The Chalk Girl

THIRTY-TWO

Aggy the Biter pulls back the collar of my shirt. Maybe she wants to admire her handiwork, but the last bite mark has faded since class picture day.

This time, when they threaten to kill me, I point out that they’ve been trying to do that all year. I even know this will make the beating worse. I just can’t help it – sarcasm is my best superpower. But Humphrey just giggles and walks away with the girls.

All day long, I wait for them to come at me. Anticipation is a killer.

—Ernest Nadler

On her knees, Phoebe Bledsoe scrubbed the marking-pen letters from her cottage door. Only two words – and still Willy had managed an error in grammar. The scrawled message YOUR NEXT was faint now, but only a coat of paint would make it disappear.

Phoebe dropped her sponge, startled by the sound of footsteps coming up behind her.

‘It’s only me.’ Mr Polanski came to the end of the flagstone path. Keys jingled on his belt loop as he hunkered down by her side. ‘I called the headmaster at his summer home. He won’t let me change the gate lock. He says it’s an antique. Well, you know how the school feels about every really old thing. So I didn’t even ask if I could put a chain and a padlock on that gate . . . I thought the headmaster might say no.’ The old watchman smiled and held up a small key. ‘This goes to your new padlock, Miss Phoebe.’ And now he handed her another one. ‘That’s the spare. You’re the only one with keys. Do you feel safe now?’

Did she? Would she ever?

Dr Slope was not available, but a more agreeable pathologist was on call this morning. Mallory stood before him, hands on hips, her way of saying, Give up. And the man responded well to intimidation – less work for the detectives.

‘It’s not here.’ The young doctor faced his computer monitor. ‘No death certificate on file, not under that name.’

‘Okay, pal,’ said Riker. ‘Let’s say we’re just shopping for a dead wino. We’ll take anything you had in stock that day.’ The date they had given him corresponded to the death of a homeless man in the Ramble, the unidentified murder victim of Toby Wilder’s plea bargain.

The man in the lab coat scrolled down the screen and then stopped. ‘Got it. There’s only one body that fits. No name, just a number. It was found in Central Park.’ He tapped the keys to call up autopsy photographs. ‘Well, two odd things. There’s a big gap between the time this John Doe came in and when the paperwork was finished. And see here? These pictures show damage from a beating, but the body was never cracked open.’

‘You gotta be kidding me.’ Riker leaned down to the screen image of a savagely beaten corpse. ‘This guy’s a mess. He was a murder victim.’

‘Yes, sir, he was. And that’s noted right here.’

Mallory motioned for the pathologist to get up and get out of her way. She slid into his chair to click through the photographs one by one. ‘No good head shots. The beating really bloodied up his face. We’ll never get an ID from these pictures. Wait. Look at this one.’

Riker stared at a close-up shot of an injury to the flesh. A scalpel lay next to the body, and this was the only guide to scale. ‘A bite mark.’

Mallory nodded. ‘Little teeth. Kids killed the wino.’

Riker turned to the pathologist. ‘Why the third-rate autopsy? A homeless bum wasn’t worth the time?’ He pointed to the screen. ‘Nobody thought that was weird enough for a closer look?’

‘We want an exhumation,’ said Mallory. ‘We want it now.’

‘I understand you two are slandering the reputation of my department?’ The chief medical examiner had suddenly become available to the police.

Kathy Mallory stood next to the computer in Edward Slope’s private office. ‘I need your password to bring up the autopsy photos.’

‘Of course you do,’ said the doctor, sardonic to the bone.

His young assistant sat down at the keyboard with the impression that the detective might actually need help.

When the file was retrieved, copied and laid on Slope’s desk, he scanned the top sheet. ‘This autopsy was done by Dr Costello, not the best pathologist I ever had. He didn’t last long.’ And this file was brief. A few minutes later, he looked up from his reading. ‘I don’t have a problem with the findings in the bloodwork. A call of alcoholism works nicely with a notation that the victim smelled like a brewery. The blood-alcohol level is the highest possible for a man in an upright position.’ Next, he glanced at pictures of the corpse. ‘The cause of death was obviously a beating. It’s quite well documented here.’

