The Chalk Girl

She passed down the narrow walkway between the Driscol School and the neighboring building, traveling halfway across the back garden before she saw him standing by the door to her cottage. Rolland Mann was losing his hair. It was gone to the pinfeathers of a chick newly hatched or a chicken prepped for slaughter. The deputy police commissioner’s name always topped the guest list for her mother’s charity galas, and he was a regular visitor to the weekly salons at the mansion. But Phoebe had first come to know him when she was a child and he was Detective Mann.

‘The gate was wide open,’ he said. ‘That was careless, Phoebe. Especially now.’ He held up a folded copy of today’s Times. ‘The third Ramble victim hasn’t made the papers yet, but they’ve all been identified. It looks like someone’s cleaning up loose ends.’ He paused. Waiting for her reaction? ‘You need police protection. I could post a guard on the—’

‘No! . . . No more police.’ One hand of chewed fingernails rose to her mouth. Self-conscious now, she hid both ruined hands behind her back.

At least she did not have to face this unwanted visitor alone. Stress had summoned up Dead Ernest. He stood behind Rolland Mann and stuck out his tongue.

The deputy police commissioner, following the track of her eyes, turned around to see that there was no one there. Then he looked at the door. ‘Oh, your phone’s ringing. Don’t you want to answer that?’

No. She had no plans to unlock her door while he was still here.

‘You need protection.’ And now the man measured his words very carefully, giving each syllable equal weight. ‘You do see the problem, don’t you, Phoebe?’

Why did he always talk to her as if she might be only half bright? She inclined her head to listen to the dead boy, who clarified this mystery. ‘He thinks you’re nuts.’

Rolland Mann smiled, as if in agreement with a voice he could not possibly hear. ‘There were five children in the Ramble when the incident happened.’ He held up five fingers in case she could not grasp such a high number. Adding insult, he counted them off, folding his long fingers one by one. ‘Ernie’s dead, Humphrey – Aggy. And Willy Fallon nearly died.’

All that remained was the worm-white thumb – herself.

‘It’s simple math, Phoebe.’ He turned his back on her and walked down the flagstone path, saying, ‘Call me if you change your mind about protection.’

TWENTY-THREE

My guidance counselor tells me that school days are the best times of my life, and I should relish every second. When she tells me this, I want to scream, ‘You silly old fuck! It’s hell every day, five days a week! It’s war!’

—Ernest Nadler

By all appearances, Charles Butler had recovered from Mallory’s funeral scam to expose a little girl to a lineup of murder suspects. He was smiling broadly, happy to see the two detectives at his door, and he ushered them into his apartment.

This extended babysitting detail would be wearing on anyone. Maybe Charles was starved for adult company. That was Riker’s thought as he bent down to receive a hug from Coco. ‘Hey, kid. Can you play something for us? Know any good rock groups?’

She clapped her hands together, eyes lit brightly, big grin. ‘Echo and the Bunnymen!’

Charles smiled. ‘Sounds charming.’

‘Excellent choice,’ said Riker, ‘post-punk rock.’

And Charles stopped smiling, somewhat less charmed.

Coco took Mallory’s hand and led her into the adjoining room. Moments later, the two men in the parlor were listening to a piano duet.

Riker slapped his worried host on the back. ‘It’ll be okay. As long as you can hear the music, you know Mallory isn’t beating the kid.’ And now the detective recognized the opening bars to an old song from a garage band that almost made it. ‘Oh, this is vintage. It’s called “Crazytown Breakdown” – a hit single back in the early nineties.’

The man who loved classical music had a baffled look about him. Charles Butler’s golden oldies predated rock music by centuries.

In the next room, two voices rose in song, high, pure notes running up and down the scale of the melody. When they came to the refrain, they both banged out the music and belted out the lyrics. Great fun – so said the child’s giggles accompanied by a softer ripple of piano keys.

Charles was entranced. ‘I’ve never heard Mallory sing.’

Riker had, but only once and long ago. That was the day of her little rock ’n’ roll rebellion at Special Crimes. A child-size Kathy Mallory had been suspended for some playground transgression before her school day had ended, and Lou Markowitz was on midget duty until his wife could arrive to pick up their foster child. He sat at his desk, facing Kathy’s chair. Her legs were shorter then, and her sneakers dangled above the floor. Maybe the kid was only bored when she began the staring contest with Lou, but then she had escalated with lyrics, putting their little war of nerves to music. The child had sung the old man this same refrain – Crazy is a place I know. I come and go. I come and go – over and over, all the while fixing him with her weird green eyes. And, with his best poker face, Lou had, one by one, snapped six lead pencils in two before saying, ‘You win.’

Today this old song had the same unnerving effect on Charles Butler – and not by accident. What had this poor man done to Mallory?

On the next note of ‘—cra-a-a-zy—’ Riker described the invisible dead boy who spoke to Phoebe Bledsoe. ‘Her mother blames it on a child psychiatrist.’ The detective consulted his notebook for a name. ‘Dr Martin Fyfe. This guy had Phoebe personalize her anxiety.’ He squinted at his shorthand, isolated words standing for sentences and whole paragraphs. Most of his notes had been written on the fly while being shown to the door. ‘Well, that backfired. The kid was supposed to confront her problem – talk to it – but she only listened.’ He looked up. ‘Is this nuts, or what? So then the shrink tells the mother that Phoebe’s delusional, and the kid needs years on the couch.’ He closed his notebook. ‘The mother fired the shrink.’

‘A good maternal instinct.’ Charles looked into the music room to watch the piano players during a lull in the song. ‘Dr Fyfe was a fraud – not actually a psychiatrist.’ Assured that Mallory was not browbeating Coco, he turned back to Riker. ‘Fyfe did have a Ph.D. in psychology. Unfortunately for his patients, his education was the next best thing to a correspondence course in cartooning. But you don’t need any credentials for psychodrama, and that’s what you described.’

Charles rose from his chair, and Riker followed him down the hall and into the library, where every wall was thick with books, and shelves soared to a high ceiling. The music of the piano was thin and tinny here. Coco’s guardian had one ear cocked toward the open door, monitoring the piano duet, as he walked toward shelves filled with magazines. Their wooden holders were labeled by dates and titles of Psychiatric this and Psychology that.

‘So Phoebe Bledsoe started her therapy about fifteen years ago?’

‘Give or take.’ Riker watched him pull out holders for the nineties.

‘Fyfe would’ve been in a rush to publish a case like hers. I can almost guarantee that Phoebe Bledsoe made it into print. There won’t be a real name mentioned, but he wouldn’t change the patient’s gender or her age. This might take me a while.’

‘Hey, you’ve got a photographic memory.’

‘Sorry. I’ve only read one of that idiot’s papers.’

Riker glanced down at his wristwatch. ‘Me and Mallory got plans to ambush an assistant DA. We gotta corner the weasel before five.’ The detective stared at the stack of professional journals still piling up on the table. ‘This is gonna take all day, huh?’