The Chalk Girl

bastards.’

And now they learned from the driver that Miss Fallon’s credit cards were maxed out. He had been paid in cash from a brown paper bag full of money.

As the ambulette pulled away from the curb, Riker placed a call to the desk sergeant who had arranged for the crime victim’s security at the hospital. After a short conversation, he folded the cell phone into his pocket. ‘The cop on guard duty never saw anybody go into Willy’s room with a paper bag. But that guard left hours ago – when Willy declined police protection.’ He handed a law firm’s business card to his partner. ‘She says any questions have to go through the family lawyers.’

Mallory called the number on the card and was told that the firm no longer represented Miss Fallon; the rest of the family, yes, of course – but not her. And why not, the detective might ask? The lawyer continued without troubling her to actually pose the question. ‘Well, you’ve met this woman, right?’ The Brahman voice on the phone now restated his position. ‘I would prefer to be eviscerated and forced to watch dogs eat my entrails. But I am discreet. I can only allow you to ponder all the things that might be worse than that.’

On that final word, the call was concluded, and Mallory turned to her partner. ‘I’m guessing that Willy neutered a lawyer.’

Wearing paper hospital slippers, Willy Fallon shushed across the lobby of the residential hotel. The manager blocked her way to the elevator. Before he could broach the subject of her overdue bill, she reached into her brown bag, pulled out two banded bundles of money and pressed them into his hands. ‘That should cover it.’

The hotelier, too long accustomed to credit cards and traveler’s checks, stared at the cash in surprise – then suspicion. He raised his eyes to hers, as if to ask, What is this?

Willy rode the elevator up to her hotel room. Yellow tape had been used to seal the door, and now it hung from the frame in loose strands, a sign that the room had been visited following the search by police. She opened the door with caution, but the place had an empty feel to it. The walls and furniture were filmed with black dust, and the drawers had been turned out on the floor. Damn cops never put anything back where it belonged. The hotel maid must have run away screaming. Willy entered the bathroom to see that her meager store of drugs was back in its plastic bag inside the toilet tank, many thanks to the hotel bellman.

She changed her hospital garb for real clothes and found her cell phone, not for one moment finding it odd that the police would leave it behind. Stupid cops. She called all the Wilders in the telephone directory, and finally she was down to one, a Susan Wilder. Was that the name of Toby’s mother?

No one answered when Willy called.

The storefront window on Columbus Avenue was decorated with full-length portraits of brides and headshots of actors who were almost famous. In the front room of the shop, a selection of wedding albums had been pushed to one side of a display table, and chairs had been provided for the two detectives. They flipped through pictures of children posed against the ersatz blue background of school photographs.

The proprietor was soft-spoken, soft-stepping. His faded blue eyes were crinkled and kind. ‘Hey, if one of those brats turned up dead, I’d like to take the credit, but I’m not a violent man.’ He laid a leather-bound volume on top of the stack of yearbooks. ‘This is the one you want. It’s my only copy, so I’d rather you didn’t take it.’ He handed Riker a stack of Post-its. ‘Just mark the ones you like, and I’ll scare up some enlargements.’

Mallory rapidly turned the yearbook pages, scanning faces, reading names. ‘They’re all here – even the Nadler kid. This is where it started.’ She flipped back to the beginning and used a Post-it to mark the portrait of eleven-year-old Phoebe Bledsoe. This photograph was taken when she was Ernest Nadler’s age, but the murder victim was not among these children. She had found him two grades ahead of his age group, posed with the thirteen-year-olds.

‘So he was a smart little kid,’ said Riker.

Ernest Nadler smiled at the homicide detectives, as if someone had just told him a fine joke. After marking his picture, Mallory turned back to the page with Humphrey Bledsoe’s headshot. This face was unstructured and flabby.

And Riker said, ‘Creepy smile, huh?’

Yes, the picture was a predictor of Humphrey’s pervert future. On the next page, Willy Fallon was skinnier at thirteen, almost insectile. And toward the end of this section, Aggy Sutton was no surprise, baring all her teeth, but not to smile. Toby Wilder’s was the last photograph in this group of thirteen-year-olds, and Mallory lingered over this one.

‘Oh, I remember that face,’ said the photographer. ‘Great-looking kid – and nice enough, but he couldn’t sit still – feet tapping, fingers snapping all the time. I know I’ve got more shots of him. What’s the name?’ The man leaned closer to read the caption. ‘Okay.’ He disappeared into a back room and then returned with more pictures in hand. ‘My private stash. I like these better.’ He laid them out on the table. ‘They cover the three years he went to the Driscol School.’

This was not the still and somber boy of Rolland Mann’s interview tape. Every one of these photographs was blurred. This was Toby in motion, Toby when he was hyper-aware and juiced on the batteries of childhood – so alive.

When the proprietor had given them a complete set of pictures, one for each student they had marked, Mallory stared at the enlarged portrait of Ernest Nadler. The line of the child’s shirt collar was slightly – minutely – off. ‘You airbrushed this one.’ She glared at the photographer, as if this might be a felony. ‘We’ll wait while you make a new print from the negative.’

‘Oh, I don’t have that neg anymore. When I was making up prints for the kid’s parents, I had a chemical spill in the darkroom.’

‘And you remembered which negative got wrecked,’ said Riker, ‘fifteen years later. Must’ve been a hell of a shot . . . before you cleaned it up.’

‘A memorable shot,’ said Mallory. ‘So you kept an original print . . . for your private stash. Now I want to see what you airbrushed out.’

‘My partner really likes kids,’ said Riker in one of his more imaginative lies. ‘Trust me, pal, you don’t wanna piss her off.’

And that part was true.

She rose from the table, and the man moved away from her, back stepping all the way into the next room of filing cabinets, where the original print was found – very quickly.

And now they could see what had been airbrushed from the yearbook shot.

‘Teeth marks,’ said Riker. ‘Damn. It’s like Aggy the Biter signed his neck.’

It was a very small school reunion at the Mexican restaurant on Bleecker Street: Phoebe Bledsoe and a dead child on one side of the room, Toby Wilder on the other.

‘I hate to see him like this,’ said Dead Ernest. He glanced at his companion. ‘And what about you, Phoebe? You wanted to teach the classics. Now you spend the whole school year locked up in the nurse’s office.’

And no one ever came to visit the spooky nurse. Driscol students were remarkable for soldiering on with the scraped knees and stomachaches that plagued every other school in America.

‘You have a degree in English lit, and what did they offer you?’

Custody of a box of Band-Aids. She should thank her mother for insisting on the nursing credential tacked onto the end of her education, else she would be jobless.

‘You were robbed,’ said Dead Ernest.

Perhaps. She had spent her lonely workdays reading great literature. At night, she read comic books aloud for penance . . . for Ernie. Not much of a life, not what she had planned.

Toby’s meal was done. He rose from his chair and moved toward the door. Phoebe’s fingers worried over the surface of the gold cigarette lighter, the only piece of him that she could keep with her.

Dead Ernest also left her. Phoebe had no energy to sustain him or restrain him. She watched her old playmate approach the door. As the next customer came in, he slipped out. The child was always at the mercy of flesh-and-blood people to open doors for him. But even if a phantom could manage solid gateways, Phoebe would never allow him to take his hands from his pockets.

She traveled home alone.

When she stepped out of the taxi in front of the Driscol School, the key to the alley passage was in her hand – but the iron gate was unlocked and ajar. Could she have forgotten to close it? No, that was unthinkable.