The Polka Dot Girl

by Darragh McManus

  Then I figured again: Misericordiae is so powerful, so dismissive of other people and where they stand in relation to her, that she doesn’t care what I know. She told me exactly what she wanted to tell me, no less and certainly no more. Then I figured again and again: all of this only applies up to a certain point. She doesn’t mind me knowing Madeleine was a wild child because anyone with eyes and ears already knows this; but woe betide the person who stumbles onto something really juicy, like for instance the fact that said wild child had graduated from partying and sleeping around to a hard line in poppy-derived narcotics…

  Forget it, Genie. Like Farrington said, it’s not your call. Which reminded me: I dialed the Chief ’s number and got no answer, so I strolled over to her office where her secretary told me Etienne was out for the rest of the day. Some sort of Departmental heads pow-wow, policy formulation or what-have-you. And that left me swinging in the breeze for now. Forensics, in all likelihood, would still be processing the physical evidence from the crime scene. I had already shaken down Poison Rose for whatever could be shook. The autopsy results I knew. All that remained was to hit the streets, hit the docks, start snooping around, and I couldn’t do it. Too miserable outside, too tired in my body and mind. I set my phone to message, grabbed my jacket and headed to Odette’s house.

  She lived in what could almost be described as an upper- middle-class cliché. The top apartment in one of a row of brown- stones—what a contrast to my concrete bunker across town—on a street where dogs were walked, trees were mature and abundant, little girls played hopscotch and nobody owned a car that was either new or cheap. Classic models and styles, gorgeous machines with crucifying price-tags and, in some cases, smartly tailored chauffeurs to boot. Some of the women who lived here were relatively cash-poor—and I stress relatively—but all were asset-rich. Odette came from old money, one of the founding families of Hera City. The kind of people who talk about how “old” their line is, like all the rest of us just sprang into existence three or four generations back, out of the rocks or the mud or something. I always hated that snobbery— that stupid illogicality—but Odette wasn’t like that. She carried a little of the Crawford sense of entitlement in her genes, and it surfaced the odd time, but she’d always paid her own way and made her own way…except for the brownstone, of course. It’s not easy to afford a joint like this on a music teacher ’s salary.

  Odette was cool. She was cool, she was mine, and now she wasn’t.

  I rang her bell and lit a Dark Nine, stepping away from the door and back onto the pavement so she could see me. The intercom two-way hadn’t worked since before we broke up, and I knew she wouldn’t have fixed it. Odette was incapable of anything even approaching manual labor. She couldn’t change a tire if her life depended on it, which was why she didn’t have a car. I took the car when we split; I’d been its only driver, anyway.

  A shadow moved past the curtain, I counted out a minute and, bing, right on the point of 60, the door opened. Odette looked a bit harried, flustered, though not unhappy to see me.

  She even managed a smile, the first I’d gotten from her in a long time.

  “Genie. Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m okay. You know, just tipping along…”

  “Listen, I’ve got a pupil. I’m sorry, she’s preparing for grading exams, I only have a few minutes.”

  “It’s alright. Don’t…put yourself out. I just need a moment.” She blurted out, “I really do have someone with me. I’m not trying to avoid talking to you.”

  I smiled wryly. “Odette, I told you—it’s alright. I’m here on work business, anyway.”

  She frowned in perplexed curiosity, then pointed to the sky. The rain was still pelting down, hammering off the pavements, spritzing off the trees, pasting my hair flat to my crown. “Would you like to step into the hallway at least? You’re soaked.”

  “Sure.”

  She backed into the main lobby of her building and stepped aside to allow me enter, then closed the door. The place was quite dark with the door shut, the evening lights not yet on. Odette crossed her arms over her breasts and leaned her weight on one hip. I could read her body language instantly, instinctively. And this meant, you’ve got my full attention.

  I shook myself off like a dog coming out of the ocean and took a deep breath. Then I looked at her and said, “I’m here to tell you that one of your former students has been murdered. I didn’t want you to read about it or hear it from someone else. This only happened last night so it hasn’t made the papers yet.”

