Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  The small phone all but disappeared into Charles’s larger hand as he described a tortured child to the caller, explaining that the boy had lost everything, his parents, his home. He was sent away to live with strangers, and they were also taken from him. Then police custody, foster care, more changes and strangers to deal with. ‘Too many traumas in quick succession. I’d look for a history of petty criminal acts and small-scale violence.

  Sociopathic behavior could’ve started as early as nine or ten years old. Or even – ’

  Charles watched Mallory’s eyes close. Her fingers ceased to tap; her hands were suspended over the keyboard. And he wished he was dead. He had just created a general profile for her as well.

  He quickly added one qualification never mentioned in Kathy Mallory’s own childhood history and said to the caller, ‘You might find incidents of torturing and killing small animals.’

  Stella Small listened to the public-address system. A small fire had broken out on an upper floor, and all customers were urged to make an orderly evacuation of the store.

  What fabulous timing. The new suit was paid for, and she was wearing it. However, she had not yet replaced her snagged pantyhose with the new ones, and a saleswoman was barring her way to the changing room. Stella shrugged. There was time enough to go home and change hosiery before the evening audition in Tribeca. She joined a stream of shoppers moving toward the escalator with great resolve despite the protests of store employees who tried in vain to turn the herd toward the fire doors and a stairwell.

  There was one motionless stand-out among the onward-marching shoppers and the arm-waving clerks. A man was waiting near the bottom of the escalator. Though he wore dark glasses, Stella recognized him from her last shopping expedition. This was the soap-opera fan who had stood behind her in the mirror of the discount store. Yes, it was the same baseball cap and stiff posture. She was sure of it now. He was the vandal, the stalker, the giver of gift certificates. And the gray bag, she had seen that before too, but where? She stared at him, wondering, How crazy are you?

  He climbed up the steps of the down escalator, unhampered by all the people who blocked his way. He passed through the press of bodies, crushing them into the sides of the escalator as he closed the distance to Stella while the mechanical steps sought to take them both down. He came abreast of her and slapped a note on the lapel of her new suit jacket. The man never looked into her eyes. He might as well have taped his message to a kiosk instead of a living woman. She ripped the note off her jacket and read the words, I can touch you any time I want.

  Charles sprawled on the leather couch, one of few office furnishings that was not an antique, but custom-made to fit his longer-than-average legs. He was nearly done with the last batch of fax transmissions. Occasionally, he interrupted his reading to glance at the portable television set. Mallory had given it to him so he could keep track of local news bulletins. And now he was startled to see a familiar face on the screen. ‘Mallory!’ he yelled, to be heard in her office across the hall. ‘Riker’s on TV!’

  No response. Well, she was busy.

  Charles turned back to the screen to watch Detective Sergeant Riker being introduced to the viewers. Poor man. He looked so pale beside the healthy orange glow of the anchorman’s stage makeup. He held up a photograph of a fugitive witness, Natalie Homer’s sister.

  Stella fought against the tide of the crowd spilling off the escalator. She saw another exit sign and ran toward it, only glancing back once to see the baseball cap bobbing above the heads of the shoppers. Everyone was being turned away from the bank of elevators. Store employees barred the doors, shouting that the elevators had been disabled. Others directed people to the fire doors where a line of people filed through to a stairwell.

  First Stella caught a whiff of insecticide, and then a hand grazed her face. She turned to see the stalking man walking away from her, moving toward the line for the stairwell. He turned around to look in Stella’s general direction, never making eye contact, perhaps perceiving her as a store manikin. Was he waiting for her to join him in the line?

  You think I’m crazy, too?

  She turned around full circle, searching every wall for another red-lettered sign to show her a way out. The escalator was barred by three women with folded arms. Drunk with power, they turned shoppers back to the stairwell, shouting, ‘That’s the fire exit!’ And they were so unimpressed with Stella’s note from a madman. ‘Lady, look around. You see any cops? No.’ And once again, she was directed to the stairwell, the only approved exit, where her personal stalker stepped out of line to wait for her by the fire door. This was so unfair. She had obeyed all the rules regarding New York wildlife. She had never tried to pet the lunatics grazing on the city sidewalks, never fed them or looked them in the eye.

