The Chalk Girl km-10

by Carol O'Connell

  The politician flashed him a condescending smile. ‘The little red-haired girl, where is she?’

  ‘My ward? She’s taking a nap.’

  ‘Dr Butler, this is police business. I need a few words with the girl – alone.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

  Rolland Mann stepped forward to enter the apartment. So obviously accustomed by rank to having people move out of his way, now he was confronted by the immovable object of Coco’s guardian, who leaned down and said, so politely, ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘I’ve known Toby Wilder for most of his life. I can tell you that much.’ The white-haired man looked at each detective in turn, though he never looked either one of them in the eye. This was a common enough quirk in New York City, and all too common was the evasiveness of his entire breed. ‘And now that you know the boy is represented by counsel, all your questions must go through me.’

  Damn all lawyers.

  The private office of Anthony Queen was not tidy, but it did show signs of a recent and suspicious cleanup. A blank space on the attorney’s wall outlined the typical shape of a calendar recently taken down. His desk was clear of all paperwork, and there was no appointment book, no Rolodex, only a tumbler of pens and pencils. This bit of housekeeping had probably been done in a hurry upon hearing that cops were at the door.

  Mallory shot a glance at the secretary, a plump, motherly soul lurking on the threshold. And now, judging by the expression of Oh, dear, this woman correctly deduced that the game was up.

  Maybe this had been the lawyer’s idea of a joke, and he was good at it. The performance showed longtime practice almost to perfection. Almost. But now – the police critique. Mallory picked up a sharp pencil and sailed it point-first past the old man’s head. By quick birdlike turns, Anthony Queen first reacted to the noise of the little missile hitting the wall behind him – and then to his secretary’s sudden intake of breath.

  ‘So I’m guessing,’ said Riker, ‘all the papers with those funny little Braille dots got shoved in a drawer before we walked in. Am I right?’

  ‘Stone blind,’ said Mallory. ‘No wonder his client wound up in jail.’

  ‘Juvenile detention,’ said the blind man, correcting her, but smiling to say that he took no offense. As Mallory had taken his measure, he had taken hers and apparently pronounced her worthy, for now he inclined his white head a bare inch, courtly as a bow, and waved one hand toward the chairs in front of his desk. ‘Please sit down.’

  The detectives remained standing, and Queen must have guessed this by the lack of the scraping noise that chair legs would make on a bare wood floor. He continued to look up at them, turning his sightless eyes on Riker and then to the place where Mallory should be. But she had moved around the desk to stand by the lawyer’s side, so stealthy that she startled him when leaning down to say, ‘Toby Wilder doesn’t have a job, and he didn’t have a rap sheet after his release.’

  ‘No petty theft,’ said Riker, ‘no breaking-and-entering charges. So we wondered where the kid got the money to support his drug habit.’

  The old man shook his head to tell them that this was the first he had heard of any drug use. The secretary was also surprised. Their reactions might be genuine. With ready cash to feed a habit and stave off withdrawal symptoms, a junkie could pass for clean and sober seven days a week. Even addicted surgeons managed their habits with steady hands.

  So Toby Wilder was a maintenance addict.

  What more could she do to trip the blind man? ‘We know you’re supporting his drug habit. All his money comes from you.’

  The lawyer shook his head again. ‘I can’t discuss his—’

  Mallory pressed folded sheets of paper into his hand. ‘Those are your client’s bank records. All his deposit checks are signed by you.’ But she knew little more than that. This attorney had no computer that she could plunder. She turned to the row of file cabinets that would contain his hard-copy records. Luddites would always pose obstacles.

  ‘Of course I sign the boy’s checks. I’m the executor of his mother’s estate. And Toby’s taxes are done by my own CPA. Everything is in order.’

  ‘You’re not a criminal lawyer,’ said Riker. ‘Not a trial lawyer. You only handle wills and trusts, but you were at Toby Wilder’s arraignment fifteen years ago.’

  Too subtle.

  Mallory leaned in close. ‘Whose idea was it to hobble that kid with a blind attorney?’