  She put her hand to her mouth. A long, slim hand, a musician’s hand. “Oh my God. What happened? Who was she?”

  “Madeleine Greenhill.”

  “Madeleine… You don’t mean the Madeleine Greenhill?” I nodded.

  “Madeleine.” She drifted off into reverie and reminiscence. “Yes, I had her as a student two or three years ago. You remember, don’t you? I used to take classes in the Conservatory of Music at Hera U. We had, we were getting something done with the study here, redecoration. I rented out that room in the university. …Madeleine. Quite talented, as I recall, though she didn’t keep it up. A nice girl, I thought. Pretty. Good-natured. Something very…honest about her. You know? A kind of openness. Like she’d find it hard to lie.”

  I shrugged. What did I know? Carry on, Odette.

  “Her mother…they didn’t get on, I don’t think. Oh, Madeleine was a handful, I’m sure. I’m not saying… I didn’t think there was any bad in her, though.” She snapped back to the unpleasant present but kept gazing at the floor. “How did it happen, Genie?”

  “Beaten to death. Her body was found last night at Whinlatter Docks. We’re treating it as murder. It is murder, there’s no question about it. And it’s my case, which is why I’m here. Anyway, sorry to have to tell you all this.”

  Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’d found myself saying that a lot lately, even though I hadn’t done anything. I said sorry, I felt sorry, every goddamn thing was sorry. And now I’ll say it again: sorry, I made a mistake just then, when I said I hadn’t done anything— I had. I’d treated Odette shabbily, taken our relationship for granted. She was passionate and deadly earnest; once she committed to something, she committed. I was sort of a drifter, an observer, one of those folks who, for whatever reason, remain on the periphery of their own lives. I loved her, no doubt about it, but I hadn’t given myself over to us, wholeheartedly, with every last drop of my essence. She was very important to me but I was the most important thing to her. A subtle difference, but a fatal one.

  Eventually, six months ago, she realized this and called it a day. She had moral courage and a desire for happiness in her life, two qualities I wasn’t entirely sure I possessed, and she did the needful, the mercy killing, the emotional euthanasia. I was upset, of course, but also relieved. At least, I think I was relieved. It’s ironic but in some sense I’ve gone on loving Odette as much as I always did; whereas I’m positive that she, once the decision was made, systematically erased me from her heart, scrubbed away the last traces of Genie. And I don’t blame her for that. It’s just ironic, like I say.

  Anyway, fuck it, I’d said sorry to her enough times—neither of us had the stomach to hear it again. So I limited myself to saying, as I moved to the front door, “Hey, I’ll get out of your hair. I hope everything’s okay with you. You look like it is, though. You look good.”

  She did look good. Tall and broad-shouldered, fair-skinned, brown-haired, like a duchess in a very old painting, the lady waiting on the turret stairs. What is it about a shrimp like me and tall women? Little make-up as always, her hair un-tinted and barely styled. Odette was dressed in a brightly colored skirt and blouse, really smart duds, which looked sort of incongruous in the gloom of a dark room on a rainy afternoon. She also wore a beautiful diamond necklace, which looked even more incon- gruous to me, but what I know about fashion could be stamped on the necklace’s clasp. I wondered if she had kept any of the jewelry I’d bought her during our
time together. Considering my taste, or lack of it, I probably wouldn’t hold it against her if she’d dumped the lot.

  Odette smiled and said, “Thanks, Genie. You look tired. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. I am tired, we had a late one last night. But I’m fine, thanks.”

  She opened the door—the rain was positively Biblical out there by now. Odette said, “If you’re certain…”

  I was outside when I thought I heard her say, “Listen, why don’t…”

  I turned back to her and waited. She stared into space. I waited a few more seconds. Odette didn’t say anything. She smiled goodbye and went back inside.

