The Polka Dot Girl

by Darragh McManus

  She looked almost surprised. “Go? Go where?”

  “Home, I guess. Don’t you have an apartment somewhere? Someone told me you had. East side sprawl.”

  Rose smiled, a funny mixture of sarcastic and indulgent. “Exactly. You answered my question, sweetheart.”

  I directed her to the front desk and instructed the duty sergeant to have Rose sign out. No personal possessions to be returned; we hadn’t taken them off her in the first place, and in the second place, there weren’t many of them to take. She looked terrible: exhausted, scraped-out, old beyond her years. I felt sorry for her but what was I supposed to do?

  I did the lamest thing possible in the circumstances—I asked her, “Do you need a ride anywhere?”

  Rose walked past me, out the door, out into the early-morning crispness, calling back over her shoulder: “No thanks, little miss. Think I’ll take a walk. Stop and smell the flowers and all that. The old town ain’t so bad this time of the morning.”

  I looked out at the sun shining. For a second, I almost agreed with her.

  Chapter 4

  Farrington

  STRAIGHT back to my desk, at the rear of the main office, to take care of some business, the drudgery, the shit-work. First: I called Odette. I knew the number off by heart, of course; you don’t share your life with someone for more than three years and not know their telephone number better than your own birthday. It went straight to her message service. My heart jumped—just a little— when her voice came on, soft and measured like I remembered it: “You’ve reached the home of Odette Crawford. I can’t take your call at the moment. Please leave a brief message with your name, number and reason for calling, and I’ll…” I hung up. I didn’t want her to hear about Madeleine Greenhill from a disembodied message, that wouldn’t be too sensitive on my part…and also, subconsciously, I was probably angling for an excuse to call ’round to her in person.

  Second: I called Farrington. Her office was in the forensic section of HQ but I didn’t dial that extension, gambling that she might still be in the morgue. She was.

  “Genie, Genie. We meet again. Or not, as the case may be.” “Hey, Farr. Who was that kid answered the phone?”

  “That’s Bella. She’s a Med student. Doing an internship here. Which I have to say suits me fine. We’re short a few hands here anyway.”

  I laughed. “She hasn’t been grossed out yet?”

  “What, by me or the stiffs? Nah, she’s okay. Strong stomach for a young girl. Nice stomach, too. She wears those little crop tops, you know those? Mmm…”

  “Cool it, Farr, you might suffer an embolism. And you know what that’d mean, don’t you? You wouldn’t be able to help your favorite Homicide dick solve her case.”

  “And that’s why you’re ringing me, I know. Hold on a second.” Her voice receded into the distance momentarily. “Hey! Keep the noise down, would ya? I’ve got the freakin’ Chief herself on the line. Sorry ’bout that, Genie.”

  “Not a problem. So what have you got?”

  “What have I got? Well, we finished the full autopsy about an hour ago. Your victim was definitely killed by a blow to the skull. Sorry, blows. She was struck no less than three times, probably more, in the same general area. Bottom-left of the os frontale, if you wanna get technical.”

  “Which I don’t.”

  “Approximately one-and-a-half inches above the left eye- socket. The frontal bone was cracked just over that eye, in two places. Obviously there’s bruising, but what’s kinda weirding me out is that it isn’t bigger. Damage like this, her forehead should have been a dark-purple mess. But this, it’s…small. Like someone was poking her.”

  “Poking extremely forcefully.”

  Farrington said, “Yeah, I mean, it’s just a figure of speech. Nobody poked nothin’. This girl was hammered. The front and back of her brain were badly bruised—what us medical types call coup and contrecoup injuries. Anyway, there’s your cause of death. Cranial trauma causing subdural hemorrhage. In simple language, severe and fatal brain injury.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, you saw her last night—there isn’t much of a face left for anything else. Although I don’t think it would have made much difference, but she got pretty chewed up down there.”

  “Oh, Jesus! Farrington! Do you have to talk like that?”

