Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  Mallory kicked a chair toward the suspect. It fell over, and Riker commanded, ‘Pick it up!’

  Susan Qualen did as she was told.

  ‘Sit down!’ said Janos.

  ‘That day you came around – ’ Qualen’s voice faltered and cracked. ‘I couldn’t help you. I didn’t – ’

  ‘You have to sign this.’ Riker held a small card that listed her rights under the constitution. ‘We’ll get you a lawyer if you want one. Do you understand your rights?’

  ‘I don’t need a damn lawyer. I didn’t do – ’

  ‘Then sign it!’ Riker was not play-acting. He was angry when he grabbed a clipboard from the desk, then attached the card and a pen. She accepted the board, fingers slowly closing around its edges, and quickly signed her name. Mallory tore the clipboard from the woman’s hands and threw it across the room. Qualen jumped as it skittered across the floor for the last few feet before hitting the wall.

  ‘And now,’ said Riker, ‘tell us that twisted freak didn’t look up his Aunt Susan the minute he got to town.’

  ‘It’s your fault!’ Qualen faced each of them in turn. ‘You lie to people. You don’t – ’

  ‘All those details in the papers,’ said Mallory. ‘You knew there was a link between the last hanging and – ’

  ‘And my sister? The police only told me Natalie was murdered. I read about her hanging in the newspapers – the fake suicide, a damn cover-up!’ Susan Qualen’s voice was in the high, wavering pitch of hysteria. ‘Nobody wanted to solve Natalie’s murder.’

  ‘Your nephew gave you all the details,’ said Mallory. ‘That’s how you knew. When you saw the story in the papers, it was Natalie’s murder all over again.’

  ‘Stop it! Junior didn’t tell me anything!' She was in tears. ‘That little boy could barely speak. He was almost catatonic’

  ‘So you sent him away. You conspired to hide the only witness who could’ve helped the police find your sister’s killer.’

  ‘Oh, that’s rich.’ Susan Qualen was not frightened anymore. She was angry. ‘Who do you call when a damn cop kills your sister – the cops?’ She wore a grim smile and took some satisfaction in their stunned faces.

  Running toward the light at the end of the corridor, Stella turned a corner of boxes and saw a small office walled in glass. The door was ajar, and she pushed it wide open. At the point of slamming it behind her, she regained her sanity, then closed the door quietly and turned a knob to lock it. The desk offered the only cover in a room made of glass, and she crouched behind it, taking the telephone with her. She dialed 911, but the call would not go through. And now she listened to an automated recording that instructed her to dial another digit for an outside line.

  He was coming.

  She could hear him walking at a mechanical clip. Stella held her breath as the man tried the knob, and then she heard metal on metal – a key in the lock.

  Oh, you stupid fool. He’s a damn janitor. He has all the keys.

  Stella closed her eyes and covered her ears, blocking it out, wishing it away, this thing at the door. The lock came undone. The door opened, and that insect smell was in the room with her. She opened her eyes. Very slowly, deep in shock, she lifted her face. He was standing beside the desk, looking down at her, yet not really seeing her. And he said nothing; one did not converse with objects. She saw the sign behind him, the shield of the alarm company pasted to the glass wall encircled by metallic tape. If she could break the glass, that would trigger the burglar alarm and bring a watchman.

  *

  Susan Qualen was all but spitting the next words at them. ‘If I’d given him up, how long would that little boy have stayed alive? The only witness to a cop killing his mother. I lived in that neighborhood for years. Drug dealers bought the police for a song. And you guys always cover for your own.’ She put up one hand, sensing Riker’s intention to interrupt. ‘Don’t start with me. I did the right thing, and you know it!’

  ‘He ran away from the foster parents,’ said Mallory, ‘a pair of chiseling – ’

  ‘And he went back to my cousins. They took him to Nebraska. When he grew up, he had a lot of questions about his mother. They told him everything they knew. Then he came back.’

  ‘Back home,’ said Mallory. ‘To you.’

  ‘He only spent a few hours with me. That was a long time ago.’

  ‘You didn’t want to see him again.’ Riker folded his arms. ‘He scared you, didn’t he?’

