Mallory remained standing while her partner flopped down on the couch, raising a cloud of dust from the cushion. Every littered surface was filmed with gray, though he had only occupied this place for a few weeks. Where was he getting his dust supply?
„So your grandfather covered domestic disputes and bar fights?“
„Everything,“ said Riker. „Have a seat.“
„What for?“
Misunderstanding her, he stood up and, with no offense taken, swept the leather seat of an armchair to send his unopened mail and smaller, unidentified flying objects to the floor. „There you go.“
She sat down, careful not to touch the padded arms, for she could not identify what he had spilled there. Next, she flirted with the idea that be hod brought some of his trash from the last apartment, perhaps regarding this formidable collection of crushed beer cans as a homey touch. „Why would your grandfather cover the nickel-and-dime scenes? It’s not like he expected them to tie back to Stick Man.“
„My father thought that was strange, too.“ In Mallory’s honor, Riker walked about the room, bending low to pick up dirty socks and stuff them behind the couch pillows. „When Granddad retired, he lost access to crime scenes, so Dad collected all the details for him.“
„And now you do it.“ And when would they ever get to the reason why? She tapped one foot as Riker opened the refrigerator and pulled out two cold beers. Accepting one from his hand, she asked him again. „Why, Riker? What can you learn from garden-variety stabbings?“
„Every way you can stab another human with an ice pick.“ This time he eased himself down on the couch, cutting the dust fly by half. „The lead detective ruled out a pro in favor of a psycho, but not my grandfather. Gran developed a signature for Stick Man. Now this is something you won’t see in a rage killing. The pick was pushed into the body, perfectly level to pass through the rib cage. No false strikes, no bone chips ever. Just perfect. The picks were honed, narrow and needle sharp. Easier to pass through clothes and muscle. Then Stick Man made a little jog to the right and shredded the heart. That enlarged the entry wound. He eased the pick out. No blood fly that way. And he wiped the bloody end on the victim’s clothing. He could ‘ve slaughtered a battalion without getting a drop on his clothes. After Granddad retired, my father used his clout to pull hundreds of old autopsy reports, and they found matches. There was no other stab wound quite like Stick Man’s. He used that same MO for almost a hundred years. The cops caught him twice – and twice he died.“
A ghost story.
Mallory’s hands balled into fists. She hated ghost stories.
Nedda backed away from the staircase, then stopped – dead stop. What was that?
The million fine hairs of her body were on the rise as she sorted out the noises of the house. A light slap on glass came from the garden, where a leafy branch licked the panes of the doors. Elsewhere, a clock was ticking. She turned around, looking across the front room to the foyer and the burglar alarm. There was no glowing light to assure her that the alarm was working. She rationalized this away. The new housekeeper had not set the alarm before going out, and that was common enough. They never stayed very long, and few of them had found the time or inclination to memorize the daily change of the code that disabled the alarm upon reentering the house.
Was the door even locked?
Another noise, a knock, then a thud, was followed by the sound of breaking glass.
Nedda drifted across the room and down the hall toward the kitchen, the source of her fear. She could not stop herself, though her legs threatened to buckle and fail. She was like one of those elderly women on the hospital ward, driven by a compulsion she could not name, her limbs moving of their own accord.
On the kitchen threshold now, eyes on the cellar door, fascinated and afraid, she was moving toward it. One hand trembled on the knob, and she opened the door to absolute silence, that moment between one footstep and the next, the still vacuum of holding one’s breath. And now she heard another noise. By the dim light filtering downstairs from the kitchen, she saw a mousetrap at the edge of the first step. She wanted so much to believe that it was a rodent down there, a big one with enough weight to make the sound of crunching glass underfoot. But she was not so gifted at delusional thinking.
Nedda backed away from the door, keeping her eyes trained upon it as she reached out for the nearest drawer. This was where Bitty had found the old wooden ice pick the other night, the one used to satisfy the curiosity of Detective Riker. And now that pick was in Nedda’s hand.
She backed out of the kitchen, never taking her eyes off the door until she turned and ran light-footed down the hall, heading for the staircase. Bitty’s room on the floor above had a good strong bolt on the door.
Nedda gripped the banister, and stood there very still, one foot upon the stair. She shook her head. She could not hide; she could not take the chance. What if this intruder surprised the next innocent to come through the front door?
Well, she would call the police.
And say what?
I hear noises in my house? My burglar alarm isn’t working?
The night of the break-in, she could not remember having the luxury of time to question what she should do next. Nedda looked down at the ice pick in her hand.
She could do it again.
Riker stood on a chair to reach the box at the back of his closet. He hoisted it down and dropped it on the floor at Mallory’s feet. „I was just a kid then. Every night after dinner, they’d spread all this stuff on the kitchen table. Mom called our kitchen the murder room.“ He lifted the box and carried it to his own kitchen table. „The earliest cases date back to the eighteen-hundreds, but they all used Stick Man’s signature. They ended in the forties, the year of the massacre.“
Somewhat mollified by Riker’s hasty disavowal of a ghost story, Mallory asked, „How many generations of hitmen?“
„Three.“ He sat down at the table and opened the box. „The first one was a crazy little bastard in Hell’s Kitchen. He worked for the Irish gangs. Started when he was only thirteen. Back in those days, they called him Pick. What really spooked the locals was the daylight killing. He ‘d walk up to a guy on the street at high noon and just do him on the spot.“
„Too crazy to worry about witnesses.“
„Right. And who wants to make an enemy of the neighborhood nutcase? So everybody knew who he was, even the local beat cop, and nobody talked.“
Riker pulled out a handful of yellowed papers and photographs, diagrams and scraps of paper with notes in faded ink. He tapped a picture cut from an ancient newspaper and preserved in laminate. „This is his mother. Smart lady. She was the broker for all his jobs. And – surprise – she read tarot cards. That was her front for the murder contracts, and she never did one day in prison. Well, her son was nuts, and I mean a real standout kind of crazy. But the mother paid off the cops when they started asking questions. Then one day, there’s a new commission to investigate police corruption, so the cops run out and pick up her son just for show. That closes a few dozen homicides in an afternoon, and the department really shines in the morning paper.“ He grinned at Mallory. „Don’t you love this town?“
„That’s when Pick died?“
„The first time? No, not yet. After the arrest, he was committed to an asylum. And that’s where he hooks up with his replacement – an orderly named Jay Holly.“
Riker had covered every inch of the table, laying out his files in stacks of a dozen folders, each one another death. „You won’t find this stuff in police reports or history books. Pinwitty’s research was pathetic next to Granddad’s.“ He found a mug shot from a New Orleans Police Department and handed it to Mallory. „That’s Jay Holly. He did a deal with the fortuneteller.“