  The old man’s eyebrows arched. His smile was sporting, and his voice was maddeningly pleasant when he said, ‘I went to court that day as a favor to Toby’s mother. The judge had already appointed a criminal lawyer, but I didn’t know that – not at the time – and neither did Mrs Wilder.’ He turned his sightless eyes from one detective to the other. ‘I knew you’d find that interesting.’

  ‘You were the one who entered the plea of not guilty,’ said Mallory.

  ‘True,’ said the lawyer. ‘That’s when the prosecutor – I think his name was Carlyle – he pulled me aside and informed me about a plea bargain . . . and a confession. You see, when the police brought the child in for questioning, apparently a detective had Susan Wilder sign a waiver of parental rights. And that was another surprise. She had no idea what she’d signed away. Did I mention that Toby’s mother was blind? That’s how we met. Susan was a teacher. She taught me to read Braille when I lost my sight.’

  Mallory and her partner exchanged glances. Rocket Mann had tricked a blind woman.

  Rolland Mann pressed one hand flat against the door, deluded that he could keep it open that way. ‘Dr Butler, I’m giving you a lawful police order. Stand aside. I will talk to that little girl.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ve seen the way you talk to children. That old interrogation tape of Toby Wilder? That was brutal.’

  Mann was looking past him and, with more urgency now, renewed his efforts to gain entry. ‘Let me in!’

  Charles turned his head to see Coco standing behind him and clearly disturbed by the angry voice from the hall. Her hands were spinning, and her body was weaving from side to side.

  Rolland Mann put all his weight against the door and yelled, ‘Don’t make me call that cop back up here!’

  And now, as if the smaller man weighed no more than a bothersome fly, Charles easily pushed him into the hall by simply closing the door. Rolland Mann beat on the wood, and the pounding grew louder as each of three dead-bolt locks was secured.

  Coco put her hands to her ears and ran down the hall.

  Charles caught up to her in the guest room. She sat on the bed, tailor-fashion – rocking, rocking, as her little world tilted, all at sea. She held the one-button cell phone in both hands and held on tight, as if it were her lifeboat. And it was.

  He gently took it from her hands. ‘Good idea. Let’s call Mallory, shall we?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Ernest Nadler,’ said the lawyer. ‘Toby was charged in the death of an unidentified wino.’

  Riker stepped closer to the blind man’s desk. ‘Where was Toby’s father while this was going on?’

  ‘Long gone,’ said Anthony Queen. ‘Mr Wilder abandoned his family when Toby was ten. I only know that much because I had the man declared legally dead. Susan wanted to sell her condo, and the absent husband was a cloud on the title.’

  ‘Let’s get back to that bogus waiver,’ said Mallory, ‘the one that signed away the mother’s parental rights. Did you even bother to challenge it?’

  ‘Of course I did. And the judge was ready to hit the prosecutor with his gavel. Toby was a minor, a child. So I insisted that his confession be tossed. But then the court-appointed lawyer showed up. He was hired by the Driscol School. Very pricey legal talent – way out of my league. I can’t disclose the con versation in chambers, but when court resumed, Toby pled guilty to a charge of manslaughter. The plea-bargain arrange ment killed the boy’s right of appeal, but his mother and I filed a complaint against Detective Mann. Two angry blind people.
I always wondered if they were laughing at us, those policemen at Internal Affairs. I imagine they made a paper airplane out of Susan’s statement. It took me four years to get Toby out on early release. His mother was dying. I bought them a year to say goodbye.’

  Behind him, Riker heard Mallory’s cell phone ring. A moment later, he turned around, and she was gone.

  Rolland Mann’s secretary did not look up from the screen of her computer. Miss Scott wore a secretive, joyful little smile, and he assumed that she had found another job. No doubt he would find her letter of resignation on his desk. But that was not the surprise that awaited him when he opened the door to his private office.

  A detective was seated at his desk – leaning back in his chair – just begging to be fired for gross insubordination. ‘Mallory, are you insane?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Ask anybody.’ She lifted a newspaper from the desk blotter to expose a weapon lying there, and it was not a police-issue semi-automatic. It was a revolver – a big one.

  Rolland observed the traditional body language for dealing with a whack-job cop: the missed beat of the heart, the tension of every muscle, the gaping dry mouth.