  ‘No! He wasn’t some whacked psycho. He was as normal as I am.’

  Janos pulled out his notebook. ‘Where’s your nephew now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does he call himself these days?’

  ‘Junior, I guess. That’s what he always called himself ‘I want a straight answer.’ Janos moved closer. ‘Did you hear the question? What name is he – ’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Right,’ said Mallory. ‘You don’t know anything helpful. I keep forgetting that. So why did you run?’

  Susan Qualen sank into the chair, trembling, not with fear but excess emotions, none of them good ones. Hate predominated overall.

  ‘Okay,’ said Riker. ‘Here’s an easier question. Why did you come back?’

  Stella had no clue to the source of sudden strength in her arms. She picked up the heavy wooden desk chair and sent it hurtling through the glass wall, fracturing it into a hundred pieces. The man turned to a panel of buttons beside the door and cut off the alarm while it was merely a squeak and before the glass shower had ended. One long shard lingered in the frame, then toppled and shattered across the office floor. The broken pieces crunched under his shoes as he walked toward her, one hand rising, reaching out.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No!’ she yelled.

  And now she realized that she was invisible to him. He walked past her and took a card from a rack on the wall, then fed it into the slot below the time clock. Because this was such a normal act for any employee beginning his shift, it unhinged Stella’s mind. The night watchman was never coming to her rescue. He was the watchman.

  ‘I came back to beg you not to kill Natalie’s son.’ Susan Qualen doubled over, as if they had kicked her. ‘Killing is what you do best, isn’t it?’ She was nearly spent. Anger was all that sustained her. ‘You gun-happy bastards kill people all the time. You made Junior what he is. A goddamn cop killed his mother. So I figure you owe him a life. You can’t just put him down like a sick animal.’

  Riker could see that Janos was losing the heart for this. The man’s voice was too soft when he said, ‘Tell us where your nephew lives. If we have some control over the capture – ’

  ‘I don’t know!' She shook her head. ‘That’s the truth. I told you – I only saw him for a few hours. That was three years ago, and he asked all the questions.’

  Mallory gripped the woman’s arm. ‘What did your relatives tell you? What was he doing for a living when he – ’

  ‘He was a cop!' Susan Qualen’s face was wet with tears. ‘Can you believe it?’ Her words came out in a stutter of sobs. ‘A cop… like you… so don’t… don’t kill him.’

  Stella backed up to the wall, cutting her bare feet on broken glass and never feeling the pain. Her mouth was dry, and her eyes were on the box cutter in his hand. Involuntary responses came first, cold chemicals flooding her veins. Her palms were clammy, and her heart banged in a full-blown panic attack. There was nowhere to go but into the corner. She pressed up against the plaster, eyes wide, staring at the razor. Her sweaty hands spread out on the corner walls, and she climbed them, finding traction with the sticky flesh of palms and soles. Her feet were inches off the floor, toes curling over the baseboard – a human fly.

  ‘Please don’t.’ She was stripped down to the naked personality of the little girl from Ohio. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please,’ she whispered.

  Jack Coffey looked up to see two visitors in his office. New Yorkers had come to know these women as the Abandoned Stellas of O
hio. They stood before his desk in sturdy, serviceable shoes and their best dresses. They had brought him their frightened eyes and wavering smiles, brave then not, and all the baggage of hope. First, they destroyed him, they broke his heart, and then they said hello and ‘Did you find our Stella?’

  Another bag of delicatessen food sat on the floor at Ronald Deluthe’s feet. He was operating a laptop computer and scanning all the transcriptions of tip-line calls. The sightings of Stella Small spanned four states. Charles Butler sat beside him on the leather couch, rolling one hand to tell the younger man to scroll faster. ‘Stop. Highlight that one too.’

  Mallory stood over them, saying, ‘What? Let me see.’

  ‘Here,’ said Charles. ‘Multiple sightings in department stores. Look at this last one. Stella was shopping rather late this evening.’

  Deluthe shook his head. ‘This can’t be right. The discount store I can see, but where would she get the money to shop on Fifth Avenue?’

