Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  Just like Sparrow – a pattern.

  A few minutes with this medical examiner was worth ten hours with any psychiatrist, for most witch doctors were light years removed from the carnage of murder. She turned her back on Slope and crossed the room to the steel table and the body of Kennedy Harper all sewn up with crude stitches – a Frankenstein scar. Mallory was striving for the sound of boredom when she asked, ‘What else can you tell me? Anything useful?’

  The doctor’s poker discipline was shot to hell. His face was now an easy read, waffling between surprise and indignation. He marched up to the table and confronted her across the body, firing off another contradiction. ‘I’d say your man’s not the violent type. That may seem a bit odd – ’

  ‘Odd?’

  ‘All right, Kathy – it’s insane. But he didn’t go off on either of the women. He didn’t beat them or – ’

  ‘He cut off their damn hair.’

  ‘But no cuts to the flesh, no fractures from a fist. And the other one, Sparrow – she didn’t have a single defensive bruise. I’ve seen every unspeakable act a man can commit on a woman’s body.’ The doctor looked down at the corpse laid out on the table, the woman he so admired. ‘But I don’t see that kind of violence here – no loss of control, no rage.’

  This did not square with a note staked to the neck of a living woman, and she was about to tell him that when he held up one hand to forestall any more arguments.

  ‘I’m out of my depth,’ he said. ‘This man didn’t care if the women lived or died. He’s a walking paradox – a serial killer who’s not all that interested in killing.’

  The murder of Kennedy Harper had taken over an entire wall of the Special Crimes incident room. Mallory posted the autopsy pictures next to Heller’s crime-scene diagrams. Sparrow also had a wall to herself. The throwaway whore had become a priority case.

  Rows of metal folding chairs were filling up with detectives. Four men gathered around the audio equipment and listened to the Cashtip recording of the killer’s voice, playing again and again, unwilling to believe that it did not offer more. The volume was turned up each time they heard the ambient sound.

  Pssst.

  One man timed it by the second hand on his watch. Mallory used a natural clock, a quirk of the brain that told her this sound occurred every twenty seconds. It reminded her of Helen Markowitz’s spray starch on ironing day.

  She walked to the hangman’s wall and stared at a photograph of the back of a man’s head. The image, crowned with a baseball cap and encircled with dead flies, was as worthless as the lame description of T-shirt and jeans played out in the clothing pinned to the cork.

  Pssst.

  Janos stood beside her. ‘So what do you think of our scarecrow?’

  ‘Is that what we’re calling him now?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He turned to look around the room. ‘Hey, what happened to your partner?’

  ‘He’ll be back.’ She had kept track of all the passing minutes since Riker had slipped out of the room. After the ambush in front of Peg Baily’s bar, he would not miss an opportunity for a drink today. Each up-close encounter with his ex-wife was a prelude to a binge. Her internal timepiece had moved well past his three-minute walk to a nearby watering hole.

  Pssst.

  Riker would down his bourbon in no time. Mallory allowed extra minutes for his return trip. He would not walk back here with the same urgent speed. She factored in another minute so he could trade insults with the desk sergeant before climbing the stairs and ambling down the hall to the incident room.

  Mallory turned her face to the door, and her partner appeared.

  Pssst.

  She saw nothing amiss. Riker prided himself on never stumbling in the daylight hours. There were no new spills on his suit, nothing more recent than his interview with Daisy, and that splash of bourbon had dried long ago. He sat on the chair next to hers and peeled the wrapper from a roll of mints. ‘Did I miss anything?’

  ‘No. We’re still waiting to hear from Tech Support.’

  Pssst.

  The detectives around the tape player walked away from the machine, allowing the recording to play out at full volume, and still the suspect’s voice was subdued.

  ‘ – a woman has been murdered in the East Village – ’

  It was an empty monotone, lacking the bravado of a man on a quest for fame, and one more motive died.

  ‘ – name is Kennedy Harper – ’

  The mechanical tone almost qualified as a speech impediment, or that was the excuse offered by technicians at One Police Plaza. They had not yet fixed the suspect’s home state.

  ‘ – you can find the body at – ’

  This man, so adept at theatrical staging, was so bland in his recital of bare facts – a death, a name, an address.

