The Chalk Girl

TWENTY-THREE

My guidance counselor tells me that school days are the best times of my life, and I should relish every second. When she tells me this, I want to scream, ‘You silly old fuck! It’s hell every day, five days a week! It’s war!’

—Ernest Nadler

By all appearances, Charles Butler had recovered from Mallory’s funeral scam to expose a little girl to a lineup of murder suspects. He was smiling broadly, happy to see the two detectives at his door, and he ushered them into his apartment.

This extended babysitting detail would be wearing on anyone. Maybe Charles was starved for adult company. That was Riker’s thought as he bent down to receive a hug from Coco. ‘Hey, kid. Can you play something for us? Know any good rock groups?’

She clapped her hands together, eyes lit brightly, big grin. ‘Echo and the Bunnymen!’

Charles smiled. ‘Sounds charming.’

‘Excellent choice,’ said Riker, ‘post-punk rock.’

And Charles stopped smiling, somewhat less charmed.

Coco took Mallory’s hand and led her into the adjoining room. Moments later, the two men in the parlor were listening to a piano duet.

Riker slapped his worried host on the back. ‘It’ll be okay. As long as you can hear the music, you know Mallory isn’t beating the kid.’ And now the detective recognized the opening bars to an old song from a garage band that almost made it. ‘Oh, this is vintage. It’s called “Crazytown Breakdown” – a hit single back in the early nineties.’

The man who loved classical music had a baffled look about him. Charles Butler’s golden oldies predated rock music by centuries.

In the next room, two voices rose in song, high, pure notes running up and down the scale of the melody. When they came to the refrain, they both banged out the music and belted out the lyrics. Great fun – so said the child’s giggles accompanied by a softer ripple of piano keys.

Charles was entranced. ‘I’ve never heard Mallory sing.’

Riker had, but only once and long ago. That was the day of her little rock ’n’ roll rebellion at Special Crimes. A child-size Kathy Mallory had been suspended for some playground transgression before her school day had ended, and Lou Markowitz was on midget duty until his wife could arrive to pick up their foster child. He sat at his desk, facing Kathy’s chair. Her legs were shorter then, and her sneakers dangled above the floor. Maybe the kid was only bored when she began the staring contest with Lou, but then she had escalated with lyrics, putting their little war of nerves to music. The child had sung the old man this same refrain – Crazy is a place I know. I come and go. I come and go – over and over, all the while fixing him with her weird green eyes. And, with his best poker face, Lou had, one by one, snapped six lead pencils in two before saying, ‘You win.’

Today this old song had the same unnerving effect on Charles Butler – and not by accident. What had this poor man done to Mallory?

On the next note of ‘—cra-a-a-zy—’ Riker described the invisible dead boy who spoke to Phoebe Bledsoe. ‘Her mother blames it on a child psychiatrist.’ The detective consulted his notebook for a name. ‘Dr Martin Fyfe. This guy had Phoebe personalize her anxiety.’ He squinted at his shorthand, isolated words standing for sentences and whole paragraphs. Most of his notes had been written on the fly while being shown to the door. ‘Well, that backfired. The kid was supposed to confront her problem – talk to it – but she only listened.’ He looked up. ‘Is this nuts, or what? So then the shrink tells the mother that Phoebe’s delusional, and the kid needs years on the couch.’ He closed his notebook. ‘The mother fired the shrink.’

‘A good maternal instinct.’ Charles looked into the music room to watch the piano players during a lull in the song. ‘Dr Fyfe was a fraud – not actually a psychiatrist.’ Assured that Mallory was not browbeating Coco, he turned back to Riker. ‘Fyfe did have a Ph.D. in psychology. Unfortunately for his patients, his education was the next best thing to a correspondence course in cartooning. But you don’t need any credentials for psychodrama, and that’s what you described.’

Charles rose from his chair, and Riker followed him down the hall and into the library, where every wall was thick with books, and shelves soared to a high ceiling. The music of the piano was thin and tinny here. Coco’s guardian had one ear cocked toward the open door, monitoring the piano duet, as he walked toward shelves filled with magazines. Their wooden holders were labeled by dates and titles of Psychiatric this and Psychology that.

‘So Phoebe Bledsoe started her therapy about fifteen years ago?’

‘Give or take.’ Riker watched him pull out holders for the nineties.