  ‘Hmm. Bergdorf s had a moonlight sale,’ said Mallory. ‘So did Lord and Taylor.’ She leaned over to look at another highlighted entry. ‘That designer outlet store checks out. That’s where she bought a suit this morning, and the bastard ruined it.’

  ‘Well, she’s not gonna find another one on Fifth Avenue,’ said Deluthe with absolute conviction. ‘You saw that place she lived in, all those unpaid bills. So the late sightings are bogus.’

  Mallory glared at him briefly, a small threat to tell him that he must defer to her in all matters of police work and shopping. ‘Stella has good taste.’

  Charles stared at the glowing screen. ‘This place was on the news tonight. There was a small fire on the top floor. The whole store was evacuated. Perhaps a – ’ He looked up to see the back of Mallory leaving the room. ‘Well, I guess it was worth checking out.’

  ‘Waste of time,’ said Deluthe. ‘The scarecrow always hangs them in their own apartments.’

  ‘Twice isn’t quite the same as always.’ Charles picked up the deli bag and searched among the sandwiches for his own dinner. ‘Oh, and he’s got the hang of setting fires now.’

  Suddenly, Deluthe was also leaving him, feet slapping the wood in the hallway, making a dead run for the front door.

  It had never occurred to Mrs Harmon Heath-Ellis that cabs might be scarce in the hours after all the bars had closed. She crossed the small park and passed the fountain, hoping to improve her chances of hailing a car on Fifth Avenue.

  A group of six people had gathered in front of her favorite department store. Suppose someone recognized her? Her social stature was too secure to worry about being caught in town during the loser’s month of August. However, she did fear being discovered near her brother-in-law’s hotel.

  The socialite waved frantically, though the only cab, indeed, the only vehicle on the avenue, was stopped at a traffic light a block away. She glanced back at the people in front of the store, her store. They were wearing what must pass for evening clothes in that third-world country Middle America. The rubes were fixated on one window. Curiosity prevailed, and she walked toward the shabby little gathering. What was the harm? None of their social orbits could possibly intersect with hers.

  The wealthy society matron looked over their shoulders and between their heads to see the lighted display. After all she had spent on haute couture, who was better qualified to critique the window-dresser’s art?

  Well, this was different. And it was inevitable, she supposed. This must be the next big thing, the new wave beyond heroin chic – dead.

  ‘That’s no manikin,’ said the man directly in front of her.

  Of course not. As any fool could see, this was a living woman playing the role of a department store dummy. It was an old idea with a new twist – literally. The model was slowly revolving at the end of a rope, allowing the public to view all sides of the blue suit and matching shoes.

  ‘She is rather good,’ said Mrs Harmon Heath-Ellis. ‘This one doesn’t blink.’ Well, certainly the girl must blink, but not until the rope twisted her face away from the window. The model was quite pretty in a low-rent way. Her hair had not been styled by any reputable salon. The short spikes standing out on the scalp were so passe. Longer strands of blond hair trailed from the model’s open mouth, and what sort of statement was that?

  The window had been arranged with small kitchen appliances and utensils to create an interesting contrast with high fashion. Though somewhat nearsighted, the socialite recognized the designer by the cut of the light blue suit – quite respectable. Ah, but the rest – such tedious violence, no blood, no real drama.

  An enormous woman in a muumuu – obviously an out-of-towner and Kmart shopper – was whimpering, saying, ‘Oh, God, she’s dead!’ A man joined in this opinion. ‘Hey, somebody call a cop!’

  Mrs Harmon Heath-Ellis smiled benignly in the spirit of giving first aid to the ignorant and unwashed, the tourists. But now a man pointed to the glass, his mouth working in astonished dumbshow. The socialite stepped closer to the display window to see what she might have missed.

  Her superior smile was frozen, and she was deaf to the oncoming screams of police sirens. Beneath the hanged model was a jar of dead flies encircled by flaming red candles. The woman looked up, and now she could not look away. What she had mistaken for a mole, a beauty mark, was a black fly crawling across the model’s face and moving toward one wide blue eye.

