The Chalk Girl

Riker. She can’t just waltz back in here like nothing happened.’

Foolish words. He wished he could call them back – for that was exactly what she had done: Four weeks ago, Mallory had appeared in the squad room, hovering by the staircase door like a visiting wraith. And then, when all eyes were on her, she had taken up residence at her old desk by the window, a coveted spot that no one had encroached upon while she was away. During those months of lost time, other detectives had avoided going near her desk, as if it might be haunted, and some had even mentioned that the air was always colder there. The squad room had gone deadly quiet on that morning of her return; fifteen men with guns had sat helpless as hostages waiting for a bomb to go off. Riker, whose desk faced hers, had been the first to speak, saying, ‘The coffee sucks since you’ve been gone.’ Only Mallory had ever thought to wash out the pot.

Today, sanguine as ever, Riker said to his boss, ‘You want her to quit?’

‘For now, she stays on desk duty.’ The lieutenant lifted one slat of the blinds and resumed his vigil on the squad room. Mrs Ortega had arrived. He watched the cleaning lady pull up a chair close to Mallory’s and sit down for a visit. Well, that was normal enough. The two of them shared a mania for cleaning solvents. And now he glanced at the detective’s neat desk. All her work was done. How many hours had he devoted to dreaming up new things for her to do? He had stopped short of handing Mallory a broom and dustpan. She might have liked that.

Riker flopped down in a chair. In the only concession this man ever made to his boss’s rank, he had not lit the cigarette that dangled from his mouth. The dejected detective stared at the television set in the corner of the office and watched silent news clips of rats and running people. ‘Why not send Mallory to Central Park for the day? That’s harmless enough. Worst-case scenario – she rounds up a missing kid.’

Jack Coffey’s smile said it all: Not a shot in hell. ‘I just got off the phone with the park cops. All the kids from the day camp are accounted for.’

‘And the one Mrs Ortega reported?’

‘No, not that one.’ Charles Butler’s cleaning lady had filed today’s only missing- person report on a damn pixie. ‘I figure Mrs Ortega was going for a psycho defense after she beat the crap out of the pervert.’

‘I heard that!’ The cleaning lady stood in the open doorway, her jaw jutting out, defiant and up for a fight. ‘I only said the kid looked like a fairy.’ She reached into a deep pocket of her dress and pulled out a figurine. ‘Like this one.’ The small ceramic creature had a wide smile, curly red hair and the wings of a giant housefly. ‘The mayor’s limo driver took me home so I could get it for you.’ She walked into the office and set her fairy down on the corner of his desk. ‘Take a picture. It looks exactly like that little girl.’

‘So the kid had wings?’ Coffey turned to his detective. ‘Riker, you left that out of your report. And what’s this crap about the mayor’s limousine?’

‘No wings,’ said the cleaning lady. ‘She’s just a little girl, and she’s lost. Her T-shirt had blood on it. Was that in Riker’s report?’

‘Blood?’ The lieutenant smiled. ‘Maybe a little backsplatter from your trusty baseball bat?’

‘No!’ Mrs Ortega held her breath for a count of ten. Then she dropped her scowl and the New York bravado; this matter was that important to her. The little woman’s tone was almost placating when she said, ‘There was blood on that kid before I creamed the pervert.’

‘Then she’s probably one of the Jersey kids,’ said Coffey. ‘While you were in lockup, did the park cops tell you about the rat attack in Sheep Meadow?’

‘The rats were on the ground. The blood was on the shoulders of her T-shirt – nowhere else.’ Mrs Ortega folded her arms. ‘Good try, though.’

The telephone rang, and Riker leaned forward to pick up the receiver, as if expecting a personal call on his lieutenant’s private line. ‘Yeah? . . . Oh, yeah.’ The detective listened for a moment and then held out the phone. ‘Boss, it’s the mayor. He wants to talk to you.’

