Carol O’Connell - Winter House

The case load for Special Crimes Unit had spiraled out of control. And the new mayor, a man with the soul of a corporate raider, was planning to cut the department’s allotment in manpower and funds. Every day was run at a heart-attack pace, and yet, Jack Coffey was showing no early warning signs that this was the worst possible time to jerk him around, nor had he raised his voice to Mallory and Riker, who sat unmolested on the other side of his desk. He was not even holding a gun on them, and the other detectives must find that odd.

When he glanced at the glass wall again, he saw money flashing out there in the squad room. Bastards, they were making book on this meeting.

Never let the troops see you crying like a little girl.

That was his mantra today.

Riker and Mallory were on their best behavior this morning, quietly waiting for him to finish scanning another precinct’s report on a common burglary gone awry. He crumpled the cover sheet in one hand. Well, this was just great, this crap. Why would these two detectives drag this case home to an elite squad of firstgrade gold shields?

„Mallory, close the blinds!“

This was a test, and he was gratified to see her do it, and so quickly, not even dragging it out to jack up his frenzy.

Big mistake, Mallory.

Now he knew that all the leverage in this room belonged to him. Better than that – with the blinds drawn and no witnesses, he could do whatever he liked with these two. He leaned forward and gave them his most benign smile to knock them off balance. The partners exchanged looks that clearly said, Oh, shit.

So they wanted this case really bad.

Well, tough.

But he just had to know why.

He pulled one sheet out of the pile of paperwork, the results of the fingerprint search they had requested. „You’ll be happy to know that neither one of your socialites has a criminal record. What a surprise, huh?“ He also crumpled this paper into a ball and tossed it over one shoulder, then picked up a collection of forms that transferred the dead man to his own doorstep. „And this makes it official. We’ve been screwed in triplicate.“ He took his time crushing these sheets into another ball. He bounced it off the back wall. After spreading out the remaining paperwork, he selected two sheets from the array. „Well, what have we got here?“ Could his sarcasm be more obvious? Did he need to work on that? „I’m looking at two witness statements, one from a little old lady, eighty years – “

„That’s a typo,“ said Mallory. „Nedda Winter’s only seventy.“

„And she’s at least as tall as Mallory,“ said Riker.

„Maybe an inch over,“ she said.

„Yeah,“ said Riker. „Make that five-eleven.“

Coffey glared at his detectives, then looked down at the paperwork, saying, „And next we have a shitpile of biblical quotations from Bitty Smyth, a forty-year-old woman of undetermined ’height.“ He paused to glance at Mallory. „Just jump right in if I get anything else wrong, okay?“ His true message to her, delivered only by the tone of his voice, was You speak – -you die.

The lieutenant turned to his senior detective, whose face was always easier to read. „So, Riker, the catching detectives agreed with you. They figured it for a staged crime scene. Fair enough. Heller’s report backs them up. But the old lady explained that in her statement. She was afraid the cops wouldn’t be very understanding if she ‘d killed an unarmed burglar. So she put the ice pick in his hand.“ Jack Coffey leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. „Well, I say no harm done. She gets to slide on that one. I may even send her roses for killing that butcher.“ He swiveled his chair to face Mallory. „I’m surprised that Nedda Winter isn’t your new best friend. Willy Roy Boyd was your perp. You think a quick death was too good for that little freak? Would you rather wait out years of appeals before the state put him down with a needle?“

„That old woman lied about the – “

„Miss Winter gets away with everything, Mallory.“ Coffey picked up the amended statement and scanned the lines for the one he wanted. „She says her medication causes confusion.“

„Ah, bless her.“ Riker flashed a smile at Mallory. „Nedda was good, wasn’t she?“

Jack Coffey was not amused. „Maybe you guys should’ve brought her in here to do your talking for you. I called the old lady myself. It took me five minutes to queer the idea of an inside job. She said there was always a spare key in the planter outside the front door, and she couldn’t remember setting the burglar alarm last night. So much for our perp turning off the alarm with a security code. She also solved your problem with the missing videotape. A patrol cop named Brill took it out of the security camera.“ Coffey looked down at his personal notes. „That was last week after an attempted break-in. The cop returned it to Bitty Smyth, but she never got around to reloading the camera. The ladies figure the housekeeper tossed out the videotape with the trash.“

The lieutenant picked up Mallory’s report, but never bothered to read it. He preferred to make up his own more accurate summary. „Now the catching detectives couldn’t fob the case off on Robbery Homicide. And why not? Because those guys had the brains to bow out early. Then, while you two have your backs turned, the West Side dicks skate out the door and leave their mess in your lap. Now I know the two of you could’ve dumped this case on another squad if you’d only tried harder and talked faster.

You’ve got thirty minutes to do the paperwork and close it out as justifiable homicide.“

Jack Coffey was shuffling all the reports and statements into a neat stack when Mallory leaned forward.

Trouble.

„There’s more to it,“ she said. „West Side screwed up. Willy Roy Boyd was hired for a murder. It’s all there,“ she said, pointing to her own report, the one he had never read. „It all fits.“

„Talk fast, Mallory.“

„The West Side precinct has no volume in homicides,“ she said. „They looked at the same evidence and came up clueless. If we just write this one off, then one of those women dies.“

„Not so fast,“ said Coffey. No, he was not getting stuck with this lame case. „If you guys are right about murder for hire,“ and he was not conceding this, „why wouldn’t the ladies ask for police protection?“ He turned to Riker for his answer.

Mallory jumped in. „Two other people live in that house – the old lady’s sister and brother. They were conveniently out of town for the attempted break-in last week, and they weren’t home last night, either.“

„Even if you were onto something,“ and Coffey doubted that, „it’s still not a case for Special Crimes. The department has a task force for that kind of – “

„It’s not a mob hit,“ said Mallory, „and it’s not gang related. Willy Roy Boyd wasn’t connected that way. But he had an expensive lawyer for his bail hearing, and the bail bond cost him a fortune. He’s got no assets, no job, but his wallet was full of hundred-dollar bills. He was hired to kill one of those women. If we don’t work this case, no one else will.“

„And your partner collects ice-pick murders,“ said Coffey. „You left that out.“

This was no joke. His detectives had not been invited to last night’s party on the Upper West Side. He knew that Riker had been tipped to the aspect of the ice pick.

Over time, word had come back to Jack Coffey, mentions of his senior detective turning up at crime scenes in every borough where an ice pick was the murder weapon. Special Crimes had only handled one such case, only one standout among the more common murders via muggings and domestic disputes. No matter how ordinary the crime, Riker had been a faithful visitor at every scene all his working life. And no one knew the reason.