‘Fyfe would’ve been in a rush to publish a case like hers. I can almost guarantee that Phoebe Bledsoe made it into print. There won’t be a real name mentioned, but he wouldn’t change the patient’s gender or her age. This might take me a while.’

‘Hey, you’ve got a photographic memory.’

‘Sorry. I’ve only read one of that idiot’s papers.’

Riker glanced down at his wristwatch. ‘Me and Mallory got plans to ambush an assistant DA. We gotta corner the weasel before five.’ The detective stared at the stack of professional journals still piling up on the table. ‘This is gonna take all day, huh?’

‘Not that long.’ Charles picked up a large stack as if it weighed only ounces, and he carried it down the hall to the front room, unwilling to leave Coco and Mallory unchaperoned. He set the journals on the coffee table and sat down in line of sight with the piano.

Riker’s load was lighter by half, but he felt the strain of seldom-used muscle when he placed his stack beside the taller one.

The psychologist’s eyes scanned the printed word as fast as he could turn the pages, faster than anything passing for speed-reading. His face had the deep red flush of embarrassment, and that was understandable. This man was shy about any evidence of freakishness – his giant brain and even his tall stature. He always seemed apologetic when looking down at someone of average height. Being closely observed while reading at the speed of light – that must be humiliating.

Gallant Riker turned away to watch the singing piano players, and his feet tapped to the beat. Without turning his head, he said, ‘So you know this Dr Fyfe pretty well.’

‘No, only by name and a bad reputation.’ Charles held up one of the publications. ‘Years ago, this journal sent one of Fyfe’s papers for peer review. It was a case study on an eight-year-old boy. The idiot fed a child unwarranted drugs. Then the reviewer – a real psychiatrist – looked into his background and discovered that Fyfe wasn’t licensed to prescribe an aspirin. The article was evidence of illegal traffic in drugs – he bought them on the street. But it was a charge of child endangerment that got him suspended the first time.’

‘The first time? How many—?’

‘Three suspensions.’

‘What does it take to get your license pulled?’

‘You’d have to kill someone on the ethics committee. That would get their attention. As a provision of reinstatement, Fyfe wasn’t allowed to work with children anymore. But that would’ve been too late for Phoebe Bledsoe. Would you like a tutorial on psychodrama?’

Riker rolled his eyes.

Charles smiled. ‘It’ll only take a minute. It’s that simplistic.’ He pointed to the empty armchair beside Riker’s. ‘Imagine, if you will, that the source of your anxiety sits there. Now you speak to it. You pour out your heart, all your angst and fear. It’s a game anyone can play. There’s a drama school on the Lower East Side that uses it for a class exercise.’ Charles picked up another journal and resumed his page turning, stopping suddenly. ‘Here we go.’ He slowed down to read at a speed close to that of a human being.

And Riker listened to the music from the other room, the never-ending song of crazy. What was Mallory playing at?

When Charles was done with the article, he closed the journal. ‘The child mentioned here was eleven years old. Her therapy began a month after the death of a classmate.’

‘That’s our girl,’ said Riker.

Charles turned his eyes to the music room, distracted by the song begun again. ‘Fyfe’s patient was suffering from nightmares and a fear of being left alone for any length of time. She was unresponsive to a standard talking cure. So Fyfe introduced her to psychodrama, and he helped it along with twice-weekly doses of a psychotropic drug. Now that’ll really mess up a child’s brain. Then, as if the little girl didn’t have enough problems, she became delusional. Did I mention that Fyfe is an idiot? He could’ve confused delusion with a coping mechanism or a rich fantasy life.’

‘You mean the invisible playmate?’

Charles nodded as one finger ran along a line on the open page. ‘Here, Fyfe says her delusion took the form of the dead classmate, but the girl wouldn’t say any more than that. No feedback at all. She only listened to an empty chair.’

‘The mother says Phoebe’s listening to her inner critic.’

‘That’s pop-psychology, but there might be a kernel of truth . . . if this little girl felt some responsibility for the boy’s death. That also fits with her silence during therapy sessions. Children are geniuses at keeping the secrets that eat them alive.’

‘You think she’s nuts? Could Phoebe have killed the invisible kid?’

If that had not come out quite right, the psychologist was too polite to say.

‘No idea.’ Charles laid the journal down. ‘If this is a portrait of Phoebe . . . if the behavior is ongoing, I can only confirm that Dr Fyfe sent her to live in a private hell, locked up with a dead child – and she’s still there.’

In the next room, the song of crazy ended.