The Chalk Girl

When the chief medical examiner and his most generous patron stood before the viewer’s window, the blinds were opened to display a corpse laid out on the other side of the glass. ‘That’s my son,’ said Grace. No hesitation. And that brought on the doctor’s first vague feeling of something a bit – off.

‘Not surprising that my daughter didn’t recognize him. Edward, dear, please try not to mess him up too badly. I’m told that Detective Mallory ordered an open-casket ceremony.’

The woman handed him a small, square envelope engraved with her name and return address. His own name was penned in an elegant script – like a party invitation. He opened it. Yes – a party, a purely social occasion. His eyes traveled from smiling mother to murdered son. Evidently, the rich were different.

The cork walls of the incident room were newly bloodied with more cadaver photographs recently delivered by the Medical Examiner’s Office. Dr Slope, in an unexplained change of heart, had put a rush on the autopsy of Humphrey Bledsoe.

Sixteen detectives sat on metal folding chairs arranged in audience formation. In advance of today’s briefing, a long table had been moved to the front of the room, where a crime-scene investigator laid out evidence and props to simulate the Hunger Artist’s murder kit. Lieutenant Coffey stared at the array of duct tape, a rope and a sack followed by a pulley, a drill, long screws and a metal plate. Make it stop. Next came a winch and a remote control – every damn thing but the trees. Oh, crap. The CSI had brought the trees, too. A circular chunk of barked wood was laid down alongside a section of branch.

The lecture had not yet begun and the squad was already bored witless. Jack Coffey leaned against the door, cutting off their only avenue of escape.

‘I’m guessing you guys never went through our carton.’ CSI John Pollard smiled at his own lame joke about the box of useless leads.

None of the detectives laughed, but neither did they draw weapons. They were all game to end the war with Crime Scene Unit. ‘Your perp’s been stockpiling his murder kit for a long time.’ John Pollard held up an evidence bag containing a coil of rope. ‘This brand was discontinued five years ago. It was sold in hundred-and-twenty-foot lengths. Forty feet of rope was found at each crime scene.’ And now, as if cops could not do simple math, he said, ‘The perp used up the whole coil.’ He moved on down the table to pick up a burlap sack. ‘The bags were made in only one batch and field-tested all over the city – docks, warehouses. That was four years ago. They were never sold to the public. So the Hunger Artist found them or stole them.’ Pollard looked down at the more common paraphernalia spread across the table. ‘Nothing here would cost more than a few hundred bucks. The perp paid cash. Count on it,’ he said, assuming that a roomful of seasoned detectives might need his help with this deduction.

They all looked at him with eyes that said, Drop dead.

The CSI rolled out the dolly that Mallory had found in the park. ‘No prints. It was wiped clean, but I traced the serial number. It was sold to a landscaper out in Queens. The guy died a few years back. I interviewed his widow. She says her husband got these inflatable tires from their kid’s go-cart.’

All around the room, heads lifted. Now Pollard had their attention. This CSI had crossed a line when he interviewed that woman. Unlike some of Heller’s staff, this one was a civilian – not a cop – not one of them.

Pollard slapped the black car battery attached to the dolly’s long handle. ‘This powered a joist for lifting heavy loads up to roofs and terraces. Cheaper than hiring a crane. The landscaper worked off the books – no payroll names, no client list. This dolly was stolen off a jobsite seven years ago. The widow doesn’t know which one. She only remembers her husband was working in Manhattan that day.’

And what might the widow have remembered if a real detective had done that interview? Jack Coffey bit back the first obscenity that came to mind.

Pollard returned to the table, and the wave of his hand encompassed everything on it. ‘We figured out every detail.’ And now, item by item, he told them the mind-numbing story of working up all of his evidence from screw holes in the bark of trees. And finally – finally – the little guy raised both hands to say his magic act was over – and maybe he was expecting applause.

Fat chance.

‘You missed a few things,’ said Mallory from the back row of chairs. And CSI Pollard pretended not to hear this.

Jack Coffey shook his head to warn her off – as if that ever worked. Mallory left her seat and moved toward the front of the room. Damn it! Just when things were going so well – when they were having all this nice make-up sex with CSU – she had to mess with this man.

Mallory set a small bottle on the table. ‘That’s chloroform. It belongs in the murder kit.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ John Pollard gave her a patronizing smile. ‘I can show you the ME’s X-rays of skull fractures. The victims were subdued by a blow to—’

‘Two of them were stunned,’ said Mallory. ‘Only Willy Fallon was hit hard enough to knock her out. The perp needed to keep his victims quiet.’ She picked up the duct tape. ‘And this won’t do the job.’ She ripped off a piece and covered the CSI’s mouth. ‘If you want to make noise, you can still be heard. Try it.’

And now he was heard. The sound he made resembled the amplified buzz of a startled mosquito. When he raised his hands to pull off the tape, she slapped his wrists. ‘No, that’s cheating.’ She used more tape to bind his hands behind his back.

The lieutenant knew this was the time to step in, but one glance around the room told him that his whole squad was solidly behind Mallory’s bad behavior. They loved this. She was one of them again, and all for the minor price of a twit’s dignity.

Jack Coffey smiled. He could live with that.

Mallory owned the room. ‘We have a witness who puts our perp in coveralls, posing as a delivery guy. That’s how he gets them to open the door. Then he drops the victim with a blow to the back of the head.’ She glanced at the cluttered table and then turned to the CSI. ‘You got so carried away with your little screw holes, you never developed evidence for the assaults.’

Now Pollard was making quite a lot of noise – despite the tape on his mouth. He might be the best show- and-tell exhibit ever presented for a briefing.

‘Even if the perp had knocked out all three victims – would he count on them staying that way? No,’ said Mallory. ‘Not his style. He over thinks everything – mark of an amateur. No injection sites on the bodies – so I know he sedated them with this.’ She lifted her bottle in one hand and a small cloth in the other as she continued the education of the CSI. ‘You can buy chloroform on the Internet. You can even make it at home. This is what he used to keep them quiet while he wheeled them through the streets and the park – because that’s the risky part. And this bottle is the only item on the table that can break our case.’ She turned to face her happy audience. ‘The ME’s broad scan for chloroform will take another three days to confirm. Pollard didn’t even request it. I did. And he didn’t use a mass spectrometer on the sacks to check them for chemicals. That’s two mistakes. Three . . . if we count his interview with the landscaper’s widow.’

There were get-even smiles throughout the room.

‘And then the perp does this.’ It was definitely in the spirit of payback when Mallory, with a trip and a shove, laid out CSI Pollard on the floor and hog-tied him. After covering his body with the sack, she rolled him over to close the opening with rope. Next, she dipped the dolly’s wide step underneath him. Braced against a wall, the squirming man was neatly loaded onto the metal platform, ready for transport.

At this point, someone might have said that even a woman could have done it. But no one did.

EIGHTEEN

The mad Driscol lives in the old carriage house behind the school. Phoebe says her great-aunt lost most of her brain cells to a stroke. Years ago, the old lady ditched her nurse and ran naked into the garden