Carol O’Connell - Crime School

‘Oh, yeah. Charles briefed me. Don’t worry about – ’

Mallory made a motion to silence Geldorf as the stairwell door opened again, and Alan Parris was escorted into the room by Detective Wang. Riker studied the suspect with the eye of a fellow alcoholic. The ex-cop showed no signs of a recent binge, but fear could sober a man. At least Parris did not reek of booze. His new suit was another sign of fear, disguising him as a respectable taxpayer instead of an unemployed drunk.

‘Mr Parris?’ Mallory pointed to the door on the far side of the room. ‘Could you wait in there? Thanks.’

Geldorf watched the man enter Coffey’s office and take a chair near the glass partition. ‘He’s gonna be way too comfortable in there. You need a closed room, no windows, no air.’ The old man was reborn, and all the annoying cockiness was back as he turned to lecture Mallory. ‘You want complete control over him. You decide when he takes a piss, when he eats – if he eats.’

‘It’s not your call,’ she said, reminding the old man that he was visiting Special Crimes Unit on a provisional passport. ‘Parris thinks he’s here for a friendly little chat.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Janos walking toward them. ‘When he saw Geldorf, he panicked. Now he wants a lawyer. So we gotta kill an hour till – ’

‘The hell we do.’ Riker strode across the room, entered the office and shouted, ‘What’s all this crap about a lawyer!’

Parris’s voice was surly. ‘You plan to crucify me for these hangings, right?’

‘You don’t watch TV? You don’t listen to the radio? We nailed our perp this afternoon, okay? Now I read your statement, and I got some questions on Natalie Homer.’

‘I wasn’t – ’ Parris turned to the door as two more people stepped into the office. Mallory sat down behind Coffey’s desk, then glared at Lars Geldorf, warning him to keep silent and wait for his cue.

‘Parris,’ said Riker. ‘You were saying?’

‘I wasn’t the one who took Natalie’s complaints. I was a uniform, not a dick.’

‘But you knew her.’ Geldorf stood behind Parris’s chair and placed one gnarly hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘You saw her every day on patrol.’

Parris shook off the man’s hand. ‘She never even looked my way.’

‘That bothered you, didn’t it?’ Geldorf leaned down to Parris’s ear. ‘She was so pretty. And here you got this gun, all this power, but she don’t even know you’re alive.’

‘Back off,’ said Mallory. Now everyone in the room, including Alan Parris, was united by a common enemy – Lars Geldorf.

The old man pretended to ignore her and reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out a Polaroid of Natalie Homer, a close-up of a dead woman with mutilated hair and flesh. ‘Not so pretty now, is she? Not so high and mighty anymore.’

Mallory leaned over and snatched the photograph. ‘I said that’s enough’ Some of her anger was genuine. She disapproved of ad-lib remarks and unauthorized props.

‘I want a lawyer,’ said Parris.

‘I don’t blame you,’ said Riker. ‘This is bullshit. But you haven’t been charged with a crime.’ He turned on Geldorf. ‘Not one more word.’ This small gesture had endeared him to the smiling Alan Parris.

‘Mr Parris – Alan,’’ said Mallory. ‘You were a cop. You know how hard this job can be. So what can you tell me about her? Anything that might – ’

‘Nothing. Every time she came into the station, there was a crowd of dicks around her. They talked to her for hours. For all the good that did her.’

‘You felt sorry for her.’ Riker nodded his understanding, his commiseration. They were brothers now.

‘Damn straight. She deserved better.’

‘Tell me about the extra patrols in that neighborhood,’ said Mallory. ‘You checked in on her, right? Maybe you stopped by her place to – ’

‘Why should I? The detectives never asked me to.’ Parris turned to Geldorf. ‘You bastards liked her well enough, but you never believed her.’ He turned back to Mallory. ‘They only saw Natalie when she was really scared. I guess they figured that was just normal for her.’

‘But you knew better,’ said Riker. ‘You saw her every day. You knew what she was going through.’ She was always Natalie to Alan Parris, a first-name acquaintance and not a woman who had never given him the time of day.

Jack Coffey had left the door to the lock-up room wide. And now Lieutenant Loman watched the back of a prisoner being marched down the hall. Mallory was right. No one else could have been as convincing as this young cop in bloodstains, chains on his wrists, chains on his ankles, faltering steps and now a stumble. Janos’s massive arms reached out to catch Deluthe before he could fall.

‘The leg irons are overkill,’ said Harvey Loman.

Coffey stared at the sweat shining on the back of Deluthe’s neck. The mascara hair treatment was running in a brown streak that mingled with the T-shirt’s bloodstains. Then he realized that the game was not over when Loman went on to say, ‘I can’t see that pathetic bastard outrunning Janos.’

‘Yeah, well, the DA’s coming,’ said Coffey. ‘So we’re going by the book, leg irons and all. We’re cutting a deal with the perp.’

‘Yeah? What’s he offering?’

‘A photo ID on the man who killed Natalie Homer.’ Lieutenant Coffey rose from the table and slammed the door. ‘So you remember that crime scene pretty well.’

‘Like I could forget. That room was hell on earth. The stink and the bugs. But it was a different kind of freak show for the hooker.’

‘Sparrow.’

‘Yeah, all those candles, a different noose. And she wasn’t even dead. I still don’t see the connection, Jack.’

‘It’s the scarecrow – Natalie’s son. I think you met him once, Harvey.’

Charles Butler entered the office and stood behind Mallory’s chair. Since he had been given no further instructions, all he could do was loom over the proceedings, bringing his own discomfort to the party. And now they were five – too many people and just the right number, each one jumping up the energy level, the heat and the stress.

Mallory stared at the window on the squad room. ‘He’s coming.’

Five pairs of eyes watched Janos escort his prisoner to the desk beneath the only overhead light. From the distance of the lieutenant’s office, only the chains, the bandages and blood were visible. The battered face was shadowed by a baseball cap. Mallory glanced back at Charles, whose face could not hide a thought. He was merely curious. He had no idea that the injured man was Deluthe.

She leaned toward Alan Parris, talking cop to cop, ‘I’ve got one break on this case, a witness. You met him once.’

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘You chased him away from Natalie’s door. Remember? He was only six years old.’

‘One of those little kids in the hall?’

Riker turned to the glass wall and pointed at the wounded man being guarded by Janos. ‘He was Natalie’s son.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ Parris turned around for a better look at the man in handcuffs. ‘That’s your perp?’ From this angle, he could only see the curve of Deluthe’s cheek. ‘So the kid went nuts.’

Mallory nodded to say, Yes, it’s all very sad. Yeah, right. ‘Natalie’s sister hid the boy out of state. You can guess why.’

Parris shook his head as he stared through the glass wall, eyes fixed on the young man in manacles. ‘Her son hanged those women. I can’t believe it. Bloody Christ.’

Detective Wang entered the office and tossed a manila envelope on the desk. Riker picked it up and inspected the contents, pictures of three detectives and two uniformed officers as they had appeared twenty years ago. He laid them out on the desk blotter.