The Chalk Girl

One man broke ranks and walked toward the feeding frenzy in the meadow.

‘No, you don’t.’ Officer Maccaro, a twenty-year veteran of the police force, caught his young partner by the arm and restrained him. ‘Trust me, kid, she’s dead – really dead.’ Ah, rookies – they were like toddlers. It wasn’t safe to let them out of your sight for a minute. ‘Animal Control is on the way. We’ll just wait.’ He turned to the other young man, who wore the uniform of the US Forestry Service. ‘Jimmy, I’ve never seen so many rats in broad daylight.’

‘Well, Mac, the rodent population is zooming.’ But for the Midwest accent, the park ranger might be taken for a native city dweller – so blase about vermin lunching on an old lady. ‘The poison bait wasn’t working anymore. I think the rats acquired a taste for it. So the parks commissioner made a damn contest out of rodent control. And along comes the first contestant, this idiot, Dizzy Hollaren. He runs a small mom-and-pop outfit, mostly termites and roaches. So Dizzy’s got a communal nest pinned down in that building over there.’ The ranger pointed to a brick structure at the edge of the meadow. ‘Before he plugs up the rat hole, he throws in a fumigation bomb. Works for roaches, right?’

Could this man be more sarcastic? Officer Maccaro thought not. ‘I’m guessing the rats had a back door?’

The ranger nodded. ‘They always do – and they swarmed.’ He turned back to the sight of rodents eating Mrs Lanyard. ‘Normally, you’d never see a thing like that. Rats usually scatter when they spot people. I think these critters are jazzed on Dizzy’s chemicals.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry, guys. There won’t be much left of that corpse.’

‘That’s okay,’ said the younger policeman. ‘We got the victim’s name from some little kids.’

‘Yeah,’ said Officer Maccaro. ‘Only twenty more kids to round up.’ He turned to the far side of Sheep Meadow, where police officers and park workers formed a line to comb the outlying parkland for runaway day campers from the neighboring state of New Jersey.

The ranger pointed skyward. Overhead, a large bird of prey circled the meadow. ‘Keep your eyes on the hawk. That bird’s the reason why you never see rats on open ground like this.’

Wings spread, the hawk streaked toward the earth. Only inches from the ground, talons extended, it swooped over the feeding frenzy and carried off a wriggling rat that cried out in a human way. The rest of the vermin continued their meal, unperturbed.

The park ranger nodded sagely. ‘They’re definitely stoned.’ His head tilted back once more, and this time he was looking up into the thick leaves of the stately oak. ‘I hope none of the kids are hiding in the trees.’

Officer Maccaro looked up to see a rat running along the lowest bough. ‘Oh, Christ, when did they learn to do that?’

Mrs Ortega took some satisfaction in the sound of a bone breaking. The pervert sank to the ground and lay there screaming. She rested her baseball bat on one shoulder and looked around in all directions.

Where was that strange little girl?

There was no one to ask. The playground was empty now.

Two police officers were running toward her, and she waved to them with her free hand, yelling, ‘You gotta find a little girl!’

The youngest cop was the first to enter by the iron gate. He looked down at the man on the ground, who was curled up in a fetal position, not screaming anymore but crying softly. The officer turned on the cleaning lady. ‘You did this?’

Stupid question. Was she not holding a bloody baseball bat?

Mrs Ortega nudged the weeping pervert with her foot. ‘Never mind this piece of garbage. He’ll live. You gotta find the kid real fast. She’s a magnet for creeps like him. You’ll know her when you see her. She’s got red hair, and she looks just like a little fairy.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said an older policeman, smiling as he passed through the gate. ‘I think I saw her flying over the park.’

‘Don’t humor me.’

‘Okay.’ The officer drew his gun and leveled it at her head. ‘Lady, drop that bat! Now! ’

‘I’m serious,’ said Mrs Ortega.

‘Yeah, I can see that.’ The man was staring at the bloody end of the bat.

Well, this was new.

The detective stood before a red prefabricated building, temporary housing for the Central Park Precinct. Next door, the older quarters, badly in need of renovation, were partially hidden by tarps, and the rooftops were crawling with workmen.

Damn town was always falling down.

He was far from his own station house down in SoHo, this man in a rumpled suit stained with week-old mustard, but Detective Sergeant Riker never had to show his badge. Uniformed cops stood in a cluster around the entrance, and then they parted in a wave, recognizing his rank by the air of entitlement that came with carrying a gun and a gold shield. Civilians only saw him as a middle-aged man with bad posture, an amiable, laid-back smile and hooded eyes that said to everyone he met, I know you’re lying, but I just don’t care.

Mrs Ortega had used her telephone privilege to call in a favor. He anticipated spending his lunch hour to plead her case with the man in charge of this cop house, but after a few minutes’ conversation, the commander handed him the key to the lockup, allowing Riker the honor of uncaging the Upper West Side’s most dangerous cleaning lady.

Though the little woman scowled at him through the bars, the detective grinned as he worked the key in the lock. ‘I’m impressed.’ He opened the door and made a deep bow from the waist. ‘They tell me you broke the guy’s right arm and three ribs.’

Riker escorted her downstairs, where she was reunited with her wire cart. Mrs Ortega carefully inspected her property, maybe suspecting the police of stealing her cleaning rags or the stiff brushes she favored for bathroom grout. ‘Where’s my bat?’

‘Don’t push your luck,’ said Riker. ‘I’ll get it back for you, okay? But not today.’

‘Took you long enough to bail me out.’

‘No bail,’ he said. ‘The charges were dropped. I’d like to take credit for that, but the call came from the mayor’s office. He sent his limo to pick you up.’

‘What about the little girl? She’s still out there.’

‘There’s fifty cops in the park right now. They’re hunting down kids from a New Jersey day camp. You told them the girl didn’t belong in that playground, right? So she’s probably one of the Jersey kids.’

‘No, that girl hasn’t had a bath in days. She’s lost or homeless. And I told them that!’

‘If the park cops don’t find her, I will. Okay?’ And now that the cleaning lady seemed somewhat mollified, he asked, ‘Don’t you wanna know why the mayor sent his limo?’

She waved one hand in a shoo-fly way to tell him that she did not care.

Playing the gentleman, he held the door open as she steered her cart outside and into the smell of dust and the sounds of jackhammers and traffic along the busy road bisecting the park. He guided her to a wide strip of pavement where VIPs illegally parked. Beside the waiting limousine stood the mayor’s personal chauffer, a man in a better suit than any cop could afford, and he was staring at his approaching passenger with disbelief. A nod from Riker confirmed that this little woman was indeed the mayor’s new best buddy. ‘Hey, pal, open the trunk. The cart goes where she goes.’

While the chauffeur loaded her cleaning supplies, Mrs Ortega settled into the backseat, taking everything in stride, as if this luxury ride might be routine in the average day of a cleaning lady. When the driver took his place behind the wheel and started the engine, she leaned forward and called out to him across the expanse of the stretch limousine. ‘Drop me off in Brooklyn!’

‘City Hall!’ yelled Riker, countermanding her order. And now he spoke to the cleaning lady in his let’s-make- a-deal tone. ‘The mayor just wants to shake your hand. Maybe you pose for a few pictures, talk to some reporters.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She turned her face to the passenger window, clearly bored by this idea.

‘Listen,’ said Riker, ‘this is big. That bastard you busted up? He’s a bail jumper from Florida. While he’s been on the loose, the Miami cops found bodies under the floorboards of his house.’ And still the detective felt that he did not have her full attention. ‘Hey, you bagged a kid-killer. Good job.’