  “Just trying to toughen you up, kid. You’re a police officer, you gotta act like one. Anything else, you say. Hardly any water in the lungs, therefore dead when she went in, like I hypothe- sized last night. How easily genius comes to me. We’ve examined the contents of her stomach—very little, as it happens. Madeleine was a picky eater, though not such a picky drinker.

  We found the remains of a chicken sandwich, some mints and a lot of booze. Her blood-alcohol levels are high. Not crazy high, but high. And, ah…there’s also that other thing we talked about. Remember?”

  I nodded discreetly, then remembered she couldn’t see it and said, “Mm-hm. I remember. You have proof?”

  She did that drawly thing she does. “Yeeahh. I think I do. Talk to Chief Etienne about it this afternoon. I’m sending the results directly to her. She can make the call.”

  “Gotcha. Alright, Farr, I’ll talk to you later. Maybe meet for a beer some night next week?”

  “Beers are on you, Genie. Stay frosty, girl.”

  We hung up simultaneously. What now? Now third: gather my resolve and call Misericordiae Greenhill and get the dope on Madeleine’s last known movements, as far as she knew them. I was about to call information for the number when one of the girls from admin swung by the desk, and I mean swung, her hips lifting from side to side like a sail boat lilting on the ocean swell. She was a plump girl but cute with it.

  She snapped her heels together and thrust a buff-colored envelope towards me, saying, “Detective Auf der Maur, you’re back. I wanted to wait until I met you before delivering this. The lady who handed it in was insistent that I give it personally to you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Most mysterious. I said, “This lady. What did she look like?”

  “Uh, she was tall, pretty skinny. Short hair. Sort of a serious expression. Not exactly the cheerful type, you know?”

  Ileana the butler, I presume. I thanked the girl and took the envelope and she turned on her spike heel and swung right back to her post. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, not quite understanding why I did that, and scanned the envelope: it was marked on the front in careful handwriting, “Detective Eugenie Auf der Maur, Homicide Division. STRICTLY PRIVATE.”

  Okay. I slit the top and pulled out a card, large and rectangular, and pure white except for a tiny embossed cross in the top-left corner, glowing a sort of pearl color. On the inside it read:

  “Detective—I would like to thank you for your discretion and tact last night. I realize that being the bearer of bad tidings is an onerous cross for any woman to bear. I wish you the very best of luck in pursuing this case. I use the word ‘luck’ though I do not doubt your capabilities as a police officer in any way. But all of us need fortune’s good graces from time to time. Regardless, I have full faith that you will resolve this matter expeditiously and find my daughter ’s killer.

  I entreat you once more, Detective: find Madeleine’s killer. Yours, etc, Misericordiae Greenhill.”

  Well, how about that—a message from Misery herself. What’s the word, synchronicity? “An apparently meaningful coinci- dence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated.” Did it fit this situation? Odette would be able to tell me. Hell, Poison Rose would probably know, if she could reach back far enough into her past and her memories. But linguistics was never really my forte. And the Jungians never delved into the Byzantine subconscious of a woman like Misericordiae Greenhill.

  What a strange way of phrasing things: “pursuing this case”, “resolve this matter expeditiously.” More appropriate to a business letter than an impassioned communiqué with the person investigating
her daughter ’s brutal murder. And then the final line: “I entreat you once more, Detective: find Madeleine’s killer.” What was that: a threat? An encouragement? Or just the desperate appeal of a grieving mother, the last hope, her cry against the dying of the light?

  Enough, Genie. Quit philosophizing, keep digging. I got the number from information that I meant to get five minutes before and called Caritas Heights. A soft purr on the other end, going on for more than half a minute, then a click and a voice—not one I recognized, therefore not Ileana, which I must confess didn’t upset me unduly. There was something unnerving about that woman.

  The voice I didn’t know said, “Caritas Heights, how may I help you?”

  “Madam Greenhill, please. Tell her it’s Eugenie.” No need for the staff to know the boss lady’s business, I figured.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  I attached a portable recording device to the connecting fixture on my phone’s receiver, sparked up my first Dark Nine of the day and took two or three deep drags, blowing the smoke of the first out my nose while I was sucking in the second and third through my mouth. It’s an impressive trick, I grant you. Then Misericordiae was talking to me, that calcified, ageless voice carrying across electric wires and electronic signals and losing none of its potency.