  The detective’s face was a mask, and neither was there any expression in her voice when she said, ‘Charles Butler tells me you have an interest in a little girl . . . He called it an unhealthy interest.’ She picked up the revolver and studied its muzzle. Now she showed emotion – she loved the gun.

  He felt a cold wetness spreading on his crotch. Rolling down his legs. The smell of piss was in the air.

  Point taken.

  Mallory holstered her weapon and left the office.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We’re better trackers now, Phoebe and me. Today we keep Toby in our sights for a long time before losing him in the Ramble. Then we hear the scream, a grown-up’s voice, lots of anger. We can’t tell where the sound comes from. Though we don’t mean to, we run toward it, crashing through bushes and ferns and into a clearing. The place has the stink of an outdoor toilet. And other smells, beer and vomit. A buzz of black flies. A thousand gnats.

  And there’s Toby standing on a path up ahead. Next to him is a wild man – hair matted and stringy, clothes dirty, teeth missing – fists waving. Toby holds one hand to a bright red patch of skin on his face, and we know that crazy bum hit him. Then the man slaps something out of Toby’s hand. It falls on the ground. Golden. Shiny. Toby leaves it there, turns his back and walks away. The crazy man lurches into the clearing. Sobbing, he falls to his knees on the grass.

  Phoebe picks up the shiny thing, a gold cigarette lighter. And I say, ‘So Toby smokes cigarettes? How cool is that?’ Phoebe says no, it must be a keepsake. Toby never smells of smoke; he smells like soap. Only Phoebe would know his scent. She would taste him if she only could.

  And then we hear the laughter from above. We look up to the high ground of a boulder, and there they are, Humphrey, Willy and Aggy. While we followed Toby, they had followed us.

  They jump down from the rock. It’s raining monsters.

  —Ernest Nadler

  Lieutenant Coffey’s destination was only a short walk from the station house, but he had made a detour along the way. After parking his personal car, he stood on the sidewalk, looking up at an apartment window above the SoHo cop bar. He entered the saloon, an alcoholic’s dream come true, only a short stumble up the stairs to Riker’s apartment.

  And now Jack Coffey climbed those steps to knock on the detective’s door.

  Riker had his six-pack smile in place when he greeted his commanding officer. ‘Hey, Lieutenant.’

  Coffey entered the front room, a dumping ground for take-out cartons, crushed beer cans and unwashed glasses that had done double duty as ashtrays. A tower of dirty socks, junk mail and newspapers was precariously stacked on a straight-back chair. The stack moved. He could not look away. Any second now—

  Surprise. A walkway had been cleared from the front door to the kitchen, where dirty dishes were stacked up in the sink and along the countertop. But a small table had been swiped clean of debris. Whatever liquid had been spilled on the linoleum, it stuck to the soles of the lieutenant’s shoes and made a tacky sound as he crossed the small room. ‘Well, this is touching. You cleaned up for me.’

  Riker, the quintessential host, put a cold beer in the lieutenant’s hand. ‘Pull up a chair.’

  Coffey sat down at the table and tipped back his bottle for a long, cold swallow on a warm summer night. ‘Where’s your partner?’

  ‘Probably following the money.’

  ‘She ditched you, right?’ The lieutenant could hear the rattle of the air conditioner in the next room, but it was doing little to cool this apartment. He wondered if Riker had ever cleaned the AC filter. Stupid idea. ‘I went back to my place to go over Mallory’s credit-card charges for the time she was gone.’

  ‘You ran her card trace from your home computer?’

  ‘Yeah. I couldn’t put her in the department goldfish bowl. But I did it by the book. I guess she backtracked the search with my badge number. It’s not like I was hiding anything. I figured that was her reason for driving me nuts for the past month.’

  ‘Naw,’ said Riker. ‘That was just payback for all that desk duty.’

  ‘Maybe – maybe not.’ The lieutenant tipped his chair backwards on two legs and looked up at the ceiling, a haven for spiderwebs and trapped flies.

  ‘God knows she’s not normal,’ said Riker. ‘But nobody working homicide is all that well-adjusted.’ He held up a cigarette to ask his commanding officer if he minded the smoke – Riker, who deferred to nobody – and this was evidence of a worried man.

