The Chalk Girl

TWENTY-TWO

The gym teacher lines us up between basketball hoops, wall-to-wall boys and girls in school ties and blazers. It’s class picture day. Everyone takes a turn in the chair in front of a background screen that looks like a curdled sky.

It’s my turn. The man behind the camera is stalled for a minute. He’s staring at my neck. My hair is slicked back with a comb I wet in the drinking fountain, and now half a bite mark shows above my collar. The photographer asks if he can see the whole thing. So I undo my tie and shirt buttons. He’s impressed. He whistles. Now he can see some of my bruises, too, the ones that only show in gym class. And the gym teacher says to him, ‘You can airbrush the picture, right?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ says the photographer, ‘and for a little extra, I can drop by once a week and airbrush the actual kid. Then it won’t matter who’s beating the crap out of him, right?’

So the gym teacher walks away real fast, and I know he’s going to rat this guy out to the headmaster. But the photographer isn’t worried. He winks and says, ‘Well, kid, as Christ on the cross once said of the Romans – fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.’

I laugh. He snaps the picture.

—Ernest Nadler

By the terms of an agreement forged in the mayor’s office, lawyers would be in attendance for the police interview at the Driscol-Bledsoe residence on the Upper West Side. When Hoffman, the drab employee, opened the door to the detectives, she was still carrying her small Gladstone bag on a shoulder strap. The woman ignored Riker when he asked, ‘What’s in the bag? Is your boss shooting up or snorting it?’

Hoffman left them alone in an entry hall larger than the average New Yorker’s apartment. The floor was a circular chessboard of black-and-white marble tiles, and a polished table at its center was decked out with a profusion of flowers. They strolled past the grand staircase, through an archway and into a space of ballroom proportions and a cathedral ceiling that spoke to Mallory, saying, Money lives here.

These environs were familiar in a way. This was a grander version of Charles Butler’s taste – modern art on the walls and antiques on the floor. An education at Barnard allowed her to recognize the style of Frank Stella in a gigantic wall sculpture of curving shapes and primary colors. She was accustomed to artwork on this scale, having viewed it by slides projected on a classroom wall. Mallory could also name Motherwell as the artist of a large work on canvas. And the furniture was an elegant mix of pieces named for the reigns of long-dead kings and queens.

All of this she saw with a cost accountant’s eye.

This was the showroom, the gathering place for cocktail parties, for independent conversations upon a loveseat here and couches over there, and circles of armchairs on the far side. Though visitors clearly came here not to be entertained, but to be cowed by extreme opulence, to stand in awe beneath the largest crystal chandelier that money could buy.

Mallory slowly revolved, finally turning her gaze on Grace Driscol-Bledsoe. The lady of the house was enthroned in a high-back chair by the fireplace – the only chair in that part of the room. She was surrounded by an honor guard of three lawyers, who stood tense and watchful. Their employer tapped one foot, annoyed to be kept waiting.

Well, damn.

As the detectives crossed the wide floor, Mallory deflated the props of the room with a dismissive wave of the hand, saying, ‘All of this belongs to the Driscol Institute, right? The antiques, the art. You don’t even own the house.’

Grace Driscol-Bledsoe barely suppressed a smile of touché and inclined her head to say that this was so.

Approaching the woman, Mallory looked down to see indents on an area rug, impressions left there by chairs recently removed, forcing the detectives to stand in attendance, less like a police interview, more like an audience with royalty. The furniture was telling them to state their business, make it quick and get out.

Mallory held up a bulky envelope. ‘I’ve had a look at your personal finances.’

One of the lawyers stepped forward from the chorus. ‘You’re out of line, Detective.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Riker. ‘Her family trust fund is managed by the Driscol Institute. A charity’s books are public record. Why do we need to explain that to a lawyer?’

‘After taxes,’ said Mallory, ‘you’re barely middle class.’ And now she engaged the socialite in a contest of who would blink first. ‘But then you’ve got the kickback potential that comes with control of a multibillion-dollar charity.’

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘So we’re curious about—’

The attorneys were all talking at once, jockeying for position as the most indignant, the most outraged, until Riker waved his arms and yelled, ‘Hold it! I got an easier question. Okay, guys?’ He turned to the woman in the throne chair. ‘You got any photos of Humphrey? We need a shot of him as a kid.’

‘A picture taken at least fifteen years ago,’ said Mallory.

