The Mercedes was approaching the Brooklyn Bridge when Charles asked, ‘How did Louis trace Kathy to Warwick’s Used Books?’
Riker stared out the window ay the water. Shoot me – shoot me now. ‘We just got lucky one night.’
He had a demoralizing old memory of running out of breath as he watched the child’s shoes skimming along the sidewalk, outdistancing him with no effort at all. She had laughed as she dusted off Lou Markowitz, a man with fifty pounds of excess weight. Poor Lou had been wheezing when he caught up to Riker, who was hugging a lamppost, convinced that his heart had stopped.
‘Then we spotted the kid in Warwick’s window.’ He recalled the baby thief leaning one small hand on a bookshelf as she nonchalantly perused her westerns. Though she had just run two cops into the ground – nearly killed them – only Kathy’s eyes seemed weary, just like any other child at the end of a busy day.
‘So we go inside the store, and Lou tells the owner no more customers for a while. Then we go to collect the kid, but she’s gone, and the back room was locked up from the inside. It drove us nuts. You’ve seen that place. There was no way she could’ve made it out the door without being seen.’ Then they had noticed the fear in the bookseller’s eyes. Lou had gathered his hound-dog jowls into a dazzling smile to win over the merchant with personal charm – or so he had believed at the time.
The mystery of Kathy’s escape had not been solved that night or the next. ‘Lou spent a week of off-duty hours staking out the store and reading all of Kathy’s westerns.’ He had also developed a rapport with the fragile bookseller. ‘Finally, Warwick tells him how Kathy got away that night. For maybe three seconds, our backs were turned from the rear wall while we talked to the owner. That’s when she climbed up the bookshelves – quick as a monkey, quiet as smoke – all the way to the top, where there was just enough room to squeeze between the shelf and the ceiling.’
‘Then the bookseller must have watched her do it.’
‘Yeah, and he never gave her up, even though just the sight of a cop scared the shit out of him. The whole time Lou was talking to this frightened little man, Kathy was up there listening to him, laughing at him.’ The detective shrugged. ‘So we were outmatched by a ten-year-old girl. Not our best night.’
That was when Lou Markowitz had begun to realize who and what he was dealing with – no ordinary child, but a full-blown person. And he had amended the resume of a street thief to include the grand title of Escape Artist. Kathy had earned Lou’s respect. She had also cut out his heart, but that was another night, and the child had almost won that time, almost destroyed the man.
Though it would have been some comfort to him, Riker could never share the story of Kathy’s best escape act. And now his mind reached back across the bridge, across the water to the sleeper in her coma dreams to tell her that she was not dying alone. Sparrow, the secrets are poisoning me.
Mallory watched Charles’s Mercedes drive off as her partner slid into the front seat of her tan sedan.
‘It’s that one.’ She nodded toward the building directly across the street. Natalie Homer’s sister lived in an area of Brooklyn prized for views of Prospect Park. Apparently Susan Qualen was doing well in the world. ‘It’s better if we catch her outside.’ Then the cop hater would have no door to slam in their faces. ‘The neighbors say she runs in the park – same time every day.’
‘Must be a health fanatic’ Riker wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘She’s gonna kill herself in this heat.’
The front door opened and a trim woman in shorts and a T-shirt appeared at the top of a short flight of stairs. Natalie’s sister was tall and blond with a familial face. Before the woman could descend to the sidewalk, the two detectives were out of the car and moving toward her, each holding up a leather folder with identification and a gold shield.
‘Miss Qualen? I’m Detective Mallory, and this is – ’
The woman’s face turned angry and hard. ‘Go away!’
Riker stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ma’am? We’d rather do this at your convenience, but you – ’
‘I read about your last hanging in the papers,’ said Susan Qualen. ‘You bastards couldn’t cover up that one. Not so easy this time, was it?’
‘Ma’am,’ said Riker. ‘We don’t work that way. Sometimes we have to withhold details so we can – ’
‘I’ve heard that one before. Twenty years ago, the cops told the reporters my sister was a suicide.’
‘The cops didn’t tell you much, did they?’ Mallory moved up the staircase, advancing on the woman slowly. ‘They told you it was murder, and you knew about the rope.’ But no cop would have revealed the details of the hacked-off hair jammed in Natalie Homer’s mouth.
Mallory was one step away – touching distance. Nervous, Susan? ‘So how did you make the connection between your sister and a hanged hooker?’
‘I read the story in the damn papers.’
Mallory shook her head. ‘No, you’re lying. The link had to be more than rope. All those details in the paper – why did you connect them with – ’
‘I’m done with you.’ Susan Qualen started down the staircase.
‘Hold it.’ Mallory blocked her way. ‘Where did you get the – ’
‘My lawyer says I don’t have to talk to you.’
‘No,’ said Mallory. ‘That’s what people say when they haven’t talked to a lawyer. Your sister’s murder is still an open case, and you will talk to us.’
Riker climbed a step closer to the woman. His voice was more reasonable and friendly. ‘We turned up some inconsistencies in Natalie’s murder. We think her son might be able to straighten it out. So where’s the kid now?’
‘I don’t know where he is,’ said Susan Qualen.
‘I read a follow-up interview with the boy’s stepmother,’ said Mallory. ‘She claims you took the boy after his father died.’
And Riker added, ‘That would’ve been a year after Natalie’s murder.’ His tone of voice said, Hey, just trying to be helpful.
‘But we had a problem with that.’ The threat in Mallory’s voice was impossible to miss.
‘You see,’ said Riker, dialing back the tension, ‘the little boy never went to school after his mother died. When summer vacation was over – ’
‘So the family moved out of the school district.’
‘No, Miss Qualen,’ said Mallory. ‘The stepmother still lives at the same address.’ Mallory edged closer. ‘She told a cop named Geldorf that you had the boy. Why would she lie? And when that same cop called you, why didn’t you set him straight?’
There was confusion in Qualen’s eyes. Civilians were amateurs at deception, unable to remember the details of lies told in the distant past, and they were all so easily rattled. Riker smiled at the woman, as if they were old friends discussing weather and books they had read. ‘It would help if you could tell us what happened to Natalie’s son.’
‘And where he is now.’ Mallory made the short step from accusation to attack. ‘Talk to me! What did you do with him?’
Susan Qualen lost her hard-case composure and made a mad sprint down the staircase, slamming into both detectives in her haste to get away. Mallory hit the sidewalk at a dead run, and Riker lunged to catch her arm, yelling, ‘Whoa! First, let’s interview the stepmother. Then we can nail Qualen for obstruction. We’ll toss her in the lock-up cage for a while. It’ll be scary but legal.’
Mallory watched the woman’s hands flailing as she ran down the sidewalk, escaping. Passersby must believe that they had drawn guns on her. Even now, the distance could be so easily closed, and when Mallory caught up to Susan Qualen, the woman would be vulnerable, breathless and frightened.