  I said, “I’d like that, O” and walked away. I didn’t get too far, though. It was raining so hard when I stepped off the pavement that I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone much in the way of atmospheric noise. I sure as hell didn’t hear the low-slung black car as it slalomed towards me from behind my left ear as I crossed the street. So thank God for all the other senses, or I’d be pasted onto the tarmac by now.

  I clocked the vehicle in my peripheral vision on my first step off Odette’s stoop and onto the sidewalk. I didn’t really know I’d seen it but I knew I’d seen it, sliding by about 20 yards away and doing a slow turn on the street. By my fourth step I was at the edge of the road itself and my instincts were telling me something was off. Something about that car, it didn’t fit: the area, the brownstones, the well-tended trees, the elegantly dressed old lady strutting past, her long raincoat and large umbrella. The way it hung low to the ground, the blacked-out windows, the growl of an obviously retooled engine, a souped- up engine… Again, I didn’t know I was thinking all of this but I was thinking it. By my eighth step I was on the street and the rain was louder than a military tattoo and I remember that I’d noticed that the car ’s number plates had been covered up and then I knew for sure. And I knew it was barreling towards me, skidding through the water, aquaplaning in a vicious, whipping curved motion, aiming at me like a heat-seeking missile.

  Thank God for my sixth sense, and thank God for appropriate footwear. Because of the torrential downpour I had swapped my heels for a pair of walking boots, those high-tech things with a watertight sealant and grooved rubber soles for extra grip. Otherwise me and my chichi shoes would be looking forward to a nice eternity getting to know one another better. Hey, at least I might finally have got used to the way they pinch my toes.

  The death car was right on me and I yelled and lunged forward, took two giant steps, the boots grinding down onto the asphalt and pushing me away, just far enough. I rolled to the ground with the momentum and felt the car swoosh past, slapping my coat tail. I splashed into a puddle and swallowed rainwater and then my training kicked in, automatic reactions taking over: by the time I had continued the roll and raised myself onto one knee, a few seconds later, my gun was in my hands, held steady at arm’s length and pointed at the black car as it screeched to a halt 25 yards away.

  I don’t even remember reaching for the holster on my trousers belt and flicking up the clasp and yanking the gun out and releasing the safety, but I must have done all that because now I was pumping two bullets into the back of the car, ka-thunk ka- thunk, one embedding itself in the rear windshield, one going wonky and twanging off the trunk. The car squealed like a skewered Harpy as the driver reversed back from the curb, wrenched the wheel to the right and drove off. Shock and adren- aline fought for control of my system and adrenaline won out. I sprung up from the ground and started running. The vehicle couldn’t get proper traction, it was sliding more than driving on the treacherous surface, and I got to within 20 feet, firing off another two shots. The first went wild, hit I don’t know what, and the second busted out the back left window.

  Now I could see my quarry, sort of, as shards of glass fell to the ground and rain danced on the rooftop. A big woman, thick- necked, with short, spiky hair, wearing a dark jacket, leather if I had to guess, and what looked like the ends of a tattoo snaking up from within it to caress her neck. I still couldn’t see her face properly, needed to get closer, and I kept running but the distance between us was getting wider now as she got accus- tomed to the conditions, working within them instead of angrily butting up against them. She stopped forcing the car and started driving it. I saw her manipulate the gearstick, manual trans- mission, presumably down-shifting, and then she finally had purchase and was peeling away from me.

  I tried to remember the layout of these streets—I used to live here, I walked here, I knew this place—and something in my memory shouted go left so I went left, running up a narrow street with ornately designed apartments, hanging baskets, bicycles propped up against front doors. That’s the sort of area this was: you could leave your bike outside without fear of robbery, and I was dashing through it with a loaded gun in my hand and a murderous driver in my sights. I stumbled, skidded, fell and hit my knee, ignored the sharp jab of pain and got my ass up off the ground and ran. I turned the corner and there she was, in my sights for real: she’d had to stop, the lights were against her and the traffic was too heavy to chance breaking them. I kept running, thought about taking a shot, knew I would never risk it because she was too close to the other cars and who knew what way the bullet might ricochet? I had to get up close, make sure, make safe, and then the goddamn lights changed and she was scorching through the gap in traffic, clouds of spray rising around the car. It looked like a Turner seascape on wheels.