Grace Driscol-Bledsoe made her first error. Or was it an insult? Perhaps she thought so little of the police that she could not be bothered to feign surprise – to ask why they would need such an old picture of a recent crime victim. ‘Sorry.’ She only smiled at this lost leader of a long-ago murder. ‘I threw away his photographs, but I can show you a portrait of Humphrey and his father.’ She led the detectives and lawyers down a hallway to open the door to a small bathroom off the kitchen. A large, gilt-framed oil painting hung on the narrow wall above the toilet. Her husband, the late John Bledsoe, was posed with one hand on his son’s shoulder, conveying a sense of possession. ‘Humphrey was ten years old when that was painted.’

Mallory pulled out her camera phone to snap a picture.

‘Oh, my dear. I can do better than that.’ The woman disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, and then she reappeared at Mallory’s side, knife in hand – a long knife – and so sharp. The attorneys took one step back in the unison of a startled Girl Scout troop. The detectives were more blasé about a potential stabbing.

Grace Driscol-Bledsoe smiled. ‘You don’t think I’m dangerous? I can assure you . . . I am.’ She kicked off her stiletto heels, climbed up on the toilet seat and cut out Humphrey’s head. After handing it down to Riker, she carved out her husband’s head and gave him that piece, too. ‘Shame to break up the set.’

Mallory’s eyes remained on the ruined canvas, the portrait of headless father and son. ‘So Humphrey was your husband’s favorite?’

‘Oh, yes. John had visions of building a dynasty, and Humphrey was his heir apparent.’ She climbed down and turned back to admire her handiwork with the knife. ‘I think I like it better this way. My husband gave me a diamond necklace when I delivered a son. For Phoebe I got nothing. And when the bastard died, he didn’t leave one dime to his daughter.’

When they had all reconvened beneath the crystal chandelier of the larger room, Mallory moved on to her favorite subject. ‘Let’s talk money. The income from your family trust fund has no cost-of-living increase. It wouldn’t support you in a shoebox apartment.’

‘My family has always been dedicated to public service. We are not about money.’

‘And then there’s your token salary,’ said Mallory. ‘As director of the Institute’s board of trustees, you don’t make enough to buy your clothes.’ The detective clicked through a gallery of pictures on her cell phone. The small screen displayed an archive of society pages that featured this diva of the New York charity scene. ‘I’m looking at designer originals. Not one outfit off the rack. And the shoes you’re wearing now are a thousand dollars . . . apiece.’

‘I’ve never had to pay for my wardrobe, Detective. I’m sure you can understand why. I could charge the designers to advertise their wares on my back, but I settle for clothes, handbags . . . and shoes.’

‘Internal Revenue might have a problem with the gift tax,’ said Riker.

A lawyer stepped forward. ‘The clothing is regarded as a donation to the Driscol Institute. It’s worn to charitable events, then recycled at auctions to benefit worthy causes.’

This man could now be identified as the tax attorney in the gang of suits. Mallory turned from one man to the other. ‘Who can tell me how many politicians the lady has in her pocket? What do they cost on average, and how do you recycle them? Another auction? Influence to the highest bidder?’ By their looks of surprise, by their lack of howling, she confirmed that there was not one criminal lawyer in the pack.

The detective turned her attention back to Grace Driscol-Bledsoe. ‘You directed the Institute to fund charities in the names of city council members. They must love that. Good deeds get them votes. Five of them sit on the Contracts Committee. That gives you a majority voting block. How many of your friends benefit from city contracts?’ Before the first lawyer could raise an objection, she looked down at her cell-phone screen. ‘Oh, here’s one.’ She held up the phone to display the society-page photograph. ‘The guy with his arm around your shoulder?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Riker, squinting at the small image. ‘He was awarded a bridge-maintenance contract. Big bucks. And doesn’t he look happy?’

‘If I follow the money,’ said Mallory, ‘and I do – you haven’t deposited your kickbacks in any personal bank accounts. Every large transfer of funds sets off federal alarms . . . So they had to be cash payoffs.’

Riker leaned into the conversation with his punch line. ‘Do you mind if we search your house for a safe?’

All three lawyers were talking, then shouting to be heard over one another’s threats. The words warrant and slander figured in all their comments until their client silenced them by raising one hand. Addressing Mallory, she said, ‘The Driscol Institute always has glowing reports from the auditors. In this world, it’s not what you know, my dear. It’s what you can prove.’

In sidelong vision, Mallory saw the woman’s companion hovering near the entryway. ‘Your personal income might support a cleaning lady, but not a full-time employee like Hoffman, not if you like to eat regular meals.’ The detective bent down to make a show of examining a silver pendant resting on the socialite’s bosom. The engraving was fine work, but the jeweler had not been able to disguise the function of the tricked-out button at its center. The older woman’s hand quickly covered it.

