"The Man Who Lied To Women" - читать интересную книгу автора (O’Connell Carol)CHAPTER 1Her fixation with machines had its roots in the telephone company nets which spread around the planet. The child had only the numbers written on her palm in ink, written there so she could not be lost. All but the last four numbers had disappeared in a wet smudge of blood. Over time, she had learned to beg small change from prostitutes, the only adults who would not turn her over to the social workers. She would put the coins into the public telephones and dial three untried numbers and then the four she knew. If a woman answered, she would say, ‘It’s Kathy. I’m lost.’ When she was seven years old, she could duplicate the tones of the public telephones by whistling with perfect pitch to open the circuits for long-distance calls, and she had learned all the international codes. She could also whistle the telephone out of its change. And so the telephone network fed her small body and her fixation. The constants of a thousand calls were the simple message and the last four digits of a telephone number. All these years later, there were still women, around the globe and all its time zones, all haunted by the disembodied voice of a child who was lost out there in the cyberspace of the telephone company. Detective Sergeant Riker of Special Crimes Section knew nothing of Kathy Mallory’s origins. No one did. She had arrived in the life of Inspector Louis Markowitz as a fullblown person, aged ten, or maybe eleven. Who could be certain about the age of a street kid? And her history belonged to her alone. The inspector’s wife, Helen Markowitz, had washed the child and discovered something remarkable beneath the patina of dirt. A waterfall of clean, burnished-gold hair was parted to expose the glittering green eyes, the painfully beautiful face of delicately sculpted angles and hollows, and the full, red mouth. Kathy’s intelligence had seemed like an excess of gifts. Fourteen years later, according to the homicide report of Detective Palanski, she was lying dead on an autopsy table just the other side of the door. Sergeant Riker pushed through the door and into the shock of cold air. A pool of bright light surrounded the metal table, the carts, and instruments which included the incongruous carpentry tools of drill and saw. He looked down at the partially sheeted body. A young doctor stood by the table, masked below the eyes and wearing green scrubs and rubber gloves. They had met previously over other bodies. The pathologist nodded to Riker, recognizing him as less than a friend but more than an acquaintance. The younger man turned his face back to the microphone suspended above the body as he continued to intone the list of statistics. ‘… As Riker bent over the corpse, the overhead lamp highlighted every silver hair and deepened the lines of his slept-in face and suit. ‘… A defensive wound? So there had been a struggle. Blonde curls framed a porcelain face. He squinted past the dried blood of the head wound and the damage done by a feasting of maggots and beetles. It was the wrong face. ‘… He pulled back the lid of one eye which had lost its roundness and gone all cloudy. Still, this eye was not and never had been green. His own eyes went to the roots beneath the curls. Not blonde roots. Not Kathy. ‘… This young woman was not as tall by five inches, but she was slender, like Kathy, and the same age. ‘… Riker was slow to regain control over all the muscles in the face and throat that could prevent a burnt out, I-seen-everything, rummy cop from crying like a man who still had feelings after thirty-five years on the force. He closed his eyes. ‘Detective Palanski is a damn idiot,’ said a familiar voice behind his back. Riker turned to face the chief medical examiner. Dr Edward Slope was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. A green surgical mask hung free beneath his cragged and deadpan face. All the anger was in the man’s words. Slope had also known Kathy in her puppy days. ‘The resemblance isn’t close enough to make them sisters.’ ‘Palanski’s a kid,’ said Riker, who said this of everyone under forty. ‘And it’s not like he worked with her every day.’ ‘… Riker opened his notebook and pulled out his pen. He kept his eyes away from the woman on the table, bereft of her sheet, exposed to the lights, the eyes of men, the cold air. ‘The body was found in the park, four or five blocks from Mallory’s neighborhood on the Upper West Side. The victim was wearing a blazer and blue jeans, just like Mallory. And Mallory’s name was on the tailor’s label.’ Dr Slope was staring down at the corpse. ‘Kathy Mallory’s eyes are so green they shouldn’t be legal. How could Palanski confuse the color of her eyes with these pale blues?’ ‘He wouldn’t have touched her eyes,’ said Riker. ‘He was scared of Mallory. Even when he thought she was dead, he was scared of her.’ ‘… Dr Slope moved closer to the table, nodded to the younger pathologist, and picked up a clipboard which dangled by a chain. Now he turned back to Riker. ‘What have you got so far?’ ‘Coffey’s got a preliminary report from the West Side squad. The ME investigator on the crime scene estimates the time of death at yesterday morning between 6:00 and 9:00. An entomologist is working on the bug larvae. Maybe they can narrow it some. Your man figures the body was moved within an hour of death.’ All that was written on the page of his notebook was the word Riker didn’t have to look directly at the woman to know what was being done to her. The young man with the mask and the knife was making the first incision crossing from shoulder to breastbone, and then on to the other shoulder, his blade describing a V. In peripheral vision, Riker saw the next slice, the downward motion of the knife hand cutting the body open from the breast to the mount of Venus. The smell of blood mingled with urine and feces. He could hear her liquids running into the holes at the sides of the table. ‘Palanski was the first detective on the scene. He figures the park for a dump site.’ ‘And what do you think, Riker?’ ‘Could be. I don’t know. We’ve only got grass stains on the clothes. Maybe he did her in the park, and then dragged her deeper into the woods so he could have some privacy while he was working on her hands.’ And that sound, just now, was the first of her organs dropping on to the scale – a lung, or maybe it was her heart. ‘That fits,’ said Slope. ‘No blood loss with those wounds. The hands were smashed up after death. I can’t see you pulling prints on this one.’ The medical examiner slid an X-ray out of a large manila envelope and held it up to the light. ‘The blow to the head wouldn’t have killed her. Her neck was snapped after he stunned her. Fractures indicate a heavy blunt object.’ ‘Like a rock?’ ‘Could be. By the direction of the bone fragments, I’d say he hit her from the front with the object in his right hand. No bruising on the throat. He probably used both hands to break her neck by twisting the head. Are you staying around for the report?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Riker. ‘Since it’s not one of our officers, this one goes back to the detectives on the West Side. It’s nothing Special Crimes would have an interest in.’ ‘… More of her organs were dropping on to the scales. Three times he counted the cold slap of soft tissue on metal. Riker kept his eyes nailed to his notebook. ‘I think Dr Oberon said there were defensive wounds on the arm.’ Slope picked up the arm and bent closer to it. ‘No. More like a restraint bruise. The bastard had a strong grip on her arm. Large hand, too. Oh, and be sure to tell Palanski, I’m going to sick Mallory on him. He’s ruined my morning. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have him destroyed.’ Without looking up from his notebook, Riker knew that the organs of her torso were all accounted for. The younger pathologist was moving to the head of the table to make the long incision which would begin at one ear and stretch along the top of her crown to the other ear. Then the man would pull the flap of skin down over the face of the girl who was not Kathy. It was done quickly with the sure strokes of a butcher. Now Riker listened to the saw slicing into her skull. A minute more and her brains would hit the scale. His pen hovered over the notebook as that minute dragged by. And then it was over. She was gutted and ruined. Because the woman might have been Kathy, the killer had touched him in his soft places. Kathy Mallory had crept into those soft places as a child and grown up in them. Later in the day, he would soak his despair in scotch, but not drown it. It would be waiting for him in the morning with his hangover. Tomorrow, the two of them, despair and headache, would be married to one another and sitting at the foot of his bed when he awoke to a new morning, or maybe it would be afternoon, and then they would get him. For all the days of her suspension from the force, the beautifully tailored lines of her blazers had been uninterrupted by the bulge of a.357 Smith amp; Wesson revolver. She might have passed for a civilian, but for the uncivilized green eyes. She was settled deep into the well-padded brocade of an eighteenth-century couch in a warm patch of afternoon sun. One slim blue-jeaned leg curled under her, but the running shoe never touched the material. Helen Markowitz had raised her to respect furniture, whether it be the antiques which filled this office with the colors of Persian rugs and stained-glass lamp shades, or the cruder appointments of NYPD. ‘Talk to him, Mallory,’ said Effrim Wilde, who knew better than to presume he might call her Kathy or Kathleen on only a few years’ acquaintance, or even ten. The long slants of her eyes were only half open as she turned her face to Effrim. ‘I hope the kid isn’t possessed by the devil,’ she said. She glanced at Charles. ‘I really hate that.’ Charles Butler smiled broadly. Effrim Wilde smiled not at all. Effrim was a rounded silhouette in the soft diffusion of light from the wide center window. Dwarfed by the tall triptych of arched glass panes, he might have been taken for an altar boy, and not a man in his middle fifties. The aging cherub face was crowned by wavy hair, more salt than pepper now. ‘Charles, it’s a fascinating problem.’ ‘Nothing fascinating about it,’ said Charles. ‘It’s garden variety fraud.’ Charles coveted Effrim’s pug nose, for his own was constantly reminding him of its size and length. Charles could look nowhere without looking over it, or trying to see around it, or noting the shadow it cast on every wall. He was not a handsome man; he knew that. And he had long ago come to terms with the realization that strangers took him for an asylum escapee, perhaps because of the large egg-shaped eyes and the undersized blue marbles that rolled around the vast white surfaces, giving him the look of having been taken by surprise. ‘Give it up, Effrim. I’m not dealing with that kind of nonsense,’ he said, rising from a Queen Anne chair and inadvertently looming over the smaller man. At six-four, Charles’s looming was unavoidable. ‘It isn’t nonsense, Charles. I have the data – ’ ‘The Russian or the Chinese? Never mind. I’m not terribly impressed with either. Those experiments have never been duplicated to my satisfaction. I’m not buying it. Why don’t you fob the case off on Malakhai?’ ‘Malakhai, the debunker? I thought he was dead.’ ‘No, he’s in retirement now, but I don’t think a small boy will cause him any undue exertion. He won’t charge you much for fifteen minutes’ work.’ Charles turned to Mallory. ‘Malakhai is an old friend of the family. He toured Europe with Cousin Max when he was a practicing magician. This was all a bit before your time.’ ‘Charles, I’m not concerned about the expense,’ said Effrim. ‘Good, not that he needs the money. Shall I call him?’ ‘Absolutely not. Every case he ever worked on became a sideshow. What we want here is discretion. We’re talking about a little boy, a very troubled little boy.’ ‘Are we?’ Charles rose on the balls of bis feet, smiling pleasantly. ‘I thought you were sucking up to the boy’s father because he controls a grant committee. It is that time of year, isn’t it, when the think tank passes the hat? I only deal with legitimate gifts, measurable gifts.’ ‘Levitating objects? That’s not a gift?’ Effrim’s eyes rounded in mock incredulity that Charles would not see things his way. But then, Charles saw Effrim’s ‘Effrim, you know the boy is a fraud. He’s not levitating anything. And it’s no good appealing to Mallory. She’s not overly sentimental about small children, little old ladies or dogs. Nor does she believe that inanimate objects can fly without a physical activator. And the proper term is ‘Well, you would know the technical jargon better than I,’ said Effrim, waving his hand in the expansive gesture of concession. ‘I stand corrected. Thank you.’ ‘And if the boy levitates food, it’s called a food fight.’ ‘Thank you, Charles.’ Now Charles watched the mechanics of Effrim’s small smile, the downcast eyes, the aggrieved sigh for those who were not yet enlightened, and he knew his old friend was regrouping for another assault. ‘This child has been through a terrible emotional ordeal,’ said Effrim in the tone of ‘No good, Effrim. Psychokinesis is not my field.’ Effrim rolled his eyes up in the manner of the insipid-saint school of fourteenth-century painting. ‘Your field is discovering new gifts and finding applications for them, is it not? This child is in the gifted category in other areas, you know. His IQ is somewhere between yours and mine. And there’s some urgency to this. His new stepmother is badly frightened. It seems he’s been applying his gift in a rather terrifying way.’ One long and slender arm, led by five red fingernails, stretched across the back of the couch as Mallory was roused from lethargy. ‘So, the new stepmother is the target?’ Charles watched Effrim mentally stepping back to reappraise Mallory as a possible ally, estimating the location of her buttons, what pressure to push them with, and which buttons to avoid. This was Effrim’s special gift, his art. ‘I do hope not,’ said Effrim with exquisite insincerity. ‘He’s been moving sharp objects around.’ Charles filled Mallory’s empty glass with dry sherry. A look passed between them, and in that look, a small conversation took place in which he begged her not to encourage Effrim. He next offered the decanter to his good friend of many years, whom he would not trust with the silver. ‘Effrim, if you believe the boy is in trauma, wouldn’t it be better to refer him to a psychiatrist?’ ‘Probably not,’ said Mallory, answering for Effrim. ‘How many shrinks fall into the genius category? If it’s fraud and the boy is that bright, he could put it by the average peabrain.’ Charles looked her way, his smile dipping down on one side to say, She was avoiding his eyes and further ocular conversation. He found it interesting that she would take Effrim’s part when she was so suspicious of the man. She’d had a good instinct there. ‘How did the mother and first stepmother die?’ she asked Effrim. So it was only the body count that interested Mallory. He should have guessed that. She was bored with the partnership. When her suspension was over, he would lose her to Special Crimes Section. He had nothing to offer her, no dead bodies, no puzzles quite so interesting as murder. Effrim was looking into his glass, reading his next line in the sherry. ‘It was tragic, really tragic. The boy’s natural mother died of a heart attack. Odd because she was so young at the time, only twenty-eight.’ He looked up to gauge the effect of the hook on Mallory, but her face was devoid of emotional cues. He stared into her eyes for too long and became unsettled by them. Turning back to his glass, he spoke to the sherry. ‘And then his first stepmother committed suicide… She didn’t leave a note.’ Mallory lifted her chin slightly. Her eyes were all the way open now. Charles stared at the ceiling. ‘That’s quite a run of bad luck in one family,’ said Charles. ‘Only for the women,’ said Mallory. ‘We’ll take it.’ She didn’t look to Charles for confirmation, not that he minded. It might keep her from cutting the cord of Mallory and Butler, Ltd for a while, but the break was inevitable. NYPD was unlikely to allow her to moonlight any longer. There must be limits to what she could get away with. Effrim was edging toward the door. ‘I’ll send over a check for the retainer,’ Effrim said. And then for his most stunning trick, the wide Cheshire smile lingered on after the door was closed behind him. Mallory was rising off the couch, running shoes lighting on the floor at the edge of the carpet. ‘I’ll chase down the life insurance angle.’ ‘Ah, just a minute, Mallory. We were asked to evaluate the psychokinetic activity, not the family history.’ ‘You’re kidding, right?’ ‘Right. Lunch?’ ‘There’s nothing in the office fridge.’ No, there wouldn’t be, now that he thought of it. She had trusted him with a shopping list. He had used the back of it to jot down two telephone numbers, and used the whole of it to mark his place in a book, but he had forgotten to use any part of it for shopping. ‘Let’s go to my place.’ They walked across the hall and into the apartment that was his residence. Here, an eagle-eyed Mrs Ortega saw to the contents of the refrigerator out of pity for the shopping-disabled Charles. Today the cleaning woman had left a note on the refrigerator door, attached by a magnet. It was a diagram of the kitchen showing all the war zones where she had set traps for the mouse. He felt sorry for the rodent, so great was his confidence in Mrs Ortega. Mallory was ensconced at the kitchen table. The kitchen was his favorite room. The walls were lined with racks of spices and agents for tenderizing flesh, and instruments for torturing vegetables, slicing, dicing and boiling them in oil. He was now in the process of covering the table with refrigerator finds. Mallory was picking over plastic containers, packages of meat and no less than five colors of cheese, and putting together original creations of sandwich mania. On his final trip back from the refrigerator, he offered her a new discovery in pickle labels. ‘You were happier in Special Crimes, weren’t you?’ ‘When Markowitz was alive,’ she said, opening the jar and sniffing, then approving the contents with a nod. ‘Working with Coffey isn’t quite the same. If I go back, I’ll be stuck in the computer room forever. He was really pissed off the last time I saw his face. He’ll never let me out in the field again.’ ‘I thought this suspension was just a formality.’ ‘It is. When you shoot a perp, you’re relieved of duty while the Civilian Review Board investigates the case.’ ‘But you didn’t kill the mugger, and he did beat and rob that old man.’ ‘Coffey’s got a different way of looking at things.’ ‘So you don’t want to dissolve the partnership?’ ‘No, it never occurred to me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t go back to Special Crimes when my suspension is over.’ And now she checked her watch and reached up to turn on the small television set on the kitchen counter. It was time for the news, and she did like to keep up on the city’s death rate. ‘But there are department regulations against moonlighting, aren’t there?’ ‘Yes, there are.’ And what of it, said her eyebrows on the way up. The news show was reporting the daily carnage with a video window on the Death Clock of Times Square. As the statistics of the dead were read by the newscaster, the numbers on the giant public bulletin board changed before an audience of a thousand cars and pedestrians, and the millions more who preferred to view cheap spectacle on television. ‘I hate that thing,’ she said, watching the change of electronic digits which kept the national score of death by guns. ‘The Death Clock? But, Mallory, I thought you of all people would appreciate computerized death. It makes homicide so neat and efficient.’ She said nothing. Her face shut him out, resolving itself into a cold mask. This was his only clue that he had erred. Why did he persist in the belief that he might ever learn to anticipate her? Who knew what went on inside of Mallory? And how could he not go on wondering? Charles was staring at the television set, but his mind had strolled across the hall to the office where she stored her computer toys. Of course, keeping the partnership had its practical aspects. Here she had freedom from the supervision of anyone who might recognize her equipment as the electronic equivalent of burglary tools. Charles looked across the table at the living, solid, three-dimensional Mallory as though he needed to verify her existence, needed to be sure his eyes were not in error before he could doubt the veracity of television. Suppose she had not been with him when he heard the news? They watched in silence. Much channel changing told them other news programs were also carrying the story. And now the phone was ringing in concert with the doorbell. The first of the condolence calls, he supposed. Mallory went off to answer the door as he picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ ‘Charles, this is Riker. Don’t you ever pick up the messages on your answering machine?’ ‘Riker, is this about the report on Mallory’s death?’ ‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘I’m calling from the Medical Examiner’s Office. We’ve been trying to track down Mallory all day. Is she there? Could you put the little corpse on the phone?’ Mallory walked back into the kitchen, followed by Dr Henrietta Ramsharan of apartment 3A. Henrietta’s dark hair fell soft and loose around the shoulders of her denim shirt. She wore her after-hours faded jeans and the confusion of the eyes which came from having the door opened by a dead person. Lieutenant Jack Coffey was sitting at his own desk, but the desk was in Inspector Markowitz’s office. Though Louis Markowitz was dead, the old man would always be in command of the Special Crimes Section, and this would always be his office. Jack Coffey counted himself lucky that the paychecks were made out to himself. But just now, he was thinking of Markowitz’s daughter, Kathleen Mallory. Palanski’s report was sitting on his desk, replete with the crime-site preliminary faxed over from the West Side precinct. The fax photos were dark, but the light hair shone through the grainy shadows, and he could make out the outline of the slender body in the familiar jeans, running shoes and blazer. He only waited on the positive identification from a friend of the family to complete the report. No doubt Sergeant Riker would pull the pin after this one. Markowitz’s death had hit the man hard. Mallory’s death would be too much. Coffey turned off the lamp and braced his hands on the desk, as though a man of thirty-six needed this solid crutch to rise to a stand. He stared at the bulletin board on the back wall of the office and wondered if a little water on his face might make him feel less dead. But the evidence was sitting on his desk in black and white, and her pretty face was all over the television on every channel. And when he found the cop who leaked it to the media, one head was gonna roll. If he could have her back for a few minutes, he would risk the sarcasm and the look that would neatly snip his balls for caring if she lived or died. ‘Oh, Christ!’ He grabbed at the door frame and missed, too slow with shock to fall immediately and catching himself on the second pass at something solid, which was the chair. His stomach shot up and then slammed back to where it belonged. Mallory stood in the doorway. Her gold hair was back-lit by the office lights beyond the door, and coming up behind her was a fluorescent, washed out Riker. ‘I know,’ said Mallory. ‘You thought it was me in the morgue.’ ‘Well, Mallory,’ said Riker, ‘he did and he didn’t. The lieutenant heard you were dead, but he knew you’d be back after sundown.’ Riker ambled into the office behind Mallory and tossed his report on the desk. One beverage and two different types of food stains graced the front page. Coffey was staring at the report and looking for his voice as she sat down in the chair by his desk and stretched out the long legs that went on forever. Riker dragged another chair up to the desk, pulled out his notebook and leaned over to flick on the lamp. On the rear wall, Mallory was casting the reassuring shadow of a living woman. Coffey lowered himself into his chair. He was fighting down the gut flutters, one hand resting on his stomach, as though he could kill the internal butterflies by smothering them this way. ‘The corpse was wearing a brown cashmere blazer that was tailored for you, Mallory.’ Riker looked at his notebook and nodded to her. ‘That was confirmed by your tailor on 42nd Street. According to Palanski’s report, you’re the guy’s most memorable customer.’ ‘Can you explain the blazer?’ ‘You’ll find Riker’s cigarette burn on the left sleeve,’ she said, and not softly at all. ‘I got rid of it.’ ‘You trashed it?’ ‘No. I gave it to Anna Kaplan, Rabbi Kaplan’s wife. She collects clothing for the homeless.’ He looked down at Riker’s report, reading through the orange sauce stains and one stain that damn well better not be beer. ‘According to the ME’s report, this is the body of a well-nourished female in her mid-twenties. No indication that she was homeless, no head lice, no bedbugs.’ He left out the feeding frenzy of maggots and beetles that would help to determine the time of death in the scavenging cycle of insects. ‘So?’ Mallory shrugged. ‘Talk to Palanski. See what else he botched besides the ID on the corpse. What have we got so far?’ Her question was well within the purview of a crimes analyst. He needed her back. How to get through this without antagonizing her. without falling into the inevitable round of one-upmanship which she always won. He scanned the lines of Riker’s report. ‘We know she had an abortion within ten days of death. The first wound was a frontal assault to the head. He was facing her. That could mean it was personal, someone she knew. Outside of that, we’ve got nothing,’ said Coffey. ‘No witness, no weapon.’ ‘It was raining yesterday morning,’ said Riker, tapping the early homicide report on the corner of Coffey’s desk. ‘The rain would have washed away any physical evidence. If Heller couldn’t dig it up, it wasn’t there. The weapon could have been a rock, and that rock is at the bottom of the lake if the perp has half a brain. And that’s assuming she was killed in the park. We know the body was moved after death.’ ‘We don’t have an officer involvement,’ said Coffey. ‘If you’ve got nothing more to add to this report, I’m bouncing it back to the West Side squad tonight.’ Mallory sat well back in her chair, eyes half-closed, looking nearly harmless. ‘With no prints, it’ll take them a month to ID that body – maybe longer or never. It’ll be a low priority case. So, if the park was only a dump site, they’ll never find the kill site. They’re gonna blow it.’ ‘I suppose you could do it better and faster?’ And yes, he could see that was exactly what she thought. ‘You want me to?’ ‘I want you to go back to your damn computer room.’ ‘I’m still on suspension, and I’m considering a better offer.’ Mallory rose from her chair, and in the next instant, he was looking at the back of her as she walked out of the room. ‘You know she’s right,’ said Riker, leaning over in his chair, checking the door to be sure she was gone out of earshot. ‘The West Side dicks will lose it. The perp’s gonna get away with the murder.’ ‘It happens. Nothing I can do about it.’ ‘Give this one to Mallory.’ ‘Her job description is crimes analysis and computers, not fieldwork.’ ‘But she has worked in the field.’ ‘Unofficially, and only because I had a shortage of warm bodies. If she wants to make it official, she has to go through the paperwork and put in some time with a partner. Now who could work with her? And you’re forgetting this case is another precinct’s headache.’ ‘Well, technically it’s still the property of Special Crimes. Why not give it to Mallory? Just give it to her, close your eyes and don’t ask her a lot of questions.’ ‘Like Markowitz did?’ When she broke six laws a day, breaking and entering other people’s computers, cutting corners, bypassing time-consuming channels and warrants – proving invaluable. ‘I should just let her run her own private police department? Is that the idea, Riker?