Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics
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- Название:Killing Critics
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“It may seem mad to you, but I thought it was rather brilliant. It gave Sabra great focus, and she did develop that intellect and more. She was a creative genius. So perhaps you can also blame my father for her talent.”
“But eventually she did go insane.”
“She went through a bad time of it when her child died.”
“Her husband says she was crazy, certifiable. And she spent some time in an institution.”
“Gregor said that? Well, perhaps by New York standards she was always mad. She never took money from the family. That was insane, wasn’t it? With no help at all she made a startling career. Her museum retrospectives traveled the world. But she probably did need professional help getting through the aftermath of the murder.”
“Sabra was a strong woman. I have to wonder what pushed her over the top.”
“Sabra adored Aubry.”
“That’s not enough. We all lose people. And how is she living now? She doesn’t paint anymore. Hospitals are expensive. Gregor says she never used their health insurance plan, so her money had to dry up eventually. Wouldn’t she go to her husband or her family if she needed money to live on?”
“I only wish she had.”
Mallory knew he was lying, but she didn’t call him on it. “ Let them lie,‘’ Markowitz had told her. ” They always tell you more with the lies than you will ever get from the truth.‘’
She sipped her coffee, and stared out the window. “You know, when you ask a civilian the names of the artist and the dancer, they only remember Peter Ariel.”
“Of course. The cliché romance of the starving artist who’s only discovered after his death.”
“But if you ask a cop, they only remember Aubry’s name. That was your work, Quinn. You led the investigation back to Aubry every time, even though Peter Ariel was the most likely target.”
“Oh, was he? Then why did the chief medical examiner back up my point of view? Twelve years ago, he supported Aubry as the primary target.”
She watched Quinn and the young woman from the vantage point of a pile of garbage fresh from the restaurant’s kitchen, the spill of an overturned can. She didn’t notice the odor of fish heads mingling with the warm aroma of dog turds and the smell of fruit. Nor did she feel any curiosity about the young woman. This was simply all the spectacle offered to her at the moment, watching them together as they left the Central Park restaurant.
The woman with the wire cart was not so old as she appeared. Just as money could keep age at bay for a while, the dearth of money could and did accelerate aging. The lack of a roof to keep off the elements could ravage the skin and prematurely wrinkle the spirit. There were gaps between the teeth she had left to her. Her hair was iron gray and unwashed since that time, months ago, when she had been herded into the women’s shelter, stripped and deloused as the matrons watched from the door of the gang shower.
Now she spoke to the tea tin on the top of her cart, and nodding to it, she moved away with the cart in tow. Cart wheels squeaked, and aching feet with swollen ankles dragged across the gravel path. Her breathing was the wheeze of bad lungs as she strained to pull the cart which had grown heavier with each passing year on the streets of New York.
Coffey sat back in his chair, holding the telephone receiver a short distance from his ear. Commissioner Beale had a high irritating phone voice, and he tended to yell like a boy in the days when telephones were tin cans and wires.
“Yes, sir,” said Coffey. “I’ll pass your compliments along to Mallory before she leaves for Boston… Yes, sir, Boston. Chief Blakely’s pulling her off the case and sending her to…”
Coffey held the phone farther from his ear. “Well, Blakely felt the case might go high-profile if Mallory… Yes, sir, the photograph of the ball… Oh, you’re putting me in a hard place, sir. Blakely gave me a direct order to send her to Boston, and I would never… Yes, sir. I’m glad you understand… Well, no, sir, I wouldn’t mind if you had a word with him, but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my name out of it. He might get the idea I was going behind his back to keep Mallory on the case… Thank you, sir.”
Coffey set down the phone. When he turned to his reflection in the glass wall of his office, he thought he recognized a Mallory smile on his face.
The rabbi’s desk and chair were the heart of this sun-bright room filled with books and papers, warm wood, and white curtains that lifted with every breeze from the open window.
Rabbi David Kaplan was a long, elegant figure in a dark suit. His graying beard was close-trimmed and did not conceal the leanness of his face. His eyes conveyed the tranquillity of a drowsing cat, and this was deception. In every meeting with Kathy Mallory, all his senses were in play, and speed of mind was paramount in all his dealings with her. His old friend Father Brenner had learned this lesson the hard way and too late.
Helen Markowitz had sent her foster child out among the Catholics to honor a covenant with Kathy’s birth mother, a woman Helen had never met. Kathy had never spoken about her first mother, and so Helen had to intuit the wishes of this woman who had taught her child to make the sign of the cross. It was the only stitch of evidence to link Kathy with a past. Protestants did not make such signs, so it was determined that Kathy must have begun life as a Catholic. Helen had honored that original intention-up to a point. The experiment had ended badly.
The child was sent back to frustrate Rabbi Kaplan until her religious education was deemed complete. His greatest frustration had been the fact that she was his brightest student, and he could not separate the makings of a scholar from the greater talents of a thief and a gifted liar.
When she was well into her teens, he had offered her a choice of which faith she would continue in. She had chosen Judaism on the grounds that Jews had no place called hell.
If he had been marginally successful in keeping her from the flames of the Catholic hell, he had not brought her any nearer to God. She had been insulted by his efforts, believing that deities of every faith were no more than fairy tales for slow learners. But for some strange reason, the Christian devil was very real to her. She had met him somewhere out on the road in those first ten years of life, the years she shared with no one.
Despite all the traps he set for her, all the lost leaders he had put out upon the air between them, he had learned very little of her origins. Through the years, he had continued with his gentle probes into her past, and she had fended them off with agility. And so their relationship had always been a bit like a badminton game.
The rabbi set the black telephone receiver down in its cradle and looked across the desk to the child he loved as much as his own. “All right, Kathy. You have an appointment. Madame Burnstien will look at you.”
“ Look at me?”
“She must have assumed I was sending her a dancer. She hung up on me before I could correct that assumption. It’s just as well. My wife tells me Madame’s whole life is the ballet. If you’re not connected to that life, you don’t exist. The woman only accepted my call because Anna’s charity group donates scholarship money for the ballet school.”
“Markowitz couldn’t get anywhere with her. What do you suppose he did wrong?”
“Well, your father’s best weapon was charm. As I recall, the scum of the earth could be quite taken with him.”
“So we know that doesn’t work on the old lady.”
The rabbi only smiled at the idea that charm might be an option for Kathy Mallory. “Now, you will mind your manners with this woman. You will address her as Madame Burnstien. Helen raised you to show respect for the elderly. Of course, Madame Burnstien is a lot tougher than you are.”
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