Carol O’Connell - Crime School

And so it was easy to spot the small item that did not belong here. Evidently, he had not been the only one to rob a crime scene, and Mallory had been careless with her stolen goods. He knelt down on the rug and reached under the glass cocktail table to retrieve a delicate ivory comb. It was memorable for the elaborate carving and the look of money. Sparrow had worn it in her hair each time they met. And he had always been curious about this precious comb, this favorite possession of a junkie that should have been sold for a drug buy long ago. When Sparrow finally died, would the comb become Mallory’s keepsake or her trophy?

He turned to see his partner enter the room, towel-drying her hair as she walked toward him in a long white robe. Mallory was resilient, and she cleaned up well.

Riker folded a cell phone into his pocket. ‘Dr Slope cracked the nightwatchman’s chest. The old guy’s been dead about two weeks. Natural causes. You figure the scarecrow planned his last murder that far in advance?’

‘No. He made friends with the old man years ago. He wanted to spend time in the building where his mother died. That place was his idea of home.’ She accepted a glass of bourbon and soda from his hand.

Riker had been surprised to find the makings in her kitchen cabinet, and he wondered if she drank alone. Of course she did. She would never drink in public and risk losing control in front of witnesses. ‘So that’s what triggered the hangings? The watchman’s death?’

‘We’ll never know – thanks to Deluthe.’ Mallory stared at the pocket that hid his cell phone. ‘What did you hear from the hospital?’

‘If you mean Deluthe, he’ll live. Just busted up is all.’ Riker watched her finish the medicinal whiskey and soda. ‘He’s got a broken nose, a hairline skull fracture and a dislocated shoulder. Oh, and he’s gonna have a wicked scar on his face, lots of stitches. But the doctor says he doesn’t seem to mind that. In fact, he seems real happy about it.’ He picked up the remote control for the television set. ‘But if you mean Sparrow – the doctor says she’ll be gone before morning.’ He could not tell if this made any impression on Mallory. At least she did not smile.

‘And now for the good news.’ Riker switched on the television and killed the sound of the broadcast, preferring to give his own narrative. ‘We got a very confused press corps with an inaccurate body count. They think the scarecrow’s still alive, but badly wounded.’ He pointed to the image of a teenage witness being attacked by microphones. ‘That’s all the girl could tell them.’

Mallory nodded. ‘She was only on the roof for a few minutes.’

And the young girl was still shaking on camera as Riker leaned closer to the set. ‘Here, watch this – her father’s gonna deck a reporter.’ The punch was thrown. ‘Good job.’ And now the picture changed to three small boys all talking at once. ‘Oh, but these kids – they were great!’

‘They didn’t see anything!’ said Mallory. ‘Their mother took them off the roof before they could – ’

‘Yeah, but in their version, you shot the poor bastard’s legs off. Then you pistol-whipped him and shot him some more. But they knew he was still alive ‘cause they saw him try to crawl away from you. Bless their lying little hearts.’

‘I need something to rattle a suspect.’ Mallory stood before the rear wall of the incident room, pinning another array of photographs to the cork surface. ‘We have to wrap Natalie’s murder tonight.’

Understandable. Come the morning, every fact of the scarecrow’s death would be public knowledge. ‘All right,’ said Charles. ‘There were two stalkers. Only Natalie’s killer would know that.’

She said nothing aloud, but he knew that smirk so well. Yeah, right.

‘It’s a matter of style,’ he said, undaunted. ‘The first stalker was the ex-husband. I’m sure Lars was right about that. So perhaps he could be forgiven for – ’

No. One look at Mallory and he knew that forgiveness was never coming from that quarter. Charles unpinned one of the stalker notes and held up the aged yellow paper. ‘Erik Homer was a wife beater, short on patience. I don’t see him spending hours tracing individual letters of magazine script – just to make this beautiful for Natalie. Rather artistic, isn’t it?’ He read the words to her, ‘ „I touched you today.“ More like poetry than a threat. Not Erik Homer’s style. When he met his second wife, the stalking ended, and Natalie had no more use for the police. That explains the two-week gap in her complaints. It was the second stalker who left her these notes, who loved her – and killed her.’

‘All right, I’ll buy that.’ Mallory stepped back from the wall to give him a clear view of her rogues’ gallery, five men as they had appeared twenty years ago. Lars Geldorf s portrait came from a newspaper archive. Head shots of two other detectives and one patrolman were made from Mallory’s computer enhancements of the crime-scene Polaroids. And another patrolman’s picture was taken from a personnel file. ‘Next problem,’ she said. ‘We know the perp was a cop, but which one?’

‘How can you be sure it was one of these men?’

‘Because one of the uniforms called in the hanging as a suicide -and three detectives showed up.’

Apparently Mallory was picking up cryptic bad habits from Riker.

‘Just guessing,’ said Charles. ‘You don’t usually send so many detectives out for a suicide call?’ What was he missing here? He stared at the pictures of the men in suits. ‘So you’ve narrowed it down to these three because they all signed off on Natalie’s stalker complaints? Is that it?’

‘No.’

Of course not. Miles too easy.

‘You’re right about one thing.’ Mallory pinned up a portrait of Natalie Homer smiling for her photographer. ‘He loved her. He was obsessed with her. She was the prettiest thing he ever set eyes on.’

And you are beautiful. Had he ever told her that? No, never.

‘But he was nothing special,’ said Mallory.

Far from special, far from beauty.

‘Not in her class,’ said Mallory. ‘All he could do was watch her and follow her. He probably figured she’d laugh if she knew how often he thought about her – about the two of them – together. She was unapproachable, unattainable.’

As far away as the moon. You would never -

‘He was my best suspect.’ Mallory tapped Lars Geldorf s photograph. ‘The old man has an attachment to Natalie that just won’t die. He was on the top of my list.’

‘Was,’ said Charles. ‘And now?’

‘When Natalie’s son looked through that bathroom door, if he’d seen a detective in street clothes, he wouldn’t have known the hangman was a cop.’

Though relieved that Lars was no longer in her sights, Charles’s good logic held sway. ‘You’re not forgetting that Junior saw that man a second time – two days later outside the crime scene. The boy had to know that all the men in that room were police.’

‘Three detectives turned out for a suicide call,’ said Mallory. ‘And it wasn’t the address that got their attention. One of the uniforms gave the victim’s name. No patrol cop was ever dispatched to Natalie’s apartment while she was alive. I checked. She always made her complaints at the station. You read Deluthe’s interview with Alan Parris. The uniforms were in that room for two seconds before they shut the door and called in the report. They saw a scalped corpse on a rope. It was bloated with gas and maggots, face wrecked beyond recognition.’

‘But they knew it was Natalie,’ said Charles. ‘They knew that was her apartment.’