  Pssst.

  Mallory was fleshing out the portrait of a killer whose emotions were dead, not the type for a thrill kill. He was a tidy man, well organized. A man with a plan? She stared at the scarecrow on the back wall. What the hell do you want?

  ‘We got it!’ Janos hovered in front of a computer monitor and read the pertinent details as he scrolled down the screen, ‘The scarecrow is from the Midwest. They’re still trying to nail down the state. The techs say he wasn’t calling from a cell phone or a pay-phone. And the ambient sound might be from an early-model humidifier or an automatic plant mister.’

  Jack Coffey entered the room and shut off the tape player. ‘Listen up!’ All conversation stopped and every pair of eyes turned his way. ‘Riker’s witness, Miss Emelda, is worth her weight in gold. Our perp was the old lady’s man in the tree – the guy with a Polaroid camera.’

  He held up two plastic bags, each containing a small box with a Polaroid logo. ‘These film cartons were left at both crime scenes, and they weren’t left by accident.’ He held one higher than the other. ‘And the box we found today has a twenty-year-old expiration date.’ He tossed the bags on the table. ‘Kennedy Harper died six days ago – that’s official. Six days and twenty years ago, another hanging victim was found.’

  The lieutenant turned to face Mallory. ‘It was an anniversary kill. And now we have a solid connection to the Cold Case file.’ He pointed to Janos. ‘You’re the primary on Kennedy’s case. And, Desoto, you got Sparrow.’

  Mallory watched Riker’s face go gray. His eyes were all the way open now, and his head was shaking from side to side, silently saying, This can’t be. How could he lose Sparrow’s case to another detective? He was rising from his chair when she caught his sleeve and pulled him down.

  ‘If we can’t get Sparrow back, we’ll work her case on the side.’

  Was he hearing her? Yes, he was nodding.

  Jack Coffey had finished handing out assignments to the others, and now he stood before Mallory and Riker. ‘You guys are working the Cold Case file. We got a copycat, and I wanna know where he got his information.’ The lieutenant paused, correctly reading Mallory’s expression of ennui. ‘You’re not baby-sitting Geldorf. Use that old man. Just keep him the hell out of Special Crimes.’

  Lars Geldorf was hoarse from explaining and explaining, then shouting in exasperation. His opponent was a small, wiry woman with dark Spanish eyes, a deeply suspicious nature and a mission to clean Manhattan. She pulled a mop from her rolling cart of cleaning supplies and said, once more, ‘I’m gonna do Mallory’s office now.’ Nothing would stop the intrepid Mrs Ortega, certainly not this old man – gun or no gun.

  The retired detective informed her that this room could not be cleaned until his case was wrapped. He distrusted all civilians, and she should understand that it was nothing personal. Charles intervened, suggesting that, since it was so late in the day, Mrs Ortega could skip this room. The cleaning woman countered with ‘Mallory’s orders, not yours.’ And eventually, the matter was settled.

  Mrs Ortega ruled.

  But Geldorf was adamant that Charles remain in the room until ‘that – that woman was done. Then, with great digni
ty, he left the office with his relief watcher, a young detective with unnatural bright yellow hair.

  After the door slammed behind them, Mrs Ortega plugged in her vacuum, then shook her head, saying, ‘Damn, that baby cop’s got one bad bleach job.’

  Charles nodded. ‘It’s interesting, though. Perhaps he’s making some kind of statement.’

  ‘Yeah, like – look at me, my head glows in the dark.’

  ‘Exactly what I was thinking.’ Charles turned his attention to the cork wall. Where should the giant cockroaches go? Well, the only place for them was underneath the maggots. Where else?

  The carpet was spotless when Riker strolled in. He nodded his hello to Charles, then flashed a big smile for the cleaning woman. ‘Hey, how’ve you been?’ He was genuinely happy to see her, though she used him for verbal sniper practice each time they met.

  She glared at a spot on Riker’s suit, singling it out from all the other stains, then stopped her work to clean him with a bottle of solvent and a cloth, as if he were any other object in her path. ‘Next time you drink crummy bourbon for lunch, mop it up.’

