‘Take your time,’ said Deluthe. ‘I’ve got all damn day for this.’ Now he had the man’s attention. ‘I saw the photographs of the crime scene. If it was me, I couldn’t have forgotten anything about that night.’
‘You got that right, kid. But I never talked about the murder. The leak didn’t come from me.’ Parris stared at the front door left ajar, then raised his voice, correctly sensing that Geldorf hovered on the other side. ‘And you can tell that old bastard – it wasn’t me he posted outside in the hall. It was my partner] Maybe somebody got by him.’ His voice dropped to a mumble. ‘But I couldn’t say for sure. Harvey never talked about that night, either – not even with me. We worked together for years, and we never talked about it.’
‘If your partner was posted at the door, then you were inside the apartment the whole time.’
‘No – only a few seconds. I’m the one who found the body. God, the smell. It was enough to knock a man down. When I went home that night, it was still in my clothes, my hair. I can smell it now. I can still feel the cockroaches crawling up my legs. And the flies – a million of ‘em. Jesus’
‘So you closed the door and waited for the detectives and Crime Scene Unit?’
‘Naw. The way that woman was hanging, I couldn’t see the tape on her wrists. Me and Harvey figured it for a suicide. Like I said, I was only in there a few seconds. Suicides don’t rate a visit from CSU. The dispatcher only sent detectives.’
Deluthe flipped back to notes of yesterday. ‘Wasn’t there someone else on that scene?’
‘The photographer? Yeah, he came with the dicks – just a kid. Younger than me, and I was only twenty-two. He got sick and dropped his camera – broke the damn thing. So I borrowed another one from a neighbor. Then the dicks sent me out to buy more film. I think I made two runs to the store that night.’
‘Did your partner mention any civilians around the crime scene while you were gone? Harvey – ’ Deluthe checked his notes, as if his own lieutenant’s name might be easy to forget. On Riker’s orders, no one would be apprised of the case connection to a command officer. He put his finger to a blank page. ‘Loman, right? Harvey Loman? Was he outside the door the whole time?’
‘Yeah. Well, no. When I got back from the store, he was down the hall settling a beef with some old lady.’ Parris paused for a moment, then covered his eyes with one hand. ‘Awe, what the hell.’
Deluthe’s pencil hovered over his notebook. ‘What?’
‘There were two kids right outside the door – real young, a boy and a girl. Harvey – he never saw them. Well, the door was open ‘cause of the smell, and those kids got an eyeful before I chased them away. That always bothered me. Probably gave them nightmares. I felt bad about it, sure, but I had no – ’
‘So your partner lost control of the crime scene. He screwed up. And you didn’t want him to get in trouble, right?’
Parris’s head lolled on his chest, as if he could no longer support the weight. ‘Geldorf, bad as he is now – he was worse in those days. He would’ve nailed Harvey’s hide to the wall for letting those kids get past him. That old prick still thinks he’s God. I hate detectives. No offense, kid.’
‘Did the kids see the hair in the victim’s mouth?’
‘Yeah, they saw everything. The body hadn’t been cut down yet. The dicks were still shooting pictures.’
Neither of them had heard the door open, but now Lars Geldorf was standing on the threshold. The old man was smiling, and Deluthe could guess why. The retired detective was relieved that another cop had lost control of the crime-scene details. And now no one could ever say that this major screwup was his fault.
Pssst.
Charles Butler studied the stalker’s notes to Kennedy Harper. By comparison, the old ones left for Natalie Homer were almost poetry. He turned to Riker. ‘Did you tell Deluthe to ask if Natalie’s door was locked when the police arrived?’
‘No, Deluthe can’t ask about that, and I’m hoping Alan Parris won’t volunteer anything.’ Riker turned off his cassette player. ‘We have the old statement from Natalie’s landlady, and she says that door was locked.’
‘I’m sure it was when she called the police. But when they arrived – ’
The detective put one hand on Charles’s shoulder. ‘If the door wasn’t locked when the first cop showed up, then eight million New Yorkers had access to the crime scene. That makes it hard to narrow it down to a boyfriend with his own key. The district attorney won’t like that if the case goes to trial. You see the problem?’
Charles nodded absently. He was still preoccupied by the difference in the notes. ‘The man who killed Natalie Homer loved her obsessively. He crushed her windpipe with his bare hands – an act of passion. I rather doubt that he made a habit of it. Emotionally, the scarecrow is his polar opposite.’ He tapped the autopsy report on Kennedy Harper. ‘And the date – an anniversary murder suggests long-term planning. The man who did this was only obsessed with the act itself. A hanged woman, a few dozen candles, ajar of flies – all props. The scarecrow decorates his stage and goes away. It’s that cold. Oh, and he’s quite insane.’
‘Suppose we bypass a jury trial?’
‘Wise decision.’
‘What are the odds of getting the scarecrow to confess?’
‘Nothing easier. All you have to do is catch him. He’ll tell you everything he knows. In fact, he’s doing that right now, but no one is listening.’ Charles unpinned the plastic bag containing a bloodstained note. It was disconcerting to see that the scarecrow’s rigid printing so closely resembled Mallory’s.
‘You analyze handwriting?’ asked Riker.
‘No, sorry, I don’t do voodoo.’ Charles turned the bag over and showed Riker the deep grooves on the back of the paper. ‘If his pen had pressed down any harder, he would’ve torn the paper. I suppose you could read frustration or anger into that.’
‘He staked that note to a woman’s neck with a hatpin – a live woman. Yeah, I’d say he was angry.’
‘Oh, the rage is limited to his penmanship. It wasn’t directed at Kennedy Harper. I don’t think he expected her to feel any pain from the hatpin. She was an object – a bulletin board. But I think he definitely has issues with your people. He had to know she’d head for the nearest police station. This note was meant for you.’ Charles crossed over to Sparrow’s wall and stood before the photographs of the coma victim. ‘A recent razor slash on Sparrow’s arm – I’m guessing that’s an escalation because the police clearly were not getting his message. Incidentally, why didn’t she report that assault?’
‘Because she had a whore’s rapsheet. Sparrow didn’t think the cops would care. And she was right about that.’
Riker handed a cup of coffee to Charles, who must be uncomfortable at the small table built for people of normal size. But the man had wanted privacy, and there was no more secure room than the one that housed the lock-up cage. ‘We can finish this up at your place if you like.’
‘No, I’m fine, really.’ The man sipped from his cup and pretended to find the brew passable. ‘Just one more question.’
‘Shoot.’ The detective turned a chair around and straddled it, bracing his arms on the wooden back. ‘Anything you want.’
‘I gather Louis took an interest in Kathy some time before the night he brought her home. When exactly was that?’
Riker’s blood pressure soared, but he had to smile. Brilliant, Charles. A police station was the perfect location for stressful questions. But this time the truth was harmless. ‘This is just between us?’
‘Of course.’
‘Late one night, a social worker turns up in the squad room. Now Lou owes the woman a favor, so she begs him to find this kid – a very special kid. I guess Kathy was nine, almost ten. She used subway tunnels to get around town, but she didn’t always ride the trains. Earlier this same night, the kid played a game of chicken with an engineer in the tunnel. She stood on the track till the train was almost on top of her. At the last possible second, she jumped out of the way.’ Riker’s own private theory was that the child had wanted to die that night.