He rose from his desk to stand behind the younger pathologist at the computer. ‘Raymond, bring up our social calendar for the same date.’ Slope leaned down to scrutinize the text on-screen. ‘When this body was examined, we had four corpses stacked up from a nightclub shootout. Now, those victims got full autopsies. But we also had three upstanding taxpayers killed in a traffic accident. The one with the severed head was driving a BMW convertible. Could there be a more obvious cause of death? No, I think not. And the well-heeled, headless guy didn’t get any more attention than your favorite wino.’ Edward Slope smiled as another conspiracy theory turned to ashes.

Mallory leaned over his desk and spread out the autopsy photographs until she found the picture that she liked best. ‘So . . . if you’d done this one yourself . . . if you’d seen those little teeth marks.’ She let the rest of her question dangle.

Slope snatched up the photo and stared at it. ‘Very small teeth marks – a child’s teeth.’ And now he went through each shot, taking more time, looking closer. ‘Didn’t I say that Dr Costello was not a shining star in this department?’ He laid the pictures down. ‘To answer your question – I would’ve done a full autopsy and pulled out all the stops.’ He had clearly underestimated the incompetence of his erstwhile pathologist. How could the man have missed this extraordinary evidence of a very uncommon murder? And the answer? It was in the notation, ‘smells like a brewery,’ and the John Doe designation of a homeless man – as if this might justify a three-minute autopsy on a busy day with more reputable corpses stacking up on the tables. ‘This doesn’t change the fact that your wino was beaten to death. And you know bite-mark identification is wildly overrated.’

Kathy Mallory laid down the photograph of a smiling schoolboy wearing blazer and tie – and a partial bite mark on his neck. ‘I say it’s a match. If your man had bothered to write up a kid’s bite marks on the wino’s body, that case would never have been fobbed off on a probie detective like—’

Edward Slope held up one hand, a signal that there was no need to finish that accusation. Smiling, he picked up the school photograph. ‘And now, of course, it’s clearly my fault the Nadler boy was murdered.’

As if in agreement, she said, ‘It’s not too late for a better autopsy on the wino.’

‘Yes, it is.’ The younger doctor sat at the computer, reading text on the screen. ‘The wino’s body was claimed ten years ago for private burial, but that’s the only mention of a second interment. No details, no idea where the body was buried the second time.’

Riker pulled out a notebook. ‘What’s the name on the exhumation order?’

‘There isn’t one,’ said the assistant. ‘There’s no record of the city paying to dig him up. And the body wouldn’t come back here unless there was a question about cause of death. So – if there’s no police interest – we don’t need to sign off on it. Any judge could’ve approved the exhumation.’

‘Somebody had to identify that body while it was still fresh,’ said Mallory, ‘still here.’

‘We keep scrupulous logs on visitors,’ said Slope. ‘But the computer will only show you a list of people who made positive IDs. And no one did – not in this case. We still don’t have a name for your dead wino.’

‘What about the sign-in sheets for visitors?’ said Riker.

‘Fortunately, we never throw anything away,’ said Edward Slope. ‘Now, if you give me a year, I might find those sheets in a storage facility in one of the outer boroughs – assuming the paper isn’t completely rotted away – or covered with mold – maybe eaten by mice.’ He said this last part purely for the entertainment of his assistant.

The detectives were gone.

Mallory held a fax sheet of names and dates close to the blind attorney’s ear. And Anthony Queen could hear her crumple it into a tight ball. ‘The funeral home gave you up, old man.’ She bounced the paper ball off his desk to make him flinch.

‘According to Graves Registration,’ said Riker, ‘Toby’s mother was buried upstate in a family plot. There were two burials that day – Susan Wilder and that wino Toby killed.’

‘He never killed anyone. He was innocent.’

‘Spoken like a true ambulance chaser,’ said Mallory. ‘A year after the kid’s release, he gave you a coffin number to claim the body for burial. Toby got that number from a toe tag when the wino’s corpse was still in the morgue. There’s no other way he could’ve picked the right pine box in Potter’s Field. And he brought flowers into the Ramble – to the exact spot where the man’s body was found. How did that kid know where to put the flowers if he didn’t kill the wino?’

The old man made no denial. Though Riker could come up with alternate explanations, the lawyer could not. Now, that was interesting. ‘So you always knew.’

