The Chalk Girl

‘Send him up,’ Mallory said to the doorman at the other end of the intercom. Minutes later, when she heard the soft knock, the detective was ready with a bottle of wine under her arm and two glasses in hand. She opened the door to Rabbi David Kaplan, a slender, middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard, a sweet smile and a penchant for poker.

‘Kathy.’ He was among that close circle of men who had loved her foster father, and the rabbi was fearless in the use of her first name. He kissed her cheek, already forgiving her for not returning his calls. ‘It’s been a long time – too long.’ He spread his open hands, and slowly shook his head. What was he to do with her? ‘Are you coming to the poker game this week?’

In lieu of an answer, she handed him the wine bottle, and he read the label of his favorite vintner. Now suspicion would begin. The rabbi would wonder if she could have known that he would drop by tonight unannounced.

Mallory smiled to say, Oh, yeah.

After failing with Riker, of course Charles Butler would send another diplomat to plead the case for moving Coco beyond the reach of the police. Also, she had noticed the rabbi standing on the sidewalk below and looking up at her dark street-side windows, awaiting an opportunity to catch her off guard with no excuse for refusing to see him. She had only to flip a light switch in the front room. Then, following a count to ten, the doorman had announced him.

‘So,’ she said to the man who lived on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, ‘you just happened to be passing by?’ The detective stepped out into the hall. ‘Let’s go to the roof.’

They entered the elevator. As the doors closed, Mallory said, ‘I know you called my boss while I was away – quite a few times.’

‘Kathy, you were gone so long, months and months.’ He raised his eyebrows in a gentle reprimand. ‘No goodbye, no postcards.’

Following elevator etiquette, they both turned their eyes to the lighted numbers for the rising floors.

‘So you hounded the lieutenant.’

‘Hounded? No.’ The rabbi shrugged. ‘Well, it could’ve been worse. I wanted to file a missing-person report, but Edward stopped me. He said you wouldn’t want that kind of thing on your record. So then I went to Lieutenant Coffey. A nice man, very sympathetic. He told me he’d know if you were in trouble. He said he was always the last to know, but eventually . . . if anything bad should happen . . . he would know.’

‘And what about your poker cronies? How many times did they call Jack Coffey?’

‘I rat on no one.’ David Kaplan was devoted to his friends, though he would take their money at cards every chance he got. In a penny-ante poker game, that might be a ten-dollar win. What a player. The rabbi, the gentlest man in creation, so loved this little fantasy that he could be ruthless.

The elevator doors opened onto a narrow stairwell, and they climbed these steps to a well-lit roof with a wooden deck and chairs in clusters around metal tables. The summer wind was warm. Above them, the moon and a poor show of stars could not compete with this view of a million city lights. She sat down with Rabbi Kaplan and poured the wine. ‘So you badgered Lieutenant Coffey every day.’

‘A few times. He told me nothing. Well, he did say that no news was good news.’

‘I bet you spent a lot of time talking about me on poker nights.’

‘Oh, Edward and Robin always talk about you behind your back. They’ve been doing that since you were a little girl. They love you.’ The rabbi sadly shook his head. ‘Those bastards.’ Now he graced her with his most innocent smile, the one he used for killer poker hands. And yet this man probably still wondered how she had managed to fleece him at cards all through her childhood.

He laid a folded sheaf of papers on the table. ‘More legal work for Coco.’

‘From Robin Duffy?’

Now why was that a hard question?

The first document was a court order for Coco’s travel to the state of Illinois. It was subject to the qualification of adoptive parents. Buried in the fine print of legalese was the second condition: the child’s release from material-witness protection. The next sheet was the companion form that required Mallory’s signature to bind the deal. Robin Duffy had already given her copies of this paperwork, but those had been left undated pending the wrap of her case. She turned back to the court order. It bore today’s date. And it was already signed by a judge. ‘This wasn’t Robin Duffy’s idea.’

That was only a guess, but a good one.

David Kaplan widened his sweet smile, inadvertently confirming that this was Charles Butler’s plot. The man picked up his wineglass for another taste – a stall. And now, in classic rabbi evasion, he said, ‘I know you want what’s best for the child. You want her to have every good thing that Louis and Helen gave to you.’

In the cold tone of a machine that could talk, she said, ‘How well you know me.’

The rabbi’s smile faltered, perhaps with a suspicion that he knew her not at all.

She laid the papers on the table. ‘I have to wonder why you thought this was a good idea. It isn’t – not if you want me to keep that kid alive.’

Only moments ago, everything had been clear to this man, but when he looked down at the document once more, he regarded it with some confusion.

Good. It was Mallory’s turn to smile. She was certain that Robin Duffy had not obtained the signature on this court order, though the old lawyer knew the signing judge quite well – and so did the rabbi. Judge Cartland was sometimes a guest player in the Louis Markowitz Floating Poker Game. The detective lifted her glass and drank deeply. ‘Charles sent you. You forgot to mention that.’ She tapped the document’s signature line. ‘When did the judge sign this – like an hour ago?’

Maybe right after Charles Butler got home from Birdland?

David Kaplan raised both hands to say, You got me. ‘That little girl is in very deep trouble, trauma layered over trauma. Charles has a list of likely parents in Illinois. And he’s lined her up with a therapist in Chicago, a very good doctor. This poor fragile child needs a—’

‘That kid’s not going anywhere. She’s a material witness in a murder investigation.’

‘Charles says she’s not good witness material. When I spoke to the—’

‘You told that to the judge?’ She read her answer in his face, his quizzical eyes with no trace of denial, only wondering what he had done wrong. ‘You did!’ Mallory slammed one hand down on the table. ‘Behind my back!’

Had she ever yelled at him before? No, never. They stared at each other with equal surprise.

Angry still, she said, ‘You trust Charles Butler’s judgment more than mine.’ She leaned toward him. ‘In a homicide investigation?’

How upside down was that? How would it square with this man’s flawless rabbinical logic? It would not. He simply had no faith in her. There was no other way to spin this night.

‘Rabbi, it was a mistake to mess with my case.’ She crushed the court order into a ball. ‘So you chose up sides.’ Not her side. ‘And then you gave that judge a reason to screw with me.’ She rolled the paper ball between her hands, making it smaller, harder. With the flick of a finger, she sent it spinning across the table, and it came to rest by his wineglass. ‘Keep it . . . Something to remember me by.’

The rabbi’s eyes were sad, for this was a death of sorts, an end to things. She had stabbed him with words, and the win was clearly hers.

Or not.

‘Kathy, when you only figuratively cut out someone’s heart – that won’t necessarily get rid of your problem . . . I will always love you.’ David Kaplan leaned back in his chair and emptied his glass. ‘I’ll always be here for you.’ The rabbi rose from the table and kissed her cheek in farewell. ‘But I’m guessing you won’t be sitting in on the poker game this week.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘Well, maybe next week.’

When he had left her alone on the roof, she smashed her wineglass into the brick parapet. Unconditional love