Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  Below this photograph was a desk buried under papers and flanked by file cabinets. The most modern piece of office equipment was an early-generation fax machine. Cartons were piled on cheap metal storage shelves, and two large bulletin boards were littered with personal notes. The absence of a computer was no surprise to Mallory. This old man still lived in the century of the typewriter.

  ‘I don’t see why we can’t work out of my place.’ Geldorf pulled a large box from a shelf. ‘I’m all set up here.’

  ‘Coffey wants tight security,’ she lied. ‘And a downtown location is better.’

  ‘Tight security.’ Geldorf nodded. ‘Good idea.’

  The box bearing Natalie Homer’s name had been half full when he began to load in more papers. Cartons this size did not travel with Cold Case files. A thick folder should have been sufficient for reports and statements. ‘You’ve been working this murder for a while?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I never let go of a case I couldn’t close on the job,’ said Geldorf. ‘After I retired, I just kept collecting stuff, scraps and pieces. When I was ready to do more interviews, I’d check out the Cold Case file and make it official.’

  ‘So you only work your own cases?’

  ‘That’s right. You should’ve seen this room twelve years ago. So many cartons, you couldn’t move. You had to go out in the hall to change your mind.’ He waited for her to smile at his little joke – and he waited. Then, slowly, he turned around to face the shelves that were bare. ‘So, one by one, I’d close another Cold Case file, get rid of another box, another ghost. Now I’ve only got a few left.’ He lowered his head and focused on the task of packing his box. ‘When I was on the job, I only got days to work a murder. Now I got years.’ His smile was sheepish when he said, ‘I shouldn’t have told you. Now you know what a lousy detective I was. But I’m gonna make it right. I’ll close ‘em – every one.’ He dropped more papers into his carton, then folded the cardboard flaps. ‘I’m all yours now – full time.’

  ‘And I appreciate that.’ She had already laid plans to keep him out of her way. The baby-sitting detail would be split between Charles Butler and Lieutenant Loman’s whiteshield, also known as Duck Boy.

  She donned her sunglasses, then turned around for a sidelong look at the mirror and Geldorfs reflection. She had been wrong about the peacock trait. All the posturing arrogance fell away when he believed that he was unobserved. It must have been a great strain to keep up that facade. The old man in the looking-glass room shrank and sagged, and his eyes were full of worry. He must see every young cop as a potential threat to his dignity. Good.

  Keeping him in line would be no problem. Geldorf sealed the box flaps with tape. ‘So now you’ll wanna talk to everybody who saw my crime scene.’ He glanced in her direction. ‘You’re wondering how your perp found out about the hair in Natalie’s mouth.’

  Mallory turned around to smile at him. Crafty old man. ‘You knew it wasn’t a serial killing.’

  ‘Couldn’t be.’ His sly grin explained everything: He had simply wanted to come back to the job – to come in from the cold of his old age. ‘My prime suspect died nineteen years ago.’

  She almost liked him. With only an exchange of nods and knowing glances, mutual admissions of lies were made and vows of silence taken. They were allies now, and neither of them would give the other away.

  ‘At best, what you got is a copycat.’ He lifted the heavy box in his arms, and she showed him respect by not offering to help with the load. Geldorf walked behind her, saying, ‘When I find out where your perp got his information, maybe I can close out Natalie’s case. Oh, yeah, I think we can help each other.’

  You can dream, old man.

  She had no intention of working Natalie Homer’s homicide. The trail was twenty years old and a cold one. She opened the door for Geldorf, then took his proffered keys and locked it.

  ‘The link is in the details.’ He struggled with the bulky carton as they walked toward the elevator. ‘I had complete control over my crime scene. No leaks to the media. You know how I pulled that off? I told a uniform to take bribes from the reporters. Well, this kid gets twenty bucks a piece from those bastards, then tells ‘em he found the woman swingin’ from a rope.’

  ‘So they figured it was a suicide.’ Mallory approved. It was always wise to tell the truth when you lied. ‘And Natalie Homer got lost on page ten.’

