“No.”
Of course not. Miles too easy.
“You’re right about one thing.” Mallory pinned up a portrait of Natalie Homer smiling for her photographer. “He loved her. He was obsessed with her. She was the prettiest thing he ever set eyes on.”
And you are beautiful. Had he ever told her that? No, never.
“But he was nothing special,” said Mallory.
Far from special, far from beauty.
“Not in her class,” said Mallory. “All he could do was watch her and follow her. He probably figured she’d laugh if she knew how often he thought about her—about the two of them—together. She was unapproachable, unattainable.”
As far away as the moon. You would never—
“He was my best suspect.” Mallory tapped Lars Geldorf’s photograph. “The old man has an attachment to Natalie that just won’t die. He was on the top of my list.”
“Was,” said Charles. “And now?”
“When Natalie’s son looked through that bathroom door, if he’d seen a detective in street clothes, he wouldn’t have known the hangman was a cop.”
Though relieved that Lars was no longer in her sights, Charles’s good logic held sway. “You’re not forgetting that Junior saw that man a second time—two days later, outside the crime scene. The boy had to know that all the men in that room were police.”
“Three detectives turned out for a suicide call,” said Mallory. “And it wasn’t the address that got their attention. One of the uniforms gave the victim’s name. No patrol cop was ever dispatched to Natalie’s apartment while she was alive. I checked. She always made her complaints at the station. You read Deluthe’s interview with Alan Parris. The uniforms were in that room for two seconds before they shut the door and called in the report. They saw a scalped corpse on a rope. It was bloated with gas and maggots, face wrecked beyond recognition.”
“But they knew it was Natalie,” said Charles. “They knew that was her apartment.”
“One of them did.” She tapped the photographs of the uniformed officers. “Can you tell Loman from Parris?”
“That’s easy,” said Charles, though he knew neither man on sight. “Loman is the only one in the crime-scene photos. Parris wouldn’t go back inside that room. Oh, I see. They are rather alike.” Even Lars Geldorf had confused one for the other. Both in their early twenties, the patrolmen had the same regular features, dark hair and eyes beneath the brims of their caps. “When the boy was in the hall with Alice White, that second encounter should have reinforced his identification. But he saw two men in uniform.”
“It’s the uniform he remembered best,” said Mallory. “If the boy couldn’t tell them apart, how do we—”
“I suggest you flip a coin,” said Charles, for logic could not take him everywhere.
Riker leaned toward the window by his desk in the squad room. News vans on the street below were double-parked at the curb. A few men with microphones assaulted the police entourage surrounding and concealing the wounded detective, whose head was covered by a white helmet of bandages. The rest of the reporters were looking up at the second-story windows, mouths open like dogs waiting to be fed. “Nothing like a good hungry mob to jack up the fear.”
When Officer Waller and his partner came through the door, they were supporting Ronald Deluthe on both sides. Nursemaids could not have been more tender than these large men slowly walking him across the squad room and watching his face with grave concern. The dividing wall between detectives and uniforms came down when one of New York’s Finest was wounded in the line of duty.
An angry rope burn circled Deluthe’s neck, exposed stitches ran down one cheek like a dueling scar, and the dislocated shoulder was covered with a sling supporting his left arm. Riker saw the dead-white face as a sure sign that the boy had not taken any recent medication to block the pain.
Had that been Mallory’s idea?
The wounded man’s honor guard was dismissed. Riker did not want the uniforms to see what would happen next. When the stairwell door had closed behind the departing officers, Mallory unclipped a pair of handcuffs from her belt and manacled Deluthe’s good hand to the one that dangled from the sling.
23
Jack Coffey sat at the table beside the lockup cage. He had used a pencil to jam the sash of the only window, and now the small room was hot and airless as he entertained the East Side lieutenant with a story about the three Stellas’ reunion. “So this theatrical agent—real scary, like a nun gone psycho—she’s got Stella Small an acting job on a soap opera. But the mother and grandmother plan to take the girl home to Ohio.”
