Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  Riker nodded. ‘She got sick every winter.’

  ‘And then there’s the long-term damage of malnutrition and drugs. Given her history as a prostitute, the doctor thinks venereal disease might account for a dysfunctional kidney. So it isn’t just the coma – it’s a gang of complications.’ He rested one hand on the detective’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Riker stared at the woman on the hospital bed – his friend until she died. ‘Could she be in there? I mean – with a brain going on all cylinders?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Charles stared at a machine by the bed, watching the dip and spike of lines running across its screen. ‘Her present condition is best described as a dream state. In all likelihood, she’ll be dreaming when she dies. No pain, no fear. Does this help you?’

  ‘Yeah, it does. Thanks.’ Riker listened to her mechanical breathing and stared at the tubes running in and out of her body.

  ‘We should be leaving soon,’ said Charles. ‘I promised Mallory I’d get you to Brooklyn on time.’

  ‘Yeah – soon.’ The box of tissues on the nightstand was empty. Riker set the paperback novel on the bed, then searched all his pockets for a handkerchief.

  ‘I might have something to cheer you up,’ said Charles. ‘A lead on William Heart, the photographer who dropped his camera at Natalie’s crime scene. I called a gallery that – ’ He picked up the western and idly leafed through the pages. ‘Did you finish this yet?’

  ‘Never started it.’ Riker wiped away Sparrow’s drool.

  ‘I don’t blame you. The writing is terrible.’ Charles stared at the woman on the bed. ‘I imagine Mallory was a child when she met Sparrow – maybe ten? Younger than that?’

  Riker froze in the act of dabbing Sparrow’s lips. He wanted a drink so badly. He was damned if he lied or told the truth, and even his continuing silence said too much.

  Charles looked down at the book in his hand. ‘I managed to find a complete set of these westerns. I read them all last night.’

  The handkerchief dropped to the floor. Riker closed his eyes and hoped that his voice conveyed only weariness when he said, ‘Bet that took all of four minutes.’

  ‘Longer, I read them twice. And I still don’t understand why Kathy read them so many times.’

  These days, it was rare to hear Mallory’s first name said aloud. He knew Charles was speaking of Kathy the child he had never known. She had been all grown up when Lou Markowitz had introduced this man to his pretty daughter, the cop. On the day they met, Mallory had arrived at the SoHo cafe for a ritual breakfast with her foster father. Charles, normally a graceful man, had risen too quickly, knocking over his chair in a rush to play the gentleman. In another departure from grace, he had stared at her remarkable green eyes throughout the meal and smiled a foolish apology each time she looked his way. His every gesture, the food spilled in his lap and an overturned juice glass had said to her, I love you madly.

  ‘No accounting for her taste in reading,’ said Charles. He was still turning the pages of the last western. ‘Even at the age of ten, she would’ve been brighter than most adults.’

  Only the bookseller could have revealed the little girl’s obsession with westerns. Riker would never have believed that John Warwick, paranoia incarnate, would open up to a stranger. But how had Charles sussed out Kathy’s childhood relationship to Sparrow?

  ‘The paper seems to be holding up well.’ Charles fanned the pages of the book, testing his handiwork. ‘Have you made a decision yet? Do you plan to give this to Mallory? Or will you destroy it?’

  The detective settled into a chair beside the bed. His smile was one of resignation, and he was only half joking when he said, ‘You’re a dangerous man, Charles.’

  ‘Oh, I already burned my copies. Don’t let that worry you. They went into the fireplace last night. I suppose Louis did something similar while Kathy was still very young. He wouldn’t want evidence to tie his child to a little thief who loved westerns. I gather her early days were more – more colorful than I thought. So Louis destroyed all her books? All but the last one?’

  Riker only nodded. The less said, the less this man would have to work with. ‘I can’t tell you any more about the westerns.’

  ‘Especially the last one,’ said Charles. ‘Yes, I imagine you’re giving me deniability of a crime. Something like that?’

