It Happens in the Dark (12 page)

Pressed up against the cold cement, Clara listened to the soft footsteps, which ended at the parking space for a small, silver convertible some three yards distant.

And now it was time—before the car door could open—before the detective was safely inside.

Longing for the pleasure of heart-attack shock when she stole up behind the young cop to catch her by surprise, Clara stepped out from behind the pillar—

To see the barrel end of a revolver—

Only inches from her head.

Surprise!

Mallory lowered her weapon and holstered it. And then, as if they did this sort of thing every night of the week, she said, “So you’ve got something that couldn’t wait till morning?”

That was too civil. Clara awaited the derision, the sarcasm that must surely follow, but none came her way. “I gave you a copy of the play. Did you bother to read it?” She already knew the answer, given the lack of a follow-up phone call. “Did you even turn one page?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you
missed
something.” Clara Loman took some satisfaction in the slight widening of those strange green eyes, only a flicker, but still gratifying. Stifling a smile, she said—no, she
commanded
, “
Read
it! I highlighted all the passages of interest, elements of a family massacre that
I
found interesting . . . ten years ago.”

SUSAN:
They slaughtered the women and children . . . but not you.

ROLLO:
I think they were tired, poor tykes.

—
The Brass Bed
, Act II

Clara Loman’s apartment was a sunny disappointment for Riker, nothing like a bat cave. It was a spare and orderly place that might house an Amish woman—except for the grisly photographs framed on every wall, some of them bloody, all of them pictures of crime-scene crews and their changing personnel over the years. Apart from the dead bodies included in a few candid shots, this was clearly a display of Loman’s only family.

One picture showed a very young Heller posed in conversation with his mentor, dwarfing her in size and respecting her with a bow of his head, the better to listen to what she was saying. Though there was no tie of blood between them, Riker captioned this one
The Good Son
.

“Your partner’s already here,” said Loman, dryly making the point that he was late.

The lady held a frying pan, and should he be worried about that? He had never seen her in street clothes before. Today, in jeans and a sweatshirt, she was dressed in solid gray right down to her boots, and he wondered if this was Loman’s idea of fashion, matching the color of her clothes to her hair.

He followed her into a small dining room, where he sat down with Mallory, who was eating breakfast and leafing through a copy of the play. Like the rest of the furnishings, the table and chairs were plain and serviceable. And so were the scrambled eggs. Loman dished them out with nothing fancy like salt and pepper to make them less bland. While Riker shoveled his food and inhaled orange juice, his partner laid out the gist of this meeting.

“The ghostwriter ripped off a real massacre.” Mallory paged through the manuscript, showing him lines highlighted with a yellow marker, all the details of a killing spree. “Descriptions of victims. Their ages. Relationships to the survivors. Only one thing doesn’t match up.”

Clara Loman sat down at the head of the table. “There were only
two
survivors from the actual massacre. No older brother, dead or alive. Otherwise, it’s too close to the real thing for coincidence. Even the line about lapsed insurance pans out. I found the company that sold policies to the grandmother. And that’s not public knowledge.”

Now Riker was reminded that, like other CSIs, Clara Loman had once been a precinct detective, a good one.

While the partners finished breakfast, their hostess lectured them on the importance of maintaining a good blood-splatter catalog. “Cities get the high crime rates, but small towns have the most grisly murders. And, contrary to mythology, their police departments don’t enter all those cases into ViCAP.”

Mallory, on best behavior, listened politely, as if she knew nothing about the flaw of the FBI’s national database for violent offenders. And she was respectful when the older woman hammered on the detectives’ grave oversight, their failure to read the play. Clara Loman was getting even with them for the insult to her pride. But, if Riker understood his
partner’s
game, and he was pretty sure he did, she was recruiting this CSI for their case.

And so he followed Mallory’s lead, nodding and smiling, playing the penitent dolt sorely in need of help.

“Years ago,” said Loman, “when I had a larger budget, I employed a clipping service.” She slid her plate to one side and opened a scrapbook to turn pages of pasted-in Xeroxes until she found the one she wanted. “This is it.” She pushed the album across the table to Riker, and he pulled out his spectacles to read the front-page story of a Nebraska massacre.