‘No. I didn’t,’ said Anthony Queen. ‘I gave the coffin number to a funeral home. They claimed the body, not me.’

‘I stand corrected,’ said Riker. ‘You didn’t want to know.’

‘Toby waited until his mother died,’ said Mallory. ‘That’s when the wino’s body was claimed. Toby didn’t want her to know the murdered man was Jess Wilder. That’s the name he had engraved on the wino’s tombstone. You let that kid plead guilty to murdering his own father.’

Anthony Queen appeared to be in shock – if the blank stare could be believed. He seemed not to notice that the detectives had walked out of his office. They were standing in the reception room when Riker looked back to see the lawyer lay his head on the desk. Was this an act of sorrow – or just an act? He made a mental note to ask Coco if rats could feel remorse.

Mallory and Riker stood before a cork wall in the incident room, pinning up the evidence that flowed from Toby Wilder’s flowers.

Other detectives wandered in after no success in canvasing Ernest Nadler’s old neighborhood. They had been following up on the death certificates for the boy’s parents, who had died soon after losing their son. Fifteen years later, the building super had changed, and so had many of the tenants. The last man through the door, Janos, had struck gold, and now he tacked a yellow sheet of lined paper to the wall.

Riker donned his bifocals to read the small, neat handwriting. It was a witness statement, written and signed by a resident of the murdered boy’s apartment building. ‘Mallory, listen to this. It’s about Ernie’s parents. The neighbor, Irene Walters, says, “I never knew Ernie was missing. I did know he was seriously ill, but not the details. His parents were never home. Always at the hospital with Ernie, days, nights, all the time. I tried to see the boy once, but the policeman who guarded the door would only allow immediate family. Well, I guess a month went by.

‘ “I came outside one morning, and there were people gathered on the other side of the street. They were all looking up at my building. I remember hearing sirens when I crossed the street. I turned back, and there they were. Ernie’s parents stood on the ledge outside their window. They were holding hands. They were always holding hands whenever I saw them out walking. And there was no fear at all when they stepped off the ledge – like they were just out for a stroll in the sky. It seemed to take forever before they hit the sidewalk. And that’s when I knew their little boy had died.” ’

Coco took on the scale of a doll as she sat on Detective Janos’s massive lap and recited the list of poisons favored for killing vermin. Charles Butler walked down the hall to the incident room, where he was wanted. He looked back once to see Janos, that most excellent playmate, extending his hands to illustrate a measure, no doubt describing the biggest rat he had ever seen.

The tall psychologist entered the room lined with cork. One wall was decked with photographs of autopsied bodies and Toby Wilder’s musical score – blood and song. The rest of the space was dedicated to pages of text, maps and diagrams. Detectives in shirtsleeves stood in clusters, examining a wall of documents.

Charles walked toward the only woman. His relationship with Mallory was so at odds these days. He approached her now like an awkward teenager bent on asking a pretty girl if she might like to dance with him – or spit on him – one of those two things. In lieu of hello, the young detective tapped a sheet of paper pinned to the cork, and he turned his head to read an eyewitness account of two people stepping off a ledge to their deaths.

‘Somebody’s going to pay for that,’ she said. ‘We need a psychological autopsy.’

‘As court evidence? But Edward’s staff does that sort of thing, and probably with much more—’

‘Naw,’ said Riker, coming up behind him. ‘It would take weeks to get the final report from Slope’s people. You can do it faster.’

Mallory led him to the place where hospital records papered the wall. And he knew this was her work, this neat precision that other people could only manage with a ruler and a carpenter’s level. This section was devoted to medical charts, bills and accounting sheets for the care of a child, age eleven. ‘We can’t even find the boy’s ashes,’ she said. ‘This is all that’s left of the Nadlers’ son.’

Charles strolled down the wall, trying not to be too obvious about reading at light speed with all these eyes on him. To the casual observer, he might be only browsing as he took in every word, the whole grim hospital history of a little boy who had lost his hands and then his life. Upon reaching the end of the papers, the end of the boy, he turned to the two detectives.

‘I’ll tell you what’s not here. According to the neighbor’s statement, the parents spent all their days and nights at the hospital. So I’m sure they were given a room and a bed near the intensive care unit – a common practice. The Nadlers probably slept in shifts so one of them could be with their son all the time.’

