The Chalk Girl

FORTY-FOUR

Tonight, I get a phone call from Phoebe. Just the sound of her voice makes me happy. I’m not alone anymore. But then she tells me I have to take back my story about the wino’s murder. Standing by my statement is ‘sheer folly,’ and she’s crying when she says this, but she won’t tell me why. Or she can’t. ‘Sheer folly’ is not a Phoebe-like thing to say. I take this as code for ‘My mother is listening.’ I stretch these very unPhoebe words to mean that she is and always will be on my side.

—Ernest Nadler

When Phoebe Bledsoe had read this bookmarked passage, she closed the diary and pushed it back across the table. ‘Thank you. Yes, my mother was listening. That was the last time I ever spoke to Ernie.’

Under the fluorescent lights of the interrogation room, Mallory opened the small volume to an entry that followed the assault on a wino. ‘After that man was murdered, your parents kept you home from school?’

‘My mother’s idea. Daddy had nothing to do with it. She was better at cleaning up Humphrey’s messes. That’s what my father said to her – yelled at her.’

‘You were there when your parents had that fight?’

‘No, I was locked in my bedroom, but I could hear their voices – the slam of the front door. After my father left the house, my mother screamed at Humphrey. She told him he’d better get on Daddy’s good side or else. Aggy Sutton was there that day. Willy Fallon, too. When they were all yelling all at once, I could barely understand the words. But I heard Ernie’s name, over and over. That was before he went missing.’

‘And after Ernie disappeared?’

‘His parents came to the house with the police. I heard Mrs Nadler crying, Mr Nadler hollering. They wanted to talk to me. I banged on the door of my room. I screamed, I howled until my mother let me out. I told the Nadlers that Ernie was scared, and he might be hiding out in the Ramble. Detective Mann didn’t believe me. Mr Nadler said he’d search the whole park by himself. Then the detective agreed to do it, and that was the night they found Ernie hanging in a tree. Later . . . when Ernie died . . . I fell apart. That’s when Daddy took me to the first psychiatrist. My mother didn’t like any of them. She was always pulling me out of therapy.’

Of course. Better to let a little girl suffer in silence than risk her giving up family secrets to a therapist. The detective looked down at her notebook of empty lines. ‘Did your father ever talk to you about what Humphrey did?’

‘No, not in those days. Later he did – the year my brother turned sixteen. When Humphrey was in prep school, he was accused of raping a six-year-old girl. She wasn’t the first one. But Daddy told me she’d be the last. That’s when he dissolved his company and set up Humphrey’s trust. It drove my mother crazy. She was so angry with my father. Daddy lived in hotels all the time after that.’

‘Your mother told us Humphrey was your father’s favorite.’ Mallory laid down two circles of canvas cut from a portrait of father and son.

Phoebe smiled. ‘That painting was my mother’s idea when Humphrey was ten years old. She thought spending time together would bring them closer. But Daddy never loved him. No one could.’

Well, Grace must have loved him – when he was ten.

‘He was a monster,’ said Phoebe.

Like mother, like son.

‘I’m not sorry my brother’s dead.’

Of course not.

And Mallory’s only regret was that Phoebe had no witness potential to hang her mother.

After dismissing the officer on guard duty, Mallory entered the chicken-wire cage that held the Nadlers’ household goods and one prisoner. Grace Driscol-Bledsoe had finished reading the copied diary pages. The loose papers were neatly stacked in her lap.

‘I know you have questions,’ said Mallory. ‘You’re wondering if I told Phoebe why you gave Willy Fallon bags full of cash.’

‘I can only imagine what you’ve been telling my daughter – not that she’d believe you.’

‘I could show her Willy’s statement.’ The detective circled around to the back of the woman’s chair. ‘Willy says you paid her to terrorize your own daughter.’ Mallory leaned down close to Grace’s ear. ‘You wanted Phoebe scared out of her mind. You thought she’d come back home . . . to you.’

‘So you haven’t told her anything. I smell a negotiation. You don’t even have enough to charge me.’ Grace had the smile of a true carnivore. ‘Weakness, my dear, I can smell that, too.’

Mallory could only smell the pollution of mice and roaches. She sank down on the bare mattress of the Nadler boy’s bed. ‘You know what happened to Ernie’s parents?’

‘A double suicide, I’m told.’

‘No, the way I see it, you killed them. When you sent Rolland Mann to murder their son, you might as well have pushed those people off that ledge.’

‘Old history.’ Grace waved one hand to dismiss these insignificant deaths.

Mallory absently stroked the mattress. ‘Phoebe really upstaged you.’ In sidelong vision, she saw the other woman’s head slowly turning. ‘Your daughter went out and did her own damn killing. Hands-on – no hit-man cop, no gang of twisted kids.’

‘What did you—’ The Xeroxed diary pages cascaded from Grace’s hands in a slow slide and wafted to the floor.

‘You knew she was the Hunger Artist. You knew it the minute we told you about the landscaper’s dolly. Poor Phoebe,’ Mallory shook her head. ‘She was a wreck when I brought her in. Nerves all shot to hell. But after she put her confession in writing . . . she stopped biting her fingernails.’