  The socialite was trembling, interior screams outshouting the sirens. She jumped at the screech of brakes and spinning red lights. Police cars disgorged men in uniforms and men in suits. There was one woman among them, but this tall blonde was hardly a civil servant. She wore a linen blazer of all too marvelous cut and line, a thing to die for. And now this young paragon of fashion pulled an enormous revolver from a shoulder holster and beat on the plate glass with the butt end of the gun.

  Of course, the glass was holding up well. It was made to withstand such vandalism, and Mrs Heath-Ellis was about to tell her as much, for she was privy to every detail of her favorite -

  ‘Hey, Mallory!’ Near the far corner of the block-long store, a policeman called out, ‘This door’s open!’

  Either young Mallory did not hear this man, or she did not care, so enraged was she, quite mad actually, beating, hammering the glass, electric-green eyes full of rage. With one last mighty swing of the gun, the glass wall shattered, and the young blonde was climbing past the shards, tearing her fabulous threads to get at the twisting figure on the end of the rope.

  The policewoman was slender, and yet she was able to lift the dead weight as if it were nothing. She cradled the other woman’s limp body like a babe in arms, then lifted it high until the rope slackened. She was fiercely concentrated on the model’s still white face. And every watcher knew she was willing the hanged woman to live.

  There was a hinged panel at the rear of the display window, but rather than simply open this door, the entire back wall was ripped from its moorings by a large man. Oh, and that face – brutality incarnate.

  ‘Good job, Janos,’ said another man, a less imposing figure with a bad suit, who climbed up to the raised floor, then quickly untied the thick knot of the noose. The rope fell away, and Mallory laid her burden down. The largest policeman, the brutal one called Janos, leaned over the prone body to remove the gag of human hair. With surprising delicacy, he pinched the model’s nostrils closed and covered her mouth with his own. The young woman’s body shuddered back to life in convulsions. Her hands rolled into fists that punched the air, batting at some phantom from an interrupted nightmare, and her mouth opened wide in a shrill scream. The large policeman gently gathered her into his arms and rocked her slowly. His voice was incongruously soft as he said, ‘Hush now, Stella, it’s all over.’

  The small crowd of watchers went wild, screaming, cheering, whistling. The socialite was surprised by her own helpless laughter as she was engulfed in a hug from the heavy-set woman in the muumuu. Her head fell upon this stranger’s generous breast, and
she began to cry.

  CHAPTER 19

  Mallory looked less like a crime victim after removing the blazer torn by broken glass. The garment was neatly folded over one arm to hide her bandaged wound. And now her holstered revolver was on public display in a window on Fifth Avenue. She stood in full view of a sidewalk audience and watched the watchers. One of them picked up a small piece of glass from the litter on the pavement, and he slipped it into his pocket. Perhaps he prized this one above the other souvenir shards because of the small red stain. He was stealing a drop of her blood.

  She turned to Ronald Deluthe. ‘Take another look. You’re sure he’s not out there?’

  The rookie detective shook his head. ‘I don’t see him.’ She pointed to three uniformed officers standing off to one side. ‘What about them?’

  This startled him. ‘You think the scarecrow is a cop?’ ‘When I say look at everyone, that means cops too.’ ‘No, he’s not there.’ And now, sensing that she had no further use for him, Deluthe climbed out of the display window, giving the forensic expert more room to work.

  Heller pulled down the rope that dangled from an exposed pipe in the chopped-away ceiling. ‘Crude job for such a tidy killer.’

  ‘And he’s taking more chances,’ said Mallory. ‘Heller, you said this woman fought back?’

  ‘Better than that. Dr Slope found blood and skin under her fingernails.’

  Good for you, Stella Small.

  ‘What about store security?’

  ‘They got everything,’ said Heller. ‘Cameras, alarms, even guard dogs. But none of it was working, and the animals were locked in a utility closet.’

  Mallory lowered her sunglasses. ‘This store doesn’t have a nightwatchman?’

  ‘Yeah, they got one.’ Riker climbed up on the raised floor of the display window. ‘The watchman’s a retired cop, sixty-four years old. Maybe he slept through the whole thing.’