonight.’

  Mallory all but yawned to show how little this case mattered to her. ‘So Loman’s detectives go along with a call of homicide – by a fir
eman. And then your man, a doctor – the only one authorized to operate a damn stethoscope – he confirmed the death.’

  ‘If he confirmed it – ’

  ‘I hear things,’ she said. ‘I know all about the corpse that woke up in your morgue last month – another victim who wasn’t quite dead. Was your assistant on that case too?’

  ‘I’m sure this woman was dead at the time – ’

  ‘You’ll never be sure.’ She stepped back to appraise his tuxedo, then reached out to run one red fingernail down a satin lapel. ‘But what the hell. It’s a party night.’ This was one of Mallory’s more subtle insults: the fireman, the police and Slope’s own assistant had all done their part to turn a woman’s brain into coma soup – but why should that spoil the doctor’s fun? ‘No great loss.’ Mallory glanced back at the door, then lowered her voice to the range of conspiracy. ‘She’s just a whore. We’ll let the nurses wash the body and destroy the evidence. No one will ever know what happened tonight.’

  She turned her back on an outraged Edward Slope, and this was Riker’s cue to step forward and soften the damage, saying, ‘I need this exam. It’s gotta be now.’ And last, the finishing touch, he saved the doctor’s face with a bribe. ‘You’ll get a police escort to the party. Traffic’s murder tonight.’

  ‘You’ve won my heart.’ Dr Slope set his medical bag on the bed, then turned to Mallory. ‘Kathy, take notes.’ This was the doctor’s idea of getting even, for she always insisted on the distancing formality of her surname. He smiled, so pleased by her irritation, as he pulled on latex gloves.

  ‘No makeup.’ Riker leaned over the bed to take the first photograph. ‘Looks like Sparrow was in for the night. So the perp wasn’t some John she picked up on the street. Any sign of drugs?’

  Dr Slope examined the woman’s eyes, then the fingernails. ‘Nothing obvious.’ There was no bruising on her arms, nor any fresh puncture wounds. He clicked on a penlight and examined the nasal passages, then pulled an empty syringe from his bag. ‘She’s not snorting it, but I’ll get a blood work-up.’

  When the sheets had been pulled away and the hospital gown untied, an old stab wound was exposed on Sparrow’s left side. ‘Looks like a knife was twisted to widen the cut – sheer cruelty.’ Dr Slope was impressed. ‘I gather this isn’t the first time someone tried to kill her.’

  Through the camera’s viewfinder, Riker watched the other man’s gloved fingers explore the scar. ‘It happened a long time ago.’

  ‘A street fight?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’ Riker knew Mallory could give exact details of that fight, but she was continuing the long silence of Kathy the child. ‘Sparrow was real good with a knife.’

  ‘In that case, I’d hate to see the damage to her opponent.’ The pathologist looked up. ‘Or perhaps I did – on the autopsy table?’

  Riker merely shrugged, for he disliked the idea of lying to this man. ‘It wasn’t my case.’ And that was the truth. He turned the camera on Sparrow’s face. Even after seeing proof of her identity, it had taken him a while to recognize those naked blue eyes undisguised by mascara and purple shadow. Two years ago, the prostitute’s hair had been bleached to straw. Tonight, what was left of it was a more natural shade of blond. And there had been other changes since he had last seen this woman.

  Awe, Sparrow, what did you do to that wonderful shnoze?

  Once, her broken nose had been a dangerous-looking piece of damage in the middle of her pretty face, hanging there like a dare. Now the nose was remade, and all that remained of her character was a slightly prominent chin that stuck out to say, Oh, yeah? the bad-attitude line of a true New Yorker.

  At their last meeting, Sparrow had been in her early thirties. The street life of drugs and whoring had aged her by another twenty years, but now she seemed brand-new again – so young. ‘She had a facelift, right?’

  ‘Rhinoplasty too,’ said Slope, ‘and dermabrasion. Her last surgery was a brow lift. There’s still some post-op swelling. Nice work – expensive. I gather she was a pricey call girl.’

  ‘No, nothin’ that grand.’ Sparrow had never been more than a cheap hustler with an accidental gift for making him laugh. When she was a skinny teenager, Riker had turned her into an informant.

  You were soaking wet that night, too stoned to come in from the rain.

  She had strutted up and down the sidewalk, shaking her fists at skyscrapers and hollering, praying, ‘God! Give me a lousy break!’ All of Sparrow’s deities lived in penthouses, and she had truly believed that manna would fall from heaven on the high floors – if she could only get the gods’ attention.

  But you never did.

  Over the years, she had peddled her body to pay for heroin, always vowing to kick the habit tomorrow – and tomorrow. Lies. Yet Riker remained her most ardent sucker. He gently touched a short strand of her butchered hair. ‘What did the perp use on her? Scissors or a razor?’