  Charles’s nose was larger, but Mrs Ortega’s was truly gifted. However, she was not an olfactory savant. She had not identified the alcohol by scent, nor discerned that it was stale, not fresh, and neither had she found the bouquet a bit wanting – a lesser brand. This was only a parlor trick. Cheap bourbon was Riker’s habitual choice, and the spill might reek, but it was dry, suggesting a drink earlier in the day. After erasing the evidence of his on-duty imbibing, she went back to dusting the shelves and muttered, ‘My tax dollars at work.’

  ‘Mallory’s on the way,’ Riker said to her back. ‘You got fifteen minutes.’ The detective also knew her soft spots, and now Mrs Ortega’s duster doubled its speed. She would not want Mallory to walk in while there was still a dust mote at large.

  ‘You never finished the story,’ said Charles. ‘What happened to that Indian girl after she – ’

  The man shook his head to say, Not now, then quickly glanced at the cleaning woman. When Mrs Ortega had packed up her cart and gone home, Riker was still uneasy as he continued the unfinished tale. ‘The Wichita Kid got away. When the next book opens, you find out the Indian girl is dead.’ He sagged back against the wall, and his face turned toward the open door.

  Keeping an eye out for Mallory?

  Yes, and he was also telegraphing the terrible importance of the books, which had nothing to do with plots and everything to do with a recent murder and a child who loved westerns.

  ‘Sheriff Peety’s horse crushed the girl’s skull,’ said Riker. ‘So he broke off the chase and carried the body back to her village. Wichita never found out that the girl died to save him. He just went on loving her for the rest of the book.’ The detective was about to say more when something caught his eye, a folded newspaper on the desk. His left shoe began to tap in a steady rhythm, though he was not given to nervous mannerisms.

  The newspaper belonged to Charles. He had finished the detailed account of a hanged prostitute and noted the similarities to Natalie Homer’s murder. However, the most startling lines described the crime-scene floor awash in water from a fire hose. Given the time of night and the degree of dampness in a paperback western called Homecoming, he now knew how the book had gotten wet. It was possible that the detective had innocently dropped it in the water, but the man’s uncharacteristic anxiety suggested that the truth was even more out of character than Riker telling lies and drinking on duty. Though Charles suspected the book had been stolen, all he would say to his friend was ‘Tell me how the story ends.’

  Riker’s eyes were on the door, and there was some strain in his voice when he said, ‘Sheriff Peety hears about another gunfight with the Wichita Kid – another man killed. He picks up the trail outside of El Paso, Texas. At the end of the book, the sheriffs riding into an ambush – forty-to-one odds. He knows what’s comin’. He knows he can’t win. But he keeps on riding.’

  ***

  The apartment had a formal dining room, but Charles preferred the casual warmth of the kitchen, where a Bach concerto played at the low volume of background music. He turned down the gas flame under a bubbling pan of red sauce for Sergeant Riker’s favorite meal. His dinner guests had not waited on ceremony. Riker and Mallory sat at the table demolishing salads of olives and purple onions, red lettuce and fettuccine, as if they had not eaten in days and days.

  Charles poured out a sample of cabernet sauvignon, then set the bottle on the table. ‘You’re going to love this.’ It was an old vintage, deep red and fine. He swirled the glass, and the bouquet summoned up the warm sun of France, country air and the scent of rich earth among the ripe grapes. He tasted it. Potent magic, a rare wine to stimulate the intellect and turn a stammering fool into a poet. He owned first editions of Blake that had cost him less, but this was truly a work of art that one could swallow.

  And Riker did. He slopped it into a glass and slugged it back in one long, thirsty gulp, neatly bypassing every taste bud.

  After a time, Charles closed his mouth and opened his eyes again. ‘Anyway,’ he said, turning back to the stove, ‘it was the best I could get on short notice.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ said Riker. Food had greatly improved the man’s mood, perhaps with a little help from the wine.

  ‘I’m glad you’re taking an interest in Lars Geldorf s case.’ Charles opened the oven and released the aroma of warm garlic bread. ‘He thought you were only humoring him.’ After setting the bread basket on the table, he watched them empty it by half before he could ladle spaghetti and meatballs into their bowls, and it was a race to pour the sauce before they picked up their forks. Now he worked between the movements of silverware to add the grated cheese. ‘Riker, what do you call that detective, the one with the yellow hair? He was here and gone so fast.’

