Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

The kitchen was Riker’s favorite room at Mallory and Butler, Ltd. It was a bright and airy space, a proper sit-down kitchen, where the best of conversations took place in the company of people he cared for, and the coffee was always first-rate.

Riker slumped low in his chair and came to grips with the early morning. His daily routine had been so completely upset that he did not even have the continuity of his customary hangover. Mallory had taken the late shift on the roof, and yet she looked fresh and new. When did she ever sleep?

She set a platter of croissants and cheeses on the table. There was also a side dish of jelly doughnuts as a special concession to himself.

Charles stood at the counter, bending down to read a light display on the coffee machine. In the kitchen of Charles’s apartment across the hall, he still used a manual bean grinder, and brewed the coffee, drop by drop, into a carafe. Here he dealt with a computer which organized the grinding and brewing, set the richness of the flavor, and all but fetched the mugs from the cupboard after announcing that the coffee was ready. This room was the middle ground between Charles the lover of all things antique, and Mallory the machine. Now Riker noticed the recent addition of a microwave oven sitting on the counter in company with a small television set and a radio with a CD player.

So Mallory was dragging Charles, appliance by appliance, into the twentieth century.

“I would think Oren Watt was still the most likely suspect,” Charles was saying.

“No one saw him there.” Mallory laid the silverware on the table.

Sunlight slanted through the squares of the kitchen curtain and made a bright chessboard on the gleaming hardwood floor. The cleaning woman, Mrs. Ortega, owned the credit for the polished woodwork and all the odors of cleaning solvents that lingered for a day after her visits. Riker envied Charles the services of Mrs. Ortega. His own place had not had much of the dust disturbed in all the time he had lived there.

Charles turned to Mallory as he was pouring coffee into generous mugs. “If you took more of an interest in the fine arts and attended a few gallery openings, you would know that no one has any idea what’s going on in the room. They stand in front of the artwork in little clusters and gossip. It’s not like anyone is watching the room or even looking at the art. Actually, Oren Watt could’ve done it.”

“No, Charles, he couldn’t.”

Riker noticed that her attitude in dealing with Charles was the same one she might use to housebreak a pet. Of course, she had no pet but Charles. Her voice was softer as she went on. “I watched him at the gallery installation for the television film. People stared at him everywhere he went. His face is a standout, and they all knew who he was, even though he’d cut off his hair and wore dark glasses. It was creepy. I don’t care how crowded the room was, or how preoccupied the guests were. Whoever was there and not dead would’ve noticed him.”

“I’ll make a bet with you.” Charles carried the mugs to the table. “If I can prove that Oren Watt could’ve done it, you pay for lunch. Deal?”

Riker grinned. “I didn’t think you were much of a betting man, Charles.”

“It’s a science experiment with him.” Mallory sat down at the table and selected a golden croissant. “He can never win at poker, and he doesn’t know why. So he’ll keep doing experiments until he figures it out.”

“What’s to figure out?” Riker reached for a doughnut and studied it with grave suspicion, wondering if he could eat it without a beer to wash it down. “You play poker with sharks, Charles. Doc Slope was born with a poker face. Rabbi Kaplan is a walking book of knowledge on human nature, and Duffy’s a goddamn lawyer. A genius IQ won’t save you in a game with that crew.”

“Riker’s right,” said Mallory. “The game is tonight?”

“Yes, in my apartment.” Charles sat down to breakfast with a bright smile. “Incidentally, I have figured out how to win at poker, and tonight I’m going to win big. And this morning I’m going to beat you, Mallory. Do we have a bet on Oren Watt?”

“You’re on.”

“Oh, I have your research.” Charles placed a bundle of Xeroxes by Mallory’s coffee cup. “These are samples of Dean Starr’s reviews under his real name. He was not a brain trust. Just barely literate.” He set another bundle on top of this one. “And these are all the articles that appeared following Watt’s confession. The first fifteen stories are descriptions of an affair between Peter Ariel and Aubry Gilette.”

Mallory scanned the first two sheets. She turned to Riker. “According to Markowitz’s notes, Quinn said there was no personal relationship between the artist and the dancer. That’s it? There was no follow-up on these articles?”

“I did the follow-up,” said Riker. “Quinn was the spokesperson for the family. According to him, the parents had no idea she was having an affair until they read about it in the newspaper. I talked to all the people quoted by the reporters. I had the feeling they didn’t really know Aubry at all. That happens sometimes. Everybody wants to get their name in the papers.”

“So all we’ve got on her relationship to the painter is what we read in the papers? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Quinn told us no one who really knew her could corroborate it.”

She handed him one of the sheets. “It seems Andrew Bliss knew her, and he corroborated it. He had his own newspaper column, so it’s not like he needed to break into print.”

Riker read the short interview where Bliss was quoted, and he knew he was reading it for the first time. “Damn.” He looked at the date of the article. It was a full month after the case had officially shut down, but Markowitz had still been working it. So this had gotten by them.

She plucked the sheet from his hand. “Didn’t Aubry have any friends who could help you sort this out?”

“Naw. She was a lonely kid. She didn’t have any friends at all.”

Mallory pulled an old battered notebook from her pocket and opened it. Across the table, Riker recognized the scrawl that had been Markowitz’s handwriting. She flipped back the first three pages and put her finger to one note. “Aubry was twenty years old. She attended the same ballet school for six years.”

“A couple of girls who took classes with her were interviewed. None of them ever saw her outside of class.”

Mallory scanned two more pages. “What about this Madame Burnstien? It says Aubry took classes with her for the entire six years.”

“We couldn’t get a statement from Burnstien. She’s old but she’s fast. The first time, she gave Markowitz three minutes. The second time he tried to talk to her, she gave him the slip. I think Quinn had something to do with that. All the family information came through him, and he was really tight with the personal stuff. Maybe the old lady was close to the family.”

“I want to see this woman.”

“Lots of luck, kid. Markowitz could charm snakes, and he couldn’t get anything out of her. So I figure you haven’t got a prayer. I got five bucks says you can’t get near her.”

“Deal.”

Jack Coffey stood before the desk for a full minute before he was invited to sit down in the leather wing chair. Coffey stared at the window beyond Blakely’s head while waiting out the ritual of being ignored. This set his status in the world far below the level of the chief of detectives, a man with more important things to do, or such was the chief’s own personal mythology of himself. On his rare visits to the Special Crimes Section, Blakely carried his bulk like he owned all the real estate he walked upon.