  Now Stella saw another sign and ran toward it. After closing the restroom door behind her, she depressed the lock button on the brass knob, for it was unlikely that a lunatic would be put offby the ‘Ladies Only’ sign of sanctuary. All the stall doors were open, and there were no sounds but her own footsteps as she walked toward the line of sinks to lay her packages down on the long marble countertop. Stella never considered the possibility of burning alive in a blazing building. She had lived in this town too long to take any fire drill as seriously as the more immediate threat of a deranged stalker – or shopping – and she planned to wait it out until the store refilled with customers and clerks, a simple matter of killing time.

  After stripping off her ruined pantyhose, she fumbled with the cellophane wrapper of the new pair. A clock on the wall gave her hours to make the late audition. She stared at the mirror, in love with the new suit. Her lipstick had been bitten off, but there was time for a complete overhaul of makeup, and she rifled her purse for cosmetics. Oh, wait. She should use the toilet before the fire drill ended. Stella gathered up her purse and packages from force of habit. No New Yorker would leave a possession unguarded.

  She was sitting on the toilet when she heard the door open. Heavy steps, a man. He would have to be a store employee. Who else would have a key to the lock? The door closed again, and she sat very still, holding her breath and holding her water. After what seemed like forever, Stella knelt down on the floor and looked toward the stalls left and right.

  No one there. And yet, after leaving the stall, she could not lose the feeling of being watched. And what was that sound? A fly? More than one?

  ‘This woman is wanted by the police.’ The newscaster held up the photograph of Susan Qualen. Though the woman was in her forties, Charles thought the family likeness was striking. The picture of Natalie’s sister was joined by a portrait of Stella Small.

  ‘If you’ve seen either of these women today,’ said the voice behind the photographs, ‘call the number on your screen. And now a few words from Detective Sergeant Riker.’

  Riker leaned into the microphone. ‘Miss Qualen has information on the whereabouts of the missing actress. We have to find Stella tonight. She’s in a lot of trouble, and she needs your help.’

  ‘As we speak,’ said the anchorman, ‘our broadcast is also being shown on our sister station in Wisconsin.’ He turned to his guest. ‘So you believe Susan Qualen is hiding in the vicinity of Racine?’

  ‘Yeah, she could be enroute right now,’ said Riker. ‘But I’m hoping she’s still in the tristate area.’

  ‘If this woman has important information, why is she evading the police, Detective Riker?’

  ‘Because she doesn’t care if Stella Small lives or dies.’

  Very impressive, Riker.

  No one could have put the case more eloquently.

  ***

  He knew how to jack up the speed of the human heart from a startled flutter to BAM, BAM, BAM! And how to slow it down. Or paralyze it.

  Though he neither liked his work, nor disliked it.

  Almost ready.

  The man sat on the toilet seat, tailor fashion, so his feet would not show in the openings between the stall doo
rs and the floor. He slowly unzipped the gray canvas bag on his lap and reached for the camera, ignoring the large glass jar beside it, for he had no interest in terror on a small scale.

  The jar contained a black soup of flies. Some of the insects were still alive and moving slowly, drunk on insecticide. They animated the bodies of the dead, all in a panic, crushing and crawling over dry corpses, breaking wings and ripping off legs in a frightening struggle to reach the top of the jar, one inch of air – and life.

  And then they struggled in the dark, for the man had closed the gym bag. With equal indifference, he aimed the camera lens at the opening between the stall door and its frame. He watched the blond actress through his viewfinder. The young woman stood by the sink, too wired to put her lipstick on straight. She picked up a tissue and made short, nervous dabs at her mouth. Turning her head to one side, she sniffed the air now scented with the insect spray that clung to his clothing. She batted at an imagined fly, created by the power of suggestion and the low buzz from the jar in his bag.