  ‘The chief of D’s called again. He ran his own trace on Mallory’s cards – for the lost time on the road.’

  ‘Then he’s got nothing,’ said Riker. ‘So the kid likes to drive. So what? Beats the hell out of booze and drugs to forget the last body count. You know her car?’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Coffey. ‘A Volkswagen convertible.’

  ‘Naw, it only looks like one. You lift up the hood, roll back the top, and what’ve you got? A damn Porsche with a roll bar.’

  ‘Disguised as a VW . . . Oh, yeah, that’s normal.’ But that would explain how she had traveled from place to place so fast, wandering aimlessly at breakneck speeds. ‘She was gone for three months, Riker.’

  ‘I’ve lost more time than that in drunk tanks. Every cop needs a hobby. I drink – she drives.’

  Jack Coffey found a clean deli napkin on the floor at his feet, and he used it to draw a crude map of the lower forty-eight states. ‘The charges she racked up are mostly gas stations, food, hotels.’ The lieutenant drew a row of dashes running out of New York. ‘For a few hundred miles, it almost looks like she’s got someplace to go.’ And then the westward line disintegrated into weaves and jogs and doubling-back circles as the lieutenant’s pen traveled across the paper-napkin country. ‘But she’s got no plan, no destination. The kid’s got nothing.’ Paradoxical Mallory, a girl with a full tank of gas – running on empty and covering lots of ground to go nowhere. His pen pressed down on the West Coast. ‘This is where she ran out of land.’ The pen moved along the edge of America, hugging the barrier ocean as it traveled north on the ragged paper coastline and stopped again. ‘Here’s where she decides to come back home.’ The pen described wide spirals – a cartoon of a clockwork spring, months long from coast to coast. ‘Not your typical tourist route. Circling, circling . . . the way people travel when they’re lost.’

  ‘But she’s fine now,’ said Riker.

  The lieutenant waited until the man met his eyes, and then his words were carefully meted out. ‘She was never fine.’

  And she never would be. Life could only beat a little kid half to death so many times and still expect her to grow up normal. But Mallory was a highly functional cop, and the best he had ever known, even better than her old man. It was a tribute he could not afford to pay to her face because – she was not fine. At best,
he could say she was back in form, smart and edgy and totally—

  ‘She isn’t nuts,’ said Riker.

  Jack Coffey nodded in agreement. ‘Crazy is just a game she plays.’ It was like a new toy she had found out there on the road. ‘And Mallory’s been playing me – playing crazy – in front of a squad of witnesses.’

  Hubris. It had never occurred to her that she could fail a psych evaluation. And then she had counted too much on Charles Butler’s rebuttal exam to save her.

  ‘Every time Chief Goddard calls me,’ said Coffey, ‘it’s like a threat to take her badge. Even if she gets a new evaluation, he can still drag her into a formal hearing anytime he likes. Let’s say the whole squad has to testify to her behavior – like hog-tying a CSI. If just one of those bastards slips up and forgets to lie like crazy – under oath – that’s the end of her.’

  Riker could only stare at the napkin. There was no need to remind this man that some of those detectives might not care to risk their own careers – not for her sake.

  Jack Coffey finished the beer and pushed back his chair. ‘Much as I’d like to tell Mallory she shot herself in the foot, it could only make things so much worse. You got a picture of that in your head, Riker? Mallory going to war on Joe Goddard?’

  The detective nodded. ‘I won’t tell her.’

  This time, Jack Coffey believed him. They were done.

  The lieutenant gathered up his car keys. ‘I don’t need to know the details. But whatever Goddard wants from you guys – bring it home real fast.’

  Riker was across the street from Sardi’s restaurant when he saw the red neon light of Lou Markowitz’s favorite nightclub in the distance. He held a cell phone to his ear and talked as he walked, saying to the shadow cop who followed Willy Fallon, ‘Stay on her till she goes back to her hotel. Then go home, Arty. Tomorrow you can sleep late. Party girls don’t wake up till noon.’ He folded his phone into his pocket and strolled down the sidewalk, mingling with the theater crowd as the shows were letting out, and then he put on some speed to beat these people to a seat in Birdland, a place of low lights, booze and live music.