“Good idea.” Harvey Loman’s feet tapped the floor as his eyes strayed to a clock on the wall. He seemed mildly crazed by this tale that went on and on.
“Well, the poor kid’s been through hell,” said Coffey, pleased with the other man’s agitation. “And she’s knocked out with sedatives. So the agent leans over the hospital bed and smiles with real sharp little teeth. She says, ‘Up to you, baby doll. It’s a three-year contract with the hottest show on daytime TV.’ Now the agent acts real concerned. She says, ‘Oh, sorry, hon. Would you rather be buried alive in Iowa?’ Then Stella’s mother chimes in, ‘We live in Ohio.’ So the agent says, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ like there’s a difference.”
“Nice little story, Jack.” Loman’s political smile was flagging. He took out a handkerchief to mop his brow and bald head. “Now what the hell am I doing here?”
“We’re closing out an old case of yours. Nobody told you? It’s the Natalie Homer murder.” Coffey could read surprise in the other man’s face, but nothing more.
“That wasn’t my case, Jack. I was only a uniform in those days.”
“I know. I invited Parris too. He’s on the way over.”
Loman winced with real pain, then mopped his bald head and brow with a handkerchief. “Alan Parris?”
“Yeah,” said Coffey. “Your old partner.”
The man you sold out for a shot at the golden shield.
Lieutenant Coffey rocked his chair on two legs, enjoying the moment, for he had always disliked this man. “So, how come you never mentioned that old hanging? When you dropped off the paperwork—”
“I never made the connection to the hooker’s case.”
“Both women were hung by the neck and gagged with their own hair. How many connections did you need?”
“The crimes scenes were nothing alike.” Loman stood up and jangled car keys in his pants pocket. “I’m not gonna stick around for this, Jack.”
“I’m not giving you a choice, Harvey. You’re on my list of material witnesses. So you stay till we wrap it.” Jack Coffey was smiling as he rose from his chair, daring the man to push his luck in this precinct.
Still smiling, the commander of Special Crimes Unit stepped into the hall and locked the door the behind him.
The squad room was quiet and dim. All but one of the overhead fluorescents had been killed, and only a few independent lamps were left on, though all the desks were empty. The only bright light was focused on Mallory and the rookie detective. Ronald Deluthe wore a bloody T-shirt. His jeans and baseball cap, ripped from the wall of the incident room, were free of stains.
Riker stood by the window and watched the crowded sidewalk below. He saw Charles Butler’s head above the crowd of normal-size human beings and that other species, the reporters.
Mallory was still instructing her star performer. “Keep your face down.”
Well, that should be easy enough. Riker doubted that the boy would have the strength to lift his head. “We should send you back to the hospital, kid.”
“He wants to do this,” said Mallory, speaking for Deluthe. “So he stays.”
Riker was about to make another comment but let it slide for Deluthe’s sake. In the aftermath of killing the scarecrow, this was almost therapy, though that was not Mallory’s motive. She only wanted an authentically battered doppelgänger.
“One problem,”
said Riker. “Even if they don’t see his face, they’ll recognize the hair. You can see that bleach job through solid walls.”
“I know.” Mallory resolved the problem with a mascara wand. After a few deft strokes, the fringe of hair beneath the bandages was turned to brown. “Deluthe, you’ve got everybody’s attention now.” She leaned down to his eye level. “So no more bleaching.” And that was a direct order. “You’re not invisible anymore.”
Riker was startled. Empathy was not his partner’s forte. She should have been the last one to work out the puzzle of Deluthe’s bright yellow hair.
“I don’t want to see any emotion at all,” she said. “We’re clear on that?”
“Yes,” said Deluthe.
Mallory dabbed at his bleeding lip with a tissue, perhaps perceiving fresh blood as a sign of overacting. “When Janos brings you back to the squad room, I’ll ask a few questions. Don’t speak. Just nod.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“A lot hangs on that nod.” Jack Coffey crossed the squad room to join them. “We got nothin’ else, kid. No physical evidence.”