  The ready light on the camera had been amber and now it was green. As if the woman had heard the change of colors, she dropped her lipstick, then jumped at the sound of the metal tube hitting the tiles and rolling across the floor.

  She gathered up her shoes, her purse and packages, then left the ladies’ room, running barefoot.

  *

  Charles rose from the couch and stretched, then walked across the hall to the back office. Deluthe was nowhere in sight, and Mallory was facing a computer monitor, her hands resting on the keyboard and lightly tapping the keys.

  ‘Mallory?’ Charles bent down to retrieve another stack of paper from a printer bin. He had already scanned a thousand sheets of newspaper archives to no avail. ‘I haven’t found anything yet.’ During the scarecrow’s boyhood years, the children of Green County, Wisconsin, had been remarkably well behaved. ‘Perhaps this is a waste of time.’

  She only tapped the keys, giving no sign that she was even aware of him. He approached her with some caution, not wanting to break her concentration. If she ignored him to some purpose -

  Oh, God, what’s this?

  Her eyes were closed in sleep, yet her fingers continued to type. Her repetitive movements produced only gibberish on the computer monitor, yet Charles could not rid himself of the illusion that the machines were now operating Mallory. He lifted her into his arms and held her tightly, regarding her sleeping face with enormous concern. He carried her back to his own office, where the machines could not get at her, and there he laid her down on the soft leather couch. Covering her hands with his own, he forced her fingers to stop typing across the air.

  The store was empty and eerie. The customers and clerks should have returned by now, for there was no sign of a fire, no sirens and not a trace of smoke. Stella walked the vacant aisles alone – and not. Every manikin drew her startled eye. And now she was one of them, neither moving nor breathing. She could only stare at the gray canvas bag on the floor in front of the escalator.

  Where was he now? Was he watching her? Her eyes searched the vast space with a thousand hiding places. She ran toward the bank of elevators and found a crude out-of-service sign posted above the dark call buttons. She tried the nearby stairwell door, but the knob would not turn. Another sign, this one merely an arrow, directed her away from the stairs and toward a freight elevator. It stood open, waiting for her. She stepped inside and pushed the button for the ground floor.

  Stella was slipping her new shoes over naked feet when she looked up to see the man holding the doors to prevent them from closing. He appeared not to see her as he stepped inside and set his gray canvas bag on the floor. She could get around him if she acted right now – if she was fast. She willed her legs to carry her away.

  The moment was missed, the elevator closed.

  Stella watched the lighted numbers overhead. They were going down. The canvas bag on the floor was open, and she was staring at the razor tip of a box cutter. They descended in silence – except for the buzzing sound from his bag, low and ugly, insectile. The shrill high noise of her screaming was purely imagined.

  When Mallory opened her eyes, her head was pillowed in Charles Butler’s lap. What time was it? She had no idea. Her internal clock had failed her.

  Unaware that she was awake, Charles absently stroked her hair, and she listened to the soft shuffle of paper, then watched the white pages sail by on their way to the pile on the rug below. She should rise now – time was precious.

  The hand lightly moving over her hair was intoxicating. The human touch was rare since she had lost the Markowitzes, first Helen, then Louis. During the years that followed his wife’s death, the old man had made a point of kissing his foster child twice at each encounter – a sorry effort to make up for her loss of a mother – and he had rarely missed an opportunity to capture her in a bear hug – hugging for two. And then he died.

  She was always losing people.

  Mallory closed her eyes and listened to footsteps in the hall. Now Riker’s voice called out, ‘It’s me. How’s it going?’

  ‘One possibility,’ said Charles, ‘though not what I had in mind. Here, take a look at this article.’

  ‘Foster Care Fraud,’ said Riker. ‘Catchy headline.’

  ‘That foster child ran away when he was twelve years old, but the police were never notified.’

  ‘And these people kept collecting his support checks?’

  ‘Right,’ said Charles. ‘The boy was put in their care the same year Natalie’s son was taken from the Qualens.’