  I stopped, put my hands over my head, drew in desperate gasps of air, swore under my breath. I started shaking as all that adrenaline realized it had nowhere to go so decided to organize a Grand Prix around my bloodstream. No point running anymore. Whatever had just happened, whoever she was, she was gone. But I was still alive.

  Chapter 6

  Etienne

  “SOMEONE tried to run me off the road, I’ve told you. Correction—someone tried to run me into the road.”

  “Alright, Auf der Maur. Don’t lose your temper with me. Run through it again. Indulge me.”

  Chief Anne Etienne was nothing if not thorough. I’d already told her, about 1500 times, what had happened to me the day before, and here she was asking me to “run through it again.” Run it through, run me through, run me into the tarmac. I had felt great when I woke up, mainly because of an ironically excellent night’s sleep. Normally after getting shook up like that I’d be a bundle of nerves, an insomniac livewire with a pinball machine for a head. That night, though, for some reason, I slept like the proverbial baby.

  After losing the perp I’d gone back to Odette’s street to pick up my own car. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I figured she either hadn’t heard the ruckus outside—a distinct possibility, given the almost orchestral sounds of rainfall—or else had thought she heard the gunshots but figured them for a car backfiring. They just didn’t do gunshots in a swanky place like that. Though now that I thought about it, they didn’t do backfiring cars either. I decided not to ring her bell—no point in worrying her, and my pal in the low-slung motor was a thousand miles away by now. Instead I coaxed my own Dumpster-on-wheels into life, drove home and took a long, soothing bath. Lots of essential oils and even more essential wine. I slid into a pleasant drunkenness and got out of the bath before I slid into an unpleasant drowning. I ate a sandwich, watched a little TV and hit the sack to sleep the sleep of the just.

  Now I didn’t feel quite so great and Etienne was the cause of it. In point of fact, she was annoying the crap out of me. I only mentioned the incident to her in passing—I couldn’t even remember how it had wormed its way into the conversation— and now she was pressing me for details, more details, endless details.

  I sighed as discreetly as I could and said, “Okay. I was on Datlow Street. Number 57, to be exact. This was about three. I was calling to an old friend who knew Madeleine Greenhill. She used to teach her music. This is a few years back. Anyway, I wanted to tell her first-hand about the kid. You know, because… Then I had planned to swing by the
docks, see if I could get some kind of different angle on the thing.”

  Etienne nodded, her fingers steepled under her chin. I continued, “I met my friend and did the needful. I was only there, like, five minutes tops. I came back outside, stepped onto the street and pow, this car charges at me. I dived out of the way, I just made it really, pulled my gun and fired a number of shots. Then I…”

  “Hold on, hold on. Back up. Did you get a license plate?” “Nah. Smudged or…I don’t know, obscured in some way, anyway. Black four-seater, low-rise, tinted glass. Looked like a piece of shit but sounded like a monster. She’d done some serious work to that engine. I didn’t get the make.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “I hit the car at least three times, though I don’t reckon I hit her. Gave chase on foot down Datlow, then left onto…Kingship or Gentry or whichever one of those I was on, and came out on Arboretum Avenue. I could see her, up ahead of me, stalled at the lights.”

  “And you didn’t manage to reach her. Well, obviously you didn’t, or she’d be in our custody by now. Alright.” She straightened her tie—a tic she had, something she did while thinking. “What’s your take on it, Auf der Maur? Give me your gut instinct. Ten seconds after this woman had driven off, what did you think had just happened?”

  “I dunno, Chief. I thought I’d just had a lucky escape, probably… I mean, there are three possibilities here. One, a standard hit-and-run. A drunk or junkie or some other fuck-up, pardon my language. A reckless driver. Either didn’t see me or saw me and was too fried to care. Whichever. I don’t think that was the case.”