“Oh, the things you can learn from newspapers,” said Loman. “Especially the ones in isolated places. Whenever I found a murder I liked—lots of blood-splatter potential—I’d contact the local police and request crime-scene photos. In this case, a county sheriff handled the investigation. You’ll find a few more articles in there, but don’t waste your time. The reporters never got any more information. Statewide, the story dried up fast.”

How could that be? A family massacre was the kind of case that would not die. It was the stuff of media wet dreams. Riker turned a page of the scrapbook to read one more detail. “So the two boys were hiding in an attic bedroom. Maybe the killer didn’t know they were up there. Sounds like a whacko off the street.”

“Or the kids did it,” said Mallory.

Riker stared at the grainy newsprint picture of a wood-frame house on a street lined with tall trees and police cars. “You got the crime-scene photos?”

“No,” said Loman. “The county sheriff wouldn’t share with me or anyone else, not even the feds. He never made a single plea for public assistance. No press conferences, no tip lines. And the murders were never solved.”

“Then the sheriff knows who did it,” said Riker, “but he can’t prove it.”

Mallory nodded. “And maybe he’s writing a book. He wouldn’t be the first cop to make a profit on withholding evidence.”

Clara Loman held up a yellowed index card. “These telephone numbers are old ones, but they might be useful. James Harper is still the sheriff. That last number is for his home. He might have changed it since then. Ten years ago, I terrorized a civilian clerk to get it.”

Mallory smiled in approval.

“Maybe the sheriff is your ghostwriter,” said Loman. “The play has a slew of forensic details, right down to the order of each victim’s death. And blood on the ceiling—that’s cast-off splatter. It fits with the axe mentioned in the play—blood flying off the blade on the rise before the next cut. There’s nothing about that in the newspapers, no mention of weapons. But the body count is right, the ages of the victims, all female, and the survivors—twelve-year-old twin boys.”

Riker closed the album. “How old is Sheriff Harper?”

“He must be near sixty by now,” said Loman.

Too old to fit anyone on their suspect list, but Riker did wonder if folks in Nebraska wore pointy-toed boots like Cyril Buckner’s.

•   •   •

Jack Coffey leaned back in his desk chair. Mallory and Riker remained standing, waiting—
quietly.
They only showed this kind of respect when they wanted something.

The lieutenant perused his newspaper. “This time, the play got reviewed on the front page of
The
Daily News
.” He held up his copy to show them the headline:
Play Slays Audience.
He read the smaller bold type aloud. “‘Three down and one treading water.’ Your suicidal Jersey kid’s gonna make it. So scratch that one off the list. And scratch Dickie Wyatt, too. I called the ME’s Office for a prelim. The guy was a junkie. Simple drug overdose.”

“Simple?” said Mallory. “He’s the third death in—”

“In three nights.” Now, on a prescient roll, Coffey voiced her next complaint. “And the corpse was moved
after
death.
Yeah, yeah
. You know what this tells me? That theater crowd’s playing you. So they used a dead body to milk publicity. I don’t care. We don’t handle crap offenses like interference with a corpse.” And what did
she
care about the death of Dickie Wyatt? Junkies were at the bottom of Mallory’s food chain.

“It’s murder,” she said.

“Your dead playwright—
maybe
, but the junkie director was dead days before you found him.
No
connection.”

“You’re kiddin’ me,” said Riker.

“Am I laughing?” The lieutenant idly turned the page of his newspaper. “One of ’em—maybe
all
those bastards knew their director OD’d. And why waste a perfectly good corpse? How could they know the suicide kids from Jersey would give the play a headline?” He folded his paper. “So now you’re down to one murder. Oh,
excuse
me. The ME calls Peter Beck a
suspicious
death. Wrap it fast. We got other cases in the house.”

Riker held up an old scrapbook. “We got a new angle to work. We need another man on the—”

“Give us Sanger,” said Mallory. “Him and his partner, they’re only chasing down loose ends and babysitting a witness. One man can do that solo. How
hard
can it be?”

“Don’t wanna hear it.” Jack Coffey handed her a pink message slip with the name and phone number of Commissioner Beale’s favorite city councilman, a pest who had already racked up three calls today. “This moron should not piss me off one more time.” And neither should she. “You get that theater manager on the phone,
right now
! You tell him the councilman gets to see the rest of the damn play tonight . . . if that’s not too
hard
.”