  Another hand, Riker’s, rested on Mallory’s shoulder a moment, then gently brushed the hair from her face. ‘I’ve never seen her sleep,’ he said. ‘I always figured she just hung from the ceiling like a little bat. Damn, I hate to wake the kid up.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ said Charles.

  ‘But I got her a present – Susan Qualen. The woman turned herself in. Janos is walking her over here now – in handcuffs.’

  ‘Why here?’ asked Charles.

  ‘More privacy.’

  Stella pressed her back to the wall of the elevator and watched the man open a metal panel with one of a gang of keys hanging from his belt loop. A janitor? ‘So you work here?’

  No answer. He was not aware of her on any level, and this was hopeful. It could all be one ghastly coincidence. This man worked here; he belonged here. Of course, he would give her a gift certificate from this store. He probably got an employee discount. And now he was merely rounding up a stray shopper and escorting her to safety. Stella acted the part of a woman who could believe all of this, but she could not sustain the role for long.

  When he closed the metal panel, the light for the ground floor was no longer glowing. They were on their way to the basement level. Her heart beat faster and adrenaline gorged every muscle for flight. When the doors opened, her legs ran away with her, flinging Stella headlong down a wide aisle of cardboard cartons. There were no hurried footsteps behind her. He had no worries that she would get away. Why should he? It would be so easy to follow her by the clack of high heels.

  Idiot.

  She slipped off her shoes and ran in barefoot silence down a corridor of boxes, running from the light, swallowed by the dark.

  All the television stations ran hourly updates on the plight of Stella Small, showing photographs of her early years and reading excerpts from letters to her mother and grandmother, known to locals as the Abandoned Stellas. The written words of the youngest Stella were upbeat and hopeful, full of the dream: she was going to be somebody, and fame could only be minutes or hours away.

  ‘What was that?’ Riker turned off the volume, and now he could more clearly hear a knock on the door in the reception area. ‘That’s gotta be her.’

  He answered the door and greeted Detective Janos with a smile. Natalie Homer’s sister needed no introduction. Riker’s face was grim when he turned to the woman in handcuffs, only inclining his head a bare inch to say, ‘Miss Qualen
.’

  Stella shrank into a small space behind a carton, playing the mouse, shaking and listening to the footsteps coming closer, stopping now. A nearby box was being moved. Eyes shut tight, her thoughts went out to the Abandoned Stellas. How sorry she was to let them down, yet she knew they would cope well with her dying, for that was their strength of purpose. They were younger than she was now when they had committed themselves to their own slow deaths at the roadside diner.

  But wait. This was New York City – different rules: no cowards allowed.

  An inspired Stella sat in the dark and prepared herself for something finer than slaughter by box cutter. Adjusting her chin to a determined angle, she created the role of a lifetime, imagining her own heart engorging and growing into the part, pounding harder, louder – stronger.

  Can you hear it, you son of a bitch?

  The box was moved aside. A hand reached out for her, and the greatest thing that ever came out of Ohio jumped to her feet. She raked his chest with five long fingernails that left red streaks on his T-shirt. He stopped, as if his batteries had suddenly run down, stunned that an object would fight back. And then she clawed his face.

  Stella had drawn first blood, and now she ran for the light at the end of the box corridor, screaming, ‘I’m gonna live, you bastard!'

  Janos leaned against the door to the back office, making it clear to the prisoner that she was not going anywhere. Mallory and Riker closed in on Susan Qualen. The woman backed into a computer station and slipped. Her handcuffs bound her wrists behind her, and she could not break the fall. She awkwardly managed a squat, then rose to a stand and revolved slowly, looking from face to face. ‘Why am I under arrest?’ She jangled the chain of her manacles. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘You got that part right,’ said Riker. ‘You wouldn’t help us. You ran away.’

  The words were spoken in a monotone, but the woman behaved as if he had screamed at her. She bowed her head and stared at the floor. As a reward for this attitude of contrition, Janos removed the handcuffs, then stepped back.