This was the soft spot.

‘It’s a medical-alert medallion, right? You press that button and an ambulance shows up?’ Without waiting for an answer, Mallory glanced at the companion standing on the other side of the room, still carrying her small Gladstone bag. ‘Hoffman’s a nurse? That would make her a very expensive employee.’

Riker cleared his throat. ‘I think you get the point, ma’am. You don’t want us to prove anything. That’s the last thing you want.’ He turned to the lineup of suits. ‘Right, guys?’ This time, the suits were quiet, and they seemed a little tense. ‘Relax,’ said the smiling detective. ‘We only want access to Phoebe.’

‘That’s out of the question,’ said Grace Driscol-Bledsoe.

‘Because she’s guilty,’ said Riker, ‘or because she can hang you?’

‘Phoebe doesn’t make a dime off of Humphrey’s death,’ said Mallory. ‘No motive. That’s all on you.’

The doorbell rang. Hoffman had disappeared, and one of the lawyers volunteered to play butler, leaving the room to answer the door. He returned a moment later. ‘Miss Wilhelmina Fallon is here. Should I show her in?’

‘I’d rather you gutted her on the doorstep,’ said Mrs Driscol-Bledsoe. ‘But that’s not in your job description, is it?’ She leaned toward Mallory. ‘Dear, may I borrow your gun?’

‘What’s the tie between Humphrey and Willy Fallon?’

‘And Agatha Sutton,’ said Riker. ‘What’s her connection?’

‘And we’re still wondering,’ said Mallory, ‘how crazy Phoebe figures in.’

‘For the last time, Detectives – my daughter is not insane – not delusional. When she was a child, a therapist had her personalize – humanize – her anxiety. You could say she’s listening to her inner critic.’

‘Right,’ said Mallory. ‘Can you prove that?’

‘I can.’ Willy Fallon sat in a wheelchair beneath the arched entryway. A brown paper bag was clutched in her hands like a vagrant’s idea of a purse. Behind her stood a woman in a nurse’s cap and white uniform. The nurse guided the chair across the floor toward the gathering by the fireplace. And as she rolled, Willy said, ‘We had the same psychiatrist when we were kids. Phoebe was a moron for going along with his crap.’ She held up one hand to stay the nurse and then sharply turned the wheels of her chair to face Mallory. ‘I could sue you for what you did to me.’

Grace Driscol-Bledsoe took a long look at the wheelchair, the only visible evidence of injury, and then turned to Mallory. ‘I’m guessing you broke her legs? My dear, you have my deepest respect and admiration.’

Willy turned her head to sneer at her escort, the woman in the nurse’s uniform. ‘Did I hear you giggle, you stupid cow?’

The nurse removed her hands from the chair and addressed Mallory, correctly identifying the center of power in this room. ‘There’s an ambulette parked outside. When you’re done with Miss Fallon, just kick her to the curb. They’ll take her away.’ Willy’s escort left the room. Moments later came the distant slam of the front door.

Mallory smiled, happy in the way a cat is happy to see its living lunch, this meal on wheels. She walked up to Willy Fallon and leaned down to grasp the arms of the chair and slowly roll it back and forth. ‘So what’s the connection between you and Phoebe – apart from the psychiatrist? Was she a good friend of yours?’

‘That dweeb? No way. We went to the same school. That’s it.’

‘The Driscol School? How long ago was that? Maybe fifteen years?’

Hoffman had reappeared to stand at Mrs Driscol-Bledsoe’s side. Following whispered instructions from her employer, she took command of Willy’s chair and steered it toward the entry hall.

While Riker and Hoffman negotiated the wheelchair down the stone stairs to the sidewalk, Mallory handed the ambulette driver a twenty-dollar bill for his goodwill and affection.

When the patient had been loaded into a vehicle slightly larger than a station wagon, Hoffman retreated out of earshot, and the driver answered the detective’s question. ‘No, ma’am, she doesn’t need the chair. She walks just fine.’ According to his boss, the owner of the private service, Miss Fallon had only wanted to avoid the paparazzi.

‘Since when?’ Riker stepped into the end of this conversation. ‘Back in her party-girl days, she loved those bastards.’

And now they learned from the driver that Miss Fallon’s credit cards were maxed out. He had been paid in cash from a brown paper bag full of money.

As the ambulette pulled away from the curb, Riker placed a call to the desk sergeant who had arranged for the crime victim’s security at the hospital. After a short conversation, he folded the cell phone into his pocket. ‘The cop on guard duty never saw anybody go into Willy’s room with a paper bag. But that guard left hours ago – when Willy declined police protection.’ He handed a law firm’s business card to his partner. ‘She says any questions have to go through the family lawyers.’