He backed up to the sheet that transferred Ernest Nadler from intensive care to a private room. ‘The boy was out of danger for the last week of his life, but I know the parents still stayed with him, day and night. This is a suite – very expensive – a second room and a bed for the mother and father. They didn’t want Ernest to be alone when – if – he should come out of the coma. I’m certain of that. The amputated hands – no parent would want a child to face that horror without them.’

He walked to the end of the wall and tapped three papers. ‘These statements didn’t come from the hospital. They’re from a private nurse – a freelancer.’

‘Huh?’ Riker checked the exhibit numbers against the list on his clipboard. ‘You’re right. That paperwork came from a storage locker with the Nadlers’ personal effects – and their unopened mail.’

‘Well, this is the saddest part of the story,’ said Charles. ‘By the time the boy was stabilized and on the mend, the parents must’ve been exhausted. They hired a private nurse to sit by the bed – just a few hours here and there. By this time, the parents were in desperate need of a break – some fresh air, a quiet dinner outside of the hospital – something normal. And during one of these rare absences – while the nurse was on duty – their little boy died.’

Riker stepped closer to read the time sheet for the nurse’s last shift. ‘Nobody caught that. We’re still plowing through all this stuff.’

Charles walked back to the beginning of his tour and stood before the witness account of the double suicide. ‘These two people were drained by an emotional roller-coaster ride. According to the patient charts, their child was improving. They were looking forward to bringing him home. And then, with no warning, their son died. I know they blamed themselves. Guilt always follows a death in the family. But there’s more to it than that. You see, they didn’t just leave the boy to a common sitter from a temp service. They hired a registered nurse, the best watcher that money could buy. And why? Because they’d spent a solid month in that place. They would’ve heard all the stories, all the things that might befall a helpless child left to the vagaries of the hospital staff. But they left him – dropped their vigilance for an hour – and he died. Exhaustion, grief . . . guilt. They stepped off the ledge to stop the pain.’ He turned to face the detectives. ‘There’s no mystery here.’

‘So whoever murdered their son – he killed the parents, too,’ said Mallory. ‘Can you put that in writing?’

‘Complicity in the suicide, yes. You’ll have my finding by the end of the day.’ Charles turned back to the wall. ‘Wouldn’t there be a policeman guarding a crime victim’s room?’

‘Twenty-four seven,’ said Riker. ‘But the cop’s only there for protection. We got no record of who went in and out of the kid’s room. Fifteen years ago, nobody knew Ernie Nadler was murdered in his bed. So nobody interviewed the only witness – the cop on duty when it happened.’

‘But you did?’

‘He’s a drunk,’ said Riker. ‘Soup for brains. The guy can’t remember squat.’

‘What about the nurse?’

‘We’ll look for her.’ Mallory pulled the nurse’s time sheet from the wall. ‘But what are the odds she’ll admit to stepping out of the room while somebody offed her patient?’

‘The parents only used that woman three times,’ said Charles. ‘Those are very rare windows of opportunity.’

‘I see where you’re going,’ said Riker. ‘We still got the cop who did guard duty on the kid. He’s in an interview room. But I don’t think he’ll remember making any phone calls to our killer.’

Now Mallory was taking a new interest in the nurse’s time sheet. ‘There’s a pattern of three dinner hours, the same time three nights in a row.’ She smiled. ‘Rolland Mann would’ve known about that. If the kid was improving, he’d want to know when his star witness woke up. He’d keep close tabs on everything – including this nurse. So he wouldn’t need a heads-up from the cop on guard duty.’

Eyes closed in sleep, Police Commissioner Beale lay on the hospital bed of the intensive care unit. The old man’s security detail had been stripped down to a single officer, who sat by the door on the other side of the busy ward – out of sight, out of earshot, the next best thing to not being there. Beale was so frail, half dead by the look of him. He could not last much longer.

Sooner was better.

Rolland Mann could have done without the old man’s job, but now absolute power was a prerequisite to contain the chaos of his unraveling life. He stared at the tubes running in and out of the patient’s every orifice. Beeping monitors of colored lights recorded the beats of a badly damaged heart and every breath.

So fragile – vulnerable.