‘That confession is worthless!’ Grace’s voice carried a single note of hysteria, but it was gone all too quickly. ‘My daughter is easily intimidated. Obviously, she wasn’t in a rational state of mind when—’

‘Well, crazy is a relative thing in New York City.’ Mallory leaned down to pick up the fallen diary pages. ‘Does Phoebe know what you did to Ernie? I mean – before you had him murdered. She wasn’t in school when your little thugs changed their style of torture – when you made them stop beating on him. No more incriminating bruises or bite marks. Pure terror was better. You told them to scare Ernie into recanting.’ Mallory took her time gathering up the last of the Xerox sheets. ‘It’s all here.’ She rippled the pages. ‘The stalking, the psychological torture – by three stupid kids? No, Grace, that was all you. Willy Fallon says you told them exactly what—’

‘Willy?’ The society matron’s eyes turned gleeful. ‘Willy the baby tosser? Hardly a stellar witness. And the boy’s diary proves nothing.’

‘Your little gang of morons went too far. The kids couldn’t follow simple instructions. They couldn’t help themselves. They just had to hurt that little boy. If Ernie Nadler ever came out of his coma, Humphrey would’ve been arrested along with his friends – and you, too. Kid confessions are easy. You know your own son would’ve ratted you out in a heartbeat. So you bought a cop to kill Ernie before he could wake up and talk.’

‘Oh, back to that again. So tedious.’

‘Did Rolland Mann ever tell you how badly he botched that nmurder? Did he tell you a nurse could place him in the hospital room when the boy died?’

No, apparently not. The woman was tensing up, physically bracing.

‘I didn’t think so,’ said Mallory, ‘only because that nurse is still alive – and talking. Rolland Mann was a mediocre cop in those days, never worked a major case, never met a stone killer . . . no one like you, Grace. Rich, powerful . . . not quite human. So he married that nurse and hid her away. He was afraid you’d have her murdered. And just in case you found out about the witness – his wife – he showed you a ViCAP questionnaire, his documentation of the Ramble assault on a little boy – evidence buried in a government computer. You couldn’t buy it or destroy it. Did that scare you? That wasn’t blackmail. It was insurance so you wouldn’t hurt Annie, his wife. But Rolland Mann couldn’t spell that out for you. He didn’t want you to know she existed. So you bribed and extorted politicians to move his career along – all for nothing. He would’ve settled for keeping Annie safe.’

‘Very romantic, Mallory. I didn’t think you had it in you.’ And now the diva impressed the detective by calmly bending down to flick a cockroach off the toe of her shoe. ‘But you’ll never get a conviction based on that theory.’ She plucked a small handkerchief from her dress pocket. The embroidered linen was so fine it was almost transparent. She wiped the fingernail that had come in contact with the insect.

So the woman of steel was . . . squeamish.

‘You’re a realist, Mallory. You know I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom.’

True enough. This woman had too many hostages in high office, too much extortion evidence banked away to suffer one day in jail.

‘But what’ve you got left, Grace? I took away your control of the Driscol Institute. No more power. I took all your cash, too. And then there’s Humphrey’s millions. I can keep that money frozen in probate till you die . . . For my last trick, I can take Phoebe away from you.’

Grace crushed the handkerchief in her hand, her only sign of anxiety. ‘We both know my daughter will never stand trial for murder. Not if she’s—’

‘Crazy? Well, Grace, that might be a stretch. Phoebe has great organizational skills. You know why she moved into that cottage behind the school? She needed privacy to assemble her murder kit – starting with the dolly she stole from your landscaper. And that was seven years ago. She’s the queen of long-range planners. Impressed the hell out of everybody. We’ve never seen this kind of premeditation.’

Grace feigned interest in a twitchy roach that sat on a cardboard carton at her eye level, and they watched one another, the socialite and the bug. This duo never noticed the detective unholstering her weapon. And then – BAM – the roach was smashed under the butt of the gun. Grace jumped in her skin, and the handkerchief fluttered to the floor.

So satisfying.

‘Now, what was I saying?’ Mallory leaned down to pick up the delicate square of fine linen, and she used it to clean bug guts from her revolver. ‘Oh, right – premeditation. Your daughter found the lawyers to get Humphrey out of that asylum. She needed all three victims in town at the same time. Phoebe was so patient – years of waiting and collecting things to kill them. Most of the stuff in her murder kit was stolen, but not the chloroform. She couldn’t use yours. Phoebe says that bottle is almost as old as you are – a souvenir from your father’s day. So she mixed up her own batch with an Internet recipe.’

Done with cleaning her gun, Mallory waved the roach-stained handkerchief, scattering tiny body parts as she spoke. ‘And your daughter knows right from wrong. All of this makes her legally sane – but that doesn’t mean she’s not crazy. It’s my call. I can do what I want with Phoebe. All those politicians you bought? . . . They belong to me now.’

The two women stared at each other, both of them so very still. Taking them for furniture, a mouse crept between them and sat down to lick its front paws.

Mallory smiled.

The mouse ran for cover.

‘What do you want, Detective?’

Lying came easily, and Mallory was believed when she said, ‘Restitution.’

And so their deal was begun. Grace’s daughter would be judged incompetent to stand trial by reason of mental defect. Within a year or so, when some incompetent psychiatrist could be found to pronounce Phoebe cured, Toby Wilder would become the richest drug addict in New York City – if he could stay alive long enough to collect – just long enough for the ultimate endgame, one that had nothing to do with money. A beautiful and terrible payback would come when Grace was not expecting it.

Lessons of Phoebe: Mallory had learned how to wait.