The Chalk Girl

covert observers on the other side of the office window.

Mallory looked through the blinds, staring at the woman as she spoke to the psychologist. ‘Is she crazy?’

‘No,’ said Charles. ‘Not at all.’

‘So she’s faking,’ said Riker.

‘Oh, no. I agree with Mrs Buford’s diagnosis. Annie’s genuinely phobic. She tells me she’s always been prone to panic attacks in social situations.’

The lieutenant and his detectives feigned interest in this, as if they had not been privy to every word. And now, with the mistaken idea that they were actually interested, Charles continued. ‘Well, that’s how agoraphobia begins. In the early stages, Annie was quite functional. Hospitals were her primary safety zones – areas of competence and confidence for a nurse.’

‘She hasn’t worked for fifteen years,’ said Jack Coffey, in a game attempt to speed this along.

‘And during that time,’ said the man with no short answers, ‘the rest of her safety zones also dwindled. She’s afraid of having panic attacks in public areas. Over the years, she’s avoided a growing list of such places. And finally, she had nowhere to go. Then there’s the additional reinforcement of long-term confinement. She hasn’t left her apartment since they moved in.’

‘We saw you give her that pill.’ Mallory said this as if accusing him of drug trafficking.

‘A very mild sedative,’ said Charles. ‘She was badly frightened – about a minute away from meltdown. I assume you want her coherent?’

‘Legally coherent,’ said Coffey. ‘Is that woman stoned?’

‘No, I’d say she’s more clearheaded now.’

‘That’s all we need to know.’ The lieutenant signaled Detective Janos, who entered the office and led Annie Mann outside to the squad room and down the hall to a place for less genteel conversation.

‘Rats have agoraphobia, too,’ said a small voice closer to the floor.

Four people looked down to see that Coco had ditched her babysitting detective, and she was not smiling anymore.

‘Rats don’t feel safe in open spaces.’ Coco’s solemn eyes followed the woman being led away. ‘That’s why they keep close to the walls.’

And now all of them watched Annie Mann’s body grazing the wall as she was escorted down the hallway.

Her shoulders hunched. Her eyes were wide.

The interrogation room with its puke-green walls and blood-leaching fluorescent lights was too alien for this agoraphobic – but not scary enough. Riker wondered how edgy the woman might have been without the damn sedative.

‘You changed your name,’ said Mallory.

‘I got married,’ said Annie Mann.

‘She means your first name,’ said Riker. ‘You used to be Margaret – now it’s Annie.’

There was no hesitation when the woman said, ‘I was always Annie to my friends.’

‘You gave us the wrong Social Security number,’ said Mallory.

‘I changed it. I was worried about identity theft.’

This was the first stumble. Thus far, Mrs Mann’s responses had been too quick, and they had the tone of a memorized script, but now the detectives had what they were waiting for. This was the hook, the first bungled lie.

‘Fifteen years ago,’ said Riker, ‘nobody worried about identity theft. I don’t think we even had a name for it.’

‘My wallet was stolen – my license, credit cards—’

‘You never filed a police report, never checked your credit report.’ Mallory tapped keys on her laptop computer. ‘And you didn’t replace the driver’s license. It says here, your license expired. So did your charge cards. I can’t find any paper on you for the past fifteen years.’ She turned the computer around so that Annie Mann could see the document on-screen. ‘Look at this. Your name isn’t even on the deed for your condo.’

Annie leaned closer to the screen, as if that might clarify the line of type that declared her husband the solitary owner. ‘This can’t be right.’

‘You didn’t know? Your neighbor, Mrs Buford, thinks you’re married, but she’s the only one in the building who’s ever seen you.’

‘I’m married!’

Riker leaned forward. ‘We pulled all the phone records. You never called your husband at the office – not once. His secretary tells us he’s single.’

Mallory raised more documents on the screen. ‘You’re not a beneficiary on his pension plan. You’re not even listed as a dependent on his health insurance.’

‘But, hey,’ said Riker, ‘you don’t need health insurance. You’re low risk. According to the neighbor, you never leave that apartment.’

‘Rolland Mann files as a single taxpayer,’ said Mallory. ‘No dependents. So you lied when you said you were —’

‘We’re married. We were married in Canada.’

Riker smiled. ‘I’d like to believe you. But there’s no record of a marriage registered in this country. There’s no trace of you anywhere, Annie. It’s like he wiped you out of existence fifteen years ago. You know how we found you? My partner stopped by to find out why Rolland made a three-minute phone call to his empty apartment.’

‘If he killed you today,’ said Mallory, ‘the only one who’d miss you is the old lady across the hall.’

‘We’re trying to help you, Annie.’ Riker reached across the table and covered her cold hands with his. ‘So . . . you and Rolland, you met at the hospital – when you were watching the Nadlers’ kid. Nurses and cops, that’s a natural combination.’

‘No. Rolland was my boyfriend before that. He’s the one who got me the job with the –’ Annie Mann pulled her hands back and covered her mouth. And now in the posture of I give up, her shoulders slumped and she bowed her head. ‘It was just a few hours a night, but the Nadlers paid me for whole shifts. Real nice people. They’d been cooped up in that hospital for a solid month. They only wanted to step outside for a regular meal together . . . like normal people . . . just a few hours. Their kid was supposed to be stable.’

‘You were on duty when Ernie Nadler died,’ said Mallory. ‘You were the last person to see him alive. And that looks bad for you, Annie. The parents did everything they could to keep Ernie safe, but their little boy was murdered on your watch.’

‘No. He died from the injuries – or maybe infection from—’

‘You know it was murder,’ said Mallory. ‘You were in that hospital room when he was killed, smothered to death with a pillow.’

‘Oh, my God. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t even there when he died. I went out for a smoke on the fire escape. I swear I was only gone a few minutes. When I came back, the boy was dead. Rolland – he was a detective then – he was in the room. He can tell you.’

‘You should worry about what he already told us.’ Mallory pushed a sheet of paper across the table. ‘That’s his witness statement. You recognize the handwriting? He says he was at the hospital in the morning, not the evening – not when the kid was murdered.’

‘I’d like to help you, Annie,’ said Riker. ‘But I need to hear your side of it.’

‘He was there! When I got back to the kid’s room, Rolland was standing by the bed. He asked me where I’d been. I was so freaked out. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. He won’t tell anybody I wasn’t there when the kid died. He told me to wait fifteen minutes and then call a doctor. He saved me from a negligence charge. And then Rolland married me to save my ass. He said a husband can’t testify against his wife.’

‘He lied,’ said Mallory. ‘A husband can’t testify to spousal conversation, but he can testify to events. That’s why he kept you around for fifteen years. You’re a bone he can throw to the cops if everything goes sour. When the