A rat fell to earth, squealing all the way down, and landed with a thump at Coco’s feet. She had seen this miracle before. The lifeless creature lay with its pale yellow underbelly exposed, and the shiny eyes stared at the sky from whence it came. Red droplets fell down to disappear in the dirt at the base of the tree. The rat twitched, and Coco felt icy. Fluttery.

She could hear her heart beating.

The rodent’s body convulsed. Magically reanimated, it scrambled away in the underbrush, snapping twigs and making small mechanical squeaks and peeps. In a child’s game of statue, she stood still as death, and her heart – da dum, da dum, da dum – was louder now and faster.

Lieutenant Coffey settled into the chair behind his desk. He had concluded his telephone call from City Hall, and now he gave the cleaning lady his best political smile. ‘The mayor loves you, Mrs Ortega.’

The city’s top politician was indeed her biggest fan, so happy that a civilian – not a cop – had broken the pedophile’s bones in full view of a dozen witnesses, most of them under the age of six. The mayor also suffered from the delusion that Mrs Ortega’s heroism might balance out the bad press of rats eating a park visitor.

What a fool.

‘The mayor tells me his limo driver was supposed to take you to City Hall – not Brooklyn. You’re overdue for a photo op and a press conference.’

‘I told you,’ she said, ‘I had to go home and get my fairy.’

‘Of course, and thank you for that.’ Jack Coffey stared at the winged figurine perched on the corner of his desk, and he picked his next words with care, electing not to tell her that the missing pixie would have to murder three or more people before Special Crimes took an interest. With great diplomacy, he splayed his hands, a New Yorker’s gesture to show that he held no animosity and no weapons. ‘The limousine is downstairs waiting for you . . . and the mayor’s waiting . . . and the television cameras.’

‘No way,’ said Mrs Ortega. ‘I’m not leaving here till you—’

‘I’ll tell the park precinct there’s still one kid missing.’ Coffey picked up the figurine. ‘And I’ll send them a picture of this thing, okay?’

‘Sure you will.’ The little woman sat well back in her chair to let him know that she planned to stay awhile. Screw the mayor.

The lieutenant had only turned his head for a moment, and Detective Mallory appeared beside him, as if she had simply materialized from some other planet. Coffey knew that she did this trick to stop his heart, and he was about to point the way back to her desk when she smiled – never a good sign.

‘I wonder,’ said Mallory, in the offhand manner of opining on the time of day, ‘how bad does the mayor want to see Mrs Ortega?’

Jack Coffey could only stare at her, fascinated, though he knew what would happen next. The game was blackmail. The young detective wanted out of her cage. And she was entirely too confident of her second psych evaluation.

‘The little girl is disabled,’ said Mallory. ‘She has Williams syndrome.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Ortega. ‘Charles Butler says she’ll never find her own way home. You can’t let her wander around the—’

‘Just a damn minute,’ said Coffey. ‘Charles saw her, too?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Ortega, ‘I called him on the way to Brooklyn. He diagnosed her over the phone – the mayor’s car phone.’

The lieutenant smelled collusion.

‘You might want to find that little girl.’ Mallory was oh, so casual. ‘Pedophiles love Central Park. If the kid gets raped, it might wreck the mayor’s whole day.’ It was unnecessary to mention that, via Mrs Ortega, this detective now had the mayor’s ear. And the word payback also remained unspoken.

In the darkest region of Jack Coffey’s brain, a hobgoblin jumped up and down, screaming, ‘Shoot Mallory! Shoot her now!’ But instead, the lieutenant turned back to the cleaning lady and forced a smile. ‘Okay, this is my best offer. I’ll get the park precinct to spot you ten cops to find that lost kid. Deal?’

Mrs Ortega rose to her feet and leaned over his desk. One thumb gestured back toward the detectives behind her. ‘You throw in those two, and we got a deal.’

Mallory sat down in the chair next to Riker’s and stretched out her long legs. She opened her pocket watch, an antique handed down to her from the late, great cop Lou Markowitz. She usually trotted out this prop to