Killing Critics Read online

  “This is gold,” said Mallory. “I’ve got my own connection to the Gilette family, and I can work it quietly. Charles has Social Register connections and art connections. He spends a fortune at the galleries. You want to keep it quiet, right? Do you know anyone more discreet than Charles Butler?”

  Coffey knew he was about to be sucker-punched, but not quite how she was going to do it to him.

  “Riker and I can work the case out of the office in Charles’s building,” she said. “It’s perfect. Nothing in print lying around for a clerk to sell to a tabloid. And if Blakely asks you what’s going on, you won’t know, will you?”

  Did she really think he was that stupid?

  “Oh, but I like to know what’s going on with you, Mallory. Just every damn minute of the day.”

  “Markowitz never did.”

  True. When Markowitz had command of Special Crimes, things had been quite different. Every time she had illegally raided a computer to pull information, Markowitz knew he could claim the ignorance of a computer illiterate. Well, he had inherited Markowitz’s job, but thanks, Mallory, he would rather run the place his own way.

  He pulled his sportscoat from the hanger on the back of the door. “We’re going to run a clean investigation.” He put one shirtsleeve into the coat to signal to his detectives that this meeting, in fact, this day was at an end. “I give the orders, Mallory, and you follow them. It’s a novel idea, but you’ll get used to it.”

  “I have to work the old case to-”

  Well, that tears it.

  “The old case is off-limits.” His coat was off again and roughly slung over one arm as he turned on her. “Off-limits! That’s the last time I’m going to tell you, Mallory.”

  Her body was stiffening. Her leg ceased to dangle over the edge of his desk. The running shoe was frozen at an angle of tension. He never moved, but in his mind, he was putting up his own fists as they squared off from opposite sides of the room.

  Well, good. Let’s get this out on the table. And right now!

  “Twelve years ago,” she said, voice on the rise, “Markowitz didn’t just think Watt’s confession was a fake,” louder now, “he knew it!”

  “Markowitz doesn’t work here anymore! That case is closed!”

  “Not officially! Markowitz never closed it!”

  “Well, I’m closing it! Don’t you remember? Watt confessed!” he outshouted her.

  “Markowitz didn’t-”

  “The hell with Markowitz! That wasn’t the only time your old man screwed up!”

  Riker shot him a warning glance. You’ve gone too far, said the slow shake of the sergeant’s head. The last time her father made a bad mistake, the only bad one in living memory, it had gotten him killed in the line of duty.

  Coffey felt the heat rising in his face. Why had he said it? Markowitz had been his mentor, quietly cleaning up the debris each time the rookie had made a mess of something. The old man had given out more second chances than Coffey deserved. And now he had just thanked him.

  Forgive me.

  Too late-Mallory was staring at him with solid hatred.

  She eased off the desk and came toward him. Coffey recognized the gait of the pugilist. Her hands were curling into fists, and there was a physical menace in the movement of her body. In peripheral vision, he could see Riker rising from his chair with the same idea and perhaps a plan to slow her down before the damage was done. But Mallory stopped dead, her face a bare three inches from Coffey’s.

  “All right,” she said, “forget Markowitz.”

  As if he could.

  “Blakely’s interference is as dirty as it gets,” she said. Actually, she spat the words out. “I can link the old double homicide to Dean Starr-a fresh murder, and suddenly the chief’s hot to bury it.” Her voice was on the rise again. “And all you can say is the case is off-limits? Don’t try to snow me, Coffey. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  And she couldn’t be snowed when she was a kid. She was not much changed over the years he had known her. The anger had always been there, beneath the tightly controlled veneer of manners. Her foster mother, Helen Markowitz, had installed that rough coat of etiquette on Mallory’s psyche when she was ten. When that good woman died four years ago, her handiwork had not faltered. When Louis Markowitz died, it had developed cracks to drive a truck through, yet somehow it held.

  Mallory’s voice was lower now. “You want me to work around department politics? Okay, I will. Let me run this case my way, and I promise nothing will come back on you.”

  The orphan standing in front of him now was hardly helpless or pitiable, was she? But a ten-year-old street kid was always lurking under the skin of her, peeking out to remind him of her baby days on the road, stealing every necessity, biting every hand that tried to reach her.

  Until Markowitz.

  As much as he had loved Louis Markowitz, sometimes he cursed the man for dying and leaving her so alone.

  Mallory walked over to the desk and pulled another photograph from her tote bag. She came back to him and placed it in his hands-a present.

  It was one of the old crime-scene photos of the artist and the dancer. He had never wanted to see this piece of cruelty again, and now he could not look away. It was truly stunning, the effect of these two young corpses, eyes wide for the camera. He was staring into the heart of Special Crimes Section, the core purpose of its inception-the abyss-and it was looking back at him.

  Suppose Markowitz had been right? What if the butcher was still out there?

  He met her eyes as she took the photograph from his hands. Seconds dragged by as Coffey and Markowitz’s daughter played the staring game which would determine where the power lay. And now, she confounded him by dropping her eyes and giving him the scoring point of the match, in full view of Riker, and thus saving his face.

  “Okay, Mallory. You and Riker work it your way.”