  “Detective Auf der Maur. Your discretion is appreciated.” “Sure. And thanks for the note. I’ll, ah…I’ll do my very best.” “I’m certain you will.”

  “Um, I need to know some things about Madeleine. Her movements yesterday, and the days leading up to it. Where she went, who she hung out with, that sort of thing. Anything you can give me. Is now a good time?”

  “You mean, am I in a fit state to talk about her? Will I have an emotional breakdown halfway through?”

  “I guess that’s exactly what I mean.” “I am in a fit state. Carry on.”

  “Over the phone okay? I can call to you in person but this suits me fine if it’s alright with you.”

  “It is.”

  “Okay, then.” I pressed “RECORD” and said, “When did you last see Madeleine?”

  “Yesterday morning. Just before ten. I was leaving for Mass, which is a two-minute drive. I usually walk, but it had been raining all morning so I had my driver bring me to the church. We left the house at roughly ten minutes to ten. On my way out I met Madeleine in the main entrance hallway. Am I going too quickly for you?”

  “Whu-? Uh, no, no. It’s fine. Yesterday was a Tuesday. Do you often go to Mass on weekdays?”

  “I go every day, Detective. There are few Catholics in Hera City, but we are quite devout. Service yesterday was by Mother Torres. The homily was concerned with the spiritually healing power of charitable works.”

  “Right. Did you speak to Madeleine when you met her?” “Our customary and perfunctory few words. She was rushing out the door, the way she always did. Madeleine gave the impression that she couldn’t stand to be in our home for more than five minutes, yet when I proposed buying her an apartment she declined. You don’t have children, do you, Detective?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Some young women are a law unto themselves. Not all, but certainly Madeleine was one. Impossible to fathom. Totally self- contradictory. She demands what you don’t have and when you offer that, she wants the complete opposite, and so on. She claims to hate me but refuses to leave.”

  She was speaking of Madeleine in the present tense. Death makes a nonsense out of time, I guess.

  “Anything else you remember?” I asked.

  “There was a friend of hers. Dreary sort of creature, always dressed in dark clothes. She pulled up to the front of the house in a Porsche coupé. I can’t say I approved of her driving. A little careless. Madeleine ran out the door to her. They looked happy to see each other.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Of course I have a name. I know about everyone connected to my family, tangentially or directly. She is a close acquaintance of my daughter. Her name is Virginia Newman. Her mother Margaret is an architect. She actually designed one of our corporate buildings, though I don’t know her personally. The girl is…flighty, I believe. Dropped out of school where she was doing a degree in Anthropology. The same school Madeleine attended, incidentally. She currently runs a trinket shop in the Old Village. Ethnic jewelry, incense, books on divination, that sort of thing. Nonsense and beads and worthless junk.”

  Jesus. She really does find out what she needs to know. I made a mental note to steer clear of Misericordiae Greenhill’s personal orbit.

  She went on, with a contemptuous tone, “An artistic type. The only daughter. Almost certainly a little spoiled but seems good- natured enough. More misguided than wicked, I would imagine. Rumors of promiscuity, probably true. Rumors of drug abuse also, but those are probably nothing more than rumors.”

  I actually blushed at the words and was happy we’d done this interview over the phone. “Rumors of drug abuse”: rumors about Madeleine’s own predilections, rumors about needle-tracks and pin-hole black-bruise eyes, rumors and more than rumors, verifiable truths that could explode into a hell of a godawful mess. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chief Etienne buried the whole thing, and a part of me wouldn’t blame her, either.

  “Detective? Is that all?”

  I started a little, bumping an elbow off my coffee mug and spilling some onto the desk. I scrambled for a napkin and slapped it down in the middle of the spreading mess. I said, “Sorry, no. Just a few… So this was the last time you saw Madeleine alive. Were you concerned when she didn’t come home yesterday evening?”

