David Jackson - The Helper

‘Go,’ Cesario urges. ‘The more bodies we have on this, the quicker we get it off the books.’

Doyle almost smiles. Cesario is throwing him a bone. But he’s also trying to come across as not being a soft touch. This is purely an operational decision, he’s saying; don’t go getting all teary-eyed on me now.

Doyle takes it. It’s the best he’s going to get. And who knows? Maybe this is the start of something. Maybe this isn’t a homicide at all, but a subtle way of getting him to a surprise party where the police commissioner will jump out of a cake and welcome him back into the fold.

Yeah, right, Doyle thinks as he grabs his coat.

It’s messy, all right.

Blood everywhere. It never ceases to amaze Doyle how much blood there is in the human body, and how far it will travel once someone opens the faucet. It’s on the floor, it’s on the books, and — yep — it’s even on the ceiling. And the source of all this mayhem? The pale crumpled form of a young girl. She looks small and unreal — a mutilated mannequin.

Doyle stares at her for a good while. It’s something he always does at a murder scene, and he doesn’t know why. It’s like he’s trying to make some kind of connection, as though simply looking at her will give him an insight into what kind of life she lived, and therefore why that life was taken away from her.

He is slow to become fully aware of the other people in the bookstore. Gradually he notices the glances, picks up the muttered remarks and the muted snickers.

‘Long time no see, Doyle,’ says a Homicide South detective called Kravitz. The correct name for his outfit is the Manhattan South Homicide Task Force, but Doyle and most of the other people gathered here know it as Homicide South.

Doyle shifts his gaze to the man. He is thin and tall — at least six and a half feet. His hands are buried in the pockets of a black overcoat. Behind him, almost hidden in his shadow, is another Homicide dick called Folger. He is short, squat and balding, and he is grinning idiotically at the barbed humor lurking in Kravitz’s greeting.

‘Well, well,’ says Doyle. ‘If it ain’t Lurch and Uncle Fester. How you doing, fellas?’

This gets a laugh from everyone except the Homicide boys. The amusement in Folger’s smile drops away, to be replaced by something more menacing.

His words are a lot more direct than those of Kravitz: ‘They let you out finally? What, you finished putting all the case files in alphabetical order? You painted the station house walls already?’

‘Yeah, all that,’ Doyle answers. ‘I still got the ladders in the car outside, you want to borrow them to reach something. You must get sick of looking up your partner’s nostrils all day. Say, are you still using a kiddie seat in that car of yours?’

Folger tries to maintain his smile, but it’s clear his muscles are struggling. His mouth twitches on one side.

‘Well, now that you’re here, Doyle, let me explain something to you. This here is what we call a homicide. You see the girl there, all cut up like that?’ Folger slaps a hand to his forehead. ‘Oh, but wait. I’m forgetting. You know all about homicides, don’t you? In fact, they kind of follow you around. You remember that movie, The Sixth Sense ? You should get one of those I See Dead People T-shirts, the number of DOAs you get to see in your life.’

The laughing has stopped now. Everyone in the room has lapsed into an embarrassed silence. This has become too personal. Doyle knows that people are expecting him either to start a fight or back off.

Doyle adopts a pained expression. ‘Hold on here. Maybe I overstepped the mark. Am I right in thinking you ain’t happy?’

Folger glares at him, still angry but also looking somewhat surprised. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

‘Uh-huh,’ says Doyle. ‘So which one are you? Bashful? Dopey?’

The place erupts. Even Kravitz cannot suppress a smirk. And while he smiles, he takes the furious Folger by the shoulders and holds him in check. Both of the Homicide detectives, as well as everybody else in this room, know that Doyle would kick Folger’s ass into his skull if things became physical.

Doyle strolls over to where one of the uniforms is relaying what he knows to the other detectives. The Hispanic officer glances briefly at Doyle, then returns to his notebook.

‘DOA’s name is Cindy Mellish. Twenty years old. She works here at weekends and in college vacations. The owner often leaves her to mind the store — it’s not the busiest of places. Owner’s name is Simon Brownlow. He opened up this morning, stayed for about an hour, then left. He didn’t get back till after two-thirty. He’s sitting in one of the RMPs outside, you wanna talk to him. He’s pretty shaken up, though.’

Doyle listens in silence. He has a million questions he wants to put to Mr Brownlow, but this isn’t his case. Cesario made that clear. The other squad detectives know their job. They’ll get round to interviewing Brownlow, and they’ll do it just as thoroughly as he would.

He drifts away again, itching to get more involved. Soon enough he’ll be given a task. The door-to-door, probably. Maybe later poring over the store’s paperwork for customer details so he can call them up. All necessary work. But tedious background stuff mostly. Not where it’s really at.

He goes back for another look at the girl. The Medical Examiner, a Chinese guy called Norman Chin, is working on her now. Checking out her wounds. Speaking his findings quietly into a voice recorder.

What’s she telling you, Norm? he wonders. Those cuts whispering secrets to you? They giving you any clues about the psycho who did this? Tell me, Norm, because I want this son of a bitch.

He realizes then that he is already starting to make the case his own. Bad idea, but he can’t help it. This girl needs him. She is staring at him and pleading for his help, and he is going to find it oh so hard to take a back seat on this investigation.

He moves away again, trying to shake the girl’s empty stare from his mind. He sees the door ahead of him. Starts heading toward it, thinking about the cool spring air outside.

‘Got something for you,’ Chin says.

Doyle is not being addressed directly, but he stops in his tracks. He has to hear this. He turns slowly, sees the backs of all the cops leaning in to hear what profound wisdom Chin is about to impart.

‘First of all, the cuts here, they look pretty random, right? A frenzied attack, cuts here, there and everywhere, right?’

He pauses until he elicits a couple of nods from his audience.

‘Wrong! Not random. At least not at first. See the wounds on this arm?’

Intrigued, Doyle pushes through the group for a better look. Norman Chin is staring wide-eyed at the surrounding cops. Actually, he cannot do anything but stare wide-eyed, given the intense magnifying effect of the spectacles he has to wear. On a sunny day, he could laser a hole through steel with those babies, Doyle thinks.

The glasses, together with the black toilet-brush hair, lend Chin the look of a mad scientist — someone who could quite happily experiment with trying to bring corpses like this back to life. But what all the cops here know is that Chin is one of the best in his field. You got a DOA on your hands, then you want Chin involved.

Chin points to the girl’s left forearm with his pencil, and waits for more nods. He’s in his element here.

‘Defense wounds?’ some brave cop ventures.

‘Not defense wounds. These first few cuts are too regular, too parallel. Not like the other cuts. See?’ He indicates other areas of sliced flesh. ‘See how they’ve been done in wide angular sweeps? They’re not as deep as the first ones, neither. Besides, this is her left arm. Most of the defense wounds are on the other arm, being as she’s right-handed.’