  Andrew Bliss had no memory of crawling out of Emma Sue Hollaran’s apartment. When vision and mind achieved parity of clarity, he was standing on the first floor of Bloomingdale’s.

  Of all the department stores in all the world, only Bloomingdale’s had parishioners, and Andrew was one of the faithful. His greatest fear was not death, but being locked away from his store of choice. It was a psychedelic womb. His raison d’etre was here in the mazes of color and light, a vast array of goods on floor after floor, enough to shut down the neural synapses of the novice shopper. There were no less than five restaurants in Bloomingdale’s, if one counted the espresso bar, but his favorite was Le Train Bleu, and he was on his way to it.

  On the first floor, the salesclerks held fragrance bottles in a vaguely threatening manner, fully prepared to recondition any offensive odors which might enter the store on two legs. Other women with perfect makeup and clipboards were suggesting to shoppers that their faces would not do, in fact needed to be completely made over.

  Nearing the escalators, he observed the confusion of an amateur shopper, and he knew the woman was searching for a way to get to the cleverly hidden second floor. Sometimes even hard-core veterans couldn’t immediately find their way to the escalators. Andrew could do it blind drunk, and he did.

  One hard-boiled shopper found the escalator too slow. She ran up the moving staircase, leading a charge of tourists who chatted only in Japanese. “Trust me,” the woman said to the confused faces of a party of obviously non-English-speaking people. “I know where to find it. I know their stock better than they do.” Her foot soldiers smiled and nodded. Somehow she had communicated product without foreign-language skills. Well, product was everything, wasn’t it? Truly transcendent.

  He changed escalators on the second floor and rode upward and onward, heading slowly toward last call for wine at Le Train Bleu. Rising to the third floor, he rode into the spectacle of a raven-haired mannequin in a silver gown, all dressed up to go dancing. The mannequin reminded him of Aubry Gilette, the young dancer who had died with artist Peter Ariel. On the fourth floor, two worke
rs passed the escalator with a headless, handless mannequin, and this was Aubry too.

  On the fifth floor, as he stepped off the escalator and walked to the next moving staircase, he looked down at the carpet, which had always brought to mind the color of red wine. Now it was more the color of blood, blood all over the floor, every bit of it. He nearly slipped in it, so complete was the illusion of the guilty eye.

  Finally, he stepped off the mechanical stairs on the sixth floor and headed for Le Train Bleu. The restaurant was open late this evening to cater a party of fashion designers. He approached the maitre d‘ and extended his invitation. The man smiled at his most loyal patron and escorted Andrew through the space arranged in Orient Express ambience. The dimensions of the pale green room, the banks of square windows, and every appointment of brass, wood and crystal kept to the design of a train. Crisp white napkins graced linen tablecloths, and plush green chairs completed the atmosphere of fine railway dining from an era gone by.

  His personal shopper, Annie, was seated at his usual table. He was oblivious to the crowd as he sat down. He beamed his widest smile on Annie, for she was his treasure. She made his lunch and dinner reservations, called for his cabs, did his shopping, and rearranged his business appointments when they interfered with special shipments and sales.

  “Annie.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I’m going to change my life.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Annie had her own style-minimalism. Each day, she wore the same dress, a classic black shift which never showed stains. He often wondered if she washed it out each night, or might she have a closetful. In the time he had known her, she had gone from salt and pepper to solid white hair. Her fingernails went everywhere naked, and she wore slippers around the department store. He tolerated the slippers and the lack of polish because he loved her best.

  “You know, Annie, I worry about this place when the lights go out. But I imagine the security is rather good. I suppose they just let a pack of dogs roam at will- something like that?”

  “No, the dogs go around with a guard. Employees have been here pretty late some nights.”

  “So they give the employees lots of overtime, do they?”

  “No, dear. That was in the holiday season. No one does overtime this time of year.”

  “Annie, tell me more about the store security. I find this fascinating.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Riker turned on the wall switch and an overhead light bounced off the rows of metal filing cabinets. There was no one on duty in the records room this time of night, no one to remind him that the law forbade smoking in public buildings. The antismoking activists closed in on him tighter and tighter every day-for his own good, they said. But though he coughed himself to sleep every night, and the stale smell of smoke clung to all his clothes, this dirty and unhealthy habit had become more and more attractive. Now it was a bona fide sport, a real challenge to find the odd room where he would not be caught. He reached in his pocket for the outlaw cigarettes.

  He heard the door open behind him, but had no time to turn around before a hand grasped his shoulder. It was not a warm and friendly grasp. Riker turned to face a young man with unruly blond hair and the much put-out pout of a giant five-year-old with a goatee. Dr. Daily was the newest staffer of the Medical Examiner’s Office, and the younger man was wearing a very unfriendly expression. Riker looked down at the hand riding the material of his suit. Riker’s expression said, Back off.

  Daily’s hand dropped to his side.

  Prick.

  “Well, Daily, you’re working late tonight.”

  “All right, Detective, what’s the deal? Why does NYPD want Slope to redo my autopsy?”

  “Nothing personal, Doc. We were just wondering how that ice pick could’ve ruptured the heart from the back. We only want a second opinion is all.”

