Carol O’Connell - Crime School

‘So you sent him away. You conspired to hide the only witness who could’ve helped the police find your sister’s killer.’

‘Oh, that’s rich.’ Susan Qualen was not frightened anymore. She was angry. ‘Who do you call when a damn cop kills your sister – the cops?’ She wore a grim smile and took some satisfaction in their stunned faces.

Running toward the light at the end of the corridor, Stella turned a corner of boxes and saw a small office walled in glass. The door was ajar, and she pushed it wide open. At the point of slamming it behind her, she regained her sanity, then closed the door quietly and turned a knob to lock it. The desk offered the only cover in a room made of glass, and she crouched behind it, taking the telephone with her. She dialed 911, but the call would not go through. And now she listened to an automated recording that instructed her to dial another digit for an outside line.

He was coming.

She could hear him walking at a mechanical clip. Stella held her breath as the man tried the knob, and then she heard metal on metal – a key in the lock.

Oh, you stupid fool. He’s a damn janitor. He has all the keys.

Stella closed her eyes and covered her ears, blocking it out, wishing it away, this thing at the door. The lock came undone. The door opened, and that insect smell was in the room with her. She opened her eyes. Very slowly, deep in shock, she lifted her face. He was standing beside the desk, looking down at her, yet not really seeing her. And he said nothing; one did not converse with objects. She saw the sign behind him, the shield of the alarm company pasted to the glass wall encircled by metallic tape. If she could break the glass, that would trigger the burglar alarm and bring a watchman.

Susan Qualen was all but spitting the next words at them. ‘If I’d given him up, how long would that little boy have stayed alive? The only witness to a cop killing his mother. I lived in that neighborhood for years. Drug dealers bought the police for a song. And you guys always cover for your own.’ She put up one hand, sensing Riker’s intention to interrupt. ‘Don’t start with me. I did the right thing, and you know it!’

‘He ran away from the foster parents,’ said Mallory, ‘a pair of chiseling – ’

‘And he went back to my cousins. They took him to Nebraska. When he grew up, he had a lot of questions about his mother. They told him everything they knew. Then he came back.’

‘Back home,’ said Mallory. ‘To you.’

‘He only spent a few hours with me. That was a long time ago.’

‘You didn’t want to see him again.’ Riker folded his arms. ‘He scared you, didn’t he?’

‘No! He wasn’t some whacked psycho. He was as normal as I am.’

Janos pulled out his notebook. ‘Where’s your nephew now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What does he call himself these days?’

‘Junior, I guess. That’s what he always called himself ‘I want a straight answer.’ Janos moved closer. ‘Did you hear the question? What name is he – ’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Right,’ said Mallory. ‘You don’t know anything helpful. I keep forgetting that. So why did you run?’

Susan Qualen sank into the chair, trembling, not with fear but excess emotions, none of them good ones. Hate predominated overall.

‘Okay,’ said Riker. ‘Here’s an easier question. Why did you come back?’

Stella had no clue to the source of sudden strength in her arms. She picked up the heavy wooden desk chair and sent it hurtling through the glass wall, fracturing it into a hundred pieces. The man turned to a panel of buttons beside the door and cut off the alarm while it was merely a squeak and before the glass shower had ended. One long shard lingered in the frame, then toppled and shattered across the office floor. The broken pieces crunched under his shoes as he walked toward her, one hand rising, reaching out.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No!’ she yelled.

And now she realized that she was invisible to him. He walked past her and took a card from a rack on the wall, then fed it into the slot below the time clock. Because this was such a normal act for any employee beginning his shift, it unhinged Stella’s mind. The night watchman was never coming to her rescue. He was the watchman.

‘I came back to beg you not to kill Natalie’s son.’ Susan Qualen doubled over, as if they had kicked her. ‘Killing is what you do best, isn’t it?’ She was nearly spent. Anger was all that sustained her. ‘You gun-happy bastards kill people all the time. You made Junior what he is. A goddamn cop killed his mother. So I figure you owe him a life. You can’t just put him down like a sick animal.’

Riker could see that Janos was losing the heart for this. The man’s voice was too soft when he said, ‘Tell us where your nephew lives. If we have some control over the capture – ’

‘I don’t know!' She shook her head. ‘That’s the truth. I told you – I only saw him for a few hours. That was three years ago, and he asked all the questions.’

Mallory gripped the woman’s arm. ‘What did your relatives tell you? What was he doing for a living when he – ’

‘He was a cop!' Susan Qualen’s face was wet with tears. ‘Can you believe it?’ Her words came out in a stutter of sobs. ‘A cop… like you… so don’t… don’t kill him.’

Stella backed up to the wall, cutting her bare feet on broken glass and never feeling the pain. Her mouth was dry, and her eyes were on the box cutter in his hand. Involuntary responses came first, cold chemicals flooding her veins. Her palms were clammy, and her heart banged in a full-blown panic attack. There was nowhere to go but into the corner. She pressed up against the plaster, eyes wide, staring at the razor. Her sweaty hands spread out on the corner walls, and she climbed them, finding traction with the sticky flesh of palms and soles. Her feet were inches off the floor, toes curling over the baseboard – a human fly.

‘Please don’t.’ She was stripped down to the naked personality of the little girl from Ohio. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please,’ she whispered.

Jack Coffey looked up to see two visitors in his office. New Yorkers had come to know these women as the Abandoned Stellas of Ohio. They stood before his desk in sturdy, serviceable shoes and their best dresses. They had brought him their frightened eyes and wavering smiles, brave then not, and all the baggage of hope. First, they destroyed him, they broke his heart, and then they said hello and ‘Did you find our Stella?’

Another bag of delicatessen food sat on the floor at Ronald Deluthe’s feet. He was operating a laptop computer and scanning all the transcriptions of tip-line calls. The sightings of Stella Small spanned four states. Charles Butler sat beside him on the leather couch, rolling one hand to tell the younger man to scroll faster. ‘Stop. Highlight that one too.’

Mallory stood over them, saying, ‘What? Let me see.’

‘Here,’ said Charles. ‘Multiple sightings in department stores. Look at this last one. Stella was shopping rather late this evening.’

Deluthe shook his head. ‘This can’t be right. The discount store I can see, but where would she get the money to shop on Fifth Avenue?’

‘Hmm. Bergdorf s had a moonlight sale,’ said Mallory. ‘So did Lord and Taylor.’ She leaned over to look at another highlighted entry. ‘That designer outlet store checks out. That’s where she bought a suit this morning, and the bastard ruined it.’

‘Well, she’s not gonna find another one on Fifth Avenue,’ said Deluthe with absolute conviction. ‘You saw that place she lived in, all those unpaid bills. So the late sightings are bogus.’