Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

Riker raised his eyes to see the handlers letting out the ropes, and the horizontal balloon was on the rise. At last, the mighty bird was standing sixty feet tall, looming above the crowd and blocking out a good portion of brilliant blue sky. If Woody chose to, he could look into the upper windows of the museum and even examine its roof.

„You loved that balloon,“ said Riker, insistent.

Mallory ignored him.

He looked down at his scuffed shoes, lowering the brim of his hat against the strong light of morning sun. He was feeling the slow onset of pain. Nostalgia always brought on a fresh spate of grief during the holidays. He missed his old friends. Sweet Helen had died too soon, too young. And following another untimely funeral, Inspector Louis Markowitz had been buried beside his wife.

Privately, Riker believed that Lou Markowitz had not gone to his eternal rest, but was probably having a very tense death. Sometimes he could almost sense the old man’s spirit hovering near Mallory, trembling in wait for his foster child to revert into the feral creature found running loose on the city streets.

As if she had changed all that much.

Woody Woodpecker grandly sailed down Central Park West, dwarfing every tree and tall building along the boulevard, and Riker was reliving Kathy Mallory’s first parade. That day, he had gamely volunteered for midget duty – police code for keeping an eye on the brat – so that Helen and Lou could say hello to old friends in the crowd. Her first year in foster care, Kathy could not be introduced to innocent civilians, lest they lose a hand while patting her on the head. It was fortunate that Helen had bundled the child so well, for this had restricted Kathy’s movements and slowed down her tiny hands. That day, it had been easy for Riker to catch the baby thief boosting a wallet from a woman’s purse. Forgetting whom he was dealing with, he had bent down low to scold her in a tone reserved for small children – real children. „Now, Kathy, why would you do a bad thing like that?“

The little girl had looked up at him with such incredulity, her wide eyes clearly stating, Because stealing is what I do, you moron. And this had set the tone for their relationship through the years.

He shook his head slowly. Lou Markowitz must have had a heart attack when his foster daughter quit Barnard College to join up with the police. Now Riker looked down at the magnificent coat she had given him to replace the old threadbare rag that more closely fit his salary – and hers.

He turned to face Mallory with another idea for needling her. „The papers said the old guy wasn’t even a real magician. Just a nobody, a carpenter from Brooklyn. Maybe Oliver Tree didn’t know how – “

„Charles says the old man performed with Max Candle. So I figure he knew what he was doing.“ She turned away from him, a pointed gesture to say that her mind was made up; this conversation was over.

So, of course, Riker went on with it. „The man was in his seventies. Did you consider that his timing might be a little off?“

„No, I didn’t.“ Her voice was rising, getting testy. Good. „Like you’re the expert on magic?“

„Magic is a cheat,“ she said. „There’s no risk. He shouldn’t have died.“ Was she pouting? Yes, she was. Better and better.

„No risk, huh? Never? Charles didn’t tell you that.“ The younger cousin of Max Candle owned more magic illusions than a store. „You never even asked him, did you, Mallory?“

No, of course you didn’t. He leaned in close for another shot at her. „What about senility? Suppose the old guy was – “

„There’s no medical history of senility.“ She turned her back on him, as if this might prevent him from having the last word. It would not.

Riker would bet his pension that she had never seen a medical history on the dead man. He knew for a fact that she had not even read the accident report. Mallory liked her instincts, and she ran with them.

And now he understood his own place in her schemes. She had only wanted him along today as a show of force. She was planning to turn Charles’s holiday dinner party into an interrogation of elderly magicians – all witnesses to a damn accident.

„I still say it ain’t right, kid. You can’t go drumming up new business. Not when NYPD has a backlog of dead bodies.“

Mallory had tuned him out like an off chord in the nearby marching band, which was playing loudly but not together. She was intent on the faces along the barricades.

Riker threw up his hands. „Okay, let’s say it was a real homicide. How do you make the stretch to an assassination during the parade?“ She could not, and he knew that. She was making up this story as she went along.

„My perp loves spectacle.“ Mallory faced him now, suddenly warming to the conversation. „He killed a man on local television. This parade is televised all over the country. If he’s gonna do another one, today’s the day.“

Her perp? So she was already racing ahead to the moment when she claimed the case file and the evidence. „Mallory, before we assume the killing is an ongoing thing with a pattern, most of us wait till we got at least two homicides in the bag.“

„Suppose the next homicide is Charles?“

A good point, though stretching credibility beyond all reason. She had been wise to con him into doing this baby-sitting detail on his own time. Lieutenant Coffey would never have bought into this fairy story nor given her one dime from the Special Crimes budget. And she would never have forgiven the lieutenant for laughing. Mallory could not deal with ridicule in any form.

But this is such a crackpot idea. And, for a gifted liar, it was pretty lame. But he decided she was only having an off day.

Yet Mallory’s instincts were usually good. It might not be a total crock. He had to wonder why Oliver Tree had taken such chances. The daredevil stunt was a young man’s trade. Maybe Mallory was right. The apparatus could have been foiled. Though the trick was very old, only one long-dead magician had known how it was supposed to work. According to Charles Butler, that was why they called it Max Candle’s Lost Illusion.

A balloon in the shape of a giant ice cream cone smashed into a sharp tree branch and deflated to the cheers of jaded New York children.

And now Riker realized why Mallory hadn’t asked for the case file on the fatal accident. She did not plan to challenge the work of another detective until she had something solid. So she was finally learning to play nicely with the troops. Well, this was progress, a breakthrough, and it deserved encouragement. He vowed not to bait her anymore.

„I still say it was an accident,“ he said, baiting her only a little.

Oh, shit.

Mallory had targeted a civilian. Her eyes were tracking him in the manner of a cat that had not been fed in days and days.

But why?

This youngster on the pavement was dressed like the men on the top hat stage. The lone magician seemed less out of place, not half as suspicious as the stilt-walkers and the strolling people in banana suits.

Mallory had locked eyes with her suspect and stopped him cold. Could the boy tell from this distance that every muscle in her body was tensing to jump him? The young magician melded back into the mob of pedestrians; Riker remembered to exhale; and Mallory stood up, the better to keep track of her new pet mouse in the crowd.

Men and women of the mounted police had joined the parade astride seven trotting horses. The officers made a smart appearance in helmets, black leather jackets and riding boots. They carried poles bearing unfurled banners of police emblems. As they reined their mounts in a line across the boulevard, the banners whipped and cracked in the wind, and the horses snorted white clouds of breath.