Carol O’Connell - Crime School

‘I suppose that makes sense,’ said Charles. ‘His aunt said he came home, and that would be the East Village.’

‘No,’ said Mallory. ‘Erik Homer had sole custody. Natalie never saw the boy after the divorce – not till the day she died. The scarecrow’s home was always uptown with his father.’

‘But his father was a bully,’ said Charles. ‘And he’s dead now. The boy never lived with his stepmother, so he wouldn’t think of that place as home anymore. Natalie was the parent he adored, the one he still obsesses about.’

Mallory abruptly stopped tapping keys.

Detective Janos listened to the theory on the missing nightwatch-man, then nodded. ‘Yeah, we know. Another guy was filling in for him.’

Heller’s assistant glanced at the store’s daytime security guard, then said, ‘Can we take this outside?’

Janos followed the man out the door of the manager’s office. When he returned, Riker was still watching the same videotape for the tenth time. ‘This is crap.’ The image was too dark to make out details finer than the profiles of shadows punching in on the employee time clock. ‘No clear shots of anybody.’ Riker glanced at the store’s daytime security guard. ‘I know, it’s not your fault. You’re sure this is the only tape of the new watchman?’

‘Yes, sir. It rewinds every three days. So yesterday it – ’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Riker. And that would explain the grainy images. The camera had clicked once every three seconds. The shadowy figure had the jerky motion of an old silent film. ‘The time stamp on this video is too early for his shift. And why doesn’t he punch in?’

‘He’s got his own time clock in the basement,’ said the guard. ‘No idea why he’d show up so early.’

Riker waved one hand to tell the guard that he could leave. ‘Janos? What’s happening?’

‘The regular watchman wasn’t scheduled for a vacation. And his payroll checks are getting cashed.’

Riker stared at the man on the videotape. ‘So maybe the regular watchman pays this guy out of pocket.’

‘That fits. Nobody’s got a name for him.’Janos read notes made from interviews with store employees. ‘We talked to a stockboy who does a lot of overtime. He says this new guy showed up one night, and nobody questioned it. He had the old man’s keys on his belt and a security card to unlock the office door. That’s the only place where you can turn off the alarms.’ He looked up from his notebook. ‘But the glass wall in the office was broken. So our perp wasn’t the guy with the keys.’ He turned to the man on the screen. ‘Not that guy.’

‘Okay,’ said Riker. ‘What about the regular watchman?’

‘I’m on that.’ Arthur Wang entered the room, a very worried man. ‘Couldn’t reach him by phone, so I sent a uniform to knock on his door. The place doesn’t stink like a ripe corpse. But that’s all the cop could tell without going inside. He interviewed the landlord. The apartment’s been sublet.’

‘Works with the vacation theory,’ said Janos. ‘Still, it’s worth a look inside. The old guy might’ve left something to give us a lead. Let’s get a warrant and toss the place.’

‘It’s in the works,’ said Arthur Wang. ‘So now we wait another forty minutes. The chicken-shit DA doesn’t want to wake up a judge for a warrant.’

‘No judge is gonna sign that warrant,’ said Riker. ‘Not unless that uniform forgets he talked to the landlord. The sublet angle is a paperwork nightmare.’ He looked at Wang, and both men smiled in unison.

‘But what if we don’t know about the sublet tenant,’ said Wang. ‘Let’s suppose the cop forgot to mention it when I talked to him.’

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘Let’s just suppose that.’

‘But it’s still gonna take forty minutes to get a warrant.’

‘Fine. I don’t see the scarecrow stringing up another blonde today. I’ll be at Charles’s place with Mallory.’ Riker looked down at his watch. ‘Where’s my ride? Has anybody seen Deluthe?’

Pssst.

The old-model humidifier emitted a light spray of insecticide every twenty seconds, flooding the room with poisonous fumes. No cockroach would ever brave this atmosphere. Yet there were roach traps on the floor, strips of sticky tape along the baseboards and fly paper on every surface, all the added precautions of a man with a phobia.

Ronald Deluthe sifted though the Polaroid photographs of Stella Small madly beating flies from her hair in a subway car. In another shot, a blue garment was slung over one arm as she actually smiled for the camera – while bleeding. Then she was climbing into a cab, unaware of the line of blood on the sleeve of her blouse. In the next photograph, Kennedy Harper twisted on her rope, blurring the shot. Among the other Polaroids of the dead and dying, the prettiest subject was Sparrow, the vegetable woman in the hospital.

He glanced at the newspaper beside the telephone. Backstage was open to the columns for auditions. Two for tomorrow were circled in red ink. The mission was an ongoing thing.

Pssst

Lieutenant Loman set down the phone and yelled loud enough to be heard all over the squad room, ‘Hey, you bastards!’

Five heads turned his way.

‘Has Deluthe been around this morning?’

‘Blondie? No,’ said one detective. ‘I’d remember that.’

The East Side lieutenant closed the door of his office and returned to his phone call. ‘No, Riker, he’s not here. So, like I was sayin’, the kid ain’t the greatest cop material, but you got him all wrong. The brass didn’t put him on any fast-track. The deputy commissioner hates his guts.’

‘His father-in-law? Why?’

‘Deluthe’s marriage fell apart four months ago, and the wife’s old man is out for blood. He ain’t too subtle neither. Came right out and told me to crush his son-in-law. But I didn’t want any part of it.’

‘And that’s why you unloaded him on me?’

‘The truth, Riker? I forgot Deluthe was alive. He was only takin’ up desk space around here. Wasn’t just me – nobody noticed him much. Then, the night that hooker got strung up, he comes walkin’ in here with a bad bleach job.’

‘And that got your attention.’

‘Oh, yeah. So how’s he doin’, Riker?’

‘Good. The kid’s doin’ good.’

Pssst.

Ronald Deluthe listened to the police scanner as a dispatcher reeled off codes for domestic disputes and robberies. This address was not among the calls, and another few minutes would make no difference at all.

The insecticide permeated everything in the apartment including the closet and the clothes. There was no other discernible odor, though the body in the plastic bag was badly decomposed.

Pssst.

‘Great!’ Riker paced the length of the back office at Butler and Company. ‘Now I got two AWOL detectives.’ He leaned over the fax machine to read the last report from the Wisconsin State Police. ‘So Mallory’s on the phone with these cops, and then what?’

‘We talked about the scarecrow.’ Charles turned to the computer monitor. ‘She was working on this machine, and then she left. Just got up and left.’

Riker glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll give it a few minutes. Maybe she’ll call in.’ He sat down at Mallory’s desk and reached for the phone. While the detective waited on hold for Sparrow’s doctor, Charles left the room to give him some privacy, saying, ‘I’ll make some fresh coffee.’

The office kitchen was only marginally more comfortable than Mallory’s domain, though it housed fewer electronics. He loathed the coffee machine of chrome, plastic and computer components. The programmed brew was sterilized in his mind before it ever reached his taste buds. Unlike Geldorf, Charles was a Luddite by choice: he could work the machines, but he would not. Instead, he returned to his apartment, four steps from the door of Butler and Company, to light a flame under an old-fashioned coffeepot. The coffee was done by the time Riker had tracked him across the hall and into the kitchen.