Carol O’Connell - Crime School

This startled him. ‘You think the scarecrow is a cop?’ ‘When I say look at everyone, that means cops too.’ ‘No, he’s not there.’ And now, sensing that she had no further use for him, Deluthe climbed out of the display window, giving the forensic expert more room to work.

Heller pulled down the rope that dangled from an exposed pipe in the chopped-away ceiling. ‘Crude job for such a tidy killer.’

‘And he’s taking more chances,’ said Mallory. ‘Heller, you said this woman fought back?’

‘Better than that. Dr Slope found blood and skin under her fingernails.’

Good for you, Stella Small.

‘What about store security?’

‘They got everything,’ said Heller. ‘Cameras, alarms, even guard dogs. But none of it was working, and the animals were locked in a utility closet.’

Mallory lowered her sunglasses. ‘This store doesn’t have a nightwatchman?’

‘Yeah, they got one.’ Riker climbed up on the raised floor of the display window. ‘The watchman’s a retired cop, sixty-four years old. Maybe he slept through the whole thing.’

Mallory turned back to the crowd of ghouls on the sidewalk. ‘And maybe the old man’s dead.’

‘Well, that theory’s my personal favorite.’ Riker knelt down beside Heller. ‘His basement office was wrecked. Broken glass everywhere, and there’s blood on the floor. I didn’t see any broken skin on Stella, so it might be the watchman’s blood.’

Without a word or even a nod to Riker, Heller closed his tool kit and climbed down from the display window. For the past hour, these two men had not traded one insult, and Mallory wondered about this sudden rift in an old routine.

‘Stella marked the perp with her fingernails,’ she said.

‘That’s my girl.’ Riker stared at the bits of hair on the floor. ‘Not a very neat scalping this time, and you should see that basement office. The perp’s not so fussy about cleaning up his messes anymore.’

Mallory nodded. The scarecrow was coming undone.

A crime-scene tape cordoned off ten feet of space in front of the basement office. John Winetrob, the personnel director, was not permitted any closer to the broken glass wall. This aftermath of violence was beyond his comprehension. He froze when a policeman passed by carrying a bloody shard in a plastic bag.

Detective Arthur Wang gestured toward a cardboard carton the height of a chair. ‘Sir? Why don’t you sit down?’

Before you fall down.

The man’s shakes were easy for Wang to account for, but not only because of the crime-scene blood. The police were also making him nervous. The unshaven personnel director wore a suit, but no tie, and his socks were mismatched. Dressing would have been difficult at this early hour while a uniformed police officer, six feet tall and armed with a gun, had waited at his front door.

For the past ten minutes, Mr Winetrob had been talking nonstop, mostly inane chatter. Now he fell silent as the detective completed a cell-phone call.

‘No answer.’ Arthur Wang dropped the phone back into his pocket. ‘The watchman isn’t home, but I didn’t think he would be. And he hasn’t turned up in any local hospitals.’

‘Thank you for trying,’ said Winetrob. ‘You don’t really believe he could be dead, do you?’

Yes, that was exactly what Detective Wang believed. ‘We’re still looking for him, sir. We’ve got twenty men doing a sweep, floor by floor. If he’s here – if he’s hurt – ’

‘What if he didn’t come to work last night? Now there’s a thought.’ The personnel director glanced at the broken glass wall of the nightwatchman’s office, then looked away. ‘Maybe it’s not his blood in there. You know, an old man like that, he could be at home right now, lying in his own bed, maybe – Oh, God. He could be having a heart attack. Can you send somebody over to his apartment? We must cover all the bases.’ He raked one hand through his sparse hair. ‘Yes – all the bases.’

‘Of course,’ said Wang. ‘I’ll send a cop to check it out – real soon.’ Or maybe never. This errand would hit the bottom of police priorities this morning. The more important business was a look at the store’s files. All the employees had been photographed, and this was the only helpful information Winetrob had given him so far – or so he believed.

Gently, Detective Wang helped the civilian to his feet and led him to an elevator that would carry them up to the personnel office. Later, Arthur Wang would wish that he had prioritized in a different fashion and paid closer attention to Winetrob’s wacky ramblings, his hopes and fears.

When Deluthe had finished Janos’s chore in the payroll department, he had been loaned out to Arthur Wang. Now he was posted at a secretary’s desk outside the office of the personnel director. He had made short work of the first fifty photographs in the stack of employee files, and the man from Kennedy Harper’s crime scene was not among them. More busywork. He glanced toward the open door. The senior detective was inside, drinking coffee and making notes on his conversation with Mr Winetrob. Wang noticed him and called out, ‘Find anything?’

‘Nothing yet, sir.’ Deluthe closed another folder.

Arthur Wang walked to the door and tossed a file on the secretary’s desk. ‘That one goes in your stack. Put it back in alphabetical order, okay? When you’re done, report to Riker.’

Deluthe opened the file of the nightwatchman and stared at the photograph. His eyes drifted down to the name, that vital clue to the man’s place in the file cabinet. The line below it was a familiar East Village address. And now, with utter disregard for the alphabet, the young detective jammed the folder into the center of the large stack and left his job unfinished. He had more important things to do.

In the back office of Butler and Company, Mallory was on the phone, terrorizing a clerk at the Odeon, Nebraska, Police Department. ‘So what if your computer is down? What does that – Look, all I need is a photograph… Yeah, right… I told you that an hour ago… So pull it out of the hardcopy… Then fax it! Now!’

Fortunately, there had been no computer problems at the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles. Charles was looking at a monitor and their only likeness of the scarecrow. The image was not very good, but most license photographs were less than professional quality.

After relocating in Nebraska, Susan Qualen’s cousins had changed their family name, and the boy they had harbored was called John Ryan. No doubt the cousins had called the boy by his initials, J.R. for Junior, the only name he was accustomed to.

Mallory sat down at the workstation. ‘It’ll probably take them an hour to figure out how a file drawer works.’

‘Bad luck,’ said Charles. ‘How do you suppose ordinary people like the Qualens became so adept at changing identities?’

‘Nothing to it. Idiots get away with it all the time.’ She stared at her monitor screen. ‘The scarecrow must’ve picked up another alias when he came east. He’s not in any local databases. You know what that means?’

‘He’s been planning this killing spree for three years?’

‘No, I think he only planned one murder.’

‘The man who killed his mother?’

Mallory nodded. ‘In Nebraska, Junior was a small-town cop in uniform. Probably never got near a major investigation. So he comes to the big city. Figures he can find his mother’s killer in a day – and without any help from us.’

Charles agreed. And when the boy failed, his last resort was forcing NYPD to do the job for him.

‘The scarecrow hates police,’ she said. ‘He’s very clear about that. So tell me, why would he become a cop?’