  Riker took a moment to digest these words. Was there anyone left who did not know that he had robbed a crime scene? That was the problem with spontaneous criminal acts, no planning, no time to cover tracks. And here he was still holding stolen goods. Any half-bright petty thief would have made a better job of it.

  ‘I guess I’ll never know what she saw in them.’ Charles looked down at the cover illustration of Sheriff Peety on a rearing stallion, two six-guns blazing fire, and the ricochet of sunlight from a golden badge. ‘Do you think she believed in heroes?’

  Riker shrugged. Lou Markowitz had once held the darker idea that Kathy had identified with all the cattle rustlers and the stagecoach robbers.

  A nurse entered the room to bathe the patient, and the two men took their leave. As they strolled down the corridor, Charles told the story of The Cabin at the Edge of the World, a book that Riker had never read. As they neared the parking lot, the Wichita Kid had been bitten by a mad wolf frothing at the mouth a century before the rabies vaccine was invented. When they reached the other end of the Brooklyn Bridge, the outlaw lay unconscious in a burning cabin surrounded by a mob of angry farmers with torches and pitchforks. A preacher was denouncing a witch, an old woman also trapped in the fire, and blaming her for the drought that was killing the crops.

  ‘No, don’t tell me,’ said Riker. ‘This con man, the preacher, he actually brings on the rain. That puts out the cabin fire and ends the drought. So now the farmers are real happy, and they decide not to kill the old lady. And then the preacher does another miracle and cures Wichita’s rabies.’

  ‘Not even close,’ said Charles. ‘When the next book opens, the Wichita Kid is still surrounded by flames. There’s no way out.’

  Riker knew a better escape yarn, a true one, but there was no one he could share it with now that Sparrow was dying. He had missed her company over these past two years, and now he was grieving for her, though she was not altogether gone.

  The Mercedes was approaching the Brooklyn Bridge when Charles asked, ‘How did Louis trace Kathy to Warwick’s Used Books?’

  Riker stared out the window ay the water. Shoot me – shoot me now. ‘We just got lucky one night.’

  He had a demoralizing old memory of running out of breath as he watched the child’s shoes skimming along the sidewalk, outdistancing him with no effort at all. She had laughed as she dusted off Lou Markowitz, a man with fifty pounds of excess weight. Poor Lou had been wheezing when he caught up to Riker, who was hugging a lamppost, convinced that his heart had stopped.

  ‘Then we spotted the kid in Warwick’s window.’ He recalled the baby thief leaning one small hand on a bookshelf as she nonchalantly perused her westerns. Though she had just run two cops into the ground – nearly killed them – only Kathy’s eyes seemed weary, just like any other child at the end of a busy day.

  ‘So we go inside the store, and Lou tells the owner no more customers for a while. Then we go to collect the kid, but she’s gone, and the back room was locked up from the inside. It drove us nuts. You’ve seen that place. There was no way she could’ve made it out the door without being seen.’ Then they had noticed the fear in the bookseller’s eyes. Lou had gathered his hound-dog jowls into a dazzling smile to win over the merchant with personal charm – or so he had believed at the time.

  The mystery of Kathy’s escape had not been solved that night or the next. ‘Lou spent a week of off-duty hours staking out the store and reading all of Kathy’s westerns.’ He had also developed a rapport with the fragile bookseller. ‘Finally, Warwick tells him how Kathy got away that night. For maybe three seconds, our backs were turned from the
rear wall while we talked to the owner. That’s when she climbed up the bookshelves – quick as a monkey, quiet as smoke – all the way to the top, where there was just enough room to squeeze between the shelf and the ceiling.’

  ‘Then the bookseller must have watched her do it.’

  ‘Yeah, and he never gave her up, even though just the sight of a cop scared the shit out of him. The whole time Lou was talking to this frightened little man, Kathy was up there listening to him, laughing at him.’ The detective shrugged. ‘So we were outmatched by a ten-year-old girl. Not our best night.’