  ‘And just one newspaper, a couple of lousy paragraphs.’ He set down the box and pushed a button to call for the elevator. ‘So now you’ll wanna rule out the possible leaks. Lucky I saved my old case notes.’

  Yeah, right.

  ‘You can handle those interviews,’ said Mallory. ‘I got you an assistant to go along as your badge.’ Then she would be rid of Geldorf and Duck Boy.

  ‘What about the big guy? Butler? Was that his name?’ Geldorf pulled out a card given to him an hour ago at the offices of Butler and Company.

  ‘Doctor Butler,’ said Mallory, though Charles had never used that title. ‘He’s a consulting psychologist with NYPD.’ Fortunately, there was no useful information on the business card to contradict that lie. ‘He’ll be working closely with you.’

  Charles Butler wore a suit and tie, for this was a workday. Many thanks to Riker’s intervention, the tedium of a summer hiatus was finally at an end. He passed through the reception area of Queen Anne furniture and Watteau watercolors, then strolled down a short hall, leaving behind centuries of antique decor that separated the other rooms from Mallory’s domain of electronics, of plastic and metal and wire. Her private office at the rear of Butler and Company had some charming features. However, the tall arched windows were hidden behind cold steel blinds, and a plain gray rug strove to disguise the hardwood floor as concrete.

  Her three computers sat atop workstations perfectly aligned at the center of the room, and all the monitors were lit. Square blue cyclops eyes focused upon the intruder, and Charles recalled his old dream of kicking in the glass and blinding the little bastards.

  The free space of three walls was devoted to gray metal shelving units stocked with manuals lined up precisely one inch from the edge and software components keeping company with hardware. Mallory had refused his offer of paintings, preferring not to clutter the giant bulletin board that covered her fourth wall from baseboard to ceiling molding.

  Sergeant Riker was still at work pinning photographs and papers to the cork surface. The detective had given Charles a new project, a present, actually two gifts: a twenty-year-old murder and a seventy-five-year-old man.

  ‘When will they be back?’

  ‘Half an hour, give or take.’ Riker sifted through the contents of a leather pouch and selected more papers. Handwritten notes and typed statements had been arranged on the wall in no particular order.

  ‘All this to pacify Mr Geldorf?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘Think it might keep you busy for a while?’

  ‘Absolutely, and thank you.’ Charles was wondering how to broach another subject without seeming ungrateful. He decided that oblique angles were best. ‘After Louis died, did Mallory keep any of those old westerns?’

  ‘No!’ Riker dropped the pouch on the floor, then bent down to retrieve it.

  ‘What a pity.’ Charles faced the wall and studied a diagram of the murder victim’s apartment. ‘I wanted to read the books, maybe figure out what Louis saw in them. I suppose I can track down other copies, but that – ’

  ‘No, you can’t.’ Riker turned his back on Charles to pin up the full-color photograph of a gutted woman on a dissection table. ‘You can’t get ‘em anymore. Just cheap paperbacks. Nothing you’d find on a library shelf. ‘That’s what John Warwick said – almost the same words.’

  Riker spread one hand flat on the cork and slowly leaned into the wall. He bowed his head, perhaps bracing for the accusations, a litany of deceits, years of lies, his own and Louis’s.

  If that were true, he would wait forever.

  Charles sat down at
the edge of Mallory’s steel desk. He waited patiently until Riker turned round to face him, and then he smiled for the man. His inadvertently foolish expression had the same relaxing effect on the detective as it had had on John Warwick. ‘Perhaps you could just tell me what happened in the next book?’

  ‘Yeah, give me a second.’ Riker settled into a metal folding chair and remembered to exhale. He was obviously relieved, perhaps assuming that nothing more had transpired between John Warwick and a disappointed customer. ‘It’s been a while. You remember the plot of the first book?’

  Charles nodded. ‘A fifteen-year-old boy shot a man in the street.’

  ‘An unarmed man. In the next book, you find out that cowboy had a gun after all, and it was a fair fight.’ Riker turned his head for one furtive glance at the office door. Assured that they were alone, he continued, ‘The kid took the other guy’s six-shooter ‘cause it was better than his old rusty one. But the sheriff never saw that second gun. The kid had it stashed in his belt before Peety got to the crime scene.’