They could not even justify an arrest warrant. And since there was no need to mention that Deluthe had dispatched their only eyewitness with a baseball bat, the lieutenant led him down the hall in silence.
“So you got your perp.” Geldorf’s voice came from the stairwell door, where he stood with Charles Butler. “Nice work!”
“Hey, Lars.” Riker returned the old man’s broad smile. “You know all your lines?”
“Oh, yeah. Charles briefed me. Don’t worry about—”
Mallory made a motion to silence Geldorf as the stairwell door opened again, and Alan Parris was escorted into the room by Detective Wang. Riker studied the suspect with the eye of a fellow alcoholic. The ex-cop showed no signs of a recent binge, but fear could sober a man. At least Parris did not reek of booze. His new suit was another sign of fear, disguising him as a respectable taxpayer instead of an unemployed drunk.
“Mr. Parris?” Mallory pointed to the door on the far side of the room. “Could you wait in there? Thanks.”
Geldorf watched the man enter Coffey’s office and take a chair near the glass partition. “He’s gonna be way too comfortable in there. You need a closed room, no windows, no air.” The old man was reborn, and all the annoying cockiness was back as he turned to lecture Mallory. “You want complete control over him. You decide when he takes a piss, when he eats—if he eats.”
“It’s not your call,” she said, reminding the old man that he was visiting Special Crimes Unit on a provisional passport. “Parris thinks he’s here for a friendly little chat.”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Janos walking toward them. “When he saw Geldorf, he panicked. Now he wants a lawyer. So we gotta kill an hour till—”
“The hell we do.” Riker strode across the room, entered the office and shouted, “What’s all this crap about a lawyer!”
Parris’s voice was surly. “You plan to crucify me for these hangings, right?”
“You don’t watch TV? You don’t listen to the radio? We nailed our perp this afternoon, okay? Now I read your statement, and I got some questions on Natalie Homer.”
“I wasn’t—” Parris turned to the door as two more people stepped into the office. Mallory sat down behind Coffey’s desk, then glared at Lars Geldorf, warning him to keep silent and wait for his cue.
“Parris,” said Riker. “You were saying?”
“I wasn’t the one who took Natalie’s complaints. I was a uniform, not a dick.”
“But you knew her.” Geldorf stood behind Parris’s chair and placed one gnarly hand on the man’s shoulder. “You saw her every day on patrol.”
Parris shook off the man’s hand. “She never even looked my way.”
“That bothered you, didn’t it?” Geldorf leaned down to Parris’s ear. “She was so pretty. And here you got this gun, all this power, but she don’t even know you’re alive.”
“Back off,” said Mallory. Now everyone in the room, including Alan Parris, was united by a common enemy—Lars Geldorf.
The old man pretended to ignore her and reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out a Polaroid of Natalie Homer, a close-up of a dead woman with mutilated hair and flesh. “Not so pretty now, is she? Not so high and mighty anymore.”
Mallory leaned over and snatched the photograph. “I said that’s enough.” Some of her anger was genuine. She disapproved of ad-lib remarks and unauthorized props.
“I want a lawyer,” said Parris.
“I don’t blame you,” said Riker. “This is bullshit. But you haven’t been charged with a crime.” He turned on Geldorf. “Not one more word.” This small gesture had endeared him to the smiling Alan Parris.
“Mr. Parris—Alan,” said Mallory. “You were a cop. You know how hard this job can be. So what can you tell me about her? Anything that might—”
“Nothing. Every time she came into the station, there was a crowd of dicks around her. They talked to her for hours. For all the good that did her.”
“You felt sorry for her.” Riker nodded his understanding, his commiseration. They were brothers now.
“Damn straight. She deserved better.”
“Tell me about the extra patrols in that neighborhood,” said Mallory. “You checked in on her, right? Maybe you stopped by her place to—”
“Why should I? The detectives never asked me to.” Parris turned to Geldorf. “You bastards liked her well enough, but you never believed her.” He turned back to Mallory. “They only saw Natalie when she was really scared. I guess they figured that was just normal for her.”