  That was when Lou Markowitz had begun to realize who and what he was dealing with – no ordinary child, but a full-blown person. And he had amended the resume of a street thief to include the grand title of Escape Artist. Kathy had earned Lou’s respect. She had also cut out his heart, but that was another night, and the child had almost won that time, almost destroyed the man.

  Though it would have been some comfort to him, Riker could never share the story of Kathy’s best escape act. And now his mind reached back across the bridge, across the water to the sleeper in her coma dreams to tell her that she was not dying alone. Sparrow, the secrets are poisoning me.

  ***

  Mallory watched Charles’s Mercedes drive off as her partner slid into the front seat of her tan sedan.

  ‘It’s that one.’ She nodded toward the building directly across the street. Natalie Homer’s sister lived in an area of Brooklyn prized for views of Prospect Park. Apparently Susan Qualen was doing well in the world. ‘It’s better if we catch her outside.’ Then the cop hater would have no door to slam in their faces. ‘The neighbors say she runs in the park – same time every day.’

  ‘Must be a health fanatic’ Riker wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘She’s gonna kill herself in this heat.’

  The front door opened and a trim woman in shorts and a T-shirt appeared at the top of a short flight of stairs. Natalie’s sister was tall and blond with a familial face. Before the woman could descend to the sidewalk, the two detectives were out of the car and moving toward her, each holding up a leather folder with identification and a gold shield.

  ‘Miss Qualen? I’m Detective Mallory, and this is – ’

  The woman’s face turned angry and hard. ‘Go away!’

  Riker stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ma’am? We’d rather do this at your convenience, but you – ’

  ‘I read about your last hanging in the papers,’ said Susan Qualen. ‘You bastards couldn’t cover up that one. Not so easy this time, was it?’

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Riker. ‘We don’t work that way. Sometimes we have to withhold details so we can – ’

  ‘I’ve heard that one before. Twenty years ago, the cops told the reporters my sister was a suicide.’

  ‘The cops didn’t tell you much, did they?’ Mallory moved up the staircase, advancing on the woman slowly. ‘They told you it was murder, and you knew about the rope.’ But no cop would have revealed the details of the hacked-off hair jammed in Natalie Homer’s mouth.

  Mallory was one step away – touching distance. Nervous, Susan? ‘So how did you make the connection between your sister and a hanged hooker?’

  ‘I read the story in the damn papers.’

  Mallory shook her head. ‘No, you’re lying. The link had to be more than rope. All those details in the paper – why did you connect them with – ’

  ‘I’m done with you.’ Susan Qualen started down the staircase.

  ‘Hold it.’ Mallory blocked her way. ‘Where did you get the – ’

  ‘My lawyer says I don’t have to talk to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Mallory. ‘That’s what people say when they haven’t talked to a lawyer. Your sister’s murder is still an open case, and you will talk to us.’

  Riker climbed a step closer to the woman. His voice was more reasonable and friendly. ‘We turned up some inconsistencies in Natalie’s murder. We think her son might be able to straighten it out. So where’s the kid now?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ said Susan Qualen.

  ‘I read a follow-up interview with the boy’s stepmother,’ said Mallory. ‘She claims you took the boy after his father died.’

  And Riker added, ‘That would’ve been a year after Natalie’s murder.’ His tone of voice said, Hey, just trying to be helpful.

  ‘But we had a problem with that.’ The threat in Mallory’s voice was impossible to miss.

  ‘You see,’ said Riker, dialing back the tension, ‘the little boy never went to school after his mother died. When summer vacation was over – ’

  ‘So the family moved out of the school district.’

  ‘No, Miss Qualen,’ said Mallory. ‘The stepmother still lives at the same address.’ Mallory edged closer. ‘She told a cop named Geldorf that you had the boy. Why would she lie? And when that same cop called you, why didn’t you set him straight?’

  There was confusion in Qualen’s eyes. Civilians were amateurs at deception, unable to remember the details of lies told in the distant past, and they were all so easily rattled. Riker smiled at the woman, as if they were old friends discussing weather and books they had read. ‘It would help if you could tell us what happened to Natalie’s son.’

