‘And the kid was posthumously charged,’ said Riker. ‘Case closed.’
‘But Kathy didn’t actually die.’
Riker drained his coffee mug. ‘And she didn’t actually kill anybody. So?’
The detective never noticed the comical look on Charles’s face as he was left hanging one more time. This would be maddening to most, but he was a patient man. ‘One more question? Are you disturbed by the parallels between Mallory and the scarecrow?’
Riker stared into his empty cup, considering his words carefully. ‘It’s an old idea that cops and killers are twins. What separates us -that’s what happens after the killing is over. You think this freak has any remorse about murder?’
Charles shook his head. ‘Not this man, no.’
‘But when a cop’s involved in a fatal shooting, we take away his gun – so he won’t die of remorse.’
‘So you don’t see Mallory identifying with the scarecrow?’
‘Never,’ said Riker. ‘I’m thinking now she knows what it was like to be Lou Markowitz.’
‘Hunting the lost child?’
‘Natalie’s son, one sick puppy. Some days you got nowhere to put your hate.’ Riker stared at his watch. ‘Why doesn’t she call?’ He pulled a crumpled fax from his pocket and glanced at the text. ‘So Odeon, Nebraska, was the last place the scarecrow called home.’
‘We were discussing a definition of home when Mallory got up and left.’
Riker’s fist banged the table hard enough to make the coffee mug dance to the edge. ‘She found him! Mallory knows where the scarecrow lives. Tell me everything you talked about.’ That was an order. ‘Every damn word.’
Mallory stood on the steps of the East Village building, Natalie Homer’s last address. She pressed the intercom button for the apartment on the parlor floor. There was no answer, and she heard no sounds within.
A man on the sidewalk was strolling toward her, regarding her with mild curiosity. He climbed the short staircase to join the detective at the front door. ‘I live here. Can I help you?’
It was Mallory’s impression that he actually had some sincere desire to be helpful, and now she coupled him with another Midwest transplant. ‘Are you Mr White? Alice White’s husband?’
‘Yes.’
Mallory held up her badge and no more words were necessary. Smiling, he unlocked his front door and opened it wide, never questioning her right to come inside. She wondered how these friendly Wisconsin folk survived in New York City. ‘Is your wife home?’
Mr White consulted a note on the glove table in the hall. ‘This says she’s gone to the store.’ He opened the large double doors to the front room and waved her toward a comfortable chair. ‘Please make yourself at home. I’m sure she’ll be right back.’
When they were both seated, he said, ‘I understand Alice gave you the guided tour. So what do you think of our renovations?’
‘Nice job.’
Mr White leaned forward, eyebrows arched, expecting more from her. Then he gave up and sat back, perhaps realizing that this was her entire store of small talk. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’
‘I hope so.’ Mallory pulled out the two sketches of the scarecrow, the poster boy for the average man, and laid them on the coffee table. Beside these portraits she set down the computer printout of another likeness.
‘Oh, he’s from Nebraska,’ said Mr White, after reading the address line of the driver’s license. ‘I have a sister in Nebraska.’ His forehead puckered as he stared at the picture. ‘Terrible photography.’
Pssst.
Deluthe was slowly becoming accustomed to the poison. He knew better than to touch anything, including the off switch for the machine that sprayed the insecticide into the air. He hunkered down before the body on the closet floor. The flesh was covered with green mold and black, and so was a good part of the bag’s interior surface. The age of the corpse was evident by the white hair, and he sexed the body by one mannish square hand pressed up against the clear plastic.
Next to the closet, an umbrella stand held a baseball bat, the New Yorker’s favored weapon for defending hearth and home. However, the white-haired man in the bag had no bloody wounds, no apparent cause of death.
The young detective stood up and turned round, though he could not have said why. He looked about the room. Everything was just as it should be.
Pssst.
‘Well now,’ said Mr White. ‘This could be most anybody.’ He looked up from the sketch, which had been no more helpful than the driver’s license. ‘Sorry. You know I’m gone all day. It’s my wife who knows all the neighbors on sight.’
‘Maybe you noticed a stranger hanging around your building at night. He wears a baseball cap and – ’ Mallory turned her head toward the sound of a small bell tinkling over the front door.
Alice White was home.
Deluthe walked toward the closed bathroom. He could not remember if he had left the door ajar. Between the automatic sprays of insecticide, the room was dead silent. He was almost certain that he was the only living thing in this apartment. Almost certain, he drew his gun as he reached for the doorknob. His skin prickled and drops of sweat slid down his face as he conjured up a vision of Mallory standing over his dead body, making caustic remarks about his failure to call in for back-up.
Yet he opened the door.
A hand shot out and smashed into his face. His nostrils gushed blood. His knees were weak and threatening to dump him on the floor. The man in the bathroom was raising his other hand. Was that a gun? Deluthe raised his own weapon.
No, it was an aerosol can.
Pssst.
Deluthe’s eyes were on fire. He had taken a direct hit of insecticide, and now he was partially blind, only able to discern a blurry white shape, a floating face, as he hit the floor, landing on his knees. More pain.
Mrs White entered the hallway, calling out to her husband, ‘John? Did you see my note?’ She walked into the front room and set her grocery bag on the carpet, then noticed that her husband had company. ‘Oh, hello again. You know you’re the third police officer I’ve seen today.’
‘What? Say again,’ said her husband.
‘Early this morning, there was a young man in uniform. He came right after you left. I think he must have been a friend of George’s. And then there was another one – ’ She stopped and turned to Mallory. ‘George is one of our tenants. He used to be a policeman years ago.’
Mallory held up the sketches. ‘Does he look anything like this?’ ‘Oh, no,’ she laughed. ‘George is sixty-five if he’s a day. A very heavy man, and not so much hair.’
Deluthe moved back. Tears had washed his eyes, and now he could see the shadowy form of a man in front of him. When he aimed his gun, it was simply taken from his hand, for he had misjudged the distance of his assailant. Fists waving blind, he made contact with the other man’s body. A savage kick to Deluthe’s testicles doubled him over in pain, and a hard punch to his stomach took his breath away. He hit the floor and lay there, rolling on to his side, curling like a fetus and listening to the opening and closing of drawers, then the sound of something tearing. He tried to get his bearings in the room. Where was the umbrella stand, the baseball bat?
Next to the closet.
His vision was still blurred, but he could make out the dark rectangle of the open closet door. He crawled toward it and located the nearby umbrella stand by touch. As he reached up to grab the bat, he heard the running footsteps, gained his legs and swung at the thing rushing toward him.
He hit something. Yes, flesh and bone. The shadow man was down.
Mrs White looked at the sketches and the photograph.
‘Take your time,’ said Mallory. As if she had the time. ‘Have you ever seen him before?’