  “No, because she did come home. I was out, at a social engagement, but Ileana—you met her last night—told me that Madeleine had returned shortly after six o’clock. ‘Picking up a few things,’ she told Ileana, whatever that means. A change of clothes, I suppose. She wasn’t wearing that polka dot dress when she left that morning, certainly. She was dressed in trousers, which I cannot abide as casual wear. For someone in your position, of course, they are presumably a necessity.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Sometimes.”

  “In any event I would not have been concerned about Madeleine staying out all night, because that is what she did. She was known to go missing for days at a time. Sometimes for more than a week. I tried to reason with her, I tried to discipline her, I tried everything I could. But that girl just would not listen. And now, you see where it’s got her.”

  “Um…yes, Ma’am.” I gulped. “I, uh, I presume I don’t need to verify with your butler that this conversation took place?”

  “You may if you see fit. It happened as I’ve told you, but by all means be thorough. Please, be thorough.”

  “No, that’s… That should be fine. So, uh, Madeleine, she was in the habit of staying out, maybe staying with friends, whatever?”

  Misericordiae laughed quickly and bitterly. “Friends! Yes, I suppose you could call them friends. Spongers and wastrels, sycophants, leeches…Madeleine chose an odd sort of friend. The late-night bar and strange bedroom were her natural habitat, Detective. But… I assumed she would grow out of it. Get it all out of her system, that stupid, childish need to rebel. I assumed she’d walk close to the edge for a few years, perhaps even stepping the wrong side of it once or twice, then come to her senses and return to her rightful place. To her home. As we both know, I assumed wrongly.”

  I sighed loudly and for once didn’t care what Misery thought of it. Suddenly, I felt tired, and it wasn’t only the short night’s sleep. This was spiritual tiredness, existential tiredness, a sort of exhaustion of the self. I had, to use that weary cliché, a bad feeling about this one. A feeling that it had started ill, as they always did, and would end even worse.

  Finally I dragged myself back to the task at hand: “Did Madeleine have any enemies? Anyone capable of…doing something like this?”

  Misery considered the question. I gave her time and space both. Then she said, “No one individual comes to mind immedi- ately. But you must understand, D
etective, Madeleine was surrounded by potential enemies. That world she inhabited. Dive bars and strip clubs, gambling dens, these disreputable places filled with dangerous people… Please don’t presume I’m merely being judgmental here. I have my faith, yes, and my moral code, and I admit my disgust at those women and their base, contemptible lives. My own daughter disgusted me by her actions. But that’s by-the-by. My disdain for Madeleine’s life and the swamp in which she wallowed are irrelevant. What I’m saying is that any one of those women is potentially my daughter ’s killer. Would you be surprised to discover a bookmaker or pimp, some sleazy dancer, had done this awful thing?”

  “No, Ma’am. I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “Look there, Detective. Go down into that underworld. I am certain you’ll find your killer within.”

  “Alright. Thank you, Madam Greenhill. That can’t have been easy.”

  “It wasn’t, but it had to be done. I’m sending you another envelope, with a list of Madeleine’s known acquaintances, her most common haunts, her movements as much as we knew them. Her life, really, such as it was. If anything else comes to mind, I will inform you as soon as possible.”

  “That’s great. Thanks. And if there’s anything else I think of, I’ll let you know.”

  “Of course.” She paused; I could almost hear the pause, like it was a sound instead of a silence. “I love you, Mother.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Those were her final words to me. Isn’t that peculiar? She told me she loved me.”

  “And you say this was…peculiar?”

  “Certainly. Madeleine has never once said that to me before.”

  Chapter 5

  Odette

  THE rest of the day was a washout, literally and metaphorically. It started to rain about four seconds after I hung up the phone on Misery and kept coming down until after I hit the pillow that night. I spent ten minutes wondering why La Greenhill had gone into so much detail about her daughter, with me, a nobody, a civil servant, an insignificant speck in the tapestry of Hera City—her city. Almost like she was confiding in me. I figured, a woman like that protects her privacy, her secrets, to the death…and that’s only partly a figure of speech.