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘But Markowitz didn’t want her to work the field. He all but padded the walls of that computer room. He spoonfed her every detail of a case.’ ‘I always thought he was wrong in that,’ Riker lit a cigarette without asking if Coffey minded. Coffey minded, but bit it back. He’d grown accustomed to this game they played, needling within parameters that stopped just short of insubordination. And he had not yet thanked Riker for failing to call in the false ID from the morgue. ‘All this time, she could have been learning fieldwork so she could survive out there,’ said Riker, exhaling a blue cloud of smoke. ‘Now it occurs to me that she’s got her own way of surviving, and it might be a better way. It’s a waste of talent to keep her in the computer room.’ ‘It was letting her out of the computer room that got her suspended.’ ‘That was a righteous shoot.’ ‘You know better than that, Riker. If she’d killed the perp, I’d have no problem with that. But Mallory wanted to play with him.’ ‘Whose call is that? Are you telling me that pack of idiots on the Civilian Review Board ruled against her?’ ‘The Review Board commended her on restricting her use of force to shooting a gun out of a man’s hand. But then, they’re civilians, aren’t they? I’m the one who’s got a problem with the shooting. The perp aimed a gun at Mallory. She should’ve put that bullet in his heart. But if she’d just killed him, where would be the fun in that?’ Coffey mentally scratched one point for himself, but the big score would be in getting the last word. ‘Now I’ve got a backlog of cases, and she’s not replaceable on the computer. That’s it.’ Coffey shuffled the papers on his desk, and then bowed his head to read them. Had a more sensitive human been sitting in Riker’s chair, he would have recognized this signal of dismissal. He was still seated when his superior looked up from the paperwork. Coffey’s glare was wasted on Riker, who seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. ‘Riker, catch up to Mallory and tell her the suspension is terminated.’ Riker nodded but remained entirely too comfortable in his slouch to be going anywhere very soon. ‘If you don’t give Mallory something more interesting, she’ll walk,’ he said, spilling out his words with the smoke in an economy of effort. ‘She’ll keep the consulting partnership with Charles.’ ‘That setup is illegal as hell, and it’s gonna stop or I’ll take her badge,’ said Coffey, trying the lie out on Riker first, and wondering how Mallory would take it. ‘You can’t scare Mallory.’ He hated it when Riker was right. If the department ever did enforce the regulations on moonlighting, there wouldn’t be three cops left to guard the city. ‘Are you volunteering to play wet nurse, Riker?’ ‘Mallory doesn’t need me for that. She doesn’t need any human being on the planet. She came that way when she was a kid. Real self-sufficient little – ’ ‘I thought Markowitz was your friend, Riker. Are you trying to give that dead man a heart attack by putting his kid in the line of fire?’ ‘If she hadn’t been his daughter, he would have used her right. He would have been ruthless about it.’ Riker deposited an ash on the carpet. The whole world was Riker’s ashtray. ‘Why should I give her this one? The guy is brutal. He’s a psycho.’ Coffey held up the morgue photo, and Riker turned his face to the floor. ‘First he smashes the woman’s skull in, and then he turns her head 180 till her neck snaps. How is Mallory going to – ’ ‘If you’re afraid she’s gonna shoot him in the hand, I think she’s learned her lesson.’ Riker lifted his shaggy head to face Coffey with something approaching serious feeling. ‘Give her a chance.’ He then shrugged his shoulders to show that this business really meant very little to him. And now Coffey realized it meant a great deal to Riker. ‘You know she’d have absolutely nothing to go on.’ ‘That’s what she likes about it,’ said Riker. ‘The first time you said that, her little monster eyes lit up like green candles. It’s enough to make you believe in hell.’ ‘All we know about the perp is that he’s dangerous to women, and you want me to give him to Mallory.’ ‘She’s perfect for this one.’ ‘How do you figure?’ While Coffey waited on an answer, he looked down at the report on his blotter and picked up a pencil to initial it. Riker slumped low in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. Coffey’s pencil snapped in two. ‘You know,’ Riker drawled through the smoky haze, ‘even in the early days, Markowitz took a lot of pride in Mallory. He used to brag on her all the time. He said it wasn’t every father in the neighborhood who had a kid with the psych profile of a sociopath.’ |
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