  Subsequently, Charles learned that the lawman had remained unaware of this exculpatory evidence – while the boy was growing into premature manhood as a fugitive.

  ‘Now they’re a year older,’ said Riker, ‘Sheriff Peety and the kid.’ And it was miles too late for the boy to clear his name. ‘Wichita won another gunfight and killed another man.’

  Riker glanced at the door again, knowing that he would never hear Mallory coming up behind him. She was that quiet. He turned back to Charles and his story. ‘The kid’s name is no joke anymore. He’s a bona fide gunslinger, a real outlaw. At the end of the first book, the sheriff runs him right off the rim of a canyon, a three-hundred-foot drop. The kid was still in the saddle at the time. Down he goes, horse and all.’

  ‘But he survived.’

  ‘Yeah, the horse too. When the next book opens, the kid lands in the river, and the fall knocks him out. He gets washed ashore beside his half-dead horse. An Indian girl finds him and drags him back to her village. She’s his age, just sixteen. On the last page, the sheriffs chasin’ Wichita again, and the girl buys the kid some time. She throws herself under the sheriffs galloping horse.’ He splayed his hands to say, You see how it works? He tossed the leather pouch to Charles. ‘You and Geldorf can finish setting up the wall, okay? Play detective. Knock yourself out.’

  Charles’s smile was brief, merely polite this time. The detective had made an interesting point, but the aspect of cliffhanger suspense did not explain why anyone would bother to read the novels twice. And young Kathy Mallory had read them again and again. Why?

  The bookseller’s theory of a child needing comfort from a fictional world would not hold up. Charles glanced at the surrounding shelves of dry technical journals and reference books. Mallory never read fiction. Louis Markowitz had once told him what a fight it had been to instill a sense of make-believe in his foster daughter, and ultimately he had lost that battle. To Louis’s sorrow, she had remained a hardened realist throughout her childhood.

  And though she had displayed an early penchant for cowboy movies, he had surmised long ago that it was largely for the companionship of Louis that the little girl had indulged the man in Saturday mornings of gunfights and cavalry charges. From what Charles knew of the early warfare between foster father and daughter, young Kathy would rather have died than admit to this need for his company. For all the years that man and child had known one another and loved one another, she had kept Louis at a distance, never addressing him in any form but Hey Cop and Markowitz.

  Charles wondered if Kathy Mallory regretted that now. He thought she might.

  Lieutenant Coffey and Detective Janos looked up when Duck Boy appeared in the doorway and hovered there in respectful silence, waiting to be noticed.

  Coffey motioned him into the room. ‘Yeah, kid, what is it?’

  ‘Sir, I finished all my paperwork.’ He held a thick sheaf of papers in his hand.

  ‘If that’s the report on the warehouse – ’

  ‘No, sir. It’s something Sergeant Riker requested, but I can’t find him. Do you want it? Does anybody want it?’

  The lieutenant accepted the report, briefly noted Duck Boy’s other name on the first page, then dumped it into his out-basket at the edge of the desk. ‘Deluthe, you did good work today. But the paperwork goes to Riker and Mallory from now on.’ He turned to Janos. ‘Did they give you an address?’ What his tone implied was clear: J don’t want to know where they are.

  And now his detective was writing in his notebook, saying to Deluthe, ‘This is where you can find them.’

  The younger man nodded and stared at the basket with his discarded report. ‘So you’d rather have them not read it?’

  Jack Coffey leaned back in his chair and smiled. There was a brain at work here. At least, the boy had the makings of a smart mouth. And the rookie detective had earned a fair hearing. ‘Okay, sit down.’

  Ronald Deluthe settled into a chair next to Janos.

  ‘You can report to me,’ said Coffey. ‘But I only want the gist of it, okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I spoke to the mobile news crew. The other night, they were in the area following up on a lead. That’s why they got to the crime scene ahead of the fire engines. They were just cruising up and down – ’

  Damn, a speechmaker. ‘What was their lead?’

