Carol O’Connell - Crime School

‘Not likely. Janos said there were only two calls on the Cashtip line.’ And despite the killer’s telephoned confession and a reporter’s visit to the local police station, Kennedy Harper’s body had been left to rot for six days in the heat of August. ‘He must’ve figured the cops just weren’t paying attention.’

‘Well, he got that part right,’ said Riker. ‘And now we know why he burned Sparrow’s window shade. Hard to miss a woman hanging in full view of the street. He wanted a guaranteed audience for his second show.’

Heller stood on the other side of the glass, raising the sash. ‘Okay, all the windows are open, and the worst of the stink is gone. You two delicate little pansies can come back inside.’

Without being asked, the tenants kept their distance from the stench of the crime scene. They were gathered at the other end of a long hallway, where Ronald Deluthe questioned a man with greasy coveralls. A large cluster of keys dangled from his utility belt.

‘You’re the building handyman, the super?’

‘Good guess, kid.’

Deluthe could translate that to mean Who else would I be, you moron? Not a promising beginning for his first interview of the day, but he pressed on. ‘So a body is rotting away for maybe a week, but you never smelled anything? He paused a moment to flick a fly off his face. ‘Nobody complained?’ An army of insects walked up the walls, and some were strolling across the ceiling.

The high-pitched whine of a woman chimed in behind the detective’s back. ‘Oh, we complained all right! You think this lazy slob would take six minutes to check it out?’

The far door opened and Mallory stepped into the hall in time to catch the handyman demonstrating a New York gesture for love and friendship, his middle finger extended from a closed fist.

‘Harper got new locks!’ The man edged closer to the whining tenant so he could yell in her face, ‘And I got no keys for ‘em! You want I should break down her damn door?’

At the other end of the hall, Mallory called out to Deluthe, ‘Chase down the locksmith. Find out when he was here.’

‘Oh, I can tell you that.’ The handyman’s keys jangled as he turned to flash a lewd grin at the pretty detective. ‘It was two weeks ago. I watched him do the work.’ His eyes undressed Mallory layer by layer, removing her blazer, her T-shirt, her bra.

And now he was the focus of her attention. ‘Was Kennedy Harper home that day?’

‘Yeah.’ His eyes traveled all over her body. ‘So?’

The detective’s long legs were encased in blue jeans, but in the handyman’s eyes, they were naked. He looked up, suddenly startled. She was moving toward him with long strides and swinging a camera from its strap like a weapon.

Ronald Deluthe wondered if she was only pissed off, or had he missed something – again.

Mallory stood toe-to-toe with the man in coveralls. ‘You had keys to the other locks.’ This was an accusation.

‘Sure. I got keys for the whole building.’

That was so obvious. The buckle on the man’s utility belt sagged from the weight of his keys, each one tagged with an apartment number. And now Deluthe waited for some caustic comment from the witness, but the handyman kept a respectful silence, for Mallory stood with one hand on her hip, exposing the shoulder holster and a very large gun. Her eyes were even more intimidating. Did she ever blink? She took two quick steps toward the handyman, who had nowhere to go but flat up against the wall.

‘Why don’t you have the new keys? You were here with the locksmith. Harper was home that day.’

‘I asked for ‘em. She wouldn’t give ‘em to me.’

Mallory looked down at the cluster of tags and metal hanging in front of the man’s crotch. He squirmed when she reached for it.

‘You’ve still got the old ones.’ Mallory stared at the key tag for apartment 4B. ‘You had access before she changed the locks.’

‘And she had no problem with that.’ He was a model citizen now, eager to help and talking fast. ‘Five years and no complaints. Then one day, out of the blue, I’m a suspicious character. She can’t trust me with her damn keys. Go figure.’ He turned to Deluthe. ‘Don’t write that down, kid.’

Deluthe folded his notebook into a pocket, then took out his Miranda card to read the prime suspect his rights. ‘You have the right to remain – ’

‘What are you doing?’ Mallory took his card away, then handed him the camera. ‘We’re done with this man. Go outside and take pictures.’

Deluthe nodded. He was growing accustomed to humiliation and busywork. The killer had no way to know that the body had been discovered, not this time. He would not be among the onlookers. This was Mallory’s way of telling him, once again, to get lost.

Riker stood near the kitchenette, where the odor was strongest. He stared at the jar of dead flies on the floor, then counted exactly two dozen saucers, each one containing the melted remnants of a red candle. They formed a perfect circle, and at the center lay Kennedy Harper’s remains. She had a noose around her neck, and the double knot was the same as Sparrow’s, but this woman had not been found hanging. The light fixture had come loose, and the body had crashed to the floor long before the police arrived. A broken bulb and a shattered white globe lay close to a nest of wires pulled down from the hole in the ceiling. The corpse at his feet was bloated with gas, and the face was partially concealed by shards of broken plaster. Only one eye, clotted with white dust, was visible. It had retracted into its socket.

Or the maggots had eaten it.

Riker turned away, wondering if this woman had been as pretty as Sparrow. He hunkered down on the floor in front of the kitchenette sink and picked up her wallet with his gloved hand. Opening it, he stared at the photograph on her driver’s license. Yes, she had been very pretty, but Kennedy Harper had borne no resemblance to Sparrow beyond the hacked-off hair of another scalping. He set the wallet on the floor, positioned as he had found it among the spilled contents of a purse. He moved to one side to allow a crime-scene technician room to dust the jar of dead, dry flies. Even before the man shook his head, Riker knew there would be no fingerprints.

The detective looked up to see Heller standing by the door with a uniformed officer and signing a receipt for an armload of garments in clear plastic bags. After ripping the plastic away from one hanger, the criminalist held up a pale green blouse and motioned to Riker. ‘You might wanna look at this.’ Heller turned the blouse around to display a large faded X on the back. Affixed to this stain was the dry cleaner’s We’re-so-sorry sticker.

‘I’ve seen this mark before,’ said Heller, ‘on a shirt I found wadded up under Sparrow’s sink. She used hers for a cleaning rag.’

‘So it’s not a random killing.’ Mallory joined them over the body. ‘We’ve got a stalker.’

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. The Xon the blouse worked nicely with her theory on the new locks installed a week before the murder. ‘He sees the women on the street. Then he marks their shirts to make it easier to follow them home in a crowd – like tagging animals in the wild.’ Unlike Kennedy Harper, Sparrow had not complained about the stalking, the terror. Prostitutes were not given the same service as human beings.

Sparrow, why didn’t you come to me?

The East Side lieutenant had put in a personal appearance instead of sending one of his minions to the crime scene, and Mallory saw this as an admission of guilt for the mistakes made on his watch.

‘I brought her package.’ Lieutenant Loman spoke only to Riker, pretending that Mallory was not in the room. ‘The complaints started a few weeks ago. Some pervert was following the girl.’