“But you knew better,” said Riker. “You saw her every day. You knew what she was going through.” She was always Natalie to Alan Parris, a first-name acquaintance and not a woman who had never given him the time of day.
Jack Coffey had left the door to the lockup room wide. And now Lieutenant Loman watched the back of a prisoner being marched down the hall. Mallory was right. No one else could have been as convincing as this young cop in bloodstains, chains on his wrists, chains on his ankles, faltering steps and now a stumble. Janos’s massive arms reached out to catch Deluthe before he could fall.
“The leg irons are overkill,” said Harvey Loman.
Coffey stared at the sweat shining on the back of Deluthe’s neck. The mascara hair treatment was running in a brown streak that mingled with the T-shirt’s bloodstains. Then he realized that the game was not over when Loman went on to say, “I can’t see that pathetic bastard outrunning Janos.”
“Yeah, well, the DA’s coming,” said Coffey. “So we’re going by the book, leg irons and all. We’re cutting a deal with the perp.”
“Yeah? What’s he offering?”
“A photo ID on the man who killed Natalie Homer.” Lieutenant Coffey rose from the table and slammed the door. “So you remember that crime scene pretty well.”
“Like I could forget. That room was hell on earth. The stink and the bugs. But it was a different kind of freak show for the hooker.”
“Sparrow.”
“Yeah, all those candles, a different noose. And she wasn’t even dead. I still don’t see the connection, Jack.”
“It’s the scarecrow—Natalie’s son. I think you met him once, Harvey.”
Charles Butler entered the office and stood behind Mallory’s chair. Since he had been given no further instructions, all he could do was loom over the proceedings, bringing his own discomfort to the party. And now they were five—too many people and just the right number, each one jumping up the energy level, the heat and the stress.
Mallory stared at the window on the squad room. “He’s coming.”
Five pairs of eyes watched Janos escort his prisoner to the desk beneath the only overhead light. From the distance of the lieutenant’s office, only the chains, the bandages and the blood were visible. The battered face was shadowed by a baseball cap. Mallory glanced back at Charles, whose face could not hide
a thought. He was merely curious. He had no idea that the injured man was Deluthe.
She leaned toward Alan Parris, talking cop to cop. “I’ve got one break on this case, a witness. You met him once.”
“Yeah,” said Riker. “You chased him away from Natalie’s door. Remember? He was only six years old.”
“One of those little kids in the hall?”
Riker turned to the glass wall and pointed at the wounded man being guarded by Janos. “He was Natalie’s son.”
“Oh, Christ!” Parris turned around for a better look at the man in handcuffs. “That’s your perp?” From this angle, he could only see the curve of Deluthe’s cheek. “So the kid went nuts.”
Mallory nodded to say, Yes, it’s all very sad. Yeah, right. “Natalie’s sister hid the boy out of state. You can guess why.”
Parris shook his head as he stared through the glass wall, eyes fixed on the young man in manacles. “Her son hanged those women. I can’t believe it. Bloody Christ.”
Detective Wang entered the office and tossed a manila envelope on the desk. Riker picked it up and inspected the contents, pictures of three detectives and two uniformed officers as they had appeared twenty years ago. He laid them out on the desk blotter.
Predictably, Parris focused on the portrait of his own young self fresh from the police academy. He was about to say something when Mallory cut him off, saying, “This won’t take long.” She picked up the photographs and rose from her chair.
“Oh, yeah,” said Lieutenant Loman. “I remember the little kids in the hall—one of them anyway.” He was staring at the evidence bags that contained a twenty-year-old film carton and a set of notes written to Natalie Homer. “You know why I remember him, Jack? This tiny little boy—he reached inside the door of Natalie’s apartment and picked up an empty film carton. He wanted a damn souvenir of that poor woman’s murder. Cold, huh? I wish I could forget that kid.”
Mallory stood before the injured detective, looking down on his swollen face. When she spoke to Deluthe, her voice was loud enough to carry across the squad room. “Take your time. This is what they looked like the year your mother died.”
Crime School Page 35
