The Chalk Girl

tell if she was gifted or retarded.’

The child came running out of the music room to stand before the detective and point an accusing finger. ‘That was so rude.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Charles, ‘I should’ve mentioned that most Williams people have remarkable hearing.’

And that would explain why this child had been the only one to hear muffled crying from a burlap bag at the top of a tree.

The little girl looked down at the carpet, mortified, and this destroyed Riker, a sucker for every redhead ever born. He put up both hands in surrender. ‘Coco? You’re right. I’m so sorry.’ He stabbed himself in the chest with one finger. ‘I’m an idiot. I wish I could play the piano like you . . . You play just great, kid.’

She smiled, eyes lit from within, her face lifting to his like a flower starved for light and warmth – and this exhausted the policeman’s entire repertoire of poetic metaphor. ‘You tell great stories, too. Tell Charles about your Uncle Red.’

‘He turned himself into a tree.’ Coco had lost all interest in this topic. Riker could almost see a door closing in her mind. When she had returned to the piano in the next room, both men waited until her playing would safely mask their conversation. This time it was a classical piece, but Riker prided himself on not recognizing the titles of longhair music.

‘A standard IQ test won’t help you,’ said Charles. ‘Based on what Mallory tells me, I’d say Coco’s both quicker and slower than average. She has the verbal skills of an older child, but the attention span of a much younger one. And I’m sure you noticed her Velcro straps. They’re customized, added on to regular shoes. She obviously can’t tie laces.’ He looked down at the plastic bag on the floor by the detective’s chair. ‘You brought her clothes?’

Riker nodded. The clothing was more evidence that had not been turned over to the Crime Scene Unit. He was not looking forward to the inevitable showdown when Heller would claim the heads of two detectives for his trophy wall.

Charles opened the plastic bag and pulled out a small stained T-shirt, only glancing at it, and then he examined the tiny pair of blue jeans. ‘Another Velcro fastener. She has trouble with buttons, too. So . . . fine motor skills are a problem for Coco.’ He nodded toward the music room. ‘And yet she can play a complex piece by Mozart – from memory. However, if she were to walk out the door right now, I don’t think she’d recall the way back. You see the problem? A Williams child is paradox incarnate.’

‘How would you rate her as witness material?’

‘Well, she’ll tend to ornament her sentences. She’s a natural fabulist. For instance – her uncle turned himself into a tree?’

‘But she believes that,’ said Riker. ‘The guy was inside a bag strung up in a tree. She heard him crying. That’s how she found him in the Ramble. Hundreds of people walked under that tree, but she’s the only one who heard him.’

‘Hyperacusis – sensitivity to sounds.’

‘We can’t get one straight answer from that kid.’

‘Quite understandable. Another Williams quality is heightened empathy, and the victim was a relative. But she’d have problems with any change in her environment. She’s probably been in a state of high anxiety all day.’

‘Longer. Coco won’t say or can’t say, but she had to be on the heels of the guy who kidnapped her uncle. Central Park is just too damn big for her to stumble on the right path, the right tree. The uncle was strung up maybe three days ago. So she’s been loose in the park all that time, eating out of trashcans and running from rats.’ Riker covered his eyes with one hand, as if that would kill this picture in his head, for he was a man who loved children.

‘Then it’ll take quite a while to work through the emotional damage.’ Charles turned toward the music room to watch the tiny piano player. ‘She’s very small for her age. What did Edward Slope say? Is she physically healthy?’

‘The doc says she doesn’t need meds. Her heart’s in real good shape. And she wasn’t molested. Can you evaluate Coco’s disability – put something in writing for a judge? We need an order of custody.’ Riker handed him a folded paper. ‘And I need your signature on this.’

Coco ceased her piano playing and reappeared in the front room. She pointed down the hallway. ‘That’s a Eureka. It’s the brand-new canister model.’

Riker listened as if ears could squint, and now he made out the low hum of a vacuum cleaner behind a closed door on the other side of the large apartment. The cleaning lady was here; hers was the woman’s voice Coco had heard from the hallway. He smiled. ‘A Eureka, huh? You saw the vacuum in the park playground, right? It was in that lady’s wire cart?’

Coco giggled in the spirit of guess again.

Charles shook his head. ‘Mrs Ortega doesn’t carry a vacuum cleaner around with her. That one’s mine, and Coco’s right about the brand name. Excellent auditory memory skills.’ He turned to her. ‘So you recognized the sound of the motor.’

She nodded. ‘Our upstairs neighbor had one. My granny’s vacuum was an older one, louder – a scary Hoover.’ Coco faked a little shiver for them to illustrate that this was not her favorite noise. ‘That one could suck up the whole world. There were lots of vacuum cleaners in the house, and they all had different sounds and different names.’

‘So your granny lives in an apartment building,’ said Riker. ‘Well, that’s something.’

‘She couldn’t take care of me anymore. So I went to live with Uncle Red, and I never saw her again.’

‘That must’ve happened recently,’ said Charles. ‘Granny’s neighbor had the new canister model, and it’s only been on the market for a few weeks.’ He had finished reading Riker’s paperwork. ‘Hold on. This document requests that custody be awarded to me.’

Both men looked up to see Mrs Ortega pass by with a feather duster in hand. The woman stopped, surprised and wide-eyed. If Riker had not known how tough she was, he would say she was frightened. Turning away from the little girl, the cleaning lady quickly made the sign of the cross. By Riker’s lights, this was no sign of religion or relief. He had watched her make this gesture once before to ward off the evil of a three-legged cat encountered on a SoHo sidewalk. Apparently, in Mrs Ortega’s native land across the river, a square block of Brooklyn that housed her whole clan, those cats were trouble – and so was Coco.

Hours had passed since Riker’s departure to join in the park search for more victims. And during this time, Charles Butler had filled a notebook with lines of childish fancy to decode. He had come to a few dark conclusions about the gaps in Coco’s memory, places in her mind where she could not or would not go.

Such a fascinating mind.

Mrs Ortega returned from Brooklyn in time for Coco’s bath. She brought with her a collection of clothing culled from relatives with small children. The woman seemed agitated, but the little girl did not mind. The child clung to her when they emerged from the bathroom. Scrubbed pink and clean and dressed in secondhand pajamas, Coco sang for Mrs Ortega, and then she did a little dance, smiling all the while. Growing tired as any child at the end of a long day, she curled up on the floor at the cleaning lady’s feet and closed her eyes – and snored.

‘Are they supposed to do that?’ Charles could only wish that the child had come with a manual of operating instructions. ‘The snoring?’

Mrs Ortega nodded. ‘The kid’s getting over a cold. That’s why I gave her the chicken soup.’ She wagged her finger at him. ‘Do not give her any crap from the drugstore.’

‘Of course not.’ It would not occur to him to second-guess this woman, who had many children in her extended family.

He scooped up the sleeping child and carried her to the guest room, where he put her to bed. Mrs Ortega hung back on the threshold, clearly not wanting more contact with this little girl. It was Charles who covered Coco with a blanket and tucked her in. He closed the door softly, and whispered to his cleaning lady, whom he also counted among his friends, ‘Tell me what’s bothering you.’

She did not speak for a while, not until they were seated in the front room and she had finished her second round of sherry. Mrs Ortega set the empty glass on the table, her eyes fixed upon the etched pattern of century-old crystal. ‘My mother, rest her soul – oh, her and her stories.’ She threw up her hands, exasperated, and then began again. ‘When I was a kid, I lost a lot of sleep ’cause Ma told me that fairies stole kids and replaced them with changelings.’ What if – that was the question in her eyes. She could never voice this