  “It was an ice pick. For Christ’s sake, you found it next to the damn body.”

  “It probably was a pick. But it couldn’t have been the one we found by the body. That was the bartender’s. No blood traces.”

  “So the blood was wiped off. So what?”

  “Naw, Heller would’ve found something with his little bag of chemicals and magic dust. He’s the best forensic man in the country. The FBI’s been trying to seduce him away from the force for years. Oh, and the bartender’s pick was too short.”

  “What the hell does it matter if it was one ice pick or another one?”

  “Well, Daily, it’s always a good idea to know what the weapon looks like, just in case you trip over it while you’re making an arrest.”

  “Okay, so you know it’s a long ice pick. What does that-”

  “And it makes the case a little more interesting if the weapon was brought to the gallery. That makes it premeditation. We gotta nail these things down in case the perp tries to claim temporary insanity, crime of passion. We also thought it might be nice to have a few blood samples, stomach contents, stuff like that.”

  “I should think it would be obvious he wasn’t poisoned. So I’m being criticized for trying to save the taxpayers a little money? Is that what you’re telling me? Do you know how much it costs to run those tests?”

  “Well, my partner likes these little details.”

  Riker smiled. He had made book that Slope would fire this kid long before the probationary period was up. He had picked the early date in the office betting pool, and he was hoping this would be the autopsy that won him the big bucks.

  Mallory walked through the swinging door, followed by Dr. Edward Slope, the chief medical examiner. They walked to the far side of the records room, where Slope busied himself at a filing cabinet and spoke to Mallory in a low voice. He handed her a manila folder and disappeared down an aisle of cabinets. Riker heard the angry slam of a metal drawer from a distance of two rows of tall steel files. He wondered what Mallory had done to brighten Slope’s evening.

  Dr. Daily was staring at her now. All animosity forgotten, he punched Riker lightly on the arm in the spirit of just-us-boys.

  “Nice piece of ass,” said Daily, with a wide grin. As the young doctor swaggered off in Mallory’s direction, Riker only regretted that he had no time to place a side bet on Daily’s life expectancy.

  Riker watched the young man begin the courtship dance, strutting up and down in front of her, picking up a chart, pulling out a drawer and checking a file. When at last he came to rest beside Mallory, his height was even with hers at five feet ten, and Riker could swear the man was stretching his neck to be taller.

  Mallory continued to look at the photos. She put all but one of them into her tote and glanced at her watch.

  The doctor must be feeling the pressure of impending loss of opportunity. Now he was puffing out his chest and his young ego.

  Riker winced because he knew what was coming next.

  “I’m off duty now. I thought we might go out for a drink,” said Daily, as though he were offering to do her a favor.

  “Why would I want to do that?” Mallory’s face was incredulous.

  “Excuse me?”

  The words Fuck yourself were in her eyes, but she would not say them. Her foster mother had not liked such words, and Mallory continued to defer to Helen Markowitz long after the woman had died. So now she only stared at Daily for one chill moment, just long enough to shrivel his testicles with frost and drive his penis back up into his body cavity in a mad quest for warmth and survival. Satisfied that Daily was indeed self-fucked, she resumed her study of a dead body, apparently finding it a thousand times more appealing.

  The young doctor looked quickly to Riker, who refrained from laughing aloud. Daily turned back to her. “I just thought-”

  He was talking to the air. The door was swinging in her wake.

  He walked back to Riker, pointing one thumb toward the door. “Frigid little bitch, isn’t she?”

  “Naw,” said Riker. “That ain’t it.”

  “So just what is that cunt’s
problem?”

  “You don’t know about Mallory? Nobody told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “She’s an escaped nun,” said Riker.

  Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope rounded a wall of filing cabinets to stand just behind Dr. Daily, the most junior member of his staff. The overhead light gave the elder doctor’s gray hair the shine of silver. Slope was a tall man, and his stony face was better suited to a general than a physician. When he cleared his throat, it had the effect of a gunshot.

  The young doctor spun around to face his superior. Daily was all startled like a bird, and less the man now.

  “She can’t have a drink with you,” said Dr. Slope, in tones of reined-in anger, “because I don’t think her mother would’ve approved of your language.” Slope bent down to bring his face level with Daily’s and to destroy all sense of personal territory. “Her parents were my oldest and dearest friends.”

  After the younger doctor had fled the room with as much decorum as fear for his job would allow, Slope turned on Riker.

  “Now what was all that crap about an escaped nun? Satan has no nuns.”

  A long string of psychiatrists had told him that depression crept up on one so slowly and with such stealth, no victim could point to the hour of its arrival or even the day. But this was not true. Andrew Bliss could point out the very moment in the first whispers from the back of his own mind, which said to him, You are human garbage.

  He had thought of visiting his current psychiatrist, but they would only have gone round and round again over the lithium. The lithium made him into a contented cow with slurred speech and hand tremors for all his waking hours, and he had long ago decided he would not forgo the epiphany of his euphoric highs in order to escape the black holes of depression. He preferred to self-medicate with alcohol, but the glow of it was wearing thin, and the calming effects were dissipating now.