  The pathologist shrugged. ‘Haircuts are not my area.’

  ‘It was a razor,’ said Mallory, who paid hundreds of dollars for her own salon expertise.

  Riker imagined the weapon slashing Sparrow’s hair, her eyes getting wider, awaiting worse mutilation as the razor moved close to her face – her brand-new face – stringing out the tension until she lost her mind.

  Mallory moved closer to the bed. ‘What about that mark on her arm? That looks like a razor, too.’

  ‘It might be,’ Slope corrected her. ‘So be careful with your notes, young lady. I will read every word before I sign them.’ He bent low for a better look at the long, thin scab on Sparrow’s arm. ‘This is days old – not a defensive wound.’ He consulted the patient chart. ‘Her doctor did a rape kit. No semen present. No sign of trauma to the genital area.’ He glanced at Mallory. ‘I can’t rule out sex with a condom and a compliant hooker. So don’t get creative.’ After rolling the nude woman on to her stomach, he examined the back of each knee, then checked her soles and the skin between her toes. There were no fresh punctures.

  Sparrow had beaten her addiction. She was clean again.

  And young again – starting over.

  Where were you going with your new face?

  After reviewing the notes, Edward Slope signed them, thus completing his own hostage negotiation, and Mallory opened the door to set him free. He backed up quickly, making way for a man in the short white coat of a hospital intern. The young doctor crashed into the room with a jangling, rolling cart full of metal and glass equipment and a running nurse at his heels.

  Dr Slope stayed to watch the intern and nurse as they outfitted their patient with tubes and wires. ‘What’s the point of this if she – ’

  ‘She’s got brain activity.’ The intern tracked Sparrow’s rolling blue eyes with the beam of his penlight. ‘I never should’ve listened to the damn cops. They told me this woman was revived twenty minutes after death. That can’t be true.’ He turned on a startled Riker. ‘And you had no right to keep me out of here. Suppose she’d gone sour before I got her on life support?’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Edward Slope looked down at the smaller doctor, then held up a wallet with his formidable credentials. Satisfied that the younger man’s testicles had been neatly severed, he continued. ‘Your patient was never in any danger while I was here.’ He reached down to pick up the clipboard that dangled from a chain on the bed rail, then pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘I see a clear order not to resuscitate.’ He glanced at the intern’s name tag. ‘I assume this is your signature?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but that was before I saw the EKG results.’

  ‘Screwed up, didn’t you.’ This was not a question, but Slope’s opinion of inexcusable error.

  The intern had the look and the whine of a petulant boy. ‘I told the cop my patient needed life support.’

  ‘Nobody told me anything,’ said Riker. ‘I didn’t know.’

  „She knew!’ The young doctor whirled around to point an accusing finger, but Mallory was gone, and the door was sl
owly closing.

  Riker settled into a chair beside the bed. He was fifty-five years old, but feeling older, shaken and suddenly cold. Yet he managed to convince himself that no cop would leave herself so exposed to a charge of manslaughter by depraved indifference to human life -and that Mallory had not just tried to kill Sparrow.

  CHAPTER 2

  The high-pitched laughter of crime-scene tourists drifted in from the street, unhampered by a bedsheet draped over the broken window. The basement floor was no longer covered by water, but the air was hot and dank. Mallory removed her blazer and folded it over one arm as she moved about the room, taking in each detail.

  Beads of moisture trickled down the cheap metal cabinets of the kitchenette to make wet tracks through black fingerprint dust. A fold-out sofa made do for a bed, and wrought-iron lawn furniture passed for a dining room set. The wooden crucifix was the only wall decoration. Crime Scene Unit’s airtight metal canisters and plastic bags were stacked by the door, awaiting the van’s return.

  Though the work of collecting evidence was done, Riker kept his hands in his pockets to pacify Heller, a great bear of a man with slow brown eyes and rolled-up shirtsleeves. The forensic expert ran a blow-dryer over a small paper box and muttered, ‘Freaking clowns.’ This was his least colorful name for the firemen who had broken the window and hosed down his crime scene. ‘My crew didn’t find a camera to go with this film box. Maybe your perp took a snapshot for a souvenir.’

  A soggy cockroach was also drying out, perched on the edge of the sink and basking in the warmth of Heller’s floodlights, a bug’s idea of the Riviera. New York City roaches were not afraid of bright light. Nor did they fear fire, flood or cops with guns, and it would take more than all of that to kill them.

  ‘Well, this is all wrong.’ Riker stood beside the table, examining a plastic bag filled with dead insects. ‘Hey, Mallory. Ever see so many flies turn out for a body that wasn’t dead yet? There must be a thousand bugs here.’