  ‘And where he is now.’ Mallory made the short step from accusation to attack. ‘Talk to me! What did you do with him?’

  Susan Qualen lost her hard-case composure and made a mad sprint down the staircase, slamming into both detectives in her haste to get away. Mallory hit the sidewalk at a dead run, and Riker lunged to catch her arm, yelling, ‘Whoa! First, let’s interview the stepmother. Then we can nail Qualen for obstruction. We’ll toss her in the lock-up cage for a while. It’ll be scary but legal.’

  Mallory watched the woman’s hands flailing as she ran down the sidewalk, escaping. Passersby must believe that they had drawn guns on her. Even now, the distance could be so easily closed, and when Mallory caught up to Susan Qualen, the woman would be vulnerable, breathless and frightened.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Riker. ‘It’ll be more fun my way.’

  Not likely.

  William Heart cringed at the noise. The recluse was not good with human interaction and did what he could to avoid it. Worst was the knock at the door, the sound of a trap closing. He stood very still, hardly breathing, but his visitors would not go away, and now he heard the voice of the landlord saying, ‘I know he’s in there. Takes him all damn day to open the door. Bang harder.’

  However, the stranger was more polite, only lightly rapping, as he said, ‘Thank you,’ to the dwindling footsteps of the landlord. And now the visitor spoke to the locked and bolted door. ‘Hello? Mr Heart? Your gallery gave me your address.’

  The cultured voice was reassuring and carried the lure of a potential sale. William opened the door to see a fairy-tale bag of metaphors. This tall man had the body, the clothes and patrician air of a prince, but eyes like a frog and the beak of Captain Hook. The broad shoulders were threatening, magically enlarging in every passing second.

  When William stepped back a pace, his visitor took this for an invitation. The man walked past him and paused by the couch, a threadbare affair of lumpy cushions and barely contained stuffing. It was the only piece of furniture that might accommodate his large frame. The chairs were made of flimsy wooden sticks.

  ‘May I?’

  William nodded, and the frog prince sat down.

  ‘My name is Charles Butler.’ The man’s grin was so foolish, William smiled against his will as Mr Butler handed over a business card. ‘Your gallery dealer tells me you do crime-scene photography.’

  ‘No, that was a long time ago. I don’t do it anymore.’

  Butler was staring at a radio on the coffee table, and William wondered if he recognized it as a police scanner. He cleared his throat. ‘I mean – I don’t work for the police anymore. I do car wrecks, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Your work is almost tabloid genre, wouldn’t you
say? High contrast, hard light, black shadow. And some cruelty in every image.’

  The photographer vacillated between flight and a faint. Charles Butler was obviously an art collector and well heeled, but several of the degrees on his business card related to psychology. William distrusted head shrinkers.

  ‘I’d like to see your earlier work,’ said Butler. ‘The crime-scene photos. I’m particularly interested in Natalie Homer. Perhaps the name’s not familiar. It was twenty years ago. The newspapers called it a suicide by hanging.’

  ‘I didn’t keep – ’ William shook his head and began again. ‘I couldn’t do the job. My camera was broken.’ Even as these words trailed off, he realized that he was not believed. Charles Butler’s face expressed every thought and doubt. William could actually see himself being measured and evaluated in the other man’s eyes. He even saw a hint of pity there.

  ‘It’s not a picture most people would want in their heads.’ This was a true thing. Only a specific type of ghoul sought that kind of image, and Butler did not seem to fit that category.

  ‘So you did take at least one shot.’ The man was not posing a question but stating fact.

  William clenched his sweating hands, then looked down at the leather checkbook which had suddenly appeared on the coffee table beside an old-fashioned fountain pen. And now he relaxed again, for this was merely a money transaction, a simple purchase.

  ‘That’s one photograph I’d be very interested in.’ Butler opened the checkbook. ‘Very interested.’ He glanced up at William and broadened his smile, killing all trace of alarm and increasing the comfort level in the room – then delivered his bomb. ‘You knew Natalie, didn’t you?’