Mallory called the number on the card and was told that the firm no longer represented Miss Fallon; the rest of the family, yes, of course – but not her. And why not, the detective might ask? The lawyer continued without troubling her to actually pose the question. ‘Well, you’ve met this woman, right?’ The Brahman voice on the phone now restated his position. ‘I would prefer to be eviscerated and forced to watch dogs eat my entrails. But I am discreet. I can only allow you to ponder all the things that might be worse than that.’

On that final word, the call was concluded, and Mallory turned to her partner. ‘I’m guessing that Willy neutered a lawyer.’

Wearing paper hospital slippers, Willy Fallon shushed across the lobby of the residential hotel. The manager blocked her way to the elevator. Before he could broach the subject of her overdue bill, she reached into her brown bag, pulled out two banded bundles of money and pressed them into his hands. ‘That should cover it.’

The hotelier, too long accustomed to credit cards and traveler’s checks, stared at the cash in surprise – then suspicion. He raised his eyes to hers, as if to ask, What is this?

Willy rode the elevator up to her hotel room. Yellow tape had been used to seal the door, and now it hung from the frame in loose strands, a sign that the room had been visited following the search by police. She opened the door with caution, but the place had an empty feel to it. The walls and furniture were filmed with black dust, and the drawers had been turned out on the floor. Damn cops never put anything back where it belonged. The hotel maid must have run away screaming. Willy entered the bathroom to see that her meager store of drugs was back in its plastic bag inside the toilet tank, many thanks to the hotel bellman.

She changed her hospital garb for real clothes and found her cell phone, not for one moment finding it odd that the police would leave it behind. Stupid cops. She called all the Wilders in the telephone directory, and finally she was down to one, a Susan Wilder. Was that the name of Toby’s mother?

No one answered when Willy called.

The storefront window on Columbus Avenue was decorated with full-length portraits of brides and headshots of actors who were almost famous. In the front room of the shop, a selection of wedding albums had been pushed to one side of a display table, and chairs had been provided for the two detectives. They flipped through pictures of children posed against the ersatz blue background of school photographs.

The proprietor was soft-spoken, soft-stepping. His faded blue eyes were crinkled and kind. ‘Hey, if one of those brats turned up dead, I’d like to take the credit, but I’m not a violent man.’ He laid a leather-bound volume on top of the stack of yearbooks. ‘This is the one you want. It’s my only copy, so I’d rather you didn’t take it.’ He handed Riker a stack of Post-its. ‘Just mark the ones you like, and I’ll scare up some enlargements.’

Mallory rapidly turned the yearbook pages, scanning faces, reading names. ‘They’re all here – even the Nadler kid. This is where it started.’ She flipped back to the beginning and used a Post-it to mark the portrait of eleven-year-old Phoebe Bledsoe. This photograph was taken when she was Ernest Nadler’s age, but the murder victim was not among these children. She had found him two grades ahead of his age group, posed with the thirteen-year-olds.

‘So he was a smart little kid,’ said Riker.

Ernest Nadler smiled at the homicide detectives, as if someone had just told him a fine joke. After marking his picture, Mallory turned back to the page with Humphrey Bledsoe’s headshot. This face was unstructured and flabby.

And Riker said, ‘Creepy smile, huh?’

Yes, the picture was a predictor of Humphrey’s pervert future. On the next page, Willy Fallon was skinnier at thirteen, almost insectile. And toward the end of this section, Aggy Sutton was no surprise, baring all her teeth, but not to smile. Toby Wilder’s was the last photograph in this group of thirteen-year-olds, and Mallory lingered over this one.

‘Oh, I remember that face,’ said the photographer. ‘Great-looking kid – and nice enough, but he couldn’t sit still – feet tapping, fingers snapping all the time. I know I’ve got more shots of him. What’s the name?’ The man leaned closer to read the caption. ‘Okay.’ He disappeared into a back room and then returned with more pictures in hand. ‘My private stash. I like these better.’ He laid them out on the table. ‘They cover the three years he went to the Driscol School.’

This was not the still and somber boy of Rolland Mann’s interview tape. Every one of these photographs was blurred. This was Toby in motion, Toby when he was hyper-aware and juiced on the batteries of childhood – so alive.

When the proprietor had given them a complete set of pictures, one for each student they had marked, Mallory stared at the enlarged portrait of Ernest Nadler. The line of the child’s shirt collar was slightly – minutely – off. ‘You airbrushed this one.’ She glared at the photographer, as if this might be a felony. ‘We’ll wait while you make a new print from the negative.’

