Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

“You’re both nuts.”

She leaned down, her eyes level with his. “High praise from you, Oren, considering your mental history. Markowitz asked you if you had any trophies from the kill, maybe a body part. What did you tell him?”

“I don’t remember. I was high, I was jazzed. I swear I don’t remember what we talked about.”

“I’ll give you one more chance. You tell me what piece of the body was missing. If you guess right this time, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Her heart.”

“Too poetic. You lose.”

Now she left her seat to walk around the table and stand behind his chair. “Let’s try an experiment, shall we?” She pulled the chair out from under him, tumbling him to the floor.

“Mallory!” The other cop was leaving his chair, moving toward her.

She gave Riker a look to say, Back off or you’re next .

Oren watched her walk around the side of the desk, and now she was advancing on him, hands clenched into fists. He managed to right his body to a sitting position. Working legs and rear end like an inchworm, he scooted back to the far corner of the room, tucking in his head to protect it from the rain of blows that was surely coming. She pursued him on cat’s feet, slow and quiet. One hand came from behind her back, the hand that held the axe. That hand was rising now, and he was crying.

The other cop came up behind her and took the axe away. Riker pinned one of her arms behind her back and dragged her from the room and into the outer office. The door was slightly ajar. Oren watched the other cop slam Mallory’s body up against the wall as he yelled at her.

“I can’t trust you anymore, Mallory!” Riker reached inside her blazer and took the gun. “You know, you were right. Watt didn’t do it.” He slapped her face. “But you’ve snapped, kid. You’re a loose cannon now.”

Suddenly, it was Riker’s turn to be surprised. He was being lifted bodily off the ground, and then he was flying toward the couch, landing there in a tangle of arms and legs. He looked up to see Charles advancing on him in slow deliberate steps, as Mallory moved quickly in the other direction to shut the door to her office.

Charles’s mouth was set in a grim tight line of anger, an expression Riker had never seen on the gentle giant’s face before. He knew that at any moment, this large man he dearly loved could take his head off with one blow, and by his face, Charles meant to do just that. Riker still held Mallory’s revolver in his hand, and Charles didn’t like the gun at all, not in this proximity to Mallory, and he showed no fear of it.

“Stay back, Charles.” But Charles was still coming. Now Mallory had moved between them.

“Charles,” she hissed, “stay out of it! Back off.”

He did stop, but his face showed no signs of abating anger, and he was not backing off. So Mallory only held the giant on a string for the moment.

Riker untangled his legs and placed them squarely on the floor. “The game is called good cop, bad cop, Charles.”

He could almost see the mechanics of Charles’s beautiful brain rapidly processing this information, realizing what he had done, and changing his mood from rage to unbearable sadness. Charles turned and slowly walked back to his own office, pulling the door closed behind him.

“It’s time,” said Mallory, motioning Riker toward the door.

He entered Mallory’s office alone. Oren Watt was still shivering on the floor. Riker crossed the room to kneel down beside the man, and this made Watt drive his body deeper into the corner.

“Oren, I’m sorry about this. Look here,” said Riker in his normal, amiable tone of voice. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I really did try to get the gun away from her. She kicked me in the balls.”

“She’s coming back? And that big guy? Him too?”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so. You know, she never levels with me. I really got no idea what she wants from you.”

“She wants to know who killed the artist and the dancer. And she wants to know why, but I don’t know, I swear I don’t know.”

“So you never killed anyone.”

“No, I never did. She already knows that. Ask her. But I don’t know who did kill them. And I don’t know anything about Dean Starr’s murder or Koozeman’s. It’s the truth, I swear it.”

“I’ll tell you what, Oren. If you help me, I’ll help you. And when she comes back, I promise I won’t let her hurt you. Deal?”

“What do you want?”

“You met a woman at the mental institution. She was very attractive, fortyish, short black hair and large blue eyes, very white skin.” He held up the photo Mallory had manipulated on her computer.

“Yeah, I remember her. She was my friend.”

“Suppose I told you she was a famous artist under an assumed name. Who would she remind you of?”

“Oh, shit, there are thousands of people in the famous-artist category. Who can keep track?”

“You remember when she left the hospital?”

“Yeah. It was the day they took her last dollar. She was worse off when she left, and I don’t mean the money. When she first came, she was very strong. I wondered what she was doing there. She never said. So she came in larger than life, and left when she was small. It was sad.”

“She was your friend.”

“My only friend.”

“You were close.”

“I miss her. I think about her all the time.”

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

“No. I wish I did.”

“Okay, you were very close to her. You confided everything to her. You told her something about the murders. What was it?”

“I told her the truth. All I did that night was deliver the pizza and the drugs.”

“You never heard from her again?”

“Oh, she keeps in touch. Sometimes she calls me, but she never leaves a number. I don’t know where she is, and that’s the truth.”

“Did you give her the connection between Koozeman and the murders?”

“What? You’re not gonna hang anything on me. I didn’t-” And now Watt’s eyes were showing entirely too much white.

Mallory was standing in the doorway. Riker got to his feet, dusted his pants and walked toward the door.

“Hey, Riker,” said Watt, voice straining, breaking. “We had a deal.”

“I lied,” said Riker, closing the door behind him and leaving Oren Watt to Mallory.

He walked to the door of Charles’s office and knocked.

“Come in.” Charles was slumped behind his desk, staring down at the blotter. “You’ll never forgive me, will you?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Charles. I’m really glad you tossed me around. Ah, you think I’m kidding?” He sat on a corner of the desk. His smile was wasted. Charles would not meet his eyes. “I used to worry about the kid. I mean, suppose something happened to me?‘’ Something like his rainy day bullet, which would not wait forever. ”Now I don’t have to worry anymore. I know you’ll always be there for her.“

Riker put out his hand, but Charles only stared at it.

“You’re just gonna leave it hanging out there in the air that way?”

Charles grasped Riker’s hand, but his face was a long way from coming to terms with what he had done, and what he had planned to do.

“Snap out of it, Charles. You’re breaking my heart here. I don’t need that kind of crap from you. I got Mallory for that.”

“Oren, I already know how scum like you happen to be on such friendly terms with a senator. He buys your work. That bastard is one of the ghouls, the crime scavengers.”

Oren Watt had recovered a bit of his emotional stability now. Mallory had trained him like a rat. As long as he answered the questions, she kept her distance.

“No, that’s not exactly right. He’s not a collector, he’s only in it for the money, the turnover profit. He’s part of the start-up market. He makes the initial investment.”