  ‘Well, this guy phoned in a tip an hour before the prostitute was hung. The news show has a public line called Cashtip. But that wasn’t the first call they taped. The – ’

  Janos leaned forward. ‘The station taped these calls? The news director only gave Mallory video. Bastards. So they were holding out on us.’ He slapped the trainee on the back. ‘That was real nice work, kid.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Deluthe continued his dry recital of facts. ‘They had another tip for a homicide a few blocks from the crime scene, but that one was last week, and it didn’t pan out.’

  ‘So let’s get past that,’ said Coffey.

  ‘Yes, sir. So the same guy calls back to tip them on Sparrow’s murder. This time, he didn’t give a name or address. He just told them to look for the smoke. Well, they didn’t plan to send out their mobile unit. This guy burned them once before. But then, it turned out to be a slow news day, and they decided – ’ And now Deluthe must have sensed that interest was waning. His voice trailed off as he said, ‘Well, I guess that’s the gist.’

  Janos put one meaty hand on Deluthe’s arm. ‘Back up, kid. What about the first tip – the murder that didn’t pan out?’

  ‘That was five or six days ago. The tipster gave them a name and specific location. But when the news van got to Ms Harper’s building, the neighbors told them she was in Bermuda. Then the reporters went to the local police station, and a desk sergeant told them the same thing. He said Ms Harper had gone to – ’

  ‘Hold it.’ Coffey retrieved the report from his basket. ‘How did a cop know where she was? Did this woman ever file a complaint?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I only spoke to the television people.’

  Detective Janos was shaking his head. ‘You never mentioned this to Mallory or Riker?’

  ‘It was in my report, but I – ’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’Janos moved around behind the desk and scanned the pages, reading over the lieutenant’s shoulder. ‘The address is there. I’ll get a warrant on Harper’s apartment. It’s worth a look. Maybe Mallory was right about the perp going serial.’

  Jack Coffey pretended not to hear that. He smiled at Deluthe. ‘Good work. Damn good work. So you got the perp’s voice on tape?’

  ‘No, sir. I asked the news director for a copy, but he said that would compromise the integrity of his – ’

  ‘Janos!’

  ‘Yeah, boss.’

  ‘Go get that tape!’

  Charles stared at the old photographs taken after the body was cut down. Among Natalie Homer’s few shabby possessions, all that was hopeful were the potholders, each one decked with a
red bud, the promise of a rose. He had come to think of this woman, twenty years dead, in a possessive way, for Riker and Mallory showed so little interest in her. And he had developed a bond with Lars Geldorf, the lady’s only champion.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’ The retired detective paced the length of the cork wall with the attitude of an inspector general.

  ‘It’s a homage to an old friend,’ said Charles Butler. ‘Did you know the first commander of Special Crimes Unit?’

  ‘Lou Markowitz?’ said Geldorf. ‘Oh, yeah, I met him once. He was on my crime scene – just stopped by to talk to my partner. Great cop. It was a goddamn pleasure to shake his hand.’ He turned back to the mess on the wall. ‘Sorry, you were saying?’

  ‘Well, Louis’s office used to have a cork wall like this one. It took me a while to figure out his logic. You see, it emerged as he shuffled things around every day.’ Charles pointed to one cluster of papers held by a single tack. ‘The top layers have pertinent information that overrides what’s underneath. You can see the progression of the case at a glance. No time wasted on bad leads and insignificant data. And there’s relevance in the juxtaposition. Oh, and prioritizing. The least relevant items are on the outer edges.’

  ‘Not bad, Dr Butler. Not bad at all.’

  ‘Call me Charles.’ He was entitled to a doctor’s credential, in fact several of them, but his background in abnormal psychology only served as an adjunct to client evaluations. Perhaps a practicing psychologist would have predicted Mallory’s reaction.

  He heard no footsteps behind him, and only turned around because of Riker’s comment from the doorway, a soft ‘Jesus Christ.’ The words were outside of Geldorfs hearing range. The old man kept his eyes on the cork, and Charles kept watch over Mallory. How long had she been standing there in the center of the room? She took no notice of him, and the moment was almost like stealing, for he was free to stare at her, unafraid that his tell-all face would say foolish things.