Carol O'Connell - Mallory's Oracle

"Edith must have been in pretty bad shape to miss the funeral."

"I'm sure she was."

"You don't know?"

"My parents never took me to visit her after that. My mother told me we were respecting her seclusion. The next time I saw Edith was after my mother's funeral."

The coffee-maker spat.

Edith Candle was staring at the wall but not seeing it. Looking beyond the twining roses on the wallpaper, she was probing old memories which predated the death of a magician. Her chair rocked with unconscious effort.

One could always point to a time, a choice, an act that set the tone for a life and changed a personal destiny. Her moment had come in a desolate corner of the flat Midwestern landscape. The sky had been deep purple, and she recalled stars like blazing cartwheels in the triangular flaps of the tent which had been pulled back to catch the breezes of a hot summer night. Maximilian had been at the back of the tent with the mark. By code of words, he fed her the details of the watch in his hand.

"I can't see anymore," she had cried out suddenly, "the image is being drowned out by other thoughts." The other thoughts had been gleaned by eavesdropping in the line for admission. Max had overheard a woman talking about her sister Emaline's heart problem and how it worried her night and day.

"Tell us these thoughts," said Max, cuing her to remove the blindfold and ask if the name Emaline meant anything to anyone in the audience. She removed her blindfold and looked out over the silent, tense sea of faces.

She was transfixed by the boy in the front row, far from the mark at the back of the tent. The boy stared at her. He shivered and then looked away. His soft eyes shamed down to his shoes. She stared at him until the boy's eyes met hers again. He had the look of a drowning animal. The sense that he was waterbound was strengthened as the boy began to rise from the wooden bench, moving in slow motion as though the atmosphere had killing weight and pressure. An older companion, wearing the same gas-station uniform as the boy's, put a hand on his shoulder to bid the boy sit down again. The boy's terrified eyes looked back to hers. He sloughed off the old man's hand and began to make his way down the aisle with the gait of too much drink, though she knew the boy was not intoxicated.

She had called out to him, "You must tell the police what you've done." The boy spun around, his face all agony, more pain than a child could stand.

"You must tell them!" she shouted.

The boy let out a strangled scream and fled up the aisle. A uniformed police officer also stood up and followed the boy out.

That night, the local sheriff dug up the body of Tammy Sue Pertwee in the yard of a shanty-town shack. It made the morning paper, and it made her the headliner instead of the added attraction to Maximilian's Traveling Magic Show.

Henry Cathery was sitting in the park at dusk. The street-lamps were just coming on when the pretty woman arrived. He knew she would come back. He had waited for her all through the previous day into disappointing darkness. After all the days of seeing her each morning and every evening, he had felt the loss of her yesterday. Then Mrs Siddon had died, and the pretty woman had come back to him again.

She opened the door of the tan car and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She had never done that before. He followed the graceful swing of her walk as she moved down the sidewalk and towards the building across the street. So she would not be keeping him company this time. His head remained motionless while his eyes rolled after her. Her gold hair caught the lamplight and threw it back in sparks. The electric woman had wonderfully dangerous eyes.

She entered the near building through the great oaken door, held open by a doorman who stared at her with naked hurt that his chances were better to be struck three times by lightning than even to touch her. The doorman was very tall, good lightning-rod material in a level cow pasture, Henry thought, but this was New York City.

Henry Cathery left his bench and walked slowly to the gate. He pressed his face to the bars and stared at her little tan car. He opened the gate and moved slowly across the street, unmindful of the fast-braking car which was now skidding around him. He stood in the street staring into the car's windows. The seats were much cleaner today. No trash, no coffee cups. He leaned into the narrow opening at the top of the driver-side window and inhaled deeply. So this was what she smelled like. He reached in the window, forcing the crack to widen, pushing his flesh against it until it permitted his hand to reach far enough inside to rub his palm on the upholstery of the car seat.

When Jonathan Gaynor opened the door, Mallory was close enough to notice the light sprinkle of freckles across his nose. He was only a few years shy of forty, yet the idea of a small boy with a fake beard persisted. She held up a leather folder with her shield and photo ID. He actually read the card. Most people barely glanced at it.

"Sergeant Mallory, you're right on time." He opened the door wide and stepped back as she walked in. He looked at his Rolex. "And I mean right on time, exact quartz time."

She watched his eyes drop to inspect the cashmere blazer she wore over her jeans, probably trying to reconcile the good cloth with the badge-and-gun salary. In the manner of an insurance-appraiser, she noted the recent water rings on the antique woods, and a newspaper opened on light brocade upholstery which was probably now smudged with print. Delicate pieces of collector's crystal sat on every surface – nearly every surface. Her eye for symmetry filled in the gaps on the tables where other pieces had been until recently. She sat down in the large armchair which dominated the rest of the furniture. And it was she who motioned him to sit down in the opposite smaller chair.

"You didn't mention this appointment to anyone?"

"Of course not, Sergeant." He folded his body into the chair, and his arms jutted out at risky angles to the figurines on the near tables. "I can appreciate the fact that undercover work is dangerous. You can rely on my discretion."

"Thank you. One of your neighbors believes I'm a private detective. I'd like her to go on believing that."

"Of course. How can I help you?"

"You knew Inspector Markowitz?"

"We met once. He came by after my aunt was murdered. I liked the man. I was sorry to hear about his death." One hand moved of its own accord and fell over the arm of his chair. The other hand rested on his thigh, though these two body parts seemed unacquainted. No interaction of his limbs ever implied that they had met before.

"Sergeant Riker tells me Markowitz asked for your expertise, Mr Gaynor."

"Yes. He was interested in the social dynamics of Gramercy Park, particularly the elderly inhabitants."

"There are no notes on that meeting. It might help us to follow his line of investigation if you could remember what was said."

"Well, that was over two months ago. I only recall the gist of it. He focussed on all the ways elderly women connected with one another in Gramercy. This square is an interesting little nation unto itself." The hand which had been dangling now joined the rest of him, rising to the arm of the chair, knocking into the small table on its way. Gaynor never seemed to notice the hand had injured itself, he and the hand were that far removed from one another.

"Was Markowitz interested in anything more specific?"

"Yes, but I could only give him a general picture. I'm afraid I wasn't much help on particulars. You see, I hadn't moved in yet, not until weeks after my aunt's death. So, at the time, I was out of touch with the square."