•   •   •

“No curtain tonight,” said Cyril Buckner. “Detective Mallory just called. She shut down the play.” The stage manager handed fresh change sheets to the actors gathered onstage. One day soon, he would rip that damn blackboard off the wall.

Axel Clayborne scanned his new lines. “Did she say why?”

“Bad behavior,” said Cyril. “Too many dead bodies in the audience.”

The actor nodded. “I suppose last night
was
overkill.”

The stage manager faced his cast and crew. “All right, people, you’re on salary. Show or no show, you’re here every day. Everybody stays up on their lines. Nobody gets stale.”

“You don’t need stagehands,” said Joe Garnet. And Ted Randal seconded this opinion with a nod.

“Yeah, we do. We’ll use some of the time for an understudy rehearsal. We’ve had lots of changes since the last one.” He turned to Bugsy. “They’re all here, right?”

The gopher nodded and jabbed one thumb toward the wings, where the four understudies were waiting.

“Good.” And now Cyril remembered to look up, and he called to the lighting man, “No changes for you.” Gil Preston was so easily forgotten, so often out of sight.

•   •   •

When Clara Loman walked through the stairwell door, she drew a hard look from the lieutenant. Jack Coffey was probably wondering why this woman was haunting the squad room of Special Crimes.

Riker nodded toward their visitor. “You think her boss knows she’s still working our case?”

Mallory turned her head to see the CSI marching toward them. “She’s using sick days. Heller won’t know unless Coffey rats her out.”

Clara Loman stepped up to Mallory’s desk and laid down a sheaf of papers. “Results on the alley debris.” She turned a cold eye on Riker. “And the
DNA
tests? The ones you thought were a waste of time? Nan Cooper’s swab matched up with two half-smoked filter cigarettes, but not this.” She held up a photograph of the butt-end remains of one hand-rolled smoke lying in the snow. “The saliva on this reefer belongs to the security guard, Bernie Sales.”

“More than just weed.” Mallory was reading the toxicology report. “It’s laced with opiates.”

“Oh, shit,” said Riker in lieu of a thank you.

“Nice job,” said his partner.

But Loman had not waited for this commendation. She was already walking away.

When the stairwell door had closed behind the CSI, Riker said, “At least the security guard’s in the clear. Stoned, he couldn’t do a murder in forty seconds. But it looks real bad for Nan Cooper.”

“Either she needed an alibi,” said Mallory, “or she gave Bernie that little gift to keep his mouth shut. Maybe he recognized her.” Turning her laptop around, she showed him her updated background check on the wardrobe lady, including an alias.

“That can’t be right,” he said. “That
can’t
be her. No way.”

•   •   •

Bugsy fetched a cup of tea for Alma and then printed out a new diagram for Cyril, his boss. Oh, but who was
not
the boss of him? The gopher looked about him, swaying from side to side, not knowing who next would pull his strings. And now he ran to catch the second ring of the telephone on the stage manager’s desk.

It was Mallory calling.

Though she could not see him do this, he stood up straight, smoothed back his uncombed hair and said, “Yeah, Detective Riker just took her away. . . . No, I never seen her get high. . . . Yeah, her and Dickie Wyatt were best buds.”

And now, behind him, he heard his other master’s voice as Cyril Buckner yelled, “Bugsy! Where’s Nan Cooper?”

•   •   •

Jack Coffey was reading his latest message from the irate Councilman Perry when he looked up to see Mallory standing in his doorway. “You
shut down
the damn play? Was I not real clear about—”

“It ties into a cold case . . . and a killer who did five murders before that play was even written.”

Jesus Christ!
Was she lying? He could make her prove it, but he sensed a new game in the works, one that might wreck his day. Easier to give in and confound her and say, “Okay, no show tonight. Your case—your call.”

That should have annoyed her, but she never missed a beat in saying, “If you won’t give us Sanger, give us Janos. He’s got his only suspect in custody. His partner can wrap the paperwork.”

A reasonable request, assuming that she had not just padded her body count—and even if she had. He would have sympathized with any other cop on the squad, but never with her. Sympathy was a sign of weakness in Malloryworld, and it would cost him points in their ongoing boxing match of feint and jab, duck or lose your teeth.