Carol O’Connell - Crime School

The bookseller looked up from his work, peering through thick lenses that enlarged his pale gray eyes. And now Charles could see that the man was not elderly, but closer to his own age of forty. He had been duped by Warwick’s premature white hair and slumping shoulders that mimicked a hump. The old-fashioned spectacles had also added to the illusion of extreme age. And, although the room was warm, the sleeves of his frayed white shirt were long and buttoned at the cuffs.

‘Mr Warwick?’

This was said in a civil voice, but the bookseller seemed confused. Then he took it as a command to come down from his perch, and he was quick enough to rise from his chair, but slow to descend the short flight of steps to the floor. Moving in the cautious manner of one with brittle bones, he shuffled across the room to stand before Charles, then lowered his head and stared at his shoes.

Awaiting orders?

‘Uh, could we sit?’ Charles gestured toward the readers’ table.

Obediently, Warwick eased into a chair, as if he did not trust it to hold his leaf-light body. And now he waited for further instructions. His head was still bowed in resignation, accepting another man’s authority over him.

Charles recognized the behavioral cues of a patient or a prisoner, someone who had remained too long in an institution. He quickly ruled out prison. Given Warwick’s eccentric masquerade as a senior citizen, the most likely scenario was long-term care in an asylum. The symptoms of institutionalization were so pronounced, the damage of prolonged confinement had likely begun when this man was quite young, perhaps in childhood. He wondered if the cuffs of the shirt hid scars of a razor across the frail wrists. How to proceed with such a delicate soul? Well, gendy and with references of course. ‘I got your name from a friend of mine. Perhaps you know him. Sergeant Riker?’

Warwick looked up for a moment, then lowered his face to stare at the tabletop, keeping custody of the eyes. Charles pulled out his business card and slid it across the table. The bookseller picked it up with grave suspicion in his myopic eyes. ‘This doesn’t say what you do.’

A valid point. A long string of academic degrees followed several PhDs behind Charles Butler’s name, but the card did not mention his profession, and this had been Mallory’s idea, to prod him into word-of-mouth advertising by way of explanation. ‘I’m in human resources. I evaluate people with unusual gifts, and then I place them with projects in the private sector or gov – ’

‘You’re a. psychiatrist.’ Warwick spat out this last word as if it had a bad taste.

‘No, I’m not.’ Charles looked down at the card. ‘A few of those degrees are in psychology, but I’ve never been a practicing – ’

‘And now you’re going to tell me that Riker didn’t lie to me. Am I right – Doctor!’ Warwick spoke to the tabletop when he whispered, ‘I’m crazy not to believe him. Right again?’

‘I’ve never known Riker to lie.’ Charles softened his voice, not wanting the man to acquiesce because of some imagined threat. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t – ’

‘More tricks.’ Warwick conquered his ingrained posture of compliance and sat up straight. His eyes darted from one bookshelf to another, then locked with those of his inquisitor. As the little man drew a deep breath, he seemed to be inhaling energy. His voice was stronger now. ‘You go back and tell Riker – ’ One tremulous finger rose from a closed fist, and he pointed it like a weapon. ‘You tell him – she’s alive!’

‘Who do you – ’

‘I’m not senile, if that’s what you’re thinking. First Markowitz, then – ’

‘Louis Markowitz?’

‘You think I’d forget that name? There’s nothing wrong with my memory. You tell that to Riker.’

‘I didn’t come here to examine you.’ When Charles smiled, as he did now, he knew it made him look like an escaped fool who had dodged his keeper. Such a silly face. Even the most paranoid of lunatics could not perceive him as a threat.

Warwick relaxed by slow degrees. ‘It’s been a long time, but I remember everything. She was a rare one. Most runaways are teenagers. The little ones like her, they usually go where they’re kicked – juvenile facilities, foster homes. You know how she survived the hunt? She was smarter than them. So smart.’

‘Them? The police?’

‘Markowitz and Riker. They staked out my store. What fools.’ Warwick pushed the thick spectacles up the bridge of his nose. ‘As if they could ever catch her.’

‘Who? What was her – ’

‘The little girl who loved westerns,’ he snapped, as if his interrogator should know this.

Charles called up an old photograph from an archive of eidetic memory. It was the picture that Louis Markowitz had carried in his wallet. Perfect recall included a tear in the protective plastic sleeve. ‘This child’s hair – was it long and wavy? Was it blond?’

‘And matted and dirty.’ Warwick nodded. ‘Her face was dirty, too.’ Eyes focused on some middle ground, he was also looking at a memory. ‘Her jeans were always rolled up in fat cuffs. Clothes never fit her – except for the running shoes. They were always spanking white. I think she stole a new pair every week. Markowitz said she was robbing New York City blind. But she never stole from me. She’d take a book off the shelf and put back the last one she borrowed.’ He smiled now, but not with happiness, more like defiance. ‘You see? I don’t forget anything.’

‘How long did this stakeout last?’

‘Off and on? Two months – and they couldn’t catch her.’

Charles recalled a different series of events: Louis had been enroute to his wife’s birthday party when he had just happened upon a strange child robbing a car. Rather than spend the night filling out paperwork, he had taken Kathy home to the party, and his wife had mistaken the baby felon for a present. What a lovely story – told so many times. Riker was not even mentioned in that version. And nothing had ever been said about stalking, hunting down a little girl over a period of months.

‘And what was your part in this, Mr Warwick? You just loaned her the books?’

‘No, no.’ The man was exasperated, perhaps still believing that this was a psychiatric interview, a test of trick questions. ‘The girl took the books, like she had a right to them. She’d take one, then bring it back. That’s how Markowitz figured out that she came from a small town.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Markowitz said, in her part of the world, my little store was probably the size of a public library. He said to me, „The kid brings the books back because her mother raised her right.“ Then that bastard confiscated her westerns, all but the last one.’

‘The book you traced for him?’

Warwick nodded. ‘I had to track down all the buyers at the estate sale where I got the others. He paid me, then put the book on the shelf – so she would find it. But she never did. I never saw her again. The last time Markowitz came in, he told me the little girl was dead. He scribbled a few words in the book, then left it behind.’

‘So you know what he wrote on the – ’

‘It was a love letter to a dead child. The words weren’t meant for you.’ Warwick sighed, then looked down at his hands. ‘He wanted me to believe she was dead, but it was just a trick. He was crying that day. I – almost believed him.’

‘Interesting pattern,’ said Charles. ‘The little girl and her books. She must have come in here quite a few times before you reported her to the police.’

‘I never did that. I never betrayed her.’ The bookseller said this with great pride, as if he had defeated yet another trap of the inquisition.