‘Oh, I don’t have that neg anymore. When I was making up prints for the kid’s parents, I had a chemical spill in the darkroom.’

‘And you remembered which negative got wrecked,’ said Riker, ‘fifteen years later. Must’ve been a hell of a shot . . . before you cleaned it up.’

‘A memorable shot,’ said Mallory. ‘So you kept an original print . . . for your private stash. Now I want to see what you airbrushed out.’

‘My partner really likes kids,’ said Riker in one of his more imaginative lies. ‘Trust me, pal, you don’t wanna piss her off.’

And that part was true.

She rose from the table, and the man moved away from her, back stepping all the way into the next room of filing cabinets, where the original print was found – very quickly.

And now they could see what had been airbrushed from the yearbook shot.

‘Teeth marks,’ said Riker. ‘Damn. It’s like Aggy the Biter signed his neck.’

It was a very small school reunion at the Mexican restaurant on Bleecker Street: Phoebe Bledsoe and a dead child on one side of the room, Toby Wilder on the other.

‘I hate to see him like this,’ said Dead Ernest. He glanced at his companion. ‘And what about you, Phoebe? You wanted to teach the classics. Now you spend the whole school year locked up in the nurse’s office.’

And no one ever came to visit the spooky nurse. Driscol students were remarkable for soldiering on with the scraped knees and stomachaches that plagued every other school in America.

‘You have a degree in English lit, and what did they offer you?’

Custody of a box of Band-Aids. She should thank her mother for insisting on the nursing credential tacked onto the end of her education, else she would be jobless.

‘You were robbed,’ said Dead Ernest.

Perhaps. She had spent her lonely workdays reading great literature. At night, she read comic books aloud for penance . . . for Ernie. Not much of a life, not what she had planned.

Toby’s meal was done. He rose from his chair and moved toward the door. Phoebe’s fingers worried over the surface of the gold cigarette lighter, the only piece of him that she could keep with her.

Dead Ernest also left her. Phoebe had no energy to sustain him or restrain him. She watched her old playmate approach the door. As the next customer came in, he slipped out. The child was always at the mercy of flesh-and-blood people to open doors for him. But even if a phantom could manage solid gateways, Phoebe would never allow him to take his hands from his pockets.

She traveled home alone.

When she stepped out of the taxi in front of the Driscol School, the key to the alley passage was in her hand – but the iron gate was unlocked and ajar. Could she have forgotten to close it? No, that was unthinkable.

She passed down the narrow walkway between the Driscol School and the neighboring building, traveling halfway across the back garden before she saw him standing by the door to her cottage. Rolland Mann was losing his hair. It was gone to the pinfeathers of a chick newly hatched or a chicken prepped for slaughter. The deputy police commissioner’s name always topped the guest list for her mother’s charity galas, and he was a regular visitor to the weekly salons at the mansion. But Phoebe had first come to know him when she was a child and he was Detective Mann.

‘The gate was wide open,’ he said. ‘That was careless, Phoebe. Especially now.’ He held up a folded copy of today’s Times. ‘The third Ramble victim hasn’t made the papers yet, but they’ve all been identified. It looks like someone’s cleaning up loose ends.’ He paused. Waiting for her reaction? ‘You need police protection. I could post a guard on the—’

‘No! . . . No more police.’ One hand of chewed fingernails rose to her mouth. Self-conscious now, she hid both ruined hands behind her back.

At least she did not have to face this unwanted visitor alone. Stress had summoned up Dead Ernest. He stood behind Rolland Mann and stuck out his tongue.

The deputy police commissioner, following the track of her eyes, turned around to see that there was no one there. Then he looked at the door. ‘Oh, your phone’s ringing. Don’t you want to answer that?’

No. She had no plans to unlock her door while he was still here.

‘You need protection.’ And now the man measured his words very carefully, giving each syllable equal weight. ‘You do see the problem, don’t you, Phoebe?’

Why did he always talk to her as if she might be only half bright? She inclined her head to listen to the dead boy, who clarified this mystery. ‘He thinks you’re nuts.’

Rolland Mann smiled, as if in agreement with a voice he could not possibly hear. ‘There were five children in the Ramble when the incident happened.’ He held up five fingers in case she could not grasp such a high number. Adding insult, he counted them off, folding his long fingers one by one. ‘Ernie’s dead, Humphrey – Aggy. And Willy Fallon nearly died.’

All that remained was the worm-white thumb – herself.

‘It’s simple math, Phoebe.’ He turned his back on her and walked down the flagstone path, saying, ‘Call me if you change your mind about protection.’