  ‘The son-in-law of the deputy commissioner. That’s the kid’s full name.’

  ‘Ronald Deluthe,’ said Mallory.

  ‘Alias Duck Boy.’ Riker inhaled his spaghetti, then smiled at his host. ‘So, Charles, how was your day? Did the old guy give you any trouble?’

  ‘Not at all.’ He sat down at the table and salvaged what he could of the bread and the wine. ‘I like his stories.’ He turned to Mallory. ‘Did you know that your father visited Natalie Homer’s crime scene?’

  ‘I know.’ Mallory opened a small notebook to a page of Louis Markowitz’s handwriting, then pushed it toward him. ‘Take a look.’

  Charles recognized a few of the lines she had transcribed last night on her computer. He found it easy to break the simple shorthand code. ‘So Louis was in the room for only a few minutes.’

  Riker nodded. ‘That was after Geldorf removed the hair from the woman’s mouth. Lou didn’t know about that.’

  Charles read on for a few more lines. ‘He thought Natalie Homer was gagged with tape – not hair – but he doesn’t say why.’ And now he turned the pages faster, easily deciphering chains of sentence fragments. Apparently it was typical of Louis Markowitz to write down only the last words in a long passage of thoughts. ‘Lipstick.’ He turned to Mallory. ‘Maybe he saw a piece of tape with her lipstick on it? Of course that word is miles from the part about the gag.’

  ‘Cryptic bastard.’ Riker reached for a slice of garlic bread and dipped it into his spaghetti sauce. ‘He wrote in code so the lawyers couldn’t subpoena his personal notes. What about Geldorf s stuff? Have you seen all the photos – the reports?’

  ‘Not yet. Lars is bringing in another carton tomorrow.’

  Mallory’s fork hung in midair. ‘He was holding out on us?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it that way,’ said Charles. ‘He has a few things that didn’t qualify as evidence. Said he didn’t want to confuse the larger picture with minutiae.’ Or, in Geldorf s words, the small shit. ‘He has a few more photographs and notes.’

  ‘A carton of’em,’ said Riker.

  Charles looked from one detective to the other, then
realized that the short answer should have been, yes, Geldorf had been holding out on them. ‘Well, he probably didn’t think you’d care. But when he found out you were planning to work on the case – ’

  ‘Never mind.’ Mallory pushed her bowl aside. ‘What’ve you got so far? Anything unusual?’

  ‘A few discrepancies – one major problem.’

  Riker helped himself to a second bowl of spaghetti. ‘Did you point that out to Geldorf?’

  ‘No, I thought it might be rude.’

  ‘Good,’ said Riker. ‘Whatever you come up with, bring it to us, not him. Geldorf s not a cop anymore. He’s just visiting.’

  Mallory rested one hand on Charles’s arm, and it had the effect of a warm current of electricity. She so rarely touched anyone. ‘What’s the problem?’ she asked.

  Well, there was a flock of butterflies crashing about inside his chest cavity. That was a problem. And he was wondering how long this contact with her would last if he sat very, very still, if he never moved the arm beneath her hand, not by so much as a hair.

  Mallory leaned toward him – so close. ‘Charles, are you breathing?’

  ‘What?’

  She lifted her hand from his arm, realizing that he was not choking on his supper, and the man with total recall forgot the threads to their conversation. Heat was rising in his face, the prelude to a blush. Riker gave him the kindest of smiles, the one that said, You poor bastard.

  ‘The problem?’ said Mallory, impatient with him now.

  Oh, the lock on Natalie Homer’s door. ‘Sorry.’ Damned sorry. ‘According to the landlady’s statement, the odor in the hall was overwhelming, and she was desperate to get into Natalie’s apartment. The old woman had the key, but it wouldn’t open the door. You see, the lock had been changed or another one added -that part’s not clear.’

  The detectives exchanged long glances.

  ‘Natalie had security issues.’ Charles paused again as both of them turned to stare at him. ‘She was being stalked. Perhaps this is something you already know? I don’t want to – ’